Page 38 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

“I know. But I had some visitors and plans changed,” Diego began carefully.

“He can’t shoot us all,” Faolchú snarled as he put Diego down.

Diego seized his arm. “Don’t. Please. Zack’s my friend.

He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.” Slowly, with one hand on the wall, Diego limped toward the sergeant, whose aim never wavered but whose eyes registered uncertainty.

“Zack, you know all this is wrong. You know it has to stop. They’ve come for their own, then they’ll leave.

They’re not here to start a war or take over the country. ”

“They’re attacking the base, Mr. S. That’s not exactly peaceful.”

“Has anyone been hurt?”

Zack’s eyes darted between Diego and the fae. “Hell, I don’t know. It’s a mess up there. There’s this huge…boar-looking thing that just looks at people and they fall over.”

Diego glared at Lugh. “I thought you said Balor had agreed to restraint.”

“He has.” Lugh spread his hands. “He has uncovered his Bane Eye, but only by half. They are merely stunned.”

Stunned would have been a good adjective for Zack as well when he turned to regard the sidhe champion. His eyes grew huge as they met Lugh’s and traveled up and down that heavily muscled, armored body. A strangled sound caught in his throat and he lowered the rifle.

“Is that a fairy prince?” he whispered.

Diego seized on Zack’s obvious fascination. “Yes. This is Lugh the Shining, grandson of the sidhe Queen and the Fomorian King. Lugh, this is Sergeant Zack Morrison, who has been taking care of me.”

“Then you have our gratitude.” Lugh swept through a graceful bow. “For looking after our bard.”

“Oh. Um. You’re welcome…Majesty? Highness? What do they call you?”

“Lugh, most of the time.” Lugh turned on his knee-weakening smile. “Though Faolchú over there has gifted me with some other choice names from time to time.”

A series of thuds pulled everyone’s attention back to the window where Angus pounded desperately on the glass, tears streaming down his face. A crack appeared under his right fist, spiderwebbing outward with each blow.

The soldier in Zack disappeared suddenly in favor of the nurse. “Hey, hey, bud. Don’t do that. You’re gonna slice your hand open.”

“That’s his lover of several centuries in there,” Diego said. “They made him half-crazed in that electric torture room and now he sees what they’ve done to his Sionnach.”

Zack shot him an anguished look. “You don’t play fair, Mr. S.”

“I don’t have time to right now,” Diego said gently.

Jaw clenched tight, Zack watched a moment longer, then let out a slow breath through his nose. “Damn it. I’m gonna be in so much trouble.”

He pulled a key card out of his pocket, swiped it at the security box by the window, and the door opened with a soft click. Angus rushed in with Zack close on his heels.

“Little fox? Can you hear me?” Angus whispered, his hands hovering over Sionnach’s shaved, still body as if unsure where it might be safe to touch.

Calm and professional, Zack gently moved him out of the way. “It’s gonna be okay, bud. Let’s get these IV lines pulled and, let’s see, grab a blanket for me from over in the closet there? Attaboy.”

Within moments, Zack had Sionnach unhooked from the needles, tubes and monitors, wrapped in a blanket and handed into Angus’ waiting arms.

“My love… He lives, he lives…” Angus whispered, rocking back and forth with his face buried against the blanket.

Diego knew exactly how he felt, but they had to keep moving.

He slid his hand under Angus’s chin to lift his head and pushed the tangled hair back from his eyes.

“Look at me, Herald. You can fall apart all you want when he’s safe, okay?

For now, we need you to be the hero you are. You’re stronger than this.”

Summer-sky blue eyes blinked at him in confusion and Diego had an anxious moment where he was certain Angus was too far gone.

Then something hardened in that anguished gaze, a spark of the proud, stubborn sidhe showing through.

He straightened and nodded before limping back out into the hallway to join the others.

“Nathair had better be next,” Faolchú growled.

“Yes, yes, we’re going there,” Diego muttered, trying to turn on one foot. He stifled a yelp when he was summarily scooped up again, finding himself perched in the crook of Lugh’s right arm.

Zack gaped. “Wow. I thought there were explosives involved when I saw Mr. Sandoval’s door. But you just knocked it down, didn’t you?”

“We all use the talents we are given,” Lugh said far too seriously and waved for Zack to precede him.

With the door-opening process simplified, Faolchú was able to get Nathair free of his new aluminum cuffs and carried out of his cell in less than thirty seconds. Still ashen and dazed, Nathair kept a white-knuckle grip on Faolchú’s ruff.

