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BREA WOKE UP suddenly noticing something felt wrong. The sprawling ranch house she’d transported them to after their stay on the Titanic had a comforting rustic feel, but still something had tilted the balance. She knew it wasn’t her strain or imagination.
She looked at Jax, peacefully sleeping with one arm around her bare body, quietly snoring.
Listening past her husband’s loud breathing, she heard only the hum of the central air system.
Brea yawned, stretching, still a little groggy.
Everything seemed fine around her, but a nagging plagued her. A feeling telling her something was off.
Brea sighed, climbing out of bed, and grabbing Jax’s shirt from the floor, pulling it onto her body.
No wonder her mind had pulled her out of sleep. The stress of the days to come would be enough to keep any person from sleeping.
Quietly walking through the halls of the unfamiliar house, Brea did up a few buttons on the shirt, but her attention focused on her surroundings.
What was off?
When she came up empty, again, she stopped by the bay window and pulled aside the curtain, peering into the snow storm clouding around them. The snow made it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of her. Why hadn’t she landed them in a summer month? Because she had no idea what she was doing or how she’d even found an empty house. There were still so many questions unanswered. In the morning they planned to time rip to the location Victor had instructed before they left and she prayed everything would work out.
In the kitchen, Brea poured herself a glass of water. The cold liquid helped distinguish some of her lingering anxiety, but lasted less than a minute when she heard a rustle from the bedroom. The thump that followed and the sound of fighting made her run down the hallway, wishing she had a cell phone to call Declan and Gabrielle who were sleeping in rooms on the opposite side of the ranch.
Brea opened the door and reached for the light switch. Jax was no longer the only one in the room. Melora, Melvin, and Marcel stood in the room with him. Wearing only his briefs, Jax was pinned to the floor by two of the trio’s men. More goons stood around him.
Melora smiled at her. “Sorry to interrupt your evening.”
Brea straightened wondering why they were attacking her. Didn’t they fear her and wouldn’t they even more so after those days spent alone with Magnus?
“You’re not,” Brea said firmly.
“We needed to stop by to discuss a few things we hadn’t addressed in Lexcon,” Melora said. “It happened so quickly that I wasn’t awarded enough time to delve deeper into the situation.”
Would there ever be enough time to evaluate the issues of Lexcon? Brea wondered.
“To begin, I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t heard from you after you’d bonded. Even before that moment, I briefly wondered why Magnus would want you bonded. Not to mention, the centuries of cleaning up his mess should have been clear to you, but there was only blankness where there should have been communication. I mean, you’re not prepared enough to know how to control the mind’s thoughts, but still you should have had more perception of your gift.”
What was she talking about? The riddles were hard enough on their own, but combine them with watching Jax struggle to move against the grip of these monsters distracted Brea further. Blood pooled around his head but he remained conscious.
“The moment you bonded, we should have been in sync. All of us. But there was absolutely nothing. So I got to thinking...” Melora moved across the room, and slowly back again, while she spoke, her heels clicking beneath her. “...and it dawned on me.” She paused. “Do you want to know what dawned on me?”
“Melora, I will kill you myself,” Jax threatened from the floor.
“I wonder if that was Magnus’s plan all along. Elders can’t kill other elders,” Melora whispered the news to Brea like it were a secret. “But Jax can kill us. Not in Lexcon, but here, Jax could easily take our lives before you had the opportunity to take what belongs to you...or what I thought belonged to you.”
More riddles Brea didn’t understand.
“I will take you life,” Jax said.
Melora chuckled grimly. “Well, he’s not a morning person is he?”
“Jax? Brea?” Declan and Gabrielle’s voices rang down the hallway.
Had Jax had an opportunity to call them?
“Ahhh,” the word rolled across Melora’s tongue. “You’ve dipped into the powers,” she said to Brea. “And by the looks of it you had no idea you could. Figures Magnus kept that from you, too.” She turned to her men and pointed down the hallway. “Seize them.”
Brea moved to warn her new siblings but one of the men covered her mouth and shoved her against the wall. The light switch dug through her skin. She let out a painful sound that roused Jax, but he was too weak and overpowered by the men to help.
Melora’s callous walk to Brea sickened her. The reeking smell of victory emanating from her was worse.
After a brief struggle in the hallway, Declan and Brea were dragged into the room. For the early hour, they were alert and observed the situation, with livid eyes.
The guard removed his hand from Brea’s mouth and she sucked in a deep breath, holding it while Melora spoke.
Melora’s fun and games face disappeared and her standard sourness fell on Brea. “You should have stuck to my plan. It would have saved the lives of this family. Your soulmate. Your Unborn.”
