CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Vaughn watched the pair through the windshield as he waited for Rutger to answer the damn phone.
Elena was no doubt baiting Dare, and the young wolf was probably enjoying trying to charm his way around her barbs.
In another time and place he could picture the two of them becoming good friends, with Elena diving into trouble and Dare leaping after her so she wouldn’t have all the fun.
Vaughn turned away from them, away from a future that was too out of reach. He waited for the wolf to growl in protest, but his animal half was strangely silent, like there was a wall wedged between man and beast.
The glass screen cracked in his hand. He loosened his grip on the phone.
“We may have a problem,” Rutger said when he finally answered the phone.
There had been nothing but problems since Piper was taken, why would things get easier at this point?
“There are rumors of an immortal with a grudge against Elena,” Rutger continued.
“He should take a number,” Vaughn said, thinking that would be Elena’s exact response.
“He’s dispatched a team to bring her in.”
If Rutger was telling him that, then the rebellion leader had good reason to suspect the other immortal could pull it off. “What did she do?”
Rutger was uncharacteristically quiet. “He holds Elena responsible for his daughter’s death.”
When the wolf would have howled at any such claim or perceived threat to its mate, there was only a hollow silence.
The screen made another cracking sound in his hand.
Piper. Think about Piper.
It didn’t matter what happened to him as long as she was okay.
“Vaughn?”
“Yeah?”
“It would be understandable if you found this difficult under the circumstances. Dare can—”
“I’ve got it under control.” It wasn’t Dare’s job to protect Piper, and as much as Dare wanted Piper back, Vaughn wasn’t so sure that his friend would sacrifice Elena to make it happen. Not now, not knowing how great the cost would be to Vaughn.
Vaughn had done his best to not think about what going through with the trade would mean, whereas it was the only thing Dare could think about since he’d found out.
He glanced over his shoulder. Dare and Elena were in the middle of some kind of stare down, the tension between them obvious from fifty feet away.
What were they talking about now?
“Did Dare bring the crown?” Rutger asked.
“It’s in the trunk.”
“And the sorceress isn’t responding to it?”
He started to say no, then watched the two of them in the car, wondering if that was somehow the source of the tension. Maybe Elena was grilling him on the crown’s whereabouts, or trying to figure out a way to get to it. “I don’t think so.”
A sound that might have been Rutger’s fingers drumming on a hard surface came through the phone.
“Does that disappoint you?” Although Vaughn couldn’t imagine why that would be the case.
“There’s no telling what a powerful sorceress with Fae in her blood could do if she was able to channel that kind of magic.”
Which begged the question why had Rutger insisted on sending the crown with Dare to begin with? “If the crown is so powerful, then how has no one managed to get their hands on it before now?”
“Oh, they’ve tried.”
And ultimately failed, Vaughn assumed. Yet he had pulled it off without much trouble, not counting Elena’s involvement. He’d been so relieved to get his hands on it at the time that he hadn’t stopped to consider why something that old and powerful hadn’t been better protected.
Rutger said something to someone in the background. “When are you expected to trade the sorceress for Piper?”
His throat tightened, the deal he’d made more real than ever. “Tomorrow at midnight.” It was a day later than planned, but their car accident and Erec’s appearance made the adjustment necessary.”
“Does the guy after Elena have any known gargoyles working for him?”
“Why do you ask?”
“There was a wolf. We went off the road, which I think may have been their intention, but they haven’t made another appearance. And there’s Erec.” He filled Rutger in on the wraith’s threat.
The leader of the rebellion mulled that over. “Could the wraith have orchestrated the accident?”
“I’m not ruling anything out at this point.” A wraith appearing as a wolf didn’t fit their usual M.O but nothing about any of this made sense. And he couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something where Erec was concerned.
“If anything comes up, get in touch. And call me when you reach your destination.”
Vaughn ended the phone call, grimacing at the cracks in the glass Dare was going to bitch about.
His friend however didn’t so much as glance at the phone as he tucked it back into the glove box a minute later, his attention focused entirely on Elena.
Vaughn settled himself behind the wheel despite the fact that the left side of his body was on fire from the injuries that wouldn’t heal properly without going to stone.
He’d allowed himself a few moments of sleep propped against Elena’s door during the day, in between her pleas to “Dare” for more food, conversation or the occasional request for weapons so she could cut their balls off.
That might have made him smile if he wasn’t preoccupied with whatever was going on with Elena and Dare.
Dare finally broke eye contact with the sorceress, his expression abnormally guarded.
