The Siren (Laments of Angels & Dark Chemistry Book 1) (28 page)

“Yes, she did all those despicable things.”

“Then let me remove her.”  

“She doesn’t deserve to die. I can see the real her underneath her hard shell,” Ashburn said. “And she protected my parents, and that means everything to me.”  

“Heaven and hell, this is worse than I expected,” Seraphen said. “Does she smell like night blossoms mixed with fresh milk? I remember the scent well. Her ancestor Niahm emitted the same scent. You’re an eighteen-year-old boy. Of course you can’t think straight when she’s around.” The mutant pushed Ashburn aside. “Let me do this for you.”

Ashburn jumped in the air and punched Seraphen in the face. “You’ll follow my order. You’ll not touch her!”

Seraphen shrugged at Ashburn’s strike. “You’re her prey,” he said. “I came into existence again to keep you safe. When you don’t take your own life into consideration, I override your command.” Seraphen grabbed Ashburn and threw him over his shoulder. Ashburn fell to the ground with a thud.

Seraphen charged.

Lucienne’s eyes fixed on the creature. A killing rage boiled inside her, but she controlled it. She must play cat and mouse with him, until she bought enough time. Until she found a way to reduce him to dust.

When Seraphen was nearly four feet from Lucienne, she shifted to duck, but Seraphen stopped in his tracks, his bulky body bending backward. A net of black lightning wrapped around him, binding him. Ashburn stood behind his protector, his hands up, dark electricity shooting from his fingers.

Clenching his teeth, Seraphen inched toward Lucienne to claw at her with focused determination to wipe out the last Siren, but the harness of electricity kept him at bay. Lucienne remembered Ashburn saying he couldn’t kill Seraphen, but he could weaken him. Then the same voice that warned her not to kill Ashburn chimed in her mind again.
The combination of the lightning and the Eye of Time is a lethal weapon.

Wildfire spread inside Lucienne.

Her heart pounding, her blood rushing in her ears, she strode toward Seraphen.

“Lucienne, what are you doing?” Ashburn said anxiously. “Get away. Now! Take your helicopter and fly far away!”

Lucienne stopped before Seraphen, whose head and neck had gradually emerged from the black net of lightning. He smirked at her, showing his even, white teeth. In a few seconds, he’d break out, and no one could stop him.

Lucienne’s left hand was behind her back, holding the open locket. She must set free the Eye of Time at the perfect moment, so it wouldn’t go after Ashburn instead.

“Lucienne, go!” Ashburn called in desperation. “I can no longer hold . . .”

Lucienne leapt into the air, swung her arm and at the same time, pushed the pin in on the locket. Free from the Twilight Water, the Eye of Time lunged.

Seraphen’s eyes went wild. “Ashburn, release me!” he shouted. “She’s letting out—”

The Eye of Time’s power pulsed in red as Lucienne rammed it into Seraphen’s chest where his heart would be—if he had one—and all the way through, just before he was able to get his hands around her throat. A blazing light radiated from her, lit her like the goddess of wrath, savagely beautiful. “Die, Seraphen!” Lucienne shouted.

The Eye of Time seared a hole through the mutant’s chest as Ashburn dropped his lightning. The shock on Seraphen’s face was more than any reward to Lucienne. Thick, dark smoke sprouted from him. The air smelled of scorched flesh, but it was the sweetest scent Lucienne had ever known.

Seraphen crumpled to the ground, staring up at Lucienne, who towered over him with a honeyed smile. “It has begun,” the mutant murmured in grief. “I failed, twice.” His eyes were murky glass.

“And there’ll be no third time, Seraphen,” Lucienne said, “though they say the third time’s the charm.”

Ashburn lurched forward, looking at Seraphen in horror. Shock still lingering on his face, he faltered like a drunkard and threw his hands up to grasp his head in agony. Lucienne realized the Eye was now going after Ashburn. She slammed the locket shut, despite the Eye’s growl.

Ashburn calmed, and then his eyes brimmed with sorrow. He dropped to his knees beside Seraphen, holding the mutant’s hand in his. “Seraphen, I’m sorry. Why couldn’t you just leave her alone?”

