That got a response and Ezek leaned in as he spoke in a hard steady voice. "Be prepared Briar for the truth of what you are asking me. Be prepared because there will be no going back." Each word was announced as a threat and Bri held her ground, refusing to be intimidated by the man responsible for her torture.
"As if anything you say could answer to the years of suffering and torture I endured. As if anything you have to say even matters!" She screamed at him. "You disgust me!" Adam Canes words spit through her mind like a broken pinball machine. "Look at my face Ezek, look at the scars that I am forced to live with every day for eternity. Look at the years I spent being sold to the lowest bidder because Fil knew the lower the bid the deeper the humiliation went inside of me! For God’s sake, you made me think that by choosing to follow my demon side that I would have a shot in the Dark at ever being happy." She dropped her head unable to look at him any longer. "Your betrayal is more painful than any punishment Fil dished out. You are the one who raped me Ezek; you raped my future, my soul and everything in between. You may not have done it physically but you allowed it to go on. You are who I blame."
She looked at Ezek who had stayed silent while she ranted on and on. His face was solemn but deadly. Her words hurt him, angered him to the point she wondered if perhaps he may in fact harm her.
"I would never strike you Briar." He all but mumbled having read her thoughts. A unique little gift he possessed when in the Dark. There were no secrets from the Arch Demon when you were in his world.
"I may have used you to my benefit Briar, but I did it because you are a weapon Bri, a powerful one and I am not foolish enough to shelf my best resources. I would have been damned if I’d have let you pass on never having been able to finally get your revenge."
"I am not a weapon!" She thumped her fingers across her chest. "I was your daughter, a human, a demon and now I am a fucking joke to the entire world!" She thought of the fairy tale that was built around her, the lie told so many different ways that she would never become anything but that lie. "Did you let him sale the fable of Sleeping Beauty?"
She had to know. Fil sold her tale off long before it was made a cartoon, but she wondered if Ezek allowed it, allowed her to become such a disgrace. Her story was painful in its disgrace. It was lies, all lies.
"No." Ezek said, not a seconds hesitation. " Briar you are a weapon, the most dangerous of all. You question my motives yet you do not question the most important thing about you."
"Oh I know what I am trust me, I have to look at myself in the mirror day after day. I know what I am..." her voice cracked, "and what I was." She had been beautiful and young. She was once able to sleep without fear of being beaten and fed off of by Prince fucking Charming.
"You are exactly what you see Bri. You are vengeance, wrath, hate and disgust. Those are what made you my secret weapon. You are not a demon Briar and never have been. You are pure vengeance embodied in the beating heart of my own blood. This was never about the knife or the fucking contract. That was the story I gave you, it was the hope you needed to seek out your destiny and settle the score. The knife and contract both are useless Bri." There was no doubt in her mind when she looked at Ezek, whatever he was trying to say was both important and true.
"What do you mean useless?" She screamed, her voice cracking, not from pain but undiluted anger.
"You are the weapon Briar. You are not a vengeance demon, but the embodiment of vengeance."
*
Chapter Twenty
So there it was, gift wrapped and tied perfectly with a God damned bow. Ezek had made sure she gave her servitude, he insured himself better than Geiko, Allstate and Progressive combined. He also managed to make her an even bigger freak. She was no longer human, demon or anything else. She was the embodiment of an emotive.
Great!
She stood motionless unable to look at the man, the only man before Fangs that she could stomach the presence of. All the years she spent seeking retribution for others, ensuring them that they had been avenged had been worth it... hadn’t they?
She wanted desperately to believe that though she suffered, that in the end she had made a difference. However the truth was before her and wanting and having are too far apart from one another.
She had forgone her own happiness; she had walked away from anything that would make her feel because she had assumed that there was a purpose, an end to the madness, a day where she would seek revenge for herself.
All lies.
She was vengeance, the embodiment of the most powerful feeling she had ever felt. Like an old 8mm camera flickering through her mind she was able to tally her losses and gains. Like in slow motion and no sound for the rushing of angry blood through tight veins she watched her years unravel.
It was countless the amount of times Fil swam through her memories like a shark on a blood trail, every bruise, every drop of blood she shed, Fil was behind it, mastering and controlling her pain. Mental or physical did not matter because of the control he had over her.
Five hundred years of selling herself and buying time for the day she gained her freedom, more than a lifetime of suffering she endured, all because Ezek had said she needed to welcome the wrath, the vengeance the hate, that her freedom would have taken from her what she was rightfully, what she was by blood rights.
The faces of countless men and women, souls that were so dark, so completely void of humanity she had taken them out willingly. Begging Ezek to save Ashess, who had been robbed of her own vengeance and taken out by the hand that had killed her spirit long before it killed her. Agreeing to bind Ash to her own blood.
