Chosen, p.11
Chosen, page 11
“Yooooou,” Azime whispered, her breath hot and as putrid as the rest of her body, “bitch!”
She slapped Kyana again, then stepped back and flung her hands in front of her. “You see what you’ve done? Look at me!”
This time, Kyana was ready for Azime’s fist. She stiffened her back, pressing her body against the chair. Braced, the impact barely moved her head at all. She stared up at Azime, focusing all her hatred on the living corpse, wishing she could project some piece of the goddess within her out and into the creature’s heart.
Once so beautiful as the Haseki Sultan, it had been hard to stare too long at Azime—her beauty nearly blinding. Now her outside was as filthy and rotted as her insides had always been. The stunning Mediterranean coloring had a greenish tint, her long, silky black hair matted and streaked with dusty gray. She looked so brittle, Kyana was surprised her hand hadn’t shattered upon impact with Kyana’s face.
She was the devil’s handmaiden. Just as she’d been in life.
“What are you?” she asked, revolted by the sight of the gaping hole in Mehmet’s cheek as he turned to look at his wife.
“More powerful in death than even in life,” Mehmet said. He leaned down and kissed the wife who’d beaten Kyana when she’d pleased their husband, and had nearly killed Kyana when she’d angered him.
Kyana caught a glimpse of blackened tongues stretching out from blacker mouths to touch one another and her gagging resumed. This time, she couldn’t control it. She vomited, the bile splashing onto Mehmet’s filthy robe.
Well, there was a little satisfaction at least.
Mehmet jerked away from his wife and backhanded Kyana, sending her chair toppling over. He pulled a wand from the sleeve of his robe. “Temizlemek!”
With his words, the vomit disappeared and understanding dawned on Kyana. Mages. They’d been risen as Mages and Cronos had made certain they’d become Dark.
“Did you think that killing us would keep us from your life?” He tucked the wand back into his sleeve and smiled. “He is raising only those he knows aren’t opposed to violence. He raised us because he knew we’d take great pleasure in being the ones to deliver unto him bas¸in.”
Your head.
Kyana flinched and tried to back away as he stepped even closer to right her chair.
“Seni sik,” she breathed, surprised at how easily the language of her human years came back to her.
“Tsk tsk.” Azime pulled a similar wand from her robe and held it in a hand that was missing its middle finger. “Such language for a wife of a prince. A pity to see all these years haven’t tamed your wild ways.”
Wild ways? When they’d known Kyana, she’d been docile and obedient and spineless. “Release me, and I’ll let you see for yourself how much your little whipping post has grown up.”
“Mm.” Azime’s smile revealed yellow teeth, and her black tongue flicked out to wet her dark, flaky mouth. “You killed us once. I knew it was a mistake to bring that bastard into our home. He changed you and you bit the very hands that kept you fed, you ungrateful hayvan.”
“Ah, she is no beast my love,” Mehmet said. “Merely an irrelevant pest I mean to squash.”
He slid his fingers down the shoulder of Kyana’s vest and pressed his nail to the seam, ripping the fabric in two.
“If I’m so irrelevant, why would Cronos bother raising you two just to come after a fucking mosquito?” The leather material slid into her lap, leaving her breasts bare and her skin icy. Kyana let her anger burrow into her marrow, warding off the fear that threatened to break her. “There’s a reason Cronos wants me out of the way.”
She watched him smile, watched Azime sneer. Kyana’s whole body trembled, but try as she might, she couldn’t lift a hand to cover herself. While nudity hadn’t been an issue in years, suddenly, she was a young girl preparing to be violated by the man she’d married all over again.
“Still so supple and young. I am almost pleased Henry betrayed my trust and made you his that night, for it kept you ripe and blooming for me today.”
He hunched over, dropping to his knees. Then the sickly sensation of heat on her breast, followed by sticky moisture, made Kyana scream out. He was suckling her, groping her like a sixteen-year-old virgin, his hands clumsy, his mouth too eager.
Kyana retched. Fought to pull away and cried out when she couldn’t.
