Deciding Skies (Fate's Intent Book 2) (28 page)

“I’m not exactly sure.” Ruby leaned back in her chair, appearing comfortable while putting her foot on the table. “They seemed rather eased the few minutes we saw them here.”

“Clearly an act. They wouldn’t have started a fight here.”

“Who exactly are they?” Troy asked.

“Well, we usually don’t tell people this because we don’t want it leaked in the wrong places but they are part of Kalu’s secret trio of professional fighters. They actually kind of remind me of you.”

Jaylyn instantly perked up and gave Ruby a swift slap on the leg. “How dare you compare them?! They are not like them at all!”

“Kind of.” Ruby repeated. “I didn’t mean behavioral wise. No one that’s ever crossed them has lived to tell about it. In that sense, it is like them.”

Jaylyn let out a long sigh and rolled her eyes.

“How come we’ve never heard of them before?” Troy asked. “Wouldn’t enemy territories heard something?”

Ruby shook her head and didn’t seem nervous or afraid about talking about this like Jaylyn was. “No. Their missions are self-chosen. The Queen doesn’t even have control over them and they always make sure their targets don’t survive or remember what happened.”

“What are their gifts?” I asked.

“Well, we couldn’t tell you Trever’s gift even if we wanted to. We don’t even know what it is. He says we have to guess but I’m sure whatever it is, it’s stupid.” Jaylyn said. “I’ve never seen him do anything weird or at least not humanly normal.”

“And the others?”

“You won’t have to worry about Ryon.” Ruby said. “At least physically. He’s going to be more out to kill Zayden than you two when you see him on our turf. He was fighting to keep it happy here. I could tell.”

“Is this because of Adele?” Troy asked.

“Yeah. He’s in love with her. Everyone knows.”

I was surprised about how bluntly she just said it and glanced over at Troy. “Does she know?”

“I’m sure she does. She’s just never responded to it but it’s not like he’s that open about it. It’s just obvious at times.”

“Well, if he’s going to be a problem to Zayden, he’s a problem to us. He wouldn’t need to handle it by himself.”

“And by handle it, I hope you mean just ignoring him completely. You’re not allowed to kill anyone.”

“Yeah.” I smiled jokingly and glanced towards Troy who was trying to douse his. “That’s exactly what I meant.”

Ruby’s eyes narrowed.

“Why wouldn’t he be more of a threat to us?” Troy quickly asked, trying to hold back his laugh. “His gift not powerful?”

“Oh, it is. It’s just not anything he could really use against you. He can look into the past.”

“Look into the past?” I repeated it as a question. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“To know things you normally wouldn’t have because you weren’t there. It’s how he knew exactly what happened since we’ve been with you. Even a second ago would be considered the past.”

I looked at Troy again and I think we may have been thinking of the same thing, remembering them talking in the bathhouse after the duel. They had mentioned something about them knowing and I guessed that Ryon’s gift had to be why.

“So then why was Kole so confident that he’d kill Zayden if he chose to fight for her?”

“That was just Kole being Kole but I believed him when he said Ryon wouldn’t.”

“What of Kole then?” Troy asked. “We saw him do what Adele can, including moving me which felt pretty weird.”

Ruby looked to Jaylyn who’s been sitting in silence, staring off at nothing.

“Well—” Ruby began slowly.

“We’re all going to die.” Jaylyn’s eyes were still blank with her stare. It was quiet again and we were all looking at her.

“We’re not.” Ruby said.

“Then you have way too much faith in him.” Jaylyn blinked and finally met someone else’s eyes. “Kole gets what Kole wants and no one will be able to stop him.”

“Not even you?” I asked. “He not conveniently in love with you or anything?”

I was hoping maybe that would help us if he was but Jaylyn laughed. “In love with me? Did it look like it? No. Kole can’t love anything besides causing pain and anguish to others. If he holds any kind of love towards me it’s only how he loves to hurt me.”

Troy sat right up. “He abuses you?”

“No.” Jaylyn smiled, touching his arm quickly with her hand. “Not like that. Not physically. He’s not allowed to touch me in that way whether I would heal right away or not. Trever would kill him. It’s really the only good thing about having an older brother.”

“Good.” Troy muttered as a sign of relief. “I’d hate to make him regret ever doing it.” Ruby laughed. “How is that funny?”

“Oh, no. I’m not laughing at you. I’m just imagining Kole watching this. He’s the one laughing at you.”

“It’s a reasonable argument.”

“Yeah but he’s not effected by threats. You’d be dead before you could even try to avenge her.”

Jaylyn’s hand slid from Troy’s arm to his hand, grasping it tightly.

“That won’t happen.” Troy assured her, placing his other hand over hers.

“You don’t know that.” Jaylyn muttered with tears gathering in her eyes. “You don’t know him. His gift is deadly. He could kill you just by meeting your eyes.”

“Really?” I leaned forward and was interested in knowing more. “Like the Touch of Death without the touch?”

“Kind of.” Ruby said. “That’s just a small part of what he can do. I don’t even know if his gift has a name but if it does, it’s Endless Power. He can change things with both his mind and hand movements like you’ve seen but there’s also so much more. He can just make something appear if it was needed and kill you with a look or just put you through so much pain you wish you were dead. That’s just the stuff we know about. We’ll have to be careful.”

“Careful?” Jaylyn laughed. “Try avoiding him completely. He sees them there and they’re dead. He’s already planning how he wants to do it.”

