“I can feel your disapproval. You’ve been standing there in the shadows staring at me like I’m some kind of monster.”
“I’m watching you change before my eyes into something I’ve seen before. I can see the anger in your eyes.” His aura sliced the air around him. “You don’t know how the gods work. Their vengeance knows no bounds, and they exert their wrath on one generation after another.”
Okay. He’s lost me. “What are you talking about?”
“The gods don’t forgive the sins of the father. And they punish us by dooming us to repeat their sins. You can’t fight fate. And now, when I look into your eyes, I see your parents.”
His words hit her like a blow to her chest, and she tightened her grip on the throne’s armrests. “You think that everyone is destined to fulfill a tragic destiny, just because you did something terrible? You’re certain that you’re cursed. And you want to want to drag the rest of us down into hell with you, don’t you? Then maybe your despair won’t be quite so lonely.”
A heavy silence fell, and the lights in the hall seemed to wane and flicker.
When Caine walked away, an icy chill washed over her body, until another aura began snaking over her skin.
She looked up into Ambrose’s emerald eyes.
Intrigued, she leaned forward, blinking the tears from her eyes. “So what would you like to be?”
“An incubus.”
Chapter 24
Dizzy, Rosalind threw herself on her bed, her boots hanging over the edge. She’d spent the past several days converting vampires into Lilinor’s new army. And that meant days of reliving Azazeyl’s torment, falling to earth over and over with leaden wings, her mind fracturing in seven pieces that could never reunite.
Now, nausea climbed up her throat, and she clutched her stomach. She still didn’t have much time here to rest—just an hour or so before she had to get back to the hall, converting more demons.
A sigh slid from her. Where was Caine? With Bileth gone, he no longer needed to sleep in her room, but she missed his company. Since she’d started converting the vampires, he’d been avoiding her completely, as if he couldn’t stand to look at her with the gods-magic pooling around her body. Did she really remind him so much of her parents? The thought horrified her.
It hardly seemed fair. She wasn’t a power-crazed maniac after her own glory. She was trying to save this city. By Erish’s side today, they’d worked their way through scores of demons, converting them into valkyrie, fae, shadow demons…
And when she closed her eyes, she felt herself falling, the wind tearing at her skin and hair. She bolted upright. Okay. So maybe the power is screwing with my head.
She rose from her bed, eager to take her mind off Azazeyl’s agonizing descent. Taking a deep breath, she crossed to the door.
She wanted one person right now: Caine. Her muscles aching, she walked the halls, entranced by the wavering candlelight that danced over the flagstones. The strike of her heels echoed off the ceiling.
Caine had said the gods cursed people with the sins of their fathers, dooming them to repeat their parents’ worst transgressions. So how had the gods punished Caine? It was something to do with his father, Abrax. She didn’t know much about Abrax, only that he was Nyxobas’s son, and that he was a monster.
If Caine had a theory about her, she wanted to hear it. Did he know something he wasn’t telling her? As she walked to his room, images flickered in her mind—those leaden wings, dragging Azazeyl to earth as his mind shattered.
At last, she stopped by the portrait of Lord Byron—Caine’s bedroom. She knocked twice on the oak, listening for the sound of footfalls on the other side of the door.
He opened the door, and her gaze lingered over the muscled panes of his chest. Candlelight bathed his brutal, spiky tattoos in warm light. Caine—her blackthorn.
He leaned against the doorframe. “Rosalind.”
He wasn’t about to welcome her in, but she pushed past him anyway, stepping into his room.
“Tell me what happened to you,” she said.
He turned to her, shutting his door, and arched an eyebrow. “This is your new imperious side, isn’t it? Queen Rosalind.”
She sat on his bed. “I guess you’ll just have to get used to it.”
“Don’t you remember?” he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Don’t you remember what happened to me?”
What? “No. I remember walking down into the cellar, and finding you there. There was someone else there. I remember now, the hairpin in your hand. I remember that you terrified me.”
