9: Bolt Saga Book 9 Read online

  Bolt Saga

  9

  Angel Payne

  This book is an original publication of Angel Payne.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

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  Copyright © 2018 Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Design by Regina Wamba

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  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For my incredible Thomas, and the Parisian adventures that inspired this!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Continue the Bolt Saga with Bolt Saga: 10

  Also by Angel Payne

  About Angel Payne

  Chapter One

  Emma

  Some sights in life are truly unforgettable.

  And while I hope I live a long, long life after this point, I’m pretty certain this moment will be one of the few I still recall when I’m a half-loony ninety-year-old telling people about the craziest moments of my existence.

  Because this is crazy, right?

  Point one: I’m walking into the Paris hideout I’ve been sharing with my sort-of-fugitive superhero fiancé, arm-in arm with his ex-girlfriend, the woman I’d once written off as the bitch nemesis of my existence.

  Point two: discovering that the hideout isn’t as covert after all—because now there’s a stranger in here—who doesn’t seem to be a stranger at all, if everything I’m reading and feeling from Reece’s posture and demeanor are accurate.

  Point three: the former bitch on high? She’s now launching herself at the stranger-who-isn’t, raining sobs and kisses on him with such frantic passion, I wonder who hardwired the guy’s pheromones into her central nervous system.

  One glance at Reece, who’s looking more flummoxed than fugitive, and I see I’m not alone in my massive clump of dazed. Thank God for him—and his brilliant mind that’s never too far from my wavelength.

  “Dario. Dario. Dario.”

  As Angelique croons it nonstop, Reece and I exchange new gapes of what the hell? Why is the woman calling this stranger the name of her supposedly dead lover, though interjecting her cries with mewls so plaintive, I wonder whether to go looking for cat treats or condoms.

  I peer even harder at Reece, grateful for the strength and sanity that are mainstays on the face of my superhero hunk. Clearly, he has a few more pieces of this puzzle than me—but only a few. And now maybe a few less, as his jaw drops and his eyes bulge.

  “Dario.” He stresses the name with different awe than Angelique. “Of course. The photo…back in LA…that’s where I’ve seen you bef—” Unbelievably, his features expand with more astonishment. “Wait. What? Tyce, what the fuck?”

  “Tyce?” Now I dive into the astonishment. “Baby, what the hell are you— Whoa.” I choke it out as the stranger brings his head back up—now with Tyce Richards’s features in place. Talk about a dog paddle into the deep end of shocked.

  “Mon Dieu.” Angelique’s cry is garbled, as if pushed out through bomb fallout—probably the most apt comparison for what this guy has just kaboomed on us. Less than a week ago, I was squaring off against Tyce Richards in the ladies’ room at the Griffith Observatory. Everything in front of me now fits the paradigm of that chiseled stud. The “Richards plateaus” of his shoulders. The deceptively lean arms. The hewn torso tapering into his fit waist. The long runner’s legs. Tyce had crowded all of that iconic glory right into my personal space but then insisted he hadn’t come to assault me—and had proven good on that promise, though he’d brought a fun parlor trick that made me scream for my life anyhow.

  For a couple of insane seconds, he hadn’t been Tyce anymore.

  Now it’s happening again.

  His face…changes. Becomes a mess of mottled flesh on one side, a scowling prince on the other—a prince who isn’t Tyce, at least on the outside. Neither was a real reason for me to scream at first, but together like that? So suddenly like that? And where the hell has Tyce gone?

  Before I can even contemplate the answer, Tyce returns as if we all have just fallen into a fugue state and hallucinated the half ogre.

  Oh, my God.

  I get it now. Holy shit, do I get it.

  The ogre is real. And somehow, he’s Tyce. Or…Tyce is him. If this is even Tyce…

  But if it is Tyce, then where the hell is Dario?

  And how am I even taking these questions seriously?

  But I am. Holy shit, I really am. Another look at Reece yields the confirmation, albeit in a darker and fiercer way, that he’s still on the same holy-crap-I’m-really-thinking-this bandwagon.

  Tyce—or whoever the hell this is—sets Angelique back by a step, though he’s clearly reluctant about it. He underlines his contrition by pressing a lingering kiss to her lips. “Mi amore,” he murmurs, accenting the words like he’s just stepped off the plane from an Italian island. “It is me, Angelique. Please, my love. No more tears. You’re tearing me apart.”

  While Angelique dutifully nods and sniffs—slamming me with another tidal wave of surreal shock—Reece starts tipping the scales at the other end of the reaction scale. “So what the hell have you done with my brother?”

  “I’m right here too, Cheesy Reecy.”

  After eight months of being with Reece Richards nearly every day, I’ve never watched him pale this much or this fast. “Shit,” he sputters. “It is you.”

  Tyce slides out a lopsided smirk. “Now that we’ve got that cleared up…”

  And this time, the three of us get front-row seats for the Tyce Face Flip show—resulting in three jaws hitting the floorboards in unison. “Oh, my God.” I finally get the chance to unload it aloud—though I’m still having trouble reconciling what I see to what I believe. No, I really haven’t leapt out of The Matrix or jumped off Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. I’m truly looking on as Tyce’s striking handsomeness fades from the center out, as if curtains are being opened on a museum’s rare new painting. The portrait revealed beneath is that bizarre double visage again: on one side, the features so classic they could grace a Roman coin, but on the other, a mottled collection of flesh that looks like an artist globbed pigment onto a canvas and then decided to do some finger painting.

