Power (Soul Savers) (2 page)

But only for a brief moment. Before I could even do
anything, a growl ripped through the music—or maybe just through my
head—and Tristan suddenly stood between the guy and me, his back to me
and his arms out protectively. The drunk guy swung without even looking, and
Tristan caught his wrist in mid-air. With the pain of the grip, the guy finally
looked up into Tristan’s face. His eyes grew wide and his Adam’s apple bobbed
as he gulped. Without so much as an apology to me, he carefully stepped away
from the dance floor.

Tristan turned to me and wrapped his hands around my waist,
pulling me to him as he swayed to the music. I looked up at him with a raised
eyebrow.

“You can talk to girls all night but I can’t dance once?”

His nostrils flared. “There’s a difference. His hands were all
over you.”

“I had things under control.”

He leaned closer to me and growled in my ear. “I didn’t like
it!”

I stepped back. I should have been warmed by his concern,
but his eyes were alit with real anger and his tone acidic.

“I told you. I can take care of myself.” I added silently,
He’s only a Norman, after all.

Tristan cocked his head and considered me for a long moment,
then jerked his hands off my hips.

“Of course you can,” he snarled before walking off.

I stared after him, clenching my jaw to keep it from falling
open. Warrior Boy seemed to have lost his cool. Which wasn’t, well, cool,
considering the circumstances.

Tristan!

I stomped off the dance floor and toward the front door of
the club, expecting him to follow me, but he sauntered back to his place at the
bar amidst all the girls who now looked at me like wild cats about to pounce. I
almost gave in to the urge to lift my lip and snarl at them as Tristan had done
to my Greek god, but I didn’t. Only because something else caught my attention
as I reached the door. The mind signature I’d been searching for all night.

Tristan, come on.
Game’s over. Found her.
I looked over my shoulder to see him still leaning
against the bar.
Are you coming?

He shrugged without looking away from the blonde who’d moved
in on him. “
You can take care of
yourself.
”

I turned to glare at him, but he still ignored me. What was
wrong
with him? It had been my idea to
go in separately, to appear as though we were single so the Normans would be
more likely to talk to us, but Tristan was taking it too far. I wanted to clock
him, knock some sense into him. Vanessa’s mind signature was on the move, though,
and I didn’t want to lose her. So I rushed outside, knowing Tristan would come
to his senses and follow, while mentally reaching out for the other nearby Amadis.
They were all on the other side of the island, keeping their distance, as was part
of the plan.

Vanessa must not have sensed me yet, because she didn’t move
toward the club, as expected. Too many people stood outside to see me flash, so
I hurried down the street toward her mind signature as it continued to slowly move
away from me, as if she were taking an evening stroll at two in the morning.
Probably looking for her midnight snack.

I tried following her signature to her thoughts, but
although she remained in my range, my mind struggled to grasp them. My head
physically hurt from the effort, probably because of the bombardment it had
already suffered in the nightclub, but I pushed harder, desperate to discover
her plan.

But I didn’t latch on fast enough. Several new mind
signatures popped into existence about a half-mile away. All of them Daemoni.

Vanessa’s mind prickled, but she didn’t move. She remained
frozen in place. I didn’t wait to find out what she was thinking. If the
Daemoni attacked the nightclub—the only place on the island with so many
Normans in one spot at this time of night—they’d have to go through
Tristan and me first.

Tristan, they’re here!
I yelled at him as I ran toward the club.

I stopped at the door, waiting for him to come out, and wondering
if I should somehow get the outside loiterers indoors to safety. My heart
pounded, but rather than feeling scared as I always had in the past, I actually
felt excitement as the adrenaline pumped through my veins. I hadn’t been in a
fight in ages—in fact, I wore my leathers and carried my dagger for the
first time tonight since last September. I palmed the hilt of my cloaked dagger
and a burst of power surged through me, as if the weapon knew it was finally
released from its spot in the boring closet and returned to where it belonged:
in my hand. For the first time ever, I felt like the warrior I was supposed to
be, every bit as powerful as Tristan.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t want him with me. So why did I
sense him still inside, as if nothing was going on out here?

