He shrugged. “It’s a good day.”
“Because Alex is dying?”
“Alex just thinks he’s dying.” Cassius shrugged again. “I don’t doubt it’s painful, but he’s growing up — growing sometimes feels like dying.”
“Huh.” The berries I’d just eaten went completely rotten in my stomach, rolling around like I’d just swallowed gasoline. “Tell me, how bad does it suck to know futures?”
Cassius’s eyes flashed white. “It’s not pleasant.”
“Hmmm.”
“Bannik will make his move soon.” Cassius leaned his large body against the table. “But until he has a way to absorb the power of Sariel’s brothers — they are safe.”
“And how do we know that he hasn’t already figured that out?”
“We have Timber,” Cassius said simply. “And Timber is honor-bound to protect his queen… which in turn means protecting her from any potential threat Bannik may be. She has the entire demonic race at her fingertips, and Bannik… all he has is himself. It is a very lonely existence, having as much power as he does, and yet nobody to gloat with.”
“Did you just make a joke?”
“Perhaps.” Cassius moved casually through the room, his wings were tucked behind his back, purple and blue feathers fanned down his spine as if they were subconsciously massaging his skin or perhaps just tasting the air out of curiosity.
I shivered. His wings always gave me the creeps. It was like they were alive… they mourned, they rejoiced, they were capable of emotion and to quote Genesis, it was “creepy as hell.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be around….” Cassius called over his shoulder. “Make sure that you let Alex leave if he tries.”
“Can he even walk?”
“Love is a powerful motivator,” was Cassius’s vague answer as he walked out the front door and disappeared.
“I hate his riddles.” Ethan walked in the kitchen and yawned. “They make my head hurt.”
A roar sounded from upstairs.
Ethan’s eyes widened before he ran toward the hall and took the stairs two at a time, bursting into Alex’s room. I was hot on his heels.
Alex was tossing and turning in bed, blood had spattered on the walls, the headboard, saturated the sheets, and dripped onto the carpeting. It was everywhere as though it was still leaking from his wound.
“Are we sure he’s not dying?” I whispered.
“Smells like it,” Ethan added.
Alex’s eyes flashed open. “Need. Hope.”
“No.” Protectiveness surged over me as my claws bit into the palm of my hands. “Go back to sleep.”
Ethan gave me a look that said, “Right, would you be able to sleep in your own sweat and blood?”
I shrugged.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
“Need her!” Alex shouted again, and this time his voice shook the house.
“Um…” I frowned at his writhing body. “That’s new.”
Ethan covered his ears as Alex’s screaming grew louder and louder.
I moved toward him only to get flung back against the wall. His amber eyes locked on me and turned about fifty shades of blue before his hair turned an icy cobalt.
“That’s new too,” Ethan said before falling to his knees. “What the hell Alex?”
Alex stumbled out of bed. “Need her. Help me. Need her!”
“Yeah, we can hear you!” I yelled back at him. “Whatever you’re doing, stop!”
His eyes rolled to the back of his head as blood dripped down his fingertips and onto the nice clean floors. “She’s close.”
“Did he just sniff the air?” I asked a frowning Ethan.
We were powerful.
Ethan hadn’t been taken down by a siren, ever.
And the fact that a werewolf had just been flung against the wall like a china doll — a bit horrifying.
Sirens were emotional beings.
Not physical.
“In. Danger.” He stumbled. “She’s in danger.”
“Timber will protect her with his life — go to bed.”
“Not from him…”
“Me!” Alex roared, every muscle in his body flexed as he collapsed in a pool of his own blood.
Hope
“IT IS HARD to live a life that is not truly yours… you have been living in the shadows… your memories suppressed far too long.” Timber’s eyes were cold. “The same happened to me until I felt you… and when you touched me.” He shivered as blue fire danced in his eyes. “You awakened my essence. And now, it’s time for me to return the favor.”
I was full on shaking by the time he was done talking.
Let’s do a recap. Alex was most likely dead because I wasn’t with him and he needed sex.
I cried blood now.
And I was in a demon’s house, guarded by folklore that I had once thought only existed in storybooks.
Oh yeah, and I was sad.
So sad.
I missed Alex.
I missed everyone else too.
But there was an empty place in my heart when I thought of him, and I had no idea why.
It was horrible.
I hated it.
Because what had he ever really done for me? Other than give me mind-blowing sex? Nothing. He’d done nothing.
And in the end, I had a sinking feeling that he never truly cared about me as a person — only what my body could offer him.
Satisfaction. That was what he needed.
My heart was in danger of beating for a man who would make me fall in love with him — only to hurt me in the end.
“Give me your hand,” Timber requested gently. He was still terrifying; his pitch black eyes seemed to look right through me, elongated fangs pricked his lower lip, his tan skin was smooth, almost too perfect while his whitish blond hair shimmered in the dim light.
Weird.
His hand was warm.
“Awake,” he said in English and then, “Xypinos.”
A tendril of blue smoke rose from our joined hands. It smelled like fresh dirt, and when the haze was directly in front of my eyes, Timber pressed his lips together and blew it in my face.
