Ascension Series Boxset: Books 1 - 3 Read online

  He began counting down. “Thirty, twenty-nine . . .”

  My vision went hazy, my head light, and there was a muted buzzing in my ears.

  Watch. Clock. Ticking. Time.

  Four. Pulses. Mine.

  The words of my prophetic raving boomed in my mind. Without the tiniest shred of doubt, I knew this was the moment I’d Seen. As the drug took hold of my limbs, making them heavy and listless, my thoughts raced.

  The scientist’s watch was the clock.

  The countdown was ticking time.

  “Fifteen, fourteen . . .”

  Four pulses had to mean the count of four. But what was I supposed to do? Or not do? I could barely feel my arms and legs. My eyes had closed and though I tried, I couldn’t open them.

  “Ten, nine . . .”

  Mine.

  The count of four was mine.

  I relaxed.

  A final thought floated through me, a small flare of feeling. The only power I had that no one could see, touch, or use, was my free will. I didn’t understand this war, not fully. But I understood the Liberati had killed a lot of innocent people for their cause. Therefore, they were the bad guys. I was going to do my best to stop them.

  “Four.”

  At my summons, electricity burned through the vestiges of drugs in my body, abolishing the final sentinels between my will and my power. They wanted lightning? I would give them much, much more.

  I opened myself to plasma.

  Searing heat. Blinding light. I couldn’t see or breathe. There was screaming—potentially from me—and high-pitched screeching like heavy trees falling. The ground shook and buckled. Small pops came from the overhead lights, from the bank of computers. Metal crashed. Too late, I remembered the cages. Too late . . . but I was beyond caring.

  Someone yelled, “Cut the connection! She’s overflowing the system!”

  Good. Fuck ’em.

  My vision tunneled to a white point. Voices continued yelling. There were other sounds, too, that I couldn’t understand. A screeching alarm. The hiss of air valves. Heavy thunks on cement.

  At about the same time my apathy reached an apex, I realized my body was approaching the point of no return. The water inside me was evaporating. My organs labored. And yet, I felt no pain. Only the blissful swells of my power.

  My only regret was that I’d sent my mother from the building. I would have liked for her to watch her twisted game come crashing down. Would have liked to take her with me.

  Time passed. An eternity of empty moments. I floated in heat, in light, and wondered if I would see Michael again.

  Then, on the outskirts of my consciousness, a dark touch. Cool and sparkling.

  Fiona.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  Fiona, stop.

  “Turn off the fucking chair!” cried Mal.

  Ethan: “It’s already off! She’s doing it herself!”

  Fiona, whispered Connor. Please, stop.

  It was too late. I no longer knew how. And with that admittance, I was suddenly drowning in regret.

  I should have gone with Lucian. I should have taken what I wanted from Connor and damn the consequences to my heart. I should have slapped my mother when I’d had the chance. I should have told my dad I loved him.

  Adam: “CONNOR, NO!”

  Coolness against my face. His hands, thumbs trailing my jaw. “Come back to me, mo spréach.” The smell of burning flesh—his flesh—pierced my mind and heart.

  No!

  Everything stopped.

  Sixteen

  My hair whipped across my face, stinging my eyes as I stared over the sea. The gunmetal waters were violent, white-capped and roiling against jagged black rocks.

  Along the horizon blazed a massive electrical storm. A flashing, writhing curtain of lightning danced atop churning waves. It was beautiful. And horrible.

  “Say something, mo spréach.”

  I licked my lips and whispered, “Something.”

  A sigh, both relieved and frustrated. A footstep behind me, then hands on my shoulders, turning me around. Connor studied my face, his dark hair foaming around too-pale features. There was a hollowness in his cheeks and heavy shadows lay beneath his eyes.

  “You need blood,” I noted.

  He nodded. “Yes, when the transfusion is done.”

  “Transfusion?” I echoed.

  Darkness flickered in his eyes. “Yours. Unless you wanted to die?”

  “I—no. I was just trying to stop them.”

  “By destroying yourself?” he ground out.

