Jonas~~
I land on top of Iris with a grunt split seconds before our foreheads collide. I brace myself with one arm on the ground beside her head. My other hand rubs my forehead.
"Iris, what is—"
She covers my mouth with her hand. "Jonas, I love you," she whispers, "but I need you to be quiet."
I give her a nod and look up into the most unlikely group of faces. When I tracked Colton here, I expected to find Iris and Bently, but Vienna . . . Andrew? And Erik? And a man I have never seen before in my life?
I was also not expecting my fiancée telling me to shut up after being separated because I was on another planet.
Iris moves her hand from my mouth and down my left arm until it rests over my Mark. She gives it a squeeze.
I feel it. Barely. But a slight tingle is there prickling under my skin.
I'm around them so much that my arm hardly burns anymore especially after being on Amoria.
But with Iris drawing attention to it, I feel it.
When I returned home and found her, my brother, and three cousins missing, Gwen told me everything she knew: Colton took Iris and Bently to France and they are now wanted by the French government because an Amoris is murdering and Marking people. I didn't expect to find the Amoris within three hours of landing.
I get off Iris, making sure to keep my head below the tops of the crates.
Iris gives me an unsure look and places her hand over mine. She's not the only one with news.
"Preeminence Blackwood, what a pleasure," a feminine voice rings out. I grip Iris's hand. "There is no need to hide. I just wish to speak to you and the Raggioet."
"Raggioet . . . Expired?" Andrew's head snaps toward us. Iris holds his stare until he looks away.
"Please do come out before I have to do something rash."
"We have to," Iris says to me.
"No."
"We don't have a choice. We're a bit cornered back here."
My sigh signals my agreement. She gives me a faint smile. We're in Paris. What do I have to give in order to have a romantic dinner with the woman I love rather than a night where both of our lives are at risk?
Her hand still over mine, I thread my fingers through hers and draw us both to our feet.
The Amoris smiles, walking toward us. The other woman with her follows a few feet behind. They both wear the same pair of black leather pants, but where the woman in the front wears a tight purple top, the other has on a gray turtleneck.
"I am so glad we get to meet," the Amoris says.
I dip my head, careful not to meet her eyes. "Likewise."
"Your fiancée and I have been getting to know each other. I am sure she has told you all about it."
I draw Iris to my side. "I'm afraid we have not had the opportunity. Might I know to whom I have the pleasure of speaking?"
She drops into a shallow curtsy. "Preeminence Clarignon." Preeminence.
"Clarignon? I know your family well."
"My . . . distant relatives, I assure you." She smiles. "My great great grandfather was the brother of Kilo Clarignon." Kilo was Tresais in the head order of Amoria. Besides having an illustrious political career, he built a palace on the sea of Falia—a palace which happens to be my father's favorite vacationing spot on Amoria.
"This"—she motions to the other woman who steps forward—"is my Tresais: Isabeau Abigné."
I bow. "You must allow me to introduce my Beta and Digamma. Colton, Bently."
I hear the soft plodding against cobblestones that alerts me to their proximity. I could call Erik my Tresais. No. I'm certain she knows more about me than I do about her. Then again, I really know nothing about her. But she'll definitely know Gwen is my Tresais.
Colton steps into place beside me, and Bently stands next to Iris.
"My Beta and Digamma."
"Both destined to live long lives," Abigné says after looking into their eyes.
"And what of you, Preeminence?" Clarignon asks. "Don't tell me you still adhere to that old tradition of hiding your Expiration Date in shame."
I take extra care to avoid their gazes. "It is a tradition that all Preeminences partake in."
Her nostrils flare.
"What are you doing here, Preeminence Clarignon?" Iris asks, her tone careful.
"Odette, please." She smiles tenderly at Iris as if she were beholding her most treasured possession. "And were you not looking for me? That is what I was told."
"Told?" Bently's voice is clipped.
Doors on either side of the street open, and at least thirty men and women, holding guns, step through them.
All these Amoris have been in France? For how long? The Orders on Amoria can't possibly know, not with Odette claiming to be a Preeminence and Isabeau a Tresais. It was challenging enough to get them to approve of Gwen as my Tresais.
"Now, Preeminence." She steps closer until she is only a foot or so away. "I want France, and if the Society would help us, I know this whole matter could be settled quickly."
"The French are our allies. They helped us win our country."
"If they learned of your ancestry, they would turn on you. Is that not why you've yet to tell them who you are or what you are?" She runs her hand over my left arm. The burning does not flare up, but the hairs on the back of my neck rise. "The Amorians have more claim to you than these humans."
Iris's hand locks around Odette's wrist, pulling it away from me. "The Society will never side with you."
Odette's fingers curl, and Iris lets go.
The Amoris with guns draw closer, forcing the rest of Iris's group out from behind the crates.
"I will give you one last chance, Preeminence Blackwood," Odette says. "Can your fiancée really survive this going poorly?"
