Skinned Read online

  Chapter Fifteen

  Serpentes stood in awe. The rest of the naked shifters, unable to see the gorgons, stared blankly at Cody, unimpressed by his theatrics. And I... Well, I did my best not to let them know that I could see exactly what the serpentes were witnessing.

  Gorgon magic.

  Gage leaned over and whispered in his outdoor voice, "Do you think he's meditating?"

  "Shhh!" I wasn't about to miss this on account of Gage's nonexistent attention span.

  Stheno and Euryale looked perfectly steady as they righted themselves on the teetering edge of the formation, calling forth a celestial power. An undercurrent of chanting gripped the snake shifters in their thrall. It looked as though the stars were falling from the heavens, alighting the very bones of the gorgons with the eyes of the universe. The shower of light was surely nothing I would witness twice in a lifetime. When the last starlight reached them, something incredible happened. The plethora of lunar kisses had awakened the long-decomposed flesh of Stheno and Euryale. Every inch of skin manifested until they appeared fresh and rosy, sealing the burning gasses of the stars within themselves.

  The sisters stepped right out of their graves into warm bodies.

  I wasn't sure if Cody had the look of a runaway groom or someone who had just completed a sickeningly sweet cake eating competition and wanted his trophy. His face shadowed every emotion playing inside his heart and it was damn confusing. Should I save him or buy them matching 'his and hers and hers' towels?

  How could I be jealous? Dead bitches or mysterious beauties, they were still scarier than my worst nightmare served on Gage's pale ass. That's would I told myself, regardless of their full curls and bronzed skin.

  Cody fell to his knees at the feet of the ethereal sisters. Nothing plagued his brow any longer. There seemed to be a quiet dignity. Confidence and composure ruled his temperament.

  Stheno advanced on Cody, stopping erratically an arm's length in front of him. She was getting used to her human body. It must have felt heavy on her lithe bones.

  The second gorgon circled around, stopping behind him. She was much better on her new feet, though no one would dare point that out to Stheno or she'd tear the face off the world to reconcile her shortcoming. Hell would look like a daycare in comparison.

  I glanced around, gauging if the non-serpente shifters were gifted the sight of the striking sisters, or if they were unknowingly in striking distance of power so ancient it rivaled the moment the Earth took its first breath.

  Blaire and my brother stood tight, ready for an overpowering moment of gorgon magic to hit them like a shockwave. Little did they know, it had already begun under the radar of their precious scrutiny.

  An unnerving noise from Cody drew my attention to his wracked face. With Stheno's palm on his chest and Euryale's on his back, an invisible force traveled between them. They worked their magic through Cody's core like it was nothing more than wormwood until it threatened to tear him in half.

  He fought the need to scream into the night by shutting his eyes and focusing on anything else. The crowd grew restless with each passing huff or muffled cry Cody stifled. Half of us were absorbed by the devastating influence the gorgons swayed, while the other half mechanically searched the stones for a source of his pain, looking clear through the mystical forms.

  Elder Kit shoved her way to the front of the crowd. Her white hair was in stark contrast to the shadows encasing the hoard of bodies as the last bit of light in the sky disappeared.

  "Blessed be!" she cried. "They have risen from the netherworld."

  "And Chicken Little says the sky is falling," Gable whispered to Drey, completely unaware of the gorgons.

  Like the archetype of a Greek play, Euryale dramatically slashed her own throat open with a knife from her waistband. The serpentes gasped.

  I gasped.

  At the base of the left side of her neck, Euryale collected the dark liquid. Before Cody could turn to see for himself what was happening, she removed her cupped hand and shoved it to his mouth, forcing his head backward, draining the blood down his throat.

  He instantly stopped struggling. Stopped screaming. He stopped...dead.

  It is said that one drop of blood from a gorgon has the power to kill any living creature, so long as it is taken from the left side of her body.

  I held my breath, waiting to see the rise of Cody's chest. To see his eyelids flutter. But he was as lifeless as a pile of heavy bones left to rot. Not a single flicker of life sparked through the currents of his brain.

