Zee moved deeper into the stone cradle, sifting through the dead until he pulled out three more skulls. Each one was slightly human, and slightly not, with differences that ranged from the shape of the cranium to the numbers of eye sockets. One skull sported bull horns and an overly large forehead that would have looked good on a Neanderthal.
Raw and Aaz lined the skulls in the sand and stepped back, staring at them. Zee crawled free of the dead, also watching the skulls. I had no idea what those artifacts were doing with the bodies, but I was certain they hadn’t been meant to see the light of day again.
Thirteen skulls, I’d been told. Thirteen keys to bind the Reaper Kings. And here were five of them.
The armor on my right hand tingled, pins and needles flowing up my arm, over my entire body. A chill. That deepening unease.
“Guys,” I said.
“Trust,” Zee whispered, looking at me. “Only have one heart now. Won’t lose it. Won’t lose you.”
He turned back, raised his fist, and slammed it down on the skull nearest him.
Crystal shattered. I staggered back as shards hit my legs and chest—other, larger, fragments sinking into the sand beneath the force of his blow. I gasped at him, stunned, shielding my face as Raw and Aaz tore into the remaining skulls, breaking them with their fists, raising them over their heads and hurling them down on stone, on their knees, on each other’s backs—destroying them with deliberate, relentless, determination.
Loss hit me, all my unease exploding into fear.
I realized that I’d been lying to myself. I was scared of the boys no longer being bonded to me. Scared of what they would do. I’d been looking at that other crystal skull as a way out. A possible solution in case things got bad.
Clearly, the boys were not going to cooperate. And why would they?
“Fuck,” I whispered, as Zee reached back and flung a baseball-sized chunk of crystal into the ruins. I heard it crack against stone, then silence fell, hard and heavy, smothering even the sound of my pounding heart.
“Never again,” he whispered, trembling.
CHAPTER 17
THEY burned the bodies. Dek and Mal coughed fire upon the remains, and the sparks turned to flames in seconds, spreading with a heat and ferocity that made me keep my distance. The boys did not retreat. They stood in the fire, holding those bodies as they burned in their arms.
I watched them and wanted Grant. I almost left them to return home, but every time I came close, I stopped myself. I needed to be here. I didn’t know why, but my gut said so. Leaving would have felt good but not right.
So I found a tumbled column and sat on it, trying to steady my pulse as I took slow, even breaths, drawing in the cool desert air—closing my eyes, emptying my mind of hard thoughts. I drifted. I sank. My bond with Grant throbbed golden and hot. Beneath that, I suffered the weight of a sleeping giant, coiled beneath my heart.
Zee left the fire first, small body outlined against the flames. He watched me. I watched him.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him, quietly. “Whoever they were to you, I’m so sorry you lost them.”
“Lost many,” he replied, just as softly. “Lost many in the beginning, lost a whole world. Too desperate not to lose any more.”
He hesitated, looking back at the fire. “We lost, anyway.”
“You loved them.”
“Did not know it was love.” Zee glanced back at me. “Know better now.”
I sighed. “Why did you wait until now to come here? You could have unearthed that tomb at any time since you’ve been free. You could have asked your old mothers to come here. My mother. My grandmother. Me.”
“No point warming cold secrets.”
I dug my fingers into the stone beneath me. “Are there other secrets?”
“Always.” Zee pressed his small fist over his heart. “Each breath a secret.”
Each breath. Each moment. I was just a moment, a mortal heartbeat that would last a couple decades, then fade into memory. Our lives together were a secret no one would ever understand. But that was just one life. Each of my ancestors had lived a secret lifetime with the boys. Secret, between them. Remembered only by them.
But before that? Before being imprisoned? How many memories could burn over the millennia?
Had my mother known this was going to happen?
Does it matter? Because you’re here, and she’s not, and this is your game to handle. Your hand to play.
I just didn’t know what hand I’d been given yet. The boys were free, yes. But I had no idea what that meant or what they would do with that freedom.
