“Don’t you think I know that?” I smacked the dresser, sending a cloud of dust particles sprinkling down from my shirt. “Fuck.” I stormed toward the door where I really hoped the private spring would be. Of course, it was the door we came in through yesterday. I ended up having to maneuver through the room the other way while Ruin leaned against the wall, watching me go.
Steam rose from a small spring that fed up directly from the ground. Rocks jutted up, interrupting the stone floor. Clearly the room was designed around the small pool. Candlelight illuminated the chamber from a stone shelf high on the wall.
I kicked off my pants and had my shirt halfway up when I caught a sight of my reflection in the water. Dried blood crusted over my chin and neck. It was matted throughout my blond hair. Veins webbed through the sclera of my eyes. I looked like hammered shit and felt worse.
With a sigh, I threw my clothing across the room and waded into the pool. The water prickled my sensitive skin as I slipped in. I scooped up the hot liquid and splashed it over my face and hair. The blood washed off easy. Too easy.
I’d wondered a few times in my life if vampires would kill so indiscriminately if blood stained the skin—not in pretty designs, but in dark red spots splattering up the front and splashing on the neck and face.
What would I look like if that were true? I didn’t even want to know.
But blood didn’t stain. I scrubbed the ingrained dirt from my skin long after the blood dissipated into the pool. Most came from a warrior whose throat I ripped open yesterday. The warrior probably didn’t have a choice but to attack me, and I ended him like he was less than nothing, barely warranting an afterthought. The guilt of that was nothing compared to what I felt for the part I played in Brendan’s fate.
Misery formed an iron ball in my gut. Brendan was a vampire now, and I’d let that happen for absolutely no reason at all. We were right back where we started. If we wanted Kori to survive, we had to stand by while Ravage forced Kori into some sort of devil’s bargain.
Knowing that I’d never feel fully clean after the last few weeks, I began to climb out of the pool.
“Ash?” a voice croaked out from behind me.
I spun, and my eyes shot straight up to Kori’s half-asleep expression. She stood there naked and caked in dirt, though sections of the mud had flaked off. Her eyes slid closed before she visibly forced them open again. “I feel like I drank a bucket of moss wine.”
“You should be sleeping.” I reached for her, and she stepped back. “Where are Death and Ruin?”
“I asked for a moment alone with you, Ash.” She winced. “We need to talk about what happened with Brendan.”
My heart ached. It literally throbbed in my chest as I stepped out of the pool. This was it. I betrayed her to protect her. It was the decision I fucking made, and now I had to live with the consequences.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
“Just—I’m so cold.” Kori slipped past me into the pool. She sunk under the water and shivered in the steaming liquid. Clumps of dirt rained down from her hair as she looked at me.
I wasn’t sure if I should go after her in case she slipped under or give her the physical distance she probably wanted from me. I ended up stepping back in the water while staying just close enough so I could dive and catch her if the situation called for it.
Kori sighed. “You knew that Ravage turned Brendan before you fought my brother, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought. I had that vision where Ravage told me that you had a chance to save my brother and didn’t, and he told me to ask you about what Brendan was becoming… and you treated me like I was accusing you of something.”
The pain in her voice shattered my heart. Or at least that was what it felt like.
“Brendan crashed into me during the fight, and I focused on getting to Ravage instead. When Ravage took Brendan, he told me what he was planning.”
Kori’s lip trembled. “Did Death and Ruin know too?”
I opened and closed my fists underwater. “No. I kept it to myself.”
Her forehead wrinkled up, and she shook her head. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because Brendan can’t defy Ravage’s will. He was too much of a risk. One of us had to eliminate that risk, and that was going to be me.”
Kori stood and crossed over to me. “You’re planning to eliminate my brother’s threat?”
I shook my head. “No. There’s no fucking point of stopping him. You need Ravage’s blood.” There was a trickle down my cheek, and I didn’t even know it was a tear until Kori reached up and brushed it away. I grabbed her hand. “Hate me all you want but believe me when I say that Death and Ruin had no idea.”
