The Price We Pay (Life After War Book 7)

by Angela White

  They were powerful, Angela thought. Stronger than her and Adrian, and it had gone badly. Would the same thing happen when she and Adrian were forced to do it? A Maker’s call was impossible to fake.

  She needed to know what had happened when Donner tried this before. All she’d found was a huge explosion in his mind, with no details or obvious clues. Had the Maker been furious and destroyed the alpha’s? She was almost sure that hadn’t been the case. If the Maker had come back, one county or even one continent, wouldn’t be enough to avenge all the wrongs that had been done in the Lord’s name. Mankind would be wiped out when the Maker returned. That could never be allowed to happen.

  11

  “He isn’t going to wait much longer,” Adrian mumbled against her hair.

  Angela acted as if she was still asleep, not ready to face any feelings. During the night, he’d turned toward her from their back-to-back position and she hadn’t protested, too tired and too warm. Now, with light coming in from the hall to tell them what time of day it was, Angela didn’t like the closeness.

  Adrian rose from the only cot and moved to the hard chair, sighing heavily. The sleep had done good things for his injuries, but it was far from over. Donner was a psychopath fanatic that had to be eliminated.

  “No worries on that,” Angela stated, trying not to picture it. Donner had to know they were planning his death, but he didn’t care so long as the call was made and he got his answer. Except Angela didn’t know what would happen and if nothing did, Donner was likely to try to kill everyone here. She had to get her plan finished before that and she spent a minute clearing her head and heart. They would make a call today that might change the world.

  “Do you understand what causes the power? What sends the call?”

  “That wasn’t in the books.”

  “Thought it best to leave that part out,” Adrian admitted. “Sometimes details are too… Harsh.”

  “Great,” Angela sighed. “What is it now? We have to mind-meld and reveal all our…” her eyes widened. “Son of a…”

  Adrian coughed, hoping to cover and Angela spun around to stare at the walls so neither he or Donner could see her expression. She hated lying.

  “We’ll be bonded. Forever.”

  “We already are,” Angela forced out, sounding angry. “But you don’t know what it will bring and neither do I. That has to be made clear to the Butcher or neither of us will be alive tomorrow. He isn’t the type to take disappointment well.”

  “So you don’t think it will work?” Adrian asked, curious. Had she foreseen the outcome?

  “No, I think we’ll make the call, I just don’t know who or what might answer. Makes me nervous.”

  “Donner makes me nervous,” Adrian said, staring at the hair he’d caressed before she’d woken. “Don’t deny him.”

  “I’ll do what I have to,” she answered, but inside, she was celebrating. She could feel Donner coming towards them, confident in their agreement now that he’d listened to them work it out. He was about to get all that he’d asked for and then some.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  1

  “I had to be sure they knew the target was here—that all of the top descendants were here. It was the only way they were going to get bunker babies to go passed my second ring,” Angela explained tonelessly. “I tried to show them how deadly we were even without our gifts. I gave them every opportunity to make the right choice and leave us alone. They chose not to take it.

  “I also tried to kill as many of them as I could through the second ring. I needed the odds to be even for the final fight. I came close, you know?”

  Donner nodded. “Yes. You did well. They’ll be stumbling over bodies in these mountains for years.”

  “The final ring had to show what we could do if cornered. That we didn’t really need the people we were using to fight with, that we were more dangerous, more ruthless than our enemy.”

  “You succeeded there, too,” Donner admitted. “And all it did was get you captured and eventually, even killed.”

  Angela didn’t stop explaining, stalling. “In time, it will give me absolution. My sacrifice will be greater than my crime.”

  Donner threw back his head and laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? There is no god or devil in that room, no evil or right. That was the line we’ve been fed, and it’s all bullshit. We are the superior beings, the gods, and your call will prove it. You’ve wasted your life trying to be good, when all you had to do was use your power.”

  Angela understood his point of view, but she could never accept that. “I’ll be forgiven. You’ll burn.”

  Donner shrugged. “One hell is the same as another.”

  “Three days after the call, I go free,” Angela stated coldly, switching topics. She could feel his fanaticism, his lies and tortured, twisted mind. “You can tag along and study things, wait for your answer, but I’m leaving here and I’ll blow my way out if I have to. You can’t keep me here.”

  Donner had expected it to come to this, but if the call was successful, he didn’t honestly care what happened after that. “And Mitchel?”

  “Give him to the bunker instead of me. Tell them that I died.”

  Donner liked that idea even more, she could tell, but she was also aware that he would never keep his word. He would drug her and hope it didn’t harm the baby too badly.

  “How about one day a week free, and you come on your own to be with your child, who stays with me?”

  Angela swallowed the growl, horrified and furious to be negotiating her child’s life in the labs. This was exactly what had happened to Adrian’s parent and Angela did not intend to honor her deal either. “Three days free and you don’t monitor me with anything that has to be implanted. Keep your shit out of my body.”

