Sundered- Chapter four
I had to leave her. It’s too strong. I’ll hurt her. Dae pounded on the steering wheel as he felt the torrent of Alexis’s energy dwindle the farther he drove away from her. As the power waned, the debilitating hunger ripped into his stomach with razor talons. He turned away from his intended destination, the King’s Ransom, and went in search of more food.
He couldn’t chance staying in their neighborhood or visiting any of his usual haunts. After dreamwalking with Erik last night, the family were sure to be out in force looking for him. He turned the car north and headed for the University District. The Ave is always busy late. College students never sleep. So there will be enough people around for cover.
The tune to “Born to Be Wild” sang out from his phone and he sighed. Reluctantly he picked it up from the console to see what Erik’s text had to say.
“Damian. Answer your damn phone! I know you’re looking at this.”
Then Erik’s ringtone started and his picture flashed on the screen. Dae stared at it for a moment. Too many memories to name flashed through his mind. The love and care Erik took with all of them. But he hardened his heart and ignored the call like he had all the others.
He cruised up and down the Ave, looking for a parking place. He’d been right, the street was packed and it took a while before he could tuck his car up to the curb.
A multitude of scents filled the air. So many different restaurants to choose from. He decided he’d just eat his way up one side of the street and down the other.
A couple of hours later, he walked out of what he decided would be the last restaurant of the night and rubbed his taut stomach. His hunger had become insatiable. He physically couldn’t fit any more in his body, but he still felt like he was starving. I don’t think I’ll be able to stay on the boat any longer. I’ll need to camp outside Lexi’s apartment. Her energy seems to diminish the hunger—it doesn’t hold it at bay completely, but at least I can function if I’m near her.
At some point during his restaurant tour, his family quit trying to call him. He hadn’t wanted to turn off his phone again and cut that last little bit of contact with his siblings. While it hurt to ignore them, it still was comforting knowing they were there. He felt less alone.
The crowds remained thick given the lateness of the hour, and he wove between people on his way to his car. His phone vibrated in his pocket, but instead of a ringtone a strange pinging beep shrilled out of it.
His steps froze and he yanked the phone out of his pocket to stare at the screen. Not a call or text this time. They’d activated the find phone app. A message flashed on the lock screen.
“Damn it, Dae, you’ve seriously pissed me off.”
“Shit.” He tossed the phone like a hot potato into the bush he stood next to and took off at a run. He dodged in and out of the pedestrians and turned off the Ave at the first cross street. Can I get to my car? I have to get out of range. If Erik gets too close to me, he’ll be able to find me through the bond conduit.
He pelted down the quieter street, then dodged into a darkened alley. One that would allow him to work back toward his car. He paused to catch his breath.
Cold rooted him to the spot.
He sucked in his breath and stared wide-eyed down the empty alley as the familiar energy washed over him. His thoughts spun and he told his legs to run, but they didn’t cooperate.
A warm hand wrapped itself around his throat and slammed him into the brick wall. Erik shimmered into view as he let the light go.
“You little shit. You made us fucking search the whole city. I know what you’re doing. How dare you hide this from us? I wouldn’t let you commit suicide when you were Sundered, what makes you think I would allow it now? If I didn’t love you so much…” Erik’s gaze bored into his, rage not quite covering the deep fear in his center’s eyes, and Erik placed his free hand on Dae’s chest while he held him pinned.
“No…” Dae wheezed.
His usual gentleness absent, Erik ripped the power out of him. Dae struggled because he knew his brother didn’t plan to stop there. His vision tunneled black, and his movements grew feeble as the hemorrhaging continued; the only point of light left was his focus on the blue of Erik’s eyes, which widened in shock as his center assessed the purity of the energy.
“Don’t…Erik…” he tried to whisper.
Erik’s fingers flexed, then as the last drops of power were wrung out of the sand of his storeground, Dae felt him turn his will and focus a scalpel of energy. His center plunged into him, slicing away at the psychic structure the Chirurgeons had created so long ago to keep him alive.
At least for a time.
