Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
RAJ
“Hold still,” Ayo says as he stares at the black tourmaline on a leather cord around my neck.
“Why don’t I just take it off?” I reach for the clasp.
He knocks my hands away, giving me an exasperated look. “Because from the way Skye is driving like a World Rally champion we don’t have time for that, especially if this doesn’t work first time. It’s still a new thing for me, okay?”
I swallow my impatience and dutifully wait, the buzzing sensation under my skin making it hard to stay still.
We’re fully geared up and in a Soldati Security SUV this time, not giving a shit about the element of surprise.
Ayo insisted on giving everyone else personal shield charms as well—we don’t know exactly what we’ll be walking into if there is a basement level below Far Out Freight’s warehouse—and now he’s adjusting the spells on mine.
He muttered something about needing to tweak the prototype based on the magical blueprints Bryn gave him outside Lance’s office last night.
I’m not sure if something’s changed in the way the spells in the warehouse have been set up, or if he’s making adjustments now that he’s felt the magic for himself, but either way I appreciate the added protection.
“Done,” he says just as we’re flung sideways, our seat belts locking as Skye wrenches the SUV around a sharp corner, the tyres squealing. We actually achieve lift-off as we hit the speed bump into the deserted Far Out Freight car park, landing with a hard crunch and a screech of brakes.
It feels like déjà vu as we spill out onto the tarmac, rifles raised. Kit and Skye head off to secure the perimeter per Ethan’s orders, and the rest of us burst through the front doors into the foyer.
I try my security pass to access the main warehouse floor but I’ve been locked out of the system, so at Ethan’s nod he and I both ram the door with our shoulders. It cracks but doesn’t give so we try again, then a third time until we’re spilling into the deserted warehouse.
Jet and Cal split off from us to check that the warehouse floor is clear while Ethan, Ayo, and I race for the ladies’ toilets. We burst through the outer door, then the inner, and head straight for the door cracked ajar on the far wall, a mop and bucket visible through the gap.
“So is it a glamour?” I ask, unable to keep my impatience from leaking into my tone.
Ayo gives a sharp nod. “Thank fuck Bryn taught me so much about fae magic, because I wouldn’t have been able to understand what I’m feeling otherwise. Yes, it’s a glamour, and I need to take it down before I’ll be able to tell if there’s anything else.”
“Such as?” Ethan asks.
“Well, a ward would be the obvious one, or other protective spells. Bryn would be able to see every spell layer on this doorway simultaneously, but without him I’m working blind.”
“Do what you can, sweet thing,” Ethan says, scenting Ayo’s neck.
Ethan and I keep watch while Ayo gets to work, which involves him staring at the door with nothing visibly happening.
I like to think I’m a patient person, but knowing my dragon could be down there, potentially injured or worse, has my tiger wanting to growl at my alpha-mate to hurry the fuck up.
Since Ayo doesn’t deserve that, I bite my tongue.
I refuse to even consider the possibility that Bryn and his siblings aren’t down there, that this could just be the entrance to a tunnel used as a supply route for the warehouse, that we could be wasting time on the wrong location.
No, they have to be here. This location makes sense.
The door in front of us flickers. “Come on, Ayo,” I murmur, shifting my weight.
“Sorry,” he says through gritted teeth. “Goddess, I wish Bryn was here to talk me through this. I’ve almost… Just one more… Done.”
The door vanishes, revealing a small wooden platform at the top of a staircase which leads down into the darkness. There’s a door visible at the bottom on the right hand side, but that’s it.
I want to rush straight through, but I’m better trained than that. “Well?”
Ethan throws a sharp look my way but doesn’t reprimand me otherwise.
Ayo’s tone is thoughtful. “There’s some sort of ward, although it’s constructed differently than the one on Lance’s office was. I’m not sure what it does.”
“An alarm?” Ethan asks.
Ayo shakes his head, still focused on the doorway. “Doesn’t seem to be.”
My only priority is getting down there and finding Bryn and his siblings. If breaching the ward does trigger an alarm? Bring it. There’s nothing our team can’t handle.
“Will it stop us getting through?” I ask.
“I don’t think so,” Ayo says.
“Good work, sweet thing.” Ethan taps a button on his headset. “Romeo two-five, Romeo eight-seven, over.”
“Romeo eight-seven, go ahead, over,” Jet says over the comms.
“We have a go, over.” Ethan says.
“Copy that. Floor is clear, we’re on our way. Over and out.”
