Hell, we didn’t have electricity, either, but in a world filled with magick, there were alternatives.
“I like this.” Mikjáll filled his glass again and downed another mouthful of the smooth alcohol. “The beer served at the bar in town is fine, but this—this is what I’ve needed for a while.”
“Are there any of my people left in Veil?” The question just popped out. I’d wanted to ask him since he’d arrived in town, but the opportunity had never presented. Now we were alone. No one to overhear. No one to interrupt.
I needed to know. He’d lived there for centuries. If anyone knew whether mine or Jared’s families were still alive, it would be him.
“You mean Gryphons?”
I nodded, raising my glass so he would fill it again.
“I know the twin cities of Rekar and Resar were burned to the ground and remain in ruins. All knowledge of the Gryphons and Phoenix dissolved with the flames that swallowed their homes.”
Pain seized my chest, a vice intent on strangling my hope. It’d been foolish to hope any of my people had survived. Jared knew at least some of his kind would’ve survived. Phoenix could regenerate from ash. “The Phoenix couldn’t stop the fires?”
“No, and the Incanti Drakonae boasted for many years about how they’d burned the Phoenix and Gryphons from their homes, though they are always on guard for an attack from those that would rise from the ashes.”
“They didn’t rise again immediately?”
“There were no sightings during my lifetime. No one has risen against the Incanti. Not a single being in Veil. The Incanti have spies everywhere and rule with an iron fist. There are no trials. No fair rule. You live and die by their word alone.” He poured me another drink and raised his glass. “To the fallen. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“And for yours, Drakonae, and may the Lamassu bastard burn in Dragonfire for eternity after we make a pincushion out of his heart with the swords Eira and Killían carry.”
“I look forward to it.”
Chapter 6
GRETCHEN
I slipped from my room the next morning, trying desperately to avoid being seen by any of the Sisters or the men who had stayed the night. Midmorning breakfast had already been served, but I wasn’t hungry. The only thing that mattered to me was making it through one more night without choosing someone. Without being forced to choose someone. Not that they would physically force me. They wouldn’t, but my life would become increasingly unbearable until I chose to follow through on my own.
“Morning, Gretchen,” said May, her voice bright and shiny like sunlight reflecting on a dew drop. The child was barely eight years old, if that. I couldn’t remember exactly. She was so happy, so content. Not burdened yet with the destiny that struggled to choke me, but since she’d learned to speak, she’d always been at peace. She was wise beyond her years, and Arlea knew her niece was truly the most gifted in the castle—just too young to serve as the official Oracle.
“Morning, May,” I said, keeping my tone level and cheery. The last thing I needed was her running to her mother and tattling anything about me. The Oracle of the House of Lamidae was May’s aunt. Even May herself had experienced visions of a so-called Protector, and they’d come true. Eira had joined Sanctuary with Killían, and we were only two Protectors away from fulfilling the prophecy. From freeing ourselves completely.
Thankfully, May didn’t press me for more interaction. She kept going down the hallway in one direction, and I continued in the other. My only goal was to get upstairs to the second level and into the library.
The library was safe. It was rare for anyone to go in on the weekend. The Blackmoor’s closed it to the town when the club was active. The books were contraband, illegal to own. Not that any of the humans would remember seeing it if they did wander through. The vampires made sure they remembered nothing about Sanctuary, except their desire to return for more sex.
Even if someone did come in, no one would see me. It was easy to stay hidden until they left. The room was huge and filled with at least a dozen rows of bookshelves, not to mention a half-dozen reading nooks.
I’d stay there all day if need be. Alek and I didn’t usually meet until after lunch, but I wanted nothing to do with anyone else today. Not the Sisters, not the Blackmoor’s, nobody but Alek.
Very few of the Sisters were up and moving around after the joinings last night. Mostly I saw children, a few of the pregnant Sisters, and a couple of the more elderly who no longer participated in the sacred weekend coupling. If you asked me, the supernaturally overwhelming urge to procreate really sucked—a colloquialism I’d picked up from an old novel, but it sounded appropriate in this instance.
