Broken Promises – Chapter 24

On April 6, 2019April 13, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing2 Comments

Chapter 24

Taking deep breaths, Brynn put his elbows on his knees and pushed his hair back with both hands as he tried to get a grip on what was reality and what were dreams.

All he saw, felt, had been so real. Real enough that he had to fight to hold back the tears as the emptiness in his chest threaten to engulf him. With great effort, he clawed his way up the slippery slope that lead into the darkness. An empty void he had lived in because living had been too painful. He refused to go back there and leave his children without a parent again. But if the pain was this real, then the dream must have been real too. A vision. Right?

Was Kara really coming home?

Slowly climbing out of bed, Brynn walked to the window that faced east where Aden said Kara was would be living soon. Closing his eyes, he searched for her as he had done many times in the last six years. As before he felt nothing. The chasm opened wider, darkness reaching for him. Promising an end to the pain. Of peace. So safe. So tempting. A lie.

Placing his hands on either side of the window, Brynn gently rested his forehead on the cool glass between them, holding onto the light with everything he had. There would be no peace until Kara once more stood by his side. Maybe what he thought was a vision had only been a dream. Just his fantasies making themselves known.

“Dad?” a very concerned, very real, voice quietly called. “Are you all right?”

So this was reality. Good to know. At the same time, Brynn cringed.

His children had a very unique power. They could ride other’s dreams. Where Chris had gain control of when and where, if the emotions of the dreamer was strong enough and their connection close, like father and son, Chris could be sucked in. Brynn prayed that had not been the case this time. He could barely digest what he had seen, he could not even imagine what those images would do to their son if he had seen them.

“A bit early for you to be up on a Saturday morning, isn’t it?” Brynn asked putting a smile on his face as he turned towards his son.

Chris watched his father try to hide the turmoil he knew was inside him as he smiled his ‘everything is not all right, but I’m going to put up a good front’ smile. To add to the ‘my heart hasn’t just been ripped out of my chest again’ illusion, he began to haphazardly pull the blankets over the bed, acting as if nothing was wrong. Chris knew better. His father thought he hid it well, but the pain of losing Chris’s mother was always just under the surface. Having seen what Aden had shown his father, it was amazing his father was not drowning in his sorrow. Chris was having a hard enough time holding it together, too.

“What does Aden gain by showing you what she has been through?” Chris asked quietly, his eyes never leaving his father. When Brynn missed the hook he was hanging his shirt on, Chris knew for certain that he had not imagined Aden’s presences in the house. His mother was coming home.

Brynn rested his hand on the hook his shirt was on and hung his head, wishing for once he could keep a secret from his son.

Swallowing hard, Chris walked further into the room. “Once I realized what was going on, I shielded Jamie from the images. She’ll know something is wrong, but she won’t know why unless you tell her.”

Brynn smiled. “Since when can you hide anything from your sister?” Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, he finished getting ready for the day. Movement of any kind was better than the images he could not banish from his mind.

“When does Mom arrive?” Chris asked trying to feel excited about his mother finally coming home but unable to find any emotion aside from dread. Nothing good would come of any of this.

Brynn hesitated, trying to find the right words to explain to his son that his mother might not even know him. He turned towards Chris. “Chris, you have to understand. This prophecy,” his voice was bitter when he said that word. He always believed that one was in control of their destiny. That they could choose who they were, what they would be. Now, he was not so sure. Stamping down his anger, he started over. “Aden explained that once she and the others meet, the life they knew, their feelings and memories, would disappear. As if we never existed.”

“I heard what Aden said, Dad, and even if you don’t I trust him, I do. Mom will remember us,” Chris reminded. “We are a part of her. No force in the universe can erase that bond completely. It will just take time.” He hesitated for a moment, watching his father finish his morning routine of straightening the bed and tiding up his room. His father had had enough shocks for one day, so Chris was not sure if he should continue with what he knew or not. Deciding more information was better than not enough, he took a deep breath as he sat down on the bed. “You know, this has never happened before. One of the chosen coming back to their home planet.”

“How do you know that?” Brynn asked pulling a t-shirt from a dresser drawer. Chris gave him an exasperated look. How did he know anything? That was a question not even the gods knew the answer to. “Nevermind,” Brynn smiled closing the drawer. “So, what do you think will happen?”

“No one knows. Like I said, it’s never happened before. I am anxious to meet this Tanis though. Living as long as they have, the stories he could tell.”

Brynn’s expression darkened at the mention of Tanis’s name. Prophecy or no, preordained or not, this man took Kara from him. Becoming friends was not high on his priority list. Grabbing a pair of socks from the top drawer, he closed it a bit too sharply than sat on the bed next to Chris, pulling his socks on angrily.

Frowning, Chris moved off the bed to kneel in front of his father, who looked up at him in surprise.

“No matter what happens or how this plays out, we will get through this,” Chris promised, his quiet voice fervent with his conviction. “Together. Like we always do.”

Smiling, Brynn wrapped his hand around the back of his son’s neck and pulled him forward until their foreheads touched.

“When did you become the adult?” he joked.

“I have my moments,” Chris smiled.

Kissing his forehead, Brynn let go of Chris and sat back. Time for self-doubt later. Now he needed to gather what strength he had and tell the rest of the family that their lives were about to be turned upside down. Again.

* * *

“And you believe him?” Gavin asked as he reached for the butter. As the oldest, Gavin had inherited the farm and moved in with his wife Mary Jo and their two daughters, Emma and Bridgett, after Uncle Cas had passed the year before. Another void that would be forever empty.

“You didn’t see the look in his eyes,” Brynn answered quietly, staring at his plate but not seeing it or the food he had hardly touched. His mind was seeing the dead defeated look in Kara’s eyes. Her pale skin. Her screams.

“I don’t understand. If she can’t remember us, then why return her here? It doesn’t make sense,” Delia frowned.

“They were never supposed to return to their families,” Chris explained. “It would be too painful for all involved, but by inviting the demon inside Caius has changed the rules. And there is the baby…,” he added with a shrug before taking another bite of his eggs. It was an important part of the story that needed to be told. If his father wanted to ignore the elephant in the room, then he would have to point it out.

Brynn closed his eyes, groaning inwardly. He had purposely left out the part about the baby, not wanting the rest of them to know the darker side of why Kara was returning. He opened his eyes to see Delia, Gavin and Mary Jo staring wide-eyed at him.

“Chris, maybe you should…,” Brynn started, knowing he would now have to explain it to his cousins but not wanting to do it in front of the younger kids.

“I’m not a child anymore, Dad,” Chris interrupted, his voice sad as he looked at his father, who wouldn’t meet his son’s eyes. “I know what the demon forced Mom to do. I saw everything very clearly. Including the images your mind refused to see in the beginning.”

Brynn looked at him in horror. “No!” he whispered hoarsely.

“What did you see?” Gavin asked looking from Brynn’s horror stricken face to Chris’s ill expression and back.

“I also know one of the reasons he is hiding Mom here is because of the wards,” Chris continued ignoring his uncle’s question. There were enough people living with the horrors of his mother’s life. No need to add more. “It will keep her hidden from everyone, including the gods that they answer to. If they find out there is a child, they will do everything in their power to destroy it. Because Mom thinks she’s pregnant with Tanis’s child, someone she loves, that will in turn destroy her.”

There was a stunned silence. The way Chris had put into words what the danger was was so clinical it was hard to believe he was talking about his own mother. With a glance at each other that said they were in agreement, Mary Jo and Delia started to round up the younger kids and herded them outside. Only Jamie seemed to know what Chris’s words meant. It was in her eyes. That sad knowing that even though she was powerful in her own right, knew what was happening, there was nothing she could do to stop it. So to make the grown-ups more comfortable, she allowed herself to be herded outside with the younger kids. A few minutes later Delia came back in and sat down.

“And if they do find Kara?” Gavin asked unsure if any of them wanted to know the answer?

“It’s not a matter of if, but when they find her. And it won’t matter how old the child is or how much she tries to fight them. They will take it from her,” Chris answered looking at his uncle.

“And Kara?” Delia asked, her voice a soft whisper. “What will they do to her?’

Chris looked at his aunt for a few moments, gauging how he should answer her question. Out of everyone here, only he and his father understood his mother curse and how easily it could be used against her. To be able to feel what others felt. Have those feelings intertwined with yours, enhancing or confusing your own feelings. Have your body respond to another’s touch no matter how unwanted or repulsive. Used to gain an advantage over her, or to punish her.

There were times Chris cursed his own power. Cursed the knowledge that came with it. His whole life, the people who lived in their small community considered him strange, a freak, and it was the same with his sister. Where powers, or magic as some liked to call it, was not unusual on their planet, the kind of magic they wielded was unheard of. The ability to see into other’s minds, predict what the future held. To ride other’s dreams where their deepest darkest desires were hidden. Before he was old enough to know what he was seeing, he had blurted out more than once peoples’ deepest secrets he had learned by accidentally falling into their dreams. Not a stranger to nightmares concerning his mother, he was just happy he had realized what was going on and been able to shield Jamie from the worst of what Aden had shown his father. She did not need to know the horrors their mother went through. Even if she didn’t remember her.

“Chris?” he heard his father’s concerned voice breaking through his thoughts. It took him a moment to focus on him and realize he must have been lost in his thoughts for a while. “Are you all right?” Brynn asked putting his hand on his son’s shoulder as he looked at him with concern.

“I’m sorry,” Chris smiled. A smile that did not reach his eyes. “What was the question?”

“What will happen to your mother if these Gods find her?” Brynn asked dropping his hand.

“I don’t know. Something is different and they are afraid of what it all means. What it could do to the very fabric of the universe,” he answered gravely.

They were silent for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. If it hadn’t been for their past dealings with things unnatural they would not have been able to believe anything they had just been told. But they had. There was one more chilling thought that ran through their minds. With Kara here, it would only be a matter of time before Colin and Anthony realized she was no longer with Caius where she was better protected. Then things would get very interesting.

“Anything we decide now is mute. When Kara returns,” Brynn hesitated, swallowing down the overabundance of butterflies the thought of Kara coming home brought on. Standing, his chair screeching loudly along the hardwood floor, he reached for Chris’s empty plate. “When she returns we will see what happens and go from there.”

Gavin, Delia and Chris looked from Brynn, who had turned and headed for the sink, to each other. They knew Brynn was right. It was just the waiting for that time to come would seem long and torturous.

“You know,” Gavin said also standing with his plate in his hand. It was a signal for the others to begin clearing the table. “I could use some help with the tractor, Chris.” Winking at Delia who smiled she understood what he was doing back.

“Is it the same problem we fixed last time?” Chris asked frowning. They both reached the counter at the same time, placing their dishes on the counter next to the sink. “I thought we fixed that.”

“No. So far that one is holding. Come on and I’ll show you. This is the…,” Gavin’s voice disappeared as he and Chris walked outside, the door softly clicking shut behind them.

Smiling and shaking her head in exasperation, Delia grabbed some dishes and headed for the sink as Brynn turned on the water.

Unwillingly, Brynn’s eyes strayed out the window in the direction of where the house his wife would soon be living in with another man she supposedly loved more than him. She would be within walking distance physically, but mentally she may not know who he or their children were. Would not remember how much he loved her, needed her. How not having her with him left a chasm in his chest that tried to swallow him whole.

Closing his eyes, Brynn tried to block out the pain that threaten to overwhelm him. Placing his hands on the counter his arms straight, he bowed his head. Shaking with the effort to keep his tears under control, he slowly closed his hands into fists. He would not sink into the darkness! Damn it! A gentle hand slid onto his arm. He did not look up. He couldn’t. If he did the pain would overtake him.

“Brynn?” Delia’s concerned voice whispered.

He refused to answer her, afraid his voice would break and then he would break too.

“Oh honey,” she crooned sliding her arm around his shoulder as she put her head against his. “She will remember. I don’t think anyone could forget the kind of love you two shared.”

“That’s just it,” Brynn croaked. He forced himself to look into Delia’s eyes. She blinked at the pain she saw. “Even if she does it won’t matter. You didn’t see what I saw. Felt what I felt when she looked into his eyes. She belongs to Tanis now. There is no turning back from that kind of bond.” Taking a shuddering breath, he closed his eyes and turned his head away. Opening them, he once again stared at the window. “There is more,” he whispered. “I was not the only one she was ripped from.”

“What do you…?” Delia stopped in mid-sentence when she realized what Brynn was trying to say, her eyes widening in shock. “Aden,” she finished.

Brynn nodded. “But after all the pain, after the numbing loss of having her ripped from us caused, it was Aden she chose to bind herself to again. So you see,” he turned eyes to Delia that held so much anguish mixed with anger that Delia could barely hold his stare. “There is no room left for me.”

“I can’t believe that. You forget what you two had, still have, and a mother does not forget her children,” Delia said angrily.

Brynn looked back out the window not wanting to have any reason to hope. It would hurt too much when that hope was crushed by reality.

“You’ll see,” Delia added with confidence, her voice less angry. “Once she sees you and the kids, it will all come back.”

“But will it be enough?” Brynn whispered looking back at his cousin.

All she could do was stare back, unsure of the answer herself.

Chapter 23
Chapter 25

Broken Promises – Chapter 23

On March 30, 2019April 6, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing2 Comments

Chapter 23

Voices in the dark. One filled with anger, the other terror. Both too far away to understand clearly. Pushing through the darkness, Brynn tried to find the voices. There was something familiar about the one who was afraid. A female’s voice that haunted his dreams, fleeting as a distance memory. Memories cloaked in darkness.

Brynn was no stranger to darkness. He had slipped in and out of that darkness for many years, trying to hide from the pain. Trying to forget…her. Unfortunately, the light never lets the darkness rest, and he was forced to surface and remember that he was not the only one who had lost someone vital to their existence. That he did have something to live for. His children. Now he fought every day to stay in the light. Some days it was harder than others, and some nights when the nightmares haunted his dreams damn near impossible. Like tonight….

“How much more must you suffer before you heed my wishes?”

“You ask the impossible.”

“I only ask for what is mine!”

“What is yours? What you ask for has never been yours because it belongs to Aden therefore I cannot give it to you!”

Kara!

Brynn’s excitement that she was so close slipped away as he realized it was her voice that was fill with terror. Frowning, Brynn hurried closer. Who was Kara fighting with that would fill her with so much fear? Only two people came to mind and he did not want her near either one of them.

“Maybe I have been too lenient with you. Maybe I should take a page from your past, from before I found you and you begged me to save you from the bastards that abused you. Maybe I should and give you to one of my garrisons for a few hours. Remind Aden how the touch of a man, any man, fills you with hunger and lust. Then maybe he will see you for the worthless whore you are and sever your bond as I have commanded!”

Brynn froze in his tracks. What was he talking about? He could mean what those words suggested. He wouldn’t dare….

“No,” Kara breathed. “Please, my lord. I beg of you. Don’t do this! We cannot give you what you want.”

Shapes began to take form. Misty, watery, showing Kara’s face full of terror as she pleaded for mercy before drifting away. Another face, one he had never seen, old, scarred with age, twisted in fury. The more Brynn tried to see the images the quicker they drifted away, only to become suddenly crystal clear.

“It’s the ‘we’ in that sentence that displeases me,” the ancient man snarled slowly rising off his throne, his eyes narrowed on Kara with rage. “There should be no we!” He began descending the steps of the dais, one after one, his voice raising as his rage did. “There should only be Aden and then you. You do not belong to him. You belong to ME!” he roared.

The form slipped away into mist only to reform to the left of Brynn with the ancient man’s lips close to Kara’s ears, his voice a hoarse whisper. Kara stood, her body trembling, the color draining from her face, her lips quivering as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Break the bond, or so help me gods I will carry out my threat,” he hissed.

The movement was so slight that Brynn barely saw it, but the expression on Kara’s face was enough. She would not obey this man’s command. She would not break her bond with Aden.

“Very well,” the man said coldly.

Brynn’s worst fears had come to life. That what he had learned six years ago and refused to believe was true. That Kara did love Aden. Somehow it was far worse than the horror the ancient man threatened to force on her.

Gasping for air, he tried to break the nightmare, but something outside of himself would not let him go. Something…or someone, wanted him to see. Desperately looking around the darkness for an escape, half formed images danced before his eyes. Kara’s screams, men’s laughter, taunts, moans of pleasure, the sharp sound of leather against skin, of skin against skin. The sounds told a story the eyes refused to see and the mind refused to acknowledge.

Then there was silence.

His heart racing, Brynn realized he had fallen to his knees, his hands over his ears trying to block what he was hearing. Even so, the sudden silence left his ears ringing.

Before him, a picture appeared of a strange man on hands and knees looking up with loathing at the ancient man who stood on the dais. Somehow he knew the younger one was named Tanis and the older one was Caius.

“You bastard!” Tanis snarled.

There was a collective gasp throughout the room.

“Hello, brother,” Caius, who Brynn realized must be the emperor Kara had talked about sneered.

“You are no brother of mine,” Tanis sneered back, pushing himself to his knees and swaying. “Not after what you did to her.”

Caius shrugged. “I did what I had to do to win.”

