by Jamie Magee
Gavin nodded to Cashton. “Where was your chick born, what dimension?”
Cashton shifted in his seat. “Here, New Orleans.”
Indie’s stare met Gavin’s. They were on the same page. Cashton had a stone cold excuse for Indie to free him before Skylynn, whether he knew it or not. He was a King. Why he wasn’t speaking up was confusing the hell out of Indie more so with each moment that passed.
She walked around the front of her desk so she could look into his entrancing gaze, the explosion of blue and black. “You are a king in this war. You girl is a queen, true?”
Her statement made both Draven and Phoenix a little uncomfortable. Indie knew why. None of them wanted to face the fact that they were set up to take down the current Escort Kings, but Indie had dinner with The Reaper the night before. Him and a Mark Twain look-alike. There was no denying the course they were on in her mind.
“Why was your title and fate not the first words out of your mouth?” Indie asked sternly.
Gavin had come to her side. Phoenix held back, he was more so on Cashton’s side, meaning he respected the man for not bringing his girl in this war before he had to.
“She’s safe where she is,” Cashton said.
“You know for sure.”
He glanced to Draven then to Indie. “Well-protected, by several means.”
“She’s yours, though, she doesn’t deserve to be shelved.”
“She’s safe,” Cashton said tightly. “She’s happy. That’s all that matters. There is no shelf for my woman. When she wants in this war, those protecting her, those that have watched over me—one way or another will find a way to be involved.”
“And who is that? Those people? Is that why are you not asking me to free you? You have a backup plan? Why did you come here in the first place?”
Cashton leaned forward, glanced at Phoenix, then to Indie. “I came here because a seer asked me to. In some obscure way, she’s connected to those who have been seeking my freedom. I’m not a martyr, my Queen. I’m a soul who realizes this war is bigger than me, bigger than my soul mate. Unless we all make it—we’ve lost.”
Indie narrowed her stare on him, “And your seer, will she not speak to me?”
Draven spoke up, “No.”
“Her will or yours?” Indie asked him, holding her firm tone.
“Mine,” Draven said a bit coldly. “She’s under my protection. Her only role in this was to tell us you were rising. Everything else came into play when we understood that you and Phoenix were one.”
“Love,” Phoenix said quietly. His stare asked her to leave this alone for now. Indie didn’t want to, she wanted to know who was who in this war, but at the same time she didn’t want to test allegiances. It was clear to her right then that Draven meant what he said when he said it, and Cashton was much the same. They were here for the war, here because they trusted their seer.
“Camlin is our fault,” Phoenix said into the room. “We set him free and added another Lord to this mess. Logic says he should come down by our hand.”
He was taking the conversation back to the topic they had been going over for hours, and that was which Lord Indie would take out.
Taking out Camlin meant freeing Skylynn.
“So their seer wasted her breath?” Indie spat as she manifested herself back in her office chair.
The whisk of that move made the pendulum on the edge of her father’s desk sway. Indie watched the heavy circles pound into each other rhythmically. She reached forward catching two of them then let them go to collide into the others. With her touch, a tangible memory was unlocked. One of her father making that same move as he sat back in his chair watching them move. “Indie, dear, eventually, the obvious becomes such,” she heard her father’s voice say that in her mind.
Her father’s memory faded like the reflection it was. Indie still felt a presence in the room. She felt the essences of someone watching over this proceeding. It was the same presence she felt the night before at dinner. When she focused on Cashton, she could have sworn she saw a light around him.
A big, flashing light.
“I want specifics on the other Lord,” she said evenly. Stating that Camlin, as of now, was not her final choice.
Before any one of them had a chance to let out a frustrated grunt Indie spoke again. “I want to know how many souls both Camlin and the other Lord have and what roles they have. The risk behind each. This is not a choice between rising to power or not because clearly releasing the souls behind either will give me the title and power I need to fulfill my destiny. It’s not a choice of releasing Skylynn or Cashton. No matter what I choose, a chain reaction will be released. Specifics. I want those.” Indie moved her stare to Gavin, her researcher, the boy she knew relied on facts and was able to uncover the most hidden secrets.
“You have forty-eight hours,” she said to Gavin.
Chapter Seventeen
River should have been freezing, but she wasn’t. It was impossible to not feel like she was on fire each time Mason touched her. The feeling came from within and from the fire energy he kept wrapped around her.
Cotton, the snow was as abrasive as cotton.
They’d had the most epic snow fight of all time, made snowmen—a snow family actually—representing all the people they knew back home. Then they’d walked down the path of a frozen creek and explored the woods around the manor.
Sometimes they spoke with words but most of the time it was with body language. They were in perfect balance with one another, every move they made they made in sync. They would lean the same way, climb the same way, he’d support her, and she’d support him. They didn’t need words while staring at the beauty of the pristine snow clinging to all of nature.
