by Nya Rayne
No one stirred or turned to look at the jackal. It was as if he wasn’t there at all…
Stormy gasped as the memory faded into another. Fury, what is this?
My life before you.
And what I just saw?
The first time Anubis trusted me to retrieve a soul. He nodded his head to the scene before him. This is the day Anubis was assassinated. The day his edict was laid down upon us. He released her hand and brought his hand to his chest. It’s also the day my heart ceased to beat and my lungs no longer needed air.
Is it? Stormy turned her attention to the scene playing out before her…
The darkened room was cavernous. Its walls appeared to have been painted blue-black. The floor bubbled with streams of lava so hot Stormy knew if she stood too close, blisters would appear instantly on her legs. Hundreds of men—boys—of varying ages were scattered about the room, all with somber expressions on their faces. Their nationalities varied like that of a crayon box. Some leaned against walls, others squatted, and still others sat on rock formations that jutted up out the middle of the lava streams.
In the middle of the room, three massive jackals circled a stone formation that looked like an offering table, but wasn’t. On the stone slab lay a still figure. From the bulkiness and length of its body, Stormy wanted to say it was a man, a truly large one at that. A dark, viscous liquid oozed from him and dripped over the edge of the table and onto the floor, spreading out like slow-moving tar.
A voice, speaking in their ancient tongue, sounded like a sonic boom, coming from every corner and crevice. It was the ultimate surround system. Stormy flinched and scanned the room until her eyes fell on the boy from the pyramid. He was squatting atop one of the rock formations, his hands dangling between his bent knees, his head down.
“Fury?”
No one seemed to notice her there, but at the utterance of his name, the boy turned, his steely gray eyes piecing into her. His head tilted from right to left as if she were a conundrum he needed to figure out. She backed up, looked away, and peeked at him out the corner of her eye. Still the boy watched her. He didn’t blink, nor did his face twitch. He might as well have been made of beautiful marble.
The booming voice drew her attention back to the circle of jackals. “Flesh of my flesh, and blood of my blood. You will carry no more souls to the underworld. You will protect what my wife tried so hard to destroy—my legacy. It is at her hands, and with the help of those despicable Yazaron, that this travesty has come to pass.” The room erupted in hushed whispers and howls before quieting again. “Anput has been banished, my children, sealed forever in the deepest parts of the seven hells. Never shall she see the light of day or the rays of moon again. If ever she shall, you will all swarm on her like maggots to dead flesh.”
The room erupted again, this time in cheers. “Over time I have sired hundreds—if not thousands—of female children with mortal women. These children and their offspring will become your one and only priority. Protect them from the Yazaron, who have been banished to the far reaches of the surface world. They will seek their blood and yours to break the curse which I have laid upon their heads. Do not let them have it. Until my blood runs clear in the veins of my daughters—” his voice was growing softer “—protect them.”
He coughed, but it sounded more like the raspy beat of a bass drum. “Protect them, because amongst them is the other half of your soul. They will bear my symbol, the ankh.” There was another cough that seemed to shake the walls and shift the flow of the lava. “I decree this law from now through the end of eternity. Do not fail me, for if you do, you fail yourselves.”
The room went dead still. There wasn’t a brush of clothing, a shifting of feet or the sound of breathing. There was only the rush of lava.
Stormy turned to look at the boy who was once Fury. He was still staring at her, willing her to tell him who she was and why she was there. He leapt from the rock formation and landed a few feet from her, blocking her view of the figure she now believed to be Anubis. One hand out in front of him, several strands of her hair lifted as if transparent fingers were holding them. The boy floated forward on ghostly wings and bent, his nose touching her hair, and he inhaled.
He whispered something in a language she didn’t understand but had heard Fury use before.
In her head, Fury explained, He said mine. See? Even in my past, where I knew not of you or who you were to be to me, I knew you were meant to be mine.
You can’t have known, she replied.
I’ve always known you, love, even when I didn’t want to. She could feel his arms surrounding her, pulling her back against him. A hundred unsaid promises passed from him to her in a flutter of bird’s wings, and Stormy found herself wanting desperately to accept and respond to each.
The scene faded, leaving her wanting more. They were back in the real world, sitting on the back porch of Fury’s home. The food was still on the stove and smelling as delectable as it had before.
“What happened next?”
“Anubis died, my heart and my lungs ceased to function and the hunt for the Yazaron ensued immediately.”
She slipped her hand into his again. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind he spoke the truth. After all, the things she’d just witnessed, she couldn’t rightfully dispute. “What are the Yazaron?”
Fury smiled at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Vermin.” He pulled her close as if trying to protect her from his own words. “They’re the epitome of evil, love. Their days are spent buried beneath ground, their nights spent hunting for your blood and mine. It’s the only way for them to break the curse and return to their true forms.”
“What, like vampires?”
“That would be a step up the food chain for them. They are lower than the vampire, viler. They’re the cockroaches of the world. The putrid scum at the bottom of a pond, perhaps, even the regurgitated bile in the fourth compartment of a cow’s stomach.”
