by Sunny
It snarled with displeasure. Raked me with its sharp claws, so that I shifted in my seat, bumped against Nico. He shivered slightly as my skin brushed against his. The beast liked him, too. He carried our scent, our marks upon his body, and smelled sweetly of hot blood and tender flesh. It wanted to play with him again, and stretched eagerly within me, pushing out.
No, I told it. Not here. Not now.
Yes, it urged. Pain. Blood. Hungry!
Never had the monster in me been so powerful, so dominant. So vibrant and strong, barely leashed under my control. Almost like a distinct and separate personality.
I glanced at the reason why I felt this way, so wild, so full of energy, so alive. Talon met my gaze. He looked at me with both fear and wary hope, huddled against the side of the door, with Nico between us.
I tried to imagine how it must be like for him, going away with people who were strangers to him, all but Nico. Leaving behind all that he had known, all that was, if not comfortable, then at least familiar. I tried to see him as a person, but my beast saw him only as food. Food and prey, stinking of fear.
My mouth watered and my teeth sharpened into elongated points at the remembered flavor of that one small taste of him . . . piquant, bursting with sweet and pungent flavor. Like a waterfall of life. Flower of Darkness. Flower of Life—another thing they were called, and why they were hunted. For the way they made us feel. Sweet Mother, how they made us feel. I’d never known.
Like a giant invisible paw, the power within me flared out toward Talon, reaching for him. More, it said with hungry greed. Give me more. More blood. More power.
I stopped it just before it reached him, barely, just barely, straining with the effort it cost me to hold those invisible reins. A taut leash pulled so tight, so real, it actually shifted me toward Talon, pushing me up against Nico. Trying to shift us both nearer.
My vision doubled and I suddenly saw with eyes that were separate from my own. Eyes that viewed Talon clearly, closely. So close to him. Not from the other side of the seat where I sat, but from inches away. Had I a heartbeat, it would have stuttered in fear.
“Mother of Darkness, what is that?” Nico whispered. But I could not answer him. I was too busy fighting myself.
Let me live! my beast demanded, straining, tugging, an invisible shimmering thing stretching out from me, trying to close those scant few inches separating it from Talon. And I knew what it thought, what it believed—that with one more drink, one more deep gulp of that bursting, flavorful blood, it would fully be. Not a part of me anymore, but a separate existing entity.
No! I cried out in my mind, yanking it back ruthlessly, with almost desperate mental effort. Why are you fighting me? You have never opposed me like this before.
Because we were oft in agreement before: survival, drinking blood. But now you hold me back. Blood! it demanded. His blood.
No! I answered.
Then his pleasure.
No! I shook my head, slowly, inexorably dragging it back into me.
His pain.
No!
It snarled, bared its sharp teeth at me, and jumped back into me with a reverberating force that shoved me back hard against the door.
“Why were you saying no?” Stefan asked, glancing back at me, making me realize that I had spoken aloud.
My body jerked and I gasped as punishing claws tore me up inside. “Stop the car.”
“Why?”
“I can’t stay. I have to leave you. Go back now.”
The car pulled to the side of the road.
Unseen claws slashed inside me again with roaring outrage, making me cry out in pain. A trickle of actual blood spilled out from the corner of my mouth. I wiped it away with a sort of stunned horror, swallowed the rest of the blood down, and sprang out of the car.
I tumbled to the ground, shockingly weak.
“What’s wrong?” Stefan asked, coming around the car, reaching for me.
“No. Don’t touch me!” I screamed, scuttling back away from him as the beast stopped raking me inside and turned its eager attention toward Stefan. Food, sex, blood it thought.
Stefan reached for me again.
“No,” I said wildly, shaking my head. “Stay away.”
It was Nico who stopped him. Nico who physically hauled Stefan several yards back away from me before Stefan furiously broke free of his hold.
