Pure Requiem

by Aja James

  “Is the child Benji?”

  I stumble a step back in shock. How did she know?!

  “W-What?”

  “It’s obvious to anyone who sees you together. He has a lot of the same expressions you have, and his blue eyes are the same shape, with the same thicket of long, enviable lashes. His mouth too, looks like yours, and his nose. When he grows up into a man, I bet his jawline will match yours too. Sometimes, when you sit or stand together, you have the same posture and reactions.”

  “You-you—”

  I want to say she’s stupid. Dreaming. Imagining things. But the words get stuck in my throat. I can’t deny the only untainted truth in my existence.

  I can’t.

  And I don’t want to.

  I’m indescribably relieved that someone else knows my secret. That I can finally share this terrifying, exhilarating, unfathomable love I have for that precocious boy.

  “Sophia knows too,” she lobs another bomb at my feet. “We figured it out together.”

  Since when are Liv and Sophia BFFs? What hell am I living in now? That the only two friends I had across my entire existence should find each other and band against me? (I don’t count Dalair. He’s my brother. He’s more than just a friend).

  “We didn’t know the hows,” Liv continues, “but we could see the connection when we looked at you two together. You have an affinity to Benji, and vice versa, that neither of you have with anyone else. He doesn’t even have that with Inanna and Gabriel. It’s like you share the same soul.”

  Gods forbid!

  “That’s complete rubbish,” I immediately declare. “That boy has the most sainted, innocent, beautiful soul of anyone in the world. I have the exact opposite. My soul is as black as shit-filled tar.”

  She scrunches up her nose unattractively.

  “Thanks for that lovely image. Shit-filled tar is less than black, you know. Brown and black make dark brown.”

  I roll my eyes toward the ceiling in a silent prayer for sanity.

  “Anyway, Sophia says that your soul has many colors, endlessly fascinating. Changing. That is her Gift, after all, the ability to see Pure souls. I take her word for it. She says she’s seen your Pure soul from the very beginning, even when you were Ere, her teaching assistant. Even when you were the Creature and Binu.”

  “That’s just…that’s…”

  I flail for words as my knees give out from the shock of these revelations, and I park my ass back down on the bench.

  “You do have darkness and shadows in your soul, she says,” Liv goes on, unrelenting. “And Benji’s is entirely light. Blindingly bright. But don’t you think that light in darkness is even more beautiful? Like the Aurora Borealis. That’s why you’re An-Nisi to me. I see it too, this gorgeous darkness and light inside you. Even though I can’t see souls, I see it in your blue-green eyes.”

  “I don’t appreciate you two gossiping about me behind my back,” I mutter, just for the sake of bitching.

  “Okay. Next time we’ll do it to your face,” she concedes.

  I lash out a hand suddenly to grab her by the upper arm.

  “You can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret. I don’t want Benjamin to know. Or his parents. His real family.”

  “But why—”

  “Promise!”

  I clutch her arm tightly, hard enough to make her wince. There will be bruises for days in her skin.

  “I promise,” she states solemnly. “It’s your secret to share or keep.”

  We both sit back on the bench, against the wall, soaking in the steam of the sauna to calm ourselves down.

  At least, that’s what I’m doing. My heart is galloping like wild horses. My chest heaves up and down as if I’ve run a marathon.

  “So… do you still hate me?” she asks tentatively.

  “Yes,” I say unequivocally.

  “But we’re still friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “So… frenemies then?”

  “Let’s not label it.”

  “You’re a lot meaner than you were before,” she notes without judgment. It almost sounds like a compliment, actually.

  “And you’re still strange-looking with owlish eyes.”

  “But I have a gorgeous girlfriend at home,” she brags.

  “Bring her around. I’m sure when she takes a gander at me, I’ll cure her of her infatuation with you,” I bait.

  “That’s probably true,” she surprises me by readily admitting. “You have the kind of beauty that attracts every sex and every Kind.”

