by Ophelia Bell
Calder threw his head back and laughed maniacally. “Oh, you would no doubt enjoy torturing me, pain whore that you are. The Thiasoi and I knew all there was to know about you before I let myself be captured. You’d be surprised to know what I’ve learned since, even locked up in these cells for so long. I won’t keep it from you, nor will I keep any of the truth any longer.”
“Do tell,” Nikhil said, scowling at him.
Calder stepped closer to the door and raised his hands, placing his palms flat against the glass. Beneath his touch, the glass shimmered, small ripples cascading out across the surface from his fingertips until the barrier disappeared entirely and Nikhil could hear Calder’s voice directly, rather than the tinny version that came through the small speaker.
“Your hunters have a hard time capturing us for a reason, but she is even more slippery than most. We called her Marnie when she was young, but she went by Meri when she was banished from the Haven. Neph, one of our twin leaders, once believed she was his perfect mate, but her betrayal of our strictest laws proved how wrong he was. She had to have kept violating those old laws to stay in control of you for so long, but I don’t have any more of a clue what her current identity is now than you do. I came here hoping to figure that out, but she’s far too careful.”
Not quite believing the door could be entirely gone, Nikhil reached out and swiped a hand through the invisible plane where it had been. “If you could do this all along, why did you stay and endure all the torture I inflicted on you? And don’t tell me it was her doing it… she may have been in control but I remember enjoying much of what we did.”
Calder grinned at him. “Oh, I know who was in control. She fed the dark cravings in you, encouraging you to act on the impulses that would serve her the best. The nymphaea have always been impulsive, but Meri took those urges to disturbing lengths. When she melded with the dragon and stole his body we knew we couldn’t allow her to remain in the Haven. It wasn’t until the Diviner saw her path that we discovered the mistake we’d made. She should have been executed, not set free into the world, even if we had cut off her connection to the water’s power.”
The heat of anger burned inside Nikhil’s stomach. If the woman had been executed, he may have never committed the atrocities he did in Belah’s absence. His lover might have taken him back. “If she had no power, how in Hell did she succeed in surviving so long? She impersonated my physician from the beginning. I trusted her and she got into my head.”
Calder’s stance shifted, his shoulders dropping. He turned his hands palm-up in supplication. “A nymphaea’s spirit still holds magic. There was no way we could entirely strip her of it. But her ability to shift into other forms was lost to her. As you have discovered, the blood of our races is incredibly powerful on its own. So powerful, shedding it for any but the most sacred reason is a violation of every law of all the races. She used her blood in ways that it should never be used. Now we need to turn that knowledge against her. When she reveals herself to me, I will return home and gather what assistance and power I can to hunt her down.”
“And sitting in this cell with your pet ursa is going to make her show herself to you?”
“After you release the others on this floor, one of your brothers will personally carry messages to the other facilities, and tell the entire staff that I have assumed control of your mind. Your brother will say that as a precaution you and I have been locked into a cell together until the scientists can discover how to release my hold on you.”
Nikhil nodded, understanding the deviousness of the plan, yet it was no guarantee. “There is one problem. I have no intention of sitting in a cell with you while we wait for her to come to us. There are too many other things at stake and having lived with her in my head I doubt she would even fall for such a trick. Unless she sees me in there, it would never work.”
“It will work because she is nearly impotent without your power to wield, and because of this...”
Calder raised his arms above his head, stretching toward the ceiling with his head tilted back, his black hair swirling around his shoulders as though moved by some invisible, liquid flow. Before Nikhil’s eyes, the other man’s body began to shift, his torso elongating and then widening in places. His clothing disappeared, his skin darkened to the color of caramel, his thighs thickened, and dark, familiar tattoos began to wind themselves around his upper arms. Then his skin was slowly covered by clothing that materialized like liquid paint flowing over a fresh surface until the figure was clothed in an outfit identical to Nikhil’s dark suit pants and dark-red dress shirt.
Nikhil remained transfixed during the transformation, until a moment later the figure inside the cell lowered his arms, and dipped his head again to face him.
Nikhil stared at himself, dumbstruck. The other figure’s eyes widened, his mouth falling open as though he, too, were too surprised for speech. When Nikhil lifted a shaking hand to reach for his doppelganger, the other man did the same in reverse… a perfect mirror image of his movements. Their index fingers met in the center before they both dropped their hands and let out simultaneous, booming laughs.
Nikhil’s doppelganger continued to grin at him after Nikhil’s laughter stopped and he took a breath, holding his stomach.
“You have me fooled, that’s for sure,” he said, shaking his head. “I still don’t see why you didn’t escape and fucking take over, if you were capable of all this.”
“There are a few reasons for that. Our kind have somewhat transient physical forms—I can’t maintain this form for long without an available connection to flowing water. The nearby river provides enough for me to use it here, but if I were to travel, my appearance would return to normal within a day. Fresh blood would do the trick, too, but to take it from unwilling subjects would be perpetuating the same atrocities that allowed Meri to slip away from us.”