When the Chirurgeons had altered the sundered Kelusis, they knew it was only a temporary solution. A solution to span hundreds of years, but still, eventually every Sundered would begin to fade, just as Dae had done. When that happened to a link, their family had two choices: either watch their link, whom they had been bonded to for centuries, starve to death, or have the center tie the whole family even closer together.
With the first choice, the family had to find a new link or they would die within a few weeks. But with the second choice, they all supported the fading link, which kept them all together; unfortunately it drastically reduced the life expectancy for all members of the family.
And that was a choice that Dae had gone to a lot of work to take out of his family’s hands.
In a form of field dressing, Erik hacked a crude and temporary pathway into the shunt, the structure that allowed Dae to take in the mixture that Erik created when he harvested all of their energies. He modified it so that Dae would receive a continuous stream of energy braided from all of them.
In effect, they put him on life support.
His legs gave out.
Erik let him collapse to his knees while he pulled his phone out of a pocket. “Cass, pinging the phone worked to flush him out of the crowd. I’ve got him. He’s not going anywhere now, I’ve made sure of that. Call the others home. I’m bringing him in, and we’ll need to finish this.”
The effort to remain upright became too hard, and Dae slumped forward. Hands that now held a degree of gentleness caught him, and Erik lifted him into his arms.
“Damn you, Dae.”
“Next time I’ll throw my phone away sooner,” he mumbled into Erik’s chest.
“There won’t be a next time. You can be sure of that. You’re grounded.”
Erik’s steps jostled him as his older brother repositioned to get the car door open. He felt the leather of Erik’s backseat embrace him, cool against his cheek. He tried to pull his knees to his chest. The door slammed, then Erik took the driver’s seat.
“You should have respected my wishes and let me go.”
“Get a clue, Dae. We are a family. We all go down together.” He paused, then continued quietly, “Did you kill anyone? Your power was awfully pure.”
“No. It was close. But no, I didn’t kill anyone.”
The engine roared to life and almost succeeded in covering Erik’s sigh of relief. Traffic was sparse after they got a block away from the Ave, so the drive home only took a few minutes. Sooner than he wanted, he felt the car bump into their driveway and come to a stop. He tried to crawl out, but he was too weak. Erik hauled him up again. His head lolled onto an unforgiving shoulder, and through his impacted vision he saw Cassandra come running out the front door.
“How bad?” She brushed his bangs back with a soft hand.
“He’s much closer than I like.” Erik’s voice rumbled in his ear where it was pressed to his chest. “But I think we’re in time.”
“He hid it so well, Erik. I thought he was fine on Wednesday.”
“Don’t, Cass. None of us saw it.”
“Aye, lass.” Callum’s voice joined in and the sound of the door to the carriage-house-turned-garage scraped shut. “Don’t beat yourself up. All of us should have seen.”
The scream of a high-performance motorcycle zeroed in and skidded to a stop.
Great. Now the gang’s all here, he thought.
“You were right, Cassandra.” Isaac’s voice, muffled by his helmet, reached Dae. “Bob over at Decadence did know. It took some threatening to get it out of him, however. He said Dae only had a week or so left. Are we in time, Erik?”
“I think so. Let’s get him inside and finish this.”
The fabric under his cheek grew wet. “Please, don’t.”
Erik’s arms hugged him tighter and didn’t let go. “Shut up, Dae.”
They reached the steps, and Dae could finally see their descendants waiting on the porch. Maggie’s ancestors had run this residence since the founding of Seattle. They had other family lines that tended their other residences around the world and acted as the human face for the property in question.
“Maggie,” Erik addressed the matriarch of the family. “Please get Dae’s bed ready. Then we’ll probably want dinner. I don’t think anyone wants to go out tonight.”
“Yes, Erik.” She cast Dae a worried look before hustling up the stairs.
Dae was carried up silently, and he railed against his inability to stop this. The soft cotton of his sheets welcomed him when Erik laid him down, the rest of the family surrounding him. He stared up at the ceiling and refused to participate. A tug at the laces of his boots and Cass got them off his feet while Erik stripped his shirt. Thankfully they left his jeans.
“OK, Callum, come here,” Erik said.
