by Sable Grace
Marcus stood over Haven, ready to attack again. Ryker was too distracted by the waves of minions rushing through the doors to see what was happening behind him. It was up to Kyana. Woozy, she stumbled in their direction. Marcus wouldn’t win. Not like this. Not while she had even a tenuous hold on life.
He raised his arm. Pure evil twisted his face.
With a roar, Kyana launched herself at him, striking him in the chest. With a grunt, he fell to his knees. He shoved her aside as though she weighed nothing at all. She gripped his shirt with all the strength she had left, keeping him from escaping. Knowing she had no other means to fight him, she used the one weapon she had available.
She sank her fangs into his neck.
The taste of his blood was pure heaven, and with every swallow, strength surged its way back into her veins. Her heart sped, her adrenaline rushed. Still, she drank, no longer just hoping to stop Marcus, but hoping to drain every last bit of life from his traitorous body.
“Stop!” Marcus’s feet thrashed, his legs kicking out as he tried to twist out of her hold, but she was too strong now. Too eager to finish what she’d started. “Make her stop!” His words gurgled in his throat.
“Kyana, no!” Ryker thrust his elbow into his last opponent’s windpipe and rushed to her side. He reached for her, freezing when he saw Geoff crumpled over Haven in a pool of his own blood.
It took all of Kyana’s willpower to tear her fangs out of Marcus’s flesh. She swallowed, the thick, warm blood coating her throat as it made its way down into the fire of her belly.
“He has to pay,” she whispered, afraid to speak more clearly for fear of sounding like the animal she could feel rising within.
Even as Marcus jerked in her arms, Kyana’s own body spazzed a bit, in shock at the taste of living blood.
“And he will. But not like this.”
The heady scent of so much spilled blood in the room was likely driving Haven as mad as it was Kyana. Forcing her thoughts away from the call to feed, Kyana jutted her chin toward Haven and yanked Marcus’s head farther back so that her next bite would be unobstructed. “Get her out of here, Ryker.” Her tone, deep and guttural, left no doubt of her intentions.
“Let go of him, Kyana. He’s not worth the price that comes with killing him.”
Kyana wrapped a handful of Marcus’s hair in her fist and yanked viciously. “What price? Death? I’ve already got that comin’, babe. Remember?”
Ryker’s eyes slowly melted back to their normal pewter state. “You don’t know that. We still have a chance.”
She flicked her tongue across the punctures on Marcus’s neck. “I don’t care. He has to pay for what he’s done to the Chosen, to Haven, to Geoffrey.”
Ryker’s eyes darkened, but he still tried to talk her down. “You’re not strong enough to feed and remain the same, Ky. You’ll be Dark Breed again and I won’t be able to let you leave here. I’ll have to kill you.”
Kyana swallowed, her chest heaving. The punctures on Marcus’s neck called out to her the way Sirens called to lusty sailors. She wanted to finish this, wanted to fill her belly with his blood until her stomach was bloated and her desire sated.
The monster clawed at her insides, begging her to give it a home again. She focused on Ryker. His silver eyes were glazed with emotion as he silently begged her not to force him to take her life. His duty and honor to the Order, to the man he was, would demand it. She couldn’t do that to him.
“Fuck you,” she whispered to the beast trying to dominate. The monster inside her growled back. “I’m stronger than you.”
With a primal roar, she twisted Marcus’s neck until it snapped and dumped his body on the floor.
Chapter Thirty-three
Kyana pulled her gaze away from Marcus’s still form to look at Ryker. The anguish had left his eyes. Oh, he wasn’t pleased that she’d killed the ex-Mystic, but his relief that she hadn’t fed the starving beast inside her was written all over his face.
“Satisfied?”
His fingers trailed lightly over her lips and jaw, his eyes approving even if he couldn’t condone what she’d done out loud.
She gave in and rested her cheek briefly against his hand before pushing away. “We need to . . . help Geoff.”
She looked at her friend, still slumped over and unconscious, the knife wound in his neck beating with rivulets of dark blood. Beneath him, Haven lay panting for breath, obviously weakened by her first Lychen shifting. She struggled to free herself from the weight of Geoffrey’s body and failed. She collapsed beneath him, her face pale and covered with perspiration.
