Centaur Redemption (Touched Series) (8 page)

He grabbed some clothes out of our backpack propped up on the dresser and headed for the bathroom.  Drake hadn’t been happy with my decision to let the Council Enforcer go free yesterday from Cancun.  Truthfully, I wasn’t sure who in our entourage besides Ben was pleased with my decision, but none argued with me or tried to stop him.  Before he left, Quinton had sounded sincere that he wanted me to stay away from the Council Meeting.  He was worried about my safety, yet one day later he appeared at my hotel and threatened to snap Ben’s neck.  It could have been an act, but in the silence of our room, I wasn’t sure.

A shiver ran through me.  Had Drake not been there, would Quinton have killed Ben right there in front of me?  In front of everybody?

I didn’t expect to see Quinton again so soon, and I never would have guessed he would be the first enforcer we would encounter.  How had he been assigned to escort Cameron?  Will said enforcers couldn’t lie; it seemed like he was ready to kill Ben.  Maybe I shouldn’t have let him go.  If I hadn’t, he would still be in Cancun.  The Centaur Council would surely have expected us anyway, but now they were obviously
ready
for us. 

Although my action with Quinton and letting him go increased the danger for my family, there was no better way to spread the word to the rest of the world that we were not a rumor:  we were real, and we were coming back to take our position among the herds.  Our message had been delivered.  The newscast on the television at the airport proved that. 

Why hadn’t it occurred to me that as much influence as Zandra had, of course, the Centaur Council would have control over the media here, as well.  She made us outlaws inside Centaur society – but I was naive not to expect her to make us outlaws with the humans, too.  The news broadcaster was warning the people of South Africa not to approach us, to consider us armed and dangerous, and to alert authorities if they saw us. 

Had Cameron been sent here to provoke us in public?  If this had been her plan and we had taken the bait, where would we be now?  A South African prison?

Why did everything have to be life or death?  This wasn’t something any of us had asked for.  Well, maybe I had.  I could have easily changed course anywhere along the way, but something inside wouldn’t let me.  It was almost as if my soul craved this fight.  Something inside me needed it.  Maybe there was more of Rupert’s blood in me than I’d wanted to admit.  Rupert, my grandfather generations back was hated and feared as a fierce Centaur Warrior.  Chiron, my other grandfather generations back, was so beloved by the gods that he was placed in the heavens.  So where did that leave me?  Maybe I was cursed; maybe all Centaurs would love to hate me.

The Centaur Council would meet tomorrow.  There was little time to come up with a plan – no time to do any kind of surveillance.  Despite my attempts, I hadn’t been able to convince my family to try to save themselves if things started to go horribly wrong.  By this time tomorrow, everything would either be better or over.  I preferred the word “over” instead of my whole family, close and extended, “dead.”

My stomach ached.  A knot had formed in my stomach weeks ago, but it felt like a vice was now wrapped around it, squeezing the knot tighter.  Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside our room, and my heart lurched.  At first my feet wouldn’t move:  I stood frozen near the window with the shades drawn.

The shower was running in the bathroom.  I ran to the door that led to the hallway to look out the peep hole.  A man inserted his key card into the door across the hall from our room.  I reached out to him mentally.  I’d become more efficient at identifying Centaurs.  Describing it was hard; maybe Centaurs' brainwaves were on a different frequency or something.  Regardless, the man who had disappeared into his room across from ours was human.  He was harmless – just a tourist or a business traveler.

I needed to get a handle on myself.  If I stayed this jumpy, I’d be no good to anyone except those who wanted to kill us.  Closing my eyes, I pleaded with my body to relax.

My body refused to cooperate.  I felt the blood pumping through my heart.  I heard random thoughts from people in all directions seeping into my head.  A woman who was trying to find her husband, a child who was begging her parents to take her to the lagoon for a swim, a woman who was worried she’d miss her flight – they all jumbled together and were deafening.  I brought my shaky hands to my ears to try to make the voices go away – but that did nothing but allow my mind to focus on the voices more clearly.  I was too tired or maybe just too scared of someone sneaking up on us to block them out. 

