Fate's Journey (Scourge Survivor Series Book 5)

by JL Madore

  I swiped at my cheeks, furious that tears had the nerve to fall and make me look weak. “I’m not a Fate—not anymore.”

  “You still act like one.”

  I clenched my fists at my sides, my powers burning in my palms to let loose. “How am I supposed to act, Kobi? Please, gods, tell me because I haven’t got a clue. I’ve lived a cloistered life with one purpose. Now, everything I understood about my life is gone—taken from me by people who should have been on my side . . . who should have loved me.”

  “You don’t believe in love. It’s a waste of energy, right? A myth. A fallacy?” The edge in his voice pierced me like a blade through my chest.

  “Don’t sound so cynical, you think so too.”

  “Do I?” He laughed, scrubbing the back of his neck. “Have you ever asked me? You tell me that you accept me for who I am, yet judge me with the same lens as everyone else.”

  The door swung open, and Aust stepped in, eyes wide, his expression hard. “Stop this, both of you.”

  Faolan trotted in at his heel, with Paladin nipping at the wolf’s tail. The puppy had made a fast friend. Aust locked the door and crossed the room, hands extended. “Jade is upstairs fighting for the life of her young, and you two are in here airing your hostilities. Unacceptable.”

  He stormed into the mix, grabbed Kobi’s wrist and dragged him over to me and grabbed mime. “The two of you, join your hands. Now. Do it!”

  Stunned by Aust’s autocratic tone, I obeyed. Kobi frowned, but we completed the circuit.

  “Your passions are heated, I understand that, but bridge the gap between hurt and anger.”

  Kobi sighed. “Aust, I appreciate—”

  “Not a word,” he said, pointing a finger. “I care naught for your appreciation. Shut up and listen.”

  I almost laughed at Kobi’s expression. Aust was on fire.

  “I know well the hurt and betrayal of love. My village. My beloved. My best friend. When we hurt, we hurt others in turn. Mostly, we torment ourselves. If you stop to speak your heart’s songs, those tender blooms you protect to the depth of your souls, the pain and confusion clear, and you are left with truth.”

  “Yeah,” Kobi said, “and what truth is that, Highborne?”

  He squeezed our arms and sighed. “You, my stubborn, oblivious friends, have fallen in love despite yourselves.”

  I shook my head, trying to draw breath past the pressure in my chest. “This doesn’t feel like love.”

  “And have you been in love before, sweeting? Would you recognize it? Did you grow up in a home with two parents who would die for one another? I did. Now take away the pain of your situations and look at one another.”

  Kobi rolled his eyes. “You’re reaching on this one, my man. Physical connection when the world is spiraling around you doesn’t add up to love.”

  “But you do believe in love, yes?”

  Kobi nodded. “I live with Bruin and Mika. I witnessed the transformation in him last August and felt the power of their love as it took them over. Yeah, it’s out there.”

  “And you want that for yourself?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Someday.”

  Aust frowned. “Someday? You are a brave male of worth. Stop being a coward and pretending Zophia means less to you than she does. Admitting your truth is more terrifying than battle, is it not?”

  “I’d rather be speared by a nine-inch blade. In the eye.”

  Aust smiled. “Then if you value my feelings in the wake of what I lost, mount your courage and speak your truth.”

  Kobi scowled, his chin jutted. When he met my gaze, licks of gold flames danced across the scarlet of his eyes. “All right, I admit it. Maybe I do love you. Maybe. I never meant for it to happen and it makes me want to puke . . . or get pissed drunk.”

  “That is fear talking,” Aust said. “What else?”

  Kobi sent Aust a look which was the ocular version of giving him the finger. “A never-ending loop is screaming in my skull. She’s a goddess, and you’re a fucking incubus demon, you idiot. You’re not what she wants. Or needs. If you trust in this, she’ll throw it in your face.”

  “That’s what you think of me?”

  “I’m just sayin’, if you want to run, run now. If you want to laugh at the demon who caught a case of feelings, have at it. But know that it’s more than the sex—on my side anyway.”

  I stared at him, mouth agape. “I had no idea. I . . . uh, don’t know what to say.”

  “Dig deeper, Zophia,” Aust said, frowning. “Kobi exposed his heart. Show him the respect of doing the same.”