  Donner shrugged, waving at the blank paper on the table between them. “Write it up. I’ll go inform the bunker. It will take them a few to get back to us. The rain is pouring.”

  Angela nodded and Donner didn’t cuff her to the table as he had Adrian. He left them alone without even a sentry, and Angela was satisfied that she had pegged him right. In time, she could probably even wrap him around her little finger and keep a government contact, but she had higher goals than one obsessive Major.

  “I think you owe me an explanation,” Adrian stated. Turning him over to the bunker had never been a real part of this plan. He still had a lot to teach them, to offer his Safe Haven.

  Angela studied the man across the table from her, not caring that he was busy picking the lock on his cuff with a pen that had been left. Or maybe he’d stolen it.

  “Borrowed,” Adrian replied without stopping. He dropped the cuff and held up his hand, eyes now glowing.

  “Show me.”

  Reluctant to unleash something they had no control over, Angela slowly slid her hand into his and they both froze at the contact.

  There was no one here to get jealous or to misunderstand when they slowly gravitated towards each other, leaned their heads together. The images in their minds were consuming.

  2

  “What’s going on?” one of their guards asked.

  Donner didn’t answer, too busy listening, and Trey filled in the blanks.

  “They’re bonding, the final mark of a life-couple. He assumed the baby was fathered by the ghost, but this says differently. These two are soul mates. Resisting each other would have driven them crazy.”

  “They’ve had this in the labs, right?”

  “Not between two alphas. None of the matches the scientists lined up were actually matches. That’s why Canada blew. A negative and a positive, instead of two of the same, create bad things.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “You would be,” Donner snapped. “Shut up.”

  Light flared from the couple, blinding to those in the next room and the soldiers slid their glasses on for protection as the glare increased through the glass.

  “What’s happening?”

  Donn
er didn’t answer. She’d made a deal, but in truth, it was impossible to guess what they might do. Including attempting to break out, and Donner casually retreated behind the concrete divider as the hum of energy filled the facility.

  Angela wanted to protect herself, to pull away and stop, but Adrian refused to let her back out now. He sent his force over her in full strength, finally letting her feel how much he needed her.

  Adrian took them to that first meeting, to seeing her and realizing she was the one. His voice echoed in her mind as he showed what had become clear to him.

  I have always loved you!

  The first image was one of Angela in western times, with a handful of kids and a happy husband, but the haunted look in her eyes when she ogled the ranch foreman gave her away. The foreman, blond and too late to matter, stared back with the same intense longing.

  You were always a day ahead of me, out of my reach.

  The picture changed to Angela at the stake, burning, as Adrian and her husband screamed in horror from their cells.

  He always met you first!

  Adrian’s awful pain blasted them into a deeper level of their former lives, taking them to a stunning continent where bombs were falling and three people were running for their lives.

  The men were on either side of the women, covered in ashes and blood, but it was easy to tell who the woman wanted as they died. Her hand clutched at the blond sentry, instead of her wealthy husband.

  Why were you always out of reach?! Adrian demanded harshly, exposing his centuries of torment. Why?!

  The image flashed to Rome, to Adrian in the arena as Angela sobbed from the balcony while her owner laughed.

  Tell me why!

  The final vision went farther, and Adrian studied it obsessively. This would give him answers he’d been denied in all those lives.

  3

  The garden teamed with life. Giant rabbits and wolves ran through the valleys, not in a life and death struggle, but both in pursuit of the apple Eve had thrown. She liked how the animals would fetch the food and then quickly swallow it. They could gather their own, of course, but it was fun to interact. The animals and Eve had nothing to fear from each other and they wandered the garden together in pace and amusement.

  Nearby, Adam was farming, as he’d been told to do by the Master. His big arms labored under the bright sun and for a moment, Eve wondered what she was supposed to be doing. Then the rabbit at her feet ran off, chasing the wolf to retrieve the apple it had found, and she was distracted from the new thought.

  Her sweet laughter rang across the area and brought a smile to Adam’s lips. The Maker had promised him a mate and one had come. He was satisfied. When the Lord told him to, Adam would lie down with her.

  Across the pond, the caretaker sat with his back to the divine couple, pretending to be absorbed in his work. The Maker had decreed that Elliot would spend his life gathering the knowledge that was to be passed along to the offspring of Adam and Eve. They would live and love, and reproduce, and Elliot would serve them until their children were able to replace him.

  During his time in the garden, eons, Elliot had begun to feel that unfairness.

  “So pretty!” Eve squealed as she discovered a particularly pleasing flower.

  Eve’s laugh sent mating thoughts into the minds of both men, but it was Elliot who acted on them. Put here only to study and teach, the caretaker easily discerned what Eve liked, what made her smile and what caused her to scold. He chose to use those things to steal her from her mate.

  Eve, pure, had already begun to notice the differences in the two men. Adam was hard and commanding. He told her what to do and she obeyed without question, even when she didn’t want to. The caretaker was covered in hair and more muscles than Adam, but he was kind and quiet-spoken. He gave her gifts of leaves twined into animal shapes and taught her how to swim so that she might view the fish living under the waters.

