Stands #2
It was the light that said the lift was coming to my floor.
I stilled as a wave of panic hit me.
No one could call the lift to my floor, except me, the members of my security team—and when they were coming, they informed me—or beings I authorized to come up.
Because of this, I scrambled off the bed with my Palm, taking the comm in a hushed voice.
“Honey—”
“Nayden is on his way up to you,” Tanyn said tersely, just as I heard the tone that said the lift was arriving. “No arguments. Don’t waste time. Pack a bag and go with him.”
This did nothing to alleviate my panic.
“What? Why? Where?”
“No discussion, my love,” he said quietly. “And don’t waste time. Must go.”
With that, he hung up.
“Catla?” I heard Nayden call.
I also heard his feet on the floor.
He was running.
My limbs petrified, so it was woodenly when I turned toward him as he arrived at the top of the stairs.
“Did Tanyn comm?” he asked, striding purposefully toward my closet.
I nodded.
“Let’s go,” he said, then disappeared in my closet.
I came unstuck, hustled to the closet and saw him studying the manual screen.
“How do you get this to work?” he asked.
“Closet,” I stated. “Pack. Berg Castle.” I looked to Nayden and raised my brows in question.
“Extended stay,” he answered my nonverbalized question.
A chill had started creeping along my skin, his words made it vastly chillier, but I said, “Two weeks. Rush. Travel outfit, now,” to the closet. To Nayden I asked, “What’s going on?”
“Ten minutes ago, the citadel on Sigil was attacked.”
That didn’t make me freeze.
The panic took total hold, fear edging it like the cut of a razor.
And I got my ass moving.
Fast.
I was pacing the jet in high-heeled boots.
“Do you want me to comm him?” Nayden, sitting and watching me pace, as he had done since we attained sound speed half an hour ago, offered.
“No,” I replied curtly. “If he had time to talk to us, he would. Let him do what he has to do. We’ll learn more when we arrive.”
“Do you want a drink?” he asked.
“No,” I repeated, again curtly. “I want a straight head when I get to him.”
Straight head.
That was a joke.
All I could think of was Zyra. Manny. Those lovely, cozy rooms. The lynx.
Zyra.
Manny.
And how Tanyn would feel if anything happened to them.
I shivered and pulled the coat I was still wearing closer around me, even if the cabin was warm.
“They have defense systems set up on Sigil,” Nayden said calmly. “It was one of the first things Tanyn did when he took the throne.”
“I saw them. The bots. I know about the Grenadiers.”
“There’s more. A forcefield over the citadel. Anti-aircraft guns hidden under the snow.”
This was good.
I didn’t care.
Red covered my vision when I whirled on him and snapped, “That fucking bitch! What? Controlling his father and beating his mother to death wasn’t enough? She has to go after everything he loves? What is wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, Catla,” Nayden replied, still in that calm voice. “I’ll never know. You won’t either. Because you aren’t a vicious cunt.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly a compliment, but coming from Nayden, I’d take it.
I threw myself in a seat, crossed my legs, but my foot was still bouncing.
“I have to get a lock on this,” I declared. “I have to be together when we get to him.”
“You’re welcome to shout at me some more,” he offered.
“No, I’ll just sit here and visualize wringing her neck for the next half an hour.”
“That works too.”
“If anything happens to them…” I let that trail.
Nayden had no response.
I focused on him. “Don’t you have any advice? I mean, don’t they train you to keep your shit together when stuff like this happens?”
“Since demonic fury makes us excellent killing machines…no.”
“Fuck!” I shouted, jumped up and started pacing again. I whirled on him and accused, “How are you calm? I know he’s like a brother to you.”
Instantly, faster than I’d ever seen it happen with any demon, his eyes glowed red.
“He shared,” he said with deceptive quiet.
“I’ve known for years what he lived through.
What they put him through. I was with him when he learned his mother had died.
I was at his side, marveling at his patience, as he pushed his case through the courts to claim what was his since birth.
In other words, I have practice keeping a tight rein on wanting to stream a hole through that bitch’s forehead. ”
I huffed.
But it made me feel better to know that Tanyn had told his friend about his life, his trials and tribulations, that he had someone loyal like Nayden.
I threw myself in a seat again and stated, “It really sucks you don’t like me, because I like you.”
“You’re growing on me,” he muttered with a lip twitch.
That made me feel better too.
“Controlled breathing,” he said.
“What?”
“Deep breaths in. Hold. Deep breaths out. Ten seconds in. Ten seconds hold. Ten seconds exhale. Ten times. Do it.”
I did it.
I felt calmer after doing it.
