Sleeper_Google, page 31
part #3 of Hunter Series
I had some other questions. About a million actually, but I settled on the most immediate one. “If he can’t be influenced that way anymore, how is your brother doing it?”
“When we pulled him out of Hell, we did it through the dragon. Think of it as a portal to his soul. Now that portal is open to angelic influence, though most Earth plane beings are. Neither Oliver nor I would ever have used it in such a way.” She moved to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “You must be resolute and brave. You must set Jude free of this life.”
“You’re calm about me killing your brother.”
“Kill is a hard word, and not truly fitting. You are ending one life and allowing him the chance to choose again,” she explained. “Nothing is ever wasted. Certainly not a soul. Do what we cannot do, Hunter. Set Jude free and bring Felix back to us. Everything you need is here. The battle should take place somewhere you feel comfortable.”
“Can my sword kill him?” I knew she wasn’t fond of the word, but it was kind of the point of me.
“The Sword of Light can kill anything if it’s properly prepared. It’s angelic so its power isn’t endless, and it has been gone from the Heaven plane for a long time. But it also hasn’t been used in forever.”
That was where she was wrong. “I used it just the other day.”
She shook her head. “Not the way it was meant to be used. Not the way the original caretakers would have used it. What do you think it drinks?”
“Blood.” Which was fitting of the current caretakers.
“Oh, but there is strength in blood, and that is what it gathers. It gathers strength so the warrior can call on all of the tribe. When the strongest gives her blood, the chosen warrior is complete and the tribe empowers her to save them. It is how the companions survived in the beginning. They were not the strongest, but together they could move mountains. They could use the blood of their enemies against them.”
A chill went down my spine because I thought I’d figured out what she was saying. “And it hasn’t been used this way in millennia?”
“No, dear. All that power, waiting for you.” She leaned over again and kissed Felix’s forehead. “Like I said. My father always provides. Good luck, Kelsey, and I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“As I explained, I watch over Devinshea and Oliver protects Zoey. I apologize that the angel directed to watch you turned out to be so very incapable.”
So I got a guardian angel and he turned out to be a dud. Story of my life. “Well, he’s about to get his angelic ass fired.”
Felicity winked out of existence and almost immediately Sarah Day rushed into the room as though she’d been standing outside, waiting for the chance to come in again.
I nodded her way and wished her well.
I had work to do.
Chapter Twenty
By late afternoon I’d read up on everything Marcus could find about the Sword of Light, also known as Gladys. I’d also been briefed on how the trial would go. This wasn’t a trial that included a jury, who would likely not appreciate the fact that some heavenly host had been causing trouble. No. That would be far too easy. Hugo had laid it all out for me. The “trial” of Jude, the Faithful Motherfucking Betrayer, would be decided by combat with the champion of the sword. Not any sword, but the Sword of Light. Only a sword forged in Heaven could be used in this particular battle, and Excalibur was now considered to be an Earth plane sword due to the magicks worked on it by Merlin. Donovan had tried that line of reasoning. I kind of thought he just wanted to kill something, but it turned out yet again that when bad shit happened on the Earth plane, it was my responsibility to deal with it.
The trial/me potentially getting my ass kicked was to occur at one of the in-between times. Donovan decided on midnight rather than dawn since he believed night would favor my wolf. I wasn’t so sure about that, but I was going with it. There was a whole ritual thing that involved the owner of the sword, and then right before everything went down we would use Zoey’s blood to unleash Gladys. And then we would see if I would live or die.
Just another Tuesday.
“Hey, you okay?” Gray walked out of the bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants.
That totally made me feel better. Damn that man was fine. I didn’t hesitate the way I might have in the past. Something about getting my ass kicked time and time again to save the freaking plane made me think I deserved any pleasure I could get. I fought. I bled. I deserved this.
I let my hands roam over his cut torso, pausing to pet that dragon. “Better now.”
“I have dinner almost ready. If you want to eat,” he offered.
“I pretty much always want to eat.” It was something he needed to get used to if he was going to hang around. I wasn’t sure Trent had any idea how to make something that didn’t come from a box, and I was not Martha Stewart. It was up to Gray to make sure I ate anything that didn’t come from Ether or the coffee shop on the sixth floor.
“Good.” He was speaking blandly, as though trying hard to keep things as normal as possible. “Should be about twenty minutes. Can I get you a beer?”
“I think I will skip the beer until later.” I would probably need it and a lot of pain meds since I couldn’t take vamp blood. “How did things go with Neil and Liv?”
He shook his head. “Still working on it, from what I understand. She’s worried about what could happen when he does remember. It would be nice if the doc was able to be there.”
But our shrink was currently in a coma, and he might never wake up if I didn’t win this fight. That weighed heavily on me. Felix Day had fallen and he should have been looking forward to a nice long life on the Earth plane with his love and their daughter, but he wouldn’t see them again if I didn’t make it happen. “Yeah, well, a session with Felix is going to have to wait. If Liv wants to put off trying again until we can bring Felix in, we should know something shortly after midnight.”
Because I didn’t think this fight would take long. I would win or lose and we would know Felix’s fate.
