The Black Prince (Shadow Unit Book 5)

by Tigris Eden

  “Have you heard of the Recommence?” Gregor asked.

  “Have you heard of shut the fuck up?” Enri tossed back.

  The look on Gregor’s face was beyond priceless; it even gave the term Kodak moment a run for its money. He’d heard of the so-called Recommence, but it wouldn’t be by his hand or anyone else. Who would want to be the one to unleash Eremiel and all his fucked up siblings? And mortals were afraid of the Four Horsemen. Eremiel, although he was the Angel of Unveiling, failed to mention what his Unveiling entailed. The Recommence would bring forth the one known as Chaos. No one had seen or heard from him since the onset of creation. But no one knew what it meant to unleash said entity. Would it be good? Bad? Did it matter?

  “You’re not ready to hear what I have to say.”

  Enri shrugged his shoulders, the chains tugging at his limbs.

  “Not particularly, no.”

  Gregor turned to leave with Z following behind.

  Alone again. Just the way he liked it. The food on the ground made his stomach roll. How long had it been since he’d eaten something decent? He didn’t require sustenance, but he loved the taste. Food, when done right, had a way of transporting a person into a place of fond memories. What he’d really like was a rare—no, a bloody steak. Something he could sink his fangs into and shred. That’s what he needed.

  Instead of getting what he wanted, he fantasized.

  In his dream, he was formless in a vast sea of darkness where no light entered. Where even the air itself seemed frozen in place. But a swift breeze picked up, howling into the vast void of nothingness. Enri found if he listened hard enough, he could hear it speaking to him.

  “You are no son of Hades,” the voice whispered. “You are son to no known form of this world. You are endless.”

  Endless?

  “Yesssss, endless,” the wind uttered against his ear.

  “Whose son am I, then?” Enri asked. His conscious mind was the only thing tangible where he drifted in a weightless environment. Yet, still, he felt powerful. Unwavering.

  “You are the son of Darkness and Light. You are Chaos.”

  “Right. And Santa Claus is really Loki. Try again.”

  A harsh flurry barreled through the space Enri occupied. It lifted him clear off the floor before slamming him back down.

  Now, he was awake.

  And pissed.

  The chains were burning his skin raw. He’d begun to heal, but every time he got an ounce of relief, the fire would return. The pain annoyed him. Because his ass hurt, as well, from sitting on the wet concrete.

  “You shall not mock me,” a voice in the corner said.

  “Show yourself and then we can talk.”

  “There is nothing of me to show. I have no form. I choose no form. I am Sound.”

  “If you are Sound, does that mean there is a Door, a Floor, and an Arm?”

  “Do. Not. Mock. Me.” The voice repeated.

  He hadn’t been locked up long enough to have gone crazy. Had he? Even if he had been out of commission for a while, it had only been a matter of days. Maybe just hours. Not years.

  “All right, Sound, if I am the son of Darkness and Light, why do I have a form?”

  “The form was the only way Hades could accept you into his home. A formless soul is not a soul at all.”

  “Indeed.” The sarcasm was thick in his tone.

  Sound was not making any sense to him. At all.

  “You are the Black Prince.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Your birthright is to sit at the helm of Creation.”

  “Sound,”—he didn’t know how else to address it, as it had no male or female attributes to its voice, “last time I checked, Hades didn’t create anything at all. Just made things a little more uncomfortable in his jail of a home.”

  “You are not smart, Chaos.”

  “I’m beyond smart. I also encourage all forms of chaos.”

  “You don’t encourage, you are Chaos.”

  “Right, I get that. I make trouble. Listen, you’re not telling me anything new.”

  Sound shifted, the force of its voice disrupted the air and made it hard to breathe.

  “You are the son of Darkness and Light. You are to sit upon the Throne of Creation. Claim your birthright. Defeat your father.”

  “I find your overabundance of faith disturbing.”

  Two Months later.