“Easy, lover boy,” Nico said. “Listen to her. Keep back. You’ll only make it worse for her if you don’t.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Stefan demanded.
“I believe she’s having a difficult time controlling her beast. Am I right, Lucinda?”
“Oh, yeah.” I half sobbed, half laughed.
“It wants you, it wants me,” Nico said. “But it really wants Talon.”
Moving slowly, painfully, like the old lady I truly was, I crawled to my feet and stood listing in the wind, feeling as if I were teetering on an invisible precipice.
“Lucinda,” Stefan said, drawing my attention. And the sight of him, hair raven black, skin white and tender, lips a lovely red like the blood that flowed within him, that beating call pounding so strongly in my ear . . . both parts of me wanted him, my beast and I.
I swayed toward him, almost took a step before jerking back, stumbling away. I lost my balance and fell to the ground again.
“Lucinda, why are you so weak when I can still feel the power emanating from you?” Stefan asked, his hazel eyes dark with distress.
“It’s fighting me,” I whispered. “And it’s so frighteningly strong. Leave me now. Go to my province, you’ll be safe there. I’ll return in a few days when I am better. When I am more myself.”
Worry tightened Stefan’s voice. “Let us see you first to your portal, or at least closer to it. Is there even one in this area?”
I gathered myself, flung my senses out, searching. Felt a distant echo far, far away. Brushed up against a weaker sensation, closer, only miles distant. “Yes. There is something I can use, not too far.”
I didn’t try to search Talon out in the car, didn’t want my beast to see him, to focus on him again. But I knew that he was listening, that he could hear me. “I can’t take you with me now, Talon, I’m sorry. I’ll return when I’m more in control of myself. I’ll take you back home then.”
“Yes, mistress,” came Talon’s soft reply. My beast turned its eyes in the direction of that melodious, disembodied voice. I yanked it back.
“Go,” I said to Stefan, to Nico, my control thin and desperate. “If you wish to serve me, do as I bid and leave me now. I will be stronger when you leave. My beast will stop fighting me when you are no longer so temptingly near.”
“My lady.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Stefan bow deep, his face bleak and unhappy. “We will wait for you in your home. Come back to us soon.”
“I will,” I said. “I will.”
When the car pulled away and drove off, when their heartbeats grew fainter, distant, I got to my feet. I was not conflicted anymore. My prey had left. I smiled grimly as the other half of me clicked with snarling submissiveness back into place, my two halves whole once again.
I entered the woods that flowed along the road and headed east toward that faint spark I had felt. With that abundant, overflowing strength unified within me once more, I ran in the forest, swift and silent, a soundless blur of motion. I journeyed in solitude, alone and yet not alone, surrounded by life—animals foraging, hunting others, being hunted themselves, the natural cycle of life and of death. I passed by them undetected, disturbing little, what I had done for so many long years. Touching little. Touched little in turn. But now it had all changed, and my existence was richer, filled with more purpose and meaning. All the things that had seemed petty and trivial before, now called out to me. Life.
I wanted to live. To exist plentifully.
It had not mattered before. I had survived for so long, and time had seemed so endless and relentless. Alone, always alone. Numbed I was, but
no longer. How ironic that now when I was beginning to tingle for life, I was faced with the prospect of final death.
I had not lied, exactly, but I had not told them the entire truth. You could not tell how long an energy boost like this lasted. It could go for several moonrises, or it could peter out in hours. I’d been gambling. I had wanted to see them safely back to my haven before I left them. But my beast had taken the choice away from me, knowingly or unknowingly, I was not sure. It was a cunning thing, that side of me. Perhaps it had been aware of the risk I ran and had taken the choice from me. If so, it had only presented me with an even greater peril.
The faint spark grew stronger as I neared the site, an old Indian burial ground. So old that no tombstones, no markers, no signs of life or of death existed. It was as if the land here had been untouched.
