“Nain.”
“Molls—”
“Do it.”
He blew out a breath, and I felt him changing beneath me, muscles growing bulkier, broader. His flesh changed, growing dark reddish-black as I watched. His eyes glowed, and my gaze shot to the sides of his head.
The horns, the ones that hadn’t existed before the previous day, were just as large as Volodhal’s now, curling like those of a ram.
That’s not all, Nain said in my mind. I looked at him questioningly, and he grimaced, showing me his teeth.
Black, razor-sharp. Just like Volodhal’s.
You’re one of them, I said in his mind. Volodhal pretty much said it when I was meeting with him.
How is this possible?
I shook my head. We need to talk to him. You need to know.
I need to talk to him. I want you around him as little as possible.
I have no problem resisting him, Nain.
You don’t. But I can feel you, baby. No matter what your mind says, your body wants him. I can feel the way you yearn for him…
I don’t. I don’t know what this is that happens when he’s around me, but it is not me yearning for him. My heart belongs to you.
I know. But something in you is drawn to him.
I couldn’t argue the fact, so I didn’t. I raised my hands and gently traced the ridged curve of his horns, and Nain blew out a shaky breath.
“You can feel that?” I asked him, tracing them again.
“Yes.”
I started to pull my hands away, and he shook his head. “Don’t stop,” he said hoarsely. “Is this what it’s like when I touch your wings?”
I let my fingertips learn the texture, the feel of this new extension of my husband. “Maybe,” I said. “Okay, probably definitely,” I amended as I felt his erection swell beneath me.
“Why is this happening now?” he asked, and I leaned forward and kissed the curve of one horn.
“Go talk to Volodhal,” I said. “The sooner we understand this, the better.”
He nodded and pressed a firm kiss to my lips, then stood up and marched into the small bathroom attached to our room. I sat on the bed and waited, and when he came out, he looked human again. He came to me, kissed me one more time, and then walked out. I heard a guard enter the room, and then the door closing.
As much as I wanted to be there, I knew two things. I knew that it stressed Nain out when I was around Volodhal, for obvious reasons. And I knew, somehow, that Volodhal wouldn’t hurt him.
Of course, if I was wrong about that, no amount of freaky technology would keep me from destroying Volodhal and everyone around him.
It will not come to that, My Prison, Nether whispered.
How do you know? I asked her.
She didn’t answer, and I assumed she’d gone back to sleep. I sat there in a room I had no desire to be in, and was hit with such a pang of yearning, of wanting, not for my husband, but for the alien, demonic creature who held me prisoner. I shook my head and got up, pacing our room.
If the Asgardians were in my world, my kids and everyone else I cared about was in danger. Not to mention the rest of the world, which I’d promised to protect. And I was sitting here. They could be burning the entire thing to the ground. Who knew how many were dead?
And yet… I knew that hadn’t happened yet. Even here, I was able to feel each time someone died in my realm, that same need to obtain their soul just as strong as it always was. That, at least was some relief; there were no more souls calling to me than there were on any other day, and the Guardians were still collecting them. I could feel that, too, as if, when the Guardians had custody of them, I could relax a little more, the spiritual accounting that happens constantly, every moment of my life, satisfied at least for the moment. As long as life and death went on the way it should, I could feel confident that the Asgardians weren’t laying waste to my world.
But it would be stupid to think everything would stay this way. I needed to get home. I grimaced. Or, barring that, I needed to get Nain, E, Heph, and the others home. My world needed them.
Ideally, I’d be able to convince Volodhal to let me go. I was convinced that we needed to be allies, if what he said about the Asgardians was true.
He is not lying, My Prison, Nether said.
I thought you were sleeping.
I rarely sleep lately, she answered. Too restless.
Well. That would explain at least a little of my own edginess. This is all totally crazy, I said.
It is. He does not lie about Nyx, or the Asgardians, or the fact that the Asgardians, Odin in particular, will see your world in ruins.
Do you know him? Odin? I asked with some surprise.
A bit. Before Nyx closed the worlds off, he visited the human realm.
After you became the Nether, or before? I asked. Nether had a very long and complicated history. She’d fallen in love, and she and her beloved, Aether, essentially created the cosmos with the strength of their fighting. She’d injured Aether, and Nyx, who loved Aether more than anything else she’d made, punished Nether by making her power the Old Nether. She was both prisoner and prison, until I’d unknowingly freed her by inviting her into my soul or life force or whatever it is I have. Now I’m her prison, and she gives me extra power when I need it. Either way, Nether is someone who knows things, and I often forget just how much she knows.
After, she answered. He visited the human realm, as well as the Aether and Nether… Nyx told him the whole story of our creation. He knew too much of our world, she added mournfully.
You think we’re right? That he snuck in through the Old Nether?
Yes. It is the type of thing he would do. He is cunning and full of rage. Even more full of rage than you, My Prison.
That’s a lot, I answered, joking with her.
You will need this partnership if your realm is to be saved, My Prison. Mollis, she added, and I closed my eyes. She rarely used my name. And yet, alongside her words, there was such a longing. Need. Sadness.
