“Then you should fight,” Bale said. “You may have had your reasons for retreating here, but none of those reasons will matter anymore when your pretty head is on a platter.”
Magnus laughed. “We finally agree on one thing, Bale, it is a very pretty head, and I’d like to keep it where it is. I’ve always had faith my king could keep Lucifer at bay without me for a while.”
“Coward,” Corson hissed.
“Perhaps, or perhaps I realized centuries ago that the best way for me to help was to better learn my power. You three are aware my parents were slaughtered when I was two, before they could teach me what it is I’m fully capable of. I am the last of the illusion demons. There was no one to teach me what I should learn, and constantly fighting Lucifer and his followers was not helping me to focus, to grow, to understand everything I can do. It has taken me centuries, but I have a better grasp on all I am capable of now and I am far better at using my abilities.”
“Why didn’t you say that when you abruptly pulled out from the war?” I demanded, not trusting anything he had to say.
“Do you think I could risk Lucifer or any of his spies learning what I was doing here? We keep some of our secrets from him, but just as many of them are revealed. I am only lucky none of his flunkies has had a vision about the world I created, but then what would a vision reveal to them? A carnival where I tortured souls is all they would see. They could not know the reality I’ve woven here. They would not see how my powers have grown and how I have learned from them. No, it was better that everyone believed I was a coward who was unwilling to choose a side than take the risk of someone finding out what I was trying to do.”
The trickle of water sliding down the wall was the only sound in the silence following his admission. For hundreds of years, I’d believed Magnimus to be a weakling, believed the man I’d once counted as one of my strongest allies, shared more than a few drinks and plans with, had proven to be nothing more than a disappointment.
“I could have decided to kill you for leaving the way you did,” I finally said.
Magnus’s head tilted to the side as he studied me. “I was never a traitor. I simply became someone who refrained from fighting. I trusted you would allow me to choose that path for myself. However, I also knew that if Lucifer ever came at me, you would not protect me. It was a risk I was willing to take to become a stronger fighter for our side, to one day be able to make a true difference in battle and not just create things that briefly distracted others.”
“You should have come to the surface when the gateway was torn open. We could have used your help,” Bale said.
“I was not ready then,” Magnus replied.
“Are you now?” I demanded.
Magnus looked to River. “Ready or not, I think we no longer have a choice in the matter. The time has come. Our chance to defeat him is here.”
“She is not a chance. She is my Chosen.”
“I intend to end this, somehow,” River said. “I was told that I might not be able to enter Hell. I have. I won’t back down until Lucifer is dead and my brothers and everyone else is safe. No matter what it takes.”
“You may have been able to enter Hell, but you are still mortal,” I reminded her.
Her chin lifted haughtily up. “That was your choice, and this is mine.”
“River—”
“So help me, Kobal, I will blast you back into that carnival if you say this isn’t my choice. It is mine.”
Magnus’s laughter echoed through the chamber before it abruptly cut off when I sent him a quelling look.
“I like her,” he said to Bale and Corson.
The hounds on my arm shifted restlessly, seeking to do whatever they could to keep River protected as fire came to life on the tips of my fingers and licked over my skin. Magnus, Bale, Hawk, and Corson edged further away, but River continued to face me head-on, refusing to back down.
CHAPTER 21
Kobal
My eyes were drawn to the midnight blue sparks dancing over the ends of her fingers. A new color, a new development. There was no denying she was changing between the darkening sparks and her increasing ability to heal more rapidly, but what did it all mean? And what would it mean for her when this was over?
“You said there was a chance I may be able to kill him if I ever got close enough,” she said.
“That was before,” I replied.
“Before what?” she demanded. “Before I slept with you? Before you marked me? Before we knew it was possible that I could come in here, possible I might be able to face him? I’m doing this—for my brothers and everyone else on Earth. If I die, then so be it.”
“That is not going to happen!”
“As a mortal, it will happen one day. That day could as easily be today or tomorrow as a hundred years from now. As immortals, none of you are immune to death either.”
The dark blue sparks crackled with energy as they slid up to encompass her wrists. Magnus’s eyes were riveted on her. His mouth opened as his gaze bounced back and forth between the two of us.
“She wields life. She just might be able to defeat Lucifer,” he breathed.
Corson elbowed him in the ribs and gave a warning shake of his head.
I compelled my flames to retreat as her sparks grew brighter. “Leave us,” I commanded the others.
“Kobal—”
“Leave us!” I bellowed over Bale.
They scurried from the cavern, slamming the door closed behind them. River’s chin tipped further up while she stared at me. I waited until I heard another door close and knew they were nowhere near us before focusing on her.
“I didn’t tell you about Hawk, about the possibility of immortality, because I didn’t want you to have to make the choice between dying and being reborn as one of us, or remaining mortal. I thought it would be better if you were never given the choice.”
“You thought wrong.”
