Healing Eden (8 page)

Maybe they didn’t need his information any more. If Eryx was here to give his sentence, then there was nothing left but—

Galena walked out from behind her brother, and Reese’s lungs emptied on a whoosh. She clasped her hands loosely in front of her, a formal pose best suited for strangers. Or detachment. “Eryx has agreed to hear what you have to say.”

Eryx crossed his arms and dipped his chin, a non-verbal warning of the deadliest variety. He might be Ramsay’s twin, but the warrior garb of silver drast and black leather pants sent his intimidation factor off the charts. “Galena says you’re ready to talk. That true?”

Reese jerked a nod, his throat too clamped to speak.

The soft flutter of the torch’s flame beyond his cell and a muffled creak from the castle above filled the silence.

Eryx motioned toward someone in the hall to enter.

Two warriors bustled in carrying simple ladder-back chairs.

Galena perched on the edge of hers, her posture so rigid his hand twitched to rub the back of her neck.

Eryx spun his around, straddled the back, and pointed at the cot. “Sit.”

Reese edged back until his knees met the cot, Galena’s steady, patient gaze so heavy he could barely take a breath. He didn’t want her here. Not for this.

“Got a lot on my plate, Reese. For whatever reason, Galena thinks I need to be the one to hear what you’ve got to say. I’m doing her a favor, but I’m not in the mood to screw around. We clear?”

She went for Eryx on purpose? Why?

“We clear?” Eryx snapped.

Reese forced himself to look at Eryx. “Clear.”

All he had to do was start simple. The basics. The location of the training grounds, Maxis’ underground hideout deep in the mountains of Asshur, the coordinates Eryx’s men would need. The words rolled off his tongue, one secret after another, Galena steady and unmoving in his periphery.

“Any prisoners at those locations?” Eryx said.

Reese blinked, mentally stumbling from his trance-like fog. Right. The spiritu had mentioned a captive, one special to the new malress. “I don’t know of any prisoners. Maxis kept everyone on a need to screw basis, but if he’s got one, the hideout in Asshur would be the best bet. Hard to scan with the rock density and even more difficult to locate on sight. Only those closest to him know where to find it.”

Not so much as a twitch from Eryx. No hint of his thoughts or emotions. “And you’ll corroborate this information with your memories?”

Reese’s mouth dried up and his heart kicked. He tried to swallow, but his tongue seemed stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I will, but I need to share something else.”

He glanced at Galena. She’d never view him the same. How could she? How could anyone? He coughed around the catch his throat. “My mother fled the rebellion ranks when she learned she was pregnant with me. She wasn’t mated, but was afraid the man she lived with would kill her if he learned she was pregnant with another man’s son.”

Galena perked up, her voice soft and curious. “Why would he kill her?”

Adrenaline rushed so thick his body felt twice its normal weight, and a sharp steady pain pressed behind his sternum. “He was abusive, the type of man who viewed women as little more than cattle. They’d already had a son together. From his perspective, her job was to satisfy his physical needs and see to their child. That was it. For her to come up pregnant with another man’s child would have been one thing, but to come up pregnant by a human slave? That was something else. So she ran.”

Reese focused on Eryx. Now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to. The onslaught of information burned from the inside out. “My mother never believed in the rebellion. She was trapped because of her first-born child. She risked her life to save me and raised me to do the right thing. She wanted me to fight against the rebellion, not for it.”

Eryx frowned and curled his fingers around the top rail of the chair. “Your mom ended up in a bad place, but you being half human’s not exactly earth-shattering news. I’m not seeing how her background with the rebellion has any tie to the information I need.”

A steady hum started in the back of Reese’s head and the air around him thickened, weighting his shoulders. “It’s important because of who my mother was.”

Praise the Great One, he hoped he did this right. He took a deep breath. “Maxis Steysis is my brother.”

Eryx and Galena gaped.

Reese propped his elbows on his knees and let his head fall forward. It didn’t matter now. It was out. Done. And strangely, the truth hadn’t stung as bad as he’d thought, a good chunk of the emotional dead weight in his soul gone. How the information would serve the spiritu’s purpose he couldn’t fathom. The only thing good he and Maxis held in common was their mother. He’d have killed Maxis himself if she hadn’t made him promise to protect him.

