by Marie Hall
“You’ve got to come. We’ll get him back, but you’ve got to come. Now!” Hunter snapped.
Time slowed, so that she became aware of every minute detail. The Lord—a frightening hulk of a man—began to turn.
Synnergy was clinging to Hunter’s arms, barely hanging onto her sanity. Her fear was a palpable stench to Sable’s sensitive nose. She didn’t want to leave Slayde.
A wave of men entered through a side opening, diverting the Lord’s attention for a moment.
She tried to jerk her arm out of Hunter’s vice grip, but it was impossible. Slayde’s thick hair splayed around his swollen face like a bloody halo. She gulped, this couldn’t have happened. How had this happened? Slayde was so strong, so powerful.
“Come, damn you!” Hunter snarled, and with a swipe of his hand opened a portal, nearly pulling her arm out of socket as he yanked her through.
She didn’t feel the jump, she was so pissed. The second they landed she shoved him. “How could you leave him! How could you?”
“Sable,” he started, but she didn’t hear him.
“I hate you. We could have saved him. I hate you, Hunter!”
“Shut up!” A hand flashed out and slapped her hard across the cheek. The burn instantly brought tears to her eyes. She grabbed her stinging flesh, gazing accusingly at Synnergy who was panting with barely suppressed rage. “Don’t you see he tried to save your sorry ass? You stupid b—”
“Stop,” Hunter barked, placing one hand against Sable’s chest and the other against Synnergy’s. He needn’t have bothered. The slap had taken all the steam out of her. She wasn’t angry so much as heart sick and desperate to get Slayde back.
“Hunter,” she moaned, tears spilled unchecked down her cheeks. “We can’t leave him.”
He grabbed her face, his gaze searching, conveying silently the depth of his sincerity. “We will, Sable. I swear to you we will. But not now. We can’t. There were too many guards, not to mention a Lord that had fed on Slayde’s energy. He was beyond any of us at that moment.”
Arianna frowned, stared at Hunter and her with hurt filled eyes. She turned and walked off to another part of their tree. He’d transported them back to where they’d started.
Sable grabbed his fingers and squeezed them hard. Her heart began to find a more normal rhythm as she asked, “when?”
“Tomorrow, during the harvest sacrifice.”
In her head popped an image of Slayde—face completely swollen and unrecognizable—lying broken and bloody with his stomach sliced open revealing the meat beneath. Hunter must have sensed her panic because he shook his head.
“We won’t let anything happen to him, I swear. But the Lord won’t be quite as powerful.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
She knew he was lying to her. There was a very real chance they wouldn’t get Slayde back alive. The violence of the Lord, the horror of seeing something that looked so weak, rip into Slayde as if he were nothing more than a piece of rotting meat. She shuddered. Hunter was trying to give her hope. But she knew. How would any of them stand a chance against something like that?
“Your voice,” he said softly as if reading her mind. “Use your voice. He absorbs power and throws it back, we’d all be useless against that, but your voice scrambles the brain waves nullifying his ability to absorb it and then you strike.”
Whether he lied or not, didn’t matter. There was nothing else. Either it would work or it wouldn’t. “It had to be me all along, didn’t it?”
He was quiet for a long moment, before finally nodding. “Eric was a fool to do what he did.”
She hissed, fingers curving like claws by her side.
Hunter held up his hand. “I don’t care if you don’t want to hear it, it’s the truth. No one else could have defeated that Lord but you. If he’d stayed with us, he would have known that.”
“Why did he go? Why?” she practically wailed, panic lay like bile on her tongue.
Muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching, Hunter finally shook his head. “Slayde’s is a mind I’ve never been able to understand. But if I had to guess, I’d say he wanted to save you.”
“Save me?” she hiccupped, swiping angrily at the tears rolling out of her eyes.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. It’s done. Get some sleep, Sable. The Lord won’t look for us, he’ll know the only way Slayde got there was through a time jumper, he’ll believe I carted us off well beyond his reach.” He seemed about to say something else, but patted her head instead and walked off.
