Turning on the water, I pulled out rose petals and dried lilacs before tossing them into the water. I sat on the edge of the tub, dipping my fingers through the water as the flowers swirled and I became lost in my thoughts.
Could I willingly bring a child into a world like this? What if everything Benjamin had said came to pass, or was true? With the world as it was, with the gates to the worlds opening, could I bring a defenseless being into this mess? Lucian would protect it, wouldn’t he? I mean, he’d have to, right? I stood up and slowly stepped into the tub.
I was pregnant. I was having his baby. We’d created life together, and he’d never know it. He didn’t need to, not with all of the cards falling into place, not with everything Benjamin had said would happen, happening. The sand was never wrong, ever.
I slid beneath the water, letting it fill my lungs until it burned. I stared up at the ceiling, watching the petals as they floated into my line of sight and out of it. Emotions ebbed and flowed like the ocean, crushing down on me until I sat up, sputtering as I coughed up the water.
The pregnancy was the least of my worries according to the sands, and I didn’t dare to think of it. Not now, not ever. The coven came first, it always had. I’d been immature when I’d returned to town, but sometime during coming home, and everything that happened. I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to hold my child in my arms, to feel its heart beating against mine.
I wanted to create life.
Fate was fickle at best, but this…this was a nightmare that I knew I wouldn’t awaken from. The coven needed refuge. The Guild wasn’t ready to house them yet, and even though Synthia had offered to take some, we all knew they couldn’t accommodate the masses. It needed the witches, we needed the shelter from the storm that was brewing as the gates of the other worlds began to open, letting even worse creatures into this one.
If we were going to stand a chance at winning, we had to combine forces, which meant they would need to start moving witches to it as it was finished. They didn’t have the numbers to fight yet, but we did. Together, maybe we could make a difference. This world needed us, even if we hid in the shadows. We kept the balance of magic alive through the bloodlines; we meant something.
It didn’t matter what fate was throwing at me, I’d find my own way around it. My grandmother had to remain unbiased; she had to think of the greater good. Humans were dying by the handful every minute that ticked by.
I rinsed off and wrapped a towel around me before strolling into the bedroom with puffy eyelids. I felt his power filling the room and peered into the shadows, watching as Lucian stepped forward.
“You want to explain what is going on?” he purred as his gaze slowly slid down my body.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I countered as I moved to my bags, which I’d packed once he’d left the room. His eyes didn’t miss a beat; he zeroed in on them and a dark brow lifted.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“Preferably to a room that doesn’t carry your scent,” I answered as I withdrew a pair of joggers and a tank top. “You shouldn’t have to give up your room, and I’m sure there’s somewhere else I can be moved to.”
“You’re not going anywhere. I like you in my room, Lena,” he said in a hoarse tone before he rolled his shoulders and spoke again. “What’s upset you?” he asked as he moved closer.
“And why would you think I’m upset?” I returned, irritated that it was written on my face from the red puffy eyes to the fat lip that I’d bitten so hard that it bled.
“You don’t cry in crowded rooms. You hold it in. You just ran through the entire club crying, Lena. So what has you so upset?” he asked softly.
“I’m fine,” I stated as I moved into the bathroom, dismissing him as coldly as he’d been dissing me. I didn’t see him for days, and now he seemed to be everywhere again.
I slipped on my panties and stared at the mirror as I imagined growing round with his babe inside of me. I shoved the image away, burying it as I finished dressing for bed. I pulled the tank top on and dried my hair, exiting the bathroom to find him sitting in the chair with his elbows resting on his knees as he stared me down.
“Do you need something?” I asked.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what the fuck is going on with you,” he growled low and pointedly.
“I can’t add to my bloodline now,” I lied.
“Kendra is carrying on your line,” he said softly.
“Kendra is carrying Lucifer’s child,” I countered coldly, accusation tainting my tone. “You think they’ll give it our name?”
“Lucifer was an angel at one time, now he’s fallen. It doesn’t mean his child will be evil, Lena. It’s only a child.”
“And what about you, Lucian? Do want children?”
“No, never,” he snapped angrily. “I told you, I cannot have them, and therefore have never wished for one.”
“You should go, I’m tired,” I replied evenly, somehow managing not to break down into tears.
“Would it matter if I did?” he asked.
“No, not for me,” I stated slowly as I watched him stand and shove his hands into his pockets. “What we had is broken, so if you are thinking to fix it…”
“I didn’t come here to fix it,” he growled.
“What did I do wrong?” I asked offhandedly.
“Does it fucking matter?” he snapped. His gaze lingered on me and I lowered mine as I chewed my lip.
“No,” I replied before I continued. “If you knew someone you loved was going to die, and you could stop it, would you?”
“Yes.”
“What if it cost you everything? What if the price was more than you could pay?”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect someone I love, even if that price was to walk away and pretend I didn’t care, Lena. Sometimes you have to die a little to save or protect those you care for, even at the cost of yourself.”