Dae tried to ignore the feel as Erik placed a hand over his heart and his other over Callum’s. He gasped as Erik tied the strand in. Two more to go, he thought and held back a sob.
“This is the way it should be, Damian,” Callum whispered in his ear.
Next Isaac was tied in. “If you think we’d let you go, little brother…”
Dae turned his face to the wall. Wet splashed onto his skin near his ear and Cassandra placed her cheek against his, more tears joining the first.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered.
Her energy twined painfully with the rest.
“I’ll monitor the connection tonight,” Erik said, “but from the looks of it, we made it in time. Why don’t you all go get dinner dished up?”
Feet shuffled and a few gentle caresses brushed across him, then he was left alone with Erik. It took effort, but he managed to get his body turned to the side in a blatant “leave me alone” message to his brother.
He could feel the elder incubus’s eyes staring at him. After a few minutes, Erik broke the silence. “I’m sorry you’re upset, but so are we. What you did was not kind or fair to us.”
“And you think me killing all of you is?”
“And how are you doing that? It was just a matter of time. One of us had to be the first to fade, and the rest would follow. Sure, tying us all to you will speed it up a bit, but so? It’s inevitable unless a cure is found. Our lifespans were forfeit as soon as we lost our other halves.”
“You could have had centuries. Now what? Decades?”
“We’ve had centuries. And great, now we have decades. That’s better than the mere weeks you were consigning us to by refusing us. Did you really think we would bond with a new link? We all would starve in a couple of months after you were gone. The Chirurgeons haven’t found anything yet. And you know as well as I that they aren’t trying very hard. We would rather all go together than one at a time. You’re outvoted. So deal with it.”
“Deal with it? Right.” He suppressed a hysterical sob that tried to force its way up from his chest.
“Well you have plenty of time to come to terms with it now.” He paused, and Dae felt Erik’s hand come to rest on his shoulder. “You know this will keep you alive. But it will take days before all of the effects fade and you’re back to normal. The hunger will still be there for some time. I’ll have Cass come up and help you eat. Your body should regain enough strength to be able to get up by tomorrow.”
Erik squeezed his shoulder then left him alone, his thoughts in turmoil.
A few hours later he still hadn’t resolved his feelings. Cass brought up a tray of food and the needs of his body proved stronger than his anger. She lifted him to a sitting position and hand-fed him. Ravenous, he wolfed down everything she offered. Tears sheened her eyes as she helped him.
“Why?” she eventually choked out.
He stared at her hands fiddling with the tray on her lap. “Now I know you’re doomed with me. The only hope I had was that you would all live on. You could have found another lust link. Saved another from the waste. Maybe made it long enough to reach the cure.”
“I would think after close to three thousand years you would know us all better than that.”
“So, by the same argument, why are you all surprised by my choice?”
“Oooooh, you make me want to hit you.”
“Go ahead. It’s not like I can stop you at the moment.”
She grabbed his face with both hands, her eyes staring into his, a flash of frustrated anger lighting their depths. “Will that help with the guilt, Dae? You hurt me. You hurt the others, but what hurts the most is knowing how much pain you must have been in, yet you didn’t ask for help. Knowing you were suffering, and that I could have helped…” She had to stop to swallow. “But that I didn’t notice…”
“I’m sorry, Cass,” he whispered. He managed to get his arm up to rest shakily on her wrist.
After staring at him a while longer she sniffed, then said, “You will be.”
She helped him lie back down, then left him to his thoughts again. Life was going to be fun for a while. He sighed. Frustrated that he couldn’t get out of the bed, he cursed Erik for putting him there. His center hadn’t needed to drain him so thoroughly. But Erik had obviously wanted to cut out Dae’s ability to fight back. Normally this level of empty would have left Dae on the weaker side but not incapacitated. The severity was due to the fade, he realized.
His stomach still argued with his backbone, but the pain had become normal—normal enough that it receded into the background. Which left him free to dwell on the yawning emptiness of his storeground.
Erik did a thorough job. I don’t think I’ve ever been this depleted. As if the physical hunger pain wasn’t enough, now I have to contend with the need to hunt. His memory surged. The brief time he’d spent with Alexis whetted his appetite. Thoughts of her became centermost. His body stirred, but he could do nothing about it, too weak to even give himself relief. Exhaustion soon pressed and he faded into sleep.
