by Lucy Auburn
“And you’re sure it will hold?” I glanced over at Maggie, who hadn’t been thrilled to be pulled from her daughter’s side for this. “We’ve never even tried anything like this before. And he has telekinesis.”
“I’m as sure as anything.” The witch gave me a piercing look. “Do you have any better ideas?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “We could transfer him to the Shadow Realm, where he’d no doubt find a way to lead a second rebellion against the light.”
“Then this is where he stays.” Maggie reached out a trailing finger, and a net of light at the edge of the demigod’s cell flickered to life at her touch. “I’ve laid five different types of protection spells around the cell, to make sure no one is able to enter and remove the time stone. But he’s half god, Petyr. None of us know the rules.”
I knew that she was right, but as always I found myself searching for a more definite solution. I didn’t like not knowing. “I have some old books about the gods. Maybe there are answers in some of them.”
“Maybe.” Maggie sounded doubtful. “But the only people who truly know anything about the gods are the gods themselves, and there have been no full-blood fae on Earth for centuries. Even the Elders are young compared to gods and their children.”
“I suppose it would be foolish of me to try to Ascend so I could speak to them,” I joked, only half considering it. “We’ll just have to hope that even a god’s son can’t break through time and space itself.”
Maggie stared into the cell, reflecting, “Selena knew who he was, didn’t she? Leon said on the way over here that she warned him he was a demigod named Beelzebub. Maybe when she wakes up she can tell us something about him.”
“And where she’s been for the past three months,” I added.
“You don’t know?” Maggie’s voice was dark, troubled; I stared at her, puzzled. She sighed. “Leon said that when she came out of that mausoleum, she told him she’d been in Hell.”
Emotions stirred inside me, but I kept them all off my face, plastering a diplomat’s expression on. But Maggie’s knowing eyes saw right through me.
“You’ll have to tell them,” she said, referring to the Elders. “Just let her wake up before you do. If we need to run from this, you know I’ll take her with me.”
“I’m sure it won’t be as bad as all that,” I said, trying not to let fear show in my voice. “If Selena was in the Underworld, that... that doesn’t make this like—”
“The last Godspring?” Maggie’s voice was cutting. “You and I are scholars, Petyr. We know things that the others don’t, things we’ve read in histories long forgotten. You can bet that the Elders know the same things. Some of them lived through the last Godspring.”
I was silent, knowing she was right. “For Selena’s sake, I’ll give her as much time as possible before I tell the Elders what I know. Though,” I pointed out, “I can’t guarantee they don’t already have that information.”
“Thank you.” Maggie reached out to squeeze my arm. “I’m going to go check up on Selena. Dr. Lee said she’ll sleep for a while, but I just can’t keep myself from her side.” As she left the warded hallways of the prison wing, she stopped and said over her shoulder, “If I were you, ambassador, I’d reread all those books in that library of yours about what happened the last time the Underworld rose up.”
Then she left, her parting words ringing in my head.
What I didn’t tell her was that there was no reason for me to read about the Godspring. My father was an ancient Anyana; he’d lived through it himself. During the last Godspring, a fae warrior’s human lover fell into the Underworld through a rip in space and time. The warrior went into Hell to retrieve her and inadvertently opened up the hell gates on their journey back to the Realm of Light. It was foretold that such a thing would happen anytime the living attempted to walk through the Underworld before their time was up; it was a place for doomed souls, gods and their children, not humans or the fae.
Selena’s similar journey might mean nothing. Or it might be a sign that the Key had returned to Earth and spelled doom for us all. Either way, there was no stopping it. If Selena’s walk through the Underworld and the opening of the hell gate were both a portent of what was to come, the rest of the prophecies would come true as well.
Thousands would die before the Godspring was over.
14
Selena
This time when I opened my eyes I felt at peace. The fog lifted out of my head. There was no sign of Maggie at my side. Pulling the oxygen mask off, I breathed fresh air and glanced over to see that Naomi and her sister were also gone.
