Transformation

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  “Like I said, I can and will find Baron on my own. I don’t need you all to do it, so I won’t let you push me into a position of power that I don’t want.”

  Maura’s eyes filled up with tears and I swore inwardly. “Please, Nyssa. We need to find Baron. He has the answer for Cecil and he needs to die. And I have the feeling you are the only one powerful enough to do it. My group is defensive only. If they break through our wards and use those elite soldiers you guys fought against, they will slaughter us. They will make what happened to Cecil look like child’s play. They already proved they can get their hands on the mages, and the pires’ defenses are weak during the day. Even the shifters have their weaknesses; we aren’t able to set up the same kind of wards around our coven around theirs, not without Cecil. Baron will find a way in and kill everyone, including Cecil. He will win. I don’t want him to win.”

  My heart hurt hearing her words, her plea.

  “But I can’t sleep with Landus.”

  She shook her head. “You’ll be biased. You can’t. You need to stay neutral. And I know you want Baron. I can feel your anger every time his name is mentioned. You want him so bad that it’s eating at you. We can help you. We can use our talents to set some kind of trap. To pull him out and take him down. We can help you. But we won’t if you don’t lead us. You are the only one able to get us all to follow directions. Everyone likes you.”

  I snorted. “I don’t see why. I’m not that special.”

  “We both know how untrue that is.”

  She grabbed my hand and yanked me back to the meeting. “Please lead us.”

  I took a step, then another, the choice made.

  She smiled. “You’re making the right choice.”

  Then why did it feel like my heart was breaking?

  Chapter Five

  I remember arguing with a boy-child. He didn’t understand, he didn’t get it, and it made me angry. I pushed him and he fell over and cried. I remember an adult coming over and yelling at me. I didn’t know why though. Why did I have to get in trouble while he got a hug?

  —Nyssa’s Journal

  Everyone settled down in their seats when I came in. The room was quiet with an undertone of expectation, all aimed at me, and I didn’t know what to think about that. Maura went back to her chair and got comfortable. I paused in front of mine, looking at everyone.

  All of them thought I was the best person for this job. I didn’t have that same belief nor did I understand where theirs came from. My gaze locked onto Landus’ and something in my expression gave me away. His small smile melted into a frown, and I snapped my gaze away from his.

  He agreed with them. He had to understand, right? That if I were to do this, then he and I couldn’t be if it were to work. And yet he still agreed with them. That hurt and I fought to ignore the questions that came to mind. I failed as I wondered whether I wasn’t clear enough with him on how I felt. Maybe I was supposed to do some grand gesture like getting down on one knee.

  “Nyssa?” Landus whispered, reaching out for me.

  I shook my head and pulled out the chair, moving it far enough away to put a noticeable distance between us. My heart twisted, ready to snap at a moment’s notice. Without my permission, I was prepared to shatter. I tried to tell myself that after this, after we killed Baron, I could fix this. I could go back to Landus again. A small part of me said it wouldn’t work. They’d blind-sided me, and Landus was on board with this. If it were for the good of the city, he’d agree with them, even if I didn’t care.

  Maura nodded at Leon who smiled like he just ate a canary. He straightened in his seat and waited as everyone quieted down.

  “We have discussed something over the break. As it is now, we can’t work with each other. We need a leader.”

  “Oh and I’m guessing you’re volunteering yourself?” Landus asked. I glanced at him and frowned.

  Why was he asking that? He already knew it was me.

  Leon smiled. “Of course not. If I lead, then you won’t be willing to help. Same thing the other way. But we came up with a solution. Not everyone here is part of a group.”

  All eyes turned to me and I stared really hard at the stupid abundance of silverware sitting in front of me and the plate of half eaten food. Slowly, the pieces clicked into place. Slowly, the puzzle formed an entire image.

  Landus did not know about this. Which meant, he never agreed to it.

  But I had thinking he did.

  “Nyssa will lead us. She is neutral. She doesn’t favor one group over the other and her neutrality will keep us from bickering and actually get work done. We will be able to hunt down Baron without needless deaths.”

  “But she’s with Landus,” Aaron said.

  At this point, I could feel Landus next to me, stiff. Completely still. If only I could read his thoughts. Better yet, no. I really didn’t want to know what was running through his mind right now. I barely understood what was running through mine. Anger flushed through me as the full implication of what just happened settled in and made its home.

  I could feel Slade’s eyes on me too, peppering me with silent questions.

  Fear clawed deep within, a new kind that I never felt before, that I didn’t have a name for. It squeezed my heart and made my stomach feel bottomless all at the same time. It was crippling.

  I opened my mouth to say something, anything, and Leon waved his hand through the air as if wiping the problem away and effectively keeping me silent. “We all know Landus doesn’t date. He fucks. And we’ve heard the rumors about Nyssa. Neither of them does relationships. They just fuck.”

  Each word was a slap in the face because even though what he said wasn’t necessarily a lie, they still hurt. Each word was a stab to my heart. My little beast whimpered with pain.

  “They will end things, no hard feelings,” Maura said, and I flinched inwardly.

  All eyes turned to me.

