Soul Deep: Dark Souls, Book 2

by Anne Hope

  All eyes swiveled their way.

  “Wait a minute.” Jace’s voice cut through the deafening silence. “Are you saying Marcus’s and Regan’s lost souls are twins, and that Ben was the carrier?”

  “Of course.” Cal’s expression glimmered with understanding. “Everything makes sense now. That’s why they were so attached to the boy, so driven to protect him.” Cal frowned. “I should’ve seen it.”

  “I couldn’t allow you to,” Micah countered. “I purposely blinded you to the truth because had you seen it, you would’ve hesitated to terminate the boy. I needed you at odds with Regan and Marcus. It was the only way for them to bond.” Micah’s eyes shone with satisfaction.

  “I knew how you’d react when you saw what the boy could do,” he continued, “knew that you’d immediately assume he was the false prophet. Nearly everything was planned and anticipated, including Lillith’s escape. How do you think she got her hands on the Sacred Dagger?”

  “You took a tremendous risk,” Cal told the angel. “What if I’d succeeded in destroying Ben’s soul?”

  “I never would’ve allowed that to happen. That’s why I came to earth. To thwart your efforts.”

  “You were the dog.” A chortle of understanding rang in Jace’s throat. “The one who attacked me.”

  Micah didn’t bother to deny it. “The prostitute’s death and Kyros’s farming activities were the only two things I failed to foresee. They nearly ruined everything. That’s why Kyros had to be eliminated. He was too great a threat, and it is imperative that Marcus and Regan survive.”

  Cal’s features clouded in utter bewilderment. “Why? Why are two of my Watchers so important that you’d go through all this trouble?”

  For the first time, Micah smiled. It lit up his whole face and made him glow with celestial beauty. “Because Ben must be reborn, this time in the body originally intended for him.”

  Micah walked up to Regan, his posture straight and regal, his expression almost tender. He reached out to touch her, and she shrank away from him, repulsed by the proximity of the creature who’d led Ben to his death.

  “Don’t be afraid.” His hand glowed, and suddenly so did she. “He is not lost to you. He lives inside you now, grows within your womb.”

  Micah’s words sank in, and a tingle spread through her, starting low in her belly.

  A child. Marcus’s child.

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she did neither.

  “Ben’s frail human body was never meant to house his soul for long,” Micah said. “I’m surprised he survived this long.” He directed a pointed stare Marcus’s way. “You were so out of touch with your feelings, so determined to remain loyal to Cal, you would’ve thwarted your own destiny had I not intervened.”

  Marcus’s features grew granite-hard. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I dropped your soul mate in your lap and you failed to recognize her.” Micah shook his head, as though awed by Marcus’s ignorance. “Ben should’ve come into existence years ago. But you were too stubborn. You left me no choice. I had to use a human vessel and practically deliver your old soul to your doorstep for you to finally see the light.”

  Regan could’ve sworn Marcus flushed. Cal eyed him curiously, Jace’s brows were two questioning arches on his forehead, and Lia stood in a distant corner watching them with a knowing look on her face.

  So everyone was now aware of what Regan and Marcus had done last night. Cal had been told in no uncertain terms that two of his prized recruits had broken their blood vows—every last one of them. If this wasn’t a wish-the-ground-would-open-up-and-swallow-me moment, she didn’t know what was. Regan felt naked, stripped bare for all to see.

  Marcus cleared his throat. “There’s something I still don’t get.” The man had a knack for changing the subject when things got uncomfortable. “Why weren’t we flash-fried along with the others?”

  “Because you are the chosen.” Micah’s voice tinkled with pride, as though he’d handpicked them himself. “You all bear heaven’s mark.”

  “What mark?” Regan asked, confused.

  Marcus’s jaw tightened. Something shifted in his eyes. “The heart-shaped birthmark.”

  Regan’s hand instinctively rose to her chest, her palm settling between her breasts.

  “It may look like a heart, but it is actually the letter H in Enochian script. You all have it.” Micah pointed to Regan. “Yours is positioned where your hand now rests.” He nodded toward Marcus. “Yours in on your right shoulder blade.” He glanced at Lia. “Yours is also on your shoulder.” He turned Jace’s way.

