by Eva Brandt
Panic, helplessness, anger, and desperation swamped me and my magic rushed out of me in a destructive whirlwind that clashed with the column of flame now surrounding him. “Pierce! Don’t! Fight it!”
I felt stupid even as I said the words, because he couldn’t fight a spell he hadn’t cast, a vow that had been placed on him by his blood. Every cell in my body responded to those thoughts and water exploded around me, a furious tidal wave that would’ve crushed my whole sense of self had I been anyone else.
When the water that was an extension of me struck the hostile fire attacking Pierce, it evaporated like it was nothing. Since that hadn’t worked, I attempted to absorb the flame into my own body. It resisted, too attached to Pierce’s core to accept any other host. Absorbing the air around the blaze showed no results, which made sense, since it was self-sustaining and didn’t rely on outside elements to burn. I even tried earth, although I mostly used that to lash out at Louis.
“Cancel the spell!” I shouted at him. “Lift it!”
“I can’t,” he replied, his voice barely audible due to the fist of stone squeezing the life out of him. “It’s not dependent on my will. It just is.”
Maybe he was lying and he had a way to lift it. Maybe I could have stopped this whole disaster if I’d had more time at my disposal. But fire had never been a patient element, and I couldn’t stop it, not anymore.
Within seconds, the light around Pierce became so bright I had trouble looking at him. It was like staring at the sun and just the sight of him threatened to blind me. I shielded my eyes and kept trying to force my way past the barrier of flame. It was futile.
By the time the light died and I could see properly again, there was nothing left of Pierce Garnier but ash. And in the wake of his death, the fire started to spread, implacable, unstoppable.
“Dahud!” Darius cried out, in Mathias’s voice. “Run!”
I didn’t run. I was frozen in my spot, too shocked to move a muscle. And I could do nothing but watch as I lost every single person I’d ever loved, all over again.
To my right, Declan’s body turned to stone. For a few seconds, I could still see him, immortalized into an object with his eyes wide and his left hand extended toward me. And then, I didn’t even have that any longer. The statue cracked and the stone crumbled, dissipating into dust.
For Malachai, it was more sudden. A human body was over sixty percent water, and a vampire was no different. The magic that kept him together, that had turned him into an individual, faded and he simply melted, his flesh turning into a large puddle.
With Darius, it was almost anticlimactic. A heavy wind started to blow and struck Mathias’s body, which Darius was still using. Just like that, he vanished, as if he’d never been there at all.
Darius’s physical form began to glow. Mathias said my name one last time, and then he shattered, Darius’s body cracking into a million shards of white glass. The shards came together in a hurricane of lethal magic. It didn’t touch me, the Dames Blanches, or the other people present, but it did swallow Bjorn whole.
Of course, I thought as I watched my last soulmate vanish into nothing. My soulmates were all bound together. Mathias, Declan, Malachai, Bjorn, and Darius had all been parts of Pierce before Pierce’s soul had been shattered by my father’s ritual, during our first life. Individually, they could fight him, but the spell on Pierce must’ve had an indirect effect on them when it had been triggered.
Louis had undoubtedly known. He must’ve realized that I’d come out of Lucienne if he pushed me, but he hadn’t cared, because he’d suspected Pierce would betray him.
I had failed once again. I couldn’t save my soulmates any longer. They were forever gone now, and without them, I would never have my son either.
Something at the back of my mind snapped. The final threads of determination holding my sanity together vanished into nothing. I dropped to my knees and screamed.
The wildfire of my magic finally broke free, no longer the captive of my consciousness and my soul. I had just enough time to make a blind wish and desperate grab for the lingering traces of my soulmates’ magic, and then everything went black.
Fourteen
The Damned Queen
Lucienne
“Come on, Lucy. You have to try new things from time to time.”
