Blood Trinity

  "Wasn't talking to you." He lifted his chin, and she realized he was talking to someone else when he said, "Get her."

  Evalle swung around just as two hideous half-human-half-ghoul forms flew at her. Things that looked like the demented ghoulish thing Storm had followed.

  She slammed her boot heel against the ground, and blades shot out from the sides. Waiting until the ghouls were close enough to catch, she swept her arm wide from side to side. The wave of kinetic energy she dragged across the ghouls knocked one into the other, tumbling them into a pile of writhing arms and legs.

  A part of her registered that these had to be old Nightstalkers she'd probably spoken with in the past, so she didn't use her blades to cut their throats. Once she'd dealt with this Tristan character she'd have to call Sen before these two ghouls revived.

  Facing Tristan again, she found him sitting casually on the edge of the footbridge railing, one foot propped on a crossbeam, as if waiting on someone to hand him a beer. "What have you been doing to Nightstalkers?"

  He didn't say a word.

  She took a step toward him and a spike of pain shot into the back of her calf. Evalle fell to her knees. She looked over her shoulder to see one of the ghouls dragging himself toward her with a long fingernail sticking from his finger like a sharpened blade.

  Her sympathy for the insanely half-dead flew out the window.

  "You shouldn't have done that." She shoved up to her feet, took two steps and cut his head off with a kick of her boots. Turning to the second one, she warned, "Move and I'll quarter you."

  The other poor thing quivered and backed up into a ball of fear, huddling against the downpour.

  When she wheeled around to Tristan this time, she wanted blood. "You're mine."

  "I've never been one to disappoint a lady." He jumped down from his perch, gripped his hands as if he had an invisible bat and swung at her.

  Her leg throbbed, but she waited until the last minute to dive sideways and roll.

  His blast of power disintegrated the remaining ghoul into tiny microscopic pieces the rain dispersed. That had probably been his true target for his first time at bat.

  She raced at him from the side before he got to take a second swing.

  He spun, using his kinetics to block, but she wasn't a standard-model Belador he could take down with the usual kinetics. At least, not when she was one hundred percent. She'd make him pay for the ghoul cutting her leg.

  When she was close to him, she swung around on her good leg and used the bad one to punch through his wall of power.

  Didn't happen.

  She bounced back as if hitting a wall of stone, landing on her injured leg.

  What in the heck was this guy? Evalle sucked in a breath and raised her head to get back up.

  His body slammed her back into the mud and held her there. He didn't tower over her, but he did have her by four inches and more muscle.

  She was on her back, staring up at him. A scream buried deep in her mind came roaring up. She clenched her teeth to keep from letting it out. The memory of being held down and brutalized raced forward with the burgeoning scream, threatening to blind her with panic.

  The bastard on top of her was at least winded, chest heaving with a labored breath. "Now we can talk."

  "Get. Off. Now." She could only speak in short bursts or the terror would break free.

  Never show an enemy a weakness.

  Never let a man hurt her again.

  Never let one live who did.

  This one weighed as much as her couch, but she'd shifted and terrorized the one who had raped her at fifteen and could do worse now.

  She shook with the need to shift into a stronger being and protect herself. Blood slammed against the walls of her skin. Her brain tried to warn her to calm down, but the fifteen-year-old who'd screamed in pain burst from the black hole she'd been hiding in all these years.

  "Last. Chance," she panted, scrambling for each breath.

  "What you going to do?" He shoved his hips against her and she lost all conscious thought.

  "This, you bastard!" Cartilage broke free in her arms. Her neck snapped with the first sign of shifting. She let a roar out and kinetically tossed him up and backward fifty feet. He hit the footbridge for the second time tonight, taking down another chunk of it.

  Tristan gained his feet and shook his head. His shoulders bunched when he yanked his neck, popping a few muscles of his own. "What the fuck are you?"

  That broke through the haze of adrenaline spike and wave of terror to make her look at her hands, where her wrists had split the cuffs of her jacket. Oh, God, oh, God. She had to get her beast under control.

