Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (91 page)

My fingers tremble
as
they ru
n over the slas
hes in the sheets and mattress
.
Reaching down, I
numbly
pick
up a silken pil
low from the floo
r,
hugging it to me for comfort
as the feathers flee
from it.

The fellas had
torn the house
apart in
their
search
for clues to find me
months ago, but nowhere had
they taken it to the
extent as in
this room
. No, this bedroom
was more than searched; it w
as destroyed
. 

My heart thumps wildly as I think,
Brennus did this.
This is his h
atred…and he has Reed…

I bring
the pillow to my nose, inhaling the faint scent of Reed on it and feeling a piercing pain in my heart.

Please be alive
,
I pray
quietly for Reed, as I hu
g the pillow tight
to me.

“Evie
?” Anya’s soft voice asks
from the doorway of Reed’s room.

Buns and Brownie just finished working on Anya.
Clad in a
milky-white dress
that only reaches her mid-thigh, Anya i
s breath-
taking.
The
dress
belongs to Buns, but it fits Anya
like it was made for her. Nearly backless,
the gossamer material contrasts
starkly with her ebony wings, setting them off perfectly. With her
dark
hair loose and flowing over her shoulders, she’s stunning.

“You look…
ready
,” I murmur
,
rising from the bed and letting
the pillow
slip from my fingers
.

Anya ru
n
s
her hands down the sides of her
dress, saying, “This
doesn’
t feel
like a weapon. I would much prefer my quiver and bow.”

“
I know, right?”
I ask
her
in rhetorical agreement
. “
I thought that Buns
was mental
when she first told me that there was strength in the
feminine mystique
.
But she’s right.
Against the Gancanagh, beauty and appeal are powerful weapons
. We need
you alive.
When they see you like this, they’ll want to keep you around for a
s long as possible,” I explain
.

Tentatively, Anya
reaches out and touches
the black, silken
material of my dress that pours over my skin and cli
ng
s
to me like liquid.

“What about you?” she asks
me
as her green eyes search
mine.
“Will this keep you alive?”

“I don’t know w
hat Brennus will do,” I reply
with a small quiver in my voice. “It could buy me some time, or it could work against me. I’m hoping that it will distra
ct him from remembering that I
didn’t bring Russell.”

At the mention of
Russell’s name, Anya stiffens
. “Brennus will never have Russell. We will make sure of it.”

“You love him,” I state
.

“
Yes
,” she agrees
.

“I love him, too,” I admit
.

“I know,” she says
gravely, taking my hand in hers. “They’re waiting for us downstairs.”

“You’ll take
care of him?” I ask
, holding her hand tighter.

Anya’s fair eyes show worry as she replies
, “If I’m not able to, I know that you will.”

My steps
falter when I understan
d her meaning
.
“You have no plan B,
” I whisper
, dr
agging my feet as we enter
the hallway. “I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t expect to survive this.”

“Shh,” she whispers
back. “Russell, will hear you.”
Anya’s eyes narr
ow
dangerously.
When she sees
me hesitate fu
r
ther, she adds
defensively,
“I have the right to protect my
aspire
!”

Knowing that she’s right, I begi
n walking toward the stairway at the end
of the hall. “You do,” I agree
, “but I’ve discovered that having a plan B is…helpful.”

Anya is silent as we descend
t
he stairs, and then
she
replies
,
“You can
be in charg
e of my plan B, then.”

“Not me,” I whisper
,
approaching
Reed’s media room, “Russell
will
.”

Russell’s back stiffens
the moment
we enter
the masculine enclave
. The
media
room had been
a mixture of something between a chic, modern Manhattan apartment and the Batcave.
Now, it ho
ld
s
little appeal. Shelves that had held an array of sly and engaging high-tech har
dware are now
barren
.

Leaning with
faux
-casual grace against the
shattered
,
multi-touch
,
media
table in the center of the room, Russell
’s
chocolate-
brown
eyes rov
e
over every inch of Anya
next to me.
The pitch-black
body armor he
’s wearing i
s dripping with an array of
weapons
: knives,
daggers,
guns, and grenades
. H
e i
sn’t prepared to rely on magic to
win
;
he’
s bringing an arsenal, too
.

