by Scott, Helen
“If you claim the brothers as your own, that will call our union into doubt. If that’s the case, you’ll have no power on the council, and by proxy, that’s your right. If you rule at my side, that’s another vote in our favor.
“Each family has three votes, but when a mate is discovered, because they’re so rare, that pursang gets a vote too. In all my years, that kind of good fortune has only occurred twice. We can do much good with the power you’ll wield, Marcella.”
The demand had dissipated, and in its place was a plea. Marcella narrowed her eyes at him as though she didn’t trust a word out of his mouth. Her nod, when it came, wasn’t exactly forthcoming. It was disparaging at best, but it was better than a, ‘Fuck you.’
“How will you explain our presence?” Gideon inquired, his arms folded across his chest.
“I’ll tell the truth. You’re a brotherhood, she’s your Sixth, but she’s my mate.”
I frowned. “How will that work?”
“You’re talking about arrogant pricks, Cade. Nowhere in their tiny minds will they believe that what you have with Marcella could surpass a pursang mate bond.” I only refrained from kicking him in the balls because he looked as unhappy with his words as I felt. “Their arrogance will enable us to sweep certain things under the rug.”
The car slowed down, and I glanced outside and saw we were at the skyscraper the council considered their stronghold.
Huh. It hadn’t taken as long as I’d imagined, but then, good conversation had a habit of making the time tick away, didn’t it?
* * *
Gideon
As I stared up at the tall building in front of me, I tried not to focus on how far away from nature I was.
In the concrete jungle, it always felt as though the walls of the city were closing in on me. Like I was slowly suffocating.
Our skin, just like with the humans, was our biggest organ. If you covered it in body paint, for example, without leaving even an inch to breathe, suffocation was a sharp possibility.
That’s how it felt every time I was in the city. Like a villain in a Bond movie was intent on dipping me into gold. Like I couldn’t breathe for all the pollution, couldn’t use my senses for the myriad ways they were bombarded here.
It didn’t matter which city it was, I always felt this way, but some cases were worse than others.
Manhattan was a nightmare. Boston too. Though they had rivers and the ocean nearby, I worked better with soil. It helped me connect with the earth. On this block, the biggest chunk of dirt could be found on the corner where a tree grew, its limbs pretty much limp as it wasted away in these toxic environs.
It was stupid and a waste of energy, but I channeled some of my power into the crescent moon rune on my back and tried to flood the tree with some nourishment. Seeing it wither away the way it was made me miserable, and while I couldn’t help all flora and fauna in the city, helping one was better than none.
When I connected with the rune, however, there was a distinct difference in how it usually worked.
It was almost like having a Big Mac and it tasting like a Fillet o’ Fish. My senses expected one thing when they got another.
I frowned at my body’s unanticipated reaction. Was it because I was in the city?
I tried to think about the past few days and what we’d been doing… had I used my runes since the other day?
I couldn’t remember, and that in itself was strange. I usually touched base with them various times a day, but I hadn’t been doing that, and I wasn’t sure why.
Was rustiness the reason why this felt so strange?
It should have been an easy case of channeling vitality and life into the tree. Instead, I felt as though all the vitality and life was seeping out of me without anything around to contain it. Almost like a faucet pouring water into a sink that wasn’t plugged up.
“Gid?”
I jolted at Marcella’s touch. Surprised, I asked, “Yeah?”
“You okay?” She jerked her chin at the glass revolving doors up ahead. All her mates were there, except for me.
“Sorry, yeah.”
“Distracted?” Marcella peered around the street. “Anything we should know about?”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
At least I hoped.
I couldn’t help but think back to when she’d called on her powers with the shadows, powers that enabled her to craft perfect illusions. That day when we’d stymied a bank robbery in progress, she’d called upon the moon in an attempt to get Cade to turn back time. It had fucked with him, and Elayne, the Mother of Druids, had declared he was shadow tainted.
I knew of no druid who could use several runes at any one time.
At different times in the day? Sure. That was common. Our power was infinite, after all, so long as we were near a source of energy, with our feet in the soil or hands in the ocean, nature fed us and replenished us.
But when Marcella had called on my runes to heal Keiran, had she broken something inside me?
Was I tainted too?
I wasn’t sure where the thought came from, but now that it was there, it wouldn’t go away. Even as I allowed her to hustle me toward the building, the notion wouldn’t relinquish its hold on me. Tension crawled up my spine as the thought twirled and danced in my head like a ballerina on crack. Each dip and spin was ungraceful and disjointed but made a strange, almost macabre kind of sense.
While the thoughts rolled over and over in my mind, we had made our way up to the council chambers and were waiting for the doors to open. When the two large oak doors finally swung inward, all the turmoil going on inside me ceased. Twelve cold faces stared out at us from a large dais. Nine men and three women. Hardly an even split.
“Darius Maximus and guests,” a snotty human, a squire by the scent of him, to my right announced as we walked in.
Darius motioned for us to wait as he walked to the front of the aisle and bowed to the council. The rest of the room, other than the dais, looked almost like a courtroom. The seats we were ushered to when Darius returned to us were set up almost like pews in a church, showing me exactly what the council thought of themselves.
