Squinting against the white, he focused on the figure kneeling above him, face dark with fury, eyes glowing gold.
Seth, the eldest and most powerful Immortal Guardian in existence. The only Immortal Guardian who could match Zach, who had seen millennia, in age. Give or take a century.
Loyal leader. Fierce protector.
Seth had scorned the path Zach and the Others had chosen so long ago. He had chosen a far different path.
It wasn’t until recently that Zach had begun to question which path was the right one.
“What—?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” Seth bellowed over the howling winds. “Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out?” His large hand closed around Zach’s throat and held him down.
Zach tried to teleport and couldn’t. Seth must be doing something to block or hamper Zach’s gifts.
“I warned you,” Seth said. “I warned you I’ve been exercising and growing my powers while you and the Others sat on your asses. Did you think I lied?”
When Zach opened his mouth to respond, Seth lifted him and slammed him against the ice again, breaking more bones in Zach’s wings.
“Just tell me why!”
“Why what?” Zach growled as agony overwhelmed him.
Lightning streaked through the sky and struck the glacier a few yards away.
He had never seen Seth so enraged.
“Don’t fuck with me! Why did you restore Donald’s and Nelson’s memories? Why did you help them prey upon my Immortal Guardians?”
Donald and Nelson. Leaders of the mercenary group that had twice hunted immortals and twice been defeated in epic battles.
Seth and David had buried the two humans’ memories of immortals and vampires after the first “final battle.” And, once Seth and David had buried those memories, no mortal would have been able to resurrect them. Such could only have been accomplished by . . .
Zach shook his head, unable to speak past the fingers clutching his throat.
Roaring, Seth rose to his feet and waved an arm in a circle.
The wind ceased blowing. The snow it had been carrying fluttered down to the ground, settling upon Zach and decorating his eyelashes as silence engulfed them.
Shit. Seth could control the weather? None of the Others, himself included, could do that.
Zach started to rise, but found he couldn’t.
Seth held Zach in place telekinetically, his power a frightening and tangible force. “Only you or an Immortal Guardian could have done it. And my immortals wouldn’t betray me. Just tell me why you did it.”
Zach shook his head. “Your problem, Seth,” he gasped, “has always been . . . that you think yourself . . . invulnerable. Is it . . . so hard for you to believe . . . that one of your precious . . . Immortal Guardians might have betrayed you?”
“You deny it was you?”
“I deny nothing,” Zach snarled, his own fury now matching Seth’s.
“So be it.”
The blizzard resumed, wind whipping Seth’s long hair.
So quickly that he appeared to vanish for a moment, Seth drew a dagger and—kneeling—plunged the blade into Zach’s chest an inch from his heart.
Pain shrieked through him.
Seth leaned in close and turned the blade, heightening Zach’s suffering. “Listen closely, Cousin. This is but a tiny fraction of the power I wield. Betray me again, endanger my Immortal Guardian family again, and I will destroy you. If the Others don’t like it and choose to confront me, I assure you they will meet the same fate.”
He rose while Zach struggled for breath.
“Stay away from Ami. Stay away from Lisette. Stay away from all of us.” Seth shook his head, his face full of scorn as his glowing gaze raked Zach. “What a fucking disappointment.”
He vanished.
The pressure holding Zach in place fell away.
Raising a hand that shook, Zach grasped the handle of the dagger and slowly pulled it from his chest.
It fell to the ground, staining the ice red.
He tried to teleport and found he couldn’t. Seth had done something to drain his powers.
Gritting his teeth, Zach sat up with a growl of agony and dragged his wings with him.
A shiver shook him.
He glanced around at the frozen landscape.
No structure or shelter in sight.
For the next several hours, until his broken wings healed enough to carry him home, Zach’s only company would be the anger festering inside him.
That and the satisfaction of knowing he wasn’t the one who had betrayed Seth.#p#分页标题#e#
Apparently, somewhere out there, an Immortal Guardian was plotting to take down his or her illustrious leader.
And Zach would watch it all with a smile.
Through the curtain of snow whipping past him, Zach caught movement.
He rose, muscles stiff with cold and strain. Gravity pulled at his broken wings, increasing the pain.