Chapter 23 Zane
ZANE
Idive into a roll just as a gale blasts past my shoulder. I glance at my opponent, only to find that she has retreated deeper into the garden overgrowth and just the tips of her elbows are visible around the willow tree.
Smirking, I climb to my feet. She should have pressed her advantage while I was down, but I won’t say no to a game of Hide and Seek.
“She’s luring you into a trap. You know that.
” Eko drags a palm across his forehead from his position in the grass.
His eyes have been closed since his scrimmage against Fulton ended ten minutes ago.
She handed his ass to him, of course, but I have nothing but kudos to give to anyone willing to try.
That doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
I’m spared from replying by a bored-looking Jaspar, his head pillowed in Adeon’s lap.
“You’re not even watching the match,” he argues. “There are plenty of ways to counter a tactical retreat.”
Jaspar is a tactician. Interesting. I was surprised when Kaye suggested inviting the Angelis team to join us for training, and even more surprised when so many of them agreed to come. I always knew their full support depended on getting Checkmate on my side—I just can’t believe I actually did it.
It has been three days since I took Kaye down to the lab.
I stood beside her while she watched every video, unflinching despite what I know it must have cost her.
She wanted to know the truth and I set everything before her.
There’s more steel than nerves along her spine but its shadow still ghosts along the dark crescents below her eyes.
That’s why I said yes to this little get-together.
It’s good for us to practice working in tandem with one another and with the Angelis team, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t worried about this gathering drawing unnecessary attention.
But when I watched Fulton envelop Kaye in her arms, I knew it was the right call.
I would do anything to be the one giving her that kind of comfort.
Right or wrong, we have gifted each other so much pain these last few years. Scars are the least of it.
Monster.
I push that train of thought away. We made it here, whole and hale. That’s all that matters. Well, mostly.
“Why don’t you leave this one to us?” Fulton rolls to her feet, Adeon springing to attention so fast that Jaspar’s head drops to the soft grass with a thud. He curses, and Adeon darts an amused glance in his direction as Jaspar sports the look of a kicked puppy.
Something’s happening there. It’s not my business, of course, but it’s nice to see in the little touches exchanged, the flirtations that somehow seem more.
It makes me wonder what people Kaye and I look like together.
I’ve seen videos of some of our more infamous battles and the tension and passion we fought with…
I’m surprised we didn’t wind up in bed before this.
“Are you listening?” The Angelis team is gathered around me in a loose semicircle, Fulton at its center. She looks at me and I clearly missed something while I daydreamed. “The plan?”
I nod. It doesn’t really matter what I’ve agreed to. No matter what happens, shit’s going to get interesting. A look passes between them, and without a word, they separate into the green garden oasis.
“You’d better get moving or Kaye will be facing them all on her own.” Jaspar looks at me from under the fan of his thick, dark lashes. He’s the only one who isn’t participating in whatever mischief they’ve cooked up. “Unless you’d rather stay with me.”
“Kaye’s more than capable of handling herself, especially in a friendly spar.” I focus on the psychic instead, still lounging amid a sea of blankets on the grass. “You’re not coming?”
He blinks at me slowly. “I don’t join fights I have no chance of winning. You’d do well to keep that in mind when it comes to our new friend too. I’m becoming attached to seeing her in our future, battling at our sides. It would be stupid to put that at risk.”
My pulse spikes. “What did you see that day in the cathedral?”
“You know I don’t do that.” He tips his elfin chin in the direction of the brawl. Shouts and laughter ride on the wind as they find her. “She needs you. And Zane—don’t forget to duck.”
My body is already coursing into action, pulled in the direction of the fight. Drawn by her voice, her presence, her powers. The very being of Kaye casting a siren’s call that sings through my blood.
The swirl of activity isn’t hard to find, and Kaye’s at the center of it all.
Her moves lack her usual grace and efficiency, her attacks and defense instead mimicking the storm front she is pulling energy from.
The clouds above us crackle and groan. What must it be like to have a power so free from restraints?
To never know when or where your next source will come from, yes, but to also have limitless potential. It’s exhilarating.
She’s alive as she pushes through the blockade created by group, breathing in quick, shallow gulps, not quite a smile on her face.
She searches around her, seeking the next enemy, the next blow.
