Destruction’s Desire (Broken Souls Trilogy #2)

Chapter 25

Rule twenty-five: Be a badass bitch. Especially if it means stealing candy.

T here are many times in recent memory when I’ve realized I’m totally fucked. Most recently, it was two minutes ago, after Sin disappeared from my room. It was one thing to secretly lust after Sin when he hated me. And even when he started to be nicer to me, his sexually charged comments were just that – comments. That was safe. But something between us just shifted. Sin is not pulling punches about what he wants to do to me.

And where does that leave me?

Completely fucked.

Metaphorically, of course, even though I have no idea how I’m going to find the mental fortitude to say no. Because I really do need to stay away from him. There are a multitude of reasons for not getting intimate. Most obviously, because fucking an all-powerful Destroyer while being bonded to another all-powerful Destroyer sounds like the deadliest love triangle of all time.

I cringe at the thought of being in a love-anything with Leon. The idea of him ever touching me again makes me want to gag.

Now Sin, on the other hand… I stop myself from going down that rabbit trail and shove all recent memories of his mouth on me, deep inside a fresh new box in my head.

Nope, we’re not going there.

I find Arianna sitting on the stone wall overlooking the garden. She’s hugging her knees to her chest, and her gaze still holds the haunted expression. She’s in different clothes now, dressed in familiar black fighting leathers. Throwing knives and daggers are strapped to her, matching the ones I use.

Well, I guess I know where my fighting clothes came from. I must have been borrowing hers.

She doesn’t look up when I pull myself onto the wall to sit beside her.

“Hi, Ari,” I say softly, not wanting to startle her.

“You’re not actually Cassandra, are you?” she asks, her voice flat as she stares into the garden.

I sigh, “Not fully. My name is Vivian. I just got all my memories back from Cassandra. I was her in a past life.”

Arianna turns to me, frowning. “You look just like her. It’s eery. So how does it work? Are there two of you in there now, controlling your body? ”

I laugh. “I was actually really freaked out about that happening, but no. It’s still just me. Sometimes, though, I can hear Cassandra yelling at me to do things. Usually, when I’m fighting. I have no idea how to fight someone. It’s almost like her memories of training others are bleeding through my subconscious, and she helps take the reins.”

Arianna laughs. “That sounds like Cassandra. Yelling at someone to fight better.” She hesitates, looking lost for a second. “So how does this leave us? You’re not Cassandra, but you have her memories. I – I’ve just missed her. For a really long time.”

I pause, trying to think of how to articulate my thoughts. I can’t fully explain the connection I feel for this girl – or, I suppose, woman, now. Sin thought I’d still be me after I regained Cassandra’s memories, given that my own consciousness was tied to my body. For the most part, he was right. But there are parts of Cassandra’s life that are felt so strongly, so profoundly, that I can’t stop feeling them, too. It’s almost like falling in love with a character from the pages of a book, only stronger, because not only do I see Cassandra’s memories, but I also feel them.

“You know how you haven’t seen Cassandra in forever but have so many memories about her? Even though she might have been changed by thousands of years apart, you still love her, right?” I start.

Arianna nods. “Of course.”

I shrug. “That’s how I feel about you, Ari. Even though my life experiences have been apart from you, the bond is there. I remember our lives together. You’re still a sister to me. That came with the memories.”

Arianna leans into me, and it feels almost familiar.

“You might not like me as much – having a different personality and life experiences have definitely made me a weirdo,” I add, trying to sound lighthearted.

Arianna snorts, “You were always weird.”

We laugh before slipping into a comfortable silence. A warm feeling of contentedness washes over me at having her safely back with us. But then I look at her and see how much she’s changed. The Arianna in Cassandra’s memories was younger, still a teenager, and was full of light and life. She got into all kinds of mischief at the temple but still trained hard and took responsibility for helping to train the younger children.

The girl in my memories is a far cry from the one who sits next to me today. The faraway, vacant look in her eyes hits the hardest. Like any light that used to live there has been crushed. After spending two hundred years locked under the Council’s castle, I can only imagine what she went through.

“So, do you want to talk about it?” I finally ask tentatively.

