57. Bodin
Chapter 57
Bodin
F rom the outside, the Clock Tower appears as a circular building made of stone, a few yards wide. But the moment I step inside, I enter a new, endless realm. Its landscape is an expanse of sunshine and rolling hills, birds tweeting in the distance. For a moment, I think I’ve made a mistake. I’ve stepped through a portal and ended up elsewhere. But then I hear voices further down by a river—arguments. The sky darkens—thunder rolls. I’m swept down into a memory, a boy in my past.
But I was never a boy. I don’t think.
The younger version of myself is carefree and unburdened. He sits by a crystal-clear stream, carefully cradling something in his hands. As I approach, I realize it’s a small bird with golden feathers.
The young Bodin looks up at me, his eyes bright with an innocence I’d never had.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” he asks, gently stroking the bird’s feathers.
I want to warn him, to tell him to cherish this moment because it won’t last. The mortal bird will eventually die. But before I speak, the sky grows gloomy. The acrid smell of brimstone replaces the sweet scent of flowers. The stream runs red with blood.
The boy is not me but an innocent child. He is mortal, dead beneath my obsessions and hunger. He is a tasty meal, yet my curiosity is not sated. I am a monster. Shame and despair clamp around my mind, urging me to turn back. Escape now while I can—sink back into the oblivion of false memories. These are not worth the pain they bring.
Oberon appears, towering over us, his eyes glittering with malice. He is the definition of darkness—one of the Folk, magical beings born after us, the first seven sons of Morrigan. He is an imposing male with harsh, angular features that seem carved from stone. He did not have the freedom to obliterate and conquer as he desired, so he used us.
“Obliterate everything that dares defy me,” he commands, his voice booming across the now-barren landscape.
I am hunting, chasing, devouring. This is the first glimpse of myself I am not repulsed by. This energy, this feeling of capturing and taking—this, I love. It settles in my bones like a sigh. Then it brings something darker and hotter to life, as I recall Willow testing my patience when we sparred. How I flipped her onto her back, clamped my teeth on her neck, and held her down like prey. The thrill in my blood, the excitement unfolding. I warned her not to squirm, but she did anyway. She welcomed this part of me, and my hunger multiplied.
This memory does not exist within this hurricane but in my heart. With her.
Just as I am sinking into rightness, the scene shifts again.
I am hit with memory after memory, pelted like arrows. They wound me at once, dragging me further into darkness from the small place of joy.
The canary is no longer a small bird but our brother in his Sluagh form. Long ago, we were more avian than man, but we have changed. We swallowed the darkness, yet the Canary retained his brightly colored feathers. He was unique like that. Stubborn, challenging, curious, refreshing, a spark.
He and I watch milling mortals from a city rooftop many years ago.
“Do you know,” he asks, lips curving, “what it means to play games?”
“Idle distractions,” I grumble.
“Are they?” He gestures at the mortals moving a ball with their feet. Back and forth. Back and forth. It’s elementary. They cheer and celebrate when the ball goes in a particular direction. Boo and hiss when it goes in another. Canary cocks his head. “I think games are where their hearts receive flavor. Perhaps we should start thinking of our hunts like games. We could compete and cheer each other on.” He grins. “Boo and hiss when you miss your target.”
“I never miss,” I scoff. Then consider his suggestion. “Competition will divide our hive.”
“Perhaps.” He crouches, intent on the milling mortals below. “But, oh, what if it’s fun?”
“Fun?” I frown at the foreign word.
“Something that feels good, even an idle distraction.” Canary turns to me, black eyes glittering. “I hear them use the word all the time.” He inhales. “Fun.”
The scene shifts. Now, I am in Queen Maebh’s opulent throne room in Elphyne.
She moves among my hive, her voice a poisonous whisper. “Legion is the First,” she murmurs, her lips curving into a cruel smile. “Do you think he won’t come for you all, one by one? He has the power. He has the right. You’re nothing but toys to him.”
Doubt flickers in each of my brothers’ eyes. It creeps into my heart.
