“Ready to do battle when you are, My Lady.” Gabriel bows, arm fisted over his chest, his warrior’s pledge spoken.
As if on cue, in through the wide-open doorway comes more woeful faces of our brotherhood to crowd into our foyer. I hadn’t intentionally called for any of them. Antoine, Tristan, Emile, Kataya, Roman, Naveed, Hakeem, Niall, Maurizio, five of the lieutenants in training and last but not least, the great Scot Callum, all in disheveled states as if they had all come from the depths of sleep. In a ceremonious fashion, they all march in a circle around Etienne and I before dropping to one knee with a low thud in perfect unison, heads down with fists over hearts in the silent eren pledge. The message was clear—they will blindly follow me wherever I go, for I am their sister in arms.
Finding the strength to climb down from Etienne’s arms, I come to stand on shaky legs while leaning back on my mate for support. Their show of love in this moment overtakes my heart, dulling a fraction of the numbness.
“How did you all know?” I gasp, still uncertain of what I am seeing.
“You called for us, My Lady,” Hakeem voices for the group that has magically appeared out of the heart of the thundering sheets of sleet and rain.
“And we are yours to command,” Maurizio adds with deadly certainty, ready for a fight, my tears fueling the eren’s vow.
With a large sniff and swipe at my face, I try to palm the flowing saltwater away from my eyes. Love for this group floods me and a new luminescence cascades around the hunched, soaking wet figures as if a single star had descended from the sky to light the room. My gratitude to be blessed with their presence as well as to be standing here before them receiving their oaths fills me to the point that something else slides into place within my being, a true sense of belonging.
Turning to face Etienne, I realize he and Erik are also down in the eren pose, joining their brethren. My forehead crinkles as I spin around in a strange floating fashion and look up at the landing at the top of the stairs to find Molly, Vlad, Inessa, and Manya doing the same. Humbled beyond words, I call the light to warm them all, drying those who had been drenched by my emotional outpour manifested by the elements and will them all to stand. They all do so, inspired by the power coursing around them, wrapping them in adoration as their eyes now lock on me in amazement.
Etienne’s arms come to rest around my waist as his lips tenderly drop to my ear. “You’re glowing.”
Glancing down, I see that I am, in fact, glowing again in that ethereal light that doesn’t seem possible for this world. Shaking it off, I find strength in the words forming in my mind. “Thank you, everyone. I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am for you all. And now isn’t the time as much as I wish it was. If I may ask, can Niall, Maurizio, Hakeem, Naveed, and Callum join Gabriel, Etienne, and me on this mission? Inessa, Vlad, Manya, Erik, Molly, Emile, and Kataya, would you please do the honors and guard this house and my remaining son and his blood partner? Roman, Tristan, and Antoine, please resume your post at Ang’s, and the five in training return to foot patrol. I will be eternally grateful.”
Everyone is standing at attention, eyes glued to me with a level of respect and resolve that I had only ever seen them show Etienne. It is awe-inspiring as well as validating on a level I hadn’t ever thought I’d care to experience.
The air shifts as the universal wavelengths on which my elemental ties exist to deliver the message that our opportunity to catch the thief of my son’s life is slipping away. Shit! I scream in my head, the fighter in me picking up its head and coming to stand strong, emboldened by those now joining us.
“Please, those who are coming with me, stand around us in a circle and clasp forearms.” Within seconds, they perfectly comply, a linked wall around us. With Etienne connected around my waist, I reach forward to touch Niall on the arm, completing the full assembly needed to transport the small group to where instinct is driving me. Allowing the pull of nature to guide me, our warp through time begins.
At the start of this mission, I was a broken mess. But as we journey on, a blur moving at the speed of light, my strength to surge forward slowly builds as my focus shifts to righting the wrongs set in motion by a forced dip in darkness that tilted the balance too far in one direction. Within a few minutes, we land almost two hours driving distance outside of Denver, smack in the mountains.
