“I’m sorry,” I said, peering up at him.
Patrick came in without ceremony and closed the door behind him, giving all of us a bit of privacy.
“For what?” Dean asked, his voice gruff and his body still a little stiff in my arms.
“I forget that you worry about them too. That, sometimes, gets lost in my own head. In my need to protect everyone around me.”
He met my gaze, the Caribbean blue of his wolf flashed in those beautiful olive green irises but receded. His focused gaze gave me a warm fuzzy feeling of safety that I adored. His body relaxed a bit but still hid some tension. I still had work to do.
“My home life wasn’t so great,” I said, downplaying the horrors my parents had put me through.
When I was a teenager, I’d had some encounters with the preternatural community in my adolescence. When I’d told my parents, my mother had thought I was bat-shit crazy and taken me to a therapist who had basically tortured me. I’d gone through quite a few treatments before I’d just lied and told them what they wanted to hear. But even then, it hadn’t stopped right away. Dean knew all of this, as did Patrick. I’d told Dean back before we’d been an item in a fit of anger. Patrick had seen it at our mating in vivid surround sound and Technicolor. I couldn’t stop the tear as it ran down my cheek. I thought I’d gotten past it, buried it so deep that it couldn’t hurt me anymore. But there were times, like now, when it came roaring back to me and I could still smell burnt hair and flesh from the electrodes on my body. Times where I still felt the sting of betrayal and the solitude of being completely and utterly alone.
“I don’t want any of our people to feel abandoned . . .” I hiccupped but didn’t turn my gaze away. “Like I was.”
Dean plucked the computer from his lap and set it aside. In one quick motion, he wrapped his arms around me and slung me over his legs until he cradled me in his lap. “Baby,” he whispered close to my ear. “We won’t ever abandon you or them.” He tipped my chin up so I had to meet his pleading gaze. “You have to trust us.”
“I do!”
He shook his head as if to argue with me.
“It’s just hard. I’ve been on my own for so long that my first instinct is to just deal with whatever the problem is. It’s gonna take some time to adjust to we instead of me. Can you bear with me?” I squeezed him, just a bit tighter, almost begging him to forgive me.
“I’ll wait forever for you, if necessary,” he said, stroking his big hand over my hair and down my back. “But, you can’t get mad at me and leave when I’m annoyed with you for cutting us out.”
“Deal!” I blurted out quickly, grinning up at him. “I won’t even get mad at you for calling me on it.”
“Oh, I’ll require that in writing,” Patrick said from the foot of the bed.
Dean’s chest rumbled as he chuckled.
“Ha-ha,” I replied condescendingly. Sometimes, they banded together to tease me. I didn’t have the same opportunity. It just wasn’t fair.
“Find anything?” Dean asked both of us, hugging me close. With the quick change of topic I knew we were okay again. I had work to do but he wouldn’t leave me. Neither of them would leave me for being stupid. As long as I knew that, I could work on the rest.
“Maybe, I need to send it to Jade to see what she can get out of it.” I reached in my jeans pocket and tugged the receipt out, handing it to him. He took a quick picture and texted it to Jade.
“Sweetheart, why didn’t you just do that?” Patrick asked.
I bit my lip and got up off of Dean’s lap. “I might have forgotten my phone,” I answered sheepishly.
Dean’s deep chuckle filled the room and Patrick stood staring at me with open-mouthed horror.
“What if we’d been separated? What if you’d needed help? You had no way to reach us?”
“Well, I didn’t,” I said, a distinctly haughty tone to my answer. I tugged off my shirt and threw it across the room at the dirty clothes hamper. I missed, of course.
“Dahlia!” Patrick chastised.
“Okay, Dad,” I replied, elongating the Dad until I sounded like a whiney teenager. “I won’t forget it from now on.”
Dean hopped off of the bed in a graceful dismount that only the preternatural could accomplish. “Pat, she’s fine. You’re fine.” He slapped his strong hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Nothing happened.”
“Yes, however . . .”
“Let’s see what Jade can dig up. If we need to, we’ll just lo-jack Celeste’s phone and be able to track her down.”
Patrick’s eyes lit up with amazement as if the thought had never occurred to him before but had merit.
“No,” I said, tugging a T-shirt from the drawer and slipped it over my head. “No way, no how. You are not putting a tracker on me. Forget it!” I strode across the room and opened the bedroom door. “Let’s go call Jade.”
Dean and Patrick followed a short distance behind me, suspiciously quiet.
“Do you think that would be possible?” Patrick asked.
“No,” I said, still making my way to the library.
Dean laughed. “Probably. It’s just a chip. Kurt could find something. Vets use ‘em. Why couldn’t we?”
“NO!” I flung open the library door and stepped inside, ignoring the two overprotective men behind me.
“It’s definitely something to think about,” Patrick said, rounding the desk and flipping the television screen on.
“You are not putting a chip in me!” I snapped and glanced up at the screen where Jade’s wide, green eyes were bulging out of her head in shock.
“What did I miss? Wait. Do I want to know?”
“No,” I growled as I crossed my arms and leaned against Patrick’s desk.
