“He kept me safe.” Why did she refuse to let it go? To let him go. “He…” She gulped. “In his own way, he cares. He does. I know it.”
“He cares?” I spat. Repeating her words left a bad taste. “You think you know your precious siren so well?” Abruptly I dropped her hands and stood. “You’ve been sleeping with the enemy.”
“But, Cassius—“
“Cassius cannot see every future!” I yelled. “And this one is pretty damning… I lived through the Great War, I saw what Alex was capable of then, and I know what he is capable of now. Cassius may have blind hope that Alex won’t unleash his power, but if he does, you are going to be the one caught in the crossfire. It will be your life, and all of this will have been for nothing!”
A tear slid down her cheek, it was red.
I caught it with my fingertip and let out a sigh. “Your heart weeps for the loss of your people. And yet, you were so fickle to give that very heart away — to the one who killed them.”
Alex
London, England
1815
“WHAT THE HELL?” I blinked in confusion. Minutes ago, I had been slowly dying from an unfortunate demon bite, and now, I was roaming the streets of London.
I kept walking.
Maybe I was hallucinating.
Though I’d never seen a demon bite cause hallucinations, they burned like hell, but there were no weird side effects like I was currently experiencing.
A tall man in a cloak walked out of the alleyway, and turned, his icy expression on mine.
Bannik.
His hair was black, the ends red, like someone had dipped his hair in blood.
He looked through me.
It had to be a dream then, right?
I had the sudden urge to follow him.
And I had no idea why.
At least the pain in my neck was gone.
I weaved around people, carriages. The noisy London streets smelled putrid, just like I remembered. Rain pounded the ground leaving giant puddles that were nearly impossible to walk around without walking into the street.
The man didn’t turn around again.
He stopped in front of a large building. It looked abandoned, run down, like an old shipyard or perhaps a mill.
Pulling the cloak tighter around him, he stepped through the unhinged gate and into the shadows.
“Hell,” I muttered. Why was I following him again? I shivered from the cold.
Then paused.
When had I ever been cold?
I always ran hot.
So hot it was impossible for me to think straight at times.
“Master,” a demon croaked. “They are gone.”
Bannik growled. “What do you mean gone?”
“Someone must have freed them.” The demon’s crazed red eyes darted from left to right. His long black hair was tied at the nape of his neck, his face smudged with dirt.
“I leave for an hour, and suddenly the elves are just… poof? Gone?”
“Timber said—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what Timber said!” Bannik yelled. “You get your orders from me! I’m trying to build your race, and the only means I have to do that just walked out the front door!” He picked the demon up by the neck and tossed him like a ragdoll against the wall.
“Enter,” Bannik whispered. “Don’t think I can’t see you in the shadows, Siren.”
I hesitated.
And then a version of myself walked forward, a version I wasn’t proud of. I looked crazed, like I hadn’t had sex in years.
I searched my brain for any recollection of this moment and came up with nothing. What the hell kind of paradoxical past was this?
“Watch,” a voice that sounded strangely like Cassius whispered.
I shivered.
And suddenly it made sense.
That bastard knew I hated dream walking!
Not only was it cold as hell, but I hated anyone touching me — Cassius knew that.
“Watch,” he urged again, louder.
“Awaken,” Bannik commanded.
My old self whimpered.
“I said awaken! A weak siren is not useful to me! You will fulfill your destiny and reach full power!”
My old self fell to his knees. “Go to Hell.”
“Awaken!” The room shook, moaning, groaning, as he did what no fallen angel should ever do. Command the universe, speak things into existence.
“You do not have the power to command.” My old self whimpered. “I am not yours.”
“No,” Bannik said hoarsely. “And how sad that you will always be a slave to your own desires, to your own needs, to the constant pain in your chest that refuses to go away. The burning heat will destroy you, the flames will lick you until your corpse runs dry. You will not remember this day. But I will. I will always remember the time I asked you to reach your full potential, and you failed.”
“I would rather fail than be used as a tool for evil.”
“Wake up, Siren… everyone has a little bit of evil inside… you either feed it or ignore it — but it’s there and one day, very soon, when I make myself known to this world, you will see the ramifications of what happens when you feed a starving beast. It devours everything in its path just like I’m going to devour you…” His eyes narrowed, and then he backed away and sniffed the air, a cruel smile taunting his lips before his eyebrow arched. “Dark One, we meet again… you cannot dream walk through the past without ramifications.”
Cassius suddenly appeared. “You will not win.”