Blood Flows Deep in the Empire (28 page)

He couldn’t let her die. Logically, he knew why she was supposed to, but logic was gone. Only instinct remained, and if that sacrifice was going to take place, his fellow gods were going to have to fling them both into the vortex at the same time. If not, he’d kill even them to keep her safe.

Plain and fucking simple.

Less than an hour later, they hadn’t found anything. Sweating, cold, and weaker than he’d ever been, Dyletri stood in Ismini’s neighborhood. In full armor, he stalked the streets, heading straight for her apartment. He couldn’t stop hoping that she’d somehow ended up there.

She hadn’t. Not even a trace of her essence. He didn’t dare linger more than a few seconds. His woman was somewhere, and there was less than hour until the damned sacrifice was due.

Ismini didn’t know where it was going to take place, and that was the one thing that calmed him a bit. The girl was crazy enough to sacrifice herself, given the chance. But if she wasn’t heading to the energy vortexes, where the fuck was she?

The others had spread out, each searching, as well. Even the human Soleria was amongst them, since she’d realized early on that
both
her friends that were missing.

Dyletri had realized that, yeah, he was sick, but he wasn’t the only one. He wasn’t mated to Evesse yet, but Zen was quickly losing the battle to his rage.

Dyletri rushed down the steps of Ismini’s building, not bothering to hide or disguise himself. Definitely not caring if the humans saw the big, sick-looking motherfucker in dark blue and silver armor. They would probably convince themselves it was some pre-Halloween shit anyway. His priority lay with finding Ismini.

Never in his two million years of life did he imagine that he’d catch the scent of her blood as he walked three blocks away from her house. Dyletri turned the corner and came to a stop. He caught a scent he hadn’t before and sensed something different in the air. He tilted his head up and sniffed the air just as Zen came around the other corner.

They locked eyes for a second. Long enough for Dyletri to see the black and red of Zen’s rapidly changing eyes. Then, as one, they flashed toward the source of the scent.

Dyletri stumbled backward and almost landed on Zen. He bent over and threw up for the first time in his life as he registered the sheer amount of blood against the building’s wall and the concrete beneath their feet. His own blood rushed out to join it, his body rejecting the sight of all that blood. His
R’ma’s
blood.

Gods, for a second he wondered if she was still alive after that. What the hell had happened to her?

There were signs of humans having already been there. Police tape. Faint traces of chemicals from when they’d probably done a sweep and taken a DNA sample. None of that mattered. All Dyletri could focus on was the black energy still tainting the air and the amount of his girl’s blood all over the place.

Zen noticed it, too.

“Ian! Cy! Get over here!” Zen barked, his voice split in two. It’d been getting worse over the last few hours. Even more concerning, his eyes had begun morphing. Black had begun invading the white of his eyes, and his irises were steadily becoming redder.

Had Dyletri been capable of coherent thought, he would have wondered if it was even
Zen
calling out for the others at all.

“We’re he—Holy shit!”

“What the fuck? Is that . . .”

“Enteax,” Dyletri growled through a pause in his vomiting, feeling his eyes bleeding red with rage as he recognized an energy signature he hadn’t felt in eons.

“Evesse was here.” A shock of dark energy came off Zen, forcing Dyletri to fly away from him and crash into the wall.

The building shook from the impact of Dyletri’s body. In response, Ian and Cy rushed to throw up a
Gnetica.
Humans ran outside to investigate anyway.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

“They took them.” Dyletri dug his fingers into the bricks next to him and tried to stand straight. He needed to find Ismini, damn it!

Cy stared in front of them with that far-off, blue-tinted look he always got when looking out into the Universe. “We have minutes. Like two. The sacrifice is due.”

Dyletri heard Zen hiss. “Lisrn. I can sense him near Evesse’s signature. If he touches her . . . if
any
man ever touches her against her will again . . .”

He was rambling, making no sense.

Ian watched him, shifting subtly on his feet. “We need to call in the others.”

“It’s too late. I see them,” Cy said, his voice splitting, his eyes changing from gold to metallic blue.

Dyletri felt his world rip apart inside him. Around him, utter chaos reigned down the alley.

“They’re there!” Cy shouted. “They fucking—”

Dyletri could tell Cy was mere nanoseconds from interfering. Seconds away from unleashing his other half, the God of Prophecy, and stopping what was about to happen, regardless of the cost to the Universe.

Dyletri was grateful for it, but Cy was right. They were too late.

He felt the
exact
moment it happened. His entire body bowed backward, his back bending at an unnatural angle. The scream that ripped out of his chest was agonizing. In a stark, horrifying moment, he knew she was gone. He felt her ripped from him as if she’d been ripped from the Universe.

Dyletri’s roar was punctuated by Zen’s matching cry.

He was torn in two, half of him overwhelmed by anger while his body malfunctioned. The conflict sent him into a seizure. One side of his body went numb as the other railed. Dyletri vaguely heard Cy and Ian shouting in the background.

“Zen, chill! Dude, stop!”

Ian ran over. “Knock Zen out! Cy, do it! He’s losing it!”