He couldn’t chance staying in their neighborhood or visiting any of his usual haunts. After dreamwalking with Erik last night, the family were sure to be out in force looking for him. He turned the car north and headed for the University District. The Ave is always busy late. College students never sleep. So there will be enough people around for cover.
The tune to “Born to Be Wild” sang out from his phone and he sighed. Reluctantly he picked it up from the console to see what Erik’s text had to say.
“Damian. Answer your damn phone! I know you’re looking at this.”
Then Erik’s ringtone started and his picture flashed on the screen. Dae stared at it for a moment. Too many memories to name flashed through his mind. The love and care Erik took with all of them. But he hardened his heart and ignored the call like he had all the others.
He cruised up and down the Ave, looking for a parking place. He’d been right, the street was packed and it took a while before he could tuck his car up to the curb.
A multitude of scents filled the air. So many different restaurants to choose from. He decided he’d just eat his way up one side of the street and down the other.
A couple of hours later, he walked out of what he decided would be the last restaurant of the night and rubbed his taut stomach. His hunger had become insatiable. He physically couldn’t fit any more in his body, but he still felt like he was starving. I don’t think I’ll be able to stay on the boat any longer. I’ll need to camp outside Lexi’s apartment. Her energy seems to diminish the hunger—it doesn’t hold it at bay completely, but at least I can function if I’m near her.
At some point during his restaurant tour, his family quit trying to call him. He hadn’t wanted to turn off his phone again and cut that last little bit of contact with his siblings. While it hurt to ignore them, it still was comforting knowing they were there. He felt less alone.
The crowds remained thick given the lateness of the hour, and he wove between people on his way to his car. His phone vibrated in his pocket, but instead of a ringtone a strange pinging beep shrilled out of it.
His steps froze and he yanked the phone out of his pocket to stare at the screen. Not a call or text this time. They’d activated the find phone app. A message flashed on the lock screen.
“Damn it, Dae, you’ve seriously pissed me off.”
“Shit.” He tossed the phone like a hot potato into the bush he stood next to and took off at a run. He dodged in and out of the pedestrians and turned off the Ave at the first cross street. Can I get to my car? I have to get out of range. If Erik gets too close to me, he’ll be able to find me through the bond conduit.
He pelted down the quieter street, then dodged into a darkened alley. One that would allow him to work back toward his car. He paused to catch his breath.
Cold rooted him to the spot.
He sucked in his breath and stared wide-eyed down the empty alley as the familiar energy washed over him. His thoughts spun and he told his legs to run, but they didn’t cooperate.
A warm hand wrapped itself around his throat and slammed him into the brick wall. Erik shimmered into view as he let the light go.
“You little shit. You made us fucking search the whole city. I know what you’re doing. How dare you hide this from us? I wouldn’t let you commit suicide when you were Sundered, what makes you think I would allow it now? If I didn’t love you so much…” Erik’s gaze bored into his, rage not quite covering the deep fear in his center’s eyes, and Erik placed his free hand on Dae’s chest while he held him pinned.
“No…” Dae wheezed.
His usual gentleness absent, Erik ripped the power out of him. Dae struggled because he knew his brother didn’t plan to stop there. His vision tunneled black, and his movements grew feeble as the hemorrhaging continued; the only point of light left was his focus on the blue of Erik’s eyes, which widened in shock as his center assessed the purity of the energy.
“Don’t…Erik…” he tried to whisper.
Erik’s fingers flexed, then as the last drops of power were wrung out of the sand of his storeground, Dae felt him turn his will and focus a scalpel of energy. His center plunged into him, slicing away at the psychic structure the Chirurgeons had created so long ago to keep him alive.
At least for a time.
When the Chirurgeons had altered the sundered Kelusis, they knew it was only a temporary solution. A solution to span hundreds of years, but still, eventually every Sundered would begin to fade, just as Dae had done. When that happened to a link, their family had two choices: either watch their link, whom they had been bonded to for centuries, starve to death, or have the center tie the whole family even closer together.
