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  “They’re going to send that jet.” I picked up our plates and took them to the sink and dropped them into the warm sudsy water. “He can stay on the jet. If Tamsin and Servitto are coming to pick us up, they won’t have a problem with it.” Or so I assumed, since they had fought side by side.

  “Fine. We can do it that way. I’ll go make the call, and I am sure that they can make it here in about eight or nine hours.” Jace left the room and I headed to mine.

  I showered and dressed for my trip to see Kale and tell Deacon that I had gotten us a ride to the Council. It was risky, getting Jace to agree to take me before I’d gotten the green light from Deacon. If he’d decided that he wasn’t going, he could very well tell Kale and that would really ruin things. I didn’t want Kale to worry about me. I wanted him to focus on la Luxure and beating it.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and ran over my plan in my mind. I needed to convince Aleixandre to give me immortality, and I thought it would be easy. I was nervous for a lot of reasons, the main one being that he could say no.

  I wasn’t going to throw the “You killed my parents” card. I would beg, cry, and bargain, but I would never use their deaths to get what I wanted.

  ***

  Deacon let me in. “You look happy today.” Jace came in after me. “You look your normal angry self.”

  “Well, I have some good news.” I removed my coat and handed it to Deacon, who placed it in the closet.

  “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

  “We have a ride to the Council.”

  Deacon whirled around and glared at me. “We what? I don’t recall saying that I was going anywhere, and I know that Kale isn’t letting you go, so…”

  I held my ground. We were going, and he was coming with us. Jace stood in the corner, his hands behind his back. I looked to him for help, but he shook his head and looked away. Tamsin had even told him that it was okay for Deacon to come and stay on the jet, causing Jace to question Tamsin’s sanity.

  “Deek—”

  He rolled his eyes at my use of his nickname; I almost laughed.

  “I really need you on this one, please.”

  “If you are so determined to go—”

  “Wait.” Jace came from the corner. “You two have discussed this before?” He looked between the two of us.

  If Jace knew that I’d wanted to go to the Council before I asked him, he might figure out that I wanted to go to ask for immortality. He and I’d discussed the idea before I was taken by Laurent, and he’d advised me against it. I didn’t move my gaze from Deacon’s.

  “It has been discussed that if she were to go, I would go with her for safety reasons,” Deacon lied.

  I gave him a smile for thanks and headed down to the basement to talk to Kale.

  Kale was sitting cross-legged, with his back against the stone wall. He smiled when he saw me, sending warm sparks of electricity down my spine, and I shivered. Kale stood and reached for me.

  Without hesitation, I walked to the bars and took Kale’s hands. “Thanks for staying on the phone with me last night.”

  Kale kissed my knuckles and smiled. “It was my pleasure; your snoring was relaxing.”

  “Oh my goodness.” I playfully slapped his hand. “I don’t snore!” I squealed. Kale raised an eyebrow, and I blinked in surprise. “Oh my goodness, I snore?”

  “No, I’m just kidding with you. Come here.” Kale beckoned, and I moved as close to the bars as I could. The cold steel chilled my skin through my shirt, and I shivered. Kale placed his face between the bars, and I moved my lips closer to his.

  It was like no kiss I had ever experienced. The cold bars stung my face as Kale’s lips sent fire from my lips to my stomach, stirring feelings that I’d once been embarrassed by. I put my arms through the bars and deepened the kiss. I wanted him, his touch, his heart, and his very soul.

  My choice to ask the Council for immortality had been set in stone long ago, but as Kale and I kissed with fervor I’d never before gotten from him, I rejoiced in the thought of spending eternity with him. I pulled back slightly, gasping for air, but Kale would have none of that. He placed his hand behind mine and pulled me back in.

  My head felt dizzy, and my heart fluttered. Kale released my lips and kissed a small trail from my chin to my neck. I ignored the awkward position that the bars put us in and enjoyed Kale’s touch.

  “You smell good,” Kale whispered.

