Richard: Blood Brotherhood – Erotic Paranormal Dark Fantasy Romance (6 page)

“Rembrandt has much to pay for.” His mind was slightly fuzzy on the reason it was Rembrandt’s fault for his pain and suffering. Even he at times wondered who the man was or how they were connected, but figured that there were just too many times when the man’s name would come up when he had something go wrong. He had to be guilty for most of it. “And that woman of his. She has white burning magic that has hurt me on more than one occasion.”

That wasn’t right either. There were two women, and they both had hurt him. One of them had gunned him down, using a weapon like none he’d ever seen. But the one with the white fingers, she had burned into his flesh so deeply that he had not been able to heal from it. He looked down at the festering wound and knew that he’d have to do something about it soon. It was smelling again.

Twice now he’d had to lie down and wait for the pain to go away. He was also easily exhausted, almost to the point of passing out from it. And both times after sitting down, when he’d risen up he’d nearly gagged from the odor coming from him. Just a few days ago he’d sewn it shut, only to have it seep green, vile-smelling stuff until he had to tear his stitches out again. Then there were the things that went on in his head.

Odd thoughts were there, not just on the things he needed to get done, but he was sure that he had a bug that lived in his brain telling him things to do and how to do them. It hurt at times, but he could feel it moving, like it was setting up furniture. It played loud music too.

“You are by far one of the stupidest creatures I have ever had the misfortune to meet. You have no bug in your head. You’re crazy, that’s all.” Mary again. Every time he thought her gone, she’d come back to make him want to cry like a small baby. “When are you going to listen to me and realize that the only reason you can hear me is because you bring me about? I’m dead. So are Dolin and Ward.”

“Nay, I spoke with Dolin just this morning. He told me to get out and walk about in the sun. It would make me feel better.” She told him that was her. “I think I would know the voice of my best friend. You are not. I don’t like you at all.”

“Dolin is not your best friend. He used you as he did everyone else. You hated him. As for me, you did, at one time, like me. You loved me as much as Dolin and Ward did. You’re just upset that you killed us all and are left alone.” He told her that he’d not killed her. “You might as well have. Were you not the reason that I was at the compound in the first place? Had you done what you were told and when you were told, I would be alive. As would
my
dear friends, Dolin and Ward. You were slow to act and got us all killed. We’d all be rich and you’d be working for Dolin and Ward. Even me. But we’re dead and you’re stupid.”

“I am not stupid. Stop saying that to me. I would rule this world…Dolin and Ward both told me I would.” She called him a liar. “I am nothing of the kind. I will rule here.”

“Not with Remy and his bitch of a mate hanging around, you won’t. How long do you think it will be before they come across the body parts that you’re leaving behind to figure out where you’ve gone? A week? Perhaps only a few days? I think within the hour they will come upon your scales and pick them up, until they come upon a great deal of them in the form of you.” He told her to leave him alone. “For me to do that, you must stop thinking about me, you moron.”

Tuning her out as he turned to go down the next street, he wondered why anyone would want the sun to beat down on them when it was so cold otherwise. It was then that he saw the house. It took him several moments to realize that it seemed to be falling in on itself. Very quickly. Lifting his good arm up, he rubbed his eyes and looked again. The roof had fallen in on one side, and the grass seemed to have grown a near foot in that short amount of time he’d taken to rub his eyes. He started forward when Ward told him to wait.

“It might harm you if you venture too far. And I think you are hurt enough without going to look for trouble, don’t you?” He agreed with him and told him thank you. “I was thinking that you should sit back and wait to see what trickery this is. Whatever is in there, it might come out and help you. Or it could harm you greatly.”

“You mean the magical being that lives there? You think it might have information on how to get me more drugs?” Ward told him anything was possible. “I would very much like to not hurt anymore, Ward. I think I have suffered greatly and there is no reason for it. I have begged and begged Rembrandt to come to me so that I might kill him, and still he keeps me from my needs. It is most unfair of him.”

“I think so as well. He’s much like Hector. There was no reason for him to allow Rembrandt to kill our Mary, yet he did nothing but watch as she was murdered like she meant nothing to us. I think he needs to die as well.” There was something there, a pain of some memory, but it was gone before he could catch it enough to think on it. “You think too hard, Benton. Maybe you should just let us think for you.”

