They had no names in their shared dream, never needed them. What was a name when you knew the other person so well you reached out and touched their soul? Although as a four-year-old he'd really not given it much thought. She called him boy; he referred to her as girl. That was how they did things.
He chewed on his fingernail. "Are you okay?"
"When are you going to come and get me from here?" Her eyes filled with tears. "I hate my home. We never have enough to eat and they beat me when I cry. I feel like if I ate enough I'd have power to hurt them."
"Don't do that." He reached out to take her soft hair in his fingers. Sometimes it felt like if he tried hard enough he remembered her, not only the way he dreamed her when they were in their garden, but from other times, too. Long ago; as if he'd stored the images somewhere in his head where he couldn't quite recall them. Drew shrugged. He was four and he hated being four.
"Why not?" She kicked a rock with her bare feet.
Even in their dreams, she never had enough clothes. Drew stared into her big eyes. Whatever else she might be some day, she was his best friend.
He wanted her to be able to be strong. "Because they'll hurt you if you do. Trust me. They'll hurt you bad."
She touched his arm. "Will you come get me, boy?"
"When I'm bigger. I'll be strong. The most powerful person anyone's ever seen. And I'll fly to you. Wherever you are in the world I will come when you need me."
She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. "I will wait. I will be tough."
"You feel very far from me. Do you know where you live?" His father said their state was somewhere called Ma-Ne. He didn't know exactly where it was. It was beautiful in the summer, but cold in the winter; either way he didn't like it when his parents locked him outside.
Girl shook her head. "I don't. But you will come, won't you, boy? You won't leave me where everyone hurts me?"
"As soon as I'm big. I promise."
* * * *
"Drew?" Jason shook his shoulder. "You should be healed now. I fixed your brain again. I spend more time having to stitch together your hard head."
Drew's eyes flew open. When Dr. Jason said he stitched him he didn't mean using needle and thread. As the Outsiders' healer the man performed miracles by simply using his mind. At this point, he'd lost track of how many times Jason fixed him.
Out of the entire group of known Outsiders, Jason was probably the closest thing Drew had to a friend, which would be a first for him because as far as Drew remembered, he'd never in his life ever had a friend.
Outside of Marina who he craved like a drug.
"Marina?" He pulled himself into a sitting up position.
His head felt foggy and his mouth dry. Getting hurt was bad enough without having to relive his childhood pain over and over again. He'd never gotten to Marina, never saved her. Charma, Kal, Leonardo, and Veli—their now dead former leader—had found her in an orphanage in Russia.
By the time Drew had made the fatal mistake of aligning himself with Sebastian in order to figure out how to save her, she'd no longer required any assistance.
If only he'd known.
Jason sat on the edge of Drew's bed. "Gone."
"What?" Drew flung his legs over the side. "Where? How is that possible?"
"We're not exactly sure."
"What. The. Fuck!" he shouted, unable to control his temper. The ceiling had fallen on his fucking head and the asses he was supposed to save the world with couldn't keep his soul mate protected for the brief period of time it took him to recover?
"I see you told him?" Leonardo slammed into the room. "Or maybe I should say I hear you told him, since the way he's bellowing every person on the planet who doesn't know we're in here will soon."
Behind Leonardo, Kal entered the room, snorting. "Like it matters. Sebastian can clearly come and go as he demonically pleases. He made the ground shake and swept off with Marina."
"She's with the demon." The room turned red and Drew pushed down his temper.
Getting really angry risked too much. If he let Sebastian inside of him, Drew might not get him out again. The last time had been too close of a call.
Of course he'd throw all safety out the window to save Marina, if that was what it took.
"We think so." Samuel stepped around Kal. Were they having a guys' get-together in the infirmary? Had they all been standing by the damn door? "Eden had a vision."
"You know"—Drew stood—"I'd really prefer Eden's visions if she had them when they were actually useful."
Samuel's jaw clenched. Drew wouldn't put it past the other man to take a swing at him. Samuel had survived being nearly killed in a fire when he was a child by Sebastian. With no healer around to fix him, he'd been forced to change his face every few days for the rest of his life to stay in hiding. His days of running were over yet Samuel remained one of the toughest son of a bitch Drew had ever met.
