Heart of Stone

ONE

STANDING ACROSS THE mat from the guy I liked and told to attack him with everything I had was a little disconcerting. No matter how much Sebastian and I had been practicing, I hadn't been able to go at him full force.  

Ari… He swiped a hand through his dark hair. "Concentrate." 

That deep preternatural voice flowed over me like warm silk sliding over bare skin. For a split second I wanted to follow his command, wanted to please him, and do whatever he said. My gaze locked on his, my instincts telling me that he was a leader, and I should follow.

And then I saw it—a silvery flash of humor in his gray eyes. That small telltale sign brought my senses back in a flash. 

The fact that he was willing to use a little paranormal persuasion to get me to concentrate just begged for payback. 

My eyes raked over him in his loose fitting black pants, bare feet, and white T-shirt—one of those super soft, super thin models that clung to his arms and chest.  

He cleared his throat, making me focus on his face. His lips—always a shade redder than most—had parked themselves into a lop-sided grin, a faint dimple curving through one cheek. He scrubbed a hand down his jaw and laughed. If you keep looking at me like that, we won't get through this.

I smiled. Sort of my plan.

His quick glance at the clock told me he was tempted. My heart expanded, happy in the knowledge that I could tempt him. 

He was right, though. We didn’t need temptation, we needed to train. And now that I had him good and distracted, I could begin.

Suddenly, his image blurred and a slight breeze ruffled my hair. Crap. He was materializing behind me. 

Strong arms wrapped around me before I could react. Warm breath tickled my ear. Too slow. Lips brushed against my neck, sending an airy shiver over my skin just as he disappeared. 

I hate when you do that.

He materialized in front of me again. You love it. The kiss, yes. The disappearing before I could react, not so much. His expression sobered. You'll face beings who can trace like me. You need to be prepared. To be one step ahead. Dealing with tracers and persuaders are your biggest weaknesses. 

Gee, thanks.

The Blood Wars are coming, Ari. We have to assume the creatures we'll face are older, stronger, and more powerful than any others we've faced before. They'll be able to trace quicker than me and persuade better than me.

I snorted. No one can persuade better than you.

He opened his mouth to deny it, but then said nothing because my statement was most likely true. Sebastian was a force unto himself, a child of a Bloodborn vampire mother, the strongest kind of vampire there was—nobility to their kind. And a warlock father, a rarity in the world of witches where power was usually inherited maternally. When power did pass to a male, that male was extremely gifted. The fact that offspring between the two species hardly ever survived made Sebastian extra special. 

Sebastian had been adamant that he'd never be like the Bloodborn side of his family; he’d never take blood and complete the transformation into becoming a full-fledged vampire. Josephine, Sebastian's grandmother, Head of the Arnaud family, had pushed and pushed for Sebastian to accept his Bloodborn family, to become like them, but he'd adamantly refused. 

And then Athena had come along and used Sebastian to get to me. She'd locked us together, tempted him, starved him, made him mad, and brought him to the brink of death until I did the only thing I could to end his suffering. I gave him my blood. And he became something he never wanted to be.

Later, when Athena and her crew invaded the French Quarter, Sebastian had been offered freedom from his vampire nature. But he’d turned it down. He chose to keep his power in order to protect those he loved. And that was something I could totally understand.  

Lips met mine, the unexpected contact making me gasp. His mouth lingered, a soft brush, a shared breath. My insides went crazy and electric. 

His lips spread into a smile. You're beautiful when you're distracted, he said against my mouth before vanishing again.

No, I'm stupid when I'm distracted, I replied, embarrassed by my lack of focus. Even without the emotions Sebastian stirred in me, I couldn't seem to get my act together, and I’d been this way all day.     

He appeared across the mat. Archer is coming today. We're all a little distracted. 

Archer was coming. 

Yeah, that pretty much summed it up. I went to the wall and grabbed a bottled water from my bag. 

I was nervous. Worried. Hopeful. And I couldn’t seem to put aside the memories.

Memories of betrayal and death, grief and destruction, gods and monsters…

As crazy as it sounded, my world was a place filled with creatures and beings of myth and legend. The veil had been ripped from my eyes, the truth revealed, and my reality altered forever.

I’d come to this strange, exotic city to find answers about my past and had found far more than I ever thought possible. My mother was a descendant of Medusa. My father was a Son of Perseus charged by the goddess Athena with hunting my mother down.

The hunt had resulted in a dangerous love affair. And me.

My ancestors’ power ran through my veins, but so did my father’s preternatural gifts, something that made me different than those before me. Something that made Athena sit up and take notice, something that had put me on the path to finding Athena’s infant son. Archer.     

With his soft black hair and green eyes shot with gray, Archer looked a lot like his mother. She’d been on my mind a lot today, leading me to revisit my past altercations with her and the events that led to her death.  

