Jace’s eyes lit up. “Infrared.”
Jamie nodded. “If we could view the island from a satellite using infrared filters we could scan for any thinnings.” He frowned. “We’d have to travel back to my bunker. I may be able to access the satellite from there.”
“Or,” Jace said, “we continue to our bunker, which is closer. It’s government-issue. We’ve accessed satellite mapping before.”
And just like that, hope was back.
“Okay, pack up and we get going,” Sage said. He gently gripped my elbow and led me back into the barn. His expression was suddenly serious, too serious, and my stomach flipped with nerves because the big guy was the amiable one.
I cleared my throat. “How long was I out?”
“Not long, maybe fifteen minutes. The humans are all loaded up and ready to go.” His eyes, usually filled with fire, were swirling with darkness as he looked down at me.
I suppressed a shiver. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
He framed my face with his hands. “You fed off Elias.”
I closed my eyes and winced. “Yes.”
“And then he fed off you.”
“That’s right.”
“And then you had sex.”
“Sage, where are you going with this. I feel sick to my stomach as it is. I have no idea what happened. I wasn’t … I’m not even attracted to him like that.”
The words sounded hollow and unsure.
“Maybe not mentally, but physically it seems that you are, or at least a part of you is, and what happened today is no small thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fangs only blood-share to signify a commitment, and according to Jamie, it’s even more intense for Vladul.”
My pulse fluttered. “What … what are you implying?”
“You’ve started something, Eva, even if it was unintentional. You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us.”
He wasn’t just talking about Elias, he was talking about Ash, himself, and possibly Logan. Ash and Sage, I’d consciously chosen to give myself to, to claim, and Logan … Logan was very much wanted, despite his pig-headedness, but Elias … I hadn’t even thought …
Once again, exhaustion swept over me. My brain, so adept at finding solutions, struggled to wrap itself around this and pop out an answer. “What do I do?”
He sighed and pulled me into his arms. “Talk to Ash, let him know you’re okay,
that we’re okay. Stop fighting what you are, but keep fighting to live.”
“Aren’t those two contradictory actions?”
“No, Eva. The genes are a part of you. When you rode the wave with the djinn fire, it calmed. When you submitted to the Vladul hunger, it passed.”
My eyes burned, but I grit my teeth, determined not to break down right now. “I’m so fucking tired, Sage.”
His hand cupped the back of my head. “I know, Habibata, I know.”
I leaned back and looked up at him. “What does that word mean?”
He smiled. “It’s an endearment.” He kissed my forehead and then released me. “We should get going.”
We walked out of the barn, into the rapidly setting sun. Howls, far away, drifted on the wind.
Yes, it was most definitely time to hit the road.
Chapter Six
Kira and her crew had split up so they could drive three of Sage’s armored vehicles while he drove the other. Between them, they’d managed to accommodate all the humans including Jamie. We were ready to hit the road, but there was something I needed to do before we started the journey. My stomach was churning, palms sweaty as I approached the Claw van.
Ash was in the driver’s seat and the passenger side was empty. Yes, this was my chance to speak to him and smooth things over, to explain, to just make things right. He’d been so accommodating, so fucking calm about everything, so seeing him like this … It was as if the world were shaking, as if someone were trying to tug the rug from under my feet, but there was no denying he had the right to be pissed. I’d added to our dynamic without checking with the others, without finding out whether it was okay. It had happened, just happened, and there was no taking it back because Elias wasn’t a thing to be thrown away, and there was no denying that there was something between us. It was new and fragile but had the potential to be something strong and durable if given the chance. If I could just explain that to Ash …
I headed around the front of the vehicle, but he kept his gaze straight ahead. He must have noticed me, which meant he was ignoring me. He’d never ignored me before. A sick feeling churned inside me as I climbed up into the cab beside him.
“Hey.”
His grip on the wheel tightened, but he didn’t look at me.
“Look. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening with Elias. I never planned …” Shit, where were the words I needed? “I would have spoken to you about it otherwise, like I spoke to you about Sage, like I spoke to you about Logan. Before the cave, I didn’t have any conscious attraction to him, but something changed. I can’t explain it, and now … Now I think I may have bonded with him in some way, and I … I think I owe it to him to explore that. I know you’re okay with Sage, and I think you’ve come to accept the possibility of Logan, but I need to know you’re okay with Elias. I … I need you.” My voice cracked.
His shoulders rose and fell, and then he tucked in his chin.
“If you can’t be with me anymore, if sharing me with Elias is too much, then I’ll understand.” My throat pinched and ached. “I’ll understand, but I’ll hate it, and I’ll miss you … I’ll miss us.”
He turned to me, his eyes bright in the darkness, but the stony expression was gone. He shook his head and sighed, then beckoned me. My breath whooshed out of my lungs and the rock sitting on my chest shattered. I scrambled onto his lap, straddled him, and pressed my lips to his, once, twice, lingering the third time, breathing him in. His hands were on my back, warm, familiar brands as he kissed me back, sealing his commitment, giving me his forgiveness.
Someone banged on the partition between us. “If you’ve finished making out, maybe we can get going?”
