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  His eyes widened in horror, and then a dark shadow of guilt passed across his face.

  Shit, he thought I was blaming him? “No.” I pressed my fingers to my temple. “I’m not blaming you. Fuck, I’m not blaming anyone. It is what it is. What I’m trying to say is that I’m done ignoring my gut instincts. The time for caution has passed.”

  I turned to Hunter. “It’s time for you to tell your story, Hunter. I want to know what happened. I need to know why you were bound, and I need to know everything you were forbidden to tell us.”

  Hunter floated swiftly across the room, his body an ethereal form that moved with undeniable grace. “In that case, I suggest you get comfortable.”

  I took a seat on the arm of the chair closest to Micha, and he slung an arm around my waist. I rested my hand on his forearm, my attention on Hunter’s shadowy form.

  “I can’t remember anything prior to being here,” Hunter said. “For all I know, I was born here, and Marika was the mother I never had. She kept me safe, she kept me entertained and—”

  “Wait a second,” Deacon interrupted. “What do you mean she kept you? How old were you, and where did she keep you?”

  “The lower levels to start with,” Hunter said. “Age isn’t something I can quantify; it doesn’t work that way for shades. I was young, though, probably what you would refer to as prepubescent, when I lived below, and I’d reached maturity when she ushered me above to her chambers. There was a closet and a room beyond which she tailored for my use.”

  “And you just stayed there?” Deacon was skeptical. “You just remained in the room?”

  Hunter nodded. “I was afraid of discovery. Marika warned me what would happen if I left, if I disobeyed. She warned me that the council would come for me, that they’d take me away from her and throw me to Genesis. I stayed in the room to survive. She visited me every day. Brought me books, paper, and pens. We talked for hours. I loved her as any son would love his mother. She told me about the Sanguinata rebellion and how they’d been locked away. She told me about Genesis and the council’s plan to wait him out. She told me about the crystal and how it would change everything. How once we had it, we would never have to be afraid of discovery.”

  “A decade …” Deacon said. “That was how long we were down here without a crystal to protect us. It took a decade for us to learn of its existence, find its location, and convince the sea dwellers to help us obtain it. It took a decade for Emory to complete the Hive and the heart.”

  “Yes, it was a decade. She was my mother for a decade. And then …” He went very still. “Then, she betrayed me.”

  Chapter 5

  “She betrayed you?” Deacon’s lip curled in an uncharacteristic manner.

  The Sanguinata rarely, if ever, lost his cool, but this was his beloved dead lover Hunter was talking about.

  “Deacon.” I shot him a back-off look. “Let Hunter talk.” I nodded at Hunter. “Go on.”

  Hunter’s starlight eyes gleamed from his shadowy visage. “She came to me one night, sat me down, and told me that she needed my help. That she needed me to protect someone. Obviously, I agreed. I would have done anything for her. The crystal was here by then. But it was yet to be activated. Looking back now, I can see there was a sadness in her eyes, but I didn’t understand it back then. She told me to stand up, to not move, whatever happened, and then she stepped into me. There was pain, heart-searing and bone-numbing. She uttered words I didn’t understand, and when it was over, my limbs were bound with green threads. They were all over me like a tenacious spider web. She’d bound me, but still, I wasn’t aware of what had happened. I trusted her. It was only when she asked me questions about the Sanguinata rebellion and the council’s motives, and I found I couldn’t answer, that my mind grasped what she’d done. She told me she would be leaving, and that once she was gone, I would be free to roam the Hive but never free to leave. She told me that I would be neither seen nor heard and that I would be drawn to certain individuals and compelled to protect them. She explained that the day would come when I would find someone who would hear me, and when I did, I would be bound to that person until their death.”

  “But still compelled to protect them?” Micha asked.

