Crest (Ondine Quartet Book 3) (33 page)

Thirty. Thirty-five.

Air burned in my chest, ribs heaved, trying to keep up with my demands.

I raced into the office, almost tripping over Jesse's body.

Lifeless eyes glared up at me, torso ripped apart as if an Aquidae had shoved his hand straight through his stomach. An arm and foot lay a few feet away.

Cam and Alex crouched beside a bloody mess and it took a few moments to recognize him. A huge gash cut across Ethan's chest and shredded skin hung in flaps. Jeeves was attempting to staunch the flood of crimson blood.

Julian and Blaise propped Matt against the wall. His eyes were glassy, torso strangely twisted.

"We have to go. Now."

Whatever Jeeves saw in my face pushed him into action. He wrapped his arms around Ethan.

"Get our pilot."

One minute. One-ten. One-fifteen.

We needed Healers. We had to get back within the wards.

He huddled in the corner with hunched shoulders, staring at his father's dismembered arm.

"Lucas!"

He didn't respond. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him once. "Lucas! Listen to me!"

Hollow eyes met mine.

"Can you fly?"

No response.

One-forty. One-forty-five.

Finally, a jerky nod.

GRIEF AND TERROR WERE INEXTRICABLY intertwined.

Like the humans Jeeves spoke with, we fashioned our own monsters, nightmares our minds couldn't fathom. We lived, terrified, of the horrors we created.

But we mistook the nature of fear.

Because fear didn't stem from monsters. It was rooted in what monsters could take from you.

Dignity. Control or power. A sense of security. Someone you love. Your life.

And when those nightmares turned into reality, grief from the resulting loss inevitably accompanied the terror.

It was why my mother raised me apart from others. Those who had nothing to lose, had nothing to fear.

But true hell surpassed any nightmare you could imagine.

It was friends frantically trying to hold Ethan's skin together. It was the haunted eyes of elites suddenly thrust into battle and realizing their education and training meant nothing. It was making a fourteen-year-old pilot a plane carrying his brother's broken body with the image of his father's disemboweled torso burned into his mind.

It meant living with the overwhelming, helpless realization that something should not have happened.

Cam, Alex, and Blaise sat beside Ethan, hands stained red, movements marked with desperation.

Julian and I kept Matt as immobile as possible. I murmured nonsensical things, attempting to find adequate sounds for an unimaginable situation.

Daniel and two dozen of Tristan's top selkies lined up on the palace pier. Lucas struggled with the controls and the seaplane dipped and jerked.

It took a few failed attempts before we managed to land awkwardly in the water.

They silently whisked Matt, Lucas, and Ethan to the infirmary, carefully avoiding unwanted attention.

And now we waited.

An hour, then two, passed in silence. Someone brought us water. A few selkies drifted in and out.

Lucas remained sedated in one of the rooms. Jeeves went directly to Rhian and Tristan to deal with the details necessary to keep this a secret from the rest of the conference.

"What happened?" I finally asked, voice hoarse.

Cam sat on the ground, knees pulled tight to his chest. "I don't know. One moment we were talking and the next Aquidae were crawling in."

"Matt was closest to the door. He was thrown against the far wall and couldn't get back up," Blaise said.

"Jesse yelled at us to get Lucas and Matt to the safe room." Alex stared at his hands. "Blaise grabbed Lucas. Cam and I dragged Matt." He swallowed. "I thought Ethan was with Blaise."

"Ethan ran to help Jesse. Three of them were coming after us and we had to shut the door. We saw everything on the monitors..." Cam stopped.

A terrible silence descended, heavy with horror and regret.

"Protecting the humans was the right move," I said quietly.

Cam's head dropped onto his arms.

"She's right," Julian said. "There was nothing more you could do."

They'd been defenseless, without
kouperets
or back-up. First priority would've been to evade and protect the vulnerable.

But saying that didn't change how they felt.

The door opened and Daniel stepped out.

"Ethan pulled through." He pulled his wire-rimmed glasses off and rubbed his eyes. Weariness cut into every inch of his being. "Healers knitted his skin back together, but there will be permanent scars."

