“Ghost, bitch. There’s a ghost following me around.” Cy raises his head and looks to his left. He doesn’t catch sight of me at the door; his stare’s frozen on something in the corner.
Something I can’t see.
But maybe not all immortals can see the dead?
“And,” Cyake continues, looking back down at his keyboard. “I’m the only one who can fucking see her.”
“That’s impossible. Anyone with our level of power can see dead souls,” Zex says.
There goes that theory. Not that I’m claiming to be as powerful as them, but . . . I look at the spot Cy was looking at. Nothing.
“Either that or I’m going insane.”
“I’d vote for insane,” Zexistr chimes in.
“Fuck you, dude. I knew you wouldn’t get it. But this old lady won’t stop following me around.”
“Old lady?”
“Yeah. I met her on Earth. Helped her across the street weeks ago. She died since then, now here she is fucking with me. Says she was pulled to me after her death. Ghosts only do that for one reason. You know that.” Cyake stops, running a hand through his dark brown hair and tugging on it.
“She can’t mean . . .”
“I don’t know, man. I don’t fucking know.”
I’m still confused but I can tell by their tones that whatever they suspect this is, both of them are worried.
And it explains nothing to me. Merely makes me more curious.
“I’m telling you, Sol . . .” Ismini’s voice echoes from the second floor. “You shouldn’t have flirted with that guy during my Ziaphrite celebration. You’ve driven Ianthen mad.”
Cy tenses, turning slowly. His eyes land on me.
I try to put a whole lot of I’m sorry for being a nosy bitch and eavesdropping on your convo into my expression.
He glares at me anyway.
“Please,” Soleria scoffs. She and Ismini come into view on the second-floor landing. “That man’s pissy mood has nothing to do with me, so drop it. Besides, Erasan had the sexiest little faux-hawk I’ve ever seen and the fucker was a Viking before they turned him into a Sesengt. Explain to me how I was supposed to stop myself from flirting. You’re the mated one, not me.”
Ismini rolls her eyes and places her hand on Soleria’s arm. She dematerializes them both down to the first level.
Sol pulls her arm away and glares at Ismini, looking a little green. “I told you not to do that without warning. That shit makes me sick—oh, hey Eve. Where have you been? We heard you might be getting yourself a little something-something.”
I open my mouth to answer, but Ismini’s eyes light up at something behind me. “Nylicia!”
I turn around.
Nylicia floats into the hall, her right hand extended with some sort of orb floating above it. Inside the orb is what appears to be a mini-fireworks display of blue and purple.
She comes to an abrupt stop, her eyes flying up and locking on the giant statue of Zexistr. Confusion and annoyance seem to be fighting for dominance in her translucent features.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she says, shaking her head. “Who allowed this travesty?”
From the other room, I hear a sharp inhale.
“Wait . . . that voice.”
It takes me a moment to realize that Zexistr’s still on the phone with Cyake.
Ismini points at Nylicia’s hand. “Nylicia, what is that?”
Nylicia shakes her head and looks away from the statue.
“This?” She raises her hand, and the ball rises as well, almost as if she is actually holding the thing. “This . . . is your destiny, Ismini.”
“My what?”
Uh, oh. I immediately have a bad feeling about whatever Nylicia’s up to. She has that look on her face—that stoic, “this isn’t going to be a big deal” look—the one she always has right before she does something that always turns out to be, in reality, a big fucking deal.
Like when she stood in front of that portal and asked me if I would follow her through it.
Cyake steps out of his command station, slipping his phone into his pocket. He must have ended the call with Zex. “What’s going on out here?”
Nylicia ignores him, eyes still on Ismini. “Did you think your destiny ended with Dyletri? Because that was just part of your gift—this is the main part.”
“What are you talking about?” Ismini takes a step back. Lot of good that it does her.
Before anyone can react, Nylicia winds her arm back and sends the ball flying straight at Ismini.
