Chapter 12

“Please don’t,” the half-man/half-croc begged, the words distorted as he finished morphing. “It’s me—Jax.”

Amadis! That’s what Tristan meant: he was asking if I could tell the were-croc was one of us.

Jax and I both stood there naked, Tristan between us. Jax’s arms hung at his sides, completely relaxed, not at all embarrassed that I could see every bit of him. And there was a lot to see. Although quite a bit shorter than Tristan, he was otherwise large—everywhere—too over-muscled for my liking, but it was probably natural, his being part-crocodile and all. Scars ripped across his darkly tanned skin in several places, including his bald scalp. With my keen eyesight, I couldn’t see a strand of hair anywhere—not even eyelashes or . . . never mind.

“G’day,” he greeted, a toothy grin crinkling a scar that cut from above his brow, down his eyelid, and to his cheekbone, though his brown eye looked undamaged. He saw me peeking at him from behind Tristan and winked at me.

Tristan’s chest rumbled. He held his hand out to his side, and his shirt flew up from the ground. He pushed it back at me. It covered me better than the Amadis dress, but I still stayed behind Tristan and kept my eyes only on Jax’s face—I’d seen enough of the rest of him already.

“Who are you, and why were you sneaking up on me?” I demanded.

“You’re a feisty little sheila, aren’t ya?” Jax rubbed his nose, smiled wider, and nodded toward Tristan. “I’m an old mate of his.”

Tristan crossed his arms over his chest. “Hmph. Mate isn’t exactly the right word. Or did you forget who gave you that scar over your eye?”

Jax laughed. “Naw, not forgotten.”

“You must not have learned your lesson, then, sneaking up on us again. Or were you getting a little thrill from my wife?”

Jax shrugged. “She is a bloody ripper. Cracked a fat, all right.”

Tristan’s chest rumbled louder, and he leaned slightly forward. I didn’t understand what Jax meant, but apparently it wasn’t a compliment.

“Just giving ya a compliment, mate,” Jax said.

Okay, maybe a compliment, but derogatory.

“Do you realize who she is?” Tristan growled.

“Hmm . . . you said your missus, right? Why don’t you make introductions?”

“Jax, this is Alexis.” That familiar steel undertone colored his voice, though on the surface it sounded polite. “Alexis Ames. As in Sophia’s daughter, Katerina’s granddaughter.”

Understanding dawned on Jax’s face, and he grinned warmly again. “Ah. So that’s why you’re throwin’ such a wobbly. Didn’t mean to disrespect ya, Miss Alexis. I don’t get out among the Amadis much. So what brings ya out here to the bush?”

Neither Tristan nor I answered at first. Suspicion waved off Tristan’s body, making me uneasy. Jax’s being Amadis no longer meant what it used to. I focused on his thoughts, ensuring Julia and her posse hadn’t sent him. He was mentally kicking himself all over for being “such an arse around royalty,” though a very basic man part of him was thinking about how hot I was, even with the raccoon face. I squeezed Tristan’s hand.

“Just passing through,” Tristan finally said.

“Where you going? I hope not west—you’ll end up in the never-never. You can’t flash your way to the west coast before dark.”

All three of us automatically looked up. The sun hung in the western sky, not far from setting.

“No worries about us,” Tristan said.

“Probably not, but since you are Amadis Royalty, I’ll worry anyway. I don’t spend much time around them—not around anyone, really—but mates are mates. You can stay the night at my place. I don’t have much to offer, but it’s better than being out in the bush overnight.”

“Are there Daemoni around?” I asked.

“Naw. Haven’t seen them in donkey’s years. But that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous out here at night.”

I looked at Tristan, relying on his knowledge and experience, since I had none. He still looked suspicious. I probed Jax’s mind again, looking for any ulterior motive.

He’s okay, I told Tristan after listening. A little lonely, wanting to do the right thing for us, but not dangerous.

Tristan glanced sideways at me. I squeezed his hand again, and his shoulders relaxed.

“We’re headed north to Kuckaroo,” he told Jax.

“Hmm . . . you could make it before dark, if you know where you’re flashing and don’t show up in the middle of a dingo fight or a roo cave. It’s risky. Up to you. Offer’s there for you.”

