“Mena’s not answering,” Jess cried.
“Try Ace or Phoenix,” Roel snapped.
“Yes,” Justice said. “Try Ace. I would like a word with my dear cousin.”
After a moment, Roel saw Jess shake her head out of the corner of his eye. Shit. “What have you done with my pack?”
“They are safe,” Justice said. “We’ve been picking them up a few at a time over the last couple of days, being discreet, you know. Would you like to see them?”
“Of course I would, dumbass. Let them go.”
Justice frowned as he stood up straight and uncrossed his arms. “I’m sorry. I cannot. Put your knives away, and I’ll take you to see them, your pretty little human girlfriend, too. I gathered by the way she was yelling for you that she might mean something special to you. Am I right?”
“Don’t you dare touch her—”
Justice waved a hand through the air. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m only using her as a pawn to get to your Queen.”
“This Knight is about to put you in Check,” Roel said, and then lunged forward, slicing the blade in his right hand through the air just as Justice jumped back.
A pair of matching daggers shot out from under the sleeves of Justice’s Armani suit jacket, and his fingers closed around their hilts. “I don’t want to kill you, Roel,” he said. “I’m not the bad guy. I just want to take from him what he took from me. If you were in my shoes, you’d want the same thing.” His movements were athletic and graceful, just like those of an apex predator. Roel called forth his own inner predator, bringing the wolf just under the surface. He needed strength and focus right now.
“Doubtful,” Roel said, and then stabbed with his left as he swung with his right. Neither one connected. Damn it!
Justice circled him. Roel matched his steps in the same direction. “You’ve witnessed the bond in action, right?”
Roel’s jaw clenched. “More than I cared to.”
“So you know how strong it is, and how connected the individuals are who are under it. I had that once. My beloved cousin took her from me. Of course, I went after them once I realized that she had been abducted, but the closer I got to them, the more of her I found… a finger in Arkansas, an ear in Oklahoma, her eyes in Texas. I stopped tracking him when I found her heart in New Mexico, but I vowed to repay the favor some day. Now that he’s a bonded male, I won’t rest until I get my revenge, Roel. You wouldn’t, either. I’m sorry that she just so happens to be your Alpha and friend.” His voice held no remorse, only venom. For Justice, this was vengeance, nothing more. Roel’s stomach twisted at the realization the Alpha wasn’t going to stop until Mena was dead.
Roel blew out a weighted breath as he blinked at Justice. Ace was one sick fucker. But Justice was right, if someone did that to Lea, he would definitely want revenge on the asshole, and he wasn’t even bonded to Lea. “We are trying to find a way to reverse the bond. Just give us a little more time and no blood has to be shed. I can’t let you kill Mena!”
Justice shook his head. “I don’t negotiate well, Roel. You see, I have one thing on my mind, and one thing alone: take everything that matters to Ace away from him. By killing your Alpha, I gain my vengeance and her pack. When he comes for me, I will take his life and his pride from him. I don’t want you to find a way to reverse the bond, because I want him to hurt, like I hurt.”
“I guess there’s only one way to settle this then,” Roel said.
“I hate that you feel that way,” Justice said. “You could have been one of my best men.”
“I’d rather die,” Roel said.
Justice’s face twisted into something resembling a smirk. “So be it.”
Roel dodged the blade coming at him in Justice’s right hand, and then he twisted out of the way just before the blade in the Alpha’s left hand sliced his throat.
Each time Roel squatted, bent, turned, twisted or jumped, he threw another swing with the blades, aiming to kill, not injure.
Justice was fast, possibly the quickest and most lethal fighter he had ever been up against, and that was saying something.
Far too quickly, Roel found himself winded and fatigued. He’d gone much too long without sleep, and now the strain of it was weighing heavily on him. No, he thought. I won’t let him win. Mena has to stay safe. As long as Justice lives, she never will be.
