by Coralee June
“You don’t approve?” Hyde asked, mussing up his already wind-whipped white hair.
“It’s a bit cliche.”
He scoffed. “This isn’t cliche,” he replied before holding his hand out to me.
“No? Prove it,” I replied with a smirk, letting him pull me past the gates and onto the manicured lawns that were littered with headstones and dead flowers.
“Necromancers actually avoid graves. The dead call to us. Some stronger spirits tug at our powers, begging to come back. You won’t see many of my kind hanging out around tombstones, Devicka.”
I paused and put my hand up to his chest. “Then why are we here?”
“To figure you out, of course,” he replied, like it was the most obvious answer in the world.
I nodded dubiously. “Okay.”
We started walking along the cemetery in silence, and occasionally Hyde would pause and shake his head, like he was trying to evade intrusive thoughts. When we passed one grave, he gripped my hand tighter and clenched his teeth. “Hurry, her crypt is in the back,” he said with a hiss of pain before walking faster.
“Who’s crypt?” I asked.
“Ben Dover’s.”
I frowned. “Who’s that?”
A shadow cast along the gravestones, giving the cemetery an even creepier feel.
“He was a very prominent fixture in society. Right alongside Dixie Normus.”
I furrowed my brow. “I’ve never heard of Dix...oh my gods, you perv.” I smacked him playfully on the arm, and he tipped his head back and laughed.
“I thought you said you didn’t like funny business?”
He shot me a devious wink. “That would be incredibly boring.”
“You could never be boring, Hyde Marr.”
He grinned over at me, flashing his bright teeth that seemed even whiter against his tanned skin. “Come on, it’s just up here.”
I looked ahead as we rounded the path and saw a stone crypt. When Hyde pushed open the small door, I stopped in my tracks. “Uhh, I’m not going in there.”
Hyde laughed. “I’m a necromancer. I’m basically an insurance policy in a cemetery. The dead won’t hurt you as long as I’m around.”
I blew out a breath, incredulous that I was about to willingly walk into a crypt. This place gave me the heebie jeebies. “If this is all some elaborate bully prank to get me locked inside, I swear to gods, I will murder you in your undead sleep.”
“Threat received,” he answered with a nod as if he wasn’t surprised at all. Then he leaned in close, barely letting his lips brush against the curve of my ear. “But for the record, I enjoy being inside of you way too much you lock you anywhere except inside my bedroom.”
I gulped. “Oh. Good then.” I breezed past him into the crypt, pretending like my heart wasn’t trying to jumpstart my libido.
It was just as damp and cool inside as I expected. There was a musty smell that made me gag the moment it hit my nose. Whoever was laid to rest here had obviously died a long time ago, but the smell of death was still in the air. On the ground was a concrete coffin. It wasn’t particularly ornate or beautiful. Simple in nature, this crypt looked more like a cage than something to honor whoever was buried here.
“Help me, will you?” Hyde asked before bracing his hands on the lid. I swallowed fearful bile that kept rising up my throat, questioning if this was a good idea. “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’re scared. The dead are harmless...mostly. And this is just a pile of bones...for now.”
That statement did not make me feel better.
Not one to be called a coward, I moved over to him and placed my hands on the lid and pushed, helping him slide it half way open. A foul scent hit my nose the moment the airlocked tomb was opened, and I had to hold my arm over my mouth to stop the vomit rising up in my throat.
Inside the coffin was a skeleton. Mold, grime, and powdery remnants of decayed flesh clung to its bones, and it was in a white lace dress, frayed from the years. “Yikes. I think she’s too dead, even for you, necro.”
He scoffed. “Haven’t you learned by now how badass I am?” Hyde asked. “Now admittedly, I haven’t actually done what I’m about to try to do with someone so...well, dead. Anyone over a century old typically drains the life right out of me. Pun intended. But the real tricky part is bringing back their consciousness. Not many of my kind can do anything except raise mindless zombies. But I’ve been practicing,” he said with a wink before nudging me with his elbow. “Fair warning, at best, you’ll have about ten minutes before she’s gone again.”
