Emergence (The Primogenitor Chronicles Book 1) (55 page)

The kid fell in behind her and she glanced over her shoulder while she pulled against Kieran. He didn’t let up and dragged her through the doors someone held open for them. “Slow down, Kier.”

“No. You need to get out of here.”

They turned down a hall, leaving the stream of packing Valkyries. She started to dig in her heels more, but the teenager behind her just pushed between her wings and she stumbled a step. She whipped a look over her shoulder and a growl escaped. He grinned.

“Where’s Nick?” she asked.

Kieran’s fingers flexed against her wrist before he answered. “We don’t know. He and Chris were lured away this morning.”

Pain stabbed her, and then she remembered Ian’s words. The unnatural strength of her fixation now had a reason.
I will not be some broodmare decided by hormones and fate.
She planted her feet again and jerked her arm, but all that did was stretch her shoulder then get her another shove between the wings.

“What is wrong with you, Kieran? You feel strange.”

“You should try it from the inside,” he muttered.

Her energy spiked again and she hissed. Each time a wave washed through her, she felt more of the inhibitor that remained in her system dissipate. Then she noticed Kieran’s energy. Almost like looking into a mirror.

“Where are we going?” She tugged another time.

Aidan’s voice, the deepness surprising for one so young, resonated behind her. “There’s a garden outside where we can gather without too much notice. We’ve been staging there.”

“No, not where are we going this minute, but where are we escaping to?”

“We’re going somewhere called Aurora,” Kieran said.

She planted her heels and succeeded in forcing them to stop for a second. Kieran stumbled back a step and Aidan ran into her back.

“That’s what I thought.” She tried to shake off Kieran’s hand. Aidan planted both of his on her shoulders.
It’s not fair that someone so young should be taller than me.
“I’ll not go to Marcus willingly.”

Aidan propelled her forward. Kieran still had her arm, but he’d sucked in a breath and used his free hand to press his eyes as they struggled down the corridor. Something surged around him and hot emotion licked at her; she gasped and her eyesight faded.

“Damn it, Kieran, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing time won’t heal. At least it isn’t anywhere near as bad as what Nick went through,” he muttered. “Look, Jessica, I can feel how badly you don’t want to go to this place, but it’s the only safety we have.”

Her bare feet stuttered on the tiles as they dragged her through a door. The weak December sunshine pierced her eyes as she found herself outside for the first time in almost two months. The brisk air filled her lungs with the promise of freedom. She quit resisting and tested Kieran’s barriers with her mind and found them erratic as energy surged around him.

“Kieran, please let me go,” she said calmly.

“Are you kidding me?”

She winced as they pulled her onto a gravel path. Aiden noticed because she suddenly found herself scooped up into his arms. She stiffened in response.

“Put. Me. Down.”

The snotty teen had the gall to chuckle.

“I’ll not ask nicely a second time.”

He pulled her closer to his chest. She took a deep breath and felt her power swell. Kieran spun on the path to face them and she lashed out; a band of power wrapped around Aidan’s ankles and he fell. She kicked free of him and rolled on the gravel. Kieran grabbed a fistful of her hair, then recaptured her wrist.

“Are you all right?” he asked her as he hauled her to her feet.

“I won’t go without a fight, Kieran. Marcus has taken every member of my family.” Another rope of light whipped around Kieran’s legs and she tried to push free, but he held on and they both toppled to the ground. Aidan grabbed her ankle.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Kieran. I really don’t. Let me go.”

“Where do you think you’re going to go?” he asked calmly.

She twisted, trying to break away, but his hand completely encircled her wrist and she couldn’t get the leverage. “I’m not going to Aurora. Gabriel will be following all of you assuming that I will be with you. So in some respects, I’ll be safer.”

“You’re not thinking straight, Jessica. You haven’t finished the change yet. There’s a point where you must have aid, or you will die. Trust me. You need us. Don’t do this.” His gold-flecked eyes bored into hers, trying to make her listen.

“Jessica,” Aidan said. “We won’t let you go. You have to know that. Nickolas would kill us.”

“Don’t even get me started on him. I’ve made my decision. Now let go.”

Kieran shook his head, refusing. “Let us up, Jess.”

Frustrated, and having tried everything she could think of to get him to let her go, she cursed, “Fine, it’s on your own head.”

And she tapped into the power welling up inside of her. She pressed through his fluctuating barriers, invading his mind. He gasped in pain but still tried to maintain his grip, so she pushed harder, overwhelming his primitive hold to send his emerging gift out of control.

He shook and finally let go of her to clap his hands over his ears. She immediately turned her attention to Aidan, his expression half feral. His legs still bound, he had wormed his way closer and clamped his other hand on her ankles as well. His teeth tips shown as he snarled softly at her.

“Let me go,” she snarled back.

“No.”

She flung her hand out at him and a strand of light snapped around his throat and she pulled. His face turned red but he continued to fight to hold her. “I don’t want to hurt you. Please let me go.”

His fingers convulsed and she yanked her legs out of his reach, immediately releasing the wrap around his neck. A huge gasp filled the air. She coiled a strand around the rest of his body so he couldn’t get up and follow her. Then she turned to Kieran, who lay in a fetal position with his hands clasping his ears, and did the same.

