by Tigris Eden
She knew she was asking a lot of Jorunn. Omari would not be okay with what she was requesting. But she was tired and her heart hurt, and the idea of facing her brother and his wrath was not something she could handle.
“Yewa, I love you. You are family now. If you’re not ready to face Dietrich, then yes, I have somewhere I can take you.”
“Thank you, Jorunn.”
“It’s just a thirty minute drive. We’ll be there before you know it.”
The car moved from the front of the Shadow Unit building and continued down the street.. When the car came to a stop, Yewa looked out the window and smiled. Stegis. She hadn’t seen him in a while. He stood by her door, smiling down on her with kind eyes.
“Lady Yewa, it is so good to see you again.”
He was always so formal with her.
“Stegis, it’s good to see you as well. How have you been? Staying out of trouble, I hope?”
His grin was infectious. “Now why would I do that?”
Yewa found herself smiling back. She needed the time to regroup and figure out what she wanted to do next. She couldn’t cry, found she had no more tears left. Not for herself, and not for Enri.
She turned to Jorunn, and nodded her head in gratitude.
“Follow Stegis up to my room. There’s plenty of clothes there, and you can shower if you’d like.”
She didn’t want to shower. If she did, she’d wash his scent away. But that was foolish talk. Maybe just for tonight. Yes, just for the night. Then tomorrow, she’d start figuring out what it was she wanted out of life.
“Thank you, Jorunn. I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will. You’re strong. I’ll come back to check on you in the morning.”
“It is morning,” Stegis said.
“It is?”
“Yes, it’s about nine. I’ve been keeping up. Weirdest thing this round-the-clock night. We think it has something to do with the Defiant Ones, although, they are still housed beneath the monastery. They’re stirring, but have yet to truly rise.”
This had nothing to do with the Defiant Ones, and everything to do with Aurora, Enri’s sister.
“No, this isn’t because of the Defiant Ones. It’s Aurora. Enri released her of her duties.”
“What do you mean?” Jo asked, as they took a seat inside the empty café.
“Aurora, she is—or was—the Goddess of the Dawn.”
“Eos is dawn,” Stegis supplied.
“Same difference.”
Jorunn’s eyes lowered and her forehead creased, as if she were deep in thought.
“How is that even possible?”
Yewa went on to explain how all the gods were really a set of gods who took on many different forms. They appeared to each culture differently. They didn’t have true forms. Because of their greed, Enri had made it so they couldn’t walk the Earth any longer, and banished them to other worlds he’d created.
“The best way to explain this is that Chaos is Enri, and Enri is the equivalent to whatever deity man or immortal has deemed necessary to call him. His sister, Aurora, was the dawn. She was the one that brought in the day, or dawn, as some would call it. Light is their mother, and I still haven’t figured out who she is. He has a brother too, but Enri’s only mentioned him once, and not by name. But I do know that Darkness and Light created Chaos, and that he was the one who created, or contained, the spark. Which is how life and all of this started.” She waved her hand out to encompass the entirety of them.
“This is all very confusing.” Stegis cursed low under his breath, and then quickly looked up with wide eyes at Yewa. “My lady, I’m sorry.”
She laughed. “Don’t be. Being around Enri, I’m quite immune to it now. I’ve even said a few, myself.”
That made the three of them erupt in laughter.
“What the fuck is so funny?”
Omari.
Jorunn stood, making her way over to him, her eyes pleading as she tried to hold him off.
“Yewa, what the hell? How long have you been hiding out here?”
“I never got the chance because you’re a nosy bastard.”
That brought him up short. “Did you just call me a nosy bastard?” He asked incredulously.
“I did. And don’t be mad at Jorunn, I asked her to bring me here.”
Her brother looked down at his mate and growled. “You brought her here? Why?”
“She needed time, Dietrich.”
“Time for what? I’ve been worried. She’s mated to that fucking monster, and you know I’ve been stressing Jo. You, of all people, know what I’ve been going through and instead of bringing her to me so I know she’s safe, you bring her here,” he yelled.
