The Demon-Born Trilogy: (Complete Paranormal Fantasy Series)

by L. C. Hibbett

  “I told you I was a murderer.” Sam cut through my nervous prattle.

  I pulled myself into a seated position and curled my knees against my chest. My eyes traced the foggy coastline, as familiar as an old friend. “You shouldn’t have taken us back to Mayo, Sam. Peter could have people watching the area.”

  “Not Dorninish. The island is deserted. Emmanuel brought Eli and me here to teach us how to master storms.” Sam heaved himself onto his feet and started to walk away from me toward the shore. I caught up with him just as he pulled a pile of nets back to reveal a small motor boat. He dragged it over the sand and into the water. The skin on his bare torso was damp with sweat and misty sea air. He looked back over his shoulder as he waded into the ocean. “You coming?”

  The water was icy cold, and I had to crush my lips together to prevent myself from cursing blue murder. Sam’s dimples deepened as I threw myself into the boat and lay there like a wet rag. He hopped in effortlessly and checked the outboard engine before pulling the ripcord. His hand gripped the tiller as he guided the boat out into the bay. I shivered as the wind cut across us. Sam lifted his left hand, and the boat was suddenly surrounded by a cloud of warm air. I settled myself on the wooden bench and looked around at Clew Bay.

  “You should take off those shorts. I can’t draw any more sunlight on the boat without risking unwanted attention. It’ll be enough to keep us warm, but it won’t dry denim.” Sam nodded to my shorts. They were sodden and the wet fabric clung to my body.

  I poked the end of Sam’s soggy jogging pants with my toe. “You’re soaked through as well, Mr. Sensible. Don’t lecture me about hypothermia.”

  In a single movement, Sam whipped his sodden joggers off and sat back down again in only a pair of skin-tight black shorts. I felt every inch of my skin color, and I struggled to catch enough air to breathe easily. One part of me wanted to throw caution to the wind and slip out of my own clothes, but instead, I clung to my wet shorts like a soggy security blanket. Sam cocked one eyebrow. “Probably a good idea to leave those shorts on. I’ve been told I’m pretty irresistible to half-naked girls.”

  I rolled my eyes and grinned into the ocean spray as we bounced over the waves. “Yeah. I wouldn’t be able to control myself. Arrogant thieves are super hot.”

  “Excuse me, I didn’t steal this boat. Cain bought it for Eli and me as a joint birthday present.” Sam’s smile faded, and he stared into my eyes. “Grace, do you want to talk about the murder?”

  I dropped my gaze onto the base of the wooden dinghy, unable to answer Sam’s question without sounding like the worst sort of coward. My fingernails worried at the peeling paint on the inside of the boat. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Sam. Jasmine knows what happened in Moscow wasn’t your fault. Frank told Luc that it was Elijah who wouldn’t follow orders, and that’s why Elijah was injured and Frank and Lydia were captured.”

  “But they don’t know it’s my fault that Eli froze. I shouldn’t have told him anything. If I’d just kept my stupid mouth shut . . .” Sam jerked the rudder, and the boat swerved in the opposite direction.

  My head felt heavy. “Sam, whatever you told Eli—it doesn’t mean you’re to blame. Eli was an incredible fighter, but things happen. People mess up. Even if he was thinking about the things you had told him about the Silent Homes, it doesn’t make you responsible for his death. It doesn’t make you a killer.”

  “I told him I murdered his Uncle.” The boat lurched as it was struck by a sudden swell. I dug my hands into the wood and blinked twice. Sam’s veins stood out against his arms as he watched my face.

  I exhaled slowly. “Sam, what are you talking about?”

  One side of Sam’s lips quirked upward in a painful attempt at a smile. “I know. Crazy, isn’t it? Of all the people I end up thinking of like my brother and sister, they end up being the real family of somebody I killed. I thought it was just a really shitty twist of fate when I first realized, but now I am starting to wonder if anything that happened to any of us Demon-Born was accidental. Maybe the Elders planned every last bit of our lives, and Lizzie helped them get all the pieces in place.”

