Sillizi’s light gray irises spark with energy as she laughs. Up close, they’d resemble the lens of a camera shuttering open and closed. “You’re too easy.” Shaking her head, she turns to Soleria. “Hey girl. Wanna come hang with us? We’re way better than these two anyway.”
“Watch it,” I grumble as Cy’s lips peel back and he growls at her.
My sister appears behind Sil, also eyeing Soleria with that impatient curiosity. “Seriously. Ditch these losers. We have better plans anyway.”
Plans? What plans?
And did my own Zyt’is just call me a loser?
Of course she did.
Lizzisi, Sil’s blonde twin, materializes into the hallway just outside the chamber as well.
Great. It’s the entire estrogen-brigade.
No. Not all of it. Where’s Evesse?
“Muevete, chica. Vamos a divertirnos,” the Goddess of Light tells Soleria in flawless Spanish.
She found out about Soleria’s ethnicity before I did?
And apparently, while I was gone, Cyake and her also became friends.
Twenty-four hours.
I repeat, I was only gone for twenty-four hours.
Liz’s words echo in my head. Move it, girl. Let’s go have fun. Just what type of fun are they talking about?
Soleria stands and heads over to Cy. When she places a hand on his shoulder, that rumble builds in my gut. “Let me know if you have any other questions,” she tells him kindly, throwing in a little shoulder rub for good measure.
My best friend smiles at her.
The only thing that saves his life is the fact that it’s a distracted grin and his eyes remain focused on the three goddesses at the entrance.
Soleria throws a “see ya” and a little wave at me over her shoulder.
Without even looking my way.
The three goddesses descend upon her with the same eagerness they enveloped her friends with.
Those females are acting like they’ve been lonely and isolated this whole time. For real. Rushing in here to lure Soleria out of here.
Cyake, still kneeling on the armchair, stares at me out of the corner of his eyes. “You okay, bro? You looking a little pissed there.”
I shoot to my feet. “Out with you. I haven’t been looking for Enteax or his brother for over twenty-fours hours. You know, the same amount of time you were busy making new friends?”
“Hm.”
Him and those fucking hums.
He dematerializes all the chairs as I do an about-face to walk away from him.
“Are you ever going to forgive them?”
Pausing, I throw over my shoulder, “Have you?”
“Nah.”
“Then stop asking and let me do what I do best.”
Chapter 8
- The day Ismini and Evesse are taken
SOLERIA
“I just told Zen the girls are missing. We’re heading out to search for them, okay?”
Those words echo in the emptiness in my head, barely registering through my numb shock.
I’ve done well, I swear. After two weeks of no sleep, constant spiritual drain, and pretty much driving myself to the brink with worrying, I’ve taken the sudden, brutal flip of my life like a champ.
Like. A. Champ.
I mean, why wouldn’t I, right? My whole life I’ve been told—warned—that there’s more out there. That just because we don’t have all the answers, that doesn’t make the divine any less real.
And okay, I’ll admit, I ended up with my doubts. Not as to the power, because come on. I’ve worked my own spells. Saw Mami and Mima do so, as well. According to my great-grandma, it was the same for her. Generations upon generations, until we can’t trace them anymore.
Yet the question of the saints, of God, of deities, has always been there.
So I’ve spent years of my life studying all religions, piecing together any interlocking clues I could find. Have I found the answers I sought? Nope. Not until two days ago. But one could say it was extra preparation. A stretching of the brain, if you will, making it elastic enough to accept a new reality download without much resistance.
Turns out, my friends went missing and it all has to do with gods.
Yup. Bonafide, higher power beings that are nothing—and I repeat: nothing—like all the myths said they were.
We were lied to, Humanity. Bamboozled. These fuckers aren’t holier-than-thou, Shakespearean-sounding, aristocrat prototypes. Instead, in their own way, they seem so . . . normal. So relatable, if one discounts the phenomenal, cosmic powers and ancient-as-fuck life spans they come equipped with.
