Chapter Nineteen
Lifting his glass tumbler later that evening, Cain tipped it back and swallowed some of his brandy. Beside him, Wynter sank back into the dining room chair, clearly full. They were alone now, since Abaddon had headed to his bedchamber to rest, determined to be at full strength fast.
The meal had gone well. Cain had watched as his consort and uncle got to know each other, and he hadn’t been surprised by how easy Abaddon had taken to her. Wynter was like a Leviathan in many ways—merciless, vengeful, cunning, elusive.
She’d intrigued Abaddon without even trying. It had been amusing to watch his uncle try to pluck secrets out of her. Amusing to witness her skillfully dodge the Ancient’s questions, never falling for any of his traps.
Abaddon had later given Cain a subtle nod of approval, clearly supportive of his choice of consort. Cain couldn’t claim he’d craved or even wanted such approval, but it was still nice to have it.
He suspected that one of the things about her which most impressed Abaddon was that she wasn’t intimidated by him. People always found Abaddon daunting—the residents of Devil’s Cradle were no exception; they’d given him plenty of space when Dantalion earlier gave him a tour of both the underground city and the town above them.
The people had been shocked when Cain gave his speech, informing them of Abaddon’s existence. But they’d otherwise taken the news well, according to his aides. After all, the presence of an additional Ancient meant that Devil’s Cradle was now even safer.
Cain knocked back the last of his brandy, set down his glass, and looked at his consort. “Are you going to tell me what’s playing on your mind? You hid it well from Abaddon, but you’re distracted by something.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “You won’t like it.”
His scalp prickled at her grave expression, and his creature’s head snapped up. “Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean you should have to hold it inside.”
He gently cupped her chin. “Don’t ever feel the need to dance around my feelings or moods or beliefs, Wynter. I would much rather you always shared your burdens with me, even if I won’t like them, than for you to choose another person to confide in.”
Letting out a heavy breath, she twisted in her chair. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But I need you to make me a promise first.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What sort of promise?”
“That you won’t contact Kali about this.”
He ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. “All right.”
She let out a soft snort. “That’s not enough, Cain. Nor was it very convincing.”
She held out her hand, which currently crackled with magick. “Promise you won’t contact Kali after you hear what I have to say.”
His hackles rose. He didn’t like this. Not at all. “You intend to literally hold me to my vow? You don’t trust me to keep it?”
“It’s not a matter of trust. It’s a matter of my knowing that you won’t react well to what I tell you, and I need to be sure you won’t do something rash.”
He searched her eyes, seeing no room for negotiation there. “This news you have is truly that awful?”
“More like ‘concerning’.”
His inner alarms were blaring, warning him that her revelation would be far more than concerning, despite what she claimed. His consort had a tendency to downplay certain things.
He did not whatsoever like that he’d be magickly bound to not react freely to what he would learn, but there was no way he could turn her down. He needed to know what had put that grave look on her face, and his presently uneasy creature wouldn’t rest until it knew.
Shifting in his seat so that he better faced her, Cain clasped her hand and vowed, “I promise not to contact Kali after hearing what you tell me.”
Black flecks of magick swirled around their joined palms, and he felt the restriction click into place. His creature didn’t much like it, but it only grumbled its disapproval.
Cain didn’t release her hand. He instead gave it a supportive squeeze and urged, “Tell me.”
Both surprised and pleased that he hadn’t put up a struggle to back his promise with magick, Wynter rubbed nervously at her thigh. “First, I want to explain why I didn’t say anything about this last night. It was a threefold thing.”
“Threefold?”
“Yes. One, I was spooked and struggling to take it all in. Two, I knew it was going to piss you off—I wasn’t ready for that conversation; wasn’t able to fully explain to you what I hadn’t yet managed to process. Three, you hadn’t seen your uncle in eons, I wanted the reunion to be something good. You didn’t have that when Eve came here, your relationship with her is too complicated. But I could see that it was different with you and Abaddon. I didn’t want to spoil it.”