  Adam had no feelings of jealousy over Eve and the caretaker. The Maker had given the men jobs. When that work was finished, the woman would be his and the caretaker would tend to their children. Adam had no thoughts of disobedience or free will. The Master had said it would be so. Who was he to question it?

  Elliot had become aware of the wrong he was doing and even felt guilt for it, but he could not stop his conquest of Eve and in the end, seduced her away from her mate, like the animals he studied.

  Eve, filled with love for Elliot, confessed to Adam that she had lain with the beast and would give birth to his child—Elliot’s child.

  Enraged by the betrayal, Adam struck Elliot down in the garden and brought about the final banishment that included himself, as well as the pregnant Eve. When her child was born, she called him Cain.

  Adam, bitter to have been turned out, cast the newborn from his sight to die and wouldn’t let Eve go to her child. Cain’s cries weakened until both of them were sure he would soon join his father.

  Then Adam took what had been stolen from him and gave Eve his child, who they named Able.

  4

  Angela struggled to break free of the awful visions.

  That can’t be. That can’t be!

  Easy, Adrian soothed, almost as upset as she was.

  But it’s us! she screamed. We did this!

  Adrian could only try to comfort her and knew it would never be enough. He now had the reasons. Despite being the better match, he and Angela had never been destined for each other and each time he’d tried to interfere with her and Marc over their lifetimes, it had ended in disaster for all of them.

  We cursed the world! She sobbed. You did!

  Adrian felt the harsh judgment of centuries weighing down on him and he opened his heart to the Maker, crying out,” Why not me, Lord? Why was I left alone?”

  The Maker’s Call.

  There was a second of light pressure, of a wistful hand running over Adrian’s brow with so much love, that tears burst from his eyes.

  A voice came, perfect and masterful, and the final scale of kindness on a level he had never felt.

  “You were to lead them gently into my awareness. You were to be idolized by entire civilizations. Love would have been your mate, love of the world. And it wasn’t enough.”

  Then the true voice came, thundering down with unequaled rage that terrorized them both into huddling on the floor.

  “You are the serpent in the garden! Banished! Banished!”

  Angela cried out at the harsh pain, Adrian’s pain, and then her own emotions slammed into her, stealing the last bit of resistance.

  I“t wasn’t our fault! she cried, tears coursing down her cheeks. You made us this way! You let me love him! I didn’t know!

  There was only silence now, that powerhouse gone from their souls, but the truth had come out. She and Adrian had loved each other throughout the centuries, and it was wrong.

  “I’m sorry,” Adrian cried, rising to put his hand over hers. “Please forgive us!”

  Finally bonded, their power merged, creating a blast of energy that shot out from their bodies and traveled the globe. The call was one that had never been used in the world before.

  Angela arched and Adrian’s grip became iron as the power sent out a second blast, then rebounded, sucked back into its hosts.

  Angela jerked her hands away, needing to gain control of her widely thumping heart and Adrian held his throbbing chest, not speaking.

  “They’ve done it!” Donner exclaimed in awe. “They’ve called for the Maker.”

  “For the what?”

  Donner realized he’d said too much and shoved away from the table. “Separate those two.”

  Angela went to Adrian as the door opened, aware of the protocol because of Adrian running through it in his head.

  Angela leaned down to place a soft kiss to his cheek. “I loathe you.”

  She went to her cell without resisting or being restrained, further proof of her keeping her word to behave, and she took the drugs, swallowing them with relief.
<
br />   Maybe she could sleep for the next 72-hours and pretend it was Brady in here with her.

  Adrian slumped to the floor as soon as she was out of sight, clutching his chest.

  5

  Marc shifted restlessly in his bedroll. The others had insisted he rest until daylight and he’d forced himself into it, knowing he needed to remain strong, but the dreams were haunting. In them, he wasn’t himself anymore. He’d become greater than he had been, larger somehow, and he floated over land that didn’t appear to be the country he lived in.

  The earth below was perfect. From the birds and trees, to the waterfalls and fish leaping from the crystal waves. The only thing he could compare it to, was paradise. As he flew over the mountain, Marc saw mountains and jungles, and a crisp shoreline that invited him to come closer.

  Can I? he wondered.

  To his delight, he immediately flew down and skimmed the waves until he reached the sandy beach. It was too narrow for a large boat, but perfect for someone who wanted to be hidden away and forgotten about.

  They’ve bonded.

  Marc knew. He’d felt the power, the forbidden call he’d read about in Adrian’s notebooks. The only way to do that was when two matched Alphas made the promise, the vow, of forever.

  Will we sleep now?

  Marc wasn’t sure what would come from this, but the idea of putting his demon to sleep and taking off into the wilderness wasn’t one he could stomach. He would die fighting, as he had in every other life his demon had shown him.