It wasn’t just learning about gods. Huge-ass, ugly-as-fruck creatures waking me up and stomping through my neighborhood? Pffft. Handled it. The creature’s skin was rotting off and the smell was like a fresh, overturned crypt, but so what? Nothing some bewitched arrows to the eyes couldn’t fix.
Bonus? I finally got to take the crossbow for a spin.
The fact that other dimensions exist, and I was teleported to one due to my refusal to leave my friends? Well, that whole “dematerializing” thing is nothing more than an organ blender, but I’m working on it.
And when my newly-turned immortal friend asked me to let her practice on me? Well, why the fuck not. I was on a roll. Bad-ass me could handle the whole “guinea pig” thing. After all, Evesse and Ismini are earning their stripes. Why shouldn’t I?
Ended up being flung into a multi-colored forest straight out of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and consequently hearing my friend tearing it up with the God of Lust, but that’s neither here nor there.
The point of all this is that I was fine. I was steady. I was good.
Until the curiosity got the best of me and I just had to return to that chamber.
It’s been one day since that weird conversation with Cyake. One day after my walk in the woods with Ianthen.
In retrospect, I should’ve known that would be the moment where everything would truly change. I’ve only spent two days in their world, but I’ve observed it all like a tourist. A visitor passing through, observing, experiencing some of the sights on her little vacay before returning to human reality.
I should’ve known the life changes were coming for me. That inevitably they would hit home.
Know what else should’ve been obvious to me?
That it all had, has, and will always have to do with him.
I went back to that chamber and he allowed me to watch in on him as he “hunted”. While images spun by the walls of that circular chamber, all faster than I could ever hope to keep up with, all I really had eyes for was him.
How his eyes enlarged right before his pupil became lost in a sea of white. How those unfocused eyes twitched as he became consumed in the images before him. His stare was both fixated and vacant, his expression beautiful in all its stony concentration. Slightly furrowed brows, lips turned down in a pout.
Then he tucked his chin-length hair behind his ear and I saw the loop pierced through his lobe for the first time.
Fuck. That man—er, god—truly is beautiful, odd coloring and all.
Or maybe because of it.
I was so lost in the image he made I almost didn’t register those words until moments after they left his mouth.
“Holy shit, the girls aren’t on the dimension anymore.”
“What do you mean they aren’t here anymore?” I asked, hearing my own voice as if speaking underwater.
He ripped himself from the vision, eyes returning to their normal size and color, and hissed out a curse. “Enteax and Lisrn. They’ve taken them from somewhere in Astoria.”
That was—what? Five minutes ago? Ten? He left me here, demanding I wait for him, as he ran to get Zeniel. A second ago, the God of Tranquility went storming by in black-and-red armor.
I could’ve sworn I saw his eyes flashing in a matching color scheme.
And that roar. Dear God, that anguished roar.
Dyletri screaming Ismini�
��s name.
They’re gone. The girls are gone. Taken.
Ianthen is still at the entrance to the chamber in black-and-blue armor. “Soleria, can you hear me? We’re leaving to search for them. Just wait here, okay? Please.” With that, he turns to head out.
The sight of his back is what finally snaps me into action. Running after him, I see him disappear from the top of the stairs.
“Astoria,” I hear him say from the first floor, his voice echoing in the vast, temple-like foyer. “Last place I managed to track them down to. I was scanning for Enteax and Lisrn, but managed to pick them up instead.”
I hit the stairs, almost taking them two-a-time despite their sheer size. My friends. I just got them back. I don’t even know who this Ahn-tæks and Lɪszərn are, but the panic in the air is all I need to know this is a dire emergency.
A potentially life-ending emergency.
Because if there’s one thing I learned, and I learned it quick, is that immortal is a subjective term in this world. All beings are capable of physical death given the right tools.
That means my friends are still very much capable of dying.
