“Just take my hand, Ms. Bellamy. We had a deal.”
“Can I have Abram back?” I whispered. “Can you give me the real Abram. Send us back together, without his beast. Give me him, and I’ll do it.”
“Yes,” Darcus insisted. “I can do it. Just take my hand.”
“Liar,” I said quietly. “You can’t break Satina’s spell.”
I backed away, knowing I had to get away from him. He stepped closer as I retreated, but my magic was there with me. It formed a wall between me and Darcus, keeping me safe from whatever he was trying to do to me. Whatever it was, he had to have my hand for me to go with him. That would never happen. Especially now that I knew he was lying.
“Don’t let him touch you,” Stacey called.
Darcus turned his snarl on the other woman. “What are you doing here, Teller?”
My hackles went up. “She’s my friend, so shut your mouth,” I snapped. “Don’t even think about going after her.”
“We didn’t betray you,” Briar called from where she stood on the other side of the room. “The genie did it.”
Darcus reached for my arm. Thankfully, I’d spent who knows how many years bending my body into strange positions while I was modeling to reach certain poses. Using flexibility I hadn’t had a reason to use in years, I bent out of his grasp and rolled away once my body hit the floor. With a burst of speed I hadn’t expected, I got away from him.
“This isn’t over, Ms. Bellamy.” Darcus took a step back. “However, I’ll leave you now, since you’ve seemed to have gained a following.”
He was gone in the next instant, and if we weren’t all staring at the spot where he’d been, I’d think I was going even crazier than I already was.
“Is it just me,” Lulu started, “or does he look just like that Huntsman guy?”
“They have different eyes,” I pointed out needlessly. “I thought the same thing. It’s like they could be brothers.”
I’d thought it before, but I hadn’t fully considered it until that moment. As soon as the words were out, though, I knew it was the truth.
“Huntsman,” I said desolately. “No.”
He stepped through the door, and my worst fear was realized.
“Why would you do this?” I asked. “To me? Was it all a game this whole time?”
Huntsman stood with Abram by his side, and I knew that at least part of what the genie had said was the truth.
“He’s your brother,” I said, matter-of-fact. Heaven help him if he tried to lie to me now.
“He’s my twin,” Huntsman admitted. “Please, Charisse. You need to let me explain.”
I was already advancing with my hand in the air. I could feel the spell working itself down my arm and into my palm, ready and willing to decimate him with whatever was on hand.
“No,” I cried. “No, I don’t need to let you do anything!”
“I tried to stop him.” Huntsman held out his hands, palms up. He looked like he was broken, with slumped shoulders, and tears in his eyes. “He can’t be stopped, though, not by me. You saw the letter. He’s willing to do anything to keep his power. I even got the Tellers involved, so that they could help keep you safe when the time came. The genie, she was his tool...and the Tellers were mine. Stacey was able to help manipulate situations to make sure Abram was here. To make sure that you didn’t sacrifice yourself for your friends.”
“We knew you’d never sacrifice Abram,” Stacey said.
I glared at her, and she shut her mouth immediately. Then, she took a step behind Huntsman for good measure, which might have saved her life.
“I want to know everything,” I demanded. “This is your one shot. Spill it. Now.”
“I will tell you all of it. But we can’t do it here.” He waved his hands to indicate our surroundings. “You broke the genie’s spell, and New Haven is already unstable. We must go.”
“I’m not leaving, nor am I taking another step, until you give me Abram back. My Abram,” I corrected. “I want him back, with all of his memories.”
Huntsman shook his head, and I felt everything inside me come to a standstill. He was not about to tell me that it wasn’t possible. I’d just sent a freaking genie back in time to live her life with her family. He was not going to take Abram away from me.
“Charisse,” he said gently. “You’ve had the power the entire time. You’re the only one who has the power. You just have to use your blood to make it happen.”
“I’ve never had to use my blood to work magic,” I said numbly. “I’m already a Supplicant and a Conduit.”
