“You doing okay?” Zayne asked as he made a show of lifting his hand. His fingertips grazed my cheek as he tucked my hair back, out of my face. “You’ve been sleeping for several hours. I checked on you a couple times.”
That explained the quilt that had been draped over me. I placed my hands on the cushions beside me. I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure what I felt.
“Have you heard from Roth or Layla?” I asked.
He nodded. “Both are fine. Roth said you made sure that he got out before your...your father showed.”
“Yeah.”
A beat of silence and then, “Layla’s okay. Resting. Because of you. You probably saved her life.”
“I don’t know about all that.”
His head tilted to the side. “Trin, she’s says if you hadn’t—”
“I’m just glad she’s okay,” I said, cutting him off, and then I felt it. A burst of frustration that tasted like pepper in the back of my throat. It wasn’t me. It was Zayne. “You’re frustrated.”
“Well, yeah. I’m a lot of things right now. Frustrated is one of them—”
“I can feel it. I can feel that you’re frustrated,” I told him. “Do you feel me? Feel anything I’m feeling?”
Zayne sat beside me, and when I looked at him, his blond hair was a mess of tumbled waves. His gaze dropped, and then wordlessly he picked up my hand that was closest to him. He brought it to his chest, to his heart. Air hitched in my throat. He knew what I was asking.
“I feel it,” he said, keeping my hand to his chest. “I feel you, but I’ve felt something since the first time I met you. Like I’ve always known you. We talked about that, but I thought... I’d thought it was just something weird. Maybe both our imaginations working overtime, but there was also this...jolt that I’d feel whenever we touched.”
“I felt it, too.” I leaned toward him. “With Misha, it wasn’t like that. I mean, I could feel him. Like, I knew we were connected, but it was more of a mental thing. Not physical. Not like this.”
Zayne lowered our joined hands to the space between us. “Maybe it’s because...this was meant to be.”
I closed my eyes. Meant to be. Him. Me. Protector. Trueborn.
“God.” He coughed out a short laugh. “If what your father said is true, and since he’s the freaking Michael I’m assuming it is, then it was supposed to be you. My father was supposed to bring you here and not...”
And not Layla.
Swallowing, I gave a little shake of my head as I opened my eyes. “I just don’t understand. I don’t understand how any of this could’ve happened or why.”
“Well, maybe we’ll have some answers soon,” he said. “I came to wake you. Matthew’s here. He’s with Nicolai. You ready to see him?”
Not really, but I nodded, and when Zayne rose, he brought me with him.
* * *
The moment I saw Matthew, it was like I was ten all over again, and the only thing that was going to make me feel better was one of his hugs.
I let go of Zayne’s hand, and I didn’t care who was in the room. I raced toward him as if he was holding a plate of cupcakes. I threw myself at him, and he caught me, wrapping his arms around me, and when I took a deep breath, he smelled like... He smelled like home.
“Girl,” he said, lifting me off my feet for a brief second. “I am so very sorry.”
I dug my fingers into the back of his shirt, holding on for dear life, because Matthew...he represented before to me. Before I came here with Zayne. Before Misha...did what he did. I didn’t want to let go, so I didn’t, for what felt like an eternity.
Matthew had to untangle my arms from him like I was an octopus. When he led me to a chair, I saw that Nicolai was in his office, behind his desk, and Zayne...he was right beside me, standing there like a sentry.
Like he’d always been there.
Matthew sat in the chair across from me, and I looked at him, really looked at him. There were shadows under his puffy eyes and taut lines at the corners of his mouth. He started to speak.
“It was a mistake,” I said, placing my hands on my knees. “That’s what my father said. That I was supposed to be bonded to Zayne all along?”
“We didn’t know, Trin. We thought we were doing the right thing.” He glanced at Nicolai and then Zayne. A long moment passed. “Your mother was supposed to bring you to Abbot. That is what she told us, and to this day, Thierry and I have no idea why she didn’t do that. Maybe she just felt safe with Thierry—with me—and you took so well to...” He sat back, drawing in a ragged breath. “You took so well to Misha. We thought it was him. We started training you two together, and you were bonded. We didn’t think anything of it until...he arrived.”
