Dark Lure: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 2) Read online

  “That’s what you want, to stop it?” He didn’t deserve to ask her that and he knew it, but he had to know what part of him she saw when she looked at him that way. The Kenson who fell for her at first sight, the evil Escort he became, or a fallen angel who was staring at his last days.

  “Why would I not want to stop it?”

  “Why would you want to stop it?”

  Reveca’s glare lifted to meet his. “We’re back to the original question. What do you want from me, King?”

  “What I can’t have. Can’t give.”

  He wanted to love her, wanted to tell her that he did, he always had, but Revelin, the God who ripped him from her long ago, took that ability away. Love, the word, the emotion, in raw form, was a kryptonite to Escorts, a poison.

  If they loved then they were part of the oneness all souls share, if they were one with them they could not pull from their emotions, it would destroy them. Casting their soul asunder.

  King knew that he was so depleted, so close to mortal just then that the very idea of that emotion would bring about a demise that he didn’t want to come just yet. No, he wanted his stare to linger on Reveca when it felt like it. He wanted to know that his own people that he watched over as an Escort, were protected before he bowed out.

  Reveca was speechless for a second. What he couldn’t have or give? What exactly was that? He sure as hell didn’t have an issue taking control the other night. Giving was not his issue, that much she knew. This had to be about some male claim and that all but infuriated her.

  “I’m my own person, King. Not property. Not Talon’s and not yours. You want an affair? Not going to happen. Not now, not when you don’t know who the hell you are and when my Club is preparing for war.”

  “An affair,” King said, as he if he were digesting the word nice and slow. He even had a sexy little grin dangling on the edge of his lips.

  “Do you need a definition? Let me explain—I will be as graphic as possible so you understand exactly what is not going to happen—”

  Reveca stopped short when he lifted his fingers to his lips then stepped away from her, let his stare move to the Boneyard. He didn’t say anything for a minute, then he spoke. “The kid has attitude, I’ll give him that.”

  “What the he—” Again she shut up fast when she felt Talon approaching. She looked to her right to see him slowly coming their way, as if he were listening as intently as he could. “Hey,” she said to him, feeling like an idiot. King, a man that claims he is all but depleted of energy and power, sensed Reveca’s lover long before she did.

  “What’s going on?” Talon asked, not bothering to show any real expression. Thrash was at the edge of the Boneyard, waiting on Talon, that or not really wanting to follow him.

  “King was telling me about the kid. He’s in here somewhere,” Reveca said, taking the lie King had handed her.

  “Attitude. Yeah, I saw that when he was face to face with uncle Zale,” Reveca said, making it seem like she was picking up the conversation once again.

  A grin spread across King’s face as he shook his head. “Fucking uncle Zale doesn’t sound right.”

  It was a little odd for Reveca right then to stand between King and Talon, two men that both shared a common dislike for Zale but for different reasons. King, he just thought Zale was weak, an ass, even annoying. More than once, for nothing more than sport, he kicked Zale’s ass when he caught her and King stealing an embrace, a kiss.

  Even though Talon shared that dislike of Zale, and surely had stronger reasons for that opinion, he still glared in King’s direction. And Reveca knew it was because King knew of a past of hers that Talon was still blind to.

  “Did he say anything about his mom? Anything at all?”

  “Didn’t ask. He wanted to think, so I let him. He’s testing boundaries and when he figures them out he’ll figure out that asking questions or speaking his mind will get him further than the attitude he likes to strike out with.”

  “And how’d you do that?” Talon asked, a bit too sharply.

  King nodded to the distance. Bastion had just come out of one of the side aisles and was looking over each bike he passed and cussing as he moved on to the next.

  “Sent him after a part.”

  “Which one?” Talon asked

  “These,” King said with a nod behind. “The ones in the shade, that have his lunch and an ice cold bottle of water next to them.”

  “Fucking father of the year,” Talon said with a grunt.

  “No, I just know how assholes think,” King said with nod to both Reveca and Talon. “Off duty now, got my own shit to handle.”

  “Right,” Talon said as King passed him by.

  Reveca was sure Talon had another smartass comment on deck, but whatever it was he held it in as Bastion finally saw the pair of them standing in the shade waiting on him.

  “I’m heading out. I’ll talk to Thrash,” Talon said as he leaned over and kissed Reveca’s forehead.

  Her stare questioned where he was going, but he never answered it as he turned to leave.

  Reveca pushed the tension with King and Talon back to her ‘do later’ list, along with the way King made her think and feel, as she watched the kid approach her.

  The resemblance to Evanthe was clear as day within him, but the look on his face, the way he walked, and so many other little things that Reveca could not quiet pinpoint screamed that he was Thrash’s, too.

  “King’s an asshole,” Bastion said when he reached Reveca and saw she was standing before hundreds of the parts he had been hunting for over the last three hours. He was soaked with sweat right down to his boxers. Hot and pissed—that’s what he was.

  Reveca let an amused grin flash across her face as she lifted her brow. “He was just telling me what a great kid you are.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Bastion said as he tied back his nearly shoulder-length dark hair. Under his arms Reveca saw not only the coven’s crest of the sun and moon hovering over an oak tree tattooed on his left arm, but also the Club’s symbol under his right arm.

