Leave it all Behind: MM Paranormal Romance, page 25
“Well what else is Nexus supposed to do? We’ve lost too many.”
“This is where we call in help from the other Covens.”
“Sure, and potentially invite more of the Devout right in. We don’t know which Covens are loyal and which are traitors. You can’t possibly think it stops with Ninetta and Carlisle?”
“Of course not,” Sterling scoffed. “But there are those who have proven their loyalty. Verene and Boris are the closest and easily could have sent reinforcements. Boris especially, since his Coven is large.”
“Well, why don’t you tell Nexus that then?” Stasia sneered.
Sterling pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance before deciding to ignore Stasia. Turning to me, green eyes solemn, he leaned close, brushing my neck affectionately, the bond between us humming.
“Stay close and alert. Do not let your curiosity get the best of you. I mean it, Beau.”
I nodded. Placing a kiss on my forehead, he turned to the others.
“Let’s go.”
We moved quickly and efficiently, embracing the shadows that hid our forms. Despite not having worked with them before, we all were in sync that embodied trust and practice moving as a unit. None of which we had.
Maybe having an orgy served the same purpose.
As Cadence told us, the guards were sparse, making it easy to slip in. The familiar halls greeted me, relieving me, providing me with comfort I didn’t know was missing. But the air felt stale. Wrong. Had I not been there, I would not have believed the events that occurred on Samhain.
There was no damage.
Nothing. No bodies, no debris, nothing at all to prove that there had been several bombs that took the lives of many of our Coven members. It was business as usual.
For the most part at least. I could hear the heartbeats of several within the walls of the house, but none roamed the halls. Most stayed confined to their rooms. Understandable really, who would want to go roaming about after all that has happened. Still, it was a bit unnerving.
Aside from the occasional person wandering the hall, the place was deserted. And the air. I couldn’t get over it.
“Stasia, you and the twins scope out the place. Beau and I will locate Nexus.”
Stasia and the twins moved without another word, disappearing so fast, it was as if they had never been there to begin with.
“Stay close,” Sterling told me again before making his way down the halls.
The further we moved, the more that stillness tried to choke me. Settling deep in my gut, clenching, growing heavier with each step.
Apprehension forced sweat to bead my brow. My heart that had slowed once I had transitioned, now beat furiously.
“Sterling, I don’t feel good about this,” I whispered.
My hand reached out along the dark wooden walls that had thrummed with life whenever I brushed it. I expected the warmth, the throbbing, the acknowledgement that always greeted me before.
Nothing.
Cold. Devoid of the sentient being that lingered in the walls.
Terrified, I placed both palms on the walls, searching for that little beat. Anything to tell me it wasn’t gone, that the house hadn’t been destroyed with the acts of the Devout.
None.
Nothing rose to greet me. There was no life there.
“Sterling,” I said again, voice shaking.
No response.
I whipped around, but the hall was empty. Empty…and different. This wasn’t the same hall I was walking down with Sterling. I didn’t recognize it at all.
Shit.
I groped at the bond, tugging to let Sterling know I needed him but it was as if the end of that rope was held by a void. I pulled and pulled and pulled, but it didn’t bring me any closer to my Master.
The fuck?
It wasn’t like the bond was gone or shielded. Something else was happening. I just couldn’t figure it out.
Sterling was going to be pissed when he realized I wasn’t with him. He was going to scold me for wandering off. But I swear I hadn’t. I stopped to touch the wall for a second.
How did I get here then?
“Jamal.”
I whipped around the other side of the hall, hearing the familiar voice.
A figure stood at the end of the hall, shrouded in shadows. The sconces on the walls had gone out where he stood. But something about them seemed so familiar.
They took a few steps forward, I eased a few back.
Once the glow of the sconces that were still lit hit their face, I recognized them from before. The one who saved me during Samhain.
But no…that wasn’t all.
“Who are you?” I demanded, rallying my power just in case.
They took another step closer. Dreads pulled back and big brown eyes so full of concern and worry.
“You don’t remember? It’s me, Jamal. Anthony.”
Anthony. Sterling said he was dead. I saw him die.
Flashes of faceless voice, with a faint hint of frankincense. The blurry or overexposed smiles suddenly came back with clarity.
All of them with Anthony.
It really was my older brother.
21
ANTHONY
I stumbled back a few more steps, grabbing the wall for support, suppressing the urge to pull my hand away at the cool wrongness that greeted me with the touch.
