Release Me (Storm Lords Book 3)

by Nina Croft

  “Don’t panic.” Torr interrupted his panicked thoughts. “We’ve already stopped it. At least for the moment.”

  He blew out his breath, then crossed the room. He poured himself a scotch, swallowed it in one go, and poured another. Taking it to the window, he stared down at the streets far below. Finally, when he could put it off no longer, he turned back. Torr was leaning against the big desk, arms folded across his chest.

  “How much do you know?” Finn asked.

  “That you’ve been aware of her existence for twenty years. It was easy once we had a name. There’s a file on her in the company records. No picture, of course.” He studied Finn, eyes narrowed. “I can understand why you never went to her at first. She was a child. But she hasn’t been a child for a long time.”

  “She’s only twenty-four.”

  Torr ignored the interruption. “And why did you never tell us? We would have helped guard her, kept her safe until you felt the time was right. I know you’re scared, but we’ve proved it can be done. You can give her eternal life. Be together forever.”

  Finn took a deep breath. “I didn’t tell you, because the time was never going to be right.”

  “What?”

  “I had no intention of ever meeting her. No intention of ever setting the Covenant in motion.”

  “You must, or you lose her forever. The thousand years is nearly up. There will be no more chances.”

  How did he explain that there never had been a chance? He looked at the picture still clutched in his hand. “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand it’s a risk. But worth taking.”

  The disasters of the day rose up inside him. Finn gritted his teeth and hurled his glass. It smashed against the wall opposite. “There is no risk. No chance. She’ll never say, ‘I love you.’ Not to me.”

  He crossed to the sofa and sank down, stretched out his long legs. Bella twisted in her seat, so she faced him, reached out and took his hand. As always, peace flowed from her, a sense of goodness, that maybe the world wasn’t a fucked-up mess and there was hope. It was a lie.

  He rested his head back, stared at the ceiling—so he wouldn’t have to see their expressions—and started talking. “It was different for you, for all of the brothers. You had years with your wives before we made the decision to steal the Elixir. Your love was familiar, strong, unshakable. There was never any doubt, in any of your minds, that you would love for eternity.”

  There had been seven of them, seven angels. He’d thought of them as brothers. Then their leader, Torr, had fallen in love with a human woman and settled on Earth. The others had swiftly followed. Except Finn. He watched on, despairing of finding love. Until Damaris had stepped into his life.

  “Damaris loved you,” Bella said.

  He exhaled. “She never in all our time together said the words.” Shock flashed across Bella’s face, and he continued. “I knew she cared for me. I had no doubts that the words would come. But she was wary. She had her son to think of, and she loved him so much. More than me.”

  “Not more, just differently. He was a child. He needed her.”

  “I knew that, and I was happy to wait. One day she would have felt safe to give their lives totally into my keeping, and I would have loved him like my own. But I needed time, and time ran out.”

  The decision to steal the Elixir had been in the back of all their minds. Niggling away as their wives grew older and they stayed the same. Then Fabia, Killian’s wife, had taken sick, and when it became clear she would die without intervention, they had brought their plan forward. Broken the laws of Heaven and stolen the Elixir of Life.

  “But she proved her love when she took the Elixir,” Bella said. “She promised you eternity. That was hard for all of us. I was so in love with Torr, but I still remember the fear. Eternity. And we all knew it was wrong. That our very souls would be forfeit. That we would live to see our families die. Never enter Heaven. She must have loved you so much to give up all that.”

  He swallowed, forced the words out. “I never told her.”

  Silence.

  He’d been staring at the ceiling. Now he took a deep breath and faced his leader. Torr stared down at him, eyes narrowed as understanding dawned on his face. “Explain.”

