“More than you can repay,” he said at length.
“You have no idea what I am capable of.”
“Ignorance, brashness and let’s not forget stubbornness.” Scorpio eyed her coldly. “To say the least, I’m not impressed by any talents you have presented thus far.”
She thrashed her vim at him, which was a pointless move because he didn’t even bother to wince.
“You are young,” he said through clenched teeth. “Left untrained in all that you should know. Striking another on every emotion? Letting power control you? Taking without the respect of balance? All of this will consume you and those with you one day.”
Today Reveca knew everything he said then was the truth. Back then it was blasphemy!
“You smug heathen, you know nothing of me. What I have lived through, what I have accomplished. I save souls. Your soul I’m rather regretting.”
Scorpio stepped up to her and then leveled his stare down so that it slammed into her gray eyes. “I wasn’t the one dying,” she could see the restraint his expression. “And now because of you, I’m cursed as well.” He stared at her then swayed his head to ward off whatever thought he had. “Witchling, you have an attraction to my Throng, one by one you taint or slay us. For now, we live in peace.”
Throng? What in the fates...
“For now,” she repeated before her thoughts took down a twisted analyzing path.
“Aye,” he said as he stepped back. “You may have taken, but you have also reunited. Where we go from here is yours to say.”
In the end Scorpio had his way, the battle he wanted was fought. Reveca shadowed him the entire time knowing he was hungry for something inside. Once it was over, she watched him carry the body of a girl their age off into the fog-drenched morning.
It was an entire year before they saw him again. A day later was when he drugged her, and she woke to battle Toril. Bitch.
Reveca searched for a single clue on what he could be or what he meant when he attacked her in the woods.
The dead shied from her questions. Other witches, far newer than her, swore actions like his were the mark of evil— a cunning and twisted vile being. It was Jamison who shed the light and true fear she needed.
Jamison was the only member of the coven who actively sought to find Reveca. He was also the only one who did not shame her from her new found ‘hobby’ of rectifying the dead. He would arrive, share a meal or two, and make his acquaintances with those he knew and create an accord with those he didn’t.
Reveca had never said a word to him about her troubles with Scorpio. She had even gone as far to ask Talon to send Scorpio and others off on a mission when she sensed Jamison’s arrival encroaching. “Are you a fool woman, the least I trust is your coven. My strongest will stand as a protector.”
When Jamison arrived Reveca settled into the known brooding she took on when he was about, the rudeness allowed her to divert Jamison away from Scorpio for much of the first few days. On the third day, however, when she watched Jamison approach and extend a hand to Scorpio and both males were in full recognition of each other, she knew she was screwed. Not much, if anything, made it past her adoptive brother, a male who had his own host of mysterious powers and knowledge.
“You are in grave danger,” Jamison said to her once he managed to lure Reveca far from the others and their senses that could over hear them.
“I’m handling my business.”
“And by handling do you mean rattling other gods in hopes that they will slay the one you despise?”
Reveca stilled as she weathered a chill that always traced down her spine as the memory of Revelin and what he took from her would slam into the forefront of her mind.
“Scorpio is no god, he is a fallen warrior with the mark of fire within,” she tossed a smug glance his way. “Clearly fire intimidates you, brother.”
She could never figure out what bothered Jamison more, who she brought back, or that she did it in the first place. Jamison had already given her the danger speech when he first met Talon. Of all the warriors, this one? He’d asked dumbfounded.
“It is not the fire you need to have angst for.”
“And what is it then?” It was extraordinarily hard to hide her burning curiosity.
“The Throng.”
She gritted her teeth then faced him, knowing now without a doubt Jamison was schooled on everything she needed to know.
“I know you strive to forget your homeland,” Jamison began. “But now is not the time, surely you remember your father speaking of them.”
For Creator’s sake, she hated it when he did that! When Jamison was not close, it was easy to forget all that existed outside of the world she built for herself. If she had a gift, it was burying her past so deeply that nothing could summon it to the surface.
“Let me school you then, sister,” Jamison said as his expression turned to stone. “A Throng is the last shred of proof that we are so far down the wrong path that extinction is closer than thriving.”
Reveca paced as trickles of lessons she learned as a small girl flipped through her mind. It was a far-reaching grasp, though she was a pro at pushing down things she’d rather not think of, she did know for sure that once the wars began when she was barely five, her father never spoke of any such thing as a Throng.
“An evil proof?” she prodded.
He swayed his head in dismay. “To some fools, it may seem that way on the surface.”
I knew it!
“Far from such,” Jamison said easily completely deflating all Reveca’s sprouting plans to destroy Scorpio. “A Throng is a group of souls that sense each other, who can visit each other. They are closer than any lovers, or family. They are one.”
She fisted her hands. “How many,” she pushed wanting to know exactly what she was against. This was all making sense. She had been striking Scorpio with the power to take down one immortal, now she hears this. What if she should have been using the power to take down many? Were their many? Did she have that kind of power?
