by Mikayla Lane
It didn’t take long before everyone was reassembled in the much larger conference room, and Siggy and Dante were putting the information on the walls around the room and the table.
Liam and Drago were the last to come in, both carrying trays of ice cream and treats for Angel and Dree.
“Do you ever stop eating?” Trick asked sarcastically.
Dree threw a spoonful of ice cream at his head that he barely ducked before he was hit in the face with a piece of cake thrown by Angel.
“You got off easy,” Shane whispered. “Don’t look in their eyes . . . and they may let it go.”
Trick dropped his gaze and quietly cleaned up the ice cream that had landed on his shoulder and the cake covering his face. He made the mistake of looking up and saw Liam and Drago’s intense glares, and he dropped his head again.
Shane shook his head and put a comforting hand on Trick’s shoulder.
“Guess you’re not getting off too easy after all. You gotta learn to shut up about the . . .” Shane began aloud, then switched to speaking to Trick privately through the shengari’, “gestating she-demons.”
“You ass!” Angel yelled as she threw her tray of snacks at Shane and Trick. “I heard that!”
“Enough, guys . . . please,” Chris said with a heavy sigh as he ran his hands over his head in frustration. “I need to find them.”
Dree and Angel looked like they were going to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Angel said as Dree nodded her head in agreement.
“OK! Back to the issue. We got the extra hands we needed to trace the limo,” Siggy said loudly to make sure he had everyone’s attention. “It ended up at Dulles International.”
Several gasps and groans were heard around the room.
“We do know,” Dante interrupted, “that she wasn’t on a commercial flight. We’re tracing the private flights right now to narrow down our search.”
“She’d be out of country,” Lara said. “Think about it. It’d be wise to take them out of their own country in order to make them feel more helpless and frightened about reaching out for help.”
“It makes sense. We’ll focus on the international flight plans,” Siggy said as he tapped on his comm to enter in the new parameters.
“What about these clinics?” Angel asked as she rubbed her stomach.
“We’re going to get to them too,” Mikal promised.
“There’s no doubt about that,” Chance agreed as she set Charlie on the floor. “Go get your dollhou . . .”
Before she finished speaking, Charlie disappeared. A few seconds later she was back with her dollhouse and sat quietly on the floor as she played.
“England!” Dante yelled out. “They took her to England.”
Mikal and Chris stood and looked at the map on the wall showing the 27 locations, and Chris pointed at the two dots noted in the United Kingdom.
“We need to know which location. We can’t waste any more time than we already have,” Chris said.
“That should be pretty easy; England has cameras everywhere,” Siggy said excitedly as he started hacking into the British surveillance systems.
“Wait . . . look at this,” Dante said as he put up a news broadcast.
“We still don’t know what caused the explosion that killed a man, but witnesses say they saw a spark ignite from the engine of a private plane and hit the man in the chest. It is this electrical discharge that is believed to be blamed for the damage to the cameras and lack of footage of the incident,” a pretty British reporter stated.
“This area of the airport will remain closed while investigators try to piece together what could have caused an airplane engine to incinerate a passing pedestrian and knock out power to this entire portion of the airport.”
“Oh my god,” Chris whispered as he stared at the footage on the wall.
Mikal grinned broadly as he put a hand on Chris’s shoulder.
“She’s definitely in England,” Mikal said. “Because that’s definitely your kid. Deacon, get the transport ready.”
“Oh! I want fish and chips!” Dree exclaimed as she jumped up with Angel and waddled from the room together.
“You’re not really letting them go are you?” Shane asked Liam and Drago incredulously.
Liam chuckled as he followed behind his mate.
“You go ahead and stop them, tough guy,” he retorted as he left the room.
Shane turned to the others in horror.
“You aren’t letting them get in the middle of this are you?” he exclaimed in fear and frustration. “They’re pregnant with the very children the asshole is looking for! Am I the only one who gives a shit about the nieces or nephews they are carrying?”
