Sebastian (Bowen Boys) (15 page)

“We’ll keep him safe.
Won’t we, Corrine?” Her mother-in-law nodded, and Ama realized that George was going with her. Before she could say she thought he should stay there, Khan touched her mind.

“He needs this.”
She nodded, and they all stood in a circle as she tried to think how to get them to Wanera. A swell of heat and a great movement—she opened her eyes and looked at the destruction.

The cats stood surrounding her.
She knew that Khan was right in front of her, but wasn’t really sure until one of them brushed by her that she knew who each of them were. She nodded toward a room that seemed to be the only one that had power.

She stepped over little men with tags
on, some of them dressed in child-sized jeans and shirts, while others were only in shorts, all of them dead or near death. When she leaned down to one that wasn’t hurt as badly, he shook his head.

“You must find the master.
He will need to know what has happened.” He laid back his head and smiled. “I have called to him for you.”

She wondered who he meant and figured that he had
meant Wanera. The poor man was hurting so badly that he seemed to be out of his mind with the pain. She moved closer to the light and was stopped by a half dozen or so men standing there with bats and large pieces of wood.

“I’ve come to see to Wanera. He and my mate are friends.
He said...Sebastian said he was hurt. I want to see if I can help him.” The men didn’t move until she heard a voice deeper inside the room.

“Let her pass. She is the queen I was tellin
g you about.” She moved toward who she thought was Bill and found him holding something in his arms. “He protected me. And the others. He never told Darkness where we were, but we came out too soon, and she…she is an evil being.”

Ama heard the cats snarl and turned
to see the men trying to keep them from her. She looked at Bill. “They’ll hurt them if they can’t see me. Could you ask them to let them pass? They won’t hurt them, I swear it.”

Bill nodded and told them to let the panthers in.
“He is hurt very badly, my lady. I do not believe that he will live. He protected us with his life, and now he will die because of it.”

She nodded and looked down at the man. She
knew what his injuries would be because of the ones that Sebastian had received from him, but her mate hadn’t received everything. Wanera had been hurt probably ten times more than her Sebastian had been.

His body was burned all over, his hair was gone
, and his face was ravaged with it. She wanted to touch him but wasn’t sure where to touch him that wouldn’t cause him more pain. She finally put her hand over his throat, the only part of him that seemed to be unharmed. Magic hummed along her skin, and she had a moment to wonder what he was doing when the cats roared. Several of the little men came running toward them and hid in a large hole in the wall.

The being that appeared with her had
her cats snarling and growling. When it looked as if one of them was going to leap at the large creature, she stood and told him to stop. Reed turned to look at her. The others, their hair high on their backs, never moved. Reed came to stand in front of her as the being spoke.

“You run with a
beautiful bunch, male. Where did you find such a prize?” The being looked at Khan. “You understand me and I will you. Speak and tell me why you come to my world unwelcomed.”

Ama stepped
in front of Bill and Wanera to shield them if necessary. No one was going to hurt either of them again. She raised her chin when he looked at her.

“The
faerie queen, are you not?” She nodded once at him. “And what have you behind you that you would die for? Another cat? Someone who will pay for what has happened here today?”

“You’ll not harm him again or I’ll kill you myself.”
He raised a brow at her but said nothing. “They’ve been hurt enough by that bitch, and I won’t have you harming them as well. Let me take Wanera and Bill back with me to—”

“Wanera has been hurt?”
He moved so quickly she couldn’t stop him. When she turned, he was kneeling on the floor beside the fallen demon. He touched Wanera’s hand softly and looked at Bill.

“Who did this?
You know...I demand that you tell me.” She stepped in front of Bill. “I’ll not harm him. I know now that you and your cats didn’t do this, but I demand to know who.”

“Darkness.”
He looked up at her, then down at Bill, who nodded. “She hurt my mate, too, when she hurt him. Her fucking ass is mine.”

“He gave
his blood to you.” She nodded, even though he was no longer looking at her. “He is my creation. My first child, I guess you would call him. I had to…he couldn’t be shown any favoritism from me, but he held his own.”

“Well
, of course he did. He’s a good man, you moron.” He looked up at her again and she flushed. “I’m sorry. My mouth gets ahead of my brain when I’m afraid and nervous. What I wouldn’t give for a big glass of sweet iced tea right now.”

