Chapter 3 #2
He rubbed his perfectly shaped chin before he spoke.
“Long story short, I have been allied with Ares for a long time. He and I have always believed that supernaturals hiding amongst mortals was an outdated practice and it was time to take control of the world for ourselves.” He peered into the flames as if the answers to all his problems rested there.
“That’s where my alliances with the coven of Blood Witches paid off.
They introduced me to the creation methods for powerful Blood Stones and how to finally have a daughter with my wife.
Ares might be a powerful male muse, but he can’t conjure an army.
He’s not omniscient, either.” His eyes glittered with old memories.
“You were more to me than just the fruition of my love with Silvia. You were the start of a new era.”
I thrummed my fingers over the book. I didn’t have to read it to know that he was telling my birth story. I was one of the most powerful supernaturals ever to exist because of my method of conception. “Did you know having me meant trading Silvia’s life for mine?”
I couldn’t help but bleed my resentment for him into my words.
Killing my mother had been an accident—a resolution of my true nature as a Demonspawn.
Her death had thrown me into a spiral. I’d thought of myself as a monster, because what else could someone be if they committed such an act?
But it was easy to blame my father because he was the one who had decided I should exist in the first place. He’s the one who had used Sonya, the future Queen of Hell, and her Blood Stone to conceive a child with my angel mother.
A powerful trio with a forbidden artifact channeling all of their magic into one conception. What could go wrong?
Flames flickered in his eyes as he watched me.
If my question had angered him, he didn’t show it.
“I didn’t know it would cost Silvia her life.
That’s the truth, but I’m not sure if you’re capable of believing me.
” He leaned back, making his chair creak with the motion.
“Instead, I’ll say that I was willing to pay any price to have you.
Because that’s what Silvia wanted. So even if I had to do it all again knowing what I do now, I can say that your mother would have still wanted to have you. ”
I scoffed. “Don’t pin this on her.”
He shrugged in one fluid, perfect motion. “Think what you want of me, daughter, but I loved your mother. And she loved you. That’s all that mattered.”
And now she’s dead, I wanted to say.
She’d returned to Heaven. After having her wings clipped, earning them back by sacrificing her life had genuinely seemed to make her happy, so maybe destiny had worked itself out.
But I wouldn’t give my father the satisfaction of hearing that I’d met her in person and that she seemed to be doing well.
Instead, I glanced down at the book resting on my lap and wondered if I should read it. Maybe it would confirm the Incubus King’s claim that everything he’d done had been out of love for his wife.
I knew better. I didn’t have to read it to know that wasn’t the full truth. He was considered an unresolved sin for a reason.
He was the sin of lust, and lust came in many forms.
Lust for power was one of them; something that my father seemed to still hold onto.
“My point is, I loved your mother, Lilith,” he pressed. “And believe it or not, I love you, too. I’m trying to do what’s best for you.”
My jaw tightened. Love was a strong word, especially from a creature I wasn’t even sure was capable of that particular emotion. “By working with Lucifer, you mean. For now.”
“Well, yes,” he said, tilting his head as if that made sense to him. “Lucifer might be one ember short of a bonfire, but he’s the Conduit of Calamity and has a powerful ally. Hades is on his side.”
I shuddered at the mention of the male muse who had so callously ordered all of my mates to fight to the death. “Not someone I’d prefer to work with,” I ground out through clenched teeth.
My father chuckled as if I was just being an immature teen.
But, I’d grown since he’d last been around me. I might not remember my “childhood,” but I wasn’t the same person as before. Too much had happened. Too much had changed.
“Perhaps, but we all have to do things we don’t like sometimes. Hades and Ares are two sides of the same coin. I’ve worked with Ares because Ares believes that the time of hiding is over. After Lucifer forced the issue, Hades immediately joined forces with him.”
I raised a brow. “Because Hades likes what Lucifer is doing?”
My father shook his head. “Quite the opposite. Hades had tried to keep the old ways of secrecy and quiet, but Lucifer made that impossible to maintain.” He leaned forward onto his knees.
“You see, Hades doesn’t believe in destiny.
He rejected his role as a male muse early on and turned to vampirism to change a long tradition of his kind.
He likes to take matters into his own hands.
He values order and serenity above all else and will do what he thinks he needs to do in order to achieve it. ”
Frowning, I tried to understand what the Incubus King was getting at. “Lucifer is the opposite of order.”
He hummed in agreement. “Yes, and Hades has been fighting Calamity since the beginning. Lucifer is just a new form that it’s taken.
Previously, he believed in Sonya and pursued the courtship between her and his son, Xavier.
