Aequitas Betrayal

by Mason, a. c.

  Obliging her flesh, muscles and artery to give, his teeth continued their attack. A wincing cry of horror rose from her as he released the pressure. Spewing fluid rushed onto his tongue, and he savored the thick sweet liquid as it moved into his mouth, down his throat. Feeding his lust to have every part of her be his, he gorged on her essence.

  The piercing of his flesh beneath her teeth brought ecstasy. Oh God. Her fluid still poured into his mouth. He drank from her as he released inside her. The tightening of her internal muscles milked his throbbing cock. Depleted, he licked the punctures he’d caused, and closed them.

  The light caress of her fingers through his hair made him smile. Tears stung behind his eyes.

  Chapter 11

  Etienne smelled the lilacs in bloom. This told him where he was, his grandparents’ farm. A long since forgotten place of childhood dreams. The warmth of the sun blanketed his body, and the grass beneath him was wondrous and cool. He shielded his eyes from the bright sun with his hand as he looked to his right. Auria lay smiling in a pretty, yellow baby doll sundress. The old farmhouse stood off in the distance. The lilac bushes surrounded them. Ducks splashed in the pond a few feet away. Only a light breeze flowed through the grass, the trees and her yellow sundress.

  Her bare legs and feet appeared so youthful.

  “This is the place you’d been telling me about.”

  “Yes. My grandparents’ farm. I haven’t been back since Pappy died, but I wanted to share this place with you.”

  “It’s beautiful. What a wonderful place to spend your summers as a child. No wonder you’re so fond of it.” None of the usual heaviness sounded in her voice, making it that much more appealing to hear. “And the ground here is sacred. No one who wishes to harm us could be on this land.” He’d never told her of this place. This had to be a dream. Auria didn’t carry her usual sadness.

  “I was lucky. My father’s parents adored me.” Amazing. Unbelievable that the man he’d known as his father had not been his blood. “I got to be a real kid here.” The way she watched him with such interest warmed him inside. “My mother had been abused by her stepfather. When she ran away, a pimp took her in and she could never escape, even when she left him. I loved her, but she never should have tried to raise a child.”

  “Good thing for me you came along.” She smiled at him, but affirmed this had to be a dream.

  She’d confronted him about this part of his behavior. Those were not words Auria would speak.

  Still, he enjoyed hearing them and wanted them to be true.

  “Tell me again how you feel about me?”

  Rolling onto her side and facing him, she grinned. “I love you.” Her words sounded pure.

  Seeing true warmth in her eyes, he pulled her closer and kissed her. She met his lips with a hunger that sent waves of passion through his body.

  “You know I must go.” She lowered her gaze.

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  He blinked to try and hide his pain from her words. She’d vanished.

  ****

  What she’d shared with Etienne was inexplicable. Those emotions she’d portrayed for him couldn’t be real.

  So, why did she feel happy? Never would she have thought a man longed for such an exchange. When the demon inside him fought for control, he’d wanted to restrain it to protect her.

  Etienne lay sleeping peacefully in the bed, but already he’d sensed her withdraw.

  Death would be her refuge. Today her life would end taking down Deimos.

  Etienne would grieve for her. The thought pained her, for she wasn’t worthy of being mourned. Never having loved, now she never would. Her heart, so stained and cold, would never lose its armor. She glanced at him before she marched to the door, aware she’d walked out on the greatest challenge of her life to awaken a dormant side of her.

  ****

  Etienne gasped as he sat up in bed and gave his eyes a moment to focus. The dream had seemed so real. Auria. He lay back down. No, he’d dreamed her disappearing. Good. He smiled, reminded of the sex they’d shared last night. The best sex he’d ever had. He sat up again and lifted his hand to his chest. Her teeth had pierced him with such heat and she’d given him exquisite delight. Turning his attention over to her spot, he found lilacs lying on her pillow.

  “Damn her.” This couldn’t be good.

