TARNISHED (Book 5.5, The Caged Series (Novella))

by Natusch, Amber Lynn

  “Perhaps,” I said, clenching my jaw, “though I would prefer a little bloodshed first...”

  He laughed heartily.

  “I see she isn't allowing things to be quite as colorful as she once did. I thought she enjoyed a little bloodletting when you were involved. In fact, I thought she sought it out on most occasions.”

  “I will go now,” I grumbled, storming away from him in haste. I did not like that he knew so much about something that should have been private, but Ares was virtually omniscient.

  “If you would truly prefer to kill something first, I might be persuaded to give you an outlet for that,” he teased, eyeing me tightly when I turned to face him. “Of course, if you think Sophie will let you—”

  “Do you have a task for me or not?” I growled, clipping my words.

  “Do not forget yourself,” he said, moving in close, his voice low and threatening. “There is a price for that.”

  “Do you have something or not?” I repeated, attempting to make my tone more pleasant and barely succeeding.

  “Will it improve your mood?”

  “Infinitely.”

  “Then, yes, I do indeed have something for you,” he said, turning away from me. He walked toward town and I followed in his shadow, salivating at the chance to satiate my need for violence. “You know of Cassandra, I assume?”

  “Of course. What craziness has she allegedly foreseen this time?” I inquired, her reputation for delusional premonitions preceding her.

  “What she has seen is unimportant, as always. What is important is that she is a becoming a greater disturbance and doing so in the most conspicuous way. I would like her disposed of at once.”

  “She is hardly a threat to the balance,” I noted, trying to make some sense of his request, though my body didn't care if it was reasonable or not. If I could kill someone or something, I wanted to.

  “Not yet, but a wise leader sees a threat even before it is one, and she is undoubtedly destined to divulge something that she should not.”

  “Nobody would believe her, human or otherwise. Nobody ever does.”

  “Again, unimportant. I want you to take care of her before she makes a mess larger than she herself already is.”

  “As you wish,” I conceded, my palms flexing on the hilt of my dagger. I wanted to sink it into something in the worst way.

  “Go right away. There's time for you to reunite with Sophie later. I will see to it myself that she knows where you have gone.”

  “Am I to go alone?” I asked, seeking clarification.

  “Yes. There is no need to involve the others in this task. I'm certain you won't have any difficulties removing her as a threat, especially given your current mood.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You should even return in time to join your brothers and me this evening, celebrating the fall of the fey...”

  I nodded and walked away from him, not caring about his festivities. I wanted to kill. I wanted to fuck. Then I wanted to repeat both over and over again until they filled that void—but they could not. Something else, however, could.

  I walked away that night a vacuous, soulless creature.

  I returned a man with a new purpose.

  ...the blonde one had set me free.

  The Foretelling

  Without any further instruction, I headed off to the only place I knew Cassandra would be. She had long stayed there, cooped up in that home alone, living a life of isolation, just as she had since the day she turned Apollo away. Gods had their pride and she had long ago offended his, rebuffing his affections. Like with most powerful men, there was a price to pay for that.

  I easily made my way to the dilapidated building; I had a lot of pent up aggression desperately needing to escape. If I'd still had a soul, I would have felt the slightest bit sorry for her, knowing that the fate she was about to meet may not have been entirely earned―but I didn't. If I'd still had a conscience, I might have thought it unfair to bring the residual wrath from our attack on the fey down upon her―but I didn't.

  So bring it I did.

  There was no need for me to keep her quiet during our encounter; nobody lived close enough to have heard her cries. She repelled humans and supernatural alike, but not through magic; her cryptic babble slowly pushed away anyone who was once close to her. It was ironic that the one whose beauty was said to rival Aphrodite herself was beyond alone in the world―which was what she feared most. Apollo took everything from her, turning her into a social pariah. It was a move the gods had been well-versed in from the beginning. Exposing weakness and creating eternal damnation on Earth was their collective specialty, though some excelled at it more than others, such as Ares.

  Crushing the door, I stormed her home to find her sitting at a table as though she had been expecting me.

  “Aniketos,” she said, staring off at nothing at first. “Make it quick, will you? I believe I have suffered long enough...”

  Her deep blue eyes turned to penetrate mine, begging for mercy, but there was none to find. Her pathetic pleas fell on deaf ears, forcing her to realize that, for once, neither her sentiments nor her looks could save her. As her expression devolved to one of hatred, she spewed forth the nonsense for which her death warrant had been signed.

  “Beware the one who will plague your dreams on this night. She will be your demise.”

  I smiled, pressing my face into hers as I plunged my blade deep into her heart. While a great exhale escaped her, I whispered in her ear.

  “And I will be yours.”

  With a sharp twist, I withdrew my dagger, watching as the life bled out of her. It was exactly the fix I needed, and the death Ares felt she deserved.

  My job was done.

  * * *

  Ares was pleased to find me in a less foul mood upon my return. He didn't even seem to be interested in the details of Cassandra's death, which was unlike him. He normally reveled in them. I didn't question the sudden change in behavior; his words and actions required no substantiation.