He spoke with such hatred and distaste, Stormy leaned away from him so she could peer up into his face. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I wouldn’t do such a thing. If ever you were to run across one of them without me, the only thing left of you to be found would be your dried bone marrow. My brothers and I, along with other Anubi packs spread across the globe, have spent our lives hunting them. Their numbers have dwindled, but there are some who are more conniving than the rest. Most of the Yazaron we have killed were savages, thinking only of their need for Anubis’s blood, but the more cunning ones seem to plan each attack more carefully, thereby avoiding us. Those are the ones who concern us most, because it means they have gotten a taste of Anubis’s blood.” He sighed heavily. “And then every few centuries they multiply by a depraved form of mitosis. They shed skin, hair follicles, regurgitate blood and other bodily fluids, and that waste becomes new Yazaron, even thirstier for a taste of Anubis.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I wish I wasn’t, but it’s the Anubi way of life. We were created to first be the ushers of souls, and then we became the protectors of the essence of Anubis. Of women like you, Ambrosia.”
She stood up, paced the area between Fury and the banister. “Why did you show me this? Why are you telling me all of this? Are you trying to scare me into submission?” Stormy wasn’t expecting an answer. She was thinking of her mother, her grandmother, and her aunt. And of the dreams she had before each of them had been killed or had disappeared.
“You’re as white as death. What is it?” He was standing now. “Ambrosia?”
Stormy turned, prepared to bolt down the steps and into the ocean. This is crazy, it’s nuts, but…but their murders? All the times I felt hunted, they all occurred at night. Every time I felt the urge, it was in the wee hours of the night.
Her mother had been working late when she was killed, the sun had recently set when her aunt had gone out to get the popcorn and never returned, and her grandmother had been going to a late night card game wh
en she had driven her car off the road.
Stormy turned in a tight circle, her eyes flicking from right to left, searching for an escape. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her mouth went dry.
“Ambrosia, what is it?”
She took a step back. “You said I have the ankh symbol. Wh-Where, Fury? I’ve scoured my body and never found anything near resembling it.”
“I would’ve preferred to show you.” He shot her a mischievous smile, but Stormy was having no part of it.
Her fists clenched at her sides, she squared her shoulders and planted her feet firmly. “Where is it?”
Fury shot her a smoldering look. “It’s on the innermost lip of your sex.”
“My—”
“Yes, your sex—your pussy.”
Stormy could feel her cheeks heating up. She looked away and then back at him. “The inside lip?”
“You have two sets of lips down there. Trust me, I know. The thicker outside lips and the much smaller set that protects your opening.”
She knew about all of that, but it wasn’t registering. “It’s on the inside of the inner lips?”
“Yes, partway inside you and partway out,” Fury clarified.
That explained a hell of a lot. She’d never considered checking down there, and she would have needed to be a contortionist to view the area he was describing. “I have one.” She made it a statement.
“You’re my mate. Of course you have one.”
Stormy turned and broke into a run down the stairs, her feet pounding hard against the ground. At some point she’d run right out of her slippers, but she paid it no mind.
“Stop running from me and tell me what’s going on,” Fury ordered, appearing directly in front of her. “There are a lot of things you can outrun, love, but I’m not one of those. I’m in you.”
Stormy slammed into him, staggered and spun around, searching the tree line for another escape route. Finding none, she brought her hands up to the sides of her head and dropped to the ground on her knees. Her body rocked to and fro as if invisible arms were consoling her.
“Ambrosia, I’m trying to honor your wishes of not reading your mind, but you’re making it damn difficult.”
She glared up at him, his words about the Yazaron whispering through her mind. She didn’t want it to be true, but like the sensation that told her when it was time to run she knew this was the gospel truth. It swam through her, rooting itself into her mind and binding it all together like a complicated math problem. It made everything she’d been through make sense. And added to the fact that she did indeed have the mark, well, it was the icing on the liver pie.
She needed to see the symbol for herself, but she was certain it was exactly where he said it was. Hell, that was the only place she hadn’t looked.
“They killed them,” Stormy whispered as she continued to rock. “They killed them all.” She looked up at Fury again, but this time she didn’t glare at him, she pleaded with him to make this all go away. “I’ve been running all my life. It’s why—if I wanted to—I can’t stay with you. They’ll come for me and they’ll kill you to get to me.” She shook her head and ran her hand across her eyes. “It all makes so much more sense now. All this time I’ve been running and hiding…”
Fury settled down in front of her. His eyebrows drawn together, his lips as thin as a surgeon’s scalpel. “You’re talking about your mother, aunt, and grandmother, aren’t you?”
She covered her face with her hands and sighed heavily before she trusted herself to speak. “Yes. My family. Fury, the Yazaron killed them. And they almost got me once in Vegas a little more than seven years ago. If the lights hadn’t come back on when they did, I wouldn’t be here. Jesus, Fury, they almost got me.”
“But you got away; that’s all the matters now.” Stormy moved to put her hands back up to her face, but Fury grabbed them and held them down. “The deaths of your family members—did you witness them? How do you know it was the Yazaron for sure?”
