Chapter Eighteen
“Dammit, Hattie, stop eating all the Danish.”
Delilah scooped up another spoonful of cereal. “The plan is to sell those, remember?”
“I’m hungry,”
Hattie defended.
“You’re stoned and have a case of the munchies.”
“So mind your business and let me munch.”
Biting back a smile, Wynter sipped at her tea. It had been a while since she’d eaten breakfast with her coven. She kind of missed it, though she wouldn’t wish to not spend her mornings with Cain.
Delilah’s eyelid twitched as she glared at the old woman. “Eat something that isn’t part of our shop’s stock.”
“Fine.”
Hattie snatched a pack of salt and vinegar chips out of a cupboard. “You know how to stomp on an old lady’s buzz.”
A snore fairly erupted out of Anabel, who’d fallen asleep at the table. The blonde could sleep through pretty much anything. Hell, two of their lycan neighbors had once had a full-on dual in the backyard while Anabel napped in the hammock of the coven’s yard—she hadn’t so much as stirred at any point. Well, not until Delilah poured water over her crotch, but that was a whole other story.
Eating what was left of his bagel, Xavier shook his head as he stared down at Anabel. “She needs to stop working on potions until the early hours of the morning. It ain’t good for her.”
“Well, at least she wasn’t using herself as a potion-crash test dummy again,”
said Delilah. “That’s something.”
“You’d think she’d be more cautious.”
Hattie popped a chip into her mouth as she returned to her seat at the table. “She prattles on and on about how death will come for her, not seeing that she’ll shorten her life span all on her own if she’s not careful.”
Wynter took another sip of her tea. “Her crazy scientist streak overrides her common sense at times and—Oh come on, Xavier, really?”
The dude was drawing thick, diagonal eyebrows on Anabel’s face with a black marker.
“I warned her I’d get her back for drawing a dick on my face when I passed out,” he said.
Wynter frowned. “Wasn’t that, like, seven months ago?”
“A Gamble never forgets.”
She could only cross her eyes. Being a highly vengeful creature herself, she wasn’t in a position to judge.
“There are many—and much safer—ways to test potions,”
said Delilah a little snottily. “I often used my boyfriends as trial subjects.”
Wynter paused with her cup halfway to her mouth. “Did they know about it?”
Delilah hesitated. “Well, no. But they wouldn’t have minded.”
“Then why did you keep it from them?”
Wynter challenged.
“I didn’t keep it from them, I just didn’t mention it. A girl doesn’t need to tell her boyfriends every little thing, Wyn.”
“I hardly think your using them as guinea pigs was a little thing.”
“I hardly think that their sleeping with other women was a little thing. As Xavier says, you reap what you sow in this world.”
“Cheaters should always get what they deserve.”
Eating another chip, Hattie looked off into the distance. “If only I’d met my George years ago. He would have been my one and only.”
“I have to say, you two do seem made for each other,”
said Wynter . . . which was when she realized that Xavier was still doodling on Anabel’s face. “An eye patch? Really?”
“She’s gotta pay for her sins.”
Xavier slid his gaze back to Hattie. “So you trust George, then?”
The old woman smiled. “Oh, one hundred percent. George doesn’t have a philandering bone in his body.”
Delilah picked up her mug of tea. “Does he know you’ve been married?”
“Yes, of course,”
replied Hattie with a flap of her hand.
“Does he know how many times you’ve been married?”
asked Delilah.
Hattie pursed her lips. “Well . . .”
“Then I suppose he also doesn’t know that you made yourself a widow each time.”
“Why would I bore him with such a long story?”
“I would think of it as more of a cautionary tale.”
Hattie hmphed. “I already promised you all that I wouldn’t hurt him.”
Wynter snickered. “You also made pretty promises to your husbands. Look how that turned out. I think they—Seriously, Xavier, you’re giving her a mustache now? What are you, twelve?”
“She’s gotta learn her lesson.”
He added a little goatee with his marker, as if for good measure. “I don’t know why you’re making a big deal out of what I’m doing.”
“Try to look at the bigger picture.”
Wynter drank the last of her tea. “She’ll make you pay for that. Then you’ll retaliate again. So a cycle of vengeance will begin.”
“And what is wrong with that?”
