2. Blood Past (Warriors of Ankh #2)

by The Elephant House

  “Be glad I’ve eaten, Valois, because you are looking awful tasty right now,” Teagan taunted, crossing his legs, fondling a decorative silver dagger Ryan had bought him for his eighteenth birthday. “Your boss killed my uncle. He was like a father to me.”

  Noah coughed weakly and Teagan wasn’t so sure there wasn’t a snort hidden in that noise. “Boo for you.”

  Fury shot through him at the sound of a throaty chuckle from the other set of handcuffs. The old Neith woman smiled at him sinisterly. Teagan immediately moved to launch the dagger at Noah but at the last minute he checked himself. He needed to keep the s.o.b alive. “I’d watch it. I already hate you just for being you but the fact that your slimy little hands have been all over what’s mine makes me want to cut off certain things I know you’d miss.”

  With satisfaction, Teagan looked on as Noah forced his head up, those strange violet eyes of his glittering at him darkly against the glaze of the toxin. “You might as well kill me because I’ll die before I let you anywhere near her.”

  His anger soothed Teagan, making him laugh. “Have you met my cousin? Tall, dark hair, lush lips, death stare.” He chuckled. “She’s as stubborn as a mule and once she makes her mind up about something she pretty much sticks to it. She’s coming to trade her life for yours and there’s nothing that will stop her. It’s the only thing that’s keeping you alive right now.”

  Without a doubt Noah was laughing at him and Teagan had to slam the dagger down on the table next to him to stop himself from doing something he’d regret. “She hates you, you sick douchebag.

  She might come for me, but she’ll kill you before she ever lets you lay a hand on her.”

  Shifting uncomfortably, Teagan bit back an uncool retort. He knew he was in for a fight with Eden, he wasn’t a complete idiot, but he had something they didn’t know about. A reverse cure. He wasn’t there to drag the new Eden into a relationship with him. No he was there to get her back, to watch her eyes turn grey. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t brought reinforcements to help make sure the job got done. He threw Noah an arrogant, snarly smirk. “She’ll do what she’s told or I bring hell down on all of you.”

  ***

  Eden,

  Glad to see you made it to Boston and so quickly. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you had feelings for this little jerk. It hurts, Eden. Can’t help myself. I’m the jealous type. Not to worry, I also know how to get what I want so I haven’t hurt your little warrior boy or the old lady… yet. Come home, Eden, before I decide to check out Noah – see what all the fuss is about. Oh… and bring Cyrus and Valeria. But just you three. You bring anyone else and pull a fast one on me and I’ll know. You trick me, babe, and I’m not going to just to kill your boy and the Neith. I’m going to do them over Ryan Winslow style, and I think we both know you don’t want that.

  Come quickly. I’m getting hungry.

  Teagan x

  After she finished reading it out loud, Eden forced herself to meet Noah’s parents’ gaze. Emma was trying not to cry. Alain on the other hand looked as if he was trying to restrain himself from flying at her. With one last look of unadulterated fury and blame, he shot off the couch in one of Cyrus’ many sitting rooms and stormed out, slamming the door so hard they heard the panelling splinter.

  Eden flinched and shot a look at Cyrus. Her guardian shook his head gently, telling her not to worry. But she was worried. Teagan had Noah and Mhairi at the Winslow mansion.

  She was going to have to return to the one place she’d promised she never would.

  ***

  Staring at Noah and Mhairi was getting boring, so Teagan had sauntered back upstairs, making sure everything was in place. He nodded at a soul eater as he passed him in the hallway and wandered through to the back sitting room where French doors opened out onto the balcony and the sprawling gardens beyond. At the very north of the property sat a helicopter and its pilot, waiting for Teagan’s plans to come to fruition.

  Right at this moment Eden must be on her way to him. He brushed the bump on his inner arm where the tracking device had been shot into him and thought of the needles each of his men carried.

  Enough to load up Cyrus and Valeria with the toxin and get them on a helicopter to the Tribunal. The Tribunal would have the leverage they needed to lure in Darius of Mesopotamia and Teagan would have Eden. The old Eden.

