Page 55 of Ace (The Deuces Wild #4)

Savannah withdrew to the hospital chapel.

Here in the soft glow pouring through the amber-tinted windows was the place of power and solitude she needed to confront Rudy John.

An older man knelt far to her left and another knelt just ahead and at her right, almost like two sentinels who had expected her arrival.

That alone comforted her on a purely spiritual level.

They weren’t true sentinels and were most likely there for their own reasons, not hers.

But it seemed the universe always provided who and what she needed with clocklike precision.

Whoever these men were didn’t matter. That they were here and praying was all Savannah needed to begin her quest.

Settling at the end of the row nearest the chapel door, she drew in a deep breath. Most chapels were consecrated places devoted to worship, heartfelt prayer, and divine intercession. They offered calm energy, silence, and reverence. This one was no different.

Blessing herself, she cast the first handful of what would be many threads into the eternal river of the universe.

Relying on her inner sight, she let the music of forever and everywhere and everyone flow through those threads to her.

With each pure note, the colors of the rainbow coalesced along those threads, washing through her like tiny drops of rain on spidery filaments, filling her soul with peace and contentment.

The threads she looked for first bound her to Keller.

They were a vivid, vibrant green this morning.

A smile blossomed over her face, lighting her up from inside.

When she’d first met him, the threads between them had been brittle and dry.

Unexplored and unknown. Now they pulsed with energy.

His soul had come back to life again. She’d known their attraction was mutual, now she was blessed to see that attraction in beautiful color.

He loved her. He no longer needed to say the words. She believed.

The threads between her and the other members of his team each vibrated with a red hue, like blood coursing through veins.

It was fierce, the perfect definition of Mr. Chase, Isaiah, Eden, and Tate.

Each of them were proud. Resolute. They stood fast against a world that feared them, and they considered Keller as their brother. Better yet, he’d finally realized that.

Turning away from the comrades she’d grown to love in just days, she cast another prayer to locate Rudy John. A searching prayer .

Oddly, it bounced back, the thread snapping past her spirit as if it had been stretched too tight and had broken. An ugly shadow whipped out at her, stinging her with a snake-like tentacle. A raspy voice hissed, ‘You dare challenge me?’

‘I did not challenge. I only seek answers.’ Savannah paused, for the first time in her life, her instincts on fire, telling her to run, that this might not be who she thought it was.

The voice was ragged and laced with pride, yes, but not the one that had attacked her spirit—and lost. Still she asked, ‘Doctor John?’

‘Come to Sanctuary if you’re so brave, little one. Come, Savannah, or they die. They all die!’ There was a definite psychic push behind every word, every letter. This was someone of power. But little one ? Really?

‘Who will die? My animals?’ she asked politely. She’d never encountered such ugly feelings in a single entity before. This was definitely not RJ.

Instead of replying, the voice spewed a whirling cloud of sparks and chaos at her. But Gran Mere always said only bullies resorted to light shows to frighten their prey, and light shows only worked on weak-minded people. Savannah held her ground. ‘I ask again. Who will die?’

‘All of them! Come to Sanctuary alone! If you don’t, I kill all of them!’

‘That is hardly an answer.’

‘Enough!’ A murky, black cloud boiled out from the now shadowy universe, turning each of Savannah’s carefully cast threads to ash.

First, Keller’s lovely green drifted into the cosmic wind, then each of the brilliant reds of the Deuces Wild team followed suit.

Even Isaiah’s purplish-blue thread fell to the rage within the voice.

But those threads were not those people, and Savannah had enough. ‘Are you the warlock Gran Mere warned of?’ she asked, needing to know once and for all.

A cackle perforated the silence of the chapel, stealing Savannah’s breath like a slap across her face. ‘ I am more,’ the voice spat, ‘so much more than that dimwitted old fool. Now come, damn you!’

So, you knew Gran Mere…

The compulsion in the voice was strong, certainly enough to intimidate.

But Gran Mere had neither been dimwitted nor foolish.

She’d always said to stand up for what you knew was right.

If you didn’t, if you let yourself be cowed, and if you ran away from your battles, you only delayed the inevitable.

