Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Hack
Blind rage. It’s all I can feel. Not just from myself but from Sage as well. There’s a maelstrom of pure, blood-boiling fury so strong I can’t seem to turn back into my anthros form. My only saving grace is knowing that if I can feel her anger through our bond, then she’s alive.
“Come back here, you fucking pussies!” My fists are curled around the bars of my cage but no matter how hard I pull and shake, they don’t budge.
There isn’t much a demon can’t break, but for the sake of balance, the Dei of Thirteen had the faeries and nephilim create chains and cuffs, as well as the itherium, to keep us down when we lose our shit.
This is me, losing my shit.
It doesn’t matter that these bars are demon-locked and the entire fucking cage is sprayed in itherium to keep me at my weakest, I won’t rest until I get the fuck out of here.
Even in my demon form—pumpkin head and all—I’m having a hard time, not to mention my vines feel spellbound inside me.
To top it all off, I can’t communicate with my brothers, which is the ultimate proof that everything here has been set up.
It’s a fucking trap. A demon sized one, at that. Which tells me I’m not their end game, I’m their bait.
And because the Moirai apparently have something against us, it doesn’t take a fucking genius to put two and two together and get the sum total of Sage. She’s the target, I can feel it in my bones.
These motherfuckers didn’t do their math right. They may think I’m her protector but Sage can protect and fight for herself. I just don’t like that she has to.
“Who you calling a pussy, you sulfur smelling underdog?” I look up to see the equivalent of a zit-faced teenage wannabe badass, all deep-red skin with hair the color of a blood orange.
I lost my ability to reel myself in just about the second I was ripped away from Sage and this piece of shit is insulting me?
“You think you’re tough? How about you come in here and I use your face as a stress ball?
” The kid looks around like he needs guidance but I just keep on goading him.
“What’s the matter? Are you afraid of a dirty demon?
I mean, this whole place reeks of itherium, how hard can it be to hurt me?
Shut me up?” I press my head against the bars and snarl.
“I’m not allowed to talk to you, demon.” I must admit, he tries hard to sound tough but I’m having a difficult time taking him seriously.
“So maybe you should have shut your fucking mouth earlier. Too late now, though. Tell me who’s running this shitshow.” I’m not yelling, but fuck him if he thinks I’m going to be civil.
He shrugs like answering isn’t a big deal.
“A whole bunch of different kyn.”
Well, that tells me exactly nothing.
No matter how hard I try to destroy this prison door, the only thing I’m getting out of it is pain. My palms, my arms, my head, and because I’m once again separated from my chosen, my heart. They’re all in unshakeable pain.
“Fuck, I can’t wait to see you and every fucker here disappear into the nether when your Dei finds out you’ve imprisoned one of the horsemen. Fucking idiots.” I give another tug with every ounce of force I’ve got in my body, which isn’t much thanks to the amount of itherium around here.
The young djinn takes a step back, looking left then right before staring right back at me.
“My master scares me more than my Dei.” He whispers this, and I can see the fear on every feature of his face, from the round eyes and tight lips, to the way he keeps looking around like the shadows are about to eat him alive.
“Who’s your master, kid?” I try a more soothing approach. He’s scared enough as it is, maybe a little trust can go a long way.
“I am.” We both turn our heads toward the sound of an old, grainy voice that I will never forget just as she walks out of the shadows like a fucking stage magician, puff of black smoke and all.
Baba fucking Yaga.
“And he’s right, Dei Rafi is a self-absorbed cretin. He won’t do anything to me. Besides, I’m too powerful for the likes of him.”
“Well, well, well, look what the cunt dragged in.” I’m not normally this crude when faced with my elders but this witch lost every ounce of respect I could have had for her when she tried to hurt my chosen.
It’s one thing to hate me because I’m a demon, it’s a whole different story to actively try to kill us both when I came to get her back in Alaska all those months ago. Fuck this witch.