“Before who’s gone?” I insisted.
Hyde looked over at me with an eager glint in his silver eye. “Emilia Dupree. The last female Void before you.”
Chapter 25
My mouth was still open in shock when Hyde stretched out his hands and held them over the skeleton. I didn’t even have time to tell him no. Instead, I watched with trepidation as the red magic poured from his fingertips and wrapped around the disintegrating bones.
His necromancer power made it rise in the air, rotating slightly before us. I took an unconscious step back, watching as the bones started to reattach, and the skin began to regrow. Hyde’s hands started shaking as he poured more magic out, and within seconds, the bones were gone from view completely, all of them covered with stringy muscles and sallow, stretched skin that was the color of old milk. Feet, calves, hips, stomach, chest, arms, head, the woman slowly filled out from a scaffolding of cartilage to a porcelain zombie.
She continued to hang in the air, her lace dress barely connected with a mixture of dangling threads and spider webs. It was a haunting display that was equally beautiful and terrifying. I was so busy watching her that I hadn’t noticed how much Hyde started wavering or his skin growing impossibly pale. I turned to look at him the moment Emilia took her first breath, and I watched in horror as his cheeks hollowed and his eyes rolled back.
“Hyde!” I screamed, rushing to his side. I tried to catch him, but I was too slow. His head hit the stone floor and blood oozed out from the gash. “Oh, shit,” I cursed. I reached down and yanked my combat boot off before ripping the sock from my foot and pressing it to the wound to stop the bleeding. “What did you do, you crazy necro?” I chastised him, shaking him slightly, but he didn’t wake up.
“Oh, that’s quite a lot of blood, isn’t it?” a voice asked, sounding like rusted metal blowing in the wind. I snapped my head over to the coffin and swallowed a scream at the woman sitting there. Her clothes were so worn I could see her body through the holes in them. Her bright blue eyes were the color of the ocean, and her nose was tiny.
“Emilia?” I asked warily before standing. I didn’t know what this undead chick was capable of or what she might do. I took a couple of steps back until I was pressed against the concrete wall.
“I’m assuming you’re a Void?” she asked. “Can’t think of any other reason you’d have a necromancer wake me up. That’s a strong one, you’ve got. Most zombies have no consciousness, but I feel almost like no time has passed at all.” She held her hands up and stared at them in awe, twisting her fingers and bending them at the knuckles.
“Y-Yeah, I am a Void,” I answered quietly, still watching her to see if she would be some crazed monster.
She made a clicking noise with her dry tongue. “Get a backbone, girl. Speak like you mean it. The world will crush you if you’re weak,” Emilia said before twisting her neck, a series of popping sounds erupting at the movement. “Is he one of your bonded?” she asked.
I frowned. “I...think so?” I replied lamely. “Wait, is that normal?”
She tilted her head to the side—way too fucking far—making more bones crack and snap. “You don’t know what you are, do you?”
“I just told you, I’m a Void.” I couldn’t believe I was standing here in a crypt talking to a reanimated corpse.
She waved a thin hand in the air. “Oh, that’s what they call us, sure. But we’re more than that. Has no Void
elder ever taught you?”
“There’s no such thing as a Void elder.”
She looked sad for a moment, her cracked lips turning down at the corners. “Then I am sorry for you, youngling. In the beginning, we had elders in place to help us. I saw the change in tides before my murder, and it saddens me to know what I predicted has come to fruition. Weaker people have always feared us. Our kind has been hunted and killed throughout the millennia. I will try to tell you as much as I can for as long as his power can sustain me, but you will have to replenish him when I’m done, and seek out your bonded to then replenish yourself.”
My head was swimming with her words like loose puzzle pieces I couldn’t fit together.
“Who do you feed from?” she asked, testing her own weight as she got to her feet and began to walk out through the crypt door. I didn’t want to leave Hyde behind on the floor, but I had no choice except to follow her out. As soon as the sun touched her skin, she let out a blissful sigh. Her fingers traced along the crypt walls before she kneeled down, running her hands over the grass and stray dandelions growing.