Iris places her hand on her back pocket. "Don't worry about me."
Guns click. Both Colton and Bently have pulled theirs out.
"It's like you said"—Iris draws hers out as well—"we were looking for you."
Odette tilts her head. "Aren't you afraid, Raggioet?"
"For myself? No. You want me alive to study, remember?"
She shakes her head. "Do you not fear pain?"
The Amoris rush us from all sides.
I reach for my gun, but two women are already on Iris. I move toward her, but I'm grabbed by my arm and slung back. Before I can right myself, the Amoris swings his fist into my gut.
I let out a grunt and grab hold of him, driving my knee into his stomach. He hunches forward, and I kick at the back of his knees. He hits the ground, and I pull out my gun and fire. The bullet lands in his stomach. He screams.
"Bently!" Iris yells. "Remember." She's freed herself, the two women now on the ground and covered in blood.
Bently grabs hold of the Amorian he's fighting and manages to flip her over, her back slamming into the cobblestones.
Iris runs straight into a man almost twice her size, and I fire at an Amoris running toward me. She collapses.
Iris has found her way onto the man's shoulders. She wraps her legs around his neck.
"Iris!"
She squeezes her legs and claws at the man's face. She's beautiful. "Yes, Bently?"
"It worked."
"That's great, bud."
The man starts to collapse, and Iris jumps off, slamming her gun into the back of his head. His face hits the ground.
Colton, the nearest of my family, fends off two Amoris.
One swings his arm, and Colton ducks. The other one pulls out his gun. Before I can aim mine, Vienna hits him in the back of the head with hers.
I'm just the third—unneeded—party here.
Colton sees me while avoiding being kneed by the Amorian. I give him a nod, coming up behind the Amorian and gripping him by the arms. Colton lands a punch to his face, and Vienna knocks him out with her gun.
Colton looks at me, panting. "What are you doing here?"
From behind Colton an Amoris runs toward us.
"Later." I raise my gun and fire. The bullet hits her shoulder.
Across the street, Andrew and the man I don't know battle it out with three Amorians.
I scan the street for Odette and Isabeau. "I never expected such a warm welcome."
"Just imagine how much warmer it could have been had I known you were coming." Colton reloads his handgun.
"I tried calling you, but your phone kept going to voicemail. Then again I've always loved a good entrance."
There. Odette holds her own against both Iris and Erik. They don't move as one, but they don't argue for once and that goes a long way with them.
Isabeau crouches near a bleeding Amorian woman, putting pressure on the wound.
"Jonas."
I turn toward Colton's voice. Five Amoris surround Vienna and him.
"A little help."
I fire two bullets into feet, which causes enough of a distraction for Colton and Vienna to gain control of the situation.
I turn back to Iris to see Odette whip her pistol against Erik's head. Iris cries his name as he slumps to the ground.
It's as if Iris's cry triggers something. The Amoris that aren't down pick up those that are and retreat. They refuse to turn their backs on us as they return through the doors from which they came, choosing to walk backwards in a very disconcerting way. And without a word, Odette goes with them. If I didn't know anything about Amoris, I would say they were robots called back to their creator.
Iris drops to Erik's side.
"Do we follow them?" Colton asks.
I keep my gun out. "No, we're too outnumbered."
Andrew and the stranger help Iris check Erik who grabs his head. At least he's awake.
Tucking her gun into her back pocket, Iris stands and takes in the street. Her eyes grow wide and her motions frantic. "Bently?" She takes a shaky step forward. "Bently?" Her eyes land on me for a moment and then a spot behind me—Colton. "Where is he?"
One quick scan of the street is all that's needed to confirm that he's gone.
Iris takes off through the nearest door that the Amoris escaped through.
I rush after her, but as Colton is closer, he reaches her first
Inside is a lobby shrouded in gray, the only light coming from the weak gleam of the streetlights, that manages to break through the grimy windows, and the beams of our flashlights. Empty ceramic pots painted with a wide stripe in the center are scattered throughout the lobby. They are large enough to have held trees. In places the ground dips down only about a step and is paved in flattened pebbles rather than tile. My guess is that they held water at one point. It would have made this lobby somewhat serene. Now it feels haunted.
Iris switches between walking in circles and throwing open doors. "Where did they go?" She rakes her hand through her hair.
"Iris." I walk toward her, but Colton steps in front of me. I put my gun away.
"If they took him into one of these buildings we would have seen," he says. "They must have taken him a different way."
She turns away from a dark hall and toward Colton. "But if we find the ones who came through here, find where they went, we'll find him."
"Iris." He opens his arms just slightly, and she pushes through them and presses against his chest, her forehead buried in his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her and something in my chest tightens. I should be him. That should be me.
But that should not be the concern right now. Bently is.
