Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the beautiful field of pink flowers explode into flame, too close to withstand my energy as it flared into an uncontrollable storm. They burned impotently against the sandy horizon as our very own fire burned within us. A loud boom exploded somewhere nearby and I saw chunks of earth scatter, falling around us from the sky. I had no idea where it had come from and I didn’t care at this point.
Brennan yanked at the button on his pants and I reached to help him, desperate to continue, to finish, but somehow sanity returned to me as I thought of that very word.
Finish.
If we completed this act, if I made love to this man- the man that I loved with every ounce of my being, it would finish him. He could die because we hadn’t learned to master our power.
I froze.
He reached for me, but I held out my hand.
“Don’t,” I rasped uncomfortably. “Give me a minute.”
I closed my eyes, willing my heart beat to calm, to slow, even as I willed myself to ignore the raging fire that had overtaken me the second his life had filled my mouth. This was my curse and I almost always won. I couldn’t afford to lose control with him. Not with him.
I opened my eyes a few minutes later, exhaling a long exasperated sigh.
“I’m sorry.”
He stared at me from a few feet away, his hazel eyes calm. His thumbs were looped through his belt loops and he stood casually, as if he hadn’t almost just died at my hands.
“I know,” he answered softly. “But this… this is why. Em, your mother was right. Together we are very, very dangerous. To each other and to everyone else in the world. Look behind you.”
I turned to find that we had created some sort of unnatural geyser. The earth around us had ripped apart and a geyser had erupted, shooting hot water from deep in the earth high in the sky above us. It landed in fat droplets around us, sizzling in the heat as it ran off the dry ground in hot streams.
“Em, I love you. But I don’t see this ending well. I can’t control myself around you and you get carried away when you are with me. How can that possibly end well? How can we ever learn to control such a thing?”
I heard the words and I knew he was right. Once I cast my innate spell, something that was even stronger when I was aroused, any man who I was with couldn’t resist me. They couldn’t think the better of it, even when they knew that being with me would kill them. And once the process had gotten to a certain point, I couldn’t control it either. One of these times, it would go too far and I would drain every ounce of life from his body before we could stop ourselves.
I swallowed hard, my gray eyes frozen on his beautiful, rugged face.
“I can’t let you go,” I whispered. “I know this is hard. But maybe if we tried harder…” my voice caught in my throat and I turned my head away from him. He didn’t need to see me cry.
I felt him step close to me and he turned my chin with a finger. So gently. He was always so gentle with me. I could still feel his life force pulsing, the current flowing directly beneath his skin, but I gritted my teeth and ignored it. I could do this.
“Em,” he murmured. “I want nothing more than to be with you. Every day, every night, forever.”
He paused and stared into my eyes. So close to me again, so trusting, so alive. I could hear his heart beating in his chest and I felt sweat form on my brow. I ground my teeth harder. I could do this. I wouldn’t hurt him. I automatically took a step back. I wouldn’t hurt him.
“Can you promise me that you can stop?” he asked. “Because that is the only way we could work. I know that I can’t control myself. I’m not strong enough yet. So you’d have to be the one. Can you go against your nature until we figure this out?”
His voice was both pained and painful and I turned my head. I stared away from him at the shooting power of the newly formed geyser. The moisture from it called to me, I could feel it from here. It replenished my energy, revitalized me.
Like men did. Only without men, without their vital energy, their blood…their souls, I would die. And Brennan knew that.
“I can’t,” I whispered harshly.
That wasn’t quite true. I could, for a few weeks at the most, but after that, I would quickly age into the ancient old woman that I should be by now. And then I would die.
“I know,” he nodded sadly. “And that is my point. We can’t have a happily ever after, so what is the sense in it? In all good conscious, how can we risk the entire world on something that we know we will probably fail at?”
My burning eyes filled with tears and I blinked them away. He was right. I knew he was right. But my heart didn’t agree. I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again. What was there to say? He was right. My head dropped and I stared dejectedly at the sand.
For just a scant moment until a vibrant glowing from my bracelet illuminated against the pale skin of my arm and snapped my head up. I gripped my wrist with shaking fingers.
“My father,” I stuttered, gazing around quickly. I was shaky and weak from the incident with Brennan, not an ideal time for an encounter with my murderous father.
Brennan immediately crouched into a defensive position in front of me, his alert eyes trained on the horizon. His bare torso was taut and glistened in the sun.
“He won’t lay a hand on you. I promise you that, Em.”
The protective tone in his voice constricted my heart, but I couldn’t dwell on it. Instead, I shifted my attention to the terrain around us. My mother materialized next to me, a shiny dagger in her hand.
“He will not touch you. I promise that, as well.” Her ivory cloak fluttered softly in the breeze around her, her blonde hair swaying in the wind. She didn’t look like a warrior, but I knew that she was very, very deadly. She turned her gaze to me and I saw determination in it.
