Stained Minds

by Helen Scott

  “I don’t know. Something isn’t right.”

  Keiran was the quietest of us all, but he was the most sensitive too. Even though Gideon was a druid and had connections to the earth that none of us could even begin to understand, Keiran had a radar of his own going on that was up there with Barclay’s nose.

  He got to his feet and stepped across the shit littering the floor, the tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of designer gear that Marcella had destroyed in a tantrum, and headed to the doorway.

  The clothes were like a strange symbol of just how weird Marcella was being.

  I’d never have imagined her being capable of doing anything like this. Of being like she had in the dream.

  It concerned me.

  Not because I was stuck with her potentially rabid ass until I died, but because it wasn’t her.

  The heat did shit to pursangs that they even deigned to teach us at Eastbrook. Not much, granted. Nothing detailed which was why Darius had mocked us earlier. But enough to know how to use it against them. That was how fucked up the heat was.

  They didn’t keep us in the loop because, someday, we could have a pursang female of our own, but because in our position as council lawmen, a pureblood in heat was fucking dangerous. A male who was guarding his mate was even more merciless in his defense of her. So much so that even an experienced brotherhood, five strong males, each trained up to their teeth, were no match against a male in those throes.

  We were taught to back off, to wait for the thankfully short period of time where the pursang female was in heat to be over, and then to make a move on the pair and arrest or detain them—permanently.

  Having never come across a mated pair in the throes of a heat before, I’d never realized just how potent the female could be. Even in her sleep, Marcella was enticing me, and she was unconscious, for fuck’s sake.

  Because Keiran was evidently sensing something, I didn’t holler at him as I wanted. Instead, I patted Marcella’s calf and climbed to my feet too. Heading his way, I kicked the expensive dresses aside, wondered how she’d ripped into a sexy as fuck pair of leather boots, and made it next to him. When I peered out the door, I heard nothing.

  And it was then that it made sense. What had him so on edge.

  Nothing was unusual.

  There were six men to our brotherhood. Then we had a rotation of three to four of the Cavalry who popped in like this was their local bar. I don’t even know how they popped in and out. It was like they had the Enterprise overhead with Scotty just waiting to beam them wherever the hell they wanted to go.

  “Where is everyone?” I whispered, and concern had me peering back at my female.

  Who wasn’t there.

  She. Wasn’t. Fucking. There.

  Heartbeat soaring, I grabbed Keir’s shoulder and forced him to turn around. He gaped at the bed. “Where is she?”

  His question took away any and all hopes that she’d asked to be let out of the dream so she could use the goddamn toilet.

  Gulping, I rushed over to the bathroom, saw it was empty, then I ran, full tilt, out of the bedroom and down the hall.

  The silence was eerie. So beyond fucking weird that it had my ears tingling with just how quiet it was. There were zero sounds. Not even the hum of the refrigerator or the TV in Barclay’s room which he usually had on constantly.

  My stomach and heart were up in my throat, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to throw up or pass out with the weirdness that was taking place around me.

  I was used to bad guys. Used to blood, murder, death. But what the Sires represented? These Reapers? I didn’t have a foothold on just what they were capable of, and I felt their taint. Felt it in the air.

  I could have been wrong, but I wasn’t.

  They wanted Marcella, so… what? They’d stolen her?

  A laugh, gentle but all the more arresting for the complete and utter silence, had both Keiran and I skidding to a halt on the shiny black and white checkerboard hall. The hairs on the back of my neck jerked upright faster than my cock in Marcella’s fist.

  “Where the fuck did that come from?” I breathed.

  He shook his head, as dumbfounded as me, and then took a step toward the mezzanine that bridged the foyer and the upper hall. He peered over it and I watched him blanch. Heading there myself, I stared down at the sight before me and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or fucking cry.

  “Keir, tell me this is a dream.”

  He shook his head again. “N-No. It’s real. It’s real, Raven,” he grated out, grief in his voice.

  The laugh sounded again.

