My heart takes off inside my chest, pounding so hard I inhale with shock. This . . . this fear. I recognize it for what it is. Have never felt anything quite like it before.
Except in my dreams. And it’s always the fear that paralyzes me.
This has to be a dream. I’m only ever this weak in them!
“Not a dream, honey. This time, I get to play on this side of the fence. Get all ‘physical’ and shit.”
The footsteps get louder. Every inch brings whoever it is closer; I know that without seeing. And the closer they get, the more the fear tightens around my heart, until all I can feel is the urge to fight for my life.
Or run.
I never run.
Only one thing can push my entire human biology into such a panic. We’re taught about the truly dark ones. The ones that give off that primordial, black energy.
This is evil. And it feels like it’s in the fog around me, growing stronger as the female behind that voice approaches.
I initiate automatic lockdown inside my mind. By sheer force of will, I clamp down on the fight-or-flight response she’s unleashed in me.
First rule of any battle: keep your motherfucking cool.
A small figure comes to view inside the fog, walking slowly towards me. As if she’s taking a leisurely stroll.
I can only make out her outline. Long hair falling around her shoulders and down her back. She’s wearing heels. Maybe a jacket, as well.
She has one hand in her pocket, from what I can tell, and her other hand hangs down her side—
There’s a weapon in it. A long, rifle-like weapon.
And then she’s here, standing in the shadows feet from me, with one hand still in her pocket and the other still grasping that—the motherfucking upgraded Terets we saw in the hands of the enemy.
She’s holding one.
She’s one of them? A Ryze? Which one fucking is she?
I’ve been captured by the enemy. And this one—whoever she is—has the power to utterly incapacitate me and change reality around her with thought alone.
We’ve never heard about this one. I would’ve known. We’re all trained to know everything about those selfish gods. Who they are. Everyone they’ve ever known. What their powers and weaknesses are.
They don’t know about her. And if they do, they didn’t tell anyone on my team.
How is that possible? Our sources are always in depth. Concise. Even when it comes to the new gods being created. The moment they’re made, M’Kon knows about it within minutes.
But this one . . . damn it. As I bring my eyes up to make out her features, my very being trembles with primal fear. I’m . . . I’m fucking awestruck.
This is what they mean by “fear of the gods”.
I catch the movement of her head as she tilts it. A second later, she’s stepping out of the shadows and the rest of her comes into view.
She’s wearing high-heeled boots, black tights, and a small, black trench coat. The hand wrapped around the Teret is gloved in black leather. Her hair is long and dark.
It’s the glasses that make me scowl. Huge, round, striped black-and-gray glasses. They’re so big on her small face that she resembles a bee.
Nose upturned, she approaches me.
Is that a grimace on her face?
Sure as fuck, the female stops a foot from me and leans down to look at me.
As a scientist would look at a rat it’s about to dissect. Mildly interested. Really curious. Partly disgusted.
“As I said.” She shrugs one shoulder in a “What are you gonna do?” gesture. “I’m still working on the glitches.”
“Wh—who? What are you?”
“A highly insulted female. Number one: how dare you not like my mask? That shit is boss.”
Recognition smacks me silly. Of course. The height. The hair color. The blast of energy that flung me—“Wait a damn second. That’s why you threw me into the wall?” Probably not smart to argue with the crazed, evil goddess, Kade.
“Deadmau5 is amazing. Thousands of humans love them, which means you can’t use your puny, ten-percent mind as your excuse as to why you hate them.” Raising her nose up in the air again, she studies me. Like her little experiment’s gone horribly wrong and she’s just realized she’s Frankenstein.
“I mean: have you even given any of their songs a chance?” The female shakes her head and sucks her teeth. “‘Attention Whore’. Enough said. It’s like they wrote that song strictly for me.” She sniffs.
I blink up at her.
“And if not that one,” she continues sagely, edging closer to me.
I eye that Teret in her hand, waiting for her to point it at me any second.
“You should definitely give ‘Hey Baby’ a shot.” Her gloved hand comes out of her pocket and pulls those ridiculous glasses down the bridge of her nose.
I inhale sharply. Hazel, light blue, pale pink, aqua, black—is that a flash of red?
Never seen eyes like that before. On any of the gods. Not even Existence has irises like those.
Those eyes travel down the length of my body, the look in them very clear. “That song,” she sighs dreamily, eyes stopping somewhere below my waist. “Will definitely do things to you, boy.”
I stare at her eyes, trail their path . . . yep. My crotch. That . . . that thing is looking at my dick like she’s considering pouncing on it.
She’s beyond attractive. Otherworldly with her small, exotic features. My mind recognizes that fact. I suppose a part of me should be flattered. Interested. At least a little.
She’s also the most evil thing walking the planet—if my senses are correct—and she’s clearly deranged. Being forced by a goddess, or any female for that matter, sounds like the stuff of dreams.
I’m not so sure how I feel about the idea.
