Chapter 8

Warmth spread through not only Nickie’s mind, but her entire body. A pulse, slow and steady, lulled her deeper into herself. Zenon was there, but she wasn’t afraid. Feather light strokes brushed at her consciousness, her memories, her thoughts, but rather than feeling violated as she’d feared, a deep sense of connection formed with each caress. A bond. The strength of it solidified in her brain until she could almost see a path leading back to him in her mind’s eye.

“I will release some memories to you now,” he whispered.

It took a second for her to realize she hadn’t heard the words with her ears, but in her head. Her heart rate kicked up a notch. She didn’t want to break their connection by leaving her center, but she didn’t know how to do this.

We should have discussed it before we started. I don’t know how to talk into someone’s mind, she admonished herself.

“With a thought. You’ve already done it. I can hear what you think just as you will learn to hear me over time,” Zenon replied.

Okay, that’s a little invasive.

“Perhaps. Also, very intimate, but you will learn to control it. You will allow certain things through while keeping others to yourself.”

Nickie stilled her thoughts. She needed a second to breathe—to process.

“While you do that, I will trickle information into you. Tell me to stop if it becomes overwhelming,” Zenon said into her mind, proving she hadn’t been successful in keeping her words from projecting to him.

“Crap. I’m not very good at this,” she said, not bothering to try to censor herself.

His deep chuckle filled her. “You don’t expect an infant to know how to form sentences with their first words. This is no different. It is a skill that must be learned and practiced.”

Before she could respond, an odd tingling buzzed inside her head—not unpleasant, but different. A picture, fuzzy at first, came to her mind’s eye. A meadow with a castle built onto the hillside. Small, fluffy clouds floating in an otherwise bright blue sky. But it was more than an image. Birds chirped happy songs nearby, filling her with peace and contentment. It was like she was home and had missed being there, but she’d never seen such a beautiful place, much less lived there. She took a deep breath, relishing the scent of wildflowers, knowing it would be there on the breeze, even before she sought out the vision of them in the field around her.

No electrical wires detracted from the scene. No noise other than that of the birds and the wind whispering through the grass filled the silence. “This was your home, wasn’t it?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Aye.”

Nickie didn’t have to share the memory with him to hear the wistfulness in his tone. The longing. It was inside her like a living, breathing thing. The need so deep, she struggled not to rub at the ache in her chest.

The image faded, and a new one came to take its place. This one inside a large room. Grey marble floors cooled her legs as she sat there, her arms flapping up and down. A shrill shriek tore from her lips, followed by a giggle. To her left, an infant sat looking back at her with drool dribbling down his chin. Shocking dark hair and slate grey eyes with flecks of blue stared back. An equally piercing squeal tore her gaze to her right to another baby with the same dark hair and same stormy eyes, only these held sparks of green. He mimicked her actions with his arms and kicked his chubby legs. She didn’t have to ask to know that the one on the right was Zandar and the more serious child on the left was Zechariah. “Triplets,” she whispered into Zenon’s mind.

“Yes, born minutes apart. Until our capture, we’d never spent more than a few hours away from one another.”

The ache in her chest deepened until she could hardly take a breath. It had been so long since she—no, since he—had seen his brothers. The loss pounded through her. In her mind, she sought something she couldn’t quite define, something that would allow her to breach the distance between them with her mind. But nothing fit. Swallowing her sob, she let the memory fade.

“We’ll find them,” she promised as much to herself as to him, because the bond he now had with his brothers linked her to them, as well. Not as deeply, maybe, but the loyalty and devotion Zenon held for them was now inside her, too.

More images flashed into her mind, too quickly for her to grasp and study as they flooded her. Had the information been fleeting, she might have stopped and taken more in, but she’d dip into them when they had more time. When she wasn’t so raw after absorbing a trickle of her mate’s devastation.

When another memory slowed, Nickie gasped. It wasn’t of a pretty meadow or gorgeous, little babies. It was a dark night. Lightning streaked across the sky. Heavy drops of rain fell upon her aching body. She sucked in a deep lungful of air, releasing it with a cough as smoke invaded her. Screams—pained, agonized cries—rent the night as villagers burned, adding to the nightmare. “No, please, this is my home. I do not wish to go,” a girl cried out as she was carried away by a burly marauder.

Nickie’s heart pounded and a yell lodged itself in her throat. She forced herself to her feet, ignoring the shake in her knees as she pushed forward. In the deepest recess of her mind, she knew the memory was not her own, but she lived it just the same. Her fingers tightened in Zenon’s, needing his strength and courage to continue.

“No. Stop, my Nickie,” she heard his distressed voice in the distance, but she couldn’t obey the command. She had to prevent the bastard from taking the girl. Because that’s what she was. A girl. Not yet fully grown. And she had no delusion about what happened to pretty little girls once bastards like the one who had her over his shoulder got their hands on them.

Fire licked up her arms before swallowing her whole. Her energy depleted, the shift took longer than it should have. The monster who had grabbed the child was almost at the edge of the village by the time she caught up, but it didn’t matter. She was phoenix, and she would stop him.

