Chapter 196: Chapter Fourteen

Timber

I could have sworn that her blood mocked me when I tasted her and then it changed altogether, I needed more, craved it, felt like I had been imprisoned for millennia waiting for a taste.

My thoughts were dark as I waited for Cassius, and turned even darker when he entered the room with purple spiked feathers pointed at me and a grim expression on his face when he took in the tattoo covering part of my face.

“So, it’s spread has it?” He stated the obvious.

“No,” I deadpanned. “I just wanted the top to match the bottom. Yes it spread, after we—”

I cleared my throat, Cassius’s eyebrows shot up. “Do continue.”

I shifted in my leather chair. “After we—”

“Midnight snacks!” Tarek and Mason stumbled through my front door followed by Alex and Ethan.

“I called ~you~, not the council,” I pointed out in an irritated voice.

“It’s ladies’ night,” Ethan plopped down on my couch, grabbed my remote, turned on my TV. “Plus you look like hell, thought you could use some cheering up.”

“Do I get to kill you?” I asked innocently.

“Nope.”

“Then consider me less than cheered.”

Alex gave me a wave and sniffed the air, then looked at me, then sniffed again, followed by Mason and Tarek. It wasn’t convenient that I forgot they could smell lust in the air.

And I was doing a shit job at controlling mine.

Any sane being would have trouble doing so under these circumstances!

She’d responded.

No human woman responded in that way, least of all to me. They felt the danger, and once the haze lifted, they screamed.

~She’d~ kissed me back.

I shifted in my seat and looked up.

Every single male was waiting in silence.

“I bit her,” I admitted in a surly tone. “In my defense I was trying to see if I could gain some information, and if you must know there was a kiss.” Several kisses, but they didn’t need to know that.

“It smells like sex.” Alex pointed out.

“I wish,” I grumbled, earning a chuckle from Tarek who was silenced by an angry-looking Mason.

“The tattoo,” Mason pointed out, his eyes going feral. “It’s not going to stop.”

“As always, thank you for your astute observation.”

Thank the Creator, Kyra appeared that same minute.

“She’s injured,” I stood. “Which is why I called Cassius, not the council. Cassius, say it with me!”

Nobody spoke.

Kyra gave me a brave smile and then held out her hands palm up while Cassius stared down at them.

It wasn’t Cassius that said something though—no, it was Mason.

“Ancient,” he whispered in reverence. “The boils are scarring into intricate designs, the magic is…” His eyes widened in horror as he looked up. “Cassius, tell me you chose not to know this, chose not to see the future or the past.”

“I chose,” Cassius said slowly. “Because as you know, we cannot intervene especially with something this powerful, but I can take care of the wound on her neck and remedy the poison in her veins.”

Mason growled and ran his hands through his dark hair. “This isn’t…” He gave me a sad look. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry.” I repeated. “What are you sorry for?”

“I didn’t see it before, maybe I didn’t want to,” He gently held out Kyra’s hand, “The only thing in existence that can scar or even create a wound from a curse like this isn’t just ancient, it’s old magic, older than old. It’s not even magic. It’s…” He looked to Cassius. “It’s from the old gods.”

I burst out laughing. “The ones currently serving time in the Abyss. Great, let’s just call Zeus. Oh wait, he doesn’t exist—”

“Blasphemy!” Cassius roared. “You will not disrespect the old gods in this house. They still listen to the cries of the people they failed. You know as much as I that the gods are one and the same, Egyptian, Roman, Norse, Greek—all come from one single story, one single power source that the Creator has since snuffed out.”

I nodded. “Sorry.”

Mason gave me a funny look. “When we met, you had been a demon for a few hundred years. Yet you’re older.”

Ethan piped up. “He’s older than me, and I’m old as hell. He’s older than even Cassius, which is saying something…

“So?”

“It is time,” Cassius said in a sad voice. “I can’t undo what’s been done to her hands, but it is time that you pull back the secrets, the lies, the shame. Tell us, Timber, whose soul do you house? Whose soul screams for release?”

I shook my head. “You’re asking me for something I don’t remember.”

Alex stood and circled me while Kyra watched with obvious fear in her eyes. I would miss that short cropped black hair, the blue streaks that teased me with the play of light.

I was old.

But I would still miss my life.

Even if it was filled with darkness and chaos.

War and more war.

“He said he fought Ra in a war,” Kyra said softly.

“See if I tell you any more secrets,” I snarled in her direction.

“Your secrets are going to get you killed!” Cassius shouted, his face went ashen. “Ra, you fought Ra. Ethan, grab the book of the gods—”

“What?”

“Do it!”

Ethan went to my library and returned a minute later with the book of the gods.

The very first page should have a list of them, followed by parentage, attributes, abilities.

But when Cassius opened it.

No page existed.

In fact, several pages from the ancient text were missing as if torn and burned. I wouldn’t know because we never opened the old texts. What use did they have when all of the gods were no longer in existence?

He snapped the book closed. “The choice is yours, demon, you must remember your past, to save your future.”

“Be serious.” I laughed. “I’m just old, it’s why I don’t remember. I was created, I was—” I frowned. “I crawled in the sand to the goddess, begged for a borrowed soul since mine had been…” A piercing headache throbbed behind my eyes. “Not taken.” I looked up into Cassius’s knowing glance. “My soul wasn’t taken!”

“No, demon. Your soul was trapped. Cursed.” He turned to Kyra, “Just like yours.”

“Related?” Ethan asked while Mason paced in front of us.

Cassius just shrugged. “How should I know? There are hundreds of paths, hundreds of possibilities, but no, this is no accident. I think she’s been searching for Timber, and he’s been dying without her. Sadly, I think we might be too late.”

That’s the last thing I heard him say before black took over my line of vision.