Lissa Kasey - Dominion 3 - Conviction (15 page)

Not even Roman could escape the rushing power of the river. He vanished beneath the waves, struggling against the current. He would not get away this time. His time of haunting my family had to end here and now. I pressed more power into the ground, feeling the trees grab him and hold him in a steel-like grasp.

The river finally calmed, and I felt Kelly stir in my arms, body shaking so badly, if it weren’t for Con, I would have lost my hold on him. I pulled us ashore and heard the buzz of a snowmobile coming from the distance and prayed it wasn’t another enemy.

I
FELT
like I’d been put in a washer on cold spin cycle. My stomach heaved, making me hack up icy, dirty water and some blood. That couldn’t be good.

The storm had stopped, and within a few seconds the moon appeared and glowed down on us. I’d felt the power of wind snap away when Sam had died. He’d died when the water hit the tower, destroying the spell.

Con and Jamie held me, both shaking nearly as hard as I was from the cold. We’d die from hypothermia if we stayed out here. But having lost my hold on Sam made my heart break.

Tears froze on my face as I gripped Jamie and buried my head in his shoulder. I felt Sam in the water, asked the waves to gently return him to me, and they did, laying his lifeless form at my feet. He’d been so battered, never had a chance to have a good life or fall in love. It was so unfair.

A snowmobile rolled to a stop a few feet away. I couldn’t see well enough to make out who approached us. “There are helicopters on the way.” The voice had Gabe’s old-world accent.

Jamie nodded against my face and tried to get up, but his legs didn’t want to work any more than my eyes did. “How’d you find us?”

“The Gossners. When they discovered both Con and Cat missing, they admitted to helping Andrew Roman.” There was a pause, then, “Where is the bastard?”

“Water,” I said. And reached out, pushing the power that now coursed through me into the river, refreezing it. Rubbing at my eyes a handful of times until they made out some colors, I grabbed Sam and held him to my chest. Once again, I’d failed.

Gabe stood over Roman on the newly formed ice, watching the man struggle against the roots and frozen river. He stood so silent and still, I wondered what crossed his mind. Surely he didn’t think Roman could walk away from this one. It had to end here.

I pushed myself to my feet, legs more like rubber than what I was used to. Jamie’s hand grasped at mine, but I shook him off. This was for Seiran, Sam, and everyone who’d been hurt in Roman’s baseless quest for revenge. I limped across the ice to Gabe’s side, leaving Sam in Jamie’s care. “He needs to die.”

“Not really.” Total body destruction would probably be the only thing to work on a vampire as old as Andrew Roman. But vampires were essentially humans with special powers, which meant, just like everyone else, he was 80 percent water. The power of the water still ran through me like an electric current, charging me up far beyond anything I’d experienced before.

Roman glared and cursed at me with those pretty blue eyes of his while I touched his forehead, pulled power through the still flowing water beneath the ice, and froze him from the inside out. It wasn’t pretty, but I got up and walked away when he stopped moving, knowing Gabe would take care of the rest.

A person shouldn’t shatter, but Roman did. None of us watched as Gabe released every last bit of that calm collected resolve he fought so hard for and lost himself in rage.

When the helicopter appeared at the edge of the river near us, there was no sign that Andrew Roman had ever existed. The last remaining slivers washed away when I let the ice unfreeze.

Gabe gathered us to the side, and we huddled around Sam while the EMTs went to work trying to keep us from losing parts or dying from the cold. I only vaguely remember getting rolled on a gurney into the loud machine and pulling away. Panic enveloped me just as I realized I was no longer with Jamie, and unconsciousness finally found me.

W
AKING
up in the hospital made me realize just how crappy a place it was. But seeing my friend’s smiling face staring down at me made me feel like I could take on the world again.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” Sei looked tired but otherwise unhurt. The soft sound of a fountain had a soothing impact on me. The running water throbbed through my every sense like little flares of white light in my limbs.

I breathed deeply and was glad to find my lungs mostly clear and painless. “Is everyone okay?” Then I remembered Sam, who I’d failed, and closed my eyes. That stung, worse than any physical pain I could have felt.

“Con left the hospital yesterday.”
“How is he?”
“He’s broken up about his sister. I think he feels really

Sei smiled like that was what he was expecting me to say. “Gabe’s at home since it’s still light out. Jamie is recovering from some broken ribs. He had a fit when I told him I was taking over for a few hours, but he really needed the sleep.”

Sei laughed. He must have read what I was thinking in my expression. “Like a bear protecting his mate, that one.”
I felt fire burn my cheeks. Did he know we’d had sex again, several times? That I wanted to keep repeating that until the world ended? He’d probably think I was reckless too.
“And you just need to get your feet under you, and then you’ll get to leave.”
My feet under me? The thought made me panic, thinking something had happened to my legs. But I wiggled my toes beneath the blanket, and everything felt fine. I even pulled back the blanket to make sure all my toes were intact and counted my fingers too. Everything was where it should be.

