Over the Moon (Gemini Book 6)

by Hailey Edwards

  Her eyes dipped to the pendant I wore, the one that ought to be around her brother’s neck, and the raw vulnerability in her gaze told me she would do this, not for me, but for him. She would do anything to save him. Even drain herself to heal me.

  “Very well.” She sank to her knees, and Arno eased closer, resting his hand on her shoulder as though to brace her. “Close your eyes.” The warmth of her voice sank into my bones. “This might hurt.”

  Famous last words, and they echoed after me into impenetrable darkness the second she put her hands on mine.

  Chapter 15

  Once my eyes figured out how to blink of their own accord, the world swam into sharper focus, and I exhaled with relief from the absence of pain that had plagued me since having my insides become my outsides. “Where’s Branwen?”

  “With her troops,” Arno supplied. “She has done all she can. She could not wait around to see if it was enough.”

  “It’ll be enough,” I assured him. It had to be.

  “Take it easy.” Isaac took one arm while Theo held the other, and together they managed to prop me up on my feet. “How does that feel?”

  “Like I’m walking on clouds.” The ground squished oddly underfoot, or maybe the sensation had to do more with how my knees kept buckling. “How long until this wears off, Arno?”

  The young fae tore his gaze from the potted ficus standing in the far corner of the room. “About ten minutes or so.” He sampled the soil by rolling a pinch around in his mouth. “After that, you’ll start to feel your aches and pains again, but you ought to be able to function.”

  “Good.” Functioning was good. “What do you need from me to figure out how to get where I need to go?”

  “Give me a general idea, the more landmarks the better. Hills, forests, water sources are best. From that, I can ask the trees to narrow down the likeliest location. It might take a few tries since I’m unfamiliar with the area, but we’ll get there eventually.”

  The brothers exchanged a look over my head, but Zed, who I could now tell hovered behind me, started spilling details outlining the clearing where the stone house sat. He’d nearly died there, and it had left a mark on his soul. All that time he’d spent lying in the grass, wondering if help would come in time, had given him a prime opportunity to catalog every last detail of the clearing. While I’d never be glad I’d almost lost him, I was humbled that he’d spent what could have been his final moments completing a useful task. That was so…so…Zed.

  “There’s a friendly elm a half mile from here. Let me go chat her up, and we’ll see what she can tell us.” Arno’s thoughtful expression eased. “You’d best nap if you can. Eat if you can’t. You need to be at your strongest. I trust you remember your last trip?”

  A shudder I couldn’t suppress rippled through me, and all three men in the room noticed. “I do.”

  “You’ve got to have your wits about you.” He inclined his head. “Be ready to leave in an hour.”

  The room remained still and quiet long after the clicking latch announced we were alone again.

  Isaac, the only other one to have traveled via tree, set his jaw. “Are we sure this is wise?”

  “The trees want something from me.” I patted my pocket to reassure myself I had the seeds. Until this was over, the safest place for them was on me. “I don’t think they’ll hurt me until they get it.”

  “What about the rest of us?” Theo asked, not seeming concerned either way.

  “The tree wasn’t interested in me at all,” Isaac told him. “I’m willing to bet that means it won’t be interested in you, either.”

  Theo pursed his lips. “That’s good to know.”

  “This way, we get in and out quick.” Whatever magic linked the trees did so across hundreds of miles, maybe more. “We ought to be able to tell pretty quickly if Tiberius is in the area.”

  “Bea,” Isaac said.

  “Bea,” I agreed.

  Volatile emotions could, in his case, manifest as violent weather patterns. My kingdom for a doppler radar. That would have made tracking his movements that much easier. But we’d have to rely on good, old-fashioned detective work to get our answers. And we’d have to keep a weather eye on the horizon.

  Bea had never been a fan of mine. Tibs had kept her from killing me, but he would have other things on his mind. That meant I had to be prepared to take down his pet in a nonlethal way before she took me out in a lethal one.

  “There’s a bed in the clinic,” Isaac offered. “You could catch a few winks in there.”