“You’re dead. I saw you die.”
Anthony moved toward me. “I promise you, it’s really me. I don’t have time to explain, I have to get you out of here.”
I raised my hand, a wall of fire separating us in the hall. I watched him with suspicion. “Not until you tell me how you’re alive. If that’s even really you.”
Anthony sighed. With a squeeze of his fist, the fire snuffed out. I blinked in surprise, staring at the space where the fire once was, then back up at him. He raised an eyebrow in challenge. My chest clenched.
Something about that small mannerism felt so nostalgic. Like I had seen that before, several times. I had vague memories of trying to do it myself and getting frustrated while he teased me and rubbed it in my face that he could do it easily.
God, I knew him. I had to know him. But was it real? Were my memories playing tricks on me? They were so scattered and frenzied, I couldn’t tell anything anymore.
My temples throbbed.
“Listen, we don’t have time for this. If he finds out you’re here, he’s going to try to hurt you,” Anthony pleaded, stepping forward again.
I sneered at him. “Well whoever he is, he’s made it pretty clear that he wants me alive. Even his flunkies keep telling me so,” I gave him a pointed look.
Anthony looked exasperated, yet another expression that seemed so familiar. One I had seen and incited many many times. Was it so far-fetched to believe it was really him? That he was actually alive?
A vision of him lying in a pool of blood, head at an odd angle, mangled body a victim of the slave rings we were forced to survive a majority of our life, hit me full force.
There was no way he survived that.
So who was this imposter?
“He doesn’t have to kill you to hurt you. You should know that by now, Jamal.”
“Beau.”
Anthony frowned.
“Don’t call me Jamal. My name is Beau.”
Anthony smirked, arms folded across his chest. “Is it now?”
I glared at him. He had the audacity to laugh, full bodied and familiar. Whoever he was, he was doing a splendid job fucking with my head.
“How am I supposed to trust you? In case you’ve forgotten, I watched you die. There is no way you survived that fight. So who are you? How do I know you’re not working with the enemy trying to trick me? You’ve already separated me from my Master.”
Anthony scoffed. “Slave to the white man again? Have you learned nothing from our ancestors?”
Fury boiled in my gut, raging hot and wild. It wasn’t him I was mad at, but the topic had been a point of contention between Sterling and I, it was like poking at a still healing wound. It hurt.
Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself. Sterling may be my Master, but we both served Lilith.
“More like a slave to a black woman.”
Anthony contemplated for a moment, then shrugged. “Then I guess we’re the same in that aspect.” He settled those big brown eyes on me with a gravity that knocked the jokes and games right out of the room. “I was never here for them. My priority is you. Always has been, always will be. The moment you closed your eyes, I would be the one to force them back open again.”
I frowned, the words coming back to me.
If you close your eyes, you’ll never open them again.
Don’t let them close, Jamal. Look at me. We’ll be okay.
It was him. I remember now. The voice that followed me, that kept pushing me forward. It was him, it had always been him. As a child and as a man. All until he died. And then I followed after.
Difference was, I woke up again. Anthony wasn’t as lucky.
Or was he?
Blinking at him, tears, threatening to blur my vision, I fought back all of the emotion that came crashing to the forefront. I wasn’t going to let this shake me. I couldn’t let him in. Not if this wasn’t real.
But damn did I want it to be.
“How long have you been following me?” I asked him. Clearing my throat a few times when the words wouldn’t leave my throat.
“Like I said, the moment you closed your eyes. I’ve been waiting here the whole time. I’m bound here, it was the price I had to pay to be with you.”
“The one who bound you, are they here?” I asked.
Anthony swallowed noisily, seeming uncomfortable with the question, but he nodded once.
“Who is it?” I pressed. If it was the one we were after and I could get that information to Sterling, he might be able to destroy them. We could save Lilith.
“They aren’t your enemy, Jamal–er–Beau.”
How could Lilith not have known that there was someone literally living here in secret? Especially since Anthony had apparently been here for weeks. No one noticed? Then again, Lilith had mentioned something about blindspots in her perception and that someone was taking advantage of it. If she was pregnant before I had been changed, it would make sense that she hadn’t been as focused on the happenings in the Coven house. I had barely seen her when I arrived here.