  There was no real reason why she should stay, but Yewa continued to hear the voice in her head. The creature from her journey outside the keep’s walls spoke to her. Asked her to help. She wasn’t a person to turn away from a person in need. Even if it was him. He needs you, the voice said. She wasn’t clear on why he needed her—but if someone needed her, Yewa would help. Her calling gave her the tools required to assist those in need. She wouldn’t turn her back on anyone in need of assistance. She knew who the Black Prince was; she also knew where Gregor and the others kept him. Locked away in a crypt, given food left out for days. Omari had not understood her reasoning behind staying in Fion. You didn’t give him your true intention. She didn’t need to. Old enough to make her own decisions, and no longer anyone’s prisoner or captive, she could make her own choices. She wanted to help, do what others had not done for her during her time of need.

  Yewa needed to go to Enri and do what wasn’t done for her.

  He needed her, after all.

  Yewa enjoyed the journeys to the surface. She’d even befriended some of the strange yet beautiful creatures she encountered. She’d sailed upon the great blue ocean, although ignorant of its true inhabitants. It wasn’t a voyage she cared to remember, but the view she had now stole her breath. Stegis took her into the water, deep beneath the waves, allowing her to experience all their realm had to offer. In Fion, everything was different. Their sky was the ocean-—but within their own lands, there was another kind of place for them to gather for a swim where water and air acted as one. Yewa found the longer she stayed in Fion, the greater her lung capacity. She’d adapted.

  Everything inside was magnified while swimming in the oceans. She’d started off in the cleaning basin as she learned to get her footing. She’d swum with the sisters, Nareen, Aren, and Par. Even the basin teemed with life. Yewa could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. She could hear the sweet, soothing sounds of whale calls, and the hiss of the waves as they swept across the silken sand floor. A better life existed in Fion for her. The transition from captive to freewoman, smoother.

  Eventually, you must leave this place, a voice said to her.

  Yewa knew that. She was afraid, but with the fear came equal amounts of excitement. She felt ready to explore and make a place for herself in the world. Taea had gone topside with Jorunn, her brother’s mate, and had returned with something she called soul music. It came with a device emitting sounds pleasing to her ears. It made her hips move, and her heart race. Other kinds of music soothed and relaxed her. She’d even been given something called headphones. Phones. Funny things they were. But in Fion, things from the human realm didn’t always work the way they were meant to.

  “What are you doing, girl?”

  Yewa jumped at the sound of Caelian’s voice. His vibrant, green-gold eyes assessed her. She’d been walking, not sure of her direction, but found she was inside the courtyard.

  “I was just walking.”

  “You were just walking?” He said with a raised brow.

  She nodded. Caelian was the more unapproachable one, out of the three brothers. He wasn’t wearing his robes. He wore a pair of linen trousers with no shirt. The markings on his skin, bold. The ones on his face, faded when in a certain light—as if only visible when he wanted them to be.

  “Turn around and go back to Fion. You don’t belong here.”

  She most definitely did belong here. Enri was here.

  “I am needed here.”

  “Yewa, I’m not going to tell you again. You need to leave.” Caelian’s body vibrated with
strength. She knew he could overpower her. Knew they all viewed her as feeble. But no one realized she’d long ago come to terms with her strengths and her weaknesses. She’d endured so much pain she’d become numb on the inside and out. Nothing there but a shell of a woman. Someone who existed for the sole purpose of helping others. Yewa could live with that. She had the love of her brother, and that alone was enough to sustain her. She did not want or expect more.

  “Step aside, Caelian, and allow me to be of some help.”

  “Are you crazy? Did they have you locked up for so long you can no longer decipher between right, wrong, and plain crazy?”

  Head bowed, and voice above a whisper, Yewa answered, “Perhaps. But I will remain here until I’m given entrance to see Enri.”

  Caelian moved closer, but she didn’t cower. Bullying tactics would not work. His efforts, ineffective.

  “Woman, I said go!” the male roared.

