“Awaken,” Bannik commanded.
My old self whimpered.
“I said awaken! A weak siren is not useful to me! You will fulfill your destiny and reach full power!”
My old self fell to his knees. “Go to Hell.”
“Awaken!” The room shook, moaning, groaning, as he did what no fallen angel should ever do. Command the universe, speak things into existence.
“You do not have the power to command.” My old self whimpered. “I am not yours.”
“No,” Bannik said hoarsely. “And how sad that you will always be a slave to your own desires, to your own needs, to the constant pain in your chest that refuses to go away. The burning heat will destroy you, the flames will lick you until your corpse runs dry. You will not remember this day. But I will. I will always remember the time I asked you to reach your full potential, and you failed.”
“I would rather fail than be used as a tool for evil.”
“Wake up, Siren… everyone has a little bit of evil inside… you either feed it or ignore it — but it’s there and one day, very soon, when I make myself known to this world, you will see the ramifications of what happens when you feed a starving beast. It devours everything in its path just like I’m going to devour you…” His eyes narrowed, and then he backed away and sniffed the air, a cruel smile taunting his lips before his eyebrow arched. “Dark One, we meet again… you cannot dream walk through the past without ramifications.”
Cassius suddenly appeared. “You will not win.”
Bannik’s eyes went completely black as he tilted his head toward the ceiling. “I already have.”
Alex
I JOLTED AWAKE in a sweaty mess, with pain so severe I shouted out a few curses before blinking open my eyes to a room filled with ice and snow.
“Really, Cassius?”
He shrugged. “You were dreaming of the past. When I touched you, I saw Bannik. I thought it wise to follow him.”
“Can you leave me out of it next time?”
“No.” His eyes flashed. “Since apparently you’re part of the reason we are in this whole mess, my friend.”
I leaned back against the sweat-soaked pillow. “Where’s Hope?”
“Safe,” Cassius answered thoughtfully. “For now.”
“So downstairs?”
Cassius slowly took down his whole DEFCON 1 look, appearing more human by the minute as the ice melted around us. “You need sex.”
“If you get Mason, I can touch him, and have sex with her, it will work.”
“Did you know?” Why the hell was Cassius ignoring every damn question that came out of my mouth?
“Know what?”
“About Bannik?”
“No.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and gritted my teeth as fresh pain swelled all over me.
“I’ve always thought you were too powerful. Now I know I’ve been right all along. If Bannik wanted you then, he most likely wants you now, which means we either kick his ass before he finds out a way to destroy Sariel’s brothers… or you reach your full potential as he calls it, and do it for us.”
“Lover not a fighter,” I grumbled. “Where are we on that whole Hope situation? I’d really like to not die in my own sweat.”
“You need sex, not her. The bond is strong, not strong enough. There is no love…”
“You can’t ask me to fall in love that fast, and you sure as hell can’t ask that of her… you haven’t given us any time to do anything except have sex and—”