I shuddered at the thought of appearing in a kangaroo cave uninvited. I’d be admiring them from a distance from now on. Of course, we were just as likely to appear right next to a variety of unfriendly animals during the day, and realizing this, I found flashing our way through the Outback sounding less and less appealing.

My desire to stay out of the great outdoors at night may have been irrational. After all, we could see just as well in the dark, and Jax said Daemoni hadn’t been around for ages. But somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I thought I remembered learning that Australia’s nocturnal animals outnumbered their day-loving cousins. I could probably easily defend myself—animals could be electrocuted—but that didn’t relieve the feeling of fear of the unknown. Especially after being pounded in the face by a kangaroo. Besides, a real bed was always a nice draw.

I want to stay, Tristan. He narrowed his eyes at me. We’ll be okay. Whatever your past is with him, he wants to help now. Unless you want to hear me whining all night, because I won’t get an ounce of sleep out here.

Tristan sighed and shook his head slowly. I could hear the reluctance in his thoughts. “Fine. Maybe we’ll learn something.”

“Give us a minute, and we’ll go with you,” Tristan told Jax.

Jax returned to the water, and when he was out of sight, I quickly removed Tristan’s shirt and put my own clothes on. When we reached the bank, Jax the person was gone, but the crocodile hovered under the water’s surface, only his eyes and a slice of forehead showing. He swung his large head to the right, motioning for us to follow him. Though the croc was still a bit frightening, even knowing it was Jax, I was glad he changed—he may not have been embarrassed by his nakedness, but I was. We followed the croc half-way around the pond to its feeder stream and up the stream to a tiny shack.

Tristan and Jax caught fish from the stream, and we grilled it over a fire for dinner. It took a couple prods from Tristan to get Jax talking, but once he did, he chatted incessantly about his life in the bush. I didn’t have to listen to his thoughts—he told us everything and then some. He stayed in the bush because it made living easier as an Amadis Were; in other words, if he wasn’t around people, he wasn’t tempted to eat them. He was changed by a Daemoni were-croc that bit him when he was a teenager out in the bush by himself. A warlock, who we figured out to be Charlotte, converted him, and he lived in Kuckaroo for a while. But full moons made control difficult, and he eventually moved out on his own.

He rarely saw people and preferred it that way. A female were-eagle visited him during new moons only, when he had the most control over his instinct to eat her. He’d learned to live entirely off the land, usually eating as a crocodile because it made the hunting easier, but when he needed supplies, he went to the nearest Norman town. He only visited Kuckaroo every few years. Except for the eagle, none of them came to visit him, and he hadn’t seen or sensed Daemoni since shortly after his own turning. He called the surrounding area within a two-hundred-kilometer range his home and knew it as well as he did his little one-room shack. He told us a handful of other Amadis Weres lived similarly in the Outback.

He asked about my face, and Tristan shared the story of my brief encounter with the kangaroo. Jax laughed for several minutes. We told him we were on the run from Daemoni, but little else about our situation. Now that we’d reminded him, he said he remembered hearing some of our story—the reason for the Daemoni’s desire to have us, Tristan’s capture—but hadn’t heard about Tristan’s escape.

“I don’t trust any authority, including the Amadis, but you two seem all right,” Jax said. “Anytime you’re in my part of the bush and need anything, just sing out and I’ll find ya.”

“And your maker? Is he still around?” I asked, not particularly wanting to run into him.

“You mean ‘she,’ and she’s dead. After I converted to Amadis, she attacked me, and we went into a death roll. She gave me a lot of these scars, and I gave her death. I’m the only one of my kind now. If I were on the registry of animals, I’d be labeled as extinct.”

Jax divided a pile of hides and blankets into two, creating two beds—one for Tristan and me and one for himself—in front of the fireplace. I didn’t get a real bed, but it was still much better than being outside in the wilderness.

“Sorry, princess, it’s the best I have,” Jax said with a wink.

I told him it was fine. Tristan must have warmed to him during the evening—he didn’t growl this time at Jax’s wink. But he did put me on the opposite side from Jax, placing himself between us, and kept his arm tightly around me through the night.

According to Tristan, by saying “Australia,” I’d sent us to both the best and worst place for our escape. Before meeting me, Tristan spent nearly twenty years hiding from the Daemoni by blending into Norman society. He said the hard part was shaking them in the first place. It would be fairly easy by becoming lost and “vanishing” somewhere in the great Australian Outback. If we could give them the slip here, we could go just about anywhere, including the States. The problem with Australia, though, was getting off the continent—the few major airports would be watched, and we’d have Dorian with us, which meant no flashing or swimming. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. The only places within flashing or swimming distance would be watched, too.

