Ex Tenebris: A Dark Fantasy (Nëphyr Book 1)

by Cindy Mezni

  I turned around slowly to face him.

  “It’s too late, Logan,” I simply replied.

  He was wide-eyed with astonishment. Then he assimilated what I had just said and fear prevailed over everything else. He tried to get rid of his chains coated with Emenaïd but he only succeeded in injuring himself and, as the product seeped into his blood, he roared with pain. He stopped struggling.

  “You—You can’t! You said that if I spoke, you’d spare me a slow death! You said that—”

  “I gave you a chance,” I interrupted him, my intonations curt and abrupt. “You didn’t take it. You only have yourself to blame for what’s going to happen now.”

  I stood with my back to him again, pretending to leave for good this time. I was sure he was going to admit everything to me, even though I hadn’t assured him I would execute him quickly. And as I’d planned it, hoping the more he would say, the more he would have chances for me to be indulgent, he began to deliver his confessions at full speed.

  “It’s Ezekiel! He’s behind everything that happened to the clan or to you these last weeks! He hoped he could lead the clan to its ruin by causing a rebellion or by—”

  The door suddenly opened, revealing Xander and Nathanael. Damn it! With their interruption, they’d maybe ruined everything. Logan might clam up again.

  “Get out!” I yelled.

  “Nemesis, there’s—”

  I didn’t listen anymore and shut the door on them with my feet. Angry because of them, I turned to Logan again, hoping I would be able to talk him into carrying on with his confidences.

  “You—”

  I heard the door being reopened. I was beside myself with rage when I whirled around. I was ready to set fire to these two idiots who came to sabotage all my efforts.

  “It’s urgent so listen to us,” Xander hurried to tell me on a harsh tone, obviously not having appreciated my welcome.

  Even if my wrath got worse at the tone he’d used with me, I forced myself to keep calm in order to listen to what they had to confide to me.

  “It’s Venom and the surveillance team. They ran away,” Nathanael told me.

  I stared at Nathanael with eyes round as marbles.

  “What did you just say?”

  “You heard right, they ran away,” Xander continued hastily. “Caine already gave chase to them with other Nëphyr but we don’t know neither when nor how they got away. The doors of the cells are intact and nobody came down, according to Volker who stood guard since yesterday.”

  I knew Volker well. Tall blond guy built like a bodybuilder, it was the perfect cliché of a heap of muscles without any brain. And if, luckily, his brain worked a few moments, it was the one he had between his legs. Satan knew Venom was talented when it came to using the weak point of males to satisfy her needs and desires. In this particular case, to find somebody to allow her to flee.

  “I want to see Volker. Now,” I said, my tone final.

  “I knew you were going to say that, that’s why I told him to stay where—”

  “He’s not guilty,” Nathanael said, interrupting Xander.

  “Thank you, Nathanael, but I’ll be the judge of that,” I said harshly.

  I turned on my heels, ready to leave, when Xander pointed out a problem to me which I had forgotten.

  “And what do we do with Logan?”

  “Nathanael is going to keep an eye on him until I come back. Who knows, you and your machete may be useful to me downstairs.”

  “Stop jerking me around, Volker! They couldn’t have fled without you taking part in it!” I said, becoming angry in front of Volker, who remained stoic and wouldn’t stop saying that he hadn’t done anything.

  I was losing my control, but with everything that had happened lately, there was nothing surprising in that. I hoped I would succeed in keeping a semblance of self-control so as not to end being governed by the beast in me. I didn’t have time to eat as I’d planned just before my “meeting” with Ezekiel, so something terrible was to be feared if that happened.

  “I repeat it to you, I did nothing. I didn’t speak to Venom just like I didn’t speak to the Nëphyr of the security team. They ran away without my help.”

  I nervously ran my hand through my hair. I was going to become mad with all these troubles. For sure, I had no proof he was lying, but I had no proof he told the truth either.

  “If, as you say it, I’d helped Venom because she’d managed to make me believe her smooth talk, do you think I would have stayed here? Where’s my interest to help her if I don’t leave with her to take advantage of her gratitude?”