A shudder quaked the building, vibrated the walls, and jostled us. Immediately on alert, I surveyed the walls and ceiling, searching for danger. Was there a fight happening? Was Sterling okay?
Anthony grabbed me and yanked me down the hall. I didn’t even fight as he led me away. The faster we ran through the halls, the more stifling the wrongness grew. Glancing behind me as we turned a corner, I noticed the walls had caved in on themselves, melting and molding, eating up the distance like it would swallow us whole. I pushed on faster.
Hall after hall, we raced, until just at the end of a long one we saw a door. Anthony pushed us on faster. Just as he reached to open it, he froze, his whole body going stiff, and eyes wide.
“Anthony?” I yelled, reaching to shake him, but he was quicker, grabbing me by the shoulders.
“I have to go now, I used too much of my reserves in this form. Listen to me Beau, this is her last apology to you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you longer, but I’m happy you’re alive. We’ll be looking out for you, always have and always will. We love you.”
We?
Before I could even process the words, he yanked the door open and pushed me inside.
Right before the door closed, I saw him standing there, the halls a swirling, devouring monster behind him, smiling. Then he faded away as if he never existed and the door slammed shut.
What?
I tried reaching for the door, but it blinked out of existence.
“Seriously? Now you want to start?” I growled at the house, but there was no response. Fantastic.
Turning around slowly, I took in my surroundings. It was a large room, dark and damp, not one that fit in with the rest of the house's aesthetic. Tall pillars and high arches framed the room, leading down dark halls, like some scary decrepit basement.
None of that mattered though, not when I saw the shallow pool of blood in the center of the room.
And right in the middle of the pool, as still as a corpse, was Lilith.
Her skin was ashen, cheeks gaunt, eyes closed, but there was still a subtle rise and fall of her chest. She wasn’t dead.
But just barely alive.
It shouldn’t have shocked me. I knew this already. She told me herself the state that she was in, but something about seeing it robbed me of all the air in my lungs. I fought to breathe again. To not panic.
Glancing around, there didn’t seem to be anyone lingering. At least, I had thought that at first, but deep in the shadows were…bodies. Piles and piles of dead human corpses. None had decomposed, their deaths fresh. Most of them were children, scrappy and disheveled…and so fucking familiar.
They were slaves.
Blood trickled from their corpses down the grooves in the ground all leading to the pool where Lilith lay.
Carefully, I edged a little closer, not daring to spark any flames in case that alerted someone to my presence.
The closer I got, the more my stomach dropped. I could see tiny little tubes attached to her arms, steadily feeding her blood. It must have been what was keeping her alive. But why couldn’t she wake up?
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” a familiar voice said from the darkness. I flinched, eyes darting around to locate the voice.
Stepping out from the shrouds of darkness stood a figure I knew all too well.
Nexus.
22
FATHER OF ALL
“Surprised? You really shouldn’t be.”
I watched Nexus circle the other side of Lilith. Kind and compassionate Nexus. Surely, he wasn’t…he couldn’t be…?
He was so devoted to her, anyone could see it clear in his eyes. He adored her, there was no faking that. So why?
It didn’t matter, I had to get to Lilith. If Nexus was my enemy, so be it.
Eyeing the distance between me and the pool, discerning whether or not I could make it there before Nexus, I made a quick decision. Darting forward, I reached for her, nearly stepping onto the glowing blue symbols etched into the stone.
“Ah ah ah, that blood is the only thing keeping her alive. You wouldn’t want to do anything that might upset your Master, would you?” Nexus tsked with a hint of amusement.
I froze, hand still outstretched as if I might reach out to her still. But what if I ended up killing her…what would that do to Sterling? He would be devastated. Not to mention that if there really was a battle taking place, he would need all of his attention on that. If what Kyle went through was any sort of example of how he may react at the death of his Creator, I couldn’t risk it.
Straightening and smoothing out my expression into something like casual boredom, I examined my nails, taking a different approach. “I guess I can understand why you’re doing this. Forever trapped in her shadow, never powerful enough to do anything about it. Do you hate her or something?”
Nexus’s nostril flared incredulously. “Hate her? I love her.”
Excuse me, what?
I frowned, “So why are you doing this?” The curiosity was real now. Not going to lie, I fully expected the stereotypical ‘I want to rule the world, so I’ll sleep my way to the top while slowly planning their demise’ crap. If that wasn’t the case, then what the fuck? And if this is how he showed he loved someone, I’d hate to see what he’d do to someone he disliked.
