Crest (Ondine Quartet Book 3) (53 page)

Patrice's fingers trembled. "Augustin."

"Our son is out there."

"Not by my choice."

"No." Jeeves leaned forward and gently held her shaking hand. "By his."

She swallowed. "I can't."

We were running out of time.

"Please, Patrice." His voice was barely audible. "We need your help."

For a long moment, they stared at each other. Years of hurt and terrible sadness filled the space between them.

"All right," she whispered. "All right."

Jeeves glanced at me. "
Sondaleur
, I'll take it from here."

We stepped out. Carousing music, tinkling glasses, and animated conversation immediately wrapped us up in a surreal bubble of obliviousness.

The crash of tumbling stones thundered through the air.

Revelers paused. Music diminished into the background.

Another smash vibrated between the walls followed by the unmistakable crack of gunshot.

A few Redavi screamed.

The Aquidae had breached the palace.

"Go!"

Everyone snapped into action.

Rhian sought out the other teleports. Jeeves strode into the party to organize the evacuation. His hand still held Patrice's, as if afraid she'd change her mind if he let go.

By the time I reached the palace entrance, the initial sounds of battle had gained intensity.

Three Aquidae raced up the slope toward the palace.

Dagger in hand, I charged down to meet them.

Virtue awakened. The blaze of controlled energy whipped through my body and electrified every sense.

I melted into the moment, let my body sink into the speed and power born from hours and years of practice.

Pure exhilaration flooded my veins. I felt alive.

Left
.

Arm cleaved at a sharp angle, tearing through flesh in one smooth stroke. Black blood painted the blade.

Aquidae crumpled, chest flayed open.

Turn
.

Blade thrust into its heart. In one fluid motion, I freed the dagger and drove it through the Origin with surgical precision.

Right
.

I whirled, catching the leaping Aquidae in the air. Blade sliced across its calves and into its neck before it hit the ground.

Reverse
.

Aquidae lunged. I feinted to the left and spun, kick smashing its chest. Dagger carved up its back, stabbed the Origin.
 

I kept running.

A group of chevaliers and gardinels held the line on the south shore beneath the promontory.

The problem was the north shore.

Underwater perimeter was overrun. Demons rose from the sea and dashed forward, hurtling their way toward the palace.

Several gardinels tried to hold them back, but too many were getting through.

I cut down two more demons before arriving at the top of the gravel bed.

Whoever made it through the gardinels would now have to go through me.

Water shivered. Rippling surface, flashes of pale white magic, and swirling crimson-black colors hinted at the fierce violence taking place below.

From the very beginning, the demons' behavior didn't make sense. Why would hundreds of Aquidae suddenly launch an attack against a palace full of gardinels? Simply because of the conference?

But they'd waited along the perimeter of the kingdom, eluding detection for weeks.

They must've been waiting for something. What?

Air shifted behind me.

Blade drove back, catching the Aquidae in the gut. Two more strikes and it dropped.

A familiar figure joined me to hold the line.

"I figured out what was wrong with that painting." Black blood smeared across Julian's hands and shirt. "The Matisse near the palace entrance."

He ducked, easily avoiding a sloppy punch by the Aquidae on his right.

Only he could possibly be thinking about a painting at a time like this.

Kouperet
flashed, gouging out a chunk of flesh over its ribs.

It roared. The demonic sound abruptly cut off when Julian staked it.

"What's wrong with it?"

An Aquidae slipped out of a gardinel's grasp and streaked toward me. Dark haired, middle-aged, stained jeans, and flannel shirt. Somewhat familiar.

"It's a fake," he said. "I saw the original about five years ago at a private collection in Paris. It was the slightest detail about the red near the top."

The Aquidae neared.

Where had I seen him before?

It snarled and launched. Blade ripped across its throat. Black arterial spray spattered against my skin.

I dropped and rolled aside, dodging its body as it fell.

Dagger pierced its Origin and I remembered. Creepy guy at the bar where we picked up Jeeves.

