Darkness Surrendered (Primal Heat Trilogy #3) (Order of the Blade) (12 page)

Ezekiel was but a fraction of the being he would soon become. He was so much more powerful than he ever had been before. Once he learned how to manage it, to control it...he raised his arms to the ceiling and crowed with delight. Finally, after two thousand years, Evangeline’s death would be avenged. At last, her beautiful spirit would be able to be at peace, as her death served those who were as worthy as she had been.

At the thought of the woman he’d given his heart to, Ezekiel dropped to one knee and bowed his head, resting his forehead against his clasped hands as he sent a prayer into the heavens, a whisper of his love to the woman he had yet to make himself worthy of. “My dearest Evangeline,” he whispered. “I swear on my soul that I will finally fulfill my promise to you. I will ensure no innocent ever suffers the fate that befell you.” He closed his eyes against the anguished memory of that moment when he’d last seen her two thousand years ago. After months of searching, of drinking from the fountain tainted with demon magic and welcoming that poison into his blood to make himself powerful enough to rescue her, Ezekiel had finally succeeded.

God, that moment of triumph when he’d broken down the doors of the palace and fought his way past the guards to the dungeons. When he’d ripped that stone door off its hinges… and found his true love dying, her life bleeding out on that brutal stone floor. His princess, his soul mate, the woman who gave his life meaning had been lying there, her body violated, her heart broken by the bastard king and his depraved ways, a deviant who’d plucked Evangeline and so many other innocent women off the streets so he could use them as his playthings.

Ezekiel’s heart had shattered in that moment when he’d seen the only thing he’d ever loved lying there in that dungeon, abandoned and lost because he’d failed to get there in time. He’d failed her. And yet, when Evangeline had opened her eyes and seen Ezekiel standing there, there had been no recrimination in her lavender eyes. She’d simply lifted her arms to him, asking to die in the arms of the man she loved.

As he’d sat there on that cold, stone floor, his soul breaking as her spirit fled her battered body, he’d fought to understand why something of such beauty and purity had suffered such a brutal fate. It had taken hours, but he’d finally understood. Evangeline had been the martyr, the one to free all the others like her: innocents of a pure soul and spirit who were being victimized by the tainted, poisonous bastards who dared spawn the earth. Evangeline’s death had been to show Ezekiel what he had to do: save all the others like her from that fate.

His mission was to rid the world of all the tainted souls who cast darkness and pain into the lives of those as pure as Evangeline. It was there, in that hellish hole in the ground, that Ezekiel had finally understood the reason he’d survived the childhood hell he’d prayed to be delivered from every damn night of his young life.

Ezekiel had tried to fulfill his destiny. Two thousand years ago, he’d summoned his forces, he’d created a legion of Calydon warriors by taking them to that demon-tainted fountain and having them drink. He’d slowly, carefully, precisely begun to work his way through the world, eliminating every living creature whose taint was an insult to Evangeline’s pure soul. One by one he’d taken them down, basking in the beauty of watching the bastards die the rotted death they deserved. Ezekiel had been on his way, so close, so near to salvation, when Caleb had interfered.

Ezekiel swore, anger rolling through him at the memory of how his twin brother had refused to see the value and importance of Ezekiel’s mission. He burned with betrayal at the memory of how Caleb had stopped him, defeating his forces and locking Ezekiel up. Of anyone to understand what drove Ezekiel, it should have been the man who was his other half.

It still bit at Ezekiel mercilessly that Caleb had refused to stand by him. The loss of his brother haunted him almost as much as Evangeline, because Ezekiel knew of no way to atone for the loss of his brother, to explain why it had had to happen. What could he have done differently? Not steal Caleb’s wife, his brother would say, but that wasn’t Ezekiel’s fault. Her spirit had called to Ezekiel, and he’d known she was part of his mission, so he’d taken her. It was Caleb’s fault for not understanding, but Ezekiel knew that somehow, it was his fault as well, for not helping his brother understand.

He’d failed his brother. He’d failed Evangeline. He’d failed the millions of innocents who had suffered over the last two thousand years while he’d been locked up.