I skirted the edge of the rooms, slinking through the kitchen and pausing only long enough to grab an apple from the basket on the counter. No one stopped me. No one asked me why I wasn’t curled up in my room with a man trying to get pregnant.
The whole process would start again this evening. Once again, I would be faced with having to hide my feelings and reasons for not wanting to participate. I was the Sister everyone talked about and was disappointed in, but it didn’t matter to me how much they gossiped. I knew my future lay with Alek. I’d seen it, and I would never forget it. No matter how hard my body screamed for a baby, I wanted Alek’s love and devotion more.
The castle was quiet. My soft footsteps echoed down the marble-floored halls. The stone walls carried sound the full length of the castle walks. If anyone was listening, they would hear me, but no one came. No one appeared to stop me from reaching my destination.
I pushed open the heavy glass French door and slipped through into the library. My senses were flooded with the musty scent of books, and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the soft lamplight. The couch where he typically sat, waiting for my arrival, was empty. I was early though, very early.
Strolling toward the couch where the copy of Antony and Cleopatra lay undisturbed, I sat down and leaned back into the cushions, inhaling his lingering scent. Spice. Musk. Male. My body quaked from the inside out. Nothing was more important to me than finding a way to be with Alek. I touched the book he’d held yesterday, closed my eyes, and slowed my breathing. The vision came—pulling me deeper into the trance I sought.
The air was foggy at first. Then clear. Alek and I were sprawled across a bed—perhaps his. I’d never seen his home. The sheets were twined around us, and I could feel the heat of his body on my skin like I was right there next to him instead of watching like a spirit yanked from its corporeal form. He kissed my neck. My lips. My cheeks. Soft and tender. Every touch was purposeful and loving. I was his. He was mine. We belonged to each other. We were happy. Joy permeated every moment of the vision.
I pulled my hand away from the book, drew in a deep breath, and then opened my eyes. The vision of us together had come to me almost seven years ago, a few days before I would’ve participated in my first joining.
From that moment forward, I’d done everything to avoid that fate. Even when I’d been attracted to the male visitors—desired them—strangers in my bed weren’t my destiny. No matter how loudly my body ached for a baby, I would not succumb to something less than what destiny herself had taken the time to show me over and over and over.
I grabbed one of the couch throw pillows and hugged it to my chest, taking another deep breath of Alek’s comforting scent. The human males that visited the castle didn’t have a distinct trace like many of the supernatural ones. I could always tell who was around, whether they were Lycan or Vampire or Drakonae. Even Jared, Alek’s friend, had a very unique and pleasant fragrance. The female supernaturals had unique smells, too. The pixies that frequented the club part of castle smelled like the vanilla sugar scrub I used every day in the bath.
“Gretchen?” Diana’s crisp voice filtered into the dimly-lit library like a stream of sunlight.
“Yes, ma’am.” I opened my eyes quickly and stood from the small couch before turning toward the beautiful
blond woman Alek and Jared both referred to as their queen—snøen mor. I’d asked him once what the words meant. He told me it was a title of honor bestowed on her for feeding the hungry children of her kingdom. That it meant Snow Mother.
Diana’s belly was rounded, and her alabaster skin glowed pink, unusual since she typically leaned toward a more bluish hue. Unlike her mates, Miles and Eli, who were fire-breather Drakonae and heated up a room just by entering, Diana was an ice-breather. And had quite the opposite effect on the air around her—cooling the humid Texas air in an instant and often making it snow in the middle of a sunny day, much to the delight of the children in the town.
“You look well, Lady Blackmoor,” I said, using the title her husbands had requested all the Sisters use to address their mate.
“It’s been so warm lately. These babies are like carrying glowing hearthstones inside me.” Her comment about the babies distracted me from my dreams. Alek would be here soon. The clock on the wall to my right read just past noon—I’d slept for several hours.