So deal with it. Get your shit together.
I patted the spot beside me. Zee prowled close, graceful and sleek. He did not sit beside me but crouched between my feet, facing the dimming fire. Dek and Mal were singing softly, coiled on top of Raw and Aaz, who continued to kneel in the flames.
I stroked the spines of Zee’s hair, burying my fingers behind his ears and massaging his hard skull. I had seen my mother do this, and over the years, I’d taken up the habit.
“This, peace,” he whispered. “Peace will not last, Maxine.”
“Okay,” I said. “You brought me here, we unburied some bodies, you destroyed those skulls. Was that part of a plan or just something you had to do?”
He tensed. “Need to protect. Need to think ahead, not just to army, but Aetar. War comes, Maxine. War comes, but we will be free.”
“And this world? Will it be free?”
He hesitated. My hands stilled. “Zee.”
He pulled away from me. I reached for him, but he slipped out of my grip, dragging his claws through the sand as I stood up. I moved too quickly and swayed, dizzy.
“Maxine.” Zee touched my hand, steadying me. “Need to sit.”
“What I need are answers,” I told him, digging my palm into my eye. “I’m scared. I’m scared of what’s coming.”
“Scared of us,” he whispered.
I swallowed hard. “A little, yes. Is that why you destroyed the skulls?”
“Destroyed so the Aetar could not use them. Destroyed so that you would not die in the belly of a stone.” Zee tugged on my hand, forcing me to sit. “Will do what it takes to keep you safe.”
“No. There are limits.”
“No limits.”
“The limit is harm,” I told him. “Promise me you will keep this world safe, Zee.”
He looked away to Raw and Aaz, who had left the fire and were watching us, with Dek and Mal draped over their arms. I felt something pass between them in that silence. I felt it in my gut and heart.
“No,” he said. “Will not promise.”
“Zee.”
“Many worlds. Worlds, always reborn. Not you.” Zee gave me a hard, desperate look. “Not you.”
My eyes stung. “I will die, one day. I am not immortal. I am not forever.”
Zee pressed his claws over my heart. “Ten thousand years, in your blood. Ten thousand years, sharing hearts of mothers. Good mothers, bad mothers. Our mothers. Our babies, becoming mothers. Birth to death. Birth to death.” His voice grew rough, hard, and his eyes began to glow. “Now we free . . . but your blood, still ours. Our clan. Our babies. Our mothers. Ours.”
He withdrew his claws but leaned in, holding my gaze. “Worlds die, always . . . but if blood lives . . . so does heart.”
His words burned through me, sharp and aching. I could not look away from him, but when I tried to speak, nothing worked. I hurt too much. I hurt for him, and myself.
“I love you,” I whispered. “But I cannot let you harm this world. Not even for me.”
Zee glanced away at the others. “May change mind, Maxine.”
“No, I will not.”
Dek mewled at us. Raw covered his mouth. Zee gave them a hard look, then met my gaze again. “Need to go. Need you with us.”
“We’re not done here.”
He bared his teeth at me, snarling. I refused to flinch.
“No,”
he snapped, and grabbed my right hand. Before I could take a proper breath, we slipped into the void.
Seconds passed into eternity. When we stepped free, I gasped for air, stumbling—shielding my eyes against a terrible, harsh blast of sunlight. It was so bright. I glimpsed blue skies, spinning—
Strong hands caught me. Not Zee. The grip was too large, and I glimpsed long fingers, shaped like pitchfork tines.
My heart stilled. I looked up, breathless, and stared into piercing green eyes set in a sharp, angular face. Silver hair fell into long, knotted braids, tied like armor around a broad chest the color of silver, while silver chains of chiming hooks glinted around a muscular waist.
“Young Queen,” murmured the demon.
“Lord Ha’an,” I said, stunned to see him. The last time had been inside the prison veil. We had come to a truce, of sorts. An alliance, even. I had promised to return to the veil and help him subdue the other demon lords, should they break into his section of the prison and try to conquer his people, the Mahati.
