Neil
The dust storm had come out of nowhere. We’d barely made it to the abandoned cabin before we were swallowed up in it.
I’d coughed for ten minutes, and now, with nothing else in the world to do except obsess, I sunk down to the floor. I had made such a royal mess of things I didn’t know how I was ever going to explain what I’d meant versus what I’d said to Mika.
Everyone was silent. Sometimes we all got like this—sullen and withdrawn—and we’d learned from a lifetime of friendship to leave each other alone until the feeling went away. Something hit the cabin hard. Maybe it was a tree branch. Maybe it was the mess I’d made back at the Sisterhood.
“Tell me what you said to her. Exactly.” Ren was the only one who knew things had gone as askew as they had. The others were going to have to hear it, too.
“I made a real mess of things.”
It wasn’t hot in here, but Gordon was sweating and that was very concerning. Was he getting sick? He dabbed at his face, his neck, his arms. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth. “What did you do exactly?”
Wayne put his hand on Gordon’s back. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on. Maybe I’m dying. Start talking, Neil.”
“I wanted to know whether she wanted us to stay. So I asked her and explained that we had been going over pros and cons of sticking around.” The fact that those words had come out of my mouth, that I’d said it like that… what the hell was the matter with me?
Lennon groaned and put his head in his hands. “By divinity, Neil, there were no pros and cons. We were staying. Or at least I was staying. I wasn’t leaving Mika.”
Wayne nodded. “I wasn’t leaving either.”
Ren shook his head. It appeared he’d been set, too. I wished they’d said something to me. We’d had days of going back and forth about whether or not we’d ever go back to Peter’s Isle and where we would work if we’d stayed there. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted… Mika.
She was the reason to stay. The everything. And now she was battling for her life somewhere against things I couldn’t see, against entities that frightened her. I’d never seen her, not once against any of the evil she’d taken on in the time I’d known her, disturbed over the idea of managing things. This was huge.
My girl—and yes that was what she was—had to be okay. She’d told us to leave, to get out of there so we didn’t get killed. It seemed the best course of action since the one thing the five of us agreed on, if nothing else, was that we were ill-equipped to protect her. We could care for her after the fact, but we weren’t guards.
The ten who had been hanging around the Sisterhood looking after the two women who had powers and presumably the five who had shown up with Sister Teagan, were different from any men I’d ever known. They were fierce, focused, determined, unwavering, and sometimes really difficult to get along with. It was like family units that were forced to coexist but didn’t seem to particularly like one another.
They loved their Sisters, and the rest of the world could go to hell—sometimes literally.
I got to my feet. The dust storm needed to go away so I could go back, see for myself that Mika was solid and okay, and then get her to listen to me. There had been no real dispute, just a wavering here and there about how we would fit in her life. Not if we wanted to.
Gordon cried out, grabbing his head and pointing out the window. “Do you see him?”
I jumped, first to see if he was okay and then to look at what he pointed. I didn’t see anything. “What?”
“The man. The man by the window in the black coat.” Gordon crawled toward me. “Can’t you see him?”
I didn’t see anything but dust. Wayne strode over and touched Gordon’s forehead. “You’re not hot. What is going on?”
“I don’t know.” Gordon shook his head. “He’s gone. Maybe I’m losing my mind.”
“When we get back to Mika—” Ren got to his feet—“we’ll find you a healer. I wouldn’t know how to find one here.”
Gordon nodded. “There’s just one problem with staying with that fascinating woman.”
“What’s that?”
Gordon hadn’t said much during our discussions. I didn’t even know if he wanted to and it seemed a given we’d all be in or we’d all be out. We’d never thought to share a love, but here it was. I’d rather have Mika and them than none of them at all, which was what would happen if I battled this. I was selfish; I wanted it all.
Divinity help me, I wanted Mika, and I wanted to be with her right now. If Gordon threw an actual wrench into the workings of this, sick or not, I might throw something at his head. He always overthought everything.
