Nerissa had begun to waver, and then she stiffened. “You deserve to be punished.”
“Why? Is what I did so wrong? Can’t you understand the reasons?”
“Kristair was lonely for a very long time after you left,” Jacob said, very softly.
“If he’d stayed with us, he never would’ve been lonely again,” Nerissa raged, glaring at my lover. “But he had to have you.”
“Nerissa,” I said to draw her attention back to me. “Do you need to know that we’ve been hurt, that we’ve been punished?” Before she could reply, I delved into my memories and let her feel my anguish over knowing I’d hurt my daughter, how I’d almost killed her. I gave her my despair and sense of betrayal when I realized that she had been behind all the madness.
Jacob ached for me and reached past Nerissa to cup my cheek, caressing me with a thought. Nerissa tried to pull back her mind from the both of us, confusion and longing driving back some of her rage. I followed, refusing to release her. I was so close.
“Yield, Nerissa. This is against everything you believe in, and only you can make it right.”
Nerissa stood up, and this time I let her go, though it was very difficult to do so. I wanted to go after her, make her see. Instead, I used that drive to push back my frustration and helplessness. I couldn’t set her off at this point, and my instincts said it was time to back off and let her think. She had to do this of her own free will.
“You violated me.”
Jacob stiffened next to me, and I laid a mental finger against his lips. “I did and I’m sorry that I had to do so. I never wanted to do that to you, but what you were doing was dangerous, not just to me. The Ascended needed to see what you were hiding.” I rose, letting her feel my grief over that act. “And I’ll carry my guilt with me the rest of my life.”
Nerissa turned back toward us, a strange smile playing on her lips. “You will, won’t you?” she laughed softly. “I think I like the sound of that, Kristair.”
Once again, Jacob bristled, and this time I took his hand. “Don’t.”
“She’s about to fuck you over and you’re about to take it,” he growled.
“Have faith in me.”
Nerissa’s gaze flashed to Jacob, and I was booted from her mind as her calm wall came back up again. “Fine, I’ll return things the way they were.”
I rose, took her hands, and raised them to my lips. “You’ll submit to the will of the Ascended?”
“Always such a stickler for nuance.” Nerissa patted my cheek. “If it will ease your mind, then yes.” She pulled one hand free and reached out to Jacob. “Come, take my hand. We wouldn’t want you to get lost, now would we?” she said with a kind of imperious malice.
Jacob rose, coming to my side, uncertainty and suspicion uppermost in his mind as his eyes narrowed on Nerissa. “Kristair?”
“All will be well. After all, Nerissa has us in her hands.” I inclined my head ever so slightly in Nerissa’s direction as my lover sputtered. “Take her hand, Jacob.”
Jacob didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to for me to know just what he thought of that. He grabbed both of our hands, glaring hard at Nerissa. He was going to have words with me when this was all over with, of that I had no doubt.
Nerissa started to concentrate and then paused, giving me a direct look. “You haven’t said thank you.”
“How discourteous of me. Thank you, Mistress.” I gave Jacob a quick mental poke, a silent plea as he seethed.
“Thank you,” he muttered, between clenched teeth.
Nerissa smiled brilliantly. Behind the momentary crack in her façade, I sensed her pleasure and knew my instincts had been right. The locker room flashed around us, and then we were among the Ascended again. Much to my relief, the mood had changed considerably, and all of the Ascended were arrayed together, lined up to face us, their auras solemn.
“If you ever, and I fucking mean ever…” Steve said, moving quickly to our side.
“Yeah, I missed you too.” Jacob yanked his hands free of us. “Are you done playing games, Kristair?” he said acidly in my thoughts.
“If the gamble works, are you still going to be mad at me?”
“I hate it when you know something I don’t.”
I stretched out my senses, touching the edge of the Ascended’s awareness, striving to get some sense of where their loyalties lay, and I couldn’t get anything, not even from Tony. I pulled back, striving for patience in the face of my uncertainty. I’d broken rules myself in the last twenty-four hours, and when this was over with, I wanted to be able to go back to the life I’d chosen.
