Divine Destiny

by Hayley Todd

  Then, the night exploded with sound and light. A dozen bolts of lightning coalesced from the sky above, impaling the line of soldiers.

  Their change wasn’t as obvious as one of Chaos but they changed all the same. Muscles that had been underdeveloped exploded from their frames. They jerked and struggled as their bodies reformed. Instead of monsters, however, young, strong, healthy demigods formed within them.

  They didn’t require a command. As soon as the transformation halted, the affected men tore from their ranks and lurched into the sky. A dozen streaks of blue surged towards the creatures opposite them.

  The collision reverberated across the valley like the detonation of explosives. It hurt my ears as it echoed from every surface.

  My “heroes”—as I affectionately referred to them—held their own against the giants. They called to their borrowed element and lightning crackled from the sky, stabbing through the enemy ranks.

  I could see Eris watching from her place in the sky but lost her as I descended to the ground. I only spared moments to resurge my strength again before I returned to the air. This time, however, instead of hovering, I hurtled myself in Eris’ direction.

  She had been so enthralled by the fighting that she hadn’t seen me coming until I collided with her and we began to fall.

  I pulled from the amulet’s dark power and hurled my fist into Eris’ spine as we spun. Strands of electricity materialized, entrapping the wings at her back. I used the momentum of our fall to sling her hampered body towards the hill Zeus had prepared.

  We fell hard and fast but just as we came within reach of the ground, I leapt away from her, wielding magick to carefully hover in the air. With Aeronyx capabilities, she’d had no need to find another way to go airborne. Without that, I was superior at this. I made sure to entangle my fist at her throat and give her a helpful nudge before I hovered.

  Eris crashed into the hill like a meteor. I couldn’t imagine that had felt good. Unfortunately, the Vampyre abilities she’d absorbed made her heal much faster than me and she was on her feet in a moment.

  She hunched over animalistically and snarled at me. She lifted her hand to do...something and it came up blank. Her angry gaze snapped to her hand before looking up at mine.

  Clutched in my fingers was a thin golden chain. And hanging just below my knuckles was a spinning amethyst.

  Eris shrieked in fury and threw her hands forward again. Nothing happened.

  It was then that she noticed dozens upon dozens of witches exiting the trees and surrounding brush. The covens wore long shadowy gown with hoods drawn over their heads. They chanted ancient words as they neared and the barrier finally became visible.

  Around Eris, in a perfect circle, a crimson black dome grew from the grass and arced high above her head. The anti magick barrier went up without another sound.

  Eris’ eyes went wild. She became absolutely frantic, dashing around the circle with her Vampyre speed. She was nothing but a blur in the night.

  “Why?!” She roared at me as I touched down just outside of her circle. Zeus landed beside me though I wasn’t sure where he had come from.

  “Because,” he said in a rumble, “you have become a thorn in my side.”

  Those words were followed by the deep rumbling of the earth. The soldiers exclaimed as he arose amidst them. The titan Prometheus burst from the center lines. He bellowed in fury and turned his massive head in our direction. “Zeus!” he shrieked.

  I had never seen Zeus look nervous before. His face broke out in a sweat.

  “Complete the spell!” He commanded. The witches didn’t ask questions. The nearest witch stepped away from the circle, still chanting. She lifted her hand out to me and I draped the gold chain across her palm, letting the amethyst dangle. I then pulled the silver chain from my neck and laced it over the first one.

  The witch bowed and returned to the circle, lifting both gems high. The covens voices rose in a chorus of indecipherable chants as the ground shook with the steps of the titan.

  The witch who had taken the necklaces held them high, the gemstones touching one another. They began to glow, one a sharp blue, the other a deep violet. They grew brighter until I couldn’t keep my eyes on them and lifted my hand to shade my vision.

  The thunderous voice on the field behind us cried out, as did the woman’s form before us until the blinding light accompanied a whoosh and then total silence.

  I would’ve completely forgotten that we were on the precipice of a battlefield if not for the stench of blood milling in the air and the subtle sway of armor and weaponry crackling into the air.