This is what fear felt like: real fear.  Not just fear for myself, but the fear of losing everyone I’d grown to love.  Family had had almost a non-meaning for me most of my life – I never would have guessed growing up that I had one, nor that I would feel such a strong bond to them now that I had found them.

I stood by myself in the dark room, took a deep breath and held it, willing my heart to slow down.  It didn’t work.  I took a seat on the enormous couch, drew my feet up under myself and took another deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to think of Carlsbad Beach in California:  the angry waves right before a storm, bonfires at night, body surfing for endless summer days.  None of these images would calm me.

My mind wandered back to the Council Enforcers who had tried twice to attack my family in Cancun:  watching Quinton disappear in a blur after I’d set him free, the look of my family as we stood on the beach in Cancun, the fear shining back at me through their eyes.  My eyes snapped open.  This wasn’t working.

Standing back up, I began pacing the room.  My thoughts remained a jumbled mess of other people’s voices that I couldn’t quiet.  I could see other people’s future, strangers I’d never met who were staying at the hotel.  I needed to focus on something to try to calm down.  I thought of my sister-in-law Hannah, willing her future to lie out before me.  Nothing, I couldn’t see her future at all, not even something as simple as what she would wear for breakfast in the morning.  I focused on my brother Bruce, but his future was empty, too.  “
Why can’t I see anything
?” I murmured to myself.

No answer came.  I don’t know what I’d have done if a voice suddenly answered in my head.  I reasoned that if I couldn’t see Bruce or Hannah’s future, it was because theirs were completely intertwined with Drakes’s and mine.  Gretchen had warned me that no Centauride is able to see her own future.  I must not be able to see anyone who was with us because all of our futures were melded together. 

If anything happened to Hannah, it would be my fault.  She was risking her life because I decided I was going to convince the Centaur Council to accept my family.  She and Bruce shouldn’t have come.  Maybe there was still time to persuade them to get out of the country before tomorrow.  If she and Bruce left, maybe my other brothers would follow.

I needed the only thing that would let me drown out my chaotic thoughts.  The worry was too easily consuming me.  I stripped down and walked to the bathroom door.  Drake hadn’t locked it, so I eased the door open.  The steam from the too hot shower surrounded me.  Only a glass door separated me from Drake.  He was the one person who could make the voices go away.  I slid the shower door free and stepped into the scalding hot water with him. 

Drake’s strong arms pulled me close as his mouth rested near my ear.  “I was hoping you’d join me.”

He repositioned me under the stream of water.  The hot water stung my skin, but I didn’t care.   He knelt down to kiss my neck, trailing a line to my breasts.  My body ached for his.  I loved the way my body felt when Drake was near me.

The images of Council Enforcers in Cancun swirling with the voices I had heard echoing in the hotel began to fade away to nothing as my concentration fell to Drake.  He must have sensed that I was coming unglued because he wrapped himself around me, just as he had in South Dakota when I couldn’t get the voices to quiet. 

After a few minutes I could feel my heart beating a steady pace instead of racing out of control.  He loosened his grip around me and reached for a small shampoo bottle.  His strong hands lathered the coconut scented shampoo into my hair, massaging it from my scalp to the tips.  His soapy hands rubbed circles over every inch of me. 

I closed my eyes, savoring his touch.  Drake gently turned me away from him so he was facing my back.  His hands still motioned in soapy circles, but it was his thumbs rubbing my neck from the base of my skull to the top of my shoulders that made all the voices in my head completely disappear.  His fingers inched down my neck slowly as the circles gradually grew larger and his pressure on my neck rubbed deeper into my aching muscles.  My head bobbed forward as his magic fingers continued rubbing slow steady circles.  With every gentle stroke, the world seemed to be less daunting.

Drake continued to massage my shoulders as I felt his body press against me.  His lips were at my ear as his voice whispered, “One more day.”  I was so lost to the euphoria of his hands on my shoulders I nearly missed it. 

