by Jaden Wilkes
Behind me, Cairo was snarling and biting Carl. Alexi was long gone, but I could hear the rending of flesh being torn off bone, the crunching of bones being torn apart, and the meaty sound of a beast eating his meal and enjoying it.
My stomach roiled at it, not able to process the fact that my Cai had done it to protect me, to save his sister.
And besides, that warrior part of me wanted to join him, roll in the entrails of our vanquished foes and run wild in the night, our breath like smoke from our deflating lungs.
I sometimes craved shifting, wondered what it would be like, if I could ever become like him.
“What are you doing?” Milan asked. “She’s dying.” A sob overtook her and she hunched over, letting out a pained whine.
“I’m saving her,” I replied and laid my hands on her head, closed my eyes and reached my consciousness down into the earth.
“What is...” I heard Milan’s exclamation fade out and incredulous wonder take its place. “Oh my god. What are you?”
“Just let me work,” I said, completely distracted by the power that was beginning to trickle up my body and through to Paris.
First stop was my own arm, I felt the familiar tingling sensation as the cells knitted back together, staunching the flow of blood and rebuilding the torn tissue.
Second was reaching out through Paris’ body, I’d never done this so it was a new sensation to me, but I could sense where the energy was needed, so I let it flow freely.
“Liv, what is this?” Milan asked in a hushed tone.
I opened my eyes and saw the familiar blue haze covering my body, a shimmering fog that swirled and danced, like gasoline on water’s surface.
“It’s what I do,” I said, feeling bashful.
I turned my head and caught Cairo, still in wolf form, sniffing the air and pacing back and forth. I heard him whine and saw him stop, stand still and stare at something near the entrance to the tent.
“Her eyes are open,” Milan exhaled slowly. “I thought she was done for.”
“Not yet,” I replied, focusing next on the gash in Paris’ chest. It was a sucking wound that hissed with each breath she took. I closed my eyes and closed the puncture to her lung, felt her body shudder and heard her take a huge breath.
I was so intent on making sure Paris survived that I wasn’t paying attention to my own energy reserves. I’d never had any formal training in healing, but it made sense that there was only so much I could handle at any given time and I was reaching my limits.
I felt sweat beading on my forehead as I struggled to push the last pulse of healing light into Paris’ steadily healing body, giving her another burst of power.
“Olivia?” she asked. “I was dying. I saw...I saw my mom...”
“I know, but you’re back now,” I replied, opening my eyes and looking into hers, so much like her brother’s. “You’re going to be okay.”
“You look awful,” Paris said, “please stop, it’s hurting you.”
“It doesn’t hurt, but it’s exhausting,” I replied and shut my eyes again and allowed the flow of energy to quell, retreat back from her body, through mine, and down into the earth.
“You’re like an elastic band when you use magic,” Milan told me, holding my arm. “You can only stretch yourself so far before it loosens up. Anyone who practices magic has to learn this.”
“I think I have a lot to learn,” I smiled and looked down at Paris. “Cairo is going to be so happy you’re okay.”
“I feel good. I mean I thought I was dead. How did you find me?” she asked.
“Your friend found you and came to get us,” Milan said, moving to the side so the young acrobat could offer a shy smile and a small wave. He’d gone back to human form and was wearing his clothing again.
Paris brightened when she saw him. “Ethan, you helped save my life.”
I sensed a spark there, between the two of them. I reached for Milan’s hand and she helped me up so Ethan could take my place by Paris’ side.
“Young love,” I smiled at Milan as Ethan fell to her side, holding her hand and telling her all the things he should have told her before she almost died. It was funny how moments of tragedy, or almost tragedy, reminded us that life was short and we needed to say it all before we lost that chance.
I had so much to tell Cairo, first and foremost being that I would stay with him if he wanted to run Cirque. I would never leave his side or ask him to choose, I was at home with him and our love was worth more than anything I could find without him by my side.
“There’s my girl,” I heard him say from behind me. I grinned and turned to greet him. He was still naked, his glorious body shining from sweat and exertion, blood spattered his flesh, but I barely noticed.
I just saw him, his eyes shining in love and pride at what he had done, he has saved me.
“There’s my savage beast,” I laughed and walked the distance between us. He enveloped me in his arms, his particular musky scent mixed with the tangy metallic scent of blood.
I couldn’t lie, it turned me on. The savage part of myself was becoming more and more predominant as she woke.
He hooked his finger under my chin and tilted my head for a kiss. I parted my lips and let him consume me with his need, his lips salty and hungry, the taste of blood, sweat and victory clinging to his beard, I moaned and met his need with my own.
“Olivia!” Milan screamed, startling the both of us out of our kiss.
I pulled away and looked up to see Orion standing between the rows of bleachers, knives in his hand and a look of death in his eye.
“You!” he roared, his voice dark and powerful in the small space. “You did all of this! You ruined everything!”
His handsome face was so twisted with rage that he was barely recognizable. I trembled in fear and held onto Cairo’s hand like it was my lifeline.