  “Yes.” Hunter moved back and forth as if pacing. “She left me. Hours passed, and then the door to my chamber opened. I was free but trapped in the Hive in invisible form. I looked for Marika but never found her, but through my snooping, I discovered what she’d done. She’d left me here to rot. Left me alone. She told me she loved me, but that was a lie. She used me. I was nothing to her.” There was bitterness in his tone. “And slowly I came to hate her.”

  “She did what she had to,” Deacon said.

  Was he serious? I turned on the Sanguinata, my eyes burning on Hunter’s behalf. “Really? You think binding him was necessary? He loved her, don’t you think he would have helped her of his own accord?”

  Deacon shrugged a shoulder. “She obviously didn’t trust him to.”

  “Or she was just a fucking bitch!” I stood, my body vibrating with rage. “What she did was wrong. I don’t give a shit that she had a fucking vision. She put Hunter through decades of trauma. Have you any idea what it must have been like for him, trapped like that. Lonely and unheard?”

  And I’d been so flippant, so dismissive of him, never bothering to delve deeper. I’d taken his derision at face value, so wrapped up in my own shit I hadn’t bothered to hear the pain in his voice. I was angry but not just at Deacon, I was mad at myself.

  Deacon’s shoulders slumped. “Echo, Marika sacrificed herself for the Hive.”

  “Yeah, and she did that by choice. Maybe she should have given Hunter a fucking choice too.”

  God, I was pissed.

  “You’re alive because of her,” Deacon reminded me.

  “I’m alive because Hunter saved me. Which he probably could have done if she hadn’t bound him. If she’d just trusted him.”

  “She had to have had her reasons.”

  “Yeah? Well, we’ll never know, so let’s just agree to disagree, shall we?”

  I needed to speak to Hunter, to apologize properly, but not here, not now.

  “Marika wanted you alive,” Lyrian said. “She must have known you would be important in some way.”

  “The last guardian,” Verona said softly.

  I’d almost forgotten she was in the room. She was taking this all really well.

  “A reappearance of the Arcana,” Micha added.

  “There has to be more to it,” Deacon said.

  I looked to Hunter. “Did she tell you anything else?”

  Hunter had stopped pacing. “Only that the person that would hear me would be the key to saving us all.”

  “Well, no pressure then.”

  Micha’s grip on my waist tightened. “Whatever your destiny, you have us to support you. You won’t be doing it alone.”

  His words were comforting because there was no doubt in my mind that he meant them. Lyrian, Micha, Emory, and heck, even Deacon would be there for me. I glanced at the Sanguinata, and he locked gazes with me. His beautiful face was troubled. And his cheeks were slightly flushed.

  I guess having to consider that the woman you’d loved had caused someone so much pain was making him question if he’d ever known her, or maybe he was just pissed at Hunter for saying nasty things about his dead lover. Heck, I didn’t know.

  But I needed to know that everyone was on board, including Deacon. “You don’t have to like what Hunter has told you, but you need to accept it.”

  Deacon’s shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. “I believe what the shade has said. But we don’t know the whole story, and we may never find out the true motives behind Marika’s action. All I know is that the woman I loved was a kind and noble creature.” He turned his attention to Hunter. “I believe that she acted for the good of the Hive, and if she caused pain, then it would have torn her in two to do so.”

  Hunter’s form wavered. �
�I’m tired. If there’s nothing else you need to know, I’d like to rest.”

  “There are plenty of rooms here,” Verona said softly.

  “You will stay here,” Deacon said. “You will not leave these quarters.”

  Hunter’s apprehension was a palpable force. He was free, and yet Deacon was asking him to remain in these quarters, a prisoner once more.

  “No.” I stood up. “You should come and go as you please. I’m sure you can be careful and stay out of sight.”

  “If anyone spots him—”

  “They won’t.” I smiled at Hunter. “Will they?”

  “No.” Hunter’s tone was confident.

  “And there’s a room for you here when you return from your wanderings.” I hesitated, because as much as I wanted to let him off the leash, there was still one issue. “I don’t think you should leave the Hive, though. Not yet. Not until we’ve put Genesis down.”

