Salvaged Soul (The Ignited Series Book 3) (7 page)

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Shit
.

I was due to meet Kris . . . now. But I had one more previously unplanned, but now necessary, stop to make.

Bruce and I exchanged cordial nods as I rapped on Alec’s door.

“Well, well, well,” he drew as the door opened. “Coming to say goodbye to me before you leave? I’m honored, really, but I don’t care about you
that
much. Could’ve saved yourself the trouble.”

“Funny,” I muttered as Alec stepped back, inviting me in with a wave of his hand. I made sure to shut the door behind me. What I had to say to Alec was for his ears only. “We need to talk.”

Reacting to the severity of my tone, Alec’s trademark grin dropped and I got a glimpse of his rarely seen serious side. He took a seat on the edge of the computer desk, facing me with his arms crossed. His eyes were alert and ready, his unspoken question visible.

“This mission is worse than I thought,” I started, causing Alec’s eyebrows to raise in curiosity.

I was well aware of the enormity of what we were about to do. No Kala hybrid had ever been to Mount Olympus. As far as I knew, no modern day Kala had ever met one of the demigods that lived there, let alone a god. Certainly, neither had ever asked for the Kala’s help before. Whatever had prompted them to do so must be huge—something they feared enough to not deal with it themselves.

Which meant we were about to go into something that could likely get each and every one of us killed. Because that was the only reason I could think of that the demigods wouldn’t have taken care of it themselves—fear of their own demise. Sure, the gods were immortal, but the demigods were not. And we, a small group of Kala, were expendable in their eyes.

“We’re going to Mount Olympus,” I told Alec.

My statement was met by silence as Alec absorbed the gravity of it. He opened his mouth a few times as if to say something, but the words never formed. Finally, he shook his head as if he thought he hadn’t heard me right. “Mount Olympus?”

I nodded.

“As in
the
Mount Olympus?”

“The one and only.”

“As in the home of the gods?”

“Yes,” I snapped.

He cleared his throat and stood to pace the room. “I’m not a Kala so I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that this is a first?”

“For us to be asked to go there? Yes, it’s a first.”

“For them to ask for your help?”

“That’s a first, too.”

“Well that can’t be good,” he concluded.

“That’s why I’m here.” Finally, now that his shock had worn off, we could get down to business so I could get back to Kris.

Kris. No way could she know about this. Not until I was gone.

“Whatever we’re going there for must be something huge . . .”

“Obviously,” Alec muttered. He hadn’t stopped pacing the room and my eyes followed him as I continued.

“There’s a possibility that it may be related to what’s going on with Kris, and with
you . . .”

Alec pointed a finger at me like I had just connected the dots to a thought he had been struggling to connect.

No one had suggested that Kris or Alec had anything to do with the mission; I had reached that assumption on my own. The demigods had to be getting nervous about the impending maturity of two Skotadi powerful enough to challenge them. I wondered, too, if they had discovered that Kris was also a demigod, and therefore even stronger than initially thought. Regardless, this sudden trip to Mount Olympus had me anxious for her.

“I’m going to find out as much as I can.” I hesitated to take a deep breath. I was a Kala soldier. I had been prepared my entire life to sacrifice for the Kala if necessary. But the words had never been this hard to admit before.

“You need to know that there’s a chance none of us will be coming back,” I finally said. “
I
might not come back.”

Alec stopped pacing and faced me. He was sullen. Surprisingly so.

“Kris can’t know about this,” I continued.

Alec huffed. “No shit.”

“If I find anything out, I’ll get in touch with
you
, and . . .” This next part was the hardest, but also the most important, part of my reason for visiting Alec. “If anything happens to me . . .”

I didn’t finish the thought, but I didn’t need to. Alec knew what I wanted to say. “You don’t even have to ask,” he said with surprising sincerity.

“Keep Micah . . .”

“Goes without saying,” he said with a grin. “He won’t get within a foot of her if I can help it.”

A look passed between us then, and I knew that coming here had been the right thing to do. Alec was the right one to go to. Alec, in my absence, was the only other person I entrusted with Kris’s wellbeing, because if anyone could love her as much as I did, it was him. If anyone could continue this quest to save her, it was him.

“There’s one more thing,” I said, and Alec shot me a look as if to ask,
what now?
“Jared said that there are a number of Skotadi converging on the mainland. No one knows what they are doing yet, but if anything happens while I’m gone, make sure you keep her away from them.”

“You know I will,” Alec vowed.

I nodded, and started for the door, having done what I came here to do. As much as I hated the thought of anyone else making a lifetime of memories with her, I was relieved to know that she wouldn’t be completely alone.

“Hey . . .” Alec stopped me at the door. “As much as it pains me to say this to you of all people, be careful over there.”

Despite our rocky start, something transpired between Alec and me in that moment. We were no longer enemies, no longer rivals. I had long stopped despising him, but now? Now, I considered Alec a friend.

Chapter 7

{Kris}

Our time at the rocks ended much too soon, and before either of us wanted. We walked hand in hand, both of us wanting to remain connected as long as possible. Once the heart of the island, and pretty much every Kala living on it, came into view, Nathan dropped my hand.