Vaughn met Elena’s gaze in the rear-view mirror.
She shrugged. “Don’t look at me. He’s the big bad wolf.”
He turned back to his friend. “Anything I should know?”
Dare looked uncertain, but finally shook his head. “Did you get a hold of Rutger?”
“Yeah. We’ll touch base again when we get there.”
“And he knows it’s Elena you’re trading for Piper.”
They’d covered that the night before, right before Vaughn had shut the conversation down.
“But he knows her name, that it’s not just any sorceress, right? He knows Elena’s name.”
“Yes,” he answered. What the hell was going on with Dare now? First he was late but on board with the plan, and now this.
Dare twisted in his seat. “And you’re sure he knows everything?”
Vaughn nodded to the glove box. “The phone is in there if you need to call him.”
Dare muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “It doesn’t make sense.”
Vaughn started the car, sneaking a quick glance at Elena.. She was too busy glaring at Dare to notice.
Maybe he was better off not knowing whatever had the two of them fired up. Gritting his teeth through another knife of pain that pierced his side, he drove out of the parking lot.
***
The silence was driving Elena crazy.
Dare hadn’t said a word to her since Vaughn got back in the car, but she could hear the questions rattling around in his head, and sooner or later he was going to start voicing them.
He hadn’t immediately outed her as the Shadow’s Angel to Vaughn, but neither had he agreed to keep his realization to himself.
She couldn’t make up her mind which was worse. Vaughn learning they’d been playing for the same team for a while, or not knowing when Dare was going to drop that particular bombshell.
Normally her cloak and a little magic were enough to conceal her identity. Or it had been until her last assignment when she’d taken a hit by one of Morgana’s thugs.
She’d been attacked from behind during the confrontation and temporarily lost control of masking her tracings. Dare, who’d had been sent to back her up even though they’d never worked together before, had been close enough to catch part of the show.
With her tracings on full display since Vaughn locked down her magic, she’d known it was only a matter of time until Dare ignored the collective assumption that the Shadow’s Angel was a man and put the pieces together.
Which was why she always worked alone.
No one could use her involvement with the rebellion against her if they didn’t know who she was. Until the other night, Rutger was the only one who knew what the Shadow’s Angel was up to.
Aside from being annoyed that Rutger sent another Shadow without a heads up—probably because he knew she’d refuse the help—she hadn’t given Dare’s appearance a second thought.
The timing of it, combined with the fact that the rebellion’s leader not only knew about her abduction, but had apparently signed off on it, was too coincidental.
Rutger was up to something, and whatever it was, he wanted her in the dark about it.
If she didn’t know Rutger, didn’t trust him with her life, she might think he’d betrayed her. The rebellion’s leader valued loyalty above all else, and she’d been as loyal as any member of the rebellion, even if she kept her involvement a secret.
He wouldn’t turn on her, she knew that. So what was she missing?
Did he know she couldn’t use her magic?
Magic doesn’t make a hero.
How many times had he told her that? No, he wouldn’t be worried about her magic being inaccessible. He’d consider it a setback for her, not a deal breaker.
Unless Vaughn was lying about Rutger signing off on her kidnapping.
Her gut said he wasn’t, but at least that would explain how she’d ended up in this situation.
“Is something else going on?” Dare asked Vaughn, drawing her thoughts from Rutger’s endgame.
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Vaughn answered cryptically. He glanced at her in the mirror and then back at the road.
“How bad?” Dare asked. “On a scale of one to ten.”
“Before he answers that, does one or ten represent the number where I get to see someone wipe the floor with you two?”
Dare rolled his eyes at her.
Vaughn’s jaw tightened as they hit another bump. “I’m pretty sure if someone sweeps the floor with us you’ll end up in a worse situation.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“As far as I know the people who took Piper aren’t looking for revenge for you killing their daughter.”
She sagged against the seat, her eyes sliding shut. Apparently fate wasn’t satisfied with her jumping from the frying pan into the fire. It wanted to see her swan dive.
“So it’s true then,” Vaughn added, when she didn’t say anything.
The fact that he didn’t sound surprised she had killed someone shouldn’t have stung, but it did.
“It was an accident, right?” Dare asked.
For some reason that question was worse than Vaughn’s comment. The younger wolf barely knew her, but because he had this image of the Shadow’s Angel in his head, he gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Her silence was telling.
“Who was she?” Dare pressed.
“Does it matter?”
He glanced at Vaughn who sat stiffly behind the wheel. Vaughn wouldn’t be the first to turn his back on her when he heard she had done something unforgivable, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. So why was she waiting for him to insist she deny it or demand an explanation?