Wait. Maybe that was it. His mother had loved Maxis. Reese had wished him dead over and over since the day he’d fully understood what the relationship meant, but their mother loved him. Had hurt and prayed for him every day after she’d escaped. Had Maxis ever known love? Would it make a difference?

“Half brother.”

Galena’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “What?”

“He’s your half brother,” she repeated, glaring at Eryx. “It’s not a crime, it’s genetics.”

Eryx kept his expression blank, the only tell a slight tilt to his head. “That’s what you wouldn’t share with Ramsay. You were afraid of what we’d think.”

A full, pent up breath huffed out, and the fear and doubt he’d held captive burst free with it. He slumped against the crystal wall, exhausted. “You. Ramsay. The other warriors. If I’d shared it, no one would have trusted me. How could anyone believe Maxis’ brother would have their back in battle? Or believe I wasn’t there to feed information to the rebellion? If I wanted to serve, I didn’t have a choice.”

“We always have a choice.” No sympathy from Eryx, just conviction. “Some are more difficult to carry than others. It sounds like your mother understood that.”

Reese straightened. That was it. The different path the spiritu had told him to find. “I need to ask you for something.”

Eryx huffed an incredulous laugh. “You think you’re in a position to barter?”

“No.” He needed to watch what he said. It was one thing to drop his history for the malran, but another thing entirely to expect him to buy a mission from some unknown being. “My choices were wrong. I knew it the day I blocked Ramsay. I knew it watching rebellion men die for a cause I wanted nothing to do with. I’ll pay the price. Willingly. All I want is a chance to make things right before I do.”

Eryx sat up taller in his chair, eyes narrowed and wary. “How so?”

“Let me lead you through the tunnels to Maxis, maybe act as a distraction while you look for the prisoner you’re after.”

“You realize that sounds more like a trap for me and my men veiled as a shot at redemption.” Eryx smirked. “I might not be ready to rip your head off like Ramsay is, but that doesn’t make me an idiot.”

“That’s not what this is about,” he said.

Galena studied him, a wary uncertainty coloring her expression. If he wasn’t reaching her, then he’d never win Eryx’s approval.

Fuck. What the hell could he say that wouldn’t sound insane?

“The truth.”
A swift answer, wind chimes and laughter behind it.

Clio.

Okay. The truth. He focused on Eryx. “It killed my mom that she left Maxis behind. She saw what Evanora’s hatred was doing to him. There was no way to get Maxis out without the whole lot of them following, but she could keep at least one child safe. I want the chance to let Maxis know our mother regretted leaving him. To see if it might make him let go of
,
or at least revisit
,
his need for vengeance.”

Eryx’s laugh ricocheted through the cell. “You know that’s got a snowball’s chance in histus of happening, right?”

“I do. But if it takes him off his current path, then it’s worth trying. If Maxis balks, I’ll kill him myself.
If not for my race, then for what he did to Phybe.”

The two stared at him, Eryx tight-lipped and Galena openly stunned.

“I wanted to serve you and Ramsay because I wanted to balance the scales for my mother,” he said. “For her to die knowing at least one of her sons stayed to the good. I screwed up with my choices. Let me try to make it right.”

“Eryx—”

Eryx glowered at Galena.

She clamped her lips tight and ducked her head.

The silence scratched and grated.

The musty dankness filled Reese’s lungs until he thought he’d choke. “He killed Phybe on purpose.”

“As a distraction,” Eryx said.

“No, as a message. To me. Maxis blackmailed me into forming a link with him, threatening to share our relationship with others if I didn’t. When he found Phybe at his house with you and the rest of your men, he realized I’d helped her, which brought you straight to his door. Killing her was his way of saying I’m next.”

“Then you can’t leave zeolite,” Galena said. “He’ll kill you the minute he sees you.”

Something inside him warmed. Even in the darkened cell, her light and goodness shone on his soul. A benediction he didn’t deserve. “Galena, I’m dead either way. Life in here will be a slow, torturous death. My only other options are death at your brother’s order for treason, or to die trying to save the soul of my mother’s other son. Which would you choose?”

Her shoulders dropped and her hands tightened in her lap.