When that failed to stop Calamity, he stopped believing in Champions.
Especially when the Second Echo had happened in the witch community without any of us being the wiser before it ripped through the realms. So he decided to take matters into his own hands this go around. ”
I chewed on that information until I came to the true meaning of his words. “You mean his goal is to become the Conduit.”
Derek clicked his tongue. “Precisely.”
I leaned onto the book for support. My wings fell to my sides, hanging there like a cape. “So, you mean he hasn’t succeeded yet?”
“Not yet. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before he figures it out.”
I blew out a breath. Things were becoming complicated. Lucifer was easy to hate, but now new players had entered the field.
Powerful players.
And if Hades succeeded in becoming the new Conduit of Calamity, he would become my ultimate enemy.
I preferred an enemy that I understood. Lucifer was simple by comparison.
Hades? Not so much.
And now all of them were working together, Ares and Hades included.
“I seem to remember Ares and Hades being at odds,” I added. “Before I was knocked unconscious, I mean,” I tried not to flinch again as the flashbacks of the fight rolled through my mind.
Derek hummed in agreement. “Yes, well. That was before Balthazar made his appearance and changed things.”
I raised an eyebrow. I’d half-expected that Balthazar had been here in secret. Instead, he seemed to have orchestrated an unlikely alliance between two feuding male muses, an unseated King of Hell, and my father, the Incubus King.
“Balthazar has been holed up in a realm that was manufactured by Dark Mages,” Derek explained. “It’s a holding place of the dead, mostly for spirits from their particular realm, but it seems that one of the Echos had already forced it to overlap with Hell’s Heart.”
I perked up at that. “What does Hell’s Heart have to do with this?”
He ran his fingers in small circles on the armchair of his sofa. “What do you think?”
That phrase plagued me again.
False hope.
“I think that Hell’s Heart is a place of true death. And there’s only one thing that supernaturals fear, and that’s the end of life,” I said quietly.
Derek’s silence confirmed my statement.
I knew it to be true, because as a powerful supernatural myself, death of those I loved held me captive. It was the only thing that solidified the icy fear lodged in my chest.
“Yes, and that’s why Balthazar has already made a deal with Lucifer,” he continued. “A deal that involves you.”
The pieces clicked together now.
I’d been in pursuit of Hell’s Heart to finish my development. The Death Lotus would allow me to reach my full potential.
It was a magical bloom that was everything ambrosia was not.
Ambrosia was Heaven’s bloom. One of light and life and energy.
Hell’s bloom was the antithesis of that.
Darkness.
And Death.
“Let me guess,” I said, unable to hide the sour disappointment in my tone. “Lucifer asked Balthazar for control over Calamity.”
My father smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“No one can control Calamity. Which was why Balthazar couldn’t agree to those exact terms, but he did agree to be indebted to Lucifer to help him learn how to control Calamity.
I suspect Lucifer won’t receive the deal he thinks he’s getting.
It’s far too open-ended of a deal to be effective. ”
I flinched. It was a good thing my dad didn’t know about the deal I had made. It was about as open-ended as one could get. “So, what did Lucifer give up for his end of the deal?”
My father flexed his fingers. “Those two go way back. I don’t know what he gave to Lucifer, but all I know is that after they made their deal, you, and Logan were assigned under my care. Kaito was already here and working with me. As for Lucifer, I was told to notify him when you were awake.”
My veins ran cold at that information. “Does that mean he’s on his way?”
He shrugged. “Oh, I’m still on a trip to my favorite brothel and I won’t be back for two weeks. I don’t know that you’re awake yet.” He winked at me. “Like I said, Lilith. You’re my priority.”
Speechless, I stared at him as he rose to his feet. He brushed off invisible dust and looked around the room, finally settling his gaze on the book in my lap.
He walked over to me and tapped it. “I recommend you read this so that you don’t make the same mistake your mother did.
She gave up on her unresolved sins. Maybe she felt like she ran out of time, or maybe she knew we weren’t worthy of her.
But the truth is that had she found a way to accept all of us, Calamity would have been stopped.
” He kneeled so that we were face to face.
Up this close, I could see the deep, hidden emotion glimmering in his eyes as he looked at his only daughter.
“I might have been a better Incubus and husband.” He lowered his gaze.
“A better father.” He took a long breath, then finally said, “You’re going to have to strike a deal with Balthazar, Lilith.
Don’t try to do it all alone. You have mates for a reason. Lean on them.”
With those words of advice, he left me alone in the drawing room.
The roaring fire crackled its ominous warning that if I wasn’t careful, everything I had worked for was going to burn to the ground.