Power (Soul Savers) (17 page)

I involuntarily stepped backward, my butt hitting the
granite counter, and stared at him with eyes wide enough I thought they might
burst from their sockets. My lungs felt as though all the air had been sucked
out of them.

“Me? You … hate …” I stammered. Then I shook my head and
even chuckled, though the sound came out more like a cat choking on a hairball.
“Of course not. It
was
the monster.
The monster is back, Tristan. That’s how you’d felt when we first met,
remember?”

He put his hands low on his hips. “It’s not the same. It’s
not the same beast. It’s worse.”

I reached out for his arm. He took a step away from me, as
if afraid of my touch. “Why do you keep saying it’s worse? Because it’s really
you? You … hate me?”

“No, Alexis! Of course not. But don’t you get it? Something
else
made
me feel hatred toward you.
Made me see you with different eyes. Something external, and I couldn’t control
it. Not like the beast. That was
inside
of me—” he pounded his chest with a fist “—where I could restrain
it. This … this was different. And extremely dangerous.”

My mind went over the scene in South Beach. “But you
did
control it. You fought it. I could
see it on your face.”

“I was resisting the urge to join in the fight—to
attack you myself.”

“But you beat it.”

“And it was nearly impossible!” His voice had risen again.
He caught himself and lowered it. “They’re using dark magic, Lex. Very strong
dark magic that gave me this overwhelming desire to hurt you. To kill you.”

“Wait. They’re not … I mean …” I stammered as I processed
the meaning of his words. “What you’re saying … they’re
controlling
you?”

Hard hazel eyes glared at me for a long moment, before he
said, “Yes. They were that night.”

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head in denial. “It … They
can’t …”

“They have.”

Some kind of maniacal laugh escaped my throat, but I really
wanted to scream. To cry. To
punch
something.

“
Why?
” I asked, my
voice shaking as I tried to fight the anger from overwhelming me. “Why can’t
they leave you
alone
? Are we going to
have to deal with this shit the rest of our lives?”

Now my voice had risen, approaching the scream I tried so
hard to hold back. Tristan didn’t answer me, but his expression said it all. Of
course, they’d try everything possible to get their warrior back. Why did this
even surprise me?

I inhaled a few deep, cleansing breaths, trying to calm
myself. I pushed off the counter and paced the kitchen a few times.

“How exactly?” I finally demanded, sharper than I intended.

“We’re talking dark magic. They have all kinds of weapons
they could use, but my guess is a mage must have created some kind of
connection to me. An extremely powerful mage to be able to wield this kind of
dark magic.”

I stopped pacing and turned toward him.

“Kali?” I asked. She certainly had motivation. And if it was
her, I had no problem following through for the faeries. They were
right—I’d want to satisfy their request just as much for me and the
Amadis as for them.

“Possibly, but she’s not their only sorceress.”

“Well,” I said, squaring my shoulders, “then we find out and
go after them.”

He grimaced. “And there you go again, acting before you
think.”

I scowled. “What does that mean?”

“You’re reckless, Lex. You see someone who needs rescued,
and you charge like a bull. Only by luck are we and anyone else you get
involved even alive.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling defensive. “Not
luck. Might. And power.” Remembering Cassandra’s words, I added, “And I do it
for the greater good!”

He stepped over to stand in front of me, his eyes paralyzing
me with their intensity as he placed his hands on my shoulders.

“Listen to me, just this once, Alexis. Do it for the greater
good, because if you’re dead, so are a hell of a lot of people.” He waited for
me to acknowledge my understanding, so I nodded. “If we go out there, only the
two of us, they can take control of me again. And now that they know how close
I was to breaking, they’ll be able to overcome me next time. And you know who
my first target will be.”

I cleared my throat. “Me.”

“Right. Eliminate my weakness. So you can
not
be as reckless as you’ve been
anymore. Understand?”

I pressed my lips together and nodded, knowing that would
appease him. But somehow, I had to figure out a way to cut their connection
with my husband. Again.

