Wounded: Book 8 (A Rylee Adamson Novel) Read online

  As Pamela raised her hands toward the ogres, I stopped her. “Wait a second.”

  Erik choked, but didn’t turn to look at me. “We may not have a second, Niece.”

  I pushed past him, carefully so I didn’t lose my balance. “Why aren’t you attacking us?”

  The red ogre who’d thrown the spear sneered at me. “You are wanted by the master, alive and in one piece. All four of you.”

  Oh, that did not bode well. “Pam.”

  “Yes?”

  “You want to work for Orion?”

  I didn’t need to say anything else. Her hands were a blur as she whipped them out in front of her. The ground didn’t begin to shake, didn’t roll or heave. There was no warning.

  The ground fucking well exploded beneath the ogres. Bodies flew through the air, twenty feet up before being flung outward, clearing a perfect path for us. Screams and moans rose in a cacophony that would make any horror film buff happy.

  “Time to go!” I yelled, though I really wanted to duck and cover. Erik took my arm and Pamela led the way, flinging bodies left and right, her lips tight and eyes narrowed. Yeah, pissing off the powerhouse witch was a bad idea.

  “Glad she’s on our side,” Erik said as we hit the open space. There was no question of that, but I agreed with him. The look in Pamela’s eyes was more than a little spooky.

  Eve swooped down, landed and I scrambled onto her back. Erik climbed on with me, and Pamela leapt on Zorro—I mean, Marco—with Alex. Three seconds and we were in the air while Pamela rained down fire on the remaining ogres who stood and waved their weapons at us.

  None of them were dead though; it wasn’t that easy to kill demons. And Pamela was too filled with rage to actually do more than push them away.

  “If she could learn to channel her emotions more clearly, there would be no need for us,” Erik said, his body adjusting to Eve with ease.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Witches, their emotions run hot and cold and finding the balance for them to fight from a place of their heart is nearly impossible. They can help Slayers, but most of the time they can’t actually kill demons.”

  That made a weird sort of sense. All the years with Milly and I’d certainly seen the proof of her emotions being all over the map. “If anyone can figure out the balance, Pamela can.”

  Erik shrugged. “If she can, she could help save us all.”

  No pressure at all. I heard what Erik said and dug my hands into the silver harpy’s feathers.

  “Do you have a name?” he called back to me—wow, wait, he?

  “Aren’t you a harpy? I thought all harpies were female?”

  He snorted and dipped his wings, making me shriek as I slid to one side, even though it was only a few inches. He righted himself and glanced back at me, a twinkle in his eyes.

  “What, do you think harpies come from eggs?”

  My jaw dropped and then he winked. “The males tend to be unheard of. We are the mellow half of the species; we have to be. The ladies get all the press because of their stellar dispositions.”

  “Oh.” Harpies didn’t tend to be mellow at all, fighting and shrieking at every opportunity. I was completely thrown by the fact that he was male. “I’m Pamela and this here is—”

  “I is Alex,” Alex barked out. He clung to my waist, not that I had that much better of a grip than he did. His tongue hung out, flapping in the wind. “I am werewolf.”

  The harpy bobbed his head, the same way Eve often did. “My name is Marco. Do you have an idea which direction we should head?”

  That was a good question.

  “Rylee,” I yelled to the other trio, “where are we going?”

  She turned toward me, her skin pale and sickly looking, and her eyes dull. “London. But we’ll need to stop first.”

  I waited, wondering if she was going to tell us where. Nope, she leaned forward and whispered to Eve.

  “We’re going to a place called Bismarck,” Marco said.

  “You could hear that?”

  “Easily. But I do understand the caution. No need to go shouting it to the sky and let all those who seek us know where we will roost for the day.”

  Eve led the way, and while I was afraid for Rylee, I was glad this time we weren’t separated.

  I directed Eve to head for a little motel on the outskirts of Bismarck. We all needed a few hours sleep and a chance to decompress from the battle. The wind was icy cold and though Erik did his best to keep me warm, he didn’t run hot like Liam. Thinking of him, I found myself reaching out to Liam through the bond between us, rather than Tracking him. He slept and his heart was steady, if a bit on the slow side. I could live with that, as long as he made it.

