Embrace the Desire

by Spring Stevens

Chapter 2

  As Akhos’ slave disappeared with Payne, Gyth gritted his teeth. Cracking the muscles in his neck, he dematerialized sending himself to earth. Knowing that if Payne did not break soon, the world would have bigger problems to deal with, he sent a summons across the earth. He needed players in this game and he had to take the necessary precautions.

  Determination raced through his heart. The oncoming events had to be played with precise control and like chess, the king had to be protected at all costs. The queen and her rooks would have to rule the board and corner the opponent’s men.

  From time to time, Gyth had to take these little excursions with a fair amount of patience, even when they involved the throne of the Heavens. Knowing what future lay ahead, he had to turn the tables. He wasn’t going to allow Damon to rise from the Underworld, nor was he going to lose the throne any time soon.

  Materializing in front of the Tortured Souls, the bar that served as a sanctuary for his Destroyers, his eyes darkened. If the game was to be played and for his team to have a fighting chance, he would have to make sure that he chose the best of the best to be Chanta’s rooks. The bishops and the knights, although important, would have to be probable forfeits in the game as well as the pawns.

  His nostrils flared. As much as it dismayed him, Payne was the king in this game and he had to be protected at any cost. True, Chanta was the priceless asset; however, in order to achieve the desired outcome, Payne would have to survive. And the best protection he could give him was sitting at the bar drinking vodka. Gyth’s own son, Varick Ta Farg, was the best of the best.

  Given the recent events in Varick’s life, he may not be a willing participant in the game. With a low grunt, Gyth walked into the bar and met Varick’s eyes. No matter how defiant his newly transformed son was, he knew that Varick would never allow any serious harm to come to Payne.

  Varick was a god now, his powers restored. Gyth got his eyes full of Varick’s appearance. Black trench coat, black cowboy boots, and a black button up silk shirt graced his muscular body. He and Gyth shared common traits. They had the same gold eyes and the same white hair. They both flexed their jaws when angry or upset. Gyth’s gaze flickered over the red braid hanging from his son’s temple.

  The braid was the same as Terror Sky’s, the elemental god that served Isten with a faith that defied logic. Gyth had no idea what the braid meant, but he was sure it did not bode well. Nevertheless, Varick would serve the purpose at hand simply because of Payne and their friendship.

  Across the empty bar, Varick set his glass down, small sparks of purple flames jumping from his fingers. “Where the hell is Payne?”

  “In the realm of the Algea.” Gyth replied, “Either he’ll do as I command or he’ll be ruined.”

  In a flash, Varick was in Gyth’s face, his hand wrapping around his neck. “Father or not, if you harm Payne, I’ll destroy you!”

  “Before you take me on, you’d better learn how to control those god powers. Your threats are empty until you do,” Gyth reminded him. “Remove your hands or I’ll have that bastard son of Damon’s neutered and skinned alive.”

  Varick stared hard at his father and slowly dropped his hand. “What do you want from me? That’s why you’re here isn’t it? To make a bargain in return for Payne’s freedom.”

  Straightening his robes and trying to keep his anger intact, Gyth followed Varick to the bar. “The female, Chanta Timbers, is entering her Burning. Her destiny is to be protected at all costs.” Gyth gritted his teeth. “You’ll make sure that Payne takes her through it and that she survives.”

  Varick shook his head. “Payne won’t touch a woman. There isn’t a woman alive that holds a flame next to Bastilla.”

  “That concubine from his past? He still holds that wench in such high regard?”

  Varick shrugged. “To each his own. But I’m telling you right now, Payne won’t take any female through the Burning. Just isn’t going to happen.”

  “Granted, Payne wouldn’t have been my first choice, but he’s the only one strong enough to do this. Your job is to make sure he does his duty and that she lives.” Gyth walked around the bar and poured himself a shot of vodka. “Chanta’s destiny and her life is of great importance in the Heavens. They will try to take her down as she enters the Burning and her presence is revealed.”