He pulled me into his arms, and I leaned my head against his
chest, glad our fight was over and that he had told me the truth.

“It seemed as if they were waiting for us, didn’t it?” I
asked, relieved to finally be able to talk about that night. This had been
bugging me for nearly two weeks. “As if they knew we were coming?”

“They’ve likely been waiting for us for some time. They
surely know by now that we need the pendant, and we’ll come after it.”

“And Vanessa’s totally been taunting us. She played hard to
get in South Beach. Sonya said she’d been in Fort Myers Beach the night before
we were there and might still have been. She toyed with us on the Greek island.
But any other time, our people can’t find a trace of her anywhere, as if she
disappears from the face of the earth.”

Tristan hummed in agreement. “She loves her games.”

“Crap, Tristan. That
has
been her game, hasn’t it?” I pulled back enough to look up at him. “Tease us
with the pendant so we’ll chase after it, while the mages are in the background
figuring out how to connect with you. How are we ever going to get the pendant
if we can’t go near them?”

“We hope Owen decides to come back, or that Sophia finds you
another protector.”

“I don’t want another protector.” I frowned. “I want Owen or
you. Other than you two, who else can protect me better than myself?”

He narrowed his eyes, but a small smile played on his lips.
“That’s the kind of thought a reckless and cocky warrior would have, Lex.”

“Sorry, but it’s true,” I said with a shrug. I leaned back
against him. “I still don’t get why you kept this from me. Did you really think
I’d believe
you
hated
me
?”

He pressed his lips to the top of my head. “I couldn’t
control myself,
ma lykita
. You could
have died, and I would have stood there like an idiot, maybe even helped. How
am I supposed to live with that? How was I supposed to tell you that without
losing your love and trust?”

I looked up at him and lifted my hand to his face. I brushed
my fingers across his cheekbone. “You should know me better by now. It will
take a lot more than Daemoni magic to make me stop loving you.”

“Unless that magic kills you. You can’t love me after you’re
dead.”

“Wanna bet?” I asked as I leaned up on my toes to press my
lips against his. “Death will not part us. You won’t get off the hook that
easily.”

He tightened his hold on me and kissed me. “Let’s not find
out any time soon, okay? Don’t go off and do anything stupid.”

Making no promises, I shut him up with a long, deep kiss
accompanied by roaming hands and his hardness growing between us.

“My eyes! My eyes!” Dorian yelled from the kitchen doorway,
and we broke our embrace with alarm.

My heart resumed beating when it became immediately obvious
that Dorian was fine. Physically anyway.

“Ew! That’s so nasty,” he said, wrinkling his nose at us.

Tristan smiled. “Kissing your mom? I have to disagree.” He
pulled me back into his arms.

“Gross, Dad!” Dorian covered his eyes and made gagging
sounds. “Don’t ever do that in front of me again.”

Tristan and I shared a grin and reluctantly let go of each
other.

“So, Aikido today?” Tristan asked, focusing on our son.

“Sure,” Dorian said as he took out a bowl and a box of
cereal. “Are you coming, too, Mom?”

I thought about what needed to be done at the safe house.
With no new guests yet, there really wasn’t much. I wanted to paint the reading
alcove in our own home, but Blossom was busy today, and I definitely needed her
(magical) help after our last painting disaster. And I could use a good
workout—I’d been pretty lazy since the fight in Miami.

“I’m in,” I said.

“Do we get to spar, Dad? Can I spar you?” The enthusiasm in
Dorian’s voice held an edge to it, as if he wanted a little revenge on Tristan
for kissing his mom.

“You need to beat your mom first,” Tristan said.

Dorian groaned. “She’s too hard to beat! I wish Uncle Owen
was here. I bet I can beat him now.”

He dove into his usual questions about Owen—where was
he, why hadn’t he been around, etc. At least it wasn’t his other favorite
subject: the unmet promise of going to Universal Studios. He’d been as
persistent about it as he’d once been about getting a dog, but after what we
saw in South Beach, we weren’t about to take him off-island yet. We’d only be
able to put him off for so long, however, before having to tell him a flat-out
“No.”

