Destiny, page 14
Goddess, she really was magnificent on a hunt. And I had no doubts about what was going on, we were hunting. Together.
And I loved watching my mate move. I loved how deadly she was. I loved knowing she could fight her way out of here if we needed to. She was dangerous. A threat. A beautiful, sexy, passionate threat, and she was mine.
Pulling myself into the building, I landed on the floor next to her in a storage room of some kind. Shelves lined with boxes and supplies surrounded us. My eyes adjusted quickly, and I saw Destiny standing near the door. Listening.
The muffled sound of conversation came clearly through from the other side. A stream of light slipped just under the door itself, and I noticed Destiny was careful to keep the toes of her boots just out of sight. One hand was on the door, the other on a weapon. She was thorough, and ready for trouble, although I doubted anyone would get close to the door without her knowing.
I wanted to push her out of the way and listen myself. I wanted to open the door and peek outside, assess the situation. Decide on a course of action. But something about the way she moved held me in check. She wasn’t just listening at the door, she was listening. Intent. She obviously had a plan.
My only plan was to protect her.
I’m in. I’m always in.
I had made my mate a promise just a few minutes ago, and I had no intention of breaking it now. When I found her freezing and miserable, alone on top of that roof, my heart had broken at my own stupidity. She was out there, alone, unprotected, because of me. I’d gotten exactly the opposite of what I’d wanted.
I needed to make her understand what she was to me. I wanted her to know I loved everything about her. I hadn’t realized it until now, but it was the truth.
Unable to speak, I reached for her hand. When she turned to look at me with a question in her gaze, I kissed her. Really kissed her, with everything in me. Everything. Willing her to understand.
When I pulled back, she stared at me for long seconds, holding my gaze. Then she smiled. Nodded.
She understood. Thank the goddess. I never wanted to see her look at me with so much hurt in eyes again, not at my betrayal. And I had betrayed her. I realized that now. It took being secured naked—alone—to our bed to see it.
Never again.
She turned back to the door and I inspected the room, looking for anything useful. Exits. Weapons. I had plenty on my utility belt—a new one since she had mine—but it never hurt to be prepared.
There was neither. The window and the door were the only two ways in or out. And without opening the boxes, I had no idea what might be in them.
She pulled me down close, her lips pressed to my ear. She spoke so softly I barely heard her.
“There are twenty-two distinct voices. Six female. The nearest is about ten steps to the right of this door.”
My eyes widened and I stared at her. How the fuck did she know that?
“Nix? Did you hear me?”
I nodded and squeezed her shoulder so she’d know I was listening.
“If anything goes wrong, we need to get Morson out. He’s Optimus Unit, one of the good guys. The only one.”
I squeezed her shoulder again. I knew who he was. How she knew what she was telling me, I had no idea. But I trusted her.
“Everyone else can fucking rot.”
Awww, there was my female. I grinned, which made her squeeze my shoulder.
Then she froze.
“Do you hear that?”
I shook my head. What? What was she talking about? Just like that night in Elder Amandine’s office. She’d said she’d heard something and I hadn’t. And she’d been right.
“Oh, shit.”
She pulled away from me and walked along the boxes, listening. Searching. Then she stopped and just stared at one in particular. “This one,” she whispered as she pulled a box down off the shelf.
I saw the circuits and wiring a split-second before she could pull off the lid. Fuck, she’d kill everyone in the building!
Slamming my hand down on top of the box, I tore it from her arms and settled it back where it had been on the shelf. When she just looked at me, I pointed to the circuits and leaned in close. “It’s a bomb.” The timing circuit was clearly visible, counting down in a military style system of clicks I knew all too well.
She frowned. Stared at the odd dashes and lines on the display. “How long?”
I glanced at it again. “Five and a half minutes.”
Her eyes widened slightly, but she remained calm. “Shit. There are twenty-two people who are going to be blown up. We have to get Morson out of here.”
“Morson?” I whispered. Fuck Morson. He’d walked into this place, he could get himself out. There was a fucking bomb right in front of us. I had no idea if this was the only one or not. I needed to get my mate out of here.
Now.
She darted toward the door. I grabbed her by the elbow. When she turned back to look at me, I saw raw fury in her eyes.
“What?”
“Obviously, someone wants a lot of people dead.”
“A bomb?” I heard a female voice clearly through my comms unit. Princess Trinity, most likely. Other voices came through as well, hearing our conversation. “Get out of there!”
If Destiny could hear a pin drop in the other room, then she could hear her sister’s command, yet she paid her no attention.
“Mate, someone’s been killing people off one at a time. Crayden was the latest.”
I saw a shiver run through her, most likely as she envisioned coming upon his body.
“This bomb—” I pointed to the box. “It’s a step up. No muss, no fuss, but a big explosion with a big body count. The mastermind isn’t here, but he has been. Looks like he’s cleaning house. Completely. Adding you to the list will just be a bonus. We need to get out of here. Now.”
She shook her head.
“We need more intel. We need Morson alive,” she murmured, her voice close to my ear. Her breath fanned my neck, but this was not the time to even consider how it made me feel. “Two minutes to listen and get Morson. Then I’ll be out the nearest window or door. Are you in, or are you out, Nix?”