I can’t bond him, Nether, I told her gently. Besides, you like Nain.
She didn’t answer. I waited, and waited, and she didn’t bother to speak to me again. I knew she wasn’t sleeping. But I also knew that trying to make Nether do something she didn’t want to do would only drive me crazy.
I looked at the closed door of the room I was sharing with Nain. I could go out and check in with the rest of my friends, but I didn’t want to. I hated the way I’d felt since we’d entered the Volod homeworld, a sense of unease and dissatisfaction that had only increased the longer we’d been here. The only thing that made it better was Nain, and who knew when he’d be back?
I should have gone with him, I thought sleepily as I curled up on my side. I closed my eyes, focused on breathing in and out. I tried not to think about Nether. She’d been occasionally problematic over the last few years. Every once in a while, she’d have an episode during which she’d forget how much she hated freedom, and she’d fight me for control. I always won, but barely, and it exhausted me for days afterward.
Nain? Is everything all right? I thought at him.
Fine, baby, he answered immediately. We’re just talking. Sleep. We’re good.
Love you, I thought at him.
Love you more. Sleep.
I smiled to myself. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the bond I have with my mate is my lifeline. I’ve had it, and lost it, and was lucky enough to be able to get it back. There is nothing like knowing that he sees everything in me, all of the bullshit, all of the darkness and insecurities, and loves me anyway.
I spent the first twenty-six years of my life feeling invisible, crazy, or lost. Often, all three. The concept of being loved never even entered my mind once I passed the age of six or so. By then, I’d been in too many foster homes already, and it was clear that there was something wrong with me, something unlovable, something that kept people at a distance.
Until Nain. We’d already saved our city and our
world so many times together. I’d thought the days of fighting for survival were gone, but it looked like we’d be at it at least one more time.
Which was terrifying. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that facing Odin in a fight didn’t excite me. He was scary? Well, I thrive on scary.
I fell asleep and dreamed of war.
I woke later to the feel of the mattress dipping under Nain’s weight, his hand on my hip.
“How did it go?” I asked him. He pulled me close to him, his arms tight around my body.
“He’s letting everyone else go home,” Nain said. “He understands that they need to get ready to defend our world.”
“Everyone else?” I asked quietly.
“Not you, for obvious reasons,” he said in a low growl.
I turned to him, put my hands on the sides of his face. The room was dark, but I didn’t need to see. His comforting, muscular bulk, the scent of him, like soap and sunshine, the sound of his voice, the sensation of his emotions swirling around me.
“You know I won’t give him what he wants,” I murmured.
“I know,” Nain said. “He tried to make me feel better by assuring me it wasn’t a sexual thing, but I still wanted to kill him. I told him you won’t agree—”
“I don’t care about any of that right now. He’s letting you all go home! That’s an amazing start. Did you tell them yet?”
“I wanted to tell you first. And I’m not going home,” he said.
“Nain, they need you. I need to know our kids are safe and the only way I’ll be sure is if you’re—”
“I can’t, Molls,” he said. “It’s not even a choice. I kind of wondered about the way Volodhal handled shit, sending those little things after you, you know?”
“Yeah. I just figured he thought that chasing me down was beneath him or something.”
“That’s what I thought at first, too, but the more we’ve gotten to know him…”
“Yeah. He’d totally want to do it himself,” I agreed. “So, why didn’t he?”
“The Volod can’t get through the breach yet. It’s not weak enough or big enough or whatever. So they send the scouts through.”
I stayed silent for a while, putting it all together. “And you have to stay because you’re Volod, so you can’t get back through again,” I said quietly.
“Right.”
I held him tighter. I hated the confusion and sense of loss I felt from him. It’s not so much that he loved being a demon, especially. I mean, there was always that, that we were two creatures of the Nether, the kind of beings who thrive on rage and violence. It was more that he felt like he’d lived a lie.
“You’re still you, Bael,” I said quietly, using his true name, the one that only I knew. A demon’s true name was a source of power, but now I wondered if it meant anything at all. “Did he tell you anything useful?”
He held me tighter. “I’m not who I thought I was.”
I closed my eyes. I had an inkling of what he was going through. I’d spent my whole life sure I was a telepath/empath, but nothing more. And then Nain showed up in my life, and the assumption we’d made was that his demon called to mine, made me push past my own limitations.
And then, I’d found out more. That I was the daughter of a Fury, the child of immortals, hidden on Earth to protect not just me, but the immortals as well. There’s nothing quite like being sure you’re one thing, and then being told you’re something completely different.
I thought it all over. “The way I responded to you… we were sure that was because of the whole ‘creatures of the Nether’ thing,” I said.
“Yeah. We were wrong,” Nain answered, and the emptiness in his voice nearly undid me. “We saw what we wanted to see, baby.”
I found the hem of his shirt and slipped my hands beneath it, needing to feel more of his cool, muscled flesh, needing my skin against his. “Nyx created both worlds, Nain. Her essence, the life force that flows through me, flows through the Volod, too. And when it all comes down to it, we were never really about demon or Nether shit, anyway.”
“No?”