  “Is this how you feel?” Landus asked. I could feel the coldness in his voice. He was closing himself off from me. I could feel the strain on the weak bond that I’d manage to create with him. “Do you really agree with this?”

  No. I don’t. Not at all.

  I swallowed, hoping to end the drought that formed in my mouth. The words were there. Right there, but for the life of me, my stupid tongue chose that moment to stop fucking working.

  “Nyssa?” he asked, the anger unmistakable.

  No. I don’t want to end things. I don’t want to die.

  “Baron needs to die,” Maura said and I flinched.

  Cecil’s body flashed through my mind. I’d been so vocal lately about doing anything to make sure she survived. Baron had the answers and I needed to get my hands on him to get them.

  “I want Baron,” I whispered.

  No. Not the right words. That wasn’t what I meant. Was it? Yes, I did want him. But at what cost?

  The room was quiet, my words a whisper. I finally called myself a complete coward, to toughen the fuck up. I looked up at Landus and my heart shattered because I looked into the face of a man whose life was just taken from him. I watched as the light disappeared, as his expression morphed into something I’d never seen before, not even when I first saw him standing naked outside his shower.

  He changed from a man full of warmth into the powerhouse that the city knew as the Prime. It was the expression enemies saw before he tore them apart with his bare hands.

  I opened my mouth to say something. What? Before I could form another word, Maura clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention to her and away from Landus’ expression.

  “Excellent,” she said too cheerfully. “I say we call it a night and meet up again tomorrow. Same place, same time to discuss everything further and come up with ideas.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement and were quick to leave.

  Landus stood up, not looking at me.

  “Landus.” I grabbed onto his arm in hopes that he’d let me talk to him. He needed to know how fucked up and
wrong this was, that this was never what I intended. It was a misunderstanding.

  He yanked out of my grip.

  His expression was dead cold when he looked at me. “You know, when you said you didn’t care about any of us, I thought you were just talking out of your ass. But now I see that what you said is true. I don’t play games, Nyssa, and I’m done playing yours. Don’t talk to me. Don’t call me. I want nothing to do with you. You can use my men. Slade will represent us.”

  He walked away, leaving me to gape at him. Slade came up, standing where Landus had been, watching Landus stalk away before turning to me with a whole load of questions.

  “Were you guys really only just messing with each other? Fucking around?”

  All I could do was stare after Landus. My heart was too busy being destroyed. Those few words yanked out my heart and threw it into the garbage disposal like trash.

  I want nothing to do with you.

  I did this to us. I just killed myself just so I could kill Baron. I knew I toed the line, but I had never been this suicidal before. And to make it worse, it was never my intention. I thought he had told them he was on board. They lied, tricked me, and I had been the gullible idiot to believe them.

  He didn’t even know.

  Never again. Never fucking again.

  “Nyssa?” Slade asked.

  I finally looked at him, acknowledging that he said something. “I really don’t know what is going on right now,” I said truthfully.

  He nodded and then followed his Alpha out the door.

  What the fuck did I do? And how?

  Chapter Six

  I remember being found covered in blood, crying. A group stood around me, others moved around trying to piece together what happened. I remember a woman kneeling in front of my small frame, smiling. Her eyes didn’t light up like they should have. She reached out to me, and I curled away. I didn’t want to leave.

  —Nyssa’s Journal

  No matter how fast or how far I ran, nothing could make the pain in my chest go away. The meager bond we did form was shriveling away to almost nothing. Everything in me told me that the moment the bond turned into nothing, I was going to die.

  I fucked up. I fucked up so badly, I couldn’t get his expression out of my head, at the way he looked at me like he was looking at a stranger who wasn’t even worth being the dirt underneath his foot.

  Within an instant, I became nothing to him and those warm fuzzy feelings he gave me quickly turned into pain and regret. I wasn’t even sure how it happened. I thought I did what he wanted. But his expression said otherwise, and by the time my stupid slow brain understood that, he wasn’t willing to give me a chance to say a word.

  Even if I explained everything and cleared the misunderstanding, would he want me back? Could I go back to him, knowing what it risked? Maura was right, I wanted Baron dead. I wanted him dead more than anything else. Cecil has been first for me for so long, and I couldn’t just rearrange my priorities at a snap of a finger. But did it have to cost me Landus?

  And after Baron, once he was scattered to the ends of Terra Firma, what then? My gut twisted. Maura and Leon had this look on their faces that told me they didn’t want to ever let me go. They liked the idea of having a council, and if they had their way, I’d be head honcho of it. Not what I wanted at all. I’d need to find someone to replace me. But who? I didn’t know anyone who fit into the criteria Maura and Leon made.

  It didn’t matter. Either way, they were going to have to make do without me. I needed Landus, and if I couldn’t get him back, I was dead.

  I had signed my own death warrant without realizing it when I slept with Landus. I couldn’t even help myself when I had woken up. I saw him there, in that chair, looking all tired and worried and very yummy, and my little beast had enough. She wanted him. I wanted him. What could go wrong? Who the hell knew I would turn so fucking breakable after banging him?