  “Don’t look at me,” Jace interjected. “I don’t have any birthmarks.”

  An old memory blossomed in Regan’s mind—a picture of her holding her newborn son in her arms, hours before she’d handed him over to his father and never looked back. “Yes, you do.” She swallowed hard, knowing full well she was about to reveal her secret to Cal, for the first time not caring. “On the back of your skull. Your hair hides it, but when you were an infant I saw it. It’s exactly like mine.”

  Cal didn’t look as surprised as she’d expected. She met his penetrating silver stare. “Well, aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there’s nothing in this world that can shock me anymore. I learned a very long time ago that things are rarely what they appear to be. Everyone has secrets.”

  “What about you, Cal?” Marcus centered his incisive stare on his leader. “Do you have one, too?” The tension that filled the cave was thick enough to slice. “A birthmark,” he clarified.

  They all waited expectantly, but Cal had grown mute. It was Micah who finally replied. “He doesn’t have one.”

  Regan didn’t think it possible, but the hush surrounding them swelled.

  “So how’d he survive the blast?” Marcus voiced the question hovering on the tip of her tongue.

  “The same way I did.” Micah’s countenance held no guile, only truth.

  Cal’s face crumpled, and he appeared crushed beneath an unbearable weight of his own making. He closed his eyes, drew in a shaky breath, but he was unable to find his voice.

  “You’re an angel.” Regan couldn’t believe her own words.

  Marcus released a mouthful of expletives. “All this time, and I never realized—” He shook his head. “What a goddamn fool I was.”

  Micah flinched. “I would appreciate it if you refrained from swearing in my presence.”

  “And if I don’t? What the hell are you going to do about it?” He was lashing out at the angel, shooting the messenger. Regan understood his anger, his sense of betrayal. Cal was like a father to him. A father who’d shamelessly lied to him his entire life. Marcus directed an accusing stare at Jace. “You knew, didn’t you? You’ve known all along.”

  Jace looked down at his muddy boots. “I figured it out in the catacombs last summer.”

  Marcus’s attention shifted to Lia. “How ’bout you? Did you know, as well?”

  She shook her head. “My memories of that day are still blurry. I’ve had flashes, though. None of them made any sense until now.”

  Micah grinned, fanning his arms out like wings. “Well, it appears this is a night for revelations.”

  Cal stabbed the angel with a lethal glare. “I think you’ve outstayed your welcome. The Seraphim Council must be anxiously awaiting your return.”

  “And I am eager to return to the celestial realm. Earth can be such a tedious place.” He released a laborious breath. “I can’t comprehend how you’ve endured it for six millennia.”

  Something inside Regan squeezed at the wistful longing that crossed Cal’s face. “There is nothing to endure. This is my home now.”

  Micah turned to leave.

  “Wait.” Regan seized his sleeve, and he halted. “What’s going to happen to my baby?”

  “He will be special,” the angel replied. “Neither entirely human nor entirely Nephilim.”<
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  “A Hybrid, then?” Marcus came to stand beside Regan, infusing her with strength and courage even as he refrained from touching her.

  “Not exactly. He will have none of humanity’s frailties. Born with a twin soul, he will be immune to the ravaging effects of time, injury and illness. Under no circumstances are you to attempt to rid him of his soul.” This command was intended for Cal. “No battle between light and darkness will rage within him.”

  “He sounds like Jace.” Regan’s glance flitted to her son. When Jace’s gaze touched hers, she quickly averted her eyes, the memory of his earlier betrayal still a silent ache in her chest.

  If Micah noted the tension between them, he didn’t show it. “Well, they are siblings, after all. You and Marcus were not selected randomly. You, your sons and their soul mates are destined to save the world…or destroy it. The outcome will depend on the choices you all make and on Calliel’s ability to lead you.” The angel gave Cal a pointed look. “The true test lies ahead.”

  Foreboding brushed cold, silken fingers across her ribs. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “All will become clear in time.”

