Stygian Read online

  “The Scars have laws. Can you imagine if humans knew people with these abilities existed?”

  “So scary as hell guy wiped my mind clean?” Whoa, that guy had way too much power.

  Anstice nodded. “Waleron. And there’s more.”

  “Great, just what I want to hear. Don’t tell me that Finn is really a werewolf. ‘Cause I love that dog.”

  Anstice shot to her feet then dove for me, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the door. “Get out of here. Go to the basement.”

  “Why? What the—”

  Balen charged into the room, the door slamming up against the wall from the force and then tilting as the top hinge gave way. “Danni,” he shouted as he went for me. “Get away from the window.”

  Keir was right behind him. He grabbed Anstice, pulling her back against his chest. Balen shoved me behind him.

  “What is it? Witch?” Anstice asked.

  “No,” Balen said. “Different. It smells like . . . Christ. Wraiths.”

  “Balen, take Danni and get her to the Tomb,” Keir ordered.

  “Too late for that,” Balen said.

  Dampness seeped into the room and the air began to smell of rain and wild roses. Blue mist appeared and swirled around them.

  Then, the mist fell and a cloaked woman materialized, wearing a pale blue gown that left nothing to the imagination. Her golden tendrils fell across and down both shoulders to settle on her breasts. The woman’s blue haze faded and her form became solid as she stood facing us.

  “Holy hell.” I blinked to see if the woman would disappear. She didn’t. Maybe vampires were real and Anstice could heal with her hands. Or Keir’s drugs were damn powerful and I’d been given a good dose of it. Whichever, the beautiful woman in front of me was staring as if she could read every single ridiculous thought that was steamrolling through my mind.

  I TIGHTENED MY GRIP on Danni’s arm. “Genevieve?” I asked Keir without taking my eyes off the woman.

  “Yes,” the woman answered, her gaze moving to me. “I am Genevieve, Wraith of Water, and I’m here to help you.” She gestured with her hand toward the window. “The others are coming. I suggest you leave here. And take the woman with you.”

  I grunted. “Where to? Because my options are pretty limited right now.”

  The Wraith’s eyes began to change from blue to green. “To our homeland. The cave. It’s your only choice if you want Danielle to live.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” I half laughed at the absurd suggestion. No way in hell was I listening to a Wraith when they were the ones after me.

  The ground quivered, and the window shattered, shards of glass crashing to the floor as the wind gusted into the house. Shit, the Wraith of Air was close.

  Genevieve said, “She’ll die if they take you. Only as a Scar can she survive the Bonding if you’re taken and put in Rest or die. Waleron knows this. Go. I’ll do what I can to delay them.” She raised both hands into the air and entwined them. A mist of swirling water circled around her. It rushed and groaned, growing with power, driving everything in the room back from her vanishing figure. “Go!” she shouted.

  I grabbed Danni’s hand and pulled her from the room. Her skin was cold and trembling, and I knew she was in shock. Seeing the beautiful Wraith and her power was enough to make any human reel in shock. Christ, this was fucked up.

  Waleron entered my mind. “Tomb. Now. I’ll meet you there.”

  I half dragged Danni down the stairs and into the basement, Keir and Anstice steps behind. Jedrik stood outside his room in his black boxer shorts and no shirt.

  “Hey, what’s all the noise? Trying to sleep here,” he said, ruffling his hair and yawning.

  A white cloud materialized next to the pool table and Waleron appeared.

  Danni gasped.

  Jesus, talk about screwing with a person’s mind.

  The snake’s eyes on Waleron’s tattoo glowed red for several seconds then went back to black. His stance was tense; the power he exuded filled with rage. This was the Waleron no one wanted to fuck with.

  “Don’t use your powers, or they will sense them and be able to track you. You’ll travel by car to Newfoundland. By air, Urtzi can easily find you.” Waleron tossed him keys. “I’ll arrange for the jet to pick you up when it’s safe. You’ll stay with the Talde on the east coast. I trust them implicitly. When it’s safe enough, the plane will take you to Spain. I’ll meet you in Zugarramurdi for her transition.”

