Bound by Duty (Bound Series Book 1) (15 page)

“Shit! Amelia, we have to get to safety. Dammit! Where are they?”

He was crouched and looking in every direction, muttering to himself, “I should have been paying attention. I can’t believe I wasn’t paying attention!”

“What do you want me to do?” I whispered, bringing myself into a crouch as well.

“The best we can hope for is that we can run and shoot at the same time. Your aim has gotten much better and the blasts don’t actually have to be big, just frequent,” he said.

“The gym is just over the boardwalk. If we can make it to the back alley, then we can get inside,” I explained. “Cole is always cleaning up around this time and props that back door open to empty the trash.”

Micah nodded and we spoke in low voices for just a few minutes more, finalizing our plan. On “Three!” we were up and sprinting for the boardwalk. Even with magic coursing through our veins at top speed, I still had a hard time keeping my footing in the dense sand. As I shot purple blasts, thankfully larger now than they were at first, toward the direction of the blue bolts, Micah was also blasting them with large red bolts.

Trees were falling, sand was exploding everywhere, and the area was a mess. It was only as we hit the boardwalk and started around the corner that I saw bright blue eyes staring back at me. It suddenly hit me that I’d never seen or heard of blue power. Each Immortal race has their own signature and blue was never one we discussed. It was the same reason my father tried to keep me quarantined…violet eyes were rarely seen and he didn’t want people asking questions.

I didn’t have a chance to look again or process it further because another bolt came flying at me at the same time Micah hauled me around a corner and shoved me into the back door of Cole’s gym.

The locker room was dark and we both fell against the door as we shoved it closed. We were panting and I realized I had left my shoes on the beach. So many thoughts were racing through my mind…
Who were those people? What did they want? How did they find us?
I turned to question Micah about these same things and couldn’t help but laugh as I realized he had a huge chunk of seaweed in his hair. I was just reaching up to brush it away when I heard a voice say, “What the hell are you two doing?”

Aidan.
Shit, shit, SHIT!
It seemed like Micah and I started to speak at the same time, then stopped, looking at each other, then started again. Finally, I glared at him to shut him up and stepped toward Aidan.

“Looks like you caught us!” I tossed out, trying to sound like it was no big deal that he had walked into a scene that looked just about as bad as it actually was, but for completely different reasons. Aidan stood in front of me, still mostly in the shadows of the dark locker room. His stance and posture were exuding his rage at finding me with Micah. He had me reeling at the myriad of emotions that rolled off of him. Anger. Frustration. Hurt. I had to force myself to keep moving toward him, pushing through it all and knowing that there was absolutely no way around having to lie.

“I thought you would like it if I learned more about MMA, so I convinced Micah to start teaching me some of the moves and the lingo. I want to be able to understand what you’re doing. I know it’s important to you.” I didn’t bother to explain that I already held all of this knowledge and I could probably teach Micah a thing or two, even in the ring, because of Cole. I just prayed that Aidan wouldn’t ask too many questions.

“You…asked Micah…to teach you about MMA?” The raised eyebrow and stone-cold expression made it obvious that he didn’t believe a word I had said, but couldn’t really dispute it. Without turning away from Aidan, I sent a message to Micah,
Tell him that you’ve been teaching me. Things like the proper way to defend an arm bar.

I could feel Micah’s confusion and hesitation, but he delivered the statement with utter confidence. Even adding that I was a better fighter than most would expect.

I puffed up a little, knowing that Cole’s training would come in handy one day. He’d love hearing this story in a few years when I could admit to dating Aidan. I gave Aidan a big smile and challenged him, bouncing on the balls of my feet in a Southpaw stance.

“Whatcha got?!” I poked with a forced grin. He let out a little snort, snatching me up, bringing me flush with his body, and pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “Alright then, doll. You win. I’m not gonna fight you. But, I do need a minute with your training partner over there.” I could feel him channel everything into protecting me — us — as he faced down Micah. I was certain he didn’t believe a word I’d said. He wanted to, but there was just no way.

