by Helen Scott
“You’re not very smart, are you? Such a waste.” The man sighed heavily, as though he was about to explain the simplest concept. “Hercules was the son of Zeus and all that, and when he died, his deity DNA kicked in, and just like that, he was up on Mount Olympus.”
“If this is Mount Olympus, it’s much crappier than I thought it would be.”
She tried backing up again to get away from this man who seemed stuck on talking to her but was bringing out something in her that she definitely did not want to let loose. The roar in her ears came back. It was deafening.
Clamping her hands over her ears, Cin sunk to her knees. She was trapped. If she moved away, then she was in pain, but if she moved closer or looked at him, then the fury threatened to overflow. If she lost control of it now, she wasn’t sure she would ever get it back, and that scared the hell out of her.
“You did die. That’s what I’m saying.” His voice broke through the rushing static noise.
“Clearly I’m not dead.”
“No, you’re not, but your mortal side is.”
Without thinking, Cin looked at him, ready to call him crazy. The dark eyes that she contacted held no life, no emotion. The angular face was blank. She had barely even taken in the man she was looking at when the fury overrode her control.
Cin launched herself at the cage with a primal scream.
He killed her.
He left her for dead in that room with the creature he had been slicing and dicing.
She screamed again. It echoed in the room, bringing the noise of her own pain back to her again and again. Her hands gripped the bars of the cage, and though she pulled as hard as she could, they didn’t budge.
The man had wisely decided to back up out of her reach.
“Just think about what you would have missed if you had stayed dead. Now, the Order of Talos will be able to harness your power and develop their own use for it. You will only advance our cause. You should be grateful to have the chance to be part of something so important.”
He smiled at her, but it was empty.
She watched him through the red mist that clouded her vision. He was the only thing that was clear. She could see all the lives he had taken like shadows around him. Echoes of pain that would stay with him until he died. Not that he felt any of it. He was still wearing that blank smile. If she still cared, then it would have unnerved her.
Extending her arm through the bars, she tried to reach him. Stubbornly, he stayed out of reach. As she grabbed for him, she realized that her hands were not her own anymore. A blackness was spreading up her arms, and her fingers were more talon-like than finger-like.
She screamed and raged at the cage, determined to get to the murderer inside. Something inside her was compelling her to take him and punish him. Whether it was because he was responsible for her own death or that she could see he was responsible for so many others, it didn’t matter. He needed to be punished, and she was the best person for the task.
Thad sat in his chair with a bottle of whiskey next to him. The good stuff. Sixty-two years old and one of only ten bottles in the whole world. It was ridiculous, but damn if it wasn’t tasty.
He had saved the bottle for a while now, but really, when was he going to drink it? What was he going to celebrate with a sixty-two-year-old whiskey? The sheer pointlessness of his existence was what he had been struggling with when he opened it. Cin had reminded him that he had a heart and emotions, both of which he’d kept safely locked away for a long time. Now, they were all he could think about, so he sat and drank and thought about Cin.
At first, he had tried to go to bed, but it still smelled like her, so that didn’t work. He tried going for a swim to take his mind off everything, but that didn’t work, either. All he could think about was how she had kissed him in the pool and he’d been an absolute ass about it. Gods if he could change that moment now.
“Thad? Where are you, Brother?” Dem’s voice called out to him, but he ignored it. Not answering might make him go away, and out of all his brothers, Dem was the one he wanted to see the least.
“Broke out the expensive stuff, I see.” His brother’s voice was behind his chair now.
Thad’s curls hung in front of his eyes. He had used them his whole life to hide his eyes from people, but it was only with Cin that he realized he had been using them to hide from the world as well. Now, they allowed him not to see the man who had dragged him away from the body of the woman he loved. He hadn’t been convinced she was dead. The fact that Dem had taken him away from possibly saving her was not something he would be able to forgive for a while.
“Brother, come on. Talk to me.” Dem walked to the sliding glass door and stared out at the ocean, just as Thad had been doing.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“You think I don’t know how you feel?” Dem asked without turning around. He paused, waiting for Thad to say something, anything, but he held his tongue. “Is your memory failing you in old age? Could you really have forgotten my Isabeau?”
Thad continued to studiously ignore his brother and sip on his whiskey. He knew what Dem was getting at, but it wasn’t something that he wanted to hear right now.
“Zeus drove her mad. Remember that? Remember how she hated me for all the things he did to her? I certainly do. I also remember taking her to the asylum because that was the only place I could leave her and know she would be cared for. Can you imagine what the big Z-man would have done if I didn’t separate myself from her? The terror he would have caused her, hell, did cause her?”
Dem paused, breathing hard, and ran his hand through his hair in an attempt to get himself back under control. Thad knew he hated remembering Isabeau. He knew this was causing his brother pain. Yet, at least that pain had mellowed with age. Thad’s pain was fresh and still burned in his chest.