Just the thought made me shudder. Must be a Pisces, that whole crime of passion thing was strong with this one.
“Lilith is a goddess,” he purred, eyes wide with adoration. “She is all that is good and compassionate. And it is my love’s greatest weakness!” The last sentence came out as a snarling hiss. “She must not be tainted by the needs of the Vampire world. She must remain good, it is why I will do it for her. I will drown in blood if only to keep hers clean.”
The way he stared at her now, clouded with mania, the fucker was unhinged.
Sweat beaded his brow as he gazed down at his lover with sadness and longing in his eyes. Like he actually meant it. Maybe he did, in his own twisted way, which made it all that much more terrifying.
“So, what? You plan on taking over her Coven?” I asked him, stalling him. If I could keep him talking, I may be able to figure out a way to get Lilith out of this. There was no one here to help me, I had to finesse this on my own.
Admittedly, not one of my strengths.
“My ambitions aren’t so unimpressive,” Nexus sneered, shooting me a harsh look before returning a tender gaze to his unconscious beloved. “I do not wish to be just High Priest. I will be Father of All.”
He looked up and smiled at me. “And you have what I need to make that possible.”
I tensed. “You know.”
Nexus tossed back his head and laughed, the silky tresses of his ash colored hair jostled with the movement. “Of course I knew. It’s fairly difficult to hide a pregnancy, but that did not stop my beloved from trying. She may not have shown physically, but it's hard to hide with blood.”
If Nexus was the one pulling the strings this whole time then it was obvious he knew. No wonder we were always a few steps behind. Sending Carlisle and Ninetta to retrieve the baby was a calculated move. He’d been sitting here comfy, watching all of us lose our fucking minds.
He knew.
If killing Lilm stops the transfer of power and the title from Lilith, then killing Lilith meant the transfer would instantly be made to Lilm.
When the time comes, you must kill me.
This is what she meant. I’m sure of it. What a load of fucking bullshit. Thanks a lot, Lilith, for putting me in literally the worst fucking position. Save everyone and kill her so that Nexus couldn’t steal her power and reek Goddess only knew what kind of havoc on the world, or destroy the one person my Master loved the most? There are literally no right answers here. Either way I’m fucked.
“This is where we call in help from the other Covens.”
“Sure, and potentially invite more of the Devout right in. We don’t know which Covens are loyal and which are traitors. You can’t possibly think it stops with Ninetta and Carlisle?”
“Of course not,” Sterling scoffed. “But there are those who have proven their loyalty. Verene and Boris are the closest and easily could have sent reinforcements. Boris especially, since his Coven is large.”
“Well, why don’t you tell Nexus that then?” Stasia sneered.
Sterling pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance before deciding to ignore Stasia. Turning to me, green eyes solemn, he leaned close, brushing my neck affectionately, the bond between us humming.
“Stay close and alert. Do not let your curiosity get the best of you. I mean it, Beau.”
I nodded. Placing a kiss on my forehead, he turned to the others.
“Let’s go.”
We moved quickly and efficiently, embracing the shadows that hid our forms. Despite not having worked with them before, we all were in sync that embodied trust and practice moving as a unit. None of which we had.
Maybe having an orgy served the same purpose.
As Cadence told us, the guards were sparse, making it easy to slip in. The familiar halls greeted me, relieving me, providing me with comfort I didn’t know was missing. But the air felt stale. Wrong. Had I not been there, I would not have believed the events that occurred on Samhain.
There was no damage.
Nothing. No bodies, no debris, nothing at all to prove that there had been several bombs that took the lives of many of our Coven members. It was business as usual.
For the most part at least. I could hear the heartbeats of several within the walls of the house, but none roamed the halls. Most stayed confined to their rooms. Understandable really, who would want to go roaming about after all that has happened. Still, it was a bit unnerving.
Aside from the occasional person wandering the hall, the place was deserted. And the air. I couldn’t get over it.
“Stasia, you and the twins scope out the place. Beau and I will locate Nexus.”
Stasia and the twins moved without another word, disappearing so fast, it was as if they had never been there to begin with.
“Stay close,” Sterling told me again before making his way down the halls.
The further we moved, the more that stillness tried to choke me. Settling deep in my gut, clenching, growing heavier with each step.
Apprehension forced sweat to bead my brow. My heart that had slowed once I had transitioned, now beat furiously.
