Page 21 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)

NEVER

The concern in Hook’s voice did nothing to ease my nerves. “You want to summon them now because of me?”

He took my hand, trying to soothe me with his touch.

“In part. We already need to discuss the situation here in Charleston with them, but they have a great deal of experience with demons of all levels. That is a unique qualification that may help them determine whether the magic that rose inside you in the Alius was related to your blood or my—our—power.”

Okay, yeah. That made sense. Why was I so paranoid about this now? Especially with these two. A quarter of a century might have passed but Lily used to be my ride or die. That had to mean something, right?

And even though I still got a little insecure when Hook closed himself off from me, I didn’t seriously think he would do anything to hurt me. So what if some big, bad demons in the human realm decided I was trouble? I wasn’t alone in this, and that was what mattered.

Lily cleared her throat. “While I’m not against your plan to call on them, let’s not do the talking here.

My people are already twitchy about having a couple of godly types on their turf.

The Brethren might be enough to push a few of them to leave town for good.

” She eyed me critically. “Are you sure you’re okay with this, Never? ”

Was my hesitation written all over my face?

Hook leaned close. “She’s known you for most of your life. It makes it much easier to read a person.”

I was tempted to elbow him and tell him to stay out of my head, but I didn’t really want that. The opposite, in fact. My craving for him had only grown since I’d taken on his powers.

“We need to talk to them, I get that. I’m just a little worried is all.” Not to mention dead ass tired. Nothing pulling up my big girl panties wouldn’t fix.

Hook pulled in a deep breath and shook his head. “It can wait. I suspect rest would be more beneficial for all involved at this point.” He turned to Lily. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare room where we could get some rest, would you?”

She smiled and nodded. “Absolutely. Let me show you the way.”

The next day, after a night of quiet lovemaking and more sleep than I’d realized I needed, and a morning loaded with learning more about Lily and her pack, I was itching to get things moving.

Hook had reached out to the Brethren earlier in the day, and we’d been given instructions on when and where to meet them.

“Can you flash?” Lily asked, looking between us.

“I was starting to get the hang of it in the Nassa,” I said, like that counted for anything. “Here? I need more practice.”

Hook reached out and took my hand. “I can flash us anywhere we need to go. ”

“I know, but I need to figure this out. What if I try to follow you?”

His brow lifted. “Do you think you can track my magic?”

“Not exactly.” Not at all, actually. “But I want to try something.” My gut was telling me the connection between us was strong enough to guide me to him without knowing where he was. It was a hunch, but it couldn’t hurt to at least try.

He squeezed my hand before letting go with a reluctant smile. “We’ll try it your way, but I insist you keep our connection open in case anything goes awry.”

“That goes for you, too.” I pulled the copper bracelet out of my back pocket. “What about this?”

“It won’t interfere with my ability to find you, so just put it on just before we leave.” He turned to Lily. “Do you want to join us?”

She lifted her brow, then gave him a quick nod. “Yeah. I wouldn’t mind seeing the big guy again.”

I’d almost forgotten that Emerson and Theloneus were both there with Lily and Matt when we made the trip back to the Nassa. “Which one is the big one again?” I remembered them both being mountains of men.

Lily swiveled her chair to look at me dead on, the light from monitors giving her a blueish halo. “Theloneus, obviously. Emerson had a certain appeal, but last time I saw him he was still hung up on that dead ex of his.”

A twinge of sadness skipped through the link, pulling my attention to Hook.

Emerson had fallen in love with a human woman who had died a few short years later.

That was all I knew of the story, except for the part where he didn’t have any godly powers that he could use to drag her back from wherever her soul ended up.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to lose Hook now, after everything we’d been through, and then be expected to go on living. For eternity. Alone.

Forget the Alius. Losing the people I loved with no way of joining them in the afterlife? That was my definition of hell.

I had to assume there was some kind of afterlife for regular mortals who weren’t tainted with demon blood. I mean, come on, there were gods and demons and pixies and shifters. A plane of existence beyond this one wasn’t that much of a stretch, was it?

Except, now that I wasn’t technically human anymore, that meant I would lose Matt and Lily, eventually. And Hook, when I went back to the Alius to set things right in this realm.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I could spend eternity with my broody pirate, but if that meant the rest of the world would suffer, it wasn’t an option my conscience would let me live with.

I would belong to that man forever. It just sucked that forever would be spent in misery and heart ache, separated by realms and lifetimes.

And it wasn’t like my brother would be going wherever normal people went when they died. No matter what he did with his life, his blood would send him straight to the Alius. The only comfort in that thought was that he and I would be reunited, eventually.

I could only imagine what his daughter would do if she ever found out where he was headed.

Or where she was headed. Disgust bled through me. That was one of the thoughts that haunted me since I’d met her the day before.

What kind of fucked up system would damn such a sweet, feisty girl to that hellscape for something she had no control over?

The only real solution was to take them all back to the Nassa.

Now that Matt was a full-fledged adult, and Petra was trapped in an endless spin-cycle at the bottom of the eddy, she wouldn’t pose a threat.

I would have to convince Hook and Leo to protect them for a few years, or decades.

But I could be persuasive. And it would only be until the magic of the realm soaked into their bones, or whatever the hell it did.

“Earth to Never,” Lily said, waving a hand in front of my face.

I blinked and leaned back in my chair. “What? I was listening,” I lied.

Her brow came together. “What is going on with you?”

“Nothing. I was just doing some math in my head.” That wasn’t a lie, exactly. A giant problem plus a potential solution equaled a shitty plan that I already hated. It was a kind of math.

“Uh huh. Did you hear anything I just said?”