A few other guests entered and were announced just as we had been, and the whole time the council members’ faces remained stony and cold. It was blatantly obvious that they wanted to be there even less than we did. The whole thing was just pissing me off. Why were they on the council if they didn’t actually want to do the work of ruling?
Finally, the meeting started, and I was able to zone out as they droned on about what an honor it was to have everyone there, and how there were such important and interesting ideas on the docket for the day, yadda, yadda, yadda. I only started paying attention again when I heard one of the councilmen say, “We call on Darius Maximus for the introduction of his mate.”
Darius stood up and held his hand out to Marcella. She took it and rose in her white and black dress, looking more like a queen than some Enforcer’s mate. The two of them walked to the front of the seating area where a small podium had been placed, and Darius bowed to the council, again, while Marcella curtsied.
“Councilmembers,” Darius began, his voice strong and clear so everyone in the room could hear without straining, a nicety I was sure not all who approached the council took into consideration. “I would like to introduce you to my true mate. Marcella McCray, daughter of Sylvester McCray, and Sixth to the brotherhood for the Maximus family.”
Gasps went up around the room.
It was like the possibility of a pursang female who was also a Sixth being someone’s mate had never entered any of their heads until that very moment. Maybe it truly hadn’t, but if that was the case, then they were all much too stupid to be our leaders.
“She’s a Sixth and your mate?” one of the few women on the council asked, as though she expected Darius to admit he was joking. The Maximus Enforcer and the term joking was not something I’d ever heard mentioned together in my whole life, and I was sure the same was tr
ue of my brothers. Darius was known for being serious and lethal. No one got in his way, and no one mocked him, at least not without facing some serious consequences.
“Indeed, she is. Marcella is very talented and has already done good work with her brotherhood toward the containment of Kronos and its human victims.”
“I heard,” one of the councilmen said, he was sitting toward the middle of the row of chairs and radiated power when he spoke, although it felt forced, like a breeze sweeping through trees versus a fan pushing air through its blades. “Very nicely done. Congratulations on finding your true mate. A rarity for all pursang kind.” He patted the hand of the woman next to him, who had been silent through everything so far, and she offered a small smile to him before her face returned to its stony expression.
I guessed that she was his mate. Usually, when I was in front of a mated pair of pursangs I could sense the bond, since it was part of nature itself, like a tree branch or a river. With these two, the little I did feel was more like tissue paper. There was hardly anything to it, and it was twisted and malnourished, withering away much like the tree I’d tried to give life to outside.
“But a Sixth is supposed to attend to all her brotherhood’s needs, I know because my daughter is one,” one of the other councilmen said with a shudder, as though disgusted with the whole thing. “How can this young pursang possibly be your mate when she’s fucking the Stained you left sitting behind you?”
All of my brothers tensed, and I saw Darius take a deep, calming breath, but when he opened his mouth to speak, the large, oak doors that gave entry to the room were flung open, essentially diverting all attention from the matter at hand. At first, I was annoyed, but when I saw who was strolling in, I knew shit was about to hit the fan.
* * *
Marcella
Seeing the Sires stroll into the council meeting left my jaw hanging open. Especially since it wasn’t just one or two of them. Arthur, Morgana, Elayne, and Morgause all walked in as though they owned the place, which in a way I supposed they did. After all, besides Merlin and the Lady, who I had only just learned of, they were the closest thing we had to gods or royalty.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” the councilman who had basically just called me a slut asked.
“We are your superiors,” Morgana purred, her eyes flashing a pure silver that left no one in any doubt that she was pursang. Except the silver was so bright, it was beyond normal levels. I saw a few males wince at the sight; some even flinched back in surprise.
“Unlikely. Stained, get these intruders out of here,” one of the councilwomen ordered my males, glaring at the Sires while gesturing at my mates.
They ignored her, turning to face me instead.
If the Sires had come here, they had a reason, and this needed to play out without violence. There was nothing that we could do to remove them if they wanted to be there anyway, and they were the fucking Sires. Their abilities far exceeded my own and those of anyone else in the room, including the council members.
When my men didn’t move, the woman who had called for their assistance sneered, “It shouldn’t surprise me that Stained wouldn’t respond in a time of need. Sixth, you need to control them better.”
I hadn’t been paying much attention to her before that point, but after those words, I turned and snarled, letting my pursang rise to the surface.
“Darius, control your mate!” she shrieked.
“No one needs to control Marcella. You, on the other hand, might make an interesting new toy,” Morgana stated, with a growl to her words.
I hadn’t expected any kind words from the Sire who had made me kill my mates while making me think they were my tormentors from the Academy, but there they were. Morgana’s eyes cut to me and drifted down to my belly, and disappointment shone in them when I assumed she sensed that I wasn’t pregnant like she wanted. I couldn’t stop my hand from fluttering above the most vulnerable part of my being, and knew that if I ever did decide to have kids, I would never be able to get the Sire’s look out of my head.
“We are the Sires of all supernatural beings. We come to you to advise you of a specific problem that we need help to contain,” Elayne declared, as she stepped forward from her siblings.
