by Jaime Rush
She heard her brothers battling the demons, catching a glimpse of red eyes and sharp teeth as one pounced on Jessup. A sizzling sound made her turn around. Another orb flew at her. She saw Kade throw an orb to intercept it, but the yellow orb dodged it and hit her anyway. Heat seared right through her scales as it exploded.
Dune, still favoring his shoulder, created another orb and sent it their way. Kade morphed into a creature with a huge black maw, catching the orb as though it were a gumball. It disappeared into the blackness and fizzled out.
Just as quickly he morphed back to human, visibly drawing in his strength. She pulled her gaze away and faced Dune again. He was coming at her with his dagger, holding it with his good hand. Kade leaped through the air, spinning before landing beside Dune. As Dune brought the dagger down at her with its arc of lightning, Kade brought his up to stop him. Their forks of wicked light intersected, crackling and shooting sparks as each man fought to gain control. Kade’s effort bulged the veins on his arms. His jaw tightened, and he let out an ungodly sound as the lightning bolt grew brighter and stronger. Indigo sparks flickered across his skin. The strain of using his power tore at Dune, too, as a guttural sound emitted from him and his muscles quivered. Violet moved away from them, intending to circle behind Dune.
“Creston!” Dune shouted, a word she’d never heard.
Not a word but a name. A demon rammed into Kade from behind, throwing him forward enough to free Dune’s bolt. Kade was propelled forward, and his bolt cut right through Dune, from left shoulder to right hip. For a moment his eyes widened, and then his face went slack. He fell to the ground in two pieces, both making a wet thump as they landed.
Creston launched onto Kade’s back, talons scratching his shoulders. Kade swung his dagger back and forth, unable to do more then whip the demon with the shards of magick. Violet came up behind its corded, muscular back. It whipped its tail at her, stinging her across her cheek. She snapped at it, biting it in two. Before the demon even had a chance to react to that, she sank her fangs into its back. Its spine cracked between her teeth, and it made a guttural sound before it disintegrated.
Behind her, something squealed in pain right before what sounded like a huge bug being squashed beneath an even larger shoe. Another demon evaporated at Jessup’s feet. She turned to Kade, finding him staring at the ground where Dune lay. Kade’s chest rose and fell as he caught his breath, blood dripping from superficial scratches. She followed his gaze to Dune’s body, the bizarre grotesqueness of it beyond anything she had ever seen.
“I’ve hated that son of a bitch for seventy years.” Kade’s voice sounded hollow. Not victorious. Not satisfied. Definitely in shock. Surely he’d seen violence like this. But by killing one of his fellow officers, he’d officially severed his connection with the Guard. Gone rogue, in their eyes.
Kade stepped toward the corpse, rifling through the pocket and extracting a cell phone. He pressed the buttons, looked at the screen, then threw the phone down again. She could see him burying whatever he was feeling. The mist in his eyes swirled, though, giving away his pain. He turned, wiping his hand down his face. Blood was smeared down his arm.
She limped forward, picking up the phone. Her hand was shaking, and she had to hold it with both hands to read the last text exchange between Dune and Ferro:
AT THE TARGETS’ LOCATION NOW.
ADVISE WHEN DONE.
Targets. Two or more. Kade had been telling the truth. The Guard had sent someone else, and he had also been a target. She wanted to see him as an emotionless killer, but she couldn’t get Dune’s taunts out of her mind. Or the way Kade had tried to dissuade him from killing her. His expression was raw. He’d just lost everything and probably destroyed his sister’s career in the bargain. He cared about Mia. Maybe he cared about Violet, too.
He threw himself between you and an orb. He cares.
Her brothers came up beside her, both breathing heavily as well. “He wasn’t acting,” Jessup said, looking at Dune’s remains.
“Nope,” Ryan said with a long slow shake of his head.
Kade turned to them. “We have a small window of time before they realize Dune’s not coming back and send someone else. Or worse, more than one. Probably that Carnelian bitch, too. First I have to warn my sister, try to keep her out of this. The only way to do that is to make her believe what they’re going to tell her.”
