Wicked Ruin (Se7en Sinners Book 3)

by S. L. Jennings

  “I suppose I should start from the beginning,” Adriel says to the room. “Billions of years ago, I fell in love. It was a deep, all-consuming love that was not meant for me. Or him.” She looks to Legion. I’m not brave enough to see if he returns her gaze. “It cost us both greatly. He chose to fight. I chose defeat. And I’ve regretted it every day of my existence since.”

  “Is there a point to this little trip down memory lane?” Crysis grumbles, wincing. I could seriously kiss him right now.

  Adriel soldiers on, ignoring the Nephilim’s snide remark. “I wallowed in my shame and sorrow for centuries, wishing I could take it back. Wishing I could find atonement for my misdeeds. That opportunity arose twenty two years ago.”

  That gets my attention and I turn to stare straight at her, perplexity hanging heavy on my brow. I get where she’s going with this, but what does her regret and search for redemption have to do with me?

  “His thirst for vengeance was unquenchable. It drove him to distraction, consuming him in a way that had become self-destructive. But it had been so long…so I didn’t realize what he was doing until the deed was already done. I didn’t have a clear picture of his motives at first, but once I did, I knew I had to act.”

  “Wait. What are you talking about?” I ask, my tone incredulous.

  “Eden, you were created as a means of revenge for my sins. Mine and the one you now call Legion. Uriel, my mate, wanted to punish us both for our transgressions. So you were birthed to be wielded as a weapon. How you would be wielded is still unclear.”

  “Uriel?” I’m not sure why the name sounds familiar, and I definitely don’t understand what it has to do with me.

  “Uriel always felt like an outsider. He looked up to the others, the older, more revered of the Seraph, even to the point of envy. So when we betrayed him, he took it as more than a personal offense.” She turns to speak right to Legion. “I believe he and Lucifer conspired the rumors that you forced and defiled me. I would have never said that. Uriel wanted to destroy your reputation. Lucifer wanted you desperate enough to act in anger. For that, I am sorry, Samael. So truly, deeply sorry.”

  “Don’t call me that.” The words are just a rumble in his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Sam—”

  “I said, don’t call me that!” L roars, forcefully enough to rattle our flutes of champagne and orange juice. Reflexively, Cain and Phenex, stationed at each flank, tense and step closer to him.

  Even from feet away, I can feel Adriel’s trembling. I don’t blame her. There was rage behind those words. And pain. Not just any pain either. The kind that you can feel all the way down to your bones, and no matter how you try to sooth the ache, it never ceases.

  I’ve seen Legion pissed before, but not like this. The fierce conviction in his tone, the bite of betrayal in it…something is different between them. Not just history. Something soul binding that will forever connect them.

  “I…I. I apologize… Legion.” Adriel stammers. She plasters on a pained smile that doesn’t meet her soft green eyes. “As I was saying, when I realized that you could be hurt in all this, Eden, I had to do something. I…fell. Not a true fall from grace, but it was enough so I could inhabit your body. But because of what you are, I could not fully possess your soul. You are much stronger than you could ever imagine.”

  “What I am?” I frown.

  “That, and what your father is. There’s never been anything like it.”

  “My father’s a renegade street preacher who kidnapped me,” I reply flatly.

  “Your father is Seraph,” Adriel retorts, her tone sharp. “Uriel didn’t inhabit Joshua’s body. Uriel is Joshua. He took a human form, courted your mother, and purposely created you. And he stayed on Earth, kept close to you, to keep your true identity cloaked with forbidden magic.”

  “My true identity?” I scoff, rolling my eyes. “What the hell are you talking about? There really is no mystery behind being an unemployed cashier.”

  Adriel shakes her pretty little head. “Eden, you have no idea, do you? Uriel is one of the most powerful archangels in history. Which would make you…” She lifts a slender brow.

  “Nephilim,” Crysis answers after I refuse to utter the word.

  Nephilim?

  No fucking way.

