by Kristie Cook
“I can handle this. You must do your part. This is your purpose, Cassandra. Go! They need you!”
Those last three words were what she needed to hear to get her moving. Her heart already pounding in her chest, she sprinted across the field, fighting the urge to look back.
“Don’t worry about me,” Father’s voice said in her head. “I can’t be killed. But the ones I protect need to win their fights in the Earthly realm to survive. Save them, Cassandra. We’ve given you everything you need. Go!”
The clang of metal against metal and a demonic roar rang in her ears as she crossed through the veil and her spirit slammed into her physical body. She gazed over at where she had left Father, only to see blue sky and the field atop the cliff. He and the demons were invisible to her now.
A scream from her other side jerked her into complete consciousness. She sprang to her feet faster than humanly possible and the movement surprised her. In front of her, though, Andronika still fought the witch’s hold and Niko crouched, his muscles taut and fangs bared, ready to charge. Something fell from Cassandra’s hand and landed with a thud at her feet, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away from the scene to see what it was. She didn’t have time to wonder about herself or everything Father had just told her. Her family needed her.
Chapter 14
Is she dead? From his vantage point, Jordan couldn’t tell if the potion had killed his sister. She didn’t move. She didn’t appear to be breathing. Something slammed into his chest, as if someone heaved a large boulder at him, taking his breath away. But nothing was there. Nothing physical. Another useless emotion. How weak of him, to feel grief at the loss of a woman who did nothing but annoy him. Maybe that wasn’t the loss he felt, though. Maybe it was the loss of what he’d had planned. Yes, that made more sense.
At least he still had Andronika. He twitched his finger and the girl flew into Eris’s arms. The witch held her tightly.
And then Cassandra moved.
“Stop,” she yelled, suddenly on her feet. “Release my daughter.”
Eris’s mouth fell open with initial shock, but she recovered quickly. Her eyes narrowed and one of her fingers just barely flicked—not enough to lose her grip on Andronika, but enough to send a flash of light at Cassandra, who threw her hand up to block it. Not only did the spell ricochet off her hand and over the cliff, but Eris’s arms were forced free from Andronika and the witch flew backwards several paces. She slammed against a tree trunk and landed on her backside. Again she gaped. Then she disappeared.
Jordan chuckled. Nice work, little sister.
“Jordan?” she answered in his mind. He started with the shock of it. “You can enter my mind? Is this another of your powers?”
Ah, you can hear me and I can hear you. No, I only wish I had such an ability. It’s not my power doing this.
“I don’t understand.”
You’re doing this, little sister. Welcome to my world.
He heard her growl in his mind and then with his ears.
“Leave us alone, Jordan,” she yelled at him aloud. “I will not be like you.”
Accurately sensing him, she threw her hands in his direction, as if shooing him away. A strong wind erupted from where she stood and blew into the woods. Her familiar scent filled his senses and he nearly retched—she smelled more disgustingly sweet than she ever had. He couldn’t believe how strong her powers were.
And he couldn’t believe she was still good.
Amazement and agitation coursed through his veins and he flashed back home. Eris stood in the center of the room, her eyes glazed over and her mouth still open.
“What happened?” Jordan demanded.
Eris’s mouth shut, then opened and shut again, words failing her. Her eyes remained distant.
“She’s so … so beautiful,” the witch stammered. “And so powerful.”
“Something went wrong,” Jordan growled. “She’s still good. I could feel it like a nasty slime in the air and on my skin. This wasn’t supposed to happen! How am I supposed to create more like us if I can’t even get close to her without retching?”
Eris’s eyes finally focused and shot to him. “What do you mean?”
“Building our army, Eris. Reproducing more of us. What else would I want her for?”
Her mouth dropped open again. Her nose pulled up in disgust. “That’s why you wanted her to drink the potion? So you could mate with her? Your sister?”
Rage exploded in Jordan’s chest at the look Eris gave him. Who was she to judge him? His pulse thundered in his head. He fought the urge to grab her by the neck and strangle her.
