The Complete Tempted Series

by Selene Charles

  Cain grabbed the shifter who’d been attacking her by its neck and snapped its spine.

  Flint’s eyes rolled and she dropped to her knees, blood oozing from the javelin still lodged in her thigh.

  “Baby. Baby,” he grunted, curling his fingers around the outer edge of her wound.

  But she shook her head and shoved his hands off her. “I saw Layla headed for Abel, Cain. You have got to get to your brother. I’ll be fine.”

  “You won’t be fine,” he seethed, knowing they had only seconds before the zombie wall they hid behind collapsed and they were once more forced to fight.

  Her eyes were bright blue orbs and her skin glowed like diamonds. Ruby-red hair hissed and danced like curls of flame around her shoulders, and her vines roped tightly around her.

  “I’ll be fine, Cain, but he won’t. You’ve got to go.”

  Cain had lost sight of Adam, of Rhi and Ja. Everything was in chaos. If he left Flint, he knew he’d not be able to find her again.

  “Seth’s dead,” he whispered, his thumb rubbing her knee.

  Her chin wobbled. “I know.” A tear leaked out of her eye. “You have to hurry.”

  With a furious howl, Cain shoved to his feet. Desperation to take care of her warred with his need to do as she’d commanded.

  Against his better judgment, Cain looked around for his brother. Abel wasn’t hard to spot; the black monstrosity of his transformation was obvious. Abel was surrounded by at least a hundred hive and shifters.

  They were hacking at him, but he was a thing of mighty fury and wouldn’t concede defeat.

  To his left he heard Eli’s roars of pain as he volleyed through a crowd of hive and shifters.

  Eli had a sword stuck through his middle. Cain closed his eyes, making his choice.

  Running, he ripped through bodies, merciless in his fury, pulling out hearts, bowels, intestines, whatever he could.

  He reached his brother just as a shifter latched his fangs deep into Abel’s neck.

  Cain wrapped his bloodied arms around the cougar’s middle and squeezed, crushing its rib cage instantly and dropping it to the ground like it was nothing more than garbage.

  Hands clapped, the sound so incongruous to the battle going on around them that it forced them all to pause.

  Layla stood before them. The woman who’d once been his mother. She reached up for the mask and tore it off, exposing the ruined half of her face.

  Her macabre smile would haunt Cain for the rest of his days.

  “My boys. My beautiful boys,” she murmured throatily.

  “How could you do this!” Cain snapped, his hand on Abel’s shoulder.

  In this advanced berserker form, Abel might stand a chance of surviving his numerous injuries. Cain could only hope.

  There were large, angry wounds splitting open both of Abel’s thighs and one on his forearm. Blood gushed from the wound in his neck.

  And there was nothing Cain could do about it.

  “Would it be any comfort to learn that I belonged to them long before I knew you?”

  Her words sounded sad, haunted, but Cain didn’t buy it for a second.

  “You’re a filthy liar.”

  Cain didn’t like it one bit that suddenly neither the hive nor the shifters were attacking any of them. Only the zombies continued to do battle. Quickly he scanned around, looking for any sight of Flint, Eli, Adam, or the girls.

  He spotted Flint; she’d moved a fair distance away. She’d been headed in Eli’s direction it looked like. Cain’s heart clenched when he spotted his cousin lying facedown on the ground in an abnormal position.

  Without Seth, Eli wouldn’t have wanted to live. But the knowledge brought him no measure of peace.

  The girls were a few yards to the left of Cain, both of them back in their human form. Which meant whatever damage they’d taken in shadow form had nearly crippled them.

  Adam, however, Cain still couldn’t find.

  “I loved you both, still do,” Layla said.

  “Then walk away,” he said, voice thick with grit.

  Her smile was wistful. Once he’d loved her. Loved her more than anything else in the world. Seeing her stand before him now, knowing she’d been the catalyst for so much of this pain and misery, Cain could never forgive her.

