Surge: Bolt Saga Volume Five (Bolt Saga #13-15) Read online

  Surge

  Bolt Saga: Volume Five

  Angel Payne

  This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.

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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 © 2019 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 the two who surge my world with such joy:

  Thomas and Jess.

  You are my lights. You are my world.

  Contents

  Part 13

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 14

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part 15

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Continue the Bolt Saga

  Also by Angel Payne

  Acknowledgments

  About Angel Payne

  Prologue

  Reece

  Ever wonder why there’s no superhero named Really Fucking Furious?

  Maybe there is now.

  I’m standing beneath a sky filled with Indian Summer stars, on a crisp and chilly night, in the middle of Malibu Canyon. In front of me is a twenty-foot vertical swath of blue fire, newly gashed into the side of one of these beautiful granite cliffs.

  By guess who?

  You got it. The new superhero on the block.

  Just don’t call me Bolt anymore.

  I’m that new asshole, remember? Really Fucking Furious. The one with the name that really fits right now, considering how every cell of my blood is a cauldron of rage and I’m ready to use those stars as lightning bolt target practice right now. There’s enough electric fire in me for all of them. Enough rage to take out the next galaxy over, as well.

  But even if I pulled it off, the truth wouldn’t change. The glaring certainty that crawls all over my conscience, gleeful maggots on the raw flesh of my psyche. The leeching reality at the hottest core of my anger.

  I’m most livid with myself.

  For getting complacent. Crap, even…comfortable.

  What the living fuck?

  But just thinking it, I recognize the truth of it. I’ve deluded myself that all the discipline and diligence with Emma’s training over the last two months has been enough for preparing ourselves and has even been mentally good for me and the team. Yeah, I finally took a couple of beats to breathe, and I even took part in some of Emma’s plans for our wedding. I’d assured myself that we all deserved at least a small break after everything that went down in July. That we’d fucking earned it.

  It was never ignorance—God knows, after everything the Consortium already put us through, I knew better—but more like a fast repose. A staycation from our constant diligence. We’d infiltrated the Consortium’s Palos Verdes compound and taken out the better part of their elite battalion there. We’d caught Faline inside her fucking hive. Hadn’t that earned us more than half a second to catch our collective breaths? We figured those bastards needed to lick their wounds, giving us a break for at least a few weeks.

  Once more, the Consortium beat us to the fucking buzzer.

  They weren’t licking anything.

  They were planning.

  Faline was planning.

  And I was too goddamned soft to see it.

  I wanted to believe that we could finally catch a break. That for just a few months, Emma and I could train our bodies, revel in our love, and indulge our passions by day—and by night, sleep without constantly stressing over what Camp Consortium had up their sleeves for us next.

  “Zeus.”

  I whirl to my right as her voice, invoking her favorite nickname for me, brings a jolt of midnight sun. In the case of the woman I love, the expression isn’t just mushy imagery. Her skin pulses with a faint golden light as she picks her way through the rubble to me, easily stepping into the embrace I open for her. Once I’ve welcomed her into my arms and drawn her close and tight, she leans back to brush off the smaller rocks still clinging to my formal vest and shirt. Not that I’ll ever consider wearing these clothes again. Not after the nightmare of tonight.

  “You feeling any better?” She looks ready to smile, but the expression doesn’t make it past a valiant quirk of her lips. She hopscotches her gorgeous blues, now filled with concern, from me to the cliff and back again.

  Before responding, I gaze deep into those brilliant, sapient depths. Dear fuck. Will her stare ever cease to string me up like a gutted ox? Drive me crazy mad with the need to clutch her close, kiss her forever, and do other wild animal things? Yes, even now. Maybe especially now. Anything for the sake of keeping her this close now. This safe forever…

  The task I’ve already failed so miserably at.

  And here I am, back at the beginning.

  Nice to meet you, breathtaking lady. My name’s Really Fucking Furious. And yours?

  “Reece?”

  Clearly she’s not accepting my interior rant as her answer—though I’m pretty damn sure she’s discerned most of it, judging by the little pinches developing between her eyebrows.

  “Why don’t you tell me how I’m feeling?” I thread it with sarcasm, hoping the levity will do us good—but once more, that’s a big F on my report card. Still, my woman takes an admirable run at an answering laugh.

  “I think your halo’s too red to dignify that with an answer,” she says, taking in the energy around my head that only she can see.

  “I’m sorry.” It spills out of me fast, but I quickly realize how much more it means. How much of a world-class, grade-A, supersized mess it has to really cover.

  And suddenly, three syllables aren’t enough.

