Falling Ashes

by Annie Anderson

  She never could manage it, though. That’s one victory at least.

  “It’s just me in here, and my mind is clear, I just can’t always control what my body decides to do. No telling when it will choose to go haywire again. I take it that this is a rescue?” I say, my voice threaded with hope.

  “Absolutely. How ya doing, Mena?” Rhys asks.

  Rhys is the same but different. He looks the same, same tall stature, same dark hair, same dark eyes. But he is lighter than I remember, happier. So many years ago, I tried to talk my sister out of seeing Lucien, but by that time our relationship had deteriorated long past amicable. Lucien, while a good man, was too weak for my brash and strongwilled sister. He was soft and slightly petty. In fact, his infatuation with Aurelia began out of spite. He was too worried about the life he did not get as opposed to the life he could have made. He was simply not enough for my big sister.

  Rhys is enough, more than enough.

  “I suppose that depends on your definition of crazy. Where is Iva and what year is it?” I return, getting right to the point. I know I’ve been here a long time, just how long, I’m not certain.

  “She’s been neutralized for the time being, and it’s 2015,” Aurelia whispers, trying to soften the blow but tightening her body, bracing herself. It has to be obvious to her that I’ve been here for a very long time.

  I shudder thinking of the dark – always in the dark. I hated living in the blackness, but so much more, I hated being in the light. The light was when the pain began – when she would come to cut me, drain me dry, and try to break into my mind. She would rip away my flesh and smear dirt in the wound. And then one day, the pain stopped. I guess a body can only feel so much before the mind turns it off. But she would leave me to my silent oblivion – letting the voices of my regrets claw at my mind. I feel the pull of a snarl yank at my mouth. I have been here far too long – longer than I ever thought possible.

  Who did I have to look for me? My sister? My only sibling had been cast out of our family ages ago. What friends did I have in my old life? I’d had no one. No wonder it took half a century to find me.

  I was a ghost already.

  I am simultaneously relieved that Iva is no longer a threat – no more daily visits, no more soul-sucking agony, no more barbed taunts, no more of that cloyingly sweet voice whispering in my ear – and enraged that I’ve been here for so long.

  “Welp. I’ve been stuck in this hell-hole for fifty years. I’m a wee bit pissed off.” I’m furious, but my anger is nothing compared to the wall of white-hot fury I feel coming from Aurelia.

  “Fifty years? Fifty. Five-zero?” she screeches.

  Oh shit.

  Her eyes blaze white, and she looks to Rhys. She goes from me leaning on her to standing so fast, I almost fall on my face.

  “Guard her. I’m going to find that bitch and rip her head off with my bare hands. There is no fucking way she didn’t know about this,” she says as she stalks out of the room.

  “Who is she talking about?” I ask Rhys.

  “Nicola,” he says with a growl, his fingers tightening into fists that look like they’re aching to tear into someone.

  “Stop her! Nicola is the only reason I’m alive!” I yell as I try to pull myself to standing. My legs don’t seem to want to work right, though, because they crumple beneath me almost instantly.

  Rhys goes to catch me, and I shudder back. The electricity rises in me before I can stop it, and as his fingers make contact with my shoulder, his body goes rigid. I try to shut my shield down as fast as I can, but I’m not fast enough to prevent damage. Aurelia’s pained scream ricochets through the stone room just beyond my door.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I mumble as I cover my mouth and nose with my hands. I didn’t mean it. It has been a long time since I’ve shocked someone by accident.

  Or even on purpose.

  Rhys looks a little worse for wear, and his nose is bleeding, but he hasn’t lost consciousness, so I didn’t shock him too badly.

  Still.

  “You all right, Gorgeous?” he calls to my sister as he recovers from his doubled-over stance and his compassionate coffee-colored eyes meet mine. In an instant, understanding dawns on his face, and then his compassion is gone, flipping like a switch. His expression wipes clean of emotion so quickly, it’s easy to see he’s trying to keep the pity off his face.

  He knows.

