Lenobia
Lenobia’s sleep was so restless that the familiar
dream took on a sense of reality that overstepped the ethereal realm of
subconscious outlets and fantasies and became, from the beginning, all too
heartbreakingly real.
It began with a memory. Decades, and then centuries
fell away leaving Lenobia young and naïve again, and in the cargo hold of the
ship that had carried her from France to America— from one world to another. It
was during that journey that Lenobia had met Martin, the man who should have
been her Mate for his entire life. Instead he had died too young and had taken
her love to the grave with him.
In her dream Lenobia could feel the gentle roll of the
ship and smell the scent of horse and hay, sea and fish— and Martin. Always
Martin. He was standing before her, gazing down at her through eyes that were
olive and amber and worried. She had just told him she loved him.
“It is impossible.” The dream memory replayed in her mind as Martin reached out, took her hand, and lifted it gently. He raised his own arm until the two were side by side.“You see the difference, you?”
“It is impossible.” The dream memory replayed in her mind as Martin reached out, took her hand, and lifted it gently. He raised his own arm until the two were side by side.“You see the difference, you?”
The dreaming Lenobia made a small, wordless
exclamation of pain. The sound of his voice! That distinct Creole accent—deep,
sensual, unique. It was the bittersweet sound of his voice and its beautiful
accent that had kept Lenobia away from New Orleans for more than two hundred
years.
“No,” the young Lenobia had answered his question as
she gazed down at their arms—one brown, one white—where they pressed together. “All
I see is you.”
Still deeply asleep, Lenobia, Horse Mistress of the Tulsa House of Night, moved restlessly, as if her body was attempting to force her mind to awaken. But this night her mind did not obey. This night dreams and what might have been ruled.
The sequence of memories shifted and changed to another scene, still in the cargo hold of the same ship, still with Martin, but days later. He was handing her a long string of leather tied to a small pouch dyed a deep sapphire blue. Martin put it around her neck saying, “This gris-gris protect you, cherie.”
Still deeply asleep, Lenobia, Horse Mistress of the Tulsa House of Night, moved restlessly, as if her body was attempting to force her mind to awaken. But this night her mind did not obey. This night dreams and what might have been ruled.
The sequence of memories shifted and changed to another scene, still in the cargo hold of the same ship, still with Martin, but days later. He was handing her a long string of leather tied to a small pouch dyed a deep sapphire blue. Martin put it around her neck saying, “This gris-gris protect you, cherie.”
In the space of a heartbeat the memory wavered and
time fast-forwarded a century. An older, wiser, more cynical Lenobia was
cradling the crumbling leather pouch in her hands as it split and spilled it
contents—thirteen things, just as Martin had told her—but most of them had
become unrecognizable during the century she’d worn the charm. Lenobia
remembered a faint scent of juniper, the smooth feel of the clay pebble before
it turned to dust, and the tiny dove’s feather that had crumbled between her
fingers. But most of all Lenobia remembered the fleeting rush of joy she’d felt
when, in the midst of the disintegrating remnants of Martin’s love and
protection, she’d discovered something that time hadn’t been able to ravage. It
had been a ring—a heart shaped emerald, surrounded by tiny diamonds, set in
gold.
“Your mother’s heart—your heart—my heart,” Lenobia had
whispered as she’d slipped it over the knuckle of her ring finger. “I still
miss you, Martin. I’ve never forgotten. I vowed it.”
And then the dream memories rewound again, taking Lenobia back to Martin, only this time they weren’t at sea finding one another in the cargo hold and falling in love. This memory was dark and terrible. Even dreaming, Lenobia knew the place and the date: New Orleans, March 21, 1788, not long after sunset.
And then the dream memories rewound again, taking Lenobia back to Martin, only this time they weren’t at sea finding one another in the cargo hold and falling in love. This memory was dark and terrible. Even dreaming, Lenobia knew the place and the date: New Orleans, March 21, 1788, not long after sunset.
The stables had exploded in fire and Martin had saved
her, carrying her from the flames.
“Oh, no! Martin! No!” Lenobia had screamed at him then, now she whimpered, struggling to awaken before she had to relive the horrible end of the memory.
“Oh, no! Martin! No!” Lenobia had screamed at him then, now she whimpered, struggling to awaken before she had to relive the horrible end of the memory.
She didn’t wake. Instead she heard her only love
repeat the words that had broken her heart two hundred years before, feeling it
again as if the wound was raw and fresh.
