Chapter 49
KELTER
Peace does not exist in a mind merged with Eli’s. Trouble finds him, and suffering follows. I thought after the Vaile attacked he would finally take Ever somewhere safe, but he’s going to risk her life to get to Zandrite for his selfish reasons. I’ve done the same and regret it.
I can keep her safe, Eli says. I feel him looking at her, his longing.
When are you going to stop lying to yourself? And her? You’ve let her get hurt over and over. You can’t even keep her from running away. You’re not the powerful being you think you are with your heightened senses and strength and shit.
She’s making me weak. His words are rough, scraping all the way out his throat despite coming from his mind.
You should hear how pathetic you sound.
Zandrite’s essence can fix me, he says. And probably get you out of my damn head too.
I press the back of my skull into the marble wall of Zandrite’s chamber and clench my jaw, trying to summon patience from a used-up well. She can’t kill him. She’s never been trained to fight. It’s a death sentence.
Do not underestimate her, he seethes.
So she kills Zandrite, and you take his essence to fix yourself. Then what? How are you going to be with her?
I can still keep her.
Dammit, Eli. She doesn’t love you. And can’t.
She doesn’t have to, he snaps.
I tug on my chains in frustration. And that’s fair to her?
Stay with an asshole who won’t admit how he feels and controls her heart so she can never fall in love?
I don’t even get into what’s after that…
her body growing old and his staying young.
Will he still love her then? And what if she wanted a child?
How would that work? Eli dies and her own son takes on the memories they have together?
Silence. But he fails to block his guilt, and it only adds to my own. Because she would never have been in this situation if I hadn’t helped bring her to Sonnet.
I move my hands again to keep them from going numb above my head. Next my legs and feet. I pissed myself over a day ago. The fabric is still damp, my skin stinging.
The only relief I’ve gotten from my cravings is from Eli sating his urges with Ever.
I’m good at blocking him from listening in on my thoughts most of the time, but filtering him out, especially when he’s feral like that—it’s impossible.
It’s a kind of torture no one should have to endure.
I’d rather be desperate for a kill than feel him inside her every few hours.
Because that’s how it’s been. My cravings have been strong, approaching an unquenchable thirst. One release felt through him, and I’m calm for only an hour or so before my cravings spiral out of control again—and into Eli. And on it goes.
In between their intimate sessions that I couldn’t ignore, I listened to Eli tell Milo everything while Ever slept with her head in his lap.
I felt every stroke of his hand through her hair as he shared about the mistake and Zandrite, and even merging with me.
But with Eli, “everything” means the bare minimum.
Milo slapped him on the back. Leave it to you to be doing a demigod. Treat her like one, friend. I’m not going anywhere. And that was it.
Then I passed almost everything I know about Zandrite to Eli, what I’ve seen him do, the layout of his chamber, and helped them plan their attack. Because if he refuses to leave me here, I might as well help him get me out.
Finally, Eli responds to my earlier question. Sort of. It’s fair to her. I make her happy.
You challenge her and make her come. That’s not the same thing.
It’s more than that, he says, letting a wave of his affection for her spill into me when she laughs and shoves his chest. I feel her hand on me, right over my impression.
Don’t bother telling me. She’s the one that needs to hear it. Let her decide if she’s okay with it.
He tries to block his reaction, but his fear still slices through me. More miserable than I’ve ever heard him, his voice barely beyond a feeling in my heart, he says, I can’t. Because I couldn’t handle it if she decided to go. I wouldn’t let her.
Then you don’t love her, I say.
His anger surges through me. You know that’s not true.
I do. Because I feel his love for her every godsdamn minute. It’s the only brightness as I hang here, and it’s not even meant for me.
Zandrite returns to his chamber, greeting me with a blow to the stomach and a rotten breath in my face. Eli and I groan, both feeling the impact.
“You reek,” he says, picking out raw meat from between his teeth.
“I need water.”
“So you can piss yourself again?”
I don’t bother replying.
Zandrite continues past me, reaching up to stroke the purple roots. “Considering who you are, I will let you live once she comes for you.”
He stands beneath the churning roots and opens his mouth wide, head tilted back.
The smallest, most feeble root rubs his cheek with its tip then positions itself over his mouth.
Purple drops splash onto his tongue. The root pulls back, and Zandrite swallows with a smug smile.
“Did you ever wonder how my mortal body has lasted all these years? It’s all her. ”
Her?
He reaches for another root. “This one makes the serum that numbs the Half Links’ pain and torment.
And this thinner one turns them into my pets, tunnel runners.
It takes years to make the change, starting with the growth of claws.
Next, their skin turns gray. They lose the ability to walk on two feet and switch to crawling—better for getting around in the tunnels.
” He points up to a fat root coiled into a knot near the ceiling.
“And that beauty slowly pulverizes the bones of anyone who consumes its serum, which shows the brilliance of Teva. She invented a way to receive her food the way she likes it. And I don’t have to debone the corpses anymore. ”
The crazy bastard thinks the teva plant is a she?
Zandrite takes a long look at the pile of bones before snapping back to the moment.
“And my favorite of them all is this little one.” He gently tugs on the graying, shriveled root that gave him drops, now hanging limp and motionless.
“It takes death and turns it into life. All those bodies I feed her give me extra years. You have a lot to learn, son.”
I strengthen my block on Eli. “I’m not taking over for you.”
“So you figured out why I’ve let you live this long? Yet you deny me the one thing that makes you useful to me? Who’s going to run the Underbroke when I return to the Immortal Realm if I have to kill you?”
“You forgot I’m also your bait.”
“That’s temporary.” He reaches a hand out, letting two roots twine around his wrist. “Once the girl is in my hands, what use are you if you won’t follow in your father’s footsteps?”
“Why would I?”
“Good question. You didn’t even visit me all these years.”
I try not to slam into the wall in exasperation. “I was kicked out of the realm. I didn’t even know where to find you until now.”
“I told your mother to let me raise you down here. I would have made sure all your cravings were satisfied. Of course as the son of the god of love, as my son, you would crave connection. But so deeply that you’d kill for it? I’d expect that from a full god, not a demigod.”
I give up and smack my head back against the marble.
How did life get so messed-up? I thought things would be different once Ever was back in my life every day.
Maybe I’m not in love with her, but I do love her.
And it’s clear we’re meant to be together in some way.
Both sent to Caldera. Both demigods—the only two in existence.
Both stuck with a wicked parent… and both bound to Eli in the worst of ways.
And she’s my link, my forever person.
When our mortal bodies die, we’ll join the gods in the Immortal Realm. We’ll have forever together—unless Eli manages to make it to the Immortal Realm. In which case forever will be much too long.
He may think he knows what he’s doing with her, but he has no idea what he’s up against. My father crafted the curse that ruined him and now threatens Ever.
How sick must one be to curse a baby? And punish love?
As sick as my father. I guess that’s what happens when the first true love is destroyed.
A bitter heart in the form of a god. Then my mother broke his heart again hundreds of thousands of years later.
So he cursed my half-brother to never have a happy ending with love.
And now I pay for it. The damn luck I have.
I feel you bitching but can’t make anything out. What’s going on? Eli asks.
Dick. I’m stewing.
Save it for the walk home.
Home? No such place. That’s another thing Ever and I have in common.
We’re headed your way, Eli says. Is Zandrite in the chamber?
He’s here, I assure him. Fatherly love and all.