Chapter 3 #2
My brother’s deadened gaze tracks Muta as the bushmaster slips under the fence and slithers through the wildflowers growing rampant across the open fields of the estate.
I see purple larkspur in the mix, which is ironic for more than one reason.
The color is almost a match to Zaya’s eyes as a teen, and Ingrid fussed about the plant being poisonous when Zaya had picked her a bouquet.
In the late summers, since we’d all clearly demonstrated being entirely unbothered by casual contact, we’d often helped the mage harvest larkspur seeds, which hold the highest concentration of toxin.
And then … that last summer together. Reck whispering her flower-inspired nickname against Zaya’s shoulder as he gently removed blossoms tangled in her hair after we’d all …
Chest tightening, I shove away the barrage of recollections.
Rath finally shuts his bike down. The rumble from the engine fades, leaving us once again in the stillness of the dawn. It should be beautiful, life affirming. But it’s just another day without my mate.
“Did you test the gate?” Rath finally asks.
“I can feel the barrier from here,” I say, trying to not be pissy about the interruption of my morning ritual. And failing.
Rath’s shoulders tense, as if he’s stopping himself from leaping off his bike to test the gate for himself. “As her mate … you sealed the bond …”
“I know.” We’ve had this conversation a half-dozen times. Based on the research Rath crammed into the few precious hours that we had our mate back, he thinks I should be able to breach the estate barrier. As Muta can.
“The estate and Zaya are entwined, yes. Zaya and I are entwined, yes. But the estate is protecting itself. Like it did when Disa died.”
“Zaya is not dead!” Rath snarls. Then, seemingly exhausted by that abrupt outburst of emotion, he scrubs his hand over his face.
“The ongoing threat has to impact them both, Zaya and the intersection point,” I say mildly. “Hence the lockdown. Different layers of security, like I have on my systems.”
‘The ongoing threat.’ The Cataclysm is who I mean — but I don’t say the name out loud.
Rath never utters his name either, club moniker or not.
Not out of fear. Not now, not anymore. Now it’s unmitigated anger that keeps us from speaking of our sperm donor.
Both of us need to be in control, especially because the last time Rath lost it — less than a week ago — I had to ask for Reck’s help to fucking rescue him.
My elder brother’s life is the only one I’m willing to risk.
I had no idea we’d get so close to the Cataclysm after racing after Rath for the border.
I have no idea how our sperm donor knew Rath had breached his territory.
Presumably my half-brother, with us in pursuit, was spotted heading that way through the Cataclysm’s spy network, but it was the first time I’d seen him in the flesh for thirteen years …
when he’d trailed Reck to the intersection point and snapped Zaya’s neck in front of us all.
Even after tearing off the celestial dragon’s fucking antler — in an attempt to wring his neck, I presume — our sperm donor fucking fled when faced with the three of us, crossing through some sort of fucked-up portal and leaving his enforcers to hold us off.
I left Reck to unleash the slaughter and the fucked-up mayhem that comes naturally to him, and I dragged Rath away.
But I learned that the Cataclysm is wary of us three. As idiotic as it was for Rath to attempt to infiltrate the Federation on his own, forcing us to chase after him, it proved that one thing.
The Cataclysm isn’t ready to face all three of us. Not yet.
“How’s the head?” I ask Rath instead of rehashing any of that out loud, but unable to not still be an asshole about it.
My uncharacteristically reckless, verging-on-unhinged brother grimaces, then rubs the left side of his head. The same spot where, in his celestial dragon form, he’s still missing one of his antlers.
“You’re fucking lucky he didn’t snap your neck,” I say sourly.
Rath is also fucking lucky that when Doc Z totally ratted out his plan to go after the Cataclysm, I wasn’t so stubborn as to not enlist Reck.
He’s even fucking luckier that he isn’t skilled enough to evade Coda’s tracking, letting us get to him before he could do more than just cross the border.
But my own wing was barely healed from the first confrontation with our sperm donor over the barrens.
Or more specifically, the confrontation with the dire mages in his employ.
And Reck was so fucked up, he spent the bulk of the drive to Rath’s rescue passed out in the back seat of my truck.
“He can’t kill us,” Rath rumbles pissily. “Not without weakening Zaya.”
