Breaker (Ondine Quartet Book 4) (25 page)

Julian slowed the car to a stop and slipped out. I slid over to his seat.
 

He undid the gate locks with nimble, practiced movements, giving the distinct impression he’d done this before.

The massive gate silently swung open. The large letter “H” and elegantly scripted phrase “
havre de l’eau”
split in half.
 

12:03.

I drove through and watched in my rear-view mirror as Julian pulled the gate shut.

Cam and I waited, barely breathing.

Julian redid the locks.

My pulse accelerated.

Come on.

He leaped into the passenger seat and the car shot forward.

No cry of alarm tore disturbed the night.

We did it.

My heartbeat gradually slowed. The car’s beams cut triangular swaths of light into the inky night.

Julian leaned back, his body relaxed and at ease. “So how does it feel to be Rogue again?”

“Weird. You?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Inevitable.”

There it was.
 

I sighed. “You’re never going to let me live this down are you?”

“You mean the fact I suggested this course of action weeks ago and you resisted? Never.”

Cam’s silent scrutiny pressed against me.

I glanced in the rear-view mirror. He sat motionless in the back seat, the night’s shadows concealing his expression.

The taut lines of his shoulders and arms buzzed with adrenaline.

If he and Julian started fighting, I’d have to pull over and knock sense into them. Doable but a complete waste of time.

“Cam?”

He didn’t reply for a few seconds. Finally, he exhaled and his posture relaxed.
 

“Assume you know where we’re going?”
 

Relieved, I nodded. “Of course.”

Haverleau didn’t care about Ian.

So we were going to the only other people who did.

PART II

PROPHECY

She comes from the waves and cliffs,

From the land and air,

And from the light and dark.

Rising from Fire and

Born with The Elements on her left ankle,

She shall mark herself as One of the Water

on her right shoulder.

Possessed of an unlimited source of Virtue,

She shall stand alone as the Light against Darkness,

Though she will remain a warrior of Shadows.

- Naida Irisavie,
Prophecies: Volume 104
 

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

- Albert Camus

FOURTEEN

The Queen glistened like the marble of the Governing House.

“Gotta stay mobile.” Ray leaned in close, his long nose almost touching the piece. His gaze darted across the board. “Always leave room to escape.”

I leaned against the window frame and stretched. It’d take another minute or two before he made a move.

Afternoon sunlight warmed my arms, casting a soft glow across the cabin’s wood floors and rustic furnishings.

Julian sat on the enclosed porch in my line of sight, book open in his lap, a glass of red wine beside him. To the west, Daniel’s wiry form leaned over the budding sprouts in his garden. Lucas crouched beside him, a frown of concentration on his face.
 

Given the circumstances, everyone had taken our sudden arrival in the early hours of dawn relatively well.
 

Patrice had agreed to wait twenty-four hours to make the announcement. Which meant in a few hours, all hell would break loose.

As newly appointed Governor, she’d keep the Council and chevaliers in line. But they were never my concern.

I closed my eyes.

Just the thought of Tristan’s reaction sent pain cleaving through my chest.
   

He’d question Aubrey and Chloe. Jeeves would explain what I needed him to do.

It wouldn’t stop him from sending gardinels after me. But I had to hope he’d understand what I did.

“Give yourself room to move.”

Fierce dark eyes watched me through a curtain of coarse hair. Ray had shaved off his beard, revealing the sharp line and angles of his weathered face.

Scars of experience reflected in the deep lines and grooves carved between his brows and around his nose and mouth.
 

“Gotta keep moving, Kendra,” he said, impatient. “Otherwise the game stops.”

I glanced down at the board. My turn.

Knight to D-seven.

Ray frowned. “Stupid move.”

I shrugged. A lot of people had been saying that to me recently. Myself included.

He moved his Queen then shifted his wary gaze back to me. “You want to ask me something.”
 

It was a statement, not a question.

Guess my reason for inviting him to a game was obvious. It was the only way I could get a quiet moment with him away from the others.