His face went all warm and lazy. “My sweet witch.”
He leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. “How about I make this easier for you? I suspect that what you’re going to tell me is that Kali has been leading you to the grotto all along and She possessed you last night to wake Abaddon. Am I right?”
She dragged in a deep breath, wishing it were that simple. “Uh, no. She wanted to wake him. She played a part in it. But so did I. Sort of.”
He squinted. “Sort of?”
“I didn’t do it alone. The voice that led me to the grotto and spoke to me when I woke from my sleepwalking escapade was the male voice from my dreams. It coaxed me to put my hand into the spring. I wasn’t keen on the idea. I thought about going back to the Keep and telling you I’d been led there. But I wanted to know what the voice was so damn interested in showing me.”
“So you did as it asked.”
She nodded. “And then something weird happened. Like seriously weird. There was a brief interaction between Kali and my monster—I couldn’t make out what message She gave it. But mere moments later, my entity rose up and . . . well, it joined its soul with mine.”
Every muscle in his body locked tight, Cain blinked. “Say that latter part again.”
“Our souls joined. Only for a few moments but—”
“When you say ‘joined’,”
he began, dread building in his gut, “you don’t mean it merely pressed its soul tightly against yours?”
She slowly shook her head. “The two merged. Fused into one.”
Cain’s insides seized and twisted. He wanted to say it wasn’t possible. Wanted to believe she must have been mistaken. But he’d never been one to blind himself to something simply because he didn’t like what he’d heard. “Then what?”
he bit out.
“The entity’s power poured into me, reacted with mine like two chemicals crazily clashing . . . and I guess that then caused Abaddon to wake.”
Unable to sit still, Cain abruptly pushed out of his chair and stalked away from the table. Pain pulsed through his jaw at how tightly he clenched it. His creature predictably lost its mind, not a rational thought in its head. “You should have told me this before.”
“I already explained why I waited.”
He shot her a hard look. “None of your reasons fully justify keeping something as serious as this from me. Especially your claim to have been spooked. Nothing spooks you—an assertion you yourself made several times.”
“No, I said I’m not easily spooked. And I’m not. But last night, I was a little freaked. My monster has always been separate from me. It’s never done anything like that before. I felt a whole bunch of things—confused, violated, weirded out, even betrayed. I wanted a little time to process it all.”
His blood hot, his body tight, Cain paced up and down. He tasted anger with every breath. Felt it course through his system with every beat of his heart. “You know what this means, don’t you? It means Kali can still take you from me. All She’d need to do is instruct the entity to merge its soul with yours, and then She could drag you both to the netherworld.”
Wynter stood. “But you could do something to stop that from happening, right? You could protect my soul somehow. I mean, you own it.”
If there was room in his system for any emotion other than deadly rage, he would have been touched at her faith in him and his ability to protect her. “Having full ownership of your soul won’t be enough in this instance,”
said Cain, still pacing.
“But—”
“Kali owns the soul of whatever monster you host or, if nothing else, has full control of it. If that entity merged with you, yanked you to the netherworld, and then didn’t break that merge, I could of course pull on your soul to drag you back. But, just the same, Kali could keep pulling on the monster’s soul and, thus, yours. Between the two of us, we’d be fighting over who gets to keep you. I don’t know for sure that I could beat Her at a push-and-pull contest.”
Wynter bit down on her lower lip hard enough he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d drawn blood.
Bringing himself to an abrupt halt, Cain raked a hand through his hair. “We need to speak with Her. Now.”
Wynter gave him a pointed look. “You promised.”
Cain advanced on her fast. “Why the fuck would you have wanted me to promise not to contact Kali about this? You don’t care if She takes you?”
“You know I do. Don’t be a dick. The problem is that what you most want right now is for Her to drop what plans She has for me. We both know you’ll insist on it if you speak with Her. Just as we both know She isn’t going to dance to your tune.”
