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“No, he hasn’t,” Etta said, “but I don’t know if it’s my place to explain it.”
“It is not,” I concurred.
“No, it isn’t, but it’s certainly mine,” Cora said, “since I was one-third of that.”
Ryan immediately understood, and told Etta, “Cora and Marco are bound, and you and Marco are bound. It was the power of three, which means the power was cubed, but it’s more than that since it was both life energy and death energy.”
“If you will keep this from the other slayers, ” I told Ryan, “the fact we invoked the power of three in such a way, as well as what Etta told us, I will give you a big thing I will keep from the Concilio.”
We spent a few moments negotiating a deal that gave both of us something, and the whole time, I tried to figure out how to empty the room. I’d pushed the energy Cora and I’d shared down until I felt certain Etta was safe, but once the crisis was gone, it was harder to keep at bay. I could still feel all of her wolves, and I was certain she could still feel my vampires. It was what I wanted for us, but not like this. The power wasn’t settled, and we ran the risk of making our people nervous, if we couldn’t contain it better than we were.
The group talked another five minutes, and I was about to call a recess, when Etta remembered another important detail. “They tried it with shapeshifter skins — those destined for the auction blocks — and the magics seemed to cancel each other out. That’s why they’re going after human skins. Nonmagical humans are a blank slate for their experiments. If they can perfect it with a human skin, then they’ll try to scale it up to do the same with a shapeshifter skin. Also, no one knows if a vampire will die from an injury that would kill a human while wearing a magicked skin, so the plan is to put one on a lesser vampire at some point, to test it, but with so few skins available, they don’t want to risk destroying one, so they hadn’t tried it yet. Eventually, they’ll run experiments for every possible scenario before those in power try one.”
“As you remember things, you’ll tell me,” I told her, and she nodded.
“Of course.”
“Who are you going to give this information to?” Ryan asked me.
“Nathan and Aaron will have to know,” Cora said, “but I’ll get a promise from them not to share it until we can figure out another way to explain how we came about the information.”
“I’ll keep it to myself until we figure that out as well,” Ryan said. “I don’t want to do anything to put Etta at risk.”
“I appreciate that,” Etta told him, and she turned in Ryan’s arms and met my gaze.
“Why are you walking on eggshells?”
I didn’t think I’d been obvious about it, but her question gave me the perfect opportunity to call a recess. “Cora and I need time alone. Take your slayer downstairs so the two of you can get cleaned up. We’ll call a thirty-minute break and then reconvene. Everyone out.”
It didn’t even occur to me that I hadn’t given the slayer permission to go into our underground before this. I’d have probably waited another month or so before allowing it, but thankfully, allowing it turned out to be a good call, so no harm done.
* * * *
Cora
Fuck, but something had happened with our energy during all of that, and I needed time alone with Marco.
But first, I needed to deal with my people. When the last person left, I held my finger up to let Marco know I needed a moment, pulled my phone from my pocket, and turned it on. While it booted up, I told him, “Every Alpha under me is going to be wanting to know what the fuck just happened. I have them all in a group on our private app, and I need to shoot them a quick explanation and apology.”
Marco remained silent while I typed a quick message. Apologies for that. I’m fine, but we had an emergency here, and Marco and I had to throw our energy together to save someone’s life. I hope to have everything back to normal soon.
A request for a video call came through the encrypted app about three seconds after I sent the message, and when I saw it was Ranger, I opened the call.
“I know you said you’re fine,” Ranger told me, his eyes scanning my face on his screen, “but I need to see you to be sure. That was a big draw, but then you sent so much back. I went from so weak I needed to sit down, to fully charged again two minutes later.”
“Are you alone?”
“I was working out at Drake, and now I’m in the office attached to the workout room, alone.”
Meaning no one could hear, since the office is soundproof with the door shut, and I didn’t have to ask him to know he’d closed it.
“Etta was dying, and Marco was sending her energy, but it wasn’t enough, so I sent him what I could without putting anyone at risk. With the extra magic, Etta destroyed the…” I sighed, because that was more information than Ranger needed. I tell him everything when it comes to the Pack’s secrets, but it wouldn’t have been appropriate to tell him Etta’s secrets. Without too much of a pause, I told him, “She fixed the problem and then, somehow, we had the power of three. I don’t understand it, but I’m grateful for it, however it happened.”
“It’s probably best to keep that last bit to ourselves. The Alpha has a prerogative to keep secrets. I’ll post that I’ve talked with you and you’re fine, but still busy dealing with the original problem, so we should leave you alone for now.”
“Thank you.”
I waited for Ranger to disconnect, and then I looked up and met Marco’s gaze.
