United (The Guardians Book 2) (32 page)

“I'll bet.”

“You need more blood?” Sacha asked quietly, lifting his face from where it had been buried in the curve of Gable's neck. “Here.” Like it was nothing, he slid one of his sharp talons across his palm. The pain didn't even seem to register with him, and Gable hated to think of how much worse he'd had it over the past year.

“Thanks,” said Zay, pressing the key into the blood. “Make sure you all hold on to me.”

“Uh. . .” Fortune held a hand up. A flamy, fire dripping hand.

Zay grimaced. “Bloody hell. Just hold on to me – I'll get the healer to sort me out later.”

As the four of them stepped closer and held on tight, the blood soaked into the key like a sponge and it began to glow white. The light grew brighter and brighter until it encompassed them completely, so bright that Gable had to squeeze her eyes closed. Her skin tingled and she felt weightless, like she was floating in space. Then her body felt thicker and thicker, like it was jelly, until suddenly the ground was solid beneath her feet once more.

Her eyes opened and she and let out a sigh of relief – they were home. She had never been so happy to see a dusty, dirty warehouse in all her life.

“Gotta say, the journey home was sure as hell more fun than traveling
to
Zawavia
.”

Nodding, Zay stumbled just a little – all the traveling through portals had started to take its toll. He winced as Fortune let go of his arm, revealing a sizzling red hand print. “Yeah, drowning definitely isn't my favorite method of transportation.”

Sacha pulled back as Zay's words registered, frowning at Gable. Now that they were back in their own world, both he and Fortune had regained control of their powers again and his wolf traits had retreated back inside of him, waiting for the next full moon. “What? You drowned? On purpose? Tell me you didn't do that for me!”

Gable glared at Zay for his slip, and he pursed his lips, not even bothering to hide his amusement. “Oops. Awkward.”

She turned back to Sacha. “We'll talk about it later.”

“You bet your sweet ass we'll talk about it later.” He scowled at her, and for just a moment he was the old Sacha again. But it didn't take long for the haunted darkness to return to his eyes.

Gable didn't care; she'd take whichever Sacha she could get. The old one, the new one; one with ghosts and demons and horrifying nightmares. She would take it all, as long as it was him.

“Xavier!” a choked out yell interrupted, and a disheveled Charles was suddenly barreling into his son. He grabbed him up in a bear hug, squeezing so tight that Zay wheezed. “I came as soon as I could. Why didn't you call me earlier, you bloody bugger? I had to hear you were back from Felicity!”

“I wanted to get everyone home first,” Zay explained, patting his back. “Dad. . . Can't breathe! I'm fine, Dad. We made it.”

“I've been out of my mind. I had no idea if you were even alive!”

“Alright, no need to be so dramatic.” But despite his words, it was clear that Zay was just as pleased to see his father again.

The warehouse was almost empty. All of the prisoners had already left for Yarmac & Bogely's, and the guards had been taken away. Only the Guardians remained.

Near the doors, Kain had wrapped Queenie up in his arms and it didn't look like he was planning on letting her go anytime soon. Her cheeks were stained red, and Gable knew she must have been remembering their conversation over Kain's feelings for her.

Walker, stony faced as usual, regarded them all with a heavy sigh. She patted Nicky's shoulder once. It was awkward, like she wasn't used to showing affection. “You made it, then?” she asked casually, but it was obvious she cared. Deep down. Deep, deep down.

Spotting her, Hue ambled over and slung an arm around her shoulders. He placed a big, wet kiss on the corner of her lips.

She shoved him off. “Gross! You stink, Tracker!”

“You know you love it, baby.”

She pretended to gag, but Gable was sure that her cheeks darkened. Just a little.

Gable smiled as she glanced around at all the people who had somehow become her friends – with the exception of Walker, of course. And then there was Sacha. She slipped her arms around his waist and held on tight.

Yes, she was home.

+++

It was nearing midnight by the time they reached Yarmac & Bogely's. The familiarity surrounded Gable, filling her to the brim and relaxing her in a way she'd never been able to on that island. As soon as Tamitri let them in through the gates she let out a sigh of relief as the smell of spices and cooking foods and fire smoke washed over her.