“In the vision you saw of my life, you saw a woman with long, blonde hair, and a baby. The woman was my mother. And the baby was my younger brother, Stolas.”
Stolas. The word she’d heard, the name on his lips when he’d been impaled. The terrible thing Caine had done. “And what happened to Stolas?” she asked. But with a sinking feeling, she thought she already knew.
Caine cocked his head, and the air chilled. “Do you really want to know what happened? Because it seems you’ve worked very hard to forget your past. The things your parents did. Miranda remembered, but you didn’t want to.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t want to remember. I wasn’t ready for it before. I am now.”
“Centuries ago, when the king and queen enslaved me, they used my brother to control me. Stolas. He was only a few years younger than me, but they’d managed to capture him, and imprisoned him with iron. They threatened to kill him if I defied them.”
“And my parents knew your weakness. Family.”
He nodded, almost imperceptibly. “When your parents sought to control me, they had two brothers to use against me.”
His silver aura chilled the air, and he stepped closer to her, hands in his pockets. His eyes had turned dark as the void, and he seemed to be lost in the hell of his own mind.
Icy dread bloomed in Rosalind’s chest.
Caine moved closer, looking down at her, his eyes icy cold. “After they imbued me with the spirit, in that dark cellar—your parents’ cellar—I lost my mind. I could hear my second soul’s voice, screaming in my skull. I didn’t know what he wanted, only that his agony, his rage, blinded me. And he hated shadow demons.”
“He watched his lover burn to death.” Rosalind’s skin felt cold, and she hugged herself. “He blamed Ambrose for betraying her.”
“You want to know what I did?” Caine reached for her face, brushing his thumb over her cheek. “I’ll show you.”
His silvery aura curled around her body, thrumming over her skin, his power raw, frightening. And in the next moment, a vision rose in her mind—
Caine stood in her parents’ cellar, his arms nailed into the stone wall, blood dripping down his wrists. Across from him, another man who looked just like him, only slightly slimmer, not quite as powerful. Stolas. Just like Caine, Stolas’s limbs had been nailed to the wall with iron nails, and dark blood seeped down his body.
Caine looked at his brother, agony etched on his features. He clutched the iron hairpin in his fingers, stroking it gently. “I’m going to get us out of here.”
“What about Malphas?” Stolas asked.
“I’ll get him out of here, too. We can’t stay here, Stolas. Something terrible is going to happen. I can feel it.”
Stolas frowned, his pale eyes piercing the darkness. “What about the spell they wove? The soul they put into you? What did it do?”
Caine shook his head. “I don’t think it worked. I can’t even feel it. I feel the pain from the iron nails, but that’s it. It’s just this feeling, that the world is about to end. Our world is about to end.”
Stolas raised his brow. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’ll get us out of here,” said Caine.
Caine gritted his teeth, ripping his arms free from the wall. An animalistic growl rose from his throat as his tendons tore, blood pouring from the wounds.
And then, a horrible silence enshrouded the cellar. Caine�
��s brow furrowed, and his eyes darkened. Black, feathered wings appeared behind his back.
“Caine,” said Stolas.
But Caine didn’t seem to hear his brother. He clutched the iron hairpin in his fingers, seemingly oblivious to his ravaged limbs. Silver magic sliced the air around his body.
He growled, gripping his head, falling to his knees. “She burned,” he muttered in a voice not quite his own. “I watched her skin burn. Then they came for me.” A choked sob rose from his throat—a sound she’d never heard from Caine. “The shadow demon turned her in. She trusted him.”
Stolas’s brow furrowed. “Caine? What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?”
Caine gripped his hair tighter. “The shadow demon never really loved her. Monster. They’re all monsters.”
“Caine!” said Stolas.
Caine’s muscles tensed, and he looked up at his brother. Slowly, he rose, gripping his mother’s hairpin between his fingers.
Stolas looked into his eyes. “Stay with me, Caine. Stay with me.”
