Zyn took in her appearance, nodding.
Her hair was white and frizzy, sticking up in the most random
places. Her eyes, bright and blue, were insightful and lively. Her
hands were nothing but bones, wrapped loosely around a cup of
coffee. Her floral patterned shirt hung off of her frail
body.
The last time he had seen her, she’d
been so very young. She’d used to have thick brown hair that fell
down her back, and she hadn’t had even had laughing lines on her
cheeks.
He nodded, lips lifting. “I almost
didn’t recognize you,” he said easily, leaning back into his seat.
He stretched his legs out and steepled his fingers.
“
Well, Zyn, it’s been so
long since you’ve graced our lovely world with your presence. I
assume you are going to re-take your throne? Talon and Lucian seem
to have done a wonderful job, but that still doesn’t account for
the fact that we haven’t had our king. Plus, I believe that Talon
will be getting married soon.”
His eyebrows popped up.
Talon, marrying? A snort almost left him. “Are you sure your head
is on right, Scesia? I can’t see Talon marrying, let alone
talking
to a
female.”
She gave a small laugh. “I’m as sane
as I was ten years ago, Zyn. And yes, they do not know that I’ve
been watching over them. Poor Vladimir is at his wits end. He’s my
little spy. I hook him up at the hospice and he tells me what is
going on with Talon and Lucian.”
“
Who’s
Vladimir?”
“
A friend of mine. A diva,
but very apt and loyal to the throne. Also the last vampire,” she
tacked on, nodding her head at his shocked expression.
“
That’s surprising... Who
is Talon getting married to?” he asked, brow furrowing. He knew he
should be asking about the throne and his people and the demons,
but something was nagging him, pulling at his neck.
“
A fine young woman, I
heard. Barely twenty-six, but very mature. Vladimir thinks highly
of her,” she told him, fluffing her already frizzy hair as the door
opened to the diner. A young man walked past them, shooting Zyn a
look before disappearing into the back.
“
And that’s something that
I should take into consideration, I’m guessing?”
“
Vladimir isn’t easy to get
along with, very judgmental, and highly temperamental. If he trusts
someone like he does to this young woman, than you can trust your
life with her. Simple as that.”
“
I see,” he said, watching
as the door to the kitchen opened. The cook and several of the
staff members came out holding plates. With a glare and a disgusted
sniff, they started to place plates and plates of food on the
table. He waited till they were gone, ignoring the hunger that shot
through his stomach at the amazing scent of eggs and bacon. The
second the cook’s back disappeared into the kitchen, he dug in.
Scesia picked up a piece of toast and took bird-bites while
watching him.
He didn’t notice her silence until he
saw the glazed look in her eyes. “Scesia?” A low glow came over her
eyes, and they shot straight gray. He reached over, grabbing her
hand, shaking her. Alarm laced his voice.“Scesia? Stop, this isn’t
funny.”
“
She is going to
die
.” He froze at the deep, inhuman voice
that came from her closed lips. Her back was jack-straight, eyes
locked on his yet obviously not seeing anything, and they were
slowly turning into a glistening black. A red tear dripped from her
black-hole eyes, and a second later, she was gasping for
breath.
“
Who?” he demanded. He’d
seen this happen before, when he’d been a child playing in the
field with his brother. Zyn had left to get a wooden sword, and
he’d run into Scesia. Back then, they’d still lived in the
Scayth
, and he had
thought that nothing would ever happen to his family.
The second she’d seen him, her eyes
had done exactly as they had right then. Except then, she had said,
“He is going to die.” When he’d ran to his brother, the household
following them with her mother sobbing and calling his name, they
had found Dyvl torn up. Bloody. Dead.
“
Zyn, you must leave. Take
the food with you, but leave. Search for her -- your daughter.
Reach deep inside of yourself and find her, you don’t have much
time!” Scesia grasped his hands, pulling him to his feet. His body
was rock hard, shocked.
“
She’s dead...” Even as he
spoke, he was already searching. Already dying on the inside.
Already realizing that he might not ever see the daughter he had
thought long dead. Scesia could be wrong -- hell, he had seen her
die before his eyes in that dark forest, yet she was rarely
wrong.
Never
wrong. Pain tore through him, and then the belief that after
everything, he might get another chance.
“
No! Find her -- before
it’s too late. Oh god, Zyn. If she dies, everything is over. Amenia
will --”
He didn’t hear the last words she
said.
Zyn was gone.
Jamie shot after Talon in
an almost blind state. He was laying close to Lucian, blood pouring
from his forehead. His eyes were closed and she
knew
he was unconscious. Panic
assailed her like a house on fire. The car was down the street --
they’d rounded a corner that had taken them close to the
rec-center, even closer to the car.
She saw a flash of metal in her mind,
and pushed it aside. She had to help them before the fire reached
them.
Jamie was blind to why the building
had lit on fire, didn’t even care. Her lover was in danger, and so
were his friends. She flung herself over the crushed rock and,
ignoring the pain in her feet from the contact with bare ground and
gass, started dragging Talon. A ragged groat left his lips as she
pulled him, dragging his body across the rubble.
God, she wouldn’t be able to do it if
his shirt kept catching on things -- his jacket. She could pull him
on his jacket. Jamie hopped over some glass, gasping when it caught
on her leg. She ignored the small trickle she felt and climbed
through the hole.
She realized, too late, what she was
doing. The building was on fire and she was going back inside to
grab his jacket. But she didn’t want to bring him more pain by
dragging him through rocks, and the closer she looked through the
hole, the less fire she saw.
In fact, the building was just full of
smoke.