“I know.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “They wouldn’t do this.” Her chin shook as tears coursed down her cheeks.
I felt like she’d burned me. I released her hand to cross my arms over my chest. Fuck. I wanted to hug myself in this moment. This was it. No matter how hard it was, I deserved her hate. “Ravage offered a trade – you for Brendan, or he’d turn your brother and send him after you. Brendan was also tasked with killing all of us.”
Her shoulders shook as she listened, and her face contorted in pain.
After a beat of silence, I continued, “I knew that if I told Death and Ruin, they’d either have to go after Brendan or choose to betray you. So, I kept it to myself.”
A small whimper escaped her.
I pointed back over my shoulder, to the bedroom behind us. “You need them…”
“But you forget, I need you too, Ash.” She scrubbed away the tears on her cheeks. “I remember it now… not everything, but I remember the things we said in your bedroom. Do you think I honestly would have sacrificed your life for Death or Ruin?” She shook her head. “I would have never expected you to make that trade, and it’s not your fault that Ravage did what he did. But you unilaterally decided for all of us—Ash. Can’t you see how wrong that is? Why did you have to make that hard choice all by yourself?”
Her words sliced through my chest. “So you could have each other.”
“Stop. Just stop. I’m so angry at you right now, and that might not go away for a while, but you’re a fool if you think that I could give you up.”
I staggered back a step, feeling like the ground was crumbling under me.
Kori reached out and touched my hand. “You need to stop sacrificing yourself for us. Queen Hell might have treated you like you were disposable, but none of us think that, Ash. You are vital.”
Tears tumbled down my cheeks, and I couldn’t stop them.
Kori stepped in and wrapped her arms around me. “I can’t lose you too.”
“Fuck, Kori.” I squeezed her tight, combing my fingers through her wet hair. “I’m so fucking terrified right now. You’re dying, and I don’t know what I can do to stop it.”
She rubbed my back as I tried to catch my breath. “I know,” she said. “I know. You’ve shown me what you’d do to keep me safe—and that’s anything. I feel the same way about you.”
“Anything,” I said, and the moment I said it, a realization hit me. There was something I could do. We didn’t need to give Kori to Ravage to save her, we needed to give Ravage to Kori. The moment the thought bloomed in my mind, the whole world shifted on its axis. My tears dried, but I held her to me, as the wheels in my head turned.
“Kori, Ash, we need you out here,” Death called from within the room.
Kori and I broke away slowly, our gazes meeting. I asked her to walk behind me, even though I was fully expecting just to see the scene I left.
What I didn’t expect was to see the Queen of the Deep, standing front and center in the room with a thunderous expression on her face. Silence wore plated iron armor covering another ripped shirt. She looked like a strange mix of vampire warrior and medieval knight.
The queen spun and looked deeply into my eyes. “Did you three abduct Kori from her mate?”
“Of course they didn’t take me. Ash is my mate.” Kori dodged around me, but the queen raised her hand halting further discussion.
Silence didn’t take her eyes from mine. “I need to hear it from you, Ash.”
“Fuck no, we didn’t abduct her.”
The queen’s arms crossed over her chest and her lips pursed. She peered between us. “I needed to hear the truth in your words—because what Ravage claimed had the ring of truth to it as well. He claims that Death responded to a wedding invitation with a deathmatch challenge.”
Kori shook her head. “Yes, that’s true, but Ravage isn’t my mate.”
“He says that he is, and he’s telling the truth.”
“No… no.” Kori shook her head. “He’s found some way to twist the truth.”
“There is an easy enough way to tell.” Silence closed the distance until she stopped before me. “Move, warrior.”
Kori’s warm hand touched my arm. “It’s fine, Ash. I want her to see.”
I didn’t want to step aside, but I wasn’t going to pay Kori the disrespect of refusing. Never tearing my glare from the queen, I stepped a few inches to the left.
Silence lifted her hands to Kori’s neck, making all three of us tense. The queen’s fingers worked over Kori’s skin.
