Her nose greedily pulled in his scent, pumping a “hey-idiot-turn-around!” through Evesse’s synapses. The world faded, and everything around her ceased to matter.
All but one thing.
“Evesse.”
She gave an embarrassing little squeal, flipping around, her wide eyes searching out her mate.
Zeniel.
It was her Zeniel. He was in the room. He was storming toward her. His demon markings were writhing, his cheekbones were beautiful, and his blood-shot eyes were . . .
Blue and gray.
His eyes were blue and freaking gray.
“Z-Zen?”
He swooped down on her, his big arms lifting her off the floor.
Stunned, Eve stared blankly behind him as he pressed his cheek to hers and rubbed their faces together. The pleased groan he gave shocked her out of it.
“Zen.”
“Baby.” He pulled back.
Blue and gray. She hadn’t been imagining it. The physical marks of his Erencei half were still visible, but his eyes were . . . no. It wasn’t his war demon half any longer.
“You . . . you’re whole now, aren’t you?” She cupped his face.
His eyes were red and swollen, but his irises remained the same dual color that reflected his Tranquility powers. The nod he gave her was small. His smile, however, was not, and once again she was faced with that grateful look.
“Yes. Thank you.”
Zen had been crying. She realized that just as she felt his residual pain hit her through their re-opened connection. The memories churned beneath his notice, painful but unheeded at the moment. He cupped her head, putting them forehead to forehead and inhaling her. Eyes closed, he smiled and thanked her again.
The relief in his tone almost broke her right there.
Zen didn’t give her a chance to fall into tears. His eyes opened to half-mast, and locked on her lips. The look he gave her was so primal, it made her shiver.
“You wanted me whole, my R’ma.” She trembled harder at the way his voice split. Willingly. “You’ve got me.”
She was about to have him all right. As a matter of fact, her thoughts had all centered on the idea of having him under her, and using her body to erase any lingering pain he felt.
Until Ianthen puked again. Loudly.
Zen scowled in confusion, staring over Evesse’s shoulder.
She saw the exact moment he realized what Ian had done. His eyes blurred red and black and he let out a dangerous growl.
“You moron.” He let Eve go, taking a step into the bathroom. “I should rip you apart. Let my wraiths destroy your manhood. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“The freaking prophecy, you fidiot! And you’re taking your new role as uncle a little too seriously, don’t you think?”
Evesse grabbed Zen’s arm, waiting for the mist to start up. He turned his head and shook it, silently letting her know that he was okay. He was seeing Ianthen’s actions but he wasn’t feeling a need to punish him.
Zen looked back at Ian. “You fool. You’re going to die like this.” Scoffing, he turned to look over his shoulder. “Where is Nylicia? Wasn’t she working on—”
Cyake popped into the room before Zen could finish.
This time, when Zeniel’s eyes widened, there was no doubt that little trickles of mist were beginning to swirl out. Like miniature ribbons in the wind. He slammed his eyes shut and dove, pressing his head between Eve’s shoulder and neck.
Eve grabbed the back of his head, holding him to her.
“Tell me I can’t punish him. Please.”
She looked away from Cy’s tortured, worried expression and whispered in Zen’s ear. “Don’t punish him.”
She wasn’t even surprised when she heard her voice change. What did surprise her, however, was that her new powers didn’t act up in front of Cyake, either. Clearly, the things he had done were bad enough to screw with Zen’s powers. So why were hers unaffected?
Zen moved back, slowly, eyes closed as if he was afraid that her command wasn’t going to stick. The relief he felt when he opened his eyes without danger was palpable.
Cyake looked between Zen and Eve, shocked. There was a spark of hope in his face there, too. As if he had been waiting a long time to see what he was seeing and still couldn’t believe it was happening.
The moment was broken by Ianthen, who seemed like he wasn’t going to be able to stop anytime soon. Cyake stormed past Eve and Zen, horrified.
“Fucking hell dude! Why the fuck didn’t you call me? What the fuck happened? What the hell did you do?”
