CHAPTER 2 - SIF TOR APHAN

We flew over the Russian forests and the headphones they’d given me did nothing to dampen the noise of our helicopter. I’d been alive for five hundred years, discounting the century of sleep Kazim forced upon us, so my vampiric senses were the strongest of my coven and this method of travel so very loud.

There were four of us who'd come along on this quest, and Angel sat in the cockpit, fingers tightened around the collar of the pilot as she instructed him on exactly where to go. These werewolves were reclusive and their territory unmapped. No roads led into their lands and even if there were, they'd be shrouded by snow for the majority of the year. The only way was by copter and yet I still eyed the human pilot greedily.

I'd been staggering our time with mortals, slowly acclimating the coven back to the sounds of their thundering heartbeats, messy telepathic projection, and tantalizing smell. But still, the pull of his lifeblood was a siren song to a sailor’s ears. We'd been drinking from one another to consolidate power and amplify the effects of the tome. But the man angling us over the trees was a feast I'd been deprived of for ages. A strong healthy male. Excellent for eating.

Selina narrowed her eyes at me and I glanced away, feigning indifference and fooling no one.

Have you been practicing, Rasa? The smooth silk of Selina's voice was a balm to my senses, satin to my skin.

I shook my head, much to her disappointment but “ I haven't had time, Sela, between this trip and the Minister.” I murmured this into the mic attached to my headset because when admitting fault it was best to do it publicly and unabashed. But, her expression shuttered closed at the mention of the man who'd preoccupied most of my time and I should have expected that.

Before we left, a minister from the Council of Monsters had knocked upon our doors and demanded an audience with the Isadoran leaders. That task had fallen to me, and for the past week I'd worked to assuage his fears of a vampiric power upset, massaged his ego, placated that our women couldn't provoke the other covens to war, and dealt with whatever misogynistic bullshit fueled his council's fears and emboldened him to demand questions of me. Selina, altruistically, had given me a gift to soothe the drag of politics, a gift only I could wield and yet I hadn't had the time to master it.

“It might prove helpful for this meeting,” Was all she said, but I'd hurt her feelings. She thought me ungrateful, not busy, but Angel picked up on our conversation and interjected,

“We shouldn't need a show of force and we definitely shouldn’t need anything flashy to get what we want,” But it was uncharacteristic of Angel not to prep for violence and I craved a show of force. Werewolves were our oldest foe. If anything, she should be ensuring we were prepared for a battle should one come- and one most definitely would if their alpha even sniffed disrespectfully my way. But, I opened my palm face up and the beginning static of electricity sparked to life, a spoon of yarn unspooling in the divot of my palm.

Azul gasped, blue eyes wide, but mine stayed on Seline’s. “I've been practicing as much as I'm able. I've just been busy, my divinity. I love your gift.”

Shy eyes met mine, “Really?”

“Really,” I switched to Latin, “I’d burn the world to ash for the pleasure of your attention.”

She blushed and I closed my palm. No one had ever gone out of their way to give me lightning. The twin stars she'd pierced into the backs of my hands still wept darkness and tacky blood but the magic was worth it when I could channel it properly. She assured me that with time the darkness would fade until the stars were tattoos against my skin, but as of now the twin stars still burned to the touch.

Still, I spread my fingers and barbs of electricity slung between them. She believed with concentration I'd be able to wield bolts of lightning from the heavens and with training, master this world of electricity we'd awoken into. But between these Russian wolves, the Minister, and the rest of the Isadora, I wasn't sure I had the time to master anything.

Softly Selina’s gloved fingers traced the backs of my hands and she smiled, a dimple in one cheek and smooth on the left. Damn it all. That was enough.

Today, she wore a swath of darkness. Lips painted a deep indigo, and eyes lined in kohl and clouded charcoal. Everything from her trench to her knee high boots was black and hugged her curves in the way I liked.

“Miss I need to use the lantern, it's too dark-”

Angel hushed the pilot, eyes slitting as she peered into the night. “No light, just veer left.”

