Blaize and the Maven: The Energetics Book 1 (34 page)

He stood in front of the energetic. She lay on her side, restrained and caged. Her body seemed skeletal, her black hair hanging around her face like a shroud.

He nudged the cage. “Rogue. Wake up.”

“No. No. I’m sorry. I’m hungry. I’m tired. Let me sleep,” she muttered, and he had to strain to hear the words. She didn’t sound rational.

“Rogue. Tell me if you were working alone or with someone else.” He spoke louder, squatting so he was closer to her head. She opened her eyes slightly and squinted up at him.
 

“Indigo, I’m Indigo. Where’s my tasty dinner? I kept her alive, the redhead.” Her face shifted quickly to anger. “The bitch. Thinks she can Queen Bee me. I’m the queen of the castle here, I am.”

“Blaize is far away from here where you can’t hurt her any more.” Cuinn resisted the urge to kick the cage. Instead, he gripped the bars and put his face to hers.

She spat at him, and he jerked back, wiping at his neck where the spittle had landed. The Rogue was out of her mind. But he needed to be sure that she was the end of this. That this wasn’t related to the main prophecy. That Blaize was safe once the Rogue was dead. As he could see she soon would be.
 

“You are Queen Bee, I can see. Queen of the flowers and of your beautiful Haven.”

She laughed. It was an unnerving sound. Her face rubbed against the floor like a cat.
 

“Hmmm. I love my house I do. Safe here.” Her face turned sad. “Usually safe. Not today. Not today.”

“Indigo, were you working with someone else? Was anyone helping you?”

“Secrets, secrets. I know some secrets. Secrets about your friends. Friends now, and future friends. Prophecies come to all with Ajna you know, not just the good ones.”

His frustration built, and one of the jewelled lamps across the room exploded.

“Naughty boy! A temper on you despite your energies. You’re not the only one with a temper either. Your cousins have challenges ahead. Did you know they’re part of the prophecy? And that friend of yours. He has a temper on him too, the blond one. Likes to play. Ah, so many of you caught up in the web. Some you know; some you don’t. Surprises in store.” She laughed again and more glass broke.

Adrenalin pumped through Cuinn’s tired body as he looked around him.
She knows about the prophecy.
 

“What are you talking about? What prophecy are you talking about?” He wanted to shake her.

Her Haven was starting to break up as she lost control of her mind and faded.
 

“Nothing’s set in stone,” she sang, her voice grating. “Thought I’d win this one; didn’t. Maybe you think you’ll win the next one; won’t. Who knows? Whoknows? Whoknowswhoknowwhoknows?”

The room was breaking, falling and exploding around him now. He put up a shield to protect himself from the flying pieces. He needed to get out of there.
 

“What else do you know, Indigo? Who were you with?”

Her eyes opened and fixed on his. “More than you smarty-pants. More than you. Send my love to your father.”
 

The life went out of her eyes and her head slumped, blood trickling from her nose. Wild energies seeped into the room, savage and unpredictable.
 

He fled.

He sat quietly on the patio of the large house far from the city, staring out at the countryside around him. The earth was green and fertile, but no birds sang, and no insects chittered. The air was paused around him. Waiting.

The destruction of Indigo and her Haven had affected him badly. No matter how much power he had leeched from the flotsam and jetsam of the energetics—because no matter what the Guilds said, not every energetic was part of a happy family—no Maven could lose an Adherent and not suffer.
 

He clenched his fists.
Indigo should not have failed me.
 

It took him a moment to rein in his anger, but he was a practical man, and his anger took energy from him that he could ill afford.
 

He breathed in and out, slowly, carefully, and drew on a little power from the ether each time, replenishing himself.
 

 
A tall, graceful blond woman came out from the house and stood next to him. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," he said. "I just need to rest."

"If there's anything I can do, let me know." She played with the silver teardrop necklace that she favoured.
 

"I will. Perhaps you could send Dagon to me at some point. I need him to attend to some business. We'll visit the house in the city in a day or so too."

"Do you think you'll be well enough?" She sounded concerned.

"I'll be fine." At least he would after he'd had a chance to leech from the energetic match that Dagon would procure him.
 

She patted his arm and walked back to the door. "Just shout if you need me."

He didn't move when she had gone. He sat and thought for a long while. About Indigo, Cuinn and Blaize, and the prophecies. They chased the same prophecy, but he had more clarity about the stakes than them.
 

Unlimited power was within his reach. All that prevented him from gaining it was twelve energetics. Not only that, but they needed to be in six very specific couples. All he had to do was prevent one couple from bonding, and the prophecy would fall apart.

Prophecies were tricky things. They mattered—but they could be changed. Nothing was set in stone.
 

So he'd been unsuccessful the first time. That was fine.

He had five more chances.

***

Blaize woke up with a gasp. She snapped her eyes open and checked her surroundings. She was in a bright, clean room. She breathed a sigh of relief as she realised she wasn’t in the vile basement.
 

But where was she?

The pristine white room seemed to be in a high-class hospital. Had she dreamt about the rescue? Had she been taken somewhere else? Her stomach clenched.

The door started to open, and she tried to sit up, but the change in pressure caused dizziness to crash over her, and she fell back onto the pillow.

“Blaize, Blaize honey, it’s okay; it’s me, Cara. Everything’s fine.” Cara hurried over to her and stroked her forehead. “You’re fine.”

“Where’s Cuinn? What happened to Indigo?” Blaize shuddered.

