Sacrifice

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  He might want to use us to trigger his infection of the people of this island, but there’s something he wants above everything else.

  He’s waited too many centuries for his chance to end me to maintain his patience much longer.

  Besides, his new tactic—a ploy I have faith he won’t pick up on—leaves room to use Meg as the agent of his desires for domination. With me gone, he can aim every wave of these assholes at her until she’s obligated to kill and swell his ranks.

  Hours pass. Or perhaps it’s just minutes and my own frustration is bubbling to the fore. It’s a merry-go-round of panting mortals, tripping over themselves, trying to catch up to me; a fucking circus if you ask me. I had to do some ridiculous shit during my first round of labors, but this might be up there on the list.

  Fury ignites, my infamous impatience sparking. It’s that sixth sense gifted to me through my powers that saves me. The issue, however? It isn’t just one voice I hear in my mind now, but two, opposing forces that are beginning to work in sync. Just a little more. He’s weakening. Angered. He—

  Materializes in front of me, white hair whipping over his shoulders, that mouth twisted in a mutated sneer above that stone jaw.

  When he hand shoots out for me, I realize for the first time that it’s also made of black stone.

  Is the top of his head the only part of him that’s “normal”?

  That’s what I’m gunning for, then.

  Engaging my own preternatural reflexes, I catch his wrist in my grip. He’s quick though, as fast as the snake he once was, and with a quick drop he’s sweeping a foot out, aimed at my legs. I evade it with a single jump and pull him back to his feet by his arm.

  A tug and I have him where I want him, his face colliding with my left fist.

  The upper part of his face bursts open, bright red blood covering my skin.

  Venomous blood, just like his last incarnation.

  It sizzles through my skin instantly, burning flesh away.

  Flesh that’s already been torn; the stone on his body is indestructible, as I predicted, even with my colossal strength.

  My hesitation at that fact costs me.

  Dearly.

  “Kles!” Megara shouts, but it’s too late.

  Hydra slams his other stone fist through my midsection and it goes straight through.

  My breath leaves me.

  Pain is a fiery, blinding detonation along my nerves. I stumble backward, eyes dropping to the fist-sized hole that he left in my left side. In the back of my head, I wonder how my intestines haven’t begun to fall through the opening.

  Oh, that’s right. That side of them is probably gone, too.

  Damn. That’s going to take a while to heal. Even with my immortality working hard to close the wound.

  As my pant leg becomes instantly drenched with torrents of blood, Hydra issues a command to the humans. “Deal with her. Until there’s enough of you to help her die. Make the memory of her existence nothing but a blur. Multiply.”

  I feel my face twisting with fury and I stare up at him from beneath my lowered brow. “What the fuck did you just say?” He issued a command against my female, that’s what.

  This shall not stand.

  No it fucking won’t.

  “Kles, gods damn it! Pay attention!” Megara shouts at my back.

  But I am. I really am. Even as my lifeforce continues to gush from me, my advanced healing ability is already stitching tissue back together, regenerating what was lost. Rebuilding me from within.

  Everything but the burned flesh on my hand. That’s how his toxin works. How it always did. Healing from that is a whole other process. Getting more of his blood on me will just cause more problems.

  It’s not at the forefront of my mind. His audacity in targeting Meg is. The image of me tearing the top of his head apart, getting at the seat of his soul—his brain—and utterly destroying it this time.

  Unleashing a shout, I throw myself at him, determined to do just that.

  MEGARA

  Whatever he did, that too intimate connection of our souls and minds, finished awakening the full extent of my Succubus hunger. Cells are turning against each other. Internal processes will start failing soon. I’ll either go on a sexual rampage, devouring anyone in sight—mainly, the male that did this to me—or collapse in a crippled heap until a partner comes along and takes me.

  And that’s not even my main concern.

  I bypass one man, dodge a seemingly rabid woman, my mind stuck on a single question.