“Of course, you doltish witch. Deimos and I need the best mates we can get.”
He shot his hand up and the door exploded out of the way. He marched outside, kicked a stone and slammed his fist into the trunk of a cypress, leaving a large dent. A stray dog scampered across the way, whimpering, and Jordan threw a ball of fire at the useless creature. An old woman cried out and he turned his hand toward her. Her eyes widened and she hurried out of his sight.
The old hag’s fear made him feel somewhat better, calm enough to try to think through what went wrong with Cassandra. She’d reacted to the potion immediately, even faster than Deimos had. She appeared to age backward many years, back to how she looked several decades ago, like a young woman. And her powers. Were they stronger than his? Impossible! But he could definitely feel they were different. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to overcome that difference. Perhaps it will take time for the Daemoni blood to seep into her core.
This thought instantly changed his outlook. Of course that was it! He’d need to give it time, just like his transformation took months to gain the full effects. With a sense of relief, he returned to the house. And found Eris in a convulsive fit.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, showing only whites. Her face twisted and contorted, her features growing and shrinking right in front of his eyes. Her body trembled and quaked. Her arms whipped in the air. An object flew out of her hand and landed at his feet. He picked up the water skin and held it under his nose.
“Eris,” he bellowed. “What have you done?”
She looked as though she tried to answer, but her enlarged tongue flopped out of her mouth, reminding him of a dead donkey. One of her dark eyes grew larger and larger, until it bulged out of its socket. An arm shrunk in girth to the size of a stick and lengthened to the floor while the other forearm blossomed to twice its normal roundness. Her legs swelled to look like tree trunks. She fell to the floor and writhed and Jordan just watched with fascinated horror.
As the convulsions slowed into shudders and then just tremors, her body began returning to normal. Then it went further back, back in time, just as Cassandra’s had done. When she finally stilled, she looked just like the goddess Jordan had first met. He fell to his knees next to her and lifted her head into his lap.
“What have you done?” he asked again, this time his voice filled with awe and wonder rather than surprised anger.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “You wanted a mate like you. You don’t need her. You have me and we can have more children together.”
“You drank the last of the potion?”
“We can make more. We can build your army, Jordan. Together.”
He looked into those beautiful dark eyes and ran his hand through the silky raven hair he missed so much. He didn’t think the potion would have worked on her. Eris herself had said Daemoni blood probably wouldn’t take it. Not with the other creatures’ bloods mixed in it. But here she was, having gone through the same changes as Cassandra, but without that vile goodness surrounding her. He grinned back at her and excitement flooded his veins. Eris was even better than Cassandra. Victory was finally his!
But when he pulled his hand out of her locks, clumps of hair clung to his fingers. He stared at it with surprise and then flicked it off. He looked back at her face and bluish-black marks encircled her eyes and then they began sinking downward. Her
luscious lips looked as though they were sliding right off her face. The skin around one sunken eye pulled down. She lifted a skinny, bony hand to rub it and peeled the skin right off, exposing soft, black tissue underneath. Her expression tried to twist in anger, but it only made her face worse.
“No,” she screeched. “This cannot be happening!”
She flicked her hand to deliver a spell, but it only resulted in skin flying off her fingers, exposing the bones. Jordan jumped up and her head slammed against the ground. The rest of her hair fell out and her nose crumbled into powder.
“Why?” she shrieked with an inhuman voice, her lips and cheeks peeling away so he could see her tongue moving between her teeth. “Why does she get it all when it was I who sacrificed everything for you?” Her eyeballs rotated in their sockets to look at Jordan. “I’ll give you what she never will, Jordan. And then you’ll know who truly loved you.”
Her mouth moved with unintelligible words that sounded to him like a curse. But he would never know who or what she cursed, because Eris was no more. Everything soft about her shriveled like a dried up plum and then disappeared, leaving only a skull and bones. And then those disintegrated into nothingness. Not even dust remained.
