by Ophelia Bell
Ked inspected every detail of the terrain beneath them. Vegetation was lush, which was a good sign. It meant that the Ultiori leader was not in residence. If he had been, there would be a swath of dead foliage surrounding him, a side-effect of his Blessing having ultimately transformed into a curse.
Belah had told Ked about the gift eons ago in one of her drunken confessions. She’d loved Nikhil, hoped to have him with her forever, and as a testament to her love had granted him blessings from her closest friends among the other races. Which meant Nik had the equivalent of a dragon’s blessing times four. They were only meant as protection, but when mixed with the dragon blood he’d consumed, they’d triggered powers beyond anyone’s imagining.
When his betrayal had been revealed to the other races, they’d revoked their blessings, turning them into curses for him. The ursa’s blessing had given him inhuman strength and toughness, a resistance to the elements that was even better than a dragon’s, yet now his very presence in nature caused all things green and growing to die within a wide radius, and the fauna to flee just as they might in a dragon’s presence.
Ked sensed almost no wildlife around the compound, which was no surprise, but at least the forest was healthy.
He spied a moonlit clearing atop the ridge nearest the compound and folded his wings in a dive to reach it. His brothers followed silently. On any other flight they might have bellowed out their elation, but this was not the time. Not even the beauty of the place they landed in captured Ked’s attention tonight as his claws dug into the rich earth.
“Does the Wind have anything to tell us?” he asked, looking at the two huge falcons that perched upon a pair of boulders nearby. Both birds tilted their heads, listening, their profiles eerily framed by the moon behind them. If he didn’t know their grandmother, he’d consider it an ill omen to see two falcons cast in moonlight so starkly.
“Nothing good,” Iszak said. “The place is filled with sadness, pain. But none of it is ever let out.”
“Can you get a read on how many are inside? Their level of power?”
Lukas launched into the air and flew up, weaving a figure eight high above the secluded ravine. When he came back, he shifted into his full human form and dropped down to his knees, hugging himself and shaking.
Was he crying? Ked shifted and bent down beside his sister’s mate, resting a hand on his shoulder.
Lukas shook his head. “It’s not right in there. There are too many captives. Our kind chained. The hunters are there, maybe two dozen, but they’re settling in, business as usual, the bastards. The Elites are there, too. All three, but one of them seems… broken. I… I think that one is Marcus, but he isn’t the Marcus I remember.”
Ked nodded and as he pulled away, Lukas snapped one hand up and grabbed Ked’s wrist. “The three. They smell like you and your brothers. The Wind carried all their scents to me, bits and pieces of their magic. Can you explain why the fuck they smell like you?”
Aodh and Gavra tilted their large, horned heads to look at Lukas.
“You tell him, brother,” Aodh spoke in his mind. “He has a right to know the truth now that he’s mated to our sister.”
Of course Aodh would urge him to share the truth. Ked met Lukas’s gaze and relaxed his hand, moving it to the back of the other man’s head. What he had to tell them couldn’t be processed easily. He hated using his power this way, but he had to. They could hate him later, as long as they were with him now.
Slowly, he let his breath out and directed it into Lukas’s lungs. Lukas’s eyes went wide and he fell back, supported by Ked’s hand.
“I will save your sister the same way I saved my own sister, but this time, I have a few… roadblocks. The Elites are made from dragon blood. I’m only telling you this because if I don’t come out, you need to know what to expect. They have the same powers as me and my brothers, in varying degrees. They can’t fly, at least… physiology can’t be faked. Magic can be acquired, though.”
“How did they get your blood?” Lukas asked, recovering and settling against a tree trunk. Ked pulled away.
“We gave it to them.”
Chapter Three
Ked
Canadian Rockies
Present Day
“You gave it to them,” Lukas repeated. “You gave what to them?”
“Our blood. Our power.” Ked closed his eyes, envisioning Nik destroying his sister and reliving the blood rage he’d experienced in that moment. He’d have given anything to heal her wholly, but he’d had nothing to give then. She’d been on the edge of death for decades, wishing for it, but never able to pass beyond due to her nature. Even the healing waters of the Glade and her sisters’ magic weren’t enough to restore her health. Too much of her blood had been lost.
She was safe now, and fully healed, but he could still envision her skin cut to ribbons and her blood collected in a myriad of receptacles scattered around the room as he carried her out. Nik was nowhere to be found, but all Ked cared about at the time was making sure Belah was safely away from her torturer.
“Why the hell would you do that?” Iszak asked, stepping into Ked’s space and glaring at him. “So you’re telling us it was never Belah, but you and your brothers who were to blame all along?”
Ked clenched his teeth and stared down at Iszak, forcing himself to resist letting loose a wave of darkness to remind the other man why they were here. Aodh stepped forward and placed a hand on Iszak’s shoulder, speaking in his low, soft tone.
“We only cared about saving our sister. She needed her blood. We negotiated to get it back. This was his price.”
“Why didn’t you destroy him? None of this would be happening if you had!”
