rylee adamson 10 - blood of the lost (2 page)

CHAPTER 1

RYLEE

I KNELT ON THE edge of the grave, staring into the six-foot hole, and wondered if it would be me in the dirt the next time we faced
Orion
. We’d wrapped
Milly
’s body in one of
Giselle
’s quilts—the one with the blue and yellow triangles that had been on Milly’s bed when she’d lived with Giselle and me. I brushed a hand over the quilt. Years, so many years we’d been friends and sisters . . . and now she was gone.

Taking a handful of dirt, I held it over the grave, and let it sift through my fingers. “Be at peace, Milly. Wait for me on the other side, my friend.”

A hand touched my shoulder and I knew without looking it was Lark. She was the one we’d been fighting to free only hours before. Lark was an elemental tied to the earth and the final key to taking out Orion once and for all.

“Are you ready for me to cover her?” she asked.

I stood, nodded, and stepped back from the edge. Lark held her hands out and waved them across the front of her body in a single smooth motion. The pile of dirt beside the open grave slid into the hole with a sound not unlike rushing water. The cascading patter of pebbles and dirt hitting the quilt, covering Milly, was too much and I stumbled backward. A set of muscular arms caught me.

Liam
, or
Faris
(depending who was in charge of the body they currently shared), held me against his chest. “She truly did love you,
Rylee
. And she wanted you to succeed against Orion. That is something to hang on to.”

Again, all I could do was nod as tears slipped down my face. But I was not the only one grieving. Beside Milly’s grave was a second hole. One for
Frank
, the young necromancer, nephew to
Agent Valley
, and most recently,
Pamela
’s first love.

Pamela sat beside Frank’s body, touching his hair, smoothing it back as tears wet her face. I sat on the grass beside her.

“Pam, it’s time.”

“I know.” She hiccupped a sob back. “I think I loved him a little. Is it bad to say I didn’t love him a lot?”

I slid an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to my side. “No, it isn’t bad. You were both young. Loving him at all is a blessing, I think.”

Lark
crouched on the other side of Pam, her dark brown leather vest and khaki pants blending with the soil piled to the side. “Rylee is right. Love is a blessing.”

“He died because of love,” Pamela spit out, and I felt her anger rising like a living creature inside her.

I tightened my hold on her. “Yes. The same as I would lay down my life for any of you. Love makes you bold in ways you might not ever be otherwise. Like you tackling Orion when he came for me. You saved my life almost at the cost of your own.”

Seconds ticked by, and slowly, she began to lean into me, her body sagging as the anger in her eased. “It hurts so badly, though. He was too young.”

I looked over her to Lark. Like me, Lark’s eyes were not normal in any way, shape, or form. One was gold, the other green. Unblinking, she gave me a tight nod.

The time for grieving was over; we had a world to save and a demon to stop.

“Pamela, it will get better. Right now, though, we have to go. We have three days before
Erik
gets here with
Marcella
and
Zane
. Three days to kill Orion and make him pay for everything he’s done to us.”

Her body tensed. She leaned forward and kissed Frank gently on the lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t love you more, Frank. But thank you for fighting for me. For saving me when you didn’t have to.”

She stood and stepped back, brushing my arm off her shoulders. Holding her hand out, she wove her magic around Frank and lifted him into the air, carefully lowering him into the hole Lark created. “Goodbye, Frank.”

Lark held her hand out, but Pamela beat her to it, shifting the dirt into the hole. The elemental stared at Pam. “You have a lot of our blood running through your veins. After this is done, would you consider training with me?”

Pamela blinked at her. “But I’m a witch.”

Lark laughed softly. “All supernaturals are derived from elementals. Our bloodlines mixed with the humans and we got witches, Trackers, Readers, Harpies.” She waved her hand in the air as if to envelope everything.

I’d suspected something along those lines, but hearing it outright and from an elemental. . . .

And the Blood of the Lost?
I wanted her to say. Maybe even needed her to say.

“Spirit Elemental blood is the most formidable in many ways.” Lark let out a sigh before going on. “It boosts the powers already inherent to a bloodline. Whatever the powers are. In your case, Rylee, it made you a Tracker. All Trackers carry Blood of the Lost.”

“Which is just another word for a Spirit Elemental?” Pamela asked.

The three of us walked across the yard toward Giselle’s home,
Peta
following at Lark’s heels. Looking like an ordinary gray and white housecat, she was Lark’s familiar. She could shift into the form of a snow leopard when needed which was rather handy at times. Since they’d been reunited, Peta hadn’t left Lark’s side.

Lark nodded. “Yes, in a way. The other elemental families wiped out the Spirit Elementals because they were so strong, and able to manipulate things to their will. After they were hunted down, there was a little of their blood here and there, diluted at best. Except in a few cases. Rylee and I are the last of our bloodline.”

My feet froze to the ground. “
Our
bloodline?”

Lark glanced at me. “Yes. Do you not realize we are related?”

My eyes about dropped out of my fucking head. “How?”

