Convergence Ch. 02

Thank you for those who were patient and waited for additional stories. This is more of a backstory, with very little spice to it. Just a touch. There is much darkness here. Proceed cautiously.

Also, I owe a huge thank you to those who have commented and emailed me. I had doubts about my abilities as a writer after the end of Poison Ivy, which I plan on writing alternate endings for as I continue to work on The Pheonix. I know I have several stories in progress right now. I plan to finish all of them. Thank you again for your patience.

Soundtrack:

Scars, by Diztord

Better Days, by Saint Chaos

Fight for Survival by Klergy

Reaper, by Silverberg, Jordan Frye

The prick of pain that accompanied the needle sinking into her vein hardly registered anymore. After nearly a year of these weekly trials, the sensation of falling as the medication slowly swam through her blood was nearly normal. She let her eyes gently close, accepting the descent. She'd stopped fighting a long time ago.

When she opened them again, she glanced around, her brow furrowed in confusion. Since the Convergence engineers had killed off Sloan, the tall, blonde, beautiful healer, she'd always found Soren alone in the dark bedroom he'd shared with his wife and unborn child. He was always instantly visible, either pacing back and forth, barefooted and dressed in wrinkled sweatpants, or wailing on his knees in front of the cradle he'd lovingly crafted in preparation for his daughter's birth.

None of it had been real, of course. The pregnant Sloan, the dark room, the crafted cherrywood furniture; They had all been fabrications, designed partly by his Convergence handler and engineers, and partly by his own dreamed imaginings. But that hardly mattered to Kaian Storm, the created persona that existed deep within the comatose body of Soren Thorne.

A strange sort of familiarity, even a bit of nostalgia, was stirred to life as she took in the warm comfort of the workspace around her. Bathed in golden afternoon light, the assorted creations in varied stages of development spoke of the deep comfort and love Kaian Storm enjoyed in a life that had never truly been his. A time-roughened workbench held instruments and tools, under which she had watched beautiful woodworked objects come to life. This was where he had crafted the cradle that now sat in a neglected corner of his dusty bedroom, the cause of so much of his grief and suffering. This was where he had thread amber-dyed spider silk into the wild mane of a rocking horse. She'd sat next to him on the long antique beech bench as he carved the soul into a high-backed cherrywood chair that would have been used by Sloan while she nursed the expected babe.

She sighed, running her fingers over the sanded, smooth surface of a half-painted bookshelf, slowing the frantic breathing that always accompanied her fall into Soren's Somnolence. There was such comfort in this room, where she had watched as Kaian had lived, and loved, with that gentle way of his that she so desperately hoped would somehow be preserved when Soren finally awoke.

"Aidan."

She froze, her fingers slipping away from the dark stained wood, and slowly turned to face the very worst of her nightmares. She sucked in a shuddering breath as her eyes followed the long, smooth lines of his body, from the toes of his bare feet curling into the carpet just outside the workroom door; up the strong, muscular legs that had shoved her own apart so easily all those years ago; along the brutal length of massive arms she could still feel like a steel band wrapped around her chest; across the broad expanse of golden skin pulled tight across the dips and ridges of his naked torso; pausing momentarily on the thick, pouting lips that had claimed and bruised her own so brutally, to finally lock onto cinnamon eyes that promised to never let her go again.

He stepped closer, and she flinched, gasping when the shelves of the bookcase hit her back, blocking her retreat. He cocked his head, a knowing smirk lifting the corners of his sinful mouth, and continued moving across the sawdust-covered floor until he towered over her with no more than a forearm's distance between them. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, suppressing the whimper that attempted to betray her wild fear of him when his hands gripped the shelf digging into the back of her neck, caging her in. She opened her mouth to speak, falling back into silence when he tsked and shook his head, a wicked grin still playing over his lips.

"Aidan," he said again, her name on his tongue like a prayer and a curse; a promise and a threat. She shivered at the feel of his knuckles grazing her jaw, full of self-hatred and disgust at her obvious fear, an unforgivable weakness where Soren was concerned. Her shoulders straightened as she lifted her chin, shaking off the worst of her fear and bottling up everything she had used a decade ago to take this man down, knowing that she would have to use it again, and soon.

