by Ophelia Bell
He disregarded the dangers of revealing himself and shifted, then launched into the air with a surge of flapping wings. Soaring over the island, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu, only this time he was hunting for his lover, and not a way out.
Chapter Forty-Four
Vrishti
Vrishti came to with the taste of blood on her lips and a groggy sense of displacement. The light was wrong—closed in, artificial—and it made her itch. She hated tight spaces.
She struggled to move, but her limbs felt like lead weights and her head refused to turn. All she could do was stare up at the stark light above her in its mirrored, dome-shaped fixture. It looked like a dentist’s light.
Where the hell was she? The last thing she remembered was the glorious surge of pure power as she harnessed her magic to help capture the woman she now knew was the enemy Aodh had warned her about. The leader of the Ultiori.
She winced at the sudden, sharp spike of pain that pierced her skull. A shadow moved nearby and she fixed her attention to it.
“Where are we? What do you want? They’ll find me, you know.”
“They won’t be quick enough,” Meri said. “We’ll only be here for a little while, then we’re going home, you and me.”
Something cold and sharp jabbed at her forearm and pain shot into her tender skin. Pure panic gripped her, cold nausea knotting in her belly. The woman came into view then, her dark eyes filled with chilly contempt.
“Fate has shifted in my favor. I have a perfect vessel for the baby and enough Source power to move an army, all in one fat little ursa package.”
She adjusted something at the side of the table, and out of the corner of her eye, Vrishti saw a transparent bag begin filling with her blood. Blood-filled tubes lay along each arm, warming as her blood flowed out of her.
Somewhere from far above, she heard the sounds of a skirmish. Meri cast a worried look to the ceiling before moving to Vrishti’s feet and pushing against the table. Wheels creaked to life somewhere beneath her, and a shimmering veil between her and the ceiling rippled as they moved. Whatever barrier Meri had erected around them moved with them.
Vrishti closed her eyes, forcing herself to focus. First she sent out a silent plea, hoping her melded connection to Neph and Aodh still worked, but all she sensed was that cold, wet darkness, as though her very own mind had become a sealed cell with no lights. Then she reached deeper for the power she knew had to be there.
“Oh no you don’t,” Meri said, tutting softly. Then a sharp tug yanked at her mind like a leash. She could feel the power swelling in her, a fresh wave of her estrous pulsed in her core with its urgent ache. A sudden painful spasm gripped her and she cried out involuntarily, hating herself for her outburst in this woman’s presence.
“It hurts, does it? Well, I have the perfect solution to your little issue. This will solve both our problems.”
The wheels of the exam table rolled across a smooth floor, the lights fading for a moment before brightening again. The temperature dropped several degrees, lending some relief from Vrishti’s heated body, but not to the pulsing ache of need in her womb.
Behind her head something shifted, beeped, and she heard a soft scraping sound. Warmth rushed across her and the table moved again, turned in a tight arc, and then stopped. The soft whoosh sounded again and from her new vantage a door slid shut behind Meri, leaving behind nothing but a seamless, solid wall of steel.
“Where are we?” Vrishti asked, her voice shaky and brittle, her vision already swimming from blood loss.
“Allow me to introduce you to your new little passenger. My pride and joy.”
Meri turned the table again until Vrishti faced the center of the room. In front of her stood a wide pedestal of circular steel, and on top of it was a cylindrical tank filled with viscous, clear liquid tinged light pink. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the tiny creature inside. It was no larger than a mango from her father’s tree, its tiny hands balled into fists as it floated inside the tank. Tiny wings lay along its curved back, the membrane so thin it was nearly invisible with delicate webs of blue veins crisscrossed within. A vivid blue cord extended from its navel, the end attached to a network of biomechanical nodes at the top of the tank where it was fed from a measured container of red fluid that slowly diminished.
The shimmering field around them flickered, and Meri cursed toward the ceiling.
“They found you, didn’t they?” Vrishti asked. “Nikhil and the others.”
