by Lexi C. Foss
“We all agree that the guilty party reported everything to Jonathan, such as the wedding details and the pending assault on the CRF headquarters. But we also believe Osiris didn’t appreciate Jonathan’s actions.” The jigsaw pieces in Issac’s head were refusing to marry together. “The mole couldn’t possibly have been reporting to both because Osiris’s objectives differ from Jonathan’s destructive goals.”
They all fell silent for a moment.
Then Aya said, “Maybe John was the go-between. Osiris doesn’t strike me as being easily contacted. So maybe the mole was feeding information to him via John.”
“And Jonathan chose to act on the details rather than pass them on,” Issac added. “Which earned him a proper death sentence.”
Lucian and Balthazar hummed in agreement.
“So our mole has been working for Osiris this whole time but reporting through Jonathan,” Issac continued. “The question is whether or not he’s been compelled or if he’s been betraying us all for decades.”
“He?” Lucian arched a brow.
“Mateo,” Balthazar said. “That’s who he suspects.”
Issac was only mildly irritated at the mind reader for speaking his thoughts out loud. They had bigger problems. Particularly if Issac’s suspicion proved right. “He was in the inner circle, and he has the means with which to manipulate everything. Such as the technology around us. He’s also the one who provided Clara’s phone records, and he was the one in charge of the radios at the CRF—”
“The radios that failed,” Balthazar added.
“Yes. And he would be the only one capable of sending updates to Jonathan undetected because he manages the technological infrastructure of the island.” The more Issac thought about it, the stronger his suspicions became.
“That could also explain why he wasn’t able to access classified documents at the CRF,” Aya murmured. “It was his idea for me to go back to the CRF, remember? He wanted me to gain access to John’s computer.”
“So you would agree to become a Sentinel.” Issac swallowed a furious curse. It all made sense. He’d orchestrated everything, guiding them in the appropriate direction to play right into Osiris’s hands. “Osiris was intrigued by you that night of the Conclave. He wanted to see what kind of supernatural you would become. And so he drove you to the CRF, where Jonathan could keep an eye on you.”
“Osiris provided us with just enough information to keep us moving forward, but at the pace he preferred.” A respectful note underlined Lucian’s words. As a master strategist, he would find this all fascinating.
“Where is he now?” Balthazar asked.
The four of them frowned.
“I haven’t seen him since he left Gabriel’s house the other day,” Issac said. “He’s staying with Nadia at the fledgling house, right?”
Lucian’s expression hardened. “With Eliza, yes.” He took a step toward the path, leaving the others on the beach behind him.
“Wait!” Aya called after him. “If he’s really the mole, then he’s still feeding information to Osiris. Shouldn’t we use that to our advantage? He thinks he’s free of suspicion, right?”
Issac and Balthazar shared a look. Concern etched a path into the mind reader’s brow. Amelia had been right. This was far worse than Issac had realized. Lucian never acted without thinking through a plan, and he’d clearly been on his way to act on the information without considering an appropriate course.
He just wanted blood.
Mateo’s blood.
Fortunately, Aya’s words had given him the clarity he needed to reconsider his rash decision.
The Hydraian King slowly turned toward them, his face devoid of emotion. “How shall we use it?” he asked Aya.
“I don’t know. Maybe we use him to find Osiris? Or trap Osiris?” She frowned. “I... There has to be some way to gain the upper hand with this knowledge.”
“We can use him to feed Osiris false information about our plans and whereabouts,” Balthazar suggested. “Or we can wait for the right opportunity to present itself. Regardless, it is an advantage we didn’t have before.”
Issac nodded. “Yes. Osiris has always been ten steps ahead of us. Maybe it’s finally our turn to be a few steps ahead of him.”
Lucian faced them fully, his eyes glimmering with knowledge and power. “I have an idea.”
Caro awoke in the dark.
No lights.
No sound.
No life.
The pod. A scream threatened her throat, but she forced herself to swallow it. If she allowed them to know she was awake, they’d use their abilities to force her back into lasting slumber, to listen to the mantra on repeat about Seraphim and their purpose in this world.
She didn’t want that.
She wanted warmth, love, feeling. Seven years of emotion had destroyed her. She would never be stoic again. Too cold. Too boring. Too inanimate.
She desired heat, passion, life. She needed to breathe, to fly, to love.
Her heart thudded loudly in her ears, echoing off the shell around her. All glass. A room of white and sterility. The basement of a perpetual morgue.
When the Seraphim pulled her out of the ocean, she knew this had been her fate. She’d accepted it only to hide the truth—a truth she’d forgotten because of Vera’s help. However, she recalled it now, the reason for all of this.
Astasiya.
Caro’s heart stopped. Knowing the name was fine, but all the secrets they’d vowed to hide were rioting in her mind. Even the memory of Vera removing it all.
Oh, no… they know!
Her chest pounded back to life, her lungs filling with a gasp of air she hadn’t meant to inhale. But if they knew, then she had to fight. She couldn’t let them have Astasiya. Not yet. It wasn’t time! It wasn’t—
“Caro.” The familiar voice gave her pause.
