Unmade (Unborn Book 4)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  “I called you here because I wanted to remind you of who and what I am.”

  “I am profoundly aware of both. I did not require this charade to make that point clear.”

  “I think you did,” he said, leaning forward. “I think you’ve forgotten a lot over the course of the past few weeks—since you arrived in Detroit.”

  “Perhaps we could have this conversation when your cock is not crammed down this woman’s throat.” My anger slipped into my tone, and his smile widened.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked, flopping back against the cushions. “It hurts knowing that you aren’t the only one.”

  “What exactly are you talking about—”

  “It hurts when you learn the truth.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm my anger, but the blaring music and pounding bass thundered in my skull. Pressure and pain grew alongside my rage, and I feared that there would be no stopping its escape. That, at any moment, lightning or fire would shoot forth from me and eliminate Oz and the girl.

  “I came here to learn the outcome of your meeting with Raze. I do not have time for this,” I said, turning to leave. My restraint was slipping away with every passing moment. There was little time to waste.

  I was halfway to the stairs when Oz’s words stopped me cold.

  “Guess you’re just not that entertaining anymore, Khara…”

  Something niggled at the back of my mind, and I turned slowly to face him. “What did you say?” I asked as I processed his exact words.

  “I said you’re just not that entertaining anymore.”

  “After that,” I pressed, taking a step closer. “What did you call me?”

  He looked at me as though I had taken leave of my senses. “Your name, you fool. Khara.”

  The word fell from his tongue, and I could feel the wrongness of it. The lie.

  It was my turn to smile. “Oz would never have used my real name if he wanted to get under my skin. He only uses it when circumstances are dire—or he is trying to fuck me—which can only mean one thing…”

  Phobos.

  I closed my eyes and focused on the pressure and pain, pushing past both until I felt it—a small tether to another. I followed that connection until it came to an end. Then I ripped it free.

  I gasped and stumbled back a step, as though I had been tugging on a physical rope that had broken. Reality, as it truly was, came into view, and I quickly took stock. The club was full, as it had appeared, but I could not see a sofa on the balcony. Bodies blocked my view entirely—and Oz was not among them. He was nowhere to be seen.

  I could feel the pulse of fear on every beat of music that echoed around me.

  Phobos was near.

  Then, in a sea of black leather, I saw a flash of pale white making its way toward me. A wave of fear crashed over me, rooting me in place, and I wondered how I would escape. My mind was too clouded to think clearly. I could barely breathe.

  His silhouette flickered behind passing bodies, making his approach even more surreal and frightening, and I closed my eyes to block it out.

  “You must flee,” I whispered to myself, voice shaking.

  When I opened them, Phobos was nowhere to be seen.

  “Khara…” His voice came from behind me, only inches from my ear. “It is time…”

  “No,” I said.

  Then I focused every ounce of energy I possessed, survival driving my actions, and channeled Trey’s ability. I disappeared into an alley just outside the club and bent over as my breath raked through my throat. Transporting was so much more difficult than any of the abilities I had absorbed from others, but I had done enough to escape. I heard Phobos’ frustrated scream echo in my mind as I took to the sky.

  I had fallen for his tricks too many times now. I could not afford to do so again.

  Oz and the Dragon were waiting when I arrived. Their expressions were grim.

  “What has happened?” I asked as I closed the magical doorway.

  “What’s happened?” Oz repeated. The anger in his tone was thick and plain, as was his incredulity. “Where’s your phone, new girl?” I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to him. “Great. Now, try checking your messages.”

  Knowing better than to argue, I did as he bade me. The text telling me to meet him at the Tenth Circle was no longer there. In its place was one that said to get back to the sewer ASAP—that something had happened.

  “Was I not clear enough, or—”

  “The fear god changed it,” I said, heading toward him. “This is not the message I received earlier.”

  “How is that possible?” the Dragon asked, concern etching his brow.

  “Because he managed to alter my reality yet again without my knowledge,” I replied, staring at Oz. “The message I read told me to meet you at the Tenth Circle.”

  “So you went there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you didn’t see me, you what? Decided to hang out and have a fucking drink?”

  My teeth clenched as I took a deep breath to calm myself. It proved ineffective.

  “But you were there, Oz. You were sprawled out on the sofa on the balcony with a woman’s face attached to your groin. You looked smug and haughty and pleased with your antics. In short, you looked exactly as you did the night I met you.”

  “So you’re telling me that you thought I sent you a message so you could come watch some chick suck my dick, and you believed it was me?”

  “It was rather convincing at the time.”

  “Clearly.” Anger filled his brown eyes, and I felt a pang of guilt in my stomach. Perhaps I should have seen through the lie sooner; should have realized that Oz, flawed though he was, would not have been so flagrant with his sexual exploits in front of me—or have had any exploits at all, aside from me. Not after all we had been through. “What did I say?”

  “You said you wanted to remind me of who and what you were,” I said, squaring my shoulders against his hostility. “Then you asked me if it hurt knowing that I was not the only one.” His anger waned for a moment, the harsh set of his eyes softening ever so slightly. “Then you said, ‘I guess you’re just not that entertaining anymore, Khara’, and I knew it was not you.”

