Forbidden (The Gabriel Lennox Series Book 1)

by M. L. Desir

  That had happened over ten years ago. Seth grew up and learned that the spirit had a name: Tipereth, the Beautiful Light. And when Tipereth spoke to him, it wasn’t nearly as frightening. He just had to be careful that he didn’t appear to be talking to himself. Onlookers would get the wrong impression. Think him quite mad. Quite.

  Seth glanced around him. A grinning young prostitute led an eager older man into one of the dark, dirty alleys. He smiled to himself, wondering how eager and giddy they would be if he were to intrude on their meeting. His mother had been a prostitute. When not entertaining her “guests” with her nakedness, she indulged in drinking herself to death. Or beating him with a leather strap, all the while calling him a “demon-eyed bastard.” He would’ve laughed at the silliness of it–demons had red eyes, not green and amber like his (didn’t she know?)—but her foot got him good in the groin.

  The crystal twinkled. “When he finds out that you’re not killing for him, what will you do?”

  The cry of the newspaper boys ringing out like death knells over the City snapped him out of his reverie. As far as you knew, only he could Tipereth. He alone. He tugged the high collar of his robe over his mouth so that no one could see his lips moving.

  “What a stupid question, Tipereth. Why, I’ll just tell him the truth. Tell him that I kill for myself,” Seth replied. “Hmm. Come to think of it, I’ve killed so many for you, and still you fail to give me what you promised. Is the blood I spill not enough?”

  “No. The ones that you killed meant nothing to you. As I’ve told you before, a soul bond is a pact that must be sealed with a meaningful sacrifice. If you think that I’ll change my mind, you’re deceived.”

  Meaningful. What did he mean by that? Tipereth used to ask him what he cherished most. But Seth didn’t really know. He supposed that he cherished his own life. Himself. And if he did, he wouldn’t dare speak of it because he feared that Tipereth would try to take his life away.

  “You mean killing my own mother, my dearest darling mother,” Seth snapped, “wasn’t meaningful?”

  Beautiful Light said nothing. He didn’t need to. Seth hadn’t really killed his mother. Her death had been an accident. When he had returned home with the crystal, his mother had tried taking it from him. “We can sell it and make a new life,” she had said dulcetly, with an open and greedy hand. He knew she was telling only half of the truth. She’d sell it all right. She’d spend the money on dresses and gin and get stinking drunk. She had smiled at him then, perhaps to look more convincing. She rarely smiled, but her smile wasn’t like the face in the crystal. He wouldn’t let her take it and told her so. She raised her hand to strike him, but he dashed around her and fled up the stairs to his room. She chased after him, but he had been ready. He caught her by the wrist and shoved her down the stairs. The fall had broken her neck.

  The neighbors had heard her screams during the struggle and had assumed that he had killed her—he—just a little boy! They called the authorities and great, hulking men tied him up and took him away to the Bedlam asylum where he remained for seven hell-filled years where Tipereth, suddenly invisible to others was his only comforter.

  Focusing back on the present, Seth noticed a middle-aged man wandering the streets, marked with the silver bands that were slapped on Bedlam patients once they were kicked out into the world. Looking at the man triggered some unwanted emotions. Before Bedlam, he used to believe that heaven was real.

  Yes, he had used to believe in heaven because it would have to make up for all the pointless misery that he had experienced on earth.

  But now he knew better.

  He knew that God didn’t compensate pain with favors. He knew that life wasn’t fair and never would be. He knew that believing in heaven was for the dreamers who could only see their desires while asleep. He didn’t need to sleep anymore to dream. Not after the being in the crystal spoke to him, led him to his maker with the empty, black eyes.

  Seth remembered when he had been sent out. Freedom—with an invisible chain. No one would give him a job. All he could do was beg for money. Sometimes, he received a bit of change. Sometimes, a punch or a stream of spit in the face followed by curses. He used to imagine himself meeting these weeds who had given him hell in dark alleys and beating them to death after rubbing their faces in the dirt and making them eat it.

  Seth followed the man, keeping close behind. He could smell the alcohol rising off his sweaty skin. A drunkard. Bedlam had done nothing for him. Bedlam had failed him. Yes, it had showed him that life wasn’t fair, but in order for Bedlam and its horrors to make his life complete, the man would have to die.

  This is destiny, Seth thought to himself. Fate.

  He would be this man’s savior and executioner.

  CHAPTER 18

  Promise Me

  FARON’S EYES SHIFTED to Lilith as she stared out the opposite window of the slowly moving carriage.

  Lilith and love.

  The two words didn’t belong in the same thought. Lust would’ve been better suited, but—

  Any man who shows a drop of sympathy for her, even in thought, is damned, for he will never be satisfied by a human woman. The legend read like some warning, poetic and cruel in its hopelessness.

  Damned. Lost.

  By midnight, they would arrive at Gabriel’s house. This realization caused him to clutch his sleeping son to his chest. Already seven years old and growing so fast. Unusually fast.