“Did you know about this?” Cai demanded, waving around at the blood soaked stage and dirt beneath our feet. “Did you know they were killing girls for money?”
“Do you know how much they’ll pay to watch a girl get fucked on stage?” Orion sneered, his lip curled in disgust. “Do you know how much they’ll pay to watch that same girl get fucked then torn apart by a beast?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t need to know. What you’ve done is deplorable,” Cairo spat.
“I didn’t do it,” Orion replied evenly, “That was Alexi and Carl. It was all their big plan to make money and retire early. I just took my cut. How else do you think the Cirque has stayed afloat all these months?”
“If you didn’t fucking gamble our money away, we would do just fine on ticket sales alone,” Cairo growled. “Who else is involved in this?”
“That doesn’t matter now,” Orion snarled, “the cops are here rounding them up. Some fucking cop your little girlfriend decided to call in. Can you believe it? She marches in here with her witchy power, steals you right out from under my nose, takes over command of the family, and now she goes to the outside to restore order in my show? In my fucking show?”
“She did nothing that shouldn’t have been done weeks ago,” Cairo replied in a sad, heavy voice. “She’s brave, braver than I ever was.”
“Then she won’t mind dying,” he said and moved his hands faster than I could keep up.
The rest was slow motion in my mind, it had to have happened in slow motion, otherwise how could it have happened so fast?
Two foot long knives, dangerous and razor sharp, thin things from the east Orion always said, forged in the fires of Samurai houses and honed to perfection through decades of use. Two of them left his hand as he extended his arms, they flipped over twice, righted themselves and sailed towards their marks.
My heart.
I could feel it beating so hard I thought it must be somewhere in between my ears and not housed all the way down in my chest.
One beat, the knives were flying.
Two beats and there was a blur of flesh and fur, rib cage and extend
ed forearms as Cairo leapt in front of me in mid shift, half wolf and half man, but still vulnerable flesh and bone.
Three beats and the tent disappeared. The world disappeared.
And we were together on a white plain.
Chapter Thirty Four
“Where are we?” Cairo asked incredulously, running his hands up and down the front of his naked body.
“I don’t know,” I replied, searching the horizon for any defining feature at all. There were mountains in the distance, trees and rocks in another direction, but around us was flat and white.
“You are in my domain,” that great buzzing voice hit my ears, consuming my head and vibrating the landscape. Brigid.
“Who are you?” Cairo asked, standing next to me to guard me.
“Brigid,” I said quietly, “she’s contacted me before.”
“Why did you remove us?” Cairo asked. “Where are you?”
“I am everywhere here,” she said, “I am everything in this world.”
“Can you tell us why you brought us here?” I asked.
“I brought you to offer you more than any other acolyte has been offered before, because it is necessary this time,” she said in that buzzing tone that almost overwhelmed my senses.
The air seemed to split in front of us and out of it stepped the same wizened old woman from my dreams. “Is this better?” she asked, adjusting a long white cloak around her shoulders. “I don’t want to come as the maiden, you’re fella here would lose his mind.”
“I doubt that,” Cairo glowered, staring down at her.
“I like him,” Brigid said, looking up at him with a toothless grin. “It’s too bad about the end of things.”
“What’s the choice? What end of things?” I asked.
“Eager to get back to that?” Brigid asked, her voice still multi layered and buzzing, but no longer coming from inside so it was tolerable.
“Not necessarily, but this is no place for us either,” I replied, feeling in my bones how much this world wanted us gone. We weren’t of this world, and didn’t belong.
She smiled and looked at me with a look a mother might give a particularly bright child. “Bingo,” she said. “Now on to the decision. Bear with me as I explain some things to you. Have a seat if you must.” She motioned behind us and a little garden bench appeared, white and smooth like the rest of the world.
Cairo and I sat down, he took my hand in his and gripped it like he was never going to let me go.
“Get on with it,” he said in a low voice, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“There is a prophecy, and I believe your girl here is all caught up in it,” she said with a smile. “Three women will come into the world, three women who will command the beasts of earth, air and water. Three women who will aid in bringing the earth back to a state that is more compatible with her...well...let’s say surviving the infestation of human beings she seems to be enduring.”
“How will that happen?” I asked, “There are so many people, and we’ve been fighting against climate change but it seems impossible at times.”
“Restoring the balance between magic and science,” she said. “Technology is all fine and good, but it’s killing us. We’re slowly choking on everything that is produced, used, and thrown away to sit listlessly in a landfill somewhere. It has to stop, and you are one of the pivots that will bring about that change.”
“What’s the choice?” Cairo asked, squeezing my hand to comfort me. I smiled at him, loving him for being here with me, beside me.
“That choice is yours, my young wolf,” Brigid said, turning to Cairo with deep, sorrowful eyes. “You must decide between you and your son.”
“I don’t have a son,” he replied, knitting his brows together.
“Not yet, but he’s already tucked away safely inside the body of his mother,” Brigid replied, looking at me.
“I can’t get pregnant,” I said, starting to suspect she was a little off her rocker.
