A tear fell down her cheeks. “Selene can be blind as a bat at times,” she said with a cracked sob, her shoulders slumping. “I wanted so badly to save them for you, but I failed. We all failed. I thought I could at least get you to taste happiness once before they died,” she sobbed, crying messily. Then she abruptly hurled her empty mug against the wall, shattering it. “All I wanted was your happiness!”
I drew her to a halt and wrapped my arms around her, hugging her tight. She sobbed into my neck, her entire body shaking. “You did make me happy, Aphrodite. I was able to talk with Selene. I even held her hand,” I whispered.
She cried harder.
And…I let her.
One day, I might need her to do the same for me. To stand there like a boulder in a raging river and keep me grounded.
She would probably do so naked and beautiful, which was a sight better than my current filthy state. She finally pulled back, wiping at her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I gave her a warm smile, waving off her concern. I glanced around us as she composed herself. “Are they close?” I asked.
She nodded, pointing at a nearby door. “It is a refrigerated room the museum once used for certain specimens, apparently. Hugo showed it to me.”
I stared at the door, gathering my courage. “Okay. I might need your help,” I admitted, recalling how I had been there for her moment of grief a few seconds ago.
She nodded determinedly, gripping my hand again. We approached the door, and she opened it for me, ushering me inside what seemed part surgical room and part library. Natalie and Victoria lay on a long, wide table in the center of the room. Candles were burning, filling the room with the familiar scent of fennel and anise.
I glanced over at Aphrodite curiously, indicating the candles.
She smiled. “They were burning in the bathroom when I first met you. They lit them, expecting a happier turning of events. You went in there the last time you touched them, so I thought it would be…comforting,” she admitted sadly.
My throat tightened at her kindness.
I slowly approached the table, staring down at Natalie and her short, blonde hair. Her eyes were closed, and her face looked peaceful. I imagined her inappropriate jokes and crude humor, the fiery passion she kept stoked like a blacksmith’s forge.
I turned to Victoria, the would-be assassin who Artemis had aimed at me centuries before. I remembered meeting her at the auction and laughing.
Both faces brought a smile to my own, remembering the good times we had shared. The things we had learned together. We had only known each other a month, but it had felt like much longer. I’d kissed them once or twice, but nothing more. Only once or twice…
Why not three times?
I slowly bent down and lightly kissed their foreheads. There. My knees buckled and Aphrodite caught me, holding me upright.
I had missed out on the finer things we could have shared. I’d finally had a chance to explore love, and I’d squandered it myself this time.
I wasn’t sure how long we stood there, but I remembered that Aphrodite never broke physical contact with me. Not once.
Even when I cried and fell asleep with my head in her lap to her murmured words as she lovingly stroked my hair with her fingers.
“I will never leave you, my Ambrosia. Your sister will help you find happiness, brother. Happiness or blood…”
57
Many days passed in a numb, uneventful haze. I went through the motions of being the most powerful vampire in the world, not finding anything particularly pleasant about it.
It wasn’t even necessarily the loss of Natalie and Victoria, although that had hit me hard. Or Bubbling Brook. Three women who had dared to get close to me, and all had suffered for it. Their funerals had taken place on the lawns of Castle Ambrogio, so that they were always close to home.
It was more that I couldn’t find anything to truly care about.
I hadn’t met with Dracula, leaving him to ripen in the museum’s prison instead.
Izzy and Nosh were looking into acquiring puppies for Adam and Eve, which was made difficult since the Nephilim could not go inspect the offerings themselves. The act of puppy hunting had served to bring her closer to Nosh, the two of them working together on the task. Their laughter and warm embraces soon filled the halls of the museum. When they weren’t enjoying their new penthouse, anyway.
The vampire mixer had gone off to great success, and I soon saw reborn vampires socializing with the present-day vampires, forming friendships and bonds together.
I kept to myself.
Lucian had left the wolves to Benjamin after he’d been recovered from the penthouse with Sister Hazel. Dr. Stein had taken a liking to the eyeless monster almost immediately, and we had hardly seen the pair since.
Lucian preferred to work with Benjamin rather than hundreds of werewolves. He also hadn’t regained his human form, so he wasn’t much help in talking to the pack. Well, he growled at them often. He had spent centuries away from others, and had grown grouchy in his old age.
I empathized with him. In fact, Lucian and Nero hardly ever left my side. Aphrodite was practically my servant, bending over backwards to do anything I asked quicker than I could ask it. The four of us played a lot of board games to pass our time—well, Lucian watched or dozed while we played—as we waited for Olympus to respond to the murder of Apollo and Artemis.
They did not respond.
So, we played more games. A hellish number of games. And we waited. And I grew darker.
I sat before the fire in my outer rooms, absently sipping a Bloodee as I watched the dancing tendrils latch onto a fresh log. It reminded me of the lightning over my knuckles. I hadn’t experimented with it. I also hadn’t experimented with my reclaimed vampire powers.
A sudden crash in the hall outside drew my attention. “Sorin!” Nero shouted, sounding panicked. He and Lucian had only just left the room five minutes earlier. “Hurry!”