  He was just sorry the little asshat downstairs would get to make it out of all of this alive.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Biggest Fear

  It seemed only fitting that the sky opened up to lash hard rain down on the car as they arrived in Salton. It pelted off the bonnet like gunfire, seeming to emphasise the tense silence among Eden and her two companions. She tried not to tremble as the gates to her parent’s mansion swung open allowing them entrance. Teagan would be watching her from inside. The gravel kicked under their wheels familiarly and Eden squeezed her eyes shut, drawing in her breath, preparing herself to return to the scene of her nightmares. Stepping out into the humid night air that stung the nose with a threatening metallic scent that warned of electricity, Eden shared one last questioning look with Cyrus. He nodded, telling her to trust him.

  She was trying but this seemed crazy.

  Cyrus was actually sticking to Teagan’s demands. They had no other warriors, no back-up, nothing. Just the three of them walking into what was clearly a trap. The fact that he wanted Eden, Cyrus and Val, had the Princeps’ alarm bells ringing. Cyrus was pretty sure the Tribunal were involved and Teagan was more than happy to use Eden to cast a net over the Princeps and Val. When he’d told her that, Eden had argued with him. Something she had never done before. It was bad enough that Noah and Mhairi’s lives were in danger because of her, she didn’t want to be the reason Cyrus and Val, two of the most important members of The Circle, ended up in the hands of their mortal enemy.

  But Cyrus seemed coldly calm and wouldn’t budge on his decision to accompany her. Eden wondered what the hell he knew that she didn’t.

  Exhaling loudly and feeling weirdly naked without her katana, Eden followed Cyrus and Val up the front steps of the house to where the door lay open. Beyond the double doors they could see into the foyer, where Teagan stood grinning at them.

  It took every ounce of self-control she owned not to launch herself at him like a jaguar taking down a particularly annoying and wily prey. Cyrus strode through the doorway with Val, no hesitation, no fear, and Eden, desperate to be as controlled and strong as her guardian, hurried in after him. The bright white of the foyer was immediately dimmed by the thirty or so soul eaters who leeched out of the hallway and surrounding rooms to encircle them in a wall of black-suited evil. She curled a lip at them. They looked like extras from Men In Black.

  Idiotic looking or not, Eden, she whispered to herself , you’re completely outnumbered. She cast her eyes over them, trying to decide what would be the best way to attack when she didn’t have a sword.

  “Babe, you look good.” Teagan smiled at her and she found herself stepping towards him so he knew she wasn’t afraid of him. “Not so sure about the eye colour but in a little while we won’t need to worry about that.”

  Pulling on every ounce of hatred she had for him, Eden let it shine out of the new eyes he spoke of, not even registering his comment. “You know I’m Ankh now, Teagan. Don’t you think the race issues between us are just a little too big to overcome?”

  He grinned. “Haven’t lost your bite. Good to know. And the whole Ankh thing is about to become a non-issue.” He shrugged.

  Eden felt her whole body seize up. She felt an ear splintering rant form in her chest and edge its way up towards her tongue but a voice suddenly whispered in her brain, telling her to stop. Teagan was enjoying this, antagonising her, drawing it out. She wouldn’t give him the damn satisfaction.

  “Where’s Noah?”

  As she suspected, Teagan’s face fell a little at her sidestep. He shrugged again. “He’ll go free. But first I need your
boss and his little lady friend to cooperate.”

  “What do you want?” Cyrus’ voice echoed around the hallway and beyond. Eden enjoyed the way Teagan’s aura seemed to deflate when faced with Cyrus’ considerable and ancient power.

  Her cousin tried to cover up the falter with an arrogant sneer. “I want to inject you and Valeria with potassium chloride to incapacitate you. And before you start questioning me,” he turned and picked up a remote, pointing it at the television screen beside him, “there’s your boy and old lady, alive and well.” Noah and Mhairi flickered on the screen, handcuffed to the wall down in the basement. Eden felt her whole body move towards the screen and was glad for Valeria’s hand clamping down on her arm to stop her.

