Fated

by Sarah Fine

  “How many of them are there?” asked Parinda, another ancient comrade, her upturned cat-eyes focused on Eli.

  “No idea,” said Eli. “But it seems like there are more every time we catch up with them.” He turned back to Moros and gestured at the others. “Maybe more than this number can deal with.”

  Moros grinned. “No matter. Each of you catch one.” He ran his tongue along his fangs, ready to let the animal inside him loose, eager to slake his thirst for violence. “And bring them to me.” He spread his fingers. “I’ll do the rest.”

  His eyes met Eli’s. “Take us to them.”

  Eli gave him a curt nod and disappeared. The rest of the Kere looked to Moros, awaiting a signal. “Can you feel him?” he asked them. They nodded. “Then let’s go. Do not disappoint me.”

  He focused on the trace of Eli, the subtle essence of the man. He imagined his fingers hooking around that thread and letting it pull him forward through the Veil.

  He emerged into absolute mayhem: burning vehicles floating in the canal, shattered glass everywhere, and bodies lying on the sidewalk, a few of them injured Ferrys. The air was filled with the scent of decaying flesh. Skeletal monsters in rotting clothes, skin sagging from their bony fingers, stalked the living. Screams and shouts echoed in the air, and down the block, Eli was calling Cacia’s name, searching for his mate in the chaos. As his Kere appeared around him, Moros saw one of the Shades drag a woman through the shattered window of an amphibious bus even as another creature landed on the vehicle’s hood. Inside, the terrified driver cowered.

  “Bring them to me!” Moros roared.

  The Kere charged. Moros willed himself through space and reappeared on the roof of the bus. The Shade-Ker dropped the lifeless woman it had just strangled into the canal and climbed onto the roof, its oozing eyes on Moros. “Where is your master?” he asked the thing.

  It snarled and charged, senseless and brainless and driven by a thirst for death. But Moros was death. He caught the Shade around the throat, and it exploded in a flurry of greasy dust. Moros vanished and reentered the real world down the block, where Eli was still searching for Cacia. Moros could sense her nearby as well but couldn’t see her. He willed himself into the Veil, and Eli appeared next to him, cursing as they both saw Cacia struggling with two Shade-Kere who had her by the arms. Her left leg was bent at a terribly wrong angle, and her lovely face was scratched and bleeding, but she was fighting fiercely to keep the Shades from stealing her Scope.

  With a growl, Eli leaped forward, tearing the head off one of the Shades with curt brutality. He glanced over his shoulder and tossed the head at Moros, who caught it and rendered it to ash with a mere thought. Cacia fell to the ground as they dispatched the other one the same way. Her wheezing gasps told Moros she was hurt far more severely than her obvious injuries. Eli bowed over her, murmuring in her ear, his rage and violence tamed by the petite bleeding woman gathered in his arms.

  The Lord of the Kere pushed down the longing he felt at the sight of their intimacy. “There are more to be found.”

  Eli looked up at Moros, his eyes pleading. “Let me get her out of here. Please. You can’t ask me to leave her like this.”

  “Eli, I’ll be fine,” Cacia said weakly, her breath halting. Her fingers rose to touch his face.

  The memory of Aislin’s fingertips against his cheek nearly knocked Moros to the ground. “Take her,” he snapped, needing both of them out of his sight. “I’ll summon you back if I need to.”

  As Eli vanished, taking Cacia with him, Hai appeared before Moros, holding a struggling Shade-Ker by the neck—and the thing’s head in his other hand. “It keeps trying to disappear,” Hai said with a huff.

  But it couldn’t; Hai was a stronger being. “Another,” Moros roared as he dispatched the Shade-Ker. As soon as Hai was off again, Moros willed himself back into battle, losing himself in the joy of killing. It had been so long since he’d struck with abandon, stealing life and existence with a mere stroke of his fingers, sucking the will from a living being’s limbs, the fight from its very cells. Because the Shade-Kere were soulless, nothing remained once they were destroyed. The Ferrys could send them to Hell, which would accept them for the abominations they were, but Moros couldn’t help but delight in removing them from existence entirely.