I sucked in a breath.
Memories washed over me, so many of them, ones I didn’t even know I had.
The first thing I thought? Holy crap, I’m old.
I smiled as my memory — one I didn’t even know was lost — returned, my parents, my real parents, raising me, loving me, protecting me.
Suddenly I was grown.
I felt… so happy.
“You’re stunning.” He kissed my neck. “Beautiful.”
I blushed and turned in his arms. “I’m going to tell them about us.”
“Don’t.” A panicked moan escaped from between his lips before he kissed me again. “Please, not yet… I haven’t told anyone either, and I think it’s best we keep them in the dark a bit longer.”
“Alex!” I cupped his chin with my hands. “Why are you always so afraid?”
“You know why,” he whispered across my lips.
“I understand why…” My cheeks reddened. “Why there needs to be other women… I do, I told you I do!”
“But they won’t,” he said sadly.
“If we mate then—”
He captured my mouth in a searing kiss. “I will marry you. I swear it. Just give me more time…”
That was always his argument. Time. Time to come to grips with being with one woman for the rest of his existence. For a siren, a death sentence.
But he said for me, for love, he would do it. We hoped that my elf blood and his siren blood would mix — the mating process would make us whole.
Though we knew everyone around us would shun us.
Sirens, though powerful, were not respected.
They were takers.
But I loved him with everything I had.
And willingly gave him my heart before he ever asked.
I nodded. “
Okay, Alex. I love you.”
“I love you too.” He said the words, but his eyes were sad.
Hollow.
And I knew in my heart that the minute I walked away, he would be seeking out another woman to give him pleasure.
He refused to use me that way.
At least so he said.
He wanted to marry me first.
Do the right thing.
And yet I knew that every single day he was in the arms of another — the last time he came to me without sex — he’d almost hurt me, then run off.
I couldn’t blame him for what he was — how could I? He had no control over it, and I knew the shame he carried with him on a daily basis.
“Let me,” I begged, reaching for his perfect face, my fingers heating at the feel of his smooth skin. “Please.”
“No.” His eyes dilated. “No. I can’t… Hope, I can’t… tarnish you, not this way. I can’t. Don’t you understand? How I could hurt you?” As he spoke, the room began to heat to a painful degree. Sweat slid between my breasts, hitting my suddenly too-tight corset. “I’m not… good.”
“But you are!” I argued. “I know you!”
“You think you know me.” He said it so callously as he pulled out of my arms and walked over to the window. “You’re enamored of me — most elves would be.”
I hated that word.
Elf.
It defined me.
And he always seemed to use it as a way to put a division between us.
“They won’t ever approve of us,” Alex said mostly to himself, even though I was standing right there.
“Give me time,” I whispered. “Let me talk to my mother at least.”
“And your father?” He chuckled, finally meeting my gaze again. He was so pretty, my chest ached. “What about him?”
“Have whiskey ready,” I suggested. “Then maybe he’ll keep his claws in, Werewolves aren’t known for their restraint.”
“You sure you don’t have any claws, too, princess?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
“It’s the truth.”
The truth of why my parents wouldn’t approve of me wanting to marry one of the immortal councilmen.
A siren.
He was impossible to control. Everyone thought so. They were afraid of him, and a part of me always wondered — if he was a little afraid of himself.
“I’ll start with my mother. You worry about Father later, alright?”
Alex let out a heavy sigh and then reached for me, his shaking fingers grazed the front of my gown, his knuckles brushing across the top of my breasts.
“Go.” I swallowed a sob. “The last thing I need is you weak in front of my parents.”
“I hate this.” His eyes were sad.
“Me too.”
Licking his lips, he placed a kiss on my forehead touching my skin there with the tip of his tongue, and sending warmth radiating outward from the wet caress, he rarely did more than kiss me, lick me. He squeezed my shoulder before stepping back, grabbing his beaver hat, and walking away.
My heart ceased to beat, at least it felt like it.
He said he didn’t love them.
He said he didn’t care about them.
But I knew, every single time he walked away from me, it was because he was walking into someone else’s arms.
Someone else’s bed.
And at times, my hate matched the love I had for him.
“MOTHER?” WHY WE were meeting at a hotel, I had no idea. We were immortal women, already people looked at us differently because they sensed something was unique about us. It only drew more attention that we were by ourselves, without a male escort, at a hotel. “Is this wise?”
“It is safe.” She nodded. “Even right now, Sariel sends us protection.”
I shivered. Something felt wrong.
The other four women had kept oddly silent during the carriage ride and the entire way up to our rented meeting place.
“We are gathered here,” Mother began, “to discuss Hope.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. They were always discussing me. “Why don’t we try something different… Mary,” I directed my question at my good friend, “You seem happy, what news will you share?”
“I’m in love,” she gushed.
Jealousy hit me hard and swift. “Oh?”
“He’s beautiful.” Her eyes flickered. I frowned at my mother then glanced back at my friend. “Go on.”
