by C. M. Owens
Yeah… Still getting used to the whole centuries thing. And the throat-ripping-out thing. And the consequence of death thing.
Not easy. Not easy at all.
She doesn’t mention the fact that Karma is her actual family, and I don’t have the right to point it out, since I have no clue what’s going on between them.
“Yet everyone follows him,” I whisper, hoping it’s low enough. Apparently super people have super hearing.
“We all want one thing. Revenge. Slade is the strongest. With him, we stand a chance.”
“But not with Zee’s people,” I surmise.
She nods. “They’re too easily distracted. Have you met the incubus? He’s a walking one-man show who never shuts up. And that’s who Karma is with. They have zero interest in being the strongest. They keep thinking they’re untouchable. And their values only water down what has to be done. They risked their lives for the wolf girl, and somehow we were dragged into having to help them. I can’t imagine Slade helping out for any other reason. Their priorities are jacked, and they’re putting us all at risk.”
“Wouldn’t Slade risk his life to save you?”
She smiles bitterly. “I’d kill myself if they took me back. He wouldn’t have to save me. But no, he wouldn’t come for me. No one would. It’s not a priority, and that’s the way it should be. In the end, we’re all expendable. Nothing can compromise the ultimate goal.”
That almost makes me even sadder than the damn prison story.
“This is serious, Leah. You’ve stepped into some heavy shit. You’re with us or you’re not. But your soul… I’ve never seen such a glow before. Not on any mortal, even if they were destined for immortality. It means there’s a strong power inside of you, and we could use more strength.”
Which means it would make sense to join forces with Zee’s crew, but I don’t point that out. I’m not sure how much of it is because I want to see him, but I wish I could get them to talk.
I’m also still not sure how to process the fact she thinks I’m fey.
A comfortable silence falls over us until she walks outside.
For the next however many hours, I read over numerous things, researching this hidden world that destroys all illusions of reality I once had. Everyone else has gone outside to do whatever it is they do, and I forget that I’m not alone in the house.
Until a bedroom door opens and my heart jumps into my throat.
Slowly, I turn around to see two dull blue eyes—not silver, for some reason—staring into mine, and I try not to gasp when I see the slash-style scars marring the upper body in front of me. The scars on his torso look to have once been deep. Tan flesh is carved with constant marks, and each one represents more pain than the last.
“Get your fill before I put my shirt on.” The cold, distasteful voice has me snapping my wandering eyes back up.
He’s trying to sound amused, but the anger in his eyes and the tense posture he carries proves he wasn’t expecting to see me. And he doesn’t like me looking.
“Sorry,” I mutter, turning around quickly.
The rustling of clothing lets me know he’s pulling a shirt on, but I pretend I’m reading, hoping he goes outside.
“Kya figure out what you are?” he asks.
Freaking eh. His low, deep, gravelly voice is just as scary as the rest of him.
I shake my head when I get worried my voice is gone. He nods curtly before grabbing a knife and putting into a holster on his hip.
My voice finds its way back on the wings of curiosity. “Weapons work?”
“Not mortal weapons. These are from the anointed. Trust me, you don’t want to run into them. Some of them are harder to kill than us, even though legend would like you to believe they were easier to kill. We’re a prideful species.”
Swiveling on my seat, I turn to face him.
“Kya mentioned them. Essentially they’re like a group of Sam and Dean type people. Right?”
He just cocks an eyebrow at me.
“Sorry. Old show reference. You probably haven’t watched a lot of TV.”
He goes back to putting a few more things in holsters. Talking isn’t his forte.
“The weaker bloodlines are killed easier, but it’s still not a mindless task,” he says with his back turned. “One was killed not long ago by a changer, but it wasn’t easy for him to kill her. She was a good fighter. She killed an ogre first before the changer could end her. If she was strong enough to carry her weight in a fight against a changer after killing an ogre, then she was a serious threat. And she was a weak bloodline. They didn’t even try to hide the family tree or give up any children to ensure its safety because they were such a weak, overlooked line. Imagine how dangerous a strong bloodline can be.”
So not Sam and Dean. They were awesome, but just humans with salt and shotguns and a thing for tempting death.
Holy shit. Now I’m even thinking about TV like it’s real. I need to get a grip.
“Are they hunting you?”
“Us?” he asks, correcting me. “They’re hunting all of us, yes. There’s a group posted in town. We’ve been keeping tabs on them. Some of them are just humans who have been recruited. They’re leveling the playing field with trigger-response weapons akin to crossbows but stronger and more powerful.”
“Guns?”
He nods again. Trigger-response weapons? How old is this guy that he doesn’t know what guns are called?
“I know how to shoot a gun. I have one at my house. My granddad was ex-army.”
He doesn’t even look at me, still piling on the weapons as he keeps his back turned.
“Only anointed weapons that have been magically blessed can do harm. We’d hoped they couldn’t recreate the anointed crests. It’s not an easy process. They’ve apparently been stocking up for a while, which means they knew the second the power returned to their bloodline.”