Ryker moved away from Kyana and knelt to check on Geoff. “He’s alive, Ky. Just unconscious.”
Kyana sagged with relief, leaning her weight against the unbalanced table behind her, her knees weak, her body exhausted. He helped Haven stand before facing Kyana again. “Will you run now? Get as far away from the Order as possible? With your skill, you can hide among the humans. The Ancients may not find you.”
She read the pleading in his eyes, but running wasn’t an option before and it wasn’t one now.
“No,” she said, her tone flat, her tongue thick.
The vein in Ryker’s temple bulged, and she watched in fascination as his jaw ticked. “Fine.”
He hoisted Geoffrey onto his shoulder, and without so much as a grunt, did the same to Haven and stood. “Then get back to your cell before an army of pissed-off gods arrive and decide to carry out your execution without letting you plead your case.”
Without sparing Kyana another glance, Ryker stalked out of the greenhouse, leaving Kyana to follow without assistance. She’d fed. Her Vamp strengths were on overload. The controlled side of her that had ruled for the last eighty years fought for dominance. Her gaze fell on Marcus’s body, and she could barely restrain the urge to spit on his corpse. The punishment for killing him was one she’d gladly pay.
As she stepped over him, her foot snagged his torn shirt. She managed to pivot to keep from landing directly on top of him and went down on all fours, her nose inches from his chest. She shoved herself backward with enough force to jar her teeth. She didn’t know how long she sat there looking at his cooling body, the puckered scar running down the middle of his chest and curving just beneath his last rib holding her complete attention.
She reached for her dagger at her hip before remembering Ares had taken her weapon belt. She settled for a large, lethal-looking shard of pottery. Ripping Marcus’s shirt, she wrapped the fabric around her hand, then gripped the weapon. Carefully, she cut along the scar. Blood seeped from the wound, making her woozy with hunger. Kyana fought the need to feed and concentrated on laying the flesh of his chest open.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ryker’s low rumble caused the broken pottery to quake in a morbid dance. “You snapped his neck, Ky, he’s dead.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. She didn’t want to consider what she must look like sitting on a corpse, her hand in its chest. Instead of trying to explain, she said, “The key lies in the heart of the loyal.”
“What?”
“Nettles’s riddle. I thought she meant the one who was most loyal would tell us where the key was.”
“Are you fucking crazy?”
Kyana shrugged. She knew she was slipping to the edge of insanity, ripping into a human body like it was nothing, trying to find literal meaning in Nettles’s riddle. But her gut pushed her on. Using her makeshift knife, she lifted the edges of his skin, trying to work her way through the bone. Giving up on the hope she could complete her task without getting his blood on her hands, she dropped her scalpel to the dirt floor. Leveling herself on her knees, she straddled Marcus’s waist, then reached into his chest with both hands, and with a low growl, ripped the bone and muscle out of her way.
Slowly, she removed his heart, and beneath it, she found what she’d spent the last week looking for. She dug into Marcus’s chest and removed the star-shaped disk the color of slate, holding i
t out in her bloodied hand for Ryker to see.
“The key was literally in the heart of the loyal.”
“Holy hell.” His stance relaxed. The swirling in his eyes calmed and sparkled with hope. “You did it, Ky. You found the key to Tartarus.”
Even as she smiled, sadness filled her. Ryker wanted to believe this act would undo all the wrong she’d done. She couldn’t bring herself to dash his hopes. She slipped the disgusting key into her pocket, then struggled to her feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
Ryker pulled off his shirt and used it to bandage her bloody hands. As he helped her to her feet, his whispered words of hope and belief fell silent beneath the roar in her ears. She didn’t make it two steps out the door before the world turned topsy-turvy and everything went black.