“She has five soul mates. They might show up and take her.”
My desire to chuck something at him fled. That was the one problem. The big one I didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to contemplate. What would we do?
Ren shook his head, and my gaze fell to him. He was the quietest of us all. But when he added voice to a discussion, we listened.
“There’s all kinds of love out there. Lots of ways people devote themselves to each other. And just because we’re not her chosen whatevers from divinity, doesn’t make what we could feel for her and how we could love her less profound or true. Who are they? Hypothetical men. We could all be without each other forever waiting for them. She’s ours. And let them try to take her heart if they do show up.”
It took almost two days for the dust storm to pass. The howling outside matched the howling in my heart. It was like each gust of the wind spoke her name. We’d charged away as fast as we could to not be a burden for Mika during that battle. The walk back seemed like it was taking twice as long, but that might have been because Gordon was dragging.
I’d never seen him like this. Out of all of us, he was the strongest, the fittest, the most likely to plow through any obstacle. I needed to find him help. He was my responsibility. They all were, always had been somehow. And I could never really explain why except they were.
That was all there was to it.
The Sisterhood came into view slowly, and we all, almost at once, abruptly stopped. The main house was gone, crumbled to the ground. Beyond that the entire place was a disaster. I was running before I could even digest what I saw.
What could have done this? There were people moving inside the gates. They weren’t all dead. She had to be fine. I’d not let myself consider, not even for a second really, that it could be otherwise.
“Mika,” I shouted, coming through the gate. “Mika,” I bellowed again and again. My brothers, behind me, did the same, and as I rounded the main walkway, I skidded to a stop before I plowed into someone.
I didn’t know the man I’d almost collided with. He must have come with Teagan. We were the same height, almost exactly. He was, like me, also blond. He had an eyepatch blocking the view of one of his eyes. The way his jaw clenched told me I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.
“Presumably you’re Mika’s guys. Come back? Now that the hard stuff is over?”
I wasn’t going to explain myself to this stranger. Who we were and what we’d done was none of his concern. I needed to see Mika. He could get the fuck out of my way.
“Where is she?”
“Thaddeus.” Bryant came from the direction of the guesthouse. “Don’t. I’ve wanted to a million times.”
“Yeah.” He snorted. “But you follow rules, and I don’t.” He turned back to me. I didn’t give a shit what he wanted to say. I needed to see Mika, now. “So you’re the five who can’t figure it out.”
I grabbed onto his shirt and pulled it so we were really face-to-face. “Get out of my way or tell me where Mika is. Whatever it is, whoever you are, you’re just between me and who I need to see.”
He smirked, and it was everything I could do not to break his nose. Wayne was suddenly at my side, Ren on the other. I’d not even questioned if they’d be there. I knew they would. We
weren’t particularly violent people but that didn’t mean we didn’t know how to take care of ourselves if need be.
“She’s not here. She’s gone” His smirk faded as he spoke. In its place, a cool disdain took over.
I tried to swallow and failed. “Where did she go? Where is she?” Because I would be there as fast as I could manage. His words sunk in, and my eyes went to the house that was no longer there. Was she under there? Was that what he meant? Was she dead? I let go of Thaddeus and rushed toward the mess. “Is she under there?” We had to get the boards off her, we had to find her underneath. I would…
“No.” Thaddeus grabbed my arm. “I didn’t mean to imply that. No, she’s not dead. Don’t go there. I’d never let people think their Sister was dead. Not for anything. She lived through that. Hell, we’re all alive because of her. She saved us all with quick thinking and a fearlessness I’ve never seen before.”
Okay. She wasn’t dead. Not dead. I could deal with that. If she was somewhere else, I’d go there. We’d work it out. I would apologize. I would see to it that I never made her cry ever again. I would hold her, if she let me.
“Where is she?” That’s all I needed to know.