  “Well, I’m glad he fucked that up, or who knows where you’d be right now.”

  “He was there,” I said. Both Oz and the Dragon went painfully rigid. “I caught glimpses of him through the mass of bodies.” I went quiet for a moment, thinking of the fear I had felt—how it had paralyzed me. “He told me it was time, and he nearly touched me before I harnessed Trey’s ability and escaped.”

  “Jesus…”

  “I am fine, and I am sorry that I did not see through the lie sooner. It just—” I cut myself off when I realized that I did not understand how to explain what I had felt—that rage had blinded me from reason at the sight of him on that couch being serviced by another, as though I meant nothing. That I had felt forsaken—cast aside.

  “Felt real?” the Dragon said on my behalf. I nodded. “Jealousy, Khara. That is why you did not see the truth.”

  I kept my focus on him, avoiding Oz’s gaze altogether. “So what has happened? What did you learn?”

  I dared a glance at Oz and found him staring at me intently. For the first time, I wanted to shrink under the weight of it.

  “Sidebar in the bedroom, new girl. Now.”

  He grabbed my arm and led the way toward our shared room, as though I had forgotten where it was. Once the door was shut, he turned to face me.

  “Is someone hurt?” I asked. “Where are my brothers?”

  “They’re fine.” Though they may have been, his furrowed brow told me something else was not. Or someone else. “It’s your mother—”

  “What about her?” I stepped toward him, mere inches separating our bodies, but I could not have felt more distant from him; a result of my encounter with Phobos and his illusion, no doubt.

  “I spoke to Raze—told him about the news
from Hermes. He said your mother had been acting strangely before she went to find you. ‘Erratic’ was the exact term he used.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean? She had learned of her children and wanted to find them. She was likely overcome with emotion—”

  He shook his head again. “No. Not overcome with emotion. Overcome with something else entirely.”

  “You speak in riddles,” I said, storming away in frustration. “Say what you must. You have tortured me enough already this evening. I wish for it to end.”

  “I,” he started, spinning me around to face him, “didn’t do a fucking thing. Pho—the prick we don’t mention did. Try to remember that. And as for your mother, forgive me for not wanting to blurt out that I think the soul used to replace the one stolen from her when she went Dark might be taking over her body. So I’m sorry that I thought tact might be in order to deliver that one. I’ll be sure to spare that next time.”

  I stared at him in the scant firelight of the room, the warm glow casting harsh shadows on his face. He looked angry and cruel and everything a Dark One should be, but his words had betrayed him. Although they had been spoken in anger, they were not. He had been trying to protect me from the truth, and I had not let him, shame driving my temper.

  “I should have seen through the fear god’s tricks sooner,” I said softly. “I was too quick to believe it, and for that, I am sorry.”

  Oz let out a sharp exhale. “You don’t need to be sorry, Khara.”

  “Khara?” I asked, quirking my brow at him. “Is this another lie he wishes me to see? One in which you forgive me all too easily, without punishment of any kind?”

  “Would you prefer I punish you?”

  “It seems fitting, knowing you, does it not?”

  His expression matched mine. “Maybe you should give me a blowjob.”

  “That would not be punishment…”

  His eyes went wide, then narrowed like a predator’s as I began to kneel before him. My hands grabbed his belt and deftly unfastened it as I made my way to the floor. But before my knees contacted the concrete, Oz’s hands stopped me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Did you not just say that this was what you wanted?”

  “Khara—”

  “Then I suggest you shut your mouth and hold onto something.”

  “Khara,” he said again, trying to put that same strange emphasis on my name as he had when I had been Unborn and he had been fallen. “While I appreciate the gesture, I was just being a dick. You don’t have to do this.” I pulled free of his grip and continued down, but once again he caught my arms. This time, he hauled me to my feet to stare at me intently. “Let me make something clear, since subtlety doesn’t seem to be working. You, Khara, kneel for no one.”

  “I kneel for whomever I choose,” I said, staring right back. “I do not do it because of subjugation or obligation. I will kneel before you now because I can—because I am free to decide the course of my life for however long I possess it.”

  I unbuttoned his pants and pushed the zipper down as his conflicting emotions played out in his expression.

  “Your life will be yours as long as I’m alive.”

  “I know,” I said, hooking my hands underneath his leather waistband. “I know this because I am the burning building you will always run into…” A slight smile tugged at his lips as I leaned in closer “I say that because I do not know how else to illustrate what we are—the bond we share. There is no word in this language or any other I know that adequately defines our relationship. Love is insufficient. Love is what I feel for my brothers—my family—and though it is deep and moving and motivating, it is not what I feel for you. No word could ever sum up the totality of your actions and sacrifices carried out in my name—or mine in yours. We are, by very definition, definition-less, I fear.”

  That smile widened to a grin. “But you fear nothing, new girl, remember?”

  I met his heavy gaze, the tension between us thick and pulsating and an energy unto its own.