I step up beside them. "Believe me, I'm worried, but I don't want to see you worry, Iris, not when he wouldn't do the same for you." I place my hand on her shoulder and without saying a word she pulls away from Colton and encircles me in her arms. I feel her breathe me in.
I place one hand around her and the other at the back of her head. I bury my face in her hair and kiss the top of her head.
"You're wrong, Jonas." Colton's voice is bare of emotion.
I look up, and Iris squeezes me.
"He would do the same for her."
Bently? He tried to kill her.
Iris pulls away. Her eyes are red but free of tears. "How did you find us?"
I shove my hands in my front pockets. I knew I was going to have to confess, but I never wanted to. "After my brother came after you and Erik last year—disobeying my orders, I might add—I put a tracker in his phone.
Colton stiffens. "You did what?"
I would have done the same with Erik's, but I was never able to get ahold of it. "My decision was obviously warranted considering I returned home from Amoria to find you've kidnapped my fiancée and cousin."
"But my phone doesn't even have a battery in it right now."
I raise my brows. "You think I would count on your battery being in your phone to track it?"
Colton rubs his face, clearly unsettled by this new information. "Does Alix know you're here?"
"No . . . Maybe. I flew into Denmark then took a commercial flight over. If he doesn't know, he'll be alerted soon enough"
"We'll need to find a new place to say." Erik's walks in, blood matted in his hair and flashlight beam bouncing over the tile. Andrew, Vienna, and the other man are on his heels.
I wrap my arm around Iris's waist. "What are you doing with him?" Andrew, the man who was the cause of my Expiration Date.
She lets out a long-suffering sigh. "We're staying with him."
Andrew eyes me up and down openly checking for life-threatening injuries. Iris wraps her arm around my waist, and his eyes drift to her. "Expired?"
She points her finger at him. "Shut it," she says and directs her finger at Erik. "And what do you mean we need to find a new place?"
"That will be one of the first pieces of information they try to get out of Bently. And when he gives it up, they'll come for us."
I cross my arms. "Bently won't talk."
"Why?" Erik asks. "Because he's loyal to the Society no matter what?"
"Yes."
"Because he puts the Society before himself and all that nonsense?"
I close my eyes. "Yes."
"And how do you know that?"
My eyes open on Iris, and even though there are a hundred reasons how I know it, they all fly away leaving one behind.
"Because he tried to kill her?" he asks, and when I don't answer, Erik shakes his head and claps. "An excellent reason, Jonas."
Iris rubs her forehead. "Can you all stop? Bently knows that's what they're going to ask him, and he knows we know that. We want to find their location, and if they come for us, we can do that. There's no question; Bently will tell them where we are."
"Where do you get the authority to predict to Bently's own cousins what he will do?" Erik stalks toward her. I push her behind me. "Is it your romantic connection? The bond between two soulmates? Do you feel him tugging on the string connected between your hearts?"
There's a roaring in my ears that muffles Colton barking Erik's name. What does he mean? I look at her, and her expression is of one who has seen a ghost. Is that guilt? The idea that it could be true . . . it . . . no.
Andrew and the man whisper to each other. Vienna grips Colton's arm, trying to hold him back from Erik.
Something in Iris shifts. She stands straighter. Color comes rushing into her face, and she focuses that fury on Erik. "I just figured out what's wrong with you, Erik. Why we had such a difficult time trying to be friends. It's because you don't believe a guy and a girl can just be friends, isn't it? In your mind, they must be in love." Iris shakes her head and steps to the side toward me. "It all makes sense now. It's why you've implied I've slept with almost the entire Order. I can't possibly care about Bently and Colton because they're my friends—I have to be in love with them."
She wraps her arm around my waist, and I start to relax. "I love him. Not Bently. Not Colton." She looks up at me. "When I'm with him, it's like I can finally rest, something that I don't feel with anyone else."
I lean down so my mouth is at her ear. "I believe Erik thinks I need to try killing you to earn your love."
There's a spark in her eyes that even the lack of light can't hide. "I'd like to see you try."
"You should know I tend to prefer to accomplish things rather than simply try and fail."
She steps on my foot, the heel of her shoe driving into my bones.
I grimace. "I love you too."
She relaxes against me.
"We'll find him, love."
Erik refuses to look our way.
"If we're expecting company," Iris says, "we'd better get the house presentable."
As everyone else starts to make their way out the door, Iris remains behind with me.
I place a hand on her shoulder and cup her cheek with my other hand.
She tilts her head, leaning into my hand, and closes her eyes before taking a deep breath. "One day I'd like to go to a desert island, just you and me. We'll lay out in the sand. Sleep. I've heard it's nice. The beach, that is. I've never actually been, you know."
I brush my thumb over her skin. "I know."
"But first we have to get you up to speed and get Bently and stop the Amoris . . . I'm so accustomed to it being one of us who gets taken."
"Not this time." I pull her against me and rest my cheek against the top of her head. "Never again," I tell the woman who will be my wife.