“It wasn’t a sorceress you’d know, but she did have a sister if you need to be hooked up. Although,” she added, “your mate might have something to say about that.”
The pup frowned at the comment, not feeling her sense of humor apparently. “What happened to the girl?”
“Someone should have warned me there was going to be a pop quiz.”
“Enough,” Vaughn snapped, the chill in his voice worse than any growl.
“And you actually killed her?” Dare pressed, unfazed by Vaughn’s warning.
“Her fate was in my hands,” Elena answered, feeling the past creep into the present despite her attempts to stay focused on the here and now.
They drove in silence for a few minutes, but Dare wasn’t done with the subject just yet. “Are they tracking us somehow?”
“Rutger didn’t say.”
Which wasn’t out of character. The rebellion leader had a habit of only sharing information he considered need to know.
And apparently she didn’t need to know a damn thing.
“Did he know anything about Erec at least? Maybe he was engaged to bring her in.”
“I don’t think that’s what he was after.”
The mention of the former knight peaked her curiosity. “It’s a little convenient that you know the wraith who attacked me, especially when he shouldn’t be under anyone’s control,” she directed her comment to Vaughn, wanting to poke at him for believing she was some heartless killer.
“That doesn’t mean someone hasn’t found a way to keep a leash on him.”
“Then why am I still alive? If someone wants me out of the equation, what stopped him from coming after me when I ran out of the cottage? If he’s been tasked with taking me out, a gargoyle’s not stopping him, Shadow or not. No offense.”
“He and Vaughn used to be friends,” Dare put in, but Elena barely heard him.
Her heart thumped in her chest, her lungs suddenly fighting for oxygen.
“They were pretty close before Rhiannon cursed the Knights,” Dare continued.
She barely heard his words over the roaring in her ears. “Pull over,” she wheezed, gripping the door handle, needing air. “I think…” The already dim light in the car grew darker, her senses reeling. “I’m going to be sick.”
Something in her voice must have convinced Vaughn she meant it. He pulled over, and she thrust the door open before the car had come to a complete stop.
Her knees buckled the moment her feet touched the ground. Her throat burned, the fierce thump of her heart in her ears deafening.
She crawled away from the car, chips of asphalt biting into her palms, slicing her skin. She didn’t care. Her stomach heaved a moment later, her lungs on fire, the cool night air impossibly out of reach.
“Elena?”
She stayed on her hands and knees until she emptied her stomach, and only then could she manage short, painful breaths.
“Tell me what to do.” Vaughn crouched beside her, the same concern from last night written all over his face.
At least now she understood, and she really wished she didn’t.
She wanted to go back to missing the one thing she should have figured out long before now, maybe even before the wraith attacked and injured him Vaughn and he hadn’t turned to stone on the spot.
Wraiths might have powerful magic that fueled their abilities, but the gargoyles weren’t entirely defenseless. The venom in a wraith’s claws caused serious damage, but with gargoyles it triggered their shift to stone, overriding even their instinct to fight.
Unless they were mated.
Mated gargoyles could control their curse, could fight the automatic shift to stone when it meant protecting their families, and she was stupid for not remembering that sooner.
She leaned against the rear tire, still struggling to catch her breath.
“Elena?”
She closed her eyes, hating the way he was looking at her, hating that the bastard sounded like he cared when he was about to toss her away.
It had been bad enough when he looked at her like that last night, when he held her, when he kissed her like it would be the last time and now…
Her chest burned where the brand pulsed against her skin, struggling to contain the magic fighting to respond to the fact that she wasn’t just Vaughn’s prisoner.
She was also his mate.
Gods, she couldn’t breathe.
She rubbed at her chest but her lungs continued to tighten.
“Get on your knees.”
Chills danced across her skin and her heart threatened to break her ribs, making it impossible to object when Vaughn settled his hand on her back and guided her forward. He pressed her upper body down until her forehead was almost touching the ground.
“Breathe through your nose. Slow and deep.”
“I…can’t.”
She was his mate. How in the hell did that happen? Her nails scraped the ground, her throat constricting.
“Hey,” Vaughn crouched opposite her. “Another deep breath.”
She shook her head.
“You can do this, Ivy.” He took her hand and rested it on his chest. “Breathe with me.”
The pressure on her lungs eased a fraction.
“That’s it.”
“Vaughn,” she murmured, pulling away from him.
She didn’t want to care. Didn’t want this to be more than a one-night stand.