Tristan! Get your ass
out here.

I felt out for the Daemoni as I waited. They hadn’t moved
yet from where they’d flashed onto the island, close to the shore on the far
side of the nightclub. And a new signature popped right into the middle of
them. A familiar one, although we hadn’t heard from its owner since he
disappeared after the trial. The sounds of a fight broke out immediately.
Vanessa’s mind signature finally moved at an inhuman speed.

Owen’s here! He’s
fighting them by himself. Let’s go!

Confident that would get Tristan’s attention, I bounced on
the balls of my feet with impatience, but he didn’t come flying through the
door. Where was he? Was he really that distracted? I couldn’t stand here doing
nothing anymore. I ran toward the fight, Vanessa close behind me.
Ah, crap
. She was
herding
me right toward the cluster of Daemoni.

I stopped, ready to take her on by herself. But she blurred
right past me. Surely she had to have smelled me, but she didn’t even hesitate.
She headed straight for the others.

I stood in the middle of the dark street, flabbergasted for
a moment. But I knew what I had to do—I couldn’t let Owen fight unassisted.
My heart raced harder and my hand shook a little as my thumb slid over the
stone in the dagger’s hilt to expose the weapon. It would be stupid to do this
alone, but if Tristan didn’t get his act together, I’d lose the opportunity to
recover my pendant
and
my protector.

“
You are not alone
.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of the soft
woman’s voice in my head, vaguely familiar but not mine. However, it wasn’t
attached to any mind signature around. And although the internal voice didn’t
belong to me, I somehow knew it came from inside me.

“
You have what you
need within you, Alexis. I am here.
”

The voice did anything but comfort me. Memories of Psycho
and Swirly Alexis came to mind instead, and I wondered if I was losing my sanity
again. I’d slowly but surely become used to voices in my head since the
Ang’dora
, but this was different. I
released my hold on the dagger’s hilt and massaged my temples.

Get a grip. You’re
just panicking.

I drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. The voice
didn’t return. Hopefully, it had been some strange fluke, my subconscious
finding a different way to try to calm me. My mind remained quiet, even as I
reached out again to track the nearby mind signatures.

The fight between Owen and the Daemoni had escalated, and Vanessa
was about to land in the middle of it all. A yelp of pain in the voice of my
protector shot through the quiet night, and my body immediately responded.

Tristan, I’m going in
without you!
I called out as my legs carried me down the street. I reached
out to the other Amadis soldiers, as well, ordering them to join us. Tristan
finally appeared by my side.
Owen, we’re
coming!

“
Leave me alone,
Alexis!
” Owen barked in my mind just as we rounded the corner to the fight.
Just as the Amadis appeared, too. And just as the Daemoni flashed out of sight,
Owen on their trails, and Vanessa on his. But we were physically too far away
to catch hers.

“Owen!” I screamed as I reached out for their mind
signatures. They were gone. Not on the island at all. They could be anywhere in
a 100-mile radius. I spun on Tristan and pounded him with my fists. “Where were
you?” I yelled at him. “What is wrong with you? If you’d been here—”

He grabbed my wrists and pulled me to him, and the rest of
the Amadis slipped away into the shadows, not wanting to be a part of
this
. “I know,
ma lykita
. I’m sorry.”

I jerked backwards out of his grasp. “You’re
sorry
? Don’t you think you took that
‘let’s pretend we’re not together’ thing a little too far? And now Owen
and
Vanessa
and
my pendant are gone. Again! It’ll probably be another eight
months before we get another chance, Tristan. Eight. Months!” I threw my hands
in the air with my violent frustration. “Actually, we’ll be lucky to ever see
Owen again considering what he just flung himself into. What the
hell
, Tristan?”

He looked at me with guilt-filled hazel eyes, the gold
flecks dim. He scrubbed his hands over his face and exhaled slowly.

“I don’t know.” He rolled his neck and his shoulders, then
stared at something off to the side, avoiding eye contact with me. His jaw
muscle twitched. “An off night for me, I guess.”

