by Tenaya Jayne
Syrus swore a string of curses and fell on his knees. He looked over at Menjel, still tied up on the floor, convulsing as the lightning electrocuted him repeatedly. He sheathed the sword and got back to his feet. Syrus pulled the power back to himself and hauled Menjel up by the front of his robes.
"If there is anything you can do, or any information you can give that will help me get Forest back, I suggest you offer it now. I'm going to kill you either way, but the degree of pain you suffer will vary depending on what you offer me."
"You heard our conversation, I assume. I don't know anything you don’t about where she is. I didn't even think she was still alive. But if you let me live, I'll give you my fealty. I can help you defeat Copernicus," Menjel said quickly.
Syrus pushed him back, disgusted, and punched him full force, in the throat. Menjel clutched at his neck, unable to breathe. He fell to his knees and scrabbled around as he suffocated. Syrus watched, unaffected, as Menjel picked up a shard of Copernicus' shattered sword and attempted but failed to give himself a tracheotomy. He died a nasty shade of plum. Syrus pinched his eyes shut and shook his head. What should he do next?
A groan came from the next room. Syrus followed the sound and found Merhl on the floor, bloodied and coming to from being unconscious. Syrus exhaled in relief and reached to pull Merhl up.
“Are you all right?”
“I think so. I will be soon. I don’t know what happened.” Merhl shook his head. “I don’t remember anything after you telling me to come and get Rahaxeris.”
“Rahaxeris is not here, and the other priests are dead. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Have you found Forest?” Merhl asked.
“No.” Syrus shook his head.
“Please let me continue to help you.”
“Thank you. Let’s go back to the Onyx castle.”
****
Copernicus landed on his back on the deck of the ship in a pool of blood. He held his wounded arm against his wounded chest. The pain shocked him almost as much as the fact that his gashes hadn't pulled together yet. His flesh felt burned where it was cut. With every beat of his heart, blood pumped freely out the holes.
"Shreve!" he yelled.
Shreve came up from below and ran to his side. "What happened, Father?"
"Bind this up!" he ordered through grated teeth.
Shreve took off his shirt and tore it into strips that he tied around Copernicus' forearm and over his chest. "Why aren't you healing? What did this to you?"
"I underestimated Syrus. His power…and the sword he carries…must be neutralized. He poses a real threat to us. To me. And now I've lost Menjel. I'm sure he's dead…” He growled in pain and fury. “I will have that sword!"
Shreve looked apprehensively at Copernicus. "I think you need to sleep, for these wounds to heal."
Copernicus got to his feet, hissing in pain. "Perhaps, but right now, I'm just pissed off… This is Forest's fault."
He marched toward the hatch door, his fists clenched tight.
"Uh oh," Shreve said under his breath.
Copernicus shoved the door to Forest's cell aside. She was still unconscious on the floor, Rahaxeris hunched over next to her, his hand on her arm. He knocked Rahaxeris aside and stood over Forest.
"Look at this!" Copernicus shouted at her. "Look what your mate did to me!" He slapped her face so hard her whole body rolled to the side with the force.
"Stop!" Rahaxeris yelled.
Copernicus ignored him and grabbed Forest by the shoulders. “Wake up!” he screamed, shaking her violently. “Look at me!”
Her emerald eyes snapped open. She immediately simpered at him. “Please don’t hurt me any more, brother.”
The hard lines of rage around his eyes eased, and his grip softened on her shoulders. He laid her back down gently on the floor. His blood had soaked through the cloth covering his wounds, and a few drops landed on her face.
“Look at this,” he whined, showing her his arm. “Syrus did this to me. It’s not healing.”
“Got you with my sword, looks like.”
Shreve stood in the doorway, his whole body rigid. Rahaxeris glanced at him, feeling as uneasy as Shreve looked.
“It will heal, in time, but not easily, I’m afraid,” Forest said.
“Your mate just injured me and dealt my plans a blow. What do you think about that? How does that make you feel?”
