Chapter 8 #2
“Not the Oasis part!” She hissed and shook her head so fast Cooper actually reached up and held her head still. “Only Mamaw and Papaw called him that, and Great-Grandad before he died. How’d you know it? No bullshit, ma’am.”
Because I AM your great-grandad, Savannah, and I faked my own death to protect you.
Your Mamaw and Papaw were Auryn and Akecheta disguised as elderly mortals to protect you.
But I couldn’t say that to her yet, especially not this close to the orb for Mother’s realm.
We’d all come too far to slip up now, regardless of how badly I wished I could tell her.
There was a good chance I wouldn’t see the other side of this story now, but I couldn’t be selfish in the end when it mattered most.
“Your Papaw’s bloodline has been protecting this orb on my behalf for a thousand years.
I have known every single one of your ancestors since .
. . personally. I have visited them. I have been friendly with them.
I have kept them safe in return . . . and you doubt that I would know the truth of your names? ”
“I don’t understand,” she cried softly.
A piece of my heart broke. I wasn’t sure how many more pieces I had left to lose. “You will soon, little Darkling.”
Once Celina returns you will be free, I continued in my mind only.
“So that monster was you this whole time?” She sniffled and wiped at her eyes angrily. When I nodded, she huffed. “Why? Why did you scare me that badly? That monster haunted me for a whole week. I’ve never been more frightened in my entire life—”
“That’s why, Savannah,” I stopped her softly.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.
Why did you do that to me? That monster .
. . that monster is the whole reason my parents made me move away from home.
It was why I had to leave Edenburg. It was why we lived in Nola for a hot minute before the monster followed me there.
My parents have basically held me captive in Salem since because of you and I want to know why. ”
Because I love you.
Because you are my blood.
Because your existence has helped keep me going these last sixteen years knowing my soulmate had been reborn and yet was out of my reach.
Because if anything happened to you because of me, I would be unable to control the damage my grief would cause this world.
Behind her, Hunter Bishop’s eyes suddenly widened.
He’d figured it out, not that I was surprised.
His gift with emotions would’ve read my thoughts like a flashing neon sign just now.
He opened his mouth to speak when Tegan appeared beside him and covered his mouth with her hand.
When he glanced down at her, she shook her head once.
The pressure in my chest lightened ever so slightly.
Hunter just stared at Savannah, and I saw all the pieces starting to click.
Everything about Savannah Grace suddenly just made sense to him.
Well, almost everything.
“Why, Everest? Just tell me why?” She sniffled again. “You could’ve just come to me as you, all frosty mountain you, and explained it to me. I knew who Lilith was. I could have been reasoned with. Why not just tell me—”
“Because I know the darkness within you better than you do yourself,” I whispered into her mind.
But out loud, I said, “Because I am the son of Lilith. Because my mother chose the Seelie King as my father specifically to erase the weaknesses she had in this realm . . . in me. So that I could destroy this realm without breaking a sweat.”
They all gasped.
I leaned forward. “Because a small piece of me lodged deep within my soul knows how much I would enjoy it.”
“I really hate my gift sometimes,” Jackson Lancaster mumbled.
I smirked at him as I straightened my stance. “By the grace of the Heavens and fate, my soul was born bound to the light. The one personality trait my mother could never understand was unconditional love, and therefore she did not recognize it in others, so she missed that part of my father.”
Tenn scowled so hard his eyebrows nearly covered his eyes. “The Seelie King loved someone like that?”
“The former King of Seelie hated Atzaran for his rebellious allies, and so to punish him, in a sort of last-ditch effort to retain control of his realm, he murdered Atzaran’s soulmate publicly.
Brutally. But not before he did . . . other things to her, also publicly.
And with the help of his many court members. ”
“No, no. None of that, mate.” Jackson shook his head. “No making us feel bad for that monster.”
“Not all monsters are born so, Lancaster,” I said softly.
“Some are beaten until they like the taste of blood, and then they are lost to its poison. Every one of us is capable of great evil, of horrible things. All we’d need is the right combination of fear and pain and evil becomes the only way to survive.
If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what you’d do to the ones who might rob you of your own soulmate.
If we cannot succeed in our tasks to seal the Unseelie out, you will lose Bettina.
Are you that certain you could contain the darkness within you? ”
Jackson’s face fell. “I’d like to think so.”
I nodded. “I hope you never have to find out.”
Emersyn, who’d been clutching to Devon beside Hunter, began to cry tears of flames. Her face was still blindfolded so she couldn’t see any of this, but as she traced the numbers of her Mark on her left arm, I knew she’d heard me, perhaps more than anyone else had. Tegan cringed.
I cleared my throat. “The orb hidden here opens into my room inside Mother’s castle, a place where only the blood of Lilith can reach without notice. If Savannah had not been strong enough to curb her curiosity and managed to enter the orb, Mother would have known instantly.”
Truth was, Mother never ever considered her own blood could betray her, so she never cared to check what we were doing in our free time. But if Savannah, a direct descendant of Lilith, had entered Lilith’s castle, all of us would’ve died six years ago.
Savannah shuddered. “So you had to scare me so badly I would never want to return here again.”
“It worked, did it not?”
She grimaced and nodded.
“What would happen if Lilith learned you’d made this back door?”
“Well, Tenn, I’m afraid you might find that out in a few moments.” I exhaled, then spun on my toes and stalked over to the archway. “Stay outside of this circle.”
“Everest . . .” Tegan stepped forward, with Tenn and Bentley on her heels.
“If for whatever reason the spell you collected from Ruth’s book does not work and I am taken back into Mother’s realm . . .” I swallowed through the wave of panic trying to claw its way out of me. “Then you must never trust my face ever again.”
Tenn flinched. “Why?”
“If she gets me back into her realm, knowing the truth of my allegiance and life of constant betrayals, she will break me until she brings out the monster she always wanted in me. If that should happen, the next time you see me we will be strangers. Not even my own blood would mean a thing to me, nor my soulmate, for my soul would have been irrevocably severed from its other half.”
“What do we do if that happens?” Tegan asked in the softest voice I’d ever heard her use, as if she were actually scared.
“Hide, but hide well enough that when I inevitably find you, Heaven will have realized they’ve already lost and will reclaim your souls before I can tear them from your bones.”