I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer, but I knew Drake would be honest with me.  “What do you think will happen tomorrow?  Will they listen?” 

There was no hesitation from him, “Yes.”  For added effect he squeezed my shoulders.

“What if they don’t?  What if the herds try to kill us before we can speak?”

His answer was in a matter-of-fact tone.  “They won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’ll transform.  Even if they want to kill me, they’ll hesitate.  When they do, you’ll convince them.”

“If I can’t?”

Drake spun me back so I was facing him as he looked down at me.  “You aren’t looking at this from the right perspective.  The Lost Herd has paid the price.  Zeus wanted the Tak line exterminated for one reason:  a Centauride played a trick on the gods.  She’s long since dead, and so is that ability from the rest of the herd.  The Lost Herd is of no threat to any of the gods any longer.  We just have to get the herds to listen.  Once they see, we’ll find a way to make Zeus understand, too.”

My teeth sunk into my lip.  It wasn’t true.  I had carefully kept this from everyone.  At least one from the Lost Herd still possessed the skill of planting memories in other’s heads.  I had never tried, so I didn’t know if I could do it, but if Phineas’ daughter Violet could, chances were I could, too.  “You remember the story of King Sisyphus and the Centauride Phyllis?” 

Drake nodded.  “Of course, I do.  That’s what all this is about.  King Sisyphus was a mortal who wanted to cheat death.  Phyllis thought it would be entertaining to plant the idea in his mind that Charos, the ferryman who carried souls across the River Styx, could be captured.  She inserted the thought that if Charos were chained to the gates on the underworld side of the river with the three-headed dog Cerberus, the ferry would no longer traverse the river and mortals would no longer die.”

I nodded, “Right, King Sisyphus took this vision and did exactly as his memory instructed him.  He chained Charos to the gates on the other side of the River Styx in Hades.  For a time, no more humans died.  Death was no longer a concern.  It wasn’t long before the humans refused to offer sacrifices to the gods, because if they couldn’t die, humans were immortal, too.”

“I know the story, Cami.  Zeus was furious with the Centauride Phyllis, and he viewed her and all other Centaurides with the ability to plant memories in others’ heads as a threat.  That’s why he issued the death warrant for the Tak Herd.”  He took my hands in his as his ice blue eyes sparkled back at me.  “But no one can do that anymore.  When Zeus had the Lost Herd all but exterminated, that trait was lost with it. 

I gently shook my head.  “No, it wasn’t Drake.”  I hated that I hadn’t told him earlier, but with his transformation in South Dakota, the details of what had happened to me in Florida hadn’t seemed important – until now.  “When Phineas had me taken to Florida, he ordered his daughter Violet to plant memories in my head.”

Drake released my hands.  “What memories?”

“It doesn’t matter what she was trying to plant in my head.  The fact that she has the ability and is willing and capable of using it will make it hard for us to convince the Council that the Lost Herd is no longer a threat.” 

Drake’s expression was hurt, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

I shook my head.  Why hadn’t I told him?  Drake would have been furious if I’d told him, maybe angry enough to go after Phineas.  Drake had been transformed into a full-blown Centaur Warrior; dealing with his transformation had been more important at the time.  Is that why I hadn’t said anything to him? 

I tried to tell myself it was that I wanted to keep our focus on the Council and not be distracted by a nutso uncle.  I couldn’t have any kind of loyalty toward Phineas, right? 

No, what little loyalty I had for him was long gone.  He was the one who had helped us escape from Zandra’s estate to begin with, but after his stupid kidnapping stunt, I didn’t feel like I owed him for that anymore.  Drake lifted my chin with his thumb, looking every bit as confused as I was on why I had kept this from him and everyone else.  “What memories did she try to plant?”

“It didn’t work, so it doesn’t matter.”

His hands that had so lovingly massaged my shoulders just a minute ago were now wrapped firmly around my arms.  “Tell me.”

My voice was quiet, and I was ashamed I’d not told him before now.  “Phineas wanted me to believe I was betrothed to his son.  He thought I would help him take over the Centaur Council.”