“She begged us to spare him then. We had no idea what he would turn into—what he would use our blood for. By the time we got to him, we had no choice but to negotiate. The important thing is that we got her blood back, and she is yours now.”
Iszak’s glare softened at the mention of Belah and he nodded. “I would have done the same, and I would trade my own blood for Evie’s life right now, if I thought it would work.”
“You won’t have to,” Ked said. “The one small blessing is that their leader is not here. Only the three Elites are, and by your accounts, one of them is out of commission. The other two… will be a challenge, if I run into them. Thanks to having mine and my brothers’ blood in their veins, they have more power than I have on my own.”
Lukas stood and came forward, a fierce look in his eyes. “Enough power to fight all five of us if we go in together? Why shouldn’t we take the whole compound, release their captives? There’s so much suffering inside.”
“An army of normal hunters could easily overtake you two,” Ked said. “Two Elites may not be enough to overtake me and my brothers all at once, but there would be too much collateral damage if they believed they were under siege. I don’t want to risk your sister being harmed before we can get to her. The other captives will have to wait. We’ll come up with a plan to help them soon.”
The North brothers had equally grim looks, but nodded in spite of their obvious disappointment at not being allowed to go in fighting. It had to be Ked alone for this. He was the only one of the three Immortal brothers who could get in and out of the compound without having to breach their exits. He could have gotten in without any assistance, but didn’t know what kind of state Evie would be in once he found her, and teleporting with a passenger was never very easy on the passenger. Having her brothers right outside would ensure she knew she was safe at the end of it. He would keep his other reason for saving her to himself until she was fully recovered.
With a glance, Ked’s brothers both nodded and launched themselves into the air. He followed them to the compound and the three of them circled once. Aodh and Gavra both released thick clouds of red and white smoke from their nostrils that swirled and sparked in the night
air, descending snake-like to the open vents scattered along the roof. Ked focused his energy until he became his own breath, his body dissipating into darkness that sank like black fog. As the embodiment of shadows, he waited, watching the last of his brothers’ breath finally disappear down the open vents.
They would send their breaths through the corridors, blending both the calming white smoke and arousing red that would intoxicate the residents, hopefully leaving them lethargic and more concerned with pleasure than alertness. With any luck, no one would be the wiser after Ked got in and out again with Evie. The Elites were still the wildcards. They would recognize the smoke for what it was, but with any luck, Ked would have enough time to get Evie out before it dawned on them.
Aodh and Gavra circled one last time and then flew back toward the clearing, signaling Ked that it was time.
With barely a thought, Ked filtered his shadows through the vents, letting pieces of himself spread through the ventilation system and into every accessible room in the compound, searching. As mere shadows, he could be in almost any space he chose. Each piece of him explored, eliminating possible holding locations before combining and working his way down from ground level to subterranean level. He had no idea how deep the place went, but as he crept around the dimly lit hallways, he sensed his brothers’ breath at work. Every so often he’d pass a closed door with the unmistakable sounds of lovemaking echoing from the other side.
He searched, fascinated by the labyrinthine architecture of the building. There were corridors upon corridors, some lined with doors, others that came out onto landings that faced the expanse of plate glass windows lining the side of the compound overlooking the ravine. Beyond, the mountain vistas stretched for miles, the dark ribbon of the river snaking through with patches of white water letting him know how treacherous the landscape really was outside this place.
More treacherous inside, however. On the next level down, Ked could sense the despair. The corridors were sleek and modern, the doors nothing more than shining panels with no knobs. Each one had a glowing rectangle behind the glass, with a keypad glowing underneath. He paused long enough by one to manifest a finger and touched the numbers lightly. The glass was smooth and cool, the number behind it glowing brighter and making a soft pinging sound.
If Ked didn’t know better, he’d have thought it magic. But if it were really magic, the residents inside would have been able to call on their goddesses to release them.
There was no goddess of shadows. Only Ked could get into these rooms with his own powers. He’d considered recruiting the First Shadow, Kol, to accompany him inside, but didn’t want to risk the new father’s life. Now that he observed how deep the compound went and how advanced the security was, he wasn’t sure Kol could have made it this far anyway.
More eerily lit, opaque glass doors lined the hallways at closer intervals, the residents inside a heart-wrenching combination of captives representing the higher races.
What was worse was when he’d passed through dozens of rooms and realized the one thing they all had in common: they were almost all females. Most were turul and ursa females, many were dragons. Only one of the higher races—the nymphs—was poorly represented, though for that, he supposed he should be grateful. In the last few rooms he checked, however, he found the sole males among all the captives. One was a white-haired ursa who paced silently, the other a satyr bound and chained in a small cell, naked, and with dark hair and a beard grown so long it didn’t matter that he had no clothes. He sat with his furred legs bent and his hooves sliding back and forth, scoring deep grooves into the floor.
Ked paused, shocked at the sight. The satyrs had been extinct for hundreds of years, or so he’d believed. If this male existed, he was likely the only one still alive. Why had they kept this one alive, and for so long? The satyr raised his head and stared into the shadows where Ked hid. His eyes swirled wildly, his lips mouthing words. After a moment, the sounds became audible, but grated, as though scraped across hard gravel before reaching Ked’s ears.
