Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series)

by Reine, SM

  It was strange to sit in the cabin in the woods with Abel and James and see evidence that they had been there for days—the trash in the kitchen, the disarray of the dishes, the rumpled bed sheets in the guest room—but only be able to smell their scents from the last hour. It created a painful disconnect in Rylie’s mind. Like her eyes and nose were in two completely different places.

  Or maybe that was just the shock talking.

  Abel was pacing the living room like a cage, prowling from one corner to the other. There was so much that Rylie wanted to say to him. I was so worried about you. The pack is worried about you. I tore apart Northgate looking for you. I thought you might have been dead.

  None of it made it past her lips, the words caught between teeth and tongue.

  The way that James bustled in the kitchen was strangely domestic. He knew where everything was positioned and moved smoothly from cabinet to cupboard to drawer, getting a teakettle on the range, pouring water, arranging cups on the counter.

  Even when James had lived for a few months with her pack, trying to help them through a few of their more magical problems, he had never seemed normal. His shockingly white hair and ageless face made Rylie think of wizards and angels. Ancient things.

  Now he had black hair again. He looked about forty, maybe forty-five years old with the white in his beard. When he made tea, he looked like any other aging bachelor.

  Except that this aging bachelor had just magically made Elise disappear.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” Abel said, drawing her attention back to him. It was basically the only thing he had said since she got there.

  “What did you think I was going to do?” Rylie asked. “You didn’t leave a note. You didn’t warn me.”

  “You wouldn’t have let me go,” Abel said.

  How could he know that? It wasn’t like he had asked. Yet even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew he was right. Running off with James was suicide, and she never would have let him do it—for good reason.

  The teakettle whistled. James removed it from the heat. The silence that followed was immense, sucking all the air out of Rylie’s lungs.

  “Why?” she asked in a tiny voice. Why would he have left willingly with James? Didn’t he know that this man had used Seth? And why had he done it without her?

  “It was the right thing to do,” Abel said.

  James came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with three steaming cups. He set it on the coffee table in front of Rylie. She smelled licorice and shrank back on the couch.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  She expected it to be something witchy—like a sedative or a mind-control potion or something else that would have convinced Abel that it wasn’t insane to follow James Faulkner across the country.

  “Earl Gray. It has a strong flavor, but I think you’ll like it.” James offered a cup to her. “Be careful. It’s hot.”

  He had exploited Seth, abducted her mate, made Elise disappear into oblivion, and now wanted her to be careful with the hot tea. She didn’t touch it.

  “Where is she?” Rylie asked.

  He faltered. For an instant she could see right through his pleasant demeanor to the anguish underneath. But he smoothed his features quickly and the lie never even came out in his smells. He was a good liar. A master. “She’s somewhere safe.”

  James kneeled in front of Rylie. Was she imagining it, or did he look even younger now? The lines at the corners of his eyes were gone. His hair was blacker than before. It made him look less distinguished, more approachable.

  But those eyes were still chillingly cold.

  “I know what happened to Summer and Abram, Rylie,” he said softly. “I know that you didn’t get to be with them as children.”

  Rylie edged away from him. “What does that have to do with anything?” Abel was still pacing behind James. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Had he told James about the babies? It was such a private, painful thing.

  “I have a son too.” There was suddenly a picture in his hand. He held it up so that she could see the family portrait. There was an elegant blond woman in the back and a young boy in front of her—a boy that strongly resembled James. “His name is Nathaniel. I didn’t know about him until he was already nine years old. I’ve spent no more than a week with him in his entire life. And he’s an extraordinary witch who, through a series of circumstances, has become trapped in Eden.”

  “‘A series of circumstances?’ That’s awfully vague.” Rylie knew an emotional appeal when she heard one. Coming from this guy, she didn’t trust it.

