by Ophelia Bell
I pushed on, wanting to get this part over with. “I was conceived and removed from Neela’s womb the very second I took root. It was the worst day of my life.” I paused and shrugged helplessly, chilled by the memory of that loneliness. “And yes, I do remember it vividly. I had no concept of time yet, everything was in abstract, so the process was an eternity of pain and loss and cold and dark. I had one companion, though he was only with me briefly because his power couldn’t extend much farther than the anchor he had to my mother. Once her essence faded from my being, so did his presence.”
“Zorion,” Ozzie said, his voice gruff. I lifted my gaze to his and nodded.
“Zorion was my mother’s soul mate, chosen for her by Fate. He was locked away in a stone prison, a dragon hibernation, but somehow he’d found a way to be with her in spirit throughout the ordeal, and he stayed with me at the start, my Papa Z.” I couldn’t help but smile at the memory. Zorion was one of the few men I called father who didn’t try to control my life in some fashion.
“The enemy—you all probably know her as Meri, or the Lamia, stripped me from the safety of my mother’s womb and put me into a sterile tank inside a lab. At the time, I only knew darkness, but in time I became aware of having company. I was given five sources of sustenance, and along with those came five voices that kept me company during those months while I grew. Five satyrs whose blood sustained me.” I glanced at Llyr and my chest ached with a combination of affection and hurt. “One of them was Llyr Xanthos, who I didn’t formally meet until my birthday three weeks ago. And who is now tasked with, what? Being my babysitter? Taking me home to my ridiculously overprotective father?” I scowled at him hard and he turned away. The bastard couldn’t look me in the eye.
“Anyway, I’ll get to the Llyr situation in a bit. I kind of lost time in that fucking tank. With several collective millennia-worth of nymphaea blood flooding every cell in my body, time kind of loses all meaning. I remember being aware of pledging my loyalty to the Dionarchs as a new Thiasoi soldier, while simultaneously watching the Ultiori slaughter my kind and take me and my brothers hostage. But I know that was never me. That was one of them.”
“That was all of us,” Llyr said, his voice low and icy. A slight chill passed down my spine as the old memory slithered back in as though I were back in that tank and we were sharing it again. I met his gaze and for just a moment forgot what an ass he’d been to me. I may have only spent a few months in that tank, but he’d been trapped in a similar one, though much larger, for several centuries. I gave him a silent nod of acknowledgment before pressing on.
“But their blood made me strong, and more ready than I should have been to emerge into the world. I think it at least helped prepare me for what happened next. For that second relocation, I didn’t have Zorion’s velvet darkness to shield me from the cold. I lost the constant infusion of magic from Llyr and the other satyr, too. But what I gained was a mother once more. I . . .” I bit my lip, involuntarily tearing up at the first truly good memory during the entire ordeal.
Meri had taken me from the tank where I’d grown for several months, still a tiny fetus subsisting on satyr blood. I didn’t understand it at the time but found out after the fact that she had planned to take me to the nymphaea’s sacred home, the Haven, where she could expose me to the infinitely powerful Source and complete my transformation into the creature she wished for me to become.
Taking a deep breath, I glanced at Keagan, who was standing ramrod straight and staring at me. “Meri had captured Vrishti Rainsong. And while Vrishti was mid-estrous, she drifted me into her womb. For the first time since I’d been aware of anything, I was safe and loved, and knew I had nothing else to fear. Not until I was born, anyway.”
The frowns on Rohan and Keagan’s faces told me they were starting to put together a few pieces about my unusual nature, but I wasn’t ready to address those questions they were bound to have. I plowed on.
“I don’t remember any of what happened outside that safe place. Now I know that the war in the Haven had begun, and that some of my parents were already in the Haven fighting and the rest would arrive before long. And I know that my ursa grandmother, the former Summer Shaman, nearly sacrificed her life to make sure Vrishti and I survived.