“Did you ever care for me, or was I just something you wanted to play with?” I asked softly as I lifted tear-filled eyes to his.
“Go to bed. You look exhausted, Lena,” he ordered, and I watched him stroll to the door and pause there, as if he’d planned to say something else. He stared at me for a long moment before he pulled the door closed behind him.
Chapter 34
Long after Lucian had left the room I remained awake, poring through the journals inside my head. I ignored the witches who pointed things out as if trying to divulge information to me as I studied every journal and every entry in detail. I discovered things, old things that happened during their lives as I read about those who had lived before me. My mind continued to fill up like a filing cabinet as I processed each of them. In every journal, towards the end, one name repeated: Katarina. She’d been the first journal I’d read, and in every one since, she reappeared. Her name and the initial L continued until the very last one.
I’d discovered the seal, an ancient thing believed to open the doors to the other worlds. My heart had skipped a few beats as I’d learned of it and what it did, considering our world’s current situation. Then…then I learned about a witch who had stolen it. Katarina had taken it from her lover, L. She’d done as her coven had bid her to, betraying him, and since then, it seemed she played a part—or more to the point, her curse did—through every generation of witches born since.
The last journal held more information than any before it. It told of a woman, who had been half-witch, half-nymph. She had been possessed by the seal, but when she bore her lover a child, it somehow tethered to the child’s soul. It was murdered soon after birth, a fate no infant should endure before he’d even experienced life.
I slept restlessly as nightmares plagued me. I dreamt that I was the nymph, forced to birth a child only to be slaughtered as it took its first breath. I awoke,
drenched in sweat as I fought off the tremors of the nightmare that lingered. Katarina had cursed the coven, of that I was sure. She’d betrayed L, who I assumed was Lucifer, and I wondered if that made Lucian the hunter who slaughtered her time and time again to protect it from falling into the wrong hands. Was he its keeper, forced to hunt it down to protect it? How did he fit in?
I dressed and moved around the room, pushing my things into a pile as I readied to go out and face the crowd. I eyed the clock, noting it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. I shimmied out of the sweats and into a skirt, one that hugged my figure and flowed to my ankles. I picked out a camisole, white and soft that flattered my complexion. I piled my hair into a messy bun and stared at my pale complexion. I looked ill or exhausted but honestly, I felt it to my bones.
I picked up the notes I’d scrawled in bed, along with the journals from the seer’s house, and headed out to find my grandmother. I entered the main room and stood still for a moment, watching as everyone moved around, laughing and dancing as if the world wasn’t going to hell outside. Kat and Dexter slow danced together, ignoring the others and the fact that it was a fast-paced song playing. Synthia and her group were present, some dancing while others watched them with annoyance, as if they’d rather be out destroying something.
I started forward the moment I caught sight of my grandmother. She was looking over the crowd, and the moment she saw me, she waved frantically. I increased my pace as I lifted my skirt and moved towards her.
“Lena, have you seen your mother?” she asked.
“Not since she left the room earlier.”
“I have not been able to find her since earlier, either. I’ve sent others to find her and no one has been able to locate her yet.”
“Maybe she is somewhere with Alden?” I offered.
She waved her hand in the direction of the bar, where Alden was resting his arms against the bar as he stirred a drink and spoke with Vlad. My gaze searched the crowd and then rounded on my grandmother.
“Her room?” I asked.
“She’s sharing one with Kendra, and we can’t locate her either,” she admitted.
“She wouldn’t leave the club.” I frowned as I considered the fact that she would. If Kendra had left, Mom would have followed to protect her, and neither of them had very strong magic. “I have the journals for you.” I held the bag up and she nodded.
“Let’s go somewhere quiet,” she said as her brow creased with worry. “I feel like something is about to happen… Something is off, I just know it.”
“Everything is off,” I said, and she laughed nervously.
“Oh, Lena, it is, isn’t it? How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” I groaned as I watched her gaze dart to the crowd again.
“You’re always fine, aren’t you? My brave girl,” she uttered as she pulled me close and hugged me tightly. “Even as a child, you were always the one who never complained and remained in the back while Kendra took the spotlight. You and Joshua were always getting hurt, and yet you never fussed or wanted holding when it happened. You’d just puff up and tell us you were fine.”
“Mom wouldn’t have left the club, not after dark.” I pulled back and smiled at her. “She was terrified of the trip over here from the abbey. She hasn’t wanted to be outside since.”
“She didn’t want to come after you either, but she did. You’re her child, she’d have gone to hell for you…” She paused.
“Before I turned dark,” I finished and smiled tightly. “Am I so different now?” I asked, wondering if I changed that much in so little time.
“No, but you hold yourself away from us, as if you are protecting us from what you’ve become. You all do it now, like you are unsure of your welcome and, my darling… You are of my line and so loved. If I had to choose from a million other souls to be mine, I would always choose yours for its purity.”
“Thank you,” I replied.