Wynter lifted a brow. “Remember what She once said to you? She warned you that She’d tolerate your presence in my life unless you tried interfering with Her plans.”
Cain bared his teeth, and his creature hissed long and loud. “I don’t give a shit what She’s prepared to tolerate.”
“That’s my point.”
His monster lunged quickly, fighting for supremacy with such vigor Cain almost flinched. Struggling to maintain control of it, Cain backed away from Wynter. “Give me a minute,”
he said through gritted teeth.
She didn’t argue or approach him, so maybe she sensed the current danger. Not that his creature would hurt her. But it would bite her. Would take another step toward binding with her, determined to somehow ensure that she remained locked to its side. Not that tying her life-force with that of his monster would be enough, but the creature didn’t much care to think rationally right then.
Once it threw up its metaphorical hands and stopped fighting, Cain took a deep, steadying breath.
“You okay?”
Wynter asked, her voice soft.
“Yes.”
Cain cricked his neck. “My creature isn’t quite stable right now. It doesn’t react well at the best of times to the emotions you make it feel. It’s never been so attached to another person, and it’s not very good at handling any situation where it feels it could lose you.”
Not that Cain was much better. “What your monster did to you last night . . . we can’t ignore that, Wynter. We can’t ignore what it means.”
“We also can’t confront Kali the way you want to.”
Cain felt his nostrils flare. “Regardless of what She might want to believe, my claim to you runs deeper than Hers ever could.”
“But that’s not how She sees it. And it doesn’t change that She has a way to still take me from you. So let’s not tempt Her to do that.”
Cursing beneath his breath, he scrubbed a hand down his face.
“Before last night, I might have thought She’d never truly take me away from you; might have believed that She wouldn’t want to hurt me that way. But when She urged my monster to merge with me, She didn’t bother to warn me, She clearly wasn’t concerned for how I might freak the fuck out. She just did it.”
Wynter swallowed. “It was the first time I’ve ever really felt like I was just a tool to Her.”
The note of pain in her voice pierced the rage fogging his mind like nothing else could have. Struggling to be gentle, Cain drew her to him, curling his arms around her. “I don’t believe you’re merely a tool to Her. She’s too invested in you for that to be the case. But that doesn’t change who or what She is. A deity. A being that will never consider us Her equals. I doubt She’d even think to consider your feelings before acting on Her own.”
“Is there something you can do to protect my soul from it ever again merging with my monster like that?”
“I can protect it from souls who exist outside your body—I already do purely by owning it so completely. But a soul that your body acts as a vessel for? No. You might be two separate beings, but you are connected in a fashion.”
Her brow creased. “I don’t know if I’d say we were connected.”
“You once told me that you feel its emotions. You know when it wants something. You can sense if it’s sleeping. You feel it when the monster wakes. It’s an independent entity, but you both share something that is a similar yet preternaturally advanced version of a twin bond.”
Wynter inwardly cursed. She hadn’t looked at the situation that way before. She didn’t like the implications. “Back onto the subject of your creature . . . You read up a lot on the tying of life-forces, but you never brought it up. I’m guessing none of the books held the answers we’re looking for.”
“They didn’t, no,”
he confirmed. “But I’ll keep searching.”
“You discovered something you don’t like,”
she sensed. “Something that has stopped you from pushing me on this.”
Irritation flared in his eyes in that telling way that said he didn’t like how well she’d read him. “It’s not something I discovered, it’s something that Seth said. He pointed out that if I was to die while your life-force was tied to that of my monster, it could possibly drain you to the extent that you die and are too weak to come back.”
Huh. She hadn’t considered that. “Do you think he’s right?”
“I have no idea. My creature doesn’t think so, but it’s not a source I trust on this matter—it wants to bind with you so badly there’s a chance it won’t apply logic to the situation.”