“End of the hall, the big door. The only love in this place is in that room. Leave me to rot. Leave me to rot. I’m not worthy of my race.”
Impulsively, Ked reached out with his power, sending darkness into the satyr’s mind to drown out all but the keenest of his emotions. Deep betrayal lay shining among all the dimmer feelings, but not as the betrayed. This satyr had been the betrayer.
Ked moved on, leaving the satyr to his misery. He understood the feeling, having once betrayed his sisters, his entire race. And all for the sake of a loved one. He tried to tell himself that they would have been all the weaker not having Belah at full power. Once the deed was done, and her blood consumed by her lover, there had been no going back.
When Ked and his brothers found Nik, he had been as far gone as that poor satyr, only not simply overcome with insanity. No—after consuming even the first drop of Belah’s blood, he’d tasted power, desired it so thoroughly nothing else in the world mattered except having more. Belah’s blood now ran in his veins, rendering him immortal.
Belah’s state hadn’t been the only thing driving their decision when Ked and his brothers approached her power-hungry former lover. They’d woken up one morning after having a series of shared dreams. In them, he and his brothers had witnessed Belah’s torture. Her veins cut open and her blood running freely. And in the dreams, her blood had spilled onto the floor and immediately taken shape into every magical creature in existence. One after the other, each drop became something more fantastic than the last. Creatures they knew of, and then creatures they’d never seen before.
In the dreams, the new creatures had fought to the death against the old ones. Dragons, turul, ursa, and nymphs all fought on a field of Belah’s blood against the other creatures that arose from the red lake that surrounded her.
That was when they knew her blood—a female’s blood—held the power of creation. They couldn’t let Nik keep that power. It might be too late for Nik, but at least they could get Belah’s blood back before Nik understood the value of it.
Now, he had the blood of countless females. They may not be immortal, but Ked couldn’t deny the chill that ran down his incorporeal spine at the thought of what the Ultiori could possibly want with so many females. The understanding that it was Nik—the man who had drained his sister’s blood—who had orchestrated this ongoing abduction over the centuries, made his teeth manifest and clench hard together, and his fingers tighten into solid fists. Darkness flowed out of him in waves and he had to force himself to pull it back, to return to the shadows.
Ked would find a way to kill the man, if it was the last thing he did. To put an end to the abductions and the suffering.
Tonight, he couldn’t, though. He’d made a promise, and his heart lay at the end of the corridor he drifted down, his shadow shifting along the edges to avoid the dim light.
He would like to greet her as himself the first time, but it would be too dangerous to become fully solid until he got her out. He found the door and slid beneath it, letting his shadow seep through the cracks and into the corners, surveying the dark room to determine what, if any, threats were inside and what state Evie might be in before he took her out.
All he found was a pair of bodies crumpled together naked on a small bed. Their limbs were entwined as though they’d been making love, but the woman was halfway sitting up, with the man’s torso draped across her lap. She wept silently, running her fingers through his dark red hair and murmuring soft words.
Pools of blood marred the floor around the bed, and a long tube dangled from the man’s limp arm. Blood trickled slowly out of the loose end of it. The bed—little more than a small cot, really—was set into a recess in the wall, with a shelf along the back, lit from beneath and casting eerie illumination down on the scene.
Ked stayed in the dark corner, mesmerized by the sight of her. She was every bit as beautiful as her pictur
e, but mussed and naked now. Her long hair hung in messy tangles around her shoulders, almost covering her small breasts. The man’s arms were wrapped around her hips, his head turned to one side, his cheek resting on her thighs. His skin was as pale and smooth as marble, and he was completely, utterly still.
Tears streamed over her cheeks unchecked. The words she’d been murmuring became a low, haunting melody in an ancient language Ked understood. He sank down to the floor and closed his eyes, entranced by the song that reminded him so much of the day he’d rescued his sister from the same kind of ordeal. He had no tears today, though he might have if he’d been corporeal. All he had was anguish and regret about all the things he’d done wrong in failing to see how dangerous his sister’s lover was.
He closed his eyes and let Evie’s song sink into him, owning the ache that had so long been a part of him yet had remained unrecognized. His failure as a brother in spite of his power as a leader.
In that old language, Evie sang about love so deep it went through you and wrapped around again, binding you tightly to the other person. Then she sang about how deep the loss was when half of your soul died and that binding disappeared, leaving you too weightless to exist, like gravity had suddenly been turned off and you had no way to maintain purchase on the earth.
That made Ked’s heart stop. He’d been weightless his entire life, except for that one brief moment before he’d killed the female Elite. He wanted solid ground, but he feared it, too. Dragons were meant to be airborne. Yet they had legs, and human forms.
He remained still for another moment, waiting for a lull in her song when he could take action. He needed a moment to catch his breath after his revelations.
The singing stopped.
“I know you’re there. Show yourself, please. And tell me it’s not crazy that I lose one true love and find another in the same night.”