The creature’s answer grated into Cal’s head. Have all you want and more. I will give you her. And I will give you power.
“And what would I have to give you?”
Gabriel stood, revealing himself. His immense form filled the room. Both shoulders remained hunched, unable to straighten beneath the low ceiling. A thin web of moonlight filtered in through the window, reflecting eerily upon his leathery grey hide. Cal was terrified. But what the creature offered lessened his fear, appealing to some darkness in Cal’s nature the boy hadn’t known existed. He took another step. The step put him closer to Gabriel, too close to turn back.
“I said… what do I have to give you?”
It had gotten so cold. Cal’s breath came out in white puffs. But he barely noticed. The creature moved toward him, lowering its massive head to meet the boy’s face. Cal didn’t flinch away.
Gabriel finally answered. Your soul.
The Saga Continues in BANEWOLF
Preview BANEWOLF
the sequel to Dark Siren.
Callan
The psychiatrist held a chart in hand, trying hard not to let the subject see just how uneasy he was. He was the professional, the doctor. He was there to diagnose and provide treatment. Dr. Graves couldn’t fulfill that duty if he were afraid.
“This is your third session and we are well into another hour of complete silence. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”
The young man sat impossibly still, staring directly over the doctor’s head to where the clock hung on the wall. The only movement was the rise and fall of his chest.
“Mr. Youngblood, you voluntarily entered counseling because you needed help to manage your temper. Mr. Faust noted that you were afraid you might cause serious harm to your girlfriend or someone else. He referred you to me only because he felt he didn’t have the credentials to deal with your unique set of problems. I assure you that I can help you. But in order for me to do so, you must talk to me.”
Silence.
“Mr. Youngblood, do you understand that you will not be able to return to school until I deem you mentally sound?”
A soft thunk from the clock signaled the passage of yet another minute. Dr. Graves sighed. This was no way to make progress.
He opened a soft chart, closed until that moment. “Callan…you prefer to be called Cal. Since you have refused to contribute to your rehabilitation for the last three sessions, I took the liberty of pulling your file from children’s services. Before emancipating yourself at the age of sixteen, you underwent horrific abuse at the hands of your father. Would you care to talk about it?”
Cal’s eyes gradually slid down the wall to sharpen onto Dr. Graves’s face. Encouraged by the response, the doctor continued. “From age one through fourteen, you suffered twenty fractures and four mild to moderate concussions. You were a frequent bed wetter. Your last accident occurred when you were thirteen. You commented here that your father made you sit in a freezing tub of water filled with chunks of ice for thirty minutes. ‘My limbs were frozen and blue when he finally let me out,’ you said.” He paused briefly. “Your father was a very wealthy man. He must have paid off a lot of people in order to keep you in his custody.”
A wave of anger washed across Cal’s features. His fingers dug into the chair’s leather armrests.
That was good. Anger was something. It was at least the emotion the boy had come to therapy to deal with. “Tell me about the time he locked you in the closet for three days without food or water. What were you being punished for?”
Cal’s face smoothed into a sort of frightening calm. He leaned forward. Blue eyes gazed steadily at Dr. Graves. “I will tell you another story, human. One of power, betrayal and vengeance. Only then can your weak mind hope to understand my cause.
“Nine centuries ago, I learned the reality of my existence, the reason I and others like me had been created. Thought free men, we were truly pawns in a game reserved for those who believed themselves gods. Hundreds of my kin died in ignorance to correct a mistake not of our making. I discovered the existence of a real monster, one with power unmatched by even those who made it. Division exists among them, these Builders.” Venom dripped from Cal’s tongue as he pronounced the word. “Division makes them weak. They used us to fight their mistake, to protect their secret. I acted to save my people from dying in a war that was not ours. Killing our makers was the only way to save us. It is the only way to save us.”
Thrilled the subject had finally opened up, Dr. Graves started writing furiously. Delusions. Personality disorder. Paranoia. Schizophrenia. He underlined the last word three times.
“To fight these beings I needed the support of our armies. But my brothers would not give them to me. Civil war started…I regret causing it even to this day.” Cal’s voice shook with bitterness, and his eyes dropped to the floor. “I lost something very precious to me.”
In the silence, Dr. Graves looked up from his notepad. “Please continue, Cal. This is progress.”
“After defeat, I was stripped of my position and accused of high treason, hunted like an animal for many years by my own people. To Builders, the knowledge I possessed was a crime worthy of the severest punishment. They locked me in a tomb, taking away my ability to move, my ability to feel. For nine hundred years, I was trapped inside a useless body, void of sight and sound, fully conscious with only thoughts of regret and revenge. I became a very, very angry individual.”
Dr. Graves quickly jotted “transference” on the paper. “What does the anger make you want to do, Cal?”
“It makes us want to kill.”
The switch in reflexive pronouns made Dr. Graves raise a brow. “Are there other voices inside your head speaking to you, Cal?”