  Turning her palms up, she pointed to her left one, which bore the tiny image of an infinity mark. “I was marked long ago. My soul, it’s gone forever. I have no choice. I serve my master. I tried to leave.” She laughed. “But you can never leave.” She clutched at her chest, looking haunted by the things she’d seen.

  “You lied to us all.”

  In her eyes, Cain read the truth. Whatever Layla felt for them, it wasn’t enough. She was going to follow directions. She was going to kill them.

  “I took him. I saved him. I turned him. But you messed everything up!” She snarled, face contorting into a mask of demonic rage. “Abel was going to fix this, he was strong enough then. But they found me again and now I have no choice!”

  Cain shook his head. How had he never seen this? Never seen how crazy she was? How insane she was?

  Her lips wobbled and she sniffed, as though fighting back tears. Even now, knowing how much pain she’d caused them all, seeing his mother this way made Cain want to drop to his knees.

  “You’ve given me no choice now, Cain. I cannot serve two masters. Only one, and he says one must die.”

  He frowned, confused more than ever. “What game are you playing? You’ve already killed Eli and Seth.”

  “But not the ones you love most. Abel. Or Flint.” She shook her head and then giggled, and the sound was so crazed that it chilled him to the bone. “Pick. Pick. Pick. One must go. Ticktock, ticktock, who will it be?”

  Suddenly the hive and shifters descended on both Abel and Flint in droves, drowning them beneath the heavy weight of their bodies.

  Flint was too far from him.

  “No!” He roared, twisting around. He’d yank Abel out of the stack somehow and race to Flint. He’d save them both.

  Abel roared as the sick crunch of something smacked against his body.

  Flint screamed.

  “Five seconds,” Layla laughed.

  Dizzy, desperate, Cain turned on his heel. His soul. His compass. His everything. Or his brother?

  Rage filled his bones until he was nothing but a monster. Cain ripped the bodies off his brother, knowing that if he even managed to save him, he’d never get to Flint in time.

  And then Rhiannon was there. “Go, Cain, go. Abel is my priority. Save your mate!”

  Ripping her amulet off, she turned once more into shadow and Cain saw her form tremble, saw her flames spread and become volatile. This last shift was going to kill her.

  But she never hesitated… She sank into the bodies and Cain turned and fled.

  He reached Flint just three seconds later; her throat had been slit and his world stopped spinning.

  “Flint. Flint.” He shook her around like a rag doll, desperate she wake up.

  Bodies came at him, but he didn’t care. He barely felt them. Cain bit at anything that came too close.

  His tears mingling with his rage, he crooned softly to his sweetheart, his treasure. “You have to wake up, princess. I can’t live in a world where you don’t exist.”

  But she was limp in his arms.

  In the distance Cain heard a roar, and then Luc called, “I am come.”

  Two seconds later, he heard Layla’s surprised cry. “Adam!”

  Cain looked up just in time to spot Adam come crawling out of the crowd. His father was a thing of nightmares, a twisted version of himself. Gray and covered in scales, there was nothing in the demon that reminded Cain of the Adam he knew except for the deadly intent in his voice.

  “Never again!” Adam growled, and then Cain looked away.

  He hated Layla, hated everything she’d become, the person she’d been. But she would always be his mother, and of all the images of death he had b
urned in his mind, the one that he knew would break him was seeing her die.

  There was a sickening crunch, and Cain didn’t need to look up to know Adam had killed her.

  But it was too late.

  Much too late.

  They’d lost everything.

  Cain didn’t care if the entire army of Hell suddenly came and struck him down. He was done fighting. Done trying to survive this night.

  He now knew the depth of agony Eli had suffered at the loss of Seth. Life was nothing without his compass to share it with.

  And then, like magic, the world grew still and all the bodies who’d fought on the side of the Triad… the shifters and hive and ghouls and countless others, suddenly collapsed.

  Dead.

  With tears streaming from his eyes, Cain looked up the hill to where he’d seen Pandora earlier. Luc was there, clinging to Cain’s dead aunt.

  Pandora was dead. And the gates of Hell were no more.