  “Then hide her presence.” Varick paused. “You can’t, can you? And who are ‘they’?”

  “The Angels, an ever-loving thorn in my backside.” Gyth shook his head. “I have very little control over her life. I cannot hide her, I cannot force her against her will, and I cannot interfere with the Burning.”

  Suspicious, Varick stared hard at Gyth. “Why?”

  For a moment, Gyth wasn’t sure he wanted to answer that question. “Because she is an enigma, part angel, part goddess. I cannot interfere with angel affairs, no matter how great or small. Angels are literally another pantheon of their own, one that I do not and cannot control. I can at best only make bargains with them. Its part of the gods-be-damned laws.”

  There was a lot more at stake than just Payne’s destiny. Not that he cared about what happened to Payne, but Chanta’s future was another matter. She had to survive, especially now that her original destiny had been unwritten.

  The Angels were always and forever after the throne, especially Chanta’s mother. She was the biggest thorn in Gyth’s backside and unfortunately, it was of his own doing.

  If Chanta didn’t survive the Burning, there would be consequences in the Heavens. And Gyth wasn’t about to lose the throne. He had forfeited too much and fought too damn hard to simply let Chanta’s mother take it.

  Gyth swallowed the shot. The bitter, sweet burn lingered in the back of his throat. “I had a deal with the Angels and that bargain cannot be broken. I agreed to let Chanta live as normally as possible on earth—to live as a human, until she turned twenty one.”

  “Does Chanta know she’s part angel?”

  Gyth slowly shook his head. “She understands that she is descended from the gods but she has no idea that her mother is an angel.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you can’t protect her now or hide her here on earth.”

  “Chanta Timbers isn’t just part Angel.” He watched Varick uneasily as he made his way around to the front of the bar. “She’s your sister.”

  Varick slammed his fists on the bar. “Then why in the nine hells is she on earth?”

  “Angels aren’t gods.” Gyth grimaced as Varick grabbed the bottle of vodka from the bar and tipped it to his lips. “When angels are born, they are sent to earth to reside here and learn human nature. And as you know, only full-blooded gods and full-blooded angels can reside in the Heavens.”

  “There’s more to this, isn’t there?”

  Gyth nodded and stared into his son’s eyes. “Gods make mistakes and meddle in things that they shouldn’t regardless of the consequences.”

  “What mistake did you make?”

  “Chanta was my mistake. I wanted a daughter at any cost. Her mother offered me a bargain and I took it. The bottom line is if she dies, I will lose the throne and the Heavens will fall to the Angels. If I lose the throne there will be nothing to stop Damon from rising from the Underworld and unleashing hell on Earth.”

  Varick tipped the bottle to his lips, swallowed, and leaned against the bar. “Does Damon know about her?”

  Gyth sat down on a barstool, his legs suddenly feeling like Jell-O. “Damon does have an interest in her. He could have killed her, but at the time he didn’t know she was my daughter. Now that she is entering the Burning, all bets are off that he won’t figure it out.” For the first time in his long life, Gyth’s heart felt heavy. “There’s something about her that Damon found irresistible. I was lucky to have found her when I did.”

  “Damon? Did she know who and what he was?” Varick slowly sat down beside of him at the bar, his jaw slack. “Where does that leave her?”

  Gyth shook his head as disgust rol
led around his stomach. “No, she didn’t know, not until Damon was one step from slicing her throat.”

  Silence hung between them for seconds, mere seconds that felt like eons.

  “But Damon didn’t harm her; he couldn’t for some reason.” Gyth closed his eyes. “That’s the night I found her, naked and in his arms in a dark alley. Her terror was heart shattering. Not until after Damon vanished did I realize just what had been wrought between them. My own flesh and blood was in love with my bitter enemy. I have been protecting her ever since that night because she allows me to, but now, I cannot protect her from the Burning. It is her time.”

