CHAPTER FORTY-TWO #2
“Dropped us down the block and took off,” Seth panted. “We thought it best for them to lay low after that disaster.”
“What do you mean? What happened?” Sera asked.
Seth shook his head. “I wish I knew. Everything was perfect, but when we finished the rite to release our powers and free Ananke … nothing happened. She didn’t move, and our powers were still locked down tight. It was like we hadn’t done anything at all.”
His dark eyes darted across the room, taking in the blood and bandages that still littered the floor. He went still when he caught sight of Cadi sitting on the couch.
“What happened here?” he asked, his voice strained.
Sera folded her arms across her middle, stepping in closer to Seth and turning her back to the room.
“He took her,” she said. Her voice was low, but the words still carried through the space, scraping against Cadi’s heart like razor blades.
Seth’s mouth hung open. “But—the wards, the sigil, how did—”
“Someone lured her there with a text. From my phone,” Elias said, his fingers flexing against Cadi’s shoulder before he stood to join them. Her throat closed, and she squeezed her eyes shut as silent tears continued to slip free. It hadn’t been Elias. It had all been a trick. And it had worked.
“How did he get her blood for the binding?” Kai asked once he had finally recovered from his sprint.
“Damon,” Elias said, running a hand through his hair. “Oneirios must have planted him.”
Cadi shivered at the reminder of Damon looming over her, grabbing her, dragging the blade across her skin. It slithered through her mind like a parasite. He’d been waiting for her. Waiting because a text from Elias’s phone would be the perfect way to draw her out.
She froze.
Elias’s phone. Someone close to Oneirios had to have had access to Elias’s phone in order to send that text. But Elias had been at the hangar—
Her blood ran cold as she replayed every second from the moment Elias found her broken in the chair until now. Every word, every sob against his chest. She hadn’t said Damon’s name.
Not once.
“How did you know that?” she whispered.
The clamor died instantly as every set of eyes in the room turned to look at her. Elias lowered himself back down onto the couch.
“What’s that, love?” he asked, brushing her hair back with a gentle touch.
“About Damon. I never told you that.”
Elias went still, his hand still hovering against her shoulder. The muscles in his jaw tensed, and a pained expression twisted his features.
The air in the room grew thick as an eerie silence descended over them. Cadi looked to the gods, her mouth going dry at their somber expressions. None of them would meet her gaze. Elias’s fingers wrapped around hers, pulling her attention back to find him studying her with a look of deep sadness.
“I wanted to tell you,” he said, his voice trembling, “since the day we met, but I—Oneirios he—love, I couldn’t. I can’t.”
Cadi shook her head, her brows stitched together as she struggled to make sense of what he was trying to tell her. “What? I don’t—”
Her gaze snagged on the skin beside his eye. Skin that now boasted the barest hint of purple, growing deeper by the minute.
A bruise, left by the hand of an angry god.
Her lungs seized.
“You?”
Elias lowered his gaze to where his hand held hers, then his head dipped in a slow nod.
Cadi tugged her hand away. She didn’t want him touching her, not now, not when every inch of her skin felt like it was on fire.
Her pulse pounded in her ears, smothering every other sound as she shot to her feet and crossed to the other side of the room.
“How could you not tell me this?” she asked, the crack in her voice betraying the pain she was desperately trying to hide.
She pressed her palm against her sternum, against the pain growing in her chest. After everything, how was it possible that she had still been left in the dark?
And not about just anything—about who he was.
The high priest.
His pained eyes met hers, their wet edges glistening in the low light as his mouth opened to speak, though no words followed. It was like no matter how hard he tried, how much he wanted to, something was stopping him from speaking.
“A divine gag order,” Seth muttered, drawing Cadi’s attention. She looked at him, her expression blank as she waited for him to elaborate.
“Despite his bravado, our brother has always been terrified of being upstaged,” he continued.
“He wove perpetual anonymity into Elias’s binding, which prevented him from telling anyone who he truly was.
That is, unless they already knew. A rather handy loophole that Sera discovered when she tracked him down. ”
Cadi’s head snapped to where Sera still stood by the door.
“You knew?” she asked, her eyes beginning to burn as they flicked between the three gods in front of her. “You all knew, and none of you said anything?”
“Don’t be mad at them, love,” Elias said as he moved to stand beside her, letting his fingers cautiously graze the back of her arm. “I made them promise they wouldn’t.”
Cadi found it hard to believe that Elias could make a deity do anything, but his confession only deepened her hurt. She shrugged away from his touch and took a step back. “What?”
“I couldn’t stand the thought of you hearing it from anyone but me. Tonight was supposed to—Sera was going to sever my binding, and I was going to tell you everything. Please.”
The pleading look in his eyes formed a tiny fissure in her temper, and this time when he reached for her hand, she didn’t pull away.
Her fingers brushed against his palm, against the fresh bandage surrounded by dozens of tiny scars she had always attributed to life as a bartender. Never once had she thought—
It wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. But she couldn’t hold on to it right now. She needed him more than she needed her anger.
Everything she thought she knew about the high priest had just been turned on its head. This was Elias, he owned a bar, he wore old band t-shirts. How could he be the high priest? It didn’t make any sense.
Cadi gasped when a firm tug danced in her chest and her hand flew up to press against Oneirios’s bond.
But this wasn’t his bond. It wasn’t violent or repellant, just …
urgent. Like a forceful tap on the shoulder, vying for her attention, and she realized it was the tiny flutter that had been with her for months, flaring stronger than she had ever felt it.
Fighting.
Her eyes lifted to Elias, and she saw the tortured lines of his face soften as he studied the place where her hand rested. The flutter tugged again, as if trying to lead her toward something, toward him. A soft breath rushed past her lips, and she realized—
Since the first moment it had stirred to life, startling her in The Crow.
Every insistent tug.
Every tiny stir.
It had always been because of him.
He stepped closer to place his hand over hers, lowering his head in a tiny nod of confirmation. “That’s us, love. Always has been.”
Her fingers curled around his, and she let her eyes drift closed when a new sensation filled her chest. The flutter of their bond shifted as it settled deep inside of her, locking into the place it was always fated to be. It had just been waiting for her to let it in.
“As touching as this is,” Kai cut in to yank her back. “We still have a big fucking problem.”
Sera sighed and stepped forward to rest her hand against his shoulder. “Come on, Kai, give them—”
“No,” Elias snapped with an unexpected hardness in his voice. “He’s right. The sooner we figure out what you missed, the sooner we get Cadi out of this.”
Sera bristled as the edge of Elias’s words hit their mark. Kai stepped forward with a seething expression until Sera held out her hand. She looked at him and gave her head a sharp shake before squaring her shoulders and turning back to Elias.
For a moment, Cadi didn’t see Sera, she saw Hecate. Divine authority emanated through every line of her face, but it still wasn’t enough to hide the flash of pain that shadowed her eyes.
Cadi rested her hand against Elias’s arm to guide him back to the couch. She knew he was angry and scared, she was too, but the last thing they needed was for him to start a brawl with the only allies they had in this fight.
With her gaze still fixed on Elias, Sera angled her head toward Kai and Seth. “Tell me everything.”