Whatever it was, it sounded like a goddamn Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The entrance to the temple exploded in a shower of rock and dirt as a wedge shaped head the size of a 747 burst through the temple facade, through the very mountain itself. Two yellow eyes the size of swimming pools opened, bleeding yellow light, blinking away dust and debris. Its hide was a brilliant, shimmering copper at its underbelly, shading to deep green with the black circular patterns of an anaconda along its head and back. The head rose, higher and higher, coil after scaled, muscular coil climbing out of the destroyed temple like a leviathan to obscure the night sky.
On what remained of the temple steps, the serpent priests all stopped running — all except for Alexi and his lieutenants — and abased themselves, sprawling on their stomachs with their hands clasped above their heads.
Emma could understand. The Sleeping God was one of the most beautiful things Emma had ever seen, and it was going to kill them all.
It dipped its head down, opened its jaws and hissed, and every single one of the prone serpent priests spontaneously burst into flame.
Yep. It was totally gonna kill them all. The burning serpent priests screamed; Emma braced, because she was pretty sure you couldn’t run from a giant god that could set you on fire with less than a thought.
YOU . The voice boomed without sound. Alexi stopped in his tracks, his gaze colliding with Emma’s. She watched him swallow visibly and then turn.
STAAAAAYYY , that enormous voice hissed. The Sleeping God uncoiled from the mountain, endless, getting bigger, the head weaving as it descended the ruined steps, sparks flying and crackling where its hide brushed the stones. Alexi clenched his fists. Emma could feel his fear but didn’t dare touch his mind, just in case it triggered something, anything, and caused the monster to attack. Was there a way to talk a god down, one that had been enslaved and caged and kept under magical lock and key for thousands and thousands of years? Emma thought that if there was, Telly at least would be trying.
Nope. They were all about to be eaten by the monster. Was this Alexi’s plan all along?
In spite of knowing something terrible was coming, she still wasn’t prepared when the white light exploded outward, obliterating the world.
Less prepared still when her vision cleared, and the monster was gone, and in its place was a twenty foot tall, green-haired woman with black circular patterns covering her forehead, arms, and legs.
The markings made her look less naked than she really was. She was probably the most beautiful woman Emma had ever seen — hard to be sure, because looking at her made Emma’s head hurt, made it hard to remember what anyone else looked like. Her eyes were creamy yellow from lid to lid, her lips tinged green. The rain refused to touch her. The green hair fell in perfect silken waves to her ankles and seemed to caress her bare skin as she walked forward to tower over them all.
“You have freed me,” she said to Alexi in a melodic feminine voice that made Emma’s teeth vibrate. “You were one of those who were made strong by my captivity, yet you set me free. Why. ”
Alexi’s chest moved rapidly with exertion — and fear — though he tried to hide it. He had to tip his head back to look, but Emma got the sense he wasn’t looking the god — goddess — in the eye. He was silent a long, long handful of heartbeats.
Finally he spoke. “For love.”
The goddess raised both eyebrows, cocking her head at him. “Ah yes. But not for love of me. Did you not love me enough to want me close? Like your brothers did? Like the first of your kind loved me?”
Alexi narrowed his eyes, eyes that matched hers in color though not form. “Love should not be a cage, mistress.”
She smiled, wide, and a slow chuckle rattled out between perfect verdant lips. “Love sets you free, is that it, my child?”
“Of course not,” Alexi said with an echo of his trademark arrogance. “Love binds. Love is a pact, and more than any cage or spell, it binds. The serpent priesthood never loved you, we’ve never known how, and the first could never have done what he did if he loved you. He coveted you, and he betrayed you. He never loved you. You know that very well.”
This time the goddess’s laugh was full and loud. “Aye, I know it very well, I do.” She fixed him with a simmering stare, shifting her weight to one black-patterned hip. “Care to marry me, noble one?”
Alexi made a careful sound in the back of his throat. “Another test, mistress?”