  “I’m not a fool, Echo. I don’t have a death wish.”

  His cocky tone was back, and my muscles relaxed. This was the Hunter I knew. “Good. It’s settled then.”

  Deacon ran a hand over his face. “I’m going to speak to Emory and find out what the plan is. I’ll be back bright and early. You should all get some sleep.”

  He stalked out without a second glance in my direction. My stomach dropped. He was obviously pissed at me for contradicting him. But sod it, if he expected a yes-woman, then he was going to be sorely disappointed. If he expected a yes-woman then he wasn’t the man for me.

  Micha’s hands brought my body to life, and his tongue invaded me in delicious thrusts that had me biting back moans and fisting the covers as I pushed my hips up to meet his mouth.

  Oh, fuck, that tongue, that fucking … I spiraled into pleasure, hips rolling as a guttural cry left my lips. Lyrian’s presence fluttered at the back of my mind, and my body heated even more. The door between us was open a fraction. I needed to close it, but Micha was licking me, finishing me off with rough strokes of his tongue, and there was no concentration left, no will but my pants and gasps. My arousal slipped through the doorway, and Lyrian’s consciousness bloomed.

  Micha trailed kisses up my body, his hands kneading at my flesh, driving me crazy. His mouth cut off another groan, and he kissed me slow and leisurely as his cock throbbed at my entrance. Fuck, I wanted him.

  Lyrian’s arousal was a pressure at the back of my mind, heightening my own, forcing me into action. I angled my hips, opening my thighs wider, and pushed up against Micha’s arousal. He slid into my wetness, and I hugged him like the perfect sheath. His chest vibrated, and his body tightened, and then he began to thrust. The build was slow, each thrust saturated with sensation. I arched my back, part of me wanting to just let go and the other part scrambling to close the door between us.

  Lyrian, please …

  Fuck.

  He slammed the door just before I came for the second time.

  A gentle caress to the cheek woke me hours later. Micha’s soft snores brushed against the nape of my neck. We’d fallen asleep chest to back, and his arm was around my waist, hugging me close while the backs of my thighs rested on the front of his. I loved being his little spoon, and waking up in the morning was always a pleasure because Micha no longer ran away and hid his morning glory. We’d put that to good use.

  But it wasn’t Micha that had woken me.

  Hunter’s silver eyes glowed in the darkness as he stared at me from his position crouched at the side of my bed.

  I reached out to him, and my fingers brushed against his face. He wasn’t solid, but he was tangible and warm. “Are you all right?”

  “Are you?” He glanced over my shoulder. “Did you have fun?”

  There was a sulky edge to his voice. “Hunter?”

  He touched my cheek, and a shiver ran down my neck. “You stood by me today.”

  “It was the least I could do after …”

  “After?”

  I blew out a breath. “After I treated you so badly all these years. You saved me, and I was so dismissive every time you tried to talk to me.”

  “I didn’t make it easy for you. I was determined to hate you, but …”

  “But?”

  “I realized that it was impossible to hate you. Instead, I settled for not liking you, but I failed at that too. You’ve been my only connection in over eighty years.”

  “Damn, you’re old.”

  He chuckled softly. “Once shades mature, our age is determined by experience, and mine … mine has been limited at best.”

  He was probably as worldly as me, and there was something I needed to ask him. “Now that you’re free to choose, I was wondering … would you like to be friends?”

  Hunter’s eyes smiled. “Maybe. Let’s wait and see if you make the grade, eh?”

  I bit back a smile. “Good night, Hunter.”

  But he was already gone.

  Chapter 6

  There was a note from Deacon on the coffee table telling us to meet at the hangar at ten a.m. There was enough time to drop Bry at school and leave him with plenty of hugs before making my way to the meeting spot.

  Lyrian and Micha were waiting for me at the doors that led to the tunnel, which would take us up to the hangar. Micha was dressed in Protectorate gear, and the material stretched over his muscles and hugged his torso and thighs. A sharp stab of lust shot through me, and his smile was slow-burning and knowing.

