The relief in his tone almost breaks me.
Zen doesn’t give me a chance to fall into tears. His eyes open to half-mast, and lock on my lips. The look he gives me is so primal, it makes me shiver.
“You wanted me whole, my R’ma.” I tremble harder at the way his voice splits with renewed power. “You’ve got me.”
I’m about to have him all right. As a matter of fact, my thoughts all center on the idea of having him under me, and using my body to erase any lingering pain he feels.
Until Ianthen pukes again. Loudly.
Zen scowls in confusion, staring over my shoulder.
I see the exact moment he realizes what Ian did. His eyes blur red-and-black and he lets out a dangerous growl.
“You moron.” He lets me go, taking a step into the bathroom. “I should rip you apart. Let my wraiths destroy your manhood. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“The freaking prophecy, you fidiot! And you’re taking your new role as distant uncle a little too seriously, don’t you think?”
I grab Zen’s arm, waiting for the mist to start up. He turns his head and shakes it, silently letting me know that he’s okay. He’s seeing Ianthen’s actions but he isn’t feeling a need to punish him.
Well, not with his powers, at least.
Zen looks back at Ian. “You fool. You’re going to die like this.” Scoffing, he turns to look over his shoulder. “Where is Nylicia? Wasn’t she working on—”
Cyake pops into the room before Zen can finish.
This time, when Zeniel’s eyes widen, there’s no doubt that little trickles of mist are beginning to swirl out. Like miniature ribbons in the wind. He slams his eyes shut and dives, pressing his head between my shoulder and neck.
I grab the back of his head, holding him to me.
“Tell me I can’t punish him. Please.”
I look away from Cy’s tortured, worried expression and whisper in Zen’s ear. “Don’t punish him.”
I’m not even surprised when I hear my voice change. What does surprise me, however, is that my new powers don’t act up in front of Cyake, either. Clearly, the things he’s done are bad enough to screw with Zen’s powers. So why are mine unaffected?
Zen moves away, slowly, eyes closed as if he’s afraid that my command won’t stick. The relief he feels when he opens his eyes without danger is palpable.
Cyake looks between Zen and me, shocked. There’s a spark of hope in his face there, too. As if he’s been waiting a long time to see what he’s seeing and still can’t believe it’s happening.
The moment is broken by Ianthen, who seems like he isn’t going to be able to stop anytime soon. Cyake storms past Zen and I, horrified.
“Fucking hell dude! Why the fuck didn’t you call me? What the fuck happened? What the hell did you do?”
“Here we go again.” Nythi rolls her eyes heavenward, taking her place behind her brother and running a hand soothingly along his fauxhawk.
Ianthen doesn’t get a chance to answer. A light flashes next to him on the blood coated counter, and in its wake are two odd, silver cylinders.
No. Not cylinders. They look like arm-cuffs. Freaky cuffs that consist of multiple, engraved rings connected to a single bar. The rings don’t meet on the other side, and it’s obvious that the bar goes on the front of the forearm, and the rings go halfway around the back of it.
It’s what’s on the end of those rings that almost freak me out. Eight rings and on the ends of each one, on both sides, are what look like spikes. The kind that stick out of a pit bull’s collar or the kind you find on gothic accessories.
Except these are scalpel sharp.
Eight rings, sixteen spikes, and if the end of the rings go on the back of the forearm that can only mean that the spikes go inside.
I don’t recognize the language of the words engraved on the bracelets.
“Put them on.”
Everyone turns at the sound of Nylicia’s voice. Standing behind Zeniel and me, her projection holds a red-and-white popcorn bag. She’s plucking kernels out of it, looking like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“You!” Cyake storms up to her, finger in her face. “Where is she? Where is your sister?”
Nylicia stares up at him in an utterly blasé way. “I don’t know. She’s mad at me, too. And even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you just yet.”
“I need to fucking know!”