"That's twice you've criticized her. You're lucky I don't fucking break you."
"Give it a try." Drew wanted a good fight, to burn off the anger at Marina's disappearance, and keep the demon out.
Marina. His heart clenched at the thought. She was so human now. Had he hurt her? He'd know if she were dead. Somehow he would. Drew reached out, searching the universe for her soul the way he always did. Nothing—a big, fat gaping hole of empty where his beloved should be. Of course, the lack of Marina meant little. He'd not been able to connect to her for six long months.
"Enough." Jason stepped between them. "You want to fight? Do it out of my sight. I'm tired of putting everyone back together after fuck ups. It's bad enough I have to save your sorry asses time and again when it really matters. If you make each other bleed, I'm leaving you the way you end up."
And that, Drew supposed, was that.
"Tell me what Eden saw," he asked Samuel, instead of throwing a punch. Not as much fun but surely more useful. When Outsider men found their mates they temporarily became really Alpha about everything. Even "don't fight" Jason had snarled at everyone he met for a while when he'd finally embraced his destiny and given in to his love for Charma. Drew had been fighting the urge to blow up everyone around him for three years since he'd first laid eyes on Marina in Maine.
He'd never have her, so the urge to destroy never eased. Knowing, however, did nothing to make it better. Drew compared the need with having an itch he needed to scratch and never, ever being able to do anything about it.
"Eden didn't get a lot of details. Marina and Sebastian talked and Sebastian popped her out of here. No idea what happened afterwards."
Leonardo said, "I personally believe taking Marina was the point of this whole exercise. Why screw with us and then simply disappear? We were weak. Our wards down. Drew, you were out cold. We were scrambling around and then…nothing. No huge influx of his minions, no battle to fight. The quake was to distract us so he could take Marina."
He's completely right.
Drew nodded his agreement with Leonardo. Damn but the man made a pretty good leader when he wasn't grumpy and stomping around. "We need to find her."
"Only problem is, the only person with the ability to find anyone else, your soul mate Marina, is now missing. And hasn't been able to exhibit her powers for half a year anyway." Leonardo sighed loudly before he sat down on the infirmary bed Drew had vacated. "Do you suppose I could check out for a while? Have some kind of breakdown and be incapacitated? You'd all manage fine without me right?"
"Not funny." Gabriel stepped into the gathering. "And you're not exactly right about us being out of options. There is one more. I hate to use it but I think we'd make it work."
"What did you have in mind?" Drew would do anything to get Marina back. Whatever Gabriel needed, he'd make it happen. Who did he have to kill?
"Alexa. The girl I grew up with who's one of us but is still in major denial about Sebastian. If we can get to her, she'll find Marina. Location is one of her powers. She'll need to be convinced."
For the first time in a long time, Drew recognized hope as it filled him. Gabe was right. There was a chance. "How do we find her?"
"I'll call her."
"No." Leonardo stood up. "Before we do that I think Drew wanted to tell us something. You had a revelation to share before the earthquake. Let's do that first."
Leonardo stormed from the room leaving them all standing there. Drew had no doubt Leonardo wanted Marina back. They were best friends. So what the fuck was that? Why was he running away?
Drew looked at Kal, the man who, out of all of them, knew their leader best. Kal only shrugged. "Let's do what he wants. Then go find Alexa."
Drew shook his head. "You do realize that if I had the ability to manage this alone, you'd all be in my dust right now?"
Running away had been always been one of Drew's talents. He'd gotten really proficient over the years. Running to something wouldn't be too much harder. Unless it was.
"Whatever it is you have to say"—Jason met his gaze—"treat it like ripping off a band aid. We all had secrets. Get it done."
If only it were going to be so easy.
Chapter Three
Sebastian watched the scene of Alexa and Marina unfold without the sheer joy in besting the Outsiders he expected to feel. The whole thing had become so boring. Of course, seeing the now clearly insane Alexa make Marina squirm did have its amusing moments. The whole drinking blood thing. Yeah, he had really fucked with the woman's head. But, otherwise, yawn. Blah. Who cared?
