Pure Requiem - Aja James Page 0,29

this ‘laser’ will not affect me. If and when we engage Medusa, I am likely the only person she will let close enough to engage her directly.”

Because she does not fear me. She underestimates me. Because she wants to take me back as her prisoner. Her filthy, monstrous, tortured toy. And if she wants to take me alive, she will not strike to kill, as she would with others.

The silence is broken by Valerius’ deep voice.

“Then we better step up the training, General. You’re going to need it.”

Chapter Seven: I’ve Come to Talk With You Again

*EREBU*

Dear brother,

I showed the world my true self today, and no one ran screaming in horror away from me.

Okay, maybe I didn’t show the “world,” just a few of the inhabitants of the Pure Ones’ Shield. But still. That’s exponentially more people who have seen the real me than…well, ever.

As far as I can recall (without triggering the mother of all headaches) I’ve never shown anyone the real me before. I’ve hidden myself for so long that I don’t even recall who I was, what I looked like.

And because my Mistress directed my thoughts with the two fragments of her soul within me, and I guess other things as well that she experimented with over the millennia, I didn’t know my own thoughts. I couldn’t separate my own desires from hers.

I’ve always felt dirty, evil, depraved, irredeemable. What’s another sin to pile onto my endless list of sins?

So what if I set in motion destructive events that led to countless deaths? So what if I caused the Pure Ones, who are actually my family untold grief? I don’t know how to reconcile what I’ve always believed with what was only recently revealed to me.

I don’t know how to think any more. I don’t know who I am any more.

But I do know who I want to be.

I want to be someone worthy of the family who sacrificed so much to bring me into the world. A family who seems to…care for me. I want to be worthy of Benjamin, even if he never knows who I am to him. I want to be worthy of Sophia’s friendship, now that we’ve finally cleared the air between us.

For the record, my dick is bigger. Take that, Romeo!

(But you can have her. I will graciously step aside like the third wheel that I am. Just promise we can be friends again.)

There’s something still missing in my memories. Something important. I know I existed Before Medusa (or B.M. It’s appropriate, don’t you think? B.M. also stands for bowel movement. I just thought that was a poetic little nugget…turd…clump of steaming, stinking excrement).

Anyway…

I have a feeling it’s all going to catch up to me soon. Now that the gates have been flung open about my past, nothing and no one can slam them closed again.

I both want to, and am afraid to, find out more. If my mind has split into multiple personalities to keep those memories buried, that’s a sure clue they’re going to hurt like a fucker.

The strange thing is, I haven’t felt “Ere” take over my body any more. I haven’t been “missing time.” I’ve been wholly present as myself.

I am Erebu. I am Ere. And soon, I will have his memories too.

I wish you could be here to hold me when it hurts. But I know I’m part of the reason you are where you are.

I have a plan to get you back. Medusa isn’t the only one with spies. The timing has to be right.

Toodaloo!

E.

Sophia introduced me around early morning, kept me by her side as she chatted easily with Chevaliers and other members of the Shield who came and went in the communal areas, like the gigantic kitchen and snack bar that occupied half of an entire floor.

I wasn’t a complete mute (I can never keep my mouth shut for long), but I was a bit shy, and frankly freaked out, and kept my words to a minimum. She simply introduced me as her “friend” Erebu, and I usually tagged on that they can call me “Ere.”

No one pointed out the strange coincidence that there’s another Ere who has a completely different face and body. Maybe Sophia never broadly introduced the other me.

I met most of the Royal Zodiac, and the ones I didn’t see this morning are ones I already sort of know. Sophia kept me company for a couple of hours before she headed off to do some “queenly” stuff.

Plotting against Medusa