Toril tried, Creator knew she tried. At best, she weathered the physical pain for the female, the emotional pain lingered rich and sickly in her soul. Before Toril’s deep sleep she could still feel those emotions as clearly as the day they were created if her thoughts brushed against them.
Each and every soul visit Scorpio granted Toril was precious, not for the erotic elements neither one of them could abstain from, but for the oneness she felt. When Scorpio was inside her, Toril was not in a thousand places at once feeling every emotion from the blessedness to the wretched. She was with him, she only felt him. Yearning to touch his flesh with her own hands was a desire she could stay as long as she found her hit of peace every chance she had.
How did it all go so wrong..., the thought was one Toril had often after the gray witch and her consorts captured Scorpio and her. Toril loathed Reveca for proving her mother right. If the woman was right about one thing, surely she was right about more. Right about the dangerous touch, right about the lengths Toril’s brother would go to destroy her...the universe.
They were no longer just fears. They became a life Toril was forced to live. Staring up at Scorpio she wanted to tell him all she had kept from him, she wanted to explain...
All at once a new thought overtook her flooding mind. Her hand gracefully moved to her stomach and though her stare was vacant her mind replayed all she had missed of her own life. She felt her son’s conception, heard his heartbeat deep inside of her, felt him grow second by second. She felt the pain of his birth and the first sensation of flesh to flesh as he drew milk from her breast.
Her lip trembled as she spoke. “Where is he?”
A quiver washed down Scorpio as he opened his mouth to speak. No words came. Instead, she felt his emotions, him reliving his journey home, holding her sleeping body each night in a cocoon of his vim as he begged a silent Creator to give his burden to another.
Scorpio would never openly tell her of this time, a weakness in his mindset. It would embarrass him to know she was now seeing it as his emotions swelled into the room. Men from his era were not to display weakness, much less emotions. It was one of the reasons she held back from letting him understand every level of what she endured. He didn’t need the pain of worry, more so, he needed the freedom to feel what he wanted when he wanted, without the fear of her judgment.
“With her,” Toril said rising too fast. Her head swarmed and before she knew it, Scorpio was before her. His hands stayed balled into fists at his side but she felt his vim cradling her, stopping her from falling off the bed or too harshly back onto it.
“Nothing teaches you,” she said breathlessly. Toril had felt weak before, but never this useless. She wasn’t even strong enough to push his vim back. As protective as it was, it was also a sweet temptation.
He left their son in the witches keep!
Let me in, Scorpio’s thoughts growled.
Until Toril’s head was clear, and she understood how much power the heathen witch had acquired while she slumbered no one was possessing anyone. Reveca was cold enough to hit her enemy when they were down, Toril had seen her do it enough times to know so.
Toril swayed her head as her eyes welled and her mind’s eye fastened onto her son. A beautiful warrior, a reflection of his father...a life she’d missed.
“He has taken command of the Pentacle Sons,” Scorpio said as his jade stare searched hers.
He was seeking approval, delight in Toril’s expression, the way he always had when he’d arrive with a trinket or stolen flower. Under it all, he was still a boy courting a girl he could never truly fathom.
Toril’s heart shaped lips slightly parted as she carefully balanced her weight into a sitting position was all the reward Scorpio could ask for.
“Can you see him?” Scorpio asked as the same beautiful yet painful emotion swelled in him. The moment a man and woman understand the pair of them created a miracle. That no matter what, they’d live on through the life of their child is indescribable. It was a moment that was overdue for the pair of them to relish in together.
Dust...
Her glance touched the far south wall. Toril could do more than see him. She could hear his childlike laugh as he ran through the forest, the simple questions that left his lips. She heard everything from his first breath to the time Scorpio came for him and took him to the Druids.
“You told them I would arrive with a child,” Scorpio said as he watched Toril’s eyes close in gratitude, the way they always did when she paid ode to her ancestors. People Scorpio despised as much as he respected them.
