by Evi Asher
He knew that wasn’t true. In all the years since his curse was activated, no woman had ever tempted him, no matter the race, type or beauty of the female.
No woman until Athera. From the first moment his eyes had met hers, he’d known she was his kryptonite.
* * * *
Athera was in the small kitchen of the cottage sipping on a steaming mug of tea. If she survived this experience, she wanted a cottage like this. The wood of the floor was worn and scrubbed so well, she was sure she could attempt the proverbial and eat off of it.
The cabinets were made of the same wood and polished to a fine shine that showed many hours of loving care had gone into the cleaning of the kitchen and that it was a favorite place in the cottage.
As a group, they sat around a well-loved wooden table. It was scarred with use but clean and cared for.
Athera took another sip of tea as she let her mind wander around the quaint gingerbread quality of the room. It was better than thinking of...
Well, crap! That thought train just derailed.
She was back to thinking of Grave. She’d walked out the room with her spine straight and anger holding her up, but as soon as she got into the passage and the door was safely closed between them, she’d crumbled, her body sagging as her heart ached in a way she’d never experienced before.
Yes, Grave had rejected her before. He did it constantly, and in the beginning, it had been a game. She had taken the blows to her ego and rolled with them, but now, now was different.
He’d kissed her not with the heat of passion, though there was passion. He kissed her not with need and urgent desire, though she’d felt both of those, too. He’d kissed her with tenderness and care, with love.
Athera mentally harrumphed. Love was a four-letter curse word—far worse than any other in her vocabulary.
She was a fool because when Grave had kissed her—had loved her—she thought it meant he loved her.
He’d made it clear in a hurry that all she was was a warm female body he woke up to.
Athera slammed down the cup her cup of tea, spilling some of the still piping liquid onto the table.
“Gees, female, what has your panties in a twist.” Laz raised an eyebrow at her—only then did Athera realize that everyone around the table was looking at her strangely.
They had been in the middle of a discussion about the next best course of action, Laz, Heath, Athera and Josy all seated around the table with something to drink, and Athera had tuned them all out, too lost in the misery of her aching heart to pay attention to the conversation.
“Get your mind off my panties, Laz. They don’t want anything to do with you,” she quipped, trying to act normal.
Laz laughed. “How do you know? I haven’t been introduced to them yet, so your panties might like me more than you think.”
He was flirting, and Athera knew he was doing it to make her feel better, and she loved her friend even more for it. She was about to send back a snappy retort when Grave spoke from the doorway.
“I come out here to discuss strategy on keeping Athera alive only to find you’ve devolved into conversations about her underwear?”
His tone was dark as if he was pissed off, but Athera had to be miss-hearing, because he’d just made it clear he wasn’t interested in her.
“Yeah, so what?” Athera spat back, then was angry with herself for the response. She didn’t want Grave to see how much he’d hurt her. She had planned to pretend he didn’t exist. She changed tack. “Take a seat as we get back to discussions on finding the librarian.”
Josy put her cup down on the table and spoke. “Yes, now that we are here in the fairy realm, we need to go see a few of my contacts and get a bead on him.”
Grave sat down at the table, annoyingly right next to Athera, when there was a perfectly good seat open between Josy and Heath. Athera would have loved to tell him to move, but that would let him know how pissed she was, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
“Why don’t we go directly to him?” Grave asked with a frown.
“Oh, honey, no one knows exactly where the librarian is at any given time, or even what he looks like.” Josy twined a strand of her dark hair around her finger.
Athera waited for the blow-up because it was inevitable.
“What?” Grave pushed his chair out, stood up and leaned his weight on his palms on the table, looming over them all.
There was more than one angry face staring at Josy, but she put on her air-head look and smiled at them all.
Even at Athera, and at that moment Athera wanted to do some damage to the witch.
When Grave spoke again, it was low as if he was trying to control a hair-trigger temper. “You made us think you could take us directly to the male—”
“Man,” Josy interjected.
Grave frowned. “Male, man, what’s the difference.”
“The librarian is human. He is, therefore, a man, not a male.”
There was a beat of silence, then Heath started laughing, great bursts of humor that had him holding his side and rocking back in his chair.
“What is so funny?” Laz was glaring at Heath, and he was usually the first to join Heath in whatever absurdity the precog was busy with.
The laughter wound down and Heath stifled the last of his grin. “A comedy of errors. We are chasing human ghosts in the land of faery and we are no closer to saving Athera. We are all going home in body bags. That is if there are body bags after the apocalypse hits.”
“It’s not funny, Heath,” Athera grumbled at him, but she could see why he was laughing. They were screwed. He grinned over at her, unrepentant.
She looked at Josy again. “Okay, where do we go first?”
“The city of Cassiopeia.” Josy grinned as if that explained everything.
Laz shook his head. “For those of us who haven’t hiked all around faeryville?”
