Turning, Brennus’ image begins walking away, back over the sea and into the frightening, black-cloud horizon. As he retreats across the frozen waves, one thing is clear to me: I believe him. Touching the onyx locket hanging from my neck with trembling fingers, I whisper, “He’s coming. We have to leave.”
Reed’s gentle voice interrupts my panicked thoughts as he says softly, “I will never let him have you again.”
The murky clouds roil back, receding and uncovering the night sky speckled with pinpoints of fire. Russell and Zephyr come nearer to us, lending me their support with their presence. Shivering in Reed’s arms, I drop Russell’s hand and huddle nearer to Reed, while the moon casts its light upon us.
“Still…we should go,” I reply with my hands shaking.
“We expected him to find us,” Reed remarks softly, stroking my wings. “You have his knife—”
“You knew he’d find me!” I frown, pulling back from him so that I can see his eyes.
“Yes,” Reed answers honestly. “The only thing I regret is that he didn’t really come here tonight. I would’ve felt him if he had, but since I’m not affected by his magic, I did not sense his shadowy presence. We put Russell on point to detect Brennus’ magic.”
“I felt that cold freak all the way over on the other side of the island,” Russell says grimly.
“Why didn’t you tell me that his knife would lead him to me?” I ask Reed, feeling like I have just attended my own funeral.
Reed’s eyebrows draw together over his lovely green eyes. “I didn’t want to worry you, Evie,” Reed says with concern in his tone. “You have been through so much—”
“Yeah,” Russell chimes in. “We’ll take it from here.” He points his chin toward Reed and Zephyr.
“You don’t know Brennus, Russell,” I warn. “He’ll destroy himself to get me back.”
“Good!” Russell shoots back. “It’ll be his funeral—we’re ready for him and his army to come. I like the way you stood up to him, though, tellin’ him you weren’t goin’ with him. I thought maybe he still had you wrapped ‘round his finger—”
“I’m not his slave,” I interject defensively.
“The last few weeks you were with him, you acted like one of them,” Russell counters quietly. “I was afraid they might own you now.”
“I had to act like one of them,” I reply, truly beginning to shake now. The breeze is becoming gentle with only the scent of salt and tropical flowers woven within the balmy heat. “But I always wanted to come home.”
“Shh,” Reed hushes me in a soothing tone. “Of course you did,” he agrees as he shoots Russell a look full of censure.
“You have a plan and you haven’t told me about it?” I ask, before piercing each one of them with my narrowing eyes.
Zephyr’s light-brown wings twitch as he replies, “We were waiting until you fully recovered from your captivity.”
“When did you think that was going to happen?” I counter, annoyed that they’re keeping things from me again.
Zephyr’s eyebrow arches over his ice blue eye as he smiles, “I believe that you just proved that you are ready,” he replies.
“Okay,” I breathe, trying hard to slow the pounding of my heart. “So, what’s the plan?” I ask, needing something to concentrate on other than Brennus’ inevitable arrival here.
Reed’s shoulders cave in around me protectively. “Zephyr, would you please go and wake Buns and Brownie? We will meet at the big house to discuss the plan with Evie.” I look toward the huge, plantation-style house on the ridge above the beach. Zephyr and my Reaper angel friends, Buns and Brownie, have been staying in that house on and off for the past few months while they were trying to figure out where I was, and then how to free me from the Gancanagh.
Zephyr nods to Reed before he steps forward, placing a gentle kiss on the top of my head. “I am glad you are back,” he says, treating me like a little sister.
“Me, too,” I reply. Zephyr nods toward Russell before he leaves in the direction of the big house. Russell looks reluctant to leave me, knowing that I’m still scared. “I’m fine, Russell,” I assure him.
“Naw, you’re not,” he replies in a discerning way, “but you will be after we kill Brennus.” Russell can always read me like a book. He’s my soul mate and the sum of all our lifetimes together stretches back thousands of years. He remembers them all, but I can’t remember any of my past lifetimes as a human.
“Brennus is already dead, Russell,” I frown, thinking of Brennus’ beautiful, cold skin against mine. I shiver.
