“But—”
“Meet me in the Underworld.”
He disappeared without another word, leaving the rest of us behind, confusion and distrust heavy in the room.
“I should go.”
“You mean we,” Oz added.
“Fine, yes. We should go.”
“And if it’s a trap?” Casey argued.
“Then we will deal with it once we are there,” I said, cutting him off. “The look in Deimos’ eyes…I have never seen anything like it before. Whatever news he has, it cannot be good.”
“I don’t like this,” Kierson said, grabbing his sword off a nearby table.
“Nor do I, Brother,” I agreed. “We will return as soon as we know what we are dealing with.”
The set of Kierson’s jaw told me he was still less than pleased, but he kept his mouth shut.
“How will you deal with the Dark Ones?” Pierson asked, a rare note of irritation in his tone.
“However I must. But Deimos will not let them interfere. Kaine is cautious of him, which is wise.” None of my brothers seemed satisfied by my reply. “Would you act this way if Sean told you he was going alone?” I asked them, staring down each of them. “Would you argue with him as you do with me?”
“You’re not Sean,” Casey quickly pointed out. “You’re not invincible.”
“I am the closest thing to it, aside from my twin, and I am armed with weapons none of you possess. So I ask you, Brothers, to trust me in this. Oz and I will be fine, but we must go now. I fear what Deimos has to tell.”
Their eyes all went wide at my usage of that particular f-word.
“Okay, Khara,” Drew said softly. “Go, but do whatever you must to return.”
I managed a smile. “I will.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Oz said, taking me by the arm. “And I suggest we travel to the nearest entrance the old-fashioned way, just in case Kaine decides to be a prick upon our arrival. You’ll need all your tricks at the ready.”
“Agreed.”
Without a proper goodbye, the two of us rushed out of the Dragon’s lair and made our way above. Oz shut the manhole behind us, then took to the air to lead the way.
“Kaine will be glad to see you...”
“And surprised to see you at all.”
At that, he smiled.
Silence blossomed between us the entire way, my unease growing with every beat of my wings. I had never seen Deimos that rattled before, at least not since Zeus had come for my father and encased me in a lightning cage. Fear had most certainly flashed in his eyes that day, right before a bolt had hit him and he had disappeared. It made me wonder just how awful the circumstances would be when we arrived.
I wondered just what he had found.
We stormed through the gates and flew over the Acheron to where Kaine stood waiting with his hostages—my brothers. Cass and the others all stared at me, willing me to see in their eyes the decision they had already made. Cass shook his head, warning me off of doing something foolish—something I could not take back.
Kaine turned to greet me, and his eyes went wide at the sight of Oz.
“There’s no point in trying to kill me again,” Oz said as he landed next to him. “She’ll just bring me back.”
“How…?”
“New girl’s got tricks,” he said, cutting off the open-mouthed Dark One, “and she really likes my cock, so…” He walked past, shrugging at Kaine as though he had not cut Oz down like a coward only days earlier.
“It is surprisingly satisfying,” I said as I followed Oz.
Kaine regained his composure. “Have you come to give me your answer?”
“My window of time is not yet up. My business here is my own,” I replied, “and has nothing to do with you.”
He started to follow us down the hall that led to Deimos’ room, but the appearance of the terror god stopped him short. The two glared at one another, and I wondered if perhaps my relationship with Deimos would once again prove beneficial.
He took my arm and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “We must keep this quiet and move quickly. We do not need anyone knowing why you are here.”
“Why not—”
“You must trust me, vasilissa mou.”
“Says the shady motherfucker about to get his ass lit up with lightning if he keeps manhandling vasilissa mou,” Oz said, mocking Deimos. “She doesn’t like it. Except in the bedroom—”
“We must hurry,” he said, ignoring Oz and rushing through the corridors until we were standing in front of his blacker-than-black door.
“We don’t have time for your kinky shit—” Oz started before cutting himself off. The second he saw what lay beyond that door, he went silent and very still.
On the bed I had found myself upon many times before—the one whose sheets I had reduced to ash only days ago—lay a bloody mess of a being. I dared a step closer to confirm the worry creeping through me. With every step I took, I knew it was true; that broken being was my mother, sprawled out and bleeding from a vicious wound to the gut. Fear and anger shot through me, a powerful cocktail that had me pinning Deimos up against the wall.
“What did you do to her?”
“I saved her,” he growled through gritted teeth. Oz ignored us both and rushed to the bedside. He knelt next to my mother and took her limp hand in his.
I released Deimos and ran to Oz’s side.
“Celia? Celia, can you hear me?” A muffled sound was all she could muster. “What happened?” he asked, his words a mere whisper.
“Someone gutted her and left her for dead,” Deimos said. We both turned to look at him, but his eyes were only for me. “I came upon her on the outskirts of Detroit, and I tried to bring her to you at your house, but you were not there.” His expression soured. “I heard her calling for you, Khara. That’s all she’s done since I brought her here. She fears for you. I did not know where to find you, so I brought her here and returned. I found the gargoyle snooping around the property and forced him to take me to you, though that task was far harder than expected…”
“Thank you,” I said softly, “for saving her.”