“I moved the dark hunter to one of our long-term care rooms,” Tae Min said, his voice coming from somewhere near my head. “Your foster mother has been taking care of some things for the ambassador, as well as getting food for when you wake up. I told her you might be hungry.”
There was hunger in me, but it wasn’t that kind. My inner succubus had been different in the Underworld, where time ran in its own way and basic necessities became optional. But now that I was back on Earth that lustful hunger had returned.
After the way I’d hurt Tae Min when I tried to feed off him my very first time, I doubted he’d be comfortable hearing I was hungry. So I kept it to myself.
“Food would be nice.” My voice came out a croak. I licked my lips, mouth dry. “I’m definitely thirsty.”
“Oh, of course!” Rushing over to a cabinet on the wall, Tae Min pulled out a cup and filled it with water from a cooler in the corner. “You’ve been out of it a while, and your wound is healing up nicely, but go slow. Small sips.”
He handed me the cup. “Thank you.” Pushing myself up against the headboard of my bed, I looked around and realized I’d been moved. “Where is this? It doesn’t look like your laboratory.”
“We added on a few extra rooms. This is actually my old lab, but most of the stuff has been moved to a new lab, and I use this as a surgical room now. We didn’t want to move you until we were sure the danger had passed, but if you’re feeling better now we may be able to get you a private room soon.”
It was all so dizzying; I felt like more time had passed than I’d realized. So much had changed. “I’m fine here for now.”
“Very well.” He smiled, reaching out to pull his tablet from his coat. “Maggie should be back soon enough. I think she said she went to your favorite barbecue place.”
My heart ached when I thought of my foster mother, so I tried to think of other things.
Tae Min studied me with his brown eyes, jotting down notes on his tablet. I took slow sips and peered at him from the corners of my eyes. With his attention on the screen in his hands, he didn’t seem to notice my studying.
He was just as handsome—and completely unaware of it—as ever. Though he wore long sleeves, they’d gotten pushed halfway up his forearms as he moved around his office. His hair was a little longer than I remembered, due for a haircut, and slipped onto his forehead. As always, there was something about the quiet look in his eyes that left me wanting to stare into them for longer than was appropriate.
I knew better by now, though, so I forced my gaze away from his face. As I did so my eyes caught on a scar on his skin, and I frowned. “Is that a bite mark on your arm?”
“Ah.” Startling, Tae Min reached out and pulled down his right sleeve. “Just a little, uh, complication with a patient a few weeks back.”
I frowned at him. “A patient bit you?”
There was a subtle splash of color across his light brown cheeks, those deep brown eyes suddenly refusing to meet my gaze. “We’ve had some complications with the demon possessions while you were gone. A few of the humans the dark hunters have exorcised demons from turned a little... sick. That’s one reason why I have more rooms now, actually—I keep them in another part of my lab.”
I raised my eyebrows at him, cursing my aching throat for making it hard to speak. “Sick how?”
“They’re... psychologic
ally damaged.” Tae Min reached over to press his fingers against the bite mark I’d seen, worrying at the fabric of his sleeve. “I’ve managed to cure the sickness in most of them, but a few were pretty far gone. I was checking up on one of them a while back when she bit me.” The bland smile on his face did nothing to cover up the obviously unsettling nature of what he’d just said. “Thankfully I haven’t turned into a zombie or a vampire yet.”
“So the demon possessions have increased?”
Tae Min looked surprised at my question. “I forgot that you’ve been gone for a while. Yes, they’ve increased quite a bit. That demon summoner you, Naomi, and Leon captured was right when he said it was just the first wave of many. The Elders have been so concerned about what’s happening that they’ve stationed dark hunters in the most affected cities and even sent many knights from the Realm of Light to Earth.”
That explained why Elah had been at the graveyard, fighting side-by-side with Leon. His duties had brought him here—nothing more, and especially not an ex-fiancé of his who still thought of him every day.