I glanced up at Zayne, and while his face was impressively stoic, I could feel his confusion mingling with mine.
“You two seemed to find each other immediately,” Matthew went on. “Like you were there to see him arrive, and he...he knew you were in the Great Hall when none of us knew you were there. He found you that night you were hurt. He knew, and Misha didn’t.”
“It’s true,” Nicolai said, drawing our gazes. He was focused on Zayne. “We were all sitting around, and suddenly you got antsy. Said you needed fresh air. We were outside for no more than a couple of minutes before we ran into her.”
Zayne nodded slowly and then he looked at me. “I didn’t know she was hurt. I just had to get out and keep walking.”
“Protectors are chosen at birth. That is what we’re told, and it seems to be true. That even though you two were never bonded, you could sense her.” A faint smile came and went as Matthew dragged his hand over his face. “That’s when we realized it was you. We just didn’t know what to do, and your father...”
“He didn’t clear anything up. He just let all of this happen.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “Misha wasn’t a bad person. I know he wasn’t. You have to know that, Matthew. He was good and normal and—”
“And he was never supposed to be your Protector. We made a mistake, Trinity, and mistakes...” He shook his head. “I still don’t know how he got to this point. I think...maybe the bond twisted him, made him susceptible to Bael’s influence, made him feel and think the way he did.” Matthew bowed his head. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Maybe it did.
Maybe Matthew was right that this bond, forced upon the wrong Warden, had slowly poisoned him, but I wasn’t so sure. The things he’d said—he’d said the Harbinger was here, the same thing my father had said.
Matthew knew that. As did Nicolai. I’d told Matthew and Thierry on the phone. Zayne had repeated everything to his clan. It was easier to think that it was the bond that had done it. I wanted to think that was the case, because if it had been Misha—if it had been him all along—I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to process that.
How I was supposed to move on from that?
* * *
I walked through the unfamiliar woods at dusk, following the well-worn path along the ground. I had no idea where it was going, but I figured Zayne would find me when his session was done inside the compound.
Matthew was still there, and they were talking about what was found at the senator’s home—a home we’d just learned had been razed to the ground this morning. It was all over the news, and people were saying how lucky it was that the senator was in his home state of Tennessee during what they believed to be a freak electrical fire.
Obviously, the senator was a bad dude and we needed to find out exactly how he was connected to Bael and what he planned to do with that school.
I should be in there with them, but I just couldn’t sit still any longer. I needed space, because I...
I hadn’t cried yet.
Not a tear.
I didn’t know why. I felt like there was something wrong with me, because it wasn’t like I was trying no
t to process what had happened. I was. I was dwelling on it. I was stressing over it, replaying nearly every day of the lives Misha and I had shared, realizing there had been signs of his unhappiness—but this? His discontent had opened him to influence, because he had to have been manipulated.
Misha had meant the world to me, and I hadn’t even known him. Not really, and that was as tough to swallow as his betrayal. But I still hadn’t cried and I didn’t understand that—
I tripped over a fallen log, catching myself before I fell.
Sighing, I straightened and kept walking as the woods got thicker and more fireflies appeared, flickering in and out of existence. Misha had called them lightning bugs. When we were younger, we’d catch them in our hands and chase one another with them.
My chest ached as I rounded a thick tree and came upon...a tree house?
Yep. That’s what it was.
A tree house with what looked like a huge observation deck. I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the main house. I was still on their property, so I was betting this had been for Zayne once. For Zayne and Layla.
Now my chest hurt even more, because I really did like Zayne, and if things had been complicated before, they were sure as Hell a mess now, because Protectors and Trueborns...
That was a big No.
And I felt it then, a burning in the back of my throat and behind my eyes. I smacked my hands over my face and took several deep breaths, but those breaths seemed to fuel the ugly, raw mess of emotions expanding in my chest and building and building until I couldn’t hold back. I couldn’t swallow them down or shove them away. I couldn’t push them to the back of my thoughts. They were tearing and ripping and clawing free.
