Page 27

Chapter twenty-seven

Kellan

The ground rumbles beneath my feet, a tremor slithering through the earth as Raegan spreads her gift hundreds of feet in three directions.

I bend my knees automatically to keep my balance as the next one rolls through.

The horde of death doesn’t seem to notice the trap being laid before them.

They shuffle forward, jerking and stumbling erratically, like their bodies aren’t quite right, making their movements stilted and awkward.

Aiden eyes the cliff, scanning the reddish cracks through the sand and where it meets the hard rock, while the other two are laser-focused on Raegan.

Dane’s hands fidget and clench at his sides, a look of concern pinching his face like he’s worried for her.

Jack, on the other hand, is staring obsessively at her, his dark blue gaze flicking to the impending damage and then back to her with a wild, bloodthirsty look in his eyes.

Dane yells suddenly, snapping my attention to the zombie that’s now within reaching distance of her.

I lunge forward, but I’m not close enough.

She demanded we keep our distance, and we obeyed, but now I won’t make it before that monster grabs her…

The guttural moans shudder, and then one thud hits the sand after another.

The zombie about to reach her is already on the ground, its wretched body twitching even after its insides are gone.

Are their souls still trapped there without the shell to hold them?

Is it tied to their bones, or whatever pieces of them are left?

The sand itself dusts to finer particles that easily lift in the breeze, sweeping over the long stretch of collapsed bodies.

She did it.

Hundreds of them.

Hell knows how many exactly, but she took them all out.

Dane rushes to her after Aiden commands her to stop.

They’re all down enough that none of them can move from where they’ve fallen.

Raegan rises halfway and then hesitates.

“What’s wrong?” Aiden asks, his hand going for her arm to help her.

Her hand glows red.

A gust of wind knocks him and Dane back.

“Something’s off.” Jackson strolls up next to them, his head tilted as Raegan slowly turns to face us.

Her face is blank. Empty.

Cold fingers trail up my spine, my breath hitching.

That fucker didn’t…

“Rae?” Dane gets back to his feet, holding his own glowing hand out to her.

“Say something.”

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

It’s a mockery of the one she wears, hollow and cold.

A crack at our feet gives me the split second notice that she’s sending her gift through the ground, aimed at the other three standing together.

I dive at her, snatching her off the ground to break that contact.

I growl through the sharp pain that burns my chest and arms while adding distance between us and the others.

“Come on, beautiful. Fight him,” I grit out through the pain.

She palms my face and mind-melting, white-hot boiling erupts beneath my skin.

Roaring with the blinding pain, I drop her and cradle my face.

It’s like a wildfire in my head.

I can’t think. Can’t see.

Can’t feel anything but the intense pain flooding my senses.

Sizzling, molten agony drives into my sides, bringing me to my knees.

Piece by piece, my head heals, even as my torso and organs are simultaneously being brought to ruin.

At last, I open my eyes.

My vision is sharper.

Clearer. The reeking, rancid scent of death permeates my nostrils, coating my throat and twisting my stomach.

Which—I touch my side where it had hurt the worst and run my fingers across the golden scales.

Healed. I don’t even remember when the pain stopped.

Or why she stopped.

Damn it, the others.

Standing, I break into a run when I see them.

Jackson’s hand is fisted and shaking while Dane runs at Raegan from behind.

She swings at him, even as I’m sure Jack has her oxygen suspended, and it reminds me of how Royce’s puppets never seemed fazed by pain.

Aiden jumps between them, a metal shield covering his forearm that splinters and drops to the ground in pieces when her hand brushes against it.

Aiden takes those seconds to move Dane out of reach.

“Are you sure it’s working?” Dane asks Jack, panting.

He doesn’t get a chance to answer before streaks of red spider through the sand at them.

“Oh, fuck!” He and Aiden run, but her gift moves without hesitation.

I have no fucking clue if she can still get to them if I pick them up off the ground, but it’s the only thing I can think of at the moment to get them out of harm’s way.

I scoop up Dane first, throwing him over my shoulder even as he curses me out.

Worst case, I’ll see if I can outrun it.

Her gift pinches my heel, and then I’m airborne.

I pitch backward midair, Dane’s weight throwing me off, so I’m hanging awkwardly.

Jackson’s hand is splayed toward us, his chest working as he keeps us and himself aloft.

The fist he’d been using on Raegan is loose.

I’d bet he had to stop in order to save us.

He flies to us, Raegan chasing after him.

“Let him go.” He points to Dane, then the top of the cliff.

“I’ll bring them up there to find Reid. Keep her away from it until I get back.”

