Wicked Legends: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by hamilton, rebecca

  “No,” Merritt answered for Alex. “Her brother was about to do that for us. Since he’s the one who brought her to our attention, it’s his privilege to carry her into custody. Isn’t it, Mr. Gracey?”

  Jackson glared at Danny, an obvious flare of fury.

  Merritt’s face tightened. The man’s speculative eyes met Alex’s.

  “Find her papers, Lee,” Alex told him, gesturing up to the car. “Then meet us in the Councilor’s car.”

  Jackson nodded, keeping his face down. His attention flickered between the ground and the collar.

  Really, Jackson? You think you’re the only one disgusted by the need for this? You’re not even the one involved with her, but your inability to control yourself has put her at risk! He cursed Jackson as Danny lifted his sister. He and the young agent would have a few things to straighten out once Alex had pulled their asses out of the fire and this was all over.

  By the time they made it to the Councilor’s car, Alex had already revised the spur-of-the-moment plan. Merritt would make his suspicions about Jackson known to Three as soon as he could, casting doubt on Alex himself, since he had lobbied for Jackson to be his second. Without Three’s trust in his leadership, their route might be changed, the security plan might be tweaked. Any number of small but significant changes could be made which might jeopardize the entire operation. They’d have to move the op up. They’d have to make it happen now.

  “Don’t put her on my furniture!” The Councilor’s baritone command set his teeth on edge. “She might lose control of her bowels and soil it.” Three made outraged shooing motions at Danny, urging him to pick up his incapacitated sister. “Put her over there, on the floor, away from the carpets. The floor can be scrubbed.”

  Alex snapped his fingers at Danny when the man hesitated. He pointed down to the spot on the floor as he assessed the twilit room.

  The Councilor suffered from migraines and kept his own quarters darkened. Heavy drapes on the forward and side windows blocked out the light and prying eyes. It was about as good as he could hope for.

  Alex leaned on the arm of the couch as Danny lifted Lena and hauled his sister to the corner to ease her body down. Danny held onto her head for a moment, kissing her forehead before gently settling her back against the floor.

  Alex wasn’t surprised. Guilt was a powerful emotion. He should know. He had enough of it coursing through him right now to power all of Azcon.

  Three seated himself and ran his hands through his grey hair, his fingers pausing on the patch of black at his hairline. He smoothed it, the motion almost a caress. After a moment, he dropped his hands, and his fingers drummed the cushioned armrest as he looked at Lena, a small, pleased smile quirking his lips. The smile didn’t move the seamed lines of his face, and it didn’t reach his mean eyes.

  Beneath the meanness, relief thrummed through the man. Which Councilor was Three so happy not to have to face after losing Lena? It was an academic question. They would find out shortly. Three would tell them everything.

  Danny stood in front of Three, his head bowed. “Councilor?” He waited.

  Three’s attention turned slowly to his junior aide. The Councilor’s face didn’t lose the smile.

  “I know you’ve had doubts, but I have been loyal, sir.” Danny flopped his hand in his sister’s direction, indicating his evidence. “May I ask that you please not kill her?”

  “Oh, I have no intention of killing her, Daniel.” The Councilor’s voice was resonant and generous. “We’re simply going to question her, find out where she has been. Who has been hiding her? And then she will pass to the custody of the Council.”

  “But….” Danny looked at his sister.

  “They won’t kill her, either, Daniel,” Three reassured him.

  No, they’ll throw her in prison to experiment on her. What’s a little torture to a Spark, after all?

  A quick two-note knock at the metal door sounded. The Councilor called out, “Enter.”

  Jackson stepped up into the car. He’d regained his equilibrium. His gaze moved over Lena on the floor with no reaction.

  Before the young Agent could speak, the Councilor dismissed Danny. “You should return to your transport, Daniel. We’ll send someone for you if we need your assistance again. And to discuss again what you knew about your sister. And when.”

  The young aide had effectively been confined to his bunk.