The glow of the flames surrounding her reached the man before she did, altering him to her presence. With a snarl, he whipped around and threw the child to the ground, uncaring that she landed hard. Not noticing the crack of bone against boulder as her head crashed into it—or the blistering silence that followed. With all the fury inside her and zero fear, Nickie charged. She reached for him, but rather than hands, long talons gripped around his waist, piercing his skin with the sharpness of her claws. Wings flapping, she flew high into the sky, not releasing her prey until the distance between them and the ground was far too great for him to maintain any hope of survival, regardless of the softness of where he landed. He would see his death coming and be powerless to stop it.

A new scene flashed before her, just as depraved and equally as real in her mind. Then another, and more still until they blurred. It didn’t matter that the memories were Zenon’s and from a distant past she would never live. The anguish ate at her soul, the fury scorching it, darkening it. Death. Blood. Devastation. Innocence lost. It all roiled together into one black ball of hurt she couldn’t escape.

Her fingers ached from gripping Zenon’s so tightly, but she didn’t dare let go. He was her rope—her tether. Without him grounding her, her mind would splinter under the pain, and she’d never find her way back from madness.

“Come back to me, Nickie,” Zenon half pleaded, half commanded, his voice more broken than it had been when she’d released his collar.

More than anything, she wanted to do as he asked. She had no desire to see any more, but without trying, the scenes embedded themselves into her psyche like a movie reel being played at high speed.

When a memory slowed and showed itself to her, she wept. Warm tears streaked tracks down her cheeks, but she couldn’t move to swipe them away.

“Nickie, please. Enough,” Zenon sobbed.

“I can’t stop it,” she admitted, even as the scene crystalized and became clearer in her mind.

A child cried, his grief a bitter taste on her tongue, drawing her to him. The sufferance in the sound was nothing new, but maybe she would get there in time, and he would be saved. Flying fast and hard, she followed the mournful noise to a clearing, finding the boy, no more than five, crouched over a still form at the center of the field.

Familiar dread suffused her entire being. She couldn’t save the boy’s mother, but the boy lived still. She could get him to safety. All was not lost. She landed a few feet away and shifted. The boy tore his big, blue-eyed gaze from his mother. Tears stained his dust covered cheeks. His golden curls whipped around his face with the breeze blowing through the field.

“Do you know where your father is?” she heard Zenon’s deep voice ask the boy.

This only made the kid whimper as he nodded his angelic head.

“I will take you to him. You will be safe.”

The boy shook his head so hard it had to hurt his delicate neck, then his eyes grew wider, and he stumbled back, tripping over his mother’s body.

In the time it took to whip around and look behind her, it was too late. Five men, with evil glinting in their eyes, circled her. One man, holding a long, curved blade, stabbed her in the abdomen. The fiery pain stole her breath. Blackened teeth showing, he grinned as he twisted the blade, slicing through her gut.

Nickie heard her own broken cry. On one level, she knew she was unharmed, yet the physical pain and mental anguish were all too real.

Darkness swarmed before her. Her heart beat too fast. It lost its rhythm. The same paralyzing fear she’d suffered each time she’d died shot through her. She was witnessing Zenon’s death, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

The slap of cold metal around her neck, followed by the strong jerk of the chain attached to it, kept her from surrendering to oblivion just yet. She fought to shift and take her phoenix form, but the beast did not respond.

“Enjoy your new home, phoenix,” the man who had speared her through sneered before turning to the child.

He raised his hand, and horror filled every part of her as the bastard’s blade came down, silencing the crying boy once and for all. A moment later, everything went black.

A scream tore from her throat. Zenon’s hand, still holding on to hers like a lifeline, shook. Aware of everything around her, yet unable to extricate herself from the nightmares playing in her mind, she tried to formulate words of reassurance, but they wouldn’t come. How he’d survived them the first time around, she’d never know. And now he was reliving them once more, through her.

When the next image flew into her mind, she braced herself for what was to come. He was collared. She recognized the field. Not that it looked the same, but she’d never forget that metal post. The chain.

The endless torture of solitude was only ever interrupted when a new creature was brought in to die. And it was more than she could bear. Fantastic beasts, dragons, centaurs, and even some she couldn’t recognize or give name to, came and went, leaving only the stench of rotting flesh in their wake once their bodies gave out.

Every few months, if a wicked creature didn’t show up to mutilate him first, Zenon’s body succumbed to death. Starvation, dehydration, and even the all-consuming defeat and hopelessness eventually killed him. And each time, in his last moments, she heard the same prayer whispered from his mind.

Let it be quick, let it be merciful, and please, if any of the Gods remain, let it be final.

Helpless, she watched as the last of his numerous demises came to her mind. The creature—snake-like, yet not—tore at his flesh with razor sharp teeth and feasted on him.

Great, heaving sobs tore from her. His broken body had given out just as they’d arrived. She’d barely made it to his side before his heart—and hers—surrendered to death. Shudders so violent she couldn’t control them shook her to her core as though she’d suffered a great trauma. Maybe she had.

Nickie couldn’t catch her breath as she became more aware and closer to the present. Her lungs burned, and her muscles ached with the coiled tension inside her. Her eyes popped open, and she managed to turn her head toward Zenon, but she couldn’t see. Dark spots danced in her field of vision. She tried to suck in air, but her body wouldn’t cooperate as the panic she’d fought so hard against finally set in.