King Cave (66 page)

“I cannot believe you sent her to Clarice,” Antonio muttered, rubbing his forehead before flicking a finger. “I’m thinking Ezra’s got the right of it, and you should be dead.”

Elder Harcourt only shrugged his shoulders.

Ezra stilled as the image came to life again, quickly holding me close and resting his head on mine. He saw me chug the vial, barely keeping the liquid down, then murmur the words. He stiffened as Antonio cursed. Watching my hand glow and hold him down, the image actually getting blurry as my vision dimmed, his breathing faltered just as heavily as mine.

“Let go,” Antonio whispered to the image. “Break it, Lil.”

But I didn’t break it. I hadn’t wanted to. They watched as I continued to give more of myself, giving everything I could to Ezra. The image only cut off when Bindi hit me with the candlestick, her infuriated face the last the image showed.

Silence descended on the room.

Antonio’s chest rose, fell heavily. He glanced at me once before he started pacing the room’s littered floor. “Ezra, search her. See if she has the knocker on her.”

Ezra’s palm moved from my chest, and instantly, I once more felt the rattle of death inside me. Oddly, it didn’t hurt. It was just a bizarre sensation, knowing what it was. I had knocked on death’s door, and death was knocking back. Kind of fitting for how this all started.

“You can’t be serious,” Cahal stated, even as Ezra laid me on the bed and began searching me.

Antonio shot him a special look. “And if it was Ezra in this situation?”

Cahal’s lips thinned, his eyes finding his son. He didn’t speak again.

“Don’t,” I wheezed, “have it.”

Ezra stilled over my boots. “What?”

“She,” I sucked air, “took it.”

He braced his hands on either side of my legs, his glowing green gaze slamming to Antonio. “What now?” He paused. “Can’t I give some of,” his fist rubbed against the middle of his bare muscular chest, “this back?” I wheezed, and he blurred, rapidly lying beside me, his hand back on the center of my chest and giving me peace.

Antonio’s jaw clenched, and he glanced at Elder Harcourt. “I don’t know a spell against death.”

Elder Harcourt blinked. “That’s why I gave her the knocker.”

Antonio’s nostrils flared. “Being obtuse isn’t an attractive trait. She’s on fucking death’s bed. Tell me what the hell to do!”

“Why, Antonio, you do the only thing you can,” Elder Harcourt said softly.

Antonio sighed in aggravated frustration and began pacing again.

Silently, Elder Harcourt stared after him, rubbing his chin.

“You know how to fix this,” Ezra rumbled, staring hard at the older Mage. “You already said that you know her path. Just tell him what to do.”

Antonio shook his head. “He obviously can’t.” He rolled his hands in front of him, his feet still eating up the floor as he appeared like he was having an internal debate, even though he said nothing more verbally.

“It alters time if he wasn’t supposed to give the advice in the first place,” Cahal said offhandedly when Ezra began growling quietly, his son’s attention stuck on the older Mage.

“She needs life,” Antonio muttered to himself.

Elder Harcourt hummed in his throat, the sound neither good nor bad.

I turned my eyes completely from them as they began debating, and stared up at Ezra. He must have felt it because he looked down at me. He blinked and his eyes stopped glowing, just staring at me with his striking gaze and searching mine as he whispered, “You shouldn’t have done this.”

My lips tilted.
Oh yes, I should have.
“What would,” a sharp inhale, “you have done?”

His own lips tilted, his chest hitching. “Nothing different.”

“See,” I breathed, as everyone began arguing around us, then mouthed, “
I love you, husband.”

“
I love you, too
,
wife,
” he mouthed, his lips thinning and his nostrils flaring as he swept his free hand over my forehead into my hair. His eyes instantly glistened, gleaming even brighter. Unshed tears. He cleared his throat, glancing away, up to his petting hand and his fingers threading through my hair.

My heart swelled for him. I wanted to comfort but was unable to move. “Ezra.”