  As the transformation completes, Angelique follows my soft exclamation with a soul-wracked moan. “Dario.” She closes the gap back to him, lifting her palms to the sides of his face. “My love. My love.”

  He spreads his hands up, meshing his fingers between hers. “Mio Angelina. Look at you. Still so beautiful.” He dashes his head down again. “But now I’m nothing but a monster.”

  “You are alive.” She rages the words, giving way to more sobs while yanking up his face again. “You survived, Dario. You have brought the sun back to my existence, the breath back to my lungs. You have just given me the best gift of my life. Do you think I care what paper it’s wrapped in?”

  A massive lump clogs my throat as he strokes her cheek with a shaking thumb, now soaked with her coursing tears. I pull in a rickety breath. Another. It’s no use. The heat behind my gaze goes to liquid as well. Reece gathers me close, his embrace engulfing and comforting. While I use his Henley as my handkerchief, I can feel the stiffness still dominating his stance, the tension in every breath he takes. Though he strokes my back in motions meant to soothe and protect, his fingers are as rigid as the pylons of all the bridges across the river outside. It comes as no surprise when he clears his throat with an equally strained sound.

  “Tyce,” he grates. “What the hell is going on? And before you begin, are we going to need alcohol?”

  I nestle my forehead between his pecs, kissing the spot over his heart. “I think that’s a question of when, not if, baby.”

  “Wine and ale are in the refrigerator,” Angelique supplies. “A bottle of decent Pinot Gris and some Duvel Citra.”

  The normal side of Tyce’s face bursts into a delighted grin. “Duvel Citra? Seriously?” He directs it to Angelique like a kid with the Willie Wonka golden ticket.

  “But of course.” Her fairylike laugh is stopped short by his fierce, appreciative kiss. Again, I observe their exchange like a dumbstruck voyeur, unable to help myself. Angelique is a brand-new person to me right now. A woman transformed by love. But my most astonishing realization? If Tyce had returned to her looking like Homer Simpson, she’d still be this overjoyed. And yeah, that means a new conundrum. It’s damn hard to keep thinking of her simply as the temptress who guided Reece to his ruin. Like him, maybe she really was a cog wooed to the Consortium’s machine by promises of heaven, only to be rewarded by tragedy.

  I refocus on the couple as they end their kiss with a giddy smack. “You’ve really kept it stocked?” Tyce murmurs to Angelique.

  Her eyes brim once more. “Always.”

  He grasps her by the back of her neck. “Because you never gave up.”

  “Never.”

  Just as he
r tearful whisper is going to make me lose my emotional shit again, Reece comes to everyone’s rescue by swooping in, clapping his brother on the back, and booming, “I think those ales are screaming our names louder by the second, asshole.”

  While looping one arm around Angelique’s waist, Tyce swings a hard punch at Reece’s arm. “Who you calling asshole, asshole?”

  Reece cocks his head, sending a chunk of thick strands into his eyes. “Call me anything you want as long as it’s not Easy Reecey.”

  “Well, hell,” I grumble. “Because inquiring minds do want to know…”

  Reece glowers toward the kitchen. “No, they don’t.”

  Tyce tosses me a wink from his good side. “Catch me later, Emma. I owe you for that scare in the bathroom at Griffith.”

  Reece groans and rolls his eyes before leading the way into the kitchen with the stride of a king leading his courtiers to the war room. I gladly follow, sneaking in a gawk at his ass in those sweats while trying to wrap my mind around the bizarre turn of the last fifteen minutes.

  Fifteen minutes.

  Have I really just come from being in the cute café down the street with Angelique, sharing laughs over croissants and coffee and thinking designer dog sweaters would be the craziest sight of my day? Do I really have to rethink what I shared with Angie back then—that my fiancé’s electric blood would go down as the most bizarre sight of my life?

  “Merci,” I murmur to Angelique as she sets a glass filled with liquid the shade of pale lemons in front of me. Before she can pull away, I grab her hand for a quick squeeze and eagerly accept her returning pressure. A lot of people would call our truce complete lunacy, but after everything that’s happened over the last hour, especially watching the woman fall to her knees in thanks for her beloved’s return from the dead, I’d be seriously tempted to give all of them a nice view of both my middle fingers.

  After entwining his fingers with Angelique’s once more, Tyce sets his jaw, straightens his shoulders, and draws in a formidable breath. He sets his determined gaze back to Reece. “Where do you want me to start?”

  For a second, my man becomes a visible chunk of discomfort. No eight-point-five on the expectations Richter scale. After everything Trixie Richards disclosed to me about the dynamic—or lack of one—that her sons have, Tyce’s sudden openness is a logical stunner for Reece. I’m not surprised that Reece gets over it with the focus worthy of the lightning in his blood, by propping his elbows on the table and lasering Tyce with his stare. “In this case, I think the brutal beginning is best,” he states before riffing off of Tyce and also hauling in two full lungs of air. “Yes or no—you were Alpha Three? And are you still?”

