by Ophelia Bell
“All the food … and the materials in the studio …” My throat tightened and hot tears pricked my eyes, blurring my vision. My mother took a hesitant step toward me, her expression both tender and anguished. “You knew what I needed all along, didn’t you?”
“Yes, honey. I’ve known what an amazing creature you are ever since you were born. I wish I could have been here for you so, so much.” She reached for me and with a choked cry and a sniffle I surrendered to her fierce embrace.
She held me so tight my ribs protested, but I didn’t care. I held her just as tight until the hot clench of my throat eased and I could breathe again. Mom let out a sigh when she finally released me.
“There’s not much time. From the inside of a temporal bubble we sometimes get glimpses of the future. There is going to be a fight soon, but we don’t know the exact timing of it. The creatures who were chasing you are almost here. We need to prepare to make sure they don’t take you. But first, I think you need to tell your mates to back down.”
The growling behind me had risen in volume, and for the first time in several minutes, I redirected my attention to my mates. All six of them glared at my mother, their auras a deep orange-red that was nothing like the crimson displayed when we made love.
“Guys, what the fuck? You know who she is. We talked about this days ago.”
“She should be dead,” Stuart said. “Along with all of Meri’s other foot soldiers we destroyed when they invaded the Haven. Why are you here, Ultiori whore?”
“Stuart! That’s my mom!”
His jaw spasmed, and he tore his gaze from her to look at me. His eyebrows twitched, and he crossed his arms. “We exterminated all the Ultiori on Spring Equinox two years ago. Unless she’s a ghost, she shouldn’t be standing here today.”
Mom let out a humorless laugh. “Do you really think Meri would be dumb enough to sacrifice her entire army on a single fight? She had no idea how it would end. There were several underground cells she kept in reserve, in case she needed to retreat and regroup, or call for reinforcements. I was the leader of those cells. I guess she underestimated her opponents though, because we never got that call. We never heard from her again, in fact. By the end of that day, every last one of us was mysteriously free from her spell.”
I darted looks between my mother and my mates, finally catching on to their conflict.
“This is about the war you guys fought in, isn’t it?” I asked my mates. Then turned to face Mom. “And you were a soldier in the enemy’s army. Was that why you left us when I was little?”
Her expression turned tender, and she nodded. “I wasn’t just a soldier, honey. I was one of Meri’s Elites. Unlike the other hunters in her service, she couldn’t control my mind all the time, so I had some freedom, but I couldn’t disobey her because she’d possessed my own mother. I didn’t know why she’d targeted us at first, but when I learned her intentions, I had to leave you. Your father had to take you away from here and make sure you were safely camouflaged among the humans.”
She smiled warmly and reached out to touch my cheek as if reassuring herself that I was real. Then her voice softened.
“You’re a very special girl, you know. Your overzealous mates are evidence enough of how special. Meri wanted a child born of humans but infused with higher races blood. She needed that combination to create herself a perfect vessel. That might have been you if I hadn’t taken steps to protect you. I had no choice.”
Her speech seemed to have sunk in, and the guys all looked at each other in surprise. “You knew what April was?” Gray asked, leaving his spot next to the fireplace to come toward us.
Mom nodded. “As an Elite, I had the honor and the burden of being infused with immortal dragon blood. There weren’t many of us created because Meri’s supply of immortal blood was limited, and it takes a special human to survive being infused with immortal blood. One of the immortal dragons—the one you know as the Void—gave more than his brothers. It’s his blood that powers me now.”
A trio of curses sounded from my dragon mates. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I guessed this Void was someone to be reckoned with.
“You were a Blessed from birth,” Gray said, nodding. “We know a Blessed human is later infused with immortal dragon blood, they become an Elite. I thought there were only three of them left.”
