“You should have taken me up on my offer, Lena. You could have been in her life; all you had to do was give in to what you wanted, what you craved when I touched you. Yet you played me. Now you’ve lost your chance to be in her life, to watch as she brings down the gates of heaven to Hell, and unseats the old God to become the new one.”
“And let me guess, you’ll rule this world with her? Through her? Didn’t you try this before?” Synthia scoffed as she eyed me, taking in the progress I made as I fought the magic to reach Kendra, who was screaming as she cradled her stomach.
“She can’t help you,” he chuckled. “She can’t even intervene to save you. Gods are fickle fuckers, and yet they stick to the rules because they tend to attach themselves to creatures, and if they break them, they lose what they love most. So no, she won’t help you.”
I burst through the wards and sagged as the magic hit me, hard. It was spelled inside the circle? I coughed up bile, and blood exploded from my lungs as I threw it up. Lucifer tilted his head as if it was wrong, and then stared down at Synthia who still wore my face.
“Interesting, since it isn’t spelled against Gods, only…”
Synthia lunged, ripping the knife from his hands before she spun, throwing it to Lucian, who caught it and the moment he did, it vanished from his hands, and only a thick cloud of dust remained. I was up, moving towards Lucifer, who smiled.
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t plan to lose, did you, Lena?” he smirked as I lunged, catching nothing but air. I looked around at the demon’s that covered the ground, finding no sign of Lucifer as I turned in a full circle. “I knew you’d come, and I knew you wouldn’t be stupid enough to rush right in. Though, I did leave you a parting gift.”
I stared at him as his body misted and then reappeared across the grass, next to Lucian who reached out, his hand going through the image Lucifer projected. I swallowed hard as I moved to the bed, finding Kendra watching me with a sadness that wrecked me.
Her hair was slick with sweat, her body lying in a pool of blood that seemed to continue flowing from her. I sat beside her, cutting her free as I shook my head.
“Stay with me, please, please stay with me,” I begged as I pulled her to me. Her hands clung to me, her body shivering as it went into shock. I felt the wards being lowered as Erie cried out, even as demons tried to attack her, only for a large male to step out at the last minute, sending power rippling through the area. “Stay with me, stay with me,” I chanted as I rocked her in my arms as she held onto me.
“You have to find him, you have to save her,” she pleaded as I shook my head. “He has my daughter, Lena. Promise me, promise me you’ll find her and keep her safe.”
“We will find her, you and I will find her,” I promised.
“Not us, you. I’m dying,” she cried as her strength flowed from her as surely as the blood that left her system.
I watched Vlad as he sat beside her, slowly opening his wrist and then before she could protest, he pushed her mouth against it. I watched, knowing she’d hate me for forcing this choice, for forcing her to stay with me and yet she shook her head as she smiled.
“My soul is leaving,” she uttered. “It’s protected. You have to let me go.”
“Bullshit, you need to stay with me and fight,” I pleaded softly as black tears trailed from my eyes. “I need you. I need you to fight this.”
“I can’t, he promised to make the pain end if I agreed to his terms. He warned me that you would fight him.”
“Who?” I demanded.
“Death, he told me you’d find her, but that I had to go. He told me my time is finished, and I would know peace. I’m okay with dying, Lena. Because I know you will continue living, you’ll protect my daughter for the monster who sired her.”
“But you’re a momma,” I argued. “Kendra, let us save you so you can be her mother!”
“She has a mother,” she said gently as she touched my cheek. “You will be her mother. You’ll teach her everything. You have a second chance to be a mom, Lena. I’d have died, either way, even if I’d chosen to stay with her, he’d have figured out a way to have taken me. So I made a deal, my soul is safe from anything trying to turn me. My daughter is immortal, she’s like you. Like you and Joshua, which means you can find her and save her, and you can tell her about me. Tell her how much I loved her, how much I gave to be sure she could live.”
“Dammit, Kendra, you can’t do this to me!” I snapped as I watched her flesh grow pale, the blood continually flowing from her.
“I love you, Lena. You’re going to get through this. You’re the strongest person I know. Find her, find them and make him pay for what he has done to us.”
“That’s sweet,” Lucifer’s voice sounded from beside me. I turned, staring up at where he watched with a squirming baby in his arms.
“Give her back before you ruin her!” I demanded, unwilling to let Kendra go from where I held her, cradled in my arms.
“Lena, she isn’t healing.” Vlad’s words forced my eyes to his silver ones and then down at Kendra, who stared up at Lucifer.
“I’m going to find you, and I’m going to destroy you. I don’t care if it ends the fucking world, so long as you can never hurt another living soul!” I snapped, and the squirming baby began to mewl.
“She looks like you, you know,” he said, ignoring my words. “She has her mother’s eyes, and nose. She’s beautiful.”
“And yet you will ruin her?” I uttered hoarsely. “Bring her to me, and walk away. Let me love her.”
“You’d love something that has a piece of me in it?” he asked, lifting his electric gaze to mine.
“I could,” I nodded. “I do, I do love her already, Lucifer. Bring her to me.”