“You look like you just stepped off a tourist bus,” one of the councilmen grumbled, brow furrowing with displeasure. His disrespect was so astonishing that I barely contained a gasp.
Morgana stepped forward with her hand twisting in the air as though she was grabbing something. Without warning, the councilman who’d spoken was up and out of his seat, and stumbling forward until he stood in front of the Sires and dropped to his knees. His face was purple from strain, but what he was struggling to do I wasn’t sure, as he definitely wasn’t the one in control of his body at that moment.
“I am Morgana, Mother of Vampires. My sister Elayne, who you so rudely brushed off, is the Mother of Druids. My brother, Arthur, is the Father of the Walkers, and my sister Morgause is the Mother of Shifters. We are here to try and save your pathetic lives, and your overly complicated, disgustingly polluted world from our father, Merlin.”
It was one of the longest speeches I’d heard Morgana make, and I was terrified of what would happen when they told her where to shove it because it was clear from the look on most of the council’s faces that they didn’t believe her. Someone else must have picked up on the same thing because, while I didn’t know who, although I suspected Arthur, someone in the room was drawing on a shitload of magic. A sensation I had no idea how I’d experienced.
As though they knew they were going to be summoned, the Cavalry appeared in the room. Flashing into being. A set of three on each side of the Sires, they stood, formidable as ever, dressed in their chosen uniforms with weapons in hand.
I gulped at the sight; my hope for no violence to fall this day dying a swift death with it.
If I didn’t think the Sires would stop it, then I’d say World War Three was about to break out. The Cavalry were all dressed in suits, looking like they belonged on Wall Street, yet in their hands, there was a variety of weapons. Anything from crossbows to short swords.
Everything was completely normal.
Right.
“I assume you know who these men are?” Arthur inquired.
“Shit, it’s the Cavalry,” someone muttered, except I couldn’t tell which councilor it was, but whoever it was knew who the Cavalry were and was well aware of their reputation, which only succeeded in making the Ancients smile. It wasn’t particularly friendly though.
As the four Sires walked toward the council, the Cavalry dropped to their knees in supplication, and it made me wonder about their devotion, and about the Reapers and why they had sided with Merlin when the Cavalry fought for the Lady.
Darius had told me the thirteen had made up the original brotherhood, the Knights of the Round Table, but while they’d started off serving Arthur, something had torn them apart. Of course, darkness and light were two opposing forces, but one could not exist without the other. The Sires might walk a tightrope between Merlin and the Lady, trying to keep the world in balance, but the Cavalry had picked their side long ago. The Reapers too.
Morgause’s voice, when she spoke, was so sensual, it was a croon, but her words were anything but as she declared, “We are going to work together on finding Merlin’s prison and keeping him locked away. If we don’t, then we risk releasing an evil on this world that it is not prepared for. One that will destroy everything you know and hold dear.”
My heart clenched in my chest as a feeling of being overly full took over me. As though being near the four Sires was too much for my body to handle. It reminded me of when Arthur had scanned me in and outside of his tomb, and even as the thought crossed my mind, the next moment, my heart began a galloping pace within me, like it had stuttered and restarted only to be turbocharged or something.
I gasped, drawing the eyes of everyone in the room, right before I fell to my knees. Part of my brain regi
stered that my breasts almost fell out of my dress, but that wasn’t my primary concern. What I was worried about was how I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath, or that my heart had turned into a jackhammer in my chest.
Darius was kneeling next to me, and I could see his lips moving, concern filling his eyes, but I couldn’t hear anything. My heartbeat was thundering in my ears, making me deaf to everything else. Whatever he was saying had drawn the others over, and my mates were surrounding me like a wall of flesh. Most of them were facing outward, as though they could attack whatever was causing this, but I knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t in the room with us.
My pursang mate and my mind walker were the ones on the ground with me as I struggled to breathe. I felt Raven’s presence in my mind and knew he was trying to figure out what was going on. I didn’t care. He could search through any and everything if it would make this stop. The last thing I had wanted today was to look weak to the council, and now that was exactly what was happening.
What’s wrong? Raven’s voice sounded in my mind.
I couldn’t speak, could barely even form thoughts because I was starting to full-on panic, so I just pushed the different sensations at him.
Nothing felt right.
It was almost like my skin was too small, like all the power I had as a shadow weaver was suddenly a physical thing, and my body was struggling to contain it. The more I tried to figure out what was going on, the more it morphed into different sensations. I was more like a bird being blown about by a hurricane than a pursang trying to control her powers.
But it wasn’t just my powers; although they were crying for release, it was my whole body. Muscle spasms were racking my form and making it impossible to hold myself upright, even on my hands and knees. Add to that the crazy heartbeat and the lack of breath, and my body was starting to feel like it was shutting down.
White light filled the room, or maybe my eyes just stopped working, I wasn’t sure which. I felt like I was blinking, but nothing was changing, the white light was there whether my eyes were open or closed. When it all receded a moment later, I watched helplessly as it condensed into a single being, one that I somehow knew was there for me and, hopefully, to show these council members what was happening. Maybe even smack some sense into them—who knew?