by Jeanne Allen
“No,” he whispers. He reaches out to cup my cheek with his free hand, flicking away the tears making tracks down my cheeks.
I swipe at them angrily. “I don’t want you to die.”
“So dramatic. I would listen to your Agora if I were you, little brother.”
Jackson’s eyes freeze to the sharp points they were before, bleeding back to a cold all-encompassing fury.
I shudder, goose bumps popping up on my skin.
Lyle comes up and takes me from Jackson, leading me to the side of the alley where a small doorway offers a semblance of cover. I watch as my Kladí arrange themselves. They form a half circle in front of Lyle and me, angled toward our attackers. Forrest and Sebastian face Lewis; Jackson and Lucas face Nathanial.
“They’re going to die,” I whisper, frantically trying to get away from Lyle. I have to go out there. I have to stop them. I have to…
“Shhh,” Lyle soothes, stroking my hair. “Jackson knows what he’s doing. Trust him.”
In front of us, the alley turns to chaos.
The Kenós attack first, and Jackson kills two of them with a sword that appears out of nowhere before coming to blows with his brother, who materialized his own sword.
Royal Phósopoi are all born with a small extra Gift, whether they’re Agora or Kladí. Every family line has the same Gift, and the Evans’ is the Gift of Weapon-Calling.
Next to the Princes, Lucas holds off Nathanial’s Kladí with his own Gift. He grabs them by the wrists before they can react and forces them into a dazed state, making them tired enough to sleep. They go down, but his Gift is useless against the Kenós.
The first time one of them hits him in the stomach with the staff they carry, I whimper and look away.
Forrest holds off the remaining five Kenós with two daggers I think he pulled out of his boots. While Sebastian engages in some kind of mental battle with Lewis’s Kladí, I try to find locate Lewis.
I find him behind Forrest.
“Forrest!” I scream, but I’m too late.
Lewis hits him in the head with the staff he took from one of the Kenós, and I only have a split second before Forrest crumples to the ground, probably thankful Lewis didn’t have a sword or gun with him.
Despite the assurance it’s possible it wasn’t a fatal blow, staring at the crumpled body of my shy, sweet, and sexy as hell Kladí causes my limbs to lose all the strength. I’m vaguely aware of Lyle moving to stand between me and the advancing Lewis, but all I see is Forrest.
He looks so helpless, so alone, left to lay there in a dirty alley. We shouldn’t have come here. It’s my fault this happened. I have to do something. I need to make this right. I will lose all of what keeps me human and sane if I stay out of this fight.
My Agora Power rises, reacting to my desperation and anger. I’ve never felt the power so strongly. It takes over. The only thing I can think is I must destroy those who dare hurt my Kladí.
When I try to move away, Lyle pushes me back.
“Let. Go.” I push out the words laced with Will.
He releases me immediately.
“Rose,” he whispers, but I don’t look back.
I go to where my Kladí has fallen. A brief thought flickers in my mind. Why haven’t any humans seen or heard us? I push it away with the wave of my hand. Now is not the time to speculate. Now is the time to defend what’s mine.
I turn to the man who hurt Forrest.
He hesitates, obviously under orders not to harm me.
I move slowly toward him, letting the darkness I always keep locked away take over, pulling me back to those moments when I knew myself least, when I became the monster I see in my dreams.
A smile grows on my lips as the anger of my past bleeds into the panic and desperation of my present. I know what to do. Leaning close to him, I watch as his eyes widen. My lips tickle from the fuzz on his ear.
I take in a deep breath, pushing all of my Agora Power into the base of my throat, letting it settle before I whisper, “Die.”
As soon as the word leaves my lips, Lewis’s head slumps down. The weight of the man crashes into me. I stumble back a bit before I detangle myself from the body. I stare at the crumpled heap of bones and cooling tissue with something akin to the logical detachment I feel when observing case studies. A sick feeling of triumph settles in the pit of my stomach; a righteous vengeance that has nothing to do with logical thinking.
I feel vindicated.
