Awakening Kiss (Watcher's Kiss Book 4) (34 page)

Antonio glared. “I said I’m done.”

“There is no done!” Soren shouted. “Are you insane? The only way to be done is if you’re dead. And you and I are too good of a team for you to die.”

Antonio paced along the huge window, shaking his head.

“Brother,” Soren went on, “we have a great life. Money, females, no strings, going anywhere in the realms we want.”

“No strings?” Antonio scowled. “We’re bound to Splinter for one hundred years.”

“And it’s worth it.” Soren’s eyes gleamed. “Let’s go. We’ll do what we always do. We’ll deliver our latest find, get paid, then kick back. Take a day or a week off in our favorite places. Come on.”

Antonio moved in front of Enza. “No.”

Soren’s face turned livid and he pulled a huge knife from the holster at his left pec. “Then
I will.
” He lunged for Antonio.

Enza shrieked and scooted away. The door. Could she get to the door? If Soren had opened it, would the wards be open now too? How in the hell did those things even work?

The thud of flesh smacking flesh reached her ears. A lamp shattered. The brothers grappled as she edged along the wall, desperate to reach the door.

Soren had Antonio pinned under him, knife held up. Antonio had a white-knuckle grip on his brother’s forearm, trying to deflect the thing. A bead of clear liquid dripped from the top of the knife, landing on Antonio’s cheek.
What the hell is that?

He grunted. “You wouldn’t. You need me. Like you said, we’re a team.”

“Not if you bail because of sentimental bullshit.” Soren inched his knife hand down further.

Enza reached the front hall and tried the door. Locked. No! She twisted and pulled the knob in a panic. Was there a key anywhere around here? Did she need to unlock a deadbolt?

“Don’t even think about leaving, female!” Soren snarled from the living room. “I will find you.”

Oh god. Enza turned in horror, lost as to what to do next. Antonio pushed Soren’s hand to one side, wrenching his wrist at an unnatural angle.

The knife dropped. Both men lunged for it. In the flurry of arms and legs, Enza couldn’t tell who had it. Then a sickening gasp echoed off the walls.

She yelped as Antonio lay on his back, the knife deep in his chest. His ribs heaved. Blood poured from the wound.

Soren leaped to his feet faster than Enza thought possible and charged toward her, still shirtless, still looking like he’d been through hell.

She screamed and ran, but there was nowhere to go. Living room or kitchen? There was no time to even think. Soren reached her and spun her around, locking her to his chest. His arm was like a vise.

Words in an unfamiliar tongue slipped from his lips, from his injured jaw that had apparently already healed. Dread crawled up her spine. Antonio had said those words right before that portal had opened behind Java Genie. “No!” She tried to elbow him in the chest, kick his kneecaps, anything to disrupt what she guessed he was about to do.

But a shimmering ring appeared in the air in front of them. Beautiful colors skimmed across the surface like a soap bubble. “Noo!” she screamed again, but Soren ignored her.

He moved like a huge, unstoppable predator, lifting her off her feet, still caging her to his body. She couldn’t have done anything to stop him. With one giant step, he took them into the portal.

C
HAPTER
34

R
HYS DIALED MIRANDA AS SOON
as they hit the ground at their condo. She picked up on the first ring. “Hi—”

“I need you to scry. They have her.” He took the steps up from the garage level two at a time.

“What? Shit! Okay, I’m home. I’m on it. I still have that sock, so if she’s with them, I’ll see her. Starting right now. Crap, Rhys.” Rapid footsteps echoed through the phone and then stopped, as if she had sat down. “What the hell happened?”

“They came to the shop. I was there, but things got fucked up. Her mom showed up too.” Rhys ran a hand through his hair and paced the great room. Brenin, with Concetta still in his arms, continued on up the stairs with her, no doubt heading for a guest bedroom. Rilan got out an amulet and map, items he needed for his portal tracking spell.

“Her mom? Oh my gods.”

“And, one of the two Deserati is her dad.”

“What?” Miranda’s shriek was so loud Rilan frowned. “Holy shit. You need to stop with the shock factors so I can say my spell. But you’re telling me every last detail later.”

“Fine.” Rhys glanced at Rilan as magic crackled in the air around the older demon, making his already messy hair stand up even more. The male’s face was a mask of concentration as he spoke softly in Demonish, eyes closed. When he opened them to study his map, hands hovering, his pupils had turned an odd milky white. It happened when the dude was deep in a spell. It was a good thing. But it was damn eerie. Rhys didn’t think he’d ever get used to it.

