by Ella James
The path was maybe half a mile long, and it led into a cement tunnel that clearly went beneath the pyramid. Darkness fell over the van, quickly replaced by flashing amber lights that normally would have made Julia feel dizzy and claustrophobic. As it was, her mind was getting used to the knowledge that these people were Stained and Cayne had been stolen.
She’d meant to hold her tongue a little longer—to play it cool and brainstorm as they drove—but all of a sudden panic was on her and she couldn’t take it any longer.
“Where are we going?” she asked Nathan, shrilly, “and where did you come from earlier? Why were you there?” Had they been following her or Cayne—or both? Or neither? “I want to know where Cayne is.” She’d never needed him so much.
Nathan’s eyes flicked over hers, then returned to the creepy cement tunnel road. “The half-demon is being taken to a holding cell, where he will—”
“Like a prison?”
Nathan shrugged. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Do you have a…jury?” It was a desperate question, and it didn’t even warrant a glance from the van’s driver, who simply tightened his hands on the wheel and shifted the van down a gear.
They began a slow, steep trek down the levels of the underground parking garage, and Julia swallowed tears. She wished with all her might that she could rewind time and tell herself not go to Washington. Or to do something when they kidnapped her, other than just let herself and Cayne be taken to this place.
She remembered his words from back on that bench in Salt Lake City. She’d been freaking out; he’d been holding her hands. I’ve heard about a meeting place for your kind. I’ll keep you safe till we find it.
Oh, God. Cayne—her Cayne. He didn’t deserve this—this penalty for helping her.
Fear for him threatened to overwhelm her; it let up only for a clawing nervousness too horrible to name. A horrid doubt. One she shoved away because she couldn’t take it—and there wasn’t any reason to. She knew Cayne. Knew him like she didn’t know these people. These…Stained.
Too soon, the one named Nathan was parking. Englishman Andrew threaded his hand through her arm, and her legs were moving her out of the van like she intended to go with these strange people, and she was going with them. Through a pair of metal doors guarded by what had to have been an African man, with a tattoo on his eye and a piercing in his cheek. Past a tall woman with a tight brown bun holding a machine gun. To a huge steel elevator whose doors jerked shut behind her.
Alone with Nathan and the guy who had her arm.
“I’m Andrew,” he said, almost polite.
She shifted her shock-dulled gaze to Nathan, and he rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable.” His disgust was evident in every syllable.
“What?” she heard herself say.
“It’s vile,” he said. “That you’re actually worried for him.”
She stood there a second, thinking it had been a long time since they got on the elevator and how deep was it going and was Cayne down there. Her brain caught up a half a second later and brought rage with it.
“Do you have any friends?”
He looked surprised, and then defensive. “That’s not your business.”
“I thought so.” It was her turn to be smug—to pretend to be smug. “And you’re wrong about him, by the way. He has no problem with St— Chosen. He would never hurt them.”
“I’m not wrong.” He said it with some swagger, but she could sense his anger. Quiet anger.
Clearly he believed what he said.
“Who told you? Those lies about Cayne? And—” she hesitated, building up her nerve— “what exactly did they say?”
His gaze hardened. “Who told me?” His lips pulled into a scary smile. “No one had to tell me.”
Though she was dying to know the allegations, mainly to refute them, she shook her head. “You’re lying.”
When Nathan simply stared at her, she jerked her arm out of Andrew’s grasp and backed into the corner. “I want to see him. Now.”
“Too bad.”
She crossed her arms, tried to will the tremble out of her voice. “I can leave here when I want to. I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t wanted to.”
Nathan nodded, his dark eyes grave. “You came for him.”
“And you said I could see him if I got into the van! I want to see him now. Please. I’ll be more…cooperative.”
Nathan snorted, and Julia saw red. Who was he to treat her this way? Like she had no rights. Who was he to show up at the museum, hurt Cayne, and kidnap the two of them?
She slapped the stop button, but the elevator didn’t obey. “Why did you bring me here?” she demanded, turning to face Nathan. “Why were you at the museum, anyway?”
“We wanted to be sure you were safe. From the Hunter.”
“How did you even know who I was?”
“We know all our own.”
Julia slumped into the corner, too freaked out to think straight. “I will get to see Cayne?” She directed that question at Andrew, who looked to Nathan.
He stared at her, unblinking, but at least he didn’t say “no.”
“What do I have to do to see him?”
The Stained’s face flickered, just a bite of some emotion that died out, leaving only apathy. “That will have to be determined.”
Chapter 3
There were no numbered keys or lights to suggest how far into the ground they were traveling, but when the elevator dinged and the door swished open, Julia knew they were deep. She could feel it.
