by Jayde Brooks
The Were in Runyon immediately responded to the impending threat.
“Eden,” Prophet told her, holding up his hand to stop her approach. “Calm down, man,” he warned Jarrod.
“What the hell did you do?” Eden demanded again.
“The only thing I that I knew to do. The one thing she wanted me to do,” he said defensively, gradually increasing in stature. “I bit her, Eden.”
His massive size was no deterrent to Eden’s rage. She tore her kpinga from its holster on her hip and charged at him. Prophet wrapped his arm around her waist, picked her up off the floor, and carried her to the other side of the room.
“You know he wouldn’t hurt her,” he said angrily.
“He did hurt her!” she shouted.
It took every ounce of energy Runyon had to restrain himself and to calm the beast in him. But somehow he managed. “It was the only way, Eden,” he desperately explained. “The only way to possibly save her.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, glaring at him. “How could that save her?”
Runyon gradually shrank into his human form. “We’d talked about it,” he said, wide-eyed. “Molly had been asking me to bite her for months, and I wouldn’t do it. I was afraid that I’d kill her.”
“Why would she want that?” Eden yelled.
“Because she wanted me,” he responded. “She wanted a lifetime with me. And I thought it was crazy, but you know how she is. You know how she’s always equating those legends and movies to real life. To Ancients.” Runyon stood over her and looked down at Molly.
He was right. Molly believed that legend and truth, especially when it came to Ancients, were closely related. She was always talking that crap.
“Think about it, E. Guardian angels? Guardians? They have wings. Maybe some old Roman lady happened to see a Guardian flying off with somebody to save them, and voila! Guardian Angels were born. I’m just saying.”
“I told her that I wouldn’t do it. But when a vamp sunk its teeth into her and I saw, firsthand, what happens to humans when they get bitten . . . Some of them turn, Eden. Just like in those movies. Just like in legends. They become vamps, or some version of them. Hybrids,” he shrugged.
Eden couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “So you bit her to stop the transformation to vamp?”
His eyes glazed over. “I didn’t even think about—she had said that she believed a bite from me would make her live longer, turn her into a Were. When I saw she had turned, my first instinct was to kill her. But I couldn’t do it. And so I thought, maybe she was on to something. Maybe a bite from me could stop her from changing or—I don’t know. I just wanted to save her, Eden. And it was the only way I could think of in that moment. That’s all the time I had to think about it—a moment.”
“But what if doesn’t work?” she asked somberly, slowly approaching him.
“Then at least she didn’t die as one of them,” he said, hoarsely. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Eden put her arms around him.
“I honestly didn’t know what else to do.”
“So, the vamp bit her,” Prophet said unsympathetically, “and then you bit her. What the hell’s she going to be if she lives?” He looked back and forth between Eden and Runyon. “Or am I the only one who thinks this could be an issue?”
Runyon had obviously kicked his own ass too much to even counter Prophet’s argument.
“If she lives,” Eden said, “then we’ll figure it out.” She sat back down on the bed next to Molly and held her hand. “You’re a fighter, Molly,” she said softly. “You’re a survivor, and just like you have faith in me, I’ve got plenty in you.”
Molly hadn’t survived all the bullshit they’d been through to go down over something as silly as being bitten. She was the poster girl for survivors. She wasn’t going to die. She couldn’t die.
Eden leaned close to her and whispered in her ear. “If you die on me,” she said, trying not to cry, “I’ll kill you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Tukufu dwelled in a place called Vermont. Mkombozi sat next to Van Dureel in his SUV, mentally readying herself to face off again with the impostor and to prove to everyone that they had been dealt the lie to end all lies by Khale, Andromeda, and this reborn. Others followed behind: Vampyre and Van Dureel’s human subjects. Among them were Isis and ENIG.
“How much further?” Mkombozi asked the Vampyre.
“Three to four hours.”
She had learned the concept of human time since she had arrived, and she knew she had time to sleep. She would need to be well rested and focused to go up against the Reborn. And she would need to be keen on the Guardian. The last time the two of them had come together, he seemed to believe that she was who she said she was. At the time, Mkombozi believed that his loyalty had shifted away from the impostor and back to her. But that had been days ago and she had not seen or heard from him since. Was he still on her side?
“This will not be easy, but I know what must be done,” he had told her.
If he had a plan, then he had not shared it with her. That left her feeling uneasy because he had been deceived for so long by the impostor. Tukufu’s love for Mkombozi had lasted an eternity. It was his love for her that compelled him to believe that this impostor was Mkombozi back from the dead. He was only with her because he believed that she was someone that she was not. Mkombozi could only hope that he had accepted the truth as convincingly as he had seemed to the last time they spoke. She would need him if she were to win this battle. Far more than any of the others, Tukufu could help her to defeat this enemy.
