Stormfront (Undertow Book 2) (24 page)

We were all watching Rilli
n
, a tangle of curiosity and distrust on all our faces. Christian however, had stilled into a creepy sort of statue the moment he heard Elizabeth’s name. He was gripping a mahogany desk so hard, I was sure the edge would have a permanent imprint of his fingers.

“You need to start talking,”
ordered Raef, placing his hand to my back.

Rillin
looked at Christian oddly, clearing his throat. “The Lunaterra are normally trained by their parents to fight. But those of the royal houses utilized enslaved trainers – Mortis – known as Trials. I was one of their Trials.”

I heard Christian mutter a curse. I looked at him, “What? Is this true? They had . . . Mortis trainers?”

“Supposedly, though as far as I know, none ever left the palace alive,” replied Christian.

I crossed my arms, not buying this ridiculous idea of enslaved trainers for one second. “That makes no sense. Why in the world would the Lunaterra use their enemies to train?”

Rillin leaned back against the door. “The best way to learn how to defeat an enemy is to know the enemy in every way possible. It was a brilliant idea – imprison your enemy and force them to fight, but control how far they can go. Learn and practice your fighting technique with those you seek to destroy. We were a combination of gladiator, target, and personal trainer.”

I snorted, refusing to believe such a tall tale. “I don’t see how they could force you to obey them.”

“Every Trial, the moment they were captured, was fitted with Limiting Link.”

“What the hell is Limiting Link?” asked Raef, outrageously tense.

Rillin pulled down the neck of his t-shirt, revealing the left side of his broad chest and the brand I couldn’t quite make out before. It was a perfected version of the strange atom that had been haunting us.

I sucked in a short breath. “What is that?” I asked, desperately wanting to run my fingers over the raised mark.

“This is my Limiting Link. It is a bunch of carefully entwined rhodium wires and gears that the Lunaterra implanted in every Trial the moment they were captured. Well, technically a Feon would implant it. They prevented us from leaving the palace grounds and would bring a Trial to his knees if he tried to kill a Lunaterra during training, or anywhere else.”

I finally pulled my eyes off his chest, “You mean that’s not a scar? There are actual wires under your skin?”
Rillin nodded and I suddenly felt itchy, as if such a nasty device was crawling around in my own body.

Kian jammed his hands in his pockets, “I’ve never heard of a
Feon. What are we talking about?

“
Feon are very rare, now-a-days. They are humans who have the ability to control and contort metal and its properties. If any survived the Lunaterra Wars, they would have gone into hiding. To control a Feon means you control the key to any vault, lock, bridge, jetliner. If it’s metal, it follows their command. The Links bound us to a device inside the palace.”

Ana had squeezed in next to Kian, whose protective arm was around her tiny frame, “So basically you had, like, a doggy containment system – the ones that buzz the dog if they try to take off or bark too loud.”

Rillin looked at Ana, one eyebrow curved in a curious arc. “You must be Ana Lane,” he replied, ignoring her analogy . . . though it actually sounded dead-on. Rather than answer Rillin, she sealed her lips tightly shut and Kian pulled her closer.

 
“How did you know Elizabeth?” asked Christian, his voice so low my own toes curled.

Rillin
eyed Christian warily, no doubt confused as to why he was so tense. “I was her Trial. As a female, she was with a Trial from the time she was eight until she was fifteen. Boys remained with a Trial until 20. Older trials were considered more valuable as we could take more severe hits from a Lunaterra and we wouldn’t be killed.”

“So that’s why my energy didn’t kill you when I, uh, threw the Light. You really are like a gladiator,” I mumbled, disgusted by my family tree.

Rillin shrugged, “Technically I was a knight. A Templar, when I was still human.”

“You were a knight? A real knight in shining armor?” asked Ana, floored. “Like, with the shield and the horse and the maiden in the tower?”

“I do not recall any maidens in towers,” replied Rillin.

