Chapter Ten
Twenty minutes. Normally, the drive from Priest’s shop to the lake took a solid thirty, but between his mate’s tension whipping him to hurry and her arms urgently banded around his waist, he’d taken the winding curves at breakneck speed.
Kateri hadn’t protested in the slightest. Hell, if anything she’d leaned into each turn like her active participation might somehow make the bike go faster. Another indication how anxious she was to be with her brother.
He backed his Harley into its covered spot and killed the engine.
The roar hadn’t even died down before Kateri jumped off the back, but he snagged her wrist before she could get away.
She tugged against his hold and stopped just short of snarling, gaze locked on the front porch. “Let me go.”
Like hell he would. She’d had enough upheaval in her life the last few weeks. And while a soul quest was something the people in his clan not only expected, but looked forward to, an outsider wouldn’t be nearly prepared for how things would look. “Not yet. Not until you understand a few things.”
She frowned, but at least she stopped fighting him.
He leaned his bike onto its stand and swung his leg over the back, not daring to release his grip. “One of the things we’ve fought with the new generation is a lack of awareness. Too many of our race don’t know the signs and symptoms of a soul quest and they react to it the way a singura would.”
“What signs and symptoms?”
“To you, the early stages would mirror the flu, only without the fever. You don’t want to eat and you’ve got no energy. The only thing you want to do is find a place to lay down and pass out.”
“Is that what Nanna told you he was doing?”
“That’s what he was doing two hours ago. By now, he’ll be much deeper.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How deep?”
“Deep enough you’ll question if he’s breathing, but I promise you, he is. And he’s absolutely safe.”
Her lips tightened, but she lifted her chin a notch higher. “Anything else?”
So brave. Determined to face whatever life threw her even when it defied the order and logic she’d buried her emotions under. But she was waking up. Unearthing her Volán nature and the rich vitality that came with it bit by bit.
And he couldn’t wait to see her in full bloom.
He fanned his thumb along the pulse point at her wrist, drew her flush against him and anchored his hand low on her back. “Only that where he’s going is sacred. A gift. Definitely not something to be afraid of. And I’ll be with him.”
Her answering expression warned of a cutting retort queued up and ready for launch, but something raw and vulnerable chased it away. As if some new and awkward thought had dared to lift its head. She swallowed hard enough it looked painful. “I want to see him.”
Inside, everything was quiet, the cloud-covered sky bathing his home in a sleepy, lazy afternoon feel. Though, as soon as the closing door ricocheted through the entry, soft footfalls sounded down the stairs, followed by Naomi’s excited voice. “Eerikki?”
He fought the grin that always tried to emerge when Naomi insisted on using his given name. Knowing his luck, Kateri would pick that second to turn, see his response and lash him up one side and down the other for not taking the moment seriously enough. The truth was, a soul quest was reasonable cause for not just smiles, but celebration. “Yeah, we’re here.”
Kateri beat him into the living room and met her grandmother at the bottom of the stairs. “Where is he?”
Naomi calmly blocked her from heading up, grabbed her by the wrists and met Priest’s gaze. “You told her?”
“I won’t ever keep anything from her. Besides, she already knew I’d sensed someone’s quest was close. Another minute or two and she’d have figured it out anyway.” He motioned them both up the stairs, the familiar tug behind his sternum urging him to get a move on. “Let’s go.”
Tate’s room wasn’t much. Just a full-size bed, an old couch with a pull out, a dresser and a desk in the corner. Aside from Tate’s moody mid-to-late teens stretch, he’d always preferred to spend his time outdoors or with other people, so his space was more about function than personality. A few mementos from NBA games he’d gone to with Priest were tacked up on the wall along with some of the first designs he’d inked on early clients, and a picture of his parents stood alone on the corner of his maplewood dresser, but the rest of his décor consisted of hoodies, T-shirts and jeans tossed over the desk situated in front of the wide window.
Thankfully, Naomi had drawn the curtains wide. If she’d left them closed the way Tate preferred them, Alek would have looked more like a corpse on top of the hastily made bed. Instead, the overcast skies did a decent job of highlighting the fact that his skin tone was that of a healthy man in his prime.
“Alek?” Kateri sat beside him and clasped his hand in hers. When he didn’t answer, she twisted to Priest beside her. “Can he hear me?”
Priest shook his head. “Not now. He’s too deep. Like a dream.” Actually, it was more along the lines of what she’d consider a coma, but he wasn’t about to add to her stress level with unnecessary details.
The pull from the Otherworld intensified, the radiating burn deep in his chest warning that Alek was close. If it were anyone else, he’d settle in for the journey in his own room, or at least find someplace quiet and dark, but with Kateri this tense, he couldn’t quite force his feet into motion. Not to mention the fact that she’d probably see such isolation as desertion rather than the need for focus.
Naomi must have sensed his turmoil, because she inched in behind Kateri and cupped her shoulders. “Go ahead, Eerikki. I’ll stay with her.”
“No. I’m fine here.” He crouched beside Kateri, squeezed her thigh and lowered his voice. “I need you to promise me something.”
She shifted her gaze to his, the confusion and discomfort on her face making both man and beast bristle.
“No matter what happens—no matter what you think is going on or whatever fears come up while he’s asleep—I want your word you will not leave this house. Not for anything.”
“Why would my leaving be an issue?”
A good question. And likely not something that would happen considering how tightly she gripped Alek’s hand. The harder part was his answer. Especially since he’d yet to share what she was to him. “Because inside this house and on my property my brother can’t find you. Away from it and without me to protect you, you’re exposed. I need to focus and take care of Alek and I can’t do that if I’m worried about you being safe.”
And because you will always take precedence over any living soul on this Earth.
Her gaze narrowed as if she’d heard his unspoken thought, but instead of questioning him further, she dipped her head. “I won’t leave. Just take care of my brother.”
Priest shifted his gaze to Naomi, who gave her own nod, then settled on his ass beside the bed. The heavy nightstand was solid wood and had been a bitch to carry upstairs even with his strength, but it still groaned as he leaned his weight into it.
The burn inside his chest deepened, a fist-like sensation building between his solar plexus. But still he couldn’t close his eyes and focus. Couldn’t force his thoughts off Kateri and the obvious worry on her face.
You don’t have to go, the darkness whispered. She’s more important. There’s no law that requires your presence. Let him take care of himself. We take care of her.
Maybe not a law, he argued back in his thoughts. But it is my responsibility. My right and honor. And nothing would piss our mate off more than to leave someone she loved alone and unguided.
The counter argument won, his shadow-self curling in upon itself and stilling enough that its constant drone was little more than background noise.
His eyelids grew heavy and the real world began to blur, Kateri’s still form beside the bed misting with layers of gray. He tightened the grip he’d kept on her thigh and she laid her free hand over it a second before he saw nothing at all. Could only feel her palm against his as his spirit slipped away.
Seconds later, his destination came into view. Why he was surprised by the environment the Keeper had chosen for Alek he couldn’t say, but Alek was clearly confused. Standing in the middle of a traditional Korean dojang, Alek scanned the two stories of black sliding doors with their ivory paper panes as if both fascinated and stymied.
He must have felt more than heard Priest’s presence, because he spun and braced on the balls of his feet, prepared for a fight.
“Relax,” Priest said. “You’ll probably get a fight before this is over. Or several, from the looks of things. But not from me.”
Alek straightened and lowered his hands to his side. “I don’t get it. What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is your soul quest.”
Behind Alek, the center door slid silently open and a man with short-cropped black hair and a lethal focus strode through it. The Keeper.
Priest dipped his head to indicate the newest arrival and grinned. “Welcome to the Otherworld.”