“Do you know how long I’ve been searching for an answer? An explanation as to why my family would be taken from me like they were? It’s the only thing that makes sense, and still it’s so farfetched.” She shook her head and pulled her hands away from him. Then she told him about the night each of her family members were taken from her, starting with her mother and ending with her grandmother. “The police said Iya ran her car off the road and into the ravine. It wasn’t raining or foggy, the roads weren’t slick. It was the perfect night, a full moon, I think. They said the fire was so hot her body was incinerated on contact, leaving nothing but ash. But it never felt right to me, Fury. There weren’t any skid marks or anything. They said she didn’t swerve or slam on her brakes. It was like she fell asleep at the wheel.”
“Did you ever talk to anybody about it?”
“I tried. I told the investigating detective Iya would never drive off the road. She could drive that road blindfolded and drunk as a skunk and still make it home safe. But the detective ignored me. He thought I was only grieving because of what happened to my mother and my aunt.” Stormy settled back on to her bottom, her knees against her chest.
“I’m sorry, love,” he murmured, his brows drawing together. “The only time you got the urge to run when you were younger was shortly before one of your family members died? Is that right?”
She shrugged. “I guess. After Iya died, I didn’t experience anything until a few days after my dad died. Since then, it’s been like clockwork. Every three weeks.”
“Every three weeks?”
“Yeah, when you kidnapped me, I was two days from my three weeks. So, had you not taken me, I would’ve been running tonight at the latest.” She looked out at the ocean as waves lapped against the sand. “I should be thanking you. I think all this moving me around you’ve been doing might have thrown it off. It’s three weeks today, and I haven’t felt the sense of dread I usually feel.”
“Thank Anubis for premonitions.”
“What?”
“That sense you keep talking about, is your power.”
“What? I don’t have a power.”
“All of Anubis’s children are blessed with a power. Yours, my love, has been saving your life and trying to save the lives of your family since you were a child.”
“Running away is my power?” Stormy shook her head. “That’s anxiety, Fury.”
“It’s a premonition, like the vision you had of me dying. It’s sort of a warning of things to come. You do nothing about it, it plays out as you saw or felt. Or you can do something about it and change the picture.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Think of it this way: every time you felt the urge to run and you did, you changed what was to be—you saved your life. Had you not, you and I might not be here now discussing this. You’re what we call a Seer, Ambrosia,” he explained. “And by the looks of it—especially since it started way before you and I ever met—when you come fully into your power, you’re going to be one of the most powerful ones known to our kind.”
Stormy stared at him in disbelief. “I don’t have to run anymore?” It was the only thing registering in her mind at the moment.
“Never again, love. You’re safe with me. This is what I was created to do.” He pulled her close, kissed her forehead, and leaned back. “There’s something I’ve been wondering about with a few of my other cases where potential Anubi mates have gone missing. How old were you when you felt threatened enough that you ran?”
“My dad died five days before my eighteenth birthday, so seventeen. But I only ran because I had nowhere to go, and nothing holding me to one specific place.” A warm breeze blew in from the ocean, ruffling strands of hair that had snuck out of her chignon. “Is that important?” Stormy pushed the errant hair behind her ear as Fury chewed through his thoughts.
“It might be. It’s something Crul and Tempest have been trying to figure out. Tempest was thinking the Yazaron only hunted adult women because Anubis’s b
lood doesn’t show itself until the child reached the age of eighteen or sexual maturity. But we didn’t have anything concrete until now.” He ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed at his chin. “This might give us the upper hand. I’ll have to get this information to Crul so he can reach out to the other Anubi packs.”
Stormy chewed on her bottom lip as she watched a few seagulls dip into the ocean only to rise again with their dinners in their beaks.
“Are you sure your mom, aunt, and grandmother had the ankh symbol?”
She nodded. “My mom’s was on the right side of her belly beneath her breast.” She pointed to the area on her person. “Auntie Lyla’s was behind her left ear, and Iya’s was on the nape of her neck. What are you thinking, Fury?”
“I’m thinking we need to get Stateside.” He pushed to his feet, dragging her with him.
“What does all this mean?” She had to keep her strides wide to keep up with him.
“It means this particular Yazaron or group of Yazaron have been hunting your family for years, maybe even decades. He’s probably on the more intelligent side, but because the Anubi blood he’s ingested is diluted, it’s taking more to bring on his full transformation.” He was quiet for a moment before he stopped and turned back to face her. “Now more than ever, Ambrosia, I have to keep you safe.”
There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he would. For the first time since her dad had died, she had someone who would fight with her.
Can I stay with him now? Am I really his chosen mate?
Fury brushed the back of his hand down the side of her face. “That’s exactly what it means. No more doubt, okay?”
“You’re reading my mind again?”
“Actually, I’m not. You’re in my head and so I can hear your immediate thoughts, but nothing else.”
Stormy could only stare at him. “Is this real, Fury?”
He leaned down and kissed her, nibbled on her lower lip, begging entrance and then devoured her, his hunger for her unquenchable. “I’ve had dreams before, but none quite like this.”