Adrenaline pumped through his system, and a surge of energy burst out of him. He rushed Justice and knocked him against the silver bars of one of the cells. None of his flesh was actually touching the silver, so he wasn’t hurting. He had to act fast. Bringing the dagger in his right hand up, he went in for the killing blow, but Justice dropped the knife in his left hand to reach up and grab Roel’s wrist just before the tip of the blade pierced his blazer.
“I was wrong,” Justice said menacingly. “You’re not good enough to be one of my men.” Those words hurt Roel worse than actions, because he suddenly saw the truth in them. Feelings of failure—failing Mena, Lea, the pack—coursed through his veins. Justice shoved Roel’s arm away and down, and then twisted it at the elbow as he pushed away from the bars and reversed their positions, disarming Roel of both daggers in the process.
Roel was still howling in pain when Justice pushed him against the cell and shoved his forearm against Roel’s neck, forcing his head against the bars. Silver burned him through his hair and he let out a yell.
“I was hoping to talk to Ace while I was here, but I’m sure your death will be message enough for him,” Justice said, his breath hot on Roel’s face.
Roel swallowed. This was it. He didn’t have any fight left in him. It would all be over after this and… and he had failed. Only a few days on the job and he had failed his Alpha. Struggling against the hold on him, Roel breathed gulping, ragged breaths, searching his mind for a way out of this. His muscles burned with straining against Justice’s strength, and he was growing weaker with every breath. Where the hell are Kristie and Anne? They’d be able to get my ass out of this mess. He blew a puff of air out as he glanced up at the ceiling, and then muttered around the arm that was trying to crush his windpipe. “A little help here, please? You don’t really want me to die yet… not like this. I still have a story to tell.”
Justice’s eyebrows drew in as his head tilted to the side a fraction, and then his entire body began to convulse, his muscles wracked with a weird tingling rigor, and the weight on Roel’s throat lightened.
Not knowing what had happened, but realizing this was his only chance to get away, Roel twisted out of Justice’s hold and fell into a fighting stance. Justice dropped to his knees, and then crumbled to the floor, his body jerking uncontrollably. And that’s when he saw the cattle prod connected to Justice’s leg. Jess had somehow managed to retrieve it from the wall across from Matthew’s cell, and she was shocking the hell out of Justice with it.
Roel held out his hand after he realized the Alpha wouldn’t get back up and fight. “Stop, Jess.”
She continued tasering him for a few more seconds, but the buzzing finally stopped and she dropped the cattle prod and crab-walked backward a few feet, obviously afraid that Justice would wake up and unleash hell on her.
“It’s okay. You knocked him out and saved my life. Thank you. Take a breath.”
She inhaled sharply, and then screamed as the door was kicked in and two huge men, with blood-stained shirts, walked inside. Their eyes fell to see Justice on the floor, and then they quickly looked up at Roel as he ran to grab the cattle prod.
“Where are the others in your pack?” Roel demanded as he pointed the weapon at the two men.
One of the guys shook his head. “They’re all dead.”
The other guy spoke up before Roel had a chance to respond to that. “Did you kill Justice?”
“No, he isn’t dead, and I don’t feel right about taking his life now that he’s unconscious. I have morals.” Roel’s gaze shifted to the first guy who’d spoken. “What do you mean they’re all dead? All eight
hundred of them?”
The man shook his head. “Only six of us came here with our Alpha. The rest are still in Louisville.”
Roel pointed the cattle prod at the men. “Where is my pack?”
The second man shrugged. “We haven’t seen your pack. We came straight here.”
A loud bang came from upstairs, and then the sound of boots pounded down the basement stairs. “Roel?”
Peanut. “In here! Get your weapon at the ready.”
Alex stepped into the room, pointing his gun at the back of one man’s head, and then the other. “My weapon is always at the ready,” he said. “What the hell happened?” Roel glanced down at Justice the same time Alex did. “Aw, hell. Is that Justice?”
Roel nodded. “Yep.”
“Want me to put a bullet in his brain?” Alex said.
Roel shook his head, still eyeballing the twitching body on the floor. “No. I have a feeling his cousin will want to do that.”