Forest frowned, fear gliding under the surface of her eyes. “Well…can you really blame him? He wants me back I’m sure.”
Copernicus scowled and tisked. “Evasion.” He knelt and looked her over closely, lifting her arm up where he inspected her injection site.
Forest let him, placidly.
“How do you feel physically?” he asked.
“Okay, mostly. Why? Are you going to get someone else to kick the shit out of me again?”
He caressed the side of her face. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t know about the baby at the time.”
He reached down and stroked Forest’s stomach. A spark of red struck out at his hand and shocked him suddenly. He lashed out thoughtlessly at the source of what had caused him pain, pulling his hand back in a fist aimed at the baby. Forest was on her feet faster than a blink, bringing her knee up into Copernicus’ face. His head snapped back, his nose gushing blood. He roared and jumped to his feet. He was much bigger and way stronger, but Forest was in a mode she’d never experienced before: mama bear. She’d face down an army of giants with nothing but her teeth and bare hands.
Copernicus’ eyes widened at the killing energy coming off Forest. “Stand down,” he ordered.
“Try and touch my baby again, and I’ll force feed you your own entrails!”
Copernicus swelled. “Is that right?” he growled.
Forest bared her teeth, ready to spring on him. Shreve came up behind her, whacking the hilt of her old sword in the back of her head, knocking her unconscious. He caught her as she went down.
Shreve looked tensely at Copernicus and laughed. “She’s quite the wildcat, isn’t she?”
“I didn’t ask you to interfere,” Copernicus snarled.
“Your wounds are looking worse. Brawling is the last thing you need right now. How are you going to march on Halussis bleeding all over like that? Plus I know you’re not done with her yet. Haven’t your plans been messed up enough today?”
Copernicus sighed. “All right, Shreve. You’re right.”
He left the room, a trail of blood behind him. Shreve gave Rahaxeris a relived look. Rahaxeris returned his look with one of gratitude. Shreve nodded and left, locking the door after him.
“So what now?” he asked Copernicus as he dressed his wounds.
“I’m going to sleep for a little while and see if that sets me to rights. I want you to go and spread the word to the believers that we will gather tonight at the edge of the Wolf’s Wood where the shifter colony used to be.”
“Yes, Father. Just the believers? Not the rest?”
“The rest can wait for their orders to come down the chain of command.” Copernicus laid down and closed his eyes.
“What about Redge?”
“He’s just a slave. Leave him, for now.”
Shreve used his ogre blood and opened a portal to Paradigm, where most of the people he needed to contact were hiding.
Chapter Eight
Journey marveled at how she was in the same place again as she had been the previous night. Sitting with her back against the stone wall of the ruin, next to Redge while he slept. She never would have thought she had such self-control. Or maybe the fact that she still hadn’t let him know she was right here with him was cowardice and not control. She’d never realized she had masochistic tendencies, for it was real pain to be so close and yet not touch him. She rubbed her arms, shaking her head. It was cowardice.
He stirred. Journey held perfectly still, holding her breath. There was no where she could hide in the hollow space. The only cover she had was the shadow cas
t from the moonlight over the tree that grew in the center of the house. Redge sighed and opened his eyes. He rolled onto his side and sat up on the bare slats of the bedframe. His elbows rested on his knees, and he put his head in his hands.
Journey’s heart beat so hard and fast she was sure he would hear it any second.
He lifted his head and looked right at her. She gasped and rose to her feet, still keeping her back to the wall. He stood, his eyes fathomless. He blinked three times. He raised his hands up, looked at them, and flexed his fingers.
“Strange,” his voice was low. “I thought I was awake. I feel awake, but now, I know I’m not.”
Her eyes rounded as he came at her slowly. “Yes,” she breathed. “You’re dreaming.”
His breath caught, and he stopped still. “You never speak to me, in my dreams… Not once, have you.”
Her whole body was shaking, and her voice was weak through her trembling lips. “You dream of me, Redge?”