  Involuntarily, I ordered, "Breath, goddamn it."

  I could feel Blaire's gaze. He had a knack for paying attention to little details, so long as they weren't orbiting a relationship. In that case, he ceased to recognize the most elementary messages, whether I screamed them in his gorgeous face or cried them tear by tear.

  But this wasn't about Blaire.

  Ignoring my hot-headed ex and shoving through the oglers, I came to stand beside Elder Kit. "Is he-" I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence. I refused to say the word 'dead' out loud, for fear that it would ring true, that the world would agree and propel his spirit far away from this realm.

  "Wait," she offered, her eyes never leaving Cody's wilted body. There was a hint of a smile on her lips.

  Stheno slashed her own throat, drawing blood from the right side of her neck. Not being as gentle as her sister had been, she simply bent down, allowing the liquid to splatter into Cody's slack mouth. It dripped from the side of his lips. I watched the thin line of Stheno's blood run down his neck, threatening to stop at his collarbone, before sliding down his side and dropping to the rock beneath.

  A tremor in his hand caused my back to straighten. Even Gage shut up when he noticed the dead man quake under the invisible touch of serpente goddesses. "Why didn't I bring popcorn?" he muttered.

  Raising their hands to the night sky, Euryale and Stheno took turns yelling an incantation into the breeze, which carried their sacred language straight down Cody's throat to mingle with their gorgon blood in the darkest, squishiest parts of him.

  Elder Kit leaned close, repeating their words in English for my benefit.

  "To die for us is to live. To live for us is to rule."

  The wind whipped our skin, screeching gorgon secrets into the ears of every serpente until it defied sound. The noise turned to an impossibly high-pitched wail. The wail of Stheno and Euryale releasing their king's power into our world.

  Cody sprung to life, his screams of pain masked by the women's chorus. We watched in horror as he convulsed on the stone perch for all to witness. The sound of breaking bones replaced our cries of confusion.

  My brother rushed the formation, wanting to help him. Elder Kit screamed, "You must not interfere!" just as the gorgons struck Darien down with their bright light. He collapsed, reduced to meat on bone.

  I shrieked. I didn't hear the burst of air escape my lungs, but my mouth was partially open, and I was shaking uncontrollably. Reaching my brother first, I refused to hand him over to Blaire or any of my fellow lepe as they tried to lift him up. He wasn't breathing. There was nothing they could do for him now. My brother was dead. The gorgons had struck him down with one bolt of their deadly lightning.

  "He's gone," I heard Lydia sob into Warren's shoulder.

  Elder Kit tisked, "Only serpentes may touch the sacred formation during a ceremony. I am sorry."

  Blaire kneeled beside me. "Let us take him away from here." His voice was gentle, though he couldn't hide the part of himself that had fallen with Darien.

  "No." That one word was a strangled warning, and I meant it. I would fight every one of them to bloody pieces before I would allow them to move him from this spot.

  "Nothing can be done," Blaire pressed. "Let us help." He tried to slide his arm under Darien's broad back. A growl matriculated from my throat as I blocked his arm. He shot me a look of pure anger. Under his breath, he said, "As your leader, I am taking him. If you defy me in this
, you will suffer the consequences, no matter how I feel about you. He is not only your brother, he is also a member of my lepe."

  I stood my ground, baring teeth. He was wrong. Something could be done.

  "Stay out of my way," I threatened, standing to confront him.

  Blaire rose to his feet, towering over me. His jaw and brow were tight with remorse. "Don't make me do this."

  We had sparred together in the past but never fought a true battle to test our skills. If Blaire attacked to establish dominance, I would lose. Not because I was a woman or anything less than an outstanding opponent. I would lose because Blaire had become a master fighter before the rest of us graduated from elementary school. He would win because nothing came before the lepe, not even me. On foreign shifter territory, Blaire didn't have the option to lose or it would make us all look weak.