  All of a sudden, her sunglasses flew off her face.

  Evalle looked up and flicked her hand at him without a second thought, slapping the glasses off his face.

  Glowing green eyes swirled like molten stones.

  Green eyes unlike anything she'd ever seen before ... except in her bathroom mirror.

  "Alterant?" He said the word with disbelief packed full of deadly suspicion.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  "Alterant?" Evalle echoed back at the man called Tristan, just as much in shock.

  Here was a man with the unusual physical strength and luminous green eyes of an Alterant.

  "Where'd you come from?" Tristan asked, stepping away from the damaged footbridge that made Piedmont Park look like a small war zone.

  "Why? You putting together an Alterant reunion website?" Evalle wasn't telling someone with his powers anything about herself, but she had to keep him talking. Find out anything she could about the first of her kind she'd ever met.

  "Vyan said you were Belador. Why'd he think that?" Tristan took a couple of steps forward.

  "Stop right there." Surprisingly, he did. "I am a Belador."

  "They don't take Alterants into the tribe."

  Scarcely a few minutes had passed, but every second of holding his attention became more precarious. Where was Storm? Why couldn't she reach Tzader or anyone else telepathically? Was that strange buzzing she could almost hear a cloaking spell? Had someone placed a spell over the park that prevented her from communicating with anyone?

  Did that mean he had majik ability, or was he working with a witch? "I'm proof the Beladors take Alterants into the tribe. I'll ask if they're taking applications."

  "Brina took one look at me five years ago and stuck me in a jungle in a spellbound cage."

  Five years. Almost as long as she'd been a Belador. "You escaped? When?"

  "Yesterday."

  "How?"

  "Like I'm going to tell you so you can tell the rest of the Beladors?" His eyes brightened with a thought. "Wait a minute. You're Evalle."

  Worry scattered along her nerves. How did he know that? For once, shock had stolen her voice. She held quiet rather than confirm or deny.

  "I heard about an Alterant called Evalle. A female Alterant. I didn't believe it was true."

  Few in Atlanta's hidden world of the strange and supernatural did. She'd caught something speculative running along beside his words, a soft sound that harbored dark thoughts.

  "This changes everything," he muttered.

  She didn't like the sound of that either, since change would probably not be for the good in her case. "What'd you do to those two Nightstalkers?"

  "Gave them what they wanted."

  She should hammer him into the ground. "If you knew to make deals to shake with them you had to know what would happen when you shook hands for a long time. Those old ghouls never hurt anyone. How could you turn them into something evil and dangerous? Into some hideous halflings?"

  "I have my reasons, but I'm not telling a snitch who talks to Beladors."

  This worthless dog was not going to insult her. "I am a Belador."

  "An Alterant? You're living in a dream world. They may let you hang around with them and use you for grunt work, but they don't think you're one of them."

  She kept a mask of indiffere
nce in place so he couldn't see how deeply his words cut. She believed she was Belador even if the majority of the tribe didn't. But this was the first time she'd ever met another Alterant. The first chance to ask some questions and maybe shed some light on where they came from, but she'd have to give Tristan a reason to talk to her. Also, the more she found out about him and how he had gotten here, the better chance she'd have to find the Ngak Stone that had disappeared with the woman and Vyan.

  Tristan was clearly after the same thing as Vyan, but maybe not for the same reason.

  She gave the let's-work-together-for-the-greater-good tactic a shot. "I'm trying to help Alterants so we won't have to be locked up or destroyed, but I haven't been able to find out any information on them, and I know very little about my own background. Where did you grow up? Who were your parents? Where were you when you were caught?"

  Tristan headed toward her again, talking as he moved, but she stood her ground, since he wasn't acting aggressive. "You're free to run around. Why would you care about helping any other Alterants? You don't have any worries."

  If only it were that simple. "I don't want to see more Alterants caged."

  "You'll never stop Brina from caging them."

  That was for sure. She should argue with him, but Evalle couldn't honestly defend Brina when Evalle had her own doubts about the Belador warrior queen. She'd push Tristan and see what he gave up. "I've been working to find out anything I can on Alterants for a long time. I don't want to see them caged. If you don't, then answer my questions."