There would be no sleep for her. She had to get him back. She didn’t understand her desperate desire to do so, and honestly she didn’t care. Past, present, future... Slayde was all those things for her and she’d do anything to get him back. Period.
***
The next morning all three of them were awake, waiting on the very edge of the jungle, and watching the slow moving procession of bodies walking up the blood stained steps of the sacrificial pyramid.
Chanting, wailing, screaming, and moaning was a chaotic cacophony of noise Sable could barely process. Where the hell was Slayde? Her question beat in tandem to the frantic pounding of her heart. Her tongue felt swollen and void of moisture.
They couldn’t be spotted, not until they were ready to ride in and swoop him up. She hung like a monkey in a tree, with none of the grace. Her arms trembled as a strong gust of wind threatened to knock her from her precarious perch. But she wouldn’t move, because this was the only spot that gave her an unobstructed view of the Lord and his kills.
The people were gathered in a tight cluster, throwing their hands up with the hungry cries of blood lust each time the Lord—looking pitifully frail again—lifted his bloody blade and kicked yet another headless corpse down the long flight of stairs. It was macabre the way the limbs floated up through the air and then slapped against the rocks as it rolled steadily down the steps.
It seemed like the blood bath would never end. What was even more sick was the smile’s on the faces of the sacrificial lambs. They looked like they felt honored by this.
Her stomach soured, hating the idiotic cruelty of it. They were like cows led to slaughter, not even needing guards to lift them up onto the killing stone. They lay with arms bound in ropes upon their chests. Eyes staring at the burning sun as their priest lifted his knife and plunged it deep into their still beating hearts. Each death was the same.
Down they lay. Priest stabbing the heart. A jerk. A spasm. Bowels evacuating. Cutting out the heart and jerking it high above his head as blood ran between his slippery fingers. Then he’d throw the heart down to the waiting eager fingers of the masses. Behead them and kick them away, only to do it over again and again.
His eyes glowed.
She wondered if the people knew their high priest was more than human. But the way they were screaming and dancing and war whooping, she doubted they cared. Their freneticism and the sickly metallic scent of old and fresh blood whipped an already crazed crowd into an unstoppable force of fanaticism. All that mattered was appeasing the gods.
After the first ten victims, she started to think that maybe she was becoming immune to all the carnage, but then they laid a baby down. Her fire rushed to the surface so quick it caused the leaves above her to start smoking.
Hunter clamped down on her arms seconds before she changed. Her change was so close she sizzled.
“Sable, you must calm yourself.”
“How dare you!”
They were high enough up no one would hear, but at the moment she wouldn’t have cared if they had.
“That’s a child. I thought we were the good guys, Hunter? Why aren’t we stopping this? Why aren’t you?” She knew none of this was his fault, but she was beyond fury.
Panic and fear had such a death grip on her heart she felt she was going to incinerate the world around her. How could Slayde have been so stupid? Why hadn’t she seen him yet?
Why? Why? W
hy?
“Just a little longer, Sable. These things never last more than an hour. They’ll bring him out soon and when they do, we’ll take him. I swear.”
Her nostrils flared. “The baby...”
He shook his head. A tiny squeal was forever silenced by the cruel slash of a knife. She didn’t glance up. Couldn’t bring herself to see what she knew had just happened.
“There are some things, Sable, that cannot be changed.”
His words were filled with such anguish she knew he spoke from personal experience. She bit her bottom lip. No one should ever have to suffer like this. No one. “It was only a baby,” she whispered, all her fire gone.
Synnergy was huddled into herself, arms wrapped tight around her body. Quiet sobs wracked her frame.
“I know.”
A loud roar of sound different than the others caused all the fine hairs on the nape of her neck to stand up.
It was him.
She looked and breathed a loud sobbing sigh of relief.
Slayde’s face was jacked up. His eyes sealed shut, the skin puffy and blackish blue. It was almost hard to believe it was really him, but for the auburn hair and mud encrusted skin. Her veins buzzed with anxious exhilaration.
