Bedeviled (25 page)

Chapter Forty

R
yker couldn't pull his gaze off the spot where Kyana went down. The pure Vampyre spilled onto the beach behind her, their numbers so great that their stark white bodies illuminated the moonless night. Their hisses and growls, combined with the leathery scraping of their wings, blocked out the sound of the waves crashing on the beach and muffled Ares's demands that Ryker stay back.

If he didn't act fast, the creatures would be upon Kyana's fallen body in mere moments. He concentrated all his energy inward. His body warmed and his eyesight became sharper as the power within him took over.

He held his hands out before him, prepared to stop Haven despite Kyana's wishes, but one look into Haven's frightened face told him she was once again their friend.

Shifting his energies, he focused his mind and knocked the three beasts closest to her back into the jungle, giving her time to reach his side. It was all he could do. Going to her, getting closer to the domain of the pure evil emerging from the trees would kill him.

Get up, Ky. Get the hell up!

But she wasn't moving.

He shoved Haven toward Ares. “Draw your circle. I have to get Kyana, and you better be ready when I get back.”

“If you go after her, you're dead,” Ares said.

“She needs help. I'm not leaving her.”

He waved his hands, causing several more Vampyre to go flying backward as he slowly inched his way forward. “Just be ready to port when I return.”

“Those things will kill you too,” Haven said.

He didn't want to look at her. She was standing here, safe, while Kyana was lying helpless in the sand. He wanted them to change places . . .
now.

As he inched forward, his chest tightened with each millimeter he traveled. The sheer number of the Vampyre was staggering. For every three he sent flying, ten more charged at them. He doubted he could make his way to where Kyana's body lay and back to Ares before the nearness of the creatures alone killed him, but he had to try.

The fear on Haven's face vanished. The tears stopped. She pushed to her feet, and before either man could react, pulled Ares's sword from the sheath at his waist and ran past Ryker.

“What are you doing?” he roared.

“I'm the only one who can get close enough to help her,” Haven said, already out of Ryker's reach. “Stay here!”

Like hell. If anything happened to Haven now, Kyana would kick his ass when all this was over. He followed slowly behind Haven, mentally pushing back a few Dark Breeds at a time, giving him room to move farther and farther as Haven pushed on toward Kyana's unmoving body.

Each step became more difficult. Each breath more labored. The pain in his chest threatened to cripple him, but he didn't stop.

He made it another three feet when he heard Haven scream. Shifting, he saw the Vampyre surround her, stepping between her and Kyana. Why weren't they attacking Ky? She was vulnerable. A sitting duck and easy prey. Yet they ignored her completely, even seeming to purposely avoid going near her body.

He moved toward Haven as quickly as his body would allow, his gaze catching a glimpse of the Eyes of Power lying beside Ky's body.

That was why they weren't touching her. She was protected by the conduits.

Haven screamed again, thrusting Ares's sword upward as a pair of leathery wings wrapped around her. He pushed the creature backward with his mind, but the Vampyre dragged Haven back with it.

As Ryker approached, the one holding Haven bared its teeth. Its hiss of warning was like a rancid punch in the chest. He didn't give himself time to consider what touching that thing would do to him. Turning his focus inward, he gritted his teeth against the electric charges suddenly humming through his blood. He fed it, focused on it until it surfaced to his skin.

Then, reaching out and with both hands, he gripped the Vampyre's head and released the power. The monstrous face began to smoke. It opened its enormous mouth to let out a piercing scream just before its head went up in flames.

Ryker's fingers burned, and he lifted his hands overhead and shot off the lingering magic before it could incinerate
him
. Around him, a bubble of light exploded as three waves of electricity burst from his hands and destroyed the beasts approaching from all sides.

It only managed to clear about five feet of space around them, but it was enough room to extract Haven from the suffocating wings still bound around her face from the headless corpse.

When she was safe, Ryker collapsed onto his back, blackness clouding his mind like an impenetrable fog. The nearness of the Vamps was too much, stealing every second heartbeat and making it hard to remember that he was supposed to be running. Saving Haven and himself.

Saving Ky.

“Get the hell up!” Haven screamed at him, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him into a sitting position. “I can't carry you both back!”

He blinked, desperate to clear his vision, then wished he hadn't. His gaze was locked on the woods. So many Vampyre spilled onto the beach that they blocked the jungle from view. There was no way he could use his powers to keep that many Dark Breed off them.

He struggled to stand, fought to breathe. He heard Ares shouting his name, and knew even the God of War could not fight back this enemy.

Thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flickered out of the sky. Three bolts smacked the forest not fifty feet away, felling a copse of trees to his right. Another bolt punctured the sky and pierced the heart of a palm ahead of him, unearthing the tree so that it landed with a loud boom and crashed into the brush at its roots. Then, like pearls on a broken necklace, the forest began to pop. One tree after the next, exploding from the inside out, raining leaves and bark down upon the beach.

Ryker lifted his arm to protect his head, searching for the source of the chaos. Had Cronos fully risen? Was he doing this?

“Get down!” he yelled, forcing his own body back to the sand.

