Descended by Blood (23 page)

When I slid the tight pants on and looked in the mirror, I grumbled to myself, “Mirko. No wonder you were so chipper this morning.” I would’ve asked to borrow something from Kaitlynn, but she had a long night, too. I decided to suck it up and went to the gym.

Mirko stretched as I came in. “Mirko,” I chided. “What’s this?” I pointed to my pants.

He grinned. “What? I like to see the way your body moves.”

“You’re such a brat,” I tried not to smile but failed. “I’m still mad at you for lying to me.” I tried to regain my resolve.

He moved toward me with his steady swagger. “It was either this,” he said, pulling on the tight material covering my thigh, “or booty shorts. I preferred the booty shorts, but I thought you’d prefer these.”

Figures. Jaren wants to buy me lilies, and Mirko wants to buy me booty shorts.

I punched his shoulder. “Stop. I’m serious. I’m still mad at you. I viewed you as one of the few people I could trust, and you polluted it.” I stepped back from him.

He scowled at me and closed the distance. “You never asked me if Jelena was your aunt, and I never lied to you, saying that she wasn’t. What I did could be more accurately described as a partial truth. And you have no idea how much it ate at me that I couldn’t tell you.”

I’d suspected he had a hard time with it. Good, he should have, but my anger softened, anyway.

He stepped forward and kissed me on the cheek. “I promise it’ll never happen again.”

I held him with my eyes. “It better not. You’re already on shaky ground.” I sobered. “Now tell me, what are we doing to take care of Jelena?”

“I have a meeting planned after this where we’ll go over strategies to address it.”

“Well, we should be focusing on that. Why not meet now?”

“Because not everyone is here yet, and until then, you’re mine. So, start stretching.”

I rolled my eyes and walked away from him.

“Wow,” Mirko said, then sucked air in through his teeth. “Those pants look better on you than I’d imagined.”

I turned around to face him and started stretching. “We have more important things for you to concentrate on right now than my butt.”

He joined in stretching with me. “There’s always a crisis going on, Slatki. You’d do well to start enjoying the small things when they’re given to you.”

I studied him. “Even with what happened to Lijepa?”

He nodded. “I’ve lost many people throughout my life. That’s why you have to enjoy the little things. You’ll go crazy if you don’t.”

I agreed. I hoped I never lost anyone else, but I could see how I might go crazy if I did. Then, I realized I would end up losing someone. Eventually, I’d have to choose between Jaren and Mirko. How do you give up one to gain the other when you might love them both?

Things had turned out to be awfully messy. I wished that no one else close to me died anytime soon. I started to hope that I would be the first to die so I wouldn’t have to watch any of my loved ones go before me.

Mirko stunned me out of my morbid comfort zone when he lunged at me. I escaped his advance and counterattacked, striking him with my foot in his thigh. I fought him with more ferocity than I ever had before, and I relished in it. My muscles welcomed the strenuous crusade I sent them on, and my bones found penance in the reverberations of Mirko’s pounding against them.

When I thought I couldn’t fight anymore, I pushed harder, and my skin buzzed with adrenaline. Mirko finally called a truce, and I smirked at him. “I totally kicked your trash,” I said, breathing hard.

He bent over to catch his breath. “I wouldn’t say that,” he straightened, “but there is no doubt that you’re good. Really good.”

“Thanks,” I said, satisfied.

He stepped up to me and wrapped one arm around my waist. The muscles along the outside of my abs quivered from his touch. “I wasn’t giving the credit to you, Slatki. Skill like that is gifted by the teacher.” He kissed me on the lips.

I pushed on his chest and laughed, letting my head fall back. “My teacher is more arrogant than he is skilled,” I lied—he was both in equal measure.

Someone cleared their throat. I turned my head and found Jaren standing in the gym’s doorway, his lips pursed in anger.

I stepped away from Mirko.

“Ace is ready for you two,” Jaren growled between clenched teeth.

Mirko nodded and walked toward the door. I followed, but I fell behind him. He turned back at me, grinned, then exited the gym, leaving me to deal with a furious Jaren.

“So, you chose him, then?” Jaren asked. The rough planes of his face melted.

