by Scott, Helen
Lily’s power flowed like warm honey into the structure, slowly bringing the balance back a little more. It didn’t feel quite so dangerous or precarious as it had a moment ago. Now, I was just waiting until I felt like I had enough. When I shut the connection down, I was a little sad for it because her light was so beautiful. It was warm and golden, full of pure happiness, unlike the Lady’s, which was cold and bright but fierce. The area around me seemed to grow tense, as though the magic that had allowed me to connect with Elizabeth and Lily had been cut off.
Once all three powers were aligned, I used my own to fill in the cracks, to balance, and bring it all together. My shadows and light wrapped around it, just enough to keep it stable. I braided the four sets of power together, making a pin that I could easily pull to set this bomb off, because that’s what it was. I was under no illusion about what I had created.
I wasn’t sure whether Merlin would see it for what it was or not, and since he tended to be somewhat self-absorbed I was betting on not, which is what would, hopefully, allow this to work. Not only would the bomb go off and destroy the soul-shard, but it would also destroy Limbo, preventing anyone from using it again. At least that was my idea behind it—the reason I’d called on the Lady’s power too, because if anyone had the power to blast this place to hell, it had to be her.
“It’s very pretty,” the soul-shard praised, her eyes wide with delight.
“Thanks,” I replied, stepping back to admire my handiwork. The structure was solid, sturdy, and not going anywhere without my permission. Merlin could try to move it if he wanted, but this thing was tightly bound to Limbo, and even with all his power as the Maker himself, I would be surprised if he had any control over this thing.
“Merlin,” I called. “I’m ready.”
Nothing happened. He didn’t appear. And that just pissed me off. I hadn’t spent however long I’d been stuck here working on this thing just for him to forget about me, and it felt like I had been working on it for hours. I was exhausted and wanted to go back to bed, but for that I needed the Maker to get off his ass and take me home.
“Merlin!” I screamed this time, stomping my foot for good measure.
When he appeared a few minutes later, I was fuming mad. My anger, and possibly the fact that she had sensed him coming, had made the soul-shard disappear back into the mist. He looked groggy, as though I’d woken him up, which only irritated me further.
“Nice of you to show up,” I snapped.
“Nice of you to take almost twelve hours to do a simple job,” he snarked back.
“Twelve hours? How am I not hungry or thirsty? Why don’t I need to pee?” I exclaimed.
“Limbo takes away any physical needs,” he replied simply, as he began to look over my structure. His eyes traveled over the sleek lines and I mentally begged him to say something negative about it just so I could have an excuse to unleash my anger. “A unicorn?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
“They are peaceful but also kick ass.”
“How is a unicorn kickass?” he queried, now with both brows raised, as though my response couldn’t have confused him anymore.
“Because they can stab people with their horn, duh,” I answered, folding my arms across my chest, just wishing I could stab him.
“Well, so long as it works, then it can be whatever shape you need it to be, child,” he said, patting me on the shoulder as though I really was a child.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’ll work,” I stated, surer of that than I had been about a lot of things recently. “Now, can I go home and take a nap?”
“You can go to the Reapers’ place if you want, but I don’t think your mates would appreciate me taking you back to Westbrook.”
“Westbrook isn’t my home,” I countered instantly, the notion utterly repugnant to me.
“Then where is? Because from where I’m standing, you don’t have one,” Merlin challenged with a slight sneer.
I wanted to punch him in his dumb face, but I didn’t, just thought about stabbing him with the anchor’s horn to calm me down. Sighing, because the bastard wanted an answer, I said, “Just take me back to my mates. They’re my home, not a place.”
And like that, he took me from this place.
The last thing I saw before the world disappeared around me was the soul-shard in the mist, smiling sadly as she waved at me.
❖
Barclay
“You have to be fucking kidding me!”
My mate sounded pissed, in fact, no, she sounded furious. Despite our situation, I realized I’d rarely heard her sound so aggravated. Wanting to see what was the matter, I tried to pry my eyelids open, but it was harder than it should have been. In fact, it felt damn near impossible. My brow puckered as the attempt to open my eyes became a problem of gargantuan proportions.
Deep inside, where the wolf rested, I felt the beast whine. His own agitation reached fever pitch as I realized I couldn’t actually wake up. I was somehow tied to the physical prison of my body, something that should be no prison at all.
My limbs felt heavy and my body was a dragging weight that tied me in place.
This was more than a regular slumber, which meant I wasn’t in the bedroom back at the Reapers’ compound where I’d fallen asleep with my brothers and my woman after a decadent night in her arms. But my current location was currently unknown to me, and all I knew was that Marcella was somewhere in the vicinity, and she sounded annoyed.
Just because I was locked into this form, however, didn’t mean I couldn’t pull on my other senses. The link with Marcella was distant, distressingly so. Even though I knew she was close to me, there was a distance that felt like a buffer had been shoved between her and me. My wolf whined, pawing at the ground like it wanted to take off into a run that would lead to Marcella—because, to that simple creature, all roads led to our mate.