Kori crossed her arms over her bare breasts but showed no other sign that she was uncomfortable.
The queen’s hand worked its way over Kori’s neck. “You have three mate marks here…” Silence’s fingers stilled, “And, one of them is from Ravage.”
Kori shook her head. “That’s impossible. We only had sex once.”
“Then that’s when it happened.” Silence sighed. “There are no forced true mate marks. You had to have accepted his mark for it to stick. The strange aspect of this is that a human should only be able to have one living vampire mate. You have three.”
Ruin cleared his throat. “Four.”
Kori touched her neck. “It has to be a trick.”
“I promise you that my senses can’t be fooled. He’s your mate.” The queen nodded. “However, the only way that he can ever enter the Deep would be as my prisoner, and I wouldn’t treat him kindly. Ravage is my mortal enemy. But unfortunately…” She tapped her fingers on her plated armor, making a soft clanging sound. “Under these circumstances, I can’t forcibly separate you two. If I broke my own laws, the true mate protection commandment would be obliterated.”
“You can’t fucking separate us from her either,” I growled. This wasn’t fucking happening.
Silence’s eyes were all for Kori, as if the rest of us didn’t even exist. “I will allow Ravage, and Ravage alone, to enter the Deep, but he knows he will endure extreme torture if he steps one foot past the stone archway. If you can’t convince him to come in and be my prisoner, I’ll have to force all four of you out.”
Almost at the same moment, Death and I growled, “Fuck no!”
“You don’t have a choice.” Silence’s sharp eyes drilled into mine.
“Wait a minute here.” Ruin lifted his hands, trying desperately to be the voice of reason. “Kori, you’re going to die without Ravage’s blood. We’re going to need to bargain with him, anyway. Maybe we can do it from a position of power.”
I pointed into his face. “No fucking bargaining. We work together with our allies to trap him and bring him in.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting asking the trolls for help.” Silence lifted her chin. “If you even think about risking another troll death, I’ll push you out of the archway myself. It would be better for this world that all four of you die than one more troll. They are the living embodiment of the stones we walk on. We exist at their discretion.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Fine. But, you have twice as many warriors in here as Ravage—maybe more.”
Silence slashed her hand through the air. “No one else from the Deep can help you in this matter either. The warriors of the Deep do not involve themselves with upper world politics, no matter how personal they are.”
“Fuck your laws,” I growled, throwing up my hands.
The Queen of the Deep turned slowly, and when her gaze landed on mine, I rocked back on my heels. Shining from her pupils was something savage and unrelenting. Sometimes I saw glimpses of the beast contained within Death. Whatever this queen once was, it wasn’t a werewolf. It was a creature as ancient and merciless as time itself.
Death stepped before me, breaking the oppressive weight of her gaze. He said simply, “This is a trap, and when Ravage kills all four of us and steals Kori’s powers, he’ll turn humans into livestock and enslave all vampires. Maybe you’ve sworn not to interfere with upper world politics, but sooner or later, it will be coming for you.”
“You have to see that your laws are flawed.” Kori rolled back her shoulders, and even though she was naked and physically weak at the moment, there was no mistaking that she was a force to be reckoned with. “You’re looking at my mates like you want to kill them, but I have a hard time believing that you can’t see a problem with a law that would hand me over to a man who tried to kill me. Your law may have once been created to protect victims—but has since been easily twisted to do the exact opposite. I’ll talk to Ravage, but my powers get triggered every time I panic. If you try to force me out of that archway, I’ll be terrified, and my powers will activate. It might come in the form of a burst of Ignis fire or time freezing. Last time, both happened. My lovers will be immune to my power, but your warriors will not.”
Silence stood to her full height, looking every bit the queen she was. “Then, you’ll die, and this problem will come to an end.”
Kori nodded, looking resigned to her fate. “I guess that’s true.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kori
Brendan once told me of a fairytale where a king got everything he desired, but all of his good fortune turned to ashes.