 
“What happened to Elizabeth?” demanded Christian, knowing that something had occurred to condemn Elizabeth to die when she was fifteen, but she mercifully escaped execution.

Rillin
looked suspiciously at Christian who was boring holes through his head with his stare. “She escaped the palace into the woods, but you know that, don’t you? There were rumors that Elizabeth had been taken in by a group of Mortis. Rebel fighters from the north. You were part of that group, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was, and when I found her, she had been beaten. Badly. Left to die!” Christian’s anger seemed to literally fill the room, like a smoky layer to the air.

Understanding hit Rillin. “Wait. You think I beat her? Good god no. I was her trainer and she was the most brilliant fighter I had ever seen. She could control her power and literally form it into a physical weapon. I consider training her one of my greatest accomplishments.”

“Her family was going to kill her!” snarled Christian.

“And they didn’t! I got her out!” snapped Rillin. Both pissed off men started toward one another, but I yelled at them to knock it off. I felt Raef angle himself in front of me and I realized I had forgotten he was even next to me. I had forgotten everyone except Rillin and Christian.

I touched Christian on the arm and lowered my voice, “Can you handle being here?” His jaw was set so hard I thought he might crack a tooth. “I get this is difficult for you. I do, but we need answers without fist fights. So can you be here, or no?”

Christian stalked back over to the desk, leaning against the edge of the curved front.

Rillin
looked between the two of us, no doubt trying to figure out what the hell was going on in Christian’s head and why he was so upset. He had no idea Christian had been in love with Elizabeth – had no idea I was descended from their affair.

“Just for the record, I didn’t hurt Elizabeth. I mean, training she got a few scrapes, but she gave as
good as she got. And yes, she was sentenced to death because she killed another Lunaterra – her suitor.”

WHOA! WHAT?

I pointed an accusing finger at Christian, who looked just as stunned as the rest of us. “YOU said she was condemned to die because she was feeding the Mortis information on pending attacks!”

“That’s what she told me!” protested Christian.

“Wait – Elizabeth was the one who was leaking attack info?” asked Rillin, equally floored. “I thought it was one of the other Trials – somehow getting information to the outside,” Rillin swore angrily. “I should have known. She was so unique. She thought for herself. She wasn’t just a drone like the rest. She . . . she wasn’t linked to the rest, was she?”

Christian shook his head, “No. She didn’t connect with the minds of the other Lunaterra, which is how she wandered off when she was little. She was her own person. She followed her heart. Following directions wasn’t high on her list of priorities.” Christian’s voice softened. “You said she killed another Lunaterra. Her suitor?”

Rillin seemed lost for words for a moment, no doubt thinking back to my grandmother when she was young and probably stubborn as hell. “Yes. All Lunaterra females are bound to their assigned suitor on the night of their fifteenth birthday.”

Christian drew a careful breath, “What do you mean, bound?”

“Her assigned suitor, a male in his final year of training, would, well, you know. Most females were mothers by the time they were sixteen.” Rillin glanced to me. 

“By force?” I whispered, horrified.

Rillin shrugged, “Technically they didn’t say ‘no’ since free will was eliminated from the Lunaterra line. They all followed orders blindly – it was mind control on a genetic level.”

I swallowed hard. “So they were programmed to not object to being . . . being . . .”

“Damn it,” whispered Christian, closing his eyes.

“Elizabeth had come to me the morning of her fifteenth birthday. She was upset about being bound that evening, and I told her to not do anything she wasn’t ready to do. When she left my cell, the determination on her face haunted me, because I knew her suitor would take her by force. No Lunaterra said no. No Lunaterra got a choice. That night she fought him, hard. But her determination turned into desperation and she killed him.”

Christian snapped the edge off the desk and I jumped.

Rillin
glanced at Christian, as he continued, “The palace didn’t know what to do with her at first, so they dumped her in my cell with me for days. Her suitor had done a number on her before she smashed his miserable head against the marble floor. She was in rough shape. I tried to keep her warm to prevent her from slipping into shock, but she needed a healer. After a few days, word came that she was to be executed.”