  “That vampire, how sure of him are you?” Erik asked as we drew close to the motel.

  “Faris? Fuck, he can be trusted one day, and not the next. I trust Doran, though. And he deals with Faris.”

  “Doran will be pissed with him for shutting the veil.”

  I let out a sigh. I didn’t want to say I understood what Faris had done, but I did. He was protecting Doran, the vamp king; that was his job. Even if that meant leaving us behind. Stupid fucking asshat.

  “Yeah, he will. But there is nothing any of them can do now.” Shit, that wasn’t true. Alex had a tie to Faris; we used it in the past. I explained quickly to Erik and he nodded, though his hazel and green eyes were troubled.

  “I hope you’re right. It would redeem him somewhat.”

  The rest of our flight passed in relative silence, other than the instructions I gave Eve. Late in the day found us over the motel and the harpies landed on the roof. The flight had given me time to heal, though I hadn’t been able to rest, or even nap. I’d been hoping to maybe get a chance to contact Berget, let her know we’d made it out.

  Erik, Pamela, Alex, and I shimmied down a fire escape to the back of the motel. We made our way around to the front office. Shit, I hadn’t been here in months. I hoped John and his wife were still here. They were old enough that it was a valid concern. I pushed the door open and peeked inside. John snoozed in his regular chair, cowboy boots up on the front desk and hat pulled down over his eyes.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “John. Sleeping on the job, really?”

  He snorted and sat up, grabbed his hat and blinked at me. “Ry! What the hell, girl, you’ve been a long time between visits. Find any kids lately?”

  My smile faltered. “Not enough. Big stuff coming, though.”

  “Yeah?” He waited for me to say something out-of-the-world goofy. Typical human would think I was fooling him.

  “Well, thought I’d try to save the world from demons. Then maybe take an honest-to-God vacation before anymore hunting for kids.”

  He slammed his hat back on his head as he laughed. “You’ve got the imagination for telling stories, girl. You need one room or two?”

  I knew he still had my credit card on file. Which was good since I had no money on me.

  “Just one. For a few hours to get some sleep.”

  “On the house. Just don’t bust up any doors this time.” John tossed me a key I caught with ease.

  I thanked him and we headed out.

  “He didn’t say anything about Alex,” Pamela noted.

  “She has a point. You sure he thinks you are just a human?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. He’s known me for years.” I looked down at the key John had given me.

  Lucky number 13.

  The room was fixed up, no reminder other than a few scratches here and there of Alex’s last visit to the place. That had been when we’d gone hunting for India.

  On a whim, I Tracked her, fully expecting her to be back on the east coast where her parents were. She was fucking terrified and I fought back the bile rising in my throat. I Tracked her parents, barely able to recall their names, but I managed.

  My jaw dropped and I sank onto the bed. They were both dead.

  Erik crouched in front of
me. “What is it?”

  “Someone took a kid I salvaged months ago. Killed her parents,” I whispered, as I struggled to put it together. Why would someone take her? She was a spirit seeker, someone who called spirits to her whether she wanted to or not. Giselle had even spoken through her to get a message to me after she died.

  “Could someone be going after your people? Friends and the like?” Erik didn’t have to say who the ‘someone’ might be.

  I hung onto India’s threads. Who else could be taken and used against me? Only one person I could think of. I Tracked Kyle, my personal hacker, who was barely an adult himself.

  Shit, he was with India. That was not a good sign. Who else could they have? I wracked my brain, but came up blank. Not that it really mattered … wait. I pulled the picture out of my pocket that Faris had given me of Simon, the young Tracker.

  I Tracked him while hanging onto the two other threads, hoping I was wrong. Nope, I wasn’t. Kyle, Simon, and India were all together. What the fuck was going on?

  “Someone is baiting a trap for me with at least three kids I know,” I said. Again, the ‘someone’ we knew was not Orion, but who he was using to make this happen was anyone’s guess.

