Liam shook his head. No one was safe from Orion and his lackeys.
“Now what?” he asked Doran, hoping the shaman had some brilliant insight as to what the next step was. How to prepare for the coming battle, what weapons they would need, or who they had to bring in.
Doran’s green eyes were serious. “Now, we wait for Rylee and pray to the gods she arrives before Orion.”
Closing his eyes, he tried not to worry that Rylee wouldn’t make it in time. But the woman had her own way of doing things, and it was rarely the way he would see them done.
And showing up late to her own party?
That had Rylee written all over it.
CHAPTER 28
RYLEE
OPHELIA’S FIRE ENGULFED me and I didn’t get my mouth shut in time. The flames raced down my throat, into my belly and lungs as if I’d invited them in. The heat was intense, but it didn’t hurt as it raced along my nerve endings, synapses, and bones, burning out any trace of the paralysis.
The flames died down and Ophelia caught me, tossing me onto her back. There, better now?
“Shit, a little warning would have been nice.” I tied myself into the harness, sweat sliding down my skin under the long coat.
But you trust me.
“That I do. But a warning would have been nice too.”
Ophelia was already winging south toward the farm. We were a long way away though, and I was hesitant to believe we would make it. Until I looked at the ground. The view flashed by, easily five or six times faster than when I’d ridden Blaz.
Shit, we were going to make it with plenty of time.
That made me nervous. Through the bond to Orion, he pick up on my unease, while I felt his frustration. Something hadn’t gone his way and I didn’t think it was the fallen ones’ destruction that bothered him.
Something happened, something he’d been banking on. As much as he was able, he tried to pull his thoughts away from me. He was on the East Coast still and there was a flash of irritation that I was still watching him. That made me grin.
What does he think, that you won’t spy on him now that you have that connection? What a moron.
I laughed and pressed my hands against her. “Any ideas as to what he might be up to? You can feel his bond through me, right?”
Yes, I feel him. A gust of wind swept in from behind us, pushing us even faster. But there is too much distance to pick up a true direction of his thoughts.
That was the problem. I didn’t want to be closer to Orion. No, it wasn’t worth it, of course. We’d be close enough, soon enough. Far sooner than I wanted.
I curled down against Ophelia’s back. “I’m going to try and sleep. Wake me if anything seems off, anything at all.”
Of course, I am not Blaz. I will not keep you from what is your calling.
No, she wasn’t Blaz, but that was okay. Her strength echoed through me in a different way. Perhaps . . . perhaps I’d had to lose him so Ophelia could truly bond with me. Maybe this was fate playing out. Not that it made his loss easier.
Strapped to her back, I shimmied until I could lay myself somewhat flat. Exhaustion hit me hard despite the wind racing around me. I was warm inside Erik’s coat, and with my face buried in it, I smelled him and remembered I was not alone. I had family in him, Lark, and my pack of misfits. A smile flitted over my lips as I sagged into the restraints holding me to Ophelia’s back.
Sleep swept over me and I drifted into strange dreams of death, fighting, and blood. But the last dream made my breath come in gasps.
Erik held Marcella. They were at a home I recognized, a home I didn’t think he even knew about. My adoptive mother held her hands out. “This is Rylee’s child? You look like Rylee’s father. I met him once, though I don’t think I am supposed to remember that. Things are fuzzy now and again. How did you find me?”
No, no, no. Erik, don’t give her the baby! I wanted to scream at him that she wasn’t what she seemed. But he handed the baby over without hesitation.
“I checked in on Rylee once, when she was little.” He shook his head, seemingly lost in a memory for a split second before he went on. “Rylee would want you to know your grandbaby, I think. And this is a good place to hunker down for a few days. If you don’t mind.” Behind him, Coyote held Zane on his hip. Little Z with his green eyes just like his mother. Milly’s features were plainly stamped on the little boy’s lips and cheeks, and his sweet temperament was obviously still there by the way he curled into Coyote, resting his head on the Guardian’s shoulder.
My heart ached to hold him and my Marcella, to breathe in their innocence and believe the world was right for a moment. The image swung to my adoptive mother as she jiggled Marcella. “Such a beautiful child. Thank God she didn’t get her mother’s hair.”
Erik stiffened and held his hands out as if he saw what I did. “Give her back.”
“No, not yet. I want to hold her tight.”
She lifted her eyes and I saw it then. Not a flicker of red like I’d been suspecting, but a flicker of madness. She’d lost her mind somewhere between losing her daughters, her husband, and then seeing the supernatural come to life. “I want to hold her forever. I can raise her, she can be my new daughter, the one who loves me the best.”
Erik reached for Marcella as she began to cry, fat tears rolling down her sweet soft cheeks. He caught my mother by her arm and stopped her from running. His knuckles turned white as he pressed. “Let her go, or I’ll break your arm.”
She let out a sob and thrust the baby at him. A wave of relief flowed through me. I had no doubt what I was seeing was real.
