Chosen (11 page)

“Come now, Kyana, greet our guest with the respect he deserves.”

It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.

Kyana struggled to wake up. This had to be a dream. That was all. It was the worst, most vivid nightmare of her life. When she woke, Ryker would be there beside her, ready to hold her tightly and offer to share the horrors with her if she'd only let him.

But she knew when she opened her eyes, it wouldn't be Ryker's arms around her, it would be Mehmet's. His rancid breath would burn her skin. His rotting member would defile her. He'd enter her and she'd die, slowly, painfully rotting away from the inside out.

As if reading her thoughts, Azime cackled. “Open your eyes.”

When Kyana didn't obey, Mehmet's sharp voice pierced her ears. “Now.”

Her eyes snapped open. Then an invisible hand gripped her chin and she found her head slowly turning toward the entrance through no effort of her own. Now it wasn't the potion they'd given her that held Kyana numb. It was sheer disbelief.

“Henry.” His name tumbled from her lips in a whisper of uncertainty. His presence was familiar. His dark eyes, his long brown hair. But the aura around him was different, the stooped shoulders, the hollow gaze.

Slowly, that gaze fell upon her, and she found herself looking into the eyes of her Sire. Yes, it was him. But the dark glare searing her skin like a laser no longer belonged to the Vampyre Half-Breed she'd loved more than her own human kin. It wasn't kind, or soft, or looking upon her with love and care. It was hard and menacing and peering down at her like she was a feast to be enjoyed.

He wasn't on her team anymore.

Kyana couldn't control the shaking that started at her toes and ended at the roots of her hair. Tears burned hot trails down her cheek. She now knew what Azime meant by the savior of her past.

The man who had created her would now be the one who murdered her.

Chapter Sixteen

K
yana imagined there were a lot of people standing in line to send her to Hell, but not Henry. He'd seen the goodness in her, had brought her back from the edge of darkness and had given her the light she'd lived by as a Dark Breed working for the Order of Ancients. If she had to die, she did not want her death to be at the hands of the only man she'd ever considered true family.

Henry's steps on the wooden floor were heavy and hesitant. His flesh looked cracked and frail, but not falling from his bones like Mehmet and Azime's, and he was still wearing the tattered remains of the silk and leather she'd buried him in.

“This isn't real. You're not real. None of you are real!” The accusations spilled from Kyana's lips in a frantic screech. She no longer cared if they saw her panic, her fear. She only cared about waking up and forgetting this had ever popped into her morbid imagination.

“Is it not fitting that the man who'd betrayed me in one lifetime would be the one to give me back all that was taken in this one?” Mehmet circled his bony arm around Henry's shoulder.

Kyana spat at his face, which wasn't easy given the lack of moisture in her mouth.

Mehmet wiped the spittle from his cheek with the back of his hand, looking unfazed by Kyana's show of defiance. “As his Mages, we have the power to become who we were before you so savagely murdered us. All we need is the blood of our murderer.
Your
blood.”

Kyana was too afraid to focus on Henry and see as much hatred staring down at her from him as was coming from her captors. If she could only move her damned hands or feet. She was supposed to go out fighting! Not laying naked and paralyzed on dirty blankets in the middle of gods-knew-where, held hostage by her own damned nightmares!

Swallowing her tears seemed to lubricate her throat enough to offer back a bit of her voice. “I should have cut off your damned heads when I had the chance.”

Henry had stopped her. Hadn't allowed her to rip them to shreds after her feeding frenzy had caused her to drain every drop of blood in their bodies. Look what that mistake was costing her now.

Damn them all!

Kyana didn't see the fist in time to brace herself. The blow to her jaw rattled her teeth and split her lip. Warm blood trickled over her cheek to pool beneath her ear and run down her neck. Now that she had better control over her panic, she'd be damned if she let them know how much pain a simple fist to the face caused her. She stared stoically up at Azime, who lowered her fist to snatch Kyana by the hair and jerk her neck backward.

“We end her life now.”

“No.” Mehmet pried his wife's fingers from Kyana's head and shoved her behind him. “I want the revenge I've dreamed of for over two hundred years. Then, to make it sweet justice for you, the one who gave her the power to destroy us will end her life.”

“I don't care about justice,
koca
. I want her dead. Now!”

Mehmet struck her. A slab of flesh slid off the bone beneath Azime's eye and plopped onto the shabby collar of her robe. She raised a shaking hand to cover the gaping hole in her face, and Kyana swore that if looks could kill, Mehmet would have just found his second death.

