Breaker (Ondine Quartet Book 4) (2 page)

Mom had that distant, slightly mean look all the time.
 

In the coming years, I would see it in many others - women, men, ondines, demillirs, selkies.

In my own reflection.

It was the look of someone who’d seen bad days, knew the taste of darkness and what it meant to endure.

The sun reappeared. Light melted away the hardness and her face returned to its luminous glow. This mother was too much in control to let that smudge show for long.

“What’s your name?”

“Kendra.”

She nodded approvingly. “Well, Kendra, would you like to join us until your mom’s done?” She gestured down the beach. A girl, no older than four years old, knelt in the sand, working on a castle with the same intensity I’d ridden my bike.

“I’m sure my daughter would like to make a new friend.”

I shook my head. She didn’t understand. “I’m not allowed to play.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing right now? Playing?”

“No,” I retorted. I wasn’t sure why I was so angry at her. She was just trying to help. “I’m training.”

She tilted her head and gave a curious smile. “What do you mean —“

“I have to go.”

I took off, the motion of the pedals resisting then smoothing beneath my feet.
 

But I only pretended to leave. Just as I’d pretended someone was waiting for me around the corner.
 

Once I was certain she’d returned to her child, I dropped the bike in the high grass lining the shore and raced back. I hid behind one of the thick pillars supporting the promenade and watched.
 

They played in the sand for awhile, gracefully dancing across the golden grains. Then they moved into the lavender water, the sun dipping low behind them. The mother lifted her child high, their faces bright with laughter, the girl’s toes skimming the silky water’s surface. Her giggles and delighted squeals filled the air.

An ache yawned in my chest and swallowed me whole.
 

My bike no longer appeared like a chariot, a glorious tool in my quest for spring freedom.

It looked like a discarded hunk of metal no one wanted.

I didn’t ride home that day.

The sun beat down on my head and with each step, I recalled the look on that mother’s face.

Empath always showed me that the masks people wore on the outside bore no relation to what lay within.

But what I’d witnessed hadn’t required my magic. The truth lay in their perfect laughter and warm embraces.

Emotion that pure and strong, with no twisted warping, left me restless and uncertain.

It was the same discomfort I felt years later watching Gabe and Marcella, or Aubrey and Ian.
 

Love that huge, that beautiful, made me feel small, insignificant. Ugly.

I’d once had that before Dad died, back when things were very different. But as those memories faded, a new truth emerged, a realization tied to the hours of relentless training and the inevitability of the countless more moves to come.
 

I may never have that again.
 

That second in the air, the second I grabbed on to with such fierce desperation, wasn’t really anything at all. A silly, unimportant diversion.

The stranger had been right. I was just playing.

So I walked home, dragging my feet across the dusty Texan road, my blood tied to the ceaseless rhythm of the ocean, my life fixed to the finite expanse of the land.
 

And all the while, deep within the hidden crevice of my heart, I continued yearning for that strip of sky between clouds and sea.

ONE

“What do we do, Kendra?” Aubrey’s voice trembled.

An exposed lie had the power to alter time.

First, the future disappeared. A lie twisted the paths forward into unrecognizable clumps. A future based on falsehood couldn’t exist.
 

Then the present wavered, deforming into a dubious reality reshaping your perception of yourself and others.

Finally, the past reared up, its snapping jaws dragging forth every moment colored by that lie, forcing you to question their authenticity.
 

The lie revealed by the still image on the laptop screen annihilated the narrative of my life in a single moment.
 

Helene peered over my shoulder and sharply inhaled. “Is that — ?”

“He’s here.” Aubrey’s eyes widened with terror. “Right now.”

I moved before my mind realized what I was doing.

“Kendra!”

I raced through the office doors, flew down the spiral staircase, past the main entrance foyer.

Jeeves looked up, cutting a dashing figure in his tasteful suit. A cell phone was at his ear. “
Sondaleur
?”

Out the ebony doors, over the marble steps.

