Tempting Ecstasy (The Guardians of the Realms Book 4) (29 page)

“Havoc, home,” Conn told the beast a command he was familiar with. The animal ported back to Tetartos. Conn would be able to get Hagen and his brother back, but he couldn’t have gotten Hagen out without the hound. Conn hopped into the passenger side. They were fortunate it was dark because the wolf took the car through at least three turns on two wheels and blew through the stop signs on the rural roads.

“Did he say anything?” Conn asked the other male as he braced from being slammed into the side of the vehicle again.

“No,” Hagen bit out as he white-knuckled the steering wheel.

Conn hoped to hell they made it and didn’t have to deal with cops in the process. It was dark enough out it could be well after midnight here instead of the broad daylight they’d come from. That was good news because Conn was on his own with the wolf. His brothers were all busy with the battle in Tetartos. Conn ran a hand down his face. Drake was going to kick his ass hard for outing Havoc’s ability to Dacia’s whole damned family, but if they didn’t get the brother back alive, he was fucked all the way around.

Bastian, Jax, are you guys good?
He took a deep breath as he checked on his brothers. He’d left them on a damned battlefield, and his gut twisted because you didn’t fucking do that shit. He’d barely finished cutting down a hound when Dacia cried his name. The anguish that had poured through the link slayed him, nothing mattered but getting to her.

Yeah, man. We got this. Getting close to cleanup. She okay?
Jax asked.

All I know is a brother in Earth Realm is dying. I have Hagen, and he’s tracking him, but it’s a close thing. No words from the brother, but they feel it.
He clenched his teeth, his wolf near the surface at the thought of his mate’s suffering.

Don’t worry about shit here. We’ll be wrapping it up soon,
Jax said.

Thanks.

Conn checked Dacia.
Are you with me, princess?

What’s happening?

We’re not there yet. I’ll let you know when we have him.
Not if. He wouldn’t say that. He just hoped to hell they were getting fucking closer. Hagen took another sharp turn, sending the car sliding, and Conn held the piece-of-shit handle at the side. He’d never been a fucking fan of cars. Bikes, yes, metal vehicle surrounding him, no. It would have been a hell of a lot more convenient if Hagen was able to teleport.

They were driving past an industrial section toward what looked like an old private airport. A trio of black SUVs spun out of a road ahead and to their right, now heading in the same direction as they were. Hagen growled as he turned the car down the road the vehicles had come from. Conn saw flames licking at a hangar and was out of the car and ripping down the metal door a second later.

He smelled accelerant and blood, a lot of fucking blood, and the power of something that should never have been there. He snarled in disbelief. No sprinklers, disabled. He used his power to break the fucking pipes to bring water raining down from above.
Drake, everyone needs to get here fucking now!
He smelled Apollo, and that meant somehow the God had been taken from his hiding place. He sent the mental image through the link.

This was bad, very fucking bad. Jerric’s neck was sliced almost all the way through, and he’d been shot in the head and bled out through the cut. He was chained down and alive, barely. Conn healed the cut as best as he could, it would have to be enough until Sirena could get free of the fighting. He and Hagen both grabbed the metal chains and yanked them free of the cement moorings. Hagen lifted his brother.

Dorian showed up before Drake and used his power to pull water and douse all the flames that were flowing up the walls and moving to the middle of the damned place.

Drake teleported in and roared with enough fury to set the place back on fucking fire.

He broadcast the image of the SUVs and the airport hangar to all his brethren through the Guardian link. Drake partially shifted so that huge iridescent green wings grew from his back, and then he was gone.

“I’ll check for surveillance. Go,” Dorian said and hauled ass to an office at the side. Other brothers ported in all around him, their stunned expressions melting into rage at the God’s stench still lingering in the air. Conn couldn’t allow himself to get caught up in his brothers’ frenzy, he needed to get Jerric to safety and start some healing.

“Breathe,” Conn instructed Hagen, who was funneling personal energy to Jerric.

He teleported them to the side of the manor, and Hagen refused to let go of his broken brother, determination and strength set the wolf’s shoulders. Hagen’s arms shook, but he wouldn’t relinquish Jerric.

