“Fair enough. And while we’re at it, we can finish discussing setting the restraining order against Ricardo in place.”
“Ian!” She hits me with a pillow, groaning.
“Okay. Perfect. Great. It’s settled. Sol isn’t killing your exes; you’re not going to go kill hers. Can you both get up now?”
Shaking my head, I stare up at the ceiling, wishing with every fiber that Justice’s R’mann was here. “We need to make getting Zen here a priority. Don’t know how we’re going to do it, but it’s a must. I’m putting Halamar in charge of assembling some sort of team to figure it out today. As a matter of fact, it’ll be my first decree as king. Fuck this shit.”
“Your second.”
“Whatever, baby. She needs to be controlled.”
“I can hear you, you dumbass!” Eve yells.
“I know, genius, that’s the fucking point!”
- Renentr
DIMITHINIA
The lack of light is oppressive.
As it has been every time I awoke here as of late.
How many weeks has it been since I was reborn in the mortal world? Five.
How many has it been since I found out I am mated to the king of this realm? Three.
And how many times have I died during all that, only to be reanimated thus?
Counting this one, twenty-four.
Three in battle; twenty-one by my own hand.
At first, it was an exploration of these new powers that seem to be growing in me.
Now, I fear it has become more of a suicide attempt each time. As much as I hated existence as nothing but consciousness inside an Aristi, it was a much simpler reality.
I used to have a true friend in that confined space. A friend that kept me company, educated me on new concepts, and made sure I saw the world evolve as time passed.
There was no flesh. No needs, aside from lust in my thoughts. I felt arousal during it—how could I not with what occurred between us?—but it was mental.
Nothing like this eternal, merciless pounding that consumes my every waking hour.
As for the friend? I question if he ever truly was that for me. Was it just pity? I do not know. He never showed sympathy for any of the billions of souls trapped here in his hell.
Why show any to me?
I thought I knew. That was before Nylicia yanked my soul out of my Aristi and sent it spiraling into the spiritual plane, where it brushed up against Ismini’s before shooting back to Earth.
I dig my gloved-fingers into the jagged, pitch-black stone before me, wishing I had not reformed.
That my eyes had not opened in this dark tunnel.
I wish that everytime as of late.
It would be easier. Quicker than this prolonged decline that has been forced upon me.
One thing Nylicia confirmed prior to her disappearance? A Fieren is one of the few forces in existence that can, and will, kill me.
When? There is no predicting it and I shudder at the thought of living as long as she and Nythi have.
Yes. I know the truth about Nylicia. Learned it within days of my return. She was already strengthening and somehow ripped an oath out of me against my will. Ever since then, I have not been able to discuss what I know with anyone.
The rumors are true. Nylicia has to fling her soul out of her comatose body to interact with the physical realm. A Fieren consumed her long ago, and the last three millennia were nothing but a lost battle.
No awakening for her. Just her body in a sickening stasis, a near-mummified state she could not break out of.
As for Nythi? She has become one of the few beings I would truly miss if I died. A part time companion I would not have asked for, yet one that has wormed her way into my twisted heart.
“I cannot live their lives. I cannot.” To whom am I even speaking to? There is no one listening. I am one of the gods now. Refusing to admit what I am aware of, what Conquest obviously knew, does not change what I can now do with my will alone.
Does not change the fact that I am even more immortal than most of my new, long-lived friends.
I am a goddess. Not naming which one will not alter my reality.
From queen of the pinnacle of ancient human civilization—one even greater than the other twelve grand empires that graced the Earth alongside mine at the time—to goddess.
And here I am, begging anyone that will listen to spare me from this fight.
Most of all, to spare me from having to face him.
Malek.
The human male with the kind, glowing eyes the color of pale honey. The sixty-year-old male considered beyond ancient in those times, that smiled kindly at me as we were married and later promised to be gentle with me.
He was. At first. I laid in his bed and was a dutiful wife, letting him have my body. That is as far as it went. There was not a time when he took me where I was not mentally detached. Removed from the situation.
I did not love my husband, could not love him. Maybe it was his advanced age. Maybe not.
Of course it was not long before that sunk in for him. Then, he started to change. Eight months into our marriage was the first time he burst into my chambers and forced himself upon me with that hellish fury.
The accusations came after. The constant vigilance for any male’s eyes on me.
When my body refused to quicken with his seed? The true abuse began. To the point where at times I believed I might have been pregnant, but the beatings he delivered left me bleeding, with no way to know.
I could have had what humans now call miscarriages. Countless of them. Without a way to confirm it unless I ask Nylicia. Something I refuse to do and is not guaranteed to begin with.
I know something else about the Watcher most others do not.
She is not omniscient. She can only see what the Fates allow her to see and the small glimpses that manage to break through the barrier.
Nylicia might not know the reality of what happened in my womb at the time, either.