I set my mug down and bolted for the door. I flung it open and raced out into the halls—
And I was suddenly outside. I flexed my claws, snarling as I whipped my head left and right. No one attacked, and I was all alone.
And I stood atop Lucian’s mountain.
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, turning back around. A rectangular hole in the air showed me Nero and Lucian on the other side, back in the museum. Lucian was panting, wagging his tail, and Nero was grinning like a maniac. I took a step towards him, snarling. “What is—”
“See ya, brother!” he hooted, and he snapped the fingers of his skeleton hand. The door back promptly winked out, leaving me miles from civilization in upstate New York. I didn’t have a car, and I didn’t even know which direction to walk to get back to the city.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. Was this some kind of prank? A joke to lift my spirits?
“Oh, I’ll lift his spirit alright,” I promised, growling under my breath. “I’ll lift it right out of his body.” My eyes flicked to the soulcatcher on my thumb and I shuddered, realizing that it was something I could accomplish with little effort. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the clean mountain air.
I turned back to the cliff, staring up at the night sky. The moon hung high overhead, looking impossibly large.
“Sorin?” a new voice shouted, sounding startled.
I turned to see a woman in a white toga standing at the edge of the cliff. The moonlight shone down on a familiar woman, making my breath catch as it seemed to enrich her natural beauty. My anger flickered away and died, and my heart skipped a few dozen beats.
“Selene. What are you doing here?” I asked, jogging towards her.
She waited for me to approach, and I slowed to see that she was scowling into the middle distance. She punched a fist into her palm and began to pace. “That sleazy, good for nothing—”
I instinctively smiled at her angry shuffling, having seen it a time or two when we had been together, long ago. “What is it?” I asked,
trying to hide my amusement.
She rounded on me. “I was having tea with the girls—”
“Because it’s Friday,” I said without meaning to, nodding.
She stopped in her tracks to stare at me with a wary look. “How did you know that?” I sensed an undertone of surprised appreciation—that I’d somehow known a private aspect of her life.
“One of them mentioned it in passing.” I smiled wider at her sudden discomfort. At the way the moonlight cast her blushing cheeks in a soft, purplish glow.
She studied me in silence, looking curious and suspicious. “If it was said in passing,” she said, walking closer, “how did you remember it so quickly?”
I lowered my eyes, trying not to become distracted by old emotions. “It stuck, for some reason,” I said softly.
“Did someone trick you into coming here, Sorin?” she asked.
I glanced up sharply. “Yes. Did the same thing happen to you—”
I froze as the pieces clicked together.
Selene gave me a slow, dramatic nod. But a warm smile was stretching across her cheeks. “I think your dear, foolish sister is up to her old tricks,” she said almost nervously, clasping her hands and staring down at the ground.
I nodded uncomfortably, not entirely sure what to say. Aphrodite had tricked her into coming here at the exact same time Nero had tricked me into coming here, forcing us to meet.
Together. In private.
“Maybe we could talk?” I suggested, feeling just as uncomfortable as Selene looked.
Selene let out a faint laugh, pointing at the cliff. There, near the edge, was a table with two chairs, a bottle of wine, and two chalices. A large fur blanket rested in the grass beside it, piled with pillows, blankets, and a platter of food. On the table was an electronic timer, counting down from eight hours. Propped up against one of the boulders was the bows I had taken from Artemis and Apollo.
And I suddenly remembered how Aphrodite had vowed to find me happiness or blood. Since no Olympians had attacked, she’d chosen to hunt down a little happiness for me. I stared at the silver bow pensively. She had also mentioned that I might find someone worthy of taking one off of my hands.
Someday.
It looked like Aphrodite thought that someday was tonight. At least for the next eight hours anyway.
“They are not subtle,” I said, biting back a smile. “Do you still remember how to shoot?” I asked, unable to look directly at her.
“Yes. I quite enjoy it, actually,” she said with a shy smile, not looking at the bows.
I nodded, rooted to the ground. “That is good.” I continued staring at her, feeling something for the first time in days. My heart felt like a muscle being stretched—hesitantly—after a long run. A familiar, soothing balm being rubbed into old, tired muscles.
She stared back, her smile widening at my obvious trepidation.
“I brought Artemis and Apollo to justice,” I blurted.
She dipped her chin. “I know. I am no longer banished.”
My breath caught. “Banished?”
“I was not permitted to show my face anywhere on Earth without their permission,” she said very slowly. “Tea with Hecate, Persephone, and Aphrodite has been my only escape, and even that was a significant risk. We often went to the Underworld so as not to draw their ire.”
I flinched as if struck. Her visit to me with Hephaestus’ chains brought on a whole new meaning—the danger she had risked to deliver a message to me.
“Was,” I said, my hands shaking. “You said was.”
She nodded very slowly, licking her lips. “Yes. I am banished no longer.”
I stared at her, my heart beating wildly. An impossible hope screamed through me, followed with just as much apprehension. “We can talk. Two Olympians. Have tea.” My eyes shot to the bows. “Shoot arrows.”
She smiled shyly. “Yes.”
