Bozena and Sveta (Neuripra) (16 page)

Chapter 18

Ellindt:

“Goddess, where have you been?” expels Arelstin as he comes running to me, lifting me up in his arms and swinging me around.

“
Zarak,” I manage to squeak in his ear. Good lord this boy hugs like a bulldozer.

He drops me almost as hard as he hugged me.

“What?!” he scowls.

Then he leans closer, sticks his tongue in my mouth while grabbing my head so I can't move, tasting my memories, sucking them out of me.

Thrusting me away, he stomps four paces to slam his fist into the mantel.

“
Fuck that bastard!” With eyes flaring like twin suns he rounds on me, “And fuck you Ellindt for loving what he does to you.”

“
It's not like I went looking for him. Why is it always my fault when Zarak shows up? And you remember what it feels like, don't you? How can I
not
find being an angel again oblivious and ecstatic? It's who we were before we screwed up our lives.”

He storms at me, grabbing my waist, hoisting me, biting long fangs into my neck, guzzling on the natural passion flowing in my veins.

You are mine. That demon can't have you.

Closing my eyes, I want to cry, but won't give him the satisfaction. Zarak is tall, dark, dangerous. He's the mightiest of the mighty and so powerful he causes air to crackle when he walks into a room. His eyes are so bottomless they're black holes of pain and oil-black like his hair.

Arelstin, you will never be anything but another insipid blond beach boy. I am bored with you.

Fangs rip out of my neck as he blowtorches my face with his angry stare, “What did you just say?”

Gulp.

Fuck.

Didn't I shield that thought?

“
No, you didn't!”

Taller than me at 6 ft 5, he flexes chest muscles at me, rolling his shoulders slowly and cricking his neck.

Nerves start climbing up my throat, choking my ability to breathe.

“
Don't worry Ellindt, I won't bother you. As it just so happens I'm fucking bored with you too.”

“
Oh yeah? Who is she?”

“
When I find her the world as you know it will come crashing down in an Armageddon even God can't save you from.”

And inside a moment the bitter man who's been my guard since I was a child, vanishes.

I hurt him.

He was just saying that to get me back.

Well fuck you Arelstin, I have more important things to worry about, like who the hell is framing me for mass murder.

*

Zauran:

“
Come join us,” I gesture to the vacated chair. “Coffee?” I offer.

Smiling, Venix nods, swamping the kitchen as much as Zarak did. I'm beginning to feel like I belong in the featherweight supernatural category at six-foot-six and three hundred and two pounds. Pouring coffee, I hand him a mug, refilling my own and Aisyx's.

“Aisyx this is Venix, Venix I'd like you to meet my cousin Aisyx.”

They both stand to shake hands, looking each other in the eye, perfectly matched. After pleasantries none of us care about, they resume their positions, seeming serious with coffee in hand.

Looking to Venix, I cut to the chase, “We're no closer. Zarak swears it's not you or Ellindt causing this shit storm.”

“
You thought it was me?” he laughs.

“
Yup, I did. Well, more to the point, Sveta put that thought in my head.”

“
I can't say I blame him, I acted out of character. He has to be a better man if he's going to be a good mate to a slakax woman.”

The stare Venix impales me with makes its point. I'm engaged to a slakax woman, the very one he wanted.

Fuck, this got personal really fast.

I let the taut atmosphere linger while we drink coffee, sizing each other up.

“Anyway,” I say, pretending the tension in here isn't tight enough to make a budgie pass out. “We need a game plan. I'm busy this morning, but thought we could convene... all of us, the demons, neuri, vampyres, all of us... at Pravus later. Let's hold a meeting. United we have to face this. When murders continue after the neuri are excommunicated because of human deaths, well then they'll come after you, and the demons next, until they're the last crew standing. This is supernatural gorilla warfare.”

He gives me a savage smile, “Are you asking for my help or my permission?”

“Venix, let's drop the bull. The past is the past and that's where it needs to stay. We are one community now, and I'm not having any sect segregated. The only way Serbia will be free of tyranny is if we stand united against all threat and attack to the people on our land. It's our land, not mine, not yours, ours.”

A soft clap breaks my focus and I snap around to see Zaria standing in the doorway leading upstairs, smiling radiantly at me, applauding.

“That was the speech of a true leader, Zauran.” She strolls over to me, her hair still mussed from sleep, pausing to kiss me in the neck and stand behind me with her hands clasped together on my chest. “Hello Venix, Aisyx.”

I feel her nod to Aisyx.

Watching Venix with every sense in my body, I draw her round to perch on my legs, defensively covering her belly with my hand.

It draws Venix's focus and he rises, leaning across to take her hand in his and kiss it, “It's wonderful to see you again, Zaria.”

Her energy is soft and sexy since she's been properly pregnant, as in the delicate showing stage. It's still a little bump, but it's given her skin a fresh blush, her lips so much redder and her eyes brighter. She is a walking sex bomb now and Venix's complete change in demeanor betrays him, big time.

His eyelashes literally turned silver when he saw her.

Aisyx was right, what the hell was I thinking bringing Venix into my home.

“
Right, thanks for stopping by, I'll see you at Pravus, shall we say after dinner? Eight or nine?” I say, to wrap things up and get him on his way.

He smiles tenderly at Zaria, giving her a wink when he rises from his chair to stand, then looking at me, “Nine. Oh, I left Sveta's bike outside. I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of repairing it when I arrived. A sort of apology, gesture, thing.”

