Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

Their strange life in Athens began after Hades had stolen Persephone into the Underworld and made her his queen. Outraged, her mother, the goddess Demeter, “blessed” his vampyres with fertility. And living actively (rather than their usual avoidance) through the Greco-Persian Wars with souls easier burdened than before had changed everything for Xanthippe and Phaedrus. There was nothing on earth that could put one more in touch with humanity than war, and Kirios’s mother was no longer the flagitious animal she’d once been … well … to an extent.

Despite her appetite and nature, she had grown to love her husband and wanted a child. So they went to Athens and insinuated themselves into the middle-class region of the polis to raise their son. But Kirios hadn’t been what they were expecting. He had powers of mesmerism and an appetite for blood, but he did not have the soul of a killer.

Looking away from the dark image before him, he remembered his thirteenth year. They had always brought him his blood as a child; now they wanted him to learn to fend for himself … to execute his first kill. The memory pierced him like a spear. How disgusted he’d been by what they wanted of him. He had no taste for killing humans, and although he loved his parents, it was becoming clear they were never going to understand that vital fact.

And the truth was … looking upon the painful sight of the man dying in his parents’ arms, Kirios did not think he could stand by and watch them murder innocents any longer. He was in his eighteenth year now. It was time to—

His jaw dropped as he recognized the dying figure in their arms. “Are you insane?” he hissed. “That’s Ephialtes!”

“Be silent,” Phaedrus ordered quietly, steel warning in his tone. “Anyone may hear you.”

Kirios felt himself paling, as if it were even possible for him to be any paler. “Father, you’ve killed a statesman of the democratic party. He’s Pericles’s bloody mentor, for Gaia’s sake! Have you gone mad?” Pericles was one of the most influential, popular, wealthiest members of the demos.

Xanthippe shrugged. “We’re leaving Athens … and Ephialtes has always irritated me. I thought it a fitting going-away present to myself.”

Kirios shook his head in disbelief. “How are you going to fix this mess before you leave?”

Phaedrus seemed annoyed by his son’s question. “The usual … we’ll leave him somewhere and mesmerize someone else to take the blame. Perhaps Pericles.”

“You will not,” Kirios snapped, inwardly surprised he was standing up to his father.

Phaedrus looked just as shocked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Father, please promise me you will not put the blame on Pericles. You are leaving Athens … please do not leave it in a complete upheaval by killing one member of the democratic party and turning another into a murderer.”

“How dull of you, son.”

“I happen to be fond of my city. That is all.”

Xanthippe sighed. “Oh, very well. We promise.”

“Thank you.” He exhaled in relief, running his hands through his hair in frustration before turning from them. He couldn’t bear to look any longer at the mess they’d made of Ephialtes.

“We leave at dusk,” Phaedrus informed him.

Gods, he hoped they wouldn’t overreact. “I’m not coming with you. I’m leaving too … but not with you.”

At their continued silence, he finally got up the nerve to look at them. Their faces were mirror images of their usual blankness. “I’m not like you,” he tried to explain.

Finally, Xanthippe replied, “We know. We … are trying to understand.”

Kirios smiled. It was more than anyone could ask of them. “But you never will. So … I must leave you both.”

Phaedrus growled, “You are more human than vampyre … I curse Demeter for this.”

Even Xanthippe gasped. Kirios frowned. “Father, please don’t. I don’t wish anything untoward to happen to you.”

“You are my son. You should be with me, exhilarating in the kill.”

He felt so helpless in the face of his father’s despair. So much the disappointment. “I am truly sorry, Father.”

“I don’t blame you.”

There was more emotion in that statement than he’d ever heard from either of his parents since his thirteenth year. A little of the dark heaviness eased from his chest.

“I will leave you both now.”

They nodded at him. “Fare thee well, son.”

“And you both.”

Tyras, Miletus, 441 BC

The tall magik stared at him with an expression of sympathy and understanding.

“I cannot let you have Eneas. I cannot let you commit any act of violence within my home.”

Frustration and the need for revenge bubbled beneath Kirios’s skin like hot springs in a winter landscape.

Eneas.

He wanted the hunter dead.

“Your parents were murderers, Kirios. Eneas was merely doing the job that was asked of him.”

“Under whose authority?”

A look of dead calm and the superiority of one with his power settled over the magik’s face. “My own.”