Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) (6 page)

“Better hope the
council doesn’t get a whiff of this plan,” Charlotte said
once we’d finished going over everything. “Especially
your part.”

“Times have
changed,” I said. “We have, too, and they need to get
used to it. Besides, with them, it’s better to ask forgiveness
than permission.”

“You don’t
need to ask anyone for permission or forgiveness,” she replied.
“You just need to be prepared for some backlash.”

I snickered. The sass
she’d just given to me was nothing compared to how the council,
and probably many Amadis, would react, but that was okay. In fact, it
was all part of my and Tristan’s overall plan.

I placed my hands on my
hips, jutting one to the side as I looked at the faces of my team
members. “I’ll say it right now, so it doesn’t come
as a surprise at tomorrow’s meeting.
You
guys are my
council members. There are some of Rina’s who I will keep, like
Solomon. But anyone who gives me backlash for doing what I’m
supposed to do—for protecting the Amadis and the Normans—and
doesn’t like
how
I do it, well, then, I don’t need
them. This is war, and we are going to
fight
, not stand around
like a bunch of pussycats.” I paused as my gaze fell on the
were-tiger, then quickly added, “No offense, Sheree.”

“None taken,”
she said with a small smile.

“There may be
casualties,” I continued. “God forbid, but we might
actually have to kill people, and maybe not just Daemoni. Not when
they have the Normans turned against us.”

“This is no
longer a gentleman’s war,” Tristan said from beside me,
succinctly saying what I’d been trying to iterate. “The
secrets are out. The Normans are more involved in our war than they’d
ever been before in the history of mankind. It’s going to be
bloody, and it’s going to get very ugly.”

“And whether we
like it or not, we’re going to get as bloody and ugly as we
need to if it means stopping the Daemoni,” I said. “We
will
not
let them take over this world.”

“Cheers to that.”
Char pretended to lift a glass to us.

“You know you’re
preaching to the choir?” Owen asked.

I nodded. “Yeah,
well, tomorrow will be a different story, and we need to know our
choir is going to back us up.”

After they all left to
prepare for tonight’s covert mission, Tristan and I sat on the
antique couch and stared at the fire in the hearth.

“Nice job today,”
he said as his hand gripped and kneaded my shoulder. “You
sounded like a real matriarch.”

I snorted. “Did
I?”

He nodded. “You
were good.”

“I’m glad
you think so. I’m still not so sure.”

“Trust me. You
were.” He gave my neck a gentle squeeze. “It looks like
they were right.”

“Who?”

“Rina and Sophia.
You
are
ready for this.”

I blew out a sigh. “Not
exactly. I guess I just know how to put on a good show.”

“Fake it till you
make it, if that’s what you have to do.”

I leaned into his arms,
and my voice fell softly. “I don’t even know how to fake
it. I don’t know what I’m doing at all. Part of me still
feels like I’m being my usual self with this mission, reacting
compulsively instead of responding appropriately.”

“We already
talked about this,
ma lykita
.” He slid his hand down my
arm and pulled me closer to him. “You need to trust yourself
more … and me and the rest of your team. Your new council.”

I rested my head
against his chest. “I do trust you. And them. But not so much
myself. I don’t exactly have a great track record.”

“Neither do I,
but that’s in the past. So is yours. The old you would have
gone off last night and executed the mission already, pulling us with
you because we’d have no choice but to help. But you didn’t
do that.” He brushed the hair away from my face and grasped my
chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting my head up to look at
him. The gold in his eyes sparkled. “You’re making smart
decisions, my love. Trust me. If we thought this was a bad idea, we’d
tell you. We’d give you other perspectives and ideas to
consider, like Char did. That’s our job more than ever now.”

His eyes held mine for
a long moment until I nodded with true understanding. Then he leaned
in and pressed his luscious lips to mine. My anxieties trickled away
as his kiss continued to calm me.

