The table rose a few inches into the air, suspended, as if asking for the kill command. I concentrated hard, my sole focus on bringing the table down on the Centaur who was inflicting the pain on Drake. I closed my eyes to heighten my focus, and I heard a loud thump. When I opened my eyes, I was shocked to see one of the legs of the desk had impaled the attacking Centaur.
The man lay on the floor with blood oozing around the table leg stuck through his chest. Phineas shouted, “Camille! We’re here for your protection! Sebastian, get over here with the needle, now!”
I didn’t want to believe that Phineas could hurt me. I had thought of him as my own personal bodyguard and trusted friend while at Zandra’s. I felt the prick of the needle in my skin. I watched Drake’s lifeless body sprawled out on the floor next to the Centaur with the table leg stuck in his chest. I didn’t recognize my own voice when it screamed, “Drake! Drake, wake up! Drake. . . help. . .” The room went completely dark.
Chapter 16
(Drake – Hotel near Crazy Horse Mountain, SD)
Camille’s phone lay on the floor; the ringing wouldn’t stop. I tried to open my eyes but could only see slits of light through my swelled-shut eyelids. The ache in my body was indescribable. When I tried to stand, I couldn’t. I rolled onto my stomach and started crawling toward the ringing noise. I had moved several feet in the right direction when the ringing stopped. I put my head down, lying in the prone position, my body threatening to lose consciousness again.
The ringing began again. I still couldn’t see the phone, but I could hear that I was close. I fanned my arms out, reaching in all directions, trying to get to it while my legs pushed my body further in the right direction. I had it in my hand, pressed the speaker button, and tried to say, “Hello.”
“Cami? Cami, we’re here. Where are you guys?” It was Daniel. Had it been five hours? She could be anywhere by now. Daniel’s voice sounded frantic, “Cami? Hello?”
I tried to say, “It’s Drake,” but it came out a garbled mess.
“Drake? Is that you? Where’s Cami?”
I took a breath. They were here to help. They knew she was in danger. I could taste the rusty flavor of blood in my mouth and tried to open my eyes again. “They. . . took. . . her.”
“Who got her? Where is she!?
I felt my body trying to succumb to the dark again and fought with everything that I had. “Phineas took her.”
“Who’s Phineas?” Daniel was screaming into the phone. They’d been too late. I thought back to what had happened. I sensed the warriors in the hallway before Phineas told them to come in. I knew it was an ambush. I should have slammed the door and gotten Cami out the window. I should have attacked them instead of simply claiming her as mine. Phineas was right: without her telling her family, I had no claim to her.
Why hadn’t I made her make that call? None of this would have happened if I hadn’t let my desire for her overcome me. This was my fault. I could have prevented the whole thing.
Daniel’s voice was screaming at me over the phone, but I only heard about every third word. I could feel my vision clouding, dizziness and nausea wrapped together threatening to knock me unconscious again. When Daniel paused after a string of questions I couldn’t understand, I answered, “At Crazy Horse Lodge.” The phone dropped back to the floor, and I surrendered to the darkness.
*****
I heard Daniel’s voice absent of any real concern, “Is he dead?”
Beau’s voice answered him, “No, he’s alive, but not by much. His shoulder’s dislocated, his jaw’s broken, and I don’t know how many broken ribs, maybe internal bleeding, too.” I didn’t know if it had been five minutes or five more hours since Daniel’s call. The two were talking to each other, unaware that I was regaining consciousness.
“Who did this?”
“I don’t know. I’ve known Drake Nash since he was a little kid. He doesn’t have an enemy in the world.”
“There’s a big bloodstain over here. That couldn’t have come from him. You think it was Cami?”
“No. That much blood, they would have left her. Whoever did this to him wanted him dead, probably thought he was dead.”
I tried to take a deep breath, but it hurt too badly. I managed to get out, “Not dead. They took Cami.”
Beau’s voice was loud and close to my face, “Drake? Drake, you can hear us? Drake, what happened?!”
“Phineas took her.”
“Who’s Phineas?”