Vita, a spritely woman with dark eyes, dark, olive skin, and blue streaks in her hair, rolls out of the way of an oncoming gust of wind just as Fulton’s palms begin glowing ember-red.
Flames lick up her fingertips as she sizes up Kaye.
I almost trip over Eko, his feet half sticking out of a bed of tulips. I kneel beside him, and his eyes open wide enough that I can see the whites fully around his blackened pupils. His carefully sculpted hair is flattened back, away from his face in a wild tangle. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he croaks. “I’ve decided to sit this one out.”
“Kaye got you early?”
He nods.
I put a hand on his shoulder in what I hope is a reassuring way, and to his credit he doesn’t shudder. It’s always a gamble when I touch someone, never knowing how they’ll react. I hated it, seeing those looks of trepidation. Sometimes disgust. They know I’m dangerous, but it still hurts to see.
I look at Kaye and our eyes meet. Her face is lit from within, her lips curled into a smile. Though she is engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Agus and Fulton, her attention warms me like a sun’s ray across my shoulders.
Eko’s on his feet now, minor injuries healed by Milo, but they keep well away from the action.
I watch as Eko takes off his shoe, pulling off his mostly clean white sock and waving it from atop a twig like a flag.
A warm feeling builds inside my chest at the sight.
Is this really what having allies—friends—is like?
A branch hits my shoulder, springy and new, covered in fresh leaves.
I look up to see Vita among the thick branches of an oak tree, ready and waiting for her moment.
Vita’s like a human super computer, absorbing and retaining information with little to no effort at all.
People always knew she was bright, the kind of genius that had a perfect 4.
0 average from kindergarten through high school, and trouble followed wherever she went.
Early psychologists classified it as hyperthymesia. They were woefully underprepared.
It didn’t take long for Vita to figure out that there was plenty of money to be made for someone like her.
We’re all really lucky that she’s a good person.
Sure, she embraced a little chaos in her past, but who didn’t?
She could have gone on to be a supervillain mastermind, and honestly, I don’t think any of us could have stopped her.
Vita doesn’t talk about what she does for a living now—probably can’t talk about it without breaking about a dozen NDAs. She likes to say she’s a consultant.
Her work has also provided her unlimited training in hand-to-hand combat, making her as physically formidable as she is mentally. And she’s about to dive out of the trees like an ass-kicking flying squirrel.
I move slowly and fluidly toward the tree, keeping my attention glued on the figure above me.
Vita’s preoccupied watching Kaye and Fulton tussle on the ground below her.
She doesn’t notice when I approach the base of her perch.
The bark is rough and textured beneath my fingertips, full of life.
My power courses into the trunk. The tree is old and established, predating the manor by more than fifty years.
The trunk is tall and thick, the roots deep and braided into and through the earth like a river.
New growth sprouts under my touch, curving and curling under my will. Up, I urge. Lock into place.
Crack. The branches creak as they tie themselves into intricate knots around Vita’s ankles. She lets out a ringing expletive as she sways and tips sideways, held aloft in the grasp of the newly formed wooden tangle.
Smirking, my eyes drift back to the clearing where Kaye and Fulton were, but it’s empty.
The hair raise on the back of my neck as my awareness heightens, drawn as always toward Kaye.
Something moves in the corner of my eye and I turn just in time as she launches at me.
Her foot misses me as I slide underneath her.
My momentum pivots and the tables have turned.
I wrap my arms around her as we fall together, laughing while rolling through the grass.
She straddles me, her core pushing against me in the most delicious friction.
Her palms press into my chest, and I know she could slow my heart, pull the energy from my body to power her arsenal, but as I look into the deep pools of her honey brown eyes, I know she won’t.
I trust her.
My hand moves from its place at the nape of her neck to cradle the velvet curve of her cheek while its twin steadies her where it rests on her hip.
She sucks in a breath as the pad of my thumb traces the swell of her full bottom lip.
Her eyes darken, and she leans into me, her hair falling to curtain us.
“It’s a wonder you’re both still alive.”
And the moment is broken. I glare at Fulton as she menaces over us, arms covered in a blaze of flames waiting to be put to use.
