CHAPTER TEN
Vaughn hadn’t planned on spending the night, hadn’t planned on a lot of things, least of all getting caught up in his increasing feelings for Elena.
But then nothing had gone exactly as planned from the moment she had sat down at the Blackjack table two nights ago.
That still didn’t explain why he’d spent his stone hours in Elena’s bedroom.
The chunks of mystical stone that covered his wolf form had cracked and disintegrated the moment the sun went down, leaving him alone in Elena’s room.
The air was heavy with her scent, and the sound of running water came from the bathroom. Had she slept the day away while he’d been stuck in stone when he could have spent those hours following the curve of every tracing on her body?
His phone rang, and it took him a minute to find his pants and pull it out of his pocket. Dare’s number flashed on the screen. His friend probably thought he’d fallen off the face of the earth, despite the text message he’d sent before sunrise.
The screen flashed a low battery warning as he slid his finger across the glass to answer the call.
Dare spoke first. “Please tell me you got tangled up with some wild enchantress and not a certain sorceress that you previously warned me to steer clear of, and for good reason I might add.”
“Well, she was wild.” But definitely not an enchantress.
He tended to steer clear of the Lady of the Lake’s wanton daughters. They came with too much baggage, not the least of which was a serious mommy issue, and Vaughn had no intention of ever having an immortal like the Lady of the Lake as an enemy. Let the other males get caught up in their ceaseless sibling rivalry. Their competitive nature made even professional athletes look like slackers.
“And you’re still with her,” Dare guessed.
Vaughn pictured his friend sinking into the nearest chair, debating how worried to be.
“What happened to keeping your distance?”
“I have a bad sense of direction?” Vaughn offered, walking down the hall, following the soft hum of Elena’s voice.
So the sorceress sang in the shower, who knew?
“Wolf chow. That’s what you said. At least that’s what you said before you slept with her.”
“Is everything set for the meet?” Vaughn interrupted. Elena had left the bathroom door ajar and he nudged it open another few inches.
Either Dare realized that he was done talking about Elena or his friend was saving further comments for later. Probably the latter.
“We’re good. Our get-out-of-jail-free card is still safe and sound. And we’ll have Piper back in a few hours.”
Having been close to finding his sister before only to have the opportunity slip through his fingers, he’d learned not to get his hopes up. This time, though, he couldn’t quite suppress the hopeful anxiousness blooming in his chest.
“Pick me up at the Wolf’s Den in an hour.” That would give them another two to get in place and make sure their buyer had no plans to change the rules of the game before the meet.
He ended the call, content to watch Elena through the fogged glass, a bone-deep smile pulling at his lips.
He was about to get his sister back and he’d just spent the most incredible night with Elena. For the first time in months, maybe even centuries, it wasn’t just about going through the motions.
Not until Piper had been taken and he was dragged into the Gauntlet had he realized he’d been riding the same carousel for centuries. It didn’t matter if the missions changed, the objectives were always the same—undermine Morgana and her followers at all costs. Century in, century out.
And he was damn tired of the ride.
He checked his phone, wanting to see if he’d missed any messages from Rutger when he’d gone to stone, and noticed the camera app was running.
He tapped the icon and found himself staring at a picture of his gargoyle form. Elena sat next to him, a goofy expression on her face as she snapped a selfie of the two of them.
He scrolled to the next image. Another selfie, this one with a smear of lipstick on his snout while she held the crimson tube to her own lips, her expression devious. She’d draped her lingerie over him in another pic, and wrapped him in a pink feather boa in another one.
There had to be at least twenty images of her dressing him up, one even of her painting his claws.
“Going to scrub my back, wolf?” Elena pushed the door open just enough to offer him a tantalizing view.
Her soaked hair clung to her back, water running down one hip strategically positioned to keep him from seeing much else.
“Someone had a hell of a good time.” Holding up his phone, he stepped into the room and deeper into the steam and sweetness of Elena.
She put her head back under the water. “Had to occupy myself somehow. Someone decided to go to stone in the middle of my bed.” She stuck her face back in the opening. “I couldn’t even lift you up with my magic to steal back the covers.”
“I’d apologize but I think I’m glad you couldn’t drag me all over Vegas for more photo ops.” And he sure as hell wouldn’t have put it past her.
Her sly grin told him all he needed to know about his suspicions.
“Did I scare you off?” She pushed the door a little wider, but kept most of herself tucked behind the frosted glass. “The other night you were salivating to have a shower with me, and now you’re afraid to get within ten feet of me.”
