Chapter 19
The weather was nice for Washington, with a bright blue sky and just the right amount of sunlight with a cool breeze to keep it from being too hot. In the distance, birds sang and there was the hint of cars honking someplace. We were in the back yard of the house, which was much bigger than I would’ve thought for such a small place. The yard was mostly grass with a few pots of flowers and a small Japanese maple in the corner. A covered barbecue sat to my left and some covered patio furniture was to my right.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been on such a high alert. My logical mind knew it was completely unnecessary; we were still in the safe house, for fuck’s sake. But the berserker was amped up and it was affecting those fears I’d lived with my entire life.
So when we left the room and went into the backyard where April had set up some training scenarios, I was right behind her, every muscle tensed and ready for a threat.
“Jesus, I thought males got relaxed after fucking and claiming,” April said, her arm in a sling. “You look ten times worse.”
“He’s a little worried about things,” Nina said, squeezing my hand. “It’s just his way.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” April said, eyeing me with a little discomfort. “There are wards out here that will hide what we’re doing, so don’t worry about that. This training exercise is meant to get you ready for what’s expected of you tomorrow. It was something I was planning to have you do last, but here we are. I’ve rigged up a spell with this ball. It’s not hard, but it is a bit annoying as it will whistle every time it passes over you. The longer it takes, the faster the ball will move and the closer it will get to you.”
“Got it.”
“Lemme see that,” I demanded, holding out my hand.
April was about to argue with me, I could see it by the set of her mouth and the narrow blaze of her eyes.
“Give. Me. The ball.”
Nina’s eyes were growing wide as she looked between us, and the last thing I wanted was for her to get between me and April. Or really, to have a fight at all. My berserker was only adding kerosene to the fire of my already stoked possessiveness. If anyone challenged my right to protect her…
Well, to say it would not be wise was a severe understatement.
Finally, April put the ball in my hand harder than necessary and crossed her arms, waiting while I examined it. When I was satisfied that it was, indeed, too soft to cause harm, and that there wasn’t anything inside of it, I handed it back.
“Fucking Orc males,” April murmured under her breath as she set up the spell with the ball.
I couldn’t even get pissed at her for that comment because it was accurate. Orcs weren’t exactly known for their equanimity when it came to mates. Even when a group of males agreed to share a female Orc, there was always a shifting power dynamic, a need to soothe the egos and possessive natures of those involved.
But compared to Orcs like me, with the berserker gene front and center, other Orc males were down right tame. Berserker Orcs weren’t even allowed to take mates in most clans because of how dangerous they could get after mating.
And I’d just blown that rule right out the window. Of course, no clan will have me anyway so it doesn’t really matter.
“Are you going to be alright watching me do this?” Nina asked. “I’m in no danger here if you’d rather go help Jack pack up gear.”
I crossed my arms across my chest, not missing the way Nina’s eyes lit up with the way my muscles shifted as I did. The way she admired my body, lusted after it, in fact, made me stupidly proud.
“I’ll stay,” I said.
She let out a long breath.
“Okay, but…don’t get all growly with April if the ball hits my head or whatever. I need to get this right for tomorrow.”
I didn’t like the thought of anything flying toward her head, even if it was a nonlethal ball that wouldn’t hurt her. But I nodded anyway, because as much as the need to protect her drove me, the desire to please Nina was just as strong.
I stood by the back door on the patio just as Nina gave April a nod. The Orc female let the ball go and it flew overhead, giving off a faint, high pitched whistling sound. There were three stands on the grass that had had metal boxes on them. I assumed whatever Nina had to manipulate was in those.
Nina closed her eyes, brow wrinkled in concentration, lips pursed, and I couldn’t help but remember how I’d kissed those pillows until they’d swollen red. The scratches from my tusks were still on her throat and chin, faint but present to all who saw her.
Including Whitman, the twat.
If that man laid a hand on my Nina, I would not be responsible for the carnage, nor would I apologize. He’d have it coming if he ignored an obvious mating claim.
The ball continued to fly across the yard over Nina’s head, coming closer and closer each time.
With a pop, one of the boxes flipped over and there was a disassembled set of gears on the stand.
“Next,” April demanded.
Nina closed her eyes again, a sheen of sweat on her face now. The ball kept coming closer and closer and my whole body tensed as my senses went on high alert. The smell of ozone was in the air and there was something odd about the way the ball was sailing through the air.