“Before, I didn’t feed from anyone. But I’ve met some paragons, and it’s like my Void craves them and only them,” I explained in a rush. I wasn’t sure how much time we had and wanted to absorb as much information as possible.
I could see her skeletal body through her deteriorated dress as she moved, and stringy, white hair was stuck in clumps to her head, “Then it seems your Void sought out your perfect matches. You’ll bond to them, and you’ll feed from them. If you feed on anyone else—on anyone’s power that is not strong enough for you, then you can drain them of power completely, but I’m sure you know this,” she explained, her attention still focused on the flower.
“Yeah, I mean, I’ve taken powers from people under the council’s orders.” It felt wrong to admit this to someone so...ethereal. It made the dirty guilt buried deep in my gut rise to the surface.
She cursed under her breath and stood back up, heading for the nearest tree. “A barbaric punishment for supers,” she said over her shoulder. “One I’d hoped would one day be outlawed, but I suppose that was wishful thinking.”
“You keep saying my bonded,” I pressed, aware of my time dwindling. “Can you explain that more? A mate mark just appeared on my skin, and I feel a pull to them like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”
Reaching the tree, she started to circle around it, her spindly fingers running along the bark. “They’re your mates. Your partners. Your life. It’s similar to a shifter’s mating ritual, but so much more potent—and important. They are the people that will keep the Void settled. We are gifted with incredible responsibilities, but burdened by the complex needs of our gift. You are the highest form of elemental magic. Some control fire, wind, earth, or water. You control power.”
My eyebrows dipped in confusion. “I’m a power elemental?” I asked, trying to clarify.
“Yes, youngling. You can take, give, mold, and mend. You wield the abilities gifted to us by the gods. It is your divine and sacred duty.” She turned to look at me, her skin practically see-through in the sunlight. “Child, you bring all the supers together. Your entire existence is meant to bring balance to the world. In my time, the Void and their bonded led the world.”
I put a hand on my chest and could feel the thudding of my heart. “How do I control it?” I asked. Her bright blue eyes had started to dim, and her limbs started to crack and shake with the effort of holding her up. She was fading.
“I don’t have the time to explain that all to you. You must rely on your bonded and use your instincts,” she answered, her voice less vibrant than before. I watched in horror as the skin on her chest dissolved, showing the bloody muscle beneath.
“How do I rely on my bonded?” I asked in a panic. I wasn’t ready for her to disappear just yet. I still had so many questions.
“You must learn from their powers. Each bonded serves a purpose for teaching you to control.”
“I don’t understand…”
“An elemental, to restore you. Your ability to control powers is similar to theirs. Watch how they weave the elements. It is most similar to yours. They take their power from the earth. Eventually, your bonded will be able to siphon it to you to keep your stores replenished. Always feed the Void, child.” My mind immediately flashed to Quade.
“Okay,” I replied in a hurry.
Emilia started to walk back into the crypt, her skin flaking off with every step, turning to dust in her wake. I followed after her, wishing I had Hyde’s damn notebook to write some of this down. “You will need a necromancer, as I see you already have one. Well, unless you don’t revive him soon. We must make this quick, he’s draining fast.”
My eyes widened in panic as I followed her inside. She turned to look at Hyde, and her right eyeball fell out. I flinched as it bounced off her chest and rolled onto the floor. “The Void can consume you if you aren’t careful. I’ve seen many Voids lose themselves to it. I’m sure you’ve experienced it yourself. It’s like another person, another entity. The necromancer’s magic will always bring you back.”
I turned to look at Hyde, relieved to see the steady rise and fall of his chest.
“You will also be bonded to a vampire, the one who will understand your need to feed. Your blood will give him more than any other, and after one taste, he will crave you.”
My mind flashed to Render, how he’d licked up my wounds and bitten me.
“And lastly, a shifter. A bond as natural as animals rutting in the wild. He will satisfy your animalistic desires. After all, shifters understand the drive to mate and claim more than any supernatural, and they revere mating bonds above all else.”