She grinned. It was beautiful and terrible. “Aye,” she said on that sultry laugh. “The last. Farewell to you, Alexi. ”
He shuddered as she said his name, a muscle in his jaw clenching. Then he flung his arm up to shield his eyes as lightning crackled down around the serpent goddess and thunder boomed and she disappeared.
The air cleared and Alexi buckled. He didn’t so much fall as make a controlled descent to one knee, waving off the other two remaining serpent priests — or whatever they were now that their goddess had left them. Emma wanted to go to him so badly she shook with it, but Alexi was not the type to appreciate public displays of affection, especially not when he was weak and vulnerable.
He turned his head and looked straight at her. His face was set in harsh lines, scars glistening in the rain like mercury, and his eyes burned into her as he regained his feet.
Had she really thought the words “weak” and “vulnerable”?
You really did, he said in her mind, the tone of his voice the only warning she had before he closed the distance between them and took her face in his hands and kissed her. She forgot everything then, everything but the wild, peaceful taste of him and the feel of his mouth taking her over, all his fear and resolve and relief poured into one kiss. There was anger too, scorching her as his lips and tongue punished her for lying to him, for promising she wouldn’t come. He wrapped his arms around her and tunneled his fingers into her hair and held her still, giving her no choice but to open to him more; she melted against him, almost crying with the heady shock of feeling him hot and alive and unharmed against her, here with her, alive and free.
When she’d let him kiss her so thoroughly she could barely breathe, she caught his lower lip with one fang and nipped. The look on his face as he jerked back was priceless.
Always so bold, he said, eyes sparking with yellow light as he looked down at her. I will teach you to fear me again, so that next time you might listen to me, and stay out of danger.
Emma caught her breath on a laugh. Definitely looking forward to that. Her next thought wasn’t as much fun, and turned her cold. “Where’s Seshua?”
Alexi’s expression went hard. He took a step back from her and looked around at everyone else. “If he’s not here, he’s still in the temple.”
A heartbeat later, they started running.
The entrance to the temple hadn’t caved in completely, and somehow the vast hallway beyond the doors was still intact, though smoke and dust was everywhere and it was impossible to see. Someone got the torches that remained on what was left of the walls lit, and Anton led a search party into the temple while the rest — Alexi included — searched the destroyed entrance chamber. There were several bodies lying in the open, all serpent priests; huge chunks of wall and ceiling had broken off, and anyone could be buried under the debris, and all Emma could do was stand with Fern while the others used preternatural strength to shift the rubble.
Surely Seshua couldn’t be dead — it would take more than a little earthquake and some falling stone to kill the jaguar king. He probably wasn’t even in the temple. Or he’d come strolling down the hallway in a minute and mock them for panicking over him.
When Telly shouted, Emma’s heart plunged into her stomach.
It took them a few more minutes to dig him out; once they got enough debris clear to be able to see him, Cara used her telekinesis to shift the rest. When she was done, the jaguar king lay like a broken god in the ruins of the temple entrance, beautiful and impossible.
Impossible that he could be dea
d.
It had taken more than a little earthquake and some falling stone to kill him. It looked like he’d been hit by a train and then fed through a meat grinder. No way to know which wound he’d eventually died from — there was a hole in his chest the size of Emma’s fist, but there were also several slash wounds across his abdomen where the pale sheen of internal organs bulged through, and there was so much blood drying in the dust around him that Emma didn’t know how anyone could even contain so much of it.
The blood was no longer flowing, though. And he was pale and cool to the touch.
Emma’s ears were ringing. She couldn’t breathe. Someone was making a terrible sound, frightening, not human, and she wanted them to stop —
Telly took her chin in his hand and forced her to look away from Seshua, into his eyes. “Em, stop making that noise and breathe. He’s not dead.” When she shook her head he gripped harder, fingers biting into her face. “He’s not!” Telly’s eyes blazed blue. “He’s shut his metabolism down to a crawl so he doesn’t bleed out. Can you hear me? Damn it, Em, come back!”
“Take your hands off her,” Fern said calmly. “You don’t get to touch her like that.”