Rilan blinked, and his eyes returned to their normal chocolate brown. He shook his head in frustration. “There is a
huge
amount of portal activity in the area right now. We can go site by site and check each one, but she may not even be in the city. All I can see is the activity, not the travelers.”

Rhys ground his molars. He knew that. Didn’t make it any easier. He still held his phone to his ear, hearing Miranda’s breathing. He didn’t want to start talking and mess up her spell, but the wait was killing him.

Brenin walked back into the room, followed by Tor. “Mom’s sound asleep.” Brenin set his hands on his hips. “Anything?”

“Rilan has too much data. Too many goddamn portals. But I’ve got Miranda on the phone. Scrying,” Rhys said.

“I see her!” Miranda’s voice carried through in panicked outrage. “Damn it! Put me on speaker. You all need to hear this.”

Rhys hit the speaker button, grim dread curling around his heart. “You’re on. What do you see?”

“She’s with both of them. They’re inside somewhere…” she paused. “Somewhere with big windows looking out onto water. Shit, wait, that’s our lake! I see Navy Pier. She’s still in the city!”

“Can you zoom out and see which building it is?” Rhys asked.

“Hang on.” Murmured words in an old dialect came across the phone speaker. “Lake Point Tower. No mistaking the shape of that place.”

“All right.” Rhys clenched his fists, picturing the iconic rounded triangular building. “Let’s go. Now.”

Rilan tossed him an amulet. “This is for getting back home. I don’t have any spelled with the coordinates of that building, so I’ll have to send you there.”

“Wait, you guys. I don’t know what floor they’re on. There’s like seventy floors in there. And oh my gods—they just started fighting!” Miranda’s voice rose. “The two males. Fists and a knife.”

“Where’s Enza?” Rhys demanded.

“She’s there, seems unharmed…I think she’s trying to leave.”

“Hold up.” Brenin laid a hand on Rhys’s shoulder. “I know you want to get to her right this second, and so do I, but Miranda has a point. There are seventy floors and we have no idea which unit they’re in. We ’port over there—then what? We have a whole damn building to search blindly? If we pick up Soren’s scent, that’ll help, but,” he paused, “you can hack in and tell us in a minute.”

“Fuck!” Rhys snarled in unbridled anger. Normally, he’d stay home in moments like this, jumping onto his computer and hacking into any database the warriors needed, relaying the info to them as they traveled to the scene.

Only now it was his woman, and he didn’t want to wait another nanosecond.

But he was the only one with the skills to break in and see what unit Antonio and Soren had rented. Or hack security camera feeds to see which elevator button Soren pressed, or which stairwell door he exited.

He brushed off Brenin’s hand and sprinted to his computers. If he was worth anything as a hacker and programmer, now was his biggest test. Enza’s life was on the line.

His fingers flew across the keys as his heart pounded, feeding in code that would snake undetected around the huge tower’s security firewalls and let him view every unit’s owner or renter. Pages of data scrolled by in flashes, as fast as if he were working there legitimately, but still, it wasn’t fast enough for Rhys. Every second counted.

Finally, though the process had taken under two minutes, an alphabetical list came up. Soren Adamson had rented a unit on the sixty-first floor. “Got it!” Rhys jumped up, grabbed his phone, and returned to the great room.

“Nice work. I didn’t want to distract you,” Miranda said. “They’re still fighting. Enza is still in there, but they’re focused on each other.”

“Let’s go. Now.” Rhys couldn’t contain his impatience.

“I called Jude, let him know what we’re doing,” Brenin said.

Rilan uttered the words to a spell and a portal ring opened up in the middle of the great room. “Miranda, we’re going into the portal. Keep them in your sight. I have to disconnect and I’ll call when we get there.” Rhys ended the call and shoved his phone deep in his pocket.

“Let’s catch those bastards already,” Tor growled.

“Hell yes.” Rhys agreed. With one step, all three warriors jumped into the portal.

Thirty seconds later, they tumbled to the concrete floor of a parking garage, to the shock of an elderly woman exiting her Buick in a handicapped spot.

“Sorry, ma’am.” Brenin flashed her his best PR smile. “I know this might seem odd, but we’re filming a movie.” He spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone and winked.

“Oh!” She shook her head of elegantly coiffed white hair. “The things they do with movie magic these days. Why, I never could grasp it.”