“Okay then,” she ignored us, as she usually did when we were acting like children which now that I thought about it was a lot. Dipping her head, she pounded on the keyboard.
Kurt leaned into the shot and waved with a stupid grin on his face.
“Hey, Kurt,” I said, a sour tone still in my voice.
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said, winking at me.
“What?” Jade asked, glancing up at him with a confused furrow across her brow.
“Putting a GPS chip in Dahlia. It would save us some time when we lose her.”
“I’m not a dog!” I snarled.
Dean cleared his throat and pursed his lips in a silent question. Okay, so I could shift into a wolf and did at least a few times a month but that was not the point.
“Actually,” Jade started but I cut her off.
“No!”
“Fine. Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she mumbled as she turned her attention back to the screens in front of her.
“How did you guys hear that anyway?” I asked remembering that Patrick hadn’t clicked on the screen yet. Both Kurt and Jade gave each other a look with a side-eyed glance. “Are you spying on us?”
“I wouldn’t say spying,” Kurt said with an innocent expression.
“Stop spying on us!” I shouted. “It’s creepy.”
“Okay, fine,” Jade smirked at me with a quick wink.
“Please just tell me what you’ve got,” I sighed, resigned to being spied on for the rest of my natural or unnatural life. Whichever came first.
“So the billing address for this card is a Post office box which doesn’t help. But I can triangulate the purchases to get a general location of origin if that will help?”
“At this point, anything will help.”
“Do we wish to know how you are obtaining this information for us, Jade?” Patrick asked with a sly grin.
“No,” Kurt answered for her. “You really don’t.”
“Perfect,” he answered.
A new picture filled our screen. A digital map of New Orleans with little red dots littering two general areas. There was a cluster around Raine’s mansion but there was a second cluster deep in the Quarter.
“You see here,” Jade said, a bright green circle going around the cluster of dots surrounding Raine’s mansion. “She’s pretty habitual. Her purchases can be predicted based on her home base location. But there is a cluster of purchases here.” Another green circle engulfed the dots around the second location. “These are things like wine, home goods, that type of thing. And this building is in the center.” She marked an ‘X’ over the address.
“Okay, well, this is either really helpful or a trap,” I said, lounging back on the desk with my palms flat on the hard wooden surface behind me.
“Again,” Patrick said, “our capabilities and resources are not yet widely known.”
“We don’t know what Nova told Grimaldi,” I said, Nova’s name catching in my throat. He had been beautiful, sweet, a bit dim in the IQ department, and a traitor. Just thinking about how he’d betrayed us still made my gut tighten. He’d had value, not only to the colony but to me as a friend and I’d executed him. I couldn’t have let him live, not and protect all the others who depended on me. I glanced from Dean to Patrick with understanding shining in my eyes. I’d had to kill him to protect all who depended on us.
“We do not, that is correct, but I’ve known Grimaldi for a long time as has Alex,” Patrick said, tenting his fingers before his lips. “He doesn’t share information well or willingly. I doubt he would have confessed all he saw and knew. Perhaps to Raine but not further down the chain. I believe, in this, we are safe.”
“Maybe,” I said, staring at Patrick and Dean. “There’s something else though.”
“Yeah?” Jade asked, collapsing the maps.
“We found something in that cavern where the Chalice had been held,” I started. “I don’t know what it means. I mean, I get some of it but I can’t put it together.”
“Oh, a mystery. Hit me,” Jade said.
“The pedestal the Chalice had been resting on looked to be made of solid gold. Etched in the sides was a relief of Isis, her wings spread out wide. At one end of her wingspan was Anubis with the crescent moon above his head and on the other was Horus with the sun above his head.”
“No, baby, it was the other way around,” Dean said.
“You sure?” I asked.
“Yep.” He pulled out his phone and brought up the picture.
“Can you send me that?” Jade asked.
Without answering, Dean forwarded the picture he’d taken in the cavern. He was right. The sun was over Anubis and the moon was over Horus’ head. Jade threw the picture up on the screen so everyone could see it. Patrick stepped closer, evaluating each detail with a scrutiny that he normally reserved for contracts.
“So, I get it. Anubis is the Egyptian God of the dead,” I said.
“Technically, Osiris was lord of the underworld. Anubis, depending on the context could be construed as a protector of the dead or as determining a person’s worth by weighing their heart,” Kurt added as Jade’s fingers flew over the keys, pulling up information.
“Isis,” Jade read from her screen, “is basically the Goddess of nature and magic. Her name means throne and is the uber queen. She’s also said to have had the capabilities to resurrect the dead.”
“Right, because she resurrected Osiris after he was murdered by Set,” I said.
Patrick turned, his brow arched in surprise and a proud little smile turned up the corner of his lips.
“How the hell did you know that,” Jade snorted.
“I read,” I said, unable to keep the disdain from my tone. “What about Horus?”
“Horus, with the falcon head, was the god of . . . um . . . war and hunting, it looks like,” Jade said, her gaze narrowed on the screen.
“Okay, so what does all that mean?” I asked, plopping down on the edge of the desk and folding my arms over my chest.
