Judge and Steele looked up from their conversation at the helm.
“You all right?” Judge asked, moving toward her.
“Yeah.”
“Why do you look so pissed?’
“I always look pissed,” she countered as she took his hand and climbed on board.
That comment earned her a laugh from Steele. Judge wasn’t all that convinced though. He grunted as he gazed into Reveca’s eyes then moved that stare to the woods around them.
“Let’s go,” Reveca said, taking her seat on the side bench.
Mercy. What the hell did he mean by that?
If there was one thing Reveca knew it was that she was ready to put this mortal crap with the lawmen and murders behind her so she could focus on the immortal war she felt brewing in the distance, so she could understand what the hell was going on with King.
When they were well into their journey, Steel and Judge became lost in their own conversation full of teasing and bullshitting one another. Reveca leaned forward on her knees, her head was down, her eyes just staring as her thoughts went in circles, one second plotting, the next looking back over what she had done to look for something she missed, and then King. A constant loop.
All at once she felt a surge of power, the dominance of it. She blinked her eyes, telling herself to focus then she stood, was peering into the dark abyss around them. Her actions had gotten Judge and Steele’s attention. Though they kept to what they were saying, their eyes were on her, tracking where she was looking.
All at once a surge of power nearly knocked Reveca back on her heels. When she looked to her side Dagen was there, arms crossed, looking down at her.
It was a reflex, how the boys were trained, along with the threat that Talon laid upon them that if they let one thing happen to Reveca on these trips he would shred them, which set the next action into play.
Steele had pulled his gun within the blink of an eye, aimed and fired. The bullet should have hit Dagen dead center in the eye. Instead, Dagan caught it, at least Reveca assumed he did. He moved too fast for her to track him, but she watched Dagen look past her to Steele and hold the bullet up. “Did you drop this?” he said nice and smooth, the same way King always spoke.
“It’s all right,” Reveca said as both Judge and Steele left the helm of the boat and came to her, charged Dagen. They weren’t going down without a lethal fight.
“Vec!” Judge growled, telling her to get out of the way.
“It’s okay,” Reveca said again. She looked up at Dagen. “He’s a friend of Jamison’s.”
“How the fuck does that make it okay?” Steele raged with a murderous look across his face as he ignored Reveca and stepped up anyway.
“It’s okay because I said it was,” Reveca said, stepping between them. Her boys had no idea what they were bucking up to; even if they did they wouldn’t back down. Reveca’s instinct to protect them, to watch over them and always be at their side was what she was using to keep her calm. She had to make them think this was no big deal, just a random meeting on a long boat ride sailing toward death.
“Who is this asshat?” Steele asked, looking Dagen up and down.
“Dagen. A friend. Now steer us. The Edge will be approaching soon.”
Steele glared for a moment then went to the helm. Judge didn’t back away until Reveca’s hard stare told him to.
Dagen let a slight grin emerge as he looked down at Reveca. “Friend of Jamison,” he repeated.
“It was shorter than saying you’re fucking a girl he raised as his own within his coven.”
Dagen’s eyes playfully focused on Reveca.
Reveca shrugged. “Girls talk. I hear you’re something worth talking about.”
Reveca figured stroking his ego wouldn’t hurt the situation. She was sure he was pissed because Jamison had left that little dome of energy, a spell, around the Boneyard which would not allow Dagen within. Hell, as strong as it was when Reveca left she’d be surprised if the boy could even see in.
Clearly Jamison and Saige wanted King to stay secret for a while longer. That was awesome in its own way but what sucked was that Reveca was sailing toward the Edge, then the Veil. They were going to bring Cashton on board, and he’d be in a weakened state.
According to King, Cashton was meant to destroy him and now King’s closest friend was face to face with her on this ride, had the power and the motive to attack one of hers.
She needed him gone long before she reached the boundaries of her Edge and pissing him off would only make him stick around, wait for when she returned with her passenger.
“She thinks you’re hot shit, too,” Dagen said, crossing his arms.
“You act like that’s shocking. I tend to win people over easily,” Reveca said in the driest tone ever.
Dagen’s eyes glinted with amusement. “River doesn’t get excited easily, and there is no doubt that no one gains her respect unless it’s deserved.”
Reveca nearly smirked just because at the moment Reveca was agreeing with Saige. River did share resemblances with Reveca, especially if that is how her lover saw her.
“It’s a witch thing,” Reveca finally said.
“I don’t think so,” Dagen said.
“And what do you think?”
Dagen let his shimmering ice blue eyes slowly move across Reveca. “I think my little hunter has found a prize that has been lost too long. You were misplaced now you’re unearthed.”
“A prize. You use girls to hunt others. I’m losing respect for you, Dagen, truly.”
He laughed, an easy laugh, convincing enough that the tension on the boat eased back. Steele and Judge had not taken their eyes off Reveca but were keeping their distance.
“You know,” he said as he sat down on one of the side benches and stretched his arms across the seat. “When you spend ages side by side with someone you tend to notice things. Things they don’t even notice.”
