A chill went up her spine at the way he said that.
The copián stepped down to approach Medea. “Surely a child of the Apollite race can understand that driving desperation better than most.”
He was right about that. Nothing like being damned to only twenty-seven years for something you didn’t do to make someone realize just how precious life was.
Even more so while watching everyone around you die long before their time.
For one more breath, her people were willing to take human lives and destroy their immortal souls. Her one saving grace was that her mother had sacrificed her own soul to save Medea from having to make that choice.
Because the sad truth was, Medea had been too much of a coward to do it. Unlike Urian and her father, she hadn’t been able to destroy a single human soul for her own salvation. She’d been content to die as Apollo had decreed. Honestly, she’d thought that it wasn’t her place to do that to another living being. That humanity was innocent and undeserving of such a horrendous fate.
It wasn’t until the humans had robbed her of the ones she held most sacred that she’d lost her own soul in the process and learned not to care. It wasn’t just her child they’d killed that day. It was her compassion and ability to feel empathy for anyone else. If they were incapable of respecting her loved ones, be damned if she’d respect theirs.
That was a two-way street.
So she’d become the monster they thought her to be. And had been on a centuries-long quest for survival ever since. Putting the good of her race above theirs. Humans could all rot as far as she was concerned.
Nothing else mattered. On that cold winter’s day, they’d become parasites to her.
No. Worse than that.
They’d become food.
The copián cocked his head in such a way that she half expected his elaborate headdress to fall off. Yet it stayed perched perfectly atop his head, as if part of his body. “You’ve heard the expression ‘living on borrowed time’?”
“Yeah.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “We’re the ones you borrow it from.”
Oh yeah, that sent chills over her entire body.
He swept his sinister gaze over them. “My price is simple. An hour from each of you and I’ll open the portal.”
“An hour?” Falcyn sputtered. “How ’bout I just rip some heads off all y’all until you yield?”
The copián smirked. “You could do that, but you can’t open the portal without me.”
“Sure I could find someone.”
“You really want to chance it?”
Falcyn’s expression said he was willing to gamble.
The copián tsked at him. “So very violent from an immortal who can spare an hour with no problem whatsoever. Think of it like those humans who donate spare change for charity. An hour is but a penny, and you have a jar full of them just sitting in your home that you’ll never use. Why not give one to someone who really needs it? Why be so selfish?”
“Because you’re assuming they’ll use it for good, when I know for a fact that most people who barter with you don’t have kindness in their hearts.”
“True, but sometimes that trash they take out on their way to the grave is a service in and of itself, is it not?” He cast a pointed stare toward Urian, whose gaze narrowed dangerously as the old bastard struck a tender nerve with the former Daimon who’d once made his meals off the worst sort of humanity so that he could elongate his life.
Blaise sucked his breath in sharply. “Word of advice when dealing with these two? I wouldn’t go for the twofers on the insults. Even with the zeitjägers as backup. I mean, let’s face it. They’re not being peaceful at the moment because they don’t know how to be violent … however, I’ll be the first to say have at it if you can get us out of here. You can take two hours from me.”
The copián scowled at Blaise. “Two?”
“Yeah. One for me and one for Brogan. I’ll pay her fee.”
She gasped at his offer. “Why would you do that?”
Blaise shrugged. “Being stuck here has been punishment enough for you. As noted, I won’t miss two hours out of my life. I’d have just wasted them in a movie theater, anyway. And this way, I get to do something useful with them and be a hero to you. That’s a loss I can live with.” He winked at her. “Besides, I don’t intend to leave here without you.”
“Suck up, show-off,” Falcyn muttered. Then louder, “Fine, take mine.”
Medea hesitated as a bad feeling went through her. She couldn’t explain it, but something in her gut didn’t like this. And the look in Falcyn’s eyes said he was every bit as suspicious.
If the others felt it, too, they gave no clue that anything was out of the norm.
“So how do you take this time from us?” Medea glanced back to the zeitjägers.
The copián laughed. “It’s already gone. As I said, you don’t even miss it. You didn’t even know we did it.”
Falcyn leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Told you. Insidious bastards.”
No kidding. The only clue was the strange slurping sound the zeitjägers made. At least, she assumed it came from them.
Maybe not.
Yeah … c-r-e-e-p-y.
The copián walked toward the portal and lifted his staff. The moment he did, the portal came alive with swirling, vibrant colors. He moved his staff through it until the mist began to mimic his movements.
Red fire shot out from the torch and was absorbed by the mist.
“It’s ready.”
Urian grinned at Medea. “Ladies first.”
She rolled her eyes at her brother. “Like you’d know if I didn’t make it.”
“You might be polite and scream … then again, it is you. Maybe Blaise should go first? I know he’d scream to warn us.”
He turned an angry glare to Falcyn. “I thought you weren’t going to tell anyone about my screaming fits?”
“I didn’t. That was Max who outed you.”
“Oh.… Remind me to kill him later.” Blaise headed for the portal. “Fine, I’ll go through first.”
Brogan took his hand. “I’ll go with you.”
Touched by the gesture, Medea headed up the platform to the strange humming beast that seemed to have a life of its own. Yet as she reached the portal, Falcyn held her back.
He quirked a peculiar smile at her. “In case my usual luck holds and this all goes to hell.”
Before she could tell what he intended, he lowered his head and captured her lips with the hottest kiss she’d ever been given. He held her as if she were the most precious thing in his world.
As if he loved her.
Stunned, she couldn’t breathe. It actually took her a moment before she could even react enough to kiss him back. But when her brain began to work, she had to admit he was exceptional at this.
More than that, he set her on fire. It’d been far too long since anyone had kissed her in such a manner. Since any man had made her feel exceptional. While she hadn’t been chaste, she hadn’t been promiscuous either. Mostly because she’d avoided any emotional entanglement with another living being, other than her mother.
It didn’t matter how much time passed. Thoughts of her son and husband forever haunted her. Nothing could chase away the memory of their smiles. The warmth that she’d once taken for granted.
Fear of losing another had kept her heart locked in ice.
Apollites and Daimons were hunted creatures who often lived exceptionally brief lives. Even their strongest were often annihilated by Dark-Hunters, sooner rather than later. And that only compounded her fears to the point that she’d been incapable of opening herself up for more heartache.
But Falcyn wasn’t an Apollite.
He definitely wasn’t a Daimon.
And when he pulled back, she was left dazed and breathless by the taste of him. A gorgeous smile hovered at the edge of his lips as he stared down at her.
Without a word, he led her into the portal and kept her steady.…
Falcyn cursed the moment he felt the energy pulling at his body.
And then it sucked them into the stinging vortex.