Exaltation (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

Rydell King was sure he was losing his mind. To try and break the
fever
Raven put upon him he had forced himself to think of exactly how he would disperse her soul, how it would save his people.

The thought of killing her made him feel sick. The thought of his own death if he didn’t destroy her really didn’t make him feel any better, not when he thought of all those who were in his faction and counted on him to keep them safe.

The barrier around the Quarter was broken with the kiss. Rydell could move freely in the neighborhood. But he didn’t stop there. He went to the twins’ home. Walked every room, breathing in Raven’s scent.

He could imagine her life there, hear her laugh, even though in real life he had never had the pleasure. He moved on to her father’s home. No one was there either. He roamed each room but there were certain cabinets and drawers he couldn’t open. They were magically sealed.

Rydell could feel Jamison’s regal presence in his home. So familiar yet absent to him at the same time.

He had been perched in the corner of Raven’s room staring at her bed for hours now. He ran through every possibility in his mind.

There was no way around it, one day one of them was going to have to kill the other. No kiss was strong enough to stop it from happening.

‘If you want to smell my hair ask.’ One line led Rydell to believe that Raven had no idea who he really was or even who she was. But at the same time she obviously ran from him, too—she was driving him mad.

He was so deep in his thoughts that it took Rydell a second to notice his phone was ringing. “Yeah,” he breathed as he answered.

“Tell me you’re not in the Quarter,” Dagen said.

“Why would it matter?”

“Do you not feel that? A wave of energy is soaring over the neighborhood. You are about to be trapped in the worst way possible if you do not move—”

Rydell was standing before Dagen before he could finish his warning.

At that second Rydell felt a dome of energy encase the Quarter which was now nine miles away. No doubt Jamison BellaRose was one witch you did not fuck with. Not if he could pull that much power together within a few hours time.

Rydell collapsed on the couch. Dagen dropped his phone as he leaned forward on the recliner and stared at him like he was infected with some kind of vile disease. As far as Rydell was concerned he was. A fucking
fever.

“King?”

Rydell moved his head side to side as he clenched his jaw.

“Did she hurt you?”

“Yep,” Rydell breathed.

“What do we do? You need vim? Food? I have a few on the line—we could hit Vegas, cause a few wins. Fast food but good food.” 

“Dagen,” Rydell said as his stare rose to meet his.

Dagen edged closer.

“I have a
fever
.”

Dagen turned white as a ghost. “What are you talking about?”

Rydell leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he hung his head. “I didn’t kiss her, she kissed me. I had no idea she was Raven until you told me.”

When Dagen didn’t say anything Rydell raised his head to look at him. He was shell-shocked, and rightly so.

“I’ve been passing her in the hallway under the school for weeks. I’ve teased her. I figured it was harmless. I can’t figure out how I didn’t know it was her.”

“It’s not a fever,” Dagen denied.

“Dagen.”

“It can’t be—she has a human soul.”

“It’s happened before.”

“Like once a century. Even the Escorts that are living on one host do not develop fevers.”

That was true.

“Besides, she’s like seventeen.”

Dagen made Rydell feel like a creeper and considering he had been staring at Raven’s empty bed for hours he was pretty sure he was at that point. She was an infant compared to him. But she kissed him like a
woman
. Like the Goddess she was fated to become.

“I should have told you what she looked like. I bet you money Berries double crossed us and gave her the heads up. She spelled you. That’s the only way this makes any sense.”

“You don’t know what it feels like. It’s on point with everything we’ve ever heard about this.”

“She’s human. She’s seventeen. And she’s been given supernatural orders to
obliterate
you—you’ve been spelled.”

Rydell let out a breath. Creator help him, he wanted Dagen to be right.

“We’re going to turn this around. She thinks she has you in her hooks, but you’re clear headed and have the trust you need to move in close.”

Clear headed—right.
“She’s gone.”

“How do you know that?”

Rydell raised a brow as if to point out he had a fever, that he was more aware of her energy signature than his own damn line, but he just shook his head.

“She’s not gone, they just layered more spells on her or something. We’ll see her tomorrow. Kade invited them to a backwoods racing party. You’ll see, this will be over. You’re fine.”

“Devil’s advocate. She doesn’t have a damn clue who she is or who I am. She kissed me on a girlish impulse and hooked me fair and square. Tell me how I’m supposed to kill her now.”

Dagen leaned back in his recliner and put his hands behind his head. The sun was rising before he spoke again.

“Maybe it’s not you she has to kill. Maybe since you’re not the First anymore you’re not the target. What if you’re meant to help her take down Revelin?”

Rydell had already thought of that. Revelin had not proclaimed another First since Rydell left. Rydell doubted the other kings even knew that he
had
left. He was still the First as far as the universe and Revelin were concerned.

“I’m a target. No other way to bring him down.”

“Fine then—if she’s a legit fever we need to find a way to break permanently from the line. What if we go to the King of Anger, Vade, and ask him to take us in?”

Rydell would not cross Vade on his most boastful day, and he had many of those. The thought of listening to anyone—of standing in another monarchy—was worse than death.

“We need to look for a way to break apart without climbing into another cage.”

“If we do, what are you going to do with Raven?”

“Get as far away from her as possible, let her age to at least one eternity then ask her out for coffee.”

Dagen shook his head, not understanding how any of this was possible.

