8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

The memory of all that she’d been through this night assailed her. Determination and despair were fighting within her. The last sentence of that prophecy rang in her mind. If they make the wrong choice, the earth will end. The worlds will be destroyed . Each time she thought about it, it grew a little bigger until a sense of hopelessness took her over.

They were wrong. She wasn’t the right person for this job. They had to find the woman who was part of the prophecy, or they were all going to die.

She trembled; tears she didn’t want to cry leaking from her eyes.

“I can’t, and you can’t ask me to do this. I’m not the person who was being talked about. We need to find her, and we must hurry because time is not our friend.” Tieran wrapped his arms around her, swaying. “I’m not her,” she whispered into his chest.

“I’m not the queen you were looking for, the savior of the world. I’m just Tia, a twenty-nine-year-old human female who has never done anything even halfway spectacular. It’s not fair to ask me to find a stronghold and figure out how to deactivate a curse that is a couple of hundred years old, in less than three hours.”

“You’re right,” Tieran said. “About most of it, anyway.” He picked her up bridal style and walked through the living room looking for some place where it would just be him and her. When he found her old bedroom that her mother had set up as a sewing room, he walked in and shut the door.

He placed Tia on her feet before pressing her against the wall. “Everything about this is unfair and we don’t have to try to save the world, either of them. Let them burn.” His smile melted her heart. “As long as you’re in my arms when the end comes, I won’t complain.” Tia laughed. It bordered on desperation, but it was a laugh.

Tieran wiped the tears from her eyes and then kissed her. It was slow and drugging.

She wanted to spend the rest of the night right there with his kisses on her lips and his arms wrapped tightly around her.

“We have to do this, don’t we?” She looked up and met his eyes. She wanted him to say no, but she knew the answer was yes.

“What do you want to do, Tia?” he asked.

“How can you be so blasé about this? We’re going to die.” She wanted to stomp her feet because this wasn’t how her life was supposed to go.

“I’ve been dying for hundreds of years. Being told that the end is near or even that the end is here makes no difference to me. I’ve prepared. The question is, have you?”

Hearing him say that was a shock to her system. He and his people were prepared to die. She never thought of dying. Her thirtieth birthday was coming up, and she was planning a big party for herself while being determined to land that job that she’d been dreaming about.

Was she prepared to die? She didn’t want to leave it all behind, but if the only way to stay with Tieran was to follow him, she’d say goodbye to her life and hello to a new one even if she didn’t know if there was life after death.

“I’m going to follow you wherever you go.” She pulled his head down and they met in another kiss.

“I’m taking you back to your house for another cozy moment in your bedroom, or I’m looking for a stronghold. It’s up to you, Tia. You decide how we spend the rest of this night.”

She held him tight, a sense of wonder invading her heart. “When this is all over,” she told him, “I’m going to find myself a shrink and an enormous bottle of champagne. Maybe a never-ending bottle.”

“You have to share the champagne with me,” he chuckled. “I’ll be your guard standing outside with my arms crossed over my chest while you talk to your shrink to make sure no one disturbs you.”

“That’s my man, the strong, silent type.” She gave a soft laugh. “All right, decision made. Let’s go find a stronghold and destroy a curse.”

“That’s my queen,” he said. “Strong in the midst of her weakness.”

Tia kissed him one last time because if the world was going to end, she needed as many kisses as quickly as possible to make sure that she took them into the hereafter.

“You’re back,” Calista said in a dry voice. “Now I must fumigate that room to get the thoughts of my daughter kissing some guy, even if it is the one that she’s mated to, out of my mind.” She grimaced.

“Mom, the things I’ve done in that room, let me tell you.”

“I’m not listening,” Calista said loudly. Then she started humming some song that Tia didn’t know. “Go save the world,” Calista said, “And take your vampire and shifter wolf with you. Thank you.”

“Mom, what will you be doing?” Calista pulled out two party hats that said Tia! , and then she went to the refrigerator and pulled out a cake that said, " My daughter saved the world."

“I’ll be sitting on the porch in Rylin’s arms, in my party hat, eating cake and blowing on party favors. When my neighbors, the necrotechs, come out to see what’s happening, I will laugh in their faces.” She plopped a hat on her head.

“That’s what I’m going to be doing. What are you going to be doing, sweetheart?”

“I’m going to be saving the world. Isn’t that what every witchling dreams of?” Tia laughed and shook her head. How could her life drastically change in less than twelve hours? It really seemed like magic.

Tia took her king’s hand and then walked towards the door.

“Wait, don’t forget Bryce,” her mother said. “You can come back and eat cake after you save the world.”

Bryce stood and bowed low to the queen’s parents before he caught up with Tia and Tieran in the doorway.

“She who knows,” Tia said, referring to her mother, “has just declared that you are part of this process, too. Let’s get this party started.”

Tia walked through the doorway, but she couldn’t go any further because she needed to ask this question, even though it had no bearing on what they were about to do. “Mom, why is your door blue? I thought it was just a style choice growing up, but now it seems like there’s more behind it. The only two doors I’ve ever seen that were blue in our whole town were yours and mine.” She gave Rylin a soft smile.

“The blue indicates safety for the monsters and invites them to come in and regain their sanity.”

“Then why is my door blue?” It wasn’t like she was ever planning on inviting a monster in, and Tieran did try to kill her.

“Didn’t the monster who is the new high king regain his sanity.” Tia gave her mother a look of respect and a small bow because she realized her mother knew way more than she was telling anyone. Then she laughed.