She extinguishes them as Kaye reaches for her, and then her warm weight is gone and I’m struck with the urge to do anything I can to get it back and finish what we started.
“Hot though,” Jaspar falls dramatically to the ground beside me.
A low rumble builds in my chest, but before I can as much as scowl, the feeling is soothed away.
“Easy there, tiger.” Adeon winks as he places two stuffed picnic baskets and a bundle of blankets on the ground.
The rest of the group sit in a loose ring, called by the promise of food. Sandwiches and fruit pass hands while Jaspar lazily tosses popcorn kernels at Eko’s open mouth.
It’s nice. Peaceful.
My attention turns to Kaye, how her eyes light up as she laughs at something Fulton just whispered in her ear. How the sun glints off the golden-brown natural highlights in her hair. So beautiful.
“What are you two giggling about over there?” Jaspar asks them, though I feel his eyes on me like a weight. Vita throws a pretzel piece and it catches in his hair. I nod my gratitude as Jaspar scowls.
Fulton grins, pulling her food into her lap. “Just saying that C seems to have gotten very good at disappearing. And also trying to settle an argument: since you’re technically undead, Zane, are you more a zombie or vampire type of guy?”
“Ha. Ha,” I respond. “That man tried to kill me. He almost succeeded. So. Funny.”
“We caught his trail a couple months ago. Tracked a Rose shipment to a warehouse in the business district, but that trail kind of burned up.” Eko leans back, his elbows sinking into the plush grass beneath him. “I guess you know all about how that ended.”
Kaye’s cheeks flush at the memory. “So you didn’t know what you’d find when you went there?”
I shake my head. “After one look, I knew what it was though—parts of our old files. C told me they were leads for the voluntary trials of our compound.”
I knew what they really were. Knew I couldn’t leave them behind.
C had been tracking Supers. Where he got the information or what he planned to do with it might always be a mystery, and that’s fine. I just knew I couldn’t let him keep it. I was angry, but also relieved when the flames swallowed it all up—until they tried to swallow us too.
“Days later, the CCP moved in on Supers who refused to submit to their rules.” The citizens of New Malcolm didn’t know how bad things would get until it was too late.
Anonymous men in unmarked vans, brandishing weapons in people’s faces without cause or warrants.
Heroes disappearing, stolen in the early hours of day when the rest of the city dreamed of a world without fear, without villains. It wasn’t the villains they came for.
“C disappeared completely not long after that. Then I got this.” I pull the folded paper from my pocket, tossing it down. “The whole Rose operation went underground.”
“Let me get this straight—you actually don’t have any real leads?” Kaye looks from one person to the next. “This is the super-secret plan?”
“You don’t even know the half of it.” Jaspar winks.
“C came out of hiding to leave this note, Kaye,” Fulton points out. “You might not know him, but clearly he knows you. That makes you valuable.”
“As bait,” Kaye nods. “I’m missing the part where some guy I’ve never met before gives two shits about me. Especially if he’s as dangerous as you say he is. Who risks an empire on a stranger?”
That’s the question. There has to be some kind of connection, even if we can’t see it yet. A button that we can push.
“Fuck,” Kaye gasps. “It went underground! Literally.”
“I don’t see an answer in that nonsense,” Jaspar says. “And I have visions.”
Kaye’s arms shake with excitement as she gestures, punctuating every word. “Think about it. The tunnels under the church aren’t the only ones in the city. Sure, half of them have collapsed by now, abandoned and unusable, but…”
The spark catches in my mind, white and hot and blinding.
Through that burning, I can see clearer than I have in years.
When we made the plans to rescue the Supers from the CCP that night, I didn’t know what to do with them, where to keep them so that they could recover in safety.
Then they showed me the tunnels—perfect, expansive, practically untraceable.
How had I never thought of it before?
“We need a map.” This is it. It’s finally happening.
“I might be able to help with that.” Kaye’s smirk is radiant, infectious.
Gravity rocks beneath me at the sight, orienting itself once more to her. Though I still ache from earlier I feel myself stiffening, pressing painfully against the metal teeth of my zipper. There’s pleasure in that pain, a delicious edge that echoes clearly what I feel for my lovely nemesis.
Beautiful, intelligent, sexier than sin.
I can’t wait for her to bring them all to ruin.