“Yeah, that’s a given,” Reveca said with a lifted brow, clearly letting him know she was not some witchling like River. She was the real deal. This was not her first rodeo.
Dagen tilted his head as he stared at her for a moment. “You notice what kind of woman steals their attention, which ones seem to piss him off when only his glance touches them, you notice how…” Dagen glanced at the bank. “Rivers, dark, swampy places like this draw their attention. In this slime and darkness they always notice silly things, like flowers. Stare at them when they think you’re not watching.”
“You have a point?”
“You’re everything my boy despised.” He stood up. “In all the time he and I prowled together, he never once looked at a woman like you,” Dagen said, letting his eyes dip over her. “Those tight curves of yours, everything shaped just right, full. This long hair,” he said as he reached for the strawberry blonde, thick and wavy locks of hair that reached Reveca’s waist.
That move made both Steele and Judge tense up again. Reveca gave them one hard glance.
“And this power I feel coming from you,” Dagen said, looking into her eyes. “No, you have too much wit to be like the girls he was with.”
“I really don’t care to hear about where you and your leader stuck your dicks. You got a point or not? If not, get off my boat,” she said with a nod to the shore.
He stifled a satisfied grin, one which told Reveca she was somehow proving him right instead of wrong with every smart-ass comeback she had.
“You have misunderstood me. King didn’t whore around. Pissed him off, made him remember that Revelin, our Sovereign, used sex to teach him our emotion, put girl after girl before him. It made him remember that’s how we became devils, giving souls exactly what they wanted so we could feel the rush of emotion, devour it.”
“You poor boys. Some God brings you into their fold then puts women before you and tells you to have a good time. Must be hell on Earth…”
Dagen laughed again. When his mirth ended he narrowed his eyes on Reveca then leaned in. “His scen
t has laid a claim on you. Whoever you are he has honored your memory in his own way. And now you’re found. I suppose whatever you did to piss him off has been resolved.”
She didn’t do anything to piss King off. He saw the wrong sister when he decided to look back at his mortal life. Then he forgot her. This boy Dagen wanted to give King credit because some part of him didn’t forget her, refused to touch a girl that resembled her. Not happening. King quit on her. And now here she was defending him like the fierce lioness she was.
“Do what?” Reveca said, nodding for him to give her space. He wasn’t getting a reaction out of her even though he stirred the very pot of every emotion between her and King.
“King,” he said as his eyes bathed over her. “He’s claimed you. His energy is staring back at me right now, in those eyes of yours.”
Reveca felt like a little witchling then, with all those butterflies on the inside trying to tell her he’s yours, but she looked pissed on the outside.
“I don’t know a King and I’m nobody’s property.”
Dagen glanced to the boys then back to her. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Beyond you popping in here and telling me I smell like someone you know, what’s the point?”
“The point is we need to be honest with each other and so far you’re not playing the game very nicely.”
Reveca said nothing.
“He’s never laid a claim on a girl in the entire time I have known him. You resemble every trait he avoided and I find you in a swamp with a red firebird parked in front of your garage.”
“That car is not for sale.”
“No, it’s a message. And you tell the King you don’t know that I got it, understood, aye aye captain.”
“What message is that?”
“What? He didn’t tell you as he built it? Didn’t reminisce about the last one he built? I’m saddened that I wasn’t even mentioned.” His tone was dripping with sarcasm.
“You trying to guilt me?”
“I’ll tell you about the car, about the King you don’t know—about my brother, my best friend. The man I have seen heaven and hell with.”
Reveca stayed silent.
“He got sick of it. I don’t think he ever liked it to be honest. Defender of a Sovereign that you despise… It’s gotta be hard. I never knew why he hated him, why he turned down the temptations set before him and held on to his warrior status as if it were his daily bread.
“When King broke away, when he left, he was expecting to leave alone, expecting to be slain.” Dagen paused as if he could see it all happening again.
Pride. Reveca saw it in his eyes, could feel the brotherhood between King and Dagen from where she stood. It was near humbling, and there was no doubt that River was right; this boy was grieving.
“He wasn’t alone. King never asked a soul to follow but millions did, even more came afterward. That didn’t even put a dent in Revelin’s forces, but it was a statement. It was seen as a tiff, a rebellion, to most but it was more than that.
“King figured out how to stop Revelin from creating more Escorts, or rather, when he made them we stole them, never let them feel the craving, at least not to the same degree we endured when we were tempted.”
He pursed his lips before he spoke. “We couldn’t figure out how to stop the curse, though we were working on it.”
“What curse?”
“The one where the soul gets what they want, feels the rush then they lose it, have to fight for it again. If they survive losing it, that is. They usually don’t, not the selfish ones.”
“Losing people—gifts?” Reveca asked. She was so lost. If there was one thing she understood it was curses. This wasn’t adding up.
Dagen moved his head slowly side to side. “Material.”
“Well no shit, Sherlock. All material things perish.”
Dagen’s brow lifted in question.
“How is that not obvious? Are you not some evil angel up there where you can see it all down here? Do you not watch, do you not learn? Observation before action.” Reveca tapered her stare on him, no longer even caring about those waves of power coming off him. She had the boy’s devout attention right then. She had his respect.
