Chosen by Fate

by Virna DePaul

  He hadn’t known Elijah very long before the War had started, but in the months he’d dated Elijah’s sister, Natia, they’d formed a swift bond. Caleb had liked Elijah’s humor and charm, and he’d respected Elijah’s loyalty to his family, especially to his sisters, whom he’d doted on. Despite Caleb’s place of honor within the reservation, his position as shaman had distanced him from his people. In many ways, being around the royal feline family had fed Caleb’s need for normalcy and affection and acceptance, things he’d missed after his mother and father had died. In truth, if forced to choose between his friendship with Elijah and his relationship with Natia, Caleb would have chosen the friendship. In the end, he’d lost both. He’d lost everything.

  Caleb’s gaze returned once more to the glass on the table, then to the bottles of liquor Nick kept stored behind the bar. The amber liquid called to him, promising not forgetfulness but a type of lessening.

  Forgetfulness was what he craved.

  If he couldn’t have that . . .

  Destiny.

  The vision came upon him without warning, causing Caleb to close his eyes. He heard the whispers of his ancestors. He saw six auras, their forms ebbing and flowing, first together and then apart, pulsing so their energies sparked a riotous kaleidoscope of colors. His was there, burning a bright green, gravitating toward another shadow comprised of darkest black and purest white, the colors not cleanly divided but rather bleeding into one another.

  Destiny.

  Cursing softly, he opened his eyes, willing the whispers and vision away.

  He had no idea what it meant. Whether the shadow’s duality represented another being or another manifestation of himself—light and dark, good and evil, healer and murderer.

  As Mahone studied him with a cocked brow, Caleb sighed. He didn’t know what the vision meant, but he knew it had something to do with Mahone and the team he was forming. Caleb had a role in it, and for the first time in a long time, his body sizzled with anticipation.

  Of course, he couldn’t let Mahone know that.

  Kicking out the chair in front of him, he jerked his head toward Mahone, then the chair. “Talk fast before I change my mind.”

  ONE

  SEVERAL WEEKS LATER

  AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Caleb’s hands moved swiftly and efficiently as he set up the mobile radar equipment he’d spread out on the roof. The building below his feet had been swept and a perimeter established. Now all Caleb had to do was determine who was in the room with Mahone and whether Mahone was still alive.

  Briefly, he glanced at Ethan Riley, leader of Hope Restored Team Blue, and the four men, skilled in entry and perimeter surveillance, who’d accompanied them here. Only hours had passed since Caleb had left his teammates in the Vamp Council’s chambers in Oregon and, despite the grueling activity of the last few days—which had included parachuting into North Korea, hiking miles in the snow, rescuing several Otherborn, and tracking down what just might be an antidote to the vamp vaccine—Caleb felt the same focused energy he always did when on a mission. “Did you get in touch with the Para-Ops team?”

  Riley looked up from checking his rifle. “They’ve detained the vampire Dante Prime. Devereaux tried to teleport here, but he’d depleted his powers in Korea . . .”

  Caleb snorted. “No shit.” Although vamps could teleport to and from anywhere in the world, provided they’d been there before, that kind of travel drained them. Before Knox Devereaux and the rest of the team had interrupted the Vamp Council to question Dante Prime for treason and conspiracy to commit murder, the dharmire had spent several hours teleporting between North Korea and the U.S. Each time, he’d carried a wounded Otherborn or one of his team members back with him. Beat him how the vamp was even capable of talking at this point. Add everything else that had happened to him—

  “Is it true you found his father? And that he’d been turned into a vampire?”

  Caleb didn’t even look up. The Para-Ops team had trained with Team Blue’s aerial experts before dropping into North Korea. At the time, Knox’s father hadn’t even been on their radar—and for good reason—since everyone believed he was dead. How the hell news of Jacques Devereaux’s return had spread so fast, Caleb didn’t know. Still, Riley had to know how fruitless his question was. “No comment.”

  He sensed Riley wince. “Sorry.”

