Thereon (PROLOG)
23:46 Jun 02 2009
Times Read: 651
PROLOG
They were here to fight, and it was beginning to look like they would not even need his opponent in the ring to get the event started. A male in a dark cloak of deepest green velvet had his hood thrown back to show the aristocratic arrogance bred into him from birth. The cloak matched his eyes. It was as changeable as the magic flowing through his veins, but green was their natural color…if there was anything ‘natural’ about the man. His dark hair looked brown. Most would believe it too, but in certain lighting, or with a certain humidity, that color looked like a darkly-oxidized, blood shade.
The mage’s name was Holi’Ander. Most people called him Holland, or Holly for short. His dark green eyes were swirling like storm clouds with his volatile moods. He did not like being here. He didn’t like the change in his close, childhood friend. He also did not like the argument that had inevitably brought them here to this moment in their lives. Holly was a powerful, rich man. Rich men did not like to be told they were wrong, or arrogant, or selfish. Holly was no different. He did not like listening, so he didn’t listen.
His friend was wearing an expensive suit of armor designed for weaponry of the ancient variety. The hardened metal was light and didn’t heat up if exposed to fire. Also, it didn’t turn cold if exposed to ice. It was designed to absorb magical attacks and deflect physical ones. The last battle had been a very brutal affair ending in the violent death of a large, aggressive competitor. They were expecting the best as the fighter had a steady reputation for being unbeatable in fair combat. He was named Cage…no more.
Cage wasn’t wearing his helmet at the moment. Still, his hooded cloak was pulled up over his tightly braided blonde-white hair and hid most of his profile from view. Only Holly and the arena could clearly see his exposed face. He was not happy; even though, coming here had been his idea. Cage had believed getting Holly away from anyone who knew them might give him a chance to discuss the issue building a wall between them so swiftly. Only it had backfired in his face, Cage realized as he scanned the barbarous crowds in disgust. There were no civilized gentlemen present except for Holland himself and possibly Cage, but that was debatable in certain circles of society.
The woman was exceptional and unique enough to not bother looking ‘human’ normal as the standards dictated. Of course, none of them were human here. This was not a human world. Still, she was remarkably different from their kind. Cage had not liked it when they had told him his opponent would be female. They had pointed her out earlier as the agreement was being discussed. Her hair was a silvery glitter that attracted attention like a deadly Mer, but if you got closer…it was a lovely aquamarine, combining the tones of sharp, cerulean blue and appealing, kelp green. At each temple, she had a spray of colors that fanned back into the rest of her hair. It was a cute, watery pink…and a dazzling, lime green. Strange as it were, but stranger still were her eyes. They were an uninterrupted, petrifying shade of onyx. Not one hint of a pupil graced those depths. It unnerved him to look into the unbroken expanse of those unpredictable eyes.
She had been released into the arena where she and her jailors now stood after the removal of no less than two, silver slave bands. Even across the arena, Cage had felt the power of the dampening spells laced into that silver. It was enough to kill most of their kind. You could take away enough magic to make them mortal, but if you took too much…they just plain died. That meant she had been a strong opponent…once. Wearing slave bands that powerful for too long would eventually send even a powerful ancient into a coma. She didn’t look far from that recuperative state of being. She looked exhausted as she stumbled to the center of the arena amidst shouts of appreciation for her naked beauty.
“Have they only sent her to die,” the man on his left asked causing neither Holly nor Cage to look happy with the deal they had struck.
“I won’t kill her if she can’t fight me fairly,” Cage swore letting his master see his fury. The mage to his left nodded after a long, considering pause. “Thank you…” His master’s lips twitched with an adoring grin that he suppressed. It had been a while since Holly had reason to smile at him.
Inside the arena, the woman fell to the ground. As she lay there, the dirt floor disappeared. It became silver and Cage swore heatedly. “They did not mention that to me,” his master advised darkly. Cage knew how bad Holly hated arenas with any type of enchantment upon them. He would not have agreed had he known the fighting ring held not only a spell to keep the combatants contained, but a sheer floor of poisonous silver.
“She is naked,” Cage fumed. “How can she fight me touching silver like that? She is exhausted from the bands already,” he fussed. “This isn’t right! This isn’t what I wanted…I wanted a fair fight…not this!”
“She must have pissed her owner off rather royally,” his master stated softly in unconcern. Cage stared at him wondering what he would do if pissed off to the point of wanting him dead. Sometimes lately, that did not sound as ridiculous as he had once believed. “Don’t look at me like that, Cage,” his master warned softly. The warrior turned his fear-filled eyes back to the stadium in speculation. “Often since we arrived you have looked at me with doubt in your eyes. I do not deserve it.”
“I do not mean to offend, mim’da…” His master sounded disappointed in him. Cage loved Holly. They had been friends for so long he couldn’t remember much about his life before him. Cage’s eyes begged him to understand, but there was the argument between them clouding the perceptions of anything they said or did until it was resolved. “You know I would never hurt you on purpose.”
“However, it does offend me, Cage,” his master said firmly. Holly resolutely ignored the double-meaning behind that last sentence just as Cage had known he would. “You wanted to fight in arenas outside of our lands. I gave in to your begging despite my own views against it. I did not want you to see any of this and think things that were never true between us.”
“You are nothing like these people,” Cage stated softly. “Still, I can’t keep from…”
“I have never treated you badly,” Holly growled sharply cutting off his words before he could betray his uncertainties in public. His master looked around sadly. Holly’s angry eyes took in everything and he nodded his head to himself as the emotions within them died. Holly was hiding his feelings behind that thick mask he wore only around his father. “Get this over. I want to return home. We should not have come here.”
Cage felt a momentary fear. Something between them had changed. He wanted to touch his master’s arm to ask him to look at him again, but such a gesture here would cause the mob to kill him. This was not their homeland. Here a slave did not touch another without permission unless that person was also a slave and their master allowed it…just like this fight. Unable to do anything, he did what was asked of him. The warrior threw off his own cloak before entering the arena to a sudden hush of expectation. The crowd watched eagerly waiting for the bloodshed they knew would come.
The woman’s skin was the color of the dust she had absorbed from the floor. It made Cage’s deep, red-brown, earth tone look alive to her deadened, dusty skin. His eyes were the color of the sun shining with light at its most powerful equinox. His pale, white hair also cast a glow of light around him in the darkened interior of the arena’s shell. The strands at his temples that fell loose despite his attempt to contain it moved and snapped in the energy of his aura. Even his fingernails were white light confounding his opponents when their eyes held sunspots from his moving around in their eyesight. Cage was a warrior designed from birth to win fights…He rarely lost. The woman looked pale and lost and lonely. She looked fragile, but he knew she wasn’t. She couldn’t be to enter this ring. The longer those disabler’s were off of that creamy, brown skin the more powerful she would become even with the silver floor that naturally deadened magic.
