Stormfront (Undertow Book 2) (34 page)

By nightfall the storm had move
d
on, leaving the evening warm and covered in stars. Outside the palm trees barely moved in the light breeze, and the air was clean and floral and far better than any perfume I had ever smelled.

I examined myself in the mirror inside Ana’s
room as we got ready for dinner. The black, lace dress hung from my body, and the ultra low back showed off my kill mark. I was self-conscious at the idea of going semi-commando, but Ana assured me I looked spectacular, and that with the back so open, I couldn’t hide a bra strap. Luckily Collette had built in a little support for the girls in the front, but still – I never went braless.

“If you’re sure,” I replied to Ana’s tenth assurance that I was going to leave Raef speechless.

Ana’s floor-length dress was a riot of green swirls, each emerald ribbon spinning around her tiny frame. The halter top was covered in crystals that climbed over her shoulders and formed a single line that traveled down her spine to the dipped back of the dress. I took comfort that she too had to ditch a bra.

When I finally meet Collette, we needed to have a chat about making us clothes that allowed for supportive undies.

I suspected the French walked around half-naked all the time.

Tonight we would open Elizabeth’s diary and Ana thought we should make a special evening of it. She said that for all we went through to get it, for all that Elizabeth had done to protect it, we needed to mark the occasion with a party.

Christian had arrived a few hours ago, and we had gotten him up to speed on the pirates. He seemed unconcerned about Garrett’s slimy nephew, assuring us he would finish the job as soon as possible, but as always, he wanted to make sure I was all right.

Thankfully my shoulder was back to normal and the sling had been flung in the trash.

He also informed us that Mae would be arriving in several days, and while I was thrilled to see her, I was not looking forward to the lecture she would give as soon as she realized Raef and Kian were with us.

“Ready?” asked
Ana, picking up Elizabeth’s necklace from the bureau. I tucked the diary tighter to my body and gave her a nod. We headed down the curving staircase that lead to the main atrium and the outdoor living area, where our party was supposed to take place.

I stepped through the glass doors with Ana and caught sight of all five guys talking near the edge of the infinity pool. All were dressed in various shades of white linen shirts, though Raef,
Rillin, and Christian had rolled their sleeves up to their elbows.

The
tiki torches had been lit around the area and the chandeliers that hung from beams over the lounges and table all had little white candles that flickered inside their glass jars.

It was absolutely gorgeous.

I looked around the space, my eyes finally going back to where the guys stood, but Raef had seen me, and he walked towards me, along the edge of the pool. In the candlelight, his flawless face showed no hint of the killer that lived inside him. Every move he made was precise and smooth, and it reminded me of how his body moved with mine that night on Cerberus, as if we were designed to fit perfectly with one another.

He finally reached me, stopping just shy of touching me. “You are stunning,” he said quietly, a glorious smile gracing his face.

I blushed and held the diary closer to my chest, but he carefully slid it from my hands so I couldn’t hide behind its leather binding. He set the book on a table next to us, and his eyes returned to me, trailing over my body. The heat in his gaze flushed every inch of me and I loved the power it yielded in its wake.

I turned slowly, revealing the back to him and he reached out, trailing his hand down my spine and stuttering my heart. He pulled me toward him, one hand on my bare back, the other sweeping slowly down my neck.

“I love you, Eila. For this life and the next,” he said, kissing me softly as the Fallen marks bled onto his skin. He did it in front of our friends. In front of my grandfather.

In front of the universe.

Christian came up next to us, and Raef pulled me close to his side as his Fallen marks faded. My grandfather looked to both of us, then finally held out his hand to Raef and they shook, exchanging some unspoken understanding that Raef and I would never be anything less that what he had with Elizabeth.

Fate had set us to collide and nothing would ever tear us apart.

Everyone clustered around me at the mahogany table, looking over my shoulder at the pages and pages of Elizabeth’s diary, now finally filled with writing thanks to the necklace that was seated in the cover.

The words had bled to the surface the moment the diamond pendant had touched the leather, and the little clicking noises it made assured us that it wasn’t some kind of magic, but a delicate, word-revealing engine, built by Nikki’s ancestor. Most of the words inside were written by a young girl . . . with a semi-crush on her trainer she called Monster.

At least, that was the first half of the book, and I could have sworn
Rillin actually blushed.

But as the pages went on, it was obvious that Elizabeth questioned what her kind was doing. The violence and the one-mindedness to kill the Mortis didn’t sit right with her. She wrote of a man she met in the woods when she was little, saying that he seemed like a safe haven for her, though she knew only later that he was a soul thief. In later pages she wrote that he, Christian, once again saved her and kept her safe. She fought
next to him and his friends, including James, who showed her how to shoot with a bow.

Realizing I might stumble across some very intimate details of her and Christian, I jumped ahead to the end of the
diary, closer to what I knew would have been her death. Christian looked relieved, though Ana protested skimming past the juicy details.

Toward
the end of her diary, Elizabeth seemed to have fallen into a darker train of thought. She loved her son, but something seemed wrong. She talked of a Mortis named Jacob Rysse, who she believed was going to try and restart the Gabriel Device for his own purposes. He wanted to wipe the world of both the Lunaterra and any compassionate Mortis. He wanted a precision army to enslave the humans and he believed this device would be the key to absolute power.

“Al
l right – back up,” said Kian, rubbing his forehead. “So Elizabeth decided to kill Rysse to keep him from finding and restarting this device thing? What does she call it? Gabriel? I don’t understand what this Gabriel device is.”

Ha – he wasn’t the only one.

