“He stands there,” Reveca said staring at the waters.
Slowly, King followed her gaze and found nothing.
“Reveca,” he said quietly.
She swayed her head in stubborn frustration. “He died on purpose, died to be here today, he says.”
“There is no one there, Reveca.”
She slowly looked up at him. “They are all there.”
King gently crouched at her side. “Who is they?”
“My parents,” she said smugly. “I’m surprised I’ve held their attention this long. I can see them both yearning to ask after Saige, their favorite. My grandparents...Zale’s family, Windsome’s...all of them.”
King’s hand gently moved to her back and glided down to the small of it. Subtly he was trying to restore her vim, to give her the strength for the judgment he now knew she was already facing. It didn’t work, proof she was further from him than he’d ever want her to be.
“Fuckers,” Reveca said sullenly.
“Reveca, do you know how you got here?”
King needed to know what power brought her out of his protection, who and what led her into the grips of Scorpio’s Throng. Revenge would never take away this travesty, but it would appease King, if only for a moment and when it was over, it would all go down in the history books to help the next fools slated to save the world.
“You left me here,” she said through gritted teeth. “Why?” she asked looking up at him. “Why would you not just believe that I had a way out. I had a solution that would work?”
“Any solution involving Revelin is no solution at all.”
“You know nothing.”
Fighting with her was easy but not something he wanted to do with this time they had. What choice did he have? None. If she understood what had happened, judgment would rip her away. At the very least he needed her to approach a throne of such with far less anger in her vim. She’d get further with remorse, true bone deep remorse.
King cast his cursory gaze over the swamp then stood to his towering height. “I know you’re stubborn. All in or all out. It’s a flaw that has stopped you from ruling flawlessly.”
Reveca was on her feet and face to face with him in the next beat. “And are you not? No...you are more of an ‘only in it if I can win it,’ kinda guy, no need to take risks that might turn the tide, shake a few things.”
She sneered at him. “Because of you and your prison, I’m haunted now. Was it a spell you used or have these spirits waiting for their chance to have one last blow?”
King glanced to the waters, so much for revenge. His quick mind had already assumed Reveca didn’t kill whomever she thought she did as a girl, but instead they’d waited for her judgment to come, wanted to teach her one last lesson. So far King was not a fan of any skills the ass had.
“What you are fighting now happened before I came, Reveca. I didn’t bring it to your doorstep. Maybe you should wonder why your roots are reaching out to you now. Maybe they were waiting on today. Your day. Perhaps they knew they should stand as reminders before you sacrificed it all.”
She stormed away from the shore flipping it off as she did so. “I’m fighting everything and everyone at once.” She ticked her head back at the water. “Those fucks slammed the door in my face.”
“You were trying to go home...” King said trying to piece together all she had been through without her reliving it in her mind.
She glanced up at him as she stomped her way through the swamp. “I came through the springs. I should’ve known better. Now they can all fuck with me at will.” She stopped short. “It’s anyone’s guess as to what is true and what is not.”
Her shoulder nudged him. “You’re not.”
“I am very real,” the hint of seduction in his baritone voice threatened to show her how real he was. When not a single wave of anticipation spiked the air, King felt his faith for the right outcome dwindle a bit more.
Reveca’s grin was cold, calculated. “No, you’re not. Pricus, you can hide behind his image all you want, but you will never be my King. That much of what you said was true—a better male was meant for me.” Reveca moved a few more paces before she spoke again. “When King is close my soul has a rich vibration, each step closer the deeper the vibration. One look in his eyes and I feel my being churn with expectation. We’re real, ugly, and beautiful, strong and weak, short tempered and patient.”
She eyed him. “I feel nothing now.”
If King didn’t understand the dynamics of dying and judgment he might have felt the blow of her words, instead he kept to his ways offering her a slow smirk as he easily kept her stride.
“You must have been watching him for a while to master his demeanor so well.” She laughed. “I suppose when you are dead you have little else to do but watch.”
“Where are you going?” King asked.
“To my legions. I have a task for them.”
“And what is that?”
“To kill you.”
King halted her with his essence. Reveca felt the power of his hold, but nothing more, not a single hint of recognition struck her gaze.
“What?” Reveca said with a growl. “Enough is enough. These games you play are not making me feel guilty they are ticking me off. Keep pushing me, and I will destroy this world and laugh as I watch it burn.”
Pain that could not be described ripped through the center of King’s chest. What do you do, what do you say, when someone you love more than your soul is on a self-destructive path...and the closer you come, the faster they run into doom.
King had no idea what this Pricus had shown her or said to her, but Reveca was right, he was pushing every wrong button of hers. She wasn’t even trying to give reason to her evil thoughts.
“It’s me, Reveca,” King said at last. “If you can believe Pricus has altered your reality, then you can believe the impact I make on you is shrouded now.”
Her cold expression went unchanged as she leered at him.
“I thought I was keeping you safe from yourself. I wasn’t gone long at all,” King said.
“Is he alive?” Reveca asked.