  His child, Nikolai. Incarnate proof that he could love no other woman but Lilith, who had given birth to this son of his. Woman? No, he couldn’t address her as that, could he? She was female, but clearly not mortal.

  That he had already accepted.

  He stared at his son and wondered what strange blood flowed through his veins. “You won’t be able to hold him for much longer,” Lilith would often tell him. “My kind age slowly, but grow swiftly.”

  Her kind. Grigori. Faron had learned that they were truly immortal beings that thrived on the energy of humans so that they could manifest themselves in humanity’s corporal dimension. Blood, lust, fear, and other such things emitted energy, which the Grigori absorbed and used to their liking. They could even dip into the soul and nourish themselves from its deep well. But that was all he knew. Their origins, their purpose, their reasons behind Enlightenment, he was ignorant of. All of this, Lilith kept secret.

  Like Lilith, Nikolai’s otherworldliness didn’t show in his features. Nikolai had his fair, clear complexion and his light blue eyes. But his perfectly black hair shone black even in candlelight. For now, Lilith had altered the striking color with one of her illusions so that Nikolai’s eyes appeared more gray than blue. Faron didn’t think it would be enough to deceive Gabriel. From what he had heard, Faron concluded that Gabriel was quite perceptive. Not even the innocent form of a child could fool him. He remembered when Lilith had told their son to pretend that he was just a poor human child who had been abducted and changed by monsters. Nikolai got a peculiarly happy look on his face, almost as if he anticipated this encounter with Gabriel, as if anticipating the sweet taste of gumdrops. His son wore the same calculating and mischievous expression he often wore while taking a player’s Queen during a game of chess or stumping Faron at a riddle. And oh, how his son loved riddles! Faron feared for his son, though.

  He feared that Nikolai might go too far.

  He furrowed his eyebrows into a scowl while he looked at Lilith. “Why Gabriel? Of all the Chosen, why him?”

  Lilith turned to him and smiled. “Because even when Gabriel was mortal, he possessed an inhuman will. He seemed to glow with an aura of raw power. And now that he is Enlightened, he has grown even more so. In order to survive, Nikolai needs to be near such a power.”

  “Power, eh? If you’re going to say that Gabriel can force his will on others, I’m not impressed. Alexander, if you recall, often exaggerates, and that little bit
of hypnotism was most likely not as wonderful as he raved it to be.” He covered his mouth and yawned.

  Lilith gave an annoyed sniff. “There’s more. He could raise his sister from the dead when he was nothing but a mere mortal.”

  Faron’s mouth remained open in mid-yawn. He drew in his breath sharply. “No! I don’t believe it!”

  She smiled. “But yesss.”

  “Then that is an improvement. But let’s be sensible, reasonable. What if Gabriel sees through Nikolai’s nature? What if Nikolai fails at deceiving him? What if Gabriel finds out—”

  “Don’t you trust me?” Lilith smiled.

  Faron frowned. “It’s Nikolai’s rebellious spirit that I don’t trust! He’s an impulsive child, and he knows that he’s not merely human. I see the way he prides himself in you being his mother.” He paused and stared at his son. “Listen, I know what you are, Lilith. And even though I know you’ll never tell me everything, I want you to know that you have my heart.” Sighing, he rested his head against the back of the seat, only to lift it and look at her intensely. “If you fear that by confessing all of your secrets I won’t love you or that my love will wane, please abandon such fears. I love you. Do you love me?”

  Lilith took his hand, brought it to her mouth and kissed it. “In my own way.”

  Her aloof reply made him chuckle. “Then assure me. Assure me that no harm will come to our son. Tell me what I need to know so that I can have a clear mind.”

  “Then what I’m going to tell you must never escape your lips. Never. You know of Seth. He is a threat that Sevien wants me to remove. And if Gabriel refuses to obey my demands, we’re all doomed.”

  “I don’t understand. How is Seth a threat?”

  “You weren’t present at the party. You didn’t see what happened. Seth can weave illusions. Only my kind can do such things. Somehow, he must’ve made contact with one, and I think I know who. Tipereth. Beautiful Light.” She whispered the epithet with such hatred that Faron flinched.

  “That still doesn’t explain why you’re taking orders from Sevien. Is he a Grigori, like you?”

  Lilith gave him a coy smile. “Rather it is I, who am like Sevien. He’s my father, and Nathaniel is my brother. We’re the progeny of a mortal woman and my father who is fully Grigori. Love children, I suppose you could call us. Surely, you’ve heard of the tales of Zeus? Of Apollo? Gods descending to earth to sire children with mortal women? Our existence precedes those tales.”

  Faron’s eyes grew wide. He had difficulty swallowing as if his heart had moved into his throat. He coughed over and over again, trying to catch his breath. “What? What?”

  “It’s true. But that’s not important right now. Remember,” she said, “we must focus on Nikolai’s safety. If I’m not careful, Tipereth will hunt down our son and kill him.”

  “What do you mean?” Faron flinched, afraid to say more. Afraid to hear the pathetic wretchedness in his voice. “Why would he want Nikolai?”

