Helena smirked.
“And we don’t know a thing about any disappearing Others. Not unless there are groups of mages out there again, kidnapping them to satisfy their dangerous addictions.”
People always underestimated witches, but they were just as hardcore as the rest of the Others when it was necessary. Meriel was a vicious, canny woman and he admired that a great deal. This was high-stakes politics and she was absolutely a player. Marlon Hayes thought he’d shake the Others up with this, but he had no idea what was in store for him.
“I need to get back to Los Angeles to get people trained down there and manage the movement of our people into the enclave communities.” Helena stood.
“Keep us updated. I’ll contact Rebecca now. I’m sure she’s seen this mess already.” Meriel was gone in moments.
Lark hugged her sister. “Please be safe.”
“I’ll do my best. You too.”
Faine clasped his brother’s forearm and then hugged him. “Watch over your woman.”
Simon nodded. “You too. And be sure to eat plenty of protein because watching over a Jaansen takes a lot of fortitude.”
“I heard that,” Lark called out from where she stood with her sister.
Simon waggled his brows her way and she rolled her eyes and turned back to Helena.
“Keep checking in. I’ll let you know what we get out of these prisoners.”
Helena nodded. “I’ll go straight to the one we’ve got in holding. The wolves said we could keep him at Gennessee. It’s safer there anyway.”
“Love you.” Lark hugged Helena one last time.
“Love you too.”
Faine barely restrained himself from taking her hand but did allow a brief touch of her lower back as he guided her from the room.
Their bags were already in the car and they headed off to the airport. They didn’t have Mia to fly them this time, but they had engaged the services of another witch who’d handle the air travel for the time being.
They loaded in and Faine sat, patting the seat next to him. “You may as well relax for the next few hours. There’s nothing you can do while we’re in the air. Sleep. I have a feeling you’ll need it.”
“I have work to do.” She pulled out one of her dusty spellbooks. “There’s some old-school arcane magicks in this. We lost our ability to work this sort of magick generations ago. Like a muscle you don’t use, we got flabby. But with this power boost after the Magister, I think some of us can. And we’re going to need every weapon we can get.”
“Why do you think there’s this power boost?”
She looked up at him after she got strapped in. “I’ve thought on it a lot. Heard all sorts of theories. I think it’s that when the Magister left, all the unused magick from the Others that disappeared bled out and we soaked it up. We lost nearly half of our population worldwide. Yes, the mages stole some and the Magister too. But we generate magick by using it. There’s magick in the air and the earth. Less people to use it means more for each of us. That’s my best guess anyway. Morbid though it might be.”
He sighed. “A good enough guess.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. He didn’t need to sleep, but the quiet time to think and work things out would be welcome. There was a lot to piece through. Plus, he rarely got the chance to simply be still with her when she wasn’t bleeding or being shot at.
She put her head on his shoulder and he opened his eyes, taking in the sight. Possession roared through him. Satisfaction that she’d turned to him with a simple show of affection.
His beast pressed against the man’s flesh, flexing its claws before subsiding. Just another way she was different than any other who came before. His beast approved mightily.
There were others on the plane and she’d touched him that way. He held back a smile, settling for a kiss on the top of her head, breathing her in.
“Thank you.”
She sat back in her own seat so she could look up into his face.
“What for, Alamah?”
She smiled. “You’ve set aside your life to help with all this. You could live in Lycia and no one would try to kill you. No one would discriminate against you for being what you are.”
He chuckled at that. “Things are not as perfect in Lycia as you might imagine. We go to war. There are dominance battles all the time. I came to you covered in battle scars, remember?”
She smiled. “Well, I guess that’s true. But I . . . thank you for being there when I needed you. You’ve given me so much great advice. You’ve been someone I could turn to.”
“It is my pleasure to be there when you needed me. As for setting aside my life? Pah. This is my life. Here with you.”
“Lucky me,” she murmured, but it wasn’t sarcastic. He squeezed her hand before she went back to her book.
BY the time they’d landed Helena knew the news cycle would have begun to spin like a giant tornado. Being with Molly while they were all on the road together had taught her that much.
She turned on the news as they drove from the small airport back to the Gennessee offices. She wanted to ask Faine when they were alone why they couldn’t just use trips through the Veil to cut through all this plane travel. There was a time she actually liked to fly.
But even with private planes, which she had to admit kicked ass, it was still hours she couldn’t do stuff. Then again, it was hours she couldn’t do stuff, and she so rarely got downtime she supposed she should appreciate it.
She didn’t though. She needed to be making calls and dealing with email and all that stuff.
“Brief me,” she said to her father, who’d picked them up.
“We’ve taken the havens and are transforming some of them into guarded enclaves for the witches and Others who live outside major cities. That was a very good idea.” He winked at her and she smiled, warmed by the praise.
“I have them sometimes.”
“There are four currently operating in the Los Angeles metro area. But that’s not enough, obviously. We’ve connected with the Weres. Some of them have huge swaths of private land already. They’ve hooked up with some developers about turning some of that land into mini subdivisions that would include schools, retail, that sort of thing. Oh, and networking hubs so people can work remotely without having to leave to go in to offices. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. It’s a boom business for developers now, which is a good thing to come out of the bad, I suppose. Rebecca is looking into buying three apartment buildings on the same block in San Diego. The Vampires have offered up some property as well.”
“Really? Well, that’s interesting.” The Vampires weren’t much for playing well with anyone else.
“Franco likes Lark. I think she drew blood at their first meeting.”
Helena laughed. “She did. I guess Simon nearly blew a gasket when she went into their nest and popped someone before they’d even gotten inside the front door.”
Faine groaned under his breath.
“So we’ve got a short-term solution for most of our people. There will be those who won’t want to leave their current homes.”
Helena nodded. “I know. It won’t be mandatory. But we can’t offer protection to everyone. It’s an option. People can take it or not. It’s not an option or a solution for every Other.” She accepted that. There was already one in Pasadena. A small subdivision had just finished the first houses. The developers were connected to the ones who created the one Faine lived in, so the new owners were all Others of one type or another. She had looked at a two-bedroom cottage-style that fit in quite nicely with the architecture in that part of the city. Maybe it was time to pull that trigger.