Luke & Rena, page 4
part #1 of Book Three Series
The bedroom was done up in blue, from the quilt on the bed to the curtains and rug. She sat on the bed and toed off her shoes, then flopped to her back.
Luke jumped onto the bed, making her bounce with his weight, and then he stretched out next to her and put his big head on her stomach.
She petted him, scratching behind his ears.
“This is surreal. But kind of cool, too. I wish we hadn’t started things out like this, but I’m glad we’re here now.”
She yawned again and closed her eyes, sleep quickly taking over as all thought fled, save for the soft press of Luke’s furry body against hers, and the sound of his breathing.
Luke woke up in his human form, curled around his mate. He was also naked, but that’s what happened with shifters. He rolled to his back and stretched, then sat up and climbed from the bed to get dressed. While he wanted to stay curled up with her, he knew they needed to get on the way.
He dressed in a dark shirt and pants and grabbed his shoes from the closet.
“Hey,” Rena said.
He turned to find her sitting up and giving him a wary smile. She probably thought he was mad at her, but he wasn’t, and he told her so.
“You should be mad at me,” she said. “I caused a lot of problems for you and your family and pack.”
“I don’t care about any of that, I only care about you.”
“You’re very sweet.”
“Just for you, I promise.”
Her wariness left and she genuinely smiled.
“Do you think we have time to eat? Berolith didn’t feed us when he imprisoned us in the iron bands.”
He let out a deep growl. “What a fucking bastard.”
“Yeah, well, he wanted us weak and it worked. If it weren’t for my parents offering me their power so I could boost my own and get free, I’d still be trapped. Or I would’ve been until you set me free. I can’t believe you got through his protection spell.”
“He’s powerful, that’s for sure.”
“Dark magic,” she said. “I suspect he and his family have been using spells to boost their power. He stopped my abilities, and I’ve never had anyone do that.”
He joined her on the bed. “Listen, I know now is not really the time for us to hash things out, but I want you to know–in case you were worried–that I’m not mad at you. I don’t like that you were so scared of being found by your parents that you refused to even talk to me. It’s been hell, honestly. And then you were taken right in front of me, that was even worse. I’m angry at the situation that your parents put you in, because they inadvertently put you and the fae girls in danger with their actions, but we’re together and that is what I’m going to focus on.”
She exhaled. “Once we get my parents to safety, we can talk more, but I appreciate you letting me know how you feel. I’m glad we’re together, too.”
He rose and offered her his hand, which she willingly took. The moment their hands touched his whole body jolted with awareness. He pulled her close and banded an arm around her waist so they were pressed tightly together. He could hear her heart beating quickly, could feel the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She smelled amazing, like candy and flowers, and she was so beautiful he felt like he was trying to look at the sun.
She tilted her head and he lowered his until their lips met.
It was the first kiss, the first soft brush of their lips, and it made everything in him go profoundly quiet.
Their lips parted and their tongues touched, and he groaned at the sweet, decadent taste of her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and went onto her toes, her nails scraping his skin as she held herself tightly against him.
As far as first kisses went, it rocked.
Someone knocked loudly on the door. “Time to go,” Kash said.
Luke snarled as he pulled from Rena’s drugging kiss. “Damn it.”
Her eyes were a little glazed over and she smiled sweetly at him. “Let’s do that again later.”
“You got it.”
They met up with the others in the family room. While they went over the plan, he grabbed her a bag of his mom’s trail mix which had almonds, dark chocolate, and dried cranberries and gave her a glass of water. She devoured the trail mix, so before they left the house, he found some dried meat in the pantry which she eagerly took.
“Any questions?” Crimson asked as he rolled up the map.
“Is a doctor standing by?” Rena asked. “They’ll need treatment right away.”
Jenna nodded. “Yes, we called for Viscount to come help out. He’ll have the chelation treatment ready to go when we get back with them.”
“Good, thank you.”
Their group left the house. Crimson opened a portal to the woods outside of Tamsin Glen. As their party stepped out of the portal, the woods went silent save for the rustling of the leaves in the tall trees.
As they’d planned, Rena cast a location spell to find her parents. While Berolith might have his location cloaked from view, Rena was able to pinpoint the direction for them to travel.
They reached a rundown castle that looked like it hadn’t been lived in for decades, but Luke knew that might be a façade. Protection spells could do all kinds of things, as Rena had proven when her hair and eye color had been changed with hers. He thought she was a beautiful brunette, but he loved her natural white hair even better.
They stopped at the gates of the crumbling stone walls that protected the overgrown yard.
Rena said, “Give me your hand.”
Luke willingly gave it.
She held up her free hand and closed her eyes. He felt something pulling on him from the inside, like someone was walking around inside his body and trying to drag parts of him along. It didn’t hurt, but it did feel strange.
He watched in awe as her gorgeous wings slipped from her back and a protection spell appeared in the air, shimmering red as it cloaked the castle and yard from view. She touched the spell and a hole appeared, enlarging just enough for them to pass through single file.