  She stayed her ground. The sound of his voice seemed to carry up into the heavens. Loud enough that if any Orisha were listening, they’d hear.

  Gregor stepped out into the open courtyard, taking in the scene.

  “What are you doing, brother?” Gregor asked.

  “Trying to get this half-wit to leave. She’s like a lost dog. Do you think Enri enthralled her?”

  “She is neither enthralled nor half of mind. She simply wishes to help.”

  Caelian looked toward his brother with wide eyes.

  “You can’t mean to allow her to tend to him. He’s dangerous.”

  Gregor nodded.

  “He is that. But does she look scared? Or even concerned for her well-being?”

  Caelian tossed his hands up in frustration. Serves him right, Yewa thought. He merely delayed what she’d still end up doing either way. She would tend to Enri. He needed her, and if someone required her assistance, Yewa would see to them.

  “Fine, but if he has her for lunch, or attempts to take what is left of her, it will be your problem—not mine.”

  “We will take no responsibility for her. She is aware of what she wants to do. Is that not true, Yewa?”

  She looked at Gregor. The eldest brother, she could tell, from the lines at the corners of his eyes. The lackluster sheen of his black hair. Where the other brothers’ were a glossy black, his lacked health, a dull matte.

  “I understand what it is I’m doing. I only wish to help.”

  “Then help you shall,” Gregor said, turning towards the doors to the crypt. He nodded in Caelian’s direction, who snorted before walking past to leave her standing with Gregor.

  “I do not require any assistance. But thank you, anyway.”

  “Don’t thank me just yet. You may find you’ve bitten off way more than you can chew with Enri. He is untamable.”

  “I don’t mean to tame him. I mean to help him. In any way possible.”

  Chapter 2

  The voice no longer spoke to him. Something sullen, denser took up space in the crypt with him. It pulled at the corners of the darkness itself. Like a black hole, it sucked everything in. It took hold of the air and light—anything it could absorb, robbing Enri of his sight.

  “You will never defeat me. Never sit upon the Throne of Creation. Only I can.”

  If Enri could move his mouth, he would have laughed. He would have laughed so hard, he cry. The entity in the room with him did not take shape, but in a way, it became the room. Surrounding him on all sides. Swallowing the stale air of the room itself, and all its attributes. Nothing moved. What he experienced could only be categorized as emptiness. Emptiness manifested in the form of darkness.

  Who are you? Enri questioned inside his head. Surely, the thing in the room with him could read his mind.

  “I can do a lot more than that, boy.”

  Boy?

  “Would you prefer adolescent as humans like to say, or just immature? I quite like speaking words with you. You may talk out loud.”

  And just like that, air rushed into the voided space that kept him in chains. Sucking in a lungful of oxygen, Enri thought about the exchange between him and the entity. What did it want? Who was it?

  “Say the words out loud. It’s been far too long since I’ve spoken.”

  “The words.”

  “The words?” the voice repeated.

  “Yeah. You said to say it out loud. So I did.”

  “You’re not clever, nor are you original.”

  “Neither are you.”

  Fuck him and the emptiness he rode in on. Enri knew he was original. No others like him existed. He eclipsed all. Made waves upon waves of compounding problems, all because he could. He was trouble with a capital T, and everyone knew it. Apparently, except for the douche who remained unseen.

  “I am the original. Without me, there would be no you, no them. No anything. You would be just an idea, a thought. A theory.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say.”

  “That you’re full of shit?”

  “What?”

  Enri would have chuckled, but if he had, the chains wrapped around his neck would have constricted, burning him further. The last time he struggled to get free, he’d almost severed his head. He’d partially beheaded himself. Not a good way to be at all, and it had fucking taken forever for him to heal from the mishap.

  “You’re full of shit. That’s what.”