From a distant place, I heard myself ask, "And Matt?"

He shook his head, eyes wide and sad. "I'm sorry."

Cam slammed his foot against a chair. Alex leaned against the wall, face frozen with grief. Blaise sank to the floor, shoulders hunched, eyes bright with fury.

Over the past year, I'd slowly come to terms with the fact I couldn't save everyone. No one could.

But this shouldn't have happened.

There'd been no protection, no safeguards put into place.

I left, unable to stay in that room any longer. The corridor stretched, lush with every imaginable beauty from nature and man.

But all of it smeared with the colors of blood and war.

Julian joined me.

"Do you think they were after me?" I murmured.

The thought haunted my mind from the moment I'd sensed the Aquidae.

"No. They didn't see your aura when they attacked. They knew you weren't in there."

"Then why?" I stopped, remembering the Aquidae I chased. "One of them had a package."

"Maybe it wanted some of that expensive Redavi skin cream," he said coolly. "Look. There is no why. You know it's always been this way. There's nothing any of us could do. Aquidae attack. We did our jobs. That's it."

The garden gleamed with early afternoon light, a far cry from the grey mists of the morning. Once again, the world had shifted in a matter of hours.

Bad things happened to good people. Like Matt. Marcella and Gabe. Ryder. No rhyme or reason behind it.

But some part of me believed there was. And if I could just find that reason, that connective thread behind all these death and violence, I could change it.

It fueled my hunt for the traitor and the Shadow; it was what made me believe this war could end.

Pain twisted in the pit of my stomach. "How can you say it like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like it's something removed from us. It's not just about doing our jobs, LeVeq." A tumultuous wave of emotions surged, accelerating toward the surface. "Lucas lost his family. He saw what happened to his father! And Ethan's torn up —"

"That's part of the risk of this war and of working with the selkies."

"They had no
kouperets
, no training, no magical protection. Nothing."

Julian shrugged. "So take it up with Prince Selkie. He seems to have a hard time taking care of people."

Anger trembled. "Right. Only you could make it personal at a time like this."

His eyes flashed. "Hey, don't take it out on me when your perfect Warrior Prince screwed up. Don't you get it? It doesn't matter that Jesse and his sons are humans. Being part of our world immediately made them victims —"

"So just walk away? That's your answer for everything?"

"Sometimes the simplest solution is the correct one," he said carelessly. "Gabe had it right. Maybe I should just —"

I moved.

Fist cracked hard against his jaw. For the first time, I caught Julian off guard.

He stumbled back with a shocked expression.

"Don't you dare compare yourself to Gabe." My voice sounded like ground glass. "He lost someone irreplaceable, someone he sacrificed his human life for."

Loss stabbed my chest and my vision swam.

I missed my uncle and aunt. I missed my friend, the Julian who didn't keep demanding things I couldn't give. I missed being with Tristan without useless longing getting in the way.

Loneliness pressed in, an ache more familiar than any other emotion in my life.

"Gabe loved Marcella." Just saying the words hurt. "He cared about his family, his friends. He cared about you! He knew who he fought for every single day."

It was also why he'd left.

I wished I'd been enough of a reason for Gabe to stay. But losing Marcella had taken away the why behind his fight.

"You talk about leaving like it's something as casual as the glamour you pick for the day. You don't understand what it means, LeVeq."

He stood slowly and rubbed his jaw. "Wrong. I do know."

A wave of exhaustion suddenly washed over me and I slumped against the wall.

"When have you ever fought for anything hard enough to know what loss means?"

Solemn eyes held mine. "I'm looking at her."

***

Fujio stood near the door, arms wrapped around his lean body. Strain tightened his expression.

Stars glittered across the sky's midnight tapestry. Aubrey, Ian, and Chloe gathered near the window and solemnly took in the striking view.

Tristan paced in front of the fireplace, choosing again to be active rather than sedate behind his desk. He'd given me a long, slow look when I came in as if to make sure I was okay.

