Zauran
Page 15
I'm cut short with another almighty strike to my face, bombing my cheekbone with immediate agony.
“Don't pretend you didn't know! Enough sages have come and gone for every last one of you to know that love means loving others AS YOURSELF! You don't do to someone else what you wouldn't want done to yourself. Zaria would have to seriously love you, and forgive you, to not die herself in this pregnancy.”
Stepping away he thumps the head behind mine so hard it bangs into my own, “And it's even worse for Božena. She's halfway dead thanks to this disgraceful excuse for a man!”
He struts back into my line of sight, really getting into the gesticulations of anger, “You two are pathetic little worms!” He points an accusing finger at me again, “And you! Fucking hypocrite that you are, you are neuri, you are supposed to protect the innocent from tyranny. We should have called you Caesar!”
“Who the hell is behind me?”
“Jowendrhan,” he roars, so loud, I immediately go deaf.
Pick one, he says telepathically, so I can hear him.
Me. I'll die. She's done nothing wrong, Zaria shouldn't have to suffer for my sins.
*
Zaria:
I'm annoyed with Phoebe.
Ryan took us to see all the blood left behind and explained to her it's because of us, and until the perpetrator is found, or at least identified, we're safer in his stronghold.
Unable to call to Seithe, Phoebe sent him an email, and here we are like one big happy dysfunctional family, stuck in Ryan's prison while Zauran is tortured, or dead.
Božena is experiencing the weirdest pregnancy in history, already looking ready to pop, but deathly pale with dark rings under her eyes. And I have to admit I'm seeing a whole new side to Sveta.
He stays with her constantly, holding her hand, getting her what she needs when she needs it, waiting on her hand and foot.
I would say he's smitten, completely.
I've been watching Aisyx closely and he seems more taken with Phoebe than Božena.
This leaves me alone, a lot, with Ryan never far off.
He watches me, endlessly.
*
Zarak:
We have a job to do, and we're doing it.
Pravus is how we keep tabs on the comings and goings of the paranormal creatures littering this facetious planet.
I nudge Akae when the two brothers get out of Darise's vehicle, sprinting our way.
“This should be good,” I smile to my brother, both of us adopting the disguise of black eyes and hair.
Seithe reaches us first, not even acknowledging us when he bursts through the red doors and disappears inside.
“Well hello to you too, squirt,” I mumble as Darise reaches the bottom of the stairs, gasping.
Idiot. He's mortal now, it's time he started working out and staying fit. In ten years he'll be fat and stinky.
“Have you guys seen Zauran? Or Jowendrhan? Or Phoebe and Zaria?” he says, obviously out of breath.
I look over his head to Akae. Zaria and Phoebe are missing?
Yessir. They're with Ryan. It's okay, we have eyes on them, he answers mentally.
It's fantastic that these two ex-vampyre can no longer tap into supernatural conversations.
How do I tell him we've seen Zauran and Jowendrhan, because we were the ones disciplining their asses for disgrace.
Akae answers, “Not for a while.”
He's being vague. Good good.
Darise nods, running in after Seithe.
Well this should be good.
Looking at Akae, I ask, These two will start a war because of the Slakax women.
He breaks out a huge grin, “Men are idiots. I swear they use women as an excuse to have war.”
“Should we tell them?” I ask, relaxing back against the doorframe, adjusting the hem of my t-shirt.
“Nope. They wanted to be mortal, well now they know how it feels. Let them sweat it out.”
“How compassionate of you,” I say, grinning myself now.
“Zarak, Darise messed up, and Phoebe has fulfilled her role in Seithe's life. Those two boys have become so human they think love can't change, or grow. They think these women are theirs. It's impossible to own love. It's impossible to cage or box it. Let them bump their heads. They've put those women through enough, filling them with fear instead of light and love. Their lesson to learn brother, their lesson to learn. And it's way overdue.”
Chapter 20
Zaria:
His home is a sprawling web of rooms, and I think I'm lost.
Twisting back, I look at the room behind me. This is like the Hotel California, because there's no way out. It's opulent, luxurious, five hundred degrees above the level of comfort most mortals live in, and it's creepy.
My bare feet squeak on shiny marble floors, the furniture in this suite is salmon brocade, the chandeliers reminiscent of an age of grandeur, and the panels on the veneered wall are gilded with copper edges to mirror the pinks of the fabrics.
Claustrophobia grabs me and I start running to the next beamed arch which shine like varnished wood sentries between the rooms, witnessing my panic and disorientation.
My path leads me through eras of décor, until I'm caught in a deep black hell. The floor is shiny obsidian volcanic glass. The chairs scent the room heavily with black leather and cherry tobacco, and the well in the centre is thickly padded with midnight velvet cushions placed in a viewing circle before a huge screen.
With my cheeks burning, my eyes smarting, I run and run and run, trying to find a way out. I need air!
Instead, I'm stuck deeper inside the spider's deadly web when I screech to a halt, slipping and landing on my ass when I realize where I am.
Oh god.
It's a knowing that comes from deep inside. This is his bedroom.
