Chapter 4 #4
“Especially girls,” I say, tugging the new underwear on under the silk dress and blithely ignoring that it hasn’t been washed yet. Zaya Gage gets to be an utter snob about her clothing. The Conduit takes what is offered in order to keep moving forward.
Jewels glances at me, eyes wide with fear. “After …” She shakes her head, correcting herself. “Something happened. Years ago now. And he couldn’t … he killed at least three of his chosen women before the next in line figured out that he was sterile.”
“Something happened …” My stomach sinks. I weave more threads together in my mind, piecing together a little more of the tapestry my aunt and I apparently share. Or that she bequeathed to me. “Thirteen years ago?”
Jewels shrugs, unsure. “Something like that.”
Did that ‘something’ happen on the night the Cataclysm snapped my neck, killing me for the very first time?
Even though I should have been safe on the estate, sheltered by my aunt and the intersection point.
Did my aunt do something to her rejected mate in retaliation?
Did she try to kill him? The result of which was … infertility?
“But you’re pregnant,” I say, pointing out the obvious.
“It isn’t his.” Jewels swallows harshly, warily.
Of exposing her secrets? Or just of me in general?
“I … we … there’s generally some overlap between the women he selects to breed.
We talk to each other. We explain what has to happen for his next breeder to survive.
We pick … we try to pick other donors that share some …
you know, some similar characteristics. Though that’s not always possible because we have to be careful.
Careful that they won’t just go to him, tell him.
It’s … it’s for the children, you understand. ”
“I understand.”
“I’m far enough along that I know it’s a girl, so he’s extra protective of me. But the eldest of the kids … the kids who aren’t actually his … is only a couple of months away from turning twelve …”
“And he’ll know,” I say, so she knows I understand the situation. “When their essence matures enough to sense their beast or whether or not the girls are awry.”
“Yes.”
“Is Presh his youngest?” I ask.
Jewels rubs her arms, gaze fixated on the still-burning ruins of the house. “I don’t know. Not for certain.”
I feel her lie shift between us. Maybe a half-truth hidden in her words. Despite my connection to Rought, I’m not telepathic or empathetic in the least, so the truth Jewels is hiding is something I apparently need to know.
“His son,” Jewels continues, not looking at me. “The one with the Authority, he might know.”
Reck? “He’s involved in all of this?” I ask, my tone suddenly edged, harsh.
She flinches, actually shying away from me. “N … N … No, not like that. It’s only whispers, but he’s … gotten some of his siblings out if he can. But he usually waits until they’re older, like eighteen. Probably for legal reasons or something.”
“He has a savior complex,” I snort. “Why am I not surprised?”
Jewels looks at me hesitantly. “And you? Do you have a savior complex?”
I smile grimly. “Yeah, me too. Though mine is built into my essence-gifted destiny, not focused solely on my bloodline.”
Jewels matches my grim smile. Then she starts the truck, shifts it into gear, and heads for the road.
I finish changing. The clothing is all a little too big, and the shorts way too short.
My exposed legs are shockingly pale. I roll down the window as we approach the edge of the property.
A small building burns merrily a few steps away from an open industrial gate, chain-link fences topped with razor wire stretching out to either side.
Presumably a guardhouse, and confirming that all the outbuildings must have been interconnected by underground tunnels.
I toss the silk dress out the window. A thread of essence pretending to be a nonexistent breeze snags it and pulls it into the fire, where it’s instantly incinerated. I must have bled on it. Still, that seems an overreaction. Even by the universe.
“Where is he?” I ask, rolling up the window against the sweltering heat as Jewels pauses at the turn onto the road.
I should just use his name, but apparently, it’s my turn to hesitate.
And not just for Jewels’s sensibilities.
I wouldn’t be fucking surprised if the Cataclysm knows the moment I leave the property boundary.
“Headed for the border,” Jewels says. “I waited until he’d been gone for at least an hour.”
“It takes him that long to set up a portal?”
She offers me a twisted smile. “No, he’s driving. The portals drain him. Badly.”
Bellamy said something similar, didn’t she?
