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“Apologies, Goddess, I spoke out of turn.” He dropped his head again, biting his tongue.
I looked to her, and her eyes met mine again.
“I bound Damien Archonis, king of the immortals, to you at birth. As the strongest warrior of The Order, he was to see to your training and protect you until you could fulfill your purpose.”
I looked to him, but his eyes wouldn’t meet mine as he stared to the ground. Silent.
“You may yet have enough strength to serve a purpose in this life." For a moment, I thought I might have seen a flicker of remorse in her eyes, but it faded just as quickly as it appeared. "If not, your spirit will be reborn again.”
She turned her gaze back to Damien. “I expect you to serve her as long as she has breath in her lungs. I will not have you attempt to throw your life away again, Damien. I still have further use of you. Am I clear?”
Without raising his head, he answered. “Transparently, Goddess.”
I then heard her voice in my head.Whilst one sleeps, the other cannot rest. There must always be one to rule the immortals.
Her words were like a knife in my chest. Damien told me he’d almost ended it after losing me, but he didn’t. Not because he didn’t want to, but because hecouldn’t, not while I was gone. He’d been trapped in an endless circle of loss and pain, unable to suppress the loss that he would always endure.
“Begin her training, warrior. We will see how long she lasts,” she commanded. The room went dark, the candles of The Propylaea coming back to light, and we sat on the cold floor in the normal clothes we’d donned just moments before.
23
My knees pressed into the cold stone floor, hands planted firmly on the concrete beneath me as I panted. My fingers ground against the concrete, trying to hold myself in place somehow, fearful that if I were to relax my grip, I might slip away and disappear into some other strange place. The sudden removal from Selene’s realm was unpleasant to say the least. Nausea rolled through me, body quivering as my mouth watered, and I held back the urge to throw up.
We sat in silence for a moment, both reeling from the intense meeting with the goddess, from the warning she’d spoken to us. I wanted to deny it all, but the proof of her words had already been shown to me. The mere sight of her, her overwhelming godly presence, was enough to validate everything.
Damien rose, standing beside me, eyes burning into the altar before him. I lifted my gaze to him, but he wouldn’t look at me, couldn’t look at me. I reached up to touch his hand. The pain he felt seared into me, and I shrunk back as if I’d been burned with ice.
He jerked at my reaction. “I’m so sorry,mea luna.” He crouched beside me. “I think your Nous abilities are resurfacing.”
I rubbed my hand where we’d touched, looking up to him. “Nous?”
“The power to see into a person’s deepest thoughts and feelings.”
That explained the vision of Marcus and Vivienne. I was struggling to come to terms with everything, but it all made sense now. The failed treatments, the failing heart. I was a mistake. A failed reincarnation, born into a body I was never meant to inhabit.
I should have never existed.
Selene’s voice resonated through my mind, the words she spoke to me, everything I’d heard.
“What did she mean when she said you were neglecting your feedings?”
Damien’s eyes left me at those words. Then I remembered what he was. Of course. How had I not realized it? He was an immortal, similar to vampires. They required blood.
“Have you not been..."I struggled to find the right word. “Taking care of yourself?”
“I’m fine.”
I gave him a withering look. “How long has it been?”
“I’m not talking about this with you right now, Cas,” he said, trying to walk past me.
“The hell you aren’t.” I blocked his path. “What will happen if you don’t feed? You’ve looked so tired and worn the last few weeks. Is this the reason?”
He snapped. “I couldn’t bring myself to after I found you!”
I stopped at his words. “What? Why?”
“I… I couldn’t bring myself to drink from another female once I saw you. And I refused to force myself on you until you could make that decision to receive me on your own.” He struggled with his words. “It’s not just a simple act of feeding. It can get… intimate.”