Of course, years into the abuse, I finally called down Salicyar hoping that giving him my body might help my cause. See, Lust was not the only talent Salicyar had. A fortunate byproduct of experiencing that with him, of it triggering arousal in one’s body? There were many times where it left the person extra fertile.
Hell, the ancient humans had begun to know him as a Fertility god, as well.
The rest, as they say, is history. Lost history. Humans have been obsessed with the legend of Atlantis at times, thinking it sprang from one destroyed “mega-city”.
When in reality, there were thirteen of them scattered throughout the globe. Thirteen cities the gods once walked and lived on, alongside the measly humans that worshipped them. There was one person in each city, one egregious sinner that helped tipped the scale.
I, the queen of the most advanced of all the empires for its time, would be the tipping point in mine.
All I remember is that Malek found out about my calling down Salicyar. Not once, but four separate times. He believed, as everyone that heard of the story would come to believe, that I fancied myself in love with the God of Lust.
And then there was Agathen. Our closeness, my attempts to seduce him . . . it all reached my husband’s ears.
I will always remember the beating I took that night. How could I not? It was the closest I had come to death . . . and it was delicious.
I craved that oblivion.
Until I got it and realized it is not oblivion at all. Awareness does not end at physical death.
Awareness is energy and that usually goes on forever.
To millions, that might be a comfort. To me, it is an eternal curse.
Malek went missing the very next day after nearly killing me, leaving me sole regent for an entire year.
Too many beings have heard of what I did with that year of my life. How I spent it in-and-out of a fractured, tortured darkness, one that drove me to bleed the females of my kingdom dry.
But why bathe in their blood? Wa
s I really that vengeful towards Fate? Maybe I was. Even the Fates have to know how much of a right I had to be. Or did I want to die? Why not just jump off the highest chamber in the castle, plummeting down the mountainside to the city streets below?
I live with those questions gnawing at me, and now one of the beings responsible for pushing me to that edge is back.
Perhaps he never really died. The Aviraji could have taken him and infused his elderly body with the Arunasura and kept him by their side this whole time.
“He wants her to know he’s returned for her.” Tears threaten at the memory. Do I want to kill Malek? Or am I still as obsessed with finding the reason for his change as I was the first three years of his abuse?
The answer to that would make me a fool. But considering who I have mated to, how much more of a fool could I be at this point? I went ahead and mated to a male I have known for fourteen-thousand-years.
One I learned long ago remains crippled by the loss of his first and only love.
The same female that destroyed him and his brothers.
Cilpera.
I wonder how many people know the truth about Crius’ feelings towards her. That he hates her more for the betrayal of seducing his brothers, giving them parts of her that were supposed to be only his, than he does for the consequences they each faced.
What they lost to—and because—of her.
So let me get straight. You’re trying to die to escape both males, the one that once owned you, and the one that owns you now. Then why not take one of them with you when you go? Hearing that phrase in my own mental voice brings to mind memories of my female friends. Nylicia. Ianythi. Soleria. Evesse.
And yes. I have no problems with English contractions within my own mind. It is when I try to speak that the failure occurs.
A shuffling noise makes my right ear twitch and my back straighten.
Great. Here they come. As they do every single time I do not get out of this forsaken cavern fast enough.
I can never get out on time, by the way. Coming back to life is a mindfuck no matter how many times one does it, leaving me trapped and ruminating for a good, long while.
The foulest creatures Renentr has to offer have become my own personal stalkers whenever I step foot in this dimension.
They continue to come for me.
Each time without fail.
A part of me knows what they want of me. Hence my avoidance of them.
They are drawn to me beyond their control, even as some of them betray their king to divulge information about me to the Aviraji.
Facing the incoming forms, I entertain the thought of running once more.
But to what? To an R’mann who I thought was my friend, yet could not bare to be near my awakened form, and who still grieves over what he once lost?
To face a monstrous male—a husband—I thought was long dead, his soul lost to the cosmos?
When measuring it against those two, I am probably better off with the Draugars, to be honest.
As they near the narrow passageway leading to this cavern, a burst of light purple illumination precedes their slow, shuffling arrival.
The color of that light alarms me until they are close enough for me to make out their outlines inside the bright blur.
That is one of the lost colors of Crius’ aura. The true color of his eyes that has begun showing as of late.
The creatures stop a good distance away from me.
Probably because I slaughtered and drained the putrid souls of the last three that tried to approach me.
“What in your god’s hell do you want with me?”
The Draugar in the middle holds up his hands, bringing my attention to the source of that illumination.
To the shape of the large weapon it is holding.
The length of the pole, the enormous, curving blade at the end.
The energy scythe.
The same once wielded by the being that the humans now call the Gri—
“Take.” It’s skeletal, cavernous mouth opens, letting out fetid air and a long, hissed request. “Takkkee.”
Shaking my head, I ease back, fearing them now. “Y-you are mad. I cannot. Not me.”
It’s already you. Conquest knew it. I know it.
The Draugar falls to one knee, offering me the weapon with a respectful dip of its head.
As if I was its queen.
Exactly what it is asking me to be.