“There were others. Once Meri understood why certain humans survived the infusions of immortal blood, she tried to create her own. My mother was her first victim. Before Mother became a host for Meri, she was a scientific subject. When she was pregnant with me, Meri coerced a dragon to give his blessing to the unborn baby—to me. And when I was born, I immediately began treatments to turn me into an Elite.
“Then when Meri took over Adele’s body, I realized she was staying close to us because she was waiting to see whether my daughter manifested signs of any higher races powers. I had to break up our family to divert her attention away from you. Luckily it worked. All you need to know now is that the Ultiori are truly dead. My connection to them burned away the second Meri’s blood was replaced by a god’s. My mind has been free of her for three years now. I came home, but I wasn’t ready to face you yet. I couldn’t stay hidden anymore though.”
“You knew Chaos would come for her?” Gray asked.
“Not exactly, but when Drew burned the final charge in the ring I made him, he told me what had happened. I knew it wouldn’t be long before Chaos came looking for you. You can learn a lot when you listen from the shadows, and over the past year, rumors have spread of a clash between Chaos and Fate. When the Chimera Deva Rainsong aligned herself with Fate, Chaos grew jealous. Surely, you six have some knowledge of this. He was your boss, after all.”
“Are you saying he’s after me because of some stupid rivalry with Fate?” I asked.
“Yes. Legend has it the pair of them have been at odds for ages.”
“She’s not lying,” Stuart interjected. “Fate and Chaos have been bickering like rival siblings since the dawn of time. Nobody knows why.”
Mom nodded. “And now that Fate has its pet Chimera, Chaos wants one too.”
Tate let out a snort and crossed his arms. “You can hardly call Deva Rainsong a pet. She has Fate wrapped around her little finger.”
“Regardless, Chaos wants you, honey, and will stop at nothing to have you.”
I couldn’t contain my shock and shot looks around at my mates. “Why the hell does he want me? And wait…” I stared at Mom again. “Did you say Chimera? Gray called me that before. Is it really true?”
“Haven’t these six strapping men explained to you what you are?”
“Yes, but we still don’t know what it means. Or why Chaos might be after me.”
“Chaos doesn’t need a reason to do what he does,” Stuart said. “Reason is not a word in his vocabulary. As for the Chimera thing, it’s just a label and doesn’t affect how we deal with your powers.”
“Does that mean you’ve taught her to use her powers? Because we really can’t waste any more time. The creatures Chaos sent after my daughter are close. Deva and her mates are chasing them, but they’ll be here soon if their pursuers don’t catch them. We need to prepare.”
“We plan to start training her today…” Stuart began, but his words were abruptly cut off by a noise so dissonant, my hair stood on end and my teeth began to ache. The guys all closed in around me, everyone mouthing words I couldn’t hear over the din. The only sound I managed to pick up was the loud, brittle creak of cracking glass. Then the sunlight disappeared as if in an eclipse or sudden storm, and a second later every window in the room shattered inward with a deafening crash.
Glass shards pelted us, and I reflexively crouched. I covered my head with my arms, wincing at the slice of sharp, cold edges over my skin. A whipping sound like a sail catching wind cut through the noise, and the pelting stopped, with only the odd tinkling of the shards falling to the floor. When I looked up, Stuart had almost fully shifted, hi
s enormous wings spread wide to block the onslaught.
I grimaced at the tattered membranes of his wings, streaks of blood dripping down the silver skin. Standing again, I started to go to him when noises grew louder. Everything made of glass within the room exploded into pieces. More sharp projectiles rained down, including the remains of all the pieces I’d made over the years that Mom had collected and displayed. Stuart roared, and this time, Gray and Murdoc both manifested their wings to block the barrage.
But it was only the beginning. Another siren of madness-inducing dissonance blasted through the air, making the very fabric of reality bend and twist. The floor tipped, and I lost my balance. A pair of hands grabbed me by the shoulders, and I cried out, twisting around and struggling to yank myself free. In the next second, the world lurched out from under me, and I was spinning into nothingness, powerless to do anything but let myself fall.
