A ray of static shot out from Sierra’s stunner as she fired.
Kaylan landed, stared down at the unconscious form of Flynn Zegan.
“Great, now he’ll know about us too.” Sierra groaned. “Kay, can we please get out of here?”
“Freya always had a thing for the pretty boys,” Kaylan replied, shaking her head. “Given how useless he is with magic, I don’t know why she sent him. Let’s tie him up and go.”
“What are we going to do with him?”
“Leave him and let’s move.”
“First I have something I want to try.” Sierra fumbled in her backpack, pulled out a vial of blue liquid. First, she poured a few drops into Norbert’s throat then Flynn’s.
“What’s that?” Kaylan asked.
“Geth gave it to me. It’s a potion that erases short-term memories.” Sierra hoisted her bag back on. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Not before I finish looking round. We might find another clue to the book or what else Freya plans for her big day.” Kaylan darted down the hall, glancing around a corner to check for more guards and seeing none.
“Kaylan, we need to get out of here before more people come after us,” Sierra insisted.
“Okay. Then either go out and find Elijah or help me.”
They moved down a narrow corridor. Strange they hadn’t found any sign of more guards. Freya wouldn’t just leave a place like this unprotected where anyone could just waltz in. Freya knew what the last remaining members of the Amaranthine were capable of.
“Kay, I have a bad feeling about this,” Sierra murmured.
“Duly noted.”
At the end of the passage sat another set of double doors with a glowing control panel. Sierra got to work as Kaylan tried to use her heightened senses to try and hear anything coming from inside. She heard the drone of equipment, smelt the stench of industrial cleaner, but couldn’t get much else. Despite being Elijah’s mate now, she didn’t have the same abilities that he had. It just made her stronger and heightened her natural senses.
“How long before you can get the doors open?”
Sierra sighed. “Maybe an hour. This is way more advanced than normal technology.”
Kaylan gritted her teeth. She didn’t have an hour. Every minute lost was a minute wasted. “Stand back.”
Sierra backed away, brow creased in confusion.
She kicked the panel, wincing from the force of the impact. The control panel sparked with static just as an explosion of energy blinded them.
Chapter 6
Elijah doubled over as pain tore through him and the building in front of them trembled. The ground beneath their feet shook from the force of an explosion.
“Fuck, what was that?” Geth muttered.
Elijah put an arm out to keep himself upright as he took several deep breaths. “Kaylan…” was all he managed to choke out.
He knew something was wrong. Worse than wrong. He felt her get hit. He had to get to her right now. Elijah gripped the door; claws bared and ripped it off its hinges. Tossing the door aside, he raced down the corridor.
Two shifter guards stood watch, bracing themselves for attack as Elijah gutted them both. He blazed towards Kaylan. The smell of sulphur and the acrid scent of burning chemicals filled the air as he stopped in an open doorway. The door had been blown off and lay in the hallway. Sick plumes of black smoke billowed out, making it almost impossible to see into the room beyond.
“Kaylan?” He felt her presence here. She had to be alive. If she were dead – no, he wouldn’t consider that. “Kaylan!”
Geth ran down the corridor, coughing as he came. “Shit! Where are they?”
Elijah dove into the smoke. It stung his eyes, making them burn with pain as he coughed, almost choking. Nothing mattered without Kaylan. He tried to see, but couldn’t make anything out in the blanket of darkness. Kaylan!
Geth stumbled in after him. “Kay? Sierra?”
“Stay back,” Elijah told him. “I can survive the fumes, but you might not be able to.” He kept his senses on alert, searching for any trace of his mate or Sierra. The sound of wheezing made his heart beat faster as he headed for it. His eyes and lungs burned from the acrid burning as he grabbed hold of something and dragged it out.
It was Kaylan, face covered by blackness, but she was still breathing. Bits of shrapnel protruded from her arms, which she must have used to shield herself from the blast.
“I’ll take care of her. Please find Sierra,” said Geth.
