by K. A Knight
“How touching, but it is not needed.” He sniffs, still standing in the doorway.
“No? Well, I will stay for a few days just to ensure that, if you don’t mind. Unless you have something to hide?”
I see his cheeks bulge as he grinds his teeth. “The council hides nothing and to speculate that we are is treason.”
“No speculation, just ensuring,” I clarify, and then rise so quickly he jerks back. “Do not worry, I remember my way around. I don’t need an escort.”
“Do not think because you are a mystic,” he spits, “that it means you get special favour. We are in charge, not you, false god.”
Stepping closer, I peer down at him, letting him feel my power. “Then lead, your people are waiting for answers. I suggest you give it to them before there is unrest. It wouldn’t be good for your life expectancy, I assume.”
Sweeping past him, I start to whistle as I explore the house. I can feel his rage thundering through the walls. He does not like having me here, which means he does have something to hide other than my mate—the question is, what?
I spend the next few hours mapping the house before finding a spare guest room, already made up for when people such as myself stop by. It is on the third floor—I picked the chamber farthest from the council members in the west wing to conceal what I am truly doing. Slinking into the white fur rug before the golden mantle, I cross my legs and place my hands on my knees as I close my eyes.
Letting my mind clear, ignoring the tug in my lower belly urging me to find our mate, I spread out my senses, searching for disturbances or any magic to find what they are hiding.
The dungeons are blocked, as I expected, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to contain the monsters of our world down there. The first floor is empty, so I keep going, but every floor I find is vacant bar the magic of the supernaturals here. The council no doubt feels me, but how can they question what I am doing?
They can’t.
Tipping up my lips, I expand my senses across the grounds. I find more nephilim out back in what looks like a bunk house. Sweeping past that I keep going, searching, pushing my power until sweat breaks out on my brow.
Just when I am about to pull back, I feel something. The edge of something...power. Stretching out my tendrils, I poke them and they react, swirling with dangerous black magic. It is shielding something, something big at the edge of the property. A building. I glimpse a silver door built into the ground before I am blocked.
It’s strong...and ancient. So old that I can’t break through the shrouding. What is locked behind that door? And why is it protected with wards that I haven’t seen used in over a decade? Does it have something to do with my mate? Or the missing women?
The more I find, the more questions I have.
What is the council doing...and how are we entangled in this web?
I’m not led to the sitting room where we met last time, no, this time I’m dragged outside. I gulp in the fresh air, shivering under the midmorning sun as it heats my skin. I have missed this, missed being free. You don’t realise the toll of being locked in a dark, damp dungeon until you come up for air. There can be no darkness without light to shade it, and it seems even as I thrive in the dark...I still crave the light.
I’m dragged across the grass, past a pool which looks so inviting. I stifle the urge to push Veyo, the asshole, into the blue water, only just. We move around some bushes and past a training ground. I almost stumble there, because standing in the middle of a circle of what looks like other nephilim is Griffin.
His head is back, his eyes bright and angry. That face I crave is locked in a snarl, his body bulging with power as his wings flare out behind him. He looks like heaven and hell in one sexy package, and I almost say fuck the mission and instead fuck him there and then.
He must feel me because his head turns, those bright eyes locking on me with such intensity that I shiver. I see the questions—where am I going? What’s happening? —but I can’t answer him. Veyo tugs me again, his hand wrapped around my upper arm. Griffin spares him a glance, but then looks down at his grip on me and I see the change come over him.
The madness enters his gaze, filling it up with black smoke as he transforms into a monster before my very eyes. One intent on getting to his mate. Fuck! As much as I would love to see him rip this man to pieces, I need to speak to Assmos and find out everything.
We have to play this smart for once, not let our killer instinct lead, as hard as it is for both of us.
So, I do the only thing I can think of to do. I turn and punch Veyo in his smug fucking face. He howls as he falls back, and I see all the other nephilim turn my way, I wink over my shoulder at them, especially Griffin. “Handsy bastard. Didn’t even buy me a drink first.”
Turning back, I glare down at Veyo who’s crouching and clutching his broken nose. I let my eyes bleed black for a moment. “Touch me again and I will rip off that arm and feed it to the monsters below, understood?”
He doesn’t answer, too busy howling and spitting curse words. Bending down before him, I pull his hand from his nose, making sure it hurts. I lean forward and lick the blood from his nose and he shivers in revulsion, lurching backwards to fall on his ass. Licking my lips, I watch him. “You taste like fear.”
He leaps to his feet as I laugh, and his hand comes out to smack me, but I warned him. Grabbing it, I snap his wrist and fling him away. We all watch him sail into a tree with a thump. He’s on his feet in a second, eyes blazing yellow and face almost shivering with the need to transform.
“Come on, bird boy,” I taunt.
I watch as the change starts to sweep through him, but then a voice cuts through the air, stilling everyone. “Enough!”
We all turn to see Amos standing at the edge of the grass glaring, he turns his eyes to Veyo and snaps his fingers. Veyo screams as he falls to his knees, his hands gripping his head like a vice, his face contorted in agony. Amos stares at him as the man shrieks and writhes until, finally, he clicks his fingers again and Veyo falls to the side panting, as tears roll down his face. “You do not attack our guest, do not change ever again unless instructed to. Understand?”
