Sergius: #4 (Luna Lodge: Hunters of Atlas) (11 page)

He spun and spotted a blur in the corner of his eyes. Something slammed into his body, sending him spiraling away from Jade. He grunted as he smashed into the ground.

Sergius hopped to his feet and quickly placed himself again between Jade and the monster. He winced and looked down at his side. The bastard had clawed him, leaving a long gash open along his ribs. The blood flowed down his bare side.

Fuck the creature. It was going to take a lot more than that to finish him. If it wanted him to stop, it’d have to kill him, and if it wasn’t going to do that, he’d kill it first.

He’d rip it apart piece by piece if had to.

Another screech came, this time from behind him. He turned just as it passed him, another shadow in the corner of his eye. Sharp claws scraped across his back. The flesh there tore with ease. He hissed.

Ignoring the pain, Sergius slammed his fist to the side of the monster as it passed. A satisfying crunch followed. His enemy shrieked and disappeared back into the smoke. He still hadn’t managed to actually directly look at his opponent.

He took in ragged, short breaths. He wouldn’t cry out. There was no way in hell he was going to give his enemy the satisfaction. Though the wound on his back hurt more than he wanted to admit, he landed a damn blow on the bastard. He could win this fight.

“So you are mortal,” Sergius shouted to the monster. “If you can be hit, you can be killed. And I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch, for hurting my people and for going after my Vestal.” He roared.

He froze at the loud, booming laughter coming from the smoke around them. The sound surrounded them. A chill rippled down his spine.

The damn thing was laughing at him. He growled over the possibility that it’d let him hit it.

This time the monster didn’t scream when it came out. It launched itself for him face first, and for a moment, he thought he’d seen the actual creature. But as soon as it moved, he couldn’t be certain what it was that he had seen.

It was as if he was made to forget exactly what it looked like. The only thing he could remember were the glowing blue eyes.

Claws raked his thigh and tore deep into the muscle. A second later, the creature tossed him into the air and against a tree like he was a doll being tossed by a child. Before he landed, the creature snatched him again and tossed him back into the air.

Sergius finally slammed into the ground with a hard thud, blood flowing freely from his leg.

He let out a loud groan and pushed himself off the ground. Not much longer and the damn thing would finish him off.

That didn’t worry him. It was more that he hadn’t seemed to actually have hurt it back.

He didn’t care if he died. He just had to figure out a way to take the damn thing with him and save Jade.

Jade cried as she lay on the ground. She remained weak from the trance-like state that monster had put her in. Her head still throbbed.

Sergius grunted as a shadowy, blurry form charged from a cloud of smoke and clawed him. As strong as he was, as large as he was, the truth was unmistakable: they were losing. It was only a matter of time before the creature finished him and then her.

She had to do something, or she was not going to just lose her own life, but the two other lives that meant the most to her.

She might not be as strong as Sergius, but she had at least managed to fight off the creature’s control. That gave her hope there might be something she could do. She just had to figure out how.

Sergius collapsed on the ground next to her. A pool of blood grew around him. Unable to walk, she crawled over to him and placed a hand on his forehead.

“Run,” he whispered to her. “Just run. I’ll distract him. I don’t care if I die as long as you get away.”

Jade leaned over him and placed a kiss on his lips. “Never.”

She would never leave him. He was what she needed, and she would do anything to protect him. If they were going to die, they’d die together. She wouldn’t run off if there was even the smallest chance she could help him.

Jade couldn’t say why or how, but something spoke to her. A voice in her head. Not the monster. Not the horrible thing that screamed inside there before or was trying to kill her and her loved ones. No, something else spoke to her.

Desperate for a miracle, she listened.

Touch his tattoo, child. Unlock the true potential of the two who are as one.

Jade placed her hand over the tattoo at the back of his neck. Whether this was a hallucination, vision, or something else, she couldn’t be sure, but at this point she was willing to try anything.