Twelve Kala were leaving on the mission. From the size of the crowd gathered on the beach near the dock, it looked like everyone on the island knew at least one person leaving.

Kim waited for us on the bench closest to the beach, along with Gran. Surprisingly, Alec, Micah, Richie, and Bruce were also there.

Alec’s presence I welcomed, and would most certainly seek the moment the boat left with Nathan on it—the moment I would need his friendship the most. Micah’s presence, however, I could have done without.

The look I shot him portrayed my annoyance with him. He shrugged his shoulders like he couldn’t help himself. He probably thought he couldn’t. He probably thought it was his duty as my soul mate to be there for me when the man I really loved left. I would have to set him straight later.

“Nathan . . .” Gran rose from her seat with a forced smile on her face. “I know I don’t need to tell you to be careful, but because you’re my grandson, I’m going to do it anyway.
Be careful
.”

She pulled him in for a hug. He had to bend down for her to plant a grandmotherly kiss on his cheek, and stayed there long enough to quietly murmur something to her.

As Nathan exchanged handshakes and goodbyes with the others, I glanced around the beach. Those who were leaving were easy to spot. They were all surrounded by friends and family, and were the ones hugging everyone. Like Nathan, each one was poised and ready for whatever awaited them, while the rest of us struggled to hold back our emotions. I wondered if it was always like this when a team left on a mission, or if everyone shared my fears about this mission.

A group close to us seemed even more upset than the others. Nearly all of them were girls, and most of them were crying. I spotted the two girls I stood behind in my combat class in the group. The brunette girl was clinging to another brunette with a similar body type, and the same green eyes.

Her sister perhaps?

As if she heard my thoughts, the older girl glanced at me briefly before her gaze drifted behind me. I didn’t have to guess what, or rather who, had caught her eye.

“
Shit.
”

This came from behind me. I tossed Nathan a curious look over my shoulder. His eyes, when they lowered to mine, were wide with near-panic. “I’m going to go ahead and apologize now for what is about to happen,” he muttered.

Before I could ask what he meant by that, her voice stopped me. Confident and sultry, it was practically a purr. And it was targeted at Nathan. My eyes hardened as her manicured fingers ran up his bicep, and she stepped between us as if I didn’t exist. Only a warning head shake from Nathan kept me from punching her in the throat.

“Kira,” he addressed her stiffly while shrugging away from her touch. His eyes darted to mine at the moment it hit me.

Kira? That was the name of the brunette girl’s sister alright—the name of the girl that apparently had a plan to get her claws hooked in Nathan. Thank God for the charm around my neck. That, and that alone, prevented me from jumping on her back and having a good, old-fashioned girl fight in the sand.

She shifted and turned enough to register me standing there. She flashed me a fake smile while speaking to Nathan. “Bring your little sister to the base?” I knew from her tone and the curtained iciness in her eyes that she knew damn well I wasn’t his sister. But then, I doubted she really knew who I was . . . and she was curious.

Nathan opened his mouth to answer, but I would never know what he intended to say, because I interrupted him with a response of my own. “I’m Kris,” I said. “I’m not his sister, but you might have heard of me. I’m the resident Skotadi on the base. Nice to meet you.”

Her face fell. She looked to Nathan, to me, then back to Nathan. “Are you kidding me?”

Nathan shifted uncomfortably and raised his hand to the back of his neck. His guarded smile and silence served as his answer.

“Were you the one who brought her here?” she asked, her voice approaching shrill territory. How she wasn’t already aware of that fact eluded me, but clearly she had no idea Nathan was the one responsible for bringing the dreaded Skotadi to the island. Until now.

He nodded and she scrutinized me. I stared back for several seconds before I lifted an eyebrow, silently daring her to say something to give me an excuse to really let her know what I thought of her. Unfortunately, she didn’t take the bait.

She shifted and turned back to Nathan as if the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she leaned in close to him, and dropped her voice. “Finish your goodbyes and I’ll see you on the boat . . .
hubby
.” She said the last word with a seductive wink before slinking away. I recognized the swivel in her hips as the
check out my ass as I walk away
walk.

Nathan watched her walk away, but his eyes at least seemed to be boring into the back of her head, not her ass, and I was pretty sure he only did so to avoid looking at me. He should know by now that he wasn’t getting off the hook that easily.

“Hubby?” I repeated Kira’s last word to him.

Nathan’s gaze lifted to the sky as if pleading for divine assistance before reluctantly settling on my waiting eyes. He opened his mouth, and closed it again without saying anything.

“That’s her,” I said, jabbing an accusatory finger in her general direction. “That’s the girl I told you about.”

“I know.”

My eyes popped. “You said you didn’t—”

“I didn’t remember her until I ran into her at the mission meeting,” he explained quickly.

“And she’s going on the mission too?”

He nodded.

“What was with the
hubby
thing?”