Nikhil frowned and glanced at the sleeping bear on the cot behind Calder. A wave of tenderness tangled with an urge to protect the young ursa male who he’d come to regard as a sort of surrogate son during his few moments of emotional clarity. He hated that he’d think it, but the ursa had the strongest constitutions—second only to dragons—and if blood needed to be spilled, they would survive. “What about a willing subject?”
Calder gave Nicholas an affectionate glance, shaking his head. “I would never ask that of him. Besides, you and I both know that, while his value may lie in his blood, it is not the taking of it that will help. He will stay with me for now, but when he leaves, he must return to his kind. His family will be our allies in the coming conflict.”
Nikhil raised his eyebrows. “You know this because the Diviner told you?”
“Because the water gave me the knowledge. The nymphaea’s greatest power is in the manipulation of the flow of time. We can manifest other shapes at will, but gain no particular advantage from any of them the way the dragons, the turul, or the ursa do from their true shapes. Meri is the most powerless of us since she’s been banished and stripped of her link to the water. She’s relegated to hopping between human bodies, but she’s been increasing her power bit by bit over the centuries. Somehow she has managed to steal away every male of my kind, save for me, and the only reason I am still here is thanks to my link to the water. When she sees me through your eyes, I am as transparent as glass—practically invisible to her.”
Nikhil remembered a time when they hunted nymphaea more avidly. The satyrs of the race were easily seduced and so the Ultiori captured them frequently, but none of them would divulge the secret to capturing their females. They must have known all along that the true enemy was one of their own.
“How do you know she has stolen the males? Your kind got wise to us after a time. We never left a single one alive.”
“On the contrary, they do live. Their connection to the flood tells us so. They are like small tributaries whose flow is frequently interrupted, but we can still sense
them—they have not dried up yet. We just don’t know where they are or what she’s done to them. All we know is that the only way for her to gain more power than she has now is to take over a more powerful body. Keeping them must be a means to that end for her. The only reason she didn’t take your body completely was the dragon blood you carry. But you should know until today that blood has been tainted by Meri’s essence. I would not trust your old supply, if I were you.”
“Noted,” Nikhil said. His private study would be one of the next places he visited when he woke Sterlyn up. He would send Naaz on the mission to warn the other facilities of Nikhil’s supposed control by this satyr. He regarded Calder silently for a moment, sensing some reticence to divulge one important bit of information, but the man’s mind was too fluid for him to pin down the detail without asking. “You are leaving out something, friend. What is it?”
The other man’s features rippled slightly, then reformed with their original shape. Calder’s eyes were filled with sadness and he glanced back at the slumbering bear behind him. “Our kind have complicated lives when it comes to finding our mates. I have been caught in Fate’s net and am bound by three contradicting vows at the moment. The oldest one must take precedence, and that is my vow to find Meri and deal with her once and for all. But the other two may haunt me as a result. At the start of my journey I vowed that I would not take a mate until my search is done.”
“And the other two?” Nikhil asked.
“To be with Nicholas until he is released from this place, which is going to be the easiest to achieve, but the hardest one to let go of. When he returns to his kind, he will no longer need me, but letting go won’t be so easy for either of us. And the worst part is that Fate seems to have a true mate in mind for me but I cannot be with her when my original promise is left undone.”
Nikhil let out a long sigh of commiseration. “I understand. It seems the curse you bear is knowing all this, though. Is seeing the future something your kind always does?”
“Aye, it is a curse, but one I endure in order to do my job. This perpetual connection I have is not permanent, at least. When I accepted this mission almost a thousand years ago, the Diviner gave me an unbreakable link to the flow of time. Thanks to the Diviner’s touch, I won’t be rid of it until Meri is dealt with. I just hope that the mate Fate has chosen for me is patient enough to wait.”
Nikhil frowned, considering his next question and knowing it should be his last one before he said farewell to the satyr and set about putting their plan into motion. Calder preempted his thoughts before he could speak.
“Yes, I do know your future, but no I will not tell it to you. Just know that you are on the right path at this moment. Trust the river’s direction, but don’t forget that you have to paddle sometimes, too. Now is time for you to do so. Farewell, friend.”
Before his eyes, the glass reappeared between them and Calder pressed his palm against it.
Nikhil nodded in farewell and moved on.
Desiring to waste no more time, he used his power to mentally rouse the others. When he rounded the corner to the last three cells on the floor, his Elites were slowly standing and rubbing their temples. The females inside the cells were also standing, looking dazed but otherwise no worse for wear. He tried not to think about the bloody mess inside the third cell, but was relieved that the prior occupants were now safely away from here.
When he reached the end of the hall, he quickly unlocked and opened both cell doors, then stood back while his Elites and the two females they cared about more than life gaped at him.
“I am releasing all of you today,” he said looking at each of them in turn. “You are free to leave, but I would like your help before you go. There is much to explain, so if you are willing, I would prefer to simply give you all the knowledge of the events that have transpired over the last day. Once I do, hopefully you will understand what is at stake, and why I wish you to stay and help me if you are willing to.”
“Sayid…” Sterlyn began, but Nikhil held up his hand to stop his Elite from going further.
