She had a feeling the God of Existence was moving in. Either that or he was just hell-bent on one-upping his “younger” brother. Knowing Cy, he wasn’t going to just let it end there, and if Zexistr was half as bad as Cy—which apparently, he was—it might be time for Eve to consider the whole U-Haul routine and get her ass moved back into her studio.
Living with those two and their godly egos would either be hilarious, or end in murder. Most likely the latter.
The sound of Cy screaming nearly sent her flying into the ceiling.
“Bitch? Who are you calling a bitch? You stupid cunt!”
Zex’s voice reached her next, seemingly coming through a speakerphone. “I’m calling you a bitch, bitch. How is it that you can’t recalibrate your own fucking coding?”
“No one told your punk ass to come into my place, install six new satellites, and link them to the program. You fucked up my systems software! The algorithm was programmed to crash if anyone other than me tried to access it!”
Eve tip-toed toward the open door to her right, where Cy’s pride and joy was. His “command station”, he called it.
“And why would you do that, dumb-ass?”
“Security reasons, cunt,” Cyake said from behind gritted teeth.
“Well, it should be easy for you to recode your own software.”
“It would be if I could fucking concentrate!” Cy cried.
Eve stopped outside the computer room, but didn’t go in. From where she stood she could see Cy leaning in front of the main computer, hands braced on either side of the keyboard. His head was hanging, his shoulders tensed. His Samsung was on the desk next to his left hand.
He didn’t seem to sense her, nor did he see her coming. Considering he could see everyone’s decisions seconds before they were made, that was surprising.
Then again, he had just said he couldn’t concentrate.
“What do you mean you can’t concentrate? What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you haven’t gotten laid,” Zexistr said, his tone serious now.
“Nah, dude. It’s not that. I wouldn’t be so stupid as to let myself go rabid.”
Had Zeniel not explained to her what they were, Eve would’ve been confused as hell.
“What is it then?” Zex asked.
She was wondering the same thing. Even without seeing his face, she could tell Cy was stressed the fuck out. Tension was rolling off him so hard, that her own muscles were starting to cramp.
“I . . . just forget it.”
“Tell me.”
Damn. Zex sounded exactly like what he was then: the big brother. Even if it was only by a few minutes.
Cy sighed. “You won’t fucking believe me anyway, dude, so drop it.”
“Do I need to call mom?”
“Ah, fuck, man. Is that necessary?”
“I’ll involve Keiros, too.”
“You are a cruel, evil being.”
“Then tell me.”
Hell, even Eve was dying of curiosity at that point.
“I’m being haunted.”
What?
“What? Hunted?”
“No. Haunted.”
Okay . . .
Clearly, Zex felt the same way, because he stayed silent for a few seconds. Then, “Come again?”
“Ghost, bitch. There’s a ghost following me around.” Cy raised his head and looked to his left. He didn’t catch sight of Eve at the door; his stare was frozen on something in the corner. Something she couldn’t see.
But maybe not all immortals could see the dead?
“And,” Cyake continued, looking back down at his keyboard. “I’m the only one who can fucking see her.”
“That’s impossible. Anyone with our level of power can see dead souls,” Zex said.
There went that theory. Not that she was claiming to be as powerful as them, but . . . Eve looked at the spot Cy had just been looking at. Nothing. There was nothing there. She couldn’t even sense anything.
“Either that or I’m going insane.”
“I’d vote for insane,” Zexistr chimed in.
“Fuck you, dude. I knew you wouldn’t get it. But this old lady won’t stop following me around.”
“Old lady?”
“Yeah. I met her on Earth. I helped her across the street two weeks ago. She must’ve died since then, because here she is fucking with me. She says she’s here to keep me company, and she keeps telling me that—” Cyake stopped, running a hand through his slicked-back brown hair and tugging on it.
“What? What is she telling you?”
Cyake mumbled something under his breath so low that Eve couldn’t make it out.
“What?”