“You don’t have to do this, Kelsey mine.” His hands found my hair. “We can walk away and not come back. This isn’t on you.”
“Isn’t it? I know you can’t see futures that directly involve you, but tell me what you see if this doesn’t happen tonight. Look at it from an intellectual standpoint. Forget that it’s me. Think about what happens to the supernatural world. What happens if there is no trial for Jude, the Faithful Asshat?”
“Can we put that on a T-shirt?” Trent stepped through the kitchen door and leaned against the bar, a smile on his face. He wasn’t wearing a shirt either, and I wondered what the boys had been doing while I was gone.
I do not mind saying I kind of hoped it was something dirty.
“I thought she was the sarcastic one,” Gray said with a shake of his head. His eyes rolled back and became the full-on black that came with his prophecy powers. His body stiffened and I could feel a fine shudder go through him.
“You can never have enough sarcasm.” Trent moved in behind me, resting his head on my shoulder. His arms wrapped around my waist. We were connected, the three of us.
Gray came out of it with a sigh. “War. Death. Unbalance.”
Trent kissed the nape of my neck. It seemed to be a place he loved to nuzzle and kiss, and I couldn’t help but think about how dominant and alpha the gesture was. Or that he’d probably not been this affectionate with a woman ever. He’d waited for me, and now that we were together he seemed incapable of keeping his hands off me.
I liked it.
“That sounds like a job for Super Kelsey,” Trent murmured against my skin. “I would have thought you might be a bit restless.”
I smiled at the thought. He wanted to make sure I didn’t need anything from him, maybe something that could calm me down like a couple of screaming orgasms. “Oh, make no doubt, I’ve got about four hours before this thing goes down. I intend to spend some of that time in bed, but I’m good, babe. I am neither pulling my hair out with worry or morosely waiting for my death.”
I’d done both in the past. Now I was calm and ready for the fight, ready to get it over with so I could move on to the next problem. I still had the threat of Hell looming over my head, but that was a problem for another day.
Gray stepped back. “Well, I’m glad you’re calm because I’m sure as hell not. Have you thought for two seconds about what happens if you die?”
“I try not to.” Because that would free Nemcox to talk about my dad.
Trent groaned behind me and then strode over to the couch. “I told you, she’s good at this. You have to have some faith in her or you’ll go crazy. I’ve watched it time and time again with the king and Devinshea. They always flip out when the queen wants to do something stupid and they forbid it, and she does it anyway and everything turns out all right except that no one gets any sex for a couple of weeks because they’re all mad at each other. I say we do it better than they do and accept that Kelsey can handle things.”
I got the feeling this wasn’t a new discussion. The idea that they’d sat around and tried to figure out how to handle me probably should have worried me, but I kind of liked the idea. I’d spent so much of my life without the feeling that I was cared about.
“How many times have you had to watch her almost die? Because it’s been a few for me,” Gray grumbled.
“I watched her in the arena when she first came to the Council. I watched her against an alpha and his two betas and it was one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen,” Trent said quietly.
Ah, good times. That had been my first battle in the arena. I’d been fighting to protect a herd of does from a power-hungry wolf pack. That had been my “morosely waiting for my own death” period. It had been before my training with Marcus and I’d been so alone.
Gray stared at Trent. “I don’t understand how you can claim to care about her and then watch her nearly kill herself.”
Trent’s eyes narrowed, and I could feel the irritation rolling off of him. “She didn’t nearly kill herself. She fought hard and she fucking won. Stop being such a prissy prick. You think she needs to be safe, but that’s never what this woman is going to settle for. You fell in love with her why? I can tell you why I did. I fell for her because I saw the strongest, fiercest, most beautiful bitch I’d ever seen stand in the arena when everyone was against her. She didn’t back off or back down, and despite the fact that she didn’t even have her full powers at that point, she still won. She was bloody and broken and utterly defiant. She could barely hold her arms up but she let the king know exactly how she felt. I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t be happy until I was worthy to be called her mate. When did you fall for her?”
“He saw me in a vision.” I said the words as blandly as possible, trying not to let Trent know how deeply I was affected. The bitch part is a wolf thing. I didn’t take it as anything but pride and affection. The wolf inside me knew she was a bad bitch, but hearing her mate say it made her curl with pleasure. It also made me wonder about Gray because if Trent had fallen for me at my worst/best, then Gray had fallen for a vision that might not exist. “I was in a wedding dress and we were starting our honeymoon. Even before he was an official prophet, he had visions.”
Gray looked at me and shook his head. “Don’t you even think that. After everything we’ve been through, I don’t see you as some doll to protect. I might have in the beginning, but I don’t anymore. I might have thought we could have something normal where I go off to work and you stay home and raise our kids, but if you haven’t noticed, I left that fucking dream behind.”
My heart ached for him because I did know how much he’d longed for a world where he could marry and be a Ranger and not have to worry about descending into Hell. Becoming the Earth plane’s only dark prophet hadn’t been Gray’s idea, and I wondered if he missed his house and his job. Before he’d met me, he’d had some semblance of normalcy. Did he miss my brother, who had been his best friend? But mostly I wondered if he blamed me for much of it. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be that woman in a white dress, Gray. I think you’ve been looking for her for a long time and you might never find her. She was a possibility that might have been left behind long ago.”
