Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series) (22 page)

Maybe Abram was annoyed with Josaiah because he was annoyed with himself for feeling the exact same way.

The truck engine rumbled to life and they slowly accelerated. Before they had traveled more than a few feet, Levi leaped nimbly onto the truck and settled himself across from Abram.

Levi didn’t look anything like most of the pack members, and definitely nothing like the survivors in Northgate. Everyone who lived there was scraping together an existence by sweat and blood. Levi didn’t look like he had worked a day in his life, werewolf or not. His white leather jacket was pristine. And was that hair gel in his curls? Who had time to style their hair like that?

He stretched out his legs. He didn’t quite touch Abram, but his feet were only an inch away. Invading his space.

Abram gave him a flat look.

“I can’t wait to see what Rylie’s done with the place,” Levi said, propping his arms behind his head and stretching out his body lean and long. The hem of his shirt gapped, flashing an inch of tan skin with a hard vee of muscle underneath. “It can’t be any more craptacular than the Gresham Ranch used to be.”

This didn’t sound like the kind of conversation that Abram was interested in having. He watched Bain Marshall recede from them, the outstretched hand of the statue seeming to beckon them back as the truck turned a corner.

Trees flashed between them, and then the forest consumed his view of the town square.

Levi was quiet for most of the drive. He seemed genuinely interested in watching the surrounding forest as they climbed into the mountains. The twisting roads soon made Northgate disappear. The truck sliced through a narrow canyon, its rocks shimmering with ice, tiny waterfalls frozen into icicles.

The bite of the wind was even colder within the canyon. Abram pulled his jacket around him. Checked the position of his guns while he was at it. He didn’t like the low visibility in the canyon. Clotho could have been anywhere.

“I’m Bekah’s twin,” Levi suddenly said, like it was some kind of introduction.

Abram frowned. He already knew that Levi was Bekah Riese’s twin; they had been introduced the night that he emerged from the Haven—although Levi was barely recognizable as this swaggering would-be Alpha with a bloated ego draped in white leather.

But while Abram only vaguely remembered Levi, Levi didn’t recognize him at all. Apparently, Abram hadn’t been memorable.

“Yes, I was expecting Bekah to get here soon,” Abram said. Both Bekah and Stephanie Whyte had been due to arrive that week. They were probably late now, he realized, but he had been too distracted by Abel’s disappearance to keep track of time. “I didn’t hear that anyone else was coming with them.”

“I came out on my own,” Levi said. The truck bumped over potholes in the road and he had to drop his casual posture to grab the side of the flatbed. “They travel too slowly for my tastes.”

“And the Union doesn’t?”

“We ran into each other on the way here,” Levi said. “I asked nicely and Yasir let me up in the helicopter. I jumped down to help when I saw you and Trevin under attack. Don’t rush to thank me. I only saved your life and sanity from being crushed to putty in a super-demon’s hands.”

Abram ignored the sarcasm. It had been one of Summer’s favorite tools of annoyance during their childhood, and he was immune to that kind of emotional warfare. “You just walked up to a Union unit and they let you into their helicopter.“

Apparently, his mild incredulity was extremely offensive.

“Who the fuck are you?” Levi asked.

Abram wasn’t going to rise to that antagonistic bait, either. He ignored him.

“Look, new boy,” the werewolf said, pushing a finger into Abram’s pectoral hard enough to shove him against the rail. “I don’t care what bullshit the pack has been getting up to since moving into Rylie’s little werewolf zoo, but her leadership hasn’t always been a given. When she was still a fresh-faced Alpha juggling her harem of boy toys, I was running the show. You’re not a werewolf and you obviously don’t know
anything
about this pack, or else you’d show me a lot more respect.”

The outburst blew right over Abram’s head. He allowed Levi’s emotions to pour over him and slide away.

Levi wasn’t making himself look good with his anger. He was only making himself look like an idiot.

Josaiah and the other Scions being transported in the flatbed were pretending not to listen, but Levi wasn’t exactly being quiet. His voice echoed.

“I’m a twin, too,” Abram said in a mild tone.