“Yes, yes. I like that idea. It pains my head too much to think anyway. You tell me what to do and I shall not think. That doesn’t mean that you’re in charge. No, that would be me. But for now, you can think for me.” He sat down, his big body just too much to move any more. “I am falling apart, Ward. Just losing bits and pieces of me more and more every day. Whatever shall I do about it?”

“There, did you see it? The way the house moved just now?” He looked at the house as Ward continued. “You are falling apart but you still have a brilliant mind. If you could only get someone to help you, all would be well. Perhaps the answer is there, in that house of magic.”

The house was falling down now. There had been a pretty garden out front, but now it was all weeds. The chimney was smoking for a bit, but soon it was nothing but a pile of rubble as well. He spied a human, one that came out to see the magic disappear, he supposed, but Master was just too exhausted to go and get her. She would have to wait until later for him to give her the pleasure of making her his slave.

So many had begged him to be his workers. They were never as good as the first few, but they had tried. And when it had come time to let them go, he did.... There was a store not far from here, he remembered, and they’d had many bottles of drugs. He wondered if he took the human there, if she would be able to get him something for his pain. Master looked at his arm that was now hanging limply at his side.

“Whatever happened to me?” He wanted to cry at all the wounds he had. “Someone has taken to hurting me when I rest. Or when one of the dark times takes me.” He tried to remember why he was sitting on the cold ground when he looked at the house. It seemed to be falling apart right before his very eyes. “Do you think the house is tired?”

His giggle startled him, and he looked around to see if anyone had heard him. Superior men such as himself did not giggle like small children. But he looked at the house again, and there was a human there. He wondered what she was looking at and turned in that direction. There was a house there that was falling apart.

“Focus.”
He felt his body cringe from the harshness of Mary’s voice. “You are looping around over and over the same thoughts and giving me a head pain. The house you have looked at several times. The woman as well. She is not going to help you; you are scaring her. Now. I want you to focus on the house and tell me what you see there.”

“If you wish to live in it, my dear, I think you can do better. It is nothing but a shack. Nothing to concern yourself with.” She told him to keep looking at it. “I am. There is nothing going on there but a woman screaming at the house, and she is.... I have never seen her before, have I?”

“No, you have not. What is she saying? Why would someone scream at a house?” He said he didn’t know but stood to get closer. It pained him so much to move after sitting for so long, and he nearly went back to the ground. But he would do this for Mary because she was his one and true love. “No, I am not. I don’t even like you very much. Most of the time not at all.”

“You jest. I know that you are in love with me.” She told him that she hated him at this moment. “I should like for you to bring our children to see me soon. The girls must be so grown by now. And our son is going to be a great deal like me, I think. I know that they will be afraid of me, but I shall cover up the bad parts and just watch them.”

“You have no children, Benton. And I am not your wife. You’re thinking of Rembrandt’s wife and his children again. You remember them. They’re the ones that you had murdered. I was in love with Ward and Dolin until Rembrandt took my still-beating heart from my chest. He murdered me. And for what good reason?” He told her he was sorry for her loss. “Thank you. Someday you will have to bring me flowers. Just to put on the little plot of land that was built for me.”

“You are here? In the ground?” She told him that she was on the other realm. “I cannot go back there, Mary. You know that. Rembrandt closed it off to me. I must stay here where I cannot get the medications that I so need.”

“He is a monster. So are you, but he is cruel in his treatment of all of us. I suppose you are as well. The way you’ve hurt every creature you’ve ever come across just because you could.” He grinned at the memory, then frowned. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be doing again. “The woman.”

“Yes, the woman. She had white fingers that burned into me.” He looked in the direction of where the store he’d been thinking about had been. The one that had some drugs in it.

“Not her, you fool. The one at the falling down house. She’s there, screaming at the house. Look.” He did and saw no one, and asked Mary about it. “Of course, there is no one there now. Had you done something, like to go and see what she was about, you would have had her. Damn it, Benton, you let her get away. But I suppose Rembrandt is responsible for that too. I tell you, Benton, that man has a great many things to be punished for. It’s too bad that you cannot read or write. You could have been making a list about these things and told him of them as you made him suffer.”

Master didn’t even bother telling her that he had more important things to do than to learn his letters and numbers. Someone, long ago, had tried to teach them to him, but his head was fuzzy again and he couldn’t place it. His wife? No, Mary had said that he’d not been married. But then who?

He made his way back to his cave. He’d tried living in a house, a grand house, but he could never remember where it was when he left it. Then there was the damage that kept happening to it when he was there. This was something else that he wanted to blame on Rembrandt, but he could not. Master was just too big, he supposed, and looked down at his body.

