Nothing about the situation was right. The world was being torn apart by zombie-like, gigantic creatures, her friends, gods, were fighting off said creatures, and she was being destroyed from the inside out by a merciless entity that was hell-bent on making her pay for something that wasn’t her fault.
But damn it, had Zen really kissed that blonde? He had to have for this to start inside her. She hadn’t seen one glimpse of him and his lover until a few minutes ago, and she knew deep down that it was because another female had touched her mate.
“Evesse, what is happening?”
Eve couldn’t blame her for asking. Not only was she about to seize, but she was coughing up blood. “I . . . I . . .”
“Evesse. Whatever it is you are thinking of, try not to focus on it.”
“I am trying!”
The feelings coursing through her felt worthy of Mount Vesuvius. As it should be. She figured that any woman in love would feel the same way faced with visuals of another female fucking her male.
Covering her face with her hands, she curled into herself. She coughed and felt blood splatter hotly into the palms of her hands. She couldn’t breathe, she hurt everywhere, and no matter how hard she pressed her fingertips into her eyes—even when white spots appeared in her vision—the memories continued.
They were in surround sound, too. She could hear them moaning.
Her rage bubbled over. Feeling like nothing more than a rabid animal, she slammed her fists into the concrete beneath her. Dimithinia jumped out of the way, into the car behind her. Eve ground her teeth, trying to stop herself from lashing out again.
The sound of something impacting the cement made her think she had lost that battle. Until she heard a loud, dangerous growl that was distinctly canine.
She barely managed to squeeze an eye open. When she did, she caught sight of Cyake, just feet away from her and frozen in place. He was facing the wall. In profile, she could see his head thrown back, his enlarged, vicious teeth bared.
Fucking hell. Those canines. If she didn’t know any better she’d say he was reacting to his mate.
But he didn’t have one. She knew that.
She shared a WTF look with Dimithinia before turning back to observe what seemed to be a rabid god. Cy’s gaze was locked with the ceiling and his large ribcage pumped up and down with each hard breath. Up and down until Eve was sure he was going to hyperventilate.
Another unholy growl left him.
He lowered his head, rotating his neck slowly. When Evesse saw his expression, she actually moved back into the wall, scared. His golden eyes were enlarged, everything about them twice as big as usual. He looked like he was in the grips of something unnatural, even for a being like him. He seemed possessed.
Evesse shifted until she could see around the wall, wondering what the hell he was staring at with those huge eyes.
Uh . . . Spari? Was he staring at Spari like that?
Cyake took off, running so fast he flew by in a blur. Eve heard him break the sound barrier, and before she could blink, he was in front of Nylicia’s human sister, grabbing her by the arms. He lifted the stunned-speechless girl off her feet, flipped her around, and in a flash had her pressed against the wall.
Spari was tiny compared to him. Her feet were left dangling in the air as he lifted her to his height. Cy got all up in her grill, baring those huge teeth and giving her a beastly growl.
“You.” He shoved his thigh between her legs, pressing every inch of himself on Spari without bothering to ask her consent. It was like he wanted to rub himself all over her and mark her with his scent. “It’s you. You’re the one.”
Spari gaped at Cy, fear in her eyes.
Cyake was oblivious, breathing so hard between growls that he sounded asthmatic. He let go of Spari’s arms, and shoved his hands through her hair. Fisting it, he tilted her head back. Brought her closer. His eyes grew heavy lidded and he leaned in to scent her. One long sniff across her cheek.
Spari gave a little gasp.
“You,” Cy repeated, pulling back. “You will be mine.” His eyes had gone metallic blue, so blue that they gave off a matching glow against Spari’s face.
Her next gasp was so loud that it echoed in the parking lot.
“My . . . my R’ma.” Cyake grunted, pulling her closer—pressing his nose up against her cheek and breathing her in hard. “My mate.”
“N—no,” Spari whimpered, staring unblinking over his shoulder.
“Yeesss.” He locked eyes with her, pressing his forehead to hers. “You will be mine.”
A dam seemed to break inside Spari. The scream that she let loose had Evesse cringing and covering her ears. In a rage, Spari began kicking at Cy, beating on him with her fists.
She didn’t stop screaming or beating on him even when her hands broke. Evesse heard the bones snap all the way across the parking lot.
“Cyake!” Ismini cried, letting go of the wall and running toward him.
Dyletri and Ianthen came running around a corner on the other side, both of them crying out his name, too.
Holy shit. Mother of all complications. Evesse was pretty God damned sure that Cy had just gone all God of Prophecy with the whole “you shall be mine” bit. She had no idea whether they even knew each other before this, but he had probably just sealed both his and Spari’s fates.
Fuck.
Double fuck.
“You gotta let her go, dude!”
Cyake swiveled his head around and growled at Ianthen like he had every intention of biting his freaking arm off. Ismini and Dyletri skidded to a halt, eyes wide as they took in Cyake’s expression.
It was like some sick soap opera unfolding right before her. Hell, it had even managed to distract Evesse from the bullshit going on within her.
Until Zen appeared out of thin air and fell to his knees next to her.
“Evesse.”
