“A demon,” he mused, standing at the countertop in the kitchen over a steaming tea kettle and two mugs filled with cocoa. I smiled. I had him trained so well. “Interesting.”
“You’re telling me. The worst part is, no one other than Scylla seems to know anything about my past. Well, anyone that is willing to divulge anything. I don’t trust her enough to ask her. And we have one more day to figure it out before we kill the one being that knows exactly what has happened.” I took the mug he handed me and pressed my lips to the warmth. I sighed, so glad I didn’t die. How could I leave so much cocoa behind?
I kicked off my shoes, and not bothering to change out of the rather uncomfortable dress or even to go pee, I curled my legs up to my chest. Coal was definitely getting a show whether he wanted one or not, but I didn’t care. Once again, I had felt vulnerable and exposed, out of control. My body didn’t feel like mine when so many beings used it like it was theirs, feeding from it, reading it. My skin crawled as I remembered the array of emotions and sensations I had gone through in the hold of the demons.
I wanted nothing more than to curl up and shut out the rest of the world. My mind was tired, my body exhausted, but my thoughts refused to quit, running on an endless loop. I didn’t know how much more I could take before I cracked. My simple life had not served me well enough to prepare me for the shit storm that my life was becoming. I had always wanted to know who and what I was, to have a family. But now that I was getting answers, I wasn’t so sure I wanted them anymore.
To top it all off, my vessel wanted to cry. Now that I knew what that felt like.
I despised it, but I didn’t know how to stop it. My eyes burned, and I kept them focused on the mug, hoping the steam was obscuring what my eyes were doing. A couple tears slipped down my cheeks, and when Coal turned away, I wiped them on my bare shoulder. It didn’t do much more than smear the wetness all over my face.
Coal glanced over his shoulder. I waited for the teasing and mockery that the big bad shadow was crying, but it didn’t happen. Either he didn’t see the tears, unlikely since we were in such proximity, or he was just being Coal and respecting my feelings. He was a much better person than I was.
Thankfully, only a few more slipped out after a few deep breaths. My eyes were dry and itchy, my lids like sandpaper over the surface. I had to blink a few times to focus on anything. My face was hot to the touch. I chalked that up to being exhausted as well. Another subtle glance from Coal told me that he knew I was finished with my pity party. He turned to face me.
“Do you need anything else? You look like death. Are you sure you don’t want to change or go to your bed?”
Before I could stop the next thought, it slipped from my lips, “No, I want to sleep on the couch. I don’t want to be alone right now.” I paused, waiting.
“Okay.” He shrugged, then unfolded the blanket from the back of the couch, one of the ones he usually used to half cover himself while he slept. As he covered me, my dress disappeared, and in its place was one of my ratty band tees and a pair of silky black undies I had never seen before. I smiled but not long enough to let him know I approved yet again of his choices for me. A girl could get used to having endless clothing options in the blink of an eye and a guy with a good sense of fashion. Even if he was tall enough to be a second story Peeping Tom.
I took a sip of the cocoa, sighing. The chocolate washed my worries away, even if just for a moment. After this cup, if I were still awake, I would have another. And another. After everything I had been through, I deserved it.
Settling the other blanket on the floor, Coal started to sit down. He reminded me of a dog circling and fluffing the padding beneath himself before he curled into a ball and laid down. Only he wasn’t nearly as graceful. He was more like one of those Great Danes that plopped.
I would probably regret it later, but I scrunched my feet to make room and said, “There’s plenty of room on the couch.”
He eyed me cautiously but ultimately decided that I wasn’t being a sarcastic asshole. “You sure?”
I gave him a short nod, not interested in continuing the conversation. I said what I needed to say. I wouldn’t beg. He could sit with me or not; I wouldn’t ask again.
“So, are we still killing Hades, or are you more interested in answers now?” He searched my face as he spoke, his own unreadable. Was he hoping I would say that we were going to get answers? I wasn’t exactly sure at this point if what Scylla told me was right, and I wasn’t even sure how the whole demon vessel thing worked. But answers for me could also mean answers for him.