"Kai?" she asked softly, locking down her body's strong desire to shudder when his grin widened and turned cruel as he slowly shook his head. "Not this time, sweetheart," he whispered. His fingers crawled up her neck, threading through raven-black hair, and she stiffened, waiting for the pain she knew would come when he clenched his fist. Instead, he simply massaged the back of her skull as he leaned down to lick the place where her pulse pounded furiously through the veins of her throat. His hot breath fanned across the spot where her shoulder met her neck. "How long, Firefly?"

She jolted as daggers of ice raced down her spine. He knew. He knew everything. He remembered it all.

Whatever else they might have been, however else he'd fucked with her head and wielded his complete and utter control over her life, she had always been able to read Soren, and he had always been able to read her. Before the tint of malevolence darkening the cinnamon of his eyes bloomed into outright evil. Before their fathers had set out on a vicious path to destroy each other. Before he'd given in to the insidious hunger she'd always sensed lurking just beneath the surface. Back when he'd looked at her with a sweet tenderness that had tugged gently on her heartstrings. Before he had destroyed it all, destroyed her, they'd both had an uncanny ability to know each other's thoughts. Apparently, that ability had survived, had defied death itself to tie them together in a way that nearly broke the very last pieces of her ruined soul.

She stared up at him, this Soren, this man who had taken everything good in her life and had twisted and torn it all to shreds, all in an attempt to own her completely. Finding an anchor of strength in the knowledge that he had never succeeded, would never succeed, she stood tall, unashamed and strong, as she answered in a breath that no longer shook. She was still here. She had survived him once. She would survive him again.

And if she didn't, it was her own soul to take.

"Ten years."

Ten years.

A decade of freeing herself from one jailer, only to find herself locked up by another. A decade of enduring unimaginable cruelty at Axton's merciless command. A decade to wallow and rot in the memories of her family, the family that had been killed, butchered, by House Thorne. A decade entirely without Soren's presence.

Until they'd decided it was time to bring him back. To use her to bring him back.

Because in his relentless quest for more wealth and power then he could possibly know what to do with, Axton had killed off the Valkyries of Dawn Empire. All except for her, that is.

Soren breathed a laugh and stepped forward, closing any distance she'd been foolish enough to hope for, with the forced intimacy of a leg wedged between her thighs. Stroking her jaw with the hand cupping her chin, his eyes tracked across her face, reading her in the same way she knew she could read him. "Oh Aidan," he said softly, mischievous regret laced into his tone. "What am I going to do with you, Firefly?"

She tried to jerk her chin out of his grasp, tried to pull away from the intensity of his gaze and the fury she felt, waiting just behind his cinnamon eyes. He smirked, looping the hand not holding her face around her waist to pull her into him. She could feel his arousal pressing against her belly as he raised the knee between her legs, pulling the white dress she always wore in his Somnolence taut across her thighs. She sucked in a breath, feeling his body forced against her own for the first time in ten years.

"Don't," she whispered, bound to silence as his thumb came up to cover her lips, his hand still cupping her jaw, still keeping her exactly where he wanted her.

Nothing had changed. That delusion she had harbored since the first time she'd watched Kaian at his craft in this very room, the misguided hope that she could keep some of the gentleness, some of the goodness she felt in Kai, was slowly being strangled to death. Every move he made removed some of that hope. Every slow stroke of his thumb against her lips; every twitch of his knee against her groin and every unwanted touch, only served to remind her that he was in control. That despite having been killed by the girl he had trapped to him, he still thought he owned her. After all, she'd been bartered for, purchased from his father as if she was a pretty trinket Axton had been ready to smash against the floor. Soren's compliance in exchange for Aidan as an unwilling bride.

Kaian was gone. They were in his workshop, surrounded by the beautiful pieces he'd left unfinished, but the man who called this place home had disappeared.