Emma watched Telly’s gaze slide past her, a contemplative little frown pinching his blond brows. Whatever he saw in Fern’s face made his brow smooth back out and brought white swirling to the surface of his storm-blue eyes.
When Telly dropped his hand and backed away, Fern stepped in front of her and ran a soothing hand over her jaw. It’s true, Em. Seshua might be dying, but he isn’t dead yet. And we can save him. He’s counting on us to save him.
Tears burned behind Emma’s eyes and she heaved in a breath and nodded. “I know what to do.”
Leah and Raul were at Seshua’s side; they moved back, clearing a space for Emma, and she knelt beside him, blood and dirt sticky under her knees. She couldn’t look at his wounds. “Seshua,” she said, and had to clear her throat. “Seshua, if you can hear me, you have to wake up. You have to make the pledge, and you can’t speak the words unless you wake up.” There was no movement, not a twitch. Dear God. He couldn’t possibly be alive.
“He will not make the pledge,” Alexi said softly at her side.
“Yes he will, he just has to wake up.”
“No, Emma.” Alexi took her hand. “I am reading his thoughts. He is not awake, but not asleep either. He refuses the pledge.”
Emma stared at Alexi. “He refuses the pledge? He’s telling you that?” Alexi nodded, keeping his face carefully neutral. Emma felt heat start to build behind her breastbone, felt her breath coming faster. She looked down at Seshua. “I can’t believe this. You’re almost dead and you’re still the most infuriating little shit I’ve ever met. The pledge is the only way to save you, you asshole.”
Alexi cleared his throat. “He wants you to call his change.”
“But he’s almost dead!” Emma’s voice shook. “What if I call his change and it isn’t enough? The pledge will make him strong, it’ll bind his life to mine, guarantee that he can make it —”
“And that is why he won’t do it, Emma. He won’t risk your life.” Alexi shrugged. “That’s half the reason.”
Emma couldn’t believe this. “What’s the other half?”
Seshua coughed, opened his eyes, and started choking. Blood bubbled out of his chest wound and began flowing freely and Emma slapped both hands over it, clenching her teeth on a scream. “Somebody stanch the flow,” Emma shouted at no one in particular; Alexi’s hands covered hers and Leah and Raul both pressed their hands to Seshua’s gut wounds, holding his organs in, blood pumping out over their fingers.
Seshua turned his head to the side and spat blood, then fixed his dark, dark blue eyes on Emma’s face. “When you bind yourself to me,” he said, his voice wavering, “You’ll do it because you want me, not because you don’t want to lose me.” Then he smiled, lips red with his own blood. “Call my beast, pequeña . I know you can.” Then his eyes rolled back and he started seizing.
Emma shook her head, tears burning behind her eyes, fury burning behind her sternum. “Seshua, you fucker. You’ll pay for this.”
She called his beast.
40
Alexi owned a property a couple of hours away by air, a huge estate surrounded by jungle and grazing lands. He also had a private helicopter and pilot on retainer, and Seshua was airlifted to the estate once Emma had called his beast and he seemed to be in a stable condition. Red Sun hadn’t been keen on dematerializing with the jaguar king in such a delicate state.
Everyone else was mostly in one piece — though Emma and Leah both were missing a little piece of themselves, with Horne’s death. Emma didn’t know how she could feel so guilty and so angry over Horne, but feel nothing for the lives she herself had taken; Fern thought maybe it was because they were still merged, the long term effects of maintaining such a complete connection, but that sounded like a cop out to her. Everyone else she cared about was safe and whole — Emma figured a little crisis over her own humanity was a small price to pay.
And Telly was back. She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. But she was damn well going to try. Besides, there were more important things to take care of.
Emma had submitted to Felani and the rest of the maidens helping her bathe, but had refused to do it until everyone else was clean and dressed and fed; after Seshua, Emma’s temper had been foul, and no one had risked arguing with her. It was dusk by the time Emma stepped out onto the vast wraparound porch, when all of the wounded had finally been tended to and the rest of their number accounted for.