Despite the whirlwind of chaos and worry surrounding her, Kyana welcomed the darkness. Thoughts of Haven and Geoffrey and Ryker—her little family—led to dreams of her Turning. The pain of her husband’s brutal attack, Henry’s loving hands, and, most vividly, the curious bond that had formed between them. Visions of times she’d felt him watching her though he hadn’t been present rolled through her brain like grainy black-and-white film until finally, Henry’s face became Kyana’s, and Kyana’s became Haven’s.
Kyana had forgotten about the link. Forgotten that she’d sometimes be able to see, feel, hear Haven. She was Haven’s Sire, would become aware of things both private and sacred, and as Kyana gave herself over to the vision, she reached out to her best friend, hoping for a glimpse of Haven to take her swiftly through her dreams.
Had Henry’s head hurt this badly when he’d reached out to her? Had he nearly stopped when his skull threatened to implode? Kyana’s temples pounded and her muscles burned. If she could just get a handle on this skill, maybe she could face her sentencing knowing Haven would be okay.
One glimpse. Just one glimpse.
But it wasn’t Kyana’s curiosity that pushed past the pain and made her hold more tightly to the threads of sleep. It was the weeping echoing in her brain, weeping that was not hers and could only belong to one person. Haven. It drew Kyana like a magnet, yanking her vision through blackness toward an unknown destination. Flashes of white whooshed past her, sending daggerlike pain behind her eyes. Her brain shrank and grew, shrank and grew, until finally swelling like a sponge that had soaked up every ounce of moisture in her skull.
The blackness cleared and the flashes of white dulled to reveal a foggy room filled with a lone bed and nothing else. In the center of the mattress, Haven knelt, her long golden hair filthy and clumped. Her body, naked and scratched, was covered in dark splotches. She seemed to feel something shift in the sparse room, her head lolling to one side as though straining to hear whoever had invaded her privacy.
Her yellow, glowing eyes were pocketed with purple moons, and her fangs were not the same pearly white as her other teeth. Instead, they were painted red. As were her lips and chin. But the wildness in her eyes contrasted harshly with the low moan of agony emitting from her open mouth and the tear tracks running through her dirt-smudged cheeks.
Kyana tried to speak. Much as when she’d been under the influence of the Charm of Nine Gods, she found herself unable to voice the sounds her throat and tongue struggled to make. But unlike the Charm of Nine Gods, this state obviously didn’t allow Haven the ability to see Kyana.
Through the fog, Kyana followed Haven’s anxious gaze. What Kyana saw on the floor in a semicircle around the bed legs nearly sapped her ability to hold on to the link. Three bodies, gutted, throats ripped out, spread out before her covered in blood and bodily fluid. The trail of red oozed from their bodies, spidering outward, disappearing under the bed. Shock pumped through Kyana, paralyzing her from removing herself from this horror she didn’t want to witness.
No. Haven had not done this!
But the truth was brutally painted right in front of her. She tried to back out of the room, but her legs didn’t work here either. She was nothing more than disembodied eyes and ears and, Zeus save her, she wanted to be blind and deaf forever if it meant striking this image from her memory.
No no no no no no.
The blood splatter on the wall stole her breath as she followed its design. Bloodied handprints smeared on the wall, and in their center, someone . . . Haven . . . had written three words in blood.
Cronos will live.
Pain racked through Kyana. The steady banging in her ears was unbearable. The sight before her unthinkable. The taste of fear and guilt and horror coating a tongue she couldn’t feel—unimaginable. She was vacuumed back into darkness, the scream in her head so loud she couldn’t hear the whoosh of lights. And the next thing she knew, she was thrashing against the cold hard floor of her cell.
“Bloody hell, Ryker. Hold her down damn it.”
Geoffrey’s voice burst through the bubble of muffled noises in Kyana’s head. She focused, desperate to hold on to something familiar as she fought to control her body. Each time she convulsed, strong fingers bit into her shoulders, shoving her back against the cold stone. Her skull cracked against rock, making her ears ring.
“Jesus, I’m trying. What’s wrong with her?” Ryker’s smell covered her like a blanket, warming her as she pressed her back to the floor in desperation to find calm.
“I’m calling for a Healer.”