Reese stood and motioned to the hallway beyond. “Take me out long enough to offer my memories and my link. As a Shantos male, you’re as capable of killing me via link as Maxis is. If at any time you sense treachery on my part, you can strike.”

“Anything else?” Eryx said.

“I’d ask one last night in my mother’s homestead to say good-bye.”

Eryx studied him another moment, stood and motioned Galena toward the door. He parked the chair against the wall and followed her out. “We’ll see.”

* * * *

“Stop squirming, Serena.” Maxis tightened his arms around Serena’s torso, her body soft and giving against his as they flew through the Eden skies. The wind bit his cheeks, and the setting sun took what was left of the day’s warmth with it.

Serena nestled closer. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. I can’t trust you with my eyes open, let alone blindfolded.”

He’d been surprised too, a small win in his grander plan. With a little luck, he’d cinch the war before the sun rose. “I gave you my word, you’re perfectly safe. Now relax and let me make my amends.”

A line of clouds spanned the horizon, soft gray outlined in shimmering pinks against blue velvet. Nature’s demarcation between two opposite regions, Cush’s bright heat to Asshur’s stormy existence.

Maxis steered left toward Brasia’s multi-hued mountains.

Veins of violet, red and yellow covered the foothills, blending where they overlapped for a rainbow effect. Evanora’s Peak stood the tallest. A behemoth of color, its temperature set in perma-freeze. No matter how much snow nature dumped on the mountain, those same varied colors pushed through the white, pulsing and hypnotic.

Gold sparked in the distance, brilliant flecks off castle spires that marked their destination. Each flash stabbed his retinas, but the tightness in his chest unfurled. They were almost home.

He landed in a frigid crosswind so fierce the unforgiving gust penetrated his thick overcoat.

Serena shivered and lifted a hand to the blindfold. “Praise the Great One, where are we?”

“Not so fast.” He captured both her wrists, pinned them behind her back with one hand, and splayed the other across her abdomen. Her rose silk tunic slicked against the firm flesh beneath.

He dragged his lips along the shell of her ear. Caramel and vanilla scents teased his nose—there a moment, then pushed away on the wind, a promise of hearth and home unlike anything in his stiff and cold childhood. “If you rush, you’ll ruin the surprise.”

She stilled, but her brow furrowed above the blindfold.

He loosened the fabric and stepped to the side.

She blinked and squinted against the twilight before her face softened, mouth parted in a soft O. “Where are we?”

Warmth and a sated lethargy radiated through him, a lion stretched beneath the sun after gorging on its fatted prey. “My family home, situated where Asshur, Cush, and Brasia meet. Evanora commissioned it not long after my father was born.”

White limestone walls sat on an elevated acreage and stretched to the sky, topped by forest green tiles and gold-tipped spires. Wrought-iron accents lined each oversized window and exotic hedges wound in intricate patterns around the perimeter. The staggering structure spanned two hundred feet to either side and reached three stories high.

The wind tossed Serena’s moonlight-colored hair around her neck and shoulders, and greedy rapture twinkled in her bold blue eyes. “It’s magnificent.”

Ah, yes. He’d definitely chosen the right lure for his mate-to-be. “Evanora had a thing for daring statements. This one was aimed at the man foolish enough to forgo choosing her as his mate.” He held out his hand. “I won’t be as dimwitted.”

Serena studied his outstretched hand, his face, and the manse stretched out before them. She licked her lower lip and laid her palm in his. “Get me out of this cold.”

He ducked his head to hide his triumphant smile and ushered her toward the main entrance. Two guards dressed in black stood at either side with others stationed in regular intervals around the perimeter.

Uther strode out the front door as they approached and bowed. “Maxis.”

“Serena, this is Uther Rontal, our new strategos.”

She offered her hand with a benevolent air, not the slightest hint she’d caught the “our” in his statement. “Serena Doroz.”

Uther accepted and kissed the top. “Maxis has good taste in women.”

Electricity arced, unbidden, between Maxis’ fingers and thumbs, palms tingling with the need to strike. He clenched his fists and the energy fizzled. Stupid of him. What in histus did he care if Uther found her pleasing to the eye? “How are the plans moving along?”