The day would come when you faced that bully again, only then, he’d believe you were weak.

Because you had given your power away. So, don’t be weak to begin with.

Be fearless and strong and spit in that bully’s eye the first time around.

Make him remember you for courage, never cowardice.

Savannah lifted to her feet, shaken but not diminished. Forewarned, not intimidated. This voice belonged to the real warlock, but that person was not RJ nor anyone else she knew. None of that mattered. She would fight this entity head on. Only then would Keller be safe.

She was going to Sanctuary.

Keller woke wound as tight as a drum and ready to fight.

He was choking. Suffocating. Two shadows loomed over him, talking to each other.

Giving orders. The larger shadow held a thick heavy arm across his chest, fastening him to the bed.

The other, a woman, had her elbow stuck in his pillow.

Telling him to lie still, that this wouldn’t take long. Like hell.

“Get the fuck off me,” he meant to yell, but it was hard to breathe. He couldn’t think. He needed to vomit. Reaching between his clenched teeth, the woman pulled a fuckin’ snake out of his throat! They were killing him! What the hell?

“There, that wasn’t so bad,” she soothed as she stepped back to dispose of the writhing reptile.

The big guy eased his weight off Keller’s chest. Blinking sleep as thick as glue out of his eyes, Keller saw the snake then.

Okay. Not a snake. Just tracheal intubation tubing.

These people weren’t killing him. They were nurses.

Just nurses. He was in a real hospital, and it was just another day in fucking paradise.

Keller tried to growl, but a weak man couldn’t manage much intimidation.

Damn, his body felt like he’d been run over by both tracks of an Abrams tank.

He couldn’t move his left hand where his shoulder had been hit, and with two IVs taped to his right hand, he didn’t want to move that one.

For once, he settled back and just breathed.

There were times in a man’s life when that was the best he could do.

This was one of those moments. Keller was alive and that was good enough.

So he breathed and he panted and he reoriented himself to his new reality.

The lights overhead were too bright. They hurt his already pounding headache.

He was whipped and he knew it. He was injured.

That much he remembered. He’d survived getting shot, then hijacked by that bastard Doctor John who’d faked being a first responder.

Keller remembered Savannah hovering over him like an angel, blessing him just by being there.

Wherever there was. Faint recollections of riding Sand Dollar, of waking up in a barn, no, make that a stable, drifted to mind.

But what happened afterward was a muddled mess Keller couldn’t make heads or tails of.

The orderly offered him the straw of a bright pink plastic water mug and said, “Take it slow. Baby sips until we’re sure your stomach can handle it.”

Keller accepted the straw between his dry lips, so damned thirsty. But the cool water burned like fire going down. He was forced to sip less, even slower. Baby steps were not his favorite speed, but he was too parched to stop. “Where is she?” he rasped once he’d swallowed what little he could.

“There you go, Mr. Boniface. That should help you feel better,” the nurse said instead of answering his question. “We’ll be moving you out of ICU and into a regular patient room in a few minutes. Is there anything I can get you while we wait for that room to be ready?”

She leaned over him, wiped a cool damp cloth over his face, then over his entire scalp. Instant relief. Blonde and competent, she seemed to think she was in charge, but she was also gentle around his mouth and nose, and… Ahh, that feels good .

Closing his eyes, Keller retracted his opinion of hospital help. “Savannah,” he whispered as his tougher-than-most, FBI persona grew weaker by the minute.

“Who? That pretty little thing who’s been by your side for two days now, waiting for you to wake up? I’m not sure where she went, perhaps to the cafeteria or maybe home. She hasn’t left your side until now, so I don’t imagine she’s gone far.”

What the nurse said before finally registered. “I’m in ICU?” That sounded serious.

“Yes, sir, ever since your lungs filled with blood, and we thought we lost you that first night. Which is why you’ve been on a ventilator until now. I know it was painful having that tube removed, but you were a regular health risk when you first arrived. Where on earth have you been, China?”

“Huh? Me?” What the hell was this woman talking about? Him a health risk? Must be a mistake. He hadn’t been out of the country in months.