  Finn shrugged; there wasn’t a lot to explain. “I thought about it over and over after we’d made the theft. I went to tell her, ask her, and always something stopped me. She loved her son. She cared for me, but enough to watch her son grow old and die before her eyes while she stayed young? And she was so devout. I was expecting her to give up God for me. I knew she would eventually come to love me, and I loved her so much that I couldn’t bear to lose her, and I couldn’t put it off. We knew it was only a matter of time before the theft was discovered. It was then or never.” He got to his feet, suddenly restless, remembering that afternoon nearly two thousand years ago so clearly. She’d been happy, loving. She’d kissed him, and he’d waited for the words, for her to tell him she loved him. If she had just said the words, he would have spilled out everything, begged her to stay with him. But she hadn’t, and in the end, he’d handed her the goblet, told her it was a special wine flavored with sunshine, and watched as she drank, the movement of her throat as she swallowed, her tongue red from the elixir as she swiped over her lower lip for the last drop.

  He shook his head, coming back to the present. “I told her it was special wine. I lied. And I stood and watched as she drank, as she unknowingly broke the laws of Heaven.”

  Torr turned away, his shoulders tense.

  Finn couldn’t bear to see the condemnation on Bella’s face, so he didn’t look in her direction. But she rested a hand on his thigh and squeezed.

  “She loved you, Finn. She might not have said the words, but she did. She was my half-sister; I knew her thoughts.”

  He’d almost forgotten that, but Soraya and Damaris had been half-sisters. Soraya had been an empath and a healer to her people. Damaris had an echo of those powers. Had been able to understand emotions and tell good from evil.

  “She was scared,” Bella continued. “Her husband had not been a good man, and she was wary of letting another man close. So she poured all her love into her son. But when she met you, she knew she had to try and open her heart or she would regret it forever. It took courage—she’d been hurt badly, both physically and mentally, but she did it for you.”

  He remembered how careful he’d been with her the first time they made love, as though she might run if he moved too quickly or too fiercely. And he’d wanted to be fierce. Instead, he’d taken her slowly and sweetly, and afterward, she’d looked at him with wonder.

  Damaris had never spoken of her first marriage. It had been arranged by her father. Her husband had been a man from another village, and she had gone to live among his people. That was why he’d not met her earlier. She’d returned after her husband died. There had been many men who’d asked for her hand. She was a beautiful woman who had proved herself fertile. But she had turned them all away. Except him. She’d let him in and no doubt regretted it in the last moments of her life.

  “She died and so did her son.” He could still remember the rage and despair, and absolute powerlessness that had risen inside him as they tore him away from her. The last vision of her clutching her son as they dragged her to her death. Her screams mingled with the little boy’s cries would stay in his mind forever. “If she ever remembers, she’ll hate me. I betrayed her.”

  “Yes, you fucking did.” Torr came back, stood over him. “How could you?” The words came out as a growl.

  Finn pushed himself to his feet and took a step toward his leader. Unafraid. Maybe if he pissed off Torr enough he would kill him now.

  But that wouldn’t help Rachel. She would still die in five days’ time. The fight went out of him at that thought. “Tell me you would have done differently.”

  “I—”

  “Look at Bella and tell me you wouldn’t have done the same to keep her.” />
  Torr ran a hand through his hair, pulling it loose so it lay disheveled around his shoulders. In that moment, he looked every inch the Destroyer. Then he turned his gaze to his wife, and some of the tension left his taut figure.

  “Maybe.” He shook his head. “We didn’t know. You never told us.”

  “I was ashamed. And I knew what I had to do.”

  “And what was that?”

  “I would never find her. I would let her live her lives in peace. And when the thousand years was over she would be released from the cycle of birth and death and her soul would be free.”

  “And you would be back in the Abyss, on your knees to Lilith. You’ll be married to one of her daughters, under her control, doing her evil bidding, an army of wolves at her command. Do you really want that?”

  “Never.”

  That day, when they had been torn from the women they loved and hurled into the Abyss, Lilith had been waiting for them. The Queen of the Abyss, she’d offered them sanctuary and powers in return for their allegiance. She’d shown them how to focus the dark power, how to use it for destruction and chaos.

