“Luna, they’re here.”
“Get them away from me now.” She stared at the wall with tears in her eyes, shrugging me off as I held her stillborn sons.
“Luna, say goodbye to your sons,” I encouraged.
“I said, get them away from me and get Aine in here, you stupid bitch!” I recoiled from her words, nodding my head as I moved out of the room and down the stairs.
I placed the babes in the kitchen on a towel that was freshly laundered and went to tell the others they’d been born male and dead. Once I’d made the sad announcement, I started to cleanse them for their burial.
Silently, I turned on the water as my shoulders shook with silent sobs. Checking that it was lukewarm, I grabbed the smallest of the smaller of the boys. Removing the cloth from his tiny body, I began washing the birthing matter and blood away from his skin. I was careful as I cleaned him, wrapping him in the shroud for burial once I’d finished. I repeated the action with the second child, listening as Luna sobbed above me.
Once they were both wrapped and ready for the altar to bless them into the next life, and hopefully not to be reborn into our line, I leaned over the counter, whispering a prayer for the strength to walk their tiny bodies to the altar alone.
Our bloodline buried our boys, but none of us had ever given birth until now. We’d heard it had happened before, especially to our mother. We’d never been witness to it, nor felt the emotional loss until now. After I’d moved the small bodies into the herb room where sage burned endlessly, I went back and leaned against the counter to clean the mess.
I felt him behind me, yet he said nothing as my shoulders rocked with silent sobs trembling through me. He didn’t move, just stood there, offering me comfort as I prayed for strength. I exhaled, closing my eyes, and a sob pushed against my throat even as I swallowed it down.
“Breathe.” Knox’s mouth brushed against my shoulder, his teeth skimming over his mark, calming me instantly. “Just breathe, Aria.”
“How do you do that to me, Knox? You touch me, and everything fades to black; even in the darkest of times, you can take it all away. How do you make everything fade to background noise?” I fought against the purr that built in my chest, but it exploded in a loud wave. I felt him smiling against my flesh, but he pulled away as a purr sounded from deep within him as well, as if his beast answered mine on a level I couldn’t understand.
“It’s not me; it’s the bite that calms you. Whatever is within you, it’s strong, and it has a profound reaction to what you feel. It’s what a female wolf feels when the alpha touches her with his teeth. Anyone could do it for you, as long as they’re strong enough to survive your beast.”
“I’m not a wolf, though, so am I like you? What are you?” I spun around, looking up at him for answers.
“Are the boys always born dead?” he asked, swiftly changing the subject.
“From what I read, Hecate cursed us to only breed females. It was written in a strange language, and the spell I used to decipher it wasn’t one hundred percent correct. It stated that boys will be delivered dead and then sent to the afterlife to be looked after by her. I had no idea that they were born with no facial features. It isn’t fair to the babes or the mother,” I uttered, watching as a tick began in his jaw.
“You just allow the curse to continue when Hecate isn’t here to ensure it does?”
“It’s not a curse that can be broken easily. It calls for the sacrifices of virgins, and the death of Hecate witches, whether watered down or not, it’s still too many lives to take for one curse. That’s not something we can just run out and collect, Knox.”
He stared at the tiny shrouded bodies and then lifted dark eyes to me. “And you? You just wrap them up to throw them away?”
“Is that what you think I am doing?” I asked as he turned his head back to look at me, prowling toward me.
“I think your entire bloodline is a bunch of murderous bitches that care little what they do to the innocent lives affected because of your actions.” His fangs extended into rows of razor-sharp teeth, and I closed my eyes before opening them again as he boxed me in against the counter. “I think you are all alike and should pay for the innocent lives you and your kind extinguish as if it is your fucking right to do so.”
