Angry, I yelled and smacked my reflection, but the glass didn’t so much as vibrate. With a helpless whimper, I pressed my forehead to the chilly surface and let the tears fall, ignoring the way they sizzled and steamed when they passed over the singed section of skin on my cheek.
I’d hoped this globe I lived in was my portal back to life, but I felt more confined than ever. Purgatory wasn’t meant to lead to the living world, after all.
The taste I’d had of pleasure was never going to be enough, but maybe this was all I’d ever have. The Shadow’s hungry kiss still warmed my lips, his seed still hot and sticky between my legs. I hadn’t had enough. I wanted all three of them, not just one. They’d all seen me, so they must have all been sent here for me. So why was I cursed to be burned again?
A tapping sounded against the glass and I startled, looking up at the spot where I’d rested my head. Beyond the glass, a hand retreated, distorted by the fish-eye perspective I had through the curved wall. But when the hand dropped, Salem stood beneath the globe, head tilted in curiosity. He was in his human form, peering up at me.
“Benedetta. Are you in there? It’s me… Salem. Ah, I guess we didn’t really have a chance to introduce ourselves though, did we? Anyway, that’s my name. Salem. The other two are Razik and Errol. Errol’s the big guy you banged.” He dropped his eyes and cleared his throat, shaking his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be crude. Will you come out? Or, can I come in?”
His hands and face loomed large as he moved close, then he pursed his lips and blew a breath of opaque black smoke. The smoke quickly obscured his image, wrapping entirely around my tiny world. Wind whooshed around the outside of my prison, carrying snapping sounds like flapping wings. Eddies of blackness swirled against the glass, tapping like pecking birds, but my prison was too well made. I could only get in and out through the tree, so I went there, hoping he would find a way in.
The tree in my little world was a skeleton of the one outside. Dead and bone-white, it stood out brightly against the gray. Its branches scraped the edge of the glass. When I looked up into them, my breath caught at the sight of the black smoke that billowed down from above it, coiling around the limbs like inky tendrils, the way Salem’s tattoos coiled around his arms.
When it reached the base of the trunk, it coalesced into an enormous, shadowy black dragon. His shape grew more solid, with smoke still wisping from the edges of his wings as he cocked his head and blinked deep purple eyes at me. My heartbeat thrummed at the surreal familiarity of those eyes, and for a moment, I was thrown back into a past when my mind wasn’t my own. When only the mercy of death could free me from that prison.
But I had control of my senses and thoughts and actions now, and despite my confinement in this bubble of glass, I reveled in the freedom from that ancient corruption. Smiling, I stepped close to him and reached out a hand, resting it on his large, scaled shoulder. “You look so like him. Are you his son? Or, as long as it’s been, perhaps many more generations removed.”
His big snout dipped, and a questioning rumble emerged from his chest. In a deep, resonant voice, he asked, “Whose son? My father was an Unbound, so it is unlikely he is who you mean.”
My eyes widened, and then I nodded. “That explains your hair. But this …” I stroked my hand over the velveteen scales of shadow. Only one dragon I knew had ever been able to manifest his shadow into a solid form so perfectly, and the idea terrified me, but I needed to know for sure. “You must be powerful to have been able to come to me like this. Not many dragons in the world are so strong and adept at shadow magic. Why would Ked let one of his own become Unbound?”
Salem’s violet eyes flashed, and his head reared back, his talons raking at the ash-strewn ground. “Ked? What the hell do you know about Ked?” he roared.
“I know you remind me of him,” I said, giving him a level stare even as my insides tangled with fear that it was true. “Why does that anger you?”
A small burst of purple flame licked from his mouth, and I flinched, tensing. He swung his head down and huffed a smoky breath that obscured the air between us. When it cleared, he stood before me in his human form, wearing only charcoal-colored trousers, his head held high. “I’m not proud to be descended from the Void, but it’s true. If it allows me the power to be in here with you, then maybe it’s not all bad.” He eyed me somewhat warily for a beat then said, “But I’d still like to know your connection to him.”
