Eye of the Storm (28 page)

Fingers quivering visibly now, I reach behind her and unclasp her bra. Straps still balanced on both our shoulders, our hands brush each other at the wrist as we bridge the space between us, fingers hooking into the waistband of one another's underwear. We both pull down. The dual sensation of the elastic sliding over my hips and ass accompanied by the resistance of Mira's curves and the tug of her elastic makes me shiver.
 

My bra straps fall from my shoulders as my panties drop to my ankles.
 

We've seen each other naked before plenty of times in our years of fighting and training, but this is different.
 

Her body is as firm and muscular as mine, the indented line of her linea alba moving with her breath. The pink markat venom scar that skirts the underside of her breast is visible. I know I have my own on my back, though I can't see them unless I look. I don't have to ask to know she's thinking of that same day. We've earned lots of scars together.

She turns, drawing back the second curtain to the shower and stepping over the small tile lip that makes for an ineffectual barrier to water escaping. Mira turns the shower on, staying out of the spray until steam rises from it. I follow her into the tiled chamber, drawing the black curtain behind me. The curtain shades us from the glaring, humming fluorescents. There's chamomile soap in the dispenser on the wall, and she pumps a dollop into her hand, adding a bit of water and rubbing her palms together. She looks at me and hesitates.
 

The stream of hot water feels good against my shoulder. Droplets gather on my breasts and hair, turning it a darker shade of orange. Mira's black hair is misted as well, and the tiny beads of moisture look like crystals. She'd probably punch me if I said so.

"May I?" She holds out her hands, covered in soap.
 

Air slips into my lungs so fast it qualifies as a gasp. "Please," I say.
 

For days now we've slept side by side among the shades who are my family. A giant cuddle puddle. No romance. When Mira's slippery hands touch my shoulders as she moves to stand behind me, every hair on my body seems to strain to be touched by her. Her palms are rough, but slick. She moves them gently over my shoulders, shoulder blades, down the ridges of my spine. Her thumb barely brushes the cleft of my ass, and after another moment's pause, her hands encircle my waist, fingertips running from my hips to the lower rungs of my ribcage. I can feel her small breasts brushing against my back.

I fill my own hands with soap and turn to face her. I feel her heartbeat against my palm when I lay it against her chest. Tracing the line of her collarbone, I follow the scars down to the side of her breast, then under to where it ends in a small blotch like spilled pink ink.
 

Steam fills the room around us, warms the air and our skin. Our fingers never stray below the waist by some unspoken understanding.

Each touch feels like a quiet promise and desperate plea for survival folded into one.

The air feels too cold when we finally emerge. Neither of us have spoken, and I'm not the only one visibly shaking now. When we look at each other, clothed in belted, baggy sparring uniforms, it's with so much love and pain I don't think either of us know which is which.

My dirty clothes smell so much like burnt wood and plastic and smoke that I can't bring myself to touch them. Instead I wrap my damp towel around them and carry the bundle from the towel corners. We head upstairs in silence, walking close enough to feel the rapidly escaping heat from our shower-warmed skin.
 

Gryfflet Asberry is waiting for us in the lobby, pacing. "Where have you two been?"
 

He seems to register our clothing and wet hair then, looking abashed. He still looks like he hasn't showered since July, but from the wild look in his grey eyes, he's finally found something that might make him think he deserves to take a ten minute break in order to rectify that situation.

His jumpy over-the-shoulder glances tell me that whatever he's found, it's important. We barely make it up to a conference room, the first one we find, before he slams the door and almost throws warding dust over it.

Gryfflet starts pacing again, like now that he's got us both here he can't figure out how he to say what he needs to.
 

"Please stop moving like that," Mira says after thirty seconds pass and he hasn't said anything. "You're going to make me hurl."

It has to be something bad. Though I'm not sure how much worse things can get.
 

I regret the thought as soon as it completes firing its synapses.

"It's the shades," Gryfflet says in an explosion of air and a tiny bit of spit. "They're tipping the scales."

Even though I've known this, the words make me go very still. It's a shade reaction, one I'm only starting to recognize in myself.
 

Gryfflet sees it, though. He swallows hard. "You're not going to like the rest."

"I don't like the first part."

"It wasn't so much the older shades. What you said, you and Evis, about the next generation of them? That was what allowed me to pinpoint it. The spell pointed right at Sol and Luna. Scared them, I think."

I felt a flash of their fear not long ago. "Go on."

"They're too tightly tied to the hell dimensions. They're more demon than human, though still human enough to be a question mark for the hellkin world." Gryfflet licks his lips, leaving them shiny until the sheen of spit evaporates after a beat.
 

"What's the rest?" My stomach feels like it's been turned to stone. I know what he's going to say before he says it.

"The only way to break that link is for them to die."
 

When I close my eyes, I can actually hear Gryfflet waving his arms at me. I open my eyes again.

"And there's more." He looks like he might vomit. "I think…before Sol and Luna claimed you, just killing them would have been enough. But there have been changes in the others since you all…bonded."

