Power (Soul Savers) (38 page)

A current of air blew past me, and I slammed into an
invisible wall, forced to stop, and at the exact same time Vanessa slammed into
the other side. We both stumbled backwards, but quickly regained our footing.
Owen’s hand waved again, then he moved in between us, where the invisible wall
had been, a palm out directed at each of us. Kali stood in front of us all, a
wicked gleam in her green eyes.

The sorceress flicked her hand the same way I’d seen Owen do
when summoning something, but nothing happened. She narrowed her eyes and did
it again, but still nothing moved. She rushed over to the table.

“Where is it?” she hissed. Objects started flying through
the air as Kali searched. Owen took several steps back, his hands still aimed
at us, and glanced over his shoulder.

“Looking for this?” Vanessa dangled the pendant between her
fingers, the ruby-colored faerie stone flashing in the firelight, before
tossing it at me. My heart leapt. I could have kissed Vanessa.

As I reached out my hand to catch the pendant, Owen’s wrist
twisted, and the stone’s trajectory changed. It landed in the warlock’s hand.
With a bow of his head to the sorceress, he dropped the pendant into the front
pocket of her robe. My heart, which had been soaring, plummeted.

Owen, how could you?
No answer but a cold sapphire stare.

“Well done, my son,” Kali said to Owen, and when he dipped
his head in another bow, my stomach lurched. “Now what to do with you two? I
don’t appreciate thieves.”

“The pendant is mine,” I said. “You’re the thief.”

Kali’s mouth turned up in a beautiful but dreadful smile. “I
think I feel like playing.”

She turned the heat of her full gaze on me, and a piercing
pain shot through my head, as if an icepick had been buried into the back of my
skull. The agony blinded me and nearly brought me to my knees. My heart bruised
the inside of my chest as it raced, but when my hand reached to my head, no
weapon protruded. I clamped my mouth shut, silencing my scream, and gritted my
teeth through the pain. Kali preferred mind games.
Not me, bitch.
Straining with intense focus, I eventually raised my
mental shield I used to block out others’ thoughts. The pain disappeared.

Thwarted, Kali’s face twisted with anger, then she shot her
glare at Vanessa. The vampire’s mouth screwed into a painful grimace that
eventually gave way to a spine-tingling scream. Her hands clawed at her chest,
and blood poured over the top of her leather halter as she fell to her knees.

“Stop it,” I yelled as I lunged for Vanessa. I caught the
vampire in one arm and, with the other, raised my dagger at the sorceress.
“Stop now!”

Kali eyed the silver blade—the one that had caused her
to lose her body the last time it had pierced her—and laughed. But the
blood that had been all over Vanessa disappeared as if it had never been there,
and the vampire stopped screaming, though she still trembled against me. Magic
had made us both believe the mirage, but I knew from my own experience the pain
felt very real. Knowing the sorceress could inflict such mental agony was more
frightening than if she’d physically attacked us.

“You’re right. Why waste my time with you, when I can do
this?”

She lifted her hand, waved it in the air, and the fire-lit
room disappeared. We suddenly stood in the middle of the main road of Captiva
Island with the safe house on our right and the beach on our left.
Oh no!
Tristan came barreling down the
front stone steps of the mansion, shooting fire from his hands back at the safe
house. The mansion exploded, its roof blowing into pieces, windows shattering,
and flames jumping high in the air. With fire-filled eyes, he then ran down the
road toward the island’s small business district, shooting more fireballs with
one hand and causing trees to crash on houses and cars with the other.

The scene disappeared, and we were back in Hades.

But my heart was still in Captiva. A storm of emotions
roiled through me, taking my breath away. My son. Blossom and Sheree and Sonya
… the colony and the Normans … Had Tristan already done all of that? Or had she
just given him the orders? Either way, she’d just shown that she knew the power
of the stone, and it sat right now in her pocket, giving her control.
This was all for nothing. We’re all dead.
But then my mind focused like a laser beam on a single thought.
Not if she’s dead first.
With the hope
that killing her would sever her connection with Tristan, I twisted the
dagger’s hilt in my hand and threw it. Just like last time, it spun
end-over-end in an arc, but this time, it landed in her chest.

