Page 35 of Shadows and Flames (Twin Blades #2)

Chapter Twenty-One

ELIáN

R haea’s power tickled.

It was not the time, nor the place to divulge this to my queen, so I suppressed a shudder as it searched my spine, gliding against my nape and spilling across my shoulders.

My own Goddess power swam under my skin, but I kept it away, focusing all on bringing peace to my queen.

I’d heard what she said. She claimed so easily that she was evil when she was nothing of the sort.

“Tana is safe,” I reminder her once again. “I am safe, Tom is safe, you are safe.” She was accepting my words, my touch, but I hesitated to go further. To drop a kiss to her brow. Would she push me away if I dared?

“ Right . So, what do we do with them?” my brother asked, and a growl slipped out of me. I did not save these humans for their sakes. Should we have been on dry land, I might have stood back and watched as she dealt them the hand they sought.

But, I risked a press of lips on her brow and was rewarded a quiet sigh, should my queen have killed them all, it would be because they deserved it. Not because of any lack of goodness within her.

“Well, we can’t leave them to attack us again,” Meline surmised, voice no longer reverberating. The last time I had seen her this way, she was terrified, uncontrolled.

Now, as we looked upon the humans while they stared back at us, I felt the ease with which she commanded her gift. The same as when I drew flames.

I grunted and kissed her again, pulling her closer. And as stubborn as she could be, Meline leaned further into my arms, my chest. Low, just for me, she mumbled, “Thank you.”

Another brush of Death prickled the backs of my arms, now lighter, quicker. As if it was playing, coaxing. I hummed low in my throat.

“I’ll go get the good captain,” Tom volunteered, giving a wide berth between himself and my queen and me. He was a blur as he went up the steps, but shortly thereafter, the quick patters of soft feet tumbled down. Chased by heavier ones.

“Viktor!” A woman gasped, the woman. A human man tried to pull her back up the steps, but she shoved him away.

Her eyes went wide as she halted, still a few more steps to go. A bandage rested on her neck, but she otherwise appeared well. Unharmed.

Unlike her brother, who had taken up shouting around the fabric stuffed in his mouth, she stopped a moment, observing the scene.

And when she looked to the Vyrkos, still lying before Tana, her face crumpled. Tears shimmered and spilled down her cheeks, and after a few breaths, pointed and long, she threw back her shoulders.

She came down the last few steps and raised her chin. “This has g-gone t-too far, Vik.”

He only shouted louder, demanding attention while we all gave it to the little human.

She wore a pair of trousers and easily crouched beside the Vyrkos.

He flicked between wary and relieved, suspicion and awe.

This woman was the one the humans said they were avenging, and Tana was the one who just saved his immortal life.

“I’m…” The woman bit her lip and shook her head. “I don’t even know your name,” she whispered, tears falling. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Meline and I were both still, and I watched all those around us. How the brother and those standing closest to him were scowling. How the others, more passive followers, flicked their confused gazes between their leader and the scene before them.

The man screamed muffled words, but his sister would not have any of it.

“No!” the woman screamed. Her face grew flushed.

“I told you that he didn’t hurt me. No matter how many times you try to convince me otherwise.

” She focused on Tana, wringing her hands at her front. “What…what can I do to help? Please. ”

Even the human could see that the witch was a healer. The faint purple glow still had not completely faded from her fingertips, and the male was still clinging to her. Watching her as if she was the Goddess Rhaea Herself.

Palms still pressed onto the Vyrkos’s chest, her gaze was hard. “He needs to feed to fully heal. And we cannot provide the adequate sustenance.” To us, Vyrkos blood was syrupy sweet, and given their former mortal nature, it was enough to sustain us.

It had been one of the many contentions that fueled The Killings, giving some Lylithans false evidence that we were superior because the reverse was not nutritious for the Vyrkos.

Otherwise, having interacted with the witch now and years past, I was certain she would have opened her vein in an instant for him.

Just as I had done for my queen.

I looked down at Meline again, pleased at the way she was curling into my chest. The gray tendrils were keeping the humans at bay, but a new strain was filling her posture. She was leaning further into me than she had been just a moment ago.

The man started screaming again, loud enough to test the limits of the cloth in his mouth, but his sister was unperturbed. Tom and the captain shoved past the sister’s keeper still frozen on the stairwell, but they stalled at the sight of goddess power swirling around them.

Meline sagged further into my arms, and the Vyrkos latched onto the woman’s wrist while Tana moved her hand to his shoulders.

“You allowed them to attack two innocent people. What are you going to do about this?” The words burned my tongue as I said them.

I’d little concern for the Vyrkos, but the sight of dried blood on Tana’s throat was unacceptable.

The hatred these humans had for us should not stand.

But I was nearing three centuries, had seen how trying to convince a closed mind was a fruitless task.