Dark eyes had reflected grief and regret. I'd wanted to reach out, offer some form of comfort. But the others had come in and the royal mask slipped into place.

Rhian settled beside Jeeves on the couch. "Where's Head Chevalier LeVeq?"

"He left to see what he could find out about the Aquidae."

Jeeves glanced at me but he didn't say anything else.

After our confrontation earlier, Julian had once again thrown himself into the most dangerous situation he could find.

Worry twisted my stomach. He was alone and I'd sensed so many of them.

Tristan abruptly stopped pacing. "A team of my men is with him."

I leaned against his desk and met his gaze. "Still dangerous."

A small group of selkies wouldn't stand a chance against that number of Aquidae. And sending out a large team of gardinels and chevaliers would raise suspicion among the delegates.

Only gardinels, elites, and a few individuals Tristan trusted knew what happened today. All had been ordered to keep it from conference attendees. Panic was the last thing we needed.

"They've been instructed to provide Julian with total support," he said quietly. "He'll be safe."

I nodded, gratitude briefly warming my chest. Regardless of their differences, Tristan had protected him.

Weariness pinched Rhian's face. "Are they going to attack?"

"The first human sighting of possible Aquidae occurred three weeks ago," Jeeves said. "Before the start of the conference."

"So why wait?" There'd been plenty of time to attack, especially once delegates arrived. "And why go after Jesse and his family?"

Earlier, I'd suspected the package they took had something to do with it. But Tristan had installed strict security protocols for the conference and no one reported anything missing. For all we knew, the Aquidae had it on him before the attack.

"Maybe they waited until everyone arrived before eliminating our only means of escape." Ian's face darkened. "Besides Lucas, who else can pilot a plane?"

"Julian."

Surprised, I glanced at Jeeves.

"One of the skills he learned on previous missions," he added.

"So we have two pilots." Ian slid an arm around Aubrey's waist and pulled her closer. "And two planes."

Jeeves shook his head. "One plane. Julian took one when he headed out."

Three hundred and ten delegates and over one hundred chevaliers were currently in the kingdom.

It'd take a significant amount of time to gather outside help and bring in enough pilots and planes to evacuate everyone.

Chloe shivered and Aubrey leaned closer to Ian. Understanding settled over all of us.

We were temporarily trapped.

Shapeshifting selkies could swim away. Ondines who knew how to connect magic with water like I did also had a chance to escape. But we'd be as vulnerable underwater as the dessondines.

Demillirs were physically stronger than humans, but lacked magic. They couldn't travel underwater. Ian, a nix, was also stuck.

"I can hold off the Council and delegates for a little while longer. But questions are starting to be asked." Rhian took a small sip of water. Her hand shook slightly.

Fujio leaned against the wall, mouth set in a grim line. "What have you learned about the traitor, Kendra?"

I took a deep breath. "Nothing."

The admission left a bitter taste in my mouth. But the traitor was like the Shadow, an elusive ghost flitting through darkness.

"The presence of Aquidae and the traitor's presence at the conference can't be a coincidence," Fujio said.

I nodded in agreement.

Rhian's voice turned steely. "You must hurry. There's not much time left."

Until Aquidae attacked? Until elementals realized I was a Governor-elect with no clue of what she was doing?

Or until she passed?

Focus
.

"It would help if I could narrow the field of possibilities."

"What do you mean?" Chloe said.

Nexa's words reverberated through my mind.

Every action is driven by motive.

"We don't know why these ondines are being killed." I leaned back and rubbed my face. "Why these victims?"

"When the murders began, we tried to find a connecting thread." Fujio shook his head. "But they didn't know each other and nothing in particular stood out about them. The only similarities are their status and ages. Mated, or about to be mated, Redavi between eighteen and twenty-three."

Somber determination lined Chloe's delicate face. Aubrey played with the sleeve covering her prosthesis, brows furrowed in concentration.

A terrible fear slithered through me. The traitor was targeting Redavi ondines close to our age.

Warm hand suddenly covered mine.

"They were all first-borns," Ian told me.

Relief trickled down my spine. Aubrey and Chloe were the second child in their families.