“Careful, demon. I could slice off your head with mere whispered words.” Baba Yaga’s threat is real, I know this, but if she wanted me dead, I would be already. The grand prize is Sage, here, I’m sure, but why?
After Baba Yaga’s disappearance, a lot of fucking time passed, not to mention I searched the Earth and beyond for her so I could get some answers and came up empty-handed.
The slow pace of the witch’s walk is only made possible by her cane. It’s insane how, in just the last few months, she’s aged thousands of years.
“Then kill me. Do it. Right now.” My demon form finally turns back to anthros and I realize it’s because with my death, the risk of Sage coming here into this trap, disappears.
Her soul is too pure. She’ll want to forgive her birth mother.
Well, one of two, which is really fucking weird to say but here we are.
“Demons…you’re all so dramatic.” She pauses then shushes the djinn away with a flick of her wrist, the one not holding her cane.
“You do realize I don’t mean any harm to my precious Aiyana?
” I don’t respond to her question. Instead, I cross my arms over my chest and try to the put the pieces of this fucked up puzzle together.
“Could’ve fooled me.” Cocking my head to the side, I don’t dare take my eyes off her as she sits where the young djinn had been only minutes ago, on the chair facing my cage.
With an oomph, she rests her tired bones and places both hands on her cane propped between her legs.
“It’s not that hard, you know? Fooling a demon such as yourself. You’re so consumed by your love and your…” She waves a hand around as though trying to fend off a pesky fly. “Feelings.”
“Right. What would you know about feelings? You’d need a heart for that.”
This time she rolls her eyes. Fucking cunt.
“Again with the dramatics.” Taking in a deep breath, Baba Yaga looks to the stone ceiling before fixing me with her deadly stare.
“Aiyana was like my child. She was my child, if I’m honest, but her power is too great, too pure.
Her mere existence tips the scales of balance in our world.
I did our kyn, and your kyn, a favor. Trust me. ”
I wouldn’t trust her if it meant losing my life for it.
Shaking my head with disgust, the sudden urge to spit in her face is overwhelming, but I refuse to give her the satisfaction. Instead, I begin to pace up and down the small space, my mind whirring, trying desperately to understand her end game here.
Wait…“did”? She just said, she did our kyn a favor.
“But Sage has transitioned, she’s celebrated her thirtieth, she’s whole.” I don’t understand why Baba Yaga is here, why she would risk the wrath of Hekate to come back for nothing. “What did you mean by ‘you did our kyn a favor’?”
I didn’t just imagine it.
“Mistress, we have word.” A harpy walks in, all long legs and knobby knees with teeth so sharp I wonder how the fuck they can even speak. “We’ve lost all communication with the demi-godde—”
“Stop calling her that!” Baba Yaga roars out her disapproval, the stone walls shaking and crumbling under the power of her ire. “She’s a witch, through and through.”
This makes me chuckle—with no humor whatsoever—and I can’t find it in me to hold it back, even though the mention of my chosen has me in a chokehold.
“What are you laughing at, demon?”
“You. Your pathetic attempts at retaining some sense of power. You have none, Baba Yaga. Did you think Sage would just show up here and what? Trade her life in for mine? Don’t be ridiculous.
She will kill you.” Shaking my head, I curl my fingers around the cage and grin like the evil motherfucker I’m capable of being.
“I would run far and fast, if I were you, because when Samhain finds out about this, he’ll lose his shit.
If you’re lucky, he may only banish you.
Sage, on the other hand, won’t be so kind.
She’ll make it painful.” I let out a humorless laugh and wait for her to truly understand what I’m saying.
“Sage has surpassed you in all the ways. You won’t survive her wrath. ”
Am I turned on by the promise of Sage razing the worlds to destroy the woman who made her suffer in every one of her lives? Yes, I most certainly am.
“Nonsense.” Baby Yaga waves off my threats, but I saw the brief pause. The infinitesimal moment where she doubted herself.