“It doesn’t matter now. Everything I need is right here in this room. By the time this temporal bubble catches up to them, we’ll be gone.”
She hurriedly began tapping at the console that rested atop the counter on one side of the steel pedestal. The entire contraption lowered several feet, leaving the container of blood suspended above with the baby’s umbilical cord stretching up out of the fluid.
Meri’s hands shimmered with blue light when she disconnected the cord, then pushed more power into the viscous liquid inside the tank. A glowing, egg-like membrane formed around the fetus.
Then Meri turned and placed her hands against Vrishti’s bare middle, between her navel and her pubic bone.
“What are you doing? No!” Vrishti said, finally discerning some hint of what the evil bitch intended.
“Do you want this little creature to die? Because that blood up there is all that’s left to keep her alive unless you take over. She’ll know where to go as soon as I show her the way—her only instinct now is survival, sustenance. And you have exactly what she needs.”
Tears streamed down Vrishti’s cheeks, her chest aching at the perfect shape of the beautiful, tiny creature inside that bubble in the tank.
“Please …” Vrishti begged.
“Not that you have a choice, but would you actually refuse to save that life? Do you know how many other babies died to create this one?”
Heavy sobs racked Vrishti’s body as she watched the baby move, unable to tear her gaze away. Its little foot kicked out, pushing clawed toes that resembled a tiny, oblong paw at the impermeable barrier that encased it. The movement propelled it in a circle, and it rotated until she could see it head-on in all its perfectly formed wonder. It was a little girl, and Gaia’s tears if Vrishti wouldn’t do everything in her power to save it from whatever this evil bitch had in mind.
She nodded, her vision blurry from tears.
“Good,” Meri said, a hint of smugness in her tone. Her hands tightened over Vrishti’s womb and warmth flooded into her like Meri had opened up a faucet from her palm directly into Vrishti’s core. The ache of her estrous disappeared, and before her eyes, the baby shimmered and grew translucent, just the way Neph’s body did when he began a drift.
Mere seconds after the baby disappeared, her body felt infinitely fuller, a sense of perfect well-being overcoming her, even stronger than the sensation imparted by Aodh’s magic breath. Her consciousness faded just as the wild power within her found purchase and enveloped the tiny creature as though that were its only purpose all along. But at the same time her heart broke for the what she’d been forced to do just to stick to her own principles.
With the certainty that the sacrifice had to be worth it, she let herself slip into darkness.
Chapter Forty-Five
Aodh
Aodh rematerialized inside the sandstone corridor, Neph already by his side breaking into a dead run toward the sounds of conflict. They rounded the bend to the sight of several hunters locked in combat with a pair of turul females, fully shifted with wings spread and talons dug into two of their opponents.
The turul’s predatory shrieks echoed down the corridor, sending chills down Aodh’s spine. He hadn’t heard a turul battle cry in eons, and this pair certainly knew how to use their lungs to drive fear into their enemy’s hearts. The Ultiori they were currently ripping to shreds had their arms raise
d defensively, and the two behind them turned and started to run. Aodh leaped forward, manifesting his wings as he moved to propel himself over the fight. He flew past the fleeing hunters, landed in front of them, turned, and released a lungful of blazing white heat directly into their faces.
The hunters didn’t know what hit them, backpedaled only a step before bursting into flames. They flailed and yelled for a second before falling to the ground in a pair of flaming heaps that quickly dissolved into blackened coals, then pale ash.
Aodh raised his head in time to see Neph in full satyr form rip the head off one man, then turn to the remaining hunter just in time for the turul to tear out his throat with her massive beak.
The corpses at their feet, the pair of turul shifted into two lovely women. One was statuesque and dark-haired, the other a petite redhead. They panted and bent over at the waist to catch their breath. The dark-haired one nodded her thanks at Aodh as he approached.
“We had them dead to rights, but thank you,” she said. “Late to the party, are you?” She gave him and Neph a once-over. “You’re too clean to have been here from the start.”