The way he says it makes it sound like we had some sort of orgy.
 

That thought exists only dimly. The rest is repeating
the only way to break that link is for them to die.

In my head I hear a rushing that sounds like the ocean waves soundbite on my phone. I can see all their faces. Evis. Saturn. Mason. Carrick. Jax. Miles. Sol. Luna. There are so few of them left now. Mira takes my hand, but I can barely feel it. My brother.
 

I can't speak.

Mira can. "Who else knows about this?"

"Only Carrick."

I can't help the sob that shakes my entire chest. Carrick.
 

Just this wouldn't have Gryfflet twitching like someone had hooked him up to an electric generator. There has to be more.
 

More than your family being the reason the world is sliding into hell?

I feel like my entire body will disintegrate into sand. It's too much. It's all too much.
 

The alarm of the shades filters through the connection web, and it's that which brings me back to myself. I look at Mira, make myself feel her hand in mine. I think of our bodies covered in soap in the shower and the way we both shook as we touched each other without kissing or groping. Her eyes are on mine and worried. I'll find another way to break the link. I have to. Later. Now I need to pry the rest of this shit parade out of this twitchy witch.

I suck in a breath and try to visualize it doing more than just oxygenating. It doesn't work, but if I let myself ride the spiral into despair right now, I won't come back from it.

"What's the rest, Gryfflet?"

He looks at me. Getting a better view of him makes me wonder if he's foregone eating as well as showering. He used to have a solid cushion of extra weight, and his face especially always looked cabbage-like. Now he looks like
 
he survived the apocalypse already and is the last person on the planet.
 

"I don't know," he says. He's not pacing now, but his left foot thumps against the carpet. Not with impatience. It's like his body can't quite contain what he's feeling.
 

"You don't know?"

"I don't know," he repeats. "There's something more. The spell went wonky at the end and sort of…spread out."

I have no idea what he's talking about, but a tiny hope takes flame in my chest. "So you could be wrong about the shades."

He doesn't blink, and the tension in his cheeks under his skin almost seems to make his face hum, though his gaze is steady. I know the answer before he says it.

"I'm sure about that part," he says slowly. Then after a beat, "I'm sorry."

Mira, though, seems to realize something the two of us missed. "Ayala," she says. "All the shades — you're they're alpha. You're one of them."

The inside of my head feels cold.
 

Gryfflet doesn't try to
 
reassure me, and in that moment I realize he's already thought of what Mira just said.
 

"I'll work on it," he says. "Get Asher and Carrick. We'll work on it."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It's only when I reach the conference room door that a different realization hits me. I didn't feel my ears pop when he threw the dust at it. And the dust…

I look down, the cold in my head spreading in tingling shockwaves from my skull to my toes. The dust is still there, coating the floor. It didn't vanish. "Gryfflet," I begin.

His face is whiter than baking soda.
 

Mira catches on a split second later. "Was anyone listening? Can you tell?"

He shakes his head, looking like he might spew pure stomach acid. "Fuck."

It's one of the first times I've heard him curse. My own stomach feels like it's been coated in liquid nitrogen.
 

I look at Mira. "We have to assume someone heard all of that. And even the best intentioned person can royally fuck everything up."

"Standing right here," Gryfflet says, his voice sounding about ten thousand miles away.

"I didn't mean you." When I look at him, I find I've forgiven him for betraying me. He's worked himself to the bone to make amends. I try to add that warmth to my tone, but considering that the cold is chilling every cell in my body, I don't know if it works. "You've done more than anyone could ask to help, witch. Whatever happens, we'll deal."

After a beat, he swallows and takes hold of the back of a chair. "I'll be working."

"Eat something. Shower. Sleep if you can. You'll think better."

I don't think he's going to listen to me, but if I'm lucky he'll do one out of three.

Mira clasps both of her hands in front of her. "We need to do something."

I can tell the shades feel my alarm through our connection. I wish I could communicate with them in actual words. They're all together, which is a relief. Even Saturn, who usually is out prowling.
 

I open the door to the conference room, half-expecting to see a crowd of angry Mediators with swords and torches, but the corridor is empty. Which doesn't mean no one heard us.

As we hurry toward where the shades are gathered, I can't help feeling like we may already be too late.
 

"What's wrong?" Carrick greets me at the door. They're in a large room with two doors, which makes some of the heavy cold dissipate, knowing at least there are two exits.
 

I don't have time to mince words. It won't do them any favors. The eyes of my shade family all look at me, earnest and anxious. Evis, Jax, Saturn, Mason, Sol, Luna, Miles, Carrick.
 

"Gryfflet discovered that the new batches of shades are what allowed the hellkin to gain a foothold. Apparently they're enough demon to anchor the demons to this plane." I don't have time to stop for reactions. "He was hasty with his warding of the door. Someone could have overheard him telling us."

"We need to go then," Mason says, and Saturn's nodding already.
 

Sol and Luna's minds are both full of shame and terror.