“Yes, I know,” he says. “That is precisely the reason I don’t want you involved in this.”
“WHAT?” I shout.
“You are too unpredictable. You’ll do something rash,” he says positively, like there is no doubt that I will go off like a loose cannon.
“That sounds much better to me than doing nothing!” I retort.
“I have no doubt that you see it that way,” he replies, giving me his severest frown.
We’re on the threshold of the pagoda and I’m sure that everyone inside can hear everything that we are saying now so I just glare at Reed. Before I can think of a reply, a voice sounds from inside the pagoda.
“REED!” The musical-twinkling voice says, just as a lithe, beautiful woman runs out of the pagoda ahead of us and launches herself into Reed’s arms. Reed lets go of my hand as she wraps her arms around his neck, clinging to his body seductively. Her long, blond hair trails down her back like waves of gold. “I am very angry with you, Reed. Why weren’t you here to greet me when I arrived?” she asks as her lovely mouth pushes out in a pretty pout while she trails her fingertip slowly down his chest.
Before I can check my reaction, a low growl emanates from me as jealousy at seeing this woman pressed to Reed overwhelms me. Hearing my warning, her face snaps in my direction. Her sapphire eyes narrow in anger as her glare rakes me up and down. She raises her hand in my direction and I notice that her fingers are webbed. High-pitched sounds flow from her mouth as the wind picks up around me blowing my hair.
Looking in the direction of the wind, I’m just in time to see the water from the tranquil plunge pool in the courtyard rise up out of its tiled reservoir. The water hovers in the air, like a massive wave for a moment, before it flows towards me. I’m unable to react as the water pours around me, engulfing me within its icy depths. The water swiftly pulls me back with it as it recedes, returning to the pool at an incredible velocity. Sick and dizzy, as if I have fallen from a towering height, the current tows me down and I fight hard to regain the surface. My panicked brain becomes frantic when I’m able to kick back up to the surface of the water only to find a thick sheet of ice covering it.
Swirling in the eddy beneath the frozen water, I pound my fists against the ice trapping me. Reed and Preben appear on the other side, trying desperately to break the ice between us. Pressing my hands against the magical barrier that won’t allow Reed to penetrate it, I watch as he grimly turns from me, shouting something in the other direction that I hear only as muffled noise.
My hair waves in my face as I scratch my fingernails into the surface of the ice. It’s cold but there is also a quivering energy coursing beneath my hands as I touch it. Closing my eyes, the palms of my hands begin heating up; they burn like they did when I had healed Russell all those months ago.
As I open my eyes again, the lack of oxygen makes my lungs ache while my hands glow like they’re being lit from within me. In seconds, I push through the surface of the ice, evaporating it to steamy vapor that rises from the pool. Gasping for air, Reed pulls me out of the water, clutching me in his arms while whispering soothing Angelic words in my ear.
I try hard to breathe evenly as I see the blond harpy scowling at me from where I had been standing before I was swept away by the water. Rage builds in me and I struggle in Reed’s arms to get away from him so I can cut her heart out, if she has one. “You can’t kill her, not if you want to save Russell,” Reed says in my ear. “That’s Safira. She’s one of the Undine who has come to help us defeat the Ifrit.
“She just tried to kill me,” I retort, glaring at the beautiful creature who sneers back at me with equal loathing.
“Well, love, you did growl at her,” Reed says neutrally.
I stop struggling to look at the traitor’s face in front of me. My eyes narrow to slits. “Are you serious?” I ask him incredulously.
“She was just about to let you out of the water, right before you broke through it. She was startled by you and she overreacted,” Reed explains, defending Safira.
“So you’re saying this is all just a misunderstanding?” I ask with faux sweetness.
“Yes,” Reed says with a look of relief until I narrow my eyes and growl at him. Buns steps between us then; she pulls me away from Reed, wrapping her arms around me.
“Are you okay?” she asks, leading me away in the direction of her pagoda. I look back over my shoulder to see that Safira is now amid several ethereal-looking young women, all of which are now glaring in my direction.