I bit my thumb and held it over my palm, not knowing what I was doing.
“Use your love,” Huntsman said, guiding me. “Draw your love in the palm of your hand. Call him back to you.”
I put everything I had into that spell. I put my heart, my soul, my mind, and every ounce of the power I had into calling Abram back to me. I put so much energy into it that I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel Huntsman standing next to me. One moment, I was falling to the floor, and the next I was in a strong pair of arms.
“Hunt,” I said with the last bit of my strength. “You have so much to explain.”
“I know, Charisse,” he said soothingly. “First, I’ll take you home. Then, I’ll tell you the truth about my brother and The Company.”
Chapter 26
I opened my eyes when I heard the familiar sound of people yelling in the distance and cars honking their horns.
“We’re back in New York?” I looked around and saw the apartment I’d lived in for the past year, surprised I’d missed the trip from New Haven.
“Yeah,” Stacey chirped. “It seems like Hunty here has been hiding a bunch of tricks up his sleeve. Not the least of which is the ability to use small bits of magic. Like teleportation.”
“Well.” I glared at the man in question. “That would have been nice to know sometime in the past, I dunno, forever.” I fumed.
Distracted momentarily by the fact that I felt like someone was driving a train through my head, I remembered what happened right before blacking out.
“Where’s Abram?” I sat up and immediately started looking for him before Ramsey pushed me back down onto the couch.
“He’s in the guest room,” Huntsman said. “He’s sleeping. Which is fine, because we have a lot to discuss.”
“You’re damn right we do,” I snapped. “You care to tell us about how you’re one half of the problem we’ve faced over the last year?” I was beyond angry, that was for sure. “Oh, how about the fact that you stood by and let Satina’s father come back to life and take over the body of someone I cared about?”
As everything that had happened came rushing back, suddenly I wasn’t in the mood to be very forgiving of the man who’d insinuated himself into my life.
“Charisse,” he said stonily. “Not everything is what you think it is.”
Gone was the man I’d known, the one who was respectful and out of place in his own skin. Before me stood the rougher version of Darcus. He had more muscle, more intensity, and just more than Darcus had. If I had to guess which was the more powerful, it would most definitely be Hunt.
“Wait.” I held up a hand, keeping him from saying anything else. “Is Huntsman even your name?”
He looked at me, likely gauging how his response would be taken, before slowly shaking his head.
Ramsey sighed. “You’re shitting me.”
“My name is Jothi,” Hunt said. “But I haven’t gone by that since the day I left my brother to the mess he’d created. I walked away from that life.”
I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of vodka that I kept on top of the fridge. I didn’t care what time it was—I was going to need alcohol to get through everything going on. Especially if he was going to keep changing what I knew to be the truth.
Not bothering to grab a glass from the cabinet, I brought the whole bottle with me back to the living room.
Stacey was sitting on the couch, so I took a seat next to her and handed her the bottle with a grunt. Her smirk told me that I’d done exactly what she wanted. When she twisted the cap off and took a large drink of it, exhaling deeply after she did so, I knew I’d like her after all.
“Did you know about any of this?” I asked her. “Any of this shit with Huntsman?”
“No,” she said. “I mean, I knew that The Brothers have always had something to do with my family. The Company, I guess. But I’ve never interacted with them. And everything that I’ve seen or learned about your family, none of it ever indicated that he was anything more than the man you found in Grimault. This line of events… It never went this way or got this far in any version I’ve seen. But maybe that’s a good thing.”
I glared at her, and she raised her hands defensively.
“Good,” she said, “in the sense that in all the other versions, things don’t work out for all of us. So maybe this time they will?”
She handed the vodka to me, and I knew she was telling me the truth. There was something in her voice, in the way she was completely at ease around me, that told me she was good.
“Okay,” I said. Then I took the biggest gulp of vodka I could manage, relishing the way it burnt as it slid down my throat.