Her mother had lived the past twenty-nine, almost thirty years, surrounded by necrotechs and yet they had no idea of who or what she was. That shit was funny, and she respected the hell out of Calista De La Rosa. Now she understood what the godlike being meant.

Her mother had mated and taken on a new name. She passed down that name and legacy to Tia. She was Tia De La Rosa and heads were about to roll. Tia picked a random direction and started walking down the street.

She passed her house and then the houses of a couple of the neighbors she knew well before she stopped. It was a residential neighborhood with a large area ahead that held a park.

“What’s wrong?” Tieran asked her. Tia turned to look around, doing a three-sixty before turning back to him. “What do you feel?”

Tieran was casing the area in front of them, keeping a lookout not only for his own people who were crazed and may try to attack, but for necrotechs also. He tilted his head to Bryce to scent the area. The wolf’s sense of smell was better than his vampire sense of smell.

“Protect your queen,” he told Bryce.

“With my life, my king.” Then Tieran moved too fast for anyone to see.

He was gone before Tia could take a breath. When he was standing next to Tia again, she jumped a little.

She knew he was there; she could feel the connection between them, but for a second, she hadn’t seen him.

“There are no monsters or necrotechs. I found nothing of concern in the direction we are going.”

“Exactly. We’re moving away from this stronghold and not towards it.”

“Agreed,” Tieran said as they turned around and started walking back past her house and then past her mother’s house, who was, as she said, sitting on the porch in Rylin’s lap, eating cake and blowing on party favors.

Tia laughed, ran up on the porch, stole a piece of cake on a plate, grabbed three forks and was back on the sidewalk before her mother could even open her mouth to protest.

“Thanks, mom,” she called. “The cake is good.” They walked down the street, making short work of the cake before they found an empty trash can and threw the plate and the forks in it.

“Oh necrotechs,” Tia sang, “we’ve come to kick ass and not take names.” She pumped her fists in the air and did a little jig. The sugar from the cake must be going to her head.

She peeked at Tieran only to see him giving her that adoring look and she knew she had to stick around for this. She needed to see where their story was going to go, and it couldn’t be written one and done in a night. Bryce stopped abruptly, scenting in the air.

“My king.” Tieran turned to him with a nod of his head and took off.

“I’m gonna have to put a bell on that male,” Tia complained.

“We are surrounded,” Tieran said when he stopped by her side.

“Oh good, we’re going in the right direction,” Tia said with false cheerfulness. “All right bitches, listen up.”

She didn’t know why she thought the Necrotechs were females except for the fact that she really had a hard time seeing a male swapping roles with a different group of people and getting away with it.

In her opinion, like it or not, men were the more destructive people in the population. Women, on the other hand, could scheme and before you knew it, you’d be sitting there penniless, and she’d be rich.

“You set the mirror world of this one to self-destruct. Only one problem with that, ladies, is that when that world self-destructs, this one will too. Do I have a hope in hell that you believe me? Of course not. Well, at least not until you’re like burning, but then it will be too late. So, I am going to figure out how you did it, break the curse, and oh my gosh, we’re all going to live together as one happy family.” She knew that wasn’t going to happen.

They were having a hard time, just the humans living as one happy family, but she didn’t care anymore. Something had to change. Someone had to be the one to stand out and say, hey, I’m going to stand here and make a change, so it might as well be her, Tia thought to herself.

She deliberately didn’t think of all the women who came before her who had died for their causes.

“Tia.” A necrotech came out of her house. She knew this one. They’d been friends for years.

She was only ten, maybe fifteen years older than her. “Eva Mae, how are you on this beautiful night?” The moon was full, and that was rare on Halloween.

Tia thought it was fitting that the moon would embrace her endeavor or give the Earth its final benediction when it was destroyed along with the mirror plane.

“Tia, shouldn’t you be inside cowering with everyone else and not walking in the streets with monsters who’ve come to kill us?” Eva Mae said.

“They haven’t killed me, and I’ve been with them for some time. Maybe you can walk with us and see that they are peaceful. That’s not going to happen, is it?”

“Run along back to your house. I’ll take care of these two. Then tomorrow morning, when the sun is up, I’ll come and talk to you.”

Eva Mae was tall with beautiful black hair and a tan that left her looking gorgeous all summer long. Tia didn’t see her beauty, but a dark shadow that seemed to hang over her.

Tia laughed and then wiped her eyes like she thought it was so hilarious that she was crying. “Move out of the way. We have places to be,” she demanded.

Eva Mae brought up her hands and the next thing Tia knew she was flat on the ground from being lifted and thrown. Tieran and Bryce growled. Tieran helped Tia to her feet.

“You got games, Eva.” Tia dropped all pretense of friendliness. “We are going through you, whether you like it or not.” Eva raised her hands and Tia thought this must be what they mean when they say on-the-job training.

Tia swiped her hand in front of herself and then outwards to cover both Tieran and Bryce. Whatever Eva shot at them bounced off the shield Tia placed around them.

“Honey, I can make a shield,” she told Tieran, as if it were no big deal.

“Excellent, Witchling. Remember what you did and take it down from around me.” In a blink of an eye, the shield was gone and so was Tieran.

The next thing she knew, Tieran had Eva wrapped in his arms, his face in her neck as he drained her. Then he flung her back up onto her porch.

“Did you kill her?” Tia asked. She didn’t know how she felt. She and Eva had always been friends and now she kind of felt like Eva had turned against her. That didn’t mean she wanted her dead.

“No, my queen, I took your soft heart into consideration. That does not mean I won’t kill the next person to get in our way,” he called out to the waiting presence hovering around their houses. The air was filled with the sound of manic laughter. Tia knew they had a fight on their hands.