I focused, ready to do just that, but the ground shook and the world seemed to tip and wobble at the same time. Both Cash and Jo were holding onto me when a figure appeared in frozen time, his black-feathered wings outstretched as if he’d flown himself to the spot.
“Hello there, little hybrid.”
Chapter 17
Full Looney
Sloan
Phillip had been gone ever since we returned from Kate’s, and more specifically, after confirming V was gone. It’d been over a week, and he’d been unreachable. Meaning, he most likely tossed his phone and didn’t want to be found. Either he was wallowing in despair—which, fair, I had mind to do the same—or he was up to no good. Neither of which V would forgive me for allowing.
Unlike Phillip, I had faith she’d be back. Our girl was special. Our girl was a fighter. Our girl would figure out a way to come home. I loved and believed in her, so I’d keep waiting for her as long as it took.
But I missed her so much it was suffocating. The mere thought that she wasn’t in the same world as I was, to know I couldn’t go where she’d gone and be by her side, to have no idea what she faced there or if the other two made it in time, it was absolute torture only Hell could contrive for me.
My arms ached to hold her close. I wanted to inhale her sweet scent and kiss her soft mouth. Her absence was enough to makeme go bloody mad, and each day that passed took a little piece of me with it. All I had left was keeping an eye on the others and waiting for my darling to return.
I was in the middle of packing a duffle bag to go search the usual spots, the ones the grumpy bugger often used when he was weighed down by his past, when that very wanker stalked into the house I’d rented outside of town with a slam of the front door.
I lifted my eyes and he was there in the bedroom doorway, a beard growing in, his usually pristine looks nowhere in sight. Standing and staring the way he was made him look like he’d lost the plot. I could only guess what he’d been up to since disappearing.
Phillip clomped in and grabbed my usual weapons to throw into the bag I was already packing. “We’re going.”
“Where?” I asked, reorganizing and properly packing the weapons he’d thrown haphazardly on top.
“To Lux’s little house of horrors—and where he apparently keeps a portal to the Fae realm,” Phillip disclosed to my shock and confusion.
“A portal? How? Why?”
Phillip sighed and grabbed my bag. “The bastard was keeping more secrets than just genetic experimentation and cross-realm weapons. Looks like he’s been working with someone other than the Royal Siren and secured his own means to travel back and forth. It’s probably where he’s gone. No one’s seen or heard from him in over three weeks, not since one of their own went rogue.”
“Rogue? You mean the Royal Siren they called One?” I asked, hiding my shock. “How do you know they’ve gone rogue?”
“Because they killed off the rest of the Seven and stole away with V for reasons unclear. What matters is that that kotzbrocken has had a portal this whole time—the means totravel to the Fae realm—and that’s our ticket to getting our lass back.”
I followed him out to the receiving room, a bit scatterbrained. “You’re saying the Fae have something to do with the Organization, then? That they’ve been in on it for some time?”
“No.” His steely eyes met mine. “I think the Fae were the ones who made the Organization and everything they are in the first place,” Phillip corrected, dropping a bomb even I couldn’t have foreseen. “And now that their entire secret operation has been killed off by one of their own, they’re scrambling.”
“You’re saying the Fae working with Lux created the Organization?” I asked in awe.
“It’s the only thing that explains why they’ve had more than just technology to do what they do, why they were able to create V, and why they go back farther than any science that makes sense in our modern world.”
He’d made valid points. The science they had didn’t align with this world, and the fact that they got their hands on Royal Siren blood when they were meant to be killed off ages ago suggested supernatural intervention. It also explained why they had such powerful supernaturals on their payroll.
Lux and the Organization were just a face; the true mastermind was whoever made the portal to this world possible, and something told me we’d find them when we found V.
I shouldn’t be surprised that Phillip would happenstance on information, but the high-level secrets he’d gathered in a matter of a week was unheard of. The fact that these things had been unknown to us until now didn’t make sense if it only took this much to uncover them.
“How did you find out about all of this, and more importantly, what did you do to get it?” I demanded.
I shuddered at the thought of what V might do if anything he’d done wasn’t above board. Not after she went to great lengths tomake sure every innocent person was left out of everything we did to tackle the Organization.
Phillip hadn’t smirked once since returning, and it wasn’t like him. I hadn’t seen him this grim and torn up since he asked me to help him create the serum—a serum he planned to use to end himself for good. I was uncomfortable, thinking the worst. Had he gone full looney and destroyed anything and everything that got in his way?
“Let’s just say there’s a woman who owed V a favor and I tracked her down.”
I glared. “Still alive, I hope, or V will never forgive you.”
