“Long story short, Deimos came. Gavin showed up. We're all fine for now.”
I could hear Lyla in the background trying to calm him down. Whatever she was doing, it wasn't working. He was two seconds away from blowing a gasket.
“We'll be home in a minute,” he said, wind rushing in the receiver. He wasn't going to the car. He was literally running home. And he had no intention of hanging up until he was at the apartment—until he could see with his own eyes that we were all okay.
I couldn't gauge how long it took for them to arrive, but it seemed like the blink of an eye. Cooper slammed through the apartment door with Lyla right behind him, both of them breathing hard, their eyes glowing the same golden amber shade.
“What the fuck is wrong with them?” he asked, indicating the boys.
“Gavin put them under a spell or something. I don't know the details. He left in a hurry after he tried to kidnap me.”
“And Deimos?”
“He just showed up in the apartment. It's like he's a ghost or something. If Gavin hadn't shown up when he did...”
“We really can't keep you safe,” he said softly. His hazel eyes had returned, and they held a special sadness—the kind of sadness that accompanies the realization that one’s efforts are futile. Cooper finally saw the writing on the wall. He and the others were little more than an obstacle for Deimos to maneuver around.
Or plow right through.
“I'm sorry, Coop. I don't know what to say.”
“How long before he comes back?”
“I don't know. Gavin didn't say, but judging by the hurry he was in, he didn't seem to think we had a lot of time to spare,” I said. “But he is a bit dramatic, so there's that to consider.” I offered him a weak smile that he struggled to mirror. He made his way over to me and pulled me against him, hugging me gently. It wasn't long before I felt another set of arms wrap around me. And then another. And another. Finally, I felt Lyla's uncertain energy encircle the group; she too joined our little group embrace. It was as if they were all acknowledging what was likely to happen. What we were all loath to say out loud.
It seemed there was nothing we could do to stop the train of destruction that Scarlet had started. And there was no time to waste on anger or blame. In that moment, there was just love and sadness.
“I can't reach Sean,” Cooper said, his head resting atop mine.
“I think that ship has long since sailed, Coop.”
“If he doesn't come up big on this...”
“Then you will have to hope that I have,” a voice called out, echoing through the stairway.
Oh. Shit.
Cooper was out the door before my brain had time to fully register Gavin's words. I was the last one to make it out onto the landing; the boys' reflexes were suddenly back on point. Maybe it was just adrenaline, or maybe it was recognition that the being that had knocked them out with magic had returned. If it was the latter, there was about to be an epic showdown in my narrow stairwell. One that could potentially rack up a body count in a hot hurry if I didn't intercede.
Scarlet, having come to that same conclusion, bowled through me, pushing her way to the forefront. In a second, she too was huddled in the tight quarters outside my apartment. The growls from the boys reverberated off the walls, shaking the railings and light fixtures while she pushed to the front of the pack. Standing beside Cooper, she looked down at not one, but two uninvited bodies hovering at the bottom of the stairs. Judging by the animosity emanating from the boys and Lyla, it was a wise place for them to stay.
But they didn't know who had come.
Only I did.
A young Gavin looked up at all of us with his usual hubris, unaffected by the wave of supernatural whoopass that was poised to come crashing down on him. The woman, however, looked stunned and saddened. When Scarlet's eyes fell upon hers, recognition of some sort set in. But I gave her no time to process it.
It was my turn to run the show.
Once in control, I stared down at the beauty that stood beside my uncle, assessing every inch of the only-recently-familiar woman. As the tears escaped me, my feet finally unglued themselves from the floor, and I flew down the steps. The second I reached the bottom, I threw my arms around her.
No words were spoken. Not immediately anyway. They seemed unnecessary―a cliché so often used on sitcoms and dramas. But in real life, there really are moments that don’t require spoken words. When it came to Arianna and me, most never did.
Instead of speaking, I crushed her in my arms while I sobbed. The floodgate that held back emotions that had long ago been dammed up broke, letting all the repressed memories forth. It was a purging of the loss, guilt, and longing that I had not allowed myself to feel for a very long time. There was a reason I seldom if ever spoke about her. The pain that accompanied her disappearance was more than my mind could handle after the death of my parents. Denial had long been my vehicle for coping.
“I missed you, little princess,” she whispered in my ear. “I had hoped this day would come.”
“How?” I asked, my question nearly unintelligible.
“We’ll discuss that and more later,” she said, pushing me gently from her so that she could look at me. “I have missed out on so much of your life already.”
“Ruby?” Cooper's voice trailed down the staircase to me, reminding me that I still had a shit-ton of explaining to do, most of which I couldn't possibly even try.
With a few deep breaths and Arianna's calming touch, I turned to face my pack, dragging my sleeve across my face to soak up the sadness.
“This...this is Arianna, Coop. The woman―”
“From the picture,” he finished with awe. “I see it now.”
“Arianna, this is Cooper, my best friend and my alpha.”
I turned to see her smiling brightly up at him, her approval radiating.
“I'm so, so pleased to meet you, Cooper. And this is your pack? Your family?” she asked, moving past me slowly to climb the stairs.
