by Abigail Owen
“Your father?” Alasdair slid a glance to Delilah, who nodded.
“What is he?” he asked next.
But she only stood there, mute and still. Which meant more was coming.
The man took in the cat and the girl’s tears in a single glance. “What did you do?” he whispered through lips gone chalky white.
“I healed her, Papa.” Dimples appeared in rounded, still wet cheeks, as the girl offered a proud grin and held the cat out to her father.
An expression that was more terror than wonder seized her father’s face, and Delilah herself closed her eyes against the sight.
“What’s going to happen?” Alasdair asked.
“It cannot be time,” her father whispered, the words hoarse in his throat, as though arguing with himself. “She is only a baby, yet.”
Three years old at the most. Unconsciously, Alasdair tightened his grip on the adult version. “Time for what?”
“To bind my powers.”
“What? No.” That could be incredibly dangerous, locking energy inside a child.
If magic wasn’t expunged regularly, it could result in catastrophic explosions or madness or other horrible ends. Was this why she’d refused to help? Because she had no access to her powers? Was this what Hazah wanted him to see? That the choice to go to Delilah in the first place had been the wrong one because she couldn’t help?
But that made no sense, because she could have gotten anyone on her payroll to help instead. Her business was about helping people.
She did go to someone else, a small voice reminded him. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here right now.
“Delilah,” her father said to the girl, going down on one knee and gathering her to him. “Do you remember the words we’ve been practicing?”
Her puckered brow an unconscious imitation of her father’s expression, the tiny girl nodded.
“It’s time to mean the words, my darling. As an unbreakable oath.”
Tears welled in wide dark eyes, her lower lip trembling. “Mama does not wish for this. She said—”
“I know.” Her father pulled her in to him. “But your mama can’t be here. I do not wish this either, but we have no choice. They will come for you if we don’t.”
“Who?” Alasdair asked, though he didn’t pull his gaze away. “Who will come?”
Still gripping her by the arms, he didn’t miss the way Delilah shifted in his grip. He turned to face her as she crept her hands up over her ears. “Don’t watch,” she whispered.
Her father began to chant, and the child, mimicking her parent, repeated a string of words, again in that known-yet-unknown language. Over and over, until suddenly she tipped her head back and screamed, even louder than before.
Thrashing in her father’s arms, the child clawed at the skin around her wrists, which turned red and blistered as Alasdair watched in horror. Through it all, her father didn’t relent, continuing to chant.
“Stop! Stop!” the child screamed. “It burns.”
“God’s above,” Alasdair whispered.
A tremor shook the woman he still gripped, and he pulled her in to his chest. Wrapping one arm around her, he tucked her head into the crook of his neck with the other hand at the back of her head, entwined in silky hair, no doubt disturbing the elegant styling. He held her as she whimpered through every blood-curdling second as the child version of her screamed in agony.
“It’ll be over soon,” he murmured into her hair but didn’t let her go. Not when she was shaking hard enough to rattle his teeth. He wasn’t that much of an asshole. Or maybe it had something to do with her…and him. But he wasn’t about to take that truth out and examine it any closer.
“No,” the woman in his arms moaned. “It’s not over yet.”
The words and the torment wrapped up in them pierced through layers he’d built over the years. Layers meant to keep him separate, keep him safe from the world. From others.
“Hell,” he muttered.
Taking her face in his hands, he lifted her chin. “Look at me.”
Delilah’s eyes fluttered open, dark eyes hazy. Miserable. Need reflected back at him. A silent plea to make this stop. Only he didn’t know how. His magic wasn’t accessible here. He’d tried.
Another screech from the child and Delilah scrunched her eyes closed. “Dammit.” Alasdair did the only thing he could think of. He brought his lips down over hers, claiming her lush mouth—something he’d fantasized about for months—in a desperate attempt to distract them both.
Beneath his touch, Delilah froze at the sudden contact. He expected her to pull away, maybe even knee him in the groin. She didn’t do either. Instead, her breathing hitched, then she melted into him, opening under his mouth, letting him in.
Mother goddess. He hardly noticed the sudden silence that surrounded them, too absorbed by the woman in his arms.
The kiss changed from hard possession, softening, slowing. The taste of cherries—sweet and tart—only added to the need growing within him. He savored her flavor and her small sighs. Sliding his hands down her arms, he wrapped his own around her, bringing her body up against his more fully, the scent of flowers surrounding him.
And she was there with him every step along the way, wrapping her arms around his neck, trying to get closer, sighs changing to whimpers. Not close enough.
This isn’t about me, a small voice whispered, bringing with it guilt on wings of forbearance This was about her. Protecting her from her past.
Forcing himself to stop, he slid his hands to her waist, meaning to set her back, step away. He even lifted his head. Only she went up on tiptoe, those soft warm lips chasing his, pulling him back in. This wasn’t what he’d meant to do, where he’d meant to take them. He should have enough control over himself to end this.
Instead, he balanced at the edge of need, ready to topple over into an abyss of wanting that he should be fighting. He shouldn’t be here.