The young man chuckled. It was a hollow, grating noise that ended in a hiss. A chill slid up the doctor’s spine. The same sort of behavior had been studied in serial killers—charming, detached, and completely unstable. Dr. Graves was all too aware his subject might have deeper issues than anyone realized.
“We want to tell you something, doctor. Someone should know the truth.” Cal’s voice echoed as though someone else was speaking alongside him, overlapping the same words. “And then you are going to fill out the document that allows Callan Youngblood to return to school.”
“I-I can’t make that recommendation.”
Dr. Graves tried not to wet his pants or faint when Cal suddenly rose from the seat, crossing the room in a fraction of a second. The face held mere centimeters from his had taken on animalistic features. Coarse patches of fur punctuated thick, leathered skin. The boy’s eyes had changed from blue to red and glittered like rubies.
Miserably failing in his first ambition, the doctor concentrated on not fainting. “W-what do you want to tell me?”
Cal smiled. Even his teeth were no longer human in appearance. “It’s not the siren we’re after.”
Kalista
Resting her chin in one hand, Kali drummed her pencil against the desk. She was tackling her third make-up test for the day. After nearly a month-long lapse in attendance, it was only Greg’s good relationship with the school board that prevented her from automatically flunking the eleventh grade. She was allowed to come back to regular classes and then spend every waking hour trying to catch up on the curriculum. To fail would mean an entire summer trapped within the buttercream painted cement walls of summer school. That just wasn’t an option.
Okay, focus, she told herself for the hundredth time. It was one quiz. Ten questions to cover the highlights of last week’s Biology lessons. Twenty minutes in and Kali had only completed the first question. And she wasn’t even one hundred percent sure ‘C’ was the right answer.
“Ms. Metts, have you completed the quiz yet?”
Her head jerked up at the sound of Mr. Pile’s voice. Clearing her throat, she looked at the paper again. “Almost,” she said.
Kali was actually still on
question one. She was about to fail the quiz with epic proportions.
Randomly circling a bunch of answers until she reached the last question, she paused to read number ten again. Maybe she could get two answers right and at least achieve a twenty. Aim high.
Why are diseases caused by Ustilago called smuts? A. the Mycelium is black in color. B. they turn affected parts completely black. C. they develop sooty masses of spores.
Kali snickered. She couldn’t take the question seriously because it included the words “smut” and “disease” in the same sentence. Covering her mouth, she stifled another giggle. Mr. Pile frowned. Kali wrote in D. it makes the infected corn perform explicitly in a sexual manner. Then she circled C, gathered her books and turned the test in to the Biology teacher. Mr. Pile considered the answers over the rim of his glasses. Seconds later, the page had seven red marks. He scribbled thirty-five at the top of the quiz, circled the number, and handed it back to Kali.
“What’s the extra five points for?”
His expression was humorless. “I gave you credit for creativity on number ten. I’ll see you after school on Friday, Ms. Metts. You’ve clearly wasted my time today, so I will take pleasure in wasting a bit of your weekend in return.”
“Since when are teachers allowed to give detention for failing a stupid quiz?”
Mr. Pile ripped off another slip of paper and gave it to Kali. “Disrupting class” was scribbled at the top. A tight smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You and I know the true reason. You are dismissed.”
“Thanks,” Kali said, muttering, “For nothing,” under her breath.
Stepping outside of the classroom, she heard a familiar voice. It sent a shiver up her spine and into the base of her skull.
“Hello, Kalista.” Callan leaned against the wall in a dark colored military jacket with mock service stripes on each sleeve. His blue eyes took their time to slowly graze over her.
Feeling somewhat unsettled, Kali watched the boy in front of her as closely as he watched her. Something was terribly wrong about him. Blinking rapidly, she licked her lips. Only on the second attempt did her mouth succeed in uttering the conclusion her brain had reached. “You’re not Cal. Are you?”
He shook his head and smiled. The expression was quite frightening. “No.”
She took a step away from him and then another.
“Cal” pulled away from the wall and followed. “Please,” he said. The eerie smile hadn’t left his face. “Stay.”
“No. You stay…away from me.”
“Darkesong.”
The longing with which he’d said the name clung to Kali as she ran away, echoing in a haunting chorus to the sound of her footsteps.
Kalista
After seeing the Cal who wasn’t Cal, Kali’s mind was far too harried to focus on class. Skipping the last block of the day, she went to the swimming pool and sat at the bottom for a long time. Her eyes were closed. Her body was motionless. The pressure of the water became a loving caress, helping to relax everything except her mind. Those anxious thoughts just wouldn’t let go.
Even with all Rhane had revealed, the past remained hidden like it had never existed. How could she have ever forgotten Rhane? What kind of mother forgot her child?
But you didn’t forget. They were taken.
That was right. An entire lifetime…taken. And it wasn’t just her life with Rhane. Kali had lived well over a dozen lives in stolen human bodies. Yet she couldn’t remember a single one of them. Each of those little girls had been stripped from the arms of a family who loved them, only to be replaced by a soul-sucking, fire-setting siren. And for what reason?
