by Heloise Hull
He was here, almost like real flesh. Part of me wanted to reach out and touch him. The other part wanted to steal Blanche’s sword and skewer him.
When he spoke, his voice spooked even the birds nesting in trees in these ancient memories. How was that possible? What sort of powers did the gods truly possess?
“You look quite handsome on a horse, my little wolf.”
I hid my wince as men died with metal in their throats. My other lives were much more suited to bloodshed than Ava Falcetti.
A voice murmured in my mind. So you think. What about Mestjet? Perhaps you are suited to blood, too.
I shook my head, unsure if it was my unconscious speaking or the god playing tricks.
“Who are you?” I demanded. “Are you the voice in my mind?”
“Your mind is your own here.”
The god’s face remained cloaked in a silvery mist that swirled and twisted as he moved. There was no doubt. This was the god of the cave. The one who made me. The one who offered his hand to me as Jeanne de Clisson on the beach. But what was with his face? Was it too hideous to look upon? Or too powerful? I wasn’t fully mortal, so surely I wouldn’t burn up like Semele when she looked upon Zeus.
The god’s voice was silky, like a saltwater pearl pulled straight from the sea and still coated in fresh nacre. “Perhaps a better question would be, what are you? Hm, let’s see. So many women, so many babies, so many lives. You should be pleased. Was I not magnanimous? Do I not deserve praise for giving you so much?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” I demanded. “Because, despite the stupidity of the words coming out of your mouth, it almost seems like you’re being serious.”
“You would have rather stayed as a wolf?” His voice suggested a smile. I knew better than to believe it.
“It would have saved a lot of suffering.”
The god tutted. “So narrow minded.”
“Since you know so much, I have a question for you. Did you give me this many lives on purpose? Or did you even realize what you had done?”
“Wrong question again.”
The world tilted and nausea threatened to overwhelm me.
Chapter Eighteen
I woke up angrier than a bear straight out of hibernation, all lean and hangry. Enough was enough. I would take my own destiny into my hands and find out once and for all who cursed me in that cave. That was the first step to breaking it.
As much as I wanted to do this on my own, I knew I needed my pack. For one, I seriously needed their wisdom. For another, they might skin me alive if I tried doing it alone.
I would never willingly put Rosemary in danger. She was a lover, not a fighter. And Coronis and Thessaly had been spending an impressive amount of time together. If something was budding there, I didn’t want to interrupt. Anyway, Thessaly had her own stuff going on. That left me with ghosts, Nonna, and Aurick.
There was a chittering sound at my feet. Oh yeah, and a really old chipmunk.
“Did the cimaruta not work?”
I shook my head, my teeth grinding too hard to answer. I balled my hands in my sheets and pretended they were around the god’s invisible neck.
“He clearly wants you to see something that you’re not. Any clues?” Tiberius pressed.
“The first time, yes. He wanted to threaten me. This time though… I was another French queen fighting on a battlefield for my son. Nothing about twins or death.”
“That you know of.”
I paused. Maybe Blanche had twins, although it wasn’t like I could ask Siri. Stupid lack of WiFi.
“It sort of sounds like a carrot and stick situation,” Tiberius mused.
“Show me a life where he beats me and one where he’s nice to me?”
“Basically. So what’s your plan?” the chipmunk asked, handing me a jar of concealer. I took the hint and dabbed it under my eyes.
“What does anyone do when they don't know the answer?”
“Pretend?” Tiberius suggested.
“God, I hope not. They should look it up.”
Two minutes later, I knocked on Aurick’s door, my stomach a horde of demonic butterflies banging around. I reminded myself it was just Aurick. We practically lived together! If staying in the same bed and breakfast owned by a millennia’s old woman counted. We did share a bathroom. I saw his toothbrush in there once.
The floorboards creaked and the door swung open. Damn. Apparently, he slept in his dude lingerie, or he’d quickly stepped into a pair of gray sweatpants when he heard the knock. The drawstrings still dangled loosely.
