Chapter 32

I walked into the summit room, my shadows about a foot behind me. The others were already here. I wasn’t taking any chances on needing a delay because I needed to feed, so I popped in for a quick top-up before running to the meeting. As soon as I stepped through the door, Emil zeroed in on me. His look was disturbing. I tried to sense if I could feel his emotions, but not a chance. He was completely closed off. So much for working this bond thing. I quickly glanced around the room when he stopped right in front of me. Something was going on, and no one else paid attention to who was coming and going.

“If you need to feed.” He said in no more than a whisper, “come to me.” He then spun on his heel and walked away.

My mouth dropped open. He’d known I was feeding? Of course, he’d known. He and I really needed to talk about the mates but not mates thing.

“Where is everyone else?” Paisley asked Arius.

I checked to see the Justice and kings, along with Rafael, were missing.

“Conference call.” Arius said and leaned back against the table as he appraised, she was all right.

“With?” Reagan gave Quinton a soft look, then sat down.

“The other realms.” Daxx said looking enthused.

“Oh?” Paisley went over and opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water.

“We may have help when we find the winter spot.” Kara said.

Paisley nodded slowly, “stands to reason that if that is the main hub, there will be people from other realms there.”

“Does that mean the other realm,” she frowned and looked at Quinton.

“Veiltide.” He supplied for her.

“Yes, Veiltide, does that mean they have found people involved from their realm too?” She sat down beside him.

“I don’t know if they have, but Willis had them in mind at one point.” Daxx crossed her arms and stood there looking at the floor. I wondered if she was tapping into her connection with the king to see if she could get a sense of what was happening.

“I heard it too.” Kara said quietly. “When they were asking him about others.” She nodded, “he thought about all the realms.”

“I can’t wait to meet them.” Crissy looked excited, “I’ve read about each one.”

“Oh yeah?” Autumn went over and sat on the table edge by where she sat. “What are they like?”

“We’ll have to wait for that.” Troy came in.

“Or we could just send all the ladies to sit in on a fifth-grade worlds studies class.” Chase smirked as he came in the door.

Alona glared at him.

“Or not.” Rafael grinned.

“So, are they sending people to help when we find the snow place?” Daxx straightened.

Troy nodded and went right for the coffee pot. “They are.”

“We will have an informal meeting with all parties in the morning.” Victor went over to Crissy, glanced at what she was doing in her notebook, then stroked her head gently.

“That’s cool.” Bethany looked at Paisley, “that we get to meet others from so many different realms.”

Paisley nodded her agreement.

“They all look normal, right?” Reagan asked.

Chase smirked at her, “you look fairly normal to me, Rapunzel.”

Reagan sat there, a look of astonishment on her face.

Everyone did.

Chase frowned, “she had healing hair…”

“To save my sibling from being beaten, I think we should discuss what was discovered about the school.” Troy said as he sat down.

Alona looked like she’d rather be sleeping but looked to me and smiled. “I heard your call, guns?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Handguns.”

“Great.” Daxx looked to Paisley, “can you stop bullets?”

With eyes-wide Paisley looked at her. “I’ve never tried.”

“And aren’t going to.” Arius said, in a tone that let everyone know that conversation was finished.

“I can probably knock a gun from their hand if I’m close enough.” Bethany said.

“No dice.” Leone shook his head, “bullets move faster than you can see.”

“I can knock them out from a distance.” Kara said.

“Which only works if all of them aren’t carrying guns.” Rafael looked at her.

“Are any of your archery students proficient yet?” Victor asked.

Kara thought for a second. “There’s two that could probably hit a person.” She looked at her mate, “they’re pretty big targets.”

He gave her a blank look for a second, then held out his phone. “Type their names, I’ll have Ira send them to practice.”

Nodding, she took the phone and started typing on it.

“Hitting the guards won’t get us past the motion sensors.” Reagan mentioned, hesitantly.

“Would they sense Rea if she was invisible?” Leone looked to Quinton.

“Even if she could get by, the rest of us can’t, so then what genius?” he scoffed.

Leone frowned, “We’re just tossing ideas around.”

“If the other two archers could deal with those with guns, I could probably hit the lights.” Kara said.

“Them shattering may draw attention.” Michael said.