He obeyed begrudgingly but that was why she was up there with him, leading us deeper over the forest. I wondered if she had plans to eat him after he dropped us- I mean, who knew how long we'd be with these wolves. But, probably not. Angel liked her victims with more fight.

“There. Take us down.”

We landed on the edge of a cliff, skillfully, even in the dark, and I had to admit the pilot had his uses. We paid him handsomely not to ask questions but he must have been curious. Just what could we be doing out here, all alone and in the dead of night? Azul helped unload our things and I watched sadly as the pilot got back in the helicopter and flew away.

“Don't look so hungry,” Angel kissed my shoulder and I turned to her.

“Please make it up to me.” A vampire should be rewarded for their restraint.

Ever indulgent, she inclined her head in a short bow, “Of course, my Mistress.”

Then, we were off, striking into the forest at a fast clip. There was synchrony to our movements, hammered from years of death dealing and quelling vampiric uprisings for our late King. Despite Kazim’s blatant disrespect for our sex, our coven under his leadership almost exclusively used its women to fight its battles. So, we'd met in the tides of war.

Angel was Moorish, a traveling scholar for her empire and a student of her mother, an infamous scryer. I, a born Vampire, hadn't understood the benefits of humanity when we'd first met and had been ordered to kill her. But it was Angel’s fascination with Vampirism and what could be done with it that eventually convinced me my life was actually meant to be lived- however undead one might be. Against Kazim’s wishes, I’d turned her and been rewarded with the stewardship of her burgeoning vampirism. A task meant to shackle from a man that would never understand the nuances of friendship.

Watching her now, no one would guess there was anything bookish about her. Her back was rigid, leather jacket plated on her shoulders and triceps, steel toed boots high on her thighs, and spike knuckled gloves. She looked like Hades risen from the Underworld here to reclaim souls, and as our general she might as well have been. She was the perfect match for Azul, the Filipina sapphire from a convent she refused to name. They'd met two hundred years ago and it'd been love at first sight, until she'd learned of Angel’s vampirism. They were still working through the events that changed them both irrevocably, but when they fought together it was music. Choreographed poetry.

This group had been crafted with a focus on stealth and power. As the first jaunt beyond our castle walls, the Isadora couldn't afford to look weak. Not with all of its queens accounted for.

The darkness cloaked our approach but I felt we were near when the air soured. Wolves smelled of pine, frost, and corrupted magic and no amount of time ever dampened that taste.

As we walked, the hair on the back of my neck rose and Selina whispered a spell that brought a hush to the forest. A black disk materialized under her feet, oblong, and with each step she lifted into the air, rising upwards like an angel of rapture straight into the moonlight- wordless and terrifying. She'd be our support from the skies and would facilitate a hasty escape if we needed it. This formation, ideated by yours truly, was the most practical.

The wind changed, bathing us in soft flurries as we walked, and our breath the only disturbance in the cold dark forest. Our steps were phantoms over the snow, hearts deadened and breath not warm enough to melt the ice ghosting our cheeks. A death had come to haunt this place and we were creatures at home in it.

The only arcane spell I knew whispered past my lips, a burgeoning baptism of fire surging from my throat and awashing me in power so potent my lips burned from the formation. A stark heat rose from the earth around us, growing in strength and melting the ice of my bones, power needling my fingers and growing where I webbed them together. Sparks of liquid blue jumped between my palms and the static shattered the quiet of our approach. This had always been the plan but the flood of power building within me was intoxicating and I drowned in it. It'd been so long since I'd experienced heat. I pressed my palms together, drew them apart, and formed a bolt of lightning that rivaled the skies.

Sif tor aphan. I arched my hands towards the treeline, Athena drawing the string of her bow taunt, before my lightning speared the canopy, piercing the ichor of the sky- igniting the forest in fire around us.

“Sif tum,” above us Selina drew the flames into a ball of chaotic power, a vacuum, straight into her hand and leaving nothing of my desolation but smoke. The heat in her palm spun, emitting light that fractured the shadows around us. She closed her fingers into a fist and I watched as the power absorbed into her skin.

I wanted to lay her out right then and there and show her my devotion. As if sensing my thoughts her fangs elongated and she smirked before the clouds swallowed her and she disappeared from my sight.