  I can’t be. I’m not strong or inhumanly fast. And the only supernatural gift I had was forced on me by Adriel. And now that she’s no longer inhabiting my body…shit…

  This doesn’t make any sense. Some of the most beautiful, most cunning, most dangerous creatures to have ever walked this earth are inside these four walls. And I am nothing like them. Sure, I’ve always felt different, like I don’t quite fit within society’s standards. But that’s what poverty and pain does to you. It alters your very being, molding you into a savage hell-bent on survival. Yes, I’ve always been a survivor, even when giving up would have been so much easier. I never understood what I was surviving for.

  “I know you believe it was my influence, or even an effect of the Calling that gave you certain abilities. But in all honesty, it was you, Eden. That was just a small sample of what you can do—a fraction of your power. The bit that Uriel could not dampen. I only inhabited your soul to keep him from hurting you. Or worse.”

  I look to the Se7en, who don’t look the least surprised. Accusation and betrayal are etched in my face. “You knew?”

  Legion is stoic, yet his lips twitch with his unspoken confession. It’s Phenex who speaks. “Eden, we only just learned this days ago, upon our arrival here. Had we known, we would have never…” For the first time, Phenex looks uncertain. His honeycomb eyes shift to Legion then to Ariel then back to me.

  “You never would have taken me in,” I finish. My wounded glare falls on Legion, and I speak to him and for him. “You never would have touched me.”

  Because not only am I not like them, I am the daughter of his sworn enemy, the offspring of hate and betrayal and vengeance. It makes sense now—their coldness, their distance. How can they care for me when I am a physical reminder of everything they despise and hope to kill?

  I look down at my hands and turn them over, the same hands that held him, stroked him, worshipped him. The same hands that reached out to him after the Alliance thugs, led by my father, hit him so hard that I felt it in my teeth. What I am now is what I’ve always been. This shouldn’t change anything but it does. It changes everything.

  “You must understand, Eden,” Phenex continues, following my line of vision. “Nephilim have a natural predisposition to their own kind. We understand if you feel…differently…about us, now that the cloak has been lifted.”

  I meet those guarded golden eyes, once full of so much warmth and understanding. Phenex was the first to show me kindness. Lilith was playing a role, but it was Phenex who wanted to protect me, wanted to care for me. He was my friend.

  “Do you feel differently about…me?” I retort, my voice shaky.

  “No,” Phenex answers earnestly, and I believe him. I need to believe him.

  I don’t know what I am, but the girl I was three days ago—the girl that went into that black water and drowned—she’s still here. She still hurts. She still bleeds. She still loves.

  “Ok,” I nod. “I don’t feel differently either. Nothing has changed.”

  “While that may be true,” Adriel begins, cutting into the tension, “there was another reason I felt the need to intervene. One that we all underestimated. Lucifer.”

  “So he knew too.” It’s not a question. I’m not even surprised anymore. If anyone would want in on a devious plan, it’s him.

  “Is there anything Luc doesn’t know? Nosy fucker,” Cain snorts. It seems like they’ve all relaxed a bit, now that I’ve declared that nothing has changed. Still, they watch me closely, as if at any moment I could fly off the handle and do my father’s bidding. Whatever modicum of trust we had before has been fractured.

  “He knew something, I’m just not sure what. But once Uriel realized th
at I fell to protect you from him and Lucifer’s influence, he resorted to unwarranted violence to get me back.”

  I heave out a frustrated breath. All this, for what? For who? I didn’t ask for any of this. And it’s Adriel and Legion’s indiscretions that nearly got my sister killed. It’s their actions that led to her boyfriend, Ben’s, death, along with dozens of others. How is that fair? In what fucked up universe is any of this ok? My dad is a psychotic archangel with an ax to grind. And my pseudo-stepmom, who jumped into my body, had an affair with my would-be demon boyfriend?

  Fuck outta here with that nonsense.

  “So what? Uriel set this all up to trap L? And to get you back? Well…you’re back, right? I don’t know how—or why—but you’re back, and I’m no longer needed in all this shit. Uriel has what he wants. So why am I here?”

  Adriel looks to Legion for aid. Her savior. Her knight in shining-fucking-armor. Not even millennia have altered their connection.