  As though aware that he watched, Dean glanced up just then, and in his tricolored eyes, Cain read the truth. The war was over.

  But it’d ended much too late.

  He’d lost everything.

  Bodies were everywhere.

  And now the wailing and mourning began, the lamentation for the loss felt keenly by the souls who’d come and fought a battle they’d had no hope of winning, let alone surviving.

  Very few living remained.

  Cain grew aware of a presence beside him and glanced up. Adam, not quite so demonic-looking now, knelt down beside him.

  “The bond, boy. Is it still there?”

  Numb, Cain could hardly think. Adam had to shake him to snap him out of his lethargic stupor.

  “The bond, Cain. Can you still feel her?” His words were sharp and urgent.

  Enough so that it forced Cain to focus, and when he did he nearly wept with joy. “She’s still there,” he whispered brokenly.

  “Then nudge her awake. Do you hear me? Because you haven’t much time. Nudge that bit of her that still lives in you. Tell her to heal herself now!”

  Cain hadn’t known he could do that. Had no idea it was even possible, but he was desperate and willing to try anything.

  Closing his eyes, he reached metaphorical fingers out to the trembling little slice of her pure spirit that still breathed inside him. She was no longer a warm flame, now she was just a slight tremor, but he grasped hold of her and held her tenderly.

  Trusting Adam, he called to her.

  Princess. Can you hear me?

  Cain waited with bated breath for several tense seconds that felt like an eternity. But finally he felt her tremble with awareness.

  You’re hurt, baby. You’re hurt bad. You need to wake up and go below the earth before it’s too late. I can’t save you out here.

  Several more tense seconds passed before…

  Cain?

  Her voice inside him was nothing but a weak memory of sound, but it sounded like the sweetest of hallelujahs to him.

  Gritting his teeth, he waited for her to say something else, anything else. But she was silent.

  Opening his eyes, he stared at her. Drank her in.

  Flint was covered in scratches, cuts, and gore. The sheen he’d come to associate with her was entirely gone. But she’d never looked more beautiful to him.

  “C’mon, baby,” he urged, whispering it over and over, growing more and more desperate with each minute that ticked past.

  Adam laid a restraining hand on Cain’s forearm. “Look.” He motioned with a jerk of his chin.

  The ground beneath Flint’s feet had begun to shift. Small at first. Just soft tremors that caused clumps of grass and dirt to bounce. But then with more power, it began rumbling and roiling powerfully.

  Vines whipped out from beneath Flint’s jeans, burrowing into the earth like tunneling worms, and this time when her vines rose up around her, encasing her like a mummy, Cain didn’t fight it.

  Giving her one final fierce kiss to her brow, he jumped out of the way just as the earth fissured open, sucking several of the dead down into its dark depths.

  But she was gently, almost reverently, pulled under by her plants.

  Cain touched the dirt mound once it’d rolled over her, patting it gently. “I’m right here, baby. And I’m not going anywhere.”

  The little ball of light inside him that was uniquely her wiggled like a contented ball of fluff before gradually quieting down.

  She’d been gravely injured, but she would survive.

  Finally Cain was able to look up at his father, a man who he finally felt he could call one. “Layla?”

  Adam’s face was stern and implacable as he said, “Gone.” Clenching his jaw, Adam cleared his throat. “Rhi’s gone. But Abel and Janet live.”

  Unspoken was that they would now have to bury their dead.

  They’d lost so much tonight.

  All of them.

  It was a shattering, sobering thought.

  Making his way gingerly to his feet, Cain finally felt the pain of his wounds. He bled everywhere, but physically he would heal.

  Swallowing hard, he and Adam worked in silence as they went to retrieve their fallen brothers.

  Nephilim from their sister carnival came shambling over, faces Cain vaguely recognized from occasional visits.

  Bubba, the ringmaster with his red glowing eyes, said nothing as he gave them a brief nod and proceeded to help them.

  The three of them worked in silence as they carted the berserkers and whatever Neph they could find off toward a peaceful swath of land that ran alongside a burbling brook.

