Dark Flight (The Shadow Slayers) (25 page)

She snorted. “Sorry, but he’s not wearing a diaper.” She could have sworn that Stripey glanced up, pure terror wrinkled into his fabric face.

Mazeki shot to his feet and a disposable diaper misted into his hand. “You have crossed the line, Kara Reed!”

He bent and unwrapped the blanket from the boy, then gingerly put the diaper on him. When Gavin’s little guy started to cry, Mazeki picked him up and sat back down in his chair. With the baby in one arm, he opened the book with his other and started to read. “You owe me, as they say—big time.”

“Yes, I do,” she agreed. “I have a pair of pure, sterling silver earrings at home that are going into that treasure chest just as soon as I get back.”

Mazeki rolled his eyes, and the page of his book flipped without him touching it. “Keep the earrings. I will take Hexa’s last known address instead.”

“You got it.”

Kara walked to his door, trudged back through the water and then stopped at the edge of Mazeki’s land. Trust her instincts, Mazeki had said. More like she needed to trust him to even begin to believe she could do this.

She closed her eyes and envisioned Julian’s home in the Land of Desolation. She wasn’t sure it would work, but she thrust all of her brain juice into it and the next thing she knew, she was spiraling toward nothingness.

Kara was sure it was the right location, even with her apartment gone. In its place was a field with a lone poplar tree and a smattering of heavily armed warriors. When she appeared, she was literally still spinning in circles from her rudimentary attempt at flashing, and by the time she came to rest, she was surrounded by men with swords pointing in her direction.

She thrust her hands up and dug her bare feet into the earth. “It’s me, guys!”

One warrior nudged her shoulder with the tip of his sword, and a small splotch of blood bloomed on her skin. “It could be him!” the warrior cautioned. “She couldn’t have traveled here on her own!”

“Ouch! Asshole. It’s me! Lady Kara.” She still hated calling herself a lady, but it seemed an apt time to bring up her position in the clan. “Get me Jaxon or Gavin. Hurry! Lord Aiden has my charms. I can’t summon them.”

“A likely story,” another warrior said.

“Will you look at this?” As she heard the words, she felt the sting of another blade scraping past her bony wings and piercing her skin.

She whirled and bared her fangs. “Stop that. Just find Gavin for me. Hurry. I have news about his baby.”

At least one gargantuan warrior tackled her from behind, and with his knees in her back, another put a dagger to her throat. “Pop the Monster’s head off, fast, before he can flash!”

“It’s me!” she ground out the best she could with some two-hundred-pounder bruising her ribs. “There will be no popping of my head whatsoever, understood?”

“Lady Kara?” said a voice moving in her direction.

She could barely turn her head to see the warrior, but then he came into her line of sight. It was the man who’d walked her to see Gavin during construction. “Ted?”

“What in the name of the Maker is sticking out from your back, my lady? It’s like someone burned your wings to the bone!”

When the guard adjusted his position, grinding his knee into Kara’s back, she coughed. “Ted…get him off me.”

“Let her go!” the eager warrior shouted.

“It’s Brakken in disguise!” another shouted back.

“Brakken doesn’t know me from a hole in the ground. He’s not telepathic, and he wouldn’t know my name! Besides, if he’d found Lord Julian’s lair, we’d all be dead by now!”

With worried and confused glances, the men began moving away from Kara to give her space. She stood and squeezed Ted’s shoulder. “Thank you.” Then she turned to the group. “Gavin, Jaxon, Aiden, hell, even Julian. Pick one, and get him now, please!”

“I’ll do it,” Ted answered. “I’ll go.”

Kara smiled. Ted was a good guy. “I’m still putting that good word in for you with the ladies.”
Just as soon as they regenerate.
And they had to regenerate. That sweet little boy needed a mother like Rachel.

Ted nodded. “I look forward to it, my lady.”

Kara only had to endure a few torturous minutes of silence and suspicious glances at her wings before not just one of the men in her life showed up, but all four. Gavin, Jaxon and Aiden were bloody messes, but Julian hovered behind them, as if watching everything unfold.

