by Scott, Helen
No, hard living was what I’d known for over half a century and that had changed when Marcella had made an appearance in our lives.
She was our version of a chocolate bar after a lifetime of no sugar.
Sweetness and delight combined.
She changed everything but, I realized, she also made us weak.
Pain was something we were all used to, but being close to her, being around her nurturing touch, made this agony all the more intolerable.
When we eventually made it off the forest road, I groaned as the smooth asphalt beneath us rolled into being.
We carried on, but through it all, I kept my eyes shut as we traveled. I endured the ride, but felt like crying once more when we came to a standstill.
Wanting to thank the Maker for that small mercy—even if, technically, he was behind my agony in the first place—I staggered out the second we made it to a service station, and propped my hands against my knees when dizziness hit me.
As I tried to get my bearings, I heard an argument brewing.
“What are you doing? There’s no time to stop!”
Merlin was back?
Ugh.
I wanted to groan, but that would have been too painful.
Sweet Maker, whatever he’d done to me it was like nothing else. I’d endured bullet wounds, knife wounds, and had even come close to losing my arm once… But this? How he’d torn us from the dreamscape, how he’d manipulated Elizabeth through my gifts? It was worse than every single injury combined.
“She is aware I was at the compound,” Merlin was saying. “The brothers will be after her and after us.”
Marcella murmured, “Can’t you heal Keiran? Look at him. He needs a break. We’ve been traveling for three hours, dammit.”
Three hours?
Maker, that was how long we’d been in the car?
It disturbed me that I didn’t know that, but then my knees buckled when a wave of pain hit me again. As I crashed into the ground, sinking to the parking lot so fast that my cheek scraped into the asphalt, I found myself being hauled upright by my brothers a second later.
“What the fuck did you do to him?” Cade growled.
“Nothing,” Merlin replied, his tone as innocent as could be.
Lies.
I wasn’t even sure what he’d done, but he’d twisted the dreamscape, had made it seem a thousand times more real than it had ever been before. And with that reality, he’d made it so much easier to convince Elizabeth to our cause.
The second she’d seen Marcella, her terror had been all-consuming. Even I, who was accustomed to causing fear in dreams, had almost choked on her terror. It told me that, though we hadn’t known it at the time, Marcella, when she’d tortured the humans peddling Kronos, had used all her might as a Mother in the making.
Only Merlin’s meddling, only his strength, had brought Elizabeth around to our cause. The trouble was, even though I understood more than anyone why he’d done what he had, it didn’t take this pain away.
Merlin grumbled, “I didn’t realize you were such a weakling, boy.”
At his words, the silence among my brothers was so overwhelming, it was eerie. Even me, in my current state, sensed it. And when the cracking sound came next? I wasn’t altogether surprised.
Curious, even though I had an idea of what had happened, I peered through the thin slivers I made with my eyelids, and saw him rubbing his cheek where a handprint was forming with Marcella glowering at him.
“You go girl,” Cade muttered under his breath, even as he glared at Merlin.
“I’m not a weakling. Whatever you did tore through the dreamscape as though you were gliding your hand through water,” I rasped, managing to get the words out, even though every single one of them made my head ache harder. “I wasn’t even sure what you did was possible.”
“I helped make the dreamscape, boy,” Merlin groused. “Who else would know its intricacies?”
This time, the silence was wary but intrigued, and I understood why.
Here stood one of the deities who had helped forge us into who we were today.
Sure, he’d heaped a shit ton of misery on us as well, but that he was the Maker whose name we used in vain truly resonated at that moment.
Until recently, he’d just been a word. One to cuss with, one to blaspheme with. Now? He was a living, breathing entity, and he was behind our powers.
Darius cleared his throat. “We need to get back on the road.”
Marcella glared at him. “No, Merlin needs to fix whatever the hell it is he did to Keiran.”
Merlin huffed, but swaggered over to me like the god he was. I swore, he made James Dean look like a pouting teenage boy at that moment and not one of the coolest motherfuckers to grace the screen.
When his hand moved toward my face, it took all I had not to rear back, to avoid his touch, but as he stared into my eyes, I found I couldn’t evade him.
He wouldn’t let me.
One finger went to the center of my forehead, and as he stared at me, I felt a surge of warmth slip inside my veins.
It was like that moment when you first stuck your foot into bath water. It hurt initially, had you hopping around a little as you tried to acclimate to the temperature, but then it soothed.
It was the same with him.
The heat hit me first, shocking me, and then the healing balm that came with it was beyond anything I could have anticipated.
This time, there was no staying upright. My knees almost collapsed under my weight as the relief hit me. Grateful for my brothers who kept me standing, my eyes grew dazed as I looked deeply into the Maker’s gaze.
“There, boo-boo all healed,” Merlin mocked, but I didn’t even give a fuck that he was making jokes about whatever it was he’d done to me in the first place.
Sure, it made him a schmuck, but I’d already figured that out anyway.
“Now, can we get back on the road?” Merlin urged with a grunt.
Darius cleared his throat. “If you say the Cavalry is after us—”
“It is. The Lady sensed me. We weren’t quick enough in retrieving Elizabeth.”