Guess the monsters in the forest had gotten to him.

Julian lunged,
kouperet
ripping through an upper thigh. "Seems like the Selkie Palace got some fakes."

Now that he mentioned it, that was odd. The kingdom was renowned for its wealth, privacy, and impeccable taste.

A group of five Aquidae slipped past the selkies.

I mentally shook myself and sank back into the relentless rhythm of battle.

Left, right, left, left. Thrust, stab, kick, spin.

A thread was missing, something woven beneath the violence that tied every death together.

Figuring out the traitor was more important than forged artwork...

Wait.

Mind spun. Pieces clicked into place.

One step forward or backward could shift an entire perspective.

New York. Here. Layers of illusion sweeping away.

Our job as Empaths is to uncover the hidden shades that color the water's depths.

We'd been blinded by the deaths, focused on seeing only what he wanted us to see.

What if the deaths were one big misdirection? What if the real target was someone else?

The past belongs to all of us.

"LeVeq." I slammed my blade into an Origin, whipped around and staked the other Aquidae regenerating behind me. "Was your cousin in love?"

"What?" He kicked away the corpse slumped near his leg.

I grabbed him by the shoulders. "The one who was killed. Was she in love with her mate? Was it a real binding, not an arranged one?"

Confusion slipped into his eyes. "Yeah."

"Kendra!"

Ian ran down the slope toward us, face tight and pale with pure panic. "We know who it is!"

But he didn't need to tell me.

I knew who the traitor was. And the real target.

THE WEST WING WAS STILL.

I stepped through the door, dagger loosely gripped in my hand.

Soft ivory light spilled through the tall window. The traitor stood, back to me, watching the battle below.

"It's over."

The person responsible for so much grief, who had betrayed and destroyed so many lives over the years, turned to face me.

Helene was pressed tight against her chest. The tip of a dagger cut into her neck, leaving a thin line of blood.

"Kendra." Her voice was as sweet and pleasant as if she were asking me over for tea. "How pleasant to see you."

Yahaira smiled, her eyes glittering with insanity in the darkened room.

Helene's gaze darted over to the side table. A faded book rested on the polished wood.

"It was never about the ondines." I kept my eyes on Yahaira. "You were really after Tristan."

Moonlight bathed the book spine.
Lores of the Old World
.

"Well, those girls did deserve it. They didn't accept the binding their parents took the trouble to arrange. What do they know of love when they reject the love of a parent?" She sighed. "They needed to be punished."

It was why she'd disliked Catrin so strongly. Yahaira couldn't understand how she could've let Renee go.

Helene's eyes widened, frantic insistence gleaming in their depth.

Rifling through my memories, I struggled to place why the book was familiar.

Icy realization gripped my heart.

The book from Peter Schlusser's store that told the legend of a spear.

The missing delivery in New York.

Customs report listed a dart from a village in southern France.

Heartbeat accelerated. Dart could be another term for a spear.

A beautiful spear bound with powerful magic. The spear became poisonous only to the object of that love.
 
A creature that could travel both water and land.

Aquidae had taken a long package from Jesse's office.

Fear slammed into my chest. I had to make sure.

"Sian gave you her security password."

Yahaira shrugged. "She's a good girl."

No. She just didn't suspect her mother was out of her mind.

"But those ondines weren't who you really wanted to punish," I said flatly. "Isn't it Ancelin you hate?"

Two dark shadows silently slipped out of the bedroom behind Yahaira.

Empath sensed the viperous hatred slithering through her. It was the same thread I'd sensed on our first day here.

"I was to be Queen. I should've been Queen."

Malice tinged her voice. Sweet exterior peeled away leaving the rotten core behind.

I met Helene's eyes. Then glanced down at her feet.

"But he fell in love with someone else."

Helene stopped struggling, eyes wide with understanding.

"Eleri was no one, a stupid selkie no better than the basest reptile." Yahaira's face contorted with rage. "Ancelin was a fool. Oh, how he preened over Eric, his beloved first-born! He promised him to my
Sianne
as if that could ever possibly make up for the injustice done to me."

