“Jared, you should shift and carry her. It’s a two-day walk down this mountain, but only a few hours to fly to our town.”
I waited for Manda to object. To show fear. Would she reject my animal, the beast I felt stretching and pushing from within?
Instead, she nodded and flashed me a small smile.
Happiness swelled in my chest, spreading like wildfire, and I watched her eyes widen as flames licked across my body, but she didn’t shrink away. There was no fear in her eyes—only desire and longing.
“Mine.” I growled as my Phoenix came forward. I clawed at the earth and shrieked out a cry quickly echoed by the man who claimed to be my father. He’d already shifted into his Phoenix and was rising in the sky above us.
I walked slowly toward Manda and lowered my beak to her waiting hands. She rubbed it, and I shuddered, loving her touch. Loving that she accepted me and my beast. I knelt lower on the ground so that my shoulders would be easier for her to reach.
“You are beautiful,” she whispered before grabbing hold of a handful of feather and pulling herself up onto my back. I shrieked again, pleased to have her trust and her compliment. She slid down a little bit, until her legs rested just in front of my wing base.
I swiveled my head around and looked at her with one eye, waiting for a sign that she was ready for the air.
She flashed me a smile and tightened her grip on my feathers. “Let’s go meet your family, shall we? And eat. I’m hungry.”
I huffed out a breath, the best laugh I could manage as a giant birdlike animal, then launched myself into the air with my back legs. My wings spread out twenty feet on either side.
A few beats put us hundreds of feet above the ground.
A few more sent us speeding toward our new life.
Chapter 54
Asa’s EPILOGUE
5 days later…
ASA
Outside the palace was quiet when I arrived after taking most of the people back to Sanctuary. My brother and his new family had opted for a quiet coastal town in Greece. He’d asked if I wanted to stay with them. I had for a few days, but then I’d told him I needed to get home. The Palace was a mess from what I remembered in my few brief spy visits. And my husband was there.
I had assured Godric I had a home to return to. Perhaps a few of the people would need some convincing that Xerxes was dead. But I had time.
All the time in the world.
Now that I had arrived, I’d yet to see a single Djinn. So many had died in the battle at Sanctuary. No guards stood at the large entrance gate. No one even seemed to live in the little town just down the mountainside, either. It was silent; nothing left but sand and rocks and ghosts of what had been.
I knocked on the massive wooden gates, waiting to see if anyone would show their face—even a servant.
No one came.
I teleported to the other side, and my heart sank deep in my chest. The beautifully decadent gardens I remembered were wilted and brown. Not a single speck of green could be found. Wilted brown vines and plants draped out of every planter—all forgotten. All dead. The fountains were dry and full of sand, as well. My gaze slid over the once magnificent space, and my soul cried at the flat brown palette before me. Devoid of life. Devoid of anything.
The hot wind whipped through my hair, and I shielded my eyes from the bright sun to look toward the main entrance. The doors to the inner castle—to what had been my home for so many years.
Trudging forward, I made my way up the main walk toward the once grand, bronzed entrance. The doors stretched up fifty feet. Instead of glistening brightly, they were dull and unpolished. Instead of greatness and beauty, they looked as lifeless as the gardens behind me.
Again, I knocked.
Again, no one answered.
I teleported to the other side of the doorway, startling a skinny black rat that scurried away from me in fear, disappearing down the long dark hallway.
“Hello?” I called out, wishing just one person would answer. There had been people here only weeks ago. What had happened to them all? I’d tried to track Xerxes movements, but he hadn’t been to the palace in weeks. Was this why? Had he moved everyone? Or worse…
I teleported again. This time to what used to be the suite of rooms I shared with my husband. Rooms he’d still occupied only a few weeks ago. I’d seen him. But now he was gone. Everyone was gone. The large sitting room was dry and still. The windows were shuttered. A few stray beams of light filtered through the slats, breaking up the darkness.
“Where are you?” I called out, cringing at the sound of more rodents scurrying away from me in the shadows. What had Xerxes done? Everything was gone. Everyone. “Hello?” I shouted into the semi dark room before teleporting to a different room. And another. And another. And another.
Then I stopped in the dining hall. Light poured in through a shutter the wind had loosened. The wooden slats banged back and forth, bathing the room in a streak of sunlight and then dark. Back and forth. Darkness and then light. But my gaze remained on the great table running the length of the large room. Little black boxes were stacked in its center. Hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand. Xerxes had trapped everyone left in quppa boxes.
I fell to my knees. The hard stone cut through the fabric of my skirt, but I didn’t care. I tore the veil I’d wrapped around my head and cried. Wept for my people. Wept for me. I had nothing left.
No daughter.
No husband.
There were no Lamassu left alive to ever open the boxes. My people would be forever trapped. Forever frozen in a timeline that didn’t exist. Inside the box was a prison, but you didn’t know that. Didn’t realized it while inside. Not until you were released and you comprehended that the entire world had passed you by.
Inside the box, there was no awareness. No pain. It was just nothing.
I would be the one who suffered through the years. Alone and tortured by the silence. It was fitting that I should be punished as I had chosen to punish my brother so many years in the past.
