“Rowan,” Destroy said, reaching for her hand. “He’s trying to bring his mate home. How can you fault him for that?”
“I fault him for placing my mate in jeopardy. Not for looking for his own,” Rowan snapped at Destroy.
“I’ll be fine. Your protection will go with me,” Destroy reassured her.
“You’re not going,” Rowan said again.
“I am, Rowan. You can deny it all you like, but I’m going with him,” Destroy said calmly.
Rowan glared at Destroy until she could take it no more. Then, she climbed in his lap and stayed that way, holding him, until finally he rose from the table with her in his arms and took them both back to their bedroom.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
Lore walked through the woods of Whispers, taking in all around him — the trees, the grasses, the moss underfoot. The animals and birds, the sounds, the breeze, the scents — all of it that he never took the time to enjoy. “I will appreciate you more once I return from my last journey,” he promised the wildlife and wilderness around him.
Lore stopped in his tracks, raised his face to the sun and basked in its glow and warmth for a moment before continuing on his way. He needed to visit an old friend, hoped he volunteered to come along, and if he didn’t, he needed to say goodbye and make sure that friend knew of his importance in his life. He’d have been lost years ago, if not for this male standing at his side, keeping him grounded, calling him on his self-pity when he allowed himself to slip into it.
After quite a walk, finally the woods thinned, and after a few more feet, he stepped into a clearing. Straight ahead of him was a small stone cottage. The sandstones and slate obviously having been brought from another location. England came to mind, but he’d never thought to ask. There was an A-frame archway to the front of the cottage that acted as an overhang to the front door. The cottage had two columns, also made of matching stone, one on either side of the A-frame overhang holding it up. The roof of the A-frame overhang joined the roof of the rest of the cottage that ran perpendicular to it, and a small chimney, also made of matching stone, could be seen peeking over the back of the roof. There was a small window up high at the top of the A-frame overhang and a window in each side of the small cottage including just to the left of the front door. The stones varied in color from light to dark grey, and the roof was a conglomeration of ruddy colored slate pieces laid one upon the next and so on. The door was a heavy, dark thick plank of wood that had been made centuries ago and had been exposed to the elements ever since, making it as dark as it was now. There was greenery planted on either side of the windows and on the outsides of the columns in the front of the house. It was a very small, yet warm and inviting little home. He’d never stopped to admire it before. He should have. He decided he’d have to tell his friend how much he loved his home.
Murder stood in the small kitchen of his stone cottage, rinsing the dishes he’d used for his breakfast. He carefully dried them and placed them back in the cupboard mounted to the wall just to the right of the sink. Murder felt Lore before he actually arrived. They’d been bound together years ago, and their bond was as strong as a mated couple, though theirs was one of friendship.
Murder walked to the front door of his cottage, opened it, and stood there, waiting, his arms crossed over his chest. Shortly thereafter Lore walked out of the woods and into the clearing he’d chosen to build his home in. Lore stood there for a while, his eyes taking in everything about Murder’s home.
Murder’s dark face split into a wide grin. “Welcome, my friend.”
“Good morn, Murder. How are you this morning?” Lore asked, striding up to Murder’s door.
“I’m well. Curious, but well,” Murder replied.
“Curious?” Lore asked.
“Yes. Why are you looking at my home as though you’ve never seen it before. And why do you walk rather than mist about through your realms? Surely it is easier than travel by foot.”
“It is,” Lore admitted. “But, I am saving my powers for later tonight. I am accessing them as little as possible, hoping to store up a reserve if that’s at all possible. And your home? It is quite lovely. I am sorry I’ve never noticed it before.”
“Thank you. I brought the stones over and assembled it myself. What happens tonight?” Murder asked.
“I bring my Angel home. Or, I die trying,” Lore responded.
“Then I go with you. Together we are strong enough.”
“I’m taking Destroy. He will be the muscle I need this night,” Lore explained.
Murder regarded him for a moment more. Finally he nodded. “Good. Then there will be no doubt of our success. When do we leave?”
