by Jayde Brooks
“The Omen did this? They killed them?”
Without thinking, she slowly shook her head. “I did it.”
“Through the Omen.”
“I don’t think so.”
The revelation weighted her down like lead. Surely, she was wrong. The Omen had to have used her to do this, like before. She’d felt them before rising up in her like boiling water, their energy bubbling over, spilling and killing all those vamps. Eden couldn’t have done this alone. It wasn’t possible.
The silence between them was broken by a new voice. “What’s happening here, Prophet?” Isis demanded to know. “Mkombozi was here. I saw her with my own eyes.” Isis looked at Eden. “I saw the true Redeemer.”
Eden looked around at the Ancients still standing there, staring at her as if seeing her for the first time. They had never trusted her. Isis especially had never believed that Eden belonged among them.
“Did someone hit you upside the head?” Prophet asked Isis sarcastically.
“The two of them were fighting,” she replied, motioning at Eden. “Mkombozi was my general. I’m not delusional.”
“Then perhaps you’re drunk.”
“Who else saw her?” Isis asked the others standing around. “Someone else had to have seen the Ancient, Mkombozi.”
No one stepped up to support her claim. Eden had seen her, though. Not that she’d known that the female was Mkombozi, but the way she fought, the things she’d said . . .
“I am stunned that you would not recognize your own Beloved, Prophet. Do you really expect me to believe that you carried her in your arms just now and didn’t look at her? That you didn’t feel anything for the female that you dropped from the sky?”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “Because that was not Mkomobozi, Isis.” He looked at Eden.
Isis pointed. “This one is not Mkombozi, Guardian. I know what I saw, and so does she.”
He knows.
Of course he knows. Look!
Yes.
“Careful, Isis,” he warned, scanning the faces of the others around them. “The alliance here is already fragile. Don’t plant ridiculous ideas in their heads. What good could come of them believing that Mkombozi has returned, if that were even possible?”
“Nothing good can come of any of this,” Isis said dismally. “Your young human just killed off a hive of vamps without lifting a finger.” She looked at Eden. “She crushed them with a thought, her own. No Omen came to her rescue this time. Isn’t that right, Eden?”
Eden looked into the faces of the Ancients and humans standing around her, including Molly, clinging to Runyon. With the exception of her friend, they had all been afraid of her before, and now their fear had left them bewildered and powerless. She was no longer their ally, their champion.
Eden looked to Isis. “Yes. I did it with a thought,” she admitted, more to herself than to anyone else.
The defiant Isis stalked over to Eden, but Prophet stepped between the two.
Isis had planned on killing Eden. She’d come at her with that knife with that purpose in mind. Eden could not forget that.
“I killed them with a thought. You need to really let that sink in.”
It was a warning for Isis and the rest of them, a warning she hated to give, but it needed to be said because the faces of her enemies were now the faces of her former allies.
“From now on, you fight your own battles,” Isis finally said. “You stand alone. Both of you. Don’t count on any of us for help saving a world that can’t be saved.”
Isis turned and walked away and the Ancients, with the exception of Runyon and his pack, followed.
“What the hell does it all mean?” Runyon asked, irritated and glaring at Prophet. He looked at Eden. “Your eyes ain’t green.”
“Are you all right, Eden?” Molly asked, coming over to her.
Eden was not all right. “Take me home?” she asked Prophet.
He took hold of her hand, led her away from everyone else, spread his wings, and carried her away.
“I have dreamed you.”
Mkombozi. Standing in the shower back at the house, Eden closed her eyes. Fighting the female, there had been similarities. No. It was like looking in a mirror. Eden clearly saw that the two of them moved in the same ways, to the same rhythms. Despite their differences in size, neither of them could get and keep the advantage.
“How could they possibly believe Khale’s lie?”
Khale’s lie? Which one? The shifter had lied about so many things. She’d lied to Eden, telling her that if she could collect the Demon’s Omens, that she might be able to trade them for Rose’s life. Sakarabru killed Rose. She lied constantly, convincingly. They had all believed her. Eden had believed her. But it was possible and very likely that Khale had lied about everything.
“How could they believe that I could ever be so weak. . . . that I could ever be so small . . .”
Mkombozi was dead. Eden turned up the hot water and let it flow down her body.
“You don’t come back from the dead,” she murmured.
You did.
Thrice, young one.
She opened her eyes. If that truly was her, which Eden still wasn’t convinced that it was, then she was surely dead now. Eden had seen her fall. Prophet dropped her from the sky and from so high up, a fall like that surely would have killed her.
Would it?
Where was your Guardian?
He was gone too long.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Mkomobozi was left with the memory of the Guardian’s kiss and the assurance that the two of them would soon be together again. Eventually, Van Dureel returned to where he had left the vehicle and found Mkombozi there waiting for him. He did not speak to her then, and had not spoken to her since they returned to his home. Not that it mattered. Mkombozi could care less about having a conversation with a ptkah. She had other things to consider, more important things that held her thoughts captive.
