Unknown - Scorched

“No.” Anger thickened Sylvius’s voice. “Maybe. If it were just that, he’d never have confessed to you.” He fell against the wall, turning his face into the stone. There were tears in his voice. “There were others who needed her, not just him. She was the sun and rain. It wasn’t right for him to take her for himself. To make me. I shouldn’t even exist.”

“Bull,” Mac said firmly, putting a hand on Sylvius’s shoulder. He expected the kid to be upset, but his anguished voice raised the hair on Mac’s neck. It wasn’t supernatural. It was the pure intensity of a teenager. “And don’t think you can restore the Avatar by dying. That’s a load of crap.”

Sylvius shook his head slowly, his eyes fixed on the flagstones at his feet. “If I knew it to be a fact, I would cut my own throat and put things back the way they’re supposed to be. I’d save the guardsmen the trouble.”

Mac saw the dilemma written on Sylvius’s face. Stay and risk death. Go and risk the death of everyone here. What the hell was he going to do with the kid? Sixteen was the age of school dances and hockey.

“Mac?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll figure this out, right?”

Constance had always loved the Summer Room. There was just one problem.

Nothing here dampened her appetites, and now she was suffering, the blood hunger gnawing her from the inside out. She tried to ignore it as irrelevant. Sylvius was protected here. In her sight.

Constance paced, feeling the gauzy swish of Holly’s cotton skirt around her calves. She liked the freedom of the modern clothing, but felt sorely underdressed. Her old petticoat had more substance. And warmth. She was freezing cold.

Her son was sprawled on the couch, reading a magazine. Viktor was asleep on his side, filling up the other side of the room. She was the only one suffering from nerves.

For hours, she had talked with Sylvius, turning over the subjects of his birth mother and what that meant. She had understood the overwhelmed expression in Mac’s eyes as he kissed her and left with Alessandro to go call the council of Fairview’s supernatural leaders. She felt much the same way.

She reached the end of her path and turned again, pacing back in the other direction. Anxiety tingled through her body to the point where she half expected to see sparks shooting from her skin.

Oblivious, Sylvius turned a page. He wasn’t worried; he was convinced Mac would take care of everything. He didn’t have a mother’s imagination.

She was beginning to think Mac was right. They should all just leave the Castle. She would endure the full force of the bloodlust if only Sylvius would be out of danger. If the Castle collapsed as a result of removing the Avatar’s son, she would be sorry, but her boy would still be safe. Whether it was right or wrong, he was her priority. She paused to watch her son reading, the perfect picture of sloth. For an illogical instant, she wanted to dump Sylvius off the couch, demand a reaction, and make him worry right along with her. She loved her son, but there were times when she could have throttled him. Some days, that incubus calm was too much.

Let this be over soon. She turned, pacing back the other way, wishing she were less energetic. At this rate, she would never grow tired enough to settle. Would I have wanted this power if I knew how it felt? Supernatural strength was an uncomfortable blessing.

Mac said he’d felt the same when he changed. What was it he’d said about Lore? And about Atreus? They’d told him he had a destiny, a mission? He has a destiny, but Lore told me that if I reached for my power, I risked destroying the good that destiny would bring.

What did that mean? Were those two halves of the same prophecy? That she would somehow cancel Mac’s destiny out?

What kind of a monster am I? Or am I reading too much into Lore’s words?

The door blew open with the crrrrrash of splintering wood. A charred stink—a smell that mixed magic and gunpowder—brought tears to her eyes. Guardsmen!

They’d used a wizard to help them past Lore’s wards. Viktor was on his feet in a second, and in the air a second after that. The wizard went down under a mass of snarling fur. Two guardsmen tried to beat the werebeast off, their swords almost useless against Viktor’s tough hide.

A spear sailed through the air, landing with a thud in the back of a chair and knocking it to splinters against the stone wall. Glass and books flew as shards of wood spun through the room, a bowl exploding on the floor like a gunshot.

Sylvius flew up toward the ceiling, following the instinct of all winged things to seek safety in height. Constance leaped, landing squarely in front of the guardsmen. She had no plan, just the dead certainty her place was between Sylvius and these men.

“Hide!” Sylvius shouted to Constance, balancing on the top of a bookcase. “Look after yourself. I can fight!”

“So can I!” she retorted. I have my powers now. “Where’s the wizard who ruined my door?”

The wizard got to his feet and scrabbled from the room, wailing in terror. Viktor bounded after him, barking like this was all a delightful game. There was a wail of anguish a moment later. Viktor liked to play with his dolls.

Connie felt the scream through her bones. One of the guardsmen was Bran. She didn’t know the names of the other three, but she recognized their faces. Reynard was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s Captain Reynard?” she demanded.

“He’s not one of us anymore, Mistress Vampire,” said Bran with false politeness. “Captain Reynard was a demon-lover. He refused to use the incubus to save us, much less give us a little pleasure. The guardsmen had enough.”

“Mutiny!”

“Call it what you like. I’m in charge now, and we’re taking the incubus back.”

“Like hell you are!” Sylvius shot back, grabbing a book from a high shelf and hurling it at the guardsmen. It struck one in the side of the head.

“Get him!” Bran commanded.

A red-haired guardsmen carried a heavy recurved bow. In one smooth move, he knocked an arrow and drew it.

“No!” Constance threw herself forward, jumping to dash the thing from his hands. The arrow sang over her head, feathers whirring.

She turned to see the arrow strike Sylvius in the side. He flared with silver light, trying to turn to dust, but the glow flickered and died in an instant.

His wings crumpled, their angle awkward, wrong. He dropped to the floor.

Fury blanked her mind. She grabbed the bowman, hurl ing him to the floor as if he were no more than a half-empty sack of oats. Her fangs were out, the stink of his fear putting an edge to her hunger, but he wasn’t what she wanted. The urge to protect was stronger.

The others were converging on her son. She pushed away from the bowman and ran after them.

Bran was bellowing orders. “Keep him separate from the others, especially the sorcerer. Put Atreus in the corner cell. Keep this one downstairs.”

Enraged, Constance grabbed Bran’s tattooed arm, spinning him toward her. She swiped with her long, sharp nails, aiming for his eyes, but he jerked away. Long slashes sprang red on his cheek. He backhanded her. She barely staggered back. The look on his face made her give a sharp bark of laughter. “I’m not a little girl anymore!”

Then he swiped his sword in a beheading blow.

Oh!

The only thing that saved her was diving behind the sofa. She heard the blade chop into it, then Bran cursing when the sword stuck in the old frame. He pulled it away with a splintering of wood.

She was panting, still more angry than afraid. She looked around for something to use as a shield. Someone kicked the sofa, scraping it across the floor. She moved with it, still searching for something to counter the sword.