“You good?” Judge asked as he walked to the door and used his shirt tale to wipe every lock and the knob down.
“Yeah, it just stinks,” she said, hoping that excuse would fly. It didn’t look like it was.
Echo had shifted back into his own appearance, but he still stunk. “You sure we don’t need a pick up?”
“Sheer willpower to get away from this smell will give me the energy to get us back,” she said as she reached for them. They came to her side and looped their arms around her. Reveca closed her eyes, clutched her arms around each of them, and then pulled as hard as she could.
Seconds later they were back. She collapsed, laying back on the hardwood floor barely missing the flames of the candles.
Judge was over her instantly, his hand cupping her face trying to get her to focus on him. “Vec!”
“Shh,” she breathed. The last thing she needed was Talon to charge in the room. She was sure he’d had about enough of witches for one day. “Just a rush,” she said with a lethargic smile. And it kinda was. She did it, she felt weak as hell, numb in a bad way, but she did it, and owning that was going to bring her power back.
“Take a fucking shower and take those clothes to the cleanse pile. We’re putting this shit behind us,” she said to Echo, as Judge pulled her into a sitting position.
She bowed her head for a second, feeling a dizzy sensation.
“You good, Vec?” Judge asked, ducking his head to catch her gaze.
“Yeah, yeah, just need to Zen out for a second. Go tell Talon it’s done, make sure Knight got his files. And you and Steele get the boat ready.”
“Steele is going with us?”
Reveca nodded. “Thrash has runs to make. Shade’s his backup.”
Judge and Echo looked at each other then hesitantly left the room.
Reveca laid back down for a second and breathed in deep. Now that she was near King’s hum once again, those breaths were revitalizing. She let her eyes close and saw her Edge, saw Erio with Destiny Rimes, breaking her down, preparing to store her with the others who were waiting to be taken to Crass.
A smile came to her as she opened her eyes.
When she was sure she could stand, felt her balance once again, she stood and made her way to her dresser.
She waved her hand across the chest there, bit her lip acknowledging the grief. That was her new plan, to give the grief a second to surface, make itself known then send it away. She was sure that way, in time, she could completely move past that tragic night.
Carefully she reached in for the cards that GranDee had dealt last and laid them out as if she were reading beyond them. Earlier when she was reading through the books of shadows in her custody now she had seen symbols like these, ones she once knew as a child, symbols which spoke of heavenly wars between Gods and their armies.
She was deep in thought, had been for a while, when there was a rap at her door. Sensing who it was she nodded for it to open.
Leaning in the frame was Bastion. The slight smile he gave her belonged to his mother, the one Evanthe always gave when she knew something, when her eyes were wide open.
Reveca looked over him once. He’d showered and shaved, had clean jeans and a fresh white shirt on. “King let you off early today?”
He laughed. “Yeah, I was hanging out with Thrash.”
Reveca lifted a brow. “How’d that go?”
“Better than I thought it would,” Bastion admitted.
“He doesn’t say much to begin with. I’m sure you’ve left him speechless,” Reveca said as Bastion came in and carefully closed the door behind him, even clicked the lock.
Bastion looked over the cards as he approached her, not with curiosity but understanding.
“You know these symbols?” Reveca asked.
Bastion lifted his brow. “Second class every day in witch school.”
“Witch school?”
He shrugged. “Mom, her lessons.”
“She was instilling the foundation within you.”
“All of it,” Bastion confessed. “She said I had to know the mistakes of the past to avoid them in future.”
“I don’t see a warning here,” Reveca said.
Bastion pointed to the first card, the last that GranDee dealt. “Daughter,” he slid his finger down, “the rise of kings.” Then to another card. “The fall of the damned.”
“Three of twenty-two—you must always read the full deck and know that each has more than one meaning. The seed can be seen as the daughter, the rise of power as the kings, and the fall of the damned as the fall of beliefs that are small minded.”
“Right, I suppose it would depend on who these were dealt for, what lesson their soul needed.”
Reveca grinned in agreement.
“Hey, um, look, my mom told me all about this place, every face, every mood…I thought she was just trying to make me feel a part of it, but I don’t know. Maybe this is part of what she saw. It wouldn’t fit any other way.”
“This?” Reveca questioned.
“Me, here.”
“You’re home,” Reveca said to him as she moved her eyes over him. He may have been Evanthe’s boy, but Reveca and the others were going to make a man out of him.
Bastion dared to twitch a smile to life. “I found this,” he said as he reached in his pocket. “If you put it in the cleanse pile I’m sorry I moved it, but with the raids and such, it was too easy to accidently find,” Bastion said as he laid the gun down on the dresser along with the cloth he found with it.
“You didn’t put it there, did you?” Bastion said reading her expression.
Reveca didn’t answer.
“You know whose scent this is,” he said, tapping the cloth.
“I do,” Reveca said as she looked up at him. “You did good, bringing it to me. The boys are already overeager for revenge. This would make it harder to wait a bit longer.”