“I did it for you, not her.”
Silence. “I know.”
I carefully lifted the blanket that partially covered her ripped-open abdomen. Nothing but gore and organs and blood stared back at me. I pressed my hand against them, and she writhed with pain.
“I am here, Mother. Now, please be still,” I said, doing all I could to soothe her as I called upon the Healer’s touch within me. I channeled the warmth and feeling of love the Healer used to fuel her magic and pushed it forth into my mother while Oz quietly urged me on. Deimos swore in the background, disbelief thick in his tone. When I was finished, I sagged against the bed, exhausted but relieved. My mother would live.
Deimos had helped ensure that end.
“Hello, Mother,” I said as her eyes fluttered open. She panicked at first, then calmed once she recognized me. Then her gaze fell to Oz at her side, watching over her—guarding her—just as he always had before he had fallen.
“Celia,” Oz said, brushing sweat-soaked hair from her face. “We’ve been trying to find you—we thought you were dead. What happened?”
Her bright green eyes drifted to me, then back to her former second-in-command.
“It was a trap,” she said.
“The fear god,” I growled under my breath.
Much to my surprise, my mother shook her head. “Not him. The Light. They did this.” As Oz and I swallowed down our shock at her revelation, she continued. “They knew I would bring Khara back to the Hallowed Gates, and they allowed me to believe she would have sanctuary there. But all it took was one look at her black wings and everything fell apart. The second I left her in her room, they turned on me.”
“Are you saying the Light Ones, not the fear god, did this to you?” he asked, staring at where the gaping wound had just been. “They held you hostage and then just carved you up and du
mped you?” Celia nodded in response.
A sound unlike anything I had ever heard escaped Oz, a pain-filled mix of a howl and a screech echoing off the walls of Deimos’ chamber of pain and torture. It seemed oddly fitting. Once he calmed, he shot me a sideward glance that said both everything and nothing, then looked to my mother once again.
“Your wings?” he asked, looking under her to find blankets tufted all around her, as if covering something. Ever so gently, he pulled the bloodstained fabric aside to reveal her bright white appendages. The sigh of relief he let out did not go unnoticed.
“They destroyed them, but they did not cut them off, if that was your concern. Not like they did yours,” Deimos said.
My mother’s eyes fell upon Deimos for the first time since she had awoken, and they narrowed with suspicion.
“I know you—”
“I am the one who saved you, Light One.”
“You are Ares’ creation. The one who sneaks about and lurks in shadow. The god of terror.”
“Deimos,” he said.
“The god of shady motherfuckers is more accurate,” Oz countered, earning him a glare from the god in question.
“Thank you for bringing her to me,” my mother said, though it looked as though it pained her. Deimos gave a tight nod in return.
“None of this makes sense,” Oz said, shooting to his feet. His concern had bled to anger, his Dark nature spilling forth, all but erasing any shred of the being my mother had once known—had once trusted. “Why not just kill you? Why torture you and leave you for dead?”
“Perhaps their attention was drawn elsewhere. Perhaps this was by design. Or perhaps there is something at play here that none of us yet understand,” Deimos said, eyes pinned on mine.
“Explain,” I said, on my feet to face the god of terror without feeling an ounce of it. Oz was at my side in an instant.
“I cannot give you answers I do not have,” Deimos said calmly.
“Ozereus,” my mother called, stopping the brewing fight, “tell me what happened to you—to both of you. I want to know. I need to know…”
Oz looked at Deimos with suspicion. “Not with him here.”
The god of terror surprised us all by leaving his room without a word, closing the door behind him.
“Come,” she said, beckoning us both with outstretched hands. We walked over and took up vigil on either side of her. When she struggled to sit up, her healing body and damaged wings proving too much to maneuver, Oz propped her up against the wall so she could face us. “Now, Ozereus, it’s your turn. Tell me everything that happened after you took Khara.”
“I did as you asked; I found somewhere safe for her to be raised. Somewhere Ares would never find her—though it seems I failed on that front.”
Celia took his hand in hers and squeezed. “She is alive and sitting before me because of you, Ozereus. You did not fail me—or her.”
His jaw clenched at her praise, and I inserted myself into their conversation to save him from the guilt he no doubt felt obligated to share with her.
“How is it only recently that you have come to find me, Mother?”
Her expression hardened, her own guilt showing through. “I knew there would be a price to pay to rejoin the Light, if it were even possible. I agreed to the terms set forth, which were that my memory of you and your brother would be lost forever. You two would live, but I would never know you.” The sadness in her eyes was endless. “Somehow, I started to see things while I slept—flashes of memories that were not my own. Memories that came to me with greater and greater frequency over time, until one day, everything came crashing back, and I remembered the day you were born; saw Ozereus taking you from my arms and flying away. Saw Ares coming to meet his son, the future ruler of the PC. I saw everything I’d lost, and the pain was unbearable, Khara. From that moment on, I looked for you both. Aniketos—or Sean, as he chooses to go by now—was simple to find. You, however, were not. I hadn’t the first clue where to begin.” Her gaze drifted back to Oz, and a different kind of sadness invaded her expression. “So I searched for you instead. I’m so sorry for what happened to you—for what your allegiance to me cost you.”