So she doesn’t bring the entire cliffside down with her gift.

Right.

“Activate the rest of my gift,” I bark at Dane, annoyed that I haven’t mastered that skill yet on my own.

He slaps his hand against my back, and the rest of my scales and protective skin fills in the areas she hasn’t touched.

I release him and Jack drops me on my feet .

Raegan slams into me without warning, her entire body alight and causing a cascade of buzzing pins against my protected skin and scales.

I lean into her heat, grabbing her arms and holding her tight.

What scraps remained of my clothes are gone, hardly having made it through our first encounter and certainly not surviving the second.

“I've got you, beautiful,” I tell her, my deep timbre strained as she struggles against me. “So give me all of it. Because I’m not letting you go. Not for a fucking second.”

I crush her lips to mine, hoping…praying she’s somewhere in there still and can break free. If I can somehow reach her…if I can make her feel something…

The kiss is like lava being poured down my lungs and burning through to my gut. I’ve never felt more human, more in pain, and more afraid than I do now. I need to get her back. It’s the only thing that matters to me now.

Not my flesh and not the world around me.

Just her.

My tongue is a slash of heat against hers, challenging her, pushing her. I press her closer, holding the back of her head and spearing her with my mouth as my other hand grips her ass and grinds her against me. She doesn’t stop moving, doesn’t stop seeking an exposed or untouched bit of skin that she can attack.

I lift her legs around my waist, and she makes a choking noise that sends my heart plummeting. When I tear away from the kiss, there’s a knife burrowed in her back. The reddish glow of her gift is gone, and she doesn’t activate it to remove the knife either.

She stares at me, unaffected, as she reaches back for the hilt and yanks it free, then stabs at my throat. I catch her wrist, and something warm slides over my hand.

No.

Blood runs down the blade to my hand. Her blood. I chuck the knife away and sink to my knees, holding her struggling frame firmly to my chest as I check the wound.

A dozen knives fly at her, and a tidal wave of fury rises in my chest. I swipe them aside, my reflexes and speed hitting them one after another with a vicious snarl ripping from my throat before I find her attacker.

Jackson pulls three more blades from his hoodie, flinging them at her with the same apathetic expression on his face.

Rage swallows me whole, pulsing through my veins so viciously that my body aches with the need to move . To fight and wreak havoc on Royce and the threat to my family. First, Raegan is forced to attack and hurt us. Now, Jack is being forced after Raegan.

Cruel.

Filthy.

Coward .

For being too afraid to fight us himself. For trying to use us against each other.

I flip us around, shielding Raegan on the ground before the knives strike. The metal sings against scales. I whip my head around, baring my teeth in a snarl at him. Shoving off the ground, I race toward him while he tries reaching for more. I grab him by the throat, every fiber of my being screaming to punish him. For being a threat to her. For hurting her.

I throw him at the cliff wall, anger clogging my lungs until it’s all I can breathe. All I can feel.

His gift cushions him before he hits, but I’m already there, my hand catching the side of his face and slamming him into the rock. Sanity checks my strength at the last second, pulling back so he doesn’t end up with an injury too severe. Jackson crumples to the ground. My chest heaves, expelling some of the blind fury as I panic that I didn’t restrain myself enough. I find his pulse with two fingers, and relief pushes the rest of the anger from my bones, filling in with exhaustion instead.

When I look back to where I left Raegan, she’s gone.

I frantically search the beach. My heart stops when I find her. I run. As fast as I fucking can.

“NO!!!” I bellow, fear spiking my heart into a frenzy as she points the knife at herself and draws it back.

With all the strength in my legs, I leap the final distance between us, catching her arm and bringing her down with me. The knife snaps between my hardened chest and the ground.

Raegan tugs on her arm that’s pinned beneath me, her hand still wrapped around the handle. I grab her wrist, then the broken blade, and throw it into the ocean.

I collapse on top of her, holding her down while I fight for air. She wriggles and pushes at me, but it’s useless. She’s not going anywhere.

A loud pop , like a heavy stone snapping in two, has my eyes flying open. Raegan’s gift spreads through the ground under her. Under us.

“Rae!” Dane shouts. “Is she back yet? ”

There’s the sound of a struggle, and I glance over my shoulder. Dane’s wrapped around Aiden’s back, his gift glowing, while Reid looks between us and Jackson—who’s already standing and stalking toward us.

“No. And he’s got Jack, too.”

“There’s no time to waste,” Reid says. “We have to get out of here before he controls any more of us. And once we’re far enough, they’ll be free of him. Get them both and get to me.”

I growl in annoyance. “I hope you can teleport before they both try to kill you.”