River had forgotten how utterly aware of each other’s presence they had always been. It was why none of her friends or family ever saw her breaking away from Mason. They’d always said they were one in the same—that their slightest reaction was made simultaneously. In River’s world, coming from a family of witches, it was high praise and a heavy shame when Mason and she did part.
Her Mason hadn’t talked about Braxton, their end, or the note that was still her pocket that she feared more than once had gotten wet in the snow. They didn’t talk about what happened to him last week, his past with Indie, what happened in River’s past. No, instead they acted as if they’d never parted and as if this were some vacation they’d escaped to.
He did ask her about his family, about Soren, her sister, how everyone was doing. River supplied him with a few funny stories, ironic ones. Ones that made his life seem normal.
Every once in a while he’d say you ‘remember when’, no matter where that statement led the story shaped around one of their firsts. When the world seemed to only inhabit the pair of them, and at the end of each story one of them would steal a kiss, a brisk one, a sweet one. Once or twice the kiss wasn’t so sweet, it was one that would make Indie sweat and wish she didn’t have a mountain of clothes separating her from him.
River knew she was setting herself up for a fall, ignoring all the reasons why they would never work, and grasping all the slim reasons that they could. She was living in the past, grasping at a shaky foundation to move forward.
They had moved closer to the manor, and were now on a playground swinging on the swings. River was laughing uncontrollably as he pushed her through the air. Then all at once he wasn’t behind her pushing her forward. She glanced back wondering why, right as she felt her legs move around him.
He’d manifested in front of her and caught her on a descent. He was standing tall, and the swing was balancing her around him.
The position and the obvious change in mood took them both off guard at first. Flames rippled in his eyes. “You’re the only person that fits me this well,” he said in a deep throaty tone.
River squeezed her legs around him and put her hands on his shoulders. “I needed this afternoon. I really did.”
“Are you going to tel
l me what’s going on at home?” he asked holding her in place.
He knew she would shy away from this topic.
River didn’t want to spoil this day, not like this. This topic would lead them to others, and eventually Indie and Dagen would be on this playground with them.
“I’m moving out. We bought a townhouse, right down the street from your old house.”
A weak smile. “That’s not what I mean.”
“You want to tell me what’s going on here? How your ex’s soul mate sired you? That’s a little twisted.”
He clenched his jaw before he spoke, “Indie is my friend. She has been from day one, nothing else ever worked.”
“That didn’t answer my question,” River said adjusting herself in the swing, wishing he would let her down. Having her body wrapped around him with this topic of conversation didn’t feel right.
“We were all broken, River. Indie lost her entire family. Gavin lost his sister…you know what I lost. Together we worked through it. We just did our thing, and the bottom line was this manor was our thing. This manor felt like a home to me.”
River’s body tensed as she thought of not only the dreams she had that showed her flashes of him here but also the rude conversation she had with Phoenix before this day turned into bliss.
Mason reached to put one of his hands on her chest. “This is the home for my soul, but there is something about this manor that is familiar,” his eyes grew serious. “I always saw you here. Back then I thought maybe I was just trying to force Indie into a place you belonged.”
River tried to get away from him then, in the most obvious way, pushing against him, but he was too strong.
“Listen to me. I figured out that wasn’t what I was trying to do. It could never be. She could never be you. My point is I always saw you here. And when I found that library those feelings were justified. This life has already bonded us to a point where nothing could replace you. I’m just trying to figure out how this manor has connected us. I want to know if you feel it, too. I need to know.”
“Did Phoenix say something to you?” River asked with a shaky voice.
She hadn’t let her mind return to what Phoenix told her, how he told her she wrote those texts, that she was in love with Mason in some alternate world. She had her doubts and assurances. She had dreamed of this manor. She could read that text entirely too easily, even with her skill level. But at the same time she was a twin, so was Mason. She knew outward images were not always who they appeared to be. It was the soul, something you could only get a glimpse of when you looked into someone’s eyes. For all she knew she was just channeling someone or something else—that she resembled someone Phoenix knew in his long life.
“The last time I talked to Phoenix was yesterday. He told me to man up. I’m trying to do that.”
“Man up about what?”
“About everything I guess. Mainly you,” he said as his stare filled with hungry desire eased over her defensive expression.
“What about me?”
“Nothing specific. The way we are, this Phoenix deal, it allows us to perceive energy, to hear the truth, see emotions, take it all in within a rapid breath. I didn’t have to say a word to him. He knew I was tripping because you were here.”
“You didn’t want to see me?”
His hand that was on her thigh squeezed a little tighter. “You’re deflecting my question. I wanted to see you as much as I wanted to breathe. I didn’t want the rejection. I didn’t want the pain that I had never forgotten to be fresh again. In my head, it was easier to hope for another chance than to lose the idea of ever having a chance in the first place.”
Her eyes rapidly searched his additive image. “I don’t understand the pull to this place either.”
“But you feel it,” he said as hope filled his eyes. It was like he wanted not only the foundation they found in this life, but also the one he wondered if they had before this existence.