Kali’s mouth shaped into a surprised O as her hands flew to
the dagger buried hilt-deep in her chest.

“Get. Her!” she hissed, and the next thing I knew, Owen’s
hands were around my throat, and my feet dangled in the air.

Owen! Don’t do this,
I pleaded with him, staring him in the eyes as I clawed at his hands. He glared
back with hard sapphires, his face straining as the grip on my throat
tightened. Tears blurred my vision before falling.
Please, Owen. Don’t let her do this to you. You’re my friend. My protector.
You’re like my brother!

“
No, I’m not, Alexis.
I’m nothing to you.
”

Stop it!
My lungs
seized with the lack of air.
This isn’t
you. You give your energy to Uri, remember? Not Duff, Owen. Not … Duff.

A memory of his mother flickered in his mind and something
in his eyes glimmered. Or maybe it was only one of many pops of light flashing
in my vision from the lack of oxygen.

You’re really … going
to … kill me?
I asked with the last bit of consciousness I had.

“That’s enough!” bellowed a vaguely familiar male voice.

Owen let go, and I fell to the floor, on my knees next to
Vanessa. My lungs drew desperately for a breath, and the air felt like razor
blades slicing down my throat. When the lights stopped flashing before my eyes,
I looked up to see someone new in the room, removing the dagger from Kali’s
chest. The sorceress gasped as the silver left her body, and then sneered at
me.

“You’re not so dangerous when your mommy and pussy-whipped
husband aren’t around, are you?” Kali asked.

“I said that’s enough,” the man growled at her, his voice
cold and deep. “Remove the projection.”

With a slight bow of her head, Kali waved her hand, and our
surroundings transformed. We were no longer in a small workroom, but in a vast
cavern with several other people—well, Weres—standing at its
perimeter and this man in the center, just in front of us. I slowly rose to my
feet, pulling Vanessa up with me, and eyed the man who had made Kali obey.

Nearly as tall as Tristan with shoulders almost as wide, he
wore a black sleeveless shirt that exposed his muscular arms and black dress
pants with combat-style boots. Eyes the color of icebergs looked Vanessa and me
up and down, as if appraising us. Not a single wrinkle lined his face, but his
goatee was snow white, as well as his long hair, which was tied in a ponytail
and draped over the front of his shoulder. This had been the guy from Vanessa’s
memories, and with their similar features, I had no doubt he was her dad. So
why had she said she didn’t know her father?

“Very well done, both of you,” the man said, his icy blue
eyes scanning over all of us, then resting first on Owen and then on Vanessa.

His meaning sunk into my brain and then branded my soul.
Both of you? I’d been right?
Vanessa had
been playing me all along? Even now … all of this had been an
act
? Although I’d suspected
it—even
expected
it—the
betrayal of both Owen and Vanessa slammed into me with the impact of a city bus.
I inhaled sharply and my lungs trapped the air inside. My heart stuttered,
shrank, became a rock in my chest.

I was never getting out of here.

“Thank you, too, Kali,” the man said, waving my dagger in
the air as he eyed the sorceress.
 
“I appreciate this gift. You can go now. And take your minion. That is,
if he wants to go. Maybe he wants to stay here with us?”

Those ice-blue eyes locked on Owen’s now. The warlock shook
his head and moved to Kali’s side. At this point, I was no longer surprised. My
protector had tried to kill me, after all. The bruises on my neck still
throbbed.

“You’re dismissed.” The man sneered at Kali, as if she dared
to remain any longer. “Go on! You have work to do.”

And the frightening sorceress—the one who had nearly
drained the entire Amadis Island of all its energy, who now controlled my
husband—almost seemed to cower beneath this man. Who was he, that he
could frighten even Kali? With a flourish of her hand and a breeze that lifted
the hair off my neck, the two mages disappeared, leaving Vanessa and me alone
with the man. Oh yeah, and with the silent Weres standing on guard.

“So what do we do now?” the man asked.

Vanessa swallowed noisily, and for the first time in, well,
ever, I felt fear rolling off her body. But what was she so afraid of? She’d
done her job, as far as I could tell.