I kept my smile going, leaving them as if I had no reason to be concerned, though I was almost certain Aidan could probably dismantle Micah. Micah might have had a few inches, but Aidan had more muscle and certainly more emotion at this particular moment. I was lost in my own thoughts and didn’t realize I had made my way to Cole’s office. He looked up, surprised to see me, and instantly was up and around the desk. “Ame, what’s up? I can feel it, some thing’s wrong. What happened?”

Cole was giving me that look that was half “Dad”, half “who can I beat up because I’m your big brother?”

I still didn’t know how to explain the attack. It was only just now occurring to me what it could mean, so I didn’t say anything. I just walked into his arms and buried myself in my big brother’s chest. While I could feel his confusion over why I was so upset and his anger at whomever had caused it, he gave me a moment with his hand on the back of my head. Finally, I disengaged myself and stepped back.

“Cole, there’s so much to say, so much that’s been happening these last few weeks that I haven’t had the chance to fill you in on. But, Aidan’s going to be coming to find me soon and this is going to take a while to explain.” I sighed, looking around for Aidan but knowing Cole wasn’t going to let me off easy. He clearly wasn’t happy with my build up and let down.

“Amelia, you come into my gym after dark with your power on full tilt, sand all over you, no shoes on, looking like hell, and you expect me to just let you walk away without an explanation because one of your
friends
is coming to look for you?” he asked.

It hadn’t sounded so ridiculous in my head, but I also had no clue that I looked so terrible. Cole’s face took on a pretty frightening expression; the one he reserved for the hoodlums who tried to infiltrate his gym… or when his sister stepped out of line.

Of course, Aidan decided at that moment to come around the corner and step into Cole’s office. He actually wore a similar look to Cole.

“Amelia, you know Cole?” Aidan’s shock was apparent. Then, he kept looking from me to Cole, and back. It wasn’t really that hard to see the family resemblance when we were right next to each other, and I visibly knew the moment it clicked for him. I hadn’t exactly hidden the fact that we were related, I just hadn’t given it up willingly. I hoped that he didn’t connect the fact that I might have already known the things Micah was supposedly teaching me. The lies just kept getting harder to maintain.

I gave Aidan a tentative smile but Cole didn’t wait for him to verbalize the pieces he’d put together. He just stepped in front of me, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “Yeah, she’s my little sister. And, we’ve got stuff to deal with. So, I need you to beat it, Montgomery. I know you guys are friends, but we’ve got some family stuff.”

“We’re
friends
?” Aidan repeated slowly. From behind Cole, I nodded frantically at Aidan, trying to make him understand that the last thing I needed was to have that conversation now. In front of Cole. “Uh, yeah, we’re…friends,” he said, nodding at me. “Amelia, just call me later and you can finish filling me in on that
other thing
.” Those last few words were punctuated with such an angry undercurrent, I shivered.

I had to be the only person on the planet capable of pissing off every guy in my life on the same day while managing to get them to all lie to each other — while lying to them myself. And, the fact that Aidan and Cole were giving me the exact same look did not bode well for my future.

Aidan left the office and it took a moment for Cole to turn around to face me. I could tell from his stance that he was trying to control his temper. Finally, he turned and simply said, “Sit.”

His tone had said enough. I sat.

“Would you like to tell me what in the hell is going on?” Cole’s tone was patronizing as he leaned against his desk, his arms crossed.

“Well. The funny part about all of this is that I don’t actually know.” I wanted to play it off, but thoughts were bouncing around inside my head like someone had let every pinball loose in the machine. Every day just brought more information. More to think about. More questions. I had done an okay job of compartmentalizing everything up until now, but it all came crashing into me at once. Being the last Elder. Making friends with a Mage. Lying to my best friend and the guy I liked. Being attacked.
Being attacked.

I looked up at Cole, my eyes filled with barely restrained hysteria, expecting to see anger. Instead, I saw empathy, frustration… sadness.

He sighed and sat down next to me. “Talk to me, Ame. We both know you’ve been avoiding me for weeks. Did I dump too much on you too fast? You know we can’t just wait around for you to get comfortable, right? You’re too far behind.”