It appeared in he
r hand and without thinking, she drank it down. When it refilled itself twice more, she nodded to the large man. He winked at her.

“I knew a faerie once long ago. He would suck the
nectar out of flowers to get his sweetness. You should try standing in the earth. It will replenish you faster.” She nodded and told him she’d heard that before. “Yet you’ve not done it. Why are women so stubborn?”

Before she could answer him with what she was sure
would get her killed, he stood up. She looked at him and frowned. “You never gave me your name. I’m—”

“Do not
, my lady. Giving a being like me your name is very dangerous. And I will keep mine to me as well. You may call me master if you wish.” She looked at him and he laughed. “Okay, you may call me ‘Sir.’ I believe that is better for us both.”

He looked down at Bill and Wanera. She knew now that he wouldn’t harm
either of them, and wondered what he’d do if she asked if she could take them back with her. She turned when the cats started snarling again, and a beautiful woman, probably another demon, snarled at them to shut up. She turned to Sir to see who it was when she realized he was gone.

“Take them back with you to the human world. I will take care of the bitch for you.”
She nodded to Khan when he turned to her.

“I’ll take all of them then. Even the ones that are hurt
please, to see if I can help them in memory of Wanera. He loved them very much.”
She felt his laughter and shivered from it. “
You’ll let me?”

“Take them and all that belongs to Wanera.
I will help you transport them with your cats.”
She started forward to gather Wanera in her arms when she felt Sir touch her mind again.
“You’ll no longer be welcome here, my lady, but I may visit you to see to Bill and the others. Will that be acceptable?”

“Will you behave?”
He laughed again and told her he would.
“Then you are welcome in our home. Thank you for helping me. I’ll make sure that Wanera is buried among friends.”

He was laughing again as
she felt the heat dissipate and light touch her skin. She opened her eyes to find herself in another bedroom in their home and several of the beings surrounding the bed. She left them to find out if Sebastian was okay. She knew that they would need their time to say goodbye.

Chapter
15

Darkness looked around for the cats. They had disappeared and she was somewhat disappointed she wasn’t going to get to kill them as well. Taking a deep breath, she looked around at the destruction she’d caused in coming for Wanera. Smiling, she realized she could really get to like this kind of killing. Massive murder count and the feeling of being queen afterward. She went to the room she’d left Wanera in. Hopefully, he’d tell her where that fucking little prick of a thing was.

The large cat was sitting where she’d left
Wanera. He looked vicious and ready to attack. She raised her hand, then lowered it again when she realized that she’d used up all she had, and now she was little more than a human. But he wouldn’t know that.

“What the fuck did you do with Wanera?
I want to see if the little shit is ready to talk.” The cat snarled at her but didn’t move. “You think you can take me on, big boy? Well, you just try it and I’ll singe you so badly your own mother won’t recognize you.”

He growled but still hadn’t moved.
She moved more into the room but stopped when he stood. He was fucking huge, much bigger than she’d seen in a panther before. She took a step back and screamed when hot hands wrapped around her upper arms.

“Hello
, Darkness.” She closed her eyes at the voice behind her. She knew that voice as well as her own. Her master.

“Master.”
She nodded to the panther. “Is he one of yours? He’ll be a lovely addition to your trophy room. I can’t wait to—”

She snapped her mouth closed when the cat
roared. His teeth were as long as her longest finger and as sharp as any blade she’d ever seen. She watched him as she walked toward her, but couldn’t move because her master had yet to let her go.

The cat
watched her with his dark eyes. There was no doubt that in her present condition he could rip her to pieces, but she stood still, barely blinking at him as he walked all the way around her. When he touched his nose to her hands, she whimpered.

“Do you know who this is?
The cat, do you have any idea who he is?” She shook her head as he moved back and sat down not a foot from her. “He is the friend of Wanera, a trusted friend. They exchanged names and blood. How do you think it made him feel when you nearly killed his friend?”

The threat
—because there was no doubt that’s what it was—came from him as a whisper in her ear. She knew that the cat had heard him, too, because he snarled again and showed her all his teeth.

“I don’t…I have no idea what you’re—
” Master shook her hard, and her teeth rattled in her mouth. She felt his hands burn into her flesh deeper, and she moaned from the pain.