“No,” I said, wrinkling my forehead. “I haven’t chosen anyone. I’m still as confused as ever.”

His sky blue eyes blazed into mine just how I remembered. Comfort subdued the adrenaline rushing through me like returning home after a perilous journey. I wanted to touch him, and I guess the words he spoke last night did matter. They’d lifted a barrier between us.

I raised my hand and placed my palm against his cheek. My eyelids fluttered closed. It eased something inside me, the same way a balm would after being rubbed into a long-endured wound.

I recalled sitting in the back of the service truck at the airport when we left Virginia and how I ached to touch him. It was like I yearned silently for this sensation from that moment to now, and I had been carrying a thirst I didn’t know needed quenching. I opened my eyes, and a tear fell from one of them.

He blinked hard, wiped my tear away, and then clasped my hand. “I didn’t kiss anyone when I was confused. I might have been drawn into Holly Anne’s advances, but I never kissed her in the hall that day.”

He did with Tiffany, though. I had never felt so conflicted before, except maybe when I left Lijepa behind to run with Mirko to safety. I dropped my hand. “I didn’t mean for you to witness that. I’m sorry you had to see it and for the way it makes you feel, but any of us could die at any moment. Things change too quickly to deny those you love of knowing it.”

His jaw dropped. “You’re in love with him?”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t know what it is. With you, things were simple. I had a crush on you forever, and then it grew and blossomed into something deeper, and there were no perplexing feelings to hamper it. With him…it’s messy.”

He sighed and slid his hands along the sides of his head, combing his fingers roughly through his hair as he did. “What have I done?” He dropped his arms to his sides. “You were mine. I had you, but not only did I let you go, I pushed you away.” He bit the inside of his dimpled cheek. “Is this how it felt?”

“How what felt?” I asked, not sure what part he meant.

“To want to be with someone, but you
can’t
.”

I nodded, and more tears leaked from my eyes. “Yeah.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I never looked at what I did as losing you. I still loved you, I just needed to distance myself from you, but I was still here physically.”

“Brooke,” Ace said, poking his head into the gym, “we’re about to get started, and we need you there.”

I replied with an exaggerated nod, keeping my head facing Jaren. I didn’t want Ace to know tears streamed down my cheeks.

A moment after I thought Ace stepped back out, I moved toward Jaren and hugged him. “I’m still in love with you. And the few times I wished I weren’t hasn’t changed that.” I wanted to ask him not to give up on me because I might still choose him, but I didn’t think that was fair.

Then I realized how fast things had changed with everything else, and I wanted to be selfish. I didn’t want to hold back words that felt this strong anymore.

I pulled away enough to stare into Jaren’s eyes. “Please don’t give up on me. I still love you, and I don’t know how this is going to end, but a large part of me still wants it to end with you.”

He dropped his forehead, resting it against mine. “I won’t this time. I love you.”

I licked my tear-soaked lips and tilted my head up to meet his. He tasted salty, but the same. I wasn’t sure why I thought I might forget how it felt to kiss him, but I believed it was only fair, after I’d spoken my selfish request, that I give myself something to remember him by as he competed with Mirko.

I pulled away and wiped my eyes. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” he said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.

27

I’ll Go

Mirko held the strategizing meeting in a large, sterile room. It reminded me of a classroom with its chalkboard and the way the tables sat positioned to face the front. Mirko had asked me to sit in the front next to Ace on the end, and Jaren took a seat in the back.

The amount of people that had packed into this tight space awed me. They were all here to help me fight Jelena. My heart filled with gratitude.

Mirko began the meeting. “I’d like to thank all of you for coming out here on such short notice. You all should have been briefed on the situation.” Heads bobbed. “Good. Yesterday we lost an amazing asset to all races. Lijepa will be mourned, but she will not be forgotten.” Somber agreements pulsed within the room. I had never seen Mirko in his commander duties, but seeing him now, I felt lucky that he was the one protecting me. The Zao Duhs respected him, and he stood tall with practiced power.

“We’ll begin with the note.” Mirko held up the paper on which Jelena had written her message to me. “Jelena demanded that Brooke,” Mirko looked at me, and the sea of heads turned to me as well, “come to her this time.”