“No.” Nylicia’s expression morphs into something totally dangerous. “You need to fucking wait for me to feel like finding her for you. I had no choice but to give her to you, but you are the last being alive to deserve her. Got it?”
“This—” Cyake points at Ianthen “—is my future. If I can’t find her, I’m fucked.”
“You’re fucked anyway. Didn’t you realize how she reacted to you? She wants nothing to do with you. And I don’t blame her.”
“Why?” Cy asks, eyes and pupils huge with dread. Seeing that kind of fear in a god’s eyes is wrong. Like watching a shark swim away from a fight. “I didn’t even know of her until that night. Why did she seem to hate me?”
“Can’t tell you that. Actually, don’t feel like it. Not yet. Now move. Ianthen is sick. You haven’t even begun the process of bonding or mating. And, honestly, I can’t wait to see you do both.”
Nylicia steps around Cy, who scowls after her like he’s barely holding himself back from exploding. It’s clear in the way that he looks at Ian that concern for his friend is the only thing that stops him.
Nylicia motions with the bag of popcorn towards the arm cuffs. “They’ll inhibit your neurological impulses and control the chemical flow of both the mating and bonding. Well, the chips in them are programmed to do that. I had to use magic to actually set them at a level that would only attack your mating symptoms and not your bodily functions as a whole. Although, inevitably, over time, that’ll happen as well.”
As if to illustrate Nylicia’s point, little sparks of energy come to life, traveling through the bracelets and racing along the carved symbols on them.
“And this will control my symptoms?”
Nylicia shrugs and goes for a whole handful of popcorn this time. Ian glares at her as she shoves it in her mouth.
“Most of them,” she answers around a mouthful. Her cheeks are bloated as she chews. “Don’t worry. They’ve been tested. Successfully. They won’t cure you, that’s impossible. But they should keep you somewhat steady until you figure out how to fix this mess you made.”
“There won’t be any fixing it.” I shake my head, sympathy for Ianthen blossoming for the first time. “Soleria has been cheated on by every single guy she’s ever been with. Lover, boyfriend, and fiancé alike. From the age of sixteen to now. We’re talking a decade. She’s never going to forget what she saw.”
Ianthen barely turns back to the sink in time.
It’s ridiculous how much blood a mated immortal can lose.
Cyake steps up to his friend and cups his neck. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. Dude, I’m sorry.”
Ian shakes his head as Nylicia pipes in.
“He’s right, Cyake. It isn’t your fault. It’s his.”
Although Ian was trying to ease his friend, even he looks surprised at Nylicia’s claim. “But the prophecy. It mentioned—”
“The thing that was most important to him will be the thing that destroys him. That was the last part of it. Verbatim. Was, bitch. It said was. And what was most important to you? Your status as prototype to Hugh Hefner. It didn’t have to play out that way, either. I saw it. You were supposed to be Cyake’s only failed prophecy. But . . . well, you’re officially a self-fulfilling prophecy, babe. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“You knew! You fucking knew that and you couldn’t warn me?”
Nylicia blinks, looking perplexed. “Now why would I do that? That’s like a mommy not letting her child learn their lesson on their own. That would make me a bad mommy. A real bad mommy. I don’t want to be a
bad mommy. I wanna be a good mommy.”
“You aren’t my fucking mommy!”
As fucked up as the situation is, I can’t hold back my laugh at that one.
Cyake laughs into his hand, trying to be a good friend and hide it.
Zen just lets it out.
Nythi does, too, doubling over and not giving a fuck as she practically howls her laughter.
Nylicia is the only one that has the grace to twist her lips and somehow hold it in.
“Just put them on, big boy. XreakLi just arrived in the main hall. You’re going to need to be somewhat functional for what’s about to happen.”
CHAPTER 38
EVESSE
X reak’s feet hit the floor in front of the bathroom door like two leather and steel covered stones. The rest of him is equally decked out. Huge boots leads up to his shoulder-to-foot armor, a sleek black and silver, metallic and leather concoction that looks like it came out of the digital, video game world of Mass Effect.
