Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  Ezra looks at Xander first. “You need to concentrate on Latrosis, your ability to heal others. Understood?”

  Xander nods. “Wait, what do I need to heal?”

  Without warning, Ezra pulls a blade from his pant leg and sends it across the room into Nate’s abdomen. I can’t believe what I’m seeing as I look between Nate and Ezra. Blood slowly soaks Nate’s grey shirt and I start toward him when Ezra grabs me around the waist and holds me to him. I growl at him. “Let me go! What the fuck are you doing?”

  Why would he do that? “Are you fucking insane!”

  Nate’s wide eyes stay on Ezra as he stumbles and falls to his knees. I feel my whole body break just as he falls as I sink down to the ground to try and gain traction to break away from my father, the fucking mad man!

  As he grips me tight, holding me away from Nate, Xander stands between us shocked by what Ezra has done as he looks at Nate bleeding out.

  Ezra’s words are urgent and harsh as he hisses close to my ear. “Stop it Jes! Xander!”

  I’m able to scramble away from Ezra for only a second, before he yanks me back to the ground, pinning my arms behind my back with his.

  “Let me go to him!”

  Ezra tightens his grip. “NO! Xander go to him! Now!”

  Nate’s hunched over, his hand now touching the ground to hold him up as Xander goes to the ground next to him. “What the fuck do I do?”

  Ezra yells urgently. “Do what we practiced!”

  I can’t help the frantic tears coming now as my voice cracks, “Why are you doing this, Ezra?”

  He hisses, “He has to learn.”

  I hear Nate’s heart, slowing and my urge to break free from Ezra is unbearable as I throw my body and writhe to get away. Through blurry, tear-filled eyes, I see Xander kneel before Nate and place one hand on his shoulder and the other on the knife. Nate’s and Xander’s eyes meet and then Xander pulls the blade from him releasing a gush of blood. I release a sob just as readily as the blood flows from him. Quickly, Xander places his hand on the wound as Nate clasps his forearm and they both lean into each other. Almost immediately, Nate’s faint and slowing heart picks up volume and strength. They both are breathing heavily as Xander pairs his Latrosis with Nate’s energy, feeding the healing taking place.

  Ezra’s grip lessens, but doesn’t release me. “See! He’s healing him.”

  I’m in disbelief at how quickly Xander is healing him. Suddenly, I hear another heart beat racing and suddenly Nate’s increases to catch up to it. It isn’t mine. I can feel the rhythm of my hammering heart and it doesn’t match the sound. Like I’ve uncovered a mystery, I suddenly feel my pulse rise quicker and stronger to meet theirs. The power of the fibrillation pulls me from Ezra’s weakened grasp and I fall forward from my knees to my hands as I watch Xander help Nate to stand. Once they release each other, my heart skips a beat before downshifting out of synch with theirs.

  Xander wobbles and leans against a nearby wooden post as Nate stands in the middle of the basement.

  “You okay Jes?”

  Nate’s question comes across as ridiculous when he’s the one who was near death and bleeding moments ago.

  I push off my hands and sit back on my knees as Ezra rises next to me. He puts his hand out to me. Reluctantly, I take it; still in disbelief, that he speared Nate with a knife all to prove Xander could heal him. As I rise, I say to him. “They’re linked.”

  Ezra tosses Nate an old rag. “As I suspected.”

  Nate pulls off his blood soaked shirt and wipes his blood stained skin. There isn’t even a scar. Nate glares at Ezra, “Suspected? What if he couldn’t heal me?”

  I stand by Nate’s comment. “Yeah. He could have died because of something you suspected!”

  Xander moves closer. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Ezra scratches the top of his unruly head of hair. “I had confidence. Now to test you Jes.”

  What the hell? “What? Why? Nate and I are already linked.”

  Ezra looks between Xander and I as he moves in toward me.

  Nate and Xander move toward me but they aren’t fast enough as Ezra strikes me in the chest with his fist. I stumble backward and into Xander’s arms expecting to rebound, but I crumble with no control of my limbs.