“Little serpent, you need to talk to me,” Faolchú rumbled, nuzzling at Nathair’s cheek. “You have my heart hammering faster than a nuthatch after grubs.”

“I—” Nathair choked on his words, swallowed hard and began again. “Beloved, I don’t know how many times my heart can bear almost losing you in a single month.”

“Ah, he loves me still.” Faolchú shot Lugh a wolf-grin. “Even if I am a stupid brute.”

“I have never called you stupid,” Lugh protested. “Limited, single-minded, without imagination, but not stupid.”

And now Finn… Diego only half-heard the banter, his heart leaping forward with equal parts anticipation and dread. “Querido , do you hear me? I’m coming…”

When they reached the section of secure labs, the eerie quiet took on an ominous taint. No research staff bustled about, no guards patrolled the hallways, no lights shone in the labs.

“Zack? Where is everyone?”

“Military personnel have been called topside to meet the incursion,” Zack explained. “Non-coms are confined to quarters until the all-clear.”

“Non-coms?”

“Sorry. Non-combatants.”

“So why were you down here?”

Zack ducked his head. “I had a funny feeling you weren’t gonna stay put. Don’t ask me how. But my primary orders are to keep you safe.”

“Which I’ve now put in direct conflict with every other order, I’ll bet,” Diego said with real regret. “I’m safe with these two. I don’t want to get you in more trouble than you already are.”

“I think I could argue refusing to follow illegal orders at this point, sir. The detention and unlawful treatment of a neutral nation’s citizens.”

“So you do believe.”

“Disbelief’s not only suspended, Mr. S.” Zack shook his head on a bemused little smile. “It’s completely shattered, gone MIA.”

“Duly noted, Sergeant.”

The lab which doubled as Finn’s prison was dark like the rest. Diego squinted, trying to pierce the gloom to catch a glimpse of Finn while Zack unlocked the door. For a few eternal moments, Zack fumbled for a light switch, and the glaring overheads flicked on.

In the center of the room, covered in a clean, white sheet, Finn’s table stood empty.

Diego’s head swiveled around the room, searching desperately. He wriggled out of Lugh’s grasp and limped the two steps to grab Zack by the shoulders, “Where is he? Goddammit, Zack, where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know, Mr. S.” Zack’s stricken expression bore out his words. “I really don’t.”

“He’s in the morgue,” a familiar voice spoke from the doorway. Dr. Brennan stood there, her chin raised in defiance.

“ He’s what ?” Diego’s sight dimmed, he felt strong arms go around him.

“He’s in the morgue. They think he’s dead.”

That single word brought him back from the brink, allowed him to breathe. “They think so,” he said cautiously. “But you don’t?”

“No.” She edged back a step when she caught sight of Faolchú. “His heart beats about four or five times an hour. I’d say that’s a deep hibernative state, not mortality.”

Another thought occurred to Diego. “Why are you here, Doctor?”

Faolchú was obviously more interested in nosing at Nathair than in her, so she tore her gaze away to answer.

“I took your advice and came to talk to him myself, but they’d already declared him dead.

I felt terrible, since he seemed to mean so much to you.

So I went to the morgue, to see if I could understand what you were trying to say.

His heart beat once under my hand. I waited a few minutes and it contracted again.

I was coming back up to get his hand for him.

” She pointed to the shelf where Finn’s right hand sat in a jar.

“Thank you for that.” Diego eased his hold on Zack and turned to her. “But what made you change your mind?”

She flushed and dropped her gaze to her shoes. “I… Look, this is going to sound crazy. But when I touched him, I heard him. In my head. And he wasn’t thinking about conquest or spaceships or another planet. He was thinking of a cabin in New Brunswick. And making ice sculptures. And you.”

A suspicious crack entered her voice on the last word and Diego fought the lump in his throat.

He knew the memory Finn had been drifting in, the day when Finn had made him a beautiful garden of ice art and had declared, on bended knee, that he would remain faithful and true. God, it seemed so long ago.

“Grab the hand, Zack.” Diego fought the quaver in his voice. “Doc, I’m not involving you in this any further, and I don’t want you getting hurt. Zack can show us the way.”

She hesitated, then asked, “You’ll take Zack with you, won’t you? Wherever you’re going? They’ll court-martial him. Put him away for the rest of his life, or worse.”

“Zack’s welcome, if that’s what he wants,” Diego offered.

“You stick by Mr. Sandoval, Sergeant. That’s an order, hear me?” she said on a little quaver.

“Yes, ma’am, loud and clear,” Zack told her. “I’ll be all right, Doc. Don’t worry.”

“You better be.”