“An off night?” I echoed, my words dripping with venom. “
You
don’t have off nights!
You
are the warrior who’s supposed to be
ready for anything and everything. Remember that? Besides, you sure didn’t look
off to me. In fact, you looked to be pretty
on
with all those women.”

His gaze returned to me. “I admit I lost focus, but not
because of them. Because of you. I didn’t like the damn act, especially when
that guy put his hands on you. Then I was pissed and … I don’t know. Not right.”

“We’re supposed to be a team, Tristan. I
need
you.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded. Whatever had
happened in that nightclub, he knew he’d been wrong. But he obviously had
nothing else to say, so I broke my eyes from his, and my gaze traveled around
the street where we stood. Stucco houses glowed white in the moonlight, and
many flights of stairs twisted and wound around the homes, leading to those at
the top of the hill. Not a single person sat outside on the various verandas
and rooftops; no one climbed the steps. I opened my mind but Daemoni and Amadis
alike were gone.

“Let’s just go,” I said with a groan.

I didn’t know what to think about Tristan’s behavior. We
were on a mission. How could Tristan—
Tristan
,
the experienced warrior—become so distracted? We’d fought side-by-side
before. He couldn’t blame me, especially when he pretty much ignored me when I
needed him most. But what else could have been going on?

We flashed to right outside the Amadis Island’s shield, then
swam the rest of the way in. The physical exertion quieted my anger and
frustration with Tristan, and then I completely forgot about it when a new idea
occurred to me.

“Were they there for
Owen
?”
I asked once we stood on the beach of the Amadis Island, dripping wet. I’d
thought Vanessa was corralling me into the arms of the enemy, but she’d shown
no interest in me. Had Owen been the one they wanted? But why? “What if …?”

I couldn’t finish the thought of what may have happened to
him.

“I’ve told you before. Scarecrow can handle himself,”
Tristan said, taking my hand. “Remember, he’s pretty damn powerful, even for a
warlock.”

How could I forget? His extraordinary power was exactly why
he was gone. He’d disappeared the day he learned the source of all his power:
Kali, the evil sorceress whose spirit had taken over the body of Owen’s father,
Martin.

I shook my head. “I still don’t get it. Why would he throw
himself into the middle of so many of them? I don’t care how great he is, that
was plain stupid.”

Tristan gave me a look, wordlessly reminding me I’d just
about done the same thing. “You know why. He still needs time.”

I let out a harrumph. Everyone, including Mom, kept saying
Owen was a grown man and needed to work things out the way he felt was right.
Although the Amadis had rules, each member had free will. Well, everyone but us
daughters, since the council tried to control us at every chance they could,
but we’re a different story. As for Owen, if he wanted to abandon us to deal
with his own issues, he could choose to do so. And apparently, that’s what he
chose, still. But, he’d been so close to home. There had to have been a reason
he showed up on that island tonight. He had to have been thinking of coming
back. But if that were true, why would he follow the Daemoni when they’d left
the island?

I kicked a stray rock on the path from the beach to the
mansion, thinking about how much I missed my protector, my friend. Tristan
missed him, too, I knew, and Dorian constantly asked about his uncle. But the
way Owen had snapped at me earlier—he didn’t sound worried about my
safety. Rather, he made sure I knew the door to his life remained closed. Why
did he shut us all out when he needed us most?
Because he’s a man
. That’s all I could figure.

As we walked into the mansion, I expected to find it quiet
and dark with Mom sitting in Rina’s quarters and Bree staying with Lilith.
Dorian slept in his room—I sensed his dreaming mind signature. But Mom
wasn’t in Rina’s suite. She came rushing from the sitting room, tears streaming
down her face.

“Alexis, Tristan,” she croaked, her wet eyes flitting
between us. Her hand covered her mouth as she shook her head. Mom rarely cried.
Something was terribly wrong, and considering both Rina and Lilith had been on
the brink of death for so many months, it wasn’t hard to guess what. And Mom had
been down here, waiting for us, while Bree was noticeably absent.