人生において 最も大切な時 それはいつでも いまです
Jinsei ni oite mottomo taisetsu na toki sore wa itsu demo ima desu
The most important time in life is always the present.
~ Mitsuo Aida, Japanese poet and calligrapher
Kit
I didn’t expect this. I had no clue it would feel this good, that he would feel this good, or that it would be this right.
My tongue tastes of the sky, and I have no way to describe it other than it’s something so sweet, like tasting chocolate before it goes bitter, then feeling it sink into you, motionless as you rest in its flavor.
He’s Horus… I shouldn’t be surprised. But he’s also a god, and I realize I’ve mostly forgotten this as I lay naked against his chest.
Horus licks up my neck as if he knows that foxes love to be licked and comforted, and then he pulls me tighter against him. “You’ll see; it’s all going to be okay.”
I’m with him.
I’m now half of him. Of course, it’s going to be okay. How could it not be? I cuddle next to him and finally allow myself to let go and sleep.
I don’t know if it’s hours later or minutes, but I wake up to voices. I think it’s Horus and maybe Timber? I have no clue, but I go downstairs to grab some water and smile to myself at the fact that all the immortals argue as if they’ve been living together since the dawn of time.
They’re truly a family.
And I love them even more for it.
Because I finally have a family of my own in them.
I feel it inside my chest, ready to burst free. I have a place to belong. Maybe the forest wasn’t my home after all, maybe it too was a test, and now I get to be free with a werewolf I would have tried to kill or run from, a vampire who breathes terror, fallen ones, sirens, gods.
I smile even harder. I knew this world existed, but it was never a part of mine, and now that it finally is, I find I’m not afraid of the moon anymore. I’m not afraid of anything except for losing the one I’ve been waiting for.
Him.
I tiptoe over to the sink and reach up to grab a glass. My hand hesitates when I hear Timber.
“You know…”
I believe it’s Horus who sighs. “No, I don’t know, what?”
“You could take it.”
“Take what?”
“Her bead,” Timber says simply. “Your power would be restored completely in this timeline. You’d be close to as powerful as Cassius, could probably save a lot of people, help the balance between the immortals and the humans.”
Horus is quiet. Why isn’t he saying anything? Finally, he speaks after what feels like an eternity. “I’m here to help her know who she is, not to take the one last thing that gives her immortality and her power. She’s without her tails. She can’t be without both. It would turn her into a human, and we have no idea how long she would have.”
“She could give it willingly.” Timber suggests. “Save the masses, kill the few.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Horus shouts. “I actually care for her!”
“It’s one tiny fox, Horus.”
“Don’t make me regret saving you.”
Timber laughs. “Sometimes it’s too easy, brother, relax. All I’m saying is—” I don’t hear the rest of what he does say. I’m too pissed off. I trusted Timber, but of course, that was a stupid move. I really am a stupid fox. How can you trust the god of the underworld in the first place?
Livid, I stomp up the stairs and slam the door to the room I was just in, sitting on the mattress stewing, ready to punch a god in the face.
Of course, my fox bead would give him power. Isn’t that why it’s forbidden for a god to seduce a fox now? It would give them too much access to what I have, the purity of the earth and the sky.
I’m a fox of darkness, after all, of night. If I gave the god of the skies my bead, he’d have both.
I gasp awake.
“Wha…?”
Had I been having a nightmare that entire time?
Horus is leaning over me, concern etched in his bright blue eyes. I could almost imagine he looks like my very own star, watching over me, keeping me safe. “I thought you no longer had nightmares in the presence of a god?”
I touch my mouth with my fingertips. “Did we just kiss, or was I dreaming?”
His eyes are full of mischief; they flicker like Christmas lights. “Yes. I leaned down and kissed you gently… I hope you don’t mind I—”
"It’s a full moon.” I interrupt, probably rudely. “Right? It’s still a full moon?”
“I think so.” He frowns and looks out the window. “It appears we’re on our last night of it. You have no reason to be afraid anymore.” His frown deepens. “You look really pale. Do you need water or—” His eyes roll to the back of his head, but he regains focus and presses his palms against his temples. “Sorry, I think I’m just tired.”
“Gods get tired?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.
“Apparently, now they do.” He leans down next to me and pulls me against his chest. Why does it feel like things are about to get more difficult? “At least I’m here.”
I'm afraid to ask, but I do anyway. “And if I close my eyes when I open them… you’ll still be here. You won’t leave me?”
Horus scoffs and waves me away with a hand that suddenly falls against the down comforter like he’s so exhausted he can barely keep it up. “Where else would I go?”