“She was taken in the middle of the night. As far as we can tell, the rest of us were drugged somehow. The boy, Alexander, he woke up. Saw it happen. Scribbled us a note and took off after her. That’s all we know. No direction. No idea whatsoever where she might be. No trail to follow. It was Sister Katrina. I don’t know how much you know about…”
I shook my head. I knew enough about who that was. I didn’t need a description. My heart fell into my stomach. She was taken? I…
When I faltered, one of the rest of my friends was always steady. I heard the hitch in Wayne’s breath but that was the only telltale sign of how this affected him. “What do they want with her? Where did they take her? What will happen?”
Thaddeus shrugged, a movement that was starkly different from the anger in his gaze. “I don’t know. I have no answers to any of it. To make matters worse, neither does Teagan, and my Sister sees futures. The fact that she sees nothing is deeply concerning.”
Lennon bent over, putting his hands on his knees. “We have to go and get her. Wherever she is.”
“That might be possible,” Thaddeus answered. “If you weren’t being so completely obtuse.”
What did he say? “Want to try that again?”
“Sisters have five Guards. Five souls who are their soul mates. We’re lucky to get the chance to even gaze at our Sisters, let alone love them. There are five of you. Wake. Up.”
I understood what he was saying. Despite the fact that he was basically calling us morons, I was far from that. “We aren’t Guards. Sisters have Guards.”
“It’s not a position you’re born into. You’re selected. You audition. You just missed showing up for that. It can happen. So are you cowards? Is that the problem?”
I launched myself at him, going straight for his shoulders. Thaddeus stumbled back twice, and we both hit the ground. He laughed, rolling over. It was a cold, merciless sound. “There he is. The guy I remember. Wake up, you were the only one whoever beat me and you can’t even remember it.”
We both darted to our feet. I wasn’t even sure exactly what was happening. My head hurt. Was he saying that we were Mika’s Guards? “How is it possible?”
“It just is. If you could hear the birds the way we do—specifically the way Noah does—then you wouldn’t question it. They know who you are. Wake up.” He turned around, extending his hand. “Brody, I need swords. Two of them.”
The guy who must be Brody ran forward and stopped short. “Are you going to fight?”
“We are.”
I hadn’t agreed to any such thing but damned if I’d let him call me a coward again. “I have no training. Make you feel good to beat up on someone who can’t do what you do?”
“You’ve had millenniums worth of time to train. Over and over again. The first time I held a sword in this life, it was like my muscles remembered it, as though they were just relieved to get to do it again.” He chucked the sword at me and although I didn’t see it coming, I caught it like I’d done it a million times.
“Neil?” Ren called out, and I looked up only long enough to nod at him. This was… bizarre.
My hand came around the handle, clutching it in a way that turned my wrist slightly upright. It was an odd position, it should have hurt or at least felt unusual. Only, it didn’t.
“That’s right.” Thaddeus took a step back. “Wake up. Or die not trying to.”
He lunged at me, and I darted left. That much was instinct. That much I understood. He had a sword, and he was going to slice me with it. Only…
Something about the way he moved, I remembered. And I’d never seen him before. Not with the eyes I currently saw the world through. I darted right. I had to swing, use the sword, defend myself, but I wasn’t ready.
There was something… on the edge of my brain.
Something…
Brother Thaddeus. I knew him. I didn’t like him that much. But I knew him. We’d competed for attention. His crew from mine. I had… I had what? What was it?
In this life, he ran at me, and I blocked him, raising my sword high enough to stop his from hitting me and then darting backward. The metal on metal clanged with a loud ring. I knew what the problem was. Why I didn’t like him…
I’d had Mika first. Wayne. Gordon. Ren. Lennon. We’d met her. And he didn’t yet have Teagan. She would mellow him a bit. I didn’t want to always be fighting, not once I’d met Mika. I wanted to love her, treasure her for the time we had before we came down here and lost each other. But Thaddeus was still trying to prove himself, and his favorite target was me.