Diane smiled teasingly at me, inviting me to join her on the dance floor. I wasn’t any more enthusiastic about the idea than I’d been when I’d left my apartment, earlier that evening. From my seat in the small booth I’d chosen as my refuge, I eyed my friend balefully. “I’ve had more than enough of trying new things. I’d much rather stay home and have a quiet life.”
“Yes, but you’ve never been meant for a quiet life.” Diane’s familiar voice grated on me like nails on a chalkboard. “You’re meant for more.”
Was I? I didn’t think so. I didn’t want to be special. All I wanted was to be happy, with the people I loved. Was that really too much to ask? “I don’t want this, Diane,” I told my friend. “I never did.”
I blinked, and all of a sudden, Diane’s image vanished, and Pierce took her place. Unlike her, he wasn’t smiling. His face was contorted in a grimace of fierce agony. “L-Lucienne?” he stammered, and then his knees went weak, no longer able to hold him upright.
My immediate impulse was to rush to his side and keep him from falling. Prince Darius Alarisson was faster. He appeared out of nowhere by Pierce’s side and kept Pierce from collapsing.
The music in the club faded, as did the crowd of dancers that had irritated me so much. One by one, my soulmates appeared in front of me. All of a sudden, I realized this was no club, or any other location Diane had dragged me into out of an apparent desire to build up my social life. In fact, this might not be real at all.
The memory of what had just happened flashed through my mind. The horrifying sight of my soulmates being obliterated in front of me crashed over me with such potency that I was surprised I didn’t black out.
If I remained conscious, it must’ve been because the nature of this strange space kept me from falling apart completely. I was still relieved when Declan manifested by my side and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. His familiar scent and heat anchored me and I forced myself to ask the questions that, deep inside, I already knew the answers to. “What happened? Are we dead?”
“Certainly seems like it,” Declan replied. “Looks like your father was well-prepared, even for potential betrayals.”
“I’d apologize, but I’m pretty sure that’s pointless now,” Pierce mumbled, his voice still shaky and raw.
In the flashing lights of the club, he looked pale, his complexion almost translucent. Out of everyone here, he’d had the most painful end and he was still experiencing the side-effects.
I didn’t know what to say to him, to any of them. No matter how I looked at it, this was my fault. If I’d been able to remember sooner, on my own, Pierce would’ve never had to forcibly make me remember, thereby betraying my father.
I’d killed them all through my weakness and stupidity. In my heart, I’d known that my father was lying to me, but I’d been too blind and afraid of my true self to accept what was right in front of me.
Despite our dreadful circumstances, my soulmates didn’t seem that upset and didn’t panic. “So... Here we are,” Malachai said.
“Here we are,” Bjorn echoed him. “Now what?”
It was a good question. We stared at one another in silence, not knowing what to do. As I watched them, hysterical laughter bubbled in my throat. We’d spent so much time trying to beat the curse, reaching for our ultimate goal, but this was likely the closest thing we’d ever come to it. Throughout our past lives, we’d never been able to be together as a group. It was always me with one, two, or maybe three of them, if I got really lucky. Not to mention that Pierce hadn’t even been born until this life.
It was a cruel irony that we’d never get the chance to enjoy our reunion. All our hopes and dreams had been po
intless. Our desperate struggle had been for nothing.
I must’ve said that out loud, because Darius smiled at me sadly and shook his head. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. It hasn’t been for nothing. I refuse to believe it.”
“Then why are we here like this, Darius?” I asked bitterly. “Is it fate’s way of laughing in our faces?”
“Yes and no.” Bjorn walked up to me and cupped my cheek with gentle fingers. “I think it’s a chance to say goodbye. You might not be able to tell the difference, but we can. You’re not dead, Lucienne. We are. This is it for us, but you’re going to have to move forward.”
“If you’re trying to be helpful and calm me down, it isn’t working,” I said between gritted teeth. I clutched Declan’s arm as tightly as I could, desperate for some kind of evidence that this was all a bad dream.
