by Bella Klaus
He stared at me through wide eyes. “What about you?”
“Just go.” I waved a hand toward the spare bedroom.
Cold shadows wrapped around my ankles like constrictors, holding me in place. As Kain bent to scoop up a dazed-looking Beatrice, a muscular figure in white appeared in the garden, strolling toward me with a wide-brimmed hat that obscured his features.
I curled my hands into fists and flared my magic. With men at the door, Lazarus burning, and men approaching toward the window, my only hope was to form a distraction until Kain escaped with Beatrice.
The man in the middle wore the sort of pristine white suit that could only have been fashioned out of light magic. Flanking him were huge men, nearly seven feet tall. It was hard to tell if they were alive or zombies, but there was no mistaking the monster in white.
He stopped at the window and flashed me an inhumanly wide grin.
“How wonderful it is to see you, my dear darling daughter.”
Chapter Eight
I pushed my fire into my wrists and up my forearms, but it did nothing to halt the progress of my restraints. The shadows around my legs snaked up my torso, around my lungs, and down my biceps.
Lazarus’ screams echoed in the hallway, making every fine hair on my body stand on end. It sounded far worse than when Coral had attacked him, and I shuddered at the thought of him dying at the hands of Kresnik’s goons.
Kresnik’s eyes shone with unearthly golden light. The sun had already set and the lightbulbs had blown, but somehow, the former Titan was his own source of illumination. He looked even more like the sun god from the portraits in Kenwood House, with skin as dark as Valentine’s and flowing red hair with gilded highlights.
He walked out of view, reappearing at the glass door that led out into the garden. As it had already exploded, he strolled into the living room, his footfalls crunching with every step.
“Stop struggling,” he drawled. “Shadows produced by one as powerful as me cannot be burned.”
My heart thudded loud enough to drown out Lazarus’ agonized cries—or the fire had already burned through his vocal cords. Nausea surged to the back of my throat, but this time, I didn’t swallow.
“How did you find me?” The words tumbled from my lips.
Kresnik’s grin widened, and the light of my flaming fists reflected on his teeth. “It seems like you were a very naughty girl,” he said. “Cutting down my best contact like he was a sheaf of wheat.”
“The Mage King,” I snarled.
He inclined his head. “Under any other circumstance, I would rage at you for removing an ally I’d cultivated for decades, but you’re about to bestow me with your most precious gift.”
A cry caught in the back of my throat. Stupid, stupid, stupid! My cloak had been compromised—once by Hades, who had used its coordinates to track me to Koffiek, and again by the Mage King, who had informed Prince Draconius of my location. Just before the slimy bastard had died, he’d even admitted to being Kresnik’s pawn. Why hadn’t I just thrown off the cloak while I was in Hades’ office?
Because I’d been completely naked underneath and didn’t want to parade myself in front of the lascivious Demon King. If only I hadn’t been so bloody modest.
Kresnik batted me on the nose. “Are you paying attention, sweetheart?”
“What do you want?” I glowered into his flaming irises.
His gaze lingered over my heart. “I went to great pains to search for you in high places and low. Did you know that?”
My jaw clenched. Valentine had already told me about the team of mages he’d slaughtered and sent to Hell. The last thing I wanted to do was say something that let Kresnik know I’d resurrected Valentine.
With a flick of his wrist, he raised me several inches off the floor so my chest was level with his shoulders. The cold shadows around my arms forced them to spread wide. I jerked forward in my restraints, trying to smash my head against his nose, to distract him long enough to loosen his grip, but his shadow wrapped around my hair, forcing me in place.
No matter how much fire I pushed across my skin, I couldn’t burn through Kresnik’s grip.
“Do you know why my entire team of elites disintegrated into ash?” he asked.
My lips formed a tight line, and I swallowed hard, forcing down a wave of pain that rose through my pit of nausea. Roman was dead, as were all the other young people Healer Calla had turned with Valentine’s blood. It either happened the moment Prince Draconius’s man sliced off Valentine’s head or after I’d set his body alight.