“Sterling, I don’t feel good about this,” I whispered.
My hand reached out along the dark wooden walls that had thrummed with life whenever I brushed it. I expected the warmth, the throbbing, the acknowledgement that always greeted me before.
Nothing.
Cold. Devoid of the sentient being that lingered in the walls.
Terrified, I placed both palms on the walls, searching for that little beat. Anything to tell me it wasn’t gone, that the house hadn’t been destroyed with the acts of the Devout.
None.
Nothing rose to greet me. There was no life there.
“Sterling,” I said again, voice shaking.
No response.
I whipped around, but the hall was empty. Empty…and different. This wasn’t the same hall I was walking down with Sterling. I didn’t recognize it at all.
Shit.
I groped at the bond, tugging to let Sterling know I needed him but it was as if the end of that rope was held by a void. I pulled and pulled and pulled, but it didn’t bring me any closer to my Master.
The fuck?
It wasn’t like the bond was gone or shielded. Something else was happening. I just couldn’t figure it out.
Sterling was going to be pissed when he realized I wasn’t with him. He was going to scold me for wandering off. But I swear I hadn’t. I stopped to touch the wall for a second.
How did I get here then?
“Jamal.”
I whipped around the other side of the hall, hearing the familiar voice.
A figure stood at the end of the hall, shrouded in shadows. The sconces on the walls had gone out where he stood. But something about them seemed so familiar.
They took a few steps forward, I eased a few back.
Once the glow of the sconces that were still lit hit their face, I recognized them from before. The one who saved me during Samhain.
But no…that wasn’t all.
“Who are you?” I demanded, rallying my power just in case.
They took another step closer. Dreads pulled back and big brown eyes so full of concern and worry.
“You don’t remember? It’s me, Jamal. Anthony.”
Anthony. Sterling said he was dead. I saw him die.
Flashes of faceless voice, with a faint hint of frankincense. The blurry or overexposed smiles suddenly came back with clarity.
All of them with Anthony.
It really was my older brother.
21
ANTHONY
I stumbled back a few more steps, grabbing the wall for support, suppressing the urge to pull my hand away at the cool wrongness that greeted me with the touch.
“You’re dead. I saw you die.”
Anthony moved toward me. “I promise you, it’s really me. I don’t have time to explain, I have to get you out of here.”
I raised my hand, a wall of fire separating us in the hall. I watched him with suspicion. “Not until you tell me how you’re alive. If that’s even really you.”
Anthony sighed. With a squeeze of his fist, the fire snuffed out. I blinked in surprise, staring at the space where the fire once was, then back up at him. He raised an eyebrow in challenge. My chest clenched.
Something about that small mannerism felt so nostalgic. Like I had seen that before, several times. I had vague memories of trying to do it myself and getting frustrated while he teased me and rubbed it in my face that he could do it easily.
God, I knew him. I had to know him. But was it real? Were my memories playing tricks on me? They were so scattered and frenzied, I couldn’t tell anything anymore.
My temples throbbed.
“Listen, we don’t have time for this. If he finds out you’re here, he’s going to try to hurt you,” Anthony pleaded, stepping forward again.
I sneered at him. “Well whoever he is, he’s made it pretty clear that he wants me alive. Even his flunkies keep telling me so,” I gave him a pointed look.
Anthony looked exasperated, yet another expression that seemed so familiar. One I had seen and incited many many times. Was it so far-fetched to believe it was really him? That he was actually alive?
A vision of him lying in a pool of blood, head at an odd angle, mangled body a victim of the slave rings we were forced to survive a majority of our life, hit me full force.
There was no way he survived that.
So who was this imposter?
“He doesn’t have to kill you to hurt you. You should know that by now, Jamal.”
“Beau.”
Anthony frowned.
“Don’t call me Jamal. My name is Beau.”
Anthony smirked, arms folded across his chest. “Is it now?”
I glared at him. He had the audacity to laugh, full bodied and familiar. Whoever he was, he was doing a splendid job fucking with my head.
“How am I supposed to trust you? In case you’ve forgotten, I watched you die. There is no way you survived that fight. So who are you? How do I know you’re not working with the enemy trying to trick me? You’ve already separated me from my Master.”
Anthony scoffed. “Slave to the white man again? Have you learned nothing from our ancestors?”