Fury boiled in my gut and with each heartbeat, the same words pounded against my skull.

Here. Shadow. Here.
 

Across the empty Governing Complex courtyard. Down the grassy slope.
 

A cold mist rolled in. Clouds crept along the gray spring sky, darkening the waning afternoon light.
 

I sprinted, willing my legs to move faster. Air burned my lungs. Trees rocked, the wind whistling through their budding arms with mournful cries.
 

How could I have missed it? He’d carefully positioned himself, gaining the trust of others to obtain information.
 

Those eyes.

Dr. Beau Savion. Vittorio Prideaux. Mirage Trouve.

The images in Haverleau’s Government Registry had unlocked a door in my memory.

I’d seen those eyes in other faces over the years. They flashed before me now in rapid sequence, a horrifying puzzle snapping together.

Brian, the bartender at Club Rave in Los Angeles. Rick, the homeless guy who hung out near Crestmont High School in Panama City. The middle school custodian who always greeted me. Mr. Janson, my fourth grade science teacher. The cashier working the afternoon shift at the convenience store a block from our home in Virginia Beach.

I knew there were more, others I’d long forgotten. He’d seamlessly integrated into my Rogue life and tracked us through the years.

The last time he appeared was in California, a year before I arrived in Haverleau.

The morning after my mother had been killed. The San Aurelio cop who’d shown up at my door to inform me of her death had looked at me with those same deadened eyes.

He’d driven me to the morgue. Stood there while I faced and identified my mother’s broken body.

Rage billowed, choking my throat.

I would end him.

The building’s lights were turned off and only the barest hint of afternoon light trickled through the windows.

Everything that once comforted, now repulsed me.

Cozy, rose-colored booths appeared like sinister traps. The warm scent of sugar, flour, and fruits, now left an acidic taste in my mouth, poisoned by the truth.

I exited the back entrance to the porch.

He stood in the empty parking lot, hands hanging loosely by his sides. He wore his usual uniform of t-shirt and jeans with a dishtowel slung over his shoulder. His body was lean, athletic, and he moved with a sure, fluid grace.

“Finally,” he said. “You took a lot longer than I thought you would.”

“I ran into the usual
sondaleur
problems. Theft, murder. Breaking the spell of a deadly weapon.”

Bastien Landry smiled. His eyes were cold and detached, alien pools of green reflecting no trace of humanity.

“My children kept you busy. How many did you lose in that dreadful kingdom? A hundred, maybe more?” He tsked. “And your own gardinel, too. Ewan. He enjoyed my food so much.”

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Our first stop upon arriving back in Haverleau was Riviere. Just an hour earlier, we’d sat in a booth, chatting while Bastien served us coffee and eclairs.
 

He’d gleaned that info from our conversation.

How many other conversations had he listened to? How much information had he gathered from gardinels and chevaliers, from government employees on their lunch break?

Slowly, deliberately, I removed my dagger. Magic blazed bright around the blade. “I said I would find you.”

“No, I let you find me,” Bastien corrected. “I wondered when you’d remember that camera in Daniel’s office. I’m a bit disappointed it’s taken this long.”

“So why did you wait?”

“Because telling you wouldn’t have been as fun.”
 

Bullshit. He hadn’t told me because he’d needed to manipulate me.

The Shadow was a narcissist. He may not have directly confronted me, but his ego needed stroking. What drove him was the desire to show off his cleverness, his power over us.
 

It was why he’d remained close. Witnessing our grief and observing our frustrated reaction to the taunting clues he left behind had pleased him.

It was why he’d initiated first contact. He’d lured me out to a nightclub immediately after my arrival in Haverleau. The first Aquidae attack in Lyondale had been his opening move, a way of showing off his control.

“So you sent Aubrey the information about Club Axis because you wanted to have fun? If you wanted to dance, you could’ve just asked me.”

He smiled. It chilled my bones. “A simple matter of logic. You love dancing.” He carelessly motioned toward himself. “And I found appropriate attire.”