  “When I found you—both of you—,” Legion begins, his deep timbre causing my bones to shiver, “I wasn’t sure if you would survive. The extraction is fatal to humans, but you…you are not human. And I needed to make a choice: hunt them down, or stay with you.”

  “We got there shortly after L found you,” Toyol chimes in. “Once they subdued Crysis, their surveillance failed. Something they hadn’t counted on when they tried to take him out.” He tips his head at the angel-human hybrid, a sign of respect. “The trail was cold. But they knew we would come for you, and that’s exactly what they were hoping for. They wanted us away from home.”

  Home.

  The Seraph were counting on drawing them out so they could attack their home. Our home.

  “Sister,” I rasp, my eyes going wide.

  “I got her out of there in time. I swore on everything that I am that no harm would come to her, and I meant it,” Cain assures, stowing his snark and brashness. He strokes the dark hair on his chin, his expression pinched in contemplation. I know he means every word, and I give him a grateful nod. Honestly, I don’t give him enough credit for his devotion to her.

  “Unfortunately, the Seraph still retrieved what they were looking for,” Phenex says. “The Redeemer, one of our oldest and most sacred relics. It’s also the weapon that can permanently wipe out the existence of demons.”

  Shit. A world without demons. That’s exactly what that psycho was rambling on about. And while Uriel apparently has a hard-on for one demon in particular, I’m sure he has no qualms about taking the rest of them out too.

  “Which is why we’re here,” Toyol chimes in. “The Watcher’s home is hallowed ground. No blood can be shed here, so we’re safe. Until we get the drop on where the Seraph is, and what they plan to do, we need to lay low and come up with a plan.”

  “That’s not all…” Phenex adds. “He also has your mother.”

  “My mother?” I had forgotten about her involvement in all this. But of course she’d be with them. She helped them lure me, promising a fresh start for us. I’ve hated her for so long for what she’s done to me, but I never stopped loving her. I never stopped hoping that she would get better and we could be a family again.

  “She was the one who…released me,” Legion utters. Everyone goes completely still and silent. Not even the sound of an exasperated huff from Crysis or the clanging of one of the many gold bangles that adorn Irin’s wrists.

  “Released you?” I ask, cutting into the tense quiet. “She broke you out?”

  “No. Yes. She…released me.” Seeing the confused pinch between my eyes, Legion grips the hem of his shirt and drags it over his torso.

  My mouth goes bone dry. My heart stutters in my chest. Tan, smooth skin is etched with whorls of black ink from his collarbone to the defined V that tapers into his jeans. But there are no scriptures of salvation. No tribute of what he once was before his fall from grace. Not even the dark feathers of the Se7en symbol engraved over his heart. Instead, a fiery beast with uncanny silver eyes that seem to shimmer on his muscled skin—a dragon—is intricately carved over his entire chest and abs. In its mouth, caged by razor sharp fangs, is a blood red ruby. It’s hideous. It’s beautiful. It’s a complete replica of the pendant Nikolai gave him before we were pulled out of Hell. And I know exactly what has happened to him, and why he looks even bigger, ever darker, and more deadly than he ever seemed before. He isn’t a demon assassin anymore. That doesn’t even begin to sum up the extent of the terrible danger that stands before us.

  “L is dead. Samael is dead. I was remade—reborn into what I was before. The very thing I’ve hated and rebelled against for centuries. The great dragon was hurled down – that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. However, the great dragon was not called the Devil, as man believed. He was called Legion.

  “I am the Legion of Lost Souls. And I have risen once again.”

  Irin decided we all needed a break after so many pivotal revelations, and I couldn’t agree more. But I didn’t want to be alone. Not after finding out what I am. Not after learning what Legion is. It’s all too much to digest at once, and I need some semblance of normalcy. Just a small remembrance of my life before all this.

  “I was wondering when you’d wake up,” Sister smiles when she spies me in the doorway of her suite. She’s still hooked up to IVs and bandaged, but she seems to be in good spirits, which is exactly what I need right now. Apparently, Irin was gracious enough to provide all the necessary equipment to help her heal, and I couldn’t be more thankful to her for that. She even has an on-site physician for her round-the-clock care, which has been a huge help considering that Phenex is needed more than ever by the Se7en.

