“You’re a good teacher,” I replied. “I enjoy being taught by you.”
“Good, because you’re not leaving this bed until I finish with you.”
“Is that a threat?” I asked, sitting up as I stared down at him, tracing my fingers down his hard, muscled chest.
“No, I don’t make threats. I make promises, and I promise you won’t escape this room no matter how much you want to until I’ve had my fill of you, and that won’t be for hours, days maybe.”
“Days? And here I had begun to see my eternity as a benefit.”
“I’ll never finish with you, ever. When this world turns to ashes, and the moon becomes dust, you will still be mine, little witch.”
Chapter 31
The warehouse loomed, vacant and abandoned before us. The entire thing seemed off, wrong, and yet the closer we got to it, the more those unsettling feelings turned into curiosity that drew us in, wrapping us in a dark embrace that made us need to see what was inside. It alone sat untouched by the fires that blazed all around it. As if similar wards to the Guild protected it. Since the angels had told us about it, I was guessing it was protected by strong magic. The sky above us was an eerie orange haze filled with smoke and sulfur that threatened to choke us, rendering us useless and yet still, we remained in place.
“Something is wrong, do you feel that?” I asked, turning in a circle as I peered up and around us, wondering if they felt the lure to run inside with everything inside of them. It called to me, beckoning me closer, forward, and yet something in my head screamed against it. It slithered over my flesh, the wrongness of this place. My flesh pebbled, sending goosebumps over my skin with every step I took that brought me closer towards the large abandoned warehouse.
“I feel it,” Ristan muttered as he paused, hesitating as we stared towards the building that seemed to call to us, luring us towards it.
I stared at the large three-story building, an abandoned warehouse that looked as if no one had been inside it in a very long time. The lower portion of the warehouse had been tagged by graffiti that looked worn and muted now, as if time had taken away from the art they’d placed onto it. The ground around us was littered with debris from the homeless who sought places like this to stave off the cold of the winter. Yet no fires burned, no tents or other signs of the homeless had remained next this building. I stared at the garbage that also looked aged, long forgotten and left to decay around the building. The lower windows had been shattered, and yet the higher-up windows were made of thicker glass, probably to protect it from birds or other flying creatures from breaking them. I swallowed as my eyes climbed higher, taking in the different levels that seemed to change as I watched it.
On the highest level, there were grates outside windows yet no way into them from that height, and yet it looked as if they’d been recently placed. Scaffold seemed to surround the top, yet I knew that wasn’t something humans would do, since they usually didn’t go up that high without some semblance of safety measures, and yet there it was. Perched on the edge of the scaffolding were creatures or stones that had been chiseled and carved to look like gargoyles, watching us as we stared up into the thick smoke that clung to them.
I narrowed my eyes, fixing my gaze on them as I wondered why they’d be here of all places. This was an abandoned factory on the Spokane River, next to Gonzaga College, which had been one of the highest ranking colleges in the region. It all seemed wrong, horribly so.
“Those things aren’t just for looks, I’m guessing?” I asked, dropping my gaze to find Ryder studying them as I had been moments before.
“They’re part of the wards,” Erie answered, her fire-red hair a mess of curls that she pushed out of her face. “Some asshole sent us here to die, horribly.”
“What do you mean?” Ryder asked, his growl resonating from deep in his chest as I shivered at the fierceness of the sounds he made.
“If the wards are tampered with in any way, those beings awaken and rain down hell upon whoever touched them. They’re tied into the wards, a backup spell if you would. An added security to take out any threat to whatever they’ve hidden in this building,” she explained as her fingers moved in a slow pattern, as if she was testing the wards.
I swallowed hard as one of the gargoyles turned its solid head, tilting it as it stared down at us, luckily remaining on the perch it had been placed. I stepped closer to Zahruk, who snorted but stepped in front of me, as if I was something deserving of being protected.