  “Yes, I’m the world’s foremost fuck magnet. Yet another winning quality I can own.”

  “You’re wrong about that, An-Nisi. It’s not just your outer beauty that attracts people. It’s you,” she insists.

  “If you say so.”

  I don’t have the strength to argue further. I’ll let her have her delusions.

  “I do.”

  Must she always have the last word?

  “We should get out of here before we melt into a puddle of goo,” I note.

  “Better than a puddle of poo,” she retorts.

  “Har har.”

  “Or a pile of doodoo.”

  “You’re such a brat.”

  “A brat who loves you.”

  “Stop that annoying rhyming,” I bark, though her words fill me with reluctant warmth.

  “Only for you, babyboo.”

  “I mean it!”

  Snickering at my aggravation, she shakes her head at me.

  Yeah, yeah, I’m easy to rile. She hasn’t lost her touch.

  My lips twitch traitorously with humor and affection.

  “Come on,” she says, rising from the bench. “Cloud and Rain are giving Benji and Isolde watercolor and Chinese calligraphy lessons. I’ll take you to them. Then, I gotta head out. Hot date with my girl in an hour.”

  And so, Liv deposits me in a large craft and arts space adjacent to the Shield’s library before leaving me to my own devices. It’s the same place where Benjamin always goes to draw and practice whittling and carving with Tal.

  As Liv described, my buttery-blond boy is currently busy at work with watercolors, sitting on a tall stool, hunched over the long wooden crafts table, while Rain weaves one of her silk paintings at one end of the table, and Cloud writes Chinese calligraphy with a gigantic brush at the other end. The little girl Isolde, Tristan and Ayelet’s daughter, is making a mess across the table from Benjamin, mixing the paints with her bare hands and smacking them onto a large piece of paper.

  I clear my throat to announce my presence, though I’m sure the well-trained Elite warrior knew I was here even before I arrived.

  Benjamin whirls to face me on the swivel stool, his eyes alight with happy surprise.

  “Ere! You’re just in time! We can practice our paints together!”

  I resist the urge to stick my finger in my ear to clear it out. That boy has a disproportionately booming voice for so small a body, and he only has three volume levels: loud, louder, and loudest.

  “Indeed,” I calmly acknowledge. “How do I get started?”

  Even before I finish asking the question, Rain has already spread a new sheet of sturdy watercolor paper on the table next to Benjamin’s. She places a few brushes and other implements on the side.

  “Do you like to paint, Ere?” she asks in that dulcet, slightly accented voice.

  Really, the Pure Ones’ healer is everything gracious and sweet, but she still creeps me out with that pale kabuki doll face and knee-length silvery white hair that floats around her as if she’s perpetually surrounded by her own bubble of water.

  Too, that hair has a life of its own. I know this intimately. It used to be my prison. Even when cut from the source—her head—the damn things retain some kind of sentience, enough that they still obey her will. Which was to make sure I didn’t get into any trouble when I first arrived at the Shield, by binding my hands and feet.

  Shudder.

  I don’t know wha
t the Protector sees in her.

  But what do I know. I’m hardly an expert on attraction and sex.

  “I dabble,” I reply with a shrug.

  Truth to tell, I enjoy everything artistic, creative and literary. I love singing in the shower, in my underground karaoke bar that I had before the Pure Ones’ invasion a few years ago closed up that hidey-hole.

  I love romance books, especially the historical ones. They make me laugh, and occasionally tear up (though I won’t ever admit it, even on pain of death). I love long-haired kittens and angora rabbits, though of course I’ve never had any pets.

  If I did, Medusa would undoubtedly find them, torture them, and kill them before my eyes. Can’t expose any weaknesses where that she-devil is concerned.

  I love baked desserts, especially those made by Mama Bear, otherwise known as Ishtar in her old-woman form at Dark Dreams. I have an unlimited supply to her cooking now. It’s helped to fatten me up a little.

