The Challenge Page 2

  Until now...

  He looked around the room, watching a dozen beings spread out in a semi-circle across from Allendra and him, on the other side of the moon design carved into the stone floor. Most appeared to be regular humans, but Zaan knew they were anything but. He recognized some shifters, wolves and dragons, along with a vampire, a sídhe, a siren, and even a shade.

  The little fae was among them, strangely enough, her appearance altered so that her clothes matched everyone else, her expression radiating the same confusion as the others when they looked at each other and at themselves—they all wore simple, sleeveless tunics that covered them from the throat to the knees, something from another age that undoubtedly wasn’t what their physical bodies wore at the moment, wherever they were. Beyond the confusion, however, some were also beginning to show signs of anger.

  Instinctively, Zaan moved closer to Allendra. It was silly, really; even if all these beings had been there in the flesh, there was very little they could do to harm Allendra or Zaan. Still, he’d always felt this need to protect Allendra, even when the last thing she’d wanted was for him to be near her. At times, it had been agony to remain away, but he’d always respected her wishes.

  “Welcome, children,” Allendra intoned, drawing all eyes to her, including Zaan’s.

  She’d used a sliver of power to alter her appearance, making herself a little taller, the red of her long hair a little brighter, transforming her tunic into regal robes that matched her emerald eyes.

  Some of the beings assembled there looked at her in awe. Others seemed wary—or maybe they resented being called children.

  “Welcome,” Allendra said again, a tiny bit of warmth seeping into the word.

  Reason might have decreed that she erase their creations, but her heart might not completely agree... There was hope, still.

  “What is this place?” a dark fae demanded, almost growling. Zaan willed himself to know her name and he did: Serena. She stood a little apart from the others and watched everything and everyone with suspicion. “Who are you people? How did I get here?”

  Others started to question the circumstances as well. Allendra silenced them all by raising a hand, palm out toward them, her sheer presence commanding their attention.

  “You are here because I willed it so,” she said. “Your bodies remain safe wherever you went to sleep, but I gathered your minds in this place so that I may speak to you.”

  She paused briefly before adding in as strong a voice as she possessed, “I am she who created all of your breeds.”

  Zaan gave her a sharp look at that. Didn’t he deserve some of the credit? It had been his idea to take humans and imbue them with some of the powers he and Allendra possessed—to make them more, and watch how they’d change the world for the better. Generations later, not everything had gone according to plan, but that was the beauty of it. The Source lent them its power, but sometimes it acted with a mind of its own, too.

  “And I am he who helped her fashion your ancestors,” he interjected, earning himself a quick, annoyed glance from Allendra.

  Some gazes turned toward him, but not for long as Allendra started speaking again.

  “I gave your kind,” she said, pointing at two shifters who stood close to each other, one an olive-skinned man whose body exuded the strength of his wolf even in his human form and the other a slender woman with hair so pale it seemed white, “the gift of listening to the animal part of each human by turning into wolves or dragons. I gave your people—” She now pointed at another woman, a siren, but the wolf she had singled out took a step forward, his eyes blazing with ire.

  “Bullshit!” The swear word sounded almost like a growl. “You did not ‘create’ me, or anyone from my bloodline. No one has that kind of power. This is just a fucked-up dream.”

  His interruption might have had more impact if he hadn’t finished with a look at the other people assembled, as though asking them to agree with him. Some looked like they thought the same way he did, but none spoke. It didn’t surprise Zaan; they were strangers to each other, and when Allendra had named their breeds, some had started distancing themselves from those they might consider dangerous.

  “It is a dream,” Allendra said with a twinge of impatience. “I already told you that it is. But it is real, too, and so is everything I say. I know much more than your name, Hart, and I could tell you your life story from the time you were but a child, but I doubt you want others here to know that much about you.”

  Hart took a slow step back, disbelief still written on his features.

  “I know each and every one of you,” Allendra went on, her gaze flowing over the semi-circle of beings as she named them. “I know your names. Hart Devis. Dmitri, of the Sun Valley wolves—or I should say Dante. Shadow Hunter Doulzen. Fallen Leneth, from the Kingdom of Vaie, Third of the Dazmei. Matthew Killough. Saul Ade. Serena, of the White Dragon kingdom. Wayrian of the Rian clan. Magnus Lang. Avila, fallen queen of The Bay. Ondine. And even you, Saber, Guardian for the Queen. I know who and what you are.”

  She paused briefly, her eyes sweeping once more over them before stopping pointedly on one of the dragon shifters—Wayrian—who had remained very quiet until now. At first look, Zaan had thought she was subservient, but now he realized there was a strength to her, like a stream whose force remained hidden until tested.

  “I know some of you are at war. I know some of you try to stop your kind from killing. I know some of you couldn’t care less what happens to other breeds or to humans. And I know all of this because it’s been that way for millennia, since the moment Zaan and I breathed power into your ancestors. Millennia of unending strife, skirmishes, or all-out war. Countless deaths. Enough pain and grief and tears to fill oceans in a dozen realms.”

