by Ember Hollis
Christian nods and I walk over to where their cocoons are. To my disappointment, Sybil is still in stasis, appearing no better or worse than she’d been the last time I saw her. But when I near Noah, I see that his bed has been cordoned off by curtains. A tray of wash cloths and and bedding lies on a trolley nearby. Madam Kahili must have been here recently.
I quicken my pace and shove the curtains aside, nervous about what I’ll find. But the sight that greets me fills me with relief. The cocoon is gone, and there’s no one there but Noah, sleeping peacefully in his bed.
I walk up to his side and place a hand on his forehead. It’s warm but not hot, and his complexion is rosy and no longer pale. I’m so relieved, I drop a kiss on his forehead, grateful that he’s going to come out of the terrible experience we had with no real damage.
When I lean back, Noah’s hazel eyes open, and he smiles widely at me. “Hey, beautiful,” he says, reaching a hand up to me. “I dreamed of you.”
I laugh in relief and catch his hand, pressing it to my cheek. “I’ve been thinking about you too. How are you feeling?”
“Great,” he shifts, then frowns, as if only just realizing where we are. “What happened? Why am I in the hospital wing?”
“You got hurt, remember?” I tell him. “The spider bit you…” I’m not sure if he even saw it before he collapsed, but Noah nods as if he knows exactly what we’re talking about.
“Yeah, I remember,” he grins. “I remember how you sucked the poison out of me… and what we did after that,” he leans up and kisses me deeply, then slides a hand familiarly around my waist to drag me into the bed with him.
“Best night of my life,” he tells me when he leans back, winking.
I stare at him, slightly out of breath at the unexpected kiss. What could he be talking about? He’d been wrapped in the cocoon immediately after he’d been bitten…
“You must have been dreaming, Noah,” I smile at him a little guiltily. He was supposed to be my first. The one I chose to give my virginity to. I’m still fond of him, but that ship has sailed. And there’s so much he doesn’t know that I have to tell him. “You passed out.”
“Nah,” Noah chuckles. “Maybe after, since I don’t remember how we got here. But I’ll never forget what it felt like to hold you… and be with you…” he kisses the top of my head, then my cheek, before he plants a hungry kiss on my lips. “To be in you…”
His hands rove higher on my waist to my breasts, and I gasp softly as he slips thumb through the slit between the buttons. I hadn’t worn my bra when I dressed, and he finds my nipple unerringly, awakening my desire.
“Let’s do it again,” he says, his eyes dark as they rest on me. “No one will see.” He pulls me closer and I feel his shaft jutting out from under the bottom of the sheets, pressing against my thigh.
“What do you mean… again?” I frown, resisting his efforts to pull me over him. What had gotten into him? Surely whatever dream he’d had couldn’t have been that strong? Had he been hallucinating in that cocoon?
“Again,” he repeats. “I want to hear you moan,” he laughs, threading a hand through my loose hair. “Though maybe not so loudly this time, if there are people out there. It’s so hot how you make that little noise when you’re coming, as if you’re between a sob and a laugh,” he chuckles. “Did you know you do it?”
His words make me freeze. That sound? I’d heard it before. Dozens of times in fact. It’s hard not to recognize it when my Mom makes it on a regular basis, whenever she’s… hooking up with men.
My blood starts to boil in my veins as realization hits me like a wave. Noah and Mom… Mom and Noah…
“Why do you look angry?” Noah continues. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t sound bad… it’s actually kind of cute.”
He pulls me closer for another kiss, and I let him, not quite knowing what to do. If I tell him, he’ll know about my Mom. If I don’t, he’ll keep thinking we already had sex. He already thinks that, that’s why he thinks I’m okay with him doing this…
And I am, I truly am… I still want Noah…it just… it breaks my heart that Mom did this to him… to my… no, I can’t call him my boyfriend anymore. Maybe not even my friend, once he finds out what happened. Noah’s been raped by her, a victim of a misunderstanding… and it’s all my fault.