“Hemera.” Kresnik’s sharp voice sliced through my despair. “I’m asking you a question.”
“No,” I spat.
“No, what?” he snarled. I was about to say ‘No, Father’ when he added, “No, you refuse to answer, or no, you don’t know what happened to my team of preternatural elites?”
My breaths turned shallow, my eyes grew wet, and imaginary claws raked down my insides, plunging them into despair. He wanted to strip me of my phoenix, and here I was, standing helpless and completely at his mercy. Why was he drawing this out?
“I don’t know anything.” My voice trembled, but it was too late for bravado. There wasn’t a thing I could do or say to stop a genocidal ex-god from extracting my soul.
“You’re a devious girl.” He trailed his fingers down the side of my face, letting them slide down the column of my neck. “Much like my first wife.”
“Your sister?” I spat.
He shook his head. “My first wife was a cousin. I didn’t marry my sister until I’d consumed my darling Hesione.”
I didn’t recognize the name, but she was probably another Titan like Prometheus. Bile burned the back of my throat. I hated this foul creature, wanted him dead, but I couldn’t break through his shadows.
Kresnik leaned into me and whispered, “Shift.”
“What?”
“Turn into a phoenix,” he snarled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking—”
He grabbed my chin between his large fingers, squeezing hard enough to form bruises. “I tracked your reaper cloak to a delightful coffee shop beneath Putney Bridge. Do you know what the demons there said?”
The backs of my eyes burned with tears. Why would they hide my secrets when I’d reduced their master to ash?
Kresnik drifted toward me, standing so close his breath fanned against my skin. “As much as I’d like to continue our cat and mouse game, you must understand I have no reason to keep you alive. There is no Valentine to appease, leaving me free to snuff out your life.”
“Why don’t you?” I whispered.
He threw his head back and laughed. “Have you ever tried to kill a phoenix? Of course you haven’t. At the first sign of a mortal wound, they burst into flame and regenerate.” His lips grazed the shell of my ear. “I may not leave you with enough power to heal your wounds.”
Every inch of skin crawled at being so close to the man, and my throat dried to the consistency of parchment. I wriggled my fists and tried to flare out my fire to make him back away, only for the shadows encasing them to tighten.
Kresnik stood to one side, letting one of the large men step forward. “Strip her to the waist with minimal damage.”
The man stared down at me with lifeless eyes. Bands of panic wrapped around my lungs, squeezing out the last of my breath. Was Kresnik getting a zombie to extract my magic?
I shook off the thought and forced in some air. What the hell did it matter who was going to ransack my heart? Either way, it meant a form of death.
Kresnik’s undead henchman reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of sewing shears. Cold sweat broke out across my brow as he pulled the hem of my top and cut through the fabric, exposing my front.
One of the man’s cold thick fingers slid under the elasticated fabric of my sports bra, pulling it away from my chest. Cold metal slid across my skin, and he snipped the garment free.
A shudder raced down my spine, and
I sent out a silent prayer to any deity eavesdropping on my thoughts to come down and save me. Right now, I would even welcome a stray thunderbolt. Anything to stop this group of undead monsters from ransacking the magic in my heart.
“What on earth did Valentine see in a girl as thin as you? I suppose he enjoys maidens.” Kresnik shook his head and tutted, his eyes lingering on my exposed breasts. “He would have extracted far more pleasure from my Martika.”
“Did you kill her?” I asked, my voice trembling.
He shook his head and placed a hand over his heart. “Alas, she ran with the other ingrates. Once I have taken control of Great Britain, I will scour the country and bring them to justice.”
The undead man reached into his pocket and extracted a needle even longer and thicker than the one Healer Calla had used in her attempt to stab my heart. He placed his thumb and forefinger on the skin between my breasts, pulling it taut.
I clenched my teeth, my muscles going rigid. This time, there was no Aurora to save me, no Hades to file the edges off my terror with his quips. If Kain had any sense, he’d have taken Beatrice to safety and be halfway across Wimbledon.