  The old me would have fought him anyway. I would have relished kicking him swiftly in the face, watching his blood-soaked teeth summersault through the air. It would have quelled a deep resentment to slam his body against the unforgiving slab of stone, listening to the air shoot from his lungs. And when he returned blows, I would have smiled and made him eat every moment, knowing that he was knocking a piece of us into oblivion with each hit.

  That was the old me.

  Instead, I gave him a choice. "The King will help him. You can trust my judgment or we can fight for dominance."

  "You will lose." He sounded alarmed at the prospect of winning. It was a first.

  "I've got some moves that might surprise you." More seriously, I conceded, "But your victory is the likeliest outcome." It tugged at my ego to acknowledge that Blaire was the better fighter.

  "These are my choices?"

  "Trust me or kill me, because I'm not going down without a fight. And I don't like to lose."

  He stared in silence, weighing his options. The shadows of his hair played across his face, making his expression seem harder.

  I spoke in a loud tone so that everyone in the general area could hear when I said, "I am asking, formally, that you grant my request to seek help for Darien from the Serpente King." Quieter, I leaned in and whispered, "Darien is my brother. He will always be my brother before he is your lepe."

  A last ragged cry escaped Cody's lips, calling our attention back to the formation where the gorgons kneeled.

  "The King has arisen," they ushered.

  Cody had shifted into the largest Serpente I had ever seen. That any of us had ever seen, including Elder Kit. It was apparent by her saucer-shaped eyes, taking in the brilliant shades of emerald in his scales as he lorded over the mob. In a magnificent display, hulking golden wings stretched wide to the left and right of him. A startling frame. They could easily wrap ten of us up with room to spare. At the tips of each wing appeared an oversized fang. I shivered at the thought of poison pumping through those fangs into the poor, faceless bastard who might cross Cody in the future.

  And yet, I didn't hesitate to lunge at the edge of the rock, vying for his attention.

  Joshua yelled, "Don't touch it!"

  "They'll kill you!" Lydia screamed over him.

  Pressing my body to the side of the formation prompted Stheno to hiss. Euryale chided, "If your action is not that of jealousy, let her speak."

  "Speak!"

  Of course, Stheno would never admit to something as petty and human as jealousy. I gathered it was the reason she wanted to speak nothing of Medusa, known for her talent of capturing the attention of men.

  Cody slithered to the edge, just above where I stood. Looking down at me the way God must peer through the clouds, he followed the direction I pointed, right to the body of my brother.

  "Bring him back."

  Furrowing his brow, he shook his head. It must have been hard to speak with fangs the size of caterpillars instead of human teeth.

  Wrought with bitterness, I motion to the gorgons and said, "They can and they won't. But you can bring him back." Holding back unshed tears, I practically pleaded, "Do this for me."

  Cody folded his wings until they were compact humps on his shoulder blades. After a few moments of sliding down the smooth face of the stone, he stood over Darien. Wordlessly, Stheno handed him a knife with a bone blade and wooden hilt. It must have been older than I could comprehend.

  He sliced his inner right arm from his wrist to the bend in his arm. It gaped open, reminiscent of a clown's distorted mouth. The vein lay exposed. A pipeline of blood gushed over Darien.

  Everyone was dead silent, except for my brother. Darien inhaled with such force, his torso jolted upright, cracking at least six ribs. He released a protesting moan.

  "Darien!" I squeezed him tightly, not caring to be gentle with his ribs. It was only pain, and they would heal once he shifted.

  Lydia began to explain what had happened to him, but it took only a second to see in his eyes that he already knew. And it would never leave him. He stood with my help before turning to Cody, who loomed near.

  "Thank you," was all my brother said.

  "Run with him. Stay together," Blaire ordered.

  Gage stepped up. "I'll stay with Fray."

  "No," he rounded, "I will."

  The leopards called on their feral energy and shifted. Darien was whole and well by the time the last of his fur spilled down his legs. The playful yip he made soothed my anxiety before my lepe disappeared into the forest, leaving me with Blaire.

  "Our king has proven his power!" Elder Kit boomed into the night air. She repeated the gorgons. "Our king has risen!"