He glanced back at Kaylan and knew she’d want him to do the right thing.
The smoke felt heavier as he scoured the floor and headed back inside, searching for any sign of Sierra. He almost tripped over something. Kneeling, he grabbed hold of it and pulled Sierra out. Sierra looked worse with pieces of debris embedded in her chest.
“This is bad,” Geth said. “We need a healer.”
Elijah yanked bits out of Kaylan, knowing their bond would heal her. The wounds stopped bleeding, but didn’t close.
“Michael, go and get Aiden and bring him back here with healing supplies,” Elijah barked.
Michael disappeared in a blur of light.
Elijah scrambled through Kaylan’s backpack, trying to find her healing kit. He spotted a bottle of Dittany Oil, pulled out the cork and handed it to Geth.
He wanted to use it on Kaylan, but knew Sierra needed it more.
“I don’t think this is going to do much good,” Geth remarked as he pulled out a sharp piece of metal out of Sierra’s shoulder and applied a few drops of the oil.
“Come on, let’s get back to the tunnels and work on them there,” Elijah said.
Chapter 7
Darkness swirled around Kaylan. Her body ached all over and her limbs throbbed as a thousand tiny needles stabbed through her. In the distance, she heard the murmur of voices. Light beckoned her, but she didn’t want to go back. Not yet. Through the emptiness, she tried to focus on a time and place where there was no pain, no darkness. Where the world had felt safe.
Colour swept into focus as light streamed through the high arched windows looking out onto the grounds.
Edmund sat at his desk, looked up at her. “Kaylan, are you even listening to me?”
She blinked, surprised to find herself in his study. The room had been destroyed, she knew. This was a memory, another fragment of what she had lost. But why here? She always seemed to come back to this place.
“I’m listening,” she murmured, running a hand along the smooth surface of his desk.
“Good. This is important.” Edmund held out a large, blue leather-bound tome and pushed it towards her. “The Amaranthine Chronicles must be protected at all costs.”
Kaylan looked down then. The book so many had died and suffered for. There it was, in her grasp. She wanted to reach out and touch it but had to remind herself to it was just a memory.
“The book must be hidden,” Edmund went on. “With the way Thedric Zegan is stirring up trouble within the Order, I fear we will soon have a revolt on our hands.”
You have no idea, she thought.
“Why hide it? Why can’t we use it for good?” Kaylan couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. But then her younger self had no idea what kind of danger just the thought of that book could produce.
“The book must never be used. All the magic within its pages comes with a price,” Edmund warned. “One that could cost your life or someone you care about. The Amaranthine’s duty is to do justice and to rid the world of dark magic. Our ancestors wrote it all down so future generations could recognise and stop it.”
“But Dad, think of what we could…” The look on her father’s face cut off her last words. “What must I do?”
“Recite this spell with me.” He rose and joined her on the other side of the desk. “Afterwards I’ll erase the memory from both our minds. Remember, Kaylan, if anything happens to me, it’s your duty to keep the book safe.”
She nodded,
recited the spell and watched the Amaranthine Chronicles vanish in a burst of gold light. She stared at the empty place on the desk for a moment. “What if I need to find it again in the future?”
She didn’t want to think of a future without him in it. But she’d do her duty as his daughter, as one of the Amaranthine.
“You’ll know where to look.” Edmund touched her forehead as colours whirled around her.
The memory vanished like a ripple leaving only darkness in its wake.
Kaylan groaned as she focused her way back to full consciousness. Her arms and legs throbbed, her body wrenched with a deep ache which made her want to curl up into a ball. But she ignored it. Pain didn’t matter. She had finally found a clue to the book’s whereabouts.
“Lie still.” Elijah appeared at her side. “You’re going to be okay. Although I swear you are taking decades off my life.”
“You’re a shifter. You have centuries ahead of you.” She gave him a weak smile. “Where’s Sierra?”
“She’ll be all right. Aiden is working on her now.” He clutched her hand and kissed it.