Jordan stared at the spot, his heart pounding and his hands shaking at his side. He drew in a deep breath, but it didn’t help. He retched all over the white peplos—all that remained of the woman he’d called his wife, the mother of his son. The only woman who’d stayed by his side all these years, helping him achieve his destiny. The woman who’d thought of him and his needs and wants to the very end. And now she was gone. The freedom he expected to feel when he finally rid himself of Eris didn’t come. Only the astonishing feeling of profound emptiness.
Chapter 15
Cassandra no longer felt Jordan’s presence. She stared at her hands with wonder. What gifts have the Angels given me?
Andronika’s whimper caught her attention and she spun around. Her daughter was still on all fours after falling from the witch’s hold, staring up at the new threat in front of her. Niko stood tensed for a fight, but his eyes were focused on Andronika and they glowed a bright red. Cassandra’s knees weakened to see her husband standing there after mourning for him so long, looking even more striking than she remembered him, but her heart contracted at the frightening look on his face and the feel of his bloodlust surging through his veins.
“I need it,” Niko’s voice hissed in Cassandra’s mind, making her jump. “I’m already weak from the sun. I need blood.”
Did she really just hear his thoughts or did her own mind create the illusion?
“F-f-father?” Andronika asked, her voice small and frightened. “Wh-what happened to you?”
“I need it,” his voice came again, rough, like a growl. Then it changed, more like the voice she remembered, as he internally fought himself. He shook his head, denying his need. “But not her. Not my daughter.”
“No, Niko,” Cassandra said. “Not your daughter.”
He turned his red-eyed glare on her now. His internal fight played out on his face, his eyes flickering with mixed emotions of love, pain and desire. Desire for her blood.
“Not you either. I love you.”
Again, she didn’t know if she actually heard him—she’d already heard so many other voices in her head—or if she thought what she wanted to hear, what she wanted him to say aloud. She had to take the chance he’d really thought those three words, though, because he needed love to overcome what had been done to him. If he still felt love, she could help him, just as Father had explained.
“I love you, too,” she said and his eyes widened with surprise, acknowledging that she had indeed heard his thoughts. “I can help you, if you want me to. You don’t have to be like them. We can even be together again.”
He shook his head and his face twisted. “I can’t, my love. Look at me. I’m a monster.”
She held her hands out to him. “You don’t have to be. Let me help you, Niko. Let me show you the way.”
She took a step toward him and he didn’t disappear or run away or lash out at her. So she took another step and another, until she came within arm’s reach. She took his hands into hers, internally cringing at the cold and evil lurking just beneath the surface but externally showing him only love and kindness. Somehow, she knew what to do.
“Andronika, go back to the cave,” she said without breaking eye contact with Niko.
“What’s wrong with him? Is he ill?”
“Yes, but nothing you can help with. I just need you to go. Now.”
Andronika snapped her head at her, not used to her mother’s sharp commands. Her mouth fell open.
“What happened to you?” her daughter demanded. “You look … different.”
Cassandra had no idea what Andronika meant and she didn’t have time to find out. Niko was her first priority. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing him again, especially to such evil.
“We’ll talk later, but you need to go.”
A low growl rumbled in Niko’s throat as a part of him tried to fight Cassandra’s touch and the other part fought back the desire to hurt them. She wasn’t sure if what she was about to try would work, despite what Father had told her. She didn’t want Andronika around in case it didn’t.
“But—”
“Go, Andronika!”
Their daughter hesitated only another moment and then sprang to her feet and ran for their shelter. As soon as she was out of sight, Cassandra refocused all her efforts on Niko. She gathered all the goodness within her and pushed it down her arms, through her hands and into him. He screamed as if in pain and tried to jerk free from her grasp, but she wouldn’t let go. She just kept pushing the strange energy she’d felt in her body ever since re-entering the physical realm. The power of a good heart and a loving soul, intensified by the Angels. One of the gifts they’d given her. She knew this instinctively.