“Friend of your dad.”
This time Daniel screeched, “I told you your dad was a piece of shit! I hate that guy. Call your dad and ask him where Cami is!”
Beau didn’t hesitate. I heard the phone dialing. I needed to stay conscious. My left eye could open further than my right. I winced from the light in the room but stared through the pain, so I could look at the two standing to my side. “Dad, it’s Beau. Cami’s in trouble.” Why wouldn’t he put it on speaker? “South Dakota. Daniel and I just flew in. We came to Cami and Drake’s hotel, and it looks like an earthquake hit their room. Someone beat up Drake pretty badly. He says it was Phineas.” More silence, then, “I’ll ask. Drake, you’re sure it was Phineas?”
I nodded, making eye contact with Beau with my one almost good eye. “He’s sure, Dad.” I heard Beau take in a breath, “Sometime in the last seven hours. We called them from San Diego before we took off and everything was fine. When we got here, Cami was gone and Drake was bloody and passed out.” More of a pause, then I heard, “I’ll put it to his ear.”
I heard Will’s voice when Beau put the phone up to my ear, “Drake, it’s Will. Can you tell me what happened?”
It took all the strength I had, but if I didn’t use it on this conversation, I might never get Cami back. “Phineas came to the hotel with four other Centaurs. I didn’t recognize the other four. She told Phineas that she chose me.” I needed to get that information out there. According to our traditions, he had to hear it from Cami, but with the circumstances, he would take my word for it. A Centauride’s choice trumps everything, and Will would be forced to devote all his resources to help me find her instead of conducting his own search and possibly leaving me out of it. “He stopped her from calling you and then knocked her out with a drug.”
“Where did he take her?”
“If I knew that I’d already be there.”
“Drake, did you two get what you were after in Ireland?”
“No, but I don’t think Zandra is our biggest problem right now.”
“You’re right. I just. . . don’t worry, Drake, we’ll find her. Phineas is an old friend. If he did this, he’d never hurt her.”
“Not if. He took her.” I thought back to my last few minutes of consciousness, “She killed one of the Centaurs before they got her.”
“She killed one? How?”
“She has her powers, Will. She got them when we left Ireland. She made a table fly across the room and staked one of them through the chest.”
“You three, stay put. The boys and I will be on the plane tonight.”
I needed for Beau to take the phone. Something bothered me. Why would Phineas have done this? What was in it for him? If he wanted to take Cami, he had every opportunity at Zandra’s house. He’d helped us escape and delivered us to Will. What would have changed? Why now?
*****
My body repaired itself faster than I would have dreamed possible, maybe out of sheer will. Broken bones took longer than tissue to heal, so my ribs and jaw would be a day or two before they’d fully mend, but after just a few hours, my eyes opened and the bruising all over me was a greenish-yellow rather than the purple and blue colors that Daniel and Beau had found me wearing.
I knew Cami had all of her powers. I kept hoping to hear a telepathic thought from her. Telepathy didn’t work over great distances for most, but as her Centaur, she should be able to speak to me from any distance, even if we hadn’t yet united. I called out to her in my mind but heard nothing in return. E
ither she was still sedated, or. . . I wouldn’t think about the other possibility.
Once I’d had a shower and put on some clothes that weren’t crusted with blood, my mind seemed to be more alert, as well. I emerged from the bathroom and saw a note from Beau to come to his room. The door was ajar, and I heard Daniel and Beau planning their strategy quietly. I’d known Beau most of my life, but this was the first time I’d seen Daniel. He was more than a half-blood, but not a pure-blood. He was Cami’s close friend; I never would have guessed that he was a partial Centaur.
I stuck out my hand, “Hi, Daniel, I’m Drake.”
He looked at my outstretched hand. He took it, but not because he wanted to make my acquaintance. Daniel used it as a handle to draw me closer to him – so I could feel his rage. “You were supposed to protect her. All that bullshit on the phone: that she was under your protection. When I find her, I’m going to kick your ass all over again.”