“I am no longer your master, Sterlyn. It’s my hope that you will see me as a brother, because our blood binds us as brothers. Allow me to earn my place as a proper commander to you, which is what I believe will be required if we are to overcome our common enemy. The evil that controlled me until today is gone. The proof is in my memories, which I will show you if you open your minds for just a moment. This will be the last time I affect your minds in this fashion, I promise.”
The two Elites shared a look, then both of them glanced at the third cell door that was still closed.
“Marcus and Evie should be a part of this,” Naaz said.
When Naaz moved to open the door to Evie’s cell, Nikhil braced himself for the reaction to come. The other man simply stood there and stared at the carnage in stoic silence. Beside him, Sterlyn cursed and clenched his teeth, his jaw working to hold back more as he turned to glare at Nikhil. The two women gasped and covered their mouths with their hands.
Nikhil closed his eyes, willing them all to say what they were thinking.
In a dark, chilly voice as rough as jagged ice, Naaz said, “Are they dead?”
“No,” Nikhil said, his throat tightening around the word enough to nearly strangle him. “You both know Marcus can’t die any more than we can. I did not kill Evie, though when I came here earlier that was my intention. I believe you may know more about how they left, don’t you? I sensed as much in your minds just before I knocked you out and found the pair of them together.”
“Are you telling me the Void bled them and cut off Evie’s wings before he took them?” Naaz asked, his question punctuated by a sharp protest from Zamirah.
Nikhil exhaled, letting the defensive tension seep away. “No. I did this when Evie’s brothers came and took Belah away from me. I wanted revenge on them somehow and she was the nearest target, but self control has eluded me of late.” He closed his eyes and all he saw was blood. Evie’s and Marcus’s blood and before that his beloved Belah’s spilling from her chest as he observed. He’d been nothing more than a passenger inside his own body for all of it, his impulses and the dark, foreign presence compelling him to act. But couldn’t speak that aloud to his Elites without the words sounding like hollow excuses.
“I know,” Sterlyn said, stepping forward. Behind him the red-haired female moved to his side. Nikhil forced himself to recall the dragon’s name. She was no longer a prisoner, but would hopefully become an ally. Zamirah. She slipped close to Sterlyn, pressing herself into his side with a sigh of complete contentment that bordered on sexual.
“How can you know? You were under my control all this time.”
“The power of the dragon blood you gave me shows me lies sometimes,” Sterlyn said. “Evie’s turul power does the same, with more consistency, but we both agreed that there were times when you seemed to move under some artificial power. She said you seemed like someone was pulling your strings, like a marionette. This is the first time I’ve seen you act entirely under your own power—trust me, the difference is striking.”
Neela, his goddaughter, swiftly embraced her brother and kissed him on the cheek. Turning her dark brown eyes to Nikhil, she gave him a smile.
“Sterlyn’s right. You were not yourself before, but you are now. I remember what you were like before. It’s nice to have you back, Bennu,” she said, stepping close and giving him a kiss as well before resuming her spot by her brother’s side. “I am glad to see you have been reborn as the man Belah loved. We will accept whatever knowledge you wish to give us.”
Naaz squeezed his sister, holding her protectively close, and gave Nikhil a grim nod of agreement.
Nikhil’s throat constricted and his eyes watered in response to the fresh term of endearment Neela gave him. He had indeed been reborn, as the fabled Bennu bird from his ancient home.
Unable to s
peak, he closed his eyes and recalled the events of the last day, from Belah’s moment of realization that his mind was not his own to the clarity revealed when Evie’s song had banished the darkness for good. Carefully editing out the details related to Naaz and Neela’s connection to Belah’s children, he sent the images to the others and then waited while they processed them.
They all stood there with eyes closed, their brows equally creased in concentration. One by one, they opened their eyes and Nikhil braced himself for their responses. They said nothing at first, simply glancing at each other for validation and confirmation. Naaz and Sterlyn nodded solemnly at each other.
“We are at your service, brother,” they said in unison.
Chapter Fifteen
Marcus
Dragon Monastery, Sunda Islands
Present Day
Marcus opened his eyes when a soft hand brushed across his forehead. The image that greeted him was of a beautiful, dark-haired woman with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. She gazed down at him solemnly, her irises flickering with inner light.
Something in her aura was familiar, reminding him of the dragons who had carried him and Evie away from Hell.
“Welcome back,” she said in a low, soft voice that resonated in his mind the way the black dragon’s voice had. “I’m Belah. My brother, Ked, wanted to make sure you were taken care of. Are you in any pain?”
Belah. He remembered now, but the last time he’d seen her she’d been naked and bound in ropes, with Nikhil’s hand around her throat. A moment later his master had drifted away with her.
It seemed like eons ago that he’d been in that room, secretly keeping tabs on this woman for his master—former master. Watching while Evie’s two brothers let themselves be marked by her, to be bound as her mates. He’d been instrumental in letting her be taken from them, but also in helping them get her back.
“My pain was earned.” he said, his voice rasping through a dry throat, the words trailing off to a cough that made his entire body burn with agony. He hadn’t protected either of them in the end. Not this woman, nor Evie. Evie.