She looked to Azime, praying the woman would be disturbed to see her husband so blatantly fondling another woman, but the bitch looked pleased. Her fingers dropped to cup her own breasts and her hips swayed back and forth in a mockery of love play.
“You’re fucking insane!” Kyana screamed.
Mehmet’s teeth pulled violently on Kyana’s nipple as he moved to his feet, taking the tattered remains of the vest with him, leaving her exposed and scared out of her mind. She’d have rather opened her eyes to see Cronos than these two. No Dark Breed ever created had the ability to shake the core of Kyana’s foundation as Mehmet and Azime.
“If you plan on killing me, get it over with,” she whispered.
“Not yet, hanim.”
“I am not your wife.”
“Ah, but you are and always will be. Immortality tends to bind marriage vows when till-death-do-you-part no longer matters.” He pointed his wand at her again, this time speaking some word that ripped her pants directly from her body in shredded ribbons onto the floor.
A look passed from Azime to Mehmet that fed Kyana hope. The old woman was getting irritated now. Apparently, fondling Kyana wasn’t as big a deal as Mehmet thinking of Kyana as his wife after all these years. Azime had loved being the Haseki Sultan, had loved being number one over Mehmet’s other wives. But she’d loathed sharing his titles and gold with the other girls.
The bed, sure. The power? Never.
Kyana focused on Azime, whose black and gray hair was tumbling from her ancient, broken combs to settle about her emaciated shoulders like a death shroud.
“You don’t want me in his life again, Azime. Why are you helping him?”
“You won’t be in his life again, whore. You’ll be dead as soon as—”
“Don’t spoil the surprise. He’ll be here soon enough.”
Cronos? Were they really waiting on Cronos?
The knots entangling Kyana’s guts gave a painful twist. If Cronos showed up here, fully in power or not, she was as good as dead. Whatever spell they’d used to bind her had made her so useless, she didn’t stand a chance.
“Cronos doesn’t scare me,” she bluffed, snatching Mehmet’s gaze with hers and pinning it in place by sheer will. “I’m surprised you let him control you. The husband I remember never obeyed anyone, and now you’re nothing more than a scion for a god you never prayed to.”
Mehmet simply grinned and leaned toward her, his rotting mouth brushing her ear. “I’m not obeying anyone, pet. This little reunion was my idea.”
He stepped back and pulled Azime into his arms. “Death does not stop the wish for revenge. Nor does it hinder the mind from planning just how your demise will be played out.”
Azime’s grin pulled her decaying flesh tight and caused the cartilage in her nose to shift at a grotesque angle. She pulled out her wand and waved it before Kyana. “Yer deg˘is¸tir.”
Before Kyana’s brain could translate the words, she found herself supine on a pile of musty blankets. She struggled to stand, to roll over, to shield herself from the hate-filled stares weighing her down. Her bare ass was cold despite the sweat breaking out all over her body.
“Oh, where is the hayvan now?” Azime gripped Kyana’s chin, tilted her head back.
Like the rest of her body, she suddenly had no control over her eyelids and she found herself staring once again at the pair. They wore matching evil leers as they glared at her with black eyes.
Azime reached around her husband and unfastened his cloak, letting it fall to the floor. “After much debate, we agreed that you should leave this world as you were meant to over two hundred years ago. This time when you’re left bleeding and broken, there will be no one to save you. This time when the demons come to claim your soul, it will be the savior of your past leading the way.”
Kyana didn’t need them to fill in the gaps. She would be beaten, raped, and tortured, just as she’d been the night Henry had turned her. And when they tired of the game and left her bleeding in a corner, no one would care. There was no one to save her, and for once in her new life, she was unable to save herself.
She always thought that when it was time to face her final death she’d do so on her feet fighting. Not once had she dreamed that the evil killing her would be the very two people who’d destroyed her life the first time.
A long, slow creaking caused chills to slither over her naked shin. Somehow she managed to find the will to fight Mehmet’s command and squeeze her eyes tightly closed. If she would have an audience when she died, she certainly didn’t want to see in their eyes that her violation had entertained them.