  “So are you going to call on Faris, or are you going after the kids?”

  Something in Erik’s voice brought my eyes up to his. “You know the answer, don’t you?”

  He smiled and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. He stared at the floor while he spoke to me. “You and your mom are the same in this. Heart of a lion, you’d take on anything to protect a child, even more so for one you know and care for. So yes, I do know what you’re going to do.”

  I put my hands over the back of my head and stretched. “It’s a trap, and more likely than not, a bad one.”

  Erik reached over and put a finger under my chin. “Your life as a Tracker, and now a Slayer-in-training, have brought you to this. What does your heart say?”

  I let out a slow breath. My heart said what it always did. Protect and save those who couldn’t save themselves. Yet there was a bigger picture now, one I couldn’t ignore. “How will this help stop Orion, though?”

  “It might not. But you have to live with the decision for the rest of your life. Can you do that, knowing you gave up on three young kids?”

  “They could still die,” I said.

  Pamela sat on the other side of me. “But you could save them too.”

  Alex lay on the floor at my feet and stared up at me with his liquid golden eyes. “Rylee saved me. Saved Pamela. Saved Erik.”

  What they were saying was true, only there was an exception here. Would I give up the safety of the world to save three children, one I didn’t even know?

  I stood and wobbled to the bathroom. “Call on Faris. See if you can get him to respond to you, Alex.”

  I didn’t turn around as Alex howled Faris’s name because I already suspected we were on our own. It had been too long since Faris had fed from Alex, and that was the only connection we had. If the feeding had been recent, Faris would have a strong connection to Alex and would be able to find us. Doran had fed from me, but he didn’t have Faris’s ability to travel through the veil, so that wouldn’t do us any good, either. This time, there would be no quick and easy way to get to London; we were going to have to fly up the coast as far north as we could and then island hop to the European continent.

  I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. A sudden urge to vomit gripped me and I fell to my knees, losing what little food I had in my belly. I heaved until nothing but bile and water burned my throat and tongue. Yeah, that was unpleasant.

  “Rylee, are you okay?” Pamela knocked on the door as she asked.

  “Yeah. Just give me a minute.” I scooted back from the toilet and lay on the cold floor, grateful for the fact it was indeed cold. My skin flushed with heat and I couldn’t get out of my jacket and weapon sheaths fast enough. Shirt and tank top followed my jacket until I was nothing but bare skin on the floor. I let out a sigh of relief and flung one hand over my eyes.

  Alex had said my heart sounded funny; could I really be sick? Had giving some of my Immunity to Liam broken down my own defenses? I rolled to my side. None of that mattered right now. I had more than enough on my plate, like I was at a buffet of bad shit and someone kept heaping it on even though I’d had more than enough. No need to add to it myself with worry about something that may or may not even be an issue.

  None of that was helping me decide what I was going to do and I knew it was just my brain trying to distract me. “Faris answer?” I called out from my place on the floor.

  “No,” Pamela said, her voice soft. “He didn’t.”

  I sat up and slowly pulled my tank top back on, forgoing the shirt. Weapons next, then leather jacket. I stood and checked my face in the mirror. I looked like shit and the splash of water didn’t really help much.

  Leaving the bathroom, I headed straight to the motel room’s door. The one downside to John’s motel was that none of the rooms had a phone. He, John, said he’d had too many go missing, people ripping them right out of the walls. “I’m going to see if anyone picks up the phone at Jack’s. Assuming that is where Faris took everyone.” I didn’t wait for anyone and waved Erik to sit as he started out of his seat. “I’ll just be a minute, wait for me.”

  Alex, though, didn’t listen. “I come with you.”

  He no longer wore his collar that hid him from human eyes, but no one had said anything. “Yeah, that’s okay, buddy.” I dropped a hand to his head scratching him behind his ears. I wondered if there was a chance he would ever be able to shift into human form. In the last few months, he’d come a long way, losing his submissiveness and becoming more self aware. Hell, he’d stopped talking in the third person, which in itself was a fucking achievement.

