Aiden threw herself against the side of the cage, her wings flapping as much as she could in anger. She bounced back, glaring at the figures around her. She was stuck.
The cage was too small for her to revert to human, and she couldn’t use most of her magick or teleport someplace else in her bird state. All she could do was watch and wait for the first opportunity.
She hissed as a figure approached, and Pierce crouched in front of the cage. He smiled at her, then pulled back as she launched at him, her talons making it through the bars.
“Temper, temper,” he chided. “Can’t have you hurting yourself before I kill you.”
Aiden stopped and stared at him. What? She asked, jerking in pain as the metriazo collar sent tendrils of electricity through her body.
“Can’t use your magick,” he smirked. “Well, you could, but it will be painful.” He reached over, pulled a chair closer, and sat on it. “I’m about to bring our relatives in to the light, and break a curse,” he said. “And you’re going to help me.”
I’ll kill you she thought to him, jerking and hissing in pain. She took a step back as a blue light appeared, and her avian eyes widened as Daimons stepped in to the room. There was no escape for her, and she knew Pierce couldn’t handle them all by himself.
“That her?” a Daimon asked.
“My one and only sweetheart,” Pierce replied sarcastically. He smiled as another person entered, and held out his hand, taking the woman’s in his and kissing it gently.
Aiden stared, trying to take it all in. Pierce, working with Daimons and apparently having some girlfriend. She didn’t really care about the girlfriend part, since she didn’t really care about Pierce, but this Daimon issue caused her to worry. Calming down, she listened intently as they talked, wanting to hear everything that was being said so she could plan her escape.
Her head bobbed in surprise when she heard the word ‘hikers’, and she knew she was somewhere in the mountains. Concentrating, she sent a short message to Ash, forcing herself to remain quiet as the electricity jolted her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ash appeared in the spare bedroom, and began to look around. Since Daimons had been with Pierce when they took her, he knew that they were working together for some goal. Savitar had refused to tell him, so starting a search in the place where Pierce had lived seemed to be as good a plan as any. He stood in the middle of the room, and concentrated. Since this was also an office, he might be able to find some hint…he turned and looked at the bed.
There, on the pillow, was an envelope with his name on it. He picked it up and slowly opened it, thinking it was some taunt from Pierce. He stopped when he realized it wasn’t. He sat on the side of the bed as he read.
Ash:
Remember… if anything happens, no way do I blame you for anything. Please don’t blame yourself or anyone else (except for Pierce) for this. I’m so glad that I met you when I did, and I’m glad that we became friends. I thank you for everything you’ve done for me and more importantly for everything you haven’t done for me... you never let me take the easy way in anything, and you have no idea how much that means to me. I love you like an older brother (a much, much, much older brother), and I am grateful every day that you’re in the world. You’re the best, Ash, and I think that sometimes you need to hear it said. You. Are. The. Best.
Aiden
Ash read the letter over twice more as he swallowed harshly. Oh, this sucked. Big time.
Putting the letter in his jacket pocket, he stared at the computer for a few minutes, searching through the entire system with his mind, looking for any hints. There were a lot of geographical and mythology sites downloaded, but nothing that grabbed his attention. He knew that Pierce had moved his followers to the mountains after they butchered their families, and the geographical would most likely deal with that. It would most likely be where Aiden was being held, and he had to leave that tempting information alone so he wouldn’t prematurely act on it.
Ash was about to leave when he heard Aiden. ‘Daimon, mountain, hikers,’ was all she said. “Aiden?” he whispered, trying to find her, but all that answered was silence. His gaze shifted back to the computer, and he sat in the chair in front of it to do a more thorough search of the downloaded sites.
~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s not fair,” the Dark-Hunter, Keegan, muttered.
Ash ignored him as he leaned his six foot eight frame against a wall and looked around. “If everyone does exactly what I tell them, then this should turn out all right.”
“Should?” Keegan walked away, then back again, pacing from Ash to the other wall. “I don’t like the idea of Daimons preying on hikers any more than you do, and I don’t like that the Were’s are involved in this…”
“Some Weres,” Ash corrected him.
“Some Weres, then. This is their problem, and the Daimons are ours.”
Ash’s reply was cut off by his cellular phone vibrating in his pocket. “Go ahead,” he said when he answered, then stood from the wall. “Where? …… Yeah.” He hung up and slowly put his phone away. This was unexpected, and Ash didn’t like unexpected things happening in his plans. They had a nasty way of screwing up the preferred outcome.