Once they were through the spell, he could see the castle wasn’t quite as run-down as it appeared. It wasn’t in great condition, but it did look like someone was living there.
“Oh, I can feel them,” she whispered. She gripped Luke’s hand and cast a protection spell around them all. “Now he won’t know we’re here. My parents are on the ground floor on the right side. They’re together.”
“Let’s go get them,” Luke said.
She kissed his cheek and let go of his hand. “Thanks for trusting me to use your power.”
“Well, I didn’t know what you were doing but I trust you one hundred percent.”
“That means the world to me.”
Their group hurried across the yard and found a door that wasn’t guarded. Kash used his powers to unlock the door, then he and Logan stayed outside to stand guard while the rest of them hurried into the castle.
“Stay with me,” Luke whispered to Rena. “We don’t know what we might be facing.”
“Hopefully we’ll be gone before he knows we’re here, but I’m by your side like glue.”
The castle smelled like mold and rot, and it clearly hadn’t been cleaned in a long while.
“Here,” she said, as they rounded a corner and faced another long hall. Jenna used her power to unlock the door. Luke went in first, and Rena followed. She rushed to a bed where her parents were slumped together, the skin around the iron bands nearly black from the poison, with lines snaking all over their arms and across their chests.
“Oh, no,” Rena whispered.
“I’ve got it,” Jenna said. She opened a portal. “Let’s get out of here before he finds out what we’ve done.”
Crimson picked up her mother and Luke lifted her father from the bed.
“No,” he whispered, his lips cracking and bleeding.
“It’s okay, you’re safe now,” Luke said.
His head lolled to the side and a shallow breath puffed from his lips, but he didn’t say anything else. Luke carried him through the portal which was open in front of his family’s house. Viscount, a fae healer, was waiting on the porch. “Bring them in right away, we must start the process immediately.”
“That was too easy,” Rena said.
“How was it easy?” Luke asked as he carried her dad into the house. “You had to break a protection spell that was so powerful I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“I know,” she said, “but he didn’t have any guards. Why wouldn’t my parents have been under guard?”
“He seems like an arrogant prick,” Crimson said.
Luke and his father set her parents on Luke’s bed and stepped back to let Viscount work.
Rena moved into Luke’s arms and sighed. “Maybe that’s what it is, just arrogance.”
“We got your parents to safety, that’s what matters.”
She lifted her face to his. “Let’s put a protection spell on the house, just to be safe.”
“There already is one,” Crimson said.
“Not one as powerful as I can do,” she said.
“Good point.”
Luke and Rena walked outside and he watched his mate cast a spell that was many times over what he could do himself.
As the shimmery protection spell trickled down over the house and yard, he smiled at her.
“What’s that look for?” she asked, lowering her hands.
“You’re just awesome.”
“Aw. You are too.”
“I want to talk,” he said.
“You say talk like it means more than talk.”
“I want to do that too,” he said gruffly, “but I want to get to know you also. We’ve got a while to go before your parents are healthy, so let’s just talk.”
“Sounds perfect.”
They checked on her parents and then went into his father’s study after grabbing some more food from the kitchen. They ate and talked, taking the time they had now to get to know each other a little better. There would be time later for more intimate things.
Rena enjoyed getting to know Luke. The few hours they’d spent in his dad’s study just talking had meant the world to her. She left the study to check on her parents.
Viscount was holding her mom’s wrist and checking her pulse.
“How are they?” she asked softly.
“I used the spell to chelate the iron from their body. What they were able to expel, they did, but they’d been poisoned for too long, so some iron is still in their systems.”
She frowned and then it struck her. “They got worse because I used my siren nature to siphon their power.”
Luke joined her. “You’re not blaming yourself for what happened to them, it’s all on Berolith.”
Viscount gently put her mom’s hand down. “The truth is that you did stunt their natural healing abilities by taking their power to increase yours. But judging by how badly the poisoning had progressed, I’d say that this Berolith male added more iron to them while they were with him to make it worse.”
“I hate that they were hurt,” she said. “I wish I could give them my power.”
“You can’t?” Luke asked.
She’d told him what it meant to be a sirenfae, that she could take power from people and use it herself or give it to others to use. It was a temporary thing–she didn’t get to keep any powers she used and taking someone’s power too fast–like she’d done to the guard in the castle–would harm the fairy and could even kill them if she took too much too quickly.
“Fast healing isn’t a fairy power, it’s part of being a supernatural creature,” she said. “Gifting them with my power wouldn’t change what the iron did to them it would only be a boost to their own sirenfae powers. I wish I could.”
She leaned against him and he put his arms around her. “How long will it take for their natural healing to get rid of the rest of the iron?”
“A few days most likely,” Viscount said.
He kissed the top of her head. “I don’t suppose you want to head back to Allen before they’re well?”
She shook her head. “It’s safest for them to be here until they’re well.”