Anger replaced fear as he once again resorted to big brother behaviors. I stood, this time looking down at him. The emotion filling my chest choked my words, making them feel thick and hard to push out.

“Comfortable? You think I’ve just been hiding out in my room waiting until I can
handle
all of this, do you? You don’t get it, Cole. You’ve been running around the country for last ten years. Granted, it was for me, but for you, too. Don’t deny it. And, all the while, I’ve been dealing with Dad. With
this
.”

I intentionally allowed my power to flood my system in a huge tidal wave that dropped my head back and sent crackling fever to my fingertips. I looked back down at him knowing my eyes were glowing, the iridescent purple likely giving me my own demonic quality. I held my hands up, watching the energy pulsing around them and losing myself for just a moment in the heady feeling of it all. I wanted to blow something up. Now.

I felt Cole coming toward me and before I could pull away he locked each of his hands around my wrists. “Calm down, Amelia. Don’t do this.” He stood nose to nose with me, looking more controlled than he probably should have. I’m sure I looked like a wild woman — wide-eyed and crazy. But, his energy immediately sapped away the hard edge of my power, placing layer after layer of smothering tranquility on top of the feral fire I had started.

The longer he held my wrists, the more I came back to myself. Instead of a powerful being, I was a scared girl who had just been attacked. All of the facade I had showed Aidan and the calm my power presented to Cole dropped away and I collapsed into him, sobbing into his chest as he hugged me and told me it would be okay. I pulled away, realizing we hadn’t even had the worst part of the conversation yet.

Sniffling, I pushed back and sat back in my own chair. “I look like this because Micah and I were attacked. We were working on the beach and suddenly someone just started throwing bolts at us. Blue ones. None of our people have blue power! Mages have shades of green and red, and we talk about violet but few actually realize that’s only Elders. What does that mean, Cole? Who are they?”

Cole was pale and quiet. He should have been ranting and raving at me for how stupid it was of us to be out in the open, or questioning the how’s and why’s of what had happened, but he just sat there with a glazed look, taking short, quick breaths.

“What aren’t you telling me, Cole?” More secrets. More information I deserved to know but didn’t.

He finally looked at me, saying, “I don’t know yet. There were rumors but no one ever believed them. It’s probably nothing. What about Micah? Does he know what happened? I think we need to get him in here. We need to talk about what happened and see if he saw something different from what you did.”

“You’re serious? You want me to just let that whole reaction go and then you want to bring Micah in so you can verify that I’m not just making all of this up? You’re amazing.” I stood up, shaking my head. “I need to go home.”

He vaulted out of his chair. “No! I’m taking you home. You go nowhere alone. You are always with someone. We don’t know what happened tonight or why it happened. Don’t you get it, Amelia? They could be after
you
. Someone could know what you are. They could want you for all the same reasons the queen does.”

I dropped back into the chair feeling like a bigger idiot than I had when Aidan caught Micah and me. “What should I do?” It came out much wimpier than I would have liked, but all of my bravado had been used up for the day.

Cole and I talked for a long time. We argued about whether or not we should talk to Rynna about everything. We talked about who those people could have possibly been and what they may have wanted with me. We talked and we argued until I was exhausted. It had been hours before either of us realized that we hadn’t eaten and it was getting very late. Cole finally agreed it was safe enough to leave and he brought his car up to the front door so I could just run and dive right in. We went through a drive-thru and I demolished a giant burrito in record time.

As Cole dropped me at my apartment, he made me promise that I would set up a meeting between him, Micah, and me for the next evening to determine what Micah had seen and what he might know that we didn’t. He hugged me tightly before letting me out of the car. “I love you, Amelia. Keep your phone on at all times and call me if anything weird happens.”

I laughed. “I know, Cole, I’m on high alert. I won’t go anywhere alone and I’ll keep my eyes open. I don’t think they would try anything in broad daylight and in public. At least, I hope not.” He gave me a look that made it obvious he wasn’t amused at my line of thinking. I gave his arm another squeeze and got out of the car. With one last wave, I went through the outer door and into my building.