Turning my glare on Huntsman, who was standing in front of my T.V., I practically snarled at the man. “Start at the beginning and tell me. From the beginning.”
Ramsey stood against the wall with his arms crossed. Stacey pulled her legs up and sat with them tucked to her chest. I made myself comfortable, and then all three of us were settled in for Huntsman to tell us his story.
Huntsman shifted, and it seemed like the entire weight of the world fell on his shoulders. He wasn’t confident. He wasn’t powerful. He wasn’t anything except for the man standing in front of me, and it was as though there was a piece of him that was missing.
“My brother, Darcus, was the first of the Conduits. I was the first Supplicant. We were created by the gods, as a way to guarantee they would always have power. With every spell, every transformation, a bit of the power we created would travel to them. It was genius, on their part.”
“The gods aren’t real,” Ramsey interrupted, and I wanted to smack him. Thankfully, Stacey threw a pillow at him for me.
“Shut up,” she snapped. “You know nothing.”
I snickered as she quoted one of my favorite shows, before remembering that we were in the middle of a very important conversation. My attention shifted back to Hunt, and I waited for him to go on.
“I can assure you that the gods are, in fact, real. They’re more powerful than we are. And we’re more powerful than anyone else. But our power is divided. That’s the way it’s always been, until the first and only Dual was prophesied.”
He stared at me pointedly, and I took another drink of the vodka I was clutching.
“Darcus went completely insane when he realized what that much power could bring him. He was obsessed with overthrowing the gods. He wanted to prove something, to either them or to the rest of the world. I don’t know. Our nature, as Supplicants and Conduits, was intertwined. Every Supplicant had a partner in their Conduit. Darcus, though… He began to teach the other Conduits to use magic that was destroying their Supplicants. We begged them to stop. I begged my brother to stop. He refused, though, and planned an uprising against the gods and their power.”
“Holy shit,” Stacey murmured next to me. “I’ve heard bedtime stories that aren’t as good as this.”
Hunt just kept talking like she hadn’t interrupted. “When pleading with him didn’t work, I sought the help of a mage. That’s how we got away. That’s how I ended up in Grimault. The spell was powerful enough to hide them. To hide everyone. And my brother can’t very well stage an uprising with only my blood. Plus, he’s not powerful enough to take me on by himself.”
“That’s why he wants Charisse,” Ramsey deduced. “He wants her because she was the Dual in the prophecy. He’s still trying to overthrow the gods.”
“Why?” I asked. “I mean, I get it. He wants power, but why? What does he want the power for? There must be some ultimate goal.”
Hunt stared into space for a second. “I don’t know,” he said, confirming my suspicions. “By the time I realized that something was wrong, the bond between us was severed and there was no way for me to discover why he was going crazy.”
“Wait,” Stacey said suddenly. “I need snacks for this. That’s the only way I’m gonna get through this.”
I agreed, actually. I didn’t know if it was the vodka, or the fact that I didn’t remember the last time I’d actually had something to eat that was delicious.
“Great idea,” I told her. “Ramsey.” I snapped my fingers. “Get us some snacks.”
I sat back and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch, then wrapped it around my lap and offered some to Stacey, who smiled and took the offering. While we waited for Ramsey, who was shuffling around in the kitchen, Hunt stood there with defeat written all over his face.
“So,” I whispered to Stacey. “You’re attracted to one of The Brothers?”
She gasped, slapping me on the shoulder, and her face flamed.
“Oh.” I snickered. “You’re embarrassed. You, who were shamelessly flirting with him before, you have nothing to say now?”
“That was before I realized that he’s one of the most powerful beings in the entire world.” She hissed. “Shut up.”
“Not a chance,” I told her. “When all of this is over, I’m gonna play matchmaker. Come on, you know it’s all sorts of sexy that he’s almost as powerful as a freaking god.”
Before she could say anything else, Ramsey appeared in front of us with a bowl of popcorn.
