by S. E. Smith
Sorrow filled her as the truth unfurled in her mind. They had no intention of keeping her. She’d be dead soon enough, and she’d help the Triscani destroy the one man she’d managed to love.
Raising her foot from the floor, she wiggled her leg so she could hear the chains rattle. Might as well be a worm on a hook.
Nothing but bait.
Chapter 9
Aron struggled to cover the distance to George’s door. The two Hunters who’d haunted the ashes of Zoey’s home were now remnants staining his own soul black. Somehow, absorbing their power was tougher this time. Seven souls he held now, seven demons swirling dark as death in his system. He’d known he was on the edge of turning, but since his escape, since breathing fresh air and meeting sweet Zoey, the torment had lessened, become bearable.
Now the acid in his soul returned with a vengeance. He wanted Zoey to know that he’d survived, that he’d avenged the loss of her home and that she would not suffer her sister’s fate. He wanted her to know she’d be safe before he turned into a monster.
Aron raised his fist to pound on George’s door, but the old man opened it before he could knock.
“Aron. What are you doing here? I specifically told you to stay away. They’re watching the house.” He looked older somehow, worn down. Dark circles were under eyes lined with more wrinkles than yesterday. His gray hair was sticking up in a thousand different directions, as if he’d been zapped with electricity and not quite recovered. His clothes were simple, jeans and a plain white T-shirt.
“Not anymore.” He swayed on his feet and George grabbed him, pulling him inside. The slam of the front door barely registered above the pain slicing his brain into strips inside his skull. Damn the Triscani. And damn the gods for making him this…
“Where’s Zoey?” George led him to the sofa and shoved his shoulders until Aron obediently sat.
“Safe.” Aron leaned forward, placing his head in his hands. “She’s safe now.”
“You kill those things?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” George stood beside him, silent for several minutes. Aron didn’t have the strength to question his stoic friend, or to hide the darkness swirling beneath his skin.
“What now? How can I help? Where’s Zoey. She can’t stay with me.” George paced like a worried parent. “I saw something. Someone here. It’s not safe here. The dead walk here.”
The old man must be stressed to the breaking point, worried about Zoey.
Zoey, with her soft heart and dove gray eyes. Indeed. What now? His precious Zoey was safe but he had no idea who set her house on fire. The doctor had what he needed to build an army to defeat the Triads. And it was only a matter of time before more Hunters were sent to track their escapee. Aron had no doubt that he’d be hunted for as long as he remained sane. Which, judging by the horrors echoing in his head, wouldn’t be long at all. He had to get out of here. George wasn’t safe with him. Zoey would never be safe with him.
No one was.
The thought was a knife blade through his already broken heart. Eight hundred years of torture and the Triscani had never done what Zoey had in one night…destroyed him.
Remade him into something else, something far more dangerous than he’d ever been before…a man with something to lose.
George patted him on the shoulder like he’d most likely done to his dead son a thousand times. The ache in Aron’s chest intensified. Caring was dangerous and stupid. He couldn’t walk this road, not with his soul bleeding blacker with every moment that passed. He’d already reached his limit, surpassed it. He’d kill as many of their Hunters as he could before he lost control, then he’d hang on until he could summon one of the inner circle, one of the daughters of the Mater Mortis from the House of Judgment, one of the women who wielded the true Angel’s Fire, and force her to end his suffering and protect the woman he loved.
Until then, he’d hunt. He’d kill. That was all he could do now, all he was. A killer.
No sane woman could love a killer.
Zoey could. Aron rubbed his aching temples and shook his head. No. He would not force this life on her. He was a danger to everyone, especially a fragile, mortal female. But she’s a Timewalker. Not a normal human.
Thoughts of Zoey must have reanimated their connection. The Mark on his hip fired up like it was angry with him. Well, he knew what he had to do, he just hadn’t found the strength to do it yet…he had to refuse the Mark.