The pull in the ground said otherwise. Bones lay rotting beneath the rich fertile earth here. Blood left its lasting stain. And not just human blood, but traces of Monère blood mixed in with it. I was demon dead. And I was called by that which was dead. Called most strongly by the blood of what I had once been—Monère.
This had once been the burial ground for chiefs or shamans. More than one lay here. Half a dozen, at least, by the pull I felt. A few had made the transition to demon dead, leaving a faint bridge, a connection, behind. Not exactly a portal. Oh no, much less sure and secure a way than that. But it was a path home if one had enough strength and power to follow those tenuous threads. And if one were desperate enough, left no other choice.
I gave a harsh bark of laughter. It disturbed a few birds and they squawked indignantly away. Get used to it, I wanted to shout at them. I am no longer going to skim over life, but actually try to live it now. But I did not do anything so foolish, because I did not know yet if I had that option. And yelling something aloud like that was foolishly tempting fate. As if to say: Nah nah nah. Come and get me. Now, when I cared, it probably would. The irony of life.
The beast inside me balked for a moment, fighting me as I stepped atop those forgotten buried bones. Madness, it cried.
Our only choice, I insisted. And because it was, it relented.
I stretched out my hand, and didn’t let my power flow so much as unspool toward that spark, building that faint bridge between the realms of life and death. A delicate process of growing that connection stronger, of channeling part of my abundant energy into it until a crack, a seam, was called forth—a hazy line that shimmered white, just barely visible.
I thought that the seam of Other I had called forth was what I sensed. Too late I realized my mistake. Too late, after I felt something hit me in the back and splatter liquid wet across my cloak, soak into the cloth. The moment it touched my skin, it was as if an invisible cloud began to leisurely engulf me.
Oil of Fibara. A liquid that acted upon a demon much like silver did when placed against a Monère’s skin. It shut off my senses slowly, bit by bit, relentlessly draining my strength, so that the shimmering seam I had called into view dimmed noticeably in brightness, much like what was happening to me. In a moment, it would be gone, and so would I. Not right away. But once that bridge was gone, I too would soon just fade away.
“I should have let you try it,” said a voice behind me. A deep, familiar voice filled with amusement, disbelief, and sadness. It was the latter that had my stomach clenching as I whirled around too late, and found myself facing another demon. Black handcuffs dangled from his hand. “But I cannot risk even that small chance of you returning.”
“Derek,” I said, not in greeting but in acknowledgment of an opponent who had just struck me a fatal blow. I sounded calm, but inside my world tumbled because he had to be the demon who had stolen Talon to this realm.
He was not just a mere demon, but a former guardian who had betrayed his oath.
And he had just as good as killed me.
FOURTEEN
THE ATMOSPHERE IN the car was far from happy. In fact, the farther they drove, the grimmer the air felt.
“I’m going back,” Stefan said. He braked and made a U-turn on the empty road, glaring at Nico through the rearview mirror as if expecting him to protest.
“I won’t argue with that,” Nico said mildly. “It’s a good idea.” But his agreement did not seem to make Stefan any happier.
“I won’t go after her,” Stefan said, casting another grim look his way. The old warrior’s face was set in harsh lines, yet still he managed to look exquisite, like a dark dour angel. “I just want to ensure that Lucinda is on her way. Not lying there, weak and helpless.”
But Nico was no longer concentrating on the words. Because in Stefan’s eyes smoldered not just unhappy frustration, but a tinge of something darker and most unexpected. Something that took Nico completely by surprise. Jealousy. The ridiculousness of it washed deliciously over Nico for a moment before he leaned forward and put the old chap out of his misery.
“There is no reason to resent me,” Nico said. “You have her heart.”
Their eyes met in the mirror.
“She seems to care for you, as well,” Stefan said.
“Felt sorry for me, is more the case,” Nico said with a twisting smile. “Our Lucinda is far more compassionate than she would have others know.”