“Oh, Heaven,” Noah moans softly against my lips. “I want you so much.”
I kiss him awkwardly, trying to keep it chaste.
My Mom kissed him too, I think with disgust, then guilt. It wasn’t Noah’s fault this had happened. I had no idea how Mom managed to seduce him while he was in his cocoon, but he’d obviously been delirious and only half-aware at the time to not be able to tell the difference between us. That, or she’d taken on my appearance and pretended to be me.
Utterly repulsed, I push his searching hands away, “Noah, no, I don’t think this is a good idea…”
“It’s okay, no one will see,” he grins mischievously. “And even if they do, what does it matter? We’re together, aren’t we?”
I almost nod, then stop myself. I don’t really want to be together with him anymore, I realize. Especially since we weren’t.
“Rest for now,” I tell him, using my magic as I try to make him listen to me. Pink mist glistens all around me, coating my skin, my lips, and rising into the air around us. “And I’ll come see you soon, okay?”
Noah frowns and groans but I force more power into him and he finally nods weakly. “All right, but one more kiss, okay?”
I nod and lean in, giving a sweet, long kiss as I wish with all my heart that he could just fall asleep and forget what had happened, that we could go back to the time before the Hunt, when things weren’t this complicated between us yet and we were still friends.
The curtain around the bed rips open and hands suddenly clutch at my shoulder, forcing me back from Noah. I jump, whirling to see Bane glaring at me with narrowed eyes.
“What exactly is going on here?” Bane growls, his eyes like shards of amethyst as they rake over Noah and me. “Why are you trying to kill him?”
Chapter 22: Heaven
“What?” I gasp, turning to look back at Noah. He’s slumped in the bed, pale, with cold sweat on his brow. “I wasn’t!”
“He’s near death again,” Bane says, placing a finger on his pulse. “What did you do to him?” He looks at me quizzically. Then, Christian steps through the curtains and takes a look at all of us before he starts to swear.
“Shit, I should have told you,” he frowns at me, “I just didn’t think you’d jump into bed with someone else so soon.”
“Fuck you too, Christian,” I tell him. “It’s okay for you to sleep around but not for me?” Though that’s not exactly what I’d been intending to do.
“What’s wrong with him,” I ask Bane, “Tell me!”
“He’s dangerously low on energy,” Bane says.
“Because you forgot you’re a succubus,” Christian continues, “You can’t go around kissing and making out with people without keeping a tight hold on your powers now, little lamb. Not unless you want to wake up with dead husks in your bed,” he raises his brows at me. “Not that you’d notice the difference, in his case,” he laughs darkly.
“This isn’t funny!” I snap, turning back to Noah. “He looked fine when he woke up… is he going to be okay?”
Christian rolls his eyes, then reaches out to touch Noah. “Yup, he’ll be fine. Werewolves heal very fast. But just in case…” a yellow cocoon starts creeping up around the werewolf. I stare at it, discomfited by what I’d done. It had been an honest mistake. And yet, if Bane hadn’t stopped me in time… I’d have killed one of my best friends.
Why was it so difficult to be me!
“You have succubus abilities,” Bane says slowly, breaking me out of my thoughts. “When did this happen, and how?”
“Apparently I was born this way,” I tell him. “Dad’s an angel, Mom’s a succubus.” It’s too late to keep it a secret now
that Christian’s blurted it out in front of Bane. I glare at Christian and he shrugs.
“So you were right,” Bane says to him. “She does have Light and Dark magic like us. Do Knox and Malek know yet?”
“Not yet, but we should tell them,” he says.
“Hey, just hang on, okay,” I interject. “This is my secret. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“I told you we Horsemen will understand,” Christian says. “And Pandora will too, once you explain it to her.”
“It’s not that,” I tell them. “My Mo—I mean… I have reason to believe that there are people after me because of my heritage. That they’re right here in school, trying to figure out if I’m really half-angel and half-demon.”
“And what will they do once they find out?” Bane asks curiously.