The Sesengt’s dark green hair is braided down his back, and his aqua eyes are stone-cold serious. It’s the first time I’m getting to see his ears, and either he’s an elf, or a species close to it.
“We have a situation on Earth.”
Yeah, because his presence, armor and the look on his face weren’t enough of a clue.
Cy steps out of Ian’s bathroom. “Which Kystm was popped open now?”
The hard, stoic look XreakLi gives Cy somehow conveys his panic more than tears or screams ever could. “You mean which ones. We have a collapse of the entire Kystm grid. So far, twenty-two of them have ripped open along the east coast of the United States alone. We have another fourteen all over the upper part of Africa, most of them near or in Egypt. You can imagine what’s happening everywhere else.”
I go ice cold at that.
Does that mean that vile creatures are being unleashed all over Earth?
Ianthen gets busy, rolling the sleeves of his gray long-sleeved t-shirt up, and lining his forearm up with the back of one of the cuffs. As if the spikes sense his flesh and are hungry for it, the rings widen with a snap, making room.
They remind me of piranhas opening their mouths to feed.
Ian hesitates for a moment then slaps the cuff on his arm. The rings bite down instantly, the spikes going almost all the way into him. The engravings light up as if the sun itself has powered those mofos, and a bright wave of electricity slides its way through the rings and straight into Ianthen’s skin.
The way he jerks makes him look like a puppet on a string. He throws his head back, doing the old inhale-exhale a few times, before shaking it off and reaching for the next cuff.
“Is it working?” Ianythi asks.
“Still feel like shit, but yeah. The world’s not spinning, and my stomach isn’t trying to rip its way out my throat.”
“Damn. What the hell happened to you?” Xreak looks around the bathroom, taking in the river of red for the first time.
Ian grunts, the other cuff now on his arm and doing its own lightshow. “I fucked up. What else?”
Xreak arches a brow. “Indeed. What else?”
Ian clenches his jaw. “Forget the details. Back to Earth. Where are we heading first?”
“The majority of the infiltration is focused in one area. For now.”
Zen’s arm goes around me, pulling me into him. “Where?”
“Pennsylvania. Place called Brownsville.”
We both go still at the same time.
Nylicia shakes the translucent popcorn bag, dropping the last of it into her mouth. “They’re after Suffering.”
For once, just once, I wish Nylicia would state things in a way that actually makes sense.
“Suffering?”
“Goddess of. I bestowed the powers on her years ago. Not that she knows yet. She’s still human. Her powers are mostly dormant inside her as of no—”
“That’s who Enteax was protecting in that house. The Aviraji want her,” Zen says.
Huh? Enteax was protecting someone? When?
Xreak’s exasperated expression and tense back team up as one big ass F-U aimed at Nylicia. “I really wish you would be just a little more forthcoming about the things you know and do. Just a little. It would make my position easier.”
Nylicia pats his shoulder. “Nah. You do just fine anyway.”
Zen cups my shoulders, bringing me face-to-face with him. “You wait here. Okay?”
“No. I’m just as strong as you guys are. And, Mavrak, you need me there.”
I don’t mention the alarms that are suddenly sounding-off inside me. I don’t want to freak him out or worry him, but I know this feeling. I’ve felt it so many damn times before.
The night I sat in an interrogation room, staring into my mother’s eyes as the woman tried to hurt me for killing that bastard in self-defense.
The day I first met Soleria.
A year after that when I met Ismini.
The first time I saw Zeniel.
The night I met Nylicia for the first time. Right before I walked into the portal leading into the Haklanayasas, accepting with that one simple action that my life would become irrevocably intertwined with Zen’s.
“I’m going, Zen.” Whatever is going on in Pennsylvania, I need to be there.
Zen doesn’t look too happy with that.
“She has to. Don’t worry. She’ll be fine,” Nylicia says.
