by Jamie Magee
“And he did,” Talon said, knowing Erio was beyond devoted to Reveca. “How’d that go? Who’s our murderer?”
“Me.”
Talon lifted a brow.
“We’ve got a shifter lurking who sucks at it. I think I have a location on the witness, too, but we’ll deal with that later.”
“Always later,” Talon said and grunted. He wanted the girl ripped apart and he didn’t care who did it. It just had to be done. She’d threatened his Club and must answer for it.
“Zale and Jamison should be here soon. We’re going to have a chat about this business.”
“Awesome,” Talon bit out.
Reveca reached to pat his chest. “Play nice, babe. It will be over before you know it. I got the books from Saige. I’m going to go lock them up. Be right back.”
He closed his eyes when she passed him by without so much as a fleeting kiss. They were good about putting fights on the back burner, but when they did, it sure as hell put a clinch in Talon’s sex life, which did nothing but make him all the meaner.
Feeling nice and brutal, he made his way to King’s bay. King had his car looking good. The body was new and painted, and now it was running, too. But apparently not good enough for King. He had it sitting before the bay, hood up, checking something before he took it on another one of his drives through the Boneyard.
There was a stretch of dirt on the far end that King like to use to test the speed of the car.
“Twenty miles due east,” Talon said when he crossed his arms and stood just beside the car.
King only smirked in response.
Before Talon could say anything else he watched as the smile left King and his entire body went ridged.
“Who are you bucking up to? Surely not me.”
“I’m sure it’s me,” Talon heard from just behind him.
Fucking Zale.
Talon gave Zale one hard glance. “I knew I smelled an asshole. Popping in—what—you need a fast escape if it gets too hard? What are going to do, zap out before I ruin another suit of yours?”
The way Zale fought was with wit and his craft, never brute strength, which is why the comment Talon threw at him should have already been countered. Instead, Zale was grinning at King like he had just cracked the biggest mystery of all time.
“Kenson, you look smashing,” Zale said as he moved closer.
King was standing next to the car, his shoulders back and a murderous glare on his face.
“King,” Talon corrected, as his dark stare moved between them.
“King,” Zale repeated as if he were testing the word. He pursed his lips. “Fitting, I suppose. You were meant to be one.” He laughed then looked back at Talon. “My, this is a pleasure. Made my century.” He started to move around the car, not on the side King was on, but the other. He ran his fingertips along it as if he were admiring the skill and work that had gone into it.
“I assume you boys are playing nice if Reveca invited company over.”
No one responded.
“I knew it,” Zale said as he looked across the hood at King. “That glow. What you do to her with a glance. That power.” He glanced back at Talon who, to his credit, had not changed his expression. “She tell you about the good ol’ days?”
Zale laughed. “Oh man, it was a small village, it was hard to get away. Kenson—I mean King—was clever though. Those two would basically eye fuck each other all day, and then they’d sneak away.” Zale bit his lip. “I’d see them go. Wait until I knew that King was hard and she was wet, that young brand-new raw love coursing through the air, then I’d pop in.” Zale laughed. “I was total cock block but hey—” Before he could say another word King had appeared on the other side of the car and slammed Zale’s head into the roof.
Zale laughed as the blood came from his forehead. “I think I hit a nerve.”
“Quit fucking up your car, King,” Talon said dryly.
“Right, King. I wasn’t the one that offered you up to the Gods, imprisoned your woman. I actually sat with her while the others threw a party, earned my bonus points. Later she turned me, fucked the shit out of me, too. Best lay I ever had.”
King hit him again, square in the jaw. Before he hit the ground Talon’s fist connected with Zale’s jaw, too.
“All right,” Zale said from the ground.
King knelt down. “You were awful fucking clear on what went down before I went into battle. Did it make you feel awesome digging that shit up and throwing it in her face the other night?”
Zale licked his bottom lip, swiping at the blood he felt there. “As if the sight of you didn’t dig shit up—the second she saw you the past hit her in the face like a sledgehammer.” He squinted his eyes. “I knew you were there. I was talking to you, letting you know that I have no fucking clue how you ended up back here but I assure you,” he glanced up to Talon, “if he doesn’t kill you the coven is going to put you down again, and this time when it does, she won’t survive it. I have no clue how she made it last time. You’re a threat. The warrior and the child will never rule.”
“What the fuck is he talking about?” Talon asked, looking down at King. All he heard was that his woman’s life was in danger. Beyond that he was seeing red, wanting to know why he was the last fucking one invited to this party. What the hell went down ages ago?
King didn’t answer. He picked Zale up, hit him again, and this time the punch slung him all the way into the bay.
King stalked forward, Talon right at his side.
Talon stopped at the door, King went forward and picked Zale up and threw him against the tool boxes. He was going for another blow just to make himself feel better when they all heard, “That’s enough, King.”
Every one of them looked to the doorway to see Jamison BellaRose standing there.
All at once memories that were just flashes before in King’s mind, ones that inspired gut feelings that he was following, started to click into place.