“Nerissa, release the girl,” the Ascended said, once again as one voice. That, at least, I could really be thankful for.
Steve stepped forward in the long pause and caught Kayla’s body as she jerked. I wanted to be the one to catch her, but it was no longer my prerogative to be the first one to look after Kayla. She had chosen Steve. I took Jacob’s hand again, willing patience as Kayla’s face emerged and her eyes opened. I saw how tenderly Steve held her and finally accepted that my daughter had chosen well.
Nerissa appeared to the side, separate from both us and the Ascended. “Thank you,” the Ascended murmured, and she nodded her head regally, a pleased smile flickering across her face. She truly was insane. I had kept saying it, and now I really did believe it to be true.
“What happened?” Kayla gasped, looking around wildly. “Where? What? Oh god, Father… Jake.” She threw her arms around Steve and hugged him tight as he buried his hand in her hair and held her close, murmuring softly.
“You were right,” Jacob said in disbelief. “You were fucking right about it all. Everything you told Nerissa. You smug, over-brained son of a bitch. Now what are we going to do? They’re all going to be up Nerissa’s ass now that they’re one big happy family again.”
“Would you like to know what I know?” I said, somehow managing to keep a smile from my lips.
“If you could bring yourself down to my level and enlighten me, yeah, I’d fucking like to know.”
“The Ascended had already healed their rift and banded together before Nerissa returned.”
The disbelief on Jacob’s face would’ve been more satisfactory if I didn’t still have lingering worries. Then Kayla stepped back and hurled herself into my arms before tugging Jacob to us and giving him a fierce hug too. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve listened and stayed away.”
“Hey, don’t go blaming yourself,” Jacob said, squeezing his arms around her waist and picking her up. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut and never contacted you guys in the first place.”
Steve joined our little circle, looking over his shoulder uneasily at the Ascended and Nerissa. “So what now?”
“Kristair was about to fill me in, but he’s taking his sweet time about it.” Jacob glared at me. “And I for one can’t tell if she’s still a threat or not. So will you please tell me how you know that the Ascended already kissed and made up and what that means to us if you have all the damn answers?”
“Wait a minute,” Steve cut in. “How the hell did you know that? That happened after you all blinked out.”
I glanced over at Nerissa, who was watching us, a strange, almost yearning expression on her face, which disappeared as soon as she noticed me looking. “I’ll explain it all later. I suspect the Ascended want to get this over with and get rid of us as soon as possible.”
“Nerissa, there is something you wish to say to us?” the Ascended asked.
“Yes.” She turned, bowed low, and then straightened, confidence ringing in her voice. “I erred. I see that now. The only thing I have to offer in my defense is that I believe when the Exile was among us, still connected to his too-human lover, that their emotional state infected me. I was too close to him and unknowingly let him influence me.”
“What?” Jacob stepped forward, and as much as he tried to clamp down on his seething fury, I sensed it, which meant the Ascended could too. I hauled him ba
ck next to me, trying to touch him on as many different levels as I could so soothe him.
“We’ll get our chance to talk.”
“Is that all you have to say?” the Ascended asked, the bulk of their attention on Nerissa. I’d have felt much more certain if I could have got an inkling of which way they would go. Even though the threat of imminent war was gone between them, there was so much at stake for me and Jacob personally, and I could not fully relax.
“It is. I repent the damage that I have done. In my arrogance, I reached beyond barriers that should have been left alone. It will not happen again. I submit to you, my brethren, and I accept whatever punishment you deem fit for my errors in judgment. However, I would like to point out that my surrender did bring about good for us all.”
“Wow,” Steve said under his breath. “That woman’s got a lot of pride. She’s not really giving an inch. Damn, you almost gotta hand it to her.”
Kayla shot a glare at him, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Humility does not run in her bloodline,” I said. Steve met my eyes and smiled in return.
