Of Gods and Wolves (7 page)

I was so tired, my limbs heavy and aching, but I knew I had to get up. Something was wrong. My back felt cold and bruised, made worse by the smooth stone beneath it. My neck throbbed, my hands and arms burned, and my head was foggy. Then I opened my eyes and saw only black. Panic flooded me for a second before I realized it was just cloth. I was covered in black silk. The cool caress of it flowed over my nude body. I groaned. This didn't bode well.

“She awakens,” I heard a soft voice on my left and then the cloth was slowly pulled down till my face and shoulders were exposed to the night air.

I was in the little clearing I’d breakfasted in with Blue, all those months ago. Around me were Blue’s priests, wearing white loin cloths, fastened with gold belts. Their bodies were painted with red geometric patterns that seemed to jump at me in the firelight. Horror washed over me when I realized it wasn’t paint at all but blood. I gasped and tried to get up but a heavy weight around my wrists and ankles held me tight. Looking down my body, I saw thick chains binding me to the stone altar.

Blue came striding through the trees then, resplendent in his Aztec finery. A gold crown sat atop his head, tall colorful feathers sticking straight up from it, and a wide, beaded collar encircled his neck. A heavy belt of gold held a swath of red fabric around his hips but his chest was bare. He wore no paint, no blood I mean. It was just beautiful bare skin shining in the light of the torches that encircled the clearing.

“
This feels awfully familiar, Blue,” I stared hard at him, willing the terror in my belly to fade away.

“
This is the altar that used to stand atop my pyramid,” he reached my side and grabbed a handful of silk. “I’m about to make our dream a reality.”

Great, just great. The dream he referenced was one in which he had made love to me on top of an Aztec altar. There were fangs involved, fangs in very intimate places. Of course, he had stolen into my mind and clouded my thoughts in order to create the dream, so I viewed the sex as more of a rape. Not exactly a moment I wanted to repeat.

“Can’t we at least have a little privacy?” I looked down at my body and then pointedly at the priests.

“
Don’t worry, little witch,” he stroked my cheek and I felt my teeth squeak as my jaw clenched. “They’ll be in the jungle as a living circle of protection.” He gave the vampires a nod and they disappeared into the trees. “I don’t intend on ever sharing you again.”

I saw his hand start to pull the silk from my body and I began to shiver from the cool caress. It flowed down me like water, revealing bare skin as it went, then drifted away on a warm breeze. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the sight of myself lying chained and naked before him. How ironic that the Godhunter was about to be a sacrifice… or maybe it was fitting, in a twisted way.

His blood-filled eyes roved over me indolently, possessively, and my body tensed, unsure whether to be furious or terrified. When his hand followed his gaze, I automatically jerked at the chains, trying my best to pull away. His laugh was cruel, sandpaper against my abused pride, and I had to swallow my outraged scream. I closed my eyes, searching for calm, knowing that if there was any chance of me getting out of this without a new set of pointy teeth, I had to keep calm to do it.

In my desperation, I reached out to him through our link and felt it connect. Maybe I could change his mind if I changed his point of view. I showed him how he looked to me the first time he abducted me. I showed him how disgusting it was for me to see him cover himself in blood and then gulp it down. I let my revulsion pour down that line between us.

He looked at me sharply and then shook his head.

“
I can’t help what I am,” the torchlight danced over his face, giving it a demonic twist, “or how unappealing you may find it. You will learn to live with it, as I have.”

“
You said you loved me,” I begged him with my eyes. “Don’t do this to me. Remember how much your lover hated you when you changed her.”

“
Alyssa was in shock,” he waved dismissively. “I should’ve stopped her and kept her with me until she had calmed enough for me to reason with her but I was weak. I let her go because of my guilt. I’ll not make the same mistake twice.”

I sent him more images and he stumbled a little, catching himself on the edge of the altar. I showed him how I’d look drinking blood from Thor, the passion I’d feel, the bloodlust. How he'd be the first man I ran to as soon as I was freed. Then I sent him an image of me covered in blood, my hair drenched, thick rivers of the stuff running everywhere, with my dark eyes staring out at him accusingly. I have to admit I used the movie
Carrie
for inspiration on that one. Blue started to scream and yanked his feathered crown off to throw into the jungle.

Thank you, Sissy Spacek and Stephen King.  

“No,” he rubbed his fists into his eyes before lowering them decisively. “You'll never return to Thor. Once I change you, you'll be bound to me completely. You’ll be even more beautiful than you are now and you’ll live forever. Can’t you see what a gift this is, Vervain?”

“
You were the one who said it was both a blessing and a curse,” it was really hard to be reasonable when you were naked and fearing for your human life. “I’m only showing you what you want to make me. You want to keep me with you, fine, but don’t turn me into a monster. Please, Blue.”

“
You and I will share eternity together,” he took a deep breath and stroked a hand down my stomach. “You’re just frightened but that’s normal. I’ll be strong for you. I can take care of you. You’ll be my Queen, give life to my children, and no one will ever hurt you again.”

“
No!” I screamed and sent him a picture of me sitting serenely in bed, breastfeeding a baby. He started in surprise and smiled, his features going soft, his eyes tender. I continued the image with me stroking the infant’s head, then crying out as blood seeped out around its mouth and down my breast. Blue screamed but I continued the images with me pulling the child away to show a wicked set of fangs glinting from its gaping, bloody mouth. I offered the child up to him. Another sacrifice for his bloody altar.

“
One happy little family,” I stared accusingly at him. “Is it everything you expected it to be?”

“
Enough,” he roared. “You’ll not change my mind by showing me twisted lunacy. Our children will not be such as that. Do you think I bled my own mother?”