Sick realization set in. "So you gave Eric up."

Yahaira laughed, a brutal sound of fury.

Get ready
, I mouthed to Helene. Shadows drew closer.

"You should have seen Ancelin when he found out his brilliant son had turned into the thing he hated most in this world!" Greedy pleasure seeped into her eyes. "Seeing his world fall apart, his mate die from grief, one son dead, the other gone. This was justice."

She'd deceived everyone for so long. How many years had this rage festered?

The Shadow didn't need to turn her into a monster. She'd done that all on her own.

"Having the chandelier fall on you was clever."

Becoming a victim immediately took suspicion off her.

"I thought it was a touch dramatic but it ended up being highly effective." Her smile was savage. "It engineered our memorable first meeting."

"Some of our other meetings were more memorable."

"Oh?" She raised her brow. "Was it the time with the cookies? Or our lunch?"

"No." I smiled. "Like now."

Helene kicked back, putting every ounce of her thirteen-year-old body behind it.

Yahaira flinched at the solid contact against her shin. In one smooth motion, Julian yanked her dagger arm forward. Ian swiped his palm across her arm, leaving behind a trail of crimson blood.

Helene dropped to the ground and Ian yanked her to safety.

Yahaira struggled against Julian's grip but Ian's nix blood, which already sank into her skin, suppressed her selkie strength. She was no stronger than an average human female.

Julian bound her hands behind her with Essence-infused steel handcuffs. Unbreakable even once her magic came back.

I stepped forward. "I promised I'd find you."

She stopped struggling and straightened, appearing regal despite the captivity. "I knew you would. Eventually."

"You've already hurt Ancelin through Eric. Why Tristan?"

"The Warrior Prince turned her down. He had to be punished for his rejection, just as his father was punished for his."

"So you go in search of a mythical weapon?" I shook my head. "Overkill, don't you think?"

"Oh, no." She shook her head. "I could never have come up with something like this without Him. He told me his New York Lieutenant received valuable information."

Julian tensed.

Yahaira smiled, a manic stretching of the lips. "The way to the
sondaleur
lay through the Prince. And that if I found this weapon, we would both get what we want."

So she'd worked together with the Shadow.

The murders both taunted me and gave her an outlet for inflicting her own twisted form of punishment. Using her connections through the New York Aquidae cell's forgery ring, they'd discovered the spear and had it shipped from Europe to Manhattan.

As Curator, she must've had a process for bringing artwork to the kingdom. And the first stop would've been Fredriksen Flyers.

"You attacked Jesse's office to get the spear."

Three Aquidae had attempted to penetrate the safe room. At the time, I'd thought it was because the others were in there.

But it was more than that.

"The second entrance leading to the treasury was in the safe room. That's how you transferred pieces to the vault. The Aquidae were supposed to get into that tunnel to bring you the spear."

She hadn't counted on the elites being there.

"Yes," she said in mock exasperation. "I had to make an extra trip to pick it up."

"Where is it?" My voice turned hard. "Where's the spear, Yahaira?"

"It's too late,
sondaleur
. The Shadow has come to exact his price from you. Your beloved Warrior Prince is exactly like his father." Disgust spread across her face. "To turn my beautiful
Sianne
down and choose a lowly orphan like you —"

Julian yanked her arm hard and she cried out.

"Oops," he said icily. "Sorry about that."

Anger shot through me. The one right thing Yahaira did in her life, the one beautiful thing she'd created, was simply a means to achieve her own warped desires.

She had destroyed the best part of herself for the worst.

She wasn't worth a tenth of her daughter.

"You love Sian. Like Ancelin loves his sons. Loved Eric."

She spat. "Do not compare me to that fool. Sian is wise and just. She will be a worthy Queen."

"I agree. She would've been." I leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "Except you killed her."

Faint flicker of fear in her eyes. "What are you talking about?"