“Yes, master,” Veyo whispers, loud enough for us all to hear.
I glance over at Griffin and give him a slight nod to let him know I’m okay, and he deflates a little, the madness retreating, just in time for Amos to look at me. “Apologies, Dawn, that was some nasty business. Shall we?” He gestures his arm behind him as he looks over at Griffin and the nephilim. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
They quickly launch into the sky, while some rush back to training, but not Griffin, he glares at Amos as I saunter over and walk past the council member. They have a stare down and I see Amos starting to step towards my mate. “Assmoss? Shall we? Torture can’t wait all day.”
He looks at me instantly and seems to forget about Griffin, which lets me relax. “Amos, Dawn, do not make me tell you again,” he cautions, his tone smacking me with power like a whip.
“Sure thing, Assmos,” I reply, and turn and saunter away, whistling to myself. This is the most action and fun I’ve seen in a few days. He throws his power at me again, but I just keep walking without a clue where we are going, just happy to be outside.
Eventually he catches up and steers me in the direction he wants me to go. We seem to walk for at least two miles until I feel like we are almost off the property itself. He also doesn’t look ruffled like I imagined he would outside in the real world, in fact he is very light on his feet and makes short work of the walk to whatever evil scheme he has planned for me now.
We head through the trees and the pine riddled back garden until he stops in what looks like the middle of nowhere. As far as I can see, there are only trees in each direction, I can’t even see the house from here. But then I feel it.
Power.
Pure, strong…and dark power.
It tastes like blood and sex, fills me up, crooning of massacres and orgies. My kind of power.
It seems to be shimmering in this area, contained, but what is it from...or whom?
He watches me, is this a test? Am I about to get ambushed and killed? Why do men in my life keep trying to kill me in forests? How unoriginal. “Do you feel it?” he asks, breaking the silence.
“That big old burst of dark power surrounding us? Hard to miss it, Assmos.” I laugh.
“Where is it?” he questions, his eyes narrowed. One of these times he’s going to lose it, I can tell.
I search the area with my eyes but can’t see anything, so I start to walk around it in slow circles, waiting for something. I pass over a spot that sends a shiver up my spine, the hair on my body standing on end. So I stop there. When I lift my hand, I notice the goosebumps raised on my arms and know I must be close.
My fingers seem to shimmer for a moment, so I wiggle them around, watching the play of light, like a bubble is surrounding them, prisms of colours playing across my pale skin. “It’s here.”
“What is?” he barks, growing impatient.
Muttering about how his name matches his personality, I crouch down to where the power seems to be strongest and close my eyes, looking with more than my physical sight like Nos does. If I have some of his powers, I might be able to use it…
I concentrate hard, focusing on the spot below my hand, peeling back the power. Opening my eyes, my jaw drops as I spot the silver door built into the ground like a bunker entrance. It wasn’t there before, so it was cloaked?
“The power is concealing it from us,” I tell him.
“Good, let’s go inside,” Amos orders, and strides over to stand behind me, waiting for me to open it.
In films this is where the girl always dies. I should turn away and run, but honestly I’m not scared. I can handle anything and I’m curious what the head of the council feels like he has to hide out here in the woods with spells. It must be something bad, and bad attracts me.
Fuck those dumb bitches in movies, I’m the villain and nobody is killing me.
Grabbing the handle, I pull it open, and the hiss of air comes out smelling like blood hidden beneath antiseptic. It swings open sideways, banging against the forest floor. Inside, I see stairs leading downwards with silver railings on either side and the lights hospitals use guiding me down.
I have a feeling he’s waiting for me to beg, waiting for me to be afraid. So I do the opposite. With a wink at him, I throw myself down the stairs, rolling to my feet at the bottom. It’s a smooth grey, almost plastic material down here, with a long corridor lit all the way down, leading away before splitting off into a junction.
Not creepy at all.
Amos takes his time coming down the stairs, the dramatic bitch, and when he reaches the bottom, he places his cane on the floor with a loud bang. I only arch my eyebrow and lean against the wall. “What’s this? Your sex dungeon? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, you just don’t do it for me, sorry, but I do like a good sex swing.”
“You are vile,” he spits.
“Aww, thank you,” I retort, touching my hand to my chest before wiping my face clean. “Let’s get on with whatever you have planned.”
With a huff he starts to stalk forward, guiding me down the unnecessarily long hallway. At the end we turn left, and I hear a scream. A very human scream.
A female human scream.
It echoes through the walls, making me shiver from the bone deep terror in that one sound. Amos doesn’t seem surprised and carries on walking, rounding another corner into yet again another long corridor. This one has a door at the end, and as we walk, the grey wall falls away to a glass window into a large room.
A lab.
There are four gurneys in a row along the back white wall with machines waiting next to them. An EKG machine, defibrillators, tubes, and wires decorate the space. Along the back wall are cupboards, which are built into the wall, with more underneath holding microscopes and other equipment that I don’t even know the name for. When I see what’s on the other side of the room, I freeze in place.
