Blood Promise (A SkinWalker Novel #4) (A DarkWorld SkinWalker Novel) (44 page)

I nodded and watched him work, my heart thudding in time to the tapping of his fingers on the keys.

Only seconds went by before I began to stress. "How much longer?" I asked, needing to ask something, needing to know that we were going to succeed.

"Give me a minute," said Baz. "The cryo-process has already begun. Unplugging him now without being super-careful, may hurt him if not kill him."

I swallowed hard, and began to pray.
 

Then I turned to Mel. "Is it possible to transport him out of the room to safety?"

 
Mel nodded. "Yes, I could do that fairly easily as long as I don't have to transport the whole pod. I don't have the energy right now for such a huge jump."

Baz looked up. "You don't need to take the pod. As long as you take the wiring and the generator he will survive."

Before Mel could respond, the panel began counting down.

"Crap. You must have set something off."

Baz nodded, neither hurt nor insulted by my criticism. "Take him now."

I looked at Mel. "As soon as you leave him, come straight back for Lily."

She nodded. "You guys ready?"

Everyone nodded and Mel jumped. She disappeared from beside me and I saw her inside the pod with Logan for the briefest second.

And then they both disappeared.

A few minutes later Mel materialized again. "Lily, you can come and look after Logan for me?"

Lily gave me an odd look, but she didn't complain. Within seconds Mel transported her away. When she returned, her face was pale, blue veins dark at her temples.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded, waving the question off. "What's going on?" she asked.

Baz stowed his keyboard and got to his feet, his expression asking the same question.

"Anjelo." I found it hard to say his name. Just voicing it made me want to cry. "He's somewhere here in this facility. When I last saw him on the monitors in Storm's apartment, it didn't look good.

Mel nodded. "Let me go and have a look. I might be a few minutes because I have no idea how big the place is."

As she disappeared, I looked at Baz feeling like I need to say something. "Thank you so much. You have no idea how much your help has meant to us."

He just grinned. "It's a pleasure. You saved my life. I'll always be willing to help you."

I could feel my mind wanting to shut down. Fatigue, grief, relief and fear, not a very comfortable mix.

Mel reappeared before things got any more emotional. "I found him," she whispered, and held out her hands.
 

We materialized in a darkened room--a mirror of the one in which they'd been keeping Logan. The only difference was that Anjelo lay on a gurney--probably the same one I'd seen them take him away on--and there were no beeping machines.

My stomach tightened. "Are there any sensors in here?" I asked Baz softly.
 

He studied his laptop screen. Nodded. "But it doesn't matter now. The facility is empty. There's no sign of anyone around."

"Maybe they found out that Storm has been taken?" I suggested, reluctant to look at Anjelo. My panther sensors had heightened, and I could not detect a heartbeat.
 

No. Please, no.

I moved to the side of the gurney on legs that felt like wool and placed two fingers on Anjelo's neck. I didn't know why I was doing it.

His skin was cold against my shaking fingers. I wanted to flinch. I wanted to cry. We'd discovered too late that Storm taken him. We'd found out too late where he was.
 

He was gone.

This was my fault. I'd given priority to finding Logan and in the process I'd lost Anjelo.

"How long has he been dead?" asked Baz, staring at Angelo, eyes wide.

I shrugged, curling my shaking fingers into tight fists. But I couldn't hide the tremor in voice. "He's very cold. Maybe it's just the temperature of the room."

Was I trying to convince myself that he could still be alive?

"Someone came into the room," I said. "And unstrapped him, and took him away on a gurney. But I can't be sure that he was alive at that time."

"He could already have been dead when you were watching him being taken away." Mel was being reasonable.

I didn't want reasonable. It didn't make a difference to me now how long he'd been dead.

It only mattered that Anjelo was gone.

M
EL
TRANSPORTED
US
BACK
TO
my father's house, bringing Anjelo's body with us. He deserved a proper Panther funeral and we'd need to notify his mother. Stella Alvarez lived two doors down and often came by to help her alpha with his chores. I wasn't looking forward to telling her that I'd failed her.

That Anjelo had died on my watch.

We arrived in the kitchen, our shoes swishing in the water that covered the terra-cotta tiled floor. The cry-unit must have leaked all over the place, and I hoped it meant the freezing process was being reversed.

A trail of droplets led into the front hall and up the wooden staircase.

"Help me get him to the smaller lounge." I tipped my head up the hall trying not to look at Anjelo's unmoving face. He looked like he was sleeping, and my entire being wanted to scream out at the unfairness of it all.

Why Anjelo?

I forced myself to focus as Mel nodded and disappeared with Anjelo's body. She returned seconds later. "I've left him on one of the sofas. It didn't seem right to leave him on the floor."

I gave her a bleak nod and she responded with a weak smile. "I hate to desert you, but I really have to go now."

"Thank you, Mel," I said. Despite my lack of enthusiasm, I did mean it. "If you need me, I'm there."

Mel gave me a squeeze, a sad smile on her face. Then she disappeared.
 