Sighing, she slipped her arms around his waist and held tight; needing comfort, giving it. “I can promise you one thing: if my monster does try to pull me back to the netherworld, I won’t make it easy. I will have to be dragged there kicking and screaming and cursing. I will do everything I can to fight it.”
Cain’s arms contracted around her. “I will hold you to that promise.”
He looked toward the door at the sound of knuckles rapping on it. “Come in,”
he called out without first releasing her—not something she’d expected, since PDAs weren’t generally his thing.
Maxim breezed inside the room, his expression odd.
Cain exhaled heavily. “What now?”
“Sorry to disturb you, Sire, but the conduit is back.”
Maxim hesitated. “He says that Adam wishes to speak to both you and Wynter.”
Cain stilled. “Is that so?”
he drawled, so much menace in his voice it sent a shiver down her spine.
“The blue parlor is occupied, so I placed him in the parlor beside it,”
said Maxim.
“I’ll be there shortly.”
Once the aide was gone, Wynter looked up at Cain and corrected, “We’ll be there shortly. No, don’t argue. I won’t be unsafe. Adam can’t hurt me in a psychic space.”
Cain’s jaw tightened. “He’ll try to convince you to give yourself up.”
“You don’t think that would actually work, do you? I’m not like those idiots you see in movies who give themselves up to the bad guy to save everyone else. I know for an absolute fact that handing myself over to Adam would achieve nothing. I know it wouldn’t keep you or anyone here safe. And I’m not noble enough to do that anyway.”
Cain’s expression gentled. “Yes, you are.”
He stroked a hand over her hair. “But in this case, you wouldn’t do such a thing—I know that. It’s simply instinct for me to not want Adam anywhere near you.”
“Physically, he won’t be. And like I pointed out before, he can’t harm me in a psychic space. So let’s get this over with so we can go to bed and fuck each other’s brains out.”
His lips quirked. “I like how you think.”
He took her hand in his. “Here’s where you find out how I get to the manor so quickly without using the elevator.”
She smiled. “About damn time.”
The last thing she’d expected was that she’d have to walk through a mirror. As he followed behind her, stepping into a bedroom at the manor, she blew out a breath and said, “I had not seen that coming.”
Humor lit his eyes. “Good. You surprise me often. It’s only right that it’s a two-way street.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that.”
Downstairs, Cain led her straight to the parlor but didn’t enter. “Remember,”
he began, “Adam has no idea that you’re my consort. Let’s keep it that way. I don’t want him more focused on you than he already is.”
She gave a short nod and tugged on her sleeve, ensuring that Cain’s seal was well-hidden.
Inside the room, Wynter greeted the conduit, vaguely recognizing him from her years at Aeon. He was an okay dude. A little spineless, though.
The moment she pressed her fingertips to his and entered the all-white psychic space, Wynter fixed her gaze on Adam. It was hard not to sneer. She loathed this motherfucker. Loathed him with a glorious passion.
He was responsible for so much, including her mother’s death in an indirect way. But what Wynter most hated him for was the torment he’d caused Cain over the years. She truly couldn’t wait to see this asshole breathe his last.
As she and Cain took the two seats that faced him, Adam continued to stare at her, pointedly ignoring her consort. She inwardly snorted. Did the Aeon honestly believe that Cain would be bothered by the petty snub? If so, he truly did not know her guy at all.
“Wynter Dellavale,”
Adam drawled. “I would say ‘we meet at last,’ but I do recall seeing you at Aeon from time to time. I don’t believe we have ever before spoken to each other, though, have we?”
“No, we haven’t,”
she replied. “To what do I owe this not-so-great honor?”
His lips slightly thinned, but he quickly blanked his expression. “You have caused me many problems. In cursing your homeland, you essentially betrayed it. Betrayed your people.”
“They betrayed me first.”
“Your old coven is now dead, though. It was in fact you who killed them.”
Actually, she’d killed most of them. She’d then trapped her old Priestess in the netherworld. Wynter wasn’t sure what had happened to the bitch in that place. Hopefully lots of dark and scary things. Fingers crossed.
