He nods curtly. "I wish I had better news."
I stare at my hands. Kind? How can she be calm and focus on the Collector? This is a mindfuck. Yes, I expected Vee to have a role that we knew nothing about, but not to destroy a god who could end the world and even the universe by dying herself. That's beyond anything I expected fate to throw at us.
This situation can't happen.
It won't happen.
"It has to happen." As if reading my thoughts, Vee reaches out and places a hand on my leg. Her huge green eyes look back in trepidation but with a weird calm. She looks to Joss and whispers something in his ear.
The look on his face chills my soul, because he's lost.
We all are.
23
VEE
The meeting ends abruptly as Xander leaves, knocking into furniture as he does. Although Joss told me the information before the meeting, hearing everything outlined and the truth shared with everybody important in my life dropped the full weight on my shoulders.
Xander’s reaction didn’t surprise me, but his words did. I’ve watched him lose control more and more recently, and I hope this isn’t his tipping point. I clung onto Joss as we attempted to hold each other together, but it’s hard when I sensed he was losing his control again.
I stumble to my feet and follow Xander, who stands in the hallway, head and palms against the wall. Heath’s shock and Ewan’s quiet scare me. What will be said next?
"Xander," I say, and touch his shoulder.
He doesn’t respond, despite me trying several times to get his attention. I turn back to the others, eyes filling with tears, but not for myself, because I’m numb. Their pain and anguish flood towards me, and I struggle to breathe through the intensity from all four guys at once.
Ewan steps towards me; I’m squashed against his chest, face smothered as he holds me tight. I gasp against him for breath, unable to move. I don’t want to feel him hurting; I can’t stand feeling how fractured each of their hearts and minds are. His breath comes fast against my hair, but he doesn’t speak. I squeeze my eyes, willing the tears to go, because if he sees them, it will make things worse.
I pull back and Ewan holds my face in both hands, lost eyes searching mine. "We'll fix this, Vee. He won't win."
I nod and loosen his hands from my face, watching for Heath’s reaction. He hasn’t said a word; barely spoke in our meeting. His head’s bowed, fringe in his face obscuring his eyes the way he likes to hide sometimes. I cross to him and hold my palm against his cheek.
"Heath." He doesn’t look up. "Don’t you shut me out too."
"Let me hold this together," he whispers. "Don’t let me break down. Not now. If one of us does, we all will."
My heart tears, pulled between the four of them, our bond’s intensity pulling our souls apart too. The cruelty stuns me. Whatever the hell we are, underneath we’re people with human emotions.
I look to the ceiling and hold back the desire to scream at the universe for hurting the people I love.
Somehow, we find ourselves back in the Collector’s room, as he tells us to take time, half-joking that we’re crowding his hallway. His attempt to break the tension fails. I sit back on the sofa beside Joss. Xander stands far from the rest of us, arms wrapped tightly around himself. I’d go to him, but if I stand my legs will shake, and if Xander pushes me away again, he’ll trigger what I’m holding back—that I want to curl up in a ball and cry.
"We head back to the house," he says after several quiet minutes.
"We can’t, Xander," Joss replies. "There’s nothing left, remember?"
He spins around ready to retort and I watch as realisation crosses his defeated face. "Oh. Yeah."
"Where do we go?" asks Heath. "We’re homeless now."
"The Collector says we can stay here," Joss says. "Though I get the impression he wants this short term."
"No. Maybe a night, but then we move on. Seth’s succeeded in smoking us out—literally—so now we go to the bastard." Xander grabs his jacket. "I still want to see what’s left of the house, maybe we can salvage something."
I exchange glances with Heath. Ewan said there was little left. But if Xander needs to do this, it could help matters.
"Besides, my car is there," he grumbles.
"Are you thinking about your fucking car now?" Ewan interrupts, incredulous voice loud. "After what we’ve just been told, you’re worried about that?"
Xander narrows his eyes at Ewan. "No."
Joss grabs Ewan’s sleeve as he stands. "I think he’s trying to deflect how he feels, Ewan."
"What are you? My fucking psychologist now?" shouts Xander.
"We need to discuss and get our heads around what we’ve just discovered," Joss continues. "Overreacting won’t help!"
Ewan drags a sleeve away. "Overreacting? Someone just told us Vee was going to die and there’s nothing we can do to stop it."
I cringe back in the seat. What hurts me more, talk of my death or the division happening in the room?
"Bullshit," snarls Xander. "Prophecies are bullshit."
I watch the exchange around me, heart racing so hard I start to lose my breath.
Joss grips my hand; his presence helps. But with the numbing horror comes a relief—relief that I finally know the truth about myself.
Will I die? Can we stop this?
"Vee?"
I shake my head, unable to speak, frightened I’ll inflame the situation somehow. I'll stop Chaos. I don’t know what will happen to me, but the power Logan sees—that I feel—inside me will explode one way or another.
But what if the devastation I saw in my vision the night with Ewan wasn't caused by Chaos, but by me? That in order to kill Chaos, I destroy what’s around us?
