The Phoinix: Age of Demigods (36 page)

“Look around you,
MacBeatha. Look at the carnage your beloved wolf has done. Look at
the dead bodies strewn about my grove
,
the people I swore to protect.
Look at how many limbs have been detached, how many chunks of skin
and muscle are missing, how many necks snapped in her lethal
muzzle. There is nothing left of my nemeton. The people are gone;
the Nemeton of Arras is no more
, and you
want me to spare
the cause of its
destruction
?”

Eoghan pleaded with Haley
through gritted teeth
,
in pain as Haley applied more pressure to his wrist, tempted
to snap it
.
“Please, it is my fault she is like this. Let me fix
it.”

Haley let go of Eoghan and he clutched
his wrist to his chest.

“
Hale, don’t do this. Bre
needs Lupa,” Eoghan begged.

H
earing Bre’s name sent a fire through her soul. “Arrgh!”
Haley screamed, tears in her eyes. “I hate her,” Haley said, her
lower lip
trembling
as she tried not to cry. “I hate her for always having
you.”

Haley wiped away a tear
that fell
loose
from her eye and clenched her fist, deciding to kill Lupa and
end the discussion. Before the vines crushed Lupa, Eversor grabbed
her around the neck. He held her straight up the
air
,
where she
saw the trees and vines she
had
sent after
him
burning to the ground.

“Yes,
yes
.
You will do
well indeed, Druidess,” Eversor said and rubbed Haley’s
belly.

Eoghan and Caedmon pointed their
swords at Eversor. “Let her go.” Eoghan growled.

* * *

Breanna was a few minutes away from
Arras, thanks to Whisper. She heard the agonizing shrieks in her
head. Her stomach felt like it was being ripped apart from the
inside.

“Hurry, Whisper,” Breanna
urged as she almost fell off her horse. “Leora, I need
you
.
I cannot
help whoever is in there if I feel like this.”

Leora did as she was asked and the
pain vanished.

Suddenly, Whisper came to a dead stop
outside of the nemeton. The shrieks echoed through the woods and in
Bre’s mind. Clover sniffed the air and found a scent she
recognized.

Eoghan was here. He’s not
hurt
,
but he and
Druantia were definitely here
, Clover told
Bre psychically as she sniffed the ground.

Aurora walked around the entrance of
the nemeton.

There is blood in
there
:
so much
blood,
Aurora said
.

Whisper
became
jittery and
anxiously pranced around,
Something is
wrong. Two Celtic guards should have met us and brought us to the
residing Druidess. Something happened to the Druids
here
.

The screams intensified
and gave Bre a twinge of discomfort in her stomach. Leora quickly
erased the sensation. The sound of torture coming from a peaceful
place of worship made her nauseous without her empathic powers.
Frightened as she was, the need to find Eoghan and to help the
tortured
souls
overcame her fear and
turned
into determination.

* * *

What Bre saw in the
Nemeton made her vomit. Bodies of Celtic warriors layered the
ground of the beautiful grove. Sticky
,
crimson blood coated the earth and
trees. Bodies hung from tree canopies, impaled by the limbs. The
screams from the
women
made the scene all the more horrific.

“Whatever did this is not human,” Bre
said in disbelief. “Can you smell Eoghan?” Bre asked.

No
.
He could be
anywhere
, Clover broke the bad
news.

Bre stepped lightly and
respectfully over the dead as she walked through the nemeton. She
covered
her
face
with her sleeve, trying not to gag on the
thick,
metallic stench of blood and
decaying flesh. Every few steps she called out Eoghan’s name,
praying she would not find him among the dead. The longer she
walked without hearing Eoghan, the more her eyes watered and her
heart
sank
into
her stomach.

“Eoghan!” Bre cried. “Eoghan, please
answer me!”

“Breanna!
Bre
,
over here!”
Eoghan screamed, half
desperate
and half
elated
at seeing her again.

Eoghan’s voice filled her ears like
music. All noise around them silenced in her head…He was
alive.

Bre spotted him facing the
forest.

“
Eoghan! What happened?
Are you ok?” Bre ran to him and placed her hands on either side of
his face, caressing his skin with her thumb. She checked him
over
to make
sure
he was uninjured. She rambled on, throwing apologies in between
questions and hugs.

“Bre, it’s ok. I’m unharmed, but…”
Eoghan tried to cut her off but she kept apologizing.

After a moment,
Bre stopped talking,
realizing
something was wrong. He
did not hold her like he usually
did
when
greeting
her
. “Why aren’t you
moving?”

“Finally, she notices!” Caedmon
snapped angrily.

“It’s Eversor. He did
this. Hurry and break the spell he
cast
on us so we can help Haley,”
Eoghan demanded.

“Who is Haley?” Bre answered, slightly
jealous.

Suddenly, it was too
silent in the nemeton. The screaming had stopped.
Clover lifted her nose, sniffing the
air.

“Oh, gods no. Haley!” Caedmon called
out.

Chapter 28

Rebirth of the
Queen

“H
urry, Bre. Get us free,” Eoghan demanded.

“I don’t know how!” Bre said
frantically.

Tap into The Power you
experienced with the Birds of Elpis. Feel your power’s energy
course outward from your heart. Let its warmth fill you. Then say
the first thing
that
comes to your mind
, Cole’s voice
came to her rescue.