At the moment, I understood what he meant about becoming lost in the bush. We left Jax’s shack at first light, flashing north toward Kuckaroo, and supposedly we were somewhere close. But we couldn’t find it. We walked and walked and walked . . . and walked some more. We probably walked right by it, around it, possibly through it, for all I knew, but they kept a heavy shield and cloak over it.

“You would think other Amadis could see it or at least have some way to detect it,” I complained after we’d been searching for the village for nearly two hours in the blazing sun. It was early winter Down Under, but an unusual warm spell brought summer heat, especially the farther north we traveled.

“We should be able to sense it, but they’re probably on high alert after the attacks. And they must have a powerful warlock or two to create a shield this heavy. You’re sure you can’t pick anything up?”

“No. I already said I couldn’t.” I didn’t mean for it to come out so harshly, but I was hot and dirty and tired of walking aimlessly, searching for the invisible. We may as well have been searching for the lost city of Atlantis in the middle of the Mohave. Our bodies adjusted to extreme temperatures, but within the last several minutes the heat became increasingly annoying, pushing down on us, creating a thrum in my head. Besides, it was the fourth time he’d asked me about mind signatures in the last fifteen minutes, and his own tone was full of impatience. “Are you sure you can’t get a cell signal?”

I’d asked him the same thing more than four times. For some reason, pushing buttons felt like the solution for relieving the pressure in my head.

“We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, Alexis. Do you see a tower anywhere nearby?”

Apparently, he felt the need for an argument, too, and the overwhelming urge to fight consumed me.

I threw my arms in the air. “You’re the big toy collector. Why don’t you have one of those fancy satellite phones that get signals everywhere . . . even in the middle of fucking nowhere?”

“And when did I have time to buy one since leaving Hell?”

“Well, let’s see . . . maybe during that whole week doing whatever the hell you wanted before you came back to me?” I yelled.

He shot a vicious look at me, and for a brief moment, I expected to see the old fire in his eyes. That was a low blow, and I knew it. I didn’t apologize, though. I didn’t feel like it right now. I wanted to strangle anything I could get my hands around.

“So what now?” I asked sharply. “Should we go back to Jax’s?”

“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Tristan sneered.

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I saw you ogling him out at the pond.”

“I wasn’t ogling him! He was naked and standing right in front of us!”

“Which you didn’t mind one bit, did you? Or the way he looked at you?”

I stopped in my tracks and stared at him as if he’d slapped me. What’s wrong with him? This was not my Tristan. My Tristan was sweet and caring and definitely not jealous. He had no need to be. He was the center of my world, and absolutely no one could ever compare to him.

“I spent seven-and-a-half years waiting for you,” I spewed. “It’s always been you and no one else. How dare you!”

I glared at him, my fists balled on my hips. He glared back. Well, if he’s going to be that way . . .

“At least Jax would be able to find this place. I trusted you to know what you’re doing, and now we’re lost.”

That did it. Tristan’s perfect face twisted and contorted as several emotions tried to take over at once. The gold in his eyes sparked—not like they used to, with real flames, but like anyone’s eyes when they’re overcome with anger. My trust in him was sacred ground, not something to be thrown around lightly.

But before he could settle on any single emotion, something behind him caught my eye. The air itself wrinkled. I first thought it was the heat rising from the ground, but as I watched, it did it again, and it was definitely not normal.

“Oh! Tristan! I think we found it,” I shouted, my anger replaced by surprise and jubilation. “Over here!”

I tugged on his hand, pulling him with me. We took two strides toward the wrinkle when a large Jeep burst out of that space, charging right at us. A musical laugh chimed over the grinding of tires on sand and gravel as the Jeep slid to a stop twenty yards in front of us. Tristan and I spun back around, but had nowhere to go. We were surrounded. Six Jeeps encircled us—some drivers and occupants with fangs, some with wands, and yet others quivering, about to transform.

“Sorry to spoil your spat,” Vanessa chimed. “I was quite enjoying it, and it kept you nicely distracted.”