Despite being told to keep them, Cage disrobed to his pants and boots rather than wearing his armor. It revealed his face to the crowd who sucked in a breath. Cage knew they all wanted to touch his beauty without having to ask. He was used to the awe when his face was revealed. Perhaps it was time someone reminded Holly of that. People envied what they wanted and rich men loved to be envied for what they possessed.
The woman on the ground frowned at him before trying to stand up shakily. She made it only as far as her knees. “Do you plan to rape me…or fight me,” she asked of him blandly. Her voice was so tired it made him feel bad to be standing there well rested and armed. As she sounded utterly serious, he chose to answer her.
“I was asked to fight. Are you well enough for this?” She nodded. “Do you need another minute to recover? I can stall a bit more…”
She frowned more sternly looking puzzled. “You are stalling to help me,” she whispered in amazement.
Cage glanced up as the arena master’s voice exploded into the pit in an angry protest. “I said ‘fight’ not ‘socialize’!” Cage crouched like he faced an adversary, but his eyes were on her master…and not her. “Kill him, Ephemeria…”
Cage’s eyes swung to the woman in alarm.
Where she had been sitting, now a very large, hulking Golem stood. It looked mean, especially with her solid, sparkling, black eyes. Cage scrambled back. He had to move fast to get to his sword, but though reluctant to use it he knew a sword cut wasn’t fatal to an elemental. It would exhaust her to heal, but she would not suffer. Still, just being in this ring after wearing those disablers was exhausting enough. He did not wish to injure her.
Cage was surprised at how long it took to make the Golem fall to the ground. Obviously, she had still been recovering as they fought. Poised over the huge beast with his sword, Cage was thrilled to see the woman melt out of the Golem once more. She was tired, but whole and untouched by any damage the beast had taken. He smiled at her backing up to kneel a few feet away. “Are you okay?”
“You are unusually nice…for a warrior,” she hissed grumpily as she lay there with her eyes closed. “Shouldn’t you be trying to cut my head off of me?”
“If that is what you would prefer,” Cage stated neutrally. “We do not kill for sport in my homeland unless prearranged to do so before fighting.”
“And you did not sign a kill contract for me…”
Cage shook his head and smiled. “It was implied, but no one thought of it I guess.”
“I always kill my opponents,” she admitted.
“You cannot kill me,” Cage carefully informed her not knowing how she would take the news.
“Really,” she drawled in amusement.
Cage gasped as a blast of magic hit his unarmored chest knocking him across the whole length of the arena to hit the opposite wall. Cage looked up in surprise as he slipped down that wall slowly. He had looked right into his master’s narrowed eyes. Cage imagined for a moment that the pain he saw reflected within his eyes was true concern that he might not live. It was concealed even before Cage hit the ground fading into unconsciousness. There was a diamond spike sticking out of his back and chest, straight through his heart.
The crowds went wild. The master of the arena came down to get her and the stadium’s cheers erupted so loud they were deafening. The woman prevented her guards from placing the bands on her with a quick wave that stopped the wary pair in their tracks. Her owner knelt talking to her softly before lifting her into his arms to get her off of the solid, sheet of silver that covered the floor. He showed her off with a gloating grin moving slowly in circles toward the exit. Before he walked through the gate, both bands were replaced on her pretty, little wrists securely.
Cage’s owner had the spike pulled from his chest by paying a person in the overly eager crowd to go inside in his place. The spectator also got to keep the diamond spike, so it was easy to get someone to do it. Cage gasped as the spike was yanked free. His eyes automatically looked up the wall to his owner’s annoyed frown. Stumbling to his feet, the wound healed with a bright flash of light that attracted the attention of the entire stadium. Almost everyone cheered as they saw him walk off of the floor without any assistance.
His owner did not cheer. Instead, he met him at their exit with a stern frown. “You let her win,” Holly decided grumpily when Cage finally stood before him. “You had better have a damn good reason for that…” They left without further comment to join the victory celebration, where Cage almost immediately lost him to the crowd of people.
Cage frowned in uncomfortable alarm at being alone with so many strangers. For a moment, he imagined he saw a few familiar profiles, but then he was alone again and he did not like it. Once, he even saw a man dressed in the Council robes of his homeland speaking to the arena master furtively. It was so strange a sight to see a member of the ruling body out and alone that Cage tried to get closer to see who the Mage was. However, people stopped him at every turn trying to rub at his muscles, or kiss and lick at his sweaty skin. Usually, Holly kept all at bay who would infringe upon what was rightfully his alone. It was a measure of his anger that he allowed this. It was humiliating and it stung his pride.
Midway through the party, tired of being pawed by adoring fans of both sexes, Cage saw his master coming through the crowds with relief to get him. Cage fought to get free of the men holding him tightly in place as others did all sorts of things with him. Cage never made a sound, but he had been so certain Holly had left him to be raped. His fear was still riding him when they won their freedom from the reluctant spectators. It was only after he had extracted him and they were outside in the empty courtyard that Cage noticed the limp in his master’s perfect stride. Cage’s smile froze on his face fading as he stopped moving suddenly.
The man turned to him curiously. “My mim’da is angry with me,” Cage hissed in startled dismay.
The man nodded, but did not explain. Cage was scared. He rarely ever grew scared, but Holly really had left him in there alone...knowing what could have happened to him in a place where no one knew who Cage was other than a good fighter who had lost a fight and lived to tell about it. The man before him held out his hand beckoning him to walk further away from the amorous onlookers. “I shamed him for a girl,” Cage admitted in a very soft voice to the pretender who did not own him.
“This might come as a complete surprise to you,” the man stated softly with a sympathetic expression in a voice so like his adoring master that it made Cage wince, “but I do not think that was his reason.” His cryptic comment, while smiling blandly at a few people who spilled out of the party behind them, puzzled the youthful warrior immensely. “So…where is she? I’d like to see the creature that has you so distracted you would lose.”
Cage led him back inside and through the crowded room to a pile of furs thrown down beside the arena’s master. The woman had passed out when the disabler bands were returned to her. She was lying there with her eyes closed and another band of silver chaining her in place on her ankle. The arena master wasn’t watching them. Doubtfully, he did not even notice that the cloaked male was not the same as before. Only those who really knew the two well could differentiate between them. Cage rarely saw this one, but he would know him from Holly in seconds. Huey’s brows pulled together sternly in disapproval and surprise.
“Yeah, two disablers and another band of the stuff is chaining her to the floor,” Cage summed up angrily. “Either she is just that powerful, or they are going to kill her.”