My husband and I had cast him out. We hadn’t believed his story about the vampire female lying to him. Tricking him. He’d been alone in the world, wandering through one life after another.
I could go to him. He wouldn’t turn me away, but he wouldn’t want me there, either. I could search the Americas for Djinn survivors. Likely they would hate me, possibly kill me, just out of spite. Out of anger over what Xerxes did once they found out. My husband and I had been the ones to invite Xerxes into the kingdom, thinking he would be a good ally for our people.
Instead, we had started our own demise.
I teleported again, mid-afternoon turning to middle of the night. The humid Texas night air completely different from the salty shores of the Red Sea. Perhaps the Lycans rebuilding the town would be open to one more lonely refugee. The town’s name was Sanctuary. Perhaps within its borders, I would be able to find solace with the life Fate had left me.
I walked quietly into the dark town. No lights lit the streets. Rubble still covered the ground. One light shone in the darkness, and voices carried on the gentle breeze. I stumbled toward the light until I stood just outside what used to be a café. Candles had been placed on the tables inside.
Children laughed, and people smiled. Hope was alive already in this town. I needed that hope. I needed something to give me a reason to exist. No one had seen me yet, standing in the shadows of the half-collapsed awning.
I was an outsider looking in. Why would they want a Djinn in their midst. My people, under Xerxes, had hunted and killed and tortured them. There was no place for me here. I’d been a fool to think there might be…a fool to hope that my one act had earned me enough goodwill for them to overlook who I was and where I came from.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, willing the tears not to fall. I would find a quiet place live where I would not be a burden or a reminder of evils suffered. I could go to that cabin in Russia. It was empty and quiet. At least I’d still be
able to smell the sea, even if it wasn’t my sea from home.
“Asa?”
I snapped my eyes open and swallowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
The small woman’s skin glistened in the moonlight. Her blue eyes were so clear, and her hair almost glowed.
“Welcome to Sanctuary, friend.”
“How do you know me?” I asked, confused. I’d never seen her before. Never spoken to her.
“The children haven’t stopped talking about the woman with long black hair and purple eyes that made them fly to another world.” She smiled. “You saved so many of my friends, Asa.” She reached out and touched my arm. Some of the stuff glistening on her skin rubbed off onto mine, and I gasped as just a small sliver of joy chipped at my broken soul. “Welcome home.”
I didn’t stop the tears or hesitate to pull her into an embrace.
I just thanked her over and over for giving me a chance.
Chapter 55
Godric & Calliope’s EPILOGUE
4 weeks later…
CALLIOPE
I looked up from the blanket I’d spread on the sand. Godric was whistling as he made his way down the rocky staircase toward me and out onto the wooden walk that led to our private inlet beach. He was beautiful. Tanned. His dark hair flopped over his shoulders with each step. The scruff on his face was just long enough to make me shudder when it grazed my skin. My body warmed with each step he took.
I rolled to my back and stared up into the teal blue, cloudless sky above me. High cliffs rose up on three sides, and the ocean sang its tune on the edge of the shallow beach a few yards from my feet. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the ebb and fall of the ocean waves until we were back home and I could hear it all day long.
The Isle of Crete was mostly how I remembered it. Stark cliffs spotted with green shrubs and low growing trees. There were more people now, as we’d discovered. Everything changed with time, and we hadn’t been back to our place of birth for thousands of years.
Finding a place we all could agree on where someone was actually selling proved impossible. But we quickly found that anyone was willing to move for the right price, and between the six of us, we found a grand villa built right into the eastern cliffs. It was perfect. The previous owners had taken the money and vacated within twenty-four hours, leaving us to move in and settle.
The mansion was multi-leveled and had more than enough space for each of us and our mates to feel like we had our own living space with a shared kitchen and massive dining hall in the center of the home. It faced the sea, and a nice staircase had been carved into the cliff side below, leading down to a private beach and rocky oasis.
Rhea and Demetra had requested a week to pack, so after Asa had returned us to the cabin in Russia, the Djinn queen had gone to help move the people who’d chosen to go back to Sanctuary first. Once that had been completed and everyone was back on the selected continents, she returned to us in Russia. She said she wanted to visit with my mate, her brother, though I sensed her reasons for staying with us sprang up more from the fear of returning home alone. Returning to a people who had forgotten her.
Asa spent most of her time cooing at Demetra’s baby girl and carrying her around the cabin while the three of us packed up everything they wanted to bring to our new home—which was almost everything in the house. We ended up needing a bit longer than a week to pack.
Godric seemed to have hit it off with Stavros and Lander, which pleased me. We all intended to live together, and getting along was important. He’d also adjusted to being a vampire and fed from me nearly every time we made love—an experience I truly anticipated. Not that sex without biting didn’t occur. It did. I just really liked it when he bit me. It was pleasurable physically and emotionally. I satisfied him completely.
The crunch of his feet on the sand warned me he was close, but he must’ve blurred the last few feet to my side because he still managed to surprise me when his body bumped into mine on the heavy blanket.
