Midnight Shift, page 19
Keane rushed forward with lightning speed and grabbed her arm, and she turned into him, sending her leg out in a sweeping back kick. As if made of rubber, the chief warden jumped and flew in a high arc over Benie, landing in front of her, still holding her wrist.
She punched out, twisting her arm, trying to land a blow to his neck. Unfortunately, with the gold cuffs highlighting her camouflaged limbs, Benie lacked her usual element of surprise.
Keane grabbed her other wrist. Benie roared as he brought both her arms down to her side, twisted her around, and then pushed her to the ground. He held her arms behind her back in an awkward and painful position, while his knee rested in the middle of her spine.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. His voice had the same unnatural, metallic quality she’d noted when he’d presented her with Trace.
Other than the fact that he was freakishly strong, and fast, and a psycho, Keane sounded almost reasonable. But sociopaths usually did, until they had you helpless and strapped down on their table slicing and dicing you.
“What do you want from me? Why am I here?”
He leaned forward, and she could feel his cool breath against her neck. “Calder sent a message for you. They are coming. Keep faith.”
“Why would Trace tell you anything? After what you did to him…” She shook her head. “This is a trick.”
His expression soured. “Never trust an Adam,” he said.
“What?”
Keane rolled his eyes and sighed. “I was told to tell you to never trust an Adam.”
“Oh.” Benie snorted. “Not Adam. Atom.”
The blue-eyed brute shook his head. “If you say so.”
“It’s a science joke. Never trust an atom. They make up everything.” Only Ian would have sent that message. Reluctantly, she quit struggling in Keane’s grip.
“We must go.” Keane handed Benie a knife and turned his back to her. “Unless you decide you want to kill me now that I’ve delivered the message.”
Benie considered sinking the blade into the considerable expanse of his wide back, or better yet into the base of his skull. “Why are you doing this?” She fingered the sharp tip of the six-inch blade.
He turned around, his gaze steady on her. “You are Garrick’s daughter.” His tone implied a question.
“Yes.”
“Then he is not the rightful ruler of Caledon. And as long as you are alive, he never will be. My family has served yours since before written history.” He knelt down on one knee and bowed his head. “I am your loyal servant…if you’ll have me. If you won’t then I ask that you end my life, for I have no life outside of service.”
Benie’s eyes watered as thick emotion clogged her throat. “You’re my best bet at making it out of here. We’ll discuss whether you live or die if either of us survive to have the conversation.”
“I agree to your terms, my queen.” There was no attempt at humor in his words, not like when the dragon triplets teased her, and she suddenly felt the weight of her birthright as an anvil around her neck.
“I’ll follow your lead.”
Keane glanced at the door. “Outside of Garrick’s wing, guards are posted every two feet in the hallway beyond the three-inch-thick security doors. Inside, the windows are barred with reinforced steel. I tell you this not to frighten you, but only as a warning. I managed to lie my way in past his guards, but even if we manage to overpower one guard, there will be at least twenty more to stop us from stepping foot out into the rest of the kingdom.”
Benie understood, escape would be next to impossible, but what she didn’t get was why Garrick hadn’t just killed her. She was a threat to his rule. Keane’s turning was more proof of that. “Why bring me here? If killing me solves his problem, then why hold me captive?”
An inky shadow Benie hadn’t noticed before shimmered into solid form in front of the door. “Plans change, my daughter.”
Benie glared at Keane, as if he’d somehow betrayed her. He shook his head, his stance widening as he readied himself for a fight. The headache she’d felt when she first awoke thrummed and throbbed with dull tension. “Oh, for the love of Pete.” This was no time for her pregnancy hormones to go on overload.
“I was wrong,” Garrick said, ignoring Keane as a threat. “I should have raised you myself. Brought you up as a proper heir to Caledon.”
“So what? You’re planning on handing me the keys to the kingdom now? Just like that?”
He stretched his arms, long and languid. A breeze from his direction blew across Benie’s hot skin. “Not exactly. I think it’s too late for us to have a real…connection. But your child, my granddaughter, well, we can have something magnificent. It’s a terrible shame that the assassins who killed my beloved wife and first husband had also kidnapped our daughter, that she survived only long enough to give birth to a new heir…,” he finished sadly, as if already giving the speech to his followers. “Then I will be the guardian to the new Triune, and the people will have no choice but to fall in line.”
After an initial “oh crap” moment, the burden of her circumstances crashed down around her shoulders. “No.” He wanted her baby. Not. Going. To. Fucking. Happen.
“I’m thinking of the name Serene,” her father said. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re nuts.” Benie involuntarily hugged her stomach as a cramping pain doubled her over.
“I’ll teach the child respect. Something you obviously never learned.” He transformed to shadow once again. “She shall rule by my side, and Caledon will be united once again.”
Benie sat in stunned silence for a moment. Then she turned to Keane. “He’s insane.”
The blond man nodded. He picked up his sword and rushed Garrick. The older, frail-appearing man, laughed as Keane passed through his mist. And with a sharp crack, he hit the chief warden across the back of the head and sent him sprawling unconscious to the floor. Three guards came running into the room.
