“Do it,” Liam snapped, using his strength as an Alpha to put more command into his words. Alex bowed his head and his body reversed the process, hair disappearing, body sliding back to a gangly teenage kid. Liam let out a slow breath.
Alex lifted his head, then grabbed his clothes. “Why you gotta be so damn bossy, boss?”
Faris took control, sliding forward with ease. Liam let him, feeling a deep sense of fatigue wash over him. Tired, he was so tired. For a moment, he felt Faris’s concern for him.
“He’s got to act bossy because he’s an alpha, and for some stupid reason he cares for you,” Faris said. “Now, let’s see what Rylee has up her sleeve.”
Alex bounded forward ahead of them, so much of him wolf-like even though no longer trapped in a wolf’s form.
Pausing in mid stride, Faris spoke to Liam. “Wolf, what’s going on?”
Faris’s words floated to him in a fog. I feel like I’m slipping away.
Faris stumbled to a stop. “No, you can’t. Not now.”
This was what Griffin had been talking about, the Veil being open and Liam’s spirit moving on. This was not the time for him to leave and he knew it.
I don’t know if I can stop it.
The vampire came to a standstill and they faced one another in a place that didn’t truly exist. Liam stared at Faris.
“What are you doing?”
His jaw twitched. “Rylee won’t survive without us. Without both of us. You know she won’t.”
“Knowing it and being able to do something about it are two different things.” Liam did his best not to completely lose his shit. “The Veil is pulling me, isn’t it? Now it’s open, and my spirit wants to cross over.”
Faris reached out and grabbed his hand. “You can’t go. Doran said—” He shook his head and seemed to gather himself. “Doran said we can save her. He said she’s going to die, prophecy dictates it. But you and I can save her. I don’t know how, he just said we had to be there at the end. Both of us.”
“I don’t want to leave her, Faris,” Liam said. “I don’t.”
“Then we have to bind ourselves together. It’s the only way to keep you here. You willing to share her? For good, until this body dies?”
Even though time was slipping by, Liam hesitated. Faris was a master manipulator. More than once he’d seemed to be on Rylee’s side, while he plotted his next move and set her up for whatever deeper game he played.
A tug shot through the middle of him, a jerk pulling him from Rylee.
“Do it. Bind us together.”
He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.
Faris took his cutlass from his side and sliced through his palm. Blood welled, and even though Liam knew they weren’t in the physical world, it still looked and smelled real. He held out his hand. Faris slid the cutlass across his palm. There was no pain at the cut.
They stared at each other. “I love her,” Faris said softly. “I would do this for no other.”
The vampire’s words resonated with truth and Liam accepted there was no ulterior motive in him. Not this time. Faris was doing this for Rylee, to keep her alive.
To keep her safe. It was enough for him to trust the blood sucker.
Liam took the vampire’s hand. “Now what?”
“The words to bind are simple. Blood to blood, soul to soul, two as one, neither alone.”
He repeated the words and a gong seemed to toll within his chest cavity, resonating with the power of blood and the incantation. Their hands seemed to fuse and for just a split second he saw himself through Faris’s eyes.
Blink.
Dark hair, silvery golden eyes, squared jaw, body scarred.
Blink.
Someone who stood in his way, forced him to change plans.
Blink.
An ally in saving the woman they both loved.
Blink.
Shouting in the distance, a voice calling to him, telling him to open his eyes. But how could they be closed when he was blinking? Or was his life flickering in and out of focus? Yes, his life. Did Faris fool him?
“I did not fool you, Wolf. We bound ourselves together.” Sounded like Faris’s voice, but Liam was in control of the body.
“You fucking well did what?” Rylee yelled above them even as she dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He sucked in a sharp breath and realized Faris had given him the reins for the moment without asking. He lay on his back staring at the night sky through a swath of Rylee’s auburn hair.
“What did he do to you, Liam?”
Putting a hand over hers, he gave her fingers a squeeze. “It’s okay. Faris and I came to a perfect understanding.”
