Destined to Live (The Death Eater Series Book 2)

by Catherine Stovall

  Destined to Live

  Book Two: The Death Eater Series

  Catherine Stovall

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, including photocopying, recording, or transmitted by any means without written consent of the author and Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, establishments, names, companies, organizations and events were created by the author. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events, companies or organizations is coincidental.

  Published by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing

  Text Copyright 2014

  Cover by CLS Designs

  This Book is Dedicated to:

  The band, Volbeat, whose song, The Nameless One, inspired this series.

  And toMwith Love.

  Acknowledgements

  As always, I send thanks out to my children for teaching me to dream with my eyes wide open. Thank you to my family for believing in me and supporting me.

  Thank you to my friends for encouraging the voices in my head.

  Thank you to Samantha Ketteman for the endless phone coversations and online chats while writing this book and so many others.

  Thank you to Samantha Hebrock for being my biggest fan.

  Thank you to My Freaks, Geeks, and Ducky Dears.

  Together we will chase the sun, howl at the moon, and reach for the stars!

  Works by Catherine Stovall

  Faire Eve

  Arcana: The Maiden (A World of Wade Novel)

  Condemned to Die (The Death Eater Series)

  Stolen: Book One of the Requiem of Humanity Series

  Reborn: Book Two of the Requiem of Humanity Series

  Eternity: Book Three of the Requiem of Humanity Series

  Anthologies:

  Tales of the Fairy

  Cogs in Time

  The Rise of the Goddess

  Destined to Live

  Prologue

  Nearly two and half centuries had passed since Zane and Vega stood at death’s door for the first time. Attracted by the promise of freshly killed meat, Eurynome the Death Eater had followed the scent of desperation and blood. His hunger had led him to a small human town where the rage of war had laid waste to all things. As he devoured the rotting and charred meat of the fallen, a spark of life had caught his attention.

  Normally unconcerned with beating hearts and living flesh, Eurynome had been intrigued by the draw he felt to the peculiar being. When he had uncovered her dying body, he understood why. The last glowing embers of a life that never had the chance to burn brightly still clung to her as she begged for some sort of divine assistance.

  In an instant, he had been struck by the oddness, that even though she was sure to die, she pleaded for the life of the boy who lay in her arms. The opportunity to corrupt a truly pure soul had never been presented so nicely to any demon before.

  Standing with his back to the great billows of black smoke, Eurynome had drawn one clawed hand across his face to clear the dripping blood from his chin and looked down on the naïve beauty before him.

  “Your lover is dead and gone, child. Only the power of a greater demon, such as I, can resurrect such things. Your life force is nothing but a tiny grain of sand in the vast desert. Only a greater demon, such as I, can restore such a thing. Do you ask these things of me?”

  Vega had swallowed hard against her fear and instinct. “Yes. Please, save us.”

  “I shall give you life, but in return, you must face a challenge. If you lose, your souls shall be mine.” There had been no hint of satisfaction to the demon’s graveling voice.

  Vega did not ask for details, she had simply repeated the same words. “Yes. Please, save us.”

  The demon had tossed his long black hair out behind him as he laughed with raucous supremacy. “You are not smart. You must know that my task will be nearly impossible.”

  Drawing on the little strength she had left, she had stared into the soulless, black eyes of the greater demon. “Our love is strong enough to defeat anything, even death. Is that not why you are here?”

  His wide-mouthed grin had revealed dangerously sharp teeth. “I was here to feast on the flesh of the dead. Those who perish in great turmoil always taste sweeter. However, your little beating heart is something of interest to me, and for that reason alone, I stand before you. My conditions are this. You must live. You must love. You must experience the tumultuous existence of humanity and not be broken. The life given to you will not be easy and your strength will not be what it is now. I will hold your boy captive and he will watch your life from afar. Your happiness and your sorrow will give him much pain.”

  Vega had turned the proposition over in her mind before she asked, “If I fail?”

  The demon had lowered himself onto his massive haunches and traced a single black claw down her cheek. “If you fail, and you die by man’s hand or your own, this boy will be given free rein to seek out your vengeance. Maddened from your death, and his hate for all that he has witnessed, it will be a bloody retaliation for his victims. In the moment of their death, he shall take their final breath into his body. I shall allow him to use that power to awaken you no more than thirteen times.”

  Vega had taken one look at Zane’s graying face, and at the same time she hated herself for her selfish need of him, she had asked only one thing more from the demon. “You mustn’t plan on keeping me from him? That solitude alone will kill me.”

  Feeling gracious, the demon had decreed, “From the rise of the moon until the rise of the sun, I shall grant you that eve of your rebirth to be in your lover’s arms once more. When the daylight comes, you shall be reborn again. If you find yourself unable to complete this task within the time you reach your twentieth year for the thirteenth time, you shall both serve me for eternity.”

  Bending down, she had placed a farewell kiss onto Zane’s lips before she sealed a pact with the demon. That had been the last time she saw Zane for nineteen years. Each reincarnation, she was born without knowledge of who she was or the deal that she had struck. Each time she was resurrected from her death, that knowledge awakened inside her and filled her with a desperate guilt. The only thing that never changed was her name. Vega meant the brightest star, and even when surrounded by darkness, she shined.