“Here we go again.” Nythi rolled her eyes heavenward, taking her place behind her brother and running a hand soothingly along her brother’s fauxhawk.
Ianthen didn’t get a chance to answer. A light flashed next to him on the blood coated counter, and in its wake were two odd, silver cylinders.
No. Not cylinders. They looked like arm cuffs. Freaky cuffs that consisted of multiple, engraved rings connected to a single bar. The rings didn’t meet on the other side, and it was obvious that the bar went on the front of the forearm, and the rings went halfway around the back of it.
It was what was on the end of those rings that almost freaked her out. Eight rings and on the ends of each one, on both sides, were what looked like spikes. The kind that stuck out of a pit bull’s collar or the kind you found on gothic accessories. Except these were scalpel sharp.
Eight rings, sixteen spikes, and if the end of the rings went on the back of the forearm that could only mean that the spikes went inside.
She didn’t recognize the language of the words engraved on the bracelets. Didn’t matter. Somehow, she knew what they were for, and she could sense what they were made out of.
“Put them on.”
Everyone turned at the sound of Nylicia’s voice. Standing behind Zeniel and Eve, her projection held a red-and-white popcorn bag. She was plucking kernels out of it, looking like she didn’t have a care in the world.
“You!” Cyake stormed up to her, finger in her face. “Where is she? Where is your sister?”
Nylicia stared up at him in an utterly blasé way. “I don’t know. She’s mad at me, too. And even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you just yet.”
“I need to fucking know!”
“No.” Nylicia’s expression morphed into something totally dangerous. “You need to fucking wait for me to feel like finding her for you. I had no choice but to give her to you, but you are the last being alive to deserve her. Got it?”
“This”—Cyake pointed at Ianthen—“is my future. If I can’t find her, I’m fucked.”
“You’re fucked anyway. Didn’t you realize how she reacted to you? She wants nothing to do with you. And I don’t blame her.”
“Why?” Cy asked, eyes and pupils huge with dread. Seeing that kind of fear in a god’s eyes was wrong. Like watching a shark swim away from a fight. “I didn’t even know of her until that night. Why did she seem to hate me?”
“Can’t tell you that. Actually, don’t feel like it. Not yet. Now move. Ianthen is sick. You haven’t even begun the process of bonding or mating. And, honestly, I can’t wait to see you do both.”
Nylicia stepped around Cy, who scowled after her like he was barely holding himself back from exploding. It was clear in the way that he looked at Ian that concern for his friend was the only thing that stopped him.
Nylicia motioned with the bag of popcorn toward the arm cuffs. “They’ll inhibit your neurological impulses and control the chemical flow of both the mating and bonding. Well, the chips in them are programmed to do that. I had to use magic to actually set them at a level that would only attack your mating symptoms and not your bodily functions as a whole.”
Exactly as Eve had suspected. As if to illustrate Nylicia’s point, little sparks of energy came to life, traveling through the bracelets and racing along the carved symbols on them.
“And this will control my symptoms?”
Nylicia
shrugged and went for a whole handful of popcorn this time. Ian glared at her as she shoved it in her mouth.
“Most of them,” she answered around a mouthful. And as see-through as she was, there was no sight of the popcorn being crunched up in her mouth. Her cheeks were bloated as she chewed. “Don’t worry. They’ve been tested. Successfully. They won’t cure you, that’s impossible. But they should keep you somewhat steady until you figure out how to fix this mess you made.”
“There won’t be any fixing it.” Eve shook her head, sympathy for Ianthen blossoming for the first time. “Soleria has been cheated on by every single guy she’s ever been with. Lover, boyfriend, and fiancé alike. From the age of sixteen to now. We’re talking a decade. She’s never going to forget what she saw.”
Ianthen barely turned back to the sink in time.
It was ridiculous how much blood a mated immortal could lose.
Cyake stepped up to his friend and cupped his neck. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. Dude, I’m sorry.”