He pulled out his phone and dialed. “Mia, it’s Kade. Go somewhere you can talk in private.” He waited a few seconds, pacing, but Violet could see his mind working. “Listen. I want you to hear it from me first. What I said before about not being in love with Violet.” He met Violet’s gaze. “I lied. You saw it before I did, at Headquarters. When I got here, I couldn’t do it. There’s something between us I can’t describe, can’t even believe. I’m wild crazy in love with her, and I’m going to do everything I can to protect her. Things are going to get ugly.”
So Mia had seen that weird spark between them at the station. She was talking in a high-pitched voice but Violet couldn’t quite discern the words. She wasn’t happy, that was for sure.
“He’s acting,” Jessup whispered.
“Nope, I think he’s telling the truth,” Ryan said.
“Wanna bet?”
“Loser cleans out the alligator pens for two weeks by himself.”
Violet tuned them out, focusing only on Kade. She swore her heartbeat slowed as she studied his face. He was telling the truth now. It was in his voice, his eyes.
“Yeah, just like our father,” he said. “Crazy must run in our genes.” He waited while Mia screamed something else. “No, I’m not thinking with my dick. This goes way beyond that…Violet Castanega is innocent, and she doesn’t deserve to die. I don’t care who I take down with me—”
“Even me?” Mia asked, her voice so shrill Violet could hear it.
Kade’s jaw ticked, his mouth stretching into a frown as he stared into the woods. “Yeah, even you. So when the shit hits the fan, tell Ferro and whoever else about this conversation. But only after it comes out. Promise me, Mia. My life depends on it…Yes, they’re trying to have me killed…and yes, she’s worth it. I have to go.” He disconnected, his fingers tight on the phone.
Violet stalked to him. She would have grabbed his shirt and shaken him if he’d had one. “You turned her against you?” The words nearly shrieked out of her.
“It was my only choice.”
Now he’d really lost everything because of her.
Something shimmered all around him, and suddenly she was staring up into Dune’s face. Dune, in one piece. She screamed and stumbled back. The image flickered, and it was Kade again.
“Illusion,” he said, fatigue in his voice. “Just like my life, like everything I’ve believed in up to now. Everything I’ve been. Now I’m going to sink fully into illusion and report in to Ferro about my mission.”
“As…Dune?”
“I can hold the illusion for short periods of time. Enough to get into the building.” Kade looked at his watch. “For the last three months, Ferro has gone out to lunch every day at two o’clock sharp. I’ll show up just past two, when he’s gone. All I have to do is get into his office and find something that proves what he’s up to. At the least, figure it out so we know how to fight back. What I want to do is choke answers out of him, but I know better. The man’s a First Gen. Even if I survive long enough to get my hands around his throat, he won’t give up a word.”
“First Gen?” she asked. “First generation Crescent?” She remembered the painting in his office. “Drakos is his sire.”
Kade nodded. “And Ferro’s proud of it. Yeah, even Drakos does belong to the Tryah.”
“So you’re going to sneak into his office and look for evidence. But what if he’s still at the building when you get there?”
“Then I’ll report in as Dune, personally tell him you and I are dead.”
She glanced back at Dune’s body and shuddered. They almost had been. “How reliable is your illu
sion?”
“For a few minutes at a time, perfect.”
“But…”
He pulled Dune’s wallet out of his pocket and picked up the cell phone. “I’ve never used it like this. It’s one of those unspoken rules: never impersonate anyone. It’s akin to the Mundanes impersonating an officer. Except that penalty will be nothing compared to my punishment in this case. But either way I’m a dead man, so I’ll make it work.” He met her gaze, and she saw dedication in his eyes. “I’m highly motivated.”
To protect her. She placed her hand on her chest, trying to calm her erratic heartbeat. “I don’t like it. You’re walking into enemy territory.”
He gave her a soft smile. “Someone else I know did that recently. If she can do it, I can.”
“Kade, this is different. They weren’t going to kill me on sight.” She tunneled her fingers through her hair. “The biggest risk I thought I was taking was being disdained, which I was.” She glanced at her brothers. “And having my family find out.”