Apparently, neither could Zex.
“She’s telling me that the Karma I’ve been escaping is heading my way. She wants to keep me company until then.”
Oh. Oh my. That was one hell of a loaded statement. And it explained nothing to Eve. It merely made her more curious. Unfortunately, just then Ismini’s voice drifted into the hall.
“I’m telling you, Sol . . . you shouldn’t have flirted with that guy during my Ziaphrite celebration. You’ve driven Ianthen mad.”
Cy tensed, turning slowly and catching sight of Eve.
She tried to put a whole lot of, “I’m sorry for being a nosy bitch and eavesdropping on your convo,” into her expression.
He glared at her anyway.
“Please,” Soleria scoffed. She and Ismini came into view on the second floor landing. “That man does not feel for me that way, so drop it. Besides, Arasan had the sexiest little faux-hawk I’ve ever seen and the fucker was a Viking before they turned him into a Sesengt. Explain to me how I was supposed to stop myself from flirting. You’re the mated one, not me.”
Ismini rolled her eyes and placed her hand on Soleria’s arm as they got to the top of the stairs. She dematerialized them both down to the first level. Sol pulled her arm away, and glared at Ismini, looking a little green.
“I told you not to do that without warning. That shit makes me sick—oh, hey Eve. Where have you been? We heard you might be getting yourself a little something-something.”
Eve opened her mouth to answer, but Ismini’s eyes lit up at something behind her and Eve turned around instead.
“Nylicia!”
Nylicia floated into the hall, her right hand extended with some sort of orb floating above it. Inside the orb was what appeared to be a mini-fireworks display of blue and purple.
Nylicia came to an abrupt stop, her eyes flying up and locking on the giant statue of Zexistr. Her brow tensed so hard that she looked almost vicious. Confusion and annoyance seemed to be fighting for dominance in her translucent features.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she said, shaking her head. “Who allowed this travesty?”
From the other room, Eve heard a sharp inhale.
“Wait . . . that voice.”
It took her a moment to realize that Zexistr was still on the phone with Cyake, but before she could turn to question Cy about it, Ismini pointed at Nylicia’s hand.
“Nylicia, what is that?”
Nylicia shook her head and looked away from the statue.
“This?” She raised her hand, and the ball went up as well, almost as if she had been actually holding the thing. “This . . . is your destiny, Ismini.”
“My what?” Uh, oh. Eve immediately had a bad feeling about whatever it was Nylicia was up to. She had that look on her face—that stoic, “this isn’t going to be a big deal” look—the one she always had right before she did something that always turned out to be, in reality, a big fucking deal.
Cyake stepped out of his command station. “What’s going on out here?” he asked just as Nylicia began to explain.
“Did you think your destiny ended with Dyletri? Because that was just part of your gift—this is the main part,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” Ismini asked, taking a step back.
Lot of good that it did her. B
efore anyone could react, Nylicia wound her arm back and sent the ball flying straight at Ismini.
Hitting her in the solar plexus, it exploded into a whirlwind of power that engulfed Ismini. She was flung backward. The whole compound shook with the impact, and Ismini ended up embedded in the stairs.
Eve, for her part, was having an odd case of déjà vu.
Dyletri appeared on the second floor landing. “What the hell?”
“Hi, Dy,” Nylicia said, waving. “This is the other part of your destiny, too.”
“What the hell did you just do to her?” he yelled, flashing down to Ismini’s level. He knelt, lifting his R’ma gently into his arms.
And that’s when Eve and Sol gasped. What else could they do?
The moment Dyletri lifted Ismini, she lifted her head and her hair was . . . it was . . . fluctuating.
White and brown. Brown and white. Back and forth. Over and over.
“Oh, God. What’s happening to me?” Ismini cupped her forehead.
Her gaze fell to a chunk of her hair that had slid over her shoulder. Eyes wide, she grabbed it, lifting it up. The moment she touched it, the color-change display went full-throttle, her hair alternating between white and dark brown so fast, it started to give Eve a headache.
