“Ma’am?” The Lycan spoke up a little louder this time. “Ma’am, are you all right?”
Seraphina finally looked up then, her tone ice-cold as she spoke. “I don’t give a flying fuck what you have to do, but make sure she does not get out of this building. Find some human weapons, chain, what the fuck ever. Get out of here and clean up this mess. And tell that useless demon to make it snappy on killing those three males. His task should have been completed by now. Go!”
Once the Lycan scrambled out of the room, Seraphina let go of the scream she had been holding in. It was so loud and shrill it shattered every last one of the remaining monitors. Once more she continued to reinforce the spell around her heart, because without that not only would her plans fall apart, but she might not even survive the repercussions.
Without that spell? Every foul deed she had done to all the people she would have loved had her heart not been turned off for long, wouldn’t be as meaningless as they were when she committed them. And for all those feelings to come at the forefront at once to a heart that hadn’t felt a thing in centuries just might be enough to shatter her.
Jayden was doing his level best to figure out a way out of the compulsion that evil bitch had placed on him to kill Jelissa’s other mates once their collars had been ripped free. It wasn’t that he held so much love for them, but the fact was he had no idea how their deaths would affect Jelissa, and he had no intention of finding out.
Fighting the compulsion was not an easy thing, and not something he would be able to do for very much longer. Not while that ring was still on his finger. Something he couldn’t seem to rectify on his own. He had tried. Any and every time that evil bitch didn’t have her eyes on him, he had tried in vain to pull it off. And up until now he hadn’t been able to get his hands on any form of blade whatsoever.
In her desperate need to have the three males dead and out of her way as quickly as possible, his master, captor, and huge pain in his ass, Seraphina hadn’t quite thought her plan all the way through. Wanting to sustain her sick and extremely twisted sense of humor and love of irony by having Jayden be the one to kill three pieces of his own mate’s soul, she had inadvertently given him the means he needed to free himself.
The sweat that poured off him as if he were a leaky faucet had absolutely nothing to do with the leather trench coat he was wearing; it was the compulsion trying to rush him along to do his commanded task and force him to forget his own plans.
Upon crossing the threshold where the three males were being held, Jayden had no time to acknowledge the gaping hole and fallen debris where the door used to stand. He was greeted with an extremely weak snarl from the werewolf.
“Down boy, we haven’t got much time.” Going as fast as he was able, each step harder than the last as the compulsion grew worse the closer he came to their vicinity, Jayden finally found himself before the counterparts he had yet to officially meet. “One of you fucks needs to muster up enough strength to cut off my hand before the bitch in my head forces me to kill the three of you. Then we can get the fuck out of here and find our mate.”
Clearly sensing the urgency in his tone, none of them bothered wasting time pondering over his last words. No, they did their damnedest to find at least one ounce of strength within them. It was Adorjan who spoke first, his voice nothing more than a thin, whispered lisp. “Need. To. Feed.”
Rivulets of sweat continued to roll down Jayden’s face as he began to lose the battle against himself. “Do whatever the fuck you need to.” He had barely finished that statement before the vampire was behind him and latched on to his neck like a baby on his mother’s tit.
Adorjan’s fangs burrowed deep into Jayden’s neck. The look he gave Jayden right before doing so conveyed without words that he had no idea who or what Jayden was, or where he had even come from. But the urgency in Jayden’s words must have let the vampire know he had the same ultimate goal as they did.
Adorjan’s minor choke evidenced that the sheer potency of the blood took him by surprise and let him know this being most definitely was not human, no matter how much he might resemble one. By the third pull, Adorjan’s body was already regaining strength, while Jayden was losing what little bit of control he had left. As Adorjan continued to drink his feel, Jayden had started walking towards the incubus and the wolf, unable to stop himself.
Adorjan’s eyes popped open just as Jayden raised his arm to start stabbing either Jason or Raziel. Faster than either could blink, Adorjan was in front of the demon and knocking him down to the ground, straddling him and making a grab for the knife. The problem? Every time Adorjan let up pressure on Jayden to do so, he began to fight back. “Listen here—”
“Jayden.”
The dark, baritone voice caught Adorjan completely off guard. He looked at the demon as if he’d lost his damn mind. “What?”
“My name is Jayden. If you’re going to cut off an extremity I’ve been rather attached to all my life, we should probably be on a first-name basis, don’t ya think?” The next he said through gritted teeth, his eyes now becoming a swirling vortex of crimson red and black. “Now hurry this up, will ya? ’Cause the drive to rip you limb from limb is growing stronger with each passing second.”
“Well, doing that would be a tad bit easier if you’d quit fighting me every time I try to go for the knife. Adorjan.”
“Gesundheit.”
“That’s my name, asshole, not a damn sneeze,” Adorjan replied right before headbutting Jayden so hard the sound bounced off the walls. It wasn’t enough to knock him out completely, but it put him in enough of a daze to complete his task. “And we descended from Hungary, not Germany.”
