Cimmerian Shade: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Collection

by Kiki Howell

  “She is the reason why you never wanted to show me your home,”

  “I will end things with Arianna if you will wed me.”

  This time Endymion’s question is not hypothetical. It’s real and has settled a heavy silence between us. The air surrounding us has thickened, crackling with intensity, and I don’t know what to say. How can I answer when so much has happened with myself, and now with Endymion’s own little secret? There isn’t a doubt in my mind that I still want him, more than anything, but to abandon my home and family... I’m still having a hard time coming to terms with that reality.

  I shake my head, “You are promised to another woman.”

  I should return home and accept the punishment. Move on with my life, and leave Endymion with his mortal woman. Leave Pan to his nymphs.

  “Selene, am I that horrible of a man that you cannot fathom being wed to me?”

  No, never!

  “You’re a cruel mortal for making me feel this horrible. This can never work.”

  He closes the small distance that I had created. “Selene, I can be cruel and wicked because I want you to want me. I want you to need me and I will find a way to manipulate your pretty little mind into consuming me, every day, all day because I love you and I believe this can work.”

  Not knowing what to say, I stutter. “I-I am a goddess of the moon.”

  Endymion’s stare is intense. “And I am King of Elis.”

  “Your wedding is in a few days.”

  “I will suffer the consequences and call it off. You’ve had my heart from the very first time I laid eyes on you.” He takes my hand within his own.

  I shake my head. “This is absurd.”

  “I’ll tell you what is absurd, the fact that I know you love me and you do not trust what is between you and me.” He places my hand on his chest, and I feel his heart pounding. “From the moment I saw you, I fell in love with you.”

  “This has nothing to do with trust or love,” I inform, withdrawing my hand.

  “Love is trusting blindly.”

  “Love shouldn’t be this complicated.”

  “Sometimes it is, and I am willing to fight for you and me. Why aren’t you willing to take that risk for me, Selene? What must I do to prove to you that I want this, I want you? If I could, I would live in your skin with you, to breathe the same air as you. To think just like you. To understand how and why you keep stopping yourself from giving yourself to me—and I don’t mean physically.”

  Unable to give him a reply, I’m turning away from Endymion when a deafening scream booms from outside.

  The Erinyes is here!

  With wide eyes, I look at Endymion. “It’s here.”

  He hurries toward the window ledge and looks out. “What’s here?”

  “The Erinyes,” I answer, and my skin pricks.

  “I’ve heard stories about them, but I didn’t think that they were real.” He looks back at me. “Why are they here?”

  “They’re here for me.”

  His dark brows draw together. “Why?”

  “Because—”

  I’m unable to finish that sentence because Endymion curses, stumbling backward. Flying outside of the window is the Erinyes. It steps onto the window ledge, gray hands grabbing the inside of the castle walls. It shoves its head inside and its head angles toward me. I have never understood how it sees without eyes.

  The Erinyes doesn’t look like any mortal or immortal. To start, its flesh is gray and it has no eyes, slits for nostrils, and a wide mouth full of sharp teeth and no lips. It has blazing hair, like how fire burns with large flames, except its flames are black. Large powerful wings that you can hear flapping behind it.

  It commands, “Selene, you must return to Mount Olympus.”

  “I know that,” I snap.

  It doesn’t respond but I know it’s watching me. Ringing screams vibrate in my ear canal. My fingers curl back into my palms while my heart pounds frantic in my chest.

  I don’t want to face the Horai.

  From the corner of my eye, I notice Endymion pacing off to the side. He’s taking small, careful steps and the Erinyes steps off the window ledge into the spacious room. Standing to its full height, the Erinyes is a few inches taller than me but it should not be underestimated.

  Fear takes hold, churning my stomach. The reason why the Erinyes makes me very nervous is that I know what it’s capable of. If a mortal provokes the Erinyes, it has the ability to subdue them, by slipping into their mind and mentally projecting unimaginable pain. How it accomplishes that is by grabbing onto their head and piercing their skull with its nail-like claws.

