First And Last (2 page)

Misa laughed. “What’s there to understand? I told you repeatedly that we’re not what you think we are. Yes, we’re demons and must siphon souls to feed our world and our magic, but we disagree with our past leaders. We don’t want innocent souls taken.”

I had to laugh at the idea of such insanity. “You’re good evil guys?”

“Makes you like us, right?”

I did remember when she’d told me this awhile back but I thought she was totally nuts. The truth was, now, I did like her. Demons are the pure essence of evil and she denied her very own soul to live in kindness. That definitely put her on the side of the good guys. Still, none of this made any sense.

“Honestly, why have you chosen me? There were lots of powerful witches and warlocks here tonight. You could have picked any of them.”

Misa’s smile was shrewd. “Not as powerful as you. With you leading, it puts us in a position of great safety. No one can go up against you, which will keep our world and our wants, protected.”

Before I could process that, Zia said,
“She’s right, Nexi. You’ve grown undeniably strong. You shielded Kyden against Magic—used your shield on another. I still don’t believe it.”

My magic always did seem to be stronger with emotional motivation behind it so it really didn’t surprised me anymore that my powers exploded when I needed them most. Besides, my mind just couldn’t break away from how insane this all was. “But I have no experience with leading anything. I’m only twenty-four years old for gosh sakes. I can’t do this.”

Azar placed a hand on my shoulder, his smile kind. “You were born to do this and we’ll be here to guide you.”

I waited a good ten breaths as I let my mind process the situation. It wasn’t going to go away and would happen whether I liked it or not. So, as they say, better face the music and find out exactly what they wanted from me. “Lay it on me then, what do I have to do?”

“First, we need to establish rules that your minions must adhere to.” Misa informed.

Suddenly, a horrific thought came to mind. “I don’t have to live here, do I?”

“You are the Ruler of the Underworld. You can do whatever you like—the rules are yours to make.”

My gaze met Kyden’s, relief palpable in my tone. “Well, that’s a bit of good news.”

“Indeed.”

“You can assign yourself minions to handle your daily duties, and to look after the world for you, if you don’t wish to live among us.” Misa continued.

Okay, easy decision. “I appoint you.”

“Me?” Misa gasped.

“Well yeah, you seem to know lots. You’ll do fine.” Better than I could do, and oddly, I trusted her. Yeah, I trusted a demon, never thought I’d see the day.

She started to bow, but I grabbed her arm quickly. “Please don’t. That’s just too weird.”

“As you wish, my…” she stopped herself and smiled. “Nexi.”

I smiled in return. Whoever guessed that I’d find a friend in Misa? I would never have thought it possible. Friends come from unusual places, and I couldn’t deny that when I looked at Misa, all I saw was a friend.

“We’ll be in nightly contact with you about situations that arise and matters you must deal with. It’d be my pleasure to act as your Siren to assist you and deal with most of the trouble without you. The role is normally given to a witch, but times have changed now, haven’t they?” Azar cut in.

“Great.” Maybe my involvement wouldn’t be as much as I thought. These two seemed to know what the hell they were doing. “So, you’ll only come to me if something really serious comes up?”

“As Siren, I’ll deal with anyone who goes against the laws you put forth. We’ll detain them here. Then, weekly you’ll need to come so they can stand before you.”

I sighed loud and proud. There went my whole plan to let everyone else handle it thing for me. “All right, got all that, so what do we do now?”

“We need to bring everyone back in so you can set in place the new rules.” Misa stated.

My gaze hit on every face here. “Er…I hope you are all going to help me with this?” I was glad to get a nod from each of them in return.

Half an hour later, we had rules to set the Underworld to rights. The crowd piled back into the auditorium and took their seats. Misa gave me a quick nod to begin.

“Here goes.” I said to Kyden, who gave my hand a squeeze before letting go. Nerves rattled me. Public speaking was never my strong suit. So, I made it quick.

“Rule one: No more taking innocent souls. Anyone who does will face destruction. Understood?” Every head nodded so I continued. “Only humans who have done something wrong, murder, rape, you know that kind of stuff. Those souls you can drain, and do whatever you want with, but that’s it.”

When a Demon drained a soul, it didn’t actually kill them, just weakened their life force—took a few years off. If they ruined lives, who cared that they’d die a little early. I sure didn’t.

“Rule two: If a human asks for something in return for giving his soul,” Which was how the majority of the souls were taken—given freely in exchange for something. “You cannot do anything evil. Got it? No hurting others, stealing, murder, anything that falls into those categories.”

I continued for what seemed like hours, until my mouth ran dry from talking. The rules were simple ones, we weren’t able to change the way of the Underworld, but we could run it along the same lines of the Otherworld. With the only difference being, I was the Council. What a big joke, right?

“I have put Misa in charge. So, anything needs to go through her.” Everyone nodded again. “Azar will now be my Siren. If there is trouble, go to him, and he’ll sort it out.” With that all said and done, I looked toward Azar. “You need to choose your…” I hesitated, searched for the right word, “…guard.”

Azar leaned in, his voice low. “Sorry, that’s your job. We’ll arrange for a challenge for you to choose who defends you.”

“Oh. Well, okay. We can do that.” I had no idea what I was doing and really hoped I didn’t look as ridiculous as I felt.

“Is that all then, Lady…I mean to say, Nexi?” Misa asked.

“Yes, that’ll do.” I glanced around the room and looked upon a few faces before me. “I guess I should probably thank you all. If it wasn’t for your support, things would’ve turned out very different.”

When Magnus called out for help, no one had given him aid. A couple of firm nods acknowledged me, but that was about it. I glanced back at Misa who smiled at me. “I guess that’s it, so can I go now?”

