by Scott, Helen
“What?”
“I heard what you were thinking.” She leaned up on tiptoe so she could get up in my face. “You do feel, Keiran, you’re just more analytical, and I thank the Maker for that every day. If I had another hothead in my brotherhood, then only the Maker knows what would happen.”
My lips curved, and before she could say another word, I cut us into the dream, chopping away the hazy, sleepy feeling I’d stirred in Elizabeth’s subconscious.
“Time?” Marcella whispered, her tone doubtful.
I nodded at her, then watched as she traced her fingers down Elizabeth’s arm.
“Elizabeth?” she crooned.
The other woman’s eyes blinked and fluttered as she opened them. “Hmm?”
The second she saw Marcella, she screamed. Considering Marcella had helped torture her? It was easy to see why Elizabeth would consider my mate’s appearance in here as a nightmare.
I sighed.
We had a long way to go before we could convince Elizabeth our intentions were pure.
❖
Merlin
“Someone’s coming,” Cade rasped.
My lips curved as I scented the air. I could discern many essences of the natural world. The Cavalry, as they’d taken to calling themselves, were high on a mountain range in a house that I discerned from Marcella’s Raven was called a ranch.
While I’d absorbed as much as I could over the last few days, there was still a lot of information I was missing.
Especially when it came to the United States.
I was actually fond of the country. Warmer than England, it heralded a place called the Big Apple which I’d explored upon taking my first steps here. Planes were infinitely useful—I’d shadowed the one my descendant had traveled in—but I far preferred my abilities to travel through space and time with the blink of an eye.
After visiting New York, I wasn’t sure why a city was named Big Apple, but could hazard a guess. The parts I’d seen consisted of very tall buildings, but as apples were my favorite fruit, I looked forward to seeing the orchards I felt sure would fill the rest of the city.
I’d traveled to Chicago, Florida, and a place called Los Angeles too.
The joy in each place?
The country had something called fast food which was served everywhere, and a universal penchant for this delicious new thing that I’d learned was called coffee.
Even as my mouth watered for more of the brew, I shifted between the scents and perceived that Keiran was walking the dreamscape with…
Well, well, well.
I was right.
Marcella was, indeed, of the shadows, not just capable of weaving them. Knowing and experiencing it were two separate matters, and though I’d felt her taint on all the men, even Darius, though his powers were far more grounded than the brotherhood’s, confirmation was always satisfying. The taint on the men made them more powerful than they knew, but I preferred to keep it that way. I did like surprises. Especially when I was one of the only beings in the world who was aware of what was what.
The She-Bitch was the only other who’d understand, of course. She was my equal, and why Nimue hadn’t accepted my proposal all those years ago was beyond me.
Together, we could have been the dawn of a new age.
Instead, we’d be celebrating that new dawn separately.
“It is I, not an intruder,” I murmured, as I stepped closer to the brotherhood who were huddled by a part of the fence that, from Raven’s mind, I discerned was a security black spot.
Even though I understood the words, I didn’t particularly understand their meaning.
I took it to mean we were safe from the Cavalry coming upon us, and for that, I was thankful.
When we reached the Reapers’ territory, I’d have no need to fear, but these were the Lady’s men.
The fools.
Still, the same could be said for the Reapers.
They were all just pawns in a game that the Lady and I had been playing for thousands of years. I appreciated their loyalty, while condemning them as idiots for taking sides in a game they should have avoided at all costs. Mayhap if they had, the Fates wouldn’t have granted them mates who were pivotal to the upcoming battle.
“How the hell did you get here?” the one called Gideon grumbled, and though, from another. I might have found offense, not from one of Marcella’s men.
They were, after all, her equals.
They just didn’t know it yet.
“You ask me such a foolish question?” I retorted, disappearing in the blink of an eye and reappearing on the other side of the strange fence that appeared to be constructed of chain links.
As their eyes widened, I retreated once more to their side of the fence where they were keeping a perimeter around the two in their fold who were dream walking.
I sniffed the air again and discerned the presence of the girl we needed.
A long time ago, the destinies of three girl children had been written. It had taken a few thousand more years than I’d anticipated, but I was certain it would be worth the wait.
Rubbing my chin, I murmured, “Now that we’ve ceased with the ridiculous, what are we doing?”
“Keiran and Marcella are gentling Elizabeth,” Darius explained, and though his tone was cross, he was the politest of the bunch. Mostly, I thought, because he knew what I was capable of, and because he was a product of his generation.
They might try, but they didn’t breed soldiers like Roman legionnaires anymore. I’d found him close to death on a battlefield, the battle between two of the council families having almost drained him dry. Even weak, even floundering, I’d seen him for what he was—powerful. But in need of cultivation.
After enticing several humans to his side to feed him, I’d brought him back to life. He’d been a companion of mine over the years. Though my powers had been limited, imprisoned as I was, some could still be channeled if I harnessed them. It had taken several lifetimes to achieve, with communication limited to once or twice every couple of years, but I’d managed to make him loyal to me. Had enticed him to my side, and had brought us all to this point.
