Pure Requiem - Aja James Page 0,70

of feet from the direction of the mouth of the creek. One of them sounds heavier than usual, as if he carries the weight of more than one person.

“Papa,” Inanna says as she draws near. “We made it.”

I reach out a hand to clasp her shoulder, needing to feel that this is real.

“We found the Paladin,” Gabriel says beside her. “It will take him at least a few days to recover from these wounds, or even to regain consciousness, but his body will eventually heal.”

What remains unsaid, as we all know, is whether his mind and soul will heal as well.

Ishtar reaches me then and launches herself at my chest in kitten form. I catch her easily and she cuddles close, her wet, furry body shaking uncontrollably.

I can feel her emotions as if they are my own.

She’s elated by our victory, but now that the adrenaline has receded, the fear she held back overwhelms her.

She insisted on joining the mission. She wouldn’t stay behind. I know she needed to be with her family. If we died, she wanted us to die together.

But we are alive. We survived.

Except—

“I lost him, my love,” Ishtar whispers in her vampire form, as she squeezes me tight against her and hides her face in my neck.

“Erebu.”

A breath I didn’t know I was holding rushes out of me, and my heart skips a beat.

“I dove for him,” she continues, her teeth chattering from the freezing water of the lake. “I dove so deep. The monster had him in her jaws. She wouldn’t let him go. I don’t know where she took him. Somehow, they just… disappeared. And then I couldn’t dive any deeper. I couldn’t breathe…”

I look in the direction of the Dark warriors who must have saved her.

“Thank you,” I say with eternal gratitude.

“Aye,” a deep, gruff voice acknowledges. It must be the Chosen’s Commander, Maximus.

“We must return to the Cove. ‘Twas a good fight, Pure Ones. But this is not over. The creature yet lives.”

“But how?” Ishtar asks. “I feel her gone. Anunit…Medusa is gone. I know it in my soul. She was my sister, after all.”

“There is another,” I answer.

I can feel the scrutinizing gazes on my face as I speak.

“I sense another, entirely separate consciousness in that hydra form. The head on the left. It is the one that regenerates, if Erebu’s warning is correct.”

“He warned you, papa?” Inanna asks.

“Yes. He told me before we launched the last attack that Medusa possesses the right head. At least, that is what I interpreted from his words.”

“Then this Erebu might have saved us all,” Maximus growls. “Is this the person you were diving for?”

“Yes,” Ishtar answers in my arms.

“He is our son.”

She shudders against me, and I hear her swallow back a sob.

“And now he is lost to us once more.”

I brush my mouth against her temple and hold her tight, willing my strength and warmth to soak into her icy, damp skin, into her bones.

“But he is not lost,” I murmur so softly only she can hear. “He lives. I know it. And as long as he does, there is hope.”

“There is always hope.”

Epilogue

*THE CREATURE*

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

I admit I kinda missed you. All that bright, sparkly joy of the Pure Ones wears on a person after a while. Downright exhausting! I can never keep up.

Now that I’m back in Evil’s bosom, I feel at home.

Mostly.

My skin does crawl a bit with apprehension as I lie here naked and chained spread-eagle to a slab of stone in some fathoms-deep, under-water cave.

A female I’ve never laid eyes on before walks into my peripheral vision.

“You’re awake,” she says in a voice I’ve never heard before.

“I am,” I chirp cheerfully.

As if I’m not laid out like a virgin sacrifice. Damp, cold air whistling between my thighs to shrivel my balls as a strange breeze churns through the cavern.

“Have we met?” I ask politely, using my best manners. “I would remember your exquisite visage if we have.”

“Then it stands to reason, by your own logic, that we haven’t,” she answers without really answering.

“Hmm,” I murmur, trying not to shudder as she calmly strokes a hand from my throat, down my torso, to grasp my penis and balls.

“You seem so familiar,” I manage to eke out in a semi-normal voice.

She gropes my reproductive organs without sexual interest (thank the gods for small favors), the way a buyer would grope ripe fruit at the market. Her thumb pinches into my scrotum this way and that.

Like water balloons, they