  I avoided the celebration, opting to return home instead. I could feel sleep threatening to take me with every step I took, Cassandra's final words playing through my mind. It was as though they begged for me to stop and acknowledge them further, which was precisely what happened. The second I arrived home, I fell upon the floor, totally unable to keep my eyes open. Alone, I sunk into a slumber full of revelations. The final thought that wove through my mind before unconsciousness claimed me was that nothing Cassandra ever said was given credibility. Her words were nothing but lies.

  That had long been my belief too—until I saw her, the one of whom the false oracle had spoken. Plague was not the word for what she did to my dreams though. She enlivened them.

  Never had I seen something so beautiful. Covered in blood, lying naked in the snow, her unconscious body called to me. Her stark white curls taunted me as I watched from a distance, begging me to run my fingers through them to awaken her. Then suddenly, she scrambled to sit upright, pressing herself against the tree. Wounded, frightened, and alone, her gaze struggled to take in the nearly empty woods that surrounded her.

  Those eyes...

  The second they locked on mine, I knew. She could never be my demise. She was my rebirth, the one to save whatever shred of a soul I had remaining.

  She was my light in the darkness.

  She was mine.

  The Light

  That following morning was the beginning of what Ares would later refer to as my devolution. He was wrong though. It was my awakening. The part of me that had been lost to centuries of warring and bloodlust returned, albeit slowly. An ember―a spark―ignited in my soul, illuminating its presence. It was still there, buried deep within, just like Ares had wanted. At first, it smoldered, not completely taking hold, but it burned there nonetheless.

  And it refused to die out.

  The image of her etched into my mind wouldn't let it.

  I wasn't aware that the change in me was visible to
the others, but slowly, after a concerted effort to reclaim and retain my lighter side, they noticed. Ares seemed disturbed by the transformation, but given that I was still his number one soldier, he never commented—not until he had to. Instead, he seemed to challenge me with tasks, wondering if I would rise to the occasion or not.

  When he came to me one morning with a particularly strange set of orders, I never flinched, my darker side pushing through to ensure the job would be done.

  “Aniketos, we seem to have a situation,” he started, his voice low as though he didn't want the others to hear. “There is something new out there. Something never seen before. It has taken out half of a town in a single evening. It must be stopped and the matter cleaned up.”

  He eyed me tightly, walking around me as I stood unmoving.

  “What is this creature?”

  “A wolf. One unlike anything of its kind. It is powerful, lethal, and it spares no one,” he replied, coming around from behind me to stand only inches from my face. “It is an anomaly and must be put down immediately. Make an example of it. I do not want any more problems of this magnitude on my doorstep again, understood?”

  I nodded once.

  “This is not the time for you to let this softer side of yours shine through,” he continued, taking me off guard. “Your mother may have not been the purest of her kind when I bedded her to create you, but her true nature found its way into you regardless. I spent the better part of your lifetime neatly tucking it away, Aniketos. Whatever has let it out, I cannot imagine, but you will find a way to put it back where it belongs. Your existence revolves around maintaining the balance at any cost and following the orders you are given. So, consider this an order: bury that softness where I never have to see it again. In my presence, your eyes should be blacker than the souls of the damned and nothing else. The shade of green I saw when I came in here is a sign of your growing weakness. It offends me. It should offend you too. My blood that runs in your veins should easily overtake that which she gave you. Don't make me curse the day you were born any more than I have already started to...”

  Unfazed by his words, my warrior mask settling in, I asked for clarity on what exactly the target was. He laughed in response.

  “You have the details you need. Find her. Kill her. And bring her head to me so that I know you've done what I sent you to do.”

  Without another word, he stormed out of my room. His controlled façade had eroded and shown what had always belied it. His true hatred and jealously of me were plain. He loathed what I was, what I could do, and what I was choosing to become. He was losing the control he had over me, and he was not taking it well.

  It made me question what was true and what was not.

  When Ares told me that my mother fled the instant she laid eyes on me, unable to absorb the darkness she had birthed, I instinctively wanted to dismiss his claim. But over time, his words sunk into my mind, taking that reaction away. I eventually accepted that she was weak and left her own son out of fear.

  Once my lighter side was ignited by the vision of the blonde one, that shred of doubt found its way back into my mind. Instead of believing that my true nature drove her away, I started to realize that, if she had any sense of self-preservation at all, she fled him—Ares—not having realized until then what she had let between her legs. Ares was forever strategic and charming. I had no doubt that he used every ounce of both to get what he wanted from her―to create his ultimate warrior.

  His disgust at the sight of what had been awakened in me only further confirmed that I couldn't let it go―couldn't let her go. She, the one from my vision, was the tie that bound me to my mother's angelic side. As long as I had her, I felt like I had my mother in me.

  The Rouge

  That feeling disappeared when I first set eyes on that white wolf; the wolf whose kind would much later be referred to as the Rouge et Blanc. It didn't need a name when it pinned its feral eyes on me, its bright fur stained by the blood of its victims. All I saw was death—its death.

