Disloyal Souls: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 8)

by Jamie Magee

  Talon’s fist crashed onto the table. “Someone better start speaking in clear terms and fast. What the fuck is wrong with your woman Scorpio, and what does that have to do with Reveca and her current uptick of a hormonal mood swing?”

  “She sees,” Scorpio said in a broken tone. “She knew before we ever found the gray witch that she would end her life. At first, Toril made it seem like it was an honor. A rightful event in the rising of our kind. Then Toril met Reveca...it became sorted and vengeful. A natural hate swelled between them.”

  Scorpio sighed as emotion struck his face. “I know you both can feel Toril now, you may be ignoring it, you may think it’s you, that you’re a bit overwhelmed, tired. But it’s her. As wired as Toril is on the power stolen from Ambrosia at her death, Toril is tired. The spell is demanding its sacrifice.”

  “What. Sacrifice.” Talon demanded.

  “Reveca. It was a second chance spell, designed to give the receiver the ability to complete what they began. If they do so, they live on. If they fail, they perish in their failure.”

  “Now? This happens now? Not the hundreds upon hundreds of years that you have been in this family as the black sheep she always accused you of being?”

  “Because of you.”

  “Me!” Talon raged.

  “Your death could not happen. There was no predicting what it would do to this Throng. Toril had the power to save you. She had the power to call on those in the Throng she had blocked from me, even each other.”

  “That would make it King’s fault,” Talon glanced back at Saige not wanting to accuse her or pass blame, but needing to underline the truth of the matter. “If all of you wanted to go along playing our daily war games, rising King was the wrong move. With him here, Reveca stopped feeding me, Ambrosia rose.”

  “Why is that?” Scorpio asked as his glare landed on Saige. “If you are his matched soul you could’ve saved him by just standing at his side. Why did you force my hand?”

  It was the million-dollar question Talon had been pondering for weeks.

  “M-my daughter.”

  Scorpio swayed his head. “I don’t care how fucking busy you were, you could have made a five second wellness call. Now you’re standing there telling me that you’re going to protect Reveca and Toril is slipping. Is this your beautiful suicide?”

  Saige’s wistful, girlish image all but faded as the prim princess she was emerged. “You think I have all the answers? You think I understand? I could not feel him. I did not know!”

  “What?” Talon and Scorpio said at once.

  “I couldn’t. From the moment River began to unlock where my daughter was and how to get her back I was numb. And when I did see Reveca—when she came to help me with my daughter— she made it a point to tell me how well everyone was getting on at the Boneyard.”

  “Your coven did this?” Talon accused still not entirely sure what she meant by numb, just that her emotions told him she felt violated by the act.

  “Jamison said it was some kind of supernatural shock, a state of being that moved me through what I had to do.”

  “And what brought it back?” Scorpio asked slyly.

  “The second I returned from the Edge after my daughter was safe, I tasted the death. I couldn’t get through Reveca’s spells to get here. Her magic blocked phones, passage, all of it. Then the vote came down...”

  “Why in the hell was Reveca blocking you? Does she know?” Talon demanded. He had to figure out how to protect Saige.

  “She was blocking supernatural females,” Scorpio said like a curse. “Reveca thought she was stopping Ambrosia or anyone she could send. Saige didn’t make her short list of those she allowed in at all.”

  Saige drew in a breath as a sting of relief touched her essence. To her, this was fate making its own way. To the others, it was shitty luck.

  Silence took over as Talon did his best to think through the obstacles. Then he spoke. “You can’t kill Reveca.”

  Saige’s drowning relief was enough to tell Talon he was on the right track. Scorpio’s rage promised him he had a hell of a fight before him.

  “What magic do we need to help Toril?” Talon asked.

  “There is no such thing,” Scorpio said through gritted teeth. “And if you think for one second you will pull Reveca in here and tell her all is fair and calm now, you are fucking crazy.”

  Talon leaned back and relaxed a bit on his throne as his mind worked. “You kill Reveca, and we die anyway, so does everyone she has ever created.”