He took me by the shoulders, looking down into my eyes. “I don’t give a shit if we never make it to that hotel. You think you’re the one left behind? I can’t even conceive of myself ever being the happy asshole I was in that vision. I know it’s dead and I’m still here because while that vision might never happen, I’ll fight for us. I’ll fight you for us because nothing in my life is as important to me as you.”
Sweet words and words I’d been longing for. “Then stay with me. Stop this bullshit about how bad you are for me and let us be.”
He reached out and lifted me up like I didn’t weigh a thing. He brought me up so I could wrap my arms around his neck. “I won’t ever willingly leave you again. I might have to one day, but it will not be my choice.”
He kissed me and I could feel his passion, his will. He was with me this time, and though we might have a million barriers in our way, I would find a way to keep this man with me.
Gray lowered me down and rested his forehead against mine. “And I don’t think I’ll be able to get rid of that one. He seems dug in.”
One of Trent’s arms pulled me back against his body but the other found Gray’s tat and I felt the moment they connected. Gray gasped slightly, but he didn’t pull away.
“Very dug in. Like a tick,” Trent replied with a husky chuckle, as though he enjoyed the effect he had on both of us.
Considering how he spent a good deal of his time, I wrinkled my nose. “Pick a better metaphor, babe. I will delouse you if I have to.”
He did spend large parts of his life running around the woods.
I couldn’t help but wonder how different that would be now. We would run through the woods together and when he was done he could return to his human form and we would make love there, too. I would wake up wound around him, naked and feeling alive.
“You’ll never have to,” he promised. “I’m a very clean wolf. Well, except when you want me dirty. Then I can get filthy for you, baby. I promise. I’ll dirty up real nice.”
The room was heating up perfectly. I sighed, already getting used to having four hands on me. Gray leaned over and kissed me.
After a moment, Gray released me and turned me toward Trent. “Kiss him. Give me a show, Kelsey mine. I find I like watching you.”
Trent smiled down as his hands tangled in my hair. “He’s giving in to his perverted side. He’s going to be so much happier that way. I like watching you, too, and damn but I’ve waited my whole life to be able to kiss you.”
He kissed me, a long, luscious exploration of my mouth that had me panting. When he finally released me, I looked back at Gray. His eyes had gone dark violet and he moved to join us.
“Yes, dinner can definitely wait. I’m hungry for something else.” Gray picked me up and headed for the bedroom.
* * * *
Two hours later, I looked at Neil Roberts, who seemed like a completely different person from the one I’d tried to basically arrest a few days before. This Neil Roberts was calm and oozed self-confidence. He stood in the middle of that gorgeous penthouse and held court, laughing and smiling and yes, every now and then he got a little teary. It was as if he’d come back from a place he’d been stuck in for years.
It was not the reaction I’d expected.
“I’m surprised,” I whispered to Liv, who’d managed to get the ritual done on her own. I could tell she was pleased with herself. The spell had done wonders for Roberts, but it had done something for Liv, too. “I expected him to be upset. Remembering all that time in Hell would have fucked up a lot of people.”
“It must have been how smooth and easy that spell went down.” There was a smirk on Liv’s face I hadn’t seen in years. Not since long before Scott and their epic engagement that had ended a few months before. This was the Liv who’d taken on the mosh pits at rock concerts and boldly asked guys out. The one who never gave up and always had my back.
That ritual must have been a hell of a thing.
And I didn’t feel at all bad about missing it since my whole body hummed with how perfectly those two men fed my every hunger.
Besides, it wasn’t like she’d been completely alone.
“Don’t believe it,” Casey said. “It wasn’t easy and it was damn lucky she had me since I’d recently been out to a site on the web that talked specifically about the spell she needed.”
She wrinkled her nose the vampire’s way. “Casey might have figured out I was using the wrong amount of periwinkle. Though I do think you were right about Neil being more receptive. It worked quickly once the formula was right.”
Casey nodded and his arm started up like it was going around her shoulder.
She turned and stared at him, and he tried unconvincingly to turn the motion into a stretch.
“Not there yet, buddy,” Liv said with a shake of her head.
Casey’s whole face lit up. He was grinning down at her, and in that moment I could actually see the appeal. Casey was tall and muscular, in a lean way. “You said yet.”
She sighed. “I did. Now go and get me a glass of wine. I’m going to need it if I have to watch Kelsey get her ass kicked again.”
Casey practically ran toward the kitchen.
“Yet?”
She flushed but that smirk was back. “Yeah. I kind of like him. He’s not a complete ass. He’s actually quite sweet and he’s surprisingly helpful. I think I could train him. Is that a horrible thing to want to do?”
“Nope. I think a spot of training would go a long way with that one.” I went back to watching Neil. His husband was staring at him like he was the only person in the world. When I glanced around the room, though, I caught Gray staring at me the same way. And Trent.
