Instinct

Instinct Page 12

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  He locked gazes with Kody. "While I know what it is, I don't know what it looks like. If someone can tell me what I'm looking for and where it's located, I can retrieve it."

  Menyara scoffed at his offer. "It's not that simple. Only a god of fate can touch it without being destroyed by it."

  Kody chewed her lip. "I share your bloodline through my mother. Can I touch it?"

  "Given your father's blood, I don't know. Especially since he once shared a womb with Acheron. You're also no longer in your true body.... I have no idea what would happen to you should you touch it. It's not worth the chance of finding out."

  Nick let out a nervous laugh. "Personally, I vote Girlfriend stays here with Simi to watch over my mother in the event whatever nabbed her before comes back for Round Two."

  Xev shook his head. "Either Girlfriend or Charonte will be needed to lead us both in to retrieve it, since I know nothing of Hades." He arched a brow at Menyara. "What is this Hades, anyway?"

  "The Olympians were children of the Titans, who became Greek gods after you were cursed and banished."

  Kody passed an irritated smirk to Nick. "Why can't Simi and I both go?"

  Nick gestured at the non-working lights. "Hello? Unnatural storm? We have Yrre on the loose. Memitims at the windows. Zeitjagers in the corners. Now Tiamat. A spewing Caleb. Unconscious Mom. Zavid's AWOL, and I don't know what to think about Livia. Anyone else want to add anything to my growing super-sized ulcer?"

  A sudden knock on the door made Nick jump with an undignifying sound he really wished Kody hadn't heard. For that matter, he hated that anyone had witnessed it. Disgusted with himself, he glared up at the ceiling. "Hello, up there? That was not meant as a personal challenge."

  Cringing, he went to open the door, forgetting about the peephole. A mistake he realized too late when he opened the door and learned that yeah, evil did, in fact, knock politely.

  And a whole lot of it stood in his hallway, engulfed by flames, glaring straight at him.

  CHAPTER 9

  "Holy mother of God!" Nick staggered back and furiously crossed himself as he faced who knew what that thing was in his hallway.

  It wasn't so much that the male entity had a couple of inches on him in height--which was impressive, as few beings topped his six-foot-four stance--as it was the muscled girth of him. And the aura of absolute malevolent blood-thirst that said he was here to make Nick-McNuggets.

  Long, jet-black hair was pulled back into a ponytail from sharp, perfectly chiseled features that belonged to some ancient Asian warlord who should be leading a conquering army of some kind. Bloodred eyes glared at Nick from beneath an irate glower that would make Kyrian proud.

  Nick screamed and tried to shut the door.

  Quicker than Nick could blink, he reached over his shoulder and unsheathed a curved, flaming sword. He swung it so fast, he would have taken Nick's head had Xev not caught the blade with his own sword and forced the demon back.

  The demon's eyes widened with recognition. "I don't want to hurt you, Dar. Either get out of my way or I'm going through you." That was one serious accent on him. Unlike anything Nick had ever heard before. It was fluid and musical, and filled with murderous intent.

  "Why are you here?"

  He answered by becoming a shadow that swept through and around Xev to rematerialize behind him. He moved toward the couch where Nick's mom slept.

  Xev became a multicolored wisp of smoke that wrapped around the newcomer's face and neck. The newcomer dissolved to re-form into the warrior so that he could fight Xev. They faced off to battle like the ancient gods they were. Nick put himself between Kody and his mother while Simi and Menyara formed a wall in front of him.

  Nick had a bad feeling they weren't a lot of protection, but it was better than nothing.

  Xev spun with his sword. The other god ducked and caught him a hard blow to his jaw. Unfazed, Xev knocked him to the side. Instead of moving, he dissolved to stab Xev, who vanished only to reappear behind him. It was a crazy, impressive fight as they fought as clouds of smoke, men and beasts that gave Nick a whole new appreciation for the kind of warfare they must have used in battle during the Primus Bellum.

  The kind of tactics he'd one day use as the Malachai against Kody and her army.

  "Who is that?" Nick asked Mennie.

  "Dagon." Menyara sighed wearily.

  He mouthed the name to Kody, who shrugged to let him know she had no idea, either. "Could you expand a few details?" he tried again.

  "Son of Noir and Hekate."

  Kody scowled. "My Hekate?"

  "Yes."

  Nick wasn't sure why that name rang his bell, but something about Dagon's mother was familiar to him. "Why do I know her name?"

  Instead of Menyara, it was Kody who answered while Simi cheered Xev on and even offered him her bottle of barbecue sauce should he need it. "Tabitha Devereaux and her sisters talk about her, and Kyrian has a couple of her statues in his house. Hekate's a good friend of my cousin Katra, and Persephone. She's the Greek goddess of necromancy, magic, spirits, and the night."

