I forced myself to focus on the task which awaited me on the other side of the door. I trusted Romulus as much as I trusted Merlin, which was a damn sight more than I trusted anyone beyond my sister. The lycan would return with her, or they would not return at all. It was out of my ability to control.
I pushed through the door and strode into the room, ready to handle matters that I had power over.
Three vampires, two males and one female, jumped at my entrance. They watched me with wary respect as I crossed to the large ornate seat on a raised dais, imitating a throne room. I sat with pronounced ease, looking at them with the same gravity I would give a summer day’s feast.
I waited, the room in total silence, and let them stew in their thoughts. The minutes dragged by and their unease grew. I could hear their blood pumping through their veins. Two had fed recently, and my nose twitched at the scent of their feeders. They burned with power, but their power was a candle to my lighthouse, and they knew it.
The grand doors at the other end opened, and each of them whirled towards the entrance, their hands out, ready to defend themselves. Interesting.
I rose smoothly as my sister marched into the room, her elegant blue dress swirling around her feet. Many would not consider her a great beauty, and it was true that it was rare for a vampire to have Down Syndrome, but I knew no other vampire that I would prefer more to be at my side.
“Dearest sister,” I greeted Mina, ignoring the vampires I had requested to meet with today.
“Brom,” she said dryly. She looked towards the others as she passed them and offered her cheek for me to kiss. “What’s this?”
“A lesson in political philosophy as well as housekeeping,” I answered, and snapped my fingers. A uniformed man stepped away from the wall, a chair appearing in his hands as if conjured by magic. He set it beside mine and my sister sat with a nod of thanks.
I turned my attention at last to the three vampires in front of me. They had been smart enough to stay silent until now.
“Cortez, Harris, and Charity,” I greeted them as I sat. I crossed one leg over my knee and watched them carefully. “You three have worked for the family for many years now. The information and knowledge you’ve provided have benefited the Syndicate greatly.”
“Thank you, sir,” the burly one on the left, Harris I believe, answered as he shuffled his feet.
I tapped my fingers against the armrest and cocked my head.
“Charity.” The woman looked at me, her eyes narrowed. Good, it meant she wasn’t afraid. She was beautiful: long straight black hair, dark eyes that promised delicious nightmares. Perhaps a year ago I would have considered her, but my phoenix had consumed me utterly. “Would you say it was better to be loved or feared?”
She arched her eyebrow, the men frowning at my question. “It all depends, I would think, Master Tepes.”
“Hmm, yes, I suppose you are correct,” I tapped my chin, dropping into thought.
“Sir?” That would be Cortez.
I narrowed my eyes at him before looking to the others. “My father ruled with fear, striking down anyone who dared to fail or offend him. I cared little, knowing my position secured. Those who acted against him did not survive for long, even those who fled the city.”
Even Charity began to look uneasy.
“I hoped to be different than my father,” I said with a long-suffering sigh. “I had hoped to rule with love. It is something we all desire, is it not? To be loved?”
I waited for a response, looking at them expectantly.
“I–I believe so, sir,” Harris answered. The vampire looked as if he wanted to wring his hands, but he kept his arms at his side.
“When you love someone, it means you act in their best interest”—my heart stuttered as I thought of Ella—“even if it is at great cost. Perhaps that cost is your position, or a cherished possession, or maybe money. . .” I trailed off. Of the three, Charity appeared the least fazed. In fact, she nearly looked bored.
“Tell me, Cortez,” I spat out his name. The man jumped, flinching under my glare. “Was the five thousand dollars and warlock blood worth betraying your Syndicate?”
“I don’t–I don’t know–”
I roared as I flew out of my seat towards him. He only had time to take one step back before I wrapped my hand around his throat and lifted him in the air with a snarl. Harris and Charity startled, watching us in terrified awe. Cortez gripped my wrist with both his hands, his feet swinging in the air.
“Do not presume to lie to me,” I sneered as I lowered him to his feet. “You have been feeding Madam Jupiter information without clearing it with your betters. You thought you’d escape my notice. That I was different than my father. More kind, more forgiving, more merciful. You would be mistaken.”
The vampire’s eyes went wide as I crushed his windpipe, a cold indifference filling me as his blood flicked out of his mouth, staining my suit.
I refused him the dignity of a quick death—suffocating him and letting him drown in his own blood as I held him upright. His legs twitched as his body struggled to survive. Vampires were not easy to kill, many opponents going for decapitation or complete obliteration.
Cortez had posed a risk to Ella’s life. He would not find a mercifully quick death from me.
Harris and Charity watched on, a new respect in their eyes, as Cortez finally slumped lifeless in my grip. I dropped him, his head cracking against the floor, and returned to my seat. Charity ignored the dead vampire, but Harris stared at Cortez for a long moment before turning back towards me.
I studied them carefully. Harris looked like a dock worker, and he easily passed through the terrestris world. He’d never rise to great heights, but he was loyal. Charity, on the other hand, could rise high enough to challenge me for my seat if she chose to.