29
Gray
My eyesight blurred from the dissonant frequencies bombarding us, and I blinked. When my eyes cleared, April and both her parents had disappeared.
“Where is she?” I bellowed, gritting my teeth against the sonic assault from outside. I tried to mentally focus on her and link to her mind, but the awful sound disrupted my telepathy too much.
Tate, Eddie, and Chayton had shifted as well, relying on the tougher skin of their true shapes for protection. One of the enormous bears who had taken their place roared with such distressed ferocity whatever glass hadn’t already shattered was probably done for.
“Drifted!” Murdoc yelled back, his voice barely audible over the cacophony. But it was enough for us to figure the rest out. Cassandra was an Elite, and like the other Elites, she had the power to drift, thanks to carrying traces of nymphaea blood along with the dragon blood that gave her the rest of her powers.
That was some relief, but not enough. Where had they gone? I could only assume Cassandra had taken her daughter somewhere safe, but I’d have preferred to know where.
“We want the Chimera!” came the echoing voice from outside. “Send her out, and we will leave!”
Before we could form a response, the room erupted in another chorus of ear-splitting roars, but these were a familiar sound. Then three enormous fur-covered bodies launched through the ruined windows, and the fight was on.
Murdoc let out a battle cry and charged after them, diving through the opening and shifting in mid-air. His wings whipped out the second he cleared the walls, and his hind talons pushed off, launching him high into the air. Ultraviolet tendrils whipped up at him, barely grazing his hide as he disappeared into the churning darkness that blotted out the sun. By the time I was airborne a moment later, the sky lit up with white light as Murdoc turned, hurtling toward the ground with silver-blue flames streaming from his throat.
A dozen silhouettes appeared within the conflagration, each one protected beneath whirling disc-shaped umbrellas of dark purple magic that blocked the fire from reaching them. We could beat them if we wore them down, but we couldn’t let them reach the house and discover April wasn’t there.
The other half of our team were attacking, fangs and claws bared. They concentrated their assault on one of the brothers closest to the water where they’d come from, allowing me, Stuart, and Murdoc to target the others from the air. When a pair of our enemies peeled off and sprinted toward the house, I let out a roar of alarm, diving toward them.
I landed with a thud right in front of the two Bane brothers, another lungful of fire already flooding hot up my throat when they skidded to a stop, raising hands to conjure twisting ultraviolet spiral shields. I let loose with all my might, lighting up the hillside and the water beyond until it was as bright as day again.
My fire illuminated the faces of my attackers, and when I saw who it was, I redoubled my efforts. I rejoiced when they retreated a step under the force of my blaze, then one of their shields began to burn away. They were weakening, so I took a moment to breathe and offer a warning.
“Vesh! You will lose if you don’t back down. I will kill you for good.”
Both of the identical faces sneered and said in perfect unison, “Only if you kill the right one!”
He was right. I had to kill the original Vesh while his doppelgänger was active, and his copy would die instantly. Otherwise, his copy would just be reabsorbed into him, ready to be made again if Vesh received a fatal blow. But the Bane brothers were only the heads of a larger beast. Every time one of them died, his energy returned to the beast’s body, and it took time for the heads to regrow, then travel back to the battle.
I took a chance while they were too weak to take offensive action and blasted a fresh flame at them, encompassing them both. This time I rejoiced as one of them crumpled to his knees under the power of my blaze, then erupted into flames with a howl that made me see double.
It took only seconds for him to crumble into ashes, and the second one dematerialized into smoke.
Without wasting a moment to celebrate, I charged at the next brother, flanking him while Tate slashed at his back with enormous claws. This time I exhaled smoke instead of fire, commanding the nearly opaque white substance to coil around our opponent’s head and blind him while Tate tackled him and ripped out his throat. He fell to the ground and shattered to pieces.