I hit the first floor, practically suffocating. “I’m coming with you guys.”
Ianthen, ten feet ahead and already on his way towards the entrance, doesn’t even look at me as he replies. “No you’re not.”
How dare he? Despair clouds my reasoning and all I can do is shout at his back. “Excuse me, hoebag, but those are my best friends!” And I can’t lose them. I can’t. Not after I just got them back.
Ianthen whirls on me, those eyes transforming again. A gloved finger is shoved in my face. “You’re not coming. I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you understand?”
There’s something strangely panicked in his expression. Something that hits me right in the chest, adding to the roiling emotional confusion. I blink back tears, knowing my own expression is pleading with him. “But they mean everything to me.”
“And I’m going to help get them back for you, female. I swear it.” As navy-blue-and-black power flares to life around his form momentarily, he stares down into my eyes, the plea in his expression a replica of my own desperation. “Now promise me you’re going to stay.”
Instead of paying attention to the panic signals blaring all over my instincts, I get lost in those shining white eyes and I nod.
Why the hell did I have to fucking agree?
With that, he’s gone.
They all are.
Suddenly, I’m all alone in this foyer, left with nothing but the panic and the burgeoning pressure in my head.
No. I’m no longer fine.
As a matter of fact, as the strength in my legs fails me and I sit on the stairs behind me, I can’t help the feeling that I might never be fine again.
IANTHEN
I’ve comforted females before. Yes, regardless of my “whorish” ways, as my Zyt’is puts it, I don’t just use females for sex. Many of them have been, and still are, my friends.
Plus, Ma always made it clear that no child of hers would be callous to a female’s suffering.
Fuck. Fourteen-millennia of caring for my sister every time the Fieren hits has all but given me a PHD in looking after others. And I’ve bled with Ianythi. While her body has hemorrhaged physically, I swear my own soul was depleted with every round, the pain ever fresh and sharp.
I’m no stranger to empathy.
But as we all reappear in the foyer—an unconscious Zen in Cyake’s arms, his face just starting to heal from the slug Cy landed on it, and a nearly dead Dyletri bleeding all over me—my eyes land on Soleria.
She’s still sitting on those steps. Right where I left her so many hours ago.
That look in her baby-blues. Fuck.
She takes one look at the males we’re carrying, at the expressions we’re sporting, and intuition fills in the blanks.
“No,” she whispers, the sound more a sharp exhale than an actual word. Tears fill her eyes and a single blink sends them tumbling down her cheeks.
Vedlyl appears next to me. Sillizi and Lizzisi appear next to Cyake. Behind me, I feel my twin’s presence.
I only have eyes for Soleria. For the tears that continue to tumble down her cheeks.
“Get them both up to the medical wing,” Vedlyl says.
Doesn’t have to tell me twice. I dematerialize Dyletri, uncaring that his blood is all over me—
Another tear.
Fuck, no. “Don’t cry,” I mumble, heading straight for Soleria.
She stands on shaky legs, those tremors spreading to her other limbs. Those eyes are drilling into me, begging me to undo a reality I don’t have the power to change.
“No, Ianthen. No,” she says as I get within touching distance, head shaking side-to-side in that way heartbroken beings do when denying the truth is the only way to keep it together.
I have a split second thought to will all the blood off my body. Thank the gods, because as soon as I’m in front of her, I’m scooping her up against me. Careful with her, asshole! Thank the gods for that reminder, too. I hug her as gently as I can, laying her head on my chest—
The first sob shreds my insides to pieces. Straight up eviscerates everything I consist of, leaving nothing but raw, pulsating anguish.
Feeling everyone’s eyes on us, I cup the back of her head and dematerialize her to my room. The idea isn’t premeditated, more of an impulse really, one that I don’t understand at all.
When we appear on the terrace outside my room, I cup her small face and stare down at her, expecting to see that queasiness she always gets.
