“Get your dumb ass down here.” Tears glittered in Knox’s eyes. “Did you really think I would let you go without saying goodbye?”
Aware he was undeserving, but thankful someone cared enough to be here, Adam lit beside his descendant. “Yes?”
Knox lurched toward him, wrapped his arms around him, and wept into his shirt.
“Shhh.” Adam stroked Knox’s back. “It’s all right.”
“I shouldn’t have blamed you.” He gusted out a shaky exhale. “I wish you didn’t have to do this. I don’t want to lose you too.”
The childlike tone turned Adam’s resolve brittle. “I’m sorry I have to leave you too.”
“I’ll stay with the enclave,” Knox vowed. “Your sacrifice won’t be forgotten.”
Their embrace ended, and Knox wiped his face dry. Adam didn’t bother. Father was dead. There was no one left to punish him for the crime of feeling.
This time when Adam took flight, he didn’t dawdle. He shot for the sun, blasting past the lowest clouds. The atmosphere thinned, and his lungs protested, but then he punched through a membrane that turned the air thick but breathable.
A waystation gleamed ahead, its white gold shine blinding in the sun. The ornate platform was meant to support two soldiers as they each gave their reports. One Malakhim would return to the host with news, while the other returned through the seal.
Usually a host would be swarming the area, but Ezra had summoned every man to him, and the chaos of his death had prevented them from returning. Soon the shock would wane, and they would understand immediate action was called for in order to stabilize their masters’ hold on this terrene. Protocol would kick in, and they would report the events of the past twenty-four hours and usher in a new era. Unless he stopped them first.
Adam touched down, settled his wings against his spine, and ignored the wet footprints he left as he pulled out his phone and dialed Luce.
“We’re in place,” Santiago answered in a clipped tone. “Waiting on you.”
A pang resonated through him. He wouldn’t hear Luce’s voice again, wouldn’t get to offer any apologies, and he supposed it was just as well. He doubted she would accept them. She had her orders, and she didn’t need him to throw them in her face.
“I’m in position,” he said softly. “Five minutes.”
The call ended, and Adam broke the phone in two to protect the sensitive information it contained.
Spreading his wings as far as they could reach, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the cool air rustling through his feathers.
The time came, and he didn’t hesitate. He palmed the dagger, set the tip against his chest, and drove it into his heart with enough force the handguard dented his skin.
Death wouldn’t take long, so he forced himself to smear his life’s blood on his hand and press it against the seal. Forehead resting against it, he shivered as his vision edged to grays and then to black.
Adam hit his knees, and an odd giddiness filled him knowing he would never rise.
It was over.
All of it.
At last.
He focused on breathing around the bright pain slicing through him and counted out his remaining time with each sluggish heartbeat.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four …
“Zachariah,” a soft voice breathed in his ear. “What have you done?”
Dead.
He was dead.
He must be to hear that voice, that name, after so many centuries.
“Rebekah.” A new pain, an exquisite ache, spread through his chest. “You’re here.”
“Shhh.” Phantom fingers slid through his hair. “Where else would I be?”
Adam opened his eyes on nothing but pure, white light, and panic seized him in its fist. “Father.”
“No, love.” Rebekah laughed, actually laughed. “He can’t touch us now.”
More than anything in his long life, he wished that were true. “Where are you?”
“I’m here.” Her delicate hand slid into his. “I’ve always been right here.”
He let her help him to his feet, and he stood up weightless. The sensation tingled through him, rejuvenating him, and he turned his head to where Rebekah’s voice emanated from the blinding light.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a men’s dress shoe. But she stepped back before he saw more than the leg it attached to, cutting off his line of sight, preventing him from seeing more.
“Look forward,” she murmured. “Not backward.”
Lifting her hand to his mouth, he kissed her knuckles, and then he followed her home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Pain sharper than I had ever known cleaved my chest, but removing the blade would only kill us quicker.
Foolish girl.
She had done this, ended us, and for what? This world? Its people?
We stood suspended by the palm he wrapped around our throat. Under different circumstances, I might have purred to find Nicodemus’s hands on me of his own free will again. It had been so long since he touched me without an order behind it, I found I missed the novelty of a willing partner. Not that Nicodemus had ever been that for me. For Luce, on the other hand … He had been all too pliant in her arms.
And still the little fool had tossed him away, tossed us away.
No sound permeated this place, the seal too tight for even noise to escape, but we didn’t have to hear him to read the grief welling up in him as our blood trickled into the peculiar atmosphere. As much as I didn’t want to die, I thrilled at striking this final blow, at witnessing his end.
No, I didn’t want to die, but I would take what was mine with me.
“You mourn,” I mouthed, ignoring the fire blazing through my sternum.
“My mate is dead,” he answered just as silently. “Of course I mourn her.”
Luce Boudreau.
The woman who thawed an ice dragon’s heart.
Good riddance.
“You are mine, and you always will be.” I rested our hand on his chest, over his madly thumping heart. “When I die, I will take you with me. We will be together throughout eternity. I will have it no other way.”