“Semantics, Red. He’s not dead if he’s walkin’ ‘round,” he replies.
“No, he’s undead with magical powers that can crush you and me,” I counter hollowly.
Reed smiles reassuringly. “His magic can’t hurt me, therefore, I’ll take down Brennus and his fake empire,” Reed says quietly. Gancanagh magic has no effect on angels, like Reed and Zephyr, but since Russell and I are human-angel hybrids, faerie magic can bury us. However, the toxic skin of the Gancanagh can enthrall angels like junkies to a powerful drug, whereas Russell and I are immune to the Gancanagh touch.
My heart beats harder in my chest at Reed’s words. My need to be with Reed is what gave me the strength to survive my captivity with the Gancanagh. Without that, I would have succumbed to the gnawing need to feed on Brennus’ blood after he had bitten me. I can’t lose him now, when I only just got him back.
“Let’s run,” I whisper in Reed’s ear. “We can hide again,” I plead.
“You haven’t even heard our plan, Evie,” Reed says softly, hugging me tighter to him.
“If it involves you getting close to Brennus, then I’m against it.” I say as my stomach twists at the thought of Brennus using his thrall to control Reed.
“Shh, Evie,” Reed says, smoothing back my hair as he listens to the pounding of my heart. “Now that your life is no longer bound to Brennus’ life, I can kill him without any repercussions. The magical contract he made with you that tied you to him is the only reason he’s still alive. Without it, he would already cease to be. I have had so many opportunities to kill him, but I couldn’t do it without killing you, too. But, Brennus broke the contract, so he’s as good as dead when I see him.”
I pale. “Reed, he has an army,” I argue.
“You’ll never be his slave again. I promise you,” Reed breathes in my ear, and I want so badly to believe him. “Let me explain our plan to you. You’ll see.”
Gently, Reed leads me towards our bungalow on the beach. Hesitantly, I look over at Russell who’s watching me walking away with Reed. Pain is in his eyes, seeing me with Reed. I’ve always been Russell’s love in every one of our lifetimes together…except for this one. This one’s different. I’m no longer just human anymore, I’m also angelic and the angel part of me really loves Reed—needs him. But, my soul…my soul will always love Russell—he’s my best friend.
“Are you coming, Russ?” I ask him over my shoulder.
“Naw,” he says, softly swinging his golf club against the sand at his feet. “I already know the plan. We can talk on the beach tomorrow when we train together.”
“Okay,” I agree, not knowing what else to say. I know that my love for Reed is torturing Russell, but I don’t know how to fix it. If there’s a solution, I don’t know what it is. I watch as Russell walks away from me, back towards the other end of the island…as far away from Reed and me as possible.
CHAPTER 2
Infighting
“Concentrate, Red, shoot…you’re all over the place,” Russell breathes, sitting cross-legged next to me on the beach. He directs his clone’s image in front of us to pick up my clone from her feet and slam her to the ground, dissipating her like a small, mushroom cloud.
“Russ-ell,” I breathe in a frustrated tone. “Stop killing my clones.”
“But you make it so easy…” he trails off with a smirk until I elbow him hard in the arm. He’s as tough as a mountain now; n
othing short of everything I have would hurt him.
I fall back on the sand, putting my arm over my eyes to block out the intense sunlight above us. It is so physically draining to create these mirror images of me—my clones. Russell can do it now with no problem. Each of his clones look and act like his twin. He can sit next to me on the sandy beach and make the image of himself do whatever he’s thinking, like his mind is within the spirit-like body, carrying his consciousness.
Then there’s me. My whole world spins like I’m on the teacup ride at Disneyland just getting my clone to appear. Directing it and trying to see what she sees is like looking at everything underwater or through someone else’s eyeglasses: everything is distorted and blurry.
Russell pulls my arm back from my eyes as he kneels over me, blotting out the sunlight with his huge six foot five inch frame. “We have time for one more clone…” he trails off again as he looks at my face. “Ah shoot, Red, I’m sorry,” he says in a gruff voice.
