by Brenda Huber
He reached for her, but she instinctively drew back. Her eyes were wide. She couldn’t catch her breath. What was real? What wasn’t? Was this yet another trick? How was she to believe her own eyes anymore?
“Phoebe?” Sebastian said, drawing up short.
“How do I know it’s really you?” Phoebe whispered, shaking her head.
He searched her face. And then he said softly, “Qui et illisium speccaté.”
Phoebe’s breath caught on a sob, and she launched herself into his arms. Sebastian wrapped her up tight, holding her until she stopped shaking.
“How can he do that?” she finally asked, her voice muffled against his shirt.
Sebastian took her by the shoulders and led her to the couch where he tugged her down beside him. “Sïnsobar is Carpathï. They are a breed of skin-shifters, or maybe a better term would be shape shifters. They can take on any human form, though most can’t hold the stolen shape for very long. Sïnsobar is…special. He can hold form for extended periods of time. Days, if necessary, I’ve been told.”
“Why didn’t he take me, like he did before?”
“He knew I’d just follow his shimmer trail. It’d be too fresh and I’d catch up faster than I did before. And he probably figured you’d put up a fight this time, now that he knows what you are.”
“What I am? I’m not anybody. I’m just me.”
He took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake.
“Damn it,” he barked. “You have to stop it. Stop denying or pretending or whatever the hell it is you’re doing. Sïnsobar can get to you. He just proved that. He did it once. He could do it again. It’s time for you to own up to what you are, figure it out. And figure out what you can do. You have to be able to protect yourself in case…in case I can’t be there to do it for you.”
She looked up at him, feeling so small. So inconsequential.
“Damn it, he did a real number on you, didn’t he?”
She frowned. “Who? What are you talking about?”
“Your father.”
“My father? He didn’t do anything to me. What are you talking about?” Now she glared at him. Why was he dragging her father into this, making her dad into the bad guy here?
“It’s the only answer I can come up with as to why you won’t take the blinders off when it comes to what you are.”
“He kept me safe. He loved me.”
“I don’t doubt that he did. In his own way. But he should have told you the truth. At the time, hiding what you are might have been the right thing to do. But hiding won’t help you now. Now you have to face it. Face it, caro mita, or it could get you killed. And I can’t live without you. You’re my life now. I love you.”
That drew her up short. She blinked up at him, at a complete loss for words. Just when she thought she had things figured out, he threw a curveball at her.
“Sebastian…I—”
“No, don’t say anything. I know that wasn’t fair to toss it out there like that. But it’s true. I’ve waited for you forever—I just didn’t realize it until I found you. You’re what I was missing. And now that I’ve found you, I don’t intend to lose you. So you’re going to have to set aside whatever hang-ups you have and face reality. Ignoring what you are…that won’t make it go away.”
“And what am I?” she shouted, angry at him for making her do this.
He ran his hands lightly up and down her arms. Gentle. Soothing. “You are a demoness, love. But your scent is human, which is really confusing. You don’t, or haven’t yet, manifested any abilities. And you haven’t fully morphed, so I can’t say as to what breed you are.”
“What do you mean, fully morphed?” Her eyes grew round. “You mean I could change fully into…into a monster? Like him? Like Sïnsobar? Or like one of those…those things in the cave?”
“Not a monster, sweet.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “And not necessarily like him.”
“Until that day in the cave when I saw all those others, until I saw you, I thought that’s what all demons looked like in their true form. Like him. Like Sïnsobar.” She fingered the scar on her throat.
Sebastian frowned, tilting his head as he took her hands in his. “Why would you think that?”
Phoebe let out a shuddering breath. “When I was a small child—the day my mother left—I saw her change. I never told my dad. She looked just like Sïnsobar does. The red skin. The black marks on her arms. The long black hair. The eyes and fangs. She—”
Phoebe broke off abruptly as memories, long suppressed assailed her. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, shaking her head.
“Tell me,” Sebastian urged softly.
“We were at the park. It was late, getting dark. We were on our way back to the car when this man stepped out of the shadows. He grabbed her, I remember. And his eyes were red. Like bright, flame red. She yelled at me to run, and I did. Only I didn’t run far. I hid in the bushes, and I watched. She changed into…” Phoebe’s voice trailed away, and she licked her lips. “She looked just like Sïnsobar. She killed that man—that demon—with her bare hands, and with her fangs. And then, just like that, she was back to normal.”
Only then did she realize she’d been rocking back and forth. Sebastian pulled her into his arms. “Finish it,” he urged.
“We went home.”
“What else happened?”
Phoebe didn’t want to face the pain again, didn’t want to take those memories out and look at them. But she did. Because he was right. She needed to remember, so that she knew what she was up against.
“When we got home, Mom sent me upstairs to play. But I could hear them shouting downstairs. I crept to the top of the steps, and I listened. She kept telling Dad that we all needed to go away. That they’d found her, and that she couldn’t go back. I don’t know who they were, or where it was that she didn’t want to go back to. Dad was so angry. He yelled at her, said it was all her fault.”
