“Humans are strange.”
I did not bother to refute his observation. Instead, I focused on the sky, looking for the one whom Oz had summoned. But the clouds were thick and low, offering too much cover, which is why I did not see the Light One before he landed at the far end of the street—near the dismembered doll house—followed by a dozen or more white-winged angels. His shaggy blond hair blew in his face, obscuring his angry expression, but the sharp cut of his pressed lips made his position clear.
He was not pleased to see us.
“You!” he boomed as he stormed toward us, his raised wing pointed at Oz in an act of aggression.
Oz sighed. “I figured this might happen.”
“The infamous Raze, no doubt,” I said under my breath. Oz nodded. “He seems a touch enraged.”
Oz glanced down at me, his expression tense. “Those are some top-notch observational skills, new girl—”
“You’ve got a set of motherfucking balls on you,” Raze yelled as he crossed the neighborhood, his small legion at his back, “and I’m going to cut them off, then stuff them down your throat.”
“I am afraid I cannot permit that,” I replied, much to Oz’s delight. “I rather enjoy them.”
“Is your plan to taunt him into attacking?” Kaine asked, wings stretching wide behind him.
I shrugged ambivalently. “It seemed most fair to at least give them a chance,” I replied, daring a glance back at him as Raze and his Light Ones approached.
“Where is she?” the Light One roared as he marched past the vacuum graveyard. “What have you done with Celia?” The male surrounded by glorious white wings stopped just short of us, his anger apparent in every part of his being, from the coiled muscles in his arms to the tension in his expression. His angels spread out behind him.
“Raze,” Oz said in a placating tone, “I need you to calm your tits for a second and listen—”
“I’m not going to calm down until you tell me what you did to her,” Raze snarled.
“I didn’t do fuck-all to her.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Your crew, on the other hand…” He sucked a breath between his teeth, and Raze saw red.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You killed the Light Ones!” The seething angel fumed at us from a few yards away. “All of them.”
“Well, obviously not all of them,” Oz replied, his cavalier tone doing little to lower the tension level surrounding us. “And speaking of Celia, you might want to know what they did to deserve their deaths before you unleash your revenge on me—the truth might change things.”
“The truth?” Raze scoffed. “From you?”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Kaine said, drawing the murderous glare of the Light One.
Before Raze could respond, I stepped forward and was met by the tip of a white feather blade aimed at my throat. Oz launched forward, but I held him back.
Raze’s pale green eyes turned to me, assessing every inch. “Where is Celia?”
“Somewhere safe. Somewhere secret. Somewhere I will not disclose until I see fit to do so.”
“She is my leader—”
“And she is my mother. The one your kind kept from me my entire life. So if you think she is more important to you than she is to me, you will need to correct that assessment. Now.”
Raze’s intense gaze shifted to Oz, but the Dark One just laughed.
“Sorry, man. You’re on your own with this one. She does what she wants.”
Raze’s fists clenched at his sides, his anger mounting.
I took a step closer. “You proved to be less than helpful before we found my mother. Let us hope you can do better this time.” When he did not respond, I gave him the explanation he had not asked for. “Your precious Light Ones were cut down because they betrayed her,” I said plainly, as though there were no threat before me. “They carved her up and left her for dead. Had it not been for the quick actions of Deimos and my ability to heal her, she would not have survived.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You may not believe Oz’s words—or Kaine’s—but Celia is my mother. I would burn the world down to avenge her. And I will burn you down, too, if you had any part in her fate.”
His anger abated, if only slightly. “She spoke of you one day—said that she had to find her daughter. We knew, of course, of your twin, but not of you. And then you arrived at the Hallowed Gates.”
“Raze,” Oz said, stepping to my side, “meet Khara. And be careful—she bites.”
I cast him a mischievous glance. “Only you.”
When I looked back at Raze, his eyes were focused on the black wings tucked behind me. “So it’s true—you are tainted, as she was.”
I looked over my shoulder at my black appendages. “At the moment, yes.”
“I’m not sure it’s time for that level of show-and-tell, new girl,” Oz warned.
“Or perhaps it is the perfect time, Oz. He wants the truth, and I do not think he will believe anything we tell him. Showing would be so much more powerful.”
“And if your idea backfires?” Kaine asked as he edged up closer to my back.
“Then things will get far more interesting.”
The Light Ones went stiff at my implication, but I paid them no mind. Instead, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, prepared to release Artemis’ soul for them to see. If my wings were to prove an impasse, then I would show them that the issue was not as simple as Dark or Light—that there was indeed proverbial grey.
Kaine and Oz mumbled their objections as I exhaled the inky darkness. My eyes opened to find Raze and his army looking on in horror as Artemis’ soul emerged and whipped around me, staying close enough for me to touch. The disbelief in their faces was plain, and it only intensified when they took in the mottled grey of my wings. The neutral tone had, until that moment, never been witnessed by any of them, and the novelty held them speechless.
“I am ‘tainted’, as you say, because it suits my purpose for now,” I said, “but it is not who I am. Who I was born to be. My mother’s darkness did indeed change how my wings emerged, but it has left me to be the balance between—not one or the other.”