“Oh, but you can,” she smiled, showing that gummy grin. “You are, and in about nine months you will give birth to one of the foundation leaders of the new world. He will be a warrior with his father’s fighting heart, and a diplomat with his mother’s gift to influence people. He will be one of the three that ushers in the new world order.”
“What does that have to do with Cairo?” I asked, my chest tightening and my heart threatening to explode out of my throat with the speed it was fluttering.
“I think you know,” she replied, staring into my eyes, tears forming at the corner of hers.
I thought about it, looked over at Cairo and realized he already knew where this was going.
“No,” I said, “I won’t let him choose. Send us back, save us both.”
“It’s not your choice to make, my daughter,” Brigid replied. She crouched down in front of us and set her hands over ours. “This is where you must be torn apart, feel the pain that you’ve avoided all these years. Through pain comes joy, and only when we lose do we understand how to win. You’ve been a magic creature missing that last step to become fully formed, you have to walk through the fire and come out whole or you are not the one.”
“I don’t want to be the one,” I whispered fiercely. I felt tears stinging the back of my eyelids as it all sunk in. “Send me back and leave me the fuck alone. Let my body feel pain, but don’t tear out my heart like this.”
“If you go back with him, you will lose yourself to him,” Brigid said. “Haven’t you felt it already? Haven’t you wondered how you could see your friend’s murdered body and let it fade so fast? Haven’t you wondered why he takes up your every waking moment and consumes your every single breath? You are bonded, but your kind of bond is endless. In this instance, it will devour you until you are a living breathing representation of that bond. You will no longer feel anything but your love for Cairo.”
“I don’t care,” I said, “Nothing else matters to me, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Even as I said it, I realized how dangerous my obsession with Cairo could become. I would become a shell of my former self, a lap dog living for him and his needs only.
It was an ancient bond when society lived like that, when a woman’s place was at her husband’s beck and call and thousands of years ago it made sense to bond the priestess of the goddess to the leader of the pack. In that case, their bond would make them stronger, more formidable.
These days it wouldn’t work like that. I would lose everything to him, and in some way that terrified me.
“Is there something I can do to prevent her being consumed by me?” Cairo asked. “Anything at all?”
Brigid shook her head, her eyes shadowed by the truth we both saw there.
“I accept your offer,” Cairo said quietly, not even thinking about it.
“No, you can’t,” I said, “You can’t!” I looked at Brigid and declared, “He doesn’t accept anything.”
“Liv,” Cairo exhaled, forcing me to look at him. “This is our son. Our baby. I would give my life for you or him a thousand times over if I had to.”
“No,” I spat. “We can have another. If I could get pregnant this time, I can get pregnant again. Fuck this old bitch, seriously. Fuck them all. We’ll adopt if you want a child so badly, but no, I won’t let you go.”
Tears were streaming down my cheeks in earnest now, his eyes were bright with unshed tears of his own.
“You’ll never have another chance, my daughter,” Brigid said, her voice thick with sorrow. “This is it for you, your son has sparked and is already growing inside, and he is necessary for the future of the planet. You could walk away from your responsibilities, but I don’t know when the next one like you will come up. By then, it might be too late.”
“I don’t care. Let the world crumble, it’s not our fault, why are you making all of this our fault?” I felt like I was on the brink of hysterics, about to lose my mind as it processed this situation. This horrible, loaded, unfair situation.
Cairo took my face in his hands, the hands I loved, strong and calloused, gentle when they need to be. He looked into my eyes and said, “I could never live with myself if I let our child die. Eventually you couldn’t live with that knowledge either, Liv. It would destroy us.”
“I can’t lose you...” My voice broke and my heart followed suit. I started to crumble, fall apart inside even before he said his last.
“You will find him again,” Brigid told me, “once your life is over, he will be waiting on the other side for you. I promise you that. You will find him again.”
“Do it,” Cairo said, his voice stern and strong and fully decided. He kissed me then, like the first time, like the last. His mouth was soft and gentle, but his passion took over and he lost himself in me, I lost myself in him, if for but a moment. That moment was all we had left in the world.
I could taste our tears on my tongue and feel his breath on my lips. He pulled away, brushed my hair from my forehead, smiled and said, “I love you Liv. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Chapter Thirty Five
Four beats and Cairo was struck in the heart by both knives, I heard the almost silent hiss as they entered his flesh. I screamed, a seemingly endless cry of rage and hurt, as his body fell to the ground. His body twisted and he reached his human form as he rolled into his back.
I dropped to his side, shrieking and raging against the events that had led up to this. I cursed Brigid, I cursed Orion, I cursed everyone who had ever even looked at the two of us.
The knives were sticking up from his chest, how they’d managed to hit their mark while he was moving so fast was beyond me, but they had. Orion’s aim had been true.
“Don’t leave me,” I whispered, leaning over him, my tears spilling on his chest. “Don’t leave me like this.”
Cairo’s eyes were wide open, his face a frozen grimace of surprised pain. I thought about taking the knives out but knew that could cause more damage than help, so I left them.
