Chapter 40
DAVID
On a cold day near the winter solstice, David stood with crossed arms beside Sean, surveying the fifth outpost Bowenn had established in Viterra.
“It’s…an office building,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily.
“An abandoned office building,” Sean added.
From a dusty desk, Isobel lifted an even dustier notepad between two fingers, then dropped it, face scrunched. She let forth a delicate sneeze.
David rolled his eyes.
Her tiny baby bump was in fine form this morning, parading under her fitted dress as if she meant to torture him with it.
Longing stirred, and he squeezed his eyes shut, but it wouldn’t banish the ache, the one Sean had buried beneath anger and betrayal. Did she know that tying his soul to Sean would make him want her this way? Was this just another form of punishment?
Bitch.
Worse, however, was the tortured hunger Anna had inspired. Missing that pixie had become a constant pain between his ribs. If Isobel stirred longing, then Anna had clawed her fingers into his chest and ripped out his beating heart.
These fucking women would be the end of him. He was sure of it. The emotional torment had shredded his sanity to bloody confetti, and he loathed himself for what he’d done to Anna as a result.
Her pain was unacceptable, unbearable, and it was all Bel’s fault.
As he reached that conclusion, the woman in question stepped into his line of sight, and he looked pointedly in the opposite direction.
Several ceiling tiles were missing, the innards spilling out.
Old computer equipment had been left behind on the desks, likely nonfunctioning.
Holes were gouged in the walls. Dust and decay lingered in the air.
“It’s perfect, yes?” Bowenn asked proudly.
“It’s…something,” Sean answered.
The pixie released a hearty laugh. “Have you no vision, Ashanta?” He pointed to an area that used to function as a conference room.
“The weapons cache lives there.” He pointed to the desks and cubicles.
“The mortal equipment goes here. We’ve been studying them as you asked.
Everything is done on this apparatus here.
” He pointed at an old computer monitor.
Grimacing, Sean said, “There’s a little more to it than that—”
“And there”—Bowenn pointed at a series of offices—“can be the sleep quarters. This is the best outpost we’ve found yet.”
Sean pressed his lips together. “How’d you even locate this place?”
“We chose a region of medium Indy activity,” said Trystian, one of the pixie warriors who volunteered for this mission. “We’ve monitored the area for weeks. Humans don’t enter this establishment with any regularity.”
Right. Because it existed in a rundown part of town filled with vagrants and drug dealers. David knew places like this well. They could have done worse, he had to admit. Once cleaned up, this would probably work well.
While Sean and Kywyn ran through lists of necessary items with Bowenn, David chanced a glance at Isobel.
“Antsy to get back?” he asked, always keen to remind her how little she liked Viterra.
She scrunched her nose at a dead rodent nearby. “It’s aesthetically oppressive.”
He repressed a sigh.
Her gaze skated his way. “I noticed your little toy is no longer sleeping in my bed.”
David’s mind went quiet. His body rooted to the floor. Even his heartbeat slowed at the sudden crack of anger. “Toy?”
Bel rolled her eyes. “It was a joke.”
“Do you know what a joke is, Isobel?”
She ignored him. “I heard you scared her off.”
David had no idea what this meant. What had she heard? Who had she heard it from? How much of it was true?
The memory of tear-filled blue eyes struck like a whip, paired with undiluted pain as Anna had pushed past him to escape. She’d been desperate to get away from him, from the pain he’d caused.
David squeezed the bridge of his nose to rid himself of the images. “She felt better, so she left. I didn’t scare her off.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he sensed Sean’s incredulous stare, but he refused to acknowledge it.
Fuck off, he wanted to say.
You first, came the immediate reply.
Once again, David’s gaze fell on Bel’s swollen stomach. The dress she wore seemed to highlight all its glory. The dichotomy of knowing that child wasn’t his but feeling as if it was had begun to fray David’s edges.
“Do you remember Meléan’s daughter?” he asked, trying for any subject that would eradicate this sudden edginess filleting his chest.
“Bits and pieces. Those memories are hazy.”
“Meléan had her young, too.”
“Not this young.”
Touché. “What was her name? She didn’t belong to Galadaine or Lhynion.”
Emerald eyes touched on him, then darted away. “As ever, Meléan’s bloodline was perpetuated by strangers. I don’t even know my father.”
He hummed and turned from her. “Sometimes it’s better that way.”
Pity flared in her emotions, and she stepped into his line of sight, forcing him to look at her. “I think I owe you an apology.”
Apology? He eyed her carefully, searching for the catch. “I think you owe me many apologies, Isobel.”
“Yes,” she said, “but this is the only one you’ll get.”
He snorted. Typical.