“I feel very nervous right now,” I admitted, realizing that I was sweating profusely.
She bit back a laugh. “I am also nervous. Perhaps we could sit down?” she suggested.
I nodded jerkily, uprooting my feet from the ground so that I could stomp closer.
We sat down on the fur blanket and stared out at the moonlit valley. Neither of us moved.
We did not look at each other. We did not touch. We just sat beside each other, much like we had done when we had been married so long ago.
But the tension…
Was unbearable. Not in a physical manner, but in a thick cloud of unspoken conversation. All the things we didn’t say, were too nervous to say.
“Do you think Hades knew?” I asked softly.
She didn’t look over, but we could clearly see each other in our peripheral vision. “Hades always knows more than he lets on.” She let out a flustered breath. “Before all of this began, Hades told me something in passing, and I’m only beginning to think it might have meant more.”
I turned to her with a frown. “Oh?”
She met my eyes and I almost gasped, forced to avert my eyes. She was so close…
“He said it in such a way that it felt like part of the conversation, or maybe a frustrated curse. After the church, I wonder if it might have been something more,” she whispered uneasily.
My heart beat wildly in my chest. “What did he say?”
“Olympus will fall when the sun kisses the moon.” She was silent for a time. At the word kiss, I flinched, because I had been staring at her lips with entirely too much interest.
Selene grinned briefly. “This is serious, Sorin. Focus.”
I nodded. “What do you think it means, Selene?”
She shook her head, a strand of hair falling across her collarbone. “I do not know. But I think we need to find out so that we can use it as a weapon. To strike them first.”
I nodded, smiling at the sudden fire in her voice. “I agree.”
“Hades is obsessed with constellations because he is stuck in the Underworld. But all I can think of is an eclipse,” she murmured, speaking so softly that I almost couldn’t hear it. I was too busy staring at her lips again to be of any help, but I knew little about constellations anyway.
I thought about Apollo, and how I had turned his own sunlight against him.
I thought about Artemis, and how silver no longer harmed me.
The two of us stared out at the valley, smiling at the moonlight painting the forest in a pale, silvery glow. It would be just as breathtaking with the sunrise. I froze at the thought.
I turned to Selene. “Do you know how to get back, or are you stuck here, too?”
She smiled brightly, making her eyes sparkle. “I am stuck here, but I do not mind. Why? Is my company not enough?” she asked, glancing over at me.
I shook my head adamantly. “I’ve never seen a sunrise with you,” I whispered, pointing out at the valley. “Would you like to change that?” I asked.
Her breath caught and her eyes glistened. She clutched my hand tightly. “I would love to see a sunrise with you, Sorin.”
I squeezed her hand, not daring to do more.
“We’re going to need more arrows if you’re going to break in your new silver bow tonight,” I murmured.
She smiled. “It is mine now?” she asked, smiling excitedly.
I nodded. She shifted closer, leaning her head against my shoulder. I had to force myself to continue breathing. “Thank you,” she whispered.
It always has been yours, Selene.
And I wasn’t thinking of the bow. I was thinking of second chances. Of focusing on the things that really mattered. I wasn’t ready for new love. I was still hurt and wounded.
But…old love?
Maybe…someday.
For now, I would enjoy a sunrise and a full heart.
Sharing a first with…my first.
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TRY: OBSIDIAN SON (NATE TEMPLE #1)
There was no room for emotion in a hate crime. I had to be cold. Heartless. This was just another victim. Nothing more. No face, no name.
Frosted blades of grass crunched under my feet, sounding to my ears alone like the symbolic glass that one shattered under a napkin at a Jewish wedding. The noise would have threatened to give away my stealthy advance as I stalked through the moonlit field, but I was no novice and had planned accordingly. Being a wizard, I was able to muffle all sensory evidence with a fine cloud of magic—no sounds, and no smells. Nifty. But if I made the spell much stronger, the anomaly would be too obvious to my prey.
I knew the consequences for my dark deed tonight. If caught, jail time or possibly even a gruesome, painful death. But if I succeeded, the look of fear and surprise in my victim’s eyes before his world collapsed around him, was well worth the risk. I simply couldn’t help myself; I had to take him down.
I knew the cops had been keeping tabs on my car, but I was confident that they hadn’t followed me. I hadn’t seen a tail on my way here, but seeing as how they frowned on this kind of thing I had taken a circuitous route just in case. I was safe. I hoped.
Then my phone chirped at me as I received a text.
My body’s fight-or-flight syndrome instantly kicked in, my heart threatening to explode in one final act of pulmonary paroxysm. “Motherf—” I hissed instinctively, practically jumping out of my skin. I had forgotten to silence it. Stupid, stupid, stupid! My body remained tense as I swept my gaze over the field, sure that I had been made. My breathing finally began to slow, my pulse returning to normal, as I noticed no changes in my surroundings. Hopefully, my magic had silenced the sound and my resulting outburst. I glanced down at the phone to scan the text and then typed back a quick and angry response before I switched the cursed phone to vibrate.
Devil’s Blood: Shade of Devil Book 3 Page 36
