Page 2 of Beg the Night (Mystics of Ashora #1)

TWO

athena

W e were moving.

My consciousness faded in and out, accompanied by a sharp pain in my temple.

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Not when the familiar buzz in my palms warned me that I wasn’t alone.

The Ministry.

I shouldn’t have been afraid. Hell, I wasn’t expecting to be. I had no family left to fight for. No friends left to care about me. There wasn’t a soul left on this entire planet that knew of my existence. Still, my adrenaline spiked, causing a tingling sensation in my chest.

These were the people my family had feared all those years. These were the people we were taught to avoid.

To run from.

Now that they’d found me, I would finally discover what the dark whispers of the Ministry were truly about. It was about damn time, honestly.

For now, though, the longer I feigned sleep, the better.

The vehicle rocked as the terrain shifted. We transitioned from a smooth road to a surface so bumpy, it had to have been the forest ground. The vehicle was large, but based on the ragged breathing, there were at least three people surrounding me.

“We’re almost there,” a deep voice said. “Wake the girl. Director will want to see her talking.”

I kept my breath steady, not moving a muscle. But it didn’t matter. Two seconds later, someone was shaking my shoulders with big, rough hands. “Hey!” the owner of the meaty hands shouted. “Wake up, bitch. Nap’s over.”

Jig’s up. Coming face to face with my captors was inevitable, so without any more hesitation, I blinked my eyes open, adjusting to the darkness inside the vehicle. The men surrounding me wore black tactical gear. Each had more than one gun strapped to their belts, along with god knows how many other weapons.

As if they’d need any of it to deal with me. Each one of those men were double my size, and their muscles bulged beneath the tight gear.

The hand on my shoulder tightened until I suppressed a squeal. He yanked me into a sitting position, dragging me along the bench until the side of my body pressed against his.

“You cannot escape,” he said in a muffled voice beneath the bandana covering his nose and mouth. “You cannot run. You cannot fight. There is no use wasting your energy. You’ll do everything we say, and when you meet Director, you’ll keep your pretty mouth shut. Understand?”

My stomach roiled. Ew. Double ew.

When I didn’t respond, he dug his fingers into my upper arm. “Understand?”

“Perfectly.” I mustered a sassy smile, though it slipped when I remembered that I was alone in the back of a creepy-ass van with three strange men.

Apparently, I had more survival instincts than I’d realized.

I bit my cheek and kept my head lowered for the remainder of the ride. The men didn’t talk. I wasn’t surprised. According to Father, the people who worked for the Ministry had been brainwashed into zombies who would obey every command they were given. Their minds were probably too fried to string more than two words together unless they were ordered by the?—

The van jerked to a halt. “We’re here.”

More voices shouted from outside. Everyone sounded angry. Urgent. The doors at the back flung open, flooding the small, dark space with sunlight. I squinted and turned away, but my captors shoved me toward the door without even an ounce of gentleness.

Rude.

We were in the middle of the woods, though this area was nothing like the forest I’d grown up in. There were no chirping birds. There was no stream trickling in the distance. The trees did not move in the wind, and the wind did not sing through the rustling of leaves.

This place was still. Dead, almost. Everywhere I looked, there were soldiers in black tactical gear. The weapons strapped across their bodies made them look even larger. Some ran. Some barked orders. I stood frozen until I was shoved from behind.

What the hell were we doing way out here?

“Bring her this way!” someone in the distance yelled. “Director is ready for her inside.”

One of my captors led the way while the other two gripped my arms, hauling me forward. We passed piles of weapons, mounds of supplies.

I was dragged to a steel door in the ground where yet another soldier kneeled. As we approached, he pulled it open, exposing a dark staircase beneath.

My captors shoved me forward. “Go,” one ordered.

“Down there?” My heart lurched. “Underground?” Being kidnapped and thrown into a van was one thing, but walking into an underground cave that could collapse at any second?

Just shoot me.

“Now.”

