Chapter 19 – Empusa
EMPUSA
I’m covered in blood, but it’s not hot any longer.
It feels cold against my skin as we fly and fly.
I keep trying to stay awake. It seems like a bad idea to go to sleep, but staying conscious seems harder than I ever imagined.
My hands wrap around my belly, and Rokad holds me like he never wants to let me go.
“Almost there?” I whisper, and the words sound strange.
“Almost,” he says, but there’s panic in his voice.
The world goes dark. I swear the moon flies across the sky. It’s always in a different place, every time my eyes open. And then the sun is rising, and it feels like I’m leaving this world, entering into a golden place that’s warm and comforting.
“Come on, stay with me,” I hear Rokad pleading.
“How is she?” I hear Conley somewhere nearby.
After a minute that feels like a lifetime, Rokad says, “We need to go faster.”
Faster? To where? Oh, right. I’m bleeding. They called Leo. We must be going there. I hope the vet knows how to help a monster or else we’re screwed.
Darkness swallows me again, and I see flashes of light and darkness. Screams. Shouts. I swear there’s fire, and then I’m back in the Underworld, my mother hovering over me. She looks scared. In the Underworld, she rarely looked scared.
I struggle. Something is wrong.
Pain sears through me, and now it’s me screaming. Hands are pinning me down, but I fight them. I slash with my claws. But no matter what I do, I can’t get away from the hands or the pain.
And then it’s dark again. For a long time. For so long I’m sure I’m dead.
When I become aware of my surroundings, I struggle into a sitting position, feeling like years have passed. My body feels stiff, my throat feels dry, and it’s almost as if I don’t remember what it’s like to be back in my own head.
Lucas is instantly there, his light brown eyes locked onto me. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”
Tears prick my eyes and I reach for my stomach. I’m wearing a bra, and my stomach is wrapped with bandages. “The baby!”
“The baby is okay,” Lucas promises.
I touch my stomach lightly. This feels real. “Am I really okay?”
“Yes,” he says, and tears fill his eyes.
“I’m not dead?”
“No.” He puts his hand softly on mine. “We got you help in time.”
His hand feels real. The uncomfortableness of my body feels real. The room I’m in, decorated like a cozy cabin? My memories? They feel more like a dream.
The door to the bedroom opens, and Rokad, Conley, and Narath are there, crowding in. All of them look like hell. They have day-or-two old beards, bags under their eyes, and wrinkled clothes. They’re also looking at me like I’m a miracle.
But my gaze goes back to my belly. “How do you know the baby’s okay? Are you sure?” I don’t even realize I’m crying until I see the teardrops on my chest.
“We’re sure. She’s perfect. You’re about five months along, and her growth is just what it should be for a supernatural baby. She’s moving and kicking, and--” Rokad cuts off, emotion lacing each of his words.
“And you’re okay too,” Narath says, his dark gaze meeting mine. “You need to rest and take it easy, but she reassured us that you’re okay.”
I brush tears away and then rest one hand on my belly. Sure enough, I feel the flutter of our child against my hand. And then, their other words filter to me. “She?”
Lucas smiles. “We’re having a daughter.”
I cry big, fat tears that roll down my cheeks, and my guys are suddenly sitting on all sides of me around the bed. Conley brushes my tears away, Lucas holds my hand, and Rokad and Narath warm me with the heat of their bodies, even though there’s space between us.
“We’re having a girl, and she’s safe and healthy,” I say.
My men nod, and Narath adds on, “And you’re safe and healthy too.”
“And that bastard Ceuthonymus is dead,” Rokad mutters.
I relax back against the pillows. “I owe all of you so much. I owe Leo so much. There was a time I was sure I was dying, and somehow she managed to pull me back from that dark place.”
They frown, but Conley is the one to speak. “We actually called Leo, but she said this was more than she could handle. She suggested we go to the first witch instead, Hecate, and that if anyone could save you, it would be her.”
“Hecate?”
“Yes,” Lucas says.
“Hecate?” I repeat, and I feel my eyes filling with tears again.
Everyone nods.
“You brought me to my mom? But, you can’t have. This isn’t the Underworld.”
Is it?
“She got free,” Lucas says, squeezing my hand. “And she made a home for herself and her family on earth. She tried to find you but couldn’t.”
“No.” I’m shaking my head, tears rolling down my face. “If my mom is here, then I must be dead. There’s no way she escaped. There’s just no way.”
There’s a soft knocking at the door. I freeze and slowly look up.
And there’s my mom, standing in the doorway. Her skin is pale blue and pale blue hair flows down her shoulders. She wears a white summer dress with flowers on it, and her eyes are tired but hopeful.
“Mom? Is it really you?” I ask, my words sounding breathless.
She breaks down, sobbing, and then runs to me. My guys move back, and her arms surround me. “I’ve missed you so much, and I’ve never stopped searching for you. I wanted you to be free and happy, but I also just wanted…you.”
I’m crying too, and we hold each other for a long time, saying everything, and nothing, all at once. When she finally draws back from me, she dries her eyes and helps me dry my own.
My guys are no longer in the room. I don’t know where they are, but they’ve given me space that I’m grateful for. I feel like as much as they wanted to stay, they’re starting to figure out that they don’t always need to hover over me, even now.
“So, your boys seem nice,” she says. “Are they?”
