Slayde, Book 2 (Chaos Time Serial) (8 page)

“That’s a child. I thought we were the good guys, Hunter? Why aren’t we stopping this? Why aren’t you?” She knew none of this was his fault, but she was beyond fury.

Panic and fear had such a death grip on her heart she felt she was going to incinerate the world around her. How could Slayde have been so stupid? Why hadn’t she seen him yet?

Why? Why? Why?

“Just a little longer, Sable. These things never last more than an hour. They’ll bring him out soon and when they do, we’ll take him. I swear.”

Her nostrils flared. “The baby...”

He shook his head. A tiny squeal was forever silenced by the cruel slash of a knife. She didn’t glance up. Couldn’t bring herself to see what she knew had just happened.

“There are some things, Sable, that cannot be changed.”

His words were filled with such anguish she knew he spoke from personal experience. She bit her bottom lip. No one should ever have to suffer like this. No one. “It was only a baby,” she whispered, all her fire gone.

Synnergy was huddled into herself, arms wrapped tight around her body. Quiet sobs wracked her frame.

“I know.”

A loud roar of sound different than the others caused all the fine hairs on the nape of her neck to stand up.

It was
him
.

She looked and breathed a loud sobbing sigh of relief.

Slayde’s face was jacked up. His eyes sealed shut, the skin puffy and blackish blue. It was almost hard to believe it was really him, but for the auburn hair and mud encrusted skin. Her veins buzzed with anxious exhilaration.

Then she saw his arm and her heart plummeted. His left arm was gone below the elbow. It was a bloody stump wrapped in disgusting brown cloth. She gasped, unable to believe they’d taken his arm.

She choked on a scream, wanting desperately to kill them all. To hurt them the way they’d hurt her.

“Let me go!” Slayde roared, and though he only had one useable arm, he was still throwing the guards around. His face was ashen, his steps uncertain. Where he found the strength she had no idea. There was more to Slayde than she’d ever known and Sable’s heart swelled with pride.

The priest’s filed teeth were tipped in a lecherous smile. He extended his sun browned hand and gripped the scruff of Slayde’s shirt.

Slayde’s head thudded against the stone with the sound of a hammer striking a watermelon. Sable saw red. Literally. Her vision turned a deep crimson hue. She’d never experienced this before. Her fire was instantaneous and hot. She screamed, vaguely aware of the hundreds of eyes that looked up in horror a split second before those closest to her tree began to drop and writhe.

“Control yourself, Sable!” Hunter attempted to grab her again. She shoved him away from her as hard as she could and then jumped, shifting midair seamlessly.

Bodies slammed into each other in their chaos to escape the terror of the feral bird bearing down on them.

The Lord glared at her, and as if he sensed he had only seconds, he plunged the knife into Slayde.

She shrieked, the booming sound reverberated like thunder clap. The Lord released the hilt of the knife and dropped to his knees, slamming his hands to his ears. But she didn’t relent. Her lungs were large and full of air. Sable screamed to the heavens with every ounce of rage she possessed. Adrenaline coursed through her veins when the Lord dropped to the ground like a stone. Blood seeped from the corners of his eyes, out his nose, even from his ears.

When she reached Slayde she noticed immediately how still and white he was. His chest was painted scarlet and blood pooled around his body. It would be so easy to end the Lord. Drive her talon through his chest exactly as he’d driven his knife through the others. But if she did, she wouldn’t stop until she’d shredded him to ribbons. Her rage wouldn’t let her leave until she’d exacted her revenge.

But it was either kill him, or save Slayde.

Slayde had minutes judging by the sluggish beating of his heart. When the Lord had driven the knife through him it hadn’t been a direct blow to the chest, but she heard the flat tone of his heart, the knife had very probably knicked it, which meant he was hemorrhaging from the inside. The only chance he had was to get to Synnergy as quickly as possible, she only prayed their healer was as good as Hunter said she was.

There was no choice.