He felt her claim inside him, a psychic lifeline he’d clung to. His mother had told him enough to know what it meant, that Zoey wanted him as her mate, that they’d share power and pleasure in equal measure. The memory had come to him slowly, partially because it was a conversation he’d had with his mother before he’d been taken, and partially because it was knowledge he did not want.
He did not want to give her up.
But never once in his early years, in all his lessons about the Immortals, the Triscani, and the various human variations, had the Marked woman been denied by her chosen mate. He was Immortal, not of this Earth, and he knew he could sever Zoey’s claim as easily as slicing through butter with a warm knife.
But, gods be damned, it was going to hurt.
His hip flared again, this time hot enough to draw him from his morose thoughts.
He found George shaking him, trying to get his attention. “Aron! Aron! Something’s wrong. Snap out of it! More of those things just arrived. Lots more. And they’re walking around Zoey’s house like they own the place.”
“No.” Zoey. They had Zoey. The knowledge flooded him and brought with it the echo of her hopeless weeping. They’d taken her back to their fractured world and thrown her in a cell…in his cell.
Rage like he’d never known burned through his pain. He’d kill them all. Every fucking one.
Aron ignored the old man who stuttered and staggered around behind him. He didn’t bother with the door, simply teleported into the middle of the Triscani welcoming party and grabbed the closest black cloak. They were on him instantly, five Hunters, all trying to piss him off, to devour his soul and turn his body to ash.
Fools.
Their screams echoed through the night like ghostly phantom wails. Lights turned on in neighboring houses, but Aron was beyond caring. The Triscani would be gone soon, any humans who might see them would attribute the horrific scene to bad lighting or bad dreams. If not? It hardly mattered.
Five heaps of ash lay around scattered around him, the remains of the attackers sent to lure him back. The last one, the strongest, had laughed as Aron sucked his soul, laughed and sent him an image of Zoey in the cage, shackled and bleeding from her ankle, weeping and in pain.
He’d killed that one slowly, prolonging the agony until Aron noticed his own hands turning black as obsidian. Aron had finished him quickly after that. No telling how long he’d be able to hold back his transformation.
Not true. He knew exactly how long he’d hold back his eternal night, as long as it took to go to the Triscani home world and get Zoey out of that fucking box.
Aron opened a Gate to the one place he’d sworn never to return, and stepped through to the main portal room.
More guards awaited him. They were insurance, nothing more. He was doomed already. Dead. Black inside and out. He held one human thought in his mind, to free Zoey. After that, he’d be completely lost.
He did what the Triscani High Lords intended and sucked the souls out of three more guards on the way to his old prison cell. The guards were fodder, unarmed, smaller and weaker than the Hunters, about the same size as an average human male. Their souls were less toxic and their faces nearly human because their existence had been limited to this side of the Gates. Few kills to transform them, few souls to pollute their bodies with evil.
Still, their evil soaked him through and through, until there was nothing left of the man he’d once been, nothing but her face. He didn’t dare look down. The fire in his limbs assured him that his flesh was dying, turning
colder and blacker than deep space…just turning.
He’d save Zoey and make sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else. She’d offered him solace, and what had he done in return? Brought danger to her, destroyed her home and cost her her freedom.
If that was what his love did for a woman, she was much better off without him.
Yes. He’d free her and summon the Circle of Judgment, the Angel’s Fire. It was the only logical choice. Once he turned, no one but his brother or sister would be able to defeat him, and as far as he knew, they were both lost in the strands of time. He would not be what the Triscani masters wanted. He would not be their king. He would not destroy the Earth and tear down the walls between worlds.
But he could. He was the most powerful Dark Lord born in recorded history. The prophecy claimed that he, his brother, and his sister would rule the three worlds and unite them once more, that the Triscani home world, Earth, and Itara would live under one rule. Theirs.
The Triscani didn’t want a true king. They didn’t want a leader. They wanted to go home, back to Itara to wreak havoc, and the Earth stood in their way. The Triscani wanted to return, not to live, but to seek vengeance, to destroy the people who had given them life and then abandoned them to the dark.