  It was satisfying, like scratching an itch. He could have spent his entire day in the dusty haze. His Kere brought him victim after victim, monster after monster, but Moros didn’t wait for them to find him. He stalked through the North End, hunting the creatures himself, following them as they tried to disappear into the Veil.

  He had just terminated a particularly muscular Shade-Ker when Eli appeared once more—his fingers wrapped around the wrist of Declan Ferry. Aislin’s brother had eyes the same icy shade as hers, and it brought her immediately and painfully to mind. “What is it?” Moros asked, brushing a few bits of ash from his sleeve. “Another attack?”

  Declan shook his head. “I just went to check in with Aislin.”

  Moros tensed. “And?”

  “She’s not in her office, and she’s not answering her phone. I called Eli to help me find her.”

  Eli let go of Declan’s wrist. “Moros, I can’t sense her at all.”

  Everything inside Moros went still. He’d been so desperate to push Aislin out of his thoughts that he hadn’t dared turn his consciousness toward her, but now he did with all the concentration he had.

  He felt nothing. And then he felt too many things to name—horror and fear and need and worry, all jagged edges rubbing up against each other inside his chest, shearing away anything else. Aislin was gone.

  His heart thrumming, he grabbed Declan’s shoulder and dragged him through the Veil, straight to Aislin’s office. His first breath brought her scent back to him, awakening the ache. He stalked to her desk and turned, taking in the room. One of her shoes lay on its side near the desk. He had left her here a few hours ago, too jumbled and lost in his desire to be near her for another moment, and now . . . “Where are her guards?”

  “They were involved in the first Shade-Kere attack, and when they came back to reconnect with her, she wasn’t here.” Declan looked around, his black hair standing on end, lines of worry bracketing his mouth. “When they weren’t able to find her or reach her, they called me. You can’t trace her, figure out where she went?”

  “Where she was taken, you mean.” Moros pointed at the lost shoe. “No, but I know who has her.” Rylan could have transported her anywhere, though. Moros’s hand rose to rub his breastbone as he pictured a hand punching through Aislin’s chest, tearing out her brilliant, shining soul.

  Eli appeared in the office with Cacia leaning against him. Her face was still healing, red gashes fading across her cheek, and she was keeping the weight off her left leg, but she still managed to look defiant. Eli, on the other hand, looked irritated as he steadied her. “You should be horizontal,” he said to her.

  “Was it Rylan?” Cacia asked, her turquoise eyes on Moros. “Did he come back?”

  When Declan’s eyebrows shot up, Moros explained. “Your brother came to threaten her earlier. He wants her on his side, aligned with my siblings against me.”

  Declan frowned. “Do you think she might have agreed to that?”

  Moros paused, caught by the suspicion on Declan’s face. “Do you have so little faith in your sister?”

  Declan looked away. “She nearly stripped me of my status a few days ago for defying her.”

  “She relented when she knew you were in mortal peril.”

  “But Aislin’s got her own way of doing things, and she likes to win.” The implication hung in the air between them: Declan thought Moros might lose.

  Moros chuckled. “You really think her desires are so simple, that she would choose to win for the sake of winning, even if the world around her crumbled?” Didn’t they see what he saw? Aislin was stronger than that. Smarter, as well. Certainly, she was fallible and frustrated at times, but she al
ways seemed to find her way.

  Declan stood up straight, his muscular arms at his sides. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. My sister’s just . . .” He sighed impatiently and ran his hands through his hair. “If she thought it would protect our family, I think she’d do just about anything. Even at the expense of everyone else.”

  “Wait,” said Cacia, her breath whistling. Eli had been correct when he said she shouldn’t be here. Any ordinary human would have died from the injuries she’d sustained. Her eyes burned as she stared at Moros. “Did you touch her?”

  “What?” Declan snapped. “Why would he do that?” His eyes narrowed as he glared at Moros.