“Vanessa, you of all people ought to know that you can’t
take something from me without giving in return,” he said.

Vanessa pulled up her shoulders and lifted her chin. “We’ve
taken nothing.”

He snarled at her. “I’m not a fool, child! I know what you
came for!”

Vanessa swallowed again. “But we don’t have the pendant.
They took it back. Besides, it belongs to her. What had you given
her
in return when you took it?”

My mind spun. What was Vanessa doing? Whose side was she on?

“Her life,” he said. “And, apparently, yours.”

“Well, then, since she doesn’t get the pendant, let her keep
her life. In return,” Vanessa took a step forward, “you can have me back.
Father
.”

The man made a sound that I might have called a snort if
anyone else had made it, but he wasn’t the snorting type.

“
Father?
” he asked
as if he didn’t believe she’d had the gall to call him that. “We’re going to do
this again?”

“I know it for a fact now. You can’t deny it anymore.” She
took another step forward, anger overpowering the fear she’d felt moments ago,
giving her confidence. Her voice came out as icy as his. “I was never good
enough for you, was I? Victor was. Your oh-so-precious Victor. But not me. You
were too embarrassed to call me your daughter so you denied us both. And then
you made me into
this
. This monster
that I am.”

“I did it for your own good. I saved your life.”

“No, you didn’t. You took everything away from me.
Everything! I wanted a family. A life. And you took it! Just like you took my
mother’s!” Tears streamed down Vanessa’s face, and I actually felt sorry for
her. She surely hated each traitorous drop. And at that moment, I knew she
hated him, too, and the Daemoni. That she truly had converted. That she hadn’t
set me up, and I could trust her.

The man smirked. “This is exactly why I did it. To make you
strong
. Invincible. But you’re still so
pathetic
, it’s disgusting.”

It took every ounce of control I had to keep from getting
involved. This wasn’t my fight. Not this part. This was between Vanessa and her
fa— No, not father. That was no father standing before us. He was no
better than my own sperm donor. But what did I expect from the Daemoni?

He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down his nose
at her. Ice dripped from every word. “What has finally convinced you? What
makes you so sure you’re even right?”

Vanessa jerked her head in my direction. “Her. The one you
did
always want.”

My heart jumped again. She was bringing me into this after
all. But why? What did I have to do with them and their dysfunctional
relationship?

Vanessa smirked at the man’s narrowed eyes as her tongue ran
over the tip of a fang. “Her blood tastes very much like someone else’s I’ve
had. So much, that there must be a close relation. Closer than cousins. It
tastes like Victor’s. Like mine. And we know Sophia’s not our mother, so the
tie must come from you. Am I right, Father?” She practically spit that last
word out. “Or, I guess you prefer I still call you
Lucas
.”

My heart leapt into my throat. I felt like I had when Mom
had first told me about him. As if I’d been punched in the stomach. How had I
not considered that I’d come face-to-face with him while we were here? How had
that not crossed my mind? And here he stood in the flesh.

Lucas. My infamous sperm donor.

 
“Watch it, or
it’ll be Mr. Emerson to you,” Lucas snapped at Vanessa, dropping another
bombshell.

So not just Lucas, but Lucas
Emerson
! As in A.K. Emerson. Rina had given my author’s pen name
after
him
.
Why
? But even more jarring—if Lucas, my sperm donor, was also
Vanessa’s father, that meant she …
Whoa
.
I couldn’t process it all. My mind was in too much shock. I stood there
stupidly, eyes wide and mouth open, no words forming in my muddled brain.

Lucas’s mouth stretched into a grin as he drank in my
expression. My jaw must have been hanging at my knees. I snapped it close.

“Welcome home, my daughter,” he said as he acknowledged me
for the first time with a tone that became suddenly warm and inviting. “I hope
you plan to stay.”

I took a step backwards, swallowed down my heart and
croaked, “Never.”

“Ah, that’s a shame. I hoped for a different answer. But I
guess you are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you? How is that cunt, anyway? She
probably thought it funny to rub your books in my face by using the surname I
so frequently go by. Just made me proud to be your father.”