“It has never been a competition,” Tanis yelled pushing to his feet. Staggering a few steps forward he caught himself on a nearby metal post.

“Hasn’t it been?” Caius asked, his anger leaking into this voice. “We awaken. We vie for her affections and she chooses. Then the battle begins. It has always been about competition. Who is the strongest, the most willing to fight for her, to die for her.”

“Which is why we are still fighting,” Tanis hissed, wincing in pain. Gasping, he blinked his eyes, as if to clear his vision. “She loves us both.”

“Yet time and time again she chooses you because of a lie.”

“I never lied to either of you,” Tanis snapped.

“True, but you never corrected it either,” Caius countered.

“And when she chose you. Did you tell her the truth? All of it? Or did you only tell her the parts that would draw her to you?” Tanis asked taking a step towards the dais.

“Enough of this,” Caius snapped, waving a hand in dismissal. “Finish what has been started so we can finally end it.”

“I will not allow you dig your claws into her any further,” Tanis swore standing his ground.

“She is already mine,” Caius snarled, slipping forward on his throne as if he wanted to stand then thought better of it.

The scene jumped and Tanis was lying on top of Kara on the throne room floor, a smile on his face. Above them Caius breathes, “It is done.”

When Kara’s eyes opened and locked with Tanis’s, Brynn felt as if his soul was being ripped in two. Clutching his chest, he doubled over, the pain radiating throughout his body excruciating. It was the same feeling he had had six years ago when his entire world fell apart. When he felt Kara’s presence violently ripped from him, leaving him gasping on the floor in the fetal position feeling utterly empty.

The world had gone into darkness after that. An entire year passed before Brynn was able to claw his way back into the light. An entire year his children had been without either of their parents. All this time he never knew why Kara had disappeared from him so completely. Part of him feared she was dead. Now that he had the truth, Brynn was not so sure believing she was dead was not easier.

“I did not realize watching this would still affect you,” a voice said beside him. Brynn looked up to see Aden standing next to him watching the scene before them, his own pain etched on his face. “It was so long ago,” Aden whispered.

“Why are you here?” Brynn gasped still unable to catch his breath. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because six years ago I promised I would come back and explain why Kara was taken from you,” Aden answered as he continued to stare at the frozen scene before him.

“Is that the man Chris was talking about? The one Kara was destined to be with?” Brynn asked as he staggered to his feet.

“One of them. Recently I found out it is far more complicated. According to prophecy, Tanis is one-third of what keeps the universe from spinning into chaos and ruin. Kara and the emperor, Caius, are the other two. I,” he hesitated, the anger and pain once again written plainly on his face. “I am either their salvation, or their doom.”

“What do you mean doom?” Brynn asked.

Aden explained the prophecy. When he was done, Brynn was staring at the frozen scene before him as Tanis and Kara looked into each other’s eyes as if no one else existed.

“I still don’t understand your part in this,” Brynn said after a moment of digesting what Aden had told him. “You said you are The Catalyst. What does that even mean?”

“To be honest, I’m not completely sure myself,” Aden answered wearily. He looked at Brynn’s confused expression and came up with no other answer to give him. He was so tired of all the pain, all the unreasonable demands that he was expected to meet. Of being forced away from Kara time and time again when his very soul was aching to touch her, to finish the ritual. Closing his eyes, he swayed on his feet, just the thought of what he and Kara had been long denied sweeping through his body, pulling at what little strength he had left. He was a shell of the man he used to be both physically and mentally. Kara was not much better, but then again she had Tanis to help her. Caius… Gritting his teeth as he clenched his hands, Aden shoved the rage that name conjured down where it did not cause anymore pain.

“Not even the emperor is who I thought he was,” Aden whispered, his eyes still closed. “Everything I knew was a lie.” Looking once more at the picture frozen before them. “Everything except her,” he whispered with a desperation that puzzled Brynn.

“So your emperor, Caius, is connected to Kara and this Tanis?” Brynn asked not wanting to delve any further into Aden’s feeling for his wife.

Aden nodded. “They were created at the same time and are all a part of each other. Kara is the Key. Tanis the light while Caius is the dark. Even though legends say they compete for Kara’s affections, the truth is they live in harmony together with one exception. There was a lie put into place from the very beginning that Kara knows nothing about. They have been able to keep it from her, but now that Caius has broken the one rule that was never to be broken in order to keep the balance, everything is beginning to unravel.”

“What rule? What lie?”

“The lie I don’t know. They keep it closely guarded. The rule is that when one of the three dies, the others would soon follow. Somehow, in the last reincarnation, Caius found a way to stay alive when Kara and Tanis passed away. An outside influence that was not meant to be involved. Then he waited two thousand years for them to return, gathering his strength, learning the intricacies of the prophecy, and more important, what the Gods were not telling them.

“Caius kept his searching for answers and any sign of Kara or Tanis re-emerging secret as he started to methodically gain power and take over one galaxy after another. Unfortunately, he was not careful enough. A small time smuggler had started asking too many questions. We thought we had eliminated her, but she survived a crash landing on a small backwards planet that thought her to be a goddess because of all the technology at her disposal. Once she had gained the title of Queen, Maura contacted one of her most trusted friends and called in a favor. He was to find Kara before Caius did and bring her back so Maura could use her power to take revenge on Caius.”

“Colin,” Brynn breathed.

Aden nodded. “A thief is a thief and Colin ended up betraying Maura by keeping Kara for himself, hoping to use her for his own gains. After years in his tender care, Colin decided to go back and use Kara against Maura. By then Caius heard of Colin’s pet sorcerous who could bend others to her will with the force of her mind, foresee the future, and the one special trait that Colin repeatedly used against Kara. That she could never say no to another’s touch. The time was right and there were too many similarities for Caius to ignore.

“Taking Kara from Colin was not an issue. Reaching him before he made it to his home planet was, because it was the same planet Caius knew Tanis resided. If Kara met Tanis before he had control of her, then all his careful planning, his sacrifices, would be for nothing. So he intercepted them and took her. Then he proceeded to bind her to him.”

“Bind her to him?” Brynn asked. Aside from the prophecy and who this Caius was, most of this was nothing new to him, but Kara had never said anything about being bound to Caius. As he watched Aden try to figure out a way to explain it, he could see the man was not happy about what Caius had done.

“Do you remember the necklace I put on Kara when I was here last?”

“Yes.”

“It is a slaves’ necklace. Very powerful, very old. Whoever puts it on you owns you, body and soul. They are also the only one who can take it off.”

“But you put it on Kara. Wouldn’t that mean she is yours?”

“Caius found a way around that small obstacle. He figured out how to change its power so it only answered to him. What it does is binds Kara with spells that are threaded throughout her body. If she tries to use her powers against Caius or any of his people, her power will rebound back onto her ten times over. If Tanis or…I try to hurt any of them, she will pay the price in excruciating agony. Caius can also use the necklace’s power to punish her. Sending different levels of pain throughout her body for any length of time he wishes. Shortly after we arrived back on the ship, Caius demanded that Kara break the bond between us. An impossibility he would not accept. Because she refused she spent two weeks immersed in agony.”

Brynn did not like Aden’s tone. It was as if Kara’s pain were his fault. Narrowing his eyes, Brynn asked the question he thought he already knew the answer to. “Why so long?”

To his surprise Aden looked directly into his eyes, but they were not defiant. On the contrary, there was so much anguish in them Brynn had a hard time holding his gaze. With visible effort, Aden pulled his emotions in, his face once again a mask of control.

“I tried to help her. I would go in to her cell and give her an hour or two without pain so she could sleep. Our master found out.”

The screen once again came alive.

Aden was in a cell with Kara, holding her to him, tears coursing down his face. Kara’s eyes were closed, her hands wrapped tightly around his arms, whimpering. Suddenly she screamed with such agony Brynn cringed, stepping back, away from the ear piercing sound. In the picture Aden tried desperately to hold her as her back arched, her arms and legs tense.

“Stop! I’ll to anything you want, just…please…stop this!” Aden yelled into the room.

Kara’s screams stopped and she fell limp in his arms, gasping. He immediately pulled her to him, desperately holding her.

“You know what you must do,” a voice hissed throughout the room.

Aden’s hold on Kara tightened as he buried his face into her neck.

“I can’t. You know I can’t,” Aden agonized whispered answered.

“Then it continues,” the emotionless voice growled.

The screen went black. The only light came from a single unseen source directly above them, shinning down in a large circle. Everything outside that circle was complete and utter darkness.

“He bound my powers so I could not help her. I don’t know how long I held her as she screamed, hours, days, before he dragged me to my room and locked me in, but I still felt every second of her agony. Knowing the entire time she was being punished because I dared to help her. Because I dared to…love her,” Aden whispered the last as if was something so precious, to speak it aloud was to commit blasphemy.

Brynn stiffened. He knew Aden had feelings for his wife, but to have them voiced aloud and with such emotion. “If you love her so much, why didn’t you let her go?” he ground out.

Aden looked at Brynn once again. “Because the moment I looked into her eyes, our souls bound themselves to each other. I could no more let her go than I could cut out my own heart, or hers. Caius broke me that day. Then when he brought Tanis to the ship….”

“It felt as if your soul was being ripped from you,” Brynn finished.

Aden nodded. “Caius already had Kara under his control. Tanis was supposed to have been broken before he was brought to the ship, but he proved to be more resistant.”

More scenes flashed before Brynn of various means Caius had taken in an attempt to break Tanis. All of them causing Kara more pain.

“If he was supposed to love her as you say, then why did he allow this to go on for so long? Why didn’t he give Caius what he wanted to stop her suffering? Or try to escape?” Brynn asked, tears streaming down his face as he watched his wife writhing in agony from some unseen force while Tanis and Aden watched helpless to save her. This was the least of the horrors that flashed before him. He turned to Aden and added angrily, “Why didn’t you?”

Aden turned to him with haunted eyes. “We did try to escape, and every time we were punished even more severely than the last. But you must understand something. When Kara and Tanis became one, it was for Good. Where there is Good there must also be Evil to balance it. Caius is that Evil. Or at least the demon he invited into his soul is.

“Demon?”

“A force far stronger than we are, and it wants Kara so he can control us all. For that to happen he needs to bond with Kara, but she kept that from happening when she reconnected our bond. Caius, the real Caius, has been too afraid to finish his part of an age old ritual because the demon may take advantage of the small window of opportunity to bond with Kara itself.”

Shaking his head, Brynn turned and walked a few steps away, his hands on his hips. “This is all too confusing,” he finally said turning back to Aden. “Your bond with Kara was broken and she reconnected it? Why?”

Aden just looked at Brynn. It was a look that left no words left between them.

“I don’t believe that once free of you, she would want to disrupt the natural order of the universe because of your feelings. I was married to her. With her every day until she was taken from me. I know Kara is an empath. That she feels what others feel, and sometimes she cannot differentiate between what she is feeling and what the one touching her is feeling. I also know she can control that part of her curse unless she is weakened down by someone who is stronger than her psychically. Like you were. No matter how you try to justify her feeling for you, according to your prophecy you were never a part of this…mess.” He said the last with a fair amount of disgust because that was exactly what it was. A colossal mess because some of the players could not abide by the rules. “And I don’t believe you are now.”

Aden’s smile was not friendly. “You are all the same. Not wanting to see the truth when it slaps you in the face because it is not what you want.” He stepped closer to Brynn, that rage that he had tamped down early rising to the surface. “I am tired of sanctimonious bastards telling me what I know is true in my heart,” he slapped his chest. “It is not my feelings that Kara is responding to, but her own. She knows the truth. That I am a part of this mess. That I am a part of her.”

“I am her husband…,” Brynn started, stepping forward.

“That does not mean you own her!” Aden yelled moving so he was close enough to that if he swung he would hit Brynn. “What you three keep forgetting is that you do not own her, therefore you cannot tell her what she should do, how she should feel. Kara is the key to everything. If anything, she owns us.”

The silence was filled with heavy breathing as both males did their best to reign in their tempers. Aden was the first to break the long silence.

“I did not come here to fight with you,” he said as calmly as he could. Stepping back, he turned to the side, knowing that looking at one of the males who would keep him from his heart would not help keep his fragile control. “I came here to warn you.”

“What do you mean?” Brynn asked his anger dimming at the possible new threat.

“First, you need to see more to understand.” Waving his hand in front of the picture, it began to move forward, faster and faster. As if Aden had hit fast forward on a movie. He continued his explanation as the pictures flew by. “We would do our best to not give the demon cause to hurt Kara, but it always seemed to find a reason to punish her for something either I or Tanis did. It was not long after that Tanis finally shattered, and now the demon controls four of the most power beings in the universe outside of the Gods themselves. With that power, it is waging a war against all the known races, and it is winning.”

The pictures slowed until they began to switch from one battle to another. Brutal bloody wars being fought at places Brynn had never seen before, races he never knew existed. Of the emperor standing with Tanis and Kara slightly behind him to one side before thousands upon thousands of soldiers, telling them of the worlds they would conquer. Of people on their knees, heads pressed to floor before them chanting something Brynn could not make out.

They stopped on a scene where Caius suddenly pointed to someone, angrily shouting. While Aden and Tanis watched anxiously, Kara stepped forward, raising her hand before her. The helpless man rose into the air screaming in agony. Her face held no emotion as she tortured the man floating before her. It was a few minutes before Caius motioned slightly with his hand and Kara flung her arm to the side. The man flew across the room, crashing into the stone wall with a sickening thud.

Brynn looked into Kara eyes, unwilling to believe the woman he knew, no matter what changes Aden claimed she had gone through, would willingly hurt someone like that. What he saw twisted his heart. Her eyes were dead. As if there was no joy left in a world. He had seen this look many years before, when Colin had beaten her down so far she had almost given up on living. He watched as Kara returned to her place next to Tanis, staring out over the crowd’s heads as if they were not there. Tanis looked at her with a small frown, yet his eyes were just as dead Kara’s. Just as empty.

“We hate going to these assemblies,” Aden said breaking into Brynn’s thoughts. Brynn looked at Aden as he watched Kara with an unreadable expression on his face. “When we return to the ship, Kara cries herself to sleep.”

“How would you know this?” Brynn asked his eyes narrowing.

“Like you once could, I can feel her pain,” Aden answered his voice and eyes far away, as if his mind was on some distant memory. He closed his eyes, his hands going to his face, rubbing it. He then shook his head as if he was trying to shake a memory away and focused back on Brynn, his expression once again empty. “The pain of having her soul ripped from me almost killed me. Not being able to finish the ritual is slowly killing us both.”

“What ritual?” Brynn asked suspiciously.

“You know which one,” Aden said, his eyes blazing with anger for a moment before returning to their emptiness.

Yes, Brynn did know. He was not sure how he knew, but deep down in that place that knew everything Aden had told him about the prophecy was true knew exactly what Aden was talking about.

“Caius and Tanis have kept us apart, or at least has never allowed us to be alone these last six years. One is too jealous, the other fearful of what would happen once we do finish it. What it would mean. All it has done is weaken us further and allowed the demon to dig it’s claws in to Kara deeper.”

“On this I can agree with them,” Brynn muttered angrily. “I have told you time and time again, Kara does not belong to you.”

Aden’s eyes flashed dangerously. “What you all seem to keep forgetting is when I was lying on the floor, shattered, utterly alone and empty, it was Kara who reached out to me. That she was the one who reestablished our connection, bound us far more tightly together than even I thought possible.”

Brynn stared at Aden, not wanting to hear his words. Kara did not love this dark man before him. She couldn’t. “You told me the prophecy spoke of a mate that she had children with, me, and the two she is bound to for eternity, which are Caius and Tanis. You have never mentioned a third.”

“That’s not quite true. There was nothing about a fourth,” Aden corrected. “As I told you early, I have been reading some of the scrolls Caius has collected over the years. Obscure writings that tell of a fourth, a catalyst that will bring about a new beginning or the universe’s doom. It is a key point in time that must happen in at a certain place and time. That time is coming and the demon inside Caius grew restless because he had yet been able to bond with Kara. We have all fought him, managed to keep one step ahead of him, until now.”

Rubbing his face with his hands, Brynn turned away from Aden. Everything he was telling him was becoming too much. Locking his fingers on the stop of his head, he knew none of this mattered to him except that Kara was suffering and there did not seem to be anything he could do to stop it. He turned to face Aden, again.

“I’ve already asked you this once. Now I need an answer. Why are you here? Why are you telling me all this?” his frustration and pain showing through his anger.

“Because Kara will be coming back to this place, but she will not be coming back to you,” Aden answered, his voice once again monotone.

Whatever the reason Kara was coming home, it did not please Aden.

“I don’t understand,” Brynn frowned.

“Seven months ago, the demon sent Tanis and I on a scouting trip. The trip would take ten days. Four days there, two days to scout then the trip home. In addition, the distance would take a toll on all of us. We cannot be apart from Kara for any length of time or we weaken and it’s physically painful for all of us. The demon said he was separating us because we needed to be reminded of our place in his world. There was nothing we had done, but we couldn’t argue with him or the punishment would be far worse. On the sixth day, Tanis collapsed and I felt a wrenching so deep it brought me to my knees. Something was happening to Kara, and whatever it was it was not good.” Aden words cut off as if he was being strangled. Abruptly he turned away from Brynn.