  Marcella’s laugh. Except, it didn’t belong to her, even if she was standing like some freaky-ass version of Bloody Mary in the foyer, standing on a pile of bodies.

  My beautiful mate, her hair all over her face like It from the Addams’ Family, laughed, even as blood poured in rivulets over her body, even as the remnants of what she hadn’t drained from our brothers pooled on the floor beneath her.

  Gideon.

  Barclay.

  Cade.

  Darius.

  Dead.

  All of them.

  Dead.

  Then there was Rhys, and that dick Jasper. Drake was gone too.

  All of them.

  Dead.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I whispered. “How is this possible?” My brain whirred as terror fried my senses. “How aren’t we dead too?”

  I turned to Keiran, grabbed his arm to shake him, desperately seeking an answer, but when he turned to face me, I staggered back.

  Blood was pouring free from every orifice like he’d let loose a faucet and he was exsanguinating himself on command.

  “What the fuck?” I roared and pushed him over the mezzanine to splatter with my other fallen brothers, then, there was that laugh.

  Again.

  I glared down at Marcella but it wasn’t her, she wasn’t laughing. She just stood there, her arms limp at her sides, covered in blood.

  Another laugh, one that raked at me, tormented me with its source. I whipped around, trying to find the woman behind the laughter, and froze when a movement in my periphery dragged my attention to the staircase.

  “Marcella?” I rasped.

  She looked like her. She was like my mate, except she was clean. There was no blood on her, no tears in her skin. Her face was composed, her gentle features curving into a smile as she stared at me. But this was no situation made for smiling. That she could find amusement at my pain? I wanted to tear into her with the knife I carried in my boot.

  Almost as though she could read my mind, I felt something score into my ankle. Blood sang as the blade cut into me before it tore through my leather boot as though it were made of paper and, like a magnet, headed for the female.

  Not in the way I’d have preferred—point first—but handle. She caught it, the smile turning wider. “You’re a brave one.”

  I didn’t feel brave.

  I felt scared.

  “You should be scared,” were her next words, the tone conversational. “But even through that fear, you still thought to fight me.” A purr escaped her as she finally made it to the top step. But when she was sharing the landing with me, she didn’t walk. She floated.

  On my mother’s grave, she fucking floated.

  I staggered back, bewildered by the sight, then she whispered, “This could happen.”

  “You mean it’s a dream? It isn’t real?” Hope clawed at my throat with a viciousness that about brought me to my knees.

  Her lips curved again, the smile morphing into a grin. “No. It’s not. This is real, but I can take it back. I can make things right again.”

  I reached up and rubbed at my head. “What are you? Why are you doing this?”

  Another tinkling laugh. “You know who I am. I am Mother.”

  “You’re not my mom.” Mine had been rounder than a circle, with the kindest brown eyes and the gentlest smile. She’d kissed me on the head when I’d fallen over and had
covered me in Band-Aids when I’d hurt myself.

  She’d made cakes on rainy days, and had sung songs in a language, to this day, I still didn’t know. That was before, but I had those memories.

  “I am the Mother of your people. Well,” the female countered, “half your people. My brother is your other Sire.” Her nose curled. “He’s a sloth. He Sleeps still.”

  “You killed your own men,” I whispered, my eyes cutting to the corpses on the ground.

  “And I will kill them again and again and again, just as I have done for thousands of years.”

  “I don’t understand.” In the face of such antiquity, I felt hopelessly young. Like a child again. Like a kid watching his loved ones being slaughtered. My stomach twisted, churned, and the desire to throw up overcame me once more.

  “You’re not supposed to. Not yet. But you’re trying to avoid your destiny, and we can’t have that.” She tutted. “You’ve all been very naughty.”

  “N-Naughty?” I rasped, freezing at the female’s sudden proximity.

  “Marcella must be impregnated, and if I don’t get my child, then this will happen again.”

  A scream sounded, jerking my attention from the creature before me to the woman downstairs.

  “Maker! Fuck! What the—”

  “She panics, she breaks free from my grasp,” Mother stated, her grin beaming at me. “And so she ought. Naughty chit. She should have her House in order.”