  He crossed his arms, pondering on something. "Finding you has made this an entirely new game. Tell you what I'll do. If you really want to help Alterants and want me to tell you what I know of the others--"

  "You know about the other three?" Now we're talking.

  "Of course. For example, I know where they were caged."

  How was it that Tristan had information Brina wouldn't share with her?

  He continued, "If you want to help your own kind, then bring me the Ngak Stone before four o'clock Wednesday morning."

  Let's think about this. Hand this fool more power? Not. "What are you going to do with the Ngak Stone if you get it?"

  "There is no if about it. I'll explain when you show up with the stone unless I find it first, at which point I'll move ahead with my plans. But if you bring the stone to me and join me, I'll guarantee your safety for as long as you live and you'll be revered for your powers, not treated as a dog who begs for scraps."

  On the surface, that sounded pretty tempting, but she had an oath to uphold. Just not her week for a decent deal. "I don't think you'll be around long enough to be offering protection once Brina finds out you're on the loose. I'm going to be busy finding that young woman with the stone and protecting her."

  "You mean to take the stone, and put it in the VIPER vault, don't you?"

  She was amazed at how much he knew for someone who had been locked away for five years. "I can't discuss VIPER's business."

  "If you intend to lock up the stone, then don't pretend you care what happens to me or the other three Alterants." He lifted his shoulders in dismissal. "And you'll never find out the truth about our species, because I'm the only one with the answers to your questions."

  "I can find my own answers without putting all the Beladors at risk." Maybe in a couple lifetimes.

  Tristan's grin spread at seeing through her bluff. "I doubt you'll figure out what bred with a Belador to make an Alterant. Not without my help. I know my family history and what you, me and the other three Alterants have in common. Are those some of your questions?"

  Dead on the mark. Blood thrummed through her at the possibility of actually finding answers. She didn't have a thing to offer Tristan, since he'd been burned once already by Brina--if he was telling the truth--and believed the Ngak Stone was his ticket to freedom. But he wasn't the only one after the rock. "What's going on between you and Vyan?"

  "I'm going to kill him if he gets in my way again, and I will find that woman."

  "How did you find Vyan?"

  "How do you know he didn't find me?" Tristan quipped and walked past her. "Make plans to come with me, Evalle. I will hold the key to freedom without persecution."

  She took a side step to keep him in view, and her leg throbbed at the movement. "If you touch the Ngak Stone it could kill you, or her, and if that doesn't happen the Kujoo might get their hands on the rock and start a war with the Beladors that could turn into a modern-day apocalypse."

  He paused from pacing. "Don't confuse me with someone who gives a shit about any of that."

  That was the most truthful comment he'd made so far. He really didn't care who lived or died, which only made him more dangerous. Vyan had been much like that when she'd first met him in this very park two years back. He'd lost everything to the Beladors eight hundred years ago, including his will to survive.

  Why would Vyan risk drawing the attention of the Beladors?

  Grady had told her an ancient synergy had entered the city.

  She pieced it together in her mind and made a guess. "You really think the Kujoo warriors are your friends?"

  He offered her a smile. "We have Common Enemy Syndrome."

  "We." She had to get to Tzader soon and let him know what she'd just figured out. Vyan was no longer the sole Kujoo in the city. "How many Kujoo are here now?"

  "Enough."

  "You aren't going to have a world to live in once they start a war."

  Tristan crossed his arms. "They won't be a problem. The Kujoo aren't hanging around once I get the rock. They want to be sent back eight hundred years immediately. So you don't have to worry about fighting them in Atlanta." His gaze swung from side to side, watching all around him. "Love to stay and chat, but I've got a rock to find and you've got to go suck up to the Beladors."

  Just great. An Alterant on the loose hunting a human who had gotten her hands on the Ngak Stone. "If you harm that woman, you'll bring down a lot more trouble on your head than the Beladors. Macha might even get involved."

