The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) (34 page)

My name is Anik Ujurak. Man of stone.
 

Someone has a sick sense of humor.
 

Climbing Sivanitirutinguak was so long ago it feels like a dream.
 

So does falling.

I can’t remember how it feels to have the wind, Sila, blow cold against my cheeks. I can’t remember how the first rays of coy Seqinek feel when they crest over ice-cloaked mountains. I can’t even remember my sister Pimniq's face. These things have become only words for me, empty of sensation and meaning.
 

Only one thing has meaning now.

The veiled woman must die.

***

I pass the endless hours in my cell trying to remember my people’s ancient stories. I speak them aloud. My voice is a mere whisper, weak and faltering, but it echoes in the cramped space and returns to my ears warped and unrecognizable.

I speak of how the moon brother Tatqim seduced his sister Seqinek, and when she fled carrying a lit torch he chased her across the heavens.
 

I tell myself the story of Anarteq, who transformed into a salmon spirit and whose absence drove his father mad with grief.
 

I speak of how Owl grew irritated with Raven and dumped an oil lamp over Raven’s head, turning him black.

But mostly I speak of Sedna, the Mistress of Adlivun, the Underworld:

Long ago there lived on a solitary shore an Inuit man with his daughter Sedna. His wife had been dead for some time and the two led a quiet life. Sedna grew up to be a beautiful girl. Youths came from all around to ask for her hand, but none of them could touch her proud heart. Finally, at the breaking up of the ice in the spring a fulmar flew from over the endless ocean and wooed Sedna with an enticing song.
 

"Come to me," the fulmar said. “Come into the land of the birds where there is never hunger, where my tent is made of the most beautiful skins. You shall rest on soft bearskins. My fellows, the fulmars, shall bring you all your heart and desire; their feathers shall clothe you; your lamp will always be filled with oil, your pot with meat."
 

Sedna couldn’t resist such wooing.
 

She agreed to wed the fulmar.
 

They travelled together over a vast sea. When at last they reached the country of the fulmars, after a long and hard journey, Sedna discovered that her spouse had shamefully deceived her. Her new home was not built of beautiful pelts, but was covered with wretched fish skins, full of holes, that gave free entrance to the wind and snow.
 

Instead of soft reindeer skins her bed was made of hard walrus hides. She was forced to live on miserable rotting fish. She discovered she’d thrown away her opportunities when in her pride she rejected the Inuit youth who came to ask for her hand.
 

In her woe she sang: "Aja. O father, if you knew how wretched I am you would come to me and we would hurry away in your boat over the waters. The birds look unkindly upon me the stranger; cold winds roar about my bed; they give me but miserable food. O come and take me back home. Aja."
 

When a year passed and the sea was stirred by warmer winds the father left his country to visit Sedna. His daughter greeted him joyfully and asked him to take her home.
 

The father, hearing of the outrages wrought upon his daughter, determined to seek revenge. He murdered Sedna’s fulmar husband and took Sedna into his boat. They quickly left the country of birds which had brought Sedna so much sorrow.
 

When the other fulmars came home and found their companion dead and his wife gone they all flew away in search of the fugitives. They were very sad over the death of their poor murdered comrade and continue to mourn and cry to this day.
 

Soon the fulmars discerned the fleeing boat and stirred up a heavy storm. The sea rose in immense waves that threatened Sedna and her father with destruction.
 

In mortal peril, the father determined to offer Sedna to the birds and flung her overboard. She clung to the edge of the boat with a death grip, begging and pleading with her father not to betray her.
 

The cruel father took a knife and cut off the first joints of Sedna’s fingers.

When Sedna’s fingers fell into the sea they were transformed into whales, the fingernails turning into whalebone.
 

Sedna screamed and held onto the boat more tightly with her ruined fingers.
 

Her father, mad with fear, cut off her second finger joints.
 

The second finger joints fell into the sea and swam away as seals.

Sedna slipped into the ocean and vanished.