But not anymore. Not now. Because he had a second chance, and he was getting it right this time.

The woman before Ezekiel whimpered, pulling him out of his memories and back to the present. He stared at her, revulsion building inside him as he looked at her flawed body and felt the bitter rancidness of her soul. How could he have thought she might be the one? Her taint was so evident in every breath she took. Her unworthiness stank up the room, a woman that didn’t even deserve to be thought of in the same moment as Evangeline.

Ezekiel scowled down at her, almost disgusted by what he had to do to her. He didn’t even want to touch her, but he knew he had to do it for the sake of his mission. “Who have you hurt? Your children? An animal? A plant?” He knew the list would be endless. He’d seen filthy people like her so many times before. He’d seen their mark on Evangeline’s body that first day he’d met her when they were both ten years old and she’d been hiding from her bastard father in the old feed shack. Revulsion churned through Ezekiel as he sneered at the woman before him, a woman so like the countless other soulless creatures he’d destroyed.

The woman stared at him. “What? I don’t have children. I haven’t hurt anyone—”

He snorted with contempt. “You can’t even see what you really are, can you?” Her breasts were nearly all the way out of her skimpy shirt. “Let me show you.” He let down his shields and grabbed her arm, unleashing into her the evil and taint he’d absorbed from so many deaths.

Her eyes widened and became glazed with hate, the vile emotion he’d known pulsed deep inside her. If her spirit had been pure, he could not have affected her, but there she was, pulsing with all the vileness of so many before her.

Ezekiel thrust her into the arms of his team, and she whirled on them, attacking them with a pleasure and fierceness that was so like the expression he’d seen on the king’s face the day the depraved royal had abducted Evangeline.

Disappointment was like a cold knife in Ezekiel’s back, and he swore. Was no one pure enough to withstand that kind of taint? Was there no person in the fucking world with a soul beautiful enough that it rose above the hell and refused to be tarnished? There had to be people like that out there. People who he could use to start a new world, a world of goodness, the world that Evangeline deserved.

But until he found those who were worthy, he would do his duty, and wipe out those who were scum, those who deserved the most hellish fate he could summon onto them. This time, he would not fail. This time, he would amass enough power that no one would be able to stop him. He needed more evil to harvest, more taint to draw in from others, so he could thrust it out into the world and let people use it to destroy themselves.

A mother. Maybe a mother. He turned to his men. “Find me a woman with children. A mother who loves her children, who would defend them with her life. Bring them all to me.” He would test mothers, see if he could turn them on their children. He needed to see how much power he’d gotten back. It wasn’t until he’d reached the height of his powers that he’d been able to make mothers turn on their children, merely by walking through a town. Friends murdering friends had been easy. Husbands killing their wives had been the next step. Mothers taking out their beloved children...that was when he’d know he was powerful enough to begin his mission.

The first step was to find one to test his powers on. See where he stood.

Plants were dying from his touch. Good.

He glanced at the ones in the corner, and they were still alive. Not yet dying merely from being in his presence. But soon.

Someone called him an infection once, but they were wrong. The infection was already there, deep inside people, and he was the angel of beauty to clear it out. Ezekiel thrived on what he was doing, on watching the fabric of the unworthy society unravel. Hearing the pleas of the weak, offering him
anything
if he’d only spare them.

That had once been him, a small child, begging for mercy he’d never received from his father, getting beatings and lashings instead of a reprieve. That had been Evangeline, begging for her life from her father and the royal bastard who’d taken her. Now the tables were turned. Never again would he be the one begging. Never again would goodness have to beg for mercy.
Never again
.

His captive’s eyes widened and she tried to jerk free of his men, but they held her with no effort, her struggle futile. Ezekiel held out his arm and called out a knife. He smiled as he inspected it, still getting used to the fact he had twenty-one weapons to call now, not just the one weapon he had originally been gifted with. The ritual that had freed him had given him the power and weapons of all twenty-one men who had taken him down in the first place.

The level of power he’d attained two thousand years ago was nothing to what he would be able to achieve as soon as he completed his escape from his prison. He was out, yes, but only his spirit. Currently, he was using another Calydon’s body as his host. His body was still locked down in that prison, and until he broke those walls down and reunited himself with his body, his virulence would not be at its peak.