She glanced around the dimly lit cavern with its sloping ceiling and realised they were underground. “Who is Aiden?”
“He is a shifter like me. He was imprisoned by the Order until recently,” Elijah explained. “He uses shifter magic to heal others.”
Kaylan forced herself to sit up, wincing from the pain. She could feel her body healing, but knew it would take a few hours before all her wounds faded. Too bad she didn’t have Elijah’s near-instant rejuvenation. “We need to go,” she told him. “I have to get to the mansion.”
Elijah’s eyes widened, he shook his head. “No, you need to rest. We’ve done enough damage for one day.”
“Elijah, we’re running out of time.” She gripped his hand. “I can’t afford to rest.”
“She has a point,” Sierra said from the bed next to them and winced as Aiden pulled more shrapnel from her body. “Go. Once Aiden has finished up, I’m getting to work on that crystal you found at Silas’s house.”
Elijah opened his mouth to protest but Kaylan cut him off. “Are you coming with me or not?” she asked.
He scowled. “Yes, I need to make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”
She grinned. “I love you too.”
Kaylan let him pick her up, knowing it would be faster for him to carry her through the labyrinth of tunnels.
“Why did you leave me this morning?” Elijah murmured.
She was getting used to blurring; it felt like flying, only faster.
“Because I had to find out what Freya is planning. Going undercover was the only way to get it.” She forced herself to keep her eyes open as they whizzed through the blackness.
“Right. So why didn’t you tell me about it?”
She sighed. “Because I knew you’d never let us go alone.”
“Yes, and I’d have been right.”
“If you had, you’d never have found Aiden,” she pointed out.
“Kaylan, we bonded. We’re supposed to be partners and trust each other.”
“I do trust you.”
“Yeah, well, trust works both ways.”
“We need to trust that we can be apart when we have to be,” Kaylan said.
Elijah scowled but nodded. “I’ll always feel the need to keep you safe. I can’t change that. But you’re right,” he admitted. “Why are we going back to the mansion?”
“I remembered something when I was unconscious. I need to look for the book one last time. My lost memories have slowly been coming back since Freya forced me to remember things. I know my father hid the book from everyone and he said it wouldn’t reveal itself until it was needed most.”
“Maybe it would be better if it stayed lost,” Elijah remarked. “Freya wouldn’t be able to follow through with her plans.”
Kaylan shook her head. “She’d commit bloody murder anyway even if she didn’t get it. I need to know the complete formula if we’re going to stop her.”
“Geth thinks he can create cure the others – whether it will be in time I don’t know.”
Kaylan let out a breath as they came to a sudden halt. “Good,” she said. “Are you sure this is the tunnel which leads to the study?”
He nodded, pushed at the wall until he found the spot and the door swung open. She gripped his hand as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Night had fallen and only small slivers of light came through the broken windows. A breeze blew over her face, the air still filled with a faint scent of burned remains from the explosion the day earlier.
Freya seemed to have developed a fondness for blowing things up.
Kaylan and Elijah scrambled through the remains. It made her heart ache to see her father’s favourite room destroyed. This place now seemed to belong in the past with happier memories.
“How are we going to find anything?” Elijah muttered. “There’s nothing left.”
Kaylan let go of his hand and knelt in the remains of ashes where the bookcases had once stood. “The book wouldn’t have been harmed. It’s too powerful for that.” She reached through the dust, but felt nothing that resembled a book.
What had those words been that she and Edmund had recited? The more she tried to remember, the hazier it became. Edmund had done a good job at suppressing the book’s location.
She muttered the words, waited but nothing happened.
She and Elijah scoured the ruined room for clues, and found nothing.
“Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream?” He raised his hands in surrender at her scowl. “I’m just saying. You hit your head.”
“Yes, but like you, I have a hard head.” Kaylan walked over to the place where the desk had been, muttering spells one last time. She leant back against Elijah’s body as he slipped his arms around her and hugged her.