“Aphan,” the power I’d built was still zipping over my skin and barely needed the command to coalesce at all. The lightning condensed, unsheathing from my palms like swords of cobalt fire and I hurled them into the sky, splintering the clouds, thundering the atmosphere and bathing the sky in liquid blue before darkness once more.

“You're getting the hang of it.” Angel's praise made pink tinge my cheeks.

“Aphan,” I prepared to shatter the night once more with a thunderclap before the quiet of the forest changed around us. A lone wolf peeled from the darkness, taller than our shoulders and strong. Its snout boasted fangs as long as my hands, fur black like the night whence it came. I grinned as lightning zipped over my skin, bathing me in blue and restless to be released - building and building.

For centuries long past, werewolves and vampires had been enemies, their wolfish fiendish magic corrupting all it touched and turning entire forests against us. These trees were theirs, their soulnames carved into the bark and the bows, the arches from under which they danced and married. This forest smelled like them, and they, like it. They wouldn’t allow me to burn it down but I wouldn't allow them to take us lightly, either.

Truth be told, I didn't believe it was within either of our species to coexist and yet here we were standing before one another with a slumbering god brokering a tentative truce. Their seclusion and inbreeding had consolidated power amongst their pack and as more wolves moved past the shadows and surrounded us in the enclave it should have unnerved me to be so outnumbered. But we weren't overpowered.

Kol. My fire died, burrowing into the skin on the backs of my hands and itching my scars.

Angel stepped forwards, breaking the tension in our silent regard but Azul bared her fangs behind her, wary for her mate and not above savagery if it came down to it. See, we each had a role.

“A small group of four, just like you asked. Now, the god, as was promised.” Angel never wasted words but the lack of greeting belied just how anxious this meeting made her. The deal was a chest of our gold- acquired by Kazim some hundred-ish years ago from the late patriarch of these very wolves. Now that we were head of our coven, we could return what had been stolen but it didn’t mean we would do it out of benevolence. This was a trade. Power for wealth.

The first wolf, easily the largest, tossed his head back and howled into the night, followed by the rest that surrounded us before their voices bombarded our minds.

Follow.

Follow.

Follow.

Vampires were telepathic. We heard the voices of other species easily and found the voices of humans the most soothing and tempting. It was hard to pry our minds from theirs. But to hear a werewolf’s inner voice felt like the screeching of metal and heat. We hated each other instinctively but even this basic aspect of theirs had my teeth on edge. This union was unnatural, and my fangs sharpened on instinct.

They led us through their woods, navigating us around pitfalls and cliffaces that would have had us plummeting to our deaths without them. Azul stuck close to Angel, baring her teeth if any of the wolves got too close but I used my time to silently observe them. It had been a long time since I'd seen a wolf, especially one as large as these. I'm tall and normally, wolves come to my mid chest. But the leader’s muzzle was eye level and our strength more comparable than I'd like. His dark eyes slit towards me as we walked, sensing me stiffen with tension but said nothing more.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

When we broke into their camp, night was at its deepest and the moon bathed my face in power. It was risky for them to meet with us in the middle of the night, welcoming us into the heart of their cocoon. They were familial, so this place was the bed of their families. But I glanced over their cabins and open fires with disdain. Other werewolf packs had estates, but there was no status here. These wolves were living like refugees.

Angel, I began but she hushed me, already aware this was beneath us. If they truly harbored the power of a god they wouldn't be living in squalor.

We were led to a large fire with wolves shifted and their slender bodies hunched, the flames illuminating bones and rib cages. They could hunt in these woods so I wasn't sure why they were starving but the way the little ones turned expectant eyes up to regard us had me reevaluating. These weren't the eyes of the hungry. I knew hunger.

Their leader shifted into human form with a crack of bone and the scent of sulfur in the air that made my stomach roil.

“Welcome.” He looked emaciated but the way he held himself was too sure, too strong. There wasn't a hint of desperation to his movements, the weary drag of hunger hunting him as he walked…

“Glamour,” I frowned. He grinned with a barring of teeth,“Precisely.”