  Endymion is reaching for something, and when I focus on his object of desire, I see a long, sharp two-edged sword. Instant panic overtakes me because provoking an Erinyes will make it lash out. To take an Erinyes’ life will get you one day in the underworld. One day in which would feel like an eternity. The Erinyes can only do this to mortals.

  Two very imperative reasons why mortals should fear them—they are not ones to be messed with.

  I should go with it because there is no other option. But my limbs don’t budge. There’s a small defiant part of me that wants to fight, to stay, despite knowing my chances are bleak. I want to fight and not be at the mercy of the Horai, let alone the Erinyes.

  Was Endymion correct?

  Do we have something worth fighting for?

  Go back to Mount Olympus, warns a voice in the back of my mind.

  What’s the point of going back, when I know my soul will forever cry out for earth?

  My heart will never rest.

  I continue to watch Endymion as he grabs the leather hilt, and I scream at myself, Leave now before it’s too late!

  If I call out to him, that would draw in the Erinyes’ attention. If I don’t, there’s a chance that Endymion might strike down the Erinyes and will suffer a day in the underworld. But for him, it would feel like an eternity.

  Fight, one of my many voices urge.

  What would I be fighting for? To suffer mental anguish or a day in the underworld?

  Or one hundred lashings?

  Or an eternity of my heart crying?

  Or, fight for the chance to be happy?

  Suddenly the door bursts open, and Endymion’s guards charge into the room, toward the Erinyes. Immediately I intercept, already foreseeing how this situation will go down. I assume they saw the Erinyes perch on Endymion’s window ledge from the outside. After all, when it screeched from the sky, it would have caught their undivided attention.

  There are about half a dozen mortals with swords inside the room.

  I swallow down my nerves. With my back to the men, I stare at the Erinyes. “I’ll go with you.” My heart throbs and I can hear Endymion calling out to me, but I ignore him. “Right now, take me back to Mount Olympus.”

  The Erinyes takes a step toward me. I hear one of the men speak to Endymion, “Your majesty, what would you have us do?”

  “Do not let her go,” are his condemning words.

  Rough hands grab my arm from behind and haul me backward.

  I scream behind the man, pushing him. “Do not touch the Erinyes!” But I believe my words fall on deaf ears because a few guards step toward the Erinyes with raised swords.

  You should have left.

  The Erinyes will not physically harm the mortals—as in killing them—but mental anguish is not any better.

  “I want to leave!” I shout at the men continuing to push forward. But more hands hold me back. I fight against them, wiggling and yelling, “You do not understand!” Someone shoved me back and struggling to regain my composure, I recognize Endymion’s aroma as I falter into him.

  I turn to face him. “Tell them not to attack it.”

  “Forgive me, Selene, but I cannot allow you to leave with it.”

  “You are making a horrible mistake.”

  “Not fighting for us is a horrible mistake.”

  This is not fighting for
us? How can it be?

  The guards command that the Erinyes leave but it doesn’t budge. Its head has changed angles, and it is now facing my direction. All it wants is me.

  Something inside of me clicks. Pushing past Endymion, I take off and run across the room and out of the door.

  It will follow me, I know it will because it needs to bring me back to Mount Olympus. I broke the law that Zeus had set. The law was set with my blood, there was no avoiding it now.

  I hear Endymion calling my name but I don’t stop running. If I can get the Erinyes away from the mortals, I will go with it back to Mount Olympus. I need to go, to spare Endymion and his guards. I refuse to have anyone else suffer because of my actions.

  It was hard enough, watching Pan get whipped, even though he made it happen. I cannot fathom Endymion suffering mental torture or seeing the aftermath of one day in the underworld.

  I hear the distraught voices of the guards, so I know the Erinyes is following me. The mortals are scrambling to stop it, but if only they would listen.

  Looking back, I see Endymion exiting the room and the Erinyes smashes through a wall. With his sword, he strikes the Erinyes in the arm and it shrieks. Vexed it hits Endymion, sending him flying across the hall and his guards attack it. The humans don't stand a chance.

