by Joy Nash
Her next inhale was less of a gasp and more of a wheeze. Her lips parted.
“Not...dying.” Her eyelids fluttered open. Their gazes locked. “Not even...close.”
He swallowed. “Are you sure?”
“Harder...to kill...than tha—” Another coughing fit took her.
“Bollocks,” he muttered. “Not again.” He urged her to sit up and lean forward, his hand on her nape.
She held up one finger. “Just...give me...a sec.”
The coughing abated. Her hand fluttered downward, as if it weighed too much for her arm to support.
“Take your time,” he said. “Take all the time you need.”
She nodded. Several long moments passed. Finally, she raised her head. “Better,” she said. “I think.”
He examined her more closely. When his gaze fell on her neck, he tasted bile. He might have killed her with his blind strike. If he had proper control of his magic, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. His mind started to run with the scenario. Ruthlessly, he choked it off.
She’s not dead, he told himself. Not. Dead. Not dead, not dead, not dead. Color had flooded her cheeks. Her breathing was still uneven, though. He grabbed her wrist and pressed the pulse point. Weak. He frowned at her eyes. The pupils were dilated.
She blinked up at him. “Dang it, Arthur. Quit looking at me like that.”
His chest eased a fraction. If she had enough energy to tell him off, she wasn’t dying quite yet.
“Don’t look at you like what? Like you’re bloody lucky to be alive? Sweet Lucifer, Cybele, what were you doing, sneaking down those steps? You scared the piss out of me.”
“I scared you? What about me? Next time try looking before you attack.”
“Rubbish. You should’ve let me know it was you.”
Her green eyes flashed. “Give me some credit. I’d have to be dumber’n a bag of rocks to call out before I knew...” She sucked in a breath. “...before I knew—it was y—” She dissolved into another round of coughing.
“Fuck. I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s my fault.” When she started to reply, he shook his head. “Quiet. Don’t talk. Just breathe.”
She pressed a fist to her chest and nodded. When the coughing finally stopped, she looked up and offered a wry smile. “I think that’s the first time you ever apologized to me.”
He snorted. “Don’t accustom yourself.”
“No chance of that.”
Her complexion appeared almost normal now. He searched for something mundane to say. He settled on, “I’ve never seen your hair like that.”
Her long blond hair was ruthlessly braided and wrapped tightly around her head. She usually wore it loose, the curls hopelessly tangled.
“I didn’t want it getting in the way.” When his gaze dropped again to her neck, she grabbed his face and guided it to her mouth for a quick kiss. “Don’t look. It’s nothing.”
He tore his lips from hers and set her back at arm’s length. “It’s not nothing.”
“The sting’s already going.”
She probably wasn’t lying. The welts had faded somewhat. Still. “I could’ve killed you.”
“You didn’t. I’ll be fine.” She pressed her forehead against his chest and inhaled. “You smell nice, Arthur.”
Her accent, a low-pitched Texas twang, soothed him. “I couldn’t possibly,” he said. “I’m filthy.”
“I don’t care. It’s you.” Her arms tightened and he felt dampness on his chest. His heart lurched. Cybele, crying? That was a sight he’d never seen, not once in the seven years he’d known her.
“I was so scared, Arthur. I thought...I thought you might not have survived it.”
He smoothed a hand down her back. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.”
He felt her smile. “Thank the ancestors.”
“But—” His mind, having pulled back from the edge of panic, was beginning to work again. “How did you follow me here?”
“I didn’t.” She slid out of his lap, gently disentangling herself from his grasp as she rose. She swayed a bit on her feet. He jumped up and reached for her, but she waved him off and sank into a chair. She rested one forearm on the table. He rose and claimed the chair beside her.
“I got here before you did,” she said. “But I was exhausted. I fell asleep upstairs. I didn’t hear you until—” She looked around the room. “Until you started cleaning up, I guess.” He saw the moment when she realized what else had changed. Her eyes widened and snapped to his. “What happened to all the blood?”
“Gone.”