He had loved her since her birth and through death. Now, in life, he could love her yet again—her, and not some false version of her. His patience was his strongest virtue. His faith in the two of them together was the power behind who she would become. The impostor had inherited him under false circumstances. She would never know the tenderness of him the way Mkombozi had known it. She would never know the depths of his love the way Mkombozi had known it, or the level of honor and integrity that he displayed, waiting for Mkmbozi to mature into his female. A particular memory bought a smile to her face.
She had spent all afternoon picking flowers and baking him bread. Tatim, her caregiver, had fixed her hair, pinning it up at Mkombozi’s request in the hopes that it would make her appear older than she was. Young one, he called her. Never her name, just young one. It infuriated her, especially since he’d sworn his oath to her when she was an infant, which meant that he had fallen in love with her at first sight. And yet he still treated her like a child, when she was actually his Beloved.
Mkombozi knocked on the door to his dwelling and waited for him to answer. When he did, she cleared her throat and held out the basket of bread to him, but held the flowers close to her heart.
Mkombozi cleared her throat again as he stared down at her with those magical eyes of his. “I have come to present myself to you, Guardian, as your bride and your Beloved, to whom you have sworn your oath.” She shoved the flowers at him and then curtsied, because it seemed to be the proper thing to do. “You may take me now.”
Another would’ve laughed at her, but he respected her.
Tukufu cleared his throat and graciously accepted her flowers. “I will take you, Beloved, in the proper time, when you have fully matured, and it is proper.”
“But it is proper now, because I have deemed it so,” she said, with all the regal stature of the future ruler of Theia and the Redeemer who was born to save them all. “I am not a child, Guardian.”
He bent at the waist until his nose nearly touched hers. It took every ounce of willpower for her not to kiss him.
“You are a child, young one. But one I will wait patiently for until she has reached full maturity.”
Mkombozi pouted and defensively folded her arms across her chest. “But that will take forever.”
He smiled. “Not forever. But a while.” Tukufu straightened up and stroked his hand across her
head, completely messing up the style. “Now go and play. And no more talk of such things until you are older.”
“When I am older you will beg for me,” she warned him. “You will beg and I will make you wait.”
“Oh, I will beg, young one. And I will wait. And then I will beg some more, until you finally say yes. I will beg and wait for as long as you would keep me at bay.”
Heat flushed through her cheeks. “Do you promise?”
He nodded. “Yes. I do.”
“We’re here, Mkombozi,” Van Dureel said, waking her and stopping the vehicle on the side of the road not far from the large dwelling.
She walked a few steps ahead of him and stared up at the grand edifice surrounded by open fields and trees. Several moments passed before a cloud of smoke wafted past them, up the hill to Tukufu’s home. It was ENIG. He returned after a time and alit in front of Isis, slowly morphing into his more solid form.
“No one is inside,” he said to her.
Isis turned slowly to the small army she had behind her, then faced Van Dureel. “Could it be a trap?”
“How could it be?” Mkombozi stepped forward and asked. “There is no way that they could have known that we were coming.”
Van Dureel called out to his top drone. “Have the others search the area,” he said, with the authority of a leader. “Tell them to be careful not to be seen or heard and to report back to me within the hour.”
Mkombozi had come to trust the Vampyre above all others, even more than Isis and her Phantom. He had proven himself to her, despite that little incident from several nights ago—or perhaps because of it. It was said that the Vampyre bite not only drew blood from its victim but could lead to an exchange of blood as well, particularly when mating. The thought disgusted her, but oddly enough, he no longer did.
He turned his black gaze to her. “If it is a trap, then we will soon know,” he assured her.
This was not Theia. And here she was no longer a general in an army fighting a world war against a demon. Alliances had been broken. Theian lives lost. A world lost. Mkombozi’s old way of thinking was gradually changing as she adjusted to this new existence on Earth.
“Thank you, Van Dureel,” she said in Earth’s language.
He humbly nodded.
This time she would be stronger and more determined to put the Omen in the proper place inside her. This time she would not allow them to overwhelm her so quickly and completely. Surely if that small human had managed to control them, then a Theian warrior, the first and only Redeemer, could as well. And as deeply as she loved the Guardian, as much as she longed for the two of them to be together again—if he could not accept the truth about Mkombozi and the Reborn, if he chose to fight against her, then he would die.
“Are you all right?” Van Dureel asked sincerely, wiping a tear from her cheek.
“When it is over, only then will I be all right, Van Dureel,” she said in Theian.
She wanted it all, the Omen and her Beloved. But if she was forced to choose . . .
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
What had he done to her? Prophet’s question resonated in Runyon’s gut as a sick and twisted nauseating feeling.
“The vamp bit her and then you bit her. What the hell’s she going to be if she lives?”
He sat across the room from Molly, staring at her. Her heart was still beating. Every now and then he’d seen her chest rise and fall as she took a breath. But other than that, there was nothing. He believed that she was alive because he couldn’t accept the alternative. But what if she really wasn’t alive? What if this was a new kind of death? Molly was human; a human who had been bitten and infected by a vamp bite, and Runyon had added his DNA into the mix. What the fuck was he thinking to do something like that to her?