The elevator spit them out in a small, concrete room where three more beefed-up guards stood sentry by a metal door that looked like it led into a butcher’s freezer. Nathan and Andrew stepped out of the elevator first; Andrew made a sweeping motion with his hand and gave Julia a look that said, in not an unfriendly way, come on now. She glanced once more into the elevator, staring long enough so it occurred to her that she would never be able to find Cayne on her own in this strange place. She followed on pudding legs, feeling like she’d made the biggest mistake of her life.
The guards bowed their heads to Nathan like he was some kind of authority. Then they nodded at the menacing metal door, which swung open. Nathan stepped through first, followed by lanky, chill-aura’d Andrew, who turned to grasp her shoulder.
She considered commenting on the cordiality with which they were treating their…sister? Then they stepped into the dome, and she had no more thoughts.
The place was like something from the freakin’ Vatican. The walls and floor were made of white marble, or something that looked a heckuva lot like marble, and the whole place glowed, so much so that Julia had to squint. It was like the stone itself was producing light.
And the ceiling. Holy guacamole, Batman! The painted, domed ceiling looked…alive. Julia blinked to be sure she wasn’t hallucinating, but nope. Hundreds of feet above her, some sick 3D images were moving across the dome’s surface. At its center was a serene cocoa-skinned man who looked kind of like old paintings of Jesus. His white tunic was open in the middle, and the starburst—she preferred that to “stain”—glowed on his chest. He was standing on what must have been the Earth, and while he looked normal-sized, something difficult to pinpoint made him seem much larger.
High above him, pale against the black of night, halo’d men and women with bows and arrows and ethereal flowing hair dashed across the sky. They dove toward the Earth in ones and twos and threes, while dead-eyed men and women Julia recognized as demons swooped in out of nowhere, flexing muscles and wielding spears and daggers. Every few seconds, a dark cloud and a light one clashed together at the dome’s round top, blending into gray, and a shiny gold net fell over the whole scene.
Nathan’s gaze caught Julia’s. He smiled a sly smile, pulled out a pistol, and fired a shot at the mural. Julia yelped, and the painted Stained—err, Chosen?—slid gracefully out of the bullet’s path seconds before it ripped into the ceiling. Stone crumbled, falling somewhere dozen
s of feet away, and by the time Julia’s gaze returned to the mural, the man was back in place. Not a crack showed.
“Wow.”
She hadn’t meant to say it, and her temper flared when Nathan chuckled like he thought he was pretty fly. She opened her mouth to put him in his place, but in the vastness of the room, something else caught her eye: people. There were dozens of people in the room. Dozens of people who wore gray uniforms similar to Nathan’s and—holy cow—seemed to be melting in and out of walls.
In. And. Out. Of. Walls.
Julia stared, barely succeeding at keeping her mouth shut, and tried to remind herself she could see auras and heal people. But still… she was watching lots of people move in and out of walls. Just…whoosh. Or would that be swish? One second they were lifting a leg, pressing the tip of a gray shoe to the weird stone wall. The next, their whole bodies would glide right through and…poof. All gone. It was just…freaky.
She surveyed the other Stained. Tall, short, slim, not-so-slim. Black, brown, honey, golden, milky-skinned. All hair and eye colors. All different— crap. She forced the aura-seeing part of herself to cut it out; this was the last place she wanted to be chastised by Nathan. She let her limp hands hang at her sides and Julia just…watched.
Other Stained.
These were other Stained.
Not that prick Nathan or his lieutenant, Andrew. Just…Stained. Other Stained, maybe like her.
Occasionally a big guard in a black jumper would walk by. Julia assumed these men and women passed for police in Nathan’s house of horrors, because other than him and his goons, they seemed to be the only people carrying weapons.
Most of the other Sta— the Chosen seemed to regard the ones in black with at least a passing wariness. Some diverted course to stay out of their way.
Julia was trying to decide what was more freaky—the walking through walls or the bullish men and women with guns—when the floor in front of her turned to…well, it kinda turned to mush. It looked like quicksand and swirled like oatmeal being stirred; a few seconds later, it melded, Harry Potter-style, into a funnel.
While she watched, mouth hanging wide, Nathan stepped onto its edge. The moment his foot touched the concave spot, the funnel morphed into stairs.
He led them down, and Julia tried to keep her breathing regular. She’d never been a big fan of tight spaces, and she was swamped by the freakish sensation of being pinned inside a tunnel inside a stone room deep inside the ground.
“Where are we going?” she asked, steady as she could.
Andrew glanced meaningfully at her, then at Nathan, who made a reticent, mysterious face. “This is where we live.”
“By ‘we’ do you mean Chosen?” she asked, mostly to fill the echo-y silence of the place.
They were walking as they talked, moving through tunnels that seemed to appear out of nowhere and vanish behind them.
“Yes,” Nathan said. “Chosen.”