Alexi was alone at the porch railing. Dressed in black jeans and a cream linen shirt, with his hair clean and braided back, he looked almost normal, almost like a mere mortal man, leaning casually against the rail, watching the remains of the sunset fade over the jungle canopy. Until she stopped beside him and he turned to look at her with those eyes — eyes the same creamy, liquid yellow as the eyes of the goddess he was descended from.
He didn’t smile. He looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time, gaze roving over her face, her hair, back to her eyes. She knew her eyes were normal right now, normal hazel eyes, but she felt like he could see past that to the black beneath, the black that bled out to overtake the hazel, that marked her as something else. Something different.
“So,” she said, glancing away. “Red told you about the secret prophecy. How does it feel knowing your girlfriend’s supposed to spawn a new race of vampires and trigger the apocalypse.”
He made an interested noise. “Is that what you are? My girlfriend?”
“That’s the part you choose to focus on.” She swallowed. She had no idea what to do. She’d had a day to think — to actually think, which she seemed to stop doing every time she touched Alexi — and she had no answers. She shouldn’t have said that, about being his girlfriend, because she couldn’t be. Not just because of her own issues — feelings — whatever they were. But because someone like Alexi didn’t have girlfriends.
She pushed back from the railing. “Alexi, I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I wish — I want —” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “I’m not a good person, Alexi. I can’t give you —”
“What do you think I want?” He raised his brows, infuriatingly calm. “Why don’t you think you’re a good person.”
She licked her lips, watched his gaze drop to her mouth. “You’re reading my mind, right?”
His eyes came back up to meet hers. “You’re not shielding very well.” His nostrils flared, gaze intensifying. “But yes. I can see all the things you think are so terrible, these things you think you need to tell me. You care about them,” he added softly, straightening, towering over her, and her mouth went dry. “Red Sun. Fern. Telly.”
“I don’t —”
“You do.” He reached out as though to brush his fingers across her lip, but stopped, hand and arm in freeze-frame. “And it is all right.”
She tensed. “How is i
t all right.”
“It simply is,” he murmured, and the pads of his fingers made contact, feather light. “Love should not be a cage, Emma.”
Her heart pounded, but she wasn’t sure if it was from fear or something else, something his touch was doing to her. “I’m different, Alexi. I’m not right. I’m not me anymore. And I don’t care, that’s the worst part. I killed those people, so many of them, and I didn’t care. And I’d do it again.” Emma pressed her hands to her eyes. “That’s why it’s not all right to care. It’s not safe for me to care. What happens when anything can be justified for the sake of the people I love?”
He removed her fists from her eyes, his hands gentle. He waited until she looked up at him. “I don’t know,” he said plainly. “I don’t know.” He folded her hands into his own, moved closer and dropped his head to hers, his scent surrounding her. “You are the same, Emma. The same as you ever were. All that has changed is that now I am here, and I’m not going anywhere, and you are losing your nerve.”
She jerked back. “I am not.”
He looked down at her, his face harsh, so harsh and wonderful. “Yes you are. Looking for excuses.”
Emma reclaimed her hands and rubbed them on the hips of her jeans. “Triggering the apocalypse is not an excuse. Being the Caller of the Blood and not having a clue what that even means anymore is not an excuse.”
“Let us be clear,” he said, voice going dangerous. “You did not trigger anything. If the Brotherhood were telling the truth, then the fault lies with Alan, not you.” He looked away, jaw clenching, scars pulling tight. “That is if you trust anything they said, which you shouldn’t. Not until we know more.” He fell silent, and Emma kept her distance, but indulged herself with watching him, with committing the bow of his sculpted upper lip to memory, tracing his scars with her eyes.
He gave her a sidelong look. “I can hear your thoughts, you know.”
She smiled and looked away. “I know.” She sighed. “I lost the iPod. It got blown up along with the Brotherhood’s monastery.” When Alexi made a soft sound that might have been a laugh, she looked at him sharply. “Are you laughing at me?”
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