Lia’s scream tore from her throat with such force that it hurt.
Too quick she fell, and too swiftly the ground seemed to reach up towards her, the houses, the street, and the movement of the battle coming into focus.
Raiden.
Her heartbeat was so fast it felt as if it would explode, and once emptied, her lungs refused to draw in air again.
There was no time for thought or spell-casting, but her power ripped through her on instinct, and she threw her head back in agony, her scream silent, and her hands clawing.
Her wings opened, ripping through her skin, shredding through the cloth of her t-shirt dress, and caught the air with a whomp of sound, the feathers fanning out as they distributed the speed that wanted to tear the fragile sails of bone and keratin.
Her fall slowed and then evened out.
She had been right, she thought in a daze as her mind caught up with her body and she realized that she was not about to die, smashed upon the ground below her. Flying was just like riding a motorcycle, a matter of angling the body and wings to catch the draft of air, and core strength.
Her wings were not white like Cael’s, but black, like a raven’s.
She saw Cael above her, his expression shocked, but she had no time for him. The road below her was scattered with bodies and blood – vampires and wolves.
She could not see Raiden and assumed he had shifted to join the battle. She could track the ongoing battle of Elior and Lucien, and their children, her eyes following their movements easily, heightened by the instinctual changes within her triggered by her fall.
She tucked her wings to her back and dove, plucking a vampire from the battle just as she was about to snap the neck of a wolf. The vampire screamed and fought, but Lia was stronger. She carried her high, and dropped her, before diving again, kicking a vampire in the head as she landed, and bowling several others over with her wings.
She caught Lucian, tearing him away from the snarling Elior, and carried him up with her.
He clung to her, his face, and hands bloody, his eyes eclipsed by the red of his Other, and his lips pulled back from his teeth, frenzied from battle, but he calmed as he realized who carried him, throwing his head back in joyous laughter.
“So strong! What are you?” He reached over her shoulder to stroke the feathers. “Beautiful Cecelia. What are you?”
“A mistake,” Lia replied. “A mutation. A hybridization of the original mutation breeding with the Other slaves of this world.”
“And you are mine,” he framed her face with his hands, his expression gleeful. “You know it to be so. You saved me.”
He kissed her, and she threaded her fingers into the long, white-blonde hair, and held his mouth to hers. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, his hips pressing against hers.
And then the kiss changed, and he tried to pull away, at first puzzled, and then frightened. He shoved at her shoulders, twisted against her, fighting, clawing at her skin leaving red streaks but failing to break the skin, until the strength fled him, and he whimpered.
She drifted to the street and placed him on the ground.
The battle had stilled, all faces turned to the sky when she had stolen Lucian from amongst them, and now the vampires watched, warily.
“What have you done to me?” Lucian’s wail was hoarse and desperate, and he clutched at himself, writhing on the tarmac. “Oh, f-k, the agony. What have you done?”
“Vampires were made,” she said. “They can be unmade. I took the Other from you.”
As Cael had once done to her, she had used the opening of a consenting kiss, to un-work the magic that had created him.
His scream was brutal, terrified, and agonized. The vampires recoiled, horrified. From the edges of the crowd, she saw several flee along the road, towards the burning city. She let them go. They would spread the word of what had happened.
“This is over,” she said to them. “Unless you want to suffer the same fate.”
A wolf sprung, catching Lucian by the throat and shaking him brutally, the snap of the man’s neck audible, before dropping him to the ground. Raiden shifted, and rose to standing.
“For my mother,” he spat at the corpse. “And for Lia.” He stepped over and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face into her neck and breathing in her scent.
She held him, the heat of his body like a homecoming. “You did not have to do that,” she murmured.
“He was evil, vampire or not, he was evil and deserved to die.”
Elior, Rebecca, and Nate came forward and knelt on the road before her. After a moment, the vampires around them did likewise, sinking to the ground.
The wolves shifted, hands going to soothe injuries, staggering to the fallen. She saw Wade and Diedre crouch beside Tara, who did not move, and felt their grief.
“Cecelia,” Elior said.