Jorunn placed a hand on Dietrich’s chest, and tried to calm him down. Yewa wasn’t ready to stand up to her brother just yet, but he wasn’t giving her much choice. She could see the anger in his eyes, and she didn’t want to be the cause for strife between her brother and his mate.
You are so much stronger than this.
She was.
“Stop it!” Yewa yelled. “You can’t protect me forever, Omari. I know you’re upset. I even understand why, but I’m an adult. You may not want to hear this right now, but I can and will take care of myself. I don’t need you breathing fire down my neck every time you think I need your help. If I need it, I’ll come to you and ask for it.”
Omari didn’t say anything. But as he studied her, his anger grew. His nostrils flared, and an animalistic growl burst from his lips. It only took him three strides to be in her face grabbing her chin and peering down into her eyes.
“Your eyes,” he whispered.
Yes, she knew they had changed.
“What about them?” Yewa asked stoically. Jorunn and Stegis didn’t say anything. But she could see that Stegis hadn’t noticed. Jorunn, on the other hand, stood silently by.
“They are not the eyes of my sister,” her brother growled.
“No, they are the eyes of a woman. A woman who is mated.”
“It was forced.”
“Says who?”
“I fucking say it was. You’re not ready to be mated, least of all to that monster.”
“He’s not a monster.”
This time her brother threw her own words back at her. “Says who?”
“I do. Enri is not at all how you think he is.”
Omari grabbed her arm. “You are not to see him again.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say brother, he is my mate. You can’t keep me away from him. He’s Blood-Kissed me, and my spirit has bonded with his.”
Her brother turned on Jorunn, then. “I am fucking pissed at you, woman. You and me are going to tussle when we get home.”
Jorunn didn’t seem unhappy about the word tussle. It was the opposite, actually. She seemed excited.
“Stegis, lock this shit down. My sister is coming with me and Jo.”
Stegis nodded in his direction and when Yewa looked to him for help, he winked at her and shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m not ready to go to the Unit.”
She hardly knew any of the people there, and she knew they were all going to be crowded around to provide her support.
“We don’t have a choice. I’m going with Draven to get Hades.”
“Why?”
“Enri has requested that in exchange for drinking Jo’s blood from cup.”
She was going to go with them, then. She would be of use to them. “Lead the way.”
“What? No back talk?”
Huffing out a breath, she looked to her brother and said, “No, Omari. No back talk.”
Chapter 19
“All of it sounds like bullshit, if you ask me.” Royce said, pacing the length of the war room. He’d yet to meet Dietrich’s sister, and excuse him for having his own thoughts, but she was straight up lying. No joke. “I mean seriously, you’re telling me with all the gods and goddesses out there, that there’s really only one set? I call bullshit,” he said f
iercely. This whole thing with Enri and the cup was fucking up his head. No one was on the same page. His best friend, Draven, was pussy whipped by angel boy. Or Chaos, or The Black Prince, or whatever the fuck his true name was. Who the fuck gave a shit anyway? He sure as fuck didn’t. He wanted all this shit done and over with so he could be with his family. And if they kept fucking around, he was going to resign.
“Royce, the decision has already been made to go after Hades.”
“Yeah, well, when you get there, tell Hades I said what’s up. When he’s done fucking all y’all in the ass, I want to be the first to go on record to say I’m not cleaning up your shit. Period.”
“Royce,” Belinda admonished.
“What? It’s true. They are going to get fucked. Like so good, it’s gonna hurt so bad. Why am I the only one that can see this?”
“Brother, you know I agree with you, but if Draven is hell-bent on going, we can’t leave him to it on his own.”
“Oh, why? Because it would make me un-American? Newsflash, ain’t none of us here willing to die for that son of bitch, Enri. He wants Hades, he needs to tag him and bag him his own damn self. We are not his fucking lackeys. Lastly, we’re all immigrants here. The moment we’re discovered, we’ll be hunted down—or worse.”
