by Jamie Magee
There was so much conviction in Toril’s voice that it was hard to have doubt for what she was saying. Scorpio still had little trust for Reveca, but he had to put up with her because she was Talon’s baggage.
Until Scorpio had Talon’s loyalty, and Talon saw Reveca for who she really was, a scorned woman with a black heart, Scorpio was stuck in the middle. He wasn’t foolish enough to tell Toril it would likely be a long stay. Talon and Reveca had already split once since Scorpio joined the Sons, Reveca was only gone for a few fortnights, but it felt like centuries to those who stayed with Talon. When Talon suffered, Scorpio felt it. He not only felt it but he understood that Talon’s demise could mean the fall of the Throng.
He didn’t get why it was different with Talon. They’d watched dark gods rip others from them and only felt the sorrow of defeat. The best he could surmise was that on some level, under all the denial, Talon was not only aware of the Throng but had connected to it. More than likely Talon only meant to face his ‘madness’ as he called it, stare down his demons and such. Whatever he did, he triggered something, and now Scorpio and Toril had never been more trapped.
If it were as simple as walking away and letting time do its work on the combustible love affair, Scorpio would’ve been long gone. But he could not afford the risk. The mortality of Talon was now in question.
During the one split, Scorpio had witnessed he felt the male break apart, it was the closest to any real death Scorpio had sensed in all his existence. Something unexplainable, and malevolent held back the demise courting Talon. A new mystery Scorpio was determined to uncover.
What Scorpio knew without a doubt was that he could not chance being thousands of clicks from Talon, headlong into his own battle, only to feel the pull of Talon’s distress and have to return.
Not only would Scorpio not be able to do anything about it, but it would also leave him vulnerable to the unknown that always seemed to be hunting both him and Toril. It was better to be present, to gain trust needed and to know when it was best to be far from a vulnerable position.
“Do you want Talon or not?” Scorpio asked leaning back knowing his primal instinct had already been tested for far too long.
“Want him? I want nothing but you. We need him. He is just as dear to us as the breath that leaves our lips, the pulse of our souls. Without him we are weak, we give evil reason to finish what it has already begun.”
They were not weak because of Talon, but Scorpio’s opinion on the matter was best saved for another argument.
Sometimes as desperately as Toril sought Talon, Scorpio feared there was only the three of their kind left. Her, the only pure one. He had his doubts, high ones he counted on.
Toril held secrets in her eyes, secrets that answered where their quest was. Who was found and how far they were with understanding of what they were. If Scorpio focused, distantly he could hear them, sense them. If his instinct was right, then it meant that Toril seeking vengeance on Reveca was only justified by what Reveca had done to not only him but also to Talon. The vendetta was personal, and therefore distracting and dangerous.
“The journey is to be near her coven, we did not slay Zale.” Scorpio’s eyes grew grave. “His evil reaches far into my past, Toril. I sense as much. He is a true risk, if the witches can slay him so be it.”
“You speak like them,” she said with a hiss as she turned to make her way through the dark forest they had rendezvoused in.
Exhausted as ever, he manifested before her, Toril’s beautiful lips gasped as the sight of his dominance triggered an arousal so rich he could taste it, drown in it. “I am one of them. Cursed.”
“Then why will you not seek vengeance with me?”
“Once cursed by them, twice by you, Lover.”
Aghast she leaned back in shock.
He lifted his stoic chin and glared down at her. “I didn’t die, Toril. Reveca did not save my soul from the Veil of Death. At best, she pushed my soul to yet another realm and fire was born into me, changing my senses. I’m not tainted by her but doused in the consequences of soul visiting. There is more at play here, a vast well of information and power we can obtain. Your impatience and abstinence are destroying us, today and tomorrow.”
“She will demand your head, I’ve seen it. And when she does her army will be more powerful than the mortals she stole from death.”
Scorpio had no reason to question Toril’s sight. It was both short and far-reaching, and always darkly poetic.
“And then?” he asked as his hungry stare drizzled down her body. “Will we be victorious? Will the misery you deliver me day in and out finally end?”
She swayed her head as her eyes welled. “You are not ready for your answer.”
“I am.”
She stared him down through the tears in her eyes then drew in the deepest of breaths. “We are either the beginning or the end. Both terrify me. Both bring me great loss.” She pulled her shoulders back. “Either way, I will rise up. I will be given what I thirst for tenfold.”
She vanished from his sight leaving him aching for relief.
The journey to the Old World was not presented or conducted on a whim. Reveca was determined to take all that were hers, who they cared for, and mortals she was grooming to be transitioned into immortal life (her ‘farm’ as Toril called it) with her.
A hundred and seven boats were needed for the journey. A production that had never been seen in the age they were living in, and one that had to remain hidden from the eyes of those recording the mortal’s history.
Once underway, it seemed all of creation was set to stop their course. Storm after storm destroyed vessels and cost mortal lives, then there were days when not the slightest notion of wind would come, and the sea was so still that most questioned if time itself had stopped.
Reveca blamed Zale, as she paced with rage rippling off her. If Scorpio had noticed anything about the slowly maturing witch, it was that Reveca only knew how to focus all she was on one enemy. She could negotiate a thousand steps and barters that had to go into play for her victory, but thinking of more than one villain was too much for her.