He laughed bitterly. “Journey…you haunt me every night. Every single night since you left me. Why are you talking to me now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps I need you to, now more than ever, because I’ve lost everyone else.” He frowned and looked down at his hands again, rubbing them together. “I feel awake,” he whispered.
“You’re not. I promise you.”
He looked at her slowly and quietly. His eyes hid nothing. She felt the very foundation of her soul shake and begin to crumble. When his eyes filled with tears, she broke completely. Their chemistry turned incendiary.
He reached out. Journey panicked. She couldn’t let him touch her. She immediately began to sing, and threw a story into the air between them like a sheer curtain. He stopped and looked at it confusedly, his eyes beginning to dilate as her voice sank into his mind. She couldn’t use anything from him because she was determined not to read him. The story she told was her own, taken from her feelings. She had never done such a thing before.
A transparent, younger, life-sized version of her stood between them. The real Journey sang slow, almost whispered notes, more of a hum. His mind gave in to the illusion completely.
“I came back to you, Redge,” the Journey-hologram said. “But in a way, I never really left. My heart was always here with you…I’ve come to warn you you’re in terrible danger. Your whole world is in danger.”
He hung his head. “You came back to warn me I’m in danger?” he said slowly, his voice sounded drugged. “I hoped you came back to be with me.”
“I’m a coward. Remember? Remember how you used to accuse me of that?”
“I can be cruel,” he countered. “Remember you used to accuse me of that?”
“I never really meant it, Redge.”
“I never meant it, either.”
He moved to touch the story version, his hand sliding right through her. It didn’t faze him. The ghostly Journey reached up and touched his face. He mirrored her action, sliding his thumb over her lips without applying any pressure.
“I was too scared to come back. I was scared of you. Afraid I was too young when I fell for you and it wasn’t real. Afraid you had been consumed by the darkness inside you… Afraid of my own darkness.”
“You have no darkness, Journey,” he argued. “You think only of others and how you can help them.”
The hologram shook her head. “That’s what I aspire to be, but I’m not. I’m supposed to be selfless. You taught me to care about what I wanted. And it was always you. I’m so selfish when it comes to you.”
He smiled sleepily. “That’s okay…I’ll forgive you.”
The real Journey smiled, her song halted for a split second. The story remained in the air, but it seemed to have lost a slight hold on him. He stepped back a little and shook his head.
“This dream is heartless,” he mumbled. “I want to wake up.”
The word heartless stung her. What did he mean by that?
“Why do you want to wake?” her story version asked.
“I want to be free of you, but you never let me go. I’m so sick of this torture. Dreams and fantasies are all I have, and they are not enough. They only leave me with this constant pain… Flesh and blood, that’s what I want. Since I can’t touch you, I wish you would go away. Leave me to my hopeless desolation and let me go numb to your memory.”
“What if you had me again? Not a dream, but me?”
A feral sound rumbled deep in his chest, and the depth of his eyes bottomed out, pulling her down. “I don’t think you could handle what I would do to you.” His hands clenched. “I don’t know if I could handle what would happen…I think if I had you in my arms again…we both might break.”
A biting shiver rolled down Journey, and she gasped, her song halted. He blinked. His eyes lost a trace of their sleepiness. She pushed at the story between them, holding it in place. His eyes snapped onto hers, her real eyes, through the haze of the story. He blinked again.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, half lucid.
The illusion was crumbling. She sang a little more forcefully, and his eyes glazed again. She edged along the wall and slipped out through a window frame, into the cool night. She shivered again as she moved away from him through the trees. His words scorched deep inside her. She began to form a plan for the next time she saw him.
Chapter Nine
Rahaxeris woke in the dark, pain vibrating all through him. He felt diseased, on the edge of expiring. His head hung limp on his chest, the cuff around his neck pinched into his chin. His senses were dulled down to a sleepy haze. He lifted his heavy head as a small shuffling sound pushed through his thick mind. The hulking outline of Copernicus leaned over Forest, who was still unconscious on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Rahaxeris demanded, his throat woolen.