“A man,” Toril corrected. “I told them you were bringing a man to them...no longer a child.”
It was all coming into focus now. Parts of her plan had hashed out perfectly. Every child deserves the lessons of the father and the mother. The marriage of wisdom and heritage in their blood. The Druids were the closest thing Toril could offer from her slumber. They were descendants of her tribe, people who had purposely erased themselves from the pages of history.
Unfortunately, there was no way for her to know if all she had left for her son was given to him, if he truly understood what he was meant to.
The disconnect between her and Dust was damning to her spirit. One should sense their own son more clearly than a being in their Throng, shouldn’t they?
No...no they shouldn’t, Toril thought as a girlish smile touched the corner of her lips. The seed had been passed on. Win or lose, no matter what the witch, her brother, or the dark gods she was in concert with did, Toril and Scorpio had won.
Ashes to ash, dust to dust, we each return, living on and on. There are many types of immortality, but none as sweet as your blood coursing through the next generation. It’s a ray of hope, no matter how great or small, as powerful as any spark.
“Why didn’t you tell me,” Scorpio rasped. “You trust me so little that even the protection and life of my child was to be left to chance.”
Toril’s mind cast back to the hell she had lived through, the trickery and coldness of it all. How would she ever let him see the why behind it now? She couldn’t yet...not until she had time to digest all the visions in her head. For all she knew, the witch or Toril’s brother had tainted Scorpio past the point of saving, and by default her as well.
Toril winced as the images of those in their Throng came to her...were any of them salvageable? Only a fool would guess one way or another. Each was so far from where they should be. At the same time, where they were had kept them hidden until this rise was set to come.
“There was no time...” No there was not a single moment she truly had alone with him. Not until they were at sea. She had less than an hour with him. Explaining how twisted their last years had been was not something either of them cared to do.
“What did you see, Toril?” Scorpio asked squatting so he could be eye to eye with her.
Too much...she wanted to say. Instead, she held fast to what she had already revealed, the safest of statements. “I saw the witch demand for your head.”
“Next,” Scorpio said with a wry lift of his brow.
It took Toril so off guard that she swayed, would’ve fallen if his vim had not held her in place. Never, in all their fights had he ever so freely admitted her visions were not only right but had come true. It rattled her, him not glaring her down and saying they had no choice but to endure, and that Reveca was the salvation she had begged for. Now that she had it, she scarcely believed it.
“Her coven will turn on her, lovers old and new will see her through eyes anew,” Scorpio said making his own prediction. He’d seen the course Reveca was on now play out before. He had never acted on them before; played the emotions he knew would be in the air. Reveca was as predictable as she was unpredictable when it came to conflicts like she was enduring now.
Toril squinted her eyes in confusion. “Why do your horses roar?” The modern world made all Toril was trying to digest even harder.
Scorpio tried to hold in his grin. It
twitched in place but then there was no stopping it, he bowed his head to hide the audacity of it. “Much has changed. They’re bikes. Not alive. They move faster, but by far are not the fastest machine out there.”
When he glanced up, Toril’s eyes were cast into nothing, a sign she was somewhere else studying the creation of machinery. All at once she jarred back, his vim barely caught her in time.
“Like thunder they will come, they are all but on their way. The swamp. It’s hot, thick—it’s a trap.”
Scorpio swayed his head in the same common denial she had seen him have in the past. “They are too distracted to follow her tantrum to its end. Dust is in command,” he said again failing to hide the pride in his voice as he did.
Toril swallowed, deep inside she was panicky. No amount of anger or hatred could starve out the anticipation of facing your greatest of enemies. “They know not what they are charging after.” After a gasp, she went to reach for Scorpio but stopped herself when she was only a breath away, close enough to feel the heat of his body. “She summons the dark gods. She offers our souls.”