Reveca was truly blind to the powers beyond the mortal realm, to the dark gods and those who served them, to beings that existed in the balance of the universe, not mortal but as everlasting as their quest. Scorpio was sure their travel was hindered by something far greater than one male witch with a score to settle. They were nothing more than a piece on the game board of a universal war.
While Reveca had her and the Sons focus on Zale, Scorpio’s was over his shoulder into the abyss wondering if his female had made good on her threats and was cloaked in a vessel, casting torment after torment until her victim was ready for their last lash. His female had the power in her soul mimic the actions of the gods. He’d felt it, craved it and all she was day in and out.
If his thoughts and stares were not over his shoulder, they were to the heavens. Something was odd in the vibration of the universe. He could feel the shift, the essence of wars he knew nothing about but would affect him and his own in one way or another. His instincts had never been sharper, more poised to notice the slightest of signs the world about him was offering for him to interpret.
Months into the journey Scorpio devised a plan to snare his lover. He was now positive her essence was on the wind of the latest brewing storm. With the alibi of searching for those who were thrown overboard the day before, Scorpio lowered a small boat into the sea, then rowed his way into the unknown waters, sure if he followed his senses, the desperate, angry, fearful emotions, he’d find Toril.
At sunset, the entire sky was a rich, deep purple. Every other second the colors that painted the sky would shatter with rays of blue lightening. The waters around him were quiet, but in the distance, he could hear the waves and smell the rain and salt in the air.
By nightfall, not a single star could be seen, and what once was a distant beauty now shrouded him. The clouds were no longer purple, but darker than the nig
ht. The lightning was brighter, so bright that he could see the other vessels clicks ahead of him. One moment he was alone, the next he wasn’t.
Out of the mysterious darkness, a vessel appeared, the haze of fog around it assured him he had been right from day one, Toril was following him in a cloaked ship. The idea that she followed only turned him on and strung his body even tighter.
Climbing on board, he had been in full warrior mode. There was no way for him to know who Toril had commissioned to take her on this journey. Or if they had decided turning on the female suited them better than being honorable men.
In the wheelhouse, he saw two men, each only bothered to give him a glance, then went back to work. Four others were ready at the sails. None of them bothered to notice him. He was sure then Toril had spelled them all and found himself swelling with pride when he realized how strong and precise she had grown in her powers.
Like always, anger followed, slaughtering any joy he had. Toril should not be alone. He should be with her every moment. A shadow protecting her every step, a soul that worshiped hers each night drawing out orgasm after orgasm. He wanted to hear her short breaths, her cries of pleasure, smell her arousal, smother in it. He wanted his fucking life back.
Scorpio stalked the deck chasing the scent he’d always known, grateful that his next shot of Toril had arrived as predicted, and pissed that her temper had caused innocent lives to be lost at sea. With every positive, he found a negative. That balance didn’t do shit for him, if anything it only caused him to rock back and forth in place instead of charging forward.
When he found her at the bow of the boat soaked and staring forward into the night, what anger he previously felt drained as her fear slammed into him. She’d felt true fear so rarely that when she did, it ripped him wide open and set him on a course to destroy whoever had given her reason to feel that way.
“What is it, female?”
“I warned you,” her voice quaked as her stare cast forward into the night. In the light of the dark clouds, a new sight came into focus. Legions of angels, light or dark was anyone’s guess, were stirring the storm aimed at the witch, worse yet aimed at Talon.
“You called them?” Scorpio accused.
“I followed them,” she said weakly. There was nothing but truth in her words.
“They’ve come for us all. I told you Zale would never allow this. We were forcing this war into play before you were ready.”
Before he was ready. Yes, she had said that before, a few times, but he didn’t buy it. Scorpio was ready for any war, as ready as any groom on his wedding night. Over fucking due to pull the weapon he needed out of the arsenal.
Feeling this females’ heated flesh wrapped around his aching cock, even if only for a second, was worth fighting any god, it was worth extinction, and according to Toril’s mother—the only soul that had any clue on exactly what Scorpio and Toril were—that is exactly what would happen. One touch from Toril beckoned the battle of his existence.
The power between them would all but call to the dark gods, send them a clear message that they had failed to destroy the existence of Throngs, they’d have no choice but rectify their mistake directly. Destroy or be destroyed, it comes down to one or the other. It should be enough to turn off every hunger a man could have for a female. All it did was make Scorpio want Toril more. Something so forbidden must be the most divine delicacy in all the worlds. Right?
Did he believe Zale had the power to speak and barter with the dark gods directly? Perhaps. But he did not believe the fool would do so when his enemy was leaving him behind, not charging into him. Even if Reveca were sailing toward her twin sister and other members of her coven, it would take her years to assemble a plan of attack. Or so she said. Scorpio secretly wondered if she had failed to kill Zale so many times on purpose, and that in some unconscious way she thought if she ever succeeded her own mortality would be discovered.
“Where are the others, Toril?” he rasped. Knowing no matter what side those beings in the heavens were on, he wanted his own army, he needed to know if he fell to their power there were more who could protect her.
