Lover At Last

TWENTY

Holy shit, Qhuinn was completely out of control.

Almost no visibility. Plane wobbling back and forth like it had the DTs. Engine cutting in and out.

And he couldn’t even check on Z. Too much wind to yell over, and he wasn’t taking his eyes off wherever they were headed—or more like wherever they were going to crash-land—even though he couldn’t see a damn thing—

What in a million years had made him think this was a good idea?

The one thing that appeared to be working was the compass, so at least he could orientate himself to where home base was: The Brotherhood compound was due north and a little east, on the top of a mountain surrounded by the invisible, defensive boundary of V’s mhis. So directionally, he was right on, assuming that N-S-E-W dial was in fact more operational than, oh, say, everything else in the tin-can shit box.

As he looked to his right, the unrelenting wind coming through the half-shattered windshield slammed into his ear canal. Out the side window, he could see…a whole lot of dark. Which he took to mean they had passed through the suburbs and were out over the farmland. Maybe they’d already hit the rolling hills that eventually turned into the mountain—

A sound like a car backfiring got his attention in a bad way—but what was worse?

The sudden silence that followed.

No engine clatter. Just the wind whistling into the cockpit.

Okay, now they were really in trouble.

For a split second, he thought about dematerializing out. He was strong enough, aware enough—but he wasn’t leaving Z—

A strong hand landed on his shoulder, scaring the balls off him.

Z had dragged himself forward, and going by the expression on his face, he was having trouble staying on his feet—and not just because of the bucking and weaving.

The Brother spoke up, his deep voice cutting through the din. “Time for you to go.”

“Fuck that,” Qhuinn hollered back. Reaching forward, he went to try the ignition. Couldn’t hurt, right?

“Don’t make me throw you out.”

“Try it.”

“Qhuinn—”

The engine kicked back on, and the din reintensified. All good news. The trouble was, if the bastard’d gone out once, it was going to go out again.

Qhuinn shoved his hand into his jacket. As he snagged his cell phone, he thought of everyone they were both leaving behind—and he passed the thing to the Brother.

If there was a hierarchy in the reach-out-and-touch order, Z was at the top of the list. He had a shellan and a daughter—and if anyone was going to make a call, it was him.

“What’s this for?” Zsadist said darkly.

“You can figure it out.”

“And you can leave—”

“Not leaving—gotta fly this deathtrap until we hit something.”

There was some further arguing at that point, but he wasn’t moving from the driver’s seat, and as strong as the Brother was under normal circumstances, Z wasn’t in any condition to muscle around so much as a loaf of bread. And the convo didn’t last long. After the talk dried up, Z disappeared, no doubt ducking back into the rear so he could make that last contact with those he loved.

Smart move.

Left to his own devices, Qhuinn closed his eyes and threw a prayer up to anyone who might hear the thing. And then he pictured Blay’s face—

“Here.”

He flipped open his lids. His cell phone was right in front of his face, held in place by Z’s sturdy grip. And the GPS map was up and rolling, the little blinking arrow showing him exactly where they were.

“Another three miles,” the Brother yelled over the roaring noise. “That’s all we need—”

There was a boom and a fizzle—and then another round of that god-awful quiet. Cursing, Qhuinn focused hard on the little screen all the while hoping things would restart on their own. More north, obviously—but farther east. A lot farther. His guesstimate had been good, but hardly spot-on.

Without the phone? They’d be fucked.

Well, that and the whole no-engine thing.

Checking the precise location, he made some calculations in his head, and steered them to the right, trying to get that pointed indicator on the map heading exactly to their mountain. Then it was time to try to jump-start the engine again.

They were losing altitude. Not in that movie-spiral way, where there was a close-up on the altimeter and the thing was spinning fast as you wished the propeller was. But slowly, inexorably they were drifting down…and if they lost enough forward momentum, which was what that unreliable sewing machine under the hood was supposed to provide, they were going to drop out of the sky like a stone.

Working the ignition over and over again, he muttered, “Come on, come on, come on….”

It was hard to keep the nose up with only one hand—and just as he was going to have to devote all of his attention to fighting with the steering wheel, Z’s arm shot forward, kicked his hand out of the way, and took over trying to restart the engine.

For a split second, Qhuinn had an absurdly clear snapshot of the slave band peeking out from the cuff of the Brother’s leather jacket—and then it was all business.

God, his shoulders were on fire from pulling back on the wheel shaft.

And to think he was dying to hear that racket from the—

All at once, the engine coughed back to life, and the change in their altitude was immediate. The instant those spark plugs and pistons started roaring again, the numbers began going up.

Keeping the throttle fully engaged, he checked the fuel gauge. On E. Maybe they were just out of gas, and it wasn’t a mechanical issue?

Talk about splitting hairs.

“Just a little farther, baby—just a little more, come on, baby girl, you can do it….”

As an endless stream of murmured encouragement left his lips, the impotent words were drowned out by the only thing that mattered—but come on, like the Cessna spoke English…?

Man, it seemed like it took forever, the hoping and praying, his brain bouncing back and forth between best- and worse-case scenarios as miles were crossed at a dead-goddamn-slow pace.

“Tell me you called your females,” Qhuinn shouted.

“Tell me you can keep us up off the ground.”

“Not without lying.”

“Bank us harder east.”

“What?”

“East! Go east!”

Z zoomed in on the map and started running his fingertip in one direction, east to west.

“You want to land this way—behind the mansion!”

