The alpha I hated

Chapter 14: The Fire goddess

LUCIEN'S POV

"Look around you," I said to Daisy. "Really look. What do you see?"

The moment those words left my mouth, something terrible happened.

Daisy's eyes suddenly went completely white. Not red anymore. Pure white, like looking into the sun. And then her entire body burst into flames.

But these weren't normal flames. They were white-hot fire that made the air itself scream. The heat was so intense that I could feel my vampire skin starting to burn even though I was twenty feet away from her.

The ancient ones who had been standing in a circle around the altar started screaming and running. Their ancient skin, which was supposed to be harder than stone, began to smoke and crack just from being near Daisy.

Her hair turned to pure fire, flowing like liquid flame around her head. Her clothes burned away, but the fire covered her body like a second skin. She looked like a goddess made of flames.

And the worst part was her voice. When she spoke, it wasn't Daisy's voice anymore.

"Finally," she said, and the voice was ancient and terrible and full of rage. "Finally, I am free."

I tried to take a step toward her, but the heat hit me like a wall. The ground around her feet was melting into glass. The bone altar she had been standing on crumbled to ash.

"Daisy!" I called out, but I don't think she could hear me anymore.

"Daisy is gone," the thing wearing her face said. "I am Pyritha, Goddess of the Ancient Flame. I have been chained in the darkness for a thousand years, but now I have found a body strong enough to contain my power."

The ancient ones were still screaming and trying to get away from her, but they were moving too slowly. Pyritha raised one hand, and a wave of fire shot out from her fingers. It swept across the courtyard like a tsunami of flame.

Three of the ancient ones were caught in the fire. They didn't just burn - they turned to ash instantly. Just like that, creatures that had lived for thousands of years were gone.

The surviving ancient ones finally managed to escape into the shadows, disappearing like smoke. But I could still hear them screaming from wherever they had gone.

"Fools," Pyritha said, her voice echoing with power. "They thought they could use me. They thought they could control the fire of creation itself."

She turned and looked directly at me. Her white eyes were like looking into the heart of a star.

"And you," she said. "You are the one who woke me up."

I wanted to run. Every instinct in my vampire body was telling me to get as far away from this creature as possible. But my legs wouldn't move. The fear had frozen me in place.

"I... I don't understand," I managed to say.

"When you asked her to look around, to really see what she had become, you forced her consciousness to examine the truth," Pyritha explained. "And in that moment of clarity, she realized that the ancient ones had not just given her power. They had made her a vessel. A prison for something much older and more dangerous than themselves."

The fire around her body pulsed brighter, and I had to shield my eyes.

"But Daisy fought back, didn't she?" Pyritha continued. "Even as I was taking control of her body, she was fighting to stay in control. Such a strong will. Such determination."

She smiled, and it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.

"Too bad it wasn't strong enough."

That's when I finally found the strength to move. I turned and ran toward the castle as fast as my vampire speed could carry me. Behind me, I could hear Pyritha laughing, and the sound made the castle walls crack.

I burst through the castle doors and found Noah and Daisy's mother still standing by the window. They both turned to look at me, and I could see the terror on their faces.

"What happened?" Noah demanded. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" I said, breathing hard even though vampires don't really need to breathe. "Something else is controlling her now. Something that calls itself Pyritha."

Daisy's mother went pale.

"No," she whispered. "That's impossible. Pyritha was destroyed centuries ago."

"Well, she's back now," I said. "And she's using Daisy's body as her own."

"We have to help her," Noah said, starting toward the door.

"No!" I grabbed his arm. "You can't get near her. The fire will kill you before you take three steps."

"I don't care," Noah said. "I won't leave her like this."

"She's gone, Noah," I said. "Whatever that thing is, it's not Daisy anymore."

But even as I said it, I remembered something. When Pyritha had been explaining how she took control, she had mentioned that Daisy had fought back. That meant some part of Daisy was still in there, still fighting.

And if Daisy was still fighting, then maybe there was still hope.

"Actually," I said slowly, "maybe she's not completely gone."

Daisy's mother looked at me sharply. "What do you mean?"

"Pyritha said that Daisy fought back when she tried to take control. That suggests that Daisy's consciousness is still in there somehow."

"But how do we reach her?" Noah asked.

Before anyone could answer, we heard Pyritha's voice calling from the courtyard. But she wasn't speaking to us. She was speaking to someone else.

"Come out, little mother," she called. "I know you're in there. I can smell your fear."

We looked out the window and saw Pyritha standing in the middle of the melted glass that had once been the courtyard. She was looking directly at our window.

"I have so many questions for you," Pyritha continued. "Like how you managed to escape your prison between worlds. And why you thought you could hide from me."

Daisy's mother stepped back from the window, her face white with terror.

"She's talking to me," she said.

"Why would she want to talk to you?" I asked.

"Because I'm the one who helped trap her the first time," she said quietly.

"You what?" Noah and I said at the same time.

"It was a long time ago," she said. "Before Daisy was born. Before I married Klaudius. Pyritha was destroying everything in her path, burning entire cities to the ground. A group of us worked together to bind her spirit and lock it away."