“Why does it matter? It won’t free me. If you’re his blood, then you’re a danger to me. Are the others like you?” My voice sounded brittle, more fragile than I would have liked. I took a deep, shaky breath and turned away, clenching my fists at my sides to avoid covering my face with my hands. I wouldn’t hide, but I couldn’t look at him. Not now that all my hopes had been destroyed. He was one of Ked’s blood. Which meant he could hurt me.
“That’s why they hired us,” he said. “This tree is attuned to the Void’s bloodline. Cassandra used to be an Elite powered by his blood, and her daughter, April, now carries it too. April and her mates created the tree. I don’t think they know why you’re here though. I don’t think they know that you’re here at all. Only that this globe of yours is unusual.” His voice came nearer, and when he paused, I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. “Benedetta, look at me. I won’t hurt you.”
I was still processing everything he told me but turned anyway. “Meri made another Elite like me? Did Ked take her as a lover too, after I was gone?”
Salem frowned and shook his head. “Did Ked take Meri as a lover? Sweet Mother, no! He may be a bastard, but he didn’t stoop that low.”
I shook my head at his misinterpretation of my words. “I meant the Elite… Cassandra? Elites created with his blood are drawn to him. We can’t help it.”
His eyebrows lifted as understanding dawned. “Oh, right. Yes, he did wind up with an Elite who carried his blood, but that Elite’s name is Marcus. Cassandra managed to stay beneath everyone’s radar. I don’t know if Ked even knew she existed. She had a mate already, at any rate. A member of the Bloodline—though nobody knew they existed at the time either—” He stopped, and his eyes widened. “Wait, you said ‘we can’t help it’—you can’t be her, can you? The Benedetta? The notorious Elite who the Void took as a lover?”
“Notorious?” I asked, amused at his use of the term. But his tone didn’t hold a hint of fear or disgust, just curiosity.
“It’s you, isn’t it? Somehow that explains this.” He gestured around us at the strange little ashy wonderland that made up my prison.
“It does?”
“Yes,” he said, coming closer to me, a spark of deeper interest in his eyes. Wonder. “And it explains why you’re a ghost. You’re dead.”
“I know this.” I gave a rueful laugh. “My soul tormented to live in a prison of my own ashes for all I did to the higher races. Being loved by the Void only meant my release from the prison of Meri’s madness and corruption through his fire.”
“Do you still love him?” he asked, a bit cautious.
I sighed. “No. Killing me severed our bond. I remember him with affection. But when you said he found another Elite—one named Marcus—it didn’t spark anything in me. No feeling whatsoever.”
His expression hardened. “You’re better off not being tied to him anymore.”
“Is he that despicable now? He was always a compassionate dragon for all his darkness. Killing me was a mercy.”
Salem snorted. “Tell that to my parents.” He swiped a hand over his shaved head. “I keep it this way to honor them and so no one forgets that the Unbound existed. Their magic was stunted for most of my childhood when the Council discovered they broke dragon law. The Void was the one who punished them.”
“What did they do?”
“Loved each other and wanted to remain a family. They defied the law of renunciation so they could raise me and be part of my life. I know dragon laws have changed, but they can’t exactly go back and undo what was done i
n the past. So many dragons suffered for nothing more than falling for their own kind.”
“You were the child of two dragons?” It was my turn to marvel at his existence. In my time on earth, it was rare for dragons to mate with each other. Their laws required that they take human mates for breeding, and as many as possible at that. Their laws also required that the young be trapped in a hibernation temple for five centuries to avoid a strain on their resources and to protect them from being hunted by Ultiori Elites like me long enough to come into their power. Then the adults committed ritual suicide at the end of each hibernation—the renunciation, as they called it, but suicide nonetheless—leaving their riches behind for their newly awakened offspring.