“I’m already ready. Just get close enough that I can grab you, and we’ll be gone.”

He fucking better be.

I heave Raegan up with me, wrapping an arm around her backside over my shoulder. Jackson jumps into the air, but I snatch the heel of his boot before he can get far and bee-line it to Reid. Aiden’s still fighting to get Dane off, but Reid has Aiden’s jacket clenched in his hand while his other is out waiting for me. I rush into it. The second my arm touches his hand, we’re gone.

Metal crunches, the side of the infirmary bed hitting my knees and ramming into the next two beds in a harsh screech. Jackson crashes between two beds, splitting them apart and dropping to the floor. Raegan’s cry of pain pierces the noise, my heart lodging in my throat as the world still spins around me, and I pitch forward. I catch myself on the nearest bed, my weight shoving it harder into the others until they’re stopped by Jack’s unmoving body.

“I’ve got you, beautiful,” I rasp, struggling through the disorientation until I’m confident enough I can move without dropping her. I lay her on her front, and the world goes out of focus when I see the damage to her back. So much blood. So, so much. And I realize now I’m covered in it.

“Infirmary. Now.” Aiden staggers to the foot of the bed, his free hand grasping it like he needs it to stay upright while he grunts into the phone.

Grabbing the sheet on the bed, I rip the bottom off and bunch it up, then press it against her wound. I tuck the hair out of her face behind her ear so I can see her. Her eyes are closed, her breathing still. So damn still. “Stay with me until Cassandra gets here,” I tell her, my voice rough. “Let me know you can hear me.”

A quiet, low groan barely escapes her lips. I hang my head, shuddering with relief.

“Is she okay?!” Dane scrambles toward us, trying to shift beds out of the way but unable to move them far enough for him to fit on the other side.

“Go check on Jack!” I bark before he causes him any more damage than I already have. He was moving before we left. That has to mean he’s okay, right? Or was that only because he couldn’t feel any pain?

Dane curses, searching the room for him and then pushing beds aside when he finds him. “What happened to his face?”

I grind my teeth. “Me. ”

Aiden moves beside me. “I’ll hold that. Get Jack in one of the beds.” His hand joins mine on the red sheet that was once white.

I almost argue for him to do it, but when I look at him, his face is bleached of color. Aiden’s lips are pressed to a thin line, his brow furrowed as if it’s taking all of his concentration and focus to stay upright and hold the sheet. An aftereffect of Royce?

Removing my hand, I knock the bed behind me back and stalk around Aiden to get to Jackson. I’m careful when I scoop him up, offering up an internal apology for what I had to do. I don’t regret it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat if he threatened Raegan. I doubt he’d criticize me for it. In fact, I’m damn sure he’ll be glad I stopped him before he could have done worse. He’ll already be beating himself up over attacking her—and injuring her—after he wakes up.

Once he’s on the bed, I see the full extent of the damage I’d inflicted when I crushed him into the cliff. That one side of his face is swollen like a balloon. Blues, blacks, and purples mottle the swelling, followed by cuts here or there and one big bleeding scrape. His eye is hidden behind the swelling, and his nose is crooked, fresh blood still draining from it.

I tear a strip of fabric from his bed and hold it to his nose. “Dane, take this.” I check on Aiden, and he doesn’t look good. “Aiden, sit or lie down.” Dane takes my place at Jackson’s side and I grab the sheet from Aiden, nudging him to the bed next to us.

Dane’s worried gaze is pinned on Raegan. “How bad is it?”

“I don’t know,” I growl, frustrated that Cassandra isn’t here yet. How much blood had she lost between when she was stabbed and now? She hadn’t stayed still after it happened, making it worse .

Reid reappears with Cassandra, I guess having picked her up from her apartment upstairs, and for the first time I notice Harvey sitting on the floor holding his head. I completely forgot about him in the rush to leave, but I’m glad he’s here, so we don’t have to go back for him.

Cassandra trips on her way to Raegan’s side, her eyes wide as they rove over me from top to bottom, then freeze between my legs.

Snarling viciously, I shout, “Heal her!” I don’t give a shit that I’m butt-ass naked. Raegan doesn’t have time for her to stop and stare.

She coughs and runs over, snapping back without looking at me, “Then give me some room.”

Once Cassandra’s hands are on her, I move back and to the side. Something soft hits me in the face. Growling, I find Dane glaring back at me. “Put it on.”

I hold the thing up, but the hospital gown is tiny compared to me. “This isn’t going to fit me.”

“Then at least use it to cover your dick! As usual.”

I don’t have the capacity to joke or make fun of him at the moment as I normally would, so I tie it around my waist as best I can without a word and get back to watching Cassandra healing my girl.

