Fusion (13 page)

“Not so fast,” Emma breathed, a smile in her voice. “You opportunist, you.”

I don’t know how I stopped, but I doubted anything short of an act of God could force me to tap the brakes. “Not fast enough,” I replied, adjusting my face so it was right above her. “And yes, in fact, my middle name happens to be opportunist.”

Trailing her fingers down my back in more a gentle, massage way than the rough and tumble way she had moments ago, the way I preferred, she smirked up at me. “That’s not the middle name Bryn told me.”

“Have I mentioned you shouldn’t believe a word out of Bryn’s mouth?” I grumbled.

“So that whole thing with the eyes and the Immortality purity code, rule, law‌…‌whatever she and William explained to me this morning, is all just a bunch of bull too?” Her smirk sharpened, but her hands continued their lazy trails up and down my back. “Something you forgot to mention when you were about to hit a home run last night?”

“Biggest bunch of bull ever,” I answered immediately, angling my face so I could kiss her again.

She dodged me. “If you think I’d risk your life just because we couldn’t wait, you’re gravely mistaken, Patrick Opportunist Hayward.”

More than anything, ten times more than admitting my given middle name to Emma, this was what I found myself most pissed at Bryn and William for divulging to her. I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me what I could and couldn’t do with the woman I loved, most of all a bunch of older than dirt Immortals.

“Em,” I began, ready to break into my side of the argument.

“Don’t ‘Em’ me,” she interrupted, flattening her hands over my chest and pushing. I didn’t budge. “You really think sleeping together would be worth dying for?”

“Hells, yeah,” I said, my eyes widening. “There is no better or more honorable way for a man to go.”

Emma groaned. “Could you stop talking with your hormones for five seconds?”

“No promises,” I replied, wondering where this whole thing had derailed.

“Since you are incapable of thinking rationally about this, obviously,” she said, tucking my hair behind my ears, “I’ll have to do it for both of us.”

“Come on, Em,” I said, lowering my mouth to her ear, hoping I could salvage this mess. I planted my mouth against her neck, sucking the sensitive skin. “Rational’s boring. Throw caution to the wind with me.”

“As I was saying,” she said, shoving on my immovable chest again. “And since you seem impervious to my hinting at this, let me just spill it out for you.” Pausing, she cleared her throat and leveled me with a resolved look. A string of curse words sounded in my mind before she opened her mouth. “I will not have sex with you until we’re married. Or United. Or whatever the hell you people do with my kind of people.”

Groaning, I rolled off her and buried my face into a pillow.

“Sorry, love,” she said, kissing my shoulder. “But if it’s any consolation, that was a mind-blowing dress rehearsal.”

“There’s no consolation to a man being denied,” I said, my voice muffled by the pillow. “And just so you know, my people aren’t supposed to marry your people.” So I was pouting like a baby, but damn, this woman did things to me that should be illegal to even think about on Sundays.

“William and Bryn found a way to make it work,” she said, rolling onto her side.

“Yeah, they sure did,” I said, rolling onto my side so I could face her. “Their path to the altar was as smooth as a horny toad’s back.”

“Dramatic,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “And you said horny.”

“That wasn’t even a Freudian slip, Em. That’s just what I am,” I said, rolling out my lower lip, giving her my best puppy face.

She laughed and shoved my shoulder. “You’ve got such romantic pillow talk.”

I let myself join in her laughter, accepting the new direction tonight was taking. I was here with her now, talking, laughing, and close. It was a good night.

“Nothing but the best for you, baby,” I said, throwing my arms around her and pulling her against me. “Since you’ve made yourself painstakingly clear, we’ll spend the night together fully clothed, not touching below the waist, and pretending like our hormones aren’t going to split us in half by morning. Sound good?”

Folding into me, she let out a contented breath. “Sounds great.”

Emma fell asleep five breaths later. And I cursed the stars that, for the second night in a row, I’d struck out. I stayed up the rest of the night, keeping her folded into my arms, trying to figure out a way to keep Emma safe while I demonstrated the trust I had for her. Oh yeah, and how I would be formally tied to a Mortal.

Solutions were in short order on all fronts.