  “Revenge. Pure and simple. Because I’m a dutiful daughter, and I exiled Tipereth. He had a ravenous, insatiable appetite for bloodshed. Many humans perished when he roamed to and fro upon the earth. So, under my father’s orders, I imprisoned him in chains of darkness beneath the earth. But somehow, he must’ve gotten free.” She clenched her gloved hand into a fist. “Damn him.”

  Faron shook his head. “But you were only doing what you were told. His quarrel should be with Sevien.”

  “He knows that I’m responsible for his imprisonment. I could see through to his true nature. It was I, who pleaded with my father to imprison him. He’s growing powerful though, and through Seth, he will have his own line of Chosen.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. He must want something else. Something more than that. ”

  “When you say that you imprisoned him, what exactly did that entail?” Faron asked.

  Silently, she stared at her gloved hands. Usually, her answers came quick.

  Faron wondered why she hesitated.

  “I took away Tipereth’s ability to manifest himself in this corporeal world. Without his body, he’s nothing but a transparent mass of energy. I suspect the worst, Faron. I think Tipereth is using Seth. It was Leigh who Enlightened him, wasn’t it?”

  Faron nodded, forcing himself to look at ease. He didn’t entertain speaking with Leigh. He might be one of the oldest Chosen, he was also as mad as a hatter. “Want me to have a bit of dialogue with him?”

  “Yes, after we depart from Gabriel’s, you shall wait until sunrise so that you can visit him during the day. Cloak yourself with light, and no one will know of your movements. Make sure that no one follows you. Stay in the light.”

  He didn’t look forward to traveling in the sunlight. It sometimes clouded his mind, made him feel like he wasn’t real. “So, no sleep for me until tomorrow night?” Keep our bed warm, he wanted to add, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate his humor at a time like this. These were dark times. Dark times, indeed. He would have to be very cautious.

  Lilith smiled. She took Nikolai’s limp hand and kissed each dimpled knuckle. “And to think that since Nikolai’s birth, I hid him with the hope that I could bring him out into the open and introduce him as my heir. And now for what? To only have him taken from me? No. No. I refuse for this to happen.”

  Faron stayed silent, lost in thought, shaking his head. “But your mother was human, which makes you part human. So why should Nikolai perish?”

  “Sevien killed my human part long ago. Long after I matured. All that remains is pure Grigori. Nikolai is too young for such a transformation. He would remain a child forever.”

  He clenched his teeth, feeling angry and impotent. “I have Enlightened many who would give their lives for me, and if I bid it, they would give their lives for our son. You should give me the Principality! For Nikolai’s sake . . .”

  She offered him a cold stare. “You’re my consort, my ears, my eyes. That’s far better than being the Prince. And what good would that do? Tipereth would cut through your Chosen like a scythe through butter. But, if Nikolai were to perish,” she said, her eyes glistening, “then Gabriel could bring him back.”

  Ah, he thought, So that’s why she needs him! He nodded, eyes wide with understanding. “Yes, yes! And when Nikolai matures, then let him be the Prince.”

  Lilith raised an eyebrow. “That’s a possibility, but I have something else in mind for Nikolai.”

  He touched the side of her face. “Promise me you’ll consider it.”

  “If Gabriel is not fruitful, Nikolai will take his place. Perhaps . . .”

  He frowned. “You didn’t promise.”

  She looked out the window before turning back to him. “Do you remember what you will say?” she asked, her voice considerably lower.

  He nodded, remembering the fabricated story about a rogue Chosen. He imagined Gabriel’s emerald eyes narrowing in contempt. Those jewel-hard, soul-searching eyes that he had only heard about. Bloody hell, he was shaking now. “Yes. But how long do you plan to keep Nikolai in Gabriel’s care? In time, he’ll realize that we’ve lied to him. When Nikolai begins to mature, he’ll know. He’ll see through it all, and the Devil take him if he lays a finger on my son.”

  Lilith’s face went blank. “I don’t fear Gabriel.”

  “What of Nathaniel? Have you told him of your plans?”

  “No. And I won’t. Not for the time being. I think he has become too attached to Gabriel. And such attachments could cause him to be unstable and undependable. He’ll do anything to continue this deception with Gabriel, pretending to be human. My father initially wanted Nathaniel to form a soul bond with Gabriel, but to this day, Nathaniel refuses.”

  Faron gave her a puzzled expression. He knew a thing or two about blood bonds, but had never heard of a soul bond. It sounded strange, terrible.

  “A soul bond is like a blood
bond,” Lilith explained. “Except it is stronger, more dangerous, and unbreakable. One must make several sacrifices in order to form one. I doubt that Nathaniel has succeeded with such a bond, much less initiated one. Gabriel is a stubborn one, and I’m beginning to think that Nathaniel loves him too much.”

  He strained to hear her words that had softened into a murmur. He felt certain that she kept important things from him, though. The word temporary should have been added to the adage “ignorance is bliss” because at the present time, he didn’t want to know. Soul bond. Without knowing why, his flesh crawled in revulsion to the word. He hoped that she would never invite him to make such a bond. But he feared that he would feel obligated to.