Page 57 of Shadows and Flames
“I’m…” The woman bit her lip and shook her head. “I don’t even know your name,” she whispered, tears falling. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Meline and I were both still, and I watched all those around us. How the brother and those standing closest to him were scowling. How the others, more passive followers, flicked their confused gazes between their leader and the scene before them.
The man screamed muffled words, but his sister would not have any of it. “No!” the woman screamed. Her face grew flushed. “Itoldyou that he didn’t hurt me. No matter how many times you try to convince me otherwise.” She focused on Tana, wringing her hands at her front. “What…what can I do to help?Please.”
Even the human could see that the witch was a healer. The faint purple glow still had not completely faded from her fingertips, and the male was still clinging to her. Watching her as if she was the Goddess Rhaea Herself.
Palms still pressed onto the Vyrkos’s chest, her gaze was hard. “He needs to feed to fully heal. And we cannot provide the adequate sustenance.” To us, Vyrkos blood was syrupy sweet, and given their former mortal nature, it was enough to sustain us.
It had been one of the many contentions that fueled The Killings, giving some Lylithans false evidence that we were superior because the reverse was not nutritious for the Vyrkos.
Otherwise, having interacted with the witch now and years past, I was certain she would have opened her vein in an instant for him.
Just as I had done for my queen.
I looked down at Meline again, pleased at the way she was curling into my chest. The gray tendrils were keeping the humans at bay, but a new strain was filling her posture. She was leaning further into me than she had been just a moment ago.
The man started screaming again, loud enough to test the limits of the cloth in his mouth, but his sister was unperturbed. Tom and the captain shoved past the sister’s keeper still frozen on the stairwell, but they stalled at the sight of goddess power swirling around them.
Meline sagged further into my arms, and the Vyrkos latched onto the woman’s wrist while Tana moved her hand to his shoulders.
“You allowed them to attack two innocent people. What are you going to do about this?” The words burned my tongue as I said them. I’d little concern for the Vyrkos, but the sight of dried blood on Tana’s throat was unacceptable. The hatred these humans had for us should not stand. But I was nearing three centuries, had seen how trying to convince a closed mind was a fruitless task.
My question left the captain gaping, continuing to stare. More faces appeared behind him, crew members by the looks of them, and still, he remained silent.
I scoffed and so did Tom. He was the one to suggest, “Restrain them since they cannot be trusted not to try and fucking kill us. Let us disembark first when we reach the port, and we will all go on our merry way.”
He looked at me from across the room, the slightest uptick of the corner of his mouth communicating multitudes. I nodded, and the wrath smoldering in my chest settled, placated for now.
No, closed minds were not worth convincing. Best to snuff them out.
The captain whirled around, glaring at Tom. “Are you telling me how to run my ship?” He didn’t need to glance at his crewfor me to understand this was again wounded pride. Was it their short lifespans that left them mercy to the misguiding emotion?
And Tom, cheeky as always, grabbed the captain by his chin, using every bit of the minute height difference between them. He loomed over the captain and whispered in his ear. Low enough the humans couldn’t hear. “I’m most definitely doing so. And then I’m going to plow you into the fucking mattress like the worthless slut you are.”
I sighed, unsurprised by my brother’s antics nor by the dazed and hungry look on the captain’s face.
“Restrain them, now.”
The captain was surely in my brother’s thrall, heartbeat still quickened as he directed his crew to do what we said. Some of them retreated, to retrieve said restraints, and I pressed my fingers into Meline’s back, finding several tense knots.
“Are you able to let them go, my queen?”
She startled and blinked up at me, and I released a breath in relief to find her eyes still their natural color. When they went black, when the power took her over more completely, that was when my queen seemed to lose herself, if my memory served. Had she learned how to control it in these three years?
Her posture didn’t change, nor did her breathing, as she called the Death back into herself. From what I could tell, it did not fight her, and the presence on my skin slipped away until it was just Meline.
“You are amazing,” I breathed and dropped a kiss between her furrowed, tired brows.
She had enough energy to snort, and when I pulled back, her lips were flat, but her eyes held a lightness. Even with the heaviness of lowered lids.
A shuffling of feet and uptick of murmurs called for our attention, and I unsheathed the daggers at my sides. I handedone to Meline as we faced the humans, power pushed away for now.
The three of us, with Tom to my left, stood at the ready as the crew indeed restrained the twenty or so who had meant to kill the Vyrkos and Tana. Then the rest of us at a later time, surely.
Now, most watched us with contrition, perhaps even regret as they avoided our eyes. But there were a few. Like the brother and the others who were most arrogant, who did not bother hiding their contempt. Whether they were angrier at us or the Vyrkos who’d now drunk enough from the woman to be satisfied, I was not certain.
She was fine, pressing a cloth into her wrist to clot the bleeding from the small fang marks. She didn’t move to touch the Vyrkos further, but she gave him a nod and tentative smile before rising.