“Have a nice day.” Brenin waved and darted into a stairwell. “Go time.” In a blur of motion, he was gone.

The Watchers could run up the stairs at lightning speed, faster than taking an elevator. And since hardly anyone took the stairs, the chance of zooming past a human was slim. In a minute, they were at the sixty-first floor.

Rhys yanked open the beige metal door and took one heartbeat to scan the unit numbers. Charging to Soren’s, he grabbed the doorknob.

Tor got in his space, shouldering him aside. “Wards and possible spell charges. You need to go in and get your girl. Let me take the hit if something blows up.”

Rhys stepped well to the side of the door. “Dude, you don’t have to do that. You can—”

“I got this.” The dark-haired fighter gave a twist to the doorknob, and at the same time darted to the other side of the door. A blast of heat poured into the hall. The Watchers crouched as the surge expired, then Rhys barreled into the ritzy apartment, which was saturated with Enza’s scent. But she wasn’t there.

Neither was Soren.

Only Antonio was there, laying on the living room floor in a pool of blood, with a dagger in his lung.

“Fuck!” Rhys yelled. He ran to Antonio. “You took her. I will kill you.”

Antonio focused on him with glassy eyes. “I tried to s-stop Soren.”

Brenin knelt beside Soren and pointed to his wound. The blade had ripped the cotton of his T-shirt, and instead of a clean hole, the edges of the fabric were shriveled and black. “Viper venom on the blade.”

“Where are they?” Rhys growled, though he already knew. Raw, sick anger and dread mixed in his gut, creating the worst, most desperate feeling he’d ever felt.

“S-splinter,” Antonio whispered.

“Goddamn it.” Brenin stared down at Antonio with disgust.

Tor entered the room. “Place is clean, no one else here. I found these.” He held up several amulets.

“Are those transportation amulets?” Rhys asked Antonio.

The male nodded. “Prespelled for Splinter and for Chicago.”

“You asshole. Let’s go.” Rhys stood and reached for an amulet.

Now Tor was the one to pause. “The three of us can’t just walk into Splinter.”

“So, we have Rilan contact Arawn and mobilize a team. They can be ready to go in minutes. It’s daytime.” Rhys couldn’t contain his fury. “We can meet them there.”

“Here’s another option.” Brenin stood up. “We take him.” He nudged Antonio with his boot.

“Why the fuck would we do that?” Rhys asked.

“He’s been working with Splinter. They know him. He’s our in,” Brenin said. “Plus, as much as you want to kill him, he’s still Enza’s dad. She should weigh in on whether she wants him in her life.”

He’s our in.
The words tumbled around Rhys’s head. Brenin was right. And Rhys couldn’t process the fact that this monster had anything to do with Enza—but if Antonio could in any way help get her back… “Yeah. Let’s take him.”

Tor knelt beside Antonio and wrapped a brawny hand around the blade. “This is gonna hurt.” With a swift tug, he yanked it out. Antonio gasped, but the relief on his face was one that Rhys could relate to.

Brenin was on the phone to Rilan, filling him in on the situation. Rhys dialed Miranda.

“I can see you,” she murmured.

“Did you see Soren take Enza?” Rhys asked.

“Yeah. He did it while you were in the portal.” A sound clicked through the line as if she were tapping her manicured nails on the table top. “But you knew that as soon as you walked in.”

“Did he…hurt her?” Rhys had to know.

“He just stabbed the one guy—Antonio? And then ran for her and opened the portal. And in they went. He didn’t waste any time.”

That was good and bad. Though glad Soren hadn’t harmed Enza physically, he had moved too fast. Rhys closed his eyes. He could imagine the terror that Enza felt…wait, he
had
felt it. The insane pounding need to get to her, to rush out without thinking it through…that wasn’t Rhys. Not his usual pattern of behavior. He had thought it was due to his growing attraction to her, but what if it was more than he’d ever imagined?

He’d
felt
her fear.

Holy shit. That meant…

“Rhys?” Miranda said. “You okay?”

“Not fucking close,” he growled. “But thanks for your help. We’re going to Torth.”

“To Splinter?” Wariness edged her voice. “Do you need me?”

“Yes, to Splinter. And we’ve got this one covered. The three of us—”

“Jude’s downstairs. Coming up,” Tor said.

“Four of us,” Rhys said to Miranda. “Plus we might get a team of Watchers from HQ. I don’t want you to get hurt over this shit.”