I shuddered at the realization this man saw me as his child as much as the demons did. I didn’t kid myself into thinking he wouldn’t kill me because of it; he may kill me just because of it.
“Why did you bring me here?” I demanded.
There was that smile again. “Oh, my child, in this it was you who finally sought to meet your creator.” He turned back to me and took a step forward. “Every child is curious about their father after all.”
Sickness twisted in my gut. I had brought him to me! I wanted to deny his words, but I couldn’t shake the certainty they were true. “You are not my father.”
“Am I not? You would not be standing here if not for me. The powers you possess were given to you through me. You are my offspring and, therefore, part of me resides in you. The more those powers grow, the more they will eat at you until one day it will be you standing within these cavern walls.”
“I will never be anything like you.”
“Will you not? You’re only beginning to tap the potential of your power.”
One wing flowed forward. The deadly point tapped against his temple much like a person would do with a finger. I realized those wings were as much an extension of him as my own hands were of me.
“The stronger your powers get, the more they will consume you, and when they do, they will take him too. There is finally one who can bring Kobal down, and it is you. I’ve seen glimpses of your future, child, and it is interesting.”
“You’re lying!” I accused.
“Like your powers, the stronger your bond becomes with him, the more it will threaten him. When those powers twist you, and they will, he will be dragged down with you. Angels and demons do not see the world in good and evil. I was born to set them free, and I will set them all free. I will show them they were wrong and you will be standing at my side when they learn of pure evil. What is inside of me is also inside of you.”
“No,” I choked out through the constriction in my chest. His words so closely echoed my own doubts and fears that no matter how much I tried to shake them off, they dug deeper into me. “No.”
“You will help me to take down the only one who has managed to elude me.”
“Lies, it’s all lies. You’re wrong. We’re stronger together.”
His smile grew, and the points of his wings tapped together when he ruffled them. “Are they lies? And are you stronger? Maybe if you were a demon, but you’re not. You are my child and the creatures from this abysmal place have no idea what to make of us, but they will. The apple does not fall from the tree, River, ask Eve. I will be sending you a gift, child, look for it.”
Before I could respond, the shadows enveloped him once more and he vanished from view.
***
Kobal
River bolted upright so fast in bed that she wrenched herself from my arms when she leapt to her feet. I shot up, tossing the covers aside while she spun in a circle around the tent. Her eyes frantically searched for something as sparks shot from her fingertips.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“Lucifer.”
Seizing her shoulders, I drew her flush against my chest as my fangs burst free and my claws extended. “Where?” I snarled. She trembled against me before shaking her head. “Where, River?”
“Dream, it was a dream,” she murmured as her head fell forward and she rubbed at her temples.
Keeping hold of her shoulders, I pulled her away from me a little to take her in. She looked hollower somehow as her freckles stood starkly out against her ashen complexion and shadows encircled her eyes.
“You dreamt of him?” I asked.
“Nearly as tall as you, black hair, black eyes, beautiful. Has black wings with spiked points in the middle and two more at the bottom tips. Thinks I’m his child too. If that’s him, then yes, I dreamt of him.”
My blood ran cold as she spoke, and my fingers dug deeper into her bare shoulders. I forced my claws to retract before I pierced her flesh. Brushing the hair back from her cheeks, I clasped them in my hands and lifted her face. Her lower lip quivered when her gaze met mine. The panic in her violet eyes unnerved me.
“What happened?” I asked as calmly as I could, sensing she required my composure more than anything right now. “Tell me everything.”
“He knew it was you who marked me!” she gushed out.
“Most likely,” I replied casually.
Inside, I felt anything but casual. The hounds stalked within me, demanding to be set free, to kill, rend, and tear apart any risk to her. They couldn’t know the threat had been her dream and there was nothing here for them to fight. If I set them free, they would rip through this town, shredding anyone who stepped in their path, much like I yearned to do. I didn’t care who it was, I had to feel their blood on my hands, had to kill something in order to unleash some of this savagery building within me.
Her hand on my cheek drew my attention to her. I didn’t realize my fangs and claws had extended again until her finger brushed over the tip of one of my upper fangs. My lips skimmed back, not in anger but with need. I could kill, or I could take her and ease what was inside of me.
“He’ll use me against you,” she whispered as she pressed her naked body closer to mine.
As my Chosen, she would sense what I needed most now, though there would be no denying it as my hardened shaft pressed against her belly.
“He’ll never get the chance to try,” I assured her as I guided her toward the bed.
“He saw evil in my future, and I don’t care what you say Kobal, that man is evil. He is everything humans ever believed him to be.”
“He lied.”
“But what if he didn’t?” she asked.
I froze before I could nudge her thighs apart. Her terror beat against me. River had never been scared of anything, not even when she should have been. She’d never feared me, but then she may have sensed from the beginning she was to be mine.
“Do not fear him.” It came out as more of a command than I’d intended.