Sitting back, I sipped at my water and thought about all the things I’d seen my mother getting up to in the Underworld. She’d been trying to get back to Earth through the hell gate by having demons chip away at the crack she’d found; that much was true for sure. I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten through it myself, but I hoped she hadn’t followed.
A jolt of worry spiked through me. “The hell gate?”
Tae Min looked up from his notes. “The dark hunters closed it.” Grimacing, he added, “One of them died in the process. Iva almost died too—it took all of Petyr’s strength to put her back together.”
Guilt twinged in my chest. Iva never would’ve gotten hurt if I hadn’t gone through the gate. When I did it, I had no idea that anything would be able to follow me through Hell—but I should’ve realized.
Persephone was clearly up to no good, and I had the strong suspicion she was behind the influx in demon summoners around the world, and there was a good chance she wasn’t alone. Percy, the dark fae demon summoner I’d questioned, told us Hell would walk on Earth when they were done. He’d worshiped a female god; I knew as much from the vision draining him gave me.
Maybe he’d meant my mother.
I was about to ask Tae Min another question when I coughed suddenly, the pain of it excruciating because of the wound in my neck. He rushed to my side, a comforting hand on my back as the spasms passed. When I leaned back he reached out to check beneath the gauze on my neck, moving so close that I could smell his shampoo. His warm, caring face filled my vision.
“You should be healing faster than this,” he said with a frown. “The dead tissue is gone, and the venom was dealt with... but it looks like the healing has stopped.”
“Isn’t that normal?” I asked, the words coming painfully.
“It... would be.” Something strange flashed in Tae Min’s eyes; I almost thought he was keeping secrets from me. With a sigh, he admitted, “While you were under, I used mouth-to-mouth to encourage you to drain my fae abilities. They helped push the poison out, but you must not have fed off me for long enough, because you’re slipping backwards.”
Heat splashed across my face as I imagined what the words “mouth-to-mouth” really meant. I’d had a strange dream when I was asleep, of Damen finding me and kissing me for a long, still, deep moment. Instead of tasting like himself, though, he tasted like raindrops on my tongue and a lazy Sunday morning. I wondered if that had been because it wasn’t Damen, or a dream at all, but Tae Min on my lips.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said, mistaking my embarrassment for something else. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d been sure there was some other way to help you. But at the time, we didn’t know if the antivenom would even do anything, and you were barely breathing.”
“It’s okay,” I said, taking a few more long sips of water to try to cool my pained throat. “I didn’t know you had healing abilities.”
“Only on myself,” he said. “That was why it worked so well. But apparently I underestimated how long the effect would last—or how serious the demigod’s poison was.”
There was something in his eyes that I recognized as he looked at my face. It wasn’t just worry, or scientific curiosity, or a doctor’s concern for his patient. It was just for a moment, but Tae Min looked at me like the sun rose and set on my whim.
Then he leaned forward—to check the bandage, I knew—and instead of twisting my chin up so he could get access to my neck, I turned towards him. This close, I saw him swallow; I even saw the way his eyelashes fluttered with nervous hesitancy.
My throat hurt so badly that I couldn’t imagine putting any of what I was feeling into words. So instead I licked my lower lip, watching the way his gaze caught the dart of my tongue, and leaned towards him with my lips parted.
He started to say something—an object, a scientific something-or-other; I didn’t know what, and I didn’t wait to listen. I covered his open mouth with my own before he could speak.
There was that taste again. Fresh drops of rain on leaves. Trees spreading their branches out towards the summer sun, drinking in growth and warmth. I reached up with my free hand to pull him down towards me, fingers brushing against the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck. He tilted his head, glasses pressing against my brows. The way he worked his lips on me wasn’t rushed or clumsy at all—it was slow and deliberate, as clearly thought-out as everything he did.
When he reached up a hand to brace against the wall behind me, I shuddered at the delicious warmth of his arm brushing against my cheek. And he responded to my lust for him, moving his mouth down to nip at my lower lip with a hunger I’d never felt from him before.
