Unlike those idiots, I would not waste pure power on something as fucking stupid as making myself rich or famous, or trying to free all the criminals from the prisons to form a gang of murderers and thieves. Both of those attempts failed, and it was at that point I hid the book away, and it had not been seen since.
Until now.
Today I was going to use it to change the supernatural world.
Turning my attention back to the crowd, I projected my voice. “You all cower before me. It pains me to see strong, powerful supernaturals act like prey. We are not prey. We will not tremble in the shadows any longer. I’m going to change our situation so that no longer do we have to deny our true selves.”
No one said anything, the silence almost deafening when I trailed off. Somewhere deep inside, there was a flicker of unease, but I wasn’t ready to examine the reason for that.
“I’m going to propose something,” I continued conversationally, starting to walk back and forth across the stage, letting the book magically trail along beside me. “What if supernaturals stepped out of hiding? We’re superior to humans in so many ways—all ways, really—and yet we are herded into small communities like animals. Forced to hide. Forced to protect our borders so that we don’t face the Neanderthal-like minds of humans who want to kill anything they don’t understand … anything theyfear.” I laughed, the low thrum vibrating with power.
“We’re so far superior to humans. They’re basically ants, running around in their controlled environments, working for their few leaders, and living limited, finite lives. We should be controlling them, not the other way around.”
Judging by the expressions facing me, it was clear my proposal was not taking everyone by surprise. Some of the fear had left their faces, and they looked … intrigued.
Elizabeth’s power slapped against me then, and it left a small ache in my chest. She was outside, and I had a feeling she’d been out there longer than I’d thought. Somehow I’d missed her arrival, but she was now moving rapidly toward me. Lucky for her, she was going to catch the end of my show.
Spinning around, I parted my hands, laying the palms flat. The book stilled its movement, and the pages flipped open. “I hold here an original book of magic,” I murmured. The audience started to whisper amongst themselves, and I let them have a second before I raised my voice. “With it, I have the power of all original fey magic. When we reveal ourselves to the humans, I can take their very limited energy and I can use it to control them. We can turn them into mindless drones to be used for our bidding. When we control them all, supernaturals will become the apex predators that we should always have been. We will have all the power.”
“No!” The slamming of the doors and Elizabeth’s shout drew everyone’s attention. They swung around to where she stood, her arms shaking as she held them out before her, her chest heaving as she fought for breath. “You can’t do this, Louis.”
My name trembled on her tongue before she released it, like she almost couldn’t bring herself to speak the word. This had the darkness rising, anger sending it spiraling through my body again. Magic users around the room gasped as they felt my power, and I wasn’t surprised to see that actual darkness swirled around my physical body. It was growing stronger, unable to be contained in the vessel.
“You are either with or against me,Elizabeth.” She flinched when I said her name, and I briefly wondered if it was because I never used to call her by her first name. It was “Tee” mostly. It had started as a joke, because for a short time in her teen years she’d hated Elizabeth and wished her name was Teresa, but then it turned into something just between us, something that demonstrated how close we were. Best friends.
No more, though. I had no room in my life for a weakness like friends.
“Louis, you’re talking about enslaving billions of humans.” She took a step down the center aisle. “Turning them into nothing more than slaves. That’s evil. It’s not something you should even consider. We’re not superior to humans, we’re just different. And we’ve learned how to happily coexist with them. I’ve been living in the human world for years. So have a lot of other supernaturals. We’re just like them, only with a few extra skills.”
I blinked at her, trying to figure out when she’d grown so weak and pathetic. “Time in the human world has changed you,” I bit out, my hands clenching at my sides. “You’re perfect on the outside, but your insides are weak.”
She tilted her flawless face back, the sunlight streaming across hair that was spun from gold and other metals. Elizabeth was without a doubt unsurpassed in beauty, but her weakness made her less … appealing to me.
“I’d rather be weak than dark,” she said simply, no anger in her voice. “You need to pull the darkness back, please.” Her eyes looked shiny. “Please don’t make me kill you.”
Heat in my chest grew, and I chuckled without humor. “You think you can kill me?”
Before she could answer, I slammed the doors behind her shut, I also turned all the lights off in the large room, plunging us into darkness. I was on Elizabeth in a heartbeat, my arms closing around her tiny body as I hauled her up against me. I expected her to fight me; I was ready for the attack. Instead, she wrapped her arms and legs around me, pressing herself even closer.
That gave me a moment’s pause as I tried to figure out what was happening. What sort of attack this was? “It’s not an attack,” she whispered, somehow sensing those thoughts. “I’m hugging you.”
My breathing grew ragged. I tried to think around the heat of her body pressed so intimately against mine. For the first time a sliver of clarity returned to me, the darkness inside parting like a curtain. It started to peel back piece by piece as I ran a hand through the long, silky strands of her hair, my heart pounding against her while my dick went rock hard pressing into her center.
The light that had been absent from my life started to bloom within me. And a lot of it originated from Elizabeth. She was bright, filled with warmth and love and kindness.
No!I growled in my head, sucking the darkness back inside, filling up the weakness with power again. I flung her back, off me. She was taken by surprise, slamming against a nearby wall. I felt a brief pang deep inside, but I was not going to delve into that part of myself. I could not be weak ever again.
Supernaturals would not be weak any longer.
9
Elizabeth Teresa Montgomery II
Iused magic to cushion the blow, not that Louis had actually thrown me with the sort of force he could have. If I’d hit the wall, it would have only knocked the air from me, not broken bones. Still ... the fact he could do that at all told me how far he'd let the darkness in.
For a moment there, though, a very brief moment, it almost felt like I was getting through to him. When he’d grabbed me and I wrapped myself around him, holding on as tightly as I could, I’d felt him soften.
But he was a strong asshole, and he managed to fight the light.