“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered.
Kresnik raised a hand, indicating for the zombie to pause. “It’s a minor procedure that will extricate your phoenix.” He smirked. “Stay still. It’s delicate work. If an air bubble enters your vein, you’ll suffer paroxysms. If it nicks a vessel, you will bleed to death. Best case scenario, we can perform the extraction and someone might be able to enjoy your soulless husk.”
My throat closed up, but I still managed to rasp, “You’re not going to turn me into a vampire?”
“Alas, my new general won’t rise from his grave for hours.” Kresnik tilted his head to the side and offered me what he probably thought was a warm smile. “I doubt he would appreciate having you as his preternatural progeny.”
All the blood drained from my face, settling into my spasming heart. I hoped for all our sakes that the vampire in question wasn’t Lazarus. Based on the last time he’d been burned to a corpse, he should have healed himself enough to talk by now.
“Don’t do this,” I whispered. “If you let me go, I promise not to sabotage your efforts to take over the world.”
Kresnik stepped back. “And if I take what I want, your lack of interference is guaranteed.”
The thick needle perforated my skin and pierced my breastbone, bringing with it a sharp agony that made me want to grind my teeth into dust. Heat and adrenaline surged through my system, and lightning bolts of electricity flashed across my ribcage.
Time stilled as the needle breached the bone and punctured my heart. My body temperature plummeted, and it felt like I was back in Koffiek with all those carcasses. Sweat poured into my eyes and my vision filled with tears.
This was probably some kind of magical shock. I locked eyes with Kresnik, feeling his greed and joy and malice, seeing eons of torment endured by a tortured and misunderstood soul.
If a needle wasn’t sucking my life-force, I might have laughed. It looked like he was trying to connect with me, seeing as these were my last moments. When the needle had taken its fill, it would pull out my soul, leaving me either dead or a living husk like Brother David.
My consciousness flowed into Kresnik’s, and the darkened room illuminated by his magic brightened until my retinas stung with what appeared to be sunlight.
I blinked over and over, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I was no longer in Beatrice’s living room and no longer standing but lying secured to a rock by ropes and chains and shackles, and staring up into a merciless sky.
The mountain’s jagged surface grated at my calloused back, their texture plucking at my nerves. I blinked, loosening tears. They flowed down my cheeks, into my matted beard and hair, which itched with the sensation of nesting insects.
Beard?
“No more,” I rasped through a parched throat. It hadn’t rained in weeks, and the drought looked like it would continue for months.
Death wouldn’t come. Not with an immortal body that could suffer for an eternity. It would suffer hunger, thirst, evisceration, and sorrow. The only certainty in my accursed life was him.
He would come—the eagle Zeus had commanded to punish me—not for giving the humans fire but for daring to infuse my creations with the power of gods. Despair filled my heart until it overflowed. I had created them out of clay and elevated my favorites with the magic of the phoenix. Now, they had forgotten me. They’d forsaken me to this eternal torment.
Blood drinkers, shape-shifters, mages, and wizards—they were all my creatures—those who had received my gift. Yet when it was time to repay their favor, where were they? Where was the wine they’d promised, the water, the maidens? The offerings had stopped the moment Zeus had chained me to this mountain.
A bird flew toward me in the distance, gliding down with its wings outstretched, a black spot against the cloudless blue. My breath caught. Was that my punisher? I raised my head, examining the cavity below my right breast. The shattered bones had knitted together, now covered in healing sinew.
The approaching bird swooped down, and I flinched, a cry tearing from my lips. It flew past, and I exhaled my relief.
Not yet.
Revulsion flooded my soul, and I wrestled with Kresnik’s memory, trying to find a way out, but I remained locked in that broken and immortal body. I felt everything—the beak stabbing through skin, hacking through bones, to get to its quarry. Its sharp edges slicing through my organ as it feasted through night, not heeding my thrashing or screams.
This torment was disproportionate for the crime, and it was a thousand times worse than a needle through the heart.