Perhaps later I’ll feel the crushing mass of guilt for the body I so easily brushed off my shoulders, but for now, I take one last look at the man who dared hurt my family, his perfect skin fading to ash as its rosy color dulls, and the last vestiges of life drain from the stilling organs.
You killed the Ken, the back-of-my-mind voice whispers. I hope Barbie isn’t too upset with me.
As if conjured by my dark thoughts, Lewis’s Kladí stagger toward us. Their cries break me from my bemusement. Screams of grief and death echo from the Kladí, sounds I will not soon forget.
My hands shake as I watch the women fall to their knees around their Agora.
It’s too late. Lewis and his Kladí were fully Bonded. They can’t survive without him. I make myself watch as their Gifts take over, burning their skin from the inside until it shines red and nearly glows.
My earlier detachment snaps out of me like a light switch at the sound of their screams. Loud, gurgling, guttural sounds burst from their writhing bodies before cutting off completely.
Three more piles of bone and tissue join the first, and yet I still feel nothing but acid on my tongue and lead in my heart.
A commotion to my left breaks me away long enough to watch Nathanial and his Kladí disappear. Belatedly, I remember that Mei Ling’s Gift is teleportation across small distances. They take with them any chance we had of learning who they work for and what they want with me.
We’re left with the remaining Keńos, who seem to have multiplied from wherever it is that Mei Ling took Nathanial. It seems Region Two’s heir is more than happy to let his foot soldiers do his dirty work for him. Where there were five, there are now twenty. Twenty Keńos with superhuman strength and glowing crimson eyes, crowding in on us, locking us in this narrow alley.
Our hope of escape is minimal. I catch the guys exchanging grim looks as they drag Forrest behind them and fan out to meet our enemy. Now, our only option is to fight. I let the monster back out to play.
It’s like what Lewis did to Sebastian, then to Forrest, turned a switch in me that I only had vague memories of in the past. By unleashing my demons, I’ve turned into my own nightmare.
My professor at PhósU had it wrong. They said the Kladí are the warriors. Born to protect their nucleus, their Agora. Kladí may be the branches of the Omás, but the Agora is the root. My Kladí protect me from the summer breeze and winter’s chill, but when thunderous rains and bitter winds threaten, it is I who must reach deep and pull us close, standing firm against the storm.
The storm comes; the Keńos attack.
At once, the world is chaos and quiet. Peace and conflict.
The death of Lewis and his Kladí cut the puppet master’s strings, and the remaining Keńos who charge at us are not the high-level kind who can drive cars and wield guns. They rush at us with the all-encompassing rage of those who are more animal than man.
So, we respond in kind.
Jackson cuts into them, his blade whipping around so quickly it becomes a silver stream weaving in and out of battle. Sebastian slumps against the wall to my right, worn from his mental battle with Lewis’s Kladí. He calls out advice to the twins who stand directly in front of him, helping them anticipate the strikes of their opponents. They struggle to hold their own against the rising tide of red eyes and yellow hair.
For a moment, I’m protected. Forrest and I remain an island untouched, until two of the Keńos realize where I am. They leave their comrades and stride toward me.
Time seems to
slow, and the rapid beating of my heart slows with it as the Keńos advance.
It’s then that I notice the mist. The mist of my Agora Power had been visible since Lewis died, but I’d been ignoring it. Seeing my power in its corporeal form is not a new experience, but now it takes on a new shape.
I stare, mesmerized, as the mist slowly solidifies. It prickles in my hands and up my arms as it becomes strings of electric azure, wrapping around my arms like happy pets greeting their master. I stroke the strings, a small smile forming on my lips at the pleasant humming sensation.
Time returns to normal as I look up into the eyes of my enemy. I don’t have to dip into the darkness and rage that gave me strength earlier. A new strength greets me with the hum of my power. Determination fills me as I spread apart my legs and lift my arms.
I am Rose Anastasia Christensen. I am an Agora.
At the last thought, the strings braid themselves together until they form long whips of dripping blue power. I look at the whips and grip them; though they have the appearance of shimmering liquid, they feel solid in my hands.
“Nice,” I whisper approvingly.