  He knows what happened to me, or at least he has a good idea. It’s not too hard to guess what can happen to a woman in captivity when torture is the name of the game. I could give him two guesses, but he’d only need one.

  “Yeah. Don’t touch the Aegis, spaz. I said guard her, not touch her,” she yells back. My body turns cold, and my eyes feel like they are about to bug right out of my skull.

  “So noted,” he mumbles.

  How she knew I was an Aegis is baffling, but so is the whole of Aurelia. It makes me want to scream at how much she knows, how hard it is to hide from her. It makes me shudder to think of another psychic pawing on my brain. I try not to think that of my twin, but a girl needs her secrets.

  “Don’t tell her,” I whisper, thinking if I could just clutch one thing, one tiny shred of dignity in this whole mess, I would feel better.

  “Don’t tell her what?”

  “Whatever you thought that made that look on your face. That’s mine. Don’t tell her.”

  “You realize you’re asking me to keep a secret from a psychic, right? From my wife? About her sister, her twin? You know how that’s going to go,” he explains softly, and I feel sorry for the guy. I do, but not enough to let that cat out of the bag.

  “And what right is it of yours? To decide for me when and who with I share my life, share what happened to me?” I spit at him.

  “I have no rights, nor am I telling you what to do. What I’m saying is, if she asks me what happened, I will tell her. I will tell her my assumptions, my thoughts, and nothing more. It is your decision when and what you tell her, but it is mine as well,” he says diplomatically. It’s really hard to fault the guy when he uses facts and logic.

  It ticks me off.

  “It’s difficult to be mad at you when you speak rationally. Stop it,” I grouse at him.

  That makes a deep, rumbling laugh spill out from the wide, white smile that blooms on his face.

  “Get your mate, Rhys. You might hate Nicola, but I owe her my life. Keep her intact, will you?”

  “I won’t ask about the other, but you will explain Nicola to me,” he levels a stare at me.

  After all I’ve suffered, he doesn’t scare me. I feel the Aegis rise in me for the first time in a long time. More than that minuscule blip from before. My hands glow an icy pale blue as the electricity crackles across the skin of my palms. I feel the heat warm my chest, as the light hits my eyes. I know from experience that they bleed from a muddy green to luminescent amber.

  “No,” I say, my voice lowering to a growl, “I won’t.”

  Rhys raises his hands in surrender with a look of utter confusion on his face. My anger may seem irrational, but they would never understand what Nicola did for me. Hell, I wouldn’t understand if I didn’t live it. She saved me. Even if she had to hurt me to do it, she saved me. Even on the days I was begging for death, I still had gratitude for Nicola. She told me this day would come. I just had to stay strong.

  I just never expected it would take this long.

  “Okay, Mena. No questions. Can I help you up or do you think you’ll shock me again?” he asks in a soft, soothing voice. He sounds like he’s trying to charm a venomous snake. He’s not far wrong.

  “Let’s stay on the safe side. Get my sister. She can help me.”

  The last thing I want is to hurt anyone, but that’s all I seem to be capable of. The lives I have already taken will stain my soul for the rest of eternity.

  “Okay, kiddo. Whatever you need,” he murmurs. “Hey, Gorgeous?” he calls.

&
nbsp; “What?” she yells back sounding mighty irritated. We hear a large shuffle and a heavy thud.

  “Stop trying to kill people and get in here!”

  Aurelia stalks back into the room, her clothes ruffled, rubbing the knuckles of her right hand and muttering expletives under her breath.

  “I wasn’t going to kill anyone, just permanently maim them is all,” she shrugs and flashes an evil ghost of a smile.

  “Why don’t you help your sister get out of here instead?” Rhys suggests.

  “Stop being logical. It’s annoying,” Aurelia returns, and she crosses the room to press a kiss on his lips. Her quick peck is foiled when he latches onto her hips and keeps her there so he can kiss her better.

  “Dear God, now there are two of you,” he mutters against her lips.

  “Umm… I hate to break up this little love-fest, but I’d like to get the hell out of here sometime in the next century. Is that possible or are you guys going to make-out some more?” I ask getting a bit of my snark back.