The storm subsided, for the wrathful fulmars thought Sedna drowned.
 

But she was not drowned.
 

She was clinging to the bottom of her father’s boat.

The father then allowed his daughter to come into the boat again. But from that time on Sedna cherished a deadly hatred against him and swore bitter revenge.
 

After they made it ashore Sedna called her starving dogs and let them gnaw off the feet and hands of her father while he was asleep. Upon waking he cursed himself, his daughter, and the dogs which had maimed him, whereupon the earth opened up and swallowed the hut, the father, the daughter, and the vicious dogs.
 

They have since lived in the afterworld land of Adlivun, of which Sedna is the veiled mistress.

When I stop speaking my voice continues echoing in the cell, and when it finally quiets I know where I am and what I must do.

But I’m far from certain it will work, and I’m far from certain I’m capable of such horror.

***

Sedna doesn’t have to send anyone calling for me. She summons me with her scent, and when she’s finished with me she banishes me to my cell, and I obey her command.
 

I haven’t seen the Stricken creatures that brought me here since I first arrived. Even the memory of the elevator and the helicopter and the boreal forest has faded, and at times I question whether any of that existed, or whether I’ve dreamed it all up, invented the illusion of a life beyond this place to keep my mind from breaking.
 

I’ve heard of such things happening to people who lose their sensory perception in accidents. Apparently without external input the mind creates its own world, populated by people and events that are no more or less real than the ones outside.
 

Has that happened to me? Was I in a terrible accident I can’t recall? Am I in a hospital bed at this moment, dreaming of my slow murder at the hands of Sedna Mistress of Adlivun?
 

Is my life nothing more than a myth, like the old stories?

And if so, why this terrible pain?

Why dream such suffering for oneself?

***

I scent her. She’s calling me. I’m ready.
 

The iron bars slide open with a grinding clang, permitting me to exit the chamber. I don’t know how this happens. Maybe there’s a mundane explanation, like a winch powered by a small motor that opens the cage. Maybe it’s Sedna’s sorcery.
 

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she has summoned me and what I must do now.

I fall to my knees in my cell, slip my pinkie finger under the iron collar and hook my second knuckle against the sharp edge. My flesh opens.
 

It’s always odd, smelling one’s blood.
 

I pull my finger against the edge, feel it bite into bone.
 

Now comes the difficult part.

Bones are surprisingly difficult to sever. I run my finger back and forth under the collar, gritting my teeth against the pain. Warm blood showers down my chest. It hurts, but less than being with Sedna. Much less. In fact in some ways this simple, physical pain feels good. It establishes that I have a corporeal being. I’m not a ghost in my own dream.
 

The pain reminds me this life is real.

Almost there. The most difficult thing is making the decision to act. It takes a certain desperate willpower to saw one’s finger off.

My hand flies away from my body as the bone gives out. My finger falls to the stone floor with a quiet plop. For a moment I panic, thinking I’ve lost it, and the sound of my panicked moan echoes in the chamber and makes my skin crawl.
 

But no, I run my hands over the stone floor until I find the severed finger, then pick it up and cradle it in my uninjured hand. I’ll search for something to bind the wound with in Sedna’s lair.

It’s nearly time. My body aches for my lover’s cold touch.

***

“You’re late,” Sedna says from her pleated red velvet armchair.
 

A pneumatic door slides closed behind me. The lounge smells of Sedna’s sweet perfume; it smells of sex and pleasure and death and pain; it smells of secret desires. I followed her scent through the maze of corridors, although by now I’ve memorized the path from my cell to her lounge and could walk it without scent.
 

Now I lower my gaze as Sedna glares at me and say, “Are you displeased?”

Sedna shrugs. I can’t see her eyes behind the veil. “I’m curious. What kept you?”

Sedna’s leathery wings unfurl, black bone hooks glimmering. I’ve learned to love the feel of those hooks slipping into my spine.
 

It’s incredible, the pain we learn to live with.
 