I pulled back and rolled my eyes. “Thank you, Logan.”
Ash smiled up at me, kissed my chin, and then lightly patted my butt to indicate I should shift over.
I climbed back into my seat just as a figure cut across the front of the van. Elias’s violet eyes gleamed in the headlights, snagging on me before he ducked his head and walked around to the side of the van.
Shit. I still needed to speak to him. To tell him … what? That we were good. That what had happened in the cave didn’t mean nothing. Ash pinched my chin and turned my head to face him. He frowned and jerked his head toward the windshield.
“I know. I haven’t spoken to him yet. I told him … I told him to forget anything happened.” I closed my eyes to block out Ash’s face as I said the words. “I used him, and then pushed him away.”
Ash’s forehead touched mine.
When had he become my anchor? When had his thoughts become mine? “I’ll speak to him when we get to the bunker.”
He pulled back and nodded. The engine purred to life and we were off.
“First thing I’m going to do when we get back is shower,” Logan said from the back of the van.
“Good idea,” Jace said. “You fucking reek.”
“And you smell like roses? Heck, that’s probably yourself you’re smelling.”
Ash shook his head at the wheel.
“There are a lot of children in the group,” Jace said. “They’ll be scared. We’ll need to make the bunker seem like home.”
“Hopefully not for long,” Logan replied. “They need sunlight and fresh air.”
He was right. Kids weren’t meant to be cooped up underground. “It won’t be long. We’ll find the thinning to Faerie and we’ll get those allies, and then…then those kids… They’ll have the whole world to pla
y in.”
There was silence in the back of the van for a long beat, and then Jace spoke softly. “I kinda think I might want to go out and play in the sun myself.”
There was a thick silence, and then it hit me. None of them ever had a real childhood. Noah had been born an adult, and the others had been locked away, and when they had escaped it had been all about survival, and running, constantly running. None of us had ever really been children.
I glanced at Ash, whose profile was suddenly grim. Was he thinking about the past? I nudged him, and he shot me an enquiring glance.
“Hey, you, when this is all over, you want to play tag?”
He arched an amused brow.
I caught my bottom lip between my teeth and leaned in, lowering my voice to an intimate whisper. “If you catch me, you can do whatever you want with me.”
His hands tightened on the wheel and his head tilted in an oh-man-just-you-wait shake.
I slid my hand onto his leg and then up his thigh and marveled in the bulge that expanded in his jeans. Heat pooled in my belly as I recalled our interlude up against the tree.
“Hey!” Logan called from the back of the van. “Do we get to play tag too?”
Jace choked on a cough.
Damn, I’d forgotten how great their hearing was.
“And why’s Ash’s heartbeat all over the place?” Jace asked. “Eva…hands in your own lap, please.”
I sat back with a laugh and Ash shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Yeah, I’d have to sort that out for him asap.
The drive was long, but the next few hours passed easily in light banter and visions of a future without the Vladul. Elias was silent, but even his lack of involvement didn’t taint the drive.
For a little while things were almost normal. Just a road trip with friends, no life and death, no urgency. For a little while it was easy to believe that everything was going to be okay.
The conversation dried up as we hit the road that would lead us to the bunker and the weight of reality settled on our shoulders. Ash steered the van onto the slip road that led to the sewer pipe where our bunker was hidden. Sage, Jamie, Kira, and crew were close behind with the humans, as the armored vehicles were slower on the roads than the van.
Doors slammed as we climbed out.
Logan, Elias, and Jace exited from the back. Kira had kept Benji with her, which was for the best. Getting close to the kid was a bad idea. He’d lost his parents, and the last thing he needed was to get close to me only to lose me. It was a pessimistic thought, but it was also realistic. There may be a solution to my deterioration at the Genesis Foundation, but there just as easily may not.
I blocked the thought as we strode through the stinky pipe to the bunker hatch.
“Home sweet home,” Jace said. He pulled on the hatch, but it didn’t budge. “What the hell?”
“What is it?” Logan asked.
Jace looked over his shoulder in puzzlement. “It’s locked.”
“It can’t be.” Logan stepped up beside Jace and tried the hatch door.
“What are you doing?” Jace said. “I told you it was locked. It’s not like you can miraculously open the damn thing if I can’t.”
“The electrics on it are fried.” Logan tugged again. “It can’t be locked.”
Jace looked over my shoulder at Ash. “Ash says, unless Noah found a way to fix it.”
“But why?” Logan asked.
“To keep something out?” I shrugged
“Or to keep something in,” Elias said softly.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention at the prospect, because there was only one thing that Noah would want to keep caged. I caught Ash’s eye. Was he thinking what I was thinking?
“We have the codes,” Logan reminded us. “We can find the right one and use it to get in.”
The sound of engines echoed down the pipe.
I looked back the way we’d come. “I have a bad feeling about this. Noah has been unreachable for a couple of days now.” It was a hint, and the guys caught on quick.
Logan and Jace exchanged a look and Ash signed.
“How could he turn?” Jace said in response. “There is no one to feed off. Gina is sick.”
Logan blew out a breath. “We can’t discount the possibility.”
