More Than Life (Arcane Crossbreeds) (31 page)

Katya felt the air being sucked out of the room as she listened to them speak of her entire life as though it were a no more than a discomfort they tolerated. And this past year, the hours of terror and pain. The harrowing of her every strength and weakness. Her being stripped of every dignity. For their gain. To them it was no more than a means to an end. They’d nearly traded her soul for their status. A tremor shook her as she sucked in a breath. Energy crackled around her body, and she drew it down her arms into the palms of her hands, closing her fingers around it. She maintained her control.

Barely. “Why? I at least deserve to know why.”

“It was an unexpected opportunity for the House.” Her uncle folded his arms across his chest. “I was an ambassador for the Bay House to the Triumvirate. They let me know a small group of high-ranking Rebels were moving through the Bay House region. They gave us a time and location and a promise for a piece of their trade agreements if we eliminated them. During the struggle, your father managed to help your mother and you escape. Mongrel bastard gave his life for it.” Her uncle snorted.

No
. He wasn’t her uncle. She never wanted to think of him as such again.

“She didn’t make it too far. An abandoned warehouse down on the wharf. Unbeknownst to us, one of our marshals was using human blood. Damned stuff makes even the most trained Sanguen lose control. We had a team in place to eliminate the lot of you until your damn Drachon interfered.” Canton laughed. “Bastard actually thought we were trying to save you.”

Raife. She remembered the comforting whisper of his voice in her head. The feeling of safety in him. It was all she could remember of that night. The last night she ever saw her parents. They’d died to save her, and she couldn’t even remember their faces, thanks to these men. One more thing they’d stolen from her.

“The Triumvirate ordered us to raise you like family. To keep you close. Some theory one of their genetic scientists –”

“That is enough, Canton,” Elder Grayson smoothly interjected. “Why they want her is no concern of hers. Or of ours any longer. She belongs to the Triumvirate now.”

Three Guardians crashed through the door, and Katya stumbled back a couple of steps. She snapped her head to the right to look at the two men who had been her family.

Elder Grayson tugged his vest down, grabbed his jacket, and nodded to the Guardians. “Please try to minimize the damage to the citadel.”

The two men walked in a stately manner to the door, and her uncle—
no
—Canton Schaffer never so much as looked back, as though her entire existence didn’t warrant a second thought.

She shouldn’t be shocked, but his complete disregard held her immobilized in disbelief for a long moment. She wanted to crumple to the ground, to let this pain pour from her until she was empty. But she wouldn’t. The pain would fade. She was a survivor, a fighter. They’d taught her that whether the lesson was intended or not. She pressed a hand to her belly. Now she had a baby to consider…to protect.

It had been a mistake to come here. Answers hadn’t changed anything. She wanted to go home. To Raife.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” one of the three Guardians said. “Just come with us quietly.”

Katya blinked at him. “I’m never going back. You can just tell your little masters to go to hell.”

The Guardian in the middle lifted a long cylinder like the weapon they’d used on her weeks ago. She sure as hell wasn’t getting caught by one of those things again. Shimmering, she reappeared behind him and grabbed his wrist, swinging his arm up and to the side as he fired. The silver disk embedded itself in the throat of the Guardian to his right.

That familiar musk of feral Guardians filled the air as the grotesque hiss of claws breaking skin reached her. Theirs and hers. With a low growl, she slid beneath the arm she held and dropped to one knee. She propelled the Guardian over her shoulder before shimmering in front of the door. If she could work her way out of the room and to the antechamber just outside, she could escape out the shattered window.

Before she could reach for the door, it swung open. Katya jumped back as another Guardian stepped inside.

She’d have to fight her way out. Turning to balance her weight on the balls of her feet, she lifted her hands, drawing the energy in the room to her palms, collecting it like Gideon taught her. Yet before she could channel it, the Guardian filling the door frame lifted a large silver gun and fired off three shots.

Katya dropped into a crouch and looked behind her to see the Guardians she’d been fighting lying on the ground. She winced. They were definitely dead. There would be no healing from those head wounds.