“Have you had anyone try to see them?” I asked, running my sweaty palms along the skirt of my white linen dress. If I could keep her talking about the babies, perhaps I could avoid the conversation concerning why I was napping in her library.
“Please feel free if you like, but don’t tell me what you see. Several of the Sisters have seen them as you say, but I only ask that you keep it a secret. I want to be surprised.” Her bright, hope-filled tone carried into her wide smile.
I approached slowly, reaching a hand toward her stomach. Trying to get a vision from a single baby was difficult, but Diana was pregnant with triplets. My fingers touched her round belly, and I jumped in surprise. Spots were warm and spots were cold.
“Your skin... Even through your dress.” I couldn’t hide the astonishment in my voice.
Amusement sparkled in her ice-blue eyes. “I’m quite sure at least one of them is an ice-breather like me.”
A second later a vision filled my mind.
Joy and pain mixed with anger. Some emotions belonged to Diana, and some belonged to the babies. Visions of death and new life mixed with love and romance. Two male Drakonae, eyes blazing with flame, stood out in front of a crowd of hundreds of warriors of all different races. Another, a female with silver-white hair, stood apart from the two leaders. Another man stood behind the female— a large figure hidden in shadow. He wasn’t a Drakonae. Something else.
I couldn’t see his face, but the female wasn’t afraid, not like the others around her. The landscape was covered in ice, so different from the landscape surrounding Sanctuary. Even the sky had been a different shade of blue—otherworldly.
“Did you see them?”
I nodded and met her gaze. My mouth opened to speak, but the firm look in her eyes made it snap shut again.
“It is better not to know our future, Gretchen. Life would be too difficult if you were always striving for a vision or fighting against it. The gift you Sisters bear is a heavy one indeed. I prefer the freedom of not knowing.”
“It can show us future. What to look for. What to look forward to,” I said, brightening my tone while sorrow threatened to pull me beneath its dark shadow. Her words rang horribly true. My vision of Alek and me together had consumed me since it’d first come years ago. Every move, every decision since that point had been to try and make the vision a reality. I knew my choices thus far had not changed our future, because the vision kept returning, but I lived in constant fear that one day I would ruin that perfect scene I’d carried in my heart for so long. The fear that I would never feel loved or whole as I did in Alek’s arms in that one moment.
“But your visions are not the whole tapestry. They show small threads and knots in the fabric of time. What the Lamassu cursed your people with so many years ago was not a gift of visions for you, but a means to an end for them.”
Cursed? “How can you say that? We are the hope for every supernatural being not of Earth.” That was what we’d been taught since we were children. What Rose reminded us of every time she spoke to the Sisters. “We are the key to re-opening the portal to Veil. We are your salvation.”
“Perhaps.” Diana laid her palm to my cheek. “I have lived so many more years than you, child. Things are not usually what they seem on the surface.”
“You just don’t know Rose. She’s protected us for thousands of years. She saved my ancestors from Xerxes and continues that crusade to this day. We seek the Protectors who will fulfill the prophecy.” I spouted off the stuff the Oracle and Rose were always repeating. It was what everything centered on.
“I do agree that Xerxes is an imminent threat, and I am new in Sanctuary,” she continued, her voice calm and even. “Perhaps I just don’t fully grasp the mission of your Sentinel yet.”
I nodded, accepting her explanation. She hadn’t been in Sanctuary long. She hadn’t been on the Earth long, either. It could easily explain her hesitation to believe…to trust in the goal we all worked toward.
“Jared asked me to tell you that Alek won’t be coming by today,” she said, dropping her hand from my cheek.
“Oh, thank you.” I managed to keep my voice flat, emotionless, void of the disappointment flooding my body. I wanted to scream and cry and go hide in the farthest corner of the library. Why was Alek avoiding me? “That was kind of him. I think I’ll still stay and read a while, though.”
