Blood Instinct (33 page)

J
ask didn’t move
. He didn’t even flinch.

Sophia looked around her for something, for someone, to help her but there was nothing. No one. No one but her – and the powerful blackened waters that sped by.

She cast the sword aside and leapt.

She descended deep into the freezing waters, the current instantly overwhelming her, dragging her under. But she fought against it; she fought against it with every iota of strength she had.

She knew she had to remember the days where her power in the water, her speed, was the only thing she had going for her. Had going for her before that near-fatal day at the lake.

She kicked herself above the surface and gasped for air. Because she had tackled her fears once and she would overcome them again.

For Jask, she would overcome anything.

She searched the shadows, was almost carried past the rock, but managed to reach out for it. The pads of her fingers, her nails, and then her entire hands clung on for all she was worth as she worked her way round to the front of the rock, moving in behind Jask.

She put her arm around his waist. She could feel he was breathing fast – more erratically than she’d ever seen. Worse, he was heaving on every breath, blood seeping into the water from his countless open wounds.

And he was freezing. So very, very cold.

But he was alive.

‘Jask,’ she said in his ear. ‘It’s okay – I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Jask.’

She pulled herself closer, as close as she could get, lying partially over him, trying to keep him warm. But she was shivering herself, her bones instantly absorbing the cold, her teeth chattering, her hands and feet numbing.

She tried to push him further up onto the rock so he was at least out of the water, to give them both a rest from the current threatening to tear them apart as it spread either side of them.

She clambered over him, getting herself onto the rock first to improve her leverage.

She tried to drag him up with her, planting her feet tight to the rock, using the strength in her thighs to lever him up. But he was too heavy. Too awkward to budge.

Worse, it seemed to make him lose whatever footing he had.

She looked around in desperation, but helplessness consumed her – especially as he started to slide deeper into the water.

She slid back in behind him, her arm wrapped around his waist again as she clung onto the rock, as she kept one foot firm against it to steady herself.

But the current’s power seemed to increase, her weakened body no match for it.

‘Shit, Jask… I… don’t know… what to do,’ she said breathily, gasping as the cold completely consumed her body.

She looked around the darkness once more. ‘Help! Please! Can anyone hear?’

But the cavern remained empty. Silent but for the sound of rushing water, of Jask’s ragged breaths.

‘Stay with me, Jask,’ she said against his ear. ‘Someone will come soon. I won’t let you go. You have to stay with me, Jask. Do you hear me? I can’t do this on my own. Our little one needs you. They’ve got to have at least one sane and rational parent.’

The spell. She realised she hadn’t told him about the spell.

She needed to give him something. Something to make him fight.

‘Jask, we did it. Caleb gave us what we needed. The spell worked. I’m not a serryn anymore. Mini J’s going to be okay.’

She’d had no confirmation beyond the evaporated blood Leila had told her to watch for, but that didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was giving Jask hope.

Any semblance of hope she could that it was all going to be okay.

‘We have a chance now, Jask. Me and you. We have a fighting chance. So hang in there, you hear me? You fucking hang in there.’

She blinked the tears from her eyes, tears that melded with the water below. She shivered as she held him; kissed him tenderly on the temple.

‘Our own starry sky,’ she said, looking up at the granite crystals. ‘Don’t forget that, Jask. We’re close now. We’re so close. Caitlin was right when she said she saw the North Star a few nights ago. I think it’s a sign, Jask. It’s a sign of better things to come. It’s
your
star. The north is
yours
.’

And she remembered she hadn’t told him. She remembered he didn’t know.

‘We’ve found a loophole, Jask. How the hell could I forget to tell you that? We created it – me and you. I’m carrying a shadow and a soul now. Two in one. That’s what’s needed to change the future, isn’t it? And I need you there for it. We all need you there for it.’

But Jask fell limp in her arms.

‘No!’ she screamed.

As his weight became heavier, his body giving in to the current, Sophia tightened her grip. ‘Help me!’ she yelled at the top of the voice. ‘Somebody help us!’

But Jask continued to slip into the water, taking her with him.

Sophia clung on to him for all she was worth.

‘No!’ she screamed again, her voice echoing down the rocky chasm. ‘You are not fucking taking him! You are not fucking taking him from me too!’

Like her mother had been taken.

Like her sister had been taken.

Because the good guys didn’t always win. Because shit happened to good people. Because life was like that.

But the undercurrent was too strong. She lost her grip fighting under the weight of him before he slipped from her hands, partially dragging her under too. She clutched hold of the rock, coughing and spluttering the water from her lungs.

‘Jask!’

She could only just make him out in the darkness as the current carried him towards the abyss.

There was nothing to grab on to beyond there. Nothing to save herself either.