  Caleb shrugged. Just because a person expected a particular result didn’t mean he shouldn’t try to get around it. Caleb was always trying to get a different reaction from his teammate Wraith, regardless of how unlikely that was. For one horrific moment, Caleb felt the same fear that had constricted his chest when he’d realized Wraith planned to blow herself up to get them inside the North Korean compound. It wasn’t easy, but he pushed the feeling away.

  Wraith was okay. He’d seen that for himself. He’d felt it when he’d pushed her down and covered her body with his. He’d savored it when she’d kissed him back, right before she’d kneed him in the balls.

  Clearing his throat, he returned his attention to Riley and the other man’s apology. “No worries. I’m as human as you, remember?”

  Now it was Riley who snorted, prompting Caleb to smile tightly.

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t quite as human as Riley. They shared the same DNA, but being able to communicate with his ancestors, hear the Great Song, and occasionally walk the Otherworld made him a little different.

  Different didn’t always mean better.

  His fingers moved faster. Almost there. Glancing at his watch, Caleb clenched his teeth. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple. He knew they couldn’t go in blind, but—

  “What about your wraith? Was she what you expected her to be?”

  Caleb paused for only a fraction of a second before continuing his task. “She’s not my wraith. She’s a wraith who decided to keep the name ‘Wraith’ just to be ornery. And she’s exactly what I expected her to be.” What he didn’t say was that she was also far more than he’d expected. A heinous bitch, yes, but one whose attitude and mouth were designed to hide something textured and complex and—

  Disgusted with himself, Caleb pressed his lips together and once again pushed thoughts of Wraith out of his head.

  Get Mahone out. That’s all he could think about right now.

  “Finally!” Snapping the last wire in place, Caleb flipped on the power and adjusted the radar settings, then scanned the building’s interior until the radar picked up body heat. “Bingo.”

  Caleb immediately zoomed the camera in and got a good look at Mahone.

  Dear Essenia, he thought, automatically invoking the name of the Earth Goddess to give him strength. Although humans believed Essenia was an Otherborn deity, few knew Earth People—like Caleb’s own Native American tribe—had prayed to the same deity for centuries. Besides, from what Caleb saw, Mahone needed all the prayers he could get.

  With his wrists shackled to chains hanging from the ceiling, Mahone looked like he’d gotten into a fight with a chipper machine and lost. His face and body were covered in blood, and what was left of his clothes hung in shreds from his battered body. From his position on the rooftop above, Caleb once again adjusted the settings on the mobile radar equipment. His adjustments made the image on the screen zoom out, losing detail and focus until it captured the entire room, providing grainy outlines of Mahone, a desk, a table, and one other individual whose silver hair, height, and slim build proclaimed him to be a vampire.

  When Caleb and the five members of Hope Restored Team Blue had arrived at the isolated warehouse twenty minutes earlier, Caleb had figured Knox, leader of the Para-Ops team, had made a mistake by not sending any Others with him. That, or Knox simply had faith in Caleb’s ability to take down anything that got in their way, human or not. Either way, Caleb was getting Mahone out, and he planned for both of them to be breathing when he did it.

  Caleb thought of the first time he’d met Mahone and the vision he’d had. He�
��d had the same vision several times since, and the moment he’d met Wraith, he’d become convinced that the black-and-white aura that hovered near his own had to be hers. Upon their meeting, he’d felt a sizzling arc of connection that had only intensified with time. Apparently she hadn’t. In fact, she seemed to have no use for him and spent most of her time pushing him away. Maybe the aura belonged to Mahone, instead, and the vision had been a premonition of this very moment—Mahone straddling the line between life and death, waiting to see whether Caleb could save him.

  Luckily for both of them, Caleb had come prepared.

  He looked at Riley. The man might be a little chattier than Caleb liked, but he’d had no problem taking Caleb’s lead on the current mission. He was smart and he was a clean shot. That’s all that mattered right now. “Mahone’s in bad shape. We need to get in there fast. I’m hoping the vamp will teleport as soon as he knows he has company, but I need you and your team to cover me in case he decides to stick around. Are your shooters set up around the perimeter of the room?”