  Why the hell did I scream his name like that? What does it matter if he’s getting hurt?

  For real. What does it freaking matter?

  Unthinkingly, I thrust out one of my swords at an approaching mortal, slaying them.

  Giving Hydra just what he wants.

  Although, he has his hands full at the moment, so I don’t think he’s even aware of what I’ve done or that another trio of humans is now on my tail.

  Kles is a whirlwind of lethal rage as he goes after Hydra, both males matching each other blow for blow. That rhyming douchebag’s blood is still toxic, but Kles doesn’t give a fuck there’s layers of his skin peeling off.

  He delivers hit after hit, taking even more, backing Hydra up closer to the wall.

  And all the while, those eyes fracture into their monstrous form, removing any traces of denial I had left.

  Don’t know the specifics, what Hades gets out of bringing Kles onto this mission to “free” me, yet only one scenario makes sense.

  Hades truly is out to

  Hades truly is out to sabotage Zeus’ favorite son once and for all.

  I was once mutated into what mortals consider a monster.

  Whatever is happening to Kles, I suspect it might be of the same nature. A mutation that’s bringing out the darkest pieces of his nature.

  The very same that was whispered about for so long.

  I’m distracted, too much so, and one of the men wraps a fist around my hair, pulling with all his might.

  Stupid human. The only thing he manages to do is dislocate his own wrist as my head refuses to move. Such weak force. It would take much more than that to yank me back.

  I slam an elbow backward into his face, being much gentler than I normally would, aware of the fact I can’t kill the fucker. There’s already over twenty of them circling like vultures, looking for an opening to commit suicide through me.

  The human howls in abject misery, clutching his gushing face where I broke his nose.

  I hear a crunch, two male shouts, and I’m distracted once more—

  Kles has Hydra on the ground, his destroyed hands wrapped around the top of Hydra’s head. He smashes it into the concrete in a blur of supersonic speed. Pauses long enough to ram his fist into it, opening it like a cantaloupe. Goes back to breaking it apart against the rapidly disintegrating floor. Rams his other fist in. Repeats the process.

  From this distance, I have no trouble seeing the state of skin, how, with every hit and destruction of Hydra’s head and brain he delivers, his own tissue is beginning to literally melt off his bones.

  There’s nothing left for him to finish off. The only parts of Hydra that remain is his body from that stone lower jaw down. His brain is gone. Completely gone.

  And there goes Kles’ name again, rising up my throat, escaping before I have a chance to stop it. “Kles! Stop it! He’s gone!”

  He doesn’t hear me.

  Suddenly, that’s the least of my concerns. Even with their master now dead, they launch themselves at me simultaneously. I’m covered in human flesh, over twenty bodies attempting to tear at me.

  Fuck me. Does this mean they’ll keep multiplying if I kill them? Hydra’s gone and they continue to follow through on his orders.

  I’m debating the merits of slamming them all off me and right into each of the walls, where they’ll explode like squeezed grapes, when a force barrels into us, ripping more than half away.

  It’s Kles, still
maddened, injured beyond even immortal belief, and he plows through the mortals in less than thirty seconds.

  Necks are snapped.

  A few heads torn off their shoulders.

  One man is lifted into the air and brought down on Kles’ knee, tearing him straight in half—a mind-bending display of guts and tissue to rival any massacre I’ve ever let loose.

  Expression incredulous, I watch him slaughter the last person, half-expecting replacements to show up at any moment.

  They don’t.

  It’s just him and I down here, surrounded by carnage, altered by two different biological processes.

  There shouldn’t be anything sexy about his level of injuries, about that crazed look in his oddly fractured eyes. Those dark markings shouldn’t attract me. His ability to remain standing, muscles pumped with violence, shouldn’t mean anything to me.

  My thighs quake, knees knocking together. I’ve come close to “starving” once since being turned into this sex-addicted feened, back during those days that I convinced myself I could control it. I didn’t have to be this. Willpower alone could get me through.