Four supernatural mates, and in such a short amount of time, I’d found each one. It explained so much. Our connection to each other and the inexplicable draw that was always present. How my power always buzzed when any of them were around, even before I knew any of this. “I’m...scared that I’ll hurt them,” I whispered, saying out loud the worries that had been plaguing me.
“When a Void is settled in her bonds, she can feed freely, as she was meant to, and then use that power to sustain her mates. There is a safeguard in the bond; you can never hurt them, never take too much. You will feel a fierce protectiveness for them like none other.”
She started to climb back into her coffin, and the bones of her foot fell off at the last step, but she didn’t seem to mind at all. She lifted the leg over the edge of her coffin and settled into it like one might get into bed. When she turned to look at me again, her lips had peeled back. Her skin had flaked away in chunks, leaving her face with just bones and a few strips of cartilage and stray muscles. I could see her tongue working behind her jaw and teeth.
My time was almost over, and I still didn’t know what the hell this all meant.
“What does it all mean?” I asked, stopping her before she could lie down. “What am I supposed to do?”
Her head tilted too far again, and the bones on her shoulders started to sag and fall. “You are the balance of power. You can give and take away. You can even switch powers from one to another. I’ll tell you what my elder once told me.” Her other eye rolled away, leaving me to stare blankly at the unseeing, disintegrating woman. “You are more than just your Void. Perhaps it’s time for you to start living that way.”
I stared at her in shock. No one had ever said anything even remotely like that to me before. The Void was all I was. At least, that’s what I’d been taught.
“You will be drawn to the mates that fate chose for you, and they will be drawn to you. The leaders of your world will want to use you as a weapon, but you’re so much more than that. Your Void will reject them. You’re meant to bring balance, as nature intended. Hurry now, save your bonded. He’s expelled too much power. He’ll need you, and I’m so very tired.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as the information assaulted me. It was all too much. “Wait!” I yelled. “How do
I help him?” I asked. His lips had turned pale, and I wasn’t sure if I was capable of siphoning power back into him.
Her voice was a lingering whisper in my ear, cold and present. “Instead of feeding, give. Like an exhale,” she said, her voice choppy as her tongue began to wrinkle and pucker. “And now, I...must lay me…down to resttttttt.” The last word was like an exhale, like a breeze slipping through a pane of a window.
She laid back the rest of the way, folding her splintered forearms over her chest. “Emilia?”
When I walked over to look inside, all that was left was her skeleton, and a pair of tiny dandelions held inside her bony hand. She was gone.
I took one steadying breath before turning around and dropping to my knees beside Hyde. With one hand, I unclasped my amulet and let it fall to the ground. My Void barely reacted. It was like there was no power around to tempt it. “Shit!” I cursed before putting my hands on his cold body. I closed my eyes and imagined the smoky Void. “Why did you use so much damn magic?”
I put my hands on his arm, willing him to wake up. My smoke wisped around me, and I forced it to trail over his body. “Come on,” I urged. “Give like a damn exhale!” I yelled at my stubborn Void. “Give, give, give, dammit!” I screamed while forcing the smoke to touch his skin, but it barely reacted.
I replayed her words in my mind. I was an elemental of power. She said it was like an exhale. I opened my eyes again and steadied my heart. I went deep inside the Void with my mind, that smoky dark place that took over when I fed. It scared me, but I sunk into the darkness and sucked in a deep breath, and then let out a shaky exhale. I was terrified that my Void would take more from him in such a vulnerable position. If I did this wrong, I could drain him of power completely or even kill him.
My hands shook as I touched my hands to his chest. I had to stop thinking of my Void as just something that took. I believed the woman, which meant that giving back should come just as easily as feeding.
Blowing out another breath, I moved my hands up to cup Hyde’s cold, pale face. He was breathing, but it was like my Void could sense how depleted he was. I pushed my power at him, urging it to meet his needs. If the woman was right, then he was meant to be my mate. I could help him. I could do this.