The outside world knew of Athena as the mythical goddess she once was, a great benefactor of mankind for thousands of years. She'd been all that and more, right up until the tenth century, when she’d given birth to Archer and her father had attempted to kill the child. 

That single act had spawned the War of the Pantheons.

And Athena was never the same. 

She’d become bitter, vicious, driven to find what was left of her child, to make anyone who sided against her pay, to use those who might help her—willing or not—in her quest for blood, vengeance, and redemption.

My ability to turn things to stone and resurrect them again, had put me square in her cross-hairs. I was the one who could turn back time, the one who could give her that which had been taken from her. I hadn’t known why she wanted me, why she’d manipulated and tortured me and those I cared about, why she’d almost torn down an entire city…

But I knew now. 

And the answers weren’t as black and white as I’d expected them to be.     

Seeing my nemesis and the nemesis of so many others, show such love in the end... I was still having a hard time merging the goddess I'd known with the mother I saw six months ago in St. Louis Cathedral when she'd gazed upon her child's face for the first time in a thousand years.

Despite all that she'd taken from me, I couldn't help but feel some measure of sympathy for her, for what she’d lost. Her dream, everything she'd been working toward, all of her lies and wars and scheming, had been to bring about the resurrection of her child who'd been frozen in stone by one of my gorgon ancestors. And when it finally happened, when she finally saw Archer alive and beautiful, it was taken away from her. 

I took it away from her.

And that made Archer my responsibility. I brought him back to life. I froze his mother in stone and then the witch, Pandora, had shattered her to pieces. 

And now Archer was coming here, to spend time with his father’s side of the family. 

The boy deserved a chance at a happy life for as long as possible. God knew, his future would be anything but. 

All right, water break’s over. Sebastian tossed his bottle back to the wall and stepped onto the mat, motioning for me to get moving. As I joined him, he held out his palms. We'd already warmed up with hand to hand combat, but it was obvious I needed more work to get my mind into training. 

As I hit, Sebastian meeting me expertly with every jab, he said, The trick to being one step ahead of a trace is knowing how to recognize its energy. It takes a lot of energy to trace. It's a signature that can't be hidden. You learn to identify it, and you'll feel me before I appear. There are changes, movements, pressures in the air. As he spoke, we circled around the mat, ducking, blocking, hitting...

My body warmed with the exertion, my heartbeat hammering faster and faster until my thoughts finally focused. 

Now, persuasion is all about control, he continued. For them and for you. You control who you let in. You defend with your mind. Manage your thoughts, your distractions, your emotions. Gabriel was successful with you because you let your emotions get to you.

At the mention of Gabriel Baptiste, I tensed. I’d hated that the young Bloodborn heir had overcome me twice, using persuasion. I blocked Sebastian's punch, ducked under his arm, and hit him in the side of the ribcage. He let out a painful grunt. I'd killed Gabriel, turned him to stone, and out of revenge his father Simon had gone after my friends, putting Jenna in the hospital and causing Dub to defend himself, making his first kill by setting fire to Simon's buddy, Soren Mandeville. Soren was dead. Simon was MIA and no doubt planning my demise six months after the fact.

If Gabriel can get the best of you, think what Simon and the others could do.

Irritation swept through me; sometimes it sucked hearing the truth. I hit, going through the quick motions as Sebastian egged me on. In the back of my mind I knew he was doing it for a good reason, to help me dial in, to test my control. Sweat beaded on my skin. Blood rushed through my veins. Each punch, each evasion made me think, made my thoughts and reactions clear and quick. 

Sebastian ducked my punch, dropped down to the mat, wrapped his legs around my knees and flung me to the floor. I hit hard, my irritation edging into anger. Immediately, I twisted my body and pushed up so that as he tried to rise, I was faster and on top of him, one hand on his chest and the other poised above his forehead, ready to sink my power into his skin. 

It raced through my system, a white hot surge, tingling my skin and numbing my fingertips until they began to harden. I could turn him to stone in a heartbeat. 

Sebastian's eyes met mine in a force of wills. His irises flashed quicksilver. 

The door to the training room opened. 

I didn't need to look to know that the Big Guy, our instructor Bran Ramsey, strode in with his training bag slung over his shoulder. A silent message passed from me to Sebastian, and then in unison we lifted our heads and blasted the demi-god with everything we had.

Bran went airborne and slammed against the far wall, a loud, angry curse filling the room. Goddamn it! he roared, extricating himself from the wall. Surprise attack training was scheduled for Thursday!

I shared a grin with Sebastian before rolling off him. Kind of defeats the purpose, I said as I got to my feet, scheduling it and all.

Pieces of wood paneling fell to the floor, pinging in the silence. 

Fix this. Bran glared at me, smacking a hand to the center of his chest. From the neck of his loose tank top, white crept over his tanned skin. Hard white stone. My power. 