“What happened?” Brynn demanded. It seemed like eternity before Aden spoke again.

“When we returned and we found out what he had done, I went to Caius intent on killing him. Instead, he decided I needed to know every detail, every horror mentally and physically Kara went through when we were not there to stop it.” He waved his hand over the blackness that was before them. “As a result, I have a detailed description of what he did to her. I will not show all of it to you. I don’t want you to suffer as I have with these images, and Kara would not want you to know the horrors she suffered.”

The picture started out fuzzy then cleared to show a sparsely decorated bedroom. In the middle of the bed lay Kara sleeping peacefully. The door slid open and three men burst into the room, tearing her from her bed. They dragged her down the hall into another bedroom throwing her to her hands and knees on the floor.

“Just where you belong,” a deep masculine voice purred. “On your knees before me.”

A man so handsome he could be called beautiful walked into the room from a side door. His shoulder length black hair, tan skin, chiseled features, well-toned muscles radiated power. Brynn amended that thought. Radiated power and sex. Who he realized with a start was Caius wore an open black silk robe with matching pants. A true God in human form. Maybe that was why his voice sounded as if it echoed. As if there was another voice over laying the first. Brynn remembered what Aden and said and knew it was not a god that stood before Kara, but a demon.

Fear stabbed through Brynn as he looked over at Kara who was still on her knees but sitting up, her thin negligee doing nothing to hide her body. Brynn gasped at the difference in her. Her features were regal, her auburn hair and pale skin practically glowed, but as Brynn looked closer he could see lines etched around her eyes and mouth. Even though she hid it well, she was in a lot of pain. Brynn realized that she would not lower herself show weakness in front of Caius, even though he could see it cost her dearly. As she sat there, her expression was defiant.

“Go to hell,” Kara spat.

“Been there, done that,” the demon said nonchalantly as he walked over to pour himself a drink at a nearby table. “And believe me when I say it’s highly overrated. However, I didn’t invite you to talk about vacation destinations. I have something much more…pleasurable to discuss with you.”

Kara stiffened. “I have told you. I have no interest in lying in your bed, demon.”

“No? I beg to differ,” the demon said moving to stand in front of her. Kara refused to look up at him. Instead she looked to the side, her eyes fixed on something Brynn could not see. What he could see was the pain being replaced with fear. “You’re weak without your lovers, in constant pain.” He squatted down in front of her. “I want to only give you a few hours of peace.” Gently he cupped her cheek turning her eyes to his. As soon as they locked Kara’s body visibly relaxed. “Now, isn’t that better?” the demon whispered his eyes moving to her lips.

“That is not all you want from me,” she whispered the fear still in her voice, “and I will not freely give it to you.”

“No, I suppose not. But it is not your soul I am after today. It is your body.”

Kara tightly closed her eyes as she struggled against some unseen force. The demon put his other hand on the other side of her face holding her in place, his eyes never leaving her face, his concentration deepening.

“Get out of my head,” she gritted through her teeth.

“You cannot fight me forever, Kara. Give in to what you know you crave. Give in to me.”

“Never!” she hissed. “You may hold Caius prison, wear his image as your own, but I know who you are. What you are. I will never give you what you want, Malphas,” she growled, opening her eyes to glare at him. It was a mistake. Very briefly Caius’s eyes flashed red and another image superimposed itself over his. Hissing not unlike a cat hisses at something that frightens it, Kara broke free of the demon’s grip, falling backwards.

“How do you know my name,” he hissed. Kara refused to answer, instead glaring defiantly at Malphas, careful to not make eye contact. “Nevermind how you know,” Malphas said waving his hand in dismissal. “It will not change what will happen today. They thwarted me once. I will not allow them to do it again. Not when I am so close to victory.”

“What are you talking about?” Kara gasped pushing herself unsteadily to her feet.

“A war that has been waging long before this universe was created. A decision that has hundreds of thousands of chances to be made but had never been given. Of gods and goddesses playing with the very fabric of life as if it were some trivial toy. Of lies and deceit and callousness. I plan to end it all and bring peace from chaos one last time with the making of a single soul. With our child’s innocence.”

“Again, I have no clue what you are talking about.” Clearly Malphas had lost his mind. Then two words registered, and Kara’s eyes widen in horror. “Our child? We don’t have a child. Even if I wanted to, the body you inhabit and I could never have children. It is forbidden.”

Malphas smiled as he slowly walked forward as Kara walked backwards until she hit the wall. “My dear naïve Kara. There is much you do not know. A whole other prophecy has been played out before and must be played out again.” His eyes flashed red, telling Kara that the next words were not from the male she knew, but from some ancient being thought long banish, “And this time, I will win.”

Pinning her to the wall with his body, Caius caressed her cheek with the back of his fingers, gazing into her frighten eyes. “In the next five days, I will take you in ways you have never dreamed of. The pleasure of my love making will be…excruciating. Only when you are with child will I cease, after which I will hide you away until our child is born. You will remain hidden where the others who wish to harm us cannot touch either of you. When he is of age, when he has been properly trained and can defend himself from the Gods, we will bring him into the light and end the endless cycle of truth and lies.”

Suddenly he was savagely kissing her. Kara tried to fight him, but he was too strong. Finally he backed away, allowing her to breathe.

“Stay out of my head, demon from hell!” she gritted out once again, tightly closing her eyes as if in pain.

“We can do this the hard way or the easy way, Kara. Let me in and these next few days will be far more pleasant for you.”

“Never!” she spat.

Sighing, Malphas took a step backwards. “Have it your way.”

In a flash Kara was lying on the king size bed with her hands tied above her head.

“There have been many nights I dreamed of taking you in front of Tanis while he was helpless to stop me. Regretted not doing it more the day Selene interfered. Now you are too weak to fight me, and he is thousands of miles away unable to help you.” Allowing his robe to slide down his arms to pool on the floor, he climbed onto the bed until he was on all fours above her. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, his eyes traveling down her body.

There was a difference in his voice. A gentleness that did not belong to the demon who had been there a moment before.

“Caius?” Kara whispered hopefully.

The eyes that moved to stare into hers will filled with regret. “I am sorry,” Caius whispered. “For everything I have done, all the pain I have caused you because of my selfish desire never to see you die in our arms again. All the pain I will cause because I am not strong enough to stop him. I was never strong enough….”

Caius’s head bowed, his back arched, teeth gritting, body tense, fighting some unseen force. With great effort, he looked back into Kara’s eyes and breathed, “I love you.”

Flinging his head back, the demon’s voice echoed around the room as it roared in rage. When he looked down at Kara, his teeth bared, his eyes were glowing red, she gasped.

“No!” Malphas hissed. “She is MINE!”

Brynn stared in horror, unable to take his eyes off the screen in front of him as Malphas spent the next five days raping Kara. Some of the things he did to her, he used on her, would haunt Brynn for the rest of his life, and Aden said he was not going to show him the worst of it. Brynn could not imagine it anything viler than what was playing before his eyes. Although the worst for Brynn was that even though she fought him with everything she had, in the end Kara was begging the demon not to stop.

When Tanis and Aden finally returned they found Kara unconscious and chained on the bed naked, bruised and bloody. Once they returned to the safety of her and Tanis’s room, Aden went to find Caius to kill him only to be brought to his knees and forced to relive everything Kara had gone through in the last five days, over and over until he lay huddled on the floor, tears streaming down his face, a broken man.

Mercifully the screen when black.

Brynn found himself on his knees again, gasping for air.

“I want you to remember Kara fought the demon for as long as she could before he finally broke through her defenses. Kara wanting the pain, wanting Malphas was a product of his feelings. She just could not differentiate her revulsion from his lust.”

“Is she,” Brynn swallowed hard, the need to vomit strong, “is she…?”

“Pregnant? Yes. Did demon bond with her? No. It seems he has decided on a new course to reach his goal.”

Brynn looked up at Aden. The way he had said yes. There had been no emotion, yet there was a strain that spoke volumes. Aden was beyond furious at what happened, at the result, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Malphas wanted a child and that is what he got. Now he would do anything to protect it. The no was said with such relief it grated down Brynn’s spine. What right did this man have to put a claim on his wife?

“Thankfully Kara has little or no memory of what happened to her. She thinks the child belongs to Tanis. To keep her sanity in tack we have fostered this idea. If she knew the truth,” Aden swallowed hard before whispering, “she would not survive the guilt. Caius broke the rules in an attempt to end a cycle that has been in play for far longer than even we realize. Now we must deal with the consequences and try to figure out how to live with the outcome. Since the demon wants this child and is willing to do anything to assure it birth, we were able to convince it to allow Kara to finish her last trimester somewhere away from the tension in the ship and where his enemies would not find her. So Malphas is hiding her here.”

Brynn’s heart beat faster at the thought of Kara coming home. He had never thought to see her again. Worried about their children growing up without knowing their mother. Now, maybe there was a chance. She could see how big Jamie had become; see what her powers have developed into. See the bright young man Chris had grown to be.

As Brynn looked up at Aden, his smile slowly slid from this face. Aden’s expression was sad and regretful. Then Brynn remembered what he had told him. Kara was a different person. She belonged to a fate she had no control over and her past life, past loves, were a distant memory to her. The thought of having her so close but inaccessible would be torture, for both of them.

“Why here?” Brynn asked climbing to his feet. “There must be hundreds of other places he could put her that would not be so painful for all of us.”

“This is a demon we are talking about. A being that thrives on chaos, on pain. It knows no other way. Besides, can you think of no better place to put Kara so she can bear his bastard child? This was her home, a place where she felt safe from outside harm, and it is where you are. I don’t care what the prophecy says, I don’t believe she has forgotten about you or her life here. Not completely. Having you and her children around her with Tanis at her side will bring her pain knowing she was betraying someone she loves. To the demon’s way of thinking, this is the perfect place. She will be at ease being home, yet tortured because she is at home.”

Brynn turned away as he took deep breaths trying to calm himself down. Hands on his hips, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back. How as he going to explain this to everyone? People would ask questions, spread rumors, and he had no idea how to explain why his wife, who had been missing for over six years, had come back with another man and pregnant.

Brynn pushed out the images he has seen of what Malphas had forced on her. It made him sick to think she went through something that horrendous. The one question he did not know the answer too was how he should deal with Tanis. Tanis was a different than the others. Kara and Brynn had been soul mates up until he had come into the picture, and Brynn was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact Tanis resided in his place in Kara’s heart. He held an unbreakable bond with her that had lasted eons. And the connection she seemed to have with Aden. A connection that should not be there. This entire nightmare must be tearing her apart.

“Your master is truly evil,” Brynn said quietly not turning to face Aden but instead staring out into the blackness.

“You have no idea,” Aden agreed just as quietly. “This child will be made of evil, born from an evil act. I believe Malphas will hide them until the child is old enough so that he can possess the child much like he possesses Caius. Until then, they will be staying at a farm within the wards Caius had set up previously in order to protect her from those still searching for her,” he finished.

Brynn turned to him in surprise. “There was just a farm sold and renovated a few months ago not far…from…here,” his voice trailed off as he now realized how close Kara would really be. Aden nodded his head slightly.

“I will leave it up to you whether or not to contact her, but I think it will be difficult not to see her when she cannot leave the confines of this region. Then there is the pull that will be there between the two of you. That will never go away. There is one thing I want you to keep in mind. No matter what you feel, what you think she still feels for you, Kara is no longer only yours. She also belongs to Tanis, and me.”

“Yours? She was never yours, Aden,” Brynn growled coming nose to nose with him. “She was…is my wife. You took advantage of the situation she was in for your own selfish needs.”

Aden’s anger rose for a moment before it evaporated back into the numb mindless state he had been living in for months. What had happened while they were unable to protect Kara from Malphas had finally killed what little spirit had been left in Aden, and no amount of assurance from Kara that there was nothing he could have done to stop it could ease his guilt. The few times he managed to be alone with her before the others found them, he had just held her as she cried, vowing he would do his best never to be the one that made her cry again.

Being so close to her and unable to finish the ritual that would finalize their binding, unable to help her as he would like because there were two very jealous demi-gods constantly in his way had been very difficult. She was the only light in his dark world, and yes, he needed her. But what the others failed to recognize was she needed him too. For whatever reason, the heavens have deemed him a part of what is to come. The only uncertainty is whether or not Tanis and Caius or the would be a part of that future.

The prophecy laid out what their roles would be in the coming days, but this was not Brynn’s concern and Aden was taking too much time with him. Already he could feel Malphas searching for him. Malphas. That name sent chills down the spine of the strongest of them. Finding his true name had cost many lives, and Aden feared there would be many more to pay. Until then he needed to be careful. Knowing if he stayed hidden much longer the demon would start to become suspicious, he turned back to Brynn for one last thing.

“There is one thing I wanted to ask of you. The wards are still active, but that does not mean Colin will not try to break through. For some reason Jamie can tell when he is near. I want you to ask him to inform Tanis if he senses him anywhere near here. Tanis will then contact me and I will take care of the bastard once and for all.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Over the years he has had an uncanny knack of finding Kara and trying to take her. When he fails, he somehow disappears without a trace. None of us want him near Kara. If he tries to take her here, hopefully we can destroy him once and for all.”

Brynn nodded he would do as Aden asked.

Aden’s eyes grew far away, as if he was listening to something Brynn could not hear “I must go. My master impatiently awaits my return so he can bring Tanis and Kara here.” He began to fade from Brynn’s vision as did the light from above. “Remember what you have seen tonight. Tell the others what you think they need to know. Brace yourself for what you will feel when you finally realize you have lost her.”

Brynn woke with a start, the covers flying as he sat up in bed. His eyes darted around the room in the dawn light to find himself alone.

Chapter 22
Chapter 24

Broken Promises – Chapter 22

On March 30, 2019March 30, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing1 Comment

Chapter 22

The surrounding forest fell quiet as a dark figure moved quickly through the early dawn. He had been sent to make sure the security precautions that had been set up around the small county over twenty years ago were still in place. The Emperor did not want to chance enemies from the past finding them after all the trouble he had gone through to keep his secret.

A secret that would change everything.

Aden broke through the tree line and stopped. Before him the Llassar farmhouse and barn stood silent in early morning dawn, its occupants unaware their lives were once again about to be turn upside down. The last time he was here he took something from them. Something precious. Although he was not here to return their precious gem, he did want to warn them of what was to come. He was also here to fulfill a promise he had made six years ago.

Closing his eyes, Aden concentrated for a moment, looking for one Llassar in particular. He found him in the barn loft along with the two children. Aden’s mind flashed back to the last time he had been here. The young man who was far older than his years informing his father that the love of his life was not his alone. In some ways Chris had been right. Kara belonged to the fate of the universe and the two men who helped balanced it, kept it steadily moving forward, until now. Now she also belonged to him, a gift Aden thanked the Gods for each and every day.

Aden opened his eyes and looked at the farm with a sense of profound failure. No matter how hard he tried, or how many times he promised to protect her, Caius had managed to prove that neither he or Tanis were a match for the power the demi-god possessed. Not when he also held the power of a demon inside him.

When Aden returned five days after Caius sent him to torture the sorcerous queen, Commander Wells had warned him to stay away from Kara. That the emperor was in a foul mood because he had been unable to break Tanis. Not in the way he wanted. Some…one powerful had interfered. The captain did not know who it was, but when the emperor had come from the room he was torturing Kara, he was mumbling something about impertinent, self-serving Gods needing to keep their noses out of his business. When the emperor’s captain went into the cell to take the prisoners back to their room they were already gone. Confused, he went looking for them and found them their room, asleep and untouched.

Then he told Aden how the emperor’s appearance had changed. How the aging of his face and body had reversed themselves. Aden had not believed him, knowing there was no force in the universe that could undo two thousand years of aging. It was impossible. Aden was to find how wrong he was.

When he walked into the throne room, the amount of power filling it staggered him. When he saw Caius, his youthful timeless face, the young well-toned body, the godlike aura that surrounded him, Aden could only gape. Listening with growing dread as Caius confirmed everything that Aden had read in the prophecy as truth. About his, Kara’s and Tanis’s roles in the continuation of the universe. That there was some truth in the legends passed on from generation except for one crucial part. That he and Tanis had never fought for Kara’s affection, but that the three of them live fairly harmoniously together, protecting each other from those who hunted them. How the very gods who Aden and every other sentient creature had worshiped in one way or another were involved. However, those revelations were not what had completely stunned Aden. No. It was that he had been created for the sole purpose to end the vicious cycle of life, death and rebirth they were all trapped in. He was the Key to the end.

Closing his eyes, Aden took a deep breath of cold air and let it out slowly, trying to expel his emotions with the fog that surrounded his head as the warm air from his lungs hit the cold. Now was not the time to worry about what he could not fight today. First he had to keep a promise and relive the horrors that he could not change. In order to do that he needed to lock up his emotions deep down inside, otherwise he would lose what little sanity he had left.