A blinding light shot out from where she touched him. The tattoos grew, snaking down his neck and his back and along his arms. The longer she held onto him, the more his tattoo stretched out across his body, and the brighter the light became.

His whole body glowed now with a blinding blue light. The intense light forced her to close her eyes.

“What are you—” Sergius began.

The creature let out a bloodcurdling scream

“Kill it,” she said. “You can hurt it now, child of Atlantis. Show your true power.”

The words came out of her mouth, but they were also someone else’s. She could feel the weight of another person speaking through her.

Unable to keep herself upright, her hand fell away from his tattoo, but Sergius continued to glow.

Jade collapsed on the ground and panted as exhaustion overwhelmed her.

Power throbbed through Sergius. Jade had somehow changed him when she touched his tattoo. He wasn’t really certain how or what she’d done, but his wounds had healed, and strength pulsed through him, more than he’d ever experienced.

The monster screamed again. If he wasn’t mistaken, the voice sounded both angry and scared.

He watched as the black, blurry formed lunged out at him, still mostly cloaked in a shroud of smoke, but this time he was ready. He reached out his hand and slammed into the monster. The new tattoo that trailed down his arm turned into small spikes that speared the monster.

A bright blinding blue hole shot its way through the shape.

The creature howled and let out mighty scream before running back into the outer cloud.

He had hit it. He had been able to actually hit the monster. The smoke around them faded, and he knew the creature was getting away. Sergius stepped forward to chase after it but stopped when Jade moaned.

“Sergius,” she called, her voice weak.

He looked back to where she lay on the ground, her breathing labored and skin far paler than she’d ever been before, even after any of her visions.

Damn it. What good did it do to fight off the creature if he still lost her?

Sergius rushed over to her and lifted her in his arms. He had to do something before it was too late.

He turned around quickly. Something made a noise in the grass behind him. A white cloaked figure stepped out from behind a tree.

He growled. He’d just fought a strange monster. He had no problem taking on the Azilians.

Anassa held up a pale hand. “I’ve come to help.”

Chapter Sixteen

Anassa followed closely behind him in silence as they made their way back to his house. He was unsurprised when Rem, Magnus, and Marcus met them at his door.

They all tensed at the sight of Anassa.

“Did she do this?” Marcus said. He stepped forward. “You think you can harm our people, you Azilian bitch, and get away with it?”

Rem placed his hand on the younger man’s chest to stop him from charging the cloaked woman.

Sergius shook his head as they opened the door to the house and stepped inside. Anassa lingered by the door, but Marcus shot her a baleful glare.

“No,” Sergius said. He laid Jade on the couch. “We were attacked by the creature.”

“What was it?” Rem asked. “A Glycon?”

“I… don’t know, but definitely not a Glycon. I couldn’t really see it. It hid in this cloud of smoke, or something that looked like smoke. It had claws, and was fast.” He stared at Rem. “The one thing I do know is that it had glowing blue eyes.”

The gathered hybrids all exchanged meaningful glances. He assumed they realized the same thing he did, that they must be dealing with something related to their people.

“We were losing until Jade touched my tattoo. Then something happened.” He stepped away from her.

Sergius watched as Anassa stepped over to Jade and opened her eyelids to reveal that her eyes had rolled into the back of her head.

“She touched your tattoo?” Rem asked. “What happened?”

Sergius shook his head. It was hard to explain what he experienced. He still wasn’t sure himself. “One minute, the creature was hurting me badly, and the next minute, I was healed and hurting it.”

“She transferred her essence to him,” Anassa said quietly, stepping toward Jade.

The gathered men looked at the cloaked woman as she pulled a blue vial from her sleeve. She uncorked the bottle and tilted Jade’s head up to pour it into her mouth.

Sergius snatched ahold of her wrist.

“What the hell are you giving her?” he growled.

Anassa didn’t look over at him or struggle to get away from his grip.

“This is essence,” she said calmly. “This is the life force that makes a Vestal. That is what is in the Atlantean blood. She is dying because she transferred that essence to you.” She stared at him. “This is the only way to replenish what you have taken from her. This is the only way to save her life.”

