Bound by Prophecy (Descendants Series) (18 page)

A low grumbling laugh followed, but William cut him off. “Silence.”

The laughter ceased, but the man’s mouth remained tweaked in a nasty grin.

It didn’t matter that the sway had turned them against me. I
had
betrayed them. I had left them to Morgan. Whatever happened now, I had destroyed the brotherhood. I had destroyed Council.

As I waited for Morgan to kill me, there was one comfort in which I found solace. He had taken everything from both sides of the battle, but he would never win.

Because he would never have the girl.

I must have stared at the door for hours. When it finally opened, it was Caleb who walked in. My strength was waning, though I knew the wounds were slowly being repaired. The need for sleep was crippling, but I managed to follow his movement across the room. He was giving direction to William. Something was ready, something about time…

“Caleb,” I said, my voice hoarse from exhaustion and disuse.

He didn’t respond when I called his name, simply finished his conversation with William. But when he turned to go, I caught a glimpse of his face. It was somehow vacant, lifeless, and I felt my heart sink at the memory of Brendan’s words so many hours ago. Morgan had used his sway. Noah was dead. Caleb had submitted.

But there was something wrong with the way Caleb had appeared. The sway on humans was nearly unrecognizable. I wondered if Morgan had destroyed some part of his brain. I wondered if this sway was different, stronger. I wondered if it had only been hours since that report landed in Brendan’s hands, or days—how long I had been hanging here. I wondered where Brianna and Emily were.

“Wake up!” William yelled as he slapped me across the face.

I jolted, opening eyes I’d been completely unaware had closed, and rasped, “I’m getting really tired of that.”

“Not me,” William answered in a low tone.

He jerked the ties at my arm, which wrenched my side and brought me back to life. Abruptly awake, I realized the other men had guns on me. And there were five of them now.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To witness your brother’s destiny,” he said. “Now, make one wrong move and you’ll get another bullet hole in your chest.” He pointedly jabbed a finger into the meat over my heart. “And this one won’t heal so easily.”

My arms fell from their bonds, for a moment numb and then suddenly stinging with sharp, needling pain. I rubbed my wrists, agony and relief warring at the act, while William unlatched the other restraints. When he released my waist, my knees gave, and I fell against a post of the structure they’d brought in to restrain me.

He threw a shirt at me. “Clean up. Morgan doesn’t want you looking like a vagrant.”

I glanced down, dried blood covering large portions of my torn jeans.

“Put the shirt on,” William demanded. “No one will see your legs anyway.”

My head jerked up to stare at him, but he was already walking toward the door. “Let’s go, Archer. We’ve got a prophecy to carry out.”

I slid one arm into the button-up shirt, but it took considerably more effort for the other arm. After fumbling with the middle three buttons, I gave up, leaving it loose at the neck and bottom hem.

“On your feet,” one of the gunmen said from beside me, and I pushed unsteadily off the post to be led from the room, a guard clutching each arm, two following behind, and another between us and William in the lead.

Morgan had never underestimated me.

Several minutes later, I was thrust into restraints and seated on the raised, dark-mahogany platform running the front wall of Council’s meeting hall. William had been right, my lower half was not visible from the hall, because in front of me was a short half wall meant to disguise electrical equipment and the like. The half walls were positioned at each end of the raised platform, and at the center, not twenty feet from where I waited, was the podium from which Morgan would be making his “presentation.” The chairs had been removed, and Council men lined the outer, unadorned tan and burgundy walls of the hall. I was surprised to see that they seemed to be adhering to at least one of the old code: there were no weapons in conference.

I recognized many faces, though few of them risked a look in my direction. They were pointedly
not
looking at the man their leader had tied to a chair, a man who would likely soon meet some unfortunate end at the hands of his brother. What I did not see were the faces that had been my allies. Nowhere among the crowd were the men and women who had supported my rise to head of Council, who had hoped I would one day supplant Morgan.

“Ready, brother?”

Morgan’s voice from beside me made me jump, and I questioned my faculties for not hearing his arrival. And then the slightest noise, the muffled whisper of a metal track, and I knew why. There was a hidden door behind us, an unmarked entrance that had not been there before. I mentally cursed, knowing he’d have modified the security throughout Council’s walls, because his biggest threats were those who had left him, those who had been raised to know this place’s secrets.

I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could get the words out, Morgan’s face lit up in a grin. “Brendan, so glad you could make it.”

I followed his gaze to the entrance opposite us, and stared in horror as the Division’s eight walked through the door.

“Shut it, Archer,” Brendan said, “I’m not in the mood for your antics.”

Behind them, a dozen more came through the door, headed by Logan, and what I assumed were his best men.

It felt as if the episode were playing out in slow motion, as if I were caught in the depths of an ocean and couldn’t find which way to swim out, could do nothing to stop what was coming. It was endless and frantic, a sinking, drowning sensation, and I was helpless to fight it. Had they not realized what they were doing? Had they not read the prophecy? They were outnumbered three to one in this room alone. They had no chance of winning.

I wanted to shout at them to run, but I couldn’t seem to get air.

They would die here, all of them.

Brendan’s gaze flicked briefly to me, and then back to the center of the platform where Morgan stood. “We want to make a trade.”

Morgan laughed. “Oh, Samuels. You always were a dull boy.” He clapped his hands and picked up his speech-giving tone again. “You are here today to witness the coming of the prophecy.”

He took two steps forward. “I understand that you of this… Division,” he said with disgust, “have been living on the notion that you have figured out a way to subvert the prophecy.” Morgan’s gaze narrowed the slightest fraction, taking in the assembly that watched his performance. “But I can assure you, you are wrong.”