  I think if I could start all over, I might in fact become what my alter ego Ere was—a college professor of ancient history. Maybe I’ll write novels, paint and sculpt on the side. That sounds like a beautiful, simple, heavenly life.

  A fine fiction.

  If only…

  I pick up a brush and dip it in water, then dab it in some indigo blue paint, followed by a little chartreuse green. I have in mind to paint Liv a blue-green heaven. I never repaid her for her kindness and friendship…before it all fell apart. Little does she know that she was my slice of heaven in an endless existence of loneliness and pain.

  But it didn’t last. It never does.

  I paint the beginnings of a tranquil pool dotted with lily pads and white and pink lilies. There’s a bridge arching over the water, and weeping willows swaying in the breeze.

  And on the bridge there’s a gigantic dragonfly with bulging green eyes that stare directly into mine—

  The fuck?!

  “Ack!” I screech like a frightened little girl, before taking off my slipper and slamming it down on the still wet sheet of paper.

  “No! What are you doing, Ere!” Benjamin cries, rushing to hold my arm aloft with both of his hands around my wrist.

  “Don’t kill it! It’s just a harmless dragonfly!”

  “It’s an ugly insect!” I retort, trying to see around Benjamin’s small form if I managed to squash it dead on the first try.

  “Dragonflies are good luck! They’re not ugly! And look, this one is especially pretty. I’ve never seen one with a white pearlescent body before. And those wings look like they’re made of opals, see how they shimmer!”

  “You’re an expert on dragonflies now?” I mutter.

  It figures. Not only did I not have good aim, but also that Benjamin would protect the overgrown bug from another attempt to flatten it.

  The precocious boy ignores me.

  “I wonder where it came from,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe it followed Tal and Ishtar into the building from the terrace garden. But you never see dragonflies in New York City. And look, Ere! It really likes your painting.”

  The disgusting insect flutters its spider-web wings as it perches on top of one of the lilies I painted. Then, it has the audacity to take flight and come right at me.

  “Ack!” I screech again as it rams its tiny body right between my eyes, as if it was taking revenge for my slipper hit.

  I swat at it like a maniac, slapping my own face in panic.

  “Don’t!” Benjamin shouts, coming to the damn thing’s rescue again. “It’s just being friendly!”

  My ass!

  The fucking insect has a vendetta against me or something, because it’s buzzing around my ears now, and then it lands in my long hair.

  That’s when I scream bloody murder and run around the crafts table like a lunatic.

  “Get it out, get it out!”

  “Don’t hurt it!” Benjamin yells, chasing after me.

  “Get it out, get it out!”

  “Stay still!”

  Involuntarily, I obey. Mainly because I run smack into a stone wall of a chest.

  Cloud Drako stares frighteningly into my eyes when I’ve gained my bearings enough to look back. Those pale blue wolf-like eyes are extremely disconcerting. Especially since staring into them is making me feel disoriented and dizzy. But strangely calm at the same time.

  What was I going on about again?

  Something stirs in the hair at my crown.

  Cloud’s eyes shift to the top of my head.

  I roll my eyes upward as well, but of course I can’t see a damned thing.

  There’s that strange buzzing noise again, and more fluttering in my hair.

  “Stop playing games, little cousin,” the warrior says beneath his breath.

  What now? Little cousin?

  Bewildered, I look around.

  There’s Rain, staring at me like I’ve lost my mind, while also trying not to laugh. There’s Isolde, who has paint all over her face and clothes, bouncing on her stool excitedly. There’s Benjamin, who looks at me with breath held, as if he expects me to do something bad.

  No one looking like a potential little cousin to Cloud Drako to be found.

  “Come down from there. He can’t be the one,” the Valiant keeps speaking to the top of my head.

  Eh? Who can’t be what?

  Something wiggles and shifts in my hair. I am both disgusted and sleepy at the same time. The first feeling is natural; the second is induced. Together, I feel extremely nauseous. I want to puke.

  The thing flitters away, only to land on Benjamin’s extended hand, balancing on his finger like a translucent bow.