Leaning back he pulls a tissue from the pocket of his board shorts, dabbing it at my nose gently.
“Another nose bleed?” I ask tiredly, taking the tissue from his hand and holding it to my nose.
“You have to tell me when you’re gettin’ to that point,” Russell says, sounding guilty. He puts his arm around my shoulder, making me sit up so he can look in my eyes. “How many of me are you seein’?”
“Three…no, four…and all of you should get a haircut,” I reply, trying to minimize the fact that I’m disoriented. He lets go of my shoulder to run his hand through his tawny hair that has been bleached in blond streaks from the sun. Then he has to quickly catch me as I begin to topple over onto his chest.
“Whoa!” he says, before pulling me against his bare chest and letting me rest my head while he strokes my back soothingly. His impressive, crimson wings shoot from the camouflage of his back as he holds me in his arms, making him look every inch the lethal, Seraphim angel that he is now. “Ahh, I hate when my wings do that!” Russell admits with irritation in his voice.
“I know,” I agree, seeing exactly what he means. “It embarrasses me when mine do that on their own.”
“I keep wonderin’ if it would’ve been easier if we were entirely angelic…you know? Does this kind of stuff happen just ‘cuz we’re part human, too?” he asks, sounding frustrated.
“You mean…if we weren’t half-breeds, would we have more control over the angelic part of our nature…like our wings?” I ask for clarity. Closing my eyes, I find that it doesn’t help the dizziness, so I open them again quickly.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant,” Russell says, giving me a quick squeeze.
“Reed said it’s normal. Emotions seem to trigger them. I think age helps. You’re only, what, twenty now?” I ask, knowing he had a birthday in August that I missed. I close my eyes again, not wanting to think of where he had been on his birthday, but goose bumps run the length of my body anyway, thinking of the church in the Ukraine where he’d been held and tortured by a sadistic Ifrit.
“Yeah…that birthday was a little dark,” he mutters, his hair rising on his arms as his wings move agitatedly behind him, kicking up sand. He takes a quick breath, attempting to calm his heart that I can hear pounding in his chest. “I hope I’ll be able to control my wings completely in the next century or two,” he says with a wry smile.
“I bet it’ll be much sooner than that. You seem to master everything so quickly,” I reply honestly. “There’s only one thing you’re going to struggle with, Russell.”
“What’s that?” he asks with a smile in his voice.
“I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to detach and become emotionless like the Seraphim I’ve seen. You’re too human for that…it’s not in your nature,” I reply.
“You only ever met one Seraphim, Casimir, and he was a fallen freak, Red,” he replies. “They can’t all be like him…cold and hard—completely evil.”
“My father is one and he…well, I don’t know what he’s like because I’ve never met him, but I imagine he’s a lot like Casimir,” I reply, feeling some of that hardness inside of me when I think of him.
“Ah, you don’t know that…he’s a divine angel and you don’t know his circumstances—”
“I don’t want to know his circumstances, Russell,” I snap.
“You always were a daddy’s girl—in just about every lifetime I had with you…‘cept when you were a mama’s boy,” he laughs.
I roll my eyes and then have to hold on to him tighter as it makes me dizzier. “I wish I could remember all of our lives together. I’m sure you were very interesting as a girl. Were you ever a girlie girl?” I ask. His knowledge of all of our past lifetimes together as my soul mate is as irritating to me as it is fascinating. Just imagining myself as his love for a past eternity is a complete, mind-blowing trip.
“You always thought I was hot,” Russell smirks, not as freaked out as he used to be about remembering our past lifetimes when he was the female.
“It’s impossible for me to picture you as a girl, Russell,” I reply, smelling his masculine scent that’s so attractive, just like him.
“Good, since this is probably the last form I’m ever gonna take, I prefer to be the man…the angel…the man angel…ahhhh…we should come up for a name for what we are now. How do you like ‘mangels?’ Or, what ‘bout ‘Sera-mans?’” he asks me in his gentle, chiding way.
I groan at his attempt to humor me. “That’s awful. I definitely prefer to be called a ‘half-breed’ or the ‘half-humans,’” I say, pushing away from his chest so I can look in his brown eyes.