The armed circle of steely muscle falls apart when we hit icy ground, each eren falling to the side to wretch their guts out in the littered piles of snow, fighting to reclaim control over their bodies. Except for Etienne, who seems to have adapted. As much as I’d like them to have the time to recover, time is up.
Movement in the front yard pulls me toward it as a dark, cloaked figure appears from thin air. The wind rustles through the surrounding evergreens, debris loosening into the building breeze around us. Those very eyes that had tortured me for months in captivity begin to glow, matching the stone encapsulated within a strangely twisted piece of metal forged into a necklace around the figure’s neck. The same necklace I had momentarily glimpsed while under attack in the meadow and that also sat proudly around her slender neck at breakfast. How I had never put two and two together sooner, I may never know.
“Sasha, my dearest daughter-in-law, how nice of you to come for a visit,” the queen’s voice slithers out, like venom dripping from her tongue.
“Why?” is all I can manage as the warriors fan out around our circling figures.
“Why what, dear?” She laughs, like shards of glass ripping through my ears, her blue eyes dancing in evil delight. Gone is her perfectly constructed facade as her true colors shine through.
“Don’t play coy with me, you fucking bitch,” I seethe, my shoulders bunching as I temper my building hate.
“Once a trashy mutt, always a trashy mutt, I suppose.” She lifts her hand and views her long, black nails in a bored fashion.
Anger pulsates around me as the ground responds, the elemental force pulling itself close.
“Such a temper and quite the waste of bestowed power if I do say so myself. Too bad that puppet Marcos didn’t kill you and syphon your magic on that fated moon as instructed. But I guess one should never send a weakling to do a real female’s job.” Her dark robes fall back as her beautiful face comes fully into the late afternoon’s grey light, edging closer to me, luring me in for a fight.
My mind spins, piecing the details together, making my body sick under its discoveries. “And that is why you fought outside my cell… because he hadn’t killed me off yet?” I knew that wasn’t the reason, but I needed to keep her talking while I internally searched for her link to dark magic on the other side. She was not gifted enough on her own to be tapping into this much power.
“No, silly girl. That was only a matter of time. I must say our quarrel was a bit petty, stemmed in jealousy. You see, the poor fool really had tricked himself into thinking he was in love with you.” Her cackle fills our ears once more as my insides revolt. “He was mine; I do not share what is mine.” She takes another step forward, the chill of her words biting through my thin jeans and T-shirt.
“Yours? I thought he was Seraphine’s.” Her vile hiss tells me I hit the nerve I was looking for, derailing her enough to make her energy flicker, showing me the thread she had tied herself to through the veil.
“That harlot had nothing on me—nothing on the years we spent together as lovers. She be but a simple plaything to warm his bed in my absence. I took great pleasure in draining her dry, after torturing her, naturally. Where do you think your mate gets it from? His weak father?” Her screeching laugh cuts through the evening air, making the trees shiver and woodland creatures fall eerily silent. I can feel her pulling that thread, swelling herself with a surge of dark magic in preparation.
“He is nothing like you.” The wind picks up, dancing around my face in reassurance.
“Oh, you pretty little fool, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Etienne, son, why don’t you regale her with your tales of massa
cre? So many innocent lives lost. His hands are just as stained as mine.”
Etienne’s figure comes into my periphery, confusion and utter dismay robbing his beautiful features. The queen waves her hand, a black cloud falling over Etienne, bathing him in blood as the screaming of former victims fills the air. Etienne’s past deeds become palpable, barraging me with disabling visuals that leave me struggling, gasping for air.
Cut the fucking cord, Sasha! My psyche screams, its strength faltering under the smoke and mirrors being used to intentionally disarm. As I fight within myself to see fact from fiction and not be swayed, Sophia lets one image slip into the live stream that I don’t believe was intentional. It was that of my dead son, her pleasure over said event stuck like tar all over it. Screaming in pure agony while clutching my head against the visions she is force feeding me, I throw my power out in one blast, cutting her invisible tie to the other side and pinning her down in a vice grip in one fell swoop.