  Her voice had grown harsher, colder with every word, and it was icy enough to shatter mountains when she said, “No more. I should have acted a long time ago, but I will not delay any longer. It ends now.”

  Alarmed, Zaan looked at her, ready to intervene. Had she changed her mind? Did she no longer intend to give them one last chance?

  “What do you mean?” Serena asked. From the fear lacing her voice, she suspected the worst.

  “I mean that I will return each of you and every last living member of your kinds to what you would have been, had I not changed your ancestors’ destinies. You will all become humans.”

  This pronouncement was welcomed by various degrees of outrage, denial, and anger.

  “You can’t do that!” the little fae exclaimed. If she was speaking, Zaan had no doubt it was with Allendra’s blessing, if not under Allendra’s direction.

  “I’ve never done anything wrong! Never spilled blood or harmed another being,” Fallen protested. “How is that fair?”

  Wayrian looked like she would have agreed had she not been so nervous.

  “This is who we are,” Saul said. “You have no right to take that away from us.”

  “I have every right!” Allendra thundered, using her power to magnify her voice and quiet them all. “I made you, and I will unmake you if such is my desire.”

  Silence fell over the room, some of the beings staring at Allendra in fear or anger, others looking at each other as though to seek support. Doulzen, the shade, finally took a step forward, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Except,” he said calmly, “if all you wanted was to ‘unmake’ us and everyone else who is like us, you’d have just done it without bringing us here to tell us about it. So why are we here, exactly?”

  Zaan couldn’t help smiling at him and would have praised his cleverness if Allendra hadn’t done it first.

  “Very good,” she said with a thin smile. “I’m glad to see reason can still prevail even where anger and fear grow wild. And you are right. I didn’t need to bring you here. My first plan was to wait for the Blood Moon, and simply act. But Zaan—” She inclined her head toward him. “—pleaded with me to offer you one last chance, and because he had a hand in creat
ing you, I will grant him that request.”

  She paused again, letting the tension thicken as everyone waited on her next words.

  “I chose each of you to be a representative and champion for your people. And I chose each of you for a simple reason: none of you has found a life-mate yet. Though you may have had lovers or companions, you have yet to recognize the one true love of your life, the person who is destined by Fate to be your match, to fit into your heart and body like a key and its lock, the person who has the potential of making you happier than anyone else on this Earth or beyond could. All of you either already know this person or will meet them within the next month, before the Blood Moon. And all of you will come to realize that you’re not supposed to be with him or her. They may be the enemy of your family, or someone who despises you personally. They may be human or from a different breed, someone you were taught you should not associate with. They may have inflicted great harm on you and yours, or you on them. They may seem wrong for you, or you for them, in every single way. But forbidden or not, wrong or not, they are still your fated mate if you choose to go against your very nature for the sake of love.”

  Even before she finished, Zaan couldn’t help but admire how cunning she was. He’d always known she could think fast, but she had to have come up with this plan in just seconds as she was gathering the spirits of those assembled here.

  “You have four weeks to find your destined mate and form a life-bond with them. For some of you, it’ll mean mating in a very primal way, and maybe sharing blood or bites. Others will exchange mere words, maybe rings, but form just as strong a bond. If all of you who are here today accomplish this task before the Blood Moon rises, then I will forego my plans and leave you and yours in peace. But should one of you fail, you will all have failed.”

  Once again, silence fell on the room as the beings there took in what Allendra had said—the challenge she’d imposed on all of them. Close to a full minute elapsed before Doulzen asked, more subdued now than he’d been earlier, “And how are we supposed to know which person is our mate?”

  Saber huffed. “If I’m supposed to go through the list of my enemies, it’s going to take longer than a month.”

  A couple of people snorted, the tension momentarily broken, while a few more looked like they might share the same problem.

  For the first time since Allendra had first started gathering the power from the Source in her hands, Zaan had the impression that she needed a second or two to think. Had she not foreseen this difficulty? Or had she meant it to be part of the challenge?

  Either way, she found an answer quickly enough.

  “Because the Blood Moon will be upon us fast,” she said in a magnanimous tone, “I will grant each of you a clue.”

  She cupped her hands as she had earlier, and once again a ball of light grew in her palms. Zaan wondered if this was a recent habit or something she was doing just for show. She used to project power and put it in action with no more than a flick of her wrist, the same way Zaan did himself. What could have brought this change?

  Long, shimmering tendrils shot out of the ball of light and toward the group of supernatural beings. Some of them tried to evade the tendrils, but Allendra’s power would not be so easily denied, and the light sought each and every one of them as though able to think by itself. While Allendra had tried to give them proof of her power so far, the fear, shock, and awe reflected on the beings’ faces gave away that this physical manifestation of her magic confirmed it better than any word.

  Each tendril wound around a being’s wrist and hand, slowly disappearing as though absorbed by their skin. Most, if not all, raised their hands and stared at what was happening, some frowning while others looked frozen. From where he stood, Zaan couldn’t see what was going on, and so he willed himself to see through the eyes of the closest chosen.