“You chose her. The Exiles will win this time. The Exiles are the most formidable enemy. They have more power than you can imagine.” Seraphen let out a ragged breath.

“What do they want?” asked Ashburn.

“Earth. They want it back. They need you two to erase time so that they can return. Once time is removed, so is every species.”

“No one can erase time. You’re absolutely crazy,” Lucienne rebuked.

“If you two are together, it will happen,” Seraphen said.

“We won’t allow it to happen,” Ashburn said. 

“Then kill her.” Seraphen breathed out his last vicious words. 

Ashburn turned to Lucienne, who stared back. Revenge had left her brown phoenix eyes; in its wake were desolation and grief for her men.

“I can’t. I won’t,” Ashburn said. When he turned back to the mutant again, Seraphen’s unseeing eyes stared up at the sky. 

“Seraphen?” he called.

“He’s gone,” Lucienne said.

“He came to protect me,” Ashburn said, weeping, “and I killed him.”

“No, I killed him. He and I can’t coexist, and you saved me again.”

But they both knew without Ashburn’s lightning, she’d never have put down Seraphen.

Ashburn looked at Lucienne, then his protector, and back to her again. A blur of emotions ripped across his face—fear, enchantment, remorse, self-loathing, desire, and then pain. She had never seen him so vulnerable, and in such pain. She’d lost people she loved over the course of her life, but she knew it was the first time he had lost someone. Even though that someone was her fatal enemy, she respected his sadness.

She owed him her life. This boy believed she would be his ultimate demise, and yet he let her see into his dark memories. He had exposed his weakness to her. Choosing her cost the life of his only protector, the one who could shield him from any danger, from the world itself. From everyone but her. At the brink of life and death, he put her above himself. And he called himself a monster.

Lucienne sat on her heels beside Ashburn. All her walls tumbled down. She leaned toward him, reaching for him. “Ash,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

Ashburn dropped his resistance and pulled Lucienne into his arms. The magnetic forces finally pulled them together.

Her body arched and curved toward him, responding to his touch like a fiddle under its masterful fingers. Wind, light, and heat pushed through her, and then the world, the battlefield, her wounded soldiers, her fear and responsibilities fell behind her. Right here, right now, Lucienne saw only Ashburn Fury. 

“I feel I’ve been waiting for you my whole life,” Ashburn said as he leaned down to kiss her.

Fear and desire seized Lucienne. She remembered another kiss, the kiss of disaster. “No, I can’t . . . you can’t,” she said, but she wanted that kiss more than anything—at that moment she wanted it more than her life and his life together. 

“Trust me,” Ashburn said. His lips met hers, pressed hard. There was little tenderness, only raw passion. His mouth scorched hers, demanding, powerful, and desperate, amid the smoke and fire and bodies that littered the battlefield around them.

Lucienne slid a hand through Ashburn’s silvery hair. A bridge of light flew across the wild river, connecting the two sides. Lucienne sensed what Ashburn sensed, and his wanting and needing became hers. Everything was clear now—he had always wanted her, from first sight, from the beginning. Ashburn’s kiss deepened; his desire ignited hers. It was the kiss of the fires from heaven and hell, and with it, she felt all the rightness, and at the same time, all the wrongness of it.

Lucienne felt she was going to go up in flames. Still, she clung to him. She had lost herself and didn’t care. All she ever wanted was to want Ashburn, and that unleashed want, so intense and unnatural, made her every nerve begin to burn and ache. 

And most wonderful of all was that Ashburn didn’t collapse. Her kiss was meant for him, reserved for him. For him alone.  

Someone called her name, a voice like a drowning man adrift in the ocean. Lucienne sensed a deep shadow, and in its center was a newly conscious mind that contained great pain. A beating heart bled amid broken pieces. Its anguish was so enormous and bottomless that it shot to her like arrows of ice.

Vladimir, bloody, rose in time to see the passionate kiss.

The world swirled back to Lucienne.

“Vlad?” Her joy soared. Her Vladimir was alive! Then shame and guilt bombarded her like a rain shower, drenching her cold and wet. How was it possible for her to forget about Vladimir, Kian, and her men lying dead and injured in the middle of the battlefield while losing herself in Ashburn’s smoldering kiss?