Huey frowned thoughtfully as he glanced at her. “Possibly both,” he murmured. “She looks familiar to me…” However, Huey was not looking at the chained warrior woman that held Cage’s interest. He was staring at the woman the arena master held tightly upon his raised sitting area clasped between muscled legs in a grip that suggested she did not wish to be with him in the least.
Cage did not pay attention to him as his entire body went on alert. The girl was stirring. The moment she began to move, six huge men began to remove her from the room. Cage’s eyes followed them anxiously. Seeing his concentration was causing others to notice them, Huey tapped his side and exited back to the courtyard. “Where is the arena,” he whispered softly.
Cage led him down a narrow passage that led back to the arena and pointed. A bed had been placed there. It was without anything but a bottom sheet and not unoccupied for long. The men placed her there removing her bands the moment they left her. “It won’t be long before he follows her here,” Huey surmised just as he felt Cage step away from him. “Now, what do you intend…Cage,” Huey hissed as he saw the young warrior leaping down into the pit. “Cage, get back here,” Huey called in alarm. “You fool, do not act like an idiot! I can’t help you in there! Cage…”
It was already too late. Cage slowed down as he neared the bed. Her eyes were closed again as if she had already passed back out. Cage looked seriously concerned as he kept moving to her side. He touched her foot sending a little pulse of energy into her body scanning magically for wounds or injuries that could not be seen with the casual glance. She was truly tired, but not anywhere near what she should have been giving the conditions she was kept in. Her eyes opened to his puzzled amazement.
“You are not hurt,” Cage hissed in surprise. He was relieved, but it made him wary. She had looked injured. “How is that even possible?”
“I manage,” she stated bluntly looking irritated with the question. She looked him over with an arrogance that no one could mimic. She was raised with the same nobility he had seen daily on his master’s face. Who was she? Why would an aristocrat be kept as a slave under such conditions and fought out for the amusement of the masses? “I am far more powerful than he realizes. I doubt even his foolish silver bands can kill me.”
“They can. I have seen it. I hope he doesn’t,” Cage admitted sadly.
It caused her to smile, but it was a very cold look on her beautiful face. Cage moved backward slightly letting go of her fast as he went. He was not certain why he felt threatened, but he chose to follow his instincts. Still as fast as he moved, she moved quicker than his eyes could follow grabbing onto his retreating arm. Before he knew what she wanted, he was pinned down on his back with her kneeling over him.
“What are you doing?” Cage was still trying to be polite; although, he was quickly becoming convinced that his efforts were wasted.
“I have always wanted to do this,” she purred delighted, “but I have never met a male so foolish enough to come to me when I am not helpless or guarded.” She opened his pants and Cage’s eyes widened.
“Oh, please…don’t,” he hissed at her in alarm when she moved her hands over him there. Cage fought her thinking of anything at all to distract himself from her intentions and her naked skin. “I cannot do this with you…Please, let me go.” He tried to disengage her, but it was a useless attempt. Her body was too sexy; her brain too skilled at arousal. He felt his defenses weakening even as his protests grew. “In my world, we are bound to our lovers…” Cage forgot to be polite in his fear. He began to fight her for real. “If you make me break that vow…” She used power to pin him in place as she lowered her lips to him. “Don’t…”
Cage screamed in fear. He screamed for Huey to help him knowing that he would never risk coming into the arena for a slave. The twins had one strict rule: They never entered an arena, for any reason, especially one as enchanted as this one. She had him. Cage began to feel a distracting energy moving inside of him that froze his stuttering heart. He knew what she was doing. Only light-bearers and water healers were known for this particular magic. She was effectively ruining his life without even trying hard; it was the one thing that would fuck up his life more than any other. It was a rare talent and one he had never thought an earth elemental could master, but it made sense. He screamed more frantically as his body panicked, detaching itself from his numb mind that continued to monitor her magical energy working inside of his body.
Cage used every trick at his disposal to free himself, including his magic, but she sucked it into her aura and used it against him. It wasn’t long before he grew still in horror as she took what she needed from him. A single tear fled his eye as he closed them in defeat. Still his mind was locked on her magic. It almost banished his fear as he watched her working it around both DNA strains inside of her as she pulled diamond dust off of the floor to swirl around them. She was using it to create matter where it should have grown naturally.
By the time he removed his thoughts from what she was doing, she was pushing two tiny, infant boys into his arms. She refastened his pants urging him frantically to go. “Why have you done this to me,” Cage whispered staring at the solid black eyes of the two twins.
“They are your sons now. I can’t raise them. If my master sees them, he will do things you cannot even begin to know to them. You have to leave. He is on his way…” Ephemeria shoved him away from her crossly.
“I don’t understand,” Cage rasped irately as she pushed him to the now pure silver floor as the rest of the diamond dust came up to push into the two babies he held. They grew heavier causing him to shift their weight unconsciously as he stared at her in horror. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you have caused by doing this?”
She gave him a solemn look with those black, black eyes. “Probably far more than you yet realize…You are no more than a warrior. They are something far greater than you could ever imagine.” Her wording made him look to the growing boys as his own fears began to grow. What were they? “Protect them while they are young. When they grow older, they may protect you,” she advised.
“I didn’t need any protection,” Cage hissed at her in hatred. “I might now…”
She looked for a moment startled by the venom in his glare. Puzzled, she pushed at him. “Get out of here, warrior…He comes!”
Cage refused to allow the two innocent children to suffer for her lack of understanding and sympathy. He scrambled out of the arena only stopping when he reached the exit without seeing anyone. Turning back, he whispered his name. From the look in her eyes, she would not forget it. She looked as if she might only now be considering how her plans would affect his life.
Cage gave her one last look of furious helplessness before he disappeared out of the gate handing one child to Huey. They now looked about a year old, but the accelerated growth had stopped.
The two of them moved away stealthily looking as shocked as the other while the two babies watched everything with dark, intelligent black eyes. Huey kept looking at both of the boys and Cage’s terrified face as he escorted them calmly to the gate that would lead them all home. There were so many things he could have said to make matters worse. Cage was too scared to hear him had he bothered. Cage knew what he stood to lose. He didn’t need any reminders. It was something he had been forced to think about for the last two months.
Huey stopped in sudden fear. “Holly,” he hissed. Staring back at Cage, he asked of him, “Do you want me to claim them as mine?” It was a rare offer of defense from the usually silent and unassuming brother, but Cage shook his head despondently looking back at the twins he had tried hard to ignore up until now. This was it. The moment when he had to choose between innocents and something he stood to lose anyway. It was as if the woman warrior had known all along. The wall between Cage and those he loved had manifested into the bodies of two babies that watched him with uncertain eyes hoping he would keep them safe. Hoping he would not abandon them…
“No,” Cage said sadly. “I could never lie for anyone…least of all for myself.”