CHAPTER NINE

I didn’t wake Em before I’d left that morning. Partly because it was early and partly because she had this peaceful, contented look on her face that I didn’t want to be responsible for ruining with my goodbye. So I kissed her temple and succumbed to another day at the pen.

“What’s on the menu today, Hayward?” Mr. Rogers hollered over at me as he lined a row of pans with wax paper while we prepped for dinner.

I stared down into the vat of sustenance that was supposed to qualify as food as I stirred it. “Toxic sludge or toxic muck,” I replied, curling my nose. “I can’t tell how this is going to set up yet to tell for sure.”

“Yum, yum,” Mr. Rogers replied, his lips snarling.

Mid-stir, I tensed. The world stopped. The most gut-wrenching, raw feeling I’d ever had crippled me. It was terror. Something was wrong, and given the intensity of it, I knew who was affected.

I didn’t think about the repercussions, I didn’t care about them‌—‌I only cared about getting to her. Ducking into the walk-in refrigerator, I teleported out of the prison kitchen, middle of the day, with dozens of guards to account for my absence, knowing whatever pit-of-my-stomach feeling had just incapacitated me was more important than having to deal with the upheaval from disappearing from prison.

I was standing in the center of Emma’s room an instant later. Doing a spin, I ascertained it was empty. It was the middle of the day, so Emma should be in class, again, I didn’t know how to explain it, but I knew she wasn’t. Emma wasn’t anywhere close‌—‌I couldn’t feel her.

Another survey of her room and my eyes landed on a note resting on her bed. Panic clenched my throat. It was addressed to
P
.

Rushing to the bed, I snatched the note up and unfolded it.

Tag. You’re it. To ensure you play, I’ve taken out an insurance policy. Come find me or else I’ll play another game with your girl and your brother.

It was signed
T.

I read the note again, wanting to convince myself I’d read the words wrong. When the message was the same the second time around, I crumpled the note in my palm and roared. Troy had Emma.

I kicked the wall, my foot going through drywall.

Troy had Joseph.

I smashed my fist through the door. All the way to the other side.

I didn’t know where he had them.

I rammed my head against the wall, sending another cloud of white dust into the air.

He was going to hurt them.

I fell to my knees, folding my head into my arms.

I felt helpless. I was helpless. I needed to find Emma and Joseph and I knew that eventually, I could. I would tear the whole damn world apart until I found them, but I knew time wasn’t a luxury I had. Troy hadn’t specified, but I knew I had days, maybe even hours before he started to harm the people I loved.

I needed to find them. Now. And one person could find them for me.

Taking one last look around Emma’s room, I closed my eyes and concentrated on Montana. My father’s office.

I was kneeling on the mahogany wood floors of his dark office when I opened my eyes. It was empty.

Damn it. My dad was in his office more than any other place. Lunging up, I ran out of the office, making a quick layover in my room to grab my emergency pack and to change. Thirty seconds later, I was blazing down the stairs in a white undershirt, jeans, and steel toed boots. Wherever I was going, whatever I found, I was denting in some foreheads today.

Snapping the straps of the backpack across my chest and stomach, I shoved through the front door, pausing on the porch.

The barn. Father was in the barn with a few others.

“They took Emma and Joseph,” I said, appearing outside of the stall father, William, and Bryn were in, aiding a mare getting ready to foal.

“What?” Father said, his face dropping.

“I was just at Emma’s dorm and that Inheritor bastard Troy left me a note saying he’d taken them and he was waiting for me to come get them,” I said, gripping the metal bars of the stall.

“Are you sure?” Bryn said, wiping her arms on a towel as she came towards me.

“Does it look like I’m sure?” I asked, meeting her eyes.

Bryn inspected my face and swallowed. “Are you all right?” she asked, resting her hand on one of my forearms flexing against the bars.

“No,” I said, hissing the word through my teeth. I was barely hanging onto my composure. “I’m not all right. But I will be once I find Troy, anyone associated with him, and end each and every one of those bastards. I’ll be fine once I have Emma back in my arms and my brother back home with his family.”

William came up behind Bryn, his expression unreadable. I envied him that. When life got grizzly, you never saw it affect William, at least on the outside. Me, I let everything I felt spill out on my face and body.

“Do you know where they might be?” William asked, his voice the calm to my manic.