“How are you, my love?”
“Enjoying the waves. The air. Everything. But much better since you decided to join me,” I said, rolling to my side and throwing an arm and leg over his body. My thigh grazed his hard length, and I smiled, choosing that moment to nibble at his chest with my teeth.
“You are truly insatiable, aren’t you? Here I was thinking you would be worn out from our frolicking this morning.”
A laugh rolled through my chest. “Did you just refer to our sex this morning as frolicking?”
“Well, I did chase you around the room. Then we had sex on the floor, in the shower, and then again in the bed before I left you to make it to the market before all the good fruit was snapped up.” He wrapped his arms around me and pulled until I was straddling his hips. “How are you adjusting, love? We haven’t had much time to ourselves. Between all the catching up with your family, my sister hanging around, and now moving into the new house, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind.
I nodded. “I feel like I’m doing better.”
He nodded, keeping my gaze locked with his. “You’ve had fewer nightmares.”
“You’re the first man I’ve been close with since he cursed me. Before you, sex was just…sex. It was a way to dull the ache inside me that longed for the mate I knew I would never have. The mate I didn’t deserve according to him.”
“That is a lie.”
“I know that now. I know what he did and said was all manipulative and cruel. I know you love me. I know you find me attractive. It was difficult, knowing that you had met me in one body, and then when we were finally together…I was different. But every time I look into your eyes, I see how much you love me. How much you want me. And it makes my heart sing, Godric. You truly were my knight in armor. Without you, my father wouldn’t be dead. And—”
“Shhhh, enough about him. I love you more than life itself, Calliope. You are a gift I will never deserve and one that I will fight to keep until my last second on earth. I just wanted to make sure you were okay with how fast everything had changed. We moved in with your sisters and their mates. We sleep together every night. I feed from you every day. I need to know that I didn’t push you too hard too fast.”
“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “I couldn’t be happier. I have my family back. I have a mate who makes me forget the pain of my past and focus on the joy in my future. I regret nothing, Godric. I want you at my side, in my bed, anywhere I can have you for as long as I breathe.” I loved him so much it nearly brought tears to my eyes. For thousands of years, I guarded against feelings. Against caring about anyone. But with Godric, I didn’t have to hide anymore. I didn’t have to fear that magick would steal him away from me.
Magick had given him to me.
Godric smiled up at me and slid his hands into my hair, pulling my head down to his. “You are the most amazing woman. So strong. So kind. You believed in me when no one else ever had. I can’t imagine my life without you in it.” His mouth claimed mine before I could respond, and his tongue prodded between my lips with a hunger that fired my body, pushing away the tears of joy and bringing my passion to a boil. I had wanted him already, but now, now I was panting and aching to join with him. To feel him stroke deep inside me. To be one with him. To have his fangs pierce my skin and drink as he drove me to ecstasy.
I wanted everything.
Before I could take my next breath, he was removing my clothing. My shirt went first, and I let my head loll back as he suckled my breasts, back and forth until both nipples throbbed and ached from being so hard. His hands kneaded my ass as his mouth continued to caress my breasts. I whimpered, needing more than the gentle lick and nip and scrape of his teeth.
“What do you want, love?” he asked, his lips still dancing patterns over my skin. He kissed lower between my breasts, down to my stomach… then paused.
I shuddered and moaned, sliding my fingers into his curly hair and grasping it at the roots, pulling him closer. Harder against my breasts. “Ple
ase,” I begged.
“Calliope…I—” His voice broke, and my heart jumped in my chest, worry creeping to the forefront of my mind.
I yanked his head up from my stomach and met his glassy gaze. “What? You’re scaring me.”
“You. You’re…I can hear a heartbeat. An extra heartbeat.”
I shoved my palm to his chest to feel. Had his Djinn side come back? What was he talking about?
He took my hand and gently moved it to my stomach.
My bottom lip trembled, and I gasped for a breath. “A baby?”
He nodded, a single tear rolling down his cheek.
“We’re going to have a baby?” My voice pitched higher. “But how…you can’t…” My mind raced back through the timeline. “It was before you died.” My pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out everything. The ocean. My sobs of joy.
I crushed my mouth against his. Tasting him. Feeling his moan all the way to my toes. His happiness and my excitement joined in perfect harmony and passion. I rolled my hips, pressing against his hardened cock. His hands flew to the knot on my wrap skirt in response, quickly eliminating it from the equation of our bodies.
I received a sexy growl of appreciation for not wearing any underwear. His big hands closed around my waist next, and then he lay back, lifting me until I was straddling his face instead of his hips. I yelped at the first brush of his tongue over my throbbing clit.
He drove me straight up until my body imploded above him, crying out as pleasure took hold and shook me from the inside out. “Come again for me, love,” he rumbled against my sex before clamping down hard on my throbbing clit.
My thighs tensed. My everything tensed, and then I screamed as I came again—even harder. I fisted the blanket and sank down on top of him, unable to hold my body upright as I floated in the place where reality and fantasy met.
Sanctuary, Texas Complete Series Box Set Page 139