Lara laughed as she sent him calming energy.
“Angel is a prime carrying a Tezarian hybrid. If that is what a Dranovian hybrid can do,” Lara gestured to the wall and the footage at the airport, “imagine what her child can do. Dree is a Tezarian carrying a Dranovian child. Can you imagine what a Dranovian/illusionist hybrid can do? Besides, they’re not stupid. I’m sure they have every intention of staying out of the middle of danger.”
Although calmer, Shane didn’t look the least bit pleased as he stormed from the room.
“What about Charlie?” Chris asked in concern as he looked over at the little girl that he adored.
Just then the little girl’s face brightened, and she lifted her arms up.
“Gran’pa!” she exclaimed before she disappeared and reappeared in the arms of Grai T’Alq, who was standing in the doorway.
“Oh, my little beauty! I swear you get more beautiful every time I see you! How’s my precious one?” Grai asked as he cuddled the little girl close to his chest.
Though nothing about Grai’s manner gave anyone an indication of whether he knew about the situation; they all assumed he did. Not much could be kept from the hybrid leader.
“Charlie, would you like to come stay with Grandma for a little while? She needs some help picking out some new things for Grace, and since you have such wonderful taste in little girl things, Grandma thought you’d be a perfect person to help,” Grai said gently as he looked adoringly at his first grandchild.
Charlie squealed in excitement before she disappeared and reappeared in Mikal’s arms.
“Daddy, can I? Daddy, huh, huh, can I? Please? Mommy? Can I?” Charlie begged as her pretty white eyes moved from her mother to her father waiting for one of them to give her permission.
Mikal gave her a quick hug and smiled at her.
“I think that’s a great idea. Go pack some of your toys and clothes. But you better give me a hug before you leave,” Mikal advised with a grin.
Charlie immediately disappeared.
“I’ll go make sure she has more clothes than toys packed,” Chance said as she disappeared next.
Grai looked around the room at the information on the walls, and everyone but Lara seemed to hold their breath waiting to see what he was going to say.
“If you strike the one location, he’ll take the females at the 26 other locations underground, and we’ll never find them,” Grai said, his voice even as he looked at the wall and the red dots.
Chris looked at the others and walked up to his father.
“Dad . . . I screwed up. Real bad this time,” Chris began when Grai put his arm around his shoulders.
“It’s going to take you a few hours to get the logistics once you land in England. Once you’re ready to strike, you will let me know, and we’ll take care of the other locations while you go get my other grandchild and your mate,” Grai said as he looked down at his oldest child with love in his eyes.
Chris turned and hugged Grai tight.
“Thank you, Dad,” he whispered as he blinked away his tears.
Grai hugged Chris back then pulled away and stared into his blue eyes.
“Listen to me; if you need help, you call. Do you understand? You call me. I’ll be with the team going in on the one in Scotland, so I w
ill be close,” Grai promised, unwilling to be far from his children if they needed him.
“We’ll call,” Dread assured Grai with a nod of his head.
Grai nodded his head and opened his arms. Everyone wondered what he was doing when Charlie suddenly appeared in them.
“Gran’pa I brought the prettiest princess dresses! Grace would love to have some princess dresses. They all have to be pinks and purples and maybe some greens, but no blues! Blues are for boys!” Charlie chattered in her rapid fire child speak.
Grai just looked at the child adoringly.
“I think a rose color would look beautiful on you and Grace. You and Grandma can pick some pretty colors, and when I get back from work, you can show me what you picked out,” Grai said patiently as he carried her to the door.
“Gran’pa, Mommy and Daddy say I can’t have a princess castle ‘cause we have nowhere to put one. But you say I’m a princess, and shouldn’t a princess have a castle?” Charlie asked with an adorable pout.
Grai turned at the door and looked back at Mikal and Chance as they shook their heads. Dread snorted while Drago and Lara looked bemused. Grai looked around the room and kissed the top of Charlie’s head.