“I’m not afraid of him,” she whispered. “I’m afraid he’s right. I am his offspring. You all claim he’s my father. He was once an angel, and now he’s a monster. I am no angel, Kobal. I’m no saint. What if my future is what he predicted? He said the more my powers grow, the more they’ll eat at me until I’m twisted like him, and then I would bring you down with me! He said the stronger the bond becomes between us, the more it will endanger you. Angels and demons don’t see the world in good and evil, and because of that, he said he was born to set you all free, and I will be standing at his side when it happens.”
“River—”
“He told me what is inside of him is also inside of me. He expects me to help him take down the only one who has managed to elude him, you!” she cried as her eyes became more turbulent.
My breath froze in my chest, and my body stiffened against hers as her words sank in. I didn’t believe for one second anything he’d told her, but his words had taken root within her mind. She had asked before if she could be evil, but I’d believed it to be a concern of the past; I knew now I was wrong. Lucifer had been able to detect her worries and turn them against her.
“He’s a master manipulator, River. None of what he said is true.”
“You can’t know that,” she whispered, “not for sure. He said I am his child and that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You all consider me his child too. He also said he’d be sending me a gift and to look for it.”
Tears! The sight of them shimmering in her eyes tore at my heart. What had that prick done to her?
I had always known I would one day kill him, but now I would make Lucifer’s death an excruciating experience that would make all the tortures of Hell look like a day in Heaven in comparison. Unlucky for him, I had over a millennia of torture and suffering to draw on once I had him in my grasp.
“He’s lying to try and keep you from growing stronger, to keep you from learning more of your powers, and to get between us. He knows demo
ns become stronger when they find their Chosen.”
Corson’s words from earlier drifted through my head, ‘But with more power comes new weakness.’ I shoved them aside. They may be true, but in no way or in any dimension could River ever become like Lucifer. She would strengthen me more than she weakened me. I would not lose her.
“He knows both of our powers will only increase because of our bond,” I told her. “It was a ploy. He pulled you in to implant these doubts in your head. He can’t find you, so he found another way to attack you. Discovering you were my Chosen only made things easier for him to manipulate.”
“I’m the one who drew him into my dream. I didn’t mean to; it’s certainly not something I planned to have happen. But I did it somehow and for some reason.”
I brushed the tears from her cheeks as I leveled my body over hers. I used my thigh to nudge hers apart as I contemplated her words. She bit her lip as her hips instinctively rose toward mine.
“You’re about to start a journey that’s going to take you toward him; of course you’re curious about what you will face. Unlike the humans, you have the ability to ease some of your curiosity. We’ll have to try and shut that down from happening again,” I said.
“It will be shut down.”
I smiled at her as I brushed a kiss over the tip of her nose. Her legs lifted so her knees pressed against my sides. Her distress continued to beat against me, but her body instinctively sought to ease it. Her eyes remained latched on mine as I slid into her wet sheath.
“Do you feel me?” I inquired as her muscles gripped my aching cock.
“Always,” she whispered.
“What this is between us is stronger than him,” I told her as I nuzzled her neck. “Stronger than any powers.”
“He’ll come for you,” she whispered, “or for me. What becomes of you if something were to happen to me?”
“That won’t happen,” I told her as I moved deliberately out and then back into her, allowing her body to ease the burning need to kill something her words had awoken in me. She was everything I had ever needed or wanted in the world. She was my heart and I would not let her go.
“But if it did, what would happen to you, Kobal?”
I smoothed the hair back from her pale face before bending to kiss her lips. I refused to entertain the possibility of anything happening to her. I was strong enough to keep us both alive. “A Chosen is left broken and hollow without their other half,” I told her. “But that will never be us.”
She paled further as her hands rested against my cheeks and her gaze latched onto mine. “I can’t be used against you; I won’t allow it.”
I smiled at her as I drove into her, causing her to cry out in pleasure. “Neither will I, Mah Kush-la, but you have no reason to worry about any of this.” Taking hold of her wrists, I gripped them in my hand before dragging them over her head. “Now, I’m going to make sure you’re too tired to dream again.”
A small smile curved her lips, but sadness remained in her eyes. I couldn’t help but feel like something had changed, as if she were pulling away from me even as she gave herself over to me.
CHAPTER 41
River
Standing on the hill with all the humans who had been training to become a part of the mission to leave, I watched as Kobal, the demons, Mac, and a handful of older soldiers moved to stand before us. They were grouped together, talking between themselves as they scanned the humans gathered before them.
Kobal’s eyes latched onto me, and my toes curled at the ravenous gleam in his gaze. I loved him more than I’d ever believed possible, but after last night, I was beginning to question if what I’d thought was so right may actually be the worst thing to ever happen to him. If he wouldn’t end up hating me as much as he hated my ancestor.
The possibility caused something inside of me to shrivel. I’d rather be dead than ever have that happen, but if we continued to get closer it might. I just didn’t know how I could ever let him go. The idea tore at my insides, shredding them to pieces and leaving me as raw and exposed as I’d felt when I’d first awoken last night.