She had to find her way out of whatever this was, this link with Haven. Had to get out of this cell and get to her friend. How did this link work? Had she seen what was about to be or what had already been? Henry had never spoken much about his link to Kyana and now she hated him for not preparing her properly.
As though emerging from the ocean, Kyana’s next shriek opened up her lungs, and though she didn’t need the air, she drank it in, heaving as her lungs filled and the cloudy bubble around her slowly cleared.
“Haven! Get me to Haven now!”
She threw Ryker off her, sending him onto his backside as she lumbered to her feet. Her head spinning, she gripped Geoffrey’s shoulders for balance, blinked in an attempt to see more clearly. “The link, Geoffrey. She’s going rogue. Get to her, or get me the fuck out of here so I can.”
There was no doubt in his expression. He obviously knew too well about the effects of turning another. She couldn’t contemplate what that meant right now. Her heart was close to thudding right out of her rib cage and she couldn’t tell if it was real or a lingering effect of her link with Haven.
“What did you see, Ky?” Ryker circled her, stepping between Kyana and Geoffrey.
Geoffrey’s blue eyes had darkened to almost black. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever you saw, it’s already happened. I’ll go, but I can’t stop it.” His words were thick with emotion.
As he moved to step through the gate, Kyana caught his arm. Weapons clanging in migraine-inducing harmony had pointed in the direction of the cave entrance. “Ares is coming. When he opens the barrier, I’m going too.”
“You can’t—”
Kyana shot Ryker a glare that dared him to stop her. “I’ll be damned if I’m sentenced before I see for myself the damage I’ve done.”
While her voice was cold and steady, the fear in her throat choked her. The last thing she wanted was to see what she’d seen . . . again.
Ryker’s gaze softened. He looked at Geoff. “Stay with her. I’ll see what I can do.” His gaze lingered on her for another moment before he stepped away, slid through the barrier, and strode down the dark hall toward his father.
Knowing this wasn’t going to go well at all, Ryker moved to the entryway, blocking the entrance. Ares strode around the bend in the long hallway, his head held high, a small, pleased smile turning the corners of his mouth. It sickened Ryker to know he shared blood with someone cruel and heartless enough to find pleasure in another’s death.
“Step aside,” Ares said, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
Ryker refused to budge. No way in hell would Ares use that thing, and if he tried, Ryker would
give him a taste of the powers he’d honed over the years. Powers even his almighty father didn’t share.
“You will not disgrace yourself, your title, or the Order by blocking my entrance.” Ares’s voice carried no farther than the two of them. “Step aside, now, and let me do what must be done.”
Holding his ground, Ryker shook his head. “She’s made a connection with Haven. We believe she’s going rogue. Ky needs to see her, try to reach her before it’s too late. Then she will come with you peacefully.”
“A Sire’s link?”
Ryker nodded.
“Then what she saw has already come to pass. Going to her now will change nothing.” However, he did point to several of his guards. “Go to the Healing Circle. If the Witch has completed her Turning before they’ve purged her of Marcus’s blood, kill her.”
Ryker growled. “Haven is a Chosen. Not even you can kill a Chosen.”
“The Witch is an abomination that never should have happened. What made her worthy of being a Chosen died when tainted blood flew over her lips.”
“Kyana is prepared to die. She just has to know that her friend, her only family, isn’t going to suffer for the things she’s done.”
“Do you plead for the life of the Dark Breed?”
Yes, he did, and he had, all the way up the ranks of the gods to Zeus. It hadn’t made a difference. Despite what he’d told Kyana about her having a chance of surviving this, it wasn’t probable. When her trial ended, she would most likely be sentenced to die—at the hand of Ares if his request was granted.
“No, I plead for you to let her die with a little peace.”
Ares smiled. Ryker wanted to use his fist to knock it off his face. “As my Elite General, you’ve stood witness to many barters. What you’re asking will come with a heavy price. Are you willing to pay it for her peace of mind?”
Ryker knew when he’d made the request the price would be high. There were only two things Ares had ever demanded of Ryker as his son. Ryker had never been willing to concede to either of them.
Straightening his shoulders, Ryker nodded. “I am.”