“River—”
“You can’t treat me as a child while taking me as a woman. You can’t shelter me while telling me I may be the only hope there is for everyone. Everything with you is secrets, and when it’s not secrets, it’s commands and orders. It’s treating me like I’m incapable while holding me above others. You don’t have the faith in me to believe I can make my own choices and decide my own fate.”
“River—”
“I’m deciding now, and I’m going to do this. I am going after Lucifer. You can either come with me or step aside, but you will not stop me.”
“I am to be obeyed!” My voice thundered around the cavern and shook the bottles lining the rock shelves.
Her sparks cast a blue glow over her face and lit her amethyst eyes. “Well now, Kobal, that’s where you are very wrong. I’m not one of your followers. In all actuality, I should be more of your enemy than your follower, given my lineage.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, a look crossed her face that made my heart sink. This wasn’t a look of anger; it was one of a grief so deep it sliced through my heart. I took a step toward her, needing to erase that look and hating myself for being the one who put it there.
“Unless,” she whispered, “now that we’re here you think there’s a chance I’ll go to him, join him.”
“No, River,” I breathed as she stepped away from me. Her face went deathly pale; her lower lip trembled before she clamped her lips firmly together. “That’s not it at all. Get that idea out of your head, right now.”
Panic threatened to engulf me as she continued to look at me like she didn’t know me. I’d been trying to protect her, but it may have been the worst thing I could have done to her, to us. I knew one of her greatest fears was that she would somehow end up becoming like Lucifer, and now she thought I believed it could happen too.
“All I want is for you to stand by my side for eternity as my queen, to rule with me and bear my children,” I told her.
The look of betrayal didn’t leave her face as her gaze slid over me once more. I took
another step toward her.
She threw her hands up before her. “If you touch me, I’ll blast you across this cavern.”
I stopped a few feet away from her. My hand reached for her before falling back to my side. “I didn’t tell you because you would have to die, River. Do you understand that? In order to become immortal, you would have to die. Death and a lot of blood is the only way to complete the change. What little of my blood you ingest when you mark me is not enough to change you.
“Hawk was dying when enough of Lilitu’s blood entered him to begin the change in him. He would be dead now if she hadn’t fallen on top of him. In order to change you, I would have to watch the life slip away from you, all the while praying you would come back to me. And I do not pray to your God, but I would, for you.”
“He is not my God. He cast me into this pit of despair with you, into this world of betrayal and deceit. At least I knew what I was getting with my mother, even before she sold me off to the soldiers. She never tried to hide how little she thought of me, never told me one thing while keeping other things from me. You hide behind protecting me to keep the truth from me. How am I ever to believe you now?”
“Because I would die for you.”
“But you wouldn’t allow me to die for you? Wouldn’t allow me to die for the possibility of the forever for us that you had told me was impossible?”
“And have you become what?” I bellowed. “Hawk is taking on the characteristics of a canagh demon. He will feast on his lovers from now on, and if he finds his Chosen, he will feed from her too. He needs sex to keep him alive and balanced.
“My children will inherit none of my abilities, but there is no way to know what you would get from me, or what would happen if I tried to turn you. Perhaps you would prefer Bale’s blood where your premonitions could increase to the point where you are unable to escape them. Or maybe Corson where your razor talons could slice into someone you love at any time, until you learned to control them, and that could take centuries. Or Morax, would you like a tail and horns?”
She gave a small snort. “I would have liked a choice. I would have liked to have discussed this and known my options instead of being treated like a delicate little flower. Don’t forget I’ve got thorns. I would have liked for Hawk to have had some knowledge of what was happening to him! He wasn’t exactly skipping for joy when he realized this place was affecting him even less than me.”
A muscle twitched in my clenched jaw. I took a second to steady myself before speaking again. “I should have told Hawk sooner.” The words caused my upper lip to curve into a sneer. I hated admitting I’d been wrong about that, but I had been, and if I wanted her to listen to me, then I had to acknowledge it.
“However, with what you are, we have no idea what you could become if demon blood was introduced into your system. My blood could take away all of your abilities, leaving you a helpless immortal. It could flood you with far more power, making you uncontrollable, causing you to unleash on everyone near you. You could tear everyone in a room to shreds before you knew what you were doing. And that is only if you survived the change, some do not. I didn’t want to burden you with these possibilities.”
I ran a hand through my hair, tugging at the ends of it. “There are so many possibilities for what could happen to you. There is no way to know what a human will become if they survive the change, just as there was no way to know what the fallen angel’s offspring on Earth would become, what abilities they would manifest.
“You could take on some of my traits, all of them, or none. Demons don’t mingle our blood willingly with humans, and like Magnus said, it would not be good for the human world to learn it is possible to share our immortality. If you did take on too many of my traits, you would have to leave your family behind. Hawk can still blend in with the humans, unless his impulses become too much to bear, but even still he will have to leave his life behind one day before people start to realize he is no longer aging.”