“Kara?” Gavin breathed. He rushed to her and was about to hug her until he seemed to remember the arrows poking from his chest. With a grunt, he tore them from his flesh as Jaxon and Aiden did the same. Only Julian looked unaffected and whole.

When his red, sticky chest was free of arrows, Gavin took Kara by the arms. “How did you escape? And Rachel? Where is…the child?” The way he said the last part was as if he already knew the baby was dead.

Kara grasped his cold cheeks, needing to touch him. “I’m sorry…Rachel is regenerating—but the baby is fine! He’s with Mazeki. He’s beautiful and strong, and he’s totally safe. You know no one’s going to get through Mazeki’s wards.”

Gavin’s eyes filled with moisture, and the strange noise from his mouth was something between a laugh and a rush of wind from his lungs. “He lives?”

“He does. He’s doing great.”

Gavin hugged her then, dangerously close to crushing her ribs. Then a second later he pushed back. “What in the name of the Maker?” He took her by the shoulder and spun her around. “What are these? What is happening here?”

Jaxon stepped forward and yanked on one bony wing. “That can’t be what it looks like.”

Kara shrugged. “They may not look like much, but they got me here.”

Aiden narrowed his eyes. “Females don’t have wings. This isn’t Kara.”

“Okay, listen guys. I don’t understand it myself, but here it goes…” Kara cast a quick glance at Julian. She needed to look into his eyes again and know he was all right, but it would have to wait. “You know how I went to the Sanctiáre for a feather that would help Julian in the battle against Brakken? Well, it looks like I got featherless wings instead. These are them.”

For the very first time, she tried thinking a command to her wings, and to her surprise, they responded, expanding to their full breadth across her back. They didn’t have much mass to them, but if she ever grew flesh and feathers, they would probably be around the same size as a silver-wing’s.

Julian spoke for the first time. “That lying, black-wing bastard. That wasn’t Mazeki’s only untruth, Kara.”

“Ah…he told you about that, huh?”

“He decided the time was right to confess he had no claim on you when he could no longer best me.”

“Yes, Mazeki is full of crap. But we’re going to let that slide, because he makes a pretty good babysitter. And then there’s you. You wouldn’t have been able to best him if he hadn’t shown you how.”

“
Wings
… I’m truly astounded,” Gavin said. “Truly in awe. But how is this going to help in the battle?”

“I think I have to help Julian trap Brakken.”

“No!” Gavin and Julian said in unison.

“I didn’t make the rules here, guys. That’s just how it has to be. And Mazeki thinks I need to make one more stop before I’ll be ready.” Which was all complicated enough, so she planned to tell them about Mazeki’s Shadow Slayer nonsense the day after
never
.

The flow of blood from his chest finally ebbing, Gavin scrubbed his palms over his eyes. “My men are already in the battle—a battle I don’t want you anywhere near. Where could Mazeki suggest you go next?”

“He’s been right so far,” Aiden chimed in.

“You wouldn’t care if Kara took two arrows to the eye sockets! You have no say in this,” Julian growled at Aiden.

“Kara and I came to an understanding, Jules. We talked things through. Oh, and sorry for getting you captured,” Aiden said to her, and then he winked.

“Mazeki has been correct,” Gavin conceded, “and although it strips my soul bare, I gave Kara my word she could be a part of this.”

Julian growled and turned away, but Kara smiled. “Okay, this is what I know. This woman is a recluse and probably won’t want to help us against Brakken, but we’ve got to try.”

“I’m hoping she has a name?” Aiden asked dryly.

“Hexa. She lives in the caves on the outskirts of the Land of Desolation. Does anyone know where that is?”

“I do,” Jaxon said. “And I think she will give you any help you need when it comes to sending Brakken to the Abyss.”

Kara paused and looked at her friend. “How do you know, Jaxon?”

“Because Hexa the Hairy is my mother. And the man she hates most in this world is my father—Brakken.”