She hadn’t gone looking for this kind of bond, and now that she knew it existed, could see the weight of it in his eyes, it was killing her.
***
“Elena?”
The wolf, who’d been eerily silent, howled in Vaughn’s head, driven to comfort its mate. The man wasn’t far behind, his earlier frustration forgotten as he watched her curl into herself, her body shaking.
Weeks ago he might have thought it an act, a ploy to make him lower his guard, but Elena would never intentionally show this kind of vulnerability. She rested her head on the knees she drew up to her chest, her breathing still far too ragged.
“Talk to me.” He couldn’t do anything to help her if he didn’t know what the hell was happening.
Dare, who’d jumped out when the vehicle skidded to a stop, slipped back into the car, the click of the door shutting barely audible above Elena’s frantic pulse.
Vaughn reached for her.
Her head snapped up, blue lightning flashing across her eyes, the warning clear.
He let his hand fall back to his side, curled his claws into his palm, his control dangerously low. The wolf wanted out and would tear through Vaughn’s skin if it came to that. “Are you hurt?”
“Five by five,” she muttered.
Somehow doubting she was referencing the military term, he didn’t bother to get into it, not when her sarcasm didn’t quite mask something he’d never heard in her voice before, something broken.
The wolf pressed against his mind, and he pushed to his feet, pacing away from her only to spin back around and return to her.
“Ivy—” He stopped himself from saying anything more, stopped from insisting she tell him how to help her. It was his fault she was here, his fault she was hurting.
Tears that wouldn’t fall shone in her eyes, and he knew she wouldn’t let him see her cry. She held his gaze for a long moment as if proving it to the both of them.
“Dare.”
His friend was out of the car, watching him over the hood of the car. Realizing immediately how close to the edge Vaughn was, his friend nodded, telling him without a word that he’d watch over Elena.
“I’ll be back. Stay with Dare.” The last of it was more a growl than actual words but Elena probably didn’t notice. She wouldn’t even look at him.
Vaughn turned and sprinted for the woods, the wolf breaking free before he’d barely crossed the treeline.
Colors burst across his vision, the wolf snarling to the surface as bones and muscles realigned, his animal half tearing into the world in a rage.
He ran in a wide arc, circling the immediate area for threats before he backtracked to find a spot to keep watch over his mate.
She stayed on the ground for a long time. Dare sat nearby, his gaze continually sweeping the surrounding trees as he talked softly to Elena. She didn’t respond with anything more than the occasional shake of her head.
Vaughn lost track of how long she sat there, each moment eating its way through what was left of his heart.
He needed to go to her. Be with her.
But Piper… She was counting on him to save her, to follow through on the Iron Brotherhood’s ultimatum.
Up until the moment he used the Fae enchantment to neutralize Elena’s magic, he’d tried to come up with some way around going through with the deal, and every scenario ended with someone dying.
Even if Elena was willing to work with him to double-cross Piper’s abductors, he couldn’t undo the power of the Fae glyph that left her vulnerable. If they realized she was working with him, they could decide she wasn’t worth it and kill her. If he tried to find a way around showing up without her, they would kill Piper. And in every scenario in between, all three of them ended up dead.
Elena rose, glancing over her shoulder as if searching for him, before she finally got back in the car.
“I’ve got this,” Dare said just loud enough for Vaughn to hear.
Leaving his best friend to watch over the one woman he never saw coming, he gave himself to his animal half.
The damp earth churned under his paws as he ran, the wolf fighting to work through the pain it barely understood. Smaller animals bolted in the opposite direction, sensing a predator in their midst.
He didn’t try to rein in the wildness, all too aware the wolf wouldn’t stray too far from Elena no matter how much it needed to run, to howl, to mourn.
He didn’t want to let her go, but he couldn’t abandon Piper. She needed him more than Elena did. His fearless sorceress was strong in ways that his sister never would be.
The wolf howled, the pained sound cutting into both man and beast.
When exhaustion crept in, he turned back, muscles burning from the fierce pace neither man nor wolf could maintain. This tired there was no fighting the wolf that hungered to return to its mate, and if he didn’t let the wolf have this much, there would be no repairing the damage.
When he finally reached the vehicle still in wolf form, he found Dare leaning against the side of the car. The younger gargoyle held the back door open.
Elena sat on the passenger side, her bare feet tucked under her. She didn’t pay any attention to him as he hopped on the seat, but she didn’t shove him away either when he settled next to her and laid his head on her legs.
Dare started the car, getting them back on the road. No one talked, the silence broken only by the hum of the outside world blurring by.