"The sky.” I point up to the ceiling. My breath feels heavy, and my body the same. Something is happening, but I don’t know what it is. I just breathe in and out and stare up as if I can see the stars through the ceiling. “Am I yours, Horus?” I ask, my voice somehow sounding small to my ears.
"Yes.”
"Is what’s mine also yours?”
He frowns and leans down on the bed, making it sag toward him. I roll into his massive chest and reach for his neck, my fingers grasping his white-blond hair. He’s so beautiful, still glowing a bit from our time together. “What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine. You asked me long ago to make it happen, and we did. I want to spend forever with you.”
"And you would never betray me?”
His frown is so sincere I feel bad asking. He jerks back, but I hold him close, making him stay against me.
“Why would you ask that?”
“I heard you,” I whisper. “Downstairs.”
He shakes his head. “My brother’s going to get his ass beat. I have no idea what he was talking about, but either way, I’m guessing you didn’t hear everything he said since you left angry.”
So he knew I was there.
“All he said,” Horus continues, “was that I need to tell you one thing.” His eyes flash white.
Tears burn the back of my throat. “What’s that?”
His eyes falter, going from white to black and then back again. He covers his left eye where the tattoo is but no eye remains, and clenches his teeth. “No, no, no, no!”
"Horus?”
“Help.” His body trembles. “Cover my mouth. COVER IT!”
I clap both hands over it, but he shoves me away easily, collapsing backward onto the floor. Thunder booms in the distance like a bad omen from the heavens themselves. He suddenly stands and walks over to me. His eyes don’t reflect the sky anymore—they reflect my darkness. “Give it to me, give me what I’m owed, fox of the night.”
“Never.” I kick at his chest.
He grips me by the ankle and jerks me down the bed. I can tell he has no clue what’s going on. His one eye is black. Someone else is seeing through it, using his power to see through the remaining eye.
I need to fight him at all costs.
He’s not himself.
And yet he rips every piece of clothing from me and shoves me against the bed. “Mine, my star, you’re mine, fight it, fight us!”
I can’t though. I can’t fight what we are to each other as his kisses become power-hungry against my neck, only to have him inch by inch bite down my skin.
“Horus,” I whimper. “It’s good, but it’s wrong, what are you doing?”
He jerks away, his head shakes, and then he’s jumping away from me, slamming back against the wall like I’ve stunned him stupid.
Was that even Timber downstairs?
"HELP!” I scream. “Someone help us!”
Horus gets to his feet. His chuckle is dark and sinister; it’s not what I’m used to… all the warmth in him has been sucked away from the room. “You should be more careful what you give to people, and so should he…”
His mouth bruises mine, again and again, holding me captive, pinning me against the bed with fervor like he loves me, but this isn’t him—this is a god possessed. “Give me what I’m owed, fox of darkness, and part those pretty little lips.”
A choking sensation washes over me. I can’t speak. I can only cough over and over again. It burns from my toes all the way up to my neck. Grasping for Horus, I wait for him to save me. For my old Horus to come back to fight whatever monster that’s using him.
But he doesn’t.
His one eye is blank with nothingness.
The other is missing. Even his tattoos pulse on his left cheek like he’s trying to break free, but what can a limited god do against someone using my bead along with my tails, using any sort of power against him?
"Apophis,” I whisper.
Another laugh escapes his lips. “Smart girl, now open up.”
I kick him in the legs, but I’m not strong enough. His body crashes onto mine, his lips take hold, biting down into me, leaving tiny marks of blood. I taste its tang as it runs down my throat when he says. “Open.”
I can’t keep it down.
My bead floats softly to my tongue and rests there. In any other circumstance, I would love his kiss right now, the way his tongue massages mine, but I know it’s only to bring the bead closer, so he keeps massaging, keeps sucking on the blood from my lips.
The only way to bring a bead out is through a kiss, but blood always has to be spilled. Mine.
He sucks my lips dry until they feel swollen. Green and yellow light erupts from my mouth.
My bead. What makes me immortal, powerful, special—has just been torn from my body by the very man I love.
He has betrayed me twice.
Once on purpose.
The second by idiocy, because in giving his eye, there will always be someone who can see through the other.
Idiots.
All of us.
I fall back against the mattress and start to shake. My body is no longer immortal. My power is gone. I’m nothing but a human shell with scars that used to show my glory.
And the person who took it all from me was the one I waited for and trusted the most in the world.
I burst into tears. The pain is nearly unbearable as the bead of energy leaves my body and enters his. Horus’s chuckle is dark and lonely; he falls to his knees and collapses into a heap against the floor.
I jump after him. Maybe if I pry his mouth open.
A hand jerks out and shoves me away. The energy from his palm is green; he moves to his knees and stares me down. “What the hell have you done?”