  As Xander slowly brings me to the floor, everything around me and in me begins to slow and blur. As I look down at my chest, expecting to see a knife jutting out from my breastplate, but there’s nothing. The burst of pain filling me begins to dull, taking my energy with it. Helplessly, I watch Ezra yanking and pulling Nate from me. “Stop it Nate! Xander, save her!”

  Ezra is struggling to hold Nate back as Xander shifts me in his arms so I’m looking up at him. My head won’t hold still as it lolls against his chest. I feel cold from the inside out and fear that somehow I’ve been paralyzed. The whooshing of my heart pulsing in my head is slowing. With every pump of it, I know that I’m getting closer to empty. I feel Xander’s panic as his words move through avenues of a tunnel, a mere echo. “What did you fucking do Ezra?”

  It’s getting hard to breathe, my body too depleted to continue putting forth effort to live.

  While sounds of Nate and Ezra arguing and struggling are added echoes to my fading heartbeat, Xander’s thoughts fill my head with perfect clarity. “I won’t let you die Jes.”

  I watch motionless as Xander places one open hand on my chest and pulls me closer. I’m trying to hold them open, but I can’t hold my eyes open any longer. As soon as I let them fall closed, I hear Xander think, “Don’t close them! Keep them on me! Hey! Hey! God dammit, look at me!”

  His command gives me the fight to pull them open as much as I can before the pull is too strong. Everything in sight disintegrates into a thick blackened fog.

  All of a sudden, I feel detached, like I’m floating up and away from Xander.

  “He’s not healing her, Ezra!”

  Nate’s voice sounds wonky, like static on a screwed up radio channel. So does Ezra as he calls back to him. “Just wait damn it!”

  All I can think as I drift away from them is that Ezra chose wrong by thinking Xander and I were linked.

  Something deep inside stirs suddenly. A spark large enough to let me blink my eyes open and see that I’m hovering, looking down at Xander holding my limp body to him. He takes hold of my face in his hand and pats the side of my cheek as he’s trying to bring me to. “Jes! Stay with me!”

  With his face inches from mine, he looks over at Nate and Ezra panicked. “She’s not responding to me! I need your help!”

  Nate is still trying to slip from my father’s arms as Ezra grits his teeth. “She will respond! She did last night! Concentrate Xander!”

  The look in Ezra’s eyes as I watch him from above is both maniacal and tortured. “Don’t you let her go Xander! Don’t you fucking let her go!”

  Nate is pleading and fighting for Ezra to let go as I remain motionless and numb looking down on the three of them when a surge of pure energy punches me in the chest. The moment I blink, I’m back in Xander’s arms, his cracking voice against my ear. “You are not leaving me. You hear me.”

  I feel like I’m underwater, seconds away from surfacing as my body fights to find the air it needs to live when a rolling current of energy begins pumping through me. The sound of my heart beating returns and is working to match the one already in my head––Xander’s.

  Sensation begins returning to me; the warmth of his arms, his hand on my chest sending the warm healing current into me, my gasping for air as I look up into is panic-stricken eyes. His breath is a ragged as mine now as he pulls me to him and weeps. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

  CHAPTER 21: TRUST

  Ezra

  The thing about a blow from one’s life force is that it’s like an electrically charged spider web being cast out to its
prey. In this case, my daughter. Once it is set forth, it attaches and sends its intense surge of power through its silks. Set in place and unable to release, the prey is unable to dislodge. I just struck my only flesh and blood with all of my life force, causing her spine to split, while piercing her lungs, kidney and heart.

  Yes, it was insane, but I never claimed to be fully sane after living the life I have. If I had nicked her across the arm or leg, Xander wouldn’t have been as desperate to heal her. Nate wouldn’t have either. And I wouldn’t have been as desperate as I was to hold Nate back and force Xander to harness his own abilities and purpose.

  I felt it last night and had to test it today. I needed to make sure that the manufactured link with Nate and apparent bond with Xander would be strong enough to save Jes if her life depended on it.