  I turned. Prometheus had vanished, though his footsteps led to the spot he had stood.

  Zeus’ chest rumbled with laughter and I felt sick. I might’ve helped him because our end goals were the same, but he was a twisted individual and I didn’t know how he could take joy in what had just happened.

  In the center of the circle, Eris sat, her knees drawn to her chest. She shook violently and rocked in place, her face buried into her legs.

  I glanced aside at the witch who had taken the amulets. She stepped up to me and produced not two, but one chain clutched in her hand. She lifted it and it looked subtly different. It was so subtle that I didn’t immediately notice the differences. Instead of a crystalline silver, it’s chain had opalescent swirls of blue and violet in its color. The gem hanging from the chain was still sapphire, but if I looked closely, I could see the swirl of amethyst at its heart.

  I gazed from the necklace to the witch.

  She offered it to me. “The amulet is the key,” she explained. “It allows access to the spirit,” she said conspiratorially, casting a quick glance at the distraught Eris, “the Fate if you will. But also, combined with the remaining energy of the Champion spell, it imprisons the titan, Prometheus, He Who Sees. Only a Fate like yours may obtain its use.”

  I took the amulet and watched the old woman as she turned to her brothers and sisters. They congratulated one another on a successful spell. It was a huge one. Zeus had had to employ multitudes more than typical magic required. But yes, they had done it.

  I stared hard at the gemstone, trying to unravel its mysteries with my gaze.

  “No!” Eris shrieked suddenly, drawing my attention again. She had dug her nails deep enough into her skin to draw blood. But despite her completion of the Champion trials, she didn’t heal. She didn’t heal at all.

  She leapt to her feet and flung herself around the barrier. “You foul creatures!” She bellowed at the retreating witches. “What have you done?!”

  I glanced at Zeus who watched her carefully. “Is she—?” I began, unable to keep my eyes off of her.

  Zeus took a deep breath and nodded. “She’s human,” he said at last.

  We stood silently for several moments.

  After Eris’ cries devolved into whimpers, I finally spoke again. “Her Magick is still here. Somewhere,” I told him.

  He nodded again. “I believe it has transferred. And I believe I know who has it.”

  My head whipped to the side, my eyes prodding him. He grinned at me and gestured for me to take flight. I glanced around the battlefield once more. The fighting had gone quiet, the troops were pulling back to their own sides of the conflict. The monstrous creatures had been killed but so had seven or so of my heroes.

  Eris looked like she had finally snapped. She had been different for decades, but it was evident in her eyes that what sanity had remained was gone.

  I looked her over with pity. I had never wished this for her but she had taken things too far. I hoped that splitting her Chaos Fate from its magick was a wise move. I hoped that things could be repaired. I hoped that the world was no longer in danger. But as I followed Zeus into the sky, I knew that this spell was only the bandage and this wound would grow to fester.

  Chapter Forty

  I blinked hard, gazing around the room. Sage, Eris, and even Seira were gone. Instead, I lay on my back, my arm stretched
out to the side. The sapphire gem had rolled my my palm and lay on the carpet near my hand.

  And straddled over me was Anton, sweating and heaving breaths as though he’d just completed a marathon. He gazed down at me in awe, his amber eyes alight.

  “What was that?” He gasped. He made no move to get off of me but it didn’t really bother me either. One of his hands was braced against the floor over my head, the other gently touched my exposed hip.

  I stared at him. I was certain it had appeared that I had passed out but that didn’t seem to explain the adorably baffled expression on his face. I glanced at the gem and his eyes followed mine.

  “Is that the same necklace?” He asked.

  That confused me even more. The only reason that question would come up was if he had seen…

  “You saw it too,” I accused, still frozen beneath him.

  His breathing was slowing now but he still took a deep inhale before replaying. “The psycho lady, legions of soldier, giant monsters. Yeah, yeah I did,” he replied, burrowing his face in his palm as he sat up.

