Soldiers wouldn’t just go and slaughter their own kind, would they? They were sickened by our bloodlust,Ryder sounded despairing.
You claim to be me–you claim to be an Immortal–and here you are wailing about killing and bloodlust,Weryn snorted.
But still his shoulders wanted to curl inwards. He wanted to lower his head. When Legion had shown him his first “form” he had known what a mistake he’d made. A monster. He’d made a monster. Not a Childe.
I need to end them. I need to undo them. They cannot be allowed to live,Weryn thought.If Daemon sees…
He’s already seen!Ryder cried.He already knows! You coward! You utter coward!
I am not–
You deserve–no, I deserve–whatever punishment is coming to me for this!Ryder hissed.Caemorn and Balthazar fear their pasts, but theirs are nothing compared to mine! No wonder this still haunts us. What I did–
Winning wars is not clean!Weryn growled.There is no honor in losing to someone like Kaly! Do you not understand? In the end, the greater good must survive the War. No matter what!
I don’t think I’m the greater good. Kaly might have started all of this, but I finished it with horror,Ryder whispered.
You are weak. I am weak. It was my pity for Legion that stopped me from ridding myself of them long ago,Weryn muttered.Why didn't I see their duplicity even when I knew what they were. But I felt guilty! Guilt for making them. Guilt for wanting to kill them. Guilt for all of it.
“I don’t need to read your mind to know youwantWeryn to find us, Legion! That’s it, isn’t it? You still think that Weryn will love you.” Roan hissed. He’d put a finger under Legion’s elongated jaw as he mocked the Weryn Vampire. “You completemoron! You utterly useless piece of garbage! You–ARGH!”
Moving so fast that Weryn hadn’t even seen them do it, Legion hadbittenoff one of Roan’s fingers. Blood spurted from where the missing digit. Roan clamped a hand over it. Vampiric healing was already staunching the bleeding. The pain was likely already a memory. But thelookof rage on Roan’s face was unhinged.
Weryn’s eyelids flew open. He was staring directly into Elgar’s eyes. The Eyros Vampire had seen it all. And he sent that information to Sana and Demos.
“Hot damn! They’re fighting each other,” Demos grinned.
“Distracted. This will make things easier,” Elgar agreed.
Sana brought them all in for what appeared like a group hug, but was merely necessary to teleport them. “We go.Now.”
PREY
Roan’s blood and flesh tasted meaty and rich like stew cooked for a long time at a low temperature over an open flame. The bottom of the pot would always burn just a little bit no matter how often Legion had stirred it when their mother had made such a meal. Their mother would slap them on the back of the head when it burned. The truth was that theylikedthat caramelized, smoky taste that would permeate the stew so the smack had always been worth it.
Of course, Legion could have made her stop hitting them if they had so wanted. They had secreted a knife on their person by the time they were five. They’d used it by the time they were five-and-a-half. An old drunk who had tried to fondle them. He’d been left with a slit throat and severed cock and balls in his stupid mouth.
They hadn’t tasted the drunk’s blood, but the next one they did. Touched the widening, cooling pool around the washer woman’s head and sucked on their fingers afterwards. It hadn’t tasted like blood did to them now. More like metal and dirt. But they’d felt like those few drops connected them with their prey. They were connected forever.
Murderer and victim.
Though Legion had never thought of them as victims. The word “victim” added a moral worth to the persons they killed. But their prey, in the beginning, were the least moral. Criminals or the deranged by drug, drink or metal defect. People that others didn’t care about and didn’t realize were gone, or maybe didn’tcarethat they were gone. Legion had only switched to other prey–prey of their choice, of their desires, of their dreams–after they grew older and the kills were more assured and they had gotten better at hiding the bodies.
Not even in those olden times when life had been cheaper, police non-existent and life far harder had the authorities looked at children as real threats. Not because they were seen as children. They weren’t. They were mini-adults. But as such they were small, weak, and mostly unnoticed. Especially if they pretended to be a little dim and took abuse that others wanted to throw at them without hitting back.
And Legion had done that for a long time. Hadn’t hit back. Hadn’tbitback. If they wanted something other than death, they had to suppress their natural instinct to get it. And they had thought that Roan was the only way to get what they wanted most of all.
Weryn.
But Roan had only ever given them a cold stone that couldn’t talk to them, couldn’t hold them, couldn’t feed them, and couldn’t be by their side. So they’d had the soul released and Weryn had been reborn. They’d looked and looked for Weryn everywhere. On every corner of the planet. They’d know him or her or them. They’d know.
Except they hadn’t known.
They’d met Ryder and knew all about him for years before they had known he was Weryn. Ryder had hunted down War Children who broke the rules with the skill of a much older predator. He’d been on Legion’s scent a few times. Sent outby Lawson–one of their own cast away Children–again and again almost as if Lawson had hoped that one hunt Ryder would not return from, Ryder had proved himself strong, sure, and capable. Proud of Ryder’s strength, but jealous and leery of it, too, Lawson had known that Ryder was a danger to his leadership.
Lawson hadn’t been wrong to fear Ryder. From the get go, it was clear that Ryder was a leader. An effortless alpha of the sort that had existed in the Weryn Bloodline before the War. Lawson was strong, but grasping. He’d had some personal appeal, but his own insecurities had overcome him. Instead of making sure that Ryder was his friend, he’d made him into an enemy. But that was because Lawson could never be what Ryder respected. For Ryder mixed strength with mercy. Again, something that had not been in the Weryn Bloodline for some time.
Ryder had shown pity many times for the Weryn War Children, letting some go. If there had been a way to turn them back to what wasacceptablebehavior, Ryder had done that instead of simply slaughtering them. Legion remembered one lion shifter in particular named Lara who had been as great a believer in the Sect of Dawn’s cause as could be before she met Ryder. But afterwards, she’d separated herself from the group and made overtures to join an older pack. Legion had killed her because she knew too much about them and was sure to confess it all at some point. Especially if she met Ryder again.