Who? That was the simple question that flashed in King’s expression.
“King. I felt him...I felt the drain of power.” Her eyes watered. “If the answer is no then why don’t we just stop playing games? I’ll tell you I’m sorry, even though you know my actions were just, then you take me to wherever our souls are meant to rest.”
“It was Dagen,” King rasped.
Reveca drew her brow together in dismay. “Who?” she raged.
Who did he say or who hurt Dagen? Either question, either answer, would only add to the fury of the night.
“Dagen, I cut his wings. Sven is in his place now.”
Reveca’s laugh began with a subtle smile. “Now I know for sure you are false. Dagen and King are one unit, a force that makes the greatest beings tremble when faced with their audacity alone.”
King dropped his head, loosened his grip on Reveca just a bit. “I told you I forgot who I was when I was with Revelin, we all did. It was the only way to survive. I gave Dagen a new identity when he landed in my cell. Taking care of him got me through the tough of it.” He paused letting his emotions balance out. “I didn’t know what I was banishing from his mind.”
“I’m dying of suspense,” Reveca said coldly. Only because he knew her so well, he saw the doubt emerge in her gray stare.
“He’s in Scorpio’ s Throng.”
Reading her stare, feeling the fight she would use against his hold on her only to let it recede was maddening. One second he was sure she believed him, the next he saw her wall of defense raise once more.
“Are you trying to tell me you killed him for me?”
Dagen wasn’t gone, he came close, any closer and King himself would have tracked him down and kicked his ass, Dagen came back. Wherever he was he more than likely was feeling a bit hung over and jaded.
How to answer Reveca? Would she be
lieve a yes, or would it only push her to hold fast to her claim on him being an illusion?
“He wished to be free,” is what King settled on. It was somewhere between the truth and a lie. Dagen didn’t wish to be free. He wished he was never put in the situation in the first place.
“To what end?” Reveca asked failing to hide the sense of failure in her tone. “Is he after my head now, too.”
“He’s after his heart,” King answered letting her go, he knew she would not storm away from him now. She’d either stay to comfort him or stay to try and understand what the illusion she thought she was in was trying to tell her.
Hatred flooded her expression. “Toril will not rest until I am destroyed, and now when she fails to reach me, she seeks to hurt the ones I love.” The vengeance dripping from her tone was not the road King wanted her to take.
“Toril cannot control who is in her Throng, or how they were taken from her.”
“That’s it, isn’t it,” Reveca said with hazed over stare. “It’s my fault, I’m sure. I did something that made a fucking butterfly flap its wings, and then BOOM—Toril lost a warrior and now has me to blame.”
King didn’t have the pleasure or curse, whichever it was, of meeting Toril to know how far or close Reveca was at pegging her temperament. But he had his doubts Reveca was anywhere close. By all accounts, Toril was the mate to Scorpio, the primordial of the group. The mate to such a male would have sight that would reach forward and backward through generations. The short of it was they didn’t have the time to be spiteful; there was too much they needed to understand. Historically, they had always been the kindest, the ones who knew the burden of sacrifice and the weight of emotions in the deepest of ways.
“Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t...”
His easy agreement had her craning her neck back ever so slowly. He could see the war of her mind play out on her even expression. She wanted to believe he was real, needed to, but was wise enough not to let herself go too far in any direction.
“If you were real...” she said quietly. “I’d tell you that you didn’t lose him. I’d tell you that life can change in any way it wants, be as cruel or kind as it chooses, but it can never take a bond away unless you chose to let it go.”
King cleared his throat and forced himself to hold her stare. Ready or not he had to talk about this, if only for the sake of gaining her trust and pulling more of this side of her to the surface, the side where her compassion rests. The side that was truly her. “I did let him go. I’m sure you felt as much.”
Reveca’s lower lip trembled, but she held her stubborn stance. “Could you not give me a chance to right the wrongs before you toss our names into the sacrificial pit? Have we not suffered enough?”
King moved forward. His hands trembled minutely as they rested on her arms then slowly traced down them. “Audacious plays for power have a short lifespan. I trust you, Reveca. I trust you with everything and everyone, but yourself. Not now, at least. Not until you have the time to exercise the strength you need to manage the power between us.”
Her upper lip barely hitched into a weak grin. “I’m not crazy,” her quick glance toward the fog-laced waters cast doubt over her words. “I did nothing to stroke Toril’s ire. She has been after my head from day one. Her actions pushed me.”
“You cannot blame her for what you have done during your life.”
“She’s the cause to my effect,” Reveca argued.
“You were not well before her,” King said unable to hide the jealousy and wrath in his eyes.
“Right,” Reveca said easily. “If there is one thing you and Talon have always agreed on it was that Zale was an asshole.” She lifted her chin. “I’ve known him longer than both of you. I knew the boy before the man. Right or wrong, it happened. I’ll tell you like I told Talon, it was the power that seduced me, not him.”
“You’re right.”
She swayed her head as she broke her stare with him. “I’m not drunk on power. I’m trying to save my life, King’s life, my families.”
