still here.
I heard his sigh of relief, but my vision began to blur.
“You’re blacking out,” Seeley said. I couldn’t see him anymore, as darkness crept up on me, hugging me like a giant teddy bear, warm and fluffy and soft. “You’ll be okay. Just go with it.”
I’d succeeded in communicating with Zeriel, so at least it hadn’t all been in vain. I wasn’t sure how long it would be until I’d be conscious again, but I could only hope that I’d helped give Zeriel some peace of mind. At the same time, I also knew that what I’d just told Zeriel would break Derek’s and Sofia’s hearts.
Because what was happening to me was also happening to their son, Ben; their granddaughter, Grace; their great-granddaughters, Caia and Vita… and to Lucas and Kailyn, among many others whom they were deeply fond of. They would soon learn that Reapers were present in the sanctuaries, calmly waiting to take us all away once the five million mark was hit.
Eva
It took less than two hours to prepare for the journey to Mortis, much to my dismay. I’d hoped we’d be too busy to sit down and “get to know each other,” like Kailani had suggested. My joy at seeing Nethissis again had quickly shifted into discomfort, once I’d seen how she practically ate Varga up with her eyes. Nethissis and I had more or less grown up together, but we’d never been too close.
There had always been a certain level of competition between the Lamias, especially with the rise of Azazel. Our species had already been shunned by the Druids, whom we needed in order to continue our lineage. Once their numbers began to dwindle, most of them becoming Destroyers against their will, the Lamias were left with a reproductive problem. Therefore, whenever a Druid did come along—before Azazel’s reign took a turn for the worse, and he started killing the remaining Druids left and right—the Lamias wound up arguing and fighting over who would get to be with the Druid.
After my (ugh…) father was destroyed, there was hope again for a relationship between the Druids and the Lamias, thanks to Draven’s, Serena’s, and the rest of GASP’s efforts to establish some form of cooperation between our species. We were no longer “personae non gratae” among the Druids, but it would be a long time before there would be enough of them for all the Lamias to simply say, “We no longer need to argue about this.”
Granted, in this case, the wedge between Nethissis and me wasn’t a Druid, but a vampire-sentry. Clearly, the competitiveness deeply embedded in us did not care much for species. Lamias were especially aggressive and eager for a mate during their peak fertility season, which varied from one gal to the next. It usually hit in the spring, but not always. I was inclined to believe that Nethissis was, in fact, in a more fertile period, where all males, regardless of species, seemed appetizing to her. It irked the crap out of me, because I didn’t want her anywhere near Varga.
He and I… We had something going on, and I wanted to see where it would lead us. I’d yet to even kiss the guy, and Nethissis was coming in, all hot and curvaceous and determined, making my self-confidence take quite the nosedive—to my utter shock. I’d never felt like this before, and it worried me. I didn’t want to lose Varga before I could even be with him. We were already in a gigantic mess with the Hermessi; I really didn’t need one of my Lamias popping in and making it worse.
The one thing that gave me comfort was the fact that Varga seemed relatively immune to Nethissis’s charms. But I also knew Lamias could be elegantly persistent, weaseling their way into one’s heart, eventually.
“The interplanetary travel spell we’re using this time is a bit of a gamble,” Acantha said, breaking my train of thought. We were on our way up to the platform on top of Luceria, where Phoenix and Ibrahim would meet us once they had the coordinates. “Since we don’t have anything from our destination, Nethi and I will have to steer it ourselves.”
“Hence the need for coordinates and these big-ass serium batteries,” Herakles grunted, his upper body bent forward under the weight of six large glass cylinders filled with serium crystals and sealed at both ends with meranium caps.
Fallon was carrying six of his own, and Varga four more. Nethi nodded. “Exactly. We’ll need