“Varies, as small as two as many as two dozen.”
“Can you tell how many Scorpio is connected to?” she asked in her own willful, yet hopeful way.
“I can tell he’s grieving.”
Guilt slammed into her chest as she recalled the accusation that Scorpio had laid at her feet. She turned sharply and looked into Jamison’s eyes searching for truth. “Is that the secret to destroying them? Take the others down?”
Shock lit his eyes. “Why in Creator’s sake would you want to destroy him?”
She said nothing.
“Because you can’t control him,” Jamison surmised.
She didn’t bother to give him the glory of knowing that was honest to the Creator’s truth.
“Reveca, are you sure he was the one you brought back? The one who was dying?”
At this, she was more than intrigued. “It was his body.”
“Was he present in his body? Was his body damaged?”
“You’re talking like a mad man.”
“No, I’m speaking as a schooled witch to a witch who should be as well. Throngs are empathic. They feel others emotions as their own, but those in their Throng are felt intimately. If a soul in his Throng were hurt, his soul would have gone to them, he would have helped them. If they were hurt, he would have felt the pain as they did.”
She lifted her chin. “Are Throngs made of fire?” It was a legit question. She remembered very little of what her father said of them, but now, as the moments ticked by she was sure all he had said had been fantasy. The temples and beautiful gardens were built for those beings. It was said they would know your heart and defend your soul. Scorpio may haven been a proud male, but he was not nearly the size of the gods her people had built those places for.
“No, but fire makes sense.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s godly; it’s creation and it’s destruction.”
“Are you calling my male a god?” s
he asked with a wry smile. She loved to parade her bad boy Talon before her coven. A dare she took and would take again.
Jamison said nothing, not because she had him outwitted, but because he was in his own thoughts. “Reveca, you may have saved him from death as you believe, but you may have very well saved someone else or—,” he stopped in mid-thought trying to untangle every way Reveca could have aggravated the wrong magic.
“Killed them,” Reveca finished easily, though on the inside she was grieving for an unknown soul.
“Perhaps.”
“You’re twisting my mind, Jamison. I saved someone. If they are all connected, would I not have saved them all?”
“Their awareness and senses are connected on a universal plane, but they are their own souls,” he swayed his head as his shoulders fell.
“What? What is it this time?” she asked shortly.
“Your father was sure they had all fallen, and because they had, your world was destroying itself as due punishment.”
Reveca stared, it was as close as she could get to asking him to explain further. Her stubbornness was iron clad.
Jamison grunted a curse then sat down on a fallen limb and searched his memory; the break in his calm was stirring anxieties Reveca didn’t even know she had.
“They were greatness,” he said at length. “Just imagine sensing every soul, feeling how you impact them emotionally, physically. Do you honestly think you would still charge into battle every other day if you could feel the pain of those you slay?”
“You said they were in groups. I fight groups. Ignorant ones who feel the need to take more than they give.”
“They are in groups, and at one point they were growing not shrinking. It was when they shrank, when there was a lack of cohesiveness, that our world began to crumble.”
She crossed her arms, “So it is not all rainbows and sunshine in the Throng?”
Sorrow struck his tone. “At one time, Throngs had members in every dimension, it is the reason you find so many similarities in lore and civilization. They were tainted, and then hunted. A threat that had to be handled before the rise of others.”
Reveca jarred back as a sick sensation filled her. “Dark gods.”
Jamison nodded reverently. “Throngs are the balance. Enforcers who would sense gods invoking emotions instead of taking the burden. Outside of the Creator, they were the only ones who could stop the invasion of devastating emotions drowning the mortals.”
“How?” Reveca asked struggling to understand. “How did the gods destroy them?” A better question was how did any of them survive?
Her gut twisted as her mind flashed back to the darkest day of her life. Her people knew the dark god Revelin, a curse never spoken of, a devil that was better left not thought of. The very idea there was an immortal in Reveca’s camp with the power to put a god like Revelin in his place that favored a female who had vowed to destroy her was what nightmares were made of.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend...” Jamison said quietly as he read Reveca’s expression flawlessly. “In time, when the gods take the battlefield, beings like Scorpio are ones you want to be allies with.”
Reveca gritted her teeth. Believing in some doomsday battle of the gods, the dark angels and their armies was all childish lore. There was no such thing in her mindset. Not then.
Nothing about this sounded awesome to Reveca. The last thing she needed was someone under her command who could sense all she strived to keep hidden. And someone she could not defeat? No, this could not happen!
“You place too much confidence in me, brother. I do not care to prepare for a war that has nothing to do with me.”
Jamison stepped up to her, placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned his head down. “If you could aid them with your magic blindly, imagine what you could do when trained and asked to help.”
In her mind, she heard the accusations of Scorpio, saying how she harmed. Not once had he proclaimed she had displayed an appeasing power that any Throng would utilize.
“I can not,” she said under her breath. “I will not let a threat linger.” Not with the curse Toril spoke.