  "Macha won't get involved unless there's a battle between the Kujoo and the Beladors. I'm telling you there's not going to be a conflict in our world."

  "Oh, sure, you want me to believe the Kujoo are going to return to their time eight hundred years ago without first coming after the Beladors for revenge?"

  "They have a better plan."

  She took in his relaxed air and matter-of-fact tone. His body language spoke of confidence. He was telling her the truth. "And you don't want revenge for what Brina did to you?"

  "Oh, I'll have my day of reckoning the minute I get that stone. But payback won't come from my hand, and Macha won't act until she has reason. By the time that happens, the Beladors will no longer be a problem for me. A witch is already making plans for moving into Brina's castle the minute she's gone."

  "Why would you believe a Medb witch?" Now things started to make sense, but in a way that had her skin crawling. The Medb coven was behind the Noirre majik and must have been the power that had opened a portal to bring the Kujoo forward. Thus, the Medb were orchestrating the Common Enemy Syndrome of joining the Kujoo and Tristan against the Beladors.

  "Why shouldn't I believe the Medb witch? She got the Kujoo here and helped them figure out how to free me when Brina locked me away for no reason."

  Evalle really hated to stand up for Brina on this, but right was right. "You can't blame Brina for sending you away after your shifting into a beast and killing people."

  His eyes thinned with fury. "I never changed into a beast or killed anyone until after I was sent away. Even then, I killed only as a matter of survival."

  "That can't be right. I heard--"

  "Only what Brina wanted you to hear. So before you get all high and mighty on Brina's behalf, get your facts straight, babe. Makes you wonder what else you've been told that were lies, doesn't it?"

  If he was speaking the truth, then it did make Evalle wonder.

  Tristan's eyes t
ook in her face. He dropped the snarl and said in a calmer voice, "I might be just like you if I'd been the only one free all this time, but I would know the truth when I heard it. Ask Brina if you don't believe me. Her honor will force her to tell you the truth."

  "I plan to ask her, but you're not helping the Alterants' cause by trying to take the Ngak Stone."

  "I'm doing more for Alterants right now by going after that stone than you've done the whole time you've been free. When you get tired of being a lied-to misfit tagging along with the Beladors, come over to my side. I could use someone with your abilities, and you'll be safe from everyone with me." His voice softened when he added, "I'd treat you like the jewel that you are."

  She'd be lying to herself if she didn't admit the idea of being safe forever had a certain appeal, but not with this lunatic. She'd given a vow to the Beladors and hadn't taken that lightly. But Tristan was obviously leaving her alive because he believed she might help him gain the stone, and his offer opened the door for her to find out how to reach him. "If I do consider coming to you, how would I find you?"

  "Put word out with the Nightstalkers you're looking for me. I'll find you. Otherwise, stay out of my way and don't stand too close to a Belador once I have the stone. I'll find you when they're gone."

  "Thought you said you weren't going after vengeance. The Kujoo would take care of that." She didn't hold many kind feelings about Brina, but Evalle would protect her warrior queen just like any other Belador would, and she'd lay down her life for Tzader or Quinn without hesitation. Tristan's confidence in the Kujoo doing his dirty work troubled her.

  "I'm not spending any energy on vengeance. The Kujoo will do worse than I could on my own," Tristan said.

  "Going to be a little hard to accomplish that if they go home the minute you get the rock, isn't it?"

  His smile was full of secrets. "The Kujoo have a plan to destroy the Beladors, and it has nothing to do with them touching the rock or with me battling Beladors, which keeps Shiva and Macha out of the picture. They've created a brilliant strategy with the Medb that will wipe every Belador from the earth, including their ancestors."

  Was he jerking her around, trying to convince her he was all-powerful, or was he really telling the truth? She saw a flaw in his proclamation of victory. "You can't let them kill all the Beladors. You carry Belador blood. You'd die, too."

  "That's finally the positive side of being half-breeds. The worst that will happen to us is to feel a weakening of our powers for a brief time, but Alterants will survive. Once I have the Ngak Stone, I'll share my strength with our new clan of Alterants. We will survive and prosper."