She had a feeling that “something extra” might be gold. Enough gold so that he would be weakened and the drugs could take effect.
And now Eric and Connor still had their weapons out. They seemed to be aimed right at her.
She was crouched on the floor, her hands curled into fists. “Will you shoot me next?”
Eric gave a hard, negative shake of his head. He holstered his weapon and hurried toward her.
“But you came armed,” Ella said. “So what was your plan?”
He stood in front of her now. Just as Cedric had done, Eric offered his hand to her.
Ella didn’t take it. She rose slowly and her knees trembled a bit. But she didn’t need him to steady her. Ella steadied herself.
“Call for back-up,” Eric ordered Connor. “We’re going to need a transport team.”
She glanced over at Cedric. His eyes were closed. His wings still spread behind him.
“I guess you found another of your kind,” Eric told her, voice gruff.
Feeling oddly numb, Ella shook her head. “No. I found the mad scientist. He just became the monster.”
“What?”
She crept away from Eric. Connor was crouched beside Cedric, checking his pulse. “You need to be careful with him,” she said. Even her voice sounded odd. Too cold and flat. “He’s very, very dangerous.”
“So are we,” Eric said. He’d lowered his hand, but he hadn’t backed away.
“He must have been watching the base,” Ella said, trying to puzzle things through. “And he followed me here.”
“You know him.” Now emotion had entered Eric’s voice. Seething. Hard. “This ‘mad scientist’—”
“Why can’t anyone just be happy as they are? You changed. He changed. Why? For more power? To be the biggest badass in the room?” She just didn’t get it. “I used to long to be normal. To have the lives that humans did. They were happy. They didn’t have to constantly fight the bloodlust. The need to attack. To kill. He said he’d make me better, but Cedric just made himself worse.”
Eric whirled toward the slumped figure on the ground. “This is Cedric? Your damn ex-lover?”
Jealousy. Why would Eric pretend to feel that emotion? She rubbed her temples. “How did you find us?” True mates—fey mates—were supposed to be able to track each other any place. Hope stirred within her. Ridiculous. She tried to squash it.
Eric and Connor shared a dark look, but neither spoke.
More secrets.
“Our deal is over,” Ella said quietly. How long would it take their transport team to arrive? With the Para Unit, it could be mere minutes before others swarmed. Before that swarming happened, she intended to be long gone. “You got Keegan. You have his pack. I’m done.”
She started to walk past him. But Eric’s hand flew out and wrapped around her. He pulled her up against him, their bodies too close. “We’re not done,” he growled.
“Eric…” Connor said, his voice tight.
But Eric didn’t look away from her. “Our deal isn’t over.”
“What more do you want?”
“Uh, Eric, seriously…” Connor’s voice sharpened.
“Everything,” Eric told her. “I need—”
“The bastard is awake!” Connor yelled.
Eric grabbed Ella and shoved her behind his back. She craned her neck to the side and saw Cedric shoot up—right into the air. Then he spun toward her and Eric.
Eric had his gun out and aimed once more. “What the hell does it take…” Eric demanded, “to put you down?”
Cedric grinned back at him. “More than you’ve got.” Then his gaze slid to Ella. “Want me to kill them for you, love? I can do it. Right here. Right now.”
Horrified, she screamed, “No!”
And that must have been the wrong answer.
His grin vanished in a blink. “Why does he carry your scent, Ella?”
Oh, crap.
Connor started firing at him again. Cedric didn’t even glance his way. His eyes—eyes that were glowing now—were on Ella. “Why do you want him to live, Ella? Why is he touching you, Ella?”
“Because I fucking want to,” Eric shouted back. And he opened fire. The bullets slammed into Cedric. One. Two. Three.
His wings struggled to flap, and Cedric fell. He hit hard and slammed into the floor with an impact that made the whole church shudder.
“Fuck me,” Connor muttered. “He doesn’t stay down long.”