The instant manifestation magic of the vampyres must be so kick-ass to possess.

“
That's very kind of you, Venix,” says Zaria, in her husky tone.

Blast, but I still can't operate as a functional person when she's around, the blood goes everywhere but my head.

“He's on his way here now, he'll be overjoyed to have his own wheels back,” she says.

“
Oh? Am I interrupting a family occasion?” purrs Venix, in the deepest voice I've heard him use.

“
Um, it's personal. He's having a big day,” she mumbles, realizing she's gone and spilled the beans to the one bastard I didn't want to know.

“
He's turning alpha?” Venix pretends to ask, but it comes out as a statement.

“
Yup,” I nod. No point in hiding it now.

“
He's going to be pretty broken then,” states Venix.

It comes across as smugly callous.

“More than likely,” I nod, unwilling to say more.

“
I'll be back in three hours to heal him. It's the least I can do. A show of good faith and moving forward as a unified unit,” he nods.

Then as if he was never here, he dissipates in a nuclear second. My ears block from the vacuum sucked behind him.

Rubbing the tension in my neck, I hear my Honda arrive. Sveta's here. It's roughly ten in the morning and it's already been a long day.

*

Jowendrhan
: Twenty minutes earlier:

Venix rises to a swift stand as we apparate in his home.

“
Zena, I'd like you to meet Venix,” I encourage, drawing her closer to my father's brother.

Venix is mammoth, muscular as three huge bodybuilders mashed into one, and more charismatic than all of us put together. Being an archangel gives him the unfair advantage.

He walks like an acrobat, all fluid and graceful even though he's 6' 9, stopping in front of her. Smiling at her with his blue eyes melting to shiny steel.

Casually running a hand through his short platinum-white hair, he says, “At last we meet properly. How wonderful to make your acquaintance,
Božena
.”

Jeez, lay it on thick next time. He's using the ultra deep voice that works on women every time.

He doesn't ask, he just captures her little hand in his and holds it like an old lover, smiling at her with lust all over his despicable face.

I give him a pointed look. I don't care if she's Zaria's sister and walking doppelganger, she's still the one I set my sights on. And we have children together, which fucking counts for something.

He flicks smoldering eyes at me in a defiant 'back off' stare, then returns his focus to her, “Come, let me show you the children.”

Folding her against his side, he immediately kidnaps her with an arm around her shoulders, still holding her fingers with his other hand, strolling with her from the lounge into the playroom, “They have been perfect. You should be proud of them Zena, they are so much like you.”

The bastard is totally stealing my thunder.

She pauses with him in the doorway and I stop next to her, slinking my arm around her waist and trying to unobtrusively tug her out of his grip.

We clash stares over her head, when her sharp intake of air snaps my focus to her face.

Tears glisten in her eyes and she has her free hand tightly fisted over her heart, the other gripping Venix's so hard her skin is white.

Dipping to her level, I whisper, “They're beautiful. Thank you for giving me such glorious slakax children.”

Her thoughts transmit to me, not Venix, although I'm not truly sure if an archangel has free reign in the 'eavesdropping on thoughts' department.

She's lost in wonder at the toddlers sleeping in their matching cradles. They have her porcelain complexion, her long black eyelashes and perfect pouting lips. Red and glossy without enhancement required.

Both twins have my vampyre-elder white hair and blue eyes, but they have the slakax glow, like fairies. Serene in sleep they emit a gentle, warm aura, extending an inch beyond their skin.

It shocks the shit out of me when red light shoots out of her heart straight to them, protectively covering their glow with her own.

Trixie gurgles in her sleep, making a cute coo to her mama.

I was the one who got to name them... and I did, after much deliberation and thought, after stars in Orion. In honor of our father in the heavens - Orion is the only warrior constellation worth its salt.

Zena is a fighter, a survivor, she builds a fortress within herself to weather the hardships life tosses over her, which is why I named Trixie after the star in his shoulder, Bellatrix, a female warrior.

Our son I named Rion, after the constellation. I wanted to call him Seithe, but the world can only ever know one Seithe, and he's moved on. I miss him so much, it hurts, daily.

Venix pulls my attention with an energy summons, and I look to him, pissed off he's here the first time she sees the twins he took from her swollen belly months ago.

“I have to go. Try not to wake them, they were hell to get to sleep,” he presses a kiss into her temple.

I nod, relieved when he disappears from her side like a secret slipping from a careless mouth.

Wrapping an arm around her, I pull her close, forcing her to walk to them with me. The glow blasting out of her intensifies the closer we get to our offspring.

“
When did you start using your slakax abilities?” I whisper, indicating her nebulous power so obviously on display.

Magnificent huge blue eyes look up at me, stripped of the armor usually shielding her heart. It near stops me dead, frozen, stunned by the being in front of me as naked as I've ever seen her be with anyone.

I've known Zena since she was eighteen and she's always had a hard defensive glint in her eye, always guarded and closed off.

Jesus, did seeing our children do this?

She was born to be a mother then. It's healed the wounds that hurt her so much.

Captivated by her, I close the gap just as she opens her mouth to speak. Thumbs down either side of her face, I lock my woman against me, biting her lip with my fangs, hooking her so she can't withdraw, sinking my tongue onto hers in a dance of possession and reclaiming territory.

I can't help it. She's my soulmate. Mine, not his.

No!
screams in my head, ricocheting like shrapnel to shred the moment in violent brutality.