“My guess is the magic that created them is old, ancient if my calculations are correct. You were right to assume the witches have surfaced, as not many could manipulate this type of clay. It’s rare, but not unheard of unless you add in this generation and variables of the bloodlines being watered down. Now, if this had occurred in the 1600s, I would say it was any witch alive, but it is not. You need to ward against those who cursed us because we believe it is they who now hunt the cure.”
“Erie isn’t named the cure, her name is fucking Erie Callaghan,” I snarled violently. “Say it!”
The scientist watched me, swallowing as his throat bobbed up and down once before he spoke again. “They’re hunting Erie Callaghan down. My guess would be to kill her before we have succeeded in lifting the curse. You will need to find her quickly and protect her because, with the amount of magic that was placed into those demons, I’d say they are fully juiced and ready to fight us.”
“And you’re sure the witches were controlling these?” Lance asked, watching the scientist as he shoved his fingers through his already mussed hair.
“Positive, the shrapnel that they pulled from the bed and walls was made of the same clay. Meaning they used magic to create a walking bomb. The first demon by the door, he was probably the one who exploded, as he was in pieces. The second one was burned as if something set it on fire, the third one was more whole, but something fought it hard to get away from it.”
“Not something, someone. Erie set it on fire and then fought to get away from them, but did she get away, or did she end up getting caught?” I asked out loud, even though it was to myself rather than the room.
“That would explain the human flesh that we found embedded in the clay,” he agreed as my stomach rolled.
“How much flesh?” I countered as I rubbed my hand over my eyes and then stared at him.
“Enough that she wouldn’t have been able to get very far if she had escaped on her own,” he said as he scratched his head and stared at the wall. “If she escaped at all, she couldn’t have made it more than a few blocks before she would have bled to death. I know she can heal, but this magic was created to kill her. It’s a game-changer.”
“So you’re saying they don’t want her alive, they just want her dead?”
“I’m saying, if you hadn’t used your body to shield her, we’d be topping the endangered species list.”
“So witches who can control minions without placing themselves into danger are chasing Erie, and we have no idea where she is,” Lance said as he steepled his fingers together and stared at me.
“She’s also wounded,” Cain pointed out.
“And that makes her an easy target,” Rhett agreed.
“Not to mention, she may already be pregnant,” my father added.
“If she had been pregnant, I don’t think she would be anymore. With the volume of blood in that bedroom, mixed with the flesh collected from the demon, she’d most likely have miscarried if she’d been so.”
“You know that for sure, even with the spell we did to ensure she is strong enough to endure the druids who abused her? Erie is very strong, not to mention I had just injected fertility drugs and more protection spells into her fucking womb before we were attacked.”
I wanted to snap his neck with those words. The pain she had already suffered when I’d been dispatched to deal with a group of rogue Knights, or some other fucking emergency, was enough. Every time I’d returned, she’d been abused, until I’d tied a druid up, slicing him open as the others watched the beast within feeding from the meat on his bones. That had put an end to the torture, but not the beatings. Mostly because she hid the bruises behind small smiles or a shy glance that made me forget everything else in the world even existed. She did that to me, made me forget the bad shit, filling it with her innocence that the world cruelly took away from her. Until she’d left the druids to hide anywhere she could only to be dragged back and beaten.
The day I walked into that room and found her naked, held up by wires that had sliced through her flesh, I’d lost it. I’d murdered enough to start a war, but I hadn’t cared. I’d have eradicated them all from this world if I hadn’t been pulled off of them by the men who were my brothers in arms, my brothers who held monsters within them as well.
I’d taken that girl into a room and stood silently as she’d dressed, her shoulders bowed in defeat. It had taken everything inside of me not to pull her close and promise that something like that would never happen again. Not as long as I drew air into my lungs. But I couldn’t promise that, because I knew eventually I’d be the one to break her.
“Are you with us, or is that brain of yours balls-deep in that little imp of yours, Mason?” Rhett asked, not bothering to look at me as I lifted an angry glare in his direction. “She’s out there wounded, and we’re in here yanking our cocks and playing with clay, gentlemen. We’re fucking Knights. We kill shit to make sure those who have earned it survive. I say she’s earned it, don’t you?”
The doors opened, and Hugh walked through them, covered in blood that stood out strikingly against his white cloak. He tossed a head onto the table and frowned. “Arthur doesn’t have her, of that, you can be certain. Tiberius, Galen, and Shawn are all going to be detained for a few days, but the rest of us are ready to help hunt whoever is next on the list.”
“The Fae,” I growled. I sat back down, pulling Arthur’s head towards me as I did. “I’m guessing if she was dying, and she knew demons were giving chase, she would have run to them because they’d protect her and she knows it. I almost hate to say it, but I hope she did, as they would keep her safe, and it is the one place that the witches wouldn’t dare to attack again after they trespassed against the Horde King and pissed off a Goddess. I’ve already lied to both Synthia and Ryder, who as most of you know are Fae, about what and who we are once, and it wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. No, let them help her if she is indeed with them. At least we know she is safe. I don’t want the Fae knowing what I am unless it’s absolutely necessary. They’d yet to make a comment about us being Knights instead of Paladins, which means either they’ve missed the hints, or they’re choosing to ignore it. Either way, we have enough shit to deal with already, let’s not add them to it.”
