AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The twenty men Aiden had recruited would be staying on the yacht, lights drawn. Only pulled into the operation if necessary. They weren’t told who we were rescuing. Nor would they be. They were merely present for backup in case things went sideways and they would hopefully never know who we were going in to retrieve.
We waited until the two-a.m. hour—the entire compound sleepy and dead to the night. Triaten had enough intel about the compound—where the holding cells were—from moles he had working on Genora’s staff. A good cook or maid was always necessary in Europe’s finest homes, and Triaten made sure he had hundreds of them on staff, filtered throughout the malefic world.
Clouds had moved in and were cutting the light of the half-moon as Triaten, Aiden, and I stepped into the dinghy that we would take to the cliffs. The perfect weather for a raid.
The rubber boat cut smoothly through the swells, nearly silent in its movement. Electric motors truly were a modern marvel. There was a time an approach like this would have entailed swimming in the last half mile for stealth.
Aiden manned the wheel of the dinghy while Triaten and I sat opposite in the front of the boat. I’d been silent for most of the journey, worry for Damen bubbling like a hot tea kettle just below the surface of my skin—and every word I did say seemed to hiss out. So I’d basically kept to silence.
After we got Damen back—that’s when I would tear into the two of them for losing Damen in the first place.
Triaten’s voice low and smooth, easily mistaken for the wind, floated across the dingy to me. “Ada, this can be it, you know. We can get Damen back—we owe him that. But once we do, you can be done. Done with him. I’ll get someone else he can impregnate. I’ll figure it out.”
What the actual fuck? He wanted to do this now?
I tried to find my uncle’s eyes in the glint of moonlight that made it through the clouds. “Don’t even start, Tri. I don’t want it to be done.”
“You’re in too deep, Ada. It was one simple order when I dropped you off at his castle years ago—resist—don’t fall under his spell. And you fucking fell for him.”
Scolding me? Now, of all times?
My voice took on a bitter edge. “I did. Abso-fucking-lutely, I did. But it isn’t a one-way street. He’s in just as deep as I am.”
“You sure on that?”
“Yes. I am, actually.” My glare ate into him. Whether he could see it or not, I couldn’t tell. I sure as hell hoped he felt it. “And who are you to start deciding who I can or cannot be with? Taking a page from Helen’s manual, are you?”
In the shadows, his shoulders snapped back, bristling, the barb needling him just like I knew it would. “I have done everything possible to keep you out of Helen’s clutches through the years and you damn well know it. But this—you with the fucking head of the malefics—on purpose? What am I supposed to do with that? How do I defend that?”
“You don’t.” The frigidness in my voice only got colder. “You just leave us the fuck alone. How about that’s how you handle it.”
He seethed out a breath. “You’re family—I cannot just let it be.”
“You can. And I ask you now to let me decide for myself what I want in my life and know that I accept whatever the consequences of my choices might be.”
The side of his top lip pulled up and I could see his white teeth in a flicker of moonlight, his words no longer floating, just a growl. “I don’t want you two together.”
“Great.” My hand flicked up between us. “It has been noted. And I will be duly ignoring your desires on this one.”
Aiden cleared his throat. “Cut it, you two. We’re in range.”
Both of us clamped our mouths shut, leaning back, looking forward.
A slight point in the cliffs jutted outward in front of us. Just to the left of it, Aiden had us aimed at the line onto the cliffs where the swell of the waves was the least gruesome—not crashing into the jagged rocks every other second.
Silently, Aiden maneuvered the boat into place while Triaten got the hook attached to the front of the dinghy and embedded it into a crevice of the rock. We all stood in the boat, our stances wide as we pulled on the last of our black tactical gear. Plenty of augentrum steel handy, along with an assortment of firepower and smoke grenades along all our belts. We all had pretty good vision in the dark—it wasn’t daylight vision, but we could fight just the same with what we could see.
Aiden got the okay from the man on the yacht that was scoping out the pattern of the guards above us, and we tackled the cliff, Aiden first, Triaten following me.
It had been a while since I’d last scaled a cliff, but within a quarter of the height, my legs and arms started working in unison to follow the line Aiden was setting above us.
Aiden had to pause several times to wait for me so I didn’t lose his line.
Sorry big guy.
We made it to the top in short order, then set into a brisk run toward the tree line closer to the main compound. Triaten’s intel had Damen probably placed in the squat building to the left of the sprawling main residence. The façade of the short building was the same as the rest of the structures on the property—one would think it a large pool house if there was a pool near it. There wasn’t.
But the building was close enough for Victor to easily make the walk from the mansion. Victor Genora was one of the rare malefics that had let himself go soft. He’d had too many to fight for him, for too long. A big man, he still had plenty of power in the swing of his sword, but he wasn’t as light on his feet as he would have been a century ago.