Even as I almost laughed at how things had turned out, I nodded at him. “Will it be enough to convince her within the dream?” I mused out loud.
“We don’t have a choice,” Barclay stated. “Recon tells us that they’ve been keeping her here since they took her from our house in Las Vegas.”
“Recon? From whom?”
“A brotherhood in the area,” Gideon explained.
“Which one? Can they be trusted?” I barked, uneasy with the location of a child as important as the one in the house being cast around willy-nilly.
“As much as any brotherhood can,” Darius retorted stiffly.
“Not much then,” Cade muttered under his breath, and because I couldn’t disagree, I didn’t even bother huffing.
“This brotherhood nonsense… it is time they came to an end,” I decreed, my tone lofty as I peered around the land that the Cavalry had declared as theirs in this strange new country.
“Here, here,” everyone save Darius muttered.
“And how do you propose we do that?” the pursang rejoined.
“You’re on the council, aren’t you?” I sniffed. “I think it is time things were shaken up a tad. Too much stagnates in these parts. I’d hoped that the salsangs would be more accepted by now.” Grunting my disappointment, I continued, “It was always ridiculous to me that the ones with the most political power were the ones with the fewest talents.” I wagged a finger at the brotherhoods. “One word: uprising.”
“I think we have enough on our hands at the moment,” Gideon said, his tone uneasy as he cut Darius a look. “Revolution can come later.”
Because he wasn’t wrong, I dipped my chin. “This is true.”
“We have other, more important things to worry about ‘later,’” Darius grumbled.
With a wave of my hands, I ignored his pious words—legion
naires could be so slow sometimes—and smirked as his voice died a death.
The rest cast looks at each other, then laughed when Darius began gesturing his hands in the air. His eyes were bright red with fury as I withheld his voice, and I could scent his pursang leaping to the fore as those he considered his lessers burned him with their humor.
At his expense.
I wagged a finger at him. “They are your equals in Marcella’s eyes,” I informed him. “I’d remember that if I were you. After all, she is growing in her power. I’m certain she’d be willing to teach you a lesson you could never forget.”
Darius’s hands curved into balls as he fisted them. The sudden scent of blood in the air told me his nails had burrowed into his palms.
Though I tutted at him, I blanked him from my focus after I loosened my hold on his tongue, and turned toward the far more interesting spectacle the others were shielding.
Keiran and Marcella were huddled together. Not in a pose that spoke of fear, but one of complete and utter security. Though I was, admittedly, jaded, I felt no shame in saying that their hold was rather lovely to behold. They were supporting one another, bracing each other even, but the trust between them flowed symbiotically.
In fact, that was something I sensed between Marcella and all her men.
The link flowed equally between the six of them, not that any of them seemed to realize it yet. I mentally sighed, trying to remain patient with these children who were only doing their best. All I wanted to do was walk in there, grab the girl, and walk out, but that would set the Cavalry on our arses faster than I could say ‘wizard.’ I didn’t blame them, after all the girl was their mate, even if she was everything they despised—which was, of course, exactly why that particular female had been granted to them.
Payback truly was a bitch.
“When will they be back?” I asked, gesturing to the dream walker and Marcella.
Before anyone could respond, Raven, the mind walker, moved next to the two of them and reached up to place a hand on each. “Marcella needs me. I’ll figure out what’s going on.” As soon as his hands connected with the two already walking, his eyes drifted shut and he seemed to relax into a state of immediate sleep. Something I almost envied. I’d been imprisoned for so long that I had forgotten what sleep was like, and now that I was out, it was a ghost of a memory I was chasing.
I felt the pull of magic as the three of them joined together. My guess was that the girl in the compound was being less than cooperative. I knew from what little I had learned these last few months and weeks that she was not going to work with us easily. There was only so far we could push her before it turned into something more like coercion—not that I was opposed to that.
Stopping the Lady of the Lake was the only thing I’d thought about for millennia. This plan had been so long in the making that its beginnings were unfathomable to anyone who hadn’t been alive as long as I had. Even my children had slept, removed themselves from this world, and that was why they would never see it coming.
For years, I had been whispering to the trees and birds, gently nudging the world to conform to what I needed to set myself free. I hadn’t expected it to take quite as long as it did, but there was only so much a man could do when he was trapped in a magical prison created by one of the most powerful beings to ever exist. Now that the three girl children I had slowly brought into existence were here and ready for their tasks, the only question was whether or not I was ready as well.
I knew there was only one way out of this if I truly wanted to achieve my goal, and that was mutually assured destruction. The Lady would willingly fight me until the end of time, and the battle between us could rage throughout the centuries and the rise and fall of civilizations. The only reason I knew this was because that is what had started before, only we imprisoned each other instead of destroying the world. It was a tactic she would expect from me again. What she wouldn’t expect was for me to give my life to take hers.