Another box popped open and revealed more gears.
“Next,” April said again.
The ball moved faster, grazing Nina’s head. She knelt on the grass to give herself more time, her hands shaking. I took a step off the patio and April shot me a sharp glare.
The remaining box shuddered but didn’t pop open like the last two.
“Concentrate,” April commanded. “You’ve almost got it.”
Now I was sure the ball was going even faster, and that it had a metallic sheen it hadn’t before. Something was wrong, that was not the same ball. I didn’t know what had happened, but that soft, harmless one had transformed, and whatever this was would not merely smack Nina on the head with annoying thump.
The ball was closer, stirring Nina’s hair and she ducked down further, but I was done waiting.
I ran off the patio and onto the grass.
“Darius, what the fuck—?” April screamed.
But I wasn’t in the mood to explain myself, not when April had set up a spell with a nasty consequence.
I stepped in the path of the ball and grunted as I was knocked clean off my feet onto my ass. I coughed, forcing air back into my lungs as my stomach rebelled at the brutal impact.
It wasn’t just metal, it was a solid object that had power behind it.
“Nina, roll!” I yelled.
She fell flat onto her stomach and looked around for the threat. I was trying to get to my feet when Nina spied the ball. Her gaze shifted, no longer afraid, and there was a calculation in those green depths that was new, chilling.
“No, don’t!”
I pushed onto my feet and ran for her, but even though the distance was short, I wasn’t quick enough. Nina sprang up, hands outstretched like she was about to catch the damn thing. But the ball was fast, and now that she was on her feet, the projectile was at face level. I knew that with the force it had knocked me back, and with as hard as it was, if it hit her, Nina would be dead in seconds.
“Nina, down!” The scream tore from my throat as terror seized me.
But instead of impacting against her skull, the ball stopped suddenly, inches from her face. Nina’s arms strained, sweat dripping off her flushed face as she held the weapon back.
“Someone…get it,” she grit out.
April screamed a word I didn’t recognize and the ball fell to the grass with a thud. Nina’s arms dropped and she staggered back into me. I held her tight as she shook.
“What the fuck was that?” I snarled at April.
“I have no idea,” she croaked.
“Don’t touch it,” Nina said. “I don’t know what it is, but it could be dangerous.”
April’s eyes widened in disbelief and she backed away.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I felt it when I was holding it back. There are mechanisms in there, similar to the gears I was disassembling.”
“What the hell is going on?” Angelica asked, stepping out onto the patio with Trey and Jack behind her.
“I swear I didn’t do anything,” April said, holding up her one good arm.
“Then how did it change from a harmless ball into a God damned weapon?” I demanded.
“I don’t know!”
Nina quickly explained the situation to Angelica, whose face became more pinched and flushed the more Nina spoke.
“We’re leaving now,” Angelica said quickly, “pack what you can, if anything is missing we’ll ask Whitman for a replacement. This place is obviously compromised.”
“But how?” April asked. “I swear that spell was nothing special, just a simple flotation incantation with a countdown to increase speed and decrease height, that’s it! So how could someone corrupt it? The kind of power it would take to…”
Her voice trailed off and she glanced at Nina.
“What?” She gave April a nervous laugh. “You actually think I’d do something like that?”
“Your power isn’t normal,” April replied. “I could taste it last night. There’s a corruption in your inner well and if you don’t have control of it? Yeah, your subconscious could’ve easily altered that spell.”
“I would know if power left me,” Nina hissed. “And just because my power is different doesn’t mean it’s corrupt.”
“I could sense it too,” Wanda said, stepping outside. “I didn’t want to say anything but…you’re a wild card if you can’t control it, and that’s too dangerous.”
“Enough,” Angelica said. “Nina stays, unless you’ve got someone else to disassemble the locking mechanism in such a way that it doesn’t set off the counter measures?”
Wanda and April both wouldn’t meet Angelica’s eyes.
“That’s what I thought.”
“She’s dangerous, that’s all I’m saying,” Wanda said, holding up her hands.
“Noted. Now, pack up. Everyone but Nina and Darius. I need a word with you two.”
April stalked by us, not bothering to look our way, but she had a glare for Angelica, who met it head on with a rather imperious look that I would bet she perfected during her time with the Archive. Wanda gave us both an apologetic look and followed April inside. But Jack was the one that got my hackles up.