“It is true, your actions tore us apart, as you admitted to the Exile when you went back in time.” There it was, the first flutter of unease on Nerissa’s face, the first crack in her false calm. She hadn’t been aware of their presence, and she should have been. “You violated our most sacred law when you attempted to change time, intending on ending Jacob Corvin’s existence. That gross violation of what we believe in forced us to see what was happening, so in a sense, you could say you brought us together again.”
Nerissa spun about to face me. “You knew,” she whispered in my mind. “But you said….”
“The Exile manipulated you as you attempted to manipulate him. And the both of you are trying to use us for your own ends,” the Ascended continued.
“What you say is true,” I said, unable to leave that without a response. “But I cannot do what you can. I cannot control Nerissa and keep her from causing more damage, only you can do that. It is not my place to judge or punish her for her crimes. I sought only to return her to you before she could cause further harm.” I opened my mind to them, squelching my need for privacy. The only way they’d believe my sincerity was if I showed them I had nothing to hide.
I sensed them touch my mind, shifting through my thoughts and motivations. Jacob stiffened as they did the same to him. I sensed similar reactions from Kayla and Steve, but none of them offered a protest. Then the Ascended turned their attention back on Nerissa.
She stood proud and alone. She still couldn’t see what was about to happen, and in that moment, I pitied her.
“You still attempt to hide from us, Nerissa. The Exile has told us what he seeks from us. To control you, so both the world and those he values are safe. He has opened his mind to us, as have his companions. They do not seek glory or praise, they simply wish to go home and be left in peace.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and tightened my arm around Jacob’s shoulders. “Does that mean they’re going to grant it?” he asked.
“I hope so, mo chroí, I hope so.”
“You have closed yourself off from us to a degree that you have unwittingly limited yourself and dulled your senses. Yet we can still read you because of the Exile’s actions before you went back in time. You are not apologetic, Nerissa. Your humble guise does not fool us. You seek to hide among us until you can retaliate again and we cannot allow that to happen. You tried to alter time once and we sense that you wouldn’t hesitate to try a similar tactic again. You are the true Aberration.”
“Wait, what about Kristair’s crimes? He was supposed to have given up his abilities so he could be human. Isn’t that the reason why we allowed him to remain with his lover?”
“Even now you delude yourself. We did not allow him to be human. The Exile made that choice himself and, once made, it could not be unmade. He may have shown some minor abilities, but nothing compared to what he used to be able to do. Even contacting us before caused him pain. What little abilities he’s shown have been unreliable and not even as strong as when he was a vampire. No, he did not renege on his vow to be human. He couldn’t hold such power for centuries and have nothing at all when he gave them up for Jacob, but what little he did have he still kept locked up until he realized who he was dealing with. Whether or not he uses them from now on is of little concern to us as long as he vows never to try to merge his mind with us again.”
“I do make that vow,” I said. “Gladly.”
“Remember when I said that I wanted to be there when you were wrong?” Jacob said, his mind exultant.
“I do.”
“Hah! I was right and you were so wrong.” Jacob grinned at me and kissed me hard on the mouth despite our audience, and Kayla stifled a laugh.
“Jacob.”
“Don’t, just let me gloat for a minute. I deserve it after the hell you’ve put me through this last hour. I told you the Ascended wouldn’t care what you did.”
One clearly had though, and I looked back at Nerissa as her eyes bore into me. It was over. I should have been rejoicing, but instead I felt weary. I just wanted to go home with Jacob, Kayla, and Steve. I just wanted to assure Ussier that his city and people were no longer in any danger from Nerissa.
“Then you’re sending us back?” Steve asked.
“Not just yet. You must witness the judgment imposed upon Nerissa, the Exile, and Jacob.”
“What?” Kayla gasped. “No, wait, they didn’t do anything. You just said so yourself.”
Shock rippled through Jacob, and I attempted to ease his fears through my own worries. What had we done? What had Jacob done? He was blameless in all of this.
