Unsurprisingly, neither of them acknowledged her earlier insistence on sitting up front. They were barely talking to each other, let alone her, which hopefully meant less probing into her dream or vision of whatever the hell it was.
She ran her hand across the back of her neck, the sensation of not being alone in her skin finally retreating.
She stretched her legs out, bouncing them lightly to loosen some of the tension. Vision aside, the back seat was vastly preferable compared to the cramped bedroom where she’d been locked up all day while Vaughn was doing his gargoyle imitation.
“At least it’s not the trunk.” Dare grinned, reminding her a little of a clumsy puppy trying to run with the big dogs.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one in the car who excelled at showing others only what she wanted them to see. And Dare was a pro.
“So,” she drawled, hoping she wasn’t pushing her luck. “How long have you been Scrappy to his Scooby-Doo?”
Dare laughed. “I’ve always been more of a Shaggy fan.”
The gargoyle was far too pretty for the comparison, and nowhere near as clueless, but he was finally talking after ignoring her numerous pleas to be let out of her bedroom before sunset.
Elena felt Vaughn watching her in the rear-view mirror as he drove, but didn’t meet his gaze. They’d exchanged only a handful of words last night after agreeing she hadn’t been marked by a wraith.
He shifted in his seat for the tenth time in the hour they’d been driving, almost as if he were uncomfortable. His injuries would have healed when he went to stone at dawn, leaving Dare to watch over her, and the current conversation couldn’t be bothering him.
Was he regretting his decision to exchange her for his sister?
Dare was staring at her again, his attention locked on the curl of ivy that twisted around her wrist.
“So tell me, Scrappy,” she began, needing to buy herself more time. She blew on the window and drew circles on the condensation she created. “Why do you think Piper was taken?”
He lost interest in her tracings, his wolf making an appearance in the blue eyes that weren’t as captivating as Vaughn’s but stunning nonetheless. Clearly it was a topic worth exploring.
“Oh, come on,” she prompted. “She was taken for a reason. She must have done something.”
Dare didn’t comment.
Elena shrugged. “Or maybe she was simply the innocent party like my sister. Just wrong time and place after someone pissed off the wrong immortal.”
“Vaughn had nothing to do with her abduction,” he growled, but it wasn’t the animal in his voice that surprised her.
It was the hint of something else in the gargoyle’s eyes that stayed with her. A look she was intimately acquainted with when she glanced at her own reflection.
Guilt.
“No one knows why she was taken.” Vaughn turned the car into the parking lot of a small strip mall that was probably closing shortly.
She glanced at Dare, doubting it was as simple as that. Not that it mattered at this point, not as much as finding a way to avoid becoming the abductor’s next victim.
The word left a bad taste in her mouth, and she wiped her hand across the glass, erasing her design. Without some kind of edge, she wouldn’t be able to save herself, let alone anyone else, and others were counting on her.
Others like Piper…
The car hit a pothole, and a whisper of magic stroked Elena’s skin. Her own magic stirred in response, and she hissed out a breath as the Fae glyph tightened like a living brand.
“What’s wrong?”
She rested her head against the back of the seat, willing the pain to pass. “Shock collars don’t agree with me.”
She’d been right. Dare had brought the crown with him. Too bad she couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
The poisonous taint of iron tangled with the siren’s call of power that tugged at her. She let out a slow breath, waiting for another wave of ancient magic to hit her, but only caught the soft ripples of it fading away.
The crown was close. Maybe close enough to trigger that vision. Like in the trunk.
Vaughn stopped the car, grimacing as he twisted in his seat to look at her. “Do you know something about Piper’s abduction?”
Not as much as Dare, she suspected. “Seventeen.”
Vaughn frowned.
“My sister was abducted seventeen times. Sometimes only for a few hours, some for a few days. Others…” She cleared her throat, not intending to poke at her own guilt-ridden wounds. “The point is she always bounced back.”
“You almost sound proud of that.” A fact that clearly didn’t impress Vaughn in the least.
Proud would be a stretch. “My sister always came out stronger. Who says Piper won’t too?” And why the hell was she reassuring him when he’d made his choice?
A little annoyed with herself, she tucked her hair behind her ear and went back to staring out the window.
“Do not leave this car,” he grabbed the cell phone Dare had brought for him from the glove box then climbed out of the car. He walked just far enough away he could see her but remained out of earshot.
She turned her attention to the pup who wasn’t nearly as chatty as earlier. “What’s she like?” she found herself asking.
Dare didn’t hide his surprise at the question. “Piper is one of the good ones if it makes you feel any better.”
“Much,” Elena drawled. She unclicked her seatbelt. “Relax, Scrappy, just giving myself some breathing room. He only told me to stay in the car.”
Dare cocked his head, reached over and plucked the keys from the ignition before tucking them into his pocket. “Can’t be too careful.”
“So you’ve been helping him look for her,” she guessed.
“From the beginning.”
“I don’t remember you at the scene of my abduction.”
Dare shifted in his seat, attention locked on Vaughn.
