Chapter 42
Chapter
Forty-Two
MERRI
“Andi? What are you doing here? Where are we?” I asked, the disorientation I felt at no longer being in the jungle on the back of Grim’s horse making me feel like I was processing everything at half speed.
“Merri? Oh, thank God you’re here! I just woke up and thought I was alone.”
I rushed to her, pulling her into my arms for a hug. “I can’t believe you’re alive. We have to get you out of here. There’s so much you don’t know, and I really can’t explain it to you.”
She was quick to hug me back, and the sheer novelty of holding the woman I considered my best friend in my arms after so many years of only communicating through screens held me captive.
“It’s really, really good to see you,” I said, suddenly emotional. That’s when I realized part of me just assumed she was dead. I’d been too afraid to hope, given what had happened since we’d last gotten to talk to each other.
“It’s good to see you too. Let’s get out of here. I think I saw a boat on the other side of the beach. We have to get somewhere safer.”
Andi grabbed my hand and pulled me along the path, dragging me up a sandy hill.
From this vantage point, I realized we were still on the island, but in a different area.
Something had happened when the monster fell into the hellmouth.
Maybe I got blasted off Grim’s horse. I was sure he’d find me soon.
“We can’t leave them,” I said, pulling away, but Andi wouldn’t let me go, her grip almost painful.
“Don’t be stupid. You’re not a fighter. Let your mates handle it.”
The second the word “mates” left her lips, my legs locked, like my brain had slammed on the brakes.
“H-how do you know they’re my mates?”
“What?” she asked, distracted. “You told me.”
But I hadn’t. Because mates were part of the supernatural world, and Andi was a human.
Every internal alarm I had started blasting at full volume. Something wasn’t right. In fact, none of this was right. Even if I’d gotten blasted off the horse, where was everybody else? We’d had a whole-ass army. At least some of them should have ended up in the same place I had.
Andi’s hand gripped me even tighter, her nails digging into my wrist.
“Andi, you’re hurting me.”
She didn’t answer. Instead she pulled me down the hill toward the water’s edge.
“Lucifer!” I shouted. “Luc! Help me!”
Andi froze, turning around to stare at me. “What did you say?”
“Oh, so you can listen to me after all, crabapple. I do so love when someone can learn from their mistakes. Such emotional growth and intelligence.”
Luc’s voice soothed something inside me as he walked toward us from . . . on top of the water? Oh, he was nothing if not irreverent.
Andi let out a disgusted sigh, her dark-haired facade shimmering in and out of view until someone else entirely stood in her place. A red-headed, behorned demon with milky white eyes.
“Hello, Sabine,” Lucifer snarled, taking my hand and yanking me behind him. “So sorry to interrupt your little family reunion, but my mate and I must be leaving now.”
We were back in the middle of the destruction in the space between breaths. It took me a moment to orient myself, but once I did, I looked at Lucifer, who was staring at me worriedly.
“Where is Andi? We can’t just leave her there like that.” Panic surged at the thought of her being left alone with my mother.
“Darling, that was Andi. You of all people should know what being catfished is. Remember Cole? Same game, different player.”
“What? No. Andi was my best friend. I knew her for ages before Cole . . .”
He took my face in his hands. “Listen to me. Andi never existed. Unlike Cole, so I suppose in that sense your mother is kinder than me. But in either case, she was nothing more than a ruse. A way of luring you into a false sense of security and revealing your deepest, darkest secrets so that they could then be used against you.”
The sense of betrayal I felt was absolute.
“Why would she do that?”
“Well . . . for me.” Lucifer looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. “I never claimed to be a good man. Just your man.”
“Merri, we need to take her out. She’s the only one still standing.” Malice’s voice wasn’t as calm as I’d expect from him, which told me things had progressed while I’d been out of it.
I followed his gaze to the hilltop that looked a lot like the one from the illusion she’d pulled me into. Famine stood there, proud and haughty, her hair billowing behind her like a bloody cloak.
“How am I going to get through the demons? There are too many of them.”
Sin took my hand. “We’ll do it together. They may not have souls, but they do have an essence we can take. Use your power, feed until they fall.”
I’d practiced this so many times now, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to latch on to that part of myself.
Whether it was the revelation about Andi and the further proof of my mother’s evil cunning, or maybe just the pressure of everyone counting on me, I couldn’t say.
But it didn’t change the truth. I was fucking everything up.