At some point Elena lifted a hand, stroking his fur, lulling both man and wolf until he did something he hadn’t done since the night he’d spent with Elena in Vegas.
He fell asleep.
***
The wolf was out cold.
Elena was torn between annoyance and envy that the wolf could sleep while her entire body continued to run on adrenaline since putting the pieces together.
She’d been determined to ignore him when the beast had sprawled across the backseat, taking up every spare inch of space before having the gall to put his head practically in her lap.
The wolf clearly still had a death wish.
He couldn’t have been counting on her touching him when part of her wanted to scream and set all that luxurious fur on fire. And she would have if her magic wasn’t locked down or if she could get that look in his eyes out of her head.
The look that vowed he’d walk through fire for her.
It was the same look she had glimpsed the night they’d spent together in Vegas. It hurt to remember the intensity of it, the sheer longing that beckoned her to walk through the fire right next to him.
Air puffed from the wolf’s nostrils reminding her to run her hand over his head and down the thick band of fur at the scruff of his neck. She sank her fingers deeper and the wolf seemed to sigh and slip deeper into sleep.
Was he arrogant enough to think he wasn’t vulnerable like this? Or maybe he just felt the same thing she did whenever he was close—safe.
Any other time she might have laughed at that. She hadn’t truly been safe a single moment she had spent in the wolf’s presence. Not during the Gauntlet, not in Vegas and certainly not now.
So why did it feel like he was watching over her even while he slept?
She turned her attention back to the window as if she’d find the answer among the drops of rain that danced across the glass, the midnight shower matching her mood.
The tightening in her chest was slightly more bearable now, but she wasn’t sure if it was the brand or her heart that ached the most.
“Does it hurt?” Dare asked, fiddling with the radio.
“Not as much.”
“Not as much,” Dare echoed, sounding confused. “I meant the brand on your skin.”
“I know what you meant. I don’t think it hurts me as much as it hurts him.”
It seemed ridiculous to believe for a moment that Vaughn’s suffering mattered when she was technically a prisoner, but she’d felt his arms around her last night.
She might be his ticket to getting his sister back, but that wasn’t why he had held her so tight when he had found her in the woods or why he looked like he would have changed places with her in a heartbeat when she had freaked out earlier.
She studied the sleeping animal. “He’d keep me, wouldn’t he?”
The car swerved slightly but Dare kept the vehicle on the road even as he craned his neck to look at her, his eyes wide. “What did you say?”
She ran her finger down between the wolf’s eyes and along the bridge of his snout.
She’d dropped by to visit Emma once and walked in to find Cian curled up next to her sister in his panther form. He’d cracked one sleepy eye open at the intrusion and dropped a massive paw across Emma’s chest to stop her from rising.
Elena thought it proved how much of a barbarian the gargoyle was, but Emma had only laughed, never looking happier at being half-suffocated by the cat. And here Elena was with a sleeping wolf all but on top of her and she didn’t mind at all.
“I said, he’d keep me, wouldn’t he?” If he didn’t have to choose between her and his sister.
Half a lifetime ago she would have pointed out that it wasn’t really a choice at all, that she was too awesome to give up for anyone, but things had changed.
She had changed.
She’d grown bored with the shock and awe routine a long time ago, but continuing to project the image of a self-centered immortal just looking for her next good time still worked in her favor.
No one suspected her of working for the rebellion, undermining Morgana’s hold on Avalon from the shadows when she was the life—or the bitch—of the party.
She’d been content with that for a long time. Balancing both parts of her life, doing what she could to save those of her kind Morgana locked away where she could slowly siphon their magic, had been enough.
With Emma happy with Cian and her parents wrapped up in their own post-reunion drama, she’d been able to sink even deeper into the role with the rebellion.
And then Vaughn came along and everything changed.
He needed to save his sister. She couldn’t hold that against him when she would burn the world down to protect her twin.
But she couldn’t just allow herself to be handed over, not when there were so many counting on the Shadow’s Angel. She couldn’t be his lamb to the slaughter no matter what was between them. There were too many left to be saved.
“And by ‘he’d keep me’, “Dare prompted, “you mean what exactly?”
Elena shrugged. “It sounded like something you gargoyles would say. You’re known to be a bit territorial with your mates, aren’t you? Cian is with Emma. I thought she was crazy to put up with the whole caveman mentality, but maybe she wasn’t so crazy after all.”
“Mate,” Dare wheezed, like he couldn’t quite get the word out.
“I know I’m a little late to the party but how about we skip the part where you pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”