Beneath his mutterings and paranoia, there were answers locked away in Ray’s mind.

I just needed the right key to unlock them.

“You know why we’re here.”

“Ian.” His leg started bouncing up and down.

“In Fontesceau,” I said carefully, “the guy who took Oliver Moreaux. He’s a nix.”

He stared at me, something terrible stirring in his eyes.

A nod.

“You knew him.”

Memory blanched his face and a muscle in his jaw ticked.

Another slow nod.
 

“Did he take Ian?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

He swayed, rocking back and forth in his chair, then sprang up and paced agitatedly.
 

“I need to find him, Ray,” I said softly.

He stopped and looked out the window, his mouth repeatedly tightening and loosening as if attempting to speak over and over again. His hand fluttered to the gun holstered at his waist.

He finally pushed the name out.

“S-Scabbard.”

“Was he the one who hurt you?”

Please say no.

“Poison.” He rubbed his chest. “Gets inside and burns you up. Kills you.”

My stomach lurched at the haunted bleakness surfacing in the depths of his eyes.

What had Scabbard done to him?

I shoved back my fear. “Do you know how I can find him?”

“Scabbard hides weapons.”

The turning blades. “Where?”

He shook his head, eyes abnormally wide. “Where you can’t see.”

He stepped away from the table, tremors spilling down his arms.

“I can get him. I can stop him so he never hurts—“

“No, no.” He shook his head vehemently, his voice rising. “He finds you. He controls you.”

I was losing him.

“This time I’ll find him, Ray,” I said firmly. “I’ll bring Ian back.”

“You can’t.” The blank resignation in his hollowed eyes sent an icy shiver down my spine. “Ian’s already in hell.”

Abruptly, he opened the door and exited, quickening his steps as if he could outrun the memories that chased him. Through the window, I watched his tall, thin form seek security in the shade of dense forest.

Always have enough room to escape.

Julian looked up from his book and caught my gaze.

He raised his brow. I shook my head.

“Kendra?” Oriel Clavet stepped out of the kitchen and dried her hands on the kitchen towel hanging off her waist. “Everything all right?”

The chess pieces on the board taunted me. Three more moves and Ray would’ve had checkmate.

I rubbed my face. “I pushed him too hard, too soon.”

She gave a knowing nod. “Sometimes the person you’re questioning needs breathing room. Give him a little time.”

Like her father Daniel, Oriel was part of an extensive network helping elementals conceal our war from humans.

As a homicide detective in the NYPD, Oriel was no stranger to horror. Demons didn’t just belong to our world.
 

A delicious scent wafted out from the kitchen behind her. “Bread?”

“For dinner.” She tilted her head, lustrous honeyed curls catching the light. “Want to help me clean up?”

I joined her at the sink. Her height made the cozy kitchen look smaller.
 

She turned on the faucet. “This week has turned out to be rather unexpected.”

I grabbed a dish towel. “Are you here on vacation?”

“Just wrapped up a case before I came out here.” She washed a measuring cup under the running water and handed it to me. “I needed to clear my head.”

“What happened?”

A pause. “Got a call to a building known for drug activity.” Her voice turned flat. “A mother, high out of her mind, put her baby in the microwave thinking he was food and…” She stopped and swallowed.
 

Oh, God. “I’m sorry.”

“Sometimes I wonder if any good we do is outweighed by what we can’t unsee.” She methodically rinsed a mixing bowl. “Like what happens in your war. Whatever happened to Ray.”

I slowly dried the cup and put it away, Ray’s haunted voice echoing inside me.

Poison. Gets inside you and burns you up.

Oriel handed me the bowl. “Are you staying long?”
 

I shook my head. “Leaving at first light tomorrow.”

“Know where you’re headed next?”

“Not yet. But we can’t stay any longer.”

The gardinels would be right on our heels.

“You did the right thing. Leaving Haverleau to go after your friend.”

“Didn’t think an officer of the law would approve of me walking away from duty,” I said lightly.