“What do you want from me?” Please don’t say my cock. Please don’t say my cock.
The creature scoffs, pushing her glasses up her nose, and turns away from me. “Oh no. It’s not what I want. It’s what she’s gonna want from you. And, trust me, it’s going to be violent. And she’ll want so . . . much . . . of . . . it. A lot. You just don’t understand how much.”
Come again?
With slow steps, she walks to stand in front of me, then spins around and smiles. A freaky, excited smile. “But, I swear, you’re going to lick it, baby boy. Oops again. I meant like. Uh . . . same thing, actually. Either way, I think you get my drift. You’ll both be breaking much more than just furniture.”
I’ve heard somewhere that true evil is unadulterated madness. Right now, I fucking believe it.
I open my mouth to tell her to go to hell.
Running footsteps, heavy ones, head towards us.
A voice I know very well calls out my name.
“Kaden!”
Alexis.
Lex. No. He’s going to get captured by this cosmic psychopath, too.
I open my mouth again. Nothing comes out.
That bitch is somehow restricting my speech. I can’t warn my friend.
No, Lex. Turn away! Get the fuck out of here!
She’s unlike anything we’ve ever dealt with!
And that means almost certain failure.
I continue screaming at the top of my lungs. In my head, anyway. But despite how pathetic my attempts are, I keep trying, hoping my voice will break through.
It’s one thing for me to die. It’s totally another to die with my best friend meeting the same fate beside me. Alexis dying? Not if I have anything to say about it.
“You don’t.”
She’s speaking directly into my mind now?
That bitch. I’ll make her pay. If she hurts Lex in any way, I’ll find the means to destroy her.
Alexis’ outline comes into view. As soon as his booted feet clear the fog surrounding us, he’s lifted by an invisible force.
I watch in horror as my friend’s body crashes to the concrete next to me.
Alexis’s dark brown eyes n
arrow with fury. Just as fast, he starts struggling, fighting so hard against whatever holds him that his straight black hair whips into his eyes.
Trapped. Just like me.
In the clutches of an extremely evil, Deadmau5-loving, godly freak.
I have no choice. For the first time in my life, I start praying. Hard.
M-KON AGENT 5898
I force myself to stop struggling. Getting free is obviously not an option. If it had been, I wouldn’t have found Kade in this situation.
Wily motherfucker can get out of almost any shitfest.
Panting, I spare a quick look in Kaden’s direction. All it takes is a second for me to categorize his condition: unharmed and practically glued to the floor.
As am I.
I look away, turning to assess the thing standing before my friend.
She waves a gloved hand at me happily. “Hi Alexis! Been waiting for ya.”
Of course she was. I’ve no doubt the enemy planned this. Well, torture me all you want, bitch. I’m not talking. “I know what you want from us, and you’re not getting it.”
Her brow furrows into a scowl. I can’t see her eyes, but I know she’s blinking behind those glasses. “Is that a dare I hear?”
“She wants to force herself on me, don’t tempt her,” Kaden hisses low.
My head whips around to stare at my friend. He looks surprised at the fact I hear him.
“Pffft.” The female waves a hand dismissively at Kade. “I don’t want to force myself upon you. If I wanted to take anyone by force, it’d be him. Just look at him. He has that part-Asian, part-Caucasian, part-dark-and-dangerous-and-I’m-gonna-fuck-your-brains-out vibe going on.”
I tense, ready to start fighting for my freedom.
Wait a second. Does Kaden look . . . offended?
“I know what you want to ask me right now,” Crazy She-Bitch says to Kaden with a nod. “You’re wondering: what’s wrong with me?”
I ignore the ridiculousness of that and detail what I know so far. Able to affect reality with just her mind, control our bodies against our wills, a mind-reader—oh, and she reeks of evil.
The moment the realization hits me, Kaden catches my stare with a look in his eyes that says, “I know.”
We don’t know who she is. I’ve never heard of anything like her.
And she’s clearly reading our minds; if the delighted smile she’s sporting as she looks back and forth between us is any indication.
“Anyway.” She turns away. “Can’t have him, either. He’s also meant for someone else.”
The hell she just say?
Back facing us, she waves her hand through the air.
A dark portal spirals to life in front of us.
Then the portal breaks into . . . static? Yeah, it’s freaking static, like the kind one would see on a television. A really broken one.
“Oh, sigh.”
Huh?
As if hearing my silent question—and that intrusive thing probably did—she spins her head and actually sighs at me over her shoulder. “I’ve never done this in this realm before. Still haven’t figured this out. Glitches. Pain in my ass.”
I turn to Kaden, wondering if he knows what the heck she’s talking about.
“Glitches,” he mouths, raising his eyebrows.
The snap of fingers make me turn back to the portal. It’s back, an open black doorway I can’t see through.
Dreaming. Dreaming. But wait, if I’m dreaming—
Portal.