And he’s lost me again.
“Okay…”
“You’re too young and new to be of any use. But Kya wants to keep you.”
“You make me sound like a pet,” I mutter bitterly.
“Essentially, you are. She misses her sister. She spent years in a cage worrying about her, and it kept her going. Now she can’t be with her, because she doesn’t want her in this fight. Karma isn’t strong like Kya. She’ll die if she goes to war. You’re just a replacement for the void she feels.”
He’s so callous and cold that I feel like I need a winter coat just to be in his presence.
“Are you always so cold?”
He pauses, but no emotion crosses his face.
“It’s rational. Not cold. You’re acting too human to think logically.”
I am human.
I don’t bother arguing that.
“It feels like everyone is fighting to be the most powerful. I’m not even sure who the good guys are right now.”
“It’s not about who or what is better,” he tells me. “It’s about who can fuck the hardest, who can endure the most, and who can kill the quickest. It’s all we’re about. It’s all I know. Welcome to our fucked up world.”
Cold chills break across and pebble on my skin. It’s like he’s just a shell of a person instead of someone capable of feeling anything. I don’t particularly like this fucked up world if that’s how things are.
“Can’t you just kill all the anointed people? You’re supposed to be some crazy big power, right?”
He narrows his eyes as he turns to face me, and I immediately wish I could chase those words and swallow them before they hit his ears.
“Tongues can be cut out if they’re constantly being annoying. Remember that.”
I almost want to hug my tongue and comfort it when it shudders at his threat.
“And I could kill them,” he adds, turning back around to open a book, “but it’s not my mission. All it would do is draw attention to me, and more would come. It’s not smart to announce myself to an anointed’s team. The queen’s mongrels killed one
anointed, and now a team has come. That’s how it works. They’ll steadily recruit more humans, arm them, and even give them protective amulets that handicap some fey power from—”
“Incoming!” A booming voice interrupts anything else he was going to say, and he’s out the door before I can process the sound of roars outside.
In my haste, I fall off the damn stool when I try to get up, but I scramble to the door to see… I don’t know what the hell I see.
Every freaky, gory movie I’ve ever watched couldn’t have prepared me for this.
Pale, sickly-thin, and black-eyed things with sharp fangs and ashy skin are rushing out of the woods and attacking all of them. The sun has just set, so it’s light enough to tell what’s going on, but too dark to fully see it for what it is.
“Hit the lights!” Slade barks.
“They’re not working!” someone else yells. “They’re fucking destroyed.”
Magic! They have magic! Can’t someone just throw a wand toward it, say “el reapairato” or something and fix that shit?
I hover in the doorway, watching in disbelief as everyone uses power I didn’t know could exist. Kya is like a machine, slicing through them and lashing out red beams and… Holy shit… She has fireballs?
Lights finally come on, and the creatures scream into the night and retreat back somewhat. The light doesn’t cover much ground, but the blue streaks swirling out of Slade seem to be slicing through them like a hot knife against butter.
That’s disgusting.
And they bleed a black, oozing, festering type of blood.
That’s even more disgusting.
Before my stomach can revolt, my eyes fall on Kya. She’s on the ground, fighting to keep one’s snapping teeth off her, while struggling to push away three more with her legs.
“My magic isn’t working!” she barks. “They can fucking subdue us now!”
No one goes to her aid, just like she promised no one would.
I’ll be damned if I just watch her die.
I grab the closest thing to me, which is a row of what I think are throwing knives. I barely notice the various symbols or different types of knives, and I start pulling them out and chucking them.
Instinct takes over, and shock radiates through me when the three knives I throw rip through the air with practiced perfection and nail all three of the creepy vampiric things in the heads. Right between the eyes.
I’m a freaking badass.
Kya’s eyes widen with surprise and a hint of gratitude, and I launch another knife at one racing up behind her before it can lay its hands on her. Again, the knife pegs the creature right between the eyes.
I don’t even know how I’m doing it, but it feels right. It’s almost too easy to be accurate, and a sense of pride swells. I just saved her life.
Kya starts launching red streaks of magic again, apparently no longer subdued, and I continue to throw the row of knives one by one.
Until I grab one near the end.
A garbled cry escapes me when a burning sensation runs from my hand up my arm, and I look down, seeing the knife glowing like the sun. My veins start glowing under the skin, matching the same golden hue of the blade, and I cry out in pain as the burning intensifies and travels through my body.
“Leah!”
Kya’s voice is drowned out by my own screams as more and more light starts to surround me, glowing brighter and brighter as though it’s growing from my body. All of my veins feel like they’re on fire, and suddenly the building power bursts free as light breaks across the yard.
Screams erupt, and panic seizes me, until I realize those screams are from the monsters and not the… well, they’re all technically monsters.
And apparently so am I.
The light continues to pour out of me, and I watch in disbelief as those things start exploding into ashes. They try to run, but the light chases them, disintegrating them as though its mission is just that.
My legs wobble as the power seizes me, and I clutch the doorway for support to keep from falling. As suddenly as it erupted, the light vanishes from sight, and I drop to my knees, unable to stand any longer.
