Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Kallie
Apparently, this part of the realm doesn’t regulate temperature very well. One second, my clothes cling to my sweltering flesh, like it’s trying to mold to me. The next, I’m pulling them tighter around my body, hoping their warmth will fight off the cold front.
“What’s with the weather?” I ask, teeth chattering.
“Part of the appeal. A lifetime of discomfort,” she snips.
I take in a sharp inhale between my teeth. “Okay, so clearly we still have things to work through.”
Odeyssa scoffs, shaking her head like I’m the one with all the audacity. “I guess that’s one way for you to put calling my dad a kidnapping mastermind.”
“I never said he was a mastermind,” I clarify. But all that does is piss her off more.
“You can’t just start throwing around accusations, Kallie—especially about the king.”
“A king,” I correct. “He’s not the only one.”
“The only one that matters,” she fires back.
Stopping mid-stride, my arms cross over my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She lets out a humorless laugh. “The king of Astralis hasn’t done anything for this realm in a long time, not since his wife and daughter died in a fire.” She pauses, taking a moment for the deceased. “Which is tragic, but he still has a kingdom to run, decisions to make.”
“What kinds of decisions?”
“Aside from the obvious day-to-day? He needs an heir.” And that heir is standing right here. But I don’t say that out loud, instead keeping it confined to my own thoughts and Voraxis’s, as his own filter in and out.
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Chaos,” she says bluntly. “Surrounding kingdoms would attack, and no matter who gets it, there would always be an imbalance of power.”
This would be the perfect time to speak up, tell her there’s nothing to worry about because…well, I’m his heir. But I don’t know the first thing about running a kingdom. All that responsibility resting on me would be too much. I don’t want it. “Seems bad.”
“Bad?” her voice raises. “Try disaster. Completely unimaginable. Feuds, war, neighbors turning on each other, and so much bloodshed the entire realm would be covered in red.”
“Why does it have to be that way?” My question seems to puzzle her, but as she ponders how to answer, another voice fills the empty space.
“Look what we have here.” It slithers over me like tendrils of unease, cynical and taunting, chilling me to the bone and shattering whatever resolve I’ve been able to repair. All the parts of my life he infiltrated so long ago.
Hesitantly, I turn, knowing the person standing behind me has the face of someone I haven’t thought about in ages.
“Miss me, Angel?” The nickname slices through my armor, rendering me speechless and exposed.
My eyes stay glued to his lax form, unable to move, speak, think as his grin lazily pulls at his lips.
“Uh, Kallie, who is this?” Odeyssa questions warily.
“I—” My answer leaves on a stammer, and the knowing look he points my way as he tilts his head in my direction has my voice disappearing.
Rolling her eyes, Odeyssa asks him directly. “Who are you?”
His laugh causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end, the sinister undertones of whatever he’s about to imply.
“Maybe you would recognize me like this.” He rolls his shoulders back, shaking his head vigorously side to side, then suddenly, all his features start to shift, twisting and contorting until it’s no longer Ryan standing in front of me.
“Stephan?” Odeyssa whispers, confusion pulling at her features.
His shaggy blond hair and deep blue eyes tug at a memory that doesn’t wish to surface, like I’m pulling on a rope that’s stuck beneath a boulder.
It doesn’t matter how hard I try; there’s no give, but it stays as a persistent itch I can’t scratch.
He slaps the area on his chest where his heart should be.
“I’m wounded. You don’t remember me? How could you forget a handsome face like this one?
” The most terrifying part is, he’s not wrong.
If there has been a time our paths crossed, I might’ve done a double-take.
“Unless…” he drags out, “he wiped your memory. Callum was always a sneaky bastard.” If he didn’t have my attention before, he does now.
“You know Callum?”
“We all kind of go way back,” Odeyssa answers for Ryan. Or Stephan. Whatever he’s going by these days. “Where have you been? We all thought you were taken. Like the others.”
“Sweet, innocent Odeyssa. There’s so much you don’t know. Lucky for you, I’m in the mood to chat.”
Do you see it? Voraxis startles me.
See what?
Look closer at his appearance. It’s an illusion, making you see what he wants you to see. The perfect manipulator. Staring at him, I try to break it, pull back the curtain, and see what his true face is.