I nodded, closing my eyes as my heart raced with fear. “I am wrapping them into a blessing cloth. It is also soaked with sacred oils to link them to another bloodline to ensure that they are never reborn to us or any females in our line. I will then place their tiny bodies on an altar and beg another god to take them from us. That is the only thing I can do for their little souls, Knox. I cannot break the curse, nor do I have the power of the goddess who cast it upon us to even try. Get out of my way so I can prepare them for when their grieving mother is ready, so that we may send them to their next life to be reborn to a mother who can carry their tiny souls to full-term and love them.”
Opening my eyes, I started as he lowered his mouth against my throat. My hands lifted, pushing through his thick hair as I held him closer. If he was going to murder me, he needed to get it over with. Teeth touched my throat, and a single droplet of blood ran down my neck, and my mouth brushed against his ear as his hands wrapped around my waist to hold me there.
A cough sounded behind us, and Knox inched back, but he waited for his fangs to rescind before he turned, staring over his shoulder at Reign, who was trespassing against whatever was happening to him. There was a lethal look in his eyes, and the smell of overwhelming pain confused me as he slowly turned back, watching me before he slowly lowered his mouth to my throat, licking the blood he’d drawn.
“I’m all for taking it where you can get it, but this isn’t the place or time to be fucking.” Reign said, her voice thick with emotion. “Are the babes prepared?” I nodded. “If you just nodded, I can’t see your head, asshole.”
“I need a moment to finish.”
“Finish what?”
“Reign, please. They’re almost ready.”
“Luna doesn’t want to be present. She wants them gone. Brander said she is in shock and mixed with blood loss, she won’t be out of the woods in time to bless them into the afterlife.”
“Okay,” I said, still being held in place by Knox, who breathed heavily against my throat, but it wasn’t from lust, it was hatred. The moment she was away from us, I exhaled a shuddered breath and waited for him to move away from me. He didn’t. Instead, he turned black eyes in my direction that were banked with flecks of red, as if a fire burned within him.
“I get that you hate us, Knox. I don’t understand why or what we did to you, but you need to stay away from me. You confuse and disorientate me. I think you do it on purpose. I think you intend to hurt me, and you terrify me. I need you to stay away so that I can fight this need to be with you, please.”
He smiled, threading his fingers through my hair before he pulled my ear to his lip. “I don’t care what you want, Aria. You should be afraid. You should be very afraid of what I want from you.” His nose brushed against the rapid pulse in my throat before he backed up, staring at me through black eyes that had filled with embers.
“You should go now.” I entered the herb room and picked up the tiny bodies, moving out of the room to find him blocking my path. Silent tears slipped down my cheeks as he spoke.
“Aurora told me about the note. I want to know who put it on your car, and how the fuck you missed them doing so.” His eyes dropped the swaddled bodies cradled in my arms, and he frowned. “This isn’t finished.”
“Oh, it’s so finished,” I countered, moving past him to take the bodies to the altar. Outside, the alphas lined the street, sensing the birth of a male wolf. I exhaled as my eyes captured Dimitri’s, and he swallowed hard as he took in the tiny bodies I carried. His dark head bowed until Knox left the house behind me, following me to the altar.
I carefully placed the babes on the stone slab, igniting the candles the moment they touched it, lighting the crystals all around th
e yard. I felt the moment the connection to the afterlife opened, and stepped back, bumping into Knox.
“You need to get out of the yard,” I whispered. “Leave, Knox.”
“No,” he growled, slipping arms around me as he pulled me against his chest. He didn’t stop there; he continued backing up away from the altar as my sisters came out with sage and other things, each one playing a part to send the boys to a new mother. “What are they doing?”
“Blessing the babies, to give them strength for their journey to a new mother,” I whispered softly. “The sage will cleanse the negative energy from the birth. The crystals keep anyone wishing to harm them away, or any sprits who think to intervene. Too bad it doesn’t erase whatever you are too, or at the very least, repel you.”
“It soaked your cunt at the idea of my teeth claiming your throat; that’s dangerous, Aria.”
“Knox?” I whispered huskily.
“Aria?”
“It’s a funeral, behave.”
