Page 68 of The Seeker
She sat on a fallen log in the middle of the clearing and tucked her trouser legs into her socks to keep bugs and brambles away from her skin. The Grigori would be there shortly.
How many?
She held up a hand with three fingers when she caught a hint of their voices. She heard three. Four? No, just three. They were confused. Drawn to her. They were always drawn to her.
Anamitra told her it was the weight of memory that drew them. Grigori were empty creatures, children who had killed their own mothers with their birth. They were used or discarded by their Fallen fathers. They were empty inside, though not soulless. They were soul hungry.
And Meera carried the weight of a thousand generations.
“They will always be drawn to you; that is why the Tomir were bound to the heir of heaven’s wisdom so many centuries ago. The Grigori hunger for the souls of everything they have been denied. We are everything they need and yet cannot have.”
The Grigori could not have her. Or they could not have all of her. But perhaps just a little of heaven’s light could be granted to them. Could make them see reason. After all, they were no different from the Irin. If Forgiven children were abandoned for a millennia, what would they become?
Closer. They were almost to the clearing. She couldn’t feel Roch or Rhys in the trees, but she could hear them. Especially Rhys. The sound of his voice…
I could become addicted to him.Even the thought of never hearing it again made her stomach hurt. But he would leave eventually. His life wasn’t with her. Even if he was interested in Meera as a lover, no one wanted the weight of responsibility that followed her position. Heaven knew she would never have chosen if for herself.
“I want you far more than is comfortable or well-mannered.”
He didn’t even know why he felt that way. Only an Irina knew when she found herreshon. There was no way for a scribe to know unless she told him. Rhys would never know what Meera heard from his soul unless she chose to reveal it.
The first Grigori entered the clearing from the shadowed alley of the road between the trees. He was young and beautiful, his dark brown skin glowing near blue in the full moon. He walked to Meera in a trance, but she didn’t move from her spot on the fallen log.
“Who are you?” He fell to his knees a few yards from her. “You’re Irina, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Not like the others. You’re more.”
Meera’s heart fell. “When have you met other Irina?”
“Our father caught one for us,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on her face. “She fed three of us before she died.”
Meera was sick to her stomach, but she didn’t move. Didn’t react.
Two identical Grigori entered from the road. They were the opposite in looks to their brother—their pale blond hair shone like silver—but their smell and energy was the same. They were three brothers, though they’d come from different human mothers.
Meera could feel Rhys and Roch’s magic stirring the air, but the Grigori didn’t notice. They were fixed on her. She drew them closer until all three were staring wordlessly at her.
She closed her eyes and reached into the well of power within her. “Vashah ya.”
The Grigori surrendered their will to her. She could ask them to dance and they would dance. She could ask them to drown themselves in the river and they would do it. As long as their Fallen father remained at a distance, they belonged to her. Most Irina could only command this magic with skin contact.
Meera could control a crowd.
“Who is your father?” she asked them.
“Bozidar,” they said in unison.
Sons of the most powerful Fallen in North America were hiding in a swamp in Louisiana?
“Why are you here?”
“He told us to come,” one of the blond Grigori said. “We came.”
“Why here?”
“There will be more.” The other pale Grigori sat next to his brother. “He said there will be many more.”