Tristan squeezed my hand, and I knew he was about to flash and I was to follow him. But before we had a chance, the air around us whooshed upward and our surroundings suddenly changed, like an abrupt scene change in a movie. We stood in the center of a wide road, a handful of old, brick buildings and squat houses spread out beyond the Jeeps. Kuckaroo. Vampires, Weres, and mages surrounded the Jeeps that surrounded Tristan and me.

“These two are mine but the rest are fair game,” Vanessa yelled.

Chaos erupted. The vampires became blurred streaks as they flew at each other. Daemoni Weres changed on the fly as they lunged at their enemy cousins, bits of skin and goo—were-pulp—raining down on us. Magic spells shot around and across the circle. Jaws snapped. Buildings and Jeeps burst into flames. The screech of metal against stone echoed off the buildings.

Vanessa laughed maniacally, then lifted her arms and jumped toward me, flying across the twenty yards between us.

I knew what she planned to do before she did it, but I saw a chance to retrieve my necklace wrapped around her gloved arm, so I didn’t stop her. Just as she was close enough to touch, her fangs bared for the bite, I ducked out of her way and reached for the pendant. My fingers brushed her ice-cold shoulder, and a spark crackled as they barely touched the ruby. Damn it! I missed, but her fangs didn’t—they sliced across the inside of my arm, from wrist to inner elbow.

I didn’t have vampire skin, but close enough, and, just as they can cut through their own skin, vampire fangs could cut through mine. Vanessa’s left a deep gash that didn’t heal instantly, and they couldn’t have been more precise on the vein. Blood spurted to the rhythm of my speeding heart.

And I was suddenly surrounded by ravenous vampires. Including ours.

If there was any blood even Amadis vamps with the highest control couldn’t resist, it would be mine. Owen had called it an energy drink for vamps—and that was before the completion of the Ang’dora. Now it was more powerful, and the vamps could smell it. They closed in on me.

Tristan let out a deafening growl, and the vampires flinched. At once, he held one hand out and hit the Daemoni vampires with his power, and with his other hand, grasped my wrist, lifted my arm to him, and ran his tongue along the gash. I could feel it starting to heal before, but his saliva sealed it instantly, stopping the blood flow.

“Well, isn’t that sweet,” Vanessa sang right before Tristan swung his hand toward her. She disappeared with a pop.

Her retreat signaled the rest of the Daemoni. The vampires, disabled by Tristan, disappeared first. He hit the Weres the best he could without hitting our own as they fought, and the evil Weres ran away. We both aimed at the mages who shot spells everywhere, some hitting buildings, some hitting our people. We blasted them together, cutting off their spells, and they finally flashed, too.

The air hung still and silent long enough for me to take in the destruction—burning buildings and vehicles sent smoke plumes skyward, injured Amadis moaned with pain, and crumpled bodies lay motionless on the ground. But not long enough for someone to finish yelling “Shield!”

Popping sounds filled the air as a new round of Daemoni appeared. After all these years, I still recognized the leprechaun face of Ian, the former Amadis who’d told me about the arranged marriage between Tristan and me, and the narrator of the beheading video. He quickly threw his hands in the air, as if in surrender, as he’d done with Tristan so many years ago.

“Just deliverin’ a message,” he said with his Irish accent. “You two stay ’ere, we keep attackin’.”

“You have no right,” Tristan yelled. “These are innocents!”

Ian laughed his sick ogre’s laugh, his red hair shaking and his pale blue eyes crinkling. “But you ain’t! And . . . so’s ya know . . . the boy is ours.”

My breath caught. Dorian! The realization that he and Owen were supposed to be here slammed into me like a Mack truck. The thought of them in a burning building or among the bodies drained all of my sensibility.

“Dorian,” I yelled, turning around in circles, the obliterated village spinning in blurs. “Owen! Dorian!”

A female vampire knelt in front of me and took my hand. “They’re not here, Miz Alexis.”

I turned to Tristan, jerking my arm away as the vamp sniffed at the drying blood. The gold in his eyes was dim, the green dark, his expression unfathomable.

“They have him?”

Ian laughed. And I couldn’t help it. Every time I saw the disgusting ogre, he was laughing at my heartbreak. I didn’t electrocute him, though. Ian hated the Amadis in a different way than other Daemoni—he held a vendetta for his own heartbreak by my mother, who rejected his advances. So I pushed all my Amadis power through my hand and directed it right at his chest. Love, hope, and faith . . . everything good wrapped into a thick rope of energy that I jammed into his heart. He fell to the ground, writhing.

