Nadia shook her head. “I have no idea what that is, but I don’t like what it’s doing to you. Where is Caius?”
“Beethween.” The darkness was coming for me again. I tried to fight it. I’d spent far too much time there lately.
“Jo.” Nadia shook me. “Is the bond strong enough for him to follow it?”
“Dunno,” I managed to mumble. My heart skipped a bit, then sped double before skipping again.
Nadia pulled back my eyelids. “We need to get you help.”
Just before the bliss root pulled me under again, a name floated through my mind and a slurred whisper slipped past my lips, “Nyx.”
***
“I was ready to tear the Between apart searching for her. When the remaining Fallen admitted Elijah had taken Jo against her will, my rage knew no bounds.” ~Caius
Chapter 35
A cool hand on my brow brought me back to the surface. I opened my eyes to see Nyx kneeling next to the bed. She said quietly, “Nadia sleeps. Hold on a little longer, I will return with Caius.”
“They forced me to drink…” The words came out in a slurred whisper and Nyx leaned close as I said, “I don’t feel right. Please help me.”
“I know, I can smell the bliss root on your breath and it permeates your skin.” Nyx cursed softly. “Elijah is a fool. It might not harm angels or demons, but bliss flower root is a deadly poison to those with Morrigan blood. Not even a full Child could fight off this concentration. Even being mixed likely won’t be enough to save you. Even if you survive, I don’t know about the baby. We can hope though.”
“You know?”
“I have known since you were at my home.” With a quick flick of her wrist, she broke the shackles, freeing my wrists. “At least you are free of those. I will return shortly with Caius. I wouldn’t dare step into this without him. He would never forgive me. I may be a goddess, but Caius isn’t an enemy I wish to make.”
She dissolved into the air in a puff of black smoke. I reached a hand out, trying to catch hold of it, trying to bring her back. Would she return soon? I didn’t have time to think too much on it. With the shackles gone, the gaping emptiness inside filled again, bringing with it a small measure of relief from the effects of the root. I rolled to the edge of the bed and attempted to get up. My legs dropped me back on the mattress. The movement woke Nadia who rushed to my side.
Laboring to breathe, I tried again over Nadia’s protests. Sweat slicked my skin, my hair stuck to my face and my shirt clung damply to my body. What in the nine hells was wrong with me? I stumbled drunkenly against the wall, knocking several teacups from the shelf. They shattered on the floor and broke, drawing the Fallen inside.
Elijah looked from me to Nadia. “Is it over?”
“No” She answered sharply, casting a concerned look at me as I leaned against the wall panting for breath.
“Why not?” Elijah took a step toward her and she backed up.
Nadia scowled. “It takes time.”
“You stupid old woman, you’ve errored in some way.” Elijah snarled. “This needs to be done with as soon as possible. Give her more.”
“No.” Nadia backed away, her hands fluttering nervously. “I won’t administer more.”
“Defiance won’t help you, old woman.” He frowned. “Why are her shackles off?”
Nadia gave him a worried look. “I don’t know.”
She stood only an arm’s length away from me when Elijah shot forward and slammed her against the wall. “You truly thought you could stop this?”
I couldn’t focus through the drugged haze in my mind. How was I going to get myself out of this? Bethany was going to be mad I didn’t get to tell Caius. The crack of Elijah’s fist connecting with Nadia’s face snapped me back to reality as the old woman crumpled to the floor unconscious.
I lurched toward her, only to be shoved back by Elijah. Unable to reach Nadia, I twisted and sank my teeth into Elijah’s wrist. He jerked away and backhanded me, knocking me against the wall. More tea cups cascaded to the floor. Blood pooled inside my mouth. Elijah shook his head in disapproval. “You are acting ridiculous.”
Using the wall for support, I glared at him. “Get away from me, you sick bastard.”
“No reason to fling names,” Elijah admonished. “I realize you think I’m the bad guy right now. If you would stop and think for even a moment, you would realize we are trying to help you. Trying to—”
Fury flared inside me in an instant, snapping me back to perfect clarity. The powers denied me by the shackles roared back as flames crawled over my skin. Elijah backed away slowly, palms toward me. “Don’t act irrationally.”
“You tried to kill my baby.” With cold, calculated fury, I launched myself at him. In that one brief moment, the powers propped me up and lent me strength. I smashed into him as he tried to flee the house, taking us both to the floor and knocking the narrow sofa over.
I rolled with it and ended up on my feet. A flame burned inside my mind and even though I didn’t need to use emotion to connect with my powers anymore, I dumped all of the unadulterated hatred I now felt for Elijah into it. The flame burst into a massive ball of fire so hot it burned blue. I glared at the singed man leaping to his feet as I gauged the quickest way to kill him even as he held up his hands and tried to back away.
Siena lunged at me with a shout, her staff out. Henchman was right behind her. The door blasted inward. Caius strode into the room like a thunderstorm with Nyx on his heels. Siena’s face went white as the blood drained from it. Fully transformed into his demon half with gray wings flowing from his back, Caius was a terrifying sight.