  “She told me she was going to ask you to touch her,” Cacia said quietly, looking haunted. Moros felt a flash of guilt at how he’d callously sifted through Cacia’s intended future, taking advantage of her desperation to save the man she loved. “She wanted you to trust her. She needed you to know she wouldn’t betray you.”

  Moros leaned back against Aislin’s desk, considering that. She was so brave, full of steely courage with a ruthless edge. She’d been willing to sacrifice herself to forward her cause and protect her family. She would make a powerful enemy. But when he’d held her in his arms, her surrender had been anything but calculated. It had been soft and needy in a way that had made him want to crush her against the wall and claim her completely.

  Declan poked him in the shoulder, pulling him from the fantasy. “Well? Did you touch my sister?” He looked as if he wanted to hammer one of his fists through Moros’s skull.

  Moros sighed. “It is no business of yours.”

  Declan was in his face in an instant, his hands fisted in Moros’s shirt. “The hell it is. From everything I’ve heard, your touch is virtual torture, and if you did that to Aislin—”

  Moros put his hands up, though he easily could have shoved Declan away. “She asked me to, as Cacia said,” he replied. “I acquiesced.”

  “And?” Cacia asked, her voice a bit stronger this time.

  His eyes met hers. “And I saw nothing.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Declan snapped.

  It felt like someone had carved his chest hollow. “It means Aislin has no future.”

  “Wait,” said Cacia, frowning. “You told me my future disappeared after Eli was killed, and that was because my fate was still wrapped up with his, but he had become a Ker, right? You can’t see the futures of your Kere. What if that’s what’s happening here?”

  “No . . . this felt . . . different.” Darker. Denser. Utterly blinding and all-encompassing.

  “Are you saying she’s going to die?” Cacia asked in a small voice.

  He nodded. “I cannot say exactly when, but it will be soon.”

  Cacia stood up straighter. “How did she react?” The shadow of her own memories darkened her eyes. “Was she okay after you touched her?”

  More okay than I was, it seemed. “She was unharmed,” Moros said.

  “But now you know she won’t betray you, right?”

  “I did not see whether she would betray me or not.” He turned away from them, his thoughts of her far too private to share. “But I think I do trust her,” he finally said, trying to gather enough logic to offer an explanation more intelligent than how devastatingly perfect it felt to have her near, how wrong it felt not to be able to sense her now. “She understands that the threat of Chaos would affect the Ferrys along with every other being on the planet. She wouldn’t bow to Rylan’s coercion.” He looked over his shoulder at her sister and brother and spoke the terrible truth. “And that means she is in grave danger right now.” They could hurt her in so many different ways. The sharp urgency of it flayed him.

  “Would Ry—or whoever controls him—turn her into a Ker?” Declan asked.

  “They could do anything.” The idea of Aislin’s precious soul in the hateful hands of one of his siblings kindled a rage inside Moros like nothing he’d ever felt. “I have to find her.”

  Eli frowned. “How, if you can’t sense her?”

  Moros grinned, though in his present state, it probably looked more like he was baring his teeth. “I know someone who might be able to help . . . if I apply the right kind of pressure.”

  As his vision sparked crimson, the Lord of the Kere willed himself straight into the Psychopomps boardroom.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The faces crowded her, sneering. Their eyes raked over her like knives, cutting into her marrow. Declan. Rylan. Hugh. Rosaleen. Each of them had taken a turn.

  Now it was her father’s.

  He looked up from his desk as she stalked into his office. “My darling. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  She was so angry she could barely get the words out. “You canceled my gold exchange initiative without even consulting me.” She’d been in the position of vice president of foreign exchange for only two months, and this was her first major move to control the markets. “I’m not breaking any laws!”

  He gave her a small sad smile that she suddenly wanted to slap off his face. “Not technically,” he said gently. “But though China and the US would have profited, it would have bankrupted several smaller countries.”

  Her fists clenched. “Those countries shouldn’t even be trading!”

  “But they do, and the last thing they can afford would be for you to flood the market. It would collapse their currencies. Think of the suffering that would cause.”