“Harris”—the man snapped to attention—“you’re working with Langley. You’ll take over Cortez’s contacts, and your pay rate has been doubled. I commend you for your loyalty to the Syndicate.”
His eyes went wide at that, but he bowed quickly, stammering his thanks. I waved him off as I looked to Charity. The woman had crossed her arms and nearly glared at me.
“Charity.” I perched my chin on my fist as I watched her. “You’re intelligent, and more dangerously—clever. But you are not as loyal to the Syndicate as Harris.”
Harris looked as if he feared for the woman, but she met my eyes stoically. “I am loyal to myself first and foremost. If it is best to abandon the Syndicate, I would without hesitation.”
“Abandon, not betray?”
“As you said, I’m intelligent and clever.”
“Then let us ensure you never have a reason to abandon us,” I said. “I have need for a new enforcer. You would do well in the position.”
That, at last, got a reaction of out of her. An enforcer position would launch her up the ladder in the Syndicate hierarchy. She would have more freedom, access to Syndicate coffers, and the power to make promises I would be honor-bound to keep.
“Don’t answer yet,” I said. “But soon. Inform Mrs. Widmere of your decision when you’ve made it. You both are dismissed.”
They both bowed and quickly retreated from the room, and I slumped in the chair, feeling the beginning signs of a migraine. A feeding would resolve the ache, but without Ella, I was loath to drink from a sycophant or blood-slut.
“Did you answer your question?” My sister’s voice made me look over at her. Her eyes were bright with keen interest in her round face.
I sighed and stared at Cortez’s body.
“It is best to be both feared and loved,” I answered at length.
“Good,” she agreed. “Now, where is Merlin? I’ve missed him.”
As if she had summoned him, the warlock strode through the doors with a cocksure swagger. When he saw my sister, his smirk turned into a broad smile.
“Little tooth!” He crowed as he bounded towards her, his arms wrapping around her.
�
�Sparky!” She teased back, both of them using the juvenile pet names they’d called each other for years.
“Your asshole of a brother didn’t tell me you were visiting.” Merlin stepped back, inspecting her. He’d always had a soft spot for her, and she had once declared herself in love with the man. That childhood love had been full of innocence. An innocence that had disappeared by the time Merlin had returned to New Londonium. He’d been fiercely protective of her since, nearly as protective as me.
“He’s been busy,” she defended me, and I shrugged.
“And he’s about to get busier,” Merlin said and looked at me. “Genevieve has called the lycans together. They’re to decide if they side with you or Madam Jupiter.”
Chapter 11
Eleanora
Chaos rippled through me as every atom was torn apart by Suanach Aoife’s touch. Reality itself was being torn asunder, my mind being stretched across creation. The power which had been restrained in me since my father’s death sang its joyous praise at being united with the source of its divinity. The power I held . . . I had only tasted its strength. I never had a hope of mastering this creature on my own.
Flames crashed through me as oceans exhaled upon the shores. Each time the tide retreated, it took more of me with it until I ceased to exist. My soul was cast not into a fire, nor a volcano, but into a star, blazing so bright even across the universe.
Time ceased to exist, reality was destroyed, and I was nothing but hydrogen burning in the universe.
My mind emptied as stars formed, swelled, and super nova-ed in the vacuum around me. They were my brothers and my sisters, my family, and I watched as a millennium raced by. Planets orbited, meteorites and asteroids crashed together, and life fought for survival on barren rocks and chaotic streams.
I mourned as my star siblings burned out, their deaths blasting across their galaxies, giving birth to a new order. Life is chaotic and unexplainable, in the greatest expanses of galaxies all the way down to the inner workings of the atoms. To try to quantify it leads to madness and sorrow. To embrace it leads to freedom.
In this form, there was no regret, no love, no fear, no happiness. It was everything and nothing. It was the peace of acceptance of futility, of the cycle of creation, of death and destruction. Of challenges and rewards. Of the profane and holy. All of it pulsating out of the original fire, the divine flame which had created everything. That now burned in everything, in every creature’s atoms. In Suanach Aoife.
In me.
I turned my awareness towards the atoms that burned for me, that I recognized as a part of me yet separate.
I formed around the marble planet, seeking out those I loved as reality and recognition began to knit back together. And as my perception returned, so did a new understanding.
I had thought, for a moment, that Suanach Aoife was the divine power. But she was only a vessel, the same as every star was a vessel. Her fire destroyed and could shatter the earth just as my star siblings shattered their galaxies, in one beautiful and destructive explosion.
But it would give life a new opportunity to grow, to continue to transverse the universe. Much like a dandelion blew its seeds along the wind, so would the explosion send the seeds of Earth across the universe.
As my conscious slowly reformed, piece by piece, I was made anew. I had felt the source of all, I had lived a millennium as a star, and burned bright as I shined my light on the universe. I accepted that the phoenix was not just power, not just a danger, but a greater connection to the universe around me. The obscurity of the world had been clarified, I had been turned to the source and it had unmade me. Now it formed me in its own image.
The world needed my fire, my flames, my understanding of the universe. That we had survived so long was nothing short of a miracle.