"I have no idea!” I yell. “Do you even know what you just did? You kissed me, you stole my bead—”
He shoves me away from him. “Stay back!” He holds his hands out in front of him, tiny flecks of green and yellow fire burn from his palms. His skin looks like the sun mixed with the earth; it turns dark every few seconds like the night sky. He trembles on the floor, his one eye flickers black and blue. “We need to get it out of me!” Voice hoarse, he collapses against the floor again. “Get Cassius, now! Get Timber, get everyone!”
"It won’t kill you!” I yell. “It’s going to kill me!”
"Exactly!” He laughs again, then catches himself and shakes his head. “I’ll kill you without thinking twice; I can’t be both darkness and light.” He curses. “She made me a monster. She used my eye to make me a tool. Her own god of monsters.”
Well done, I want to say. He goes to sacrifice to give me my past back and, with his sacrifice, steals our future.
I refuse it.
I rebuke it.
"No!” I yell. I have no power left, though, but I do have legs. I sprint past him, open the door and collide with Bannik.
“And the prince of the sky will become more than a god, pissing off the heavens and hell all at once, I think, is how the nursery rhyme goes.” Bannik leans against the doorjamb. “I knew you wanted something from her.”
“No.” Horus shakes his head. “I didn’t want her power. That’s not what happened. She could see through my eye. She tricked me, waited until I was weak until I gave myself to Kit.”
“It doesn’t matter, you idiot. Did I not warn you?” Bannik slams his hands against the wall by the door. A picture falls, and the glass shatters into rubble by his black boots. “Your very existence is about balance. How can darkness and light co-exist? It is a balance you have just disrupted. A fox can survive without her tails, but a fox without her bead will eventually die. So much for a happy ending.”
Tears stream down my face. He’s not wrong. I am the fox of the night, and losing my bead to the light means eventual death.
"I’ll give it back,” Horus says through clenched teeth. “I just need a minute to think.” He rams his hands through the wall next to me. Everything turns to dust around us, coating the carpeting at our feet.
His godhead in this timeline has fully returned ten times what it once was. He’s dangerous. Powerful. And he’s angry.
It’s up to me to calm him down, and Bannik isn’t helping.
“Hey…” I reach for Horus only to have Bannik shove me behind him. “Just let me talk to him.”
“He’s going to either die getting the bead out of him or become a fallen, either way, you can’t help him. All he can do is help himself.” Bannik shakes his head. “Never listen to the voices, Horus. Even if they make sense.”
"I just wanted to kiss her, then a sweet voice said to bite down.”
“That sweet voice was Apophis, and she’s come to collect her final sacrifice.” He looks between both of us and shakes his head. “You. She wants you, Horus. She already has your eye, and now that you’re powerful in this timeline, she wants you to do all her bidding. Even Cassius couldn’t fight you now.” He laughs. “Wow, and I thought I’d be the end of the Immortal Council. Meanwhile, the Egyptian god of gods has me hold his beer.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Because it’s not funny!” Bannik yells.
Ethan slams his hands against the door. “Why is everyone yelling?”
“Oh, shit,” Alex says behind him. “He pulled a full god.”
I try to take deep breaths but have nothing. Bannik pulls me against his side and hides me from Horus, using his body to guard me. “Leave.”
"And go where?” Cassius says quietly at the door. “To the very demoness that wants him? There has to be a way to help him. Until then.” He nods to Mason and Alex.
I frown. What can they do?
Timber walks in, late to the party. “What did I miss?”
“YOU!” I yell. “I heard what you said to Horus downstairs.”
Timber holds up his hands. “I was at the twenty-four-hour mini-mart down the road getting ice cream, so I don’t know what you think I did. Apologies if you wanted vanilla, most people around here like strawberry.”
"Shit.” Bannik releases a string of curses. “She used a phantom on you. She must have been collecting more beads. She always uses the same one, weird hair, tattoos down his arms, attractive and alluring. Ring a bell?”
Timber drops the groceries in his hand. An apple tumbles toward me, hitting my foot. I don’t know why I fixate on it, but the apple represents something so simple, and now everything is complicated. Now that I’ve found joy, I have nothing but an unhappy ending.
"You should have never come back,” I find myself saying. “Horus should have never looked for me, and I should have never sacrificed for him.” Tears burn my eyes and threaten to fall. “We were never meant to be in the first place. A god will always seduce a fox even if he’s all-powerful, and a fox will always give everything to their god.” I jerk away from Bannik and walk down the stairs, one by one until I’m outside.
When I finally walk at least a half mile down the dirt road, I fall to my knees, then look up at the stars and scream.