My question left the captain gaping, continuing to stare. More faces appeared behind him, crew members by the looks of them, and still, he remained silent.

I scoffed and so did Tom. He was the one to suggest, “Restrain them since they cannot be trusted not to try and fucking kill us. Let us disembark first when we reach the port, and we will all go on our merry way.”

He looked at me from across the room, the slightest uptick of the corner of his mouth communicating multitudes. I nodded, and the wrath smoldering in my chest settled, placated for now.

No, closed minds were not worth convincing. Best to snuff them out.

The captain whirled around, glaring at Tom. “Are you telling me how to run my ship?” He didn’t need to glance at his crew for me to understand this was again wounded pride. Was it their short lifespans that left them mercy to the misguiding emotion?

And Tom, cheeky as always, grabbed the captain by his chin, using every bit of the minute height difference between them.

He loomed over the captain and whispered in his ear.

Low enough the humans couldn’t hear. “I’m most definitely doing so.

And then I’m going to plow you into the fucking mattress like the worthless slut you are. ”

I sighed, unsurprised by my brother’s antics nor by the dazed and hungry look on the captain’s face.

“Restrain them, now.”

The captain was surely in my brother’s thrall, heartbeat still quickened as he directed his crew to do what we said. Some of them retreated, to retrieve said restraints, and I pressed my fingers into Meline’s back, finding several tense knots.

“Are you able to let them go, my queen?”

She startled and blinked up at me, and I released a breath in relief to find her eyes still their natural color.

When they went black, when the power took her over more completely, that was when my queen seemed to lose herself, if my memory served.

Had she learned how to control it in these three years?

Her posture didn’t change, nor did her breathing, as she called the Death back into herself. From what I could tell, it did not fight her, and the presence on my skin slipped away until it was just Meline.

“You are amazing,” I breathed and dropped a kiss between her furrowed, tired brows.

She had enough energy to snort, and when I pulled back, her lips were flat, but her eyes held a lightness. Even with the heaviness of lowered lids.

A shuffling of feet and uptick of murmurs called for our attention, and I unsheathed the daggers at my sides. I handed one to Meline as we faced the humans, power pushed away for now.

The three of us, with Tom to my left, stood at the ready as the crew indeed restrained the twenty or so who had meant to kill the Vyrkos and Tana. Then the rest of us at a later time, surely.

Now, most watched us with contrition, perhaps even regret as they avoided our eyes.

But there were a few. Like the brother and the others who were most arrogant, who did not bother hiding their contempt.

Whether they were angrier at us or the Vyrkos who’d now drunk enough from the woman to be satisfied, I was not certain.

She was fine, pressing a cloth into her wrist to clot the bleeding from the small fang marks. She didn’t move to touch the Vyrkos further, but she gave him a nod and tentative smile before rising.

Outside of Frenzy, Lylithan and Vyrkos kind had an innate sense of when we were taking too much. The pulse would weaken, the blood would slow, and the urge to pull away would swell. In the name of survival, it was far smarter to ensure one’s blood source lived to see another day.

By the look of him slumped in Tana’s embrace, though, he’d needed more.

Most of the humans accepted their fate without a fight, but some required the threat of our presence to convince them to comply.

Our voyage was almost over, and the sooner I could put feet to steady ground, the better. Then, I would end the ones who watched us with hate-filled gazes as they were led above.

“What are you thinking about?”

Meline’s question brought me back into the present, away from images of bloodshed and sating the need for vengeance within. I’d told her that revenge would not serve us today, and that was the truth.

When we disembarked, however.

My brother who was now following the captain, most likely to his cabin, would understand. Though he felt it less often than I, the centuries as Shadow made it difficult to let this sort of call go unanswered.

There was something else within me, though. Some churning within the hearth of my soul that would not truly calm until I slaked the desire.

Mamá used to call it Zoko’s Fury. The side of Her flames that needed most taming, as well as respect.

Let it guide you. Protect you. But do not let it scorch all around you. That sort of inferno can quickly slip out of your control.

And yet, I had succumbed to it when first crossing paths with my queen. When I’d let the wall of Flames roll across my senses as I found her employer, a being intent on retrieving the jewelry from a different world.

Was giving in to that side of myself the first step on the path to my queen? Would I have taken the assignment to protect her had I been able to complete the contract I’d been given? Would the spark have ignited between us without the kindling of our animosity?

I refocused on Meline, the female who I wanted to explore…companionship with. No, not explore, not try . A small part of me had worried the image of her in my memories was exaggerated by my sorrow. Would the pull I’d spent most of our initial journey fighting still be there?

Dagger in one hand, the other clamping on the back of her neck, I kissed her.

It was more than pull. More than attraction and sparks. It was everything.

“You,” I answered. “You.”