Kali took a breath and then another, but not with her lungs. Her skin absorbed oxygen from the water and exchanged it for carbon dioxide waste in her blood. The process didn’t come automatically. It took a lot of focus to make underwater breathing happen. In her few weeks on the lam, she’d discovered this new talent. And it had proved very useful, practically allowing her to live in water. Holding her breath was certainly easier, but that came with time limits. After twenty minutes, she had to surface.
Kali was determined to master underwater breathing. Concentrating on the task left her brain severely limited in the number of other things it could worry about. And that was a plus.
Feeling the faintest tremble in the water, she opened her eyes. The lights were flickering. After a few cycles of an ebbing and surging glow, they went out completely. She tried not to panic in the darkness, expecting the underwater lighting to illuminate soon. But instead, there came a muted thud. All of the lights suddenly flooded the pool arena. And Kali screamed.
Bodies were everywhere. Hundreds of them littered the swimming pool floor. Parts of their skin were burned. Charred chunks broke apart from decaying flesh. Tentacles of black liquid snaked into the water. The body of a child rose up, a bloated mass set adrift in a nonexistent current. Kali stared into the film of the corpse’s dead eyes with absolute horror. Black hair floated around his head in a dark halo of death. Even with blanched, greying and puckered skin, Kali saw in the child a startling resemblance to Rhane. Bubbles spurted from her mouth as she screamed again.
She kicked hard, trying to get as far away from the corpse as fast as she could. When her back slammed into solid concrete, she turned to scramble up the pool wall. Fingers slipping on the wet ledge, she finally managed to pull herself out and flop onto her stomach. Trembling with a dozen more screams welled up inside, Kali shook with the effort of not releasing them.
Pushing to her feet, she looked down into the water, needing desperately to believe she was not going crazy. There were no dead people. There was no dead boy. The pool was empty.
#
Icy water pounded from the showerhead, streaming into her eyes as it washed the chlorine from her body. All Kali could see was the boy. His lifeless face floating before hers, dark and grey and distorted in death. It took both hands to smother her sobs. She couldn’t understand what was happening. Was it possible that the vision was a real memory like the nightmares of the horseman had been real memories? If so, it was likely the boy in the pool was the child she and Rhane had lost. Was he Rhaven?
The lights in the shower room flickered and went out just as they had in the pool auditorium. Her breath caught in her chest as she waited for what would happen next. She didn’t have to wait long.
“Kalista,” a male voice sighed into the darkness.
She backed away. She was naked and blind. And in the shower was a stranger who probably meant her harm. The vulnerable state made Kali’s movements very clumsy.
“Darkesong.”
This time the voice was closer. So close, she could feel the whisper against her skin. She knew it was the thing pretending to be Cal. Kali bit her lip. She was too frightened to scream. But screaming wouldn’t have helped anyway.
At first, his touch was light. Kali reacted, flinching away violently. Then “Cal” grabbed her. He was an irresistible force shoving her against the wet shower wall. His hard body pressed against hers. The heat from him completely dispelled the cold that fell around them.
Kali felt his face against her skin. His hot breath steamed next to her cheek.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Strong fingers slipped around her throat, but their hold was gentle. The lights partially returned, and she could see him. Physically, everything was the same…except for the eyes. Gone was the shocking blue of Cal’s stormy stare. In its place were two red orbs that reflected abnormally in the dim light. She would have recognized those eyes anywhere.
“Gabriel.”
He nodded. His body still had her pinned. His right hand grasped her throat, while the other rested idly against the wall. She waited for him to say or do something, but he didn’t. Nothing happened. Open malice and rage emanated from Gabriel’s still form, but Kali wasn’t entirely sure those emotions were aimed at her.
She inhaled a shaky br
eath. The action squashed her breasts against his chest. “What did you do to Cal?”
Another unnerving smile slashed his face. “He’s still here.”
“What do you want?”
Pressing his nose into the curve of her neck, Gabriel inhaled a dramatic whiff of her scent. Trembling, Kali tried to push away, wedging her body painfully into the wall. When Gabriel’s left hand moved, she went rigid. But the hand never touched her. It hovered next to her head, holding a tiny yellow stone.
“I want to help you remember.”
The events that followed would remain a blur of varying shades of grey darkness for some time. When Kali came to, she was standing in the rain, completely drenched. Rhane stood in front her, lips moving soundlessly as he shouted, the words swept away by an unforgiving wind. She had never seen his eyes so black or so deadly focused as he leveled a gun directly over her heart.
About the Author
Eden currently resides in sunny South Carolina where she is hard at work on her next novel, a thrilling and emotional urban paranormal romance. She loves hearing from readers and can be reached at
[email protected]. Join her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EdenAshleyAuthor/ for all of her latest news and updates. Sign up for her newsletter to be the first to hear about new releases: Hot New Romance from Eden Ashley!
Other Works by Eden Ashley
Banewolf (Dark Siren #2)
Blood Chained (Dark Siren #3)
Primed Son (Dark Siren #4)
Love, Alchemy (Stand Alone New Adult Romance/Fantasy)
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