  Every serpente in attendance whooped and shouted for joy. There no longer existed a rift between the factions. Cody's transformation had healed them. He brought them together as one. How long had it been since they acted as one cohesive nest? In the short time I knew them, I figured out that some miracles rely on ancient intervention.

  Elder Kit invited us back to her farmstead for the celebration, which would continue well into the next day. Blaire politely declined for the leopards. This led to the others also bowing out, opting to go home rather than stay another night in a shitty motel.

  Grasping my hand in hers, my skin rich against her pale wrinkles, Elder Kit smiled. "You have been made welcome. Always."

  "Thank you."

  Since we were leaving early, I wanted to say goodbye to Cody, but he was surrounded by serpentes. Having reverted to human form, engulfed by ecstatic voices and rambunctious revelers, I could barely see the top of his hatless head.

  Searching the ground, I found the damned thing like a thrown out house cat, almost trampled. Under Blaire's watchful eye, I handed the hat to an unknown serpente. "Give this to your king."

  I wanted to find Cody and give him one last kiss under the rim of his ugly hat. I wanted to say something. Anything. The moment was lost, though, with Blaire refusing to stand more than a foot away.

  "Ready to go home?" he asked.

  Sarcastically, I mused, "There's no place like home."

  We walked back to the motel in awkward silence.

  "Don't forget to pick up your little brother on the way out."

  "Shit!"

  Chapter Sixteen

  Every light was on and the motel was abuzz with voices and movement as we all prepared to get the hell out of dodge. There were no more threats of danger and no more free buffets. That was the end of a trip in our eyes.

  Unbeknownst to Blaire, I was able to sneak away quietly long enough to locate the stone ball of the woman in the woods. I couldn't just leave her there. As king, Cody could bring her back. There was no doubt in my mind after watching his power work through my brother's shriveled veins.

  Hauling her through the woods, I returned her to the base of the gorgon formation. I felt their eyes on me as I walked away. The entire area was littered with discarded clothing and blood. The serpentes had already returned to Elder Kit's for a celebration that no one would soon forget.

  "No goodbyes?" a voice asked from the edge of the woods.

  Th
e largest smile blossomed on my lips before I could help myself. Cody stepped forward, dressed in fresh clothes.

  "How does it feel to be king?"

  "I'll let you know in a month," he declared.

  That's right, I had agreed to return. Technically, I could use my father as an excuse. The prospect of meeting Cody again equally thrilled and plagued me.

  "What's this?" he asked, motioning to the lump of stone.

  "A gift. Sorry I didn't have time to buy a bow. Maybe you can bring her back."

  "I swear to you, I will try my damnedest."

  "I know."

  "Oh, I believe this is yours." Cody pulled the Tarot card from his pocket. I took it wordlessly and shoved it into mine again. As many times as I kept losing it, it kept coming back to me.

  Before I could help myself, I grabbed Cody and kissed him with everything I had to give. He didn't waste the opportunity to wrap me in his arms. Breaking our kiss, I confessed, "I've never felt so calm yet wanted to run so far in all my life."

  Smiling, Cody hugged me closer. "I don't mind as long as you're running to me."

  It left my heart heavy and tired to leave Cody in the magical woods that had awoken more than desire.

  Soon, I silently returned, packing our bags into the back of the Pilot when Darien rounded the vehicle. He wrapped me in one of his special big brother hugs, ignoring the smell of snake musk on my skin. Of course, we had all tussled with the serpentes, leaving us with mixed aromas.

  "I'll see you back at home," he said.

  I mumbled into his thin jacket, "Not soon enough."

  "If you don't stop too often, you'll make it back by sunrise."

  "It's like you don't even know these monsters I'm riding with," I joked.

  He paused, as if searching for the right words. "We have some things to talk about when we get settled in." I wanted to respond, but he pointed across the parking lot. "The lions are gathering."

  Turning, I saw Tomas and his wife trying not to stare. After saying goodbye to Darien, I walked over to their truck.

  "I'd say it's been fun, but it's been a real shit show," I laughed.