“My Unborn?” the question slipped from Brea’s mouth.
Melora glanced at Brea’s stomach. “Did you honestly think you were the elder? You had me fooled, but then Magnus is good at trickery. The Unborn you conceived with this Gatekeeper is the future elder of Lexcon. Hence, your lack of ability to recognize and absorb the powers.”
Brea was pregnant? With Jax’s baby?
“Who do you think alerted the Winters siblings of our presence? You have a strong Unborn in there to be performing such tasks already.” A sinister evil came over Melora’s face, as her threatening eyes stared at Brea’s stomach. “Too strong. Deadly strong. Now it’s come down to the end for all of you. Lexcon will be protected and Magnus is next in line to die. This time I will not be so lenient with him.” She turned away and waved her hand. “Kill them all.”
“No!” Brea screamed, pulling away from her captor enough to grasp Melora’s hand. She knew the end result from touching another elder was death, but if everything Melora said were true and she wasn’t the elder, maybe it didn’t apply. And if it did, at least her death would spare Jax and his family.
The man standing between Brea and Melora tried to stop the contact, but it was too late. The elder woman flailed at her touch.
A white light blinded Brea, transporting her into a visual book from the beginning of time. Melora’s touch held a library dating back to when Lexcon was a booming place for all Gatekeepers to come and go as they pleased. It had been a place to find solace, and attend grand parties held to show the appreciation of the work done on earth. Streets filled with all statuses of the Lexcon community, smiling and free. The elders weren’t limited to a group of four. It was, instead, a large group of elders working together with the Lexcon community to form a good functioning society. A place more beautiful than anyone could ever imagine.
Brea watched as the years flew by. Everyone seemed happy, until something dark intruded the Lexcon community. The darkness had been blamed on Melora, Melvin and Marcel, only it hadn’t been them. The visions were coming faster now, sometimes speeding past and yet Brea could understand them. She acknowledged these visions weren’t intended for her or her body. This incredible look into Lexcon’s past was for the Unborn in her belly and the power to take them from Melora didn’t come from Brea, but rather the baby.
Like a motion picture, the traditions and ways sped past her mind’s eye. Brea felt no need to be scared. At one time, when the elders hadn’t been feared, killed or labeled anything except respectable and brave leaders, nothing like the elders today barking around orders to kill.
Brea only had a second to relish in the possibility of safety for her child when the truth unfolded itself.
Melora now gripped her hand hard. Her fingernails tore at Brea’s flesh, but Brea didn’t dare let go or pull away. Finding the truth could save Lexcon from...
Brea inhaled as the person responsible for everything came into view. Magnus.
Long ago, he’d been the one who had divided the elders, killing the mothers carrying Unborns for one purpose: to gain ultimate power over Lexcon. He couldn’t be trusted and now Brea had to survive to tell Jax and the others.
Conversations between Melora, Melvin and Marcel as they plotted their strategy to take Magnus down played through Brea’s head. They were so real, so crisp and so clear that it felt like she had been present for them. Their attempt to prevent another massacre of their people included shutting the doors to Lexcon and banning the Gatekeepers and Seconds. Magnus had been locked away forever and the three elders left had only had good intentions. Intentions of not hurting anyone else.
Suddenly, Brea didn’t know right from wrong. The elders had managed, all these decades, to save lives and run the community without hurt and chaos, but then Brea had come along and fought them, siding with the man who was trying to conquer Lexcon for his own personal greed. Who was Brea to argue with their knowledge? Who was Brea to stop them?
The visions finished and Melora’s body went limp. Her hand stayed clamped to Brea’s while the man holding Brea, let her go to support Melora’s body.
“You took it,” Melora whispered. “Your Unborn took everything from me. It took my force.”
This time Brea didn’t need an explanation. She understood everything and she knew her Unborn had taken what didn’t belong to Melora, who was now no longer an elder.
“You need to take Magnus down before he destroys you and Lexcon,” Melora croaked out.
Magnus. This was all his doing. Every single decision from the moment greedy power overtook him was on him. Brea would make him pay. Brea would destroy him before he ever laid a hand on her baby.
***
JAX COULDN’T MAKE OUT whatever was happening between Brea and Melora, due to the blood dripping into his eyes. But when he felt the grip of the men holding him loosen, he took charge, by knocking them both unconscious onto the floor.
With the back of his hand, Jax wiped the blood away from his face and took in the situation. Marcel and Melvin had backed away from the light shining from Brea and Melora’s touch. Declan and Gabrielle had escaped from the men holding them who now lay on the floor at their feet. There would be no killing of any of the Winters today, but Melora’s fate was yet to be sealed.