Xreak jumps into motion, literally, almost dematerializing on the spot before remembering that the rest of us have to go with him.
“Let’s go. We don’t have much time. I’m getting the details of what’s going on down there. Human casualties are ridiculously high.”
That does it. Each one of us hurl our molecules right after Xreak’s.
Before we leave, however, I hear Nylicia stop Ianthen.
“You, wait. I have something I want to discuss with you. Then you can join the battle.”
Xreak is a graceful, lethal bullet, one that shoots straight into the middle of the fray, his staff slicing clean through the head of a ceFtut.
The Earth is shaking. The screams of millions merge with the shrieks of ceFtuts and the thunderous crack of raw energy as it races across the nearly cloudless blue sky.
It isn’t white noise. It’s the soundtrack of an apocalypse.
The screams hit a crescendo, the terror in them rising to a peak. The ground heaves. A dry, scratchy shriek, the kind that comes from tearing metal and shattering glass, adds to the cacophony. I can only watch as the top two floors of a three-story building come crashing down into the street below.
I’m too late. There was people in it. Beneath it.
They were fucking crushed.
The sick thing is—they’re better off. Because I can hear the far-off cries of others being abruptly cut off by the hungry growls of ceFtuts.
Fire licks the remnants of the building that now blocks an entire boulevard. Cars have been thrown left and right, at least two of them embedded in similarly flame-infested buildings. Another four lay haphazardly on the sidewalks, tires still spinning.
I cry out as my processors split wide open, accepting a red-tinted flood of information that I’m not ready for.
Half of the beings I’m seeing in my mind aren’t even within eyesight. But their sins are so powerful, that they rush at me, like gleeful little demons running with their arms and mouths open towards their meal.
I stumble, my brain forgetting to coordinate my legs as I watch and hear victims being hurt, cheated, tortured and worse.
Inside my mind.
Outside it.
Everywhere.
Destroy!
I want to. Need to so badly.
I need to breathe first. Reorient myself. There’ll be no killing if I can’t even fucking stand up right.
God, where’s Zeniel? Where is everyone? The only one I saw arrive is Xreak.
The ground heaves in another tremor and everything tilts. My boots scratch against asph
alt as I try to steady myself. I manage to peel one eyelid open just in time to hear and see the top of another building being hit by a huge, green energy wave.
The green energy pulses along the bricks, crackling. Inside the building, it condenses, gathering into a tight ball, as if the energy is about to implode.
Bricks, glass, body parts. It all explodes in an instant, spiraling outward like some fucked-up version of candy falling from a piñata.
A small feminine hand tumbles through the air, drops of blood twirling out of the severed end.
I aim a scream at the falling debris—enraged, agonized, and utterly unable to control what’s ripping through me.
I’m no good like this. I’m going to get myself hurt. I just happened to land on the side of the boulevard that’s farthest away from the battle, but it’s only a matter of seconds before an enemy finds me like this.
Incapacitated. Ripe for the picking.
If I die, Zeniel dies.
My brain must suddenly switch into survival mode, because unleashing that thought is just what I need to get my ass in motion.
Although my vision is blurry, my gaze lands on one of the only buildings free of damage.
Up there.
I don’t think twice. Heeding the instinct, I flash onto the roof of a four-story building.
Zen appears in front of me just as I land, his armored limbs stopping me from falling.
I grab onto his forearms, hands sliding across the smooth, black and red layers of his armor. Everything recedes. A vacuum must be somehow attached to my head, because the noise, the screams, the sins, the visions, it all gets sucked out.
The battle below ceases to exist, playing out like a television movie left on in the background.
“Evesse.” Looking worried, Zeniel pulls me up. His leather-covered hand brushes my hair away from my face, and even through the layer of thick material, I can feel the heat of his skin slide into me, coating my nerves.
Steadying me.
His hand moves, sliding under my jaw and wrapping around it. “Look at me.”
Ryze Series: Books 1 & 2 Page 55