“Gable!” Terelle greeted with a sigh of sheer relief. “You're here, finally.” She pulled her into her arms. Gable hugged her back without letting go of Sacha's hand.

“Yeah, we're home.”

Terelle turned to Sacha with watery eyes. The two of them had never gotten along, but Gable knew Terelle had always felt guilty over his disappearance. When Terelle had become leader of the Outcasts at Yarmac & Bogely's, she had made him leave his home there when most of the others had deemed him too dangerous. Since then, she'd blamed herself for that – had thought that if she'd never made him leave, he'd never have been taken.

She placed a delicate hand on his arm and squeezed. “I'm truly glad to see you alive and home again. I never believed it possible. . .” Her head shook back and forth, as though she was annoyed with her own lack of belief. “. . .but Gable, she never gave up hope. Not when it came to you. She was adamant that she'd bring you home again, and here you are.”

Sacha opened his mouth, but seemed to be struggling to find words. Instead he just nodded and squeezed Gable's hand. She could tell that he was growing weaker once more; he needed rest.

The two of them weaved their way through crowds of Outcasts, all awake despite the late hour – with the excitement of so many lost souls returned home, none would be getting much sleep at all.

Tents had been set up for the injured, and the prisoners had all been invited to re-cooperate at Yarmac & Bogely's for as long as they needed. Fabian, the young teenage healer, was exhausting himself trying to help as many people as he could, but there were so many injured that another healer from a different tribe had been called in to help. Gable made Sacha get checked out though she refused medical attention for herself; her injuries were not as severe as some of the others had suffered, and the healers needed to concentrate on those who needed their powers most. Besides, she wanted the pain.
Needed
it. She welcomed every ache, every burn, every cut and bruise and broken bone, because it let her know that it had all been real; they had succeeded in their mission and it hadn't been a dream. She really and truly had her best friend back.
 

So many stopped Gable and Sacha to talk that it took them almost forty minutes to finally make it to Terelle's tent. She was momentarily surprised that plenty of people were already inside, but then she really shouldn't have been.

Ward, who already looked so much better away from the island and in control of his powers again, leaned against Terelle's curved staircase as he chatted easily with Cadby. He too must have refused healing aid, because the bump on his head from where Zay had hit him was clearly visible. He mustn't have been holding a grudge, however, because when Zay walked by him, he slapped his shoulder and grinned.

Zay joined Charles and Walker on the other side of the room, and Gable heard snippets as he gave them a detailed account on everything that had happened since they'd left them at the airport four days earlier.

She blinked, shaking her head in surprise. Really? Had it only been four days? It felt like they'd been on their mission for so much longer.

On one of Terelle's sofas, Queenie had curled up in a corner and fallen fast asleep. A smitten Kane sat next to her, stroking her hair. On Kain's other side was Nicky, who was busy looking absolutely anywhere in the room but at Gable and Sacha. A stab of guilt ran through her, but she'd never lied to him. She'd been honest with Nicky right from the start about where her feelings lay.

It might have helped if she'd stopped kissing him, though.

A hand clapped her shoulder, startling her out of her thoughts. Hue grinned as he entered the tent behind her, gesturing down at his flawless body. “Like new. Those healers are fucking awesome.” He winked at her. “So, road trip soon?”

She smirked back and nodded. “It's on.”

Even Ralf Vance, the North American Elder, had managed to tear himself away from his elderly duties to visit with them. He and Terelle were discussing the results of the mission in low voices, and he seemed pleased.

Sacha stumbled a little next to her; he was still weak. He needed rest – a
lot
of rest. And probably intense therapy, though that would never happen. Sacha wasn't a therapy kind of guy.
 

Gable sat down on the floor by the entrance to Terelle's tent, leaning back against the thick canvas and pulling Sacha down with her. Her cheek dropped to his shoulder, and his head rested on hers as she entwined their feet. His eyes closed, and she heard him let out a satisfied sigh.

Terelle passed them by as she went to talk to Charles, smiling fondly down at them. “Ah, now this is familiar. Gable and Sacha, in their own separate world away from everybody else. I never thought I'd see this again.”

Behind her, Nicky flinched.