“You’ve suffered, my love,” I say, hands clasped behind my back.

Sedna lifts the veil and flashes me a beautiful black-toothed smile, the muscles and tendons in her cheeks stretching.
 

She’s lovely. I don’t deserve her.
 

“Everyone suffers,” Sedna says quietly.
 

“You were betrayed by those you trusted most.”

Sedna lowers the veil and says, “Do not make the mistake of believing you’re important to me, Anik.”

I cross the room, the polished marble floor cold on the soles of my feet. I’m naked, hard for her, my cock aching, blood pounding, my desire overwhelming my will to escape. It’s always this way. How many plans have I hatched that have faltered in her presence? How many times have I sworn to murder her, only to forget my intent once I’m enveloped in her radiance?

Countless times.

Sedna’s sitting on the armchair, her long, shapely legs crossed, her pointed stiletto heals sparkling in the chandelier light.
 

She’s the most beautiful woman I can imagine.
 

“Come to me, Anik,” Sedna purrs. “Hold me. I’ve waited so long.”

“The fulmar…tricked you,” I say, the words heavy in my throat. “Lied to you.”

Sedna folds her gloved hands on her lap.
 

This is new. I pause in front of my lover, waiting for her command, uncertain and afraid. There’s comfort in routine. It was comforting to heed Sedna’s call and know exactly what would happen when I arrived. But now I’ve done something to upset her. The routine has been broken.

I want to tell her I’m sorry.
 

Sedna looks almost mournful.

What have I done? Mistress of Despair. She’s been hurt so terribly. Betrayed by lover and father. And here I am, aiming to hurt her still more. A wave of self-loathing brings tears to my eyes. I clench the severed finger in my palm and search for a place to hide it.

I could never harm her. Never.

 
I’m a coward. A bastard. Scheming to betray such a beautiful, vulnerable creature. Sedna brought me in from the cold. Brought me into her bed, granted me pleasures beyond imagining. Her heart is kind and generous. I’m the wicked one, the spiritless one, the deceiver, the one who deserves—
 

“Do you remember winter?” Sedna says, still looking at her folded hands.

“I remember…darkness.”

“Darkness. Yes. Tell me, Anik, have you loved anyone?”

“Apart from you?”

A flickering, skinless smile. “Yes. Apart from me.”

“No,” I say, trying to remember. “Never.”

“Is there anything worse than dying before loving?”

“You didn’t deserve it. What they did to you.”

Sedna takes a sharp breath.

I fall to my knees, my hands still clenched behind my back. “Please,” I beg. “I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry. I won’t mention it again. We can go on…we can forget…”

“At night the fulmars pecked at my face,” Sedna says. “Plucked the skin from my bones.”

“I’m sorry. Please.”

Sedna lifts her gloved hands and stares at her open palms. “My father brought the blade down, cutting my fingers off one by one. They betrayed
me
. They mutilated
me
. And yet when I sought vengeance…the world opened up and swallowed me. Why, Anik? What did I do to deserve this torment? Besides yearn for love?”
 

Sedna’s voice rises into a shrill wail as she speaks.
 

I kneel and cower before her, trembling with self-hatred.
 

I did this to her. I should never have reminded her.
 

“Why, Anik?”

I don’t answer, only shake my head and close my eyes and the desire to lay with her ebbs and for brief instant I see how easy it will be to murder her, she’s old and frail and weak, it’s only sorcery making her appear strong.
 

But I close my mind to the truth.
 

I can’t harm her. Not now. She needs me.
 

“I know why the earth swallows deserving and undeserving alike,” Sedna says, sighing. “It’s because there’s no such thing. We want to believe if we endure suffering we’ll be rewarded. Like there’s a ledger, and someone’s keeping track, and if we can only bear our suffering, see it through, we’ll be rewarded for persevering. But that’s nonsense. No one is keeping track. There is no ledger. And sometimes suffering is rewarded only with further suffering.”