“Just fucking what we need,” Hugh scoffed as he sat down and poured two fingers of Scotch into his glass. “They’re on the no-kill list still, are they not?”
“Do you want a full war against them?” Uther growled as he slapped the table and then poured himself a drink.
“Ladies, do you need a moment to collect your balls, or can you listen to me?” I snapped, pulling the bottle away, pouring three fingers into a glass and swirling it around as I watched it.
“If you were not my brother in arms, I’d show you the inside of that pretty head of yours, Callaghan.”
“If you could, you would have done it eons ago. Don’t challenge me, you never win, Lance. Uther, I want you stationed to the west of the Guild; Lance, you’re on the east; Hugh, take the south; and Averred, you will follow me and take the north. I want to know if anything comes in or out of it. I want eyes on the other location we know she frequents, and I want the rogue Knights captured unharmed if possible. I don’t want to be hunting bodies while we hunt Erie.” I was tired of Arthur dying and coming back, only to have to spend the time to hunt the bastard down again when he regenerated.
“And what happens when you find her?” my father asked.
“Then I station one of my brothers at each location, and we guard her with our lives. If she has miscarried, her body will need to heal, and so will her mind. If by some miracle she is pregnant, then she will be moved into my apartment permanently even if she is unwilling. I won’t take a chance of her cutting my son from her womb as she has threatened to do.”
“And Carolina? Will you keep your wife somewhere else?”
“My wife has no
part of this. We’ve lived separate lives for hundreds of years, father. She lost her right to be my wife when she decided to leave me because of what I had to sacrifice for this Order, so don’t you dare ask me about my fucking wife. She’s hated me too long to ever change that now.”
“And her children that they assume are yours?” he asked sadly. “Will you tell everyone the truth of their parentage, or continue pretending they are yours to protect them from the stigma of being bastards?”
“Their fathers know who they belong to, it is time they learned the truth as well. I’ve shielded them long enough. I claim Erie and any child she bears for me, but Carolina is not my wife, she has not been for centuries, and we no longer have any reason to pretend otherwise. If or when she needs my protection, she knows she will have it.” That was a given, but mainly because I’d kept her protected from the one being that had hunted her. That was on me because I’d known better than to take a wife while the one I had craved was trying to get back to me.
“You do realize that Erie hates you, yes?” Uther asked, chuckling.
“Do you remember when we pretended to be mortals, and we married women who hated us all the time? I’ve seen love grow and flourish from the largest hatred in this world. I’ve felt her anger as she rode my cock, so I know there’s hope there. She may hate me, but she doesn’t hate my cock, or how she feels on it.”
“You could just tell her what you did the day she was born. There’s also that other time you plowed through every one of those evil fucks who beat that girl and saved her. It took you long enough to bring her back, and yet you made them pretend it was less time. You did spend almost an entire year bringing her back, only for her to repress those memories so fucking deep into her thick skull that you probably couldn’t even knock them free now. Tell her the truth of who has been protecting her this entire time. Every girl wishes she had a knight to protect her, and she had one, so just tell the woman the truth, brother.”
“Why? So she will love me for it? I didn’t do it so that she’d love me. I did it so that she would survive. I named her, Uther. I gave her my name on that rocky crag. I expected it to protect her; my name and my insignia should have been enough. I failed, and she will not see it as a service; she will see it for what it was. I failed her over and over again as I left to do my duty. No, when she remembers it, she will hate me even more than she already does now.”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Douglas said. “You protected her, even against the odds. You’re a Knight first and always because you took a vow that is written in the blood of our kin, of our ancestors. You don’t have any other choice than to go when you are called to duty.”
“You don’t know Erie at all,” I argued. “Erie isn’t going to think that it was anything but a failure. Not when it was she who paid for it in her blood. You never saw what they did to her, you only heard it secondhand. They stripped that girl and beat her until her spine snapped and she pissed herself in front of those she called her friends, her family, as they laughed at her. I may have murdered the men who allowed it to happen and those who took part in it, but she hunted down and tortured over fifty boys, viciously. That is who you think to trap, the one woman on this godforsaken earth who has had no one who ever cared if she lived or died. The girl should have been cherished, treasured, and instead, she was abused. So you think bringing her in and tying her up is the answer, father? She’ll die fighting to remain free. She would burn to ashes and rise as something this entire world would cower in fear before because that is who she is.”
No, Erie had a slumbering monster inside of her, and if that part of her ever awakened, God save this world because she’d burn it down. I knew what she was, who she was, because I’d brought her back. I was a selfish prick, but she, she was the woman I’d craved since the beginning of time, loved since the beginning of time, and God save me, I’d brought her back with the only power strong enough to manage that feat.