The second she was gone I raced up the stairs leaving Baz to scurry after me.

Using my nose, I found they'd taken Logan to Greer's old room.
 

Dad and Iain glanced up from the side of the bed as I entered.

Dad gave me a sad smile. "The cryo-process had begun well before you found him. It can be reversed, but it will be more complicated."
 

He'd told me what I needed to know before I'd even asked the questions, and I was very grateful for that.

Lily sat at the foot of the bed watching Logan, her face pale. When she looked at me, I froze at her expression. The color in her eyes faded as she studied me.

I had no idea how I was going to break the news to Lily. And at this point I wasn't strong enough. Selfish, yes, but I just couldn't do it right now. I shifted my gaze, not ready to launch into that conversation as yet.

I moved to the side of the bed and stood beside my father and brother. Logan still had tubes running into him and the small generator groaned beside him.

"We need to find someone to help us bring him back," I whispered.

"Don't worry. We've got it covered."

I looked up at Dad, frowning.
 

His eyes were dark. "It can be reversed, Kai. I'll figure it out."

I pressed my cheek against his shoulder. "I had no idea you were scientifically minded, Dad."
 

He snorted. "Your uncle Niko wasn't the only scientist in our family."

I raised my eyebrows. "You're a scientist?" How in
Ailuros'
name did I not know that?

Dad nodded, unaware of my surprise "I used to work at Sentinel in their labs. It's where I met your mother. I still have enough gray cells left to figure this out."

My father was a geek. "I'm so not impressed with all the secrets."
 

"You'll get used to it."

I didn't have the strength to fight with my father. And I didn't want to search out my Mom either. I knew I'd break into a thousand pieces the moment I saw her.
 

I suppressed a sigh and asked, "How are the twins and Baz?"

"Twins are asleep and Baz is trying to crack that flash drive of Grams. Their all fine."

I managed a grateful smile then motioned for Lily to follow me.

As I headed down the stairs and out of the house, I felt her following a few paces behind. Her silence hurt but I didn't stop until I got to the gazebo outside.

Dad had built the little house for Greer, but Greer had never used it because she hadn't been given what
she'd
wanted. Instead, it'd become a place for me to run away to.

I took a seat on one of the wooden benches inside the gazebo and suppressed a shiver. I'd been so focussed on the need to talk to Lily that I'd forgotten how cold it was getting.

Soon it would snow. It would be beautiful. And yet I knew that I would find no beauty in this winter.

Lily sat down beside me. She sat very close, as if she knew that she'd be needing me, or perhaps she sensed that I'd be needing her more.

"Did you find Anjelo?" she asked softly.

I nodded even though she was staring at her hands, folded in her lap. "He must have come looking for you," I said.

Her lips trembled. "I was afraid of that."

My arm shook as I placed it around her. "I'm sorry, Lily."
 

She looked up at me, her eyes filling with tears. "What happened?"

"I don't know. We bought his body here. There's no indication of what they were trying to do to him." I didn't add that we hadn't had time to remove the papery hospital gown from his body and inspect him for wounds.

"How long has he been dead?"

"It's hard to tell. But it maybe a day or two."

Lily laughed softly. "I thought I was dreaming." Shook her head. "He must have already passed into the Graylands yesterday."

What
? I frowned. "Why would you think that?"

"Because he came to me." Lily sent me a watery smile "I thought I was dreaming. But now that I know he's dead, I know that he'd come to visit me."

I shook my head, not wanting to believe what she was saying. "I'll get Nerina. Maybe she can help us find out what happened to him."

Lily smiled. "It's too late, Kai. We'd only be able to talk to him if we went to the Graylands."

"Nerina would still be able to find him." My body shuddered as I tried to suppress the sobs rising within me. "Even in the Graylands. She'd be able to tell us if he's okay."

"He's dead." Her tone was tired and it made me want to burst into tears. "How okay do you think he'll be, considering he's dead?"

She had a point. But Nerina would be able to tell us if he'd passed on.
 

I held Lily close, pushed my grief away. "Tell me what you want to do, Lily. Whatever you want, I'll do it."

She looked up at me and slid an arm around my waist.
 

"Leave him be, Kai. He came to see me already and now I know that he's gone, I can handle his visits better." She smiled. "If he wants to tell us something, he'll find a way. Just leave him in peace."

I blinked away my tears.
 

Anjelo a ghost? I didn't want to think about what that meant both for him and for Lily. Would she ever be able to move on when Anjelo lingered in our world? Would I? How would I face him should he ever visited me?

I didn't want to think about it. Instead, I thought about Lily. I put both my arms around her. The warmth of her closeness made the shaking in my limbs go away, and right that moment I needed to not fall apart.

"When did you go and get all smart on me?" I asked her softly.

Lily didn't answer. She wept. She wept and I held her close.

We would both grieve for Anjelo.

And in the meantime, I'd be joining the High Council's Elite Corp. Maybe with their power behind me, I could make a real difference.

And I would wait for Logan to come back to me.