  Vega held the edge of the blade to her flesh, testing its weight against the tender part where the blue veins pulsed with her rapid heartbeat. Pressing down a little, just to see if she would be brave enough, she felt no pain. The anger, sadness, and inner ache overwhelmed her.

  Pulling the blade away, she studied the deep indention left by the knife. She hadn’t drawn blood, not yet. She toyed with the idea of death in a sick, fascinated state. Admiring the possibilities offered by obliteration, she day-dreamed morbid curiosities. There would be no more want, no more need. She didn’t believe in hell, she doubted heaven. If there was a God, he had rarely showed his hand in her life anyway.

  Watching her eyes flashing in the reflection of the stainless steel, she admired the strange beauty. It was old, a relic from her grandfather’s time. The light played on the metal, the rust turning from brown to gray with each twist. The plastic handle, yellowed with age, felt at home in her hand, and the urge to send it careening into her body was nothing new. She wondered what it would feel like to slash her way into nothingness.

  Raising the cutting edge to her upper arm, just below the myriad of tattoos, she slid it across the flesh with deliberate abandon. The sting of it was pleasure and pain. Blood welled up in the track of the blade’s course,
a crimson reminder that she still lived, even if it were on the edge of death. The shock of red on her pale and fragile flesh gave her peace. She knew it was crazy, but it was her secret wish to let the rusty edge end the pain of living.

  She had heard of self-mutilation in people with mental illnesses, but she had never gone quite that far. The people who did such things would say that they needed to release the pain inside by causing the pain outside, and that part she understood. However, she wasn’t ready to be labeled a ‘cutter’. In fact, she didn’t like the term at all. She simply recognized the release that came with watching the skin part and the blood surface. Pure, simple pain was better than the soul crushing confusion that made her heart feel as if it may implode.

  Sighing, she spoke aloud to herself, “What are you doing, Vega?”

  Too tired to think any longer on the complexities of what plagued her, she lay back on her small bed and pulled the covers over her. The mental and physical exhaustion of her life seeped in, burying her under a blanket of restless sleep.

  ****

  Standing in the empty field, her feet sunk into the soft, barren dirt beneath them. Her dark hair lifted and floated on the cold breeze that etched its way across the horizon, chilling the air and bringing a mist of frost to cling to her skin. Clad only in her oversized jersey and a pair of boy shorts, she shivered in the frigid environment. Looking around in hopeless confusion, she tried to discern how and why she was there. There was no doubt that she was dreaming, but for Vega, dreams meant many different things.

  The sensation of something watching her crept up her spine, telling her to run. “Wake up, Vega. Wake up, you got to wake up,” she tried desperately to rouse herself from inside the lucid nightmare. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, trying to chase away the cold, she spun in another slow circle. Her eyes were wide with fear and her body violently trembled.

  On the horizon, a stranger appeared, his ghostly silhouette greatly resembling a midnight raven with the body of a man. The pointed beak of the plague doctor’s ebony mask gleamed in the moonlight, obscuring the wearer’s face. The black tails of his slick coat flapped in the piercing wind, and the tips of his white hair blew free to dance wildly at his collar. In the onslaught of ice that had silently crept in with false gentility around her, he seemed a monster contained within a snow globe.

  Vega froze, unable to run, her screams choking the air from her lungs as her collapsed vocal chords rendered her in a terrible silence. Fear, pure and undiluted, raged through her body, bringing her to a near hysterical state.

  The man moved slowly, patiently gliding over the ever growing sheet of ice that covered the world. His hand was outstretched, reaching for her. The glistening liquid on his gloves turned the frost collecting there pink, and somehow, Vega knew it was blood.

  Holy shit! Not again! her panicked mind shouted, even as the logical part fought against the terror. It’s only a dream, you idiot. Wake up!”

  Her eyes flew open, and she screamed, the sound echoing off the dirty white walls and thread bare carpet. The knife clattered to the floor, her hands shaking as she saw the oozing cut that had been opened just below the bend of her arm—deeper and more ragged than any she had ever consciously made. Sobs erupted from her in waves of terrified sorrow, and Vega crumpled.

  Strong arms, too gentle to be anyone but his, came around her as if he had been lying there waiting for her to need him. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking out of the corners, as his lips came to her ear. Warm breath tickled the lobe as he sighed.

  “Vega, I’ve missed you,” his voice was warm butter.

  “I’ve missed you too, Zane,” she sniffled against the pillow. “It’s been too long.”

  “I know, baby. I’m sorry. I try to come whenever I can. Have you found the ring?”

  “Don’t apologize. Just having you here now is enough. I haven’t. I’ve tried.” The vague tingle of a memory etched its way across her mind. Zane and her, the rising sun, and a promise she couldn’t quite remember had come with the ring he’d given her.

  “I know. Keep looking. And Vega, don’t hurt yourself. I know it’s hard, love, but you must live. If you die, then I will never hold you again. Your decision will kill us both.”

