Page 16 of Celestial Alphas

Chapter

Eight

The entire mansion floor shakes and shatters, the walls and floors moving hard enough that I slam straight down, and pain radiates through my chest from the impact. Severi holds the wall until the shaking has stopped, unfazed by it, and when it stops, the floor has one tremendous gap in it. “It’s one of your godforsaken mates!” His roar hurts my ears, and I laugh. I don’t stop laughing as he barks commands at the Vian by the door before grabbing my arm and lifting me to my feet. He shakes me. “Stop laughing. You’re fucking insane.”

“Ah, now we are getting to know each other.” I slam my forehead into his face, and his nose breaks under the force with a satisfying crunch and a gush of blood. He roars again, this time in pain, and I take the shocked moment to slam my foot straight into his knee. He lets go and I’m so gone. The Vian by the door steps into my path, his eyes wide with fear, and I cock my head to the side. “Want to die? You have a second to move and I’ll let you live.”

He steps aside, plastering his body to the door. Smart Vian. The stairway is full of Vian as I come out in the corridor, and the magic of this mansion hits me hard, pushing my Nexus down. I throw myself over the banister, landing with a sickening thudon the stairs below. Pain radiates down my spine and arm from the landing, but I push it back. I climb to my feet as they come after me, passing the second floor where I let myself look for a moment at the room my parents died in. Only a second and it hurts. It hurts more than my body does from the beating and landing. I can almost hear my father and mother screaming for me to run. Run, run and don’t stop.

I ignore the sharp pain in my ribs and how breathless it is making me, and I especially ignore the faces of all the newly dead that I just killed even when I know they will haunt me forever. More blood. More death. I killed them. Whatever power I just absorbed, I hope it’s the power to somehow transport myself magically from one place to the other. The power sits under my skin, but I can’t use it in this place. Of course, my Nexus doesn’t offer up any answers. She is napping like a content cat who just drank their owner’s cup of tea.

My shoes skid across the floorboards as I get to the end of the staircase, looking up to see the staircase falling apart above and cutting off Severi’s route to me. Some good luck at last. The luck lasts all of three seconds before I come down face to face with three Vian blocking my way to Annie. Two of them pull out shiny silver daggers that I want to steal, and the only woman doesn’t do anything but shake her head repeatedly, speaking curses in Spanish before she runs away. “If that doesn’t prove who is the smarter sex, nothing will.” I grin like a mad woman. Maybe I am one. “Get the fuck out of my way. My Nexus likes to eat men for dinner.”

“No, you’re a prisoner of our prince and—” I sigh. The hard way, then. I charge at them, which they don’t expect, and I jump straight to the one on the left. The bigger, leather-covered man with a beard. He grabs me, but it’s too late as I slide around his waist and use my legs to clamp his arms down before flipping us both. He hits the ground, and the other one grabs the dress, thestupid dress, and yanks me back. The fabric tears and slips out of his hand as I let him think he has successfully pulled me over, but in the last second, I sweep my leg out under him. He yelps, dropping his dagger and slamming on the floor headfirst. The fall knocks him out. The other one is scrambling for his dagger. I pick them both up on the way to him, and he crawls backwards, his eyes full of fear. I’m used to seeing fear like this, when Vian realise exactly who they are messing with. Only, I never want to kill them. “Don’t follow me. Leave!”

“Why? You’re a monster, you’re the Morrigan!” he shouts at my back. “You bring death, not humanity. Not clemency!” The name makes me flinch. I turn to ask him what the fuck that name means when I hear more Vian stomping down the stairs. Severi won’t be far behind. I don’t have time to ask him, but he is climbing to his feet, and I know he is going to take the chance I’ve given him. I run straight for Annie because I’m not leaving without her. She is my family now.

“GWENIEVE!” I hear Severi shouting through the house, which is falling apart. I cough on the smoke that’s rolling in dark waves across the ceiling. Every window I pass glows orange with the thick flames outside the forest, and it feels like small earthquakes are going off every minute, right under the house. I nearly stop when I see a fire fucking tornado spin past the window and back into the forest. Who the hell has this power? “Spell the house doors and make sure she can’t get out!”

From the look of the front door, the house is too damaged for that to work on me anymore. I slam through a door into the corridor, which is well guarded. The two Vian come straight for me, one grabbing my arm like he thinks he’s smart. “You can’t drain me, buddy.” I slam the hilt of my new dagger straight into his neck, but I didn’t see the spike on the end of it. Blood splashes all over my dress as I back up, sickness rising in my throat. He gasps, falling to the floor at my feet, and I’m in a daze.I don’t see the other one punch me hard, his fist turned to metal. I see stars, only for a second, and fall in the puddle of blood from the other Vian.