  “Who cares about places like Senegal and Hungary, for God’s sake?” Her entire body was quaking. “I’ll have to explain this to my team.” She’d promised them so much profit that each of them could buy Senegal or Hungary if they wanted to, and she’d reveled in the way they’d looked at her, with admiration and awe. She had felt invincible. Loved. And now . . .

  Her father stood up, his blue eyes meeting hers. His black hair was flecked with gray, but he was still vital, still sure he knew everything. “Then you’d better explain it to them. And perhaps you’d like to spend some time thinking about the difference between what is expedient and what is right, hmm? People who like you only for what you can give them are rarely steadfast friends, and not often worth what you sacrifice to keep them.”

  Humiliation was a noose around her neck. “They’ll hate me!” She’d worked her whole department to the bone for the last two months preparing this strategy, and now everything had come crashing down. Because of her father.

  He smiled, and she was certain he was thinking of how her employees would turn on her, whisper behind her back, sullenly defy her, fail to defend her when Rylan dipped his smarmy fingers into her business. She’d thought she could match her brother. She’d wanted to beat him. This embarrassment would delight him. As it delighted her father. What a wretched, hateful man. She wanted to scratch his eyes out, to throw him off a balcony, to—

  She fell to the ground, gasping as nausea tangled her guts. Eris and Nemesis smiled down at her. “That was beautiful, Aislin. You’re doing so well.”

  Aislin pressed her cheek against the cold rock and shut her eyes tightly. That wasn’t how it went. He wasn’t hateful. He wanted me to become something better, something he could be proud of—

  “Oh, no,” said Eris, clucking her tongue. “We can’t have that.” She reached down and wrapped her fingers around the back of Aislin’s neck, and Aislin was sucked down into the flood of memory once again. All of them were laughing at her. None of them understood how hard she had worked to get to her position. None of them liked her. Their resentment was so bitter that she retched, her body desperate to empty itself of the poison. But nothing would come—nothing but more memories.

  Cacia stepped out of the elevator, her mouth set with defiance. Cavan glanced at her, then turned back to Aislin. They’d been in the middle of discussing how to reassure the Mother, the leader of the Lucinae, that order would remain despite Patrick Ferry’s untimely death. Cavan arched an eyebrow. “I assume this was your two o’clock?”

  Heat spread f
rom Aislin’s neck to her cheeks. Defied by her own baby sister. “I expected you half an hour ago,” she snapped as Cacia approached her conference table.

  Cacia stopped in her tracks. “Did you expect me to get here by magic?”

  Aislin glared at her. Declan had informed her that Cacia had used her Scope for unofficial purposes, an act that had put her very life in danger. What if she’d been attacked by a Shade and left for dead? Cacia was so selfish that she had no idea what it would do to her family if she got hurt.

  “I expected you to take my summons seriously,” Aislin said in a cool voice, determined to project control in front of her most important ambassador. The last thing she needed was more gossip about her.

  Cacia rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m here,” she said tartly. “Did you want to complain about what Father left you in his will or something?”

  The insult burned all the way down her spine and straight into her blood. She’d worked for her father for years. She’d done everything he’d asked. And yet, when it came down to picking a trusted executor for his will, he’d chosen Cacia—who had rejected Psychopomps and a position Aislin had created just for her, in her own department. Aislin had been hopeful that she and her sister would be closer once the young woman came to work at the company, and she’d entertained fond thoughts of them spending more time together. But no—Cacia had spit on the job and everything that came with it, including Aislin, in favor of riding around in an ambulance all day.

  And even after that, their father had chosen Cacia. Her little sister loved to rub salt in the open wound, the vast grief that was eating Aislin up. Cacia wanted to hurt her. She wanted to make sure Aislin suffered. She wanted to humiliate her in front of her ambassador. She had planned this whole thing to make Aislin look bad.

  Aislin raised her head and imagined slamming Cacia’s face onto the desk, then pulling the chain of her Scope tight and strangling her with it, watching her sister’s face turn pink then red then purple then blue, willing her to die in pain knowing how much Aislin hated her—