Keeping to the shadows, Aden silently stole through the yard. The stillness of the night telling. Those that live in the shadows knew when a predatory was amongst them, and they did not want to be found. With a wave of his hand the side door into the barn quietly swung open. Aden climbed the stairs into loft that had been converted into Brynn and his family’s home. Soundlessly, he slipped down the hall until he reached Chris’s open door. Staring down at the sleeping young man, Aden finally understood the terror in Chris’s eyes when he had felt Caius power. Even at his young age, Chris knew what Caius had become. Knew how his mother would suffer these last six years. Aden wondered if Chris knew who his mother really was. It was a question he would have to ask later. He was not here to see the twenty-one year old, and he did not have much time.

With stealth a panther would envy, Aden swept into Brynn’s room. His long duster gently swinging around his ankles, he looked down at the sleeping man for a few moments before putting his hand out over Brynn’s forehead. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and delved into Brynn’s dreams.

Chapter 21
Chapter 23

Broken Promises – Chapter 21

On March 23, 2019March 31, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing2 Comments

Chapter 21

“I must warn my mistress. She must know what is coming so she can defend herself. How dare he think he can barge in here killing whomever he pleased. Those were my mistress’s men. Only she can kill them. Must warn her. He is in a dark mood.”

The stooped figure rushed through the halls muttering to himself in his nasally voice. A few moments ago, the dark stranger had blasted his way through the iron doors of the castle as if they were made of kindling. As Sebastian watched him and the two men following closely behind him, their strange weapons drawn, from the balcony he could tell that dark lord was in a foul mood. The guards who tried to detain him were now puddles of blood and meat scattered across the courtyard. The weapons had never fired.

At first Sebastian stood in shock because the visitor had not used his hands to kill those in his way. He just glared at the men and they rose into the air, screaming as their limbs began to twist and turn, each bone snapping loud enough that Sebastian could hear it over their screams of agony. Then the men began to slowly expand, bloating like a corpse until they burst apart in a spray of blood and meat. When the dark visitor was done, the two guards were nothing but stains on the nearby walls and ground. Strangely enough, the visitor or his men did not have a drop of blood on them.

What Sebastian had seen was impossible. No one had that kind of power.

Then something even more frightening happened. Something that sent Sebastian scurrying to warn his mistress. Even though he was hidden in the shadows, the dark visitor had looked directly at him. His red eyes freezing Sebastian’s heart. Sebastian tried to run, but he found his legs would not obey him. Finally the visitor released his hold and strode into the castle proper, out of sight. Sebastian slumped against the wall gasping for air.

The dark visitor was in a rage and he was heading for Sebastian’s mistress. He must warn her.

* * *

The moment Aden was hidden from the prying eyes of the castle guard, he slumped against the damp rock wall of the castle’s interior. Blasting through the doors and killing those men had taken what precious little strength he had remaining. Putting his hand over his heart as it squeezed painfully, he wondered not for the first time what Caius was doing to Kara. There had been unimaginable pain before, but nothing like this. A burning, soul draining pain that radiated throughout his body. Whatever was happening to her was not magic induced, but physical.

“My lord?” one of his men softly enquired, his worry clear in his tone.

Thank the gods Well’s had the foresight to send these two with him. There would have been no way he could have flown himself and landed the shuttle safely. Where it had always been painful to be away from her, this time it seemed the further he moved away from Kara the weaker he became. What was the difference between the original bond he held with her and this one? What had he missed in his study of the prophecy?

“Someone is coming?” the second guard hissed.

“Maybe we can use whoever it is to strengthen you, my lord,” the first suggested.

Prying his tightly closed eyes opened, he first saw the guard, Modi, standing in front of him, his face lined with worry. Turning his head slightly he saw the other, Bresi, whose back was to him as he scanned the area around them, making sure no harm would come to him while he was weak. Yes, these two were his most trusted and knew who Kara was to him and the cost of being this far from her. Knew about the prophecy and what his role in it was. Knew his most evil power. The one that drained the life of another to strengthen his own.

“No,” Aden said with a tone that told him he would not discuss it any further. He would not use an innocent for his own means, not if he could help it. As if to remind him of just how weak he was, his legs chose that moment to give out from under him. With a groan, he slid to the ground, Modi’s hands on his arms following him down so he wouldn’t fall over.

“My lord,” Modi said, his voice pleading. “We are in enemy territory and you can barely stand. If we are to finish our mission and return to the ship as soon as possible to help Lady Kara, you need to borrow someone else’s strength.”

He did have a point, damn it. Hating himself for what he was about to do, Aden nodded his head. “No innocents,” he reminded sharply, taking ahold of Modi’s arm before he could rise.

“Yes, my lord,” Modi promised. Pulling out his own blaster, he nodded to Bresi who silently disappeared around the corner and outside.

There was a grunt, some movement of cloth and feet on the ground and Bresi returned with an unconscious soldier in his arms. Sitting him next to Aden, against the wall, the two guards backed away a few feet, turned and took up watch so Aden could do what he hated most without fear of being ambushed. Steal the life of another living creature for his own needs.

Reaching out, Aden touched his fingertips to the hand of the soldier that was closest to him. Closing his eyes, he began to pull the life energy slowly from him. As he began to grow stronger, the memories of the solider began to play before his eyes. A side effect of using this power was that he gained the memory of his victims. This soldier had done his fair share of atrocities under the order of his commander and queen, but he did not enjoy it. Underneath the gruff exterior that he showed his fellow soldiers was a man who would have rather stayed at his family farm and raised his son and daughter with his wife peacefully, but he was the youngest in a family of three sons, so the only avenue left to him to support his family was being a soldier for the queen’s army.

Aden pulled his hand away. He would not steal anymore of this man’s life. Instead he would do what he came here to do and rid this world of their evil queen’s tyranny.

Another slice of pain shot through his body. Clenching his teeth to keep from crying out, Aden rode it out, some of the precious strength he had just gained draining away. What the hell was going on? It was as if Kara was…dying.

Taking a deep breath, Aden gathered what strength he had left and pushed himself to his feet. Waiting for the world to settle and grow solid under his feet, he pushed away from the wall to stand straight. Ignoring the worried glances from his guards, he started across the large foyer towards the throne room closed doors. If Kara was to survive, if they were all to survive, he needed to finish his mission and return to the ship as soon as possible. Whatever the hell Caius was doing to her, if he was this weak the gods only knew how weak she was.

It was the queen’s fault that he was here in the first place and not by Kara’s side protecting her. He would make sure she paid for her stupidity in as much pain as Kara was enduring.

* * *

The stooped figure sighed in relief when he rushed through a side door of the throne room and realized he had arrived before the dark visitor. Making sure the large thick wooden doors were firmly shut and barred, he shuffled over to his mistress who was playing with the strange metal toy the dark visitor had given her on a half-naked male hanging from the ceiling, shackled by his wrists. The same place the healer Tanis had hung not so long ago. Sebastian winced when the man screamed in agony. Normally he would not dare to interrupt his mistress when she was playing with her victims, but this was important.

“Mistress!” Sebastian called out.

The queen’s hand froze inches away from touching her victim with the torture device. She closed her eyes, tamping down the rage that boiled to the surface at the untimely interruption, Sebastian’s whiney voice grating on her every nerve. The little voice in the back of her mind she rarely listened to reminded her, he would never interrupt her unless it was important. Still, she felt the need to punish him for his insolence.

“This better be important,” she said through gritted teeth.

“It is, Mistress,” Sebastian gasped bowing. “The dark visitor has returned.”

“Lord Sahen?” she asked brightly, her anger instantly dissolving at the thought of the handsome dark sorcerer visiting her. “He must have decided to take me up on my offer to mate. An offspring with our powers combined would be magnificent,” her smile broadened at that thought.

“I do not think the pleasure of your lovely body is why he is here, Mistress,” Sebastian said shuffling closer. “He seems to be in a foul mood. He has already destroyed the front gates and killed two of your guards and with just a thought.”

The queen frowned at the news, but before she could ask any more questions, the doors to the throne room burst open with such force they broke their hinges. Aden strode into the room, two guards trailing behind him weapons drawn. The stench of death and the promise of more filled the room. He stopped only long enough to sweep the room with his eyes. His frown deepened when they landed on the queen staring at him with barely contain rage. Quickly recovering herself, she put on her best coy smile.

“My Lord Sahen,” she cooed as he began striding towards her. “What a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe this…?” She was cut off when Aden raised one hand, ripping the metal rod out of hers. The moment it left her hand she flew into the air, crashing into the wall behind her.

“Once again you have not lived up to your end of the bargain, Maura,” his quiet voice leaving no doubt of just how angry he was.

“I don’t know what you mean?” Maura gasped. “I delivered the one you wanted.”

“Oh, I think you do,” Aden said, his voice low and angry as he slowly walked towards the struggling queen until they were so close she could feel his breath. “The one I love, that is my life, now suffers from your incompetency. I am here to remind you what it means to betray those you promise loyalty to. When I am finished with you, you will wish for the death you escaped all those years ago. If you are lucky, I may just give it to you.”

The queen’s eyes were wide with an emotion she had long forgotten.

Fear.

“My lord, I beg you. Please….” Her pleas turned into screams as Aden lightly touched her with the metal rod. He held it to her side, his face inches from hers, watching her expression as her screams intensified. Slowly he pushed the wand harder into her side. This woman caused Kara pain, so she would pay with pain.

Slow, searing, agonizing pain.

Behind him, the sound of blasters filled the room. Before they had entered, he and his guarded agreed they would take care of any outside threat so Aden could concentrate what was left of his strength on the queen. Although, while they were busy defending his back, beside him he felt movement. Reaching out his free hand, without looking way from the queen, he grabbed Sebastian around the neck, holding him frozen with his hand holding a dagger high above his head. Memories of the oily creature’s atrocities poured into Aden’s mind. Brutalities that he reveled in inflicting on others for an adverse sense of power he had never known in his miserable life. As the slimy creature’s life slipped away and Aden grew stronger, there was no sense of remorse at killing the bastard. The only regret Aden had was that he had no time to kill him as slowly as he was going to kill the woman screaming in agony before him.

Dropping the dead carcass on the floor, his red eyes glowed with renewed power as he glared at Maura. “Shall we begin our lesson?”

No one dared to interfere as Aden poured all the rage and malice he felt towards Caius, the helplessness he felt being at being unable to stop what being done to Kara, the pain he felt Kara was enduring while he was on this godforsaken planet unable to help her, the pain their separation caused them, and everything he knew they would have to endure in the coming years into the defenseless queen.

Her screams would haunt the halls for many days and nights to come.

Chapter 20
Chapter 22

Broken Promises – Chapter 20

On March 16, 2019March 23, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing1 Comment

Chapter 20

Drip, drip, drip.

The soft sound slowly pushed its way through the pain and exhaustion.

Drip, drip, drip.

Not the sound of water landing in a pool of its own making, but thick and wet. The sound of life’s essence slowly draining away one drip at a time. The essence of the one who is the entire reason for the universe’s existence. The reason for his existence. One he could not protect, heal, because the chains that held him were imbued with spells that nullified his powers.

Drip, drip, drip.

A sharp rattle of chains, stopping as soon as it began followed by a hoarse moan. As if the voice had been screaming until finally it had nothing left to scream with.

Drip, drip, drip.

Exhaustion gives way to panic, pushing past the pain, forcing eyes open to utter darkness. There is no relief from seeing for himself that she still lives. That her chest rises and falls with the breaths he prays she is taking. That there is still enough of her life blood remain to save her.

Drip, drip, drip.

“Kara?” he calls hoarsely.

There is no answer. Tanis’s panic rises.

“Kara!” he calls urgently.

A soft groan is his only answer. Slumping in his chains in relief he tries to make sense of what had happened. Never in their long existence had Caius come close to the atrocities he had done today. No. Not Caius, Tanis corrected. A demon who vowed to do whatever it took to break him, to make him obey and sever his bond with Kara so the demon could take his place. There was no room for light in the universe he was building, he had told Tanis. Only darkness, pain and chaos. After a few hours of watching the demon torture Kara, of feeling every slice of the whip or blade, of ever touch from the soldiers that the demon allowed near Kara, Tanis was starting to understand what Aden tried to tell him before he left. Why he had done everything his master had ordered, no matter how painful, how vile it was to save the female he loved this pain. Why the boy had refused to break his bond with Kara, because, like Tanis, even if he wanted to save Kara the horror of this existence, he could not do the impossible.

Now Tanis leaned back against the wall he was chained to, his head back, eyes closed tightly, the hard cold metal the only thing grounding him in the darkness. Unable to see, other senses were heightened. The constant slow drip of Kara’s blood was like a deep base drum inside his head. The pain radiating through his body unbearable, burning, stabbing, excruciating. Pain that was not his, but the female that hung in the middle of the room slowly dying. Panic rose as the images of Kara before the darkness descended, her body broken, abused, worsened with each agonizing second that passed and he did not hear her voice.

Drip, drip, drip.

“Kara, love,” he called desperately. “Please. Answer me.”

Drip, drip, drip.

Reaching out with his mind he tried again. Kara, he urged gently. Please talk to me.

I am…here, she whispered weakly through his mind. With those words came the sorrow, the defeat, the humiliation she felt at what he had witnessed done to her. They were immortals. God and goddess with powers that should have allowed them to protect themselves from this, and yet, she had allowed it to happen because her body was not her own.

Tanis felt her humiliation intensify. After all the demon had done to her, her body had responded like a wanton creature to his touch, just as the gods had designed her, and she was ashamed. Tanis clenched his fists, trying rein in his anger at the gods for giving her this curse. Through the ages he had protected her from those who would try to use her weakness against her, but now…. Now he was helpless and she was being punished for it.

“I am so sorry,” he breathed, hopelessness beginning to take hold.

There was the sound of chains creaking, a sharp hiss of pain.

“Not…your fault,” Kara gasped. He could hear her heavy breathing, feel the sharp stab of pain as it shot through her ravaged body. After a moment she continued, her voice strained, “Caius has broken many rules. The gods will punish him.”

“The gods,” Tanis scoffed. “Where were they when Colin had you? When you suffered under whatever demon Caius has sold his soul to, because I know he would never do this to you. Whatever myths and legends surround him, calling him callous, evil, one fact has always remained true. You are his life and he loves you far too much to hurt you like this. No. The gods have abandoned us.” Tanis ground his teeth together, his rage growing to new heights. “DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU HAVE ABANDONED US!” he roared. The last of his strength gone, Tanis slumped in his chains.

Drip, drip….

The silence stretched on. With nothing left but the will to keep breathing, Tanis could not even whisper Kara’s name. Maybe it was just as well. If they died, then the demon would lose. The small window of opportunity with Aden as his catalyst, or whatever he called him, would close and the universe would be safe. A sense of relief washed over him as he sunk further into the darkness where he knew his love waited for him.

A soft glow began to penetrate Tanis’s eyelids, growing in intensity with each passing moment. Chains groaned, whimpers of pain intensified. Something was happening to Kara and yet he could not feel it. That was not right. Once bonded, unless they shielded hard they felt, saw, heard everything the other felt, saw, heard. Drawing on strength he did not know he had left, Tanis lifted his head and cracked his eyes open.

The soft yellow glow radiated out from Kara, completely encompassing her. The brighter it grew, the more Kara’s whimpers grew, her body writing with new pain. The pain of healing. Before his eyes, the cuts that covered her delicate skin began to knit themselves together, bones reset with a snap. Just as there was pain when injuries were given, so was there when they were cleaned, stitched, or reset. What Tanis was seeing was rapid healing that would intensify with the severity of the wound. When the glow grew so bright that Tanis had to close his eyes and look away or fear blindness, Kara’s body bowed, her head thrown back as she screamed one long ragged scream.

Then all was silent once more.

When Tanis looked back at Kara, there was now a low light filling the darkness so he could see her. There were no more injuries or blood on her, her matted hair once again clean and gleaming, her flawless skin flush with life. Suddenly Tanis’s chains unlocked. Unable to bear his own weight, he collapsed to his hands and knees.

What the hell?

Go to her, my son, a familiar feminine voice breathed through his mind.

“Mother,” he breathed in relief. She had heard his plea and come to help them.

With renewed hope and strength, Tanis struggled to his feet and staggered towards her, slipping on the blood that still coated the floors and walls. His arms had just wrapped around Kara when her chains unlocked, dropping her weight onto him. As carefully as he could, he lowered her to the floor, careful to keep as much of her out of the horror on the floor as possible.

Kara took a deep stuttering breath and opened her eyes.

“What happened?” she asked afraid to move.

“Mother is here,” Tanis smiled as he pushed her hair out of her face. “She healed you.”

As the door slid open clothes suddenly appeared on them. A long white dress for Kara. A white tunic and leather leggings for Tanis. The demon storm into the room stopping dead in his tracks, his eyes on something behind Tanis. Eyes narrowed in rage, he lowered them to the now clean floor and the two sitting there staring back at him warily. When he saw they were untouched and healthy, he bellowed in rage.

“How dare you interfere!” he roared his eyes locking onto who Tanis assumed was their mother, Selene, Goddess of the heavens, their queen.