  I met his eye and nodded. “Five of the Demon-Born with the Lost Powers in our little group, it couldn’t be an accident, could it? There have to be hundreds, maybe thousands of Demon-Born by now, but five of the seven Hidden Powers are ours. It doesn’t add up.”

  “The Elders were pulling strings all along. Setting us up to manipulate our lives and make sure our powers were the strongest they could be. Everything that feels like fate is just the Elders playing God.” Sam’s lips curled over his teeth, and I bit down on my tongue. Everything that felt like fate, I thought, even us?

  I shoved the hair out of my face. “What happened with Elijah’s uncle, Sam?”

  Sam’s muscles were tensed so tightly I could have traced every line in his abdomen with my fingertip. He stared into the horizon. “I never knew the other prisoners’ names.” He glanced at me for a moment and then looked away again. “I barely knew my own name. The only person who ever used it was . . . That’s why I changed it when Jasmine’s parents rescued me.”

  Sam glanced at me for a moment and I did my best impression of an encouraging smile. He stared into the water. “The prison cell I grew up in never changed. The guards changed and the buildings did—sometimes, they’d drag us out with no warning and throw us through a slip into a new Silent Home—but my cell was always identical. Prisoners came and went in the other cells, but not me. He never let me go.”

  “Who?” The wind stole my voice, but Sam heard anyway.

  His jaw tightened. “The Elder. Julius. I’d almost made myself forget his face until I saw him in the citadel when Diamond was fighting the Hounds. I saw him again in Abel’s vision.”

  An image of the green-eyed Elder I had seen in the vision Dawn had shared with us from the Halfling Elder filled my mind. The same man who had stood beside Peter at the gate of Hidden Cottage. I hadn’t recognized the likeness that night in the darkness, but in Abel’s dream, there could be no mistake. I hugged my arms to my chest. “Your father?”

  Sam’s face contorted and he gave me a tortured glance. “You could see the likeness?”

  “Only the eyes. Their color. And the shape of your face. But not his mouth. He has a mean mouth.” The words tumbled off my tongue.

  Sam closed his eyes for a second. “Yeah, he really does have a mean mouth.”

  I twisted my simple gold bangle around my wrist and waited for Sam to continue. He cut the engine and let the boat drift gently in the water, but his hand still gripped the rudder. “He got the guards to do most things. It was their job to break me, I think. But the orders came from him. And he came to see me often. To check up on his guards’ good work.”

  Sam’s smile was lopsided as he spoke about his father. I stared down at my fingernails. “He’s a creative man, my father. I can’t take that away from him. All those years and he never gave up trying to get me to release my powers. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, of course. I had absolutely no clue what the fuck he wanted me to do, but why let a little fact like that ruin the fun and games, am I right?”

  My eyes stung as I heard Sam’s voice crack. He clenched his teeth together and watched the waves lapping against the side of the boat. “Mostly the other prisoners didn’t stay long in the basement cells. A couple of days, maybe a week. The guards moved them all on, one way or another.”

  I flinched, but Sam was too focused on the water to notice. “Until they arrived. A kid and a man. I knew she was like me, straight away, and that he was like the guards. I could sense the difference between the races on instinct, but I had no idea what any of it meant. Education wasn’t on my father’s list of priorities, shockingly enough. But this man was different from anyone I had ever known. The way he fought those guards to try and protect the girl . . .”

  Sam pressed his knuckles against his eyes for a minute before he began speaking again. “They put them in t
wo different cells, but we could all see each other. There were no walls, only bars. My father liked all the prisoners to be able to see everything.—liked them to know what was coming for them.” He paused for a moment and swallowed. “But the Angel never let the girl see he was scared or hurting. He just kept talking to her. Kept telling her things. Every day, giving her lessons through the bars—history, math, Latin. For months I just listened to them, refusing to interact, but over time we became something. Friends, maybe? I don’t know anymore.”

  “Was the Angel Eli and Jasmine’s uncle?” I twisted the hem of my shirt between my fingers.