  “For real?” I asked.

  Waleron scowled. “Have I ever not been ‘for real’?”

  “Shit. Yeah, okay.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” Waleron ordered.

  A loud crash sounded upstairs and Waleron instantly vanished. Why my Taldeburu was intent on sticking his ass on the line, I couldn’t figure out. Did they trust me? Or were they doing this to protect Danni since she was Anstice’s best friend?

  Keir and Anstice ran back upstairs and Jedrik disappeared back in his room.

  I pulled Danni toward the garage. “Balen, what is going on?”

  Her face was as white as the Wraith of Water and I could smell fear radiating off her skin. “I’ll explain on the way. We have to get the fuck out of here.”

  She stumbled after me as we went down the long hallway. “That woman? The water. I mean, okay, that isn’t possible, right? Water swirling around and . . .”

  Another loud crash from upstairs and then something that resembled a howl.

  I stopped and grabbed her by the shoulders, my fingers bruising. Her eyes were staring and glassy. “Baby, that water shit you just saw is nothing compared to what is happening upstairs. They’ll take me away from you.” I shook her once. “Separate us.”

  Her eyes widened. “But that would . . .”

  “Yeah, babe.” I inhaled and smelled fire. “Fuck. Edan.” Edan was going to be one hell of a pissed-off Wraith.

  I hooked my arm around Danni’s waist and we ran.

  BALEN RACED THE CAR down the driveway toward the gates.

  “Balen.” He wasn’t slowing. Shit. “Balen!”

  His hand came down on the back of my head and pushed it between my legs, just as he crashed through them.

  A loud clatter and bang as metal groaned and bent then scraped along the pavement. I turned in my seat and looked at the mangled gate then back at the dented hood.

  “Holy Christ.” I took deep inhales and glanced over at him. He had a fierce, determined look on his face, rainforest eyes focused, jaw tight, and his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel. He looked like a different man than the one I’d slept with. Eyes hard and cold, scowl severe with a flicker of a murderous glint. It was still a hot scary, because really, I didn’t think Balen could ever not look hot.

  “The woman in the blue gown is a Wraith, Wraith of Water. There are four of them and you don’t mess with them.” He looked at me, then back again at the road. “When any of us break a law, those are the ones who vote on our punishment, along with Waleron and a couple others. They voted to send me to Rest.” Before I could ask what that meant he continued. “Rest is being put into a . . . for humans, it would be comparable to a coma. No feelings, no movement, and in limbo between death and living. But with one anomaly—in Rest you relive your past, and not the good parts. Since Waleron didn’t put me in Rest, the Wraiths are retaliating.”

  “But that woman came to warn you.”

  The tires squealed as he took a corner fast. “Genevieve is different. She hates conflict.”

  A bright white flash burst across the sky. Balen swore beneath his breath and the car lurched forward. “We’re in some serious shit here, little one.” He pounded his fist on the steering wheel. “Fuck, you shouldn’t be involved in this.”

  I reached over and put my hand on his thigh. His eyes shot to me and what I saw was so familiar. I’d seen it every single day in my paintings. The haunted, tortured eyes, lips pressed together, the pain so deep it leaked into me. In an odd way, i
t comforted me because I knew it so well.

  “Danni—”

  I interrupted, “Don’t treat me like some fragile china doll. Give it to me straight. No bullshit. Anstice told me a little, but most of it is not making sense right about now and my brain is like a mess of wires all pushed in the wrong sockets.”

  Balen chuckled.

  I squeezed his thigh and his smile disappeared. “Baby, I love your hand on me. But my cock wants you bad right now and it isn’t a good time to pull over and fuck you from behind against the hood of the car.”

  Oh, Jesus. That was hot. I swallowed, put my hand back on my lap and crossed my legs as my sex clenched. Yeah, better keep my hands to myself while we’re being hunted down by some crazy-ass Wraith things.

  Balen shifted in his seat and the leather creaked. “I’m a Tracker and have the scenting ability like a . . . I’ve never had to explain this shit to anyone before.” He frowned then started up again. “I can track people really well.” He hesitated, taking a quick glance in my direction. “And speak telepathically—read thoughts.”