The tips of my fingers dampened, my cheeks became wet and when I opened my mouth the scream that tore loose was full of anger and sorrow and rage. It sent the birds in the trees around me flying and it ended only when my voice gave out and my throat become raw. I took a step, and I just couldn’t take another. I plopped down in the plush grass under the deck, my hands still over my face. I rocked onto my back and I curled onto my side, pulling up my legs as far as they would go.
I wanted my mom—I wanted one of her hugs, right then, more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life, and I wanted Misha. God, I wanted Misha—the Misha I knew and loved, and not the one who hated me. Not the Misha I’d had to put down.
Not that one.
I wanted to go back and prove to him over and over that he was special and that he mattered, and I...I hated that. Fucking hated that, because I didn’t do this to him. I didn’t make him become this way. I didn’t turn him into what he became. It wasn’t my fault.
But it felt like it was, and I screamed again, but it made no sound as it still tore at my throat, because I wasn’t just crying for Misha.
I was finally crying for my mother—giving in to the grief that had been building for over a year, the pain and anger of her loss compounded that it had been Misha who had caused it. It had always been him, and I wanted to hate him. I did, but I wanted to hate him more, because maybe if I did, it wouldn’t hurt so bad.
I didn’t feel the bond in my chest warming. I was so caught up in the maelstrom of emotions, I didn’t feel Zayne’s approach. I felt him only when he crouched beside me, picked me up and shifted me into his lap, his strong arms wrapped around my shoulders.
The grief and the pain poured out of me in big, ugly sobs, and it hurt—all of it hurt, and I didn’t think it would ever stop. But through it all, Zayne held me tight, so close that even if there wasn’t this strange new bond feeding him what I was feeling, he would’ve known.
He just held me, one arm folded over me and the other moving up and down the length of my back, slow and soothing, and finally, finally the tremors eased off, and the tears dried up.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but when it was all over, the back of my head ached and my throat felt raw.
And I had not only torn the front of Zayne’s shirt by pulling on it, I had drenched it.
Awkward.
Easing my fingers from the material, I pulled back. Zayne didn’t let me get too far, though. “I’m sorry.” Wincing, I cleared my throat.
“Don’t apologize,” he said, and I was grateful it was too dark now for me to see his face, but I felt his hand on my neck. He moved slowly as he raised his hand to my cheek and caught the tangled mess of hair there, gathering it and pulling the strands back from my face. “Do you feel better?” he asked, his voice soft.
“No,” I muttered. “Yes.”
“Which one is it?”
“I don’t know.” I took a couple of breaths. “I feel better. That’s the right answer.”
“I don’t care about the right answer, Trin. I just want the truth.”
I spread my hands against his chest. “I...I feel like I’ve been suffocating, and...I don’t feel like that anymore.”
“Then that’s a start.” He brushed back the hair on the other side of my face.
A few minutes passed as Zayne continued to hold me, his hand curved around the side of my head, his thumb sliding up and down the line of my cheekbone. “I was selfish. He was right about so many things. It was always about me. I was always thinking about me and—”
“You weren’t selfish. He was. Selfish and possibly delusional,” Zayne said. “What he did was on him—on him and no one else.”
“I want to hate him, Zayne. A part of me does, but I...”
“I know. I get it. I do.” There was a moment, and then I felt his warm lips against my forehead, and that went a long way, longer than it should’ve. “You’re going to be okay.”
I was.
I knew that.
I would be okay.
This was going to hurt, and this was going to haunt me like a ghost, but I would be... I would be okay.
And I needed to put some space between Zayne and me before I did something impulsive and that was sure to have consequences.
Balancing myself, I shifted off his lap and onto the grass beside him. Our thighs touched, as did our arms. I didn’t move farther away. It was like I...I had to be close enough to be touching, and I had no idea if that was the bond, or if that was me.
Zayne cleared his throat. “I left when I...”
My shoulders slumped. “When you felt me?”
“Yes.”