Ethan turns to me. “Let’s find out what this ward does. Be prepared for hostiles.”
I give a sharp nod and step through the open doorway with my rifle raised, only to grab the doorframe for support as I stagger, feeling like my insides are being viciously ripped from my body.
My rifle dangles from the strap as I clutch my chest in a futile attempt to hold everything inside, and it hits me—my tiger is missing.
“Raj! What the hell? Cross back over.” Ethan sticks his arm through the doorway and grabs my vest, dragging me back across the threshold.
I suck in lungfuls of air as he holds me up, my tiger snarling ferociously at whatever the fuck that was.
“What happened?” Ethan demands just as Cal and Jet join us. “You two, don’t go through that doorway.”
“My tiger was gone,” I rasp. I barely manage to straighten and stand on my own, the remembered pain lingering.
“Like a prison ward?” Cal asks.
I nod, although if that’s what prison wards feel like it has to be a violation of some global supernatural rights law somewhere. No wonder Bryn rarely mentions his time in Wargate. It must have been pure torture.
“So our personal shields don’t work against it,” Jet says, his expression grim. “It makes sense; prison wards are designed to strip away anything earth-based and supernatural.”
“Which includes vampire abilities,” Cal says with a downward twitch of his eyebrows.
And I assume it wouldn’t be a pain-free experience for him either. Fuck.
Ayo glares at the doorway like it personally insulted him. “Bryn and I worked hard to create an effective personal shield. I’m not going to let one measly ward negate the protection it should give all of you.”
I turn towards the doorway again, bracing myself. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t have time to waste.”
My tiger agrees, desperate to find our mate. Because that’s who Bryn is, regardless of fate or anything else. My mate, my dragon, the man I love. I don’t need time, and I certainly don’t need his dragon magic to tell us if we’re fated. I just need him. Forever.
Ethan stops me with a tight grip on my shoulder. “Not so fast. How do you propose to fight while debilitated like that?”
I square up to my alpha. “I have the training to do so, and you know it.”
“I also know that five minutes now could be the difference between winning and losing down there. You know as well as I do that having the law on our side doesn’t automatically mean our enemy will respect that.”
I really don’t want to listen, but Ethan has never steered us wrong. I take a deep breath then exhale slowly, trying to calm my racing pulse and not vibrate out of my skin.
Cal moves closer and puts his hand on my other shoulder. “We’ll save them.”
Jet gets a dangerous look in his eyes. “And we’ll make these bastards wish they’d never stepped foot in our city.”
I manage a tight nod. There’s nothing like having my pack beside me to make me feel like I can handle anything.
“Can you take down the ward?” Ethan asks Ayo.
Ayo shrugs. “Of course. If I had Bryn to guide me, I could seamlessly pick it apart like I did with the protections around Lance’s office. Without him, the only real option is to blast it apart with raw power.”
We all wince. The last time Ayo did that, he destroyed half a building.
“We can’t risk it,” I say immediately.
Ethan gives a sharp nod. “Agreed. There’s too much chance anyone down there could be killed.”
“Can you adjust the shield charm to block the effects of the ward?” I ask Ayo.
He moves position to stare directly at my pendant. “Let’s find out.”
Before he can do much more than blink, the door at the bottom of the staircase bursts open and four unglamoured fae I’ve never seen before fly through, immediately firing spells at us.
Slightly more worryingly, they’re also carrying the most vicious looking blades I’ve ever seen.
They’re some sort of grotesque double-ended swords, with one side that’s made of narrow, twisting metal with a hook as well as teal dragontooth-esque protrusions, and the other side which has a double curved blade with teal tips.
Ethan swears as he and I grab Ayo and swiftly move him with us to one side of the doorway while Cal and Jet take the other side, using the walls as cover. We all lower our tactical goggles from our helmets to cover our eyes in case anything gets through the shield spells.
“BSG Task Force! Stand down!” Ethan’s words make no difference, not that I expected them to. We must have tripped some sort of silent alarm.
We edge into the doorway to open fire, with me crouched beneath Ethan as Jet crouches beneath Cal.
The fae counter with a mix of sand and water spells, which don’t get through our shields but are effective at getting in the way of our tranq bullets.
A sandy sludge pools on the tiled floor as the fae try to move closer to attack us with their swords, but the confined stairwell works to our advantage.
“Non-lethal force only!” Ethan says when Jet’s hand darts towards the iron dagger on his belt.