“Did she tell him about the demon in the park?”
“I don’t know. I got frightened because I’d never heard them scream at each other like that before. And then Dad told her–” She cut herself off as she finally let herself remember. “Dad told her to go. That I would never be safe as long as…”
“As long as she was around,” Sebastian finished for her.
Phoebe nodded, tears streaming down her face.
“She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, just for a moment, and she looked right at me. Her eyes turned black. Demon black. But she didn’t say a word. She just turned and left. I never saw her again.”
“Before she left you, she must have put some kind of masking spell on you, maybe even bound your powers. I didn’t notice it at first, not until I took you to Asher for a cure for the venom. The elixir he gave you must have inadvertently begun removing the spell. Or drastically weakened it. Whenever you experience strong emotions, you give off spikes of energy. And every time you begin to morph, the hole in the spell grows, exposing you. Exposing your abilities. Little by little.”
“I don’t morph.” But even as the words left her mouth, she knew them to be a lie. How many times had her fangs come out around him? And what about her hand at the ruins, how it had turned bright red, tipped with black claws?
“Yes, you do, caro mita. Most of the time, you just probably don’t realize it. Whenever we kiss? When we make love? Your eyes turn black. Sometimes only for a split second. But they turn. And when you get supremely pissed off? Your ears draw to little points.”
Her hands flew to her ears.
“Not now,” he said, smiling. “So far, that only seems to happen when I really push your buttons.”
Phoebe dropped her head. How could she deny the truth any longer?
“Phoebe,” Sebastian said gently. “It’s entirely possible that Danika left to protect you. That she
thought the only way to keep you safe was to stay as far away from you as possible. She probably bound your powers somehow and bespelled you, and then left, thinking you’d be safe with your father.”
Phoebe was silent for a long moment, nestled in the shelter of his arms. Could it be possible? Had she spent the better part of her life hating her mother for all the wrong reasons?
He drew a deep breath, as though to speak, then let it out and remained silent.
“What?” she prompted.
“You realize it’s entirely possible, from your description at least, that your mother was Carpathï?”
“Like Sïnsobar?”
He nodded.
“A skin-shifter,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “And that would make you one as well.”
She swallowed.
“How does that work?” she asked in a small voice.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, piercing her with a steady stare. “But we will find out. You’re not in this alone.”
She rolled that around in her head. It was strange, having someone like Sebastian in her life. Someone committed to her. Someone so concerned about her, worried about her wellbeing and her happiness. Her father had loved her. In his own way. But he’d always been focused on the sword first and foremost. And then there’d been the ruins.
Her mother had put her first. But she’d left. To avoid becoming someone’s prisoner. To keep her daughter from becoming one.
“So, that could happen to me? Some random demon could come along and…and take me away, lock me up, keep me like a pet? Or a slave?”
“No, love. That will never happen to you.”
Phoebe tipped her head back and peered at him, desperate to believe. “How can you be sure of that?”
He pressed his lips to her forehead, lingered there. “Because I’ve already claimed you. And no demon is stupid enough to challenge me.”
She huffed out a breath. Could he be any more arrogant? But his confidence comforted her in a strange, probably completely twisted way, and she settled her head against his chest. Her thoughts whirled.
“So Sïnsobar could impersonate anybody?”
Sebastian nodded. “Most of the time you’d be able to tell. Talk to him about something only that person would know. Sooner or later, he’d get tripped up. But it’s still dangerous because in the meantime, he’d be able to get close to you. Close enough to touch you, to shimmer away with you, or kill you, and you’d be none the wiser. Not until it was too late.”
Phoebe shot to her feet, filled with panic. “We have to warn the others, Ricardo and Marco. We need to—”
And then she sat, dumbfounded. She turned wide eyes to Sebastian. “How do we know he hasn’t…that they aren’t…”
Grim, Sebastian laced his fingers through hers and gently squeezed her hand. “We don’t.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Well, we can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Phoebe said at last. Sebastian watched, filled with pride, as she pulled herself together. “First things first. You need to send the journal and the stone away again, wherever it is that you sent them before. We can’t risk Sïnsobar getting his hands on those.”
He hadn’t expected that. He was learning all sorts of new things about his little mate. One of which, she may be taken by surprise, but she bounced right back and flourished under pressure. And she was practical. With a thought, Sebastian vanished the items in question. “I’ll conjure them back for you whenever you want them.”
“I know,” she said in that absent sort of way she had when her mind was already on the next subject. Sebastian grinned despite the dire situation. “What next?” she asked softly, as though speaking to herself.
Before he could respond, she was already in motion, thinking on her feet, pacing the confines of the tent as she ticked points off her mental list. “You and I have to stick together. There’s no question there. If he can impersonate you well enough that it fooled me once, I don’t want to take that chance again.”
Now his grin nearly split his face. Well, that would certainly save on arguments later if she thought it was her idea.
“Somehow, we have to figure out if Ricardo is really Ricardo,” she went on. “That should be easy enough. But I don’t know what to do about Marco. I don’t know him well enough to say if it really is him, either way. And we need to find that damned sword before they do.”