“Too late, cherie. This world too late for us. I see
you again, though. My love for you don’ end here. My love for you, it never end
. . . find you again, cherie. That I vow.”
As Martin captured the evil human who had tried to
enslave her, and then walked back into the flaming stables with him, saving
Lenobia’s life, the Horse Mistress was finally able to wake herself with a
wrenching sob. She sat up in bed, and with a trembling hand brushed her
sweat-soaked hair from her face.
Lenobia’s first waking thought was for her mare.
Through the psychic connection they shared, she could feel that Mujaji was
agitated, almost panicked. “Shhh, my beauty. Go back to sleep. I am well.”
Lenobia spoke aloud, sending soothing feelings to the black mare with whom she
had a special bond. Feeling guilty for upsetting Mujaji, she bowed her head and
cradled her hand, twisting the emerald ring around and around her finger.
“Stop being so foolish,” Lenobia told herself firmly.
“It was just a dream. I am safe. I am not back there. What happened then cannot
hurt me more than it already has.” Lenobia lied to herself. I can be hurt
again. If Martin has come back—really come back—my heart can be hurt again.
Another sob tried to escape from Lenobia, but she pressed her lips together and
forced her emotions under control.
He might not be Martin, she told herself firmly,
logically. Travis Foster, the new human hired by Neferet to assist her in the
stables, was simply a handsome distraction—him and his big, beautiful Percheron
mare. “Which is probably exactly what Neferet intended when she hired him,”
Lenobia muttered. “To distract me. And his Percheron is just an odd coincidence.”
Lenobia closed her eyes and blocked the memories that
lifted from her past, and then repeated aloud, “Travis might not be Martin
reincarnated. I know my reaction to him is unusually strong, but it has been a
long time since I have taken a lover.” You have never taken a human lover— you
vowed not to, her conscience reminded her. “So it’s simply past time I took a
vampyre lover, even if briefly. And that type of distraction will be good for
me.” Lenobia tried to busy her imagination with considering and then rejecting
a list of handsome Son of Erebus Warriors, her mind’s eye not seeing their
strong, muscular bodies, but instead envisioning whisky brown eyes tinged with
familiar olive green and a ready smile . . .
“No!” She would not think of it. She would not think
of him.
But what if Travis could really hold Martin’s soul? Lenobia’s
errant mind whispered enticingly. He gave his word he would find me again.
Perhaps he has. “And then what?” Lenobia stood and
began to pace restlessly. “I know all too well the fragility of humans. They
are too easily killed, and today the world is even more dangerous than it was
in 1788. My love ended in heartbreak and flame once. Once was too much.”
Lenobia stopped and put her face in her hands as her heart knew the truth, and
pumped it through her body and soul, becoming reality. “I am a coward. If
Travis is not Martin I do not want to open myself to him—to take a chance on
loving another human. And if he is Martin returned to me, I cannot bear the
inevitable, that I will lose him again.”
Lenobia sat heavily in the old rocking chair she’d
placed beside her bedroom window. She liked to read there, and if she couldn’t
sleep her window faced east so she could watch the rising of the sun and look
out at the grounds beside the stables. Though Lenobia appreciated the irony,
she couldn’t help but enjoy the morning light. Vampyre or not, at her core she
would eternally be a girl who loved mornings and horses and a tall, cappuccino
skinned human who had died long ago when he had been far too young.
Her shoulders slumped. She hadn’t thought of Martin so
often in decades. His renewed memory was a double-edged sword—on one side she
loved recalling his smile, his scent, his touch. On the other his memory also
evoked the void his absence had left. For more than two hundred years Lenobia
had grieved for a lost possibility—a wasted life.
“Our future was burned away from us. Destroyed by
flames of hatred and obsession and evil.” Lenobia shook her head and wiped her
eyes. She must regain control over her emotions. Evil was still burning a swath
through Light and goodness. She drew in a deep, centering breath and turned her
thoughts to a subject that never failed to calm her, no matter how chaotic the
world around her had become—horses—Mujaji, in particular. Feeling calmer now, Lenobia reached out again with that extra special part
of her spirit that Nyx had touched, and gifted with an affinity for horses, the
day sixteen year-old Lenobia had been Marked. She found her mare easily, and
instantly felt guilty at the mirrored agitation she sensed in Mujaji.