Tukufu knew the truth now. He understood that Khale had misled him and that his reborn was a fraud. Mkombozi did not know what his plan was, but she did know that he would have no choice but to do the right thing. After all, he was her Guardian, her Beloved, and his oath bound him to her in ways that no human could fathom.
Right now, Mkombozi needed to eat. In the dining area of the house, Van Dureel’s humans had prepared food and left it for her on the table. Fruits and vegetables, she’d learned that they were called. She called them by their names in the human language: apples, grapes, carrots, and green beans. She had also learned to say bread, cheese, and beer. These were the things she preferred.
She was left alone, as usual, which she also preferred. Humans were nervous little creatures who stared when they thought she was not looking, a trait they undoubtedly inherited from studying their leader. He came into the room while she was eating, wearing only pants and nothing else. He opened the box where the beers were kept, opened one, finished it all at once, and got another.
“Do not drink them all,” she told him. “I will have one later.”
Van Dureel stood with his back to her, finished the second bottle, then reached for another, opened it, and slowly turned to her, staring defiantly as he finished that one as well.
“Do not try me, ptkah,” she murmured.
“Do not threaten me, Mkombozi.”
Without hesitating, she flung her plate of food in his face, then quickly raised herself onto the counter, grabbed him by the back of his neck, and moved to slam his head down on top of it, but before his head made contact with the counter he planted one hand on it the flat surface, braced his back, stiffened his neck, and stopped the momentum.
She had underestimated how strong he actually was because he had made a point of downplaying his strength. In a move almost too fast for her to see, Van Dureel wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her off the counter, turned, pressed his full body to hers and pinned her against the wall across the room.
“I a
m sick and tired of you fuckin’ Ancients thinking that the whole gotdamned world owes you something,” he said in a human tongue.
“Theian!” she snarled in his face, struggling to get free. “Say it so that I can understand you, ptkah!”
“Van Dureel!” he shouted back in Theian. “That is my name.” His black eyes bore into hers like fists. “I have fed you. I have clothed you. I have taken care of you, Mkombozi, and you will show me the respect that I deserve.”
“Put me down,” she demanded through gritted teeth.
He pressed his disgusting body deeper into hers. Mkombozi brought the heel of her hand to his chin and forced his head back, then landed a quick, short punch to his throat. He twisted his head from her hand.
“Cut it out,” he warned, wrapping long fingers around her throat.
Rage erupted from Mkombozi and this time, she head-butted him since it was the only defense she had.
“Let me go!” she demanded again, struggling against him.
A dirty little smile spread his lips. His black eyes glazed over as if he were in a trance.
“The things I could do to you, Elitest.”
“You are disgusting to me, ptkah!” she spat in his face.
He let go of her throat, grabbed a handful of her hair, pulled her head over to one side, and showed her his fangs as they became more prominent with desire.
Mkombozi was mortified. “I will kill you if you do this!”
On Theia he would not even think to do such a thing. He would be hunted down and killed, all of his kind would be hunted down and killed until he was found and made to suffer for his crime. But they were not on Theia now, and the harder she fought, the stronger he seemed to get until his lips locked onto her neck.
“No! No!”
The pain lasted only a moment. He released his hold on her arms, but Mkombozi did not fight him. The bite from this creature seeped through her neck, shoulders, and even her breasts, warm and intoxicating, sending her into a state of euphoria so compelling that she felt as if she were floating. Was he taking blood from her or giving her his? Mkombozi fell limp against him, but he held her in place, provocatively pressing his powerful body against hers.
She heard the seductive sounds of moans escaping into the air. Hers and his. His breath smelled of beer, his body of sweat. Without realizing it, she had wrapped her legs around his waist. He had planted his hands on the wall near her head. The room was spinning. Mkombozi desperately clung to him as if he were her lover. Beloved!
This was not as it should be. He was not hers. She was not his. No. No. He had poisoned her. Mkombozi found the rhythm of her breath and focused on it. She concentrated on the beating of her heart and eased its pace.
“No,” she heard herself say, as if she were a world away. She pushed against his chest. “I said no, Van Dureel,” she forced herself to say more purposefully. He would not stop, so caught up in his own pleasure that he had left himself open and vulnerable. Through the fog of this violation Mkombozi struck.
“No!” she shouted, gouging at his eyes with her thumbs.
“Aaaah!” he yelled, breaking the seal of his bite and letting her drop to the floor.
He backed away, rubbing his eyes. Mkombozi crouched low and landed three, quick, hard punches to his stomach, kidneys, and groin, forcing him to one knee. She finished him with a vicious kick to the jaw. He fell to one side, and then began to laugh. He had obviously gone mad. She backed away from him.
“How dare you!”
Van Dureel eventually sat up and composed himself. “Aw, lovely,” he licked his lips. “That was foreplay, Vampyre style. If I had bitten you to take your blood, I would have hurt you.”
“What is happening to you?” she asked, cautiously keeping an eye on him.
He studied her for several moments, almost as if he were looking for answers in her to questions that could not be answered by anyone else.
“Your kind nearly exterminated mine,” he began to explain. “On Theia we were nearly wiped out at one point, with so few of us left that we made a vow never to kill our own kind, no matter what.”