“Yes,” Cooper replied. “Janner, Beckett, Alistair, and Lyla.” He indicated each of them individually and they nodded in turn, smiles on all their faces. I always knew that happiness followed Arianna wherever she went, but to see the effect she had on others for the first time was utterly amazing. Though I had the ability to influence the moods of those around me in a slight way, she dictated the mood around her, and always used that power for good.
“She's so beautiful,” Alistair whispered to Beckett, though I'm certain he hadn't meant to.
Arianna laughed, the sound caressing everyone present.
“Thank you, Alistair. But I think Ruby got the looks in our family.” She turned to me and winked.
“Family?” Janner asked.
“Yes, Ruby is my niece.”
Cooper's growl, which had only ceased moments earlier, roared through the tight space, bringing my attention―and everyone else's―back to Gavin.
“Uncle Gavin,” Cooper rumbled. Like a flash, he was at my side, his face crammed into Gavin's. “I think we need to have a little chat about keeping Ruby safe.”
Gavin just smiled, offering Cooper a silent gesture that said “fuck you” louder than any words could have. With that simple gesture, he let Cooper know that his subtle threat meant nothing to him.
“Unless you mean to thank me for saving your precious friend, then no, I don't believe we need to at all,” Gavin countered.
“Not now,” I whispered to Cooper, placing my hand on his arm. “There's no time for that now.”
“Family can be such a sticky wicket,” Alistair muttered from the landing.
“Understatement of the century,” Cooper agreed.
“Let's go upstairs. We can regroup a bit there,” I said, gesturing toward my apartment door. “We all have some things to talk about.”
“We do, Ruby. So very much,” Arianna agreed with a smile.
“Am I to stay out here?” Gavin asked curiously. “Or am I welcome?”
/> “Why would you not be welcome, Brother?” Arianna asked with confusion. “I am certain these are things you need to hear as well.” She looked between Cooper, the pack, and Gavin, then finally to me. “Ruby is family. Surely you are welcome.”
Cooper scoffed.
I winced.
“We're closer now than ever before,” I said, trying my best to put a positive spin on the implications of Gavin's and my relationship. It was true, but my explanation fluffed over our extensive history of animosity.
“I see.” Her grim expression spoke volumes. She was quickly reading between the lines. “Then, my brother, I imagine you need to come in whether you are welcome or not. I see things have not gone well in my absence.”
Gavin just stared at her while I pushed Cooper up the stairs, having him lead the way into my home. Once he and I entered, the others filed in behind us. Every last one of them. What I had initially hoped would be a private family chat turned into an extended family interrogation. One I wasn't sure we had time for.
“Gavin,” Arianna started, looking most disapproving. “Am I to assume that you and Ruby have been estranged until recently?”
“Estranged might not be the proper term,” he said flatly.
“Yeah, you can't really be estranged when you don't know someone exists,” Cooper added.
She gasped.
“When did you come to her?” Arianna demanded, standing before him in the center of the living room. They looked like two fighters squaring off in a ring.
“When I needed to.”
“When I was about to get my ass handed to me by a complete psychopath,” I clarified. “Maybe a few months ago?”
“Gavin!” she cried. “Just how long did you leave her on her own?”
“She was never on her own.”
“Really?” Cooper interrupted, stepping into the ring. “She sure seemed alone in that prison cell my old pack kept her chained up in.” The rage he felt at the memory of what had happened to me made his eyes glow amber and his whole body tense. He wanted an outlet for that anger, and, judging by the way he was eyeing Gavin, he thought his face was the perfect option.
“That was a regrettable turn of events,” Gavin replied venomously. “One that I could not have foreseen. Having her connected to the Boston pack seemed a far safer option than having her courted by the dark-eyed one.”
“I tried to draw Sean away from you while you were in the hospital, Ruby,” she explained with a look of desperation on her face. “I could not believe my eyes when I exited your room and looked down the corridor to see him standing by the nurses' station. All I could think about was keeping him away from you. Far, far away from you. Apparently that thought played out in my expression. When his eyes met mine, he saw something in them. Something I can't explain, but it's like he knew...”
“Knew what?” I asked, not following her explanation.
“That I wasn't human.”
I walked toward her, confusion marring my countenance.
“Of course he would know that. Isn't that the entire point of the PC? To regulate the supernatural? If he couldn't sense them―”
“Then those few supernaturals would be able to survive the holocaust of their own kind,” Gavin said leadingly, cutting off my rambling.
“Oh my God,” I uttered, looking from Gavin to Arianna, trying to fully grasp the subtext in his words as they sifted through my mind.
Finally it all fell into place. It wasn't just the Chameleon who could go unnoticed by Sean and the other PC brothers. It was my family―my fey family. And it was that fey family in particular that Ginger spoke of the day she spoke of extinction. I just knew it.
What I didn't know was why.
Arianna flashed a scathing look at Gavin before she spoke to him in a language that was again foreign to my ears. What wasn't foreign was the unmistakable inflection of cursing someone out. English or not, it sounded like Gavin was getting his ass reamed by his little sister. Then, suddenly, he silenced her with a single word, ending the argument.
