by Sylvia Frost
Apollo takes one last step, and now he’s close enough that I can smell something sour rotting on his breath.
I close my eyes.
“Father,” Orion says finally.
“Silence,” Apollo commands. His werecall is as strong as the falls. It’s something that roars and presses deep within you until you mistake it for your own blood running through your veins. Until it carves its commands onto your bones.
Orion doesn’t speak again.
“You are not my son. A son does not kill his own mother, then steal his father’s mate.” The words themselves are bitter, but Apollo recites them as if they are simple facts. Then he looks at me.
His gaze slides over my skin, leaving prickles in its wake and a nauseated vertigo in my gut. If only I could run.
“Look at me,” Apollo commands. “Look at me, little Artemis Williams.”
My head snaps upward so hard it sets off my whiplash again. And I look.
Apollo’s face is the same as it was in the dream, hollowed out and hungry, with too-sharp cheekbones and thin lips. He looks old, even though he doesn’t have any wrinkles. When I meet those piss-yellow eyes, bile rises in the back of my throat.
Apollo doesn’t smile, although his eyes brighten and his pupils dilate, one slightly bigger than the other. He reaches out one finger and touches my cheek. His touch is so cold, I shiver. Which is especially strange, because every werebeast I’ve ever met has felt like they’re running a lethal temperature.
I turn, breaking the contact. It puts barely an inch of distance between him and me, not nearly enough. But Apollo recoils, his fist clenching, and the pupil of his right eye shrinks to match his left.
“You are not her,” he says finally. His hand falls to his side and his face drains of what little color it had until it’s Arctic white with bitterness. “You are not my mate.”
I’m your son’s, you sick sadist, I want to say. Instead, I return my gaze to my sneakers and shiver. I wish I knew where Lawrence was; then I’d feel secure enough to use my werecall. But I don’t know how long my werecall will last on Apollo, and I’ll need every second to rescue Lawrence.
I sense more than see the edge of Apollo’s razor-sharp smile as he continues to regard me.
“Don’t worry. I’ll have another.” His voices deepens into raspy need. “And you’ll watch as I make her.” He claps once, and the sound reverberates through the forest like a gunshot. Like a funeral toll.
“Come,” he commands. “Come, my pack. Let’s begin.”
17
The leaves around us and on the other shore begin to rustle as if a great wind has picked up, but the air is still and quiet, the only sounds the falls and my heartbeat pounding in my skull. Then one by one, werebeasts begin to emerge. All I can see at first are their eyes. Cats’ eyes, wolves’ eyes, bears’ eyes. Yellow and piercing, just like Apollo’s. As they slink out of the darkness, their eyes are given bodies. Bears the size of elephants peer around trees. Lions flick their tails and toss their manes. Panthers prowl, barely visible at all, ready to melt back into the shadows at a moment’s notice. Even a tiger bares its teeth at me, a gesture that should be menacing, except….
Cal!
The tiger is Cal.
I swallow back a squel of relief. She’s alive. Then I exhale. Making contact with Cal finally gives me the comfort to breathe, although I make no motion to let her know I see her. That would give her away.
A damp, cold hand brushes against the small of my back. “Are you frightened?”
“Yes,” I say. I knot my hands together piously, but I don’t have to lie. I am scared. It’s only Orion’s presence next to me, the silent promise of his ability to shift, that keeps me from being completely terrified.
“Good.” Apollo nods. Then he steps into the stream as if it’s a puddle and not the edge of a waterfall.
I clutch blindly for Orion’s hand, and it takes too long to find it. I feel like I’m the one who’s fallen into the river, and Orion’s holding me back from shore. He squeezes my fingers together so hard that if I weren’t numb it’d hurt.
“Bring the girls first, then the vampires,” Apollo shouts once he lands back on his rock that juts out into the middle of the river.
My stomach turns. Girls?
Of course. I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it before, but in order for the bloodbinding to work, they’ll need to have girls, too.