She looked to Nylicia who was studying Ismini with a look of growing horror.
“Nylicia,” Dyletri growled, his veins starting to glow with white light. “What did you just do to my mate?”
“How much have you been coming inside her?” Nylicia asked, aghast.
Eve’s eyes bugged out of her head.
Cy choked on a laugh.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Dyletri all but roared.
“Well, she’s fluctuating. But for her hair to be changing to your specific color? Just saying . . . lots of DNA has been dumped into that cargo.”
Cy broke out into full guffaws at that point, laughing so hard that he had to grab onto Eve’s shoulders to steady himself.
Dyletri glared, seeming ready to jump up and slaughter both Cyake and Nylicia. He glowed so brightly that his form nearly got lost inside the white glare.
“Wait,” he said after a moment. The light around him dimmed and then disappeared altogether. “Did you just say fluctuating?”
Nylicia clapped happily, beaming at Dy. “Starting to get it now, aren’t you? See? I always knew sex would not only make you powerful again, it would make you smarter as well.”
“Baby, what’s happening to me?” Ismini asked in a small voice, placing a hand on the stair beneath her.
The marble morphed, turning into solid steel.
With an “eep,” she flew off the step and into Dyletri’s arms. She wrapped her hands around his neck, and his hair and eyebrows went from white to black in the blink of an eye.
Whoa. Just . . . O.M.G, whoa.
“Oh my God!” Ismini gasped, clearly thinking the same thing Eve was. Her R’mann looked sexy with that hair color.
“Oh my God, girl, is right,” Soleria mumbled. “Take him somewhere and suck his dick. For me. Do it for me.”
Ismini moved her hands, and Dyletri’s hair returned to its white shade. She placed her hands around his neck again. Back to black it went. Her hair, on the other hand, hadn’t made up its mind about what shade it wanted to be.
“As you can see, Ismini now has the powers of Flux. And . . . she’s going to have a hard time learning to control those powers. That’s where you come in, Dyletri.”
“I have the powers of what?”
“You are now the Goddess of Flux, Ismini.”
“Handler of change. Constant change, to be exact,” Dyletri said, giving Nylicia a grudging, respectful look.
“You remembered!”
Nylicia’s smile was Kool-Aid huge, and scary as hell as she floated toward Eve.
Eve’s stomach dropped right off the dimension.
“Now you. You’re taking too long to enter the final stages of your power absorption. Probably has something to do with how stubborn you are. We need to speed things up a little bit.”
“What? What powers? What are you talking about?” Eve took a step back, and bumped right into Cyake. She was about to dematerialize when Nylicia appeared before her and placed two ghostly fingers against her forehead.
“Like I said. We need to speed this up. I know it hurts, but you can handle it.”
No sympathy. None. Not even when Eve cried out, her back arching as pure energy detonated inside her skull.
The last thing she heard was Ismini crying her name.
Then nothing. Again.
Chapter 19
Her knees scraped across the jagged stone floor. She was beyond weak. Pieces of the stone seemed hungry for her flesh, biting bits off. Her bent legs left a trail of red behind.
No, not her legs. She was having another vision. She was stuck in another replay of Zen’s past. Eve knew he’d been beaten again. She felt the wounds along his back and chest. His chained arms burned. Whatever was being fed into his system kept him bound.
Pain hit his synapses, but inside his mind Zeniel . . . wasn’t there. There was nothing but darkness—a complete absence of thought. His nervous system functioned, but his mind was gone. There was no reaction to anything, not even a spark of awareness.
His body was dumped in front of a wall. Stone grated against stone, the sound unbearable as the wall slid open.
A jolt, one single thought, so weak it was barely a whisper through Zeniel’s mind.
Not in there. Cold. No light.
The demons that had control of Zen lifted him. They flung him into the cell, weakening him further. The floor bit into his back when he landed, leaving new abrasions behind.