“Do not forget your place,” Mehmet said, the words bringing back a flood of memories Kyana didn't want to relive. Her place. His place. A man's wife in their time was no better than chattel, no better than the dog that pissed in the corner. Step out of line and pain would follow. Or starvation. Or death. “She will die when I say.”

Kyana felt the burning sensation of being watched. Slowly, she lifted her head to find Henry's gaze locked on her. The blackness of his eyes wavered from lifelessness to the bright green she remembered them to be, before fading once again to black. Since he was newly turned, and lacking a conscience, the acts he was witnessing shouldn't have any emotional effect on him. However, the tight lines around his mouth suggested he didn't want to do what his instincts demanded.

Kyana held his gaze, pleading silently with him to find the inner strength that had given him control over the beasts of his lineage so many years ago. The man who had offered her salvation before resurrecting her. Who'd taught her how to tame her own monster and live a seminormal life.

The man who had shown her the first bit of kindness she'd ever known.

Henry's eyes softened again, lightened to green.

“You don't want to do this, Henry. You're a Novus again. Whatever you do now will determine if you walk in the light or forever in the dark. You told me those very words once. Don't you remember?”

Henry hissed, his fangs grazing his lip, but he said nothing.

“Think to sway him?” Mehmet taunted. “Think you're more powerful than the very soul who raised him? I think you're in for a disappointment. I think you shall see where his loyalties now lie.”

Kyana didn't look away from Henry. He was reposturing, adjusting his stance. He was going to attack her and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it.

He lunged. Kyana turned her head and braced for impact. A scream broke her rigid posture, forcing her eyes open. Henry stood in front of her, and a bright light shot from his hand and hit Mehmet in the center of his decaying chest, pinning him to the wall.

“Go,” he growled.

It took Kyana a second to realize Henry was talking to her. Hope lit her up from the inside out and her heart gave a slight tug of relief. He was coming back to her. He wasn't completely lost yet.

She tried to sit up, to stand, but still her body refused to obey her commands. “I can't.”

His growl turned into a low rumble. Azime launched herself at him, her roar splitting the silence.

Henry easily sidestepped the attack without releasing Mehmet from the powerful beam of light. His mouth moved, but Kyana could hear nothing from his lips. Azime froze, her hands outstretched in claws. Before Kyana could digest the power her old Sire now wielded, he reached out with his free hand to grab Azime by the throat.

With a snarl, he tightened his fist and lifted her off the floor. When she was eye-level, he shook her like the clichéd rag doll. The nauseating sound of bone and muscle being ripped apart was the only noise that filled the room for several seconds before the thump-thump of Azime's body falling in two different directions brought silence.

The light holding Mehmet to the wall was so powerful that all he could do was gurgle his outrage. Henry closed the distance, the light centered in Mehmet's chest causing his bones to smoke.

Kyana could only watch in morbid fascination. Her Vampyre/Lychen Sire seemed to have been given some Mage juice with his reincarnation.

Big mistake, Cronos. Big mistake.

Standing chest to chest with Mehmet, Henry reached into the prince's sleeve and stole his wand. He flicked it toward Kyana so quickly, she flinched and looked away, certain she was about to experience severe pain. Instead, a tingling sensation crept down her thighs and filled her calves, inching toward her toes until she was able to move her feet.

The minute the tingling stopped and she was brave enough to test the weight of her body on her legs, she lunged for Mehmet, whose eyes were wide in terror. As she flew at him, she gripped the amulet at her throat, needing more strength to deliver the justice he deserved. Energy soared through her. Her entire body shook from power and outrage, and she directed it all at Mehmet.

Satisfied that her strength was returning, she pinned him to the wall with one hand, then smiled as she trailed her fingers over her bare breasts, down her belly, then bending slightly to reach her legs. A web of silk followed the path her finger blazed, clothing her in a chiton of pure gold.

Gold chains wove themselves into her hair, raising the tendrils off her neck and pinning them to the top of her head, tickling her scalp like tiny snakes as they found their perfect spot. Jewels appeared on her fingers and a golden band fell across her biceps, etched with an amber arrow.

This time, she wasn't going to kill Mehmet as a Dark Breed. She was going to kill him as a goddess, and by the gods, she was going to look the part.

“Scared yet, you prick?”

Mehmet gurgled something, but there was definite fear in his eyes. This would be no anger-induced death, but cold and calculated and she'd be very much in control this time to savor every blessed second of it.