  “Could be fake?” Eden tried to sound calm.

  Rolling his eyes, Teagan pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial button. “Six, I need you to speak to the guy prisoner. Make it very quick though.” He snapped the cell shut and pointed at the screen.

  They watched as a hulking great big soul eater stalked onto the screen, a blade in his hand.

  Dawning horror hit her as he pulled the blade back and plunged it into Noah’s stomach and twisted it.

  His hoarse yell echoed up the basement stairwell behind Teagan and Eden turned to her cousin with retribution blazing in her eyes. “Did I tell you how much I’m going to enjoy killing you?”

  Teagan snorted. “Promises, promises.”

  Thankfully the soul eater who had attacked Noah was happy with just that one ripping attack. He melted off screen and Teagan switched the television off.

  “So?” he asked Cyrus expectantly.

  Cyrus’ gaze bore through him. “What exactly do you want with Eden?”

  Teagan studied him for a moment, a small smile curling his lip. “You know don’t you?”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Ryan.”

  “How?”

  “He stole it from your house when he came for Merrit.”

  Eden’s head swivelled between the two, her heart racing with an unknown horror. “What? What are you talking about?”

  Laughing now at the unbanked anger in Cyrus’ eyes, Teagan shrugged. “Should I do the honours?”

  “What the hell is going on?!” Eden yelled, terrified that Teagan had managed to unsettle the Princeps.

  Her cousin slid a hand into his jacket pocket, pulling out a tattered journal that looked a million years old. “These are your Princeps’ scribblings.” He pointed the yellow pages at her. “Notes taken from the theories of an Egyptian Voodoo Priestess who communed with the gods. In them she discusses the Unforeseen. You wanna hear the really interesting part?” He grinned cockily at her and Eden knew… she knew… something terrible was about to be revealed. “If it be truth that the Unforeseen transform to warrior with the ingress of blood of the line into the form, then so it be truth that death of the line, before seven years after blood assimiliation, kills the warrior and welcomes soul taker to form.”

  Eden blinked, shaking her head stupidly. “What the hell does that mean?”

  The malicious smile on Teagan’s face made her want to throw up. “It means that if the person who gave you the blood that transformed you to Ankh – that would be Mhairi – dies before seven years after the transition, her blood inside you dies too and you turn back to one of the Blessed.” His eyes were alight with excitement at the prospect.

  She felt as if she had been stabbed through the gut. It took every ounce of strength she had not to let her knees buckle beneath her. “Seven…” she whispered incredulously.

  “Yeah, it’s some Egyptian thing. Seven planets, seven years of plenty, of famine, constellation crap yaddah yaddah yaddah. The important thing, Paradise, it means I get you back.”

  Pure terror and fury exploded out of her. “Don’t call me that!” This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. There was no way he could take away her whole life like that. “What do you want with Noah?”

  She already knew what he wanted with Mhairi.

  “You don’t let me kill the old gal… fine… I’ll kill your boy.” He shrugged at her, as if he were asking which cereal she’d prefer for breakfast. “What will it be, Eden? Noah or Mhairi?”

  The question sent a shock through her body and she glanced at Cyrus and Val for help.

  “They can’t help you, Eden.” Teagan smirked. “In fact… I believe I’m waiting on them agreeing to the injection?”

  To her absolute shock Eden could only look on as Cyrus and Val nodded their assent. No, she trembled visibly now. They had to help her?! They couldn’t leave her, for this to happen to her. She’d rather die than be a soul eater again.

  But Noah.

  An angry hot tear escaped over her lid and she swiped it furiously. Could she do it? Could she give up herself and Mhairi to save the boy she loved?

  The answer horrified her.

  “Cyrus?” she begged, watching as two of the soul eaters surrounding them stepped out of the circle at Teagan’s order and took needles out of their inside suit pockets. Eyes huge, she pleaded silently with Cyrus for answers as the needle plunged into his neck.

  “Never fear, Eden,” he told her softly. “The Eye of Horus is always watching.”

  Brows furrowing, Eden racked her brain for meaning in Cyrus’ cryptic comment. What…?