“You scream a lot, woman,” he whispered thickly as he watched me turn and eyeing him carefully. “You ever tire of him, come see me. I’ll show you what it is like to be manhandled, and consumed by a desire hotter than the fires he was forged in.”
“That’s a nice offer, but you seem to forget that even if I wanted you, I couldn’t feel you,” I pointed out as I let the heat of his body sizzle against mine as I considered what he’d said, and Lucian’s absence today.
“You think we wouldn’t have ways around that?” he chuckled as his weapons withdrew from holsters, my own following his as if he’d perceived something I hadn’t.
“I’m not sure I can remove them,” Erie said, and then all hell broke loose as the wards pulsed in warning and those things on the top started to wake from their slumber. “Run!” she hissed, but it was too late.
Swords against creatures that weren’t of this world did little to no damage as they attacked us. Ryder’s clothes shredded as his beast emerged, towering over us with an impressive wingspan that both protected and blocked us from the first airborne assault.
We tried to sift out; or rather they tried and failed as explosions rocked the warehouses around our location. Something was off, wrong about us being here. I spun in a circle, staring at the Fae who seemed to put it together at the same time.
“It’s a distraction,” I uttered and ran from the fight, uncaring that they called for me as I moved at an inhuman speed away from the barrier that prevented me from teleporting. I materialized at the Guild at the same time as the Fae began to pop in.
The Guild’s doors stood ajar, hanging from the hinges as if something had exploded from inside it. My feet were heavy as I peered around, swallowing the nausea that threatened to spill from my lips as I stepped over the body of my mother. Tears burned in my eyes, obstructing my gaze as I moved deeper into the Guild’s now-charred main room.
“Where is she?” I demanded as Joshua turned and stared at me. His shoulders drooped as he shook his head. My wings unfurled as anger rushed through me. “Where is my sister?”
“They waited for you to leave, and then they set off a device,” he answered thickly, his own emotions rolling through him as fire burned in his eyes. “The angels took her, saying her child couldn’t be born into this world or any other.”
“They sent us to the warehouse to die,” I growled. “And they attacked us from within.”
My stomach sank; tears blocked my words as I shook my head. This wasn’t fucking happening. Not my sister, not now, after everything we’d been through, after everything we’d come through.
“Count the dead, tally the numbers, and bring in the healers,” Synthia uttered from the door where they’d entered behind me. “Your mother…”
I swallowed tears as I spun around, staring at Zahruk, who cradled her crumbled form in his arms as if she was a treasure he’d discovered. I dropped to my knees as I swallowed scream after scream and then stopped holding them back.
I stood, staring at her as I searched for my grandmother. “Grandma?” I asked Joshua who shook his dark head again.
“All the witches are dead or missing, as if they vanished when the angels took Kendra,” he admitted. “I searched the dead, but I didn’t find her among them.”
“It’s possible they went after them,” I mumbled as I surveyed the dead or dying in the midst of what was supposed to be a sanctuary. “How could they d
o this?”
“It was spelled from those intending harm, or to enter to do harm. And something removed the wards to prevent fighting,” Erie admitted without her usual candor entering her tone. “Someone fucked us. They removed the wards, and yet they twisted them as well. They work against anyone who casts or cast spells inside here. You need to not cast or use magic until I fix them,” she said, turning her eyes to my mother’s lifeless body. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
“My mother…” I swallowed hard as I felt for the pain, and yet nothing. I felt nothing, as if something was holding the pain back from me. I swallowed again as I shook my head. I shook my head; denial clung to my tongue as I continued shaking my head. This wasn’t happening. Not now, not when we’d been doing everything we could to prevent this from happening, to save the world! “No. No, this isn’t real.” I stared at her, waiting for the pain to rip me asunder, to tear me apart and yet there was only a cold detachment and denial in the place where it should have been. “They sent us away, and then they did this. What kind of angel would send people to their deaths and then murder innocent people?”