“If I get within ten feet of you, neither of us will be leaving that shower for hours.”
She cocked her head, the angelic look on her face even sexier knowing she was toying with him. “I’m not sure how that’s a problem.”
“Don’t tempt me, Ivy.”
She bit her lip, debating whether to do exactly that, he guessed. She shrugged. “Well if you’re not joining me, you’ll find breakfast in the kitchen. Room service delivered it a few minutes ago. I can eat half my weight in pancakes, and don’t be skimpy with the syrup.” She blew him a kiss and closed the shower door, but it didn’t do a damn thing to stop him from wanting to crawl in there with her.
After he had Piper back, he’d have more than enough time to spend weeks scrubbing her back. “Don’t take too long. Your pancakes are going to get cold.”
He walked out of the bathroom and down the hall to the kitchen. He peeked beneath the silver domes, nearly salivating over the smell of eggs, bacon, sausage and the biggest stack of pancakes he’d ever seen.
It was a shame there wasn’t time to put the bowl of strawberries and whipped cream to better use.
He turned to the cupboard for dishes when his phone rang.
He didn’t recognize the number, but Rutger frequently called from burner phones. The often reclusive leader of the rebellion was known to routinely lose touch for long stretches of time, especially when he was working with Dare’s hero, the Shadow’s Angel.
He found himself grinning as he answered, wondering if the crazy bastard hated the nickname he’d been dubbed with.
“She’s dead.”
Vaughn’s feet locked to the floor, his heart freezing in his chest. “Who is this?”
“The deal is off. Your sister is dead.”
***
Elena.
The sound of the voice continued to play in the back of her mind as the smell of smoke and death hit her again.
Images too fuzzy to make out hovered just out of reach before slipping away entirely.
It was the third time it had happened since she’d been in the hidden chamber, and she was no closer to figuring out what the hell was causing it. If it continued, she would eventually have to ask Vaughn about the box, but not just yet.
Fluffing her hair with a thick towel, Elena stopped long enough to adjust the tie on her robe, thinking to pull it tight only to change her mind, wanting to tempt the wolf.
She relaxed the magic that hid the tracing that curved from her shoulder and disappeared beneath the material, grinning at herself in the mirror before slipping out of the bathroom.
For almost twenty-four hours she’d put the rest of the world on hold, ignoring her responsibilities and focusing on nothing but satisfying her growing need to be near the wolf. A hundred times she’d told herself it was a bad idea. Feelings for anyone made her vulnerable, now more than ever.
But she couldn’t seem to help herself. It hadn’t even mattered when she’d woken to a stone gargoyle in her bed. She’d enjoyed filling his phone with goofy photos of the two of them, and even a few of herself out shopping for new clothes in the middle of the afternoon.
She imagined him growling about missing the opportunity and looked forward to giving him a private showing of her latest purchases, some made specifically with the wolf in mind.
“If you didn’t save me any food you better have called room service for more,” she teased, walking into an empty room. She paused. “Vaughn?”
He wasn’t in the kitchen or lounging on the sofa or scanning the streets below like the hunter he was.
“Vaughn?”
She backtracked to her bedroom, already sure she hadn’t missed spotting him on her way to the kitchen.
The warmth that swirled in her belly turned cold. She didn’t see any of his stuff lying around.
“I’m not a fan of hide and seek.”
No response.
The cold turned to ice as she returned to the main living and kitchen area, scanning the room for any signs of a disturbance.
Nothing.
She checked the hall, then her phone, wondering if he’d slipped out and then sent her a text.
There were half a dozen messages from Nessa giving her a hard time for canceling their brunch and another from her sister. No message from Vaughn and no missed calls.
The wolf had left without saying a word?
No. Not after last night. She’d been there, felt the way he held her, kissed her, laughed with her. It had been real. It had meant something.
Hadn’t it?
Was she a fool to think he must have run out to pick something up? That he had a reason to leave without a word?
She sat down on the sofa, the food untouched, and waited.
Vaughn didn’t come back.
Not that night. Or the next.
On the third night she went looking for Mac.
She’d packed her bags with every intention of leaving and getting back to the responsibilities she’d been avoiding since Vaughn disappeared.
She’d been off the grid long enough, but she couldn’t seem to shake the certainty that there was something between her and the wolf, something that counted despite all the logical arguments that suggested otherwise.
She knew first hand that people left, had witnessed it countless times in her lifetime. Rejection, abandonment, betrayal. It’s what people did, mortal and immortal alike. Vaughn wasn’t any different.