“Ah, so you didn’t know about his plan then. He does like to play his cards close to the vest.”
“We both know you’re way too smart to waste time playing us against each other.”
He had her there. She shrugged. “I don’t exactly have better things I could be doing.”
Dare faced her. “I like you, Elena.”
Strangely enough, she believed he meant that. “Too bad not as much as Piper,” she muttered.
He checked to make sure Vaughn was still on the phone. “He promised them, you know. His parents,” Dare clarified. “Right before Morgana slaughtered them to remind the rebellion what happened to those who rose up against her. Vaughn promised them he would keep Piper safe.”
Safe was an illusion in their world unless you wanted to live in complete isolation at the farthest ends of either realm. And probably not even then.
Yesterday hearing that Vaughn was determined to keep a promise to his parents might have saved her from pouring her heart out. There really wasn’t any competing with the ghosts of his parents.
Parents who’d probably still be there, supporting and encouraging him, if they hadn’t been taken away from him, which was more than she could say about her own parents.
And that was one train of thought she was leaving parked at the station.
“And did you make the same promise?” she asked.
“That came later.”
“But you love her, too.”
“Like a brother.” The same flash of guilt darkened his eyes.
“Is that why you haven’t told him what you know about Piper’s disappearance?”
Dare’s gaze darted to hers, reaffirming her suspicions.
At least she wasn’t completely off her game. Maybe getting everything out of her system last night had been a good thing. Now she could really focus on the problem at hand. Like how she could use the crown to break the power of the Fae glyph, preferably without it corrupting her the way it had the Iron Queen.
“Since we’re on the subject o
f secrets,” Dare began, nodding to her tracings. “How about we talk about yours, and why you clearly don’t want Vaughn to know that you’re the Shadow’s Angel?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Vaughn watched the pair through the windshield as he waited for Rutger to answer the damn phone.
Elena was no doubt baiting Dare, and the young wolf was probably enjoying trying to charm his way around her barbs.
In another time and place he could picture the two of them becoming good friends, with Elena diving into trouble and Dare leaping after her so she wouldn’t have all the fun.
Vaughn turned away from them, away from a future that was too out of reach. He waited for the wolf to growl in protest, but his animal half was strangely silent, like there was a wall wedged between man and beast.
The glass screen cracked in his hand. He loosened his grip on the phone.
“We may have a problem,” Rutger said when he finally answered the phone.
There had been nothing but problems since Piper was taken, why would things get easier at this point?
“There are rumors of an immortal with a grudge against Elena,” Rutger continued.
“He should take a number,” Vaughn said, thinking that would be Elena’s exact response.
“He’s dispatched a team to bring her in.”
If Rutger was telling him that, then the rebellion leader had good reason to suspect the other immortal could pull it off. “What did she do?”
Rutger was uncharacteristically quiet. “He holds Elena responsible for his daughter’s death.”
When the wolf would have howled at any such claim or perceived threat to its mate, there was only a hollow silence.
The screen made another cracking sound in his hand.
Piper. Think about Piper.
It didn’t matter what happened to him as long as she was okay.
“Vaughn?”
“Yeah?”
“It would be understandable if you found this difficult under the circumstances. Dare can—”
“I’ve got it under control.” It wasn’t Dare’s job to protect Piper, and as much as Dare wanted Piper back, Vaughn wasn’t so sure that his friend would sacrifice Elena to make it happen. Not now, not knowing how great the cost would be to Vaughn.
Vaughn had done his best to not think about what going through with the trade would mean, whereas it was the only thing Dare could think about since he’d found out.
He glanced over his shoulder. Dare and Elena were in the middle of some kind of stare down, the tension between them obvious from fifty feet away.
What were they talking about now?
“Did Dare bring the crown?” Rutger asked.
“It’s in the trunk.”
“And the sorceress isn’t responding to it?”
He started to say no, then watched the two of them in the car, wondering if that was somehow the source of the tension. Maybe Elena was grilling him on the crown’s whereabouts, or trying to figure out a way to get to it. “I don’t think so.”
A sound that might have been Rutger’s fingers drumming on a hard surface came through the phone.
“Does that disappoint you?” Although Vaughn couldn’t imagine why that would be the case.
“There’s no telling what a powerful sorceress with Fae in her blood could do if she was able to channel that kind of magic.”
Which begged the question why had Rutger insisted on sending the crown with Dare to begin with? “If the crown is so powerful, then how has no one managed to get their hands on it before now?”
“Oh, they’ve tried.”
And ultimately failed, Vaughn assumed. Yet he had pulled it off without much trouble, not counting Elena’s involvement. He’d been so relieved to get his hands on it at the time that he hadn’t stopped to consider why something that old and powerful hadn’t been better protected.
Rutger said something to someone in the background. “When are you expected to trade the sorceress for Piper?”
His throat tightened, the deal he’d made more real than ever. “Tomorrow at midnight.” It was a day later than planned, but their car accident and Erec’s appearance made the adjustment necessary.”
“Does the guy after Elena have any known gargoyles working for him?”