“Grandpa never lies, precious one, and princesses always have castles. Now give Mommy and Daddy a hug and kiss goodbye,” Grai no sooner finished the words and Charlie disappeared and reappeared in Chance’s arms.
Mikal glared at his father, shaking his head while Grai ignored his calls to him through the shengari’. Charlie appeared in his arms and his thoughts were forgotten as he cuddled his daughter.
“You be a good girl for Grandma,” Mikal said as he hugged her.
“Of course! Grandma is the best!” Charlie said happily as she disappeared and reappeared back in Grai’s open arms.
“I sent the information to Fiorn’s team; they’ll have all the information you need about the location before you land at the compound in Alston, Cumbria. It’s close enough to where you’re going to be the best place for you to go. Be careful. Good luck to you, son; call me if you need me,” Grai said before he disappeared out of the door with a chatting Charlie in his arms.
“Does anyone else feel like we dodged a bullet?” Cole asked as he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Get geared. We’ll meet at the transport in 10,” Mikal ordered.
He watched his brothers and all the remaining Tezarians except Dread leave the room before he turned to Chris, Lara, Dread, and Declan.
“We wait for Fiorn’s intel, and we’ll formulate our strike at the base in Cumbria. Chris,” Mikal said, looking at his brother intently. “You have to stay in control. I know how hard this is for you; trust me, I know. But you can’t lose it, we can’t take that chance.”
Chris nodded his head. He understood why his brother was so concerned. It had been 51 years since the last time he’d lost control of his power, but the memory of the charred body and the blackout that spanned from New York to Canada was something he and Mikal couldn’t forget.
They had been staying in Lewiston, New York, on November 9, 1965, when Shane had disappeared. As their second youngest sibling and only around three years old at the time, Shane had wandered away from their care, setting off a manhunt among the siblings to find their escape artist brother.
Chris and Mikal had been frantic to find him, and when Chris had rounded a corner near the power generating plant and saw a man slap Shane across the face and lift him in the air by the back of his shirt, Chris lost it.
He wasn’t sure how he got there so quickly, but Chris was standing in front of an open van door as the man carried a screaming, crying Shane towards it.
Chris had felt the man’s evil intentions towards Shane. His fear for his brother and his anger began to overwhelm him, and he lost control. He remembered the electrical energy exploding inside of him as the power levitated him several inches off the ground. Blue arcs of energy and uncontrolled power swirled like a maelstrom around him.
The attempted kidnapper dropped Shane to the ground and tried to run in fear when Chris’s energy unleashed on him, striking him so hard in the back that it lifted him several feet off the ground before his body was thrown into a telephone pole.
The power still pinning the man’s body to the pole traveled up the pole and along the power lines until it overloaded the nearby power station, sending the northeast and parts of Canada into a 13-hour blackout.
Mikal arrived moments later when Chris’s power subsided, and the man’s body had fallen to the ground in a charred heap. They’d scooped up a traumatized Shane, and Deacon had flown in on a transport to get them all away from the area.
Unfortunately, it had been the news reports of a UFO flying in the area around the time of the blackout that had alerted Grai to what had happened, and there had been hell to pay for their lack of supervision of Shane.
Chris had been sent to Tibet for a year to learn meditation techniques to control his emotions, and Mikal and Declan had been left in charge of the rest of the rambunctious siblings until he returned. It had been a small price to pay to rid the world of the bastard who’d tried to take Shane.
Chris looked up at Mikal.
“I will do nothing to endanger my child and my mate. But no one else there will be safe from me. No one,” Chris vowed before he stormed out of the room to get his gear.
Mikal sighed before looking over at Lara who nodded at him.
“I’ll help him out, and I’m sure Angel will as well,” she assured him.
“Just how bad can he get?” Dread asked, curious why Mikal seemed to be so concerned with Chris’s control issues.