Only then did she get close enough to them to search their pockets and take what little money she found. Kieran opened pain-filled eyes, his breathing ragged as blood flowed from his nose. “You know, Jessica, we’ll never let you go any more than Gabriel will.”

She sighed then mumbled, “I’m not a possession, Kieran.”

“Of course not. But you are a baby. An infant newly born into this world, knowing nothing of the dangers out there, needing protection and care until you can care for the rest of us.”

Uncomfortable with the intensity of his statement, she backed away while they watched her. She shook her head to deny that truth and the responsibility that went with it. “No.”

Both their gazes bored into her.

“I don’t believe in it. I make my own decisions. Not destiny, or hormones, or fate, or…or…” She spun away from them and ran. The gravel dug into her soles and she embraced the physical pain. It overrode the mental.

She regained control after her moment of panic and slowed so she could keep watch for the others and avoid bursting straight into their gathering.

She made it through the gardens and down to the river’s edge, where she rocked from foot to foot as she stared out over the water. The cold wet mud squelched between her toes, and she shivered at the thought of how cold the water must be. She threw a glance over her shoulder.

I don’t know how long the energy holding them will last. Is there another choice?

She shivered in the damp air. The sunlight brightened the world but did nothing to heat it. Then the memory of Ian’s explanation of her caste firmed her resolve and she stripped off her new fleece garments. Rolling them up as tight as she could, she tied them with some long grass so they wouldn’t unravel, then waded out into the smooth, frigid water.

She held the bundle overhead and struck out for the far side with one arm, thanking her lucky stars that the channel was calm and narrow. The added difficulty of wings, and how to maneuver them in the water, ate up more of her time and energy than made her happy.

She angled for a large overhanging growth of willows planted at the top of the steep embankment. Their leafless whips undulated in the slow current of the river. Her teeth chattering, she kicked hard and surged up to grasp a strong branch, keeping her bundle up and mostly dry. Then transferring the cloth to her mouth, she pulled hand over hand, climbing the whip like a rope. Muscles quivering, she swung as close as she could and dropped into the sparse grass beneath the trees at the top of the bank.

That should help hide my exit.
She sat spraddle-legged, trying to catch her breath.
No tracks up the bank. That’ll keep the Hunter’s busy. Not if it was Nick…
She pushed that thought away along with the memory of her tracking him in the Facility.

Shaking from the cold and exertion, she stripped off the scraps of cloth that had served as her clothing in the Hub and pulled on the mostly dry fleece.
Now what?
She wrung out the shorts and halter before wadding them up.
I need a plan. Actually, Kieran’s right, I need help. Just not their help. Who?

She picked her way across the grassy backyard of the old house.
May? I need a phone.
After slinking around the structure and looking in as many windows as she could, she climbed the steps to the back porch. She tried the door and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. She wrapped her hand in the wet shorts and broke one of the small panes of glass in the door. Unfortunately, her arm slipped when she reached through to unlock it, and she sliced her wrist on a piece of the jagged glass. She gasped. The burning pain traveled to her fingertips and up past her elbow.

She crept into what she hoped was an empty house. Blood slid down her hand. She grabbed a kitchen towel as she passed through and wrapped it around her wrist. The old farmhouse didn’t prove too large and thankfully the residents appeared to be gone, at work she assumed.

She found a phone in the living room and dialed her home number. The wall clock ticked, four thirty. No wonder the light had started to fade. She chewed her lip as the rings continued. Then a breathless voice picked up.

“Hello.”

Jessica closed her eyes in relief. “May?”

“Yes?” The voice turned clipped. “Who is this? This number is private.”

“May, it’s me. Jess.”

“Jessica?”

“Yes. I need your help.”

*What the hell’s going on around here, Chris?*
Nickolas waded his way through the tide of Valkyries that flowed from the Hub.

*Something to do with today?*

Nickolas pushed the doors into the Hub open then stopped dead. His head rose and he sniffed the air. Christoff growled and shoved by him and Nick snarled back. Jessica’s scent floated on the air currents. He scanned the room. Chris’s head lifted, the knowledge filling his eyes as he turned back to him.

*She’s unmuzzled. Where is she?*

*That’s what I’d like to know, Chris.*

*Both of you get over here.*

He and his brother swiveled to face Ian across the busy room. The doctor had his back to them, bent over, typing at one of the keyboards. He didn’t bother looking up at them. He twisted to the next keyboard and continued whatever he was up to. Jays carried an armload of medical supplies from the lockers in the treatment alcove and stuffed them haphazardly into a sack, then returned for more. Nick raised an eyebrow at the looting, and he and Chris crossed the distance to Ian.

“What happened?” Ian asked, though he didn’t look up from his flying fingers. “I’m glad you two made it out of that trap.”

“How’d you know we walked into a trap?”

“Well, maybe because I didn’t send you on a recovery, Nicky. Get a clue.” Ian paused and glanced up at him; the cold rage suppressed in his eyes made Nick shiver. “I have half the clan evacuated. Jessica went out in the last run. There’s two or three more Wings left to go. I need details.”

“Flynn caught us at breakfast and told us you gave him the orders for the recovery. It seemed a little rushed, but after this morning…. Well, I figured we really didn’t need to run into each other so soon.”