Chapter 44 Axel #2
“Theon, you can’t be serious. We need Rayell and Cade to guide us through the House of Four. With Tessa, that’s five people trying not to be seen. Adding two more is simply unjustifiable.”
“And if she gets lost to her power and you cannot call her back? What then?” Theon countered in a harsh whisper, and Axel swallowed his huff of laughter at how ridiculous this was. An argument with quiet voices to avoid waking the sleeping babe.
“I think I’ll be fine,” Tessa said simply, her magic now drifting across the books and papers.
“Forgive me for not being okay with you thinking you’ll be fine,” Theon said flatly.
She shrugged, her head tilting. “I am keen to meet this Bree.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Axel muttered.
“I could just…take care of her,” Tessa added.
“Everyone seems pretty convinced that can’t be done for some reason.”
“We don’t think she’s from here,” Kat added. “Rayell and Cade said she’s the oldest being they know of in all of Devram.”
“That’s silly. Cienna and Tristyn have to be older,” Tessa murmured, her power still swirling.
Axel blinked at her statement, then turned to Kat. “Is there a reason we haven’t asked them?”
She looked just as alarmed. “I suppose we’ve been a little preoccupied,” she answered slowly.
Saying nothing else, Tessa lifted a hand, a swirl of chaos appearing while her magic continued…whatever it was doing.
“What do you think she is?” Theon asked, attention back on Kat.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, pacing again. “She said some things at that dinner, but it doesn’t seem to fit.”
“What kinds of things?”
“About the Fates watching all the power players. She’s also the one who told us we can’t kill her. That we have no idea what we’re dealing with,” Kat answered.
“The fucking Fates,” Tessa muttered, making her way around the table. “I’d kill them all if I could.”
“Tessa, what in the name of Sargon are you doing?” Luka finally asked.
She glanced up at her name, blinking as though she’d been lost to something. “Nothing.” When he gave her a frank look, she sighed. “Sometimes my power finds things for me.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Are you saying your magic is…reading all of that?” Theon asked, coming closer.
She looked up at him, her eyes moving from Maddox and back to the papers. “Sort of. I’m not absorbing anything, but if it’s something of importance, I kind of just…know.”
“How long have you been able to do this?” he demanded, but before Tessa could answer, the door opened once more and Tristyn strode in, his usual cocky smirk in place.
“You called, wild fury?” he asked, hands slipping into the pockets of his jacket. He had a messenger bag draped across his chest.
“How old are you?” Tessa asked.
He barked a laugh. “You summoned me here to ask me that?”
“Not only that. Are you and Cienna the oldest beings in Devram?”
His brow bunched. “We’re some of them, yes.”
“But not the oldest?”
“Tessa, where is this going?”
“We’re discussing Bree DelaCrux,” Axel cut in. “We have been told by a few people we cannot kill her.”
“You can’t,” Tristyn said simply.
“Do you know her?”
“Not personally,” he answered slowly. “I cannot interfere with the Fates.”
“Back to the godsdamn Fates,” Tessa muttered.
“Okay, so we save the killing for later,” Axel said. “We need a place to hold her. Or ideas on how to do that.”
“Well, the ideal place would be the cells beneath the Pantheon, but…” Tristyn trailed off.
“Yes, yes, they were destroyed,” Tessa sighed, but then she froze. “But were they?”
“You did it, Tessa,” Luka said flatly.
“Yes, I destroyed the mirror and the Pantheon, but can’t we still keep her beneath the Pantheon? It’s still the center of the continent. It’s still a nexus,” she insisted.
“What do you know of nexuses?” Theon cut in.
She waved him off. “Not now, Theon. That would work, right, Tris?”
His russet eyes were studying her as he said, “I suppose, but you’d have to get her there.”
“So we Travel.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know what it’s like under there,” Tristyn argued. “If it’s just rock and rubble and nowhere to stand or move or breathe, what are you going to do?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Tessa shot back.
Tristyn rolled his lips. “No. Your idea is actually brilliant if we can pull it off.”
“You go make sure a cell is ready, and I’ll go with them to get her,” Tessa said.
“Not without us,” Theon interjected again.
She flicked her eyes to him once before glancing at Luka. “You two have babysitting duty with someone other than me tonight.”
“No, Tessa,” Luka said tightly.
“I’m not sure when you two decided I needed your permission to do anything,” she said casually, shuffling papers around and pulling out a book from the bottom of the stacks.
“Since you and Blackheart got yourselves in trouble. Do you need a reminder of the cost of that night?” Luka retorted.
