"The Ankh. There are few of us. Only one or two are born every century and we cannot produce children. The Ankh are born to Neith, a quirk of fate deciding which child shal be an immortal. The child is handed over to the Ankh and raised with Ankh parents.

Noah is our youngest. He was born in1940 and raised by two of my brethren, Alain and Emmaline Valois. We are born to hunt and kil soul eaters, to aid the Neith in the hunt." He sighed and gripped her hand tighter. "The Neith are divided and governed by Councils and they are governed by an Over-Council cal ed The Circle ten of the oldest Warriors of Ankh. I am the Princeps: the leader of The Circle."

She struggled to compute it al , so much information al at once. So this man, this Cyrus was the leader of al the Warriors, Neith and Ankh alike. And Ankh were immortal.

They lived forever?! Immortal children born to Neith and given to the Ankh. Her brow furrowed as she tried to get a handle on it, wondering what on earth it had to do with her.

A vague memory of a dream prodded her, of a circle, of her birthmark...

Slowly, Eden raised her eyes to meet Cyrus', the blood rushing out of her face with suspicion. Al the things that had never made sense... were suddenly starting to make sense.

"How do you know a child is an Ankh? How do you know to turn it over to the Ankh?" His grip on her hand tightened and those warm eyes of his seemed to offer her strength and support. "The child wil bear a birthmark... in the shape of an ankh." The breath whooshed out of Eden's body and she tugged her hand out of Cyrus', her trembling fingers reaching for the hem of her t-shirt. Someone had undressed her and put her into pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt. She frowned at the thought of it, but put it aside.

Instead she lifted the hem of her shirt.

There it was.

The birthmark she'd had forever.

A tiny little birthmark... in the shape of an ankh.

"What the hel is going on?" She whispered hoa.r.s.ely, brushing her fingers over the mark wonderingly.

Cyrus reached for her again. "Let me explain, Eden. I need to explain for you to understand."

"Are you going to kil me?" She asked numbly, not meeting his eyes.

"No!" He said vehemently, raising his voice. "No I am not, and neither is anyone else."

Eden turned to him wide-eyed. "Then what do you want?"

"I am trying to tel you."

She nodded, exhaustion making her head feel as heavy as a cannonbal .

A weightless silence fel between them as Cyrus seemed to gather himself to speak.

Eden noticed he didn't shift or fidget like anyone else. He moved graceful y, in control, every movement measured and thought out. She wondered vaguely how old he was to be the Princeps.

b.l.o.o.d.y old, Stel an would have snorted.

She wil ed the agony away.

"Not al Ankh are lucky to have found love. I had lived my eternal life for hundreds of years before I discovered Merrit.

My love." His eyes washed over Eden's face, tabulating each tiny feature. "She was courageous and light-hearted and so beautiful it hurt to look at her. She was tal with blue-green eyes and hair the colour of midnight." His eyes drew to Eden's hair, it too as black as darkness. "We loved each other deeply." Eden heard the pain now in his words and something awful began scratching at her, something she didn't want to know. No. She shook her head but couldn't speak. No. "Eighteen years ago Merrit was on a.s.signment.

The Ankh are cal ed in to deal with soul eaters who are particularly strong and difficult to handle. One such group was terrorising Los Angeles. Merrit went in with a group of Neith, but the soul eaters had planned for their attack. They injected Merrit with a high concentration of pota.s.sium chloride-"

"The lethal injection?" Eden interrupted, her eyes wide with disbelief.

Cyrus's face had hardened. "Yes. Lethal poisons wil not kil the Ankh but wil debilitate them until our bodies fight it off. As with what happened to Noah at Ryan's home." He spat Ryan's name. "They took Merrit and kil ed the Neith.

Merrit was..." He turned away, his jaw flexing with control ed rage. Eden had never seen anyone so stoic in her life. "Merrit was raped by the leader of the soul eaters." An image of the iron door and the bas.e.m.e.nt flashed before Eden's eyes and her heart palpitated in her chest.

"Ryan."

"Yes. Ryan." His eyes now cold with the memories flicked back to her. "After Ryan raped her, he didn't kil her. She began to suspect what he was about and had regained enough strength to break the chains he had her in. She escaped him and came back to me." Cyrus squeezed her hand. "We discovered she was pregnant. An astonishing thing... but I am old enough to know that it had happened before. A strange quirk of fate that a soul eater can beget an Ankh with child. I have no idea how Ryan Winslow came across the legends that I knew to be true but he had, and he had deliberately kidnapped and raped Merrit to impregnate her."