  “Yes.” Tyce lifts his ale and takes a long swig from the frosty bottle. “And no.”

  A pulse ticks in Reece’s jaw. “And did you know I was Alpha Two?”

  Tyce knocks back a longer drink. “I had a damn strong hunch.”

  I grip the side of the table and lurch forward. “And you didn’t do a damn thing to try to help him?”

  Reece curls a hand around my shoulder with misleading calm. “He couldn’t, Velvet. No more than I could help him. And believe me, though I had no idea who he was, I wanted to.” His words are crunchy with emotion.

  Tyce not only hears it all but wears an answering wave of emotion across both sides of his face. Yeah, even the mottled putty of his bad side is twisted with the stuff. “Of course you wanted to—because that’s the kind of person you are.”

  Reece’s gaze bugs. “Oh? That so?”

  Tyce shakes his head. “And there you go again, trying to cover it up.”

  “Says the guy capable of changing from my brother into other people at will?”

  “Just my face,” Tyce counters.

  “Great. Thanks for that clarification.” Reece’s grimace betrays his mix of confusion, frustration, and straight-up fear. “Do we get the behind-the-scenes on your cover-up now too? Or morphing. Or holographing. Or CGI shit. Whatever. Different definitions, same cover-up job, right?”

  As his rant ramps higher, I wrap one of his hands in both of mine. It’ll likely do little to help him calm down, but I have to at least try.

  “Listen to what he’s saying, baby,” I urge. “Please.”

  But Reece’s features are already in granite-cliff mode, fortifying his ramparts before Tyce or anyone else can nick them. Throwing up the ramparts is as easy as breathing for him, since he’s been doing it his whole life—a truth I likely knew somewhere deep inside even before Trixie Richards verified it during our lunch last week. The woman simply provided the details to back my intuition. This man was once a boy who desperately wanted to matter to his family; he then grew into a teen who acted out so he would; and then he became the young man who turned that act into an art form. And he would’ve spent his whole life perfecting that masterpiece if not for the six months that altered the portrait forever.

  That mashed up the paint…

  A situation his brother gets now more than ever.

  But my surety of it goes beyond the literal symbolism of Tyce’s twisted-paint flesh. The same instincts that haunted me for so long about Reece have returned as emotional wraiths on behalf of his brother too—shades that fly tighter and closer with every passing minute we’re spending with the guy. By now, they’re starting to help me snap logistical beads together about all this…

  Connections that hold tight, despite Reece’s sneering retort to my appeal. “Listen to him?” he snaps, adding a rough chuff. “And you’d be referring to…what, exactly, sweetheart? An account of how he’s seen the light about the integrity of my soul? About how the hell of the Source opened up some heaven of cosmic collectiveness for him, and now he wants to be buddies? Bond over ‘the good ol’ days’ under the Consortium’s thumb?” He see-saws his head, aiming his ears for opposite shoulders. “And electrodes. And probes. And needles…”

  “He was there.” Angelique stuns the rest of us with her vicious spew. “He was there, you bastard—and paid just as high a price for it as you.”

  My jaw falls an inch more when she all but filets Reece with the jade glass of her glare. In that look, the subtext of her statement is clear. By just as high a price, she really means that Tyce’s final ticket was much higher than Reece’s.

  “Angelina,” he murmurs, kissing her knuckles. “Hell doesn’t pick favorites. None of us was unchanged by that hive of horror.”

  And there’s my opportunity to speak up. None will be better. During the three seconds Angelique takes to answer him with a quiet fume, I lean forward to examine Tyce at much closer proximity. Searching for the truth that has to be gnawing at him from inside—the part of the confession he’s debating about how to express.

  “Only there’s one huge difference to your experience,” I issue. “Isn’t there, Tyce?” I slide my hand free from Reece’s, needing the added authority of the pose. “You volunteered to go into that hive of horror, didn’t you?”

  REECE

  I’m waiting.

  Still waiting.

  Any second now, Tyce is going to capitulate to a tell. He has at least twenty, and I know them all. When we were younger, I actually studied them and learned every one of their meanings. When I grew up, I tried emulating them—and even succeeded. A finger to his lips? He’s still figuring out the most smartass way to trump someone. Subtle scrunches at the corners of his eyes? He’s already tossed out his respect for the guy. Small jut of his jaw? He’s in a corner and he’s going to come out swinging. Hard.

  But my brother has answered Emma’s allegation with nothing but stillness. Openness. A calm that has me wondering why someone isn’t barging into the room to proclaim him the next Dalai Lama.

  What. The. Living. Fuck?

  My lips part, and I’m tempted to blurt exactly that. I’m not sure how, because there’s no room inside me for a goddamned thought around the edges of my astonishment, but somehow I choke down a breath. But as soon as I inhale, the accusing words threaten again. Not that I can form them—any more than I can believe what I’m seeing. Across both sides of this fucker’s face.