Apparently, those demons clans did not get along. Apparently, they had never gotten along. Only the Reaper Kings had kept the peace and managed to unite them under a common cause.
Survival. War. Death.
Grant and I had sealed the breach in the prison veil that had set the Mahati free on earth. If Lord Ha’an was here, though . . .
“Oh, God,” I said to him, horrified. “The prison is open.”
“Not exactly,” he said quietly, and released me with great care. I looked past him, around him—and found that we stood on a vast stone veranda filled with tropical plants, burbling fountains, and a small wading pool where several well-endowed and very naked human women were lounging with drinks in their hands. They gave me a disinterested look—and didn’t seem to notice the seven-foot-tall demon standing in their midst.
I stared, blinking. “Where the hell are we?”
“An island on your world.” Lord Ha’an touched my shoulder with the tips of his long fingers. “Come. We must talk. Quickly.”
His concern was palpable. I glanced around for the boys. No sign of Zee, Raw, or Aaz—but Dek and Mal appeared from the shadows between some potted plants and slithered toward me with an urgency that made my chest tighten even more. I scooped them up to my shoulders, and Lord Ha’an exhaled slowly, bowing his head to them.
“My Kings,” he said, and the two little demons crooned at him with a cold, melodic trill. Not for the first time, I had a what the hell moment, wondering what it was, exactly, that made a warrior like Lord Ha’an act so deferential to two little demons who weren’t much bigger than snakes and whose favorite hobbies were eating M&Ms and teddy bears and singing classic Bon Jovi.
We walked across the veranda toward a stone rail shrouded in thick vines. Exotic blooms swayed in a warm, gentle breeze that washed over my body, carrying a sweet scent like honey and sugar and the sea. I inhaled deeply. I felt nauseous.
When we reached the rail, I looked down and saw a startlingly blue ocean between the craggy slopes of a tropical, lush hillside. I wondered if we were in Hawaii, and found that idea just plain weird.
Ha’an stood at the rail, gazing out at the ocean with a thoughtfulness that seemed both wistful and uneasy.
“You still care for this world,” he said. “You still wish to save it.”
“Of course,” I told him, suddenly afraid to ask the questions burning inside me. “It is a good world, with good people. You love your Mahati. I love my humans.”
He grunted. “Love is not a word my kind use.”
“But you know it.”
“I know enough.” Ha’an glanced at me, then looked away. “I admire your loyalty . . . but hate it, as well. We must feed or die.”
“You have no qualms about murdering a race of people who are just as intelligent, passionate, and . . . cultured . . . as you? That gives you no pause, whatsoever?”
Ha’an raised his brow. “You think we are cultured?”
“I know it. I saw it, when I was in the prison veil.”
He snorted but not in derision. “What do you wish me to say, young Queen? Yes, it gives me pause. But as I have told you, it is not just flesh that feeds us but the energy of the kill. The pain. The fear.”
“You didn’t always have humans to hunt.”
“No,” he said, quietly. “We changed, after the war. Our . . . needs . . . changed.”
I wondered what that meant. Before I could ask, Ha’an drew in a deep breath and pointed at the ocean. “Where I was born was never like this. It was a desert land, sharp and hard. Beautiful, in its own way. I have found other places on this world that remind me of it, but this . . . this is also comforting.”
“Other places? Places you visited a month ago, when the veil broke?”
“No. I had no time, then. Nor has it been a month, inside the prison. Much shorter. Days, perhaps. Time moves differently there.”
I stared. “How long have you been free?”
“Two sunrises,” he said, looking down at me. “I thought you knew.”
Dek and Mal stilled. Cold hit, followed by a streak of heat that blossomed in my chest. I gritted my teeth, and reached up to touch those two little heads buried against my neck. I wanted very much to throttle them.
“No,” I said, in a hard voice. “I did not know.”