So why couldn’t she quiet that nagging voice that insisted he would have said something before leaving, would have made plans to see her again even knowing she’d find a hundred reasons not to.
Unless he hadn’t been given the chance.
Which was how she found herself standing in Mac’s penthouse, watching from the doorway as he faced a beefy guy in a small version of an MMA fighting ring.
She watched the pair circle and engage, throwing calculated punches and kicks that were no more than glancing blows, both immortals highly skilled.
Until Mac noticed her.
The distraction cost him. He took an uppercut to the side of his jaw that knocked him back a few steps.
“Sorry boss.”
Mac jerked his head, dismissing his sparring partner. He shook the impact off faster than expected, strolling across the ring in her direction when she knew he had to be at least a little off balance from a punch that hard. “How did you get up here?”
Elena only smiled. There were some things even the mighty Malachi MacKinnon didn’t need to know.
“Somebody’s getting fired,” he growled.
She shrugged. Mac employed the best bounty hunters in either realm, but even a few of them could stand to work on their security skills. Or she would have found it a little more difficult getting into the penthouse undetected.
“Up for a round?”
She held up her hand. “Just had my nails done, but thanks.”
“Too bad. Was looking forward to seeing if the rumors were true.”
Elena didn’t betray the spark of surprise that caught her in the chest. The wolf was baiting her, and she wasn’t biting, no matter what he claimed to have heard.
Mac figured out she wasn’t commenting either way and sighed. “Why are you here Elena?”
“Looking for Nessa,” she said.
Mac unwrapped the protective fabric on his hands, the twitch in his jaw the only indication that he fought a smile. “If the huntress from hell was within a hundred mile radius, I’d know.”
“Still have her scent stuck in your head from that night at Pendragon’s, huh?”
Mac froze, the gesture uncharacteristically revealing for the wolf.
There, let him stew on that for a while. The reminder that he wasn’t the only one listening to rumors might do him some good.
“How about we skip the part where you pretend you’re just here to push my buttons for the sake of a good time. We both know that’s not how you really operate.”
“Is that right?” she drawled.
He left the ring, walking away from her and gesturing for her to follow. “You know, when my staff mentioned you hadn’t been gambling or ordering your usual hoard of pancakes for breakfast, I thought they must have just missed you coming and going.”
Elena fell into step with him. Coming to see him had been a mistake, but bailing wasn’t an option now. “Does your staff keep tabs on all your guests?”
“Just the ones who get off on tarnishing their wings and halo at every opportunity.”
Elena stopped.
But Mac wasn’t done yet. “Needless to say, I couldn’t imagine Elena of House Lamorak hibernating while in Vegas, but sure enough,” he trailed off, indicating he’d done his own investigating.
The ache in her stomach that had been there since Vaughn left got a whole lot worse.
Mac led the way into his office, stopping in front of his desk. He grabbed his laptop and spun it around, hitting a few keys to bring up a video feed. “I thought there had to be another explanation because there was no way it could be about him, and yet here you are.”
He searched her face a moment, and getting no response from her about the scrutiny she’d been under without even realizing it, he gave up and hit play.
Part of her didn’t want to watch the screen, somehow knowing the situation was only going to get worse, but she couldn’t help herself.
The feed showed the lobby, more specifically the elevator doors. They opened and Vaughn walked out, alone. She checked the time stamp and found it was from the night he’d disappeared.
Mac hit another button and it skipped to another angle of Vaughn walking across the lobby and out the main doors. Yet another feed showed him walking down the sidewalk and finally out of the camera’s range.
“I don’t have him locked away. That is why you’re really here, isn’t it?”
She hit a key, replaying the sequence. He really had left just like that. No signs of trouble whatsoever. At least none that the camera caught.
“I didn’t snatch him off the street either,” Mac tacked on, guessing that might be her next assumption.
She had no reason to believe he was lying. Mac might be a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. He didn’t make it a secret he was a businessman first and foremost, but everyone knew his true allegiance remained with Arthur.
The truth was nothing had happened to Vaughn. He’d had his fun and left without a word, sparing them an awkward conversation after acting like that mattered, that she mattered.
She’d believed the wolf, and the bastard walked away without another look back. Even worse, though, she’d trusted her own foolish instincts, and the one time she truly let someone in, they managed to break the one thing she’d viciously guarded her whole life.
Her heart.
“Elena?”