People were stupid. Like stuck on stoopid. How the fuck did these morons tie their shoes every morning?
“Enri wouldn’t send you if he thought you’d all die,” Yewa said. The girl had balls sticking up for the shitheel. But someone would die. He knew it, could feel it, and Yewa, although he couldn’t get a read on her thoughts, she didn’t speak the entire truth. She knew something.
“Sweetheart, key words spoken there: all die. Someone is not coming back, and maybe it’s more than just someone; maybe it’s two, or three of us. But none of our lives are worth losing. Not over this bullshit. So, it’s dark all the time now. Fuck it, global warming is no longer a problem.”
“You’re twisting my words around. What I mean to say is, the task is doable. You have an entrance, a way to gain an audience through Ann.”
“Fuck her.”
He no longer trusted Ann. He’d rather get his dick sucked by Ellie and her razor-sharp teeth then go to Tartaros with Ann as their guide.
“Dude, you don’t have to be so rude,” Dietrich said, adjusting the chair he currently occupied.
“Why the hell not?”
“’Cause I’m right here,” Ann scolded.
Royce turned his head in her direction. His beast wanted out, and he had no problem unleashing it on her. His claws lengthened as he walked over to where she stood. No one moved. And why would they? They knew the score. If they so much as felt jumpy and wanted to go toe-to-toe with him, they could bring on the pain—because he was taking orders.
“How about I say it, so there’s no question, about how I feel?” Royce stepped up to Ann. It made her take the empty seat against the back wall. He got in her face, placed his hands on the arms of her chair, digging his claws into the leather. “Fuck. You.”
Her eyes narrowed and Royce watched as her lips tightened. Maybe he should just go ahead and put the bitch on blast. Make everyone see the severity of their situation.
“I’m not going to mess this up. I want to help,” she said in a calm tone. A tone that was too calm.
“You think I don’t know who and what you are, human? I do.”
“So you can read minds. Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“You don’t know that I can end you in zero to five, and still lay my head down at night knowing I rid the world of scum like you.”
“Stand the fuck down,” Draven growled.
“Or what? What are you going to do? Oh wait, do you need to get permission from Enri? Or maybe you need to go and find your balls?”
Draven stood from the table, his eyes already gone into a wolf glaze. Royce didn’t care if they fought. They could throw down right here—didn’t matter to him either way—but he wasn’t about to put his family in danger. Not for Enri.
“Royce,” Ronin snapped.
“What? He’s feeling froggy; let the dog jump. Because I’ll be damned if I’m gonna fucking lose people on my watch. If Dravaggio were here, he’d be trying to find another way.”
“There isn’t another way. Time is running out,” Jorunn said.
“What is it with women and Enri? Are they all just mindless chits?”
Dietrich pushed back from the table causing his chair to crash against the wall.
“What, you too?” Royce taunted. He could take them both on if need be.
“Everyone needs to calm down. Let’s talk this out like normal people,” Xee said.
That made Royce laugh. “Xee, have you looked around at the so-called normal people at this table? None of us are that. You’re fucking Death, Jes is an Elder Angel, D’s a Walker, and I could go on, but I think you get the picture, right? None of us are normal. We hash things out the way we’d normally do if we weren’t in the presence of those that lacked any sort of special skill.” His face shot back in the direction of Ann. Royce stood over by the back wall, waiting for the two males to strike. “Oh wait, I take that back, Ann does have a special skill. She gives excellent head. Isn’t that right, Super Head?”
The world wasn’t going to end on his watch, but he wasn’t going to walk right into a trap, either. Those two things he wasn’t about to do. They needed another solution and he knew he wasn’t making things better. But fuck, he wasn’t going down with the ship.
“Draven, give me a day.”
“No.”
“Twelve hours.”
The wolf grunted.
“Two hours, and if you don’t have anything for me, Dietrich and I are leaving,” Draven said. Fucking stubborn bastard.