“The kind who think they’re right. They think they’re saving the world, so in their heads, we’re the bad guys,” Ryder expelled on a sigh. “Zahruk, catch their scent and get the hounds out covering every inch of this town searching for Kendra. Her time is near, and I fear they may not care or wait for her to have the child before they remove it. Zealots who fear what they cannot understand don’t need a reason to murder innocent people.”
“On it,” he said as he moved to the table and placed my mother onto it.
Joshua stepped closer, closing her eyes as he turned to look at me. “I’m going with.”
“Go,” I said softly as I stared at my mother, the woman who had given me life. “Where’s Alden?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t have left my mother unprotected.
“No,” Synthia growled as her head snapped up at my words. Her violet eyes moved me to my mother, and then out the door. “Find him, now!” she demanded and blinked back black tears as I stepped to the corpse and pushed her blonde hair back from her face.
There wasn’t a single mark on her that I could identify or find, and yet her heart wasn’t beating. She looked peaceful in death, as if she was sleeping. I touched her cheek, lowering my mouth to her forehead as I placed a gentle kiss against the cold flesh.
“I’ll fucking slaughter them all,” I promised. “I will avenge you, mother. I promise you that,” I sobbed as I shook my head, stepping back and feeling his presence before he even materialized behind me.
“Why are the wards down?” Lucian demanded and then his midnight depths settled on my mother’s unmoving body, and he expelled a breath before he pulled me against him. “What the fuck happened? How did they get in?”
“We let them in,” I uttered through rage and despair. “We let them in, and they killed her, and have my sister. They’re going to murder her and her unborn child.”
“No, they won’t,” he growled. “Spyder, find them, and the moment you do, fucking destroy them all.”
“My pleasure,” he chuckled as he stepped closer, running his finger down my cheek before leaning over and kissing it. “I will bring you their heads, kitty. I’ll make sure they die screaming.”
“They have Alden and Sarah, we need them back too,” Synthia added as she helped a man sit up, his head a mass of cuts and bruises. “I want them brought back alive; they need to suffer for what they did.”
“They’re archangels, Pet. They aren’t easily killed. If they are to die, it will need to be done swiftly, before they sense it coming. I’m going with him, to see if I can help them.”
“You can’t become shadows, I can. I can also kill angels whereas you cannot. You’ll only hinder me.”
Ryder stared at Spyder, and I hissed. “You can compare dicks later, find my sister!”
They vanished, and I stared at the blood that covered the floors and then Synthia’s gaze as she did the same. Someone had fought hard…
I didn’t wait to see if they followed as I rushed through the room, following the blood until we were down in the catacombs. I came to a stop as a bloody heap came into view.
“Oh, Alden,” I murmured as I dropped to my knees beside him. Ristan was there instantly, his hands pulling the man closer, onto his side.
“Get Vlad, now!” he shouted as Synthia watched with wide eyes, horror shining in them. “He’ll live.”
“How did he get down here?” I asked, searching the shadows around us.
“Who cares?” Synthia snapped.
“Something dragged him down here and then left him. It was feeding off of him!” I shouted back, watching as the others lifted their eyes and then stared down at the bite marks in Alden’s legs.
“We’re not safe here,” she uttered. She grabbed Alden’s hand and then stared into the shadows, and then they shone with light. She lit the shadows up until there was no place to hide, nowhere for the monsters to go. I didn’t move, didn’t need to as she let loose a scream that misted the monster’s into ashes, her own anger a palpable thing as she let go of the hold she held on it. “Nobody comes into my sanctuary and fucks with my people!”
“They left it open to be attacked,” I swallowed as Ristan’s frown confirmed it. “I could almost understand their need to stop the child of Lucifer from being born, but to leave the Guild open to attack after sending us out to die, that I can’t understand.”
“War doesn’t make sense, ever. Don’t try to understand their logic, or why they did something evil. Evil doesn’t make sense, it just happens, and you deal with it after it does,” Synthia said as we watched Vlad sift in, his silver eyes taking in the damage done to Alden, along with the blood loss.