The atoms which called my soul to theirs flared brightly, and I could give names to them. Vampire. Warlock. Lycan. Brom. Merlin. Romulus.
Their names gave them purpose, gave them form to me, crafting a reality for me to understand once again. A reality that I could contain myself in, one that was broken and scarred, spoiled and rotting from within. But that held such immense love and hope, of joy and laughter, that I found myself hurtling towards the Earth once more, my fire blazing out behind me and lighting up the sky in a beautiful tail.
My body began to form once more around me, my memories returning, and my time as a star fading away. But the connection to the fire within me was open wide and I understood. I was its vessel but it was neutral. It was a force, that was all. It didn’t care how it was used, it was too large, too expansive to care.
Suanach Aoife had become a vessel for destruction, holding her pain to that part of the endless cycle. I could feel her touch between my eyes, grounding me, giving me an anchor to return to. Through her touch, she tried to morph me in her way, pushing her pain into my form.
And I rejected her.
I crashed into my mortal body, and with the determination of a burning star, I flung my arms wide and opened the channel to the divine flame and drove her back. The bond broke and she slumped to the black sands, her flames dulled compared to what burned through my very being.
I rose to my feet, looking at my hands. I glowed like starlight, and I felt limitless. I looked to the ancient being before me.
:You are the fire of the earth, found deep within, churning, waiting to violently explode.: She shrank from my voice, echoing around our minds. :I am the fire of the stars. Of the universe. Of rebirth. Your pain will no longer define me.:
I turned and left her cowering in her diminutive cave. I would return to my lovers and face down the Syndicates. Change was inevitable and I was their catalyst. And in the ashes of their downfall, I would sit upon a throne of embers.
I drifted through the caverns, uncaring of my meandering path. I would return to Master Puck and Kaden exactly when I was meant to. Each step, more of my previous self returned, overlaying the memories of my celestial experiences. The channel blasted open within me slowly healed over, blunting the flow of power, gentling its flow.
Taking the next turn, I found myself before the two fae and stopped, blinking as I looked at them. It was as if I could see their true selves, their forms burning with the same divine fire, holding supernovas in their physical forms.
I stumbled forward, the world tilting around me as my stomach recoiled and forced itself to empty. Bile scratched my throat, coating my mouth in acid as I spat it out. Vertigo captured me and I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut against looking at my companions.
“Easy, child.” Master Puck’s voice was soft as he placed his hands on my shoulders, steadying me as I continued to retch. “Your mind cannot handle the knowledge of our form and the body responds to its rejection. It will fade.”
“How—” I tried to start, but gagged once more and pressed my hand to my mouth as if I could keep it back.
“Come on.” He urged me to the side and I slowly crawled under his guidance. My hands touched water and I raged with thirst. “Drink, but keep your eyes closed. Let your mind settle in your body once more.”
I knelt beside the pool of water and did as he instructed. I cupped the water in my hands and sipped carefully while keeping my eyes squeezed shut. A rainbow of colors and organic shapes fluttered in the darkness behind my eyelids, like echoes of the universe, but it was familiar and didn’t send me into nausea.
When I’d drank all that I could stomach, the fae’s hand was on my shoulder once more.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he suggested as he helped me stand. “Soon the exhaustion will hit you. Let’s get you onto Kaden so we can return. No doubt your lycan is pacing Brookshire as if he were in a cage.”
Romulus.
That sense of complete fulfillment and happiness that only love on such a foundational level could inspire filled me. Even if I had to walk back blindfolded, I would return to him. And then we would return to the others. They had called me across the universe, to travel the earth was a small
distance now.
I raised my hands out in front of me and Kaden pushed his nose against my palms.
:Well done, child of the stars.: His voice whispered against my mind, a familial love infusing his words. I knew, then, that Kaden had galloped across the galaxies, his tail flaring out brightly for all the worlds to see, before he was born on this earth as a star falling to the ground. We were alike, at our cores, both born of the same celestial flame.
:Thank you, brother,: I replied as I ran my hands over his silken hair. Master Puck lifted me by the waist, and I scrambled on top of Kaden, reaching for the security of his mane. The exhaustion Master Puck had warned of was filling my bones with lead and I felt my shoulders bowing under the weight of it.
:Rest,: Kaden urged as he took a step forward, my body hardly swaying as he guided us out of the caverns. :I will not let you fall.:
I didn’t fight the darkness then and let myself slip into a deep sleep, where phantom images of stars were superimposed over the sight of my lovers and the revolution we would herald into the world.
Chapter 12
Romulus
I could feel the stares on me from the fae of Brookshire as I paced along the boundary of the caravan. Anxiety tore at my guts since Ella had left with Master Puck. My beautiful lover, delicate and full of life—I feared I’d be moved to violence if she returned injured, or didn’t return at all. How the fuck was I supposed to return to Brom and Merlin if I could only return alone? If she were driven mad, I had already resolved myself to the idea that she may never leave this realm. It would be best for her to stay. Our world would just lock her away in Storm Cape and let her rot—and they’d be happy about it.
Beautiful Secrets: The Complete Trilogy Page 33
