Chapter 70: You're Not Dying Today!

Cyran POV

Excruciating.

He never thought he'd feel that addictive presence again.

Lying on the floor of the Evenhide council chamber, Cyran Sinsworth looked less like the Regent Alpha of the Crimsontail Shadows Pack and more like a pup curled into a ball during an attack.

He'd felt Hades ever since Jiro's and Garnet's departure. He'd thought of Hades increasingly. He gritted his teeth so hard he probably ground down the points of his fangs. 

Cool, comforting hands held him. Not his mate Naomi's, but Tulaska's. 

Hades had found him. How?

Jiro and Garnet had been right. Hades was back, and he was influencing Melisande. In three years since Cyran freed himself of that hated presence, he hadn't sensed even a glimmer from his tormentor. Which, of course, he hadn't minded. He could live his life with the family and pack he loved, with the mate he loved. He could raise his two children in peace. He could live a life of light and love, rather than one filled with Hades' empty promises and pain.

Voices swirled around him. Naomi's, sweet and strong. Barrett Malone, the beta, sounded alarmed. Zillah Malone, Barrett's mate, yelled for Cyran to wake up. She'd been another of Hades' victims. Pack Wise Woman Roslynn Rossa shook her medicine rattle, chanting over him. And Tulaska continued to hold him, anchoring him.

He could feel Hades. How in Fenrir's name? 

Tulaska and Roslynn Rossa had told him years ago that Hades had marked him, even though Cyran severed the slave bond Hades forged. Once evil marked you, it would always sniff around for a weakness, a crack to slither through once again.

And Cyran carried the weakness within him Cyran and Hades still had a connection by blood. The same wolf blood and wizard magic ran through both their veins. 

His wolf, Pontus, growled defiantly, protecting him and shielding him. Of course, Pontus hadn't forgotten that Hades leashed him, taking him away from Cyran. 

Flailing for mental balance and strength, Cyran reached out in his mind, and had a clear vision that had him gasping for breath as he lay on the stone floor.

Melisande Bracknell, her lips translucent, lay writhing on a stone floor, surrounded by fabric, almost like a curtain. Strangely, Cyran sensed the presence of wolves around her. Patch's energy crackled. He also felt Jude and Dane somewhere. 

Melisande's eyes opened, burning red, and Cyran felt the intensity of that gaze. A wolf's gaze. And he sensed another wolf … Hades' wolf. 

A black entity swirled over Hades, its tendrils clinging to him, with streaks of red and silver visible. Immediately, Cyran knew the goddess dominated Hades completely. Squeezing the life out of Melisande's body until it was nothing but a shell.

The power felt alive and electric within Cyran and flooded through this strange astral connection, shooting towards the Dark Goddess. Lances of white and golden light tinged with red struck the cloud of darkness.

With mocking laughter, the Dark Goddess absorbed his energy bolts, and Cyran's physical body jerked as if someone just grabbed him by the throat and shook him like a rag doll.

THUMP!

Someone knocked him on the head and he jolted awake because of the throbbing pain. "WHO DID THAT?"

Tulaska scolded forcefully, "I did! I didn't nearly die and get resurrected just so you could become wolfless again!"

Rubbing his head with her cool, skilled hands, Naomi urged, "Don't give in to him! Don't surrender to Hades."

"Not … Hades," he croaked. "It's … HER."

Naomi's worry sizzled through the bond. "Go up against the Dark Goddess? Are you–"

"Melisande Bracknell is Hades," he cried out. "And the Dark Goddess is trying to kill another host body so that she can find an even worse one for her slave!"

Rapid-fire curses came from Roslynn and Tulaska. Words he didn't think wise women knew. "Such language," he panted, drawing strength from Naomi holding his hand.

Tulaska's motherly but crisp voice encouraged him. "That's different. Fight her. Let her know that you're stronger than she'll ever be!"

Cyran battered the Dark Goddess with all his strength and power, pushing his energies to the limit. The fiend drifted about, uncertain. 

The scent of fear was so easy to recognize. The fiend feared him fighting back, just as it did three years ago.

Without thinking, Cyran raised his arms, and energy beams shot from them, both through the link and inside the Great Hall. He heard something crack in the distance.

"Cyran!" Naomi gripped his shoulders. "What are you doing?"

Breathing heavily, he gasped, "Trying to fight her."

"Not by slicing the chair in half!"

Fenrir's guts, he'd gone over the edge, hadn't he? So caught up in the battle against the Dark Goddess that he couldn't tell what was real.

A cold wind whipping through the Great Hall chilled him to the bone, and the Dark Goddess whispered in that silky, dark voice, "Two can play that game. And I've been playing it for eternity. You're no match for me."

His teeth chattered as the wind swirled around him, its icy blast freezing him. He'd always thought of the Dark Goddess as more of a fiery entity …

"You're dead, Cyran Sinsworth," the Dark Goddess taunted him.

"NO!"

Hades' voice came out as a strangled cry.

The fiend's laugh was high, cold, and cruel. "How sweet. After nearly ruining his life and destroying him, body and soul, you leap to his defense!"

Growling, Hades, in Melisande's body, reached out for the dark cloud and grappled with it. Cyran's mouth fell open. Wrestling each other, giving no quarter, Hades and the Dark Goddess battled desperately. Locked together in a primal struggle, they forgot Cyran was present. He watched them try to best each other.

Although he hated to give the Dark Goddess, with its foul stench of decay, any credit, he agreed with the demon on one point. He never thought Hades would defend him!

Growls and guttural sounds filled his mind. He glanced up at Naomi's loving and worried brown eyes, and he wondered if she heard the savage symphony.

Tulaska certainly seemed to. Shaking her medicine rattle in passes over his body, she urged, "You'll never reach either of them while they're determined to claw each other to bits!"

"Then what do you suggest?"

Roslynn's own rattle sounded like thunder. "The Crestas need to know about this! They need to know what is going on!"

Reaching out with his mind-link, Cyran howled for his family to listen. Only dead silence answered him. He couldn't feel any of them in wolf form. 

"Nothing! They would be out of communication. I'll have to have a word with Kyon …"

"Use your head," Tulaska urged him. "You can astral travel …"

"I can barely move!"

Tired. He felt so tired, so drained.

"You and Garnet are blood, linked by magic–you can talk to her," Tulaska suggested.

Of course. His twin sister. He could always feel her, wherever he went. With his mind, he reached out. He felt his spirit fly to her.

"CYRAN?"

Garnet's sweet voice sounded startled.

"Sorry to interrupt while you're with the human king."

He heard the smile in her voice. "Oh, Cyran, it's a miracle …"

So, she and Jiro had pulled off the diplomatic move of the century!

The answering surge of joy strengthened his spirit, and in a burst of energy, he announced, "And now a moment too soon. I've found out that Melisande Bracknell, who's with Patch and the others on that human island, is Hades!"