“What? Why the fuck are you changing subjects on me? Who the fuck cares?” Levi asked.

“The pack cares.” Levi was crouched over Abram’s legs, making him a couple inches taller, but Abram didn’t need werewolf strength or petulant anger to intimidate. His calm was an impenetrable armor. “If you ask yourself why Rylie and Abel would leave me in charge, really think about it, you can probably answer your own questions.”

The canyon opened into the pack’s valley, coated in a fluffy layer of snow that looked pale and pure surrounding the line of trucks. The Union was horribly out of place there. The sanctuary was a place of calm and peace, a home for the hopeless—and now it was becoming a military outpost.

Levi seemed to have forgotten everything around them. He shoved his face in Abram’s. “You trying to stir shit up?”

“I’m trying to keep you from embarrassing yourself.” Abram nodded toward the others. People were watching them now, and not just those in the truck—the waiting werewolves were watching too. People who knew that Levi was trying to bully the son of the Alphas without any idea of who he was blustering at.

Golden eyes flashed. “Rylie’s always been the embarrassment,” Levi said.

So that was what this was about. Old school rivalry. Hard to believe, considering they were about to have Heaven and Hell dropped on top of them.

“Adjust your priorities,” Abram said, brushing the werewolf’s hands off his shirt. “This argument is ridiculous. And nothing you do or say will change the fact that my mother’s Alpha.”

Levi’s hands fell limp to his sides. His jaw dropped.

“Your mother?” he echoed. And then understanding lit in his eyes. “
Twins
.”

Abram couldn’t help but smile faintly. It lifted one corner of his mouth. “You can still be useful. You’ll have more familiarity with the Union equipment than any of us. I want you to help them unload and issue weapons to our men.” The order was delivered with his calm voice—the one that Summer said that nobody could argue with.

All of the hot air had gone out of Levi. He sagged, staring at Abram in unconcealed shock.

The truck stopped. Abram climbed out of the pickup and left Levi behind.

Toshiko and Paetrick were waiting for him.

“What’s going on?” Paetrick asked.

“It’s okay,” Abram said. “I authorized this, and I can explain everything.”

And he did.

By the time he was done talking to the pack, he noticed that Levi had gone to help the Union unload. Abram didn’t rub it in or gloat, as Levi probably would have if he had won the argument. Seeing his orders carried out was satisfaction enough.

Even the toughest dog could be taught to obey.

It was strange
to sit in the cabin in the woods with Abel and James and see evidence that they had been there for days—the trash in the kitchen, the disarray of the dishes, the rumpled bed sheets in the guest room—but only be able to smell their scents from the last hour. It created a painful disconnect in Rylie’s mind. Like her eyes and nose were in two completely different places.

Or maybe that was just the shock talking.

Abel was pacing the living room like a cage, prowling from one corner to the other. There was so much that Rylie wanted to say to him.
I was so worried about you. The pack is worried about you. I tore apart Northgate looking for you. I thought you might have been dead.

None of it made it past her lips, the words caught between teeth and tongue.

The way that James bustled in the kitchen was strangely domestic. He knew where everything was positioned and moved smoothly from cabinet to cupboard to drawer, getting a teakettle on the range, pouring water, arranging cups on the counter.

Even when James had lived for a few months with her pack, trying to help them through a few of their more magical problems, he had never seemed normal. His shockingly white hair and ageless face made Rylie think of wizards and angels. Ancient things.

Now he had black hair again. He looked about forty, maybe forty-five years old with the white in his beard. When he made tea, he looked like any other aging bachelor.

Except that this aging bachelor had just magically made Elise disappear.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Abel said, drawing her attention back to him. It was basically the only thing he had said since she got there.

“What did you think I was going to do?” Rylie asked. “You didn’t leave a note. You didn’t warn me.”

“You wouldn’t have let me go,” Abel said.

How could he know that? It wasn’t like he had asked. Yet even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew he was right. Running off with James was suicide, and she never would have let him do it—for good reason.

The teakettle whistled. James removed it from the heat. The silence that followed was immense, sucking all the air out of Rylie’s lungs.