“What is that?” one of the Light Ones asked, pointing to the slip of shadow encircling me.
“That is a soul. I assume you are familiar with Artemis—former goddess of the hunt?” Their eyes went wide. “She tried to kill my brothers and my father. For that, she paid a steep price.”
“She obeys you?” another asked with disgust in his tone.
“Would you not obey me if the alternative was certain death? No afterlife in the Underworld?” I took a step closer. “She obeys me because she saw the others cut down by myself and the PC. She does not wish to share their fate.”
Something flashed in Raze’s eyes, and his gaze drifted from me to Oz.
“Why did you summon me here?”
“To tell you about Celia—”
“And to explain your actions in the Hallowed Gates?”
Oz recoiled. “Hardly.”
“We called you here because we have a question about my mother—your leader,” I said. I took his silence to mean I should continue. “You told Oz she had been acting strangely. I want to know how—in what way.”
“She was not herself,” he replied smugly.
“Perhaps that was because her soldiers were planning a coup against her, and somewhere deep inside, she knew.”
“What coup?” he asked, frustration in his tone.
“Your angels conspired against my mother and tried to kill her, as I have said.”
“How? I would have known—”
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that you were away when we attacked the others?” Oz asked, helping Raze put the pieces of the puzzle together.
The Light One grew silent for a moment. Then realization dawned in his expression. “Micah and I agreed that I would take my men and search for Celia last night,” he said, voice hollow.
“He wanted you gone so you wouldn’t i
ntervene,” Oz said. “He clearly kept the details of her initial disappearance from you as well because he knew how loyal you were to her.”
Raze’s pale eyes lifted to meet Oz’s stare. “As were you.”
“I still am.”
A moment passed as the two looked at one another, silently sharing a memory of a time long past.
“Tell me what my mother said before she disappeared,” I said, drawing his attention. “I need to know.”
His sad eyes fell to me. “The things Celia said—her actions—they seemed out of character suddenly, but it was subtle. I was the only one who took notice at first.” He looked over his shoulder at the fifteen Light Ones at his back. “Then, slowly, some of the others started to as well, as things got worse. Those who stand here before you all witnessed her erratic behavior.”
“You think she’s losing it?” Oz asked, voice tight.
“I don’t know,” Raze replied. “That’s what I was trying to determine before she left to find this daughter we did not know existed and everything else went to shit.”
“Your response is lacking,” I said.
“I speak the truth.” He lifted his chin to show his indignation. He did not like being questioned, that much was plain. I wondered how much less he would like what I was about to do to him.
“Prove it,” I said, as I slowly drew Artemis closer. Before he could even open his mouth, her inky wisp of a soul shot out and encircled his arms, pinning them tight. “Now, hold still. It could hurt if you do not.”
“Khara...” Oz cautioned, but I ignored him as the Light Ones at Raze’s back raised their wings and weapons.
“I will only get what we need,” I said, cutting Oz off before he could make his warning clear. “We have discussed this before. To poke around in someone’s mind freely for entertainment is a violation. This, however, is only to confirm the story that he maintains is true.” I clamped my hands on his golden-toned skin and held fast. “What do you know of the Light Ones’ betrayal?”
Raze’s narrowed eyes returned to me, searching for something. Something dark and nefarious, no doubt. Something sinister meant to trap him. But there was no trap; just a mission to obtain the truth of his involvement in what had happened to my mother.
“Tell me where you were when I arrived at the Hallowed Gates with my mother,” I said as I tightened my hands on his temples.
“I had been sent out,” he said, “with those behind me.”
I dared a look at Oz and found him looking on intently.
“Did you know of a plot to harm her?”
“No.”
“Where were you when we attacked the Hallowed Gates?”
“Looking for Celia—like I said.”
I released Raze’s face and called Artemis back.
Raze straightened his shoulders and regained his defiant composure. “And now you will tell me what happened at the Hallowed Gates.”
“There’s not much to tell,” Kaine said, drawing Raze’s ire. “We went there to avenge Celia, and they ambushed us.”
“And then that pale motherfucking fear god showed up near the end to complicate shit,” Oz added.
Raze’s eyes went wide at the mention of Phobos, and it was in that moment—when we were no longer consumed by a battle with angels, the fear god’s manipulation, and the death of Drew—that realization penetrated my memories. It was no coincidence that Phobos had shown up when he did, where he did. It was too precise, too planned to have been coincidence. The god of fear was many things, but opportunistic had yet to prove one of them. And given Oz’s observation that the Light Ones knew nothing of my brothers’ abilities, the pieces began to fall together.
“That is how they knew,” I whispered aloud, my mind still reeling.
“Knew what?” Oz asked as he stepped in front of me, his back to Raze. The memory of a black feather piercing his heart disrupted all my other thoughts, and I grabbed his arm and pulled him to my side as my breaths grew fast and shallow.
Understanding flashed in his eyes, and he forced a smug smile for my benefit. “Raze can be a dick, but he’s not the kind that would stab you in the back like this asshole,” he said, jerking his head at Kaine. “Now, what were you mumbling about?”