Arianna sighs and turns to sit so she’s facing me. I do the same, and we sit cross-legged on the stone wall, facing each other. “I – I’m not sure I can. If I start to let myself feel the sadness, the pain. I think it might consume me.”

I nod, completely understanding. “That’s fair. ”

I wait to see if Arianna will start to share or change the subject, fully prepared to put on a stoic face no matter what she says.

Arianna purses her lips until exclaiming, “I’ve got it! We’re going to play who suffered more!”

Her excited outburst is entirely at odds with the dark, haunted look she just held.

I gape at her. “Excuse me?” The words are enough to spark a memory of Arianna and I sprawled out in one of the temple gardens, one-upping each other’s bad days. It was our favorite way of dealing with the ugly things we’d see.

Arianna smiles brightly at me. “That’s how I’ll get to know you in this life, and you can catch up on mine!”

She’s completely serious. What a morbid creature.

I like her already.

A pang of nostalgia fleets through me, like a whisper from Cassandra. Her memories must be closer to the surface around Arianna.

I shrug. “Okay, but be prepared to lose.”

Arianna beams, and it transforms her face into someone more familiar. Someone less broken. “You have no idea what you’re in for. You start.”

I laugh. “Okay, I hid my super powerful boyfriend from you back in Atlantis, and then I turned out to be part of a crazy prophecy, only to break up with him, and then he sunk Atlantis.”

I wait for Arianna to react, but she only rolls her eyes. “I already knew all of that. Morgana told me everything when I decided I wanted to stay here.”

She sighs like she’s disappointed in my efforts .

I laugh, scoffing at her, before challenging, “Okay, top it then.”

Arianna shrugs. “I pretty well sold my soul to the Council so that I could infiltrate their inner circles. So, I went from being groomed as a puppet for the Guardians to becoming a puppet for the Council.”

I purse my lips, slowly shaking my head at her like I’m bored with her confession. “I started seeing ghosts a few years ago, and then my childhood best friend convinced my entire class to kidnap me, and they tried to stone me to death.” I hold out my bare arms for added effect, showing off the scars.

Arianna looks at my arms quizzically. “They’re still stoning people in the Mortal Realm?”

I frown. “Not for a long time, at least not where I’m from.”

“Wow,” Arianna muses. “So, they got creative.”

“They certainly thought outside of the box. At least it wasn’t cyberbullying,” I add, shrugging.

At Arianna’s confused expression, I remember she’d been locked up for two centuries. “Never mind. It’s not important.”

Talking about my trauma with Arianna like this is surprisingly painless. Turning it into a twisted game is actually helping.

“When the Council gave me immortality, I developed powers they’ve never seen before. So, they gave me really shitty jobs. Mostly assassinations. It got tough, pretending to kill people when I was really sneaking them back to the Shadow Realm,” Arianna says, sighing dramatically .

“You can control shadows, right?” I ask, trying to remember what the team was saying this morning. I was a little distracted, processing the fact that my friend was still alive.

Arianna gives me a wicked grin. “Check this out.”

She stands on the stone wall and holds her hands out. A small ball of darkness forms between them.

“Neat,” I note, duly impressed.

The ball moves like it’s alive. The shadows remind me of the ball on Morgana’s desk. I guess I know who made the trap.

Arianna lets the ball of darkness go, and it dissipates. “I’m just messing with you. I’m way more impressive than that.”

She looks up, and a wall of darkness descends onto the garden, swallowing it whole. It moves closer to us, but Arianna doesn’t stop.

“Ari…” I hesitate.

Arianna only grins. “It’s safe.”

The darkness creeps closer, and the wall of the void hangs just beside us. I reach over and place my hand into it. Nothing happens. I pull my hand back, and it’s completely fine.

It creeps over the wall, and we’re engulfed. I sit still, marvelling at the darkness. I’ve never seen something utterly devoid of light before. I can’t even see my own hand in front of my face.

Arianna calls out, “Now, do you want to see something incredible?”

I laugh at her enthusiasm. “Of course.”

“Middle finger,” Arianna calls .

I frown, wondering if she’s flipping me off in the dark, but a second later, she squeezes the tip of my middle finger.

“You can see?” I ask.