I blink the thought away. No. I'm here to prevent that.
But still so much remains unanswered, and the lack of firm answers is what gives me hope.
24
VEE
The farmhouse should bring familiarity but is devoid of everything we had. The people who return are carrying heavier burdens than when they left and have nothing to return to.
"Is it safe to enter?" I ask as we stare at the building. From the outside, there’s little difference, the front of the building intact. I look up to the broken window Xander jumped through and my pulse picks up at the memory.
We step inside, to a different place than the one we left. The walls are covered in black, the stairs missing. Some furniture is half-burnt and the rest gone. The guys, as usual, don’t care about minor things like safety. Joss picks his way across the blackened floor until he reaches the kitchen. The room is gutted, everything inside unrecognisable.
"I should’ve put the fire out in the study the moment I saw it." Joss moves to stand in where the doorway once was, and his upset reaches me. Everything. Gone. All the books, all the notes. All he uses to research and help.
The acrid smell inside the house’s shell sticks to my clothes and I hold my hand across my nose, not wanting to breathe anything in. Heath joins us and we all stare helplessly at the room. I don’t want to see anywhere else.
"Where did Xander go?" I ask. "He hasn’t tried to go upstairs, I hope."
"No. There’s no way up there anymore. The rooms are burnt out."
"I’m guessing you didn’t have an insurance policy," I say with a small smile.
Ewan blinks at me. "Why are you flippant? This is a huge problem!"
"You think?" I snap back.
"Guys..." Joss touches both our arms. "At least we all survived."
"What was the dog doing here?" I ask.
"Why did he run into a burning building is the bigger question," replies Heath. "And when he ran, he was unscathed."
"Perhaps hellhounds hate elementals?" suggests Heath.
"Perhaps it doesn’t matter, just that he saved Xander."
I chew my lip. I’m relieved the conversation has switched from me, but I can’t stay in here. "I’m headed outside."
&nbs
p; The way across the kitchen involves picking through broken items and twisted metal. How intense was this fire? Outside, Xander sits on the wooden bench, the place we occasionally go to clear our heads when the weather allows.
He looks up as I approach. "I never found anything around the grounds or house. I thought Seth might’ve left us a message, as he always likes to."
"We’re sure it’s Seth who sent the elemental?"
Xander looks in confusion. "Um. Yeah. Haven’t you noticed how much fire is used against us?"
"True." I sit next to Xander and take his hand. "Everything will be alright."
He stares ahead. "I should be the one reassuring you."
"You need to process this."
"How can you be so calm?" He still doesn’t look at me, but his clammy hand tightens against mine.
"Because we haven’t lost yet. And there won’t be a yet. I agree, prophecies are bullshit." He turns to see my weak smile, but I only half-believe what I’m saying.
The other three guys appear and we gather around each other in the bleak weather. "We need to find the where and when," says Joss. "We need to know everything we can find in that book."
"I think even if he causes storms and opens all the portals, that’s not enough to cause the devastation he wants," replies Heath. "Yes, it will fuck up the world and lead to a lot of human death, but Chaos wants to actually destroy everything."
Xander stands. "I’m not having the fucker think he’s beaten us and won the first round by destroying a house. He hasn’t destroyed us, and he’s tried long enough. Despite everything, we know more than him. We regroup, and we track him. I don’t know how, but we will."
"Then what?"
Xander looks ahead and says in a quiet voice. "When we’re ready, we end this."
The house may be gone, along with everything the guys own, but more than our house has been destroyed in recent days. The undercurrent of distrust, and the need to hide secrets from each other left with him. The only thing that can help now is total unity.
Xander’s right. We will win.
But something stirs in the pit of my stomach. The strange sensation that I fought in the past—the one wanting me to end my emotional connection to the guys and the world.
The part of me designed to end Chaos, and now, myself.
25
VEE
Ironically, I return to my burnt flat too, ending my time living here where I began. I’m the only one with possessions left to take with us, wherever we decide to go next.
The landlord tried to contact me a few times about everything I left here; his insurance company want to begin repairs. Luckily, the fire here was minor compared to what I witnessed yesterday, and I have more to salvage since my initial move to the guys' place was a hastily packed bag.
I rummage through the boxes someone placed my possessions in, unsure if I want any reminders of that life. Most of my clothes also stink of smoke, but I’ve no option. At least I have more clothing choice than the guys do now.
"Do you want me to take your stuff and stash it at the Collector’s?" asks Heath. "He offered."
I chew my lip as I pick out a few items of clothes and shove them in a backpack. "I guess. The landlord said he’d dump everything if I didn’t collect the boxes by the end of the week."
Heath nods and crouches down to take a large box. "Finish up. I’ll take them to the car."
Today feels oddly like the last time I moved from my flat. If everything was screwed up then, now it's a hundred times worse. Where do we go now? I can’t see us staying at the Collector’s more than a day or two before Xander moves us on. We’ve discussed heading to the States and are prepared to take a step closer to Seth. Maybe that’s what Seth wants, but he’ll have a bigger fight on his hands then he expects.