That is what Nylicia did to me.
What she put inside me.
The primal power of—
“Yours. Take.” Rising its head, the Draugar forces me to look into the empty, bottomless sockets where its eyes should be. “Death.”
EPILOGUE PART 2
- Astoria, Queens, NY (USA)
M-KON AGENT 5897
I blink, turning my head this way and that, all in a vain attempt to see through the fog and figure out where I am.
Head pounding a million miles a minute? Check. Surrounded by black fog? Check. Sprawled on the concrete like I just got my ass handed to me? Fuck my life, check.
Wait. Concrete. And the harder I squint, the more I can make out lines.
Above me, what looks like . . . a fire escape?
One thought recoils in my abused head.
I’m in an alley.
My mind is inundated, and for two seconds, all I can see are flashes of concrete. Brick. Yellow police tape.
The blood that covered every inch of that alley. At least three bodies’ worth, according to the experts.
All of it coming from one body, according to the DNA results.
My lost sister’s body.
I slam my eyes shut. No, not now. Focus. You’ve obviously been captured by the enem—
My eyes shoot back open. I remember now. I was scouting the area after we received a tip of a huge power fluctuation somewhere nearby. One of the largest ones ever recorded.
And the readings all made it clear: whoever it is, it isn’t Existence.
No. Just a power as unfathomable as his.
My team and I were sent to try and find the being responsible.
I was walking down the block, trying my hardest to avoid the one area of the neighborhood that now haunts me, when a small figure popped out from between two of the buildings.
A dark-haired girl. She was about the height of one, and a lot of the teens nowadays have curvy bodies like that, so I just assumed. Wearing low slung jeans and a white, long-sleeve belly shirt that showed way too much skin, but a teenager nonetheless.
Or so I thought. She was wearing a blue mask. A huge one that looked like a cartoon mouse smiling. I recognized it as the masks the group Deadmau5 wears, and only because one of my teammates loves that garbage.
A raver, I thought, scoffing internally. I’m on a mission. I didn’t have time to get waylaid by some drunk—or possibly high—teenager fresh from a rave.
Then she started laughing, throwing her head back. That gigantic mouse face moved back and forth maniacally with each laugh.
High. Definitely fucking high and now I have to deal with—
That was the last thought that went through my head. Her hand flew up in a flash of movement so fast, I didn’t realize she’d moved until after that fact. Every single hair on my body stood on end, as if that hand were a giant, static wave of energy.
I knew right then. This was it. Our target.
Shaking my head, I try to focus harder. Nope. Not coming to me. Last I remember is realizing that mouse-mask wearing lunatic is the goddess we’re after.
Now I’m half-paralyzed and feeling like I’m in some sick dream. The fog around me moves in odd waves, almost as if in a pattern. My head is sluggish, body incapable of listening to my commands.
And I’m in an alley. Two months ago, I would’ve never thought I’d end up with a phobia to this kind of situation, but I definitely have one now.
Then again, two months ago, I hadn’t witnessed a life-long journey come to an end in an ocean of blood
.
I searched for eighteen years. Held out hope that one day I’d find mom. That hopefully she’d be with my sister. That I’d finally get to meet said sister and get to know her.
Then my commander walked into my quarters and broke the news. A local precinct in Astoria, Queens had just received DNA profiling on a sample of blood from a crime scene.
The blood had an exact mitochondrial match to mine.
That blood also belonged to a woman.
Denial came swift and hard. So hard that I rushed to New York, against my commander’s wishes, driving so fast I made the two hour trip in forty-five minutes.
Being an M’Kon agent has its benefits, and my fake FBI credentials—provided by the organization, along with CIA, Interpol, and a dozen others—got me into the crime scene.
My gloved hand was shaking as I reached for the police tape and moved it out of the way. I could still see the stain of the blood against the concrete and bricks.
There was so much of it. Everywhere. Whatever was done to her, it wasn’t just gruesome—there was no way my sister survived it.
That’s when my aversion to alleys began. It’s been steadily growing ever since. And now I find myself in one with no fucking way to move!
My ears twitch. I turn my head, listening.
Heels clicking. Someone walking. Coming closer.
That static wave of energy I felt before blasts into the alley.
I feel my body being lifted—I’m flung back into the wall so fast, I barely have time to brace myself for impact.
My head connects with the brick wall and I swear I see stars. Actual swirling stars that chirp like little birds around my head.
A low, feminine chuckle trails down the alley, followed by a finger snap. The birds and chirping disappear. “Oops. Sorry. It’s only been a few days. Still working on getting the glitches under control.”
I try to reach up and grab my head, while squinting into the fog like a fucking blind man. When my arm refuses to move, hell breaks loose inside me.
The fu—Why can’t I move? What the hell is going on? What’s happening to me?
No matter how much I trash—or send the commands to my body, demanding that it do so—I can barely move an inch at a time. Weak.
Blood Drenched Conquest (Ryze Book 3) Page 46