“I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. Especially to lose someone before you have a chance to explain this life and how you feel to them. Alec was beyond lucky that Ellie came back to him. If I’m honest, that’s why I don’t like her that much. It’s nothing against her personally, but the fact that she was able to come back, but I had to lock my Isa away for the rest of her life? That smarts.”
Thad had been wondering why Dem disliked Ellie so much. Now, it made sense. His brother was reminded of the impossible situation Zeus had put him in every time he looked at Alec’s betrothed.
“You didn’t let me even try and get to her.” The words tumbled from his lips. His voice sounded strangled to his own ears. Tears threatened to flow once more.
“You would have died trying to reach her. You were too focused on getting to her that you didn’t see the flames for the danger they were.” Dem sighed and turned around. “I know we don’t say this often, but you’re my brother and my best friend. I couldn’t let you die right in front of me. That would be worse than leaving Isa.”
Thad sighed and finally looked up at his brother. The torment in his eyes was painful to look at. “I’m trying to let go, Brother, I truly am, but I need more time.”
The noise that ripped through the air startled them both. Thad almost spilled his whiskey, which would have been unacceptable given how expensive that bottle had been.
“What the hell was that?” Dem asked as Thad downed the last of his current glass.
“No idea.”
“Come on.” Dem took the bottle away and pulled Thad out of the chair.
They made their way out of the house to the center of the island. There was nothing there, but it was the central point between all their houses. The two of them stood there, waiting like idiots for the sound to happen again.
When Alec and Ellie joined them, the tension in the group increased dramatically. He could have sliced into it and served it up for dinner had he been so inclined. Hal and Aster joined them moments later.
Thad’s eyes locked on Aster, evaluating her for remaining damage. She had obviously showered recently, and Hal had been working on some of her injuries.
Without the blood and bruises on her face, she looked more like the Aster from his visions.
Her eyes, which were locked on Dem, were wide with shock. Thad glanced back at Dem and was surprised to find his brother looking equally shocked. He looked back at Aster, only to find that her face was very carefully blank.
“Aster, this is my brother Alec and his wifey-to-be Ellie, and I think you met Dem when we rescued you, but just in case, this is Dem, and you know Thad.”
“Nice to meet y’all.” Aster’s voice was soft and a little husky.
Thad noticed that her eyes were watery and immediately wanted to kick himself. He’d been wallowing in his own grief when Aster had lost her sister. He walked over to her and hugged her tight.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said into the top of her head.
“Thanks for coming after me. I know what it cost you.”
The noise shook the ground underneath them. It sounded almost like an eagle’s scream, but there was something uniquely human about it at the same time. The hairs at the back of Thad’s neck stood on end, and he couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran through him. By the looks of it, neither could anyone else.
It was a sound of supreme frustration, anguish, and fury. He did not want to be whoever was on the receiving end of it.
“Did that sound like it was coming from underneath us to anyone else?” Dem asked, while avoiding looking in Hal and Aster’s direction.
A couple nods from the brothers.
“I’ll jump down to the training area and check it out,” Thad said, before wrapping the filaments of the universe around him and jumping to the cave they had underground with all their training equipment.
Dem popped in shortly after him, followed by Hal. He guessed Alec was making sure the ladies were protected.
“What the hell is that?” Dem’s voice was a low whisper. Thad turned and looked where he was pointing.
The cage.
Thad hadn’t seen anything like it before, which didn’t necessarily mean anything since there was no way he’d seen every weird creature in the world.
“How did it get past our wards?” Hal hissed, asking the question that had first popped into Thad’s mind.
Thad shrugged. He gestured for Dem to flank left and Hal to flank right while he approached from behind. It wasn’t like there was anywhere for it to go.
As they got closer, Thad could see flared wings that were blood red. He edged to one side. It wasn’t what he had agreed on with his brothers, but there was something strangely familiar about those wings.
Hal’s foot scuffed the concrete, and the winged creature whipped around.
Cin.
Chapter 27
Thad’s heart almost tore itself in two. He was beyond happy to see her, but she wasn’t herself anymore. The anger shimmered in the air around her like heat of a fire. It was worse than when she’d lost it at the farmhouse.
He couldn’t even tell if she recognized him.
All he wanted to do was run to her and scoop her up, crush her to him and never let go again. If he tried to do that right now, though, he would get attacked. Whatever the powers were that she had, they consumed her.
Thad evaluated her with a critical eye, trying to figure out the best approach, while his brothers waited on his signal. Her arms were black from her fingertips to her elbows, like she’d rubbed them with charcoal. The claws at the end of her fingers were worrying since they could cause some serious damage.
It was her eyes that made him the most uneasy. At the farmhouse, they had been black, but now they were empty pits with the blackness spreading out over the whole eye socket. He wasn’t even sure she could see them.
“Cin?” His voice shook as he said her name. “You in there, love?”
She turned to face him dead on. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she looked like a siren, but her wings were leathery instead of feathered like theirs. The snake tattoos she had were moving over her skin like they were alive and protecting her.