“Gone how?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” he admitted. “I just know I did it.” He didn’t give her time to protest his pitiful non-explanation. “How did you know I would be here? I didn’t know myself, not until a couple hours ago.”
“Oh, please. There was no way you weren’t going to come here.”
He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised she’d anticipated his movements. Cybele possessed keen intuition. Female Nephil dormants, unlike males, acquired some of their magical powers before entering the Ordeal. Cybele’s talent was stronger than most and she’d worked hard to develop it. But even aside from intuition and magic, it wasn’t surprising Cybele had guessed he’d be here. She knew him better than anyone.
“I came here because I remembered this.” He touched his mother’s moonstone.
She focused on the gem. “It’s beautiful. Whose is it?”
“My mum’s.”
“It’s been here all this time? Mab never found it?”
“My father hid it. He’d stolen it from my mother when he found out she’d been having sex with—” He swallowed. “Well. My parents weren’t lifebonded. They both had other lovers. But then my mum took up with a Nephil from another clan.”
“She slept with a rival?” Cybele tilted her head and searched his gaze. “You never told me that.”
“I know.” He looked away. “I couldn’t bear to think about it, let alone talk of it. If she hadn’t done it, they’d both be alive today. My mother’s lover was the Nephil I saw that night. The one who killed her and my father.”
“Oh, Arthur. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
He shrugged and avoided her gaze. “Too ashamed, I guess. And angry.”
“You shouldn’t have had to deal with that alone.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done.” It killed him, even now, to admit out loud what his mother had done.
“I could’ve listened.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “Before that last night, I hadn’t realized what had been going on. A few days earlier, I’d noticed my mum’s touchstone was missing. When I asked her where it was, she just shook her head. Yesterday I saw my father’s hand sliding it into the trunk of the old oak in the garden.”
“You saw it? Yesterday?” She leaned toward him. “You mean in an ancestral memory? Your father’s?”
“Yes. It was as if I was behind his eyes, looking out.”
“Arthur, that’s fantastic! Have you seen memories from other ancestors? What about Merlin’s?”
“No. Not his. I’ve tried, but...” Merlin’s were the memories Arthur most wanted to recover. But was it even possible? Not one of Merlin’s descendants, in all the hundreds of years since the great sorcerer’s death, had received his memories.
“It’ll come.” Cybele’s voice rang with a confidence Arthur didn’t feel.
“They never came to my mother. Or any of my other ancestors.” He paused, hesitant to voice a fear he couldn’t seem to put to rest. “Maybe Merlin’s memories are gone.”
“What? That’s not even possible.”
“It could be.”
“You can’t know that.”
“No,” Arthur said. “I suppose I can’t.” It was only a feeling he had. A cold, tight knot in his chest.
They both fell silent. The wind gusted, sending a chill into the room. Cybele frowned at the broken window. “That wasn’t like that befo
re.”
“It broke when I tried to open it.”
“Looks more like you put your fist through it.”
“I might have.” He looked down at his hand. The cut he’d gotten when the glass shattered was already closed, the scar rapidly fading. A Nephil adept didn’t suffer much with non-magical wounds.
“So you don’t remember anything at all from your ancestors’ lives? Besides the memory from your father?”
“The memories are in my head. But they’re all jumbled up. I see bits and pieces, but nothing distinct enough to sort out.”
“They’ll clear,” Cybele said. “They have to.”
“I hope so. But even if they do, my magic—” He exhaled. “Let’s just say it’s giving me a spot of trouble.”
“No surprise there. You passed through your Ordeal without a guide. Of course it’s going to take longer than usual to figure things out.”
The last thing Arthur wanted to discuss was his Ordeal. Abruptly, he changed the subject. “Why did you leave Demon’s Hollow? We agreed you’d stay in Texas until I came back for you.”
“Yes, well, that was the plan, wasn’t it?” Cybele said. “But with two weeks gone, I didn’t dare—”
“Two weeks?” Arthur stared. “Two bloody weeks? What the fuck day is it?”