  I yell out, “I’ll go back with you if you can catch me!”

  The Erinyes cranes its neck in the direction of my voice and starts toward me, so I take off. I run down the hallway, dodging the servants and people. Reaching the top of the stairs, I grab onto the railing and the sharp claws of the Erinyes pierce into my arms.

  I cry out terribly and I don’t get a chance to catch my breath, let alone fully absorb what is happening before I’m heaved into the air. The tenderness on my arms swells to new extremes and I hear the powerful thrashing of its wings above me.

  Ichor drips from my wounds as the Erinyes flies higher toward the ceiling and suddenly we’re on an axis, tipping. The Erinyes shrieks as we are both hauled back to the ground and collide with the hard surface. The Erinyes indirectly releases my arms and I sucked in a pained breath. I hear another hair-raising scream.

  I push myself off the ground and look up to see Endymion and another guard taking on the Erinyes. “Don’t kill it!” I yell out. But like before, my words are ignored.

  They strike it on the leg; its wing extends over its shoulder and hits the guard away. At that same moment, Endymion strikes the Erinyes in the stomach. It doubles over with another scream. Leaving his sword lodged in the flesh, Endymion swivels on his heel and runs toward me. The Erinyes falls to its knees and quickly, Endymion grabs onto my throbbing arm. Discomfort expands straight to my shoulders and down to my fingertips.

  Endymion pulls me with him, but I make sure to plant my feet. It still doesn’t help with the aching wounds.

  I cannot go with him.

  When my arm escapes his grasp, he pivots and finds me standing behind him.

  On a strained breath, I say, “Endymion, I have to go back with it.”

  He shakes his head. “With that? No.”

  “This isn’t an argument. I may be a goddess but I have rules, and one of them is that I am to never come to earth. Every time that I had, I was at risk of the Erinyes coming for me.”

  His green eyes fall to the bleeding wounds on my arms. “It hurt you.”

  I suck in another breath. “And worse will happen if you continue to put up a fight. Endymion, let me go.”

  “Selene.” His dark brows draw together.

  I match his stare. “Endymion.”

  My attention is stolen when we both hear the shrieks from the Erinyes. On its knees, it is now pulling out the sword, which was lodged into its flesh.

  Pushing back against Endymion’s chest, I warn him, “I promise you that everything will be okay.”

  That isn’t a lie. Once I leave the Erinyes will no longer be a threat to the mortals, and once I return home everything will be as it was. I will simply be the moon goddess.

  Your heart will never be the same.

  Nevertheless, I’ll be able to watch the earth and Endymion from the heavens.

  Endymion peers over my shoulder, at the Erinyes. “Only if you promise me that I will see you again.”

  You will never see me again!

  Staring into his beautiful emerald gaze, I can feel the tears brimming on my bottom eyelids. “I will return once everything settles.”

  “Promise me,” he urges.

  The tears spill over—I can’t.

  I look behind Endymion, to see more of his guards charging to protect their king against the intruder. Another loud shriek booms throughout the halls and everything from here on out happens fast.

  I feel the gush of wind up against my back. Endymion grabs me and pulls me against him as we both go crashing into a wall, dodging an attack. The Erinyes uses its wing to slash out against us. Managing to dodge the strikes, they hit the wall behind Endymion and me, which breaks and crumbles the stone barricade beneath the pressure.

  Morning light spills in from the hole that the Erinyes had created, and another strike of its large black wing collapses another part of the wall. The guards advance and unexpectedly the Erinyes charges toward us, grabbing hold of Endymion, who is also holding on to me.

  The Erinyes leaps out through the gaping hole, taking Endymion and me with it. The three of us take a brutal stomach-churning dive downward.

  Chapter Thirteen

  WE’RE FALLING.

  The familiar fluttering sensations overtake my insides. My screams vibrate through my ears and my chest thunders hard and fast. I hear Endymion yelling at me to hold on, but I do not know what he means.