“You fucking little whore!” she screams in violent suffering, her lifeline cut, reducing her to a mere vampire once more. “Do you have any idea what I had to do for that link?” she hisses, writhing in distress under my elemental grip, her dress riding up around her flailing legs.
Drawing in a few labored breaths against the frigid air, I find the strength to straighten myself and walk over to her thrashing form on the ground, pinned and spitting nails like a pissed-off cat. “Please, do tell,” I taunt her, pleasure over her current state feeding my ego.
“I will make you pay for this! I have worked for centuries for this, and you come in and sweep it all away. A little brat of vampire, not fit for the Ina su-alal u sandu! It should have been me!” She screams again as the front door of the mansion slams opens and out stumbles a confused-looking Francois. His smoking jacket is creased in all the wrong places as the tails of his button-down shirt peek out, escaped from his once-pressed trousers.
“Father!” Etienne calls as the others circle around the queen and me, daggers drawn.
“Son? What’s going on?” Francois asks as he takes in the sight of his wife, his brow hitting the sky.
“You had no idea about any of this?” Etienne’s accusatory tone lances his weakened father’s body, which is attempting to recover from some sort of spell.
“Etienne,” I call to him in warning, but he doesn’t hear me as he continues to bombard his father with questions, convinced he had a part to play. His father’s overwhelmed being shakes as his mind fights to make sense of everything. “Etienne!” I holler, finally catching his attention as he turns his cold glare toward mine. “Stop, he’s not at fault. Look at the buttons on his clothes. I bet the spelled bits of metal are all over everything.”
Etienne walks up to his father’s trembling form and picks at the buttons until he finds what I am speaking of. Dropping them like a hot potato, he turns back toward me. “What does that have to do with anything?” he snarls.
“He’s been spelled. His actions have not been his own. He’s been used as a puppet by the true king of smoke and mirrors.” My entire being shudders at the memories from my time in the stone castle, the intricate patterns adorning special doors and locks, all reminiscent of the charmed buttons on the king’s clothes. Marcos’ signature design forged in dark magic on his mission to rule the world. He was just as bloodthirsty as the queen now lying in quite the unladylike fashion on the ground, her regal grace nowhere to be seen.
“The rightful king who you killed! He should have been in the lead seat of the families. You killed my soul mate. I was meant to be with him once I absorbed the cups powers, and then we could have been together forever, ruling over all as we were meant to.” Her own grief takes us by surprise as she wails in the dirt, muddy branches and leaves clinging to her at every chance. As her words settle around us, Francois finally straightens himself, his rightful anger strengthening him.
“How on earth would you have been able to manage that?” I ask, curious. She doesn’t have the gifts to wield it.
“First, his healer was going to syphon and transfer your gifts to me upon your fated death until you slipped through the cracks. Then I found my own witch and relic,” she admits, nothing left to lose. The necklace around her neck begins to glow unnaturally. Its power showing clearly, lending itself Sophia’s spent body. The damn thing did, in fact, hold the power of the elements but in weak form, and they were not happy about being trapped in there.
With a wave of my hand, I set them free, the stone bursting into flames around her neck. The king runs to her side to swat the fire out and I let him pass through the bindings, letting them fall to the wayside. She doesn’t have any power left to channel. Francois pats down the flames on his shouting and crying wife, and then promptly hauls her up by the neck, coming to stand at full height so that her feet cannot touch the ground. “You have wasted centuries of my life and have lied to me this entire time. You swore on your departed father’s grave that you were done with Marcos when I agreed to marry you. We built a life, a family… and this is the result?” he spits, a strength and resolve emanating around him that I had yet to see from this normally calmly and almost passive male. The queen’s garbled pleas become lost as the king’s strong grip tightens.
“Father, let my eren handle it,” Etienne offers, not wanting his father to have to deal with what needs to come.