All right, all right. I took one last gulp of fresh air, then forced myself to take the first step into the underground. A string of dim, orange light lit the way as sunlight disappeared behind me. Deep breaths, Athena. This is totally normal. The men are following you, and surely they wouldn’t come down here if you were going to be buried alive at any moment.

The pep talk did little to settle my nerves.

At the bottom of the steel staircase, I scanned my surroundings, realizing only then that it was an entire underground compound. The light expanded ahead, exposing a massive hallway with dozens of steel doors on either side. Damn, this must have taken up miles of space beneath the forest floor.

“This way,” one of my captors ordered. The guys flanking me gripped my arms again and roughly guided me down the dark, oddly sterile hallway. They didn’t speak, and with each step we took, the air grew more and more still. My dirty boots clicked against the floor, matching the deep thud of my heart.

From what I knew, the Ministry had slowly been taking over the continent of Ashora for years. They were a virus, seeping into city after city, wreaking havoc as they went.

But all my life, they’d been nothing more than a mystical force in my mind. The subject of many, many cautionary tales. My parents had done an exceptional job keeping us separated from the world. They told us enough to keep us safe, to keep us fearful of the Ministry.

Rather than fight in the war with the other earthlies, we had stayed hidden. Quiet.

I much preferred living in that delusion.

This was them in the flesh. Pure evil, brute force.

And I hated them with every ounce of my being.

Outside the last door, we stopped. One of my captors knocked once with a solid fist. I would have flinched if I wasn’t too damn stunned to react.

The door ahead of us opened. More men filled the small space, go figure , but there was someone else inside, too.

A woman.

She sat on the far side of a long table, leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. Her flaming red hair was pulled into a tight bun that didn’t leave a single piece out of place. Her makeup was perfect, her body lithe and strong. Her black gear matched that of the men, though she wore no weapons or tactical vest. Her smile, though. Her smile was just as dangerous.

And she was zeroed in on me. “Welcome,” she said. Was she talking to me? “Come in.”

The men shoved me forward, but didn’t follow. The others moved to the perimeter of the small room as if they wanted to stay as far from me as they could.

“Leave us,” the scary woman said without diverting her eyes.

The men immediately rushed out of the room, and when it was just the two of us, I suddenly felt as if I were in more danger than I’d been in the van with those freaks. Especially when that heavy metal door clanged shut.

Yep. I was certainly better off dead.

The woman shifted in her seat, head cocked to one side, and gave me a thorough once-over. I fought the urge to cover my tattered white shirt and loose trousers. Did I look my best? No. But it’s not like I expected to be meeting strangers within minutes of burying my dead sister.

If I had, I definitely wouldn’t smell this bad. Could she smell me? That was me, right?

“Have a seat, please.” Her voice was smooth and alluring, almost calming.

I obeyed, moving to the chair across from her and easing into it.

She didn’t speak at first. Just sat there, staring at me. I could only imagine what I looked like, with messy hair and dirt caked into my fingernails. But I pulled my shoulders back and met her stare.

The woman’s eyes were bright, but her smile faded. “What’s your name?”

“Athena.” I cleared my throat.

She hummed and dipped her chin. “Hello, Athena. My name is Sandra, but people around here call me Director.”

My heart stopped. This was the leader of the Ministry? The commander of all these evil, brainless, manly robots? This was the person leading the wars and massacring thousands of innocent people?

Clearly sensing my confusion, she clasped her hands on the table in front of her and said, “I’m sure you have questions, and you likely have concerns, but I can assure you, Athena, that you are in good hands here.”

I shifted. “What do you want with me?”

Her eyes widened for a second like she was surprised I’d spoken up at all. “You’re direct. I like that. No use in wasting precious time.” She cleared her throat and straightened in her chair. “As I’m sure you know, an army of mystics can easily wipe out an army of earthly soldiers. Since the war began, the Ministry has been working to harness the power of the mystics. And for some time, we did so relatively easily, using tier one and two mystics who wanted to aid our cause. Tier threes were more rare, but we worked with as many as we could find.” Lips pressed together, she watched me for a moment before confessing, “Now, we have nearly none.”