Taken. He hated that he had made her like this. That he had obviously taken too much. How was he supposed to know what was happening though? There was still so much he didn’t understand.

He glanced over at the others. They all nodded. Even Marcus didn’t offer any resistance, looking more concerned than annoyed for once.

Sergius let go of her hand and held his breath as Anassa poured the blue liquid into Jade’s mouth. Her color returned to her face almost instantly. She took in deep breaths.

Relief flooded through him over her improvement. The other men around him watched them both very carefully.

“Well, that’s a new one,” Rem said, scratching his eyelid.

Sergius might have found it funny if he hadn’t spent the last hour being beaten down by some sort of strange monster and worried that his wife and unborn child were going to die.

Anassa stood next to Jade and turned to Sergius.

He narrowed his eyes. The same black smoke that he had seen around the creature also surrounded her face under the hood of her cloak. He found it hard to believe that was a coincidence.

Anassa held out a bag of brown powder. “She must drink a pinch of this, every day. It will keep the creature at bay and protect your unborn child.”

He could hear Marcus and Magnus mumble their surprise at the news of the baby. He hadn’t even had a chance to let anyone know before the shit hit the fan.

Sergius looked over to Rem for his approval. Unsurprisingly, their leader seemed to already know his secrets before he knew them. Rem nodded, and Sergius took the bag.

“Thank you,” he said quietly to Anassa.

She might normally be their enemy, but today she was their ally. And he’d even thank the Horatius Group if they’d come and saved his Vestal from death.

Anassa nodded her head in acknowledgment.

“Why help us now?” Rem said to Anassa.

Sergius was a bit curious about that as well.

“Why not?” she replied quietly. “I know you don’t trust us, but you still don’t understand. We’re not enemies. What we do, we do for the greater good.”

Rem shook his head. “I think things maybe aren’t going as you expected. I bet that pisses you off.”

The woman turned to look at him. A cold chill filled the room.

“I also think you know what that creature is,” Rem said rather than asked. He seemed undisturbed by the cold chill the woman was sending off. “If you’re not our enemy, then you should share your information.”

Anassa was quiet for a moment and stepped closer to Rem. “The gods and their children have many enemies.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“Specificity is irrelevant. Our faith is what protects us.”

Rem laughed loudly. “Faith? I guess they should have just prayed harder when that thing attacked?”

Anassa bowed her head again. “We are all of the gods and under the gods’ will. You can deny that all you want, but that doesn’t change the truth.”

Rem shook his head. Sergius was never sure how much Rem believed in the old gods, but he could tell that even if he did, their leader had little faith the gods knew what the hell they were doing.

Given everything that had happened to them, from the Horatius Group to the creature, Sergius tended to agree.

Anassa turned from them and made her way out of the house without another word.

“Follow her,” Rem said to Marcus and Magnus. The two men nodded. “Don’t hurt or interfere with her. Let’s just make sure she gets back to where she belongs. Whatever else she’s done, she did help us today at least.”

Jade made a noise from the couch, and Sergius looked down to where she lay. Her eyes blinked open, and he could tell she was struggling to open them.

Rem patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be just outside,” he said softly.

Sergius nodded to his leader and watched as he walked out the door and closed it behind him.

He knelt beside Jade on the couch. He softly kissed her lips and leaned back to stare down at her.

“How do you feel?”

Jade blinked her eyes a few times and nodded. She gave him a small smile.

“Better.”

He was glad to hear it. It seemed that whatever the truth of blue liquid, it had done the job.

Jade moved her hand into his own and gave a small squeeze. “I’m glad you’re better.”

He rubbed his fingers along the back of her hand. Their connection still burned in him where she had touched his tattoo. As she held onto him, he could feel his tattoo hum just from being near her. It was like having a piece of her with him.

It only made him love her even more.

Jade smiled warmly up at him.

“I love you too,” she said and drifted off to sleep.