Soren was a monster. And a cleric with a woodworking hobby was no match for a monster.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she blinked rapidly, hating that she couldn't control her emotions around Soren the way she could around everyone else. She wanted to be numb. She wanted to escape into her mind, like she did when Axton came to her. Like she did after every failed trial, when the vile Shaman and his pathetic demon of an apprentice violated her in a sick attempt to bolster her motivation to the cause.

Their perverted ministrations might have even worked. She'd resisted in the beginning. Refused to interact with Kaian at all, unwilling to reach Convergence with him to pull him out of Somnolence and back into his body.

A skill that belonged exclusively to the Valkyries, to those who could step into the ether and pull lost souls back out. Those who could correct the balance between life and death.

The arm around her waist dropped, locking like a steel band across her lower back as Soren led her away from the unfinished bookcase. His hand stroked her cheek soothingly before slowly moving to circle her throat, tightening just enough to threaten her breath without actually taking it away.

He'd always been meticulous in his methods of terrorizing and controlling her.

She swallowed, knowing that he could feel the way her throat worked as she held his eyes. Searching, hoping, for some sign that his decade of existence in Somnolence had changed him. Hoping, perhaps foolishly, that he wouldn't take that next step; that this time, he wouldn't cross the line that had ruined everything between them. That he wouldn't try to break her like he had that terrifying night so many years ago.

And just like that, with just a thought, she was thrust into the full-sensory memory of a day she had tried very hard to forget.

She kneels on the cold stone of the floor in front of the dais, one hand supporting her weight while the other strokes the ashen cheek of the small body beneath her. "Wake up, Shel!" she cries, her raven black hair falling as she hangs her head to create a curtain around her face, hiding her anguish from the armed men surrounding them. But they don't matter. Nothing matters except for the too-still body she shifts to pull into her lap. "Please, Shel, please wake up. WAKE UP!" She starts to sob, shaking the narrow, delicate shoulders of her younger sister, folding over herself, burying her face in the corn silk hair now stained red with blood. She knows, she knows it's useless. Two tiny wings, transparent except for the sapphire veins creating a pattern that looks like shattered glass, lay beside them. They'd been beautiful. They'd reminded her of dragonfly wings. Now, they are bloody and torn, discarded carelessly as if the sight of them wouldn't destroy her. Still, she cries. "No, Shel please, please don't leave. Don't leave me!"

"Get the bitch out of my sight. I don't want to hear her pathetic whimpering," a cruel, hard voice comes from the top of the dais, where Axton, Soren's father and head of House Thorne, sits on a blood-soaked throne. Her mother's throne, and he couldn't even wait until her lifeblood had dried. Instead, he smears his filthy hands over the arms of the modest, Blackstone chair, far too humble for his tastes. He leers at her as he lifts his palms to show her the sticky crimson staining his skin. She levels a challenging glare right back at the vile man, her eyes shifting in the golden shadows cast by the setting sun. Now bright emerald, darkening to the deepest mossy green, and back again.

She turns her attention back to the little broken body cradled in her arms, lowering her forehead to Shel's silky-smooth skin. The skin of a child. Of a new life, innocent and free and beautiful. A life taken. A life stolen.

A life that would be avenged.

Her tears flow silently, like raindrops falling on the too-pale cheeks of the girl who had loved to dance in the rain. Shel had delighted in dirtying her feet in the muddy grass as the clouds cracked open and spilled its contents on those below, and it sometimes seemed that the clouds had singled her out, that they rained just to make the sunshine child who loved thunderstorms smile.

Rough hands grab her arms, hoisting her to her feet. "NO!" she screams, fighting with every ounce of strength she has left, fighting to stay with Shel, with her sunshine sister. "LET ME GO!" Kicking and thrashing and biting and screaming, until enough men have surrounded her to finally wrestle her under control. Her arms are pinned to the side, her mouth covered with a hand that smells like decaying fish that smashes her lips against her teeth so hard she knows they'll be bruised and bloody. Her feet and legs are held together, a length of rope cutting into the skin of her ankles as two men hold them down. She tries to arch her neck above the crowd of guards tasked with collaring her, with subduing the wild Valkyrie heir, to see her sister once more, just one last time. But when she catches a glimpse of the blood-soaked stone, Shel's body is gone.