  “Sorry, little sister. You’re right, though,” she says as she reaches down to haul my whole body up like she’s cradling a small child. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

  Emerging from that small, stone room is not the balm to my soul I thought it would be. I seem to have been in captivity too long because I want to crawl back to my cell once I see all the people gathered in that room.

  So many people.

  Too much space. Too much light. Too much. My breaths come too fast. Too fast.

  I can’t seem to catch my breath. And even as the light dims and my heart races, I hope I don’t wake up back in that tiny stone room. I hope that this isn’t a dream. I hope I am really free.

  At least for a little while.

  2

  I'm a Dead Man

  ASHER

  I’m running out of time.

  I think this as I watch John gripping the handrail as he shakily makes his way to the med bay. His knuckles are white as they clutch the banister, and I realize he’s weaker today than he was yesterday.

  He’s fading fast.

  Too fast.

  I feel like an asshole for thinking it, but the farther John’s health deteriorates, the more I know I’m a dead man.

  God, I’m a selfish prick.

  Here I thought I’d get to die in battle or maybe after I got to watch my children and grandchildren grow up. But that will not happen, no.

  I don’t get the mate. I don’t get the children. I wasted too much time on my job, and now I get to watch the man I’ve considered being the closest thing I have to a father whither away to nothing. I get to see my life and my future shrivel to a husk and blow away in the wind. The job I put so much of myself in will kill me as soon as he takes his last breath.

  And there’s nothing I can do about it.

  Wraiths are a tricky bunch. So many of our kind are two-faced assholes.

  Hiding. Scheming. Manipulative.

  When you are the gatekeeper to hell, sometimes the honor system shits the bed.

  But the one thing we’re completely transparent about is our mate. John is dying because his mate Olivia is, plain and simple. When a Wraith mates, it is a life-long commitment, effectively wrapping two souls with the same thread of life. If one goes, so does the other, and Olivia has been sick, so sick her Guardians are scrambling to find a cure for what ails her. Scrambling to save her and their hides as well. The longer it lasts, the more I know they won’t find some magical remedy to knock Olivia off the path she’s on. When a Guardian’s charge dies, the Guardian must forfeit their life for failing to save our charge.

  That’s the oath we took – an oath we pay for in blood.

  I have never regretted taking the vow to serve John. I have owed him my life for a very long time. I have never wanted to change the path of my life, never wanted to be anything else once I was cast out of what was left of my family after my parent’s shameful turn. But now as I look death in the face, I wish I’d lived more, done more, seen more.

  Regret, thy name is Asher.

  John reaches the med bay and pauses before opening the heavy steel door. He turns to level his chocolate brown eyes at me and my hulking dipshit of a cousin standing just to my left.

  “I need you two to stay sharp in there. Aurelia says her sister is a full-blown Aegis. And from what I gather, she is remarkably and understandably unstable. Do not touch her. If you think she is about to lose it, you leave the room. Do your best to avoid engagement. She has been locked away as Iva’s personal punching bag for the last fifty years. You know how much that woman was a fan of torture.”

  I hold in my shudder at the thought of someone being in that crazy bitch’s clutches for fifty years. I don’t care if it seems emasculating, that woman scares the shit out of me. I don’t care if she is ashes, Phoenixes have a way of coming back. I don’t trust that woman is even remotely dead.

  “What are they doing here? We just got her ass out, and now she’s back?” Cam growls at the King.

  Fucking imbecile.

  Cam hasn’t always been too bright. As a teenager, he believed all of his parent’s hateful rhetoric. Phoenixes are evil. They oppress Wraiths. They kill us. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

  Are you kidding? Like Phoenixes are the only ones who hate us? Every single faction of the ethereal either hates us or fears us.

  As they should.

  If they fuck up, we’re the ones to send them packing straight to hell when they die. Cam used to be reasonable, after getting out from under his odious parents. But since their deaths, especially since it was Iva’s Soldiers…

  Hate fills him.

