"You'll never be able to control the shifters or the vampires. Their psychic shields are more resistant than humans," I point out.
"Come, come," he says, voice coaxing. "You and I both know the psychic network among the Ascendants is not ordinary. After all, it's fed by the power of the immortals. It’s strong enough to break down the barriers of most species."
"If you do that, you'll alienate us from all species. You’ll make us their enemy in one go," I growl, trying to keep the growing horror of his plan out of my voice.
"Finally!" He slaps me on the back as if pleased by my deduction. "You finally get my plan. What do you think? Good, isn't it?"
"It's fucking genius, actually," I concede, letting false admiration seep into my voice. "In one stroke, you wipe out everything Brahma ever wanted." Keep him talking.
"Don’t forget, I get my revenge on you too." He nods. "Besides, I figure you owe me for what you took from me."
"You are wrong to blame me for Mila's death." Barely are the words out of my mouth when he hits me in the side with the broken ribs. The pain that strikes through me is razor sharp, hot enough for red sparks to explode in my brain.
"Don't you dare talk about my mate. Never. Ever. You taint her memory by speaking her name." Grabbing my shoulders, he leans in close enough for his breath to sear my cheek. I don't flinch.
I taunted him to see if I could get through to him. To find out if the heart of the boy I once knew still beat within this crazed, power-hungry immortal.
"You miss her," I say, my voice soft, understanding.
I should hate this male, my once-friend who hunted me down over the years. And yet I understand his heartbreak.
Noah's massive throat muscles move as he swallows. "You don't know what you're talking about." His voice comes out harsh.
Broken.
It's strange how different we are, yet how alike.
Both of us are searching for that something missing, that part of us which would complete us yet evades us. We seek it outside of us, even as I know I'd find true peace only if I look inside.
Here, in the city of my birth, facing the prospect of never seeing Tara again, seeing the broken pieces of what was once my friend, I know it's time to stop. It’s time to accept my grief and face my past.
"I lost my mate too," I say. "At least you had a few years with Mila. She knew how you felt. I never had the chance to show Fia the extent of my feelings."
I wait for the sickness that always twists my gut when I think of Fia, but I’m surprised to find myself calm. Sharing my sorrow with Tara has already started the healing. Now reliving the past with a man who was once like my brother only hastens the process.
Noah tilts his head. He's listening.
"I can help you," I say quickly. "Let me go, give me the sword, and I'll speak to Mikhail and the other Ascendants. We'll make sure you have a place in the new world." I can’t help but try reaching out to him once more; but he rejects me, wanting no redemption.
"New world?" He bites out the words with such emphasis that drops of spittle flick my cheek. "I want no part of a world with Ascendants. I only want revenge for what you did. You destroyed the one reason I had to be alive. And for that you must pay. You will harness the power of this sword to help me take over this city."
"And if I refuse?" The words are out before I can stop myself.
A smile twists his lips. His eyes light up with an awareness close to pleasure.
Too late, I realize my mistake. It's exactly what he's hoping to hear, exactly the excuse he needs to hit me—
The breath rushes out of me as he pulls out Ruby's sword and slashes it across my chest.
A scream rips through me, but I bite down on my lips. I taste the copper of blood and swallow it down.
I will not give him the satisfaction of hearing my pain.
Will not.
With a grim smile from Noah and a glint in his eyes, he raises the sword again and brings the hilt down on the side of my head.
24
Kris
Water slapping my face has my eyes snapping open. I wince as even that small movement spears pain through my chest. I can smell my blood, the filth of the last few days. The wound from the sword still burns, though it's already healing. There are a few benefits to being immortal, after all.
"About time."
Noah throws aside a plastic bucket. My eyes can't look away as it rolls across the floor, trailing a thin stream of water in its wake. More of it trickles down my face, onto my chest, and pools on the ground between us. The throbbing in my head bursts out in a full blown headache, even as my swollen tongue flicks out to catch some of the moisture on my cracked lips.
The door behind Noah opens, and a figure is pushed into the room. He stumbles and falls facedown. He doesn't move. He's bare-chested and wearing tattered jeans, hair hanging in matted locks to his shoulders.
He's not tied up. Noah doesn't consider him a threat.
Going to the man, Noah grabs him by his hair and hauls him up. A thin sound escapes the man's lips, a half-hearted attempt at resisting, as if he has no more energy left to protest. Yet something inside pushes him to show he's not completely gone. There's still a living soul somewhere in that hollow chest. His ribs push through his skin, the skin between them sallow, dipping-rising as he takes in a shallow breath.
Noah hauls him close to me, jerking his hair back until his back is bowed, neck exposed. Deep scratches, some still trickling with blood, scar the skin of his chest.
"Recognize him?" Noah snaps.
I look at the man closely. There’s something about the shape of his shoulders, his cheekbones, the shape of his chin. He doesn't smell of ozone nor of the deeper, earthier smell of shifters.
He's human. And almost familiar.
I have seen him before. But where?
"Perhaps a reminder will help." Noah pulls his hand back and slaps the thin face. The sound echoes around the empty room.
Saliva drools from his mouth, but there's no other reaction. Nothing. Is he dead already?