All those humans and elementals he’d posed as over the years. He’d worn them like meat suits, uncaring of the lives he destroyed.

“Couldn’t get a better hobby than stalking Irisavies?”

“Some of your relatives were hideous. And your mother.” He shook his head. A tousled mop of light brown curls flopped over his forehead. “For a while, I even suspected she might be the
sondaleur
. She was much smarter than the rest.”

The familiarity in his voice clicked realization into place.

“She felt you.”

Before she gave birth, my mother had struggled with the power of her Virtue and stayed in Lyondale Hospital’s elemental wing. Her attending physician, Dr. Daniel Clavet, had mentioned the dark visions and nightmares that plagued her.
 

As a Clairvoyant, she was highly sensitive to her environment and would’ve felt any fluctuations in energy.

The Shadow had visited her multiple times in the hospital with Rhian. As her trusted Chief Counsel, he would’ve been in constant contact with my mother, privy to every discussion about her future and that of her unborn child.

Bastien sighed. “Yes. Naida was particularly difficult. Her strong Virtue and suspicious nature made it difficult to stay close for long. If I hadn’t convinced your grandmother of my trustworthiness, I might actually have lost track of you.”

Another lie.

“She didn’t tell you, did she?”

I stared. Death was too good for him.

He laughed. “Of course she didn’t. Naida was so secretive and stubborn. But she suspected I was following you.”

Was that why she’d kept us moving? Because the nightmares had started up again, because she felt the darkness, his presence, closing in?

A cold, inhuman beauty defined his face. How could I have missed it?
 

Empath reached inside him, aggressively searching for the truth. If he used nix blood to mask himself, I wouldn’t detect anything.

But what I sensed with Bastien was the same thing I’d felt when I first met him. A demillir. No empty void, no gaping blackness indicating an Aquidae.
 

He raised his brow. “Really?”
 

I pushed Empath deeper. Power scorched through my veins. Sweat dripped off my temple as I hammered energy against him.

This amount of magic brought hardened selkie warriors to their knees. If I’d directed this much energy into an ondine or demillir, it would’ve sent them to the clinic. A human would’ve been driven into a permanent coma.
 

Bastien didn’t flinch.
 

I gritted my teeth and pushed harder. Pain throbbed behind my right eye.

My Virtue smashed against a pulsating wall of terrifying strength. Empath carefully inched around it, testing for weaknesses.

There were none. Whatever this power contained was something beyond comprehension.

The Shadow didn’t need nix blood or any other magic to conceal himself. He’d contained his immortal signature on his own.

“There we go,” he murmured.

Elementals knew the Shadow ran his organization with an iron fist. Everything from turnings to cells were carefully monitored and regulated.
 

But this…this was a level of power beyond anything I could fathom. This was the power fueling thousands of Aquidae, an energy capable of demolishing the entire elemental world.

“Armor?”

“Control.” Something reptilian entered his voice, a rasping energy I’d once felt in a pitch-black basement. “Absolute discipline and control. I could not wear this body or walk among you without it. My true self is something no mortal can bear.”

Arrogance dripped off his words.

“I felt it once —“

“What you felt in that Lyondale factory was but the tiniest taste. I wouldn’t advise breaking it, Kendra.”

Too bad I didn’t take unsolicited advice. I pushed harder.

A hairline crack appeared. Triumphant, I surged forward.
 

A tendril of dark magic unfurled and shot out, fast like a striking viper. Empath recoiled and magical backlash smashed through me. My bones screamed. Pain roared through my skull.

I staggered back.

“Told you.” He shrugged. “Bad things happen when you lose control. You know something about that, don’t you Kendra?”

I shook my head, trying to clear my ringing eardrums.
 

I focused on his laughing eyes, at this thing who’d taken every single person from me. He’d tortured, mutilated, and corrupted. He’d slaughtered countless innocents over the centuries.