  He saw on Saber’s wrist a mark, barely darker than the skin around it, the size of a large coin and resembling a circular dragon, biting its own tail, wings spread wide. He slipped into Dante’s mind and this time caught a glimpse of an animal—a bird, maybe?—before Dante curled his other hand around the mark as though to deny its very existence. A third person had a letter H there, written in Allendra’s flowing script, a crescent moon curling over it. Someone else had three small stars, merely a shade darker than the skin that surrounded them so that one would have to know they were there to realize it was more than a rash or temporary irritation. Avila, the siren, had a circle of flames around her wrist, like a bracelet. The vampire’s mark was on his left palm, but Zaan didn’t get a clear view of it before Matthew fisted his hand.

  Zaan retreated back to his body just as Saul bellowed, “You’ve got to be out of your bloody mind!”

  It sounded as though the Sídhe warrior already knew the person the clue designated—and was not happy to discover he or she was his destined mate.

  “After all these years of near silence, you fickle little gods have found some new game to play with the Sídhe?” He rubbed his thumb vigorously over the spot on his wrist, but of course the mark endured. “Is this in jest?”

  “No, child,” Allendra said with no trace of humor, “I am not in the habit of joking about such important matters.”

  “I owe no allegiance to you. You’re not one of my gods. Whatever hand you had in my race’s creation was insignificant.”

  Zaan almost wished it were true. The Sídhe were a mess many gods shared equal blame in. They’d been created to serve humanity, but had been given the magic of lesser gods. In time, magic had corrupted them. The Sídhe served no one but themselves.

  “The others will not oppose me,” Allendra said, somewhat to Zaan’s surprise.

  Could it be true? Had she shared her plans with others and gained their assent? Most of the time, the two of them had worked alone, but some creations, like the Sídhe, had been group efforts. Could he be the only one who disagreed with Allendra today?

  “You will all form a bond with the person indicated by your mark,” she continued, “or you will all become humans at the moment the Blood Moon rises.”

  “I don’t have time for this shit,” Magnus said with a huff. “At least that dream I was having with the hot blonde made sense. This doesn’t. How would you know whether we’ve mated or not? How would you even know who we’re supposed to take as our mate?”

  “Haven’t I answered already?” Allendra said with an impatient sigh. “Haven’t I proved to you the extent of my power? Will you believe when you wake up in your bed and find the mark on your hand, or will you pretend to yourself that none of this happened and the mark means nothing?”

  She shrugged, and in that small movement Zaan could see a tiredness he hadn’t noticed before.

  “Whether you believe me or not,” she continued, “whether you decide to heed my words or not, it’s your choice. You know what the consequence of your actions will be, so—”

  “But it’s not just my actions,” Serena interjected. “What if my mate doesn’t want me? What if someone here refuses to participate when the rest of us all succeed? You’re setting us up to fail!”

  Zaan wondered the same thing, though for a different reason. One man in particular, the vampire, hadn’t said a word even as he stood apart from the rest, and a strange, hopeful gleam had lit his eyes when Allendra spoke of them all becoming human. Could she have chosen someone who would fail on purpose?

  A bitter smile spread on Allendra’s lips, so foreign on her lovely features that for a moment she didn’t look like herself anymore.

  “What if I am?” she asked. “There’s nothing you can do but conquer my challenge, and hope that everyone here does the same. Love, and hope. Nothing else can stop me. I will be watching, but you will not hear from me again. Farewell, children. Think about what I’ve said, and act fast. Time will fly before the Blood Moon is upon us.”

  Without allowing another protest or question to be voiced, Allendra clapped her hands once again, and eleven figures disappeared, leav
ing only Ondine behind. She was staring at her wrist with an inscrutable expression.

  At the same time, Allendra resumed her usual appearance, wavering a little on her feet as she did so; wielding so much power at once took a toll on a body. Zaan reached out to her to steady her, but she evaded his hand. Clenching his teeth, he closed his hand and pulled back. Even after all this time, could she not accept his help?

  “There,” she said quietly without meeting his eyes. “They have a chance to change my mind, just like you wanted.”

  “A chance?” Zaan shook his head before he continued. “They’re right. You set them up to fail.”

  She turned her back on him and took a few steps away, wrapping her arms around herself as though she were cold.

  “I never claimed to play fair. That’s what you said, remember?”

  The words went straight to Zaan’s heart like a well-sharpened dagger.

  “If what you want is another apology,” he started, but fell silent when Allendra looked at him.

  Her eyes shone wetly, though no tear rolled to her cheeks. He wanted to take her in his arms, but he knew she’d refuse his embrace.

  “I don’t want an apology,” she said. “I don’t want anything from you. You asked for a favor; I granted it. If you want to stay here until the Blood Moon comes, I can have a room readied for you. Otherwise, you know where the front door is. You can let yourself out.”

  With that, she started toward the left staircase Zaan had taken to come up to this room.

  “My lady?” the fae said quietly, continuing only when Allendra paused and looked at her. “You marked me too. Does that mean…”

  Allendra’s expression softened as she watched the fae.

  “It means you have to find your mate too, yes. And I apologize in advance, Ondine, because your choice might be harder than most.”