“Perfect,” I said happily. Then I waved a hand at Hunt, motioning for him to keep telling his story while Stacey and I stuffed our faces on the feast in front of us.
“When I realized we weren’t safe,” he went on, “I got the Supplicants as far away as I could, and I had them protected. That’s how I ended up in Grimault.”
He wasn’t telling us everything. I bought myself some time to study him while I chewed on an extra large handful of popcorn. Weighing my options, I thought about what I could do. If I forced him to keep talking about it, he might clam up and never share the rest of the details with me. On the other hand, I could let him think I wasn’t suspicious, and then pounce when he least expected it.
“Why does he want me?” I asked as a compromise. “Why does he think he wants my power?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “That’s what makes him dangerous. He is already powerful. He already has enough to live forever, and you see the way the supernatural community fear us. He doesn’t need any more. But that is what makes him dangerous beyond belief. He is more ferocious than the wolf that hunts in the dead of night, or the monsters that haunt the shadows.”
“It was you,” Abram said, suddenly appearing in the doorway. “You were the one that got rid of the voices in my head.”
My head spun, and I stared at the two men. There was something happening, the undercurrent speaking volumes that they weren’t saying aloud. Finally, Hunt nodded.
Abram stepped forward, and I thought he was about to attack. My mouth was open in a warning, but Abram pulled Hunt into a hug. One that looked just as awkward from the outside as it must be like for the two of them.
But it was also kind of hot.
“You saved my life,” Abram told him just loud enough for the rest of us to hear. “I thought I was going to have to kill myself to get rid of the evil he was planning. But you stripped him from my mind. How did you do it?”
He released Hunt, who looked bashful at having attention on him that wasn’t all negative. Stacey was looking at him in awe, and more than a little bit of appreciation. Even Ramsey seemed impressed. I, however, was still trying to catch up.
“Holy shit,” I said when I finally did. “Satina’s fath
er. You’re the one who got rid of him. The one who freed the way for the mark. That’s how Abram lost his memory.”
As angry as I was as Huntsman for keeping things from me, I was more relieved that he’d saved Abram. Part of me could even understand why Huntsman didn’t tell me the truth. There were things I had to learn for myself. Decisions I had to make.
“Wait.” I paused. “If you’re a Supplicant, how did you work magic that powerful?”
He chuckled, and it was the first time I’d ever heard something so carefree coming from him. “Charisse, the power flowing through my veins is so vast that a spell of that magnitude was nothing. It was the same as casting a spell to illuminate the darkness, for a mage. Most Supplicants have those same abilities, but don’t realize it. Their magic has been lost over time from years in slavery to the Conduits and then in hiding. But it’s possible. Supplicants aren’t as weak as the Conduits would have you believe.”
He looked at Ramsey, who crossed his arms in front of his chest in a silent challenge.
“The power that you have…well, that could do what I did a thousand times over without ever breaking a sweat,” Huntsman said. “I simply meant Supplicants aren’t as powerless as believed. They simply have to be trained properly in order to access it.”
“Hey,” Ramsey said. “You try training her. She’s impossible.”
“He’s right.” I shrugged, unashamed. “I’m stubborn. But since I’m also a Conduit, it’s not really that important to learn my Supplicant abilities, right?”
Huntsman pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows, but I didn’t press for more. I could only handle so much at a time, and I was reaching capacity quick.
My gaze wandered over to Abram, and I caught his eyes locked onto my body. When he glanced up and saw that I knew he was watching, he smiled at me. This wasn't the smile of the impersonator, or the man who’d come to be when he lost his memories. This was my Abram, and I knew he remembered everything.
Relief flooded every inch of me, from my scalp down to my toes. The heat in his eyes said much more than words ever could. Especially since we were surrounded by others. I clenched my hands into fists, wanting them all to be gone. To have time with him. But I knew that it would have to wait. We still had answers to get from Huntsman.
Granted by the Beast: A Steamy Paranormal Romance Spin on Beauty and the Beast (Conduit Series Book 4) Page 20