Taking a knife from one of his victims, Jax crossed the room and plunged the blade into Melora’s back. Jax hadn’t ever killed a person before and listening to the sounds, and feeling his stomach revolt, he never wanted to do it again. But he’d do anything to protect his wife.
“Jax, no!” The words left Brea’s mouth, but it was too late.
Melora slumped to the ground and Brea followed, kneeling beside her.
“I didn’t know,” Brea said.
“Don’t let him rule, child,” Melora said.
When the other two elders knelt down by Melora, and lifted her body to theirs, Jax moved behind Brea, on high alert. He had no idea what was happening, but stood prepared.
“Let Brea have your hand,” Melora said to Marcel and Melvin.
“Melora...”
“It’s over Marcel...”
Jax could tell Melora was dying. Her words came out short and strained.
“Our time is over. We’ve done what we thought was right and look where it’s led us. To death. Let the new elders have their time. Maybe they will do it right.”
What were they talking about?
“She can’t handle the power. She’s not an elder,” Melvin said, taking Melora’s limp hands in his.
“The baby will protect her,” Melora said. “It’s alright.”
As Marcel lifted his hand to Brea, Jax covered her hand and pulled it away from the man who had come here to kill them. “Brea?”
Brea’s half smile touched his soul. She moved his hand over her middle. “I’m not the elder Jax,” she said. “Our Unborn is.”
Jax was so distracted by her words, he didn’t see her touch Marcel until the vibration ran through his fingers and up his arm. Marcel collapsed when it was finished and Melvin grasped her hand next, sending another surge through Brea.
“Find Magnus,” Melora said, her thin eyes hardly capable of staying open. “And take his powers before he kills you.
“I don’t know if I can.”
Jax looked at his wife and marveled at the fear and uncertainty he heard in her voice.
“You are not an elder and therefore he has the power to kill you, Brea,” Melora’s crackled voice seemed dry. “If you die, your baby dies and Magnus will take over. You can do this. Do to him what you did to me. Your baby knows what to do. Shep,” Melora looked at one of her guards. “Protect the new Unborns from Magnus and tell the others.”
The large man nodded his understanding, but Jax would never fully trust a man who had worked under these three.
Melora’s eyes fell shut and the three elders curled up together as if to sleep.
Jax grasped Brea’s shoulders and lifted her to her feet. As they stepped away, light poured from the bodies of the elders, swirling around them and filling the room, making Jax squint. A tornado of light moved up and reached the ceiling, exploding into dust and fell like the remnants of a firework explosion. When Jax looked at the floor, the three elders were gone.
Brea turned and grabbed his forearms. “I know everything,” she said.
“Mind sharing,” Declan said.
Brea turned to him. “Yes. I want to share everything. You and the rest of Lexcon deserve to know everything, but first we have to find Magnus and−”
“And what? Take away my life line?” Magnus walked into the bedroom. “I don’t think so.” He’d turned from trustworthy to corrupt in a matter of minutes and he played the shady part with a sly smirk and narrowed eyes that looked ready to attack.
“Magnus, you’re outnumbered,” Jax said.
“Says who? You? I’m the only elder living. In case you haven’t noticed, these men listen to the elders, which mean I’m in charge now. I rule Lexcon as planned and I would like to thank you four for that promotion.” He clapped his thin hands together. “Well played, I must admit. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”
Jax ground his teeth, tensing his jaw. Magnus’s planning, or lack thereof, wouldn’t save him from the wrath of a husband and soon-to-be-father. Nothing was happening to Jax’s family tonight. Magnus hadn’t seen this ending yet and it was about to get ugly.
“Melora was right, I’m not able to kill a fellow elder, but you did it for me Brea,” Magnus said, grinning his sinister smile.
“You scum-ball,” Gabrielle said.
“Now, now.” Magnus clicked his tongue in disapproval. “So far, I haven’t killed you.”
“So far I haven’t killed you,” Gabrielle snapped back at him. Declan grabbed her waist as she started toward Magnus.
Without a flinch, Magnus lifted his hands in the air and ordered, “Seize them.”
Jax hadn’t seen the groggy goons stand, but they apprehended the four Winters swiftly. Jax stood prepared for another round of fighting and he would begin with the bastard who had his filthy paws on Brea. Before Jax could move, the mammoth of a man who’d just had Brea by the throat, punched the guy who now held her. Then he shoved Brea behind him before speaking with the rest of the army.