This one is vicious. Grabbing the dagger I dropped, he slams it straight into my side. His brown eyes stare into mine as I gasp in pure, agonising pain. “Die, just fucking die, you bitch!” He pulls the dagger out and slams it into me again. I can’t breathe through the pain as I scream this time. “My brother is dead because of you. I’m going to kill that Nexus friend of yours, and you watch this time. I watched you kill my brother last time!”

Blood trickles from the side of my mouth as horror spins through me. “Don’t you fucking dare!” I lean up, pushing through the pain and begging my Nexus to help me. It’s indescribable how the world spins as he walks away from me. My Nexus doesn’t come out, but she does send every inch of our strength into my veins so I can stand. “My father taught me you shouldn’t turn away from your enemy unless they have stopped breathing.” He looks back, but I plunge my other dagger into his back, near his heart. I don’t know which of my stab wounds hurts more when I get past him, ignoring his shouts and screams as he cries on the floor. He’ll die soon and he might deserve it, but hell, I feel bad.

I pull the door open to the room I was in, and Annie’s eyes widen as she takes me in. “Oh, my God! Gwen, you’re bleeding! Twin Gods save you. How are you standing?”

“The twin Gods forsook me years ago, and I’m fine.”

She shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears. It’s weird to have someone care about me being hurt. “They haven’t. You’re Nexus and part of the Gods. We all are.” She shushes me, looking me over. “You’re bleeding so much. Are you going to die?”

“Yes, probably.” I try to grin. “But there are more painful ways to die.”

She doesn’t like my joke, but she doesn’t know I’m not joking. Drowning is more painful.

The whole ground shakes and there is a noticeable bang in the distance, just as parts of the ceiling start falling out around us. “Come on. You have to get out of here.”

“With you,” she says, coming over. “I want to be a ranger, and this will be my future. I’m not weak or useless, so give me that dagger and let me help you now.”

“Annie, just, if everything goes wrong…run from me. Run from what I become,” I ask her. I mean it. She nods once, seeing how serious I am, right before I slide my dagger into her hand. It’s slippery with my blood, but she doesn’t care. I beg my Nexus please not to hurt her. Not Annie. I can’t shift with Annie near me, anyway. I won’t risk it.

The ground shakes throughout and we both cling to the wall until it passes, hearing the smashing of glass and more bangs nearby. Who is doing that? Two more Vian come running down the corridor after we only got a few steps. “Do you think if I scream that I’m the big bad monster of their nightmares here to eat them, they will run away?”

“Erm…” Annie mutters. “Maybe this isn’t the time for jokes…” She trails off, stopping as the colour drains from her face.

I don’t need to see who it is before he steps out between the Vian males. Kos. Her betraying mate. He ignores me and focuses on Annie, holding his hands up. The Vian listen to him. “I know you don’t understand yet, but you will understand when we leave here. This was temporary while they learnt to trust me. Annie, this war is one-sided. They have all been lying to you. Us. It’s all a lie.”

“Lies?” She blinks the tears away. “You want to be talking to me about lies when you got my parents killed? You blew up our friends in that house and betrayed your own people! I hate you!”

“No, you don’t,” he soothes, and I bet the fucker actually believes that as he immediately tries to gaslight his mate. “You don’t know anything, but I can tell you. They are not evil. I am doing this for us. This is all for us so we are on the right side of the war when it ends.”

“When it ends, I’ll be with my people. The Nexus.” She lifts her head. “If you love me, then move and get out of my way.”

He changes in a heartbeat. The soft, kind expression disappears into a hardened, icy indifference that I know shatters her heart. I’ve had my mates look at me like that, and it hurts. “I can’t do that when the monster is at your side. She has to stay and so do you—to control her.”

She is shaking. “Did you ever actually love me, or were you using me because of my father? Was I a golden ticket that you happened to win from the Gods?” She wipes her cheeks with her hand. “Do your sweet parents know? All the money they’ve flooded into the Nexus world… Do they know their son’s sitting at a dinner table with the enemy?”

“I do love you, but I love the cause more.” He nods at the Vian. “We can talk more later. Please, just come with me and don’t make this difficult. You know I’d never hurt you.” He takes a step forward.

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