Faris jumped forward. “More than an understanding. I bound him to me to keep his soul on this side of the Veil. He was being pulled away. I didn’t think it prudent given the circumstances.”
Rylee let go of him and stepped away. “What do you mean bound him?”
Faris gave her a smile. “Liam will be a part of me on a . . . let’s say, long term basis. He won’t be crossing the Veil anytime soon. I’d rather share you than lose you, and he agreed.”
Her mouth dropped open and then snapped shut with a click. Behind her, the tall elemental, Lark, shook her head slowly. “You two boys are in for a tongue lashing.”
Rylee backed away. “I can’t believe you did this.”
Liam forced Faris back and held a hand out to her. “Rylee, I was slipping away. Faris stopped it and I trust him in this. This time there are no games with him. I should know, I’m in his head.”
There was a moment of surprise from Faris and then a wash of gratitude. Not many people had stood up for Faris in his life.
Even his “brothers,” created by the same master vampire, who had gone with him to destroy the Emperor and Empress, never stood up for him.
Rylee closed those amazing eyes of hers and bowed her head. “You’re telling me I can have you, but only if I have both of you?”
He let out a soft breath. “Until we deal with Orion. Then maybe there will be another solution.”
Inside his head, Faris laughed. There is no way out. We are together in this now.
Perhaps the conversation would have gone further; more likely it wouldn’t have. It was hard to say with the sudden roar from Blaz as he projected his voice to the whole group.
Rylee, we have company and they aren’t here for tea and cookies.
CHAPTER 3
PAMELA
“PAMELA, GO HIGH with Eve. See how bad it is,” Rylee shouted. “Charlie, get Doran, tell him to gather everyone who can fight and meet us at the old farmhouse as fast as he fucking can. Don’t bring anyone who can’t kick ass.” She paused and yanked a sheet of paper out of her back pocket, thrusting it at him. “Tell him to follow this to a fucking T or my ass will be fried.” Rylee barked out orders and I did as she said, running for Eve.
“You gots it, lassie! I’ll tell Doran to bees doing everything on yous paper!” Charlie bolted in front of me toward the backdoor, the paper Rylee had given him clutched in his hand. I saw a few words on it written in big, bold lettering.
Unicorn hair rope. What the hell did she need unicorn hair rope for? My curiosity almost got the better of me and I took a half step to follow Charlie. He leapt through the doorway, twisting the Veil as only a brownie could to travel before I asked him to stop. I caught a flash of the interior of Jack’s mansion and then the image was gone along with the brownie.
Rylee’s words resonated in my head. The old farmhouse? It was burnt to the ground. Why would she go there? As far as I knew there was nothing left except the barn.
I climbed aboard Eve, and Alex jumped behind me, his arms encircling my waist. “Hang on, Pamie. I’m coming with you.”
Eve launched into the air and it didn’t take long to see how big the problem was. Blaz was right, no one was coming for tea and cookies. More like with pitchforks and torches.
A mob of humans at least f
ive thousand deep stumbled our way. Like the zombies we’d dealt with in England when I’d first met Rylee. Only these zombies weren’t dead.
“Shit,” Alex said, his hold on me tightening. “Orion moves fast. We’ve got to get everyone out of here.”
Eve let out a hunting screech, making the hair on the back of my neck stand. “Pamela, can you slow them down without hurting them?”
I held out my hands, shaky and drained after my fight with Orion and all the healing I’d done. “I’ll try.”
A bolt of lightning arced through the sky at my request and hit the ground at the front of the mob. They sidestepped the hole it made and kept coming. Three more lightning bolts slashed downward with the same result.
“They’re mindless. They might as well be zombies,” I shouted as my frustration rose.
“Eve,” Alex said. “We’d better land. Everyone has to evacuate.”
She dropped like a stone and Alex let out a sharp laugh. “I will never get enough of this.”