Conn slammed the side door open and ported down the stairs to find the first available subterranean room. They all needed energies, and he needed to try to heal some more damage. It would be a long recovery for the younger wolf. “He’ll live, but my healing isn’t as fast or thorough as Sirena, and she might still be a while.”

“My sisters and Gunn are coming. We have some ability, stronger if we combine it.” Hagen’s jaw was clenched as he lay Jerric down on the bed. “Thank you,” Hagen said with feeling, and Conn saw in his eyes how much the male meant it.

Conn nodded and went about healing what he could. Jerric’s fucking wrists were cut too. It was a damned mess. Conn looked over the rest of the body: he was in jeans and a long-sleeve black tee, and his hair was a little longer than Hagen’s, but no other wounds. Conn worked on closing the neck, but the bullet wound to the head was going to take a lot more juice than he had. Hagen was trying a wrist, but the male didn’t have a lot of ability, and the process was slow. Hagen was sweating, pulling any power he could.

“I’m here,” Sirena said, running in. She tossed down a sword and quickly washed her hands before setting them to work on Jerric’s head. That was likely the first hit. Down him, chain him, and then bleed him out. There were several hack marks in his neck where they’d tried to sever his head and almost had. The fire would have finished him if they’d started with his body instead of the building. He reeked of accelerant, smoke and blood. He was fucking lucky.

He felt her the second she stumbled in with her siblings. Tears flowed down her face when she saw her brother. He’d been hoping to spare her that sight when he’d taken the other entrance.

He brought her into his arms and kissed her hair. “He’ll be fine. It won’t be an easy recovery, but he’ll live,” he whispered. He hated his next words. “I have to go help Drake.” There was too much going on, and fuck, all he wanted to do was love her, comfort her. His heart twisted, but this was who he was, and what had happened in that warehouse was big. Too big.

Chapter 37

Earth Realm

Conn teleported back to the hangar and his brothers.

“What’s going on?” he asked Gregoire.

“Drake and P are following the SUVs, waiting for them to stop before we go in.” Both males had wings, and in the night, Cynthia probably wouldn’t even know they were up there.

Bastian tossed Conn some cuffs, which was good. They couldn’t harm the Mageia unless they wanted tenfold the pain, but Cynthia had no qualms about using missiles, guns and bombs on them. He wondered what they were heading into. The metal cuffs tended to dull elemental power.

Uri was looking around at all the blood. “What the hell did they use to make this shit happen?” He was furious.

“I don’t know,” Conn said. They could all smell the power from Apollo’s confinement chamber. It was mixed with the God’s own scent, and it was there not long ago.

“I can’t believe this shit. This has to be Elizabeth’s doing. How the fuck did she get Apollo?” Sander, the most hotheaded asshole of the Guardians, bellowed furiously.

Come now,
Drake growled in the link before any of them could say anything. Drake gave them the mental image of a secluded farmhouse. Simple, nothing like Cynthia’s other homes.

Conn teleported into gunfire and used his power to disable the males’ weapons while Drake swooped down out of the sky and plucked up Cynthia, her shrieks echoed into the night. P flew down and snagged another Mageia, as the other Guardians moved in. Conn held the weapons and bastards on his side of the vehicles immobile. He couldn’t get to the ones on the other side of the vehicles, but that didn’t stop Jax and Bastian. Conn saw the garage burning and so were areas surrounding the three vehicles. Drake had blocked them in with fire, and now Dorian was dousing the flames with water he pulled from the home’s irrigation systems.

Uri, I want her memories! Earth Compound, now!
Drake roared through the link and ported Cynthia away.

On my way.
Uri said.

P and Sander used the cuffs, making fast work of the Mageia.

“I’ll go through the house,” Gregoire said before heading in that direction. Conn, Bastian and Jax started going through the cars while the others took the trussed Mageia to holding cells for Uri to interrogate.

Conn found the box. It was in the back of one of the SUVs and when he opened it fury and shock filled him.
Fuck! It’s the Deleastis Rod. Fucking bitch.
Even with the box open, without the Rod being activated, he felt the pull. The box had to be spelled, because he didn’t feel shit when the lid was closed.

