"How is it possible that she's…?" Dirdos demanded, inching closer to her while Epharis wrapped his arms around her and scowled as she began to shiver. She was freezing, and he wasn't warm enough. When he noticed that her lips were turning blue, the lich turned to Dirdos and handed her over to the dragon.
She immediately latched onto the giant man, moaning aloud at the warmth of him.
"Neah… we call them Magic Breakers. They get sent after creatures like Etani and Uzo who need to be stopped. Powerful enough to nullify magic for a time, and if they get the opportunity, they can break some magic completely. Curses, enchantments…"
"Bindings?" Dirdos asked.
"Yes."
"Why is it no one knew about this?"
"Did you know the male witches are more likely to turn out as psychopaths?" she asked quietly, pressed as hard as she was able to be against Dirdos' chest.
"They are?" Vincent asked, sounding surprised by the news.
She looked up at him as he inched over to her, too scared to touch her but wanting to badly.
"The females are all fine as far as I could tell, but the men… that's likely why they hide the fact that there are male witches."
Even just talking was exhausting her, and she shifted slightly, curling herself into a ball against the furnace that was Dirdos.
"Why would he break the binding?" Hunter asked.
Looking up at Vincent, she saw the realisation in him as his eyes found her belly.
"He wants a child. The Magic Breakers are sterile, it's assumed they can only breed with their own kind and there are no female Hunters."
Nodding, she took the large hand of the dragon and pressed it against her cheek to warm her skin.
"I kept having to destroy the worlds and… there was only one way I could do that while being chained to a bed. I had to use my nails, and he knew where the blood was coming from, so I told him I kept miscarrying. He said he couldn't procreate, and I said I could procreate with any species but that the Gods made sure it wouldn't be a child. He told me he wanted a child and not a world. So, he broke the binding and…" She shrugged, clearly he had been successful in his goals. "Did you feel the binding break?" she asked Daemon.
"No. I didn't feel a thing, none of us did," he said, angry. "Is it possible he just moved it?"
"No, I felt it unwinding. He just picked it apart like it was nothing."
"Maybe because he undid it, instead of breaking it?" Dirdos asked.
The thought came to her as she spotted Jaia returning from the bathroom with bare feet and a frustrated glare. Catching his eye, she motioned to the small box of supplies needed to draw blood, she was relieved by the chance to help Kai, but the sight of it of the wooden box made her cringe.
"Why don't you stop him?" she asked Vincent, her eyes fixated on Jaia, so she didn't have to see the box again.
"What?"
"He has a box full of little locks of hair," she said, finding the spot in her own hair where it had been cut short. "He keeps them in a box… hundreds of them… Neah is a sociopath and keeps mementos of all his victims. There was so many…" she whimpered, her fingers curling around the shortened strands of hair.
"Why is it allowed to go on?" Dirdos asked, gently unwinding her fingers, and holding her palm against his chest so she could feel the heavy beating of his heart.
"I don't have a say in the matter. But his kind are important and incredibly rare. We all... just sort of pretend they're normal, like the witches. Etani, I'm so sorry…"
She watched his face, her mind going over the chains banging against the footboard, the screaming of the metal bed against the stone floor and her own screams when she had been able to. She didn't know what to think or what to say to him, she didn't know what she would have done in his situation and so she reached out and took his hand gently in hers, her fingers squeezing his.
"Why do you have a ring?" he asked, feeling it against his hand.
The question barely registered as her eyes had fixated on Jaia as he approached, offering her arm out to him, and only slightly flinching as he slid the needle under her unnaturally pale skin.
"Do you have to do that now?" Daemon demanded.
"Fuck off, demon," Jaia snapped, and she relaxed her fingers, watching his face as he squeezed the pump, and her blood began to inflate the bag.
"Etani," Vincent said slightly louder.
Not sure what he wanted, she looked up at him. He held up her hand between them, his face hard.
"Hmm?" she asked, uncertain of what the issue was.
"Where did you get this ring?"
Looking down at her hand, she blinked at it. She had forgotten about it entirely and her eyes lifted, leaving him as she searched the room to find the terrified little ball of human that was sitting in the corner, trying to make himself look as tiny as possible.
"Neah gave it to me," she said, nodding to the little man. "Someone unchain him."
Apparently, no one had remembered the human man had come along with her and Daemon, and they turned to look at him, the priest squeaking in alarm.
Letari was the first to slink over to him and the priest's eyes flicked between Letari and Etani, half fascinated, half terrified.
"Hi, I'm Letari. Etani's sister," she said as she crouched down before him, offering her hand that he refused to take.
"Look after him, Lee," Etani said and Letari nodded, not taking her eyes off the priest.