  “Cyrus?” she asked anxiously but his eyes were already closing.

  The Eye of Horus is always watching.

  The Eye of Horus…

  The Eye…

  She gasped, glancing up at Teagan with a gleam of triumph in her gaze. Darius! Darius was coming. She didn’t know when or how or what but somehow she knew that Darius could save them.

  The power she had felt from him…

  Suddenly it didn’t matter when he was going to make his appearance; simply knowing he was out there ready to help forced Eden into action. With a roar of rage she lunged towards Teagan, propelling all her power into knocking him to his feet. Hands wrapped around her cousin’s throat, Eden felt that overwhelming familiar power surge into the house even through the blaze of her hate.

  It seeped through the walls and shimmered in the air, it clung to her skin and frightened her with its otherworldliness. A streak of colour shot by her and Eden jerked her head around to see the dark blur slice its way through the men. The yells of agony, grunts, flesh tearing, grew in crescendo as blood splatter sprayed against the wall, filling the foyer with the breath-stealing scent of copper.

  Pain ricocheted through Eden’s jaw, tearing her eye as she fell backwards.

  Damn! she screamed inwardly in rage as Teagan punched her and flipped her onto her back. She shot her leg up between his legs but he expected the move and sidestepped. It was enough to give Eden the space to roll away from and to her feet. She ignored the crazy massacre in the background, her entire focus on bringing her cousin down once and for all. She thought of the men and women he’d killed. The torture. The rape. The sadism that was beyond humane thinking. She thought of how he’d made her endure his crimes. How she hadn’t been strong enough to stop him.

  Well… now she was.

  Trying to remember all she’d learned over the last few weeks, Eden began to pace around him, waiting, with a patience she never knew she was capable of, for him to attack first. When the powerful punch came Eden reacted fluidly, sidestepping, grabbing his wrist, twisting it, pounding her knee into the weak part of his upper thigh, pushing him down, pulling his arm up. Snap.

  His harsh scream didn’t fill Eden with the satisfaction she’d thought she’d feel.

  A strange mix of desolation and relief crashed over her as she realised she wasn’t going to enjoy her cousin’s death as she had assumed she would. That part of her no longer existed, that part that could find some pleasure out of the darkest pieces of her heart. Yes, she wanted Teagan dead, but that’s all she wanted. She just wanted him gone. There was no joy in that. The darkness existed inside her, as it did in all things with a soul,
but she no longer belonged to it. She belonged to light, a light that made her duty necessary but ugly, not something to revel in. And there was no way this piece of scum was returning to her to the dark.

  Her cousin’s elbow came up and connected with her face, snapping her head back with a powerful blow. Eden staggered, hot pain blazing across her nose and down the muscles in her neck. She shook herself and readied her stance as Teagan jumped to his feet, locking his broken arm back into place.

  “You’ve learned a few tricks while you’ve been gone but I could do this all day. Without a sword, you have no way of taking me down.”

  As a particularly harsh scream sounded behind them, they both turned. Eden’s eyes widened in relief and… truly… fear and horror as she took in the sight of Darius standing in amongst a litter of decapitated bodies.

  “What the…?” her cousin breathed behind her and for once she heard actual dread in his voice.

  Darius’ face was expressionless, covered in streaks of blood, his black eyes dark and unreachable.

  “Here,” he said to her and Eden blinked fast as a sword suddenly soared through the air towards her.

  But just as she reached for it, a familiar arm darted out in front of her and caught it.

  Noah.

  Eyes wide, she took in his haggered appeared, the exhaustion from the drug still dragging in his eyes. There was blood and gore splattered over his chest and face, and a sadness in his eyes that made her heart stop.

  “Mhairi’s gone,” he whispered, stepping past her and pointing the sword at Teagan. “She got me out but one of his thugs killed her.” He slanted a gaze at her. “You don’t have to do this. I can do it for you. With pleasure.”

  “What do you mean the old bitch is dead?!” Teagan spat, his eyes flaring as they washed over Eden. “You should be changing! Why the hell aren’t you changing?”