“No. We were always about us. About understanding the rage we both carry. The desperation, the insane need to prove ourselves, to fight what we thought we were. And whether you’re a demon or a Volod or whatever… our bond is as strong as it ever was.”
I felt some of the tension leave him, and I smiled. “Our bond is ours. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and whether I’m a human and you’re a demon, or I’m a goddess and you’re an alien demon…. thingie—”
Nain laughed and held me closer.
“— Whatever we are,” I went on. “We’re each other’s. That’s all that matters.”
I heard him sigh, and then he rested his chin on the top of my head, his hand gently massaging my hip. I ran my hands up and down his back, felt the rest of the tension slowly slip away.
“Either way,” he finally said, “I can’t go home.”
“We both know you wouldn’t have anyway. Not if I had to stay.” I thought for a moment. “We’ll get you home. Whatever Volodhal thinks he feels for me, I know the real reason he wants me here.”
Nain didn’t answer for a moment. “He wants to force an alliance,” he said after a while.
“He does, but he doesn’t need to force one. Nether knew Odin—”
“What?” he asked.
“She met him. Nyx brought him to the Nether, after Nether was imprisoned there.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. She says he’s every bit as vile as Volodhal says he is. We won’t get out of this individually. But we can work together, at least for now… maybe we’ll have a chance to get through this. And to get through this, we need to be able to travel between our realm and Volodhal’s.”
It only took him a moment to get it. “He wants you to widen the breach, make it weak enough for his people to get through.”
“Exactly. I mean… that makes sense, right?” I asked.
Nain sat up. “Yeah, it does.” He turned to me, and I could just see his eyes in the dim light of our room. “Are you going to do it?”
“It’s going to get you home,” I said.
“And let a possible hostile army into our world,” he pointed out. “One with tech that can kill you. And that would be after you tell him you’re absolutely fucking not bonding with him.”
I grimaced. “Point taken. But I’m not leaving you here.”
“I’m safe enough. The priority is getting you back to our world.”
“But—”
“I’m the son of his best friend. Apparently, some of the Volod went to the human realm and started living there before Nyx created the barriers between worlds. Not many. But my father was one of them.”
“Then how did you come to be raised by demons?” I asked. Nain had told me about his father and mother, and about how hard it was for demon kids to survive to adulthood.
He shrugged. “My guess? The Volod were killed and I was found somewhere. Or my mother was actually Volod… I don’t remember much of her. What I do remember, she seemed like a demon, but that’s not saying much.”
“So how did Volodhal know you were his friend’s son?”
“He said I look just like him,” he said quietly. “He said his friend was a good warrior. Brave, honest… and here I’ve spent my entire existence thinking I was the child of some piece of shit abusive demon, trying to pull myself up, make myself better.” I felt him shake his head.
“You still had to. You were raised to be a demon. You did what demons do,” I reminded him.
“I never should have wanted to do any of it. I asked him…Volodhal. He said the Volod aren’t called to violence, that they don’t get off on causing pain and destruction. So what does that say about me?”
“That you’re you. That you did what you were raised to do, and you chose a different path. That deep inside, you lust after danger and violence, not because of what you are, but because of who you are. You’re st
ill you,” I repeated.
“I am. Except that, being who I am, what I am, Volodhal wants me to be one of his commanders. Me, Nammov, and a few others.”
“Well, that’s too bad, it’s not like you’re—”
“Molls. I accepted,” he said quietly.
Chapter Seventeen
I stared at Nain in dumbfounded silence, and he didn’t look away. I pushed his hands away from me and got off of the bed.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To tell them they can leave. The sooner they’re back home, the better.” I stopped with my hand on the panel that would allow us to open and close our bedroom door. “Plus I want them gone before I start screaming at you for being an asshole.”
“We both know that’ll just end in you screaming for me.”
“Not this time,” I muttered. I pressed the panel and walked through the door when it opened. The rest of our friends were gathered in the sitting area, and they all looked expectantly at me when I entered. Even Hades, who stood apart from the rest of the group, his arms crossed over his chest.
Fuck. I couldn’t let him go home. Who knew what kind of bullshit he’d try to pull if I wasn’t there to assert my authority over the Netherwoods?
“There’s been a lot of back and forth, queenie,” Heph said, and I nodded.
“Volodhal’s letting you go home,” I said. “Not you,” I said to Hades.
“He knows true power when he sees it,” Hades said smugly, and I barely suppressed an eyeroll.
“Yeah that must be it,” I said. “Things are likely to get bad. I’m going to try to get home as soon as I can, but he’s not letting me leave yet. I need to see what I can do from here.”
“Tell us, demon girl,” E said, and I did. I laid it all out: the Asgardians, the Volod, Nyx… Nain. I told them what I thought Volodhal wanted me to do, and assured them that we knew it was a bad idea.
“I need time to figure this all out. I need to make Volodhal understand that we don’t have to be bonded to have an alliance that will work. I need to make him trust me. Nain can help with that, I guess,” I said, furrowing my brow. “But I need you guys to go home. I need you to prepare for the worst,” I added quietly.
Godkiller (Hidden: Godkiller Saga Book 1) Page 16