Wynter rolled her eyes. “Someone needs to wake her up.”
She set down her cup. “I need to talk to you guys about something.”
“Hmm, sounds ominous.”
He put his mouth to Anabel’s ear and whistled loud.
Her head shot up. “What in the—”
She blinked hard and then scrubbed a hand down her face. “God, was it really necessary to whistle right down my ear?”
“Yeah,”
replied Xavier. “For three reasons. One, you’re a freakily deep sleeper. Two, it would irritate you. Three, Wynter has something to tell us.”
Anabel frowned. “Reason number two doesn’t count as ‘necessary,’ asshole.”
“Depends on your definition of necessary, I guess.”
“There’s only one definition of that word.”
Anabel threw up a hand when he would have spoken again. “I’m done. Stop talking.”
She cut her gaze to Wynter. “What is it you want to tell us?”
Wynter shifted slightly in her seat. “Okay, so you’re going to hear some news today. Cain will be making a speech about it. But I want you to hear it from me first. Now, let me just preface this by saying that I’ll understand if you feel let down that I said nothing about this before. I truly will. But Cain only told me because he trusted me not to speak of it to others. I couldn’t betray that trust.”
Delilah flicked a hand. “Of course you couldn’t. Now spit it out, the suspense is killing me.”
Wynter took a preparatory breath. “There’s an eighth Ancient here.”
“An eighth?”
echoed Anabel, sitting straighter.
“Yes,”
replied Wynter. “He came to Devil’s Cradle long ago with the other seven, but he was so deeply injured that he went to sleep in that way that the Ancients do. It wasn’t a standard Rest, though. It was similar to a coma. The others expected him to slip away in his sleep at some point, but he didn’t. He healed. He simply didn’t wake.”
“Until now,”
added Anabel.
Wynter nodded. “Until now. The Ancients woke him so that he can partake in the upcoming battle.”
“Well,”
began Delilah, leaning back in her seat, “that was, like, the last thing I expected you to say.”
“Have you met him yet?”
Hattie asked Wynter.
“Yes. I met him last night.”
In a manner of speaking. Cain had introduced her to the other Ancient, but she hadn’t spoken to him. Since Cain had asked her to keep the detail of Abaddon being his uncle private, she kept that part to herself, only adding, “His name is Abaddon.”
Anabel’s brows flew up. “As in the Abaddon? A demon who some believe might actually be the devil?”
“Yeah, him. Except he’s neither of those things. Humans have a habit of mistaking Ancients for demons,”
Wynter reminded her. “Probably because of how darkly powerful they are. Or maybe the Aeons embarked on a sort of hate campaign to ensure people feared and loathed them, I don’t know.”
“I think there are some here who do believe that the Ancients are demons of some kind,”
said Delilah.
Wynter frowned. “Well, they’re not.”
“We know that,”
said Xavier. “We saw a glimpse of Cain’s monster, remember? Well, we saw its eyes—they were serpentine. Demon eyes are pure black.”
Rubbing at her arm, Wynter blew out a breath. “I just hope the residents here don’t respond negatively to hearing that there’s another Ancient in Devil’s Cradle.”
“It will come as a surprise to them for sure,”
said Anabel. “And given how many dark rumors are attached to Abaddon’s name, there’s a good chance that people will be wary of him. But I don’t think they’ll find this a bad thing. Especially when having an additional Ancient fighting on their side in the upcoming battle will make all the difference.”
Xavier nodded. “I doubt people will line up to shake his hand, but I think they’ll accept his presence.”
Maybe, but . . . “They haven’t accepted Eve or the twins.”
“That’s different, they’re Aeons,”
said Hattie.
Well, true.
“Where do you think Abaddon will live?”
asked Delilah.
“No idea. He’ll probably build his own Keep after the battle is over.”
Wynter suspected he’d stay with Cain in the interim, given that they were blood relatives, but it could be that he was close to another of the Ancients and would prefer to stay with them—she wasn’t yet sure. “Thank you all for not being upset that I didn’t tell you about Abaddon before today.”
Anabel waved that away. “Hey, I get it. The Ancients are a secretive bunch, so I’m sure there’s lots of things they don’t share. It was a no-brainer that Cain would trust you with some of that stuff but ask you to keep it to yourself.”