“The full moon is in two days,” Sacha murmured quietly to Gable when Terelle had left them. “I can feel it.”

“When did you last change?” she asked. If he'd been stuck with the leeches, his change never would have taken place.

He was silent for a moment, and then, “A few months ago, I think. I don't know what they did to me while I was the wolf, but I remember how much it hurt the next day.”

Gable bit down hard on her lip, trying to keep the tears at bay. She wanted to bring both Chase and Pablo back to life, simply so she could kill them all over again for ever hurting Sacha. He didn't deserve it. God, out of all the people she'd ever known, he was the one who'd deserved it the least.

She turned her face up and kissed his jaw, his cheekbone, his eyebrow.

Ralf cleared his throat to capture everyone's attention. When they were all silent and watching – because here was a man so powerful that he owned a room, simply by being in it – he glanced around at them all seriously. “Today, I am the proudest Elder of all. What you did, what you achieved is. . .phenomenal. Simply and utterly phenomenal. You are all heroes, and each one of those Outcasts you brought home – they're heroes too.” He coughed, trying to reign in his emotions. “The key will be returned to Faiz, and it will be up to him what he does with it then; but before that, it is being used by a team of Officials and Trackers. They are working diligently as we speak to scour the island, make sure there are no remaining guards left behind or prisoners who might have wandered away. So far they haven't found any stragglers. They will also be bringing home the bodies of the Outcasts who didn't make it so that they may have a proper burial.”

Terelle nodded at that. “That will be much appreciated by all.”

“Unfortunately,” Ralf continued. “many bodies were lost in the wreckage. They will not be so easy to recover. It is my hope that we can arrange a service to commemorate their losses.

We haven't been able to dig up much information on the man who'd been running things in the wake of Pablo's death.” He glanced searchingly at Gable. “Xavier tells me you can expand more on this?”

She stiffened, feeling Sacha's eyes on her, though she refused to look at him. Stupidly, she'd been hoping for just a little more time before she would have to come clean, before she would have to explain to him all the awful things she'd done since he'd been gone. He was going to hate her when she'd told him everything, and then she was going to lose him again, right after getting him back.

But the thing was – she'd do it all over again. If the end result was her finding him and bringing him home, she'd do every last terrible thing, again and again until her soul was nothing more than a puddle of black, sludgy tar.

With a falling heart, she nodded at Ralf. “Yeah, uhm. . .his name was Chase Packmire – he was Pablo's assistant. He always seemed like such a nice guy. I don't. . . I guess I didn't know him at all.” She sighed, ignoring Sacha's searching gaze on her face. “But I'll tell everything you I do know. Later.”

“Of course.” Ralf waved a hand in the air. “You should rest first. You should get plenty of rest, in fact – I have a feeling you'll be very busy in the near future, Guardian.”

She regarded him tiredly. With everything that had happened, she'd forgotten all about that. Her, a Guardian? Shaking her head, she decided it was something that could be left to think on tomorrow.

There was a sudden boom outside the tent and Gable flinched uneasily. Her mind immediately jerked back to the island, to the earthquake and the collapsing prison. She wasn't the only one who reacted – Sacha, and everyone else in the room who had been on the island with her, visibly paled.

“That'll be some of the younger ones setting off fireworks,” Terelle said, rolling her eyes. She didn't seem to notice their turmoil, or if she did, she was doing well to hide it. “They must have begun the welcome home celebrations already. I told Celeste and Lace to wait until everyone had slept and rested up.” She tutted and left the tent to scold the kids.

With her exit, the impromptu meeting seemed to come to an end. The group broke off into twos and threes to further discuss everything, but Sacha wrapped his arm around Gable's waist and whispered, “I'm so tired.”

Nodding, she climbed to her feet and helped him up – though there was only so much help she could give a six foot five werewolf. Cadby approached them before they could leave, smiling brightly as usual as if he hadn't just returned from a harrowing experience of epic proportions. He was good at faking, she realized, because if she'd not felt a direct link to his thoughts back on the island, she'd never have known about his feelings for her. He was so good at hiding all the bad crap. She hoped he found someone to love him unconditionally soon, someone so much better for him than her.