“You walked away from power to go after someone you care about.” She rinsed out a pan. “That takes guts. A lot of people wouldn’t be able to do it.”

The regret coloring her tone prompted a memory of the day I left New York. Renee had waited on the private airfield until the last possible moment, but Oriel hadn’t shown up.

She’d left New York for the last time, devastated her best friend hadn’t said good-bye.

“Is that why you didn’t come to the airport when we left?” I slowly dried the glass, keeping my gaze on her. “Because you couldn’t?”

Her hands slowed. “Because I’d already been through that once.”

Something dark and hard ghosted over her face, a deep wound that had hardened into a terrible scar.
 

“Another friend?”

“Not exactly. My girlfriend.” Her hands moved faster. She fiercely cleaned a pan as if trying to scrub away the memory. “She chose to return to the ocean rather than accept the binding her parents arranged. After her recall process, I was a wreck. Couldn’t function, couldn’t move forward. Nearly lost my job. Renee helped me through all of it.”

“Except her twenty-third birthday was also coming.”

And Oriel couldn’t bear to go through that loss again.
 

“When I completed the Academy and began helping elementals, I knew what my role was. Being a soldier meant witnessing the unbearable and touching the untouchable.”

She grasped the edge of the sink and turned to me, her face pale with regret. “It’s the damndest thing, Kendra. I deal every day with murderers, the absolute dregs of society. I survived losing the love of my life. But I couldn’t say good-bye to my best friend of seventeen years.”

We finished up in silence. Oriel excused herself to check on Daniel and Lucas. She moved with the same hurried, unseeing steps as Ray, walking away from me as if a nightmare chased her.

I wandered out onto the porch. It was empty.

Julian stood at the end of the short dock leading out to the lake. The sun had shifted further west, wisps of red and gold entwining with the clouds. The gentle murmur of the lake lapping against the rocky shore blended with the steady cry of birds and humming cicadas.
 

Nestled in an isolated section of northern Washington near the Canadian border, Daniel’s cabin was surrounded by miles of unpopulated country.

He didn’t turn around. “Did you get anything from Ray?”

“No. But Scabbard is bad news.”

“You scared him off in less than half an hour.”

I drew up beside him. “Dax will make sure he doesn’t disappear on us. He’ll come back.”

“I doubt we’ll see royal selkie boy before we leave tomorrow.”

A hint of defensiveness underscored his tone.
 

When we arrived, Dax and two gardinels barely said hello before taking off for guard duty along the property’s perimeter. After spending a few minutes filling Holden in on what happened, he’d also abruptly headed into the woods with the other nixes. Cam accompanied them while Julian and I stayed behind to handle Ray.

It wasn’t too hard to figure out that most of them - Dax, Tara, Holden, and Cam - disliked Julian. A lot.

It was probably why they spent most of the day away from the cabin.
 

“It’ll get better.” I wasn’t just talking about the people here.

“No, it won’t,” he said easily. “People don’t change which means our world doesn’t either.”

“I’m looking at a demillir with a Virtue.” I held out my arms. “You’re seriously going to tell me you’re not proof things are changing?”

He shrugged. “Genetic anomaly.”

“Is that what you think of me, too?” I asked quietly. “That I’m an ondine chevalier because of freaky coincidence? Not because of the choices I’ve made in my life?”

The clack of boots on the wooden pier disturbed the tranquil air before he could reply.

Tara approached me, ignoring Julian with marvelous deliberation.

“Good, you’re back. Where’s Holden—“
 

“Daniel wants to talk to the Head Chevalier before you leave,” she said.

My gaze flickered between them.
 

Julian stared at Tara with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. She kept her eyes unnaturally glued to me.

“All right,” I said slowly. “Did he say why?”

“He’s prepared a few supplies. And Holden also wants to talk to the chevalier about—”

“I’m right here,” Julian said.

Tara stiffened but directed her response at me. “Tell him you guys will need to keep a really low profile while traveling if you want to avoid Haverleau’s notice.”