“Lie to me
again and this will go much worse than you can imagine.” He shook her again, and then suddenly shoved her forward to the cat. “He is going to deal with you for his bit of flesh. Then I will take over. You’d better hope that he kills you, Darkness, because I most certainly will not.”

Her body became chilled.
He knew and not only did he know, but he was pissed about it. She turned to him to look him in the eye. Wanera couldn’t mean that much to anyone.

“He was cheating. Did you know that? He had a computer set up to help
with his counts, and he would be the first to get to them. I didn’t have a computer, and I should have had it before him. Then I would have presented it to you as my idea. It should have been mine.” She realized she was babbling when he raised his dark brow at her. “As his boss, I should have been the one to come up with the good ideas.”

“You’re very right about that.
As a boss you should have, but you’re too stupid and too vain to come up with anything.” He leaned back against the wall. “I’ve talked to the others under you.”

The
hair on her arms stood up. She was afraid. If he talked to even one of them, she was as good as sentenced. She glanced back at the cat who watched her. Master’s laugh made her turn back to him.

“He is thinking you might suffer more if I take you first.”
She looked back at the cat and decided he was her best bet if she wanted to come out of this situation dead. She looked back at the master.

“I served you well.”
He nodded. “And now you’re going to give me to this cat to be killed, bloodied like I was nothing to you.”

“You were nothing to me, Darkness.
Ever. You were a poor manager, and worse yet, you never learned even after all the training I gave you. And according to some of the others beneath you, you’re not even a good evil person.” His body heated and started to shift before he seemingly got control. “But Wanera, for all the things you thought of as faults, had the loyalty of all the beings who worked for him, better numbers than anyone on your team, as well as their respect. He even, when needed, asked for help. Not from me, but from someone that could get him out of this place.”

“What do you mean, out of this place?”
She looked around and saw the cat down on his belly and his hair standing on end. “You can’t mean that he’s dead. He can’t die. Not unless I say so.”

“
You
say so? I hadn’t realized that I’d given you that authority.” He moved from the wall and walked toward the cat. “Not that it matters, but he’s been given permission to leave here. It was the only way I could save my son.”

Son?
She stood there thinking about what that meant. If Wanera was his son, that meant she’d tried to kill…. “I had no idea. Master, you must forgive me in…”

“Take her.”
The cat lunged and she felt his claws rake across her face as soon as Master spoke. Even as her sight was blurred from her eye being torn from her, she could feel him tearing at her soft belly and her arms. Pain poured over her. She screamed over and over until she could no longer do so with the fangs tearing at her throat. Her body was torn up, shredded from claws and teeth, but still he attacked. When she heard the softly spoken, “Stop,” she nearly wept, would have if she could have remembered how to do it from the pain pounding in her mind.

She must have blurred out
, because as she opened her eye her name was being said. Master was standing over her, as was the panther. He was covered in her blood…it dripped from his mouth and fur. And when he snarled at her, she could see it on his teeth—they were stained with it.

“Darkness
, look at me.” She tried to turn to do as Master commanded, but she couldn’t. “You should see what he’s done. I do believe you’ve really made an enemy of him. Oh, and by the way, I lied to you. You understand that concept, don’t you? It’s where you don’t tell the truth.”

“Please,” she begged him.
She wanted it done, wanted this over with. Master shook his head at her and smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes and she shivered, her body aching from the action.

“My new friend here is not the one you harmed
, but his brother. He is here on behalf of Wanera and his family. Have you ever known a panther male with such control? I would have killed you outright, but he has decided to give that pleasure to me.” He chuckled at her. “Not that I plan to kill you, but you’ll understand shortly.”

Power surged
through her, and she could feel her body responding to it. The master was healing her, and she knew that while it would feel much better, she wasn’t going to enjoy what came next. He handed her a mirror as he sat her up, and she held it before her face as he instructed her to.

“As you can see
, I won’t make you whole, but I will give you life.” Her face was ravaged. Long streaks of scars, still wide open, marred her face worse than the one he’d given her. Her left eye was gone, and in its place an empty socket that seemed to be as dark as her name. Looking down at her throat, it was the same: long teeth marks now pink with healing, but no less ugly. The rest of her body was as bad. Her belly was scarred deeply. Long gaps of skin seemed to have healed over each other, and she had thick places that seemed like furrows in a garden. Her left leg had healed but at an odd angle, and she knew when she walked it would make her gait sloppy and give her the appearance of a drunkard swagger. She looked up at her master.