“You accuse me of interfering when you have broken the most sacred rule. You should have died with them two thousand years ago. This,” she swept her hand over the room that held torture instruments and the blood that still covered the walls, “should never have happened. You should never have been able to sink your claws into my daughter so deeply. I should have drowned you like I wanted to in the beginning,” she snarled. “But your father forbade it.”

“How is dear old dad,” Caius sneered, eyes flashing red.

Not Caius, but the demon. Had his mother seen the demon’s slip? Did she realize that it was not her son she was talking to? While there had never been any love lost between the two, the level of hatred he was seeing today had never been this high. It was as if the demon knew Selene somehow, that there was a history between them. What had they missed?

The demon continued, a sneer firmly planted on his face, in his voice, “Out fucking his latest whore, I assume. It must just irritate the hell out of you that the Fates deemed you to only want one man and that man would want every other woman but you.”

Looking back at his mother, Tanis could have sworn he saw smoke coming out of her nostrils as her eyes flash fire. Where the fates had cursed Kara without the ability to say no to another’s touch, they had cursed their mother with only wanting one man. A man who hated her and would rather see her dead than bed her again.

“You were demon spawned and you should be put back in hell realm where you belong,” she spat. “Someplace I might send you still.”

“At least Dad and I could catch up on old times. Oh, wait. He no longer lives in hell realm, does he. He now occupies the throne in the temple where he can keep an eye on you while fucking everything in sight,” Caius taunted with relish. “Must be annoying to have him watching your every move, making sure you don’t interfere like you did in the beginning.”

“I did what was best for my daughter. What was best for us all,” Selene defended regally no remorse in her voice. “And I would do it again.”

“You manipulated the prophecy to your own ends. You made sure she saw Tanis first in an attempt to use his jealousy to keep me away from her!” he screamed. Taking a deep breath, he reined in his temper with visible effort. When he spoke next, his voice was calm, his eyes still angry, but not filled with the consuming rage that they had held before. Looking at Selene with his own blue eyes, he calmly said, “But you failed, didn’t you, Mother. You did not take into consideration that Kara could love me as much as she loved Tanis. That we understood that only together could we do what we were created for. Something you could never do.”

The silence that ensued afterwards was deafening. Caius was breathing hard, his eyes showing emotions Tanis could not decipher. Anger, pain, nausea. What Tanis did notice was the absence of malevolence that the demon excluded whenever he was present. It gave Tanis hope that his brother was still in there, somewhere.

Selene stood stock still glaring back at him. Tanis carefully pulled Kara with him as he climbed to his feet, moving them out of the way before the lightning bolts started flying. To anger a goddess, their queen no less, was tantamount to suicide, and because of the way Caius had bound Kara, there was no way to protect themselves. Pushing Kara behind him as he backed towards the wall, Tanis warily watched both parties warily.

There was a flash of red along with a subtle change in Caius facial expression that told Tanis the demon was once more in control. With a voice that was a slightly different dialect that he had not noticed before, the demon continued, “I became weary of playing your games, Selene, and took matters into my own hands.” If the slip of using her name registered, their mother did not respond. Instead she stood proud and regal. Like a marble statue in a museum, cold and unyielding. The demon smiled. “I spent eons trying to find a way to survive their deaths. Two thousand years ago I finally succeeded. But I was not idle. I schemed and plotted and I waited for my chance. Then I found her,” his eyes found Kara’s and locked with them. “I found her and I bound her to me, and in turn bound Tanis.” He turned back to Selene. “They are mine to do with as I wish and there is nothing any of you can do to take them from me.”

“You will not touch her again,” Tanis snarled stepping forward.

Selene raised her hand halting Tanis in mid-step, her gaze never leaving Caius’s. “No,” she said quietly, her sudden calmness making the three of them very uneasy. “It is true we cannot break the bonds you have wrapped Kara so tightly in, but just because you control her with pain and terror does not mean she is yours. The others and I have come to a decision. You have overstepped your boundaries today. We…I will no longer stand for such abuse.”

There was a blinding flash. When the demon could see again, Tanis and Kara were gone.

“Where are they?” he demanded stepping towards his mother angrily.

“In their quarters resting,” she answered calmly. “Where you will leave them for now. This is the one and only time I will interfere, but hear me, Caius. You continue down this path you have chosen and our retribution will be swift and deadly.” Selene’s voice echoed throughout the chamber with her promise, her power suffocating.

“Don’t threaten me,” the demon sneered walking towards her, stopping a few feet away. “You have neither the power nor the willingness to go through with that threat. You never did.” The demon’s smile grew when her eyes widened ever so slightly, a flash of fear marring her calm composure. She was beginning to suspect who he truly was. Good. He wanted them afraid. Moving so he stood inches before her, his face twisted with disgust, eyes slowly bleeding into the deep red that he knew was all too familiar to her, he whispered. “I found him.”

Selene could not stop her gasp as fear sliced through her being. The demon felt stretch her mind in an attempt to find who he was talking about, but he knew she couldn’t. He had hidden him too well.

“Yes, you should be afraid because I found the one you have all been waiting for. The one that will end your reign in the heavens. I found him as a boy and raised him in my own image. This time I will win,” he cackled.

“You lie!” Selene hissed. “I can feel it. If you truly have the one prophesized, you do not have as much control over him as you would like us to believe. It is still up to the Fates how time will continue. That you can never change.”

The demon moved so he was nose to nose with Selene, invading her personal space. She neither moved back nor flinched, impressing him with her courage. Something she did not have the last time they met. “Are you willing to bet your existence on it, Selene? Because once I am ruler and Kara is mine, I will wipe the house of the gods clean. I will destroy you.”

“You will try,” Selene smiled, her quiet voice deadly with promise, “and as before, you will fail. Do you hate me so deeply that you wish to see her destroyed?”

The eyes that stared back at her were the eyes of her son, and they held a sorrow that clenched her heart tight in empathy.

“No,” Caius whispered as he stepped back. “You know how I feel concerning Kara, just as I know what must be done, and this time it will be different. I will see to it.”

“They will not allow it,” Selene whispered her hand going to her throat as her own past grief assailed her.

“I will not give them the chance. My son deserves to know his mother. Every child deserves to know the love of its mother,” Caius said softly backing further away.

“They will not allow it,” Selene repeated tears coming to her eyes.

“How do you know? Demon spawned as you claim I am, how hard did you really try to stop them…Mother,” his voice low and full of hurt.

With a sob and another blinding flash Selene disappeared.

Caius stood staring at the spot his mother once stood. Waiting to make sure she was really gone before releasing the breath he had been holding. Gods! He had promised himself he would not allow her to crawl under his skin. Not like this. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to calm. The past was in the past. It should be left there. If only he could. He just hoped from now on his father kept her busy enough to stay out of his way until he finished what he started. Unfortunately, for that to happen there would be more pain and suffering before the end was reached, for all of them.

Looking around the room, Caius shuddered. He had tried in vain to stop what the demon was doing to Kara, but the cage the bastard had put around his consciousness was too strong. It was not until his mother arrived had he been able to break free. Something about her presence had unnerved the demon, giving Caius an opening, he took without hesitation. Now that the demon seemed reluctant to come forward, Caius would take the reprieve to regain his strength and repair any damage that had been done between him and his siblings. However, he needed to tread carefully. There were still steps that need to be taken to fulfill a part of the prophecy they had never known existed until recently.

Knowing his time was short, Caius strode out into the hallway, his ever present guards falling in behind him. Time to finish his part of the ritual before the demon took control again. That was on piece of the puzzle he would not allow the bastard to have.

Chapter 19
Chapter 21

Broken Promises – Chapter 19

On March 9, 2019March 23, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing, Flash Fiction2 Comments

Chapter 19

Almost ever culture speaks of soulmates. That one person who in essence carries the other half of your soul, and until you find them you are never complete. Some spend their entire lives looking for that missing piece, never resting, never being at peace. For Kara the term soulmate means just what it says, only her soul belonged to more than one being. She was the center where light and darkness orbited, keeping the delicate balance that the universe existed within in perfect harmony. Now that delicate balance was threatening to unravel.

Resting his forehead on hers, Tanis released a long sigh. “Caius and I may not agree on a lot of things but this I can guarantee. You may have started the bonding process with Aden, but we will never allow you to finish it.”

“Tanis…,” Kara breathed in disbelief, her heart constricting with what he was telling her. What it would do to her and Aden if the ritual was never completed. The constant need pushing at them, tormenting them. Years of being separated and the pain of that separation would be nothing compared what they would endure if they did not finish what was started.

“No, Kara,” Tanis interrupted. “I’m sorry, but I can’t allow him to have even a small part of you. You belong to us. There is no nor ever will be another.”

Tangling his hand in her hair to hold her in place, Tanis kissed Kara with every ounce of passion and love he felt for the female in his arms. As the power began to build, the ties that bound them weave through them, tightening, strengthening, as he felt Kara melt into him all thought left except one. He was home.

Crushing her to him, his kiss demanding as it was giving he flashed them to the bedroom. They had been apart for two thousand years. Two thousand years of not feeling the touch of her hands on him. The touch of her soul next to his. Their clothes gone, his weight on her feeling like heaven, with fingers, hands, lips, they relearned the feel the taste of each other’s bodies. Kara’s cries as her body trembled under his touch were like music to his ears. When she screamed her orgasm, writhing in pleasure as wave after wave washed over her the ritual began. Only after he milked every drop and she lay panting, boneless, completely spent, did he crawl up her body to claim her mouth again.

“You are mine, Kara. Now and always,” he whispered huskily in her ear in a language so old only the Gods themselves remembered it. Sucking on her lobe, he slowly slid inside her, both of their bodies shuddering in ecstasy. “I will love you, cherish you, honor you, and protect you with my life.” He punctuated every word with a thrust.

“I will love you, cherish you, honor you, and protect you with my life,” Kara repeated, her voice breathless as her nails dug into his back, the pleasure mounting with each word, each desperate thrust.

In a burst of power, they flew over the edge together, their souls twining, bonding tighter, cells, bodies becoming one. Metal unable to slow it, space unable to stop it, that power spread touching everything in its path. The universe stopped for one breath of a second. Then it was if the universe sighed in relief and once again began to move forward.

Tanis collapsed on top of Kara gasping, her arms and legs wrapping around him as she clung to him. It was a ritual as old as the words they spoke that they completed every time they came together. Once again bringing the universe closer to harmony. There was only one more piece to the puzzle that needed to be put into place. One more player to begin and finish what had been started. The darkness to Tanis’s light.

“Bravo. Bravo,” a voice that was a familiar as it was foreign purred. Hands slowly clapping broke through the afterglow of their lovemaking freezing them in place. “Now for my turn,” the voice growled.

Kara cried out when Tanis was ripped from her arms and slammed against the wall across from the bed, his arm and legs spread eagle unable to move. Kara started to scramble to the end of the bed to help him only to freeze when she remembered who it was standing in the doorway glaring at her with glowing red eyes. This was not the darkness to Tanis’s light, the other part of her soul, her beloved. This was the demon who had tormented her in her mortal life, who had bound her with spells and curses to him as tightly as she was now bound to Tanis.

The necklace locked around her neck pulsed once, a shock of pain washing away the remnants of their lovemaking. A warning of what she would endure if she did not remember her place. Slowly, her frighten eyes locked on Tanis’s angry ones, her body shaking, with deliberate care she moved backwards until she was on her knees, her hands on her thighs facing upwards, back straight, eyes downcast.

Tanis could see Kara was shaking with fear, her face devoid of any color as the demon walked towards her. Reaching out a hand, he slowly pet her hair, his hand moving down her shoulder continuing down her arm.

“Very good, my dear,” he purred as he fingertips brushed across her ribs to her breast. “You remember your place.”

“Get your hands off of her!” Tanis snarled struggling to free himself from the invisible bonds that trapped him against the wall.

The demon’s red eyes remained on Kara’s face, watching as she reacted to his touch, the terror that he felt coursing through her unable to dampen the pleasure. The Gods had blessed her with a body that responded to the touch of another being. Any touch from any being, be it male, female or creature from another race. He smiled as her body shivered from his touch. The thought that she wanted him tighten things lower in the body the demon inhabited he thought long dead. Unfortunately, it was not yet time to claim what was rightfully his.

A noise pulled his attention from the female on her knees to the wall opposite her. The demon looked at Tanis, amusement dancing in his eyes as he watched him vainly struggle with the invisible bonds that held him in place. Eyes flashing with power, he began walking towards Tanis.

“Oh, I have plans to do much more than simply touch her, brother,” he sneered, his voice echoing with malice and power. “I plan to use her torture you in ways you could never imagined. Then, when you are broken and bleeding on the floor unable to protect your precious Kara, I will rip her soul from yours and make her mine. And you will lie there watching, powerless to help her as I take her to over and over.”

“She will never give you what you want,” Tanis spat.

“I do not need her to give me her power. I am evil incarnate,” he announced loudly to the room, raising his hands to his sides as he turned around in a circle. Once he faced Tanis again he lowered his arms, a sneer on his face. “All I need is her body under mine as I wrap my essence around hers. Then, when she is utterly and completely mine, I will throw you in the darkest hellhole I can find where you can rot for all eternity,” he snarled in Tanis’s face, his eyes glowing red as the two men glared at each other.

“I will kill you first,” Tanis ground out between his teeth, putting all the power he had behind his voice. The sheer amount sent everyone within the destroyer to their knees, holding their hands to their heads crying out in pain. Everyone but the three in the bedroom.

The demon merely smiled.

“Let the games begin.”

Chapter 18
Chapter 20

Broken Promises – Chapter 18

On March 2, 2019March 23, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing2 Comments

Chapter 18

Pushing herself into a sitting position, her entire body aching, Kara stared at the door. Already she could feel the stretching of that part of her that was Aden. It was like this in the beginning, when their bond was new. Just a few feet away and there was a slight pressure that started in her chest, radiating outwards. Nothing uncomfortable, just there. The more distance between them, the more uncomfortable the pressure became, slowly encompassing her entire body until it turned into debilitating pain. After time passed, their bodies would adjust to the distance between them and they could go greater distances without paying the price of being separated. Except if the distance was great, as when Caius had put her back on Krynn and forced Aden to leave her there. The pain of the separation had almost driven Aden mad, and almost killed Kara. With Brynn, her mortal soulmate, at her side helping her, Kara had learned to live with the constant pain, as eventually did Aden. Now, just as they had a few weeks of respite it seemed they were starting over again.

Putting her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, she tried to breathe through the growing pressure, tried to stay ahead of what she knew was to come. This was just one of the many ways for the demon to torture them. To try to break them. There was a long list of torments he could choose from, and Kara knew the bastard was far from done.

Movement of the air in front of her alerted her to a body before hands gently took ahold of her wrists to tug her hands away from her face.

“Kara,” Tanis coaxed gently, tugging once again. “Please look at me, love.”

Slowly Kara raised her head as he pulled her hands away, the movement sending an ache sliding through her body. Tanis frowned when he saw the flinching around her eyes. Through their connection, he could feel her pain and knew what was causing it. The pulling apart of a soul that had been newly healed was never pleasant. It was always the same at first, and he thanked the gods that he wasn’t the one living that curse so soon after they had come together. Once the ritual was finished, any separation would be much worse. Right on the heels of that was the thought that he had purposely caused Kara excruciating pain by ripping Aden from her. Guilt tried to overwhelm him, but another far uglier emotion reared its head, drowning the guilt out. Jealousy. Why was this boy so important to Kara, and why did she and the demon inhabiting his brother’s body believed Aden was a part of the prophecy?

“Let him go, Kara,” Tanis breathed, resting his forehead against hers. “No matter what you might think, he is not a part of this. A part of us.”

“I can’t do that,” she gasped, her eyes tightly shut with pain. “No more than I could let you or Caius go. He is too much a part of me, of us, of this.”

“He is no part of me,” Tanis growled backing away so he could look her in the eyes. “No part of any of us. There has only been you, me and Caius. Light and Dark circling around the universe’s heart, its soul. You. We are what hold the universe together, keeps it spinning, and now you are telling me this unknown force, this…boy, is a part of us? I don’t believe you. I won’t.” Somewhere in the middle of his speech, Tanis had stood and began to pace in agitation.

Closing her eyes, Kara leaned back, slowly releasing a breath to try and calm herself. Inside she was a mixture of confusion, pain and growing frustration. The pain was definitely not helping the frustration. It was actually turning it quickly into anger. Too much was different this time around, too much unknown. Caius willingly inviting a demon into his soul and being able to stay alive after she and Tanis had passed aside, why did she remember her life as a mortal so clearly? Usually by now it was mist and smoke, there but hard to grasp when she thought hard enough about it. Pushing that thought aside so she could focus on the angry immortal pacing in front of her, Kara’s anger grew. She was no longer the weak naive mortal who did not understand who she was, what she was. She was a powerful goddess who knew every nook and cranny of the universe, every creature, every secret, until now. It made her wonder what else those who held the seats of power, her family, had kept from them.