“Of course.” She turned and walked for the French doors at the far end of the large room, pausing just before turning the corner and looking back over her shoulder. “Be careful, child.”
Be careful? Of what? Every conversation I’d had with Diana Blackmoor had been strange. She was strange. Like she’d stated herself, she didn’t understand this world. She hadn’t lived here long enough to know Rose and trust her.
Without us, the prophecy could never be fulfilled. We could never be human and free from the visions that plagued us. We could never have sons. Never have a normal life.
I’d heard whispers of others who had refused to participate in the joinings, but none who’d held out as long as myself. Rose and the all the elders maintained we couldn’t have children with supernaturals—except a Lamassu, which is why we were kept hidden from Xerxes…but if Diana thought there was more going on than Rose let on… plus, there was my vision, what else was Rose hiding? Or lying about?
All other thoughts of Rose’s possible deception were erased. My hope—my belief— smothered my doubts about the prophecy. I would be free one day, and I would have a real relationship outside of these stone walls. The prophecy could go on without me.
I walked down one of the aisles, letting my fingertips run along the edge of the books, finally stopping on one oversized old volume I didn’t remember ever looking at. The cover was worn fabric and the lettering, like most older books, was embossed with gold leaf. Fancy script and swirls decorated the front and spine. I traced the title—Legends of Arthur and Avalon.
King Arthur? I’d read stories about his knights and the round table of Camelot. They were adventurous stories of love and devotion. The knights fought bravely for their king and defended their land from invaders.
I walked back to the favored loveseat and curled into the cushions on one side, opening the large book. The paper was yellow with age, but in good shape. It didn’t flake as I turned the first page. The musty smell of history hit my nose, and I breathed in deeply, reading the opening line. In the year of our Lord, five hundred thirty-nine, Arthur Pendragon fought and died for his kingdom. But the end of his story was merely the beginning of another…
The chapter went on to describe how magick was used in the many successful battles Arthur fought and then how magick left his side before he died. His knights took his fallen body from the battlefield and disappeared from the world into a fortress called Avalon, a fortress no man could find again after leaving.
A smile curved my lips. Sounded familiar to me. No mortal man ever remembered seeing this castle, either.
Chapter 7
XERXES
“Yes, General,” Cal said, entering the Oval Office.
“To the lab,” I said, walking toward him from behind the desk. He touched my shoulder and hurtled us into the vortex of space the Djinn used to teleport from place to place.
We materialized again in the new lab I’d set up inside the building formerly known as the Pentagon. Each level had been spelled by witches along with a twist of my own magick to allow only permitted personnel through the shields. Not even that fucking siren, Calliope, would be able to stroll through and take my people unaware again.
I’d made few mistakes over the course of my lifetime, but leaving the mansion at Whitemarsh without wards had been a costly one. Losing the Kitsune Riza and Sochi, and the baby Sochi carried in her womb, had enormously slowed my overall timeline. It would be a decade and a half before Lila, Sochi’s first child, was able to bear a child of her own.
And today was the day we would harvest the last usable blood sample from her.
I left Cal in the main hallway and continued through the maze of doors and magickal barriers to the rooms set aside for Lila and her nurses. The pleased giggle of a baby’s laugh greeted my ears once I passed through the very last barrier—soundproofed even to a supernatural level. I opened the door and stepped into the pale room filled with a few brightly colored blankets, toys, and a swing. Things her nurses insisted the baby needed for proper development.
I raised my hand, using my magick to lift Lila from where she lay on a blanket in front of a nurse. The woman was silent and bowed prostrate on the floor. The baby, however, continued to giggle. The corners of my mouth turned up, mirroring the tiny grin on her face. Her eyes sparkled with life and joy, completely unaware of how scared she should be and of what some might call a terrible situation. I was, after all, considered a monster.
My Guardian Gryphon (Sanctuary, Texas Book 5) Page 6