  A lecherous grin was on his face. What a pig. I grimaced internally. Males, all the same. Despite that, it was necessary to admit he’d told me the truth. There was no reason for him to help Venom—and the Nëphyr of the security—and stay here because, besides the fact that he didn’t benefit from it, he’d be guilty according to all indications.

  “How the Devil did they run away?” I said while looking at their cells in search of a sign which I would have overlooked.

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Xander said, coming at his turn to reexamine the prisons of our fugitives.

  “And unfortunately it’s not the only one,” I heard the voice of Nathanael pronounce with weariness.

  I whirled around to look at him. His light blue shirt as well as his pants were dirtied with black blood. And I didn’t even speak about the state of his face. I came closer to him until I was only a few centimeters away from him. Given the smells I perceived, he’d been hurt, but the blood on him was mainly from several other Nëphyr.

  “What happened to you?” I questioned him, astonished.

  “An attack. The fugitives. Three of them actually. They came in the Council room, and while two of them attacked me at the same time, the last one took care of Logan.”

  “What do you mean, ‘the last one took care of Logan?’”

  I was afraid of having understood him correctly.

  “Logan hasn’t a good head on his shoulders anymore. And I mean that literally,” Nathanael said, his tiredness and irritation obvious.

  Only rage was inside me. Logan was dead and any hope to get information had disappeared with him. I had the desire to kill somebody! And I couldn’t even let off steam against the culprits because obviously, Nathanael had already dealt with them.

  “Who were they?”

  “Sam, Dekiën and Malek.”

  It meant Venom and Shane were the only ones still alive and free.

  “All this makes no sense,” Xander said, coming to stand by my side, but his voice seemed distant to me.

  Pieces of this nonsensical story fell into place. There wasn’t just one traitor. There were several. And the escape had been a damn subterfuge. They had run away so that we would go to the basement to question Volker and they could kill Logan before he spoke. What I didn’t understand was how they’d made a success of their prison break and who were the other accomplices of Logan—Venom had no link with Ezekiel, I was certain of that now. There was Malek, Sam, Dekiën, Shane—and maybe others who were still alive and in my clan. I had no idea of the exact number of traitors, or who they were, but in any case, Shane was the only suspect to have escaped the wrath of Nathanael today.

  “Nemesis?”

  Pulled out of my thoughts, I noticed Volker, Xander and Nathanael were watching me. I didn’t even know who had called out to me.

  “Xander, you’re in charge of cleaning the Council room. Warn me as soon as Caine has a lead or as soon as he found Venom and Shane. As for you, Volker, you’re free. I’ll be in my apartment, if someone is looking for me.”

  Without adding a word, I went away and decided to have peace and quiet to mull over this story. I made my way to the stairwell and went up floor after floor until I arrived at my apartment. As usual when I needed to reflect about something, I took my place in front of the window. I remembered some confessions Logan had made and compared them to what Ezekiel had t
old me during our ‘meeting.’ The attack on the Reserve, Venom’s Släva, he was responsible for everything. He’d organized all this to destroy my clan in one way or another. But what I didn’t get was when Logan had spoken about what had happened to me. What problems had Ezekiel caused me? Thinking about it, my blood suddenly ran cold as I remembered Ezekiel’s words . . . My body getting out of my control, it was an effect of the Spiritaë, his gift. The moments of fury had to come from the traitor who’d spied on me and used the Illusionaë on me at opportune moments—I’d always thought it was impossible to use it on someone who also had it, but since that information came from Ezekiel, there was a chance that what I’d believed was a lie. All this to make me lose it so that my clan would rebel or I would be executed after having committed an irredeemable act. And unfortunately, it wasn’t the end of it because, if my crises came back, it would mean the henchman who had the Illusionaë wasn’t dead and it hadn’t been Logan’s doing. Nor Shane if he wasn’t brought back to New Hell. I wracked my brain and looked for any link connecting Logan to Malek, Sam, Dekiën or even Shane. Ezekiel had had to contact them, see them even, so that they’d keep their cover and resist torture in case they’d be discovered. Maybe he hadn’t recruited and trained all of them at the same time, but there was surely something common to all of them. I just had to discover what.