Caine shook his head. “That’s not my name,” he snarled.
Stolas’s fingers curled into fists as his body tensed. “Caine. Stay with me. It’s you and me, brother.”
A low snarl tore from Caine’s throat. He cocked his head and began speaking in a hiss, chanting ancient Angelic words, a spell that Rosalind understood—one that spoke of turning angels into beasts, trapping them in dying bodies. Azazeyl’s lament.
Stolas’s eyes opened wide, gaping as his brother pulled his immortality from him in a gleaming stream of silver light, until the stunning light left Stolas’s eyes.
Panicking, Stolas started to pull himself from the wall, but it was too late.
Gripping the iron hairpin, Caine reared back his arm and slammed it into his brother’s heart, pushing it in until the tip was completely submerged in Stolas’s chest.
Stolas’s pale eyes snapped open, and a choking noise rose from his throat.
“Shadow demon,” Caine snarled, turning away from his brother. “Demons betrayed us…” His sentence trailed off, and he stared down at his bloodied hands. “Demons betrayed us. That was our mother’s. That was our mother’s hairpin. I kept it all those years. Don’t you remember, Stolas?” His voice broke. “I looked after you when she was working. You’d cry unless I took you outside.”
Thick streams of blood dripped between his fingertips, from his ruptured veins, from his brother’s heart, but he seemed oblivious. Oblivious, too, to his brother’s silent torment, just a few feet behind him, to the dimming of Stolas’s eyes, the fluttering of his eyelids.
Caine fell to his knees, blood pooling around him.
And in the next moment, tendrils of colored magic curled into the room—sinister undulations of copper, gold, and blue. And following the magic, two humans, their eyes black, hair writhing around their heads like snakes. Eye sockets empty as voids.
Rosalind’s parents.
Pain coiled around Rosalind’s heart. When she opened her eyes, Caine was sitting next to her on the bed, staring down at his hands.
Raw pain ravaged his features, an expression she’d never seen on him before—one he’d kept well-hidden. “So now you understand. I lost my mind, and the beast in me came out. I’m the sort of demon who murders his own kin.”
Rosalind touched his arm. “No, you’re not. You’ve always looked out for them. You didn’t kill Stolas. Richard did. Your second soul. I saw it happen.”
“Do you really think it’s so easy for me to absolve myself? I was born from a monster, the incubus Abrax. Even Nyxobas hates his own son. The beast lies dormant in me.” His eyes flashed with fierceness. “You must have seen it when I fight. I like killing.”
Rosalind tightened her fingers on his arm. “You’re thinking about it all wrong. You’re not a killer. You’re a warrior.”
His gaze slid to her. “It’s just a different name.”
“It’s a different concept. You fight for a cause, for loyalty to your home. And you’re not like your father. You don’t think Malphas is a monster, do you? He has the same father you do.”
“But not the same mother. I watched my mother kill a man, using the same iron hairpin I used. And after she finished, I watched her hang at Tyburn. A common whore and a murderess.” His silver gaze met hers, beautiful and brutal. “So if there is good in me, where would it come from?”
A pang of grief tightened her chest, as she thought of the little boy standing in a hostile London crowd, crying for his mother as the hangman killed her. He would have been all alone in the world.
She leaned in to him. “I told you. Being born from good stock is an archaic concept. Forget about it.” She stroked the stark tattoo on his forearm. “You tattooed her hairpin on your arm. And you kept her hairpin with you all those years. You loved her.”
He lowered his gaze, and she could see the ghost of his dark wings behind him. “I did.”
In that moment, he reminded her of Azazeyl, her broken angel, and she could almost feel his dizzying fall, the wind rushing over his skin. The blind terror.
“So she wasn’t a monster,” she said. “She loved you. She loved Stolas, I’m sure. Anyone can snap if they’re being abused. I can’t imagine it was an easy life being a London prostitute in the 1500s. Right? Maybe she needed to fight back. Is this really why you think Malphas is better than you?”