  This night was one that would live in infamy. History books would be written because of it. They’d all known going in that it could have been any of them who’d have to pay the ultimate price for the freedom of a world that didn’t even know they existed.

  Dean suddenly appeared beside them, carrying four shovels in his hands.

  Rolling his sleeves up but still dressed in his steel-gray slacks and white button-down, he couldn’t have looked more their polar opposite. Cain, Bubba, and even Adam bore bruises and cuts. Death looked as though he’d just stepped out of a shower.

  Tossing the shovels into the ground, he was the first one to slam his own into the earth and dig up a fist-sized hole full of dirt.

  “The gates are sealed. Flint’s and Pandora’s sacrifice is what made this possible. I hope you all know that,” he said without looking at any of them.

  Cain, not knowing what else to do, reached down and picked up his own shovel, joining Dean in the mundane task.

  “Why are you digging a pit?” he asked. “You’re Death, you could just will them all away.”

  Dean frowned, glancing up for a second. A sheen of sweat coated his brow. It seemed even Death sweat when doing manual labor. Of all the emotions Cain should feel at the sight of that, the one that was most dominant was humor. There wasn’t anything particularly funny about this night. In fact, his soul ached, but he knew that Eli, Seth, and Rhi would have gotten a kick out of the fact that Death himself had come to bury them.

  “I am honoring them for their sacrifice. Is there anything wrong with that?”

  Bubba’s lips stretched. Sighing heavily, Cain finally noticed that the Glutton Nephilim was just as ragtag and bloody as the rest of them.

  “This is over? Really over?”

  Dean nodded, then drove his shovel into the dirt and leaned against it for a moment. “For now. The Triad will try again, because that’s what they do. But in this lifetime, it’s over.”

  “And Pandora?” Adam asked that.

  Dean’s strange tricolored eyes turned toward Adam as though appraising him before saying, “She’s safe. As is her Priest. And that miracle, no doubt, is due to Grace’s very timely save.”

  Snorting softly to himself as though pleasantly surprised by what had happened, Dean shook his head, then proceeded to get back to work.

  He didn’t talk again after that.

  The n
ight was long as they buried their friends and comrades with the respect deserving their heroic deaths.

  Adam’s eyes shimmered as he spoke solemn words over the graves of Rhiannon, Seth, and Eli. Bubba too said his own words for his fallen.

  Once it was done and there was nothing left to do but go and wait for Flint to return, Cain went back toward where he’d left her.

  Spotting Abel, who’d returned to his human form, and Janet, who lay with her head on Abel’s lap as he idly ran his fingers through her hair, Cain wandered toward their side.

  Janet’s eyes were twin globes of fire.

  Rhi and Janet had been together for hundreds of years. Cain couldn’t begin to imagine the level of pain she felt.

  Not knowing what to say to her, Cain looked back at his brother, who’d healed miraculously well. The deep gouges in Abel’s thighs were already half the size they’d been, and the wound in his neck was smooth and clear, as though the bite had never happened.

  Sitting down beside them, Cain crossed his arms over his knees and looked up at the silvery clouds sweeping across the navy sky. The world had nearly ended tonight, and yet it was just another cloudy night. The world moved on, as it always would, and there was comfort in that.

  Slight though it was.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, not looking at her but knowing he needed to give his kanlungan comfort as best he could.

  The ache in Cain’s chest was wide and deep. The loss of his cousins, of his friend, it was a wound that would never heal completely.

  “She sacrificed herself for him”—Janet sniffed—“knowing it would kill her. But she did it anyway.”

  They all knew why she’d done it. Rhiannon had given Abel and Janet a chance. And knowing that was enough. Neither of them would ever speak of it, but her sacrifice hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  Abel shushed Janet, rubbing his large palm over the back of her head in a soothing motion.

  But grief was a strange thing. For some it turned into a torrent of tears and rage. For others, things needed to be talked out, examined, and then reexamined to see if maybe a single action could have changed events.

  For the three of them however, they shared grief in the same way. They looked up at the starry night and cried softly to themselves.