Then she saw his arm and her heart plummeted. His left arm was gone below the elbow. It was a bloody stump wrapped in disgusting brown cloth. She gasped, unable to believe they’d taken his arm.
She choked on a scream, wanting desperately to kill them all. To hurt them the way they’d hurt her.
“Let me go!” Slayde roared, and though he only had one useable arm, he was still throwing the guards around. His face was ashen, his steps uncertain. Where he found the strength she had no idea. There was more to Slayde than she’d ever known and Sable’s heart swelled with pride.
The priest’s filed teeth were tipped in a lecherous smile. He extended his sun browned hand and gripped the scruff of Slayde’s shirt.
Slayde’s head thudded against the stone with the sound of a hammer striking a watermelon. Sable saw red. Literally. Her vision turned a deep crimson hue. She’d never experienced this before. Her fire was instantaneous and hot. She screamed, vaguely aware of the hundreds of eyes that looked up in horror a split second before those closest to her tree began to drop and writhe.
“Control yourself, Sable!” Hunter attempted to grab her again. She shoved him away from her as hard as she could and then jumped, shifting midair seamlessly.
Bodies slammed into each other in their chaos to escape the terror of the feral bird bearing down on them.
The Lord glared at her, and as if he sensed he had only seconds, he plunged the knife into Slayde.
She shrieked, the booming sound reverberated like thunder clap. The Lord released the hilt of the knife and dropped to his knees, slamming his hands to his ears. But she didn’t relent. Her lungs were large and full of air. Sable screamed to the heavens with every ounce of rage she possessed. Adrenaline coursed through her veins when the Lord dropped to the ground like a stone. Blood seeped from the corners of his eyes, out his nose, even from his ears.
When she reached Slayde she noticed immediately how still and white he was. His chest was painted scarlet and blood pooled around his body. It would be so easy to end the Lord. Drive her talon through his chest exactly as he’d driven his knife through the others. But if she did, she wouldn’t stop until she’d shredded him to ribbons. Her rage wouldn’t let her leave until she’d exacted her revenge.
But it was either kill him, or save Slayde.
Slayde had minutes judging by the sluggish beating of his heart. When the Lord had driven the knife through him it hadn’t been a direct blow to the chest, but she heard the flat tone of his heart, the knife had very probably knicked it, which meant he was hemorrhaging from the inside. The only chance he had was to get to Synnergy as quickly as possible, she only prayed their healer was as good as Hunter said she was.
There was no choice.
She shrieked at the huddled body that suddenly looked less supernatural and more human, while simultaneously drawing Slayde into the folds of her wings. But unlike before when he could hold her back, now he was nothing but dead weight. Brain screaming at the thought of causing him anymore pain but knowing she had no choice because she couldn’t keep a tight enough grip on him with just her wings, she dug her talons deep into his shoulders, flooded with relief when he shuddered.
Trying not to hurt him worse than she needed to, she flew as fast as she could back to the tree.
Hunter gesticulated to her wildly, a shimmering blue portal was open before him. She didn’t stop to agonize over the fact that she hated time jumping, all she knew was Slayde’s blood leaked out slower and slower and his breaths were getting weaker and weaker. Soon she’d lose him completely.
She dived into the portal, the wailing sounds of screams and rancid stench of blood faded into the oblivion of a time long forgotten.
Chapter 6: The end is bitter, but rejoice...for there will be joy in the morning
Dragden, ruler of the New World, victor of the final battle—defeat shining in the eyes of his enemies as they died one by one—stared silent out the large window of his chamber. A memory that had always made him smile. Until today. Today bitterness was his friend. Sorrow his lament.
The war had aged him. No longer the virile man he once was, his back was bent by arthritis. His skin was soft and sloughing off in thick wrinkled waves. He closed his eyes for a brief moment. The God sleep couldn’t come soon enough. His immortality came with a price. The reaper always got his due.