So I said, “Thanks.”
He got up and headed toward the cockpit, replying, “Don’t mention it.”
He wasn’t there long before he came back out, resumed his seat and said, “Twenty minutes until landing.”
I nodded, turned and stared at the window to watch the lights in the far distance of Abyssinia get closer.
That twenty minutes felt like two, at the same time it felt like two hours, before we were hovering our landing over the bay behind Berg Castle.
Tanyn and Hurley were there, like always, but as I watched him the entire time we landed, I saw impassive Tanyn was back, and this didn’t give me happy thoughts.
I had to fight back the urge to shove Nayden out of my way so I could get out of that jet first, and to Tanyn.
I bested this.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t race, yes, on heels, to my male.
I grabbed the sides of his neck when I got to him, lifted on my toes, touched my lips to his, rocked back and asked, “Zyr and Manny?”
“They’re here,” he answered, voice tight.
Thank gods.
“And Manny is fine,” he went on.
I tensed, because that was only one half of what was left of his whole family.
“But their escape craft came under heavy fire. The armor partially failed. They took a blast that caught Zyra. She’s in a medi-pod now.”
My heart was squeezing so hard, it was a wonder it was beating, but I forced myself to say, “Okay. I’m here. I’m safe. You go do what you have to do. I know where the medi-unit is. Is Manny there?”
“Yes.”
“Go,” I urged. “Nayden is with me.”
He glanced at Nayden. He bent to touch his mouth to mine. Then he took my hand and guided us inside.
He stopped and said, “See to Hurley?”
I nodded.
“Stay with Catla,” he ordered Hurley.
Hurley whined but sat down beside me.
With another glance at Nayden, he prowled off.
I turned to Nayden and said, “Let’s go.”
I didn’t wait for him.
I snapped my fingers at Hurley and took off toward the castle’s medi-unit.
Some time later, curled in an uncomfortable chair outside Zyra’s pod with Hurley, Tanyn strode in.
I unfolded and hopped to my feet at the same time Hurley jumped down and ran to his daddy.
Hurley got a loving but perfunctory head pat before Tanyn walked to me, and I took no offense that his attention wasn’t on me but on the window into the pod.
But when he got to me, I wrapped both arms around his waist, pressed my front to his side, felt his arm curl around my shoulders, and we both looked into the pod.
Manny was sprawled in a chair like mine beside Zyra’s medi-case.
They were both asleep.
“Broken hip, femur and shoulder,” I whispered.
“Massive concussion. Third degree burns along her right side. But the prognosis is good, honey. She’s already speed-healing.
She’ll need to be encased until morning.
Moved to a bed for a day or two, mostly, they say, for observation.
She’ll do some PT during that time too. And then she should be back on her feet. ”
I felt his lips on my hair before I heard him murmur, “I’ll be back.”
He went into the pod and stood over Zyra’s case for long moments before moving to a closet, unearthing a folded blanket and going to Manny.
I watched, my heart melting as he carefully covered Mangold, cast one last look at Zyr then exited the pod.
“I need sleep,” he announced.
I wanted to know what was going on.
“Then let’s get you to bed,” I said.
We walked, silent, to his chamber, Hurley trotting at Tanyn’s side.
The journey was long.
His vibe was off, unsurprisingly, though I felt his exhaustion and his worry.
Though, as for the priorities…
Manny was fine. Zyra would be fine.
And sleep would help, I hoped.
As such, my curiosity could wait until morning.
I needed to get my male in bed.
We arrived at his chamber, and the closet in it, and I saw I’d been unpacked.
We did the getting-ready-for-bed thing, and then we got in bed.
I immediately snuggled into him.
And he surprised me by sharing, “Preliminary briefing is that the citadel forcefield held, but it took a massive bombardment. There’s some minor damage just from the blasts the armor dome absorbed, because there were so many, it shook the earth.
We lost four defense bots, and one Grenadier sustained significant wounds.
He’s in a medi-pod at St. Lucifer’s. He’ll recover, but it’ll take longer. ”
“Okay.”
“It’s clear their target was the destruction of the citadel, but also Manny and Zyr. Once the Grenadiers got them in the escape craft, several of the crafts attacking the island broke off to follow them.”
Fucking Tatra.
“And what happened to the ones doing the attacking?”
“Two flights of the Red Wing were dispatched within ten minutes of learning Sigil was under attack. They have supersonic. They were there in ten minutes more. They downed all the craft. There are three survivors. They’ve taken the survivors and any remains found to Gehenn Base in northern Sky’s Edge for identification, processing and interrogation. ”
“Do you think this is Tatra?”