Maniacal laughter—laughter at his misery—bubbled in my chest, but I managed to suppress it. I’d torture Ian until he begged for mercy and would only let up long enough to take what I needed from his mind. And then I might kill the bastard.

The other Daemoni advanced two steps toward me as I continued with the force on Ian. I held my left hand up.

“Don’t. Make. Me. Fry. You.”

A warlock held his own hands up, threatening me with his magic. “Leave then.”

“We leave after you do,” Tristan said. “We’re not abandoning these innocents.”

“We’re watching,” the warlock warned. “You don’t leave, we attack. Again. And again. And again . . . until you do.”

Tristan cocked his head, and I heard what he heard—with my ears and my mind—and my breath let out with relief. I let Ian go.

“Not a problem,” Tristan said.

An old, rusty truck appeared down the road, heading straight for us and swerving for the Daemoni. They popped out of sight.

“Need a lift?” Owen yelled from the driver’s side.

“Get in, princess,” Jax called from the passenger’s seat as the truck slowed down enough for Tristan and me to jump into the back. But I didn’t move until I saw the little blond head wedged between Owen and Jax. He’s safe. I sprang into the truck’s bed.

“Take cover,” Tristan yelled at the Amadis and the burning village instantly disappeared. “The truck, too, Owen!”

Owen thrust his hands up to shield and cloak the truck and then yanked the wheel in a hard left turn, throwing Tristan and me against the side of the bed. Several figures popped into existence in the direction we had been heading, but not able to see us, they gave up and disappeared again. Then the truck backfired, slowed, and stopped.

“Is something wrong?” My voice cracked on the last word as panic tried to grip me.

“Nah. This is where I get out, princess,” Jax said. “I only came to show warlock here how to find Kuckaroo. He would have never made it in time, the direction he was going.”

“How did you know?”

“My bird friend brought me a message about the Daemoni. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what they’re looking for.” He peered back the way we’d come, as if he could still see the hidden town. “I guess those are the closest I got to mates. I can’t abandon them. Better see what I can do.”

He took off down the road, no time for any of us to say long goodbyes.

“Thank you for everything,” I called out.

“Any time, princess.”

Owen jammed the truck into gear, and it lurched, then rumbled on. I jumped to the front of the bed and pulled Dorian through the open window to the cab, welding him against me, never wanting to let him go. I kissed all over the top of his head, every part that wasn’t buried against me.

“Mom . . . can’t . . . breathe,” Dorian gasped against my chest.

I laughed, an unfamiliar sound mixed with joy and grief—joy to have my baby in my arms, grief for what we left behind.

“You have a plan, Scarecrow?” Tristan called over the truck’s ear-splitting engine.

“You’re the plan man,” Owen yelled back.

“Can you still fly?”

Owen laughed. “Oh, yeah! Those were the only classes I didn’t mind sitting through.”

“There’s a private air strip about a hundred-and-fifty kilometers due west.”

“Gotch’ya! It’ll take a while with old Bertha here,” Owen said, slapping the ancient truck’s dashboard, “but we should get there before dark.”

We rumbled along through the bush on no apparent road. The benefit of Owen’s shield, besides the fact that it made us literally disappear in the Outback and lose the Daemoni, was that it magically protected us from the dust. Not that I could be any nastier with dirt stuck to the dried sweat and blood from the morning.

Tristan leaned against the front of the truck’s bed, wrapped his arms around us and pulled us between his legs, Dorian still in my lap.

“I love you, ma lykita,” Tristan murmured against my ear. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Me, too. I have no idea what overcame me.”

“Could have been Vanessa’s mages messing with us before we saw them.”

“Ah.” I closed my eyes. Bitch. “You know I love you more than anything, right?”

“Of course.”

“More than me?” Dorian asked.

I thought for a moment. How do I explain the difference to a seven-year-old? “Hmm . . . more than anything but Dorian. And Dorian, I love you more than anything but Dad. Okay?”

Dorian considered this for a moment. “Awesome. I’m the same as Dad.”

I leaned my head against Tristan’s chest and closed my eyes, tears silently seeping through my eyelashes. Another village attacked, more people dead. Because of us. And we couldn’t even stay to help them. The best thing we could do for them was leave and never return.

We were on our own.