“Come now, Kyana, greet our guest with the respect he deserves.”
It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.
Kyana struggled to wake up. This had to be a dream. That was all. It was the worst, most vivid nightmare of her life. When she woke, Ryker would be there beside her, ready to hold her tightly and offer to share the horrors with her if she’d only let him.
But she knew when she opened her eyes, it wouldn’t be Ryker’s arms around her, it would be Mehmet’s. His rancid breath would burn her skin. His rotting member would defile her. He’d enter her and she’d die, slowly, painfully rotting away from the inside out.
As if reading her thoughts, Azime cackled. “Open your eyes.”
When Kyana didn’t obey, Mehmet’s sharp voice pierced her ears. “Now.”
Her eyes snapped open. Then an invisible hand gripped her chin and she found her head slowly turning toward the entrance through no effort of her own. Now it wasn’t the potion they’d given her that held Kyana numb. It was sheer disbelief.
“Henry.” His name tumbled from her lips in a whisper of uncertainty. His presence was familiar. His dark eyes, his long brown hair. But the aura around him was different, the stooped shoulders, the hollow gaze.
Slowly, that gaze fell upon her, and she found herself looking into the eyes of her Sire. Yes, it was him. But the dark glare searing her skin like a laser no longer belonged to the Vampyre Half-Breed she’d loved more than her own human kin. It wasn’t kind, or soft, or looking upon her with love and care. It was hard and menacing and peering down at her like she was a feast to be enjoyed.
He wasn’t on her team anymore.
Kyana couldn’t control the shaking that started at her toes and ended at the roots of her hair. Tears burned hot trails down her cheek. She now knew what Azime meant by the savior of her past.
The man who had created her would now be the one who murdered her.
Chapter Sixteen
Kyana imagined there were a lot of people standing in line to send her to Hell, but not Henry. He’d seen the goodness in her, had brought her back from the edge of darkness and had given her the light she’d lived by as a Dark Breed working for the Order of Ancients. If she had to die, she did not want her death to be at the hands of the only man she’d ever considered true family.
Henry’s steps on the wooden floor were heavy and hesitant. His flesh looked cracked and frail, but not falling from his bones like Mehmet and Azime’s, and he was still wearing the tattered remains of the silk and leather she’d buried him in.
“This isn’t real. You’re not real. None of you are real!” The accusations spilled from Kyana’s lips in a frantic screech. She no longer cared if they saw her panic, her fear. She only cared about waking up and forgetting this had ever popped into her morbid imagination.
“Is it not fitting that the man who’d betrayed me in one lifetime would be the one to give me back all that was taken in this one?” Mehmet circled his bony arm around Henry’s shoulder.
Kyana spat at his face, which wasn’t easy given the lack of moisture in her mouth.
Mehmet wiped the spittle from his cheek with the back of his hand, looking unfazed by Kyana’s show of defiance. “As his Mages, we have the power to become who we were before you so savagely murdered us. All we need is the blood of our murderer. Your blood.”
Kyana was too afraid to focus on Henry and see as much hatred staring down at her from him as was coming from her captors. If she could only move her damned hands or feet. She was supposed to go out fighting! Not laying naked and paralyzed on dirty blankets in the middle of gods-knew-where, held hostage by her own damned nightmares!
Swallowing her tears seemed to lubricate her throat enough to offer back a bit of her voice. “I should have cut off your damned heads when I had the chance.”
Henry had stopped her. Hadn’t allowed her to rip them to shreds after her feeding frenzy had caused her to drain every drop of blood in their bodies. Look what that mistake was costing her now.
Damn them all!
Kyana didn’t see the fist in time to brace herself. The blow to her jaw rattled her teeth and split her lip. Warm blood trickled over her cheek to pool beneath her ear and run down her neck. Now that she had better control over her panic, she’d be damned if she let them know how much pain a simple fist to the face caused her. She stared stoically up at Azime, who lowered her fist to snatch Kyana by the hair and jerk her neck backward.