He’d remembered Jamison from his life with Reveca, but now he was remembering the man from his life as an Escort. He was there during King’s last battle, the one that lead him to Crass.
King hit Zale once more, hard enough that he slid down the side of the tool box.
King’s glare moved to Jamison, his eyes full of question—even disbelief. He couldn’t figure out why Jamison didn’t tell him who he was when he was an Escort. He didn’t try to make him remember Reveca, and didn’t know if that would’ve even made a difference in the choices he made that lead him to where he was standing today. He was sure his memory was still missing precious details.
“Welcome home, King,” Jamison said, holding his stare.
“And what home would that be?” King asked, clenching his jaw.
Jamison knew both versions of King; the warrior that died as Reveca clutched him, and the Escort he became. From King’s standpoint he had no idea where Jamison would assume his true home was.
“Where you belonged from day one.”
“He’s fucking with you,” Zale said from the floor.
“Someone better start explaining this shit to me,” Talon said.
“Your attention span sucks,” Zale said with a sly grin. “Ol’ King and Reveca, whatever souls are made of, they come from the same pot. Fucking raw power between the pair of them. So much so that Jamison and his buddy Lorecan, Saige’s fuck toy, took King out. Offered him up to the Gods, and they took him.” Zale reached for his jaw. “There is no doubt they enhanced him instead of devouring him. He couldn’t hit that hard before.”
“Quiet,” Jamison said to Zale in his calm even tone.
“Why?” Zale said. “I know Talon is a brute but he’s a smart man. He should know that when whatever you have planned for King, plays out his woman’s going to be gone for good, which means all of us will be. She’s the common thread that connects us all in this wicked life we lead.”
“No one is being destroyed,” Jamison said with his stare right on King’s.
; King narrowed his eyes, even tilted his head slightly. Jamison was either a liar or knew something King didn’t. There was not a doubt in King’s mind that he was an Escort that had to be slain for Cashton to rise.
The part about Reveca was twisting his mind, too. He was sure Zale was just talking shit, but King knew with this coven there was always a twist around the next bend. All King knew right then, was if they planned on killing her before his final breath, he would take them all out. He’d be damned if any of his hell touched her.
“Their energy is already entangled,” Zale said. “One goes, they both go.”
Talon’s entire body went tense. Witch mumbo jumbo was lost on him, but he knew sex was energy—it was power. If King had been fucking his woman under his roof and because he did she was now set for death, he was going to come unglued.
Right as Talon stepped up to get some answers from King, who ironically was the one he trusted the most out this party of three, Jamison held his arm out. “It’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me your version, BellaRose.”
“My version,” Jamison said with dry smile, one that Talon wanted to rip right off his face. “I’m not going to testify that they are made of the same soul, but I will tell you that they are both empowered by a force that can’t be explained. When they are near each other, it expands, amplifies. Eye contact, just a glance, would be enough to entangle their energy.” Jamison’s stare stayed steady on King. “Even though King and Reveca were blind to each other, their souls weren’t. King has lurked across every plane and dimension since he was taken from our coven, and when he was close, but blind, his power aided. Surely when you look back over the ages you will remember times when Reveca seemed more radiant…and you will remember times when she was dim, turned inward. Indeed you could recognize the last five years have been her darkest years. She has been slipping away from us, from life. That was her soul responding to his distance.”
Jamison moved his gaze to Talon who was tense with rage. “King is the reason you are here today. He has aided you in every war against Zale, and when you prevailed he was a part of that. Your own oath as a Pentacle Son means you cannot turn on him. No matter the fault.”
“That’s your game, Jamison? You weave him into the brotherhood blindly, then send Reveca to retrieve him. One glance and all of the sudden his shit is our problem, too. What the fuck is your end game here?”
“The same as all of yours: survival. You wanted my version and I gave it to you. Together their power is unimaginable. That kind of power could surely alter any fate set before them. That is, if that is what they wanted. I’ve heard legends of great souls who have done that before.”
When King’s lip twisted and the look in his eyes was no less than homicidal, Zale’s gaze shifted between the two trying to cleverly read through the aloofness. Then he understood—the legends were true.
“You’re the one who put her in prison last time, aren’t you?” Zale said with a narrowed gaze on King. Most of his wounds were gone. The marks of blood were still on his shirt, though. He still looked like he got his ass kicked. “Damn you’re good. You and I need to talk. With power like yours…”
“You put her in that Edge,” Talon said as he went to move forward again. “Do you have any fucking idea what that did to her, what it still does to her? It’s a curse.”
Jamison once again stepped before him and connected his eyes with Talon. He spoke as if to remind him of the oath once more. “It’s a curse that has allowed you and everyone you care about life,” Jamison said nice and calmly.
“Why?” Talon demanded with fury still haunting his gaze.
“He saved her, Talon,” Jamison said. “The power was going to destroy her. He created a realm around her which no Gods could pass…and when he did, it made him weak enough that he was taken. They were both victims that day.”
“Way to make it sound beautiful,” Zale spat. “It was a trap and we both know it.”
“It was a course that was seen that fate lead them to,” Jamison said. “And that course has lead us here.”