Ella was shaking. My wings aren’t out. Why aren’t my wings out?
If her wings didn’t come out, she couldn’t flee. But there wasn’t enough rage building inside of her. There was fear and sadness.
Too much sadness.
And then she realized just what had happened to her.
Eric turned toward her. “We’re getting you out of here. The team is coming in with gold—they’ll secure him, but I swear, they won’t hurt you.”
She could only shake her head. “You’ve already hurt me.” So much so that there was no room for her rage any longer. “Eric, I think you broke my heart.”
He flinched. And his hand came up to cup her chin. He kissed her. Fast and hard and almost desperately. “Then I will fix it, I swear.”
Another lie. As if she could believe him now.
Cedric let out a groan.
Still looking at her, Eric shot him again. “Load him down with tranq,” Eric said to Connor. “I don’t want this bastard opening his eyes again until he’s in containment.”
Containment.
The ache in her chest just got worse. She didn’t think it was possible to fix a heart. Not when it had been ripped apart.
Chapter Eleven
The prisoner was secured with gold chains. Chains that bound his ankles and his wrists. Those chains were heavy and thick, and they were locked to the stones that made up the floor of Cedric Wallington’s cell.
“My, my,” Cedric drawled as he tilted back his head and stared at Eric. “You sure do move fast. Was it Ella who told you about the Fey’s weakness? Or was it those sick werewolves that I saw you bring into this place?”
Eric stared at him. He was in Cedric’s cell. He’d been in there for the last twenty minutes, waiting for the bastard to open his eyes. Cedric’s body still slumped on the floor, but Eric saw the way his arms and legs tensed.
The guy was about to prepare an attack.
It wouldn’t work.
You didn’t notice the collar yet, did you, buddy? Eric kept his hand behind his back. And he made sure to keep the remote control hidden.
“I’m betting it was the werewolves,” Cedric mused. “You still have Keegan’s crew here, don’t you? That scarred asshole Reece…figured he’d be the weak link.”
“So you know him…you know them all…” The fact that this jerk could speak so easily of the pack that had hunted Ella—
“They’re on my kill list,” Cedric said as he rose. He pushed back his shoulders and seemed to stretch a bit against his chains. “I always try to learn as much as possible about my enemies. I’ve found it very…helpful.”
Eric just watched him. “I like to learn about my enemies, too.”
Cedric’s lips curved the faintest bit. “Do you want to know how you’ll die?”
“Not particularly.”
“I’ll cut your heart out. While you watch. And then, for shits and giggles, I’ll give it to Ella. And we’ll just see how much she likes you then.”
Eric kept his face expressionless. “You won’t be getting anywhere near Ella. Not ever again.”
Cedric surged forward, but he didn’t get past three feet before those chains jerked him back. “She is mine! I spent centuries looking for her. Hunting. Tracking. Killing anyone in my path. I earned her. I bled and burned and died for her…”
Died?
“You look pretty alive to me,” Eric murmured. She’s not yours. She won’t ever be.
Cedric’s gaze swept over him. “So do you, but we both know the truth.
I’m what Ella seeks. Another of her kind. And you…you’re just someone else who is in my way.”
Now was the time to push the bastard. “She called you a mad scientist. Ella told me all about you.”
Uncertainty came and went on the guy’s face.
“She said you were crazy. That you hurt the fey and yet, here you are…claiming to be one of them.”
“I changed, for her.”
“I think you changed for yourself. Because you were a power hungry asshole who got off on other people’s pain.”
Cedric’s booming laughter filled the room. “Well…” he finally said. “I guess it takes one…to know one…”
Don’t kill him. Not yet. Eric’s fingers slid over the remote. “What did you do to Ella? When you had her in that castle?”
Cedric’s eyes turned to angry slits. “Everything she begged me to do.”
Don’t. Kill. Him.
But he sure wanted to.