“No, that witch just tried to drown me!” I say with disgust, pulling at my wet clothing.
“I know, we all saw it,” she says. “You really scared her. You should’ve seen her eyes when you broke through her spell. Her jaw dropped open and she called for back up from her sisters. I think she was afraid you were going to come after her,” Buns finishes, grinning at me like she’s proud of me.
“The thought did cross my mind,” I reply, trying to get a grip on myself. I feel edgy, like I want to smash something and my heart is still pounding from my struggle in the pool.
“Maybe we should keep you two separated, I mean, you’re just getting used to being bound to Reed—you don’t need the pressure of having a Reed groupie around, especially with…” she stops talking because I’m no longer moving with her to her room.
“Excuse me?” I ask Buns softly.
“I was just saying maybe we should keep you two apart,” she says.
“No, no…the other part,” I say, winding my finger in a circle.
“Oh…the Reed groupie part?” she asks with a sheepish look.
“Yes, that part,” I reply stiffly.
“Zephyr is going to kill me…it’s ancient history and I mean ancient,” she says quickly. “This all happened thousands of years ago—before I even got here.”
“You mean Reed and Safira…” I trail off.
“No, not for him, but for her it was like love at first sight. They worked together in a unit that targeted Ifrits, back in the day. Here’s the thing about Undines, when they fall in love with someone, they don’t care if the feeling is mutual or not—they pursue the object of their affection with a single-mindedness that is very close to stalker, if you know what I mean,” Buns explains. When she sees my face, she adds quickly, “But we need her. She and her girls can bury an Ifrit with their magic.”
“How?” I ask.
“They’re wraiths—elementals that can manipulate water. Water trumps fire,” Buns says, leading me again towards her room. “And you can see how effectively they can wield it. We need her. Brownie and Russell need her, so you’re going to be nice to her—kiss her butt if you have to. We can’t afford to lose them and they are extremely touchy.”
“Are you telling me I should just let her put her hands all over Reed and not do anything about it?” I ask Buns, struggling with the new circumstances of this arrangement.
“I’m saying let him handle it. He’ll keep her off of him because he only wants you. Just be cool because if you don’t, Russell is dead,” Buns says, putting it in no uncertain terms.
“Oh,” I say, paling at the thought of losing Russell and Brownie. Buns leads me into her room and hands me a towel. I dry myself off while she walks to her closet. I pull the wet clothes from me and slip on a very sexy little Asian dress Buns hands me. The silk fabric clings to me just like my wet clothes had.
As I look up at her skeptically, Buns shrugs, “I said you can’t kill her, I didn’t say that you can’t be hot while you play it cool.”
“I don’t care how I look right now,” I reply, running my hand down the deep red silk of the dress. “I just have to get back to Phaedrus, so I can send my clone and he can track it.”
“Here,” Buns says as she winds my hair into a bun and shoves two black sticks in it to secure it from unraveling.
“Thanks,” I say, walking towards the door. As I step outside, I see Reed leaning against one of the posts of the porch. He falls in step next to
me as I walk past him towards the conference area.
“Buns told you?” he asks, scanning my face with a grim expression.
“Told me what?” I counter, my jaw clenched as I quicken my pace.
“The only reason that Safira is here is to help us fight the Ifrit,” he says in a low tone.
“Does she know that?” I ask him, not slowing down.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Does she know that it’s the only reason you asked her here or does she think it’s because you wanted to see her again?” I ask.
“That is not why she attacked you, Evie,” Reed says. “She thought you were evil when she saw you.”
Stopping in my tracks, I bring my hands to my eyes, rubbing them in frustration. “And that’s okay with you?”
“No, it’s not. I had to fight the intense urge I had so I wouldn’t kill her. Believe me, many brutal ways to kill her crossed my mind when I couldn’t break through the ice and get to you. She has no idea just how close she was to being dead,” he says in a quiet tone, pulling my hands away from my eyes so that he can look into them. “But, if I killed her, we would have almost no chance of saving Russell. Do not think for one second that I enjoy having her around. It took me years to convince her to love someone else. Do you have any idea how persistent an Undine can be?” he asks in frustration.