Rillin crossed his arms, thinking. “It almost sounds like she is referring to the same thing that kept the Trials bound to the palace via the links – the same device that Katherine disabled or damaged. I just have no clue what it looks like or if it would have even survived the palace collapse. And why in the hell did Rysse meet with Elizabeth and think she could be turned? How does that play into his need for the device?”

“This device thing sure sounds like one hot item if everybody and their brother wanted it. What does it do, exactly?” asked MJ.

Rillin shook his head. “I actually don’t know, aside from keeping us locked to the palace.”

“I’m thinking is has a few
fancy upgrades, beyond the containment system feature that is,” said Ana.

I moaned, my brain just about melting.

Raef leaned over me, looking at Elizabeth’s writing. “Okay – well, let’s rethink this. If the device was in the Lunaterras’ possession and they had used it to enslave the Trials and god knows what else, then maybe Rysse needed a Lunaterra to control it? Maybe HE couldn’t use it because he was a soul thief, but a Lunaterra could.”

Christian nodded, “That actually makes sense. So Rysse would’ve needed a Lunaterra that would be willing to work with him, which was basically no one except Elizabeth. She not only was hated by her own kind, but she was already fighting for us.
 She would have been the ideal choice and Rysse probably figured she would’ve wanted revenge on her own family. I still don’t understand why Rysse thought she could be turned however.”

I flipped through several more pages, but then stopped short when I came across a page full of Fallen markings. They seemed to be organized, like a family tree, with numbers that lined up with each horizontal line. The first line, number 1, had a set of marks that I had never seen on Raef, Kian,
Rillin or Christian, but the name Jacob was scrawled next to it.

The second line, showed a set similar to the first, but the patterns had begun to change, and I immediately recognized them as those that graced
Kian’s and Raef’s skin. Alongside this line, Elizabeth wrote several names I didn’t recognize. There were more sets of Fallen marks, line after line, with each line changing more. Page after page of markings, some with names alongside the lines. Eventually I found Christian’s name and the word
Monster
.

“Is this a family tree?” asked
Rillin.

Kian nodded, “It appears she was tracking generations of Mortis, but Raef and I are one line below Jacob. That doesn’t mean what I think it does . . . does it?”

I looked up to Raef, “You two were turned by Jacob Rysse himself?”

Raef stepped back from the table. “That can’t be right. Can it? And why is there no one above Jacob? I mean, where did he come from?”

Christian slid down into a seat at the table and looked at Raef and Kian. “Jacob must have been one of the First Army. The original set of humans who were changed into Mortis by the Fallen One himself. They were considered the purest, most dangerous, of all the Mortis. If you two were turned by him, it may explain why you weren’t killed by Elizabeth’s power. Plus, her Core Collapse must have been filtered through Jacob before it hit the two of you, lessening its impact. Between what you were already, and the energy she released during her death, you both were basically vaccinated that night. It also means that you and Kian are only steps away from pure, angelic strength.”

MJ rolled his eyes, “Don’t go telling them they are some kind of superheroes.
Kian’s fat head will get even bigger!”

Kian smiled broadly.

“Everyone will need to train,” said Rillin. “If you two have that type of strength and capability, we need to bring it out. Parts of the Mortis community now know of Eila’s existence. She needs to be protected at all times.”

“Yeah, but for the rest of my life? I mean, isn’t it easier to just tell them that I’m not a threat? You know – I’m a friendly type of Lunaterra? Can’t we just ALL get along?” I demanded.

“We could tattoo ‘I Heart Soul Thieves’ across Eila’s forehead,” offered MJ. “Maybe set her up with a blog and Pinterest page?” Everyone glared at MJ, but I actually was down with all those ideas.

I sighed and flipped to the last page. On it was another family tree, but this time it was Elizabeth’s. Listed with
each family member was their date of birth and death. At the very bottom, Elizabeth had written herself and Christian with a line connecting them to each other and another line below them, linking them to their son.

Ana, who was leaning over me to see the diary, spoke up. “Wow. I only see a few people lived past 35. Fighting must have been brutal back then.”
  Raef leaned forward and trailed his hand over the names. He looked to Rillin and something seemed to be communicated between the two of them.

“What? What is it?” I asked. Raef placed his elbows on the table, rubbing his face with his hands and I could see MJ and Kian were tense as well. Now I was getting nervous.

Something was not right – I could see it on their faces. So could Christian. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“The Lunaterra had stunted lifespans after years of inbreeding,” said
Rillin.

My eyes grew wide and Christian got to his feet, alarmed, “How short of a lifespan are we talking?” he asked.

“Twenty to thirty years,” replied Raef. I turned to him, and his sad eyes met mine. “Rillin told me on the plane. He also knows about your real background.”

Christian froze.

Raef laced his fingers into mine, “Rillin figured out your connection to Christian after Sandy Neck. He saw your scar, which only appears on Mortis after they are hit with the Light. Rillin is covered with them.”

I looked to
Rillin. “Is this true?” I asked.

He nodded and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing many scars. He touched the deep trio that curved around his side. “These are from Elizabeth. She threw one incredible punch.” He touched another deep groove near his shoulder, “This one is from you, the night on Sandy Neck.”

My eyes grew wide. I had damaged my would-be trainer. He would carry the mark of my ability to the end of time. “I’m, uh, sorry,” I said, feeling bad I had injured him.

“Don’t worry about it
, Eila. I wear my scars like a badge of survival, as you should with yours.”

I looked back to Raef, “Why didn’t you tell me? About the lifespan thing?”

“I didn’t want you to only obsess about how long you would live,” said Raef. “No one should carry that burden. And you are generations out from the inbreeding and you are part Mortis. For all we know, you could live past 100. Mortis are immortal – that could make your life long. Far longer than an average human.” I stroked his arm, watching my guard carefully and seeing the desperation in his face.