Six months of work had brought down the Outsiders' wards, but without Marina's powers to face off with there was no challenge to the sport. The time had come to win.
Only, according to the rules set up by the universal scribe, he couldn't, not until the sign had been given. Sebastian rolled his eyes. He was so sick of the endless rule following. By nature, demons didn't play nicely with others and if his father hadn't insisted he not screw this dimension up and get them thrown in dimensional jail again, he would rush forward right now and snap Alexa's neck.
What an image.
He smiled at the thought as the crunch and snap of bones passed through his imagination.
But the scribe had to give the sign. Fortunately for Sebastian, the Outsiders hadn't made enough headway through Abraxas's books to know they even needed to see one. They didn't know how limited he remained, even incorporeal, until then. He'd tried to thwart the scribe when he'd locked Samuel in the closet and set the building on fire. For his efforts, Samuel had been given more power than he'd ever had in any previous battles.
Sebastian wasn't going to make the same mistake again.
No, if he kept Marina weak and Alexa confused the female powerbase would remain dormant and they'd never be able to bring about enough energy to fuel the males in the battle, even should they recognize the sign.
If he could have killed them by now, he would have. A single bullet to the brain…
Again, the image provided amusement. This time it wasn't Alexa he killed but her soul mate she still didn't know about—Dr. Leonardo Gregan. The so-called leader of the crew. Leadership varied through lifetimes and dimensions but Leonardo remained cranky and obtuse. Why, Sebastian could remember the last time they battled…
A thought dawned on him. Maybe he didn't need to put his energy into the new scheme with Alexa and Marina. He'd screwed with Alexa enough she wasn't going to easily let go of Marina since Sebastian had made Marina her task.
He could leave this one be for a while. Yes, what Sebastian needed to do had never been done before. He needed to eliminate the scribe.
Giddiness crept into his soul and threatened to explode out of him. He pushed the feeling back down. No need to start a hurricane because he couldn't control himself. No one in his family had ever made an attempt on the scribe. Not his mother, nor his meddlesome sister who had almost screwed up this dimension for him, nor his father who had beat the Outsiders more times than any other demon in existence.
Kill the scribe.
To do so would be…extraordinary. Sebastian would finally be the demon all other demons feared. And when the deed was done would get to keep this dimension instead of having to leave it in tatters to rebuild itself. No rules, no code of conduct, no one to bring the power of destruction down on his head. He'd be rid of the Outsiders and he'd never have to see them again.
Incorporeal as he was, thanks to Samuel and Eden completely misreading a vision, he couldn't get himself to the scribe. The man would be warded from magic. Sebastian grinned. He didn't need any. He had two females at his disposal to do the dirty work for him. Fortunately, he was a demon who had no problem altering his plans. Alexa and Marina would be useful after all.
* * * *
"So this is where you'll be sleeping." Alexa showed the room to Marina by pointing.
Her hands shook too violently to actually open the door herself. She shoved them her pocket hoping Marina didn't notice. When Sebastian had told her to go to St. Croix and wait for Marina she'd been ecstatic. At last, a task she could complete. Everything else she tried had winded up a disaster. She'd not even been able to get to the Outsider Island before they vanished.
Those damn cult people. When she got through with them…
"Are you okay?" Marina stood by the bedroom door, regarding Alexa in silent appraisal.
Or at least that was what it felt like.
Alexa smiled, hoping it came off as genuine. Once upon a time talking to people hadn't been so hard. Sebastian, Gabriel, and she had been a family, three best friends whose weird powers they were using to help the world. Alexa spent days working in homeless shelters and doing her best to make a difference where she could.
Then, Gabriel jumped ship, met Loraine, and went and actually joined the cult they had been fighting for so long. His betrayal burned. Then Sebastian confessed feelings for her she hadn't shared. It had seemed easier to fake them than anything else. Why shouldn't she have a boyfriend? So what if she never once liked sex or didn't want to be touched by anyone from either sex, ever? She'd done a good job of being doting and she had loved Sebastian—or at least she hadn't wanted him to leave her alone in the world like Gabriel had.