  Danny managed a miserable nod. He stepped over his sister’s leg and around Jackson to leave the car.

  After the door slid closed behind Danny, Jackson nodded respectfully at the Councilor and then lifted the papers to show Alex. “Her falsified papers, sir.”

  “I’ll take those.” Merritt leaned over and snatched them from Jackson’s hand. He looked them over, fingering the heavy paper and holding it up to a nearby candle to check its translucence. “These are quality forgeries. I can barely tell them apart from authentic ID papers.”

  That’s because they are authentic. Alex sneered internally at the man’s posturing.

  “She had help. Experienced help.” Merritt met the Councilor’s questioning look and then turned a considering gaze to Alex.

  “Thank you for stating the obvious,” Alex murmured, his voice dry. He tapped his lip as if he was thinking. “Agent Lee, I’d like you to go immediately to the nearest scout position. Inform them they are to make contact with our forward agents and pull back to reinforce us here.”

  Jackson’s single nod confirmed he understood what Alex really wanted.

  “Do you think that’s necessary?”

  “You’re going to send him?”

  Councilor Three and Merritt spoke at the same time. Alex answered only the Councilor.

  “Sir, we may have exposed a larger plot. I can’t risk that she’s part of a sophisticated group intent on removing you. We’ll make camp here tonight to ensure we are off schedule. We don’t want to be where we’re expected to be.” He returned his attention to Jackson. “Why are you still here, Agent Lee?”

  Jackson slipped out, hurrying away to the front of the caravan and the electric vehicles meant for speed and tactical response.

  Alex turned his gaze to Merritt. “At this point, Councilor, the entire security plan is suspect.” And Merritt had been the one to create it.

  Merritt blinked. “You’re not pinning this on me.”

  “Oh, no?” Alex just needed to buy time as he focused on releasing his block.

  It was time to disable the collar. Lena needed to be a part of this. She had earned it. He had to give her that, after taking so much from her.

  “No.”

  Before Alex could do more than pull his attention back from the collar, Merritt turned and slammed the door back into its track and jumped from the car. As a Spark in security, albeit a homegrown, locally educated Spark, Merritt was rated for a weapon, if barely. The man jumped away, pulling his gun and shouting for Agent Lee to come back.

  Alex brushed past the powerful frame of the Councilor, telling the man to stay inside. He unholstered his own weapon as he went after Merritt.

  “Stop right there, Merritt, or I will shoot you.” He threw his already deep voice so it could be heard clearly not only by Merritt, but by anyone in the surrounding cars.

  Merritt stopped moving forward, but he kept his weapon in his hand as he turned. “You’re making a big mistake, Reyes.”

  “No, you made the mistake. Where are they?”

  “Where are who?”

  “The assassins you’ve set up to take the Councilor.”

  “You are not pinning this on me!”

  “It was your security plan.”

  “Plenty of people had access. You had access.”

  “But not motive. It was your security plan, Lew!” Alex shifted to the left so the agent crawling beneath the car behind Merritt was no longer in his line of fire. He could sense the hovering presence of the Councilor in the door of the car. “Drop your weapon.”

  “Fuck you.”
/>
  “Drop your weapon so we can go back inside and discuss this. You can still salvage things.”

  Merritt’s hand tightened around the grip of his gun.

  C’mon, Merritt, do me a favor. Lift it.

  “If you think I’m going to let that play out, you’re a fool.” Merritt swung the weapon up.

  Alex sparked the round as he fired the gun. A red hole appeared in the center of the man’s chest. He judged it a little high. A second red hole appeared, bigger, tearing out, making the first irrelevant. The bullet came from the agent on the ground who had slithered into position under the car behind Merritt.

  He barely registered the few scattered screams from those hiding in the cars around them. In the silence afterward, he crossed to Merritt’s body, kicked away his gun, and then bent to check the man’s vitals. He looked back at the Councilor. When he shook his head, Three disappeared back into the car. The agent rolled out from under the car and trotted over to him. They were shortly joined by two more.

