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  HIDDEN DANGER

Book Five of the Hidden Saga

Amy Patrick

Dedication

For my Hidden Honeys—the incredible readers who love my books and give me so much encouragement every day! You lot hateful the world to me.

Contents

Dedication

Contents

Affiliate One

Chapter 2

Affiliate Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Half-dozen

Chapter Vii

Chapter Eight

Affiliate Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Affiliate Fifteen

Affiliate Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Affiliate Xviii

Chapter Xix

Chapter 20

Affiliate Twenty-1

Affiliate Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-iv

Chapter 20-v

Affiliate Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-7

Chapter Twenty-8

Epilogue

AFTERWORD

Subconscious Desire- Chapter One

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Hidden Saga

Copyright

Chapter One

Not For Us

The blood rushed to my head, making it hard to retrieve.

All I knew was 1 minute I was sitting at 1 of the 3 stoplights in this dinky little town, and the next my car was being diddled across the intersection equally if it was a cardboard paper towel tube rolling in a windstorm.

I wasn't hurt—at least I didn't recollect I was. I was still strapped into my seatbelt. In fact, it constricted my chest and ribs uncomfortably every bit I hung suspended from it, my hair in my eyes, my trembling hands yet clenching the steering bike.

Trying to go my bearings and figure out what was going on, I glanced to the right—oh God. The passenger side was crushed. That's why the car was tilted to one side. I seemed to be in the one pocket of the front seat that remained intact.

Chunks of drinking glass protruded from the frame of the windshield like the few remaining teeth in a bare-knuckle fighter's mouth. Through the opening, the upside-downwards view of the street portrayed a chaotic scene. Debris was strewn beyond the road—things that did non look similar car parts. And people running. Everything looked orange. Maybe I had a caput injury after all. No—the orange glow was fire. I could odour it.

Something—a building, or possibly a huge truck—was engulfed in flames. I could feel the heat of it, though I didn't have a clear view of exactly what had exploded. Yes—an explosion. That was what information technology was. Had to be. I remembered something slamming the car, rocking it up onto two wheels. And then, simply equally the automobile righted itself again, some other blast hit and sent me rolling side-over-side.

Maybe 1 of those large fuel trucks had crashed into a power pole and blown upwards. I strained to run into more simply in my restricted, and increasingly uncomfortable, position, I couldn't spot what was burning. What if it was a fuel truck and information technology was right adjacent to me? My car could catch on fire, too. That thought brought me out of my dazed state and spurred my heart rate into an agitated clip.

I need to exit of here.

Pressing one hand against the ceiling for support, I fumbled for my seatbelt clasp, pressed the button. Nothing. Ugh. It was stuck or something.

There was a metal screech as someone wrenched open my auto'southward door, which now that I was looking at it was oddly bent.

"Ava? Ava!" Asher's face up peered through the opening, shockingly pale and creased with concern. His sea-bluish optics were huge and wild. Then his expression relaxed. "Oh give thanks God you're alive. When I saw your convertible on its summit..."

Elation and relief rushed through me in a cool stream. "Hi," I said. "Tin can y'all go me out? My head feels like a water airship that'southward about to burst." My vox was shaky. Before I'd seen his confront, there had been no tears threatening, simply at present information technology was all I could do non to lose it.

"Y'all bet. Just hold on a minute, infant. I'm gonna getcha."

Dropping to his knees, Asher slid an arm under me, taking some of the pressure off of my breast. I drew in a breath, the first full 1 I'd been able to have since the crash. The influx of oxygen was heavenly.

Equally I had done, Asher pushed the seatbelt'southward release push and then pushed it again. He turned his face toward mine. At this angle, our noses practically touched and his eyes were a bit out of focus. Beads of sweat covered his forehead.

"I'm gonna have to go something to cut this with, okay? I'll exist right back. You hang in there."

"Ha ha."

He smiled at me. "That wasn't meant to be a joke, only I'm glad to meet your sense of humor didn't suffer any damage." His optics scanned me quickly. "Anything else hurting?"