Niko finally stopped screaming but his body convulsed, causing their arms to whip painfully. Cassandra yanked him closer, wrapped her arms tightly around him to control the seizure and continued pushing the good force into him. Eventually, the convulsions weakened into shudders and then he collapsed against her. She lowered his unconscious body to the ground and sat cross-legged with his head in her lap and one of her hands held firmly against his chest, over his heart, still sharing her power with him. She prayed for him and herself.
“You’re doing perfectly,” Father whispered in her mind. “We’re winning.”
With this reassurance, she sat with determination, feeding her love’s soul and wondering how on earth she would feed his body when he awoke. She understood he needed blood for energy, but Father had said the vampyres must overcome their thirst for human blood. But how?
As the afternoon sun passed overhead, exhaustion overcame Cassandra. She’d been pushing all her force into Niko until she felt like she had none left. She slumped over on the ground, his head still in her lap, and fell asleep. His stirring awoke her at dark and she bolted upright, feeling renewed and refreshed and glad she didn’t dream about all that happened this morning. She didn’t want to think about it yet. She just wanted her husband to be well. To be hers again.
Niko opened his eyes and looked up at her. They no longer glowed red, but weren’t their beautiful olive-green either. Not quite. But she could see the green there, underneath, like the sun behind a gauzy strip of red clouds. He gave her a weak smile and opened his mouth to talk. She shook her head, already knowing his first thought.
I love you, too, Niko, she told him with her mind.
His eyes widened slightly. “Thirsty. So thirsty.”
Her heart squeezed, feeling the burn in his throat. As his pain grew into agony and she felt his energy weaken, she could think of only one solution. She held her wrist to his mouth.
“Drink, Niko.”
He jerked his head away with more strength than she thought he had. “No. Not from you. I won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt anyone
again.”
“You must, Niko.”
“I would rather die than … than to bite you.”
“Please, don’t say that. You don’t know what I’ve gone through since I thought you were dead. I can help you with this, we’ll get you through this, but right now, I don’t know what else to do. You must drink.”
He pursed his lips tightly shut and shook his head in her lap. His eyes fluttered closed and she felt him weakening even more. Her brave, strong Niko, so weak and powerless. She blew out a sigh of exasperation. Had he always been so stubborn, too? She pressed her fingernail against the skin over the blue lines on her wrist and dug in, trying to open a wound. But her fingernail couldn’t break the skin. It wouldn’t even scratch it. Was this another gift? Impenetrable skin? She might have found it a nice gift from the Angels if it didn’t mean she was losing the love of her life. Again.
She glanced around and the moonlight glinted off something shining several paces away. Her breath caught. Father’s dagger that she’d dropped upon entering the physical realm. Although it was out of reach, she lifted her hand toward it, willing it to her. She gasped as the dagger lifted off the ground, flew through the air and landed right into her palm. If the silver blade could harm vampyres, surely it could cut her skin. She ran the edge over her wrist and blood flowed freely.
She held her arm over Niko’s mouth, forcing him to take her blood. He shook his head, fighting it, and she held him still with her free hand.
“Stop, Niko. You’re just making a mess.”
He tried to push her arm away but she kept it tight against his mouth. Then, something changed in him and he grabbed onto her arm, pulling it to him instead of pushing. He sucked heartily and with each swallow, she felt his energy strengthen. Eventually, instead of forcing him to drink, she had to force him to stop.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth. “But you taste delightful.”
Cassandra didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Before she could do anything, he pulled her head down to his and delivered her a kiss that was so deep, so sensuous, so loving, it could almost make up for all the kisses they’d missed since he’d left. She didn’t remember his lips feeling so soft but firm, his mouth tasting so deliciously sweet, his touch delivering such heat. He’d always excited her easily, but now the feelings were multiplied a thousand times. Tears streamed down her face as they continued kissing.