“The Light Ones—in the Hallowed Gates—they had something plugging their ears. I saw one fall from the one who nearly killed Kaine.” Oz’s eyes went wide. Kaine stepped to his side to search my face. “It had to have been the fear god that told them of Drew’s power.” Silence overtook the pair of Dark Ones before me.
But Raze had no such affliction. “The fear god…but why? He has not been seen or heard from in centuries.”
I turned to look at him. “He has returned. I know this because he hunts me.”
Raze’s golden skin seemed to pale at those words. “Why?”
“His motives are somewhat unclear because he has gone mad after an eternity in isolation, but it seems as though he wants to abduct me to replace his beloved sister, whom he murdered. And he will succeed if we cannot stop him.” Raze and his army of Light Ones stared in utter disbelief. “He knew about my mother—I see that now. He knew what had been done to her. He mocked me with ambiguous messages as I slept—messages that only gained context once she was found.”
“You think he was behind the betrayal somehow?” Raze asked, eyes alight with fury—fury that now had a new potential target.
“That is what I plan to ascertain.”
He considered my statement for a moment. “I want to see her—see Celia. I want to talk to her.”
I looked at Oz again and saw the indecision in his eyes. “She is not well,” I told Raze.
His expression fell. “What do you mean ‘not well’? What’s wrong with her?”
“She has not recovered from her injuries. I have healed her on multiple occasions, but it only works for a short time. Then her health begins to fail again.”
Raze’s shock, along with those behind him, was duly noted. He looked to Oz and Kaine, who merely nodded to confirm my account.
“Take me to her,” he said, squaring his shoulders as though her issues were an enemy he could slay. His soldiers did the same.
“Only you,” Oz said. “The rest of these guys can fuck back off to the Hallowed Gates and wait for you there. Those are my terms, take them or leave them.”
“Oz…” Kaine called, his desire to protect my mother plain in his tone.
“I got this, Kaine,” he replied. “So, what’ll it be, Raze? You want to see the effect of the dead Light Ones’ betrayal, or would you rather return home with your righteous indignation to fuel you?”
Raze turned to the others and gestured for them to leave. They hesitated for a moment before obeying his directive and taking to the skies.
“All right,” Raze said, facing us again. “Take me to Celia. Now.”
6
My brothers accosted me the moment I walked in the door, before Oz and the others could even set foot in the Victorian.
“We have a problem,” Casey said, then took me by the arm and led me up the stairs. The others followed close behind.
“What is going on?” I asked as we headed up to Oz’s room. Casey pushed the door open, and it was then that I could hear Drew and Kierson talking to someone. The tone and cadence of their speech made it sound as though they were speaking to a child—or a wounded animal. As we reached Oz’s bedroom window, I saw that it was neither. Instead, I watched my mother pace the roof’s edge wildly as her hands raked through her hair, muttering something I could not make out.
I looked at Casey, and he shrugged. “She’s been like this since you left, according to Thomas.”
“Try texting next time,” Oz said as he pushed past us both and climbed through the window. It was then that Casey saw Raze standing behind Kaine, the Light One’s wings obviously a rather unwelcome sight. He cast me a wary glance.
“We won’t be keeping this one,” I said, then made my way out to the roof, where Oz was already
working hard to talk my mother down. Kaine and Raze followed.
“Mother?”
Her green eyes turned to me, feral and unfocused. “Khara? Is it you?”
“It is,” I said calmly. Raze cut me a sideward glance, and I addressed him. “Is this what you saw before she went missing? Is this the erratic behavior you spoke of?”
He shook his head. “No…this...this is something else entirely.”
Kierson left Drew and Oz to come brief us. “Shit, Khara…it’s really bad.”
“What happened?” I asked. He looked at Kaine, then Raze, his hesitation plain. “It is fine, Kierson. You can tell them, too.”
“All right,” he said, still unsure. “It wasn’t long after you left. Thomas said she looked fine when he put her to bed—that she’d fallen sound asleep in seconds. But when he went back up minutes later to check on her, she was rocking on the bed, clutching her head and mumbling like she was talking to someone…who wasn’t there.”
“How did she get out here?” Raze asked.
Kierson was not a fan of his tone, judging by the look on his face, but he answered anyway. “Thomas said that, all of a sudden, she seemed to come to. She looked right at him and said she needed to find Khara. Then she bolted for the top floor. Thomas yelled for Cass, who called us immediately. Drew and I have been up here ever since trying to get her to make some sense.”
“Why would she come to the roof?” Kaine asked.
“Because she wanted to fly,” I said, looking past my brother to where Oz stood, arm wrapped around my mother’s shoulders. Whatever had driven her behavior was long gone, and she once again looked as though her body was failing her.
“Then why is she still here?” Raze asked.
Kierson opened his mouth to explain, but I cut him off. “Because Drew ordered her not to go…”
Hearing his name, the leader of the Detroit PC turned to me and gave a tight nod that was so much more than an acknowledgement of my observation. It was an apology. It was sympathy for the fate coming for my mother, and me as a result.
Unbound Page 4