He. Would. Not.
Better to burn.
Inhuman screams brought Zoey up on her knees, straining against the chain that held her. Aron was here. She could feel his presence in the silent place inside her heart. But something was wrong. Where was his warmth? The longing that filled her every time his soul brushed against hers?
All she felt was cold dread.
A deafening screech of metal sounded as an opening was torn in the wall before her. There he stood. Her lover. Her savior.
And he was black as ink everywhere but his eyes, his eyes burned at her in apology and resignation.
Aron didn’t speak, didn’t look at her, simply walked past to her ankle. With one hand on the cuff and one the chain, he snapped the offending metal free with a sharp tug.
With a sob of relief she threw herself in his arms. She didn’t care what he looked like, didn’t care that his skin was colder than the metal that had held her captive seconds ago. He was here, he was alive, and she loved him. “Aron. Thank God.”
The horror of the last few hours roared through her like a tiger set free and the tears nearly suffocated her. She couldn’t stop or hold them back now that he was here.
After a few minutes of sobbing it registered that his arms weren’t around her, his body was not welcoming. It was like hugging a chunk of cold rock. “Aron?”
“Go, Zoey. Go now.” He carried her from the cell and walked down a long hallway lined with Triscani. But the frightening faces weren’t hissing or fighting Aron anymore. They were bowing as Aron passed.
Aron carried her for several minutes and she clung to him, tried to pour her love into him, hoped his lips would turn pink and the black-ink coloration would fade from his handsome face.
The color of onyx, and he still looked gorgeous to her.
They approached an arched gateway made from material that looked very much like Aron’s flesh. Gently, he set her on her feet and rocked back on his heels. He lifted an arm to point behind her. A strange portal swirled into existence and she saw green grass and the odd little gnome that sat next to George’s front door on the other side.
“Go.”
He didn’t force her away, didn’t put his hands on her at all, almost like he was afraid to. She pulled back to look into his eyes and froze. He was gone. The eyes looking back at her were nearly black, not the vibrant green she remembered. She stared for a moment and saw the green churn through them, like chocolate syrup in a cake batter, before vanishing again. He trembled beneath her hands, holding back, holding on to his control by a thread.
If he lost the battle, she’d be dead before she could draw a second breath.
She knew she should let him go and run. It was what he wanted her to do, to save herself. It was what any sane woman would have done. But she wasn’t sane. Not anymore.
She was in love, and she wasn’t going to let these bastards have him, wasn’t going to allow him to sacrifice himself. Not for her.
She was weak. Mortal. Human.
The world needed him alive to fight the monsters. She needed him to hold her close and chase her nightmares away. And he needed her to help him remember what it meant to be cherished, and safe, and loved.
“No.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks and stared up into eyes she no longer recognized. “No, Aron. Not like this. I won’t let them have you.”
“It’s too late. Please. Go. Now.” A flash of green gave her hope, but his lips were obsidian, his hair, that gorgeous black hair, now looked odd and unnaturally alive against his garish skin. “Don’t make my sacrifice nothing, Zoey. Go.”
Zoey turned to look through the portal, at the green grass and starlit night. She could smell home, Earth’s dirt and trees and the Denver smog. Her hands locked like clamps on his arms for a moment, then she removed them. He sighed in apparent relief and bowed his head, expecting her to leave.
“Go, my love. Go.”
Her feet were rooted to the spot, deeper than a hundred-year-old oak’s. “No.” Zoey lifted her hands to cup his cheeks and waited for his eyes to open. “I won’t leave you. I love you, Aron. I won’t leave you like this. I can’t.”
“You must.” Zoey knew she wouldn’t survive what came next, but the anger on Aron’s face prodded her to hurry. She knew, somehow, exactly what to do to save him. The knowledge popped into her mind like the answer to a prayer, or a woman’s whispered promise.