“Whatever happens, we’ll get through it,” he murmured. “Together.”
She smiled, noticed a brilliant burst of gold light on the floor and pulled away. Kneeling, she scraped away the ashes to reveal a golden Amaranthine flower. “Elijah,” she gasped. “This is it. The Amaranthine Chronicles.”
Elijah fell to his knees beside her, picked up the heavy blue tome. “I don’t believe it.” He handed it to her.
“So much pain and death for just one book,” Kaylan muttered. She flipped it open and saw only blank pages.
“Let’s go. We can’t afford to stay here any longer.”
Kaylan tucked the book into her pack, slung the bag over her shoulder and wrapped her arms around Elijah’s neck for him to pick her up.
The doors burst open as a yellow eyed shifter snarled at them, fangs bared.
Elijah dropped her to the ground, then thrust her behind him.
Kaylan fumbled for one of her knives but couldn’t reach it as the man grabbed hold of Elijah, slamming him against the far wall. Stone and dust flew everywhere. She winced from the force of the impact. Maybe Norbert had made the shifters stronger than Elijah.
Elijah snarled, slashed his assailant. Go, get out of here, he told her.
I can’t just leave you here, she insisted. What was it you said about being partners?
He growled, shoving the other shifter away and dodging the next blow. The book is too important.
Not to me. The book meant nothing if she didn’t have him. That wouldn’t happen. Not again.
Kaylan grabbed onto the shifter’s back, using her flying power to elevate herself as she plunged her knife into his back. It glanced off his rib cage, just missing his heart. He grunted, flung his arm backwards and sent her crashing to the ground.
This will do my injuries wonders! Kaylan scrambled up, struggling to regain air into her lungs. My knife! Use my knife!
Elijah continued to slash and claw at his attacker.
Elijah grabbed onto the blade, using his strength to plunge it through bone and cartilage, yet the shifter continued to fight. Elijah raised a hand, claws ripping through flesh as he tore out the man
’s heart.
The shifter’s eyes widened in shock as he stared down at his still beating heart.
“Now you can never tell anyone we were here.” Elijah squeezed the heart, crushing in his palm.
“I didn’t want any more of them to die,” Kaylan breathed. “I want to cure them.”
“So do I, but we can’t save everyone.” He wiped away the blood on his hands and incinerated the body. “Let’s get out of here, love.”
Kaylan nodded, giving one last look at her father’s ruined study.
“Some things belong in the past,” she muttered as Elijah took her hand.
He walked over to the passageway, frowned and then cursed. “It wasn’t the only one.” He pulled her into his arms and shot down the tunnel so fast Kaylan didn’t have time to think.
Three more shifters appeared, blocking their escape route.
Bugger! She should have known they would never get into the mansion undetected. Go the other way! she cried.
Elijah blurred in the opposite direction. Kaylan caught the gleam of golden eyes right behind them as they hurried through the tunnel.
Turn right. I think it leads to another room.
I’d rather stay out of the mansion! Elijah said but did she suggested.
It finished in a dead-end as he pressed the wall, dropped her to the ground and slammed the door shut.
Kaylan fished a crystal out of her pocket, put it in front of the door. A ball of glowing white light formed into award.
“I don’t think that will keep them out for long,” Elijah remarked.
“It will for now.” Kaylan let out a breath and pushed away the cobwebs as her eyes adjusted to the gloom.
It wasn’t a bedroom as she’d hoped. It was a storage cupboard filled with chairs and old disused furniture.
Elijah started running his hands along the walls. “There must be another way out.”
“It’s late. Maybe we should rest for a while,” she suggested. “Sierra made the ward strong enough to keep shifters out.”
His eyes widened. “How can you rest at a time like this?”
She pulled off a sheet to reveal a settee that had seen better days. “It’s been a long night.”
The Amaranthine Chronicles Complete Series: Betrayed By Blood, Dark Revenge, The Final Battle Page 16