Lore slapped a hand on Murder’s shoulder, leaving it there. “You are a brother to me, Murder. I could not ask this of you.”
“You didn’t. I offered. Come, rest. Let us talk of tonight and what we will need to overcome. Tell me of your female. Is she expecting you?”
“No. Most days she does not even know me, but I go faithfully, and I try to make her smile. To dry her tears, to let her know I’ve not forgotten.”
“She does not remember you?” Murder asked, completely surprised by Lore’s admission.
Lore shook his head. “It is better if she does not. I will have a chance at earning her love then, before she remembers and despises me.”
“Despises you? What did you do, Lore?”
Lore shook his head. “I was not always a good male.” He smiled uneasily. “I was selfish, indulgent. I grew bored with my existence and everyone else’s. I became deviant. I did things that only the truly downfallen can find pleasure in.” Lore’s eyes were on the floor as he spoke. Finally he lifted them up to Murder’s. “Then I took it a step further. I took advantage of the humans we were tasked with overseeing, protecting. I’d become a cold, ruthless male, not even reminiscent of the Ancient worthy of worship that I’d once been. I cared not what effect my endeavors had on anyone else. Pleasure, conquest, immediate gratification — these were my focuses. My eldest brother decided that I needed to be brought in hand, taught a lesson and reminded of who he was — who we all were. But I was angry. And I defied him. I lured my brother’s love away from him and seduced her. Then I threw her away as though she was nothing. He became enraged, his mind fairly riddled with jealousy and twisted with hate. Then I happened across my mate. My focus changed, but I’d been too long on the outskirts of insanity, of reason. I made poor choices. All of this my brother watched. I am sure there were other reasons that pushed him to it, my behavior not minor among them, but he took my mate from me. I became distraught, I caused unnecessary battles in my efforts to deal with my rage. His punishment was unfair. Not to me, but to those I loved. He was unbelievably cruel. I searched for my mate relentlessly. Every time I’d get close, every time I’d find her, he’d move her, hiding her from me again and again and again. The frustration and rage only made me worse. I cursed everyone I knew who had found love.”
Lore looked down at his own hands clasped in his lap. “I destroyed Lily’s love. I berated her until she thought the only way to please me was to leave him. There was a great battle. During the middle of it, two of my siblings intervened, trying to calm me, to calm him, and save us both. Then, my eldest brother arrived, turning Lily’s mate back to nature in order to make peace.”
“The Dragon tree,” Murder said.
“Yes. And he took Lily from me. The only being that had never turned her back on me no matter how perverted or taboo my actions. She always loved me. Looked at me as though I was good.”
“Is Lily your mate?” Murder asked, a horrified look on his face.
“No.” Lore chuckled. “She’s not. Lily has always been with me. Since almost the beginning, when I was no more than a guileless male lusting after all the world had to offer, wanting to love, wanting to live. Lily was there. Her bright eyes loving me, her hands reaching out for my guidance.”
“How? Is she like you?” Murder asked.
“She is. More than you know.” Lore didn’t say anything further, but he looked at Murder, waiting for him to put together the pieces. He knew the moment the dots all connected, and Murder finally understood.
“She was your daughter! Lily was your daughter! That’s why she is able to manage your powers and accept them as you pass them to her. She is of you!”
Lore nodded. “She was. She is. But she is also Carolena’s and Carnage’s daughter. And that is more of a blessing to us both than you know.”
“Tell me, Lore. We have all afternoon. Tell me.”
“Lily’s name was Danae. And she was taken from me. Struck down by my own hand, then stolen away by my brother. His name is Acaelo, and as our leader has nothing but contempt for me. My sister tried to intervene, begged him to hand Danae over to her. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He was all powerful, even more so than the rest of us, and while I had moved beyond all fear of anything happening to myself, my other siblings had not. They feared him still and bowed to his will. Had it not been for him, I believe my sister and younger brother would have forgiven me long ago.”
“This is the same brother whose female you seduced then discarded?”
