Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

Everest buttoned the shirt. It was just long enough that he appeared decent at first glance, maybe. He breathed in Cadel's scent and hoped it would be enough, but already, the warmth of the lion shifter's body was fading.

Jacob secured Theo's hands with a cable tie that he had produced from a pocket. "It's not my place to say anything?—"

"Then don't. I'm going to show you where my brother is being held. He's been told he's dangerous and needs to be controlled. Apparently, if he leaves the room, he'll be killed."

"And what are you going to do?"

"Talk to the Board."

"Absolutely not. We get your brother and yourself out. They are my orders."

They were good orders, but it meant leaving Board members alive to seek retaliation. At the very least, he wanted them arrested and stripped of their magic. "And the shifters?"

Shifters. Are you a witch or a shifter? Who are you? Who am I?

Everest turned his head trying to locate where the words were coming from, even though he knew they were in his head. He gripped the edges of the shirt as if holding onto Cadel. It wasn't the same.

"If McKeon were here?—"

"Well, he's not." Something dripped onto the white shirt. Everest glanced down. "Merde."

Jacob stared at the blood, then lifted his gaze to Everest's face. "The memories are melting your brain."

"And at an accelerating rate. It's also far too easy for me to slip into one. Cadel was good at keeping me here." He glanced around the room, and for a heartbeat, he didn't know where here was.

"Is that what you're calling it?" Jacob fixed him with a look that suggested he'd been given the abridged version of what Everest did with his bodyguards.

"Eighteen minutes." He walked out, expecting Jacob to follow. His fingers trailed along the wall, hoping it would ground him. He smelled Cadel on the shirt and felt the rough texture of the wall beneath his fingers. He didn't trust his ears. There was too much noise. "Where is Templeton?"

"Meeting up with McKeon and calling reinforcements. I've already warned him about the magical bomb."

"If we run out of time, get out and retrieve the eggs later." He did not want to be responsible for killing fated mates.

"What do you want to do with him?" Jacob pointed at Theo. "If we leave him?—"

"I can't carry him, and I need you."

Everest stepped into the corridor, and it stretched out endlessly in both directions. Doors flapped in an unseen breeze, others hung off their hinges, broken and battered, and other doors were missing altogether. He squeezed his eyes closed. That wasn't the hallway he was standing in. Keeping his hand on the wall and his eyes closed, he turned and kept walking.

His bare feet padded along the carpet.

The failures of his past chased him. They swam around him, demanding answers. He stumbled, and Jacob caught him.

"You should leave. I can get him out."

"No. I lost him. It's my job to find him."

"And you have."

"No!" The walls shook. No, they didn't. They were in his mind. "It's this door. The living room is full of dampers, and he's wearing cuffs that prevent him from shifting. If he leaves the room, he dies." He needed to open his eyes at some point. Blood trickled over his top, but he didn't bother to wipe it away.

Static in the air made the hairs on his arms stand on the end. "The living room connects two bedrooms?"

"Probably, I didn't see what was through the other door. If that was Theo's bedroom, it makes sense that he would protect himself in case Olier got free." Oliver. His brother's name was now Oliver.

"Theo wouldn't want his own magic suppressed. How were you affected?"

"I was able to make fire, but it suppressed Cadel's, and my, ability to shift." Memories of this morning surfaced but were swallowed fast. "Shifter suppressers."

Jacob opened the door and crossed the threshold. He stood there for a moment. "Tailored dampeners. I'm going to take them out."

"Wait." He rested his hand on Jacob's arm. The touch cleared his mind for a few seconds. "Will that kill him?"

"I don't think so…and if it does? You will have still gotten him home." Jacob's voice was firm. "We don't have time to unravel every spell."

Everest nodded, even though he didn't want to agree with the drastic decision. He'd reached the point where he didn't trust himself to make them. "Do it."

He released Jacob because he didn't need to add electrocution to his list of problems.

There were three small pops.

Everest followed Jacob into the room and opened his eyes. He sniffed and tasted blood. His own.

"I can't sense anything that would cause his death if he left the room, not out here anyway." Jacob walked over to the door. "Ready?"

"I've been waiting over two hundred years." All he had to do was survive another ten minutes. It shouldn't feel this hard. But his deaths kept flicking through his mind, teasing him with the peace that followed. He only ever glimpsed it; he never remembered it.

Did he want rest, or did he want to keep struggling?

Jacob opened the door.

Oliver lay on the bed reading the way he had done so many times and in so many lives. Everest blinked, trying to hold on to the fact that this man was his brother yet also a stranger.

Oliver sat up. "Who are you?"

"He's with me," Everest said. "It's time you rejoined the other phoenixes and learned who you really are."

"I need the magic drained. It's been too long. I'll hurt people."

"You need to be trained, that's all," Jacob said, electricity arcing between his fingers. "All witches and shifters need training."

Oliver shook his head. "It's too dangerous."

Everest walked toward him. "They have lied to you your entire life so they could use your strength, your magic, to fuel their own. They bind shifters and drain them. Kill them. They want to expose paranormals to humans and set witches up to rule while enslaving shifters."

"The Coven will strip my magic."

Jacob laughed. "I've worked for the Coven. They don't strip magic from shifters."

Oliver stared at Everest. "Theo said you'd lie to me."

"You're my brother. It's my fault they captured you, and for that, I am sorry. I'm taking you home." Everest wanted to embrace Oliver the way he had so many times. Who was this frightened man? This wasn't his brother. Hundreds of different Olivers by hundreds of different names flicked through his mind. They had been each other's brothers, lovers, fathers and sons.

Oliver held the book in front of him like a shield. "Where is Theo? Why are you bleeding?"

"Because I've used a lot of magic to find you…and Theo tried to kill me."

"Ten minutes," Jacob said.

"Theo rigged this house to kill everyone inside in ten minutes. I need to remove those cuffs, then you'll be able to walk out of here."

There was the pounding of the army again, the thumping of feet coming for him. He needed some silence.

He reached for Oliver, and Oliver jerked away.

Jacob's fingers wrapped around Everest's wrist. "When was the last time you shifted, Oliver?"

"Not since I was fifteen. I killed my teacher. You can't take the cuffs off me."

Everest swore. If they took the cuffs off, Oliver would have an uncontrolled shift, and since he wasn't used to that amount of magic, he'd take out the entire house.

Everest sank to the floor. They could die together, and there'd be silence in his mind. Jacob would retrieve their eggs and Cadel…

He was already missing Cadel. He brought the shirt to his face to breathe in his scent.

"If he dies, he can leave?" Sparks formed on Jacob's fingers. "And you only burn up and become an egg when the corpse is cold?"

"You should go," Everest said. Gods, he was tired. Blood dripped onto the carpet. "Tell Cadel that I really liked him. I was hoping Kaine might let me keep him."

"Tell him yourself." Lightning arced across the room.