A calmness smoothed the hard lines of his features, a promise he knew more than I did.
“Luce set us free. The coterie bond is gone.” He glanced down at the bangle encircling our wrist. “Your own power suppresses our mate bond.” He tightened his grip. “I will survive.”
“Bastard.” I curled our lip in a snarl. “You cannot leash me with my own power.”
“Goodbye, Conquest.”
“Ah, but you don’t see Conquest. You see your darling Luce. Your chosen mate. The mother you wished for our daughter.”
Nicodemus said nothing, but raw emotion pooled in his eyes, more than he had shown since the death of his family, his people.
Luce meant that much to him. She meant everything to him. She was what I should have been to him. All our centuries together, and he grieved for her, who he had known for the blink of an eye?
Fury sent our hand seeking the blade’s hilt, and we tightened our grip. This was all I had left.
Adam Wu must be dead or on his way to dying, as some cord within us pulled taut thinking of him. The worthless bastard was taking us with him, and we could do nothing to stay. As hard as we fought against the pull, we were losing the battle, our limbs growing heavier, our thoughts spinning wider and slower.
Nicodemus should be fading. He should be wilting, paling, faltering. Not standing there, watching life drain out of our eyes. But he stood tall, firm.
And hope, that most worthless and pointless of all emotions, radiated from him in waves.
Seconds.
I had seconds.
Precious few of them.
And the strength for one more act, to prove to him that he would belong to me for all time, that no wishes would be granted here.
We raised the dagger, and his mouth formed a
shout just as mute as our laughter when we yanked the blade free, then plunged it back into our chest, over and over until our vision blurred, and the dark night of eternity swept over us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cole breached the surface and sucked down enough oxygen to shout, “Over here.”
Santiago, already in the water, eased Luce out of his arms in less than a second. He raced with her limp form to the nearest airboat where Thom had laid out his medical equipment in accordance with the plan the coterie had hatched behind her back. Even prepped and waiting, Thom might not be able to pull off a miracle, but they had to try.
Cole reached the deck of the airboat a minute later and hauled himself over its edge. Water poured off him as he crawled to Luce, took her cool hand in his and pressed her palm against his cheek.
“Move.” Thom shoved him aside. “I need room to work.”
He knew that, knew he was in the way, but he couldn’t pry his hands away from her.
“Come sit with me.” Maggie wrapped an arm around his shoulders, or tried to, and guided him onto the bench. “She’s beat the odds before. She can do it again.”
“I can’t lose her.”
He hadn’t meant to say it, to voice his greatest fear, and now it hung in the air over his head.
She was dead.
Dead.
Thom had to bring her back.
She couldn’t be gone. Not forever. Not his Luce.
“Shhh.” Maggie rubbed his back in comforting circles. “I know.”
The way she kept repeating the soothing noises broke through enough for him to realize he had been sitting there, chanting the phrase like a prayer.
I can’t lose her. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose her.
“Talk to me.” Maggie kept her voice low and soothing. “How did it go down there?”
“Everything went as planned.”
Luce wasn’t the only devious member of the coterie. As soon as they pieced together what she meant to do, they began to work on ways to get around the cost of the sacrifice using what they had gleaned from Wu and Luce over the past few days.
Desperation had almost driven Cole to Wu to beg for more information, any tidbit that might shift the balance in her favor, but Wu had gone too far. There would be no pleading for answers from him.
They had to pray that Thom’s skills and his extensive study of the human body since Luce came back into their lives was enough to revive her.
Six minutes.
That was it.
That was all.
Six minutes until her brain began dying.
How many of those had he spent getting her here? How many remained? How many —?
“Conquest surfaced on command?” Maggie coaxed, attempting to keep the conversation going.
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Luce made the sacrifice. She plunged the blade into her heart.” He shut his eyes, and he saw it. Over and over again. The dagger in her hand, then the dagger in her chest. “I summoned Conquest before Luce died, and she appeared.” He mashed his lips together. “I antagonized her until she lost her temper and finished the job.”
The coterie had hashed out a script designed to force Conquest’s hand, and he stuck to it.
It never would have worked if she hadn’t felt Wu’s life draining, dragging hers into the void after him. Still, his role had nearly broken him. Allowing Conquest her final, petty revenge to end the cycle and make Luce’s sacrifice count would haunt him until the end of his days.
“Then you did your best.” Her breath hitched before she got it under control again. “You did everything you could to save her.”
Fury surged through him, igniting his temper, and he snapped, “I could have —”
“Killed Wu before it got this far? That would have killed her too.” Santiago joined them, willing to protect Maggie for Portia’s sake. “Killed Ezra before it got this far? That would have been impossible without Kapoor’s god killer daggers, which Wu did a damn fine job of keeping secret.”
“Stop.” Cole put his head in his hands when it became too heavy to hold up on his own. “Just … stop.”
For once, Santiago did as he was told.
The next five minutes were a flurry of activity Cole couldn’t bear to watch as Thom and Miller worked in tandem to revive Luce.