She must have used the sheet to wipe away the blood enough that I can see the wound and watch it slowly shrinking in size. Tension sucks from my muscles like a riptide, leaving me drained and unbalanced. I lean into the bed Aiden’s seated on and watch the scales of gold fade to my natural, golden-brown skin tone.

A bang snatches my attention to the other side of the room, where Reid’s fist shakes against the cracked drywall. “She was there!” he grits out lowly, sounding more like he’s saying it to himself than the rest of the room. “She was right there, and I couldn’t do it.”

Aiden rubs his face, trying to wipe away whatever he’s still caught up in. “You saw her?”

“No, but…” He lifts a hair tie with two green leaf charms attached. “I found this.”

Folding my arms, I quirk a single brow. “You’re going to need to be a helluva lot clearer than that.”

“It’s hers.”

With an exhausted huff, I counter, “Or any other girl’s.”

“No. This is hers.”

Aiden chimes back in. “Even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean she’s still there. If she had been. Who else did you see inside? Where was Royce?”

Reid’s face tightens. “I didn’t see him. But I did see Holt and Bea.”

“Bea?” I ask.

“She’s the one who can create portals. There were a few other agents inside but I didn’t recognize them. They’re the reason we couldn’t check the basement or upstairs. We got stuck in the living room until Harvey saw Aiden and Dane fighting outside.”

Harvey clears his throat, standing and brushing something from his clothes. “First of all, you're welcome for noticing you before the house full of GE personnel did. That could have been a cluster. And secondly—” Harvey pauses, sweeping the room to look at each of us in turn. “You knew I was invisible and with Reid when we left, right? You didn’t all forget about me?”

“Excuse me,” Cassandra mutters, trying to squeeze between me and Raegan’s bed without touching me to get to Jack. I shift back, and she quickly makes it to him, freeing Dane to check on Raegan.

“She’s okay?” he asks her.

Cassandra nods slowly, her hands cupping Jackson’s face. “It was a nasty wound, but it’s healed now. It was close, though. She almost didn’t have enough strength.” Her eyes close, signaling she’s working through Jack’s injuries and needs to focus.

I hadn’t even considered that possibility. What if she’d overexerted herself with her gift taking down the zombies and didn’t have the physical strength for her body to heal?

“I’m going to assume the answer to that is, yes, you knew I was staying invisible out of fear of being seen by Royce and ruining all our plans and that you do still care about me,” Harvey cuts in.

Aiden sighs, long and hard. “Yes, Harvey. We do still care.”

Maybe he does, but he was under Royce’s influence. There’s no way he noticed or cared if Harvey was there or would have said something if he wasn’t.

It worked out that he was there, but I’m not gonna lie to the guy. All that mattered was freeing everyone from Royce, whether he was there or not.

“There.” Cassandra straightens next to Jack, removing her hands as soon as she’s finished, even though he’s still unconscious. She frowns when she looks at Aiden. “You don’t look well, Aiden. Let me take a look.”

He doesn’t immediately rebuke her offer, which speaks volumes to whatever’s affecting him.

She puts a hand on his chest and another on his cheek, her face drawn with concentration and eyes shut. “Weird. I felt something like this on the other two as well.”

“What is it?” Aiden inquires evenly.

Cassandra releases him, already finished. Color returns to his face, and he sits up taller. “It’s hard to explain. Like something sticky.” She shivers. “I didn’t like the feel of it, but it’s gone now.”

“Thank you,” he says, and she nods with a small smile.

“Is there anyone else before I get back to sleep?” She checks in with Dane, then Reid and Harvey, who each shake their heads. “Alright, well, goodnight, everyone.”

We wave her off, waiting for her to leave before Aiden addresses the room. “The rest of us need to get some sleep. Reid…I’m sorry we weren’t able to get to Tinsley. We’ll need a better plan for Royce.”

Reid nods solemnly, his lips tight. He grabs Harvey’s arm. “I’ll bring him back to his room.” Harvey opens his mouth to speak, but Reid vanishes before we hear whatever he has to say.

Aiden stands, his fingertips brushing over the hole in Raegan’s shirt where the injury had been. “Kell, grab Jack. I’ll carry Raegan, and we can all sleep in the Loft.”

“I’d put her with Jackson tonight. He’ll sleep better and longer if she’s there with him after what happened.”

He doesn’t look pleased about it, probably wanting her in his bed tonight, but if Jack remembers anything while he was under Royce’s control, he’s going to need that immediate comfort that she’s alright.

Doesn’t mean I can’t join them, though.