A little after
midnight, after making sure Dorian was asleep and Sasha was planted
at his door as his protector, Tristan and I prepared to head out to
meet the others on the cliff. We’d hoped to have plenty of time
to search the area around Istanbul until we found the coven, using
the cover of darkness to hide from any Normans who might be awake.
Then we’d execute our plan right before sunrise, when most of
the Daemoni would be hunkering down for the day, and be back here
before anyone on the island missed us. In the meantime, Blossom would
ensure the media received our news release in time to hit Europe’s
morning newscasts.

We ran into the first
snag of our plan before we could even leave the mansion. Julia stood
at the bottom of the stairs, her dark eyes narrowed with suspicion as
Tristan and I descended. The vampire who’d loved my grandmother
in more ways than one had made herself scarce since the funeral,
staying away from the mansion and anything to do with leading the
Amadis. I hadn’t decided yet what to do about her, so I’d
let her mourn in peace.

“You’re
planning something,” she accused before we even landed on the
bottom step. “A covert mission you’re keeping from the
council.”

“Which makes it
none of your business,” I said, lifting my chin. She stood more
than half-a-foot taller than me, but I refused to let her intimidate
me anymore. I hadn’t liked her since the day we’d met,
and the feeling was fairly mutual. We tolerated each other for Rina’s
sake, but I no longer had to.

“This is a
disgrace.” She glared at me as she tossed her raven-black hair
over her shoulder.

My brows shot up.
“Excuse me?”

“What you’re
doing. Ms. Katerina would have never been so secretive, doing things
unbecoming of the Amadis.”

“You don’t
even know what we’re doing. And you’re right. Rina never
would have. She didn’t
have
to. Things are different
now. You of all people should understand why we need to act.”

“I, of all
people, know what your grandmother would have wanted, and
you
are disrespecting her memory!”

My mouth fell open.
Tristan stepped down, into Julia’s personal space.

“And
you
are disrespecting your matriarch,” he growled quietly.

Julia’s hard gaze
snapped to him, then back at me. “You shouldn’t even be
the matriarch.”

My jaw dropped even
lower, making the muscle pop. Then I snapped it shut, my teeth
clacking audibly. Because I stood shorter than both of them, I stayed
on the higher step to be closer to eye level, and I leaned toward
her.

“I’m going
to let that slide as a statement made out of inconsolable grief for
the woman you mourn, and not made as an act of treason against
me
,”
I said. “Because
I
don’t go around half-assedly
accusing people of being traitors. However, I honestly don’t
think you knew Rina as well as you think you do, nor do you truly
understand her and what she’d want me to do. She knew—still
knows—that I am not her, and yet she entrusted me to fill her
shoes. So think before you spout off with your advice for me.”

The vampire’s
nostrils flared as we glared at each other. “She didn’t
think you’d be filling those shoes until you were educated
properly. And do not worry. I have no advice for you. I don’t
know how to think at that level.”

She meant it as an
insult, but she simply reinforced what I’d told my team
earlier.

“Then consider
yourself dismissed.” I pushed past her and strode for the front
door. “No need to attend the meeting tomorrow. Spend your day
preparing to leave the island, please. You can serve our people out
on the frontlines, where you belong.”

Tristan pushed the
wooden door open, and we both passed through. It shut heavily in the
stunned vampire’s face.

“Well,” I
said, “she’s off the council a lot easier than I
expected.”

Tristan took my hand.
“Rina trusted her for a reason.”

“She tried to
banish you from the Amadis. I don’t care about her excuse that
Martin or Kali or whoever had any kind of influence over her. I could
never bring myself to fully trust her on my council. And as we just
saw, she’s too old school and will never respect me.”

“I’m not
arguing with your decision. I’m glad to have her gone, too.
Just don’t get crazy and try to banish her from the Amadis.”

“Don’t
worry. I won’t stoop to her level.”

We flashed then to the
cliffs where the rest of my team waited. If not for our superior
vision or the full moon striking their blond hair, we’d have
barely been able to make out Owen, Vanessa, and Char, who were
dressed in black fighting leathers. Sheree, however, sat in her tiger
form, her black and orange tail swishing around her paws. Two others
who joined us had already transformed, too, into their wolf
alter-egos.