“Problems?”
“Be right back,” Ash said as he vanished. He appeared a moment later in a dark alley between two bars.
The Dark-Huntress Leani had her back to him, making sure that a handsome blonde man in front of her wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m blocking him from summoning a bolt hole,” she said without turning around, “but I can’t hold him much longer.”
Before the Daimon would be able to summon an escape route, Ash stepped up beside her and looked at the soul-stealing man. “You have something to tell me?”
“Exchange for letting me go.”
“I’ll think about it.”
The Daimon glared at the hated Dark-Hunter leader. “You’ll let me go after I tell you, or your little eagle dies.”
Ash turned away. “Kill him for wasting my time.”
“Wait.”
Ash turned back, and stared silently.
The Daimon started. “In the mountains, there’s an Avian colony…”
“I know.”
“Aided by Daimons.”
“I know.”
The Daimon looked nervous. “They have your eagle girlfriend, and her mate is going to kill her for her magick powers and use it to open a portal that will allow Daimons to walk in the light.”
That, Ash didn’t know. This could end up very badly. No wonder Savitar didn’t tell him. Ash smiled coldly. “Thank you,” he said, then raised a hand.
“No!” The Daimon said. “I told you what I know.”
“And I told you I’d think about it.” Ash pointed, and the Daimon dissolved in a puff of golden dust.
~~~~~~~~~
The halls in Kalosis were, as usual, dark and barely lit. Stryker lazed on his throne, waiting for the appointed time to come for him to make an appearance at the cabin. He could go earlier, but the eagle, Pierce annoyed him. And if annoyed enough, Stryker killed.
Then again, if he waited until after Pierce wed his mate back to her ancestors, then Stryker would, by definition, be her mate, and free to kill her…right after he killed Pierce.
A flash in front of him lightened the hall enough to make him cringe, and when his vision cleared, he stood straight in shock. Staring back at him was a face he hadn’t seen in quite a few millennium, and one he hoped to never see again.
Savitar glared at the Spathi Leader, a look that guaranteed an immediate, and painful, death. “You screw up this timeline,” he said in a dangerous, almost demonic growl, “and I will come back and kill you.”
Taking offence, and not really liking being threatened, even by someone as powerful as Savitar, Stryker took a step forward. He fell back to his throne as invisible hands pushed him. He tried to speak, but found that he couldn’t…hell, he could barely breathe.
He watched as Savitar vanished as quickly as he arrived, and sighed in annoyance. There went that plan. Savitar was just vindictive enough to follow through on the threat, regardless what timeline he would screw up by killing the Spathi Leader. Spoiled brat!
Savitar appeared on the beach on his private island of Neratiti, madder than he’d ever been in recent memory. “Damn punk ass!” he growled.
He yelled in anger, the unearthly sound echoing around him, sending birds from trees in fright, and the water lashing against the shoreline. 1
“I hate having to go to Kalosis!”
His clothes changed into a wetsuit and a surfboard appeared in his hands. Eyeing the churning surf, he smiled tightly and entered the water.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aiden paced back and forth in the small cage, trying to take her mind off the collar around her neck, and what would happen if it wasn’t removed soon. As an Arcadian Were-Hunter, her base form was human. The collar disrupted the magick, and forced her into the eagle state, and when her magick charged enough, it would either turn her human against her will, which would choke her to death, or make her head explode from the power.
She didn’t think it would get that far, since Pierce needed her, but she was getting tired. If she fell asleep, then she would automatically revert to human form. Aiden remembered some rumor about a Were-Dark-Hunter who had been collared, and now wished she had been more interested in it than she had been at the time. Some little hints of dealing with the discomfort would be nice right about now.
Pausing and trying to spread her wings in the cramped space, she watched in annoyance as Pierce and his girlfriend made lovey-faces at each other as they sat on the bed across the room. Lots of luck, eagle she said to herself. You’re gonna need it with him.
Aiden and Pierce had been mated simply because of a mark that appeared after some rather unfulfilling sex, and the mark appeared only because the Fates had, in Aiden’s opinion, a rather fucked-up sense of humor. Being rather young at the time, she thought it her duty to agree to mate, and to continue her bloodline. She was secretly relieved when Pierce didn’t want to bond their souls together, so that if one died, the other died, and now understood why he didn’t want to. He must have been planning this for a long time, and had they bonded, then he would not be planning on killing her. Now, she was glad that they had never produced an offspring. The thought of dieing and leaving any children in his care was enough to enrage her.
