by Lucy Auburn
I'm not there yet. But I do kiss his sweet mouth. Then lean forward and murmur a dirty promise in his ear: that he's next on my schedule, and I'm going to ride him until he calls it the best workout he's ever had.
After all, a girl has gotta keep her guys satisfied. You don't get four quality men like this by ignoring their needs. Especially when physical pleasure is the closest I can get right now to showing them how I feel.
It should be easy. It's a magical necklace that was built for us, after all, and by my ancestor now less. The thing warms up any time I use it.
But after a week of training with Instructor Abarra, we're still no closer to unlocking its full powers. All the info in the files claims it should give me the ability to use my Conduits' Affinities for a short period of time, but it hasn't gotten anywhere close. It's like there's a wall between me and the other side of unlocking this thing, and I can't quite break through it.
The only upside is that I've discovered just how great it is to see again after getting thoroughly pleasured by more than one of my Conduits—and that Wyatt will reluctantly let me jerk him off at the same time as Levi, who's loving all this extra attention. I'm also very close to convincing Mason he could take turns with one of the other guys, with a strong lean towards Grayson, who's at least mostly quiet when he's having sex.
Soon I'll be getting them to jump straight into the orgy deep end with me. It just takes a little training. Every time they get fantastic orgasms and leave their weaknesses behind for a bit, they'll want more of it.
The only drawback so far has been the fact that Levi can now sneak around in the middle of the night and play pranks on us. This morning I woke up to shaving cream in my hand and nearly got it all over my hair. I've started to think I should tie bells to his feet as punishment.
As I head towards my next training session with the guys, I can feel my vision start to fade again. My heart does a little flipflop when I realize that I left Killer and Penny back in the room, far from me.
I try to stay calm. Remind myself that I have other Affinities. I even try to tentatively see if my force field can sense the world around me.
Then the world goes black.
And classes let out.
All around me, students stream through the hallways, and none of them are looking where they're going.
Someone knocks into me and barely apologizes. I stumble.
Then someone else runs me over hard enough that I fall to the ground, hitting my head.
"Sorry, sorry! Oh my god—you're bleeding."
Reaching up, I feel the blood run down my face.
And despair at the fact that, despite everything, I'm still completely helpless without my vision.
Chapter 27
I'm getting stitches at the infirmary, utterly humiliated and incredibly frustrated, when the vision comes to me. Not my vision of course—but I see him.
In Carter's body.
Here, on campus.
Standing in the infirmary.
I take in a sharp breath as the medic ties off the stitches. "I'll get you some more numbing cream, just a moment."
Her footsteps cross the infirmary, and she rummages around in a cabinet or a drawer. I wish I could see. I want it more than anything.
And then.
Suddenly, there's a pop of pressure in the air. Someone suddenly arrives in the room. A voice that leaves me cold says, "Here you are. Right on time."
A hand closes over my wrist.
And I know.
Brutus has come for me.
Moments later, the world pops around us, and I stumble as I'm jerked off the infirmary table and into somewhere entirely different. The sounds around me change, becoming hollow. My nose gets the smell of wetness, of algae and mildew. I can hear the sound of water around me, waves like a distant roar.
A stab of fear goes through me.
Reaching out with my Emotional Affinity, I find no animals whose eyes to use. I try to reach for Grayson's mind, to use his telepathy to get in touch with him as I have before, but I can't find him.
So I resort to brute force. My Physical Affinity rolls out of me, and I push at Brutus with my force field, trying desperately to remove the hand at my wrist.
He just laughs, and tightens his grip, the force field seeming to roll off him without any affect at all. "Nice try. You can't see, but I've made a few changes. None of the tricks you think you have up your sleeve will work."
"I'll find a way to kill you!" The pentagram is just beneath the collar of my shirt, but without my guys... "What do you even want with me? Let me go!"
"I have the feeling you've figured out what I want. I have eyes everywhere, Ellen. I know you've found the pentagram and the knife."
My hand twitches, and I don't reach for the knife that I found the pentagram in, which is sheathed at the dip in my lower back. I was planning on stabbing him with it once I weaken him with the power of the pentagram—but of course, I can't do it alone. Without my Conduits the pentagram is just a necklace, and the knife might as well be a bread knife.
"I'm not going to help you destroy them," I tell him, lifting my chin and trying to defiantly glare in his general direction, even though I don't know exactly where I'm looking. "They're mine. You can't take them from me—if you could, you would just do it already."
I'm guessing on the last part, but it has to be true. Otherwise he'd just be grabbing my necklace right now. Based on the way he tightens his hand around my wrist hard enough to rub my bones together, and how he sighs with frustration, I've hit him square in the chest with the truth.
But he releases my wrist a moment later, stepping back, and something in the air shifts. I wish more than anything that I could see him. Being stuck in the dark makes me feel completely helpless.
This is the first time I've really, truly been blind since I figured out how to skirt around my weakness.
"What if I told you I have something to offer you?" There's a silky sound to Brutus' voice, even in Carter's body, with his tenor and tone. "I have a way to give you everything you want... your powers, no weakness. You can have it all."