I shook my head. Same old Alex; newer, more human package. Eve landed with a double hop and I jumped off. “Rylee, I think we’d better go. The humans are mindless and they will overrun us if we try to be gentle with them.”
“Fucking hell,” she snapped.
“Faris, can you open the Veil for us?” I asked.
Faris shook his head. “No. It hurts Liam too much.”
What was this? Then why did he jump the Veil to go to Tian Shan and try to save the babies?
The question hit me the same time as the answer did: Marcella, Rylee and Liam’s daughter. She was worth whatever cost Liam had to pay.
Rylee didn’t question him as she strode toward Blaz. “Liam, you ride with Marco and Berget. Take the heavy curtains. We’ll stop when the sun rises and wrap you two into burritos. The rest of you pick a ride; we’re out of here.”
Even though we moved fast, we were still too slow. The first humans came running around the corner, five or six across, their knives and guns raised. Madness in their eyes flickered with the torchlight. Rylee stepped into them, her swords whirling in the air. “Drive them back. If you have to kill them, do it.”
I swallowed hard and raised my hands. Killing supernaturals attacking us was one thing; killing fairly harmless humans was something el—
The sound of a gun retort was followed by a sharp burning in my left forearm. I clamped my hand over it. I peeked under my fingers. Shot? I’d been shot. Not a deep wound; I was lucky the bullet had only skimmed me. The pain and shock snapped me out of my reluctance to hurt anyone. Flicking my hands outward, I sent a roll of pure power into the first wave of humans. It would fling them in all directions, at least fifteen feet back.
Yet even with that, though, there were too many of them. Like roaches swarming an infested house, they just kept coming, climbing over each other faster and faster.
Lark set a quick perimeter, dropping the earth in a huge hollow around us like a moat, which Cactus then filled with fire. A good number of the humans, though, were already on our side of the fiery barrier. Peta shifted to her snow leopard form and kept the humans from getting too close to Lark, her big paws downing them with ease.
I backed up, pulling my short sword and grateful Rylee insisted I learn more than magic when it came to fighting. The first human lunged at me and I didn’t bother with a spell. With a swift twist of my wrist, I slashed him across the chest, opening him. He fell to his knees, blinking at me. “Why would you hurt me?”
I stumbled back, horrified. “Pain makes them clear-headed.”
“Fuck” was all I heard from Rylee and then nothing more. I turned to see her tackled by eight or nine human men. They piled on her like she had the ball in a rugby game.
Blaz swept his wings forward and then back again, knocking most of the men off. Rylee rolled, and was on her feet in a flash, rubbing at her neck. The men who’d been attacking her lay on the ground, seemingly stunned.
Everyone mount. We have to get out of here. There are too many of these minions of Orion, Blaz snapped, his words hitting us all like a kick in the ass.
Alex ran for Eve, and I followed him. Berget and Liam mounted Marcus with the heavy curtains draped between them. Cactus and Lark with Peta climbed up Blaz behind Rylee and then we were all in the air with a whoosh of wings. Below us, there came a smattering of gunshots and a few cries of pain. I grinned over my shoulder at Alex. “Stupid humans.”
He grinned back. “Yeah, and I was one of them.”
I blanched and he dropped his forehead to my shoulder, laughing softly, the same way he had hundreds of times before. Same old Alex.
“Rylee,” I shouted across the divide between Eve and Blaz, “Where are we going?”
She looked to me and then over her shoulder to the elementals behind her. “That’s up to Lark.”
Lark gave a nod and lifted her right hand. “Head to the West Coast. You’re about to see something not even other supernaturals get to see. I’m taking you to the Rim.”
Alex breathed softly behind me, his exhalation ruffling my hair. “The Rim? What’s that, do you think?”
“I don’t know, but I guess we’re about to find out.”
Blaz banked hard to the right and we did a one-eighty, heading straight west.
Eve cocked her head and glanced back at us. “Alex, how do you feel now?”