He turned, and I didn’t need to look to see he was staring at Dimitri with a triumphant glare. He purred, and I mirrored it, unable to stop it from escaping. I could feel both sets of eyes on me, and I stood silently, watching my family as they added herbs and flowers around the altar until rainbow-colored stones and flowers were laid out on the ground.
“What are they doing now?” Knox asked again, and I turned my head, whispering against his cheek.
“They’re blessing the gods who we don’t worship. It’s the best chance the boys have at escaping our bloodline. Next, they will sing and then dance around the altar as they aim to please the gods to accept the male offspring, allowing them to escape the curse.”
“You’re not dancing,” he pointed out.
“My magic isn’t like theirs. Mine is something else, and we don’t want it to influence blessing spells.”
“I like to watch you dance,” he rasped against my shoulder, and my chest rumbled with a purr. “How do they know if another god accepts the boys?”
“We don’t, but we pray that they’re never cursed to be carried in our deadly wombs again. You weren’t even watching me dance, prick.”
“The fuck I wasn’t,” he chuckled darkly.
“Oh.”
“You danced to show me everything I couldn’t have. You forgot one small thing, Aria. You’re mine, whether you like it or not. I claimed you and that can’t be undone unless I decide to allow it. Plus, your beast chose me too. I marked her too, which means you’re both mine.”
“We apparently have horrible taste in men,” I whispered as candles burned in the wind while my sisters moved in a graceful dance that was raw with power. Tears slipped from my eyes, and his mouth kissed my shoulder, calming the struggle within me. Sweat beaded on my brow as my body sagged against his body with need. I’d been fighting my body’s needs for days, and I was fully aware that I was losing the battle. Especially with close proximity and scent filling my senses, making the needs impossible to ignore.
“Careful, Aria,” he warned thickly.
“I don’t like what I am becoming.” Admitting it was dangerous, considering I was sure the beast within me understood everything I said.
“That’s because you’re fighting the change. Stop fighting the inevitable and let it happen. It’s evolution, and it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful in both forms, and you’re not a monster. You’re a queen among beasts since most women in the Nine Realms cannot even take their beast form and show no physical attributes of what they truly are. You, Aria, you have fangs and claws. Most females are created to be bred, but you, you were created for war. Embrace it, little lamb.”
“It’s easy for you to say. I don’t even know what I am, so how am I supposed to accept it? What if what I am doesn’t belong in this realm? What if I hurt someone?”
“What if suppressing it does more damage?” he countered, kissing my shoulder.
“If you keep kissing me, I’m going to end up needing to go change.”
“Change what?” he chuckled huskily, but the vibration of his lips against my flesh made my back arch, and my core released molten need.
“My panties.”
“Behave, woman. We’re at a funeral,” he swallowed a growl as his chest trembled. His hands yanked me back, holding me against his cock, which was resting on my lower back. “Fucking hell.”
“I agree, we’re being very inappropriate right now.”
“You need to go inside, because in a moment, I’m going to leave, and you will be exposed, with the scent of your arousal thick in the air. Walk, Aria.” He moved me toward the house without releasing me. I could feel the eyes of the alphas on me as we passed them and stopped on the porch. “Go bathe now.”
“Knox,” I whispered. “Whatever happened to you, I hope you find peace from the demons that haunt you.”
“Don’t talk to me about fucking demons, woman. You can’t even imagine the ones I house.” I watched as he moved into the street, pushing his shoulder into Dimitri as he walked past him on his way home, itching for a fight.
Chapter 45
It was a tense week before Luna finally started to recover, and no matter what we did, she still refused to come out of the shell she’d become. Aurora had tried everything, including figuring out who the father was to see if his breed might have played a part in creating male offspring.
No one breathed until Luna had finally eaten. Brander said she would recover from the heartbreak of losing the babes, but it would take time. The last few days had changed for the worst, and she’d become crazed and violent, mostly against me, which we assumed was because unlike the others, I was stuck in the house until we figured out who was trying to get to me.