“Shhh,” Lenobia soothed again, repeating aloud the
reassurance she was sending through her bond with the mare. “I am only being
foolish and self- indulgent. It will pass, I give you my vow, sweet one.”
Lenobia focused a tide of warmth and love on her
night-colored mare, and, as always, Mujaji regained her own calm.
Lenobia closed her eyes and released a long breath. She could envision her mare, black and beautiful as the night, finally settling down, cocking a back leg, and falling into a dreamless sleep.
Lenobia closed her eyes and released a long breath. She could envision her mare, black and beautiful as the night, finally settling down, cocking a back leg, and falling into a dreamless sleep.
The Horse Mistress concentrated on her mare, shutting
out the turmoil that the young cowboy’s arrival at her stables had caused
within her. Tomorrow, she promised herself sleepily, tomorrow I will make it
clear to Travis that we will never be more than employer and employee. The
color of his eyes and the way he makes me feel, all of that will begin to ease
when I distance myself from him. It must . . . it must . . .
Finally, Lenobia slept.
Finally, Lenobia slept.
Neferet
Even though the feline was not bonded to her,
Shadowfax came willingly at Neferet’s call. Thankfully, classes were over for
the night, so when the big Maine Coon met her in the middle of the Field House
it was dimly lit and empty—no students were about—Dragon Lankford himself was
also absent, but probably only temporarily.
She had seen only a few red fledglings on her way
there. Neferet smiled, satisfied at the thought of how she added the rogue reds
to the House of Night. What lovely, chaotic possibilities they presented—especially
after she ensured Zoey’s circle would be broken and her best friend, Stevie
Rae, would be devastated, grieving the loss of her lover.
The knowledge that she was assuring future pain and
suffering for Zoey pleased Neferet immeasurably, but she was too disciplined to
allow herself to begin gloating before the sacrificial spell was complete and
her commands were set into motion. Though the school was unusually quiet
tonight, almost abandoned, the truth was anyone could happen into the Field
House. Neferet needed to work quickly and quietly. There would be ample time to
revel over the fruits of her labors later.
She spoke softly to the cat, coaxing him closer to
her, and when he was near enough she knelt to his level. Neferet had thought he
would be leery of her—cats knew things. They were much harder to fool than
humans, fledglings, or even vampyres. Neferet’s own cat, Skylar, had refused to
relocate to her new Mayo pent house suite, choosing instead to lurk in the
shadows of the House of Night and watch her knowingly with his large, green
eyes.
Shadowfax wasn’t as wary.
Shadowfax wasn’t as wary.
Neferet
beckoned. Shadowfax came to her, slowly closing the last bit of
distance between them. The big cat wasn’t friendly—he didn’t rub against her
and mark her affectionately with his scent—but he came to her. His obedience
was all that concerned Neferet. She didn’t want his love; she wanted his life.
The Tsi Sgili, immortal Consort of Darkness, and
former High Priestess of the House of Night, felt only a vague shadow of regret
as her left hand caressed the long length of the Maine Coon’s grey tiger
striped back. His fur was soft and thick over his lithe, athletic body.
Like Dragon Lankford, the Warrior he’d chosen as his
own, Shadowfax was powerful and in the prime of his life. Such a shame he was
needed for a greater purpose. A higher purpose.
Neferet’s regret did not equate to hesitation. She
used her Goddess-given affinity for felines and channeled warmth and
reassurance through her palm and into the already trusting feline. While her
left hand caressed him, encouraging him to arch and begin to purr, her right
hand snaked out and with her razor-edged athame, she quickly, cleanly, slashed
Shadowfax’s throat.
The big cat made no sound. His body spasmed, trying to
jerk away from her, but her hand fisted in his fur, holding him so close that
his blood sprayed, hot and wet, across the bodice of her green velvet dress.
The threads of Darkness that were always present
around Neferet throbbed and quivered with anticipation.
Neferet ignored them.
The cat died faster than she’d imagined, and for that
Neferet was glad. She hadn’t expected him to stare at her, but the Warrior cat
held her gaze even after he had collapsed into the sandy field house floor and
could no longer fight her, but lay breathing shallowly, twitching silently, and
staring.
Working quickly, while the cat was still living,
Neferet began the spell. Using the blade of her ritual athame, Neferet drew a
circle around Shadowfax’s dying body, so that as blood pooled around him it
poured into it, and a miniature moat of scarlet was formed.