Aodh looked down his pristine body, then at her blood-spattered one.
“We had another mission. Has their leader shown her face? We need to find her quickly.”
The woman shook her head. “No sign of her, but we haven’t been to the lower levels yet. There’s talk of a lab down there. Calder was working his way up, and we’re to meet them once we clear the upper levels. Come.”
She turned and strode quickly the other way with her smaller partner falling into step beside her, red hair a wild, untamed mess falling down her back. The redhead paused and stuck out her hand.
“She’s terrible at introductions. I’m Viki, she’s Anya. We’re from the Black Mountain Enclave.” As she walked, she eyed them both. “I remember him,” she said pointing at Neph, then she narrowed her eyes at Aodh. “You I’ve never seen, but you must be Belah’s other brother. The sweet one.”
Aodh frowned, too focused on following Anya to care much about Viki’s attempt at conversation, but he nodded and forced himself to make conversation. “Sweet, am I? Compared to what?”
“Dark and dirty,” Viki said with a grin.
Neph let out an involuntary snort that made Aodh jerk his head to the side and stare at his mate.
“She’s talking about Ked and Gavra. Do you disagree with her description of my brothers?”
Neph shook his head. “No, but she’s never seen you in action when you’re angry or horny.”
Aodh scowled and pushed past them. There was only one corridor, and he could see another turn at the end that appeared to be lit with electric lights. Hearing more sounds of fighting, he broke into a run.
Behind him, one of the turul women whistled, the sound both beautifully melodic and loud enough to make his ears ring. Moments later, the sound of flapping wings filled the corridor behind them and they were overrun with more turul flooding past in a single stream, feathered wings brushing along both sides of the hallway as they soared over Aodh’s head and down the steep staircase in front of him.
They fought again, making their way through throngs of hunters at each level and leaving more bodies and piles of ash in their wake.
He and Neph kept moving, the slow progress pushing his panic higher the longer it took to find any sign of Meri or Vrishti. Every so often, he and Neph would lock gazes, and his sense of frenzy would magnify with the sensation of Neph’s own desperation flooding into his mind.
They had to find her. The longer it took, the more danger she was in, and they absolutely had to get her back to the Sanctuary the next day.
They emerged from the tangled corridors into a central room where several smaller groups converged, and he finally spied Nikhil. Beside him, Neph let out a triumphant yell and he turned to see about half a dozen other horned satyrs rushing in, pale-faced and weary, but their eyes all swirling with battle frenzy.
Calder was in the middle of the group and broke away. It was then that Aodh saw Aurum and Nicholas. Belah and Nikhil and their turul mates were in the center of the room, speaking with Ked and Marcus. Several other dragons and turul were scattered around, catching their breath, but there was no sign of Meri or Vrishti.
Aodh crouched and shifted into his true shape, then let out a roar of rage. He’d tear down the entire base stone by stone, if he had to.
Instantly, seven satyrs materialized in front of him, and Neph’s huge horned shape reached out from the group to calm him.
“We think we know where Meri took her,” Neph said and glanced at Calder.
Calder gestured toward the doorway he’d come from. “Meri has a secret lab the next level down. Now that we’ve cleared her base, we need to get back down there. She had something … a captive … in the lab we want to take with us.”
“Not Vrishti …” Aodh said, barely coherent in his rage. Neph’s hand rested on his brow ridge, the touch managing to calm him enough for him to shift bach to his human form.
Aurum stepped closer to her satyr mate. “A baby. Likely a product of her experiments, but an innocent nonetheless. We didn’t want to disturb it sooner because we feared it wouldn’t survive, but now that we have control here, we need to go back for it. Perhaps we’ll find some clue down there about what she’s done with Vrishti.”
Aodh took a deep breath, struggling to find the calm that was normally innate for him.
“It was my fault she came with us,” he said to Neph.