Knowing this, feeling it with such certainty pushed Toril’s desires to wrap her body around Scorpio’s. The urge was as rich as the night she saw the legions of angels in the heavens above. She didn’t trust herself, not yet. Carefully, she drew back as she stared into the ache in Scorpio’s eyes.
He swayed his head in absent denial. For weeks, he had toyed with the urge to come to where he was. If he learned now that hesitation had slaughtered any chance of victory for him and his Toril, his soul would forevermore be haunted.
“We must strengthen our Throng, more so we must ensure your life, Toril.” Had she seen the spell he had to use to place her in this sleep? Did she know her rise was not final, not sure until she took the life of Reveca?
The state of Toril’s soul was always in question with Scorpio. He and Jamison had discussed this at length over the years. Never openly, always in coded analogies, but still, no answers were given.
Spells were recipes. And just like any cook in any kitchen will tell you, there is more to it than simply combining ingredients. The timing and care produce a unique result.
Scorpio didn’t have the slightest fucking clue what he was doing when he saved Toril’s existence by pushing her into a deep sleep. There were very long days he had lived through where his darkest thoughts promised him that she would never rise again.
Jamison didn’t offer much in the way of reassurance. His only warning was that whatever was used to resolve the spell had to occur, or the soul in question would return to their prior state, no matter what length of time had expired.
Very simply, Toril would have to have her vengeance.
Scorpio didn’t doubt Toril’s visions; he had witnessed Reveca hatch war plans in just as off the wall manner. More so, he knew Reveca’s new lover King could easily summon any god for her to barter with.
What Scorpio did doubt was the time scale. He had seen Toril’s visions take decades to come to pass. Until he felt the cold breath of any god seeping down his back, his one and only focus would be restoring Toril to the glory she deserved. Even if she was struck down the very next moment and they both left this existence, they would not leave haunted. Scorpio would have resolved what he put in motion, his hands and soul clean of the tragic sin of ending a soul so pure and beautiful that darkest of evils had no choice but to hunt.
Scorpio moved so his stare would connect with Toril’s; he needed her back in the present with him, not watching a war that would have a million chances to change before it arrived.
“I know how she did it, I know where the fire came from,” Scorpio said reverently. Toril’s amber eyes grew wide, focused, ready to pounce at any moment. “In a dimension deep in the Veil there is a goddess, Ambrosia. She has sought to devour Talon since his death. As of late, she had nearly succeeded, and she will if we don’t stop it.”
Toril slowly swayed her head, “Ambrosia is not a goddess. She’s a traitor.”
Now Toril understood why Talon’s state above any other in their Throng was alarming to her senses. The rumors were true. Reveca was allied with dark beings who sought to destroy Throngs. It was their method that was so damning. One seed of doubt caused civil wars. Beings of power devoured the power of those who trusted them most, ending their life.
The fastest way to slay any Throng was by contracting another Throng member—from any Throng—to do your bidding. Only they could understand when and where Throngs carried their power.
Scorpio’s furrowed his brow as he focused on all the emotions he felt coming from his female. He would never claim to have any sight at all, but there were times when Scorpio felt Toril so richly that he not only saw what she saw, he lived it.
“That fucking bitch,” he growled.
“Ambrosia devoured her Throng, and now seek ours,” Toril said in easy agreement. “Her vim is linked with both you and Talon. It has been since Reveca nearly drowned both of you in the essences of the realm Ambrosia has chosen to rule.”
Toril’s mind searched looking for a single clue that would assure her Ambrosia knew what she was doing. There was a good chance she didn’t. Once Ambrosia devoured her own Throng, the thrive of the power halted. Ambrosia would hold what she had, but like the salted earth, it could not replenish itself season after season.
It stood to reason Ambrosia would search for more, and that she would yearn to take down every Throng she could find. The tragedy of it all was, there are not many. Scorpio and Toril had heeded the advice of Toril’s mother. They’d stayed hidden.