  Okay. That time, he did chuckle a little. He could only imagine whom he spoke with. He would have liked to see the being's face as he told him he was full of shit. Clearly, the presence in the room with him was not up to date on twenty-first century colloquialisms. The chain around Enri’s neck dug deeper into his skin. Grinding his back molars kept him from hissing in pain.

  “Pathetic. I must admit, I don’t see how you could even be a product of me. You’re all but useless trapped inside these walls.”

  “They won’t keep me here forever.”

  The entity in the room grew silent for long moments, but his presence still lingered. Enri could feel him. Before he could say another word, the door to the crypt burst open. The sound of bells advanced toward him, and a smell wafted in on the breeze. Mixed in with the scent of the sea came the aroma of roses and the night-blooming flower known as four o’clock. He’d not scented a combination quite like it…ever. It grew intense as the owner of the smell drew closer. Even the entity in the darkness took notice. Enri thought if the presence had taken the shape of a male, he would have stood straighter at the approach of the woman entering.

  Definitely female.

  One he’d been in the company of before.

  There was a note of anxiousness beneath the floral tones, and maybe even a bit of hesitation. More so, she held the distinct odor of determination. Yewa approached with no ill intent. She was timid. Shy. Malleable in her will. Already broken.

  “Why are you even here, child?” he spat.

  “You are in need.”

  In need? In need of what?

  “I don’t need anything from you.”

  He could see her clearly in the darkness. Her hair, braided down her back, resting at her waist. Her skin smooth, save for the many scars embedded in her lithe form. Yet she didn’t seem to mind showing them, dressed in a similar fashion as the Fionans but with a bit of a spin. Yewa’s dress hung loosely against her body, not tight and bound by leather. However, she did wear slave bands, which he thought odd.

  “Have you been enslaved yet again, Sundara?”

  Her voice came out a whisper when she responded. “Sundara?”

  “It is but a name you call one who’s been dimmed by abuse but can still manage to exude an exotic type of beauty.” A type that any other man would find endearing, and possibly attractive.

  “Oh.” Confusion colored her eyes.

  She reminded him of a pulsating star that once burned with life—a giant among giants—but after eons of shimmer, it becomes dwarfed…not so brilliant anymore. He could see her clearly. She was the walking dead with only
a kernel of light shining through. That tiny candescence could lure a man to his demise. Not me.

  He ignored her response and asked, “Why are you wearing slave bands?”

  Yewa lifted her hands and looked at her wrists. A small smile graced her lips. Another male might have called her smile pure poetry. Enri became annoyed by it.

  “These are not slave bands, they’re golden bracelets. A gift from Taea and her sisters. I wear them on my wrists and ankles because I enjoy the sound they make when I walk.”

  As if to demonstrate, she made a circuit around the room.

  Annoyed, Enri growled. “Why are you here?”

  “To serve you.”

  “To serve me?”

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  “Serve me how?”

  “I can bring you your meals. Wash your wounds. I can even heal them if you’ll allow me.”

  At that, he laughed, loud and long. The chain at his neck constricted, making him cough.

  Yewa didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Her eyes focused on him, giving Enri the impression she could see right through him. He didn’t like that. Not one bit.

  “Well, I don’t need a servant.”

  “But I will serve you all the same.”

  Stubborn chit.

  “What about your reunion with Dietrich? That’s all he ever wanted.”

  “We have been united. He is with his mate. In a place he calls Texas.”

  The wind picked up again, and this time, Enri knew it wasn’t the entity, but someone else. Sound. It stilled as it rested gently against his neck.

  “You should leave. I have company.”

  Yewa bowed her head and looked in the direction of the entity in the room with them. Could she sense its presence as he could? Maybe she could feel them both.

  “Shall I return on the morrow?”

  “On the morrow? Look Yewa, find a dictionary—better yet, try an urban dictionary. No one says on the morrow anymore. Now get the fuck out.” The people in this place really needed to hit the outside. Although, in her defense, she had been held captive by The Agency.

  Her eyes widened at the use of his language. Good. Maybe she wouldn’t come back.