Kade’s smile was long gone. “But they didn’t disown you. They didn’t hurt you or kill you, even when they thought you’d taken up with me. Family sticks together. They’re loyal.” Unlike the Guard, Kade’s “family.” “I’m going to get answers. I’m already a rogue agent as far as they’re concerned. Going after Ferro isn’t going to make it any worse.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said, the words out before she could even consider them.
Her brothers started to object, but Kade beat them to it. “No way. You’re a target. Now it’s possible that they will take you out as soon as you walk in. Stay here.” He met Jessup’s and Ryan’s gazes. “Be ready, in case I don’t come back. Once the Guard targets you, they don’t change their mind. And they won’t care if you or any of your clan gets in the crossfire.” He looked at Dune, then waved his hand. The mangled body disappeared. Kade reached in his pocket for his phone, then stopped and rocked his head back. “It’s such a habit to put on the cover illusion and call for cleanup.” The illusion fell.
“We’ll take care of the body,” Jessup said. “Feed it to the gators.”
Kade searched for his shoes and put them on. She felt frozen, perhaps as he had when he’d come upon her crying.
He paused in front of her, lifting his hand to her face but dropping it before making contact. “Give me your cell number. I’ll let you know what’s going on.” He programmed it into his phone under the name Astrid. “In case they get hold of my phone. It won’t be an obvious link to you.” He called the number and disconnected. “Now you’ll have mine, in case something comes up.” He started walking away.
She leaned forward, but Jessup closed his hand over her shoulder. “You’re not going with him. Dumb idea.”
The dappled shadows played over his shoulders and back as he walked into the woods. He paused, turned around. She waited for him to say something—anything. But he turned and continued on.
“They’ll kill him if they know it’s him,” she whispered. Her heart twisted at the thought. She didn’t know what she felt for Kade. She didn’t want to feel anything for him. He was magick and illusion. Deuces were, after all, named for their two-facedness. How much was real?
Well, she’d known him for one full day, had fought him, fought with him, and made glorious love with him. No one had ever felt so right and so wrong all at once. No one had made her hot and aroused and angry and afraid and…no one had made her feel so much. He was a cold killer and a man willing to throw it all away to do the right thing.
And now he was out of sight. What if she never saw him again? She started to move, but Jessup’s grip tightened.
“She’s in love with him,” Ryan said behind her.
“She’s not stupid enough to fall for someone like him,” Jessup said, ever the skeptic. “Not after what Bren did to her.”
She spun around. “Hullo, I’m right here, listening to every word you’re saying. And Bren didn’t do anything to me.”
Ryan continued to ignore her, talking to Jessup. “She melted when Kade was talking about how crazy he was about her.”
“That was all a lie, to push his sister away,” Jessup said. “Which was admirable, I have to admit.”
“I wasn’t melting,” she said. “I was devastated that he was going to cut ties to her like that. To save her.” But her heart had responded to the words.
Jessup leaned closer to Ryan. “Our Vee isn’t going to let a guy break her heart again. And a man whose whole life has been dedicated to fighting and killing isn’t the right one for her. Besides, he’s probably going to die today.”
Chapter 16
In a way, Violet knowing the truth was much better than having that heavy rock of a secret in his chest. Kade popped his trunk and pulled out a clean shirt. He did a quick cleanup, treated the cuts, and shrugged into it. Now he could let go of any illusions that he could have her. And he had to face it: after giving in and making love with her, he’d been doing just that, building the illusion of a future. He had to focus on finding out what the hell was going on and making sure she was safe. Later he could pull himself out of the rubble that would be his life and figure out what he was going to do.
Without Violet.
Who’d ignited his magick.
All those beautiful, adventurous Deuce women he’d been with and not one had done that. Not one had reached in and wrapped her long, capable fingers around his heart.
He got in the car and texted Ferro a simple message: DONE.
A few seconds later: EXCELLENT. REPORT IN IMMEDIATELY.
Facing the man would be difficult. Maintaining his cool when all he wanted to do was kill him even harder.
YES, SIR. ON MY WAY BACK.