Mortified, Lucienne touched the bottom of her swollen lip and wrenched away from Ashburn with the heat of passion still coursing through her veins.

Vladimir looked at her as if she had just eaten his heart. The light in his hazel eyes went out completely. They looked as dead as Seraphen’s. Vladimir averted his lifeless gaze from Lucienne as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her, but reserved one last glance of pure hatred for Ashburn, before stumbling away.

Worse than the kiss of betrayal was learning the brutal fact that she could kiss another boy without injuring him. “Vlad, I . . . I’m sorry.” The words tore out of Lucienne’s burning throat. Her hands reaching out, she moved toward him. “I can . . .  explain.”

Vladimir held his bleeding hand in the air as if warding off the fiend from hell and fled from her. New hurt sailed to Lucienne’s eyes. She quickened her pace, going after Vladimir, but then, stirring arose around her—groans of pain and angry curses. Some of the survivors had gained consciousness and struggled to get up. This wasn’t the time to chase after Vladimir and beg him to listen, to forgive her. The wounded warriors needed her now. Some managed to stand and stagger toward her, still endeavoring to protect her. Some lay dead; others dying. 

Lucienne watched Vladimir head toward the smoke-covered mountain and decided it would be best to try to talk to him later. It’d be a long conversation. She turned to Ashburn, who didn’t look sorry at all. He watched her watching Vladimir with a grim expression, then averted his dusky gray eyes to Seraphen. Unable to bear looking at his protector’s corpse either, he rested his eyes upon the mountains.

Lucienne bit her lip. She would not let boy trouble get in the way of caring for her warriors. She dropped to Duncan’s side to check on him. “Reinforcements are coming,” she said, removing his impact vest to help him breathe easier. “I order you to hang in there!”

“As long as it takes!” Duncan’s eyes glazed over Lucienne’s. “Is Orlando . . . really gone?”

“And Cam, too. And others,” Lucienne said remorsefully, turning away as tears blurred her sight.

“Vladimir?” Duncan asked.

“He is . . .” Lucienne said as blocks of ice submerged her heart. “He’s okay.” She gently squeezed the warrior’s uninjured hand. “I’ll come back after I’ve checked on the others.”

Ashburn drew near Lucienne. “I have a medical databank inside me. I can help.”

“If you want to help, find Kian for me,” Lucienne said. “Do you have his memory?” She grabbed Ashburn’s sleeve in desperation.

“He’s coming to you.” Ashburn pointed at a mountain. Lucienne followed the line of his finger and saw Kian, tattered and bloody, limping down the mountain.

“Kian!” Lucienne choked, breaking into a dead run toward him. Kian dragged himself down the mountain trail as fast as he could manage.

An approaching aircraft boomed in the mountains. A second later, a fighter emerged. Lucienne stopped in her tracks. “It’s a MiG-25, one of the fastest fighter planes in the world,” she whispered, and her face went white. “But it’s not ours. How does it know about us here? And how could it have gotten here so quickly?” She waved at the warriors frantically. “Take cover!”

“It came for Vladimir,” Ashburn called. “He’s leaving you.”

Of course, Vladimir’s thoughts had turned to memories, and Ashburn had read them. Blood drained from Lucienne’s face. She looked around for Vladimir and finally spotted him, a small figure now, at the far end of the plain. Lucienne raced toward him, but her legs weren’t fast enough to get to him before the MiG-25 did.

“Vlad, no! Wait! Vladimir Blazek, you can’t! You can’t just leave!” Lucienne screamed, willing her legs to move faster. Vladimir turned to look at her, but he was too far away for her to see his expression. Helplessly, she watched him climb into the co-pilot’s seat.

“Vlad, please don’t. Don’t leave me behind!” Lucienne begged. She’d do anything to make him stay. She was so sorry for what she had done to him. She wanted to tell him that she’d wronged him greatly and would make up to him. The fighter’s metal canopy sealed shut. The silvery bird took off and vanished from view.

Lucienne crumpled to the ground, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed in utter heartbreak. The world before her now was formlessly bleak. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but Kian was at her side, pulling her into his arms, stroking her hair, as she wept.