Did I take over his mate’s body? Did that mean that her soul was somewhere? Did that mean that Coal indeed didn’t kill her like he thought he did? If so, where was her soul? Was she okay? And as much as I didn’t want the answer, could she come back?
Honesty usually wasn’t my go-to, but I owed it to him. If this partnership was going to work, we had to communicate with one another.
You mean relationship. I clenched my jaw shut and squinted my eyes as if the voice in my head were a real person, in the flesh, looking at me.
“No, we are going to kill him. I can’t handle any more answers.” I scanned him for disappointment or anger, but he led on to nothing. His features were stone-cold still.
The couch creaked as his weight settled on the other end, and I was pretty sure I felt my half lift just a little. A feeling I was getting used to. “I could understand if you wanted more answers.”
I kept quiet. Was this bait? An out? Was he letting me know that it was okay, or was he hoping to change my mind because it meant Onyx might not be dead? A part of me wanted answers, but an equal part had to admit that it didn’t because answers could take him away. I might not have been ready for a relationship, but I wasn’t ready to deal with the latter either. I think. The latter also included me possibly finding a new vessel. As horrible as it was to think that I was alive because her soul was being tortured somewhere while I inhabited her body for the last three thousand years, I didn’t want to give up my body either.
I was not interested in hashing it out, exhaustion clouded my brain, weighing my limbs down, and before I knew it, I was mumbling my selfish response incoherently. “Hades is go … die.”
19
The sky collapsing in the kitchen and the metallic sound of pots and pans rumbling around as if an earthquake threatened to demolish the entire building had me leaping to my feet, fists clenched and poised, shadows twitching lazily, still too sleepy to attack. The room spun around me from the immediate change in elevation, and I swayed a bit, still dead to the world and not ready to complete thoughts.
The raging sun had me squinting against its intrusion with a snarl. Murder was on my mind, and adrenaline had my anger quickly rising. Why the hell was I awake before the moon? Oh, that's right, because Betty Crocker on steroids was clunking around in the kitchen. Why was Coal in the kitchen before it was dark out?
I stalked two steps to the balcony door and whipped it shut to block out the awful sun. The blind followed. Pivoting and growling, I turned my wrath on him, ready to box.
The anger faded when I saw what he was doing. A smorgasbord of strange (by strange, I mean not processed) looking food covered the countertop from the bar around to the other side of the kitchen, including something that smelled like cinnamon and apples on the stovetop.
Coal went from bent over to standing and crowding the kitchen, his head ducked to keep from hitting the low-hanging light fixture. My lips cracked into a bit of a smile. In oversized hands, he was holding a pot I didn’t know I had. Flour, or at least I hoped it was flour all over his black shirt in smudge marks in the shapes of his fingers. His hair was tied back in a ridiculously messy bun, and his light gray skin was flushed in frustration.
My stomach growled. Traitor. We were supposed to be mad at him. But I couldn’t be. He had clearly been working so hard and had stayed quiet as I had slept through everything until now. Who knew how long he had been cooking? Or
if he even cooked it? Maybe he just stole most of it and cooked some things?
Resting on the counter in the midst of the feast was a magazine that had a similar spread spelled out.
Bingo. Although he may have cooked some of it, the meal consisted of the things he saw in the magazine. I wondered what made him decide to cook the apples. Maybe it was something he felt he couldn’t screw up?
“What is all this?” I asked as I reached across the counter to pour some coffee in a cup. I dug through a pile of chocolate chip cookies. Choosing the softest one, I dunked it in my coffee. Coal scrunched his lips as I ate the soggy cookie and took a sip. It was easier to accept waking up before my alarm once I had sugar in my system.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rude. Not exactly. “It's Thanksgiving.” Raising a brow, I tilted my head.
“This may be a dinner, but the point is to celebrate on Thanksgiving with dinner and turkey and shit.”
