Chapter 129

I blinked up at him, looking up into his eyes as most of the conversation with Raven came back. I leaned into his arms and let out a soft breath.

“I’m fine,” I said, feeling a little feverish from embarrassment. I licked my lips, thinking more about it, more about what else she would tell me and what could happen next.

I didn’t want to jeopardize all the good things that were in my future with Candido.

I didn’t want to jeopardize any of it, so I hugged him tight and started to think about what it would mean to ease him into the idea.

I swallowed. “We should get going.”

“I don’t know where the entrance leads now,” he said. We’ve sent scouts ahead.”

“Out of the caves,” I said. “She said… it would take us back the way we came and… that we should stay out.”

“On what authority?” He asked. “Who was she?”

I couldn’t bring myself to answer that, but I didn’t need to.

“Sir, it leads out to the forest, back the way we came!”

He looked down at me before turning back. “Turn around and let’s head out for now.”

I climbed into the jeep. Claire stared at me with a questioning gaze, but I shook my head. I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t say anything until I got a better sense of what was going on.

She had given me this journal and a compact and more questions than answers, but I wasn’t upset.

When we exited the caves, the fresh forest air filled my lungs and brought a different feeling than before. I felt something shifting.

“Careful,” Francium called to the driver. “The forest is shifting!”

Candido shot to his feet. I could see Gilgamesh standing on the back of another jeep.

I stood and gasped. The ground scrunched and curved. Rocks moved through the earth like the ground was liquid. I felt the air shifting around us.

“What the hell is going on?”

Candido turned back to look at me, but all I could do was watch as the Blue Moon compound started to grow closer. It felt like a message from Raven to go home and not to bother her for the rest of the evening.

Was that because she was watching over me in some way. Did we have a bond that I didn’t know about? I glanced at Francium and Claire. They had a bond. Francium had a bond with his mother that he hadn’t known about.

Was… my connection to Raven, whatever it was a security risk for Blue Moon?

I could almost hear her laughing at the thought, loud and vicious, echoing through the cave like a villain. She hadn’t seemed interested in destroying us or even in the war. What had she meant by the war that was still coming?

I didn’t know and I really didn’t want to find out.

Then, the jeeps circled to a stop in the area that he had left. How long had it been? I pulled out my phone to check, but I couldn’t believe that it had only been an hour or two.

“Report!” Someone called as a group of Blue Moon people came out of the building. “What happened/ You vanished from the tracer. Where have you been? The communication tower fell!”

Candido jumped down as I looked behind us. Had that been on purpose? Maybe the tower had already fallen before we left. Had I somehow held up the mission by agreeing to go with her?

I hadn’t thought we talked long, but did time pass differently inside the cave?

“We were ambushed, of a sort in the caves,” Candido said stiffly. “We’ve been compromised.”

I felt people staring at me, wanting some answers, but I didn’t look back. I trudged inside the compound.

“Pandora, wait!” Candido called, coming after me. I swallowed thickly before looking back at him. He was still a little pale. “We need to debrief.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Vanessa said coming down the hall. She looked furious as Gilgamesh came up behind us. “What the hell? No communications? Not even a warning? An hour and you just magically appear back on site?”

“The forest brought us here,” Gilgamesh said. “We didn’t do it. We were trapped in a silver cave. No communications went out.”

Vanessa was stiff as she looked at them both then she looked at me.

“Not a scratch,” she commented. She let out a deep breath. “We will postpone a debrief for now. You three and everyone else, undoubtedly need rest if you were in a silver cave. I can only guess that you were stopped by that same group of vampires you mentioned before, Armageddon?”

He nodded. “The leader asked to speak to Pandora alone… she knew who she was and by extension who I am.”

Vanessa’s gaze cut to me, but I couldn’t meet her gaze.

“I’ll inform the others that your identity has been compromised though we don’t know if these vampires are in league with the ones that attacked the capital.”

Also, just so you know, my other cousin just raided your capital.

I shuddered at that thought. I felt sick and turned down the hallway.

“Go rest.” Vanessa said. I walked past her to the room that Candido and I had been sharing. I walked into the bedroom.

Before he could ask, I went into the bathroom and closed the door. My head was spinning as I ran the shower as hot as I could manage. I undressed and set the journal and compact in my holster before I climbed into the shower.

The hot water warmed parts of me I hadn’t realized were freezing, but the more I stood under the hot spray, the more I turned over Raven’s words.

…if you want to survive the real war that’s coming, you’re going to have to tap into your powers

Did you get mom’s necklace back? Oh, and her ring? Could come in handy…

I closed my eyes, trying to push her words out of my head. I didn’t need to keep thinking about it. I needed rest. I got out of the shower, dried off and pulled on one of Candido’s dress shirts and boxers. I didn’t have many clothes in the room, but I didn’t need them.

Candido looked up as I exited the bathroom carrying my dirty clothes and the holster. He’d taken off his hood and mask as well as the body armor he wore leaving him in nothing but a tight black athletic shirt and his pants.

His eyes were filled with questions, but I couldn’t answer any of them. I dumped my clothes on the side table and climbed into the bed with a sigh. I pulled the blanket over me. I felt him wanting to ask, but he stood and went to the bathroom to shower.

I didn’t even think about what he would look like naked under the steaming water. My exhaustion pulled me into the darkness of sleep.

I was walking in the library, chasing a shadow that reminded me a bit of Raven, but the shadow kept changing, growing taller and bigger as I caught up with it. Slowly, it settled and Candido turned to me with burning moonlit eyes.

I thought back to the dreams I’d been having about him and glanced around. There weren’t any flat surfaces around, but maybe he would push me up against a bookshelf.

Candido didn’t move toward me. He stared at me then looked around the library as if he was trying to figure out why we were here. The moonlight in his eyes faded to their usual green.

Then, I realized that this wasn’t a figment of my dreams or his instincts, but Candido’s mind contacting mine. We were sharing a dream. That was bad. Why couldn’t we be sharing one of those dreams he would be all over me. Why did we have to be in the library? I started to panic, thinking that Raven would show up at some point, or something would give away what we’d talked about and everything I was keeping from him.

As the painting started to move behind him, I rushed towards him.

“I don’t want you here.”

“Does this have something to do with what you and that person spoke about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, my heart racing as I tried to get him out of my dreams. “Please just leave.”

“You have to talk to me, Hedy—”

“Please just leave!” I screamed, pushing at him.

“I just want to know what’s—”

My eyes flew open as a siren began to sound, shaking the air. I felt groggy. My head was pounding. I knew I hadn’t been asleep long.