She closed her eyes but knew Mac had already seen the sheen of tears that made her throat tight. A familiar pain stole her breath, a pain she hadn’t felt since she was a kid.
Mac closed the laptop. “You thought maybe I changed my mind about him cheating and had him holed up downstairs somewhere and that’s why you haven’t heard from him,” he added the last part quietly, too quietly. Like he felt sorry for her.
Not fucking happening.
She closed herself off from the pain and the hurt, locking it all the way down. Except the anger. She kept a fierce grip on that
She squared her shoulders. Screw Vaughn and the words she’d stupidly believed. And screw Mac and his clever assumptions and pitying looks.
She didn’t need either of them. She was just fine on her own. Always had been. Always would be.
Mac opened his mouth, but whatever he’d been about to say was cut off when her magic released and blue flames swallowed his laptop.
She walked out, calling over her shoulder. “I guess I owe you for that too.”
***
Vaughn didn’t even try to break his fall when he collapsed on the cold wood floor in his home.
Behind him, the mirror still shimmered with the forest in Avalon where he’d crossed the veil, but it would go dark in a moment like the rest of the house.
He rolled to his back, resisting the urge to probe the side of his face that still felt like he was under the heated blade that branded him. The wolf snarled quietly in memory, but even the animal was exhausted after the weeks of searching for Piper’s killers.
Except she wasn’t dead. Piper was very much alive.
He’d caught only a glimpse of her, but he’d heard her voice, heard the steady strength of their mother in her as she mentioned an argument from their childhood that made him certain she wasn’t a glamour or illusion meant to screw with his head.
They’d purposely misled him. They wanted him to know what it would feel like to lose her in order to ensure he would do anything to avoid that pain again.
He rolled back to his stomach, letting the undamaged part of his face rest on the cool hardwood.
“Are you planning on staying there all night?”
Vaughn lifted his head a few inches and lowered it. “I don’t remember giving you a key.”
Rutger, leader of the rebellion, watched him from the rocking chair that sat in the corner at the top of the stairs. It had come with the house that was far too big for one person, but Vaughn had fallen in love with it and spent his spare time renovating the place between assignments.
It was far more modern than what he and Piper had grown up in, but something about it always reminded him of home. Piper had felt it too the few times she’d visited.
She should have been here more. Maybe if he hadn’t always been so caught up with the next mission, if he hadn’t forgotten to look out for her. To spend more time with her.
He’d deserved to have his heart ripped open when they told him she was dead. If he’d paid better attention to her…
“Did you pack your bags for the guilt trip you’re taking?” Rutger rose from the chair, as perceptive as always.
Vaughn often wondered if the man was really an oracle. Only someone clairvoyant could determine what others were thinking so easily. Then again, if Rutger was an Oracle, they might have ended this war with Morgana a lifetime ago.
“Come downstairs. I’ve made tea.”
“How did you know I’d be here?”
Rutger didn’t dignify that with a response, disappearing downstairs.
It took Vaughn another few minutes to drag himself to his feet, every bruised bone in his body protesting. More than once he had to cling to the railing to stop himself from tumbling down the creaky stairs he hadn’t gotten around to replacing yet.
Rutger had two steaming mugs on the table by the time Vaughn lowered himself into a chair.
“You should have told me what was going on.”
“Dare,” Vaughn guessed. His friend would have gone to Rutger when everything in Vegas went so horribly wrong and Vaughn went hunting Piper’s supposed killers.
Rutger nodded. “He understands that we’re stronger as a team than going it alone.”
Vaughn lifted the mug, wincing when the rising steam set his wounded cheek on fire all over again. “It wasn’t your fight.”
“My people. My fight.”
“Piper—”
“Is just as much my responsibility as she is yours and she will be fine.”
“Yes, she will.”
Rutger looked at him, waiting.
Vaughn managed a sip, but the warm liquid Rutger found so soothing didn’t do a damn thing to comfort him. “They want to make a trade.”
The rebellion leader’s eyes fell to Vaughn’s cheek. “I suspected as much. The crown?”
Vaughn frowned. “If that’s what was in the box I stole, then yes.”
Rutger’s eyes narrowed, telling Vaughn they would talk about that one later. “But there’s more,” he assumed, sitting his small frame back in the chair opposite Vaughn.
Many a gargoyle had challenged the smaller man for leadership over the centuries, mistakenly thinking Rutger’s size made him an easy target. Even Vaughn had yet to win a sparring match with the other immortal.
Vaughn nodded. “They want someone.” The sip of tea he drank turned to ice in his stomach.