“We both saw the power she’s capable of. We had to let her try,” Neph replied, his tone comforting despite the obvious sense of wrongness Aodh saw flickering through his lover’s aura. Neph had seen something—sensed something—and now doubted his own words as a result.
“What did you see?” Aodh bit out.
Neph pressed his lips into a tight line and moved to follow Nikhil and the others through the doorway Calder had departed through.
“Don’t you fucking walk away!” Aodh reached Neph in a few quick strides and grabbed the satyr’s arm, spinning him back around. “What the fuck did you see?”
“Nothing!” Neph’s voice echoed through the cavernous room, the outburst causing their entire group to stop and turn. His eyes swirled wildly and his jaw clenched, but he didn’t pull away. “I can see all times at once, if I look. Past, future … Right now, I know my sister is pacing in her cell in the Haven because she’s sensed Nereus awakening. Your brother is on his way to talk to her, to calm her down. I see those moments because they have nothing to do with me. But I can’t see a goddamn thing when it comes to who I love the most. All I see is blood, and it terrifies the fuck out of me. I don’t even know whose blood it is. We have to go and hope to all that is holy that it doesn’t belong to her.”
The tangled knot of emotions Neph projected through their bond hit Aodh like a sudden burst of fire. He swallowed a painful lump in his throat.
“You love her as if you’ve already mated. How many times did you meld?”
“Only twice, but I would give anything to have had a third.”
“I should have marked her when I had the chance.”
Neph nodded. “We should have blood-melded her the second we got back. We’d be able to find her, if we had. I don’t even get a sense of her from our melding—not even with your power added to mine.”
“I don’t deserve her after today.” Aodh’s stomach lurched at the thought of what his overconfidence might have caused. What would Meri do to her? Why had she taken her to begin with?
“Come. We don’t have time to waste on self-doubt.” Neph gripped Aodh’s elbow and the liquid sensation of the drift washed through him. A moment later, they landed at the end of the stairwell just behind the others and followed Calder through a huge steel door that he accessed via a keycard at a blinking panel on the wall.
This lev
el of the Ultiori base was even more modern than the ones above them, and they found themselves in a concrete and steel corridor on the other side of the door. Several yards beyond the door was an alcove where a pair of steel lift doors stood open, three slaughtered Ultiori hunters lying in a pool of blood on the floor. Aodh resisted the urge to set them on fire, but the blood caught his attention.
“Was that what you saw?” he asked, directing Neph’s attention to the pool on the floor between them and the opening to the lift.
“No. The quality of the light is wrong. I’ll know it when I see it.”
Calder motioned for them to move. “The lab is this way,” he said. Aodh sped up, flanking the younger satyr with Neph taking up the corridor on the other side of his nephew.
They rounded a bend where a large door stood open. Aodh peered in through it where he could see a massive glass tank. Around it the floor was flooded with slick fluid and blood, and several other dead hunters lay near the four doorways that led into the big room.
“That was where she kept us,” Nereus said, the first words Aodh had heard him speak since they’d reunited. “Meri charmed the suspension fluid somehow to block our connection to the River, but Calder and his mates had enough power to break through. Now that we’re out, I can feel Nyx again. She is hurting … I must get to her soon.”
“It won’t be so easy,” Neph said. “She’s blocked all the Haven’s portals from the inside. Not even I have enough of the Source in my blood to force one open.”
“This way,” Calder said. Aodh tore his gaze from the carnage in the other room and followed Calder into a smaller room across the hall. This room was more steel and concrete, devoid of signs of conflict and sterile aside from a tiny trail of blood that began in the center of the room. Slight scuff marks on the floor betrayed the absence of some kind of table that had once occupied the spot beneath a collection of articulating lamps attached to the ceiling.
Neph cursed and Aodh’s heart rate picked up. He bent down to the blood, which was sticky and nearly dried. A small smudge clung to his fingertip and he lifted it to his nose. The pungent, fertile scent was unmistakable.