“Oh, sorry. It’s about three days’ drive to the north. One of the main city centers of the fae.”
Grave growled low in his throat. “We don’t have three days to be traveling. Laz’s spell could fail at any moment—”
“Hey!” Laz complained.
“And we need to find out what the weapon is,” Grave finished.
Athera was at the point of telling them all to go home. It had hit her hard that these eternals were putting their lives on the line to try and save hers, and all of this was her fault to start with. Perhaps she should let Nexanthon find her. Maybe once the evil god had his claws in her, he’d ease up and go back to sleep.
“Stop, all of you.” Athera couldn’t take any more of the bickering and the indecision. “I think you all need to go home.”
Her announcement caused an avalanche of denial from all her friends and each one of them won a bigger space in her heart for being willing to go all the way to the end with her, but if they were going to be traipsing all over the faery realm, she couldn’t risk any of them. She would carry on, on her own, and nothing they said was going to change her mind.
Then someone else spoke.
“I will take you to the librarian.” William stood in the doorway, his shoulder on the frame as if he had been listening to the whole argument.
Utter silence descended in the kitchen.
Chapter Nine
“It’s a bad idea. I don’t trust him.” Heath leaned forward on the kitchen table to make his point.
“How can you say you don’t trust me if you don’t even know me?” William hadn’t taken the open seat at the table yet.
Athera thought William might be waiting for some support.
“Exactly,” Heath proclaimed as if William had made his point.
“Oh, for goodness sake,” Athera muttered as she pointed to the chair between Josy and Heath. “William, you sit.”
She raised an eyebrow at Heath and held her hand up to shut him up when his mouth opened to complain.
William looked at Heath, then at Athera and seemed to make up his mind
. He sat down in the chair.
“But...” Heath started.
“Shut up, Heath. William helped us with those words I said when Grave was dying.”
“Words?”
Grave looked curious, but Athera ignored him and carried on talking.
“William knows this place and can take us directly to the librarian.” She looked at William with a questioning expression.
He frowned, but nodded after a second. “Yes, directly”
“You know where to find him?” Josy asked.
William nodded. “Yes, I know where he lives.”
“Bullshit,” Heath said, and Athera glared at him.
He glared back at her. “I called it, and it is. All we’ve been hearing about this elusive human is that he is in hiding from all things eternal. So how would our friend here...” Heath waved his hand in William’s direction. “Be able to go straight to where the human lives.”
There was a moment of quiet as everyone at the table looked at William for an explanation.
He let out a bark of humorless laughter and shook his head. “You are kidding me, right? I have to explain the whole thing before you believe me?”
Heath sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “No one said we’d believe you once you explained.”
“Forget it.” William pushed against the table and shoved his chair back as he stood.
Grave jumped to his feet. “No, wait. I want to hear what you have to say, and if you can help us, I’ll be grateful. Time is running out.”
“No shit,” Laz said, speaking for the first time.
There was something in his tone that made Athera look at him again. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Laz said. “William should sit down and give us a reason to trust him, because my spell is not going to last much longer.”
Cold fingers walked down Athera’s spine as she heard what Laz was saying. It wasn’t his words that caused the chill, it was his expression. She had never seen the irreverent necromancer look so serious.
“How much longer do I have?” Athera asked.
Laz was shaking his head before she’d finished talking. “I honestly can’t tell you. It could be days, it could be hours.”
“Weeks?” Grave looked as worried as Athera felt.
“No, definitely not weeks.” Laz leaned forward, his elbows on the table. Then he looked at William. “Please sit down and tell us how you can take us directly to the librarian.”
William looked around at each of them, his lips pursed for a moment as he made his decision, then sat down again, pulling the chair in.
“I got the information, the translation from the librarian,” he admitted.
“What is this about a translation?”
Grave looked around, but Athera shushed him. “Not now, Grave.”
“The human and I have been friends since he came into the fae realm. I know where he hides, and if I take you to him, he might help you with the information you need.”
“I still say my way is best,” Josy interjected.
“No, it isn’t, Josy. It will take time that Athera doesn’t have. Do you know what Nexanthon will do to her once he has her?” He shuddered.
Josy got quiet and thoughtful.
“I still don’t like it,” Heath pointed out.
“Enough.” Grave spoke softly, but his tone could not be ignored.
“Athera and I started on this journey by ourselves, and while we value everyone’s opinion, it’s Athera’s choice. What she decides is what we will do.”
His words held a finality that made Athera think he was serious.
Everyone turned to look at her. Athera opened her mouth to give her decision, but she was interrupted.
“Hurry up and choose,” Drusilla said from the doorway that led to her little garden. She glanced up at the ceiling as if she was looking at something. “I want you out of my home, now.”
Athera frowned. Drusilla wasn’t the soft and cuddly type, but she hadn’t been outright demanding that they leave.
The first thing Athera noticed was the smell, A stench so bad, her gag reflex kicked into high gear.