Orion’s downy hair brushes my cheek as he whispers in my ear, “Don’t look if you think you can’t take it.”
I know Orion’s wise. I’m on edge enough as it is, so it’ll be safer if I do all I can to keep my calm. But after everything I’ve been through, looking away isn’t an option. Head forward, I scan the dark line of purple trees on the other side of the river. Lawrence, where are you?
The girls emerge in a straight line, the night washing them of all color. Once they get to the river the shifters, dressed in black pants and shirtless, each claim a girl and throw her over their shoulders for the crossing. The girls don’t scream. They don’t shout.
I wish they did. I try not to think about what it took to make them so docile. I hope they’ve just been exposed to the werecall. But only wolves have a werecall, and other than Orion’s father, I don’t see a single wolf in the crowd.
I press the palm of the hand that’s not being held by Orion against the fabric of my jeans to get rid of the sweat. Not that it makes much of a difference. Spray from the waterfall mists up around Orion and me. The temperature has fallen further with the night, making me shake.
Once they reach the other side, the shifters set the girls down. Something about the girls is familiar, I realize. They’re all blonde (in varying degrees of authenticity), and they’re all wearing the same t-shirt. As I lean forward, I can just make out the blocky writing on it. Sigma Kappa Phi.
The sorority girls from Lola’s bar.
The realization washes over me with sickening quickness. Yet another horrible thing Lola did, just so Apollo wouldn’t go looking for girls himself and accidentally find me.
“You!” shouts a girl just as she is being deposited on the shore. She points at me. “You bitch. Did you do this?” She’s loud, but the gushing of water is so deafening that I can barely hear her. It puts the power of Apollo’s werecall all the more into perspective.
“Shut up!” the nearest shifter yells.
“No,” the girl says, and she scrambles on legs unsteady with nerves. “You told them about us. It was after we went to your club that we were—”
Snap.
The shifter’s fist connects with the girl’s jaw, and the way she twists and falls to the ground, hand clutching her face, is so visceral that I feel an empathetic vibration in my own cheekbone.
Orion growls next to me.
Apollo remains as solid as the stone he’s standing on. Water buffets against the rock, sending sheets of spray around him like a shield. “Enough!” The roar of the falls seems to amplify his werecall instead of drowning it out.
The shifter sinks to the ground next to the girl, clutching his head.
Apollo twists to glare at Theodorus, and there’s something supernatural about the way he moves. His dark pants are plastered to his bony legs, wet from the water, and his eyes are like chips of a glacier. “Help the girl up.”
Slowly, Theodorus lurches up from the wet, hard ground. While other shifters seem to carry their animal’s grace with them, he moves clumsily on two legs. Eventually he finds purchase and lunges to swing the girl over his shoulder again.
“Gently,” calls Apollo.
Theodorus holds out his hand to the girl.
A weak smile crosses my face when the girl ignores it and begins to trudge over to us under her own will. But my hope dies when I realize what this diversion means. Lawrence is still out there. Come on, Cal. But there are too many predators to pick her out of the lineup again.
“Now,” Apollo drawls, glaring at the top of Theodorus’s brown-haired
head. “You struck a weremate.”
“I had to get her to shut up, sir,” Theodorus grumbles.
“You what?”
“I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again,” he says.
“No,” Apollo says thoughtfully, “it won’t.” Apollo pivots on the stone and puts his back to the waterfall. Mist rises up and curls around him, mingling with the stark moonlight. Then he widens his stance and addresses the werebeasts at the fringes of the woods.
“For those of you who don’t know,” Apollo announces to the crowd, “Theodorus’s father was my partner. The one who helped with the first bloodbinding. Timothy Higgens revealed himself to the humans when the FBSI tried to cover up our return. He is the one who ensured that instead of your children being slaughtered by the humans, we will one day rule them. Since his father’s death I have loved Theodorus, like I love all of you, as if he were my own child. But love and years of loyalty are not enough. We must have order. We must have tradition.”