  All they’d desired at that point had been revenge. The darkness had awoken in them that day, and they had become the Storm Lords, and Torrin, their leader, the Destroyer and consort to the queen. In those first years, they had bathed in the fresh blood of humans, fed on their warm flesh, slaughtered without conscience, their whole existence passing in a red haze of fury.

  Eventually, those who had betrayed them were long dead, and Finn’s rage had cooled. But nothing replaced it, and he had moved through his life without feeling, as though in a void.

  Until the angels came to them.

  By then, the Storm Lords were too powerful to defeat by force. Instead, the angels had told them the truth, hoping to break their allegiance to Lilith.

  While their wives had died, because they had taken the Elixir of Life, their souls were tied to the Earth, caught in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. For a thousand years, Damaris had lived, breathed, and known nothing of him.

  Lilith had been incandescent with fury, but she couldn’t hold them completely. Finally, they had come to an arrangement and drawn up the Covenant in blood, which would bind both sides. They would have one thousand years to seek their wives, but if they failed to find them in that time, they must return to Lilith. Torr would again be at her side, and Finn and his brothers would marry Lilith’s daughters. Finn shuddered at the thought.

  But it wasn’t so easy. Lilith had made another stipulation. If eternal love truly existed, then their wives would know them, love them. They would have five days after meeting them again for their wives to come to them of their own free will and declare their love. If that happened, their wives would be granted eternal life and would be with them forever. But in those five days, they were not allowed to tell them the truth or reveal what and who they were. If they spoke of this, their wives would be lost to them. This time forever.

  Finn had known from the beginning that there was no hope. But he would never do evil again, and certainly not at Lilith’s bidding. And he would never marry another. While they were immortal, there was one way to end their existence. The sword of an angel.

  He caught Torr’s gaze and stared.

  “Jesus,” Torr growled. “You want me to kill you?”

  “I won’t go back to Lilith.”

  In that moment, Torr’s humanity vanished, and he stood before them in his real guise, a demon of the Abyss—The Destroyer. Black wings curved at his shoulders, his yellow eyes glowed almost feral. The grip of a huge sword showed at his shoulder, and he drew it in one swift move. He took a single step toward Finn, pressed the blade of the sword to his throat. A flash of pain seared his skin, and the sharp, metallic scent of blood tinged the air.

  “You want me to end it all?”

  Finn forced himself to stand still, not to back away. “Actually, yes, but perhaps not quite yet.”

  The sword didn’t waver. Finn could feel the slow trickle of blood down his throat and held his breath.

  Finally, Torr lowered the weapon. He stepped back, and the demon was gone. He crossed the room, poured them all a scotch. Finn took his drink and stayed silent, knowing his friend needed time to come to terms with what he had asked. He sank back on the sofa. A sense of release filled him. He’d dreaded asking this of Torr; now it was done. One thing he could tick off the list.

  “Tell me about my sister,” Bella said from beside him. “Torr says you’ve been watching her for years.”

  “Since she was four. And she’s the same. Fierce and wild and beautiful.”

  “Is she happy?”

  “She seems content. I was worried. Especially after Torr found you. You’d had such a hard life. I wanted to save Rachel from that if I could do nothing else. But while she lives what most would consider a strange life—in a strict religious sect run by her grandfather—she seems happy. Many women would hate it, but she spends much of her time in the forests and mountains.”

  “She always loved nature.”

  “I know.”

  Torr came back, took a chair across from them, and studied him. “Let me get this right. You’ve found your wife but have no intention of introducing yourself.”

  Finn remained silent. Best to let Torr have his say.

  “And when the thousand years of the Covenant is up, you expect me to slice your head off.”

  He nodded.

  “Are you a total fucking coward?”

  “I was doing it for her. So she could have this one life with her son. Grow old and die as normal. Eventually, her soul will go to Heaven, because she’s blameless in all this.”