  Lyrian had opted for a more casual look in a cream T-shirt and loose pants, but he would be in dragon form most of the journey, so it really didn’t matter what he wore. I met his icy blue eyes briefly, but his expression was closed off. Crap, we’d need to speak about last night at some point. The whole thing had been strangely arousing but unsettling at the same time, and I doubted that Micha would have appreciated it. I needed to be more careful about closing the door between us during intimate moments.

  “You ready?” Micha asked.

  “Yeah.” I waited for him to open the door.

  He grinned. “You do it.”

  “What?”

  “Emory added your biometrics to the panel,” Lyrian said. “You have exit access now.”

  Why did that make me feel so excited? Oh, yeah, because it meant I could escape if need be. My handprint unlocked the doors, and we were through. The whirr of the fans was almost comforting as we made our way toward the hangar doors.

  I shot Micha a quick glance. “Do you know how we’re going to get the equipment to the location? Hell, do you know what the location is?”

  “Nope,” Micha said.

  “We’ll know soon enough,” Lyrian added.

  The hangar doors were open, and Emory came into view. He was crouched by one of the land vehicles, tinkering with it, and … wait, was that the sound of an engine?

  “Hell, yes!” Micha rushed ahead. “You got it working?” He circled the huge four-wheeled truck. “I knew you could do it.”

  Emory stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. His sleeves were rolled up, and his bare hands looked larger and totally manly without his gloves.

  “It wasn’t easy, but I’m used to lack of sleep, and I guess the urgency of the situation got my brain working.” He turned to look at me. “You want to ride with me, Echo?”

  Lyrian tensed beside me. Shit. As much as I wanted to take a ride in the land vehicle, it would totally make Lyrian’s presence unnecessary.

  “I think I’ll fly if that’s okay.” Emory’s face fell. “Maybe I can ride back?”

  Fucking hell, keeping several guys happy wasn’t going to be easy.

  But then Emory smiled and made it all better, because those smiles were rare, and it was as if he’d tossed me a diamond.

  “We’re all loaded up,” he said. “The test site is eighty miles out. It’s an abandoned village with no human settlements nearby.”

  In other words, if things went wrong, we wouldn’t be condemning anyone.

  “The plan is to send the signal and monitor f
or a response. I’ll be checking for a trace too, so if Genesis does latch on to our signal, I’ll know, and we’ll bail, immediately.”

  “Sounds good,” Lyrian said.

  Micha patted the hood of the truck. “Mind if I ride with you?”

  Emory gave him a lopsided smile. “Sure.” He pulled his gloves from his pocket and tugged them on. “Let’s go.”

  But we were missing a body. “Is Deacon not coming?”

  Emory averted his gaze. “He has some stuff to take care of.”

  “More important than finding Genesis?”

  Emory made a sound of exasperation. “He didn’t want to worry you, but he found out the council was meeting today. He believes that Greta is trying to overturn the decision to put our plan B into action.”

  My stomach tightened. “What the heck is her deal?” I shook my head. “Ignore that question. I know exactly what her issue is.”

  “Bane is with Deacon.” Emory opened the door to the truck. “They’ll sort this out. The problem is that with Harker gone we don’t officially have a chairperson on the council, and Greta is desperate to take the role.”

  “Nothing for us to do but come back with the information we need.” Lyrian flexed his shoulders and hit the release to open the hatch.

  Emory handed me a radio. “Clip this to your belt, just in case.”

  I did as he asked and then followed Lyrian up the stairs. The hatch opened, and we stood side by side, watching as the bright blue sky came into view. His muscles rippled as he stretched his arms above his head and rolled his head on his shoulders. God, he was something else. Powerful and deadly and mine.

  I ran my hand down his back, and a low rumble caressed my ears, but then his shoulders tensed. “We should go.” He stepped away from my touch and out into the sun.