Pushing away the enormity of what or how something as monumental as Aden’s exitance was and what it might mean for the three of them and the continuing existence of the universe, Kara reached out to him, flexing her powers as she did. The moment she felt the chains that the demon had bound around her, she hissed in pain. It was as if those chains were covered in spikes coated with poison. Each nick sent burning shoots of pain throughout her body, warning her to try no further, promising her far more excruciating pain if she did. Ignoring the warning, she pushed further.

Aden was walking across the landing bay to his ship when he felt the barest of touches across his shoulders. Immediately the pressure that had been threatening to constrict his breathing and incapacitate him lessened. Taking a deep breath, he stopped so suddenly the guards who had accompanied him at Commander Wells assistance almost ran into him.

“Kara?” Aden breathed unsure. Why would she risk the emperor’s wrath by helping him? They both knew intimately what the punishment would be if caught.

“Sir?” one of the guards asked in concern, breaking into his thoughts.

All three of the men following Aden at Commander Well’s insistence knew his secret. They had been handpicked by the commander when Aden was lost in his madness after he had returned from leaving Kara on Krynn. They alone, out of all the other guards and officials under the emperor’s command, because their loyalty willingness to do whatever it took to keep their master, his lady and their secret safe from those who would use it against them understood who and what Kara really was. How important she and Aden were to the continuation of the universe, to each other. That was why they were with him now. Until he readjusted to the new binding, he would be distracted, weak. They would help keep him safe from those who would wish to exploit his weakness.

They watched quietly as Aden turned and stepped to one side so he could see the way behind him, a frown on his face.

“Sir?” The guard asked again. “Is something wrong?”

“I thought…,” Aden began. Another brush, this time along his cheek, feather light. More of the pressure lessened. Along with the ability to finally breath freely came the feeling of love and assurance that the one woman he would ever love was his for all eternity. That no one or thing would ever tear them apart again.

Just as suddenly as the presence was there it was gone, but now Aden could go down to the planet below without the distraction of being separated from part of his soul.

“I’m fine,” Aden assured with a small smile. Turning, he headed for his ship. While he knew that Kara could never be taken from him again, they were far from safe. He needed to finish his mission and return as soon as possible, then the gods help them all.

Urgent hands on her wrists brought Kara back to herself, but it was as if the urgency could not affect her. With that small brush, the connection between her and Aden was now stronger. Now she could breathe and think around the pressure that was building inside her the further Aden moved away.

Another presence just a familiar, just as important, breathed through her, soothing that ache even more. Slowly, as if waking from a sleep, Kara opened her eyes to find Tanis kneeling in front of her watching her intently. Mixed with the worry in his eyes was a fear she did not understand. The reason for the fear washed over her. He had felt her reach out and touch Aden. Felt what that brush had done between them, that their bond was just that much stronger, and the ease of it frightened him. There were rituals to preform to solidify their bonding. It should have not been so easy for Aden to wrap himself around her so tightly. His fear was that Aden would rip her from him forever, just as he tried to do to Aden.

Frowning in confusion, Kara gently reached with his hand still wrapped around her wrist and cup his cheek with her hand. When the power between them rose, as a breeze on a summer day, surrounding them, caressing their skin, their souls, mingling, Tanis’s eyes widened. Touch had always helped, but not like this. Not this strongly.

“What’s happening?” he whispered.

“I’m not sure,” Kara breathed a small smile on her lips. “But it shows that we are still one.”

The warm smile that filled Tanis’s face and eyes brought one to Kara’s. Then his eyes moved to her lips and that warmth turned into heat. The push to finish the age old ritual they had started in the throne room that bound them together as one pushed at them, urging them to finish what was started. Tanis gently pushed it back. Before they could continue they needed to talk about Aden.

“Since the beginning there have only been three of us. Now Caius has brought in an unknown element and everything is wrong. You are both convinced that Aden is a part of the prophecy, a part of us.” He cupped her cheek with his hand, his voice soft, pleading with Kara to hear him. “We will fight the demon together, as we have fought every battle to keep the universe spinning on its course. You, me, Caius, if he is still in there somewhere, but Aden is not a part of what we are. Have you ever considered that the demon brought him here to destroy us?”

The flash of anger that coursed through Tanis surprised him. Memories of the demon in Caius’s body threatening Kara and Aden with blood and pain if they did not sever their bond flashed through his mind. The absolutely surety of Kara that even if breaking their bond was possible, that she would never do as they asked. That from the moment that she looked into Aden’s eyes, the universe itself had declared that she was irrevocably his.

The way the sharing of memories and feelings had always worked between them meant that they could hide nothing, could not lie to each other unless they shielded hard. There was no shielding between them now. Kara was so raw from the abuse she had endured in this lifetime, from Tanis ripping Aden from her and the re-bonding of both of their souls to hers. From having to fight off the demon’s attempt to bond with her and the anger that coursed through her at once more being asked to do the impossible only to be punished for perceived defiance she did not have the energy or patients to shield. She believed that Aden was a part of what was to come. If the others did not want to believe that then they could rot in hell.

Eyes narrowed in thought, Tanis sat back on his heels, no longer touching Kara as he stared at her. Anger between them was nothing new. You could not have a healthy relationship without fighting, and the gods knew they had had some doozies. Yes, once one of them passed then the others followed and there was a two thousand year span between them reemerging again, a time for sleep and recharging of their energy. However, from the moment they woke to their time of rest could last eons. You could not live with another being without having disagreements that could last anywhere from a few minutes to years. Since Kara’s role in their little family was to try and keep the peace between them, the gods only knew that Caius’s and Tanis’s own stubbornness had tried Kara’s patience’s more than once. He had the physical scars to prove it. Once provoked, Kara’s temper was a thing to behold, and fear. Luckily she was hard to provoke.

One of the firsts fights Caius and Tanis had between each other had ended with Kara coming in between them, trying to stop them from killing each other only to die in their arms instead. It was an agony that neither immortal wanted to endure again. No disagreement between them was worth Kara’s life. So they swore an oath never to do anything that would physically hurt Kara again. By bringing the demon into the fold, Caius had betrayed that oath and Kara had once again paid the price. The question was, how were they to fix his mistake before it was too late?

Another push from an unseen force, this one much stronger bordering on pain brought a hiss from both of them. The ritual to bind their souls together was to be performed within hours of meeting each other, from that first kiss when their immortal consciousness was awakened. If ignored too long, the universe itself would begin to pull apart, unravel. They were the glue that kept the universe spinning, kept every living thing that had been created from the beginning of time alive, whole. While Caius had had Kara, he had never started the ritual, waiting for Tanis to emerge. In the throne room, Tanis had kissed Kara, thus the process had been begun between them. Once Tanis and Kara were finished, then it would be Caius’s turn with her. The thought of Caius touching Kara was not what bothered Tanis, it was the demon inside of him that twisted Tanis’s stomach in knots. The fact that Kara had bonded with Aden before the demon had been able to get his claws into Kara’s soul was the only saving grace of this whole mess.

Another more painful yank of his soul and Tanis was moving towards Kara, his lips finding hers. There would be time later to sift through the mess Caius had made of their existence. First he needed to finish what was started and make the woman in his arms completely and irrevocably his.

Chapter 17
Chapter 19

Broken Promises – Chapter 17

On February 16, 2019March 2, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing4 Comments

Chapter 17

“Dramatic much?” Aden quipped into the silence.

Sighing, Kara closed her eyes, rubbing her face with her hands. She was so tired and they were just beginning. Everything that had happened in the throne room had left her feeling adrift and shattered. Even though she knew who the people around her were, at the same time she felt as if she did not know them at all. It was as if there were two versions of each of them super-imposed over the top of each other. Even her own mind was trying to decide which reality was the right one. The last forty years of her life or the countless years of her existence. The only one who seemed to stay in focus, who was solid, was Aden, and she clung to that surety like a lifeline. One that Tanis desperately want to yank out of her hands. How was she supposed to keep the two of the men who meant the universe to her from killing each other?

“Are you all right?” Aden asked quietly, wrapping his arms around Kara’s waist and pulling her back against him, ignoring Tanis’s warning. Kara was his, damn it. No possessive jealous immortal was going to keep her from him. When she sank against him, her hands clutching his arms as she shook, he held her closer, his lips in her hair. Gently he pushed his power out and through her, wrapping her in a warm cocoon of safety and love.

Closing her eyes again, her head lying back against his shoulder, Kara allowed her body to sink into that warmth that comfort, if only for a moments peace. After what had happened in the throne room she knew it was a false security. No one was safe from the presence she had seen and felt reaching for her, wanting to own her.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “There are so many emotions, so many memories running through my head, and not all of them mine. Always before when we came together, the memory of who we are, why we were created would take over, pushing our lives as a mortal completely from our consciousness. Our spouses, our children would not exist and we would continue from where we left off two thousand years before. This time everything is mixed together. I do not know who I am, what I am supposed to do. Who I am supposed to be with.” She tightened her arms around Aden’s. “Except for you. I know I belong to you, as you belong to me.”

Kara’s words sent a thrill through Aden. Having her say out loud what he knew deep inside his soul settled something within him. He was where he was supposed to be, but he had many questions about what was myth and legend, and what was true.

“Tanis called Caius brother.”

“In a way we are brothers and sister. We were created at the same time by the Gods. We are equal in power.” She turned in Aden’s arms so she could look at him. “Aden, there is more to the prophecy then Caius has told you. It is a battle that has raged for eons between good and evil. That part is true. There has to be a balance between the two in order for the universe to survive. There cannot be all good, just as there cannot be all evil. Like all things, there are rules. Some of those rules can be bent, some of the minor ones broken, but the important ones. The ones that are necessary to keep the universe spinning, to keep life as we know it safe, cannot. Caius has broken one of those rules by living past mine and Tanis’s death. He has brought players into the game that are not part of the make-up of our universe.”

“The demon Tanis spoke about?” Aden asked.

Kara nodded, the memories of the days before her last death playing before her eyes. Her voice was a whisper when she spoke next. “We knew something was wrong. Caius was acting so strange, but we never thought….” Closing her eyes, Kara shuddered. “That…thing promised when it found me it would make me regret making it wait. That he would find me and….” Again she shuddered. The demon had kept its promise. There had been times in her existence where life had not been pleasant, down right abusive, but nothing compared to what she had gone through this lifetime. “I don’t think Colin finding me was as much of a coincidence as we think.”

“You think the demon sent him to you?” Aden frowned.

A memory long forgotten surged forward filling her eyes, and because the memory was so sudden and the connection still raw and new it bled into Aden and filled his vision as if it was his own.

Mist coated the floor of the forest, swirling around Kara’s bare feet as she slowly crept through the underbrush, her long white dress strangely not becoming entangled in the leaves and sticks. The moonlight shone in patches through the tree canopy giving just enough light to throw shadows. Shadows that seemed to move as she moved. There was no sound. The forest was deadly quiet, which in itself should have told her something was very wrong. Nevertheless, she kept moving forward, pulled by some unseen force that wanted her deeper in the forest.

Up ahead the light grew brighter, as if the trees were parting allowing more of the moon’s light to chase back the shadows. As she slowed, fear finally began to seep its way into her heart. Whatever was up there was not friendly, yet she kept moving forward. When she stepped out into the meadow she saw a man standing in the middle, smiling. He was older than her twenty-two years. Gray showed at his temples and throughout his short black hair. His blue eyes shone as if there was a dim light behind them. His face was as gentle as his smile, but there was an aura around him that spoke of malice contained. A few inches above Kara’s five foot seven, he was handsome in that older gentlemanly way. His clothes were strange. A black tunic with a strange design embroidered down the front that seemed to move as she watched. A trick of the shadows, or maybe…something else. Black pants tucked into knee high black boots, his black cape moved in a breeze that did not exist around his ankles. This man held power that Kara could only imagine. Power far beyond her own.

“Hello Kara. I have been waiting for you for a long time,” he greeted in his deep voice.

“How do you know me?” she asked stopping at the edge of the meadow. Something told her to go any closer would not be good.

“I know a great many things about you,” he mused. “Things that you can only imagine in your dreams. Shall I show you?”

Then he changed. He grew taller, his hair grew longer changing from its black to a deep blood red. The eyes also changed to red, and his smile was no longer gently, but full of that contained malice. He was beautiful. So beautiful that it took Kara’s breath away, but the evil radiating from him spoiled that beauty. She took an involuntary step back. She knew those eyes, that smile. It haunted her nightmares, promised her blood and pain. So much blood and pain.

“No,” she breathed shaking her head in disbelief. “You can’t be real.”

“I assure you I am very real. I have been waiting a very long time for you to reappear, Kara. Long, torturous years, but I have not been idle while you hid from me. Now I have found you we can begin.”

“No!” Kara screamed stumbling backwards. The wind whipped around her, making it hard to breathe. When it died she looked down and her dress had changed. It was the same white, but now the front plunged down to her navel. The sides slit up to above her hips, a panel that barely covered her ass and the front of her dropped to her feet, the back panel trailing on the ground. She felt the cool breeze on her back and knew that nothing covered her skin there. Her hair floated around her in the surge of her own power as it answered his as if it knew him.

“You cannot run from me Kara. Wherever you go, whoever owns you, I will come for you. I will have you.” He stepped towards her, his hand outstretched, his eyes flames. “There is no God or Goddess that can keep you from me now that I have found you. No one. You are mine!”

Just as he was about to touch her, his power caressing her skin, Kara screamed again and the world shifted.

“Yes, yes he has,” Kara breathed her skin running cold as the depth of the lies that Caius had fed her all these years, the betrayal. When they had found her, Caius had seemed her salvation from Colin’s cruelty. Now she knew differently. Caius knew all along who she was, what she was to him, yet he allowed the demon inside him use him as a mask to draw her in so he could wrap his spells around her. She was the key, the glue that kept the balance between good and evil so the universe kept spinning. To control her was to control the universe. And now it had all three of them.

“It was all lies,” Aden said softly, his voice strangled with the pain that revelation brought. “He knew who I was, what I was, and he won my trust, my love, and it was all lies.”

Kara turned to face him, her hand resting on his cheek as she stared into his pain filled eyes. “Not all of it,” she assured.

“How can you say that when his betrayal to you is far greater than to me?”

“Because I see how he looks at you when he thinks no one is watching. When the real Caius peeks through the demon’s eyes. The Caius I know would never use you in a bid for power. Not when he knows the part you play.”

“Then I am just a pawn to be played in this great game of chess,” Aden said bitterly.

“You are the son that he could never have,” Kara corrected gently. She understood his pain. Knew it was justified to a point. She just needed to make him see beyond that pain. “The demon may have whispered where you were, what part you played and Caius in turn found you earlier than was prophesized. That does not mean that he did not grow to love the boy who turned into a man as if he were his own. Caius may be labeled evil in words, but he has a heart and he loves deeply. Even as a mortal, when I first came here I saw that love. It wasn’t until the demon took complete control did that love turn to greed and hate.” Kara relaxed a fraction when she saw the anger and pain in Aden’s eyes turn to uncertainty. When he closed his eyes, his body shuddering, she felt him had push his pain back so they could focus on the danger at hand. When he opened his eyes, the pain was replaced with focused determination.

“If the demon has control of Caius, what can we do to free him. The prophecy was very clear that the catalyst only comes once. If we kill Caius’s body in an attempt to free him it may not kill the demon. The other side of that thought is, according to the prophecy this is the one and only time I, the catalyst, will be present. Killing Caius may cause a chain reaction that will destroy the universe. Is it a risk worth taking?” Aden asked his own horror filling his voice.

Aden was right. Killing Caius in an attempt to free him of the demon would not work. The demon would just jump to another body and be waiting for them when they emerged again. Kara shook her head.

“No, your right. Killing Caius will not work. If the universe survives, the demon will only be waiting for us to reemerge and we will start all over again. What we need to do is work together. If you, Tanis and I combine our powers we may be able to chase the demon out of him long enough to finish the prophecy. It’s the only way,” Kara answered.

“Even if we could without setting off the necklace, Tanis will never allow it. I can feel his presence pressing against mine. Fighting me. He does not want to share you,” Aden whispered his lips in her hair as his arms tightened around her.

“He is afraid you will take me from him,” she explained resting her check against his chest, snuggling closer. It felt so good to touch him. “This is new to him. For so long it has only been the three of us, no one else. Give him time to wrap his mind around you being a part of the prophecy, a part of us.”

“His stubbornness will only end up hurting you. I can’t trust him to keep you safe.” Aden cupped her cheek with his hand, moving her head so he could look into her eyes. “I could barely keep myself from killing everyone in the garrison this afternoon for what they did to you. I don’t want you to endure that again. I won’t allow it. I need to stay here, with you.”

Giving him a smile that was filled with sadness and did not reach her eyes, Kara put her hand over his.

“Don’t Aden,” she begged. “You must do as Caius ordered and go down to the planet. If you disobey he will either use me to force you to go, or I will lose you altogether. I barely survived when you were torn from me in the throne room. I can’t go through losing you again.”

Aden looked at her with such anguish she thought her heart would break.

“It felt as if you were being pulled from me cell by cell. The pain was so excruciating I couldn’t…breathe. I thought I was dying, and no matter how hard I tried I could not feel you even though you were right there in front of me.”

“But you feel me now?”

“Yes, but it’s not the same.”