Cage looked up at the man in the dark, concealing cloak in misery. No one would know it was Holly except Huey. If Hugh said that was his twin, then it was certain to be Holly. Even not knowing the Mage’s identity, everyone could read the angry disapproval swelling from the hidden depths of the saffron cloak. The crowd at the teleportation gates gave Holly a wide berth out of wary fear. Huey nodded acknowledging the moment his twin saw them standing there. Cage felt all of his fears surfacing to choke him.
Holly hissed when he saw the boys.
Huey gripped his arm refusing to discuss it here where they were now all in danger should anyone suspect or overhear what he was about to say. He was normally the far more submissive of the two twins. “Into the gate,” Huey snapped firmly before any accusations, arguments or explanations could erupt from the pair.
The two boys stared at everyone and everything with a thoughtful frown of apprehension.
2008, (Jenna Karro). All rights reserved. No republication of this material, in any form or medium, is permitted without express permission of the author.
Thereon (Part 1)
23:45 Jun 02 2009
Times Read: 654
CHAPTER 1 – THEROEN
Cairn and a cute little boy were laughing near the center fountain. Most visitors thought the boy was his son, but the two were simply good friends. They looked alike with their pale skin and brown hair, eyes like warm, melting chocolate. Cairn was fond of the boy’s mother, Jewel. Huey came up to laugh with the two, but Cage turned away from the smiling faces in disgust.
Suddenly Lynnette was there bumping up against him playfully. She had a strange habit of knowing when his soul was in pain and coming to him to cheer him up. “Hey, you old grump…what is the matter with you now?” Cage ignored her teasing as he usually did. Lynn was not one to give up easily on anything that mattered to her. She bit her lip thoughtfully. She was pale and gorgeous with bright, blonde hair and laughing blue eyes that rarely turned sour. “You like Hue…why would you not want him to be near your son?”
Cage’s eyes narrowed angrily on her. “Don’t you start talking like that,” he warned dangerously in a soft hiss. “It has nothing to do with Huey being near him.” Cage was in enough trouble without that rumor spreading throughout the compound.
“Oh, so you don’t like Cairn with Jewel, or what,” she asked far more warily as she sensed his fury. It was odd to see a frown on her lovely face, but he knew why she was hoping that wasn’t why he was being moody lately. She was sleeping with Cairn’s twin. His eyes softened in silent misery as he looked away.
“What I say doesn’t matter to anyone,” Cage whispered with a heavy sigh. “You and Jewel are fine. I don’t mind them being with the two of you…”
He knew he didn’t sound all that convincing. On the other hand given that he never lied to anyone, Lynnette took him at his word rubbing his shoulders to ease some of the tension her line of questioning had caused. “Then, what is wrong, old man?” She cuddled up to him leaning down to hug herself across his entire back. Cage patted her hand fondly, but didn’t pay her any mind at all. “You are never happy. Lately, you are far worse. You have started shunning happiness in those around you.”
So she had noticed that, he worried. It made him look her in the eyes which he rarely did when she was this close to him suffusing him with a warm flow of her own energy in an attempt to heal his broken heart. “Why don’t you talk to Hue anymore? He misses you. I keep seeing him stare at you with the same look I get sometimes,” she said with a little laugh of depreciating wit. “We love you, dummy.”
Cage closed his eyes. It wasn’t Huey he needed to settle things with, he thought morbidly. “I am leaving. I don’t need Huey to miss me,” Cage stated with an acidic tone. Lynnette gasped, but when he stood to go she let him leave with her lambent, hurt eyes glowing at him in dismay.
Later that same night, Cage groaned as someone shook him awake. It was too dark to see anything. “You can’t leave us, old man.” It was Cairn. Lynnette had squealed to him. He sounded wide awake and it had to be the middle of the night. “Did you hear me? You can’t leave us.”
Cage rolled his face into the pillow pretending to ignore him, but Cairn was the patient twin. “Why the fuck not,” Cage growled grumpily. “No one in this house that I give a damn about gives a shit!”
Cairn snorted in disbelief. “If no one cared, why would I be here? Lynnette adores you; Jewel too. I care, and…Well, we all do!”
Cage exploded out of his sheets in a bright burst of light that clearly displayed his fury to his son. “That is such shit! I am leaving! That is the end of it!” Cage readjusted the sheet to sit over his bare thighs self-consciously as Cairn backed up without leaving.
“Dad,” he whispered looking hurt. That one word nearly changed Cage’s mind.
“I love you, Cairn,” Cage sighed in defeated weariness. “The Gods only know how much I do, but your first priority will always be to Thereon. He is your twin. I cannot come between that.” Cairn didn’t bother to argue the point. It was obvious he did not understand. “I can’t love Thereon…not anymore,” Cage hissed at him as his bright aura flashed again in irritation while his son blanched in horror.
“Why won’t you tell me? Why won’t either of you tell me what happened? What did he do to make you stop looking at us? Don’t I have the right to know if you are going to condemn me for it too?” Cage didn’t answer him. His aura of light dimmed, but didn’t go away entirely as he lay back down. He must have given the impression that he was ignoring him because Cairn reached out and grabbed his arm yanking him up enough to meet his eyes. “I did nothing to you! How can you blame me too?”
“Honestly,” Cage whispered as he stared at this one son that he hated giving up more than he could possibly explain to him, “I can’t. However, you look like him. You are twins, Cairn. I can’t see your face without remembering the last thing he said to me before he ran out that door.” Puzzled, Cairn let him go seeing the utter misery in his father’s face hurt him more than his leaving. “You will always be blamed together…by everyone. You are inseparable. Where he goes, so do you.”
“Thereon isn’t here now,” Cairn pointed out almost choking on the words with a large amount of pain in his own lovely eyes. They had changed before entering the compound to the shade they had since remained. It was a wonder to Cage. The two boys he had never wanted never ceased to amaze him. He loved them both so much it hurt, but he refused to say it ever again. One had betrayed him. “How can you leave me while he is gone? What if he doesn’t come back?”
Cage looked away thoughtfully. “Because I met your mother and I remember what she said about you both,” he answered with a sigh. “Thereon will not only come back,” he hedged warily, “he will be twice as dangerous as when he left. He has made himself clear on where he stands. It isn’t something I want to deal with. If he wants me gone, I’ll go.”
“He can’t want you to leave! He loves you! How can you think that?”