“You need to go, Elior,” she said to him. “You need to go onto TV and radio, whatever you can. You need to spread the word, that this is done, and bring peace back to this realm.”
“Do not mention Cecelia,” Raiden said hastily. “Leave us out of it.”
“You won the battle,” she agreed. “Elior was victorious and killed Lucian. What was it that Alatar said,” she looked up at Raiden. “History is written by the victors?” She turned back to Elior. “Rewrite history for us, Elior, and leave the werewolves, Raiden and I out of it. Can you do that?”
As Elior left, the defeated vampires scattered, fleeing before the werewolves could take their revenge, or Lia change her mind and use her magic against them, leaving the chaos of the street, and the werewolf injured to their kin.
“Tara is dead,” Raiden’s voice broke. “And Ethan injured. He may not live.”
“I am sorry, so sorry,” she held him against her, resting her forehead on his shoulder. He was covered in blood and unidentifiable gore, his skin mottled with bruises and claw marks, but he was whole, and he was alive. “I am so sorry, Raiden. Cael was right. I am a poison. I am cursed.” She wept the words.
“Cael,” he snarled, looking up at the sky. “I thought I saw you fall, Lia, before you suddenly grew wings.”
“He dropped me,” she agreed. “His family have been killed by his people for his interference in this world, and he meant to kill me. Falling triggered some latent instinct… I think, somewhere deep within me, I always knew I could fly. When I was on your motorbike, and when Cael flew with me, it felt so natural to move in that way, as if I were meant to do it…”
The sun rose whilst the werewolf pack tended the injured, the dying and the dead. Lia stood on the front porch of Raiden’s house, watching as the new day fell in golden rays over a street still crazed with abandoned cars and broken bodies. She wept for those lost and for those losing loved ones.
She had not seen Raiden for hours and wondered if he could forgive her the death of his sister.
Diedre walked up the garden path and came to stand beside her, resting her palms on the wooden handrail that fenced the porch from the garden. Her arms were heavily bandaged, and her eyes sunken and reddened from weeping.
“This is not your fault,” she said quietly.
Lia bit her lip, fighting back her despair. “But it is.” Her throat was sore, raw from screaming, and her voice hoarsened by it.
“Some will agree with you,” Diedre turned her head to look at her. “In their pain and sorrow, they will look for something or someone to blame, and you will make a handy target. But it does not make it true. You were born what you are, Cecelia, and you could not help that.
“It is the greed of others that brought us here,” Diedre turned her face back to the street as someone began to wail. A tear slid down her face. “If Lucien had not stolen you from Raiden, we may never have been brought to this moment.”
“If Cael had not saved me from the car wreck that killed my parents, this would never have happened.”
“Lia,” Diedre was firm. “You have a choice now. You can believe that this is your fault, and let it tear you apart piece by piece, until you find no joy in living. Or you can accept that it is not, and be grateful for the life you have, and find peace with my son.”
“They will not stop,” Lia told her. “The Wingless will seek to kill me, and Elior and the vampires, now that they know, they will come for me.”
“That may be true,” she agreed. “And the pack will protect you. You are pack, Lia.”
“I may not be able to change, and my child may not be a cub,” Lia whispered. “My ancestors have mated with werewolves and Others before.”
“We will see upon the full moon,” Diedre replied. “I somehow think that someone who has grown wings, will be able to change into a wolf. Maybe not the normal way, but in your own way, and that may be enough.”
“I am… so very sorry about Tara.”
Diedre nodded, her tears overflowing. “No battle is ever fought without loss, Lia. Tara fought for the pack and died for it. It is what we do.” She turned abruptly and put her arms around Lia’s shoulders, pulling her against her in a fierce embrace. Lia clung to her and wept.
When their tears settled, Diedre held her back by the shoulders, and searched her face before nodding and releasing her.
“It will take the world a long time to recover from this,” she observed. “And it may never be the same again. But we will make a new world for our young. Perhaps it will be a better one.
“I will find you some clothes to wear,” she added over her shoulder as she returned along the garden path to the street. “You should take a shower, and sleep. If I encounter Raiden, I will send him home to his mate.”