  I thought about what Kobi had said and tried to connect with what was happening in my own body and mind. “Can my soul’s truth be that I honestly don’t know what to say?”

  Kobi withdrew his hand, and I gripped his t-shirt to keep him from retreating. “You are important to me, Kobi, yes. But love? My mind is filled with fear and anger. My mother is missing. I’m exiled from my life. I can’t decide what to wear each day, let alone where my heart belongs. If your truth is that you might maybe love me, I’m grateful. I’m hopeful. I know that it is more than sex, but I need life to settle before I can say for sure what I feel.”

  “That is fair,” Aust said, tilting his head toward me. “There is still much to do. Kiss, and let your argument come to its end.”

  Kobi frowned. “Not sure what wasp flew up your ass. You’re awfully bossy tonight, blondie.”

  Aust nodded. “We are a team. Let us act like one.”

  Kobi took a long look at me, the hurt and anger in him visible in his dark eyes. In the end, he didn’t kiss me. He shook his head and stepped back. “Give me a minute, would you?”

  When he walked off toward the window, Aust pulled me into his embrace. The pain and fear of the past fifteen hours weighed heavier than my crumbling sex life, or love life, or whatever it was.

  Worry sat like a stone in my gut. Aust kissed the side of my head, and I let his warm strength seep beneath my skin.

  “Fash not, sweeting,” he said. “Everything that happens has a reason. It shall all work out in the end.”

  I cupped Aust’s jaw in my hands. “Bree is a fool. You are far too wonderful for words.”

  I rose to my toes and pressed my lips to his cheek. The connection was soft and chaste. He tasted like sunshine and smelled like suede and the outdoors.

  Paladin barked, and Aust’s hand stiffened against the small of my back.

  “Look at you two,” a voice crooned behind me. “My Zozo happy with her betrothed.”

  I spun and almost tripped on Hoola, the two of us racing to the overstuffed sofa. Hoola sprang and bounded into her lap, upsetting the huge red-tailed hawk perched on her arm. I stared as the bird settled, praying for Castian’s sake it was Abbey.

  “Mom, what are . . . how did you get here?”

  She smiled, but her expression seemed tired. “How does the sun shine, baby girl? Power and light. No one keeps me from my Zozo. Especially not your father.”

  In my peripheral vision, Kobi slipped out the door. It wasn’t Reign who mattered. It was Castian I wanted. I closed my eyes, opened a connection to my uncle, and sent an urgent call for him to come to me.

  I brushed my mother’s hair out of her eyes and drank in the sight of her. “Are you all right?”

  Aust took the bird over to the lampstand so I could get a better look. She seemed physically intact, but something felt wrong. Whooping and chattering as Hoola was, it was hard to get a sense of anything beyond how upset she had been at our mother’s disappearance.

  Aust took a knee. “Milady, are you well? Is there anything I might get for you?”

  “I’m very thirsty, son. Dane was never one to anticipate the needs of a woman. He locked me in a room and left me there as if I was a piece of furniture.”

  Aust excused himself, and I focused on the grimoire in my mother’s lap. “What’s this?”

  “A book. I’m not sure what, but Dane coveted it, so I took it when I
left. May he rot with the loss of it.”

  The library door creaked open, and a flood of people washed in. Aust returned with Elora, and a tray of lemonade, tea, water, and cookies. Kobi brought in Reign and Julian. Hoola clung to my mother’s neck as Paladin stood on his back paws, licking her hand.

  Reign stepped forward, but I raised a hand, and he paused.

  I exchanged the jug of lemonade for Rheagan’s spell book and then poured a glass. “Drink this and tell me all about your adventure. Where did Dane take you? Were there other people there for you to talk to?”

  The air charged, and the scent of bergamot brought Castian to the group. “Shalana,” he said, rushing forward. “Blessed be, dear friend. What news have you of Abbey?”

  I pointed to the hawk perched by the window and Castian raced over. I stroked Hoola’s back, praying that my aunt was indeed in her animal form, and not still trapped by Rheagan.

  Mom bit into a cookie. “These would be better warm.”

  “Mom,” I said. “Castian asked you about Abbey.”