“Then, he has a brutal fashion of showing it!” Cage had not meant to yell at him. Cairn was purposely pushing him to make him say something that would give him a hint of what had happened to them. “You do not know what I do…Until he tells you himself,” Cage hissed trying to calm himself unsuccessfully, “don’t ever defend him!” Cairn shook his head not liking his advice. “You might feel guilty for it later,” Cage warned more softly. Cairn looked at him in such agony and his face tensed as a single tear escaped his control to spill down his face in a swift statement of his opinion. “Cairn…I do love you. Honest, I do…but I can’t do this anymore.” Cage sounded world-weary and defeated.
“Do what exactly? What is so bad that you can’t stay,” his son asked in derisive anger.
“I never…” Cage shook his head looking away sadly. He had never wanted to admit to them that they had been a terrible mistake that he had never asked for, but he couldn’t see any other way of saying it. “I never wanted children. I never asked for them. What your mother did to me, without caring how it would affect my life, destroyed everything I had at the time.”
Cairn did not respond. He was the emotional one of the two, but the two twins were nothing alike. Cage had always thought twins should be the same, but it was not true. Cairn did not look surprised that he hadn’t wanted kids. Perhaps he hadn’t hid it as well as he had hoped. “I tried very hard to not allow that to affect the way I raised you both.” Cairn’s face closed down into a blank mask that hid what he was thinking. “I loved you both very much…in that way, I didn’t mind so much,” Cage tried to lie to keep from hurting him. He knew it wasn’t very believable, but he added a ‘mental push’ to make him believe it anyway. That subtle lie alone made him feel like a greater liar and betrayer than he ever wanted to believe he was capable of…still, he’d had a good teacher.
Cage was calm again, but without the anger he just felt hurt and alone. “I always missed what I had lost…and the Gods only know if having Huey made it better, or worse,” he added with a tightly strained laugh, “but I did my best.”
“Then, what changed,” Cairn asked softly knowing there had been a definite reason.
“Thereon found out,” Cage admitted.
Cairn knelt to look him in the eyes as he lay there sadly. “I don’t understand…”
“He found out…” Cage sighed with the weight of the world in his eyes. “He knew…what I was…what I had lost. I don’t know how. What I would probably never have gotten back even after the two of you were grown and gone,” Cage added sadly with a sigh.
Cairn’s confusion deepened. “I don’t think knowing anything about you could make me willingly hate you,” he whispered.
“Not only found out,” Cage began to laugh insanely. It concerned Cairn, but he didn’t back away. “He used the knowledge to slaughter what remained of me. I was still holding out a hope that I could get my old life back, but…”Cage shook his head and Cairn was stunned to see tears filling his eyes. “He took that away from me, and I can’t forgive him for it! I have tried until I am sick to death from it…I can’t!”
Changing tactics, Cairn tried another approach. “Where will you go?”
Cairn was asking because he knew now that he would never talk him into staying. He had never seen his father so close to tears. He was asking because he wanted a way to find him in the future. Cage shook his head denying him an answer.
“You have to tell me!” Cairn sounded panicked. Cage was making him choose sides and he couldn’t do it. “I won’t tell Thereon, I swear!” Even though it made Cage nearly throw up in unease, he told him a vague answer. It wouldn’t matter. If Cairn knew, Thereon would know too.
“I’ll go see if your mom is still alive…” And kill her if she is, Cage added silently to himself.
“How will I find you? I don’t even know who she is?”
Cage smiled at him. There were ways and his sons were not stupid. People knew. They could find him, but it would take time. And time was exactly what he needed to prepare himself to face Thereon again…if ever. Neither of them spoke after that, but Cairn didn’t leave.
Cage hadn’t been able to sleep with Cairn staring at him with that helpless look in his eyes, so he had gotten up and dressed early. Huey came into of the room at the crack of dawn, dismissing Cage’s son as was his right to do. It was so unlike him that Cage knew he had also found out his plans. Cage held his breath fearful that he would he stay.
“You swore to me,” Cage hissed as he turned pale in helpless disbelief.
“Is that what this is about,” Huey asked in disappointment. “Are you giving up?” Huey glared at him in disgust. “I thought you were a man…a big, stout warrior. Where is your bravery, or your ill-fated, overconfident pride?”
“I haven’t any left,” Cage stated blandly with a wistful smile.
“So, you are going back to that smutty, evil planet…to that dishonest, unethical arena…to that perverse, careless female and her torturous, pitiless master of hers…after they took so much of you and ripped it to such insignificant shreds that you have never wholly recovered from it!” Huey made his disgust so unadorned it made Cage flinch as his body flushed with disgrace.
“Why? That place shattered everything I liked about you. You know what they will do if they find you there. You are going back there to die, Cage. Are you such a wimp? Have they all trampled you so low? Fulsome mortal…I think all you have left is your own conceit,” Huey hissed at him furiously. “Oh, woe to you…the planet is such a cruel place! You self-centered, self-important, narcissistic bastard…who cares, right? Incorrect,” Huey snapped shaking him as he grabbed hold of Cage’s collar too fast to know what he intended to do.
Cage was pale with fright. The man could kill him in an instant. “You should care! You self-righteous, egotistical idiot, people do not live for other people’s opinions! They live for their own. The worlds do not owe you a damned thing! You have to work for what you want.”
Cage growled as the mage released him and Cage fell back insulted by his reasoning. “What do you want, Cage?” That caused his growl to escalate as his eyes flashed dangerously. Both knew it would be suicide to attack Huey, but Cage was apparently suicidal. Still, he did not unleash that anger on Hue.
“You know what I want! What I have always wanted…”
“I don’t see you trying to get it back,” Huey mocked softly. “I don’t mean howling, imploring and degrading yourself either. Who would want someone like that? It would shame me to even know you if I saw such a disgusting display…lack of self-control…much less self-respect.”
“Then what are you suggesting I should have done, Mr. Know-Everything-Answer-to-my-Prayers?” Cage waited looking ready to bash Hue’s beautiful face just for having to look at it. Huey saw and it made him sad. Still, he met his gaze until Cage lowered his eyes to the ground more deferentially.
“You are not even recognizable as the creature I once had the pleasure of knowing,” Huey whispered. Cage hid his face as he turned his head slightly to the side. It saddened Hugh further to see it.
“Watching you in the arena was never my thing, but I cherished you anyway, Cage. Not because you fought so well…or treasured people I love…I respected the force of your personality,” he admitted softly in wistful melancholy. “It was impossible to not love you,” Hugh whispered hurrying into the rest of his explanation as if he did not wish for Cage to analyze that statement. “You made everyone who saw you smile. Now…you try so hard to be unseen. Are you so surprised that you can be ignored? You have made it easy for him to forget you. No one but you to blame if you cannot find a way to be what we all fell in love with again,” Huey stated softly as Cage stared at him in dismay.
“How do you suppose I do that,” Cage snarled helplessly.