The darkness recedes, and I watch it slink back into the shadows. I blink through the sunlight, which now seems far too bright.

Arianna grins. “I can see perfectly. Everyone else is completely blinded.”

I hum, more than a little impressed. “That’s really cool.”

“I know!” Arianna says, sitting back down to face me. “I’ve missed using my power. The prison kept me in magically binding cuffs. Sin removed them as soon as we got back.” She pulls up her sleeve and shows me the dark purple band of skin around her wrist.

Her lighthearted expression is replaced by the same haunted expression.

“I agreed to work for Need and become Leon’s Keeper so we could kill Sin. Only the Keeper bond is corrupted, and it makes me want to fuck him all the time. Otherwise, I get searing pain. Oh, and if I think for a second about not being with him or how sketchy the Council is, a brain fog settles over me, so I forget what I was thinking about,” I say, hoping to snap Arianna out of her memories.

“Oh, and the Fates fucked with my destiny, and Leon has decided I’m his possession. He said the only way to break the bond is death. He’s never going to stop hunting me, and he wants to keep me, whether I want him to or not,” I finish.

Arianna nods, looking only mildly impressed .

I frown at her and laugh. “Seriously? I have a magical sex bond with my jerk of an ex-boyfriend, and you look like I just talked about a mild headache.”

Arianna shrugs. “At least the bond made you think you wanted it. When the Council found out I was working as a spy, they threw me into one of the deepest cells in the prison, reserved for only their most powerful prisoners. It would have been okay if they’d left me there to rot, but the head of the guards had a special interest in me,” she says, bitterness creeping into her voice and pausing.

Her fingers dig into the stone below her, and small dark pools form below them.

“He visited me almost every day for two centuries. Some days, he would beat me. Those were nice. He wanted to break me and turn me into his own little doll. To prove he could control something so dangerous.”

I sit in silence, realizing what she isn’t saying. I wait to see if she needs to say it.

“I prayed for the beatings. Anything to distract from what he did to me on the other visits.”

She pauses again, inhaling deeply. The pools of darkness under her fingers grow larger.

“He raped me. Almost every day I was down there,” Arianna finishes, hugging her knees to her chest again.

My heart breaks for her. I want to sob for what she went through. But I know that anything that looks remotely like pity will break her.

“Well, shit. I guess you win. Want to raid the kitchen for chocolate? ”

Arianna laughs, wiping away her tears. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

We sneak back into the castle, both of us keeping the mood light. We don’t come across any of the others, and I’m grateful for the alone time together.

Arianna slips in front of me. “Do you know where you’re going?” I ask.

Arianna laughs. “You do know I lived here for years, right?”

I smile, following her. “I forgot, sorry.”

Arianna moves through the corridors, heading to an area I haven’t visited yet. “Morgana keeps a stash of sweets in a secret pantry over here. I found it before I left for the Council. Let’s see if she still has it.”

I swallow. Stealing candy from Morgana feels like a bad idea. Then again, I’m really working on turning a new leaf in the Shadow Realm.

Being a badass bitch. That’s the leaf I’ve been trying to turn.

“Perfect,” I answer.

We find the pantry hidden behind a large portrait. The portrait is of a gluttonous horse, rearing up in a field of red flowers.

I kind of love it. Is Morgana secretly a horse girl?

Arianna swings open the pantry door, and I marvel at the sight within. Cookies, chocolates, and gummies line the walls. Arianna starts picking up sweets, and I join her.

Laughing like fiends, we sneak out of the pantry with our contraband goods. We end up locked in my room, binging junk food. I show Arianna my books, and she borrows at least seven. We keep things lighthearted, catching up on the softer parts of our lives.

Later, when we’re lounging on my bed with our feet propped up on the wall and our heads hanging off the edge, Arianna turns to me and asks, “So, are you planning on mending things with Leon?”

I wrinkle my nose. “No. I felt bad after I got Cassandra’s memories back. I know she lied to him about being a pacifist. I felt like I owed him something because of that. But his actions, they’re not excusable. He treats me like an object and was happy to exploit the bond to get what he wanted.”

Arianna hums. “I bet that threw a wrench in Morgana’s plans. We all assumed you two would be happily in love again when you returned.”