“No, I read something about Friendsgiving or something like that. We didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and I couldn’t sleep, so I figured before we went to the caves, this could be your first Thanksgiving dinner.” He waved his hand over the food, admiring it all. My mouth watered. I had to admit, it looked good. But it also felt sort of morbid.
Nevermind the fact that this was possibly the sweetest thing that anyone had ever done for me.
“Or my last supper,” I muttered. He shot me a questioning look. “You know, the meal they give death row inmates before they hit the electric chair?” His mood fell, and he shook his head.
“Just sit down and eat something,” he ordered. I saluted him and grabbed a plate. I had lost my appetite, but I needed to eat something if my body was going to be able to handle whatever I was going to put it through, and Coal was so damn sweet to think of something like this for me. My first Thanksgiving dinner with … I cut that thought off before it took on a life of its own.
I filled my plate and ran to the couch before Coal ran me over with his silver platter that he was stuffing to its limits with food. By the time he made it to the coffee table, he had half the food in his hands waiting to be devoured. I moved my tiny little plate over to make way for his platter. I would have to keep that thing after he was through with it. It had to be worth a fortune.
“How are you feeling?”
“Well, aside from grumpy because some asshole has me up before the moon, I feel fine. Just a little tired, I guess,” I grumbled and shoved a bite of turkey in my mouth. Coal speared a slice of an apple straight from the hot pan sitting on the coffee table, undoubtedly burning the wood top. Some sticky honey and cinnamon concoction oozed from them and had me fishing for my own bite. The texture of the apple was soft yet still crunchy. They tasted amazing.
I let Coal get a couple more bites, then I shoved my plate to the side and started in on the rest of the apples. His attempt at stealing some had me jabbing him with my fork and giving him the side-eye. “Jesus, Cujo.”
“Oh snap, Coal, did you just make a funny?” I teased, but I was sort of serious. Joking wasn’t his thing unless we talked about his penis, then he had a few funny things to say.
“Shut up,” he snapped. I jerked my head back. Damn, someone was cranky today, and it wasn’t just me.
“Grumpy Gus,” I mumbled and hugged my pot of gooey apples to me. I wasn’t going to give him any if he was acting like that.
“I’m sorry, I’m just a little on edge. Chronos sent me a message.” I felt the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. While I wasn’t afraid of Chronos, I was a bit wary of what the Brotherhood had in store for me after my rendezvous with demons. He may not know why I sent him a dozen souls, but if he did, he was probably itching to get his hands on me before Lucifer.
“Let me guess, the Granite dicks are in town?” He nodded bleakly. “So, what does this mean?”
“Well, he knows our plan.”
Midchew, I stopped and said, “The fuck do you mean ‘he knows our plan?’” I enunciated the last bit for emphasis. “Does that mean that Scylla is a snitch? That bitch, I’ll give her a what for, I swear. I knew it. I knew she was rotten.”
“I told him,” he interrupted my tirade. Jerky gestures halting, I just stared at him in disbelief. My heart sputtered to a stop, and my stomach twisted like a freaking pretzel, and not the soft kind. What the hell happened to being able to trust him? One meeting with Chronos had him spilling everything that we were doing? And now Daddy knew that we knew how to kill him, so he would for sure have back up.
“What happened to less is more, Coal?”
I could tell all the color drained from my face because before I could get another word out, Coal rushed to cut me off. “Before you go all demon on me … ” My eye twitched as I narrowed both of them at him. How dare he utter the demon word. “I had to tell him, it was either that, or you’d be dead by now. We wouldn’t have any more answers than we have, and we certainly wouldn’t have a chance to get the dagger. Scylla has nothing to do with any of it. We are still on a trust lightly basis with her. I haven’t even heard from her, have you?”
“Wait, no, don’t change the subject. Hades is just okay with us going to get the dagger?”
“He’s convinced we’ll never make it,” he said plainly.