“I beg of you to kill me.”
He shook his head and stood up. “Please, I beg of you. I don’t wish for others to see me this way.”

“I’m sorry, did I give you the impression that I g
ive a shit what you want? I do sincerely hope not.” He lifted her up, and she staggered slightly. She thought that he’d help her, but he took a step back and glared at her. “You’ll not touch me, you hideous creature.”

She looked for the male cat
, wondering if she attacked him again if he’d finish the job, but he was gone. Darkness looked at the Master as he moved to the wall again. She knew that this was where she’d find out her sentence.

“You’ll spend all of
eternity serving the men and women who work the pits. You’ll give them new equipment when needed, and you’ll be their entertainment as well as an example of what happens when I’m pissed off.” She shook her head and started to beg, but realized that she could no longer speak. “The only words that will ever spill from your lips again will be ‘yes, Master,’ ‘no Master,’ and ‘thank you, Master.’ You’ll never lie to anyone again. I give you leave to say one thing, the last thing you’ll ever say.”

She
thought about what she’d done and what she now had to endure for more years, she had no doubt, than she’d been living. And she was nearing her third millennium. Darkness also knew that begging wouldn’t help her. If anything it would piss him off more. She lowered her head and decided that begging might be her only recourse.

“Will I ever be able to
redeem myself?” She felt the floor shift, and her body was suddenly thrown forward. Before she could catch herself, she was falling. When she landed, she knew where she was. She knew that she was never getting out of there, no matter how long she served him. The voice that thundered through her mind made her fall again, and she lay there for several minutes as the heat from the pits singed her skin.

He’d told her no.
He’d said simply “
No
” as he’d thrown her away to the fiery pits that served him. Standing up, she noticed that her clothing had changed, too. She was no longer in the sexy little dress and heels she’d put on before leaving the underworld, but a shirt that was cropped at her waist to show her scars, shorts that showed her legs, and no shoes. Darkness turned to look at the fires before her and thought about throwing herself into them as so many had before.

“You do that and I will leave you there long enough to crisp your skin
, and then pull you from the flames to fulfill your sentence anyway. Now get to work.”

Picking up the first of many shovels and picks
, she loaded them onto the cart. She was just starting to put the straps around her waist to drag the cart to the works when she felt a small stirring in her mind. She had a sudden thought that he was going to change his mind when an image of herself, beautiful and full of life, flashed before her eyes. As she stood perfectly still, more images filled her mind. She watched in horror as those were replaced with images of her now. This looped around several times before she realized that this was something else that she would have to endure. A slide show of her destruction.

Tear
s poured from her eye as she made her way to the first pit and handed the man standing there a shovel. He stared at her for so long that she wanted to slap him, but then he started laughing. As she moved on to the next pit, the same thing happened. They were all laughing at her and would, she was sure, for the rest of her days. Darkness was no more. In her place was this monster.

~~~

Khan watched his brother sleep. Sebastian was going to be fine, but he needed to rest. Everyone was making sure that he did. He looked up when Wanera and his friend, Bill, came in.

“Is he still sleeping?”
Khan nodded. “I had hoped to speak to you and him together. May I please have a word with you then?”

“Yes.”
Khan didn’t know how he felt about this man. He’d not been the true cause of what had happened, but Khan couldn’t help but associate what he’d done, and what he’d do over again if need be, to Wanera and his group of men.

“I would ask that you help my friends while I go and try to speak to the master.
I would like to be able to stay here and live among humans. I’m not…I don’t believe I could go back and be the same as before. Especially with Darkness there as my boss.”

Khan had told no one what he’d done.
When he’d returned from the underworld, he’d told his mate that he’d had business to take care of. She had nodded, but he knew that she’d not believed him. He promised her that he needed to speak to Wanera and Sebastian first. She kissed him and told him to shower before he sat with anyone else, or they would know where he’d been.

“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Darkness again.”
Wanera looked at him, and Khan shifted on his seat, reaching for the things on the floor before continuing. “I have something for you. I found it when I was returned here.”

He handed him the large scroll and then the
case that had been beside him when he’d ended up in Sebastian’s yard. Wanera took them and handed the case to Bill. Neither of them spoke as Wanera broke the seal and looked at it. When he rolled it back up and handed it to Bill as well, he asked the man to give him a few moments.