  The air unexpectedly sizzled. Without another word, Micah vanished, leaving a handful of sparks in his wake and Regan’s unanswered question dangling from her lips.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Marcus didn’t find Cal in his office as he’d expected. His leader stood on the cliffs instead, staring up at the brightening sky as though trying to see past the clouds into heaven itself. Yearning and regret were nothing new for Cal. Marcus had seen this very expression on his leader’s face countless times before, but only now did he fully understand it.

  “Looks like dawn came, after all.” Bridging the distance between them, he went to stand beside Cal.

  If Cal was unsettled by Marcus’s presence he gave no indication. He remained statue still, riveted by the sky’s hypnotic glow. “It appears so.”

  Anxiety pulsed through Marcus, and he drew a deep breath, hoping to settle his nerves. Ever since his old soul had become a constant presence in his life, he’d been overwhelmed by sensations he’d believed long dead. These feelings were disquieting but not entirely unpleasant. For the first time in two hundred and seventy years, Marcus felt alive. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  No explanation was needed. Cal grasped his meaning instantly. “Because I was afraid.”

  That was the last thing Marcus had expected his leader to say. “Afraid of what?”

  “Of losing your loyalty, your respect. As long as you believed me to be one of you, I had your trust. Now that you know the truth—” He faltered, his voice crushed beneath the weight of everything he feared saying.

  “Do you honestly believe I think any less of you? By God, Cal, you’re an angel. A goddamn angel.”

  “A fallen angel,” Cal corrected. “I betrayed heaven, spawned the Nephilim and nearly brought humanity to extinction. I was the one who fathered Athanatos.” His voice dropped to a whisper, made heavy by shame.

  Marcus had believed nothing else could shock him. He’d been wrong. “You were also the one who helped destroy him.”

  Cal’s hands fisted as his sides. “Perhaps, but is that enough? Can one truly ever undo the wrong he’s caused?”

  Marcus’s own demons returned to pummel him. “I hope so. Sometimes striving to fix our mistakes is the only thing that keeps us going.”

  Looking at his leader now, Marcus saw a reflection of himself. Just as Marcus fought to redeem himself and atone for his sins, so did Cal. Marcus had caused the death of many, and that vile truth ate away at him each and every day. How did Cal feel? His actions had nearly obliterated an entire world. That knowledge, that kind of guilt would’ve paralyzed a lesser man.

  Marcus shifted his weight, dug his heels into the softened earth, bracing himself for the subject he’d come here to broach. “About what happened, with Regan and Ben—” Words failed him. He couldn’t really say he was sorry, because he wasn’t. Loving Regan, getting to know his future son, how could a guy regret something like that?

  “You don’t need to explain. You were protecting your soul.” Cal finally angled a silver glance his way. “In truth, I should be thanking you. You saved me from making an unforgivable mistake.”

  Cal was letting him off the hook easy, and Marcus was grateful for it. But there was still one thing that needed to be said. “I love her.” The admission feathered over them, riding the breeze like a sigh. “I can’t give her up. I won’t. Not even for you.”

  Cal glanced down at his ring. His thumb and index finger twisted the ancient silver band, and a mournful longing filled his eyes, even more powerful than the one that always claimed his features when he gazed at the heavens. “I’d be a fool to ask you to.”

  Now that he’d divulged his feelings for Regan, Marcus felt light, euphoric. He’d been given a second chance with the woman he loved, and he had every intention of making the most of it.

  Assuming they could keep the world from collapsing around them.

  “What do you think Micah meant when he said, ‘The true test lies ahead’?”

  “What a test usually implies—pain and sacrifice. The Seraphim Council isn’t done with us yet. Not even close.”

  Marcus didn’t like the sound of that. He’d had enough encounters with angels to last him several lifetimes. “Micah said there were four sacred souls, but he only mentioned three. Who do you think the fourth belongs to? And what happened to the one Jace released when he killed Athanatos?”