Meeting Belle in a dark French alley where she was curled in a ball naked and bloody from Born Wares who had wanted her death. Saving Belle and Ash had been her own retribution. They were like her, angry but desperate for companionship and safety. Finding Winter surrounded by the loving hearts of her Havoc demons when she had fought to keep them safe from the Borneds who were trying to kill them. Again she begged Ezek to intervene, to contact the Divine and tell them of her sacrifice for a near extinct race of borneds who were good.
The night she met Fangs and he told her to trust him, that he was her destiny... The night she ran from him terrified that he would be another victim for Fil to use against her. The pain she had witnessed, the pain she herself had endured... those lines had bled together over the years and she no-longer knew her own pain from others.
Adam Cane and the words he spoke to Fangs... that he may as well prick her finger on a spinning wheel and put her out of misery. She wanted her vengeance dammit; she wanted Fil's blood and pain.
"Tell me..." She croaked, the sound foreign after the intolerable silence of Ezek’s chamber since the little bomb he dropped. "Tell me the truth Ezek." She looked at him, fierce as she had ever been and she could see pride in the old man’s features. "What is Ashess?"
It was a demand not a question. She would be a fool to overlook the fact that they were blood bonded, her blood… his.
Ezek cleared his voice, once, twice and shockingly... looked away as a tear streamed from his eye.
"Speak!" She shrieked, the demand no less threatening by the tears sliding down her cheeks.
"She was created from your blood. Cinderella, as she was known from her birth rose literally from ashes when you wanted her to be given a choice. She died Briar, in a moment of absolute despair. She is no different from you… she is despair."
"Oh God..." She croaked taking a step back from the man who was more a stranger than a father. "Meaning what?"
"Her tale isn’t one I can tell. All I know is the pain she felt inside and out, her despair made the choice for her, your blood made it so." Ezek wasn’t looking at Bri, his back to her as he spoke words that she knew were killing him. She found it odd that his pain was of no concern to her; it was the first time in her long life she felt truly unhinged.
"She isn’t a succubus?" Bri had saw with her own eyes the suffering inside of Ash, the physical str
ess of not consuming enough souls. The thought of her as anything but a Succubus was ludicrous.
"She is what I said she would be. For her to function, she was drawn, pulled to despair... making her a succubus was ideally the best option. But even so, she functions as a succubus and will do so forever but she is the embodiment of despair."
The thoughts streaming through her mind now had her head spinning, her knees going weak. She must have swayed because Fangs gripped her arm draping it over his shoulders and lifting her as he carried her to a chair near Ezek’s desk.
Fangs walked to Ezeks chair and spun it around until it stopped facing Bri. "Look at her." Fangs spat through clenched teeth and fang.
Ezek did and flinched before calling out in a voice no more than a whisper for water. The call was answered as a beautiful woman with hot pink horns on the crown of her head and numerous piercings came in with a pitcher of ice cold water and glasses on a tray. Leaving as quickly as she could because the energy in the room, suffused with pain and anger and sadness was just as unbearable to Bri.
Fangs poured her a glass and kneeled before her, forcing her eyes to his. "Drink this Baby."
She took the glass and drank but her eyes fell back to the man she had always loved and she welcomed the ice inside of her, protecting her from him now."There’s more, I can feel it."
"Damn straight there’s more, I can smell it." Fangs spoke more growl than voice. The emotions in the room had to be getting to him, even as a Sire there was only so much anger or pain that a Vampire could take until instinct took over. The emotions that had driven Vampires over a thousand years ago to drink in feeding frenzies and kill were the same degree as the emotions in the chamber now.
"Make it fast because the tension in here is already overwhelming." Bri didn’t want to come right out and say that Fangs was getting hungry and Ezek was looking like a Big Mac, but the smile Fangs shot at her brought her own defenses down a little, the way he calmed her by simple smiles was unnerving and special.
"Answer something." Fangs asked and took a seat beside Bri, a noticeable step in the direction of finding common ground. Vampires naturally commanded a room, would stand when others sat or kneeled. Sitting at eye level to Ezek said he was willing, for the time being, to play nice.
Bri however wasn’t sure she was.
"Tell me what you got from making Briar Vengeance and Ashess Despair. It makes no sense that you would go to the trouble of hiding these secrets, of forcing the torment and suffering on your own flesh and blood so that she would possibly grow into the destruction you want her to be."
"I get to have the daughter I love with me for eternity." Ezek said incredulously, his eyes bulging in absolute offense to Fangs question. His answer was one neither Bri nor Fangs was purchasing.
"Nice try Crypt Keeper, but you could have done that without the theatrics. All the trouble it took to gain a weapon as you called her, to create the embodiment of vengeance. What the fuck was in it for you?" The nice tone was gone and so was the calm little rest he took in the chair. Faster than Bri could trace Fangs had Ezek out of the chair and in the back of the chamber locking his wrists in the iron restraints that were fastened into the wall. "I swear I have no problem killing you and being the first Sire to become the Arch. I will do it if you don’t talk, Bri watching be damned."