Most of the scales on his limp arm were gone. The rest of his body was in poor shape as well. But dragging his arm along behind him had done most of that. His fingers were forever getting caught up in things, and broken off as well. His belly had a large hole in it, and no matter how much he tried to heal it with magic or some of the other things he’d found around, it still smelled and seeped. Even when he’d tried sewing it shut, he’d had problems. He looked at what was left of his tail.

Several days ago he’d been walking along when he’d fallen. He could not remember why. Things for the most part were all messy in his head. But when he woke from a dark time, he had no tail and his body was covered in blood. It wasn’t until just yesterday that he’d found it lying outside his cave. He was sure that Rembrandt had snuck into his dwelling and chopped it off him. Master had no excuse for the blood, but figured that Rembrandt had done that as well.

“The bastard.” He did wish now that he’d let Rembrandt’s lovely wife, Shandell, show him his letters. She’d been a good woman. He wondered what had happened to her and their three children. When Mary told him that was Rembrandt’s wife, not his, he wanted to deny it, but he then remembered the poor woman’s burnt body on the ground and thought Mary to be telling him no falsehood. Curling around the fire that he’d started, Master thought of his plans for Rembrandt when he came to him.

“He will die slowly. And when he is gone, I shall rule this realm and all that live here. I will be a true master of all that I can see. Rembrandt will be my biggest prize.” Mary told him that wasn’t going to work if Rembrandt was dead. “Leave me in peace, woman. I have thinking to do.”

But before he could focus his mind on anything, exhaustion took him and he closed his eyes. He would think on the morrow, when his head was clear and the pain in his body was no longer making him ill.

Chapter 5

Each of them stared at her. Vicki was sure that they were trying not to, but even she felt her eyes drift to her over and over. The meeting wasn’t going well anyway, but this was just too much to let go. She stood up when Remy asked if there was anything else.

“She’s a faerie. Not like me, but more.” The woman, Ryiah, stood up as well. “What are you? I know that you’re Rick’s mate. Hell, we all felt the earth move when he claimed you. But you aren’t human. What are you other than faerie?”

“I don’t know.” Vicki didn’t know if she believed her or not. “My sister.... She was once a war faerie. But now, I’m not sure what she is other than a tyrant and a horrible person. I have only just found out that I am the elder of the two of us, and that all this time she has lied to me. I know not why she did that either.”

“I do.” Everyone turned to look at the pretty little faerie that had come in when Rick and Ryiah had. “Ryiah is a true war faerie, and she has been one since birth. Had her father been home at the time of her birthing, he would have known who she was and marked her as the one he would train when she was old enough. But their mother, a meaner woman you do not want to know, lied for her own gain and told everyone that Lucia was the one who should be the daughter who stood alongside her father. I heard that Lucia had been easy to manipulate, but now I’m not so sure. I think her much like her mother, if not worse.”

“I don’t understand. You mean only the oldest girl can be a war faerie?” Hunter told her the oldest child only could claim the rights of this birthright. “So it matters little if they are girl or boy? So long as they’re firstborn? Good. I like that. But how could he have not known who was the true fighter?”

“He did, eventually. When Lucia’s skills as a fighter were less than perfect, a thing that a firstborn would know from their first breath, he washed his hands of her. I don’t know if he ever tried to figure out what had happened. This was before I was born to Ryiah. But that did not stop her mother from finding every way possible for her daughter Lucia to be the best, or give the appearance of being the best. But it was all magic, something that even now Lucia has very little of. She even went so far as to begin killing those that knew the truth or might have guessed it.”

“Where is she now? The mom? Maybe she can help us out on why this was done. And short of that, we can beat it out of her.” Hunter told Skylar that she was dead. “I’m sorry.”

“Lucia had her killed.” Ryiah got up to pace and Vicki watched Rick. For a man that had professed no need of a mate and that he wanted little to do with one, he was looking at Ryiah like she meant the world to him. Vicki looked at Ryiah when she started talking again. “I have been a slave to Lucia since the day after I changed. The change in us occurs when we are thirteen. It’s then that our bodies become magical. We come into our own, I guess you could say. I remember my time like it was only a few days ago. The feeling of power had washed over me and I was marked. My wings came then as well. But later in the day, after I was told to rest even though I felt wonderful, my mother told me that Lucia had evolved as well. That because she was the oldest that it had been harder on her. That the magic she got was so powerful that it took her under. I have since figured out it was a way for Lucia to watch the changes in me so that she could mimic them later when Mother freed her from her rest. I hate to believe that even my mother was a part of this, but I think it’s true as well.”