My eyes narrowed, scanning the trees around us as minutely as possible. Witches liked high perches, gnarled knuckles more at home in bark than cotton. I didn't sense movement in the canopy but that meant nothing. A witch could conjure stillness. A witch could boil a brew so powerful it left all our senses deadened. I glared at this alpha. And they never did anything for free.

“What’s their price?”

“Nothing of import.”

“Oh don't be stupid,” Azul sneered, eyes blackened and protruding veins staining her cheeks. Her fangs were viperous, claws extended needles, and I noted the clip of hunger in her words, “You can't expect us to trust you now.”

The alpha grinned and clapped, “But you're not here for trust, are you?”

No, we weren't. We were here for our god and wouldn't stay a moment longer. Azul noted my expression and silenced but only just barely, turning to glare at her mate instead. We would cede to whatever our general decided. A potential witch working with these wolves was much more than we'd bargained for and as Angel stepped forwards, eyes serpentine slits, she confirmed what I suspected. “Dimitri.”

His pupils dialated at the sound of her voice. His hair shuddered. Eyes rolled back. His tongue wet his lips before he turned to her, enraptured. This had never been a game for Angel, some simple exercise to test our new gifts like it'd been for me. Her charms from Selina weren't as flashy as mine but her lips could paint madness on a man. I watched as he crumpled before her, casting his mind from his people as he beheld our Angel of Calamity. He stared upon his queen, overcome, eager to please-

“Rise, you dog.”

He lifted his head and she plunged her hand into his chest, tearing out his heart and casting it into the fire. He had wasted her time and contrary to popular belief it wasn't always me who snapped.

Angel spun, blood dotting her lashes and lips in violent promise, “Now take me to him.”

The rest of the wolves cowered. All except one, a woman and most likely the alpha’s mate. I didn't want to question my sister in arms as to why she felt the need to kill the alpha in front of his entire family, but when they all shifted into beasts three times their size, the tingle of battle was all I cared about. Angel’s compulsion, amplified by the Elvish tome, was one of the strongest our race had seen in generations and it could snuff out flames of independence with such finality it rattled those who bore witness. But, when she turned a withering gaze on these craggle of werewolves she didn't say a word.

In the old days, Angel would command multiple at once, puppeteering souls with ease and fashioning a small battalion of human shields she brought into battle with her. But ever since Kazim, she'd been different - rougher. The three of us knew it didn't matter if our race was strong, only if we could defend ourselves within it. I'd been born into one of the most barbarous races on the planet but Angel had been changed into this. She’d been inducted- made. I remembered who she'd been before her vampirism and wondered belatedly if we’d been forced to change too fast too soon.

“I'm tired,” she muttered, “and I've had a taste, so I won't stop. If battle is what you wish then rush towards your demise. But I'm here for what I was promised.”

Truthfully, there were many types of witches. We couldn't be sure these wolves were working with a corrupted one. It was old prejudice to assume the witch that had granted this pack a glamour to conceal the strength they'd been siphoning from their slumbering god had demanded a blood debt for her work. But we'd walked in here willingly, lured by the promise of blood so potent one sip was enough to sustain a vampire for weeks. So in our defense, it was a valid prejudice. Witches were the unpredictable foe of vampires. They'd created the hunters seven hundred years ago and we'd been hunting witches to extinction ever since. It wouldn't be above one to use a pack of werewolves to capture three vampire queens, granting them access to an entire coven. Our coven is telepathically linked so if we go down, it'll be felt across the hemisphere. But I’m not foolish enough to believe, if this is indeed a kidnapping, that they don't have contingencies in place in case they can't overpower us.

Angel has killed the alpha, I told our Elvish mage, fangs lengthening, So you should search for the god from above. They're not going to help us now.

I could have told her about the suspected witch in the trees but I worried it'd deviate her from our purpose. Between the three of us, Selina despised witches with an unnamed hatred. Something had happened to her in her past she refused to discuss and of course I didn't press but knowing there might be one in these trees would send her into a hunt. We really didn't have time for that.