  He gave them their grim instructions: stow the body. Instruct everyone to hunker down in their cars until told otherwise. Create a perimeter, and confine the Councilor’s senior staff to the forward car. He and the Councilor needed to be free to discover what they could from their surviving prisoner. The men nodded.

  He picked up Merritt’s gun on his way back to the Councilor.

  Lena still lay in her heap on the floor.

  The Councilor had crossed the room to make himself a drink with shaking hands.

  “Sir?”

  Three slashed his shaking hand through the air. He wasn’t ready to discuss it yet. He raised the glass of amber liquid to his mouth with his other hand and began drinking noisily. That was fine with Alex.

  With the Councilor’s back turned, Alex crouched by Lena, reached around her neck and released the Council collar. He pulled it open.

  Her eyes cleared, and her body went rigid with rage.

  From one moment to the next, with the first blink of those beautiful blue-green eyes, he felt fear. Cold gripped him at the base of his spine and squeezed. Would anything be the same between them? He’d made the choice he’d had to. If he believed the hurt and fury on her face, the answer was no.

  Please, Lena….

  The Councilor slammed the glass on the counter in front of him and poured more whiskey.

  “So there really is a plot? There’s a conspiracy to assassinate me? Me!” He turned, drink in hand. His resonant voice dropped in shock. “What are you doing?”

  “Collaborating,” he told Three. He pulled the collar from her and tossed it across the room to the couch.

  She sat up, moving slowly. Her recovery would be too slow.

  He pulled his focus, hoped for cooperation, and then asked for what he wanted.

  The Councilor opened his mouth to shout, his brows contorted over his nose in a vee of fury. It was too late. Three choked on his words.

  Alex lunged to grip the Councilor’s arm and twist it back and straight behind his body. He removed the glass from the Councilor’s other hand and forced the man to his knees with barely a sound. Couldn’t have a man of the Councilor’s impressive size thumping onto the floor.

  “Stop,” Lena gasped. “Stop it.” She lurched to her feet. “He’s mine.”

  He nodded at her and sent out a silent wish she would get what she needed from the man’s death. She was strong. This would make her stronger. Then they could talk.

  Once she’s come to terms with who she is, we’ll be unstoppable together. She had to forgive him.

  “He always was.” He glanced at the door to her left in caution. “But quietly, Lena.”

  She straightened. “I can be quiet.” Her voice was a bare whisper, hardly louder than the hoarse, fruitless gurgles coming from the Councilor as she crossed to him.

  30

  Lena stood over the still Councilor, her head bowed. The smell of his urine filled the closed air of the car as the pool widened around his waist where he lay. The hole inside her still gaped, black and empty. If anything, it was deeper. Why wasn’t this enough?

  Because of Danny.

  Alex sat behind her on the couch. He’d settled himself there after he’d gotten answers to the soft questions he’d asked the Councilor as she worked on the man. He had learned it was Councilor Four who was making a move against Sparks, and that a major trade house stood behind him. She tried to care.

  She turned to him now, and the dark grief of betrayal welled up from that pit. She couldn’t believe her brother had been the one to force his hand.

  He leaned into the corner of the couch, legs splayed, arm propped up on the armrest and three fingers spread over his mouth and chin as he watched her. She could see her grief reflected in him.

  She left Three where he was and crossed to stand in front of him. His body tensed, muscles contracting in a barely perceptible wave as she approached. She looked to the side, at the collar beside him, open where it had come to rest when he’d pulled it off of her and thrown it across the room.

  “I wish Danny was here.” She struggled to look away from the collar back to Alex. “Just so I could snap it around his neck. So he could know what he did.”

  His eyes were very dark and, classic Alex, unreadable. “He didn’t do it. I did.”

  “I know.” She did know. And she felt a fair share of anger for him, too. But she understood why he’d done it. Alex flexed around a situation. He made it work, and it had. He wouldn’t have had to if her brother hadn’t turned on her. “But when Danny saw me, he didn’t come to me. He turned me in. If not for you, they would have killed me. He didn’t care.”