  “But you can’t stay away, can you? Instead, you creep around, watching her from afar, but never having the guts to chance everything. That’s what love is.”

  He jumped to his feet. “No, it fucking isn’t. Love is where someone else’s happiness is more important than your own. I wanted her to be happy. Anyway, you don’t understand. It’s over. I fucked up. Again.”

  “What happened?”

  “Today. I went to check that she was all right. She wasn’t. I had to save her. She was drowning, and I had no choice. She saw me.”

  “How the hell did you let that happen?”

  Torr was starting to piss him off now. Like the fucker had never made a mistake in his fucking life before? “I was in wolf form, but someone shot me, and I passed out. Okay?”

  “You passed out?”

  At Torr’s disbelief, his anger ratcheted. Everything was going to shit. Finn needed constructive advice, not someone telling him what an asshole he was. He knew that already. “Stop being such a sanctimonious, self-satisfied, fucking prick and say something useful.”

  “You need to go back.”

  “I can’t go back. She’ll die.”

  “She’ll die anyway.”

  “There must be a way around this. Maybe no one else knows. I can just pretend it never happened. And never go near her again.”

  Something inside him twisted at the thought, but he could do it.

  “Unlikely.” Torr waved at the picture of Rachel that lay on the sofa beside him. “I’m guessing Lilith will have heard by now. She has contacts everywhere.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Stay here. I’ll check out a few things. See what I can find.”

  “First, there’s something else. Rachel has a son, Jacob. He’s been kidnapped. We think by his paternal great-grandfather. We have to get him back.”

  “Why was he taken?” Torr asked.

  He relayed what he knew about Rachel’s father, who he was, and what had happened.

  Torr thought for a moment. “The others will be here soon. They can find out where the boy is, and we can make a plan. In the meantime, you do nothing.”

  Finn watched as they disappeared. He didn’t think doing nothing was an option. He needed to keep busy or he might explode.

  Chapter 7

  Finn wasn’t ready for th
is.

  He’d probably never be ready.

  Torr had returned in under an hour with the less-than-good news that Lilith had demanded Finn’s presence in the Abyss. That could only mean one thing. Clearly, the whole “pretend it had never happened” plan was shot from the start. Torr had warned him to keep his cool, just find out what she knew and what she wanted. The latter was a given: Finn on his knees and shackled to one of her daughters.

  Ugh.

  Torr had offered to accompany him, but Torr’s presence would probably only fan the flames of Lilith’s anger.

  He was better alone.

  He closed his eyes as he opened a portal between the worlds. Stepping through, he found himself deep in the Abyss, on the banks of a wide, slow-moving river. He took a deep breath, his lungs filling with cool, clean air. As usual, the light was dim, glowing the orange of perpetual twilight as though the sun had just gone down behind the mountains. A sun that never rose. The sand beneath his feet was black but glittered with specks of jeweled colors.

  Lilith stood on the bank in a black dress that skimmed the sand. She was probably the most beautiful woman he had ever met. If you avoided looking in her eyes. Long, red-gold hair hung down to her waist. Her figure was full, her breasts perfect above the deep indentation of her waist, and her legs endlessly long. The creamy skin of her face was marked with runes of power, which rippled and glowed in the dim light. Right now, a scowl marred her beauty, and her nostrils flared as she studied him.

  Lilith had not taken Torr’s defection well. Finn was aware she had always believed Torr would come back to her. In her own way she’d loved the Destroyer. That Torr was lost to her forever had stirred her determination to ensure the rest of his brothers failed—Finn did not expect a sympathetic hearing.

  At her back stood Cassia, her youngest daughter. What the hell was she doing here? He’d gotten to know Cassia quite well when Lilith had asked him to help rescue her daughter eight years ago, after she’d been kidnapped by demons. He reckoned Cassia was as good as anyone could be who’d grown up with Lilith for a mother.