Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) Read Free

that wrapped up the outer
edges and fire sconces casting shadows on the walls. Rina had been a
traditionalist, keeping the mansion in the past except for the media
room that held all of today’s technology. The only change we’d
made so far was to add Wi-Fi to the mansion and electricity to Rina’s
and Mom’s offices—mine and Tristan’s now—along
with all of the devices we needed to run a society and an army in
today’s world.
    Owen arrived shortly
after me, and after a quick mind-check on Tristan, I realized he’d
be a few more minutes. He was in the shower, and I briefly thought
about joining him, but instead decided to harass Owen again with an
interrogation. Admittedly, I hadn’t paid much attention to his
previous recounts of why he’d taken our son, too lost in my
grief. But I needed to know, so I asked every question I could
possibly think of as I sat on the edge of Rina’s large, antique
desk and Owen sat in front of me in a wingback chair.
    “So let me get
this straight,” I said after he’d explained everything,
trying to make sure I understood. “You took Dorian to show Kali
she could trust you and to be able to protect him since she was
determined to have him no matter what. Kali wanted Dorian to give
herself leverage with the Daemoni Ancients so she could take Lucas
out and assume his position as leader of the Daemoni. You were trying
to set her up with Tristan and me so we could kill her, and I could
trap her soul and deliver on my so-called obligation to the faeries.”
    Owen’s
straw-colored hair shook as he nodded his head. “You got it.”
    “Except you
didn’t know about Kali’s plan to use Noah as bait to lure
Rina and Mom there.”
    He frowned now,
producing three vertical lines between his eyebrows. “No, I
didn’t. I knew she had a vendetta against Rina, but I didn’t
know the plan had been to have Noah reach out to her. Of course, he
wasn’t under his own control, or he never would have.”
    Right. Kali had put a
spell on run-of-the-mill stones from Earth to make them emulate a
faerie stone. She’d developed the idea based on the stone Bree
had given to Tristan and he had given to me—it created a
connection between us so he could feel my emotions and keep his own
in check. Kali’s stones were slightly different. She’d
implanted one into Noah, let it soak in his blood to absorb his
genetic imprint, and then broke a chunk of the stone into pieces. She
placed those shards into the hearts of Norman soldiers and linked
them all to Noah.
    My fingers absently
rubbed at the cotton cloth covering Tristan’s stone embedded
into my skin. Bree had implanted it into my flesh over my heart so
I’d never lose it to the Daemoni again. “So Kali had
taken control of Noah, who in turn had control over a whole company
of the British Army.”
    “Yes,” Owen
confirmed. “But Lucas had his own diabolical plan as far as
those soldiers were concerned.”
    Lucas wanted more than
control—he wanted the kind of undying loyalty a lykora gives to
her master. So he’d sent Victor the vampire, Vanessa’s
twin and my half-brother, after Sasha the same night Kali had sent
Owen after Dorian. Right after Owen and Dorian left and before Sasha
could follow them, Victor had taken advantage of the chaos in the
rest of the safe house and popped into the room. Sasha had put up a
big fight, but the vampire had been able to clip her wing and collect
enough blood for Lucas to carry out a most atrocious act of war. He’d
used her blood to create superhuman soldiers with all of Sasha’s
qualities—the ability to grow to monster size, inhuman strength
and speed, and unsurpassed loyalty. Combined with the bewitched
stones, this gave Lucas the ultimate control over all of them. He had
used Noah to create a new army that was better than the Daemoni,
because in his eyes, Normans were expendable.
    Tristan finally showed
his beautiful self after we’d gone over the whole story and I’d
taken another chance to