“Then I hope he is listening.” Ruby smiled, glancing her eyes around the room. “You can try, Kole but you and I both know what will happen if you do and you and I both know you don’t want that.”

“Stop encouraging him watching.” Jaylyn sighed. “I’d like to think that he wasn’t.”

“Well, you know he is and I’m sure he got the message.”

“You’re plan won’t work.”

“What plan?” I asked.

Ruby kept her smile and turned her eyes to me. “There’s only one thing that can stop Kole and—”

“Yes.” Jaylyn cut in with another sigh. “But Trever is not going to care if he kills them. Believe me.”

“I guess we’ll have to see. Trever is usually much more loosened up than how you saw him. That was his determined intimidation act. He’s really quite good at it.”

“You mean because it made him sound like he was in charge?”

“Yeah. He probably only wanted us to think him being here was a big deal so he had to act it. You’ll see him much more relaxed when you come with us. Is there much you have to pack?”

I laughed. “Pack? No. That would only slow us down. We won’t need much.”

“Really?” Jaylyn wondered. “You’re going to leave everything behind? You understand that you may not come back.”

Troy smiled and grazed his finger down her left cheek to her chin. “Of course we know that. We chose this, remember?”

“I just—I just thought you’d want to bring something.”

“It’s not our past that we’re concerned about. It’s making our future with you.”

Jaylyn fought to not smile and they leaned in closer to each other for a kiss.

“Could you please not grow up somewhere else?” Lamar had stepped in with papers in his hand, looking down at them as he walked.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Well, some people have work to do. The kind that actually know what that is.” I looked at Troy, narrowing my eyes at his comment. “Get them out of here. You know Izin doesn’t allow you to bring your tramps in here.”

“What did you just call them?” Troy snatched.

“You heard me. Why repeat it?”

“Just because father asked you to take his place doesn’t mean that you actually are.” I said. “To us, that’ll always be Zayden.”

Lamar laughed but nothing I said was funny and I would have been just as happy to make him pay. “Zayden. You always were one to joke. Now, if you don’t mind.” He held his hand towards the door.

I gritted my teeth and rose to my feet taking Ruby’s hand just so I wouldn’t go after him if she was touching me. “Come on. We were done anyway.”

Ruby nodded and the rest of them got up to leave.

“Wait.”

We stopped just before going out the door and turned back.

“What?”

Lamar was walking back to us but only had his eyes on Jaylyn. She looked worried as he stopped in front of her and stared her right in the face for several seconds without a word.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

Lamar’s eyes started to narrow and he took a step back. “Nothing. Forget it. You’re free to leave.”

I didn’t know what just happened but didn’t want to stay to ask.

“I really hate that guy.” Troy muttered as the conference room door was shut and we began walking through the main hall.

“Just one more reason I don’t mind leaving.”

“What was that about?” Ruby asked. “It seemed a little weird.”

“I don’t know but everything about him is weird.”

“I think he thought he knew me.” Jaylyn muttered.

“What?” Troy asked.

“He looked at me like he knew me. Maybe he saw Trever when he was here.”

“But your hair isn’t blonde and your eyes aren’t freakishly green.” I said. “I don’t think you look much like him this way.”

I expected her to go on with the worry but instead she sounded more insulted to something I said. “Oh, freakishly green, huh? Well, let me tell you something, someone with freakishly large everything, I happen to like the color of my eyes.”

“And I happen to like that I have freakishly large everything. Better? Neither of us are insulted.”

Instead of fighting back, Jaylyn paused with a laugh. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. We take pride in our own things.”

“Yes, I suppose. I have been told I have a couple freakishly large things myself.” She folded her arms which only pushed up her breasts to get the point across.

“Yes, I see.”

“That’s enough!” Troy pushed me away so I would have to stray my eyes.

“Yes, please.” Ruby agreed. “Stop trying to make my man want to touch you.”

“I wasn’t trying to but if he wanted to try, he’d only get hurt.”

I laughed and glanced at Troy. “Because of him? I could get through him. Watch this.”

I took a step towards him and Troy grabbed Jaylyn’s wrist and pulled her away. “Run!”

“Hey!” I laughed. “Since when do you run?”

“Since I know how determined you can be!”

“All right.” I took a breath to calm myself down and looked at Ruby. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t really going to try.”

She smiled which was a good sign. It meant she wasn’t mad about it. “It’s okay. I knew you weren’t. I like to get my friends a little worked up myself sometimes. It’s how I keep things fun for me.”

“We seem to do it a lot around here. Want to follow them? They’re probably going to sit and do nothing in the lounge for the rest of the day.”

“I guess we could. We’re going to have enough to do in the next week.”

I smiled and put my arm around her shoulders. “Worth every bit of it.”

Ruby laughed and held on to my hand hanging in front of her. “All right, charmer. Let’s go.”

I truly loved everything about her and couldn’t wait until I could leave with her. Tonight wasn’t soon enough.

Chapter 39

Adele

“Why aren’t you resting?”

I looked up from thought and Zayden was walking out of his bathhouse. I didn’t feel well enough to rest and went to him, hugging him with a strong embrace. “I just can’t stop thinking. It won’t let me rest.”

“I told you it’ll be all right.”

“But everything is going to change now, isn’t it?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re going to be leaving, I’m done trying to protest it. That’s change right there.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Finally.”

“I still don’t feel right about it. I just know that there’s nothing I can do to change your mind.”

“Of course you can’t. It’s going to happen.”

“I guess, in a way, I’m glad.”

“In a way?”

I backed away, my expression downed on my words. “Last night, I just wanted to die.”