  He scooted to the edge of the bed. Rage filled him. The rate of his heart accelerated so rapidly, the thumping reverberated in his chest. The erratic beat pounded inside him.

  Calm down. His skin grew hot and his muscles pulsated beneath the surface. A burst of energy released and a red wave shook from him, moving outward. The wave rippled through air, surrounded the matter around him. The building’s stones shifted.

  Not again. He needed to control this.

  What if he lost her?

  “Damn you.”

  Once he’d dressed, he bolted for the door to locate Gabriel.

  ****

  As he entered the large coliseum room, Gabriel emerged through the side door and stared at him. “Auria has gone after him, hasn’t she?”

  “Why did you refuse their union? Were you jealous?”

  Gabriel’s expression remained unchanged. “No. I knew that Deimos had the same issue I did. He’d never be able to truly join with her. In his case, not without damaging her. That is why she allowed Deimos’s and my attachment to her. She asked me to refuse his request, offered to give herself to me physically in a manner of speaking. Though I wanted to, I was unable to take her in such a way. It would only further my detrimental behavior towards her. Deimos had been willing to accept the limitations of joining with her. Their union would have held him from breaking.”

  Gabriel looked away. “Auria served me for two hundred years. I’m very attached to her. I granted her request regardless of having gained nothing.”

  A vile taste saturated his mouth at the thought of what might have gone on during that time.

  “Why was she turned?”

  “I owed her after what my inability to watch over her cost. My desires towards her made me irrational. I asked Jehoel to take my place as her guardian. Sensing him, she communicated with him telepathically. In a very short time, he became obsessed with her. He entered the king’s mind during a sexual encounter to experience her. Auria sensed the difference immediately, but was powerless to stop him.” Gabriel’s face reflected no emotions. “After Jehoel walked into the physical realm, he kidnapped her. I’m sparing you the ugly details. Suffice it to say, she endured severe torture at his hands for many days. When he meant to end her suffering, Jehoel bit both arteries in her neck, allowing her to bleed to death. She cried out to me by name. I can still hear the sound of her soft plea—not for her life, but she feared dying alone, and that The Creator wouldn’t want her because she’d been a wicked sinner. I was working on the aequitas project. My appearance startled Jehoel. He fell to his knees and repented. Auria lay battered, face down, her breathing shallow. I knew I shouldn’t, but I picked her up and brought her back here, bleeding out and on death’s door. So I turned her. Asmodai wanted to see how far I would go.”

  The creature she’d killed yesterday changed her life forever. “Why me?”

  “Now there is a question you truly want an answer to. However you know why, be willing to remember.”

  Images flashed in his mind of going to the city morgue and identifying his mother’s body when he was eighteen.

  When he touched his mother’s brutalized body, the face of the creature who’d done this to her appeared, an aequitas. The second, of him tracking down this creature, torturing it to know why it had killed his mother. He could not hear what it had revealed to him. In the third set of images, he stood over the dead creature speaking to Gabriel. Why didn’t he recall the last two memories?

  What the hell? “I know there are memories of me talking to you.” He massaged his temples with two fingers. “When I see glimpses of us, it’s like I’m
watching us as a third person, but I’m too far to hear.”

  “It’s sad to see you like this, but a necessary evil.”

  Enough of this. “I could wring your neck with my bare hands. Tell me what I need to remember.”

  Gabriel grinned. “Auria is part of what you seek, so retrieve her. Soon, you will remember.”

  He lowered his gaze. None of this mattered right now. He had to get his wife back safely.

  Gabriel was no longer there, so he turned and exited the chamber.

  Chapter 12

  Having played with fire, Deimos to be exact, meant she had to clean up the mess she created.

  Focus. Kill or be killed. Using her telepathic ability, she connected with Deimos. He sensed her touch immediately.

  “Finally coming for me, my Auria?”

  She forced a groan from her throat at his choice of words, then opened a realm portal and shifted to him.

  Why didn’t she smell Raj’s blood on him, or Meka’s?