“He wants her weak,” I snap. “The only way he’s holding her is if she’s compromised. Somehow.”
“That intel is fucking weeks old. For all we know, the fucking universe has her gallivanting around doing shit at its behest and Coda just can’t track her.”
We’ve got people inside the Federation, but none as close as Pinky’s contact — a former sister-in-law who apparently has her own contact close to the Cataclysm.
But too much communication between Pinky’s sis-in-law and her contact might mean a death sentence for everyone involved.
We don’t even know the identity of that insider, or how they’d gotten eyes on Zaya in the first place.
“I need you to take another go at Bellamy,” Rath says, changing the topic seemingly at random. Except that everything and anything we discuss is about Zaya, about getting our mate home safely.
About being at her side to face whatever she’s facing, shielding her from whatever we can shield her from.
That newly-healed-over void in my chest wells with helpless frustration, threatening to crack open. I shove all that useless shit down, though, looking away to see if I can track Muta through the wildflowers.
“Bellamy is an untapped resource,” Rath continues insistently.
“She’s been with him way more recently than any of us have, and she’s seen how his operation is currently running.
She can give us insights into his patterns, tell us if Zaya is at his main compound or somewhere else, tell us how he’s holding her.
Did he run from the three of us, or was there another reason for his retreat?
If so, how can we capitalize on that? I would have expected him to try to take at least one of us, for leverage or even to kill us in front of … ”
Rath trails off as he puts together what he’s saying now with what he so stupidly tried to do during his solo attempted suicide run against our father. “Fuck,” he mutters. “He didn’t even bother transforming to face me.”
No, he didn’t. Not even when Reck and I showed up midfight. So why retreat?
“Why me?” I say dully, responding to Rath’s initial request rather than delving into his revelation.
Because I don’t have any of those answers either.
Bellamy hasn’t said a fucking useful word to anyone in the almost three months she’s been held by the Outcast. Of course, that involuntary imprisonment might directly correlate to her selective muteness.
“You know Presh is the only one she’ll talk to. ”
“The Outcast isn’t letting Presh get anywhere near Bellamy,” Rath says.
That’s another ache, for all three of us — assuming Reck occasionally surfaces from his self-destruct mode enough to feel actual emotions. In the aftermath of losing Zaya and everyone being kicked off the Gage estate, the Outcast got his hands on Presh.
Under the guise of protecting our sister from further kidnapping attempts, and not only by the Cataclysm, our uncle is practically keeping the young awry hostage.
Granted, my little sister is with my mother and the twins, and DeVille has been granted visitor rights.
But that’s only due to the ‘touched by a goddess’ issue and comes with very specific and limited hours of access.
The other looming issue is the fucking Authority.
They’re reaching out through proper channels right now, and the Outcast is stonewalling them, but I doubt that will last. Presh is on some list of ‘persons of interest,’ along with Reck, Bellamy, Zaya, and the two extremely dead Authority agents we disposed of.
DeVille thoroughly mauled Shaw, and that sort of infraction, according to the Authority, comes with a no-trial-necessary, instant-death-penalty judgement. A reminder of why they’re also known as “the Purge.”
Either that or DeVille could join the Authority himself. They’d love to get their hands on the sabertooth tiger — the same way they got Reck and the cu-sith.
Reck still has no idea that I long ago uncovered the real reason he suddenly abandoned us to enroll in and be fast-tracked through Authority training after Zaya’s death.
“Fuck all that shit,” I snarl, starting my bike.
Not that Rath has any idea what encompasses ‘shit,’ since I’m all up in my head. But I catch his almost feral grin of agreement as my back tire spins in the loose gravel at the edge of the road. Then we’re both speeding toward the Outcast pack house.
It’s intermittently raining by the time we pull our bikes into one of the garages on the Outcast’s property. Protocol dictates that as unaffiliated shifters, we should check in with the Outcast, or at least with the highest-ranked lieutenant on-site. We don’t.
We cram into the elevator at the back of the garage, and Rath repeatedly pokes at the button for 3B so hard I’m concerned it might shatter. Stopping the idiot from doing it a fifth time, I shoulder him to the side and scan the access code off my phone.
He huffs. “Forgot about that.”