She could see the uncertainty in his eyes. Feel the fear of losing her again tearing him up side. Even now, with Tanis in the other room, the link between them was growing stronger, binding tighter, trying to push out everything before this moment. Yet there was something about Aden, a feeling deep down inside her that told Kara no matter what happened between her, Tanis and Caius, she would always and forever belong to Aden. Once the ritual was completed, nothing in the known universe or beyond would ever tear them apart again. Ever.

“What I feel is…different. Distant,” Aden continued taking one of her hands in his, bringing it up and kissing her fingers while his other arm stayed firmly wrapped around her. Keeping his eyes on their hands he continued. “I know they insist I let you go, but I can’t.” He looked into her eyes. “I won’t, and I don’t think you want me to otherwise you would not have pulled me back to you. You are the only thing that makes my life bearable. Before you, I was floating through a haze of pain and hatred. I don’t want to go back to that. I can’t,” his voice was almost a whisper. He leaned closer, his eyes moving to her lips. “I am yours now and forever. I love you,” he said before kissing her.

With her heighten sense of awareness Kara not only felt the demand from his kiss, but the fierceness of Aden’s feelings for her like never before. It was not the need to possess her or own her like Anthony or Caius, but to have her love him as much as he loved her. To assure him that she still loved him. His emotions weaved themselves around hers, intertwining until she could no longer distinguish his emotions or his powers from hers.

Words so ancient Aden did not recognize the language but somehow knew the meaning played across his mind. A compulsion so strong there was no chance of fighting it consumed them both. Suddenly Aden knew what he must do to make Kara his until the end of time. Just as he was about to flash them to his room, pain exploded through his body right before Kara was ripped from his arms. Distantly, through the roaring of his blood rushing through his head, he heard her scream but all he could see was a white haze as he collapsed to his knees, his hands pressing either side of his head. It felt as if it was about to explode. Then as suddenly as it started it stopped.

“Kara?” he gasped trying to stand only to fall back to his hands and knees as the room spun.

“I’m here,” she hissed, her voice strained.

Something was wrong.

Looking up he found her across the room with Tanis in front of her half holding her up and half holding her back. Her face was pale, her body trembling. Whatever Tanis had done to him had spread to her, and that pissed Aden off.

“You bastard! Does your stupidity know no bounds?” Aden rasped his voice hoarse with pain as he staggered to his feet. “She is bound to me. Everything I feel she feels. You know this.”

“I will not allow you to finish what was started,” Tanis snarled.

“You can’t stop it,” Aden growled back pushing himself to his full height even though what he really wanted to do is collapse back onto the floor. Gods that had hurt! “Neither of you assholes can. Whether you or Caius like it or not, Kara belongs to me just as much as she belongs to you. Keeping us from finishing the ritual will not change that.”

Snarling, Tanis rushed Aden slamming him against the wall. “You will never touch her again, or by the Gods I will kill you.”

“You will try,” Aden hissed struggling to pull Tanis’s hand from his neck. As his breathing was being constricted he could see so was Kara’s.

“Tanis! Stop!” Kara cried pulling on his arm trying to force him to loosen his grip on Aden’s neck as she tried to suck in precious air.

“You kill me, you will kill her,” Aden gasped.

Before Tanis could comprehend what Aden had said, the door slid open and three men with guns rushed in. Without even looking, Tanis sent them crashing against the far walls. The moment they hit the hard surface Kara screamed in agony, crumpling to the floor. The pain lashed out taking Tanis to his knees. Aden dropped to the floor next to him gasping for air.

“What the hell was that?” Tanis gasped.

“What I’ve been trying to warn you about,” Aden snarled. “The prophecies portrayed you as intelligent, not an incompetent ass.”

“Watch it boy,” Tanis growled as he watched Aden push himself to his hands and knees. “You have no idea who you are dealing with.”

“Oh, I’ve seen enough,” Aden snapped crawling towards Kara who lay on the other side of Tanis barely conscious.

“Stay away from her,” Tanis warned grabbing Aden’s arm as he passed.

“I’ve had enough of your stupidity for one day,” Aden hissed.

Suddenly Tanis found himself flying across the room, but just before he hit the wall he stopped and dropped onto the floor in a heap.

“Stay out of my way,” Aden warned. Crawling to Kara he carefully pulled her into his arms. “Are you all right?” he breathed checking her over. When she could only nod he pulled her close and glared at Tanis who had managed to stagger to his feet with the help of the wall. “What will it take for you to understand you cannot fight any of them without hurting her?”

“What is it going to take for you to realize she is not yours?” Tanis countered glaring at him.

Before Aden could do more than narrow his eyes and growl in frustration, Captain Wells strode through the door. One glance around the room and what he had felt in the hall told him what had happened. That much show of power was not going to go unnoticed.

“My Lord,” he interjected calmly. “If I felt that in the hall, the Emperor will have felt it too. He will be here soon to see what the hell is going on. If we don’t leave now…,” he let that thought finish itself.

“Thank you, Captain,” Aden acknowledge mildly, unable to keep the weariness out of his eyes. It had been a very long day and too much had happened physically and emotionally for him to even try. Moving his eyes to Kara, he gentle removed a stray strand of hair off her face. He did not want to leave her. Not with Tanis this angry and so unwilling to listen. “Wait for me outside,” he ordered not taking his eyes off of her.

Captain Wells nodded then motioned the three soldiers who had groggily stumbled to their feet to follow him out the door.

Once they were gone and the door was closed Aden rested his lips on Kara’s forehead. Just from that small touch he could feel the link between them tighten, strengthen. It felt like small tendrils reaching out and intertwining with each other, making them one. How was he going to be able to walk out of this room? Just thinking about it viciously twisted his stomach. What will it be like leaving the ship? Movement caught his eye and he looked up to see Tanis standing over them.

“You stopped me from slamming into the wall because you knew it would hurt her,” Tanis said, his eyes thoughtful.

“I won’t do anything to hurt her.”

“Then let her go,” Tanis ordered quietly.

“You know I can’t,” Aden responded his eyes narrowing. “No more than you can. I don’t understand what is going on any more than you do, but somehow I am a part of this. A part of her. There is nothing you or Caius can do to change that.” As if his name conjured him, Aden felt Caius coming closer, and he was livid. “I must go.”

Standing a bit wobbly with Kara in his arms, Aden carried her to the couch and laid her down. Kneeling down next to her, he brushed her hair from her face as he looked into her eyes, seeing the same unease he felt. His voice showing just how unsteady he was not only in body but emotionally, he whispered, “I will try and find out why this is happening. In the meantime, be careful what you do or say. Try to make Tanis understand what is at stake if he doesn’t do as Caius commands. What he will do to you.”

“I will. Now go before it’s too late,” Kara urged.

Aden looked into her eyes not wanting to leave. With one last kiss he stood and glared at Tanis. “I know you have had more lifetimes with Kara than I can ever imagine, but I have been with her through this one and there are things that you do not know or can even begin to understand. I don’t have time to explain everything to you before I leave. All I ask is that you tread carefully with Caius. He’s been…unstable lately, and Kara has been paying the price of that instability. I don’t want to see her hurt anymore. Not like…,” Aden’s voice trailed off as his eyes found Kara’s.

“You say you love her, that you know better than I do what her life is like, yet you leave her here to face the demon without you,” Tanis said quietly, bringing Aden’s eyes up to his. The anguish in them shocked Tanis.

“You do not want to know what he will do to her if I stay,” Aden whispered.

Closing his eyes, Aden swallowed hard before turning and walking out of the room. Outside Captain Wells and his guards took up formation behind Aden as he headed towards the landing bay. As hard as it was to walk out of that room, he did not want to be anywhere near the destroyer when Tanis took Kara and finished the ritual. He could not promise he would not go back and rip her from his arms and kill him. What Aden did know was powerful immortals or not, Caius and Tanis could not keep him away from Kara forever. One day they would finish what they started.

Chapter 16
Chapter 18

Broken Promises – Chapter 16

On February 9, 2019March 2, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing, Free Write2 Comments

Chapter 16

Under Commander Well’s watchful eye, the guards carrying Tanis laid him on the couch. Now that the emperor had reacquainted the two immortals from the prophecy, they would be sharing the same room until the emperor changed his mind. This new apartment was bigger with a bedroom off to one side and a separate bathroom. The room was sparsely decorated with an eating table, couch, chair and a couple of side tables. There were no windows or knick-knacks, and the only picture was that of the emperor glaring down at them. Next to the apartment was a room the emperor had especially made to break his new pet. Just the thought of what was in there waiting made the seasoned warrior shudder.

He is giving them a false sense of security while next door is nothing but blood and pain, Wells thought, his eyes once again taking in the room before him. No. That was not true. Not even this room seemed…safe. The very walls excluded evil intent. Gazing down at the unconscious form on the couch, Wells did not envy the newcomer. He also wondered with the way the emperor jealously guarded his witch, how long it would be before he moved her back into her old rooms that were attached to his.

Tanis groaned, his hands going to his head. The guards immediately leveled their weapons at him. Having witness what happened in the throne room they were taking no chances. This male was powerful, and dangerous. The next moment, Aden walked into the room, his presence dwarfing everyone but the man lying dazed on the couch. Wells watched as the young lord glanced at Tanis, a mixture of emotions flitting across his face Commander Wells could quite not read before it settled on grim determination.

“Leave us,” Aden commanded without looking at the men, knowing they would do as they were told without question.

Commander Wells gave Aden a short bow then motioned the men out. Backing to the door, keeping their eyes and guns trained on the figure on the couch,they left one by one, the door sliding closed behind them.

Closing his eyes, sighing, Aden braced himself for what he knew would bean unpleasant conversation. Tanis was important to Kara, so Aden did not want to alienate him. At the same time, he needed to make the immortal understand there was no fighting the emperor. At least not at the moment. Opening his eyes,Aden watched as Tanis slowly sat up, placing his elbows on his knees his face in his hands, trying to shake off Aden’s blow.

“Do you want to see her dead?” Aden snapped into the silence. So much for not alienating.

“Be careful, boy,” Tanis growled turning his head so he could glare at Aden. “You may have been able to blindside me once. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it will happen again.”

“I’ve already heard the same story from the emperor,” Aden growled striding over to Tanis glaring down at him. “I don’t care how powerful you are,I will not allow you to hurt Kara.”

Tanis stood so they were now eye to eye, nose to nose. It wasn’t that difficult since Tanis was only an inch shorter than Aden.

“Not allow?” he snarled.“First off, you are in no position to allow or not allow me anything. I could kill you with a single thought. Second of all, bonded or not, Kara is mine. You will not touch her.”

“Kara chose me,” Aden reminded.

“Because she had no choice! If she had not reconnected with you then the demon would have forced his own bonding on her, and we both know that cannot happen.”

“Just as we both know that is not entirely true,” Aden corrected quietly.He stepped back, his anger fading, although his eyes never wavered from Tanis’s. Yes, if she had not bonded with him, whatever he had felt trying to take her from them would have sunk its claws into Kara in a way they would have never been able to break. But as Aden knew deep down in his soul that was not the reason Kara reestablished their bond, so did Tanis. It was why he was so angry, so hurt.

“Why? When?” Tanis asked the pain evident in his eyes.

“Almost fifteen years now and I don’t know why?” Aden answered knowing what Tanis was asking. “I was sent to retrieve her from Colin and bring her to the emperor. The moment our eyes met it just….happened. The bonding was so fast, so final, there was no questioning it or escaping it.”

Tanis fell back onto the couch with a tired sigh, knowing exactly what Aden meant. Every time he and Kara found each other the same exact thing happened to them. One look, one touch and the bonding began. It was only because she was so weak and did not want to live that it took longer this time.Now all that was left was the last piece of the ritual, and he needed the boy gone and her here. Frowning at the door, he wondered where she was.

“The emperor kept Kara for a few moments longer,” Aden answered the unasked question. “She should be here shortly.”

“You left her with him alone?” Tanis snarled moving to stand.

“Don’t,” Aden said, the promise of violence thick in his voice. It stopped Tanis, startling him. “My master did not go to all the trouble to bring you two together and not allow you to finish the ritual. He will not harm her.” What he left out was the strange way the emperor was acting towards Kara.The complete opposite from just an hour ago. As if her well being was once again important to him.

Tanis heard the surety was in Aden’s voice, but his eyes betrayed him. A slight flinching around the edges. Tanis had Kara’s memories. He knew what happened when they displeased their master.

“I’m assuming the de…Caius was not happy about your bonding with Kara,”Tanis said, carefully watching Aden. Did he know about the demon that resided inside Caius?

“No,” Aden answered his eyes going distant with some unpleasant memory.“He tried to force us to break it, but even if we wanted to we couldn’t. I think he knew that, but he still tried. Still punished us because we refused.”

Tanis frowned. Aden’s voice had grown so soft, so full of a horror Tanis could only imagine what the demon had done to him that would make this obviously powerful man shudder with fear. When Aden met his gaze, Tanis was shocked at the haunted look in the boy’s eyes.

“You must understand the chains Caius has wrapped around us. If you fight him it will rebound on Kara tenfold. If you attack any of his men it will rebound on Kara tenfold. Anything you do to defy him, Kara will pay the price with unimaginable pain.” Aden stepped forward his voice fervent in his need to make Tanis understand. “I saw your expression when Caius mentioned Colin. All the color drained from your face. I know you know who he is, what he is capable of. The things that Colin had done to Kara before we found her….” Aden hesitated,swallowing hard to keep the bile down. “That bastard had her for ten years before we found her. You cannot begin to imagine what he and his son had done…..”

Tanis rose to his feet, rage course through him. “Anthony touched her?”he snarled.

“He did more than touch her. He used her weakness against her, telling her he would protect her if she would give him what he wanted.”

“And what was that?” Tanis asked, his voice squeezed down to a hoarse whisper.

“A son.”

Tanis turned and walked away, his hand over his mouth as he struggled to regain control over his rage. What he wanted to do was destroy everything on the ship then go and find the little bastard and kill him, slowly. But if Aden was right about the spells, then he was trapped.

“I will kill him,” he hissed.

“Get in line,” Aden scoffed. “When Caius found out, he put a bounty so high on both of their heads every bounty hunter in the known universe has been looking for them.”

Frowning at a sudden thought, Tanis turned to face the boy. “Yet when I arrived here, Kara was near death because Caius gave her to his guards.” A small smile crossed his lips at Aden’s shocked expression. “There is very little we can hide from each other. I knew what was happening down on the planet, I just didn’t understand what I was seeing, or feeling. The moment we touched, I knew everything.”

“Then you know how Kara feels about me. How I feel about her. That I will do everything in my power to keep her from suffering that kind of abuse again. Including knocking you senseless,” Aden said with a smug quirk of his lips.

“Again, a lucky punch. It will not happen again,” Tanis promised rubbing his sore jaw.

Snorting his doubt, Aden sobered. “I don’t want to see her broken one more time. She will not survive. Please. Do as Caius asks. Don’t fight him.”

“And you can honestly say that you will not?” Tanis asked his eyebrow raised in disbelief. “Remember, what Kara sees, I also know what you have done to try and protect her, and why Caius is sending you down to the planet. He knows what it will do to you and Kara. How much pain it will cause both of you,yet you are telling me you do not want to hurt her.

“If I refuse, the repercussions will be far worse. Kara and I have been separated for years and we survived.” Barely,he added to himself. “We will survive a few days.”

“Pretty to think so,” Tanis said knowing the lie the boy was trying to convince himself of.

Aden turned away, unable to meet his eyes.

Tanis smiled in response.

“He wasn’t always like this, you know. Caius. Once he was gentle, kind. He had his ambitions, was ruthless when he needed to be, but never…enjoyed that ruthlessness.When we first found Kara, he treated her as if she were something precious.Now….” Aden turned towards Tanis, his confusion plain for the other man to see on his face. “Now I don’t know him. The things he has forced on Kara in the last few weeks…. The Caius I know would have never done those things to her.”

“That is because it is not Caius who is doing them,” Tanis answered, his eyes distant with the memory of that last days they were together two thousand years ago. The pain and fear when they realized what Caius had done. What it meant. How it would affect them all.

“You kept calling him Demon. As if that was his name,” Aden said,breaking into Tanis’s thoughts.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out while his body shook, Tanis looked up at Aden. “Because what is inside my brother, what you heard today, is a demon. I just don’t know which one or why Caius invited him into his soul.”

“The prophecy,” Aden whispered.

“What about it?” Tanis frowned.

“He always said there was someone whispering hints on where to find the original prophecy. That it held secrets that the powers that be had kept from the players, which are Caius, you and Kara. A way to end the cycle of loss and death.”

Tanis’s smile disappeared at the innocent reminder of who belonged to the prophecy and who did not. They had been living the prophecy for millions of years and never once was this boy a part of it. He did not belong now. “I know you have been with Kara for most of this lifetime. That you have been there for her emotionally, done your best to protect her against forces far beyond your abilities, but the fact remains you are not part of this story. As I am sure my brother agrees, I will make sure you will not touch her again. Not while I’m alive.”