Tiers. I had heard my brother speak of them before. Every mystic fell into one of the three categories, depending on the level of power they possessed. Threes were the most dangerous, but also the most desired by the Ministry. No wonder they’d become so rare. Any tier threes remaining out there were probably deep in hiding.

The room fell silent, as if she was waiting for a response from me. As if I had any idea what to say to that. “That certainly sounds like a predicament.”

“A predicament, it is. You see, if we do not win this war, life as we know it will cease to exist. You may never see freedom again if the Ministry does not succeed in finding the mystics and harnessing their power. We need tier threes. And we need your help.”

I choked on a scoff, a wave of disbelief washing over me. “You think I can help you? Why?”

She assessed me with an arched brow. “Do not play games with me, Athena. I am a busy woman. I have it on good authority that you are a mystic. You’re going to tell me exactly what type of power you possess, and then you’ll help me win this damn war.”

I blinked once. Twice. Did she just say what I thought she said? This woman had clearly lost her mind. “I am definitely not a mystic. Your ‘good authority’ must be mistaken. I have no power.”

Director’s fake smile quickly faded.

“I said do not play games with me.” She brought a palm down on the table with a sharp slap, her first sign of a loose temper. “It will be beneficial to all of us if you come clean right now.”

Hands in my lap, I surveyed the room. If this woman was crazy enough to think I was a mystic, then how the hell was I going to talk sense into her? She didn’t even know me! Her men had kidnapped me from my home while I mourned my dead family. What proof did she have?

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, I really am, but I’ve spent my life as a regular-ass person living with my family. My now dead family. I’ve minded my own business. I’ve never even met a mystic, and I certainly don’t possess any magical powers.”

Her jaw clenched, and I braced myself for a stronger outburst of her anger. Instead, she leaned back in her chair once more. “You seem like a nice girl, Athena. I don’t want to have to use force to get the truth out of you, but you and I aren’t the only people at risk here. The entire continent of Ashora is at risk if we do not win this fight.” She nodded to the door behind me, and two men walked in. If the room felt small earlier, it felt downright minuscule now.

I fought to keep my breathing steady. Panicking would only make the situation worse.

“Bring her,” Director ordered as she stood.

The men each clutched an arm and hauled me to my feet. I tensed, but didn’t fight them. I had a feeling I’d need to conserve my energy for what came next.

“Where are we going?”

Director didn’t look at me as she walked past, heading back into the steel hallway. “We’re going to find the truth.”

Three hours later, my voice was raw from screaming. The two brutes had dragged me to another door, but behind it, I did not find a clean, sterile room. No, we were in the depths of the underground, inside a dark, dank cage that smelled of death and blood.

My blood, surely.

Maybe my death, too.

Breaths sawing in and out of my lungs, I rested my head on the back of the chair I was now strapped to.

“Tell us what you know and the pain will end,” Director ordered.

It took all my strength to hold in the sob clawing its way up my throat. “I swear to you, I am not a mystic. I’ve never wielded power.”

“You’re lying,” she retorted. “It’s doing you no good, Athena. Lying to us will not change your fate. You will help us whether you do it willingly or not.”

The man who’d been torturing me since they tied me to this chair stepped forward, the knife he’d been using held up in front of him.

He hovered close, leering at me. It was tempting to lie and tell them I was a mystic just to make the damn torture stop. What did these people want from me, anyway? Did they want me to burst out in magic and save the world? What was the point of all this?

“I’ll give you one more chance to come clean,” she said. “What tier are you? Two? Three?”

This woman was truly obsessed. It was her loss. By no stretch of the imagination could I even be considered a tier one . There was no way in hell I could even fake having enough power to help her in this war.

Not like I would want to. This war she spoke of? The Ministry was to blame for it and for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. They were power-hungry monsters who couldn’t control themselves. Tired of living normal lives among the earthlies, they’d formed territories of mystics. And when they’d stolen from innocent people and the earthlies had fought back…

These people were the reason the world was burning to the ground around us.