For Scorpio and Talon to still be standing after all this time, Toril could surmise Ambrosia didn’t understand why she was attracted to these males; she simply knew she felt a draw.
Toril stared Scorpio down, thanking her gods she had found him so early. It was their bonding that had made him less desirable to Ambrosia. The curse was Talon’s natural bond to a Throng, and that made him irresistible to Ambrosia.
“One soul will grant her passage to all of us.” Toril stood shakily. What Ambrosia knew wouldn’t matter the second she succeeded in pulling Talon to her realm permanently. She’d know then, she’d act then.
“You’ve all been fooled. Ambrosia is anything but a lovesick fire goddess. She is standing in a stolen realm thriving on the power of souls that were once more precious than blood.”
After a moment of silence, of staring into the visions firing away in her mind, all the tension in Toril’s body faded. “I know how to kill them both...this ends now.”
Season Three: Volume One
Episode Four
Chapter One
The thunder of fifty plus bikes echoing across the streets of the lower and then the upper Quarter was enough to make both tourist and native, paranormal and mere mortal, shiver with apprehension. This wasn’t the calm before the storm, this was the sharp temperature dropping wind that told all those in its path it was too late to run, and that their only choice was to cling to what cover they had.
There were far more discrete ways to move from the Boneyard to the Garden district, not to mention more direct ways. Talon wasn’t aiming for either; he wanted a message sent to the lawmen both legit and crooked, that nothing in their power could hold back the force of the Pentacle Sons. For every one they took in on trumped up charges, ten more arrived on the back of roaring Harleys. It had been a gruesome and fast twenty-four hours since the arraignment of the witches.
The moment the skinwalker rogue fucks realized they had been outplayed, every bar but the one at the Boneyard was invaded by lawmen, each wielding false charges anywhere from public intoxication to possession. If you were wearing a Pentacle Son kut, you were taken in.
Talon could not figure out how Dust knew to order all immortals to stay on the Boneyard property the hour it all went down. Talon only left his side to check on Knight, and that was after the order was in place. Not one phone call, informant, or witch came up to either of them. All at once, D
ust’s eyes had gone hazy, and he tensed so fiercely that Talon was sure some witch fuck had their claws in him. Then, just like that, it was over.
He looked Talon dead in the eye, “No alibi will stop the retribution. The Boneyard is sacred ground. Whoever you want on this side of the bars better be here.” Talon had no issue juggling those words around and setting the order right as Dust found the tranquility he was known for once again.
Talon would’ve pulled everyone in if there was time. Hell, if it weren’t for Dagen ordering his posse of dark angels out to offer supernatural cab fare, half the immortals would not have gotten the message in time.
Church was chaos as both immortal and mortal thirsted for vengeance. No one had a clear answer on how to reach it. The main goal was to take down Akan, the fuck that started all of this. To get to Akan, the Sons would have to charge into every dark corner of the city and beyond, execute one Rogue after another until the information they wanted and the message they needed delivered was in place.
It was an easy enough plan, but the fuck all part of it was if any one of them left the grounds their mortal front was in jeopardy. They either let themselves be taken in by lawmen who were really shitty skinwalkers, or they could blow their cover and send the nation, followed by the globe, into hysteria.
Talon had lost count of the number of apocalypses he had seen swirl into life, this was the worst by far. In the past, mortals still believed in the unknown, they had respect for it and faith that in the end they would be spared. That was not the case today. He had no fucking clue how the revelations of immortals would be taken. Bombs and heavy artillery were at the top of the list. Taking those on was no big scare to him; it was the innocent lives that would be lost that stirred the humanity in him.
Reveca was MIA and for the most part King and his men were too, their absence alone was unnerving.
Talon was deep into plans of using immortals from the outside, chapters from all over the world, to attack the skinwalker fucks when Adair charged into Church. The pale tint to her skin, how her hands shook was enough to bring every Son to their feet as they reached for their weapons.