  Cloud sucks in an audible breath.

  What now?

  “Make up your mind, little cousin. There can only be one.”

  One what? What the fuck is going on here!

  The confounded insect flutters off of Benjamin’s hand to perch on his shoulder instead, twitching its wings and making strange insect noises as if talking up a storm back at the frowning warrior.

  And then, just like that, it simply disappears.

  I kid you not. One moment the bug was there, and the next it was gone. All I did was blink.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Rain muses, her voice considering.

  “You have no idea,” Cloud murmurs ominously.

  “Everyone saw the dragonfly, right?” Benjamin chirps. “Where did it go?”

  “Dagonfy!” Isolde echoes, clapping her chubby hands. “Fy! Fy!”

  “We must have imagined it,” Cloud says in that hypnotically deep, soothing voice.

  He stares at each of us in turn, looking directly into our eyes.

  Right.

  I guess I imagined it.

  I don’t even remember what “it” was.

  But there’s a bug shaped splotch in my watercolor painting that definitely wasn’t there before.

  Chapter Eleven: I Could Live Inside You Time After Time

  *TAL*

  I’ve been training with Cloud and Valerius nonstop, everyday, since the first time I challenged them to one-on-one combat.

  Since the day I volunteered to take up the laser-sword that could help us defeat Medusa in her evolved, monster form.

  Ishtar, true to her word, insisted that I practice sparring with her Great White Beast. I have claw and bite marks daily from the exertions, but I never back down.

  Sometimes, I take on Inanna and Gabriel at the same time. My daughter is also a distance fighter with her chained whip, but when she is with her Mate, they fight together as one, lethal in close quartered combat.

  With every battle, I grow stronger; I can anticipate my opponents better. They have all commented on how much faster I seem to move, how much stronger. But it’s not that. It’s that I am always in position to deflect or execute a strike because I always know where my opponents will be before they know it themselves.

  This morning, I stepped up the routine a notch further by inviting Tristan, Aella, Adam and Liv to
join in the fray as well, all at the same time with the rest of the Elite warriors and my Mate surrounding me and attacking from all sides.

  I held my own. Much better than I would have before I lost my sight.

  With so much action, so many movements from all directions, it would have been too much to track with eyes. I would have had to depend on my other senses and instincts anyway. Now, without my sight, it’s as if I can “see” even better. I feel and anticipate the battle rather than react to it. I’ve never felt so alive, so powerful.

  At the end of the mock battle, when there’s a temporary stalemate, I tighten my fists, throw my head back and roar with victory.

  Nine against one.

  Even if it was only a minute, I held my own. Sixty seconds is all it takes sometimes to determine the outcome of a battle, to win a war. Five of my opponents are down for the count, groaning with their wounds. But I remain standing, scathed and bleeding but strong enough to keep fighting.

  “Damn, General,” Tristan grunts from ten feet behind me, still sprawled on the ground where I left him, “what did you have for breakfast? Those were some freakin’ cool moves! Sign me up for lessons.”

  I turn toward him to answer, but suddenly brace myself a moment before a thirty-pound snow leopard kitten launches itself at my chest.

  My arms automatically close around Ishtar in kitten form as she enthusiastically licks me all over my face and neck with her raspy tongue, making me chuckle.

  After a few moments, she changes back into her Dark One form, and the second she does, it is I who dives in for a thorough, tongue-filled kiss that lasts much longer than a few moments.

  Whistles, cheers and clapping erupt around us from the other warriors, but I pay them no mind. I’m a warrior pumped up from the adrenaline of battle. I am strong enough to protect my loved ones, and I proved it.

  Most of all, I am a male who is hard and aching for his Mate, and I don’t care who’s watching while I Claim her.

  Right fucking now.

  I don’t release her or stop kissing her, but somehow, the two of us make our way to our private apartment from the training hall. We might have slammed into a few walls and doors along the way, but what’s a couple more bruises after a productive, “whoop-ass” day.