“Exaltation, a rush. Yeah, you could have that for a material object for all of five seconds then it’s just a thing. Exaltation between people is an endless ocean.”
“It ends. Shit gets old, clearly, or Revelin would still have me and my boy King up there with any kind of woman we want.” He sighed. “Besides, you can’t make people come to each other, you have to do it yourself—make them feel like that, and there is no way to be with enough women to satisfy the level of addiction we have to the emotion we need to survive. Material is the only way. Giving them the shit they want.”
“I didn’t say fucking. I said people, you dick. And yeah shit gets old when you don’t give a damn about who you’re sinking into, but that deal wouldn’t work for your purpose anyway. Souls have free will. You can’t let some yahoo come up to you and say ‘I want to feel a rush from this person’ and lay a love or lust spell on them then life is good. It has to be there already. So unless Escorts are cupids and you’re hiding your diaper and bow and arrow from me right now, that’s not going to work.”
She paused just to figure out if the grin on his face was sarcastic or if he was amused by her words, maybe even learning from them. “The rush is felt when a craft is mastered.”
“Turn the universe into witches and Escorts in the line of Revelin will feast,” Dagen said with a tilt of his head, pointing out the absurdity.
“I said craft, I didn’t say what kind. Everyone has a deal, something inside. Something only they can create within. Musicians, painters, writers, film makers—they get a rep for doing those thing, but it’s all of us, it’s the baker, the gardener, it’s the teacher who helps a child understand for the first time. It’s a coach who unifies a team, it’s something and it’s in everyone and when they latch on to it, they feel the rush. When they create the gift inside they own exaltation.”
“This is what he told you to tell me?” Dagen asked when his smirk left.
“Who?” Reveca asked without missing a beat.
Dagen shook his head. “We were fine. We knew we’d figure out the curse soon enough, that we were stopping Revelin. It was a cold war but we were going to win it with strategy. Then all hell broke loose.”
“Daddy call you boys home?” Reveca questioned.
“No,” Dagen said firmly. “We were racing a nineteen seventy-five firebird, jamming to good music. Life was good and we were free then all at once, a wave nearly knocked my boy down. He stood and said his assassin had just taken a breath.”
Reveca never wavered in her expression, but inside the wheels were turning. According to Cashton he wasn’t even born in this dark reality. Not adding up.
“We stopped everything right then. We weren’t fighting to free ourselves from our Sovereign but fighting to survive.” He lifted his chin. “It took us awhile to track down the one that was to destroy him, and when we did…”
“He had mercy,” Reveca said.
“Right, tell me if I’m boring you. If you’ve heard this story.”
“I’ve lived a long time, Dagen. Not many plot twists throw me.”
He stared for a second before he went on. “Our war changed again. We went head to head with Revelin and King took this war into the Veil whilst the remainder of us wait for his command.”
“You went head to head with a God and you’re still standing?” That was impressive, she had to give him that. She didn’t fare so well when she faced Revelin—he put her in a prison and took Kenson anyway.
“King did, wouldn’t let us. We were told to keep those he had mercy on safe and we did. Still are.”
“You’re waiting on him.”
“I suck at waiting. I’ve been looking.” He glanced over Reveca once more. “I see now why he doesn’t want to be found.”
“You thin
k if you get him back you’re going to destroy your Sovereign.”
Dagen stared for a second. “When I boarded this boat I was going to tell you I got his message. I understand if he built the car, the exact car we were driving when this all shifted, I knew it was a message—that he wanted us back on course, wanted us to grow in ranks, to build strategies. Then you spoke. Then your words told me how to break the curse, how to feed my people the emotion they need to survive without cursing our victims or returning to our Sovereign.”
Dagan looked around, the boat was moving close to the Edge, a place his kind could not roam. That didn’t mean he couldn’t sit on the bank and wait for Reveca to return with her new passenger, though.
“I want you to tell him we’re good, that when he comes back we’re going to be even better. Tell him if anything or anyone wants to destroy him, they’re going to have to get through all of us first, and each day we grow in numbers.”
Reveca felt hope flame in her chest. She was sure what Talon had said about keeping Cashton and King at peace under their roof would buy some time, but somewhere in time this fate would catch them. Reveca still couldn’t see Cashton as a killer but she knew this Revelin God was, that he had taken King once before. Knowing King had waiting armies with as much power as she felt before her now gave her peace, hope.
Dagen let grief come to his eyes. “You tell him I miss him.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m not telling the others about this. Where he is, is your and his secret to keep.” He clenched his jaw. “You fix him, you hear me? You make it right again. You make it more right than when I crossed his path for the first time.”
“I’m just a little witch. What makes you think I can do anything for this Escort you admire so much?”
“I don’t care what you are.” He looked deeper in her eyes. “He’s one and the same with you. What I can see of his energy is not anywhere near what it was, what it should be, but it’s pure. He’s found the peace he always searched for, a constant wave of exaltation. You have birthed independence in him.”
Reveca swallowed nervously as she looked down, then away. She felt her Edge mere breaths away.