She nipped at his lower lip, and Alasdair groaned, gathering her close again. Plundering her mouth, her body shifting against him in what had to be an unconsciously given invitation. Delilah would never allow herself that kind of vulnerability. Not with him, especially.
The realization gave him the strength he needed to lift his head. Jerk it up, more like. The actions of a desperate man.
The silence finally penetrated.
They still stood in her room in her castle home. Alone. The ghosts of her past gone. Not even the crackle of the fire disturbing the peace.
Then blackness. Like before.
All-consuming, although he could still feel Delilah in his arms. Stiffer now. The vulnerability from a second ago—in a way he never in a thousand years would have expected from her—gone. He didn’t need to be able to see her face to know she was regretting that kiss. Her body telegraphed that fact to him.
The blackness lifted as suddenly as it had descended. Only this time revealing a nighttime scene, and Alasdair stared at the familiar home they stood outside—aglow with strings of Christmas lights all along the roofline—his own dread descending like being buried alive, his heart thudding harder against his ribs.
No.
The word broke inside his head, and he had to swallow back the bile burning as it rose up his throat. Even though he still owned it, he’d never wanted to see this place again.
Gods, he should have guessed.
Tension rolled through him, gripping his muscles, stringing them so tightly, Delilah shifted against him on a murmured protest. Then stilled.
He could feel her stare, the questions rising in her. “Where are we?” she asked.
“Apparently it’s my turn.”
…
The man had kissed every lucid thought from her mind in the middle of the worst moment of her life and sent her body into a spiral of sensation that still gripped her like nothing
before in her long, long life. Madness. Only she couldn’t think about that right now, because if Alasdair tensed any more, he’d snap like an Achilles tendon bearing too much strain. His expression one she could only describe as haunted.
Delilah glanced around them, wondering at the source of his sudden unease. They stood surrounded by mountains, towering sentinels in the dark. Snow on the ground, which oddly they couldn’t feel inside the vision beyond a general sense of cold. In front of them stood a massive mountain cabin that seemed to have been built around two sides of a large, clear pond. Moonlight illuminated the scene from outside while a warm glow from lamps inside beckoned her closer.
“Your turn?”
“What could I possibly have to learn from this?” he muttered.
“Hey.” A hand to his cheek and some gentle pressure and Alasdair turned to look down at her. “What is this?” she asked.
“This is the night my father killed my entire family. All but me, and my youngest sister, Hestia, who wasn’t there.” He said the words so matter-of-factly, it took her a moment to absorb their meaning.
His entire family… “I’m so sorry.”
Bright blue eyes suddenly blazed with an emotion she doubted he ever let anyone else see. Trepidation.
Her own horrible memories melted away, and she focused on him.
“I assume this won’t be over until we witness the memory?” he asked.
Dammit, Mother. Delilah gave a reluctant nod.
“Come on, then.” Grabbing her by the hand, they walked across a small bridge that spanned a burbling, ice-crusted stream, along a snow-lined gravel path to the house, and right in through the open front door. Open because it hung off the hinges, she could now see.
There they found a scene of absolute horror. Chaos reigned, as though a hurricane had blown through the room, furniture scattered, festive holiday decorations shredded, windows blown out on the wall facing away from the pond, and crimson blood, still wet, splashed across the walls.
So much blood.
No bodies. Thank heavens.
Amid the chaos, on a loveseat obviously re-righted, because it had been set at an odd angle in the room, sat a boy of maybe eight—black hair, blue eyes, and a strength in him even then that revealed itself in a hard-set jaw. Not a tear in sight. He kept clenching his hands, bright bands of electricity wrapping and slithering about his fists, almost as though he was playing with his power.
“So young?” Delilah asked. Most mages came into their powers at puberty.
The man still holding her hand, though she was sure he wasn’t aware, nodded, lips set in a grim slash. “My powers manifested in full that night.”
A group of men and women—mages at a guess, though difficult to tell when she couldn’t feel the crackle of their energy in this dreamscape—gathered in one corner of the room murmured in low voices she couldn’t hear. Which meant he hadn’t heard that night, either, almost as though he hadn’t wanted to, because they’d been standing close enough. They kept glancing over at him, expressions full of concern and…fear.
A witch, her gunmetal gray hair pinned in a knot at the nape of her neck, separated from them to sit beside Alasdair. “The Syndicate has ruled your use of underage magic to be in self-defense.”
The boy said nothing. If anything, though he turned his head, he looked straight through her. She might as well have not been there at all.
Then he cradled his arm in a protective move and Delilah had to hold back a gasp at the raw, burned skin visible along one side of his skinny little appendage. Had no one seen to his wounds? Checked that he was physically harmed?
Delilah wanted to wrap that self-contained boy up in her arms and tell him everything was going to be fine and perform a healing spell all at the same time. Couldn’t these people see how much he was hurting? Physically, yes. But even more so emotionally. How he hid his pain behind the numb blankness? Instead, she tightened her grip on the man’s hand.