As I stand in my old bedroom, I run a hand through my hair and look around. The curtains are burnt rags, and there’s a scorched trail across the carpet. Oddly, my bed and dresser survived, as if the fae who attacked me focused the damage on pushing me from the room. Why didn’t it spread?
I open a dresser drawer and peek inside, but the contents must be in one of the boxes. There's a soft tap on the half-open door, and I turn to see Heath standing, hands in pockets.
"Everything okay?"
I shake my head. "No. I’m struggling to hold myself together right now, but I don’t want to tell everybody."
He steps in, before closing the door behind him. "You mean you don’t want to tell Xander and Ewan?"
As I expected, they’re the two not dealing by using denial, and that’s holding them together. How long can the pair keep the denial going? Xander’s comes through in outbursts, but I worry about Ewan.
As Heath pushes hair from his face with both hands, he looks, eyes filled with a sense of sadness that's worse than when I see them worried.
"Heath, it’s okay. I’ll be okay."
"I can stop this," he says and strides over.
I gasp as he catches me in his arms and hugs me to him, holding as if I might disappear, the way he did the first day I arrived in their lives, outside the house when I almost ran.
"I can bring the others back. If you die, I'll bring you back." His hand moves to the back of my head and presses my face against his shoulder. Heath's heart races faster than I've ever heard.
"We can try," I whisper.
Heath tips my face so I can look him in the eyes. "We have to believe we can. That I can."
I don't want to say the question that instantly fills my mind: what if Seth kills Heath first?
"I don’t want to talk about dying, Heath."
Instead, I push my mouth on his desperate for the comfort he can provide. We kiss as if this is the first and last time, gripping each other as our hearts pull together terrified they’ll be broken and lost. I’m lost to him and to focusing on the Heath who I wanted from the beginning; on the man who, in a small way, connects me to my old life.
I pull away. "Remember the first time? When I said I wanted to be Vee and be human?"
He plays his fingers across my cheeks and lips, nodding as our eyes meet again in a memory of that night.
"Right now, do I feel less human than that day?"
Heath laughs softly. "You know you feel a hundred percent human to me. Maybe this power can be let go instead of...." He pauses and swallows. "Then you can go back to being just Vee?"
I close my eyes. "Heath, I never was just Vee, was I?"
He steps back and pinches the bridge of his nose. "You know what? I want to destroy whoever made you into this as much as I want to end that fucking god."
"But if they hadn't created me, I wouldn't exist."
That’s one truth we can’t deny. Heath sits on the bed, and I sit on his lap, arms around his neck. Lying his head against my chest, Heath circles the small of my back with his fingers. I am human. Whoever did this created someone who could feel all the human emotions—the ability to love, desire, hurt, hate... everything. If I was just a power sent to end a god, why give me this?
But as I hold Heath, I know why. The intensity of my need to hold and be held by him, to be with and share love with the four guys, shows they made a mistake. Perhaps my creator decided an emotional connection would help Truth walk in and steal all the Horsemen’s powers.
Wrong. Their plans will backfire. We've been through a lot dealing with Chaos and building our strength as the Horsemen and their Fifth—but also as Vee, Ewan, Xander, Heath and Joss.
We won't be beaten easily, prophecy or not.
"You know what I'm going to ask now?" I whisper against his stubbled cheek, as the hurt inside is replaced by something else.
"You never need to ask, Vee. Just tell me what you want. Always."
As we kiss again, the tears build, and I'm thankful Heath can't see, but I’m grateful they do because they mean I’m more than any prophecy tells us.
The book talks of Chaos, Truth and Order. But what about Love?
Don’t miss the final bo
ok in The Four Horsemen series. Available for preorder.
Release date April/May
The Four Horsemen: Reckoning
Amazon
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OTHER BOOKS BY LJ SWALLOW
The Four Horsemen Series
Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy
(Available Now)
Legacy
Bound
Hunted
Guardians
Chaos
Descent
Reckoning
Coming in March
Huntress (Trials of the Gods)
A reverse harem fantasy
Written with Angel Lawson
In a world where the gods live together in one society, a revolution is coming led by the goddess Artemis and the four gods who are her allies and protectors.
Artemis is pulled from her simple life in the forest, where her father Zeus hid her to shield her from a dangerous society, and taken to the Academy of the Gods.
The strongest god in the Academy, Apollo is dead taking with him any hope for a new future. Artemis must take her brother's place in the Trials of the Gods, a series of challenges designed to either prove her strength or determine her failure. The winner of the Trials will lead the Academy towards a new future.
Dealing with her new life and role is challenging enough without the distraction of the gods she must ally with: Thor, Loki, Dionysus and Triton. Romance is the last thing on her mind, but the closer the five work as a team, the harder it is to resist.
The Four Horsemen_Descent Page 16