“AKA, he’s hoping the journey will kill me, so he won’t have to. I should’ve expected this. He is just the world’s biggest piece of shit when it comes to fathers.” Cleverly, Coal snuck the pot out of my hands and started munching on the apples. “Hey, no, you don’t,” I snatched his fork from his hand so fast a bite of an apple flew across the living room. He snarled. “No touch. So, he plans for us to retrieve the dagger for him, or he really is convinced we won’t survive getting it?”
“Well, for one, he doesn’t believe we know where it's at.”
“Which we don’t, we are only speculating, although Scylla is convinced. The caves could still be a trap, by the way. We could go through all of this and find absolutely nothing. Hell, she could have an army of who knows what waiting for us down there.”
“I know she may lead us to our demise, but what do we have to lose? If she doesn’t kill us, there is a good possibility that we find the dagger and it doesn’t work, we die anyway.” His face went grim, and I felt like there was something he wasn’t telling me.
“Gee, when did you become so optimistic? I went from not being able to die to now there are too many ways to die,” I responded dryly. A dark, raspy chuckle had my stomach coming back to life, and I didn’t notice Coal stuck his fork in the pan to steal another apple. I let it slide. “This is all way sketchy, and not to mention, Daddy has to be the laziest foe ever. I thought evil people had more ambition.”
“Trust me, your father is ambitious, just on a small scale. He’d rather be in the cages torturing people than dealing with the important things. That's why he has Chronos. He deals with everything else.”
“Why does he even bother ruling the Underside if he wants nothing to do with it?”
“Because he has the best of both worlds. All the power and the say, but he doesn’t have to do anything. He’s typical upper management.” Coal’s eyes went deliciously dark.
“How do you know upper management?” I snooped around in the pot, sifting through the sauce, and when I believed there weren’t any left, I set the pot down on the coffee table.
“I may be old as dirt, but I haven’t been living under a rock, no pun intended. I’ve been to many realms and although some are a little archaic, most are very similar to earth.” Unbelievable to my ears, a laugh escaped me. I hadn’t heard him refer to his age in such a casual way. Drawing his head back, Coal blinked rapidly. “Did you just laugh at something I said?”
I hardened, “Nope, I’m not sure what that was.”
“You laughed.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m not sure I’m even capable of laughing.” Letting it drop, his smug ass sneered and turned back to his plate. “You need to eat mo—” Someone’s knuckles meeting the stee
l door in a rather annoying, hasty manner had his words cutting off. An immediate blaze erupted in his eyes, and his body went rigid. Another impatient knock sounded throughout the quiet apartment.
“Are you expecting company?”
“Really, Coal, really? Am I expecting company?” He exhaled sharply, then joined the gods in heaven as he stood.
“Wait here.”
“The door is literally ten feet away, Coal, like I’d ha—” Scowling, he pinned me with eyes that told me to shut up or else. I bit back the ‘you’re not my daddy’ speech and just let him have his moment. The whole two alphas in one death-defying scenario was all about balance. I had to learn to pick my battles, and right now, he had the upper hand.
For one, I was pretty sure not being able to kill me was an act. Judging by his past, he could indeed handle all of my darkness.
Two, he knew a hell of a lot more about what was going on than I did. I was only around because, as of right now, Scylla believed I was the key to the dagger we all needed. We had one thing in common, regardless of all our planned outcomes.
We needed the dagger to kill Daddy.
Calm as a cucumber, I motioned him towards the door, keeping my mouth shut.
“Open up, assholes,” a muffled female voice, laced with annoyance, came from the stoop. The day just couldn’t get off to a better start, could it?
Coal glanced over his shoulder. With a sigh, I shrugged as I stood and started toward my bedroom so I could change. Less than three steps in, my hair was pulled tight into a braid. I wore skintight, brand new jeans, a long sleeve black and gray flannel, and these god-awful outdoor leather shoes.
I turned my gaze on him, hoping to convey that I was less than satisfied with his choice of footwear and him once again controlling the situation by dressing me with what he deemed appropriate. “Really?”
Pawns Daughters of The Underworld Book 1 Page 19