He grabbed Siena and threw her across the room. She hit the far wall with enough force to crack the stone wall and her skull. Henchman ran out the door. Nyx followed him and I got the feeling he wouldn’t get far.
I didn’t take my eyes off Elijah as the fire licked its way up my arms. So focused on the man who was supposed to be my father, the man who had betrayed me, I barely registered Caius move until he had hold of me.
“Jo, stop.”
I fought him with everything he’d taught me. It wasn’t enough, it would probably never be enough and that only pissed me off more. Elijah tried to run again. I managed to yank one hand free of Caius’s grip and fling it toward the bastard, letting the fire race down my arm. Caius jerked me to the side, throwing off my aim. The explosion threw Elijah into the table and left scorch marks across that entire side of the house. The fire still hit Elijah, but it wasn’t the straight on blow that would have killed him.
Caius pushed me up against the wall, blocking my view of Elijah as he let his demon side fade away. He placed his hands on either side of my face so I had to look at him. “I can’t let you kill him, not like this. You are using pure hatred to fuel your effort to kill a man who is trying to run away. It would be murder. That’s a sentence to the pits for your soul, I won’t let that happen.”
“He deserves to die,” I snarled.
“Yes, he does.” Caius stepped away. He morphed back into his demon half as he turned toward a cowering Elijah. With a snarl of rage, Caius grabbed Elijah, who gave up trying to flee and tried to fight back. Caius overpowered him easily and tossed him across the room with a roar. A dazed Elijah tried one last time to escape. He staggered toward the open door while Caius stalked him, letting the bastard think he might actually succeed, before catching him in a brutal grip. His teeth tore viciously into Elijah’s neck as he drained the traitor’s blood.
The berry drink dragged at me, making the room dark and fuzzy. It came back into focus in time for me to see Caius rip Elijah’s soul out and consume it. Indigo shadows flared thick and bright around Caius and then sank into his skin.
The fire inside me used up the last of my energy reserves. It was hard to breathe as I struggled against the effects of the root. Desperate to find focus again, my gaze swept the dwelling. Siena looked plenty dead. Good. Then I saw Nadia where she’d fallen amidst the shards of broken cups and scatt
ered tea leaves. I should have felt something when I saw her lying there like that, but everything seemed far away as if a part of me had already checked out.
The world wavered and dimmed. My heart made a few off-key beats, thumping painfully. Sweat coated my skin as the bliss berry root continued to wreak havoc with my system. My knees gave out and I slid down the wall until I sat on the floor. Everything faded out and back in.
Caius crouched in front of me. His hands cradled my face, pushing back the damp strands of hair plastered to my skin. “Hold on, Jo.”
I gave a weak thumbs up even though I wasn’t entirely sure how long I could do that. He twisted to look at Nyx as she came back through the door. “Help her, please. I will give whatever payment you ask.”
“I don’t have the power to remove this much poison, Caius. It will take someone greater than me.” She hesitated as if wary of her next words. “Even if she can be saved, I don’t know about the baby.”
“Baby?” Caius turned back to me, his golden gaze meeting my wavering one.
“I’m sorry, please don’t be mad,” I managed to mumble. Why was I apologizing? I struggled to remember. Oh yeah, for not telling him. Caius faded as the darkness dragged me away and a new wave of sweat broke over my skin.
Caius’s voice seemed to come from far away when he said, “Stay with me, Jo. Just stay with me.”
Everything quit making sense as consciousness came and went. Caius and Nyx were solid, but nothing else was as it faded away in black smoke. I was on a cool, hard surface. Candles burned everywhere I looked, their sweet scent overpowering my senses. Panicked, I tried to make sense of the large, cavern-like room with its sculpted stone ceiling and stalactites. Murmuring voices I couldn’t understand filled my ears, one questioning and one defeated.
A mix of feminine and masculine voices began to chant quietly. A single drop of hot liquid was placed on my tongue. If I had thought Caius’s blood, or silver, was a fiery experience, I was wrong. Nothing compared to whatever the liquid was. It soaked into my tongue and rushed through my body, charring me to a crisp. My heart pounded, racing faster until it stuttered. Black eyes drew me into their depths, commanding me to stay, to live even as I screamed that I was burning.
More hands held me against the cool surface as I thrashed against the pain. I searched frantically for the owner of the hands. Shadows crowded my vision, making the room murky and obscuring the face of my captor. Only molten gold, glowing eyes shone from the darkness. The eyes meant something. The inferno within me scorched my thoughts and scattered them like ashes. The chanting rose in volume, soothing and insistent at the same time. Candlelight played across the carved daggers of stone hanging from the ceiling, creating twisted shadows that left me disoriented.
The room receded abruptly down a tunnel before snapping back. Every muscle trembled uncontrollably from the pain and I couldn’t find the strength to break free of my tormentors. Tears made hot paths down the sides of my face and trickled into my hair as a new wave of fire raged through me, making my skin feel like it was cracking open and ripping another scream from my throat.