“So you believed them even then. But what of the timing of the event? I mean, you did it first, correct?” Vicki had wanted to ask the same thing and was glad that Rick had. “I mean, as the firstborn, you had your evolving first, right? Did you believe even then that your sister had gotten more?”

“I had no reason not to believe them when they said it. And when she came from our room a few days later, she told me that she had wrapped her magic around her in a way that no one would see her markings until she wanted them to. She thought it would keep her safe, she said. I never found out what she was keeping herself safe from, but as I said, I had no reason not to believe what she said to me. I was in awe of her, I think. But then the trouble began for me.”

Vicki knew that when she’d arrived she’d been hurt. Before she could ask her what sort of trouble there had been, Hunter began speaking.

“They knew…the faeries of her father had figured out that they had been switched at birth, or that their order of birth was wrong. By the time they had proof of it, her father had been murdered. I believe, as do a great many others, that Lucia had done the same to him as she did later to her mother. Turned them into the Council for crimes that she herself had committed. And since she was nothing more than a child, not even fourteen or so at the time, they had no reason to think she’d lie to them. After the trial and eventual beheading of both their mother and father, we were going to confront the queen when she came to us.

“The woman who marked me.” Rick stood up then, and Vicki noticed something that she hadn’t before. Rick was bigger. Not just in muscle, but he was taller too. She thought him to be at least several inches taller than he’d been before. “I was at the home of my brother, the day after my sister-in-law had been killed, when she came to me. She marked me and told me that I was going to have a lot of things happen to me, as well as a lot of death. But that this woman would come for me that she’d been saving for me. I just found out that it was Ryiah.”

“Has she returned to you as yet?” Hunter flew around the room back and forth, like she was pacing, but in the air. When no one answered her, she looked at Remy and asked him if he’d seen her.

“I have not, I don’t believe. Would I know her should she come to me?” Hunter told him he’d never doubt it if she came to him. “Then no, I have not seen her. But I do have a couple of questions. Rick said that Ryiah can read our markings. I should like very much for her to see if she can tell us what some of these marks say. It might help us in ridding the world of Benton and the malefactors. Also, you said you were born of Ryiah. I would like to know what you meant by that as well.”

“When I was locked away, a seed floated on the air to me. I wasn’t sure what it meant. There were no windows where I was locked away and no soil for me to think that it came from the earth. It was just there.” Ryiah put out her hand and smiled when the little faerie landed on it. “I had only to capture it in my palm, and when I held it, I could feel her warmth, even her heart beating against my skin. After a few days, no more than two I think, I opened my palm and there she was. My best and only friend. And over the next decades she and others would somehow come into my hole and bring me food and treats. As well as a little soil in their pockets. It was enough, after a time, that I could feed from it. They saved me.”

No one said anything, but Vicki could see their sorrow, feel it even. How could anyone treat a person this way? And it being their sister? When Hunter moved to Ryiah, Vicki could see their friendship, love even, and knew in that moment that Hunter had not just saved Ryiah, but she was pretty sure that they’d saved each other. Ryiah cleared her throat when Hunter moved to her shoulder.

“I would need to touch you.” Vicki, like the rest of them, turned to look at Skylar. She wasn’t normally possessive, not like Remy could be, but Vicki had a feeling that when Ryiah had said she had to touch Remy, it wasn’t going to be a simple touch. “He would need to be exposed to me as well.”

Skylar looked amused. So when she nodded, Ryiah put her hands behind her back and asked again if she could touch her mate. “You only need to touch him, not have sex with him, correct?”

“Nay, I should not like to have sex with him at all. It is most.... I have had it today, and while I need Rick again, I don’t think I should like to go that far with your mate.” Everyone laughed, but Vicki could see that Ryiah was confused. “If you would be so kind, sir, as to remove your shirt. I will tell you what it says.”

“Wait.” Ruben left them then but returned shortly with his camera, as well as a recorder that he’d been using. “I can remember a great deal, but I don’t want to miss details. If you can tell me what some of the markings mean, I’d like to compare them to other things I have found. Like the markings on the earth to protect us. And the ones on the windows of some of the stores that we’re now using.”