The shooter looked back through the door and nodded, stepping aside to allow a man to pass into the room. This new man was different from the others. He wasn’t a Guardian. Not really. In fact, she couldn’t tell what he was, but she knew he wasn’t human. He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to take the gun from the shooter, dismissing him.

The click of the door closing was ominous, leaving them alone together in the chamber.

Katya came slowly to her feet, unable to look away from the man. He had eyes that were glacier blue and just as cold. He looked so familiar.

His blond hair was carefully brushed back from a broad forehead. A dimple deeply creased his chin, and his lips pressed into a thin hard line. An expensive gray suit draped his tall, lean form, and his black button-down shirt was open at the neck. He wasn’t big like Raife, but he didn’t lack strength. He was handsome, but the raw power he exuded had her instinctively backing up a step before she caught herself. The power that emanated around him almost glimmered in the air.

A vague memory slithered through her—sparkling pale eyes and a low teasing laugh. It was gone before she could grasp it, but it felt real enough that she was sure she knew this man. But how?

“Katya.” Those glacial eyes warmed fractionally as he studied her. His voice was low, almost reverent. “You look so much like her.”

“Like who?” Katya whispered, almost afraid of the answer.

A sad smile softened his lips. “Our mother.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Irial Carrick was stricken by the similarities, and for the first time in so long, that night twenty years ago was so crisp in his memory that he could almost hear his mother’s voice. He hadn’t let himself so much as think of it. The memory could only be a weakness. This girl—his sister—could only be a weakness, and he couldn’t afford that.

It was too late for sentiment.

“Our mother?” Her voice resonated with disbelief, her pale blue eyes suspicious. “I don’t understand.”

“Our parents were Rebels.” Irial kept his voice cold as he circled her. He scowled at the dead Guardians bleeding out on the dark mahogany floor as he skirted the spreading stain. So much blood and death. “The night the Triumvirate ordered them killed, we were outnumbered and unprepared. Our father and I fought to get you and our mother free. He was killed.”

He related the details of that night to her, careful to keep his distance from it. His voice was even and unaffected. Cold. He’d had so much time to perfect the charade, he wasn’t entirely sure it was faked any longer.

“And I should just believe you?” Katya turned to keep him in front of her. Smart girl.

Irial shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what you believe.”

“Let’s say you are my brother; why didn’t you contact me?”

“I wasn’t aware any of you had lived until recently,” Irial said as he studied her.

Her blonde hair was so pale it was nearly white, much like their mother’s—like his. His sister had been so young the last time he’d been this close to her. Three, maybe four—such a soft, warm bundle in his arms. He tried to remember the affection, the pleasure of his baby sister. It had been there once, but it was just out of reach, too far to touch for the man he’d become. He was too cold now.

“What do you want?” Katya watched him warily, shimmering to the opposite side of the dead Guardians when he continued to circle her.

“As if what we want is ever a consideration, little sister,” Irial chided, feeling weary. He wouldn’t have much time here. The next wave of Triumvirate Guardians he led wouldn’t be put off for long, and he couldn’t imagine her fire-breathing mate would be far behind her. “No, there’s only what needs to be done.”

“I’m not going back to that lab.” Her eyes flooded black, completely obliterating the blue. Claws still curled from the tips of her fingers. “Ever.”

“Agreed.” Irial studied his own blunt nails for a moment. He could display claws the same as she if necessary, but it required tapping into a primal core of his being that presented too much of a risk. This game he played required total control. Especially with so many pieces moving on the board. “Unfortunately you provide quite a threat traipsing carelessly about as you have these past weeks. I had hoped that mate of yours would keep you under wraps.”

Katya frowned, and Irial clearly saw the myriad thoughts that fired across her expressive face until understanding finally dawned. “You were responsible for Raife being there; you knew he would help me escape. Is that why you sent him? To help me?”

There was a guarded hope lining her expression, and Irial almost wished he could tell her that was the extent of his motivation, but life rarely ever gave breaks and ignorance would get you killed. He could offer his sister freedom, but it couldn’t come with any further kindness on his part.

“I hoped he would take you to Incog where you would be out of reach, because the only other option I had was to eliminate you.”