  “What?” I asked, alarmed and immediately sober. Was la Luxure causing him to say that. He seemed normal. No big black eyes or protruding fangs.

  “Yeah, I guess that was a stupid thing to say,” Kale said awkwardly. “But you do smell good, like white lilies.”

  I laughed and remembered the perfume I’d sprayed on after my shower. “It’s called ‘I’m Yours,’ and it has notes of passion fruit, white lily, and exotic woods. It’s my favorite. I haven’t worn it in ages. I don’t even know why I put it on today.” I smiled and moved away from the bars.

  “A fitting title.”

  “Yeah. Kale, if things are different, if I were different, would you consider—” I froze. I wasn’t sure how to ask this of him, and though I felt more comfortable with Kale now than ever, my words still jumbled in my head and came out like alphabet soup. “I want to be with you, and I want to—” I sat down on the seat in the corner and covered my face, annoyed by my own babbling.

  “What are you asking me, Ella?” Kale asked, his voice was soft and kind, but also a bit alarmed.

  “I want to be with you,” I said again, unsure of how to tell him what I truly meant.

  “Be with me? You are here with me, and we are still together, even though I worry about the outcome.” Kale still sounded confused.

  I looked at Kale and took a deep breath. “I want us to make love.”

  There, I’d said it, and the look on Kale’s face was sheer panic.

  “What?” I already felt like an idiot, and Kale’s expression did nothing to soothe the feeling.

  “Ella, I—” Kale backed up and sat down on the bed in his cell.

  “Do you not want to?” I shook my head. “Is that what you’re saying?” I asked, shocked and completely embarrassed.

  “After that kiss, do you really think that I don’t want you?” Kale asked, voice low but serious. He was right. That kiss had shaken me to the core, and I knew that he’d felt it when he pulled me back, refusing to stop.

  “Okay, then. Why do you look like I just hit you with a ton of bricks?” I didn’t understand.

  “Ella, let’s slow down here a minute.”

  “Sure.” I was unable to hide the disappointment in my voice. “But I didn’t mean right this very second—”

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Come here.”

  I went to him again.

  “When the right time comes, trust me, I will take you up on that offer.”

  I laughed.

  “But with all that is going on right now…”

  “I know. I thought that same thing when I was staying with you two weeks ago, but today it just hit me that I want you to be the first.” I understood Kale’s logic—I’d once thought the same way—but seeing him as he stood there in all black, with that sexy grin, I knew what I wanted. The way he was soft with his kiss and rough when the moment called for it.

  I needed to get my hormones under control and get ready to head to the Council. Waiting wasn’t an issue, when we would have forever.

  Chapter 34

  Jace

  If Ella really thought that I didn’t know that she was up to something, she was only kidding herself. Her wanting to go to the Council after finding out what our leader had done to her parents was too unexpected.

  Honestly, I had no problem taking her there, now that Laurent was dead. Aleix had to know that, and he had to let Ella go to live the life she wanted. Under what excuse could he try to deny her that right?

  “So, you are okay with sitting on the jet?” I asked Deacon, Kale’s muscle-y friend.
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  “Nope, and as long as we are on the subject, I won’t be leaving her side the entire time we are there. You may trust them, but Kale would kill us all if we did something so damned stupid as to take her there without guards.”

  I knew he felt that way, and I had a plan for it. “We will have to sneak you in, and I can have you wait in my quarters,” —I glanced at him— “for your protection.”

  Deacon shook his head. “Look, I know how dangerous this is for me, and to be honest, I have someone I need to make it back home to, but I will not leave her alone there. Kale would kill me.”

  “Well, what do you suggest I do, flaunt you around to the Council?”

  “Flaunt?” He sounded annoyed by my word choice. “Ain’t no flaunting going on. This will be an in and out operation. We won’t be staying for dinner.”