This wasn’t our first kiss, when I took and he was senseless to me. And it wasn’t “mouth-to-mouth” at all. It was a recognition of what I’d felt the first time I saw him, and it made me feel alive.
When Tae Min pulled back his glasses were crooked, his eyelids heavy with lust. There was a pinkness to his lips, and a wetness that made me blush. For a moment I imagined what it would be like to see his clever brown eyes, strong jawline, and shiny black hair between my thighs, and it was almost too much. I had to blink to force the image down and keep myself in check.
Tae Min straightened his glasses. “I suppose that should help with your healing. I’ll note the time that you fed off me—maybe if we keep track, we can figure out how long your unique power-draining abilities last, and from there we can—”
“That’s not why I kissed you,” I said, my voice coming more easily now that most of the pain from my neck had dissipated. “I didn’t it because I wanted to.”
He blinked, saying, “Right. You must be hungry. I can—I can get Elah, if you need him.”
I had to bite down on a groan of frustration. Reaching out, I grabbed his hand and tugged him close, sitting up in bed further. I enunciated every word that I spoke, as if it was its own sentence. “I. Wanted. To. Kiss. You.”
“Oh.” He blinked, his mouth relaxed with surprise. The way his eyebrows rose made his eyes like wide as an owl’s, and I had to resist the urge to laugh, desperate to get him to realize I’d truly meant what I said. “Well, oh, okay then. Me too. I—I wanted to kiss you too. Although,” he cleared his throat, “as I am your doctor, it is more than a little inappropriate. Maybe from now on my intern, Sarah, can take over your appointments. That is assuming—well, unless you didn’t want to again, maybe the kiss wasn’t what you expected or—”
This time I didn’t hold back the groan of frustration. Letting my head fall forward, I made one of the rudest sounds I’d ever made in my life. When I looked up to try to clarify to Tae Min that I wasn’t trying to get him to shut up, just wanted him to be a little less dense, he was smirking down at me in delight. I smiled back instinctively, a brief twinge of guilt going through me as I realized: I didn’t deserve someone like him, either. He was too good for me.
Before I could verbalize that t
hought, he leaned forward to place a delicate kiss on my forehead. I reddened, and he brushed my hair back from my cheek. Just when I was sure he was about to kiss me again, he reached towards my bandage in a perfunctory manner.
“Much better,” he murmured, eyes filled with scientific curiosity and delight once more. “It really is fascinating, how quickly you drain other fae powers. Usually such abilities are rare, and the time they take to develop requires much more long-term, close physical contact. But you were able to do it after just one kiss.”
I sighed, thankful I was more besotted than anything at his tendency to say seemingly every word that passed through his mind. I’d never met someone so smart with such well-developed biceps before.
As if sensing my line of thought, Tae Min looked over at me and grinned, his mouth a lopsided line with a dimple on one side. “I’m babbling again, aren’t I?”
“Only a little,” I lied.
“It’s just that you make me so nervous,” he admitted, the words coming easily to him in a way I envied. “You’re really something else, Selena. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
Though I smiled, all I could think was: he had no idea. If he did, I wasn’t sure that he would still find me quite so wonderful; in fact, I had the feeling he would never kiss me again. It was a sobering thought.
Thankfully there were other things to distract me. Blushing a little, I looked down at my blanket-covered legs and asked, “Where’s the bathroom? Also, am I... in a hospital gown?”
Tae Min caught my drift. Pointing to a door on the opposite side of the room, he raised a thick black eyebrow at me. “The bathroom is that way. And my intern Sarah put you in the gown after we had you out of trouble—I haven’t seen you naked.”
Unspoken at the end of the sentence was a word I most definitely heard: yet. Not knowing what to do with the new, mischievous look in Tae Min’s normally sweet, polite face, I thanked him and rushed to the bathroom, dragging my IV in one hand.