“It is.” Lore looked at Murder, a wealth of wisdom behind his eyes. “I have always been powerful. I have not always been very smart.”
Murder smiled, crossed his ankles and reclined on his couch, waiting for the rest of Lore’s story.
“I’d been searching for my Evangeline, and my brother kept moving her. I thought I’d learned my lesson. I knew the priorities of my life were so misplaced. I’d tried for years to earn his forgiveness, but still he kept her from me. I needed to find her, free her, earn her forgiveness as well. But I couldn’t, they kept hiding her away. I began to take out my frustrations on anyone, anything I came across. It had not missed my notice that my Danae had fallen madly in love with Carrik. And he with her. They spent all their time together, thinking I was not aware.”
“Why would they think they needed to hide their love?” Murder asked.
“It was not allowed for those of our class to mate with Dragons. Can you imagine the strength of their offspring? And I would not have blessed their union anyway. I’d already lost Evangeline; I couldn’t bear the thought of Danae leaving me as well. One day after a particularly devastating failure at rescuing my Evangeline, I came across them together in the forests. I flew into a rage, there was a battle, and we destroyed all we came in contact with. Communities, people, forests, livestock… it didn’t matter, we laid waste to it all. Finally, my siblings were there, demanding our acquiescence as we both heaved and bellowed, anxious to return to our battle to the death.
Danae was sobbing, begging us both to stop, promising she’d give Carrik up if I’d just stop attacking him. My sister sought to comfort her, and I threw a flash of lightning her way. Danae stepped in front of it to protect her aunt and took the brunt of it. It didn’t kill her, but it injured her gravely.
Carrik attacked me, I attacked him, my brother attacked us both. He rendered Carrik as you know him now, binding him with nature and pronouncing the only way he can be released is for his love, my Danae, now Lily, to recognize him and call him her own. Which would have been impossible. Her memories of him have never followed her into each new life she’s lived.”
“I wish to meet your siblings, particularly this brother,” Murder grumbled.
“He took Danae with him and returned to the skies. He shouted that at my selfishness I’d lost my own mate and now my own daughter. I screamed, I bellowed, I demanded that he give them back to me. But he didn’t even look back.”
Chapter 4
“You never saw him again, or them, until Lily was born?” Murder asked.
“He appeared before me one last time. He said my Danae would be reborn time and again with her special talents intact, but no memory of me or of Carrik or her past lives. And I’d get to live to see her struggle to be accepted, cast out by her own families, tortured by those who feared her powers and reach for love only to have it denied her. He said her punishment was my punishment. That perhaps by seeing someone I loved, one of the only two people I’d ever loved, suffer, I’d learn to put someone, anyone, before myself and my own selfish, gluttonous ways. I begged him not to punish her for my sins, but he only spat his disgust at me, told me that it was all my doing. I was to blame. I tried to follow, but I found I could no longer follow them. I couldn’t return to the skies. They’d stripped me of most of my abilities. They’d banned me from our home, the place we originally came from. They’d left me between realms, alive but not. A body, but not. I still had powers, but only to move from realm to realm.
I soon found other things I could do. I also found more things I could not do. I could no longer take part in all the gluttony that had become my ruin. I could no longer enjoy a female. I could no longer do any of the things I enjoyed. I couldn’t even eat food. I couldn’t have drink. I was condemned to eat souls. And even in that I failed at first. I took the souls of the good — they didn’t fight me quite as much. But I felt sick for days, their fear a living thing inside me. So I tried to take the souls of the evil. That worked much better. Their fear is a rather sweet flavor. They have it coming to them, and the universe doesn’t mind quite so much. And the people — the people feared me, rather than worship me as they once had. I became an outcast in my own right. And I slowly, but surely disappeared. I continued to search for Evangeline. Every time I thought I was close, he’d allow me to glimpse her, then snatch her away, and the chase would be on all over again.”
“Why didn’t he just move her to a realm you couldn’t find her in. Their realm, for instance?”