The door to the cell closed. Right before it did, Eve was able to catch a glimpse of the two demons that had hurt her male. Then, darkness surrounded Zen, leaving just the sound of his shallow pants. The flare of consciousness remained. Almost as if Zeniel was fighting to keep it with him.
His consciousness spread, his mind slowly catching up with his broken body.
Pain.
Everything hurt and blood continued to trickle from him, hot against the stone floor.
A voice drifted to him.
“Mavrak.”
Rage exploded in the back of his mind, trying to escape once more. He knew this. Knew this burn. Knew the feeling that reminded him of his heart breaking. The need to lash out clawed at him.
No. No. Cannot allow it . . . silence. Need the silence . . .
He groaned, turning onto his side and curling into himself. He couldn’t breathe. All he could feel was the searing pain of his internal and external wounds, and the scraping of the thing inside him.
He recalled the name Mavrak, but had no real idea who it was. Who he was. He tried to focus to get through the pain, but found he had no idea what he was either. All he had were the memories of the things he had done. And the roar in his head.
There was no way in hell he could ever forget that.
He desperately needed to keep hold of the quiet that he’d had upon waking. The physical wounds he could deal with. He could deal with a million more as long as his mind stayed quiet; as long as the roar remained silent.
“Mavrak?”
“No!” Tears leaked out of his injured eyes, making the gashes in his lids burn. “No more.”
A faint, prismatic light shone in the dark. “It has begun.”
Zeniel squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out all the light, but the colors still shone around him: pink, hazel, aqua and light blue.
Someone knelt next to him. His panic receded, and his headache began to as well. He basked in the calmness that seeped from the creature before him. His starved psyche sucked it in, easing everything.
A hand caressed his forehead. Zeniel didn’t feel skin; he felt only a shock of energy in the shape of fingers. His back arched, the energy shooting down his spine.
And still, he was calm. Nothing hurt, all
he felt was peace.
Then, that name left her mouth again.
“You do not wish to be called Mavrak anymore, do you?” Her tone was laced with sympathy, the words a whisper.
“No!” Zeniel cried, lashing out.
His arm encountered more of that shimmering energy, and when he opened his tortured eyes, he saw it passed through her form. Her transparent form.
The expression on her face was one of regret. “You cannot separate yourself entirely from him. I will not stop you if you decide to try, but I beg you not to.”
Zeniel shook his head, turning away from her. Just thinking about the being inside him made him sick. He didn’t understand it, but knew what it had done.
He despised it.
Visions of it tormented him; guilt blossomed and spread.
“Very well.” The female sighed and ran a hand down his back. He twitched. His wounds began to heal. “How about Zeniel? Would you prefer that?”
His breathing slowed. He moved and turned his head, his eyes focusing on the brunette apparition.
“I . . . yes. Zeniel.” Relief overtook his tone.
She smiled. “Your eyes. They have changed.” She stood, the edge of her skirt floating like smoke around her feet. “It is time. I shall send Dyletri for you. It is time we get you out of this forsaken place.”
He didn’t know who Dyletri was, but that wasn’t who he wanted. His mind rushed back to the vision he’d had right before he was taken out of the cell. Shaking his head, he sat up, the sudden movement making his visitor step back in surprise.
“Not him. N-need her . . .”
The transparent face burst into a delighted smile. “You remember what I showed you.”
“Called me . . . forth. Brown eyes. Need—”
“Understand this Zeniel, in order to be what she will need, you cannot shut your other half out. Not completely. You will lose her if you cannot accept what’s inside you.”
“No. Protect—”
She cut him off again, her face flashing with annoyance. “You stubborn male, I am trying to tell you. In order to protect her, you will need all of you.”
Zeniel shook his head. With a growl, he slammed his fist into the floor. His strength had begun to return; the stone beneath his fist cracked upon impact. “No. It is . . . a monster. Undeserving. Need her. Now.”
Blood Stained Tranquility Page 17