“Angel, please,” This was devolving rapidly, but maybe there was a way to salvage the meeting without eradicating the entire werewolf pack. There had to be repercussions for that. Right? I tried again with some morality, “We don’t need to kill them unless they’re working with a witch.”

The Alpha’s mate barred her teeth and I barred mine right back. “Don’t tempt me, bitch. I have one of your own in my castle who’s just learned the pleasure of my teeth. I’d hate to cheat on her.”

That shut her up. I rubbed my cold hands together and a spark of magic jumped between them, illuminating us in a stark neon blue before disappearing. Angel’s eyes slit towards me and she nodded minutely. We were going to try and keep our heads about us.

The alpha’s wife had a shock of brown hair ringing her head like a lion’s mane and I noted that her coloring was unique from the rest of the pack’s charcoal. She begun to shift back to human and I glanced at the moon. Did wolves always shift this much and this fast? This was two or three changes in the span of minutes.

“Mmm,” I licked my lips. I hadn’t truly expected this god to be everything Angel had claimed it could be but these werewolves were leagues stronger than any I’d encountered in my hundreds of years.

When the last of her joints popped into place she regarded us with nothing but contempt and said, “I am Paro, Omega of this pack, and now…leader.” Her words wavered and gaze darted to her fallen mate before she hardened once more, “We will show you what we promised but you will not harm our witch or any more of my pack.”

Azul folded her arms and nodded, but disquiet swept through our party. Paro had just confirmed there was a witch present which could mean terrible things for us if we weren't vigilant. Angel’s eyes swept the porches of their cabins, eyeing the wooden beams for strange carved symbols. I glanced into the canopy, itching to set it on fire if only to save me the paranoia. Angel moved forwards, following after Paro and the rest of the wolves who'd moved deeper into the trees, but Azul siddled closer to me as we walked.

I don't like this. Angel is blinded by this promised god.

That's why you're here, Azul. To temper her and protect her. It was obvious Angel was power hungry, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. What concerned me was her lack of restraint. She was the only one of us who had tasted this thing but it was all she'd been able to talk about for the weeks leading up to this trip.

She's not listening to me. It was a confession I didn't want and Azul’s face reddened in shame. As mates there had never been a moment of fracturing between them since Azul's conversion. Now, I had no desire to jump in the middle of this lover's quarrel, especially when they'd insisted on being monogamous- but what a headache.

Maybe she knows you've been feeding from me and is jealous. Though the idea was ludicrous and dismissed as soon as uttered. We didn't get jealous of one another. We’d been alive for hundreds of years and promiscuous for just as long.

She wouldn't care about that. She doesn't care about me at all. All she can talk about is this…this THING.

I frowned and glanced at Angel’s retreating back.

Untrue, and you know it, Sapphire.

I’m right and I know it, Mistress.

She was silent then, and I gnawed my lip in worry as we plunged deeper into their darkness, deeper than any human or vampire had ventured in years. This was werewolf country and the longer we walked the more wolves I noticed. At first, we’d been surrounded by tens…fifteens… but my nose was blinded by the spices of these trees and the shadows of their fur- streaks of onyx, pepper in the snow- dipped dizzyingly in and out of view. I suspected there were hundreds now in our silent procession. And they were silent as we walked, no errant huff of breath, no shake of fur or chuff between them. I felt more alone the deeper we walked and my fingers itched, eyes darting back into the canopy, wary of the skies as well.

If anything happened to us, it would be my fault. I'd been the final vote. Angel couldn't be deterred, she would have come back regardless, with or without us- she was that incredibly stubborn. But I'd chosen to bring the rest of my tribe into this, to protect her. She needed us, despite her insistence she was stronger alone and I-

A growl grew in the back of my throat and Angel turned to look at me. It was a brief look that held the weight of years. I remembered how brittle her fingers had felt in my grip when I'd pulled her out of her coffin before we'd killed Kazim and changed the world for the better. She must have remembered then, the face of my anguish when I'd converted her- saved her instead of killing her as I'd been bidden to do. We were linked by our sins and this time, in the cold dark of Russia her fiery halo of red hair was a premonition against the darkness of the forest around us. Blood was in her gaze, in her lashes, in her hair.