“Do we even know where she is?” One of the men in the center of the room asked.

“We do. Ace?”

Ace stood. “Jelena’s stražar called The Base this morning and gave us the meeting place.”

I jerked my head to look at Mirko. “She knows that you’re involved in helping me?” My heart sped up, and my hands felt clammy.

“It appears she does,” he said, holding his facial muscles steady. He had a lot more practice schooling his emotions than I did.

I must have reeked with fear. I recalled Jelena’s threat from the note:

The same comes to those who aid you in defying me
.

I pictured Mirko’s smooth cheeks and chiseled jaw line marred with blisters and blackened with ash where the skin had charred. Mirko had already been traumatized by this woman, I was sure of it. And here he stood, willing to defend me against her, anyway.

“I’ll go,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on his. It was time to end this.

“No,” he said, without looking away.

I stared at him. I wouldn’t back down. “I’m going. I’m sick of being the sniveling little girl hiding in the corner. I have powers.”

He smirked as if he’d already won the argument. “Have you used nestati yet?”

“Not completely, but I can get it. I almost had it the night Lijepa was murdered,” I said, reminding him that I knew how terrible Jelena could be, and I still wanted to help.

“No,” Mirko said, unmoving.

“Then what’s your plan? How do you solve this without me?” I cocked my head to the side and raised my eyebrows. I knew I was right.

Ace spoke. “The simplified version is that we take a team to the meeting place, and we kill her.”

I faced forward, piercing Ace with my eyes. “And what if that doesn’t work? What if Jelena doesn’t even go to the meeting? Many of you will die. For nothing.”

Ace turned to Mirko. Guessing by the way their eyes locked onto each other now, they had been over this scenario.

Mirko looked back to me. “I’ll force one of her men into giving up her location. I’ll handle it,” he said, clipped.

A young guy from within my row stood. “Jelena would most likely send her men to pick up Brooke. She’d probably have a team stay behind to ensure that we don’t follow, and another team to take Brooke to her. I doubt any of her men would give up her location.”

“Couldn’t you guys follow me based on the signature of my brain waves or something?” I asked.

“Not from a distance. No,” Mirko said.

Another guy further in the back added, “Couldn’t we give her some kind of tracking device to keep tabs on her whereabouts?” He had a thick British accent.

“Yeah, there has to be some way you can track me. You’re gonna need me to get to her.”

“We do have the new RDIF chips,” Ace said. “We could probably have one flown in by the morning. That would give us enough time to implant it into Brooke and still make the meeting in time.”

I wondered how large this device would be and how invasive the procedure would be to get it
implanted
, but I hid my hesitation.

Mirko sat, still as a stone. The whole room seemed to be waiting on the same held breath.

“She’s right,” Ace said, breaking the silence.

Mirko glared at Ace. “Would you be willing to give up your girl to play bait to that woman? You know what she’s capable of if we don’t get her back.”

Ace squared his shoulders. “If she were as competent and willing as Brooke is, yes, I would.”

Mirko looked, for the first time since the meeting started, that he might be considering my involvement.

“She obviously doesn’t want to kill me. She needs me,” I said, hoping to sway him. His face softened. Then I remembered that a woman had attacked me at the airport, and she had clearly wanted me dead. I couldn’t figure out why or how that fit into all of this, but right now didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up to Mirko.

“She should have a say in this,” Jaren said from the back of the room. Mirko tilted his head at Jaren, and Jaren continued. “This woman has turned Brooke’s life upside down, killed her mentor, and who knows what she’ll do next. If Brooke feels that she can do what her part requires of her, and she has the faith in you to do yours, she should be given the opportunity to end this.”

I beamed at Jaren. He believed in me. He loved me, and I’m sure this plan terrified him, but he still wanted to give me the choice. “Thank you,” I mouthed.

Mirko stared at Jaren, but Jaren didn’t falter. “Get the tracking device ordered,” Mirko said, turning to Ace.

I sighed and my shoulders sagged in relief, but then my stomach clenched in fear. I would soon be face to face with Lijepa’s murderer. I hoped to get justice for Lijepa. If the other Pijawikas came after me for retribution, then so be it. Jelena would be mine.