  “Of course not. The Council doesn’t serve blood for dinner,” I quipped back, aggravated by his haughty tone. Deacon rolled his eyes. “I can trust Tamsin and Servitto to escort us to Aleixandre, but it is preferred that you stay on the jet.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Deacon stood up as Ella came out of the basement. “Hey, girlie, I sent for Ana.” At the confused look on Ella’s face, Deacon added, “Someone has to be here, to feed your boy in there.” He indicated the basement where Kale was being held.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Ella responded. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to him being in that cage. Does she know that we are going to the Council?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?” I asked. “What do you mean sort of?”

  “She knows that we are doing something that Kale wouldn’t approve of, and she is a smart girl. Trust me—I am sure that she will put two and two together, and she ain’t coming up with anything other than four.”

  Ella laughed as she breezed past me to the kitchen. Her perfume was caught in the zephyr as she moved, and I took time to enjoy the fresh and airy scent. She was in a great mood today, and I planned to grill her about it on the jet ride to Alaska.

  “Deacon, I’m hungry, do you have any good leftovers in here?” she called from the kitchen.

  “Yeah, Mia was here yesterday, and I made her some French onion soup. It’s on the bottom shelf.” Deacon peeked over at me. “Speaking of Mia, she was here, with a whole bunch of questions about you.” He wagged his brow, and to my annoyance, my interest piqued.

  “I would hope that you told her to reserve all questions about me for me.” I stood and went to the window to look outside. Ella made noises in the kitchen, and they helped relieve some of the tension I felt.

  “Well, I answered what I knew and told her to ask you about the rest,” he said coolly.

  Annoyance bubbled inside. I didn’t know what I felt for the girl, but she had grown on me. I’d seen her grow from a spoiled brat to a young lady, and I liked the transformation and its end results.

  “You don’t know me. What could you have possibly told her?” I kept my gaze out the window, for fear that Deacon could see the distress in it. He could have told her that I was a murderer, and it would have been true. Though my intentions were noble, they say that the road to hell is paved in good intentions.

  “Well, there were some things that weren’t my place to tell her, so you might want to call her when you get a chance.”

  “Call who?” Ella questioned as she came from the kitchen with a steaming bowl of soup in her hands.

  “Mia,” Deacon answered.

  “Oh, call her for what, Jace?”

  Deacon and Ella both stared at me waiting for my reply.

  “To let her know our plans.” Deacon shook his head and went into the kitchen.

  “Makes sense. Are you going to have her here with Kale and Ana when we leave?” She asked me after blowing on her spoon.

  “No, Ana can handle Kale just fine without help.”

  “Okay.” Ella finished her bowl of soup and excused herself to the restroom and then back down to Kale, while Deacon conversed on the phone with his woman or whomever she was. I dialed Tamsin to check on her status.

  “ETA is three p.m., and we need to immediately take off. There is a chance of a heavy snow storm, and we don’t want to be grounded.”

  “Good. We’ll be ready. Laski Stone’s airstrip will be closed, so you will have no problem landing. Ella and I will head there now.”

  “Fine.” Tamsin disconnected.

  I went to retrieve Ella.

  ***

  “Talk about awkward,” Ella whispered in my ear as we stepped onto the jet.

  We took our seats across from Tamsin and Servitto, who stared at Ella with interest. No doubt wondering about her fate now that Laurent was dead. What would happen to the Council? Would we shadow her until she died? Until she died, I thought again, and I wondered what Ella thought to gain from this trip.

  Aside from Ella’s comment, we rode silently for a few hours, giving me plenty of time to think about Ella’s motives, but I’d have to hold off on talking to Deacon. I didn’t want to discuss anything in front of Tamsin and Servitto. We’d talked about her desire for immortality before, and I’d thought she’d realized being changed wasn’t going to happen to her. Aleixandre wouldn’t allow it, and even if he did, living as an immortal wasn’t all Ella thought it was cracked up to be. Living through dozens of wars, plagues, the deaths of love ones and people you grew close to along the way were things that would wear on any human, immortal or not. I had thought that she agreed that one lifetime was enough.

  I peered over my shoulder at her and was blinded by her bright white smile. Yes, she was up to something, and I knew what it was. When we got to the Council, I would get her alone and make sure she knew that what she wanted wasn’t going to happen.