“What are we going to do with him and these two goons then?” Alex said.
“Please,” one of the men said. “I have a wife. I was ordered to come here. I never wanted to hurt anybody.”
Alex glanced down at the blood on the man’s shirt. “Whether you wanted to or not doesn’t change the fact that you did.”
“Have you heard from any of the pack lately?” Roel asked Alex. “Justice said his pack has been taking them several at a time over the last few days.”
Alex frowned. “I’m fairly certain we’re all accounted for. I just came from a Valentine’s parade in town the high school kids put on. Most of our pack was there. We even helped them build most of the floats. I think the rest are over at the gym helping them set up for the school dance tonight.”
Roel breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
“I say we lock ‘em up in these cells and let Ace handle his cousin,” Alex said, and Roel nodded as he turned toward the cage Jess was in.
She held out the key that was wrapped in the towel and Roel let her out.
Roel’s head popped up. “Lea! Did you see Lea upstairs?”
Alex’s brow drew down in confusion as he shook his head. “No—”
“You two get them locked in cells!” Roel shouted over his shoulder as he ran out of the room. “Lea!”
Soft sobbing came from a door up on the right, and Roel slowed before Jaxon’s room. As he rounded the corner and went into the room, he spotted Lea kneeling on the floor beside a mass of blood, meat and bones. Roel grimaced, desperately wanting to turn away from Jaxon’s condition. If he was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long. There was no fixing this. Not even a vampire or a shifter could recover from this many injuries. Not only were his legs and arms bent where a bone couldn’t bend, but his chest had been ripped open and his heart and intestines were exposed. Lea looked up at him, with a pale, tear-streaked face.
“He’s dead, Roel,” Lea’s voice was flat as she rocked back and forth. All the emotion had gone out of her eyes. She was in shock. Shit! Roel’s eyes focused on something she was clutching to her chest. It looked like an envelope—no, two envelopes. With so much bright red blood smeared and splattered across the aged cream-colored paper, he couldn’t have sworn the parchments weren’t originally red.
He rushed to her and cradled her in his arms. “Shh… Let’s get you out of here.”
“I can’t!” Shoving against his hold on her, she wailed and screamed at the top of her lungs. Her arms flailed out around her in a fit of rage and heartache. Roel never let her go. She was going mad, but he wanted her to look back on this moment and know that he was here for her. He had to get her out of here before she lost it completely. “I won’t leave him,” she sobbed. “He told me—” She hiccupped. “He told me that he has always loved me.”
Roel’s stomach shot up in his throat. That’s what all the fuss had been about when Jaxon had walked in on him kissing her in the hotel room. The guy had been in love with her. “Lea—” Roel started, but she squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she shook her head. Roel’s heart lurched, afraid of what she was about to tell him.
After drawing in a ragged breath, she looked up at him, and cried, “He’s my father.”
Chapter 42
Friday, February 6th 2015 2:19 p.m. PST
Las Vegas, Nevada
Ace
The suspense of waiting on Andra to collect the potions that would release the three here from the Nexus spell, so we could face her friends, was killing me slowly. Brad, Heath and Slade carried the casket holding Andra’s not-yet-ex-boyfriend into the den over five minutes ago. Heather and Tracy had followed and shut one of the two doors of the room behind them.
My focus was aimed toward the archway of the living room as I waited, but Clay’s throat clearing made me turn my head to the right.
“So… the guys want you to go on tour with us again,” Clay said. “We’re putting together a new album and we want you on it. It should be out in late spring.”
I shook my head. “I miss it, Clay. You know I do, but I can’t leave Andra. You know the bond won’t let us be apart for more than eight hours, and we both have our pride and pack to think about. It’s why I nearly killed myself two years ago. I don’t age. People were starting to get suspicious and talk.”
“You’ve changed your look. You could go back for a few more years without anyone questioning anything. And you could always just get rid of the bond, if that’s what’s holding you back. She could go with us. Slade and her Beta could take care of things—”
I shot to my feet from the chair I was sitting in and took a guarded step forward, my expression turning enraged, mimicking the emotion boiling up inside me. “What do you mean, get rid of the bond? It’s not possible.”