But she couldn’t give herself time to think. Whatever the consequences, she wasn’t going to leave him, so she swam after him, ploughing deeper and deeper into the darkness.

For a split second, he became lodged against an old, dead tree, the only thing slowing him down long enough for the current to help her catch up. She looped her arm over it and grabbed hold of him just as he slipped away again, her arm nearly wrenched from its socket.

But she held on to the tree, and she held on to Jask, gritting her teeth, crying out for all she was worth, her chest aching with the pain.

She wasn’t going to let him go. She wasn’t going to give him up. Not to the darkness. Not to the cold.

She growled at the top of her voice, knowing then that if there was ever a time to let the angry, belligerent, impetuous, stubborn Sophia back out, it was then.

She wrapped both legs around him, tightening them with every iota of strength she had, her arm in a vice-like grip around the branch as she refused to relent, as she cried out against the pain.

But her hands were too numb, her grip too weak. She could feel him slipping away again; felt him slip from her hand.

She cried out.

And then she felt an arm around her, saw shadows swimming past.

‘Hold on to me,’ the familiar voice said in her ear as Eden pulled her backwards from the tree. ‘Kane’s got him,’ he said. ‘Kane and Sorran have got Jask.’

S
irius heard
the door open and then close just as quietly behind him, but he remained staring out the window of the TSCD headquarters in Lowtown, where he had been waiting for the call to say that they finally had Kane.

And
the envoi.

That the lycans had been eradicated. Culled.

That this fucking game of cat and mouse was
finally
over.

But already he knew it was bad news. He could feel the simmering heat of rage flooding through him, his jaw tight, his fist even tighter as he held his wrist behind his back.

‘Well?’ he finally asked.

A couple of painstaking seconds ticked by.

‘We lost him,’ Sharner finally confirmed. ‘Again.’

Sirius breathed deeply through his nose, his upper lip twisting into an involuntary grimace.

He turned around to look Sharner square in the eyes.

‘
How
?’ Sirius asked, his lip curling back from his upper teeth as he all but bit the word out. ‘
How
the
fuck
did you lose him
this time
?’

‘They had a strategy of their own. They matched us one on one. Even with some of your specialist army amongst them, we didn’t have enough manpower to take down fifty lycans. Not Jask’s pack, at least.’ Sharner pressed his lips together. ‘They used the graves of the thirty we killed in order to conceal themselves. They created Faraday cages. We didn’t detect them.’

Sirius let out a sharp breath. He took a step towards Sharner. ‘Carter?’

‘We believe they have him. No body was found.’

‘The envoi?’

‘No sign of her.’

He felt his cheeks flush, his blood pressure rising by the second.

‘Then at least tell me you have some footage of the carnage for the media.
Something
we can use.’

Sharner pressed his lips together before visibly letting out a steadying breath. ‘That’s the thing. The lycans didn’t actually kill them.’ He paused. ‘They drugged them.’

Sirius blinked several times in rapid succession, as if trying to alter the reality in front of him. ‘They
what
?’

‘There was minimal carnage. Five deaths in total. Not exactly newsworthy. If it gets aired, it’ll raise questions as to why there weren’t more. Especially as the lycans had us right there. Hardly the life-threatening revolution you claimed.’

Sirius stepped up to the table. He let his rage erupt.

He swept everything off the table before upturning it, it crashing against the wall, him forgetting, for just a moment, the questions his sudden surge of strength could raise.

He took another steadying breath.

‘The nest?’ he asked, still facing the table. ‘Have you news on the nest? Please tell me you at least took the lycan nest out.’

‘All the morphed lycans were released within as planned.’

‘And?’

‘The tracking chips reveal that none made it back out.’

Sirius licked his teeth before he paced, his mouth dry. ‘Doyle?’

‘We’ve yet to locate him.’

Sirius stared across at him.

‘He disappeared outside the nest,’ Sharner clarified. ‘No one’s heard from him.’

‘So now my fucking general is missing too?’

‘I’m sorry, Dr Throme. We’ll keep looking.’

But there was only one thing left to do. The final course of action.

‘Dr Throme, there is
some
interesting news that has come through though,’ Sharner added.

Sirius turned to face him again, hoping for Sharner’s sake that it was worth it.

‘One of Carter’s guards reported the name of the vampire’s chosen leader. And it’s not Malloy, just as you suspected. Even more interestingly, it’s someone it’s in Feinith’s vested interests to conceal, to protect even.’

Dehain. It had to be Dehain. The perfect mask.

‘
Who
?’ Sirius asked, wanting it confirmed.

‘Jarin,’ Sharner replied.

Sirius could have been facing a car slamming on its brakes and screeching to a halt an inch in front of him.

‘Apparently, the chosen vampire leader is Feinith’s betrothed,’ Sharner said. ‘She’s been double-crossing you all along. Jarin’s the one. Jarin’s the one you need to kill to stop the prophecy.’