  “No thanks.” As far as I was concerned, I could avoid that room the rest of my life and be happy. “How about we crash in the storage room instead?”

  “I’m wired,” Isaac admitted, sharing a glance with Zed. “I’m not sure how long we were down for, but I couldn’t nap if I tried.” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “I’m happy to watch you, though.”

  Once he’d accused me of making puppy noises in my sleep, twitching hands and feet—the whole shebang. Considering Theo had seen me wearing my guts on the outside, I shouldn’t be embarrassed at the thought of him learning I chased bunnies in my sleep, but I couldn’t stop a flush from warming the skin of my chest.

  “Check in with me before you go, Dell.” Zed issued the order on his way out. “I’ve got to go visit the Stoners, see if they’ve dug up more intel on Killer Smile’s whereabouts.”

  Too bad Tibs was out of his league. Capture wasn’t happening. The best we could hope for was the prince didn’t kill the wargs who came after him. That was assuming the rogues made it past enemy lines, which I needed a crash course in ASAP, and didn’t get dead that way.

  “I’ll keep an eye on the meeting,” Theo volunteered. “You’re still wanting to catch Thierry, right?”

  “Right.” Their meeting was dragging on, but I had no idea what other powerful fae might be in attendance. After all, when Isaac and I had left Stone’s Throw to go in search of Branwen, there had been eight conclave representatives barreling up our driveway. Four of those had been marshals from other regions, and two others had been Earthen Conclave agents, but the final two had been dignitaries. One of which was Irene Vause, a magistrate from the Northeastern Conclave. “If you see her before I do, just let her know I want to talk.”

  The ground under our feet started rumbling, pictures rattling on the walls, shelved items tumbling to the floor. I clung to Isaac, who wrapped his arms around me, while Theo followed a step behind us. Isaac eased me through the door to join them, and we casted around for someone to question.

  “Stay put,” Zed commanded. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Theo called as he fell in step with Zed. “Watch your back, brother.”

  “Theo,” Isaac yelled, but it was too late.

  The door leading to the conference room exploded outward, and more bodies spilled into the hall.

  “What’s happening?” Cord bellowed to anyone listening. “Report.”

  “Zed and Theo are on it.” The wrongness of his question struck me a second later. I had been so used to the quiet of my own head, I hadn’t noticed it earlier when I should have felt the lack first. “Why can’t you ask through the pack bond?”

  “Cord was stung by a manticore the day the magic surged,” Cam told me. “It almost killed him, and it degraded the bond until we lost that connection altogether.”

  Manticores were winged lions with human faces and scorpion stingers for tails. Their venom paralyzed, incapacitating their victims. Those who escaped immediate death at the jaws of the beast usually died from the powerful toxins.

  That might explain the limp we were trying hard not to notice. He must still be feeling the lingering effects if the pack bond hadn’t been brought back online yet. Small miracle he had survived the sting at all.

  Through the bombardment of scents flooding the hall, I picked out two distinct threads that set my heart racing. Blood and magic. Bergamot and patchouli. Sure enough, Thierry stepped o
ut from behind the alphas, and a tall man with copper eyes followed. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight, that much was obvious.

  “The wards are down,” Zed called from the exit leading into the parking lot. “We’ve got trolls in the driveway.”

  Cord sprinted past, and Cam only hesitated long enough to squeeze my shoulder. There was no point in her saying she was glad I was okay when soon that might not be the case for any of us. That left us alone with Thierry and her mate, Jackson Shaw.

  “Heard you wanted to put a bug in my ear.” She gestured for me to follow her. “Walk and talk, Preston.”

  “Do you know where your father is?” seemed like a good place to start.

  A snort blasted out of Shaw. “Do you think everyone and their mother hasn’t already asked her that?” He cut me a glare that spoke of his frustration. “Next question.”

  I tried again. “How much stronger is he than you are?”