  I opened the office door to see both John and his wife Mary talking in hushed tones. They looked up as we stepped in.

  “Was wondering if I could use the phone?” I asked as Alex tucked in behind me, peering at the elderly couple. Mary’s jaw dropped and even John looked a bit taken aback.

  “That dog, he don’t look so good,” Mary whispered.

  “Not a dog. Part wolf,” I said, and then Alex blew it.

  “Yuppy doody. I is Alex. Werewolf. Demon killer.” He puffed out his chest and grinned at them, which was not a pretty sight.

  Mary fainted, and John barely caught her before she hit the floor.

  “Sorry, John,” I said, helping him lift Mary and take her to their room at the back of the motel.

  “Well, I knew you had some strange friends, but Mary didn’t believe me.”

  We laid her on the bed and left her there. John was taking Alex’s revelation better than I would have thought.

  “Have you been around creatures like him before?” I pointed at Alex, who then pointed to himself with his eyes round and innocent looking. John scrubbed his fingers under his hat before answering.

  “Not sure. But I always believed there was more than we knew out there.” He gave me a smile and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Always knew you were one of the good ones, though.”

  He led me into the back room of the office. “Use the phone. You’re always welcome here, Ry. You and your … dog.” He smiled and shut the door behind him, giving us privacy. Alex grinned up at me.

  “I likes John.”

  “Yeah, I do too.” I dialed Jack’s place and listened as the phone rang and rang. Fucking hell, this was not going the way I’d hoped at all. As I moved to hang up, a soft ‘hello’ came through. I jerked the phone back up to my ear. “Hey, who is this?”

  “Rylee? It’s Frank. I think there is some serious fighting going on. I think Thomas might be dead.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. That was not good news. “Where’s Faris? Is he around?”

  “I don’t know. He left.”

  Shit on sticky toast, this was going downhill fast. “Frank, I need to know if you can ope
n a slash in the veil, are you able to do that yet?”

  “I can, but I’m not supposed to.”

  “If Thomas is dead, then you may not have a choice. And if he’s dead and one of the vampires killed him—”

  “No, Faris tried to save him.”

  Well, that was a fucking shock. “Who killed him?”

  “Berget. It was like her eyes went wonky and then she attacked Thomas, strangled him and … it was bad. She seems to be herself again, but she’s pretty upset.”

  I was betting that was a mild understatement on all counts. “Anyone else right there I can talk to?”

  Turned out that Frank was the only one not in the middle of the fight that was still ongoing. My heart sank with each word he said, knowing that Berget’s control over her adoptive parents, the old emperor and empress, was slipping. Far sooner than we’d hoped for. If she was going to die, though, I couldn’t let it be by someone else’s hand. I was responsible for her—she was my sister—and I would be the one to make sure she didn’t hurt anyone else.

  “Frank, first of all, are Liam and Blaz there yet?”

  “No, they aren’t.”

  My heart thud hard in my chest. I had to believe Blaz would look after Liam. The big ass lizard knew I’d remove his hide piece by piece if anything happened to my wolf.

  “Okay, I’m going to ask you to do something very hard.” I closed my eyes and pressed my head to the desk as tears slipped from my eyes.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “At sunset my time, which is”—I did the math in my head—“eleven your time, I want you to get close to Berget, and open the veil to the farm, right in front of the barn. Can you do that?”

  He didn’t even hesitate. “I can do that.”

  We hung up and I let out a breath I’d held too long. Alex butted up against me, putting his cold nose right into my face, though I kept it on the desk. “Rylee, why are you sad?”

  I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him to me, hiding my eyes from the world.

  “Because I have to kill my sister.”

  Chapter 6

  THE FLIGHT TO the farm would take less than an hour, but I wanted extra time to prep. Pamela would grab Berget with her magic and hold her down while I took her head. There would be no other way and we’d have to do it fast. If the opal was failing already, we had very little hope of extending Berget’s sanity long enough to actually help her.