Declan felt warm and alive against me. I could hear his heartbeat and feel his breath. But that was just it. I could hear all of their heartbeats, and I never had before. “I can’t accept this,” I murmured. “This can’t be happening. Are you all even real?”
“Well, I don’t feel like a figment of your imagination,” Pierce answered. “To be honest, I feel more real than I have in a long time.”
His mournful tone snapped me out of my incipient panic attack. Right. For fuck’s sake, I wasn’t the one who was dead, and somehow, I was freaking out far more than they were. I needed to get a grip and maybe help them somehow. “What do you mean?” I inquired.
“You know exactly what I mean, Lucienne,” he replied. “I’ve been pretending for so long, that I’m your friend, that I’m not your soulmate, that I’m your fiancé. I don’t think I’ve ever been truthful with you once, since you and I have met.
“So if that’s why we’re here, Lucienne, to say goodbye, I’m glad. I didn’t get the chance to explain everything before. I never wanted to lie to you, to use you like that. I just wanted to make you happy.
“Being with you when you were under Louis’s spell... It was both beautiful and dreadful. I know you hate me for it, and I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to you, but I guess what I’m trying to say is...”
He trailed off, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to finish the sentence. Bjorn did it in his stead. “He’s trying to say he’s sorry. He just doesn’t think he should, since it doesn’t make much of a difference.”
He still sounded calm, but at that moment, I could somehow sense that it was all a mask, that they weren’t doing any better than I was. I wanted to cry and scream at the unfairness. Instead, I forced myself to reply.
“You’re right. It doesn’t. And I was very mad at you, Pierce, when I first found out that you’d been feeding on me, as a twice-blessed. But now... Honestly, does it matter? I’ve lost you. I’ve lost all of you. You’re all talking about saying goodbye, as if I can just go back and continue my life without you. But that’s just it. I can’t conveniently forget, not again, not anymore. Not something like this.”
As Dahud, as Lucienne, as everything I was and I’d ever been, I would always mourn them. If I did go back, I’d never be the same, and I’d spend the rest of my life trying to avenge them. I was sure of it.
“Not necessarily,” a voice whispered at the back of my mind. “They think they’re going to die, but you don’t have to allow it if you don’t want to.”
I tensed as I took in the identity of the speaker. It was my own voice, or better said, that of my other self, of the queen they’d first fallen in love with. Dahud hadn’t been able to save them either, but she’d come very close. If not for that stupid vow, we wouldn’t be here, to begin with.
I was leery of Dahud, but she was a part of me, and she provided me with the solution to my problem. Curses and vows had always been in my way, for as long as I could remember. Maybe the answer was to turn to something similar.
I didn’t think my soulmates would approve of what I had in mind, but that was all right. They didn’t need to know everything. They had a tendency to want to protect me even from things I didn’t want them to protect me of.
Behind them, toward the exit, I could see a bright glow. It had nothing to do with club lights. Its magic beckoned to me, even from here, but I managed to resist its allure.
The Source. Everyone in the paranormal world knew it as the origin of all souls, and the place where they returned, once they no longer wished to be reincarnated.
My soulmates hadn’t gotten a choice, but I could still fix that. The Source couldn’t have them. I’d already decided to protect them and my father’s actions hadn’t changed a thing.
Mathias turned to look at the bright light. His eyes glazed and his face went slack. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant, as if it was reaching me through a thick veil. “You should go, Lucienne. It’s too dangerous for you to be here.”
It was a miracle he could worry about me when he was under the influence of The Source’s pull. A miracle, but also a sign.
“No. It might be dangerous, but I don’t care. If this is goodbye, I want us to do it properly.”
Words didn’t suffice, not anymore, so I infused my voice with as much magic as possible. It was easier than I expected and everyone turned to look at me. “Properly?” Darius repeated. “And what did you have in mind?”