  “I’m a drop in his ocean,” she murmured. “My father is eternal, and that’s the problem. He won’t see this as world-ending, because for him, it’s not. He’s witnessed it once in his lifetime so far. To him, this is cyclical. Natural. It’s us little guys who lack perspective, in his opinion.”

  “What if I could get you more power? I’m talking an identical source.” I wet my lips as Isaac’s hand tightened on my upper arm, surprise clenching his fingers as he worked out my angle. “Could you set a new threshold between realms then?”

  “It’s possible.” Thierry’s steps slowed. “It would take a lot of juice and probably more than one additional source. Multiple sources would be best. I’m not promising what you’ve got in mind would work.” Her gaze landed on Isaac. She’d loaned him her power once before, and she was familiar with Theo’s special skill set too. She knew Gemini could replicate her power, if not the intensity of it. “I’m not promising any of us would survive it, either.”

  “No,” Shaw growled at her side before aiming his wrath at me. “You want to die, be my guest. I’m sure songs will be written about the speed bump your corpse makes as the trolls barrel over you.” He cupped the back of Thierry’s neck in a bruising grip that only made her roll her eyes. “You’re not taking her with you.”

  “We talked about this,” she chided. “You can’t protect me from everything.”

  His smile for her, the intensity between the two of them, punched me in the gut. “I can damn sure try.”

  “Give me the whole spiel, Dell.” Thierry rested her palm on the glass panel inset into the door leading out onto…utter madness. “Make it fast and make it good, or you’ll find me tied to a chair in a bomb shelter fifty years from now.”

  Shaw didn’t deny it sounded like a mighty fine plan to him.

  The thoughtful glint in his eye nudged me stumbling into a recitation of every idea I’d had since waking. I told her what I’d learned about Tiberius, about the Stoners hunting for him, my theory about setting a new threshold, all of it.

  “Forget the prince.” Thierry dismissed that idea right out of the gate. “We don’t have time or resources to hunt for him. It was a nice thought, but this is war. We don’t have room for nice thoughts here.” She pushed out a breath and ripped out my heart. “You’re asking a lot of me, and I don’t know if it’s because you don’t like me or because you don’t know any better. What you’re suggesting might kill me. Probably it will kill me. And that goes double for anyone fool enough to volunteer to help.”

  A choked sound was my only contribution to the conversation.

  “Your idea to take out Rilla is smart,” she continued, “and I think we both know there are two ways to make that happen.”

  One was finding Tiberius, an idea she had already nixed. Another involved sacrificing Isaac or Theo. Theo hadn’t had direct contact with Tiberius. He might pull off a passing resemblance from afar, assuming he’d interacted with alkonosts before, but it wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. But the prince had played donor for Isaac many times. There was a real chance he could fool her long enough to slide a knife between her ribs.

  “Now you’re getting it.” Thierry patted my shoulder. “Pull through on the first part of your plan. Take down Rilla. Give us room to breathe. Then we’ll talk about the second.”

  This was a test, plain and simple, and I couldn’t even blame her. I had asked her to make the ultimate sacrifice, and she was forcing me to do the same. As much as I wanted her response to be out of spite, I knew in my gut it was anything but. She wanted me to balance the life of my mate against the lives of my pack, of this world, and decide which I valued most. She was asking me to welcome the misery of losing Isaac, and in return, she was willing to ask the same of her mate.

  One decision would start a chain reaction that could ruin us all. But if we chose the coward’s way out when we could have done more, saved more, where was the comfort in that? What was the right decision?

  I had no problem offering up myself, but Isaac… I wasn’t sure I could allow his sacrifice.

  Thierry saw the indecision written on my face. “There’s no shame in loving them too much.”

  Eager to dive into the thick of things, she shoved through the door and hit the parking lot with purpose in her stride.

  “I’m going out with her either way,” Shaw said into the silence left in her absence. “There’s no life worth living without her in it. Give us a fighting chance by taking out Rilla, and we’ll try to pull off your miracle.”

  Guess he understood about sacrifice too. That didn’t mean either of us had to like being in the know.

