Chapter 40
Graysen
The choppy thunder of rotating blades and the powerful twin engines of the Cyclone vibrated through its metal cage and trembled through my boots.
We’d left our estate in the helicopter, soaring across the wild forest with its leaves curling into fall, and now traversed like a dark shadow above the busy highway stretching toward Ascendria. Through the window, I spied in the distance the cityscape twinkling with morning sunshine.
I shifted uneasily in the utilitarian seat, the harness jingling softly with my movement.
Nelle’s emotion skittered beneath my skin, humming through the otherworldly connection we shared, no matter how far apart we were.
She’d erupted with urgency through the bond, and now she simmered with bitter anger.
And, fucked if the anger didn’t worry me more.
But she was on her own, as I needed her to be.
She was cunning, and she’d handle whatever situation she found herself in. I had to believe she would.
The static-y conversation between the pilots crackled in my ears as the helicopter cut through the sky.
The metal beast buffeted through pockets of turbulent air currents and rattled, gently jostling us all where we sat in the cabin.
We’d refitted the Cyclone with cursed weaponry of lightning and firestorms, and we mostly used it for transportation when our House headed into war to face off against mutinous crime syndicates.
Since I’d lost valuable time this morning when I’d gotten Nelle off, the quickest way to get to the city was to take the helicopter rather than travel in convoy by road.
I’d left the tower soon after Nelle had made her departure with her typical farewell door slam and headed straight to our helidrome.
My team had met me there, bringing my weapons and a new armored suit, because I sure as hells didn’t trust that Nelle hadn’t messed with the spare I kept in my rooms.
The men and women whom I’d selected from our warband to accompany me on today’s hunt down in the catacombs for Yezekael lined the interior of the cabin, seated in single rows and facing one another.
We all wore adamere armor strapped with blades.
Since Silas Boon and the Children of the Harbinger were aware of Nelle’s wyrm, and more than likely knew we possessed her, they were a threat to my family.
All my brothers would be heavily armed and accompanied by a cascade of guards whenever we left the estate.
I cradled my phone, swiping the screen to access the incoming message.
Penn: Do I want to know why Nelle needs calamine lotion and an oatmeal bath?
I typed my reply rapidly.
Me: She rubbed poison oak on the inside of my armor and more than likely has infected herself too.
When I’d tossed Nelle over my lap and spanked her, amongst other much more fun adult games, the residue of the poison oak that coated my body would have rubbed onto her skin.
In the next 24-48 hours, my little bird was going to come down with an intense rash.
I didn’t want to be around when that happened if I couldn’t provide her with something to ease the itching.
Penn: I’m trying hard not to laugh… She’s quite inventive.
Fuck, things had gotten crazy between us after the spanking.
We’d kissed each other as if we hated one another.
She’d marked my body with her fingernails and slapped me around until I’d taken control.
She was mine to tame, and she’d put up a magnificent fight, finally surrendering beautifully beneath my hands.
I rubbed my palm briskly up and down my thigh, trying not to harden up with the memory of us tussling and kissing in the tower, the exquisite sounds she’d made, low and guttural, the throaty purr and melodic humming when she’d gotten closer to her climax.
My thumbs flew over the phone screen as I messaged Penn back.
Me: Very. How’s the hunt for the brunnie?
As far as I was concerned, my brothers could deal with Nelle’s rabid brunnie running rampant through the Keep by themselves. They didn’t need me, and I needed to search for Yezekael’s nest with Mela.
Penn: It’s still ongoing. It’s already destroyed the music room and gym and tore through your old rumpus room.
I sucked in a wheezing breath, clapping a hand to my chest.
Fuck. Not the rumpus room!
Penn: I’ll talk to our physician and put in an order for a cure from House Simonis. Highly doubtful it’ll arrive in time, but I’ll collect whatever Nelle needs in the meantime.
Me: Thanks, Penn.
I tucked my phone into my bandoleer. Leaning back in my seat, I twisted to stare out the window at the freeway winding like a ribbon around the edge of the silvery lake where the vast city had grown.