“Why?” she asked in a tiny voice. Why would he have left willingly with James? Didn’t he know that this man had used Seth? And why had he done it without her?

“It was the right thing to do,” Abel said.

James came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with three steaming cups. He set it on the coffee table in front of Rylie. She smelled licorice and shrank back on the couch.

“What is that?” she asked.

She expected it to be something witchy—like a sedative or a mind-control potion or something else that would have convinced Abel that it wasn’t insane to follow James Faulkner across the country.

“Earl Gray. It has a strong flavor, but I think you’ll like it.” James offered a cup to her. “Be careful. It’s hot.”

He had exploited Seth, abducted her mate, made Elise disappear into oblivion, and now wanted her to be careful with the hot tea. She didn’t touch it.

“Where is she?” Rylie asked.

He faltered. For an instant she could see right through his pleasant demeanor to the anguish underneath. But he smoothed his features quickly and the lie never even came out in his smells. He was a good liar. A master. “She’s somewhere safe.”

James kneeled in front of Rylie. Was she imagining it, or did he look even younger now? The lines at the corners of his eyes were gone. His hair was blacker than before. It made him look less distinguished, more approachable.

But those eyes were still chillingly cold.

“I know what happened to Summer and Abram, Rylie,” he said softly. “I know that you didn’t get to be with them as children.”

Rylie edged away from him. “What does that have to do with anything?” Abel was still pacing behind James. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Had he told James about the babies? It was such a private, painful thing.

“I have a son too.” There was suddenly a picture in his hand. He held it up so that she could see the family portrait. There was an elegant blond woman in the back and a young boy in front of her—a boy that strongly resembled James. “His name is Nathaniel. I didn’t know about him until he was already nine years old. I’ve spent no more than a week with him in his entire life. And he’s an extraordinary witch who, through a series of circumstances, has become trapped in Eden.”

“‘A series of circumstances?’ That’s awfully vague.” Rylie knew an emotional appeal when she heard one. Coming from this guy, she didn’t trust it.

James turned the picture so he could gaze at it. “You’ve heard Elise called the Godslayer, I’m sure. It’s not just a name. She did kill God, and in order to do it, she had to become trapped in His garden. My son decided to save her by trading his freedom for hers, and he’s been in Eden ever since. The fact that he hasn’t returned makes me believe that he can’t. Not unless I open the gates to Eden.”

He let the anguish bleed through as he said it, and his grief struck deep in Rylie’s heart. The way he sounded reminded her too much of the way she had felt in the days she struggled to reach Summer and Abram—a painful mix of hope and hopelessness, fear and love, longing and pain.

But there were conspicuous holes in that story. Holes that Abel should have seen, too.

“How did you find him?” Rylie asked. James gave her a questioning look. “Eden’s this unreachable dimension, right? Another world like Dis, except with no holes or gates leading into it? Then how do you know he’s there if you can’t visit?”

James smiled faintly, tucking the photo into the pocket of his shirt. “Our world is woven together with fibers of magic. We are all connected. You, me, the demons in Dis, the angels in Shamain—and even Nathaniel in Eden. A witch that elevates himself to a place that he can see those fibers can look through them to anything, anywhere. You only need to know how to see it.”

She didn’t know enough about magic to tell if he was lying. It was vague and mystical enough to sound legit. But she could still smell the omissions on him, and she knew that he was leaving out pieces of the story.

“There are other things in Eden that would give me the ability to shape the world for the better, too,” James said. “I would be able to directly manipulate those fibers.”

Abel interrupted. “He thinks that he can bring Seth back.”

The words hit on Rylie like a silver bullet to the forehead.

Bring Seth back?

Her first dumb thought was,
But he’s already back
. His body was watching over the pack in the mausoleum that she had built with her own two hands.

That wasn’t what he meant. Abel meant…
back
. Alive.

Something was hurting, but it took Rylie a minute to realize what, exactly. She looked down at her hands. She had dug her fingernails into her palms, and they were bleeding.

She uncurled her fingers. The healing warmth swept through her, but the blood remained.