“I might like to know everything, being incredibly nosy and all, but I don’t expect you to tell us everything,”
said Delilah.
Xavier leaned back in his seat, nodding. “Everyone has their secrets.”
“Especially couples,”
added Hattie. “It’s a natural thing.”
A relieved breath slipped out of Wynter. Although she hadn’t expected her coven to bitchily vilify her for keeping secrets, she’d worried that they’d be hurt by it. She adored them for being so understanding.
Hiding things from people was something she’d been doing for so long that it was a little too easy for her these days. But when it came to her coven, Wynter didn’t like holding back important things from them. She didn’t like that she couldn’t be fully open with them about everything.
Just the same, she didn’t like withholding things from Cain. She hadn’t told him exactly what happened in the run-up to Abaddon rising from the hot spring. She’d let him believe that it was all Kali. Wynter really didn’t know how to tell Cain about her part in it. Or even if she should tell him.
Back in that grotto, she hadn’t expected that her actions would cause the sleeping Ancient to wake. Yes, she knew more of Kali’s plans now, but the deity had left some gaps; promising to fill them in “eventually”. Kali certainly hadn’t revealed Abaddon’s Resting place. Wynter hadn’t even so much as suspected that he would be Resting in the water. She’d thought he’d be in some kind of tomb somewhere.
“What’s wrong?”
asked Delilah, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Something’s bothering you.”
Wynter felt her nose wrinkle. “I need to work through it in my head.”
“You don’t need to do it alone at all,”
Delilah protested. “We’re your coven. We’re here for you. And nosy as hell, so please share.”
“Yeah,”
said Xavier. “Also, it’ll make you a total hypocrite if you do that thing you used to do where you pull inward. You chew a chunk out of our asses when we do it.”
That was more because their idea of secrets tended to be things that could lead to issues for the coven, like selling dodgy potions for instance.
Anabel reached toward Wynter, setting her hand down on the table near hers. “Let us help you sort through whatever’s firing through your brain. We might be able to help.”
Wynter sighed. “What I tell you can’t leave this cottage.”
“You know better than to think we’d betray your confidence,”
said Delilah.
Xavier leaned forward, planting his folded arms on the table. “Tell us.”
“Okay.”
Wynter straightened her shoulders. “So, about Abaddon . . . I think I woke him. Or my monster did. Or we both did.”
Xavier cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“The Ancients have been working at it for weeks, but they couldn’t manage to wake him,”
Wynter explained. “Last night, I went sleepwalking again. As you know, Cain usually pulls me out of it. This time, he didn’t. I just snapped awake.”
She licked her lips. “I was in Abaddon’s Resting place. Though I didn’t know it was his Resting place. Not at first.”
“The voice that comes to you in your sleep led you there?”
asked Delilah.
“Yes,”
replied Wynter. “And it also spoke to me while I was awake this time, telling me to touch what I later realized was Abaddon’s . . . bed, shall we say.”
She didn’t want to say too much about how Ancients Rested. “Next thing I knew, my monster surged forward and joined with me somehow.”
“Joined?”
echoed Delilah, concerned. “What do you mean by ‘joined’?”
“I don’t know exactly. But it was like our souls melded for a moment.”
“Whoa,”
said Anabel with a jerk of her head.
“I know, right?”
Wynter bit her lip. “It’s never done anything like that before. I felt its power pour into me as I touched Abaddon’s bed. And then he rose.”
“In short, your monster used you to wake Abaddon,”
Xavier concluded.
“Seems like it.”
Wynter licked her lower lip. “And I think Kali told it to. She relayed some kind of message, but I didn’t understand Her words—it’s not always easy to make out what She’s saying when She’s in this realm; it’s like Her voice has a thousand echoes and they all mingle crazily. Looking at the situation now, I don’t think I was supposed to understand what She said. I don’t believe She was talking to me. I believe She was addressing my monster.”
Anabel frowned. “So, what, She wants to help the Ancients?”
“Kind of,”
replied Wynter. “I spoke to Her when I died after being shot by those vampires. But it wasn’t just a quick hi. She told me a few things; things She insisted I didn’t share with anyone, not even Cain or any of you. But She didn’t mention anything about wanting me to wake Abaddon.”