‘
H
ow long before
he comes out of it?’ Sophia asked.

Solstice had explained to her about the coma – that it was a good thing; that it was his body’s way of fighting to survive, of healing itself. And not only had the water stemmed his blood loss, it had also eased Jask’s transformation back to his more human-like form, saving him further pain that could have finished him off.

‘It’ll be several more hours yet,’ Solstice said. ‘Those are nasty wounds he’s carrying. But they’ll heal and the more he sleeps, the faster that will happen. He’ll carry some nasty scars but he
will
make it.’ She caught hold of Sophia’s hand and squeezed. ‘He wouldn’t have if you hadn’t gone after him though. He would have drowned in those tunnels before any of this could have been allowed to happen. You bought him the time he needed. You saved his life, Phia.’

As Solstice slipped back out of the door, Sophia perched on the edge of the bed beside Jask. She tenderly swept back his hair, rubbed her thumb gently over his damaged ear, longed for his beautiful azure eyes to open again.

She took hold of his hand and placed it over her stomach.

‘I don’t know if your comas work like ours,’ she said, ‘but they say you can still hear what’s going on. I know you need to rest so I’m going to try my best to be good and leave you alone, but before I do I just need you to know that I love you, Jask Tao. I need you to know that the spell
did
work, and I’m definitely not a serryn anymore.’

She rubbed her hand over the top of his as she held it tighter against her stomach.

‘And because it’s gone, Mini J’s doing just fine. I was frightened I’d done some damage going after you like that but this one is determined to make it, not unlike someone else I know. He’s a fighter alright – just like his dad.’ A tear finally escaped her eyes, and she brushed it aside. ‘Or
she
. We still don’t know, obviously. God help us all if she does take after me. She’ll be running in front of juggernauts and leaping off buildings before she’s four if I’m anything to go by.’

She brushed the backs of her fingers up along his jaw.

‘Anyway, I don’t know if you can hear his or her’s heartbeat but apparently it’s getting stronger every hour. Oh and the waistbands on everything I own are already starting to create indentations, so thanks for that.’ She ran her fingers back through his hair before interlacing them over his. ‘I guess we’ve still got a rough road ahead but what’s new, hey? Well, apart from us being a little family now.’

She bent over and kissed him lightly on the head.

She couldn’t tell him that the serrynity had gone back to Leila. Not yet. That they had tested her too. She’d talk to him when he was awake. When he was well again.

‘You just sort yourself out quickly, okay?’ she said, squeezing his hand. ‘And if you don’t wake up soon,
I’m
choosing the name. So unless you want something along the lines of Phia, I suggest you come to your senses soon.’

Placing a gentle kiss on his lips, lingering until the very last second, she reluctantly pulled away, closing the door quietly behind her.

She wandered back down to the new communal area, the previous one now abandoned, to find the room drenched in silence. She scanned the grave faces around the table. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Please tell me it’s not bad news.’

‘There’ve been developments,’ Kane said.

She headed over to join them before her legs gave way, perching on the nearest chair.

‘We spotted something a couple of days ago,’ Eden said, ‘being erected on top of the walls.’

‘What kind of something?’

‘Some kind of cylindrical pole. At the last count, there were just over a hundred of them on Blackthorn’s periphery.’

‘Why?’

‘To create some kind of magnetic field it seems,’ Kane answered. ‘A magnetic field that’s encompassing Blackthorn like a bubble, even miles into the ground. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but it’s impassable.’

Sophia’s heart pounded to the point of discomfort. ‘Even the tunnels?’

Kane nodded.

‘But what about getting through to Midtown for the proof about Sirius? What about moving forward with this loophole?’

‘They’ve trapped us, Phia. Well and truly,’ Kane said. ‘And right now not even I know what to do about it.’

Sophia’s stomach coiled as she stared at each of them in turn: Kane, Caitlin, Eden, Jessie, Solstice and Corbin.

She looked over her shoulder and scanned the otherwise empty room.

‘Where’s Leila?’ she asked, her pulse picking up again.

‘She was resting in her room when I checked on her half an hour ago,’ Caitlin said.

But Sophia couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling she had. Pushing back her chair, she turned on her heels and marched down to the room Leila was now using, Kane close behind her.

She braced her hands on the doorway to the empty room.

‘Is it possible she got out?’ she asked, turning to face Kane. She was barely able to utter the second option. ‘Or that
he
got in?’

‘Split up,’ Kane said, as the others joined them.

At the end of the corridor, Sophia veered right as Kane veered left. She pushed open door after door before coming to a standstill at the next threshold.

In front of her lay an open case, its navy velvet lining exposed – the sword missing from within.

Kane’s sword.

The sword he’d planned to use to kill the Tryan.