“I can’t help you.” I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing myself for the pain that knife would bring me. My legs were now numb, my body’s self-preservation instincts kicking in after the dozens of shallow wounds the nameless man had created. “Please, just stop.”

The worst part? I caught that bastard smiling as he sliced into my flesh.

If I had any magic at all, I would use it to kill everyone in this creepy, underground establishment.

“That’s the thing,” Director said softly, stepping in close and angling over me until her perfectly smooth face was inches from mine. “You will help me, Athena. You’re too stubborn to see that it’s for your own good.”

My brain was too tired for riddles, too exhausted to comprehend what this psychotic person was talking about.

“Are you familiar with the claiming?”

My vision blurred. “Can’t say I’ve heard of it.”

A devious smile appeared on her face. “You’re in luck. And we are too. Tier threes are powerful, yes, but during the blood moon, if the claiming ceremony is performed, we can harness the power from two mystics and wield it. This is how we win the war, you see. We wait until the blood moon and then we strike. We will be virtually unstoppable.”

My stomach twisted into a painful knot. “You want me to complete the claiming ritual? What even is that? Doesn’t sound fun.”

She stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “You must mate with a tier three on the night of the blood moon. The transformation that happens to both mystics during the ritual will render you as one of the deadliest weapons in existence.”

Mate? I really wished I had enough energy to look shocked. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? She wanted me to have sex with a mystic on the night of the blood moon so she could harness the power I didn’t even possess? If they were this out of their minds, it was no wonder the Ministry kidnapped women under any suspicion they might be a mystic.

This was a dream. A very bad, sick, demented nightmare that I would be waking up from any minute now.

“You can’t possibly think I’d be willing to mate with someone so you can steal our magic. Did you forget the part where I’m not even a mystic?”

Director turned away and spoke in low tones to the man with the blade.

Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t make out a word she’d said.

When she turned back, her expression was a shade harder than it had been since I’d met her. “We’ll see about that. We’ve just missed the blood moon, so you’ve got a month until the next. A month to change your mind, Athena, and I’m confident you’ll come to your senses soon enough.”

God, if you’re listening, just kill me now. Maybe this lady would come to her senses and understand that she sounded like a total lunatic.

“Take her to the dungeon,” she ordered.

I could barely feel my body as I was untied from the chair and forced back onto my feet.

“I’ll check in on you in a few days to see whether you’ve changed your mind. I think you’ll find it is in your best interest if you do.” She cocked her head to the side, dragging her attention down my body once more. “The other mystics will show special interest in someone like you.”

With that, she was gone.

Before I could inhale a steadying breath, I was dragged farther into the underground cavern, closer to the smell of death. The ceiling was so low in some parts, the men escorting me had to duck so they didn’t smack their heads on the stone.

Because that would be a real shame.

As we continued, I tried to pay attention to each turn we took, tried to burn every defining landmark into my memory so that I could get out of this prison the first chance I got, but the path was long and confusing, and by the time we made it to a barred, steel door, I’d lost hope that I’d remember. It was darker here, and this door was heavier than the rest. One key slipped into keyhole after keyhole, and the reinforced steel creaked to life as the men spent a handful of minutes undoing the locks.

The door cracked open, and I instantly regretted fighting so hard to stay alive. A massive, cavernous space just beneath the earth opened up to this strikingly disgusting pit made of rock walls and metal reinforcements. At least thirty men stared back at me from inside the dungeon , as Director called it. These were not the Ministry men I’d spent the last several hours with, though. These men looked just as shitty as I felt, some sitting on the dirty floor, others standing along the walls, each one looking at us like it’d give them great pleasure to snap our necks.

“Welcome to hell,” one of my captors whispered in my ear as he shoved me inside.

I landed hard on my knees on the stone floor of the nasty cave as the door slammed shut behind me.

Hell, indeed.