Lions roar their agreement, and a trio of coyotes yip. They’re sounds of hunger more than victory. I lean forward, trying to figure out whether the movement on the other shore is just my imagination. At my side, Orion fidgets. He won’t be able to stand aside and do nothing much longer.
“Theodorus.” Apollo holds up a hand to quiet the crowd. It’s a superfluous gesture. The moment the sound wave of his werecall touches the air, even the waterfall seems to hush. “What do you say in your defense?”
“She’s not a weremate, sir,” Theodorus says slowly. “And she’s definitely not my weremate.”
Apollo’s nose wrinkles in disdain. “She will be someone’s. With her help, one of your compatriots will find not only their love, but also their power.”
A communal growl emanates from beasts lurking in the night.
This time Apollo doesn’t quiet them. “Yes, I agree. He needs to be punished.”
Their howls crescendo until they drown out the falls. It must echo for miles, bouncing from wall to wall of the canyon. I have no doubt that the FBSI will have heard them coming, even if Tracker tells them the herd is somewhere else.
And I haven’t seen Lawrence yet.
Fuck.
“Theodorus, I sentence you to death for your crimes!” Apollo bellows.
“What!” Theodorus cries.
“Turn and walk to your fate.” Apollo flicks his hands at Theodorus, who pivots toward the waterfall. I know he must be under Apollo’s control, because he is suddenly graceful as he’s about to die. He must be too stupid or too surprised to realize what’s happening, because he keeps shouting even as he strides into the current and is swallowed by the mist.
I feel outside of my own body, and it’s only Orion’s touch that anchors me to earth. If Apollo can make a full-grown werebeast simply walk off the edge of a waterfall to his own death, how am I ever going to fight him? Worse, I know that the fall alone won’t kill the bear shifter. The force of Apollo’s werecall will have to make Theodorus drown himself.
Apollo claps three times above his head. “Now, bring out the vampires.”
The branches of the pine trees on the opposite shore begin to rustle. Lawrence, Lawrence, Lawrence. I debate whether to hold my breath until I see him, as if that could strengthen my werecall.
I can see a group of captives now, bound together in a line, their hands tied with what looks like rope. Unlike the girls, they don’t move in an orderly fashion; each one is tugging in a different direction. It’s only a shifter at the head of the group that keeps them moving toward the water. A couple of them have skin dark enough to be Lawrence.
Now. I should do it now.
I inhale, the cool, humid air filling my lungs and calming my hot, thudding heart. Orion’s hand presses against mine for strength and our pulses merge into a single beat. It sounds like the introduction to a song. One, two, three, four… All I have to do is make my entrance on time.
Then all my plans fall apart.
18
Two things happen at once.
First, the tree line on the other shore breaks as one of the vampires slips out of the bonds and lunges toward the river. Even from here I can see how emaciated they are, bones so thin they can slip right through the knots. They stumble around senselessly and the shifters keep a wary distance.
One bite from a vampire is all it takes to transfer the disease.
The second thing that happens is that Apollo shouts, “Say nothing! Move nowhere, Artemis.”
I’d swear my heart stops beating, the blood freezing in my veins. I know how Theodorus must be feeling right now as the current drags him down to the bottom of the stony, cold river. The only thing that reminds me I’m alive at all is the pulsing warmth of my matemark.
Orion is stiff beside me. Not because he can’t move, but because he’s trying his hardest not to. There’s nothing he wants more than to rip his father apart. But while that might be a fight he could win, the moment he does, the werebeasts would tear him apart. Fighting them can be a last resort only.
On the other shore another vampire follows the first, and another, until there’s a full-blown horde of them shambling into the current. A couple of the shifter guards have transformed, one wildcat and a wolf, and as the first of the vampires sways into the river, they follow. The wolf catches one of the emaciated captives first, dragging him down by the neck.
I’m too far away to see the blood.