He was holding something in his hand that was small enough that I couldn’t tell exactly what it was but I glimpsed a small light on whatever it was. The stare he was giving Nina, like he was seeing a rare prize, eyes full of calculation, it made my blood run hot. I stepped toward him and he snapped out of whatever thoughts were filling his head, his hand quickly pocketing whatever he was holding. But that didn’t entirely wipe the look off his face.
Was Jack the mole? Was he planning on selling Nina out? But to who?
I didn’t have the chance to really consider which on our list of enemies Jack might be working for before Angelica guided us both toward the back of the yard.
“Okay, what the fuck happened?” she spat, crossing her arms, lips pressed into a tight line.
“I swear, I didn’t feel any power leave me,” Nina said. “At least none that wasn’t directed at the tests April was giving me.”
“What if the spell was corrupted by another source?” I asked, glancing back at the house.
I could feel eyes on us, and I wasn’t entirely sure they were just Jack’s either.
“From where?” Angelica asked.
“I don’t know, but if the other safe house was compromised, this one might be too. What if something was smuggled to the mole and they set off a spell like that?”
“To what purpose? Just to kill Nina?”
My hands clenched at the thought, but I breathed through it. I needed to think clearly and I couldn’t do that if I was in a rage.
“Or to expose me,” Nina offered. “You saw them, they were ready to kick me off the team.”
“Maybe both,” I said. “If Nina and I are off the team, we are exposed and Nina can’t get the Morrigan extracted. If she’s killed,” I swallowed, “then she’s out of the picture and no one gets to exploit her powers.”
“The ones that want me dead are the Sinners,” Nina murmured, her face becoming pale. “And even if the projectile didn’t accomplish that, us getting kicked off the team would put us in a vulnerable position, one they could take advantage of.”
I nodded, that was a very good theory.
And terrifying as hell.
“Will they turn on us during the job?” I asked.
Angelica’s frown deepened and she shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s not a definite ‘no’,” I pointed out.
“I can’t predict what any of them will or won’t do. You’re going to have to stay alert and get her out of there as soon as you have that cuff. I’ll do what I can to make sure you can, but I need to preserve this operation too. This is bigger than just the two of you.”
I understood that. Hell, I’d made that kind of call plenty of times in the past. But this was different. This time, it was the only person I loved whose life was on the line. And Angelica having split priorities made me more than a little nervous.
“I need more than that,” I said, looming over her. “I need you to guarantee me—”
“Well, I can’t,” Angelica snapped. “I told you the consequences of bringing me into this, I told you that I could never guarantee that Nina’s life would be the priority, remember? I’m doing everything I can, don’t ask me to betray my oath to the Archive for you, Darius, because I won’t do it.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve already done?” I challenged. “This whole thing, protecting us?”
I expected her to tell me a multitude of things.
How this was different.
How she’d barely bent the rules by helping us escape.
But I hadn’t expected her face to tense and her body to shift from foot to foot.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She turned to walk away.
“Darius, this conversation is— ”
“Don’t you dare brush me off!” My voice had gotten low. It rumbled and grated.
I seized her arm and jerked her back toward me.
“Darius, what are you doing?” Nina asked.
“Let her go!” Trey barreled across the backyard at me.
Steam was coming out of his nose and as he ran, his body transformed into one of his Dragon forms, all scales and claw tipped fingers and toes. One of those hands grabbed my throat, his claws digging into my flesh as smoke curled from his snout.
“Let her go,” he bellowed again.
“Darius, please,” Nina begged.
“This is fucking absurd,” Angelica challenged, wrenching her arm free. “Trey, let him go.”
But he didn’t, and my air was slowly being cut off. He’d warned me about how he felt, but I also had a touch of madness that went with claiming a mate. And Angelica’s secrets were possibly endangering her.
So I hauled off and punched Trey. His scales were hard as fuck, and they cut my knuckles. If I hadn’t been letting a bit of my berserker off his leash, I would’ve broken my hand. As it was, a tiny trickle of blue blood came from Trey’s mouth.
“You dare strike me?”
“Yeah, I fucking dare.”
Both our fists drew back even though Angelica was screaming at us to stop. I was just about to let the punch fly when we were both thrown back from each other.
I was so shocked that I screamed at the same time Trey did. We were each suspended about a foot off the ground by dark ropes wrapped around our torsos. And they were coming from Nina’s outstretched hands.