Thus, there was never more than a single generation of dragons accessible in the world for more than a few decades at a stretch. Too short a span for the Ultiori hunters to track enough of them down to do much damage. Yet there were always holdouts, and they managed just fine outside dragon law. Unless they were discovered, in which case it wasn’t the Ultiori and my ilk they had to worry about, but their own leaders.
“My parents are still alive, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said. “And more and more dragons are coming out of the woodwork who should have died centuries ago if they’d followed dragon law.”
I shrugged. “The Ultiori did capture plenty of the ones who didn’t hide well enough. Who allowed their young too much freedom before they had the strength to defend themselves. Dragon law worked to stymie the Ultiori efforts to abduct and experiment on the higher races. It protected more dragons than it hurt.”
“It didn’t stop the war though, did it?” he bit out.
When I only blinked at him, he coughed and then cursed.
“You don’t even know about the war, do you? Shit, I forgot you were a damned legend. You only saw the beginning, the time when Nikhil was dead set on vengeance against the dragons. Well, once he reclaimed control of his mind everything changed. He discovered he’d been used by a psychotic nymph to carry out her will, and joined us in an effort to destroy her. The end was a bloody massacre, but we won. In fact, I suppose your presence here now is a byproduct of the victory.”
“I don’t know why I’m here, so I’d love it if you shed light on the issue. If it helps me find a way closer to being free of this prison, all the better.”
Salem
I’d slipped into shadow form and found a way into Benedetta’s globe with less than strictly innocent intentions, but my discovery of her identity had changed everything. I still wanted her. I still felt an inexorable tugging within my chest that had compelled me to rush through my circuit of the island, just so I could get back to the tree and try to talk to her before Errol and Razik arrived.
But now that I knew she was that Benedetta, my curiosity got the better of me. For the first time, I wasn’t the only outsider. She’d been dead all this time and had missed it all. Hell, she was probably still dead, even though Errol had managed to fuck her. Which was weird, but I wasn’t going to examine that thought too closely.
She probably had more questions than I had, and for once, I was in a position to offer answers.
“Well, you’re one of the original members of the Bloodline for starters. The ones that crazy nymph Meri recruited and then corrupted with her blood.”
She blanched, then spat on the ground in disgust. “Nikhil was who recruited me. Not that creature. He was my best friend. I loved and trusted him, and he would never have asked me to join his Elites had he known she was already inside his mind, that she would corrupt me too.”
“Fine, I’m sure I don’t have all the details exactly right.” I held up both hands and stepped closer, gripping her upper arms, as much to calm her as to confirm her presence. She certainly felt real, at least to my Shadow senses, though the burn mark on her cheek glowed like a strange, unearthly ember. I wondered if it hurt. I rubbed her arms gently, and she relaxed, so I continued. “Anyone who carried Meri’s blood was affected at the end. Which meant anyone who had ever been corrupted since the beginning, and any of their offspring or descendants.”
“Affected by what? How did they finally kill the bitch?” She gravitated closer, intense heat and energy crackling between our two ethereal bodies, tugging at that place deep inside that craved this connection more than anything.
I chuckled, gratified by the confirmation of my hope—that she held no loyalty to the Ultiori’s dead leader any longer. I knew the Elites had served the Ultiori under duress, and the legend was that Benedetta had gone insane when her love for the Void ultimately clashed with the Ultiori leader’s sick corruption controlling her mind. If that hate was as real as it sounded, she would enjoy hearing how it all ended.
“Dionysus shed his blood to control her. He pretended to offer her immortality, but used it to subsume her bloodline, so any blood of hers that still ran in anyone’s veins was replaced by his blood. The god himself. Nikhil was the one who landed the killing blow with a dagger to her heart.” I nodded at her awed—borderline triumphant—expression, as if she was happily envisioning the scene herself.
“Nikhil is still alive? And free? Did he find a new bride after Belah’s death?”