The door behind them burst open and a bevy of trolls burst through. Their skin hung loosely on their bodies as they grabbed at the babies. Coyote fought with one arm, while he clung to Zane with the other, but the trolls circled him and snatched the green-eyed boy from his arms. He snarled and kept fighting, but despite the fact he was a Guardian, he was still outnumbered.
The trolls poured in like a nest of oversized ants, piling on top of him and weighing him down with sheer numbers. Seeing past the seething bodies was difficult. An arm was flung out of the pile of bodies, and then Coyote’s head.
They’d ripped his head off as he tried to protect Zane.
I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. There was no way to escape what was happening.
No. This was not real. It couldn’t be. Ophelia felt on my horror and tried to soothe me even while I slept, but I pushed her away. I had to see what happened. I had to see if they got away with . . . .
Erik went down under fists and boots, his body encircling Marcella. There was screaming from my mother that was silenced with a meaty thud, the babies were crying at the top of their lungs and then the trolls stepped back from Erik. He was curled around Marcella, but his chest didn’t rise and fall, and the wounds in his back were too many. Marcella still cried under him and by the angle of his knees I knew he was not laying on her but instead holding himself up. Even in death he was protecting her.
Protecting me.
A sob ripped from me, not another family member gone. My chest constricted as I fought to stay in the dream, vision, whatever it was, as long as I could. I couldn’t take my eyes away from Erik’s hunched body or Zane’s little face scrunched in fury.
The door swung open again and a large, bald man stepped into the room. Orion looked right at me, his red eyes glittering. He had done this . . . of course he had.
“You may hold the world in your hands, Tracker. But I have your daughter. What is she worth to you?”
The vision—because I knew without a doubt it was no dream—scattered. I woke screaming, jerking at the rigging that held me to Ophelia’s back. Her roar echoed my panic and pain, and she dropped from the sky. We were somewhere over the northern prairies from the open fields I could see.
I’d slept through the day and the night was upon us again.
“Go, we have to go to them!” I clawed at the leather holding me down with a
frantic fury I couldn’t contain, but it made me sloppy.
Rylee, we can’t. There is no time to rescue your daughter. We have to complete the ceremony and pray that it is enough to save not only the world, but Marcella and Zane too.
The pain ripping through me was unbearable. I couldn’t think past it, couldn’t think beyond the fact that Orion had my little girl. He had Zane. He’d killed Erik and Coyote as if they were nothing.
Orion could possess either one of the babies if he so chose, and I would be forced to kill them. A howl ripped out of me that was picked up by a pack of wolves below us; their mournful cries echoing my pain back to me.
This was not happening; it couldn’t be.
Yet I knew without a shadow of a doubt it was happening, and that no matter how much I wanted to rush off and save them, Ophelia was right. It was time to finish things and pray it would be enough to save them.
Sobbing, I leaned over my dragon’s back and clung to her. “Hurry, Ophelia, please hurry.”
Her wings picked up in tempo, and within seconds we were skimming the skies, flying faster than ever before. I felt the strain on her, and knew she was pushing herself beyond her limits for me. Knew that it could come back to haunt us later, but I struggled to care. All I knew was I had to get to the ceremonial grounds and make this happen.
One way or another, I would end Orion’s life, save my baby girl and Zane, and put this whole fucking debacle behind us. I had to.
There was no other way.
CHAPTER 29
PAMELA
THERE WAS NO way we were going to make it back to Rylee in time to be a part of the last battle. We were still at the Rim as Lark searched for something. I’d followed her into the Enders Barracks and watched as she tore apart a small room. “Goose shit, where the hell did he put it?”
“What are you looking for?” I dared to ask.
She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “A sword. I made a sword for Rylee.”
I frowned. “But she has swords, two actually. Shouldn’t we be going?”
It had been almost an hour since she’d told the elementals she was going to get help. An hour felt like forever when I knew we were down to less than a day before Orion brought his hordes against us, and if we failed, the world.
“I know we need to get going, but the sword is for the ceremony. It’s what will make the cuts.”
“The cuts?”
Lark didn’t look at me, but her shoulder’s tightened imperceptibly. “Cuts into Rylee to drain her blood. Without it, the ceremony won’t be complete. So yes, before you ask, we have to find it.”
I swallowed with difficulty. Lark backed out of the room while shaking her head.
“I think Ash hid it, but where?”
“Did he leave you a hint?” I suggested, wanting nothing more than to hurry this up, but also recognizing the importance of a ceremonial weapon.
She put both hands to her face and rubbed the heels of them into her eyes. “Yes, I think so. Always go back to the beginning. That’s what he told me the last time I saw him. The beginning.” Her voice softened on the last word and then she was sprinting past me.
I tried to keep up with her as she ran through the main part of the barracks and into the forest. A flash of long blonde hair was all I saw between the trunks of the redwoods and then she was gone.
“She’ll be back, so don’t you be fussing yourself, yeah?”
I looked at Griffin, seeing again his strong resemblance to Liam. Or at least, the resemblance to the way Liam had looked. The dark hair and eyes, his build, the shape of his jaw, but more than that, the way he moved. Predatory and smooth, like he was never in a hurry, but could be in a split second if he chose.