“No one but them to blame if they do not love you when you are what you once were, but only you right now,” Huey pointed out firmly. “You changed, and made it easy for him to turn his back on you! Give up, Cage; go on…Be the coward Holly called you!”
Cage snarled, but discipline and restraint stilled his fury into no more than a smoldering glare. Even that was impertinent enough to earn him death from most masters, but not this one. “Hate me if it helps,” Hugh whispered solemnly with such sad eyes, “but I still love you, Cage.”
“Fuck,” Cage sighed looking like he was about to cry when his anger faded so quickly it left him without an anchor against the emotions that hit him. “Why did you have to go and say that?”
Cage held very still when Huey hugged him. It felt so perfect to be held by him again. No one other than Cairn, Thereon and Lynnette had touched him since Holly said the things he had in front of the entire household the day they returned from that cursed arena. Cage could help moving his chin against him as he had always done since he was a child being held by one of the twins. It made his heart ache. “I love you too…” Only it wasn’t the same. His love hurt him now, when it never had before.
“Then, don’t be stupid,” Huey protested holding him tighter. The two men hugged each other for several more minutes both remembering the past when all of them had been so happy together. Eventually, Cage stepped back.
Huey sighed. “It won’t be fair to tell you to stay here…I want to do it, Cage, despite my promise. Don’t think for a second I am not selfish enough to want to do it for any reason…if only to save your life. Technically, I still own your ass,” Huey joked with a smile. “Little good it has done me,” he whispered thoughtfully.
Cage smiled tightly with that fear in his eyes again. Despite everything, Cage still suspected that was the reason behind him coming this morning. Huey could not lie to him. It had crossed his mind. He was fighting with himself to let him go. “I won’t free you, Cage. I can’t do that,” he admitted miserably, “but I made you a promise and I will honor it.” It was obvious how much he regretted making that one promise, though. “Still, I will make you swear one thing to me before you leave…”
Cage’s eyes fell in hooded wariness suspecting the worst. “Don’t leave here if you are going to do something stupid. Don’t go and get yourself killed when you could have prevented it. Don’t try to tough it out if you get into trouble…call me.”
“Where in that was the one order,” Cage asked suspiciously.
“Don’t get yourself killed! That is what I am trying to say…Not by your own hand, or because you were too arrogant to ask for help.”
Cage looked belligerent, but slowly he nodded his head in agreement. “Only because you treated me so well after I blatantly disobeyed you…”
Huey smiled. It was more than he had hoped he would agree to, but it also gave him no reason to keep him against his wishes…except for owning him and not wanting him to go. “Even I didn’t expect what happened that day, Cage…You are a healer. I understood what you needed to do. I simply didn’t want you to get hurt. She was dangerous...Anyone could see that…”
Cage shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I knew you wouldn’t even consider coming to my aide even as I called out to you,” he stated in a monotone that told Huey what his averted eyes would not.
Huey side-stepped the question in Cage’s body language with a distant tone of voice, avoiding the hurt confusion that was still there after all of these years. “You are by nature a healer. Perhaps you were fated to give birth to your kids, Cage. They have a purpose you have yet to see.”
“Then, I hope they fated me a backup plan,” Cage snorted in disgust at the idea of someone playing with his life.
Huey smiled tightly. “Things usually work out for the best…” Huey had always believed the creatures of their kind possessed of fate-changing were all good deep down, but Cage knew that wasn’t possible. When he whispered words of praise to the meddling assholes, Cage never failed to grit his teeth his fury at all of them.
“I am not coming back, Huey,” Cage warned.
“You will,” Huey stated just as certainly. “Someone out there will be stronger than you, Cage. You still belong to me.”
“Why would they bring me back here?”
“Because I will hunt them down and kill them if they do not,” Huey stated clearly with a hard look. It was the most protective thing Hugh had ever said towards him. It was something Holly should have been saying. It hurt to hear it, but…it also felt right.
Nearly a hundred miles away, neither of them knew something was taking place that would once more change their lives for all time. She was lying like one departed amidst the steaming steel room. The heat and humidity was meant to be deadly to anyone except a race of creatures very hard to spot. Even one of this elusive species would probably die if young, or weak. This girl was immature.
Two men had entered the room and one of them would notice that she was still alive. She was very near death when he and his master came in to check the bodies for anything still living. Normally, his master was a little more discerning when choosing new slaves, but he had a deadline to fill for slaves that would not age and die quickly, hence the hasty collections and the atrocious termination of otherwise valuable flesh.
It was promptly determined that this one, nearly twenty year old girl, was the only one left alive out of a group of three dozen who now lay dead beneath her exhausted, limp body. Even though his master was furious, the male who lifted her up and removed her from the steamy climate was gentle.
She was mostly useless lying in a limp heap of sweaty flesh as they deposited her upon a soft bed. “I cannot believe she is the only one left alive.” The voice above was livid.
“Yes, I know, mim’da…I am sorry. This batch was far too easy to catch. I warned you that they might not be useful for this particular order,” a much softer and pleasurable voice stated subserviently.
“I suppose I should have listened to you,” the annoyed man sighed. “I need more time!”
“There isn’t any more time. I am sure your men will find them. They rarely fail you, sir…”
“That is because everyone knows I take the one thing they least want to give in payment for failure.” She could feel the shudder running through the man that still slightly touched her at his words. “Namur, leave me with her.”
“Yes, mim’da,” the softer speaking male left the room and she felt someone else touching her.
His hands were not as cold as his voice. In fact, he touched her rather respectfully other than not asking for her permission to run his hands all over her body as he stripped her carefully. He didn’t stop at stripping her. His hands ran a damp towel all over her to remove the sweat. He was thoughtfully testing the width of her hips…the weight of her breasts…the swollen plumpness of her lips…the silken curvature of her throat…all of the things that men desired in a female. He left none of them unexplored.
She was starting to be able to focus her heat exhausted system into minor movements when he spread her out on the bed beneath him. Then, he speared his hips up in a ramming fashion. It felt like a knife wound alright, but she knew instinctively what he had done. It was not the restrained bliss she was used to feeling with the peculiar tension. This was a tearing rip of torturous throbbing. She fought him as tears formed in the corners of her sealed eyelids in protest. It did little good. She was too tired, too hot, too short of breath and far too female to resist him.
He was built like an age-old warrior, not the mage men she was used to seeing. He was so heavy above her it felt like she was being crushed as he used her to service his needs unlawfully. The little amount of fighting she had done was enough to cause her vision to spot with black marks until she felt like she was feinting. Perhaps she really would feint…when she awoke; she knew she must have passed out. She didn’t remember much. He had barely gotten started when it felt like she was waking up.