  Cal lowered his gaze to the clamoring sea. “They’re both out there somewhere, waiting to reveal themselves to us.” Hope lit his face, tempered by a flicker of dread. “And once they do, we’ll have some very difficult choices to make.”

  Regan entered Marcus’s room at the complex, swallowing her disappointment when she found it empty. They had a couple of things to clear up, and she couldn’t wait another moment to speak to him. Her heart felt heavy, her emotions a nasty tangle in her gut. The sun had risen a few minutes ago, and soft gray light spilled through the window to streak the concrete floor.

  The air smelled of him, that musky scent of nature and man that was uniquely his. She inhaled deeply, desperate to pull that familiar fragrance into her lungs and keep it trapped there forever. Whatever Kyros had done to her in that cave had triggered a flood of memories. The funny part was that those memories weren’t of her current life but of her past one. The life she’d shared with Marcus back in the eighteenth century.

  She remembered what it had felt like to be his wife, to belong to him, to wake up every morning with his arms fastened around her. She wanted to experience that again. She wanted the intimacy, the warmth and the passion, the absolute certainty that he was hers and hers alone.

  But this was a different reality than the one they’d known before. They were soldiers, caught in a never-ending war. The fate of the world rested on their shoulders. And yet despite the crucial role she was destined to play, she longed only to be a woman, a wife and a mother.

  Was that horrible of her?

  Something rustled behind her, and she spun on her heels, holding her breath in anticipation. But it wasn’t Marcus who strolled in; it was Jace.

  “How are you holding up?” His concern was as genuine as his reticence. She hated the wall that now divided them, the ever-present tension that loomed between them.

  “I’m hanging in there. It feels good to be back home, but everything’s different now.”

  “I bet.” He stared at the wall behind her to avoid looking at her face. “I’m glad you came out of this in one piece.”

  “Thanks to you. The Watchers would’ve killed me if you hadn’t stepped in.” And then she wouldn’t have been able to help Marcus heal, to save Ben’s soul by sheltering it in her womb.

  Jace’s stunned gaze finally connected with hers. “I thought you were pissed as hell about that.”

  “Oh, I am. You had no right to mess with my head.”
It would be a while before she fully trusted him again. That being said, he was still her son, and a mother’s love was unconditional. “But I understand why you did it. If the situation were reversed, I would’ve done anything to save you, too.”

  He gave her a sheepish smile. “You already did, when you threatened to turn me over to Cal unless I did what you wanted.” Last summer, when Jace had been hell-bent on going after Athanatos alone, she’d pulled every trick in the book to get him to work with the Watchers, including threatening him and using Lia to manipulate him. How was that any different from what he’d done to her?

  His glance fell to her belly. “I can’t believe I’m going to be an older brother.”

  She ran a loving palm over her abdomen, where Ben’s essence hummed. “I can’t believe I’ve been given a second chance to be a mother.”

  “He’s lucky to have you.” His voice thickened, his spring-colored eyes glinting in the sunlight.

  She read the regret on his face, and her stomach wrapped itself into a tight little ball. She never should’ve given Jace away. She should’ve kept him, raised him here at the complex as Cal had instructed. But she’d been too afraid of what would happen to him, had wanted him to experience humanity for as long as he possibly could, and that had cost her thirty-two years with her firstborn son.

  “He’s going to need you, too,” she told him. She’d seen the way Ben had bonded with Adrian. There was no reason he couldn’t enjoy a similar relationship with Jace.

  Small crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes, a lopsided grin tugging at his mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The door swung open again. Regan’s heartbeat spiked, then stopped altogether. Marcus’s tall body filled the doorframe, stealing every last puff of air from the room.

  Jace tossed a glance over his shoulder, acknowledged Marcus with a brisk nod. “Guess I’d better go get some shut-eye. It’s been one hell of a night.” None of them had gotten any sleep in over twenty-four hours, and the effects were starting to show.

  Jace squeezed past Marcus, who took a few tentative steps into the room. Her son stopped at the door, long enough to fling a warning at Marcus. “If you hurt her, I’ll make sure you get the irresistible urge to take a nice long swim in the Pacific. Got it?”