“We don’t stand up with Magnus,” the man’s voice bellowed across the room.
“Dear Shep, settle down and do as you are told,” Magnus said.
“Brea is carrying the future of Lexcon. The next generation of elders,” Shep said to them, and then his dead-stare fell on Magnus. “We will not bow down to you.”
Magnus laughed at the man’s conviction like it meant nothing. “Now who’s outnumbered?” he asked, sounding pleased with how the situation was turning.
Still gripping the Winters siblings, one said, “She killed Melora, Melvin and Marcel.”
But Shep did not back down. “Brea released the elders and she will do the same with Magnus. It is the way. She can hold the power until the new batch of Unborns are born and things will go back to the way they were. That is our destiny. That is the destiny of Lexcon.” Shep’s heartfelt words touched even Jax’s soul, but he had no idea what he meant.
The grip on Jax loosened as Shep convinced the others. Jax was tempted to turn around and drill the goon into the ground, but he stood still and hoped talking would accomplish more than violence.
“Seize Magnus and let Brea release him,” Shep said.
The men debated silently among themselves for only seconds but Shep didn’t have to say anymore to convince them. The army turned on Magnus as fast as they’d taken his side. Magnus scrambled backward toward the door, panic written on his face, but he was outnumbered.
Jax moved across the room to embrace Brea in a long hug. He never wanted to let go again. When he was sure they’d been standing there for an hour, he pulled back, gripping the sides of her head to make sure she was okay.
“I’m okay,” she assured him as she kissed his lips softly. “Are you?” Her fingers softly moved over every cut and bruise stinging his skin.
“I’m fine. Can you do this? Are you going to survive this?” Jax demanded, not going by anyone else’s word but only his wife’s.
She nodded.
“Are you sure? Positive? I can’t lose you Brea. Not now.”
“Us,” Brea said, taking his hand back to her stomach.
Us. She was pregnant with his baby. Their Unborn.
It wasn’t until Declan and Gabrielle came to his side that Jax refocused on their present situation. They needed to finish what Melora had instructed Brea to do.
Magnus.
“I have to do this,” Brea told him.
Jax nodded and his angry stare fell on Magnus, now contained by two of the men. The other men stood around the room, on alert, ready to protect Brea, who carried the next elder of Lexcon.
Jax laid a protective hand on his wife as she approached the man who had deceived them all.
“I know what you did,” Brea said. “I’ve seen it all.”
Magnus wore only a devious smile. “Then you know that Lexcon is more difficult to keep in order once you open those gates,” he said, sounding amused. Jax wondered how he could be so aloof when his life was about to be over. “A war will come, my dear. It might not be me, but there are people who are ready to dethrone you before you’ve even claimed the position. A Second married to a Gatekeeper, planning on running Lexcon for the next twenty years...”
Brea was stiff beneath Jax’s touch and he rubbed his fingers into her skin to let her know she wasn’t alone.
“They will kill you and they will win.”
Jax lunged at Magnus, but Shep held him back. “She must take his fourth cardinal direction to complete the powers for the elders,” he said. “The four future elders will need their powers and Brea must empower them until she can pass them along. The four points, north, east, south and west, must be joined in order for the elders to come together. One day your child will take the west, Winters.”
In that moment, Brea reached out, but not quickly enough. A vortex formed underneath Magnus and his captor’s feet. Magnus’s evil smirk followed him as he and his captor fell into the gateway below them, disappearing into a rip none of them were prepared for.
Brea started to follow and Jax wrapped his arm around her waist pulling her away.
“He can’t escape!” she yelled.
Jax pulled her head against his chest as the vortex closed. “He’s gone,” he whispered into her ear.
Brea pulled away to glare at him. “We should have gone with him.”
“Brea, we don’t even know where he’s going.”
“Would that have stopped you if I wasn’t here?” she demanded.
He pushed her hair away from the sides of her face. “Yes. The three of us weren’t prepared for Magnus to run. We aren’t elders and we can’t just open a gateway without the three of us together. We don’t separate. But we will find him.”
Declan and Gabrielle came to them and they all stared at the floor where Magnus had disappeared. With Magnus skipping through time rips, three elders dead, and Jax’s child the future of Lexcon, this departure was only the beginning of a long battle.
Jax would always be there for Brea and his new child. They were a family now.
He kissed the top of her head, never wanting to let her go again. For the first time in days, Jax felt like everything would be okay. Seeing future Jax and Brea had helped lighten the hard path they were traveling, but now that they were no longer being hunted, the light had doubled as bright as the future he planned with his wife.