I’m rewarded with a slight shimmer along the coils wrapped around my wrist.
Then, the Keńos closest to me kicks me in the stomach.
I nearly trip over Forrest who lays at my feet. Pain spreads through my stomach and my ribs, but I brush it away and refocus my attention on the Keńos. He recruited all of the available soldiers he could to come after me.
My Kladí shout as they battle their own attackers to come save me.
I smile, hoping to reassure them, before eyeing the friends of the Keǹos who hit me. The more the merrier, right?
I attack the jump-kicking-Son-of-a-Donut-Hole first. The arch of my electric whip sings through the air before wrapping around the Keńos’s neck.
I smile sweetly before telling him the same thing I told his master. “Die.”
My whip brightens, nearly blinding me as I pull. Just as I imagined, the Agora Power burns through his skin and cuts through his bone, severing his head from his neck in one clean pull. I turn to the other three advancing on me. One of my whips wraps itself around the arm of the one to the right while the other spreads out to cover the head of the one on the left. I pull both and use the momentum to launch myself onto the third one.
With a battle cry worthy of my hero, Diana, I barely have time to marvel at the way the whips slice through Lefty’s arm and explodes Righty’s head like overheated soup in a microwave. Using my arms, I hug the final Keǹos, who thrashes at me with his arms. Pain laces the places he manages to get ahold of, but it doesn’t last long. I coil my whip around his neck and slice it off before turning to do the same with Lefty.
After that, the battle is nearly over. The only Keǹos left to kill are straggling, shuffling as if to run away. I look up as the head of Lefty rolls away from its body, stopping at the feet of a shocked Jin.
He stands there, frozen somewhere between surprise and awe. Then both emotions flicker out of those deep eyes to be replaced by something decidedly pleased and maybe a little proud. He flashes me a grin and one of those slightly inappropriate winks before starting his own wave of death, cleaning up the last few Keńos.
I understand now why they call him the Assassin. He uses his knives expertly, pinning and injuring his victims until he can slip close. Then, he holds them almost intimately, a bored expression on his face like a man taking out the garbage, doing the dishes, or some other innocuous chore. With the brush of his finger and a small flash of Gift, they crumple.
More piles of ashen skin and bones join the ones already littering the alley.
Then, too fast to process, it’s over.
The whips recede into mist, then even the mist peters out. Drained of strength, physically and mentally, I lean against Lyle, but my eyes remain on Jin, who is the only one not giving me weird, nearly worshipful, looks.
“We’ll talk about it later,” my Assassin says firmly.
I don’t know if he’s saying it to me or to my Kladí, but it works. The guys shake themselves out of whatever emotion held them.
“How did you know to come back?” Jackson asks Jin, motioning for Lucas to help him pick up Forrest.
“I sensed something off with Rose through the Bond. It was too faint to decipher easily at first, but then it suddenly became stronger. Not like a fully Bonded Agora, I don’t think, but strong enough that I could sense the danger.”
How long have we been fighting? It felt like we’d been in the alley for a lifetime.
“What about the Keńos following you?”
“They disappeared on the way back.”
“Mei Ling must have called them in,” Sebastian offers. His voice sounds as weak as I feel.
We may have won, but we’re not victorious.
“Mei Ling? Nathanial’s Kladí? What does she have to do with this?” At Jin’s question, Jackson looks like someone punched him in the stomach.
I should know what it looks like; Drop-Kicky gave me intimate knowledge of that pain.
Jin turns from Jackson to look at the rest of us, his dark brows pulling together.
No one says anything as we wait for Jackson to speak. Only he knows how much Nathanial and Lewis’s betrayal will hurt Jin. Jackson may be Nathanial’s brother by blood, but Jin was his brother by choice. The two of them, and at one time Lewis, too, were close friends.
“Nathanial and Lewis worked together to orchestrate this attack. Jasmine is the one who put Seb in the coma and Nathanial killed the Duchess.” Jackson doesn’t rush the explanation, but he doesn’t hesitate, either. He speaks calmly and clearly, as if trying to make sure Jin understands all that transpired here.