He was right. I’d finally wiped the floor with him.
Before he’d turned around and done the same with me.
Mika. My love, my Sister. My one true everything. Of course we were her Guards. What was the matter with me? Why hadn’t I seen it?
Thaddeus raised his sword, he might run me through with it. For all my muscles remembered how to fight, some things had been too long. I turned, my sword raised. I didn’t know if I really recalled how to wield it, but I would try.
“Enough!” a voice I didn’t know called out, and Thaddeus stilled. He rolled his eyes at me in a way I could only think of as conspiratorial, and I wasn’t even sure why. I turned to see where he stared. A man who hadn’t been there earlier watched us both. He was tall, dark haired, and he wore a long black coat.
Thaddeus mock bowed. “Brother Raven. How convenient for you to show up right now.”
The other man ignored Thaddeus and turned to me instead. “It’s been a long time, Neil. I wasn’t sure you would actually get to this moment. Thaddeus does things in a large way. He takes no prisoners. I might have preferred the gentle guidance, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. Who am I?”
I stared at him, and Gordon called out. “I saw you in the shack. In the dust storm. You were out the window.”
He nodded at Gordon. “You did. Who am I?”
I knew they were waiting for me to answer. He’d come to me, to the five of us, and he’d asked if I wanted to help to save the universe. I’d agreed. And then he’d said that I had a love, a real one that I would always have. He’d been right. The second I’d seen her, the problems of the universe had been nothing. She was beautiful, yes. But she was kind, smart, interesting, caring, talented and funny. And so many more things. She was mine. And I shared her with my brothers in arms… the men whose friendship went beyond that which most people would ever understand.
The man in the black jacket had given me Mika to love. Somehow, she’d also thought that was a good idea. I didn’t deserve her. I never would.
“Brother Reed, where is my soul mate?”
He nodded. “Brother Neil. I haven’t a clue.”
12
Mika
The Guards took their hoods off when we got on
the train. I guessed at that point they were not concerned with me seeing their faces anymore. For the most part, I stayed with Titus. He was tall, dark haired, olive skinned and, I supposed, handsome. Although no one would ever again hold a candle to Neil, Wayne, Gordon, Ren, and Lennon.
Even if my soul mates miraculously showed up, and I highly doubted it, I doubted I could ever find them more attractive. It was thoughts like that which kept my mind occupied on the long hours traveling north. Katrina had moved them that far into the Badlands? I’d never have thought it. She so preferred the nobility to the south.
But I supposed I would find all of this out.
Titus had his four other Guards with him at the moment in the train compartment. The other five… the ones who had wanted to hurt Krystal… weren’t anywhere to be seen. I didn’t ask after them. It wasn’t like I wanted their company. Truth was, I wanted every single one of them—including Titus and the slightly nicer four—to fall off the train so I could turn around and go home.
Titus. Paden. Ryland. Jett. Zeke. Five Guards on the wrong side of the fight.
“You know that you have a soul mate, right?”
They’d been silent, each one of them staring off in various directions as if they hadn’t looked at the same walls and scenery I had for days.
Paden raised his eyebrows. He rarely spoke, but I’d clearly gotten his attention. He was almost entirely bald except that I could see touches of his hair which must be trying to grow back in. He must shave it. “Pardon me, Sister?”
“You have a soul mate. A Sister you were sent down here to love.” I shook my head. “Oh, it’s not me.” I’d never wanted to spend less time with anyone than I did the five of them. Maybe because they’d kidnapped me. But whatever oomph I should have felt was not there. Whoever my five were—and why couldn’t it have been my five?—it wasn’t this group. “But you have one. Somewhere in another time and place, you fell in love with her and agreed to come down here and do this. Well, not this, per se. I doubt you would have said you were going to kidnap Sisters and threaten lives.”
Destiny Be Damned: Last Hope, Book 3 Page 13