I don't like this. I confessed to someone. Anyone. But she did not reply.

Here. Paro stopped before a cliff and I craned to peer into the abyss. The drop was several meters down, a fall that would shatter the spine, dent the skull- a slip that could easily be a splatter, though the bottom was unseen. The moonlight slipped over my shoulders, ghosting over my cheeks and smoothing my edges and I breathed a shallow breath of the frigid winter.

Angel cast a suspicious glance at the Omega, Down there?

Paro nodded, backing away slowly with a grin. Past her, her wolves formed an impenetrable wall at her back lining the ring of trees surrounding the chasm and bracketing us in. We were trapped between the darkness below and the impenetrable wall of teeth behind us, but we didn't have anywhere to run regardless. We didn't intend to. My eyes met Azul's and then Angel’s. We needed to be smart about this but already I could see the hunger in the way Angel’s lips pulled back from her fangs in a grin.

Seline, we've found it.

I'm here.

The clouds parted and a silhouette passed over us. My mage of evil.

“I’ll be going first,” Angel laughed and then tipped backwards, over the edge, and disappeared into the mist below.

Azul lunged to catch her but she was too late. Her fingers wrapped around vapor. Our queen tumbled out of grasp. Gone was the opportunity to do things together. Someone needed to stay topside but judging the way Azul’s teeth ground together, it couldn't be her. Someone levelheaded needed to go after Angel and Azul was everything but.

“Stay-”

“I know.” She didn't meet my eyes. This was going to be such an annoying ride home.

I’m going down. Watch our girl while I'm gone. I don't trust these wolves, Seline.

There's so many of them. And I think I see something in the-

I dropped down into the darkness, the wind ripping tears from my eyes. My stomach jumped into my throat and weightlessness stole all thoughts from mind until there was only the fall. It was much further down than I'd suspected. The sky above vanished, the moonlight void, and I landed badly, slamming into the earth with a crack. My bones held of course but the rattle gnashed my teeth and knocked the wind from my chest. When I finally gathered myself, Angel was nowhere to be found. There was nothing. Nothing but a bloody altar and a smattering of crow corpses littered in the dust. The land was devoid of life, and as if I'd passed into a dome- all sound muffled. The moon’s rays didn't reach down here. I'd expected a massive corpse, a body, something to sink my teeth into, but as I approached the altar the chill in the air made me rethink everything that had led to this moment.

Angel. My voice sounded muffled to my own ears and I twisted my lips. Whatever was at work down here didn't allow for communication of any sort. It could be the work of a god but I'd never met one and I refused to pray to one now.

“Sif tum-” The words withered like dried flowers in my throat until all that escaped was a rasp. I tried to speak the spell that'd just given me power, tried to force the command past dried lips that’d drowned me moments before, only to be left thirsty. No spells. No telekinesis. I thought I'd landed wrongly before but my knees ached and it'd been several several years since anything about my body had ached. So something godly was down here. Something with magic strong enough to dampen mine. For the first time since touching down in this forest, true disquiet swept through me and the clutches of panic halted the breath in my lungs.

“Angel.”

No answer.

“Selina.” I sounded pathetic, hollow, and the way my voice wavered made my fists tighten. I'd killed a Vampire King. I'd tugged the Isadora up out of squalor and was intent on ushering our race of women into prosperity but I hadn't done it alone. I hadn't been alone in a very very long time and the way this cavern made old insecurities surge shamed me.

And I'd stupidly jumped before Selina had finished her warning. Maybe it was this place. Maybe it was their witch. Regardless, I approached the altar, shaken. I couldn't linger, but the slab in the center of this forsaken place was magnetizing in a way only the weak could be tempted.

It was marble precisely cut, the circumference of two men toe to head. The bodies of the birds littered around the altar were bloodless and intact, bent toes curled in the air and beaks parted mid scream. One singular rune marked the center of the disk, leaking blood, pooling it onto the floor, a lake submerging the soles of my boots. "Eartheater", it said.

Eartheater, my blood thrummed.