“That’s what I thought. Felt like shit for not telling Thrash after hanging out with him for a while, but like I said, Mom told me all about everyone.”
Reveca nodded once.
Bastion moved the card that had the kings on it a bit forward. “That’s my favorite, it’s bad ass.”
Reveca glanced to the card. “I don’t know about that.”
Bastion moved his finger across the image. “Letting go is proof…Mom always said trust is the virtue many speak of but few have.” And with that he smiled then left the room.
Reveca stared down at the card, the girl on her knees, the lover before her as a light pulled him upward, as armies waited in the clouds above for him to lead.
She glanced to the gun. “Oh what a tangled web we weave,” she whispered just before she folded the gun into the cloth, tucked it in the chest beside the forty-five then called the cards to align in a pile once more so that they, too, could be sealed away inside the chest.
Reveca gave herself one hard look in the mirror then made her way out of her room. The day had been long and now that night was here it promised to be even longer. Even without the rain, the trip to the Veil, seeing her boy Cashton in the condition he would be in, was never easy on Reveca.
She had made it past her gardens, was moving through the brush of trees that would lead her to the river, to her waiting boat, when she felt a sharp gust of warm wind surround her.
Within her next breath she found herself across the river, leaned against a tree, King was before her, his body flesh with hers, one hand on her hip the other cradling her face.
“What the hell,” she said as heavy breaths left her. It was a rush, like being famished then finding a feast, stealing a bite before you were allowed to eat. That’s what he was, breathing him in like this.
“Keep breathing, sweet,” he said as his hand on her face caressed her flesh tenderly like a lover. Yet there was anger in his eyes, a painful, betrayed anger.
“I didn’t call him here,” Reveca said as she bit her lip as that hum of his assaulted her. She was sure he was pisse
d that Dagen was there, someone King was hiding from.
All those looks, the ones where he could make a wave of energy move through her, make her moan with want, he was giving those to her now, wave after wave. It was making her body tremble with desire. It was consuming her, causing each and every inhibition she could yearn to own to vanish.
“Breathe,” he said again as his lips dared to brush across hers. His sweet, heated breath gently blew into her open lips. She felt his energy invading, consuming, but she’d be damned if she didn’t want more of it. It was her soul that lurched forward, and it didn’t care that her mind was screaming no.
King hissed as her lips touched his but he didn’t back away. He kissed her back, making a feast out of her lips. His dessert was each time he wisped his tongue against hers, the quietest of moans left his chest.
His hand on her hip slid down her thigh, then lifted it up and around his, giving him an opening, a way to rock into the core of her, a way for her to know that everything he was giving her she was returning ten times over.
Reveca’s hands rushed through his dark hair, those curls that were clinging to his neck. When she felt him go for her belt sanity came back. She stopped his hand but took her time stopping that powerful kiss, carefully savoring the taste of flesh, the taste of his soul that was merging with hers and igniting her.
With a deep gasp her hands framed his face. “Not going there alone again, and you have already stirred up too much shit as it is.”
His head fell in her hands, his lips rested on her neck as his hand on her leg squeezed once more and he rocked into her. “Breathe once more, sweet,” he said against her flesh.
And she did.
His tense powerful body relaxed a bit.
“That’s how you fight?” she asked. She had never fought with him when he was Kenson so it was a legitimate question.
He stepped back, gave her space. “You’re going to the Veil.”
An angry sigh left Reveca. “Yeah, to get your assassin,” she said, realizing they were back to this.
“You were going into the Veil within a breath of Crass, when mere mortals having a good day had a higher vibration of energy than you did,” he said in the most condescending tone she had ever heard him use.
“Was that you feeding me? Is that what this is? You gotta be destroyed but while you’re here you might as well do a few good deeds?”
“Feeding you,” King repeated as if that were absurd. “Apparently I gave you what was yours—what has always been yours.”
“What are we talking about?”
King jerked his head away and let his stare land on the brush around them, the long strands of moss and falling leaves that had all they could take of the summer heat.
“Have you crossed Jamison?” King asked.
Now Reveca was really confused. “Daily.”
King let out a curse.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of him. He’s the peacemaker.”
“Is he?” King said, moving his stare back to her. “Then what was that bullshit this morning?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific. Are we talking about Jamison, an original who was there when you let go to go to your God, or Zale the ass who only knows how to manipulate? Or are we talking about the fact I know what the fuck you have been up to?”
King moved his head back like her words were a strike to him. “You want to fill me in, because I don’t know what I’ve been up to.”
“So you just went to the furthest edge of this property for the hell of it when River arrived?”
The name was lost on him, at least that’s what his expression said.
“Yeah, a girl that Jamison raised is hooking up with your boy, first in command as it sounds, Dagen. If anyone crossed Jamison it would be your boy, not me.”
“Dagen,” King said as he closed his eyes slowly.