And the eagle he was kissing now didn’t look like that much of an improvement. She had mean eyes, and Aiden firmly believed that a lot of truth could be told about a person just from their eyes. Although she didn’t care if Pierce had a girlfriend or not, she just wished he would move a little closer to the cage so she could sink a talon deep into his body and then rip him to shreds.
Then again, him being impotent was a far better punishment. At least until she died, that was. And she’d already promised herself that if she died, she would make the deal with Artemis, come back as a Dark-Huntress, and pound Pierce until he was nothing more than a stain on the cabin floor.
She closed her eyes in annoyance, and tried once again to relax.
Aiden!
She jumped as her name bellowed through her brain, and looked around.
Keep your eyes open, eagle the voice said. Close them again, and you’ll be asleep.
Savitar? She jerked at the pain the collar gave. She listened for a reply, but none came. Silently cursing Pierce, Daimons, the Fates, and most gods in general, Aiden continued her pacing from one end of the cage to the other, maliciously eyeing her mate the whole time.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Savitar pushed his surfboard in the sand and stared at his visitor.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ash asked.
“Tell you what?” Savitar replied as he wiped water from his face.
“The truth.”
The other man gave a rare laugh. “Acheron,” he said, using the ancient pronunciation for the name. “Truth is a flexible perception based on need. And until now, you didn’t need to know.” He ran a hand through wet hair. “This can play one of two ways.”
“She dies,” Ash said, “Daimons get daytime feeding, and the world becomes a whole lot scarier.”
“Or, she doesn’t die and she has to watch herself for the rest of her life, because once the ceremony is made to wed her to the Daimons then any of them can kill her.”
“Ceremony?” Ash asked, afraid of what that would entail. “They wouldn’t…”
Savitar grimaced. “No. They wouldn’t all have to mate with her… gods, man, give the ancient ones a little credit when they think up these loopholes.”
Ash felt a little better. “Explain this to me.”
Savitar shrugged. “Just another little thing Apollo shouted when he damned her relatives,” her said, referring to the fact that Were-Hunters were related to Apollites. “Something about a golden childless woman who can fly being sacrificed during the dawn of her mates 200th birthday. The mate has to ‘wed’ her back to her ancestors, then kill her himself.”
“That is, by far, the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard…and I’ve heard a lot.”
“Who would have ever thought that there would be a childless flying woman married to a two hundred year old human?” He turned to head back to the surf. “The entire ceremony has to happen while she is in human form and just before dawn.”
“They’re in the mountains, so that gives a bit more time,” Ash said, hope coming back into the picture. “Is she supposed to die?”
“Not by her mate’s hands.” He created a towel with magick and began wiping down his board.
“Her mate as in Pierce, or her mate as in the entire Daimon nation?”
“Yes.”
Ash could feel a headache starting. “I have to help her,” he said slowly.
“Better get to it, then,” Savitar said, then picked up his board and waded back into the water.
Savitar laid on his board as Ash vanished, then looked behind him at the empty shoreline. Yes, Ash had been right earlier… this sucked. Big time.2
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Comments
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yes this does suck big time and i think that i may be developing one of ashe's headaches myself. this is all so crazy. im a little confused but think i will catch on when it comes time to save the damsel in distress.
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Okay. I gotta print these out now so I can read them all at once. I shall return to leave comments after I read.
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Tell me when you don't want me to point out typos anymore
The first typo I saw is in the letter Ash found written by Aiden. For me it's about on the fifth line and "ho" should be "how"
When Keegan is pacing it should be "from" Ash to the other wall, not "form". (My science teacher did that alot.)
When they've got that Daimon guy against the alley way he says, "In the mountians, there's a Avian colony"
the "a" should be "an"
There is a fairly long sentence that I don't think used the comma right... but I'm not exactly sure. I'll just point out the sentence to you-
"They have your eagle girlfriend(here is where a comma should be) and her mate is going to kill her for her magic powers (here is where the comma should not be) and use it to open a portal..."
(Again... I could be a bit wrong...)
End of typos.
I need more!! No, really, this has got to probably be one of the most exciting stories I've read on this site to date. I've read others, but yours is so well written. The typos aren't big enough to actually bother me- the overall story overshadows them. In a good way. Great chapter. Have a good day!
MoonNight
beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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I never mind it when someone spots an error that I miss! (and from and form is one of my bigger constant errors)
I'm glad you're still enjoying it... but.. part seven won't be for a couple days.... sorry. Darn reality keeps poking its head in my life
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