“Without consulting an Egyptologist?” Kurt asked.
“Yes,” Dean growled.
“Best guess,” Kurt said, shrugging his shoulders. “I would say Isis is the link between the two but the reversal of the moon and sun over the two Gods is confusing. I wouldn’t even feel comfortable hazarding a guess.”
Staring at the picture up on the screen, I let the information bounce around in my head for a minute. Suddenly, it hit me. If Anubis was the guardian of the dead and Horus was the God of the hunt, Isis and her power could bring them together. This could signify that the sun and moon would no long have sway over either. Patrick could walk in the sun. If Dean was no longer controlled by the moon what would that mean? If Isis’s power was as regent, the power of the throne, did that mean those powers would be passed down to her subjects? Could the entire colony walk in the sun? Would that mean, the wolves could carry to term without the pressure of the moon forcing their change?
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “We need to get that cup.”
“Let’s go,” Dean huffed and got to his feet.
Decision made.
Chapter 37
We climbed the stairs curving in a long rectangular well. Ornate white spindles lined the banister leading up to the third and top floor. Dean led the way with me sandwiched between he and Patrick.
The first floor had two apartments. In one of those apartments, a television blared an action movie. The noise was so loud, I could hear every explosion and gunshot that ricocheted off the walls. It made me a little jumpy.
A couple was waiting on popcorn in the microwave on the second floor. The kernels were popping and the smell of burnt popcorn permeated through into the stairwell. As we reached the third floor, the rhythmic hum of magic crept across my skin and seeded itself deep in my bones. I nodded to Patrick. This was definitely the place. I wasn’t sure what the hell was behind that door, but I sure as shit wanted to find out. I raised my closed fist and knocked.
For a long moment, everything was quiet inside. The only sound was that of the television on the first floor, the microwave pinged on the second floor, and the beating of my heart in my ears outside the apartment door on the third floor.
I knocked again. Louder and more forcefully, making my knuckles ache a bit from the impact. A soft shuffle from behind the door gave me pause and I waited as the doorknob turned. The icy breeze of her vampiric power skittered down my spine and I fought the urge to shiver as the door creaked open.
A small woman stood before me, her hair the color of summer wheat with a slight wave to it that I knew had to piss her off in this Louisiana humidity. The woman probably only came up to my shoulders with a fragile look about her as if she’d snap in a strong wind. I met her gaze and her lips turned up into a quirk of a smile. They were violet, a true violet, and not a trick of the light. I smiled back at her and I knew it didn’t reach my eyes.
“Please, come in,” she said, stepping back and allowing us entrance.
My insides kept screaming, THIS IS A TRAP! THIS IS A TRAP! And I knew it but I didn’t really have a choice. I needed that damn cup to get Ev back. I just had to hope I was smarter than her. Or quicker. Here’s hoping.
I followed her inside, Dean and Patrick hot on my heels. She closed the door and I glanced around. This apartment was cozy, lived in. So different from the room at Raine’s mansion. I took a deep breath and so did Dean.
“No scent,” he snarled.
Patrick’s nostrils flared and I knew he was taking in the scents as well. “Varick,” he hissed.
“Very good,” she replied, pleased. “I’m impressed you put the pieces together.” She clapped her hands in triumph. I glanced to my right at Dean and caught the flash of violet from her gaze out of the corner of my eye. “Now,” she purred at me. “Don’t m
ove.”
Did she think that would work? I opened my mouth to give her some snarky comment but hesitated when I noticed Dean wasn’t moving. His body was frozen mid-motion as if someone had hit pause on the television. I turned to Patrick on my right and like Dean he had just stopped. His mouth open and his hand raised as if time had stood still. My heart thundered in my ears as adrenaline washed through me. The queasy rush of anxiety saturated my entire body, making my fingers tingle with the need to extend my claws.
“What the fuck!” I bit out. I wasn’t sure what the hell she’d done but I sure as shit wasn’t going to let her hurt Patrick or Dean. Not when I could stop her. Reaching behind me, I drew Gladi in a quick, lithe motion-practiced again and again until it was second nature. With a growl vibrating in my throat, I stepped forward to cut the bitches head off.
She backed up a step, matching my movements, and glared at me. Her gaze flashed a deep, vibrant purple. It was slow at first, her magic beating against me as it seeped down into every cell of my body and finally into my skull. My brain throbbed and I flinched as sharp talons of pain stabbed into my head like fingers clutching the soft tissue. I opened my eyes as her power sunk in and dug in tight.
The moment her magic had a grip on me, my consciousness dissolved into nothing. My body, now completely under her command, felt weightless. Free. Around my vision was a soft violet glow that felt like a haze of gelatin, sliding through my fingers. A tangible fog that my mind and body drifted through, I was lost in a vast violet abyss. In my mind, claws broke through my skin and scraped and tore into the air, searching for anything to claw my way back to the surface. This was how she’d done it, how she’d killed all those preternatural beings without any of them putting up a fight. They couldn’t.
Violet Abyss (A Blushing Death Novel Book 7) Page 22
