Chapter 31

 

 

Reese hated to admit the truth, so she wouldn’t.

At least not out loud where one of Yáahl’s snooping crows might hear, but she’d realized she was mentally defective.

There was no other reason for her failure to take the medallion and leave. All she had to do was find a place nearby to watch the battle, wait for one side to disrupt the energy canopy, then she’d slide in through the battle lines and find the tomb.

That wouldn’t help Quinn, but she wasn’t convinced that the Beladors had honorable reasons for getting the tomb back. From what she’d heard, Macha had been kicked out of their gang and a guy named Daegan had inserted himself.

What did that say about the Beladors?

They had once been known as the most honorable of preternaturals. Now some of them even used demons for dark reasons. So who knew?

She had the medallion and no intention of throwing herself to demons like fresh meat to piranhas, but she was not leaving Kizira’s body at risk, even if she had to kill someone.

Yáahl was a roaring pain in her backside, but he was considered a benevolent being who would do no harm. If it came down to a safe place for Kizira’s body, Yáahl topped the list at the moment.

Quinn’s normally calm demeanor went through a pissed-off overhaul. “Are you threatening me?”

“Not specifically. I only warned you not to lie to me again because you don’t know what else I’m capable of, should I take offense to your lies.” That sounded reasonable to her.

He stepped forward, bringing all that powerful male up close and personal. She had the crazy desire to feel him right up against her, but that took her from being mentally defective right into just plain stupid.

Men are bad, remember?

Okay, got it.

Her body, however, had the memory of a toadstool when it came to the opposite sex.

“What the hell is it going to take to get you out of here?” Quinn growled.

Underneath all that anger was a layer of concern that permeated every breath he drew. Concern and pain. She’d seen both today. She was walking a tightrope through her conscience right now and needed to decide one way or the other if she was going to get involved.

“The truth.”

He lost his homicidal look. “Come again?”

“Tell me the truth if you want me to leave.” She wasn’t saying she would leave, but a man this aggravating would assume it meant the same.

“About what?”

“Why do you feel so responsible for Kizira’s body?” This would tell her if he had a nefarious reason for possessing it. Nefarious was a good word to use with this snob. She should have worked that into a comment. “Come on, Quinn. Put up or shut up. I’m tired of you feeding me crap.”

A muscle in his neck stood out, but in the next second his shoulders lost their tightness. He said, “Her death was my fault.”

Hmm. Reese wasn’t sure what to do with that. “Did you kill Kizira?”

His mouth dropped open, appalled. “No, I didn’t kill her.”

“Did you pay someone to do it or make someone kill her?”

“Hell, no.”

She didn’t get this at all. “Then how was her death your fault?”

Misery flooded his eyes. A deep misery unlike anything she’d ever seen in a man.

Reese regretted bringing that to the surface.

Quinn looked into the distance. “During a battle between the Medb and Beladors, Kizira stepped in front of me when a gryphon attacked. He gutted her and she’d been compelled not to heal herself by that bitch Flaevynn, who birthed her.”

Reese reeled from the shock. From that little bit he’d shared, she figured out Kizira had cared for Quinn, maybe loved him, to have made such a selfless sacrifice.

But Kizira’s death wasn’t Quinn’s fault.

Reese wanted to smooth that pain from his face. “Who controlled the gryphons?”

“The Medb did at the time. The gryphons are now with us, the Beladors. What’s your point?”

Reese had no idea why she wanted to help Quinn through his grief, when no one had eased the pain she’d suffered over losing her child.

That was it. No one had been there for her.

How could she have explained losing a baby because of a preternatural energy that lived inside her? She couldn’t. Just as Quinn had to feel isolated in his guilt over an enemy who obviously cared for him.

Had he cared for Kizira?

What had gone down between those two for him to put his life on the line to protect her body?

It didn’t matter. Reese understood that part, if there had been some relationship between the two.

She’d lay her life down to protect the body of the baby she’d lost if it was under threat from preternatural predators.

Her tone was unusually gentle when she said, “You feel guilty because Kizira chose to save you. That doesn’t make her death your fault, Quinn. She made a decision, knowing she couldn’t heal. Why are you beating yourself up over it?”

“There are things you don’t know, and that I can’t tell you.”

Reese tamped down on her exasperation. “Tell me one thing and I’ll let it go.”

Quinn said nothing, looking like he might toss her over the edge if she didn’t drop this topic soon.

She asked the same question as earlier, but this time without condemnation. “What do you plan to do with her body if you get it back? There must be a reason you didn’t cremate her, spread the ashes and so forth, which would have prevented all this.”

Quinn took a while to answer and in that moment he seemed to be pulled inside out. “I shouldn’t have put her in that tomb, but I … had a valid reason, or so it seemed to me at the time. Now I see that my thinking was unrealistic for the world in which we live. If I get her back, I’m going to make sure no one can ever touch her body and use it for dark majik, but I’m running out of time.”

Reese still didn’t know everything, but she figured out something in listening to his voice as much as his words.

Quinn had cared for Kizira. He’d had some type of relationship with Kizira. No man, especially not a Belador, would put his life at risk to save the body of a dead Medb.

She suffered a moment of jealousy that Kizira had earned the dedication of such a man. Reese hadn’t believed it possible. She’d never seen that level of caring before.

Who was this man? He’d given back her medallion, no strings attached.

She still had to face Yáahl. How had everything gotten so turned around?

She needed to know more about the Tribunal. “You’ve got a meeting tonight. I heard you mention it. Does that involve her body?”

He nodded. “I’m expected to deliver her body to a Tribunal just over an hour from now. If I don’t, the Medb can come after me and the body without repercussion.”

Crap. Now he tells me this?

Quinn rubbed his forehead. “Just go, Reese. Whatever interest you have in this is not going to supersede mine.”

She mentally stuttered at that.

Had Quinn figured out she did have a personal stake in finding Kizira’s body?

She did.

If she showed up empty-handed, Yáahl would never return her power. He wouldn’t perform necromancy, which seemed to make this all better, but not really.

She needed her powers now that jötnar demons had found her.

Quinn crossed his arms. “Get moving, Reese.”

“How do you intend to disrupt the energy field without me?”

“You mean without dragging you in there like a sacrificial lamb?” he snapped.

“Yeah, that’s about right, but you need me to kill demons, too.”

He replied in a droll voice. “I’ve killed a few demons in my time. The ones today will wish they’d met me on other battlefields. I’m not in a merciful mood. I’m done. Go now and stay out trouble. I know that’s a difficult task for you—”

“Was that a joke?”

Quinn sighed hard and lifted his phone. It must have vibrated. She hadn’t heard it.

He confirmed, “I’m ready.” Pause. “No. I told Daegan everything. He trusts us to get this done. If you’re still not reaching the others telepathically or through their mobile phones, you may not get through to me either once I go in there. I’m watching a fog below me that’s buzzing and—”

Quinn listened with a stern expression. “Tell Storm to wait.” Another pause. “No, that resource didn’t work out. Tell him I’m working on another way to breach the energy field.”

Reese had heard enough.

This medallion had only so much juice left.

She should take Quinn’s advice and leave, but stay close enough to come in once the tomb was revealed.

That would be the wise thing to do in her situation.

Only an idiot would think about anyone but herself right now.

She turned to look down the side of the ravine and jumped, dropping as quickly as her IQ obviously had. The medallion had felt weaker each time she’d drawn on it. She clutched the disk tightly, hoping it wouldn’t fade on her before she had to return to Yáahl.