Ian shook his head as Nylicia piped in.
“He’s right, Cyake. It isn’t your fault. It’s his.”
Although Ian had been trying to ease his friend, even he looked surprised at Nylicia’s claim. “But the prophecy. It mentioned—”
“The thing that was most important to him will be the thing that destroys him. That was the last part of it. Verbatim. Was, bitch. It said was. And what was most important to you? Your status as prototype to Hugh Hefner. It didn’t have to play out that way, either. I saw it. You were actually supposed to be Cyake’s only failed prophecy. But . . . well, you’re officially a self-fulfilling prophecy, babe. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“You knew! You fucking knew that and you couldn’t warn me?”
Nylicia blinked, looking perplexed. “Now why would I do that? That’s like a mommy not letting her child learn their lesson on their own. That would make me a bad mommy. A real bad mommy. I don’t want to be a bad mommy. I wanna be a good mommy.”
“You aren’t my fucking mommy!”
As fucked up as the situation was, Eve couldn’t hold back her laugh at that one. Cyake laughed into his hand, trying to be a good friend and hide it. Zen just let it out. Nythi did, too, doubling over and not giving a fuck as she practically howled her laughter.
Nylicia was the only one that had the grace to twist her lips and somehow hold it in.
“Just put them on, big boy. XreakLi just arrived in the main hall. You’re going to need to be somewhat functional for what’s about to happen.”
Chapter 33
Xreak’s feet hit the floor in front of the bedroom door like two leather and steel covered stones. The rest of him was equally decked out. Huge boots led up into his shoulder-to-foot armor, a sleek black and silver, metallic and leather concoction that looked like it had come out of the digital, video game world of Mass Effect.
The Sesengt’s dark green hair was braided down his back, and his aqua eyes were stone-cold serious. It was the first time Eve got to see his ears, and either he was an elf, or a species close to it.
“We have a situation on Earth.”
Yeah, because his presence, armor and the look on his face hadn’t been enough of a clue.
And the guardian hadn’t even been wearing armor last time he’d come for them, back when the ceFtuts had first been unleashed near her apartment building, before she and Ismini had lost their human lives.
Which meant that whatever was happening, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be a walk in the park like the last time had been.
Cy stepped out of Ian’s bathroom. “Which Kystm was popped open now?”
The hard, stoic look XreakLi gave Cy somehow conveyed his panic more than tears or screams ever could.
“You mean which ones. We have a collapse of the entire Kystm grid. So far, twenty-two of them have ripped open along the east coast of the United States alone. We have another fourteen all over the upper part of Africa, most of them near or in Egypt. You can imagine what’s happening everywhere else.”
Eve went ice cold at that.
Ianthen got busy, rolling the sleeves of his gray long sleeved T-shirt up, and lining his forearm up with the back of one of the cuffs. As if the spikes sensed his flesh and were hungry for it, the rings widened with a snap, making room.
They reminded Evesse of piranhas opening their mouths to feed.
Ian hesitated for a moment then slapped the cuff on his arm. The rings bit down instantly, the spikes going almost all the way into him. The engravings lit up as if the sun itself had powered those mofos, and a bright wave of electricity slid its way through the rings and straight into Ianthen’s skin. The jerk he gave made him look like a puppet on a string. He threw his head back, doing the old inhale-exhale a few times, before shaking it off and reaching for the next cuff.
“Is it working?” Ianythi asked.
“Still feel like shit, but yeah. The world’s not spinning and my stomach isn’t trying to rip its way out my throat.”
“Damn. What the hell happened to you?” Xreak looked around the bathroom, taking in the river of red for the first time.
Ian grunted, the other cuff now on his arm and doing its own lightshow. “I fucked up. What else?”
Xreak arched a brow. “Indeed. What else?”
Ian clenched his jaw. “Forget the details. Back to Earth. Where are we heading first?”
“The majority of the infiltration is focused in one area. For now.”