Beau shook his head, “Daniel, take it easy. It’s not like he handed her over. You saw him when we got here.”
“Yeah, I saw him. I heard him say Cami killed one of ‘em, too. How many did pretty boy take down?”
It didn’t matter that I agreed with Daniel, Beau was quick to defend me. “He was outnumbered, Daniel. If he weren’t a Centaur, he wouldn’t be alive right now.”
Daniel mumbled, “It’s not like he’s doing us much good anyway.” Daniel refused to speak to me directly, in favor of bashing me to Beau. “I had a better chance of protecting her from three states away than this douche.” His tone was bitter. He was right – things never should have happened the way that they did. She was taken, and it was my fault.
Daniel was definitely more Centaur than human. We all tried to pretend to be civilized, to mask the fact that we were born of beasts, but when angry, our civility nearly evaporated. He was a hundred and eighty pounds of rage, and even as a pure-blood, I wouldn’t provoke him. Daniel would be an asset despite the human blood that ran through him. Trying to get involved with the plan, I asked, “Has anyone called Zandra?”
Both sets of eyes shot daggers at me as if I had suggested summoning Lucifer. “Look, I don’t like her any more than either of you, but she’s the most powerful Centauride on the planet. She could be an asset.”
Beau answered, “No, and we aren’t going to call her, either.”
I didn’t think they were looking at the bigger picture, “Beau, whoever took Cami had it planned out. She could be anywhere by now. Zandra is not my favorite Centauride, either, but she could help.”
Daniel stood up; he was eye-to-eye with me. I wasn’t sure if he planned to take a swing at me or not. He was furious when he answered, “Zandra took her away from us all. She’s not going to do it again. Don’t call her.”
Daniel was right. Defeated, I left Beau’s room and went back into the room I should have been sharing with Cami right now. The ache I felt was overwhelming. I’d lost her again, this time maybe for good.
I remembered my mom and dad when I was a kid. They’d carry on whole conversations without ever saying anything out loud. I hadn’t heard any of Cami’s thoughts since I came to, but maybe she could hear mine.
With all my concentration, I thought, “Cami, if you can hear me, tell me where you are.” I waited, hoping to hear something. I turned off the lights in the room and took a seat in the chair. “Cami, I can’t lose you. Help me find you, Love.” I could hear a train through the window, I could hear my heart beating wildly in my chest, but I couldn’t hear Cami.
I remembered back to the day at Zandra’s estate when my so-called death took place. I was still on a high from having spent the night with Cami. Gage set it up so that Cami and I could have some alone time. Gage told me to stagger our appearances at breakfast, so Zandra wouldn’t grow suspicious. While I was back in my room getting dressed, I was thinking about how I was going to corner Gage to see if he had come up with a plan yet on how we were going to bust out Cami.
While I was lost in that thought, Bianca and Zandra walked into my room. Bianca couldn’t meet my eyes, so I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. Zandra summoned one of Cami’s guards; he bound our wrists, gagged us, and then put a blindfold over me. I overheard her whispering to the guard to take us to the guest quarters. She told him to be careful to avoid the gardens. I didn’t know why at the time but found out later it was because Gage and Cami were waiting for her there.
Just before we were taken down the hallway, I heard Bianca whimper from behind me. The guard held me tight in position. I heard a louder, muffled scream from Bianca. I didn’t know what Zandra was doing to her, and I couldn’t see through the blindfold to help her. After a third scream through Bianca’s gag, Zandra’s venomous voice answered, “It was only a scratch, you nag. You’re lucky I don’t strike you down where you stand.”
I felt the slice of the knife across my forearm, then a second and a third. I didn’t know at the time what she had been up to, but I learned later that to make our murder scene more realistic, she splattered our blood on the walls.
Bianca told me after we were at the guest quarters that she’d been caught leaving Gage’s room that morning. I was guilty by association because Bianca and I were betrothed.
Technically, I was guilty, too, for having spent the night in Cami’s room – Zandra just didn’t know it. We weren’t mistreated during our imprisonment, but neither of us was allowed to leave the guest house or to interact with anyone besides the guards. We didn’t find out until Cami rescued us that everyone, including our parents, had been told we were dead.