  Sam nodded. “Peter, the real Uncle Peter, but I didn’t realize until I went on the Russian mission and met an old friend of Eli’s dad and uncle. He showed Eli and me a photo of their dad and uncle preparing for their first active mission. I kept staring at the photo—couldn’t believe it was him. The weight of guilt was suddenly ten times heavier. A little ace in the hole for the Elders. Maybe if you hadn’t helped me reveal my Reaping ability, the Elders would have revealed the truth themselves.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Sam spread his fingers. “To make Eli and Jasmine hate me. To turn my friends against me so I’d be alone.”

  I shook my head. “They would never hate you, Sam. Whatever happened—”

  “I let them burn.” The words exploded from Sam’s lips and cut through the air between us. His fingers tugged at his hair by the roots. “My father hadn’t visited in weeks, months even, and when he came, he was even more vicious than usual. He wanted me to reveal my power so desperately, but I wouldn’t scream. I didn’t want to frighten the girl. He caught me looking at her, and it was like a firework going off inside his brain. I could see it happening before he did.”

  Sam turned his eyes on me, and I felt as though my heart was being ripped from my chest. “I begged him, Grace. I begged him not to hurt them, but he just kept smiling. He got the guards to drag them into my cell, and he chained them to the floor. He kept saying that I could save them if I wanted to, all I had to do was use my power. I tried so hard. He broke my arm to stop me running to them, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to save them, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t even know how to release my magic. Eli’s uncle held the little girl against his chest the until their bodies had burned to ash and bone. He never let her go, Grace. He was such a good man, and she was only a kid. I let them die.”

  The boat rocked as I flung myself at Sam’s feet and grabbed his face between my hands. My throat burned as I pressed my lips against his. I couldn’t tell if I was tasting his tears or mine, but I didn’t care. I pulled away so I could see into his eyes. “What happened to those people is not your fault, Samuel. Do you hear me?”

  “And what about Eli? I should never have let him convince me to tell him why I ran away when the man showed us the photo. So fucking stupid and selfish.” Sam shoved his fists against his eyes.

  The knot in my chest was made of barbed wire. “Sam, that’s bullshit. If Eli was here, he’d tell you to stop talking crap. Eli froze that day because he thought he heard a kid that needed help. And maybe he did hear one, and maybe your story made him want to fight even harder to stop the Elders and their evil, but that’s not your fault. The blood of all those innocents is on your father’s wicked hands, not yours. And I swear to you, we’ll make him pay for the things he’s done. We’ll make sure that bastard dies roaring.”

  “Stop.” Sam held his finger against my lips and his forehead creased. “Don’t talk like that, Grace. That’s not you. Please. I don’t want my past to taint you. I don’t want to change you.”

  I kissed his finger and dragged his hand down my body until his palm covered my heart. “You’ve already changed me, Sam. I spent my whole life searching—for my history, for my family, for my magic—but none of it made me whole. You did. I hate that the darkness had a part to play in my creation. Hate it. But nobody can tell me that being the other part of your soul is a wicked thing. When your body touches mine . . . when our magic connects—”

  Sam’s hand slipped a little further down my chest and words escaped me. My head fell back as his lips caressed my skin, trailing kisses along my throat and collar bone. Our magic writhed and twisted around us, and a soft groan escaped my mouth. Sam lifted his head and stared into my eyes. “You don’t hate me? Even though you know what I did?”

  I kneeled up between Sam’s knees and pulled him into a kiss so fierce it bruised my lips. The little boat rocked wildly as he lifted me onto his lap and crushed his body against mine. For a moment, I thought the boat might capsize, but I didn’t give a damn. I wanted my kisses to tell Sam the things my heart was too shy to whisper. I didn’t hate him. I could never hate him.

  How could I hate the very best part of my soul?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Grace

  The waves lapped gently against the side of the boat as I gazed out over Clew Bay. I leaned back into Sam’s chest as he steered us back toward Dorninish. His free hand played with the end of my hair. “Grace?”

  I twisted to look into his face. “Yeah?”

  “Do you have any regrets? Anything you’d change if you had the chance?” Sam’s lips were distractingly close. He followed the line of my gaze, and his dimples deepened. “Hey, you’re supposed to be the good influence. Stop looking at me like that or we’ll never make it back for training.”

  I grinned and nestled back into his chest. “Don’t flatter yourself, Samuel Hayes, I’m all kissed out.”

