Chapter 64
Reagan
The sky beyond the Hall’s post had shifted from orange to indigo hours ago.
Reagan hadn’t moved an inch in the last hour, his eyes trained on the sigils Heil had drawn on the first door of the barracks building.
He stared at those markings, the ones meant to answer the codes Jane would write, wherever she was.
Back in the alley, she’d asked for a secure location in Mountheim to anchor the destination of a portal that would allow them to slip through and stage an ambush. He’d decided the barracks would be the best place to draw the responding sigils and open the passage for her.
Yesterday, Reagan hadn’t wasted a moment after returning from the human town. He had immediately summoned the Captain of the Guard, who knew a lot more than him about the mechanisms required to create inter-estate portals.
Now, black-stitched leather dominated the field behind him.
Five dozen battle mages in uniform waited in near formation.
Some had swapped shifts during the long hours Reagan had stood vigil.
Every able body that could be spared without weakening the borders stood ready for that door to open, including those who had finished their shifts but remained to rescue their soon-to-be Lady.
Reagan had explained to all the squads the plan Jane and him had agreed to in the alley.
He hadn’t left the barracks field since returning, except once to relieve himself.
She was supposed to have appeared through that door yesterday evening.
He couldn’t move, only hearing the instructions being relayed to any new patrollers arriving. There was so much tension in his body he could barely muster speech or breath.
Jane was the most important person in his life—and soon, in this estate.
And yet he had agreed to an ambush that would risk her life to infiltrate an Order hideout.
After a full night in the gelid wind, his teeth ground together.
Reagan refused to dwell on the possibility that their plan might fail and that, once again, he would have no way to reach her.
But that would not happen. Jane would appear through that door at any moment. He knew it. He only had to wait.
He could feel Gwinifer’s scowl nearby, but at least his sister had the sense to keep her opinions to herself.
He knew she found their plan reckless. That she would argue Jane was not expendable, not someone to risk in an ambush like this.
He knew all of that, yet he also hadn’t been able to think of a way to convince her to come with him.
She had been resolute about rescuing the captives she had seen.
It had shifted something inside her. He understood the need to act, much like when he had tracked the Wraiths invading the estate months ago. Just as he could not abandon his citizens, Jane could not abandon those captives. How could he ever fight against a trait in her that mirrored his own?
It was a good thing he had kept his focus on the door. Anyone else might have missed the infinitesimal shift, the faint shimmering tracing the outline of the wood.
He stopped breathing, mana flooding his veins as he reached for the handle.
Finn was halfway through saying it should be Jane’s side breaching when Reagan pulled the door open.
It was not the barracks.
In the span of a heartbeat, he assessed the scene. His vision tunnelled. Turned red. His body flooded with power he made no attempt to restrain.
Jane was pinned to the floor, shirtless and bleeding, beneath the Scion who guarded her in the human town. The same one Finn had influenced yesterday so Reagan could extract her. The one she had called Cahir.
The Scion straddled her, his expression twisted with anger. And lust. She struggled and raged against the hands pinning her wrists to the floor.
But as Cahir looked up, he locked eyes with Reagan at the threshold and froze. The Scion watched as Reagan’s lips peeled back from his teeth, probably feeling the torrent of mana invading the room.
The man’s face drained of all colour.
Reagan could scarcely recognise his own power warping the air across the field, but it thrummed, thrummed, thrummed. Like a storm readying to shatter the sky.
Reagan moved, a rising tide of power surging forward, the force slamming into the padded walls and ringing up into the white ceiling.
He would flay the Scion alive.
Before he had time to tear the scum from her, Cahir was thrown against the wall, limbs splayed, his neck craning back as though his spine might snap.
And then she was standing. Standing on her own two feet in a wide stance, hands outstretched towards the Scion.
It was then Reagan realised there was another power crowding his senses, thrumming through the air. It was cooler than his. Less electric. It smelled of his dreams.
It smelled of Jane.
Surprise warred with his wrath as he stepped towards her, sensing that same sweet access he had felt not long ago. Yet this was nothing like the faint prickle she had wielded before.
This was unleashing. This was her fully claiming the breadth of her access.
“I. Told. You.” Jane’s voice was hoarse, yet it carried over the ringing echo of her power. The Scion’s arm cracked. “To. Run.”