River took in a sharp breath. “It’s not in the right place. I thought it was in a heaven, that Braxton was there.”
Mason grew tense.
“Let me down,” River demanded, squirming on the swing once again.
“No.”
“I’m not going to run,” she promised.
“Then you’re fine where you are. You can be an island all you want River, but I’m moving into your zip code.”
River hated it when her friends said that about her. Just because she didn’t flaunt her emotions, or pull people into her internal thought process shouldn’t mean they should consider her an isolated landmass.
“Remember the bad dreams I had?” she asked.
“And the prickles, yes,” he said, nodding in understanding.
“Well, they were not dreams, I did do that. I did fight evil as a child, protecting Raven. The dreams were suppressed memories.”
Rage. That’s the only thing that could describe what was in his eyes. He wanted to rip apart anyone who had ever hurt her.
“The dreams were unlocked so we could remember how to use our energy, how to defend ourselves if evil ever came back for another round, or rather when. The thing is, the dreams never stopped. I relive them each night, and at the tail end I see this place in a bliss haze, with distant flashes of your image. I thought it was heaven, a place I’d end up. A place Braxton would be.”
River thought about telling him about how Camlin, one of the Lords of Death, had appeared in those dreams. How he told her she had trespassed, how he was more than likely stalking the perimeter of this manor at that moment and had said the same thing when she came here yesterday, but she didn’t.
She stared deep into his eyes as she went on, “Then I was flown here only to find the manor surrounded by the dead, and you inside,” her eyes searched his tense expression. “This manor is out of place. I don’t know why you or I are connected to it…I think I’m more upset because the peace I thought my friend had isn’t accurate.”
“He’s at peace.”
“Braxton?”
He let out a sigh as he held her gaze. “I had a near death experience. I saw him, in light, in peace. Not mad or anything,” he nodded to the distant brick wall. “Not like those ghosts.”
“Last week?”
The look in his eyes screamed no. It also clearly said that River didn’t want to know the details of the near death experience he was referencing.
“And you still carried the blame?” River asked in a hollow tone.
“The blame that he was gone. That my family was destroyed, that I lost everything and found solitude with people who bore the same scars.”
River would never admit it to him, but the second Jamison taught the girls and her how to navigate the Veil of Death, at least the safe layers of it, she looked for Braxton. She never found him. His grandmother told her point blank he’d moved on. Which is why it was so easy to understand her dream the way she had.
“What’s going on with Raven, what dead are you trying to raise?”
River gritted her teeth. She wasn’t sure what she should or should not say. Her and her friends were a tight-lipped group, but then again, at one time, Mason had been a part of their circle.
“Raven lost someone, and apparently she is meant to rise to power when he comes back.”
“What kind of power?”
“The kind of power that stops evil from manifesting in this world.”
“And you’re supposed to protect her?”
“She’s not weak, but in some way, yeah. I honestly think her boy can protect her more than we can. Which is why I need him back.”
He gripped her tighter. “You plan to go into the Veil after him?”
“It’s not on my calendar or anything. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes—but I feel it coming. The fight we’ve been waiting for is coming.”
“What if I went after him?” Mason asked evenly.
River knew that wouldn’t work. Both Escorts and Phoenixes could roam the depths of t
he Veil, beyond what River had been taught to navigate, but this deal with Rydell King was more political than anything. It wasn’t a matter of guiding him out of the claim on him.
Beyond that knowledge, River knew they were getting entirely too close to the topics she wanted to avoid. Like her heritage, the heritage of the boy she hooked up with.
“It might be a conflict of interest.”
“How so?” Mason asked with a raised chin.
“Let’s just say that others are working aimlessly to get him.”
“Others like the immortal you’re in a relationship with.”
“It’s a friendship.”
“With benefits.”
“Yep, a safe harbor kind of benefit, a soft place to land, a person who knows about all my skeletons and is cool with it.”
His hands gripped her thighs. “I want to be all of that for you.”
River’s eyes welled with tears. The haze of the afternoon was fading. Who she was, what she had become, her life back home all surfaced. “I’m not voiding people from life because you want back in.”
“He means that much to you?” Mason’s tone was cold, and full of pain.
“How much does Indie mean to you?”
Anger engulfed his expression. “Why do you have to bring her into this?”
“I’m not. It’s the same deal. You and Indie have partnered to do something. I have a partner, too. I’m not asking you to leave Indie behind.”
“Because you know that she’s with Phoenix. That I have never left you.”
The sting of emotions in the air between them made it hard for River to breath. “We can say all the flowery words we want, Mason. It doesn’t matter if you and her had a love affair or not. She was still there, the girl who took my place. Don’t play coy. Indie was not the only girl in your past. For all I know, last week you were on a date, and that date didn’t make it, you went to her wake this morning and are holding me now, suggesting I shut people out of my life because you’ve made an appearance.”
Flames of anger flashed in his eyes. “It wasn’t a date. She was a friend, a friend to all of us.”