With the first choice, the family had to find a new link or they would die within a few weeks. But with the second choice, they all supported the fading link, which kept them all together; unfortunately it drastically reduced the life expectancy for all members of the family.
And that was a choice that Dae had gone to a lot of work to take out of his family’s hands.
In a form of field dressing, Erik hacked a crude and temporary pathway into the shunt, the structure that allowed Dae to take in the mixture that Erik created when he harvested all of their energies. He modified it so that Dae would receive a continuous stream of energy braided from all of them.
In effect, they put him on life support.
His legs gave out.
Erik let him collapse to his knees while he pulled his phone out of a pocket. “Cass, pinging the phone worked to flush him out of the crowd. I’ve got him. He’s not going anywhere now, I’ve made sure of that. Call the others home. I’m bringing him in, and we’ll need to finish this.”
The effort to remain upright became too hard, and Dae slumped forward. Hands that now held a degree of gentleness caught him, and Erik lifted him into his arms.
“Damn you, Dae.”
“Next time I’ll throw my phone away sooner,” he mumbled into Erik’s chest.
“There won’t be a next time. You can be sure of that. You’re grounded.”
Erik’s steps jostled him as his older brother repositioned to get the car door open. He felt the leather of Erik’s backseat embrace him, cool against his cheek. He tried to pull his knees to his chest. The door slammed, then Erik took the driver’s seat.
“You should have respected my wishes and let me go.”
“Get a clue, Dae. We are a family. We all go down together.” He paused, then continued quietly, “Did you kill anyone? Your power was awfully pure.”
“No. It was close. But no, I didn’t kill anyone.”
The engine roared to life and almost succeeded in covering Erik’s sigh of relief. Traffic was sparse after they got a block away from the Ave, so the drive home only took a few minutes. Sooner than he wanted, he felt the car bump into their driveway and come to a stop. He tried to crawl out, but he was too weak. Erik hauled him up again. His head lolled onto an unforgiving shoulder, and through his impacted vision he saw Cassandra come running out the front door.
“How bad?” She brushed his bangs back with a soft hand.
“He’s much closer than I like.” Erik’s voice rumbled in his ear where it was pressed to his chest. “But I think we’re in time.”
“He hid it so well, Erik. I thought he was fine on Wednesday.”
“Don’t, Cass. None of us saw it.”
“Aye, lass.” Callum’s voice joined in and the sound of the door to the carriage-house-turned-garage scraped shut. “Don’t beat yourself up. All of us should have seen.”
The scream of a high-performance motorcycle zeroed in and skidded to a stop.
Great. Now the gang’s all here, he thought.
“You were right, Cassandra.” Isaac’s voice, muffled by his helmet, reached Dae. “Bob over at Decadence did know. It took some threatening to get it out of him, however. He said Dae only had a week or so left. Are we in time, Erik?”
“I think so. Let’s get him inside and finish this.”
The fabric under his cheek grew wet. “Please, don’t.”
Erik’s arms hugged him tighter and didn’t let go. “Shut up, Dae.”
They reached the steps, and Dae could finally see their descendants waiting on the porch. Maggie’s ancestors had run this residence since the founding of Seattle. They had other family lines that tended their other residences around the world and acted as the human face for the property in question.
“Maggie,” Erik addressed the matriarch of the family. “Please get Dae’s bed ready. Then we’ll probably want dinner. I don’t think anyone wants to go out tonight.”
“Yes, Erik.” She cast Dae a worried look before hustling up the stairs.
Dae was carried up silently, and he railed against his inability to stop this. The soft cotton of his sheets welcomed him when Erik laid him down, the rest of the family surrounding him. He stared up at the ceiling and refused to participate. A tug at the laces of his boots and Cass got them off his feet while Erik stripped his shirt. Thankfully they left his jeans.
“OK, Callum, come here,” Erik said.
Dae tried to ignore the feel as Erik placed a hand over his heart and his other over Callum’s. He gasped as Erik tied the strand in. Two more to go, he thought and held back a sob.
“This is the way it should be, Damian,” Callum whispered in his ear.