Canary begins to pace. His golden feathers are ruffled, his eyes wild with paranoia. “He’s going to kill us,” he mutters over and over. “Legion will absorb us all. We’re not safe. We’re never safe so long as we are linked like this.”
I watch as my past self struggles with the decision, torn between protecting the hive and saving our brother. But Maebh’s whispers are too strong, the fear too deep. My past self finds our Canary pacing the length of a hallway, hands ripping out golden hair as he mutters repetitively, “He will come for me first. They all will.”
“You are a distraction,” my past self whispers to him, fingers reaching for a throat.
“No!” I bellow, trying to stop the scene from unfolding. But this has already happened.
And now I am no longer watching it but living it, feeling it as it sinks into my bones.
“I’m protecting us,” I hear myself say as my hands close around Canary’s throat. “I’m protecting the hive.”
My brothers are bystanders. Their watchful silence is permission, an accessory.
There is a fight. A struggle. A will to live. But I am the Second. Golden feathers float in the air, stained with blood. As the light in Canary’s eyes fades, I feel the hive fracture under the influx of his soul filling us with power. But we do not feel good. That is not fun .
This is a cruel mistake. The trust we have shatters, replaced by suspicion and guilt.
I stumble away from the memory, my heart pounding and bile rising in my throat. What we’ve done—what I’ve done—threatens to annihilate me.
I catch a familiar musky floral scent through the haze. Willow.
It’s faint but unmistakable—hope. She is a glimmer in the distance, dimming by the second under the weight of our darkness. She came here, knowing what she walked into. Varen’s voice surrounds me, hardening me and giving me armor.
Catch our falling star, give her your heart, and she will guide us home.
I push forward, driven by a need to find her, to protect her from the horrors of our history, and maybe, just maybe, find redemption in her love. But the more I am pelted with memories from the past, the more I am torn between rage and regret.
Suddenly, I’m there again. The Morrigan’s primeval domain, eons ago. The acrid smell of brimstone and rancid ink fills my nostrils. Oppressive heat pushes at my skin. I watch, helpless, as our younger selves are forced to devour the souls her sister Danu births, each one burning like acid down our throat until we find the one that tastes like something else—the one set apart, an innocent mortal with heartache. We did anything to enhance that ache so the sweet flavor was strong enough to coat our tongue. It is the closest we become to understanding the other side of our coin.
Screams echo in my ears, a storm of agony I once found so sweet. Now, it turns my stomach.
I continue to hurtle from one hideous memory to the next, watching myself commit unspeakable acts. In one, I’m tearing a village apart, reveling in chaos and destruction. In another, I’m standing over a battlefield, drinking in the despair of the dying, licking their blood from my fangs. The hurricane of time threatens to suck me under, to keep me lost in the world I once lived.
That was before Willow.
Another whiff of her scent. Mine. Ours . I latch onto the only part of me I know she is unafraid of. I hunt.
Her taste. Think about her taste.
But I am thrown into another memory, this one more visceral than any other.
Within the safety of my bedroom, I watch through our shared hive mind as Fox pokes at a mess on the kitchen counter with his black-stained talon. It’s his third attempt at cooking People Food, which resembles a disemboweled muskox’s intestines.
Styx’s voice drips with disdain. “I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that.”
Fox’s determination pulses through our link. “I must begin again.”
Emrys’s voice rasps into our collective consciousness. “ Let it go. ”
But Fox can’t. “We want to please our fated queen.”
Emrys’s disquiet ripples through our shared space. Despite his disparaging attitude, he can’t overcome the curiosity we all harbor for our one true queen.
We share fantasies—longings. Only his is buried deeper.
She’ll be the first to belong to all of us in a way we’ve only experienced second-hand. And then there was that one time Fox lived the experience himself . . . the whore who tasted like the beginning of addiction. But she tasted wrong. Not ours. Not deserving of the magic his tongue wrought between her thighs. That gift alone will belong to our true queen. On this, we all agree. We are hers, and she is ours.