Now, he was lying against her sleeping like a resting lord, which is unquestionably what he was. She was terrified. She was the freeborn child of a slave, so she knew what slavery entailed. She would never see her family again if she did not find some way to flee these men very soon. They were not being careful of her yet; a mistake they would surely correct shortly.
She did as the mages had taught her, straining to feel the energy of the surrounding area coming into her body. Surprisingly, this time it worked far better than planned. The magical energy flew into her body flooding it with so much energy she felt like her flesh was superficial to the power that flowed through the room. It was like she didn’t need her skin to exist. It was too much. Most mages went insane if they ingested too much power into their bodies before their minds could comprehend what to do with all of it. Perhaps she would have also, but the other male…the soft-spoken Namur, came into the bedroom and she simply reacted. The open door caused a panic-stricken urge to bolt out the door to safety. That was oddly just what happened. Her entire body disintegrated into a bolt of pure energy that shot out of the room singeing the poor male who backed into the doorjamb swiftly trying without success to avoid her.
The power had woken the other male, who shouted when she left his side. “Follow her,” he ordered his servant sternly.
Namur disappeared behind her leaving no trace of his whereabouts as she shot through the last door into the wilds around the structure. Instinct guided her direction. She could feel the way that would lead her home, but didn’t understand how. It was not in her nature to question how she knew something; if it felt right to her, it usually was.
She darted through the trees feeling the energy in her fleeing as she got distracted by the numerous trees. When she tried to focus on drawing more energy into herself, she nearly struck one of the towering oaks that seemed to draw her closer unnaturally. She had to slow her speed to restore her energy as she was too tired to keep it flowing from her own self.
A noise behind her spiked her fear levels and she bolted away again losing precious energy, but too afraid to slow down enough to replenish it. Finally, she fell to the damp earth exhausted and breathing as if she had ran the last few miles on two feet.
She pushed herself to her knees forcibly looking around nervous as the shadows seemed to grow thicker in the daylight from the hulking trees. She was so close to passing out again. She must not do that at any cost, or she would never gain her freedom again. The trees were blocking the sunlight, but it was nearing noon and the sun was strong warming the entire world with its rays of pure light. She could feel the precious magic of it calling to her and she opened her mind and aura to it greedily.
She must have looked a sight on her knees with her head thrown back and her thick, white-blonde hair swirling unnaturally in a wind of magical energy that wove around her naked flesh.
Namur stepped out of the darkness with his eyes wide and his step carefully afraid. She tried to remind herself that he had no choice being here right now, but in her fear to escape she knew she would kill him dead if she had to in order to survive. He looked as if he knew it too. Her dark, hazel and brown eyes tracked his movements. He was utterly beautiful, which felt sinful since she knew she would probably have to kill him to live freely. He looked a lot like the man she had left in the bed earlier, only she had not had time to study him properly.
Still, Namur was just plain gorgeous. He was graceful and fluid in movement like an elf of untold age. His hair whipped around him in the wind off of the energy she was now in control of, like the blackest shadows of night trying to protect him from the light she could cause to flare at any second. His eyes were a deep living well of lavender that showed he possessed his own natural spring of magic, but it was not one he could use to fight her. He was a dark creature and she the embodiment of light. His pale skin should have been ghostly, but it was a warm, rich golden brown that suggested he was not entirely a dark mage.
“Please don’t kill me,” he whispered to her as he knelt where he stood refusing to come closer.
“I don’t have any intention of returning to him,” she proclaimed fiercely.
“I can understand that,” he said nodding sadly. “However, if you flee and I cannot follow you...” His eyes hardened in distaste at the thoughts in his head. “I can’t let you leave without me. I am sorry.”
“Yet I have to kill you to get away from him, don’t I,” she added in horror. He nodded. “Why did you follow me if the end result is most likely your death?”
“Because only my death would keep me from being a failure to him, or you to allow me to live near you until he gets here…” Namur shrugged sadly. “I’d actually prefer death if you were to get away from me.”
“Why? What will he do to you?”
“I would be demoted…or perhaps promoted depending on how you look at things,” he stated in disgusted fury, “from his right hand man to his favorite sex toy.” Namur met her eyes as he said it. She could see the loathing and hatred that suffused those lovely, amethyst eyes. “Granted, I would have more control over my life, but at the expense of willingly being still whenever, wherever he wanted me. It is not the worst place to end up…but it is the most humiliating for someone of my…stature.”
“Yet you want me to be that person,” she stated in amazed derision. “Or worse,” she stated just as firmly, “as he plans to sell me for a profit. I have ears, you know. My parents are both great warriors and my uncles who raised me luxurious, influential twin mages. It would be doubly mortifying for me to be his pet…insufferable if I was sold as a whore!”
Namur frowned at her as if he were trying to place who she was. That was a stupid mistake on her part. There were very few twin mages around. Hue and Holly were well known. Her eyes widened as his speared up at her in doubtful distrust. He knew where she had been born! She gasped and her body fell away as she instinctively sought to flee him once more. Pure energy was a swift way to travel, but if your enemy knew where you lived, how did you presume to outrun them there? She streaked away toward home at lightning quick speed dashing through trees like they were not there as she raced towards safety. She had to get home…she had too.
Never once had she paid her father enough respect for his tenuous place as a slave to the two great men whom she loved so well. Never once had she told him she loved him. Never once had she repaid the kindness and selfless giving he had shown to her. Never had she thanked him as he defended her from harm and hurt alike time and time again.
His strong arms would reach in and drag her to safety no matter how many times she got herself into trouble on purpose just so he would have to come to the rescue. Flashes of the past rose up to haunt her, reminding her of the love that her father had shown her, despite the awful sadness that he had worn like a second skin. He did not know where to find her now. He would recognize her, even in this disguise, and that was even worse. For she had used this form to purposely hurt him, never once apologizing for the shame she saw in his eyes born of her trickery.
She knew he hated her now. That was even more reason she had to make it home. She had to make it right. She was a stupid, foolish kid who had sought to hurt him, but in the end she had hurt herself far worse. She had not thought he would turn his back on her no matter what she did…stupid, stupid, stupid…How had she been so supercilious?
Namur flashed shadows in her path and she veered thinking it a tree looming up suddenly in her distraction. Instead, she found the tree. It halted her path as she exploded it with the force of her impact. She fell to the ground beneath the weight of its heavy branches that fell all around her burying her within their depths. She lay there in stunned silence surprised she wasn’t dead. She wasn’t hurt at all except for some minor cuts that oozed blood scenting the air with her injuries.
“Li’lise,” Namur called softly from the edge of the tree. It meant ‘little light’. “Are you alright? I did not mean to hurt you.” He moved a tree limb and she knew he would not wait long to pull the oak apart looking for her. The blood would lead him right to where she lay.
