“Aislin,” Alex warns, stepping toward her. “What did she say?”
“I don’t want to tell you!” Aislin cries, dropping her head into her hands to hide her tears. “If I do then you’ll just go and try to save her, and I can’t take any more of it!”
“Any more of what?” Alex’s voice softens a smidgeon.
“You risking your life all the time.” She lifts her head back up and her eyes are red from the tears. “Dad’s crazy, mom left, and you’re all I have left. I mean, I get that it’s our job and everything to protect the world but seriously I need a god damn break... You’ve already died once.”
“You can remember that?” Alex and I say simultaneously.
She nods, her face contorted with confusion as she dabs tears from her cheeks and eyes with her fingertips. “Yeah… I actually can as of now.”
Alex and I trade a look. “Something strange is going on,” he says.
“It has to be from me altering the vision,” I utter quietly, knowing it makes my father look even guiltier.
“Then we need to either fix it,” he says firmly. “Or find out what’s going on.”
I hold the crystal ball up. “That’s what I’m trying to do, but Aislin needs to tell me where my mom is. She might be the only one who can help us at the moment.”
Alex gives me a tolerant look, like he doesn’t want to do what he does next. Still he sits down beside Aislin and puts his arm around her shoulder. “Look, I get where you’re coming from, but this is what I—we do. You’ve known that since we were three years old and father explained to us that we were Keepers. We risk our lives and that’s how things are. So please, just tell Gemma where her mother is.”
She shakes her head again. “I’m not going to, so you can stop pretending to be nice.”
“You can tell me,” I offer to Aislin. “I’ll go get her by myself.”
“He won’t let you.” She scowls in her brother’s direction. “He’s too stubborn and cares for you too much.”
“I won’t tell him,” I say and in return get the nastiest look from Alex. “I’ll keep it a secret and use my Foreseer power to go there by myself.”
Rage flares in Alex’s eyes as he rises to his feet, tall and sturdy, intimidating, but I refuse to back down. “Like hell I’m going to—”
I stand up and put my hand over his mouth, ignoring the warmth of his lips against my flesh. “If I foresee there, he doesn’t have a choice. You can have a tantrum but in the end, you can’t make me take you.” I lower my hand and wait for him to argue, because by the expression on his face, I can tell that he’s going to.
His eyes darken and his voice drops to a firm, husky tone. “I can always tie you to the bed and make it so you can’t go anywhere.”
He’s right. There’s Praesidium all over this place, making it impossible for me to use my Foreseer power inside it. And he’s strong enough that all he’d have to do is pick me up and carry be to the bed—he could tie me down with one hand. And by the amount of intensity in his eyes, I can tell that he wants to do it and by the way my blood is heating beneath my skin, I think part of me wants him to do it too.
Laylen finally clears his throat, alleviating the tension. “I can go with her.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Alex says, displeased. “I need to be the one to go with her.”
“Laylen can protect me just as much as you can,” I tell him, which is clearly the wrong thing to say.
“Like f**king hell he can.” He leans in and puts his lips beside my ear. “Would he die for you?”
I squeeze my eyes shut as my heart starts to pound. This is not good. Emotions. They’re surfacing, so many of them, and he can feel it too because his lips graze my neck. “Alex, I think it might be good if Laylen goes with me,” I say, breathless. “Not just for Aislin’s sake, but for you and me as well.”
“Gemma… I—”
“It’s for the best,” I cut him off.
He stiffens. When he pulls back, he gives me a look of indifference. “Fine, if that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want.” But it isn’t really. I want him, but I can’t have him. Not anymore.
As he steps away from me, I breathe freely again and then turn to Aislin. “Okay, tell me where she is.”
She sniffs back more tears. “She went to the Keepers’ castle to try and kill my father.”
Chapter 12
At first I think I didn’t hear her right because why would my mom do such a crazy, erratic, impulsive, dangerous thing? It’s crazy—she would have to be crazy.
“Oh my God. She’s f**king crazy,” I whisper in shock. “She’s completely lost her mind... It has to be because she spent all those years in The Underworld, right?”
“She’s not crazy,” Alex reassures me, putting a hand on my arm as I slowly lower myself onto the sofa. “She just wants to protect you and she probably thought this was the best way not to get you involved, which I completely understand.”
“She’s going to get herself killed,” I state in disbelief. After all these years without a mother, I finally get her back only for her to run straight into danger two days later.
Alex massages my shoulder. “We’ll go get her.”
“No we won’t,” I say to him, leaning out of his touch. “I will. Stephan doesn’t need both of us showing up there so we end up right in his hands where he can lock us up and let the events of the world play out just like he wants them to. It would be like handing him the end of the world on a golden platter. And besides, I made a promise to Aislin that you wouldn’t go.”
He shakes his head, dumbfounded. “You actually think I’m going to let you go to the Keepers’ castle by yourself? Have you seriously learned nothing about me?”
“I’ve learned you’re a stubborn ass**le who gets his way all the time,” I dare say.
He gives me that dark, lustful look again. “Should we go back to the plan where I tie you up to the bed.”
As his gaze sweeps across my body, my skin tingles. “I’ll never forgive you if you don’t let me go. Like we planned, Laylen will go with me and protect me.” I look at Laylen, feeling Alex’s demanding gaze burning a hole in the back of my head. “Are you ready to go?” I ask Laylen. “Or, if you don’t want to anymore, I understand. I know you offered before you knew where we were going.”