by Meg Xuemei X
Lucienne aligned her consciousness to a single point, turning it into a net with a spear. The net caught the roaming wild power, and before the five fundamental forces, now one entity, could break through the mesh, the spearhead spiked it. Either you’re mine, or I’ll dispose of you, she communicated. Without me—your host, vessel, and master—you’re still incomplete.
A second passed, which seemed like an eternity to Lucienne, then her spear blasted with glorious light and fire. Lucienne’s heart leapt in joy as she wielded the flaming weapon.
The power was completely hers.
Everyone was waiting for her to answer. If the awkward silence continued, it would give the impression that the Siren was witless and gutless.
Lucienne locked her eyes on the man who called himself her father. Her words flowed with authority. “Let my men go and I’ll reward you beyond your wildest dream.”
“Father,” Hauk called in a sharp voice, “we’ve sworn an oath to the Brotherhood!”
“I was testing her, son,” Jimmy said. “She knew we’d never free her. She’s no fool.”
Schmidt coughed to draw everyone’s attention. “I hate to disrupt this touching family reunion,” he said, “but we’ll continue when Miss Lam is in my new lab. It’ll be a privilege to study the Siren’s power and dissect a living subject with such a unique genetic code.”
“I’m curious to know what she’s made of, too, Dr. Schmidt,” Jimmy said.
“Sis,” Hauk said in satisfaction, “we’re going to fill the force field with nerve gas. You won’t feel a thing until you wake up on Dr. Schmidt’s operating table.”
The Sphinxes’ warriors roared and fired at the force field, but it didn’t yield.
“Do not waste bullets,” Lucienne ordered.
The shooting stopped.
The warriors, including the wounded ones, moved in a tighter circle around Lucienne. It was a touching gesture, though futile.
Vladimir immediately put the mask he carried onto Lucienne’s face. He was the only one still with his diving mask, since the others had left theirs at the entrance of the temple. “Get out of here the first chance you get,” he said. “Don’t ever look back. You must live to see another day.”
“That won’t help her,” Schmidt said. “The nerve gas is a new biochemical weapon. Your skin will inhale it.”
“Will you let the mad dog treat your daughter like this, Jimmy?” Vladimir shouted. “Release the force field! Do whatever you want with me and the rest of us.”
“You’re tiresome, Blazek,” Hauk said. “However, you’re in luck. Unlike the rest, you get to live. We have orders to take you back to Lady Bayrose. And my dear sister will watch how you pleasure Miss Thorn. If you disobey, Lucienne will suffer. Either way, her heart will be ripped out again and again, before I cut it out, literally, when Dr. Schmidt has no further use of her.”
“I’ll skin all of you alive!” Vladimir screamed in fury. “I swear on my soul in hell.”
And her warriors roared with him like a pack of wounded wolves. As their despair and agony struck Lucienne, fury coursed in her like a firestorm, blurring her vision. She raised her hands, palms facing the force field, and screamed like she had never screamed in her life.
Power erupted out of her like a volcano and hit the force field. A web of purple light flickered and burst around the fringe. Its net cracked and then broke down.
“What happened?” Hauk cried in panic.
Lucienne laughed icily. Her enemies could never comprehend the full power of Forbidden Glory when its five fundamental forces became one.
The secret belonged only to the Sirens, even though the Sealers stole the fifth element long ago.
“Impossible!” Schmidt called. “She broke through—”
“Kill her!” Hauk screamed.
Lucienne pushed her power forward toward the Sealers’ armed force. Their guns dropped like burning coals from their hands before they could fire a shot.
Fire, water, earth, metal, and aether had come to play. Together, they swept the enemy soldiers away like shreds of paper.
Sphinxes’ warriors fired everything they had at the rest of the militants who hadn’t crash-landed from the high platforms under Lucienne’s assault.
Finley and the back-up team charged into the temple and immediately joined the shootout.
Schmidt, Hauk, and Jimmy fled, only to come face to face with Lucienne.
She cocked her head. “Going somewhere, gentlemen?”
“Miss Lam,” said Schmidt, who stood behind Hauk, using him as a shield, “this is unexpected.”