“All I remember was the moment the Summer Spirit took up residence in Mama Vrishti’s body, while I was in her womb. I’d already been filled with nymphaea blood, and then baptized in my mother’s fertile power, but the Summer Spirit’s magic was the first hint of greater possibility. You should understand this.” I glanced at Keagan, who gave me a slow nod.
The ursa’s voice was a low, smooth rumble like warm syrup when he spoke. “The Summer Spirit is known to encourage the ripening of living things. Just as the Autumn Spirit reaps what abundance has been produced. But you would have been a tiny thing. How did you survive that much power?”
“I don’t know. Nobody does, but my cousin Calder likes to speculate that Meri probably exposed me to every ounce of immortal blood she had access to, once she was confident I would survive. The blood protected me from the power . . . probably enhanced its effects. Meri intended me to be her vessel once I was strong enough. She just didn’t count on Vrishti’s maternal instincts kicking in before she could extract me from my surrogate mother’s womb and complete the process.”
Keagan snorted. “You don’t fuck with mama bears.”
“No,” I said, filled with mirth at the unexpected image of my sweet, shy mother—the youngest of the three—going ballistic in her bear form just to protect an unborn child that had been forced into her womb to begin with. “She escaped and made it back to the Sanctuary. But that’s where it starts to get weird, at least for me. Vrishti and her mates . . . Papa Neph and Papa Aodh . . . cast a spell to create a temporal bubble around the Rainsong Lodge to give them time to find a way to open a portal in the barrier and bring in reinforcements. I remember how much power simply creating that barrier took, but I also remember vividly that the process linked me to that bubble. My growth was tied to the power of that barrier. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal except that Meri kept attacking it to try to get to me. And every time she did, it was like time sped up for me. Within a few hours I had grown too much to remain inside my mother’s womb. Once I was born, it took only a few more hours before I could walk and talk . . .” I cast a warm glance to Ozzie. “. . . and sing.”
“I remember every second,” Ozzie said, his voice filled with all the affection I remembered and missed. “You were not what any of us expected. I can’t help but see that child still.”
Something in his tone made me pause. Was he apologizing?
“I’m not a child now. Even then I didn’t feel like it. All I knew was that I was finally free to use my voice after being trapped in silence and darkness for so long, and thanks to you I had a wonderful outlet for it. Your songs got me through the worst of the pain whenever that barrier was attacked and another growth spurt hit. It all happened within the span of a day. All that pain was just another extension of Meri’s cruelty, stripping me from my mother, from the sustenance of Llyr and his brothers, and then fighting to get to me so hard I was forced to grow up within a few hours. But in the end it made sense. I believe this was where I was meant to be, and I’m finally starting to learn who I was meant to be.”
The corners of Ozzie’s mouth turned down and his blue eyes grew cold. “There is no meaning to this. Fate does not have a plan for you, I promise.”
I closed my eyes and groaned. “So everyone keeps telling me. Yet no one seems to be able to produce any proof. All I have is this unbearable certainty that I can do more if only I could understand how to unlock all my powers. I have all this understanding.” I tapped my temple. “Not just from scouring the Sanctuary’s libraries and reading every damn book they have, but also from the certainty that imbued all that blood that sustained me before I was born. There has to be more for me, and if Fate didn’t have a plan, then I’m damn well going to come up with my
own.”
“That isn’t how it works!” Ozzie shot to his feet and strode toward me, towering over me with a fierce expression. Lightning flashed in his blue eyes, as lovely and dangerous as a summer storm. “You don’t just get to decide to do whatever the fuck you want. Fate gets pissed when you do that, and you don’t fuck with Fate!”
“Fate doesn’t fucking know I exist according to you! I have no soul, in case you forgot. Fate only cares about people who have souls.”
“You have—” He began, raising his hands and clenching them into fists. His face went red and he threw up his hands. “Gah! You are infuriating!”