  “What? For real? I mean, you guys are speaking with your minds without opening your mouths?” That would explain the weird connection Anstice and Keir had. They always seemed as if they knew what the other was thinking.

  “It’s limited, of course. A few miles maybe. Some of us are stronger at it than others, and we’re able to block other Scars from reading our minds when we want to.”

  “Yeah, that’s screwed up. So you guys are just parading around Toronto?”

  “More like all over the world,” Balen corrected.

  “Great. Just great.”

  “Humans don’t know about us. So don’t think you’ve been ignorant all these years.”

  “I should’ve noticed something. Anything. God, my best friend is one of you.” I’d thought I was a pretty observant person and now I discovered I’d been walking around in a haze. “So where do you, all of you, come from?”

  “The short of it—we evolved from witches in 1610. You’ve heard of the Spanish Inquisition?” I nodded. “Well, in Zugarramurdi, Spain, a handful of women confessed to being witches to the Spanish Inquisition. Since they confessed to the crime, they were exonerated. Others were not so lucky. With their refusal to admit any guilt, they were burned at the stake.

  “Afterward, the Goddess—” I raised my brows at that one. “Yeah, I know, difficult to grasp, but her name is Azzurra. She approached the pardoned witches and, in exchange for their sworn loyalty to protect civilization, gave them immortality and extraordinary abilities from the five senses—we became the Scars.” He paused and glanced at me as if to make certain I was either listening or hadn’t passed out from shock. “The witches burned at the stake were also given a reprieve by the Goddess. She saved their spirits and gave each of them one power from the four elements—water, earth, fire and air—the Wraiths. Together, the Wraiths and the Scars spoke the identical oath to the Goddess, swearing to protect humanity from any darkness that walked in the shadows.”

  “Nice,” I mumbled. “Bring on the streamers and birthday hats. I’m living among burned witches who are now Wraiths and Scars.”

  “However, we had one curse to deal with. In Zugarramurdi, there is a stream in a cave where the witches would gather outside of town. That is where they held all their meetings. The water from that stream takes away our abilities. We become as weak as humans.” He shrugged. “Never mattered much as no one knew about it—until Ryszard.”

  Oh, shit. “The water. In your cage.”

  “Yeah. He must have transported it over and used it to weaken me.”

  “And yet we’re headed there. Sounds like a fan-fuckin-tastic plan.”

  “Nothing is touching you.” His intense expression eased and his lips curved up as he glanced between his legs. “Except, my other . . . ability.”

  I laughed. “Your ability with your cock isn’t going to save us from wraith-like, crazy ass things.”

  He turned to me and winked. “Oh, baby, you haven’t even begun to know what my cock is capable of.”

  Jesus. My insides did a little dance and I uncrossed my legs then crossed them again, trying to find a position that eased the ache that was building. I was guessing by his smug expression he knew exactly what he was doing.

  “Some of us can move objects by telekinesis. It’s Keir’s specialty and Damien is pretty good at it too, though his ability is erratic. Others, like Anstice, have the ability to Heal.”

  “Jedrik?”

  “Visionary. And before you ask, no, he can’t see into the future. He can see through things, like walls, wood, and he is capable of seeing in complete darkness.”

  “And that guy, Hack?”

  “Taster. Certain sensors in his mouth give off warnings. If a vampire is near, he’ll get the taste of black licorice.”

  “Black licorice? Ryszard. Like Ryszard.” This was real. What he was telling me was all in-the-face real. What the hell do you say when a guy you’ve slept with tells you that he is a Scar, besides ‘holy shit.’ My mind was fighting the possibility that all this was real, but too much made sense to be some kind of, well, I didn’t know what. Why would any of them make this shit up?

  “You good?”

  Our eyes locked briefly and I saw the concern in his depths. Whatever it was between us, the connection, it brought with it trust. I trusted this guy. Good thing too, because we were going to Spain . . . shit we were leaving. “My cat. What about my cat? Someone has to feed him.” I knew it sounded ridiculous, but Splat was all I had left.