I shrug. “I don’t know. All I know is, I wasn’t ever supposed to come to this academy. My Mom never enrolled me and my Dad didn’t even know I existed before this. It’s all part of a grand scheme or something, though I have no idea why, or what—”
My eyes widen as something occurs to me. Something so obvious and yet so unthinkable, that it just hadn’t occurred to me till now.
“I think,” I say slowly, “That whoever brought me here must also have arranged for my Mom to die.” It hadn’t worked, but it was still a chilling thought.
“That sucks,” Christian says once I explain what had happened to bring me here. “Too bad both the guys are dead. Though…” he looks to Bane, “That shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you, should it?”
I look from Christian to Bane as he shakes his head. “Makes no difference to me.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“We’re talking about interrogating your Mom’s ex-lovers,” Christian explains. “If someone is really out to get you by bringing you here, they should be able to tell us who it is.”
“But how will you—” I cut off when Bane suddenly grins a smug, icy grin. “Oh. You’re going to resurrect them, aren’t you?”
“Nothing more fun than interrogating the dead,” he nods, confirming what I said.
Chapter 23: Heaven
Getting back to Terra isn’t as complicated as I thought it would be, though it does involve passing through Themis. I hurry through the small magical town with Christian and Bane, clad again in Sybil’s hooded cloak just in case Mom is still hanging around looking for me. Though there’s no sign of her, I only relax once we’ve boarded a boat on the opposite side of town.
“How does this get us to New York again?” I ask once we’re on deck. The warehouses and docks where we departed Themis slowly shrink as we drift further across the lake, and soon, the little town and the mountain on which Pandorax Academy stands on are barely visible behind a thick fog that rises in our wake.
“There are portals on the lake that lead to bodies of water all over the world,” Bane tells me. “We’re going to go through the one that connects with the Hudson.”
“Really?” I peer over the edge of the boat. We’re moving faster than I thought, with strong currents swirling around our boat. Thick fog is rising up around us, and soon I can’t even see the water anymore. We could be floating in the air for all I know.
“Really,” Christian answers. He points out a seat equipped with a seat belt. “Hope you don’t get seasick, it’s going to get rough soon.”
I roll my eyes, “It can’t be worse than flying on high winds. I think I can handle it.”
Just then, the boat jerks, listing to the side as it starts moving in huge circles. It’s as if someone has pulled a plug in a great drain under the lake.
The sudden momentum jerks me off my feet and I utter a soft shriek as I start to fall. Then, Bane grabs hold of me and hauls me onto his lap.
“I stand corrected!” I gasp, looping my arms around his neck.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his purple eyes gleaming with amusement while Christian laughs outright.
“Completely,” I say, making a face. Bane’s lap isn’t the softest seat, but it’s comfortable enough that I don’t feel like moving. Instead, I thread my hands through his white hair, enjoying the soft feel of it. He slants a smile up at me, then lays his head back against the wall behind him, looking for all the world as if he’s dozing.
I feel Christian’s eyes on me, so I turn to look at him. He’s watching me with narrowed eyes, which makes me wonder what he thinks about us and where we stand with each other. Whether we’re friends now… or something more.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask finally, when he won’t stop staring at me.
“I’m wondering if Alya’s awake yet,” he says simply.
I wince inwardly. I knew the valkyrie got along well with the Four. But just how important was she to them? How important was I?
Considering how they’ve been treating me so far… it would be silly of me to assume they thought of me as anything more than a plaything. Even if they’d decided to come on this trip with me.
“Do you think she’ll forgive you for what you did?” I ask, avoiding asking the questions I really want to ask.
“Maybe, in time,” he says. “The real question is… what’s she going to say to the angels? And what will they do, if she tells them about you? That’s what you should be worried about.”
“You really think she’ll do it? Even though you made it obvious you don’t want her to?”
“Alya’s a good friend, but it’s like she said. She’s unwaveringly loyal. She might understand more about what we go through than most others, but she still has no qualms about spying on us for the angels.”