  Shalana shrugged. “The woman with Dane looked like Abbey, but her words were wrong. She was a trickster. She talked like we were sisters, like she knew me, but she didn’t. I pretended not to notice and brought the real Abbey home.”

  “You did great, Mom. I’m so proud of you.”

  “But she spoke to you?” Castian rounded the sofa and sank onto the coffee table opposite us. I don’t know if he sat so much as his knees gave out, the bird on his arm rustling her wings to keep balanced. He stroked down her back and kissed her head. “My darling, I need you to focus. Can you tell me everything the woman who wasn’t Abbey said to you?”

  Mother smiled. “Like a memory game?”

  He nodded. “Exactly.”

  “And if I win?”

  “You name it. Anything you want.”

  “Zozo will make me brownies every night for forever . . . and Aust too.” She craned her neck to look around me and found Aust. “Do you bake, son? We like to bake. It’ll be good if you bake too.”

  He joined us at the sofa and squeezed my shoulder. “I assure you, Zophia and I will keep you sated in sweets, e’ermore.”

  “Okay, wonderful,” Castian said, reclaiming my mother’s attention. “Now, our memory game. What did you hear Dane and the woman who wasn’t Abbey say?”

  “Can I do the voices?”

  Castian nodded, and my heart went out to him. “Of course. If it makes the game better, do the voices.”

  And she did. My mother spent the next forty-five minutes recounting word for word everything she could remember.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When Castian dematerialized from Reign’s library, I followed. Wherever he was going, whatever he had planned, I wanted to be part of it. When he stormed into his private chambers, I hesitated. The thunderous boom of the door slamming behind him echoed in time with the violent skies outside. I had never seen him in such a rage. And as much as he likely needed time to himself, it was dangerous to let the God of gods boil over.

  I knocked and let myself in. Blood and rubble horribly tainted the opulence of the once pristine space. Ironic really, the carnage my father left behind.

  Castian stiffened as I approached but didn’t turn. “You should go, Zophia. I’m not fit company.”

  I righted the chair in the reading nook and took a seat. “That’s exactly why I’m here. I understand better than anyone the betrayal of Dane and siblings stabbing you in the gut. Yell or throw things, or sit and stew, I don’t care. I’m here for you as you have always been for me.”

  Gripping the raised platform where Abbey had lain dormant for almost two decades, he leaned heavily into his rigid shoulders. “As much as it enrages me that my siblings cause such strife in the Realm of the Fair, what truly strikes me to the core is that it’s all my fault. If I had wiped Dane from existence when he orchestrated the attack on Jade at that farmhouse, they wouldn’t be suffering now. And if I had expired Rheagan when she tried to take the realm the first time, Abaddon wouldn’t have culled through the realm to build his soulless army.”

  My mind stuttered to a halt. Was my father involved with the attack on Jade? Arranged it or been part of the violations on Abbey? Did it matter? I knew one of the offenders had yet to be punished, but—to target his brother’s family?

  I’d never imagined the depths of Dane’s duplicity.

  “Millenia of sitting back,” Castian continued, his voice hard and strained, “believing our charges should find their way. To what end? It was sheer arrogance, to believe I could rule the Pantheon with honor and guidance alone. Hell, my own Fae Council turned against me.”

  He screamed, and the bedding platform shot across the room. The glass window-wall smashed as the dais slid out onto the balustrade and dropped to the grounds below. “Now Abbey is trapped in her hawk form; her body possessed to wage war against me. How do I destroy Rheagan now?”

  “You can’t.”

  Turmoil flashed in his emerald green eyes. “I gave Abbey immortality after her attack and Dane knew it. He also knew that with Abbey’s corporal self on the line, I’d never strike against Rheagan. Why hadn’t I considered that? And to hide the spell book within Abbey’s platform—my arrogance truly knows no bounds.”

  I went to him and squeezed his hand. “You would never intentionally put Abbey in harm’s way, and it’s a moot point. The spellbook is back under our control, and we’ll find a way to extricate Rheagan and rescue Abbey’s body intact. Then, you can deal with your siblings as a husband and man, not as the leader of the Pantheon. There are no tenets to save them. You will exact justice and crush their evil uprising for good.”