"Why?" Eden croaked, afraid if she let go of Cyrus' hand she would start screaming and tearing at the wal s.

"For now let me just explain the basics. Ryan was determined to have the child and he came back for Merrit and took her. By the time I tracked them down... my wife was dead, the babe cut from her body. He took Merrit's child. I searched a long time. I never gave up. Determined to find Merrit's daughter."

Tears splashed over Eden's lids as she brushed her fingers over her birthmark. "Me.

He took me."

"Yes. You are a half-breed. The legends cal you one of the Unforeseen.

"Bu... I-" She gave up, pul ing back from his grasp and curling into herself. The room seemed to spin a little as she tried to process it. Her mother had been Ankh. Celine wasn't her mother. Her mother had been a n.o.ble immortal warrior. Perhaps a woman who might have loved her. Eden choked on a sob.

"Eden-"

Cyrus was interrupted by a knock at the door, fol owed by the handle turning. The door swung open and Noah walked in. Her heart seemed to stop. He looked different somehow. Instead of the usual scruffy jeans and t-shirt, he wore black jeans and a tight fitting black thermal top that accentuated his sinewy musculature. His hair had been cut shorter too, seeming blonder, and he wore a noticeable silver ring on the middle finger of his left hand. Eden frowned. Cyrus wore a similar ring.

Her heart squeezed in renewed hurt and anger at this Noah before her. Everything had been an act, hadn't it; right down to his clothes. Eden refused to meet his gaze as a tal blonde girl trailed in at the back of him, vaguely familiar, accompanied by the tal man who had rescued Noah at the ceremony.

Cyrus stood up at their entrance. "Eden, you already know Noah-"

"No, I don't," she bit out.

The Princeps ignored her. "And this is Noah's father, Alain." He motioned to the young guy next to Noah.

Eden blinked. "Excuse me?"

Cyrus arched an eyebrow. "We're immortal remember.

We don't age very much."

"How old are you?" Her curiosity peaked.

Cyrus cleared his throat. "I am roughly twenty five hundred years old." Her jaw dropped. "Holy..."

Alain straightened, seeming displeased to be imparting the information, but Cyrus'

eyes bored into him with command. "I am roughly thirteen hundred years old." Eden blinked, listening to his accent. Now she understood why Noah's surname was Valois. She thought it was a French Michigan thing. But clearly it was just a French thing.

Noah cleared his throat. "I'm seventy years old."

Stil , Eden wouldn't look at him. Her eyes fel on the blonde. Why was she so familiar?

"Ah." Cyrus nodded at the girl. "This is Romany, Noah's girlfriend, she is Neith." It was like a punch to the gut, fol owed by an uppercut.

Romany. Noah's girlfriend. Neith.

Eden's fingers dug into the quilt around her, desperately trying to keep any expression from her face. But the shock reverberated through her body as if she had jumped from too great a height.

She felt betrayed al over again. She literal y felt like he had reached inside her chest and crushed her useless excuse for a heart in his lying, scheming fists.

Eden guessed that answered any lingering doubts over whether she had been fal ing for Noah.

"So she's mortal?" Eden asked instead, pushing this new heartbreak out of sight, her lip curling as she glared at the girl. "She's one of those that kept attacking me."

"No," Cyrus insisted. "The Neith that fought you and Noah are members of a rebel faction I'm trying to shut down."

"Rebel faction?" That sounded so ridiculous. And yeah as one of the Unforeseen she was aware of the irony in judging anything else ludicrous.

"Ankh who think you are an abomination," Romany responded, drawing Eden's eyes back to her. Eden looked at her for a moment, taking in the big brown eyes and golden hair, the toned physique. Romany appeared to be a year or two older than her but the Neith seemed intimidated by Eden's gaze and turned away to look at Noah, her ponytail swishing with the movement.

The image of Stel an's murder flashed before her and this time she saw the face of his murderer.

"Oh my G.o.d." Her eyes burned into Romany. "You!" She growled and lunged from the bed, a blur of movement across the duvet. She had the Neith pinned to the ground, her hands wrapped around the girl's throat, before the others even processed what was happening. "You kil ed him!" She snarled and spat in the girl's face, saliva dripping down her chin as she squeezed tighter, ignoring the bite of Romany's clawing fingers around her wrists. "You kil ed Stel an!"