“Son, she is my mate and my responsibility. Her death will be quite justified, but on my hands nonetheless. If you could please have two of your eren come stand witness, that would be much obliged.” With that, the king marches off into the woods behind the house with a screaming and kicking queen. Maurizio and Callum follow behind to stand witness, the terror of impending death ringing out all around the woods as fate is delivered at the hands of the rightful lead king. He had earned his place at the helm of all the families, and rightfully so. It is a shame so many underestimated him.
As the last scream dies out in a warbling slosh of choking fluid, my determination to see my son’s killer serve her dues falls way to an emptiness. There is nothing left to be done but to pick up the pieces left in the wake of total destruction. Too much blood shed in a single night, too many truths shifting to eclipse the light of the moon, blanketing our world in a frigid midnight.
The emptiness is accompanied by disappointment. Etienne’s past truths shown to me through his mother’s trick don’t sit well as my mate comes around, hesitantly feeling me out as he approaches. “Are we okay?” he wearily asks.
“Lil, did you really do all of those things she showed me?” No one else could see them except for Etienne and me. She made sure we both gained graphic visuals of the ghosts from his past. The screams, however, were audible for all.
“Yes, I am not proud of that.” His spoken truth hangs in dread.
“I know.” And I did. He fought every day to never go back to being that beast Koray pulled from the pits of hell and rehabbed. Etienne fights the urge to take me up in his arms. Instead, he waits for me to make the choice on whether I would forgive or damn him. “You really think because of all of that stuff, you may not be worthy to stand by my side?” I ask, vocalizing his unspoken fears.
He sends me the signal for yes through our bond, sinking my heart, deepening my hurt. After all that we’ve been through, his insecurities still find a foundation in something that should no longer have roots. When I run into his arms, he catches me instantly, holding me tight. “You are absolved in my eyes, don’t ever think that again,” I cry, tears pouring from my swollen eyes as I let the love I have for this male pour from every bit of my being. We have fought many obstacles and circumstances to get to this point, and I’ll be damned if I let him ruin it all over something that needs to lie in the past. We are perfectly paired and hauntingly scarred by things that do not define us. Instead, they serve as a lesson. Together, we will walk in the light, tasked with the purpose of keeping the balance in the name of Nannau. A life’s calling I am so very glad that I finally answered.
Cha
pter 17
“A thousand words can’t bring you back, I know because I’ve tried. And neither would a million tears, I know because I’ve cried.” ~sayinggoodbye.org
Sasha
As the alternating rays of light dance through the stained-glass front of the cathedral in an array of color, the rainfall beats on the exterior like a methodic medicine drum, the old stone beast continuing to stand strong over hundreds of years like a beacon of hope under the onslaught. I had floated in on a daze, the sun and rain persistently following me, yet never caressing my skin. It was a new telltale sign of power that came after that dreaded night of loss. Nothing touched me unless permitted.
The finger-like rays of sun do not massage my skin, the raindrops do not fall upon me like a lover’s kiss, and the wind does not wisp through my hair in an intimate embrace. It is like floating in a continual bubble of solitude, consent being my lifeline to anything outside of this space that now emanates from my being. Well, aside from my mate, my other half. He is the only thing that can breach the space being held whether I call for it or not. As annoying as it is, I welcome his intrusions, they balance me and remind me to connect with that in which exists all around. Part of me wishes I could have waited for him to come here with me, but being as hardheaded as I am, I answered the call on my own.
Pain draws me to this sacred spot, a gut-splitting sensation that dwelled deeper and heavier than any I have ever known. Like a true masochist, I need the pain like a babe to a teat. I cling to it and allow it to nest within me. It sure as hell is better than feeling nothing. That can never happen again, the consequences of allowing that slip would be too devastating to those who depend on what I now am. I swear to the goddess in the heavens that I’ve worn a well-worn path around that switch however, fingering, playing, and teasing myself with the idea.
Eclipsed by Midnight Page 24