Erie wasn’t just going to allow herself to be captured, and if she ever tapped into what slumbered inside of her, we were all irrevocably fucked. This world wouldn’t be ready for her, but the thing was, I’d bring her back before I allowed those cackling hags to kill her. I’d force her to come back if they got close to her again, if they didn’t already have her. I growled as I lifted from my chair and grabbed my helmet.
“Knights, we ride,” I said. I watched them nodding as I turned, heading for the door. “Lucifer protect us because God won’t anymore.”
Chapter 19
Erie
I stood on the steps of the Guild, staring up at the lightning storm that had begun late last night. According to the Fae, Heaven had fallen, but to me, it seemed impossible. It wasn’t as if we weren’t already balls-deep in enough shit already. I turned as I heard footsteps behind me, watching Zahruk and Synthia as they came to stand beside me.
“Thank you,” Syn said as she remained at arm’s length from me.
“For what?” I asked, noting the way Zahruk watched me with a smirk lifting his lips. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was trying to hump my leg.
“You didn’t have to help us with Lucifer or place the wards up against Lena, but you chose to. You even fought alongside us afterward, which was nice to see.”
“That wasn’t fighting, she spent the entire fight complaining because she couldn’t ride the dragon,” Zahruk joked, and I glared at him, shaking my head.
“There was a dragon in the middle of that fight. You could warn people first, and then they might not sit and gawk at it for an hour. Besides, I didn’t get to ride it. That’s like pushing candy at someone and telling them they can sniff it, but can’t lick it.”
“Blane doesn’t like to be ridden, but if you want a dragon to ride, saddle up, Erie. I got one that you can take for a spin.”
“Is that a dick reference? Are you asking me to ride your dick?” I asked, staring him down with a frown as I tried to figure out what he’d meant by that.
“Do you want to ride it?” he asked.
“No,” I uttered with a silent laugh as I shook my head.
“Then, no, it wasn’t.”
“Are you two done flirting?” Synthia asked as she stared between us.
I blushed and shook my head. “I don’t flirt.”
“Nor do you help people, but you just helped us.” She smiled as she reached out to hug me.
I ducked, wincing as I danced around it. “Don’t touch me.”
“It’s a hug, friends hug each other.”
“I don’t hug, and I don’t have friends.” My stomach dropped as her smile flitted and then turned into a frown. I frowned deeply, mirroring her emotions. “I don’t need people. I don’t need anything. I did this because I won’t leave while owing anyone anything. If tomorrow I leave this world, my debts have all been paid.”
“You’re fucking cold, Erie,” Zahruk said as he yanked me close against his chest before I could dodge it. “It’s just a fucking hug. I don’t give a fuck if you want friends, you’ve got them anyway. You need us, find us. Be careful out there, crispy. Thanks for not being an asshole.”
I pushed him away and glared at him as if he’d grown another head. “Did you just grab my ass?”
“Would I do that?”
“Yes! Yes, you would. Hugging me is unacceptable. I don’t like to be touched, ever.”
“If you end up burned to a crisp again, I’ll hold your hand through it,” he shrugged, those sapphire eyes glowing as he watched me. “Don’t let them snuff out that fire, sweet girl. You fight for yourself, even if you don’t think you’re worth it. You are. You’re a rare breed. Stand tall, Erie. Don’t let them see you fall, and if you do, you take the fucking head off the one that watched you fall.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked, watching him as he smiled widely, shaking his head.
“You’re going to need to stick arou
nd more often. You have no idea what sexual innuendoes even are. You can’t take a compliment when it’s given, and someone needs to wrap that ass in a blanket and warm you up. You’re cold as ice, don’t let them win. Erie, you’re more than that. You’re better than that. They beat you down, and you still got back up. That’s the only thing that matters in the end. It isn’t about how you fall; it’s what you do when you get back up that people remember.”
“I need to go. Fred is probably rotting.”
“Who is Fred?”
“My friend.”
“Why would he be rotting?” he asked. “And I thought you didn’t have friends?”
“Oh, because I cut his head off and kept it. He needs to be iced so that he doesn’t rot.” I watched his mouth open and close several times before he nodded as if he understood.
He didn’t. No one would ever understand that friendship had never been something I easily gave, and every time I had, it had ended with me paying for it with blood. I waved at them, walking backward before I spun around, starting down the steps as I headed north, away from the Guild before ducking into an alley and starting a roundabout way through the city towards the shopping outlet.
Once I made it half a mile from the Guild, I caught sight of Fred’s body again as he felt blindly around the side of a building, and I smiled at the naked, headless demon who was trying to find the head I’d taken. I had to give it to Fred, he was relentless.
Entering the area around the storefront, I paused, turning to look over my shoulder. I blinked, clearing my vision as I stared beyond the veil of this world and noted the souls that watched me, whispering to each other as if I couldn’t hear them.
Something was up, something that made the hair at my neck rise, and my skin crawl. I walked through the closest ones, listening as they continued talking, oblivious that I’d passed through the living world into theirs.
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