“Her
Feon friend came to my cell one night and asked if I was willing to make a run for it with Elizabeth if she could shut down the device that kept me linked to the palace. I agreed and by nightfall she had done it, causing the palace to erupt into chaos. I remember picking Elizabeth up in my arms and looking through the bars of my cell door and literally saw mass confusion. I heard the guards yelling for the traitor to be killed. I knew they were coming for Elizabeth and I just went for it. The second they opened the door I was on them, snapping their necks in seconds. The Limiting Link was no longer working, just as she had said, and I ran with Elizabeth in my arms, through the palace and finally to the woods. Somehow her friend had freed me.”

“If you saved her from the palace, why did you leave her unprotected in the woods?” growled Christian.

Ana put her hands out, as if to halt all conversation, “Hold up. Where in the heck is this damn palace and how in the world isn’t it like, listed on Wikipedia or something? I mean, you can’t exactly misplace a palace.”

“It wasn’t misplaced. It was hidden from the human eye and tucked into a remote area of France known as Auvergne. Much of it was built into the ground and when it crumbled, most of the palace became buried under the land. I was told there were occasional Mortis looters who looked for trophies in the hidden tunnels once the Lunaterra were eliminated. They would sell the remnants on the black market to other Mortis.”

“Hidden from the human eye? Yeah – okay. Sure it was,” replied Ana, but Rillin gave her a knowing look. It made Ana shift nervously on her feet. “WHAT?”

“Nothing,” replied
Rillin.

“Forget the damn palace!” snarled Christian. “Why was Elizabeth alone in the woods?”

Rillin drew a deep breath, “I hid her the best I could, but I feared that the palace could still track me via the Link. So I left her, intending to come back as soon as I could get it removed, but then everything went to hell. Fighting broke out everywhere, the other Trials escaped and turned on their captors. Mortis camps were being raided, rebel clans were being formed left and right, and nowhere was safe – especially for her. It was as if the floodgates had opened and the Lunaterra were on a homicidal warpath. When I was unable to find a Feon to remove the Link, I headed back to where I had left her, but she was gone. Within weeks, the palace was nothing but rubble.”

The silence that bled through the room seemed endless. Christian was rubbing his forehead and Raef had woven his hand in mine. Up until this moment, we had only known Christian’s version of what had happened to Elizabeth. That he had found her when she was five and had returned her to the palace, only to search for her again when she was a teenager. He had found her, badly injured and sick, in the woods – the same woods where
Rillin had left her after he saved her from being executed.

The portrait of my grandmother was slowly being painted by the men who had known her, all of
whom were technically her enemies. Christian had loved her. Rillin had trained her. Raef and Kian had befriended her.

I stepped closer to
Rillin and Raef moved with me. “Mr. Blackwood. Rillin. Why are you helping me?”

“A long time ago I left an unlikely friend alone in the woods, and she disappeared from my life. I left you alone in the woods as well, but once I understood
who you were, I couldn’t leave. Life rarely offers us second chances, Ms. Walker, and I will not walk away this time. If you let me, I can train you so that you may fight alongside your guards, as I suspect Elizabeth did with Mr. Raines. I owe it to her, for she never treated me as a slave. She treated me as a friend and she went on to help my kind.”

I looked at Raef and he was tense, hard, and unyielding. I turned back to
Rillin, “Why did you leave me the billiard ball?”

“I had followed you to this house the night you fell while riding – I knew something was just different about you. But then I saw Raef help you out of your car.
In fact, I thought he might have seen me. I was unsure if you knew that Raef was a Mortis. But after the football game, and meeting Kian and Raef at the Lucky Lady and their reaction to what I said about Christian, I knew something was going on. I started digging for details on you, which led me to the link with Elizabeth. I used the billiard ball to test what kind of connection you shared with Raef and Kian. I wanted them to know I got close to you, knew who you were, but did not harm you.”