With every step Anya
takes
, Russell’s gaze
gro
w
s
darker and his jaw tighter
.
“Ah, naw, Red!” Russell says
with irritation
in
every word. “Why don’t you
just sprinkle some salt on her and ring the dinner bell?”
His eyes do
n’t meet mine, remaining
exclusively on Anya, but I can
see the worry in them anyway.

“I prefer to th
ink of it as ic
ing,” Buns answers
,
joining us and comin
g to stand next to Russell.

Brownie stands next to
Buns and
winks at Anya when she says, “She looks fierce
, right?”

Brownie i
s d
ressed in a curve-hugging,
black swe
ater that reaches
her mid-thigh
, her inky
leggings tucked into her sexy, b
lack lace-up boots. A cowl can
be drawn over her
platinum hair and face to protect her from the toxi
c skin of the Gancanagh. Buns i
s similarly attired in a deep-gray ensemble. I’d much prefer that she and Buns wear
body armor, but they thought it might tip-off the Seraphim to what we’re doing.

Russell
’s
mouth thins
in disdain
, just like a tr
ue Seraph
’s.
“
I’d like her to
play hard-to-get, ‘cuz right now, s
he loo
ks like prey
,
” he counters
, keeping his expression the same.

“It’s strategy, Russell
,” Zephyr advises
from his position across the ro
om where a door in the wall stan
d
s
open, exposing
Reed’s secre
t cache of weapons. “She is non
threatening in that attire.”

Zee’s
body armor i
s strapped with
two sheathed swords crisscrossing
his back in a sinister X
.
His
eyes capture
R
ussell’s for a moment, but it'
s only a moment.

“N
onthreatenin’?” Russell murmurs. “In what sense?” he asks
with his arms crossed over his chest.

“In the hack-and-slash genre,”
I reply
softly
,
and receive
a scathing look for opening my mouth.

“She looks like a wa
lkin’ disaster,” Russell replies,
pointing at Anya. “They’
ll all be
salivatin’ for her.”

“
Exactly, w
ith each willing to turn on the others
. T
he opportunity to have her for his own
will be overwhelming
,”
I explain
, subsuming Russell’s
anger
.

Instead of he
lping Russell, my words just mak
e
h
is expression grimmer. He turns
stiffly away from
us, concentrating
on the
closed
portals resting on the large media t
able.
The two avenues
we have
back in
to the Gancana
gh estate a
re almost diametrically opposed
in appeara
nce
.
One portal is housed in an old, brown leather-bound
book of poetry
. The
gilded-edged
book i
s so old
as
to have been created before the
advent of type setting
. The other
i
s concealed in t
he s
l
eek contours of a highly customized
laptop computer.

Z
ephyr’s authoritative voice ri
ng
s
out
as he asks
, “Everyone has a
personal portal?”

Buns and Brownie both nod
, touching the
ir
masculine-looking wrist
watches.
Russel
l ho
ld
s
up his
wrist
with the same style
of watch on it
while
Zephyr similarly displays
his for us
. The open
end
s
of
each of
their personal portals a
re
aligned
as
a menagerie
of clocks along the shelf on the far wall.
T
he dials of each clock spi
n at
dizzying speed
s
so that
once the
wrist
watch portal opens
, the bearer will
be sucked into it instantly
and wind up
back
in this room
.

When Zee’s eyes shift
to A
nya, she nods
, her fingertips lightly toying with
the stunning d
iamond-encrusted locket that falls
daringly between
her breasts. The m
ate to he
r necklace i
s the matching
silver compact with embe
dded diamonds on its open lid.
It, too, rests
on the shelf, right next to Russell’s clock.

“I have mine,” I murmur
with a nod
when Zephyr’
s eyes
fa
ll on me.

An ebony
, oval-shaped
onyx bro
och has
been secured to a silky
,
black ribbon and tied at my throat. The black stone, mounted to the pin
,
can
be opened to reveal the portal.
The ma
tching
onyx
compact si
t
s
next to Anya’s on the shelf.