I was that king.
I was the first recorded blood mage with two powers, but I didn’t have access to either one. Once I did, it was killing me. I had been wealthy when most humans were starving, but I had to sleep with vampires I hated just to maintain my survival. I was named a general in the human rebellion, and I was helpless to save them all. I failed them. Instead of having one true mate, I had four—but one was a mass murderer who would kill the other three in a heartbeat.
It had only been minutes since Silence left to arrange my meeting with Ravage, and I was already exhausted. Walking over to the foot of the bed, I slumped onto it and brought up my knees, pulling the massive shirt I’d slipped on over my legs. A wet chill in the air was creeping through my skin and seeping into my heart. I looked up to find Death, Ruin, and Ash locked in a heated conversation, but the syllables all ran together for me, nonsensical and wrong.
I didn’t need to hear what they were saying to know. Ruin wanted to bargain. Ash wanted to capture Ravage. Death listened and pointed out the flaws in both plans, not giving away where he stood in it at all.
“There’s only one way that this will end,” I said, and it was like my words cut through the room with a blade.
The men split apart and turned to me.
I looked away. “I just have to decide if I have it in me to send Ravage to be tortured.”
Ash came to stand before me. “He’s put you through worse.”
I curled my fingers into the coarse and colorful bedspread under me. “Maybe… but that’s on his soul, not mine. Killing Ravage when he’s attacking us is one thing, but sending him to be tortured by his enemy just so I could drink his blood… that’s something he would do. I’m not even sure he would do that.” I swallowed hard. For some reason, my gaze found Death’s, and I saw understanding reflecting in his dark eyes. The weight of the crimes he’d committed over his lifetime was so heavy that he’d tattooed himself as the angel of
death, and he didn’t have a choice but to take those lives. “What if there’s no coming back from doing this?”
Death came to crouch before me. “There will be. My pack brought me back. You brought me back. You’ll have us.”
A tear dropped onto my cheek, and I wiped it away with the palm of my hand. “I might do it to save one of you but doing it to save my own life feels so much more wicked.”
Ruin sat beside me, making the bed slouch so much I tumbled sideways into him. I collided with his chest, and it felt so good to be close to him, I stayed.
Ruin’s arm wrapped over my shoulder. “Can you tell us what you’re thinking? Silence will be back any minute now with a battalion of warriors to force us to the gate. It’s up to you if we do your plan, but can we at least talk it out?”
I nodded. “My brother Timothy has a theory that I only survived having two powers thus far because my powers were equal and blocking each other. He thinks that something disrupted that, giving me both, and that’s why I’m dying. But, I’ve used Ignis twice now, and I was fine. Every time I’ve used Tempus, I’ve either died or been dead.” I paused, looking between the three men. “Except once—there was a time where I didn’t die afterward.”
“When?” Ash paced anxiously back and forth before us. Stress and tension might as well have been rolling off him in waves.
Death fisted a hand under his chin. “In the cave, when Ravage visited us, and we couldn’t figure out how.”
I nodded. Death’s words made emotion clog my throat. Not only had he believed that Ravage visited me, he’d been trying to figure out how. I reached out, and Death took my hand in his. His fingers felt almost too hot around mine, but after a moment, my body adjusted, and he felt amazing. “Ravage was there with me. He touched me. But, there was no sign of him afterward.”
“How did he get to us and disappear?”
“He didn’t. I pulled him into a Tempus prophecy—just like I pulled my brother into one, but Ravage clung onto me staying after I came out of the prophecy.” I shook my head. “It’s hard to explain because that part I don’t fully understand myself. I pulled my brother Timothy into two visions, and he thought it was because I was such a powerful Tempus. We thought that Ravage no longer had Tempus powers… but he had been feeding on me every day for a year, and we were true mates. True mates can share powers in a way that other couples can’t. Whatever brought Ravage and me together that day couldn’t have been something in Ravage’s power. If it were, he would have done it again and again.”
Ash (Fire & Blood Book 2) Page 20