  “Perhaps I do now.” I reached into his pants and took hold of him as he sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I fear you might not survive what I am about to do to you.” Before he could move, I knelt down before him and pressed my lips against that which I would soon taste. “Hold on tight...”

  Without further hesitation, I took him in my mouth, and the groan that escaped his lips echoed through the room.

  “You have been busy,” a voice called to me from the darkness of my mind.

  “As have you,” I replied. “I especially enjoyed how you tricked me into delivering myself into your hands—or nearly so.”

  “That was fun. Too bad you saw through the lie before I could reach you.”

  “Only because you made a fatal error in your execution.”

  “What a pity…and what was that fatal error?” he asked as his voice circled the perimeter of my mind. “So that I do not make it again.”

  “Trying to use Oz against me. I know him too well, a curse of his constant presence in my life.”

  Phobos grew silent, and I took that moment to search my mind for the tether Aery had reported feeling. It took intense focus, but I finally sensed a tension from above, as though there were a cord extending out of the crown of my head. I reached for it, but it shifted before my mental hands could wrap around it.

  “What exactly is the Dark One to you?” he asked, a note of bitterness in his tone that gave me pause. My time in the Underworld had taught me that caution would be warranted when answering his question. If not, I feared what the consequences would be.

  “He is my unwilling guardian of sorts.”

  “You need no guardian.”

  “On that we agree, but he made a promise to someone, and even in his Darkness, he will not turn back on his word.”

  “Then why do you not kill him and be done?” he asked, a knowing note in his tone. He was testing me—pushing to find my weakness where Oz was concerned.

  I would give nothing away.

  “Because he has proven useful in some situations—a wildcard of sorts against particular enemies.”

  “You mean his own kind.”

  Silence. “Them and others.”

  “I have seen some of your memories of him.” The air of indifference in his tone belied his true feelings. Anger bubbled beneath the surface of his placid voice.

  “Have you?”

  “I do not like the way he looks at you.”

  “Nor do I, at times. What is your point?”

  The circling of his voice around me ceased, and I scrambled to reach for the tether once again. This time, I secured it with my mind and started to climb it—to follow it back to whence it came.

  “He will be a problem.” I said nothing in response as I followed that tether through the ether and into the unknown, unsure of where it might lead or the ramifications. But Phobos needed to be stopped. And soon. “He will be the first to die, I think.”

  My mental grip faltered for a second, and everything fell away from the connection between us, landing hard back in my mind where the vulture circled yet again.

  “He is not worth the effort,” I replied, hoping my intention to keep Oz safe was well hidden behind my words. “There are others that pose a real threat to me, if that is your concern.”

  Silence again. “It is not.”

  “It should be if you wish for me to live. I know not your plans, but I can only assume that if you wished me dead, you would have found a way to kill me by now. So I am left to wonder, then, what is it that you want?”

  His laughter blossomed until it became a raucous noise rattling through my mind. I wished to escape it, but in my slumber, I could not pull myself free.

  “You will find out soon enough. For now, I hope you enjoy the present I left you,” he said softly, his near-whisper caressing my brain in a too-familiar way. Like a lover’s touch, it was intimate and implied things that did not exist between us. “The time has finally co
me.”

  The ice that filled my mind shivered down my spinal column, jarring me awake.

  I searched the room for Oz, but he was gone, the dim firelight illuminating the empty spot next to me in the bed. The sense of dread I had felt when I had escaped Phobos’ hold remained as his threat against Oz echoed like a remnant of his visit. Oz was in danger while Phobos lived—danger because of his proximity to me and the relationship we shared.

  It made me wonder what would happen if Phobos ever located the memories of Oz and me naked together, his hands and mouth all over my body as he pressed himself inside me. I doubted the god of fear would be pleased by them.

  Perhaps it would no longer be just me that Phobos hunted.

  22

  I ran into the living room to a most surprising sight. Oz stood nose to nose with Deimos while the Dragon, Azriel, and my brothers looked on, none of them certain how to proceed.

  “Come to try and shackle her to a wall again?” Oz growled, wings spread wide behind him.

  “Wait, what?” Kierson blurted out, his eyes cutting to me as I entered the room.

  “It is a long story, Brother, and now is not the time.”

  “It is not,” Deimos agreed, letting his gaze slide to me.

  “How are you here, Deimos? And why?”

  “Yeah, shouldn’t you be out hunting your fucking brother?” Oz’s anger was apparent, from the tone of his voice to the aggressive stance he took against Deimos. He was clearly beyond the posturing stage, having moved on to baiting instead.

  “I was—and then I found something else along the way.” He stared at me with an intensity I had never seen. It was not filled with malice and the promise of pain; buried deep within his gaze was something else entirely. Pity. “I called the gargoyle and encouraged him to tell me where you were—that even you would agree that it was in your best interest once you learned why.”

  “Then tell me now,” I demanded. He shook his head.

  “Vasilissa mou, it is a delicate matter of great importance to you. One best handled with haste and discretion, so you must come with me now. There is no time to explain.”