“Hope, silly me, I’ve just remembered, we were to wait for Sariel downstairs. Be a dear and retrieve him?” Her expression was tight. Her smile more of a frown.
“Yes, of course.” I stood and excused myself while Mary continued gushing about this new man. I hated him already. Hated that they would be able to be together while my parents would most likely shun the one I loved because of what he was — because of what he did. It mattered not that he was powerful, that he was one of our leaders and protectors, if anything it made it worse. I might as well announce I was going to marry an archangel.
By the time I reached the hotel lobby, ten minutes had passed.
Then fifteen.
Where was Sariel?
I decided to leave a note with the front desk and made my way back up to the room.
Only to find Alex.
Dripping with my mother’s blood.
“I could not save them.” He dropped to his knees. “Late… I was too late.”
Seconds blurred into minutes as tears filled my eyes at the scene.
A rush of cold wind bit into my skin, and suddenly Sariel was kneeling in the blood right along with Alex.
“This will not go unpunished.” Sariel’s white eyes locked on Alex. “You have taken everything precious from this woman… because of your selfishness, because of your cowardice!”
“It wasn’t on purpose!” I yelled, defending Alex. “We don’t know what happened!”
“It matters not — because they are dead.” Sariel’s voice roared as Ethan, Stephanie, and Cassius suddenly appeared in the room, their faces morose. “His job was to protect those who could not protect themselves, and because he was having sex with a nameless, faceless woman rather than the one his heart truly calls for — they are no longer breathing.”
Tears slid down my cheeks. I couldn’t keep the choked cries in as I fell to my knees and sobbed.
Velvet soft feathers wrapped around my body cradling me, shuddering with me as a purple mist covered me from head to toe.
“He must be punished small one… he must reach his full potential. If he does not — I shudder to imagine what will happen if his dark power is unleashed on this world —he must see the light, and in order to do that, he must lose it all.”
“I don’t understand.” I wiped my cheeks with the backs of my clammy hands.
“You,” Alex whispered, not looking at me, but the blood-filled ground in front of him. “Take her.”
“Alex, no!” I yelled, shoving the feathers away from my body, but they held me firm, like a pretty prison of purples and blues. “Alex, I love you!”
He shook his head slowly. “And I will never deserve you.” His eyes went completely black. “I never did.”
“Sleep.” Sariel hushed the room.
Cassius was mid-conversation with Ethan, Stephanie had just waved over Mason, one of my best friends in the whole world.
My chest ached.
“What happened to them?”
“Nothing that hasn’t happened before,” Sariel said in a sage voice. “You will sleep… until the time is right. I must protect the last remaining royalty, and in order to do that, I must send you away to sleep.”
“I’m scared.” I closed my eyes against the burning tears as Sariel’s black and red hair whipped around as though a great wind had entered the room.
“Don’t be.” His eyes flashed white. “For where you go, many have only dreamed and few will ever see.”
A loud thunderous crack sounded, and
I held my hands to my ears, covering them.
“Come.” A small boy with bright blue eyes held out his hand. “You must sleep until you are needed.”
Sariel nodded to the boy and gently pushed me in his direction.
“Where are we going?”
The boy smiled. “During the time you are there, you will experience things beyond your wildest dreams. My gift to you is that you will never be able to remember them, for your own humanity will not be able to take your return to the human plane. You would surely die. And we need you to live. Alex’s life depends on it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s the beauty of life.” The boy’s grin grew. “It’s not for you to understand, it is for you to listen… we are everywhere.”
The dream exploded with color.
And suddenly I was at the immortal compound a few months ago, reporting to a job.
Cassius rounded the corner of his desk. “You are familiar.”
“I promise, I’m nobody.”
Lie. Something whispered in the air.
I ignored it.
I’d been told all my life that Cassius was dangerous, the way he moved was downright terrifying.
But now I knew, watching the dream, watching my past — I was bred to serve him, to fear him.
“Plants,” he said with finality. “I shall hide you in the plants until it is time.”
“I have a black thumb.”’
His lips twitched. “Even better. Come along now.”
Alex
I JOLTED AWAKE.
It was a dream.
It had to be a dream.
I was hallucinating.
Right?
“Wrong.” Cassius’s voice scared the shit out of me. “You were wrong then, you’re wrong now.”
“I really, really hate you, most days. Just saying.” I clenched my teeth. “Why are you here still?” My heart tossed, twisted, turned with the need to tell Hope how I felt — to find her — to make it right.
God, I’d been so wrong.
So. Wrong.
The dream haunted me, fragments, bits and pieces of Hope’s smile invaded my consciousness. Maybe a side effect of the demon bite was that I was wishing for things that could never happen.
“You haven’t sought out sex.”
“Nope.” My body jerked at the thought, screamed at me to do something about the pain slicing down my chest, cutting me open, filleting me alive. My heart felt like it was going to explode. And maybe it would — maybe that was what had happened to the rest of the sirens in existence. Without sex, without love, they simply ceased to care, and they lay rotting in a bed until their hearts just… burst.