“Empusa, join hands with Brennan. We’re going to need your combined power.”
“But mother, we don’t know how to harness it yet,” I started to protest, but she interrupted me.
“I know that, Em. But I’m here to help you now. Do as I say.”
She shoved me forward and I grabbed Brennan’s hand. Even in this moment, with danger surrounding us, I enjoyed the feel of his fingers. He squeezed my hand lightly and I knew that he shared the feeling.
“Show yourself, Mormo!” my mother shouted. “We know you’re here. And I know that you are not alone. Come out!”
In unison, Brennan and I turned to examine our perimeter, but the only thing moving was red sand blowing along the hardened ground. I couldn’t see my father’s cursed face anywhere.
“Where are you?” I shouted in frustration. “If you want me, you’ll have to come face me. Stop hiding like the coward that you are!”
“That’s it, sweetie, antagonize the bad guy,” Brennan said wryly without removing his gaze from the horizon.
“I can’t help it,” I muttered. “He’s made my life hell. It needs to end here. I can’t take it anymore.”
I could hear the pain in my own voice as it caught in my throat and Brennan froze for a second, his gaze meeting mine.
“Empusa… I—“ his voice caught as well and he cleared his throat.
“Empusa, I want you to know that I love you. No matter what happens, I love you and I need for you to know that.”
I squeezed his hand, almost unable to answer around the lump in my throat. “I know you do, Brennan. I love you too.”
“There’s time for that later, Empusa,” my mother admonished. “I need you to focus now. Do the seeking spell with me.”
But before either of us could utter a single word, a circle of women appeared high above us on the ledge of the canyon. Their fierce faces were trained on us, their muscles as large and toned as any man’s I’d ever seen. There must have been fifty of them, all dressed in thigh-length tunics and battle armor.
“The Amazons,” I breathed, as I focused in on the face of their queen, Ortrera. I’d met her once before in the Underworld when she was there with Harmonia searching for Raquel.
“Harmonia must have sent them, bless her heart,” my mother agreed.
I met the gaze of Ortrera and she nodded once in confirmation. Yes, Harmonia had sent them. They were here to help. Each of their arms was drawn back and I realized that they were each holding a bow and arrow, poised to shoot. I felt a tiny bit better. I had the goddess of witchcraft and an Amazon army on my side. My odds were looking up.
“The seeking spell, Empusa,” my mother reminded me hurriedly and I nodded. But once again, before we could utter a single word, we were interrupted.
“Empusa,” a loud and chilling voice boomed.
We frantically looked around us, but the voice had seemed to come from everywhere… and nowhere. Mormo was still nowhere to be found. I could see the Amazons searching from their higher vantage point, but not a one of us could see him.
“Did you really think you could hide from me, daughter?” the voice boomed again and icy chills shot down my spine, shivering into the depths of my soul. “The bargain that I made with Hades stands until it is changed and you aren’t strong enough to follow through with that. Your soul is mine.”
Brennan whirled me around and touched his forehead to mine.
“Don’t listen to him, Em,” he implored me. “Your soul does not belong to him. Are you listening to me? If it belongs to anyone besides you, then I would say that it belongs to me. And I was wrong earlier. I’m never going to let it go. Do you understand? We’ll handle whatever happens. Just stay with me. We’re strong enough. Fight with me.”
I stared at him in confusion. “What changed? Two minutes ago, you said we couldn’t be together. And now you want to stay and fight with me?”
He sighed. “We’ll talk about this at a… better time, but I can’t live without you. I don’t care how risky it is. I can’t physically do it.”
“That’s sweet,” my mother interrupted, “And I fully believe you, son of Apollo, but this is a conversation best left for later… when someone isn’t trying to destroy you.”
I swallowed and nodded. My mother was right and Brennan and I both knew it.
“I’ll fight with you,” I promised him. “I’ll fight for you until my dying breath.”
“No one is dying today,” my mother interrupted again, her voice grim and strong.
Your mother is right, a voice said in my head and I recognized it as Ortrera’s. My gaze flew to meet her hawkish stare. She sat perched high above me, her body still poised for a fight. But we need your attention here. Focus and stay strong. There is time for intimate conversation later.
I nodded in agreement and Ortrera appeared satisfied, returning her attention to the horizon, searching for Mormo…which is exactly what I should be doing. My eyes flitted along every rock, every plane, every hill. But I came up empty. He was nowhere to be found.
“Where is he?” I cried in frustration. “He’s here, but he’s not.”
“Your father has always been as a shadow,” my mother said quietly. “He flits in and out of reality as quickly as we walk through it. He’s skilled in that way. He is accustomed to balancing between the world of the living and the world of the dead.”