Her head whipped to him, eyes flashing. “This is different, and you know it. You know where I’ll be, and they have been planning this. This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment choice, and I can call you through the bond if we need help.”
Axel smirked, leaning against the side of the sofa and watching this little power struggle play out.
“Tessa, you’re the Arius Lady,” Theon started, clearly trying another angle.
“Correct,” she said, flipping the pages of the book.
“You can’t just—”
“I believe because I am the Arius Lady, I can just,” she interrupted. “I could just use your own magic to keep you here while I go help stop the person trying to kidnap your nephew, but I’m not. I’m telling you so you can be prepared if anything goes wrong.”
“I call that growth,” Axel piped in.
“Shut up, Axel,” Theon grumbled, shifting Maddox onto his shoulder.
“How about if Theon stays with Maddox, and I go with,” Luka tried.
Tessa shrugged. “This isn’t my mission. Take it up with them.”
“Truly it’s too many people,” Kat said. “We need Cade and Rayell, and this is personal for me and Axel. Tessa’s right. She can contact you down the bond, and you can Travel, Luka.”
Luka glanced at Theon before he sighed. “Fine, but this is the last time the three of you gang up on us.”
“It’s cute you think that,” Tessa said with a smirk, snapping the book closed. “When do we leave?”
And that was how Axel found himself outside the House of Four two hours later.
All of them were dressed in black, the females with their hair pulled back. They went as soon as possible because the vampyres weren’t sure how long Bree would hang around.
Hiding in the shadows across the cavern, Rayell and Cade instructed Tessa on where to Travel them so they wouldn’t have to cross the cavern bridge.
They couldn’t risk Traveling directly into the House of Four though, so they were entering through a hidden entrance at Rayell’s house and making their way over to Bree’s.
Rayell’s section of the House of Four was far different from Bree’s.
He’d expected them all to be the same—extravagant and formal.
But Rayell’s house was more homey. Warm colors of beige, coral, and blues.
Everything airy and welcoming, somehow reminding Axel of being by the sea rather than stuck under the mountains.
“It gets tight in here,” Rayell warned as she led them towards the back of the house. “There is a passage behind the Houses that connects them all, but it is narrow. Only wide enough for one at a time.”
Axel glanced over his shoulder at Tessa, who was trailing her fingers along the wall. Her head tilted, and he knew then Theon and Luka were talking to her.
“Tell them where we’re going, Tessa,” Axel said. “So they can talk you through it.”
His focus was entirely on Kat. While he loved Tessa like a sister, he wasn’t going to be the one to talk her through her phobias when his wife was here. Bree could be anywhere.
Rayell hadn’t been kidding about the tight passage. More than once, Axel wondered how the fuck Cade fit through here. The male was as big and broad as Luka, but even Axel had to turn and shuffle through a few areas, his shirt getting caught on the stone wall more than once.
When they finally emerged in Bree’s House, Tessa shoved past him, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed and breathing deep.
“Tessa?” Kat asked, going to her and tentatively placing her hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, her chest heaving. “Just give me a moment. “
“We don’t have a moment,” Cade said gruffly. “We’re in her home now. We need to keep moving to find her before she finds us.”
Kat took Tessa’s hand, tugging her forward. “We’re all leaving here together, Tessa.”
Tessa nodded, visibly trying to calm her breathing as Kat stayed close and followed Axel and Rayell. Cade took up the rear again, and while they moved, Axel tried to figure out where exactly they were.
“Isn’t it odd she came back to her house?” Axel asked Rayell in a hushed tone.
“Yes and no,” the Night Child answered. “She’s been around a long time. A lot of her secrets are here. We knew she’d come back eventually. She always does.”
“What made you turn on her?” Tessa asked from behind them.
Axel glanced back, Kat giving him a reassuring smile.
“She kept refusing to fill Henry’s position,” Rayell answered.
“We were already growing suspicious of her motives. For nearly two hundred years, we have led the Dispensary District together and always been on acceptable terms with the Arius Lord. We gave respect, and in return, we were left alone. Bree was suddenly threatening our way of life and the lives of the people in our care.”
“Do you think she instigated that attack on me? The one Theon killed Henry for?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” she answered.
Axel looked at Rayell because he’d never thought of that, but now that Tessa had brought it up, he wouldn’t be surprised either if Bree had planted the seeds for that little rebellion.
She was cunning and clever. She’d likely been sowing seeds of discontent for decades.
Little things here and there, letting them fester and grow until she was ready to make her move.