Ryiah stepped forward and Rick stood behind her. He didn’t touch her, even though she could almost feel that he wanted to, but stood there while she put her fingers on the first line of markings on Remy.

“Rembrandt, a man of war and a man of all men. The rest is about your wife and children, how they died and you mourned them. Shall I read it or go on?” He told her to go on please. “There is a list of things you can do. Flying is first. Then there is mention of your body art. It says that you have been equipped with a claymore sword as well as numerous knives. You have an endless supply of stars to throw, as well as ammo for your guns.”

“Stars?” Vicki moved closer when Skylar did. “You mean this? I thought those were just.... Remy, look. You have silver stars at the base of your head that you can pull away.”

Two were taken from his neck and he tossed them across the room. When they stuck into the wall, it took a great deal of power to remove them. Vicki found some on her own body, as well as Davis’s. She wondered how long they’d been there.

There were other weapons as well, most they knew of. In addition to the wings, there was body armor. And once he was told how to activate it, they all played with the one that seemed to come with their bodies as well. Vicki thought of all the times this might have come in handy.

“All right, so now we have a better supply of weaponry. Can you tell me what we are?” Ryiah looked around the room, then back at Remy again. “You do know, don’t you? You know just what we all are.”

“Yes. You are a warrior. Not faerie nor fae, but all of them. Stronger than most anything that I have ever met, yet you are gentle when necessary. Davis is the same, not as strong but a great warrior too. As is Vicki.” She looked at Leo and Jamey. “Dragons that are stronger than any I have ever encountered, and you have shared this strength with the rest. You can come together should you need the extra magic, or you can fight independently should that be necessary as well. Children of you both, should you desire to have them, would have the same ability. And when they find mates, they too will be given this great gift. Also, you would only need to think of battle armor when you are your other halves. Then it will cover you. From your head to the tip of your tail, you will be encased in a magic that will protect you from anything. Even now you can protect your human part by doing the same.”

They did it, both of them covered in the same armor that Vicki and the others had. Their faces were open, but she could feel the protection of something around her cheeks and nose. Even her eyes, usually so exposed when blood was splashing around, seemed to be covered.

Ryiah turned to Chris then. “The cat that the two of you can become, as well as all the other animals, are all under the same protection. Once you have come together, I’m sure that you have noticed that you’re larger. That is due to the armor as well. But all of you carry a mark that hides you away. The shield that hides your true self from humans keeps you from being a target. They would not understand seeing a cat as large as the one you are, so if you have changed, they see only what is necessary so that they don’t run screaming from you. Some will see a small house cat; others will see a panther. Your enemies will see what you are, a great monster of a cat that will kill them.” Chris held onto Kate as Ryiah looked at Remy again. “The markings on your body are all made from a language that has not been spoken for many decades. I speak it because I have talked to the others for as long as I can remember. The other faerie as well as fae. They are my friends.”

“We are your army, my lady.” Ryiah asked Hunter what she meant. “When your father was killed, everyone knew who you were. Even wondered for a while when you were going to come for them. But then they saw what was going on and protected you as best we could. Even when you were locked away, as you said, we brought you things, food, and drink to keep you from being too weak. And when you were well, you came out to the grounds and spoke to us. There were many that said they only stayed because of you. Now all of them know why they were drawn to the woods around the house. It was to be there for you when you called us to arms.”

“But I have no use for an army. I would not even know how to command one.” Hunter nodded and landed on her arm. Vicki, like the rest of them, watched as the mark that hadn’t been there before bled through her skin and showed itself. It was a sword with a crest on it. Ryiah ran her finger over the marking and when she spoke, there was such emotion in her voice.

“It’s my father’s. He carried it to battle every day of my young life.” Hunter told her to bring it forth. When it peeled from her body, they all stepped back. It was large, sharp, and made of a material so brilliant that Vicki was sure that it was covered in magic. “When he was taken before the Gathering, they asked him for it but no one seemed to know where it was. Even mother didn’t know other than the fact that he’d carried it with him all the time. My father said not a word about it. Do you suppose he knew where it was?”

“He willed it to you, my lady. It has been there all this time, waiting for you to be able to bring it forth without Lucia trying to take it from you. And she would have. Not that it would have worked for her. Your father knew even then that there had been a mistake. And since you are the true faerie warrior, you will have all of us at your call.” Ryiah shook her head, but Hunter nodded. “It is the way of our kind. You are now the ruler of one of the greatest armies of all time.”