Adorjan visibly shook off his own dizziness and hurriedly grabbed the blade from Jaydon’s hand. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, he lifted the blade and brought it back down hard and fast, whacking off Jayden’s hand a few inches above the wrist in one fell swoop.
As Jayden began to buck against the floor uncontrollably, Adorjan leapt up from him and scrambled back more than a few steps, apparently not wanting to be too close for whatever was about to happen next. Since Jayden felt like he was about to explode, he imagined he probably looked like it too.
And that was exactly what Jayden did, just not in the way Adorjan had anticipated. One thing demons did not do when they were summoned was show their true self. There was no need to show their temporary master just how powerful they truly were. Jayden was finally free to be himself. More importantly, he was free of the Wicked Bitch of the East. He bucked against the floor as the power from his own rage at being forced to work against the female placed on this Universe as part of his soul, and his to protect. It poured into him with a force so strong it was like being hit by a tsunami, and it was way too much to hold in his human looking form. So, to accommodate that power, Jaydon’s body reverted to its natural demonic glory.
There wasn’t a long a sordid process, no bones breaking, not his human body bursting apart to reveal the demon underneath. No, Jayden simply grew, well, that and changed skin tone. All his limbs began to elongate at the same time; his head and muscles grew larger; and black horns protruded from the sides of his head somewhere between his eyebrows and ears. Black metallic claws sprang from the fingertips of his remaining hand as a new hand began to grow from the bloody stump. His skin went from a pale white to a deep crimson red almost the exact color of blood, to match the swirling vortex of his eyes. Ancient runes and tribal tattoos decorated one side of his body, starting from the nape of his neck and leading all the way below the waistband of his leather pants, pants that along with the matching coat grew right along with him; a birthday present from his parents. A perk of being born amongst the hierarchy class of demons; not only the clothes but also the now forked tongue, and the rare horns. Once his transformation was complete, he let out a laugh so quiet and sinister and filled with malice he knew it sent chills down the other males’ spines.
Before anyone of them could speak, two more being
s were in the ruined doorway. Looked like the cavalry was beginning to arrive. Only one was able to speak, as the other was in wolf form, but the accent he spoke with was so deep the only one who seemed to be able to make out his words was Adorjan. “Well, you have been busy.”
“Dad!” Adorjan practically flew into the man’s arms while the wolf snarled low and lethal.
She leapt over to where the wolf, that must have been her pup, lay like a broken ragdoll and began to lick at his wounds, healing them in the process. When she had transferred enough energy to him, Jason opened his eyelids to find her staring at him, which made his eyes open that much wider right before rubbing his face all over hers.
The incubus, Raziel, didn’t have such a reunion with anyone.
Over from where he stood watching all the sickening sweetness, Jayden cleared his throat before saying in a dark, foreboding, and guttural smoky tone, “While I don’t even hate to interrupt because you’re making me nauseous over here, I think I need to point out we really don’t have time for this shit. We’ve got things to do, someone to save, and a bitch to kill. Shall we get on with it?”
20
Almost There
Once Tialanna and the guard crossed the portal to the human realm, she, Grimm, and Bran felt a weak sense of where Jelissa was, and it grew stronger with each step they took. The same was true for the other parents she had allowed to come with them. Which meant whatever spell had been used to keep them cloaked must have been weakening. Even though that would indeed make things much easier for them in finding exactly where they were better than any map could, it could also mean something was happening, and none of them knew whether it was something that would help, or deter them that much more.
“I don’t like these little earpieces. What if somebody needs to like poop or something and broadcasts that thought without even realizing it?” Tia and Anya stopped mid-step when those words fell out of Elyssia’s mouth. Had it come from anyone else, they would have chocked it up to nerves, but they knew their little sister was dead serious. They were saved by Darvyn who had also been walking with them; he took the reins in an attempt to reassure her the likeliness of that happening was slight to nil.
They had already decided and agreed they would not use magick to reach their destination; no flashing, no flying. Those with speed, the vampires and the shifters, would go on foot; the shifters were to shift to their animal form beforehand. Everyone else would use the vans left behind by the cleanup crew, a group the Vampire King ran that deleted any magical, mostly vampiric, mishaps that took place on this side of the portal. They had a few stashed on Belle Isle, glamoured to remain hidden from human view.
The sisters would remain together, since they truly were stronger together, both magically and physically. They would go on foot, keeping Elyssia arm and arm in between them, her feet off the ground, as Tia and Anya used their vampire speed. Deelah wouldn’t be shifting at all since her and Genie were riding with the mages; they had been sent ahead already. Having been grounded, quite literally, Bran and Kierra would be in one of the vans, even though Chandler had kindly offered to give Bran a piggy-back ride. Good thing Chandler was a vampire, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to duck the fist that came for his face in response. Grimm would be in wolf form leading the rest of the wolves, with the exception of Deelah and one other. The missing vampire’s father, Ferenc, and the werewolf’s mother, Deborah, would be side by side.
