Dark Passions at Death's Door

17 - True Agony

Nїx stopped just inside his swing range. The reaper didn’t even twitch. Dekker was staring at her with absolute wonder on his face.

She was out of breath, poised, blade ready. She could slice easily, catch him right now, right in the throat. Bisect that damned spine.

He wasn’t moving.

She cursed inwardly.

Take his head, Nїx, why are you giving him this chance to kill you… but he’s not, not…

Dekker was just standing there, waiting for death. Those jade green eyes appeared as though they begged her for it. Like he’d expected it all along.

Why wasn’t he fighting???

She inhaled hard. Felt the tension in her muscles, a small part of her wanting to snap that arm forward. Urging her to end the threat that he was, now.

Dekker stared on, seemingly completely ready for it. His stance was open, willing. He wouldn’t dodge, he’d take it if she willed it so.

He wasn’t fighting with everything in him. Why???

The scent hit her then. Her heart seized.
Freya, Mother, no… no… The smell…

Nїx tried pushing it down, away, just to get it out of her mind. The reaper had enunciated the very horror she had been desperately, feverishly trying to change. Millennia of trying and failing.

She'd been doing her utmost to save the realms, yes, but this singular fate she wanted to change.

The memory - the future memory - crashed against her mind again, full force.

Nothing left but bloody bits and gory pieces.

The shakes took hold of her muscles. Her words came out scarcely even a whisper, “I can’t stop it.”

Her heartbeat pounded against her ribcage. The reaper seemed to blink, return to the moment at hand. His face narrowed in concern.

“‘Stop it’?”

Her voice trembled, then left in a scream, “I can’t stop it! Bloody bits and gory pieces! It’s all that’s left of him!”

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Byron’s mind suddenly lit up with something, a flash of an image. As if he'd suddenly been transported... somewhere else.

A dark, barren, earthen floor, and…

Was that even humanoid?

He held back the urge to retch everything in his stomach, slapped his free hand over his nose and mouth, gulping down a wave of bile. The smell! Jesus!!!

It was humanoid. But sliced into so many pieces... it was like staring at the most awful jigsaw puzzle of anatomy ever. Fetid feces, intestines, decayed flesh... rank, rusty blood filled the air.

Death. That was a very, very, horrific death.

Worse than some of the scenes he’d seen anywhere, even overseas or in the hells.

His throat bobbed again, My God in Heaven, what the Hell is this? That’s her… that’s what’s left of her mate???

Nїx dropped her blades. Tears were running like rivers from her. Her body wracked. As though she were being sliced apart herself, covering her face.

“I don’t even know what he looks like," she sobbed, twisting as if to avoid a blade, "But I feel him die, horribly!”

She spasmed, jerked, convulsed. “Every time. Every time I use my foresight I see him. Just blood and what’s left...!”

Byron stiffened.

He’d read immortal mates felt the other’s death so keenly they’d kill themselves as soon as possible after.

Phenїx was a soothsayer. If she had to live with the ever-present knowledge of her own mate’s horrifying end, what would that do to an immortal mind?

He swallowed when another disturbing revelation dawned. Nїx’s predictions were never wrong. She manipulated events to the best possible outcome.

Always. That was her thing. Except this one?

“You can’t change it?” he asked.

“IT WON’T FUCKING CHANGE!” she screeched.

His jaw dropped with comprehension. Valkyries always believed fate was predetermined. Worse… they could die from sorrow. She foresaw a mate’s end she couldn’t see an out from. Except one.

“Jesus,” he breathed out. “Phenїx. That’s…”

Nїx the Ever-Knowing fell to her knees, curling into a ball, sobbing, her palms grinding into her eyes.

Then the Valkyrie vomited up what looked like a ball of electricity. Byron’s gut twisted. She's vomiting energy!!?!? SHIT!!!

She could die if she let that continue!

He made a decision. Byron dropped his scythe. To the real Hell with it. She could kill him now, but damned if he wouldn’t be there.

He wrapped up in his arms, rocking her softly. “Easy. Easy, easy, Nїx. Let it out.”

She was smashing her palms against her forehead, trying to slam the vision out of her mind.

If only she hit her skull hard enough. Then Nїx whipped her arms around him. Her claws dug into his shoulders, hard. Grasping for... anything.

The blood welling from the wounds didn’t even phase him.

The reaper in him took stock. All these insanely strong, stupidly intelligent, thousand-year-old immortals had no idea their own leader was witnessing her mate’s death every second of every minute of every hour of every…

Byron swallowed bile and saliva in his throat.

No words. That sort of twisted hell was reserved for the most absolute of evil, not one trying to do good.

He remembered what the others jokingly called her. Nucking Futs.

Reaper’s wrath turned his vision red. They think she’s insane!?

He lifted her face with both hands, “Christ, and these morons call you fucking nuts? You haven’t told them?!” He rubbed her cheeks. “Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell them? Why, Phenїx?!”

She was shaking her head in his hands. Her hair felt like the finest silk on his skin. But the reaper in him was groaning, aching with grief.

Nїx’s eyes were searching his, her face hot from weeping. Her eyes, so long vacant, were now clear. And they were horrified.

“No... time! No time to talk, r-reaper.” Nїx blinked out scalding tears. “I h-have to s-save him. I have to save th-them, so I can save him. Have to save’em all.” Her voicebox pinched tightly on tears, “But him most.”

Byron crushed her against him and rubbed the back of her head gently. This insurmountable Valkyrie was so suppressed on emotion it was unreal.

Nїx pounded her forehead in a rhythm over his heart. Her voice lifted to a howl, “I don’t want him gone, godsdammit!”

“I want him alive; I want our children! I want my eternity with him, not… pieces…!” A terrified whisper was all she had left in her when she uttered the last words, “Please no…”

His heart clenched.

God, have mercy on this one... please...

He thought of how much shit this woman had to have gone through. Spending all this time, getting all of this arranged, throughout the years. Byron tucked her under his chin. Tears fell out of him.

“It’s a miracle you even did all this on your own with that shit in your head, Phenїx.”

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