She sucked in a breath, like the next words required fortitude. “I was told your childhood was stolen by coercion, that your obedience to your father was compelled from birth.”
David’s mouth tightened. His heart, however, slowed even further, ice creeping across every bit of it.
“I believed you evil from the cradle.” Isobel’s voice shrunk to a near whisper. “I’m sorry for that. Sean believes you’re good, and I’ve chosen to trust him.”
David glanced Sean’s way. “He believes I’m good because I’m part of him now.”
“No. He believes you’re good because he knows you now. Your souls aren’t different because they’re joined. They’re merely stronger for it.”
Stronger.
He made Sean…stronger?
An odd thought.
Isobel placed her hand over her belly—a simple gesture that should have gone unnoticed. Instead, something glitched in the connection. The edginess exploded into true panic.
The baby.
His baby.
No.
Not his baby.
Or was it?
Why couldn’t he remember?
In one fell swoop, a dam broke inside—just burst apart like it had never been. He wasn’t aware how much he’d been holding back until it all rushed forth in a great tidal wave of feeling, and his rational mind disappeared in the surge.
Memories sprung from the depths, words his subconscious had clung to and muddled over for months.
You’ll share everything. You’ll be one.
She’s with child.
You’re afraid you’ll turn into your ancestor.
I’m not a plague.
They don’t deserve you.
You said I could trust you.
You know I’m going to figure it out.
David sucked in a breath—stilted, unsatisfying—and fire leached across his entire body. Every shard of ice melted in the wake of the destruction. After years of suppression, emotions poured out of him. His barriers bent and buckled under the weight.
Across the room, the voices paused as Sean gripped his chest, doubling over. David stumbled away from Isobel, staring at her stomach.
Not his child.
Not. His. Child.
“David?” Bel reached a hand for him, brow creased, then turned to Sean. “Sean?”
“I’m fine,” David said with an ironclad voice, though he wasn’t at all.
A curse drew his attention toward Bowenn, who’d whipped out a knife.
“Hello, hello,” said a silky male voice from the broken glass door that led to the building’s lobby. “What do we have here? Trespassers?”
Behind the man, several others poked their heads in, eager purple eyes scanning the abandoned room.
“Something delicious this way comes,” the man whispered barely loud enough to be heard. He zeroed in on David.
Ah.
They could sense his breakdown.
Fucking scavengers.
Sean ripped his blades from their holsters as David shoved Isobel behind him.
“You don’t need to shield me,” she said, annoyed. “I’m unbreakable.”
“Is that baby unbreakable?”
A bolt of her fear pierced his chest, and all purple eyes snapped toward it.
Emotional vampires, Sean had once called them. David got it now. Their lust for emotions couldn’t be slaked.
Had his slip in control lured them here? He was such an idiot.
The man’s expression morphed from delight to understanding in an instant. He eyed Sean and held back his gang with a hand signal. “Lightfuckers,” he hissed in that shadowy version of Lux.
“There are only ten of them,” a girl said behind him. “And dozens of us.”
Not great odds.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
The man latched his gaze on Sean. “I know your face.”
Sean raised an eyebrow, taking slow steps toward Isobel, knives at the ready. “Then you probably know what I’m capable of.”
David almost laughed. What a cocky motherfucker.
A smile stretched over the man’s face. “Banasté will be so pleased that we found you.”
Banasté? Who the fuck—
The Indy pulled out a semiautomatic pistol and pointed it at Sean’s head, and David’s questions disappeared.
Kywyn leapt toward Sean.
Isobel screamed.
Chaos erupted.
Bel pushed David and ran toward the gunman. He switched his aim toward her, so David grabbed her from behind. He spun so his back faced the enemy.
She fought, screaming for him to let go.
Sean, Kywyn, and Bowenn charged, and the gun exploded.
A pixie fell to the floor.
Isobel shrieked again, fighting to be free.
“Get her out of here!” Sean yelled.
The din of a brawl broke the silence of the office graveyard.
“Stop fighting me!” David yelled at Isobel.
She dragged her claws down his cheek, then slammed her head into his forehead. His grip loosened. Dazed, his vision clouded as he grasped for her again.
The blurry clash on the other side of the room had devolved into brutal violence, and Isobel was heading straight for it. He darted after her, yanking her back by the wrist. “You can’t fight!”
Her emotional core overloaded with panic, nearly electric against his skin. It caught the attention of two Indies, who crept closer, smiling.
“I can’t leave him.” She scratched at his hand while her green eyes went feral.
“Isobel!” he snapped. “We have to get out of here.”
“No,” the creature purred, hiding in a twentysomething girl. “Don’t leave.”