It was a gamble. All of it. Wu claimed she was Conquest’s soul in a human body. But Luce was her own person. When the bangles suppressed Conquest, Luce remained. That had to mean she had her own soul.
It had to.
Had to.
Merging with Conquest had brought the corpse Wu had stolen for his experiment back to life, so Cole had every reason to believe that when Conquest’s soul dimmed, it would do the opposite and kill Luce.
But he had to try.
He had to.
Had to.
The mate bond had been silent for a while thanks to the bangles. Now it was gone.
The hollow ache in him resonated through his bones, a clawing hand ready to seize his soul and haul him down with Luce. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe he hadn’t escaped death. Maybe he had only prolonged it. At least this way her father would have a body to bury, even if the thought of her entombed in earth …
A sob hitched in his chest, but he was wound too tight to release it. It clogged his throat, made it impossible to breathe. The edges of his vision blackened, the world folding in on itself, on him. He slid from his seat, hit his knees, and toppled onto the deck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Fuckity fuck fuck fuck,” Santiago bellowed. “Thom, he’s down.”
Santiago figured this would happen, but had anyone listened to him? Nope. They followed the dumbass course of action he vetoed until he went hoarse and then it blew up in all their faces.
“Is he breathing?” Thom shouted, still working on Luce. “Does he have a pulse?”
“Do I look like a medic?” Santiago grumbled on his way to kneel beside Cole. “He’s alive.”
Barely.
“Idiot.” Santiago slapped his cheek. “You survived Conquest, and you’re going to give up now?”
A slender hand encircled his wrist and stopped him from striking Cole again.
“Leave him alone.” Phoebe shoved him onto his ass then curled up against her father’s side. “Leave us both alone.”
Hating to sound like he cared, he figured someone had to point out the obvious. “You were supposed to stay at the farmhouse with the Rixtons.”
“I’m not an idiot,” she said thickly, throwing the word back in his face. “I could tell something was wrong.”
“Damn invisible dragons sneaking around every damn where like it’s their damn world, and we’re just living in it.” Damn, damn, damn. “Just tell us if he stops breathing, okay?”
Silent tears flowed down her cheeks. “Okay.”
Portia was staring a hole through him from the second airboat.
“What?” He leapt onto its deck. “I left them alone like the kid asked.”
Tears glimmered on her lashes before she hurled herself at him like a missile and struck center mass.
“We’re going to lose them both,” she cried against his shoulder. “What will we do without Cole and Luce?”
Lip curling, he couldn’t decide where to put his hands, if he ought to shove her away or break free and run. A good push would send her into the water, which would be hilarious, and get her off him. Two birds, one stone. But he could also hop back on the other boat to avoid becoming a casualty of the emotional wreck that was Portia in meltdown.
She gazed up at him, eyes red and watering, and he sighed, allowing his arms to encircle her.
“We’ll survive.” Snot slid down her face like fat slugs crawling out of her nostrils. “I’m not Cole, and I’m sure as hell not Luce, but I know how to access coterie funds, how to secure us jobs, how to purchase real estate. We can survive this.” A cold spot formed in the middle of his chest. “You’re free. We’re all free. We don’
t even have to stick together. I can set us up individually or whatever.”
He didn’t see the slap coming, but he felt it. The red-hot imprint of her hand throbbed along his jaw. Running his tongue along the edge of his teeth, he was pretty sure she had knocked one loose.
Eyes puffy and red, she snarled, “You are not abandoning us.”
“You crazy —” He bit his lip when he registered her expression. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. “I just finished saying I could take care of us. We haven’t been free in … forever. Excuse me if I figured some of us were still nursing escape and/or revenge fantasies involving Conquest.”
“I don’t feel Maggie at all,” she said quietly. “She’s retreated so far.” She flicked her gaze up at him. “Can a friend die of a broken heart? The way a mate does? I’ve never lost one as close to me as Maggie is to Luce.” Her chin dropped. “I don’t know what will happen to me if she dies.” More tears fell. “I feel like a real piece of shit for even mentioning it.”
Santiago took a moment to picture life without Portia, and yeah. He could imagine it ripping out your heart, stomping it to mush. Hard to survive with a boot print on one of your vital organs. Not that he would ever tell her that.
“Maggie will be fine,” he said, primed to leap back if she swung again, but she stepped into him and rested her head on his shoulder, “because Luce is going to live.”
“Aww.” She smeared snot across her face when she wiped it on his sleeve. “You’re lying to comfort me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He cringed at the damp fabric resting warm and slimy against his arm. “I’m a real hero.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Everything ached, and I was dying. Death couldn’t hurt this much. For all the talk about fighting to live, I was ready to plunge over the edge into the abyss if it meant this pain eased.
“Can you hear me?”
Shock ricocheted through me, and I had to wet my lips a few times to get out his name. “Thom?”
Gentle fingers brushed across my chest, exposed to the balmy night air, and I almost threw up from the pressure.
End Game (The Foundling Series) Page 22