Another hand slid into my free one, and I looked over at the woman who’d practically raised me standing at my side. “You can do this, pet. I’m right here. We can take them down together.”
Her words were an echo of Sin’s, but they hit me differently. Here I was, devastated that the woman who’d given birth to me had mistreated me so badly, but the truth was, she wasn’t my mother. She never had been. She was a parasite. The person who’d taken every good thing I’d ever had away from me.
But Lilith? She was probably the first real friend I’d ever had, and definitely the closest thing to a true mother.
The person who not only took me in, but had helped me find all the best things I had in my life—including my mates.
She taught me control. She taught me how to embrace every piece of myself.
She taught me to love and believe that I was worthy of love in return.
With that in mind, it was suddenly much easier to latch on to my power.
As a unit, the three of us sucked what barely amounted to souls out of the demons until all that stood between Famine and us were piles of ash in the shape of people. Lilith released my hand as Sin took the lead, transporting us behind Famine in the blink of an eye.
“Now,” he whispered as I pulled the weapon free and raised it.
Famine spun on her heel, reaching for the handle of the axe. Her fierce rage made me falter, and it was enough of an opening for her to grab my arm and stop me from landing a blow. I dropped the weapon as she broke every bone in my wrist with the force of her grasp.
“Ow, fuck,” I winced, tears pricking my eyes at the pain.
“Now that wasn’t very nice, was it?”
“Fuck you,” I hissed.
“That definitely wasn’t nice.”
I don’t think I’d ever hated someone I barely knew, but I loathed this woman with every cell of my body.
“What did you think you were going to accomplish? Did you actually expect that to work? You were going to . . . what? Take me out with some sorry excuse for a weapon? As if. I’m Famine.
You’d think with horsemen for mates you’d understand what that means, but apparently your education has been severely lacking.
We are eternal, daughter. That means you cannot harm me, no matter how badly you might wish to do so. ”
Grim’s shadows wrapped around her, restraining her for a few seconds. Long enough for me to use my uninjured arm and snatch the axe from the ground. She broke through his hold, and he grabbed her again. I swung with all my might, missing by barely an inch.
“You can do this, Red. Focus.” Chaos was behind me, his words a comfort even though I was frustrated beyond belief.
“I can’t hold her long,” Grim said through gritted teeth.
Chaos wrapped his arms around Famine from behind. “Allow me. I’ve always hated this fucking bitch. The only good thing she’s ever done was make you.”
“Hurry!” Caleb shouted, his voice frantic. “They seem to be waking back up.”
Famine cackled. “See? I told you. So long as one of us lives, all of us live.”
“We are running out of time!” Caleb shouted, his hands around his mouth to amplify his message as if I hadn’t heard him the first time.
“Drystan! We need you,” Lilith called as Famine broke both Chaos’s and Grim’s holds on her.
Lilith’s pet smirked before he stopped time. Everyone other than our group was frozen, including my mother.
“You’re only going to get one shot at this. Make it count,” he said, visibly straining as he fought to retain control of so many people.
“Strike as hard as you can, hellcat.”
“Off with her head, baby,” Sin said.
Grim caught my eye and nodded once as Chaos said, “Just like I taught you.”
I swung. The blade sliced clean through her neck, lopping her head off with surprisingly little resistance, and the moment it fell to the ground, I sagged in relief. Blood sprayed from her neck, spattering Grim’s face.
“Well done, wildflower. You were perf—”
Grim’s expression morphed from pride to regret, his words of praise abruptly cut off as five bodies dropped to the ground instead of just one.
Only then did I realize the fatal flaw in our plan.
Grim
The instant Merri’s weapon severed Famine’s neck, I understood what we’d missed when translating Lilith’s book. A sinking certainty filled my bones regarding the price we had to pay in order to save the world.
We’d helped them create the weapons to unmake our kind.
All our kind.
It was never just going to be the horsewomen impacted. We were the same.
The moment one set of four was unmade, so too were the others. We couldn’t exist without them. Not after their creation.
The universe was all about cosmic balance. Our existence at this point would tip the scales, and that simply could not be.
My brothers’ expressions all mirrored mine as they fell, each one of us understanding down to our very marrow that this was the only way Merri would survive. It was the only way the world would survive.
In the end, it was no price at all. We’d already agreed to die for her.
It was just happening far sooner than any of us thought.