Sethios?
Something sharp touched her collarbone.
“Angel.” The cold edge drifted along her skin. “Do you remember the last time we were in bed together? You pressed a knife to my throat that morning before kissing a path downward to my cock.”
Warm lips met her ear, his voice whisper-soft. “I promised to return the favor later that day, but things didn’t go as planned. Shall I return the favor now, sweetheart?”
Her blood heated at the prospect, her nipples pebbling on instinct. This isn’t real, she told herself. It’s another trick, one to teach me not to feel.
Oh, it’s very real, Sethios whispered back into her head. “Allow me to prove it,” he added out loud, the razor point drawing downward to her breast to circle a stiffened peak.
She flinched as he pressed the tip into her sensitive skin. The subtle scent of iron tickled her nose, confirming he’d made her bleed. Then his mouth sealed over the wound, causing her to hiss at the pleasure-pain sensation he elicited with his tongue.
Her thighs clenched, her body awakening beneath his familiar assault. She inhaled deeply, his woodsy cologne filling her nostrils and making her want to weep. You’re here, she breathed. Unless—
His teeth sank into her breast, lighting her blood on fire with his bite. She arched into him, her eyes flying open to reveal the darkness around them.
But it wasn’t the darkness of her pod.
They were in a bedroom with windows displaying a beautiful night sky.
She tried to process her surroundings, to remember how she’d arrived here, but a pull of his mouth had her eyes falling closed once more and a moan spilling from her lips. The sensation felt so fresh and new and right.
How long had she gone without this? Without him? Her memories were raw, broken pieces that drew jagged lines across her heart.
No.
She didn’t want to think about them right now.
She was here, with Sethios, in bed, and he was drinking the essence from her veins and sending fresh waves of heat through every fiber of her being. Yes, that was more important. He mattered most. This bliss. This embrace
. This experience.
“Kiss me,” she begged. “I need you to—”
He silenced her with his tongue, his mouth demanding and true and exactly what she needed.
Peppermint filled her senses, followed by his woodsy scent. Pine, she thought. No, cedar. Maybe both.
It didn’t matter.
It was him. Her Sethios. Her love. Her impossible man, the one who infuriated her and enamored her in the same breath.
He grounded her, made her feel alive, created the air inside her lungs, and forced her heart to beat.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him to her as he settled firmly between her thighs. They were both naked. Both aroused. Both entirely lost to the flame reigniting itself between them.
It’d been so long. Too long. An eternity.
Her body craved his.
Her soul yearned to reconnect.
I need you, she told him. I need us.
But he didn’t give her what she desired. Instead, he broke their kiss and started a path downward, the knife still in his hand as he drew the sharp tip along her sternum, creating a path for his tongue to follow.
No blood, just a fine red line. It stung, but his mouth kissed away the prickling sensation.
It was such a Sethios thing to do. She reached down for his dark hair, her fingers threading through the strands as she tried to yank him back up to her. He smiled against her lower abdomen, then whispered, Release me, into her mind.
She obeyed because he left her no choice, and she growled in response.
“Mmm, I have missed that fire,” he said, his lips caressing her mound on the way to the apex between her thighs. “Almost as much as I’ve missed this.” His tongue parted her folds, drawing a sharp gasp from her throat.
And then he reminded her of just what he could do with his mouth.
This was the man who had tempted her to fall from grace. He’d forced her to feel, to love, to enjoy. These were the sensations Seraphim weren’t supposed to value. The reformation process had claimed this act to be impractical and not a worthwhile endeavor.
Well, it certainly felt worthwhile now.
Electricity hummed along her skin, raising all the hairs down her arms. Everything vibrated. Her stomach tightened. Her toes curled. Her body shook. Words fell from her lips, pleas she didn’t recognize, and Sethios bit down.
She erupted on a scream, ecstasy flooding every inch of her being and shattering her hold on reality. She burned. She quivered. She felt.
Oh, glorious feeling!
She’d spent too long in a pod without this, wasting time listening to stoic mantras on repeat in her mind.
But this… this was real. This was thriving. This. Was. Existing.
The taste of her own bliss met her tongue as Sethios kissed her, forcing her to embrace the pleasure he’d just forced upon her spirit. She accepted the kiss, returning it in kind and wrapping her arms around him as she did before.
He allowed it.
He settled between her legs.
And he thrust forward to join their bodies as one.
It hurt, her body unaccustomed to accepting his, but she welcomed the sweet ache, each pump of his hips a reminder of who they were together. As a unit. As one.
This was her Sethios, the one who had taught her how to truly fly, and he was returning her wings once more. Freedom had a taste, and this was it.
He’d found her at last.
Had returned her to the world of sensation and rapture and true survival. She thanked him with her hips, meeting his pace in a brutal coupling underlined in adoration and mutual respect.
She never wanted to stop.
Only, the flames inside her were reaching a boiling point all over again, inflaming her bloodstream and eliciting sharper quakes through her already trembling form.
“Sethios,” she breathed, burying her face in his neck.