The bed is wide enough for three trolls, draped in silk so darkly purple it looks psychedelic black. It's recessed inside an alcove, as if to hide the dragon in the cave where he sleeps.
His walls are painted suede charcoal and the swirls catch light filtering down from round skylights scattered across the mausoleum-gray ceiling - interspersed with sunken lights.
A fireplace fills one wall, dark and dangerous with a black marble mantelpiece; candelabra wait patiently on the thick lip with books and intricately carved boxes.
Standing slowly, as if the slightest noise will send me falling into a death-trap, I pivot to survey the rest.
A black-mirrored wall to my right, which I assume hides another room, a wide opening leading to a bathroom the size of my entire apartment, and a dark lounge mostly shrouded in shadows.
It smells of him in here. Mysterious and powerful, full of secrets.
Panic nooses my throat again and I twist to run, zigzagging as if through a minefield I sprint blindly until my lungs burn and I give in, sinking down a wall, hiding in a suffocating corner, unable to keep the tears locked inside me any longer.
I'm caged by him. His home is as enormous as he is, and just as malevolent. No amount of wealth can buffer this oppressing atmosphere.
It stifles me.
He stifles me.
*
Ryan:
She's hiding in the fern conservatory. It's obvious Zaria is missing sunshine and the outdoors, and it's stabbing me with guilt.
None of them have supplies here and I'm smugly delighted that the three Slakax are walking around in my black shirts. The ambient light catches Zaria's onyx hair, glossing the strands as they curl over her arm where it rests on her knees positioned under her chin.
She's so easy on the eyes I could stare at her for hours. Her skin is honeysuckle-blossom pale and flawless; her lips are full and tempting. Even when she bites her bottom lip, it depresses the cushion as if it would pop. She glosses it with the tip of her tongue; it calls to my veins, to my pulse, suck me.
Zaria would be perfectly sexy in this moment if her eyes weren't so hauntingly sad. In this pose she's a monochrome photogra
pher's wet dream. Such beauty cloaked in so much despair; it's poignant, captivating, a juxtaposition of light and dark.
Perfect.
So absolutely perfect.
Crossing stealthily to the waif dressed in skinny black jeans and my voluminous button up shirt, I offer her the mug of coffee I brought as a peace offering. Inhaling her scent, filling my lungs, I taste sun-burnished clouds on a bitter day.
She is a ray of birthing opportunity, a promise sitting waiting to bloom, right here in my reach, in my home, deep in the charred wound of my life.
Hollow glassy eyes look up at me as she forces a smile, taking the mug, “Thank you.”
This is hell for her. She's a light child and she's gloomy without it. The sunshine hidden in her irises is missing, making her eyes dull and empty.
Smoothing her hair behind her shoulder for her, I go down on my haunches to look her in the eye, “What's the matter?”
A sob hiccups through the silence and dew forms on her lashes.
“I miss him,” she whispers.
Her voice is tight, strangled, mirroring her state of mind.
“I know,” I soothe, automatically rubbing the shoulder.
She squirms away from my touch, staring obstinately into her mug before taking a sip.
“Zaria, your thoughts are becoming so loud I can hear them across the house. I wanted to keep you safe but can't stand this misery choking the life out of you. You can all go home tomorrow, and let whatever comes, come.”
Stark eyes pierce my heart when hope enters their depths, “Really?”
I nod, standing, moving to the adjoining chair, “Of course really. You are not my prisoner.” Sitting down, I face her, “You never will be.”
Her mind is elsewhere, fretting over Zauran. She thinks he's dead, unfortunately so do I. I can offer no comfort without it sounding false.
One thing is certain though, she loves him far more than I gave either of them credit. This has been brewing for months and I discovered her at the culmination of their relationship.
“Ryan, help him. Help me. Please?”
Frustrated, I squash down the retort, murmuring, “I don't know where to look. He's nowhere that he should be, no one has heard a thing. This was such a covert attack none of the locals have any news to share, no leads to follow...”
“I miss him,” she pleads again, so softly it's like chimes on a distant breeze.
Absently her hand goes to the hollow between prominent hip bones. She wants those children. Despite the risk, everything she thinks announces her desire clearly. Now that he's missing it's even worse; she's holding to them in case they're all she has left of him.
I nod, as if to say I'm looking for him, I haven't given up.
Who knew a pot of soup could make a woman so faithful and devoted.
She'll never be mine.
Sighing heavily, I look up at the sunlight hitting static dust motes.
They give me an idea. I know exactly how to cheer her up.
I'm an alpha, an elder, it's time I deployed the tools at my disposal.
*
Sveta:
Damn him! Damn Jowendrhan to hell!
Her skin is tingeing with blue, her breath rasping as if she's breathing through sludge, her body limp and weak where she lies in my arms.
“Božena, tell me what you need. Talk to me, I can't help you if you don't tell me how you're feeling.”
“The walls,” she whimpers, her gaze sliding to stare at the rock.
She eyes them as if they're thugs waiting to machete her head open. It's a nervous shifty glance before her twilight eyes settle back on me. “They glow, and crackle...”
Rasp.
Gasping another inhalation, her eyes look vacant again, “There's something wrong with the walls.”