Was she suffering? If she was and she couldn’t move—couldn’t say anything—Jesus! What he’d done to her could be worse than death. He’d been selfish, only thinking of himself and how empty his life would be without her—again. Like Prophet, he’d lost the love of his life on Theia too, and since then, there had been no one until Molly reared her lovely red head and given his ancient ass life. Jarrod had thought that maybe she’d been right and that this theory she had of him biting her would somehow save her from the fate of turning into one of those gotdamn vamps. If she had fully turned into one of them, at least she’d be alive. She’d still be here with him.
He loved her too much to watch her suffer like this. Someone his age should know better than to allow this to continue. Runyon didn’t even realize that he’d gotten up from his chair and walked across the room until he found himself sitting on the side of the bed, next to her, already beginning the transformation into his beast. A low growl escaped from the back of his throat as he gazed down at her. He had thought to ask one of his brothers to do this, but it wasn’t their place. It was his. She was his mate.
He would make it quick, and hope that she wouldn’t suffer any more than she already had because of him. “I love you, Red.” He meditated on those words over and over again in his head as he bared his canines and lowered his head to her throat. He closed his eyes and quietly completed his transformation as he hovered over her and opened his jaws.
“What the hell are you doing, Were?” Molly asked, grabbing a handful of his scruff.
Runyon stared into the brightest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen, surrounded by a ring of gold. Color rushed back to her complexion, and Molly’s fiery head of hair filled with red and gold hues.
He was so stunned to see her alive, so overtaken by her appearance, that he couldn’t speak. But immediately, on a subconscious level, he began to rescind his beast.
“Were you—were you trying to kill me?” she asked in a shriek.
Fangs. Molly had fangs, delicate little fangs that looked really cute on her. Absently, he nodded.
Her beautiful eyes widened. “Why were you trying to kill me, Jarrod?” she asked in disbelief. “Oh my God! Why would you do that?”
Molly released her surprisingly powerful grip on him and pushed herself up on the bed.
Jarrod’s chin was on his chest.
“Well?”
He opened his mouth to speak and then had to remind himself how. “I-I thought—”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Molly reached up to touch her face, and then noticed the bandages on her arm. “The vamp bite,” she said, fearful. “Jarrod. What happened? What did it do to me?” All of a sudden, she seemed to notice her fangs. She lightly ran her tongue across them, and anxious tears filled her eyes. “Oh no!” her chest heaved. “What the fuck happened to me?”
“I think you’re fine, Red,” he finally responded. “How do you feel?”
Molly took her time mentally assessing herself. “I don’t know,” she said, concerned. “Fine, but . . .”
“But what?”
She shrugged. “I feel weird.”
“How weird, baby?”
He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was Molly, his Red, but she was different. Yeah, it was her eyes, and her hair—and the fangs—but it was something else too. Something deeper than just the physical.
“Anxious?” she said hesitantly.
“Maybe you’re just confused.”
She nodded. “That could be it.”
“Anything else?”
“What happened to me, Jarrod? Tell me everything.”
“Well, you got sick from that bite. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah. I was throwing up a lot. I felt like crap.”
“You got worse, Red,” he explained as delicately as he could.
“How?”
He took a deep breath. “You bit me. You bit my neck.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Like a vampire.”
“Yeah.”
“Like in the movies?”
“Well, yeah. It was like that I guess.”
“Did I suck your blood?”
“You tried.”
Molly mouthed the
word fuck.
“And then, well, I kind of reacted. I might’ve hit you, baby, but I didn’t mean to.”
“What did I do?”
He cleared his throat. “You kind of walked on the ceiling.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It was—impressive. Really. I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I can’t.”
“Well, you did, but I swatted you off it onto the floor and then I—” he didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to, but he knew that he was going to have to.
“You what, Jarrod?”
“I panicked, sweetheart,” he said, quickly. “I panicked and I bit you.” He glanced at her arm.
“You bit me?”
“Remember? We’d talked about it, and decided that it wasn’t a good idea. Well it wasn’t. I hurt you, Red. I hurt you bad.”
Molly pensively raised her bandaged arm, wiggled her fingers, and then proceeded to remove the wrapping. Both she and Jarrod examined her arm. It looked perfectly fine.
“I bit clean through it, baby.”
“How long’s it been?” she asked, softly.
“About three days.”
The two of them locked gazes.
“I figured that if the vamp bite played true to the legend, then maybe me biting you would too. It was the only thing I could think to do, honey.”
“So, which one am I?” she asked, tentatively. “Because I don’t think I’m all the way human anymore, baby.”
Jarrod’s brain turned somersaults in his head. “Are you hungry?”
She thought about it before answering, and then nodded. “I am.”
“Thirsty?”
She nodded again.
“What do you want, Red? What are craving?”
Molly took her time. “A beer and a steak.”
“Medium well? Like always?”
Molly swallowed. “Rare. The way you take yours.”
“You got no craving for just pure blood, then?” he cautiously probed.
“I don’t think so.”
“Or corpses. You got no penchant to gnaw on a corpse?”