Because of my curiosity about my ancestor, I’d reached out to him in my dream and now Lucifer knew what I was to Kobal, what he was to me. He would do everything he could to exploit that knowledge. And what if he’d been right? What if one day I became like him and clung to Hell. What if what I could do turned me into a twisted version of what he’d become?
Kobal might be right and Lucifer had been lying to keep me from getting better with my powers, I definitely wouldn’t put it past the bastard, but he also could have been telling the truth. I had no idea what had caused him to become the way he was; there may be something that could do the same thing to me.
It was all so confusing, and I found myself unable to breathe as the bodies pressed closer against me and a sense of impending doom weighed heavily on my chest.
Mac stepped forward and approached the soldiers fanned out before him. Only one hundred of the original two hundred remained, the others had already been cut. They all stood rigidly, their shoulders thrust back and their chins tilted up. I tried to assume their proud postures, but I felt like a wilting weed in a field of tall stalks. I’d never been a good soldier; there was no point in trying to pretend to be now.
“We’ve made our decision about who will be joining this vital mission,” Mac announced. “A mission that will present horrors and dangers we have yet to come across, but these horrors will become a daily part of all of humanity’s existence if something is not done to end it now. We have an opportunity to do that, and we are going to take it.”
A ripple went through the crowd as some murmured in excitement about what was to come. These people may not have known what they were getting into when they’d originally volunteered to come to the wall, but over the course of my time here, I’d come to learn more than a few of them excelled at being a solider.
“Due to the necessity of trying to keep a low profile, there will only be fifty men and women joining the demon faction on this journey. If I call your name, please remain where you are until you are told to do otherwise.” Mac paced before the group, calling out names as he strode back and forth before us.
Eyes swung toward me when my name was called. Questions traveled through some of the people gathered. I was a volunteer; I wasn’t supposed to be considered for this journey. I hadn’t gone through the special training with them, but then none of them knew I was the whole reason this mission was taking place.
They knew where they were going, what they might face, but they hadn’t been told it was me who had set it all into motion to begin with. Kobal had decided to keep that from them until the end.
“Whore slept her way into this.”
My gaze didn’t waver, but my jaw clenched at the familiar, hated voice. Over the past week, I’d heard the terms whore and slut more times than I’d ever thought possible. I’d also learned the name of the woman who threw those words at me with such spiteful glee. It was Eileen. I’d come to despise that name as much as her.
“They’re only taking the best,” someone else murmured. “They wouldn’t take someone because she’s sleeping with one of them.”
“She’s screwing the leader,” Eileen hissed back.
“And so did you, once.”
I resisted the urge to tear every blonde hair from Eileen’s head. Kobal wouldn’t have cared if I’d had a thousand lovers before him, but I despised the reminder he’d had many before me. I really hated that one of them had been her.
Jealousy wasn’t something I was accustomed to, but she brought it forth so easily in me. I really hoped her name wasn’t called for this. I may end up throwing her into the pit of Hell myself if it was.
“I don’t see him taking you with him though,” the man who had been speaking with Eileen continued. “And from what I’ve heard of her, she’s more lethal than you are.”
I bit back a laugh, and my gaze darted to the side to see who it was that
had caused Eileen’s face to turn redder than the lobsters from back home. The man who had uttered the words wasn’t looking at Eileen; his eyes remained focused ahead.
He was handsome with his brunet hair cropped short against his skull. He stood proudly with his broad shoulders thrust back and his hands folded behind him. His indigo eyes followed Mac’s every move, but his head never wavered from its forward position.
Eileen glared at him before turning to focus on me with the hate-filled look I’d become so accustomed to since my relationship with Kobal had intensified. She stood in the row behind me and three people to my right. I smiled back at her and gave a little wave of my fingers, something none of the other soldiers who would be chosen for this mission would do, which made it more fun.
Turning back around, I focused on Kobal as Mac recited the last of the names and returned to the center of the group.
“If your name was called, please come forward now!” Mac announced.
People moved forward amongst the crowd, walking proudly toward Mac and the others. I was happy to see the man who had been speaking with Eileen heading toward the front while she remained unmoving, her face turning redder and her mouth hanging open. She must have hoped to get accepted for this mission with the goal of getting Kobal all to herself.
Suck it.
I’d taken five steps forward when the world faded away from me, and the image of Eileen lunging at my back with a knife filled my head.
I gasped when I was thrust back into my body. I twisted to the side as a foot-long blade slid past my stomach. It was so close it sliced open the front of my shirt and nicked my skin. If I hadn’t seen her coming, she would have stabbed me clean through with it.
Her startled brown eyes met mine before she swung the knife at me again. Keeping my stomach sucked in, I jumped back, barely managing to avoid being gutted by the blade. The movement caused me to crash into the side of someone.
“Get off me!” they snapped.
I lunged to the side to avoid the next lethal arc of the blade. I could release a ball of fire at her, but I was nowhere near as good at controlling it as Kobal was and I didn’t want to take the chance of setting someone else on fire. Plus, I really would prefer not to torch a human, even if it was her.
Good Intentions (The Road to Hell Series, Book 1) Page 30