“So the ceremony will be after Solstice, with mine. My mom says we should dress up, but I don’t think a suit will help either of us gain more respect.” Sei stared at the waterfall that poured water just inches away from my head. His fingers ran through the water, and I felt every stroke like he had actually touched my arm.

He looked back at me, serious worry on his face. “The Pillar of water is stepping down. Water wants you as its Pillar, can’t you feel it?”

Good God, was that what the tingling waves meant? I gripped Sei’s hand and felt a moment of absolute unity, like waves lapping gently at the shore. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“The ceremony is just a formality. When you offered yourself in sacrifice, water decided to expand that bond.”
“I won’t have to move, will I?” Granted, warm weather and blue oceans were great, but my family was here.
“Nope. Your training will intensify, though. Sounds like the current Pillar of water is coming up here to help teach you the ropes.” He patted the back of my hand. “I spoke to her on the phone. She sounds really nice. More like Hanna than any of the other Dominion girls I’ve met.”
That was a relief.

Seiran checked his watch. “I have to go upstairs. Hanna is having her ultrasound. Wanna come?”
Since I wasn’t hooked up to any machines other than an IV with fluids, I suddenly really wanted to go. Seeing the baby would help remind me that I still had my family, even if I’d lost someone I’d tried so hard to save. “Can I?”
“Let me go get a chair.” He disappeared outside the room for a minute and returned with a nurse who wheeled a chair in and hooked my fluids bag to it before helping me to sit. Sei put a blanket on my lap and pushed me toward the door. “If you feel weird when we leave the room, let me know. You may not be ready to leave yet.”
When we crossed the threshold I felt a little disoriented, and Sei paused. “I’m okay,” I told him after a moment. And I was. I let the little flares of power flow through me naturally like a current would have, rocking all that power gently through me.
We rode the elevator up, and he pushed me down the hall to a room where Sei knocked before entering. My heart skipped a beat as Jamie opened the door for us, his smile so sweet but worry etching his brow in lines he was too young to have.
“Should he be out yet?”
“He’ll be fine. He’s already got the hang of it,” Sei answered and left my chair for Jamie to push. “You are supposed to be resting.”
“I couldn’t miss this. It’s bad enough Gabe has to.” Jamie guided me around near the bed. Ally, Hanna’s partner, smiled at me from her chair near Hanna’s head.
Hanna was up on the table, shirt raised above her stomach, gel making the area look slick. The big TV was just dark fuzz until the doctor put the small paddle to her belly. Then things started forming. Small shapes and miracles that made me wonder what it would be like to someday have a surrogate and a baby for myself.
Sei’s face was locked in a look of wonder while Hanna and Ally searched the screen in a mix of worry and excitement. He gripped my hand, and the small tremor that had already developed made me pray for good things.
The doctor said nothing for a while, but Jamie leaned closer, as though he saw something on the screen he didn’t understand. “Is that…?”
“I believe it is,” the doctor said.
“What?” Sei asked, gripping Jamie’s shirt. “What is it?”

The doctor moved the paddle back, tracing one outline and then another. Was that? Oh my God, it really was.
“Twins,” Jamie whispered.
Ally and Hanna burst into tears at the same time. Sei seemed frozen next to them, staring at the screen, a mixture of terror and pain crossing his face.
“Are they both girls?” He asked so quietly I didn’t think anyone but me heard.
The doctor pressed another area, and it didn’t look any different to me, but he shook his head. “Fraternal. One girl, one boy.”
Dizziness passed through me like a whirlpool. Sei almost ended up in my lap. Jamie gripped us both tight enough to hurt while Ally and Hanna kissed.
“Can we share?” Sei asked. “Can both our babies have mommies and daddies?” I knew what he wanted. He wanted the normal life for his babies that he had never had a chance of.
“Yes,” Hanna said. “Our babies will be blessed with mommies and daddies who love them more than anything.”

J
AMIE
wheeled me back to my room a little while later, letting Seiran marvel over the new babies with the girls. He would get copies of the pictures of the babies, and they were already discussing names. But Jamie hadn’t said a word, even when he parked the chair and helped me back into bed. The running water of the room was calming, but his silence bothered me more than usual.

He sat down in the chair beside me and handed me the romance novel I’d been reading at the lodge. “Sei said you might want to finish reading it.”

“Thanks.” I tucked the book aside and studied him. What would he say if I laid it all on the line? “You can do it too, you know.”