“Surprise, then,” said Lucienne.
Hauk raised his bow with a notched arrow, hatred and fear in his eyes. Lucienne’s severed whip struck out and sliced his hand. Hauk screamed.
“Would you like me to end your misery?” Lucienne asked.
Hauk’s eyes glazed over and his scream died. Blood spurted and pooled around his chest. He dropped to the ground, face-down, a knife stuck in his back.
Schmidt raised his hands in the air in the gesture of surrender, Hauk’s blood dripping from his fingers. “Allow me to make my atonement to you, Siren,” he said.
Lucienne stared at her half-brother under her feet, surrounded by a surreal, cold emotion. He wanted her dead since she was a baby. She gave him chances to change his mind, but he never did. When they finally had a face-off after seventeen years, his exit turned out to be anticlimactic. And in the end, it wasn’t her, but her enemy who ended him.
Jimmy’s face paled like that of his dead son, yet the tip of his nose remained red. “My son.” He looked at Schmidt with terror and hate. “You killed my son.” He then turned to Lucienne, like a lost old man, tears filling his eyes.
Then he fled.
Unworthy and spineless, Lucienne thought. No wonder Jed despised his own son. How is it possible that this man’s blood also flows in my veins? She allowed his escape but turned to Schmidt. “Doctor,” she said softly, “we still have unfinished business.”
“I can be very useful to you, Siren,” Schmidt said. “Just let me—”
“I like your helmet,” Lucienne said softly. “Is it fashioned out of a special metal to block out of any mind compulsion?”
“Yes, but—”
Lucienne nodded. “You chose well.”
“I didn’t. I made a poor decision,” Schmidt said. “I—” His small eyes bulged; his hands grabbed his helmet, frantically trying to remove it. It stayed. He screamed. The air smelled of burning flesh. Smoke emitted from his metal helmet.
“That’s for my captain, my fallen warriors, and all of your victims,” Lucienne said. “Burn in hell, Doc.” She left him on the ground, screaming and writhing in pain, until finally he ceased to make a sound.
A wave of terrible nausea hit Lucienne. She stumbled, but found herself in Vladimir’s arms before collapsing.
“I’ve got you, láska,” he whispered in relief.
“Is my cousin hurt?” Thaddeus asked urgently from under the balcony.
“No, but she’s burnt-out,” Vladimir said, holding her gently in his arms. “She must have used up her energy taking down the force field. I’m bringing her down. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The warriors moved toward the entrance of the temple to secure a safe exit for their Siren.
The ground suddenly rocked, and the temple tilted.
The warriors struggled to keep their footings, fighting to turn back toward Lucienne.
A realization hit her—opal basin with runes, the aquamarine vial, and the symbol at the bottom were all death omens. She had activated the self-destruct sequence when she extracted Nexus Tear. The hourglass was mocking her, telling her she was running out of time.
“Go!” she shouted at her men, but her voice was weak.
The ceilings started tearing open. Rocks fell from above. The warriors’ shouts increased as they ducked the falling stones and shattered beams, trying to reach her.
The ground
tore in two, a huge chasm separating them from Lucienne. The warriors’ side led to the entrance. There was no exit for Vladimir and Lucienne.
“Build a bridge,” Finley ordered his men.
“There’s no time,” Lucienne shouted. “Leave!”
“We’ll never leave you!” Duncan yelled back.
And the men frantically searched for anything that could get them to her.
Water poured in from the ceiling, along with rocks and dirt.
“Stairs,” Vladimir said. “Bayrose mentioned stairs on the east side. This is the east side.”
Lucienne wondered why the girl didn’t tell Vladimir about the hidden platforms and the ambush. But then she understood. Bayrose, who was evidently in love with Vladimir, didn’t expect her rival to escape.
The girl only wanted to bring Vladimir back.
“Find the roses,” Vladimir murmured. “She said roses.” His eyes brightened.
An image also flickered in Lucienne’s mind. When she stood on the winged statue’s shoulder, she saw three rose petals made of rubies at its feet.
“Duncan,” Vladimir called, “go to the fountain and pull the rose petals. Quick!”