Chapter Twenty

Suddenly Kara understood. Not everything—no, most of the chaos was still whirling in her brain—but she understood now why Jaxon and Abbey had been arguing over the battle and why he’d been determined to be part of it. It was personal for him. A mission of retribution.

“Hexa and Brakken?” Gavin’s voice was so low, Kara wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself, but Jaxon nodded. “And you didn’t want to tell me that we were brothers?”

“Half-brothers,” Jaxon said decisively. “And although I respect you, Gavin, and I appreciate all you’ve done for me, I saw no reason to celebrate that half.”

Gavin seemed at a loss for words, somewhere between angry and amazed. “Then we’ll say no more on it this day.”

But Kara wasn’t letting Jaxon off the hook that easily. “You and I have some things to discuss when we get back to the Gaslamp.”

Jaxon inclined his head. “I can take you to Hexa now. She might have moved around a bit, but I can find her.”

Aiden turned to Gavin and Julian. “And we need to get back to the men.”

“No,” Julian said. “I stay with Kara.”

“They need you,” she told Julian.

“No,” Gavin agreed. “If the Sanctiáre have foreseen that you and Julian will unite to send Brakken to the Abyss, then he should stay with you. Learn what you can from Hexa, and hurry. Our men are stronger and better trained than Brakken’s, but evading his arrows and his direct attacks is tiring them rapidly. If you must go—go now. And may the Maker lift your wings.”

Gavin stepped forward and threaded his arms around Kara’s back, careful not to jostle her wings, then he dipped her back and gave her a kiss that made lights dance in her vision. When he tilted her upright again, she swallowed, totally blown away by the magic in his lips.

“I love you,” he said, “and when this is finished, I aim to spend the rest of my days showing you that truth.”

Emotion burned her throat, and the moisture in her eyes made her vision go blurry. She squeezed Gavin’s hand. “Just stay safe, and you can spend your days showing me anything you like.”

Aiden and Gavin flashed back to the battle, leaving Kara and Jaxon to deal with an irritated Aniliáre. She wasn’t sure if Julian really didn’t want her to be part of the fight, or if seeing her kiss Gavin so soon after their break-up was difficult for him. It was hard to feel bad when he’d battered her heart with his callousness.

Jaxon came to her and took her hand. “Are you ready?”

Kara tried to stay focused and block out the dozen warriors gathered around them, as though they had front-row tickets to the show. “Do I need you to flash me? I mean, I have wings.”

Geez. Maybe she could call them
bings
—short for bony wings, since they weren’t very wing-like. It was odd to feel so unique and special on one hand and totally mortified of her strange protrusions on the other.

“Truly, Kara, I am stretched thin. I don’t want to worry about you crashing and burning with those things on the first day they grace your back.”

She had to agree that with the battle already raging, she didn’t have time to get accustomed to solo flight. “Okay. Let’s go. Julian? You know the way?”

He stared at her, still and quiet for a moment before speaking. “I can track him. I will follow a heartbeat behind.”

The next thing Kara knew, Jaxon was pulling her through the vacuum of space and she opened her eyes to see red-orange hills, eroded down the sides to make tall, rounded shapes. And the way the mountains had formed, it was like salmon-colored Swiss cheese, with openings everywhere, and she couldn’t tell how far they went back.

“I was born there.” Jaxon released Kara’s hand and pointed to a particularly deep and dark cave. “I know Hexa would have no interest in inhabiting that same space, but it gives us somewhere to start.”

With a gruff nod, Julian stepped past them and plodded toward the opening of the cave.

“Careful. She had them warded,” Jaxon called. But when Julian hit the wide entrance, his whole body lit in shallow pink flames. With a shiver down his spine, he sucked the energy into himself, extinguishing it until his skin smoldered. If it bothered him, he didn’t show it. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”

When Kara got to the entrance, she poked her finger at it first, just to be safe. Nope. No more ward. If Julian could learn that much control over his gifts in one day with Mazeki, what would he be like a month from now?