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head.
“March thirtieth.”
He swore. “I had no idea. I...time doesn’t exist within the Ordeal. And since I emerged...” He hesitated, not wanting to admit the larger part of his recent memory was a black abyss. He glanced out the window. “It’s been too cloudy to see the moon.” He leaned in. “What happened after I left?”
“The first day, nothing,” Cybele replied. “I’m not sure Evander even knew you were gone—he was too busy in bed with Raven and Tempest.”
Evander was Cybele’s father. Arthur had never heard her refer to him by anything other than his given name. She hated him, with good cause. He wasn’t Mab’s thrall—he’d been adept before she rose to power and he had never challenged her authority. But he might as well have been enthralled for all the arse-kissing he did. He was as cringing and cowardly as his daughter was passionate and brave. Arthur had to assume Cybele took after her mother, a witch who’d died before Cybele was old enough to remember her.
Evander’s job was to look after Demon’s Hollow’s witches and dormant offspring. In actuality, he spent most of his time drinking or loitering in bed with one or more of the witches.
“What about Draven?” Arthur asked.
“He had that big shipment coming in,” Cybele said. “And clients waiting for him to package it up and send it out. He wasn’t paying much attention to anything else. It wasn’t until a couple days later, when Evander finally got out of bed, that he realized you’d skipped out. The shit hit the fan then.”
“He called Mab back from Houston?”
She snorted. “Not at first. He was too afraid. He and Draven spent a day searching the swamps. When they didn’t find a trace of you, Evander finally broke down and sent a message to Club Tartarus.” She studied the scarred table top. “Mab flew in that night. With Rand and Hunter, of course.” She bit her lip. “And...and Luc.”
Luc was Cybele’s twin. Arthur had tried to talk him into running and facing his Ordeal alone, as Arthur intended to do. Luc had rejected the idea, opting to stay with the clan and accept Mab as his guide.
And who knew? Perhaps Luc had made the wiser choice. Death or brain damage were the expected outcomes of an unguided Ordeal, and avoiding the Ordeal entirely was an even worse option. If a Nephil dormant reached the age of twenty-five without experiencing a near-death experience and subsequent Ordeal, the cells in his or her body mutated. A deadly cancer was the inevitable result. Without the Ordeal, a Nephil couldn’t expect to survive past thirty.
“How did he look?” Arthur asked.
Cybele shuddered. “Horrible. Pale. Grim. He’s lost weight. I can’t stand to look at that damn collar around his neck. Or the thrallstone embedded in it.” She gave her head a swift shake. “Let’s not talk about it. I was telling you about Mab. She threw a hissy fit when she found out you’d gone rogue and taken a couple eightballs with you besides.”
Arthur had stolen the cocaine from the clan’s stash. A dormant needed to trigger the Ordeal with a near-death experience. A drug overdose worked just fine. Normally two or three months passed between recovery from an NDE and the start of the Ordeal. Mab, in the course of her illegal drug trade, had discovered that cocaine decreased the transition interval to just a few days. It was a dangerous proposition, more likely than the natural process to kill the dormant who tried it, but she preferred the control it gave her. As for Arthur, the quick route had been his only chance at escape.
“Did she question you about me?” he asked.
“Of course,” Cybele said tightly. “After she got done screaming at Evander and Draven, she started in on everyone else. Me, Zephyr, Auster—even the witches and the younger dormants.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I played dumb. She didn’t blink. We’ve been careful, Arthur. She’s got no idea how close we are.”
“Or how powerful you’ve become.” At Arthur’s urging, Cybele had practiced her magic in secret.
“All the adepts searched for you,” she continued. “Even the ones from the club. After three days, Mab finally admitted you’d gotten away. She said you were either in the middle of your Ordeal or dead. She said she’d find you—or your body—eventually.”
She fell silent, picking at a cuticle with her thumbnail.
He covered her hand with his. “And then what?”