Fury boiled in my gut, raging hot and wild. It wasn’t him I was mad at, but the topic had been a point of contention between Sterling and I, it was like poking at a still healing wound. It hurt.
Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself. Sterling may be my Master, but we both served Lilith.
“More like a slave to a black woman.”
Anthony contemplated for a moment, then shrugged. “Then I guess we’re the same in that aspect.” He settled those big brown eyes on me with a gravity that knocked the jokes and games right out of the room. “I was never here for them. My priority is you. Always has been, always will be. The moment you closed your eyes, I would be the one to force them back open again.”
I frowned, the words coming back to me.
If you close your eyes, you’ll never open them again.
Don’t let them close, Jamal. Look at me. We’ll be okay.
It was him. I remember now. The voice that followed me, that kept pushing me forward. It was him, it had always been him. As a child and as a man. All until he died. And then I followed after.
Difference was, I woke up again. Anthony wasn’t as lucky.
Or was he?
Blinking at him, tears, threatening to blur my vision, I fought back all of the emotion that came crashing to the forefront. I wasn’t going to let this shake me. I couldn’t let him in. Not if this wasn’t real.
But damn did I want it to be.
“How long have you been following me?” I asked him. Clearing my throat a few times when the words wouldn’t leave my throat.
“Like I said, the moment you closed your eyes. I’ve been waiting here the whole time. I’m bound here, it was the price I had to pay to be with you.”
“The one who bound you, are they here?” I asked.
Anthony swallowed noisily, seeming uncomfortable with the question, but he nodded once.
“Who is it?” I pressed. If it was the one we were after and I could get that information to Sterling, he might be able to destroy them. We could save Lilith.
“They aren’t your enemy, Jamal–er–Beau.”
How could Lilith not have known that there was someone literally living here in secret? Especially since Anthony had apparently been here for weeks. No one noticed? Then again, Lilith had mentioned something about blindspots in her perception and that someone was taking advantage of it. If she was pregnant before I had been changed, it would make sense that she hadn’t been as focused on the happenings in the Coven house. I had barely seen her when I arrived here.
A shudder quaked the building, vibrated the walls, and jostled us. Immediately on alert, I surveyed the walls and ceiling, searching for danger. Was there a fight happening? Was Sterling okay?
Anthony grabbed me and yanked me down the hall. I didn’t even fight as he led me away. The faster we ran through the halls, the more stifling the wrongness grew. Glancing behind me as we turned a corner, I noticed the walls had caved in on themselves, melting and molding, eating up the distance like it would swallow us whole. I pushed on faster.
Hall after hall, we raced, until just at the end of a long one we saw a door. Anthony pushed us on faster. Just as he reached to open it, he froze, his whole body going stiff, and eyes wide.
“Anthony?” I yelled, reaching to shake him, but he was quicker, grabbing me by the shoulders.
“I have to go now, I used too much of my reserves in this form. Listen to me Beau, this is her last apology to you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you longer, but I’m happy you’re alive. We’ll be looking out for you, always have and always will. We love you.”
We?
Before I could even process the words, he yanked the door open and pushed me inside.
Right before the door closed, I saw him standing there, the halls a swirling, devouring monster behind him, smiling. Then he faded away as if he never existed and the door slammed shut.
What?
I tried reaching for the door, but it blinked out of existence.
“Seriously? Now you want to start?” I growled at the house, but there was no response. Fantastic.
Turning around slowly, I took in my surroundings. It was a large room, dark and damp, not one that fit in with the rest of the house's aesthetic. Tall pillars and high arches framed the room, leading down dark halls, like some scary decrepit basement.
None of that mattered though, not when I saw the shallow pool of blood in the center of the room.
And right in the middle of the pool, as still as a corpse, was Lilith.
Her skin was ashen, cheeks gaunt, eyes closed, but there was still a subtle rise and fall of her chest. She wasn’t dead.
But just barely alive.
It shouldn’t have shocked me. I knew this already. She told me herself the state that she was in, but something about seeing it robbed me of all the air in my lungs. I fought to breathe again. To not panic.
Glancing around, there didn’t seem to be anyone lingering. At least, I had thought that at first, but deep in the shadows were…bodies. Piles and piles of dead human corpses. None had decomposed, their deaths fresh. Most of them were children, scrappy and disheveled…and so fucking familiar.
They were slaves.
Blood trickled from their corpses down the grooves in the ground all leading to the pool where Lilith lay.