“Likewise, the boys who hurt you long ago are dead. Those at Aeon who wronged you have paid the price,”
Adam went on. “You could easily undo the curse rather than punish everyone else there.”
“But it wasn’t only my coven who made my life difficult. The mages did their fair share of that, and they were worse. You or any of the other Aeons could have put an end to it. You didn’t. Instead, I was the one who was exiled. Only an exile isn’t truly a banishment. It’s a straight-up execution. An execution I’d done nothing to deserve.
“Yet, Lailah ordered it anyway. And she couldn’t have done that without your say-so. Which means you’re also responsible for my near death. You had God only knows how many people unjustly ‘exiled’ over the eras. In truth, Aeon lost its true beauty a millennia ago, after it slowly became infected by the godly arrogance you Aeons have.”
Beside her, Cain chuckled.
Adam’s face hardened, but he still made a point of not looking at the Ancient. “Well, you certainly made the land and its people pay, Miss Dellavale. Is it really necessary to drag out this ‘lesson’ you wish to teach us?”
She cocked her head. “Necessary? No. Satisfying? Oh, yes.”
His green eyes briefly blazed at her. “You have no idea what you have done. None. If Aeon falls, we will all suffer for it.”
“I don’t see how.”
He opened his mouth but then quickly snapped it shut.
“It seems to me that if there was really some great big reason why Aeon shouldn’t fall, you’d have told everyone about it by now. Yet, you haven’t elaborated. So I’m pretty inclined to think that you’re talking out of your ass. But if I’m wrong, please do enlighten me.”
His fingers flexed. “Would you really die for the Ancients, Miss Dellavale? That is what will happen if you are still at Devil’s Cradle when the war begins. No one there will be left alive. But if you come to me and undo the curse, I will spare you. You will be free to leave Aeon and continue with your life.”
She shot him a look of pure disbelief. “You don’t honestly think I’ll believe that, do you?”
He couldn’t. Surely not.
“I can draw up a binding contract, if you wish.”
“Yeah, and there’ll be loopholes galore. Sorry, I’m going to have to turn down your offer.”
“Then you are foolish.”
“Funny. I was thinking the same thing about you. But although you’re many things, Adam, you’re not foolish.”
Which was a shame, really, because defeating the Aeons would otherwise have been so much easier. “You knew I wouldn’t accept your offer. Even if I had, the Ancients wouldn’t have let me leave Devil’s Cradle—you’re well aware of that, too. So why did you really call me here?”
He didn’t respond. Merely stared at her.
She tilted her head. “Let me guess . . . you wanted to get a good look at me; to get a sense of whether or not I truly am Favored by Kali. It doesn’t seem possible to you. You can’t see how you wouldn’t have sensed it long ago or how I’d be different from other revenants. But you can’t think why else the curse would be something you simply can’t beat.”
He flapped a dismissive hand. “You are not a revenant. I know that much for certain. I had hoped to here and now detect just what it is you really are.”
He folded his arms and lifted his chin, all pompous. “I had some of my people look into your background. You have never met your father, have you? Your mother refused to speak of him to anyone who asked, but my people were able to find out who and where he is.”
“So?”
Adam’s brows dipped. “So wouldn’t you like to know the identity of your father?”
“Can’t say that I do, no.”
It was pure truth. “After all, he was never a father to me. Just a sperm donor, really.”
She didn’t believe for a single moment that Adam had any clue who her father was anyway. And if the Aeon thought it would be this easy to manipulate her into doing his bidding, she was seriously insulted.
“I suppose it is good for you that you feel that way,”
said Adam. “Not so much for him, however. I had him brought here. He is not very . . . comfortable at the moment. But you can change that. Give yourself up, and I will free him.”
“Nah.”
Adam’s arms unfolded. “You cannot expect me to believe that his life means nothing to you.”