I nod. “They are, but we’re still getting to know each other.”
She glances at my belly and laughs. “It seems quite well.”
I feel my cheeks heat. “It all happened pretty fast.”
“I had a similar experience,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
She shifts on the bed, frowns, and then tells me, “I’ll show you.
” She goes to the door and calls for someone.
A minute later, a huge man comes in holding the hand of a small child, a little boy with dark hair streaked with blue.
His eyes are almost the same gold shade as my mother’s and my own, but they nod more toward hazel.
Even so, I instantly know who he is. “Do I have a brother?”
My mom nods, seeming nervous as the small child toddles over toward her, with the big man hovering just behind him. Then my mom picks him up and puts him in her lap. The kid can’t be…more than a year old.
“This is Ajax, and this big man is one of his fathers, Orion.”
The huge man gives me a smile. “So, you’re the great Empusa. Your mother has spoken of nothing but you since the moment I met her.”
I frown. “You remind me of someone.”
He looks confused for a minute, then surprised, “Oh, yes, you likely knew my brother Andros from the Underworld.”
I look at my mother. “Our guard?”
Her cheeks turn pink. “Andros was our guard, but he was also our protector in every way he could be, and also my lover.”
“I had no idea,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief.
“You were already dealing with so much, I didn’t want to put more on your shoulders.”
I lean back on my pillows. “So you’re all on earth here together? You, Orion, Andros, and Ajax? You’re a family.”
She laughs. “Plus my phoenix, Blaise.”
I shake my head. “I can’t believe it.”
My mom’s face falls, and she gives her son a kiss on the head, then hands the boy back to his father.
“I’ll let you two talk,” he says, then ducks back out of the room.
My mother turns to me. “You know I could never be completely happy until I knew you were safe, right? I never purposely tried to create a family, and even my family, well, you’re my family…”
I’ve never seen my mom so distressed before. Leaning forward, I wince at the pain from my belly, and take her hand. “I’m not upset. I’m actually happy. You deserve good things. And you spent my whole childhood protecting me. I’m an adult now; you don’t need to keep worrying about me.”
“I’ll always worry about you!”
I smile. “I know, and I also know you’ll always love me.”
She looks relieved. “Absolutely. And as for your gargoyles and phoenix…do they make you happy? Are they the family you need?”
I hesitate. “I think so, but I still have so much to learn about life.”
“Can you learn about life with them?”
I find myself smiling, thinking of all of us learning about this new world together. “Absolutely.”
“Then, it sounds like you’ve found some wonderful people to have in your life.
And, I’ll tell you, my guys have been talking to them a lot over the last few days that you’ve been here.
They had a lot of questions about how it worked having a phoenix in our Brotherhood, and even more about having a child.
Andros said that they’ve each come to him privately to talk about what to do to make a woman happy. It’s actually been pretty darling.”
My heart feels warm. “They’re sweet, even if they don’t always know what to do.”
She laughs. “No one, man, woman, gargoyle, or monster, ever always knows what to do.”
And, it’s like I can finally breathe. My mom always had this way about her.
She just made me feel like as crazy and strange as I felt sometimes, I was completely normal.
And hearing her reassuring me is the first time I really feel like things can work with me as a mother, and as a partner to my gargoyles.
“So, the guys tell me you’ve been hunting monsters and that you killed Ceuthonymus?”
I almost tell her I know who he is, but I see the pain she’s trying so hard to hide. She doesn’t need to know that I’m aware of the truth. “Yes, we have been, and we did kill him.”
She hesitates, and then says, “So what do you plan to do next?”
The truth is, I don’t know. “I feel like I was meant to hunt monsters, but I also want my child to be safe. I want her to have a home of her own, and a family to love her.”
“I think you can do all of that, if you just give yourself a break.” She spreads her hands to indicate the room. “And you’re welcome to live here. It’s not very big, but we own all the lands around here, courtesy of some money the gargoyle council left us, and we can build another home for you.”
For some reason, her words feel strange to me. When I think of a home for my daughter and my men, my mind goes back to Leo’s cabin in the woods. Something about that place just felt like home. But is that crazy? I’ve finally found my mom. Shouldn’t I stay close to her?
“That’s not what you want,” she tells me gently.
I stare down at my belly. “Well, Leo has this cabin she let us stay at. It’s a bit of a mess, but, for some reason, I really like it there…”
“Dr. Leo, the sphinx? The vet?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she’s only about a half hour drive from here. And if she was willing to sell you the cabin, we could help you get it fixed up, and we’d still be close enough to see each other regularly.”
I look up. My mom is smiling, actually smiling in a way I can feel down to my very soul.
“That would be perfect!”
“Let’s see what we can do,” she says, and winks at me.
We hold hands for a long time, and she tells me all about her life since I last saw her.
My mom’s adventure escaping from the Underworld is incredible, and so much about her interactions with her gargoyles and phoenix feel similar to my own.
Through her story, in a strange way, I feel like I understand myself a little better, as well as my relationship with my men.
And then she asks me about what I’ve done since she was gone, and I tell her the story. She listens to every word with big eyes, asking only a few questions. When I’m done, she hugs me and says, “I’m glad you found so much love and so much happiness.”
My eyes sting. Is that what I’ve found?
I smile against her hair and hug her back. Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve found.