What the fuck was going on?

Belly-crawling his way behind a small dune, he squeezed his eyes shut to protect them from the debris. He had to get to Kyana. But each time he moved, another tree was uprooted, was suddenly on the beach or in the ocean.

Then, everything was quiet. Not even the sound of the Vampyre broke the silence.

Ryker opened his eyes and lifted himself to peer over the top of the dune. The creatures stood close enough that he could smell them, but he and Haven no longer held their undivided attention. One of the larger beasts turned to stare into the distance. The others seemed to watch it, waiting to see what it would do.

The brewing storm continued to build, turning the crisp coral and blue sunset to charcoal gray. Ryker squinted against the flying sand to see what held the Vampyres' attention. When his gaze finally found the source of the commotion, he forgot how to breathe.

He blinked twice to make sure he wasn't imagining things. The weight lifted from his chest and he found himself smiling.

Kyana
.

She was standing where she'd fallen, wind whipping her hair about her face. The goddess aura lit her eyes, spilling forward to make her skin glow as she hovered an inch off the sand. Artemis's powers were filling her, and Ryker swore he saw a black fog waft away from her body, the remnants of the Half-Breed she'd been for the last two hundred years leaving her forever.

The golden aura continued to pulse until her body could no longer contain it and it seeped outward to surround her. His mesmerized paralysis broke as a loud, eerie howl shattered the calm. As one, Vampyre charged toward them again.

Kyana moved so quickly, she appeared to float even higher above the sand. Shocked, he couldn't take his gaze off her. He'd never seen anyone move so fast.

She stopped in front of him and raised her hands heavenward. She gripped Zeus's staff—
his
staff—in both hands, and thrust it skyward. The storm intensified. Lightning crackled so fast and so loud, he couldn't tell when one bolt ended and another began. The hum of electricity caused the hair on his arms to stand on end. The wind and rain pummeled him, and still he couldn't take his eyes off Kyana.

The glow around her swelled, pulsing from the tip of the conduit she wielded like a pro. Her lips moved, but her words were lost in the wind. She opened her eyes and held the staff in front of her. Lightning flashed from the jeweled tip, nearly blinding him. The pulsing energy changed to bright white light, and it was then that Ryker understood.

It wasn't light she was summoning. It was the sun.

Cursing, Ryker pivoted and ran like mad toward Haven, fighting every aching organ in his body to grab her by the arm and take her safely away.

“No!” Haven screamed. “Don't leave her!”

“If those rays touch you, you're dead!” He shoved her toward Ares, who had returned to making his circle, then once more faced the beach.

The rays of sunlight lit up the area around them like a golden bubble, just inches from turning Haven into fireplace debris. The staff shook violently in Kyana's hands, but she held tight, turning slowly, aiming the deadly rays at the circling enemy.

As Ryker ran for her, hundreds of Dark Breeds burst, combusted, died. Ashes fell atop the sand like a gray blanket. Not a single body part was left behind. The filth filled his nostrils, clogged his throat, coated his hair and skin as he ran. The pain easing, the need to get to Kyana, to make sure she was safe, was all he cared about.

The Vampyre that were still able fled back into the jungle, removing the last bits of constriction in Ryker's chest. He stumbled when the weight of their evil left him, crashing into the sand and rolling back to his feet.

Standing again, he found Kyana an inch away, a smile making her face glow more radiantly than the sun she'd created as she lowered the conduit and thrust it toward him.

“I believe this belongs to you.”

He took it from her, wincing as the heat from the staff made his skin sizzle. He might carry Zeus's blood, but because his transformation wasn't yet complete, he couldn't wield it as Kyana had. He tucked it under his arm, letting his shirt provide a barrier and leaving his hands free to support her as she leaned heavily against him. All her strength, all her power had been expended in her one show of glory. Heat was radiating off her body like steam.

He had no idea what to say. He was stupefied, in awe, totally impressed, and couldn't find one single word to say that wouldn't make him sound like a moron.

“Can we get off this damned beach now?” she asked. “ 'Cause I don't think I can do that again.”

Smiling, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulled her to him, and kissed her. It was neither the time nor the place, but damn it, he'd come so close to losing her. Thought, in fact, that he had. Who the hell cared if Ares was watching? She was alive and felt so good pressed against him that he didn't want to ever let her go.

Reluctantly, he let her slide away, let logic back into his own mind and led them back to where Ares stood on the shore. Kyana hadn't destroyed all the Vampyre here. Once the magically conjured sunlight disappeared again, they would return, hungrier than before.

“Get us home, Ares,” he said, stepping back so Kyana could stand within reach of the god for the port home.

She stepped forward and held out the other Eyes of Power to Ares.

He shook his head and stepped backward. “Goddess. I can't think of anyone better charged with taking these home safely than you.”

Chapter Forty-One

K
yana studied the group around her, her body feeling foreign and tingly and all wrong. What she'd just done had astounded her, and yet she certainly didn't feel as though she deserved the looks of awe directed at her now.