She jerked, that miserable fire sparking back to life inside her. As soon as he reached out for her, the retching came back harder than ever.
“Evesse.”
“Don’t touch me.” Don’t pay attention to the tone of his voice. It doesn’t matter!
Coughing and spewing blood she shouldn’t have anymore, she fell to her side.
Cyake growled and shouted. Ianthen and Dyletri shouted back at him as they pulled him away from Spari. Spari sobbed so hard that Eve sympathized with her.
Ismini looked at the chaos around her helplessly before her gaze settled on Evesse.
Her eyes narrowed. In a flash, Ismini was in front of them. “Evesse!”
Zeniel pulled Eve into his arms.
“Let GO of me.” Evesse groaned, lashing out. Her fist connected with his head.
Zen grunted, but didn’t let her go. After that, the last of Eve’s strength seeped out, taking most of her consciousness with it.
Ismini glared at Zen accusingly. “What’s wrong with her? What the fuck did you do?”
Evesse was too weak to fight Zeniel, even though the feel of his body was doing nothing to soothe her. Just smelling and feeling him against her unleashed a headache so intense that her entire back arched in a spasm. What felt like a thousand knives seemed to slice into her brain, then cleave down the length of her spine.
“Evesse, baby—”
“Don’t you call me that.”
“I’m taking her,” Zen said, standing with her in his arms. She was shaking, hard, but not so hard that she didn’t feel him shaking, too.
Fuck, she was so enraged at him she wanted to bite his skin off but she couldn’t move enough to do so. Between the tremors, and the migraine eating away at her brain tissue, she could barely stay awake.
“Zeniel, wait,” Ismini said.
He didn’t wait to see what else she had to say. He dematerialized with Eve, taking her away from the parking lot as the sound of sirens blended with Spari’s cries.
Before she even got a chance to feel them travel, they came to a stop.
They were back i
n the bedroom where Zen had taken her virginity. Thinking about him fucking her, though, only served to bring back more images of him fucking the blond.
“You stupid fucking asshole. Let me go.”
If only she had the strength to back up that demand and force him to.
He inhaled sharply, probably at the fact that she was really cursing him out now.
She so didn’t care if he was offended. “Let me go!”
“Evesse, please. I’m sorry.” He pressed his cheek against hers. His warmth shot through her.
Yearning and hate twisted gleefully in her gut, making her whimper. “Don’t touch me!” She pressed a hand against his neck, pushing back. Not that it did any good. “Let go!”
“Eve—”
“I fucking see you with her!” she shrieked, sobbing anew. She had no clue how she would stop the images, but she did know that he couldn’t touch her until then. Feeling him was making it worse.
Zen froze.
“Now! Let me go now, damn you to hell!”
His arms slackened.
She all but spilled out of them, landing hard on the floor.
He made a low, rough sound, taking a step toward her with the clear intention of lifting her back up.
Eve scrambled across the floor, nearly blind. She didn’t stop until she hit the wall, literally. Zen took another step and she almost howled with frustration.
“Stay away from me!” Clutching her head was doing nothing but giving her something to hold on to. “P—please.” The fact that she had to beg him right then was all wrong. It rubbed against her like granite grating on a wound. “Please, stay back.”
There was a short pause and then . . . gods, he fell to his knees in front of her.
She squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to block out the visual. A tiny part of her felt bad. She could feel his own pain coming off him in dark waves. He wasn’t as sick as she was, but he was still affected.
Probably because he’d let that bitch kiss him.
“Why?” she whispered, pissed off when she felt the tears get worse. “Why’d you let her touch you?”
“Eve . . .”
She didn’t hear what else he said. Bringing her knees up to her chest, she tried to lose her face between them. Blood was trickling out of the corners of her mouth. Freaky. Downright wrong. Not for the first time, she really fucking wished that she hadn’t been mated. Being in love was hard enough, but adding this fucked-up shit to it?
Again, wrong.
Zeniel inhaled sharply. “We are . . . we aren’t wrong, you hear me?”
Had she spoken out loud? Fuck, had she said that she loved him?
“It was an accident. She caught me off guard because—”
She didn’t look up at him. She continued rocking back and forth, as if that would help. “Why?” she gritted out. “How the hell did she catch you off guard? Why?”
“She . . . I felt guilty. I was going to have to tell her that I was mated to you, and I felt bad because I thought it would break her heart.”
The mother of all pathetic, pleading sounds left Eve’s lips as her own heart broke. She didn’t know why. Okay, she did, but she could only blame the R’mannev for how she was feeling. Because it wasn’t logical. Hearing that he’d felt bad about telling another female that he was mated to her had Eve ready to kill something.
Him.
Then she’d kill that bitch.
Whoa, psycho. As if you’re not pathetic enough.
“You aren’t pathetic. Evesse. Please. At least let me get you cleaned up. Please, baby.”
She hadn’t even realized she’d spoken that last part out loud.
She jumped away from him when he went to grab her, and ended up four feet inside the wood and plaster of the walls.
“Please,” she pleaded, shaking her head and not looking at him. “Please don’t touch me. It hurts. I need you to not touch me.”