  CHAPTER 22: SNOWFLAKES

  Jesca

  Feeling Nate’s touch on my head, I pull back from Xander’s arms to look up at him.

  Nate looks from Xander to me inspecting both of us after what just happened.

  The movement of Ezra toward us has us all on guard. Xander warns him, “Stay the fuck back!”

  Nate moves away from Xander and me and turns on him. “How could you risk her like that Ezra?”

  Ezra doesn’t back down as he comes nose to nose with Nate. “There was no risk! If I thought for one second that she might die, I wouldn’t have done what I did!”

  I notice Nate balling his fists and feel the surge of anger coursing through him. At the same time, Xander and I warn him by name, “Nate!”

  Nose to nose, Ezra explains. “I already trust you with her life. I needed to trust Xander with it as well.”

  Ezra glances over at Xander and me as he holds me in his arms. “Even if they aren’t linked.”

  Ezra blinks revealing the emotions he’s trying to hide behind the reddening rims of his eyes. “If something were to happen to you—me—I needed to know that he could do it.”

  Ezra turns quickly and walks away from Nate, putting space between them and leaving me with so many questions.

  As Nate helps me up and Xander rises, none of us speak. I can feel all three of them watching me as if I’m some fragile egg ready to break as I walk to the stairs. I’m not a fragile egg, but I do need some time to work all the shit swarming in my head. I look back at Ezra before climbing the stairs. As soon as I make eye contact, he turns and walks to the other side of the basement. The way that Nate and Xander are eyeing him, I’m almost fearful to leave them both unattended with him. Almost.

  After peeling the bloodstained shirt from my body, rinsing off and putting on a fresh set of clothes, I curl up in my bed and look out the window. It looks to be almost dusk with the darkened sky, but the clock reads 3:30 p.m. Sign of the strange climactic times we’re in. Strange fucking times in general. Times where you have super powers that can save the universe if you survive and dodge being killed by your father to prove a link or bond between another. Shit.

  The snowflakes falling begin to collect in the corner of the windowsill. As they stick to the glass, they begin to stack and connect, link. Slowly making their crystal ladder upward, but to where. This could be the last time I see snowflakes stacking. The last time I see amber arc lightning crawling across the night sky as it is right now. The tapping rhythm of sleet hitting the windowsill ends the snowflake menagerie as the ice melts and pushes the interlinked flakes down. I whisper, “Hold on. Don’t let go.”

  They can only hold on until they are forced from the windowsill. the link inevitably breaking.

  Nate is linked to both Xander and me, but Ezra says Xander and I aren’t. If we aren’t, how did he save me? It wasn’t just healing. There was trust and something much more powerful at work. I was at death’s doorstep and he brought me back. Ezra spoke of trust and a bond more powerful than a link. Something he had with my mother. Is that what happened down there in the basement? Did Xander’s and my apparent bond surpass the power of Nate’s and my link?

  Ezra’s words ring in my head now. Nate asked him why he risked killing me to prove Xander could heal me. Ezra said he needed to make sure that Xander could save me if something happened to him or Nate. The panic the thought of losing any of them rises in my throat and I pinch my eyes shut to search the visions and nightmares for any revelations that their lives could be taken. But all of us are at risk in this fight and nothing is as it appears in these fucking visions. I can’t decipher the nightmares with the half-truths and illusive clues they reveal. What if I have missed something in them? One small detail could result in the death of any of us. All of us. Even more, what if I’m not the only one with the visions of our future? What if Ezra has seen more than he’s telling?

  CHAPTER 23: FOUND

  Xander

  Nate is sitting on the sofa, eyeing the top of the stairs, as I add logs to the fire.

  “So, we’re linked.”

  I glance over at Nate as he stares at the fire.

  I walk over to sit across from him. “Looks that way, cousin.”

  Staring at me now, he adds, “And, you and Jes aren’t.”

  I’m not in the mood for him to pick a fucking fight with me right now. I look down at my clasped hands and suck it up. “No, we aren’t.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  I look up at Nate and see the sincerity. He didn’t mean anything by it.