  James turned the picture so he could gaze at it. “You’ve heard Elise called the Godslayer, I’m sure. It’s not just a name. She did kill God, and in order to do it, she had to become trapped in His garden. My son decided to save her by trading his freedom for hers, and he’s been in Eden ever since. The fact that he hasn’t returned makes me believe that he can’t. Not unless I open the gates to Eden.”

  He let the anguish bleed through as he said it, and his grief struck deep in Rylie’s heart. The way he sounded reminded her too much of the way she had felt in the days she struggled to reach Summer and Abram—a painful mix of hope and hopelessness, fear and love, longing and pain.

  But there were conspicuous holes in that story. Holes that Abel should have seen, too.

  “How did you find him?” Rylie asked. James gave her a questioning look. “Eden’s this unreachable dimension, right? Another world like Dis, except with no holes or gates leading into it? Then how do you know he’s there if you can’t visit?”

  James smiled faintly, tucking the photo into the pocket of his shirt. “Our world is woven together with fibers of magic. We are all connected. You, me, the demons in Dis, the angels in Shamain—and even Nathaniel in Eden. A witch that elevates himself to a place that he can see those fibers can look through them to anything, anywhere. You only need to know how to see it.”

  She didn’t know enough about magic to tell if he was lying. It was vague and mystical enough to sound legit. But she could still smell the omissions on him, and she knew that he was leaving out pieces of the story.

  “There are other things in Eden that would give me the ability to shape the world for the better, too,” James said. “I would be able to directly manipulate those fibers.”

  Abel interrupted. “He thinks that he can bring Seth back.”

  The words hit on Rylie like a silver bullet to the forehead.

  Bring Seth back?

  Her first dumb thought was, But he’s already back. His body was watching over the pack in the mausoleum that she had built with her own two hands.

  That wasn’t what he meant. Abel meant…back. Alive.

  Something was hurting, but it took Rylie a minute to realize what, exactly. She looked down at her hands. She had dug her fingernails into her palms, and they were bleeding.

  She uncurled her fingers. The healing warmth swept through her, but the blood remained.

  “That’s why you did it,” Rylie said, meeting Abel’s eyes over James’s shoulder. She hadn’t believed Abel would be compelled by the Nathaniel story—but she never would have guessed that he was doing this.

  “You went across the whole damn country with a demon to find me,” Abel said. “You left the pack without an Alpha. You dropped everything.”

  “For you,” Rylie whispered.

  “Then how can you blame me for doing anything it takes to save Seth?” His eyes were fiercely bright. “Wouldn’t you do the same?”

  Rylie stood. “I didn’t blame you for anything.”

  “Yeah, but you’re giving me that look.”

  “It’s because I’m afraid for you, Abel,” Rylie said. James had settled back on the couch to drink his tea, immune to the tension. She jabbed a finger at him. “When Seth decided to make a deal with this guy, he ended up dead. It’s James’s fault that Seth was there when the Breaking happened.”

  She meant that to be a shock—a direct hit through Abel�
�s shields.

  “I know,” Abel said.

  “You—wait, what? You know?”

  “I told him,” James said over the rim of his tea. He took a sip. Set it down. “I regret what I’ve done, Rylie, but the only way that I can rectify my mistakes is with Abel’s help. He’s a…reasonable man.” The corner of his lips twitched.

  Abel was anything but reasonable. He was all heart and no forethought, action without planning. It was one of the things that Rylie loved most about him.

  James had taken advantage of that.

  She grabbed Abel’s sleeve and dragged him into the kitchen, away from James’s stupid, smug cups of tea, and slammed the door behind him.

  Rylie was so relieved that Abel was safe that she just wanted to kiss him until she forgot all of her fear. But she tucked her hands under her arms and forced herself not to touch him.

  “You could die working with James,” Rylie whispered.

  Abel’s eyes were so bright and piercing. “At least you’d have Seth back.”

  He couldn’t have hurt her more if he had punched her.

  “Abel, no. I told you that I chose you. I don’t want Seth back if it means losing you.”