  “Marcella didn’t do anything!” I bit out, and the need to go to her, to my mate, who was standing on a pile of corpses, the blood of our family covering her, her panic and terror as present as this insane bitch in front of me, overtook me. I needed Marcella as badly as she needed me, and to that end, I took a step forward, but the woman grabbed my arm.

  “I am Morgana. She is mine. She is reared in my image. Her males do not take her choices from her. Her males do not imprison her in a dream for her own safety.” A hiss and suddenly, the beautiful face morphed into something so ugly I wanted to whimper for my real mommy and huddle under the covers.

  Medusa had a head of snakes, well this woman? Her hair was made of feathers, each one tipped with gold, and her eyes were sharp, her nose a beak. Not like a shifter, but as though she were half crow. As though the woman was a mask. Blood covered her as it did Marcella, and even as confusion and fear entwined inside me, I stared into those beady eyes and whispered, “No.”

  Morgana jerked back. “No?” A screech escaped her, and claws appeared. She reached out for me. “You dare tell me no?”

  I held her off, arms that were like wings with the webbed flesh connecting arm to torso, oozed some kind of substance that burned when it touched me, but the scream she released pained me more. It seemed to sink into my bones, sink into my very soul, causing an agony the likes of which I’d never experienced before.

  One knife remained in my arsenal, and even as I thought of it, I felt it nipping into my skin, scoring the flesh, as she called to it, her power somehow drawing the weapon from me. But even as the knife swung from my grasp, I took the diversion for what it was—my last chance.

  Diving deep into her mind, hoping like hell I could slip under her defenses as though she were a regular female, I broke free of the surface and took my first step of air inside a mind like no other.

  I felt her clawing at my corporeal form, but deep inside her psyche, I was safe. Secure. She couldn’t hurt me here.

  There were no memories like with another person. No mental filing system for me to riffle through. She was too other for that. Too alien to my talents. I wondered how I’d made it in here in the first place, but even as the thought crossed my mind, I felt something in her change.

  She turned, and as though we shared eyes, I saw her staring over the mezzanine and down at Marcella. I saw her float over the banister—realized she was flying—and that her target was Marcella.

  Whatever the fuck was happening here, whether it was dream, nightmare, or reality, I wasn’t about to let her have at my mate.

  The ability to see through her eyes had to come with other advantages. Could I control her body? Could I stop her?

  I didn’t know. Was lost. Just knew my mate was in this woman’s crosshairs, and too much blood had already been spilled this day.

  Panicked and doubting myself as I stood in the black mist that was this bitch’s mind, I thought about how I was seeing through her eyes, and wondered if a simple thought, from one with my powers, could inspire her to act.

  STOP!

  I hollered the word inside my head, both this ethereal form of myself and the corporeal version laying on the mezzanine, drained out and torn to shreds from this woman’s claws.

  When it worked, when Morgana’s limbs ceased all movement, astonishment filled me.

  No.

  Surely it wasn’t that simple.

  An outraged cry echoed around the foyer.

  MAKE THEM BREATHE AGAIN.

  I’d gone from a command of a single word to a four-word demand, but I needed my brothers back. I needed the fucking Cavalry. Not just because I couldn’t live without my brothers, but because the Cavalry were the only motherfuckers who might know how to contain this crazy bitch!

  Through the creature’s eyes, I saw signs of life, and even though I didn’t understand how this was happening, how I was making this happen, I felt myself being expelled from Morgana’s psyche.

  “You cheat, dear sister!”

  I laid in a lump on the upper landing, but the new feminine voice was enough to have me crawling into a sitting position so I could look between the railings. I saw my brothers stirring, the Cavalry waking from this living nightmare, then I heard the voice again. “Morgana,” it barked, loaded with reprimand. “We must not cheat. That is not how it works.”

  “Elayne?”

  Rhys.

