Zealot (Hidden: Soulhunter Book 3)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  I wanted to scream. “But they’re safe for now,” I said.

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Well, this has been a lot of fun, Nyx. I have a life to mourn, though, so please excuse me.”

  She seemed lost in thought, as if she had not heard me. I shook my head and started walking away. I kicked at some loose stone on the pathway and watched it skitter toward a thorny bush.

  “Guardian,” Nyx said. I groaned. Did she not have anything else to do? Give more people impossible tasks, maybe?

  “Yes?”

  “I have been thinking.”

  “Wonderful.”

  She gave me an annoyed look, and then surprised me by laughing. “I am not your favorite being right now, am I?”

  I did not bother answering that. She shook her head and walked toward me.

  “You are honorable,” she said.

  “I am. Thank you for stating the obvious.”

  She smiled again. “I daresay… the loss of so much honor would throw your world into imbalance. How can life and death possibly continue, without Death’s most devoted Hunter?”

  I did not dare to speak, did not dare to hope.

  She gave me a gentle smile, and reached out to trace my face again. And then her hands skimmed down my neck, my shoulders, my arms, and everywhere she touched, I felt warm, vibrant…

  Alive.

  “You have never asked for any reward, for anything for yourself. Take this gift I bestow upon you, Guardian. Live your eternal life well. Be there for my granddaughter when she needs you. I do not feel as if your story is truly over.”

  I looked down at myself to see that I was whole, solid. I could barely breathe, could barely think. Tears fell from my eyes, and I shook my head, unable to express my gratitude.

  “You are welcome, my Child. Now, go on. Fly.”

  I looked at her in confusion, and then glanced at my back. I had forgotten, again, about my wings. Once upon a time, they had been the only thing I truly cherished. I closed my eyes and opened them again.

  Wings, black as night. They fluttered, they flapped. There was no pain, no emptiness.

  “Go. Live. Continue to make me proud,” Nyx said.

  I rose into the air, let loose a wild shout of joy, and I heard Nyx laugh. She started focusing, and I knew she was preparing to destroy the gateway again, for what would truly be the last time.

  “Nyx,” I said, and she turned back.

  “Yes?”

  “My sisters. They deserve a second chance, too.”

  “They do. I already pushed them out into the mortal realm. Now go!”

  I swooped toward her, landed, and knelt before her. “Thank you.”

  “Rise, Guardian.”

  I rose, and Nyx studied me closely for several long moments, a sort of half-smile on her lips. And, finally, she spoke.

  “Thank you. Thank you for reminding me that this world, mess that it often is, is worth saving. Thank you for showing me that, on occasion, I do get things right.”

  I laughed, and she smiled.

  “Live well, Eunomia Eth-Nyx,” she said, with those words officially claiming me as her daughter. She had created me, but she had not birthed me the way she had the Furies. It was unheard of for her to bother claiming one of us that way, and I knew I would never tell anyone of it. Some things are best held close to your heart.

  I squeezed her hands and, against all odds, rose into the air, whole in body and spirit.

  Now, to make my heart whole again.

  I circled over London, swooping through the sky. I had rematerialized there, knowing it was where my heart was.

  I have faced demons, hydras, gods. I have faced my own eternal death. None of it had scared me as much as the prospect of an eternity without Brennan. Still, that feeling of loss, that sense of dread, clung to me like a veil. This did not feel real. It did not feel possible. Would this be just one more thing Nyx would change on a whim? Would she decide tomorrow, or a year from now, or twenty years from now that she had been wrong, that my presence here upset her precious balance too much?

  If it ever came to that, I knew now that I would fight. As important as it is for me to be useful, to make the world a little bit better, I finally knew that there was something I wanted even more: happiness, and a life of my own, lived by my own rules.

  Emotionally, I was still a mess. As I flew, I either could not stop smiling or bawled so hard it made my head pound. Sometimes, both things happened at once. If Mollis were with me, she would have given me one of her Mollis looks and told me to rest before I completely lost my mind. In some ways, I have lost it already.