“I can’t,” Vlad whispered. “I can only try to save him, but Alden doesn’t want immortality.”
“I don’t care what he wants, he doesn’t get to leave me,” she snapped. “Fix him, or turn him. I will not lose any more people today.” She paused, turning to stare at me as tears filled her eyes. “We seriously need a win, people. We need the wards down, replaced, and then we need to get the wounded to Faery where they will be safe. After that, we need a fucking plan that gets us closer to ending this war because I’m sick of hiding and licking our wounds as they throw punches.”
“Then let’s do this,” I uttered as I stepped closer to her, watching as Vlad pushed a needle into Alden’s vein and started the transfusion. “He will need to heal mentally.”
“He’s the strongest man I know,” she stated.
“He just lost the love of his life,” I mumbled. “My mother…is dead.” Tears slid from my face as I turned to find Lucian watching me from where he leaned against the wall, staring. “Find her, Lucian. Before it’s too late,” I begged, uncaring that it exposed my weakness, or that it was a plea. She was my sister, my twin. I sent my emotions and senses searching for the bond but felt nothing, only an emptiness where it had once been, severed in death.
Chapter 32
Day turned into night as we waited; every minute seemed like an endless vigil of hopelessness as we prayed to any God listening to bring them back alive. I struggled through emotions, the basic need to mourn my mother, and yet the coldness inside my body seemed at odds with what it took or needed. I’d felt the tears slip over an hour ago and yet they seemed to come and go, as if I felt it, and yet…didn’t fully accept it? It was a war that seemed to be waging in my mind. I knew she was gone, I felt it. I felt the stab of pain that every once in a while would creep up and seem to strangle me out of the blue, but then just as quickly as it had come, it vanished, and I was empty again.
Joshua sat beside me, silent as he stared at the funeral pyres we’d erected for our mother and coven which seemed to spread out further than the eye could see. Over fifty bodies lay bathed, wrapped and ready to receive their final rites. Our entir
e coven was gone, missing, or dead. It seemed like a nightmare I wouldn’t awake from, and yet in the place where my heart ached, it ceased to beat. As if it was protecting myself from the pain it knew I held.
Lucian placed his hand on my knee, and I stared at it, the warmth it spread through me was comforting and yet unneeded. I was missing a part of me, that part that should be screaming hysterically, bawling my eyes out because I’d lost my mother.
“Lena, how are you feeling?” Lucian pried, his eyes seeming to burn with the question as he stared at my side profile since I refused to look at either him or Joshua.
Alden was being given vampire blood, recuperating from being dinner to some unknown monster that had entered the Guild to feed. My mother was dead, and my family missing, and he wanted to know how I felt? I didn’t even know how I felt.
“Empty,” I admitted as I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I feel…numb. I’m hollow, like I’m missing a part of me. I know I should be screaming, or crying, or shit, anything but this cold unfeelingness that I feel, right?” I reached for Joshua’s hand, curling my fingers around it as I shook my head. “I feel pissed, like I need to kill things, anything. I can’t just sit here doing nothing, it’s too much.”
“You’re in shock. I saw a lot of it in Afghanistan. You don’t sense what happened, you just keep moving. Not feeling it or giving into the pain of the loss you witnessed seemed to work, until you’re alone and it’s the only thing you do know. I think I’m in shock too because I’m just…numbed to what I should feel,” he stated as his fingers tightened around mine.
“We should be screaming or crying,” I uttered through a heavy tongue. “So why aren’t we?”
No, the truth was I couldn’t feel her loss, not fully. I couldn’t feel shit right now, as if all my emotions had gone mute other than rage and anger. Sure, it felt like something was squeezing my heart, or tearing it out, but not the debilitating pain I’d felt at losing Joshua, which is what I should feel, right? I wanted to burn down the world, to dance in the blood of the archangels as I bathed in their entrails. It was all wrong.
Becoming his Monster Page 24