He sighed, the sound echoed distant and loud in his glass chamber. The barren landscape he’d claimed as his prize spread out as far as his eye could see. The sky was a sickly shade of pale taupe, the red sun a large circle, garish in color compared to the muted shades of death. The land was charred, trees barely more than skeletal structures pointed gnarled brittle fingers towards the heavens. A strong breeze would snap what few yellowed leaves remained. The only animals to survive the final nuclear holocaust of war were reptiles and cockroaches. And soon they’d eat each other and die out. There’d be nothing left.
This was his prize. What he’d fought over two centuries for. They’d killed the land. The people. The animals. There was nothing of value left. The earth was angry, splitting open from fissures deep in the ground full of molten lava. He snorted, touching the thick pane of glass. It was a hollow victory.
The prize didn’t live up to the dream. In retrospect it was accomplishing his goal, the middle of his journey, that he’d truly enjoyed most.
Had he played God? She’d accused him of that right before he’d shoved the sword through her belly, spilling out her intestines. Her dove gray eyes liquid with pain as she’d found strength from deep within to whisper one last word of hate in his ear. He’d held her, cried over her. He’d loved her. All his life he’d been fascinated by the thought of creating a race of people both man and beast. He’d worked a serum that had almost accomplished it, but with a few imperfections.
Sometimes a man who could only speak as a beast. Other times there was a beast, with the pitiful strength of a man. And for some, the man and beast could not co-exist at all, and all that remained was madness.
When the magic had imbued the land and people there’d been a few ‘natural’ hybrids, but none as perfect as his little bird. His ideal of a perfect hybrid was one who could switch from human to animal, keeping the intellect and strength intact through each transition. If he’d been able to create such a one, she’d have been it.
His vision. His greatest feat. But she wasn’t his creation, and he envied that. Loved it. Maybe even resented it a little. But he’d learned different ways to harness her powers to suit his needs. In the end, he’d made her his.
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool pane, remembering her touch. Her hands sliding up his thighs, down his back. Her chaos, her fierceness, her desperation to escape in the end—his pulse quickened
—he thought, maybe... he missed it.
Was it possible? There was an ache, an emptiness inside him. For so long he’d been so driven, with one purpose, one goal in mind, but now that he had it, he no longer knew what to do with it. There was no one to enjoy it with. His amry feared him, his monster had lost its mind, no longer recognizing its maker. He was alone, in a palace made of glass. Alone with his thoughts. His paranoia. His secret fear that maybe he’d been wrong.
Maybe...
Maybe...
If he had to do it over again, would he? Would he kill her? Them? Was it possible that he was now realizing the error of his ways? Could a leopard change its spots?
“Sir!” A deep-throated voice, rumbling with the heavy strains of human and beast, snapped him from his melancholy.
Dragden turned on his heel.
The sentry entered on soft leather shoes that strapped up the thick muscles of his calves. His short tunic was a chaotic hue of colors, deep purples and rusty reds, burnished gold and deepest azure. The land did not sing with life, so their clothes must. From the neck down he was a virile man of twenty some odd years. But the words did not fall from the lips of a man. They came from between the heavy folds of a shaggy bull’s mouth. Large rounded tusks pierced through the top of his head. Patros was a proud Minotaur. One of his better creations, and captain of his guard.
The moment Patros entered his chamber, Dragden straightened his stance. No longer did a frail man bent in half by age stand there, but the ruthless leader of the new world army. He lifted his head. His face became cold, cruel—chiseled from steel and ice.
Dragden marched to his throne and sat. Never one to let an enemy see his weakness, knowing if he ever did, that’s when they’d kill him. And he knew, they would. They all hated him. Feared him. As they should.
“What?” he snarled as he relaxed on his throne. His arms rested on the carved golden heads of the lions. But it was merely a façade, at any moment he could leap into action, ripping Patros’ head from his body with very little effort should he feel the need. Old he might be, but he was still powerful. And the Minotaur knew it.