Hell, what he’d done wasn’t fast?
I felt as though he’d torn my psyche to shreds.
“If that’s the case, why don’t you just poof us to the Reapers’ compound?” Raven queried. When no one replied, Raven snorted. “Nobody else figured that one out, huh? All the dude does is slip in and out of being like he’s on I dream of Jeannie, shouldn’t we take advantage of that if we can?”
Merlin grunted, and I heard the irritation in his voice when he said, “He’s right. We should.”
And like that, without even the clicking of his finger and thumb, I felt the air and space around us change.
In the blink of an eye, we went from the Deep South to the Virginia coast. SUVs and all.
Fuck, that was better than traveling on a private jet.
❖
Marcella
Henrick, Gabe, and five other men rushed through the front door of the mansion that we were standing in front of and dropped to their knees. Lily wandered out behind them, looking like she’d either just woken up or just had the best sex of her life. Even though I didn’t like her, I hoped it was the second—it might make this go a little smoother.
“Holy shit! Marcella? What are you doing here?” Lily exclaimed, as she ran forward and threw her arms around me.
The hug was unexpected to say the least. We’d never been friends. She was a bully, plain and simple, and I had been her target. So what her game was, I didn’t know, but if it meant I could use it to get her on our side, then I would.
“We’re actually here because we need to talk to you,” I began, as I awkwardly patted her back.
Merlin was already striding into the house as though he owned it, completely ignoring the guys who had dropped to their knees for him, or was it for me? After all, the last time I’d met any Reapers, it was when Henrick and Gabe dropped to their knees in
front of me and had asked me to share my light with them to free them of the shadows that Merlin had bound to them.
“You guys okay?” I queried when Lily finally stepped away.
“My lady, thank you for honoring us with your presence,” Henrick stated, acting as a spokesman for his group once again.
“You do realize that Merlin just walked past you, right?” I asked, somewhat bemused by their behavior.
“You saw him?” Gabe inquired, looking up at me with those too green eyes of his.
“Of course I did, he brought us here,” I replied.
“He’s actually here? It’s not just a vision?” Gabe sounded shocked.
“Nope, he’s here. We freed him from his prison,” I mumbled awkwardly.
The shock was like a wave rippling through the group of men. All of whom were off their knees in an instant, and were on their feet as they went to find the Maker.
Lily turned to me after watching the spectacle of the burly, leather-clad bikers moving like gymnasts, and requested, “Can you fill me in?”
“It’s a long story,” I replied with a sigh. “But yeah, we’ll fill you in, so long as you’ve got some food and drink you can share with us? I, for one, am starving.”
She nodded almost shyly and waved us forward into the house. The building was low to the ground and reminded me more of an Italian villa than a mansion in the U.S. The layout was open and airy, with windows and doorways everywhere.
We followed the sound of voices, and found Merlin and the Reapers sitting in the kitchen, with Merlin already making himself a sandwich and drinking from a can of Coke—I swear, he never stopped eating.
Their conversation seemed to die out as we walked in, something I didn’t appreciate.
“What’s going on?” I barked, as I leaned over and took half of the sandwich Merlin had made, biting down on it before he even realized what I’d done.
“That was mine,” he grumbled. I knew he wasn’t truly upset, because it didn’t feel like a storm had just rolled in. I smiled and he began making another sandwich, putting the plate and the remaining half in front of me. “I was merely catching up with my men. It’s been a long while since last we met.”
Nodding my understanding, I gestured between the two women who were strangers to one another. “Lily, this is Elizabeth. She’s here to help us.”
“I see,” was all Lily said, her tone cool and it was one I remembered from my days at the academy—Lily, though seemingly content with her position as mate to the Reapers, was still a bitch.
“Help how?” one of the bikers asked.
“Ah, Fredrick, it’s been such a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of your company, do we have to jump straight into business?” Merlin inquired, patting the man who had spoken on the side of his face like he was a child, even though he had a beard that was probably close to a foot long.
“While normally I would agree with you, the Cavalry will know that Elizabeth is gone by now and if they aren’t on their way here already, then they will be shortly,” Darius interjected.
“Say what now?” one of the Reapers blurted out, his eyes wide as Merlin began twirling his cane in the air like he was a Rhythmic gymnast—all while simultaneously making his sandwich. Magic was the bomb. Seriously.
“Did I stutter?” Darius replied, and I almost giggled. I loved it when he turned his power on, especially when it was with everyone but me. A familiar longing began to build within me and I recognized the hunger of my pursang for what it was—it wasn’t just for blood or for Darius. No, she wanted all her mates in her bed, and I couldn’t agree with her more.
“Elizabeth is the Cavalry’s mate. She’s also part of the triangle that needs to be formed to defeat the Lady. Lily is the other point, along with Marcella,” Keiran explained, stepping forward. His tone was respectful and his words to the point, which I had a feeling the Reapers appreciated. What they didn’t appreciate was Darius’s tone, but he didn’t appear to give a shit—things had changed since the last time we’d shown down with them, and it was evident in my mate’s stance.