She shrugged. “Then nothing. Mab went back to Houston with Rand and Hunter. Before she left, she told me to be ready for my NDE when she came back in a couple weeks. I waited five days for you. When you didn’t come, I ran.”
Of course she had. Cybele would never sit tight and wait for the axe to fall. “Could Evander have followed you?”
“Not a chance.” She looked down. “But Luc...”
A chill ran through him. Nephil twins were linked in ways Arthur didn’t completely understand. With Luc enthralled to Mab, his connection to Cybele was dangerous. “Luc would have known the exact instant you left Demon’s Hollow.”
Cybele chewed the inside of her cheek. “I’m sure he did. But he didn’t try to stop me. And he didn’t follow. Do you think...do you think maybe he’s not completely under Mab’s thumb?”
“It’s possible,” Arthur allowed, though he didn’t believe it. Mab embedded a thrallstone, a sliver of her own ruby touchstone, into every thrall’s collar. The collar couldn’t be removed until either master or slave was dead. Every time one of her thralls used magic, Mab knew what he was doing. When a thrall was in extreme distress, she could sense his thoughts as well.
Thinking of Luc as an enemy felt like shit, but Arthur couldn’t ignore the facts. “If she questions Luc about you, he won’t be able to lie. Not while he’s wearing her collar.”
A flash of profound pain, quickly masked, passed through Cybele’s eyes. “Even if Luc does tell her when I left, that’s all he knows. He doesn’t know where I am now.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Cybele sighed and pushed to her feet. “Are you hungry? I have food. And I brought extra clothes for you. Clean jeans, boxers, and as many shirts as I could stuff into my backpack. I figured you’d probably need those the most.”
That was certainly true. When he didn’t have the presence of mind to pull off his shirt before he shifted, his wings ripped it to shreds. And presence of mind had been in short supply lately. “Thanks,” he said.
“I’ll fix us something to eat.”
“I need to get cleaned up. Is there water in the house?”
“No.”
“I’ll try the garden well.”
Arthur left the house and all but attacked the rusted pump. He doubted Cybele was hungry. What sh
e wanted was space. What he wanted was to feel human again.
THREE
Maweth bounced and bounced, careening off the shining curves of his prison. He tried angling his bat-wings for a somersault, just to spice thing up. Honestly. He was bored out of his skull.
Not quite bored enough to wish for a visit from his master, though. Bastard.
For the millionth time, he lectured himself on how stupid he’d been. After thousands of years of demonic existence, you’d think he’d be too wily to stumble into a trap. But who could blame him for being distracted? He’d been massively stressed out for the past couple centuries. Earth’s population was exploding. So many people, coming to so many ends.
He blamed his captivity on the lights. They’d been all rainbows and sunshine. So pretty. So sparkling. So unlike death. They’d caught his fancy. He’d reached out to touch them and...bam!
Damn alchemy anyway. It was very deceitful magic, constructed with the elements of metal, fire, and blood. What Maweth had thought was light was really a mirror, a dazzling quicksilver mirror, fused alchemically with salt, flame, and a drop of blood. Though the mirror was solid, the quicksilver it was made of moved like a liquid, swirling and reflecting all the colors of the rainbow. Very pretty. The dazzle had lured him. He’d approached and poked at the mirror with a finger. Before he knew what was happening, he’d been inside the blasted thing. Where there were no rainbows, just dull gray walls. And no getting out, except when his new master called.
To make matters worse, his master was a Nephil. Nasty creatures, Nephilim were, at the best of times. The occasion of Maweth’s capture was not the best of times. The Nephil who’d caught him had been steamed when he realized Maweth couldn’t do what he wanted him to do.
Maweth thought then that he’d be set free. No such luck. His master was very adept at changing his plans to suit unexpected circumstances. He’d quickly found an alternate use for his captive’s talents.
All that had taken place, Maweth estimated, four months ago. Ninety-nine percent of that time had been spent in utter boredom. The rest had been spent doing things he’d rather not dwell on. Right now, his master was occupied with the fruits of one of Maweth’s labors. Which was another thing he’d rather not think about.