  The white earth tunnel’s connector chamber had wood planks to support the weight in the corners. Great, they were in underground burrows on Deimos’s home world. She remembered seeing this place in his memories during her visits into his mind. Deimos had played with his three sisters as children here, always letting them find him.

  “What is it, Auria?”

  None of the usual tells were there, no putrid, rotting flesh or blood that had curdled. “You do not smell tainted.”

  One exit point lay to the rear of him and the other doorway led to a second chamber.

  “That is because I have not killed anyone yet.” He grinned. “I’ve actually been saving lives. Did my gift not come to you?”

  “Yes, and she told me the others are all dead.”

  “Did Pasiphae say that I’d been the one to kill them?”

  “No. But you’ve admitted you’ll kill. Should it matter to me if you’ve gotten someone else to do the dirty work to keep yourself untainted?”

  “I’ve done no such thing.” He huffed. “Many will die during the war, but I will deliver them in kindness as you have taught me. I expect to fight alongside you and your mate. He may have your heart, but you will always be my Auria.”

  “I’m not going to war.”

  “You will have no choice when the cleansing begins.”

  “Here we go. Cryptic talk. You’re starting to sound like Gabriel, gibberish and nonsense.”

  “How far you are from the truth.” Deimos moved in her direction. “You’ve been happy to follow orders and not question our role.”

  “Enough.” Closing her eyes to prepare for his assault, she cleared her mind, then leapt into the air. She landed behind him, crouched down low on her left leg and extended her right, sliding it along the floor as she spun, tripping him. The sound of his crashing came as she landed on his chest.

  “I won’t fight you. You are not my enemy.” Deimos lay on the ground looking up at her. “I only want to restrain you long enough so you’ll listen.”

  Stepping backward off him, the piercing pain of a blade into her back crippled her. She reached for her chest. The point of the blade protruded. Blood sprayed as the blade ground from side to side. She fell forward to her knees. A bare foot pushed on her back as the knife was extracted and blood poured out. Deimos covered the wound with his large hand, and blood ran down the back from between his fingers.

  “Finish her.” Gabriel’s voice came from behind her.

  A tear slid from Deimos’s eye, lit by the blue haze illuminating his face. “Don’t you dare die!” He spoke low to her ear.

  Betrayed. Blood leaked from her wounds as he lifted her into his arms. “Etienne.”

  ****

  Etienne sat on the bed. The soft scent of lilacs lingered in the air. Why did she share that illusion with him? Because she had no intention of surviving her battle with Deimos. She had given proof of her ability to love. Him.

  If Gabriel spoke the truth, Auria held the key to memories buried deep inside him. What lay beyond those? Given his life, why hadn’t he turned out like her, angry, mistrusting or self-serving?

  He needed answers.

  Mind quiet, he focused on Auria’s essence, which felt weak, but he locked onto her. Bending time and space, he brought himself to her. The blue haze engrossed him, the vibrating began, time and space surrounded him all at once.

  He came face to face with Deimos. Auria lay in his arms, limp and unconscious. Blood dripped to the floor beneath her.

  With a blink, everything good inside him dissolved, replaced by pure hatred. Snatching her body from Deimos, he kicked him in the chest, launching him across the chamber.

  The color had drained from her bronze skin. Her limbs dangled, limp. Eyelids fluttered opened and closed, her brow wrinkled as she grunted. He wiped the blood from her mouth. The faintness of her life force scared him. Lowered to the ground with her in his arms, he laid her out, and hands over her wounds, infused her cells with his platelets. As his energy worked to repair the damage, his palm glowed red.

  Deimos did not move forward, but kept his gaze fixed on him.

  Once both injuries were closed, he scooped her against his chest and stumbled to his feet, drained from the healing.

  “I did not harm her.” Deimos held up his hands. “Gabriel did this.”

  Invading Deimos’s mind, he sifted through his memories.

