Chapter 40
Iris
The portal spits us out somewhere green.
That’s all I can make out through the blur.
Sam’s elbow stabs me between the ribs viciously as we roll in a flurry of tangled limbs on the ground at lightning speed.
We bounce against something soft that stops our momentum, and it takes me a few moments to discern which way is up or down.
I wait until my vision clears somewhat before disentangling myself from Sam and pushing up into a seated position, but the horizon is still doing pirouettes.
I press the heels of my palms into my eyes.
“Fuck, I think you gave me another black eye,” Sam mumbles from beside me.
“And your freakishly sharp elbow almost pierced my lung,” I retort.
“You all right?” I startle slightly when Kaiden materializes in front of us. He offers a hand to pull me up.
“A little crumpled, but it’s better than falling from the sky,” I respond as I find my footing.
“Or drowning to death,” Sam adds dryly, waving her hand to retract the bed of moss she created for us to land on.
The humid air is thick with the smell of mud, something flowery, and rotting vegetation. Thankfully, it’s far from the scent of rot we encountered in the Wasting Woods, which seemed to permeate to the depths of your soul akin to an insidious shadow.
The lush canopy of gleaming leaves above us rustles. We all look up when Rhett floats through them on his way down as if carried by a gentle breeze until his feet touch the ground. “Everyone got here in one piece?” he inquires.
“Yeah,” Malik says while pushing away a giant fern so Thalia can pass.
“Good thing you guys got your powers back just in time, or our plan would have gone to shi—shasta.” Rhett cringes as his eyes land on Thalia.
She scoffs while rolling her eyes. “You’ve said far worse in my presence.”
We all gasp because this is the first time she’s let out more than a word in days, and she sounded so much like her sister.
“We were reckless thinking we could make it out without them, huh?” I say because I don’t want her to retreat into her shell again, and her cheeks are already turning cherry-red from being the center of attention. “Why do you think Mother Draia gave us our abilities back?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe it had something to do with us starting a riot and finally waking up the Seelie fae to stand tall against their oppressor.”
Malik wrinkles his nose. “So where do you guys think we are because if I don’t take a shower soon, I’m going to lose my sense of smell forever.”
“It’s clearly a rainforest,” I muse as I turn to take in my surroundings. Ropy vines are snaking down tall trees, while the sounds of beating wings, buzzing insects, and what I’m pretty sure are monkeys howling surround us.
“Well, judging by those heliconias and the emerald green epiphytes right there, we’re in South America—Costa Rica, more precisely,” Sam tells us while rocking on her feet to stand after refusing Kaiden’s help with a scowl.
Guess he’s back on the shit list. She already looks better, and I assume it’s because of the abundant vegetation surrounding us, not to mention her magic being back.
“Malik, can you do a location spell so we can find our way back to civilization?” Kaiden asks.
Silvery strands of light entangle in a dance on the ceiling I’ve been staring at forever.
Even though the mattress is as soft as a cloud beneath me, and my body is screaming in protest that I should sleep, I can’t.
The prophecy’s weight is heavier and far more crippling than the chains they used to shackle us in Faerie.
Not only that, but I stripped someone of their soul with my shadows.
The fact that I can do that is mind-boggling.
I don’t feel bad for killing the Seelie king because the bastard deserved it.
Akin to a fetid, festering wound, his soul was poisoning everything in its path.
But what followed is what wraps around my throat like an iron vise until terror saturates my lungs.
The way I wanted to reach over and take…
Fuck.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t help quench the brewing anxiety.
Needing a distraction, I look to my right, where Thalia is curled up in a little ball—as if she’s trying to keep the world away even in slumber.
Malik spelled her ears to appear rounded until Rhett can take her to get a magically infused tattoo that resembles a birthmark so she can hide her true identity.
He will also try to find her a good fae family after they arrive in New Orleans.
Sam is occupying the other side of the bed, a forearm thrown over her forehead while her breath wheezes through her parted lips.
The bruise surrounding her eye is now a yellow-green.
She vehemently refused to let Malik touch her, let alone use the magic he absorbed from her family’s grimoire to heal her after he finished with everyone else.
We didn’t want to leave Thalia alone tonight, so we chose to sleep together even though the beach house Kaiden rented is spacious enough.
Because of Malik’s tracking spell, we found a mountain road in only two hours.
Luckily, someone driving a truck picked us up.
We rode in the bed until we reached the nearest village.
From there, it was easy to find a phone and for Kaiden to make lodging arrangements while his private jet flies toward us.
The week we spent in Faerie accounted for a month here.
It’s the middle of August now, which means I have a little over four months to stop the prophecy.
Tomorrow we’re heading back to Ashville, but I can’t stay there.
I can’t put everyone I love or innocent lives in danger.
Not because I’m hunted by demons, but because my newfound power terrifies me.
I am the threat—the monster lurking beneath the shadows.
Every second that passes tightens the noose around my throat.
What if I had taken their souls? The thought invades my mind. What if I had killed everyone?
Letting out a frustrated huff, I push up and almost break my neck as I narrowly avoid stepping on a gecko scurrying on the floor.
I would laugh if the walls weren’t closing in on me.
When I reach the sliding glass door, I open it with trembling fingers and step outside.
However, the salty breeze does nothing to calm my heaving chest.
I break into a run, and the sand turns to shards of glass beneath my soles, the palm trees nothing more than a green blur.
I halt when my eyes land on Kaiden, who resembles a Greek god bathed in moonlight while emerging from the water in only a pair of swim trunks.
He senses my presence and looks my way. Worry pinches his brows, but electricity sizzles in the air between us all the same.