  “Is that so?” Sam’s smirk told me he didn’t believe me. “In that case, distract me by answering my question, squirrel.”

  “Squirrel? That’s the worst one yet,” I said. Sam nudged me away from his chest and focused his attention on the tiller. I wrapped my arms around my body, already missing the warmth of his embrace. “Are you seriously mad because I don’t think squirrel is an awesome nickname?”

  “No.” The outboard engine shuddered under Sam’s hand. His eyes narrowed as he leaned over to examine the water. “I think it suits you though. I tell you I care about you—you smile. I tell you I love you—you kiss me or run away. I tell you I’m a murderer—you can’t even tell me one thing you regret. You want me to be an open book, but you squirrel away from every hard question I ask.”

  I chewed on the side of my thumb. “You’re not a murderer.”

  Every muscle in Sam’s torso tensed. He cut the engine and jumped into the water, tugging the boat through the shallow waves. I hopped down beside him and yelped. “Shit, the water is freezing.”

  “You didn’t have to get out.” There was no trace of Sam’s dimples as he dragged the boat past me and onto the sand. He didn’t glance in my direction as he upturned the dinghy and began covering it with old fishing nets.

  I reached down and caught the end of one of the nets. The rough weave scratched my palms as I tossed it over the boat. “It’s stupid.”

  “What?” Sam’s voice was sharp.

  I dug my bare toes into the stony wet sand. “What I wish I could change—it’s not worth talking about. I don’t have any big secrets, Sam. You’re the brooding mystery, and I’m the boring open book. You know how I feel about you—everybody does. It must be written all over my face.”

  Sam shielded his eyes from the morning sun, his mouth softening. “What do you wish you could change?”

  I wrapped the net around my hands. “I wish I could change loads of things. I wish Eve hadn’t spent her whole life looking for a daughter who was right in front of her. I wish Dawn and Ozzie were just regular kids with without any special powers that make them a target for those horrible bloody Elders. I wish I had figured out what Diamond was up to so we could have saved her. I wish Lydia and Frank hadn’t been taken to the Silent Homes. I wish I had realized Lizzie was playing us and then we wouldn’t have split the cell.”

  Both of us stared at the sand, but we didn’t mention Elijah’s name or the fact that he would probably still be alive
if the Irish cell hadn’t been divided and his team sent to Russia. Sam bent down and began to arrange rocks on the netting to weigh the boat down. “None of that stuff is your responsibility, Grace. You couldn’t have done anything to change it.”

  “That’s not how the heart works though, is it?” I nudged one of the stones with my foot. “It’s not logical. You can want something so badly that it just about tears you in two—even if you know what you want was never possible. Doesn’t stop you wishing for it.”

  Sam stared up at me in silence. I took a deep breath and covered my eyes. “My biggest regret is that I never got to dance on cars.”

  “What?” I could picture Sam’s grin from the pitch of his voice. I tried to escape Sam’s arms as he pulled me against his chest and pried my fingers away from my eyes.

  I buried my face in his shoulder. “See, I told you it was stupid and selfish.”

  “Mostly, it’s just bizarre. Then again, I was hoping for a wish that involved my naked body and warm chocolate sauce,” Sam said.

  I snickered. “Fine, I change it to that. My biggest regret is that I didn’t get to pour a jug of hot chocolate sauce over your head while you were naked.”

  “I bet you would have peeked.” Sam raised his eyebrows suggestively, and I slapped his arm. He laughed and slipped his arms around my waist. “So, dancing on cars . . .”

  My smile faded. “It’s dumb. I just wish we could have just been kids for once, you know? Gone to a party without it being a mission. Gone on a real date. Danced under the stars. I used to stand in the garden at Hidden Cottage and watch the local kids having parties on the beach. I knew my life was never going to be normal, but I just thought . . .”

  “You wouldn’t have to offer it up to save the world?” Sam’s voice was so quiet I almost didn’t catch his question. I dipped my head and stared at my feet. Sam ran his fingers along my cheek. “Maybe the prophecy isn’t about us, Gracie. Maybe Jonah’s father got it wrong?”