I shook my head, jostling what felt like the entire volume of my body's blood content. "No. I'm just shaken upwardly. And it's a niggling hard to breathe."

The creases came back to his face. "Okay. I'll be right back."

"Don't take likewise long, okay?" The words were an anxious whine.

"I won't. I hope. You lot tin can time me if you want."

He withdrew from the car, and I watched equally he got to his feet, watched his boots retreating. Because I had cypher better to practice and I was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic and panicky, I did count. "One, ii, three, four..."

By the time I got to 20, Asher's boots were dorsum in sight. At xx-five, he was once again crowded into the squashed forepart seat with me, this time holding an open up pocketknife.

"How'd I do?" he asked as he slid the pocketknife under the seatbelt about the clasp and began moving his hand in a sawing motion. His other arm was beneath me again, I supposed ready to catch me when the belt was severed. I could hear his rhythmic breathing as he worked.

"Twenty-five seconds. Corking."

He grinned and shook his head then paused in his sawing motion. "You know, before I cease up this heroic rescue, I've got to say something."

I furrowed my brow. "What?"

"Well, right me if I'thou wrong, simply... I do believe yous're having a problem."

In spite of my bizarre circumstances, I laughed. Which hurt my ribs. "Perchance," I conceded.

"No, come on at present. Acknowledge it. You've got a problem, and as promised, I'k helping y'all solve it."

"Are yous going to exit me hanging here all mean solar day if I don't play forth?"

"Maybe." He smiled.

"Then yes, Asher, I take a trouble. At present would you please get me the hell—"

Earlier I could end the sentence, he made the last cut and sort of dived beneath me so when I dropped the short distance from the chugalug, I roughshod onto him and not the motorcar's roof or the shattered windshield. For a 2nd we lay at that place, his arms wrapped tightly around me.

"I got you lot," he said into my hair. "I got you. You lot're okay now."

I immune myself to soften against his chest and breathe securely. He smelled like freshly cut grass and yummy guy shampoo and smoke. Oh yeah, the fire. I lifted my head and looked around.

"We should move—"

"It'due south okay," he said. "The fire's across the street—the mill. You lie still. I'm going to slide out and bring yous with me, in case you've got a broken bone or something and don't realize it however. You lot may exist in stupor. Just pretend I'grand a stretcher."

I nodded and clung to him, feeling my pulse recede and wondering for the first time why a teenaged boy was performing my rescue instead of a firefighter or someo

ne more qualified, someone with an actual stretcher for instance. Not that I was complaining—I couldn't let human being paramedics examine me anyway.

And then we were free of the wreckage, and I understood.

The scene outside the auto was utter pandemonium. Gingerly, I got to my anxiety, taking inventory of my ain trunk before looking effectually. The beautiful church I'd been admiring was blackened on i side, those multi-colored windows in jagged pieces or missing altogether. Beyond the street, a low, stretched-out edifice was fully engulfed in flames. It looked like a manufactory or a one-story warehouse.

Several other wrecked cars were scattered on the street, in various stages of annihilation. Mine hadn't gotten the worst of it. Or the all-time.

I turned to look at the wreckage of my petty convertible and all the air deserted my lungs at once, leaving me struggling for breath once again. It was smashed. How had I even survived it? Feeling lightheaded, I rocked on my feet.

Asher's arms came around me again. "You okay? You should sit down until the EMT's can take a look at you." He walked me to the nearest adjourn and guided me to sit down, his supportive arm however effectually my back.

"What happened?" I finally thought to ask the obvious question.

"I'm not sure. That'due south the Magnolia Sugar Tea Visitor. I was downwards the road near the park when I saw the blast. I drove up equally close equally I could and got out to see if anyone needed help, and so I saw your motorcar. That's as much as I know."

I stared at the flames, the black fume pouring from the open roof of the building. The heat of it was immense, fifty-fifty hither across the street. It was difficult to await at it without squinting.