  “I’m so sorry, Emma.”

  Nor are double that number.

  But I’m damn sure even thousands won’t be, even if I had the right words at the ready—which I don’t. Right now, I have only this. Only me. Only the words I can utter, from the wells of my remorse and fury, shoved through the filter of my ragged heart…and hope that somehow she feels it all as I offer it to her, like a kid who’s brought a box of rocks for a queen.

  But I can’t do any better. I can’t do any more.

  Some “Savior of LA” you’ve turned out to be, Richards.

  Right. The “savior” who stands here, so undeserving of the woman who wraps herself tighter against me, arms around my neck and curves pressed to every rigid edge of my body. Who stands on tiptoe to crush a full kiss across my numb lips, not emitting a single whimper as the balls of her feet audibly crunch into the gravel.

  “Reece,” she rasps.

  “What?” I snap.

  “We’re going to be okay.” Another kiss, in two parts. She gently caresses the corners of my t
ight lips with the gentle magic of her own. “Even this is going to be okay.”

  I pull in a determined breath. Savor how her light, natural scent invades my senses—and calms my rage. I treasure how her touch renews me and inspires me to reach for self-forgiveness. But most of all, and only for a second, I really believe everything she’s just said. I really imagine that since the woman sparkles like the Yellow Brick Road, maybe she does know the way for everyone to get back home now.

  “Damn it,” I finally grate. “I want to believe you, baby…”

  “Then do.” She whispers the assertion into the center of my chest while tightening her grasp on my shoulders, pulling herself closer. “We’ll get through this just like we’ve gotten through everything else. We’ll do it together—now more than ever.”

  I indulge a fuller inhalation. It’s necessary. I need more room to accommodate the power she’s literally blowing into me with the words. The magical might of her belief, coming from that awestriking inner strength of hers, pushes me to up my game…so I can do the same. I’m the one on the billboards as the superhero, but this woman is the one who’s shown me how it’s really done.

  But not with special bolts, laser blasts, or glowing fingers.

  With heart. With fortitude. With faith. With the knowledge that when one’s purpose is true, the path is worth forging—no matter how thick the darkness.

  And now, she needs that same force from me. She deserves it.

  “You’re damn right, my beautiful Velvet. And I’m damn smart for knowing it this time.” I offer the certainty of the words, along with the steadiness of my hold, as I gather her even closer against me. “For knowing it always.”

  I kiss her with slow but thorough adoration and clutch her even closer. Even tighter. Will it ever be close or tight enough?

  I want to spend my entire life trying.

  Our entire life.

  As we pull apart by a few inches, I behold the bright sheen drenching her eyes. “Damn straight, Bolt Man.”

  But even as she declares it, the ghost of Really Fucking Furious flies in again, threatening to take a fresh perch across my shoulders. I fight the bastard off by kissing my woman deeper, battling to pull more of her astounding strength into my muscles, my bones, my whirling chaos of a bloodstream. The act is so dickishly selfish—right now, she should be taking all of this from me, not the other way around—but I vow to put the energy on a regenerative loop between us.

  Together.

  So surprise, surprise; the woman may just be right. Maybe we are going to do this.

  With heart. With fortitude. With faith.

  With love.

  As one. Together.

  Dear fuck, I hope so.

  I pray so.

  Chapter One

  Emma

  Eight hours earlier…

  “Yes. Yes. Yesssss!”

  The shouts from my fiancé, guttural and primal and joyous, stoke a fire inside me like I’ve never felt before. I stretch to fulfill their demand, using Reece’s beautiful baritone as my fuel, digging into wells of strength I never knew I possessed—and quite possibly didn’t—until now.

  The fire swells from my center. Takes hold of my nerves and tendons. Rides the fast lane of my bloodstream, bringing a sting of pain but a rush of power at once, until erupting off my lips as a long, scorching shout. I almost don’t recognize the sound. Is that me causing birds to burst from the Malibu Canyon shrubs with the force of my roar? Is that my throat producing the badass war cry echoing back off Rindge Dam’s hundred-foot face and along the massive canyon walls around us?

  Holy shit. That is me.

  And I sound pretty freaking awesome.

  Kind of like a Valkyrie and a Jungle Queen decided to have a glowing love child. And why the hell not? I go ahead and take that description to heart, bursting with golden light that washes every surface I pass.

  Best of all, I sound like a woman who’s at last able to keep up with her superhero lover.

  While becoming this way wasn’t my choice and was officially the worst hell my body has ever been through, I’d be first in line to do it all over again.

  To get to this heavenly moment?

  Oh, hell yes.

