Page 36 of Deathless
Just accept me, Aurora. You’ll feel so much better if you quit fighting.
“Can’t stop fighting,” I mumbled. “Have to hold on to...myself.” My stomach protested violently, and I leaned over the side of the bed to retch into the trash can someone left me.
I had thrown up those saltine crackers hours ago. At least, I think I did. My sense of time was all distorted, and there were gaps in my memory. I recognized the bedroom at the safehouse but barely remembered riding home.
“What the fuck is happening to me?” I groaned into the sweat-soaked pillowcase.
I think you know, Aurora.
“Stop.” I clasped my hands to the sides of my head, balling them into fists as I tugged at my roots. “Get the fuck out of my head. I don’t want you here.”
Oh, you will. Once you see what we’re capable of together. Enough with this ragtag group ofmenyou’ve collected. Don’t you want to be worshiped? By thousands, no, millions of women? Women we have saved.
“No!”
I rolled in an attempt to escape the voice that followed me everywhere and landed on a hard surface, probably the floor. Crawling my way to the chair where my clothes were, I fumbled around for my holster.
Now, now,the voice chided.We’re not doing that.
I blinked, and then suddenly I was back on the bed. Some time had passed, and it was now dark outside. Another black-out.
“Fuck!” I cried, sitting straight up.
Santos and Torr weren’t in bed with me, but a massive, dark shape with golden eyes was.
“Tezca.” I reached to the jaguar for comfort, instantly soothed by that velvety pelt and the rumbling purr that started up.
“I’m scared, Tezca,” I confessed. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
Yes, you do,the jaguar god said mournfully.And I’m sorry, daughter. I wish I could prevent this.
My hands froze on his back before they started to shake. “What do you mean?”
I know you can make it out through the other side.He headbutted my hand, then licked his sandpaper tongue across my palm.Be brave. Don’t lose sight of who you are. Remember those you love.
“I can’t—I don’t—” A migraine hit me like a punch to the jaw. Pain radiated up my jaw, exploding behind my eyes. My stomach roiled again, spasming around nothing.
The next thing I saw clearly was Tezca, not on the bed with me but on the ground. His back was arched, fangs bared with a low, constant growl emanating from him. When I reached for him, he hissed and swiped a huge paw at me, claws extended.
“I should make a rug out of your pelt, useless male.”
My palms clapped over my mouth in horror. I said that. Notme, the voice leaving my mouth was not my own. It was the one I always heard in my head. The one that first spoke to me in the Sisterhood’s village.
Are you understanding now, Aurora?
“No. No, no, no, no.”
I ran to the bathroom on wobbly legs, slamming the door against the wall as I crashed through it. Holding onto the pedestal sink for support, I glared into the mirror.
“Get out.” My horror had given way to rage. My own, familiar anger felt good, felt like me.. I drew on it as a source of strength, a connection to myself. I hated this cult, and I would not allow its fucked-up deity to take up residence inside my skin.
“Get the fuck out,” I repeated. “I’m not your fucking vessel.”
“Mm, but you are,” my reflection said cheekily back to me. “You’re the perfect vessel, Aurora Wilder. I’ve waited decades for you.”
“I didn’t consent to this,” I growled. “I don’t want you. How are you better than a man, huh? Invading my body like a fucking parasite?”
“I’m a deity, child. I exist outside of the boundaries of time and space. Your limited senses can’t perceive existence like I do. But if you allow me, you can. Don’t you want to be divine, Aurora?”