I tried lifting my gaze from the bulge, but it snagged on his v-line above his sweats. While he wasn’t packing washboard abs, it was a defined stomach, which was quite a welcome sight.
“Hey,” I said lamely. I think I even licked my lips.
Aurick wiped the sleep from his eyes and took in my appearance. I was sure it was wild. Despite taming the mane and the under-eye concealer, there was a frenzied feeling surrounding me. Frenzied was pretty much my general state of being at this moment in my life. Also, I had a chipmunk on my shoulder.
“Ava, has something happened? Are the boys okay?”
My heart warmed that his first thought was for my kids, but I wished our immediate reactions to each other weren’t “Is something wrong?”
Even if it were true and something was very, very wrong.
“The boys are fine. Unfortunately, I’m not. The god keeps haunting me. I’m going to the Library of Alexandria to find out once and for all who cursed me and what I can do about it. Care to see a dead library?”
Aurick blinked. I waited. Finally, he ran his fingers through his hair, making the blondish locks stand on end. “Let me get dressed.”
“Thanks. I’ll… uh… wait.”
He turned but left the door open. When he sensed I hadn’t moved, he looked at me questioningly.
“In the kitchen,” I amended. “I’ll wait in the kitchen.”
Still, I didn’t move.
“Well, I’m not sticking around for this,” Tiberius said, scampering down my leg. “Have fun at the Library. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
We listened to his nails clicking on the floorboards until it was silent. Aurick sent me a smolder with just his eyes and his crooked grin, and I remembered how nice it was to feel this way. Wanted. Desirable. Beautiful. I never thought I’d get to feel the beginnings of a crush again. On the flip side, I forgot how awkward crushes made me. This guy was literally willing to go to another dimension where dead things lay, and that wasn’t to mention eating Imo’s pizza. He was into me.
“Ava.” Aurick’s eyes were unfathomable, like a raging blizzard. I swallowed a few times, still trying to rid myself of the taste of the god’s presence from my lips so I could focus completely on the present.
“Thank you for trusting me,” he said low. His eyes held power and electricity that made the air crackle around us.
“You know that I do,” I said with only a little difficulty. “Completely.”
Aurick walked over, his stomach rippling slightly as he moved, and his storm-born eyes zeroed in on me. “I still like it when you show it.” Aurick lifted my chin and I stared, waiting. “And I’m happy to do it. Together.”
Screw it. I wrapped my arms around his bare waist and leaned into the man, adoring his wood smoke smell. It was as if the desert tents he’d grown up in had tattooed their scent onto his skin. His lips met mine and he immediately deepened the kiss.
His hands wove through my hair, scrunching it tighter as I let mine roam down his smooth back. I was woman enough to admit it. I wanted him. I wanted to feel passion for the first time in decades. Honest-to-God, toe-curling, can’t-walk-for-a-week passion.
With a foot hooked around the door, I presumptuously shut it and pushed Aurick to the bed. His eyes were crinkled in silent laughter as he propped himself up on his elbows and waited to see what I would do.
Ignoring the unavoidable shyness as best I could with
his undivided attention on me, I straddled his legs and draped my arms over his shoulders, letting him kiss the underside of my chin and along my jaw. I shivered as his tongue danced down my collarbone.
Should I feel jealous?
I sat bolt up, jerking away from Aurick’s warm mouth.
Aurick looked at me, guilt and confusion doting his face. “Too fast?”
I shook my head.
“You look terrified,” Aurick said slowly.
It was true. I caught sight of my pale face and deep eyes in his mirror, and I almost didn’t recognize myself. “I heard him.”
Aurick reacted sharply by pulling me close and standing in one sudden motion. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. If we both weren’t freaking out.
“He speaks to me in my mind or something. I’ve experienced it before in my past lives. I think it’s the connection we forged when he made me. And for some reason, it restarted when the boys turned eighteen. Down to the second exactly.”
