“Are you threatening me?”
“Maybe I am, Reveca. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m sick of trying to be the good guy and trusting justice to have its say. Maybe I realize how to play this game, how to twist the story until it fits my needs.”
He walked out then, slamming the door behind him.
Reveca lay back on the floor, right where she was and pulled in long deep breaths, tracking Mathis’s voice through the entire station. He left not long after that, and where he was going was anyone’s guess.
Time passed, a lot of it, and she lay there, with her eyes closed, conserving as much energy as possible.
Then all at once she heard the door open. Before she could open her eyes O’Brian was pulling her to her feet and putting her against the wall.
“Do you have any fucking clue how to do your job? Do you not realize I have to give you a confession first, you old fuck?”
He knocked her head against the wall then cuffed her hands in front of her. He took off his jacket and put them over her restraints to hide them.
So fucking predicable, Reveca thought to herself as she kept a confused expression on her face.
“It’s too dangerous to keep any of you here any longer. You can give your confession after you’re transported.”
He jerked her forward then and gripped her arm and pulled her out of the room.
Dangerous? Dangerous for him maybe. She was sure that both Blackwater and O’Brian were confused as to why people they thought they had on their side were pushing to get Reveca out, all of them, confused as to why files and evidence were vanishing.
Reveca wasn’t. Nope. She knew a shifter or two, ones that could do such things to confuse the hell out of mortals and make them fall into predicable patterns.
O’Brian didn’t take Reveca toward the front lobby, toward the other lawmen. Instead, he weaved her through the long halls. When other lawmen could be heard around the corner, he pushed her into a stairwell and waited for the others to pass. All the while keeping his hands over her mouth. He opened the door and looked down the hall only to slam it again, and then jerk her toward the stairs and pull her down them with him. At the bottom he opened a door which led them down a service hallway. When it finally ended they were in a garage.
There was a box truck there.
“Are you fucking kidnapping me? You twisted fuck you, think you’re getting away with this?” she yelled when he took his hand from her mouth.
He laughed. “Clearly you have more than one lawman in your pocket. This whole place has gone nuts. We’re moving you before we lose you, and this is the only way we can get you out without your buddies inside and out knowing that we did.”
Reveca started to resist, and he jerked her against him, ensuring the cuffs cut into her. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart, you’re still going to be able to put that cheating son of a bitch in his place. We’ll make sure your story lines up nice and clean with our evidence.”
When he pulled her to the back of the truck she lost it. “I’m not fucking getting in here with him,” she wailed when she saw Talon and Thrash both in there, cuffed to the wall.
“He’s cuffed, sweetheart. He’ll keep those cheating hands to himself,” O’Brian said as he grabbed Reveca’s ass and pushed her forward, forcing her to fall in the truck.
Thrash jerked his restraints while Talon stayed still.
O’Brian got in after Reveca, then pulled her arms above her head, and took another pair of cuffs and hooked her to the brace on the wall.
“Play nice,” he said as he got out.
Reveca let her glare soar across the truck to Talon then moved her stare to Thrash. “What the hell?” she whispered. Thrash was not supposed to be here, that much she knew.
Cashton was. Reveca needed Cashton, had to have him near her if she had any hope of getting out of this and meeting the agreement of her barter. He was the only one with the skill to help her. The only one that got magic, and could use it.
For all Reveca knew these dumb old fucks had gotten one up on her. Her mind was racing through how she could fix that if it were true, and she wasn’t coming up with much. This whole deal had already taken up too much time. She had seen the sunrise peeking in from the sides of the garage she was in. This was her last day to do her deal.
Thrash shook his head. He didn’t have an answer for Reveca just then. Thrash nodded to tell her that the lawmen were close. She knew they were but surely he was questioning her sanity at this point, how focused she was. How distant she seemed.
They sat there, all of them listening. Then all at once there was the shuffle of feet, and a curse. “What the bloody fuck!”
Reveca let out a slow sigh, one that both Talon and Thrash seemed to question.
A moment later Blackwater not only pushed Cashton in, making sure he fell forward on the floor, but he climbed in with him.
As Cashton was cuffed to the truck another officer pulled the door down. The truck rumbled to life.
Blackwater sat down with an exhausted sigh, surely not having used that much energy in a long while.
“Not a fucking word,” he said as he kept his hand on his gun.
As the truck moved, Reveca could hear traffic, the bikes, the roar of them, the horns honking, the lawmen on intercoms telling them to move, that they were going to be arrested.
“Are you fucking satisfied,” Talon bit out in Reveca’s direction. “Is this what you want, babe?”
“Fuck off,” Reveca said.
“How long are we going to play this game? How long are you going to string us the fuck along like this?”
“Shut up,” Blackwater yelled.
“Vec!” Talon said. “You look at me, right now.”
Reveca wasn’t looking at him. She was staring down Cashton, looking over the cut on his lip, wondering if Blackwater was going to notice when it vanished. Even in the dark truck Reveca was sure it was already healed, that only the blood remained.
