Secret Keepers: The Complete Series

by Jaymin Eve

  Maya’s face fell. “I’m so sorry you got hurt because of me. Laous is…. He needs to die. Nothing else will suffice.”

  My very brief and limited experience with Laous had me agreeing with her. He’d been power-spraying bullets into the ocean like a madman, trying to pick us off like we were nothing more than animals. In fact, he might have actually hit some of the sea creatures, and that was not okay with me.

  Oh, and there was also the small thing of him wanting to steal a stone that was keeping both worlds alive and functioning. Worlds he lived on. He had to be completely insane. “What is Laous’s plan once he gets this stone? Does he think the threats to both worlds are no longer there? That the treaty is obsolete?”

  Maya shrugged. “I’m not sure he’s thinking clearly at all anymore. He had a very traumatic childhood. He let some of it slip to me when he thought I was in his custody and not going to be released. All he sees is the power. He’s determined to never be vulnerable again.”

  Xander and Chase both shook their heads then, almost in sync. “There was never any indication that Laous had an abusive upbringing,” Chase said. “From what my parents said, he was top of his classes, succeeded in all areas, had a close tie to his brother, Lucas.”

  Xander made a sound of agreement. “And Daniel’s father, Lucas, never mentioned anything about his parents being that horrible. He would have said something, right? The only thing he ever told Daniel was that his parents were killed in an accident just before Daniel was born.”

  Daniel…. I was trying to remember who he was. Pretty sure he was the mate of another secret keeper. Callie, maybe.

  We all just stood on the dock, and since security was an issue, I found myself looking around, trying to make sure there was no attack on the way. “You’re safe right now,” Xander said, brushing by me so he could take the lead.

  I tried not to react, but his skin sliding across mine, even for that brief second, created a strange sensation in my body. I had momentarily forgotten I was standing there in just a wet shirt and underwear, but Xander definitely created an awareness in my body. My blood was bubbling … fizzing. Like water when it was disturbed.

  Shaking that off, I hurried after the small group. Maya fell into step with me. Before I could stop her, she reached out and linked our arms together. Somehow, despite her tiny stature, it worked comfortably. “I’m so glad we found you before Laous.” She flashed those kind blue eyes at me and I couldn’t bring myself to pull away.

  It kind of felt nice, actually. Like I had a friend. I remembered how it was done. I hadn’t been a loner my entire life, but it had been a while.

  “I’m glad as well, as long as you all aren’t leading me to my death now.”

  Maya just chuckled and squeezed my arm. I had to laugh too. I mean … their story was so far-fetched that it had to be true. No one would make up something that crazy. Plus … it explained so many things about me. My water abilities. The reason my parents always called me a burden and a responsibility. They needed to make sure the secret keeper was kept alive until I turned eighteen. After that, I was on my own. My own responsibility.

  It would have been nice if they’d told me more about Daelighters before they just bailed. I almost walked right into a huge situation involving aliens. Freaking aliens!

  “Why do you think my parents never said anything to me? I mean, if they work for the government and this was their job, surely they shouldn’t just take off?”

  Maya let out a tiny huff, almost like annoyance. “They will be in big trouble when the government catches up to them. Not to mention, you’re not just a job, you’re their child.”

  I shrugged. “I thought I was, but maybe they had to adopt me? Maybe my actual parents were killed?”

  For some reason, that made me feel better, an explanation I could go with rather than that the very people who should have loved me most thought of me as nothing more than a job to get through.

  “I will check with my parents as soon as we’re back in contact,” Maya said. “We’re off the radar now, in case Laous figures out how to track us.”

  Her face fell, and I could only guess that if you had a loving family, it would be really tough to not be able to talk to them.

  Our conversation was cut off when we arrived at a very fancy black car parked just around the corner from the moored boat. “This is our ride,” Chase said, holding the door open for us. “Time to get back to the secret lair.”

  He winked at his girl, and she shook her head, a soft smile spreading across her face.

  Meanwhile I was trying to control my breathing because it was all getting real for me now. Secret lair. Aliens. Fancy cars. None of this was my life.

  I had no choice. I needed to see this through. So I was getting in the car.

  Chapter 4

  “I’m soaking wet,” I reminded them, staring at the seats. “I will destroy the leather.”

  “Here is a towel to keep you warm.” Xander surprised me by handing across a huge, warm, white beach towel. “Don’t worry about the seats, you won’t hurt them.”

  Maya shot me a grin. “These guys have more cars than brain cells. Don’t stress about it. They really don’t care.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, then, I can only offer.”

  My hair was mostly dry from the boat ride, so I just quickly rubbed the towel over the ends.

  “Your hair is amazing,” Maya said, her gaze running along the strands. “It’s silver and rainbow. Unicorn hair.”

  More like mermaid hair. “This is a House of Royale thing, right?” I asked Xander, wanting it confirmed. I’d seen it in his hair, so I was pretty sure.

  He nodded. “Yes, this is a feature from my house. The pigments in our hair open up under the water, which creates a rainbow effect. Like when rain and sun mix together in the sky.”

  Such a cool fact. It was nice to finally know why some of these things happened to me.