  “You and I have to talk,” Nathanael said as he came into my room, interrupting my reflections.

  Judging by his wet hair, he’d taken a shower to remove the blood h’d had on him. He probably had rushed here as soon as he’d left the bathroom considering the fact that he hadn’t even taken the time to button up his shirt.

  “About what do you want to speak about?” I asked him, already tired of this conversation.

  I could have used my time advisedly to think about who were the accomplices of Ezekiel, but of course, he had to come disturb me.

  “Lots of things are happening here and you know more about it than you say. What’s going on, Nemesis? What do you know that I don’t?”

  I could trust him, I had no doubt about it. The problem was that if all this spread, the panic would invade New Hell. And I had enough problems to deal with. Without taking into account that, because it involved a Mëvia, Ezekiel at that, the High Instances and the Trackers would come here to catch him and sentence him to the Selem Sescä—also called the Never Ending Torment—an endless imprisonment with different tortures inflicted daily and the worst sentence the High Instances could impose. Given all the worries of supplying and the starving people I had, the clan was off to a good start to see the execution of many members—me first.

  “It’s . . . Ezekiel.”

  Nathanael let out an irritated groan when he heard the name.

  “What’s the relation between our current problems and this piece of shit?”

  “I’m coming to that. Before Logan broke my neck, I had a sort of . . . meeting with Ezekiel. At first, I believed it was a dream, but, actually, it was very real, though it was an illusion.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m not certain I understand,” he told me, touch of aggravation in his voice.

  “I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to get in touch with me using the Illusionaë of another Nëphyr. And he threatened me, telling me he was responsible for all the things that were happening, that it was only the beginning and he was going to destroy me. And we swore to kill each other when our paths would cross again.”

  “You’re really certain that all this didn’t come from you?” he said, having a hard time hiding his bitterness.

  What?

  “You insinuate it wasn’t true? That I invented all this?” I spat out, my voice dripping with disgust.

  “Yes,” he affirmed, his face wearing a mask of pure irritation.

  “You’re kidding me, aren’t you?” I asked him, trying to convince me he wasn’t thinking that. “For months and months, you didn’t stop harping about my feelings for him, saying I’d better forget him. And now I announce to you that I swore to kill him as soon as I see him and you—”

  I stopped, unable to continue. Nathanael was definitively someone too complex for me. I was incapable of understanding him.

  “It was nothing more than an illusion, Nemesis. You’ve just seen what you would have wanted to be able to do and—”

  Enraged, I charged into him. We crashed into the wall. I head-butted him hard. He roared and pushed me away. I fell to the ground on my back. Before I had time to stand up again, Nathanael was on top of me, his two hands firmly seizing mine to keep me down. Sitting on my legs, he prevented me from moving them to knee him in the balls like I ardently wished to.

  “You calm down,” he said, angry. “Now.”

  “I receive no order. And certainly not from you, scumbag,” I answered fiercely before head-butting him again.

  He let out a purely bestial scream but didn’t free me.

  “Release me!” I shouted while struggling in vain.

  “Calm down!” he retorted.

  Using the Psychokinesaë, I threw at him the first object which I spotted, namely a poker. It pierced his stomach and Nathanael howled with pain. He got up with difficulty, freeing me. After a deep breath, he took the poker out by the front to not cause more internal damages. He swore when the object was completely extracted from his flesh. Calm was finally back in me. I didn’t know if my fury had been due to Ezekiel or more exactly to his henchman. Yet, I strongly doubted it was that. I rather bet on Nathanael and his damned stubbornness. I who had wanted to let him in on the secret would abstain in the future.

  “Leave, Nathanael. And fast,” I ordered him, my tone acerbic. “Since you don’t want to listen to me, you have nothing to do here.”

  He turned around and walked away before facing me again, being both annoyed and . . . appalled? If it were that, we both felt the same way. He shook his head, as to get his head together and forget an unwanted thought.