  “That tat is suppose to be earned,” she said with a nod to the Club’s symbol. And that was true. If that mark was seen on anyone outside of the Club it would be removed one way or another.

  She was testing him right then and Bastion sure as hell took the bait.

  “Do you not know your own bylaws? Not where it’s at—it doesn’t have to be earned—this is a birth claim,” he said with a lift of his right arm. “It means don’t fuck with me or my daddy and his friends will kick your ass, or worse.”

  Yep. He knew who his daddy was; the question was how come daddy was the last to know.

  Reveca let a genuine smile come to her as she nodded for him to come into the shade, and reached for the lunch King had waiting on him.

  “You planning on putting that tat in more than one place…want wings one day?”

  “Too young to die. That’s what Mom said. Doesn’t want people thinking I’m a kid forever.”

  An immortal witch and an immortal first generation lycan bore this mortal child. That was one for the books. It could be done, both Evanthe and Thrash stayed in the mortal world near constantly and only left briefly, if at all, which meant their bodies were corporeal enough to create and grow life together. But it couldn’t or wouldn’t be an accident. Evanthe would have had to have planned. She would have to have the stars behind her, literally. She would have had to wait for a perfect alignment in the skies above, the right energy, the right words, the best intention.

  The why behind it? The best Reveca could come up with was she didn’t want to be alone. Evanthe was an outcast from the coven that bore her, not by their will, but hers. She, like Reveca, could not agree with all the beliefs. She couldn’t agree with her twin’s outlook either, and the Club wasn’t her life. She respected Reveca and her own, but it was too visible for her comfort, too distracting.

  “You were a surprise,” Reveca said to him as he devoured his sandwich i
n two bites and reached for another and his water at the same time.

  “Gee, I never get that.”

  “Who do you surprise, Bastion?”

  Bastion, with his mouth full, gave her a sinister grin then swallowed. “Since puberty, everyone. Bit too strong I guess. Short tempered for such an innocent face,” he said, purposely putting on a well practiced innocent expression. There was no doubt his dear uncle Zale gave him that trait.

  “You in school?”

  “Not anymore. Kept getting in fights. Mom pulled me out.” His stare shot to Reveca. “No. Don’t even think about having the yellow cheese wagon come get my ass at the crack of dawn. I graduated, a year early.”

  “There’s always more school to be had.”

  Bastion shook his head. “The only school I’m going to is how to be a good little witch slash wolf. Mom’s school.”

  “You seem well versed on your family history.”

  Bastion just stared as he finished the last of his sandwich.

  “You’ve always known,” Reveca pushed.

  “About all of you? No. Didn’t even know about Mom’s witch deal until I was fourteen.”

  “What happened?”

  “Got sick. Well, not sick. The beast awoke, tried to take over, and she saved me.”

  “What do you mean awoke?”

  He shrugged. “Just woke up, felt him inside. It started with crazy dreams, raw aggression, newfound strength, and a whole lot of other shit. The worst part was seeing it in the mirror.”

  It was a miracle that Reveca let no expression come to her. Thrash and a few others may have the beast, but the whole shift into a wolf with the moon was still a fable as far as Reveca knew. Hearing this was backing up Saige’s warnings all over again.

  “You saw it?”

  “In my eyes, my teeth. Nothing else really creepy, maybe an illusion. Mom helped, had this tea and stuff. Then we talked, and she told me it all.”

  Reveca had no idea how to be delicate about this. “She tell you why? About your dad?”

  “You mean did she tell me some sappy love story and how my dad was a hero who loved me but couldn’t be there? No. She told me who he was, who you were.”

  “You didn’t want to meet him?”

  “Why should I go to him like some sick pup. I didn’t walk away, he did.”

  “You think Thrash knew, that before the other night he had a clue?”

  Bastion was taking a long drink and hesitated as Reveca spoke, as if the idea was foreign to him.

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t get in business that’s not mine to handle, but I know Thrash. I know he was not ready to hear what he heard.”

  “He’s denying me?”

  “More than likely he’s trying to understand, and I’m sure he’s worried about your mother.”

  Bastion looked down as he breathed out a deep breath. “I thought he knew.”

  “Your mother say that?”

  He shook his head. “She’s very selective with her words. She told me about him. She was the one that tattooed my skin. She marked me as his, that’s why I thought he knew. How could he not know?”

  The betrayal Reveca saw in his eyes was heartbreaking. “That’s a conversation you’re going to have to have with him.”

  “He won’t come near me.”

  “It’s only been a day or two. Your father is an immortal, has been one for some time. He doesn’t see time the way you do. To him it’s barely been seconds.”

  “So, what, give him fifty years then say, ‘hey pops let’s chill’?”

  Reveca laughed under her breath, falling in love with this kid—he was going to fit in just fine ‘round the Boneyard. “Hopefully not that long. Under the best of circumstances he’s not much of a talker.”

  Bastion shook his head with a sarcastic grin strapped across his face. “Great. Neither one of my parents think it’s worth their time to speak to me.”

  “You and your mom were fighting before all this?”