  I stared down at him, saw the tears on his skin where Marcella had cut into him, and though he was dazed, he appeared to be regenerating faster than my brothers who were still groggy, their limbs limp, their bodies as heavy as the corpses they’d been seconds before. All except Darius, that is.

  He was like Rhys.

  Was that because of his age?

  Maker, I had so many questions and no chance of any answers.

  “Yes, Sir Rhys, ‘tis I.” A bizarrely girlish giggle had me wincing. Unlike Morgana’s spooky laughter, this was weird on a whole other level.

  Morgana had claimed that Marcella was born in her image, but I could see the similarities to Elayne as well. They all shared the same red hair, delicately pointed chins, and eyes that were both green and blue simultaneously. Only the brows separated them. Marcella’s were naturally arched, Morgana’s too, whereas Elayne’s were flatter, straighter, softer. In fact, everything about her was soft where her sister was sharp and hard.

  “Tis good indeed to see you again, Your Highness,” Rhys rasped, his voice loaded with dark huskiness. “I did not realize you were all to Awaken so soon.”

  “Times change,” Elayne murmured, her gaze drifting over to Morgana and Marcella—each female standing so still, they looked like they’d been petrified into stone.

  “You contain them both, Your Highness?” Jasper asked.

  Elayne sighed. “Indeed. She is naughty, my sister. Always has been.”

  Drake licked his lips, and with a grunt, clambered onto his feet. “Arthur entombed you together, Ma’am?”

  “Yes. He knows only I can contain her wickedness.” She scowled. “Most of the time. She Awoke before me.” An irritated huff escaped her. “I chased after her the second I could.”

  “Why do you Awaken?” Rhys inquired, scrambling to his knees.

  “To see the child born, of course.”

  It was said so matter-of-factly that the words rang around my ears for a second.

  Rhys shook his head though. “Child? Which child?”

  Elayne’s gentle mouth curved into a smile that was so unlike her sister’s, it was night and day. “This child, of cour
se.” She pointed at Marcella, a hum of excitement escaping her as she made it to the pile of men still laying lax on the floor. They were breathing, though, and I could hear their heartbeats again, could feel the bond fluttering to life like a fledging’s wing before it flew for the first time.

  “Why, Your Highness?” Drake rasped.

  “Is it your place to question me, Sir Drake?” Elayne chided, her eyes sparkling. For the first time, I saw the woman’s hardness and I flinched in the face of it.

  “No, Ma’am, but we were butchered for the cause, and have spent the past century forging a brotherhood that fits your desires. We deserve some understanding as to this situation.”

  Elayne huffed as she pressed her hands to her hips. “Morgana always was naughty.”

  There was that word again.

  Naughty.

  It made me want to scream, but I didn’t, because if I screamed, all hell might make break loose and only Darius and I were capable of listening and processing what was being said in the here and now.

  “Ma’am?” Drake prompted when Elayne began to circle the downed men. She waved her hands and the blood that had seeped onto the tiles began to move, drifting back toward the bodies that had lost such precious lifeblood.

  All around, gasps echoed as she returned my brothers back to their original state.

  And Marcella?

  The blood disappeared from her skin, revealing the tears where she’d cut herself earlier.

  Elayne ignored Drake and pressed a hand to Marcella’s arm. The move was like a bolt of lightning, and it had Marcella jerking back to life rather than throwing her into death’s cruel hand.

  Heart pounding, I watched as Marcella dropped to her knees, the bony joints connecting with the tiles with a resounding echo that made my own ache.

  Another hum. “The brotherhood is strong. Stronger than I imagined.”

  “Ma’am?” Rhys questioned.

  “It was not a complaint, Sir Rhys. Morgana had to do great damage to tear her from the dream walker’s hold.” She reached and patted Marcella’s chin, then, she spun around and stared straight at me. Before I could do more than gape at her, she made a plucking motion with her hand and like I was a pup being maneuvered around by its dam, I felt myself being dragged from the mezzanine and plopped onto the foyer floor. “You’re the one who slipped into her mind?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just crouched down to stare at me. “You know this is impossible?”