None doing. Just her lids coming down over those pretty eyes, shielding her from me as the sobs take over.
I wipe at her tears with my gloved thumbs. “Please don’t cry.” I don’t ask her because its logical. It isn’t. Not when measured against the magnitude of her loss. I’m asking because the sight of those tears is fucking my shit up. For real.
Gods, I’d give anything to spare her this. Anything.
“Th-they’re dead,” Soleria cries, crumbling before me.
“Oh gods, female.” Rushing to dematerialize my armor into normal clothes, I lift her back into my arms and head straight for one of the lounge chairs. Sitting on it, I rearrange her sideways on my lap and lay her head back on my shoulder.
As her body heat penetrates deep into my skin, and her sweet scent engages every single sexual instinct I possess, she presses her forehead into my sternum and trembles with choked sobs.
My cock hardens beneath her on a rush, throbbing—something I know she can feel—even as my heart bleeds with each tear out of her eyes. “I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry.”
“H-how?” she hiccups, fisting my t-shirt, the material wet from her tears. “Why?”
I struggle with those answers, with the truth I’m sure she still doesn’t know. How do I explain that Ismini was due to be sacrificed anyway? That, apparently, it was Evesse’s fate to go with her?
That one of my closest friends is going to die because he ended up mated to his sacrifice and the other just lost himself to the God of Vengeance that was trapped inside him?
A god that will soon be overcome, that will raze through all the dimensions, coming after us all.
Very few beings are truly innocent. Illion knows I’m not one of them.
I don’t even know enough about Soleria’s past to know if she’ll be safe from Mavrak’s wrath.
It’s all too fucked up.
Soleria rears away from me and slams her small fist into my pec. Thank the gods she does so lightly, or else she could’ve seriously injured her hand. “Tell me! Enough hiding it from me. I deserve to know.”
I stare up at her and reach for her face with my bare hands this time. The moonlight reflects off those tears, off her pale skin. The Illion be damned, this human female is truly one of the greatest beauties I’ve ever come across.
She flinches at my bare touch; I bite back a groan that rumbles in my
chest anyway, hating how deliciously soft her skin is.
I want those lips so fucking bad.
“T-Tell me,” she whispers, reaching up to place her hands over mine on her face.
I don’t want to do this to her. Don’t want to overload her mind. Anyone who’s dealt with humans long enough knows this break in her was inevitable. Sure, she held her own the last two days, but learning about us is still more than the average human can take.
Now this.
“Ian,” she growls, using my nickname for the first time since meeting her. “I deserve to know.”
I wipe at her cheeks some more, not because it’s doing anything to stem the flows of her tears. No. It’s all about the feel of her. How I suddenly wish I was less powerful, less ancient.
More experienced in being with human females like that.
“You deserve everything, female,” I tell her, once again not thinking, just going with the flow of what the voice inside me is telling me.
Her expression crumbles at that. “Then please. Tell me. Why is this happening?”
So I do. With concern wrapped tight around my neck in a death-squeeze—and a malfunctioning heart that’s aching way more than it should considering I’ve only known her for two days—I tell her everything.
How Ismini was always meant to die.
How she always knew.
That it was all set up by Dyletri fourteen-millennia ago to bring back the female he thought he loved. How it’s all blowing up in his face because now it turns out he’s mated to Ismini and he’ll be dying.
I tell her about Zeniel while I’m at it, because somewhere along the line it stops being just about her loss and it becomes about the ones I’m about to face as well.
The weirdest part is how we just stare at each other as I’m talking. Her face in my hands. Her attention rapt on me as my attention is gripped by her. Those tears seem to be never-ending and as I describe the upcoming loss of my friends, they pick up steam, until she’s openly sobbing again in my arms.
Eventually, she ends up back on my chest, her small sniffles the only sound around us. I stare off into the night, one hand cupping the back of her head, lost and confused and motherfucking livid.
Ryze Series: Books 1 & 2 Page 68