Chapter 25
His R’ma had begged him not to touch her. She sat curled into herself, had nearly buried herself in the wall just to get away from him, and was covered in blood. Her agony was a dark, ruthless presence in the air around him, suffocating him to the point that he could barely breathe.
The sound of her tears cut him open from the inside. Every wave of pain that went through her slammed through their connection and set off an answering wave inside him.
All he wanted to do was hold her. Apologize. Strip them both naked and take her, drink her, force her to drink him, and give her his entire body until the images in her head were erased by the basic fact of their reality.
He was hers. He was mated to her.
And she was begging him not to touch her.
Fuck his life. Fuck him. What had he done?
She was bleeding so badly that he could only scent her blood in the air. Nothing else. His incisors throbbed. His cock did too, aching in a way it never had. He thought he’d known hunger. Thought he’d known need. That she’d already pushed him past the points of starvation. But he’d been wrong.
He was wild, on the verge of losing himself to the instincts racking him.
They were demanding that he force himself on her. Cover her, take her, come inside her over and over, until she was marked completely and she understood that she owned him.
If he touched her he was going to hurt her. He knew this. He had seen Nylicia suffer through many, many episodes like this over the millennia. Because of that, he knew what Eve was going through.
What she was seeing in her head.
“You. You’re everything to me.” He moved closer, just an inch, slowly, watching her as she curled into herself, shaking her head. Her whimpers were killing him, hitting him with equal parts of misery and lust. “I belong to you.”
“Then why did you feel bad telling her about me?” Eve yelled, crawling away from him as fast as she could.
“It was a mistake. Evesse, stop. You need to stop.”
She wasn’t listening to him. She kept on going until she’d crawled into the corner next to the bathroom. Once there, she curled into herself, looking exactly like what she was—an injured animal destroyed by pure instinct.
He hadn’t meant to, but he’d done that to her. Him. She hated the fact that she belonged to him, and he had no one to blame but himself.
Do something, you fool. Do something.
What? What could he do? He couldn’t even care for her. If he touched her, she would spiral further into the symptoms attacking her. He knew that he couldn’t lay a hand on her until those symptoms began to ease.
It could take fucking days.
How the hell was he supposed to leave her like that for days? The sight of her and all that blood was destroying him. His heart was breaking.
Then do something, you worthless fuck. Help your female.
How? He didn’t have his Tranquility powers anymore, and they’d never really worked on Evesse. He’d used them many times over the years to help Nylicia, but without them, he couldn’t even try.
Yes, you can.
The thought went through his head, sounding a hell of a lot like his voice when Mavrak took over. Wait. Was Mavrak actually telling him to try to use his Tranquility powers?
We don’t have them anymore.
Use them on our female, you fucking moron! She aches.
This wasn’t going to work. He had never been more certain of anything in his existence. But the way Eve sat rocking and pulling on her hair, her little face pressed into her knees, had him ready to try anything.
Hell, he’d give his own existence if it meant that he could ease her and erase the pain she was in.
He slid closer, moving slower than a fucking snail, and watching for any reaction. She didn’t look at him. Her whimpers had died out some, but she was still sniffling, and when he inhaled hard, he smelled the salty tang of her tears mixed with her blood.
Focus. You need to be able to do this. You can’t leave her in pain like this.
He shifted until he was six
inches away from her, careful to remain quiet. On his knees, he straightened his upper body, closed his eyes, and begged himself to find his center of calm. Without it, he wasn’t going to be able to call forth what he needed.
Despite his doubts, he pushed himself, taking deep breaths and forcing himself to ignore how Eve’s blood smelled.
How long he was at it, he had no clue. He didn’t care. The first few minutes were unbearable. Eve’s sniffles were almost impossible to ignore. Reckless impulses gnawed at him, demanding that he jump off his feet and hurl himself at her. The fact that he loved her and was unable to watch her suffer was the only thing that kept him in place, even during those few minutes where he was sure it wasn’t going to work.
The first spark inside him felt familiar, soothing. He almost doubted that it was happening. Then, the darkness blanketed his thoughts, sliding down his spine and encompassing the rest of his body.
Yes. Zeniel remembered this. Hadn’t felt it in over a month now, but the feeling was so familiar. He focused on it, ignoring the rush of elation that threatened. It would distract him, and he needed to keep himself centered. Connected to the darkness. As soon as he was sure he had a good hold on it, he began willing it out of himself, and aimed it toward Evesse.
Lost to the darkness, without any other choice, he kept at it, not knowing if it was working or not. The farther he allowed himself to sink into trance, the less he heard and sensed of the outside world. It was just him, the darkness, and the whispers of an ache that wouldn’t go away.
When he opened his eyes, relief almost made him fall flat on his face.
Evesse was unconscious, lying on the floor, her chest rising with each steady breath. There was a small furrow between her eyebrows. He knew that she was still feeling some of the pain—Gods help him, she was probably still seeing shit she shouldn’t be seeing—but it was a start. He could work with this. If she was sufficiently out, he could at least try to tend to her.
He needed to tend to her. Not doing so was the biggest injustice he’d ever experienced.
And he’d seen some seriously messed up crap in his life.
Blood Stained Tranquility Page 23