Carefully, I edged a little closer, not daring to spark any flames in case that alerted someone to my presence.
The closer I got, the more my stomach dropped. I could see tiny little tubes attached to her arms, steadily feeding her blood. It must have been what was keeping her alive. But why couldn’t she wake up?
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” a familiar voice said from the darkness. I flinched, eyes darting around to locate the voice.
Stepping out from the shrouds of darkness stood a figure I knew all too well.
Nexus.
22
FATHER OF ALL
“Surprised? You really shouldn’t be.”
I watched Nexus circle the other side of Lilith. Kind and compassionate Nexus. Surely, he wasn’t…he couldn’t be…?
He was so devoted to her, anyone could see it clear in his eyes. He adored her, there was no faking that. So why?
It didn’t matter, I had to get to Lilith. If Nexus was my enemy, so be it.
Eyeing the distance between me and the pool, discerning whether or not I could make it there before Nexus, I made a quick decision. Darting forward, I reached for her, nearly stepping onto the glowing blue symbols etched into the stone.
“Ah ah ah, that blood is the only thing keeping her alive. You wouldn’t want to do anything that might upset your Master, would you?” Nexus tsked with a hint of amusement.
I froze, hand still outstretched as if I might reach out to her still. But what if I ended up killing her…what would that do to Sterling? He would be devastated. Not to mention that if there really was a battle taking place, he would need all of his attention on that. If what Kyle went through was any sort of example of how he may react at the death of his Creator, I couldn’t risk it.
Straightening and smoothing out my expression into something like casual boredom, I examined my nails, taking a different approach. “I guess I can understand why you’re doing this. Forever trapped in her shadow, never powerful enough to do anything about it. Do you hate her or something?”
Nexus’s nostril flared incredulously. “Hate her? I love her.”
Excuse me, what?
I frowned, “So why are you doing this?” The curiosity was real now. Not going to lie, I fully expected the stereotypical ‘I want to rule the world, so I’ll sleep my way to the top while slowly planning their demise’ crap. If that wasn’t the case, then what the fuck? And if this is how he showed he loved someone, I’d hate to see what he’d do to someone he disliked.
Just the thought made me shudder. Must be a Pisces, that whole crime of passion thing was strong with this one.
“Lilith is a goddess,” he purred, eyes wide with adoration. “She is all that is good and compassionate. And it is my love’s greatest weakness!” The last sentence came out as a snarling hiss. “She must not be tainted by the needs of the Vampire world. She must remain good, it is why I will do it for her. I will drown in blood if only to keep hers clean.”
The way he stared at her now, clouded with mania, the fucker was unhinged.
Sweat beaded his brow as he gazed down at his lover with sadness and longing in his eyes. Like he actually meant it. Maybe he did, in his own twisted way, which made it all that much more terrifying.
“So, what? You plan on taking over her Coven?” I asked him, stalling him. If I could keep him talking, I may be able to figure out a way to get Lilith out of this. There was no one here to help me, I had to finesse this on my own.
Admittedly, not one of my strengths.
“My ambitions aren’t so unimpressive,” Nexus sneered, shooting me a harsh look before returning a tender gaze to his unconscious beloved. “I do not wish to be just High Priest. I will be Father of All.”
He looked up and smiled at me. “And you have what I need to make that possible.”
I tensed. “You know.”
Nexus tossed back his head and laughed, the silky tresses of his ash colored hair jostled with the movement. “Of course I knew. It’s fairly difficult to hide a pregnancy, but that did not stop my beloved from trying. She may not have shown physically, but it's hard to hide with blood.”
If Nexus was the one pulling the strings this whole time then it was obvious he knew. No wonder we were always a few steps behind. Sending Carlisle and Ninetta to retrieve the baby was a calculated move. He’d been sitting here comfy, watching all of us lose our fucking minds.
He knew.
If killing Lilm stops the transfer of power and the title from Lilith, then killing Lilith meant the transfer would instantly be made to Lilm.
When the time comes, you must kill me.
This is what she meant. I’m sure of it. What a load of fucking bullshit. Thanks a lot, Lilith, for putting me in literally the worst fucking position. Save everyone and kill her so that Nexus couldn’t steal her power and reek Goddess only knew what kind of havoc on the world, or destroy the one person my Master loved the most? There are literally no right answers here. Either way I’m fucked.