Aurick sat me down, taking both cheeks between his palms to stare into my eyes for a moment before giving me a swift, hard kiss. “As much as I want to explore this.” He kissed me gently and lowered his voice. “Explore you, I mean, I think we should go figure this out.”
“Right. You’re right. Okay, I’ll go wait in the kitchen. Seriously this time.”
That got me a wry smile. “Consider this unfinished business.”
Ten minutes later, Aurick pulled his bone dagger out as I explained where the Library was located, hoping like hell we wouldn’t have to go through the cave again.
“Oh, one more thing. I’ll be right back.” I jogged into the kitchen and grabbed a small paring knife from Nonna’s knife drawer. I doused it in rubbing alcohol and let it dry. Not that I didn’t trust that pin, but I preferred my own means of bloodletting. As one should.
“You’ve got scary magic, and you think a paring knife is going to save you from ghosts?” Aurick asked. “You know they’re already dead, right?”
“The crystal room requires a blood sacrifice, and I don’t trust that bone dagger of yours not to steal my soul, so I’m bringing my own. If I were you, I would keep the quips short, eh?” I teased, twirling the knife between my fingers.
“I know you’re kidding about sacrificing me, but you look sort of scary.”
I blew him an exaggerated kiss. “And that’s the way I like it.”
Aurick grabbed me around the waist with a dashing smile and ripped through the realms.
Chapter Nineteen
Tiberius’s magic worked well enough, keeping my past lives at bay during astral jumps, but I still screamed. Even without the traumatic memories, realm jumping felt like my body was being passed through a blender and poured into the void. Sloppily.
We landed with a splash and staggered up the sandy shore, making our way to the shining Library of Alexandria. Aurick kept a tight grip on my bicep as we weaved our way through the erudite ghosts deep in thought.
I yanked him under the archway that seemed to rest on clouds and into the bowels of the Library. The incense was as intoxicating as I remembered, as if beckoning me to sit and stay a while. To read, to absorb, to learn.
I took Aurick’s hand and squeezed, since he still looked sort of shocked that he was standing in this ancient, lost space. “Act natural. Council members come here all the time to research stuff.”
“Do they?” he murmured, but I let any ‘I told you so’ retorts wither on my tongue. I was mature that way.
“Also, this is the demon realm, so be on the lookout. An empousa attacked us the last time.”
Aurick glanced over his shoulder as dead scholars drifted past. “How did you escape?”
“I turned all the books back into their original materials and buried her underneath an avalanche of vines and plants.”
“Seriously? I would’ve loved to have seen that.”
“Maybe you’ll get a repeat performance.” I squinted. “Wait, I think I see Hypatia. She’ll help us.”
I led Aurick to the woman in red robes, stitched with black thread. Hypatia kept her hair curled elegantly around her face and a cowl draped loosely over her head. She looked up from replacing a scroll and smiled. “Ava Falcetti, the god-touched. Welcome back.”
“Hypatia the learned, terror of men,” I said, returning the compliment. “We came to learn more in the crystal room. I need to figure out how to break my curse.”
Hypatia turned glowing eyes, the color of goldenrod in fall, on Aurick. Her expression had cooled significantly.
“This is Aurick, the… uh… uh… generous,” I said, ignoring Aurick’s right eyebrow, which was raised a good three inches. “He’s one of the good ones, I promise.”
“I see,” Hypatia said. She went back to re-shelving papyri.
With a hurried ramble, I said, “We found out there’s an archon under the Arch. And that the Council had a rogue member. I fear there could be more. Also, the god who touched me has begun to communicate through dreams. I want to see what he looks like and get a sense of who he is before it gets any worse. Do you think you could recognize Khonsu on sight?”
“Perhaps.”
Aurick and I exchanged looks. He got the hint, though. Keep quiet.
“I would appreciate any help you’re willing to give. The god keeps taunting me, implying things I barely understand.”
Finally, Hypatia put down her armful of scrolls and sighed. “Follow me, Ava.” She drifted toward the crystal room, and I sent Aurick a grateful smile.