  “Any idea where we can find Rilla?” Isaac asked over my shoulder.

  “That structure they were building? The one Thierry warned you about before the surge hit? It’s a dais suspended over the lake, a damn viewing platform. You’ll find the king and all his trained monkeys there, watching the show.”

  Shaw was out the door and across the lot, closing in on Thierry, before I could think of what to say to him.

  “I want to see it.” I rested a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “We need to consider the logistics of a surrender.”

  If this was happening, if I was sending in Isaac as Tiberius, I couldn’t leave any details to chance.

  “All right.” Isaac linked our fingers. “Arno is our safest bet. He can get us closer than anyone else without getting seen.”

  The question hung in the air between us. Did I want to burn my one trip up on recon?

  “Okay.” He was right, and I wasn’t going to argue the point. “Let’s find him and get a quick lesson.”

  Isaac guided me out into the parking lot, and a lump clogged my throat at the sight before me.

  From here, near the center of the park, even with the wards gone, you couldn’t pinpoint a single thing that proved the world was ending. There was smoke and fire, yeah, but those were on the horizon, like a forest fire blazing in the distance. The RVs all sat in their tidy rows, waiting on their occupants to return from work that never ended these days. Even the clinic my crew had labored so hard to finish stood tall and expectant, as though the finishing touches would be added at any moment.

  Not until we reached the edge of the property did I witness the true cost of defending our land.

  Home was burning, and it didn’t matter compared to the bodies stacked high where the wards used to be anchored. You could tell where the lines had once been drawn. Fae corpses were six and seven deep in places, the bubble of protective magic all that had kept the park safe. Sprinkled among them were wargs slain in battle, faces I hadn’t memorized and names I couldn’t recall. Necessity had made us pack, and pack had failed to protect them. We had lost so much, too much, and I was damn tired of the other side winning.

  “There he is.” Isaac ran ahead while my brain lurched from the past to our perilous present. “Wait here.”

  I did as he asked to give myself a minute to test my limbs. The wobbles were gone, and I could stand on my own without tipping to one side. That was progress. With Arno providin
g our transportation, I figured our new mission was as safe as it was going to get.

  Isaac returned minutes later with the fae boy in tow. “We have to hurry. More trolls are closing in.”

  Trolls might not be the worst Faerie had to offer, but they were big, dumb and mean. Ideal foot soldiers. Ideal Unseelie foot soldiers, meaning these guys were taking their orders from Rook. At least he was giving us a fighting chance. The muscle might convince Rilla he was playing his part while the lack of brains gave us the advantage. But if we smashed this wave, another would come, and then another, and they would keep coming until there was nothing left.

  “Getting you to the lake won’t be a problem. I’ve familiarized myself with all the receptive trees in the vicinity.” Arno wiped amber liquid weeping from a cut on his brow. “Come along, then. I don’t know how much good it will do you now, but I’ll show you the way.”

  We didn’t have to go far to reach a receptive tree, an old pecan that had lost a few limbs to a precise lightning strike. The charred remains caused a pang in my chest for Tiberius, for Leandra, but I didn’t have the luxury of time to grieve yet.

  “Press your palm against the bark,” he instructed. “Can you feel the buzz under your skin?”

  “Maybe?” With my nerves jangling from the shouts, the scents, the horrors my mind was all too quick to supply, I had trouble making the connection. “I think so.”

  “Focus on that sensation. Only that prickling sting of contact. Block out all the rest,” he advised me. “Or you might as well stay here and let me get back to my duties.”

  A firm hand settled between my shoulder blades, a warm reminder that I wasn’t alone, that Isaac was here, safe, and we could figure this out as long as we stuck together. Bit by bit, I let the rest fall away, until I sensed the slight tingle under my palm.

  “I’ve got it.” I kept my breathing steady, even. “I can feel it.”

  “Good.” Arno pressed forward until the tree absorbed him up to the wrist. “Now ask permission.”

  “Out loud or…?” The tree had plucked the thoughts right out of my head last time.