“First Regan. Now Solange.” I could almost make a paper doll chain with all his betrayals.
He drew closer, as if his touch was an embrace.
“Your boner is trespassing,” I said roughly, bringing my heel up and back. He grunted, doubling forward, but didn’t let go.
Solange’s laugh sent the bells to tinkling again. “Darling Joanna, as feminine as ever. But what on earth have you done to your aura? You look positively gray.”
I am a gray.
“You can see that?” Just keep her talking. Talk…and maybe someone would find me.
In a dead man’s hidden room. Yeah, that was likely.
Rolling my soul gem in her fingertips, Solange lifted a slim shoulder. “One’s aura is both protection and an indication of their life energy. It’s like a cloak thrown about the shoulders. You look positively naked.”
“It’s my chakras. They’re all out of balance.”
She closed a fist over my soul. “Maybe it’s the Shadow overtaking the Light in you.”
I shook my head. “I’m no longer an agent of Light. Warren kicked me out of the troop.”
Hunter jolted. Solange scoffed. “Warren would never do that. After all, you’re the Kairos, right? A perfect balance of Shadow and Light.”
And she smiled sweetly, like it made me special.
Like it made me a target.
Hunter tensed, as did I. Solange held her smile as she lifted my misshaped stone to her lips and placed it in her mouth, and with it held between her teeth, blew me a kiss. Yet it was the siren waves of her mahogany hair that blew back over her shoulders as the starlight on her breath hit me. I inhaled involuntarily and her wordless voice whistled in my lungs. It said I would die. It promised immediately. And on the exhale, I screamed.
A crack sounded overhead, drowning my voice and shaking the trees above us. I didn’t know what I’d done, but the foliage trembled and stone lanterns toppled. The lights above winked violently, the bells clanging like funeral tones. My heart caught its rhythm again…and immediately started pounding.
Hunter looked up. “That was on your side.”
Another crack, followed by a thundering rumble. The sky darkened to opaqueness and the garden grew misty, blurring around us.
“No.” Solange stood, fists clenched as if to beat the fog away. “You won’t escape that way again.”
“I’ve got her,” Hunter said, strengthening his hold and yanking me to him so hard my newfound breath was again lost. He put his forearm around my neck, and I knew I’d be unconscious in seconds. When he leaned in to squeeze, though, the sky splintered again, and in the wake of the reverberating rumble, he whispered, “Run.”
Solange straightened, eyes alight with black fury. She lifted another stone to her mouth, and I bolted, burying myself in greenery, but not before I felt the wind lash my back…and heard Hunter’s deep wail.
I saw nothing between the mist and deepening sky. I tripped over roots and rocks, but kept sprinting in one direction. If it was a room, it had to have walls, right? Meanwhile, Solange’s blown kiss chased me, surrounding me like the waves of a dozen oceans, pushing and pulling me at the same time, seeking entry to what remained of my soul.
Hitting the ground, I kept low as the alive, seeking air blasted overhead, and moved beneath the verdant ferns until I found an ancient poplar. It was so dark now that even squinting as I pivoted around the trunk I was unable to see my body below me. So I squealed when I found myself face-to-face with Hunter.
“Listen,” he ordered, darting a glance over his shoulder. “I need to choke you out. Unconsciousness is the fastest way to get out of here. Whoever’s trying to get to you may not have an anchor, but they’ve got willpower and your corporeal body next to them.”
Did I want to go back to someone like that?
Hunter wasn’t offering me a choice. “Once you’re on the other side you can’t ever come here again. Not for anything. Not at any cost. It won’t be worth it.”
“Why?”
“Because your soul is in her sky, Jo…”
No, it’s in her mouth.
“It’s just a sliver, and imperfections abound, but it’s enough to control you.”
I filed that information away for later, if there was a later, and shook my head. “I mean why are you protecting me?”
He was close enough that I saw the sadness spring up, outlining his irises. But Solange called out to him then, and though it sounded like she was still in the clearing, her voice was a bullet. It bowed him over. He fell into the mist and onto an earth as black as the sky above.
That’s what happened under Solange’s control.
I joined him, diving to where he’d disappeared. I thought he’d be unconscious himself, but his hands immediately found my neck. I startled, my first instinct to pull away, but Solange had used him to lure me here, and he’d defied her to get me back out. As his fingers tightened around my neck, I realized he was going to pay for freeing me.
And as long as he was going to pay, he was going to make it worth it. His mouth found mine like it was a target, and my eyes fluttered shut, the last strangled threads of my breath lost to his lips. The trees and bells blurred my name overhead, while Hunter’s mouth moved against mine without sound. Then his expression shifted, separated, and dissolved. Yet his final words chased me back into my world. “Don’t ever return. She wants your power, your ability to-”
A hand touched my shoulder and I located the floor beneath my back. Gasped for air.
And smelled burning sulfur.
When I opened my eyes, I froze, and thought about ignoring Hunter’s advice and calling back out to Solange. Because I’d just woken up in a tomblike room, bereft of weapon or help…and with the Tulpa looming over me like I was already dead.
22
“What are you doing here?”
The Tulpa’s tone was ice, his eyes narrowed, and if I could still have seen auras, I knew that his would be bright red.
When in doubt, I thought, the taste of tin still sharp at the back of my throat, answer a question with a question.
“What happened?”
“You tell me, dear.” He straightened, leaning on a cane, his voice still sharp. “I walked in and found you sleeping in the middle of the floor. I had a hard time rousing you. In fact, you seemed to be in some sort of meditative trance.”
The last two words were said in the same tone a judge might use on a defendant…one he’d already found guilty.
Pushing the fear away, I stretched and yawned loudly. “Too much wine, I guess. I was missing my father, so I came to his office to be-I don’t know, near him somehow. I was thinking how much he’d like to be at this dinner…” The Tulpa’s brows arched, and I quickly amended my statement. Xavier would have loathed the festivities and not allowed it on his grounds. I shot the Tulpa a knowing smile. “I mean, everyone who is anyone is here, and he was so smart he could probably get Arun to put up the capital for some new business venture…”
The Tulpa twisted his cane handle thoughtfully. I hurried on. “So I was looking at the pictures on the mantel when I brushed up against those poky things out there, and found this.” I motioned around the room, suddenly no more spacious than a honeycomb cell. The Tulpa’s eyes following my fingertips certainly made me feel like I was about to get stung.
I dropped my hand to my side…too fast. A shift in expression and suddenly the elderly visage he’d donned for
“Olivia’s” benefit grew into points and angles. Shit. I started speaking quickly. “So I came in, picked up one of these old toys, and suddenly I was out like Kim Kardashian on a Saturday night.”