“No, no, she’s mine. You want her? Come to me. Come to me, and we will raise her together, and eventually, I’ll forgive your betrayal.”
“I’m coming for you,” I snapped, and then he smiled sadly.
“I’m counting on it, but then the witches are aware of you and are connected now. You lost, Lena. I told you that I’d win, that I’d rule the world and all you had to do was be at my side. You chose badly, she is mine,” he said as he cradled the babe as if she was the most precious thing in the world. “I’m sorry about your sister; it was never my intent to end her life.”
“You will pay for this!”
“No, he won’t,” my grandmother’s voice sent my hair rising against mine my spine as I ripped my eyes from Lucifer to where she stood, her eyes glowing red as she watched me.
“Do it,” I said to Lucian who stood behind her. I watched in silence as his blade came crashing down, severing her head from her shoulders where she’d stood. A scream bubbled up in my chest as Lucifer clucked his tongue.
“One down, only three more to go,” his eyes roamed over my face before a coldness entered his stare. “I’ll see you soon, my queen.”
He disappeared, and with him, my sister’s child.
“She isn’t coming back,” Vlad said, his arm still wide open as Kendra’s head rolled in my arms, pressing against my chest as I held onto her.
“Lucian,” Adam’s voice pulled my eyes to his as he watched me. “I’m calling in my debt.”
“Now?” Lucian growled.
“She’s spelled to release her soul, and yet she’s a vessel. A perfect vessel,” he stated carefully as he watched me. “She’ll be able to track her daughter, even if it isn’t her soul in the body. I did what you asked of me to save the woman you loved, now save mine.”
“Lena, they’re…dead. Our bloodline is dead,” Joshua stated, and I lifted my eyes to his as something snapped inside my head. “There are no more Fitzgerald witches, the entire line is gone.”
“We have to remove it from the world,” I uttered as I stared into my sister’s unse
eing gaze as Adam stepped closer as if he intended to take her. I growled at him, but I’d heard him. If I wanted to track my niece, I needed my sister’s blood. I needed it alive.
“I’ll make sure she remains safe until we need it,” he offered, and I watched Lucian as he reached for her.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Upholding my end of a bargain I made to save your life.”
Chapter 39
Life wasn’t easy; it wasn’t something you could win. You went through the motions, the wins, the losses, the hardships, and the difficulties that forged you into what you would become. You would get knocked down, and I had. It wasn’t about getting knocked down; it was about getting back up and being stronger, smarter than I had been when the world shifted from beneath me. You could either stay down, or you got back up. You could either let it forge you into something colder, smaller, or you grew from what you endured. I had endured, I’d sacrificed, and I’d gotten back up because, for me, it was the only option I could see.
I would rise, and I would take down the things that had knocked the world out from beneath my feet. I’d carve my name into this world, and I’d find my place among the immortals who had become friends and family.
You couldn’t win every fight you entered, which was a lesson I’d learned the hard way. I’d lost my family, all in a very short time and yet I had managed to remain on my feet. I mourned, I ached for them, and yet I wouldn’t bow to the pain. I wouldn’t forget who had caused the pain, either.
I watched Joshua exit the manor house, tossing an empty can of gasoline into it as he walked towards me. I didn’t flinch when he withdrew his lighter and set the house ablaze as we stood together, shoulder to shoulder watching the last remnants of our bloodline vanish into the blaze he’d set.
Life was tricky. Grandpa once said that you couldn’t dwell on the past, because you lived in the future. It was the past for a reason: you were already in the future. I’d done what the darkness had whispered to me: I’d eradicated myself, finding a new creature that had lived inside of me. One who welcomed both the light and the darkness, and was stronger for housing both of them.
“Who will bless it?” Joshua asked, and I shrugged as I continued to watch the house we’d shared and lived in as it crumbled against the night as flames licked the wood. Windows shattered, and I smiled as memories of another lifetime played in my mind.
“I will if you’ll allow me to,” Alden said, and I turned, eyeing the man who had fought to protect my coven. He was covered in bruises, battered from being fed off of by monsters the archangels had allowed into the Guild, and yet he stood beside us as we said our final goodbye to our bloodline.
“Thank you, Alden. Please, you loved her as we had, maybe even more at the end.”
“Just because you didn’t feel it, doesn’t mean you didn’t love her. She loved you both, but she was terrified of admitting it, afraid that if she dared to love you, she’d lose herself and you in the end. So she gave you space to come to her, to choose your path.”
“Honestly, it doesn’t matter now. She’s gone; they’re all gone because we failed them.”
“Not all of them; Kendra’s daughter is out there, and she needs you to save her, to find her and protect her. She left you a note, Kendra did. I saved it for you in case she didn’t survive this. She wrote it a week ago, knowing she’d never survive the labor.”
I took the note and stepped back from him, watching as he used holy water to bless the house, to release the souls that it contained if any had been trapped, and then it began to burn. Long into the night after the others had left and only a few of the flames remained did I exhale the pain that threatened to consume me.
The Furies held it locked into a part of me that I didn’t want to touch, didn’t want to open. Not yet, not until I could actually face what had happened, and grieve my losses properly.