“Lily is our mate, and you expect us to put her in danger?” Henrick growled from across the counter. His glare was directed toward the messenger, not the cause of the bad news. I glanced at Lily and saw a blush stain her pale cheeks, along with a twitch of a smile on her lips.
While she and the Reapers were happy together, Elizabeth hadn’t been so fortunate with her lot.
“Don’t bite his head off, young buck. It’s all part of the plan,” Merlin assured him, as he chowed down on his sandwich. “It’s nothing to get your panties in a twist over.”
“Maker, forgive me, but I can’t let you endanger my mate like that,” Henrick argued, his tone more subservient, yet there was a core of steel running through his words.
“You’d rather let the Lady win?” Merlin’s gaze was sharp as he stared his follower down.
“What would happen if she won?” Lily inquired. The sound of her voice surprised me, almost as much as the hug she’d given me when we arrived. I was used to her being smug and domineering, but that bitchiness I’d seen when she’d greeted Elizabeth didn’t seem to be there now.
Did she just hate women? Or… Maker, I didn’t have time to psychoanalyze my old bully.
“If she won, she would take over my body, use it to manifest completely in this world, and then rule over it,” I answered, looking at the other Sixth, although I guessed now she was an Eighth since she had seven mates. The thought made me grin, because she had more than me and I could barely keep up with the needs of my own mates, so I didn’t envy her one more. She frowned at me, and I realized I was smiling at an unfortunate point in the conversation. I cleared my throat and added, “She almost succeeded, and the only reason she didn’t was because Cade was able to use his powers effectively.
“For those moments when she’d overtaken me…” My throat grew thick. I hadn’t really shared this with my mates, nor had I thought about it overly because what I’d seen was too terrifying to contemplate. “I saw that she won’t stop until she rules everything and is revered like the goddess she believes herself to be, and she’s more old school—fire, brimstone, blood sacrifices. It would all be permissible under her reign and we, well, you would be living in her world. I’d either be dead or my body would be a skinsuit for her to wear around. If we even want to have a chance at stopping her, it’s going to take all of us.”
“Very well said, Daughter.” Merlin shot me an approving look.
When Lily and Elizabeth both gaped at me, and confused frowns graced the brows of the Reapers who stood in front of me, I looked at Merlin, expecting him to explain, but he was happily chewing on a mouthful of his sandwich.
It was evident that he wasn’t going to explain himself though, so by way of any kind of explanation, I clarified with a grunt, “I’m not his daughter, but I’m descended from both the Lady and the Maker. I have the ability to shadow weave and light weave.”
“If the powers are going to combine correctly and leave the world balanced after the battle, the triangle has to have one light, one dark, and one of both. Too much of one or the other and you will see it reflected in the world around you. Dark doesn’t mean bad either,” Merlin said, catching Elizabeth’s eyes as he poofed the fancy cane he sometimes carried into being, and twirled it in his hands. “It just means that there are elements to it that you don’t understand just yet.”
“Am I dark or light?” Lily asked, her tone hesitant, as though she was scared of the answer.
“That, child, should be obvious if you look at your heart,” Merlin stated, and although he had stopped speaking, it sounded more like a pause, like there was something else he wanted to say.
“I swear if someone breaks out in song, I’m out of here,” Cade grumbled.
I snickered, realizing it was exactly that kind of moment where, in a musical, someone would start singing about trusting yourself and staying true to who you are.
Merli
n frowned at him. “Hush, the adult is talking.” To her, he murmured kindly, “You know you’re not like your family. You know who you are, and thanks to your mates, you’ve been living true to yourself, have you not?”
I scowled at the Maker for his words to Cade, and briefly glanced at my time walker who looked nonplussed by the whole thing. When I looked back at the exchange between Lily and Merlin, I saw that she was blushing slightly and Henrick was there a moment later, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her as though she was as light as a feather. Gabe and Fredrick—I think that was his name, not that anyone had bothered to introduce us to all of them—were there just behind him as well.
“We have given you everything you’ve asked for, every freedom possible, was that enough for you, my love? Were you able to discover your true self?”
“You know it was,” she murmured, as she leaned up and popped a kiss on his cheek. The moment was so intimate I felt like I should look away, and yet, I was fascinated by this new Lily. She was so different from the person I had known at Westbrook.
Was it just being free of her family’s influence? Or was it being exposed to something bigger than the concerns of our ranking at school? I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was a combination of things, but this Lily was someone I could at least tolerate while we prepared for the battle of our lives.
I couldn’t deny that I was curious as to how she and the Reapers had become so close so quickly. I thought back and tried to remember if I was like that with my mates. I wasn’t sure, since it was a different situation, but maybe? I looked over at them and felt my heart swell with love. They had found me when I was at my loneliest, at my darkest, and they had slowly drawn me into the light of their love, which was something I would be forever grateful for.
The metaphors of light and dark were different for me now though. As much as I hated it, I couldn’t help but associate them with Merlin and the Lady. When I looked over at the Maker, I saw him meandering away, as though we weren’t having an intense conversation about possibly changing the very fabric of our world.