His eyes flutter open an instant later.
Indigo eyes.
No recognition in them. Not even a spark to show he's alive.
Those eyes! I've seen them on someone else. Someone so alive that the very room she walks into crackles with her presence.
Unlike this man, who has given up all hope, his spirit broken.
Noah follows with a kick to the other man's thigh.
His thin body shudders from the impact. As Noah releases him, he crumples and falls over, his dirty brown hair half falling over his forehead.
But he doesn't move away. Instead, he meets Noah's gaze. "Kill me. You must kill me today. Here. Right here. Kick me here." He slaps his palm to his head in a burst of strength, movements jerky, before his hand falls to the floor. "Just one blow. I beg you." His voice dribbles away.
"Perhaps today I grant your wish after all, human." Noah raises a massive foot.
"Enough!" My voice emerges rough, guttural.
Lowering his foot to the ground, Noah grunts. "You always were a soft-hearted fuck. Never could see another in pain. It's your failing."
"Or my redemption," I reply. "Perhaps empathy for a fellow being is what lets me keep my humanity."
"To be human is to be weak, driven by emotion. Miserable creatures who can't defend themselves." Noah jerks his head toward the figure on the ground. His eyes narrow in disgust.
"Is that why you, an Ascendant, chose to lead a bunch of vampires instead? Creatures driven by their rational mind?" I must hold his attention and keep him talking while I test the chains that bind my wrists. My fingers probe the links, trying to find a weak one, anything I can use to break free.
"Vampires are the closest to us immortals. And not just in how long they live. They don't let their emotions get in the way. It makes them ideal soldiers. After Daniel's death, many vampires left the city. I found them wandering, aimless. I gave them a cause to live, a purpose."
<
br /> "And what about your purpose? The one which we Ascendants swore to uphold?"
Noah cuts the air with his hand. "Mere words," he huffs, frowning at the figure on the ground.
The male's still, muscles frozen. The only thing signifying he's alive is the sound of breathing that rattles through his ribs with every inhale.
"His life is in your hands." Noah turns to leave, only to pause at the doorway. "Don't take too long to decide, brother."
The door slams shut behind him.
Unable to stop myself, my gaze zooms right back to the figure on the ground. I’m almost afraid to discover who he is. I don't want to acknowledge what my instincts have been screaming since he came in.
"Get up," I snap. "If you are a true descendent of Ruby, if her blood runs in your veins, you must live. Fight."
25
Kris
The man on the ground is quiet. Still. Even his raspy breathing from earlier can no longer be heard. He's given up, his very life draining out of him as I watch. I must do something, but what?
I wind my fingers around the chains on my wrist and tug hard enough for one of them to loosen. I feel it give from the wall.
Hope flares inside, and I pull on it again.
Once more.
It loosens but doesn't give.
Swearing, I call out to the figure on the ground, "Hey…Rohan."
The figure stirs.
"Come on, man, snap out of it," I urge. "You've got to get up and set me free before Noah comes back. You may not care for your life, but I do. I’m sure you don't want him to kill me now, hmm?" I cajole.
The figure shudders, shoulders quivering.
Is he crying?
He pushes away the hair covering his face and turns those swollen indigo eyes on me.
Once again I'm startled by their color.
On Ariana they are a lighter violet; but in Rohan's face, the color is deeper, almost purple, as dark as the wounds that smudge his eyelids. Right now those eyes are crinkled at the corners, nostrils flaring, lips pulled back in the parody of a grin.
He's laughing, or at least trying to.
Rohan chuckles, the sound broken in a way that tells me he's tried to see the humor of his situation many times and has failed.
"I don't want to escape. I just want to die, okay?" His voice quivers with emotion, rising on the last word, and that gives me hope.
Rohan may think he's given up all hope, but the very fact that he's coherent enough to ask to be killed shows there's still the essence of him living somewhere inside there.
"You're giving up? You want to die here as a pathetic shell of a man who didn't have the courage to fight?"
"You're right." Rohan grimaces. "I have no courage. I saw the one I loved killed in front of my eyes. Daniel was the vampire, the one meant to have lived for a long time. Yet he was killed, even as I, a mere human, survived."
Rohan swallows, throat muscles moving as he tries to force out the words. "I knew Daniel would be hurt the moment he went after the sword. I should have warned him, stopped him. I was blind. I didn't see what I had with him, not until it was too late. It wasn't meant to be this way." His eyes plead with me. He's had this conversation with himself many time, and now it's a relief to talk it out. "I’m human, the fragile one, the one who should have died when Mikhail and Leana unleashed the power of the sword."
I was there when it happened. Even now, thinking of the sheer energy released from the sword, the feel of a force so otherworldly, makes the hair on my nape prickle with sensation.
"I saw Daniel fade away. One second he was there. The next, he was blown to pieces so small it's as if he just dissolved, like he never existed. His eyes were still holding my gaze, pleading for help. He never shut his eyes…" Rohan shivers. "They still haunt me. His scent, the touch of his skin…Daniel loved me, you know. He never said so, but he showed me just how much he felt. And then, right there, that body, that hair, his skin…all of it gone.