“He wanted me to find her. To be so close that I could see her, then take her away from me. He wanted me to suffer.”
“They need to fucking pay,” Murder growled. “Your other siblings could have stepped in! Surely, together you could have stopped him.”
Lore smiled sadly. “They feared him. Most would be smart to fear him. But there was a time I agreed with you. Now, I just want Evangeline. He’s finally stopped torturing Danae and allowed her to be born to parents who adore her, who love her for who she is. They’ve even allowed me to be a part of her life. I’m so tired of all the hate, all the bitterness.”
“He’s done you wrong, Lore. He went above and beyond that which was needed.”
Lore shook his misty head. “I’ve not told you everything, my friend. I deserved every bit of the pain Acaelo’s given me. And I may yet have more to endure. As long as those I love are no longer suffering, I will take all he cares to send my way.”
“Have you tried to speak with him? Any of them? Tried to tell them you regret your actions?” Murder asked.
“Other than make me suffer endlessly, they’ve ignored me for what seems a thousand years. The only time any of them have even attempted to communicate with me was when Rowan removed the curse from Carolena and Lily. My sister was there, and at the end, she reached down a single finger to touch mine. She has forgiven me, I believe. I believe that she is the reason that Lily has finally found a home and loving parents.”
“Does Lily know you, Lore?” Murder asked.
“No. And she never will. I’m Uncle Lore. She feels a closeness to me. But she need never know that I am the cause of her endless suffering. She need never remember a moment of it. She knows all she needs to know. Her mother and father adore her, she is stronger than anyone else ever even dreamed, and she will always have Uncle Lore at her side, her back, her front, standing wherever she wants me to stand to support her. Nothing else matters.”
“Who was her mother?” Murder asked, trying to make sense of the story Lore had told him.
“A village girl. One that I cared for once, before I discovered other vices. I came back some time after Danae was born to find that her mother had died in childbirth. I hadn’t even known she was pregnant. Danae was being raised by her mother’s family. They knew me for what I was and readily gave her
up to me. I taught her all I knew and raised her to be as strong as I was.”
“Did your mate ever meet Lily?”
“No. Lily wasn’t allowed in my fortress in the hills. It was there that I committed my most depraved acts, and it was there that I took Evangeline.”
“Depraved?” Murder said, chuckling.
Lore stared at Murder with an intensity that was not to be mistaken for any less than it was. “Depraved. Make no mistake about it.” Lore held Murder’s gaze for a second longer before explaining. “I kept Evangeline in that fortress. The two never met.”
“How did Acaelo take Evangeline from you?” Murder asked.
“I took her for my own. In my vanity and conceit, deciding that I was entitled to her. Her beauty, her innocence, her gentleness was something I’d never seen. I was entranced from the moment I saw her. I told her that I loved her. I told her that I would be hers forever, and she would be mine. I spirited her away to my home. A fortress of stone built high in the mountains. It was grand, a castle of sorts, built over hot springs that ran through its basement.
There, I broke her heart. I fell to the lowest lows. I saw myself for who I was, what I had become. And I blamed her, her goodness was something that I could never touch. I wasn’t worthy. I allowed her to be defiled, and I did nothing to stop it. At least not until it was too late.”
“Lore…” Murder said on a hushed snarl.
“I was depraved, demented. I’d committed atrocities that were beyond words. Granted, some of the women involved were only too anxious to take part. They loved the play as much as I. But when faced with Evangeline in the same rooms, in the same bed, I realized that I was not good enough for her. I would never be good enough. And I blamed her for being too good. She pushed me, wanted to know why I hadn’t claimed her. I thought at one time she’d even left me. I lost my mind. When she returned, I only became worse. I threatened her with myself — You want all that I am, welcome to it. I suppose in my twisted head, I believed if I could make her enjoy the depravity as much as I, then I could keep her for my own. She’d be no better than me. But she was better than me. It is why I couldn’t have her. So, I restrained her. I fastened her so tightly to the bed that there was no way she could break free.
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