She couldn’t let Blackwater know that any one of them had the power to overcome him with just a thought, that it would take nothing to kill him. Not yet. No, she was running this circus, and he’d figure that out soon enough.
“Vec, look at me,” Talon demanded.
“I’ve seen enough of your ass. Saw you basically fucking Amber in public. You cold asshole, you think you can humiliate me and get away with it?” She lurched her foot to try and kick him but Blackwater moved in the middle, aiming his gun.
“Settle the fuck down or there will be no statements to give,” he demanded.
“You sick, fuck,” Talon growled. “You get that gun away from her.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Blackwater asked as he pointed the gun at him.
“I’m going to fucking laugh my ass off as I watch you die,” Talon said with a sick grin.
“Yeah, you look like you’re in a position to say so,” Blackwater said as he took the butt of the gun and hit Talon on top of the head. Both Thrash and Cashton jerked in their chains and cursed.
If Blackwater kept up, if he kept pushing them, they were going to kill him right then and there and that would do nothing but assure that Reveca’s new address would be in Crass’s lair.
Chapter Three
Five hundred miles away in the great state of Tennessee, Dagen was behind the wheel of a nineteen seventy-five red Firebird. His passenger was Rydell King, known as King to all those he led in the Helco Faction.
Waking him wasn’t near as hard as Reveca had led Dagen to believe. Dagen had managed to not only find the same house they had rented years ago, but nearly furnished it just the same, at least he’d had his people do so for him.
King was laid on the bed that he never really used and Dagen spoke the words as others helped hold him down. Dagen had no choice but to give him not only the first dose Reveca had given him, but also the backup one she had placed with the spell for good measure—to ensure her spell held. Reveca’s goal was for King to lose his memories of the last five ye
ars. But Dagen knew King needed to lose more, he needed to lose twenty. He needed to forget why they were in New Orleans in the first place—all the BellaRose family and their coven.
King did thrash and rear up, enough to break the bed. There was little doubt his roar was heard for blocks. When he settled the others vanished. Then it was just King and Dagen.
It was hard for Dagen to lie to King. To look him in the eyes as he did so, because thus far as long as they had known each other Dagen had never so much as uttered a false idea in his direction.
Dagen had too much respect for him, and had been trained well by King—it was all about balance. Karma. King had told his people it was the only way to live any life. Yet the lies flowed easily from Dagen’s lips this day, and they did so because he wanted to keep his friend alive—and safe.
He’d told King that he had a run in with Revelin, that he had called him home and that King returned in the shape he was in. It was more than believable because over the course of their rebellion Revelin would call King home now and again and make it impossible for King to ignore the call.
King would be gone for a few days. The faction would freak and do their best to align and fight to get him back. Then King would emerge in the shape much like he was in when he awoke from that spell—depleted, confused, and pissed.
When King told Dagen he didn’t remember what Revelin wanted, Dagen told King that he had murmured ‘no Realm,’ over and over as he woke. That surely King remembered something, enough to warn them.
They sat right there in the house and plotted. They realized when they were in The Realm, the dream plane, it was too easy for Revelin to see them, to pull them in. Staying away from it was their only choice until they became stronger. Until they figured out how to cut the ties Revelin had to them.
That conversation didn’t hold too many lies. That had always been the goal, and even if Reveca had not told Dagen to keep King out of The Realm, he would have. He’d heard rumors that Revelin was becoming unraveled, looking everywhere for King. Which made no sense. Revelin should know where King was at all times. It may have been hard for him to pinpoint the exact Lord of Death King was with, but there was no doubt that Revelin would know if King was in death or out.
Dagen had expected a strike from Revelin at any moment. He had even asked in a roundabout way for River to help find a spell that would add to the energy barriers they had around themselves and King at all times beforehand.
Oddly, now, for the first time ever, those barriers were holding. Dagen had felt Revelin’s energy but a breath away, but he was blind to them now. The how or why was lost on Dagen, but he knew it would aid them, build them, put them on the track to finally taking the sorry fuck down.
Dagen spoke to King about the curse, too. Told him he was sure he knew how to break it, that they could feed and not create the same darkness Revelin had.
Dagen told King how he had recently tasted a different kind of exaltation, one that was not full of sin and want, but the kind that was earned, that took time to master. He told King that though it took longer to get, feeding on it was far more satisfying. And the souls could feel it over and over and survive it.
They spoke of how doing so might break the curse, and how it was so different from how Revelin had taught them to be, that it had to. They knew if they broke the curse it would be step one to them dividing from him completely, making their own line of Escorts, a line that lived as they were created to before greed shifted their desires.
King didn’t speak of an assassin that was set to kill him. There was no talk of wars beyond the one with Revelin, or his demise. It truly was as if Reveca had erased twenty years of hell, and now King and Dagen had the knowledge of how to move forward without the burden of looking at the end of their days.
That risk was there—no spell could take it away—but only Dagen knew of it, and King’s mind was clear. He was precise with his instructions. He had an odd vigor to him that assured Dagen they were not going down without a fight.