  I could not fight the inherent call to my darkness, the side I'd only just been pulled away from. The hybrid wolf was my most exciting challenge yet, and every aspect of the chase thrilled me to my blackened, hollow core. The beast was my first formidable enemy. My only worthy opponent. I relished killing her, drawing out every moment of it.

  It was only once I was finished that I realized my adversary had been a child, no more than a handful of years in age. I didn't care. All I could do was think about hunting the next one and the one after that, feeding the overwhelming feeling of bloodlust that had set in. The bloodlust that had all but destroyed what that lone girl in my vision had awakened.

  With every kill from that day forth, she faded from my dreams, no longer coming to me in such vivid detail and color. Instead, I saw only snapshots of what Cassandra had promised me in a pixelated, gray-scale flash of imagery. My darkness was choking the life out of me yet again, and I was too weak to overcome it. I needed to ensure the light would not be snuffed out for good.

  I needed a plan.

  Over the course of a century, my brothers and I hunted and killed many Rouge et Blanc, taking out their entire line in the process. We did not know exactly what they were or how they came to be, but it didn't matter. All I knew was that, once in the presence of one, I could think of nothing more than wiping it from the face of the Earth. I wanted them dead, all of them. The price for that was my soul, and my dark-eyed half was happy to pay it.

  Then reality set both him and me straight.

  I closed my eyes to rest after the most challenging RB hunt we had ever had, but nothing came; not even the black and white still photos of her, which my deranged mind had been able to hold on to. Nothing. What I did see that night was a pristine vision of the woods I had always pictured her in and the tree she was always up against, but she was nowhere to be found—no blood and no blonde.

  As my heart stopped at the sight of her absence, I shot up out of my slumber in a cold sweat. Looking down to see Sophie sleeping contentedly at my side made me ill. I no longer wanted to be the man that made her complete, the man both she and my father wanted me to be. What I wanted was to have my visions back, intact, and the woman that haunted them back where she had always been—consuming my thoughts.

  I could only hope that I wasn't too late.

  Quietly, I rose from my bed knowing what I had to do. Preparations needed to be made for the journey I was about to embark upon, and even more importantly, decisions needed to be made. There would be no turning back from the choice, no way to undo it. I was about to seek the one no one ever sought and ask her to do the unthinkable.

  My very soul depended on it.

  The Queen

  From all that I had seen, deals with the Underworld and those who reigned there never ended well, but I knew of no one else who could provide the service I so desperately required. That fact still tucked away in my mind, I found myself far away from civilization, deep within the woods, knocking on the door to her mother's house. Surprisingly, Persephone answered it herself.

  Every bit the Queen of the Underworld, she exuded death and torture, all wrapped up into an eerily stunning package. She was shrewd, cunning, manipulative, and devoid of feeling. She was my near equal in female form, and I was loath to be anywhere near her, let alone asking her for help. But I had no choice.

  “Aniketos,” she said, eyeing me curiously from head to toe. “It's been a long time.”

  “It has.”

  “But I can only assume that you are not here on a social call...” Her words were playfully feline, as if she was attempting to play with her food before she ate it.

  “I need something from you,” I said flatly, still hating that I had to be in her presence, let alone in her debt, or soon to be.

  Her dark brown eyes once again raked over me. It was plain to see what she hoped I was there for.

  “Hades would not be pleased to know that you came here, searching me out to violate me,”
she baited, draping her lithe body along the length of the door and pulling her hair from its braid to let her long black curls fall around her.

  “I do not wish to violate you,” I growled, pushing my way into the home. “I am here because I need you to do something for me.”

  “Ohhh...,” she replied in mock surprise. “You need a favor.”

  “Yes.”

  “But, Aniketos,” she chided. “You know I only deal in death. Not favors.”

  “I know.”

  “You are invincible,” she said curtly, her voice losing any hint of its earlier playfulness. “You have no death to offer me―no soul for me to take to the Underworld. In short, you have no currency with which to pay me.” She stalked toward me like a predator, eyes fixed on her prey. Stopping only inches before me, she dared to let a lone finger trail from my bare shoulder to my hand. “You do, however, have something of interest to me. Something else you could offer, though it would not be enough to warrant whatever favor you sought me out for. It would be enough to buy you answers...answers that could be terribly advantageous for you.”

  “I have a death of sorts to offer,” I growled.

  “Oh? Do tell,” she purred.

  “You can have my invincibility.”

  Her movement froze and she pinned wide, disbelieving eyes on mine.

  “You wouldn't...”

  “Will you do it?

  “But why? What on Earth or in the heavens could possibly make you do such a foolish―” She cut herself off the second she realized the truth. A wide, serpent-like smile spread across her face; she was all too pleased with herself. “You are in love,” she said patronizingly. “Aw...that is just precious, Aniketos. The coldest warrior the world has ever seen has been warmed by love. Tell me, who is she? Who is this that could make you give up your birthright so carelessly? Clearly it isn't Sophie; those rumors have spread far across the land.”