ONTOLOGY
CHAPTER TWELVE
Saya Claymore
I’m dreaming. I must be, because I’m home—well, the only home I had before the feeding ground.
Standing at the entrance, vervain lines the border between village and forest. Moonlight shines through the branches, casting cool shards of light through the darkness, illuminating the village just enough for me to take it all in.
Musky tones from shrubs and the powdery scent of vervain and lavender bleed chalky purple across the blooms. Wooden wind chimes clank above the tower-lined, gated entrance, colliding in a battle against the wind.
The solid double gates are closed. Most of the time, they are closed to keep out the wolves—as the stories went—but I’d never seen one. Never even heard a howl in the middle of the night.
Pressing my palms to the gates, the wood bites into my flesh as I push. They don’t budge. There’s a tremor, and the wind chimes reverberate sharply, but there is nothing to indicate I can enter.
I huff out a breath, feeling more like the damn wolf in those stories my mum would tell Cole, and I shake off the feeling tingling across my shoulders. There has to be another way in.
I turn away, but a gust of wind has me stumbling back towards the gates as they are blown open with the force of it. Thick smoke leaks out of the village, heat singeing my brows and scorching my cheeks. The screams hollow out my bones, and shadows weave through the haze.
Vervain petals melt from their stems, burning, and as the smoke rises, I sink into darkness.
Since biting Serun, I’ve had strange dreams and memories.
Fire, vervain and screams? I don’t remember there being a fire in Cherry Bloom. We had a few in summer, when the heat dried out the grass, but I don’t think it ever reached the village?
Was I floating through Serun’s memories?
An irritated sigh escapes me, and I clutch my hands together, needing the sensation.
Another minute goes by, and I drag myself from bed and over to the claw-foot tub.
Serun is escorting me to the Undercity today, which is filled with nightwalkers.
I’d rather not give them any encouragement to bite me if I have any lingering bloodstains.
I settle into the hot, soapy water, letting the sting of the burn soften my skin.
I lean back and look up at the ceiling, resting my arms along the sides of the tub.
I’ll miss this place, as strange as it is to think.
At least the only other nightwalker here besides Serun is Lucifer, and I’d rather have his hate than the thousands in the Undercity.
I’m not all dead, not all alive. Between two worlds and not really belonging in either. Why would anyone there accept me?
“And who cares?” I murmur to myself, hoping my voice is louder than my worry.
A knock comes after I leave the tub, my skin now a rosy red, cutting through my usual icy blue tone.
I button up a blouse and tuck the fabric into a skirt. After I’m dressed, and my hair spins in long, wet strands down my back, I open the door, only for my heart to sink. I have half a mind to close the door on the menacing glare Lucifer is giving me.
His revulsion at the mere sight of me is enough that I very much doubt the nightwalkers of the Undercity will accept me.
“Evening,” I say as I step out and gradually close the door behind me. Glancing down the corridor, I turn to face him. “Where’s Serun?”
Lucifer stares without blinking. Unsettling eyes watch, and an icy chill runs up my spine, telling me not to trust him. He’s like a statue. Not a blond hair out of place, or a wrinkle in his black and white glittering silk suit.
Every part of him is composed.
Lifeless.
“Care to join me for a walk?” he says.
“No,” I respond in an even flatter tone.
I’ve shown weakness to Serun. A vulnerability I don’t really regret, but I will not let my hard-won steel doors falter in the presence of someone who has made it apparent they dislike me.
A purplish-red vein thickens on the side of his neck when his jaw tightens. Raw, red eyes dilate, and a slip of warning tickles the already standing-on-edge hairs across my skin. I hold my breath and concentrate on his polished black and white leather shoes.
“Heh,” he snorts. “Don’t fret, dove. My brother would have my head if I were to harm you. Besides, even if I could, I care too little for you to want to kill you.”
Am I supposed to feel offended or comforted? I can’t tell with him.
“So, care to join for a walk, Serun’s consort?”
I don’t dare show emotion, but it seems the parts of myself once hidden behind a glamour give away my irritation. My ears flick, and my nose twitches, nostrils flaring before I remember to control my anger.
Still, there’s this pathetic part of me that is curious. Enough for me to be confident enough to step outside the room and close the door behind me. “So long as you use my name.”
“Does the title offend you?”
“I never consented to it.”
I follow Lucifer down the corridor, and he mutters a sigh. “I wish I hadn’t asked. I don’t particularly care for your answer now I think about it.”
If hate had a name and a face, perhaps even a description, it would be Lucifer. He makes it obvious in the most pathetic ways possible. It feels like a children’s game, except that he is an immortal creature that has likely lived for over a century.
“Then why am I on this walk with you?”
The wall ahead opens, revealing the hallway of covered paintings. Flames near the portraits brighten, thickening with smoke that tastes of cedarwood. His eyes narrow when I look at him, then back to the limestone ground, and I’m reminded that Serun has a liar’s tongue.
There’s a chance he can control me.
“Serun enjoys your company,” Lucifer says through a tired sigh. “He held you as you cried. It annoyed me to witness the commotion, and it was made worse to see the adoration in his eyes. They have not held that for as long as I’ve known him.”
A tightening sensation wraps my ribs, squeezing them together with vines and wool. Serun was warm and comforting. Sweet, even. A stark contrast to how both my Blessed and Jaxton would comfort me.
Then, it would lead to something sexual, never just a hug. They would always take. Jax poked his cock near my face enough times that I wish I had bitten it off when I had the chance.