Hitting her in the solar plexus, it explodes into a whirlwind of power that engulfs her. She’s flung backwards. The whole compound shakes with the impact, and Ismini ends up embedded in the stairs.
On my end, an annoying sense of déjà vu is taking over.
Dyletri appears on the landing. “What the hell?”
“Hi, Dy!” Nylicia waves happily. “This is the other part of your destiny, too.”
“What the hell did you just do to her?” he yells, flashing down to Ismini’s level. He kneels, lifting his R’ma gently into his arms.
Sol’s gasp is a perfect echo of my own.
Ismini raises her head and her hair is . . . it’s . . . fluctuating. White and brown. Brown and white. Back and forth. Over and over. “Oh, God. What’s happening to me?” She cups her forehead.
Her gaze falls to a chunk of her hair that had slid over her shoulder. Eyes wide, she grabs it, lifting it up. The moment she touches it, the color-change display goes full-throttle, her hair alternating between white and dark brown so fast, it starts to give me a headache.
I look to Nylicia who’s studying Ismini with a look of growing horror.
“Nylicia,” Dyletri growls, his veins starting to glow with white light. “What did you just do to my mate?”
“How much have you been coming inside her?” Nylicia asks, aghast.
My eyes bug out of my head.
Cy chokes on a laugh.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Dyletri all but roars.
“Well, she’s fluctuating. But for her hair to be changing to your specific color? Just saying . . . lots of DNA has been dumped into that cargo.”
Cy breaks out into full guffaws, laughing so hard that he has to grab onto my shoulders to steady himself.
Dyletri glares, seeming ready to jump up and slaughter both Cyake and Nylicia. He’s glowing so brightly that his form nearly gets lost inside the white glare.
“Wait,” he says after a moment. The light around him dims and then disappears altogether. “Did you just say fluctuating?”
Nylicia claps happily, beaming at Dy. “Starting to get it now, aren’t you? See? I always knew sex would not only make you powerful again, it would make you smarter as well.”
“Baby, what’s happening to me?” Ismini asks in a small voice, placing a hand on the stair beneath her.
The marble morphs, turning into solid steel.
With an eep! she flies off the step and into Dyletri’s arms. She wraps her hands around his neck, and his hair and eyebrows go from white to black in the blink of an eye.
Whoa. Just . . . O—M—G, whoa.
“Oh my God!” Ismini gasps, clearly thinking the same thing I am. Her R’mann looks sexy with that hair color.
“Oh my God, girl, is right,” Soleria mumbles. “Take him somewhere and suck his dick. For me. Do it for me.”
Ismini moves her hands, and Dyletri’s hair returns to its white shade. She places her hands around his neck again. Back to black. Her hair, on the other hand, hasn’t made up its mind about what shade it wants to be.
“As you can see, Ismini now has the powers of Flux. And . . . she’s going to have a hard time learning to control those powers. That’s where you come in, Dyletri.”
“I have the powers of what?”
“You are now the Goddess of Flux, Ismini.”
“G-Goddess?”
“Handler of change. Consta
nt change, to be exact,” Dyletri says, giving Nylicia a grudging, respectful look.
“You remembered!”
Nylicia’s smile is Kool-Aid huge, and scary as hell as she floats towards me.
My stomach drops right off the dimension.
“Now you. You’re taking too long to enter the final stages of your power absorption. Probably has something to do with how stubborn you are. We need to speed things up a little bit.”
“What? What powers? What are you talking about?” I take a step back, and bump right into Cyake. I’m about to dematerialize when Nylicia appears before me and places two ghostly fingers against my forehead.
“Like I said. We need to speed this up. I know it hurts, but you can handle it.”
No sympathy. None. Not even when I cry out, back arching as pure energy detonates inside my skull.
My entire body freezes as my mind scrambles to process yet another influx of power.
I can’t look away from Nylicia. Not even when her eyes widen out of nowhere, fear shining in their depths, and just as suddenly, she disappears.