“Analyzing,” he answered. “Shreve knocked her out hard. She’ll have a nasty headache when she wakes. I’m very sorry for it.”
“If you love her as you say you do, let her go… You have me.”
“No. She needs me. The baby needs me. There’s something really wrong here. I’m giving her more Malachi Serum. I don’t think the first dose did much of anything.”
“It almost killed her. It would have had I not pulled it back out of her. If you give her any more of that, she will, most assuredly die.”
Copernicus laughed lightly. “Stop lying. You’re not capable of anything with that cuff around your neck. If you could remove the Serum, you would have escaped as well… I’m almost done, now. I think when we get back from our excursion, she will be much better. I think she will be happier to be with me then.”
Rahaxeris blinked his blurry eyes and squinted. He felt too weak to respond to the screaming panic inside him as the light from the cracked door glinted off a syringe in Copernicus’ hand. If Shreve didn’t help her again, this time she would die.
Copernicus moaned deep in his throat and nuzzled Forest’s neck. He sank his teeth into her skin, drinking from her for a moment before pulling back and pressing his bloody mouth to hers.
“I’m going to miss her so much over the next few days…” Copernicus stood, dropping the empty syringe on the floor. “Well, Father, are you ready? It’s time to leave.”
“Where are we going? Where is Shreve?”
“We’re going to meet with my followers. They need to see you under my control. Shreve will already be there.”
He hauled Rahaxeris up and opened a portal. Forest was left all alone, poisoned yet again. Rahaxeris tried to think his way through the situation. Nothing short of a miracle would save Forest now. His heart prepared for the worst, already beginning to mourn her.
The portal dumped them right in the middle of a raucous party. Torches blazed around the perimeter, illuminating and casting shadows on the hoard of vampires, acting like savages. They pushed around a terrified young she-wolf, taking bites of her randomly. She tried to fight, but there was nothing she could do to escape. Rahaxeris turned away
from her as they pounced and began to drain her to death.
Copernicus dragged Rahaxeris to the center of the group and dropped him to the ground in a heap. The blood-crazed, murderous crowd noticed the arrival of their leader.
“Long live King Copernicus! Long live King Copernicus!” they chanted.
Copernicus held up his hand, and they fell silent. “Welcome, my faithful ones! You have my favor. The strike was a tremendous success, thanks to you. We are one step closer to the throne!” he roared.
The group raised their voices along with him.
“You have been very patient. The time is on us again to move forward. Behold!” He gestured to Rahaxeris. “I hold the power of the Rune-dy! The high priest is in my total control, and the rest of the Rune-dy are dead. Now there is no power to rival ours!”
The crowd shouted in excitement again.
Copernicus waved his hands in a quieting motion. “I am going back to my hideout in Paradigm. Within days, we shall march on Halussis and take the Onyx Castle. I will kill Zeren and re-establish the throne. Regia will once again be as it should be; a kingdom under a sovereign. With me on the throne, the Onyx castle will become the epicenter of a new world order. We will shake the ground from our stronghold. There is not one place or person who will not feel it!”
He paused, looking intently at his followers. “Are you listening carefully to me? Listen well. You have two days to gather the insurgents in your areas. Move them toward Halussis. As of right now, you are on stand-by. Respond to my orders without question or hesitation when they come. The only other voice you listen to is Shreve. If I am not present, Shreve speaks for me. Obey him as you would me… Act faithfully, and I will reward you. The time is now! Go!”
“Long live King Copernicus! Long live King Copernicus!” The chant started again.
****
The serum ran into Forest’s blood. It traveled fast up her veins on the way to her heart, where it entered, swirled, and exited back out. The poison flowed down to the baby. Her eyes sprang wide and she gasped, just once. The pain was more than pain. It was a living knife in her blood. Her heart stopped and held fast as though the blood it pumped had turned to thick mud. No. Forest brought her hand up and struck herself in the chest. Her heart coughed and pumped again with a terrible effort. She clasped her hands on her stomach and rolled into a ball around her baby.