Good. Hope she remembers this chat when Sage rips her a new one.
“What shall we do about the broken comsphere?” The harpy ignores me as she tries to retrieve Baba Yaga’s attention.
It would seem Sage made it impossible for them to communicate with her.
It’s smart, but I have a feeling it was involuntary.
Unless one of my brothers told her to destroy their communication ball.
“Send Vermyx. He’ll blend in quite nicely.” She dismisses the harpy in much the same way she did the djinn, then brings her attention back to me.
“You do realize that once Aiyana—”
“Her name is Sage. Aiyana died two thousand years ago and you did nothing to stop it.” I cut her off because hearing Sage’s name from her first life coming out of her mouth is making me lose my shit.
But does she listen?
“Arrives, I’ll have no use for you. In fact, I’ll quite enjoy destroying one of the Horsemen.” She can’t kill me. Dei Samhain would find her and, by law of the thirteen, he would be justified in killing her. But she can destroy me. It would be easy and she knows it.
“Is that a threat on Sage’s life?” I speak through clenched teeth, my jaw so tight I’m sure my tendons are getting an unhealthy workout.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I need Aiyana.” I’m going to fucking kill this bitch. “The prophecy calls upon more than just her.”
“I keep hearing about this so-called prophecy. What’s the link with Sage?” I refuse to call her by the name she hasn’t gone by in millennia. Today, Sage is so much more. She’s the culmination of all her past lives and calling her Aiyana feels disrespectful to her growth as a kyn.
“You don’t deserve to know. Demons aren’t privy to the matters of witchcraft and spells.” With great effort, she rises back up to standing and I swear I can hear all her bones cracking as she does.
With a push off the bars, I stalk away—which isn’t far, considering the cell is fucking tiny—when it dawns on me. The question that’s been killing me all of this time. In the lapse of a breath, I’m back to the bars, my voice low and my fury barely in check.
“I looked for you when Sage died. I scoured the Earth, The Shade, and even got special permission to search you out in Lympana. Where have you been?”
Baba Yaga smiles, teeth rotten, skin pale and painted in deep lines that betray her true age.
“Watching. Waiting.” She leans in close, not an ounce of fear in her almost translucent pupils. “Planning.”
I want to fucking kill her. With my bare hands.
“Oh, I was also asked to officiate, and I quote, ‘a fairytale wedding’ in Velegozda—you know, at the southern edge of Slovenia.” She chuckles as though she’s reliving the scene. “The bride was none too happy that I cursed her first-born child, but be careful what you wish for and all that.”
She’s sick.
“You mean the same way you hexed Sage so she wouldn’t fall in love with me?” I grit out, hatred dripping from every word.
“I see.” Cocking her head to the side, she grins like she not only ate the canary but got some feathers stuck between her teeth.
The worst thing I can do is engage in more conversation, but herein lies the problem. Baba Yaga has the answers to most of Sage’s questions and this opportunity seems crucial. Nevermind that hearing her voice makes me want to rip her into pieces.
“What do you see?” My question is slow, each word a separate threat.
“You still don’t know. Has no one figured out the real curse?”
My hand juts out between the bars but is slammed into an invisible force that protects anyone on the outside of the cell.
“Tell me,” I say, then roar out my frustration. “Now!”
“Yes, Baba. I’d be curious to know as well.”
Baba Yaga and I both freeze as the new voice, familiar and faery-like with its vibrancy, interrupts the heated moment.
Baba Yaga looks around, just as baffled as I am as she stares into the distance. I look over but cannot see a damn thing.
“Who is it? What’s happening.” I’m back to shaking the bars, pulling with all the might I still possess.
“How…” Baba Yaga asks, shaking her head as though she can erase whatever image is in front of her.
“No matter. Please, continue with your story time,” the voice in the distance encourages Baba Yaga, but before she can even speak, it dawns on me…
“Trina? Is that you?”