“Why?” Jin whispers, his eyes rounded and over-large.
He looks so vulnerable that, for a second, I glimpse what Jin might have looked like as a real twenty-five-year-old. But then he catches himself, and the years stack back up, hardening his eyes and straightening his posture.
“Why?” he demands this time.
“I don’t know why the murder or coma exactly, but today’s attack was definitely meant to capture Rose,” Jackson responds.
“What does Nathanial want with Rose?”
Jackson answers calmly, as if we weren’t discussing his older brother, “I don’t think he, or Lewis, were the ones who wanted her.”
“You think they work for someone,” Jin concludes.
Jackson confirms with a nod.
Then, Forrest decides to join the party with a low moan.
Lyle, who I still lean against, startles. “We can discuss all of this later. We need to go.” Panic makes his words sharp. “Forrest needs healing, probably from a Bonded healer, and Rose’s ribs are broken, or bruised, I can’t tell which.”
They are? I think, touching the offending area. “Ow,” I mutter. Okay, yup, they are.
Jin jerks a nod and turns to go, but his eyes catch on something, stilling his whole body until I’m not sure he’s even breathing.
I follow his line of sight reluctantly. I have an idea of what he just now noticed. A ring of bodies laid out in crumpled heaps. Three Kladí women circling their Agora.
Lewis.
I had almost forgotten. Almost.
I’m afraid to look at Jin. What will I see in those bottomless eyes? Will he hate me now? I killed his former best friend and three women.
When I find the courage to make myself look up, dark eyes catch mine. There’s no judgment. No condemnation. Nor is there pride. There’s only understanding.
He nods and mouths, “Later,” to me.
My mouths dips into a grateful grimace. I blink rapidly, forcing back tears of relief. I shouldn’t have worried. I realized long ago that, of all my Kladí, Jin is the most like me; he has his own demons to keep at bay. Except, now, I’m more grateful than ashamed of mine. What frightened me about myself before I can sort of accept. I don’t like it, just as I suspect Jin would rather have a
Gift like Lyle or Forrest, but I don’t hate it, either. It would be like hating myself. My past, like my strange Agora Power, is what it is. Maybe if I can learn to accept the strange parts of me, the monstrous parts will seem less frightening.
Jin drives the SUV to the alley entrance, and we hastily climb in. Forrest is still unconscious, but he’s breathing. Lyle says he needs a healer, but his injuries can wait until we reach a hotel. By the way his eyes stay glued to Forrest, propped up between us on the bench in the back of the vehicle, he’s worried, though.
Lyle’s face is stone, his mouth a thin, straight line that somehow compliments his angular jawline and flawless cocoa skin. The weird Awakening-hormone part of me admires the picture he makes bent over our fallen family member, but I shake those thoughts away.
Now is not the time.
My hand folds around Forrest’s limp fingers. I admire the strength in them. Even his fingers are sexy. He doesn’t wake up or respond to the way I stroke his arm, idly tracing the lines of the art inked there.
Is this how it always is? Moving from one injured Kladí to another?
Forrest interrupts my morbid thoughts with a small grunting sound.
Thankfully, Lucas casually clasps a hand over Forrest’s ankle, controlling his emotions and washing away the pain. I find myself completely absorbed in watching his every move, listening for signs of discomfort.
I’m vaguely aware of the ride to the hotel; of how no one says a word to me; of the eyes holding conversations above my head. Thank the string-cheese makers I’m too distracted by Forrest and the growing sharpness of pain in my ribs to care about those wide eyes and lingering glances.
Slowly, though, I can’t help but realize anomalies. Like the absence of inappropriate winks from my Assassin. Or the lack of gentle teasing from my Goblin. Or the way Jackson keeps pushing his hands through his mess of honey-brown waves.
At the hotel that Jin finds, a friend of Jackson’s heals all of us with her Gift. We say nothing while she’s there, and soon after she leaves, the guys get ready for bed.
The anomalies continue.
Somehow, I know the nightmares won’t come tonight. I have a feeling they’ll never come again. Even without the guys sleeping near me, they won’t come.