  Pulling her body against him, she curled in on herself. “I’m trying, but it’s so hard.”

  They said no more. The need for words had left them. Instead, he held her until she quietly cried herself to sleep under the weight of his embrace. When at last her breathing evened out and her heart beat slowed, he kissed her salty cheek and faded back into nothingness.

  Only his voice remained as it whispered, “The ring, Vega. Remember the ring, and when it comes to you, it will bring me as well.”

  Always, when she felt as if she could no longer go on, he came to her as she slept. The only time she could ever remember having the good dream, was after having the bad. The only reason she had never made that final draw of the blade was the good dream.

  There was no guarantee that Zane would come after the appearance of the man in the mask, but when he did, she felt peace. His gorgeous blue eyes, so full of compassion, would glisten as he forced her to repeatedly promise to live. He’d kiss her gently and tell her to look for the ring, and to hold on to their love. Then in the morning light, he’d fade away and she would wake—the space where he had been feeling oddly cold and empty.

  Somehow, she knew him, and they loved each other more than anyone had ever loved before. Theirs was a passion, so pure and timeless, that it felt as if it had existed for centuries beyond centuries. She didn’t know how she knew he was real and waiting for her somewhere dark and cold, but she could feel the truth in it. They were destined to be together, just as he always told her she was destined to live.

  ****

  She was close to death. Zane could feel it hovering around her body and her soul, a black aura of despair. The closer she drifted to that edge, the closer he came to the surface of reality. With each day that plagued her into madness, his chains loosened. A cursed balance between life and death kept them apart, and only in those rare moments of terrible grief could he break through.

  Twelve lifetimes she had lived and died, and he had avenged her. Over the spanning decades, on the brink of her return from death, in the aftermath of his revenge, during the last vestiges of his freedom, they had been allowed to share a single evening together. However, this time, he had found a weakness. He had found a way to push through the darkness and drift with her in her dreams.

  Obsessed with preventing the two from re-uniting, Eurynome had sabotaged Vega’s lives time and time again. His error had been in the increasing depravity that he had shaped each new rebirth. In this thirteenth life, Vega’s caretakers cared only for drugs and rent money. The girl had been abused, neglected, and victimized since she had been very small. She had loved only briefly, and had lost greatly each time. The girl was so hardened to the destruction of herself in reality, Eurynome had been forced to seek out her only solace—her dreams.

  Each time the demon trespassed in Vega’s slumber, he left a crack in the wall that separated his domain from hers. As Eurynome slipped out of the nightmares, Zane used all his strength to sneak through and offer comfort to her. He begged her to hold on, and he always reminded her of the ring he’d given her on their last day together. If she could find the ring, she could have him with her always.

  Slapping at the alarm clock next to her bed, Vega sat up, utter emptiness all around her. In her dreams, she’d fled the monster, had awakened to find herself wounded, and then Zane had come. She loved the good dream, but the void after she woke always left her wanting more than just a brief and faded recollection of him. She wanted him, the real him—if there was one.

  Pushing the thoughts aside, Vega stood, and crossed the room to the rickety vanity that sat in the corner. Littered with cheap make-up, books, and general bric-a-brac, there was barely enough room to place her elbows on the scarred wooden top. Sitting there, he
ad in her hands, she stared at the large purple and blue bruise that marred the flesh above her cheekbone. The tears welled up in her eyes as she forced herself to look away.

  Each day it became harder to remember the good dream, when her life had become more of a nightmare than even the worst of her nightly visions of death. It had come to the point where facing her mother was worse than the man in the mask that plagued her sleep. While they were both sadistic symbols for all that was trying to destroy her, at least he didn’t leave scars and bruises behind.

  Vega pulled out her drawing pad and a pencil as she thought over that particularly disturbing character. She began with the hook billed mask, a creaseless ebony disguise that hid everything but two small, hate filled eyes. She drew in the straight lines of the high collar and the angular shoulders, pointed as if they were the edges of a demon’s wings. Dark fluids clung to him, matting his long white-blonde hair and glistening on his shining black rubber coat. In a flurry of lines and shading, the creature of her agony came to life on the page.

  Just as she began to darken the lines of the gnarled hand that seemed to reach out at her, she heard her mother’s heavy tread in the hall and the anger in her voice.

  “What the hell are you doing in there, girl?” the words were slurred.

  Trying to hide the drawing before her mother burst through the door, Vega managed to close the thin cover and toss the pad haphazardly amongst the mess on her vanity—in hopes the woman wouldn’t notice it.

  “I was just getting ready, Mother. Did you need something?” her tone was dry, but the fierce beating of her heart was proof enough of her stress.

  Catching Vega’s sideways glance, Diana’s mascara-matted, bloodshot eyes raked over the vanity. In a snarling rage, she grabbed up the pad. “This is what you were doing, you lying little bitch!” she screamed, her smeared lipstick covered mouth contorting into a gaping exit wound for words of hate. “You lazy, no-good, piece of shit. You think you can just lay around in here all day and doodle this bullshit while I kill myself trying to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head.” The jagged and torn edges of her red painted nails dug into the cardboard cover of the book as the woman shook with quick rage.