He heard her growl in his mind and then with his ears.
“Leave us alone, Jordan,” she yelled at him aloud. “I will not be like you.”
Accurately sensing him, she threw her hands in his direction, as if shooing him away. A strong wind erupted from where she stood and blew into the woods. Her familiar scent filled his senses and he nearly retched—she smelled more disgustingly sweet than she ever had. He couldn’t believe how strong her powers were.
And he couldn’t believe she was still good.
Amazement and agitation coursed through his veins and he flashed back home. Eris stood in the center of the room, her eyes glazed over and her mouth still open.
“What happened?” Jordan demanded.
Eris’s mouth shut, then opened and shut again, words failing her. Her eyes remained distant.
“She’s so … so beautiful,” the witch stammered. “And so powerful.”
“Something went wrong,” Jordan growled. “She’s still good. I could feel it like a nasty slime in the air and on my skin. This wasn’t supposed to happen! How am I supposed to create more like us if I can’t even get close to her without retching?”
Eris’s eyes finally focused and shot to him. “What do you mean?”
“Building our army, Eris. Reproducing more of us. What else would I want her for?”
Her mouth dropped open again. Her nose pulled up in disgust. “That’s why you wanted her to drink the potion? So you could mate with her? Your sister?”
Rage exploded in Jordan’s chest at the look Eris gave him. Who was she to judge him? His pulse thundered in his head. He fought the urge to grab her by the neck and strangle her.
“Of course, you doltish witch. Deimos and I need the best mates we can get.”
He shot his hand up and the door exploded out of the way. He marched outside, kicked a stone and slammed his fist into the trunk of a cypress, leaving a large dent. A stray dog scampered across the way, whimpering, and Jordan threw a ball of fire at the useless creature. An old woman cried out and he turned his hand toward her. Her eyes widened and she hurried out of his sight.
The old hag’s fear made him feel somewhat better, calm enough to try to think through what went wrong with Cassandra. She’d reacted to the potion immediately, even faster than Deimos had. She appeared to age backward many years, back to how she looked several decades ago, like a young woman. And her powers. Were they stronger than his? Impossible! But he could definitely feel they were different. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to overcome that difference. Perhaps it will take time for the Daemoni blood to seep into her core.
This thought instantly changed his outlook. Of course that was it! He’d need to give it time, just like his transformation took months to gain the full effects. With a sense of relief, he returned to the house. And found Eris in a convulsive fit.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, showing only whites. Her face twisted and contorted, her features growing and shrinking right in front of his eyes. Her body trembled and quaked. Her arms whipped in the air. An object flew out of her hand and landed at his feet. He picked up the water skin and held it under his nose.
“Eris,” he bellowed. “What have you done?”
She looked as though she tried to answer, but her enlarged tongue flopped out of her mouth, reminding him of a dead donkey. One of her dark eyes grew larger and larger, until it bulged out of its socket. An arm shrunk in girth to the size of a stick and lengthened to the floor while the other forearm blossomed to twice its normal roundness. Her legs swelled to look like tree trunks. She fell to the floor and writhed and Jordan just watched with fascinated horror.
As the convulsions slowed into shudders and then just tremors, her body began returning to normal. Then it went further back, back in time, just as Cassandra’s had done. When she finally stilled, she looked just like the goddess Jordan had first met. He fell to his knees next to her and lifted her head into his lap.
“What have you done?” he asked again, this time his voice filled with awe and wonder rather than surprised anger.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “You wanted a mate like you. You don’t need her. You have me and we can have more children together.”
“You drank the last of the potion?”
“We can make more. We can build your army, Jordan. Together.”
He looked into those beautiful dark eyes and ran his hand through the silky raven hair he missed so much. He didn’t think the potion would have worked on her. Eris herself had said Daemoni blood probably wouldn’t take it. Not with the other creatures’ bloods mixed in it. But here she was, having gone through the same changes as Cassandra, but without that vile goodness surrounding her. He grinned back at her and excitement flooded his veins. Eris was even better than Cassandra. Victory was finally his!
But when he pulled his hand out of her locks, clumps of hair clung to his fingers. He stared at it with surprise and then flicked it off. He looked back at her face and bluish-black marks encircled her eyes and then they began sinking downward. Her luscious lips looked as though they were sliding right off her face. The skin around one sunken eye pulled down. She lifted a skinny, bony hand to rub it and peeled the skin right off, exposing soft, black tissue underneath. Her expression tried to twist in anger, but it only made her face worse.
“No,” she screeched. “This cannot be happening!”
She flicked her hand to deliver a spell, but it only resulted in skin flying off her fingers, exposing the bones. Jordan jumped up and her head slammed against the ground. The rest of her hair fell out and her nose crumbled into powder.
“Why?” she shrieked with an inhuman voice, her lips and cheeks peeling away so he could see her tongue moving between her teeth. “Why does she get it all when it was I who sacrificed everything for you?” Her eyeballs rotated in their sockets to look at Jordan. “I’ll give you what she never will, Jordan. And then you’ll know who truly loved you.”
Her mouth moved with unintelligible words that sounded to him like a curse. But he would never know who or what she cursed, because Eris was no more. Everything soft about her shriveled like a dried up plum and then disappeared, leaving only a skull and bones. And then those disintegrated into nothingness. Not even dust remained.
Jordan stared at the spot, his heart pounding and his hands shaking at his side. He drew in a deep breath, but it didn’t help. He retched all over the white peplos—all that remained of the woman he’d called his wife, the mother of his son. The only woman who’d stayed by his side all these years, helping him achieve his destiny. The woman who’d thought of him and his needs and wants to the very end. And now she was gone. The freedom he expected to feel when he finally rid himself of Eris didn’t come. Only the astonishing feeling of profound emptiness.
Chapter 15
Cassandra no longer felt Jordan’s presence. She stared at her hands with wonder. What gifts have the Angels given me?
Andronika’s whimper caught her attention and she spun around. Her daughter was still on all fours after falling from the witch’s hold, staring up at the new threat in front of her. Niko stood tensed for a fight, but his eyes were focused on Andronika and they glowed a bright red. Cassandra’s knees weakened to see her husband standing there after mourning for him so long, looking even more striking than she remembered him, but her heart contracted at the frightening look on his face and the feel of his bloodlust surging through his veins.
“I need it,” Niko’s voice hissed in Cassandra’s mind, making her jump. “I’m already weak from the sun. I need blood.”
Did she really just hear his thoughts or did her own mind create the illusion?
“F-f-father?” Andronika asked, her voice small and frightened. “Wh-what happened to you?”
“I need it,” his voice came again, rough, like a growl. Then it changed, more like the voice she remembered, as he internally fought himself. He shook his head, denying his need. “But not her. Not my daughter.”
“No, Niko,” Cassandra said. “Not your daughter.”
He turned his red-eyed glare on her now. His internal fight played out on his face, his eyes flickering with