One of the silver
linings of Owen spending time with Kali was that he’d learned
and perfected the magical art of creating portals from one place on
Earth to another. Normans had learned how to block flashing’s
magical energy to ensnare us, such as when they had captured Vanessa
and me in the middle of nowhere Georgia when we’d flashed from
the destroyed Amadis jet last spring. So this new skill of Owen’s
proved to be quite convenient, allowing us to travel even faster and
farther than flashing, using a different kind of magic the Normans
couldn’t impede. He used the ability now to open an entry
straight into the outskirts of Istanbul, and we stepped through the
portal, leaving Amadis Island for a dark alley on the edges of the
city in Turkey.

Charlotte and Owen
cloaked and shielded us, and I reached my mind out, scanning the
signatures, searching for the evil minds who’d attacked us
yesterday. I came across a nest of vampires who’d just finished
feeding—we’d arrived too late to help those poor
Normans—and Werewolf packs and feline dens roamed the
countryside under the full moon. Unfortunately, I couldn’t
locate the mages.

“They probably
have a powerful shield up,” Owen whispered.

“I sense dark
magic in the air,” Char added. She wrinkled her nose. “The
stench is nauseating.”

I pressed my lips
together and went back to the vampires’ minds, hoping to find
any clues.

“I’m not
getting anything,” I said after a while.

“Then we search
on foot,” Tristan said.

Since flashing was too
dangerous these days, we raced through the streets of the suburbs
under our magical cloaks, searching for the compound I’d seen
in the warlocks’ minds after they attacked us. We split up,
covering more area faster, and I kept us all connected through my
mind. I tried to watch the scenery through everyone else’s
eyes, but after the third time of running into Tristan or Sheree
because I couldn’t see my own surroundings, I had to forego
that idea.

“
Quarter mile
ahead,
” Vanessa said. She and Owen had been running three
blocks to our right. “
On your side, Char. The odor is coming
from up there.
”

The tiger running
beside me sneezed in agreement. I smelled something faint, but
Tristan’s and my senses weren’t quite as strong as the
vampire’s and Weres’.

“
The wolves
smell it, too,
” Charlotte said from three blocks to our
left.

Tristan, Sheree, and I
cut toward her and the werewolves as soon as we could. Vanessa and
Owen merged in with us. We slowed down as we approached the dead end
of the road, where the compound sat on the edge of town, looking dark
and empty. Owen joined our cloaks so we could see each other as we
stood a block away, studying the place. I reached my mind out,
searching for the Daemoni mind signatures, but found none close by.

Are we muffled?
I asked Owen, and he nodded, so I spoke aloud, though in a hushed
whisper. “There’s a wolf pack that lives on the opposite
end of town, and I sense a vamp nest about four miles away, in the
next town over, I think. They’re all hunting and terrorizing.”

Sheree dropped her big
head and a soft growl rumbled in her throat. She’d rather be
helping the Normans or trying to convert any newly turned. I lay my
hand on the soft fur of her shoulder.

“Sorry, but we
need to do this to protect us all,” I told her. “Otherwise,
there won’t be an Amadis left to help anyone.”

Her orange, black, and
white head nodded in understanding, but I could feel her frustration
and heartache for the Normans whose lives couldn’t be saved
tonight. At least not by us. I felt the pain, too. War sucked.

“So no stragglers
nearby?” Charlotte asked me. “No one’s going to
ambush us?”

I shook my head. “I
don’t sense anyone. Of course, I don’t sense anyone
inside there, either.”

“Their shield is
thick,” Owen said. “What we see is probably a mirage.
What they
want
everyone to see.”

My heart sank as a
thought occurred to me. “What if this isn’t really the
place? What if they only made it
look
like the place?”

“Then they know
you saw it in their minds,” Tristan said. “There’s
no reason to create a decoy unless there’s somebody to trap.”

“Which means
they’d given the image to me on purpose.” The fabric of
this grand idea began to unravel around us. “They could be
setting us up.”

“Are there any
other places shielded so heavily?” Tristan asked the warlocks.
Both Char and Owen shook their heads in response.