A low chuckle breezes past my ear, drawing my attention away from Lucifer as I look back the way we came. There’s a wall there now, but that was definitely Serun’s airy laugh.
“I’ve never seen my brother comfort anyone before. In fact, I’ve never seen my brother so absorbed in anything. He is the type to never linger on a task. Yet it seems you are his impossible mission.”
I pick at the skin around my nails and focus on that instead of showing any sort of emotion on my face. Serun is a complication and a curiosity.
“Serun does nothing, usually. He has his law, and most abide by it. If they don’t, he will kill, but that is all he has done.
Most of the time, he stays in his manor.
” Lucifer raises his hand, but I keep my eyes on the paintings while I watch him from the corner of my eye.
He rests his knuckles against his chin, his thumb brushing across his cheek.
“Perhaps he might grow bored, and there is no need for me to worry.”
“But you invited me here in case I am not a passing thought.”
He laughs acidly. “Yes. I’m here to ask something of you. Whether you do it is entirely up to you, but Naylen would be better off if you consider what I have to say.”
“I am going to do what is best for Cole.”
“And that’s what worries me,” he says, his voice dropping into a low hiss, disdain coating his tongue. “Your attachment. Nightwalkers don’t have attachments. Our human lives are over, yet you seem to be an exception because you’re half vegodian.”
My brow draws together. “And that is a complication?”
He blurts out a laugh, red eyes rolling.
“What if other nightwalkers want the families they left behind? If Serun entertains this little fling and brings your brother to the Undercity, many more might break the law to do the same. We may have an uprising on our hands because my brother was curious.”
“I’m not interested in staying. Once my brother is safe, I am taking him home.”
“Hmm…” Lucifer turns away from the portraits, and we continue walking. “After you find your brother, Serun will follow you anywhere. He will give up his Undercity for you, and if that happens, chaos will ensue.”
Lucifer leads me into the room overlooking the Sunken City.
Water rushes down the crystal windows, and the ocean stirs nervously, rippling with emotion.
We face the water, and I take a step away from him.
He said he wouldn’t do anything, but it doesn’t mean I trust him.
One wrong move, and hopefully the rage inside me will burn bright enough for me to use my vegodian magik.
“Unlike Maeve, who will shadow her hate, or Reyes, the dimwit, too focused on holding onto a marriage that never should have happened, I am direct. I don’t like you, but I won’t leave you wondering why. I’d rather you know.”
“If it is because I can breathe, I’d rather watch this beautiful view.”
“You’re cold.”
“I have reason to be.”
Lucifer darts a glance at me, then ahead.
“I lost my eternal lover half a century ago.” His voice is steady, as if rehearsed a thousand times.
“He has been lost to me longer than I held him. Taken by a war we weren’t part of.
Charmyne aided a vegodian who stood outside our city walls.
He was a caring man—more caring than any other I’ve known.
While I was in the Undercity visiting my beloved family, he took her in and gave her a room to sleep in. The same room you’ve been resting in.”
A tingling sensation rests across the back of my neck, and I suppress the urge to cup my hand over it.
“They came for her that very morning and burned everyone to ashen dust to find her. A vegodian who should never have entered our city.” Cold eyes narrow into half-slits.
“By the time I found out, the island was a sinking mess, and most of the ash had washed away, and Charmyne and the vegodian were gone.”
I step closer, my hand resting over the scar on my chest. “Was it the slayers? Serun says they hunted us because they feared our powers, but that can’t be the excuse for so much destruction, can it?”
“All we know is that men want power, but they also fear it. And when someone has more power than they do, they will do all they can to kill them,” Lucifer says with a curl of his lip.
“Or take and abuse that power. Which brings me to my plea, if you will.” His face hardens.
“You are a daywalker with vegodian magik. They won’t kill you.
They will create more from you. You will be their experiment. ”
“And what do you want me to do about it? Last time I faced one, I nearly died.”
Lifting his chin, Lucifer looks down at me as he says, “My brother isn’t the strongest. People fear him. There’s a difference. So, after you entertain the idea of learning more about what you are, return to the Undercity without your brother, and stay there. Let our world protect you from theirs.”
My chest tightens, and I find it hard to swallow, like a rope is wrapped around my throat. An experiment to prick and probe.
“Saya,” a soft voice comes from the doorway. Serun is leaning against it, arms folded across his chest, and a hint of a smirk settles on his face. “Say goodbye to the Sunken City. Now we travel to the Undercity.”
Sharpening my breath, I move to join him, only to hesitate. My clenched jaw slackens, and I face Lucifer. He is watching the ocean, his eyes tired. “I will consider it if my brother can come,” I say.
As I turn back to Serun, my ear twitches at the light mutter of, “I don’t care.”
He does. In a way, his stubbornness reminds me of Cole.
When I reach Serun, he lifts his hand, and a pendant drops from it, letting the chain hang from his fingertips. “For your keepsakes. Instead of pockets.”
I slip one hand into my pocket to stroke the hair there, my heart squeezing as I take the pendant with the other. “Buying my affection won’t get you anywhere.”
“Who says I need to?” he smirks.
With a roll of my eyes, I carefully place the strands of hair in the locket, then slip the chain around my neck. “How are we getting to the Undercity?”
“Train.”
I tuck the locket out of sight, and my focus snaps to Serun. “A train? A working train?”
Serun chuckles as he brushes his fingertips against my hair. “You’re going to be in awe of my world, consort.”