“Didn’t get to chat with him long, but I did talk to River before that. She told me how Dagen lost his leader, that he and his leader had broken away from their God, lead a rebellion, millions deep in souls.”
She stepped up to King. “I kind of dig her theories, she made me think.”
King only stared and it wasn’t a nice stare. It was full of anger, regret, maybe hate. None of that was at her, she knew that. It was aimed at himself.
“Why would a First turn? Why would he turn and fight—why did he choose to fight then and not in the beginning?”
“Mercy,” he said with a rasp.
That was enough but love wasn’t. He didn’t fight for her, he fought for someone or something else and not until he had had his fill of that power he was given.
That hurt. Realizing that.
“King, I don’t have time for this right now. I gotta go. We can pick apart your past and what I dug up once I get back.”
She went to walk past him but he gripped her arm. “Have you crossed Jamison?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“He knew me, Reveca. I was here. I was a breath away from you. I was here. And he didn’t say shit to me about who I was. Why? Why would he stand at my side and fight, keeping you from me only to deliver me to you once the war lost its thunder?”
“You’re asking me that? You think I have a fucking clue as to what they’re up to? They want the same Rapture they wanted when we were face-to-face before. And nothing is going to stop them from doing their part to ensure it will occur.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Reveca.”
“You can’t swallow that but you and every fucking body else has not only asked me to believe in a faith which betrayed me, but laid proof before me,” she said with wave of her arms before him.
King squared his shoulders then took one step closer. “I need you to tell me right now if you have wronged him or any of them, if they have reason to destroy you.”
“Yes. Constantly. I fuck their world up every chance I get. But you don’t get it, we’re originals. This is how we play the game of life. They ask me to do something and I barter my way to a deal I can handle. We fight but we are one. Destroying me destroys them. I may be weak. I may play the mortal game a little too well from time to time, but I have had greatness. I have won wars that were impossible to contend with. I have tasted more victory than defeat. They destroy me, they lose that and down the road they’re going to need it.”
King looked away, clenched his jaw again.
Reveca glanced over him slowly. She knew his problem. He had his original life crystal clear in his mind, he knew what he became after he was taken and now seeing Jamison rushed him to where he was just before he died. He still had holes and he was trying his best to piece them together.
If Reveca was ever going to test River’s theories on Escorts, what they could or could not say or feel, then her time to do so with King was running out. He was growing more powerful before her eyes, rising once more.
Chapter Four
Escorts were not something that Reveca studied as a girl or even on the path that led her to where she was. She knew of them, the stories which were told, the wars, their tendencies. In all truth they were like angels, only these angels and these Gods, sovereigns of emotions, had taken a wrong turn, and their path was leading the universe into bleak darkness.
Hearing River speak of the line which was recorded by every script about Escorts: The emotion does not slay but delivers, its depths must be infinite. What she said about Dagen, all of that let her find a way to believe there was truth to the faith, but it also allowed her to poke holes in it, prove there are no absolutes and just because a massive body of people believe one thing to be true doesn’t make it so. Free will. We all have it. The issue is you cannot easily forget a belief which was instilled within, one that fear branded on you.
“Kenson,” Reveca said in an innocent tone, one stripped of all the edge and defense she walked with daily.
King furrowed his brow as he stared into her eyes, clearly wondering why he could not get Reveca to focus on t
he topic of the conversation. He had to figure out if his life and hers were one in the same. If that were the case, Cashton was going to have the fight of his life before him because King was not going down easily. This war just became personal, more so than it ever had.
“What did you call me? Kenson? What is my name to you?”
King swallowed. His chest rose with steady breaths and anger was in his eyes once more.
She stepped up to him. “What was it, Kenson? The last time we spoke before your battle… what did you say to me?”
“You want proof I’m him? Are we not past this? You want me to tell you every detail—cover ground we’ve gotten past.”
“No. What did you call me?”
King stepped up to her, only an inch between them, and glared down. “I told you how I felt about you once, if anything changes you’ll be the first to know.”
Reveca’s inside quivered. She felt a solid rush consume her, exaltation—she owned it. It overpowered the guilt, blinded her momentarily to the world around her. He loved her.
Her eyes searched his. “I see anger in your eyes, I see grief, fear…and I see exaltation. If you’re going to be angry about something you have to give a damn. If you grieve you feel a loss, and for you to feel extreme joy you have to embrace love. You feel every emotion and it’s not because you’re weak, in the grips of Crass, it’s because you have always been able to.” She squinted her eyes. “There you go. I just called bullshit on your race of souls. The degree you feel any one of those emotions makes you an individual, it gives you free will.”
She angled her head. “Now, you felt an emotion strong enough to make you turn on your sovereign…which one was it, King? Was it more powerful than the love we had?”
“Have,” he bit out.
“What was it, King?”
“Mercy,” he said sharply.
“For?”
“You’re going to miss your boat,” he said as he reached his arm around her. The next thing she knew she was standing on the dock. He was nowhere in sight but she felt him watching.