“Why? I got the impression that the lives of your blood relatives don’t always mean much to you. Besides, I don’t think you really are keeping the sperm donor captive.”
“I assure you, witch, I am not calling your bluff. I have him in my dungeon.”
“Right,”
she said, all skepticism. The Aeon would have been the epitome of smug if that were genuinely the case.
“I rather think he’ll be most disappointed to learn that his daughter cares so little for him.”
“There are few people in this world I care about. My father has never been one of them. The only parent who mattered to me was my mother. She was the only person throughout my childhood who I was truly able to count on. Your son, Abel, sentenced her to death. Which means you initially cast down that sentence. You took her from me. So no amount of bribes, threats, or attempts at emotional blackmail would make me give you a single fucking thing that you want.”
Cain smiled. “Really, Adam, you cause these messes for yourself. I do thank you for pissing her off so spectacularly and then pretty much driving her to seek sanctuary here. Your help in this matter has not gone unrecognized or unappreciated, I assure you.”
He glanced at Wynter. “I think we’re done here.”
“I agree,” she said.
As one, they both withdrew from the psychic space.
Cain dismissed everyone in the parlor, including the conduit, before then turning to her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. It’s just, ugh, I hate that fucker.”
Cain felt his lips twitch. “You’re not alone in that. I wanted to intervene a few times, but I didn’t want to chance that he’d sense you mean something to me.”
“I don’t believe he really has my father in his custody.”
“Neither do I. Adam can be a smug bastard. He likes to gloat. Back there, he wasn’t gloating. It was more like he was fishing, testing to see if you’d care to save a father you’ve never met—Adam would have interpreted that as a weakness.”
“That was the feeling I got.”
“If it had seemed that you would care, he’d have searched high and low for your father in order to use him against you. You made it clear he’d be wasting his time.”
Cain tipped his head to the side. “But you and I both know that you wouldn’t truly have been so indifferent in such a situation, don’t we?”
“I wouldn’t have been indifferent, no. But I wouldn’t have given Adam what he wanted. No way would I have traded the lives of you, my coven, and everyone here for the freedom of a man who never gave a single shit about me or my mother. I’m really not as honorable as you seem to think.”
Oh, she was. She merely didn’t like to acknowledge that soft underbelly she possessed. She was also used to hiding her true self—she’d been doing it for most of her life to stay under the radar.
Setting her hands on her hips, she shook her head in wonder. “After all that’s happened, Adam still won’t accept that I’m a revenant.”
“To do that would be to accept that he had no idea, despite that you’d lived at Aeon at one time. It would also be to accept that he’d been foolish to doubt your word and your connection to Kali. Adam is far too egotistical to face that he was wrong about anything without solid proof.”
“The way I see it, that’s a good thing. If he doesn’t believe I’m a revenant, he won’t be ready to deal with a revenant. That gives me an edge where he’s concerned. I like having an edge.”
Cain flicked up a brow. “You envision you and Adam going head to head? That won’t happen, baby. I plan to take up all of his attention. Besides, he won’t want to battle with you, he’ll want to capture you so he can force you to do his bidding.”
“And that will be his mistake.”
“Yes. Yes, it will.”
Cain frowned as a crack of thunder came from outside. A thunder that was unnatural. Familiar. “Adam.”
For fuck’s sake.
Cain stormed out of the parlor with Wynter hot on his heels. They rushed down the long hallway and out of the manor’s front door.
“. . . understand it is not easy to betray one of your own people,”
said Adam, his face a flashing image in the storm cloud high above the town. “I understand why you would all hesitate to accept my offer. But Wynter Dellavale is not worth your sacrifice. She is, however, worth two million dollars as of now. That is right. I am upping the bounty. Cash in on it if you dare.”
With that, he was gone.
Wynter gaped. “That son of a bitch. I’ll kill him. I will motherfucking kill him.”
No, she wouldn’t. Cain’s monster would get there first.