“She hasn’t made you privy to all Her plans, then,”
mused Hattie.
“It seems that way.”
Wynter was sort of used to it at this point. “I don’t know whether I should tell Cain about what part I think I might have played in waking Abaddon.”
Delilah’s brows drew together. “Why? You think he’d be pissed at you?”
“No. It’s just . . . He’s uber protective of me.”
Understatement, but whatever. “He doesn’t like anything happening around me that he doesn’t understand.”
“And he’s not going to understand how your monster joined its soul with yours,”
Delilah understood.
“I don’t even understand how it did that.”
“It’s not an impossible feat, but it ain’t easy,”
Xavier cut in. “I’ve known witches to temporarily do it with deceased souls. Your soul is undead, and that leaves it vulnerable in many ways. I don’t know what exactly you host, but it’s powerful. I think it could manage something like this.”
“Maybe. There’s also a chance that Kali either helped or made it happen.”
Wynter shoved a hand through her hair. “Whatever the case, Cain is not gonna like that the entity melded its soul with mine, even though it was only for a few moments. Because that would mean two things—not only am I supremely vulnerable to my monster, but by joining its soul with mine that way . . . well, it might actually be able to pull me back to the netherworld regardless of his rights to me.”
Hattie cursed. “Girl, this ain’t good.”
No, it wasn’t. “He won’t handle either of those things well, particularly the latter. I worry he’ll do something rash.”
“Like?”
prompted Xavier.
“Like challenge Kali in some way,”
replied Wynter. “Like insist that She drop whatever plans She has for me. Which She wouldn’t agree to do. And if She thought he’d interfere with them, She’d take me from him somehow—even if only temporarily. I don’t think even Cain could take on a deity, but he’d be enraged enough to try.”
Delilah winced. “Yeah, I can see that happening.”
Xavier puffed out a breath. “I get why you’re hesitant to tell him, but I think you should—you’ll just have to be careful how you go about it. There might be something he can do to ensure that your monster isn’t able to merge with you like that again. I mean, Cain owns your soul. He’d surely have some way to protect it.”
He frowned when she only stared at him. “What?”
“You’re just the last person I expected would encourage me to be honest,”
said Wynter.
“Hey, the truth is overrated—I fully believe that,”
he stated. “But there are occasions when truths simply need to be shared. In my opinion, this is something that Cain needs to know.”
“I agree,”
said Anabel. “As Xavier said, there might be something Cain can do to protect your soul. But he won’t know he needs to if you’re not upfront about what happened.”
Hattie nodded. “And you can always wrangle a promise out of him in advance.”
Wynter tilted her head. “A promise to do what?”
“Not challenge Kali, of course,”
replied Hattie.
Wynter pulled a face. “I’m not so certain he’d be able to keep that promise.”
“But if you use magick to bind the verbal contract, he’d be unable to break his word.”
Wynter felt her brows hike up. “That’s true.”
And a very good idea.
“I have one question,”
said Anabel. “Whose was the voice that led you to Abaddon?”
Wynter gave a clueless shrug. “I know that, having heard Abaddon speak, it definitely wasn’t him.”
A knock sounded at the front door.
“I’ll get it.”
Wynter pushed out of her seat, crossed the living room, and opened the front door. She blinked at the sight of Maxim. “Oh, hi.”
Wynter stepped aside to let him enter.
“Thank you,”
he said. “I came to pass on a message from Cain. He asked that you have dinner with him this evening. He’d like you to more officially meet Abaddon and . . .”
Maxim trailed off, his eyes drifting to something behind her.
Wynter twisted to see Anabel lighting the candles on the living room altar.
The blonde must have felt their attention settle on her, because her gaze flew to them. “What?”
she asked, frowning . . . which only served to pull down those thick, drawn eyebrows even more.
Maxim cleared his throat. “I’m just wondering why you look like a pirate.”
Her muscles stiffening, she swiftly turned to glance at her reflection in the triple moon mirror. Her hands balled up into fists. “Xavier, you shit!”
“Karma spares no one!”
he yelled from the kitchen.
“Amen to that,”
said Delilah . . . at which point Anabel began to rip them both a new asshole while Hattie cackled.