  Once I’d wrapped the towel around myself, I climbed into the back. Xander ended up taking the seat on the other side of me. Chase drove, with Maya sitting shotgun. I spent most of the trip staring out the window. Maya shot me worried looks every now and then, but mostly she just held hands with her mate and sat quietly. After some time, I felt Xander’s eyes on me, and had to shift around in my seat toward him. He had answers I’d sought my entire life. I wanted to know about the world under the sea, about my abilities. I wanted to know if I would eventually be able to stay under there, in the world of my heart.

  “Do you live under the sea?” I asked softly.

  His eyes were too beautiful; it was hard to concentrate when they were focused so intently on me. Luckily he had such a rotten personality. That helped me not look at him as anything more than a means to an end.

  “Yes,” he said. “House of Royale is a world under the water.”

  “They call it legreto,” Maya chimed in from the front. “Not water.”

  I didn’t turn to her. Xander held my attention too strongly. “You sleep under there?” I hated the note of hope in my voice. I wasn’t a Royale. I was a human with a little Daelighter energy within me, but I wanted so badly to live under the sea.

  He nodded. “Our ability to breathe below and above the water is what makes us unique on our world. So, when I’m in my house, I’m always beneath the water.”

  My eyes burned as I tried to clear my throat. “I have to come up for air,” I whispered. “I can stay under for a long time, but not forever. I always—”

  I broke off because he didn’t care about my hopes and dreams. It was better for me to keep it to myself.

  Xander didn’t say anything more, but his gaze wasn’t quite so dismissive the next time he met my eyes. Eventually I turned back to the window, watching the island flash by. They had taken their boat out quite a way from their safe house, which was probably to hide the trail if anyone was following.

  Chase eventually turned off, taking us inland, toward a small patch of rainforest. He had to use the four-wheel
drive capabilities of the car to get over some of the rougher areas. I noticed through the trees there was an estate of huge beach houses, and when we pulled up and all got out, that was the direction they led me in.

  Their secret lair wasn’t really secret or lair-like. It looked like an upmarket beach shack, one of those new builds trying to mimic the original island shacks in design and materials, only everything was too fancy and new to actually fit in.

  My misgivings about this “safe house” were smashed when we took the side entrance and walked down into a basement of sorts. Okay, definitely not common in Hawaii. I didn’t know anyone with a basement. Xander led us toward an elevator … in their house. He had to use his handprint to open the silver doors. I was pretty sure this was the first elevator I’d ever been on, but, of course, I’d also thought I was born on Earth, so what did I know?

  As I was about to step into the metal box, unexpected nerves had me hesitating. I had to take a deep, calming breath to overcome them, before I stepped inside. My hands remained tightly clenched as the doors closed, and when it lurched to the side, I had to swallow my shriek. I reached out and grasped a nearby rail to steady myself.

  “Are you okay?” Maya asked.

  I bobbed my head up and down. “Yep. Just … first time in an elevator.”

  Thankfully we came to a halt not ten seconds later. It was a huge relief to step out, and I blinked at the large room filled with computers and huge screens up on the walls. It looked like those surveillance rooms in cop drama TV shows. I recognized a lot of the images that were flashing by in black and white. Lanai and Oahu were prominent.

  “We’re tracking Laous’s movements,” Chase explained, crossing over to a set of three huge screens. He reached out and pressed an image, making it larger. It looked like a traffic camera, which had to be privately owned because outside of the main tourist hubs there was no need for cameras here.

  “Facial recognition has picked him up a few times,” Maya told me as she joined her mate. “He’s definitely still looking for us, but so far has remained on Lanai.”

  It was probably lucky they got to me when they did. Lanai was not huge; it would have been a miracle not to run into him. A sudden terrifying thought hit me. “My friend, the one I stayed with last night, is he safe? Will Laous somehow track me?”

  What if he tortured Doc to try and find my location?

  I was already heading for the door. Swimming from Oahu to Lanai would be no problem for me, especially if Doc’s life was at stake.

  “Wait, it’ll be quicker if I get Lexen to check on him,” Chase said, pulling a cell phone from his pocket. “They’re on Lanai. What’s the address?”

  I quickly told them how to get to Doc’s place, and then turned to the surveillance. “Can we get any images over that area?” I asked.

  Chase was on the phone, so Xander stepped up, his hand moving superfast, tapping a sequence into a keyboard. It almost looked like coordinates, and then I jumped as Doc’s porch and roof came into sight.

  “It’s a satellite image,” Xander explained, “so I’m limited, but it looks like everything is quiet there.”

  “Is there any way to see the porch clearly?” I pressed in closer, not even caring that I’d have to touch the prickly Daelighter. I just needed to see Doc.

  Xander didn’t say anything. He pressed a few more buttons and the angle of the image changed. All my breath whooshed out of me as Doc’s familiar grizzled face came into view. He was staring out across the ocean, looking somewhat peaceful.

  I only realized I’d slumped forward in relief when Xander shifted his arm slightly—I’d fallen right against him.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, stepping back. “Thanks for checking on him for me.”