“I’d hate it if my friend does that,” I say. “Why do you put up with it?”
“When you have the ability to trigger the apocalypse, a lot of machinations happen around you,” Bane says, startling me into a jump. “People get nervous that I’ll spring Death on the world when I shouldn’t… or that I won’t do it when I should. Everyone becomes a player or a pawn when they get close enough to you. Especially if they have any ties to the constant tug of war between the divine and the underworld. It’s just something we put up with, when we can’t avoid it.”
“Which is why all of you dislike angels so much,” I hazard a guess. “Isn’t it the same with demons though?”
“No problem killing demons,” Bane shrugs.
“Which is why you, being half of both, was such a conundrum to us,” Christian smirks. “Were you supposed to be a test? Or a prize? Hard to know for sure…”
“Until now,” I tell him. “I don’t care about any of that. So I’d appreciate it if you left me alone from now on.”
“But not too alone, I hope,” Bane says softly, his eyes inquiring as he gazes up at me. I gaze into their deep purple depths, as a surge of warmth rises in me.
“Not too alone,” I nod with a small smile. Bane’s lips curl delicately as his eyes take on a heated gleam. Slowly, our lips gravitate to each other, until we’re a hairs breadth from kissing.
“We’re here,” Christian says shortly, interrupting us.
The boat jerks to a stop and I look away from Bane. Christian is gazing out to the horizon, his lips pressed in a thin line, and his body stiff with tension. I climb off of Bane, feeling a little embarrassed, though I refuse to show it.
It’s been a while since I’ve felt anything resembling my normal, confident self. But now that I’m nearly there, I don’t want to let Christian make me feel small and powerless anymore. He knows I slept with Bane, Knox, and Malek, and I’m not going to hide it from any one of them. I’m a free woman, and my body belongs to me, to share with whomsoever I please. Plus, it wasn’t like any of them have pledged their undying commitment to me and only me anyway. So there’s hardly any reason for me to be exclusive.
“Great,” I say, deciding to ignore—or better yet, completely provoke Christian until he gives up on sulking or decides to bring it all out in the open.
Committing to the decision, I take Bane’s ha
nd and pull him down for a proper kiss. His petal soft lips curl into a smirk under mine as he kisses me back, both of us ignoring Christian’s intense gaze. It lasts a good long time, and I luxuriate in the sweet, heady scent of Parnassus that seems to cling to the Horseman of Death, parting from him only when we’re both completely out of breath.
“Thanks,” I pant, giving him a suggestive look, then glance over at Christian. As much as I love kissing Bane, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like if Christian, like Knox, didn’t mind joining us too. “For the kiss, and to both of you for agreeing to help me. I don’t believe I mentioned it before.”
“I’m always up for trouble,” is all Bane says, though his smirk widens when he notices where I’m looking. It gives me the impression that he wouldn’t particularly mind either if the other Horseman stopped fuming and pouting to join us.
“Let’s just get this show on the road,” Christian growls, not waiting for us as he vaults over the side of the boat.
Chapter 24: Heaven
It doesn’t take long to find out where Martin is buried. A simple internet search in a cafe leads us straight to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, a beautifully landscaped place with rolling hills and serene ponds peppered by Gothic monuments and obelisks.
Martin’s grave is one of the newer ones in a large private lot that’s generations old. The earth already has some grass growing over it, but it doesn’t deter Bane in the least.
“How will you get him out of his coffin?” I ask as he bends down to touch the ground.
“The usual way,” he says, giving me a slit-eyed grin. His purplish-blue gaze darkens and his white hair starts to whip as his power activates, illuminating the black earth beneath his fingertips. At first, I don’t see anything happening. Then, a soft scratching starts to sound from below the earth. A moment later, a grubby hand that is half bones and half rotted flesh, bursts out of the ground, quickly followed by a bony arm, and a skull-like head with long dark hair still sticking to it. Martin’s body is shrunken and skeletal, but his face is terribly familiar to me.