His wings twitched instinctively. “No worries, Celia. I kinda like my upgrade. Beats the hell out of being earthbound.”
“Your punishment was all my fault, Ozereus. Can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“My heart is dead—has been for a long time now,” he replied before stealing a glance at me. “But don’t beat yourself up about it too badly. Being Dark has its perks.”
My mother looked from Oz to me, then back again. Her brow furrowed in a way that reminded me of my twin. He was so much her son, wings or not.
“How did you two come to meet again?”
“That,” Oz said, standing, clearly surprised by her question, “is a discussion for later—like a bottle or two of whiskey later.”
“Do you love her?” my mother asked without further pomp and circumstance. “Do you love him?”
Oz remained eerily silent and stared at the wall before him. So I answered for us both. “It is not love in a conventional sense, Mother…but it is something.”
Oz turned to face me slowly, and I reached down to help my mother to her feet, an attempt to avoid his scrutiny. It had seemed the simplest answer to give her at the time that would appease her and avoid further interrogation. Surely Oz could see that was my intention…
“We should get you out of this room,” I said. “Deimos is not the most hospitable.”
She took stock of the implements in the room and swayed on her feet. “Yes, I think that might be best, at least until I’ve fully healed.”
“You may have my room,” I said. “I will let Father know you are here—”
“She can’t stay,” Oz said, suddenly standing before me. “We’ll take her to the Dragon. She’ll be safe there.”
“Dragon?” my mother asked, a hint of amusement in her tone.
“He is the lover of my brother Casey—or was. It seems that line has become blurred as of late.”
She giggled to herself. “Whoever would have thought I’d be here, in the Underworld, listening to gossip about my daughter’s half-brothers?”
“Well, she could regale you with tales of their stupidity for days on end, but now is hardly the time,” Oz said, scooping my mother up in his arms.
“She would be safer here with my father. The Light cannot reach her here.”
While Oz began his argument, I opened the door to find Deimos standing guard.
“Perhaps you should resume your search for your brother,” I told him as we walked past. “We will hunt down those that did this to her.”
“And if the Light realize that their attempt on her life has failed?” he asked. “If her attack was bait for a trap that you are walking right into?”
“Then they will find me ready and fully equipped to end them in myriad creative ways. Ways that would make even you pale with horror,” I replied, stopping to face him. “I will tear out every one of their beating hearts with my bare hands until all that lays at my feet are their desecrated corpses and a sea of blood. For anyone I love, I would do this and more.”
Deimos’ eyes lit with desire and lust. “I would like to see that, vasilissa mou.”
A low rumble escaped Oz, and I turned to find the shadow of a winged being down the hall, staring at the angel in Oz’s arms. His silhouette approached slowly, each step hindered by something—perhaps caution or disbelief. I could not be certain which, but I knew I had no intention of letting him any closer.
“You will stop or you will die,” I said as I raised my hand and pointed it toward him.
His footsteps never faltered, but his voice did when he said my mother’s name.
“Celia…?”
Her attention snapped to another of her once-prized warriors of the Light, and she quickly stood.
“Kaine?”
Never in my life had I heard on
e word carry so many emotions.
23
“How are you here?” he asked as he rushed toward us. “Why are you here?”
Oz put my mother down and stepped between Kaine and her, wing extended like a sword. “Stay where you are, or I’ll have that payback sooner than later.”
“Ozereus, it’s—”
“It’s not going to happen, Celia, and that’s final. You no longer give me orders. No one does.”
Kaine’s eyes raked over her body—her shredded and bloody dress with a gaping hole over her abdomen—and the surprise in his eyes turned to rage.
“Who did this?” His hate-filled stare turned to Deimos. “Was it you?”
“I have no interest in the Light One. Only her daughter.”
His comment did little to assuage Kaine’s rage. “Then who?”
“It seems our old crew carved her up and left her for dead. So we were about to take her somewhere safe to finish healing and then go hunt the bastards, right, new girl?”
“He is not wrong.”
“So, if you’d get out of our merry fucking way, we could get started on that—”
“I’m going with you,” Kaine said, his tone unwavering.
“Come again?”
“I said, I’m going with you.”
I stepped forward and canted my head. “So are we to be allies now, when only days ago, you attempted to kill my lover? While you threaten to annihilate my dead brothers if I do not join you in service to whatever evil you have planned? Is that the gist?”
“Yes. It is.”
“You did what?” Celia said, voice full of shock and disgust. “What have you become, Kaine?”
“A Dark One,” Oz answered for him, “and all that implies.” The two black-winged angels stared each other down, a moment of understanding passing between them in their silence. “All right. You can help if you agree to two conditions.”
“Name them.”
“One, you rescind your ultimatum. And two, you stay the fuck away from Celia—indefinitely. Khara, too.”
Kaine looked thoughtful for a moment. “I will not rescind the ultimatum, but I will put it on hold until the Light that betrayed Celia have been brought to justice. I will agree to stay away from Celia if that is what she desires. Regarding Khara, I cannot agree to those terms.”
Unmade (Unborn Book 4) Page 16