Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3) (23 page)

Chapter 24

Tempting

(Mason)

“I don’t want to set foot in a car for at
least a month after all of this is over. Traveling by car is
not
one of
the things I miss about being on Earth,” Sloane complains.

Being in a car has never bothered me
particularly, but I’m in complete agreement. All this driving has left my
muscles tight and aching. I feel exhausted, too, which certainly doesn’t help
the situation. “Let’s just hope they’re back and we can all take a break for
the rest of the night before we have to move on to…wherever this thing takes
us.”

Sloane nods in agreement and gets out of
the car. I wish we were at least back at the cabin. It was only an illusion
that we were safe there, but it was a comforting illusion. I’ve come to hate
hotels. You can never know who’s in the room next to you, what they might be
plotting, or even control who has access to the building you’re sleeping in.
Every Sentinel on the planet, or the Mother, could walk right in and kill us in
their sleep. An electronic key card certainly isn’t going to stop a bullet or
an Aerling god. I can’t bring myself to suggest we leave as soon as Olivia and
Hayden get back. One more night. I can handle that.

Getting out and following Sloane into the
hotel, we’re both quiet as we trudge back up to our room. Exhaustion is
dragging me forward, thoughts of a bed to fall into calling to me. I had a bed
last night at the safe house, but sleeping with my seven-year-old sister has
never been a pleasant experience. I woke up with an arm in my face or elbow in
my side more than once. I love her, but she is the worst to share a bed with.
Denying her request when I knew I had to leave her behind again the next
morning was impossible, though.

Luckily, Sloane pulls out her key card and
unlocks the door before I have to make an attempt. She pushes the door open and
gestures me through as she stuffs the card back into her pocket. I only get a
step inside the room before I’m floored by the sight of Tū standing over
Hayden laid out on the floor while Olivia is on her backside in front of them
both. Power rushes to my aid before the conscious thought to call it even
solidifies in my mind. I’m hurling a massive blast of wind before anyone has a
chance to react.

Jumping up and spinning to face me,
Olivia’s eyes widen in shock. Then she does something completely insane. She
steps in front of my attack! Panic sends adrenaline coursing through my body.
In a desperate act, I scatter my power before it hits her, begging it not to
hurt her. She ducks against the attack, but it barely does more than ruffle her
hair when it reaches her. If I weren’t so startled by the fact that I managed
to cancel such a devastating attack in a fraction of a second, it probably
wouldn’t have taken me as long to realize Tū is nowhere in sight.

“Where’d he go?” I demand.

Olivia’s spins around, but instead of
looking frightened by everything that just happened, Tū disappearing
included, she just huffs in frustration. “Why did you attack him?”

I’m too stumped by her irritation to
answer right away. I have to glance over at Sloane to double check that I’m not
going crazy. Sloane only shrugs, as lost as I am. Turning back to Olivia, I
say, “What do you mean why did I attack him? I walked in to find you on the
ground, Hayden on his back like he just lost a fight, and Tū standing over
you both like he’s about to kill both of you!”

Biting at her bottom lip, Olivia’s
shoulders relax. “Yeah, I guess that all looked pretty weird.” She sighs and
shakes her head. “He wasn’t trying to hurt us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hayden grumbles as
he rubs at his neck.

“What did you expect him to do when you
got in his face like that?” Olivia snaps. “He’s an Aerling god, for crying out
loud.”

Hayden just rolls his eyes and stalks
away. Intercepted by Sloane, he puts aside his frustration as she checks him
over for injuries. My attention goes back to Olivia. “What was going on here?”

Practically collapsing onto the nearest
bed, Olivia shakes her head. “Tū agreed to help us fight the Mother.”

“Really? How’d you manage that?”

“We finally figured out what he wanted us
to, that his parents are psychotic and they have to be stopped,” she says, “not
to mention that the thing you did with Sloane to save that guy works even
better between twins, and
even better
than that when we’re talking about
an Aerling and Escort sharing power. With Tū, we’ve got enough power to
face the Mother so long as you can access Tāwhiri’s power.”