Seeing how miserable he is, makes me feel awful for being jealous about Safira. “If the Undines are anything like the Gancanagh, you have my sympathy,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around his neck and hugging him.
His hands slide down my sides, caressing me as the silk dress slips beneath his fingers. “There is no one for me but you,” he says as he leans nearer and kisses me.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind the next time she throws herself at you,” I reply, melting against him.
“Please do,” he whispers just before his lips tease mine again.
“Hey, does your persuasion work on Undines?” I ask, pulling back a little to look in his eyes.
“No,” he replies, smiling at my disappointment.
“She can’t make you—I mean her magic can’t…” I trail off, wrinkling my brow as I trace my fingertip over his chest.
“Nothing she has tried has worked on me yet,” Reed says, grinning.
“Good,” I reply with relief at the thought of Safira being unable to make Reed fall in love with her by using magic. I hug him quickly and then pull back out of his embrace. Taking Reed’s hand, I begin walking again towards the conference area. “You should’ve warned her about me, before she came here.”
“They were all told of you, it’s just that seeing you is so…” he trails off.
“Horrifying?” I ask, trying to hide the sinking feeling I have inside at their reaction to me.
“Not horrifying…it’s just that you are so dangerous and so beautiful that your presence offers almost no room for rational thought,” he says. “But there is nothing I would change about you. You are perfection.”
I roll my eyes at him like he’s insane. I’m about to tell him all of the things that I would like to change about myself, given the opportunity, when Zephyr shows up on the path ahead.
“Problem,” Zephyr says, looking at Reed.
“Undines?” Reed replies.
“Yes, they refuse to help defend Evie or Russell. They will fight the Ifrit for us, but they will not intervene if it comes for the ‘half-breeds,’” he says seriously.
“Why?” Reed asks in a low tone, looking at me to judge how I’m taking being called a half-breed. I try to remain neutral, but what I really want to do is scoff.
“They say that they don’t want to anger God,” he replies and Reed scoffs, which makes me want to throw my arms around him and kiss him again. “Do we proceed with our plan?” Zephyr asks Reed.
“Yes,” I say before Reed can answer.
Reed closes his eyes briefly before he opens them again and turns to me. “Love, if we don’t have a guarantee that they will help if an Ifrit should find you, then we cannot move forward with our plan.
“We can. They said they wouldn’t help me, but if an Ifrit comes they will defend all of you. That’s good enough for me,” I say.
“It’s not good enough for me,” Reed replies sternly.
I turn to Zephyr, “Will they go in to save Brownie, since she isn’t a half-breed?”
“Yes,” Zephyr replies.
“Fine, then we’re mostly covered. We just have to make sure that when they go in, they plan to kill the Ifrit. It can’t just be a snatch and grab of Brownie. If they kill the Ifrit, then they save Russell, too, even if it is inadvertent.” I reason.
“That will be the strategy that we will be pushing for. We do not want the Ifrit to survive for any reason,” Zephyr affirms, his blue eyes watching me as I nod.
“Then there is no problem,” I say, seeing that Reed is having a huge problem with it already.
“You can’t just shrug off this new wrinkle. The parameters of the mission have changed. There are new variables now,” he says.
“We don’t have time for a strategy lesson. We need to locate the Ifrit. I’m the only link we have at this point to finding them. No one is safe until we kill it, you said so yourself,” I say rationally, watching his face go blank so that I can’t read what he’s thinking. “I have protection—an entire compound of angels—”
“If I tell you no, Evie, what will you do?” Reed asks, cocking his head to the side, waiting for my response.
I look down, not wanting him to see my eyes. I don’t want him to read what I will do. My mind has already come up with several plans to find Russell and Brownie, none of which will make Reed happy. “This is the best compromise, you should take it,” I say in a soft tone and then I hear two sets of growls, one from Reed, the other from Zephyr.