It’s a fucking surgical unit.
And there is a woman lying on the table with a man in a white coat bent over her. His hands are covered in blood as he digs them into her chest. His hair is blonde and cut short, pushed back and perfectly styled. His eyes are a muddy brown with flecks of gold. He’s tall and muscular, very attractive actually, but the cool, calm, almost serene expression on his face as he rips open the screaming woman makes me shiver in revulsion.
“What the fuck is this?” I snarl.
It reminds me of the experiments I found in that warehouse basement, but much more extreme, and the poor woman is screaming in agony. Her face is covered in sweat and blood, her once blonde hair is dyed pink with it, and her body is stark naked and exposed to everyone. Tears roll from her eyes as she slams her head from side to side.
“Ah-ha,” I hear him mutter, and then there is a sickening ripping noise and the woman collapses on the table, unmoving. His hands pull from her chest, and I watch as he lifts her heart free and walks over to the bench and grabs a needle. My eyes flicker back to the woman as her head lolls to the side, her eyes empty and locked on where we are standing. A lone tear trails down through the blood on her face. Her whole chest is torn open, like something tried to get out...or in.
I stare into those grey orbs as horror and anger fill me until my eyes bleed to black, and I look at the man responsible. He presses the needle into the heart and lifts the plunger, and her blood fills it before he places them both side by side on a black board on the table. There are what appear to be runes and other objects placed around it.
“What the fuck is this shit, Assmos? I get the whole kidnapping women to make better supernaturals…” I turn then. “But I thought you were trying to breed them. That’s not it, is it? Or at least not just that?”
“No, that is part of the agenda. Most involved know of it and agree. They want stronger bloodlines and mixing ancient or powerful beings with pure bloods was a brilliant idea, but in case it did not work, we needed another way of ensuring our races live on. That we live on, the dominant species.”
“To take over the fucking world, yeah, I’ve heard that on every bad hero movie...but what is he doing? The experiments on humans? Pushing them to their limits to bring out latent genes...it’s more than that. That looks like black magic or some shit, I can almost feel it in the air.”
“It is in a way, I cannot tell you any more, Dawn. Not yet, not until you understand why. You are important, your power is indescribable, and with you, with your blood, we could create something so powerful it would be unstoppable.” He turns to me, looking hopeful, like he thinks I’ll really be onboard with this shit. “We are dying, Dawn. This is the only way. Surely you see everything I do is for the good of our people? Your people now, you are one of us.”
“The hunters?” I query, grasping for information now that he’s talking, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Easy, they need money. I simply posed as a rich human disgusted in finding out the world is filled with monsters. They think they are hunting them for us and that I use the witches to help contain it. They are willing to turn a blind eye to most things for money, so easy to corrupt.” He shakes his head.
“The witches?” I press.
“They want what I do, power. More reach, to rule again. To be the people behind the crown.” He shrugs.
“I-I still don’t get it, what is he doing? Who is he?”
“Do you remember how I said you had a choice? How many people have latent blood in them? What if we could change that? What if we could, at will, make them like us? Not as strong of course, but everyone needs soldiers and servants.” He peers at me then, his eyes alight with purpose. “What if we could change humans to be like us? I don’t mean change them like vampires, but change their actual genetic structure until they are all monsters? We could pick the brightest, the strongest—”
“The richest,” I snap.
“Exactly, make th
em us. We would have no one against us, this world would be ours for the taking.” He grins. “Don’t you see, Dawn, we could play god? Make our own army!”
“And who would be left to fight? No one should play god, humans serve a purpose, leave them to it, we are better hiding in the dark,” I whisper. “Look at what we do to those we deem weaker than us. How can you really think we are right to rule this earth? We kill everything we touch! Corrupt it and use it, draining it.”
“Dawn.” He sighs in disappointment, looking back at the man who is making notes as he watches the heart. I watch it too, and it slowly starts to beat again, to pump as we stare. “You wanted to know, this is the truth.”
“You are breeding supernaturals with ancient, powerful beings against their will and changing humans with torture...and magic and science? Does that about cover it?”
“Yes, I am creating a whole new world, Dawn. One where we no longer have to hide, one where our power, our hungers and needs, are seen as normal, not wrong. They have had their time, now it is ours, and you are either with us or against us. I can use you either way,” he growls.
“How?” I whisper, watching as the man picks up the now beating heart and stalks back over to the woman. With delicate hands, he presses the heart back into her chest and steps back, blood dripping from his fingers to the white floor.
Nothing happens at first, then slowly, ever so slowly, the bones rebreak and bend, the skin knitting together over the cavern until nothing remains but a corpse. Then her chest lifts with a breath, and I watch as she blinks those once empty grey eyes. They bleed to purple for a moment before she blinks again, her head turning to look at the ceiling. Her skin seems to smooth, her hair growing rapidly until it hangs from the table.
“You are changing her into a monster.”
“We are remaking her, Dawn, and you? You were the very first,” he offers.
“What do you mean? You said my genes changed when I chose to fight, to live, not to die,” I recall, feeling lost, and for once very unsure of what to do. What’s happening here is atrocious, even for monsters this…this evil is so wrong.