“We’re gonna hear that a lot from now on. We might as well get used to it,” he says in a cheery voice.
“That doesn’t bother you?” I ask, wiping my nose and seeing that it has finally stopped bleeding.
“Naw, I mean, it’s just jealousy. They all wanna be me,” he replies, looking in my eyes and checking to see if I can focus on him.
“Jealousy?” My eyebrows rise incredulously.
“Yeah,” he smiles slowly. “There’s somethin’ ‘bout me havin’ a soul that makes all the angels I’ve met wanna be me. ‘Course, it helped that I took on the biggest angel I could find when I first met the Power angels from Dominion,” he says, loosening his grip on me a little to see if I topple over again. I manage to hold my balance, but he doesn’t let me go completely.
“What?” I ask.
“Yeah…I hadn’t met Preben or I would’ve punched him first, just ‘cuz he’s the biggest Power I’ve ever seen. Naw, I hit what’s his name?” Russell asks, snapping his fingers as he thinks. “Tycho—I think that was his name. Anyway, I had to let them see that I wasn’t puttin’ up with their shen.”
“What happened?” I ask, my eyes growing wide at this new information.
“Ahh, they let us fight for a while before Zee stepped in and broke it up. I was holdin’ my own and that freaked them out a little, since they know I’m only twenty years old and they’re all like a billion in dog years,” he grins. “They don’t fight like I’ve been trained to fight…when I was a soldier…when I was just a man. They fight like angels and they expect certain things to happen.”
“Like what?” I wonder aloud, not knowing how he and I differ from them.
“They read body language. They expect to know what you’re gonna do before you do it ‘cuz a lot of them have tells. But, I’m part human…I wasn’t raised with them. I didn’t get their angel imprinting branded on me. They can’t read me yet,” he explains.
“So…it made Tycho almost blind when he was fighting you?” I ask, trying to understand.
Russell nods. “But, he still had a wicked right cross,” he says, rubbing his chin as if remembering the pain.
“That was stupid, Russell. He could’ve killed you. You’re not even fully evolved yet,” I say, growing white thinking about what could’ve happened.
“I had a lot of rage at that moment, Red,” Russell says, loo
king away from my eyes. “I fluctuated between pretendin’ Tycho was that Ifrit, Valentine, to pretendin’ he was Brennus.” I flinch, hearing Russell say Brennus’ name. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to use the vampire’s name in front of you,” Russell says in a low tone, brushing his fingers in my hair soothingly.
“He’s not a vampire, Russell,” I reply, trying to be normal as my hand shakes a little. “He’s an undead Faerie.”
“He’s gonna be an all-dead Faerie when I see him again,” Russell states, sweeping a stray hair back from my face.
Gripping Russell’s arm, I look into his eyes. “Russell, you need to be really cautious around him.”
Russell’s face relaxes. “His skin doesn’t work on me. He can touch me and I won’t go all zombie and do everything he tells me to do, like the angels will if he touches them,” Russell replies. “That makes me the perfect candidate to take him on.”
I frown at his obvious disregard of my warning. “No, it doesn’t,” I say.
Russell’s eyebrows pull together in anger. “He wants to see you on your knees, crawlin’ back to him. He’s gonna kill you for sure if he gets you back and you’ll be his ice-cold, undead…” he trails off.
“Gancanagh lover…his queen,” I finish for him.
Russell’s expression darkens. “I’m not gonna let him do that to you. I’m not gonna let him send your soul to Sheol for eternity, not for those fallen monsters in Hell to torment,” he says, his face flushed with anger. “Why hasn’t he come yet? He said he was comin’ soon. It’s been a couple of weeks! He should’ve made his move by now.”
“He’s really intelligent, Russell. He’s been around forever—he doesn’t act until he has the advantage—the entire advantage,” I explain, knowing just how Brennus operates because I’d spent the last few months as his captive queen. “Then, when he does act, it’s like a snake striking…it’s so fast, you almost never see it coming.”
Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) Page 2