He skidded to a stop and knelt down before raising Dy’s head up. Ian turned him so that he wouldn’t choke on the torrents of blood rushing out of him. “Hang in there, Dy. You gotta hang in there!”

Didn’t he understand? There was no longer any point. His
R’ma
had been sacrificed. His mate was gone. Somehow, Evesse had been taken with her. And it was all his fault. He’d allowed two innocent women, including the woman he loved, to be killed.

Again.

He wanted to fucking die.

He didn’t know what was in store for Zen, but he, for one, couldn’t imagine existing for another second. That was the last thought that went through his mind before everything went black.

Chapter 25

-Utorou. The Dream Realm. Portal to the Haklanayasas.

“Where . . . what the . . .”

Everything was dark, but as the half-formed question left Dyletri’s mouth, he knew where he was. The darkness around him pressed deep, and he saw the Universe in front of him, right through the open portal.

Then he saw the bane of his existence. She walked out of the darkness, arms crossed.

“Ny—”

“Shut it. One question and one only, Salicyar.” Nylicia waved her hand in front of the open portal. It morphed, like a milky sea of clouds, swirling until the image inside it changed and all he could see was his
R’ma.
“If I told you this was waiting for you on the other side . . . would you follow me through?”

Dyletri was already stomping toward it. “Of course!”

“Oh, good,” Nylicia said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she watched him storm past. “Then wake the fuck up, ass. We have a lot to do.”

A bang sounded throughout the space. He felt his brain growing heavy as he was ripped out of the
Utorou
and straight back into the waking world.

“He’s still alive. It’s a miracle.”

Vedlyl.

“It’s destined.”

Nylicia.

Why could he hear them? Why the fuck was he still
here
to do so?

“Is he going to be all right?” Ianythi asked.

“He’s waking up. Which might be a no. He’s got company coming that might just kill him anyway,” Nylicia said, amusement in her tone.

Amusement? Oh, that pissed Dyletri off. Shocked him awake with fury. He reared up on the bed, a dangerous growl building inside him. How dare she sound happy? How dare she be amused when Ismini was dead?

Wait. Hadn’t he just seen her in his dream?

Nylicia’s face was set in hard lines. “Easy there. She’s not completely gone. Not yet.”

Dyletri blinked and tried to focus. He tried to make sense of the bullshit she was spewing. How could Ismini not be gone? And why had Nylicia just come to him in his dream? “She’s dead. I can feel it. She’s dead!”

A wave of energy shot out of Nylicia’s translucent form and knocked Dyletri into the headboard. “But not gone!”

Her words were still ringing in his head when a voice he’d almost forgotten drifted into his room.

“Where is he? Where is Salicyar?”

He blinked rapidly as he tried to make sense of what he heard. Was he imagining things?

Nylicia ran her pinky across her eyebrow, having the grace to look sheepish. “She’s not in love with you anymore. And . . . she’s pissed you ripped her out of the Underworld. Maybe I should’ve mentioned some of that before now?”

“Where the fuck is he?” the voice sounded again.

Nylicia bit at a fingernail. “Yeah. Probably should’ve mentioned that.”

“Where is that ungrateful, idiotic bastard?”

The heavily-accented words seemed out of place. That she was speaking in English was also unexpected. Dyletri locked eyes with Nylicia, seeking answers since she was obviously willing to
mention
things.

She smirked, her amusement returning. “She’s been aware of the world, watching everything happening over the centuries. English is the least of her talents. Get ready to be bitch slapped, oh great Salicyar.”

“What?”

Movement caught his eyes, and he looked toward the door.

“You! How dare you? You are in love! You are mated! And you still allow a sacrifice for
me
? I didn’t want to come back!”

“Di—Dimithinia?”

He inhaled sharply, eyes wide. She looked the same way she had eleven thousand years before. Thick, long black hair. Piercing, deep blue eyes. Pale skin. She even wore the same long, black sheath he’d seen her wearing the morning before her death.

“You . . . you . . .
ugh
! What is the word I am looking for?” Her face flushed red as she looked back and forth between the two women in the room.

“Asshole?” Nylicia offered helpfully.

Nythi nodded sagely. “Yeah, I think that’s it.”

Dimithinia turned back to Dyletri and pointed her finger at him. “Yes. You asshole! How could you do this to me?” She walked to his bed, lifted her skirt enough to climb up, and began raining down blow after blow.

Blows that, to his surprise, actually fucking hurt.

“
Ow
! Dimithinia! What are you . . . ouch! Stop this shit!”

“You fucking moron. You are a fool!” Each word was punctuated with a hit, and she soon abandoned English in her frustration. She segued into her ancient Ritrioan dialect, throwing curse words at him that would make even modern humans cringe.

“Will you . . . fucking shit! Nylicia told me to do it!” Dyletri managed to move out of her way right before she landed a hard hit on his dick. She caught his thigh instead, making him groan in pain. He spun away from her, trying to climb off the bed and escape her attack. She jumped onto his back, one arm wrapping around his neck while her free hand formed a fist and began pounding his head.