Fuck. She was right. If everyone in the room was worth killing off, we did need what we could get out of them before they were blown to bits. We couldn’t storm in, arrest them all, and get them all to talk. That would take much longer than five minutes.
Fuck. Fuck!
“Two minutes and we’re out of here. I will carry you out if I have to.” I might be allowing her to remain, but on my terms.
“You’re such a caveman.” She stroked her knuckles down my cheek as I often did to her.
She turned toward the door and I let her go.
Book 9
Prologue
Queen Celene – Optimus Unit Prison, Cell Level C
* * *
I stared at the wall, trying, once more, to use my power.
Nothing. I’d been too long from the citadel, the bond grown too weak to use as I once had.
The last time I’d truly used my gift, it had saved my life. It had often felt like yesterday when I’d had to flee, but now… it felt like a lifetime ago.
I needed to return to the citadel. Reconnect. Become strong, as I was long ago. My daughters needed me. Alera needed their queen. First, I needed to escape.
The cleric bitch who’d threatened my daughters was gone. Had been for days. I had no idea if she were dead or alive. I’d been well-treated since then, strangely so considering the misery when I’d first been taken. Not that it mattered. I had to get out of here. Time was ticking in my mind like the countdown on a bomb.
Something had changed, something significant. The moment that cleric had murdered the guard I thought of as Scarface, everything had shifted.
My clothes were warmer.
There had been no more beatings. Before that even, if I thought about it, but it was as if I’d gone from a cruel gulag to the Four Seasons, by comparison.
I had shoes and thick socks to keep my feet warm and an extra blanket on my bed.
I wasn’t hungry, either. I’d given in and eaten everything they brought me, which had been not only delicious, but nutritious as well. Fattening me up for the slaughter, perhaps? No. If they wanted to kill me with poison, it would have happened long ago. Besides, they didn’t need to resort to such devious means to commit murder. If they wanted me dead, they could slit my throat and dump my body in the Western Sea. It was only a few hours away by EV, and the creatures that lurked beneath the waves on Alera were much more aggressive than the peaceful sharks on Earth. They were true predators. Piranha-like monsters the size of small boats, some of them with teeth longer than my arms.
Dead or alive, I’d be fish food in a matter of minutes. Seconds, even.
I’d been moved three times in the last two days, so when the door opened and I saw the two young guards holding handcuffs, I wasn’t surprised. Their words, however, shocked me.
“Greetings, My Queen. We have been sent to escort you to your new home.” One spoke. Both bowed.
What the hell was going on here?
They knew I was the queen. Greeted me formally. As Destiny would say, WTF?
“What are you talking about? Where are you taking me? To the palace?”
The second guard straightened and stood tall, shifted his shoulders back and puffed out his chest, as if he were proud to be holding his queen captive. As if locking me up against my will was a fucking honor. “Our king has returned, My Queen. He has instructed us to escort you to your new home where he will see to your safety and well-being.”
The King? Again, WTF? What the hell were they talking about? “The king is dead.”
The first guard, young and beautiful, and clearly so, so naive, smiled. “No, My Queen. He lives. He has returned, at long last, to take his place by your side.”
“At long last?”
“Twenty-seven years is a long time to wait, My Queen. We had nearly given up hope.” His dark blue eyes were bright with excitement, as if he were about to open a gift on Christmas morning. The look was genuine. Which meant this young idiot believed what he was saying. He hadn’t even been alive all those years ago.
“The king has been gone for twenty-seven years?”
The second guard spoke. “Yes, My Queen. He disappeared when you did, and returned soon after your daughters appeared.”
“He disappeared because he’s dead,” I countered. Dead was dead. I’d watched as my mate, King Mykel, was stabbed, killed in front of me. It was a memory I could never forget.
“He’s alive and well and eager to see you, My Queen.”
But… could he be alive? Could he have somehow survived? Surely, others would have had to know; he’d have needed a ReGen pod. Help to get there. Doctors.
And this guard used the word eager. No one was eager and waited twenty-seven years. Yeah, I just bet he was. If it was Mykel then why wait so long? Why now? It seemed the game had changed even more than I had realized. Or maybe it wasn’t him. Someone else and that meant nothing had changed. I still didn’t know who’d kidnapped me. Tried to have the girls killed. Now they were going to try to convince me to accept someone else as my dead mate? Did they believe that after nearly thirty years, I would not recognize him? True, our mating had been short, the attack coming soon after our mating ceremony, but I would know him. He had eased my Ardor, pledged his life and love to me. And died protecting me. Or had he?
“Then where is he?” I asked the guard. “Tell him to come down here and explain this to me himself.” I’d watched a masked assassin in black drive a dagger through the king’s heart moments before I’d fled. That hadn’t been faked. Whoever these guards were following, he had to be an imposter of some kind. Surely. Mykel was long dead. My heart belonged to Adam now. Adam, who was far away on Earth, worried sick about his family.
“He can not yet reveal himself, My Queen. He has asked us to personally escort you to your new accommodations and see to your safety.”
I’ll just bet he has. “Then why the handcuffs?”