“And what about what Kara wants?” Aden asked, his temper flaring. Being with Kara was the only thing that felt right in his life, and all anyone ever kept telling him was he could not be with her. He read the part in the prophecy that mentioned the Catalyst. He knew without doubt that he was the Catalyst and the part he played in the never-ending cycle they were all caught up in. “Whether you or Caius want to admit it or not, I am part of this. Kara is a part of meas I am a part of her. To deny my place in her destiny is to lie to yourself how important I am to her.”

Tanis’s entire body tensed. Aden could see it took a great deal of willpower for him to relax and not attack him for suggesting Kara may love him, may want him in her bed. Caius was dangerous, but this man, if given the chance, could be so much more.

“The legends say you are the benevolent one, the gentle one. From what I have seen today you are far from those things. You would love nothing more than to kill me,” Aden said keeping his voice as neutral as possible, “but you can’t, can you. Not when you know what it will do to her.”

“Do not believe everything you hear or read. I may be labeled as the benevolent one and Caius evil, but there is rarely ever any true good or true evil. The only constant in this game we play is that Kara is the balance that keeps us from destroying everything that had been created, good or evil. The one truth that is written in stone, unchangeable, is that Kara belongs to us and we will destroy anyone who tries to take her from us,” Tanis answered his eyes and voice telling Aden he was walking a very fine line.

“Until now,” Aden corrected.

Tanis came up snarling from the couch. Tired of being threatened by males who thought they had a right to tell him who he could love, Aden’s thin hold on his temper snapped. Holding his ground, he snarled, “If I wanted to take her from you, you would not be sitting here now. I would have killed you long before you came near her, but I knew how important it was for you to find her. So much so I willingly gave her up knowing what it would cost me. It doesn’t change the fact that for some reason only the Gods can fathom I am apart of this, whether you like it or not.” The image of Caius with Kara only minutes before cooled Aden’s temper some as curiosity pushed its way forward. “Something is different, though. Something has changed.”

The sudden change in mood made Tanis blink in confusion. Whatever Aden was thinking that put the crease between his brow and frown on his face so suddenly seemed important, so he pushed his own anger back and asked, “What?”

Aden looked up at him. “Before I left the throne room, I watched Caius with Kara. He was…gentle,” Aden finally said after struggling to find the right word. He looked at Tanis wanting him to explain to him what he had seen. “These last few weeks I have seen him do horrendous things to her and enjoy every minute of it, but as I left the throne room I saw him look at her as if she was the most precious thing in the world again. The sudden change doesn’t make sense.”

Before Tanis could respond, Kara walked into the door, stopping in her tracks as she saw the way the two were staring at each other and felt the residual anger that still permeated the air.

“What did I miss?” she asked frowning.

Tanis immediately walked to her, pulling her into his arms. Two thousand years he had been waiting to hold her, he did not want to wait a moment longer.It was not until she melted into his arms that his body finally relaxed. She was with him, she was safe.

“Did he hurt you?” Tanis asked moving only far enough back to look into her eyes. Kara shook her head no before burying her face once again in his chest, her arms winding tightly around him. Frowning he looked to Aden for answers.

“I think I know what he did,” Aden answered sadly. Walking towards them,he hovered his hands over Kara’s head, slowly moving them down across her shoulders and down her back but not touching. “He strengthened the web, didn’t he,” he sighed stepping back.

Kara nodded.

“Web?” Tanis asked.

“I told you about the spells he has wound around her so that if she tries to fight it rebounds on her tenfold. Think of them as a spider web, each strand weaving throughout her body connecting every nerve ending, and when you pull one of those strings it vibrates through the entire web, setting off each and every nerve at once. That is what happens to her when that web is activated. It’s one of the ways Caius controls her…us. The threads must have weakened when you…tore me from her during the bonding.” Then he frowned moving closer again, his hand hovering over her.

“What?” Tanis asked worriedly. He did not like Aden near Kara, but Aden was not trying to pull her from his arms and he could feel the boy was genuinely concerned for Kara.

“He seems to have added a few more. Interesting,” Aden mused. It was difficult to stand by and watch another man hold her, and it must has shown on his face because suddenly Tanis pulled her behind him growling.

“You will not touch her,” Tanis snarled glaring at Aden who had frozen with his hand still extended.

“Stop!” Kara commanded moving in between them.

“He is not part of this, Kara,” Tanis snapped glaring down at her.

“Yes, he is. I don’t know how or why, but he is. You know this to be true, Tanis. You felt my soul cry out for him. Searching for him.” Kara put her hands on Tanis’s chest, her eyes begging him to calm down.

Did she believe the lies Aden had been feeding her. That he was part of this? Part of this age old war? Part of the makeup of the universe? Part of her?That last thought set Tanis’s blood boiling with rage. There had only been the three of them. Good and evil circling around Kara, keeping the universe spinning in its delicate dance. Kara was good and pure. Despite the differences in the two brothers, she loved them both equally. Aside from their mortal soulmates, there had never been anyone else but the three of them.

Until now.

In order for the demon to bond with Kara, it would first have to break one of theirs and then force Kara to his will. It had to be an act so vile his black essence could break through the light of what was their love for each other. Bending her to its will, breaking her, controlling her, owning her.

Tanis knew why the demon had not been able to take her from them. No matter what the prophecy claimed them to be, Caius claimed to be, what their elders deemed him to be, deep down Caius truly loved Kara, and the thought of hurting her, possessing her, did not sit well with him. But this time Caius had broken the rules. He had invited an unknown entity into his soul. Managed to break one of the most stringent of rules by surviving his and Kara’s death.Waited and searched to find her first, then had done acts so vile that in all their years of struggle Tanis thought him incapable of. The images that tore through Tanis’s head. Images of what had been done to her while he had been unable to help her, set his teeth on edge. Images of what had been done to her in the last twenty-four hours. And then there was the necklace. The once piece of the puzzle that made the least sense. A piece of their mythology that was deemed so vile it was thought to have been destroyed. How did Caius even find it?

A small movement behind Kara and Tanis’s eyes narrowed once again on Aden as images of him helping Kara heal after Caius was done torturing her flowed through his mind. Of Aden being punished for disobeying his master time and time again because he tried to shield her from the worst of the pain. Of those rare moments when alone…. The images were suddenly gone.

Tanis frowned down at Kara. They had never kept secrets from each other before. Before he could question what was so important that she would start now, Kara’s emotions washed over him in that familiar soothing way and he realized something. That as much Aden loved her, she loved him too. That she needed Aden to survive much in the same way as she needed him and Caius to survive.That the last part of the ritual that was beating against him to finish what was started, was also beating at her and it was not all aimed at him. That some of it was aimed at Aden, pulling him too her as it pulled Tanis. It was a comprehension that tore something deep within Tanis he did not understand, taking that simmering rage of jealousy and bringing it to a rolling boil.

“You will never touch her again,” Tanis hissed taking a step forward with Kara still in his arms, his eyes blazing with rage.

Kara dug her feet in, holding Tanis away from Aden as Aden’s frustration and terror of losing her sliced through Kara, making her gasp. She needed to calm his fears before they incapacitated both of them. Kara’s calm pushed through Tanis’s anger. I need to speak with Aden. Alone.

Tanis looked down at her, his eyes wary. When he saw the love in her eyes, love he knew was for him because he could feel it weave itself through his soul, soothing his rage, the love that had always been there, would always be there, he finally nodded. Cupping her face in his hands, he leaned his head down, kissing her tenderly until she relaxed against him with a soft moan. It was to reassure her that he was not angry with her and a clear message to Aden that she was his. When Tanis moved back and his eyes found Aden’s, his hands still gently cupping Kara’s face, his eyes were no longer tender.

“Touch her and I will make you regret it,” Tanis warned. He gave Kara one more gentle brush of his lips before releasing her, turning and walking into the bedroom, hitting the button with more force than necessary so the door slid closed.

The silence was deafening.

Chapter 15
Chapter 17

Broken Promises – Chapter 15

On February 2, 2019February 9, 2019 By HeidiIn Creative Writing4 Comments

Chapter 15

There was very little time and too much to do, to say but he had to try. First….

“Get out,” he ordered to the remaining spectators who were lingering, his eyes never leaving Kara who lay on her side on the cold metal floor with her back towards him.

As the room slowly cleared, he made his way to her, praying her injuries were ones his limited healing power could fix and that she would not hate him for what he was about to do. The gods only knew she had plenty of reasons to hate him already.

They knew all the legends and myths surrounding who they were, what their purpose was, and some of them were actually true. The one that was not necessarily true was that he and Tanis hated each other and fought to win Kara’s affections every two thousand years. Where there was a little rivalry between them, Tanis and he both knew that the most important being was Kara, because without her the universe would cease to exist. She was the glue that held everything together. If her life force were to be extinguished for good, then yes, he and Tanis would be at war and the universe would crumble into complete chaos. Until then they shared her just fine.

The hardest piece of the prophecy was the part where Kara died by one of their hands. Each of them worked hard at not being the one who hurt her, but eventually one of them would falter and she would pay the price. Last time it was Caius who faltered. No. Falter was to mild a word for what he had done. He tripped, fell flat on his face, scraping skin and muscle from bone leaving them all raw and exposed. He had been so blind in his stupidity he was not sure there were enough “I’m sorry” or “Please forgive my stupidity” he could say to lesson the hatred he had seen in both their eyes.

Caius had no idea why the demon had receded, allowing him to come to the forward, but he would not waste the time he had been given. Carefully kneeling down next to Kara, his body aching with age, he gently rolled her over onto her back. Relief washed over him when he saw her eyes closed and her breathing even. She was unconscious. Good, because what he was about to do would hurt and he had hurt her enough.

Closing his eyes, he placed his hand over her heart and carefully probed through Kara’s essence, knowing one false move could kill her. He did not want that, never had wanted it, but in order to break her the demon had brought her to the brink of death many times. Now she was as close to an immortal as they could become and her will was once again strong. Caius knew she would fight the constraints of her bonds and the demon’s control once she woke, as would Tanis. If he did this right, he could minimize the damage the necklace could do to her. While they were hard to kill, there were a few weapons they did fear. This necklace was one of them.

After he healed what he could, he turned to the spells the demon instructed him to weave around her through the necklace so they could control her. As he thought, the spells had been weakened by Tanis bonding with her. Taking a deep breath, clearing his mind of his churning emotions, Caius carefully strengthened the spells. Tweaking them here and there so whatever the demon tried to force on her, the punishment would not be as severe and in turn leak out onto them.

Even though Aden had tried to hide the fact Kara had helped him earlier, Caius had felt it. He felt everything she did. Even if there was a great distance between them, they were never truly without the other. While knowing the other was still alive, what they were feeling at any given moment was the only solace they had, it was also a curse. For they felt every injury, every death as if it were their own. That was one of the reasons Caius began looking for a way to stop the endless cycle of life and violent death they were trapped in. He could not bear to endure feeling Kara’s life force slip away from him again. At least he knew he would follow her soon after.

His brow beading with sweat, Caius broke the connection and straighten, leaning back on his heels, his head back, eyes closed. In order to heal her and mend the spells, he had to delve deep into Kara’s soul, who she was. A sort of melding of the two of them. Where they had done this many times before, it was always disorienting when they pulled away. Once he felt more himself, he looked down at Kara. This time would be different. This time, if what the demon had promised him was true, the cycle would end and the three of them could live out their existence in peace, together.

“Kara,” he called softly.

Caius’s breath caught when Kara opened her extraordinary hazel eyes looking directly into his. There was no fear, no defiance in that look. She knew him now. Knew herself. She gazed at him as an equal, as a sister to a brother. As someone whose love knew no bounds, and even after all he had done to her, that love still filled her eyes as she gazed at him. Yet underneath that love was a flinching that he knew he had put there. A little piece of his heart died with that knowledge.

“Hey,” he said softly, smiling.

“Hey,” she answered smiling back. An emotion flicked through her eyes. Sorrow. Her smiled dimmed. “Why, Caius?” she breathed.

Guilt washed through him and he could no longer keep her gaze. There was no good reason, no excuse, that could make them understand why he had betrayed them so completely, so he did not try. Instead he pushed himself to his feet with an ease he had not felt in many centuries and walked to his throne. Just that one touch and he was already feeling the effects of having his siblings awakened. His body was growing stronger, years melting away from him as it did them. When the process was done, they would all look like they were in their mid-twenties and their power would be unstoppable. Tanis and Kara would reach their peak much faster than he would. Caius had centuries to melt away. Instead of days it would take weeks to finally reach his prime. Then…. He pushed that thought away. Now they were aware, his siblings could read his emotions, maybe even his thoughts. He did not want Kara to know the horrors the demon had waiting for her.

When he turned and sat on this throne, Kara was on her feet facing him looking down at her dress, such as it was. Shaking her head, with a sigh the white material slowly melted into a light green flowing dress. The scoop neck was still low showing cleavage, but that was all. The shoulders were held together with small broached leaving her shoulders bare. The dress was gathered just below her breasts then hung down in folds to the floor with a small train behind her. She looked up at Caius, her lips somewhere between a smile and pursed in disapproval.

“You never could stand seeing a woman dressed properly,” she grimaced.

“That is not quite true. Just not you,” he smiled.

Waving his hand in front of him, a brush of power washed over Kara and the dress shimmered then solidified. It was still the same color, the same design, but now it was layers of chiffon so sheer it barely covered what lay underneath. Kara looked down at herself knowing this was the only compromise she was going to receive. Yes, she was his equal, yes she could fight him, but at the moment she had more important matters to discuss than waste her energy on how sheer her dress was.

Kara could feel the spells along with the necklace’s magic surrounding her, constricting, binding. The years of torture were still firmly imbedded in her memory, as was the promise of more violence the demon had excluded before it had disappeared. Their souls may not be connected, but through the necklace she still belonged to the demon. Was still his…pet.

“Tanis will not be easily broken,” she said looking back at Caius.

“No, he won’t.” Caius sighed. “Although, once he realizes the lengths the entity will go, I think Tanis will concede. As stubborn and proud as he is, he loves you too much to see you suffer.”

“Can you?” she asked looking directly into his eyes. “See me suffer?”

Again he could not meet her eyes. “I had no choice,” he answered stiffly.

“We all have a choice, Caius,” she chided.

“Not anymore,” he countered so quietly Kara almost did not hear him.

When she did not respond to his comment, Caius turned back to her. The sorrow in her eyes as she watched him tore at something he thought buried long ago. Standing, he swept down the stairs to stand directly in front of her. Reaching up he gently caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, his eyes taking in every nuance of her features.

“It will all become clear soon,” he whispered his lips a breath away from hers. “Now you must finish what we have started today. Then…then we can begin.” It was then Caius felt fear flash through her. She should be afraid, he thought his own pain of what he must do creeping forward. “He will not rest until he has broken us all to his will. What he wants…,” he hesitated, his eyes closed as if in pain. He did not dare share what the demon wanted from her. Not if he wanted to be strong enough to mitigate the horror of what she would go through. Kara was not the only one with chains binding her. “Go,” he ordered turning away from her so she would not see his own fear.

“You never answered my question, Caius,” she reminded.

Caius closed his eyes, the sound of his name on her lips stirring that once lost and forgotten emotion. Compassion. “There is a price for everything, Kara. For what I want my price was high.”

“And what is it you want?”

Caius turned his head so he looked at her. “To never feel you die again. To know there is nothing or no one that can separate us again,” he whispered.

“And what was your price?” she asked her voice a whisper because something deep inside her knew she would not like the answer.

“My soul.”

It was not the tone of his voice that sent a chill down Kara’s spine freezing her blood in her veins. It was the low guttural voice that radiated an evil so foul she did not know how Caius stood under its weight. The one that flashed red in Caius’s eyes as it said at the same time, “His soul.”

“What have you done?” Kara breathed her hand over her heart as she gasped for air.

“What I had to,” Caius said wearily. “Now go. If you stay much longer I will not be able to let you leave. Not to….” Closing his eyes tightly he turned away from her. If he wanted to finish what he started over two thousand years ago, Caius needed Tanis to finish bonding with Kara so the demon could use it against him. “Go,” he whispered his voice echoing throughout the room

Kara did not hesitate. She turned and quickly walked from the room, the guards outside taking positions around her as they escorted her to her new quarters.

Caius slowly walked over to the windows, staring down at the planet below them. Soon Aden would be down there, away from Kara. The pull on their souls would be painful, excruciating if the demon decided to leave the planet’s orbit and head to their next destination. Caius would do his best to keep in control of his body so they stayed. What was to come would be painful enough for Kara. If he had any control of their destiny, he would not add to it. He just wished there was some other way.

If you truly want the cycle to end, you must do as I say or you will lose her. Forever.

With a small shudder as the evil he had invited inside him slid through his soul, Caius closed his eyes bowing his head. He would do as he was instructed. He only hoped he could live with himself when he was done.

Chapter 14
Chapter 16

To See What I See

Tag: Broken Promises

Broken Promises – Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Broken Promises – Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Broken Promises – Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Broken Promises – Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Broken Promises – Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Broken Promises – Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Broken Promises – Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Broken Promises – Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Broken Promises – Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Broken Promises – Chapter 15

Chapter 15