“Me? Does that mean you figured it out?” I
ask excitedly.

Olivia frowns. “Well, kind of. I used it
to get into where the Father was being kept, anyway. I haven’t tried to use it
again yet.” Running her hands through her long hair, she breathes out slowly.
“What about you? Please tell me you learned something that will help us end
this soon. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. If I never see
another Aerling god again, it’ll be too soon.”

“Ditto,” I say and I slip onto the bed,
pulling Olivia against my chest. For a minute, all I can do is press my face to
her hair and breathe in her scent. “I missed you,” I whisper even though we
have more important things to discuss.

Turning in my arms, Olivia kisses me
softly. “I missed you, too, even though it was only a few hours for me. I don’t
like being so far away from you.”

“Mmm…” My lips find the space behind her
ear, making Olivia lean into me even more. “I don’t like being any further away
from you than this.”

“As much as I don’t want to discourage
you,” Olivia whispers, “we’re not alone and you haven’t told me what you found
out.”

I have to hold back a frustrated sigh, but
I know she’s right. “What we learned,” I say, still holding her close, “is how
to find the Mother.”

Olivia nearly jumps out of my arms. I have
to catch her before she falls off the edge of the bed, she turned around so
fast. Her eyes are wide with excitement. “You what? Really? How? What do I need
to do?”

Her demand for answers gets interrupted by
Hayden and Sloane coming over to join us. I don’t say anything about it, but I
can’t help noticing how Hayden’s arm curls around her waist when they stop in
front of us. Sloane turns into his embrace just a bit, but her attention is on
Olivia. “Why don’t we all start at the beginning so nothing gets left out?”

Nodding eagerly, Olivia gets herself
situated and stares at everyone else, clearly ready for answers. Explaining
what we learned about sharing power doesn’t take long, since Olivia and Hayden
learned some of the same things from the Father. What proves more difficult is
trying to tell Olivia about feeling the connection to the first parents’ power.
Eventually, Sloane just says she’ll have to show Olivia like she did Molly and
me, but Olivia is practically buzzing with excitement by the time we finish our
explanation.

Ready to move on to what she learned,
Olivia opens her mouth to speak, but Sloane cuts her off. “We learned one other
interesting thing,” she says quietly.

Her eyes dart over to Hayden before coming
back to me. I can see her take a deep breath, like she’s worried about Hayden’s
response. I can’t imagine what she might be concerned about since Hayden seems
just as taken with her as she is with him, but I smile to prod her on anyway.

Blowing out her nerves, Sloane continues.
“I asked Mr. Parker if he knew why you could see me.” She’s mainly speaking to
Hayden, now, but Olivia leans forward in interest.

“And he knew?” Hayden asks. His eyes are
glued to Sloane by this point. I almost feel like I’m intruding on something.
The urge to laugh strikes me, but I keep my mouth shut.

Sloane nods slowly. “Yeah. It’s blood, I
mean, the connection is because of my blood. And Levi’s. It’s…he said an
Escort, well, it can switch, you know, like find a new, uh, Aerling.”

The way Hayden’s brows scrunch together
makes it pretty clear he didn’t catch most of what Sloane just said. Deciding
to save us all from another awkward speech, I say, “When Sloane’s Escort died
last year, your connection to Levi switched to her. You’re Sloane’s new Escort,
Hayden. That’s why you can see her.”

The way Hayden’s eyes widen gives me a
moment’s pause. Maybe Sloane was right to be worried about his reaction. I’m
somewhat shocked by that until his grin grows as big as his eyes. “Are you
serious?” he demands, though he’s not looking at me.

Sloane’s head bobs up and down slowly. “Uh
huh. Is that…okay?”

“That’s freakin’ awesome,” Hayden says
with a laugh.