That caught his attention. “Phoebe, stop.”
He caught her hand as she passed by and tugged her around until she finally focused on him.
“You say that like you believe it’s here. Close by.” When she bit her lip, he lost patience. “We’re in this together. We are mated. No more secrets.”
He could see it the moment she made up her mind. And he didn’t know whether to be relieved, or pissed off that she hadn’t gotten to this point sooner.
“If my suspicions are correct, then yes, the sword is very close by.”
“Explain,” he demanded.
“According to Dad’s journals, when he had Dr. Brewster examine the sword, he also commissioned him to have a replica forged. I believe, on that first excavation we returned to right after the fire…an excavation that brought us here to Calakmul… That my father hid the real sword in the ruins. And I believe the sword that was stolen was the replica.”
Sebastian stared at her, stunned. “But any demon that got close to it, that touched it, would know it was a fake. They wouldn’t have been able to sense any resonating energy source—”
“Dad took care of that.” She shot him an uneasy look. “He had Dr. Brewster take fragments of the bone, chips of the stone, and slices of the skin and inlaid them into the replica, hoping that if there were paranormal properties present, the DNA samples and the shard of Jasper would give off enough energy to fool any thieves. At least, until the real sword could be moved if necessary.”
“Smart,” Sebastian said. Hope soared as grudging admiration for Phoebe’s father grew. The man had been smart. Cautious and smart. At least, he had been when it came to the sword. Now when it came to his wife and his daughter, on the other hand, that was another story. “It must have worked, because, as far as we know, Stolas believes he has the real sword.”
“Good. Now, I haven’t been able to translate much yet, but the lines I did get to so far are promising. I’m more certain now than I was before that—”
A huge explosion rocked the campsite. Sebastian dove for Phoebe. Wrapping his arms around her, he took her to the floor and covered her with his body. The blast had been so close that his ears were still ringing. Keeping a protective arm wrapped around her head, and the bulk of his body hovering over hers, he leaned up and looked around.
The corner of the tent was on fire. Smoke was already beginning to billow inside. Through a tear in the fabric, Sebastian could see shadows moving outside. Phoebe pushed up from the floor.
“What happened?”
“We’re under attack.”
“Ricardo,” she whispered. Then, before he could anticipate, she shoved herself up and was sprinting out of the tent.
“Damn it,” he hissed as he followed her.
He found her crouched between Ricardo and Marco near a pile of overturned crates. Ricardo had a rifle, and he was firing at anything that moved. Phoebe had procured a pistol, and she, too, was returning fire. Only the demons that were pouring into the camp weren’t shooting with the same caliber. Plasma balls flew willy-nilly through the darkness, igniting whatever they landed on, including Ricardo’s tent.
Sebastian morphed. He had no choice. There were just too many demons to fight. His primary concern was getting to Phoebe. How she’d managed to cross the camp to get to the others so quickly was a mystery to him, but he had his suspicions. Perhaps she had a specialized power all her own.
Swarms came at him, ri
ght and left. When a bullet whizzed by his head, he shot a sharp look to the humans crouched near his mate. Phoebe already had her hand on the barrel of Ricardo’s gun, pushing it in another direction. She shook her head vehemently and she shouted at the old man.
Confident his mate had the situation in hand, and that he wouldn’t be suffering from lead poisoning in his ass before the end of the fight, he continued slashing and smashing his way through camp.
A shiver of awareness went down his spine when he heard a dark laugh from nearby.
Ashïek.
Damn it. He had to get to Phoebe. Now.
As he ripped the head from one fallen foe, he stepped over another on his way to her side. And then his heart lodged in his throat. Ashïek shimmered right behind her.
Before Sebastian could shout warning, before he could move, Ricardo spun about and made to shoulder the rifle. But the demon was just too close, a plasma ball already formed in his palm. Sebastian sprinted toward them, but even as he did so, he knew he’d be too late. Phoebe’s focus was on the demon standing over Marco, claws extended on a downward, lethal slash. She had her gun up and was already squeezing the trigger, not that the bullet would stop the demon for long. Ricardo shot one glance over his shoulder, long enough to take note of Sebastian’s approach, long enough to realize that Phoebe’s back was unprotected.
And then Ricardo threw himself to the side, directly into the path of the plasma ball aimed straight at Phoebe’s back. The projectile hit the old guide square in the chest. Sebastian arrived in time to catch him before he hit Phoebe. She whirled around, her wide-eyed stare going from the huge charred hole in Ricardo’s body to Ashïek’s smug face.
One second Phoebe was there. Shocked. Horrified. Grief-stricken. And the next, an enraged Carpathï demoness bent on destruction had taken her place.
Sebastian blinked. He’d been expecting this. Well, not this exactly. But he’d been expecting to see her morph, sooner or later.
But to actually see it…took his breath away.
And stunned him long enough for a sneaky Charocté to get in a lucky shot. Pain slashed across his ribs, and he bellowed. He had time only for a backhanded blow to his attacker before he had to leap after his mate. She was already charging after Ashïek, murder in her eyes.