Cramping in on herself as if in pain, a tiny squeal squeaks out of her throat.
She's trying to be brave, anyone can see that, and god it makes me desire her even more. She's like me, dark and defiant.
I've had days to skim through her mind, finding decadent and violent tastes hidden beneath her fey exterior.
Zena looks like an angel but thinks like the darkness she is. She's an unusual specimen. Slakax are usually pure bright light, but every so often one comes to balance it with darklight. This child has darklight in her veins, in her soul, in her deep blue incredible eyes the hue of a midnight ocean.
Kissing her forehead, I pause, terrified. She's going cold. Vampyre are burning hot. Neuri are just as incinerating. She has my mark to protect her and Jowendrhan's, and yet she is growing frosty to the touch.
Something is catastrophically wrong.
“I'll be right back,” I promise, squeezing her hand and kissing across her fingers.
Diving out of her suite, I yell for my brother, keeping it silent from the rest of the guests.
Shit!
Ryan! Now brother! NOW!
*
Zauran:
“No Zauran! That means you leave a woman alone in this world to raise two babies she has no clue how to guide!”
Venix steps over me again, his aggression blatant.
Ejecting words like bullets out of an automatic rifle, he says, “That's exactly the kind of fucked up logic that got this world into the mess it's in. You are neuri! Zaria needs a neuri to keep her children in line when their powers manifest. Abandoning her, pregnant, is not the altruistic road you assume it is. It's another selfish option.”
“Venix fuck off! Are you saying I should choose innocent babies die instead of myself? Instead of her?!”
“Babies don't die, Zauran. All life belongs to Spirit. They will be go right back to the universal source which is where all existence ends up anyway. This human condition is limited. Human thoughts cannot conceive that all life comes from one spiritual source, and that no life dies. A body is just flesh and bone, but spirit cannot die. It is better to give a child the world, or prevent it completely. You provide for your children completely, or you do not have them. And you are there for her through it all, as her strength. Are we clear?”
I give him my back off glare, “So the answer you want is the babies die, and Zaria and myself live.”
“Yes. You already have life, memories, people depending on you. You have to complete your cycle here. The babies haven't even begun.”
A groan behind me stirs with movement and I figure Jowendrhan has finally joined the party. Good. It's his turn to take some heat.
What the hell did he do that he's here?
The second I banished Sveta, my back-up, all hell broke loose in my life. Lesson learned, keep your allies closer than a shadow.
Venix moves out of my line of sight and I hear the smash of teeth connecting violently when he slams into Jowendrhan, shunting me forward.
“And you! How dare you! Think you can turn Slakax into vampyre? Think you can start a harem? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Bham!
“You will undo what you've done, and your ability to have children is stripped from you, forever. What you did was unforgivable.”
Stepping back so I can see him, his fury is overpowering the room, shining at us so we cannot look his way.
“Zauran and Jowendrhan, you discuss, you ask, you include the mother of your children in that decision! You don't yell surprise after the fact! If there's one thing you never do, it is play roulette with life! You knew what you were doing, just like every man who doesn't wear a condom knows the risks of his actions. You take responsibility! You treat them as the precious women they are, you show them respect, you are supposed to be their strength, not their abuser, not their tyrant, and not their dictator! She was given to you by Spirit as a companion! That's it! To alleviate your loneliness because nothing makes you feel better than when a woman looks up at you with love! And what do you two do? Fuck it up! Royally!”
“You will fix this!” bellows so loud my vision is speckled with stars.
*
Božena:
Flopping, I stare at the wall glowing its lemon zest lava, but cold and ominous. The dark veins running through it tzzzzt periodically, sparking from one spike to the next, building pressure. Building and building an atmosphere so thick I can't breathe.
I feel as though I'm trying to sleep with the Blarney stone on my chest. The numb is spreading, filtering higher. It started at my toes and is almost level with my breasts now. Crushing me internally it's a brutal fist squeezing tighter and tighter.
Screw being a vampyre. If this is what it's like he can take his immortality and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. And he can take his evil babies with him!
I've given you more gifts, can you guess what they are?
I'm going to kill him! As soon as I get out of here I'm going to find that bastard and cut his heart out.
Children were never going to be in my future. Not ever.
How dare he!
Oh whoopeefuckingdo. My day just got a whole lot better. Fuck, does god have it in for me or what? That fucker with the black hair just came running in.
What, forget your gun? Did the trigger jam?
Loser.
Oh christ, he's coming straight to me with Sveta.
That's such a magnificent name. Sveta.
Sweeter than Sveta.
He has single malt eyes that shine like sun gilded honey. He's magnificent. The way his muscles pop and bunch when he supports me, bathing me, skin on skin, he breathes danger coated in sexy. How does he not set off smoke alarms when he walks through the mall?
“Božena, I'm not going to hurt you. You are light, you need light, and I'm going to do my best to stave off this pain in your body, okay?”
I ignore the bastard they call Ryan, keeping my focus on Sveta. Ryan places both hands on my distended abdomen, blasting glowing heat into me from his hands. What is he, a fucking fairy? Who glows purple?
Maybe he's gay.