  “Do you have anything to add?” I asked him.

  He looked at me and glanced at the door behind him. His eyes were on me but he didn’t appear to see me. He seemed to be far from here. I waited for him to talk but, very quickly, I lost patience. Either he spoke now or went away for good!

  “I’m done, Nemesis,” he said tiredly. “I thought our problem came from Ezekiel, but I was wrong. Our problem . . . it’s us. You were right. We are totally incompatible. So I’m done. I stop. I break the promise I made to Efflamm.”

  Not certain to have understood, I frowned. What was he really trying to say? Did he mean he would stop hounding me, persisting in wanting us to be Parinrä? Or did he mean something else?

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that everything is over,” he explained in a flat voice. “I’m leaving. And I won’t come back. You and the Ameïan clan, it’s over for me.”

  14

  Heading for Reynosa

  For a few ephemeral instants, I forgot everything. No more Ezekiel, no more trip to Mexico, no more Nathanael, no more problem. Absolutely nothing except Xander and I, closely connected to each other and united in pleasure. Xander eventually pulled out of me and laid by my side, his arms crossed behind his head. The perfect cliché of the male satisfied with his performance after an intense sex session. With Xander, things were simple and without any fuss. Contrary to all the problems I’d met with Nathanael or even with Ezekiel. I ultimately didn’t regret to have given in to his advances. After everything I’d gone through, I allowed myself a little break before dealing with problems again. Not to mention it was maybe the last time I was enjoying the pleasures of the flesh if things went wrong and things seemed to take this direction. Of course, I was aware that the after-effects of Nathanael’s departure was involved in my presence in this bed with Xander. The last sentence Nathanael had pronounced a few hours earlier still echoed in my head. ‘You and the Ameïan clan, it’s over for me.’ A wave of bitterness submerged me. I did
everything to push this feeling away. After all, as he’d said so well, it was over and this was true well before he left. Still, he’d assured me he would be by my side when the moment to face Ezekiel would come. And what did he do when the fateful hour came and when everything else was falling apart? He left. Like a coward. He was as despicable as Ezekiel. Maybe even more. I better draw a line under him, just like I was going to do soon with Ezekiel.

  “It was better than anything I could have imagined,” Xander declared, ecstatic.

  I laid on my side to look at him, a vague smile playing on my lips.

  “Because you often imagined yourself in a bed with me?”

  “In a bed, on the ground, in a dark alley, in the shower . . . In short, everything possible and conceivable. And so, to answer you, yes, I imagined all this very often.”

  I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle.

  “You perv,” I told him, my amusement clear in my voice.

  “You weren’t complaining about it, a few moments ago.”

  “True. You’re not so bad, after all.”

  He rolled onto his side, too, and stared at me with intensity.

  “‘Not so bad?’ Is that all?” he said, a little bit vexed. “You want me to try again to change your mind?”

  I bit my lower lip, dozens of scenarios more inviting than each other starting to set ablaze my mind. It was tempting. Extremely tempting.

  “Mmmh . . . I’m not sure I want you to,” I retorted, teasing him.

  “Trust me, I’m going to remedy that,” he said arrogantly, “and, you’ll see, you’ll be begging for more.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  This time, foreplay was forgotten. He positioned himself over my body before penetrating me with a powerful thrust. I growled like a beast. For sure, Xander knew what he was doing. Right now, he wasn’t sweet but I wasn’t going to complain. I dug my nails across his back, then made my hands go down to his ass and brought him closer to me. Then I put my legs around his waist and he almost completely withdrew himself from me before coming back more brutally. He continued in the same frantic pace tirelessly while caressing my clitoris, our moans and shouts resounding more and more loudly in the room. My orgasm didn’t take long to overwhelm me and I let myself drift toward pleasure with abandon. Several powerful thrusts later, Xander came as well. He didn’t move away right away. He stayed where he was and let his mouth wander over mine as well as on my throat, my breasts. From time to time, sighs escaped from my lips without me realizing it.