  Maybe this is what it feels like to be free.

  So I flew, and circled, and let the sensation of my body slicing through air soothe my frayed emotions. I took in the sight of the stars shining brightly above me, and focused on the movement of my body, my wings flapping as strongly as they ever had. I had everything in the world to be thankful for.

  And yet, I wanted more. How very, very unlike me.

  I was pulled toward the building in Whitechapel, toward the upper flat we had, against all odds and sense, begun to turn into a home.

  The lights in the living room were on. Shadows moved inside, behind the gauzy curtains in our living room. I focused, hard, and sensed the energies of those I know and love best: Mollis, Nain, their children. Hephaestus, Meaghan, and their children. Megaera. My New Guardians. Artemis.

  And, stronger and brighter than all of them, at least as far as I was concerned, there was him. Warm, steady. Tears flowed from my eyes again, as I realized why they were all there.

  They were mourning. They were mourning me, together.

  I landed on the sidewalk nearby and made my way into the building, up the creaky staircase to the third floor. I needed the time to calm myself, to stop the tears from falling. That, and appearing in the middle of all of them when I am supposed to be dead would only bring chaos, and Nyx knows they need no more of that.

  In almost no time, I stood outside of the red door, our flat number, 3C, in brass at eye level.

  I raised my hand, paused, took a deep breath, and knocked.

  A scream sounded from inside, and I had to laugh. Mollis was there, throwing the door open, launching herself out at me. She hugged me fiercely, not bothering to hide the tears flowing from her eyes.

  “Thank god. Thank god,” she murmured. “How, E?”

  “Nyx was grateful,” I said. “She let me live again.”

  Mollis’s shoulders were shaking, and I realized that she was crying in earnest. Her hold on me was tight, as if she was afraid to let go. “I can’t… I thought about doing this shit without you, and I can’t. I can’t. Don’t ever do anything like that again!” she scolded, and I laughed.

  “You’re my sister. My friend. My conscience. Do you have any idea how much we need you, E?”

  I did not know what to say to that.

  “I need to see Brennan,” I whispered.

  She squeezed me tightly, then let go. She took my hand in hers and led me back toward the door, where my dearest friends were watching, tears flowing from glowing eyes.

  “It’s really you, then, you tiny nightmare,” Hephaestus said, and I laughed through my tears. “I knew you’d never leave us.”

  “Nyx is generous,” I said. “It is through her grace that I am here now.” I would not bother saying that I was just fine with never, ever seeing Nyx again. This was a time for happiness, after all.

  Quinn stood just behind Hephaestus. “Oh, thank Christ. I was almost in charge of the Guardians. Please take your old job back,” he said, and I laughed.

  Past them all, I could see Brennan standing in the living room, head bent. I know him well enough to know that he was praying, that he was overwhelmed. I exchanged a glance with Mollis, and she nodded.

  “Guys. There’s a pub down the block. I’ve never been drunk but fuck me if this isn’t the day for that to happen,” she said, and the rest of them nodded, laughe
d. I received hugs, kisses, murmurs of “nice job, E,” as they filed past me.

  I stood just inside the doorway of our flat. The door clicked shut behind me as the last of our friends walked out, and then it was just him.

  I saw his chest rise and fall as he took another breath, and then he raised his eyes to me, blue eyes that had seen far more of me, physically, emotionally, than I had ever let anyone see. We stood, gazes locked, the span of a room separating him from me.

  He stared. His eyes were red, as if he had spent a lot of time crying. But just now, there was something more in his eyes. I could not decipher it. It was an intensity, the kind of look that froze me in place and made it nearly impossible to breathe.

  “I think…,” I swallowed, moistened my lips with my tongue. I have never been nervous around anyone but him, ever. “I think we left some things unfinished between us.”

  He studied me, and then nodded, slowly. “I think we did.” He started to speak, and I held my hand up.

  “Can I please say this, because I need to get it all out and I hate how flustered I become around you.”