"Why do you have a human?" Dirdos asked.
"Neah brought him in. He's a priest. He's been there with me the whole time," she murmured, growing drowsy from the blood loss.
Smiling faintly, she looked up at Jaia as he removed the needle, his thumb pressing down on her arm to stop the bleeding. He had taken enough to feed Kai but not much more and she was glad for that.
"Etani, the ring," Vincent repeated, growing frustrated at her inability to focus.
"What? Neah got it." She felt like she had said that before and she frowned at the thing, loose on her finger now.
"Why did Neah give it to you?"
Etani blushed and bit her lip, the memory feeling like a stupid fantasy by that point.
"Etani?" Vincent asked, and she turned her eyes on Jaia, watching him so she didn't have to see their faces.
"I told Neah I would be shamed if I wasn't married before he… I thought it would give you all time to find me. It took him a couple of days to find the priest, but he knew I was lying. He was just playing along for the fun of it. I was just trying to buy more time before…" She stopped talking, knowing they would understand what she meant. "The whole time I was just trying to get someone… anyone to hear the chains on the bed. But no one came."
Looking up at Vincent, his face had gone white.
"I was so angry… I wished he would just shut whoever it was up that was making so much noise… and then he did, and I was so much happier… I was glad the banging had stopped…"
"What did he do with the others?" she asked, unable to look him in the face again.
"He eats them usually."
She had suspected she had been eating the flesh of his past victims, but it still stung her to have it confirmed like that.
"I thought so," she murmured, her thumb catching the diamond and spinning the ring on her finger before she slid it off and offered it to the Hunter. "I assume this belonged to the last woman he had."
Everyone stared at the ring and there was a terrible silence as the realisation sank in of what Neah had been doing to those he took.
"I don't know," Vincent whispered, refusing to take the ring when she offered it to him.
"The marriage wasn't binding," she said, motioning to Epharis, but Vincent had a weird look on his face that made her go wary. "Epharis is my husband…" she said, ignoring the lich who was looking oddly pleased by her words.
"Etani…" Daemon said slowly, and she looked at him, the ring beginning to tremble as her hands shook.
"It's not binding. I'm already married, twice," she said, her eyes flicking between the two of them.
Daemon was staring at the ring; Vincent was looking at the floor and she whimpered.
"Etani, the women who come to the compound…" Vincent broke off and he wrapped his fingers around her hand, closing her hand around the ring. "The women can have multiple husbands if they want it. He is your husband…"
Looking around at Epharis, the lich only looked back at her and shrugged. She had expected him to be angry, but it seemed he didn't care so long as she was there and not in the compound.
"Annul it!" she demanded of the priest, turning around on him and throwing Dirdos' arms off her. Crawling over the armrest of the chair for the priest, her arms shuddered, and Vincent caught her before she could hit the floor.
"That son of a bitch! He knew!" she screamed, reaching for the priest and he reached for her in return, looking terrified. "Annul it, please!" she cried, Vincent easily able to keep her still in his arms with how weak she was.
"I can't… it was consummated," he said weakly.
Her mind was turning foggy, sinking to the floor with Vincent wrapped around her protectively.
"Etani stop, you're going to hurt yourself," Vincent murmured in her ear, holding her tightly to himself.
"It's not fair…" she whimpered, clinging to his arm that was wrapped around her chest.
"I know, love… we'll find a way to fix it," he murmured.
"No reason you can't become a widow," Hunter growled, and she looked up at him hopefully.
"What are the odds he is going to try and take her again?" Daemon asked, piling a bowl with fruit from the table and handing it off to the priest.
"Highly likely," Vincent said. "He's unstable, violent, and it's been confirmed that Etani can bear him a child... how did?"
"He got angry at me... he didn't care, he just planned to start over again. But he didn't get to finish."
"So, do we go to him, or do we wait for him to come here?" Dirdos asked, watching her like a hawk to ensure Vincent didn't do anything.
"We wait for him. It won't be very long and chasing him all over the worlds would only thin us out. We need to be here to protect her."
"Where's Cat?" she asked.
"In the cell with Kai,"
"You put Cat in with a hungry vampire!?" she shrieked, shoving herself to the feet and accidentally elbowing Vincent in the face.
"Etani, it's okay, Cat helps Kai keep calm and Kai isn't going to hurt him," Daemon soothed and his arms wrapped around her as she swayed. "We need to get you someone to eat," he said. "Take the priest to the balcony and keep him there, Lee."
"Why?" the priest demanded.
"Because you're not going to want to watch her eat."
Letari took the priest by the hand and pulled him out onto the balcony. "What's your name?"
"Matthew," the priest said, looking back at them all in the room as Epharis left to find someone for her to eat.