  “Who told you that bullshit?” Scorpio spat.

  Talon leisurely glanced at Saige.

  “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me! Of course she would say that. She doesn’t want you to kill her sister.”

  “It is the covens understanding,” Saige defended.

  “It’s a fucked theory on a good day,” Scorpio belted. “What is it you’re worried about? That her magic will fade? I got news for you if her magic in us disappears we will be better for it, pure the way Toril is. We will not have to work to be our natural selves.

  Talon ticked his head toward laughter coming from the bar. “And them?”

  “Mortal, I suppose if your theory is true at all.” Scorpio swayed his head. “It’s not. No fucking way that is right.”

  “Why are you so sure?” Talon asked feeling his resolve and the lacking stubbornness attached to it.

  Scorpio sneered. “Because unlike Reveca, Toril is an empath. She is not vengeful or spiteful, save for one. She loves the souls of this universe above all. She’d never take an action that would kill bystanders.”

  “They are reminders of Reveca,” Talon warned. “Threats that will rise over and over for vengeance. Why do you suppose a classic rule in battle is to destroy an entire bloodline?”

  “Reminders or not, Toril does not fault them. She sees them as victims. The same as you and me.”

  Talon stared Scorpio down then said. “The risk is too high. Doubt is too thick. My family comes above all.”

  “Like Saige’s Rapture comes before all,” Scorpio chided. “We can all make whatever vow we want, but I swear to you that I love Toril more than either of you adore your family or Rapture. I have gone far too long without her to let fear stop me.”

  “They are your family too,” Talon said. “Or was that a lie as well?”

  “It’s the truth. Which is why you should believe me,” Scorpio said staring Talon dead in the eye.

  The chilling impasse took root in the room as their stare held and each weighed the consequence of what was before them.

  “As we fight amongst ourselves our chance of doing anything dwindles. Akan is determined for us all to fall.”

  “That fuck can come have a sit down with me anytime he wants,” Talon said with a growl. He was sick of hearing about that shifter fuck and all the assumptions that he very well could be Blackwater himself.

  “He’s planning to let others do the work for him,” Saige said. “I would assume by now he’s sensed who is in this Throng, he’s weighed the conflicts and realizes we are easy prey.”

  “Woman,” Talon snapped. “Do not step into my world and assume you know how to play the hand on the table.” He sharply glanced back at her. “No outfit gives you the right to play.” Talon squinted when he felt her pain and embarrassment. This shit sucked.

  “What do you know?” Scorpio asked taking on his ever-calm tone he used when leading his Club.

  “The dead are rising. This Club now has more enemies above ground than it ever did below.”

  Chapter Two

  Shade had never spoken at length with Dagen. At least, not where you pull up a stool and shoot the shit for hours on end kind of spoken. The male may have been in a battle or two with the Sons since he arrived, but Dagen’s part was always more haunting. Like the ass was up in the trees watching or zapping in or out. Not the side by side I will bleed for you, my brother! Kind of deal.

  From what Shade had heard, even in real life batt
le, fire tornados and shit, the fuck never lost his cool or his smirk. Right now Dagen had neither cool nor a smirk. When Shade stared him down, he saw the same sickness he fought in Dagen’s eyes. A man cursed to love when he knew it was the most dangerous thing he could ever do.

  “You want to drop your glare,” Shade asked through gritted teeth.

  Suddenly, Zosime ran to the vase by the fireplace putting everyone on guard— she was an unpredictable haunt to all of them, more so Dagen. The stress of her move was washed away a soon as Zosime threw the flowers aside and began heaving into the large vase.

  Gwinn rushed to her side and held her hair back and began caressing her shoulders. Dagen had lurched toward Zosime but hesitated when Thrash and Shade advanced.

  “What did you do to her?” Dagen accused as his ice blue stare shifted between the threat before him and the one waiting on him across the way.

  “How the fuck did you get in here?” Thrash asked as he sized up Dagen. “Where are the others?”

  “Dust,” Dagen said as he grimaced when he heard the whimpers of Zosime as she struggled to catch her breath before she heaved again.