“Let’s find somewhere without ears, shall we?” she said, and I nodded, following behind her until we were alone in a small room. “So, what did you find out?”
“I went to the Guild a little over a month ago, almost two months now. Inside the Guild was a room, one that was filled with artifacts from our coven. They were old artifacts, some over a hundred years old or more. Inside the room were journals and grimoires, several of them. I touched them and the words and spells left the grimoires and entered me. I have everything that was inside of them in my head.”
She sucked in her breath as her eyes grew wide with what that meant. “Lena, that is deadly. Grimoires don’t just enter a soul unless they have a need to. I am going to guess that it wasn’t your intention to take them, but to only read them?”
“Yes, but as I read, they slid from the page onto my skin and disappeared. Now they’re in my head. I can use them as if they’re my own personal grimoires. Only the journals aren’t mine and each one says a name, Katarina. She was in love with someone named L, and hunted by a monster. Only…I don’t think the monster is as she says, I think he is protecting or hunting an object that can open the doors to the other worlds. She took something from him, like a seal of some sort. There are sketches and ideas of it, or more to the point, what it is. I think it is evil, as in it changes people once it inhabits them or is activated. The creature hunts it, to keep it from anyone who would use it to open the worlds. Once the seal passes through a world, it unlocks it. Or so I think, or maybe all of them at the same time, but that part was unknown.
“I think when Kendra and I were in Hell, one of us unlocked it. Before I turned, when I was speaking to Mom, Kendra shouted at me inside my head to help her. I thought I imagined it, and now, now I think Kendra is being controlled, or she is the seal and is in trouble.” I explained the journals, and how the nightmares we had suffered had been mentioned over and over again, and how every time it replayed, a new curse was put into play somehow.
“You’re saying that she isn’t your sister anymore?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “When has she ever told on me, though? When has Kendra ever been able to hold a grudge for more than a day? She isn’t the same, and I know she’s been through a lot, and it’s different than when we were little, but something is wrong with her. My gut is telling me that she isn’t Kendra, not anymore. Whoever it is, it’s not my sister.”
“She has a devil’s trap on her body, she isn’t possessed.”
“If it was a demon, we’d know. But I don’t think it is a demon that has control of her. Too many things are adding up to be wrong lately. The seer in the woods, the news that our birth father played a part in it, and the fact that Kendra might not be Kendra, and that is worrisome, especially with Mom missing,” I admitted. “I’m going out to find her.”
“If what you say is true, then we need to be very careful. There are too many unknowns unfolding, and it’s moving faster than we can stop it,” she muttered softly as she watched me.
“I should go; it’s dark and the temperature is going to drop soon.”
“Lena,” she said, grabbing my hand to stop me as I moved to the door. “I love you. I need you to know that in case anything happens. The sand isn’t always right. It’s been wrong before, when you were born, and the boys. You should go to Lucian and tell him what is happening. He will help you. You’re carrying his child now.”
“He doesn’t need to know yet.” I chewed my lip. “If and when I tell him, it’s my choice. No one deserves to believe something good is happening only to have it torn away from them.” Not that he’d consider it as much.
“He left a mark upon you to protect you,” she acknowledged. “If you’re in danger, he can find you?”
“Yes, he can. So can Spyder, so if I don’t come back, you can go to them for help.”
We left the room together, and no sooner had we stepped out than one of
the new kids handed me a phone and ran off. I frowned as I looked down at it and back up as the kid retreated out of sight. The towers were down, which meant no service. I started to put it in the pocket of my skirt when it rang. I stared at the screen, then slid my thumb over it and held it to my ear.
“It’s time to move your piece into play, sweetheart.”
Ice rushed through my veins as Lucifer’s voice whispered through the phone. My heart leapt to my throat as blood pounded in my ears, drowning out his words.
“I told you, Lucifer, I’m not into playing games,” I muttered as I bit my lip as my grandmother covered her mouth with her hand to keep from gasping. My mother screamed in pain and I closed my eyes as Kendra’s laughter followed it. “Where?” I asked without hesitation. I fought a sob that constricted my throat. Tears entered my vision as I watched my grandmother put it together.
“We are at your house. Lose your guards, Lena, or I’ll show you what it is like to watch the flesh be ripped from someone while they still breathe. If I see anyone else with you, she dies. Be a good girl and play your part, and your mother can live.”
The phone went dead and I turned it off as I moved to my grandmother. I hugged her as she struggled to keep it together. Lucifer had my mother, and worse, if I was right, Kendra had taken her to him.
“I need you to distract Lucian and the others so I can sneak out,” I said firmly, managing to keep the fear in my voice hidden. “I won’t lose them. I will fix this, no matter the cost. I will end this game of theirs once and for all. You have to trust me on this. Give me at least an hour to reach them. After that, tell Lucian where I am and who I am with. The Fae will follow him, but I need you to stay here, do you understand? Promise me you will stay here where it is safe,” I urged.
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