The whole thing was unnerving. He desperately wanted her to be okay and be alive again, but this, right now, wasn’t her.
“Hyacinth. Take some deep breaths.”
“He needs to be punished.” Her hand shot out and pointed to the man in the cage behind her. “He is a murderer, and I am here to seek vengeance. I have to take him . . . somewhere. I have to punish him!” Her gravelly voice was much lower than normal.
“I know, and I’ll let you take him—”
“What? You can’t do that! She’ll kill me!” the man in the cage shouted as he panicked.
Thad leaned around Cin so he could make eye contact with the guy. “Shut up.” He put all the menace that he could into those two words. “Or it won’t just be her you’re dealing with.”
Thad sighed and stepped closer to Cin. Her body tensed.
“Easy now.” Thad held up his hands to show her he wasn’t a threat. “I’ll let you take him if you take a walk with me first. Just for a little while. I just want to talk.”
She stood there, assessing him. He could sense the conflict going on within her. If she didn’t recognize him, then at least she didn’t see him as a threat.
“Swear to me that I will get to take him.”
“I swear.” He held his hand out to her with baited breath, hoping with every fiber of his being that she would take it.
The moment drew out as his hand hung there in midair waiting for her. When she finally took it, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Do you want to walk up to my house?”
She nodded. The two of them walked together, her wings occasionally bumping into him. She clearly didn’t have full control over her new appendages. At least, not yet. Her presence beside him made him want to whoop with joy, and he was not someone who whooped.
“We’re going to go through a couple tunnels, nothing to be scared of, and then we’ll come out in my house.”
“Okay.” Her voice was softer now, more like his Cin. It seemed like the more distance they put between her and the guy they had brought back from the farmhouse, the better she did.
They snaked through the circular tunnels to the emergency exit in his house. As they came up the incline and entered into the kitchen, Thad watched Cin’s face, hoping for any sign of recognition that she had been there before.
A flicker of a smile played at the corners of Cin’s mouth, and Thad’s heart burst with joy.
“Cin? Do you remember being here?”
She dropped his hand and moved about the kitchen on her own, running her hands along the surfaces as she went.
“I . . .” She glanced around, and when her eyes landed on the fireplace, Thad’s pulse started to race. “I think I remember being here before.”
“You were here before.”
Thad turned to Dem, beaming with happiness, only to find his brother sulking by the door. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. Cin had come back to him just like Ellie had come back to Alec, and now his mind was stuck on Isa.
Cin moved away and Thad turned back to her. No need to poke at an open wound right now. He would have to remember to talk to his brother about that later, though. It had been over a century since Isa. There had to be a way to help him move on.
Thad watched with rapt attention as Cin stood in front of the fireplace. A blush colored her cheeks. He could guess what she was remembering now.
As he stood there admiring her, he noticed that the black color began fading down her arms and the talons on her fingers were slowly shrinking back to normal fingernails. His Cin seemed so much closer than she had when he had first seen her down in the training area.
She began to wander toward the bedroom. Thad motioned for Dem to stay put. The last thing he wanted was for Cin to remember the intimacy they had shared and talk about it in front of Dem. That would be rubbing salt in the wound.
As she stood in front of the bed, Thad finally took in what she was wearing. It looked like she’d been dressed by a colorb
lind crazy person. Her T-shirt had a flamingo on it with a caption that read “Majestically awkward,” combined with some blood-red jean shorts that made her legs look about ten feet tall.
He would swear up and down that wasn’t what she was wearing a moment ago. He shook his head to clear the thought. What she was wearing didn’t matter. She could be in a moo-moo and he’d still be happy.
“Thad?” Cin turned to him.
“There you are.” He breathed a sigh of relief as her eyes cleared back to their normal hazel.
Without warning, sobs broke forth, and she fell into a sitting position on the bed.
“It’s okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay. We’ll figure it all out together.”
She went to hug him, and her wings got in the way, catching on the bed.
“I have wings?” Evidently this was a new observation for her. She bolted upright and headed to the bathroom, where she examined them in the mirror.
“Why do I have wings?”
“I have a theory. Let me think about it for a moment while you get your bearings?”
She nodded. “I’m starving. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”
“Let’s go get you some food and teach you how to put those things away.”
Cin nodded at him; her eyes filled with apprehension as she wrapped her arms around her chest. Thad wasn’t sure how best to help her; it wasn’t like he’d ever been in a situation like this before. He had no idea what to do.
After a moment’s hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her, crushing her against him. He’d wanted to do that since he first saw her downstairs.
She was stiff against him for a second, but as she breathed out, her whole body relaxed into him. Her arms unfurled and wrapped around him, squeezing him tight as she rested her head on his shoulder. He could feel the moisture from her tears seep through his T-shirt as she started crying.
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered into her neck, barely keeping his own tears in check.
“I think I was.”
Her voice was full of sorrow as she divulged her fear, making Thad’s heart want to break all over again.