  I nearly run to her side, yet resist the urge to gather her in my arms. She still has a long way to go, and I’m not sure if I have superhuman strength or what. She’s endured so much, and I would kill myself if I hurt her even more.

  “How are you feeling?” I question, looking for any signs of harm during the attack on the Se7en’s headquarters.

  “Good, actually,” she beams, her eyes going wide with excitement. “Did you know there is this mystical balm that actually accelerates healing? It’s made from angel blood and some funky herbs, but holy crap, it’s good. Costs a grip too, but Cain insisted when Irin suggested it. I can’t even tell you how awesome he’s been. All of them, actually. And your friend, Nikolai? Wow, girl. Wow. Seriously, men should not be that pretty. It’s not fair.”

  I smile at her infectious positivity. Still the same, old Sister, prattling on a mile a minute. Nothing will ever break her, and it inspires me every day. “Well, actually, he’s not a man. He’s a warlock. A prince too.”

  Sister shakes her head. “Not. Effing. Fair.”

  “Tell me about it. You should see his brother, Dorian.”

  “He has a brother?”

  “Yeah. He’s the king of their kind.”

  “Welp…that’s it.” She gives a wave of a bandaged hand. “Both ovaries have just exploded. I’m barren. Or pregnant.”

  We laugh together, and it feels so good to not think about all the crazy shit I was just woken up to, even for a moment. Just two sisters talking guys and being silly. Just being human. Although, only one of us can honestly take that title now.

  We chat for nearly an hour about everything and nothing, keeping the conversation light and optimistic. Sister, once again, is blown away by the existence of otherworldly creatures, and the opulence of Irin’s mansion. I have to admit, Irin is loaded. I can’t figure out exactly what she is—and truthfully no one has—but she must be very old to have amassed such wealth.

  “I was afraid…when they came,” Sister admits, her eyelids getting heavy. Her body is working overtime with the angel-blood infused healing balm, and the morphine drip doesn’t help either. I wonder if my blood could help her. Or even Adriel’s. But there’s no way I’m asking her.

  “Everything’s ok now,” I smil
e, trying to muster up some optimism.

  “And when they told me…what happened to you. I wasn’t sure if you would wake up. No one knew for sure at first, because humans aren’t supposed to survive whatever they did to you. Irin said you just needed time…that your body needed to adjust.”

  I school my features, desperately trying to give nothing away. “Did she say why I needed to adjust?”

  Sister lays a gauze-wrapped hand on mine. “I know you’re not like me. I’ve always known. And now that you’re here, and you’re breathing, and you’re alive, I know that my suspicions were true. And that makes me love and admire you even more.”

  I don’t have the heart to lay it all out for her, to tell her that I’m not deserving of her admiration, and barely deserving of her love. Not when my father created me to be a weapon. Not when I’ve hurt people and lied and cheated and killed. I can’t blame what I’ve done on Adriel. I can’t even chalk it up to the Calling. It was all me. And now that I’m no longer cloaked by whatever magic Uriel used on me, who knows what I’m capable of.

  I open my mouth to tell her just that, but she’s already drifted off to sleep. Maybe it’s for the best—a sign from God. I’m sure He knows my truth would only hurt her even more.

  With a kiss on her forehead, I whisper goodnight and turn to leave her to rest. Cain is standing in the doorway. I don’t even know how long he’s been there.

  “She looks good,” I say, swallowing thickly.

  “She does,” he answers, his eyes going to her sleeping frame. “She’s getting stronger every day. Phenex says the scarring will be minimal too.”

  I nod. “Thank you…for getting her out of there. And for taking care of her. I know your priority was the Redeemer, but I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you chose her.”

  Cain nods back in response. “Not as grateful as I am that she chose me.” His gaze goes soft as he sidles up to her other side. “We can and will get the blade back. But her… Her life is much more precious than a piece of sharpened steel.”