I join Fox and Styx in the old kitchen.
“How will we know it is any good?” I ask, approaching Fox at the counter.
“Simple,” he replies, swiping his finger through the pulpy mess. He sucks it into his mouth. I watch as he tastes. I know it’s not the same as between a female’s thighs. That was nectar—I am told. This is blood no longer warmed by a beating heart. This is . . . dirt.
Emrys’s cruel laughter echoes through the house. Fox’s tail lashes irritably, and I’m reminded that we are not people. Our queen is people.
“Look here,” Styx points to the book Fox pilfered from the Order library. “This reads you must tenderize the meat first.”
“Huh.” Fox sweeps the pulpy mess from the counter into a trash can. It slops against his other failed attempts—time to start again.
As he strides to another room, I flip through the book, searching for more information. It all seems tedious. Elementary. He looks at me when he returns with a fresh slab of meat. “What is tenderize?”
I find the answer. “You must hammer the flesh with a mallet, a spiky corrugated tool.”
Styx grins as he forms a fist and punches the flesh with his spiked knuckles. When he’s done, the meat fibers are well and truly separated. Fox gingerly lifts the slab, but it falls apart into wet, sloppy chunks.
“Perhaps our queen will sup on souls like us,” he suggests hopefully.
“ Meat ,” Varen dryly corrects through our hive mind. “ She will eat People Food. But most importantly, meat. ”
A wicked glint sparks in Styx’s eyes. He grasps the appendage between his legs. “Perhaps she prefers this flavor.”
“That is not the sort of meat she ingests,” I growl, though the idea of putting my cock in her mouth stirs an unfamiliar heat in my core. Perhaps that is because it will be fun —it will feel good—a game.
Fox lifts the slop and releases a long-suffering exhale. “We are doomed.”
“No,” Legion replies with melancholy from the living room. “Our Seventh was doomed. With our queen, we are saved.”
Not all of my memories are painful. It seems impossible, ridiculous, and irrational to believe a single soul can affect me so completely. But Willow has infected us with her light. I refuse to return to darkness.
I use all she is and means to hunt and chase her down. She is here in the hurricane somewhere.
I think of her mischievous smile, the little sounds she makes when asleep, and her feminine grunts when she trains with me—she refuses to concede. She is stubborn, willful, and refreshing. Loyal.
The golden twinkle in her eyes, the way she enjoys watching me squirm as I do her. I recall the little collection of strange items in her room. Each means something special to her. I found one of my hair beads there.
I see her holding Varen’s ear to her chest. See her protecting the wildling from my ire. See her eyes flashing when we threatened to send her friends away.
“Come on. Let’s dance. It could be fun!”
Her voice is my lifeline.
I think about her scent, her intoxicating scent. How it makes my body ache for her, even when she’s not in heat. I see her eyes heavy with reciprocated lust as she looks up at me, those lips wrapped around my cock and taking me deep into her throat. Pushing. Testing my limits. Desire is the heat of life, the opposite of cold and in chaos, the void and the oblivion we wished for.
I chase the fading star until I land in a memory, standing behind our silver-haired hope as she watches the last of my shame unfold.
Maebh’s voice is silk and poison as she speaks to us, kneeling at her feet.
Six, no longer Seven.
“Oh, my dear, sweet monsters. Don’t look so perplexed.” Her hand cups my past self’s face, and her eyes fill with pity, making my skin crawl. “You are Sluagh—harvesters of heartbreak. You are drawn to suffering because you do not understand it. Did you ever ask yourselves why? Why do the mortals feel so much pain when the wound seems so small?”
I see the confusion in my old self’s eyes. We didn’t understand then. We couldn’t.
“It is because love is not something you see,” Maebh continues, her words weaving a spell around us. “It is something you feel. Love is not something you consume. It’s something you earn. If you were to suddenly understand that pain, well, then cruelty would not be so delicious. You would starve, would you not? And so, my dear unfortunate souls, you are destined to hurt those closest to you for eternity.” She pauses. “The day you stop is the day you cease to exist.”