  Almost died in my foolish attempt.

  Ended up flinging myself at the first being I came across when the frenzy became too bad.

  This is that same craze, but a thousand times worse.

  Heart pounding so hard I see it warping my vision.

  Sweat dripping all over my body.

  Mouth flooded with saliva, desperate to swallow every drop he has to give.

  Everything shaking, an earthquake detonating from my core.

  Take him. He wants you just as bad. Perhaps more. Make him give you what you need.

  Kles runs a brutalized hand along his brow. Concern for me pulls him from his own brink and he gives me a worried frown although his eyes remain changed. “Meg?” His voice is the roughest I’ve ever heard it. “Are you okay?”

  I’m shaking my head, easing away, lost but aware that he’s bad for me.

  He always was.

  My downfall wrapped and delivered in the most delicious package I could’ve ever imagined.

  He destroyed my life once.

  He’s about to do it again.

  Wanting him as a mortal brought out every weakness I’d ever had, drove me down a path of utter ruination.

  Wanting him as an immortal Succubus?

  No. Oh gods, no. This can’t happen. It’ll be worse this time. So. Much. Worse.

  “Megara, don’t do it.” He holds out one of those decimated hands to me. “Don’t run again—”

  I do it.

  I run.

  Making the same mistake I always make: believing that there’s a way to escape Herakles, the God of Power, once he’s decided to have something.

  MEGARA

  It’s pure survival instinct that’s controlling her now. A rational that tells her it’s better to risk death through her hunger than to ever give into me again.

  Based on our history, how it ended for her last time, who the fuck can blame her?

  Yet, it’s survival instinct guiding me, too.

  Her draw must be amplified by my feelings to her, because in only a day she’s got me hooked to a dangerous, molecular degree. Even flooded with Hydra’s venom and battling what should be a lethal loss of blood, it’s that sickening Succubus pull that drags me to chase her.

  It tells me I’ll die without her.

  I know it’s right.

  But it’s the love I’ve been drowning eons in that screams, Not again. She won’t feed off someone else.

  We won’t let her.

  I follow her—as I’ll always follow her from now on—back to the underworld, where we crash land into a small cavern.

  One without any visible exit.

  Which sends Megara into a bloody panic.

  Dematerializing around the space, she stops at each wall, slamming her fists into it, trying to barrel through.

  I step in her direction—collapse onto a knee, the world spinning, my lungs seizing on my next breath. “Meg,” I force out, clutching my blood-coated mid-section. Think the wound through my side is trying to heal, but there’s too much venom in my system.

  Too many competing, non-healing injuries thanks to how much of that fucker’s blood I got on me.

  Megara ignores me, growing more frantic. Clawing at the stone walls until her nails break off along the black surfaces. Her body vibrates, becoming almost intangible then returning to solid form, as she tries to dematerialize out of the cavern.

  But she can only flash around within it.

  We’ve both been trapped here just as Hydra had us trapped in the lowest floor of that club.

  I dig into my core of inner strength and drag myself to my feet. The world rotates again, hard enough to make me wobble where I stand, but I reach out for her anyway. “Megara. Stop. Breathe. Listen.”

  She turns and leans into the wall she just raked, hyperventilating. Pupils dilated enough to over come her irises. Black, famished eyes shimmer with unshed tears. Auburn curls have escaped the confines of her pony-tail, swinging along the sides of her face as she shakes her head. “No. Not you. I can’t take it from you. Do you have any idea what it cost me last time?”

  My struggling, full of poison heart stutters on its next beat. “I do. Meg . . . I do.” Should’ve never walked away. Should’ve never fucking walked away.

  My admission doesn’t soothe her. If anything, it drives her even more wild, and she returns to her pointless quest of finding an escape.

  I take one step. Two.

  That’s as far as I make it.

  Our surroundings disappear to the darkness, my vision winking out. When I can see again, I’m back on the ground—flat on it, to be exact, limbs spread haphazardly in the position I fell.