Zen’s arm went around Eve, pulling her into him. “Where?”
“Pennsylvania. Place called Brownsville.”
Eve and Zen went stone still.
Nylicia shook the popcorn bag, dropping the last of it into her mouth. “They’re after Suffering.”
For once, just once, Eve wished Nylicia would state things in a way that actually made sense.
“Suffering?”
“Goddess of. I bestowed the powers on her years ago. Not that she knows yet. She’s still human. Her powers are mostly dormant inside her as of no—”
“That’s who Enteax was protecting in that house. The Aviraji want her.”
Eve stared up at Zen.
Huh? Enteax had been protecting someone? When?
Xreak’s exasperated expression and tense back teamed up as one big ass F-U aimed at Nylicia. “I really wish you would be just a little more forthcoming about the things you know and do. Just a little. It would make my position easier.”
Nylicia patted his shoulder. “Nah. You do just fine anyway.”
Although Nylicia looked positively calm, Eve couldn’t move. And that made sense. Coordinating muscular commands and having her brain actually send them out was kind of difficult when one’s gut was doing the limbo in a desperate bid for attention.
Zen cupped her shoulders, fixing her non-movement issue and bringing her face-to-face with him. “You wait here. Okay?”
The twists and turns in her gut had nothing on the wave of hell-no that Eve’s impulse control center unleashed.
“No. I’m just as strong as you guys are. And, Mavrak, you need me there.”
She didn’t mention the alarms that were sounding-off inside her. She didn’t want to freak him out or worry him, but she knew this feeling. She’d felt it so many damn times before.
The night she’d sat in an interrogation room, staring into her mother’s eyes as the woman tried to hurt her for killing that bastard in self-defense.
The day she’d first met Soleria.
A year after that when she’d met Ismini.
The first time she’d seen Zeniel.
The night she’d met Nylicia for the first time.
Right before she walked into the portal leading into the Haklanayasas, excepting with that one simple action that her life would become irrevocably intertwined with Zen’s.
“I’m going, Zen.” Whatever was going on in Pennsylvania, Evesse needed to be there.
Zen didn’t look too happy with that.
“She has to. Don’t worry. She’ll be fine,” Nylicia said.
Xreak jumped into motion, literally, almost dematerializing on the spot before remembering that the rest of them had to go with him.
“Let’s go. We don’t have much time. I’m getting the details of what’s going on down there. Human casualties are ridiculously high.”
That did it. Each one of them hurled their molecules right after Xreak’s.
Before they left, however, Evesse heard Nylicia stop Ianthen.
“You, wait. I have something I want to discuss with you. Then you can join the battle.”
Of course Eve was curious, but there was no stopping to wait and see what was going on there. She was being pulled by her gut sure as if she was a fish on a hook, and all that mattered was getting to the other end of the line.
Xreak was a graceful, lethal bullet, one that shot straight into the middle of the fray, his staff slicing clean through the head of a ceFtut.
The Earth was shaking. The screams of millions merged with the shrieks of ceFtuts and the thunderous crack of raw energy as it raced across the nearly cloudless blue sky.
It wasn’t white noise. It was the soundtrack of an apocalypse.
The screams hit a crescendo, the terror in them rising to a peak. The ground heaved. A dry, scratchy shriek, the kind that came from tearing metal and shattering glass, added to the cacophony. Eve could only watch as the top two floors of a three-story building came crashing down into the street below.
She was too late. There had been people in it. Beneath it.
They’d been fucking crushed.
The sick thing was—they were better off. Because she could hear the far-off cries of others being abruptly cut off by the hungry growls of ceFtuts.
Fire licked the remnants of the building that now blocked an entire boulevard. Cars had been thrown left and right, at least two of them embedded in similarly flame-infested buildings. Another four lay haphazardly on the sidewalks, tires still spinning.
Eve cried out as her processors split wide open, accepting a red-tinted flood of information that she wasn’t ready for.
Blood Stained Tranquility Page 30