  Ah ... now he remembered seeing those statues littered around Kyrian's mansion. She was one of the goddesses Kyrian would occasionally swear upon whenever Nick really ticked him off about something.

  But one thing struck him as odd about a Greek goddess.... "And she hooked up with the lord of all darkness whose name I can't say without empowering him and sending out a homing signal for him to come kill me? The same malevolent creature who happens to be your"--he glared at Menyara--"brother?"

  Menyara nodded. "Believe it or not, he can be quite charming when he's not psychotic. And Hekate has always had a thing for bad boys."

  Yeah, but getting it on with the original source of all evil and then spawning with him? That took it to a whole new I-need-some-serious-therapy level. He really didn't want to know about her daddy issues.

  Nick rubbed at his throbbing temples as he watched Xev and Dagon crash into his mother's prized curio and shatter it. Ugh, he was in so much trouble for this. He was going to be grounded for all eternity.

  And given the fact he could conceivably live that long, the threat actually had merit.

  "How do we break this up before they destroy my mom's entire house and I get grounded until I'm decrepit?"

  Menyara sighed. "Not sure."

  Mazel tov! His ulcer just had a baby. And it was quickly mutating to the size of nuclear Godzilla. "Do they even know why they're fighting?"

  "I don't think it matters."

  Simi let out an ear-splitting whistle. Xev and Dagon paused to frown at her. "Hello? Ancient annoying ones? You are stressing out the Simi's good quality friend and making Akri-Nick very sad, and that makes the Simi very sad. Could you please find an old field to fight in where you don't break his mama's things and get him grounded? He don't like when that happens. And it make Akra-Kody sad, too, 'cause then she has to sneak in to see him and risk getting into trouble if his mama be hearing them in his room, and they shouldn't be doing that, and they both know it. Bad, bad, bad."

  His breathing ragged, Dagon wiped at the blood on his lips as he finally noticed their small group. He scowled in disbelief. "Is that a Charonte?" he asked Xev.

  "It is."

  "Alone?"

  "Not exactly."

  He arched a brow at that before he looked to Menyara. "Apollymi's free?"

  She shook her head. "She's still in captivity, but her son remains alive and free, and protects Simi as his child."

  His gaze went to Kody before his jaw dropped. "Bethany?" She was the Atlantean goddess of wrath.

  "No. I'm her daughter."

  Appearing even more confused, Dagon sheathed his sword and straightened his clothes. His expression said he was struggling to make sense of everything, and not quite able to do so.

  Xev sheathed his sword and wiped at the blood on his own face. "How long have you been held, brother?"

  Dagon rubbed at his scarred wrist. "Since the reign of Eta

na."

  Menyara sucked her breath in sharply.

  By her reaction, Nick knew it had to be a long time ago, but unfortunately, history wasn't one of his better subjects. Though, to be honest, he was quickly learning. "When was that?"

  Menyara sighed heavily. "Almost five thousand years ago."

  Wow! Nick wheezed at the realization while Dagon winced. "Dude! What'd you do? That takes being grounded to a whole new level! Jeez, I'm so glad my mama can't hear that one. She might get ideas I don't need her to."

  Simi's eyes widened. She made a sharp squeak as if she finally put two and two together. "That was you what done that with Zeus and them Arcadians and gots into all that trouble? Ooo, I remember that. That was so bad for you, but so nice for you to do! You the Simi's hero."

  Nick arched his brow. "You, what? What'd he do?"

  It was Menyara who answered. "He's the one who taught the ancient king Lycaon how to save his cursed sons and use sorcery to merge their blood with that of animals and create the race of Were-Hunters."

  Shocked to the core of his being, Nick stared at Dagon. He'd always wondered how Lycaon had learned to do something that powerful.

  Back during the human lifetime of Acheron, the Greek god Apollo had become enraged at the race of beings he'd created and named after himself--the Apollites--for their queen ordering the death of his mistress and child. To retaliate for it, Apollo had cursed everyone born of the Apollite race to die horribly at age twenty-seven, the same age his mistress had been when they slaughtered her.

  The Atlantean goddess Apollymi had stepped in and showed a handful of Apollites how to survive the curse by taking human souls into their bodies and using them to artificially elongate their lives. Once those so-called Daimons had begun preying on humanity, and to protect mankind, Apollo's twin sister Artemis had created the Dark-Hunters to hunt them down and kill them before the human soul inside them died, and free it so that it could go on to its eternal resting place.

  For thousands of years, that had been the order of things. A small number of rogue Apollites became Daimons and were put down for their murderous needs by Dark-Hunters like Kyrian and Acheron.

  Until an innocent Arcadian king, Lycaon, had unknowingly taken an Apollite bride. She'd given him two sons before she died tragically on her twenty-seventh birthday, per Apollo's curse.

  Grief-stricken, the king had turned to his gods for help and they had refused him. So the legend said he'd begun using the darkest of magic to merge the life force of the strongest animals with that of the Apollites until he found the two best matches for his sons.