It’s subtle as my eyes strain against the magic, like I have to peel away each strand to get to the next. It happens slowly. The subtle mannerisms, the tick of his head, the swift change in his body language, the quirk of his lips, giving the slightest hint of a dimple.
Focusing on the little things, the facade begins to crack until the illusion shatters altogether. I stumble backward, unbelieving of the face he was born to wear. Flames immediately erupt over my arms. “It’s been you this whole time?” my voice booms.
He looks at me inquisitively. “Huh, can’t say that’s happened before.”
“What’s going on?” Odeyssa questions.
“Callum. It’s fucking Callum!” As the accusation hits his ears, all the magic slips away, and Odeyssa lets out an audible gasp.
The guy standing in front of me is the one I poured my heart to, gave my soul to as long as he gave me his in return.
The one who saved me and turned around and shoved the sword so deep into my chest he took my once beating heart as a souvenir.
“Callum,” she breathes.
“Close. But not quite.” His body glimmers, like he’s stepping into another skin, twisting and turning as if he’s a puzzle trying to make the pieces fit.
“My name is Stephan, and Callum is my twin.” My mind can’t comprehend what he’s saying.
Callum never mentioned having a brother, let alone a twin.
Neither did Donni or Benny. And to think that it was him wearing different faces, fooling not only me but—judging from the look on Odeyssa’s face—everyone.
“That’s not possible,” Odeyssa comments on an exhale.
“Oh, it is. Truthfully, I’ve been itching to be myself again. And let’s be honest, I’m definitely the better looking one.” Noise. That’s all the words are. Just a bunch of indistinct sound waves attempting to penetrate the white noise buzzing in my ears.
“Donni and Benny never mentioned—” Her comment is interrupted by the full-belly laugh bursting from Stephan.
“Benny?” he says like it’s a joke. “You think that round, low-grade fae is our father?”
Odeyssa and I give each other a sideways glance.
“Yes?” we say in unison. Once he collects himself and wipes the nonexistent tears from his eyes.
“Oh, that’s rich. Now I’m about to enlighten the both of you on how genetics work.
” Looking back, it doesn’t make much sense.
Callum and Benny don’t look alike, not in the slightest. Where Callum is all dark, broody, and…
an asshole, Benny is sunshine, lighting up every room he walks into, full of warm hugs and a comforting aura that makes you want to be around him.
But I was never told any different, and sometimes the apple does, in fact, fall far from the tree.
“If Benny isn’t your father, who is?”
“Odeyssa, sweetheart, you might want to take a seat.” She doesn’t. Instead, her feet stay glued to the ground, absorbing every word he hand-feeds her.
“It’s nice to finally meet you…sis.”
Her eyes go wide. “Not possible.”
“Oh, but it is. Marcel is my father—Callum’s father.” My attention fully pulls to Odeyssa. She is unmoving at first, then quickly her world crumbles in her eyes, twisting and turning in a whirlpool of questions and doubt.
But I don’t buy it. He’s never told the truth a day in his life. Why start now?
“You’re lying,” I state, feeding the flames laying straight on my skin.
“Why would I do that?” His head cants, staring at me like he can see right through to my soul, dissecting me in a way that has me left open and exposed.
Raw and unfiltered, like all the deepest, emptiest parts of me are on full display for his amusement.
“It’s not like I have to lie now, Angel,” he continues, and bile rises, coating my mouth in acid.
“You’re coming with me. And as for you”—he gives a pointed look to Odeyssa—“you’re a loose end.
This meeting was always supposed to be short-lived. ”
His features contort into one of a predator, darkening eyes and a devilish grin, one that matches the same look I’ve been given from the same face.
It’s nauseating. My mind can’t compartmentalize the differences, and it’s concerning.
It has me curious if there have been times I thought it was Callum, but all along it was Stephan.
I’ll never know. A nearby branch extends out by his silent command, slashing across Odeyssa’s cheek with a sickening smack.
Immediately, blood lines the scrape, and her mouth drops open in shock.
He dodges the first fireball, but the second hits its mark against his right shoulder.
A line of fire blazes at my feet, coaxing its way toward him.
“I just burned a pack of Demicrogens to a crisp. You’re nothing.
” He wails at the first contact, inching backward, but the wind I create picks up at a rapid pace and sways the flames side to side until it separates into two, circling him until he’s encased in my orange hue.