There were pleasure boats already creating a frothy wash as they sliced through the water.
The sun was cresting the low mountains, and my Wayfarers dulled its marigold sunlight.
Down below, on the congested city streets, vehicles crawled back and forth, and swarms of pedestrians threaded along the pavement.
The bustling world of the city was silent, but I could imagine the loud hum of conversations, droning engines and honking horns, the music floating from individual storefronts and buskers.
We flew above the pitched roof of the gigantic warehouse that was home to Ascendria’s Market in the red-brick district, before drifting over the highrises and skyscrapers, some needle-like, others monstrous and modern.
If anyone glanced up into the sky, they’d see an executive helicopter, not the Cyclone glamoured and fitted for war.
A sharp glimmer of sunlight striking the edge of the majestic Monarch Tower caught my eye. Even this early in the morning, there were clusters of tourists on its rooftop jockeying to get a better shot of the picturesque sunrise.
The Monarch Tower.
Once more, my thoughts paused on my mother. She was always spinning around in the back of my mind.
My mother had come to Ascendria for a day trip 12 years ago wearing a jewelry set of yellow diamonds my father had commissioned for their wedding day.
She’d purposely chosen to wear a significant piece the day she’d been stolen.
Could it be because she wanted to warn someone of her importance as a Matriarch?
Or remind someone of her place by my father’s side as his wife?
And if it was the latter, who the hells had come between my parents?
We’d never investigated what Mom had been up to on that fateful day.
With Byron’s obvious betrayal, we’d never given a second thought to what had occurred on her day trip to the city.
However, the memory I’d partially unearthed of me as a child accompanying Mom to a strange otherworldly lair, I suspected she was a deep well of mystery and had a secret life that even my father didn’t know about.
I tapped my foot on the vibrating metal floor, pondering it.
And Jett, her shadow, what had my brother spoken to me about?
It was there, itching away.
I fished my phone back out and began a search, quickly locating the Ascendria Times and its newspaper archives. Pulling up the day in question, I ran through each page, my gaze flicking across the headlines as I scrolled through the articles. Nothing stood out.
The Cyclone slowed down, and a weightlessness fell through me as we descended.
The pilot hovered over the flat rooftop of an international finance building, the Golden Panam.
Above the stormy engine came the grinding of metal as the rear ramp slid down and morning sunlight poured inward.
Quickly unbuckling their harnesses, the team rose, grabbed backpacks from stowed compartments, and filed out.
Snatching up my own, I ducked down the metal ramp to jump the short distance to the rooftop, the landing jarring through my ankles.
The blustery machine-stirred air whipped at my hair, tugging at my body as I jogged out of range.
The warband followed me across the roof as the Cyclone lifted away, its shadow swiftly disappearing as it flew back over the city, heading for home.
The rooftop’s heavy doors swung wide as I shoved them open, and we made our way inside the Golden Panam building, quickly navigating down the staircase and corridors until we came to a bank of elevators.
Half of the team came with me, the rest took another service elevator.
As we glided downward, while the others murmured quietly between themselves, some readjusting their weapons or dropping equipment bags down by their feet, I leaned up against the elevator’s burnished metal wall and went back to my search.
Pulling up the newspaper the day after my mother was stolen, I did the same thing, scanning through the articles, hoping something would stand out.
I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for.
The newspaper contained the usual business and world news and local events in Ascendria. Some fun articles and feel-good ones too, but mostly deaths and murders and disappearances, and the war law enforcement waged on our magic-infused drugs that infested its streets.
I almost missed it.
Almost.
My shoulders stiffened, and my heart erupted into a staccato beat.
I quickly scrolled back, squinting at the screen, carefully reading the article that detailed an extreme electrical fault at the Monarch Tower that had occurred the day before, the same day my mother had been stolen from a quiet country road.
The entire building had mysteriously lost power, and the fault was blamed on a lightning strike from a thunderstorm that had swept through Ascendria.