“Kresnik,” I rasped. “Father… Please, stop.”
He snorted, the sound rattling through my skull. “You haven’t even endured three minutes of this when I suffered thirty thousand years!”
“But I didn’t do this to you.” Somehow, he’d given me control of the body, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
This couldn’t be much different from the dreamscape I shared with Valentine. Kresnik was only able to do this because we were related. How the hell had I escaped Jonathan when he’d tried to trap me in a dream?
I reached into my heart chakra, letting the magic swirl around a spot of pain in my chest. This had to be coming from the needle as they extracted my phoenix. My power swirled, picking up heat and speed as I snarled the unfairness of Kresnik making my last moments so torturous.
“What are you doing?” His voice echoed through my head.
“Did you ask any of those humans if they wanted the upgrade?” I snarled.
“What?”
“That’s what I thought,” I snapped. “You probably just turned a bunch of innocent humans into vampires, shifters, mages, and witches. Did you think about how the others would react to that kind of power?”
“They were my creations,” he growled. “Mine.”
“That’s your problem.” I clenched my teeth, using what I’d learned from my sessions with Coral and Racon, and pictured my limbs twisting, turning, transforming into a bird.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“No.” I would be damned if I let that monster distract me with a conversation.
The sound of wingbeats rustled against my ears, and I growled through a throat coated in dust. It was probably Kresnik’s eagle coming to devour his liver.
A needle of panic stabbed me through the heart, sending a burst of magic through every meridian that lengthened and curled my fingers and toes. Bugger that. I wasn’t sticking around for a punishment I didn’t earn.
“Hemera,” he said, his voice sharp with a warning.
“Shut up!” The words came out an avian screech. I was free.
My eyes snapped open to find the eagle’s yellow talons swiping at my belly. I rolled to the side, my shackles clinking with the moment.
With a squawk, the eagle soared int
o the air and flew into the sky. I clacked my beak, my every hunting instinct urging me to give chase. Common sense slapped me upside the head. This was just a memory, and it wasn’t my fight. I leaned forward, spread my wings, and launched myself off the edge of the mountain. I had to find a way out.
Kresnik screamed loud enough to splinter the dreamscape, and I blinked over and over, trying to adjust to the dim light. I was back in the living room, standing with my arms still outstretched and a needle poking out of my bare chest.
My gaze locked with Kresnik’s bulging eyes. His mouth dropped open, and blood cascaded from his lips, down his chin, and slid off his white suit.
The needle stilled.
“How?” he croaked.
A dagger jutted out of his open mouth, making me suck in a breath through my teeth. I couldn’t see anyone else in the room apart from Kresnik and his seven-foot-tall minions, so who had attacked him?
“Nut?” I whispered. “Geb?”
No warm hand patted my shoulder.
The air shifted, and the zombie holding the needle staggered back, leaving behind his hand. A second later, his head flew across the room, and out through the open window.
Cold wind swirled around the room, and I wriggled my numb fingers, trying to bring back the circulation. If my savior managed to kill Kresnik, his magic would release, and I would drop to the ground. The last thing I needed was to ruin his efforts by falling on my front and letting that needle impale my heart and lungs and spine.
My breaths turned rapid and shallow, and I tried moving my arms, but the action made the needle shift. Tremors ran down my spine. I clenched my teeth, trying to stay still. I don’t know how much of my magic the zombie had extracted, but if the needle nicked me the wrong way, I might bleed to death and never regenerate.
Whoever was saving me raced across the room so quickly I couldn’t see or feel or hear his magic. If it wasn’t the demonic twins, then it had to be Kain. Maybe the shock of the exploded window had triggered his puberty and he’d doubled back as a full vampire to rescue me from my fate?
Doubtful.
Lazarus couldn’t have regenerated already. Not from the way he’d screamed from being burned. I hadn’t seen anything of him since getting captured, but the vampire was probably in a vehicle on the way to the Flame, being fed a steady diet of Kresnik’s blood. It couldn’t be him.