When you know your days with your son are numbered, though,
the last thing you want to do is disappoint him.

***

 
“We’ve looked
into the situation at South Beach,” Mom said on a conference call between her,
Rina, a few council members, and Tristan and me. This was our last meeting
before the Christmas holidays, barring any emergencies, which were becoming
such a norm we’d soon have to change the definition of what constituted an
emergency.

Tristan and I sat side-by-side in what had once been a
formal dining room that we’d converted into a conference room, with a polished
cherry-wood table, six black leather executive chairs, all kinds of outlets for
laptops and other technology, and a conference-call pod positioned between
Tristan and me. Thanks to Tristan, we probably had the most technologically
advanced safe house in the Amadis. If he had his way, he’d have gone to the
others to outfit them like ours, and we’d be holding a videoconference right
now, rather than the outdated telephone one. Everyone else on the call was
either on the Amadis Island or in their home offices around the world.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I said, leaning closer to the pod. “I
can’t believe they’ve overtaken such a populated area, and the Normans are
oblivious to it.”

“Well … that’s the thing,” Mom said cryptically. “Galina,
would you like to explain, since you’re the mage overseeing this?”

I pictured the silver-haired female warlock who’d earned my
trust during last year’s trial when she defended us against those controlled by
Kali. Her Russian accent was barely noticeable when her voice came on the line.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Alexis, we have sent a team of
mages to investigate your report and found the Miami Beach area to be heavily
populated with Daemoni, including newly turned, but we did not find it under
siege as you and Tristan described. The situation there isn’t even as bad as
Key West.”

Tristan and I exchanged a look.

“Your team must have seen what the Daemoni wanted them to,”
Tristan said.

Galina cleared her throat. “Actually, we believe
you
two saw what they wanted you to. You
have reversed what they actually did. What you thought was reality was their projection,
while what you believed to be their projection was reality.”

“You think the sudden appearance of traffic, people, and
sounds was reality breaking through their image?” I asked.

“Yes,” Galina confirmed. “They wanted you to believe they
had captured South Beach. The situation is not good, but it isn’t as bad as you
were made to believe.”

“And how do you know that for sure?” I asked, doubting their
theory. The empty streets, the vacant buildings … that all seemed so
real
, while the thriving city simply
didn’t. “Wouldn’t I have heard something in their thoughts? Sensed the people
around us?”

“It takes powerful magic to accomplish what they did, but it
is
possible. My team sensed heavy
levels of dark magic, still strong even days after your incident. Which would
explain, also, how they could protect the truth from your telepathy.”

“The Daemoni have, how do you say?” Rina started, pausing
for a moment. “Upped the ante? Is that right? They are pulling out their big
arms.”

“Guns,” Mom corrected. “They’re pulling out their big guns.”

“Right,” Rina said. “This is what I mean. They are no longer
holding anything back, but are using their darkest magic and most powerful
weapons. We must all raise our defenses even higher. We cannot have their
sorcerers gaining control of us. They
will
try, however. Be prepared. All of you.”

Tristan and I exchanged another look. We hadn’t told them
the full story of what happened at South Beach. No one else knew that Tristan
hadn’t fought alongside me. Guilt had nearly led him to confess when we briefed
them on the night’s events during the last conference call. He’d almost blurted
it out, but I’d “accidentally” disconnected the call. I thought his behavior
had been a fluke at the time and refused to give anyone a reason to doubt his
loyalty again. He opened his mouth now, but I shook my head. I poised my finger
over the “end” button on the pod, ready to drop the call again if he said
anything.

We already know what
Rina said is right and the others believe her, so you don’t need to confirm it,
I told him
. There’s no reason to raise
their suspicion of you again.

“Tristan and Alexis, any progress on finding the stone?” Mom
asked.

“Vanessa’s disappeared again,” I said. “I caught that one
glimpse of her at South Beach, but no one’s reported any sighting or other news
since. Even that night, she didn’t join the fight, but disappeared completely
from my range.”