  The thought spreads a wide, joyous smile across my lips as more cells in my blood burst open, intensifying my light. I watch the illuminating impact on everything around me. Concrete and cliffs, bushes and trees, cascading water, and even the fading graffiti along the dam’s walls are all transformed by the gilded light that emanates from my gaze and my palms.

  “That’s it!” Reece bellows. “Yes, baby. Do it!”

  I toss back my head and laugh, at him more than with him, but I can’t help myself. The man makes me delirious, now more than ever. He fills me, inspires me, lifts me…

  And thank God for the lifting.

  And not just in the pretty poetic way. Or even in the hot erotic way. Though both those ways are worth a hundred sonnets and sighs apiece, this is in the beyond-crazy way.

  The is-it-a-bird-or-is-it-a-Crist way.

  Yes, seriously.

  Yes, unbelievably.

  I’m flying—and this man’s astounding energy pulses are my wings.

  But his superpowers are just the beginning of his pure, epic hotness.

  Even from nearly a hundred feet up, the man is a burnished, bulging fantasy come to life. His long, leather-encased legs are braced to the canyon floor below, while every striation of his bare, chiseled torso is well-defined from the effort of stretching his arms up toward me. His long, confident fingers spread wide, evenly distributing streams of electrical energy from the centers of his palms to support my weight like invisible waves beneath a transparent surfboard.

  Cowabunga, Team Bolt.

  He carries me even higher on a rush of air that hums and crackles, just like the exhilaration surging my senses and speeding my heartbeat. The more the excitement floods my veins, the brighter my power manifests. I know that as truth by taking in my own sprawled fingers, aglow with thrumming gold light that changes the very air through which I sweep them. But my favorite confirmation is in the sight of the birds that are brave enough to cavort around me, chirping and squawking, trying to figure out the new creature in the ’hood.

  But I’m not here for the aviary brunch bunch.

  I’m here to hone my focus. To dig deeper into my psyche. To summon even more potency for my powers: the blinding light and searing heat cascading through my bloodstream thanks to a decision I made more in a twist of desperation than any clarity of wisdom. Going after the world’s biggest psycho bitch was probably the stupidest move of my existence—as Faline Garand herself reminded me when she turned the tables on Angelique, Wade, and me during what was supposed to be our quest to kill her. God only knows what other Consortium-style “fun” the woman’s been able to download into her system since then.

  Which means our nightmare is far from over.

  Which also means that if Reece and I don’t want to end up back on the woman’s lab table—or worse, seeing one of our friends as Faline’s next experimental rat—exercises like this aren’t just recreational.

  They’re essential.

  I can’t ever forget the hopeless nightmare.

  The helpless pain.

  The evil I’ll never stop pursuing, as long as I can still move and breathe.

  A worthy credo—though it’s been embedded in my soul since the first time Reece relayed his full experience at the hands of the Consortium. It’s been nearly a year since the rainy afternoon in New York when he shared every detail, but the horrors echo in my mind like I heard it only yesterday. The soft horns of the boats out on the Hudson. The spatter of the rain on the windows. The muted tumult of traffic and crowds from the streets below. But most clearly, the grit Reece fought to dilute from his voice as he told me what they’d done to him…how they’d done everything they could to dehumanize him.

  His determined composure was the only calm aspect about those moments of aw
ful confession. Inside my heart, a protective fury began to rage like none I’d ever known. It was scary—and to this day, still is—but in other ways, it’s grown into my version of a spiritual home fire. The anger is easier to keep aflame than its alternative.

  Fear.

  Especially at moments like this.

  Reece’s triumphant baritone consumes everything in the canyon, including me. His power isn’t just lifting me from below anymore. It’s flowing through me, mixing with the power I keep letting in, until my psyche is nothing but sun and my senses are pure light. Between one scalding heartbeat and the next, cognition and hesitation sear from my consciousness. I’m nothing but energy and instinct. I follow my outstretched arms, needing to ride the wind that flirts with my fingertips and kisses my smiling lips.

  “You’re there, Velvet.” Reece’s bellow is full of celebration. “Fuck yes. You’re there!”

  I drop my sights from the cloudless sky, letting out a soft laugh to match his jubilation. For the first time in our countless training sessions, we’ve gotten the mix right between his power and mine—and now my feet are even with the top lip of the dam.

  “Holy crap!” I call back. “Look what we did!”

  My words ping around the canyon walls, mixing with his exultant shout. “Fucking right we did!”

  I don’t dare look down to acknowledge him this time. When a girl’s about to step off onto a curved concrete lip that’s barely a meter wide, she needs all the visual focus she has.