We tore through them quickly after that, beyond the point when I’d have expected the remaining few to retreat. They kept fighting down to a man, and it wasn’t until the last one remained that it occurred to me that something about this scenario was all wrong. Why hadn’t they run the moment they knew we’d beaten them?
One of the ursa ripped out the throat of the last Bane brother, roaring in victory as the body shattered to pieces. The big bear shifted back into Chayton, who tilted his face to the sky and let out another piercing howl of triumph.
Behind Chayton, the water of the Sound began to churn, bigger waves lapping at the shore. I let out a roar of warning for him to run, as did the others facing him, but our cries were swallowed up by the claxon-like bellow of a monolithic, multi-headed beast that burst through the surface of Puget Sound, sending a small tidal wave crashing over us.
When the water receded, Chayton was gone, but we didn’t have time to wonder where he went. The Bane brothers’ true form was already upon us.
30
April
The whirlpool sensation ceased, leaving me dry heaving on my knees while staring down at the wet, loamy earth. I dug my fingers into the wet ground, and almost immediately the vertigo disappeared and my strength returned. A big, warm hand rested on my back, rubbing gently until my nerves settled. Dad always did have a grounding effect on me despite his wayward nature. But perhaps Mom had been his grounding influence, and it left him untethered all those years they were apart.
“You’re okay, honey,” came Dad’s deep, gentle voice. “We got you out just in time.”
“And none too soon,” said my mom, whose booted feet were planted right in front of me.
I looked up at her, struck by the intensity of her expression as she regarded me. I looked around, realizing we were in the woods several yards behind the studio. The outdoor pottery kiln was visible beneath its shed, and beyond it was the rolling barn door entry to the rear of the glass studio. I couldn’t see the house, but sounds of a bitter conflict interspersed with those awful dissonant trumpeting sounds echoed in the distance. I tried to mentally reach for the guys, but beyond a subtle sense of their presence somewhere nearby, I couldn’t communicate.
“Are you better? The sooner we start, the sooner we can finish and settle this issue once and for all.” Mom crossed her arms and gave me an imperious stare.
I flinched inwardly at this new version of her. In my hazy childhood memories, she was a more nurturing figure, but maybe my memory was wrong. Either way, she was right to be heavy-handed right now, so I stood and mirrored her stance. “What the fuck just happened? Are the guys all right?”
“They’ll be fine as long as we make this quick.
It didn’t sound like they managed to give you any training, which is a shame. We’ll have to manage with what we’ve got.”
“It’s not as if we were complete slackers,” I shot back. “I have a pretty good handle on my magic that I didn’t have at the beginning. I didn’t really have a choice but to learn how to focus it into my glassblowing. It was either that or beg them for sex every few hours just to manage the surges.” I reached inward to that familiar fullness low in my belly where the constantly replenishing well of magic had resided all month, frequently on the verge of spilling over if I didn’t maintain close focus and keep up my creative output. It produced a steady thrum inside me, strong yet not overwhelming.
Beside me, Dad made an incoherent strangled sound, and I gave him an apologetic look. “You do know I’m twenty-eight now, right? I’ve been having sex since I was eighteen.”
He leveled a disgruntled stare at me. “April, it was enough to have to hear what I heard when I got to the house this morning. I don’t need more reminders.”
“Drew, it’s not going to go away,” Mom said. “From the sound of things, April’s suffering from an ursa estrous, so it’s fortunate she went through with mating them. You did seal a bond with all six, right?” She turned to me again.
“Yes.”
“Good. That’ll help protect them too. Now, why don’t you show me some of this focus you’ve mastered. See if you can throw a fireball at me.”
I just blinked at her. “Ah, we didn’t exactly cover that.”
“If you’ve focused your power into your work enough to quell your estrous surges, you should be capable of sending that power outside of you in other ways. Just reach down deep and let it loose through your hands.” She clapped her hands twice, then made a “come at me” motion, stepping backward a few feet.