"It's my fault. I should have warned him not to go after the sword. I should have never agreed to get it for him. That fucking sword!" He raises his hand, palm suspended, fluttering like a bird caught in cross currents, before dropping it to his side.
"You survived. How?"
Rohan laughs, the sound scraping over my nerves. "A question I've asked many times and yet never found a satisfactory answer. Perhaps the sword recognized my bloodline and decided to spare my life? Fuck knows." He sits up and draws his legs to himself, wrapping his arms around his knees as shivers wrack his body. It's not easy for him to relive the experience. "The energy blasted me out of there and onto the beach of the city. When I came to, it was to find myself Noah's prisoner. He brought me here.
"Six months I've been here in Daniel's mansion. I feel his spirit wandering the corridors, calling out to me, asking me join him. I count every day, hoping it will be my last. I've asked Noah to kill me so many times, but he never does. Perhaps that's why he brought you? Will you do it? Will you kill me? Please, you must..."
His lips continue to move, but no voice emerges from it. Trapped in his own hell, he rocks himself. Back and forth. Back and forth. The movements are jittery like that of an addict, someone addicted to grief, to pain, to the high that comes with torturing oneself, knowing there is no forgiveness at the end. He bites his lips until the coppery smell of blood fills the air.
"Enough!" I snap, forcing myself to add enough authority to my tone. The voice is the same one I used to get the attention of the other Ascendants. It's a trick I've seen Ariana use with effect too, one any Alpha who wants to claim fealty masters early.
The Alpha of the Ascendants.
Yeah, that's what Brahma said I was, a title I never wanted. Now I must claim it. I must face who I am, what I have become. My past, my future: all are intertwining here as I face this broken man. I must save him, just as I must save my city. And her.
Thinking about Tara stabs a sharp wave of pain through me. It spurs me to snarl at the human.
"For six fucking months you’ve felt sorry for yourself, for the one you lost. Only one thing will help you now."
Rohan laughs, the bitter sound rattling through his hollow chest. "Told you," he smirks. "Death is all there can be for me."
"Revenge," I insist. "Get up. Get me out of these chains. You think the sword destroyed the man you loved? Here's your chance to ensure it’s never used to hurt anyone again."
"That won't bring Daniel back."
"No," I agree. "It won't. But perhaps it might prevent someone else from losing their mate. Do it for him," I say. "For Daniel."
Rohan tilts his head, considering. Then he crawls to the nearest wall. Using it for leverage, he pulls himself to his feet. Still holding onto the wall, he slides toward me. Reaching me, he looks at my chains.
His eyes glaze over as his face goes pale. "Hey! Rohan!" I snap out his name again.
A shudder runs through his body, but his eyes clear a little.
"Pull at this." I nod to where the chain has come loose from the wall.
"You're crazy. I’m not even strong enough to walk, and you want me to help break you out of those chains?"
"Sometimes just a little extra effort is all it takes," I say.
He exhales a breath; and then with trembling hands, he reaches for the chain.
"On the count of three. One…two…" I put my weight behind it.
Together we pull. I put all my force behind it, reaching deep inside me, reaching for the strength I know I have, into the hidden pockets of resilience not tapped since Fia's death. Now is the time. Now!
Muscles straining, the collar around my neck bites into my windpipe, yet I don't stop. Groaning with the strain, I pull and keep going, my breath drying up in my lungs. Black begins creeping in at the edges of my vision, but I must keep going.
For Tara.
With a final heave, the chain comes free so suddenly that Rohan slides and then hits the floor.
I hang there, suspended by the chain aro
und my neck, my other hand still chained to the wall.
Just for a second.
Then I move, grabbing the other chain with my free hand and winding my bound arm around it. I pull, muscles stretching with the effort as sweat pours down my body. With a creaking sound, the chain gives, coming away from the wall and bringing some of the bricks and plaster with it. I stumble back with the momentum and crash against the wall behind me with a resounding thud. The heavy chains crash to the floor. The noise echoes around the room, vibrating through the floor.
"Fuck!" Rohan swears from the floor. "There's no way he didn't hear that." He goes pale, seeming to shrink into himself even as he says it. Whatever Noah did to this man, he's succeeded in terrifying him to the extent that the very mention of the vampire is enough to send him into distress.
Without wasting another second, I grab the collar around my neck. Biceps straining and grunting with the effort, I pull. And again.
I swear aloud. "Help me, or Noah really will be here before I can get us out."
As if he's heard his name, the door grinds open, the sound of the hinges a death knell.
"Now!" I snap at Rohan. "Do it, or you suffer a fate worse than death."
26
Tara
Cain steers the boat through the darkness as we approach the island where Daniel's mansion stands. Now Noah has taken it over, using it as a base. The Guardians hadn’t been able to locate Kris, but I’d followed the nascent mating bond straight here.
Leana wasn't happy about my decision to leave with Cain and Ethan.
She was worried I was too weak. She would’ve preferred I wait until I was used to what I'd become.
Claimed: Paranormal Romance (Immortals, Vampires and Shifters) (Many Lives Book 4) Page 10
