Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

Kirios sneered and yet found himself lowering his eyes in submission. Galen, the magik before him, was famous throughout the supernatural world. He had established himself here in Miletus, under a colony called Tyras, situated on the northwest coast of the Black Sea. After Alexander the Great had rescued Miletus from Persian grasp, Galen had “persuaded” Alexander to bestow the colony upon him and his followers. Kirios had heard of this Galen before he tracked Eneas here. His infamy had grown because of his crusade—his crusade to find peace from the human wars and supernatural predators.

And to do so, he had enlisted supernaturals such as the lykanthrope, Eneas, who hunted those who preyed upon the humans. Kirios could not find fault in the crusade. He could find fault, however, in the fact that he’d had no life to speak of for the last twenty years … for it had been spent hunting Eneas, after discovering the lykan had killed Xanthippe and Phaedrus—the penalty for killing Ephialtes.

Kirios exhaled slowly. “It is a matter of honor. I must exact revenge against those who took that which is mine.”

Galen nodded. “And you are an honorable vampyre, Kirios. I know. I have heard of you. You are of the second generation. You feed on the blood of animals. You travel from place to place. You’ve even been known to rescue humans utilizing your superior power. You … are not so different from Eneas. In fact, if not for the obvious, I think you would rather like him.”

“You will not even let me challenge him?”

Galen shook his head. “I would ask you to stay. Live here with my people, Kirios. Become one of my hunters.”

He tried not to let the surprise show on his face. Why on Gaia’s earth would Galen want him? He was a nobody. More to the point, he wanted to kill one of Galen’s men.

“Why?”

Subtly—so subtle Kirios almost didn’t feel it—the irritation and rage beneath his skin waned as Galen spoke of the world he envisioned. He preached that they, as supernaturals with their blessed gifts, should be protecting the humans’ fragile existence in gratitude for what the gods had given them. Humans were the children of the gods just as much as they themselves were. All this Kirios had known, had appreciated, but it was only now under this magik’s spellbinding presence that he began to see he was just as culpable as those who hunted humans, for he had the power to hunt the hunters, protect the hunted, to give back to the gods … and he had not been doing so.

Tyras, 377 BC

“Galen?”

No answer.

“Galen?”

He was catatonic. Kirios glanced anxiously around at the others. His friend, the magik Agamemnon, shook his head.

“What has happened?” Kirios demanded.

“Parthenia is dead.”

Kirios stumbled back. Oh Gaia, no. How could Galen bear it?

Eneas.

Kirios rushed from the entrance hall, through the grounds, his speed knocking over ornaments and fripperies as he went. How had these last fourteen years come to this?

After struggling with his anger, he’d finally settled into his life as Galen’s man, hunting supernatural predators. It hadn’t taken him long to fall easily into the way of life, to make friends into family, for Galen to become like a father. It had taken thirty years to unbend toward Eneas. And now … now sixty years on, Eneas was like a brother. How could it be possible that he had betrayed Galen, betrayed them all?

In truth, Kirios would say it had all begun fourteen years before when Galen had fallen in love with a human girl, Kleisthenes. They married, had children. She’d been completely aware of who and what they all were, and that their children would have magikal gifts. For the closest of them, they had been comfortable in her presence. There had been others, however, who had a difficult time with Kleisthenes.

Kirios blanched upon remembering his friend, a vampyre, who’d confessed to dreaming of Kleisthenes each night, dreaming of drinking her blood until his obsession was sated. Sadly, he could not be counselled through it, and when he attacked her, it was Kirios who saved her, and Kirios who was chosen to execute his friend.

Soon after, the household of supernaturals dwindled, until only Eneas and Kirios remained among the magiks and faeries. Only a few years after the incident, Galen had come to Kirios in confidence, revealing fears that his wife was having an affair. Kirios could not believe it of Kleisthenes but had promised to investigate Galen’s suspicions.

He felt sick as the vision of her lovely figure posed so elegantly in her bedchamber flashed before his eyes, blood soaking the bedcovers, a gaping hole in her chest where her heart had been savagely cut out. They found Kleisthenes murdered the very day after Galen had come to him. The household had been devastated, Kirios also, but he had gladly assumed the task he and Eneas were charged with—to find the culprit and bring him to Galen alive.