“I am King,” he whispered pulling her body closer to his.
“And what is it that you want from me, King? To laugh and fuck my way to my final days? Am I to lie down and take the punishment.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” she snapped.
“What do you want me to say? No?”
“It would be nice,” she leered. “I knew you to be false.”
“You know me to be true by my answer.”
“As if Pricus would not tell me to take my punishment,” she countered.
“Can’t speak for him. But I can speak as a soul that has lived as long as you. I can tell you that I have been destroyed and reborn, and each time it doesn’t get easier, the pain is the same. The regret is the same,” he eased closer. “The difference after...is that I understand my actions may be absolved from one branch of existence to another, but they will never leave me.”
Reveca stared him down then spoke. “I’ll answer, sure enough. When it is my time. This is not my time.” She eyed him. “What?”
“No being knows their time until it is over.”
“My point exactly,” she yelled in the direction of the water. In the next beat, she was marching toward where a cluster of Sons had set up a command center.
“Where are you going?” King asked at her side.
“I told you, to give out orders.”
“And what do you think the Sons can do to help you with Toril.”
“They’ve always been great hunters,” she said with a sly grin. “Some are better sailors.”
“Sailors.”
“You heard me. Scorpio thinks I am oblivious, most of the Sons do. They can assume to hide what they want from me. My truth is I will always keep watch over what I deem precious.”
“You’re family.”
“They are on my short list now,” she said with a slanted grin. “But they are still loyal enough to me to retrieve a weapon that was misplaced.”
“What weapon?” King asked hating the dread spilling into him.
“One I created long ago with your power, a perfect alignment in the heavens, and the untapped source of the Veil.” She sneered. “I was trying to make a weapon to slay a god with. Never had the chance to test the fucker.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I do know it will take down immortals with one slice. I’m sure Toril would not mind allowing me to see how it fairs on Throng members.”
“Where is it?” King asked quickly.
“Ah, so eager. Why? If you were my King, you could go to where I know it to be and bring it back in a beat.”
“If I were your King, I would retrieve it, and then I’d hide it where it could never be found.”
His truth stalled her steps.
“You don’t know where it is, do you?” King said shortly.
“I know where it fell, miles of water would impair me from tracking it.”
“Water,” King repeated.
Reveca never said a word. Yes, she knew like King that water was the most powerful element, that it lurked inside everything and everyone, unlike the other elements. Yes, she knew that even if she sent her Sons on a deep-sea diving mission, they could come up empty handed. None of that mattered. What mattered was that she was doing everything in her power to defend her life.
“What else are you going to say to the Sons,” King asked deciding not to push her. Going toward the Sons was a far safer direction than her marching toward Talon and Saige.
“And what do you, Pricus, think I should say to my abominations? Guess what fellas, were all about to die! Nope, I can’t do shit. My ancestors found me to be easy prey after King locked me up right when I was on the cusp of saving all our asses.”
King stopped her, then boldly looked down at her. “You need to speak to them as if you will never speak again. You need to look at them as if it is the last time.”
“Why is that?” she chided.
“Because it is.”
&nbs
p; Her emotions dropped so swiftly, without warning that the air reacted, turning cold with her—tiny particles of ice floated around the swamp air that they were standing in.
She had never looked more beautiful to him...
Season Three: Volume Three
Episode Eleven
Chapter One
Talon could not count the number of prisons he had been in across his life, most were a joke that only held him for moments at a time, some a bit longer, more so than not by his choice. It’s easier to learn shit about your enemy when they think you are conquered and your living days are numbered. All prisons, no matter their purpose, had a system that could be worked.
Talon wasted no time finding one in the one he was in. He’d marched around the perimeter twice over, and had taken note of where everyone was, along with all the new people he knew nothing about. The phoenixes were the easiest to reason with. Talon could not get River’s new boy toy to even look his way much less barter. Then another one showed, one they called Phoenix, he was a hard ass. But in the end, he and Talon saw eye to eye, and the flaming bird of an alpha found Judge and brought him back to Talon.
As far as Talon was concerned he was not breaking any rules. He hadn’t left the swamp, Judge had not left the swamp, done and done.
“What the fuck,” Judge said looking back into the darkness of the swamp, two seconds before a man was there, an extremely old being that didn’t care if Judge danced all around in his mind or not.
“It’s a shield or some shit,” Talon said.
Judge thumbed toward the emptiness. “Can he hear us?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
“Maybe you should, that dude is hooked up with the Queen of Grief, maybe soon to be queen. Either way, they dig grief and are in tight with the Reaper. Not good mojo for what we have going on.”
“What’s going on out there?” Talon asked trying to read Judge. It was harder than it should be, Judge was a bit in awe at the moment.
“A lot of nothing right now. Akan is close. I swear I can feel the fucker staring me down, or at least I could,” he said eyeing the unseen barrier once more. “Rush is with Talley. The dead are not doing much at all. They are all just kinda staring us down, waiting. It’s the waiting that is fucked up about it.”