  I gazed at him for a moment longer before glancing down to the hand he had planted at him waist. “When did you touch me?” I asked him, thinking the events out in my head. I remembered nothing of the real world after the gem had touched my palm.

  Anton chuckled a humorless laugh. “As soon as you started to fall,” he explained.

  “Then...then you saw my predecessor, Sage,” I said, unsure of how to explain all of this. Carson and Kellic knee most of the details from my previous experiences with Achillia. My father knew a little too. I had never tried to explain it to Anton. I guess I had thought he’d laugh it off.

  “Your predecessor?” he repeated. “Predecessor to what?”

  I hesitated, staring at the ceiling. Where to begin? “I-I possess a spirit...or it possesses me anyway. The original spirit of order lives within me. She’s done the same to who knows how many others over time. I only know of two, Sage—better known as the Greek goddess, Harmonia—and the Roman gladiatrix, Achillia. It’s linked to my powers. Sage had the same spirit so we are linked. What you saw...that was one of her memories.”

  I was beginning to think Anton didn’t even notice that his legs were straddled over my hips. He stared at me, then the amulet.

  “That’s what let you see him isn’t it?”

  I didn’t have to ask who he meant. I nodded.

  Anton took a deep breath. “She was a Magick.” He didn’t ask it as a question. He stated it as fact. “But she had wings like the Aeronyx. So, the legends are true. She completed the Champion trials and obtained benefits from the blood of the other races, didn’t she?”

  Again, I nodded.

  He looked me over like I was an alien lifeform. “Someone turned the ritual trials you did into the same spell that she did. You beat the Nosferatu which was the last step. Can you do that now?”

  That actually caught me off guard. I hadn’t considered it. I hadn’t realized someone had done that. Could I?

  I lifted forward, peering over my shoulder. No wings magically sprang from my back. “I-I don’t know,” I sighed.

  Anton sprang up, holding a hand out for me which I took. He lifted me to my feet still watching me carefully. “Naomi,” he hissed my mother’s name and paced around the room.

  “My mother?” I asked.

  He paused and turned to me. “That note before your fight,” he said, “it said your mother had discovered a spell in her efforts to unravel the amulet’s mysteries. She did it. She cast the Champion spell.”

  I gaped at him. “But I don’t have wings,” I said, gesturing at my back with my good hand.

  “Yeah,” he replied, “I don’t really have an explanation for that. I don’t know much about the trials. They were mentioned in my Vampire History courses in school.”

  He had his lip drawn between his teeth and suddenly I saw nothing else. I saw nothing but his enticing lips.

  My heart pounded against my ribs as I leapt on him. He’d turned, putting himself between me and my bed and as we collided, his legs went out from under him. We both sprawled onto the bed haphazardly.

  I know I took him by surprise as my lips crushed into his. He didn’t push me away though. He egged me on.

  His hands ran over my hips softly, pushing beneath my shirt. Though he wasn’t hot like an open flame, he was warm against me. He pressed down with his grip at my waist, pushing us closer together as my mouth trailed eager kisses over his neck.

  My hands whirled to his waist, lifting his shirt and pressing it over his head. He untangled his arms less than gracefully and tossed the shirt aside.

  I didn’t know what this heat was but it enraged my burning desire for him. I was suddenly furious at our back and forth. I wanted him. I had wanted him for a while. And he wasn’t shy about wanting me.

  He grabbed my sling and jerked it up and off of me then lifted my shirt and tank top over my head and peeled it off as though the fabric would burn me. It got discarded along with his own.

  His lips were fervent across my neck and chest. His fingers dug into my skin. It didn’t matter. It didn’t hurt me. Right then I thought only of him and my mad desire to have him.

  My bra made no barrier as he flicked his fingers dexterously across the clasp and tossed it aside. His mouth flew to my breast as though he wouldn’t survive without it.

  I groaned openly against him as he bucked my hips up and went for the button of my jeans. In clearer thoughts, I may have noticed how easy this was for him but right then, I thought of nothing but my pleasure at his speed.