“Are you sure she’s a new soul? Only seventeen years?” Dagen asked, looking over Rydell. He’d never known him to show concern over
any
female. If he wanted one, he had his way with one and never looked back.
Hit it and quit it.

Then again, Dagen knew there was something up with his boy.

New Orleans in general, the swampland, had put King in a foul mood the moment he arrived.

When Escorts had sharp mood changes with a new environment, there was a pretty damn good chance it was because something went tragically wrong in their mortal life, and the new place triggered a dormant emotion.

Somewhere in King’s forgotten mortal life, he adored a woman who lived in a land like they were in, Dagen was sure of it. The anger reflecting in his overall stance, the burn of pain Dagen could see in King’s stoic gaze, told him as much.

This wasn’t the first swampland that had impacted him so. The sensitivity to the swamp was only one of many oddities Dagen had noticed about his boy—he knew King avoided bold blonds like they were the plague, any girl with a bite really. He gave any and all witches a wide berth. And oddly…he would stare at swamp flowers for no fucking reason when he saw them.

You couldn’t have a fever with someone if you were hung up on someone else. It was twisted, but Dagen was praying to the Creator that his boy was destroyed, still ripped with pain, over some woman in his past.

It was bad enough Dagen had spent two decades trying to protect his boy from being slaughtered; they didn’t need this on top of it. Dagen
refused
to lose King, his brother…

Rydell had nodded once to answer Dagen’s question then sat in silence for a moment, thought about his people. How they had to come first, fever or not.

“I’m going to get close to her, build the trust. If we can’t find a way to break away we’ll already be in position to take her down.”

“How long are we going to look for a way out?”

Dagen knew just as well as Rydell did if Raven was truly a fever to him the more time he spent around her the worse he would become, meaning he would never kill her and his people were as good as dead.

“A few weeks.”

That was not even the equivalent to a second in the time span of their existence so basically Rydell wasn’t going to look for very long. This was already decided. He just didn’t want to admit it.

***

Not long after the girls entered Saige’s home the coven managed to put the protection spells back in place. The debate was on then with Saige, Jamison, and Emery going over every way they could to unlock Soren and the girls’ memories without terrifying them.

Tea was what they came up with. Behind a secret passage in Saige’s home there was library, a room which was heavily protected because of the ancient books within it. That’s where they told Soren and the girls to sleep. With them in that room and the core members of the coven upstairs, there was no way they could be sensed by anyone.

There were three couches down there. Ash and River slept head to toe on one and Soren and Raven took the others.

Raven went to sleep with the promise she was safe and her dreams would carefully unlock her memories.

That was not the case. Her dreams were vivid and
horrifying
.

One second she was peacefully dreaming—skating away, the crowd was screaming—and the next she was standing in the center of Jackson Square during a wicked storm.

Soren stood before her, Ash and River parallel just behind her. Men in black were moving toward them. Most had no soul in their eyes, others seemed to look deep inside.

It became cold, wickedly cold. Raven felt them pulling from her. Instinctively a wave of vim rippled from her, knocking most of the men in black down. No matter how hard they fought, more and more came. Then all at once this guy appeared. A warrior with tan skin, blond curly hair, and eyes that glowed the color of honey.
Silas,
that was his name. He reached into those men and pulled black smoke from their bodies, their souls. And the smell was awful—sulfur. The air reeked.

Soren followed Silas’s lead and learned to pull the black souls, too. Not long after they all were doing it, but Raven hated it.

There were a few, ones that seemed to be hunting her specifically, that the angel boy held down. Instead of killing them he told Raven to do it. In fact, one of those was the first one Raven killed.

The boy told her to act as if she were grasping a rope and pull. When Raven did, the black smoke soared from his body and she felt a vibration wave through her. It was like being doused in adrenaline. A power surge. Raven assumed it felt like that when the others went down but only two others gave her the same sensation. Two, the boy led her to—one was during one hurricane and the other was in a different one.

Raven’s dream moved to her ride home with Benjamin.

The angel boy didn’t show up to help her with that one. Benjamin had pulled the car over near a bank, and he leaned toward her. When he kissed her he breathed in ever so noticeably. Raven felt the cold pull and fought back. She reached to pull that rope from him, his soul, but he was solid, not like those other beings she’d fought. 

The cab of the car filled with so much energy it began to propel itself forward, finally crashing. Other boys showed up and pulled Benjamin away as if
he
was the victim. Jamison showed up seconds later, saving Raven from the flames encasing the car.

Raven knew her dad was telling her the truth when he said he had explained what happened before. In her dreams she saw him tell her how she was an extraordinary soul. He told her she was chosen to end a line of evil. She, along with her guardians, would take down five points of power. Those points would destroy a monarch, allowing a new one to rise who was full of balance.

It was Raven and the girls who had asked them to lock their memories away. They asked weeks after the trauma. They couldn’t live that way, remembering what they faced and fearing the worst. They’d wanted their lives back.

Raven felt a gentle caress and opened her eyes. Jamison’s fingertips were tracing across her brow. He was leaning over the back of the couch, looking down at her. It was dark, the only light was from a few small lamps in the corners.

“What time is it?” Raven whispered.

“Nine.”

“Night?” she asked when she realized that it was near dawn when she went to sleep. There was no way he would have awakened her that fast, not when he was counting on her dreams to bring her memory back.