I thought the Rod was destroyed when the Creators eradicated the Doulos cuffs Apollo used to imprison us,
Gregoire snarled through the link.

It must not be made of the same metal the Creators destroyed. Son of a bitch.
The Deleastis Rod was a magical staff with the power to lure Immortals to it. That had been how Apollo had taken the Immortals all those centuries ago. Fuck, it was used on him when he went in after Brianne. He’d never forget the red serpent’s eyes shining from the gold rod. It was in the shape of a twisting dragon. The damn thing had to be activated to work, but his skin still crawled at the power wafting from it.

Elizabeth had to have known where to fucking find it. In thousands of years we’ve never come across it. Hadn’t thought it was still in existence.
They went through the rest of the cars and took anything they found. Registration, insurance fucking cards.

The house only had some luggage. I already took it to the Earth Compound,
Gregoire said.

They’d fucking failed. They lost a damned God.

Chapter 38

Guardian Manor, Tetartos Realm

His dick was killing him, but there was nothing he could fucking do about it. They’d worked all damned night and gotten nowhere fast, and it looked like things were about as bad as shit could get. At least they knew what all the distractions had been for a month ago.

All the Guardians, their mates, and Erik and Sam sat around the big table in the war room. He’d given Dacia the option to rest, but she’d been determined to come now that her brother’s healing was taking effect.

Her chair was pulled up next to his, and her scent was wrapped around him, inside him.

He rubbed the back of Dacia’s neck. Though touching her was probably a bad idea, he didn’t fucking care. Everything was going to hell, and he was already hard as fuck.

“In Cynthia’s blood memories I found everything Elizabeth had her do,” Uri growled. “The hell beast and demon-possessed attacks last month were when Elizabeth had Cynthia searching for the Deleastis Rod. Elizabeth was Apollo’s damned pet, so it makes sense she’d known where it was, but to get the spell to work, she also had to know there was a descendant of Apollo in fucking Earth Realm. So Apollo must have known when Dacia’s mother escaped and Elizabeth knew she wasn’t exiled to Tetartos. That’s a lot of thought and planning on Elizabeth’s part.”

Drake was standing at the end of the table, seething in fury. Smoke filtered from his lips to the exhaust fans above.

“A scary amount,” P agreed.

Uri continued with the information he’d taken. “The bitch had Cynthia use the Rod to lure Dacia’s brother, took him down, and the Rod itself was used in the spell with all his blood to call Apollo to that warehouse. Once Cynthia had him she was able to do the normal teleport spell with all her asshole Mageia and send fucking Apollo to Elizabeth in Tetartos.”

Conn felt like shit having this be Dacia’s first Guardian meeting. She was getting tossed into the deep end at the worst time. Tensions were high; one of the worst things that could have happened, had. They’d failed in their duty, and she got to sit through it all with him.

“The place they teleported him to was a desert, and there was no sign of Elizabeth or the God, and she managed to somehow cover all traces of a port out,” Bastian said, clenching his jaw in anger. He or Sacha could have traced a teleport that was within an hour old, but not if Elizabeth had something to block it. She was proving so much smarter than any of them thought.

“Did anyone try using the same spell Cynthia used to locate Apollo?” Rain asked.

“Yes. I used my blood,” Sirena said, and everyone looked at her.

Conn glanced around and saw Dacia’s over bright eyes shift to Sirena and the dawning understanding there. His sister had just said something out loud that she never admitted. The Guardians knew, but not some of the others, like Erik and Sam. He watched anger and hatred flash on Sirena’s beautiful face. His sister hated her father and would have gladly put him in the ground if the Creators would have let her. Her entire existence was devoted to fixing the horrors he’d set into motion during his time. “My blood has a higher concentration, so I didn’t need as much to know it wouldn’t work,” Sirena said with disgust. “Elizabeth found a way to shield him, preventing it from working a second time.”

Dacia was tense next to him; he could smell her arousal. They were both in the fucking frenzy, and it was well past time to meet their needs. It didn’t matter that shit was falling apart around them.

“What other knowledge does the sick bitch have? That’s the part that makes my skin crawl,” Jax added. No one gave her credit for intelligence, but maybe she was Apollo and Hermes’s pet for more than her sadistic tastes.