“That’s one fucked course I lived through. Why now, Jamison?” King said as he glowered.
“It wasn’t all that easy to locate you,” Jamison said.
“And before, when you knew exactly where the fuck I was and what I was doing?” King said as he lifted his brow, his silent gesture to let Jamison know that all cylinders may not be turning and burning in his memories, but he remembered enough.
Jamison glanced to Talon, then to King. “How would you have rather crossed her path again, as the Escort you were, or the one that was broken down so much so that his beginning was new again? With hope or regret?” Jamison paused. “You had to remember your beginning. That was the only way for the influence of your sovereign Revelin to leave you. The lesson you should be grasping now is the correlation you began, your faction of souls, is only the beginning of the change you could make.”
“I have to be and will be destroyed.”
“Not under my watch. Not if it means putting Reveca in danger,” Talon bit out. “I don’t know what the hell you have twisted him into, Jamison, but you better get him the fuck out of it.”
Zale laughed. “I told you this man has history with her, has power with her—we both know how seductive power is to Reveca—and you want to save him? I will never understand you. All I did was lay one spell on her and you and your buddy Thrash tied me up, cut me open as a feast for the crows—it took me nearly a year to get down, recover.”
Talon squared his shoulders. “I’ll do it again if you don’t keep your fucking mouth shut. I have history with her. I have power with her. Might not be the same or even the realm as you fucked twisted witches like to talk about, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is as long as I’m breathing nothing is going to happen to her no matter what the hell all your warped histories and spells throw at us.”
Respect. Talon had just earned that from King. The man had his priorities in order and knew when to put his pride away and handle his business.
Echo came to the bay then. “Hey, have you seen Reveca? There’s a girl at the front gate who won’t come in, and she’s not alone.”
The bay door slammed shut.
King was glaring at Jamison.
“I didn’t call them here. I’ve already shielded you. Might be best for you take a walk for a minute, though.”
King vanished in an instant.
“What the fuck?” Talon spat.
Jamison walked to Zale and gripped his arm. “We’ll stay right here as you speak to your guest. As brief as possible would be best. I’d like to contend with the business I came here for and move about my day.”
Talon glanced down at Echo, then the pair of them walked out through the next bay.
The other guys were outside, too, staring at the gate, toward the vibration of power they had never come against before, yet recognized.
Reveca was jogging across the lot. “I got this,” she yelled in their direction.
Reveca couldn’t figure out why River wouldn’t come in. When Knight found her coming out of the house he said she just showed up, no car or anything, and wouldn’t move beyond the gate.
Reveca’s first thought was that something wild was going on in the lot and she had gotten an eyeful of sin, which was something that Reveca didn’t care to explain to Jamison later, but as she made her way outside everything looked legit.
She did slow her jog down, right after she passed the boys, who were all basically lined up with their arms crossed, looking like a force that should not be fucked with.
Reveca felt it, too, the surge of power in the air. It was more than she had openly displayed in ages, more than she had seen Jamison use in recent memory. It was downright commanding and unequivocally gave Reveca flashbacks of the time she lost Kenson. The surge of energy she fought then felt the same, which was more than likely why she had her defenses up. She wasn’t going to lose him again, not yet.
River was pacing in front of the gate, small steps, holding a cross body bag against her.
When Reveca reached the gate on the other side of the brick wall, she saw where the power was coming from. She almost did a double take thinking he was King. The way the boy before her was built—those eyes, that dark hair, the undeniably godly features, looking murderous as hell—made it easy to mistake him for King at first glance.
“Sorry,” River said nervously. “He didn’t want me to come alone. Protective,” She nodded at her escort. “This is Dagen.”
“You brought an Escort to my Boneyard.”
It was blowing Reveca’s mind she said that without one quiver in her voice. As if it were some common thing. Not as if she was now forced to believe this. She couldn’t deny it. Dagen was living, breathing, and walking proof—power she felt before her.
Reveca’s mind was whirling. One thought she was desperate to find a way to stop the destruction King was sure was aimed at him, and the next all she could think was that King was in hiding and River had just delivered his first in command to his doorstep.
This was a shit storm and she knew it.
Dagen’s stare went from the lot, the line of men who were glaring in his direction, to Reveca.
“Um…yeah. I figured if anything he could tell you about who we lost, what he can or can’t,” River cleared her throat, “say or do.”
Dagen let a half smirk come him as he shook his head. “So stubborn.”
“You like it,” River shot back.
“Hey,” Reveca said in a sharp tone. “Full disclaimer. Jamison is here. He good with you two hooking up?”
Both of them seem to tense at once.
“Yeah, I can’t imagine why he would have an issue with that,” Reveca said, falling back on her normal snarky defense. “We’re going to have to take a rain check on this meet and greet.”
“I told you he was close,” Dagen said under his breath to River.
“I told him I was giving this to you, though,” River said.
Reveca lifted her brow.
“We don’t keep secrets from each other.” She glanced up at Dagen. “Most times. Okay, maybe not every detail, but he knows. It’s cool,” River said, handing the bag to Reveca.