She then turned sad eyes to me.
“Ruby,” she said softly, taking my hands in hers. “Do you remember how I used to always talk about your special sense when you were growing up? How it was the blessing bestowed upon you because you couldn't see?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“That was your power. Your gift of the fey.”
“What are you saying?”
“I'm saying that your supernatural abilities did not come to you the day your wolf emerged. You have had them all along. Your ability to sense and read the emotions of those around you is your birthright. A power you inherited from your parents.”
“But how? Ginger said―”
“What Ginger alluded to was the feys' eradication at the hands of the PC. But as I told you before, very few of us survived,” Gavin started, looking over Arianna to speak to me directly. His eyes were cold, but there was a hint of sadness in his tone. What had happened to our kind still ate away at him. “Wars between the supernaturals were commonplace centuries ago, and the fey were powerful but fragile. In a physical fight, most would easily fall. It was our command of magic that had long kept us safe. But during one battle with a pack of wolves, I was bitten. Though there were no outward signs of infection, I did notice something strange: the PC could no longer sense my presence.”
Holy. Shit.
“Fast forward a few decades later, after your former beau's darkness had nearly consumed him, I began to sense that death was coming for the fey. I, like you, have an energy-based power. And because of that feeling, I sought to help prepare those that I could. I went to Arianna and your father with my idea to have them infected. Though hesitant at first, they did as I asked. I had an ally at the time, one who you have already encountered in Boston,” he explained, giving me a leading look. My mind scrambled to put together what he was begging me to understand. Then, suddenly, a name popped into my head. One that caused me to break out into a cold sweat. I knew whom he spoke of. I knew him well.
“Marcus,” I whispered.
He nodded tightly.
“You now understand why I thought you were safe in the Boston pack. Why I didn't go after you when you were taken to Utah. I thought it was for your protection. Only after Sean returned to take Marcus out did I realize that I had been betrayed.” His eyes were murderous, his hands balled tightly into fists. “Regrettably, I was not the one to kill him. I would have enjoyed seeing him beg for his life, though.”
Arianna turned to put her arm around my shoulder. The calming sensation that accompanied her gesture was instantaneous.
“So much makes sense now,” I said softly.
“Let him tell you the rest,” Arianna said encouragingly. “You need to hear this.”
I nodded in agreement, and Gavin continued.
“Marcus agreed to infect your father and Arianna. Once we ascertained that it had worked for them just as it had for me, we had him do the same to the rest of the fey.”
“But it didn't work,” I said matter of factly. That much was obvious.
“No, it did not. Only those with energetic magical abilities were spared when Sean and the others came for us.”
“How many? How many survived?”
His lips pressed into a grim line.
“Very few. And of those who did, we lost many more over time.” His eyes narrowed on me. “They were taken out because of the offspring they produced.”
I gasped.
“The Rouge et Blanc.”
“Precisely. One by one, those that had avoided the holocaust were taken out because of the children they created.” He took a step closer to me. “You need to understand that I did all I could to save them, but I did not know then what I knew by the time you came into existence. By then, your parents, Arianna, and I were all that was left of our race. I could not lose you as well.”
“My ring.”
“Yes.”
“But how did you know it would work?”
“It was simple really. All objects in nature have a frequency―an energy all their own. It was just a matter of finding one that would suppress the Change. I had come close with the others, helping some to survive until their seventh or eighth year before their wolves emerged. But you, you I was able to keep safe for longer than that.”
“And I was assigned to be your protector,” Arianna added, giving me a light squeeze. I looked over to see her smiling widely at me.
“This is a total mindfuck,” Alistair mumbled behind me; his observation garnered him the attention of all present. Once again his thoughts had escaped his mouth, judging by the rather sheepish look on his face. “Well, it is.”
“No shit,” Cooper said, coming to flank me on my other side. “This has been a really interesting history lesson, Gavin, but what I want to know is how the fuck you're going to keep her safe from the boogeyman that could appear at any moment and sweep Ruby off to her death.”
“I'm not going to do anything,” he replied coolly. Cooper wasn't a fan of his answer. “She is.” Gavin's eyes fell on Arianna before everyone else's followed. “She is Ruby's protector. She swore an oath binding her powers to her the day Ruby was born. If Arianna cannot stave off Deimos, then nobody can.”
“But I thought you had banished him,” I argued.
“Yes, but as I said, that banishment will only be temporary, and that magic can only work so many times. He will eventually become immune to it, rendering it useless. The second I realized I could bring Arianna back, I knew she would be our only real chance, though it is still a long shot at best.”
“I think you underestimate me, Brother.”
“And I think you underestimate Deimos, Sister. You did not survive Sean. Thwarting Deimos will be even harder.”
“So that's it?” Cooper asked incredulously. “We just hope Arianna can somehow outmaneuver this guy?”
“Yes. Unless you have any better ideas.” Cooper said nothing. “That's what I thought,” Gavin continued. “You and your pack should consider watching over the detective's family rather than just sitting around here, counting down the minutes until Deimos shows himself again.”
STRAYED Page 33