Reed speaks softly to Zephyr in Angel. Zephyr counters and my head snaps up because I’m now being shut out of the conversation. Growling at them, I begin walking again, but Reed scoops me up, changing direction and heading towards our room. “Reed, what are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m going to negotiate with the Undines. You’re going to stay here until I’m finished,” he says, dumping me on my bed and turning towards the door. Reed speaks to Zephyr who has followed us. Together, they begin to walk out of the room. Getting off the bed, I start to follow them, but two of Preben’s men step in front of me at the threshold to the courtyard. One is Elan and the other is named Sorin.
“Excuse me,” I say to Sorin, trying to get around him, but he won’t move.
“Reed!” I call out behind the wall of Power angels, seeing him walking away and talking to Zephyr.
“I will be back shortly. Try not to irritate your guards,” he says smoothly.
“That’s not fair!” I call to him, but he doesn’t answer me as he disappears from my sight. Completely infuriated, I pull the doors closed, shutting out the angels who are grinning at me like I’m some sort of sideshow freak.
Pacing the floor, I feel like I’m about to jump out of my skin. They’re making this so difficult when it’s really so simple, I think to myself. It’s Russell. There is nothing that anyone is going to say that will convince me not to give him any help that I can. Now that I know the others will be protected, I really don’t need their permission. With this new clarity, a calm settles over me. I sit down on the bed and concentrate on what I want to do.
Controlling the spinning that makes it seem as if the entire room is being picked up and shaken, I allow a clone of me to push steadily from my body. I direct my clone to pass through the closed doors of my room. The darkness outside makes it difficult to tell exactly where I’m going so I focus on the red hanging lanterns strung in the trees ahead of her. The familiar faces of the angels guarding me outside enter my consciousness. Elan tries to stop my image, but she passes right through him. Sorin enters my room; I can feel him near me, but I’m keeping my eyes closed so that I can concentrate on navigating my cl
one.
As my image walks in silence towards the conference room, I hear the heated debate ahead as Reed’s beautiful voice speaks in Angel. I follow the sound of it, knowing that Phaedrus must be somewhere nearby. Entering the room, there are several intakes of breath, mainly coming from the side of the table where the Undines are seated. Ignoring them, I continue moving my clone beyond each one on my way to the end of the table.
Nearing Phaedrus, I almost make it to him when Reed steps right in front of me, trying to block my way. My clone passes right through him like a dream, approaching Phaedrus to whisper to him, “You have five seconds. Be ready.”
Phaedrus rises out of his chair, exhaling in relief. He has been in torment over knowing that his targets, Russell and Brownie, need his help and not being able to find them on his own.
Even through my clone’s dim senses, I know that the entire room has heard me because they erupt in chaos. I don’t pay any attention. I know that this may be the last thing that Russell will hear from me. Adrenaline flashes into my system at that thought. With my heartbeat drumming in my ears, I reach deep within myself, pushing every ounce of love and devotion that I feel for Russell out of me and into my clone. As I do it, my senses within her heighten until the room around her begins to glow from the light she emits. Then, like a bolt of lightening, she streams out of the room in a flash, and I lose the connection to her.
I find myself back in my room, seated on my bed. I quickly reach deep within myself again, tapping into all the rage and anger that I feel for the creature who has taken my soul mate. The room spins again as I formulate my message to the Ifrit. My messenger bolts from the room with my last thought: Mercy for them or there will be no mercy for you.
CHAPTER 7
Water And Fire
Feeling like the room is still spinning, I reach my hand up to my face, wiping my nose. A smear of blood transfers to my hand, letting me know that my nose is bleeding. Dabbing at it with the back of my hand, I walk towards the bathroom to get a tissue. Before I make it halfway there, Reed is standing in front of me looking like an avenging angel who has come to smite me for my sins. His charcoal-gray wings are arching out so that I can’t see around him and he is glowering at me as his hands are clenched in fists at his sides.
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