“Why do you ask?”
“There was a wolf. We went off the road, which I think may have been their intention, but they haven’t made another appearance. And there’s Erec.” He filled Rutger in on the wraith’s threat.
The leader of the rebellion mulled that over. “Could the wraith have orchestrated the accident?”
“I’m not ruling anything out at this point.” A wraith appearing as a wolf didn’t fit their usual M.O but nothing about any of this made sense. And he couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something where Erec was concerned.
“If anything comes up, get in touch. And call me when you reach your destination.”
Vaughn ended the phone call, grimacing at the cracks in the glass Dare was going to bitch about.
His friend however didn’t so much as glance at the phone as he tucked it back into the glove box a minute later, his attention focused entirely on Elena.
Vaughn settled himself behind the wheel despite the fact that the left side of his body was on fire from the injuries that wouldn’t heal properly without going to stone.
He’d allowed himself a few moments of sleep propped against Elena’s door during the day, in between her pleas to “Dare” for more food, conversation or the occasional request for weapons so she could cut their balls off.
That might have made him smile if he wasn’t preoccupied with whatever was going on with Elena and Dare.
Dare finally broke eye contact with the sorceress, his expression abnormally guarded.
Vaughn met Elena’s gaze in the rear-view mirror.
She shrugged. “Don’t look at me. He’s the big bad wolf.”
He turned back to his friend. “Anything I should know?”
Dare looked uncertain, but finally shook his head. “Did you get a hold of Rutger?”
“Yeah. We’ll touch base again when we get there.”
“And he knows it’s Elena you’re trading for Piper.”
They’d covered that the night before, right before Vaughn had shut the conversation down.
“But he knows her name, that it’s not just any sorceress, right? He knows Elena’s name.”
“Yes,” he answered. What the hell was going on with Dare now? First he was late but on board with the plan, and now this.
Dare twisted in his seat. “And you’re sure he knows everything?”
Vaughn nodded to the glove box. “The phone is in there if you need to call him.”
Dare muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “It doesn’t make sense.”
Vaughn started the car, sneaking a quick glance at Elena.. She was too busy glaring at Dare to notice.
Maybe he was better off not knowing whatever had the two of them fired up. Gritting his teeth through another knife of pain that pierced his side, he drove out of the parking lot.
***
The silence was driving Elena crazy.
Dare hadn’t said a word to her since Vaughn got back in the car, but she could hear the questions rattling around in his head, and sooner or later he was going to start voicing them.
He hadn’t immediately outed her as the Shadow’s Angel to Vaughn, but neither had he agreed to keep his realization to himself.
She couldn’t make up her mind which was worse. Vaughn learning they’d been playing for the same team for a while, or not knowing when Dare was going to drop that particular bombshell.
Normally her cloak and a little magic were enough to conceal her identity. Or it had been until her last assignment when she’d taken a hit by one of Morgana’s thugs.
She’d been attacked from behind during the confrontation and temporarily lost control of masking her tracings. Dare, who’d had been sent to back her
up even though they’d never worked together before, had been close enough to catch part of the show.
With her tracings on full display since Vaughn locked down her magic, she’d known it was only a matter of time until Dare ignored the collective assumption that the Shadow’s Angel was a man and put the pieces together.
Which was why she always worked alone.
No one could use her involvement with the rebellion against her if they didn’t know who she was. Until the other night, Rutger was the only one who knew what the Shadow’s Angel was up to.
Aside from being annoyed that Rutger sent another Shadow without a heads up—probably because he knew she’d refuse the help—she hadn’t given Dare’s appearance a second thought.
The timing of it, combined with the fact that the rebellion’s leader not only knew about her abduction, but had apparently signed off on it, was too coincidental.
Rutger was up to something, and whatever it was, he wanted her in the dark about it.
If she didn’t know Rutger, didn’t trust him with her life, she might think he’d betrayed her. The rebellion’s leader valued loyalty above all else, and she’d been as loyal as any member of the rebellion, even if she kept her involvement a secret.
He wouldn’t turn on her, she knew that. So what was she missing?
Did he know she couldn’t use her magic?
Magic doesn’t make a hero.
How many times had he told her that? No, he wouldn’t be worried about her magic being inaccessible. He’d consider it a setback for her, not a deal breaker.
Unless Vaughn was lying about Rutger signing off on her kidnapping.
Her gut said he wasn’t, but at least that would explain how she’d ended up in this situation.
“Is something else going on?” Dare asked Vaughn, drawing her thoughts from Rutger’s endgame.
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Vaughn answered cryptically. He glanced at her in the mirror and then back at the road.
“How bad?” Dare asked. “On a scale of one to ten.”
“Before he answers that, does one or ten represent the number where I get to see someone wipe the floor with you two?”
Dare rolled his eyes at her.
Vaughn’s jaw tightened as they hit another bump. “I’m pretty sure if someone sweeps the floor with us you’ll end up in a worse situation.”
Primal Bounty_Pendragon Gargoyles Page 20