I freeze. We were all warned. I know who she is, why she can affect the reality around her—
“Okay, we’ll start with you, Kaden baby. Now, when I first saw this, I was surprised. I fully expected it was going to be your sister on the other side.”
“My sister?” Kaden tenses everywhere and his pupils dilate. “What do you know of my sister?”
“Where she is.”
No! I scream. It takes me two seconds to realize that the sound never left my mouth. I can’t speak!
“My sister is dead.” Never has Kaden seemed so ready to do murder. “How dare you try to use her as . . . as . . . I don’t even know what fucking game you’re playing at!” His bellow is completely at odds with the fact that he’s immobile.
Damn it, you hot-headed motherfucker! I move around as much as my slow body can, hoping to get Kaden’s attention. Somehow I have to convey it to him: Shut the fuck up! Don’t let her see how important this is to you! That’s how she fools you!
“I need an automatic sigh-machine. Just something that I can press play and it’ll make the noise for me. I can already tell adjusting to this part of being here is going to be annoying as hell. I also need a Big Mac. Never had one, but I know I need one.”
“Thing! I asked you a question!” Kaden all but roars. Out of nowhere, the fight drains out of him and his eyes widen. “Wait. Do . . . do you know something of her soul? Where is it?”
Noooo! Fuck! You never listen! This is what the female wants. What she does. She invades one’s dreams and dangles the thing they want the most in front of them. Makes them agree to follow her. Twists them and turns them to her path.
It’s her, you ass. It’s the Watcher!
“Her soul? Hah! A part of you is gonna wish she was actually dead when you learn all about her extracurricular activities with her new hubby. And, sorry, but you will learn about them. Probably witness it at some point, too. Exhibitionism. It’s all I’m saying. ”
“You insane, twisted bitch! Can’t you at least pretend to be normal? How dare you joke around about this?”
The look Kaden receives from the female is outrageous. She seems truly shocked at his questions. “Of course I’m not going to spend my precious time pretending to be normal. I’m a goddess, for my sake. Normalcy is a pathetic illusion that only the weakest of human minds would think to sustain.” She stares off into space, contemplating. “They do so quite zealously, too.”
A goddess? But wait. The Watcher was never designated as such. She’s supposed to be a dream entity. Some even theorize that she’s a mind demon. No one knew what she looked like, but the volumes on her deeds are endless.
Thousands of years of humanity’s history. Her, weaving in and out of the dreams of men, pushing them to do as she pleased. Almost every single war can be laid at her feet. She’s said to have planted the ideas through dreams.
It explains the sheer evil I feel coming off her in droves. But a goddess? Which one, then?
My friend’s low growl reaches my ears. “What are you planning on doing? Keeping us here and driving us as mad as you?”
For the millionth time: No! The frustration of knowing that Kaden hasn’t figured out who she is maddens me. How can he not? She clearly has us trapped in a dream. There’s a portal before her.
The reports were all true: she’s absolutely fucking crazy.
She turns and waves her hand before the portal again. “No, honey. There’s more than that waiting for you. Salvation, for starters. Pure, holy light, to be exact. And that darkness will consume you so hard.”
Whatever Kaden suddenly sees appears to hypnotize him. His eyes widen dangerously, his chest beginning to pump up and down . . .
In all the years of knowing him, I’ve never seen him react like this.
Ever.
The Watcher grins slyly over her shoulder at my best friend. “Like what you see, don’t you?”
Like a goddamn, obsessed fool, he nods, clearly in a daze.
What the hell is she showing him? What? Damn it!
“Now, Kaden Matthew Harrovnian, I have a question for you: if I told you this was waiting for you on the other side . . . would you follow me through?”
NO!
Obviously, he can’t hear me, and there he goes again, forgetting years of training—years of warnings in case we ever came across her—and nodding his fucking head a second time!
“Now, I know you’re having a hard time getting up. Never say I didn’t help you.” Flashing before hi
m, she chucks the Teret over her shoulder like it’s nothing but garbage, bends at the waist, and fists my friend’s coat. Lifting him with no effort on her part, she twists her body and sends him flying through that unholy portal to land only God knows where.
Then, she’s before it once more, hand cupped over her eyes, peering into it. “Ah, perfect. Landed right where I wanted him. Now you.” That sinister smile reappearing, she focuses on me next. “Alexis Salazar, I have one question for you and one only.”
Blood Born Darkness, book #4 in the Dark Paranormal Romance Ryze Series due out fall 2019!
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About the Author
N. Isabelle Blanco is the Amazon Bestselling Author of the Allure Series, the Need Series with K.I.Lynn, and many others. At the age of three, due to an odd fascination with studying her mother’s handwriting, she began to read and write. By the time she’d reached kindergarten, she had an extensive vocabulary and her obsession with words began to bleed into every aspect of her life.
That is, until coffee came a long and took over everything else.
Nowadays, N. spends most of her days surviving the crazy New York rush and arguing with her characters every ten minutes or so, all in the hopes of one day getting them under control.
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