The brick wall behind him vibrated and danced. A million obscenities and insults perched on her tongue, but all her focus was on her hands, and she was unwilling to expend any of her newfound energy screaming words at him that would cause him no harm. Haven said they needed magic to kill a Mage, and Kyana was damned sure going to reach into the deepest part of herself to find some to finish this fucker off.

She brought her hands toward her chest and shoved them outward, energy sparking from her hands and into his body, lifting him off his feet and backward. Mehmet flew through the solid brick and back twenty feet into the night. Kyana held her hands out before her, concentrating on the magic flowing from her fingertips. She held him suspended for several agonizing seconds until the heat of the blue sparks caused his skin to start melting from his bones.

Without a word, she dropped her hands to her sides. Mehmet's bone-splintering scream filled the night air. Kyana rushed to the gaping hole. The terror on his face just before he burst into flames would stay with her forever. With a shaky sigh, she pressed her forehead to what remained of the wall and fought to control her quivering limbs. After all these years, he'd still had the power to scare the hell out of her. But never again. His body, nothing more than ash, floated on the wind.

He was dead now, but the only way to make sure he wasn't raised again was to stop Cronos.

A hand grabbed her arm, and Kyana spun to find Henry staring solemnly at her.

“Come.”

That solemn stare turned pleading, his eyes flickering from black to green. She still couldn't wrap her brain around finding her dead Sire standing before her. But as happy as she was to see him and as grateful as she was that he'd helped her get free of Mehmet and his crazy wife, she was nobody's fool. The fight against his dark side hadn't been fully won, and she wasn't willing to hand him her trust on a silver platter.

His grip tightened painfully as he tried to drag her toward the door. “Come! Now!”

He was so newly born, he was struggling to speak even one full sentence, but there was a fear in his eyes that lured her away from the wall.

She wanted desperately to throw her arms around him and believe he was her old Henry, but she couldn't. Not until she had answers. She wanted to ask him so many things. How he'd been raised. Was he in pain? Did he still love and adore her as he had in another life?

Instead, all she said was, “Tell me where I am, Henry, so I can get home.”

He pierced her with his now startling green eyes. “I . . . do not . . . know.” His gaze softened but didn't go black again. They settled on a warm mossy color that had once been her most favorite color in the world.

She moved her arm from his hold but he grabbed her again, this time, his eyes frantically dancing, and his fear and desperation practically oozed from his pores. “He. Comes.”

“Who—Cronos,” she answered herself, feeling the weakness return to her legs. Of course Cronos would come. He'd want to see her corpse when Mehmet had finished with it.

Henry nodded and resumed pulling her out of the abandoned warehouse and down the deserted street. This time, Kyana didn't fight him. She'd rather take her chances should Henry turn black-eyed again than with Cronos if he showed up while she was unprepared to defend herself.

His quick stride and continual glances over his shoulder created a sense of urgency that cramped Kyana's stomach. The Henry she'd known hadn't been afraid of anything. He hadn't even shown fear when the Van Helsing wannabe who'd taken his Vampyric life had tortured him brutally before finally killing him.

He'd retained his Vampyric speed, and suddenly the streets were blurred as he pulled her through alleyways and down side streets toward a row of devastated buildings. He led her into the farthest one, and the minute the door closed behind them, he sank to his knees and then to his belly, pressing his cheek to the scorched floor.

“Henry?” Kyana knelt beside him and placed her hand on his back. He was cold. Far colder, even, than he'd been as a Vampyre. He shuddered beneath her hand and let out a low moan.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You saved my life. Again.”

When he made no indication of response, she gently tugged his shoulder until he rolled onto his back and was forced to look up at her. What did she say to a man she'd watch die so long ago?
You okay?
seemed far too inadequate. Her mind numb, Kyana sighed. There was nothing she
could
say, really, and definitely nothing she could do. Artemis's fancy healing trick only worked on injuries she'd caused herself.

The Goddess of Healing would be able to do something, but Kyana hadn't heard anything about Aceso since the Breakout. She only knew the goddess was making rounds across the world trying to heal the dying from the havoc wreaked by Dark Breeds, and in order to summon her, Kyana would have to return to Olympus.

She didn't want to leave Henry alone like this, and taking him with her wasn't an option. Without gods' blood, or special invitation from Ryker or Zeus, he'd be killed the instant he attempted to step through the portal to Beyond. She'd have to take him Below and hope the Mystics there could help tame him as they had Haven.

“You . . . saved me . . . too.” He squeezed his eyes shut and as Kyana watched, his yellowish skin slowly lightened to a pale ivory. He was going to be okay. “Didn't know . . . I was strong enough to resist . . . till I saw you.”