Did he want sympathy from her? “Your kind were vermin,” she retorted. “Feeding on the blood of infants until they were empty. Parasites. That’s what you are.”
“Did I feel like a parasite?” he asked. “Just now when I had you against that wall?”
“You have insulted me,” she said with disdain.
“As if I care? Since we have been here, our numbers have grown, Mkombozi. My kind has thrived in this world. We are no longer starving and afraid of the Elitests. They have forgotten us and we have lived in peace because of it.”
“So you feed off these humans now. What do I care?”
“We are gods to them,” he said, rising to his feet. “They worship us or they fear us or they do not believe we exist at all, but in any case, it is to our advantage.”
“Why do you tell me this? Why should I care?”
“Because I watched the extermination of my kind happen yesterday. It is possible for my entire race to be destroyed by a single thought from a single human, the reborn. The one who possesses your Omen.”
“With a thought,” he pointed to his own head, “she killed hundreds. She would have killed more but we managed to escape.”
The reborn was wielding the power of the Omen. She was not surprised.
“I will not stand by and watch my kind be obliterated,” he said with conviction. “The Omen are destructive to us.”
“They are destructive because she has them. She does not know how to control them.”
“And you do?”
She nodded. “I do.”
He took a deep breath and thought for a moment. “And what is to keep you from killing us? Or am I being ridiculous in hoping that you will not?”
She should kill him for the way he had just violated her. But he had fed her and provided shelter to her. This world was plentiful with humans. Elitests were no longer in power here. She would need allies should war ever break out, and the Vampyre nation, according to Van Dureel, was growing in numbers where the Elitests were dwindling.
“You will never put your hands on me like that again,” she warned.
“And in return?” he asked trying to hide his wounded feelings.
“I will leave your kind to your own devices.”
He lowered his head in a dramatic fashion akin to a bow. “I’ll take it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Red was scared, but she pretended not to be. Jarrod was terrified, but for her sake, he held his fear at bay. He’d seen what had happened to the humans bitten by vamps at Drake’s. She hadn’t. The thing was, Runyon had seen more than his share of horror movies where vampires fed off humans and turned them into vamps with a bite. He’d always believed that the shit was fantasy, romanticized nonsense created by humans who’d bought into that whole beautiful, seductive vampire lore. But after what Drake had shown him, he had no choice but to face the fact that Molly was turning.
She came out of the bathroom from having thrown up again. She was pale, her eyes sunk into dark circles, feverish and weak. The bite wound on her hand had bruised black all around it and the discoloration had traveled up her wrist to the inside of her arm. It was as if her blood had been poisoned. He wrapped both arms around her as soon as she crawled into bed next to him.
“You know,” she said shakily, “you might want to keep your distance, handsome. If I suddenly develop a fetish for jugulars, yours looks mighty inviting.”
Humor was her way of coping with just about anything that threatened to overwhelm her young mind and heart. Runyon had learned not to mess with it, and just to go along with it.
“Aw, sugar. You know better than that.” He tenderly kissed her forehead. “I’m at the top of the food chain, so I’m not worried about a little human-vamp hybrid and a couple of fangs in my neck. In fact, just thinking about it kind of turns me on.”
She laughed, but the laughter was vo
id of her vibrant spirit. “Well, I don’t think I’m craving blood yet, but you’ll be the first to know when I do.”
“Thanks, darlin’.”
Those nasty, slimy bastards had stolen a dream from him. He was as heartbroken as he was pissed. If she turned full vamp, then what? Would he kill her? Vamps operated on a hierarchal system akin to ants. Each hive had a leader and the drones allied with that leader. But this was different. At least, he’d hoped it was. She was human and she had her own mind and her own will, and he hoped that that wouldn’t change. Humans had embellished that whole needing blood to live theory as well. He’d seen vamps feeding on carnage at the end of a battle. They fed on the dead, but were particularly fond of blood from the near dead, like rats fighting over a discarded hot dog or something. There was nothing glamorous about it. Ancients like him turned their noses up at the vermin, stepped over them or on them like they weren’t even there. He wouldn’t want that for her. She wouldn’t want it for herself.
He needed to check in on Drake’s people. It had been a few days since he’d first seen them and now he was more curious than ever. Molly would sleep most of the day. He’d left a note on the nightstand explaining that he’d be back shortly, and he’d trusted one of his Were brothers to watch the house to make sure no one, not even her, came or went while he was gone.
Drake was none too happy about being woken up in the middle of the night. Runyon had driven three hours to get there, though, so he really didn’t give a damn how the man felt.
“I need to see them,” he insisted, standing outside the building.
“Why is this so important?” Drake asked.
This time, Runyon told him the truth. “Molly’s been bitten.”
Without asking another question, Drake led the way down into the basement where he’d kept the other two. “I haven’t been inside this room since I brought you, so I don’t know what to expect. It’s been quiet, but I honestly did not want to open the door.”
He’d learned the other day in West Virginia how fast these things could be. The humans locked in that room could’ve been dead, but in case they weren’t, he didn’t need to take any chances.