“No,” I said, clenching my jaw. All I could think about was Emma and Joseph at the mercy of the likes of Troy and his gang. The thought made me drive my boot into the stall wall.

The laboring mare jolted.

“Do you know how many of them are with Troy?” William asked, looking over to our father, who was a vice of silence. He was somewhere else, lost in the recesses of his mind.

“No,” I answered, hanging my head between my arms.

“Do you know‌—‌”

“I don’t know a god damn thing!” I shouted, spinning on him. “All I know is they took her, William! They took Emma. They took our brother.” My body was shaking from the buildup of adrenaline. “They took them!”

William and Bryn stared at me, having no words to calm me with and none that would work if they could muster any up. Then Bryn separated herself from William and stopped in front of me. Her arms lifted around my neck and she pulled me close, holding me so tight I knew I wouldn’t fall apart while she held me. My external earthquake stilled as I wound my arms around her.

“It’s okay,” she said softly, stroking my hair in almost the same way my mother used to when I was young. “We’ll find them. We’ll find them,” she repeated, again and again in my ear until I believed her.

“Father,” William said, breaking the minute of solace, “where are they?”

“Thanks, Bryn,” I whispered, giving her one final squeeze before I shouldered up to William, who was watching my father with an expectant expression.

Father startled, his eyes clearing as he found his way back to us.

“You were able to get past their Shielder?” William said, crossing his arms.

Father blinked a few times, his face lined with confusion.

“Where are they?” I asked, feeling hope take root.

“Son,” he began, lifting his hand.

“Father, we don’t have time for this,” I said, working to keep my control. “They’ve got Emma and Joseph. I need to get to them. Where are they?”

Father sighed, meeting my gaze. “You realize the reason they called off their Shielder, right?” he began. “It’s a trap. That’s the only reason they’d let their location be uncovered.”

“Good,” I replied, my muscles twitching to life, ready to go into action. “I’m a pro at springing traps. Where are they?”

Bryn came up beside me, and the three of us stood shoulder to shoulder.

“You can’t go in there alone,” he replied, looking between the three of us like he was trying to convince each one of us. “That’s exactly what they want.”

“That’s exactly what I want,” I replied, stepping forward, wanting to reach into my father’s mind and pull out the location with my fingers. Emma and Joseph were one teleportation away and I stood here arguing with my father, trying to pry it from him.

“We go together. All of us,” he said, the note of authority in his voice clearly a verdict coming from the Chancellor. “I will not allow you to teleport there on your own to be killed. If you want to have a chance at saving Emma and Joseph, you’ll wait for the rest of your family to accompany you.”

“Father‌—‌”

“Understood?” he said in a clipped tone.

I knew he was right. He’d been elected Chancellor of our Alliance decades ago for a reason‌—‌it was because Charles Hayward was a man that thought with his head and executed his plans precisely. He wasn’t a loose cannon that flew off the cuff like me. I knew he was worried about losing me, he was worried about losing Joseph.

I understood where he was coming from. “Fine,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Understood.”

“Good,” he said, nodding his head as he turned his gaze on William. “Get the plane ready, son. We’re leaving as soon as we tell the others.”

William paused, clearing his throat, and maybe I imagined it, but I swore I felt he was suggesting something when his shoulder barely touched mine. “I’ll get everything ready. What are the coordinates I’ll need to plug into the GPS?”

God, I loved my brother. The final pairing of numbers were still spilling from father’s mouth when I disappeared from the barn.

I understood where my father was coming from, but I didn’t give a damn. My girl was out there at the mercy of scumbags; now was not the time to execute perfectly laid out plans. Now was the time to beat some heads in.

CHAPTER TEN

North Idaho. Not quite Canada, not quite the United States‌—‌it was a land all unto itself. The coordinates landed me smack in the center of a forest that looked like neither man nor time had touched. It was wild, the way it was at Earth’s inception, and the way it would remain until its demise. For them to get Joseph and Emma here sometime between when I’d left her dorm early this morning to the time I found the note this afternoon, they had to have a plane. A fast one. Where they could have landed it in this tree infested land was a mystery, but a plane meant they had money and had been planning this out for a while. Neither conclusion comforted me.