Victor studied Kara for a moment, then turned to Michael, “contact Elder Arian and see if her department can make an arrowhead with a charge.”

“Like a power surge to blow the lights?” Michael asked him.

Victor nodded, “give her details and let her surmise how best it should be handled.”

Michael nodded and got up. He went over by the thrones, his phone against his ear.

Troy looked to Reagan. “Did you detect any portals or magic?”

She nodded, “there’s magic near the one door, probably a portal or how else did that man get there wearing a winter jacket?”

“We closed the one from the factory to there.” Bethany said.

“So there is another.” Daxx said.

“There has to be.” Bethany turned to her mate. “If we get inside, we could get to the winter hideout from there.”

Leone rubbed his hand over the side of his jaw, “that could drop us into something we’re not prepared for.” He glanced around at his brothers.

“Has the search team found anything?” I asked.

“Not yet.” Emil looked at me. “It’s hard for them to clear search grids in the snow.”

I nodded. I’d been stationed in the Northern area; snow I knew better than I wanted to.

Rafael stood up and went over to a whiteboard that I hadn’t noticed on the wall before. “Okay,” he turned and looked at me, “give us an outline.”

I’m sure the surprise was on my face for all to see as I looked at the marker in Rafael’s hand. I stood slowly, noting that no one was objecting. Okay, I could do this. I went over and took the marker and put it on the board. Pausing, I recalled the shape of the building and made a rough outline of it.

I nodded more to myself than those watching me. “There are trees or something to hide behind in the fields on these two sides.” I marked those on the board. “A river over here,” I glanced across the room to Tim, “we could use the riverbed to stay out of sight.”

Tim nodded.

“While the lights are taken care of.” Kara’s voice was close behind me.

I turned and saw most of them were standing behind me now. I nodded and turned back. “The lights are,” I put an x in two spots, “here and,” I marked the other ones I’d noted, “here.”

“That’s a lot of area to cover.” Kara said.

Rafael was standing beside me now looking at the drawing. “We’ll hold all action until they’re dealt with.” He said quietly. “Where are the doors?” He glanced to me.

I turned back and circled the spots on the lines where a door was.

“Lots of exits.” Leone said.

“Or entrances” Autumn crossed her arms over her chest.

“Where was the heaviest concentration of haze, Rea?” Quinton moved so she could get closer to the board.

She tapped a spot that marked a door. “This one.”

“Okay so it’s guarded, no one enters through there.” Michael said.

I remembered something and almost blurted it out. How could I forget to mention it? “I overheard the man wearing the winter jacket say they only have one day left.”

All eyes were on me now.

“One day for what?” Alona asked quietly.

“I don’t know. That’s all he said.” I gave Rafael an apologetic look, ashamed that I hadn’t mentioned it sooner.

“Shit.” Troy stood in front of the board. “That changes our timeline.” He turned to Victor, “reach out to Elder Marinus and have him push the big meeting back a few hours.” He looked back at the board. “The sooner we shut down this site, the better chance we have to interrupt another one of their plans.”

Victor nodded and pulled out his phone.

“I think we need to move before daylight.” Rafael looked from one king to the next. “It will be easier for Kara to stay out of sight and take out the lights in the dark.”

Kara gaped at her mate. “You have more faith in my shooting in the dark then I do.”

He gave her an affectionate look. “I know you can do it.”

Biting her lip, she nodded. “Okay.”

Rafael looked at his phone. “The team thinks they’ve found the last location.”

All the men pulled out their phones and looked at it.

“Have them proceed with caution and get us some intel.” Troy said.

“Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.” Chase mused. He turned to his twin, “three hours enough time to get our ducks in a row?”

Troy looked from Michael to Rafael, “more than enough.”

Michael pulled out his phone, “nap, eat, do whatever you need to do and meet at the armory in two hours, people.” He walked out of the room.

“I’ll be there, Iceman.” Autumn called after him with a big smile on her face.

“With bells on.” Daxx mumbled as she followed Troy out of the room.

I turned around and looked at the guards standing along the one wall. “Go, take the downtime then be back on time.”

There were several nods, as well as smirks. Sith smiled at me and then made a dramatic display of bowing his head to me. I gave him a snarl just before he left the room.