“Shh,” he whispered. “You’re not going to die.” His chin trembled for the barest moment before he clenched it hard with an clicking noise. His nostrils flared again, harshly inhaling. His eyes met mine and I saw resolve there, a hardness that was all inner strength, all Ezra. “You’re not.” Green eyes slated to Antonio, who was arguing with Elder Merrick. “Blood, Elder Farrar. Blood is life.”

Everyone went silent enough to hear Elder Harcourt as he hummed, and this time, it was a hum of approval.

“I know this,” Antonio stated, eyebrows puckering as he glanced at Elder Harcourt. He stared at the Elder, deep in thought. He blinked. A pause. Another blink. “But her Core is almost empty.”

Elder Jacobs snorted. “Everyone knows that a parent can give their blood and a portion of their Core power to their child, healing their child’s body against anything mystical.” He paused. “I actually knew a parent that did it. It was rough going for a while for the parent and child, but they gained everything back.”

Elder Harcourt held Antonio’s gaze.

Bindi shook her head. “I remember her medical file saying her mother has passed on.”

“What about her father?” Elder Merrick asked. “Is he still alive?”

“Yes,” Elder Harcourt said softly. “He can handle the Core loss since he’s the most powerful of his four.”

Antonio stiffened.

Ezra stiffened.

Hell, even I stiffened, which hurt like a son of a bitch.

He knew who my biological dad was?

Cahal glanced at the three of us, his eyes piercing. “The most powerful of his four?” His voice could cut like a deadly blade, it was so sharp. “He’s an Elder?”

I was pretty sure the three of us didn’t breathe at all.

Elder Jacobs’s eyes danced between us. “I’m not sure what I’m missing here, but the important thing would be to find him. If he’s an Elder, he may already be here at King Cave, right?”

Elder Harcourt’s shaggy, golden eyebrows rose at Antonio’s regard, and he harmlessly placed his hands in his pockets.

After he had dropped that bomb on us.

Cahal asked crisply, “Antonio, what the fuck is going on? Your heart rate, and my son’s, are both going crazy, not to mention that Lily’s actually sped up.” He paused. “And now it’s faltering again.”

My breathing hitched, my eyes fluttering. He was right. Elder Harcourt’s pronouncement hadn’t helped my predicament any.

Antonio licked his lips, his golden gaze turning to me, and he whispered, “It’s the only way.”

“No,” Ezra demanded. “There has to be another option.”

Antonio blinked. “There’s not.” He disappeared.

Ezra’s breath caught, his heart rate galloping into a wild frenzy. “He wouldn’t.”

I stared where Antonio used to stand and breathed, “He did.”

Ezra’s gaze darted around the room, and I felt his power surge to epic levels, his eyes glowing bright. Command full force in his tone, he shouted, “Get the fuck out. Now!”

No one moved.

Ezra sucked in a harsh breath, eyebrows slamming together, and again his power surged, and he ordered, “Get the fuck out!”

No one moved.

Cahal’s own eyebrows were pinched together, but he stated evenly, “This suite is spelled for only my command.”

Ezra froze, breath hitching, his eyes on his dad. “Order them to leave.”

Cahal’s gaze was searching, confusion clear on his normally stoic face.

“You’d better not try any Vampire shit on me,” Elder Merrick growled quietly.

It was too late.

Antonio had reappeared with his hand firmly planted on Elder Venclaire’s shoulder.

The silence was damning, my future clearly in a noose.

Not a soul moved until Ezra blurred so fast that all I felt was the brush of wind against my side…then his fist was hammering into the side of Antonio’s face. He actually…floated. He followed the trajectory of Antonio’s body, catching him by the throat to hold him flush against the wall, his whole body quivering as he hissed in Antonio’s bloody face, “You bring him here to save her, only to give her a death sentence.”

Antonio didn’t fight back, merely stared him in the eyes as Ezra squeezed the living shit out of his throat, killing him, strangling him as he said he would.

Gulping air, I whispered, “Ezra.” If he murdered him he would have a death sentence, too. “No!” Not to mention, I didn’t want Antonio dead for saving my ass the only way he knew how.

Cahal recovered the fastest from Elder Venclaire’s — Daddy’s — arrival and Ezra’s attack on Antonio. He blurred to Ezra’s side, and I felt his power surge as Ezra’s had done moments ago. “Let him go.”