  “Because she is part angel, you have to have her permission to protect her and I can only assume, she doesn’t want your protection.”

  Gyth could only nod. His voice lodged in his throat.

  “Has Damon made any move against her?”

  Gyth shook his head. “She is a member of the One Race because my blood runs through her veins, but that also means that only someone with the truest strength of the gods can save her. That leaves her in desperate need to have a Destroyer take her through the Burning.” Gyth reached for the bottle in Varick’s hand and added. “That leaves her in desperate need of Payne.”

  Varick stood, his topaz eyes swirling with power. “And Payne is Damon’s son. The chances of him doing this are zero to none especially if he finds out that she was once Damon’s lover.”

  “He must or Chanta will die.” For added measure, Gyth stood and grabbed Varick’s shoulder. “Your sister, my daughter, will die.”

  Chapter 3

  Mounds of books lay scattered across the granite coffee table, littered the floor, and obscured any pathway through the small living room. In these pages, Chanta Timbers had found so many ways to leave the planes of reality. They were her escape. They offered her silence in the wake of so many storms.

  Today, escape seemed impossible. Her thirtieth birthday was just around the corner. Being a member of the One Race had plenty of advantages, if you survived the Burning. And that was a big if.

  The Burning would start on her birthday, last a week, maybe two. She would be consumed with confusion, weakness, muscle cramps, headaches, and lust. The drive to have sex would push her right over the edge and send her straight into the Burning. It was biology, simple and complicated.

  Because she was descended from the gods, on her thirtieth birthday, her life as a human would come to an end, literally. Biology would demand her body to undergo major changes, her genetic makeup, which was dormant, would awaken and force the change, the transformation, to take place. Only the strongest descendants survived the Burning because it was an overwhelming physical and mental challenge.

  And if that wasn’t enough, the need and desire to have sex would consume her. If she refused to have sex with another member of the One Race or a Destroyer, she would die. End of game. It was the consequence of being a descendant of the gods. Too bad she didn’t know who or even which one of her parents had passed on the god genes. She had been left at an orphanage, had no memory of either of her parents.

  If she survived, she would be granted special powers—a unique gift, a special ability that was hers and hers alone, as distinct as a fingerprint, and long-lasting life. Chanta could live for hundreds or thousands of years. She would not die of old age, her body would restore itself, never wearing down or causing her demise by natural causes.

  However, she was not immortal. She could die by another's hand. Even the gods could die.

  The problem was that during the Burning, many members felt the urge to mark their sexual partner as theirs . . . for the rest of eternity. It was a bond that was unbreakable, and if one died, the other would slowly go insane. She didn’t want to be marked and belong to anyone, especially not for the rest of her conceivably very long life. And she didn’t want to mark a man either. If he was not a member of the One Race or a Destroyer, but a regular mortal, his life span would be short, and she damn sure didn’t want to go insane.

  Insane with godly powers sure didn’t sound like a good combination.

  And a Destroyer? They harbored demons under their skin, were ruthless killers, and from the stories she had heard, they were emotionally brutal. Male members of the One Race were few and far between, most already bonded with someone that had taken them through the Burning.

  And if she were to be marked, then what? She had a job she loved, she had devoted herself to helping children of the One Race, and she wasn't about to give that up. Not to mention, she was just turning thirty and had already been through enough rocky relationships to last her several lifetimes.

  If she had a choice she would just stay human and not go through the Burning.

  But she did not.

  She breathed in through her lips, the fragrance of the old books calming her nerves. Shoving those thoughts aside, she looked down at the pile of papers to her right and groaned. Shoving her thoughts of the Burning aside, as well, she turned to the stack of reports by her side.

  Chanta ran her slight fingers through her thick cotton-blonde hair. What exactly had she been thinking when she told her students to do reports on the creation myth? And why had she not picked just one for them. Oh no, she had let them choose their own. Twenty research papers and almost all of them were on a different myth.