They came to a four-pronged junction, and he led them down the second left. There was no way Julia could retrace their steps, she realized—and she knew it for sure this time. Without their help, she’d never find Cayne. She would never escape. And she did mean escape. She had a horrible feeling about the Chosen. Like if she wanted to go, they might not let her. She took a slow, deep breath, silently vowing to charm these people. She could be charming. Hadn’t she learned to be from early childhood?
Pick me, pick me…
“So…the Chosen,” she said, a little more cheery now. “How does everybody find each other? I mean, before they come here.”
Nathan arched a dark, thick brow, reminding her painfully of Cayne. “How do you think?”
She had no idea. “The internet?”
Andrew grinned, and Julia found she liked him more for it. Or maybe disliked him less. “Some Chosen have the power to find others,” he said.
“Ability,” Nathan corrected. “We don’t have ‘powers.’”
“Talent,” Julia offered.
“Sure.” Nathan’s eyes did a quick roll, which Julia decided to ignore.
She focused on Nathan’s brown eyes, forcing her tone to stay even, her face to stay neutral. She could do this. Act normal. “So…all Chosen can do something funky?”
“Right, except—” Andrew started.
“Almost all,” Nathan said. He shot Andrew a shut-up look that made Julia wonder why he was constantly so on guard.
It didn’t matter. She needed to keep the conversation rolling. If she was going to help Cayne, she needed Nathan to see her as, if not a friend, not an enemy either. “Hey,” she tried. “Why are we called Chosen? And why do we have the st— the birthmarks?”
Nathan actually turned around and looked at her—the kind of look that chastised. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”
“Yes I do,” she snapped—then inhaled slowly. “I think anyone in my position would,” she said, in a slightly more neutral tone.
She needed to keep the peace, but Nathan’s face was irritatingly skeptical. “What do you consider ‘your position’?”
“Well—” she tapped her temple exaggeratedly— “let’s see. First you show up and take my friend. Then you force me to come with you. I’ve been plenty cooperative and like you said, I am ‘your kind,’ but I have no rights whatsoever. You won’t even let me see him. You don’t tell me anything. Do you expect me just to be okay with this? Like…take away my boyfr—” her cheeks flamed— “Take away my friend, and…okay, sure, that’s cool.”
“Boyfriend.” Nathan clenched his fists. He looked mad enough to spit.
“So what if he is?” What was she doing justifying things to this guy anyway?
She watched his mouth twist with what—disdain? Unhappiness? Pure hatred for all Nephilim? Then he pressed his lips into a line and looked beyond her. “We worried for you.” Like their worry was such a valuable gift.
Worry reminded her of Cayne, which reminded her that she was seriously failing at the charm. She took a deep breath. Unclenched her fists. Looked Nathan in the eye, presenting her best ‘calm’ façade. “Thanks, but I was fine.”
Nathan turned away, blank-faced, and started walking, wide shoulders making a vague shadow on the floor, long legs carrying him away. “Drew—” he looked over his shoulder at Andrew, whom she’d kind of forgotten about. “Go check in on Dizzy and the others.”
Andrew gave a brief nod, and a sympathetic, you-got-yourself-into-it, hope-you-can-get-yourself-out-of-it look to Julia, and he was off, leaving her all alone in the middle of an empty hallway—tunnel—with Nathan the Furious.
At this point, she didn’t even care. Didn’t care about plans or intentions or impressions.
“I want to see Cayne now. Why do I have to wait?”
Nathan’s voice was flat. “He’s our prisoner, remember?”
Julia clenched her jaw, refusing to back down. With another look of disgust, Nathan set back off down the tunnel. She followed, feeling irritatingly like a scampering puppy. Feeling like punching him in that annoying, (yes, okay) kind of attractive face. She looked at his back. His gray back. At the fabric straining over his shoulders.
If she’d met him on the street, she’d have thought he was handsome—in an ordinary way. Maybe even kind of vanilla. The kind of guy more familiar with college textbooks and football tickets than blood daggers or auras. Unfortunately, she hadn’t met him in the real world, and he definitely wasn’t that kind of guy.
“Do you do anything here other than kidnap people?”
He paused mid-step, just a quick pause before picking up his stride. “I’m a Shepherd,” he said, the words directed her way although he was moving even faster now. Like he was trying to lose her. Which he easily could.
She matched her pace to his, though it made her calves burn. “Do you guys have a farm too?”
This time his brown eyes flicked back at her; they were cold, annoyed. “I keep us safe and make sure our traditions are preserved. I also supervise.”
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br /> “So you’re a cop.”
“I’m a Shepherd,” he said gruffly.
“Hmm. What exactly are ‘our’ traditions?”
From the side, she saw one dark brow arch. “How much do you really care right now?”