  “Did he fucking do this? Is this a siege? What game are you playing?” Thrash demanded.

  Thrash had suspected as much as he prowled these halls. Over the years it was always impossible for any warring witch to get their hands on Talon. Reveca had him locked down in some kind of protection spell. She must have used all of her mojo on Talon because nine times out of ten Thrash would find himself as a bargaining chip. Hence his outright distrust for witches in general. At best Reveca and Evanthe had taught him to close his mind down and to increase his vim by focusing on what built it. Fantasies are magic, Evanthe had said with the sexy little smirk he loved so much dangling from her rose kissed lips.

  Saige was different; for the most part, she glared at Thrash, always looked at him like he knew something he shouldn’t, which gave way to her advice. “It is the submissive with the power. When you’re pulled into a lair you see what is hidden, you choose to make it a prison or a weapon. Choose wisely. History is made by those who can hear the heartbeat of new beginnings rising from the ashes, by those who understand it. In the end, it’s not how you strike that matters, but when.”

  Dagen never heard Thrash’s question. Zosime was still sick. All of his senses were wrapped around hers. Her fear, disbelief, the agony, it was all his too. “Is that blood?” Dagen asked when he saw what was coming out of her stomach.

  “Wine,” Gwinn said biting her lip as she did. It was one of the many times she let an answer slip out that was better left unspoken.

  Dagen’s sharp stare launched back at Shade, then moved to Thrash and then finally Bastion. “What was your plan with that, boys?”

  Thrash was as lost as ever. Bastion found the comment amusing and Shade was fighting a wrathful blush. Unable to handle himself Shade stepped forward until he was chest to chest with Dagen. “You better check yourself.”

  “You think I fucking trust you?” Dagen asked just as coldly.

  Zosime laid on the rug next to her vase and stared at the vaulted ceiling wishing for the death she owned days before.

  Gwinn charged across the room using her magic to manifest between Dagen and Shade. “He knows nothing.”

  Dagen dropped his stare to Gwinn. Though the anger and defense never left his expression, Gwinn could see the trust in his eyes.

  “It wasn’t the same wine,” Gwinn added.

  “Someone want to fucking clue me in here,” Thrash belted.

  Shade moved Gwinn to the side pissed she put him behind her. “Show us the door you walked through,” Shade ordered.

  “It was a spell,” Dagen said staring at Zosime. A single tear was streaming down from her closed eyes. As she lay there, he felt his heart break open. What he had been utilizing and using as intel, data that would help him finish his mission—his memories—were now anchors into a reality he wasn’t ready for.

  Regret had never carried such sickness in his life. Neither had failure. Zosime would’ve been better off if he had never chased his dreams. If he had ignored the call of bliss. It was greed. Greed to feel greatness that drove him to her. If he hadn’t, where would they be now? In a whole helluva lot less pain at King’s side helping him through what was shaping up to be a very calculated attack on the rise of the Helco Faction with Reveca Beauregard at the helm.

  “Then say your hocus pocus shit and get us out of here,” Thrash said.

  “Can’t,” Dagen said dismissively as he silently counted Zosime’s breaths. It was the only way he could convince himself that the memory of her with a dagger in her chest, with the blood pooling out of her like a tapped spring, was not real.

  “Why the fuck not?” Shade raged.

  Dagen lifted the satchel in his hand and tossed it to Gwinn. “Care package. He said there is more than one way out. The strongest beyond the obvious is by the will of the seventh son. The second would be the death of Akan.”

  “The who?” Thrash asked glaring at his son as Bastion rushed to the satchel like it was a bag of strippers on his birthday.

  “You Pops,” Bastion called back as he started pulling grimoires out.

  Thrash and Shade shared a what the fuck glance before they both turned their glare back at Dagen.

  “Listen up, fuck,” Thrash said. “You’re going to start speaking clearly, or come hell or high water I will make my son stuff that chick back into the cigarette box she came out of and keep her there until I have your undivided attention.”