  “No. I don’t know.” I dropped my gaze to the sand between us, flickering oddly in the storm’s light. “Will I be a vampire now?”

  His fingers tightened briefly before releasing me. “No. Even were you to die with my blood inside you, your Fae DNA would prevent the transition.”

  “Fascinating,” I said absently, transfixed by the sand flickering white, then gold, then white . . .

  “Fiona, you didn’t hurt anyone but yourself.”

  Numbness receded and I closed my eyes. “The cages . . .”

  “Declan and Adam got them out. Those still alive.”

  Thunder rumbled overhead. I looked up, scanning his features. “The news said you were dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “The report was a lie?”

  “Not entirely. The FBI found and dissembled three bombs prior to the event. Decoys, unfortunately. The real weapons were beneath the ballroom, concealed by alchemy. Many innocent people died. I tried to get them all, but—” He shook his head sharply, staring off into the distance.

  “You did everything you could,” I said, knowing it was true.

  He only sighed, the regret in his eyes not dimming. “Reports of my death were necessary, to provide the Liberati with a false sense of security. To give me time to find you.” He looked at me, no artifice in his eyes. Just emotion. Conflict. Worry. Need. “When Agent Whitaker told me about the safe house, I almost killed him.”

  I began trembling and felt like I’d never stop. “Ethan,” I breathed. “He made some sort of deal with Delilah. Told the Liberati where the safe house was. Three SIU agents died because of him—” I broke off, unable to articulate how unbelievable his betrayal was to me.

  Connor said mutedly, “Ethan isn’t who he seems.”

  “Obviously,” I snapped.

  He continued, “I called a contact in the CIA. Without actually saying so, they confirmed that he’s on the payroll.”

  People in the CIA don’t say they’re in the CIA.

  I wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Connor added, “There’s something else.”

  A vast emptiness spread within me, the unmistakable sense that the fabric of the world was tearing. That the full truth would be too much. And not enough.

  Just as abruptly, the emptiness began filling with fog. Dulling my mind, tingling in my limbs.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “Your mother is FBI. Counterterrorism Division, working in a joint task force with SIU on the Liberati case. She’s been undercover for years.”

  My stomach heaved, nausea tearing through me in an unstoppable surge. I fell to all fours and vomited, ejecting a stream of dark blood. Connor dropped to his knees beside me, a hand making soothing passes along my back.

  “It’s the transfusion. It will pass.”

  He was right. Within a minute, my stomach settled. I scrubbed my face with my sleeve, spat pink saliva to the sand, and finally looked up at him. The fog inside me had dispersed, leaving behind a crystalline clarity shot through with spikes of light. Just like the horizon, still boiling with electricity. Not a coincidence, I knew.

  “You’re fucking joking, right?”

  His lips twitched. “There you are.”

  “Connor,” I snapped.

  Shadows darkened his eyes to emerald. “The Nevada Liberati cell is a small part of an extensive organization with footholds in the U.S. and abroad. Given Ethan and Delilah’s interventi
on, I suspect it was imperative to a larger operation that you fill at least one reservoir with your ether.”

  “Ah,” I said tonelessly. “Glad I could be of service to Uncle Sam. Why didn’t you tell me about Delilah?”

  “I swear to you, I didn’t know. Not until Agent Whitaker volunteered the information under duress.” Connor’s fingers gripped my chin, lifting my eyes to his. “Had I known what he intended, I would have slit Ethan’s throat before he could speak one word of your location. And Delilah . . .” He shook his head sharply. “FBI or not, she will face judgement one day.”

  “Where is she now?”

  He sighed. “Gone. Escaped with the Liberati and the two reservoirs they managed to salvage. Ethan has disappeared as well.”

  My head dropped forward. “So I failed, and everyone got exactly what they wanted. The Liberati, Ethan, Delilah.” I looked up. “FBI or not, she’s playing her own game. Or playing both sides. The things she said to me . . . She’s nuts. She wants you dead.”

  His hand cupped the back of my neck, fingers gently kneading. “Maybe. But perhaps she said what she did because of her cover. Perhaps she was being observed.”