  With each experiment that started with two creatures, an Apollite and an animal, it produced an Apollite who could shift into an animal--a so-called Arcadian. And an animal who could take the form of an Apollite--a Katagari. Two separate humanlike races who were no longer condemned to die on their twenty-seventh birthday. Instead, they were imbued with extreme psychic gifts and a much slower rate of aging. One that allowed them to live for hundreds of years.

  For his hybris in thwarting Apollo's will, Lycaon was cursed by the Greek gods. They demanded that he kill the creatures he'd created, including his own sons. When he refused, the Were-Hunters he'd made out of desperation to save his children were condemned to know no peace. For the rest of time, the Katagaria and Arcadians were doomed to be at war and to fight until no more of their kind were left.

  It was a war that still continued, and it was why Stone and Alex, as well as other Were-Hunters in Nick's school, were constantly going at each other.

  Nick had always wondered how Lycaon had learned that dark magic to create a whole new species. Now he knew. The answer for it stood in his living room.

  Dagon.

  Even as a god himself, Dagon definitely had a set to defy the others of his kind. Not many cells in the head, but a huge set in the trousers. "Are you serious? You gave that knowledge and ability to Lycaon?"

  Dagon gave a subtle nod. "And like Prometheus, I was punished for it."

  Xev frowned. "Why would you help an Arcadian king?"

  "Why ever do you think, cousin? He implored my Shala. She cried. I acted."

  Menyara turned toward Nick. "Dagon was the ancient Akkadian god of seasons, magic, and time."

  Xev arched a shocked brow at her list. "That's not the ruthless god I remember. In my day, he, alongside Cam, judged the dead and was one of his father's best generals during the Primus Bellum. He was a war god then who served the Malachai army well, and gleefully slaughtered everyone who came near him. What changed you?"

  Menyara let out an ironic laugh. "As you told Nick earlier, Dagon went to see his mother one afternoon, and met the goddess of compassion, Shala. She changed everything about him. Gave him a heart and a soul."

  Dagon's features turned to stone. "And it is for Shala that I've come. Because of me, Noir still holds her and I have to awaken Azura in this realm. Now stand aside." He started for the couch.

  They all blocked his way.

  "Yeah, buddy, that ain't gonna happen." Nick stepped forward. "You need to leave now. Either out the door or through a window. Your choice."

  Fire rolled over Dagon's shoulders. "Out of my way, boy. You have no idea who you're dealing with."

  Nick unfurled his wings and for the first time ever, he let his true Malachai fly. He knew it was all hanging out by the way Menyara and Kody gasped. "The last fool who called me boy ended up as a stain on the bottom of my shoe."

  Licking his fangs, he narrowed his eyes on the ancient god. "You want to dance, name the tune. Just remember, I ain't Xev and I hold no love, kinship, nor friendship toward you."

  Dagon came at him with the same massive attack he'd used on Xev.

  Instead of trying to fight him, Nick grabbed his arm and jerked him off balance. He spun the god around, buried his hand in his ponytail, and yanked his head back, exposing his neck. Before he could stop himself, his instincts kicked in and he buried his fangs in the god's jugular.

  Dagon tried to vanish. Somehow Nick kept him from it. He had no idea how. Something inside him just knew instinctively how to keep him in his form and under restraint. It was like a baby breathing or suckling its mother's milk.

  More than that, Nick's senses reeled as he drank the power and tapped the Source that had birthed them both. Though he'd never been drunk, he had a good idea that this was what it must feel like. His senses sharpened so that he could hear everything in the aether. Every heartbeat for miles around.

  He couldn't really explain it. It was like being tapped into some kind of cosmic database for every living thing in the universe.

  And he knew he was about to kill Dagon. Strangely, that wasn't what frightened him. What terrified him to the core of his being was the part of him that craved it. The ease with which he could end Dagon and not care at all.

  In fact, he would relish it.

  Startled by that realization, he let go and staggered back.

  Kody reached out for him. "Nick?"

  His blood rushed through his veins with the familiar lust he always felt in her presence. But this time, it wasn't carnal lust.

  It was for her blood.

  Her life. He wanted to end her. Desperately.

  Simi stepped toward him.

  He hissed and slashed with his claws, aiming for her throat, wanting to rip it out, too.

  Menyara barely caught Simi in time and saved her from the attack.

  Kody couldn't breathe as she saw the unfeeling demon inside Nick's eyes. The searing hatred that bore no recognition of them. This wasn't the boy she knew and loved. The loyal friend who would cut his own throat before he betrayed those closest to him.

  This was the beast who'd callously murdered her and her entire family.

  The Malachai who'd coldly snapped Caleb's neck and stepped over his body without a second thought.

  Anguish choked her as she remembered that fateful day and she saw her brother's death in her mind. As she felt helpless to save Ari's life.