  “They’ve all checked in and are in the crawl space with their weapons ready.”

  “Obviously your bullets won’t kill him, but along with the Hyperion gas, they may buy me enough time to get to Mahone and extract him.”

  “How long does it take for the Hyperion to immobilize a vampire?”

  The Hyperion was something Caleb had developed toward the end of the War. The government hadn’t known about it, and he’d only used it a few times before peace had been declared. The testing he’d conducted had been limited, but he felt fairly confident it would work.

  At this point, he figured his odds of getting out with Mahone were only slightly below average. “Usually about sixty seconds, but that’s with a vamp who’s been weakened by the effects of the vampire vaccine. From the looks of this one, he’s had pure blood recently. Still, he might not be at full strength.”

  “If the vamp’s immobilized by the Hyperion, how do we keep him contained while we take him in?”

  “We don’t. That’s not what we’re here for. Our sole objective is to rescue Mahone.”

  Riley nodded, but looked troubled. “You said he’s doing bad . . .”

  Caleb tried to keep his expression blank. “Doing bad” was an understatement. Mahone probably had less than five minutes of life left in his broken body. “Just get me to him. I’ll take care of it from there. You ready?”

  Riley communicated with his men, then nodded. “It’s a go.”

  Slipping the small gas pellet from his pocket, Caleb held it up. “Remember, you have to stay back. Help me hold back the vamp, then get your men out. You’re maintaining the perimeter, not going in. This gas immobilizes vamps and weres, but it does far worse to humans once enough of it is absorbed in the bloodstream.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ve built up a resistance. It’s not extensive, but it’ll give me the five minutes I need. If we don’t make it out, it’ll take two hours for the gas to dissipate. Don’t come into the room until that much time has passed. Understood?”

  Riley nodded and held out his hand. O’Flare shook it, then strode to the door that would lead him from the roof to the room below. He moved quietly, his breathing low and shallow, his gun held at the ready with the gas pellet in his other hand. He’d activate it as soon as he got close enough that it could work its magic on the vampire.

  When he entered the room, he immediately saw Mahone. Even the radar’s enhanced imaging hadn’t prepared him. The vampire wasn’t touching him, but Mahone’s facial features were contorted in agony, his body writhing and jerking even as he remained silent. Fuck, Caleb thought when he saw the blood seeping out of Mahone’s eyes and ears.

  “Hey, vamp.” He shouted at the same time he threw the pellet, which would emit a toxic but invisible gas. The vampire whirled around, his eyes flashing red the instant he saw Caleb. The vampire bared his fangs and came at him, his feet gliding above the ground. Caleb fired a round directly at his chest, causing him to fall back. At the same time, Riley and his men fired, as well. As the vamp jerked with the impact of the bullets, O’Flare ran for Mahone. He reached up and felt his pulse.

  It was barely there. Caleb felt the man’s life literally bleeding out of him.

  Laying his hands on Mahone’s bloody chest, Caleb closed his eyes. Bullets still fired around him, some coming too damn close. Damn it, Riley’s men had to get out before the gas reached them in the crawl space. “Get out!” he yelled.

  “The vampire teleported,” Riley shouted. “We’re clear.”

  With a sigh of relief, Caleb willed his consciousness into a trance and called to his ancestors for their healing help. He saw them in the colors that swirled behind his eyelids and felt their presence in the heat that immediately suffused his body. Their voices chanted, low and soothing, directing him to keep one hand directly over Mahone’s heart and the other over his eyes. Caleb willed the healing heat building within his body to transfer to Mahone. As it did, he took some of Mahone’s pain into himself.

  He felt his own heartbeat slow.

  His limbs weakened.

  His body began to shake with the effort of remaining upright, and he forced even breaths, sensing he needed to maintain contact far longer than he ever had.

  Come on, come on, he urged himself. Hang in there.

  The dizziness came next. Then the nausea. He could feel his lungs filling with the gas that swirled around them and knew his time was running out.