  “You know what everyone wants,” Abel said. “The pack needs him. Our kids like him better. You know you need him more than you need me.”

  “I would never say that,” Rylie said.

  “You don’t have to.” He glared at his feet like he couldn’t stand to meet her eyes. “He’s not just the better man. He’s my brother. If there’s anything I can do to save him, even if it puts me in danger—I gotta do it.”

  She stared up at him helplessly—this man that she loved so desperately and needed more than she could ever fit into words.

  He wanted to exchange his life for Seth’s, but the only way Rylie could see James’s machinations ending was with both Wilder brothers dead.

  Rylie had no idea how to convince Abel of that. She had already told him dozens of times how much she loved him, and it obviously wasn’t sinking in. He was beyond the point of reasoning.

  Would James even let Abel go if he asked?

  Her heart sank lower and lower. She felt like she weighed a thousand pounds, like she might sink into the earth and never be able to stand again. “So what now? What’s the plan?”

  “Why? Want to know how to tell Elise how to stop us?” Abel asked.

  “I want to know how I can help you.”

  Abel looked shocked. So shocked that the truth came out of him immediately. “That gate in the clearing’s gonna take us to Heaven. That’s where the next door to Eden is. We’ve already got the ritual all ready, so all I have to do is head up, spill a little blood. Couple more doors, and Eden’s open, James goes in this Origin thing, and Seth comes out.”

  There was no way it could be that easy.

  Rylie searched Abel’s eyes, gripping his sleeves in her fists.

  “You were right when you said that I did crazy stuff to find you. And I would do almost anything to bring Seth back, too.” Anything—an awfully loaded word in a world gone insane, torn open to Hell. “But if I was going to make a deal with the devil, I would have told you. I wouldn’t have left you thinking that I might be dead somewhere.”

  He had gone pale and still. “I thought you’d say no.”

  She would have said no. She would have talked him out of it before he was too deep to free himself. And if she couldn’t have done that—well, she would have gone on the suicide mission with him.

  They were mates. A team.

  “You didn’t trust me,” Rylie said. “I can’t believe you still don’t trust me.”

  Abel didn’t have anything to say to that.

  She tried to imagine letting him go through that door alone with James and couldn’t. Just the idea felt too much like letting go of him. Rylie pressed her cheek against his chest and listened to the beat of his heart. “I’m going with you,” she said. “We’ll both go to Heaven. Together.”

  And she would have to pray that there would be some way to save them all before James dug both of their graves.

  James and Abel prepared to leave. It was incredible to see how much James could fit into a single backpack. He made object after object disappear, including an entire rug that had been embroidered with a circle of power. It was, he explained, a ritual in a bag.

  But they didn’t head back to the gate. An hour later, they were still at Pamela’s house, and Rylie was warming herself by the fire while the men argued about her.

  Rylie wasn’t sure who was on which side. Abel didn’t want her running off to do dangerous things and James didn’t exactly need her blood to open the door, either. Yet they were definitely arguing. One of them was on her side. She could have listened in to figure out whom, but it didn’t matter.

  Whatever conclusion they came to, Abel wasn’t going through that gateway without Rylie.

  She wasn’t sure what would happen after that.

  Rylie wasn’t prepared to consider the idea of resurrecting Seth. It wasn’t the first time that she had heard about bringing back the dead. Her Aunt Gwyn had been turned into a zombie by a witch, and Rylie knew that it wasn’t an easy ticket to a second life. There was a price. There would always be a price.

  If she lost herself in the idea of being able to see Seth’s lopsided smile again, being able to hold him and lean on his reassuringly steady sense of morals, she wasn’t sure she would be able to stop James when the time came.

  She was going to go to Heaven, but James wasn’t going to open that door to Eden.

  Rylie heard a back door open and shut. She peeked through the curtain again to see that James and Abel were still in her line of sight. But there were footsteps approaching, dragging through the kitchen.