She could tell he didn’t agree with that but taking her parents to the human realm wasn’t going to do them any good. The truth was that if something happened and they got worse, Viscount had access to other fae who could help. If they were in the other realm, there would be a delay in getting them what they needed.
The whole house shook suddenly, the doors and windows rattling, things falling and breaking.
“Holy shit,” Luke said, bracing himself on the doorjamb and holding her close. “I didn’t know there were earthquakes here.”
Dread slithered over her. “We don’t get them. It’s something else.”
“Guys,” Crimson called from the family room. “Get out here now.”
She and Luke hurried to the family room and found everyone staring out the windows.
“What’s going on?” Luke asked.
“There are slavers outside of the protection spell,” Riyad said.
Crimson moved aside so she and Luke could look out the window. She counted six slavers. They were awful creatures–supernatural humans with violent tendencies. She knew that Berolith had used slavers to track down the young fae females and their dragonfae sister, and he was a terrible, evil male himself, so it didn’t surprise her that he utilized them to do his dirty work.
“How did they find us?” Luke asked.
“Maybe he did a seeking spell,” Crimson said.
She stared at the slavers who stood in an unmoving line, their faces blank.
“I wonder,” she said. She didn’t finish her thought but returned to the bedroom and went to the bed. It took two minutes for her to find the tracker that Berolith had put on both her parents. The magical tracker looked like a swirl of gold glitter on their upper arms, the mark hidden by their shirts. She brushed it off and the spell was broken, but it was too late. The slavers had already found them.
She walked back into the family room and told everyone what she’d found. She stood next to Luke at the window, then frowned.
“Wait. There are only five now. Weren’t there six?”
She looked up at Luke. “I...shit. There’s one less. When did that happen? And how?”
The whole house shook again.
Jenna gasped. “They’re coming up from the ground!”
Luke lunged for the front door and raced outside to meet the slaver who crawled up through a hole in the ground just inside the protection spell’s perimeter. He pulled his sword from the sheath between his shoulders and struck, the male popping his armor-clad arm up to defect the blow just a second before Luke would’ve taken off his head. He parried and thrust, catching the male in the side with a glancing blow before he hefted himself from the hole and lurched away from his deadly blade.
He felt Rena and glanced at the house to see her wielding her fire balls again. His father and Kash raced out to join him as another earth-shaking occurred, followed by a hole opening up in the yard and a slaver appearing.
He’d never seen anything like the power that was being used by Berolith to get past Rena’s spell. And as far as Luke could tell, Berolith wasn’t anywhere around.
He was terrifyingly powerful.
The earthquakes happened so rapidly that Luke lost his balance. He toppled to one side, narrowly missing a slaver’s blade aimed for his heart. He swung his blade up, taking the hand off at the wrist. The male howled in pain and clutched his stump to his chest, backing away.
Luke rolled to his knees and looked at the house. Rena was sending fireballs into the yard to fight off the slavers, and everyone from inside the house had come out to fight them, including Jenna who stood with Rena on the porch.
Something caught Luke’s eye and he peered at the edge of the house. He’d seen something there. Hadn’t he?
He moved forward, his gaze focused entirely on the side of the house, but he didn’t see anything. Was he just exhausted and paranoid?
He was a few yards from the porch when something shimmered in the air and then a slaver appeared. He threw a net over Rena and she collapsed to the ground with a shriek of pain.
Rena!
Pain so great she’d never known its equal coursed through Rena like wildfire, licking at every part of her body. A slaver had thrown a net over her, and she’d realized instantly that the net was coated with iron. But it wasn’t just iron, it had some kind of magical boost to it. She couldn’t even touch the net because of the pain. Her strength disappeared swiftly, her vision going dim and her whole body shutting down.
She was aware of Luke taking off the slaver’s head with a roar of fury, and then kneeling by her.
“Dad! Dad, help!” he yelled.
“Luke, pull it off,” Crimson said, his voice tinny and low.
She knew the net was pulled from her because it ripped her skin and made the pain a hundred times worse.
And then there was nothing, just darkness and cold, and a deep fear that this was an iron poisoning she wouldn’t be able to recover from.
Which seemed monstrously unfair, since she’d just gotten Luke in her life.
She wasn’t supposed to die today, she was supposed to find a way to sneak off with Luke and mate him.
Fate was a fucking bitch.
Luke felt Rena slip away, their connection as mates–although weak because they weren’t mated fully–had been tangible before, but now it was gone. He lifted her into his arms and raced into the house, calling for Viscount.
“What happened?” Viscount demanded.
Luke set Rena on his sister’s bed. Her body was covered with cuts that were bleeding freely, her skin streaked with fat purple lines indicating the net had been laced with iron and she was poisoned.
He hadn’t been fast enough. He should’ve been able to stop that bastard from getting close. It wasn’t any comfort at all that he was dead now.
Viscount murmured to himself as he checked her over. Then he looked at him.