He shrugged and leaned forward. “I don’t remember much of my time stuck in between forms, Eve. I have emotions attached to people, but that’s about it. I know who my family is.” He tightened his hold on me for a brief moment. “That’s all that matters, I think.”
She bobbed her head and swung closer to Blaz. I wanted to ask Rylee if she felt the same thing I did: escaping the human mob had been too easy.
Like maybe Orion was driving us toward something. I swallowed the fears spooled in me. Whatever we would face, we’d do it together. I placed a hand over Alex’s that rested on my stomach. I was with my family again, and we were whole in more ways than one. We’d lost people we loved—Frank’s face seemed to float in front of me for a moment—but we were together. And I had to believe that would be enough.
Please, let it be enough.
CHAPTER 4
LARK
THE AIR AROUND us was cool, with a hint of the coming dawn. The breeze and the sounds of the world around us were glorious to my freedom-starved body and mind.
Who was I kidding? If the air had been filled with smoke and ash, I would have been as happy.
Behind me, Cactus sat quietly. “Your father isn’t going to be happy you were broken out of the oubliette.”
That was an understatement. Then again, my father hadn’t been happy with me for a very long time. I was getting used to disappointing him.
Peta sniffed, sitting in my lap, curled around herself. Her green eyes all but glowed in the dim light. “Cactus, don’t point out the obvious.”
It felt as though I’d never gone missing, their banter back to where it left off.
“No, he’s not going to be happy. But there is no choice but to go to the Rim and get Jonathan. You know that.”
I felt more than saw him nod. Cactus was my oldest friend, the one who knew me the best and loved me despite the dark spots in my life.
And yet, I wished Ash were with me too. I missed him fiercely, as though a piece of me was gone, shattered against the rocks of lost hope. He’d been the one to train me as an Ender and protector of my home; the one to fight at my side as I’d struggled to find my place in the world. I closed my eyes, envisioning his face as I’d done every day I’d sat in the oubliette.
I kept a hand on Peta, letting her calm flow through me. Having her back was at least one wound bandaged. We’d been apart for too many years. A soft purr rumbled through her, as she picked up on the direction of my thoughts.
There was a creak of the leather rigging as Rylee twisted in her seat, and I opened my eyes. The swirling colors of her irises didn’t bother me; they weren’t that different
from my own strangely colored eyes.
“Jonathan. That’s the kid we’re going after?”
“Not really a kid. He’d be about sixteen, now, I guess,” I said. “He is the reason you and I met. I wonder if Giselle knew we had to meet before this moment, and set it up. The shadow walker that stole Jonathan never really had a great purpose for taking him.”
She frowned and I watched her struggle with the new information. “I’d like to say Giselle wouldn’t fuck around like that, but when she saw something she thought needed doing, she did it.” She said.
“Yes, she was like that.” I glanced at Peta, as I debated how much to say about Jonathan. “The automatic writer; he’s not going to seem all that important at first. He will be another psychic who can give you a glimpse into your future.”
Rylee shook her head. “Not possible. Immune, remember?”
“He will have ways around that,” I replied. “The reality is, he already knows he’s going to be at the final battle. He saw it as a kid. And while certain players are going to appear more important than him”—I paused, looking for the right words—“He will be able to show you things no one else can.”
“A whole new world?” Her eyebrow arched and a smile flitted over her lips.
I stared at her. “I hear the mockery in your voice, Rylee. You forget that every person in your circle has a reason for being here. We are all needed to defeat Orion. One piece missing, no matter how miniscule, could cause our failure and Orion’s triumph.”
The smile faded, and her eyes swirled faster, the tri-colors blending and diving into one another. She took a slow breath. “Okay, I get it. But there are other things that are fucking dodgy right now, Lark.”
“What?”
“There are four horsemen out there: war, famine, pestilence, and death. I don’t think that human mob was our real stumbling block, do you?”
Damn, she reminded me of . . . no . . . I wasn’t going there. My past memories were all I had trapped in that damn oubliette. And they were raw, like open wounds gouged over and over, never allowed to heal.
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