Death wasn’t something we had ever dealt with before. People in our line didn’t die. It was a blessing we hadn’t realized until we’d stood there, chanting to send the souls of Luna’s infant sons into a new life. It was surreal. The alphas stood silent sentinels, watching and protecting the babes until flames had consumed them. The moment the babies’ souls crossed over, they’d turned on their heels, going back to the House of Alpha, all except Dimitri, who waited for me to turn, to see the anger burning in his eyes.
Knox’s hand had slipped to my back, and he’d walked me to the house, leaving me at the door to walk directly in front of Dimitri, where he stood in the road, following us, taunting him openly with my scent on Knox. They’d both turned to look at me the moment they passed each other, and I’d done the only sane thing I could do; I’d entered the house, closing them both out and gone to sleep after I’d bathed.
Now with the screams and the music exploding from Luna’s room as she destroyed it, I almost missed the shell version. I was stuck on babysitting duty since I couldn’t go out and let loose. The others had escaped Luna’s tirade, but I was being hunted by creatures, not knowing who they were or why they wanted me. Nothing had been discernible from the car bombing.
The body belonged to a human, one who had been used as an unwilling suicide bomber from what we could tell. I’d sent his family money, because what else could you do when they were mourning a loss that they couldn’t explain? They had sent his human body back to his hometown, placed in the car that exploded without the explosive remnants.
When I had asked why I hadn’t been informed, Lore told me Knox had handled it on my behalf. What the fuck did that even mean? He’d done the same thing with the woodland creature, and it seemed as if he was protecting me, and while he didn’t like it, he still did it. The man was confusing. He was hot one moment, then ice-cold the next, leaving me with icicles hanging from my flesh.
The bounty hounds, well, they were obviously sent by whoever wanted me from within the Nine Realms, but why? I was nobody. Again, when I had gone searching for answers, I’d been told Knox was inside the Nine Realms, handling it. I could walk in the yard, and nothing tried to attack me, and I’d known Knox’s brothers were outside with me, stationed around me even though they tried to hide their presence.
One minute Knox had kissed me until I didn’t care if I ever gained air into my lungs again, and then the next, he’d choked me, and I damn well prayed for air. Something had happened to him, and from his reaction to the babes, I had a heavy heart as I tried to add it up in my head.
Knox had been ghostly white as Luna screamed with labor pains. It was as if he had recalled something he’d been through, which made me wonder if he was a father, or had been at one time. Luna’s babes had been my first birthing to witness, and it had been horrifying. Knox had turned lethal at the sight of the shrouded bodies, and I’d felt his need to sink his teeth into my throat and rip it out, and then just like Knox, he’d calmed my demons and my soul.
Breaking Benjamin’s Breath exploded through the speaker of the stereo, and I turned from where I stood on the balcony, drenched in sweat, to stare down the street. Every night I was getting worse, as if I was fighting a war within myself, and the result was the feeling of melting from in the interior of my soul that radiated out of me. I couldn’t stop the gnawing within me. I ached every day, and every night and no matter how much I flicked the bean; it didn’t soothe shit.
I’d eaten copious amounts of food, and yet nothing touched the hunger I felt. The heat, the heat was endless. I spent more time making ice and dumping it into the tub before climbing in than anything else this week. Not that it helped; by the time I’d sat in the ice, it turned to water and began boiling.
Something crashed against the wall, and I gripped the railing, closing my eyes. I counted to ten and then released the breath I held and went to look in Luna’s room to be sure she hadn’t hurt herself. Luna tossed a lamp in my direction, and I ducked, staring at her with wide, horrified eyes.
“What the hell, Luna?”
“Get out, you slut!” she snapped.
“What the fuck did I do to you?”
“You want to know what is wrong with me. You rubbed your ass on the father of my sons, and then you fucking made out with him! I can’t even bring myself to tell him that our sons died because I can’t un-see you with him, you stupid whore!”
Flames of Chaos Page 32