Page 54 of Haunted Nightmares
“I need proof,” Declan grunts.
“So you’ve said.”
The male’s green eyes flick to Ana’s briefly, leaving Nate’s menacing stare long enough to drop to my friend’s fiery red ones. His expression softens the slightest bit, which is strange but as quickly as I see it, it’s gone, and Dec has resumed trying to kill my male guard with only his eyeballs. “Something only Zephyr,myqueen would know.”
“Yeah!” Archer chimes in, pumping his fist in the air as he dances around behind Declan. “Between the queen and Decky-boy, mate!”
Ana rolls her eyes with a sigh as she looks at me but before she can demand I handle this, Nate loses his shit.
“She doesn’t need to prove anything to you!” He lunges forward, squishing Ana between his chest and Declan’s. “Zephyrhas nothing to prove to anyone and after what happened when she attempted to provide evidence to the so-calledking, she won’t be doing anything like that in the foreseeable future.”
“Say that again,” Dec demands as he moves closer to Nate, turning Ana into a sandwich before lowering his face toward the male’s. “Blaspheme my king one more time and find out what happens to those who oppose his crown. I’m begging you, please, fucking say it again.”
Nate doesn’t even blink as he slowly enunciates his words. “Wraith of Carmarthen is a weak, disgusting, self serving psychopath who doesn’t deserve to call the prophet his mate let alone rule over an entire race. He?—”
“Enough!” I shout as I get to my feet, thoroughly over the shit talking and dick measuring that was distracting me from my anxiety but is now just as annoying as Archer’s boxing stance. “We are all on the same side here, and I’m finished listening to anyone speak negatively about my mate.”
All three males turn to me, growling and puffing their chests but I’m not having it.
I’m not the meek little mouse I was before, nor am I the female learning to navigate my true nature through mating and death. I know exactly who I am and what I’m capable of, and I’m about to demonstrate so I can get back inside that tent and tend to my fated one.
Narrowing my stare as Nate clenches his jaw, I flick my wrists and watch as he and Declan separate, freeing Ana before I motion my fingers downward, planting all three of them on their asses. I point to Orion and Aries next, startling them as they slide across the grass only to land next to Declan and before I can do the same to Archer, Sadie takes his hand in hers and tugs him to the ground.
“No one is moving,” I say as I glare at the group now sitting like good little followers in front of me. “And everyone is going to listen to what I have to say.”
Orion swallows thickly as I look him in the eye, my need to comfort him taking a temporary backseat to how frustrated I am with him. I just want to be able to explain, to give everyone a shortened version of the things I don’t fully understand myself and I want to do it so we can all hug it out before I go help Lorna. I’ve missed all of them, more than I thought I did but Wraith is my priority, he always has been and will be, but this bullshit between everyone is going to be a constant roadblock if I don’t get it sorted out now.
Walking to the center of the line, I smooth out my new sundress and stop in front of Dec. “You want proof? Something only I would be able to confirm or deny?” He gives me a curt nod. “Do you remember when you and Wraith were questioning those assassins? Wilfred and his mate?” Another nod. “There are only three of us who know what happened that night, in that room during the testing and torture, and we are the only ones who know howspine tinglingit all was.”
With a grin I’m sure no one else would notice, my mate’s closest friend nods as he relaxes the slightest bit. “It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s good to be back,” I say as I blow out a breath. “I just wish my homecoming had gone a little differently.” Nate scoffs at that but I ignore him as Lydia raises her hand. Which makes me smile. “I was wondering when you were going to start asking questions.”
“I was having fun watching.” She scoots around a bit and straightens her posture. “But since you’ve called us all front and center, I thought maybe we could get some answers.”
So, with a nod, I do my best to explain what I’m still trying to understand.
“My death was true, it was very real and very painful but instead of waking up in whatever it was I thought would be waiting for me, I found myself face to face with Anubis himself.”
I did, and talk about a rude awakening. The jackal-headed beast took silent and brooding to an entirely new level and validated something I always argued with my mother about. She swore the gods were all warm and friendly, so concerned with their mortals that they always welcomed them with open arms. And I said there was no way because the termgod complexcomes from somewhere, and it is extremely unflattering.
Coming to after watching Wraith fall apart, after my physical body burnt to a crisp, and being eye to eye with Anubis validated me and then some.
I was expecting to see my parents, to see my aunt and uncle and be welcomed to the afterlife by those who’d gone before me but I woke up chained to an obelisk in Duat, staring into black and gold eyes that seemed to be emptier than any abyss one could fathom while a long, narrow snout puffed the smell of decay in my face.
I wasn’t frightened, I know my history, my mythology and that Duat is partly the jackal’s domain, but I didn’t really understand why I was there. Except for the first minute or so when I felt like ending up in hell was just another form of punishment carried over from my pre-mated life. That made sense for sixty seconds or less then a string of Anubis’ bloody drool dripped onto my shoulder and it went back to not making sense. Not until Horus and Ra showed up anyway, and that’s when I forgot all about making sense of things and started fangirling in my head while desperately trying not to shit a brick.
Those gods, any gods I imagine, are everything you’d expect them to be and more. Gigantic, imposing, menacing. A terrifyingly beautiful combination of animal and man, and seeing them with my own eyes was life changing. They didn’tspeak, they did very little in the short time I spent with them but their actions were incredibly profound and permanent, and will never be forgotten.
Anubis and Horus stepped back and watched as the almighty sun god reached out to take my hands in his, gripping them tightly, palm to palm while they remained above my head, and he burned those symbols right back into place. Because dying eliminated almost everything about who I was before, just as my mate pointed out, but those symbols are critical, a crucial piece of who I am so they need to be where they have always been.
Not that he told me that, I figured it out on my own while screaming in his face from the pain.
Once he was finished, Ra nodded at me one curt time before he disappeared and when he was no more than a glimmer of light in the dark, Horus took his place in front of me. And he completely fucked my entire perspective right in the ass.
He lifted his huge hands, placed them on either side of my head and that feathery asshole shot so much history and knowledge into my brain that I threw up before I passed out. Then he did it again as soon as I woke up, and repeated it for at least a week before Horus left me so Anubis could deliver me to Aaru in another act of completely silent terror.
Seventeen gates, no ba in sight, and each time we passed through to a new level of hell, it felt like I died all over again.