"That's impossible. Balance is a part of our Affinities."
"I found a way around that." I'm sure that if I could see his face right now, it would be impossibly smug. "I did it. So did Cleopatra."
"I don't believe you."
"Oh, but I can hear in your voice that you do. Haven't you ever wondered how I had so much power? So many Affinities? And no weaknesses to go with them. Your father used to lose time—entire memories, entire days lost to him. But I took his powers, and none of his weaknesses."
He's moving around the room, which must be impossibly big based on the way his voice echoes off the ceiling and the walls. "I can do the same for you, Ellen. You could see again and have all four of your Affinities. All you have to do is destroy the knife and the pentagram for me."
My stomach twists, because I couldn't possibly do that, even though it's the only thing I've wanted ever since my vision went dark. To have that—all my powers, none of my weaknesses—is so tempting. And no matter how much time I spend with the guys, it always fades away. My accident this morning proved that once and for all.
Helplessness is waiting just around the corner for me at any moment.
"I can't possibly trust you," I point out, logic winning the day—along with the fact that killing the man in front of me is my ultimate goal. "I don't even know where you've brought me to."
"This? Ah, this is Baia, a sunken city beneath the ocean. It's been my home all these years. As far as trusting me goes... well, why not just give you a little proof? You'll see soon enough."
He grabs my hand and twists it around until my palm is up. I try to break his grip, but it's strong. A moment later, a heavy, smooth object drops into my hand, and I instinctively close my fingers around it.
With it comes my vision.
The object is a jar. I see that first, my eyes flying to it. It looks impossibly old, the glass cloudy
, a wax seal on the top cracked with age. Inside it, a blue light glows, like a firefly floating inside. Looking at it gives me a tingly feeling.
Looking at it.
Something I shouldn't be able to do.
Around us is a city, alright. An ancient one, filled with crumbling walls and old buildings. It's ruins more than anything, though some of them have been preserved better than others. The ruins we're standing in have no ceiling, but most of the walls are intact.
On those walls are hundreds—no, thousands—of shelves.
On the shelves are countless jars, artifacts, and objects. Many of them glowing. Most of them filled with a kind of weight that sparks as I look at them, as if they're monumental in some way, precious and special.
"Try to use your Affinities, Ellen," Brutus tells me, a smirk on his stolen face. He somehow looks less like Carter and more like himself—as if just having his spirit inside someone's body twists their face around. "You can see and use your powers, and you don't even need anyone's help."
Raising my hand, I throw my force field at him.
At the same time, I reach out my awareness to this ancient city, and find what I expected: the remnants of the spirits that once haunted this place. After so much time trapped underground, they're cold, feral things—and they attack Brutus with abandon.
As they swarm around him, battering him from all side, my force field stabbing at him, hope surges in my chest. Maybe I can kill him without the pentagram. Maybe this can all, finally, be over for good.
But then a glow comes from the middle of the ghosts, warm and powerful. They shriek and fall away. My force field crumbles to dust. Brutus is holding his own jar in his hand—and he's used it to neutralize my powers.
Of course. So many tricks up his sleeve. He'll keep me here forever, and I'll never see my Conduits again.
I didn't even get to tell them that I love them.
"Tsk tsk, Ellen. Not that I didn't know you would try something like that." He shakes his head at me, like some kind of disapproving teacher. "At least now you see that I wasn't lying."
"What I see is that there's some kind of power inside this jar. Probably a stolen Affinity. And I'm betting that as soon as I set it down, my weakness will come back." I know that I'll regret it, that he can hurt me, but I decide to defy him anyway. Even though I don't know if I'll ever get out of this place or see my guys again now that he has me. "I won't fall for your tricks. You might as well give up now, because I'm never destroying the only thing that can kill you."
His eyes dance with mischievous amusement. "What if I told you that the knife has more than one purpose? That it can free you from your weakness as well as kill the powerful? Ah, here, let me show you—I brought you a surprise. This way."
He walks off towards one of the crumbled walls. Glancing up—the dome overhead barely seems to beat back the heavy darkness of the ocean beyond—I resign myself to following him, as there's nowhere else to go.
I can't even really marvel at being in an ancient crumbling city beneath the sea. It's the kind of thing that Levi would rave about. Even Grayson would likely see beauty in it. The streets beneath my feet seem to whisper ancient secrets, and the walls have stories. It's strange to see a few modern things among the ruins, like a table and chairs, or an old record player. Cleopatra and Brutus must have treated this place like their own Fortress of Solitude, bringing things down here to pass the time.
So much time. Immortality seems grand until you realize that, being humans, they probably spent most of their years bored out of their minds. I know I would. And throw a lover into it—I'd stab them to death. I almost understand why Brutus tied Cleopatra's life to his own. Otherwise she would've strangled him by now.
When he stops in front of me, it's in front of a large black reinforced door. Throwing a smile at my over his shoulder—an expression that feels like a bucket of ice going down my back—he grabs the doorknob and turns it, then steps aside and motions towards me.
"You first, Ellen. Despite your flaws, numerous as they are, you're still a lady, after all."