She shrieked at the huddled body that suddenly looked less supernatural and more human, while simultaneously drawing Slayde into the folds of her wings. But unlike before when he could hold her back, now he was nothing but dead weight. Brain screaming at the thought of causing him anymore pain but knowing she had no choice because she couldn’t keep a tight enough grip on him with just her wings, she dug her talons deep into his shoulders, flooded with relief when he shuddered.

Trying not to hurt him worse than she needed to, she flew as fast as she could back to the tree.

Hunter gesticulated to her wildly, a shimmering blue portal was open before him. She didn’t stop to agonize over the fact that she hated time jumping, all she knew was Slayde’s blood leaked out slower and slower and his breaths were getting weaker and weaker. Soon she’d lose him completely.

She dived into the portal, the wailing sounds of screams and rancid stench of blood faded into the oblivion of a time long forgotten.

Chapter 6: The end is bitter, but rejoice...for there will be joy in the morning

Dragden, ruler of the New World, victor of the final battle—defeat shining in the eyes of his enemies as they died one by one—stared silent out the large window of his chamber. A memory that had always made him smile. Until today. Today bitterness was his friend. Sorrow his lament.

The war had aged him. No longer the virile man he once was, his back was bent by arthritis. His skin was soft and sloughing off in thick wrinkled waves. He closed his eyes for a brief moment. The God sleep couldn’t come soon enough. His immortality came with a price. The reaper always got his due.

He sighed, the sound echoed distant and loud in his glass chamber. The barren landscape he’d claimed as his prize spread out as far as his eye could see. The sky was a sickly shade of pale taupe, the red sun a large circle, garish in color compared to the muted shades of death. The land was charred, trees barely more than skeletal structures pointed gnarled brittle fingers towards the heavens. A strong breeze would snap what few yellowed leaves remained. The only animals to survive the final nuclear holocaust of war were reptiles and cockroaches. And soon they’d eat each other and die out. There’d be nothing left.

This was his prize. What he’d fought over two centuries for. They’d killed the land. The people. The animals. There was nothing of value left. The earth was angry, splitting open from fissures deep in the ground full of molten lava. He snorted, touching the thick pane of glass. It was a hollow victory.

The prize didn’t live up to the dream. In retrospect it was accomplishing his goal, the middle of his journey, that he’d truly enjoyed most.

Had he played God? She’d accused him of that right before he’d shoved the sword through her belly, spilling out her intestines. Her dove gray eyes liquid with pain as she’d found strength from deep within to whisper one last word of hate in his ear. He’d held her, cried over her. He’d loved her. All his life he’d been fascinated by the thought of creating a race of people both man and beast. He’d worked a serum that had almost accomplished it, but with a few imperfections.

Sometimes a man who could only speak as a beast. Other times there was a beast, with the pitiful strength of a man. And for some, the man and beast could not co-exist at all, and all that remained was madness.

When the magic had imbued the land and people there’d been a few ‘natural’ hybrids, but none as perfect as his little bird. His ideal of a perfect hybrid was one who could switch from human to animal, keeping the intellect and strength intact through each transition. If he’d been able to create such a one, she’d have been it.

His vision. His greatest feat. But she wasn’t his creation, and he envied that. Loved it. Maybe even resented it a little. But he’d learned different ways to harness her powers to suit his needs. In the end, he’d made her his.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool pane, remembering her touch. Her hands sliding up his thighs, down his back. Her chaos, her fierceness, her desperation to escape in the end—his pulse quickened—he thought, maybe... he missed it.

Was it possible? There was an ache, an emptiness inside him. For so long he’d been so driven, with one purpose, one goal in mind, but now that he had it, he no longer knew what to do with it. There was no one to enjoy it with. His amry feared him, his monster had lost its mind, no longer recognizing its maker. He was alone, in a palace made of glass. Alone with his thoughts. His paranoia. His secret fear that maybe he’d been wrong.

Maybe...

Maybe...

If he had to do it over again, would he? Would he kill her? Them? Was it possible that he was now realizing the error of his ways? Could a leopard change its spots?

“Sir!” A deep-throated voice, rumbling with the heavy strains of human and beast, snapped him from his melancholy.

Dragden turned on his heel.