  His body jerked as he coughed, and the movement threatened to pull his hands away from Mahone.

  They had to get out of there, but if he disconnected too soon, it would all be for nothing. Mahone would die. Hell, Caleb would probably die, as well, too weak from the healing to get out on his own.

  But then he felt Mahone’s chest rising strongly and his pulse beating regularly, and he knew the healing had worked. The heat slowly left his body, and the voices of his ancestors faded. Caleb whispered his thanks, then opened his eyes. Swiftly, he reached up and unhooked Mahone’s chains from the manacles around his wrists. Mahone groaned and slumped over just as Caleb caught him and threw him fireman-style over his shoulder.

  Caleb staggered a few steps before he turned, intending to carry Mahone to the doorway. Halfway there, his knees buckled. He lost his grip on Mahone, and the man slipped and rolled a couple of feet away. Grunting, Caleb fell on all fours, his head hanging, his lungs seizing up.

  He’d waited too long. They were both going to die in this warehouse, just like the FBI scientists who’d discovered the vamp antidote only to be killed because of it. He looked up, eyes watering, searching the room, thankful that Team Blue had obeyed his orders even as he regretted the fact no one was going to be able to help him.

  But then he saw her. Wraith. Running toward him. He tried to open his mouth. To yell at her to stop.

  His heart squeezed. Damn her for putting herself at such risk. He didn’t know how the gas would affect a wraith. Since it worked so well on vamps, immortality had nothing to do with the effects. But he couldn’t make a sound, and Wraith kept coming. She knelt beside him and pulled him up. She was yelling something, and he tried to make it out.

  “. . . have to walk! I need to get Mahone. Can you walk, O’Flare?”

  She was glancing frantically between him and Mahone, the indecision on her face readily apparent. She couldn’t carry them both out of there before the gas ended them.

  “Leave me . . .” he tried to say, but again no sound came out. It didn’t matter. Wraith understood.

  She grabbed him by his shirt and shook him, hanging on when he began to slide, practically keeping him on his feet. “No fucking way, O’Flare. I didn’t survive Korea just to come back and lose you in the States. Stay on your feet and move. You’re walking out of here. Got it?”

  The vehemence in her voice roused him enough to nod. She released him, and although he swayed on his feet, he didn’t fall. Quickly, she grabbed Mahone, carrying
him in the same lift O’Flare had used. Then, amazingly, she positioned herself next to him and ordered, “Lean against me if you need to. Start walking. Now.”

  Caleb walked. He didn’t know how he did it, but he managed to put one foot in front of the other. At one point, he did have to lean on her, and he sensed how it slowed her down, but she didn’t move away. She stayed with him.

  Until they made it out into the open air. He heard shouts and the sound of stomping feet just as he collapsed.

  When he came to, he was being loaded into an ambulance. Riley’s face hovered above him. “Mahone?” Caleb rasped out.

  “Still alive,” Riley said. “But I don’t know if he’s going to stay that way.”

  From the worried expression on the man’s face, Caleb knew his own chance of survival was also in question.

  “Wraith?” he asked, grabbing on to the man’s shirt when he didn’t answer. “What about the wraith?”

  Riley shook his head. “I don’t know. She passed out, same as you. No pulse, remember? No breath. No way to tell if she’s alive or dead. They took her in another cab. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  TWO

  LOCATION UNDISCLOSED AND CONFIDENTIAL

  First it had been vamps and weres. Then felines and mages. Then finally wraiths and shape-shifters. One by one, the Otherborn had been discovered by humans. Over the next five years, they’d run the gamut of emotions together: fear and exhilaration, hope and despair, suspicion and hostility.

  And then, just when the fighting had ended and Mahone had taken a breath, amazed that he’d managed to survive it all, he’d been visited by a Goddess with plans to annihilate every living creature on earth. Even more surprising, she’d apparently believed that he, Kyle Mahone, generic human, FBI grunt, and allaround fuck-up at heart, held the key to stopping her.