I turn to stare at the ceiling. “Leon never loved Cassandra. He never knew her. And now, he doesn’t want to love me. He wants to own me.”

Arianna throws a chocolate chip in the air, catching it in her mouth. I’m impressed.

“So, what now, oh great prophesied one?” she asks mockingly.

I throw a chocolate chip at her. She catches it and eats it.

“Morgana said the prophecy wasn’t specific about which Destroyer I would love,” I answer, trying not to blush.

Arianna snaps up, her mouth wide. “Oh. My. Fates!”

“Ari, no,” I start, wanting to explain my lack of fucks about the prophecy .

Arianna only grins before pouncing on me. She tickles my waist, and I squeal.

“Tell me everything! Rosie said Irena is still locked up. You love Sin!” Arianna speaks a mile a minute, and I keep trying to push her off, but she won’t stop tickling me.

“There’s nothing! It’s nothing! Morgana just wants us to work together. We can’t stand each other,” I gasp out the words as tears run down my face.

Arianna rolls off me, looking smug. I try to catch my breath, rubbing the spot she just assaulted.

“That counted as torture,” I note.

Arianna just grins. “Information extraction at its finest. I know your weak spots,” she notes, winking at me.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Why did I rescue you again?”

She bursts out laughing, and I can’t help but laugh along with her.

“So,” she starts when we finally settle down. “Do you want to tell me why you blushed so hard you looked like a tomato when I brought up Sin?”

“Maybe because some annoying lady was tickling me so hard I couldn’t breathe?” I answer dryly.

“I think I like you, Vivian. You’re a terrible liar. It’s going to be easy to get to know this new side of you.”

I bury my head in my pillow, trying to drown out the sound of Arianna making kissy noises and pretending to officiate my and Sin’s wedding.

When I ignore her, she jumps onto my back, prodding my ribs again. “Have you slept together? Was it hot? Wait, don’t tell me, you’re like my brother and sister. Ew! Incest. I take it back; you have to marry Leon!”

I roll over to push her off, but Arianna anticipates my move, and we both end up tumbling off the bed in a heap. She keeps trying to prod my ribs, and I’m grabbing for her feet, trying to reach her ticklish spot.

We start throwing obscene threats at each other as we fight on the floor. Arianna is crying because I’ve finally got her boot off and am tickling the arch of her foot, and I keep shrieking every time she pokes at my rib.

We only stop when there’s a cough at the door.

Looking up, we find Sin leaning against the doorframe. His eyebrow is arched like he’s questioning our sanity.

I mean, fair.

Arianna kicks me in the cheek while I’m distracted before sitting up. “Hi Sin, how’s it going?”

I try to swat her as she moves and end up slapping her calf. I sit up next to her.

Sin frowns at our display.

I frown back. “I know I locked that door.”

Sin shrugs. “I didn’t notice. Ari, good to see you back on your feet.”

“You know it’s rude to walk into someone’s room when the door is locked,” I chide.

Seriously, boundaries .

Sin raises an eyebrow. “It’s also rude to sneak into people’s rooms and steal their things, kitten.”

I flush.

“Not as rude as kidnapping them,” I snap back .

Sin rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to speak, but Arianna cuts him off, “Wow. You two totally want to fuck. That’s really weird, guys. Stop flirting in front of me.”

I glare at her, and Arianna just giggles, standing up from the floor and heading for the door. “It’s cute that you guys are going to love each other. Have fun!” she finishes before slipping around Sin and leaving the room.

Sin and I are alone again, and I flush at the memory of what we did together just a few hours before.

Sin smirks at my expression, knowing exactly where my mind is. “Hmm, that’s sweet. So, you’re in love with me, kitten? How flattering,” he mocks.

That comment cures my embarrassment. “Get over yourself. Just because I considered fucking you doesn’t mean I love you. I was more than ready to let Magnus and Damien share me before you interrupted us. In fact, I might go find them later. They’re less of a pain to be around.”

I’m bluffing. Magnus and Damien are great and all, but no part of me craves their touch.

Sin’s jaw ticks, and his eyes darken.

For a moment, I think I might have gotten away with the bluff.

Until Sin steps forward, shutting the door behind him.