Another searing look from Stefan at Nico’s unknowing slip of tongue—our Lucinda. A possessive term he had unconsciously used. Nico sighed, and set about soothing ruffled feathers once more. “Do not fear. She is more yours than mine. I concede that readily.”
“Why are you trying to be nice to me?” Stefan demanded.
“Because everything she has done, including claiming me, she has done for you. You have her heart, you stupid rogue.”
“You said that before. And yet her bite mark is on you and on Talon. Why did she feed from the both of you when she refused to feed on me?”
So that was the cause of his jealousy. A little smile danced along Nico’s lips at the role he found himself playing. He had never had to be the perceptive one before. “After you were wounded?”
Stefan nodded.
“And had lost a lot of blood?”
Stefan nodded again.
“Then the reason for her refusing the bounty of your blood was simply the lack of it at that time,” Nico said with simple deduction.
“Why are you smiling?” Stefan asked, a dangerous glint in his eyes, his fingers wound tightly around the steering wheel. Obviously Nico wasn’t doing too good a job of soothing and reassuring him.
“Because I should be the one jealous, not you. Wake up,” Nico snapped. “She’s halfway in love with you, if not flat-out all the way head over heels wading in the syrupy, sticky emotion by now.”
Stefan looked shaken. “Do you think so?”
“Yes,” Nico said, his turn to look unhappy. “She came back for you at great risk to herself. To claim you.”
“She claimed you, too.”
Stubborn ass. “To free me from my Queen. Then she was more than willing to toss me back out again. She offered me my ‘freedom, ’ if that’s what you call it, to roam the world on my own, or to reside in the safety of her province but not in her home. She gave me the option of protection without really belonging to her. Talon can verify the truth of that.”
“Is that true, Talon?” Stefan asked.
“Yes,” came the creature’s soft reply.
“If you had not been here waiting for her, she would have cut me loose because she would have had no need for me then. My presence, my purpose, is solely to serve as brother companion and fellow guard to you and the boy.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me!”
That took Stefan aback. “She did?”
“Yes. Why is that so hard to believe?” Jackass. Idiot. The words were not said, but they hung in the air.
Stefan’s jaw clenched. “She is at ease around you, but stiff and uncomfortable around me.”
Nico sighed. Unbelievable, he thought. “You have been around huma
ns much longer than I. Do you not know that when a woman acts like that, it means she is attracted to you?”
“I think Stefan has a hard time applying such human behavior to Lucinda,” Jonnie said from the passenger seat, startling Nico. He’d almost forgotten he was there, so quiet had the lad been.
“Why?” Nico asked. “Because she is demon dead?”
Jonnie nodded. “And before then, Monère.”
“And not just Monère, but a queen,” Stefan said quietly.
Nico whistled. “A queen . . .”
“And Monère Queens do not act shy and awkward around their men,” Stefan said.
“How do they act?” Jonnie asked.
“Certainly not shy,” Nico said dryly. “Arrogant, assured, entitled. But . . . and an important but here . . . Lucinda is no longer a Monère Queen. Has not been so for a very long time. And my impression is that she has been alone for most of that time. I doubt if she has ever claimed anyone before, not since becoming demon dead.” Nico let Stefan chew over that for a moment. “I am no threat to you. I am not even close to becoming one.”
“What do you mean?”
So many questions the other warrior had. “You are comely, fair of face, with a wondrous beauty that others would die for. I am not even handsome. Granted, I have my own charm.” Nico smiled, thinking fondly of his lovely human companions and the flattering boost they had given his ego. “But looks-wise, you and I are in completely different classes—the reason why I was with Mona SiGuri and lasted with her so long. That is a Queen who only surrounds herself with people less attractive than herself. You . . .” Nico smiled with sardonic sharpness. “You, with your breathtaking loveliness, would not have lasted in her court for even a fortnight before she killed you.”
“Looks may not matter with a demon,” Stefan said. “Perhaps only power does, and you and I are both of equal power.”