I secretly wondered if that was the event that drove Cami into my arms. Until our rescue, I knew Cami had feelings for me, but she refused to make any plans for the future. Even though I brought it up at Zandra’s estate, Cami wouldn’t entertain even the idea of marriage. During those three weeks when she believed I was dead, something had changed in her. I was worried that it was just the shock of finding us alive, that maybe she’d wake up one morning and decide she didn’t feel for me the way I felt for her.
I started broadcasting thoughts to Cami again, hoping she could hear me. “You know, I wanted you to be mine from the first second I saw you. On our trip to Ireland when you told me you chose me, my heart ballooned. You are everything I’ve ever wanted and then some. I was worried that you only chose me because you were shocked to see me alive. That’s why I didn’t push you to call Will. I’m a frickin’ idiot, okay? I should have had you call Will before we ever got off the plane. None of this would have happened if I’d have just made you call.” I wiped the stupid tears away hard, glad that I was alone in the dark where no one could see me.
“I never would have guilted you into choosing me. I was willing to wait decades for you if you needed them. I told you I’d wait as long as it took. I’ll still wait as long as it takes; I’m not going anywhere.” My eyes were pouring and the ache in my chest refused to subside. “The last six days have been more than I could have ever hoped for. More than I’d ever allowed myself to dream of. You chose me, Cami. You chose me.”
The savages who stole her would know my wrath soon. I would use every weapon in my arsenal. As I felt my fury for her kidnappers, I realized one of the weapons in my arsenal, whether or not Beau and Daniel approved, was Zandra.
Throughout the last week, I saw a whole different side of Cami. She was no longer the Centauride who didn’t know her way around her new world. She was confident, smart, and decisive – I didn’t think it was possible to want her more than I did at Zandra’s house, but she’d proved me wrong on that front, too.
Centaurs don’t date the way humans do. Physical contact of any kind is frowned on. If my family had seen us and how familiar we were with one another in Ireland, I could be in some serious trouble. I knew William was putting Cami’s safety over customs, but I don’t imagine he would have been thrilled, either.
Yet, even knowing the repercussions for our actions, I wouldn’t have changed a single second in the
time that we had together. Every time we were alone, we crossed the line a little bit further than we had the time before.
I wanted her so badly that my body ached for her. She always seemed so oblivious to it, too. I wasn’t sure why I needed to tell her these things, especially when I was pretty sure she couldn’t hear me. “When you came out of the bathroom at the hotel, the night we’d found the pasture of Thessaly, wearing the nightgown: Wow.” A smile I wasn’t expecting stretched wide across my face at the memory. “Frickin’ wow, Cami.”
My mind wandered to our short time at this hotel this morning. Had Daniel not called when he did, or if Phineas hadn’t decided to make his appearance exactly when he did, I couldn’t be sure what would have happened between us. I’d like to think that we would have put the brakes on, but I loved her, and more than that – I wanted her.
She believed that because she had been intimate with a human before she met me it would somehow make her less desirable. I’m sure I would never admit it to anyone except Cami, but it just made me want her more. She wasn’t a pristine flower to be worshiped from afar. She didn’t fit into the cookie-cutter image of what I’d grown to believe Centaurides to be. She was real. She had passion, desires, and this sexiness about her I’d never seen in another – Centauride or human. Who wants pristine when you can have perfection?
“Cami, if you can hear me, I love you. I love everything about you. The Ronnie guy you told me about, I don’t care. Just tell me where you are. You’re mine. You belong to me.”
Chapter 17
(Zandra Chiron – Camille’s Grandmother, San Diego, CA)
I’d been searching for Camille and Drake for a week. William Strayer was more cunning than I had given him credit for being. I found the passenger manifest of his sons taking a vacation to San Diego. It didn’t make sense that two of his sons would take a vacation to the very place Camille felt most at home. I was sure he had smuggled the couple here under the guise of his sons’ names.
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