All of Sloane’s uncertainty vanishes as
she throws her arms around Hayden, grinning for all she’s worth. I still want
to laugh, but I’m even more surprised by the happy expression on Olivia’s face.
Sloane was worried about how Hayden would react, but my main concern was with
Olivia, especially after how she handled Sloane seeing into her memories. I
pull her against me, glad she’s not upset by their newfound connection.

“So, tell me what else you learned,” I say
to her.

Sloane and Hayden only half listen as
Olivia walks us through her conversation with the Father. I’m mildly surprised
to learn he isn’t nearly as cold-hearted as the Mother is, but it doesn’t come
as a shock when she explains his eventual betrayal and what it cost
Tāwhiri and the Aerling world.

“We can’t keep the Father imprisoned like
that,” I say after everything sinks in.

“What do you mean?” Sloane demands. “It’s
not like we can just let him loose!”

Hayden and Olivia share a look that I can
only guess at. My guess, though, is that they realized the same thing I did
before they left the Aerling world. Not only do we need all the power
Tāwhiri left behind to hold the Father in his prison, we need so much more
than that. We need the Father’s power as well.

“Before I left his prison,” Olivia says,
“I realized we could only beat the Mother with
all
of Tāwhiri’s
power. I was able to get most of his power back once I manipulated the prison
and handed over the responsibility of keeping an eye on him to Cedrick and a
whole squad of very capable Aerlings. When the time comes, Hayden will be able
to go back and bring him to us.”

“Will Hayden be able to cross the barrier
with him?” I ask.

Stepping forward, though not letting go of
Sloane, Hayden says, “We think so. The Father was never linked to an Escort. It
should work the same as an Escort taking an infant across.”

“That will be another three days, though,”
Sloane says with a pained expression. Not only is she no doubt worried about
Hayden being gone that long, three days may as well be an eternity if we find
the Mother and have to attempt holding her.

The time clearly has Olivia worried as
well, but she says, “I couldn’t risk bringing him back with me. There’s no way
the four of us could have controlled him. It took half the Aerling soldiers in
the whole world just to subdue him. If we knew how to take his power, I would
have, but I had to leave him for now. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out when the
time comes. We still have to find the Mother first.”

Olivia nods, but I can tell she’s still
worried about it. Tightening my grip around her shoulders, I try to comfort
her. We’re so close. All we need is a few more pieces to this screwed up puzzle
and we’ll be ready to end this.

“Where’s Robin?” Hayden asks.

I was so startled by Tū being here
when we arrived that I completely forgot to bring up our least favorite
companion. “She’s not here,” I explain. “We left her with the Caretaker
Officers after meeting Molly and Olivia’s family.”

“What?” Olivia explodes. “How could you do
that? We can’t trust them! She’s going to get away. We have to keep her near
us, Mason! What were you thinking?”

She’s up off the bed, pacing, freaking
out. When we left her house after coming back, she didn’t even want the
Caretaker Officers to know we had come back. I understand her distrust. It’s
not like I actually trust them either, not completely, but we couldn’t keep
dragging Robin around the country. It wasn’t safe.

“Olivia, just listen to me for a minute,”
I plead. She spins away from me in frustration, but turns back immediately
afterward. Not wasting my time, I say, “Her blood is the only way to repair the
barrier. If we know that, so does the Mother. We’ve all pretty much agreed that
the barrier has to come down, but that’s the last thing the Mother wants.
Keeping Robin with us, exposing her to being captured…it’s not safe.”

“But the Caretakers?” she says,
exasperated and frightened. “We can’t trust them.”

“Not completely, no,” I agree, “but if
there’s one thing we can count on them for, it’s being irrationally dedicated
to their purpose. Robin already has more than one black mark against her with
them. Now, she’s put every Aerling on the planet at risk. When the Caretaker
Officers with your family found out about that, it took more than a polite
request to stop them from killing her right then and there.”