Apparently, our psychic
connection can travel far distances
, Bre
said, shocked by Cole’s sudden advice.

Bre followed Cole’s
instructions. Her power spread from her chest to her
limbs
,
then to
her head. It was peaceful, unlike before with the intense pressure
that broke her body. It felt perfect
:
perfectly hers. Unexpectedly, she
snapped her fingers and shouted
,
“
Saoirse
.
”

Free from their magical
binds, Eoghan and Caedmon sprinted
into
the woods.

As
Bre
was about to
follow
, a nasty snarl caused her to jump
and whip around.

“
Lupa!” shouted Bre,
surprised by the she-wolf
. She
ran towards her
and
without thinking twice, withdrew
her dagger and cut away the vines.

Once freed, Lupa lunged at
Bre, pinning her to the ground.
With
Lupa’s
Teeth inches from
Bre’s
face, Clover
slammed into
her
,
knocking her off Bre. Whisper reared and tried to knock
Lupa
out with his hoof
before she could get up.

Instead
, Bre called them off with a whistle and faced Lupa as she
snarled. Bre walked towards the wolf with her hands out until
finally close enough to touch her. Lupa cornered herself in between
two trees while trying to escape Bre.

Every time Bre moved to
touch
her
, Lupa
snapped at her hands. “Easy
.
I’m here to help you. I know how to help now,”
Bre said in a soothing voice.

Bre stepped closer and
Lupa lunged again, but Bre froze the wolf midair. She immediately
pet the top of her head soothingly. Bre pet the large wolf and
mumbled “
síochána
”
under her breath. The wolf’s eyes
rolled into the back of her head and she started
convulsing.

“It’s alright, Lupa. I’m here. You’ll
be ok now,” Bre continued to sooth her.

After a few more minutes, Lupa’s eyes
returned to a bright blue instead of liquid gold.

“Please let me down,” requested
Lupa.

Bre unfroze Lupa. Once on the ground,
Lupa showed her affection and appreciation by licking Bre’s face
and rubbing against her hands.

In all of her excitement
to save Lupa,
the
return of the screams went unnoticed
,
until the pain in her stomach
reappeared and forced her attention back to the woods. Bre sprinted
towards the dense woods but slid to a stop when two bodies flew out
from the trees. Eoghan and Caedmon slammed
face first into
the
ground.

“Eoghan!” Bre ran and
helped Eoghan to his feet. Her hand tightly
lingered
on his until he squeezed
back, signaling he was all right.

“It’s Haley, he’s torturing Haley in
there. We can’t get close enough to stop him,” Eoghan explained,
slipping his hand away from Bre’s comforting grasp.

“He has a shield charm around a cave
where he’s holding my sister,” Caedmon added.

“You keep mentioning this girl. Who is
she?” Bre asked, more concerned than jealous now.

“It will be easier to show you. Do you
remember what Brian did? How he shared his memories with you?”
Eoghan asked frantically.

“Yes, but I’m not sure how to do it,”
Bre felt awful that she might let Eoghan down.

“You don’t have
to
.
I can,”
Eoghan said, placing his hand on either side of her head and
closing his eyes.

Bre closed her eyes as
electricity shot through her body at Eoghan’s touch. All of
Eoghan’s memories from the past few hours flooded into her mind:
Eversor’s cabin in the woods where he hid Haley, the fight in the
nemeton, and how Haley single handedly trapped Eversor and Lupa
using her powers. That was all she needed to
know
,
but Eoghan
could not stop. He struggled against the pull of his powers that
surged into Bre’s mind, trying to withdraw his
fingers
;
but they
refused to release. The memories continued onto Eoghan’s arrival to
the nemeton and unfortunately, onto the intimate night he shared
with Haley.

Bre exhaled a jagged breath of
disbelief and pain at the image of Eoghan with another
woman.

Her powers raced to her
head, pushing
Eoghan’s hands
away and snapping
her
out of his memories. When they
opened
their
eyes,
they realized they
had been lip-locked the entire time. She
immediately retreated and prayed her tears went unnoticed. Eoghan
stared in shock and guilt.

“Bre
,
I’m so sorry. I never meant for
you to find out like that
.”
Eoghan extended a hand to soothe her but Bre
flinched, recoiling from his touch. Clover growled behind Bre.
Eoghan immediately retracted. “Bre…” he said her name
breathlessly.

“No worries,” Bre faked a smile. “It’s
your life. Besides, Druantia was here, a fertility goddess. The
whole camp succumbs to her powers, right?” Bre tried to convince
herself that it was nothing but Druantia’s spell over the nemeton.
She then remembered what his first concern was when she found
him…Haley.

Caedmon cleared his
throat
.
“You can
make up your mind whether you want my sister or this Etrusci
brat
after
we
save Haley from certain death.”

“Death? I was not going to kill this
precious flower,” Eversor said, dragging Haley by the arm next to
him. She struggled to keep pace with him, stumbling over her feet
as she cradled her enormously pregnant stomach with her free
hand.

Speechless, Caedmon and
Eoghan watched Eversor
force
Haley to sit the ground.

“What have you done to my sister?”
Caedmon shouted. He lunged at Eversor with his sword.

“No!” Haley, Eoghan, and
Bre shouted
in unison
, but nothing could deter Caedmon from attacking.