Not since before she’d claimed me had the link been so flimsy, fragile even. It felt like it could shatter into a million pieces, and I was well aware that what I had with my woman could never be described with such weak words. So, what the fuck was going on?
Marcella was tied to me and I to her, so the fact that the link between us was so precarious told me outside forces were at play.
The second that thought hit home, I realized I was the dumbass my brothers accused me of being. I couldn’t open my eyes, was locked into a weird kind of stasis, so of course there were outside forces at hand.
Drawing on my senses again, I scented the earth around me. I wasn’t in bed, because beneath my body, I could feel twigs and leaves against my skin, digging into me at various pressure points where my flesh connected with the ground. The scent of loam drowned my senses, the overwhelming odor of the forest made me realize I’d been moved. As strong as Marcella was, I didn’t think that even she could carry me out of bed then haul me into the woods—that’s to say we were even in the forest that was closest to the Reapers’ compound.
No, I scented Merlin’s magic at hand.
The thought had my wolf snarling, then, just as I tried to pry my eyes open once more, deep inside my mind, there was that gentle vibration that heralded a voice. I’d heard from the Mother of my kind before, but this time, it was different. It reminded me of a radio connection back in the day. Spotty, like the antenna needed adjusting to get a better signal.
“Little wolf, little wolf,” the voice murmured, a sadness there that surprised me.
“What’s happening?” I asked, aware that my tone was quite demanding, but I didn’t give a damn. She was doing something to my link with Marcella, and that was something I couldn’t tolerate. Though I’d originally believed Merlin was behind this strange paralysis of my body, the fact Morgause was speaking with me told me she was to blame.
“For once, I have no hand in this, but I wished to warn you. My power is waning, but I had to speak with you.”
My body grew tense at the silken words. Warn me? Up to now, the Sires had been a secondary source of con
cern for us. Downgraded from a primary source once we’d realized the Lady was the one pulling their strings, but that hadn’t made the threat of them disappear.
Monkeys could be dangerous, whether or not the organ grinder was present.
“Warn me against what?” I questioned eventually, because the Mother had chosen to be reticent rather than reply without me prompting her.
“Such little faith,” the tinny voice chided, then came a sigh. “I suppose that’s my own fault. Indeed, I mean you no harm. There is no harm I can give.”
My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” As far as I was aware, the Sires were omnipotent. All seeing, all knowing, all-powerful.
“I am of this realm no more. My father saw to that.”
Bewilderment had everything deep inside me freezing in place. “You’re dead?”
“Death,” the Mother mused, “yes, I suppose to you it would seem that I am dead. But death is different for creatures such as my siblings and me. For Marcella too. For she is a Descendant, is she not? A Sire in her own right.”
It disturbed me to no end to think that my woman could be in any way, shape, or form like the Sires. I preferred to think of her as a Descendant. Call me stupid, but that didn’t freak me out as much. The Sires were ruthless when it came to having their desires realized. Their power knew no bounds. They were selfish and belligerent where their wants and demands were concerned. Was it any wonder I wanted to believe my woman had no similarities to them at all?
“Indeed, she doesn’t,” the voice whispered in my head. “But she is fortunate. I’ve endured several lifetimes. In all those years, my brothers and sisters were my singular companions. Perhaps if I had been granted the boon of a mate, or several, I wouldn’t be as heartless as your mental accusations deem. Maybe I, too, would not be a lost cause. But that was never my path. My path was to create a species. To be the Mother of those people. I completed the job, but not to my father’s satisfaction. That rage is something my siblings and I have all felt upon his awakening.”
“Merlin killed you?” I whispered, surprised despite myself.
“We will never awaken, that is for sure. No, he did far worse than that. He separated us from our forms, then imprisoned us somewhere we will never escape. I believe I’m only speaking with you now because I hope that this is the fates’ way of helping us make amends for what we’ve done. I don’t know how long I have, so you must listen,” Morgause murmured, a glumness to her tone I could understand if she was telling the truth.
Of course, if was the key word there. Lies were something the Sires were all comfortable in doling out, but there was something about the way she controlled my body that told me otherwise. She had paralyzed me in a way that spoke of a heavy hand, the force of a hammer more than the skillful slicing of a surgeon’s scalpel. Not only was her voice weaker than I’d ever heard it, but she sounded sad too, and that was weird enough to have me at least listening to what she had to say.
“How are you talking to me? Why is this happening?” I questioned, wanting to understand the impossible. “If you’re dead, then…”
“Because you are a powerful wolf, little one. More powerful than even you realize. I may no longer be on this plane, may be locked away in my father’s magical hidey-hole in the sky until my essence is drained from me, but my tie to you was surprisingly pliable. I decided to test the limits of my prison to see if I could warn you.”
“You said that before,” I growled. “If you’re going to warn me, get on with it. Something’s happening. I need to help Marcella.”
Her laughter was a gentle titter in my head. It was such a bewildering sensation, something I shouldn’t have been able to feel and yet did. How could my body have a visceral reaction to a sound that hadn’t manifested itself? It was a question I’d never know the answer to.
“I understand why you thought awakening Merlin, liberating him, was a good move. We’d rather tied your hands, hadn’t we? Made it so that you had no alternative but to go to him. But the Lady, for all she is deviant, is a far less terrifying master.”