Next Isaac was tied in. “If you think we’d let you go, little brother…”
Dae turned his face to the wall. Wet splashed onto his skin near his ear and Cassandra placed her cheek against his, more tears joining the first.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered.
Her energy twined painfully with the rest.
“I’ll monitor the connection tonight,” Erik said, “but from the looks of it, we made it in time. Why don’t you all go get dinner dished up?”
Feet shuffled and a few gentle caresses brushed across him, then he was left alone with Erik. It took effort, but he managed to get his body turned to the side in a blatant “leave me alone” message to his brother.
He could feel the elder incubus’s eyes staring at him. After a few minutes, Erik broke the silence. “I’m sorry you’re upset, but so are we. What you did was not kind or fair to us.”
“And you think me killing all of you is?”
“And how are you doing that? It was just a matter of time. One of us had to be the first to fade, and the rest would follow. Sure, tying us all to you will speed it up a bit, but so? It’s inevitable unless a cure is found. Our lifespans were forfeit as soon as we lost our other halves.”
“You could have had centuries. Now what? Decades?”
“We’ve had centuries. And great, now we have decades. That’s better than the mere weeks you were consigning us to by refusing us. Did you really think we would bond with a new link? We all would starve in a couple of months after you were gone. The Chirurgeons haven’t found anything yet. And you know as well as I that they aren’t trying very hard. We would rather all go together than one at a time. You’re outvoted. So deal with it.”
“Deal with it? Right.” He suppressed a hysterical sob that tried to force its way up from his chest.
“Well you have plenty of time to come to terms with it now.” He paused, and Dae felt Erik’s hand come to rest on his shoulder. “You know this will keep you alive. But it will take days before all of the effects fade and you’re back to normal. The hunger will still be there for some time. I’ll have Cass come up and help you eat. Your body should regain enough strength to be able to get up by tomorrow.”
Erik squeezed his shoulder then left him alone, his thoughts in turmoil.
A few hours later he still hadn’t resolved his feelings. Cass brought up a tray of food and the needs of his body proved stronger than his anger. She lifted him to a sitting position and hand-fed him. Ravenous, he wolfed down everything she offered. Tears sheened her eyes as she helped him.
“Why?” she eventually choked out.
He stared at her hands fiddling with the tray on her lap. “Now I know you’re doomed with me. The only hope I had was that you would all live on. You could have found another lust link. Saved another from the waste. Maybe made it long enough to reach the cure.”
“I would think after close to three thousand years you would know us all better than that.”
“So, by the same argument, why are you all surprised by my choice?”
“Oooooh, you make me want to hit you.”
“Go ahead. It’s not like I can stop you at the moment.”
She grabbed his face with both hands, her eyes staring into his, a flash of frustrated anger lighting their depths. “Will that help with the guilt, Dae? You hurt me. You hurt the others, but what hurts the most is knowing how much pain you must have been in, yet you didn’t ask for help. Knowing you were suffering, and that I could have helped…” She had to stop to swallow. “But that I didn’t notice…”
“I’m sorry, Cass,” he whispered. He managed to get his arm up to rest shakily on her wrist.
After staring at him a while longer she sniffed, then said, “You will be.”
She helped him lie back down, then left him to his thoughts again. Life was going to be fun for a while. He sighed. Frustrated that he couldn’t get out of the bed, he cursed Erik for putting him there. His center hadn’t needed to drain him so thoroughly. But Erik had obviously wanted to cut out Dae’s ability to fight back. Normally this level of empty would have left Dae on the weaker side but not incapacitated. The severity was due to the fade, he realized.
His stomach still argued with his backbone, but the pain had become normal—normal enough that it receded into the background. Which left him free to dwell on the yawning emptiness of his storeground.
Erik did a thorough job. I don’t think I’ve ever been this depleted. As if the physical hunger pain wasn’t enough, now I have to contend with the need to hunt. His memory surged. The brief time he’d spent with Alexis whetted his appetite. Thoughts of her became centermost. His body stirred, but he could do nothing about it, too weak to even give himself relief. Exhaustion soon pressed and he faded into sleep.