“She loved me, did she tell you that?” Cedric asked, mocking now. “When you fucked her, did she call my name? Because I’m the one she wanted. The one she should have been with…if those Fey elders hadn’t been so convinced that she had to wait for another mate. I became perfect for her. I became everything she wanted.”
Eric lifted his brows. “Oh, sorry, I guess I missed that whole perfection bit when she was shoving that stake into your chest. My bad.”
Cedric lunged forward again.
This time, Eric did hit the remote.
Cedric screamed and fell to his knees.
“Know what that is?” Eric asked him, voice cool and almost conversational. He was rather proud of the tone, especially considering the fury pumping through his veins. “That’s gold. In you. I can make you hurt more…” He pressed the button. Another scream echoed around him. “Or I can make you hurt less.” And he stopped the flow. “We usually just use silver collars, but I thought it prudent to have a gold one made up…”
Cedric’s head lifted once more, but he didn’t rise from the floor. “You didn’t know about me. Not until…” His breath heaved out. “Today.” A muscle clenched in his jaw. Sweat covered his forehead. “Was the collar…for Ella?”
“The collar was a precaution.”
“You want to…cage her…too.”
“No.”
“She won’t…be yours. You aren’t her match.” The guy’s voice was getting stronger.
And Eric was getting annoyed. “I’m getting really sick of this mating talk. I get it with the werewolves. Biology. Genetics. Blah-the-fuck. But I make my own rules. I don’t worry about fate. I change things.”
Cedric nodded. “So…do I.” Very slowly, he pushed back to his feet, but he made no move to attack Eric. “Guess we’re more…alike than you realized.”
“I am nothing like you. I haven’t killed a whole race of beings—”
“I know about your Purgatory. You just think you can lock us all up and throw away the key.” His voice was definitely stronger now. Eric made a mental note of just how long the guy’s weakness had lasted. “Won’t work. Eventually, they’ll get out.” His gaze turned distant. “They always do.”
“Because Ella got away from you? She escaped? And the others…did any of them get away, too?”
Cedric closed his eyes and inhaled. “Her scent doesn’t belong on you. Don’t touch her again.”
It was Eric’s turn to laugh. “I’ll do whatever the hell…” Now his voice lowered, “She wants.”
Then he turned away. He was done with that bastard for the moment.
“She doesn’t want you! Ella is always looking—because she thinks it was her fault! If she’d been with the mate her elders had predicted, they would have all been safe.”
Eric stopped.
“She’ll always look for him. She thinks to atone.”
Eric glanced over his shoulder.
“I know her,” Cedric said. “I understand her. She thinks her greatest mistake was loving me.”
Eric’s teeth ground together. “You’ll never see her again.”
“She’s wrong, though,” he said, as if Eric hadn’t spoken. “Her greatest mistake…was ever caring about the other Fey at all. That was her weakness. And it will be again. I tried to fix her. But she was already damaged, all along.”
The hell she was. “Ella is perfect. And you won’t ever hurt her again.” Then, because he was fucking pissed, his fingers jammed on the remote once more.
The guy’s scream followed him out of that cell.
The door shut behind him with a heavy clang.
And Connor was standing in the hallway, waiting.
“I guess the gold collar works,” Connor murmured, voice mild.
Eric tossed it to him. “Yeah, it works.”
Connor’s hand closed around the remote. “Holly sure moved fast on these. When did you give the order to make them?”
“It was easy to do. Just use liquid gold instead of the silver that we normally have with the werewolves.”
Connor stepped into his path. “When did you give the order to make them?” he asked again.
Dammit. “After I saw how Ella reacted to the golden net, okay? When I realized how powerful she was.”
Connor swore.
“I wasn’t planning to use it on her!” Judging by his expression, Connor didn’t believe him. Eric straightened his shoulders. “At the time, I thought, if Ella exists…” He exhaled and raked a hard hand through his hair. “Others could, too. We needed to be ready.” He looked back at the shut door. “Want to tell me I was wrong?”