The sentry entered on soft leather shoes that strapped up the thick muscles of his calves. His short tunic was a chaotic hue of colors, deep purples and rusty reds, burnished gold and deepest azure. The land did not sing with life, so their clothes must. From the neck down he was a virile man of twenty some odd years. But the words did not fall from the lips of a man. They came from between the heavy folds of a shaggy bull’s mouth. Large rounded tusks pierced through the top of his head. Patros was a proud Minotaur. One of his better creations, and captain of his guard.

The moment Patros entered his chamber, Dragden straightened his stance. No longer did a frail man bent in half by age stand there, but the ruthless leader of the new world army. He lifted his head. His face became cold, cruel—chiseled from steel and ice.

Dragden marched to his throne and sat. Never one to let an enemy see his weakness, knowing if he ever did, that’s when they’d kill him. And he knew, they would. They all hated him. Feared him. As they should.

“What?” he snarled as he relaxed on his throne. His arms rested on the carved golden heads of the lions. But it was merely a façade, at any moment he could leap into action, ripping Patros’ head from his body with very little effort should he feel the need. Old he might be, but he was still powerful. And the Minotaur knew it.

“Forgive me the intrusion, sire,” Patros’ voice was the cold of a wind howling across frozen tundra. “But a Lord has been compromised, sir.”

He narrowed his eyes. One of his seven sources, no one knew about the Lord’s save himself, Patros, and
her
.

“And?” Anger burned bright, igniting the old passion, the old flame of destruction within. His fingers flexed.

“He lives, sir.” Patros bowed his head, resting a clasped hand against his heart.

“Go away,” he ordered. The bull snorted his agreement, turned sharply on his heel and exited his chamber.

Dragden licked his front teeth, whoever had done this had done it with purpose and foresight knowing he was readying to enter his god sleep, leaving him unable to defend his sources.

Who would know of the Lords?
She
was dead. His nostrils flared.

Errol was phoenix, in essence immortal. He shouldn’t be surprised. But she’d not been a time jumper. He thought of the rag tag posse that’d dared to try and defy his rule, the healer with her pitiful attempts at staving off death, the foul mouthed, arrogant prick who thought he’d been strong enough to fight him—the same bastard who dared to lie with his bird, to touch her, to love her.

And one other. The enigma. He’d never seen the face, always covered within the folds of a cloak, but the shadowy figure always hovered by their sides. Until one day the enigma had vanished. He’d thought perhaps it’d been killed.

Was it possible the enigma had survived?

Only a jumper could travel back. Only a jumper could have found her again. Dragden had searched for years. But finding her was like finding a needle in a haystack. Never knowing what she’d look like from one life to another it’d been an impossible task.

His heart thrilled, his blood pounded like the forceful blow of a fist to his gut at the thought, the idea, that she’d been found. And she must have been, because only she had the key to the sources. It was why he’d shoved a spear through her side when she’d dropped to the ground like a fallen angel. She’d betrayed his trust. He’d had no choice.

He licked his lips as need, lust, violence, and madness surged like a tidal wave inside him. He’d find her. Kill the rest. Take her. Bed her and then bring her back here, this time he’d do it right. This time he’d give her no reason to betray him. He could be kind. He could be loving. She’d loved him once. He knew it. She’d love him again.

The thought alone made him ache, made him need, made him crazed to have her back. She was power equal to his own. With her by his side they could discover new worlds, tame them to their will. There’d be no stopping them.

The annoying tingle returned. He brushed his fingers harder against his neck.

He thought of his sources and his Lords. Powerful entities in their own right, but whoever was tracking them made a mistake. A costly one. If they thought Dragden entering god sleep would prevent him from guarding his treasures they couldn’t be more wrong.He walked back to the window with his hands clasped behind his back and studied the landscape through different eyes. No longer did it seem so bitter. No longer void of color and life. It was his. Always. By right. And might.

He rubbed the spot in his neck that still continued to demand attention.

“Patros,” he yelled and dropped his hand.

The beast entered a half second later. “Sir.”

Dragden turned. “Release the monster.”

Patros didn’t blink, smile, or acknowledge that what he’d been ordered to do was anything outside of the norm. He nodded. “As my sire wills.”