"Practice you call back anyone was inside?" If they had been, information technology was unlikely they'd survived.

He shook his caput. "No. I don't recollect then. It's closed for the night. My buddy's checking inside the church building." Lifting his eyes, he scanned the fiery scene. "Oh man, Ryann'due south gonna be torn up. Her grandma, besides." He turned back to me. "She's one of my classmates. It's her family'south business concern."

A cold sensation seized my heart. Ryann's tea factory. Culley's mission. Was that what he'd been talking about? Had he been sent here to take out the source of the tea that was freeing humans from Elven influence? I twisted away from Asher and dry out-heaved over the sidewalk.

His hands came to the back of my head, sweeping my hair back from my face. Later on waiting for my spasm to pass, he said, "I'grand gonna meet if I tin go somebody to check on you. They've got their hands pretty full, though. God this is a mess. You'll exist okay here for a minute?"

I nodded weakly, only I was not okay. How could Culley have done this? I didn't know him well, merely afterward spending the past week or so with him, I didn't retrieve he had this kind of evil in him. Yep, he'd advised me to simply do my job, not to "remember virtually whether it was right or incorrect." He said that was what he always did. But this was so extreme. He might have killed people tonight.

Asher hustled toward a nearby ambulance, where uniformed paramedics were loading a writhing human being into the back. I glanced around again. It seemed like everywhere I looked there were shocked faces, some people crying, others running toward the devastation or abroad from it. A mother shielded her young child's eyes from a pool of blood in the street about another one of the ruined cars.

Within ii minutes Asher was back, kneeling in front end of me. With a mitt under my chin, he tipped my face up so our gazes met. Those incredible turquoise eyes were and so serious, then full of business organisation.

"Listen, they know you're here, and they're going to get to you as soon every bit they can. At that place are a lot of people who need help—a lot of people hurt. I need to help out—in that location aren't enough emergency personnel to handle it all. Y'all stay right here, okay? Don't go up and wander off. You lot need someone to check you out. I'll be back for you as soon as I can."

I nodded, but he wasn't satisfied.

"Hope me Ava. Don't leave before I come dorsum."

"Okay. I promise." It wasn't a hard vow to make. I had no manner to exit. My car was a lopsided pancake in the eye of the road. I didn't feel like moving anyhow. I was sort of numb and disconnected. This was horrible. And I felt responsible, similar I should take prevented it or something.

Maybe information technology had been an accident? My spirit lifted for a 2d then immediately sank again. Non likely. It was as well coincidental that Ryann's factory had blown upward the nighttime after Culley left Altum. He must not have headed for L.A. right away equally he'd said he would.

I'd been wondering how he planned to get dwelling house anyway. I had picked him upwards from the airdrome in Memphis last calendar week after driving cross-country myself. He'd had a modeling gig in New York City and couldn't bulldoze out with me from the west declension—non that I'd wanted to share a three-mean solar day motorcar trip with him. Now I was hoping I never saw his face up over again.

From somewhere behind me I heard the screech of motorcar tires. Another town resident getting a first await at the carnage, no doubt. At the sound of footsteps hitting the pavement at a dead run, I turned at the waist to wait. I'k not sure why. I guess that's just what you do when y'all hear someone running toward you.

It was Culley. Groovy. I got to my feet, at present feeling stiff and sore all over, prepared to walk abroad from the devil budgeted me with his designer apparel and tense expression and treacherous dazzler.

With his unnaturally good looks and tall, athletic physique, he resembled an role player on the ready of an action movie more than a real person happening upon a real disaster scene. Of course he wasn't a person, not in the literal sense of the word.

When he spotted me, Culley's step slowed to a saunter. And I didn't walk away. No, I wanted to confront him, make him account for what he'd done.

By the time he reached me, his face had lost all traces of concern and displayed his typical nonchalance. His optics roamed over me, assessing, perhaps checking to see whether his plot against the humans would lead to any unfortunate collateral impairment. Then his gaze slid to the side, taking in my destroyed car, and back to me.