Silence is deafening, so I look up to see all eyes on me. Most look confused, but one pair looks murderous.
Slade’s.
“Aquarius,” he says through clenched teeth.
“No, she can’t be. I’ve seen the anointed, and she’s not one of them. Her soul is—”
“Completely fucking different because of her bloodline. She’s a motherfucking Aquarius, Kya!” he roars. “The first bloodline of the anointed. They were the only ones capable of what you just saw.”
Following their conversation is impossible, and I look down to the knife in my hand. The glow is gone, but it looks polished and new instead of appearing like the antique relic it was earlier.
They’re still arguing, but the words are lost on me. The symbol on the blade calls to me, like it’s letting me know we belong together. It’s an innocuous symbol of a sun rising on the horizon. Or maybe it’s setting. I’m not sure.
“Slade, please, don’t! She just saved our lives,” Kya begs, snapping me out of my trance.
I look up just as a streak of blue barrels at my chest, but it washes over me, evaporating into thin air instead of doing any damage.
“What the fuck?” Slade growls.
Kya mouths, “Run.” Her eyes are wide and panicked, but she can’t stand up to Slade. He’d kill her too.
Slade leaps at me, and instinct takes over again. Rocketing up from the ground, one leg kicks up, and my foot slams into his chest. More shock rattles me when he’s launched backwards, and I flip—yes, flip—over the railing and start running even as feet thunder behind me.
“Do not let her go!” Slade roars. “Kill her!”
Chapter 10
ZEE
“You’re too quiet,” Sylvia taunts, but a small smile plays on my lips. “Always so quiet. It’s unsettling. I don’t like the quiet ones. You weren’t quiet when I got you.”
She runs her fingers up my spine, circling me.
“What are you thinking about?” she muses, but I shut her up by handing her a letter from my old friend.
Silan is in town, it seems. And he apparently wants to play with Sylvia before he destroys her.
Sylvia reads it, and I don’t miss the way she sucks in a sharp breath before crumpling the paper and tossing it harder than necessary at the corner of the room. She glares at me, pointing a finger in my face.
“If Silan shows up, you will notify me. Then you will do everything in your power to stop him. Understand?”
I nod, understanding completely what she’s saying. Guess it’s time to feel like I’m being dipped in acid, because I will defy both of those orders.
“I’m just saying life would be easier if monkeys reigned instead of humans,” Dice states, pointing at the movie where a planet of apes reigning exists. “That wouldn’t be accurate, though. No. If apes ruled in real life, there’d be no modesty, no concern if someone watched them fuck, and no reason to worry about monetary means. They’re like us, all things considered.”
“You’re really comparing us to apes?” Thad asks him.
“You can be an ape if you choose,” Dice states flatly. “I envy you a little. But you can’t fuck like a porn star, so I guess I win the coolest fey award.”
Before I can weigh in on the stupid topic, a searing pain hits my chest, and panic rises. It’s not my panic though. I can feel her, hear her, and taste her like she’s right up against me.
The fuck is going on?
“Zee?” Thad prompts.
It takes a second to realize I’m on the floor and crawling toward the door.
“Leah,” I hoarsely say, but another pang of pain hits me, like I can feel what she feels, and I grip my chin that suddenly aches.
“Zee!” Thad yells as I run out.
I’m dematerializing before I can think about it, and the wind pushes me forward, guidi
ng me. It gets stronger—the pull of her calling for me. Suddenly, I’m materializing in the middle of the woods somewhere, and Leah is rushing toward me with wide, terrified eyes and a bloody mouth.
“Run!” she yells just as Slade materializes behind her.
My hands fly out before I can stop them, and several red and blue orbs fly free.
That’s new. Usually they’re not so easy to control.
Slade looks too surprised to see me to react quickly enough, and the orbs slam into him, tearing flesh and drawing blood as he flies backward. Leah crashes into me, and I grab her, hauling her against my body as I dematerialize us.
The second we’re back on solid ground, panic hits me hard. Dematerializing a mortal can kill them, and even if she is destined for immortality, she’s not immortal yet.
Surprise flows through me when we fully materialize, and she grabs my neck, pulling me down until our lips crash against each other’s. She’s not even sick or disoriented from the dematerialization.
She moans into my mouth, and my mind catches up to the action too late.
Fuuuuck.
The taste of her blood… It spikes a carnal need inside of me, and I have to fight hard to only use poison’s kiss venom instead of trying to sire her. She tastes so fucking good, and I grab her roughly by the ass and lift her until her legs wrap around me.
“Thank you,” she whispers against my lips, kissing me again. “Please don’t kill me. I swear I’m not one of them.”
Right now, I wouldn’t give a fuck if she was one of Slade’s people. Considering she was running from him as he tried to kill her, I think it’s pointless to proclaim her innocence. It became obvious very quickly she’s not one of them.
She kisses me harder, and I press her against the wall of Kane’s house, tearing at her shirt.