Sighing, Wynter turned back to Maxim. “Would you believe me if I told you that this kind of thing is unusual?”
He gave her a long look. “No. No, I would not.”
She’d figured as much.
*
It was shortly after Cain had finished giving his uncle a tour of the Keep that he called the other Ancients there. All were pleasantly surprised to see Abaddon awake, particularly Dantalion, whose deceased brother was a close friend of his.
Ishtar made a point of flirting with him, possibly hoping it would annoy Cain to see her dreamily sighing over his own uncle, but the newly woken Ancient wasn’t responsive. He seemed more interested in Lilith—each eyed the other closely as they sat across from each other in the solar room, their expressions giving nothing away. If Cain remembered rightly, the two had . . . interesting history.
Elegantly perched on one of the plush sofas beside Lilith, Inanna looked at Abaddon and said, “For you to wake without us chanting over your place of Rest . . . All I can think is that our efforts to wake you did in fact work but simply took their time to come into effect.”
Lounging on the opposite sofa, Abaddon said, “Your efforts may have helped, but I do not believe they were solely responsible for my waking. I was disturbed by a foreign power. Kali, to be exact.”
Ishtar’s shoulders tensed. “Kali?”
“It seems that the deity has been trying to lead Cain’s consort to the grotto in her sleep for some time,”
said Abaddon. “He always woke her and then led her back to their chamber. Last night, he didn’t. I suspect Kali needed to use her to wake me, since there are only certain things that She and some of the other deities can do in this realm—hence why they Favor and use people to achieve their own ends.”
Cain suspected the same. He intended to get the full story from her later.
“Why did Kali wake you?”
asked Dantalion, standing in front of the elaborate fireplace.
“I do not yet know,”
replied Abaddon. “I’m sure that Cain’s consort will explain if she has answers. As I understand it, having spoken to Cain in depth about her, she doesn’t always have answers or Kali’s permission to share them.”
“Whatever the deity’s reason, I am grateful for Her assistance,”
said Seth, who sat in the chair beside which Cain stood.
The others nodded, other than Ishtar, who studied Cain hard and then said, “You never mentioned her habit of sleepwalking to us.”
Actually, he’d mentioned it to Azazel, sure that the other male wouldn’t repeat it. Cain would have similarly trusted his brother with the information but had felt that the less people who knew the better. Cain had said nothing about it to the others because he’d known that—given Wynter only ever went to the garden during such times—they might be suspicious of it and, as such, be distrustful of Wynter. Such distrust might have given Ishtar the fuel she needed to convince the others to give his consort up to the Aeons.
Cain gave an aloof shrug and said, “It bore no relevance to anyone here. Many people sleepwalk. What Wynter does or doesn’t do is the business of no one in this room but me.”
Ishtar’s lips flattened. “She was sleepwalking in your garden.”
“From what I’ve heard, sleepwalkers often head to places they feel comfortable,”
said Cain. “The garden relaxes her.”
Ishtar looked as though she might push the matter further, but then she made it clear with a flap of her hand that she was done discussing it. She turned her attention back to Abaddon, flashing him yet another sultry smile.
“I was beginning to think that you might never wake.”
Ishtar said it as if she’d nonetheless not given up hope. Quite the opposite. She’d suggested a number of times that they cease trying to pull Abaddon out of his coma.
“I am thankful that I did,”
said Abaddon. “I would never wish to miss the upcoming battle. It will take a few days before I am at top strength, but no longer than that. I will be ready to attempt to take down the cage on All Hallows’ Eve.”
Leaning back against the wall near the window, Azazel scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I doubt we will be able to take it down, but we have a chance of forming a hole in it. That will not be easy, though. The prison is designed to hold Leviathans, and it was created by a race whose power almost equals ours.”
“Having the help of Eve and Noah will make a difference.”
Lilith lifted a brow at Seth. “I assume they are still prepared to aid us.”
“They haven’t withdrawn their offer,” he said.
“And Rima?”
asked Inanna, sitting beside her sister. “Has she made the same offer?”
“No,”
replied Seth. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if she did volunteer to help. She has been less dramatic of late. Less bitter. As if the chip on her shoulder is shrinking.”
“We can hope that’s true. Any help would be appreciated.”