  He opened his mouth to deny it, but then closed it, opting instead to shake his head. Otherwise, he remained quiet, tense and waiting.

  She reached out and picked up the thing. Like the collars she’d removed from the girls, the thick, hollow choker of metal had a hinge on one side and a powered clasp on the other. A tiny double row of buttons led to the clasp. It looked totally innocuous. Yet her skin crawled, and her stomach twisted with fear and revulsion. She swallowed and tightened her jaw so her chin wouldn’t give away her emotions.

  He leaned forward in a slow, deliberate motion. “I’m so sorry, Lena. I should have found another way.” His hoarse voice filled with regret and self-loathing. “It was a tactical decision, always temporary. I made the decision because I know how strong you are. But it doesn’t excuse what I did.”

  “It was Danny—”

  “It was my choice. If we’re going to get past this, I need you to face it. Stop focusing on your brother and—”

  “I can’t!” She didn’t have much left, and she couldn’t lose them both. “I can understand a tactical decision. But I can’t forgive my brother turning me in. And nothing you can say will change that.” She stared at him as he reached out and took the collar from her to bend it backward and snap it at the hinge. A new fear bloomed. “Unless there’s something more? Something that would change what we had?”

  “Don’t say ‘had.’” He lifted his hands as if to reach for her, and she danced back, out of reach. He let her go. “There’s nothing more to it. It made the most sense at the time. I wish I’d found another way. It was wrong.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  “I won’t collar you again. Not ever.”

  She nodded again. “Not me. Not my girls, either.” If he tried, she’d drop him before he could raise his defenses. It didn’t matter how she felt about him.

  Alex took a deep breath and shook his head as if to clear it. “Look, we need to talk about this. But first I have to go reassure everyone that we’re dealing with things, that we’re questioning you, that we’ll have answers soon. Are you okay for now?”

  “Sure.” She took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Go do what you need to do.” She turned back to the Councilor.

  This time when Alex approached her, she didn’t pull away. His hands were gentle on her arms as he pressed a kiss to the top of her h
ead.

  “I’ll be back. And Jackson will be here soon. You won’t be alone.”

  She nodded, but said nothing.

  He left.

  She hoped Jackson wouldn’t be back too soon. Contrary to Alex’s assumption about the Councilor’s still form, the man wasn’t dead. Alex wasn’t the only one who’d improvised as needed.

  She had paralyzed Three while she tried to figure out how to make his passing enough to ease the pain inside her. As long as she had more pain welling up from inside, she had more pain to share with him. And the pain still formed a thick, untouched pool deep in her belly.

  She squatted beside his head. “Open his eyes,” she commanded.

  His eyelids peeled back. The horror and desperation in them was real, but fading. Although she’d made sure the Dust still pumped his heart, the lack of oxygen from his paralyzed lungs slowly starved his brain. That would never do.

  “Let him breathe.”

  Air wheezed in and out of his narrowed windpipe. The lights began to come back on. Terror bloomed again.

  She smiled. “Hello again, Councilor Three,” she said. “You do remember me still, yes?”

  She could see he did, and it was good. She needed to feed off the fear and pain that didn’t sate her. She hadn’t decided yet what a just retribution would be. She should decide soon, though. He was fading fast, and she could only do so much to keep him around before she’d have to heal some of the damage in order to prolong his suffering. She reached out, considering how best to heal so he still felt the pain.

  Her hands were shaking. She frowned. Why? She wanted this. She’d waited and worked toward this. She needed it to show her parents—

  Your parents would be horrified by you.

  No. No, they’d be proud. Wouldn’t they?

  The door behind her slid open and closed. She tensed and turned, still crouched beside Three.

  A look of shock and revulsion crossed Jackson’s face.

  “Lena.” His voice was strangled. “What are you doing?” He came closer, moving like a man approaching a feral animal.