The Balance

by C. L. Nelson

  I just want to look my best for Carina, not like she is going to care right now. She still fucking hates me, and she doesn’t even remember what I tried to do all those centuries ago. Can you blame me though? I am the fucking King of the Reapers and I get what I want, no female has ever refused me. Then, the most beautiful female I have ever seen and the only one worth any respect rejected me. I couldn’t take that without a fight.

  And fight she did. It was exciting at first, turned me on more. I was kissing her and ripping her clothes off. She was struggling, clawing at me, trying to hurt me any way she could. I was just about to free my erection when she grabbed the left side of my face with her right hand.

  First, I just felt the warmth of her skin, but the heat kept getting warmer until it was burning my skin. I could hear her guttural scream as her rage left her body, but it wasn’t as loud as the howl coming out of my mouth from the pain.

  My skin melted down to the bone within seconds. I continued to scream in agony as I climbed off her to try to find something to stop the burning. As soon as her hand was no longer on my face, the burning stopped, and I started to heal. Unfortunately, even with the ability to heal fast being a reaper, my face never fully went back to normal. The burn scar, deep and ugly as it is, remains on my face today. Not even magic will fix it.

  It’s perfectly understandable that I had to punish her. I couldn’t kill her, and I loved her too much to send her soul to the Pit, so I convinced Fate to help me find incarnations that were fated to end badly. We intercepted the souls meant for those incarnations and sent them to the Pit.

  I dropped her off and picked her up after each death. Between incarnations when she would regain all of her memories, I would try to convince her to submit to me and when she rejected my offer, I would send her back into the Provisional. I kept hoping she would learn her lesson, but she never did.

  Now we have been discovered and I can’t keep sending her back into the Provisional. She can’t stay in this current mortal body for much longer. Her soul is not meant to be in such a weak shell. I’d put her back in her immortal body if I knew where the fuck it went. The fucking thing disappeared as soon as I ripped her soul out of it.

  We are running out of time, weeks at most. If she isn’t placed in a new incarnation or put back into her immortal body, then her soul will burn through her current vessel, destroying both the body and her soul in the process. She will cease to exist.

  Fuck it. The grey tie it is. I put the tie on and slid into the dark grey suit jacket that matches the rest of the suit to complete my dinner outfit.

  I get to the dining room just as Carina is being shoved into her seat. “If you damage my queen, if I find even a bruise on her precious skin, I will throw you in the Pit,” I growled, glaring at the guards that manhandled my female.

  “We are sorry, My Liege. She is mouthy,” one of the guards said.

  “Deal with it. She will be crowned as Queen of the Reapers as soon as I get a few things settled,” I said. “Now apologize to your future queen!” I demand as I sit down next to her.

  They both apologized, sounding like it hurt them, before exiting the room.

  Carina scoffed and rolled her eyes. She then turned her eyes to me, eyes that are exact replicas of her originals.

  It still amazes me that she ends up looking the same in each incarnation, thanks to her transmogrification ability. She doesn’t even know she can do it, but her soul knows, and her soul manages to use the ability even when she isn’t in her immortal body. It’s all done instinctually without her having a clue that it happened.

  “Do you have to sit right next to me? There are like twenty other seats that you could sit in. How about that one, way the fuck over there?” she said, indicating the one furthest from her.

  I laughed. “Dearest one…sorry…Carina, I would miss you too much if I was that far away.”

  She glared at me; her kissable mouth drawn tight with her anger. “You do know I am never going to love you, right? I am never going to be your fucking queen!”

  “You will. I just may need some magical aid. You will crawl to me after the spell, crave me, and beg me to fuck you,” I said, sneering. “And if you are a good girl, I won’t make you wait like you have made me wait, desperate and aching for my touch.”

  She paled. “You are fucking disgusting. That isn’t love! Do you even understand the concept?” she spat at me, literally. “Love is given freely, not stolen. And it definitely doesn’t turn you into a mindless sex slave.”

  “Just eat, Carina. I had your favorites prepared. I watched you during your lifetimes, so I know a lot about you,” I said, gesturing to the food on the plates in front of her that contained bacon, lasagna with a side of meatballs, and a cheeseburger with fries.

  “I’m not fucking hungry,” she said, crossing her arms.

  I started to get angry, so I took a deep breath. “Fine, that body could stand to lose a few pounds anyway,” I said, but I don’t mean it. She looks perfect in her blue dress that she is still wearing, even though I had other clothes sent to our room.

  “You motherfucking, son of a bitch!” she screamed at me.

  “Just go back to our room, Carina. You are giving me a headache,” I said, ignoring her outburst. “I will see you when you have calmed down. Perhaps, if you come around on your own soon, I won’t have to have that spell performed.”

  “Not fucking likely, asshole!” she said, getting to her feet.

  “Another added bonus of you coming around on your own is that we won’t have to sacrifice the person you love the most to make the spell work. You don’t even have to love me at first, just submit to me willingly. Think about it,” I said, signaling the guards to take her back to our room.

  She screamed at me as she is being dragged back to our room. “I will fucking kill you if you touch Finlay!” She continued to curse and threaten me all the way down the hall.