No, he was health guides and medical journals. “Find a surrogate to have your baby. I know you want babies.”
Jamie looked away. “Seiran will need my help. So I don’t think that will be an option for a while.”
“Hmm.” I grabbed his hand, making him look back at me. “But someday, right? ’Cause I’d really like to raise a baby with you. Hopefully he or she will have your pretty amber eyes.”
Jamie swallowed hard, his eyes burning into mine. “You’re so young—”
“But I know what I want.”
He looked away again. I reached across the bed, pulling him closer and kissing his nose and then each of the scratches that marred his face. They would heal, but it made me mad that someone had hurt him.
Someone cleared their throat. Jamie and I turned in unison toward the door. Gabe stood there, his eyes aimed above our heads, but a little smile tilted the edge of his lips. My heart skipped a beat when I saw he wasn’t alone. It couldn’t be possible, could it?
At his side was Sam, who was tiny compared to Gabe. But he no longer looked ill, his eyes weren’t bagged in black, and he seemed to have put on enough weight to make him look healthy. Not dead.
How, in just a few days, he could not only come back from the dead but stand there looking perfectly healthy made me tremble. Jamie held my hand and nodded to Gabe. “Sam is a vampire.”
Did that mean Roman had made him? Did that mean parts of that bastard lived in him? My heart pounded in fear. Would he turn on us?
The door opened, and Sei walked in, carrying a handful of pictures of the babies. Sam wouldn’t meet his eyes, but Sei hugged him anyway and began pointing out things in the pictures about the babies.
Jamie rubbed my arm, forcing me to look at him again. “It’s okay,” he said. “Sam is still Sam, and he has Gabe to guide him.”
“What about Cat?” She’d gone mad. Nothing about that girl had still been human when she’d been changed.
“She’s being put to death by the Tri-Mega. Her change was wrong. It happens sometimes. Sam is under watch by the Tri-Mega, and the Dominion is asking questions about his powers. They’ve never met anyone with the ability to enhance other people’s powers before. They are denying that Sam has the ability.”
Enhance? Was that how my powers had changed? Did that mean they would go away? “But am I really stronger than the former Pillar, then?”
“Yeah, it seems your powers evolved. Tanaka is asking me to test now as well.”
But was it really over?
“Andrew Roman is dead?” I asked, just to reassure myself that the nightmares were done. After all, those many times I’d dreamed of Jamie dying in my arms were enough pain for one lifetime.
“He’s gone forever.”
I sighed and breathed in the smell of Jamie’s hair and watched my new little family grow by three more.
Gabe winked at me and led the growing crowd from the room. “Get some rest. I’ll see about getting you released.”
Once they were gone and I was alone again with Jamie, I rubbed his palm and studied the intricate lines of it instead of looking at him. “Do you know what I was thinking of when the water was pulling me down?” I asked, and he shook his head. “That I would let it all go to save you. That I loved you so much that nothing else mattered. And you know that your family is my family.”
Jamie closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, there were tears. His lips found mine, pressing his tongue inside to taste me and caress mine like it was all he wanted to do in the world. When he finally pulled away I felt his heart beating beneath my palm. “When you told me back at the cabin that you wouldn’t let our family suffer again, that’s when I knew. Promise me you won’t hide things from me anymore,” he demanded.
“I’m Pillar of water now.” Or would be once the ceremony was complete. It would bring more complications into our family. “I didn’t ask for it to happen.”
“I know.”
“I was never trying to hide anything from you. You just always seemed to worry so much about Sei. I didn’t want to add to it.” My heart ached, fearing all the betrayal I’d suffered in my youth come back to bite me. “Did you really suspect me?”
“I didn’t want to, but I had to look at all options. And even if Roman had been making you do something, I would have freed you somehow.” He glared at the wall across from me instead of looking at me. “I’m sorry for trying to keep you out of things and trying to play the hero.”
“Did Seiran yell at you?”
He laughed and gave me a rare smile that nearly made my toes curl. “Yeah, but I deserved it. I should have told you a long time ago that I’m crazy about you.”
I almost felt the world tilt. “I read your letter.”
He looked away. “Sorry.”
“I want you to say it.”
“Sorry.”
“Not that.”
“Oh. Was it a surprise to you? I thought for sure you’d notice how I avoided being around you all the time because I was afraid to fall for you.” He got up and began to pace like he just couldn’t sit still. “When I thought you’d drown… I thought I’d lost everything. I’ve been trying to talk myself out of being a pervert for a long time, but I can’t help the fact that I love you.”
The words reverberated through my spine, and the water of the room splashed around without me doing anything. Jamie eyed the room with a little apprehension.
“Sorry, you made me a little excited. You’re not a pervert. I’m legal, out, and proud. Get over here and kiss me.”
“You’re really bossy.”
“And you don’t like that?”
“I think it’s really hot.” He perched on the edge of the bed and kissed me like he wanted to crawl inside of me. Probably someday soon he would, and I couldn’t wait.