“You do not need to ask my permission,” she replied softly.

“Okay.” I walked back to Kyden and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go then.”

Everyone in the auditorium stood and bowed as Kyden and I walked, Zia and Talon followed. “Stop doing that.”

No one listened.

Zia chuckled and stepped alongside me. “Better get used to it, Lady Nexi.”

I scowled at her. “This is so
not
funny. I’m just glad I don’t have to really do anything. Anyways, it sounds like they want most of the things we do, so that’s good right?”

“We’re entering a new time. I never thought I would live to see the day when the Underworld joined the Otherworld in its endeavors.”

“Or that I’d be running it.” I had to laugh at the craziness of it.

“We always knew you were special. Drake and Tryianna would be proud of what you’ve become. Their daughter, the Ruler of the Underworld.” She laughed quietly. “They’d never have believed it.”

“Will I…do you think…” I searched for words.

She took my hand and smiled. “You’ll do fine. Not to worry, Sweetie, we’ll assist you. You won’t be alone in this.”

The second we reached the bottom of the hill, Kyden squeezed my hand while Zia did the same to the other in preparation for the coming teleportation. That’s how the portal works. Wherever you come in, you only need to go back to that same place and think of home.

A moment later, it hit. My breath sucked into my body as my eyes closed for the force of it. When the air quieted and I could breathe again, I opened my eyes, glad to be back in the Council’s Foyer. The portal belonged in the Otherworld, and was a thick wooden door that sat in a room better described as Kings Chamber than a Foyer. I never could understand why they called it that.

My gaze immediately landed on Kyden’s. “Home, sweet home.”

He smiled, wrapped his arm around my waist and opened his mouth to speak but I put a hand up to silence him.

“I have been a mess. Do you know what you’ve done to me?”
Willow’s annoyed voice rang through my mind.

My familiar had probably been in hell these last few hours. As my protector, we’re always connected in mind, therefore, she would have known everything that happened through my eyes. It’s the way she could sense if I was in danger and protect me. However, since she was unable to enter the Underworld, she couldn’t do anything about it. It must have been hard.

I picked her up and snuggled my face into her black fur. “I’m sorry, Willow. You must have had a rough go of things.” My tone came out sarcastic, but I could tell from her purr that she knew how happy I was to be back here with her. She felt whatever I did.

As I placed Willow back on her paws, another person I loved came to my mind. She would have gone through hell these past couple of nights too.

“Haven.” My soul-sister, the equivalent to a soul-mate, but without the romantic junk. We are sisters destined to be together and can sense what the other feels. Usually, it annoyed me that I couldn’t feel anything without her coming to investigate, but right now, all I knew was that I needed her. “Where is she?” I asked Zia.

“Finn took her home to sleep,” Zia answered. “I’ll come with you and we’ll wake her.”

“I’ll go and inform the others of what has taken place.” Talon said, as he leaned in and kissed my cheek. He glowed with happiness. He hadn’t lost his son, and I could tell from the look in his eye that he was just as happy not to lose his daughter. Warm fuzzies spread through me.

With Talon on his way into the Council’s Hall, Kyden kept my hand tight in his as we walked toward the Witches House located at the east side of the castle. It was a blessing that it is not too far from the Guardians House since the Gothic castle was big enough to get lost in—it’d happened on numerous occasions in fact.

The entrance to the Witches House was marked with the word
Witch
etched into the stone wall. Suddenly, urgency ripped through me. The memory of her in pain, how cold I was to her, overtook my thoughts. I needed to get to her.

I released Kyden’s hand and ran for Haven’s door. Luckily, it was only a few doors down. Once there, I grabbed the handle and flung it open to find Finn sitting on the couch, his head in his hands.

His gaze immediately snapped up and he was off the couch in a second flat. His slender muscled body tightened tremendously as this surfer babe’s expression shifted to confusion. “Nexi?” Kyden stepped in next to me and leaned against the doorway. Finn looked like he saw a ghost. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. “Kyden,” he whispered.

“Yes, you fool.” Kyden laughed.

Finn ran at full speed toward us and lunged himself at Kyden. The second they thudded to the ground, he started laughing. “I expected to float right through you.”

Kyden chuckled along with him. “Mind getting off?”

Finn jumped up, reached his hand out for Kyden. He took it, hopped to his feet and embraced him in a tight man-hug. The two would never use words to say just how glad they were to see each other. Male pride and all, but I could see it written all over their expressions.

He released Kyden and latched onto me with a hug. “What happened?” he asked, backing away from me and glancing between Kyden and I.

“Let’s wake Haven first,” I said and moved into the living room. “I don’t want to have to repeat it.”

I headed past the kitchen and into the bedroom. When I entered, Haven looked so peaceful as she slept on the bed. I sat down next to her and took her hand. She is a ray of sunshine, and it never left her even when asleep. She practically glowed. Her bouncy brown curls lay across the pillow and cradled her sweet face. Zia sat on the other side, and ran her hand along Haven’s head.

Instantly, Haven’s big blue eyes fluttered open and her gaze met mine. “Nexi.”

“Yes, Haven. It’s me.” Tears filled my eyes as I squeezed her hand. We were home and safe.

Seconds later, Haven jumped to her feet, glanced at everyone in the room, then fainted. Finn lunged for her and scooped her up. “Well, that wasn’t the reaction I expected.” I laughed.

Zia chuckled along with me, stood and approached Haven. She rested her hand on Haven’s cheek and immediately woke her.

“You are all right? Kyden is alive? You’re back?” She rambled on.