I snort at that, and my skin crawls as I pass by him. I can't stop the feeling that he's going to stab me to death as soon as my back is turned. It's what I would do to him, after all.
But the thought leaves my mind as soon as I walk into the crumbled old building he's led me to.
On the other side, lit by eery magic lights, is an empty room and a wall covered in chains bolted into the heavy stonework.
Cuffed and manacled in those chains are four familiar figures, their beaten expressions and bruised skin making my blood boil.
Mason. Wyatt. Levi. Grayson.
My Conduits have been dragged here to this room, scuffed and lightly tortured by the looks of it, trapped by Brutus. Based on the anguished expression Wyatt shoots me, they fought—but it wasn't enough. He defeated them.
And now he's going to do something terrible to them. To all of us. I can just feel it. He's had millennia to perfect his sadism, and we're going to find out just what exactly that means.
If only I'd foreseen this. If only my powers were perfect and not flawed. Maybe if I tried more... if I'd studied up on him... if I hadn't put so much faith in the pentagram and my own abilities...
"You see, Ellen, this is a gift." Brutus' hand descends on my shoulder, and he squeezes so tight that I have to clench my jaw to keep from trying to stab him. "I've brought them here for you so that you could do what I did, and what Cleopatra did, to be given our gifts of immortality without weakness: simply kill them with your father's knife and their powers will be yours—and your weakness, gone for good."
Chapter 28
Horror. Revulsion. Anger. They all mix together like a toxic potion in my gut. I'm even more determined than ever to kill Marcus Junius Brutus, which is saying something, because wanting to murder him has become a very familiar feeling by now, one that grows by the day.
There's another unexpected emotion though: humor. It's ridiculous to think that he would bring me here, honestly believing I might do this terrible thing. Clearly time has addled his senses. Or his sociopathy makes him think we all might be like him. Only an idiot who hasn't paid attention would ever believe I would kill my Conduits.
I love them too much for that.
But I can't let him see all that just yet. I need to come up with a plan. He's chained them thoroughly—staked them out maybe twenty feet away from each other. We won't be able to form the pentagram by all grabbing each other's hands, and even that has proven to be difficult, powering up some of the objects abilities but never quite doing what my research on it promised.
I haven't ever gotten Levi's poison, Grayson's telepathy, Wyatt's strength, or Mason's illusions. My vain hope was that we'd get more time to practice before it came to this. Obviously that was never going to happen. I just wish I'd figured out a way, because now that their lives are on the line, suddenly defiance doesn't seem so tempting.
Brutus is studying my face. "Ah, it's difficult, I know. No doubt you've grown fond of them—the Conduit connection is alluring, after all. The things mine used to do in bed... but you see, you have to be the one to kill them. I've tried it other ways, but that way lies madness—for the Brutus, you see." Pausing, he gloats, "I do love that they name all of you after me. It's really very cute."
Grayson's eyes are pleading with me. I hear the shadow of his voice inside my head: Just do it. Save yourself. I glare at him, shaking my head, afraid that Brutus will hear my thoughts if I respond. There has to be another way.
I read so much about the pentagram. And the knife. Some of it more wacky than other bits. Terrance warned me that not all of the info in the archives is accurate. But if I have to, I'll try anything to save my guys—including superstitious nonsense. Especially if it means I can finally kill Brutus.
So I need to just fool him for a second. Tearing my eyes away from my Conduits, heart breaking, I tell him, "I'll do it. But I just... can I say goodbye?"
"No." He
smirks. "No touching them, Ellen. Say goodbye from here. I won't let you ignite the Conduit connection. Not even a little bit."
There goes that trick. Reaching up into my shirt, I pull the knife out of its sheath, my back strangely empty without its weight. I'm glad I was wearing it on my way to training—though of course, Lady Fate wouldn't have it any other way. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Before I do this, though, I want to say goodbye the right way. Just in case it doesn't work. And also to buy me time, but mostly because it's long past due. It needs to be said.
Meeting each of their eyes one at a time, reminding myself of all the good times, hoping beyond hope we get to have more of them, I tell them firmly, "I love you all so much. More than I ever could've imagined. That will never change."
Brutus is watching me, waiting for me to slit their throats and turn myself into someone like him—someone he can convince to give up the ability to kill him, in exchange for keeping my power and getting my sight back.
But I've learned that there are worst things in life than a weakness.
And that, from a certain point of view, having one doesn't make you weak at all.
There are no animals with eyes to borrow in this underground city. My guys are too far away to touch. The only way I have to see is this jar in my hand.
So it hurts a little to drop it.
It hurts more to draw the knife across my empty palm and wet it with my blood.
Then wrap my fingers around its blade and push my force field into it, forcing power beyond measure through the metal.
It takes Brutus a moment to realize what I'm trying. When he does, he snarls out, "You stupid bitch."
I take a step back and summon the ghosts, using their power to have me dragged away from Brutus, out of range of his attack for just a moment as their ethereal energy swathes around me. Then I let go of the knife, which might finally have enough power to kill him, and do my best to face him using only the senses I have left.