Alasdair dragged his gaze away from the younger version of himself to look at her. A question in his eyes that he didn’t voice.
“Whatever you survived…remember how far you’ve come since then,” she said.
His bright blue gaze narrowed, turning intense and chasing a sensation through her that was this side of inappropriate, ill-timed, unwanted need. Her skin prickled, awareness surging, and desire gathering.
Wrong in every way.
But then his eyes went glacial, so like the boy version of himself, as though he deliberately was freezing her out. “You don’t even know what I did.”
Delilah released his hand, though she wouldn’t allow herself to step back. “I don’t have to. You’re the leader of the Covens Syndicate now. That wouldn’t happen if what you did was wrong.”
“Wrong?” His lips pulled back in an expression nearly feral. “No. Not…wrong.”
The woman on the couch leaned forward, apparently trying to get through to the younger Alasdair. “Your father was possessed by a demon,” she said.
A demon.
Deep cold stole through Delilah, freezing out the warmth lingering from his look, freezing her emotions at the same time. She glanced around the room more closely until she found the spot. In the corner, the plaster of the wall was destroyed in a spiderweb of cracks and blackened as though charred by a thunderbolt.
She turned her head to stare at the man. Alasdair had killed a demon that young? One possessing his own father, too?
Fuck me.
Of course it would have to be a demon.
Damn. What was her mother thinking tying her to this man? Nothing they could learn was going to allow her to help him, no matter what.
Damn her inability to See when it came to him. If she’d known…
She’d assumed, when she’d first realized her blind spot when it came to Alasdair, that it meant their futures weren’t linked. Now, with one fell swoop, her mother had changed all that.
“You had no choice,” the witch said to the boy. “There’s no shame in it.”
“You think I’m ashamed?” the boy asked in a tone of voice so like the man, Delilah’s lips parted in a silent gasp. “I’m not ashamed. I’m—” He shook his head, then gave the woman the same cold stare he’d just given Delilah. “My family is dead.”
The witch got to her feet, stepping back, expression saying even more than the distance she put between them that she had no idea how to react to that. “I’m sorry,” she said after a brief hesitation.
Both boy and man scoffed. “I’m sure you are,” the boy said. The electricity wrapped around his hands crackled and snapped.
“Oh, Alasdair,” Delilah whispered.
She may as well have yelled it, the way he flinched. Then he snapped his gaze to her, brows lowered in a fierce glare that didn’t fool her one bit. “I don’t need your pity or your apologies. You had nothing to do with it.”
Despite the horrible scenario playing out before them, Delilah couldn’t help the stupidly inappropriate twitch of her lips. “Pity is the last thing I’d ever feel for you, Alasdair Blakesley.”
Not even for the child on the couch. Heartache, maybe, but never pity.
The way his stiff shoulders eased minutely told her he’d understood.
“These people are fools,” she said, shocked at the vehemence in her own voice. “Please tell me someone knew enough to give you a hug that day, help you through this.”
He turned his head, searching her expression. “Is that what you would have done?”
Delilah bit her lip, but that didn’t stop the truth from spilling out anyway, because deep down she sensed he needed to hear this. “I’d hug you now if you’d let me.”
Breath punched from him in an audible puff, though his expression didn’t change. Then he gave his head a shake, as if deciding what to believe. Part of her hoped he’d relent. That he would
allow himself to take some belated comfort, even if he didn’t like her. That all-consuming kiss notwithstanding.
He didn’t do that, though. Instead, Alasdair tipped his head back to shout at the ceiling. “That’s enough.”
Nothing happened.
Was there more her mother wanted them to witness? Wouldn’t he know if there were more?
A spot over her heart, where no doubt a mark matching the one Alasdair bore, warmed until it became uncomfortable, and Delilah silently cursed her parent.
“I think you have to take my hand,” she said, and held hers out.
He stared at her as if she’d grown a few extra heads, then reached for her.
But Delilah jerked away with a gasp.
“I’m not going to hurt you—”
She waved him off, still staring at what had caught her attention. Leaving Alasdair standing there, she walked closer to the boy on the couch, right up to him, and bent over.
There.
In the center of his forehead, a slight red glow that faded even more as she watched. Delilah squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Holy hells, had none of the witches and warlocks in the room seen this mark that night?
She blinked, then froze as the younger Alasdair had lifted his gaze. This was the past, and she couldn’t influence it, but she swore he was looking directly at her. Impossible.
Giving herself a shake, she straightened and turned to the man. “You were marked.”
He frowned, his gaze dropping to the boy. “Marked?”
“That night. A demon, usually an upper level one, had been assigned to possess you. There is always a reason.” Always. “And until they achieve what they’re after, they don’t stop trying, which likely explains your current predicament.”
Alasdair crossed his arms. “I killed it.”
She shook her head. “If you’d killed it, the mark wouldn’t be there. You killed its underling.”
She didn’t blame him for the way he frowned, denial stark in his eyes. She wouldn’t want to believe such a thing, either. “What does this mean?”