Qhuinn supposed he should take it as a positive sign that the guy was making landing plans that didn’t involve fireballs. And the suggestion was a good one. If they could orient themselves along the long side of that big-ass house, on the far side of the swimming pool, they might wipe out a line of fruit trees…but there would be roughly the same amount of field they’d used to take off from.

Better than slamming into the huge retaining wall that ran around the property—

The engine didn’t pop this time. It just went dead, like it was tired of playing hard to get, and was going to take a permanent TO.

At least they were within landing range.

One shot. That was all they had.

A single attempt to land them on the ground that, assuming he could coast them into the vicinity of the property, penetrate the mhis, and manage not to hit the house, the Pit, the cars, the gates, or anything of real or other sorta property…would result in him delivering the proud father and loving hellren and superb fighter…back into the arms of his family.

But Z wasn’t all he was thinking about.

The Primale would oversee Layla’s health and safety. Blay had his loving parents and Sax. John had his Xhex.

They were all going to be okay.

Qhuinn wrenched around. “Get in a seat! Back there! Get into a seat and strap yourself in—”

The Brother opened his mouth, and Qhuinn did the unthinkable. He slapped his open hand over the male’s lips. “Sit the fuck down and strap in! We’ve come this far—let’s not be the reason this fucks up!”

He snatched the phone back. “Go! I got us!”

Z’s black eyes locked on his, and for a split second, Qhuinn wondered if he wasn’t going to get thrown out of the cockpit. But then the miraculous happened: An instant connection sprang up between them, a chain with links as thick as thighs locking in from one to the other.

Z lifted his forefinger and pointed directly into Qhuinn’s face. After he nodded once, he disappeared into the rear.

Qhuinn refocused.

Their coasting was keeping them aloft, and thanks to Z’s direction, that little extra pull to the right had set them up well. According to the GPS, they were closing in on the juncture of roads that split around the base of the mountain, inch by inch. Inch…by inch…

He was pretty sure they were over the property now.

As the plane sank farther, he braced himself, continuing to pull back hard on the steering staff until his shoulders bit into the seat behind him. There was no landing gear to put down—the shit had been locked in place all along—

A sudden whistling noise penetrated the cockpit, and that, along with an abrupt change in angle, announced that gravity had started to win the fight, claiming the fiberglass and metal construction along with its pair of living-and-breathing as its prize.

They weren’t going to make it—it was too soon—

A wild vibration followed, and for a moment, he wondered if they hadn’t hit the ground and not noticed—treetops, maybe? No. Something…

The mhis?

The sudden buffering seemed to extend upward, and what do you know, the plane reacted differently, the nose leveling out through no effort of Qhuinn’s or help from the deadweight of that engine. Even the side-to-side teeter-tottering stopped.

Apparently, V’s invisible defense not only kept out humans and lessers, it could hold a Cessna in the air.

Except then he had another problem. That vital lift didn’t seem to let up.

With the way shit was going, it was like he was going to float up here for frickin’ ever, overshooting the only landing strip they had—

Abruptly, the rattling resumed, and he checked the altimeter. They’d sunk down about twenty-five feet, and he had to wonder if they’d penetrated the barrier.

Lights. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, lights.

Out the side window, down below, he could see the glow of the mansion, and the courtyard. It was too far away to make out the details, but it had to be—yup, the small offshoot had to be the Pit.

Instantly, his brain three-dimensionalized and reoriented everything.

Fuck. His angle was wrong. If he kept going like this, he was going to land front to back on the property rather than down that long side. And the bitch of it was, he didn’t have enough lift to execute a nice fat circle to get them pointed in the right direction.

When you were out of options, you had no choice but to make it work.

His biggest problem remained missing the back lawn. There was only one clearing on the mountain. Everything else? Trees that were going to chew them up.

He needed to be lower, like now.

“Brace yourself!”

Even though it was counterintuitive, he shoved the drive shaft forward, and pointed them at the ground. There was an instant spike in speed, and he prayed that he could recover from it when he got into the strike zone. And shit, the intense shaking got even worse, to the point that it made him dizzy as hell, and his forearms stung from holding on to the wheel.

Faster. Closer. Faster. Louder. Closer.

And then it was time. The house and gardens were up ahead, and coming at them at a dead fucking run.

He pulled up hard, and the new velocity gave them a brief lift.

Over the house…

“Get ready!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

As slow-mo took over, everything was magnified: the sounds, the seconds, the sting in his eyes as he stared straight ahead, the feel of his body thrusting back into the seat—

Fuck. He didn’t have any kind of harness on.

He hadn’t bothered with it. Too much else to think of.

Dumb-ass—

At that very instant, they made contact with something. Hard. The plane bounced up, hit something else, ricocheted off-kilter, bounced again. All the while, his head smacked into the panels above him, and his ass got spanked by the seat, and his—

Cue the paint mixer.

The next phase of the landing from hell was a shake-rattle-and-roll that nearly threw him out of the cockpit. This was the ground—had to be—and damn, they were going fast. Lights whipped by the side windows, everything going Studio 54 until he was practically blinded. And given which side the strobe lighting was on, he figured they were in the garden—but they were running out of space.

Wrenching the wheel, he sent them into a tailspin, hoping that the same laws of physics that applied to out-of-control cars could translate here: no brakes, limited field, and the only way to slow their momentum was drag coefficient.

Centrifugal force slammed him against the side of the cockpit, and snow pelted his face; then something sharp.

Shit, they weren’t slowing down at all.

And that twenty-foot-tall, eighteen-inch-wide security wall was coming up fast.

Talk about your full stops….