“I can accompany you as well,” Yewa spoke up.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Dietrich told his sister.
“Omari, I know Enri better than any of you. He’s my mate. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”
“Yeah, right. Are you really that naïve? Why the hell do you think he pulled a fuck and duck? Don’t you get it? You’re like everyone else to him,” Royce practically yelled at her, but he was done talking.
Draven had given him two hours. He had shit to do. “I’m going to check in with one of Belinda’s relatives, she should know something. That bitch is older than dirt. Dietrich, you love your sister man, don’t let her go with you guys. Just hold tight. He looked at D’s sister and gave her a quick smile. “I promise I’m not a giant dick. I just don’t want to see my family hurt. Any other day, you’d be dying to sit in my lap.” He winked at her, as he walked out of the war room with his brother following close behind.
“You need to stop mouthing off,” Ronin warned.
“Yeah, well, you need to start.”
Yew was placed in a room on the same floor as her brother and his mate. Only, she wasn’t across the hall like Omari suggested. She was farther down, closer to an exit. Jorunn explained everyone who lived in the building wore a tracker. She’d yet to receive one. It didn’t make her feel left out—it actually made her happy. In case she wanted to leave, she could go. Although her destination was unknown, that she had the option didn’t make her feel caged in or kept. In the nicely decorated room she had a bathroom, a sleeping area, and an area to receive visitors if she wanted. She even had a television.
It had been a while since she’d watched a show. The last thing she’d watched had been with Enri. Do not think of him. She wasn’t ready yet. If she did, she’d break down. Flipping on the screen, she found a channel with people baking wonderful pastries and settled in on her bed to watch. She was really enjoying the cake ones. The lights were off in her room except for the glow of the television screen. In the back of her mind, she pictured making those cakes and pastries. She could do that, take up baking. She was sure there was a need for sweets. Everyone loved sweets.
Later in the evening—or it could have been e
arly morning, it was hard to tell now that there was no sun—Yewa decided to take a shower. She tried to keep herself busy. The television only provided so much distraction. Her mind kept wandering back to Enri and all the things she’d learned about him.
The water from the shower was pleasant enough and Yewa unbraided her hair, taking her time to wash and condition it. She let the product sit in her hair as she cleansed her body, and when she’d finished she’d taken great pleasure in standing under the spray, just letting the warm water sluice over her skin. Royce, the twin with the amber eyes, would have obtained the information he needed. Or maybe he hadn’t. Either way, she would help her brother and Draven. If anything, she could at least be there to assist with injuries. A fact she failed to mention to her brother. She needed to; it would probably make him less agitated with the situation, give him a reason to look at things from her perspective.
Steam filled the interior of the bathroom and floated into the bedroom as she stepped out of the shower stall. The window fogged over, blurring her reflection. Grabbing a towel, Yewa wrapped it underneath her arms and swiped her hand over the mirror. She did not expect to see another figure standing behind her, in the glass.
Enri.
His feet were crossed at the ankle while he leaned casually on the door, watching—his eyes masked by his thick lashes. Dark jeans and a black button-up shirt, sleeves rolled to expose his arms completed his look. Thick leather bands wrapped around his left wrist, and at least three days’ worth of growth covered his face. They hadn’t been apart long, but for all she knew, he could have been in another realm where time crawled slowly. The dark glasses that sat at the top of his hair pulled the strands free from his face. There was something wrong with him. They didn’t speak for long seconds. Just glared at one another. She didn’t know the reason he’d returned so suddenly, but she wasn’t entirely sure she liked the way it made her feel—confusion being one of the key factors.
“Which version of you is here before me?” Yewa demanded.
He didn’t answer. Enri pushed off the door of the bathroom and with two strides he stood in front of her, eyes dark and filled with something she wasn’t sure she wanted to see. There was a storm brewing behind his pupils. Dark clouds rolled and churned. His breath was hot against her skin as he peered down at her.