His silver eyes met hers, and she was struck again by the agony there, and that no one else ever saw this side of Caine—not even Malphas. How long had he kept his armor up?
He looked at his hands again, as if searching for traces of blood. “Malphas had to free me from Lilitu Square. Your parents found Stolas’s body. They found me covered in his blood. They thought their experiment had failed. A demon like me couldn’t hold two souls, my blood was too polluted, poisoned by Nyxobas. They turned me in, had me dragged to the town square, where they nailed me to a cross. I didn’t object. I was supposed to die there, but Malphas saved me anyway. He was only five.”
“Richard took over your body. I saw his pain, through Cleo’s eyes, when she was executed. I saw his rage. And that’s what filled your mind when the second soul took over. When I first took off the ring, Cleo completely dominated me. She didn’t kill anyone else, but she wanted to kill me for being a Hunter. She made me feel like I was on fire. Remember? I was completely out of control.”
“I remember.”
“Our second souls have had their revenge. They took out their rage on a Hunter and a shadow demon. The closest beings to the people who betrayed them.” He wasn’t meeting her gaze, and she wanted him to look at her again. “What happened after they killed your mother in London?” she asked. “You had no mother and father. How old were you?”
“Seven. Stolas was three.”
“And how did a three-year-old survive with no parents?”
“I looked after him,” he said softly. “I did whatever I needed to.”
“Caine, you looked after him because you loved him. You protected him in Maremount when the queen enslaved you. Your love for your brothers was strong enough that it could be used to control you.” Love is a liability, he’d once said to her. “You were their protectors. Richard killed Stolas. Not you.”
His gaze drank her in. “You don’t believe we’re doomed to pay for the sins of our fathers.”
“If we are, then I’m fucked. You can’t really believe that I’m like my parents, can you? That I’d nail people to walls, and use children as bait?” Her fingers were digging into his arm now. “You can’t possibly fucking believe that about me.”
He studied her closely, looking strangely lost. “When I first met you I was sure you were like them. You’ve slowly been changing my mind. I had to wonder, when you came back for me in Maremount, when I was nailed to the stake. You came back to save me, and you didn’t need to.”
“That’s because we’re not destined to become our parents. That’s a fiction. You write your own story, C
aine.”
He wrapped his hand around hers, looking at her as if he were drowning in his own history, as if her touch was his lifeline.
She leaned in, kissing him on the mouth. “I have to go, Caine.”
His hand slid down to her waist. “Why?”
“I need to finish creating the army we’re going to use to slaughter the Brotherhood. Are you still worried about me turning into my parents if I use too much of Azazeyl’s power?”
“No. You’re nothing like your parents. I know that. I just didn’t want to lose you to the hell in your own mind. You already have two souls. The voices of seven gods are a lot to contend with on top of that. But perhaps if anyone is strong enough, it’s you. Go. I’ll meet you in your room when you’ve finished.”
Chapter 25
After the third day of transforming vampires, Rosalind strode back to her room, her silky white gown gliding against her thighs. She and Erish had finished transforming each vampire into a new species. And for three days, she’d felt Azazeyl’s tormented fall to earth, each time her own soul splintering just a little bit more. An emptiness nagged her chest.
Despite the unease in her mind, the longer she used Azazeyl’s magic, the more powerful she felt. Now, a preternatural surety filled her limbs. The moment she looked at another creature, she knew exactly what she’d need to do to kill them.
This time, when she went into battle against the Hunters, she’d destroy them with Azazeyl’s power blazing through her bones.
When she opened the door to her room, she found Caine, sitting on her bed, eyes downcast—her fallen angel. Through the windows, the breeze played with candle flames, and shadows danced over the stones.
Caine looked up at her, his gaze uncharacteristically unguarded. Just now, it struck her that the vision he’d shown her had given her the key to his mortality. He’d showed her the spell, the one that turned angels into dying bodies. Now, she knew exactly how to kill him, even if she wanted nothing more than to protect him.
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