The incubus father, Lucian, had also gone ahead before everyone else. He had stopped Tia before they had even left the castle grounds, seeming to have melted out of the shadows just as they all were pouring out of the war room upon reconvening earlier. Lucian cleared his throat to gain Tialanna’s attention as she was the last to leave out of the room. When she turned to look at him, he bowed slightly before addressing her. “My Queen, a word, if I may.”
When not only her sisters, but also the entire guard stopped mid-motion as if they had no intention whatsoever to leave her alone with the incubus, Tia waved them on. “Go on, I’ll catch up. I’m sure this won’t take long.” She gave the incubus a pointed look as she said the last, telegraphing as plainly as possible it had better not.
When just himself and Tialanna stood alone in the corridor, Lucian released the breath he had been holding before explaining as quickly as possible what he had come to tell his Queen. “There are more than a few things you do not know of my people, and no, I do not mean demons in their entirety, but the Incubi class specifically. We may indeed be Ares’ and Hades’ best-kept secret.”
“We don’t have time for you to sit here and explain your long and sordid history. Or whatever sad story lead you into my realm.”
“I agree with you one thousand percent. I’m as anxious to get my son back as you are your daughter. While wars may not have been won or lost due to my sect, we had our hand in beginning more than a few. I know you’ve heard of Helen of Troy and Cleopatra; neither of them were human. They were Succubi with the power to bring men to their knees; even women, even witches.” Lucian gave that last a second to set in before continuing. “We were never summoned; we were only sent. Sex may indeed be one of the deadliest and most dangerous of weapons, but it’s most certainly not the only weapon in our arsenal. There is no magical barrier we cannot cross, no magick that can be used against us, and no one who we cannot use our magick against. But only at our full strength, and only at our full maturity, which my son is not.”
“So you’re saying that…”
With a sensual and deadly smirk, Lucian answered the Queen’s unasked question. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
After more debate, Tia had agreed to let Lucian leave right then and there to feed so he would be at his full strength, or as close to it as possible. She had given him an earpiece, so they could remain in contact with him.
With everyone sorted and all plans made, there was nothing left to do but to carry those plans out.
“Well, you know what they say, hope for the worst, prepare for the best.”
“Elyssia!” Tia and Anya shouted as one.
“What?” After thinking about it for a second, she answered her own question. “I said that wrong, didn’t I?”
Before she could say anything even more insane, Tialanna gave the order for everyone to head out, and off they went. Only what they walked into wasn’t what any of them had quite imagined.
Deelah noticed Genie’s chair had not only stopped its incessant turning, but her jaw was well on its way to become up close and very personal with the floor, and Genie’s eyes wider than Deelah had ever seen them. She pulled herself closer to her friend, but as she was about to tap her shoulder, Deelah’s line of sight followed the direction of what had Genie so spooked. Which was just in time to see the techs’ images form in two separate screens, right before they plopped down into the awaiting stools and shook like leaves. They looked even more spooked than either Deelah or Genie felt.
The techs had each literally stepped out from the monitors in the back of the blacked-out van they had all traveled together in. One moment the monitors sat there completely blank, and then there was a whole lot of static with no sound while Deelah sat back filing at her claws that never seemed to retract, mumbling under her breath about being stuck watching a couple of twats, and Genie twirled around on a stool while studiously ignoring her dear friend. Genie stopped mid-twirl when she saw an image of the tech mages they had come with on two opposite monitors, images that appeared to be coming closer to her.
“Damnit!” The outburst flew from Deelah’s mouth a lot louder than she had intended while Genie sat silently stunned. Had she been human, Deelah would be afraid the girl was going into shock. “You guys can’t use a fucking door?” she added from between clenched teeth while trying to contain her wolf.
“You didn’t see what we saw.” The brother and sister duo, Nate and Nataly, spoke in unison and continued to do so. “We had to get out of there as fast as we could. We were going to warn you, but
…”
There was an exception given to the no-magick rule, and that extended to the tech mages since they already had equipment with their magick flowing through it; them using more shouldn’t draw any undue attention. That didn’t stop them from being scared shitless when doing what they had been sent to do.
They were shaking as if they were freezing yet were sweating so profusely the white T-shirts they wore clung to them. Sitting across from Deelah and Genie, they looked drastically underdressed in their white tees, cutoff jeans, and large, black-rimmed glasses. At the last minute, Tialanna had changed her mind and gone ahead and allowed the girls to wear guard uniforms. Though while Genie kept hers intact, zipped all the way to her neck, Deelah’s wolf had been at the forefront and used her claws to make a few moderations; slash marks on both legs on the back and front, the sleeves were gone, and the zipper was jammed so it would no longer go up past her ample cleavage. The only thing she hadn’t changed were the shit-kicker boots.
“But what? And Genie, baby, please shut your mouth before you either start drooling or more than a few flies take up residence in there.” When Genie finally blinked and closed her mouth and continued to stare at their charges, Deelah spoke to the two tech mages. “And will the two of you please stop speaking together like that?”
The Succubus, the Demon and the Witch Page 13