  Oddly, where my voice couldn’t get through to her, my current condition does seem to snap some rationality into her. Sweat-soaked skin glistening in the low bronze lights, Megara slides down the wall to the ground. “Kles?”

  I cough as I try to respond, blood shooting out of my mouth.

  “Sh-shit. You aren’t processing that poison at all.”

  She’s right. And to think, I once walked around with arrows I’d dipped in that shit. As a demigod, not a full blown immortal. I got more toxin on me this go around than the last, yet there’s a corner of my mind that remains flabbergasted.

  Why is it hitting me this hard now?

  Something more is going on here. Could it be her affect on me that’s weakening me to this point?

  She crawls slightly closer, then stops herself, as if thinking better of it. Considering my failing lungs are having no trouble picking up on that high-octane scent of arousal coming off her, I don’t need to guess why.

  Sad part? If she wants to climb on top, injuries and all, and take what she needs, I’m pretty sure my body will still find a way to give it to her.

  But, no. The venom. It’s in my blood now, coming out of my wounds.

  “You need to be healed,” she says in a shaky tone. “And I don’t know how to do that. I was only created to kill and to—”

  To fuck.

  Oh yeah. If she hopped right on board, I’d definitely find a way to deliver.

  Which is probably kind of pathetic, but I fucking love that nymph, so what’s a male to do?

  Die on this floor with a perpetual hard-on at the rate I’m going.

  A draft encases the cavern, followed by a shift of energy in the air.

  “Hades!” Megara cries, sounding relieved. “We’re stuck here for some reason. You need to let us out.”

  “You’re here because this is where I wish for you to be,” the King of the Underworld replies in a tone only he could pull off—the same tone that says he expects anyone in his domain to obey his fucking rules.

  I struggle to lift my head off the floor and locate him, but I’m past that point now. Too weak to even keep my eyes open for extended periods.

  “Are you insane?” Meg all but sc
reeches. “You know what’s happening to me!”

  Hades’ voice booms and splits in two, something I’ve never heard any immortal’s voice do before except my own. “Show some respect, Erinye.”

  “You want me to feed off him.” Megara’s accusation is razor sharp and dripping with spite.

  “You won’t find anyone else to feed on out there, Nymph. Not only is it sheer chaos, beings going into hiding—”

  “To avoid me? Since when?”

  Can’t even interact with them by now, but my brain works just well enough to translate that statement.

  No one has ever willingly run from the succubus in heat looking for a partner to fuck.

  “Since word has gotten out that the God of Power is stalking this dimension, ripping to shreds anyone who’s ever laid hands on you.”

  “And whose fault is that, great King? You allowed him down here. You drafted him into this mission. You are the one with some kind of ulterior agenda that makes no freaking sense!”

  “No. I suppose to you it doesn’t. Not yet anyway.”

  “I can’t take him, even if I wanted to. Look at him. He’s swimming in Hydra’s venom. At least let me leave to search for a more suitable partner outside this dimension.”

  That plea from Meg stings. Won’t lie. The lengths she’s willing to go to assure she isn’t intimate with me.

  “Ah, yes. The healing thing. I’ll help with that, and after you can decide whether to take what he’ll offer so gladly, or go mad with the need. Up to you.”

  Megara’s outrage is a palpable force in the atmosphere. She stammers, trying to reply, to protest, but no decipherable words come out.

  The air shifts near me this time, the force of him pressing down on me from every side.

  Primal, Power announces in my mind. Older than you can imagine.

  Insane, that other being growing stronger within me interjects. Shattered. Destroyed by his own hand.

  I grasp onto that, trying to explore it further. That sense is growing. I’ve stepped into something that runs much deeper than saving Meg. Whatever is going on, whatever this is all truly about, it goes past the Greek pantheon, doesn’t it?

  That answer isn’t forthcoming. The only thing that does come is utter darkness and a final echo of Hades’ voice.