“This bond thing is going to be really...inconvenient.”
“Not at this moment,” he replied. “You needed me, and I needed to be here.”
His words stole their way into my heart even though I knew better—because those words came from the bond and not from his heart. I knew this, and yet they were inking themselves into my muscle and onto my skin.
“What did they say?” I asked, focusing on the important things. Entire conversations I’d bailed on. “About the Harbinger?”
Zayne leaned back against the tree trunk. “They’re worried. Whatever this thing is, it’s been working at this for a while, and if Misha was involved with it, it wanted you, and it’s still out there.”
I shivered as I rested against the trunk. “I don’t think it’s a demon.”
“Neither do I,” he said, and I felt his head turn toward mine. “Nicolai doesn’t, either.”
And that left the big question. What could it be?
“You know,” I said, feeling weary as I let my eyes drift shut. “My father could’ve filled us in. Given us some direction. Maybe a spoiler. Something.”
Zayne was quiet for a moment, and I remembered seeing my father whisper in his ear. I turned my head toward his, and realized our mouths were inches apart.
“Did he tell you anything?”
“Nothing about the Harbinger.” His breath coasted over my lips as he spoke. “We got this, Trin. We only have to stop the end of the world with little to no direction.”
“No big deal.”
He chuckled, and my lips curved up at the sound and the feel. “None at all.”
We both fell quiet, even though there was a lot left unsaid between us, but I felt what wasn’t spoken through the bond. What was flaring alive deep in me was doing the same in him. It was there. Desire, need and...yearning.
There was yearning for something more. It was there even if I wasn’t sure what that meant, even though his heart might still belong to another, and it was there even though he was now my Protector.
It was still there.
“Trin?”
“Yeah?”
“I know we have an apocalypse and all to stop, but I’ve been thinking about something you said.”
“God only knows what that is.”
He chuckled again, and I smiled, knowing he probably could see it. “You said you liked being on the roofs of buildings, because it was close to the stars and the closest you could get to flying. You also said flying was the one thing you were jealous of.”
“I did say that.”
“Do you want to fly?”
Pulling away from the tree, I twisted toward him even though I couldn’t see him. My hands landed on his knees. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“You want to see the stars?” Zayne asked, and I nodded emphatically, knowing what he meant, and when he took my hand, I folded my fingers over his like I had the day I’d left the community. I felt him begin to shift, his skin hardening under mine. “Then hold on tight, Trin. I’m going to get us as close as we can go.”
* * *
Thank you for reading Storm and Fury!
Look for book 2 of The Harbinger, only from
Jennifer L. Armentrout and Inkyard Press.
Acknowledgments
Writing Storm and Fury was uniquely difficult for me. It wasn’t because it was a spin-off of a series I hadn’t visited in a while, even though that is never easier. It wasn’t because I was expanding the world, rewriting it in a way. It was because Trinity shared the same progressive eye disease as me. Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of rather rare genetic disorders that involve the breakdown and eventual death of retina cells. Less than 200,000 people suffer from it. It’s a progressive disease, typically resulting in significant constriction of vision (tunnel vision) or blindness. There’s no cure or treatment at this time. If you’re diagnosed with RP, you’re going to get that talk. The what-to-expect-in-the-future talk. You’re told that your vision will continue to shrink until there’s nothing but a thin pinprick of vision left or nothing at all. You won’t know when it will happen. How long it will take or when you will go blind, but you know it’s coming. It’s scary. No lie. When I was diagnosed in my early thirties, I almost didn’t believe it. I ignored it at first. Well, I ignored it for years until my doctor at the Wilmer Eye Institute asked me, “Can you still see the stars at night?” And you know what? I couldn’t answer the question. I couldn’t remember the last time I even stopped to look up at the stars, and that was a wake-up call for me. Because one night when I looked up at the night sky, all I would see would be darkness, and I wouldn’t even know the last time I saw the stars. I didn’t want that to happen. Denial is just as bad as wallowing in it. I had to face that I was going blind, that it was happening, and I needed to make adjustments, and I wanted people to learn about RP.
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