He dropped his hands and swept around me, stomping out the door. By the time I turned to watch him go, all I saw was a pile of empty clothes and the silhouette of a big falcon arcing up over the bluffs beyond the house.
“So . . . he knew you when you were a kid,” Rohan said. “Which was how long ago exactly?”
19
Deva
“How old were you when you went into hibernation?” I asked. I was deflecting but I wanted to make sure the guys had a valid frame of reference before they drew any conclusions about me.
“Twenty-two. But that was over five centuries ago.”
“Exactly how much maturing did you do in those five centuries?” I raised my eyebrows at him.
Keagan snorted. “Mature is the last word I’d use for Rohan. He’s five hundred going on twelve.”
“I’m still older than you, dickhead,” Rohan shot back, tossing a slightly singed throw pillow at the ursa.
I darted a quick glance at Llyr who still regarded me in silence. His aura was as clear and placid as a still pool and my heart thumped when I saw his soul within his core. The egg-shaped ball of light pulsed with its own power, faint tendrils floating out of it like tiny veins of light. It reminded me of that first look I’d had of my parents’ souls, shortly after I discovered I could see them, and how the magic flowed between them, the tendrils connecting and twining together. The permanence of that connection was apparent from the way the thread remained, faint yet visible, even when they weren’t near each other. Two souls linked, or in most cases, several souls joined in a perfect, beautiful knot of threads. Yet another reminder of what I could never have.
Yet another reminder of what I might deprive anyone else of if I let them love me.
I tamped down that ache. There was more at stake than my own juvenile wish for a soul mate I could never have. Hundreds of other souls were at risk if I didn’t figure out how to stop these attacks.
“My point is that your age is not a reflection of your maturity. The eternity I spent steeped in ancient satyr blood only lasted five months, yet I experienced lifetimes.”
“And yet you barely know how to make a sandwich,” Keagan said, giving me a wry look.
I huffed. “I didn’t exactly get a lot of practical knowledge in that tank, but what I did get was an ability to learn quickly. You only have to explain something to me once. That’s what makes my nature so frustrating to me. I know what I am capable of. I know how to shift, breathe fire, heal wounds, drift thousands of miles away, or even directly into any of the higher realms, I just don’t have the power to do those things.
Rohan frowned and I sensed his gears turning, but before he could say anything, Keagan had done the math.
“You’re only a year old.” He tilted his head as his gaze slipped down my body and back up, lingering on my breasts that still threatened to explode out of the bodice of my borrowed dress.
“Bullshit,” Rohan said. “You were in a temporal bubble, you aged there.”
“The bubble was designed to slow time, not speed it up. Yes, I did age there, but it happened instantaneously. And very painfully, I might add. Ozzie was there, he’ll tell you.”
Rohan frowned. “You’re saying you were born on the Equinox—the day of the war in the Haven—just last year? Should we not have . . .” He shot a terrified look at Keagan. “Dude . . . what happened yesterday . . .”
Keagan shrugged. “That was between consenting adults as far as I’m concerned. And a dragon.”
Keagan’s gaze had remained fixed on my face so intently my skin prickled. “You weren’t a virgin,” he said.
My gaze shifted to Llyr, who crossed his arms and frowned. I narrowed my eyes at him but sensed no inclination that he’d changed his opinion on our last encounter.
“Why do you keep looking at him?” Keagan asked. “What does he have to do with any of this?”
“Llyr was assigned as my bodyguard by one of my overprotective fathers. He also . . . ah . . . assisted me when I helped complete the ritual three weeks ago. The one we carried out to contact the bloodline.”
“Assisted.” Keagan’s lips curled in a salacious smile and his brow lifted. “So you two fucked.” He waved a hand between us. “Why do you look so pissed about it, man? She’s part dragon. That’s how they work.”
“Not pissed about the sex,” Llyr said. “She seems to believe I was her first, when I guarantee that’s not true.”
A knot of pain and anger burned in my gut. The bastard still insisted I was lying. “Well I guarantee I’d fucking remember being fucked if it had happened. Stop lying about it!”
