“Hello, Abomination. I bring you greetings from your one true master, King Turi, rightful heir to the Summerlands and keyholder to all the planes,” Kor said, his sword at his side. He had brought five men with him. Six massive warriors for one petite female who couldn’t even access her magic. Talk about overkill.
“I’ll go with you if you let the woman be,” I offered. “If you hurt her, I swear I’ll fight, and you know I’ll take a couple of you with me. I’ll force you to kill me and then what will you give to your precious master?”
In this case they really needed me alive. Not whole, but alive enough that he could perform his dark rituals and push his agenda forward. I personally thought he was insane, but I wasn’t going to argue at the time.
“I don’t care about the female,” Kor proclaimed. “Although my men haven’t been fed recently. She looks a bit on the bony side for them though.”
I heard a low growl from behind me.
“That fucking hurt,” Kelsey said and her eyes had shifted, going darker than they’d been before. She pulled the arrow out in one violent tug, not even wincing at what had to be unimaginable pain. “The queen was right about that. Arrows suck. Now who are you and which one of you assholes wants to die first?”
Chapter Three
Zoey
“What the hell do you mean you can’t find Kelsey?” I asked the question even as the revelation that we were beyond bad settled in my soul. It was hours later and we hadn’t had any news on Devinshea. He was still gone and we had no idea where or why.
I stood in Daniel’s office, where Kelsey Owens had last been seen. Where Dev should have gone. We had a bit of video that gave us every reason to believe Dev walked into this office, but he hadn’t walked back out. As Daniel’s office had never eaten people before, we were kind of at a loss.
“I watched her walk in here myself.” Zack prowled around the room, stopping every few seconds to try to catch a scent.
“She didn’t come back to our place.” Trent Wilcox stood by the big window that overlooked Dallas. “She hasn’t been answering her cell phone either. I have no idea what to tell our son. He doesn’t even know we didn’t leave on the honeymoon today. If he sees either of us, he’ll want to know where his mother is.”
Gray Sloane was dressed in slacks and a collared shirt. He sat on the couch and looked up at his partner. “We’ll handle Fen. Come sit down.”
Trent looked back and it was a testament to how far those two had come that Trent did what Gray had asked, moving across the room to sit beside him. “I don’t understand how you’re so calm.”
“I would feel it if she was dead,” Gray said quietly. “She’s not. If our wife isn’t dead then she’ll find her way back to us. I have the utmost faith in her.”
Zack stood in the middle of the room and shook his head. “I can barely catch her scent. It’s faint. She was recently here. Her scent should be strong. If I wasn’t certain she’d been here, I would say she hasn’t been in this room for days.”
Daniel was pacing as well, though he wasn’t sniffing around. He’s got great senses, but nothing like Zack’s. “Can you still smell Dev? I ask because I can’t and I could earlier.”
Zack’s jaw tightened. “Barely. His scent is even fainter than Kelsey’s. I don’t understand what’s going on here. Has Sarah found anything at all?”
I shook my head. We’d come up empty. “She tried a locator spell and it didn’t work. She couldn’t find anything. It’s like they’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Or the plane,” Gray said and for the first time since he’d walked in, I really looked at him. He was calmer than I would have imagined him to be.
He was also the freaking dark prophet and often knew things the rest of us didn’t. I moved to stand in front of him, my hands on my hips and giving him my sternest glare. “What do you know that we don’t?”
He stared up at me and the saddest expression came over his face. “I would tell you if I could. I can repeat myself, but you could also go and read it. It’s in the Council documents.”
Fuck. He meant that he’d already prophesized what was coming.
Trent had gone a bit pale. “You know where she is?”
Daniel moved in, his strong arms folding over his chest. “He doesn’t. He only knows that something is about to come to pass and it’s important.”
“I have faith in my wife,” Gray reiterated before looking to Trent. “And you and I will have to find our patience.”
“But she’s alive.” Trent reached out and put a hand on Gray’s arm.
Gray nodded, but even I could see what it cost him. His head was probably screaming and there was a shit ton of ibuprofen in his future. This was how prophecy went. Gray could see the way the world would go, but he couldn’t simply explain it to us. There was something mystical that happened when a prophet was made. Gray was normal most of the time, but every now and then his eyes would change, becoming orbs of endless night, and he would speak words that seemed to come from somewhere else. If asked to explain what his twisty-turny word puzzle meant, Gray would be physically unable to say anything except to repeat the prophecy. I don’t think even he knew exactly what each word meant. Every phrase that came out of a prophet’s mouth can be taken any number of ways. It’s almost like the universe needed to be a smarty-pants. The prophet comes along, makes cryptic statements that sound super important but are also pretty wide open, history happens, and then the prophet can say “look, I called it” because the prophecy can mean any number of things.
What I’d learned was prophecies weren’t meant to be changed. Not ever. What would come to pass would come to pass, and we were somewhat helpless against it. All we could do was try to prepare for the coming storm.
Daniel looked over to Zack. “I think we should have the academics look into all of Gray’s prophecies. Hell, look into everything we have that might concern the Nex Apparatus, Devinshea, or Marcus.”
Zack nodded and strode off, seemingly happy to have something to do.
“You let her go?” Trent was on his feet. “You knew something would happen and you let her walk away this morning?”
Gray looked up at his partner. “You know that’s not how it works. I’m scared, too, Trent, but I know that she’ll find her way back from wherever she is and that she’s there for a reason. Don’t look at me like that. I can’t change things. I can’t fix them. I can only assure you that if we’re careful, we’ll survive.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Daniel said.
Gray turned to the king, his eyes seeming to laser focus in. “When the time comes, choose her, Your Highness.”
Daniel’s eyes strayed to me. “I always choose her. What is that supposed to mean?”
Gray simply sighed and shrugged. “Choose her. It’s all I can say.”
“What are we supposed to tell our son?” Trent asked.
Gray stood and put a hand on Trent’s broad shoulder. “That his mother has a job to do. We didn’t marry her because she was safe.”