Breaking Fate (23 page)

Darci jerked upright in bed, her heart thudding at the harsh, dissonant sounds of crashing thunder. Lightning brightened the bedroom as rain drummed against the glass panes.

Blaéz’s side of the bed was empty. She wasn't surprised, but just thinking about him and a smile curved her mouth. Pushing the covers aside, she raked back her tangled hair and found Blaéz’s discarded t-shirt on the bed. She blew out a tired breath as she pulled it on. Well, no surprise there, the man had kept her awake until early hours of the morning.

She padded to the half-open bedroom window to stare out at the gray miasma-covered garden.

A shiver raced over her skin. Darci rubbed her arms. About to close the window, a bird flew straight at her. She shrieked and leaped back.
God!
Pressing a hand to her pounding chest, she eyed the raven circling the room and hoped it would leave.

Darci froze. A blue-eyed bird?

The air shifted around the raven. A black tornado swirled and grew until it morphed into a tall, glowing form. Her heart banging wildly against her ribs, Darci edged back, and watched the figure take shape. The glow faded. In the bird’s place stood a woman. She pushed back the hood of her dark green cloak, revealing a face of such incredible beauty, that Darci simply stared.

Pale skinned and with eyes so blue it hurt to look too long into them, the woman was stunning; in the same way the warriors were ruggedly handsome. Was she one of them, too?

Darci kept a careful distance from her. “Who are you?”

The woman’s cool gaze skimmed over Darci. “I am left with little choice but to seek you out.”

“Me?” Darci eyed her warily. “What did I do?”

“Not a lot, from what I’ve seen.” Her tone was filled with annoyance. “Since you find it difficult to remember, I am forced to appear.”

There was something vaguely familiar about her, and then it clicked. “
You.
You watched me at my home as a bird — you came to me in that dream — the shadow woman. You scared the hell out of me!”

“It appears I must prod you forward every step of the way.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Let’s not waste time. Blaéz. Only you can save him from eternal darkness. Without his soul, he will be lost soon. He hovers too close to the edge.”

Darci’s stomach flipped over in dread. This woman reiterated the very thing that worried her. “How do you know this? Who are you?”

“I am The Morrigan.” She gave Darci an imperious stare. “Blaéz is my son.”

“Your—” Darci’s lungs shut down and nothing but a croak came out. “Your
son?
” Blaéz’s mother was the great queen of the Celtic pantheon? The goddess of war and death? She’d read about her, but never thought she’d see her in reality.

And just as fast, fury overrode her shock, surging through Darci like a dam breaking its banks. “Then why have you waited this long to help him?”

“I tried—”

“Obviously not hard enough,” Darci retorted.

The Morrigan’s eyes became blue ice — crystalizing the very air in the room. It hurt to breathe as power flowed around Darci. She gasped, stumbling back and rubbing her sternum at the suffocating pain. Then the dense air eased. Coughing, Darci dragged in a huge amount of air and wondered at her foolishness in antagonizing a goddess who could probably end her life with a flick of her fingers. She didn't care. This woman had left Blaéz to suffer.

“Do not speak so foolishly and listen well, mortal. Without his soul, there is nothing here to serve as tether for Blaéz,” The Morrigan said. “Evil gathers its forces. Soon, he will be drawn deeper into the darkness. There is no return from that.”

As if she didn't know that. If it meant going into Hell herself, Darci would. Not even Blaéz’s wrath could stop her if what this goddess said was true. “What can I do?”

“It is good you want to help” — her blue eyes glowed eerily — “because you are the only one who can. You and Blaéz are connected in a way that led to this moment.”

Uneasy, Darci rubbed her damp palms down the hips of her tee. “I don’t understand.”

“Have you not wondered why your eyes appear so?” The Morrigan drew closer. “The colors unusually jagged and yellow instead of the browns, blues, and greens mortals are commonly born with?”

Her eyes?
“What about them?”

“That yellow is just a side-effect of what happens when you house a god’s soul.”

It took a moment for the words to connect in her brain. A hysterical laugh escaped Darci at the absurdity. “I don’t believe you!”

At the goddess’s cool stare, Darci’s disbelief morphed to horror; the truth crashing into her like a wrecking ball.

She
possessed Blaéz’s soul?

No—no!
God — no! Darci reeled back. Her legs banged into a padded surface and she fell into an armchair.

At the thought of all that Blaéz had gone through — the humiliation of being tied to and violated by an insane demon — hit Darci hard. She wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to hold herself together. He may not feel emotions, but its absence had dug deep, leaving scars in his psyche. She’d seen it.

“Take it, then — give it back to him.” She didn't want him sliding into darkness through no fault of his own.

“If only it were that simple. I cannot.
You
must, and you must do so freely. But knowing my son, he would not be still and calmly accept it — if that happens, it will come back to me to move on to the afterlife, or worse, go back to the demon seeking it. Either way, it will be the end for him.”

“What do I do?”

“Use this.” The Morrigan set a small cream-colored disc with strange writing on the coffee table. It looked a lot like the leavened bread given in a Catholic Church. “Place this disc in your mouth before you kiss him. It will create a conduit and hold him to you so the soul passes back.”

Darci glanced back at The Morrigan, who watched her as if waiting for something. What, Darci had no idea. “How did this happen — why did I end up with Blaéz’s soul?”

The Morrigan glided toward the window. “Eons ago, your bloodline bore only males. The arrival of a female babe broke that—” She turned and flicked her fingers for a word. “It’s not a curse, but something that just is. All rejoiced. Except, a few days later, the babe began to ail. Prayers were sent up and sacrifices made. They were devout worshippers of the goddess of war and death. Me. The infant, it appeared, had been born with a defect. A fractured soul, and would soon die. I knew she would be the perfect recipient.”