“Has Scorpio threatened you? Talon allowed it?” His words dripped with doubt.
Reveca grunted in frustration. “Scorpio has never settled well with me. He is more comfortable with Talon and the warriors.”
“Then he is a friend, and for now you need to ensure he stays that way.”
“It is not him that worries me, it is the female I saw him with.”
Jamison leaned his head back in suspicion. “And why does this female trouble you?”
Reveca refused to say she was jealous or even the slightest concerned that another with power could turn Talon from her. “Territorial issue, clearly she sensed my power, and she came anyway.”
Carefully Jamison stepped closer. “Did you fight with her?” his eyes begged for her to say no, even though he already knew the truth. “You’re standing. What did she say to you? How did she leave this quarrel?”
‘With a curse of my foretold demise’ was not something she could say. If she did, she would give the words power and emotion. It was best to forget them in her mindset.
“Reveca this is serious.”
“Why do you fear them?” she yelled.
“I respect them, I only fear you have tarnished the peace they offer.”
She shook her head in denial. “You want me to bow and humble my power before these beings that were mere fairy tales in our homeland? The failures who left the gateways to evil wide open?”
“I want you to respect them. They never bother to speak without reason, even you do not understand their reason.”
Silence lingered in the woods around them as they both sorted their thoughts. “What did you sense when you met Scorpio, how did you know?” she asked.
“His power,” Jamison said easily.
“You truly consider him unconquerable?”
“I can not say,” he glanced at Reveca. “The power was more of a memory. I have no doubt at one time his Throng had to have been impressive.”
Her lip trembled no matter how much she tried to look unbothered, but this was a mess—a hell waiting for a reason to absorb her and the life she had tried to build for herself.
Jamison stood. “I’d advise you to rectify your discord with Scorpio, and with haste. A soul like his in your ranks is precious when he walks with you, if against you—you will need all of us to defend this beast you have awakened.”
***
At King’s side staring out at the broken temples and overgrown gardens, Reveca felt the shame and fear once again that Jamison had made her realize so long ago.
“Why did you curse one of your own?” King asked evenly.
He was only replying to her statement that she had watched Scorpio withstand curses that should have broken him. It took her a moment to even hear the question, her mind was still in the past, recounting her steps.
Once she knew what Scorpio was, she knew what to look for and how to react. When she presented Scorpio with her clear-cut knowledge of what he was, he still looked at her like she was a fool, and refused to tell her anything about those he was connected to. To her, his silence meant he was not only from a powerful Throng, but also that he was a target for the dark gods she’d rather avoid.
With power, there are often choices you must make that seem heartless and cold from varying points of view. All Reveca knew was she could not stand by and watch her newly created family be ripped from her all for the sake of one warrior she should have never saved.
At first, she tried to turn the others against him. It was a fool’s plight because Talon had an accord with Scorpio that rattled every jealous bone Reveca had. Next, she moved on to cursing him with magic—he never fell ill or wavered with poor luck. She’d hide the Sons with an illusion spell. Scorpio always found them. Finally, she had no choice but make him less pleasing to all the dark gods.
To do so, she had to slay his
Throng.
The task took the darkest of magic. It was difficult to curse the members of his Throng that she’d never crossed, thousands of miles from her if not in a different dimension altogether. But she did. And each of the two times she did strike, Scorpio not only knew, but also nearly robbed her of her immortal life; at least he made her wish for death.
The male had his own source of magic, and it was powerful enough to drain her, to fill her with madness. Their last battle was centuries ago.
A treaty of trust was reached when he swore to her. “Queen of the dead, you dare not know how wickedly we are twisted. Let us be, and I vow I will always fight for the family you love.”
He never said for sure, and she never clarified, but she was positive he was threatening the life of Talon, swearing he’d be taken if she took anyone else from him.
Reveca rolled her shoulders trying to brush off the pain of the past and failing.
“I cursed Scorpio to protect my own,” she said to King. Deciding she needed space and not the comfort of his embrace, she manifested further from the Edge, further away from the graveyard of the fallen temples.
King manifested before her just as she turned to pace in the opposite direction. “And today your urge to kill a coveted member of the Sons was because he would not obey you?”
She gritted her teeth. “As ornery as Scorpio may be, he was the civil one in his Throng. I have no idea how many are left or where they are, but I know once they rise into awareness they will hunt me and everything I call dear. I have enough fucking people after my head without adding to the list.”
King furrowed his brow. “Why do you think Scorpio would want to add to your strife?”
“Fuck if I know! What I do know is that each time Talon has wavered in the past, Scorpio has gotten the same look in his eye. It has always been a battle of who can fix Talon first,” she eyed King up and down. “Obviously, I can’t fix him anymore.”
“You want to, Love?”
“Just,” she raised her hand. “Just stop. I don’t have time to stroke your ego or his.”
Amused as ever, King slid his hands around her hips and pulled her snugly against him. A trembled sigh wisped past her lips as she felt his hand begin to move over her ass before kneading her flesh.