Mikal looked over at Declan who shook his head and looked away.
“Chris is very powerful,” Mikal said simply, hoping it would be left at that.
“I think I need a little more than that,” Dread argued, crossing his arms over his chest.
“He could kill every living thing in a . . . what?” Declan said looking briefly at Mikal. “Five mile radius? Maybe 10. Including us.”
“Oh, that’s fucking awesome,” Dread muttered as Declan left the room to get ready.
“He’ll be fine,” Mikal said, not reassuring anyone.
Chapter Five
Quinn paced a path from the bathroom to the bedroom window as she tried to calm her hungry baby, who seemed to be doing somersaults in her abdomen in protest that dinner was two hours late.
She was beginning to wonder if they intended on starving her when she heard the heavy door at the end of the hall open and the telltale rattle of dinnerware as someone walked down the hallway in halting steps.
Quinn moved to the door and stood to the side so she could see who was coming. She was surprised to see a pre-teen girl carefully holding a tray as she walked down the corridor.
Quinn narrowed her eyes, trying to see further down the hallway. She gave up trying when the girl slowly put the tray on the floor then sighed in relief.
“Miss? I have your dinner,” the teenage girl whispered as she looked up into Quinn’s eyes.
Quinn would have been charmed by the girl’s perfect Scottish accent if the circumstances were different.
“Hi!” Quinn said quickly as she plastered on a smile. “Thank you. The baby is kicking so hard I think he was wondering if you were going to starve us.”
Quinn smiled gently at the girl, trying to put her at ease so she could get some information from her.
“Oh no, miss!” the girl rushed to say. “The master called and had a long talk with Miss Sharon. She’s the one who took over when Miss Damilia died suddenly in the study. It put everyone out of sorts, and things went off schedule.”
Quinn thought for a moment about the people killed in the study and assumed the main woman must have been Damilia. She looked the girl over and noted that the others were lying to her about what had happened and she wondered why.
“I’m Quinn, what’s your name?”
“I’m Ainsley, miss,” she replied with a bright
smile.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ainsley,” Quinn said as she forced another smile. “I sure hope that the master told Miss Sharon to treat me better.”
Quinn gave a dramatic sigh as she looked down at her stomach. She tried to hide her grin when Ainsley leaned against the door, then looked behind her to see if anyone was there before turning back to Quinn.
“I overheard Miss Sharon complain to one of the guards that she isn’t sure how she’s supposed to take care of you when everyone here is afraid of you,” Ainsley whispered, the look on her face telling Quinn that the girl was baffled.
Quinn gave another dramatic sigh.
“I don’t think she likes me, and she’s trying to keep me locked up out of meanness. I’m so pregnant I can barely walk around my room; what harm could I do to anyone?” she whispered, forcing tears in her eyes as she looked at Ainsley through the window cut out in the door.
“Miss Sharon is a bully,” Ainsley said softly, looking behind her to make sure no one was there to hear her. “Don’t worry; I’ll make sure I get your meals to you on time from now on since it’s my job now.”
The girl looked so proud and happy, and Quinn knew deep down inside that the poor girl had no idea what was really going on. She felt terrible for her, but Quinn was desperate to save her son and would use Ainsley if it meant getting her baby out of there alive.
“Thank you, Ainsley. My son thanks you as well,” she said, smiling at the girl. “I guess if you’re bringing my meals now, does that mean you’ll be the one taking me out for walks? We really need to see the sun again; it’s been a week.”
Quinn could see the girl thinking about it and knew that her captors hadn’t said anything to Ainsley about letting her out.
“I don’t see why not, miss. I’ll talk to Miss Sharon about it when I get back to the kitchen,” Ainsley said enthusiastically.
Quinn sighed and shook her head.
“Never mind. If you have to get permission from her, then she’ll never agree. But thanks for offering, Ainsley, I really appreciate it, and thank you for dinner,” Quinn said, sounding defeated.