Dodging pieces of the falling ceiling, Duncan splashed through the water that flooded the temple. Finley waded after him for back-up.
Lucienne couldn’t see them anymore as the fallen beams blocked her sight.
They must have worked out the mechanics of the ruby roses. A twist of broad ladders dropped from above, no more than three feet from Vladimir and Lucienne.
“Finley, get the men out,” Lucienne said with the strength she had left.
Once the sand ran out of the hourglass, the cave would explode and kill them all.
The men, however, still tried to reach her.
Lucienne’s fury restored her energy. “You’ll not bury yourself in this tomb!”
But it seemed they’d rather die in the cave than escape without her.
Lucienne breathed deeply and prayed that in her drained state that her power could still compel the minds of a group. She concentrated her energy on the men. “Leave this cave!” Her voice echoed throughout the temple. “Now!”
The men looked at her in sorrow, then turned and ran toward the entrance, carrying the wounded and the dead.
Lucienne slumped back in Vladimir’s arms. He grabbed a rung and flung her onto his back. “Hold on tight.”
Bone-tired, she tried her best to clasp her hands around his neck as he climbed.
A metal bar plunged from the ceilings. He gave a yell of warning and swung her to the side, her head rolling on her neck. The bar missed them by inches.
“Lucia!” he called urgently.
Her heart thumping in her throat, she called back weakly, “I’m okay.”
Vladimir carried her through one, then another twisting set of rungs and turns of mixed ladders and stairs between narrow, mossy cavern walls. The creaking under their feet was unnerving.
The sound of crashing and collapsing grew faint as they moved away from the temple, yet the knots in her stomach didn’t loosen.
“They’ll be fine,” Vladimir said. He must have felt how taut she was. “They had more time than us to get away.”
As her anxiety subsided, Lucienne pressed her face against her Czech boyfriend’s broad shoulder. He smelled of a young male’s musk, sweat, and blood. In time, he would have the scent of Sphinxes again—their home.
“Vlad,” she purred.
“Yes, miláček?” He slowed down, panting.
“You should put me down. I can climb now.”
“We’re almost there.”
“Thank you.”
“You never need to thank me, láska. Just say you love me.”
Lucienne paused.
She wasn’t good at expressing affection. She wasn’t raised to be a lover, but a ruler, a warrior, a predator.
No one in her family had ever told her that they loved her. Jed wasn’t the hugging type, and Kian never said that he loved her either, though he would give her his last drop of blood without blinking an eye.
Vladimir was the only one who told her how much he loved her and showed his affection openly. She never said it back except at their reunion in Schmidt’s lab.
She took a deep breath and said solemnly, “Of course I love you, Vlad Blazek.” Then she felt his shoulder and back convulsing in muffled laughter.
“What?” she demanded.
He barely managed to contain his laughter. “You don’t really know how to say it, miláček.”
“I said it!” Then she added in a hiss, “We show love through actions.”
Vladimir was now laughing so hard that he stopped climbing the ladders.
“You’re an idiot, you know,” she said with a smile.
“And you love this idiot,” he said in satisfaction.
Light spilled from above.
Two more turns up the ladder, Vladimir and Lucienne reached the opening. He lifted her onto the top of the cave, then he climbed up after her. Throwing his head back, he laughed and said with great joy, “We made it!”
Lucienne hadn’t the strength to laugh yet so she smiled at him. He kept his promise—he gave her Nexus Tear. And she got him back.
A mile away, a mushroom of dark clouds erupted into the sky, then collapsed. Dust scattered, reaching and falling on Lucienne and Vladimir.
The Temple of Lemuria had disintegrated in the blast.
The dawn’s light silhouetted them atop the hills. Lucienne sat with her back against Vladimir’s well-muscled chest, their hands clasped tighter.
Then, on the far horizon, where Sphinxes’ force met the Sealers’ in the South Pacific Ocean, an enormous cloud of fire spouted from under the boiling sea, shooting up high into the heavens. Smokes rose like mammoth wings in the inferno.
“Kian and Enberg have sunk the Rose,” Lucienne said. “We’re going home.”