“So, we go in first to scope out the place.” I locked gazes with Ash, who nodded. “Jace, can you tell the others to hang back until we give the okay?”
Jace headed off toward the entrance to the pipe. I pulled out the crumpled paper with the codes on it and handed it to Logan.
“What is it?” Elias asked. “What are you afraid of?”
Of course, he wasn’t aware of the true genesis of the Fangs. “The cliff notes version is that Logan, Jace, Ash, and Noah are all hybrids created by the Genesis Foundation. Noah has a Vladul gene, and sometimes he …” How to put it?
“He turns into a monster,” Logan finished for me. “A bloodthirsty killing machine.” His tone was flat.
Elias frowned. “Vladul aren’t bloodthirsty killing machines.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “Tell that to the gene inside me.”
He sighed. “I guess mixing the genes may cause the aggressive aspects to be inflated.”
Jace returned just as Logan inputted the digits. The first code did nothing, but the second one prompted a soft beep.
Logan tucked the paper into his pocket. “It’s open.”
My scalp prickled. “Elias, you need to stay here. If Noah has gone into beast-mode, then your scent could make things worse. You’re a new factor, a stranger, and it could set him off even more.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but Ash placed a hand on his shoulder and Elias snapped his mouth closed.
The Vladul tucked in his chin. “Fine. But if you’re not out in thirty minutes, I’m coming in.”
I glanced at Logan, who had the codes in his pocket, but neither of us reminded Elias that without those codes there would be no coming in after us, because if Noah had shifted into his primitive form, then there was no way we’d open that door until he was contained. We couldn’t risk letting him out.
Logan pulled open the hatch and with a jaunty salute dropped down into it. Jace followed, then it was my turn. Ash made up the rear, closing the door firmly behind him. We were suddenly surrounded by red light as we climbed down. Boots hit metal grill as we landed in the entry chamber, cramped and claustrophobic with three Fangs in it at the same time. The door to the main bunker was locked.
Logan keyed in the combination. “Stay together and stay sharp.” He pushed open the door.
The usual warm lighting had been replaced by red lights—a sign there was something wrong.
“Shit.” Logan stepped into the corridor beyond.
We followed, and once again, Ash closed the door. It locked behind us with an ominous click, and silence settled over us like a shroud.
“Let’s get to the main lab,” Jace said. His voice sounded harsh in the silence. “The whole place is controlled from there. It’s the hub.”
The clang of our boots was too loud, the lights too red, and the atmosphere was suddenly claustrophobic. We took the stairs to the main floor. Nothing jumped out at us—no beast Noah. Maybe we’d been wrong? Logan took the lead, checking around each corner before ushering us forward. Weapons were at the ready, but by the time we got to the main lab it was all beginning to feel like overkill. And then we came into the corridor leading up to the lab and Logan froze.
“Motherfucker,” he cursed softly.
I followed his gaze and found the four neat claw marks running parallel to the ground. They ran for about a meter in distance.
Shit.
“Move it.” Logan picked up the pace, jogging for the lab.
The door swished open, and we were through. Jace sealed the door behind us. The lab looked untouched except for the smashed pieces of the satcom radio on the ground—the one Noah had been using to keep in touch with us.
“Well that explains why we couldn’t get a hold of him,” Logan said dryly.
“I’ll run the tapes from the last forty-eight hours,” Jace said. “See if we can figure out what happened.”
“Tapes?” I looked to Jace, but it was Logan that answered.
“Security cameras,” he said. “They back up every seventy-two hours, so we should have the footage we need to figure out what happened here.”
Jace had parked himself at the main computer and was already at work pulling up the necessary files. The claw marks told us what we needed to know—Noah had shifted into his primal form—but they didn’t tell us what had caused the shift. And we were forgetting someone.
I gripped Ash’s arm. “We have to find Gina.”
Logan shook his head. “If she was with Noah when he turned, then she’s dead.”
Ash patted my hand.
Dammit. Of course. The logical side of my brain knew this was a high possibility. “Or she may be hiding.”
“And if that is the case, we’ll find her once we have Noah contained.”
Ash signed, and Logan nodded. “Good idea. Eva, log into the console to your left—password is Haratio—and access the live feeds. See if you can find Noah in the complex.”
I logged in to the computer and clicked on the camera logo to access the security system. Ash joined me, leaning around me to click several buttons that had the monitors above the keyboard flaring to life. There were three in total, each segmented into four different views of the facility, but each screen showed us nothing but static.
Ash exhaled sharply and turned to Logan.
“Fuck,” Logan said softly. “Looks like Noah took out the cameras.”
So, we were blind. There was no way of knowing where Noah was right now. It meant we’d have to do a manual search. Panic gripped me as the memory of the last time I’d encountered the Fang in primal form came to mind. My hand went to my neck. He’d been the first to taste me.
“I still have the footage from the last two days,” Jace said, pulling me from my reverie.
We gathered around as he began to scroll through the footage. Crisp, clear, bland corridors greeted us. The lounge, the gym, the stairwell all whizzed by as Jace rewound the footage.
For the Reign Page 5