“We end her life now.”
“No.” Mehmet pried his wife’s fingers from Kyana’s head and shoved her behind him. “I want the revenge I’ve dreamed of for over two hundred years. Then, to make it sweet justice for you, the one who gave her the power to destroy us will end her life.”
“I don’t care about justice, koca. I want her dead. Now!”
Mehmet struck her. A slab of flesh slid off the bone beneath Azime’s eye and plopped onto the shabby collar of her robe. She raised a shaking hand to cover the gaping hole in her face, and Kyana swore that if looks could kill, Mehmet would have just found his second death.
“Do not forget your place,” Mehmet said, the words bringing back a flood of memories Kyana didn’t want to relive. Her place. His place. A man’s wife in their time was no better than chattel, no better than the dog that pissed in the corner. Step out of line and pain would follow. Or starvation. Or death. “She will die when I say.”
Kyana felt the burning sensation of being watched. Slowly, she lifted her head to find Henry’s gaze locked on her. The blackness of his eyes wavered from lifelessness to the bright green she remembered them to be, before fading once again to black. Since he was newly turned, and lacking a conscience, the acts he was witnessing shouldn’t have any emotional effect on him. However, the tight lines around his mouth suggested he didn’t want to do what his instincts demanded.
Kyana held his gaze, pleading silently with him to find the inner strength that had given him control over the beasts of his lineage so many years ago. The man who had offered her salvation before resurrecting her. Who’d taught her how to tame her own monster and live a seminormal life.
The man who had shown her the first bit of kindness she’d ever known.
Henry’s eyes softened again, lightened to green.
“You don’t want to do this, Henry. You’re a Novus again. Whatever you do now will determine if you walk in the light or forever in the dark. You told me those very words once. Don’t you remember?”
Henry hissed, his fangs grazing his lip, but he said nothing.
“Think to sway him?” Mehmet taunted. “Think you’re more powerful than the very soul who raised him? I think you’re in for a disappointment. I think you shall see where his loyalties now lie.”
Kyana didn’t look away from Henry. He was reposturing, adjusting his stance. He was going to attack her and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.
He lunged. Kyana turned her head and braced for impact. A scream broke her rigid posture, forcing her eyes open. Henry stood in front of her, and a bright light shot from his hand and hit Mehmet in the center of his decaying chest, pinning him to the wall.
“Go,” he growled.
It took Kyana a second to realize Henry was talking to her. Hope lit her up from the inside out and her heart gave a slight tug of relief. He was coming back to her. He wasn’t completely lost yet.
She tried to sit up, to stand, but still her body refused to obey her commands. “I can’t.”
His growl turned into a low rumble. Azime launched herself at him, her roar splitting the silence.
Henry easily sidestepped the attack without releasing Mehmet from the powerful beam of light. His mouth moved, but Kyana could hear nothing from his lips. Azime froze, her hands outstretched in claws. Before Kyana could digest the power her old Sire now wielded, he reached out with his free hand to grab Azime by the throat.
With a snarl, he tightened his fist and lifted her off the floor. When she was eye-level, he shook her like the clichéd rag doll. The nauseating sound of bone and muscle being ripped apart was the only noise that filled the room for several seconds before the thump-thump of Azime’s body falling in two different directions brought silence.
The light holding Mehmet to the wall was so powerful that all he could do was gurgle his outrage. Henry closed the distance, the light centered in Mehmet’s chest causing his bones to smoke.
Kyana could only watch in morbid fascination. Her Vampyre/Lychen Sire seemed to have been given some Mage juice with his reincarnation.
Big mistake, Cronos. Big mistake.
Standing chest to chest with Mehmet, Henry reached into the prince’s sleeve and stole his wand. He flicked it toward Kyana so quickly, she flinched and looked away, certain she was about to experience severe pain. Instead, a tingling sensation crept down her thighs and filled her calves, inching toward her toes until she was able to move her feet.