“No, you’re not wrong,” Now there was a quiet rage in Connor’s voice. “But you sure are one cold-blooded bastard.”
***
Ella stared at Olivia. Olivia stared back.
Sighing, Ella said, “I get it. He left me with you because he thought I might be less likely to freak out and attack a shrink. Don’t worry. I won’t wing out and go for your throat.”
A faint line appeared between Olivia’s brows. “I wasn’t worried about that.”
“No? I was,” she confessed.
Olivia almost smiled. “Do you know why Eric brought me on as part of his unit?”
“Because someone had to talk to the crazy paranormals? And paranormal shrinks aren’t exactly thick on the ground?”
Olivia shook her head. “Because I knew that not all paranormals were true monsters. I understood that every being is different. Sometimes, there are just…triggers…that can send some down a dark path.”
“A dark path,” Ella repeated. “Guess that’s one way of looking at things.”
Sadness came and went in Olivia’s eyes. “You’re not evil, Ella.”
She stiffened. “I don’t like being analyzed.”
“You think you are. Maybe you try to act that way…because you’re punishing yourself.”
Ella shook her head. “A girl’s crazy ex shows up and everyone thinks—”
“That you blame yourself for what he did? Do you, Ella? Do you blame yourself for what happened to the Fey?”’
She looked down at her hands. “I brought Cedric into our world. He was a warlord. I should have known he only had one thought—power. Conquer and take power.”
“You can’t control someone else’s actions.”
Ella jumped to her feet. “Okay, this little chat is fun and all but—”
“You’re punishing yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You seek out danger. When Keegan first captured you…how did that happen?”
“Oh, yeah, total win, doc. Way to blame the victim there.”
Olivia blanched. “I didn’t mean—”
Whatever. “I’d heard that Keegan was working with some corrupt senator—that he was capturing innocent paranormals and not sending them to Purgatory, but keeping them in some sick secondary prison. A place where he conducted experiments on them.”
Olivia’s eyes widened.
Ella shrugged. “So I acted like I was
a weaker paranormal. I let myself get caught…but only so I could get in there and destroy the place. Which I did. Really, really well by the way.” She could still remember the power of the rage that had swept through her. “You should have seen what they were doing to them in there.” Her hand ran over her face. “Nope. Change that. It was better not to see it. Trust me.”
The door opened. The prickle of awareness on her nape told her that Eric had just entered the room. She didn’t look at him, though. Ella kept talking.
“I destroyed that secondary prison. A place that never should have existed, but Keegan and his goons couldn’t help but notice my power. My wings. I created a distraction so the other paranormals could flee, but I didn’t count on just how many pack mates Keegan had. They ran me down. They caught me.” Her sweaty hands rubbed against her jeans—they’d given her fresh clothes when she came back in to the base. “And the rest, well, I think we all know how that particular story ends.”
Olivia’s gaze was oddly warm. Sympathetic. Patient. “You’ve never said…when Keegan held you captive, did he…assault you?”
“I’d consider starvation and torture—”
“Did he rape you, Ella?” The doc cut right to chase.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop. To just straight-up ice. Just where was that chill coming from?
She glanced over at Eric.
His eyes…They’d gone absolutely arctic.
“Ella?” Olivia pressed, then she followed Ella’s stare and tensed. “We should be alone. Eric, leave so—”
Ella gazed into Eric’s eyes. “He didn’t rape me. No. He wasn’t interested in me that way. Keegan just wanted my blood and my power. Nothing more.” And, yes, she considered that a very lucky break. Because she’d been so helpless back then.
I don’t ever want to be helpless again.
Eric’s face seemed absolutely tormented. “I want you to leave us, Olivia.” Even his voice was different. Gruff. Hoarse.
Olivia hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“It’s a terrible idea,” Ella agreed. “But you should go.” She and Eric—they had to clear the air. She’d flown away from the guy.
He’d rushed after her.
And when Cedric had attacked, Eric had put his body in front of hers.