  I jerked back, dislodging his touch. “How can you be so calm? She told me about San Francisco, about dangling me in front of you like bait. She’s been manipulating you for twenty-five years and using me to do it. All to reach this point in time. To make you vulnerable. You wouldn’t have come to Las Vegas if not for me. You went against both Adam and Declan to do it, didn’t you?”

  He nodded, a small twitch. I studied his eyes, gone nearly black, and steeled my heart before saying the rest, “Gabriella’s alive. The Liberati have her. Delilah has known, all these years, exactly where your mate is. If I hadn’t accidentally seen her, I wouldn’t have known she was there.”

  He went completely still, a breathless statue of savage beauty.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Her mind . . . there’s something wrong with her, but maybe you can fix it. I don’t know. She’s been strong enough to survive repeated extractions of her ether.” I paused, remembering the fresh scars on Gabriella’s arm as she’d held out the cup of water. “The bomb at the conference. You were wounded, weren’t you? That’s why it took you so long to find me.”

  He didn’t blink. “Yes.”

  “As long as they have her, you’ll be in danger.”

  He just stared at me.

  My eyes burned and filled with tears. The electrical storm reached a violent crescendo on the horizon, flaring brilliant light across us.

  “Go, Connor. Hopefully I created enough chaos at the warehouse that they forgot about obscuring your bloodbond with her. Maybe she’s still there. And if not, maybe you can track her now. Just be careful. If Delilah isn’t one of the good guys, she’ll know you’re coming and they’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Fiona,” he whispered.

  My chest convulsed on a sob, but I held it down. I even managed a smile. Thunder boomed, rocking the dreamworld beneath us.

  “Go. Please, be careful.”

  A cool brush of lips on my brow, then he was gone.

  Lightning raced toward the shore, a wall of elemental power tearing through the churning waters. I finally acknowledged the storm for what it was: the manifestation of my emotions. I watched and I waited, until I went blind with the light.

  Seventeen

  After three days under observation, my dad was cleared for release from the hospital. He’d suffered assorted contusions, a superficial gunshot wound to the arm, and extreme malnourishment, but had still fared better than most.

  Of the forty-three supernaturals rescued from the warehouse outside the small town of Tonopah, Nevada, only thirty-two made it to the hospital in Reno. Thankfully, Connor had been telling the truth and I’d had nothing to do with the fatalities. The section of cages I’d knocked over in my misguided martyrdom had been empty, and therefore not bolted to the ground.

  Small favors.

  Mal and I were currently playing Go Fish on my dad’s bed while his nurse, a pretty redheaded shifter named Nancy, took him for a walk around the floor. Two FBI agents were stationed outside the door, supposedly for our protection. We all knew better.

  “There are other options besides disappearing,” murmured my uncle as he shuffled the deck. “You don’t have to make any big decisions right now. Frank’s rehabilitating, you’re recovering from Elixir of Life.”

  I rolled my eyes, though it was a near-accurate assessment. Connor’s blood had worked medical miracles in my body, bringing me from organ failure to the pinnacle of everlasting health during a ten-minute field-transfusion administered by Adam. Apparently, the Omega had been an army medic before Ascension.

  By the time I’d awoken, feeling like I could punch through cement walls, Connor had fed from Declan and vanished. Since then, I’d had to sign no fewer than ten assorted nondisclosure agreements relating to my time at the Seattle compound and specifically, the fact Connor’s blood had healed me. I signed without complaint.

  “Just think about it a while longer, will you?”

  I looked at Mal, easily reading the worry in his eyes, as well as the relief that both his brother and I were safe. He wanted to go back to running the pub, and wanted us to come home with him.

  My dad and I, however, wanted the fuck out of Dodge. We wanted off the grid, away from the FBI, the Primes, the Liberati . . . all of it. We already had a place to go. A ranch in Montana, owned by the werewolf who’d been in the cage next to my dad. He’d made it out relatively unscathed and credited my dad with saving his life several times. I still hadn’t heard the whole story, and doubted I would until I could speak to the man myself.