To mess with him, I let out a sigh, hesitating.

Now, Selkirk.

Fine. Bran towered over me, all six-foot-four of tattooed, angry Celtic demi-god, ready to pounce. I laid my palm on his chest. I need to practice this anyway. I closed my eyes and concentrated on recalling my power back into my hand. No one lets me turn them to stone... 

His eyes rolled and he let out a loud snort. I wonder why.

As the last of my power retreated back into my fingers, Bran and I locked eyes. We both knew the second it was done, all bets were off. 

My pulse leapt. Four. Three. Two. On—  

I flew back, slamming into Sebastian. We went sprawling. Pain radiated through my chest where Bran had made contact, the wind knocked out of me. I shook my head in an effort to stop the stars from clouding my vision and struggled to my feet. 

Bran cracked his knuckles and then dipped his head to the left and right, cracking his vertebrae and letting out a satisfied sigh. Ass Whooping 101. My favorite.            

And then it was on. 

Even with our powers, Sebastian and I tag-teaming the Big Guy was an exercise in exhaustion. As the grandson of a Celtic war god, Bran fed on war, on fighting. It gave him energy, made him stronger as we grew weaker. I could only imagine how much worse it'd be if he was the son of a war god or, heaven forbid, an actual god.

The training room, along with several classrooms, the library, study hall, and cafeteria in the Presbytère Building had sustained fire and structural damage, along with several historical buildings in and around Jackson Square, during our battle with Athena. After months of reconstruction Presby was about to reopen. 

And thank whoever had thought to re-ward the training room because if they hadn't our forty-five minutes of Ass Whooping 101 would have completely destroyed it. 

TWO

I'D LIKE TO SAY we strutted our badass selves across Jackson Square after our training session, but the truth was we made our way slowly and sorely through the hot, humid maze of New 2’s artisans, musicians, street performers and locals. Despite the aches and pains, I couldn’t help but be bolstered by the activity and the restorations that were nearing completion.

I loved New 2. It was my home, a sanctuary for all things otherworldly and supernatural. 

Sixteen years ago, the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area had been ravaged by Athena’s hand. Her storms had destroyed the land so badly the government abandoned any efforts to revitalize what was left. The city was eventually sold to a wealthy conglomerate called the Novem, a group of nine families that had joined their funds and slowly but surely brought the city back to its former glory. The locals had coined the city’s rebirth New 2 and the name stuck.

And the wealthy conglomerate that had bought the city? They were, in fact, made up of nine of the most powerful supernatural families in the city. Thus, the large population of witches, vampires, and shifter/demi-gods, and the very tight oversight and regulation of the tourist trade, which brought in much of New 2’s revenue.  

As the years past, the city earned its place in urban legend, a supernatural Area 51, a place of mystery and lore, and danger should one venture outside of the French Quarter and into the abandoned Garden District, or ravaged Midtown, or beyond... 

Six months ago, the city could have fallen right back into disrepair—the French Quarter had nearly been obliterated by Athena as she made her final stand, forcing me to find and resurrect her son—but nothing seemed to keep New 2 down for long. That night, the Novem had splintered in the battle, and a new and better Council had arisen from the ashes. Buildings were being repaired even as Sebastian and I headed past the park and across Decatur Street where we found a table inside Café Du Monde to sit under the ceiling fans and nurse our wounds with beignets.

My stomach was growling, a good sign I wasn't hurt too bad.

My knee hurt, my muscles screamed, and I was pretty sure I'd bruised a rib or two. Bran had loved every minute of it. And so had I. It was an awesome fight. 

Sebastian leaned back in his chair, stretched a leg out, and rubbed his chest, wincing. Bran’s fists are like steel. He rolled his shoulder as our waitress arrived with a plate of warm beignets and two iced cafés au lait. Our usual.

I thanked her before taking a long drink of the cold liquid and sitting back in my chair. It was worth it, though. Did you see his face when we hit him? I smiled as I picked a beignet off the plate. 

Mirth came quick to his eyes and his smile was deep. You're almost as crazy as he is.

I was too busy staring at him to agree or disagree. Sebastian after a training session always got me going. It was the way he'd drag his hand through his damp, black hair, leaving it off his forehead and in disarray. Adrenaline had put color in his cheeks and darkened his lips, and even made the gray color of his eyes brighter.  

As he chewed, one eyebrow arched. He could read me pretty well, so he knew exactly the effect he had on me. 

We’d often find ourselves staring at each other during random moments, as if we were on the verge of . . .  something. Maybe it was a sense that everything was finally coming together, that what was happening between us was right and powerful and important. And the last six months of our unconventional dating was about to give way to something more normal and more committed. 

I might be too sore to hold Archer when he gets here, I said, biting off a chunk of beignet.

"Me too. Though, he won’t lack for people willing to