“Griffin, can I ask you a question?” I felt I couldn’t blurt out whatever I wanted to. Like maybe it would be rude.
He held out his hand in front of him and waved it across. “Ask away, little witch. We are practically family, yeah?” He winked at me and I wasn’t quite sure if he was referring to the fact that I was a part of Rylee and Liam’s adoptive family, or something else.
I had a feeling it was something else.
“You seem to know a lot about the supernatural and elemental worlds.”
His eyes twinkled with barely disguised humor. “That, I do.”
I paused thinking of how to word my question right. “How exactly do they intersect?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s a big question.”
I noticed he didn’t use his usual yeah at the end, which made me think he was really considering answering me. A flush of excitement rushed through my body at the thought of learning something new. I smiled tentatively. “I keep hearing bits and pieces. Like Rylee has elemental blood or I have elemental blood. But I want to understand how this works. Since I have to wait here for Lark, and I can do nothing else, perhaps this will help me understand things better.”
Griffin crouched and drew in the dirt with a finger. Five circles came first and he attached each of them together with a single line to make one rough larger circle. “There are five elemental families: earth, wind, air, fire, and spirit. Lark is of the first family, earth. But her mother was of the fifth family, spirit. So she is a half-breed. The side of her that is spirit is dangerous, and when used improperly, chips away at her soul, eating it piece by piece. Which is why she don’t use it much, yeah?”
I nodded, soaking every word up. “She could control people with Spirit, couldn’t she?”
Griffin nodded. “You saw her control that demon at the underground beach to keep it from hurting Rylee, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I wondered why she hadn’t done it before, with any other of the things we’ve faced.”
“It is a last resort. She can’t use it freely; it is too powerful and destructive to her. So only when there is no other choice does she dip into that side of her heritage.” He cleared his throat and started drawing again. From the five circles he drew lines outward. “This is where you won’t be able to find any books that teach you this bit, yeah?”
I leaned forward, watching eagerly.
“The entire supernatural world is derived from the five elemental families in one way or another. Always with a bloodline crossed with the humans, of course. The humans were the melting pot for the elementals and all their offspring.
“From the elementals of the earth, you get werewolves, brownies, leprechauns, and necromancers. From the elementals of the air, you get harpies, my namesake the griffins, fairy folk, and psychics.
“From the elementals of fire, you get witches, automatic writers, Readers, and fire drakes. From the water elementals, you get mermaids, naiads, and sirens. And from the Spirit Elementals, you get only one offshoot: Trackers.
“Of course, the list isn’t inclusive, there are many, many more creations, but they all are derived from the elementals somewhere in their family branches.”
I opened my mouth to question him more but he held up his hand. “I ain’t done yet, yeah?”
He branched off more circles from the second set he’d drawn. “Some of those creations were powerful enough to make species of their own. Like the necromancers learning to make zombies and vampires, or the witches learning to make trolls and goblins. Now there are a few creatures outside of the elemental world in terms of creation. Unicorns, dragons, the Kracken, and firewyrms come to mind. A few others, but they don’t matter much at the moment.”
His hands hovered over the original five circles. “Now, here is where the story gets interesting. The first four families of elementals got jealous of the fifth-born because of their ability to control others.” He put his palm over the fifth circle and slowly rubbed it out.
“They took out their own siblings, cousins, and family because of fear, and the bloodline thinned, leaving only a few still in hiding. Those few kept moving, never finding a home. They married, had children, and all were caught and killed, yeah?”
My throat tightened and I struggled t
o swallow. “Just killed? For no reason?”
Griffin leaned closer to me, his dark eyes filling the sphere of what I could see. “For what they could do, little witch. For their strength.”
Heart beating wildly, I stared hard at him. “And how do I fit in here?”
He flashed a smile and pulled back. “You, you’re a blend of all five families, with a bit of everyone residing within your blood. It’s why you can heal, why you can use the elements with such ease. You’ll never be an elemental in truth, but you are strong like them.”
A dash of fear zipped through me. “But . . . then a part of me is still human?” I wasn’t sure if that was good or not. To me, humans were weak. They were blind and most times foolish in their choices. An easy example was how willing they’d been to believe Orion and his games.
Griffin nodded. “That’s what dilutes the power and makes you stronger than the other witches, but not so strong that the elementals here want to wipe you out. It’s a bad trait of theirs, killing what they can’t control. It’s why Lark has had such a difficult time in her life.”
“Fear. They kill what they fear,” I said, looking at the ground. Peta sat at my feet, looking up at me. I reached for her and she leapt upward.
Burying my face into her thick fur, I was no longer sure I wanted to know more about the elemental world. If they killed what they feared and I was stronger than some of them . . . I looked up in time to see Griffin nod.
“That’s right, little witch. You should be afraid. You should be, yeah?”
Yeah, indeed.
CHAPTER 30
LARK
I RAN THROUGH THE Rim and deep into the redwood forest. The northern edge was where my story truly began.
A place where I’d lost my family, my memories, and my childhood in a single fell swoop. The place that only two other people knew had any meaning to me, and Cactus sure as hell didn’t know about the sword for Rylee.
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