  “No, I did my thing, she did hers. We talked when we did our lessons. She doesn’t do well with direct questions.”

  Reveca grinned. Evanthe had always been that way, even as a child. She hated to say something unless she felt her viewpoint would never change, but it was always changing because she was always learning, reaching out into the unknown.

  “What happened? How did you end up at Gaither?”

  “I don’t know, not really. Mom has been on edge for a while. At first I thought it was my shit she was dealing with, worrying about me, but she got worse each year, demanded that I learned more, that I had more control, that I knew the branches of this family and who to trust and who to be guarded around.”

  He took another drink before he spoke again. “Right at a year ago she called her brother. I heard her leave him a message. It was pretty coded, but she basically said they needed to talk, that something was off with his Rouges; too many were emerging. He didn’t call back as far as I know. She cast spells to get his attention, too, called him more. Then that Tisk girl came over. Mom made her stay outside, came up to my room, told me not to come out, told me to spell myself in, cloak it. She stood there until I did. Then in my room she sent another message to Zale via spell. I read it plane as day: dark energy is enclosing. Stop it.”

  “Did you feel that energy?”

  “Not really, I mean this is a fucked up world but it was like that when I got here. I don’t know any different. I thought Mom meant the Rouges were getting stronger.”

  “But not now?”

  He shrugged. “I spent weeks watching those asses pull blood out of them. They didn’t look all that strong to me.”

  “You were protected. How’d you get there?”

  “Came out when I heard mom scream. Someone knocked me out. Woke up strapped to a shoddy chair, some ass trying to find a vein so he could suck my blood or some shit.”

  “And your mom was there?”

  “Yeah, she was. She kept healing me, restoring my energy, told me to pretend I was asleep when she did. That was always her lesson—hide your strength so it’s all the more powerful when you do release it.”

  “Yeah, that’s your mom,” Reveca agreed.

  “She was watching, though, always watching, always listening. Whatever those asses were saying she understood.”

  “You didn’t”

  “I got that they needed immortal blood for their drug, and I got that they were thinking it would be really cool to turn a mortal immortal.” He shook his head. “They must have killed seven girls playing with that theory.”

  “Giving them the drug?”

  “Direct blood, but that’s what they didn’t get. It wasn’t the blood that was powerful—it was the energy in the blood, and the words said over it. Not only that, but the other shit they put in the drug. Some of those plants can be toxic if not handled right. Even I knew that and I barely passed chemistry.”

  “So they were just taking blood from a Rouge and putting it in an addict? Some girl?”

  “They did that once, and she bled out. Then they thought they would just give the next girl blood in injections, but nothing happened. So they decided to mix up all kinds of blood and see where that got them.”

  “And?”

  “Mom stopped it. I don’t think it would have worked, just because the energy was off, and like I said, they had the wrong dosage of the other plants and such. But Mom, when she stands up like that and tells you to back off, then you are at least heading in the right direction, and she didn’t want them to.”

  “How’d she stop it?”

  “First, she scared the fuck out of them. All those girls they killed, she cast a spell where their illusion could be seen. Jackasses thought they were being haunted. One even tried to bail, but his buddy killed him. During that upset, Mom did her deal. When they came her way, I stood up. They thought I was unconscious, nearly dead, but this country boy right here gave them a fight to remember.”

  “Did your mo
m get the spell done? What spell—what was she doing?”

  Bastion looked right at Reveca. “The power in any spell is not the words, but the belief in the words. It’s the fact that people have been saying and believing in them for years.”

  “Are you really schooling me right now, kid?”

  He shook his head. “That book they were reading from, Mom was ticked they had it. Apparently, it was an original, which meant any ass that could read could make shit happen if they uttered the words—so she had to control the words.”

  “You’re losing me kid.”

  “Mom, she’s in the pages. She broke herself down and covered every page, every word. She’s in the pages.”

  Reveca stared in awe for a moment, unable to figure out how in the hell she did that, or how to undo it.

  “She’s the words now. For them to work, her energy has to say so. So even if some ass photocopied that shit, it stopped working.”

  “I need to get your mom back, Bastion. Can you remember the spell she said?”

  “As far as I know, witches and beasts can’t read minds, and if they can I haven’t developed that talent yet. She thought the spell.”

  “Then how do you know that’s what the spell was for? How do you know she’s the pages?”

  “Because it’s what my grandfather did.”

  Shit, he was right.

  When the coven started to argue omens—started to divide way back when Reveca was a girl—Evanthe’s father stopped the civil war by hindering the spells they were fighting over. He slipped into the pages and made them meaningless. He emerged again, but Reveca would be damned if she could remember how he’d done it.

  “See, I told you I pay attention,” Bastion said. “She’s not coming out until that book is back in our hands and those who know the words outside of our coven or family or whatever the fuck we are—have been dealt with, like off to the Unclaimed.”

  “What book? Which one? Was it still at Gaither?”

  “No, they took the book, the Black guy did.”

  “The who?”

  “Black, stupid name because he’s white, like for real, pasty not natural, albino motherfucker white—creeped the shit out of me. His hair, brows, everything white—he did wear black, though.”