  He sighs and leans forward. “Look, I know you care about Jes. And, in that room last night, when you saved her—I could sense your feelings for her coursing through me. It didn’t occur to me why I could feel them until today—when we found out about our link.”

  Nate rises and walks to the fireplace. “When you saved her down there, I could feel what you felt.”

  He looks back at me as he leans his hand against the mantle. “We both care about her. And now, this link connects the three of us.”

  I’m about to agree with him, when a trembling hits the pit of my stomach then radiates up my torso and into my arms. As soon as I’m aware of it, I notice Nate move away from the mantle and look down at himself. “What’s that feeling?”

  The hair on the back of my neck rises and the feeling of something coming toward me is overwhelming. “Someone is coming,” I mumble as I rise and rush to the feed coming through the drones on the laptop. As I scroll, Nate comes to my side and searches each segmented screen with me when Ezra pushes the door to the basement open. “It’s a mile out.”

  Not sure how he sensed anything down in the basement, I glance back down at the segment Nate is pointing too. “There! Shit! Someone found us!”

  I click on the segment and zoom in on the white SUV crossing the small screen.

  Nate asks me, “Is it Sam?”

  I shake my head, not feeling him. “No. It’s not him.”

  “Where’s Jesca?”

  The urgency in Ezra’s voice has me panicked. “She’s upstairs!”

  CHAPTER 24: GUESTS

  Jesca

  The vibration hit as I lay there. As soon as it did, I didn’t wait for the telltale hum to begin before I was out the door and down the stairs, running smack into Ezra’s arms.

  “What is going on?”

  Ezra questions, “You can’t read them either?”

  “No.”

  “Shit! Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Grab each other’s hands.”

  We do what Ezra tells us.

  He continues explaining, “We need to try to break through the block. Nate and Xander, we need to send all of your energy to Jesca. Jesca, imagine puncturing the mental block with our combined life force.”

  My nod doesn’t seem to appease him. “Do you understand what to do?”

  I nod, but really have no idea what I’m doing. As soon as we clasp hands and I shut my eyes, I feel the warm energy jolt through me. It’s too intense. All
of their energy coming at me is too much. Nervously, I call to Ezra. “The energy is coming to fast. I can’t...”

  Ezra cuts me off. “Yes you can! You can handle it! Harness it and pull it into your core!”

  As I breath in, each breath carries the energy into the safest place within me; the center of my body where I hold all of my own strength. Once the build feels too strong to hold in any longer, I let it flow outward to everything around me. In my mind’s eye, I see Nate, Xander, Ezra, beyond the doors of the cabin, through the snow, to the sound of the engine, the wheels moving toward us, and into the truck. I seek faces, but there is none. Only minds, so I feel for their intentions. Like I have intruded on them, I hear a familiar voice whispering a thought into my mind, “We’re here to help.”

  I can’t trust my mind. I have to see them. I draw in more of the energy Ezra, Nate, and Xander are giving to see who’s with me in the truck. My blind mind’s eye suddenly has sight as the back of the heads of two males materialize in front of me. All of a sudden, one turns to face me, projecting me out of the truck and back into the cabin with Nate, Ezra and Xander.

  “It’s Sebastian and Balthazar. They’re in the truck!”

  Ezra stands at the window, waiting for them to pull up. Xander, Nate and I are too anxious to sit while we anticipate an explanation as to why Sebastian and Balthazar are here.

  I hear their footsteps on the porch before Ezra opens the door. The wind gusts into the cabin, blowing in from behind the two men. Both are wearing hooded parkas. Ezra forces the door closed after letting them enter the cabin. Sebastian and Balthazar pull back their hoods and take off their coats.

  It’s strange to see Sebastian and Balthazar in person. The only instances I have seen them is when they have projected themselves into my dreams. Sebastian’s hair is slicked back and peppered with more gray than black. Balthazar looks like a younger version of his father, not gray at all.

  It’s awkward, but Ezra makes an introduction for Xander. “Sebastian and Balthazar, this is Alexander...”