Lilith crossed one leg over the other. “If it were not for how many secrets we harbor, we could have invited all of our residents to aid us.”
“Not even their combined strength would be enough to puncture a curse created by Aeons, though,”
said Abaddon.
Lilith allowed that with an incline of her head.
Azazel met Cain’s gaze and said, “I think we should invite Wynter to come along with us.”
Ishtar stiffened. “Wynter? Why?”
“Because she is no normal witch,”
said Azazel. “She is a revenant. A powerful one. Powerful enough to inflict a curse on Aeon that is so strong its inhabitants can’t fight it.”
Ishtar’s upper lip curled. “Revenants are good at cursing things, not undoing curses.”
“You don’t know that. And, in any case, she isn’t a typical revenant.”
Azazel draped one arm over the back of the sofa. “It’s possible that her presence won’t make a difference. But it definitely wouldn’t do any harm. Especially since Kali might help via Wynter.”
“I doubt that She will, since She will count waking Abaddon as ‘help’ and is likely to think that the rest should be up to us,”
predicted Lilith. “There is only so much deities can interfere with, even with the assistance of their Favored. Still, I am not opposed to Wynter being present. Any help would be appreciated. Would she be prepared to offer us such aid, Cain?”
“I can’t imagine her refusing,”
he said. “She wants to invade Aeon almost as much as we do.”
Unfortunately.
“Are you sure that the people who reside here will also be eager to join the battle?”
asked Abaddon.
“After the damage the Aeons have caused our home? Definitely,”
said Seth.
Abaddon accepted that with a nod. “Do your people know about me?”
“No,”
Seth told him. “We did not want to risk that some might attempt to find you while you Rested, even if only out of curiosity.”
“It wouldn’t have been the first time people sought the Resting place of an Ancient,”
said Abaddon. “What will you tell them?”
“The truth, for the most part,”
replied Cain. “I intend to make a speech shortly. I will publicly introduce you and explain that you have been at Rest for a long time, but I will claim it was by choice. Revealing that you were in what was effectively a coma might also give people the impression that you are currently weak.”
“And the Ancients can never be seen to be weak, I understand. I would imagine that you will not be introducing me as your uncle,”
Abaddon guessed, unoffended.
“Not as my uncle, no. People believe that Adam is my father, and there are some here who have been to Aeon and so are aware that he only has two brothers. Just the same, they know that Eve is an only child.”
“After the speech, I will show you around the city, let people get a closer look at you,”
Dantalion told Abaddon. “You can pick a spot for where you would one day like to build your own home. I am guessing that you intend to stay with Cain in the meantime?”
“That is my plan, yes,”
Abaddon confirmed.
Ishtar shot him another sexually suggestive smile. “If you decide you would like a change of company, I have many spare bedchambers you can use.”
She cast a quick look at Cain, clearly wanting to see his reaction to her offer; not looking too happy when he only looked at her blankly.
Abaddon sighed at her. “So you still like to play games.”
Widening her eyes in innocence, she put a hand to her chest. “I am simply being friendly.”
Abaddon snorted. “You’re not friendly.”
“On the contrary, I can be very—”
“Sister,”
Inanna cut in, a soft note of warning in her voice.
Ishtar gave a fake pout. “None of you are any fun.”
A short while later, Cain declared it was time to make the speech. The Ancients began to file out of the solar room one by one.
Lagging behind to fall into step beside Cain, Azazel asked him, “Do you think that Kali possessed Wynter last night?”
“It’s a possibility,”
Cain told him. “She has no recollection of the last time the deity possessed her. If it happened again, she likely wouldn’t remember.”
Azazel twisted his mouth. “So Kali could have taken over her body last night.”
“Yes. There’s a chance She wants to help us escape our cage, and having Abaddon certainly improves our odds. She might have used Wynter’s body to achieve that goal.”
It pissed Cain off that the deity used her over and over in such a way, but there was little he could do about it. That only made it worse for him. It caused him to feel that he was failing his consort; failing to protect her.
He looked forward to the day when Kali no longer needed Wynter. It would not only mean she would be both free and safer but that he would have her all to himself. For now, well, he had one comfort: Kali might have some hold over Wynter, but She would never be able to take his consort from him.