“Cuinn’s fine. He’s in a different room. He tried some heroics of his own and only just escaped in one piece, so he’s resting too.”

“Where are we?”

“We’re in my Rehab centre out on the West Coast. It was the best place to bring you and Cuinn. And the Rogue.”

Blaize shifted in the bed. If the Rogue was here, then Blaize was going to prepare herself for another fight. Just in case.
Although…
“Did she
…
Did she survive?”

Cara shook her head. “She was a long way down the addiction path—you weren’t the first energetic she did this to. I’m sorry.”

Blaize breathed a guilty sigh of relief. “I’m not. I’m sorry I killed her, but I’m not sorry she’s dead.”

“I understand. We’ll talk more about it later. My experience says this won’t be the last time you’ll think about her I’m afraid.” She poured a glass of water and handed it to Blaize.

The water was cool and refreshing.

“Do you think you could eat something?”
 

Blaize’s stomach shifted and growled. She laughed. “I guess so. But no fast food. I won’t be eating any more of that for a while.”

***

As the days passed, Blaize became more and more suspicious that Cuinn was avoiding her.
Why isn’t he here? If he loved me, wouldn’t he be here? I nearly died, for Source’s sake. But I survived. And I didn't turn into a Rogue.
She was safe to be around.
 

Her heart broke a little bit more every day he didn’t visit her. She'd been ready to agree to his terms, but hadn't had the chance to tell him.

Eventually, she was allowed to move around a little in the facility, going outside for the first time, and standing in the gardens, which overlooked the pebbled beach and restless sea.
 

“You’re seeing it at its best,” said Cara, coming out to sit next to her and passing her a cup of hot tea. “It’s nearly summer now, and the weather’s good. It can be a real bitch in winter when we get snow.”

“Where’s Cuinn?”
 

Cara sighed. “He’s back home. Tierra, Adam, and Fin are with him. Something came up that he needed to deal with. Once you’re ready, you can go back there and see him.”

“I’m not sure I want to.”
Lie.

“He didn’t leave because he doesn’t want to be with you, Blaize. He has a strong connection to the energies there, and we thought it would help him recover more quickly. And other information came up when he was interrogating Indigo—”
 

Blaize flinched at the name.

“And he’s gone back to look into that too.”

Blaize was sure Cuinn had realised she was a liability, her impulsive nature one that would put them all at risk, time and time again. And yet her confinement and ordeal had made her see that Cuinn was the most important person in her life.

***

Cuinn felt empty. Despite the infusion of energy from Tierra, he’d overextended himself to break into Indigo’s Haven, and it had taken him a while to recover.
 

But Indigo’s final words had galvanised him to get back to his books and dreamwalks—as soon as Tierra and Cara had allowed it.

He had told the others he had more information, but despite their probing, he hadn’t yet revealed to them that he suspected several of them were also involved in the prophecy. He needed more information before he dropped that bombshell.

His single-mindedness was all designed to keep Blaize, and his family, safe. That was what he told himself. As he returned this time from seeing the Circle members and filling them in on what had happened with the Rogue, he forced himself to admit there was more to it than that.
 

He’d made a mistake when he’d compared Blaize to Sophea. When he’d seen how Blaize had caged the Rogue and called to him in the dreamscape, he’d realised Sophea and Blaize were nothing alike.
 

Blaize was independent. Self-sufficient. She was a grown woman who was a match for his own inner strength, while her passionate nature balanced his own logical calm. She had enough power to protect herself. She was going to be a hell of an Ajna energetic once she’d been trained.

Seeing her lifted him. She made him laugh. She annoyed the hell out of him.
 

He was in love with Blaize.
 

And he didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t love him back. He could wait if he had to, but every moment of the coming years would be a living hell, being Maven and Adherent and not lovers. She pushed his objectivity, the stability that usually came from his earth energies, to their limit. What if she never admitted she loved him? He was sure she did. Sure of it.

But he was worried—terrified—that he had messed things up irrevocably. He’d let her get taken, for Source’s sake. She hadn’t been in contact as she recovered, and he’d respected her privacy. But now she was at the house, and he was heading home to see her for the first time since her capture.

Cuinn’s dreams had changed as well. Thankfully, he’d stopped dreaming the prophecy of Blaize’s death, and now he dreamt of her with him, but just out of reach.
 

In his dreamwalks, more of the twelve had faces.
 

Tierra and Fintan were there, as well as Adam and Cara. Other figures were still shadowy. The fact that some of his family and friends were involved had made him work even harder on the problem.

He opened the front door to the sound of voices in the hub of the house, the kitchen. He walked to the room, feeling as if he was on death row. In a few minutes, he would find out if Blaize returned his feelings.

There were five of them in the room: the three women, Fin, and Adam.

But he only had eyes for one person.

Her hair curled gently around her face, and her green eyes looked at him. Her face seemed pale, and she hadn’t put back all the weight that she’d burned off through Indigo’s leeching. Still, she was beautiful.

Cara moved in front of her, greeting him warmly, and the room filled with the sounds of people. He took his place at the table. Tierra filled his plate, this time with pancakes, fruit and a lot of syrup, and handed him a cup of coffee.
 

As he ate, he was acutely aware of Blaize sitting quietly opposite him. She still seemed so fragile, as if something in her had been damaged by her experience with the Rogue. Which, of course, it probably had. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her against him.

It seemed like hours before everyone had finished eating and started drifting to other parts of the house. Blaize stood, saying she was heading back to her own cottage for some peace and quiet.
 

He jumped at the chance. “Let me walk you back.”