The only way I could be successful in this quest and prevent the Lady from reigning over all as a dark queen as fierce as nature itself, was to completely destroy her. The only way to destroy her was to destroy myself. That she had imprisoned me rather than kill me, told me she knew our power was symbiotic. Without me, she couldn’t live. Without her, neither could I.
What worked in my favor was the fact she thought I was too damn selfish to make such a sacrifice, and I was happy to let her keep thinking along those lines.
This plan of mine had been hatched after my first century in that damn tree, and I was so tired that death would be a welcome respite between this life and whatever the next held. I had to be careful though, no one could know the truth of what was to come. If the brotherhood I was standing in the midst of knew, or Marcella even, then it was probable that my children would glean the information from their minds and forewarn the Lady. Forewarned was forearmed, and that was something I couldn’t tolerate.
My children had betrayed me, for Nimue’s plans and theirs ran along similar lines—total and utter control over anything with power. It was why the council consisted of pursangs and not salsangs. Had I not been imprisoned, it would be the Stained who were the privileged.
They’d messed with my intentions for the final time, but for me to gain my revenge, everything needed to be just so in order for this to work, and I wasn’t about to let a silly little grudge between women hold this up.
For the first time, I paid attention to the magic my descendant and her mates were weaving, a magic forged by a dream walker, a mind walker, and a Mother. It wasn’t anything too complicated, just something to soothe the other woman whose dream they had invaded. With just a small tweak, I made her more... suggestible, shall we say?
Opening her mind to the reality of what the Lady could do, would do, if given the opportunity, I petrified her, and as I listened in on their conversation, I knew that Elizabeth would be on our side in a matter of moments. The only problem was going to be keeping her mates at bay while we retrieved the other woman. We needed the three points of the triangle to make this work.
All these years, we’d had the dark and the light, but much like a scale, one had outweighed the other, become stronger, more powerful, and the light wasn’t as kind and forgiving as anyone imagined.
The thing I’d first come to realize when I was imprisoned was that we needed a more stable structure beneath us. Three points instead of two—one dark, one light, and one a blend of both. There would be no halted decisions because there would always be a tiebreaker. There would be a level playing field between the two sides so that our society could grow and perhaps one day integrate with the humans.
We didn’t need to hide in the dark when we could exist in both the day and the night. It was all possible, I had seen it with my own eyes when I was in the tree. Not just getting rid of councils and brotherhoods as I had mentioned earlier, but creating a more stable, fair system that we could grow from.
First, however, we needed a revolution, one that started from the ground up. One that, Darius did he but know it, was already underway.
❖
Gideon
I don’t think anyone was more surprised than me to see Elizabeth running up to us, well, except maybe Cade. Darius, Barc, and Merlin had seemed to expect or at least sense her approach, while Raven, Keiran, and Marcella were still under.
That was concerning. If she was awake, why weren’t they?
Before I could do anything, Merlin leaned over and quietly told me, “Give them a second, they’re coming back.”
What choice did I have but to listen? I mean, he was the Maker, the original druid, the druid before there were druids. I owed my very existence to him, not like that meant I had to trust him, just that the dude should know what the fuck he was talking about.
With Elizabeth running up to us, Cade cursing under his breath, and the Maker muttering to me, we almost missed the gasp that came from Marcella as her eyes fluttered open once more. Keiran and Rave
n weren’t far behind either.
“Holy shit, you made it,” Raven muttered as his gaze landed on Elizabeth.
“Well, y’all talked me through it. I don’t think I’d have been able to if it weren’t for that,” the woman replied.
“Y’all?” Darius echoed with a raised eyebrow, as though her word choice was the most important thing in that moment.
“Just because you made me talk a certain way, doesn’t mean that everyone wants me to talk like that,” she said with a sniff.
“I just wanted to make sure you were feeling all right,” Darius responded, trying to cover for himself. “No harm, no foul.”
“I’d kill someone for some Kronos, but that feeling is starting to subside, thankfully.”
Marcella pushed to her feet and I reached out to steady her as she stumbled, something that was unlike her. With one wrathful glance aimed at Merlin, she told me exactly who was responsible for her current state. The Maker. Surprise, surprise.
“Can someone take Elizabeth to the car?” Marcella requested in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Y’all can just call me Beth,” she stated, as oblivious as ever to the way myself and my brothers were refusing to leave the loose circle that had formed around our mate. It was almost a high noon style standoff between us, and we all knew that whoever blinked first would be the one who had to step away.
“Beth, this way,” Raven volunteered a moment later. In almost any situation similar to the one we had found ourselves in, I’d be willing to bet that Keiran or Barclay would be the ones to blink, so to speak. They were our peacekeepers when the rest of us were too stubborn and too prideful to step away for a moment. For Raven to step forward though? And for Elizabeth not to look horrified at spending time with the person who had essentially tortured her and her friends?
What the fuck was going on?
Did Elizabeth not remember what had gone down in the basement?
As nuts as it may be, that seemed to be the case. The blonde woman followed Raven as he led her away to where the SUVs were parked just down the road.