Nathan sucked in a deep breath. From the way he gnawed on his bottom lip, I knew the truth wasn’t something I would want to hear, nor something he wanted to tell me. I crossed my arms, lifted an eyebrow, and waited. I avoided the snickers coming from behind me. I would deal with Alec, and his apparent amusement with my standoff with Nathan, later.

“It’s, uh . . .” Nathan started. He stopped to clear his throat before continuing, “It’s our cover.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? “Your cover?”

“We’re all splitting up, taking on temporary identities to avoid detection by the Skotadi, and regrouping at a rendezvous point later,” he explained and I nodded along, waiting for the point where the hubby explanation would come in. He paused, then said it in a rush, “Kira and I are supposed to be newlyweds on our honeymoon. That’s our cover.”

“Oh, man. Where’s a camera when you need one?
”

This time I shot Alec a glare over my shoulder.

“Sorry.” He threw his hands up, as if he could ever pass for innocent. “I just love watching you two fight.”

“We’re not fighting,” I hissed at Alec before turning my attention back to Nathan. I had lied to Alec. We were
so
fighting. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

Nathan shrugged and looked at me like a five-year-old trying to bargain his way out of time out. “I didn’t want to worry you for no reason.”

“No reason?”

Playing house with another girl, let alone an attractive one who obviously had her sights set firmly and determinedly on him, was hardly something he should expect me to brush off as
‘nothing
.
’
This was the guy who seemed to know me better than I knew myself. He had to know that
I
thought there was reason to worry about this situation.

Nathan grabbed my elbow and steered me away from the watchful eyes of our entourage. There, he dropped his voice for my ears only. “You have to trust me,” he pleaded.

I did. Or so I had thought. Shooting a look in Kira’s direction, I muttered, “It’s her I don’t trust.”

“But if you trust me, that shouldn’t matter, right?”

I shrugged lamely.

“Because it doesn’t matter what Kira says, or does,” he continued. “It doesn’t matter if she thinks she’s in any position to try something. It won’t ever work. You know that, right?”

I stared at him wordlessly.

“Okay, Kris?”

My gaze swung to Kira, and I burned a hole into the back of her head as she laughed at something one of the girls in her group said. Not surprisingly, her friend looked back at us. More specifically, at Nathan. Bitch.

“
Kris
.” He growled, and shifted to block my view of Kira completely. “You know that, right?”

I reluctantly looked up at him. “Yeah, okay.” I still wasn’t happy about it, and my tone let him know that. But I did trust him. He had never given me a reason not to trust him.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” he said with a small smile.

“That’s pretty random.” I couldn’t keep from smiling in return—not when he flashed those dimples at me.

“Not really. It’s called making up after a fight.”

“Then it’s really too bad that you can’t do anything about that.”

My words lifted with a challenge, and for a moment I thought Nathan would cave. His eyes clouded, and I thought he might kiss me right there, in front of everyone. So close. But Nathan had always been good at self-control. This time was no different.

He glanced over his shoulder at the dock, where those selected for the mission were gathering to get onto the boat. Time had run out.

“I have to go,” he murmured.

Not wanting to hear the emotion I knew I would hear in my voice, I simply nodded. Even that felt numb. Like it wasn’t my head that nodded, but someone else’s.

Some other girl was saying goodbye to the love of her life.

Some other girl was hoping it wasn’t for the last time.

His hand grazed my cheek in a subtle display of affection. It lingered there as his eyes swept over my face as if trying to memorize what I looked like—as if, he too, thought it might be for the last time. 

“Love you,” he whispered.

I tried to return the same words, but had to settle for mouthing them. If I tried to vocalize them, my voice would crack, and the tears would come. And they wouldn’t stop.

He abruptly turned, like he knew that if he didn’t do it now, he would never do it. Watching him walk away, without running after him, was agonizing.

He will be okay. He will come back . . .

“Nathan, wait!”

He stopped and turned as I hurried after him.

“Here.” I reached into my pocket and withdrew the necklace I had nearly forgotten to give him. “This is for you.”

He held his hand out to take it. “Branding me before I leave?”

“It’s enchanted.” I pressed it into his palm and folded his fingers around it.

“Enchanted?”

“With a protection spell. I’m not positive that I did it right, and don’t know how well it will work but . . .” I looked up at him with a sheepish shrug. “I want you to have something.”

He opened his hand to study the necklace. “Should I wear it?”

I nodded, suddenly feeling foolish. “It doesn’t mean you should try to be a hero or anything. It might not work.”

He cupped my face in his hands, and the necklace dangled in the air between us. “Thank you. I won’t take it off.” He sealed that promise by pressing a hasty kiss to my forehead. Then he turned and walked away. Again.

And it was just as hard watching him go the second time around.

I glanced away just long enough to be sure that no one had seen the brief kiss. Though innocent enough, it surprised me that he had done it at all. Everyone seemed to be absorbed in their own grief, watching those that they loved step onto the boat.

All but one.

My eyes swept over her at first. Belatedly, I realized that she was looking directly at me, and I returned my gaze to meet hers. Kira already stood on the boat. Far away, but not so far as to miss the smile on her face.

It wasn’t friendly.

It was a challenge.