Sometime later, he pulled past the employee parking lot and left his car in a busy restaurant’s lot. When no one was around, he summoned Dune’s visage and stepped out of the car. He could easily take on the arrogant swagger, the square shoulders…because Kade had those, too. When you’re the best of the badasses, you absorb it into your body, your personality.
Kade was no longer one of them. He felt the glimmer of the man he used to be, the one who didn’t fit into the Vega mold, or the Kavanaugh mold. He didn’t know that guy anymore, though. For twenty years, he’d been stuffed away, chastised and humbled.
He used Dune’s card to enter through the employee entrance. A long time ago, they’d used magick to prove their identity. In the way Dragons could no longer fly because of population and technology issues, Deuces had to limit their use of magick in public. Now it was a card. A sorry exchange, though it worked well for Kade at the moment.
He nodded at another Vega and ignored the Arguses, like Dune did. Holding on to the illusion this long took all of his effort. The magick pinched every muscle and organ in his body. Dune was an easier illusion to pull off than, say, a Dragon, but it was still work all the same. Could he sell it to Ferro?
Taking a deep breath, he knocked on Ferro’s door. After his customary “Come,” Kade stepped inside and closed the door behind him. If Ferro made him, Kade would fight. Ferro might be more powerful but he was out of practice as far as combat went. Another reason Kade eschewed the higher positions.
Ferro took him in, his eyes shrewd. He scanned Kade’s body. He knew. Already, in the first seconds, he knew. Damn it.
Kade prepared for him to Catalyze, but Ferro kept his cool. Even the flames in his eyes weren’t wildly flickering. He’d seen enough Dragons gearing up to fight to know the signs. Maybe he didn’t suspect after all. Yet.
Ferro stepped around from behind his desk. “Not one scratch or cut? Not even a bruise? Kavanaugh’s good. I find it hard to believe you could kill him and the woman and not sustain any injury.”
Kade gave him Dune’s most arrogant smile. “Because I’m better.” He ducked his head. “But I have to confess, it was far easier than I thought. Kavanaugh was trussed up. As he was trying to convince me to release him, he told me that the woman’s brothers ambushe
d him. I took him out right there, and then went after the woman. If that’s all, sir—”
“What else did he say?”
Psychological stress made the illusion even harder to hold on to. Kade’s muscles were cramping now. “He spouted some nonsense about a conspiracy.” He laughed. “Even accused you of being in on it. Once his head was no longer attached to his body, he had nothing more to say about it.” He took a step back toward the door.
“How did the woman die?”
Kade had prepared for all of this, but Ferro was usually content to hear the end result. Why was he so curious now? Because he has a personal stake in it. “She must have heard Kavanaugh’s screams. I punched a hole through her chest the moment she came around the corner.”
That’s what Dune would have done. The thought of that weakened Kade and made it even harder to hold the illusion. He waited impatiently for Ferro to dismiss him. He’d get suspicious if Dune was in too much of a hurry to leave. Dune enjoyed his kills and loved to regale anyone who would listen with every nuance of his fight.
“Good job,” Ferro said, turning toward the desk.
Kade fought a sigh of relief as he gripped the doorknob.
“Wait.”
Kade had to pry his fingers off the knob and hide his grimace as he turned his pain-wracked body back to Ferro.
“You said Kavanaugh was trussed up. But he was conscious. Why wasn’t he using his power?”
Hell, he didn’t want to go there. “I touched the rope they used to hold him. I think it had Lucifer’s Gold threaded in it.”
“And you didn’t take it? I don’t like the idea of Fringers possessing something like that.”
“I could hear others coming, having heard the screams as well. I decided it was best to retreat than engage an unknown number of enemies.”
Ferro held his gaze, then gave a quick nod. “Understood. Retrieve it at your earliest convenience but tell no one. Give it to me.”
“Yes, sir.” He barely held on, praying that Ferro wouldn’t stop him again as he reached for the doorknob. His fingers were stiff, fumbling. He stepped out and closed the door just as his illusion flickered. He shot a look at the pit, people going about their business. Did they know that one of their own had gone rogue? Would he be detained on sight? Or worse, shot? Mia sat, staring off into space, her expression bereft.