Her head bowed.
“Even now, a breath from war, you will not tell me of them? You expect me to die alone with this fear?”
She turned in her rage. “I expected you to be at my side long before now. I expected to have the power to change a future that has not come to be. I expect one of my cursed traits to offer an advantage in this life.”
Her amber stare fell over his features as she trembled. “I loved you before I ever knew you. I loved you when we were nothing but the essence of the universe. It is not the same for you.”
“Don’t fucking go there with me,” his tone was cold, vacant. There were only so many times a man could have the same fight, be stabbed with the same guilt trip. Chose this or that, and nothing else. “I’ve done as you willed, I’m watching over Talon, he is part of us.”
“I willed you to slay Reveca, I willed you to break Talon and you away. I willed you to find all that we are and prepare for a battle of the ages. You have only watched, drank and laughed with men who should be in new lives right now. They should be at peace.”
“It is not ours to say where they should be or why.”
“But it is hers? A woman who toys with the most precious and sacred path of existence, and once she does she demands alliance or the delivery of death once more.”
“She has not.”
“She will,” Toril swore. “One day she will slip and not call them Rogues, or convince others they are tainted with Zale’s dark magic. One day her lust for control and vengeance will overtake her, and your head will be the first she seeks to take.”
A prediction twice spoken by Toril was as good as promised to occur. “And if you see this, where are you, Love? Where is our victory?”
The shakiest of smiles fluttered across her lips as she cast her glance over her shoulder to the beings who were still tormenting the distant vessels. “In the fall of empires.”
Scorpio wasn’t listening anymore. His mind had ushered a tragic fact forward in his mind. The heavens were at war, so blatantly that he could see it from where he stood. The end was nigh, and everything he had been told would be his one day, when he was ready, was about to be extinguished. He hated himself then, hated that the fear of ‘what if’ and the hope of ‘one day’ had robbed him of his purest of desires. He was down to seconds.
Instinct swelled within him and before he had the will to think twice his hand reached for her arm and turned her. The most innocent of touches, a touch mortals took for granted day in and out. It sent a surge of heated passion through him. It wasn’t enough he had to have more.
Despite her shock, he said “Where are your chambers, female. Or should I take you here and let the angels watch,” as his hand bit into her hip.
He’d never know who moved them, if he followed her scent, or if she became driven by the same raw need he had, but the next instant the space around them changed. He was aware of little more than the night sky was no longer above him and a narrow bed was behind him.
His right hand moved up, trembling as it did and cupped her face, his senses marveled at how soft and warm she was. His mouth was dry with thirst, but he stilled the roaring ancient need in his soul and held her stare until his lips were just upon hers.
Both their bodies melted into the release, falling against one another as if they had always been one. Sway after sway, his lips moved with hers. Then his tongue dove in the smallest of openings she gave him. The taste sent an electric current through him demanding that he hold her tighter.
Her hands rushed over his broad shoulders, then down grasping at every ridge of his chest before encircling her arms around his back and racing her nails down his leather armor.
The barriers of clothes might as well have been continents dividing them. Having not the slightest of clues how to break her free from her dress and whatever Creator forsaken corset she was wearing his ha
nds gripped the cloth framing her creamy breasts and ripped the barrier away.
Her gasp against his ear nearly made his knees weak. His rough hands glided down her frame cupping and kneading her breast as his kiss became even more ravenous. Feeling her hand brush against his cock as it strained against his trousers reminded him of how many layers were keeping his skin from hers.
He broke his kiss from her with a rushed reluctance, then they both tore away at the armor covering his body and the shirts beneath it.
Watching her watch him, seeing the appreciation in her eyes as they moved down his body was heaven. The complete absence of disappointment or distance, any notion that he was cursed and damned to never have her made his life.
She made quick work of his belt, then his trousers. When her hands grasped his hard, thick length, his head drew back as a quake rushed through his body.
“It’s bigger this way,” she whispered in awe.
They had each other a million times, for hours and hours each night. But those were soul visits, him consuming her, her consuming him, or watching the other please themselves. His hands dwarfed hers; still, hearing her words stroked his ego and the guiltiest of grins touched his glistening lips.
His hands moved over the lush breasts he’d handled seconds before, across the hard peaks of her nipples and then down the sharp curves of her hips. It had been eons since he had felt the heat of a woman under his touch. He felt her tremble too...
Scorpio’s eyes squinted closed as a life he’d buried long ago came to the surface. He’d hurt his young wife, and he’d done so because he was doused in the passion of the female he was holding now, she’d haunted him then. How dangerous was this really? Would Toril have the same fear in her eyes when he lost himself in the throes? He didn’t know and hated to admit that the bigger part of him didn’t give a fuck. She’d taunted him for too long.
In his whirlwind of thoughts, he felt Toril’s hands on his face and opened his eyes to see her searching his. “You feel sorrow for her...” He went to speak to assure the female in his arms this was the only place he wanted to be. “And guilt.” Toril’s stare softened and for the first time in a long while he saw the innocent girl he knew Toril was. “I feel gratitude. She gave us passage. She loved and admired you enough to bring you to where you belong, any way she could.”