Garrick motioned at them. “Take him to the cells.”
And just like that, Benie’s only ally was gone. She grunted as another pain nearly took her to her knees.
Garrick tsked and shook his head. “Really,” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment. “I have not held on to the rule of Caledon because I am weak, daughter. If that were the case, the rebels would have killed me long ago. The gray man would have taken my life personally. But I am strong and my abilities are powerful. It’s the reason the Triune chose me in the first place. You, your mates, and the rebels are no match for me, girl.” His face pinched, and his eyes narrowed until he looked as sinister as his words. “I will outlive you all.”
Benie shrieked and lunged at Garrick with the knife Keane gave her. Her father laughed, his body turning to shadowed mist again, as she landed on the floor. The chill of fever shook her as she lay on the cold tile. She felt a hand at her elbow.
“Let me help you up,” a woman said.
Benie turned, a sob escaping her as she saw her betrayer. Helen the midwife.
She’d been relegated to nothing more than an incubator. Another means for Garrick to assert and keep control. That would not fucking do. She clutched the knife, and in one swift jab, she stabbed the midwife in the stomach and yanked the blade in an upward motion, slicing the wretched woman from belly button to sternum.
“No!” Garrick hissed as Helen toppled over, her guts bulging from the gash.
When Benie finished the woman with a second jab to the throat, Garrick wisped into mist, flew across the room, and knocked the knife from Benie’s bloody hand.
He rematerialized a few feet away, holding the blade. “She was your hope for a healthy child, daughter. Now you take your chances with fate. Live or die, I win.”
He called in an exterior guard to remove the dying midwife, and without a courtesy glance back, he strode out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
Benie crawled on the bed and curled into a ball, huddling in for her own comfort. She rubbed her belly. “Your fathers will find us. All of us.”
She could only hope it wouldn’t be too late. She could feel the hormones inside her already developing to toxic levels. The headache was a sure indication. She had maybe a day or two she guessed until the fever and madness would completely take her, killing her and the babies. If that was the case, so be it. Better to die than allow her children to be raised by an insane murderer. Maybe better all around.
The point of the “V” at the small of her back throbbed. She needed her men, her mates. “Trace. Ian.” She stretched out her thoughts. “I need you.” She rubbed her stomach. “We need you.”
Chapter 20
The lamp in the small room flickered, annoying Ian as he watched Trace continuously monitor his phone.
“Anything yet?”
Trace shook his head, the dark rings under his eyes mirrors to Ian’s.
It had been two days since Benie’s disappearance. Trace had called his ex-wife, Semina, also known as Shade. She in turn passed a message on to Keane Silvertail, the head of the wardens.
Since that time, they’d heard nothing. In a rare moment of need, Ian placed a hand on Trace’s shoulder. They usually avoided each other, but his mark had been itching and tingling all morning, and the urge to touch Trace, as if the marks called for contact, had been nearly impossible to resist.
“Did you hear that?” Trace rose from his chair, fully alert. “Did you?”
The mark’s vibration grew stronger, but Ian hadn’t heard a sound.
“Ian!” Trace grabbed his arm. “Did you hear her?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Benie. Maybe I’m losing my mind.” Trace didn’t let Ian go. “Her voice sounded distant, barely audible, but I swear I heard her.”
“Let me in,” Ian said. He’d shared Calder’s conscience before when Benie had been poisoned. He knew it was possible, and even more, Ian wanted to believe they could still save their mate.
Trace nodded sharply. Ian could feel Trace’s mind, stretching out with his telepathy, opening all Ian’s senses, joining with him and casting a widespread net. He jerked at the first brush of her thoughts. Benie was out there. He could feel her now. Far. Distant. But she was there. Just out of reach.
The mark on Ian’s left shoulder began to burn, and because they were connected by Trace’s telepathy, he felt Trace’s mark as well, as if a branding iron had pressed white hot to their skin. The searing pain brought him to his knees.
Ian cried out, holding his left shoulder with his right hand. “What’s happening?”
Gray’s voice penetrated the chaos in Ian and Trace’s minds. “You must join in mark and will. It’s the Triune. It calls to you both.”
Ian couldn’t move, not under the weight of visions and thoughts, but he refused to close himself off from Trace. He wouldn’t shut it down, not as long as she was out there.
He felt Trace’s hand slip into his palm from behind him. The weight of Trace’s back pressed against his own, and in that singular moment, when the marks joined, time stopped, the voices stopped, and the world stood still.
Suddenly Ian could breathe, think. His mind sharpened with clarity.
“Help me, Ian,” he heard Trace say.
Ian leaned his head back until it rested against Trace’s.
They joined minds completely. Ian found it oddly comforting having his bed and pack mate near him, and for once, beyond their petty rivalry, he could sense that Trace felt the same. Together, they searched out the furthest reaches to find their common destination. He’d always viewed Trace as an obstacle, something to overcome in his relationship with Benie, but in this they were well suited. Allies.
In one voice, they called out to Benie, seeking the connection.
They both heard her voice, clear as a bell. “I’m here!”
*
Benie heard them calling, Trace and Ian both. “I’m here,” she said, pushing her will and thought in their direction.