  “We’ll think about it,” I lied.

  A shadow filled my peripheral vision and I glanced at the doorway. Recognizing the visitor, I nodded in welcome. The gesture felt forced, but it was progress. At least I wasn’t yelling at him anymore.

  “Hey,” said Ethan. “How’s Frank doing?”

  “Really great, thanks,” I said, but missed the mark on sounding genuine.

  Ethan’s expression shuttered and even Mal winced a little. There wasn’t anything I wanted do about it, though. Just because I wasn’t yelling didn’t mean I wasn’t still pissed.

  I was angry at Ethan for lying, for his part in the deaths of those FBI agents, and for putting his job ahead of my dad’s life, my life, and the lives of all the supernaturals who’d died while the FBI and CIA and Whoever Else plotted and schemed to catch bigger Liberati fish.

  Most of all—petty or not—I was angry at him for kissing me under false pretenses.

  After vanishing from the warehouse, he’d shown up at the hospital the next morning. A brief conversation with Special Agent Whitaker had granted him unrestricted access to the Liberati victims, my dad included. He never got a chance to question my dad, though, because the second I’d seen him, I’d dragged him back out of the room.

  Our heart-to-heart had included a lot of me yelling and him quietly pleading. I’d finally calmed down enough for him to explain as much as he could—why he’d needed to get me away from the Prime’s protection, why he’d needed to hand me over to the Liberati, why he’d needed me to fill reservoirs with my ether for a terrorist organization.

  Had Delilah known of his mission? Yes, she had. Their bargain had been to keep me out of the Liberati’s clutches. And the shot the alchemist had given me? A formula of Ethan’s, switched by Delilah, that countered the previous drug at a faster rate. Four seconds faster, in fact, giving me the opportunity to unleash plasma, fry the computer system, and force the Liberati to abandon me and the warehouse. All foreseen by Delilah, of course.

  I still wasn’t forgiving Ethan.

  His explanation had holes. A lot of them. But I’d seen enough movies and read enough books to fill in the blanks between his almost-answers. Ethan’s bosses wanted the Liberati to use my ether to catalyze alchemical weapons. Lots and lots of them, because whenever th
ey did, their location would ping on a database. The CIA had bugged the Liberati with me. And when I asked How The Fuck that was possible? Magic, of course. Courtesy of my blood and Ethan’s unorthodox skills.

  It sounded like bad science fiction to me, bound to blow up in the CIA’s face. Or rather, the face of whomever they decided to blame. But I was just a civilian, an expendable pawn, so what did I know.

  Whether she’d been playing a role or not, Delilah had been right about Ethan. His highest truth was the quest for knowledge and power. And though he’d sworn he’d had nothing to do with my father’s abduction, I didn’t quite believe him. Probably wouldn’t believe anything he said ever again.

  He and my mother deserved each other.

  “I’ve brought you something,” he said, taking several halting steps into the room.

  I stared at the paper bag in his hand and finally lifted my arm. He smiled, a shadow of former charisma, and crossed the room to place the bag in my hand. I immediately felt the magic seeping through the paper and knew what rested within.

  I pulled out six pairs of black gloves.

  “Thank you,” I said with feeling and hurriedly tugged a pair on. I met Mal’s gaze, which was suspiciously bright. Not being able to hug my dad had been torture. Not to mention the constant effort of keeping my charge low enough it didn’t affect any medical equipment.

  “You’re welcome,” Ethan said softly. I avoided his eyes, which I knew would be soft, melting brown. He cleared his throat. “Do you have a few minutes? I have some followup questions for you.”

  Ah, not gifts at all, but currency.

  I nodded stiffly and climbed off the bed, gesturing him to the small table near the windows. We settled in chairs opposite each other and he placed a folder on the surface between us. CLASSIFIED was stamped on the cover.

  “I have photos of suspected Liberati in the Nevada cell. I’d like to see if you recognize any of them.”

  I nodded, but asked, “Why is this necessary? You were there.”