Leave it to a Vampire to never pocket his Ace. He didn’t hesitate to throw all his cards on the table and dare Ezek to call his bluff. Both terrifying and sexy as hell.
"It made her the most powerful being in the world and underworld. She has no weaknesses when death is involved, she hurts like a human and heals like a vamp. She can control any emotion in anything vengeance, not just vengeance."
That snapped Bri to attention. "What do you mean?" She asked and strode quickly to the torture section of daddy’s office.
"When vengeance is involved, when a spirit or human demands the retribution, you have the power to control their emotions. When you are seeking retribution you have the power to control the emotions of the evil as well."
This...changed everything and she knew that if she let the thought sink in it would come to her full circle.
But of course, there was more.
"You said the most powerful being in the world, why hire me?" Fangs asked and Bri nodded. He was much better at interrogation than she was. Her usual defense was to kill quickly and she wasn’t about to kill her father no matter how disgusted with him she was.
Clearly Fangs was the thinker in the relationship.
"Because she has so much to learn, she hasn’t even scratched the surface of what she is capable of, has no idea..." His words trailed off and Bri cursed the freezing air surrounding her as that old foreboding feeling slid over her skin like a long lost lover.
"Has no idea what?" Fangs snapped, his teeth clicking at the sound.
"That the four of them together create an unbeatable force."
"Who? Winter, Ash, Belle and me?"
When Ezek nodded Bri let her knees give out, in a graceful fall she landed on her knees. "Belles dead, how the hell are the four of us supposed to accomplish anything when we haven’t a fucking clue who or what we are?" Her words were spoken lightly as if she was speaking to herself, but the message and meaning clear.
Belle truly could have been avoided.
"Explain!" Fangs slammed Ezek against the wall and Bri felt that old familiar pull that the vengeance had over her.
"Simply put." Ezek gritted through clenched teeth of his own. "The four of them create a shelter of sorts, their weaknesses are the others strengths, their strengths are more explosive when forged together."
Annoyance lacing each syllable Fangs spoke. "Meaning what exactly?"
"The four elements of emotion are as powerful Vampire, as the elements of the earth. They control everyone! Demon. Vampire. Beast. Witch. Human! Bri is vengeance, there to defend those that cannot defend themselves, to rid the earth of the evil and the hate and the wrath that harms the innocent. Ashess is despair in all its truest forms and she works hand in hand to Bri. Together they can do as Bri has always wanted. When Ashess senses despair, Bri may be able to save some of her victims and avenge them as well. Winter is the counter point to the both of them. She is the truest form of gentleness, kindness and love. Her compassion knows no bounds, has no prejudice. Belle..." He looked to Bri then and the knowledge in his face told her he loved her but it also spoke volumes on how deeply he was about to hurt her.
"And Belle?" Bri flinched at how thin her voice was.
"Belle is, was and will forever be the patron of Sacrifice Bri, just as Beast will. Had it been her or Erich, either way, they are the creation of what will be sacrificed to keep you three safe. They will always do it without thought or reason, just as Belle did what came naturally for her."
'You killed Belle.' his words said. Though not spoken it was all she heard.
That knowledge blasted the final weak straw that held Bri together and in a vortex of emotion she will forever call BV, Before Vengeance, she blasted herself as far from Ezek as she could travel and disappeared from the chamber.
*
Back at Fangs condo Ashess sat silently for the last two hours in the dark with Pete, not willing to ask the obvious question of why. Bri left the instant the truth of her father’s involvement and even still Ashess could feel her sorrow and pain, her desperate need for retribution.
She couldn’t help but feel the ache in her chest, that undeniable feeling of knowing that Ezek truly cost them more than he would ever realize.
"Had we known about the knife, Belle would be here now." The words were mumbled and Ashess didn’t even know she had said them out loud until Pete answered.
"Had I known what Belle had planned I would have come to Bri sooner, my plan for Fil be damned."
Ash snapped her head at Peter’s direction when he spoke words she could not fathom.
"You had a plan with him?" She snarled and stood from the couch. "You actually agreed
on a deal with that filth?"
Ash's hatred for the demon went beyond measure, knowing through her blood bond with Bri exactly how dark and evil he was. He knew full well the things he inflicted on her friend. The way he used her love for each other against Bri every chance he could. Knowing that Bri would have protected Peter had she known what he had been up to, regardless of his secrets or lies. It was in her nature to defend and protect and knowing Pete took advantage of that had every nerve in Ashess being on edge.
"As I said before to Briar, I made the deal in an attempt to gain his soul long before he could harm her."
"Well it doesn’t matter now, because the contract and the knife are useless." Fangs voice rolled through the room like thunder crashing making Ash spin around and Pete jump.
Awakened (A Fairy Tales Novel) Page 23