Did I? I wracked my brain trying to pluck out any of the words she’d said while I was deep inside my own head. “Something about the Brethren?” That was my best guess since that was the topic of conversation before I’d zoned out.

Hook cut me a worried look, but Lily just sighed. “I said Theloneus and Emerson used to take turns checking in on Matt and me once or twice a year, but I haven’t seen either one in about five years, give or take.”

Interesting.

I stretched my arms up and laced my fingers behind my head. “Matt told me life was pretty calm until about five years ago. Is that how you remember it?”

Her head bobbed from side to side, and the messy ponytail sticking out the back of her ball cap followed. “Give or take.”

“So, what changed? If I’m really the cause of all this—and I’m not saying I’m not—but why would things here stay normal for over twenty years? Why didn’t they start going sideways on day one? We had that big storm in the Nassa when we took care of Petra, and it was just the first of many. ”

Neither of them seemed to have an answer. Which, no surprise there. They were right here in the thick of it with me. It was hard to see the big picture when you were clinging to the edge of the frame.

I unlaced my hands and stood, pulling the bracelet from my pocket. “Let’s go wherever we’re going.” Even if the Brethren couldn’t help shed some light on the situation, we could at least rule them out as having any part in it.

An hour later, after I’d successfully followed Hook as he flashed with Lily (score one for me!), we were all killing time in a park in Sabetha, Kansas.

I’d never heard of the city before, but to be fair, calling it a city was generous.

It might have been a third the size of Charleston on a good day.

“I guess we are in Kansas after all, Toto,” I muttered.

Lily offered me a pity chuckle for the bad joke, but Hook just gave me a quizzical look. Since I had all the freaking time in the world, I tortured him with a lengthy summary of the movie.

“Why are we meeting them here?” I asked a little later.

In my mind, a bigger city with more people made more sense, assuming the plan was to hide in plain sight.

The three of us, soon to be five whenever the two ancient demons finally decided to show up, hanging out in an adorable neighborhood park seemed like a great way to draw all kinds of unwanted attention.

Lily shook her head. “Your guess is as good as mine.” She’d taken the time to part her thick, mahogany locks down the middle and put it in two dutch braids that showed off the lines of her neck and shoulder.

I might have been imagining it, but I got the impression she harbored a bit of a crush on Theloneus.

I turned to Hook who offered me a little shrug. “I’m sure they have a reason.”

So we waited.

And waited .

Hours passed with us shifting positions and pacing. I’d gone from stretching out in the grass to sitting on the battered bench to swinging on the rusty swing set more times than I cared to count.

Weirdly, everyone in the park seemed to be trying hard to make it look like they hadn’t noticed us.

We got the occasional nod from someone who was walking their dog or out for a run, but other than that, they pretended we weren’t even there.

Until finally, when the afternoon sun was finally beginning its descent into evening, the air and energy around us changed.

A towering figure dressed in blue jeans, a heather gray t-shirt, and a pair of black shell-toe Adidas appeared from nowhere. I recognized him in an instant.

“Apologies for the delay,” Emerson said, his deep timbre dragging me back in time to the night we’d tried to de-shadow my brother.

Hook dipped his head. “We appreciate you coming.”

“Is it just you?” I asked, checking to make sure his buddy—brother, whatever—wasn’t lurking behind us.

Emerson cast a glance Lily’s way before answering. “It is. Theloneus is… unavailable.”

That sounded ominous.

Lily narrowed her eyes. “Is everything okay?”

He took a moment to study her. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

I could feel her bristle even from a few feet away.

He must have picked up on the hostility pouring off her because he added, “By which I mean you have your own problems to deal with.”

He wasn’t wrong there. “How much do you know about the rise in demon activity over the last few years?” I asked.

He arched a brow. “Straight to the point, eh, Never?”

“Some things don’t change,” I answered .

Emerson nodded. “All I can tell you at this point is that the increase in demons crossing over into this realm appears to be localized to the Charleston area.”

Well, that was a relief. Kind of. “Any theories on why it might be happening?”

“I could give you a thousand potential reasons, but I would be shooting in the dark. However, while the demon summonings are confined to your city, other strange things have been popping up here and there.” He paused to watch an older couple walk by hand-in-hand.

They were trying awfully hard to make it look like they hadn’t noticed us.

“Like what?” Lily asked, her voice carrying a note of impatience I wasn’t used to hearing from her.

“Small things mostly.” He shrugged. “The Brethren tracks the use of dark magic, and we’ve been seeing an increase in some of the more dangerous spells.

We’ve seen a rise in lesser demons acting up, and we’ve identified a few areas where the barriers between worlds have thinned considerably. Like here.” He motioned to the park.

Which meant the locals were probably pretending not to see us because they’d seen too much weird shit recently. Cool. I couldn’t blame them. The universe was a strange place.

What I didn’t know was why he would ask us to meet him here of all places. Unless the barrier that was breaking down was between the human world and the Alius. The Brethren dealt with demonic threats in the human realm, and if a person wanted to split hairs, I could fall into that category.

Fuck me. “You’re not going to try to shove me back through into the Alius, are you?”

Surprise lifted his brow. “No.”

“Good, because I would find my way back here.”

He shot Hook a look that I couldn’t quite decipher. “And how would you do that? ”

I did like Lily and Hook suggested and tried to let my power rise to the surface.

All I wanted to do was make my eyes glow.

You know, give him a glimpse like I did with my brother.

What I got was a wave of anticipation rolling through me, a barely there tingle that lifted the hair on my arms, almost like I was amping myself up for a fight.

I didn’t even know the trick had worked until Emerson smiled. It transformed his scowly good looks into something genuinely handsome. “I thought there was something different about you.”