She frowned, thinking hard. “I’m not sure where exactly our ties are, but I think you are a cousin. My mother’s brother had one child with a human. Your grandmother is my understanding. So, yes, we are cousins.”

Too much information all at once for me, yet I had a feeling there was a reason behind this sudden deluge. “Why are you telling me this now?”

Her mouth quirked upward into a big smile. “Final confession. We are going to war, Rylee. If I die, I want to make sure you know exactly what you are. We are the last two.”

I shook my head, chills rippling through me. “No, not the last. I have a daughter.”

Lark’s eyes flashed wide and then she laughed. “Then that is a blessing. Our story won’t end if we die. She will carry it forward for us.”

Pamela gave a huff. “Rylee isn’t dying.”

I couldn’t help the warm fuzzies that flickered through me. I stopped on the threshold of the door and looked into the backyard at those left standing with me against Orion.

Blaz
, his wings healed by Pamela, was the first who caught my attention. His eyes found mine and my connection to him told me he was incredibly happy.

You’d be happy too if you went from not being able to walk ever again to being put back together.

“I know,” I said softly.

Berget
stood quietly off to one side of Blaz, her bright blonde hair catching the last of the starlight as it faded. My sister, the one I’d fought so hard for, had her happy ending. Though she was a vampire, she was no longer under the thrall of those who controlled her. A gentle laugh rolled from her lips and
Eve
squawked a laugh in response.

Eve and
Marco
sat by each other. They were quite possibly the last two Harpies left in the world, and yet they came with us even if it meant the extinction of their species. They knew the stakes.

Then there was
Charlie
with his peg leg and unfailingly-cheery attitude, despite being taken prisoner by Orion and almost killed. The brownie stood barely three feet in height, yet he would fight at my side.

Cactus
, Lark’s best friend, and a fire elemental. While he was powerful, he’d been hidden away from the world for a long time. His imprisonment meshed with what had happened to Lark, and why she’d been confined in the oubliette for so many years. Yet he, too, was here, ready to fight to the death.

The newest and oldest of my friends was the six-foot-plus gangly teenager with jet black hair and golden eyes. He glanced at me.

Alex
.

If I squinted and looked at him with my second sight, I could see the werewolf he’d been, trapped between forms until Pamela healed him. He grinned at me, a wide, white-toothed grin, and gave me two thumbs up, mouthing two words.

Yuppy doody.

God, I loved him. He was my heart, like the brother and best friend I’d always wanted rolled into one goofy, show-stealing, hairy bundle.

Then there was Liam. The first and only love of my life.

His spirit was trapped in Faris’s body, until they found a way to separate. And yet if they did, he might be lost to me forever. He stood beside Alex, talking about something quietly. But like Alex, he felt my gaze and looked my way, blue eyes rimmed with silvery gold filled with a heat so strong I had to turn away in order to keep it together.

Until it was only Liam, I couldn’t look at him with the same heat. Faris was a beautiful man, and while he held Liam’s spirit in his body, the temptation was too fucking great. Fucking being the word, indeed.

I thought of our friends on the other side of the water in England, waiting for word from us.
Doran
,
Will
,
Deanna
,
India
,
Louisa
,
Crystal
,
Calliope
, and
Mer
amongst the last of the supernaturals. All waiting for me to give the battle cry. Time to lay down their lives in the hopes I stopped Orion.

No pressure.

Pamela touched my arm, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Where do we go from here? Do you know?”

I let out a slow breath and would have answered, but Lark interrupted. “We have one more team member to add to this ragtag group before we go any further.”

That was news to me.

“We do?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, and he’s on the West Coast, so I suggest we get moving.”

Of course he was on the West Coast—the opposite side of the continent. “How important is he?” Pamela asked.

Lark looked from her to me. “He will help Rylee decide if she’s going to live or die in the battle with Orion. So I’d say pretty damn important.”

Well, hell. That certainly changed things.

CHAPTER 2

LIAM/FARIS

HE STOOD BY Alex, still struggling to believe the kid was no longer trapped as a werewolf. “You think you can shift?”

Alex gave a shrug. “I think so. But I’m kinda freaked out by the idea of trying. What if I get trapped again?”

Faris pushed his way forward and took over. “You remember anything from when you were stuck?”

Alex tipped his head to one side. “No, seems like I went to sleep and had really vivid dreams. Now I’ve woken and the dreams are over.”

“It’ll be like that again. The people around you—Rylee—will suffer more than you.”

The once-submissive wolf glared at him. “That’s got be Faris talking.”

Liam took back control and drew in a deep breath, scenting the air. Faris didn’t like when Liam ran the show, but they’d come to a basic understanding. Until the shit with Orion was done, they would have to work together, handing off the reins if one of them would deal better with things than the other. In this case, Liam knew he was better off dealing with Alex. “You don’t smell submissive anymore. I think you should try now. You try when you’re in a situation where it’s do or die and you might—”

“Die,” Alex finished with a nod. “Okay, here goes. Tell Rylee I’m sorry if I can’t shift back.” He slipped out of his clothes, a lopsided grin on his face. “For after.”