Hands, many hands, hauled her off, and she jerked and slapped at them, screaming and shrieking like a madwoman.

"Let her go," Cyrus' voice cal ed out over the racket she made, as Romany coughed and choked. The other hands disappeared and Noah reached for Romany.

With only Cyrus' arms wrapped around her waist, the madness seemed to dissipate.

Eden trembled in his arms, stil heaving with hatred and fury.

"Eden." Noah looked up at her, his face twisted with confusion. "You have to understand, our duty is to kil soul eaters. Stel an was a soul eater. Romany was just doing her job."

How could he sit there and say that to her when he knew Stel an was the only one in her life who had looked after her, who loved her? In that moment she wanted to kil them both. The hunger roared at her to do it. Cyrus squeezed her arm and the hunger cowered at his touch.

Her grief-fuel ed fury did not.

Eden's pale eyes froze Noah in place. "You," she spat.

"You are dead to me, you hear me? You come anywhere near me again and I'l rip your throat out. And you," she warned Romany. "You better run and hide... because I'm going to destroy you for what you've taken from me."

Chapter Eighteen.

The End.

Maybe the Beginning...

Noah was shaken. In al his life he had never felt out of control of a situation. But he did now. And he didn't like it.

He hated not knowing whether Eden would ever forgive him. He hated seeing her like a rabid animal over the death of her brother. Especial y after how brave she'd been at the Ceremony. She had refused to kil him; had fought back a hunger that had bleached her eyes of al colour; a dangerous, powerful hunger, and Eden had conquered it because...

Noah hung his head, leaning a palm against the wal of the sitting room of the house Cyrus had rented in the next town over from Salton.

... because she had cared about him.

In that moment, something had changed. Or maybe it hadn't changed. Maybe he'd final y accepted that his feelings for Eden were real. And strong. He had never met anyone as courageous as her.

Romany, Alain and Emma stood behind him, waiting on Cyrus returning. The sound of his footsteps echoing down the hal brought Noah around expectantly. His heart pounded. The Princeps entered the room, his face drawn and tired. He looked to Alain first, as he should, Alain being the only member of The Circle in the room. "I had to put her in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

Noah frowned, uncomfortable with the idea of Eden locked down there behind the heavy metal door that had been the reason for Cyrus renting the place. The bas.e.m.e.nt had once been a cold store. "Why? Is that necessary?"

Cyrus nodded slowly. "I appear to have a calming effect on her but it... considering the circ.u.mstances it is not enough. She is determined to leave and wil no longer listen to reason."

"Drug her?" Alain asked softly.

Noah stiffened at the thought. There was a drug the Ankh and Neith used when interrogating soul eaters that helped abate the soul eaters hunger, so they were able to focus on what was being asked of them. Noah didn't think drugging Eden was a way to incite her trust.

Cyrus apparently agreed. "No. I need her to trust me. It is irrelevant, as the hunger is not what is causing the pain.

She is grieving." He turned his dark, penetrating eyes on Noah and Noah saw the hint of accusation in them.

He bowed his head in respect but insisted, "I told you how she felt about her brother.

I told you it would be wise to leave him out of this."

"And in return I told you he wasn't to be harmed."

They al felt Romany stiffen guiltily but Noah refused to feel bad when he turned his eyes on her. "And I relayed those orders to everyone. Including Romany." Romany glared at him, a mixture of anger and hurt pooling together in her brown eyes. But Noah was too upset to care. Too furious with her impetuosity and bloodl.u.s.t. "I'm being admonished for kil ing a soul eater. I don't believe this."

"You're being admonished for disobeying a direct order and jeopardising the integrity of this a.s.signment," Noah responded coldly.

She scoffed, "Oh please. You would have happily kil ed him if he hadn't been your precious Eden's brother!"

Her apparent jealousy echoed around the room and they al shifted uncomfortably.

Noah shook his head, feeling a twinge of sympathy as her cheeks blushed red. "Stop," he said quietly.

Her eyes flared with p.r.i.c.ked pride. "Stop? I'l -"

"Enough," Cyrus commanded softly and strode silently towards Romany. Her eyes widened at his approach. "You forget yourself, warrior."

"I apologise, Princeps," she whispered, lowering her gaze deferential y.