Her neck arched as her head turned, her large blue eye focusing on me. “Xumi’s not dumb. Moving theem makes sense.”
“But how will we find them if she moves them?”
Her hooves skidded and sparked on the stones as she took a corner. I hung on for dear life.
“We will find theem, Anna.”
“But—” I wanted to get her to stop. To turn around and go back.
“Thee two of us alone cannot help theem. If we are going to save theem, we neeed a plan.”
Jacques had almost paid for my impatience with his life. Matt had ended up captured, and Sebastian too. All because I’d rushed in without a workable plan.
Sebastian’s words echoed through me.Re-evaluate and regroup.If I wanted to help Matt and Talakai, I needed to be smarter this time.
But, oh, tell that to my heart, as Cara’s swift hooves carried me away.
Matt’s response was to flood the link with everything he held inside. Tears flowed down my cheeks, to be whipped away by the wind.
It will be okay, Angel. We belong together. And nothing, and no one, is going to stand in our way.
2
Sebastian
It be difficult to hide anything from those who read energies as easily as they breathe.
I’d fought with most of the Bellatis walking alongside me. Been their leader. We’d sweated and bled together. They’d looked up to me.
And I’d betrayed them.
They’d had a choice at the time. A lot of their peers had come with me when I’d walked away. But it had been me who followed Galeran to begin with.
Most of them be here, with him, because of me. I did my best to ignore the pain beneath the anger and hostility. I understood it. Even respected it. But it be Isobel who had me grinding my teeth.
Because I assumed we’d been something to each other, at one time.
Even though my bond with Anna be brief, it had been enough to show me just how flimsy my relationship with Isobel had been. But still, the hatred in both her gaze and her energy disturbed me.
We came through the gate from Xumi’s estate into a dimly lit alleyway that could have been in any of dozens of underworld cities. I could sense the nexus of power in the ground beneath us.
It became apparent this be not our final destination when Isobel closed the gate, strode to another arched doorway down the alley, and raised glowing hands to build another.
Her power had grown. I sensed her yanking energy not only from the lodestone beneath us, but from a source I couldn’t define—and as the gate sprang into life, it flickered with red light. It felt like life energy, but not anything I’d ever experienced.
And not something I’d ever felt a Watcher do.
As she worked, her hair rose off her neck and danced, caught in the swirling power vortex. The red light reflected off the metal piece attached to the outer rim of her ear—not the rearing Unicorn one I’d bought her. This was an intricately wrought Wyvern, with red crystals for eyes.
The jewelry reminded me of what we’d once meant to each other—but had I ever really known her? As an apprentice, she’d fought a Manticore. The creature had sliced off the upper curve of her ear, as well as cutting her scalp. If her peers could have retrieved the ear, they could have reattached it. But the Manticore had eaten it.
Some may have just dismissed it as part of the job, but Isobel had always been self-conscious about the disfigurement. She had several earpieces designed to hide it.
I doubted she still had mine.
Once the gate was stable, my escorts guided me through, this time to a forest. My pulse pounded as I tracked the route as effectively as someone would a highway. No matter how many gates she took us through, my Liberi brain could trace them.
They couldn’t know that I had a link to Anna. The farther from her that I traveled, the harder it would be to connect—but chances were good that I could send her the realm, and the location.