There was a moment of silence, before Clay spoke again. “Calm your tits, bro. I’m not your enemy. Getting rid of the bond is not impossible. You just have to have a full circle of mages to do it. And my siblings and I just so happen to be a full circle of mages. We’d need Zephyr, of course, but I’m sure we could find a way to talk him into doing it.”
In three quick strides, I crossed the distance between us and braced my palms on the arms of the chair Clay was sitting in, getting all up in his personal space. “Don’t you breathe a word about this to anyone, especially Andra, do you hear me?” I growled through a clenched jaw. “I don’t want to get rid of the bond.”
“I get it,” Clay said broodingly, and then shoved me away from him. “Our pages on Twitter and Facebook are blowing up with requests to have you join the band again. News got out after you played with us last night. I was only trying to tell you about it and offer a solution, asshole. She can still come on tour—”
“Ace?” Andra said from some distance behind me, the archway, I assumed. “Is everything okay?”
Fuck, she’d felt my anger. I blew out a breath as I nodded. “Yeah, Clay said something absurd and it pissed me off. We’re good now. Let’s go break the news to your boyfriend that you have a new boyfriend.”
“You said you would let me handle Phoenix,” she said. “Please don’t antagonize him. I can do this.”
Counting my steps, and dodging furniture, I made my way over to her.
Friday, February 6th 2015 2:24 p.m. PST
Las Vegas, Nevada
Phoenix
Phoenix knew they were in a room that the sunlight couldn’t penetrate, but they were still refusing to remove the straps they’d bound the casket with to keep the lid from accidently opening during bumps and shuffling around. Still, Phoenix could get out if he absolutely had to.
“Release me or I will tear my way out of here!” Phoenix roared, and then punched the underside of the lid for at least the hundredth time.
“The door we came through lets the sunlight in, Phoenix,” Heather said. “Mena will be back with the potions any minute now.”
Any minute now. Damn, didn’t this chick realize a minute in a coffin felt like a year? He exhaled heavily and waited. Only a few seco
nds passed before he heard the faint creak of door hinges and then the door softly clicking shut.
“You can let him out now,” he heard Mena say, and Phoenix breathed a sigh of relief. Finally.
There was a series of clicking noises and some movement with the casket as the bindings were released, and then the lid opened and Phoenix blinked the ceiling of the dim room into focus. Claustrophobic after six hours in complete darkness, cramped in a small space, without actually sleeping, he’d been fighting the phobia since he’d been in the coffin.
“Hello, Phoenix,” Mena said, and his head whipped around to see her for the first time in what felt like years. She wasn’t smiling. It was clear she wasn’t happy to see him. And her cheek… He pressed his lips together as his temper began to rise. He had a strong feeling in his gut that if he hit the guy now, it wouldn’t do anything except piss Mena off. He’d heard her at the airport when she’d told everyone that nobody was going to hurt Ace. “I’m surprised to see you here so early, and in the daytime, too. What was so important that you risked your life to come here?” There was something funny in her voice, something Phoenix couldn’t read, and a little piece of his heart broke off. She stayed where she was, standing there beside Ace, their fingers interlocked between them. His heart sank. He was too late. And he could have sworn that each person in the room had three eyes, one on him, one on Mena and one on Ace. None of them wanted to miss a thing.
On a long sigh, Phoenix climbed out of the coffin and slammed the lid. “Can we talk… alone?” he said, and his eyes flicked to her right, where Ace was standing protectively by her.
“Sure,” she said, and then handed Heath all but two of the five pink vials that were in her free hand. She handed Brad one of the two, and then let go of Ace’s hand to cross the room to Phoenix.
Once she was standing close enough for him to touch, he grabbed her and crushed his mouth down on hers. As hard as he tried to pull a reaction out of her, she stood stiff and emotionless in his arms. He tried to part her lips with his tongue, but she pressed her lips together.
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