Spring Rain (The Witchling #4)(2)

“You need to rest, Beck.” Decker’s tone was gentler.

“Has Summer taught you some compassion?” Beck grumbled. “Because the twin I know isn’t a nice guy.”

“He still cares about you enough to beat you into unconsciousness if you need sleep!” Decker retorted.

That’s my brother. Beck snorted. He didn’t like his visitors treating him like there was something wrong with him or walking on eggshells. He wanted to be alone with his misery, to watch the rest of the world go on and be happy without him, to be forgotten and left alone.

“Beck, I know what you’re going through. You know that,” Decker added, his familiar agitation causing his shadows to churn around him. “I lost someone I cared about, too. My counterbalance.”

“But yours wasn’t dead,” Beck snapped.

“I thought she was.”

He looked up at the hushed note in Decker’s voice. The haunted look on his twin’s face reminded him of everything they’d both been through when Decker’s girlfriend, Summer, had turned Dark and dove off a cliff. Beck had to keep the secret of her survival to himself for many months while Decker pursued a course of self-destruction.

“I know, Decker,” Beck said. It was no real solace to recall his brother’s agony. If anything, it made Beck hurt more, this time for his twin. “But this is different. It’s not just Morgan. There’s the baby, too.”

He couldn’t act against the Dark witchling who had invited the Darkest of all Dark souls into her body in order to exact revenge on him, not without hurting his own child. The situation with no solution left him helpless and overwhelmed.

Decker said nothing, his shadows calming until they were still once more. They usually made Beck edgy, especially in close quarters. He was too exhausted to care today.

The silence stretched on. Usually the first to mend fences and keep the peace, Beck sighed. “So … no Dawn sightings?”

“None.” Decker’s features grew thoughtful, and Beck sensed he was communicating with his Darkness. “It makes no sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Beck tried hard to suppress the feeling of urgency whenever he considered what had happened to Dawn. The woman was still alive; this much was assumed. The mother of his daughter would come to term in about a month. It was nearly impossible to think that she was managing her pregnancy with no medical support from the doctors in Northern Idaho and without contacting any of her family and friends. Yet no amount of his father’s money or Decker tapping into his Dark domain had found her.

That Decker couldn’t track her, and he was supposed to be able to track all Dark witchlings …

“It’s Bartholomew,” Decker’s voice was hushed. “He’s taught her something or hidden her somehow.”

Beck glanced warily at his twin. Decker not only was charged to prevent the Dark from spreading, but was … well, possessed by the souls of the Masters and Mistresses of Dark that came before him. They lived in his head and were constantly talking to him, usually educating him, except for Bartholomew, who had tried to lure Decker into releasing the Dark completely.

The Master of Light had no such army of dead souls in his head. If anything, Beck desperately needed guidance, and there was no one to provide it, since his predecessor was killed twenty years before. He pitied his brother once again. His heart was too good to be as hard as he wanted it to. Even his brother had a flicker of pure Light. Beck was flawed but compassionate, able to look past the mistakes of others and see the good within them.

Except with myself.

There was no excuse for the Master of Light who failed in his duty to protect those who deserved it, innocents like his daughter and Morgan, the girl he loved.

“The lake thawed enough this week for dad to call in someone to dredge it,” Decker said.

Beck’s breath caught and he stared at the fire at the center of the tree trunk. He thought of Morgan every time his gaze drifted to the flames and how she’d once taken him into the center of a bonfire and showed him how alive the flames really were.

“Did they …” He stopped, his voice breaking. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Did they find her?”

“No,” Decker replied. “They found the SUV and … Alexa’s body.” Decker shifted. “That’s my bad.” Alexa had been Dawn’s henchwoman and had tormented both Summer and Morgan and probably a great many more innocent witchlings.

It was as far as Beck could get on the subject. His throat was almost too tight to speak, the muscles of his body aching with sudden tension. He hadn’t been able to bear watching Morgan’s brother, Connor, go through the pain he did. It was another reason for his exile in the forest. More suffering of the innocent that he should have somehow been able to prevent.

“They didn’t find the soul stone either,” Decker added, referring to the rock in Morgan’s possession that had held a piece of pure Dark.

“Maybe Dawn got to it and it’s hiding her.” Beck managed. He forced himself to sip water from a bottle and silently called for the earth to help his tense frame uncoil. Every time he thought of the Fire witchling meant to be his counter balance, he felt even farther from the Light.

“Maybe.” Decker was pensive once more. “I’ve given it some thought. If we could find the soul stone, do you think we could trap Bartholomew again, the way his sons did a thousand years ago?”