Rutger cocked his head. “Someone you know.”
“They want a sorceress.” The wolf paced anxiously in the back of his mind. “Elena of House Lamorak. She’s my—”
“I’m familiar with the sorceress,” Rutger interrupted. “She has quite the reputation.” He stood and set his untouched mug in the sink. “Did they say why it had to be her?”
“No.”
Vaughn hissed at the hot water that spilled across the table and landed in his lap.
Rutger rescued him from the shattered mug, handing him a cloth for the cut from squeezing the cup too hard. He waited until Vaughn wrapped it around his palm, which he did mostly to humor the other immortal who would only browbeat him until he obeyed. “Will retrieving the sorceress be a problem?”
Injuries temporarily forgotten, he stared at the man he’d worked under for centuries. “You want me to go through with it?”
Vaughn had at least expected some resistance. If word got out that the rebellion leader sanctioned the abduction of a sorceress, it could cause a war with her entire race, and the moment they took their eyes off Morgana they were all screwed.
Which was the least of Vaughn’s issues considering he’d run out on Elena without a word. Blindsided, he’d been halfway to the meeting site, convinced the call must have been a horrible joke or test of some kind, before realizing he didn’t even remember leaving Elena’s suite.
By the time he could see past his grief long enough to reach out to Elena, he’d caught a lead on Piper’s killers and crossed the veil to hunt them down. Knowing Elena might be there when it was over was the only thing that kept his grief from consuming him completely.
He hadn’t expected to find Piper alive, let alone that her death was all part of their plan to get what they were really after.
Elena.
Rutger gestured to Vaughn’s face and the wound he’d already figured out was never going to fully heal. “Do you think there is any other option?”
Vaughn didn’t say anything, the wolf entirely too close to the surface from the mere mention of Elena’s name.
“They’re powerful and organized.” Until her abductors called to tell him Piper was dead, he’d been unable to identify or track them. He should have questioned the timing of getting a lead of them so quickly, because, they’d been ready, maybe even waiting for him.
“The Iron Brotherhood is notoriously organized and has been amassing power and followers in recent decades.”
Vaughn frowned. He’d never heard of the Fae group before, but wasn’t surprised Rutger already knew who they were. “What are they after?”
“To resurrect their lost queen.”
“A lost Fae queen?”
Rutger nodded, appearing almost distracted. “She’s been gone for some time now.”
The only queen Vaughn was familiar with was Titania and she’d been ruling the Fae for thousands of years as far as Vaughn knew.
“And bringing her back would be bad? Assuming it’s possible.”
“Oh, it’s very possible.” Rutger cleaned up the shattered ceramic pieces. “I assume they gave you the means to neutralize the sorceress’s magic.”
Vaughn dug the ring he’d used to breach the vault in Vegas from his pocket and set on the table. “They made me memorize a Fae verse that will keep her cooperative they said.” His stomach twisted.
Rutger frowned. “Using her Fae half to chain the sorceress side that fuels her magic most likely. Clever.” He sounded far from impressed. “You’ll need Dare. He’s providing additional back up at the moment but should be free in a day or so. I’ll have him contact you as soon as he crosses the veil. I assume they gave you a few days to retrieve the sorceress.”
“Elena,” Vaughn corrected on instinct, a growl rising beneath the words.
Rutger arched a brow. “If you’re too close to the sorceress, I can put someone else on this—”
“No.” Piper was his family, his responsibility. He’d failed her twice already, it wouldn’t happen again.
Although brief, he’d felt what it would be like to live in a world without his little sister. No teasing phone calls giving him a hard time for working too much. No coming home to the smell of scorched cookies when she turned his kitchen into a Betty Crocker nightmare. No laughter-filled promises about the pile of pups she’d have someday just so she could watch him change diapers.
He couldn’t live in a world without those things, and the bastards who took Piper were counting on that.
“You’re sure?”
Not even close, but what choice did he have? If he refused, not only would they kill Piper without hesitating, they’d send someone else after Elena.
The rebellion leader nodded his approval. “I’ll find out when and where the sorceress will be and you’ll retrieve her and make the exchange.”
It should have surprised him that Rutger would know when Elena was home, but the other gargoyle had far too many connections.
“If something goes wrong, my sister—”
“Will be fine. You need to trust me.” Rutger set a hand on his shoulder. “Rest and heal. You’ll need to be at the top of your game if we’re going to get them back.”
He was gone before Vaughn fully processed the end of their exchange. Exactly who did he mean by them?