“Ah,” said Lord Ha’an, and his long fingers wrapped around the rail. “Then it is very good we talk now, before the others arrive.”
“Others?”
“All the demon lords are free,” he said in a soft voice, and the stone rail cracked beneath his hands. “We were summoned, and brought here by our Kings.”
I tapped my armored fist against my thigh. “You were summoned.”
“Shall I repeat myself?”
“No need.” I glanced across the veranda as Zee finally pushed free of the shadows deep within a tangle of vines. I had felt him there, watching—wondering when he would finally have the courage to show his face.
He gave me an assessing, unapologetic look—and I said, “Two days? Two fucking days?”
“You, sick,” Zee replied, sparing Lord Ha’an a hard glance. “Not ready.”
“So this is what you were doing while you were gone,” I snapped. “Bringing demons into this world. For what reason?”
“Control,” Ha’an said, and the rail finally crumbled beneath his tight, strained grip. “Preemptive control. Promises kept. We all felt our Kings fall free of their bonds. It was like being struck in the heart with a blade. When that happened, the rings inside the prison, those walls separating the clans . . . began crumbling. It would have been war if our Kings had not come. My people would have been massacred for their flesh.”
“Your Mahati are powerful warriors.”
“We would have been massacred,” he said, again. “We almost were.”
“The Shurik are strong,” Zee said, glancing over his shoulder as Raw and Aaz loped across the veranda toward us. “The Yorana and the Osul also strong, but not like Shurik.”
“Why?” I asked them, as my head began hurting. “You act surprised.”
“Not surprised,” he muttered. “Disappointed.”
Disgust flickered over Lord Ha’an’s face. “They ate their children to survive, then kept having more children. To raise as food.”
The urge to vomit was so strong, I had to lean on the rail. “What?”
“Survival,” Zee muttered, also looking ill. “Adults survive, can always make more babies, when free.”
“Free and strong,” Ha’an said to him. “Lord Draean is more ruthless now than ever. He will not be easily appeased this time.”
“Will kill him,” Zee said. “Will shatter his bones.”
“There is no one left to replace him. You kill him, you kill all the Shurik.”
I held up my hands. “I don’t understand.”
Ha’an stared at me—clearly surprised—and then gave Zee a hard look. “You have been lax with your Queen.�
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Zee growled at him. “Silence.”
“I cannot be silent,” he replied. “Punish me. Kill me. But I will speak the truth. She should already know these things.”
“What things?” I persisted.
Ha’an shook his head, and even though every bit of him was inhuman, his posture, his eyes, retained some indefinable quality that was emotional, and familiar.
“I derive strength from my people,” he said to me. “Every one of them is bonded to me. It is so for every demon lord. We are as strong as those beneath us. But the reverse is also true. What we are defines those with whom we are bonded. And if a demon lord dies without there being one to pass on this responsibility, our people will die. Not immediately, but soon enough. For we are one.”
Lord Ha’an looked at Zee. “Every demon lord, in the past, shared a bond with our Reaper Kings. We fed them our strength, and the strength of our people . . . and in turn, they gave us strength and defined us with their hearts. It united the clans. It made us . . . invincible. Until the war with the Aetar.”
I took a slow breath. “Zee. Did you bring the demon lords here to bond with you and the others?”
“Only way,” he muttered. “Must control the army.”
“The bond must be freely given, but there is much anger for those years spent in the prison veil.” Lord Ha’an hesitated, looking from me to Zee. “And forgive me, but you are no longer the Vessels for the power that united us, before. Your Queen is, and they will not follow a human. You, my Kings, have nothing to offer them that they cannot take on their own.”
“So why haven’t they started taking?” I asked, deeply uneasy.
“Caution. Curiosity,” Zee muttered, as Raw and Aaz gave him grim looks. “Memory is strong. Will test us first.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t already try.”
“Too distracted by the bounty before them,” Ha’an said in a cool voice. “They have been feeding these last two days. As have I, young Queen.”
The Mortal Bone Page 14