He needed more power to make it happen.

Ezekiel grabbed the woman’s wrist and glared down at her. “And now, you learn what it feels like to truly suffer—” Sudden pain shot through his head. He shouted and released her, gripping his head against the thundering pressure. What the fuck?

Don’t hurt her.

The faint protest jerked through Ezekiel’s mind, and he snapped his head up
. Drew?

There was no response, but he’d heard it. That interfering insolence had come from the young Calydon whose body Ezekiel had taken over when he’d escaped from the prison. He’d banished the youth’s soul into Ezekiel’s body that was still incarcerated. Drew had been the perfect choice to use as a host. His bloodlines were strong, descended from one of the most powerful warriors who had helped capture Ezekiel. It was a good temporary situation, a body strong enough to support Ezekiel’s immense power until he could reclaim his own body.

But what the bloody hell was the kid doing in his mind? Ezekiel owned this body now, and the kid was rotting away in Ezekiel’s body in the prison. But Ezekiel could feel Drew’s morality like some fucking white light in his brain, and it pissed him the hell off.

He had to do what was right, and having Drew get into his head could not keep him from his mission.

Ezekiel grabbed the girl again, yanking her against him so her breasts were scraping across his chest. His head reeled with pain, and he gripped her even tighter over Drew’s protests screaming in his head. “This is what you don’t want me to hurt? This woman? Why do you care?” he shouted at the kid. “I never heard from you with all the others.”

Jesus, his head was fucking killing him. Like it was going to explode. “Is she your
sheva
? Is that what it is?” Ezekiel staggered under the blinding pain the kid was inflicting upon him. “Fuck off, Drew. This is my body now, and I’ll do what I want.” He slammed the knife into her stomach. Drew’s roars of fury beat at Ezekiel’s brain until he couldn’t think clearly enough to harvest the taint from her soul. He fumed with rage as he lost his grip on the knife. “How dare you interfere?”

Ezekiel fumbled for the knife, barely able to see through the blinding agony in his head, then he found it, and thrust again, ripping it through her heart. She died instantly, her spirit pouring free from her body. “She’s dead now,” Ezekiel shouted. “The more you try to save them, the faster they will die!”

Drew’s pain slammed into him, doubling him over, but Ezekiel snarled even as he fell to his knees, his brain throbbing so much he couldn’t think. “Don’t fuck with me, Drew,” he ground out. “No one wins a one-on-one with me.”

Then his arms gave out and he let himself collapse onto the body of the freckled-breasted girl, the blood still flowing from her chest. What a fucking waste, killing her before he’d been able to use her. “Drew, you will pay for this, I
promise
.”

Ezekiel rolled onto his back, squinting at his men as he basked in Drew’s screams of fury and anguish. “Find out all you can about Drew Cartland,” he ordered.” Find out what he cares about most. Who he cares about. Then we will destroy it.”

Drew would pay, and Ezekiel would enjoy every damn minute of it. Another bastard who didn’t understand what he was doing, who didn’t deserve to live—

The door flew open and a red-haired Calydon, a powerful male named Faulk Crowley, stepped into the room and bowed low. “Excuse me for interrupting, but we have located the files we’ve been searching for.”

“You’ve found Nate’s records?” Ezekiel tossed the body of the dead woman at one of his Calydons as Faulk nodded. “At last.” Finally, he would see all that Nate had been doing for the last two thousand years. Nate had been his contact in the outside world since his incarceration, following Ezekiel’s precise orders to orchestrate his escape. The weak bastard had nearly given up the details when the Order had captured him, and Ezekiel had been forced to snuff his life out. A regretful result, because Nate had one of those few, pure souls and he understood Ezekiel’s mission.

If Nate had done his job and kept the files in order as Ezekiel had instructed him, somewhere in that file would be the name of the Calydon Ezekiel had sensed when he’d been freed. The one he’d sensed so many times over the last five hundred years.

And then Ezekiel would find the last remaining offspring of his brother Caleb, and his plan would be complete.