“Shax has rather latent abilities, what about his blood?” she asked.
“I will not allow another’s blood in you!”
“Allow it?” she asked haughtily.
She raised her hands when I took another step toward her, but I didn’t care. “Maybe you are doubting my feelings for you, but you are mine, River. No other’s blood will enter your system. No other man will ever be able to claim a connection to you.”
“Not even if it meant keeping me with you forever?”
“Shax is not as latent as you think. He keeps his true self hidden amongst the humans. They trust him the most because of his looks, but he can make the ground move if he has to use his powers.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
I moved forward so fast that she didn’t have a chance to get away from me. My fists drove into the rocks on either side of her head. Dust and pebbles fell from the wall to cover the ground around us as I penned her in. Her eyes narrowed on me when I lowered my face until we were eye level with each other. Many would have pissed themselves, but she’d never had any fear of me. Even before I’d learned her body as well as my own, before I’d claimed her as my Chosen, she’d never cowered from me.
“Don’t touch me,” she grated.
I kept my body only centimeters away from hers. The rain scent of her filled my nose as the midnight blue light slid up her arms to spark and crackle around her shoulders.
“Shax can cause the earth to eat itself if he must. There will be no other, River. If you plan to drive me mad, then try turning to another. They will not survive it.”
“You’re not my commander.”
“You are my Chosen. You will not turn to another for anything.”
“It’s not like I’d be having sex with him.”
My fangs burst free at her words. Without thinking, I rested my hand on her shoulder. I’d been so absorbed in my need to get through to her that I hadn’t prepared myself for the blast of power the contact with those sparks unleashed on me.
Normally when I came into contact with her ability, it was because she was drawing from me to fuel her power, and it didn’t affect me, but now her fury and the world around her were fueling her. The bolt of life hit me so hard it flung me back ten feet. I crashed into the ground and skidded across the rock floor before coming up against the opposite wall.
I lay there for a minute, trying to get my bearings as pain seared from my hand and spread rapidly throughout my body. Fuck, she packed a punch. I’d almost forgotten how much of one. I shook my head to clear it of the ringing in it and flexed my fingers. Blood slid down my palm, but my skin was rapidly closing over the hole in my hand that her power had created.
CHAPTER 22
River
Confusion tore through me as I stared at the blue light encircling my hands and arms. I hadn’t meant to hit him with my power like that. I was infuriated and deeply cut by what he’d kept from me. I was torn between punching him in the face and crying, but I never would have used my ability against him. I had killed Lilitu with this ability; I wouldn’t take that chance with him.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t given me a choice when he’d taken hold of my shoulder. I couldn’t control the wild sway of emotions rocketing around me right now or the influx of power those emotions brought forth. There was a way for me to spend eternity with him, and he hadn’t told me about it.
I understood his reasons, there would be repercussions, but I had a right to know and make the decision with him instead of being kept in the dark. All I wanted was to be with him; all he wanted was to keep me sheltered. Or worse, all he wanted was to use me. I had believed he loved me, that I was as treasured as he’d often made me feel, but he’d rattled my confidence in him today.
He was the one who had given me the ability to still have trust in others when my mother had betrayed me and thrown me aside. That trust felt as cold now as my mother had always been.
I’d pushed him too far though. This man was obeyed, he was feared, and I’d tossed
him like a rag doll. Fury blazed in his amber eyes, and I could see the hounds moving beneath his flesh as he leapt to his feet with a bellow. Did the hounds want to tear into me, or were they seeking to protect me from his wrath?
I took a step to the side to get away from him, but his fist drove into the wall beside my head so forcefully it broke through the rock wall to his wrist. I gawked at the spectacle; my heart kicked against my ribs as rocks and dust rained down from the broken wall. Moving backward, I managed not to jump when his free hand slammed into the wall on the other side of my head.
Unable to avoid it any longer, I met his gaze. The muscles in his arms shook beside my head; all four of his fangs were clearly visible as his lips had skimmed back to reveal them. I’d never seen him this enraged before.
“Don’t touch me,” I said with far more bravado than I felt considering my insides were quivering like Jell-O. He would never physically harm me, but he was all I could see and feel right now as his body encompassed my entire world.
“I’ll be the only one to ever share blood with you, River. If you turn to another, not only will I kill them for aiding you, but it would be worse to me than if you did have sex with them.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I sputtered.
“Is it?” he inquired.
I placed my hands against his chest to hold him back when he stepped closer. The contact with him caused the life to swell around us and the sparks to flare. I believed I had a pretty good grip on my ability right now, but it was still more volatile than I’d ever felt it before.
“Yes!” I cried.
“It would mean a piece of another man was within you, fueling you, feasting on you.” He lowered himself so he was eye level with me. His fists remained anchored in the wall. “I will be the only one inside of you. The only one to know you.”
“You would allow me to die!”
“I would allow you to live as you should!”
The Road (The Road to Hell Series, Book 3) Page 16