"Expert affair y'all dumped me, Angel. If I'd been in that passenger seat, the world would be minus i Culley Rune."

"Aye, that would have been tragic," I deadpanned. "What are y'all doing here, Culley? I thought you'd be long gone by at present."

"I was. I made information technology to the airport in Memphis."

"But then y'all decided to come dorsum to the scene of the crime. I guess criminals do that sort of affair—I've seen it on cop shows."

His optics flared. "Criminals? You think I had something to practice with this?"

"Didn't you? Wasn't this your mission?"

For a moment, I thought I saw a glimpse of hurt in his eyes, or insult, but so information technology was gone, replaced by flinty blue obstinance. "I did not. It was not." He reached toward me, laying a hand on my arm. "And so, you're okay? You're non hurt?"

I shrugged away from him. "No. I'm fine. I was lucky. Which is more than I tin say for a lot of people here this evening."

Beyond the street, someone yelled for help, and a couple of girls Asher's historic period ran toward him. Culley didn't fifty-fifty plough his caput. He was still focused on me.

"And what near back at Altum with the Light King? And Nox? They didn't punish y'all? Or did they only throw you out?"

I shook my head. "They did neither. Listen, I don't really accept anything left to say to y'all, okay? You've verified that your bomb worked, or whatever, so you should probably get back on the road."

At present Culley's eyes narrowed. "I didn't do this, Ava. I've already told you that. Exercise you really believe I'm a... a terrorist?"

The give-and-take no leapt to my mind, but what other explanation was there? Why else would he take come back hither? "I believe yous do what your father commands you to exercise. And I know y'all're skilful at making people come across what they want to see."

I'd discovered Culley's unique glamour on the mean solar day I'd met him—we'd been on a shoot together, and it rapidly became obvious why he was the world'due south near in-need male model. He due west

asn't just bonny. He'd explained it fell along the lines of the erstwhile aphorism "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder." No matter who was looking at him, male or female person, kid or adult, human or Elven, they all saw their ideal—he was literally the best-looking guy they'd ever seen.

Culley smirked. "Believe information technology or non, Ava, my glamour and my moral center are two separate things. I'd call back you would sympathise that, if anyone would."

Ouch. The annotate jabbed my insides and left a stinging gash. But he was correct. For years, I had used my own glamour to hurt people in service of Culley'south father Audun, the head of the Dark Council. I'd erased their memories or implanted new ones, and information technology had fabricated me experience like scum. I was seriously hoping that only considering a glamour could be used for evil purposes, that didn't mean it had to be.

In fact I was making my break from the Dark Court and setting off on my own when my car had been caught upwards in the crossfire of this tragedy.

"It doesn't affair what I think. You lot should be worried about what these deputies milling effectually here are going to think," I said. "You're a stranger in a very minor town at the wrong fourth dimension. And then am I. We both demand to go."

Culley stared at me for a moment. Then he took my hand. "Come with me."

I yanked my fingers from his grasp every bit Asher walked up. His eyes went from me to Culley, back to me again, conspicuously taking in the unfriendly body language.

He slid an arm around my shoulders. "Everything okay hither? This guy bothering you?"

Culley bristled at his words—and his familiar handling of me—straightening to his total six-foot-three height. It put him at but an inch taller than Asher.

"This guy..." he said, his light Australian emphasis suddenly more than pronounced. "... is her fiancé. Then you can just nick off, farm male child."

Asher's mitt on my shoulder tensed. "I wasn't speaking to you." Turning to await straight into my eyes, he asked over again, his words gentle and low, meant just for me. "Are you all correct, Ava?"

My heart pulsed difficult, a sweetness pain that tightened my throat. "He's not my fiancé." I wasn't sure why it was and then important to make the clarification at that moment. "He was, simply he's not anymore. It'southward complicated."

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