  ***

  Ella

  Eight quiet but agonizing hours later, we landed in Alaska. I’d thought it was cold in Virginia, but the artic wind that hit me as I got off the plane held me captive until Jace grabbed my arm and pulled me toward a small abandoned building.

  “We need to talk,” Jace whispered in my ear.

  “What—” I looked at where we were headed and shuddered. “Is that a fishing hut?”

  “There are thousands of these here. Where we are going is under it,” Jace replied coolly. He still held my arm as he all but dragged me to the hut. It reeked of fish and sweat, and I was relieved and surprised when Jace hit keys on a hidden keypad and was granted entry to what I thought was going to be an underground fortress.

  The double doors opened to a long hallway, lined with four keypads. Tamsin, Jace, and Servitto placed their hands over each one until an electronic beep sounded, and we continued the next one.

  “What are they?” I asked Jace.

  “They make sure that we aren’t infected.”

  “But how does that keep out Chorý?”

  Deacon seemed alert and vigilant and smiled. He winked.

  “They just wouldn’t scan their hands.”

  “They wouldn’t make it to this point,” Tamsin said matter-of-factly. I looked over at the fair-skinned elf. Her beauty demanded she be looked at and admired, but the fire that shot from her eyes was enough to keep even the strongest man at bay. At the last scanner, in front of two large metal doors, Tamsin flipped her blond hair over her shoulder and spoke into the intercom.

  “Zed, open up.” The doors opened, and we entered a new world that surprised me. The décor was warm and inviting, nothing like the entrance.

  “Follow me.” Jace held my arm more tightly. He pulled me around the corner and pushed me into the wall. “I know what you’re doing, and I advise you not to do it.”

  Deacon and the Council members rounded the corner, annoyed at our sudden disappearance.

  Tamsin hissed. “What the hell? Why’d you run? We are in the clear. I had the area cleared before we arrived.”

  “Ella here plans to ask for immortality,” Jace told the group. Deacon laughed, and Servitto smiled. Jace seemed to be the only one upset by th
e news—and, of course, Deacon already knew my plan.

  “So,” Tamsin said, “this is good. We would have one Arc to protect. No searching when she dies, and no worrying about her changing into a Chorý.”

  “Yes, but—”

  Servitto interrupted, “It would also allow us more time to hunt Chorý.”

  Jace

  I cursed under my breath. Whenever the Council members wanted me on board with a plan that I hated, they found a way to spin it as a better way to hunt Chorý, and this time was no different. If Aleixandre agreed to change her, everything they said would be true—if not, then I would spend the rest of her days protecting her.

  “What makes you think that he will do it?” I asked.

  “We don’t know that he will, but I know that he is waiting for her.” Tamsin said pointing to another hallway. “Shall we send her in?”

  Chapter 35

  Ella

  The room was almost as it was in my vision. I peeked past the large man sitting behind his desk to the man veiled in darkness—the same figure that stood in my vision, the man he excused when he spoke to Angel and Rio about my parents. I stood at the door, my nerves now getting the better of me, and I waited.

  I didn’t want to go any farther in the room, but I had to.

  “Would you like to take a seat?” Aleixandre asked. His voice was the same, as well. I cringed.

  “Hannity, will you place another log on the fire?” The guard behind him went to the fire and did as directed.

  “I’m not cold.” I gathered myself and entered the large room. A few things had changed. The large window behind Aleixandre displayed an impossible sight.

  Aleixandre turned to see what had captivated me. “Since we are about two hundred feet underground, I don’t have the luxury of a real view or one quite as stunning as this, so I substituted the blank wall for the LG Cinema Screen 55LM7600 55-Inch 3D 1080p 240Hz LED HDTV.” He turned to me. “Isn’t that view stunning?”

  It was night, well past midnight, when we arrived, but the screen displayed the most beautiful sunrise that I had ever seen over an orange desert. When I didn't reply, Aleixandre added, “A masterpiece, if you ask me.”