She'd nearly died back there, and when her hands had reached for Zeus's staff, they hadn't felt like her own. It hadn't been her mind conjuring ancient words she'd somehow understood. It had been Artemis. The goddess's powers belonged to Kyana now, and she wasn't quite sure how she felt about that. It was like waking up and finding you'd stepped into your mother's skin, her life. Familiar, yet so damned wrong.

“Stop staring at me,” she muttered. Ryker and Haven quickly returned their attention to Ares and his porting circle.

She wanted off this island more than she wanted air, but she had to tell them . . . had to confess that their pride in her was misplaced. She'd failed. Haven was safe, true, but Cronos had risen. Somewhere on this island, the most evil and powerful of all gods was being reborn.

She wrapped Hades's amulet around her neck and tucked the trident under her arm. Wherever Cronos was, he had his ring back, and there was nothing she could do about that now. The damage had been done.

“He . . . disappeared with the ring.”

Ares froze, his circle forgotten. “He has risen?”

“I raised him. I didn't want to . . .” Haven whispered. “As long as he has that ring, he cannot be stopped.”

Ares looked as though he wanted to drown Haven.

Kyana might have too, if she hadn't seen for herself how horribly Cronos had already made her suffer.

She couldn't think about this anymore. Couldn't strategize or contemplate. All she wanted to do was sleep and breathe and figure out how to be who she'd become and mourn the person she no longer was.

“Please,” she whispered to Ares. “Get us off this island.”

Ryker took her hand and they waited for Ares to finish creating his port. She felt him stroke the backs of her fingers and closed her eyes. His touch was so comforting and warm that it was hard to remember she was freezing all the way to her marrow.

“Cronos can't get off the island without a port, Ky. Remember? Risen or not, he couldn't escape it then, and he can't escape it now. Our main priority is returning the amulet and the trident to their rightful owners. Once Geoff, Silas, and I can tend our duties as we're meant to, the human world can begin real reconstruction.”

Ares gave them a look that told them the time for talking was over. Now, he'd need silence to finish the port, and soon, they'd be back in St. Augustine, away from this hellhole, and they'd have to explain everything that had gone wrong here today.

“You okay?” Ryker whispered in her ear.

“Hush. You'll make him steer us off course.”

He smiled and squeezed her waist. Together, they each stepped inside the circle and placed their hands on Ares's shoulders just seconds before the vortex opened and sucked them in.

The blindness that kept her eyeballs from bursting from their sockets was different this time. Colors so bright she could make out the reds and blues and greens rushing past her even though she couldn't open her eyes. They seemed to be trying to pull her hand away from Ares. Only Ryker's fingers tightly laced with hers kept her from panicking and giving in to the hypnotic pull. Yank yank, pull pull. She'd never felt this resistance before.

The flashes of light slowed and they fell down, down, down. Cold water washed over her, dragging her under and stealing her breath. Someone grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her back to the surface.

“
Libero
.”

Kyana blinked against the salt burning her eyes as she took in their landing strip with exhausted exasperation. She turned to glare to Ryker. “I knew you were going to send Ares off course! We're in the middle of the damned ocean.”

“We're not in the middle,” Ares said, spitting out a mouthful of seawater. He pointed behind Kyana. “Lighthouse is a couple dozen yards that way.”

He wasn't about to get off that easy. “
Ryker
never dropped us in the middle of the ocean.”

By the time they climbed the slippery rocks of the jetty, Kyana had almost forgotten about the odd sensation of the lights trying to pull her out of the vortex. She shivered against the wind and looked out over the vastness of the sea. Something felt out of place, but though her eyes had no trouble penetrating the darkness, she couldn't detect anything that might explain away the odd sensations.

“You all right?”

Chalking it up to her emotions being stuck in overdrive, she nodded. “Yep. Wet, tired, and cold. Just peachy.”

She refused to allow the weight of what was to come settle around her shoulders. There'd be time to worry about that later.

She turned to Ares who was gripping Haven's arm tightly enough that bruises were already forming on her pale skin. Her gaze slowly met Haven's, and she felt a wash of gratitude that they'd both made it out alive. Scarred, for sure—no one could endure all that Haven had and not be touched brutally. But she was alive. Deep down, Kyana hadn't been sure that outcome would have been possible.

“Haven—” she started.

“Kyana.” Haven made no apology for her interruption. “No more games. I won't fight against the punishment I deserve, don't worry.”

Her face was ashen, and Kyana wished she knew how to comfort her. Despite that it had been Cronos holding the reins on Haven, she'd still be forced to stand trial. The Order couldn't be certain when the possession had first occurred, and there were dead Mystics who deserved justice. If Haven had killed them of her own accord, she would be punished. Severely. There was nothing Kyana could do to prevent that.

She looked at Ares. “Take her. Gently.” To Haven, she added, “We'll speak once I've talked to the Ancients. They need to know all that happened here today. That Cronos . . . is alive.”

When Ares led Haven away, Ryker pulled Kyana into his arms. “What about me? What can I do for you?”

She smiled against his chest, though what she really wanted to do was weep. “You're finally going to get to give me that piggyback ride.”