The formerly human general of the higher races army was one of the few men I respected despite his ties to the Immortals, despite effectively becoming one of them. “Nikhil led the higher races to victory. He’s still alive and happy. And Belah is alive, after all this. They’re together and have a new daughter. Their other daughter, Asha, still lives too. She and Naaz found each other just before the war. You remember Naaz, don’t you?” If my understanding of dragon history was accurate, Naaz and his twin sister, Neela, were the very first two Elites. Benedetta was the third.
Tears glistened in her eyes, and she nodded, then eagerly gripped my forearms, squeezing urgently. “He and Neela were like brother and sister to me. Are they happy? Are they well? Do they have children?”
“Naaz and Asha don’t have any children yet, that I know of. Neela…” I paused and frowned, not sure how to explain what I knew of the former Elite. That Meri had forced her into a mating with Nikhil. That she’d conceived a child from that mating who wound up being at the center of the very war so many of the higher races had died fighting.
And that that child, Deva Rainsong, had become the goddess controlling the very fate hounds who had likely sent me to this island. The story had traces of Fate all over it, and I had to suppress a shiver at the thought.
“What about Neela?” Benedetta prodded, her eyes wide and eager for the story.
“It’s complicated. But she’s very alive too, and happy. She lives in the Dragon Glade with her mates. Long story short, now there is a whole swath of humanity who possess the blood of a god, alongside a mix of higher races blood. Some are able to manifest gifts as strong as the one who crafted this tree. I think it was the creation of this tree, with its mix of earth and fire magic, that somehow called to you.”
“April’s magic. She’s the daughter of the Elite who has Ked’s blood.” She smiled and nodded. “This tree was powered in part by the Void’s bloodline. I see why it called to my soul now. My soul was all that was left after his fire burned away everything else.”
I studied her distant expression, heart pounding with uncertainty. She’d said she didn’t love him anymore, but was that true? Was I competing against an Immortal for her attention? Errol and Razik I could deal with. Even though they were both idiots to hold the Immortals in such high regard, I felt a kinship with them that filled an emptiness in my life. Not to mention, Razik could fuck like a beast, and his piercings only heightened all the sensations when he did it. But if I had to compete with a creature I loathed, I didn’t think I could handle it.
“I think it’s why your soul called to me,” I said. “That, plus a good dose of fate magic.”
When she looked up at me again, her eyes were two shining orbs of dark fire, the desire unmistakable and so powerful my blood rushed south fast en
ough for my head to spin.
“Fate? Then you are mine, aren’t you? All three of you are here for me.” She closed the short distance between us, that proprietary look intensifying. She slid both hands up my chest, raking her nails along my shadowy skin hard enough to leave lines of purple fire. The gesture conveyed ownership, and I felt the need to react to it with my own claim on her. I leaned into her, slipping my arms around her by reflex as she curled both her arms around my neck. When she found my lips with hers, I was beyond ready.
My turn.
I hauled her tight against me with a growl, reveling in the solid feel of her that I knew was only an illusion. We were both made of magic in this place, her prison, but I didn’t care. Every sensation still felt real enough. Her lips tasted like blackberry wine, her hunger feeding my own as our tongues slid hotly together. The aching throb in my cock was just as palpable as if it were flesh instead of shadow.
I gripped her hips tight in my hands, grinding my erection against her pelvis. Her answering push and moan sent hot fire through my veins. I released her mouth, brushed my lips along her jaw, and dipped my head to nip at her throat. She sighed, raking nails over my bare scalp, and arched her head back to give me access. I bit and sucked at her skin, kissing my way across her collarbone as I lowered us both down to the ashy ground.
Charcoal-scented dust puffed away from our bodies as we met the hard surface. It didn’t feel like earth, and I realized abstractly that it was slightly concave. The glass globe surrounded us on all sides. But it supported us well enough for what we were about to do.
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 26