  “Who else is here?” Dagen asked as his ice blue stare eased around the space, stretching all his senses, and only coming up with more confounding conclusions.

  The certainty in his tone had everyone glancing absently around.

  “A haunt who is a little late on its bar refill,” Thrash said glaring at the thin air.

  His words called into existence an unopened bottle of Jack that appeared on the end table just beside Thrash.

  Dagen didn’t believe in ghosts, not in the way those in Thrash’s world did. Haunts were the dead with a strong energy source fueled by the denial of their death, which more than likely happened near a crossroad of spiritual power. They did not play butler.

  “This is Neptune,” Dagen said, at last, now doubting the female on the floor was his at all. He knew if he could prove she wasn’t he could break this spell over him and think through this bullshit. In time, he’d put these cruel memories in the vault deep inside him where they belonged.

  When Dagen manifested at Zosime’s side, he added another regret to his list. The woman absorbed his essence and as she did he watched her lungs fill with air and color come back to her pale skin. She didn’t open her eyes until he had knelt. Dagen reached to brush a strand of her hair that had fallen from its pristine updo. He felt it then, a power reaching out from her, meeting his. A humming, tantalizing sensation that was indeed the essence of life, the reason of existence. His awe was quickly capped when she opened her eyes. Glory was there for a moment, but then it was gone as pain flooded them.

  “You’re real,” he rasped. Fuck. Me. He didn’t know if he should feel relief she was right there, breathing from him, or furious that she was not the illusion this place all but promised her to be.

  “I hope your cock falls off,” she spat in anger that fell short as her face morphed with a look of shock a second before she vaulted toward the vase and began heaving again.

  Dagen was pushed out of the way when Gwinn came back to her side. The men watched helplessly, all except for Bastion who was carefully turning through pages and pages of the book before him.

  When Zosime was done throwing up this bout, Gwinn pulled her up to stand and then left with her. Dagen went to follow them, but feeling high on his horse Shade blocked him. Dagen didn’t give him a third of the resistance Shade was counting on.

  “That chick has been in a bad mood from day one. We just now got her to where we could handle being in the same r
oom with her,” at Dagen’s glare Shade explained. “She likes to throw shit for kicks. You show up, and she’s now both sick and pissed. Get us the fuck outta here, and then you can ensure the lifespan of your dick any way you want.”

  “What is that obvious?” Thrash asked itching to leave and hating the hope all of this was over was starting to fade.

  Dagen was lost inside himself, so it took a second or two to answer. “I don’t know. Dust isn’t like the rest of you. Talks like a fucking witch.”

  Shade and Thrash both lifted their chin stating the line Dagen was about to cross. It didn’t matter if they agreed or disagreed with the statement. Dust was patched into their Club, Dagen wasn’t. No one talks shit about anyone in their Club.

  In reality, Dust was more likely to be accused of being a mute than speaking like a haughty witch. He barely smiled. Then again, he was lead by a man who was pretty much the same. Hearing this bullshit coming from Dagen wasn’t adding up. But what fucking did anymore?

  “You called this place Neptune. You know it?” Shade accused.

  Dagen dropped his stare down to Bastion who had managed to smirk and shake his head without the others seeing him. “Neptune is a rumor, the phase of time is a promise.”

  “And you think Dust speaks like a fucking witch,” Thrash said storming toward his bottle of Jack. The thrill was gone. Thrash had been around Reveca and her coven long enough to know when witchery fucks start speaking in code no one was going anywhere or understanding anything anytime soon.

  “Time Travelers are revered and feared,” Bastion said looking up from the text before him. As he spoke, he pulled himself up onto the wing backed chair he was crouched before. “The good fear they will judge them and change something. Even if their life is fucked, they’d rather hold on to what they know and call the shots on what is to change, but it never works out that way. The evil seeks to control the power.”

  “We were all there for the Voyager briefing,” Thrash said as he sighed sitting down with his bottle and the fire to his left. It was the simple things that soothed the wolf in him and stayed the outbreaks he felt himself on the verge of having.