“Bite me,” he said, his usual compulsion missing from the words. He wanted her to choose this, to reignite their bond, to stoke the sizzling inferno already smoldering between them.
It was her welcome back to reality. His way of ensuring she knew this was all happening in real life, not just inside her mind. He wanted her to feel that snap of their connection, to experience the power lurking within his blood.
She accepted the challenge, her incisors piercing his skin to drink the ambrosia from his veins.
He growled, his hips pumping faster, harsher, violently.
She felt his need, his pent-up rage at not being able to have her all these years, and the intense buildup of yearning from too long without her.
Memories spilled through their connection, ones of torment and aching, where Osiris had tested the limits of their relationship. The visions physically hurt, causing her to wince at the torture he’d endured and the residual anguish of the trials he’d faced.
“Don’t,” Sethios whispered. “Don’t, Caro.”
“It’s not me,” she replied softly, his pace slowing as the events continued to unfold between them. He pressed his face into her throat, his body shaking from the onslaught of exquisite agony.
His father had tried to force him to perform with other women, but he hadn’t been able to comply. Even when compelled, his body wouldn’t work, which created the worst kind of pain for Sethios.
He’d despised the string that had kept him from being able to perform. Only to be allowed to remember her for an excruciating moment afterward—a moment where he’d hated himself so much more than he ever could have hated her, because he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten her so easily.
And then Osiris would take it all away to begin again.
She felt it all, saw each horrible moment flash between them, his agony a palpable force that threatened to destroy them both.
Her heart fractured at the trials he’d endured. But it mended when she experienced his love and adoration. She understood that it hadn’t been him doing those things—it’d been Osiris.
“Don’t let him exist between us,” she said, threading her fingers through Sethios’s hair to pull him away from her neck. Tears glistened in his green eyes, his purgatory a whiplash to her senses. “I forgive you, Sethios.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“But it wasn’t you,” she stressed, cupping his cheeks. “I refuse to allow him to alter our bond. If I can come out of reformation and still love you, then you can pull yourself out of this historical loop and remember how to love me.”
She undulated her hips beneath him to prove a point. He was still hard inside her, his body raging with the need to copulate and destroy.
It’d been so long. He’d gone without any form of pleasure all these years, living in a perpetual state of agony he hadn’t fully felt until this moment. It was brought on by their reignited link and his soul confessing everything to hers in a whirlwind of minutes.
She’d absorbed the brunt of it, returning the favor by blasting him with her own memories. Except hers were all isolated to a box. She’d only drowned for a few hours before her mother had found her.
And then Vera had altered Caro’s mind, demolishing all her links and bastardizing her familial bonds with harsh, looping sequences.
It’d all been unraveled upon her arriving here—wherever they were, surrounded by darkness and snow. She didn’t care where he’d taken her, just that she was with him, that they’d survived and were finally together again.
“Remind me who we are to each other, Sethios,” she whispered. “Forget the past. Forget the pain. Forget it all. Just exist with me. Teach me how to feel like you did that first time. Make me enjoy it.”
He’d already blown her mind once since waking, but she knew he could do better. With his blood flowing through her veins, the results would be cataclysmic, and that was just what they both needed to survive.
“Take me, Sethios.”
“Angel,” he breathed, his lips whispering across her cheek to her neck. He adored her with his mouth, his touch featherlight against he
r skin. She had no idea where the knife had gone, lost somewhere in the sheets, but if she found it, she’d draw blood.
“More,” she demanded.
“Patience,” he returned.
Her throat vibrated with annoyance. She’d been patient for far too long. “No.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, her thighs tightening to a death grip. “Fuck me.” Those two words from her mouth had always excited him.
His cock pulsed inside her, his body shuddering in response. “Caro.”
“Fuck me. Now.”
“Who taught you those dirty words?” he mused against her ear. “I thought you preferred fuzz.”
“I prefer you,” she countered. “Now stop delaying and give me your cock, Sethios. Make it hurt. Make me bleed. Make me yours.”
“Fuck, Caro,” he whispered, shuddering all over again. “You don’t sound like a Seraphim who needs to learn how to feel, sweetheart.” He slid almost all the way out of her and drove back in, causing her to cry out in both surprise and delight. “It’s like someone already gave you a lesson in ecstasy.”
“Several,” she moaned. “But I need more.”
He repeated the action of slipping out all the way to the tip and slamming back into her. “Are you addicted to me, angel?”
“Yes,” she hissed, arching into him. “You’re mine.”
“Damn right I am,” he agreed, his mouth finding hers and silencing them both as his body began to really move once more.
Their dance was one destined for the stars, creating a new history underlined in survival, blood, and forbidden affection.
Caro allowed him to plow the reformative thoughts right from her mind, her spirit rejoicing in the connection reverberating between them.
She felt his guilt and sorrow melt away, replaced by a hunger to sate them both. His heart beat with hers. His breaths mingled with hers. His soul married hers.
Tears pricked her eyes at the beauty of it, the rapturous torment overtaking them and forcing them into a new beginning. She gave up trying to process it all and just allowed it to consume her.
Sethios kissed her.
She kissed him back.
His body moved; hers moved.