Horror bracketed the corners of her lips, and she stepped back. “Eliminate? As in kill?”

“If necessary, yes. I can’t risk you falling into the hands of the Triumvirate. Not now.”

“I don’t understand,” Katya whispered. She glanced at the chairs vacated by the House elders she’d grown up believing were her family. “What is so damn special about me that everyone is standing in line to get a piece?”

“Our parents were—
we
are—descendants of the survivors of Roanoke. Several hundred years ago, those who refused to take part in the Triumvirate’s blood magic were hunted. Killed. Many of them stowed away on a ship to the New World, hoping to escape the Triumvirate, but an English ship stopped at the colony on her way back to England. The Rebel Arcane were recognized. They knew the Triumvirate would discover their location and send their Guardians.”

“And what does this have to do with anything?” she snapped, her gaze flicking to the door.

Irial repositioned himself in front of her only means of escape as he continued. “Some took refuge with the native population of the area; others struck out on their own and eventually ended up at Jamestown. Many of them interbred and disappeared into the human populations. Others remained pureblood, refusing to dilute their Arcane blood by mating with humans.”

“The Lost Colony Venture.” Katya narrowed her eyes on him as she reasoned it out. “It’s a research project looking for descendants of the survivors from the lost colony of Roanoke. GenTest was using it to find Rebels. Why? If they just wanted to wipe them out, why all the genetic experimenting?”

“The descendants of those Rebels have grown by the thousands, a veritable pool of new power to drain if the Triumvirate could tap into it now that they’ve isolated the gene responsible for the blood magic. Their primary goal has always been to extinguish the threat of Rebels themselves. What better way to achieve that than to make them a part of the blood magic by introducing the gene?”

“They’ve been experimenting on me from the beginning.” Katya pushed her hair back from her face. “They’ve finally succeeded, haven’t they? That’s why the Rebels want me too.”

Irial nodded. “Your blood is the key to duplicating the results on a larger scale, and we cannot allow you to fall into the hands of the Triumvirate.”

“So, what? You’re a Rebel spying on the Triumvirate?”

Irial snorted. “Hardly.” The black-and-white conflict between the Rebels and the Alliance was only an illusion that distracted the Arcane from the real battle: survival. The Triumvirate had become too power hungry to see their bid for complete control would only result in extinction for all of them. Their attempt to circumvent fate would destroy them all, and Irial refused to let that happen. “It doesn’t matter what I am, only what you are. We”—Irial paused and corrected himself. She deserved that much.—“
I
prefer you live. It’s why I sent you your Drachon. We’ve been doing a bit of our own genetic testing, and we knew the mating was possible.”

“You knew I was Raife’s mate?”

“Mated Drachon are practically impossible to kill or stop. It’s the one thing the Triumvirate fears above all else.”

The door cracked open, and one of the few men he trusted peered at him through the gap. “Sir, Alpha Two has arrived.”

Irial nodded. “Meet them and lead them up.” Time had run out. The Triumvirate Guardians would be here soon, and he couldn’t risk the suspicion if they caught their leader helping their objective escape. Irial wiped down the gun he held and set it on a small ornate table near the exit. “Be smart, Katya. I won’t be able to spare you again.”

Irial stepped away from the door and watched as she carefully skirted him to cautiously pick up the gun. She paused with her back to him, and he felt the expectant silence swell between them. So much lost. For both of them. At least he’d been able to give her something, a chance for a life…happiness. It wasn’t much considering the atrocities he’d committed to gain the position he needed.

Just for a moment he felt the weight of his father’s hand in his, smelled the metallic scent of the blood in his father’s dying breath when he made him swear to take care of his sister. The pain of that failure had always festered inside him, regardless of his denial. The release from it was an odd relief, if only a small one. “Katya.”

He wasn’t sure why he stayed her, but when she glanced back at him, the blue returned in her sad eyes and the words that came from his lips shocked him. “From the moment they pulled me away from our father’s body, I have lived and breathed for only one purpose: to take down the Triumvirate. But discovering you still lived was the first time I almost risked it all.”