  “Your cat?” Balen asked, his brows lowering.

  “Yeah. You know, that big orange ball of fur. We’re going to Spain, right? We have to get someone to look after him. Maybe if we go back . . . ?” Splat would have a coronary without his meals.

  Balen pointed at the sky. “You see that storm following us? You hear the wind? Wraiths. Waleron is holding them back, or we’d be dead by now. I’m not stopping or going back for a goddamn cat.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll contact Anstice and Keir as soon as things settle down.”

  “Through the mind thing?”

  Balen chuckled. “No. Cell phone. I can’t use my telepathy right now. The Wraiths can feel the energy.”

  “So, can you read my thoughts?” I raised my brows and waited, watching him for any subtle smile to tell me he was. “Do you know how damn sexy I think you are?”

  “I’d rather hear it from you,” Balen said.

  I laughed. “Hmm, I bet.” I leaned my head back against the leather seat. “So, if we escape these Wraiths, what next?”

  Balen cleared his throat. “Waleron has a plan.”

  “Which is?” I glanced over at him. He was frowning. Frowning wasn’t good. “He wants to make you one of us.” My breath hitched. “Let me explain before you decide your better option is to jump out of the car. If you go through a transition, the Bonding spell may be broken.”

  “May?” I huffed. “Not too promising a plan. And it would be nice to know what you mean by Bonding spell.”

  Balen explained the ancient spell. It made sense. Perfect sense actually, but when bombarded with a whole new world within the world you lived in, it was difficult to know if anything really was making sense at all.

  “It’s all we have at the moment,” Balen continued. “We stay here, the Wraiths will find us. They catch me . . . fuck. It’s not good.”

  “Unless I do this transition and the Bond is broken, I die. Right?”

  He hesitated. “Something like that.”

  Holy bejesus. This was so not good. “I don’t know if this is such a great idea.”

  “Not really an idea here. It’s a do or die. If I’m taken from you, you will die and I’m not letting that happen. Even if the Bond isn’t broken by the transition, you’ll still have a chance of surviving if you’re a Scar. I can’t take the risk of not doing this.”

  “But if we run or maybe talk to that wat
er woman—”

  “Damn it, Danni.” His fist pounded the steering wheel. “This is your only chance. And I’m not letting you die because of me.”

  The muscles in his shoulders tensed and his brows were low over his eyes, knuckles white. And yeah, I was scared. Scared of becoming something I knew shit about, running for my life from some spirit things. I felt the strong connection between us, but was it from this Bond thing? What would happen when the Bond was broken? Would I still feel this need for him? Would I no longer care about him? I wasn’t sure what was real and what was caused by the spell.

  His hand linked with mine and he squeezed. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  I tried to pull my hand away, but he only tightened his grip. “You can’t make that kind of promise, Balen.”

  “It won’t change. What’s between us, it will always be. Bonded or not.”

  I gave up on getting my hand back and stared out the side window. “I don’t do relationships,” I mumbled.

  Balen chuckled. “You do now.”

  I TESTED THE THICK, gold bands circling my wrists and ankles. Solid and impossible to break. I paced the room, my footfalls driving into the floor with each step. The room was completely bare, not even a door, just gray marble walls, ceiling, and floor. I was in a cage with no bars. My nightmare.

  They took my weapons and pills, I fought them on the latter, then Traced me here hours ago. I had no clue if Balen and Danielle had escaped or not. The problem was, I had to meet them in Spain for Danielle’s transition. A transition that had never been done before.

  The walls closed in around me as I felt the rage building. Confinement was my nemesis. After years in a Lilac’s prison, any form of containment broke through my cool exterior and pushed at my control. I was breaking and it didn’t help that I was damn sure Edan had started this.

  No doubt the fire Wraith had demanded retaliation against Balen before I was even consulted. If it hadn’t been for Genevieve’s warning, Balen would be in Rest and Danielle dead.

  Genevieve. She had something to do with what was happening between Balen and Danielle. I knew there was something odd about her behavior at the Deaconry meeting. Her turmoil, the unease, the hesitation to decide on Balen’s fate. Then her sudden change.