  There were just so many gods and so many myths. She should have simply assigned the One Race creation myth, which would have been much easier. And because she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she graded each one, she gave in and grabbed another book.

  A rattling noise jerked her from her thoughts. She sat up and went to her knees peering over the couch. Her heart was in her throat, terror only inches from claiming her. Straining, she listened, watched.

  “I’m safe here.” She whispered as her eyes darted around the room. “I’m safe.”

  A faint smile spread cross her lips as a small black cat jumped on the back of the couch and purred at her. Her body relaxed, a sigh escaping her lips. She was safe; she knew that, but still, sometimes an odd feeling of fear crept up her spine and beat at the base of her skull, like a warning bell going off.

  Instantly, she thought of Damon and the night he had revealed to her what and who he truly was. Anger crept over her terror. She was just another member of the One Race, just another plaything in the ongoing war he had with Gyth. And he had used her in the foulest of ways. He seduced her, made her feel things that she had never felt and still hadn’t felt to this day.

  Members of the One Race had to be careful, fearful. They never knew when or where they would be attacked or even how it would happen. Under Damon’s rule, the minions of the Underworld were constantly trying to eradicate the race. And there were so very few of them that survived. If you were descended from a god, the safest place to be was at a sanctuary.

  A sanctuary like the one where she was a teacher. One Race Academy, a private boarding school for One Race children, was one of the safest places on earth. Secluded and hidden behind the guise of a horse farm on the outskirts of Lexington, Kentucky, the academy protected those children. It was the kind of protection she had needed when she was a child.

  She had dedicated the last nine years of her life to the academy, making sure it was stocked, staffed, and protected at all times. The children there were orphans in one way or another and needed the protection the academy offered. With her dying breath, she would see to it that those children were not harmed.

  With the profits from her diner, After Midnight, she managed to stay afloat and one step ahead of her bills. Quietly nestled in the hubbub of the city, the diner offered her an escape from the academy. The paychecks she received from the academy were safely nestled away in a fund to help support the children she cared about so very much.

  If she could make a single difference in any of the One Race children’s lives, she would do it, no matter how much she had to give.

  Groaning rather loudly, Chanta reached for an old tattered and yellow
stained book, the only thing that had survived her childhood, other than the emotional scars. How she had managed to keep it was beyond her. Being tossed from one human home to the next, from one orphanage to the next, it was simply a miracle it had not been lost.

  She vaguely wondered about her parents. Were they dead? Why did they leave her at a human orphanage? She had so many questions and not nearly enough answers.

  Slowly, she opened the cover and for the millionth time, she read the words written by the mother she had never known.

  “To my precious daughter, my heart, my soul, and the light of all things good—in your possession I leave this book. One day it will lead you to your destiny and all will be as it should be. With love, your blood-born mother, Elena.”

  She stared with steel gray eyes at the words for a long time before turning the page and taking a deep, ragged breath. The title page was empty, save one inscription in ancient Sanskrit. “As Above so it will be Below. Herein reads the Book of Light.”

  Her Sanskrit was not the best, but she read it anyway.

  “All life sprouted forth from the hands of the eight gods of creation. This is the telling of one of these accounts, written and sealed for all time by the eyes of Isten, the eldest and most grand of the eight gods.”

  Her phone rang stirring her from the familiar trance the words seemed to always put her in. Numbly, she reached for the phone, her eyes falling to the next paragraph and her mind burning the words hard into her heart. “Isten saw what would come, saw man stepping out from the ground and procreating. He saw the race grow, spread. But they were unprotected. Holding his hand out, he manifested a ball of white light. Within the light, a being grew. And that being was called an Angel. Henceforth, Angels became guardians of mankind.”

  “Hello?”

  “Chanta?” The familiar velvet male voice made her smile. “What troubles you child?”

  She snorted. “These research papers! I’m telling you Gyth, they’re going to be the death of me.”

  He laughed. “Nonsense. Your teaching skills are excellent. I’m sure you’ll get them graded before the weekend is over.”