“
Your powers were different then,” I was shaking but whether it was from rage or fear I couldn’t tell. “You’ve no idea what a child of yours would be.”

“
He would be a god,” he growled.

“
Or a monster.” I made an exasperated sound. “Will I even be able to bear children after you turn me?”

“
Of course you will. How many times do I have to tell you the mortals got it wrong? I'm not offering you death. I'm offering you life eternal. You will be as you are now, only better. Your body will be able to bear children with more ease and absolutely no danger to you.” His jaw clenched but he took another deep breath and calmed himself. “You’ll feel differently once you’ve born them.”

“
So you're telling me there are vampires out there making babies?” I had pictures of happy little vampire families dancing in my head.

“
No,” he sighed and made a dismissing gesture. “Only I have the ability to pass on life so purely. Only with me would you be able to have children. Without me, you'd be in stasis, unable to conceive.”

“
I guess that at least is a relief,” I abandoned my dancing, vampire baby imagery á la Ally McBeal. Ooga chacka, ooga chaka.

“
Enough of this,” his eyes narrowed. “I suspect you're stalling.”

I shivered and started shaking my head. There had to be some other way to stop him. The Nahual! I'd been meditating with my jaguar, ever since I'd discovered her through studying Aztec magic, and I'd been getting stronger and stronger with each meeting. Would she be strong enough to fight Blue?

She had backed down earlier but she'd done so reluctantly, almost as if she were biding her time. I wasn't sure if she could destroy Blue but I
was
suddenly sure that I could send her down the link between Blue and I and maybe she could find his own Nahual. Maybe we'd be strong enough to become Nahualli, a sorcerer who could control another person's animal twin.

According to Aztec myth, everyone was born with an animal twin but I was pretty sure the “everyone” meant all the humans. There was a chance Blue didn't actually have a Nahual but I was betting that, as an Aztec god, he was influenced by his people's beliefs and did actually carry an animal twin inside him. If not, I was screwed.

I called my Nahual with my need, sending my fear into the depth of my soul. Projecting my magic inward instead of outward, as she had taught me. I saw her clearly, a white jaguar with golden spots and dark brown eyes. Her body was tensed to spring and her mouth hung open on a snarl, she'd been waiting for my call.

She seemed to jump through me, running down the line connecting me to Blue without any prompting from me. In her wake, the butterflies of my Love magic stirred and then rushed to follow her. What the Hell?

My jaguar shown bright inside the darkness of Blue's mind, a star amidst his night sky, and it was easy to follow her progress. It was easy to see her pounce suddenly and pull back with her prey in her mouth. It wasn't easy to see the prey itself though.

Blue's Nahual was a hummingbird, go figure, but the bird was coated so thickly in a black viscous fluid that I could barely make out its form. The substance dripped from it, hissing and smoking when it touched my jaguar. She dropped the foul thing, spitting and growling at it while it flopped pathetically.

The butterflies swooped in and I cringed. They wouldn't stand a chance against that oil slick of hatred, and I knew instinctively that the black fluid
was
hatred. Distilled and condensed hatred. Blue was weighed down under hate so thick that his animal twin couldn't fly anymore. How could my fragile butterflies hope to win?

As they landed on the poor hummingbird, one lone butterfly flew back to me. It came to rest inside my chest and I was immediately at ease. These weren't normal insects, they were pure magic. Pure love. Every butterfly was once a caterpillar. Fat and fuzzy, wriggling its way across the earth before it changed itself into something beautiful and learned to fly. Love held the power to transform, to take a grounded thing and give it wings. A bridge between earth and air, a link between spirits and hearts. The shape it had chosen wasn't a silly girlie symbol but a representation of its strength, its untouchable beauty, and its ability to soar.

I focused back on the hummingbird and wasn't at all shocked to see the darkness peeling away. The butterflies buzzed with intensity, their little legs working at the black shell and scraping it away into dust. It took only moments for the bright colors of Blue's Nahual to start to show through.

“
What are you doing?” His whisper held a touch of fear.

“
Teaching you to fly,” I turned my face to his and kissed him.

His arms wrapped around me and his kiss filled me with heat. I felt him pour his rage into me, press it against my magic like a shield. The black rose up in a wave, threatening to drown not only the hummingbird but my butterflies and jaguar as well. It was too late though. As the wave started to crest, Blue's hummingbird rose amid a flock of butterflies and shot up to meet it. My jaguar roared, calling my Love magic home as she turned away. She knew they were no longer needed there and sure enough, as she padded home with the butterflies flocking around her, the wave shattered and turned into a glittering cloud of light.

The explosion shot through us both as Blue convulsed above me. I thanked my Nahual and sent her back into my depths to recover. She blinked dark eyes at me and huffed, her warm breath filling me with peace, before she turned and sank into my soul. Then I was pulled back into Blue's mind.

The hummingbird hovered, the rapid beating of his wings pulling traumatic memories in and merging them with happier ones, blending them into a bittersweet confection palatable enough to be swallowed. The horror of his mother’s corpse was softened by the memory of her dark, laughing eyes and gentle smile. His sister’s decapitated head was covered by her laughter, a picture of her pointing to the Moon in delight. His father’s last screams were banished by the sound of his rich voice telling Blue that he was the hope of his people. The first child born off Atlantean soil.

Each memory shot through him, shaking his body over and over like a seizure before they were laid to rest. When Blue finally raised his head, I felt as battered as he must have but also relieved. His hatred was gone. I felt it wash away like filth in a mountain stream, replaced by the clear flow of pure life. My chest was wet with his tears but his eyes were dry when he raised them to me…and green, a striking jade green.

“
Oh wow,” I breathed and felt my own eyes fill with tears.

“
What is it, little witch?” Even his voice was different. Still soft as velvet but warmer, richer.