The blood…
Oh god. The vampires didn’t escape. They were released. And the shifters aren’t afraid of them; they’re hunting them.
The bloodbinding has begun.
“Apollo!” I scream. Only after the shriek has left my mouth do I realize that there’s none of my werecall in it. Just pure panic.
It gets his attention anyway. He turns, his body twisting at an odd angle like all of his bones aren’t completely there. His piss-yellow eyes meet mine. “Don’t disobey me, Artemis.” There’s something personal in his voice, a fetid, rotting hate that I can almost smell, even across the river.
Or maybe that’s just the blood.
Focus.
“No,” I say.
I close my eyes, trying to summon the sense of eternal calm I used to feel when I stepped onstage, knowing every note, every stage direction. When I knew the ending. But control is so far away, and when I do find it, grasping it is like trying to hold water. It seems to find all the cracks of my fear and slip right through.
Breathe.
In and out.
Simple.
This is simple.
I open my eyes, then my mouth. “You’re going to stop this, Apollo. Right now.”
I’m impressed by how well my voice carries over the fighting and the waterfall.
Unfortunately, Apollo is not. That same lopsided grin slinks across his lips, showing his sharp teeth and the black spaces between them. “You’ve taught her a few tricks, have you, Orion?” he calls, not even bothering to address me.
This is the last straw for Orion. He begins to shift.
I don’t hear his bones cracking, but the air around me heats up from the force of the magic. And more than that; because of the bond, I can feel Orion’s anger pushing him through the change faster than normal. It hurts more for him this way, but I’m sure he doesn’t care. He’s lost to his wolf. He’s lost to me. In five seconds he’ll be hurtling toward his father’s throat.
And then, after his father uses his werecall on him and compels him to drown himself, he will be lost to us all.
Another vampire tumbles into the river.
Orion’s finished his shift and is spitting, his teeth gnashing. I grab a fistful of fur and try to restrain him. He thrashes against me, but not hard enough to escape, although he could if he wanted to. There’s a little bit of the man left in him.
There’s a little bit of the man left in everyone.
Even Apollo.
I force myself to meet Apollo’s gaze. I force myself to really look, to see beyond the rabid fear a
nd rage foaming in his yellow eyes. To look to the root of it. To his pain.
There is so much of it, I realize.
Maybe the bond I have with Orion extends to his family members, or maybe I’m just hallucinating, but the harder I stare, the more I swear I can see my own reflection in his eyes. It reminds me of when I was chatting online with Orion and I suddenly saw him standing underneath the tree. Except there’s nothing pleasant about this. I have to force myself not to look away.
I can’t just hate Apollo. Not if I want to win. I have to see him as he truly is.
I close my eyes.
And there I am… in a bedroom. Not like the one in Orion’s nightmares, but a homey room with a queen-sized bed covered by a hand-knitted blanket. The ceilings are low and the walls are covered with lime-green, outdated wallpaper. On the bedside table is an open copy of The Tempest. But the woman tucked under the covers isn’t reading.
Much like the dead doppelganger, she’s a prettier, thinner version of me. Weaker, too. Her limbs are all hard edges and her hips boyishly small, which makes the size of her belly all the more disconcerting. She’s so pregnant that the loose stitches of the blanket tent upward around her stomach. Her eyes are closed and with each pant she gives, more sweat beads on her brow.
She squeezes the hand of the man sitting next to her. He looks like Apollo in the way a body looks like a skeleton. More flesh, more hair. Broad-shouldered and blond. He grits his jaw the way Orion does. His pupils are symmetrical and contracted.
“It’s time, Apollo,” the woman wheezes. She stares up at the ceiling. Praying.
He shakes his head. “Diane, we can’t. It’s too dangerous. The doctor might realize.”
They aren’t so different: the fear in his eyes then, and the fear in his eyes now.
“But—”
“It’s not up for debate,” he says. “I have one of our own midwives coming. She’ll be here soon, my mate.”