Less than a split second later, Zexistr appears in her place, looking around the foyer frantically. “Where is she? I heard she was here.”
“Don’t know bro! She ran, as always. We have bigger issues—”
The first seizure hits me before Cyake can finish his sentence.
Every muscle locks up and jerks. My eyes roll back into my head. Arms lift me quickly, bracing me against a chest.
The last thing I hear is Ismini crying my name.
Then nothing. Again.
CHAPTER 24
EVESSE
M y knees scrape across the jagged stone floor. I’m beyond weak. Pieces of the stone seem hungry for my flesh, biting bits off. My bent legs leave a trail of red behind.
No, not my legs. I’m having another vision. Stuck in another replay of Zen’s past. He was beaten again. I feel the wounds along his back and chest. His chained arms burn. Whatever is being fed into his system keeps him weak. Bound. Incapable of regeneration.
Pain hits his synapses, but inside his mind Zeniel isn’t there. There’s nothing but darkness—a complete absence of thought. His nervous system functions, but his mind’s gone. There’s no reaction to anything, not even a spark of awareness.
His body is dumped in front of a wall. Stone grates against stone, the sound unbearable as the wall slides open.
A jolt, one single thought, so weak it’s barely a whisper through Zeniel’s mind.
Not in there. Cold. No light.
The demons that have control of Zen lift him. They fling him into the cell, weakening him further. The floor bites into his back when he lands, leaving new abrasions behind.
The door to the cell closes. Right before it does, I’m able to catch a glimpse of the two demons that hurt my male. Then, darkness surrounds Zen, leaving just the sound of his shallow pants. The flare of consciousness remains. Almost as if Zeniel is fighting to keep it with him.
His consciousness spreads, his mind slowly catching up with his broken body.
Pain.
Everything hurts and blood continues to trickle from him, hot against the stone floor.
A voice drifts to him.
“Mavrak.”
Rage explodes in the back of his mind, trying to escape once more. He knows this. Knows this burn. Knows the feeling that reminds him of his heart breaking. The need to lash out claws at him.
No. No. Cannot allow it . . . silence. Need the silence . . .
He groans, turning onto his side and curling into himself. He can’t breathe. All he can feel is the searing pain of his internal and external wounds, and the scraping of the thing inside him.
He recalls the name Mavrak, but has no real idea who it is. Who he is. He tries to focus to get through the pain, but finds he has no idea what he is either. All he has are the memories of the things he once did. And the roar in his head.
There is no way in hell he could ever forget that.
He desperately needs to keep hold of the quiet that he had upon waking. The physical wounds he can deal with. He can deal with a million more as long as his mind stays quiet; as long as the roar remains silent.
“Mavrak?”
“No!” Tears leak out of his injured eyes. “No more.”
A faint, prismatic light shines in the dark. “It has begun.”
Zeniel squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out all the light, but the colors still shine around him: pink, hazel, aqua and light blue.
Someone kneels next to him. His panic recedes, and his headache begins to as well. He basks in the calmness that seeps from the creature before him.
A hand caresses his forehead. Zeniel doesn’t feel skin; he feels only a shock of energy in the shape of fingers. His back arches, the energy shooting down his spine.
And still, he is calm. Nothing hurts, all he feels is peace.
Then, that name leaves her mouth again.
“You do not wish to be called Mavrak anymore, do you?” Her tone is laced with sympathy, the words a whisper.
“No!” Zeniel cries, lashing out.
His arm encounters more of that shimmering energy, and when he opens his tortured eyes, he sees his hand pass through her form. Her transparent form.
The expression on her face is one of regret. “You cannot separate yourself entirely from him. I will not stop you if you decide to try, but I beg you not to.”
Zeniel shakes his head, turning away from her. Just thinking about the being inside him makes him sick. He does not understand it, but knows what it did.
The tragedy it wrought.
He despises it. Visions of it torment him; guilt blossoms and spreads.