  He closed his eyes and nodded, eyes still on me, that same intensity there. I clasped my hands, well aware that they were shaking.

  “Now that I am back… now that we have a choice, and no one is forcing us apart, I want you to know that I want this. I think I did a poor job before of letting you know just how much I want it. I was wrong. I was wrong about so many things when it came to us. What irony, that she who seems to know it all, who has seen everything, had no idea what to do with this,” I said, gesturing between him and me. “I was wrong when I refused to let myself believe in us. I was wrong when I refused to accept and cherish the love you offered me, over and over again. I was wrong to push you away, to draw myself back from you. I was wrong to fear that you would be the next one to betray me. Even more, I was wrong not to tell you more often how much I love you, how much I need you. Especially when I know how much you need to hear those things from me. So I will tell you. I will tell you about how you have made it so that eternity will not be enough time, because there is no future, no situation in which I can imagine tiring of waking up beside you. I was wrong not to tell you about how I feel truly alive when you kiss me, or that when you touch me, it is as if I have waited my whole life, just to have you so near. It was wrong that it took dying for me to finally tell you even a fraction of that, but I swear on my life I will never leave any of it unsaid again.”

  I took a breath. “I was wrong to push you away so often, when I should have been holding onto you for dear life, my love. I am sorry.”

  His eyes were bright, and he blinked a few times. And then he took the first step toward me, and I started toward him, determined to meet him halfway, to put as much into the idea of us as he did.

  When he reached me, there were no words, just his hands under my chin, his fingers tracing the place where my pulse thundered. And then his lips were crushing mine, his arms around me, stronger than anything I have known in my life, holding me up, holding me close as his lips made love to mine. Tears flowed freely from my eyes, mixed with his tears as we kissed, as we held on, as we promised, finally, without a single word, that there would be no more half measures for us.

  “I love you, Eunomia,” he growled against my lips. “You are everything. You are my world, you’re the air I breathe. Eternity is a goddamn prison without you,” he added, pulling back, just a little, pulling my hair gently to make me look up at him again. “I belong to you in every way it’s possible to belong to someone. The second you died…” he shook his head angrily, that hand still in my hair. “The second you died, everything in me died, too. I was a shell. Empty. There was nothing fucking left,” he said, and I gave a tiny nod, my heart pounding at the intensity in his eyes. “And then there you were, a soul, leading that insane army of ghosts, and I’ve never been more proud, more heartbroken… more angry at myself for not fighting harder for us, the way you fight for every single thing that matters to you.”

  I shook my head. “I did not fight for us, either. I let my fears get in the way.” I met his eyes again. “No more.”

  “No more,” he repeated. “Don’t ever leave me again, Eunomia. Please.”

  I wrapped my arms around his waist, holding him as closely, as tightly as I possibly could. “Never.”

  It was not long before I found myself beneath him, my body bared to his attentions, his hands and mouth making me fully appreciate, yet again, how good it felt to be alive. It was almost too much, the way he filled me, took me, used me, and I loved every single second of it. He was at once rough and gentle, loving and punishing, generous and greedy, and by the time we had finished, I was left panting, aching, tender, and utterly spent.

  We lay side by side on the wood floor in the living room, both of us trying to catch our breath.

  “We have always been good at that part,” I wheezed.

  He let out a low chuckle, then reached over and gathered me into his arms. I rested my head against his chest and, for the first time in a very long time, I felt like I could breathe. There was nothing weighing on me, nothing demanding the time and attention I wanted to give to the marriage and life we were trying to build together.

  “There’s so much more to this marriage thing than fucking and fighting and trying to fit our actual life into everything else. We need to do better,” he said.

  “We will. But we can still do plenty of this too, yes?” I teased, and he laughed.

  “I love you. You drive me completely nuts, you twist me up the way nobody else ever has, but I love it. Maybe we’re just crazy.”

  “Maybe,” I said, nodding. “But now we know that we want to be crazy together, and I am never, ever letting you go.”

  He grinned. “Good. Now let me show you just how much I adore you.”