Golden feathers float in the air, stained with blood.
Willow spins to face me. Disgust glimmers in her waterlogged, red-rimmed eyes. She hates us. She abhors us. A calamity against my heart. How will we ever . . .
“Bodin?” She reaches for me, her bottom lip trembling. She runs into my arms, almost bowling me over with the force of her hug. “You came for me. Even though you had to relive this tragedy.” She glares at the memory—her disgust aimed at Maebh —not me—as my shameful past fades and swirls into a bright, sunlit meadow. “How did you find me?”
“With this.” I place her palm on my chest, where my heart beats hard—where it sings to be in her presence again. The wind changes, and her intoxicating scent hits me anew. Our bodies are pressed together. Need and desire violently surge within me. I want to kiss, taste, and know she’s real. Ours . She gives me a mischievous grin, then squeezes my aching erection with her hand. “You sure it wasn’t with this?”
A laugh erupts from deep in my belly. I’ve never felt this much . . . joy. At something so . . . It was a joke. Fun. This is what Canary wanted. For us to live.
I recall all the other, hotter ways to live. Most of them revolve around her taste, her body—my hunger to swallow her star whole.
“We need to get out of here,” I growl, take her hand, and search around the meadow.
“There,” she points. In the distance, we see a door. “I can sense the magic.”
Together, we run. Time moves differently. It colors the grass beneath our feet, raises the sun over our heads, and shifts the sky from dusk to day.
We push through the door and stumble into the stairwell inside the keep—the padlock clatters to the ground. I close the door behind us and crouch to pick it up. Memories sink into my soul and settle, finding a home. I piece together the past and the present. Rage simmers in my blood.
“Emrys knew,” I grind out. “He fucking knew.”
She makes a little sound, that breathy one caught between a grunt and a whimper. I glance up, and she’s wincing, doubled over with sweat dappling on her upper lip. Pheromones leak from her pores, a heady aphrodisiac.
I feel unleashed and hungry. Complete, even without full access to my powers.
She must see the change in my expression. She backs up the steps to the hallway, but I launch at her, taking us both down. My face buries into her, seeking around her stomach for the source of that delicious scent sparking such passion within me. She gasps and tries to slow me.
“Bodin!” she cries as my nose digs under her shirt. Sweet, sweet, smooth flesh. I lick her stomach. Good. This is good.
“You need relief,” I groan against her flesh and head south to where the nectar smells strongest. “I am here, my Calamity. Tell me what you need.”
My nose roams over the crotch of her pants and finds the damp center. I bite her mound. She moans but then tries to shove me off. “Stop.”
“Why?” I nuzzle her sweetness. Lick over the fabric. Can almost taste it.
“I don’t want to manipulate you into?—”
“Manipulate me?” I growl, eyes flashing as I stare up the length of her body. “I have fantasized about you since before you were born. All we want is to please you.” My voice deepens. “To pleasure you.”
Her lips part. A blush hits her pale cheeks.
Fucking Emrys. His insecurities have hurt her. I ease off her body and step down the stairs until she is above me, where I hope she feels safe.
“Your suffering ends now,” I declare. “You will never have to explain yourself, fight for yourself, or save yourself again. You are our queen, Willow.”
She smirks. “I think you mispronounced that word.”
“Mate,” I correct, proving I remember everything, including our time here in Avorlorna. “And mates provide for their mates, especially when they are in need.”
“Do you mean you or me?”
“Both.” I put one foot on the step above, testing her reaction.
She gives me a reproachable look. “I said no.”
“Did you?” My lips curve when I see her eyes sparkle. “Is that what you really want?”
She backs up, nodding, biting her lip to stop her grin.
“I’m going to run,” she teases.
“And what if I warn you not to?” I lick my lips, my mouth already watering. “What if I chase you?”
“Then you’d better catch me.”
Our eyes lock. My heart swells. Then she turns on her heels and runs.