“No!” Nerissa snarled. Energy swirled around her as she attempted to break free, and she screamed when it was thwarted. “You can’t do this to me.”
“You’ve given us no choice, Nerissa.” I stepped forward as she screamed again, a glow surrounding her, and when it was gone, she laid there before them, a squirming infant.
“Oh damn,” Jacob said under his breath. “They rebooted her.”
I shot him a confused glance as Kayla stifled another giggle, this one with a slightly hysterical edge. “Exile.” I stiffened, tearing my eyes away from the baby’s chubby, kicking legs. She seemed somewhat older than a newborn, though I wasn’t in much of a position to judge. It had been a long time since I’d seen any young child.
“She is helpless,” I said, glaring at the Ascended. “Are you going to care for her? How long will she remain like this?”
“Don’t you think your sense of outrage is a little misplaced, love?” Jacob said, though I could sense he was also taken aback by her sentence.
Tony emerged from the Ascended and reached down to pick up Nerissa. “She can no longer remain with us, Kristair. She is no longer Ascended. She chose to remove herself from our ranks as you did. We don’t kill. By returning her to this state, we’ve removed her threat.”
“And left her completely unable to take care of herself.”
“That is now your job. Yours and Jacob’s. The Ascended feel that the task should be given to you. They have deemed that Nerissa was right, you were the original cause of the problem, and Jacob had caused the first rip in time when he’d rendered his earlier self unconscious.”
Tony handed Nerissa to me, and I held her up under her arms away from me, terror making my heart race. She was so tiny. What if I broke her? I glanced wildly over my shoulder at Jacob as he came up alongside me. He looked both incredulous and awed. “Kristair, I don’t think we should argue with them, not after what they just did to her.”
“Though it is my thought that it is because of you both that the rip in time is now fixed.” Tony studied the both of us. “I also think that you are all that she has left. If there is anyone who can care for her, it is you two. She’ll never be a completely normal child, just as you’ll never be completely normal yourselves. Who better to raise her again? There are bonds there that you cannot deny.�
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I looked into Nerissa’s eyes, at the world of lost confusion and fear in them, and knew I couldn’t say no. “Jacob?”
“For god’s sake, Kristair, she’s not going to shatter.” Jacob plucked Nerissa from my hands and tucked her in the crook of his arm. She looked oddly natural there, and an expression of amused resignation crossed his face as his thoughts whirled and scattered. And as he looked down at the baby, I sensed his surrender. “Ma is going to kill me. We haven’t gotten married yet.”
I glanced over at Kayla, who had her arms crossed, a stony expression on her face. “Kayla?” She had been affected by Nerissa’s betrayal as much as I had, and I could not ignore her feelings on the matter.
The silence stretched out, and then Steve leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Oh fine, just don’t expect me to be a doting big sister right away, got it?” Kayla came over and looked down at Nerissa, cuddled against Jacob’s chest. “Just so you know, I’m keeping my eye on you.”
Nerissa waved a fat little hand and broke out into a burbling laugh, her eyes brightening. “You go, Kayla. You’ve got her shaking in her booties,” Jacob teased.
Chapter 33
IT WAS over with.
Tony brought us all back to the cabin to grab our things. After lengthy goodbyes, he returned Kayla and Steve to Baltimore, then Kristair, me, and the baby back home to Pittsburgh. He promised to check in on us from time to time; as much as the Ascended wanted to stay distant from all of us, they also wanted to keep an eye on Nerissa, and Tony was their obvious spokesperson.
It was good to know that I wouldn’t have to lose all contact with him.
And I couldn’t blame Kayla and Steve for bailing early. This new situation was going to take some time to get used to. Probably a couple years at least. I stood in the doorway of our living room, nursing a beer, and watched Kristair nap on the couch. The baby lay on his chest, and every time he snored, her head popped up, and she looked around before laying her head back down with a yawn.
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