It's only then, when all hope has been torn away from her, when the horror of this day has finally begun to sink in, that she relents and stops fighting.

They bring her to the room she shared with Shel, shoving her down onto the carpeted stone floor before they all walk out, the sound of a lock sliding into place making her wince. She stands up and climbs into Shel's bed, small compared to her larger one on the opposite wall, and curls herself into a tight ball, crying silently into a pillow that still carries the lavender-and-mint smell of her younger sister. These things of Shel's; the bed, her clothes, her toys; they don't yet know that she is gone, and so they cling onto her essence, spinning memories of her into the room like tight threads onto a loom.

She's not sure how long she lays there, breathing in the warm, comforting scent of Shel, pretending that this day had never happened. Pretending they are all still alive. How many people had she watched die today? Too many to count.

Her parents had been the first. Their wings, coaxed loose from their backs by the threat leveled at their children, were sliced off with enchanted blades as their throats were slit. Her mother's beautiful onyx feathered wings now hung like some sick trophy in the throne room, behind the dais. She didn't know what they'd done with her father's featherless, opalescent wings.

Her older brothers had both tried to protect her and Shel, ushering them into hidden tunnels as they drew their own blades. Aidan had begged them to come with her and Shel, to run away with them, but they'd both refused. She had held Shel to her tightly, covering her ears, as their screams echoed through the walls into the darkness that shrouded the two sisters, before ominous silence fell around them.

They'd tried to run. Aidan tried to get Shel away. But she'd been unable to stop the younger girl's screams when the narrow tunnel led them to a room littered with the mutilated bodies of their cousins and brothers, their parents, their aunts and uncles. Dead. Every last one of them was dead. Dozens of wings, torn from the backs of all those she had loved, lay stacked in a bloody pile in the center of the carnage.

Her eyes flutter shut, not wanting to remember the rest. Not wanting to remember how Shel's scream had given them away, and what they'd done to Shel after they'd dragged them from their slaughtered family, kicking, snarling, and fighting. She can pretend that none of it had happened. For just a few more hours, she can pretend that it had all been a horrible nightmare.

But then the door to her room creaks open, and a shadowed figure steps through. She squeezes her eyes shut, curling into herself even more, hugging her knees to her chest. She knows she's about to die, and for the life of her, she can't seem to be upset about it, or even afraid. She will be laid out with the rest of her family, where she belongs, and is that really so bad?

"Aidan." A low voice calls to her softly. Her head jerks up, wondering if she'd just imagined it. But the figure in the doorway just continues to stand there. He makes no move to pull a blade or threaten her. She squints, trying to make out his face in the low light of the moon outside her window. "Soren?" she whispers, daring to believe it could be true. He says nothing, but in the silence is a comfortable, familiar strength, and she knows it's him.

She leaps up from Shel's bed and throws her arms around her childhood friend. She's known Soren since they'd both been hardly more than babies. Any time the heads of the Houses would come together, she and Soren would find a quiet corner to play in. As they grew older, toys were replaced with warm hugs and wandering fingers, catching up with each other's lives with quiet words as their bodies gravitated together like magnets. She hasn't seen him in years, not since diplomatic relations between their two Houses began to deteriorate.

He's grown so much since the last time she'd seen him. Aidan is considered quite tall for a Valkyrie. She gets her height from her father, while her slim, delicate bone structure clearly comes from her mother. Soren dwarfs her in both height and stature. The corded muscles of his arms have doubled in size, and the few inches he's always had on her has grown to at least a foot. The length of her arms can no longer wrap around his waist, and there's no give to his hardened body as she wraps herself around his front.

The sobs violently wracking her spent body are all-consuming and cathartic, and so it takes her a few moments to realize that he hasn't moved at all. He's still and silent, his arms remain at his side, and there is something very unfamiliar about the rigid way he holds himself that sends a chill skittering up her spine. She swallows thickly and steps back, reluctantly dragging her eyes from the fingers curled into tight fists at his side up to his flexing jaw, settling at last on the chilling eyes that have deepened a few shades from the warm cinnamon she remembers.