  He pushed the garment off of me and it joined the rest, thrown about the room. His hands were warm and gentle as he gripped me and tossed me onto my back on the bed. My skin burned where his touch had been as he disrobed himself and settled his weight back on top of me.

  I felt like each breath was ripped from my lungs in my impatience. My fingers clawed at his back as he kissed my mouth hard. That kiss was like an explosion within me. My heart hammered as my lips moved against his.

  He clutched against me and bucked forward and my world became nothing but me and him. I should’ve noticed how the room began to glow with a dull blue-white light but right then, it didn’t matter. His kisses were electric, his touch the burning of flame, his body was chiseled perfection around me.

  I lost track of time in the mountains of pleasure that he brought me. I rolled on a high unlike anything I had ever felt as he ground against me. I hadn’t noticed that we’d slowly moved across the bed until we both capsized, falling to the floor where I had wound up when I had woken.

  He may have hesitated for a moment at the shock, but I didn’t. I slammed his shoulders against the floor and continued where he had left off. He moaned and I took his lips against mine, his moans becoming muffled roars of pleasure against me.

  His fingers felt like claws down my back and hips but it only added delight to our coupling. He didn’t get away without some scores of my own but he didn’t seem to mind either.

  For a long time, nothing else mattered but our own passions. We enveloped ourselves in one another and I had never felt such satisfying perfection. The emanating glow grew brighter, saturated with a pulsing red. The room became alight with colors as we rode the high. He took me farther and faster than I had ever thought possible.

  It might’ve shocked me on a different day, but I knew, right then, that I was desperately in love with this man.

  Anton pushed me until there was nowhere else for me to go. He whispered sweet nothings in my ear as he rode against me and I reveled in them, felt them wrap around me as though they were my protection.

  His sweet nothings turned even more delectable as his lips clamped onto my neck and his teeth pierced my skin. My blood pulsed into him and his thoughts throbbed into my mind. I knew that right now, I was all he wanted and I was certain that he knew that I felt the same about him. He let go of me, offering his own neck to me.

  I wasted no time,
sinking my teeth through the flesh above his collarbone.

  This.

  This was everything.

  His blood flowed into me, revitalizing me, filling me with strength and passion and perfection.

  Finally, after an unknown amount of time, he roared my name and I felt its reverberation deep within his chest as it brushed against my breasts. He stiffened and squeezed against me and I finally reached a peak at the same time.

  I called out, begging for him, releasing the hold my teeth had and even in his addled state, he brought his mouth to mine again, kissing me passionately at first until we both started to sag in exhaustion, then they became gentle, loving caresses.

  I felt incredible and exhausted at the same time.

  He lay against me, without pressing me with his weight until I started to lull to sleep. I felt it as he pulled away, disentangling himself from me. His hands slid softly around my back and my legs and he lifted me gently, placing me in the bed and pulling the sheets over my naked body.

  Before I could say a word begging him not to leave he slid into the bed beside me, his muscled arms wrapping around my hips. He pressed his lips against my neck, brushing my hair aside with one hand.

  I was nearly asleep when he spoke.

  “You fed,” he said simply.

  I nodded, not sure what he meant. Was I not supposed to?

  He chuckled and it expelled warm, sweet breath across my skin. “No, love,” he said, “You fed. In the same sense that our Succubus brethren do. I’d say the trials worked.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I knew that the feeling had felt alien but familiar. I had just never used it myself. And on this end, it was far more exquisite.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I said softly, nuzzling against him.

  He laughed again and I knew that sound would never get old. “Don’t apologize.” He kissed my neck. “You can always feed from me and you know it.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at his words. Anton had always been there for me, since the very beginning. He had turned against his father for me. He had cast himself into the unknown when he returned as a traitor. He had come to me when Carson had left. He had supported me through the trials. He had led me feed unimpeded. He had defended me against the blows of the man who was supposed to love me. He had risked his life to save mine. He was still here.