Kristie Cook - Wrath

“I don’t know. Why are you still here?” I spewed at Vanessa.

She threw her hands in the air. “I have nowhere else to go. I’m Amadis, Alexis.”

I stopped thrashing against Tristan, mostly because I knew he had a point. If everything had been a set-up, why had she even bothered to come back here with us? Why was she still here?

“And, like it or not, I am your sister,” she added. “Your half-sister. By blood, anyway.”

I glared at her, not trying to break free from Tristan’s hold because I didn’t quite trust myself if he let go, but I did sheathe my dagger.

“If you’re Amadis, then what are you doing here with him ? What happened to you since we got home?”

She narrowed her icy eyes at me, except they weren’t really icy now. More like cool water. “I’m Amadis in my heart, but that doesn’t mean I feel like a part of everything yet. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Half your crowd is scared and crying, and I don’t do the weepy thing. The other half is ready to fight—which I will do—but they want nothing to do with me. So sue me for not jumping right the fuck in.” She tossed her hand toward Victor. “I sensed him nearby—a twin thing we have—and it was the only idea I had that might help.”

“We’ve already had this discussion,” Sheree said as she laid a long-fingered hand on my arm. Where had she come from? She towered over me, so she had to duck her head to catch my eyes with her brown ones. She was stark naked, which meant she’d been in her tiger form, probably why I hadn’t noticed her mind signature before. Or maybe because I’d been so focused on the lies before me. Which wasn’t a good thing, not being alert of my surroundings. “I had to give up my watch shift to protect Vanessa from everyone else. We talked for a while. But then she left, and I changed and followed her here. I stayed down in those shadows—” her eyes flitted to a wild growth of trees and brush on the ground “—watching as she jumped all over Victor right before you got here, trying to get the truth out of him.”

My gaze slid back to Vanessa. Her eyes pled her innocence.

If I ever discover you’re lying to me, I said in her head, you’ll be the first one I kill. Then Victor. And when I’m done, there won’t be any pieces of either of you to put back together.

She nodded. “ I’m on your side, though. I want to help you. I never got to meet Dorian —”

Don’t you say his name! Don’t you even think it!

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

I wrangled myself free of Tristan’s hold and turned back to Victor, who was just now recovering after my attack.

“Where’s my son?” I demanded again.

He stood to his full height—barely shorter than Tristan—and spit a wad of blood at my feet. “I told you I don’t know.”

“And I told you I don’t believe you. Tell me, or I won’t hold back next time.”

“Why don’t you ask that warlock of yours?” he snarled. “Oh, yeah, because he’s not yours anymore is he? He’s Kali’s. And they know where your fucking son is.”

Tristan blurred past me and heaved Victor’s body into the lighthouse wall, his forearm pressed into the vamp’s throat. I became suddenly curious what would happen if Tristan crushed his trachea, since Victor didn’t technically need it to breathe. He did, however, need to be able to swallow.

“Watch it, asshole,” Tristan breathed in Victor’s face. “That’s my wife. And you better answer the fucking question.”

“I did,” Victor choked out.

I dove into his mind, but he showed me what he wanted me to see: Owen tossing my dagger next to Sasha’s limp body on the floor and taking Dorian.

“Lucas wants nothing to do with your son,” Victor added. “It’s all Kali.”

“Now see, we know that’s a lie,” I said as I tried to hold myself back from attacking again. Tristan handled the vamp perfectly fine, evidenced by the wheezing sound escaping Victor’s throat.

“Find the bitch and . . . you’ll know,” the bloodsucker stammered. “And kill her . . . if you want. But you’ll . . . be doing Lucas . . . a favor if you do.”

I nearly screamed in frustration at his lies and his taunts. Tristan shoved his weight further into Victor’s body.

“You’ve already admitted to being at the safe house,” Vanessa reminded her twin, with her body, like mine, angled threateningly toward him.

“Not . . . for the boy,” Victor wheezed, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head again.

“He’s incapable of telling the truth,” Tristan said.

“He’s incapable of saying anything now,” Vanessa mused.

Victor had slumped under Tristan’s weight, unable to bear whatever power my husband had given him beyond brute strength, especially now that the sun had risen over the horizon. Tristan stepped back and the vampire fell to the ground. Although he appeared to be completely out of it, I gave him a hard kick to the ribs to be sure. The vampire didn’t move, but my foot felt as though my steel-toed boots had slammed into a concrete wall.

Frustration brought a growl out of me. As much as a part of me wanted to kill him—to destroy something to release the pressure of my anger—I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I was, admittedly, all bark with little bite. At least until it mattered. When I learned for certain who took Dorian, God help those souls. Because I didn’t think I’d be able to.

With a grunt of annoyance, I flashed back to the beach by the safe house, and Tristan, Vanessa, and Sheree appeared behind me. Without a word to them, I strode across the street, into the mansion, and past the crowd that had gathered in the foyer and pretty much everywhere else where they could find a space. As I headed for my office, I mentally called out for Tristan, Blossom, and Sheree to join me, glad to find Blossom already awake. Vanessa still followed me, too, but I shut the door in her face. I immediately felt bad for doing so—my feelings about her were all kinds of conflicted—but I wasn’t sure what to do with her yet. Trusting her as a confidante wasn’t quite at the top of my list, though, and we had private matters to discuss.

“We’ve wasted enough time,” I said to those I did want behind my closed door. Victor and his ridiculous lies had definitely been a total waste, and now a new day had begun and we still didn’t have a plan, let alone an army. I went behind my desk, but didn’t sit down. Instead, I placed my hands on my desk and leaned forward. “We need to make a plan to find and rescue Dorian and Heather. We need a team. An elite team. Our very best.”

“You need to talk to Sophia first,” Tristan said.

“She called a few times last night and once already this morning,” Blossom added. “She knew everything that happened before we even told her.”

Of course she did. Mom could sense the truth. I hadn’t told her about Vanessa’s and my trip to Hades before we left, because I knew she’d try to talk me out of it. Forbid it, actually. If she didn’t suspect something being wrong, she wouldn’t have reached out for the truth of the situation. So something had tipped her off, and I imagined she wasn’t very happy with me at the moment. Hopefully, her love for Dorian would eclipse any anger she had for me. And hopefully she knew the truth of where to find him.

“She understood you needed to rest and regenerate,” Blossom continued, “but she demanded that you call her the moment you woke up.”

I sighed. “Fine. I’ll call you guys back in here when I’m done.”

Blossom and Sheree left my office, but Tristan stayed.

“There are some things you should know before you call her,” he said when we were alone. “So that she doesn’t catch you off guard.”