Brendan stared on, but several of the others shifted uncomfortably.

“Let me say, also,” Morgan continued, “what a huge disappointment it has been that you turned against the core of our existence, the one truth of our kind.” His eyes scanned the group of twenty. “That so many of you were traitors to our lines.” Morgan shook his head, as if dismissing the idea. “No bother. Because most of you will not be leaving this room alive.”

Brendan’s jaw went tight. “You invoked the rules of the code, Morgan. You invited us here under the pretense of conference, and now you turn on the very ideals you accuse of us abandoning.”

“Precisely,” Morgan said. “You have abandoned them. Which is why they do not apply to you.” He paused. “Some of you may stay,” he added, gaze lingering on Kara, “but we will decide that later.”

Kara swallowed hard, the thought of being wanted by Morgan suddenly worse than the threat of death.

“First,” Morgan said, “to dispose of this notion that the heir can be your savior.”

“Wait,” Brendan said. “We can give you the girl. Set Aern free, and we will bring the chosen to you. The Drake girl is all that matters.”

Morgan laughed. “Don’t be a fool, Samuels. I don’t need your help to find Brianna. And besides, once my brother is gone, there is no other way for things to play out. The prophecy will bring her to me.”

“You’ll have to kill us first,” Logan said, stepping from behind Brendan to glare at my brother.

Morgan shrugged. “I could, but that wouldn’t be as much fun.” He glanced pointedly around the room. “You see, I can pretty much do whatever I please.”

I sickened at the reminder, suddenly sure that part of his display would include using the sway on one of us.

It was obvious the others were thinking the same. Logan’s chest rose and fell in measured breaths. I was certain he was forming a plan, one that would unquestionably cost him his life. The drowning sensation became suddenly acute. We were running out of air. We didn’t have long.

“Do it,” I said to Morgan. “Quit trying to make a show of yourself and just get it over with.”

“As you wish,” Morgan said, slipping the thin silver blade from inside his jacket. He took two steps toward me.

“No!”

The shout came from across the room, and every eye in the place fell on the same spot as mine.

Relief and terror flooded me. The source of the command was the one person none of us expected. The one person who didn’t appear to be a threat.

The one person who should have never been there.

Emily.

Chapter Twenty-three

Edges

She was wearing the same clothes I’d left her in, her white Henley smeared with dirt and blood, and she’d slammed into the conference hall much in the way she’d slammed into that warehouse on our first meeting. Morgan froze, visibly stunned, and there I sat, once again caught, bound, and powerless to sway her.

My gaze shot to Logan in a silent attempt for assistance, to beg him to remove her, but he just lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug. Brendan looked furious, the rest of the room simply confused.

Recognition dawned on Morgan’s face, and he smiled, abruptly returning to his show. “Ah, and here’s the infamous sister. Such a pleasure you could join us.”

The implication in his tone tore through me and I was suddenly sitting upright, struggling vainly against my bonds. He would use her now. He would have Brianna.

Damn it, why had she come? It had been the one thing that kept me sound. The chosen was protected. Emily was safe.

Morgan turned and stepped closer to the edge of the platform, and the first drops of blood seeped through my fisted palms as they writhed beneath the restraints.

“No,” I hissed at Morgan’s back. “Leave them be.”

He didn’t turn but I could see the side of his jaw flex as his grin increased.

“Take the trade,” Emily said levelly from across the room. “If he dies here today, you will never get Brianna.”

Gods, what was she doing? She meant to threaten him?

“Well, well,” Morgan hummed. “What a puerile group of admirers you have here, brother.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, both of us knowing they were at his mercy. Neither of us doubting every single one would soon die. “Kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”

“Let them go, Morgan,” I said. “Let them go and I will follow you. I will submit.”

He smirked at the desperation in my voice, my clenched teeth. His gaze fell briefly to the blood trickling down my palms to pool on the floor, but he wasn’t concerned that I might escape.

“So,” Morgan said for the crowd, “you come here to make demands of me, little commonblood.”

Emily stepped forward, separating herself from the crowd at the entrance, centering her position between the Council men lining the walls. “I am giving you your last chance,” Emily said. She stared, unshaken, at the man who had killed her mother. The man who had held her mother captive, forced her into the only choice that could save her daughters’ lives.

Morgan shook his head, disbelief clear in his tone. “You people stand here as if you have some kind of say in the matter.” He gestured toward the door, the men lining the walls. “Do you think I’ve not covered these rooms with the highest security? Do you think I’ve not filled those halls with guns, with trained men who plan to stop each of you from leaving the property?” His voice dropped to a deadly tone. “Do you think that I cannot move you all at my will?”

Emily took a deep breath, and then gripped the handle of a blade that was strapped beneath the front hem of her shirt.
Four knives
, I thought,
for gods’ sake, she has four knives
.

Her left hand dropped in a strange motion, and I suddenly stilled. My eyes found Logan, who had eased slightly away from the other Division men. My stomach dropped, and instinctively, my mouth opened to stop them. But I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do. Any signal I gave would only alert Morgan. Her right hand came up, her grip loose and ready.

Morgan laughed. “Oh, look, Aern. Your prom queen brought a knife.” His words were light, plainly unconcerned she could strike him from that distance, and several of the younger men along the walls chuckled. But I could see the concentration in his features, the way his thumb pressed against the inside of the platinum ring at the base of his third finger. It wasn’t working. He was doing everything in his power to sway this girl, and it wasn’t working.