Darci stared at the goddess. Of all the things she’d imagined, this wasn’t one of them. Her stomach twisted into a hard knot as she braced herself.

“After Blaéz’s soul slipped from the demon who would have trapped it,” The Morrigan continued, “it came to me. Not even
I
could hold on to something that powerful. I'm merely a conduit for immortal souls to pass into the afterlife. With Blaéz incarcerated in Tartarus, I needed a host urgently. One the demon after the soul couldn’t find. So I saved the babe by giving her the soul, and every woman born to that bloodline since has been sworn to continue the lineage, to pass on the soul.”

“Pass on? How?”

“At childbirth, the mother releases the soul and the new babe houses it until she has her own young. Your mother knew of the prophecy when she became pregnant with you.”

God!
Nausea rushed to Darci’s throat. Her mother had died when she’d been just a few days old. “Prophecy? It’s a damn curse.”

“You should be grateful, mortal.” The Morrigan’s eyes burned in sudden anger. “She gave you life.”

“I should be grateful that I lost my mother before I even had a chance to know her?” Darci glared at the goddess. “I wish she’d never gotten pregnant with me.”

“She had no choice, your ancestors saw to that by agreeing to the terms when they begged me to save their babe. The oath is binding. And it would have been for you, too, if you hadn’t met Blaéz. Each generation, a woman will give birth to a female babe and assure that the soul always has a keeper.”

“And if I didn't marry, had no children?”

“You would have.” A simple statement. And the absolute truth. “You possess a male’s soul, you would have never formed a deeper attachment with the opposite sex. It’s why you would have wanted children to love.” As if she wasn’t ripping the very fabric of Darci life apart, The Morrigan calmly continued, “However, when I foresaw yours and Blaéz’s paths crossing, I granted a male child to your mother first—”

“—because you knew the next would be a girl, and that my mother would save me, and finally all this would be over. You
knew
this would happen,” Darci finished bitterly. She wanted to get up and walk out, but couldn’t move.

“I granted life to your lineage,” The Morrigan reminded her with a cold stare. “Now it’s time to release what was only loaned to you in good faith and do as your ancestors pledged.”

Did The Morrigan think she’d renege on that oath? She loved Blaéz; she would never let him suffer.

“Your kin knows the truth. I told him when you nearly died in an accident at ten summers. To save your life, he would have agreed to anything. He remains silent, thinking it would change the prophecy.”

“What?” Darci shot to her feet, feeling as if someone had punched her in the chest. “No — you lie! Declan would have told me!”

The Morrigan flashed to her and grasped her arms in a manacle, eyes glowing with ire. “See, mortal, see the truth.”

Images flickered alive in Darci’s mind…
Enormous black wings strewn on the stone ground… a bare-chested man kneeling in a pool of blood
— her heart clipped hard. She knew him. The mirage changed. There she was, ten years old and asleep in her bed. Thrashing about, the sheets twisted around her…

Tears streaming down her face — Darci’s eyelids flashed open, her mouth wide open in a silent scream. A man strung up, his back a bloody mess — so much agony. It consumed her. The pale, evil man who’d hurt him, his red eyes glowed in the dark as he approached with the fiery whip.

Darci scrambled out of the tangle of bed covers and raced down the stairs, arms flailing. She crashed into a vase, knocking it to the floor in a shattering of splinters.

“Darci?” Declan called, coming from the kitchen. She didn't stop, had to get away from the red-eyed man.

“You cannot escape me — ever. You. Are. Mine.”

“No-no!” she sobbed. He reached for her. She yanked at the front door. It opened. She jerked out of the man’s grip, raced down the pathway and into freedom—

Screeching tires. A horrified scream rent the night. Darci went flying in the air and landed hard on the sidewalk, cracking her head. Held in the grips of shock, she lie there, pain tearing through her body.

“Darci, please don’t die — hang on,” her brother cried, cradling her bloodied, broken body in his arms, his agony making her struggle against the oblivion hovering… a peace she could feel, one she longed for to escape from her nightmares.

Voices intruded, someone calling 911.

A woman shrouded in black appeared and kneeled beside her, her piercing blues eyes shimmering with annoyance. “Seems I have to put your bad dreams to sleep or you’ll never last until the meeting. So close, I cannot take a chance now.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Declan snapped at the woman.

She didn't respond. A wave of her hand, and Darci closed her eyes…

“Oh, dear God!” Darci yanked away from the goddess. “You took away my memories?”

“Indeed. I blocked them. Or else you would have ended up dead, long before the
meeting
with your heedless need to run into danger.”

But Darci wasn't listening. That demon in her nightmares had been coming for Blaéz, not her. Those memories were his, not hers. Because she housed his soul. And if she did… then were the emotions he felt truly his?

Inhaling a shaky breath, a glow of joy lit inside of her, but just as fast, it dissipated. With The Morrigan watching her with that severe stare, her uneasiness trebled.

God, what else could there be?

Darci waited for the other shoe —
shoe
, hell, this was a damn boulder — to drop because nothing in her life was ever simple. Or without cost she was finding out.

She went motionless, her blood icing as another thought occurred. With her fragmented soul, she would have died at birth if her mother hadn’t made the sacrifice. Once she returned Blaéz’s soul, how long would she have with him?

She squeezed her eyes tight, could barely breathe, the truth ripping through her. Not long. Her mother had survived only for a few days.

“Do this for him and I will grant a healthy babe to your brother and his mate. Your sacrifice won't be in vain. It will ensure future births of strong infants in your bloodline.” The Morrigan’s voice came to Darci from a distance. She opened her eyes and cut the goddess a stony look. Of course, she’d know of Grace’s miscarriages. She’d have all her damn bases covered.

“You have seven days before the conduit’s incantation fades.”