Ezra grunted, and it looked like he gripped Antonio’s throat harder, fighting his dad’s command.

Elder Venclaire was instantly on the other side of them. “Ezra, no harm will come to her. I swear this to you.” He put no command behind his words, even as Cahal grabbed Ezra’s wrist, trying to break his son’s hold physically.

Ezra’s head turned to him. “You know she’s your daughter? You’ll help her?”

Elder Venclaire glanced at me, his gaze worried. “I’ll help her.” Soft words. “And I’ve known she’s my daughter since I knew who her mother was.” A small smile lifted his lips, even as my breath hitched. “She may look much like Angela, but she looks plenty like me, too.” He placed a gentle hand on top of Cahal’s gripping one. “Ezra, let Elder Farrar go. I’ll hide her as I’ve planned to do, if needed, but it will be harder to hide both of you.”

“Release him!” Cahal shouted, shoving his face and command directly in Ezra’s face. “Now, goddamn it!”

Ezra blinked at his dad, and his floating stopped, his feet firmly planting on the floor. The movement not at all forced, he took his hand away from Antonio’s throat and stepped back, picking up my gun that had been tossed around the room in the whirlwind of the earlier spell, even as Cahal caught Antonio, who had begun to fall, coughing hard. Ezra didn’t seem to notice, though, throwing the safety off the gun and aiming it at Elder Jacobs and Elder Merrick as he moved toward the bed, Bindi having — smartly — hid behind them.

Intelligently, they stayed silent, even though their eyes were as wide as saucers, their gazes darting between the recovering Antonio, Elder Venclaire, and the gun aimed at them.

“Ezra,” I wheezed as he lifted the sheet to his knees with his free hand to climb onto the bed. “No killing.”

“Fuck that,” he muttered, eyes never leaving Elder Merrick and Elder Jacobs, even as his lips twitched, and he echoed my earlier comment, “What would you do?”

I blinked, a small smile lifting my lips. “Nothing different.” And it was the truth.

“Damn straight,” he rumbled, crawling behind me to place his back against the headboard. He used his free arm to pull me between his legs, settling my own back against his chest, my head resting on his shoulder. His arm circled my waist, holding me close as he rested his shooting arm over my shoulder, gun aimed directly on the two mute Elders and one silent physician.

Next to us on a pillow, Clyde was resting much the same, lying around Bonnie’s slight, quiet form and watching the proceedings, but his claws were out like he was waiting for an attack.

Again, my lips lifted, and I breathed, “Bonnie and Clyde.” My eyelids fluttered.

Ezra’s deep chuckle reverberated at my ear and against my back as his chest vibrated.

Antonio rolled his head around on his shoulders, only to go into another coughing fit, but brushed away any help. In fact, he pushed Elder Venclaire’s shoulder, shoving him in our direction. He rasped, “She doesn’t have much time left. Go do it.”

Elder Venclaire blurred, instantly at our side.

Ezra didn’t flinch and the gun didn’t falter at the action, nor did he move when Elder Venclaire sat on the bed. Instead, he asked evenly, “What do you need to do?”

“She’ll need to drink from me since we can’t give her my blood intravenously. Her body would reject it because it’s pure Vampire.” Blue eyes, just like mine, met my own. “You’ll need to quit masking so my power can find your own.” Softly, his fingers brushed a hair off my cheek. “It’s truly remarkable that you’re even doing it now.”

“Practice,” I whispered. My heart literally faltered as I felt everyone’s eyes on us, and Ezra gave me a shake. My eyes slammed open, though I hadn’t even realized they had closed.

“Hurry,” Ezra grumbled.

My dad placed his hand gently over my Core and whispered, “Relax.” And I immediately felt calm. “Open for me. Quit masking.”

Glancing at the others, who now wore varying expressions, my breath hitched, but I did as told. I quit masking. Years of training and survival instincts screamed at me, calling me a fool, as I laid myself bare to the power surging in the room, everyone already testing for the truth. I saw all but Antonio’s and Richard’s eyes widen, some more than others, their astonishment evident.