I opened the letter and stared at the words, my throat tightening as I read her last wishes.
Lena, I know it’s you reading this. Who else would receive my last wishes? Funny how life works, how everything turned out, isn’t it? If you’re reading this, then I’m gone. We knew one of us would eventually die, but I kinda figured it would be much later.
So here’s the thing. If she survived this, if she’s out there and you’re holding her, kiss her and tell her she was worth it. Tell her I loved her; that I tried to stay with her but that life isn’t about choices, it’s about living in the now, living the best life possible. I lived, and while there’s a ton of shit I’d have done differently, or went back and changed, I lived.
You’re a mom now, her mom. Raise her as we were raised, to love and to fight for what we believe is right. Don’t fuck her up because I’ll haunt your ass, and shit. Raise her to be like you, not like me. She needs to be stronger, smarter, prepared for what will come after her. She will never be safe with him hunting for her, so protect her as I know you will.
I love you, Lena, I hated you for leaving me, and now here I am, leaving you. Life’s about losses, about moving forward, and you taught me that. Keep me alive with you, hold me and carry me in your heart as this world continues to burn around us, and keep Mom and Grandma safe, they need you. This world needs you because, in the darkness, you are the light that fights for us. Even though you think you’re dark and scary, you’re you. You can’t eradicate yourself, it cannot be done, not even if you were technically remade. I saw you watching me, the way your eyes followed me around the Guild. That was you, you wanted me to see you, and yet it terrified you to let us in. Don’t do that shit, Lena. Let them in.
You are my moon to my sun, and I your stars in the darkness, but really, it was always you who shined the brightest. You are good. You are everything this world needs, and now more than ever, we need you to fight them when we cannot. So fight, and protect Makenna. Makenna Sarah Fitzgerald needs you. I love you, I love you so much, and Joshua too. Fight for us, fight for this world, it’s worth it.
I folded the letter and pushed it into my pocket as I turned to stare at Lucian, who moved closer to where I stood.
“I have to get her daughter back,” I uttered thickly as I stared at Lucian.
“We will,” he replied, his eyes moving to the immobile form that slumbered beside the Fae. Her body was vacant of a soul, lifeless. Kendra’s soul had passed on to be reborn, leaving the horrors of this world. I didn’t feel her, couldn’t touch the shell that she’d become even though her heartbeat continued, she had died. “We have her DNA, her scent to track her daughter. We will find her, Lena.”
“And you’re so sure of that, how?” I demanded, sensing the others as they began sifting out, heading back to the Guild to protect it. Lucian pulled me into his arms, his mouth hovering against my ear as he whispered into it. My eyes widened, my body trembled at the impossibility of his words as I shook my head. “That’s impossible!”
“Scared?” he chuckled as he watched me process what he’d just said, what he was…
“That’s not possible! That would mean you…you’re… No.”
“Eternal? Endless? The things that Gods fear? What, Lena?” he uttered thickly as he watched me pulling away from his embrace. “You won’t leave me. I told you before, you’re mine. I am a monster, one even the Gods fear, especially the ones who know what I am. Scared now, little one?”
“That can’t be, you can’t be!” I whispered, horrified as the world shifted out from beneath me.
~Lucian~
Three days later.
“It’s done,” Death stated firmly.
“It is, the Fitzgerald line is ended, they’re no more.”
“You really think she will forgive what you have done?” he asked.
“I think when she figures it out, it won’t matter. She will know what and why I have done this. Her line was marked for death the mome
nt she escaped death. I merely sped the process for you, for him.”
“And all this for him?” he countered. His greenish blue eyes scanned my face as I smirked, watching him for any fucking weakness. “You told her you couldn’t fight Death, and yet you are the only one who could.”
“He is everything. And we had a deal, and going back on it wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t fight you for her because I had already sacrificed them to bring him back,” I uttered as I stared down into matching midnight eyes that stared back with no fear. My hand moved, touching the baby-soft hand as fingers curled around my finger. “Your mother misses you, little one,” I murmured, watching ancient eyes as they smiled up at me. “She is good, too good for us. You will love her; she is so easy to love.”
“He doesn’t understand what you’re saying. And really, Lucian, do you think she’ll love you once she figures out that his life cost her the lives of her family?”
“He is everything to her, and I was the only one who could save him from you and those vile bitches you sent to rip him from her womb.”
“They meant her no harm, and she made the deal. She sacrificed him to save you.”
“And you knew she would end her life and yet you forgot to mention it to me. You should go before I decide to give you a final ending, Death.”
He swallowed hard as his gaze dropped to my son. “He will end this world. He was born of what you are, and what she was. He is the Harbinger of Doom, Lucian. The Gods will seek to destroy him.”
“Then I’ll kill them all.” I lifted my son, his new body feeble and yet the strength in his eyes was akin to his mother’s, a force of nature that could indeed wreck and destroy this world. “A wise woman once told me that evil is created, forged in the fires of what life forces them to endure. He will be raised by that woman, and she won’t allow him to become a monster. She’s pure of heart, and beautiful fucking chaos, and she’s his mother.”
Becoming his Monster (Playing with Monsters Book 3) Page 29