“And …” Jewels adds smugly, “he didn’t feed on you before he rushed to the hospital.”
“Is the baby okay? Are you okay?”
Jewels laughs, tired and overwhelmed. “I called in all the favors I had. Every last one of them, just to get us to this point. With a friend at the hospital to fake some tests and reports. With a couple of my dad’s buddies on the police force.
Even though they’re all on his payroll, some loyalties run deeper than bribes.
There should be at least one cruiser sitting on all the entrances to the compound.
” She gestures at the clearly empty road stretching out to either side of us.
“But our window is tight. Really tight. The thing at the border with the self-proclaimed rebels? I’m lucky I already had everything else in place. ”
“Lucky … right … that’s one way to look at it.” I allow my head to fall back against the headrest, desperate to close my eyes for a moment. The day is far too bright. I don’t, though. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Thank you,” Jewels murmurs, resting her hand over her belly again. “I’m so sorry about … everything he made me do … Zaya.”
“You made the right choices in the moment,” I say, noting her hesitation to use my name — and not quite certain whether I’m lying or not. “I can get you to the other side of this.”
“Okay,” she whispers, settling her hands firmly on the steering wheel, then looking both ways multiple times, left and right, up and down the road. Her voice firms. “Okay.” Then she turns the truck sharply left.
Eastward, according to the dashboard compass. The opposite of the direction I want to be going. Something tugs in my chest, like a pinch of sadness.
Farther away, I realize. I’ve just turned farther away from my mate.
My mates. Plural. Though I have no idea how I’m going to breach the chasm between Reck and me. I’m not certain if I really want to.
My aunt survived without all her soul-bound mates.
She also died easily a century before her time, thereby stealing that century of my life. Stealing my life as Zaya, with my own soul-bound mates, from me.
“Do you have any sunglasses?” I ask Jewels, shoving away the useless self-pity. It’s done. Unchangeable. Dwelling in the past won’t fix what’s broken in the now.
“Oh, um, it’s not my truck, so I’m not sure.”
I yank open the glovebox, finding a handgun, a knife, and a couple of packages of hot sauce. No sunglasses. I sigh, rubbing my already aching temples. “I’m going to need a phone.”
Jewels shakes her head. “Not within the Federation. It’s all monitored. But … once you get us over the border … we’ll try to get you anything you need. You …. you can get us over the border, right? All of us? My mother, Pinky’s friend, is getting everything organized with the kids, but —”
“Yes.” I press my head back against the headrest again, finally allowing myself to close my eyes against the bright day.
Just for a moment. I ignore Jewels’s ‘but’ and everything implied in the unarticulated question.
I wouldn’t be heading this way if the universe wasn’t going to use me to extract the kids from Federation territory. “I can get you all over the border.”
Jewels’s grip on the wheel remains firm, her attention on the road fixed as she takes me farther and farther away from where I desperately want to be.
Where I can surround myself with the family I’m slowly building.
A family I’m still not certain I deserve.
A family I’m not certain I’m allowed to have —
Jewels clears her throat. “You mean California, though, right? Because, um, the Navajo Nation won’t allow us to stay —”
“Through the Navajo Nation and into California. All of you, all at once. Safe and sound,” I say, essence threading through my words, enforcing the promise. Even if I don’t yet know who exactly makes up the ‘us’ I need to collect and protect.
Jewels’s energy finally relaxes, just a little. She turns up the air conditioning, then fiddles with the radio, finding a station that plays old rock. Classic rock, I suppose it’s properly called. But it feels old.
Like I do, deep in my bones now. The ancient power settling deeper within me.
Everlasting. Conduit. Goddess?
I had had a thought … tangled with Rought in my bed, perched on Rath’s lap in the tower library, whispering with Presh in the early morning … that I might be able to be both a person and the Conduit.
But those blood runes the Cataclysm used to imprison me? They feel etched deeper than skin now, carved into bone, threaded through my life force, woven through my very DNA. Containing Zaya, caging her, until only the Conduit, the goddess, remains.
Of course, that all could just be an overreaction.
I’ve had a shitty fucking day, and it’s only just beginning.