“Very well.” The female sighs and runs a hand down his back. He twitches and his wounds begin to heal. “How about Zeniel? Would you prefer that?”
His breathing slows. He moves and turns his head, his eyes focusing on the brunette apparition.
“I . . . yes. Zeniel.” Relief overtakes his tone.
She smiles. “Your eyes. They have changed.” She stands, the edge of her skirt floating like smoke around her feet. “It is time. I shall send Dyletri for you. It is time we get you out of this forsaken place.”
He does not know who Dyletri is, but that is not who he wants. His mind rushes back to the vision he had right before he was taken out of the cell. Shaking his head, he sits up, the sudden movement making his visitor step back in surprise.
“Not him. N-need her . . .”
The transparent face bursts into a delighted smile. “You remember what I showed you.”
“Called me . . . forth. Brown eyes. Need—”
“Understand this Zeniel, to be what she will need, you cannot shut your other half out. Not completely. You will lose her if you cannot accept what is inside you.”
“No. Protect—”
She cuts him off again, her face flashing with annoyance. “You stubborn male, I am trying to tell you. In order to protect her, you will need all of you.”
Zeniel shakes his head. With a growl, he slams his fist into the floor. His strength has begun to return; the stone beneath his fist cracks upon impact. “No. It is . . . a monster. Undeserving. Need her. Now.”
She places her hands on her hips and sighs. “Fine. We shall do this your way. For now you are nothing but Zeniel. If the lie helps you stay calm, enjoy it. In the future, do not come to me and tell me I did not warn you. Your ‘Brown Eyes’ is thousands of years from being born. You are going to have to wait. And now . . . I am off to get Lust, as in denial as he now is about his designation.”
The creature disappears. Thankfully, her faint light remains long after she is gone.
What does not remain is the calmness she afforded him.
He almost doubles over as the noise threatens to start in his head again. Lying back on the cold floor, he focuses on the dust particles floating in the remaining light. He forces his mind to visualize those brown eyes, and only those
eyes. He needs to keep it together. He needs to get through this.
The memory disappears instantly. One moment I’m trapped in it. The next, my eyes are wide open and I spring into a sitting position.
I come eye-to-eye with white irises surrounded by a black rim. Confused, I blink. Lids framed with navy blue eyelashes—unfairly thick, damn it—mimic me. Recognition flares, and I go flying into the headboard.
It collapses around me, leaving me blowing dust out of my face as I grab the nearest pillow and fling it at Ianthen. “The fuck is wrong with you? You scared me!”
From behind a floating cloud of feathers, Ianthen glares at me. “Was that necessary?”
I pant, thoughts racing.
He leans towards me. “Evesse, are you alright?”
From the corner of my eye, I see the pieces of the pillow reconnecting, the feathers finding their way back inside. Even the ones on the floor float back home as if magnetized.
I rest my head against the reformed headboard, having one of those moments where my raised-human brain wonders how much more weirdness it can process.
You’re immortal now. You apparently have powers. Oh, and you’re having visions about your mate’s past. That’s how much more weirdness.
“Eve? Eve!”
“What the hell, dude?” I cry, destroying another pillow with his face.
“I don’t know whether to take you up on this blatant pillow fight invite you’ve extended me, or not. Then again, Zeniel would kill me. Give me the creepy red-eye, and have my dick cut off.” With a mulish expression, Ianthen plucks a small feather off his eyelash and drops it into the trail of pillows floating past us.
The difference in him finally sinks in. “You cut your hair.”
Ian raises a hand and runs it through his now short hair. The front is longer, styled in a small fauxhawk, but the rest is nothing more than a navy-blue fade.
It gives him a rougher look. A dangerous one. As big as he is, and as animalistic as his presence can be, that haircut makes him look like a hot brawler ready to beat down. And remembering what Soleria said in the main hall about the ex-Viking Sesengt, I know why he did it.
This fucker isn’t playing games. He’s on a mission he’s determined to accomplish.
Ryze Series: Books 1 & 2 Page 43