  And I didn’t have anyone I trusted to talk about this with. Landus didn’t want anything to do with me. Slade wasn’t someone I went to for this kind of shit. I didn’t trust Maura at all anymore, and Cecil was still out of commission.

  I pushed harder, forcing my muscles to scream as I ran longer than ever before, hoping to run away from this ache and feeling of doom. The roaring was so loud in my head that I had to momentarily close my eyes against the pain, but I kept running. A few steps later, I opened my eyes only for the world to tilt around on its axis and I wasn’t able to tilt with it.

  I fell down in a graceless fall of arms and legs, pain shooting up my arm as the skin was scraped off by the unforgiving asphalt. I turned until I was on my back on the ground and then swore as my chest heaved and the pain slunk away, my beast curling up into a ball.

  “Are you okay?” a middle-aged woman with soft hazel eyes and brown curls asked, her face etched in genuine worry. Bless her soul, she was a precious one.

  “I’m okay, just pushed myself a little too hard and tripped over my two left feet,” I replied with what I hoped passed as a grateful smile.

  Her frown deepened and she held out her hand, helping me up. She really was too kind. There weren’t many out there like her anymore. Just by looking at her, I knew she was a well-balanced and innocent soul who had never witnessed the ugly side of anything. I wondered what she would think if she knew about the lives I’d taken, the blood on my hands, the thoughts I held, the emptiness that was within me. Or the rage that started to slowly consume me the longer I was away from Landus.

  “Be careful, dear,” she warned with a small smile to take away any sting she thought was in her warning.

  Nodding, I thanked her and we separated shortly after, running in different directions. I continued to run until I was nothing but a faucet of sweat. I slowed down to a walk on the side of the park where there was a nest of restaurants and cafes on the other side of the road. I had started running before the sun even rose and now it was late morning and people were about, getting some late breakfast, meeting friends or lovers, and enjoying the weather because the temperature was finally low enough to step outside without getting drenched with sweat.

  I walked slowly, heading back to my house when I spotted him. He came out of a cafe, the sunlight reflecting off his black hair. I would recognize that figure and height with my eyes closed. He held the door open and leaned down as a tall redhead walked through the door. He pecked her on the cheek and when she stepped past him, she turned and patted his cheek and a very familiar and sexual way. I could practically feel the lust pour out of her.

  They turned to head in the other direction, putting their backs to me. Her arm wrapped around his waist and he leaned over and said something that had her tossing her head back in a full-blown laugh.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes off them as my beast went crazy in me. I grunted in pain and knew the weird keening noise I heard was coming from me. The wind picked up around me and people looked around in confusion because today was definitely not a windy day.

  The meager bond that was left behind snapped when both I and my beast realized he had already moved on. Not even twenty-four hours later.

  I died.

  ~*~

  When I got back home, I just stood in my living room, my body nothing but emotions and pain. And anger.

  Less than twenty-four hours.

  Did people really move on from each other that quickly after being so close to someone else? I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. He was the first man I ever considered having... something... with. Were feelings so fickle? Were his? Because mine were not. Once I committed to someone, I did for life. Cecil was proof of that. I had stuck around for so long only because of her, and briefly, I thought I could expand that out to include Landus. I was wrong though. City life was not for me. This whole fucked up situation proved it. It only turned me into a goddamn coward and liar. Something I promised myself to never be.

  I ignored the boarded-up windows and broken pieces of the first floor of my home, not caring to clea
n anything up. What was the point? The bodies were gone and that was all I cared about. Without fully understanding what I was, I managed to turn myself into a ticking time bomb. A clean and put together house meant nothing in the long scheme of it all. It no longer mattered.

  If I knew, I wouldn’t have slept with him.

  If I knew, I would have never put myself in such a precarious position.

  If I knew...shit.

  The anger in me took over and I let some of it loose. I was in my home. I could just be for a moment.

  Forcing my jaw to unclench, I screamed the moment my mouth could open. The pain surged through me and my limbs gave out. I crumbled to the floor, fighting with the anger and devastation for control. The energy in the room spiked upwards and the wind blew in a howling scream of agony. My insides burned. My outsides burned. I turned into a burning ball of pain and rage, curling into myself.

  I tried to hold on to something. Anything.

  Breathe.

  You’re alive.

  No, I’m dead.

  Breathe.

  You’re not hurt.

  I’m nothing but pain.

  Breathe.

  You will get through this.

  Only after death.

  Breathe.

  You always do.

  Not this time.

  I’m dead.

  Breathe.

  I can’t.

  I lost consciousness briefly, my mind shutting down. When I come to, I was lying on the floor and it took too long to drag myself back up to my feet. The pain was still there but the numbness grew, trying to take over.

  Landus. He made me feel emotions I had never known. He made me feel happy. Safe. I had never felt safe before and yet he taught me what it felt like. But now. I wasn’t safe. I opened up to him. Trusted him. And destroyed his trust.

  Less than twenty-four hours to move on.

  Was that how fast people moved on?

  Trusting the new witches’ wards to let me know if any more trouble decided to come to my house, I moved stiffly towards the stairs to go to bed. Before I even made it to the first step, a warning washed over my body as someone not welcomed hit against my ward.