Wrath

I stumbled again for the center of the cabin, as did the others. Lightning flashed, imprinting my team’s faces on my brain, their wide eyes filled with worry and their mouths set with determination. We had nearly formed our circle when the plane jerked once more with the sound of thunder cracking all around us. Wind suddenly whooshed through the cabin, knocking us off our feet. And that’s when I realized the ear-shattering sound hadn’t been thunder.

“The jet’s breaking apart,” Tristan yelled.

At the same time, I also realized we weren’t surrounded by only Amadis mind signatures. Several Daemoni were nearby, probably the real cause of the impending crash.

Sasha shuddered inside my jacket with a growl, and she squirmed her way to the top of my zipper. As soon as she freed herself, her wings burst from her back and her body began to grow.

“Is she in there?” a Daemoni yelled from outside the plane.

“Be careful if she is,” said another, “she has a helluva bite!”

I didn’t know who they spoke of—me? Vanessa? Sheree? I didn’t wait to find out.

“Let’s go!” I yelled, holding my arms out.

Vanessa grabbed my hand again as the jet split farther apart and another powerful gust of wind knocked us into a wall. Something sharp cut through my leather pants and jagged across my hip. I clenched my jaw against the sting before the cut healed. Charlotte and Sheree braced themselves on the other side of the break, and Charlotte busted the cockpit door open. Blossom and Jax were behind me, near the plane’s tail.

And my husband blurred past me toward the chasm between the two parts of the jet. He dove downward. Out of sight.

“TRISTAN!” I screamed as I tried to follow, but the gap between the two parts closed.

“Go, ma lykita!” he said. “Get them out of here. I can’t hold this for long.”

Something hit us again, pitching the jet sideways. Another hole burst into the side of the plane.

“GO!” Tristan yelled, his voice thundering in my head as he strained to hold the jet together.

The co-pilot swept past me in mid-air and flew out of the hole. Sasha followed right behind him.

“No!” I screamed as I dove after both of them.

Daemoni mages waited outside, hovering in the air, as the ocean below surged toward me and wind roared in my ears. Squinting against the rain and rushing air, I couldn’t see Sasha, but the co-pilot was only feet below me. He instantly became my first concern, and I stretched my arms downward to try to catch his foot or leg. An orange light streaked through the rain and hit the warlock. His body jerked, then fell limp as he continued plunging toward the wall of black sea, and I threw a bolt of electricity in the direction the spell had come from. I tried to reach for our co-pilot again, but my hands only grabbed air. Another light streaked in my direction, yellow this time, but it missed. Someone screamed from a distance, but I didn’t recognize the voice. A big, white body flew by—Sasha as big as a horse—and another scream ripped through the night, followed by a round of thunder.

A hand clamped onto my ankle. I tried to shake it off and twisted in the air to hit its owner with a jolt, but then my mind registered it belonged to an Amadis. I prayed it meant my team was close enough to follow my trail, and I flashed.

I envisioned as our target the beach at Hilton Head Island where Mom and I had taken Dorian once. That wasn’t where we appeared.

Like the other night when I’d tried to cross the border into Canada, my body slammed into an invisible wall, and I fell to my ass into a muddy puddle. Another body thudded next to me—Vanessa. We both jumped to our feet, squinting through the pouring rain for the others. Lightning lit up the area, immediately followed by an ear- piercing crack of thunder.

Tristan! No response came. I mentally called out for the others.

“Where are they?” Vanessa shouted over nature’s cacophony.

Still hearing nothing from them, I reached out for their mind signatures, but they weren’t in my range. Unfortunately, others were nearby. Not Amadis or Daemoni. Only Normans, but they were heavily armed.

Grab my hand and let’s go! I mind-yelled at Vanessa while I shared the thoughts I heard with her. We had to get away before we were seen. But when we tried to flash, we couldn’t.

“Hold it right there!” a male voice called out. “Hands up where we can see them.”

“Shit,” Vanessa muttered.

“Yep,” I agreed. Shit was right. We hadn’t even made it to ground before one of their freaking traps had caught us. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to suck in a level of calm with it so I could be diplomatic, as Rina and Mom had requested. Well, ordered.

Five Norman police officers surrounded us, and it took every ounce of control Vanessa and I had to not fight them. Our self-preservation instincts bucked against us, but we cooperated as they handcuffed us and pushed us into a marked car. The whole time, I kept my mind open, but I could only find Norman mind signatures. Where were Tristan and everyone else? I tried not to think about what could have happened to them, especially to my husband. He’s Tristan. He’s okay. He and Charlotte are probably taking care of everyone else. I kept repeating this to myself until I believed it.

“We have our proof now,” said a policeman as he ducked into the front passenger seat. “Whatever those Savannah folk did, it worked.”

My eyes cut to Vanessa at the mention of Savannah, and she peered back at me with narrowed eyes as water slid off her hair and down her face.

I don’t sense any Daemoni minds, I told her. She scowled, but didn’t reply.

Another cop slid into the driver’s side, and they both yanked their doors shut before more rain poured inside. “Yeah, but I don’ trust ’em.”

“You want to call Atlanta?” the passenger asked.

“Don’ know yet. All I know is we ain’t bringin’ them nowhere. Whoever wants ’em can come see for theirselves that we got ’em, but they’re ours ’til we know what’s goin’ on.”

“Damn straight,” the other said as the driver cranked the engine over.

They’re acting on their own, I told Vanessa after listening to their thoughts as they drove us toward the lights of a small town. Not with the Amadis or Daemoni. They don’t know exactly why they have us except that we appeared out of nowhere, so there’s obviously something wrong with us. They don’t really know what to do. They know Savannah, Atlanta, and a few other nearby towns are looking for people like us, but they don’t know who to trust.

“Hopefully not the Daemoni,” Vanessa said. “I’ll fight if they do. I won’t be captured by them.”

Just do as Rina said for now until we know for sure.

I hated being passive as much as Vanessa did. Probably more because not only did I worry about the risk of being captured by the Daemoni, but now the search for my son had been delayed even longer. An angry growl threatened to escape my lips, but I kept it suppressed. I didn’t want to piss off Rina by ruining anything or exposing our secrets. I didn’t need to give her or the Council an excuse to change her mind about our mission.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the cop who’d been on the passenger side of the car asked me a while later as we sat in a small room with no windows, a wooden table, and two folding chairs. A cliche interrogation room. He had greenish-gray eyes, which were about the only attractive feature on him. A reddish five-o’clock shadow covered his soft jaw, and his coarse orange-red hair was flattened around his crown with police-cap hat-head. His tobacco-stained fingers drummed the wooden table as he waited for my answer.

“Only that I’ve done nothing wrong,” I said.

He let out a flat guffaw. “And what makes you think I’d believe that? Anyone who can do what we saw you do ain’t no good. Not in no one’s book.”

“And what did you see us do?” I asked innocently.

He jabbed his yellowed finger at me. “You and your friend appeared out of nowhere.”

I had to try to convince him he hadn’t seen anything, and I suddenly wished for Mom’s power of persuasion. “That’s absurd. How would we be able to do such a thing?”