  As streams of blood poured from both nostrils, Deimos grabbed his head with both hands and gritted his teeth. “Stop,” escaped his lips as he fell to his knees, and then forward onto one of his hands.

  Blood vessels burst in Deimos’s brain as he deepened his assault.

  Her scent rose in the air, soothing his rage. He could kill Deimos, but that would not help the woman he didn’t want to live without. Hatred lingered as he released his hold on Deimos and gazed at her blood soiled lips.

  Deimos stumbled to his feet, backing away from them. “Take her somewhere safe. The war has begun.”

  Engulfed by a blue haze, he vanished.

  Not knowing where else to go, he brought her to his grandparents’ farm. The same small single bed he had always felt safe in felt like the right place for her to rest. The blazing sun burned his eyes, so he closed all the curtains. With a face cloth, he bathed her, then dressed her in a long t-shirt he found in the boxes in the cellar filled with memorabilia from lives long forgotten. He brought a chair into the room and watched over her shallow breathing. She had lost a lot of blood.

  If he saw her spirit rising, he would force it back in.

  ****

  Every moment passed as if an eternity. Seconds turned to minutes, then hours and finally days. A knock came at the front door. When he opened it, he had not expected Taj, standing with hundreds of others behind her. They appeared scared.

  “We have no place else to go. With the battles raging, we were in danger. Jutee told us to seek you.”

  “Fine, as long as you leave us be.” He pointed to the room where his near-death beauty lay.

  “Is she in need of blood? I offer mine freely.”

  He stared, puzzled. “If we aren’t vampires, why would giving Auria blood help?”

  Taj entered the home. “Auria lost a lot of blood, and our donors are the same. All of our blood carries healing properties. Without some of mine her body will take longer to recover.”

  “Then, yes, please.” He hung his head, weary that he did not know enough about what they were to save Auria.

  “You have done so much for her already.” Taj smiled. “I’ll need your help to control her body as I force her to drink from me. She may resist.”

  Exactly the type of grief the woman would give him too. He led Taj to the room, leaving the front door open for the others to enter.

  Taj knelt by the bed and rolled up her sleeve, then held her small limb above Auria’s mouth.

  Clearing his mind, he slipped into Auria’s brain, which seemed fractured, stuck at the moment she was stabbed in the back. As he force
d her mouth open, she did not even notice his invasion. Once her mouth touched Taj’s skin, he compelled her to bite into the flesh and drink. She gulped in as much as Taj could afford to share, then released her.

  “Thank you, Taj. I don’t know how we can ever repay you.”

  “I owe her much more than I can ever offer in return, Etienne.” Taj placed a hand on his shoulder in comfort and exited the room, closing the door behind her.

  Alone with Auria again, he reentered her mind, worked to repair its fractured state. Over the next few days, he or Taj sat with her round the clock. More of them arrived as he remained at her side. The house and the grounds around were turning into a refugee camp.

  Myna and Taj. As he thought of them, a knock came at the door, and when he opened it, the two women stood there.

  How could he know that?

  Myna stepped forward in a blue frock. “Etienne, someone wishes to speak to you outside.”

  “I will stay with her,” Taj said.

  He rose from his seat. What exactly was going on? At this very moment, he did not care about the war.

  As he reached the edge of the property, he slowed his pace. The most unusual group of companions stood at its edge.

  Pasiphae held up Deimos with the aid of Amosdai.

  As he stopped a few feet from them, the scent of blood blew to him on the slight breeze.

  Pasiphae smiled, her face warmed by the orange streaks in the sky from the setting sun.

  “Auria does not wish to wake,” she said, tilting her head.

  The words hurt, though he knew them to be true. “What do you want?”

  “Deimos will not cross onto your property unless you say he may,” she said, sounding more like an adult than any child he’d come across.

  “He may, but only because it is what Auria would want.” Heading toward the house, a child’s loud cry sent birds scattering to the heavens, and he pivoted sharply. Deimos and Asmodai were on his property, but Pasiphae had stepped off.