“Am I lying, sweetness? Really?” He spread his arms out and arched his chest up slightly, the tight cotton t-shirt he wore leaving nothing to the imagination. “Take a good long look at my soul, since you can see them. Take a look and tell me if there’s any ounce of untruth within me. I don’t give a fuck that someone touched you first. I really don’t, but I would have known if you’d come to me untouched. Your behavior is only a small part of it. You were so damn determined to succeed at that ritual, and I was determined to help you. Nothing could have kept me from following through any more than you. But you were not a virgin. And trust me, at this point I’d really love to find out why you believe you were, because this impasse is not helping either of us.”
As Llyr spoke, I shoved down my irritation and kept my attention fixed on his aura and the soul he had bared to me. I hadn’t actively attempted to use that turul skill of lie detection. I didn’t really need to. Most of the time the act of sussing out lies from the truth was second-nature. But this time I truly focused, looking and listening for any whisper of a lie. When I found none, I slowly shook my head, frowning.
“It isn’t possible. I’d remember.”
Llyr sat forward on the chaise, dropping his legs on either side of the big cushion. “Trust me, I would never lie to you. And I will prove to you I mean that. I promise I won’t try to take you home until I’ve helped you succeed at whatever crazy mission you’ve set your sights on. Or ever, for that matter, if you don’t want to go. I fully intend to keep the promise I made to you that day. The day you sang me your mating song and made me yours.”
“I don’t trust you, that’s the problem, and that song doesn’t mean anything anyway. You should forget you ever heard it.” My chest burned with the hurt from that day in the Haven. It was so recent the pain was still raw enough to bring tears to my eyes.
The ritual had only required me to act as a conduit, to channel power and use it to communicate with the bloodline, so I could send them the message. Yet halfway in, I began to understand that it wouldn’t be enough. That my own power would need to be added to the mix, and that to access that power, I would need my passive guardian to take a more active role, to provoke my pleasure in order to draw more magic into my reservoir so I could reach every last soul that needed to be contacted.
Llyr had fulfilled that need, and had fucked me in his primal form to ensure he shared the most power possible. I remember the adoration in his gaze despite the fact that he was adamant what satyrs did was not lovemaking. It wasn’t tender. It was ferocious and intense, and more than I could have imagined my first time could be. Yet it was still closer to lovemaking than what I’d shared with Keagan.
With a tightness in my throat I forced a slight shrug. “Well, we succeeded.
But the bloodline is in danger and I intend to uphold that pledge we made to protect them. Because it’s obvious no one else has any interest in listening to me.”
Llyr swung his leg over the chaise and stood up, closing the distance between us in a couple quick strides. When I took an involuntary step back, he halted, remaining an arm’s length from me. He bowed his head and I had the impression he’d have knelt in front of me if the other two hadn’t been in the room. “I am here to help. I think we are all on board. You just need to lead the way because we can’t see what you can see. So tell us.”
Rohan stood, still a little unsteady but his aura was bright. He smiled at me with so much warmth I felt the pain of my memory fade. “I’m yours, baby. Wherever you need me to be, I’m there.”
Keagan made a low, inarticulate chuffing sound and nodded. “Same goes for me. Tell us where to start.”
I glanced around at the three of them, encouraged by their eagerness despite whatever reservations they may have had about me.
“I need to go back to the hospital. There were four victims there. One might still be there. I need to find out how they’re doing. If my suspicions are correct, when Rohan and Willem got bit, that would have severed the link between the last two victims and these creatures.”
Keagan shoved a hand in his pocket and produced my car key. “You know where to go,” he said, tossing it to me. I snatched the fob out of the air and headed toward the door. Excited to finally be doing something and to have these three men at my back.
After Ozzie’s abrupt departure I still felt like I needed to settle things with him. But that could wait. I wasn’t going to let his strange tantrum or my misplaced attraction sideline my goals.