  He nodded, staring at the rain rushing inside the smashed wall. “No mercy shall find them. No quarter given. This ends, Zophia. And it ends now.”

  I hugged his rigid frame. “Where do we start?”

  Lia’s Advisory Council was assembled in the conference room rotunda when I arrived at the Crystal Palace with our guests. The four of us rematerialized next to the ebony table, and the heads of the major races and the Celt guardians of the Queen all turned. The looks on their faces were priceless, but I suppose not everyone had met the Gypsy Queens before.

  “Sorry we’re late,” I said, sending a smile to Lia poised in her high-back throne at the head of the table. “May I introduce you all to the Oracles of the Modern Realm: Clare Voyant, Amanda Playwith, and Cara Zmatic.”

  The three gave a Queen’s wave and blew kisses to the men gathered as I gestured to them each in turn.

  “Queens must stick together,” Cara said. She winked at Lia and flipped her fuchsia ponytail behind her broad, muscled shoulders.

  “Damn, girl,” Amanda said, her gaze glued on Lia too. “Look at you, rocking the red suede.”

  Dressed in a red suede pantsuit and halter—obviously custom crafted for her by Iadon—and sporting silver armbands which matched the color of her hair perfectly, Lia both dazzled and commanded respect.

  “Sexy regal, sweetie. Oooh and we brought you the perfect coronation gift to accent the look.” Clare strutted around the table and held a long, rectangular box across her wide palms. “For a beautiful and powerful leader, with our congratulations.”

  “Gratitude.” Lia accepted the gift and set the box on the table. She untied the plush, red velvet ribbon, lifted off the lid, and tunneled through the rainbow tissue. With a puzzled look, she extracted a silver riding crop. “Uh, this is very thoughtful. I appreciate—”

  “Give it a whip, honey,” Cara said.

  “Like you mean it,” Amanda added.

  Lia gripped the leather handle and cracked the crop against the conference table. The snap echoed in the massive gold gilt dome arching high above. All three of the Queens burst into a round of clapping.

  “And it’s versatile,” Amanda said, winking. “The perfect gift for work and after-hours play. Are you hitched, baby?”

  Lia blushed to the tips of her gently pointed ears.
“Samuel and I are recently mated, yes.”

  The three of them eyed Samuel seated to Lia’s right and hauled him to his feet. Standing an easy six-and-a-half foot tall before they slipped on their stiletto, thigh-high boots, they towered over Lia’s handsome groom. Cue the congratulatory hugs and man-handling all around.

  Clare kissed his cheek and left an enormous lime lipstick smack on his face. Running a wandering hand down Samuel’s white dress shirt, she purred. “Good catch, girlfriend.”

  Cara was more interested in his kilt. “All this broody, Celtic charm, wrapped up so nice. You’ve always been a delicious one, Sammie.”

  Samuel rolled his eyes and slapped the wandering hand away from his thigh.

  “Sadly,” Amanda said, batting her long, gold lashes toward Lia. “we wanted to make an Oracle Sammie out of him when he visited us in Toronto, but Reign killed our fun.”

  Reign scrubbed a hand over his smile and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve missed you too, ladies. Shall we resume the strategy meeting, now that you’re here?”

  Cara winked. “All work and no play makes for a lot of sexual frustration, Reign. How are you doing on that front anyway, big boy?”

  Reign laughed. “Yeah, right. When have I ever allowed you to open that door.”

  “A girl can always hope.”

  The snap of leather to wood brought everyone’s attention to the ebony throne at the head of the table. Lia giggled and used the crop to point to three of the Celts at the table. “Please offer your seats up to our guests, gentlemales.”

  The members of the Queen’s Council didn’t look happy to give up their places at the table but did as commanded.

  “Now, why has Castian gathered us here this evening? You mentioned something about a Hell Hound?”

  Mid-morning burned my tired eyes by the time I returned to Haven and received Aust’s message. He had my mother and Hoola with him, staying in the Were guesthouse built in the clearing. Relieved, I threw my aching body to the breeze and materialized outside the massive cabin stronghold.

  Gazing up at the façade as I rematerialized into corporeal form, I paused mid-step. The building stood a marvel of nature blending with architecture. Completed to the finest detail, the landscaping and lines merged with the forest surrounding so completely, it stole my breath.