“Don’t you mean mistress?” I asked, and though the question may have seemed stupid, the difference meant something. The Mother was from a different time, a different age. Nor did she make mistakes.
Another titter of general laughter made itself known to me. “Well caught, little one. Indeed, the phrase slave mistress isn’t often heard. She is not as powerful as Merlin, but she is devious with the power she has, and I admit, not to be trusted. But Merlin is the most dangerous of them both.”
For some reason, it felt like she believed she was telling me something I didn’t already know. “If you think we trust him, then you’re insane.”
The silence that followed had a strange taste to it. Had I surprised her? Or was she irritated by my rudeness? When she eventually huffed, I assumed it was the latter rather than the former.
“It took all the Lady’s might, every single ounce of it, to tie Merlin to his eternal prison. But even as she managed that, he severed something from her, something intrinsic, and held it in a prison too. The Lady you have met is not the Lady I once knew. She is a direct result of corruption from the Maker. I’m not asking you to believe that she is wholly innocent. A creature of such power is incapable of that. But she was not like what she is now. And when allegiances come to rest, one has to see that decision through.”
Carefully wading through the words to reach her meaning, I hesitated and asked, “You mean that by the time you’d given her your allegiance, she was already bat shit crazy, and she was the kinder of two evils?”
The Mother’s snort set my teeth on edge. “Yes, indeed. Plus, whatever Father did to her reduced her power drastically. To the point where she was barely tangible most of the time. Only at certain points of the year, certain points of the season, did she present any true threat.”
I wasn’t sure why, but that interested me more than anything. “What do you mean? More tangible?”
“My brother, sisters, and I exist for a reason. Our purpose was to create separate lines of creatures who would subsist together. But Merlin is no purist. He doesn’t care how, or why, to him, the end justifies the means. You were raised in a culture that appreciates the purity of bloodlines. The child of two shifters hold more power and prestige in this world than a child born of a shifter and a Vampire such as yourself.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered, then finding myself irritated by her words, grumbled, “Anyway, how is this supposed to help?”
“I did not mean to rub salt in the wounds, little one, just to explain. The purity of blood does not make for more power. Indeed, its power is borrowed. Given only by culture not creed. You, a creature who can pull on the powers of two separate species, holds far more power than a man who can only turn into an animal at will. You have to see this, don’t you?”
I wasn’t as stupid as my brothers thought, but I understood where she was going with this, even though it confused me. Of course, most of the kids at Eastbrook had been taught that our shared lineage was a detriment to us. That it made us weak, useless only as a means of policing the true, decent folk in our society. She spoke sense, but that sense went against ingrained teachings from an Academy that had tormented its lessons into being remembered.
“You are conditioned not to understand, and that is why Father is angry. To him, the salsang are what he has aspired to create since the beginning of time itself. But, you have to understand, we were suspicious of his motives. Didn’t trust his path because why would we? He was corrupt with power. Evil with it. The Lady, too, is evil. And in the grand scheme of things, I’m certain my brother and sisters and myself seem it too. But evil comes in various shades, and whatever Merlin wanted, it was a natural inclination not to give it to him. There is a reason he wanted the salsang to be born, to be created. A reason we had to put a stop to.”
“So, you made it your duty to do the exact opposite. To give us as little power as possible,” I mused, finally understandi
ng where she was going with this. Though, deep inside, I was irritated as all hell at her words, I also understood.
How couldn’t I?
I didn’t have to like it, but from what she was saying, if she was to be believed, we’d just unleashed an evil on the world in an attempt to combat the Lady.
Round pegs didn’t fit in square holes unless you hammered them home. It seemed like we’d been doing more hammering than any of us had expected, and all with the end goal of keeping our woman safe. Motives didn’t have to be understood to be dissected.
“Yes, little one. Whatever we believed to be his intention, we did the opposite. It seems like a childish rebellion against a parent, but it wasn’t. It was simply self-defense. Merlin wanted what he wanted for a reason, and that reason is something that drives him to this day. As he dealt with his misbehaving children, he uttered the words, confessed as much.
“Yes, we Sires possessed a power that was singular, but those powers were born from the merging of the Lady and Merlin’s powers. We are nothing, could do nothing that they can. When the Lady imprisoned him, he stripped something intrinsic from her, and when she learned of his intentions, his desire for the salsang to be more powerful than their originators, she set us to task.
“Not only must we blur the lines, but we must make it so that no one ever believed the salsangs were anything more than weapons in an army that had to be controlled by its betters.” Though I stiffened at her words, I didn’t interrupt. The tininess of her voice had grown worse, the quality had weakened, and it made me think she wasn’t going to be able to speak with me for much longer, so I held my tongue even as irritated as I was. “While we did this, we were also charged with another task. We sowed seeds in several lines, lines that we knew would develop into powerful families. Over the years, they converged, resulting in Descendants. But destiny has a means of manifesting when one least expects it. Marcella is born of us all, her blood laced with traces of power from not only my siblings, but the Lady and Merlin herself.