  I shake my head. She definitely is mouthy. I hope she decides to submit to me willingly by the time we get her back into her immortal body. I ache painfully to be inside her, but only in her immortal body. I don’t want her fake imitation mortal body. That would be like settling for imitation crab meat or a fake Rolex. I will only accept the real thing.

  Ten minutes passed and I am just finishing my meal when I hear screaming coming from my bedroom. I figured it’s just Carina throwing a tantrum until a guard runs into the room.

  He is out of breath and is gasping for air between words. “My King….Fate just showed up…and started attacking the female. We can hold her off…but it’s forbidden to hurt Fate.”

  I hurry to my feet and start running down the hall. I reach my bedroom within a minute. When I enter, I see blood scattered around the floor. I run over and inspect Carina for injuries.

  “Are you hurt, dearest one?” I asked, scanning her body.

  She seems to have a few scratches and a couple of shallow cuts, but she is okay overall. She also appears weak and tired; telltale signs that she used her abilities to save herself again.

  “You bastard! You love her? I heard rumors, but I didn’t believe them,” Cecilia screamed at me, trying to get free from the guards to lunge at me.

  “Didn’t he tell you that he never loved you, that he was just using you? He loves me, wants me to be his queen,” Carina said weakly, trying to rile her up.

  “You bitch, I will kill you!” Cecilia screamed. “If you die, then he will want me again.”

  “I have never wanted you, Cecilia. You were a toy and a tool. A receptacle to release into when I ached too much from thinking about Carina. A tool to be used to achieve my goals, nothing more,” I said, seething from her audacity to try to take my queen from me.

  I picked up the large knife that she used to cut up my female and walked towards her. “Hold her down on the floor,” I commanded.

  The four guards hesitate, looking around at each other as if unsure of what to do.

  “Do it or I will throw you in the Pit!”
I shouted.

  “Yes, Our King,” they replied as they hold Cecilia to the floor, one holding each of her limbs.

  “Alaric, darling, what are you doing?” she said, her voice rising and her eyes growing wide.

  I ignored her as I advanced towards her with the knife.

  “Let me go! You can’t do this! I am Fate. You will be thrown into the Pit,” she screamed.

  I kneeled on the floor near her left arm. “You will heal, and you won’t tell anyone. You won’t risk everyone finding out what you did. You will either be thrown in the Pit with me or put back into the Provisional. You remember how much fun you had in the Provisional, don’t you?” I said through gritted teeth, barely containing my rage.

  I start sawing through her arm at the shoulder, nice and slow. Blood is spraying everywhere. Cecilia is screaming, her immortality not allowing her to pass out. I finished removing that limb and moved on to the next one.

  I hear Carina begging me to stop in the background. I turned to look at her and I locked eyes with her right before she started to vomit. Poor thing must not be able to handle the sight of this much blood.

  “Keep this in mind for later, Carina. Immortal bodies can take a lot of damage and heal completely.”

  I got back to work. I hacked off Cecilia’s right arm next, followed by both of her legs. When I am done, she is sobbing quietly, her strength gone with her screams and blood loss.

  “That will keep you out of my hair for a while. When you are healed, I expect you to behave yourself,” I whispered in her ear.

  “Take her to her apartment in the Provisional. No one knows where it is besides a few of her lovers. Stay with her there while she heals,” I instructed the guards.

  When I am alone with Carina, I walked over to where she is laying. I looked at her and the mess she made. “I will send some female servants to bathe you while someone else cleans up the rest of this mess,” I said before turning to leave the room.

  “How can you expect me to love you when you made me witness that?” she whimpered.

  “Love or fear. As long as you submit to me and do as you are told, I don’t care what the motivation is at this point,” I said as I crouch down to caress her hair.

  She flinched but didn’t pull away. She is either too tired to fight me or is finally starting to understand her situation here.

  I kissed her hard and she doesn’t move. I deepen the kiss, forcing my tongue in her mouth, tasting her underneath the remnants of her stomach bile. I stopped when she starts to dry heave. I leave her on the floor of our bedroom and send the first female servants I come across to her.

  I will take that as progress. She will come around with time and proper motivation. Maybe I will hold her fae friend hostage and use him against her.

  I stop fantasizing and get back to my current problems. If rumors are floating around the Waiting about Carina being here, then I need to move her. Cecilia will probably send her minions to try to kill her again or my idiot son will try to take her from me.

  Down two flights of stairs and through three long hallways, I reached the room where Lachlan is recovering from his fall. I had the guards lock him in, so he wasn’t tempted to go after Carina. I am hoping we can reach an agreement, so he will help me relocate the female. I unlocked his door and walk into the room.

  Lachlan is sitting at the wooden desk on the right side of the room. He is rubbing the muscles in his leg. “Fucking muscles always cramp up when I heal that much damage in such a short period of time,” he said, not turning to look at me. “Have you come to deliver my payment and bonus for injury?”

  “Not exactly. I was hoping you would be interested in helping me further. I will double your payment.”

  “If it involves that bitch you want for your queen, then you can count me out unless you are allowing me to kill her,” he said, still not looking in my direction.