“Well, it occurs to me that in even if in this life, we all met at last, as a group, we had very little time with one another. I thought that maybe we should fix that.”
I offered them a coy smile, or at least, tried to. Judging by their expressions, it came out as an awkward grimace. It still conveyed my message, though, and I was gratified to note that no one was paying much attention to The Source now.
Ha! Take that, origin of souls. You’re no match for a woman in love, with very little sex appeal, but enough determination to compensate.
In the distance, the light started to pulse, as if it had a heartbeat of its own. Colors flickered over its surface, a dazzling display that threatened to blind me.
Could it hear me? Shit. Okay, mental note. Do not taunt powers beyond your comprehension. It might not end well for you.
As expected, the light show drew my soulmates’ attention. My magic couldn’t overpower that. There was no point in even trying. But I was not discouraged.
“Don’t look at that,” I told them. “Look only at me. Just for now. I want you to be with me, like we were always supposed to be.
“I want you to claim me, to take me, to fuck me, to make me yours. I want you to show me I belong to you and surrender to me in turn. Nothing, no spell in the world, can change that.”
My shocking request did exactly what it was supposed to. My soulmates gaped at me, and an avalanche of predictable protests fell from their lips.
“Lucienne, you can’t be serious.”
“This is crazy.”
“We don’t know what side-effects this could have.”
It was a half-hearted effort at best. I could see their vehemence for what it was—a mask. They wanted this as much as I did, if not more. If they’d realized what I had in mind, they would’ve refused, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
If it hurt me, so be it. At the end of the day, it would still be a good trade-off, since it couldn’t possibly be worse than watching my soulmates be destroyed by the elements they wielded.
“We know enough,” I insisted. “You wouldn’t me deny this, would you? Please.”
It was a low blow, since if they all had anything in common, it was the fact that they’d always been horrible at refusing me. But I’d made up my mind and I’d go through with this, in the hope that I could still salvage something from this disaster. And I knew what to do to eliminate the lingering traces of their hesitation.
Declan was closest, so I reached for him first. I’d done something similar before, in my apartment, shortly after we’d met in this life. He’d been just as reluctant then, for similar reasons. At the time, he’d still feared the Accursed Syndrome. Now, he had worse fears. I wouldn’
t allow him to escape me, not like I had then.
When our lips met, he let out a low groan and instantly responded. I could feel the beast lurking underneath the surface, demanding to be released. If I hadn’t been distracted by the arousal that surged through me, I would’ve felt smug. His wolf had always wanted me with the same savagery and fierceness he displayed during battle. That much hadn’t changed.
Arousal was a physical sensation. It wasn’t something I should’ve been able to experience in such a space. But for mind mages, the lines between the astral realm and the real world were always blurred. In the past, this had led to me experiencing extreme amounts of pain and trauma. Right now, I was very grateful for it.
I parted my lips for his invasion and he thrust his tongue into my wet cavern, pooling all his pent-up lust, frustration, grief, and need into this one simple act. I responded with an identical hunger, devouring his mouth just like he was devouring mine.
It was only a kiss, but it made my other soulmates fold and abandon their previous misgivings. One by one, they followed Declan’s example, each in their own individual ways.
This was when I realized I hadn’t taken into account something important. I’d had sex with more than one of them before, but never with six and never outside the real world. The specifics had eluded me, both in terms of simple mechanics and regarding my reaction to it.
Malachai was the one who touched me first. I felt him coming up from behind me, kissing my neck with a mix of fervor, desire, and gentleness. As his fangs raked over my sensitive flesh, I shivered and moaned into Declan’s mouth.
In this realm, he couldn’t drink my blood, but I wanted him to. I hadn’t forgotten how good it had felt to have him feed on me. There had been a profound intimacy in the act, and I wanted to experience it again.
But I didn’t get the chance to ask for that, or for anything else, for that matter. Bjorn joined us and leaned into my personal space. He took a deep breath, as if he was reveling in my scent.