Jane’s legs wavered slightly, and Reagan became an unyielding wall at her back, incapable of stopping his mouth from curling at the pain she inflicted.
He savoured it, that mighty power, as though it were his own.
But it was her breaking the Scion, burning him before all the squads gathered in the field.
The vermin’s face flushed a furious red as he howled.
Gradually, Jane’s grunt of effort became a roar, the veins in her hands glowing so brightly Reagan could almost feel the burn of that release.
Yet Jane didn’t stop until she burned the Scion from the inside out, her wet hair plastered to her back.
The air thickened, charged with her access.
Reagan could see the exertion in the tremor of her limbs.
Yet she kept going, kept bleeding the man until blood ran in rivulets from his nose, his mouth, his ears.
Until the screams ceased, and his head sagged forward, his body collapsing in a heap at her feet.
Jane’s shoulders heaved, her arms dropping as she looked over her shoulder.
Concern battled for space in Reagan’s chest at the sight of her milky eyes, at the blood trailing down her arm where teeth marks reddened her skin.
“You have to go.” Her voice was barely there, hoarse and strained. “I can see the captives on the first floor and underground. You must get to them now.”
She hadn’t stopped wielding, Reagan realised. She was here, but her eyes… She was also somewhere else, seeing ahead of time.
“We’ll get to them,” Reagan said, slow and patient, his hands rising to cradle her face. “You did incredible, love. You can stop now.”
Jane was shaking, her brows drawn tight with effort. She let out a high-pitched groan, her fists clenching. Reagan forced calm into himself, mustering a steady smile as he ran his thumb over her cheek, trying to coax her into releasing the access. The full breadth of it was overpowering.
“Jane, love, let the eagle go,” he murmured softly. “Let go.”
Quick as hummingbird wings, she dug her nails into his arms and squeezed her eyes shut. The pressure of that cool power receded, and her body sagged forward. Reagan caught her and hauled her against his chest.
“Get her a shirt and boots,” Gwinifer ordered, striding toward the threshold, her gaze dropping to the blood-slick floor. Jane’s blood. “Get her water and an energy fill.”
Reagan carried Jane into the night air, transferring his mana into her body as he murmured the siphoning charm. Outside, the stench of iron and charred flesh faded quickly. Two battle mages from the front line slipped inside the chamber, Heil among them.
“Does she need a healer?” Finn asked as Reagan settled on the grassy ground with Jane in his lap.
It was a relief to feed her his power, especially since his own limbs still rioted with the threat of a flux. His focus narrowed on the bite mark near her shoulder, his hands moving carefully to mend the indents in her skin.
“Darling, is it just the bite, or are you hurt somewhere else?” Reagan asked.
She shook her head. “I need to explain the portal.” Her eyes had returned to normal, though exhaustion weighted every word.
Gwinifer crouched beside them, a black uniform shirt and leather boots with socks already in her hands. “Food and water are coming.”
“You don’t need to explain. Heil’s already inside,” Reagan told Jane. “He’ll adjust the sigils to open the portal here so we can cycle battle mages through. Once they’re inside, someone will adjust it to open into the mansion.”
“Red,” Gwinifer said, “was anyone else coming to your cell, or just that Scion?”
Jane blinked, as if gathering herself.
“Take your time,” Gwin murmured.
Jane took a few deep breaths before shaking her head, eyes falling to her lap, where her hands rested. “No. He came alone.”
Reagan’s teeth ground with barely contained violence. He had to stop siphoning before the full force of his flux harmed her. He felt it building again, tension gathering in his limbs. But colour had already begun returning to her face. She needed food now.
Gwinifer helped pull the shirt over Jane’s head, the mirror of his own fury reflected in his sister’s expression.
She was no stranger to the depravity Scion men were known to inflict upon hybrid women.
The way her tongue pressed against her upper teeth confirmed she shared his suspicions about Cahir’s intentions.
“I’m glad you gave him what he deserved,” Gwinifer murmured, dipping her chin.
Jane blinked in assent as Gwinifer rose and addressed the squads. “We cycle five at a time. One stays inside to hold the portal as we move in and out.”
Acknowledgements rippled down the line.
Jane’s eyes widened, her gaze drifting past them.
Joy appeared at her side, crouching with a wrapped sandwich already in hand. “It’s tuna,” she said softly. “With the paste you like.”