  “No, but I will allow you to exact your vengeance on her mortal body right before I put her soul back into her immortal body, but you must wait until I give you permission. She could use some more motivation to behave herself and you wouldn’t be damaging her real body, so it seems like a win-win solution.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he said, finally looking at me.

  “I need you to ward a house in the Provisional, so no one will be able to find it, not with any spell or ability.”

  “That’s it?” he asked, his eyebrows lowering like he is suspicious.

  “Yes, then you may leave, and I will call you back for your vengeance.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said, cutting his hand before offering it to seal the deal

  I cut myself and shake his hand. Our deal is bound with the mingling of our blood. Breaking a deal bound with blood has serious consequences. Whoever breaks the agreement forfeits their soul to the other person. What that person chooses to do with said soul is completely up to them. Owning a person's soul gives you ultimate power over them.

  I astralocate Lachlan to my secluded home in Louisiana. It’s so far in the middle of nowhere that I would be hard-pressed to tell you the nearest town. I own quite a few acres, so I would not be disturbed by anyone who would think about moving near me. Not that much of the land is workable. There are swamps in every direction. It’s also a good deterrent in case Carina gets any ideas about making a run for it. She’d run into hundreds of alligators and poisonous critters long before she would run into a human.

  While my home is in the middle of nowhere, it isn’t some hillbilly hideout. It is a two-story, southern-style house complete with columns and a deep wraparound porch. It’s large enough for Carina to explore and keep herself busy while I solve our problems.

  I leave Lachlan to start the wards on the house. Before I astralocated back to the Waiting, I summoned a few local nymphs to attend to Charlie and keep an eye on her. Technically, I don’t have to do anything to let them know I am here, but I play the pan’s flute that they gave me anyway. Nymphs of any variety love music and dancing. They already knew exactly when I arrived with the trees and wind whispering to them.

  I heard giggling moments before three of them stepped from behind the cypress trees. They are holding on to each other while twirling and skipping across the grass. When they reach me, they circle me and spin around me, giggling still. They stopped spinning and start to kiss any exposed skin they can find. Nymphs just wanna have fun. With any luck, their personalities will rub off on Carina.

  “Girls, girls, I am not here to play today. I need you to help me,” I said while taking a step back, so they can concentrate. Nymphs aren’t very bright.

  They all whined and pout.

  “If you help me, I will let you play with Lachlan until I get back. I’m sure he won’t mind bedding the three of you. He is a fae and I know how much you like to play with the fae.”

  They squealed with delight and nod their heads vigorously. “Oh yes, we would like that very much,” the blonde one said.

  “Perfect. Let Lachlan finish his work and then you should have about an hour to play with him before I get back,” I said slowly, so they understand it all. “Then you will take care of my friend, getting her whatever she needs, and making sure she doesn’t leave. Do you understand?”

  They looked at each other and then looked back at me, nodding their heads.

  I send them off to find Lachlan and then I astralocated back to the Waiting. I am outside of my bedroom when the female servants exit the room.

  They throw themselves at my feet. “We are sorry, My King. She refused our help after her bath and asked us to leave. She was standing on her own and quite adamant that we leave her alone,” one of them explained while starting to cry.

  “Leave!” I said loudly, not quite yelling.

  They got up and ran down the hall like the room was on fire. I rubbed my aching head. This is part of the reason why I despise females. They are all so fucking exhausting.

  Chapter 18

  Charlie

  Could my life suck
any worse right now? Wait! Don’t answer that! I am sitting in a bathtub feeling like ass still while two women wash me. I am just too tired to tell them to go away and I do want to be clean. I had stomach bile in my hair, and I wanted to wash off any trace of Alaric.

  Holding still while he kissed me took the rest of my strength. That test run to see if I could stomach his touch failed miserably. I am going to have to figure out another way out of this mess and keep Finlay safe. I will die before I let him kill Finlay and turn me into some mindless sex slave.

  My two helpers assist me out of the bathtub. I am feeling a little better now and I am able to stand on my own, so I ask them to leave. It took some convincing to get them to go. They seem to be afraid of Alaric and I don’t blame them.

  I am standing at the bathroom sink, wrapped in a towel. I held on to the sink to support my weight while I looked in the mirror at my reflection. Wow, I look like death. My skin is pale, like worse than normal, I have dark circles around my eyes and my lips are dry and cracked. Well, nice to know that I look as bad as I feel.

  My helpers had set out some essentials for me. I saw a toothbrush and toothpaste and nearly collapsed from the joy that rushed through my body. I grabbed the toothbrush, applied some toothpaste, and immediately started to vigorously brush my teeth. I spit, rinse, reapply toothpaste, and repeat the process. After brushing my teeth ten times and start to spit out blood from brushing too hard, I felt clean enough to stop.

  It’s not just the memory of Alaric’s tongue in my mouth that I was trying to brush away. I was also trying to scrub away how I felt while Alaric tortured that woman. I was repulsed, but some part of me also enjoyed it. It was the strangest thing to feel something other than terror and revulsion when I witnessed her suffering. That feeling was what made me throw up, not the terrifying look in Alaric’s eyes or all of the gore.