As Reveca said, Dagen put King back into a routine, and today they were test-driving a Firebird. The same model of the one they had worked on for nearly a year way back then. It was what they did for the fuck of it, when they were just talking through shit. They’d solved a lot of issues under the hood, but the reward was the ride, the speed of it.
When their life had taken a dramatic twist for the worse, launched them into a near twenty-year battle that led to King being in the grips of Crass, it was the dead of night and King was driving.
Now it was broad daylight, and though he had to argue his way there, Dagen was in the driver’s seat.
As they charged down the highway with music blaring, Dagen kept rubbing his chest, the pain there.
He had told River he had business to handle, and that he might have to keep his distance for a while. Their conversation happened an hour or so after he left Reveca in church. It happened as both Dagen and River were stark naked covered in sweat, just barely catching their breath as they laid on the floor in a motel room that had been trashed from him using every surface he could to lay River upon and thrust into her— make her scream as she pulled his hair, clawed at his back.
He didn’t tell River why, but he was sure she could read it in his eyes. She knew that his loyalty to King, the faction Dagen was running in his absence, outweighed other circumstances. River understood, pulled him closer and said, ‘one more time then,’ with a sinful little laugh.
Which is why he couldn’t figure out why she was calling him then, not even three days later. Why her pull had never been this strong.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, man?” King asked from the passenger seat. He was leaned into the door acting as if the speed of one ten, moving in out of the cars that were on the road, was downright boring to him.
“Not a damn thing,” Dagen said as he grunted and adjusted his shoulders.
Another lie.
Inside Dagen was twisted. He had too many thoughts slamming into each other. The King that went into Crass’s lair told Dagen at all costs to protect the Dominarum coven. Honoring his request landed Dagen in the relationship he was in with River, and right now she was calling him. His gut was telling him something was off. Yet another member of the same coven, a fucking original no less, had vowed Dagen to keep King away and not look back.
If this call had happened weeks from now it would be different. Dagen would be sure that King was rock steady. And whatever spell was put on him was holding, and all Dagen had to do was live with the lie.
Today was not a good day, right now was not a good time. They weren’t far from the spot that King had felt the rush, the birth of his killer.
Hell, even the same song was playing, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird. King was even moving his head along with the rhythm lost in the lyrics just as he was way back then.
Dagen held his breath, told himself that as soon as he was past this, once they had parked this car in the garage he’d make up an excuse then move himself to River’s side. Holding her for a hot second sure as hell would help him work through the tension Dagen had been walking with from the first second he’d laid eyes on King once again.
Dagen watched the mile markers pass, and picked up his speed. He clenched his jaw and made sure he had control of the car, that no way in hell it was going wreck this time.
At his side King had stopped moving to the music. He was too focused for Dagen’s comfort.
Then all at once, four miles past the wreck sight, King vanished from the passenger seat.
Dagen let out a curse then slammed on the brakes and let the car drift to the side. He turned and went the opposite way down the highway.
He sucked in a deep breath when he stopped the car and stared forward, when he saw King in the middle of the road staring in the distance. The look in his eyes was somewhere between confused and murderous.
Dagen rubbed that spot in chest—the pull that River had on him—and told it to go to hell for now and got out. As he
walked toward King another car passed, honking its horn. Dagen flipped them off but kept his stare on King.
“You all right?” Dagen asked.
King looked right at him. “What the fuck is going on?”
Shit. Here we go, Dagen thought to himself. “We’re driving a car. That I think you finally have right. Then we’re going to take it back to the house. I’m a little on edge so I might step out and find me a girl in a bit. That’s about it, boss.”
King narrowed his stare on Dagen. The thoughts in his head were weak, so far away. They had been that way since he woke up. He was furious at Revelin. He knew so, which made sense considering he had knocked him down again.
Over the last few days his fury grew and grew. It did so because there was a scent—flowers. It was faint but that scent lingering with something else had King’s mind reaching back to the reason he’d always hated Revelin, always plotted to kill him as he stood at his side.
The scent was all over King’s body, and no matter how many showers he took he couldn’t get it to go away. He couldn’t get the memory of her to go away. He wondered where her soul was that day, if she was as happy as he remembered her to be.
Hours before he had slipped away from Dagen’s odd overprotective stare and went to the dimension his Reveca lived in. Most of it was gone, no sign of any real life. But he found the river he had last held her in and the battleground where he died clutched in her arms.
The walk across his past and this newfound rush of confidence that he could take down Revelin had been haunting the hell out of King. Then all at once on this road, traveling down it, he felt assaulted. He felt like a path had been stripped from him once more. Like she was stolen once more.
When he manifested back on the same spot, the same mile marker, the memories fired in his mind. Every one of them. His near twenty-year hunt for his assassin, his determination to kill them before they had a chance to kill him—problem solved. He remembered how the conflict ended, how he landed in the hell of Crass, a place he wouldn’t wish to send his worst enemy. Well maybe Revelin, but that was about it.