“She’s not too keen on men,” I explained in a whisper. “In her lifetime, she just wanted to study and teach others. Then a bunch of scared dudes assaulted her and flayed her so… yeah.”
Aurick shuddered. “I won’t take offense.”
This time, we knew where we were headed and marched quickly through the corridor. I forgot how smooth and slick the ground became, and we shuffled along on our butts as the incline got worse.
To pass the time, I asked Hypatia about Nibiru. It was such an unknown. “How big is this realm?”
“As far as I know? Infinite. The Library is merely one section of the void. Many parts mirror Earth. Others are their own.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I said, remembering Thessaly growing up in a fishing village. It was crazy to think she was born here. “And this is where all souls go after death?”
“This is merely a crossing place. Souls move on to their final afterlife, but I couldn’t tell you if every soul comes here first or if some proceed straight to eternity.”
I thought about it for a few minutes as an idea coalesced. “This must be where Luca went to find his wife and daughter after they died. People with unfinished business or who aren’t ready to move on. I wonder how necromancers can get here without bone daggers or astral projecting.”
Aurick bristled slightly at Luca’s name.
“Not that I want to be a necromancer or anything, but it is interesting.”
“Indeed,” Hypatia said.
Aurick boosted me up a particularly sharp curve before we arrived at the door. “It’s going to be bright, so shield your eyes,” I warned him.
We pushed through the doors and entered the room, a feeling of reverence saturating our bones. I would never get over that. The ancient feeling of old magic. Dangerous magic.
All of my blood from my previous visit had been wiped clean as if it had never happened. “Did you clean up after us?” I asked Hypatia.
“No. The room absorbs it.”
A shiver rolled through me, but I pulled out the paring knife and shot Aurick what I hoped was a comforting smile. No big deal. Blood sacrifice to a creepy room was all in a day’s work.
I had this.
Slashing would not do, so I pressed the tip of the blade to my pinky and embraced the pain as a drop of ruby-sheened blood welled up. I turned it over and let it drip, once, twice, three times while I whispered, “Show me the cave.”
The room undulated into something dark
. The moon was shining. Aurick stiffened next to me, his face one of pure awe.
“I have seen many things in the world, but this… this is incredible.”
My entire being was focused on the wolf in the cave. Two little boys were curled under her paws, asleep. Her snout lifted and wrinkled as she sniffed. I tried to remember, did I sense the god? Surely I must have felt something was off.
A shadow blotted out the moon, and the wolf leapt to her feet, the boys disturbed only by the sudden lack of warmth her shaggy fur had provided.
Was it Khonsu? I still couldn’t remember, but if I could see this moment again… if I could look on the god’s face. “Come on, come on,” I muttered. “Show yourself.”
But the images began to wink out too soon. Hurriedly, I cut a deeper hole in my ring finger. “Show me the god,” I demanded, barely noticing the pain as the blood flowed more freely.
The cave refocused, like I was adjusting the lens of a camera and not splashing my blood over gemstone. Translucent cave mushrooms shimmered as if we were there, and for a second, I even felt the rough cave floor poking through my shoes.
Desperately, I bobbed and weaved, running my hands through the smoky memories of the cave. Of moss and rocks and the steady drip of water. When they began to dissolve, I drew more blood and let it fall in dots and dashes on the pristine floor. I barely noticed if I slashed or stabbed, my arm made into a tapestry to honor this room. I had to see. Who was it? Who cursed me?
“Stop, Ava. It’s too much,” Aurick said, trying to grab the knife.
Damn him and his good intentions. I should have come alone. This was private.
I pushed him away, my desperation clinging to me like a shadow. “I have to understand.”
Then, the god turned and everyone froze. The wolf snarled, her fangs glowing in the moonlight and all of her hair standing up straight along her spine. Romulus and Remus were bawling now, soothing themselves with their thumbs.
The god…
I said one name, but it came strangled from my mouth like a curse.
“Thoth.”
Chapter Twenty