Dazed and more confused by the second,
curiosity got the best of her and she continued inside of the
building. She stared around her, coughing through the smoke. Just
several feet away, she saw his jacket. Crawling close to the floor,
she grabbed the edge of it and yanked it to her, knowing that when
the heavy weight fell into her lap, it had been the right thing to
do. There was something heavy in the pockets, maybe a cell phone or
a gun.
Snap.
Something small and blonde shot in front of her face, and then
a bright burst lit up in the corner of the room. Her heart stopped.
The smoke got even more dense, making it hard to see what was
happening. Instinctively, she started backing towards the entrance
of the hole, keeping a strong hold on the jacket.
Her hand itched inside of it, wrapping
around the cold metal. Yup. She’d been smart, she thought as she
took out the gun, clicking off the safety. Her mother had taken her
to gun safety classes, and Jamie was grateful she hadn’t put up
much of a fight when she’d insisted that her daughter take
self-defense.
When she got to Talon
again, he had moved onto his side, his brows drawn over yet still
dead to the world. She slipped the jacket under his body, cursing
the whole time. God, he was so freaking
heavy
.
“
What do you
eat
?” she hissed,
grunting when she rolled his body onto the jacket. She shoved a
hand through her hair, feeling hope. She could get them out of
this, she thought. It was just an explosion, and besides the fact
that the most dangerous men in the world were currently
unconscious, nothing was relatively fatal.
Jamie didn’t get a chance
to start pulling him again. A trail of fire shot through the hole,
bursting through the smoke, and slamming right past her head and
into the wall. And kept going. And going.
And going
. Her head snapped away from
the layers of holes through about twenty walls, and into the
direction it had come from.
“
Oh shit,” she said,
reaching for the gun again. Talon wouldn’t get pissed if she went
trigger-happy, would he? She ignored that and focused her gun on
the tall, thin figure that was moving with grace through the smoke,
nothing but a thin outline.
“
Don’t shoot,” a murmur
said at her ear. She wiped her head to the side, seeing nothing.
Heart pounding, Jamie turned her eyes back to the hole and saw
nothing except smoke.
She froze, stopping even the sound of
her breathing. All she could hear was the city, the low groans of
Talon and Lucian, and her own pounding heart. A car honked in the
distance, and an eerie rumble sounded through the sky.
The sun was covered by clouds, casting
down dark lights and shadows. They moved, surrounding her. She had
a horrible feeling that the shadows weren’t caused by the
sun.
Jamie pressed close to Talon, fisting
his shirt in her hand. She had never doubted that she would give
her life for him, but now, as she stared at the hole that was
oozing black smoke, she desperately wished he was awake and would
save them. For some reason, she felt like she wasn’t going to be
good enough for the both of them to survive.
Another shot came, this time leaving a
trail behind so hot that she felt it on her face several seconds
after it had passed. Shutting her mind down, numb to fear and the
pain in her legs and feet, Jamie got to her feet and aimed the gun
with a steady hand.
The figure appeared in front of her
vision, still inside of the hole. Why was it hiding?
“
Do not shoot me, darling.
I’m only here to help.” The voice was deep, soft. Beautiful and
ethereal. The gun lowered slightly, but Jamie shook herself out of
it and pressed forward.
“
What the hell did you do
to him?” Jamie hissed, taking a step forward.
“
I did nothing, it was the
fall that took him out. Come here, darling. I want to see the woman
that everyone is making such a fuss about.”
Jamie paused, but after a short
second, listened. Her feet made soft scraping sounds as she crossed
the rubble, but that was the only thing to be heard. The city
seemed to have died down, and even the men behind her were
quiet.
Through the smoke, she made
out a pale haired woman with a long slender neck and chillingly
calm eyes. Her hands were folded in front of long white robes, and
her feet were barely visible. She was barefoot, also. An aura
surrounded her, and it shocked Jamie that it was
visible
. A low,
glittering white light was surrounding the woman.
Jamie could only imagine how she
looked. The woman, with eyes as dark as the midnight sky, gave no
outward judgment. Instead, her thin eyebrows lifted and a small
lifted her lips. “Ah, so this is the heir to the throne. How
beautiful, indeed...”
She ignored the throne comment,
choosing to use all of her strength to stare the woman in the eyes.
It was hard, but she managed. Ice coursed through her veins,
chilling her to the bone, as those inhuman eyes took in her
appearance.
“
I understand why Chris was
so admitted to keep you by his side, now,” she commented absently,
lifting a white-as-snow hand to touch Jamie’s cheek. The contact
made her feel as if someone had pressed ice to her face.
She froze, mouth opening on
a soft gasp.
Chris
...
“
Yes, it is a shock,” she
said quietly, nodding her head. “I came to him in his dark hours of
sleep, and... Did you know that he is such a broken man that he has
latched onto you to survive? It was quite moving, what I found in
his mind. He believed the only way to keep you was to abuse you. He
felt as if he were going insane, you see.”
Jamie’s head started to shake back and
forth, but the woman’s hand on her face stopped her.
“
Do not worry. With such a
poor, tormented man, I have taken it into my hands to give him
solace.”
She felt her heart stop, disgust and
fear colliding into her mind as one. “And that would be?” she asked
in nothing but a breath of air.
The woman, with her perfect lips and
perfect teeth, smiled. “Why, eternal peace with the one he longs
for, of course.”
Jamie felt the earth sway
under her feet, and she listened with growing terror as the woman
continued to speak. The way she spoke, the images she put into
Jamie’s head, was going to kill her. God, she made it sound as if
Jamie and Chris were
meant
to be together. As if Jamie was
meant
to live a life of
pain. And without Talon...
“
No!” she cried out,
jerking away from the woman’s touch. “I won’t go back to
that
thing
. You
can’t take me away from Talon like this -- he’ll kill
you.”