While the rest of the world slowed down, she remembered this feeling of slow motion. She’d experienced it the first time Nexanthon had been looking for her.
The only thing that was lacking, this time, was the searchlight feeling.
The smell intensified, and Athera had to fight to keep the food she’d eaten as her world went into slow motion.
Grave and Laz shoved out of their chairs, but it looked like they were doing it at a quarter of the speed. Everything was like a movie scene.
Laz and Grave both raced in aching slowness to her, Grave grabbing her off her chair and onto the floor, covering her body with his. Laz seemed to hover over them both, his voice a double low bass of drawn out syllables as he chanted some spell to hide her. Athera couldn’t see the others from her prone position under Grave, but she could see William, and his face had paled so much that he resembled a corpse in full lividity. His brown eyes were so wide and horror so keenly etched on his features she reached out to him.
“Nooooo.” The elongated bass word came from Grave as he pulled her arm in, balling her up even further. Athera wanted to help William. She’d never seen such horror on an expression before. She was fighting Grave to get out when she saw William’s head drop once, then twice, as if he was nodding. She fought harder, but Grave had her pinned.
As suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
The world went back to a normal speed and the stench of decomposing carrion vanished from the air.
Athera could still taste it in the back of her throat and she knew she’d be brushing her teeth before they went anywhere, at least three times, but the horror and fear and the need to get to William had stopped.
The kitchen was quiet with only the sound of short gasps of breath as everyone got over the shock. Grave stood and helped Athera up.
“Out.” Drusilla’s voice came from the back door, the word like ice. Athera turned toward the backdoor, facing the person who had spoken.
Drusilla sat in a crumpled heap, leaning against the door jam, her skin pale and sweaty.
“Get out of my home now, and never return.”
Athera held out her hand toward Drusilla. She wanted to apologize for the horror of Nexanthon’s presence.
“Don’t touch me!” Drusilla seemed to be trying to sink into the wood of the door. “Just leave.”
Grave’s hands were warm on Athera’s shoulders. “Come, we’ll go through the front of the house.”
No one argued as they got their things and left Drusilla’s home, taking the horror of Nexanthon with them.
* * * *
The pit he had chosen as his palace stank.
The smell was a sinus-deep stench of rot and decay that was a mixture between death and the life that lived off death.
Nexanthon slouched on a large chair carved out of rock. He could do nothing more than slouch. The form he had chosen before time was time didn’t allow him to sit up straight. As the millennia passed, so his form had changed, and it continued to change, but it would never be a thing of beauty. Nexanthon detested beauty. He found it repulsive, and it made bile rise in his throat. No, for him the uglier and more grotesque something was, the happier it made him. He sucked in a breath through flaring nostrils and looked around the cavern. He liked what he saw.
The cavern was no longer bare rock but covered in viscera. Pools of congealing blood and body fluids lay in the low places bubbling like lava pits, and noxious gasses filled the air around them. Bits and pieces—no longer recognizable as body parts—decorated the corners. Flies were a constant buzzing presence that was like a soothing lullaby to Nexanthon, and nothing was pure. That pleased him. He was not content with simply being awake. He wanted death all around him. He hungered for pain and torment, he hungered for rot. He was angered that he had missed so much of it while he’d been in his forced sleep. H
e was even more angered that while he was sleeping, most of the humans who had worshiped him had forgotten his wrath and vengeance. He didn’t like the modern world. He wanted his human sacrifice back. He wanted painted humans kneeling prostrate and slicing the hearts out of virgins for him.
Not that he cared if the death was virgin or not. Purity had never mattered to Nexanthon—the only thing he wanted was death. Steaming released bowels and terror.
A buzzing fly landed on his arm, and Nexanthon watched as the bug died as soon as its feet touched down. Ah, another little death. It was good to be awake.
He needed a bigger death, a hit of pain and terror to go with it. Yes.
He motioned with his middle arm, and one of his hooded priests dragged a screaming human forward.
The blubbering mass of meat was begging for life. It made Nexanthon want to laugh. In this place, there was only death.
He raised his arm, and the priest raised a long blade. The sacrifice would be made. His downward motion was interrupted when his servant sent a prayer. Master.
This was the servant Nexanthon had sent to find the phoenix that had awoken him.
“Speak,” Nexanthon said.
I have found the phoenix.
Nexanthon felt a surge of joy through his grotesque body. He had her, and he would feast on the flesh of life soon.
“Bring her to me.”
There was a pause from his servant.
“Is there something wrong?” Nexanthon’s words held promise. The promise of death in its worst forms, over and over again. He made sure to send images to his servant so the underling would be aware of what was promised should he fail.
It will take a short while, My God. I cannot bring her to you right this moment.
Anger flashed through Nexanthon, traveling along the line of communication to his puppet. His servant screamed. Good, the servant would bear the scars for making him wait.