She could not outrun him, and he was trying to not injure her. She could not let him lead his master to her, but neither did she want to kill him. He had already told her he preferred death to the punishment he would receive if she escaped, but she couldn’t kill him unless forced.
So she tried a different approach. “Namur,” she whispered weakly pulling a heavy limb down upon her chest as she gave the impression of trying to get free from the wreckage of the giant forest monolith. She heard him moving several more limbs to come closer. “I…I can’t…” The heavy oak limb was cutting into her soft skin and making it harder to breathe. If the damn creature didn’t come swiftly, he would force her to save herself.
Namur was careful as he moved limbs. His patience was something she had a cause to admire as he lifted one limb only to hear her squeal in panic as the heavy limb on her chest bit deep into her skin stopping before it could stab into her. She was nearly in shock when he lifted it off of her…no pretending there, she had not known her plan could be a deadly one. His hands wiped at the blood on her chest trying to see how deep the wound was, but it oozed enough blood to keep him from being able to tell.
“Can’t you heal this, little one? You are of the light; try,” he urged her patiently.
She could not. She was too scared and too tired to try. Still she remembered at the last minute her plan and pulled him down for a kiss. Namur hesitated in surprise, but then quickly took the offer unwilling to pass up the opportunity for his own unexplained reasons. He was thorough in his exploration too. Like the male she had left, he left little of her body untouched. By the time he was done, sweating and panting above her, she feared his master was close by. Just when he was at his most distracted, she flashed power glowing with burning light…Instead of bolting away, he clung to her as his body spurted, seemingly even more forcefully for the pain he was enduring before he fell away unconscious.
She scrambled out of the mangled tree in a panic. Little control kept her moving as her mind froze in terror and horror at what she had done. Still, she rose dripping the escaping seed of two men as she flashed into energy and darted away once more. It didn’t last long. She couldn’t replenish the energy she was losing anymore. Something inside of her was wrong. It was preventing her from any healing at all. She fell to the ground…cut, bruised, and naked at the feet of men she recognized. She was shaking in exhaustion and shock and fear. They were miles from home, but she couldn’t make it any further.
These men had to be out searching for her. She looked up at them in a terrified plea to save her as the last of the captured energy fled back to where she had claimed it. Her eyes fluttered closed as the eldest male wrapped her carefully in his thick cloak picking her up against his chest as his eyes filled with rage.
No one moved as they all stared at her in horror. “Let’s get home. Someone might be following her,” the eldest decided. He didn’t look afraid. He looked like he wanted to rip someone apart, but he was under orders to bring her straight home and deal with any threats afterwards. They would not risk her safety to see justice done for the kidnapping.
The guards sounded the alarm the second they came through the huge doors into the inner courtyard. The male carrying the bleeding, bruised girl within his cloak was rushed into the main house when Holly came running to his summons. The rest of them told everyone else what they had found planning a counter-strike on her attackers.
Huey was inside with Cairn when they rushed into the house. He shouted for them to put her down on the floor as he came to his twin in wary fear. Holly immediately wrapped the girl in a concerned hug with a very adoring smile of relief to see her. Cairn was too scared to think about Holly’s odd behavior as he rushed to the three.
Huey held Holly back to keep him from protesting the young man’s shove as he moved Holly out of his way thoughtlessly. “Thereon, thank the Gods,” Cairn cried hugging her up to him and inspecting the damage in terror. The girl burst into tears, just as Cairn began to whisper, “No…no, no, no…this can’t be happening!” Cairn backed away to wipe at her tears so he could look her in the eyes. “What have you done, Thereon?” Huey looked up at his own twin warily, but the two on the floor didn’t notice as they hugged each other close. She only cried all the harder in heart-breaking sobs that tore through her even as magic began to fluctuate between them erratically.
Holly stood up looking like someone had struck him. He backed up looking repulsed and sickened. “That is Thereon…but he…she…” Huey stood to his feet looking only at his twin in wariness he had learned the hardest ways a kid could imagine. Holly glanced up from the naked girl to him in startled surprise. Hugh never took a threatening stance against him and it was dangerously close as he watched him so carefully. Then, Huey’s eyes hardened and he knelt turning back to the girl as he pulled the slipping edges of the cloak back together over her more respectfully.
Holly made a strangled gasping groan that made everyone, even the shocked pair of youths, look at him. Anger was beginning to push past his horror-struck guilt. “You piece of trash…have you no idea what you have done? How could you be so stupid?” Thereon, the battered female, reached up to him begging for pity, or understanding, where there was none. Holly turned on his heel and strode from the room. His power spiked dangerously warning anyone against trying to follow him.
Huey sighed and focused on the current problem. “Thereon, why is your energy so out of control? It is pulsing and fluctuating. Can’t you stop it?”
The girl shook her head. “There is,” Thereon choked up as magical energies blasted into her scrawny body. Huey tried to stabilize it and found the cause by sheer accident as his own magic touched and blended auras.
“Oh, no…just like your mother, I see…” Huey took control of the magic focusing it on what Thereon was trying to learn to do on the fly without any kind of training. “Guess Cairn is more like the father,” he mumbled to himself tightly in disapproval.
“Where is he?” Huey ignore Thereon. Even Cairn refused to touch that question while trying to deal with the issue at hand. “I need to talk to him…I have to…tell him. Tell him that I…am sorry,” Thereon gasped as his female body grew distended to the point of ripping in half.
The girl screamed in agony. Huey held a hand over her mouth to silence it. Thereon began fighting them both swearing as Huey and his twin tried to hold him still. Both of them finally fell away from the beating of the pulsing energy just as Thereon began to flash erratically with light.
Then, the girl was whole and healed as she rolled away from the two babies suddenly lying on the floor to throw up in disgust. Seconds later, she disappeared and Thereon was back in his usual form looking like the twin who stared at him like he had seen a ghost.
Thereon was fully clothed having used the pulsing energy to fashion himself a covering as he began to rock back and forth on his knees as if he were still feeling the pain. He was sitting on his ass on the cold stone floor hugging his knees as he rocked in panicked distress.
Sensing this, the two babies began to scream filling the house with noise. Huey stood up directing the guards towards the two stupefied twins. “Grab those two and get them out of this house! Holly has made his wishes plain. Let’s hurry before he returns and says something we will all regret hearing.” He grabbed the two bawling babes hurrying them outside as the guards forced Thereon and Cairn to their feet.
Huey led them all swiftly across the courtyard to the quarters where Thereon stayed.
2008, (Jenna Karro). All rights reserved. No republication of this material, in any form or medium, is permitted without express permission of the author.
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