  The longer he stews in this horrible malevolence, the more I worry about him turning Revenant. Turning is not too hard to do. I have a feeling most of us are half out of our minds anyway. Consuming enough evil to keep us alive can easily taint the mind. Even the most honorable Wraith just needs one little push— a paltry little shove— and the bloodlust takes over. Clouding our mind, our souls, taking the need to consume evil just that tiny step further, and then we’re not just taking in evil’s souls, we’re eating the flesh of the corrupt.

  Just like my parents did – not that their push was in any way small. It was more like a solid shove into madness. I think it’s easy to go mad when your child dies. I was only fifteen at the time, but I still remember my mother’s howls of agony when my baby sister took her last breath. Her wee, little body just wasn’t strong enough. Wraiths don’t get their regenerative abilities until we reach maturity, but even then, my three-year-old sister could not have survived the fall from her horse that snapped her neck. My mother could not withstand the loss of her only daughter, and my father couldn’t stand under the weight of the guilt of not holding my sister tighter in his arms to prevent her fall.

  Some things you just can’t heal from, I guess.

  When I shake out of my thoughts, John’s silence stretches and grows until his once brown eyes turn black, and his stare seems to shrink my fuckup of a cousin until he feels three feet tall.

  “Do we need to have this discussion again? We owe her. We owe the both of them. They took out Javier. A snake was in our midst, and we saw nothing. They took out Iva. Aurelia’s vision saved us all. They defended this house and your King when they could have run. They fought in your stead to save your life. Show them some fucking respect,” John’s low voice grates in the small space. It doesn’t matter that he is weak. It doesn’t matter that his dark brown hair is turning whiter by the day, heralding his death more than any other sign could. He could give Cam a lesson without moving an inch.

  “Yes, sir,” Cam mutters, eyes downcast. He fakes contrition, but I know he has zero remorse for his hate. I can tell by the unyielding line of his shoulders and the fixed set of his jaw. He feels nothing but rage.

  Fucking moron, I think as I cuff him on the back of his dumb-as-shit head once John’s back is turned.

  Cam turns to look at me with his flinty blue eyes, but I re
fuse to back down. One of these days, I won’t hold back when I punch him in the face. He nearly signed his own death warrant just two weeks ago. If I hadn’t kept him in line, kicked his ass and practically held his fucking hand the whole Goddamn time, John would have had his head already. He was unstable and malignant, and I’ve slept the fewest hours of my life watching out for him. One of these days, I won’t be there to save his ass.

  One of these days…

  John grunts as he pushes the door open, but I don’t move to help him. I learned very early on to let him do what he could for himself and sneak to do what I can to help him. The room beyond is stark white walls and gray cement floors, and while it appears pristine, it carries the faint smell of earth and dirt. I suppose being this far underground will taint the air no matter what.

  There are eight hospital grade beds, four on each side, facing each other. Each bay has the required oxygen ports, IV stands, and monitoring devices. Most of the bays have their privacy curtains open, but one in the far back right is pulled shut. Carver is still in the med bay and hasn’t yet regained consciousness. At this point, I am not certain it is a bad thing. His husband is dead and while it doesn’t appear as if Carver had any knowledge of Javier’s condition, it is a general rule that most people have a hard time looking at someone who ignored the signs of violence.

  Mass murder, no matter the cause or reason usually carries a taint that stains the survivors.

  The only other occupied bay has the privacy curtains open, and the rest of the members of the house are loosely surrounding the bed, blocking my view of our newest houseguest.

  I still can’t believe Aurelia is a twin. I hope they aren’t identical because two of her unpredictable ass would most likely be the worst thing I could think of. The last thing we need in this house is more crazy, yet here we are.

  Aidan and Ian block my view, but that doesn’t matter. I have no interest in the Psychic Wonder’s sister, I just hope her presence is more transitory than it seems. The last thing we need is her to hole up here when everything about our lives is about to change. And it is. Make no mistake. If John dies without a plan of succession, we are all fucked.