“I’ll never leave you again,” Vladimir said, his rough hand lifting her chin gently.
“You’re not allowed to,” she said. “You’re mine.” Then the small of her back tensed.
Ashburn had come out of the Rabbit Hole. As all five fundamental elements completed in her, she could sense their bond no matter the distance.
And he was near.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A blur of light and shadow shot across the burning sky.
Lucienne pulled away from Vladimir so he wouldn’t feel how hard her heart thumped.
She squinted—the rising sun backlit the approaching Ashburn, painting the contour of his silver hair against the sky’s ember-fire backdrop. It hurt a mortal to watch a god on a lighted horse, but Lucienne couldn’t take her eyes off Ashburn.
Vladimir tore his gaze from Lucienne’s lips and followed her sightline. He drew his Armatix pistol.
Lucienne placed a hand on his arm to stop him. “It’s Ashburn,” she said.
“Could we find anyone less insufferable on this planet?” he growled. “What’s he doing here?”
“Be nice. I haven’t seen him in a week.”
“Should we reward him with the Medal of Honor?” he snorted. “I didn’t see you for months.”
“You have me now,” Lucienne said. “So stop being a bonehead.”
Ashburn seeking her out meant he must have gotten over his resentment. No sooner had her heart lightened than she saw that the approaching flash was about to run over Vladimir.
“No!” She leaned over Vladimir and put herself in his path. If Ashburn intended to hit Vladimir with his machine, he would have to go through her first.
Amazingly fast, Vladimir shoved her behind him.
Ashburn braked just in time. He pulled Lucienne away, jumped from Spike, and threw the Czech prince to the ground. His fist landed on Vladimir’s face.
Lucienne lunged at them, but her body felt like water that couldn’t be put together.
Blood streamed from Vladimir’s nose. He could have ducked the blow if he hadn’t worrie
d that Lucienne might get caught in the middle.
“Ash, stop!” Lucienne shouted, her voice feeble yet full of anger.
With a growl, Vladimir threw Ashburn to the ground. They wrestled and tried to punch each other. Vladimir was an excellent warrior, but Ashburn had all the techniques in his databank to aid him.
Evidently, to prove that he could take the other man by pure physical ability, Ashburn didn’t use his dark lightning. For the moment, they were evenly matched.
As they rolled toward the edge of the cliff, a mad glint flashed in their eyes. They were trying to throw the other off the cliff.
This was not happening again.
“Stop!” Lucienne trembled.
They weren’t listening as they fought to end the other’s claim to her.
With all five ancient elements united, Lucienne had tasted a goddess inside her. She concentrated on summoning her power, but Forbidden Glory seemed too worn out to respond.
“Everything was good. Everything was perfect between Lucia and me until you came between us,” Ashburn shouted, throwing another punch. “And you only came back to hurt her.”
Vladimir grabbed Ashburn’s fist, trying to twist his wrist. “I got between you and my Lucia?” he asked furiously. “You tried to steal her from me. As long as I still have a breath, you’ll never succeed.”
“Then I’ll be glad to cut your air supply.” Ashburn wrenched his wrist free from Vladimir’s grip and managed to put one knee on his opponent’s chest. His hand tightened on Vladimir’s throat, ready to choke the life out of him. “Lucia isn’t meant for you. Why can’t you just accept that and walk away? Why do you have to fight the impossible? Both of you fought the inevitable, and see how well it went? You poisoned her.”
Vladimir swung a fist to Ashburn’s jaw. Ashburn jerked his head back, his hand losing its hold on Vladimir. “I’ll kill you just for thinking my girl is yours!” the Czech warrior yelled.
Dizzy and weak-kneed, Lucienne stumbled to the edge of the cliff toward them. Then a flood of warmth welled inside her. She exhaled in relief. Her power was recharging.
The heat wave in her body erupted until it felt as if fiery lava was pouring down her spine. It was impossible for her to muffle a cry of pain and terror. The lava gushed into her gut, red-hot and heavy. Lucienne bent over, jabbing a hand into her belly to ease the burn, but the flame had surged into her every fiber.