  Chase finished talking to Lexen, dropping his phone to the table. “He said they’re going to head straight back. He wanted to know if you want him to bring Doc back to this safe house?”

  I shook my head. “He won’t leave, trust me. He’s a very stubborn old man, and he hardly ever leaves his house. If Laous hasn’t found him yet, it should be fine.” It had to be fine, because if I cost Doc his life—even if the old dude was ready to die—I would never forgive myself. Never.

  Chase nodded, keyed in a message, and sent it off.

  “We can check on him through this satellite as well,” Xander reminded me. “At least until we head back to Overworld. After that, I’ll have some of the House of Royale members stationed close by check on him.”

  Wow, that was so much more thoughtful than I had expected. Especially from Xander. “Thank you,” I said, focusing on the fact that Doc should be safe. I wasn’t quite ready to think about leaving Earth for an alien world. I was just going to pretend he didn’t say that.

  “How many Daelighters are here at the moment?” Maya asked, dropping into Chase’s lap. He wrapped an arm around her.

  “We have a few hundred from the different houses,” Xander said. “More arrived last night. They’re here in case Laous got his hands on Avalon first. We would have had to fight him and his army then.”

  “Army?” I asked.

  Xander let out a short laugh. “Yeah, he’s managed to get the Gonzo on his side. Black ops military group, very big into war and rebirth of the world.”

  Well, great. This story just got better and better. It did explain why there were so many guns shooting at us yesterday.

  “I’m going to program Ava into the security system,” Chase said, and then he turned to me. “If you get locked out or separated from us for any reason, you can always get back here and hide out.”

  I nodded, feeling somewhat happy that they were including me. They had said I was a huge part of this, that we were a family. But people said a lot of things that they didn’t follow through with. This was a small step toward building trust between us.

  Chase was typing away. “I’m going to need handprints, and you’ll get a code as well.”

  My left hand curled in even further than normal, and I wondered how it would work for this sort of security system.

  “Will one hand work?” I asked, not embarrassed exactly, but wanting to put it out there. I waved my left hand at them, showing the ropy scar tissue on my palm and wrist and the way my fingers curled in. “I was attacked by a shark years ago. My hand is pretty shot now. I won’t be able to get it straight enough to press flat.”

  It took a lot of guts for me to just throw my flaws out in the world like that, and in the moment of silence that followed, my heartbeat pounded in my ears.

  Maya was the first to react. She jumped up off Chase’s lap and wrapped her arms around me. “That is so freaking scary, but also amazing. You were attacked by a shark and survived!”

  I didn’t know how to react to her hug. It had been months since anyone had even attempted to hug me, aside from those few people I saved from drowning. And they were more about keeping themselves above the water.

  I patted Maya’s back. “Yeah, it was scary, but I still love sharks. He didn’t mean to hurt me, I just got in the way of the fish he was going after.”

  Luckily it had only been a baby great white. Any bigger and I’d have lost my entire arm.

  “We don’t have the same marine life in Overworld,” Xander said, relaxing back in his chair. “The meglam would be the closest, a cross between an alligator and a shark. Outside of Royales, they rule the waters.”

  I froze, just a little, because the mental image of what he described was scary. “Sharks are the kings in our waters, and I respect them.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Xander replied. “Humans are notorious for thinking they are the only creatures that matter. Everything else is expendable.”

  I was no normal human, but there was no point telling him that. Xander clearly had a thing against my kind, and I really didn’t have time to care.

  Chase went back to the previous subject. “In regard to the security, I can definitely just use one hand.”

  Nothing more was said, and no one s
eemed grossed out by my mangled hand. That made me feel another level of comfort with them.

  Once all the security stuff was done, Maya twisted around so she was facing Chase. “So, I think you should tell us now what your theory is about Ava and the map to the stone.”

  “I think we need to take Ava back to the waters of Royale,” Chase said. “Back to wherever she was born. I assume that’s the place that will reveal the map. Somehow.”

  “Like the knowledge will appear in her mind? Or the network will kick in and show us the way?” Maya pressed.

  Chase shrugged. “No way to tell, and I could be completely off track, but I’ve always wondered how exactly the network managed to tie four humans together who were all born at different times. I know your births had to be within the same year, but that doesn’t seem like a close enough connection.”

  Xander crossed his arms, leaning back into the wall. “My understanding of it is that the secret keepers are a chain. With each birth, another link was added. The final link is Avalon, and she is the one with the lock attached to her. The lock and the key. Staying in the same year of birth was probably just so the chain was completed relatively quickly to satisfy the treaty terms.”

  His intelligence didn’t surprise me, and I liked the way he called me by my full name. For some stupid reason.

  Chase nodded. “That makes sense. When the others get back, we can decide on the best route home. We need to figure out the map straight away.”

  I cleared my throat, because it almost felt like they’d forgotten I was here. “I’m not sure how I feel about leaving Earth....”

  I trailed off because that statement pretty much said it all.

  Before anyone could reply, the elevator behind us whirred, followed by a clunk. I took a step back when a new group filed through the metal doors. There was no way for me to tell who they were. I didn’t recognize any of them, and I felt uneasy again.