The mark, along with her body, seared with an agonizing need for her men. Where were they?
We’re looking for you, love. We won’t stop until we find you. Trace’s voice penetrated the melancholy.
Her body burned with fever, and the delirium had her seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Ian and Trace’s voices were probably another hallucination. She shook her head. They wouldn’t make it in time, not before the toxicity killed her and the babies. “It’s hopeless.”
As long as you’re alive, it’s not. Ian spoke this time.
“Ian…” How many times had he come to her rescue? He’d been the one person in her life she could count on. Always. She laughed, a short barking sound. “Quite a mess I’ve made, huh?”
Not you. Hush now. Ian’s voice brushed her mind like silk across bare skin.
“I’m dying.”
She felt the alarm in them. They were strong men, both powerful in their own ways, but they weren’t a match for her other biology. Ian would know that better than anyone. “I love you.” It was the last thing she said before she reluctantly broke off the connection.
Weariness settled in. Her head pounded to excruciating levels as her internal temperature rose. Benie shivered, her teeth chattering as she pulled the blankets to her chin. It wouldn’t be long, maybe a day at the most until toxic meltdown. Maybe the end would come sooner than she thought. She almost prayed it would.
*
It had been three hours since Benie had broken contact. No matter how many times Trace and Ian tried to connect with her again, they failed. She’d severed the tie completely. They were no closer to finding her, and Trace worried that when they did, it would be too late.
One of the triplets, Max he guessed, since the man didn’t speak when he entered, ran into the room. The silver-eyed dragon shifter grunted his urgency and handed a piece of paper to Trace.
“It’s from Shade. She’s located Caledon.”
Ian put his hand on Trace’s arm. “Where?”
“He’s moved the kingdom to Arkansas, a remote location in the Green mountains.” They were just outside of Springfield, Missouri, and the Green Mountains were at least a four-hour drive.
“I have a faction of rebels in Little Rock,” Gray said. “A small army. It will take them about six or seven hours to assemble and meet us at the location.”
Trace’s adrenaline surged as his panic rose. “We need to leave now before he moves Caledon again.”
“You can’t take him on alone,” Gray said calmly. “We need the back-up.”
“As it is,” Trace said. “It’s going to take several hours to get to Benie. Hours she might not have left.”
“I know some people,” Destan said. “I can get them here in a half an hour. And we,” he indicated his brothers and himself, “can get you all down there a lot quicker.” His pupils slitted as a nictitating layer slid over and back. “Dragon power. Blah, blah, blah.”
Gray gave a disapproving glance to the young man, but didn’t protest.
Trace stiffened as he felt an arm wrap the front of his chest. The mark on his shoulder warmed as Ian’s chest pressed against his back. His panic dulled with the contact, and he didn’t pull away from the offered comfort.
“I think I have something that will help us take down the bastard,” Ian said.
Trace touched the other man’s hand as it lay flat on his chest. “Yeah?”
“It’s a serum I’ve developed that enhances our abilities. Makes them…more.”
“How?”
“I derived it from Benie’s blood.”
A snort from the open door drew their attention. Destan crossed his arms. “Benie juice?”
“I would never call it that,” Ian said.
Trace nodded to Destan. “And you shouldn’t, either. Not unless you want Benie to take your head off.”
Ian nodded. “We wait for Destan’s back-up, then we go in like it’s World War III.”
Trace put both his hands over Ian’s now, letting the other man’s warmth bolster him. “Let’s find our girl.”
* * * *
The first night had ebbed into another day, then the day back to night. Benie stretched out on the silk sheets, and then twisted. She’d refused food and drink, hoping to hasten death. She turned and drew up into a ball. She couldn’t find a comfortable position, one not bringing any more relief than another. Why had she cut off contact with her mates? No, she told herself, she’d done the right thing. To distract herself, she watched the gold cuffs on her arms and legs move like ghosts around her as her skin took on the dusty rose color of the bedding.
She needed Ian and Trace. Needed them right then and there. Where were they? Wait. Wait. She’d sent them away. “I’m sorry.” Fevered thoughts picked at her brain.
The impulse to claw her way through the darkness and call out to her lovers pulsed within Benie, palpable and urgent. Her need to protect them was overwhelmed by the Triune’s need to connect. The fever seared her body, causing her skin to sting and buzz. Like a boat adrift in open water, Benie closed her eyes, and in a weak moment, opened her mind and reached out for her anchors. A wash of relief flooded her system when their auras mingled with hers.
It wasn’t enough, not physically. She drew them closer. “I need to see you. To touch you and be touched.” With a swift intake of breath, she reached out her hands and gripped them tightly, amazed she could actually feel them beneath her fingertips.
She knew Trace’s remarkable ability could allow her to see and touch them as if they were real. Benie willed it so. Gradually a figure began to materialize before her, and she held her breath with anticipation. Would it be Ian or Trace? Black hair. Definitely Trace. But no…blue eyes. Ian?
Benie’s eyes widened as the rest of the figure formed, so solid and real in front of her. Confused and dumbstruck, she inched back across the bed. “Who are you?”