The first guard dipped his head in a show of apology. “Apologies, My Queen, but he was afraid you would not believe us and attempt to escape.”
The mystery king was right. But I wasn’t going to attempt anything.
I sat on the edge of my bed and took my sweet time putting on my shoes, hoping the guards would come closer and enter the room.
My patience was rewarded. By the time I was done, they were both inside my cell and the door left wide open behind them.
I stood and held out my wrists like a docile doe. The guard nearest me stepped forward with the cuffs.
“You know,” I said, “the last person to stand where you are now threatened to murder all three of my daughters.”
His eyes widened in a mix of surprise and horror, as if the idea was appalling to him. Strange, considering I was his prisoner. “Our apologies for your mistreatment. It took us some time to find you. I assure you, that person will not hurt you or the princesses.”
“Is that so?” The cuff drew near and I held back a smile when the second guard stepped closer, very close to the first. Two puppies, the bumbling fools. Kind, unlike the others, therefore, I would only incapacitate them, not hurt them.
Catching my escorts unaware, I grabbed the first guard’s wrist and tugged him toward me. Off balance and leaning forward, I swept his front leg with my foot as if I were kicking a soccer ball to the side. With his leg lifted out from under him, he fell like a redwood tree and the wind was knocked from him. On the way down, I grabbed the handcuffs.
The second guard stood there blinking, completely stunned that I’d actually moved, and on top of that had taken his partner to the ground. I took the opportunity to snap one end of the cuff around his wrist. When his eyes met mine, I gave him a small smile. “Sorry.”
I was a little bit sorry because they were sweet, but not sorry enough to stop.
Letting the cuff drop so it dangled from his wrist, I placed both hands on top of his hand and twisted. It turned his lower arm in a direction that wasn’t all that comfortable—thank you Destiny for torturing the entire family with showing all of us what she’d learned in her Jiu-Jitsu classes way back in ninth grade—until he had no choice but to drop to his knees, then to the ground as I kept up the pressure on his shoulder blade. He went to the floor or his shoulder popped out of the socket.
This happened in all of two seconds, and I wrapped the cuff around the nearest leg of the simple bed, then connected it to his partner’s wrist. The first guard was finally catching his breath and they flailed and tried to get up, but they didn’t make it far since their arms were trapped beneath the bedframe which was affixed to the floor.
I looked down at the two, wondering if they were the worst guards on the planet or if they had truly felt I was a sweet, kind queen they’d envisioned their whole lives. I could be sweet, but not when someone threatened my daughters. Moving to the open doorway, I stopped and looked back at them where they moved awkwardly on all fours. “You’ll be found soon.”
Someone would come for them, eventually. Moving on silent feet down the hallway, I kept going until I saw another guard. This one armed.
Good. When I found this imposter king, I was going to put a very large hole in his head.
When he saw me, he raised his weapon, but I played the weak woman card. “The guard, he’s hurt.” I pointed anxiously down the hallway and gave him an Academy Award winning performance. “Hurry, I think he needs a ReGen pod.”
He came close to me, his weapon forgotten since I hadn’t portrayed myself as a threat. As he was walking past me, I grabbed his ion pistol, quickly set it to stun and shot him.
He crumpled to the floor, remained still. Leaning down, I patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll live.” He’d be incapacitated for a while, but I had no idea the strength of his stun setting, so I didn’t linger.
Goddess, it felt good to be doing something, to be assertive instead of meek. Offensive instead of defensive. I was grateful they’d moved me to a less secure cellblock. They’d transferred me every day, as if they were barely keeping one step ahead of someone who was looking.
Well, the queen was out of the cage now, and the whole world was going to know about it. I’d lure this imposter king to me. And if it was Mykel after all these years, he was going down.
Alarms pealed, the sound harsh on my ears after so many days of near silence, alone in my cell. I might have been able to take down three guards, but it was impossible to disable cameras. Eyes on the walls saw everything. Saw me take down a guard. I ignored the shrill sound. I had to get out of this area of the prison, find guards who were loyal Alerans, not minions of my enemies.
The third guard station was manned, based on their uniforms, by three members of the Optimus Unit. Two females and one male, they all looked up when I blasted the lock on the door and stepped through to their station, their mouths hanging open in shock.
“You’re the queen.” The young female guard gaped and stood, her chair sliding across the floor in her haste. She was younger than my twins. Obviously, she hadn’t known I’d been here, which had me believing I’d been kept isolated, a secret.
I nodded. “I am. I demand to speak with Captain Travin Turaya, of the royal guard on a secure channel. Then you three will personally escort me to meet him.”
The all stared. Unmoving.
“Now.”
I wasn’t sure if it was their queen issuing a command or the ion pistol I aimed at them that got them moving. It didn’t matter. They were following my commands.
I smiled. The queen was back.
1
Destiny
* * *
Morson. Morson. Where the hell was this guy?
Nix searched the other side of the room, moving from shadow to shadow along the periphery, unnoticed by the attendees. I had no idea how that was even possible. He was six-foot-plus of pure power and raw sex appeal, but then, maybe since we were in a room full of traitors who were plotting to kill my mother and my sisters, they had other priorities.