  She turned, expecting to see someone from James’s coven in the kitchen.

  Instead, she found a demon.

  Her back hit the wall before she even realized that she had taken a step away. Her fingers were curved into claws, heart hammering as the wolf surged inside of her.

  It was a squat, ugly demon with bulging eyes, a lipless mouth, gray skin that oozed blood from recent wounds on its back. It dragged its knuckles as it approached her, nails clicking on the wood. There were others behind it—four demons in total, and none of them moving aggressively.

  They were Neuma’s fiends.

  The knowledge didn’t make her heart slow. Ridiculous possibilities whirled through her mind—including the possibility that Neuma had secretly ordered the fiends to kill her—and she backed herself into a corner as they approached. But they didn’t try to touch her. She swallowed down her fear as a small, stubby hand pulled her to the window then pointed through the glass.

  Abel was still talking to James outside.

  “Yeah, it’s Abel,” Rylie said, frowning. “I don’t…”

  The fiend pointed more insistently, and then sat back on its haunches. It gazed at her with glistening eyes.

  Rylie felt stupid once she realized what was happening. The demons had found Abel and then located Rylie to alert her to his position, just like Neuma had ordered them to do.

  What happened now that their directive had been fulfilled? Rylie watched them to see if they would take action, but they were still staring at her.

  Almost like they wanted an order.

  They must have recognized her as an authority now. Her heart accelerated again, this time from the possibilities rather than fear.

  Suddenly, the frightening little gargoyles looked a lot cuter to her. She could almost see what had made Neuma feel so affectionate toward them. “Find Elise,” Rylie said, tearing through her saddlebag until she found Elise’s book. She shoved one of the pages at a fiend. “Find her and free her.”

  The fiend ripped it from her hand. Just like it had with Abel’s shirt, it rubbed the paper on its face, drinking in the energies of its subject. Another fiend snatched it away and did the same. It was as fascinating as it was sickening.

  And
then they were slinking away, back into the kitchen, receding into the shadows.

  Rylie watched them go with her heart in her throat.

  The front door opened.

  She jumped at the sound, whirling to face it. James stood in the doorway. Rylie resisted the urge to look over her shoulder and see if the fiends were still visible behind her. Instead, she edged a few inches to the left, hoping that it would conceal the kitchen door.

  James didn’t seem to realize he had interrupted anything. “Are you ready?”

  “For what?” Rylie asked stupidly.

  “To go to Heaven.”

  She glanced around him to see Abel brooding in the front yard. His anger was a black cloud hanging over him. Apparently, Abel had been arguing against letting Rylie go—and James had won.

  Rylie bit her bottom lip and nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Twelve

  James was dreaming again. He hadn’t been able to sleep for months without having vivid dreams, as though he closed his eyes on the real world only to step into an alternate reality until he woke again. They were fierce and vivid and violent.

  Tonight was no exception.

  He was in a place of trees and soil. There were branches high overhead, glimmering with a canopy of emerald leaves, and bushes thick with berries around his knees. James was naked as he hurtled through them. The flashes of thighs and biceps he saw in the corners of his vision were taut with muscle. His breath roared like the river that he could hear somewhere in the depths of the forest.

  He was not a beast of the earth, but a master of it. He was swift and nimble. He held a spear and was prepared to use it.

  Pale fur flashed between two trees and vanished.

  James redirected, scrambling onto higher ground, using one arm and two legs to drag himself up a steep rock face overgrown with moss and ivy. The plants tore under his hands. They gushed amber fluid that smelled cinnamony-sweet.

  He hit the top of the ridge on his knees, rolled onto his feet. Though he was still below the canopy, it was brighter here, windier. The trees swayed around him. He heard the rush of a breeze like an invisible hand sweeping through the forest behind him. James spared a moment to close his eyes and inhale deeply. It filled him with fresh energy.