  What am I to hold on to, when he is holding me and the Erinyes is clutching him?

  The wind is whipping around us and everything is happening in a fast blur. All of a sudden my

  body jerks up, and I notice the huge shadow of the Erinyes’ wings opening.

  Endymion loses his grip on me and I slip from his grasp—he catches my hand at the last second. A gust of wind blows downward as the Erinyes begins flapping its wings.

  Endymion yells, “HOLD ON!”

  I do, with both hands clinging to his one hand.

  The Erinyes flies toward the ground outside; I hear mortals yelling and see a few pointing. It flies further into a field and with my feet a few inches away from the grass, Endymion releases me. I fall to the earth and roll.

  With a groan, my body is riddled with agony. My arms are sore from when the Erinyes had tried to take me away the first time. Its claws had dug into my flesh, and now more scratches and bruises from the drop. I roll onto my back, breathing in and out with difficulty. I sit up just in time to see the Erinyes drop Endymion to the ground.

  It flies off into the sky as if it were disappearing but then it turns back around. It swoops down toward me and I brace myself. I hear Endymion screaming my name and then there’s a bright light that suddenly appears. I’m blinded by sheer whiteness and then I hear a sharp, loud crackling sound—the scream of the Erinyes is not like the ones from earlier. This scream sounded scared and then, no other sounds.

  Only silence.

  A wave of warmth engulfs me, the air seeming to buzz fiercely. The hair on my arms rises and I can feel the hair on my head lifting.

  This feels familiar.

  From the brightness, I see a figure walking toward me. Thinking it’s Endymion, I call out to him but he doesn’t respond. Forcing myself to stand despite the ache, I try to balance my wobbly legs. When the figure approaches he’s much taller and massive than Endymion, and I still where I am.

  I know who that is.

  Zeus steps through the blinding light and extends a hand to me. I take it, knowing that I have been caught.

  I wonder if Zeus will whip me himself?

  I blink, and we are no longer on earth but back on Olympus. A heavy sadness settles over my head. My heart throbs and it folds in on itself.

 
; NO!

  Endymion...

  I pivot on my heel and upon facing Zeus, I glare up at his height.

  Capturing his vibrant blue gaze, I purse my lips and demand, “Why did you bring me back?” It’s better to be back on Mount Olympus, so Endymion and his mortals don’t have to deal with the Erinyes. They’re safe, Endymion’s safe, and I didn’t have to go through the Horai but that doesn’t mean that I will go unpunished.

  I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye.

  Zeus does not look very happy, “Selene, you are quite a goddess,” and that is not meant as a compliment. I open my mouth to speak and he cuts me off. “I thought I made myself clear?”

  “You did,”

  “But,”

  I wanted to see a mortal. I don’t say that.

  Instead, I ask. “Why did you do that?” Zeus had stopped the Erinyes from taking me back here, which doesn’t make sense.

  “It wasn’t the save you,” He says sharply.

  “Then who?”

  “The mortal was going to strike it down and that would have been a senseless punishment because of you.”

  Zeus stopped the Erinyes because the mortal was going to strike it down. That still doesn’t make sense. “Why do you care?”

  “Selene, I do not care. However, in the span of a day, you have evoked the Horai and the Erinyes.”

  “I did not mean to,”

  “Then explain, because I thought I made myself clear.”

  I fell in love with a mortal. I don’t say anything but I look away from Zeus, gazing at a clear sky. I choke on a sob and force myself not to cry.

  Staring ahead, I bite down on my bottom lip. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Get what over with?” Zeus asks.

  “The punishment.”

  “Selene, this entire situation is by far a lot worse than just a punishment.”

  “Well then, let me go.”

  “No, you need to explain things to me because I did you favor. You are acting like dealing with the Horai and the Erinyes was a small matter.”

  Glaring, I snap, “I did not ask for a favor.”

  “Well then, by all means, I’ll summon the Horai so you can be at their mercy.” Zeus raises a hand—once he snaps those large blunt fingers, they would appear.