  And he did, over and over and over again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In the days following what was meant to be the end of the world, those of us who lived in the mortal realm —immortals, humans, shifters, demons, vampires —began the long and exhausting task of rebuilding what had been lost. When the final estimates had finally come in, everyone had been shocked to learn that the Earth had lost nearly twenty percent of its population, between the undead and the natural disasters Nyx set in place as she’d started the process of ending the realm she had created.

  Brennan and I worked tirelessly alongside anyone who needed us. The difference, now, was that we truly worked side-by-side, the partners we swore we would be to one another. Most of our work happened in western Europe. London had suffered badly, as had Paris, Berlin, and several of the other more populous cities.

  The longer we worked together, the more I appreciated how perfectly we fit. When I was impatient and irritated with those we were trying to help, he was calm and diplomatic. When I was exhausted, he was the one who was able to cajole me into taking a break. And when he went into workaholic mode, as he has a tendency to do, I was there to bring him out of it.

  We were not far from the Eiffel Tower, meeting with Paris’s shifter leaders and a few of their vampires. The world had started to take note of how things worked in Detroit, how, even though it had a rocky start, the city was a good example of how the different supernaturals in an area could work together and offer support to the human population. The days of any of us living in the shadows was long past. The humans knew we were all here. We had survived what was meant to be an apocalypse together. Things would never be the same again, and I was starting to believe that might be for the best.

  It is not healthy to hold onto the way things have always been. I know that better than anyone.

  Brennan sat at one of the small tables outside of a cafe, head bent as he listened to both the shifters and vampires that sat with him. I sat a few tables away with Quinn, Margaret, and my sisters. Zara and Amalia had gotten right back to work alongside my New Guardians. Our work never ended, and that was perhaps the one thing that had not chan
ged.

  “Boss, I was thinkin’, now that we have a couple of extra hands on deck and none of the new ones are exactly new anymore… maybe I could take a few days off?” Quinn asked. I studied him, noticing the slightly reddened cheeks, the way his gaze flicked away from mine.

  “I think Quinn has a girlfriend,” Zara said, grinning and taking a sip of her coffee.

  “I do not, you hag,” he muttered, and Zara laughed.

  “What about your sea nymph?” I asked. “She seemed very interested.”

  “Yeah. She was. I am secure enough in my masculinity to admit that I can’t keep up with her and be able to stand the next day. It was fun, but I don’t want that shit to become work, too, you know?”

  I nodded. He kept glancing across the table at Zara, who was completely ignorant of it.

  “So if it’s not a girlfriend, then what is it?” I asked. He shot a grin my way, and I nodded. He did not want my sister to think he was involved with anyone. I was getting better at figuring out the nonsensical things people do for love or lust. At least, some of the time, anyway.

  “I want to go back home for a few days,” he said quietly, becoming serious again. “I was thinking about it all, during those weeks when we were practically killing ourselves, waiting for the world to end… I don’t think I ever properly mourned my sister and her kids. They died, I died, and then I immediately started going after souls after getting the asshole who killed all of us. I feel like maybe there’ll be part of me that’ll always feel wrong and empty until I tie up that part of my life.”

  “Closure,” Zara said softly.

  “Yeah.” He nodded, then looked at me again. “I’m not human anymore. Clearly. And I’m fine with that. But I need to do this so I can maybe stop having goddamn nightmares every night.”

  “You need to stop blaming yourself for not being able to prevent their deaths,” I said, and, after a moment, he nodded.

  “Yeah. That.”

  I glanced up at the same moment Brennan seemed to look up from his conversation at the other table. Our eyes met for just a moment, and I felt the same giddiness I always did now when we were together. Having lost this once, I was ready to fully appreciate my second chance. In many ways, my rebirth, thanks to Nyx, had allowed me to let go of many of the things that had been holding me down. Fear of rejection, fear of betrayal, not feeling like I have a place in this world. All of those concerns were gone now, burned away by the knowledge of what real loss feels like.