She just needed to love him enough to die.
“Kiss me.” She pulled on his head and stood on tiptoe. “Please. Just once more. Then I promise I’ll go.”
He shuddered in response, a flash of green popping up like a flashlight had been turned on and off behind his retinas. His eyes went dark, but he lowered his lips to hers gently, reverently. He was still in there. Somewhere.
Zoey savored his taste for three heartbeats, then blew open the psychic link between them like she had dynamite inside her skull. The cold, dead souls of those he’d killed, those who tormented and soaked his honorable heart in evil, flew to the light of her spirit like moths to flame. They were hungry for more, ever hungry, and she offered them a feast.
“No!” Aron screamed at her as she staggered two steps back and sank to her knees. The voices in her head were viscous beasts and they shredded her soul into a hundred thousand pieces. Shattered her into tiny shards of broken glass. She watched, unconcerned, as the skin on her hands and arms began to darken.
Elated, she looked up to ensure she took it all from him, that he would survive. His color had returned to normal, and his eyes, those deep green eyes, held unshed tears. “No, Zoey. No. What have you done?”
Aron sank to his knees next to her and pulled her into his arms. His Zoey. She’d saved him, but for what? She’d die. No mortal could contain such evil. The Triscani would consume her and leave nothing but ashes where the warm, compassionate, courageous woman now lay in his arms. She looked up at him like he was the moon and stars, her whole world. There was peace in her eyes, and it broke his heart. She smiled at him. “You’re free.”
“No, Zoey. He’s not.” The voice came from behind them, from the entrance to the Gate room. How well Aron knew that voice. Hours of torment and pain, and none of it had destroyed him like the sight of Zoey dying in his arms.
“Back off, Eli.”
“What will you do now, Aron? Turn me to ash? That’s what he wants, you know. Do it. End my servitude and begin yours. This time she won’t be able to save you.” The giant of a man stepped into view beside them and Zoey cringed away from him. Aron lifted her in his arms and put more distance between his love and his enemy. If he needed to bolt, he could.
“Never.”
“Oh, you’re wrong about that. Your mate is dying in your arms, the pitiful huma
n doctor you enlisted lies dead in the cell next to yours, and I have pounds of your flesh and blood to add to my collection. Fresh blood. And here you are, eager to go back in the cage…” Eli laughed, and Aron had never wanted to kill anyone more.
Eli looked enough like Aron that they could have been true brothers. The Immortal was tall and handsome, with dark hair and dark green eyes. He’d ashed a few enemies, but like Aron, he’d maintained some sense of self despite the evil after effects of their power. Looking at Eli was very nearly like looking in a mirror, except there was no compassion in Eli’s gaze, no years spent at a loving mother’s side learning a different path. Eli had been born to the darkness and known nothing else, nothing but slavery to the current Triscani High Lord, a tyrant that was willing to destroy three worlds to avenge his own birth.
Eli’s knowing gaze roamed over Zoey’s darkening flesh. “You’ve lost, Aron. Lost everything.”
Chapter 10
Hold on, Zoey. I’m coming. Fight them. Fight for Aron. He needs you!
The voice chanted to her, over and over, like a broken recording of an angel’s voice, it was too beautiful, too full of hope to be real.
She was dying. Her hands were stones she could no longer lift, her legs dead weight as if she were paralyzed. The vital things, her heart, lungs, and head continued to fight, to move, to live. But just barely. She fought for one more glimpse, one more breath. Zoey heard the voices, Aron’s and the evil one’s, and she needed to know that Aron was going to survive. He had to live.
He deserved a second chance. God, he deserved a life. He could fall in love someday, with another woman. And though the thought brought her pain, she wanted him to be happy, to be cherished. He deserved to be cherished.
The doctor was dead. Doctor Hansen. He’d seemed like a good guy, a bit eccentric and weird, but so was she. He’d been trying to help, to “save the world”. Like her, he’d failed, and died for his efforts.