An inferno of longing replaces the anguish I’m crumbling under.
This is what I need—a distraction. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
We can just use each other. At least, that’s the lie I tell myself as I launch toward him.
He catches me, sliding his big hands beneath my ass cheeks while I hook my ankles around his back. Water laps at our joined hips. “Angel? Talk to me.”
“I need you,” I say, voice steeped in desperation.
“What happened?”
“No talking,” I mumble, wrestling out of my T-shirt before balling it and throwing it back on the wet sand to press my naked chest to his. I get impossibly wet at the contact while his intoxicating smell, mixed with that of salt water, puts me in a dizzying spell.
“Fuck, you feel so good against me,” he rumbles. “Tell me what my girl needs.”
“I need you to fuck me,” I breathe, my right hand coasting down to palm his growing erection while the left is already pulling at his wet strands.
His groan vibrates through me as he bends to suck my nipple into his greedy mouth. “Mmm. Slow? Hard?”
“Hard, please. I want to forget everything.”
He straightens, searching my eyes with intensity. Fuck. He’s looking at me again as if I’m the answer to all his prayers, and I don’t want that. When he dips to press his lips to mine, I pull back.
“No kissing. This is nothing more than sex,” I tell him.
The hurt rippling through his features wraps barbed wire around my lungs. Nostrils flaring, he clips out, “No.” Then he drops me into the water unceremoniously and stalks out.
“Are you for fucking real right now? What do you mean, no?” I sputter in disbelief as I balance myself.
He turns to face me, his hands balled into tight fists at his side. “You really don’t get it, do you? I don’t just want your body, Iris. I want your heart. I want all of you like you have all of me.”
“What happened to I will take everything you’re willing to give me, huh?” I retort acidly.
“Well, I changed my mind,” he bellows. “I won’t let you reduce us to something so meaningless.
You’re everything to me. My North Star and my sun.
My goddamn religion where I worship on my knees.
Saying I love you is a blasphemy because it will never encompass what I truly feel for you.
Those words are not enough and will never be. ”
I’m ripped in two. What I thought were carefully placed stitches over my heart fly at the seams, bleeding me dry.
I’m not able to do anything but stare back at him as my lips part.
It’s too much. I can’t fucking breathe. Steeling my spine, I stomp to where my now wet T-shirt is and pull it over my head.
But when I push past him, he stops me by circling my wrist. “I flayed myself open, and you’re not going to say anything?” His voice comes out in a gravelly whisper.
I look over my shoulder at him. “You want my heart?” A brittle laugh slips free.
My next words are sharper than a million razor blades, slashing my throat and tongue as I voice them.
“Kaiden, you already held it in the palms of your hands, and you crushed it to smithereens. We’ve heard the prophecy, now I have nothing left to give you.
You’ll learn to come to terms with it. I’m sure you’ll forget about me in no time. ”
He winces, but determination steels his jaw. “That’s impossible. You’re my forever.”
My retort is bitter. “Haven’t you heard? There’s no such thing as forever anymore. The world is ending.”
“Do you really think death can keep us apart? I will find you in every world, every universe, even if I have to crawl back to you. Now tell me the real reason you came running out of your room.”
“Let me go,” I mutter, but he only tightens his grip.
“Not until you tell me why you’re acting like this.”
“You want to know? Fine. I stripped King Orion’s soul from his body.
With half a thought. And there was a moment right after when I wanted to take more.
There’s an insatiable hunger inside me, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop the next time.
” I expect to at least see a flicker of bewilderment on his face, but there’s…
nothing. I narrow my eyes. “Wait, why are you not surprised?” My face falls as it hits me.
“The voice. It really was you, wasn’t it? How did you speak in my mind?”
There’s only silence.
This time, I put enough force into freeing my hand that I can fully face him. “Kaiden, I’m going to ask this again, and you better answer; how the fuck did you speak in my mind?”
His Adam’s apple bobs on a hard swallow. “We’re bonded.”
“I don’t understand. Bonded how?”
“Have you ever heard of fated mates? It’s something…similar.”
Shock waves ripple through me. “What? I thought those were stories—make-believe.” My first instinct is to reject this as a possibility because it’s too crazy to be true.
I don’t know much about fated mates. But if I truly look inward, his word choice—bonded—is exactly how I feel because there’s this thread that perpetually pulls me to him.
Hell, my subconscious already knew he was here on the beach.
That’s why I came running out of my room—I needed him.
And there were so many moments when I was drowning in his emotions. “What does that even mean?”
“I can’t tell you anything more than that.”
“For how—?” I suck in a jagged breath. “For how long have you known?”
“Since the bond snapped into place the first time we had sex.”
I stumble back as if he stabbed me, and in all honesty, it would have hurt less.
“God, Kaiden, do you even hear yourself? You profess your love to me one second, then I find yet another life-altering secret you kept from me in the next. It’s never-ending, and I’m so fucking tired of getting whiplash. ”
“Do you think this is easy for me? That I want this? Every single second of every goddamn day, I’m crushed under the weight of my secrets.
However, I’ll take that over you being hurt because if something ever happens to you, I will never be able to forgive myself.
You have no idea how much I wanted to tell you, but my answers will never be enough, and if I accidentally slip up and say something that triggers the wall—”
“So what, were you waiting for me to miraculously get my memories back? Was that it?”
“Fuck.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I don’t know.”
“Well, this doesn’t change anything about us. Stay out of my life,” I grit out, then storm off on laden legs. I don’t look back, even though what is left of my hemorrhaging heart stays with him.