Epilogue Lazarus
I fucked up.
We fucked up.
Pulling up to that little no-name street outside the train tracks in pouring rain, I felt my entire world shift. Not because Vex ripped a wall down. Not because Calliope stood toe to toe with Cassandra.
But because of how deeply and truly fucked our world is.
All of this, all of this could be solved easily. All I had to do was tell Calliope who we are, what we are. But I wanted her love first. I put that above all else.
The fight ends as quickly as it began.
No switch that screams it’s over. Just a bitter quiet as Otto’s men slowly fade into the dark of the night. Only Cassandra and Soren remain, their words drowned out by the thunder.
And Vex? Gone.
As I spin in a circle I can’t find him, can’t sense him.
I run my hands through my wet hair, flipping water droplets out only for more to pour over me. Down my face until I drink them down.
“Soren!” My shoulder throbs as I rush toward him, stumbling once then twice. The third time Soren breaks from Cassandra to catch me.
His eyes are red, glowing faintly with that ethereal inhuman glow.
“Vex, we need to find Vex,” I breathe, spinning in a circle. The cordoned-off street is destroyed. Humans will simply dismiss it as destruction from the storm.
“I, I don’t know where he is.” Soren grips my shoulders. “Cassandra is alive.”
I turn to the woman who’s haunted Soren for over two hundred years. Red hair, red lips and cruel eyes. She’s always had cruel eyes. There isn’t anything out of the ordinary about her. Just that her eyes hold that look of someone who would rather see you fail than thrive.
That’s Cassandra.
And I couldn’t care less about the woman. The bride who destroyed my friend.
“Didn’t you hear me?” I gasp, fuck why isn’t my shoulder healing? “Vex is gone.”
I try to roll the sting out of my shoulder, all I feel is blood seeping down soaking into my shirt. I don’t know why it isn’t healing, but that’s a problem for later, not one for right now. I have bigger issues than a wound that won’t heal.
“Feral,” Cassandra states. No emotion, no caring. Nothing.
“What?” Soren’s head snaps to her.
“He’s gone feral. No control,” she repeats. “While you were fighting off Otto, he took out several of our men.”
“How?” Soren shakes his head, not getting it. “How did you pick up on any of that while you were talking to me?”
I do. I get it. She’s a bride.
“Who are you mated to, Cassandra?” That’s the one thing I could never quite confirm. I had my suspicions on the house she fled with. But I could never confirm who mated the bitch.
Those cold eyes look at me. There’s a deadness to them. A bored quality. One I can’t quite place. Only that they’re dead. She’s dead inside. I’d like to say it’s due to what she endured, but she was always like this.
From the moment I first began watching Soren, she was his kryptonite.
“I think you already know that answer, Lazarus Dagon,” she finally answers.
Soren snaps his head to glare at her. “Cassandra.”
“The bond. The bond told her exactly what happened without her moving.” I spit. “Isn’t that right?”
She gives me the faintest of nods. Barely perceptible. But there all the same.
“You should find your fledgling before someone kills him,” she whispers. “Or before he drinks of the unwilling.”
Fear washes through me. I grip Soren attempting to drag him back and away from her. But he just breaks free.
“Why should we believe you?” I don’t bother to hide my ire. I couldn’t even if I tried.
“Believe me or don’t.” She shrugs a delicate shoulder. “Just know my mates confirmed it.” She taps her head. “Bonded bride, remember. I know what they know.”
Soren’s face falls at the mention of her mates. “That’s it?” he questions her. “Did our marriage mean nothing to you?”
“Yes.” She looks him dead in the eyes as she says it. “Goodbye, Soren.” She turns to me. “Lazarus. Good luck with your bride.”
“Calliope.” The need to get to her to explain everything and make sure she is okay overrides everything inside of me.
Only, she isn’t where I left her.
“Where is she?” Soren follows me, finally letting Cassandra go but I’m not foolish enough to think she’s completely out of his head. Not even close.
But Calliope is our concern right now and I don’t see her.
“Can you scent her?” I ask, only catching traces of her that lead away from the street. And down a side street.
“Barely.” He runs across the street. “This way.”
I follow that subtle lavender scent, my stomach twisting because I need to find Vex as much as I need to find Callie. But I can only do one at a time.
And as fucked up as it is, I need to know Calliope is okay before I even bother searching for Vex.
“The cemetery,” Soren whispers. “Her daughter.”
Together we take off. “Lavender.” I follow the trail to a small grave with an angel on it.
Charlotte.
“She wasn’t alone.” Soren settles before the grave inhaling slowly. “I don’t know who that is.”
But it isn’t Calliope that I just scent either. No, there is the faintest odor of another house. My nostrils flare as I struggle to gulp down the scent that’s fading fast.
Spice. Sun. And corruption.
“Drax,” I whisper. “Drax. Drax took her.”
I can’t explain the sensations coursing through me in that moment and I’m not entirely sure I’d want to even if I could. Fear, absolute fear.
But it’s all canceled out as a roar echoes through the city.
“Vex.” Soren stands beside me as we look out at the city we call home.
“Drax has Calliope.” I nearly choke on the words.
“And Vex.” Soren looks to me and in his eyes I know he wants me to give him some kind of hope or direction. But I don’t have an answer. I’ve nothing.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper hoping like hell he does. “Do we go after Vex? Or Calliope.”
“Both,” he answers for me. “We go after both.”