Dark veins mapped her face and arms, backlit by gold. Her green eyes were almost entirely black, and there was a grimacing snarl on her face that made my blood run cold.
“You will not harm my mate!” she howled at Trey, and then she turned her dark eyes on me. “And you will not be an idiot.”
“Alright, Nina, I won’t be an idiot,” I said calmly, all the fight gone at the terrifying sight of her. “Just put us down, baby.”
“No more…fighting over…this,” she whispered. “No more…”
She shook her head and her eyes cleared, once again green. But she hadn’t lowered us to the ground yet. Then the power disappeared, as did the ropes holding us up. I dropped like a stone to the ground and Nina shrieked with panic.
“Darius! Oh my God.”
She ran to me and helped me sit up, her hands running over my torso and arms.
“I’m alright,” I assured her. “A bit unnerved, but other than that, I’m okay.”
“I didn’t mean to…I just wanted you both to stop fighting and then all I could think about was how I wished I could separate you two and then…then I was holding you up like that...”
I held her as she trembled, but her breathing was too fast. I worried she was going to slip into a panic attack, so I ran my hands up and down her back, whispered soothing words into her ear.
When a shadow passed over us, I looked up to find Angelica staring down at us.
“I can’t tell you everything. I’m sorry, Darius,” she said, her face a bit paler than before. “But I can assure you that I would never hurt Nina. That’s all I can tell you, and it’s going to have to be enough for now.”
It wasn’t, not by a long shot. There was a time when Angelica and David Dearborne were the two people in the world I trusted most, but she’d been right that night I’d asked her for help. She was no longer just my friend, she was the Director of the Archive. Her priorities had to be bigger than my problems. And unfortunately, that meant that I could no longer trust her with the one thing mattered most to me in all the world.
“It is for me,” Nina said, looking up at her with tear stained face. “You’ve gotten us this far, I trust you with the rest.”
Angelica gave her a gentle smile and then shifted her wary gaze to me.
“I don’t,” I said, never seeing the point in lying to her, “but we’re too far in at this point. So I’m in as long as you heal Nina. After that, I expect answers.”
“If I can give them, they’re yours.”
She glanced behind her at the dragon, who was back in his Mundane glamour. Trey glared at me, a cut on his lip.
“And if you two ever do that again during this mission, I will stun you and ship you back to the Archive in boxes, do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, contritely.
Trey continued to glare and Angelica let out a grunt of pure frustration before taking his chin in her hand and tilting his head down until he looked at her.
“I’m fine, you over protective ass,” she scowled. “Now get inside and pack so we can leave.”
His mouth curled up, hands shoved into his pants pockets.
“I love it when you get bossy,” he purred before walking off.
She stared after him, opened mouth and cheeks flushed, then muttered a few curse words under her breath and followed him inside.
“We should go too,” Nina said, starting to get up.
It didn’t escape me that her face had a sickly pallor about it, and there were very dark circles under her eyes, almost like bruises. We both winced when we got to our feet and she turned wide eyes to me in a silent question.
“I’m fine, I have healing runes, they’ll get to work in a minute. But you,” I tucked some stray red curls behind her ear and cupped her cheek, “you aren’t fine, are you?”
“No. I’m achy and I feel like I could sleep for hours. I think…I think it’s starting to take its toll on me.”
“No more using it, you hear me. I don’t care what’s going on you don’t let that power out.”
“I don’t think I’m going to have much of a choice. There’s a lot of it tangled with my innate abilities. I think opening that portal did something, created a hole for the Morrigan to slip through. I can’t use my powers without using it and the more I use mine, the more I let it in.”
“Then you don’t use any of it.”
“Darius, you’re not listening! I have to use my powers tomorrow to get into the vault so we can get that artifact.”
“Then that’s the last until we get the Morrigan out. I mean it, no matter what happens, you do not use it.”
She pressed her lips together and tore her ponytail holder out, raking her hands through her curls before roughly putting it back up.
“Fine,” she finally said.
“I’m just trying to protect you.”
“I know that, but it still feels wrong. Why can’t I protect you?”
“I’ll make you a deal,” I put my arms around her, loving the fact that I could, “when this is over and the Morrigan is gone, you can protect me as much as you want.”
A grin teased the corners of her mouth.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”