Then she pressed one palm of her hand into the fresh,
warm, blood, stood just outside the circle, and lifted both hands—one bloody,
one holding the scarlet- edged knife, and intoned:
“With this sacrifice I command
Darkness controlled by my hand.
Aurox, obey me!
Rephaim’s death it will be.”
Neferet paused, allowing the sticky threads of cold
blackness to brush against her and gather all around the circle. She felt their
eagerness, their need, their desire, their danger. But above all else, she felt
their power.
To complete the spell she dipped the athame into the
blood, and wrote directly into the sand with it, closing the incantation:
“Through payment of blood, pain, and strife
I force the Vessel to be my knife!”
Holding an image of Aurox in her mind, Neferet stepped
inside the circle and plunged the dagger into Shadowfax’s body, pinning him to
the Field House floor while she loosed the tendrils of Darkness so that they
could consume their feast of blood and pain.
When the cat was thoroughly drained and absolutely
dead, Neferet spoke, “The sacrifice has been made. The spell cast. Do as I
command. Force Aurox to kill Rephaim. Make Stevie
Rae break the circle. Cause the reveal spell to fail.
Now!”
Like a nest of seething snakes, the minions of
Darkness slithered into the night, heading away from the field house and toward
a lavender field and the ritual that was already underway there.
Neferet gazed after them, smiling in satisfaction. One
particular thread of darkness, thick as her forearm whipped through the door
that opened from the field house to the stables. Neferet’s attention was pulled
its way by the muffled sound of breaking glass.
Curious, the Tsi Sgili glided forward. Being careful
to make no noise, and cloaking herself in shadow, Neferet peered into the
stables. Her emerald eyes widened in pleased surprise. The thick thread of
Darkness had been clumsy. It had knocked one of the gas lanterns from its
resting place on a peg that hung not far from the piles of neatly stacked hay
Lenobia was always so meticulous about choosing for her creatures. Neferet
watched, fascinated, as first one tuft of hay caught fire, sputtered, and then
with a renewed surge of yellow, and a mighty whoosh! It fully caught.
Neferet looked down the long line of closed, wooden
stalls. She could see only the faint, dark outlines of a few of the horses.
Most were sleeping. Some were lazily grazing, already settled down for the
approaching dawn and the rest the sun would bring them until it set and
students arrived for their never ending classes.
She glanced back at the hay. An entire bale was engulfed in flame.
She glanced back at the hay. An entire bale was engulfed in flame.
The scent of smoke drifted to her, and she could hear
crackling as, like a loosed beast, the fire fed and grew.
Neferet turned away from the stable, closing the thick
door between it and the field house securely. It seems likely that Stevie Rae
may not be the only one who will be grieving after tonight. The thought
satisfied Neferet, and she left the field house and the carnage she’d caused
there, not seeing the small white cat that padded to Shadowfax’s motionless
body, curled beside him, and closed her eyes.
Lenobia
The Horse Mistress awakened with a horrid feeling of
foreboding. Confused, Lenobia rubbed her hands over her face. She’d fallen
asleep in the rocking chair near her window and this sudden awakening seemed
more nightmare than reality.
“This is foolishness,” she muttered sleepily. “I must
find my center again.” Meditation had helped quiet her thoughts in the past.
Resolutely, Lenobia drew a deep, cleansing breath.
It was with that deep breath that Lenobia smelled
it—fire. A burning stable to be specific. She clenched her teeth together.
Begone ghosts of the past! I am too old to play these games. Then an ominous
cracking sound had Lenobia shaking off the last of the sleep that had clouded
her mind as she moved quickly to the window and drew aside the heavy black
drapes. The Horse Mistress looked down at her stables and gasped in horror.
It hadn’t been a dream.
It hadn’t been her imagination.
Instead it was a living nightmare.
Flames were licking the sides of the building and as
she stared, the double doors just at the edge of her vision were thrown open
from the inside and against a backdrop of billowing smoke and consuming flames,
was the silhouette of a tall cowboy leading a huge gray Percheron and a night
black mare from within.
Travis let loose of the mares, shooing them into the
school grounds and away from the flaming stables, and then he ran back into the
flaming mouth of the building.
Everything within Lenobia came alive as the sight extinguished her fear and doubt.
“No, Goddess. Not again. I am no longer a frightened girl. This time his end will be different!”
Everything within Lenobia came alive as the sight extinguished her fear and doubt.
“No, Goddess. Not again. I am no longer a frightened girl. This time his end will be different!”
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