It went on and on, an agonizing torture until finally, the burning began to fade, breathing got easier, and my heart slowed. The chanting came to an end. My vision cleared. The hands holding my shoulders disappeared. Not that it mattered now; I was too weak to lift even a single finger. Fear still thrummed through me and I turned my head, my wide eyes searching the strange chamber for something familiar, some sort of anchor to keep me sane. A hand with long nails clasped my chin gently and turned my face toward the black eyes again. I fell into them, spiraling down, down, down until the eyes commanded I sleep. I went gratefully.
***
“I had no idea what I would owe Hades, but I was willing to pay it.” ~Caius
Chapter 36
I woke snuggled deep in a thick, soft bed and buried under a pile of covers. My body felt limp and a bit weak but otherwise okay. At least, there was no pain and that was good. A yawn cracked my jaw as I pushed the covers away from my face. Sheer white curtains drifting on a soft breeze framed a floor-to-ceiling window. The scenery beyond reminded me of the Between, though there was a difference I couldn’t quite define. It definitely wasn’t the mortal world beyond the window. The mortal world didn’t have mountains that color of purple, or red weeping willows, or grass that green.
The room itself was light and airy from the pale floor to the four white columns, that appeared to be part of the bed, and the white walls. It was the padded chair against the wall across from the foot of the bed where Caius sat that held my attention though. With his head resting against the wall, hair a mess, and dark circles under his closed eyes, he looked exhausted and ragged.
I searched the rest of the room and found Lilly sitting cross-legged in a chair close to the huge bed I lay in.
“Where am I?” It came out as a whisper past my raw throat.
Lilly regarded me for a long moment before answering quietly. “Hades’s palace in the upper levels of the Hells.”
My hand slid to my stomach. “The baby?”
“Is well as far as we can tell.”
Relief, so strong tears stung my eyes, washed through me. “How?”
Lilly gave me a considering look. “It took a lot of healing.”
I shivered. My memory of everything after being taken was broken in places and fuzzy in others, but I remembered falling into the dark eyes and I remembered the pain.
“How could you not tell him?” Lilly whispered.
She didn’t need to clarify. I sucked in a breath and stared at the ceiling as I answered, keeping my voice down so I didn’t wake Caius. “I didn’t think he would want it. And I was going to tell him the night Elijah took me.”
“You didn’t think he would want it?” The disbelief in her voice made me look at her. “I never took you for an idiot.”
I shrugged, realizing now it wasn’t a good enough reason to keep it from him. “I thought that he’d managed to avoid it his entire life, so why would he want it now?”
“I think you will find the truth quite different from your worries.” Lilly looked like she wanted to say more, but shook her head. “This is something you will have to talk to him about when he wakes.” She stood and walked to the door.
After she left, I rolled to face the window again while I tried to reconcile the way Elijah had behaved toward me from the beginning with the way he had betrayed me. The reality hurt so much more than I ever thought it would. I let my hand rest on my stomach, thankful the baby was alive and apparently unharmed, suddenly hopeful its daddy might actually want it as much as I did.
I found myself missing Amisi’s solid warmth curled against me like she always did when I slept. But Bastet cats were creatures of the Between. She couldn’t cross veils. I could only hope she was okay.
Something changed, it was subtle, a slight shifting in the very air around me. I glanced at Caius. His golden gaze met mine. Snapping my eyes back to the window, I stared at the scenery beyond. He didn’t move and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him again. Afraid Lilly was wrong, afraid of what he might say. And afraid he was going to be royally pissed I hadn’t told him.
As the heavy silence stretched out, I resisted the urge to pull the covers over my head and hide beneath them. I would not be a coward. Okay, so maybe I was being a little bit of one by not looking at him, but damn it I’d already been betrayed by Elijah, I wasn’t sure I could take it if Lilly was wrong.
“Jo.”
My name, said so softly I barely heard it, tugged at my heart. My eyes stung and I blinked rapidly as I scooched deeper into the covers. So I was going to be a complete coward, sue me.
An exasperated sigh. “Jo, look at me.”
I shook my head and kept my eyes glued to the open window. If I looked at him, I would cry and I silently cursed the hormones that jacked everything up so much they turned me weepy. I was not a weepy person.
I didn’t hear him move, only fe
lt the bed dip down as he settled behind me. I put my muscles on lockdown because weepy hormones weren’t the only issue right then and his nearness was a distracting problem. I didn’t want to feel anything for him, emotionally or physically. Not yet. Not until I knew how he felt about everything. My determination to hold to that was as silly as it was futile. I couldn’t stop the feelings, both emotional and physical, from stirring. Stupid hormone-filled body.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Caius finally said in the same soft tone as before. He had to be doing that on purpose to make me melt. Stupid demonborn. “If…” He took a deep breath. “If you don’t want the child—”
“What?” I rolled to my back so I could see his face. “Why would you think I don’t want this baby?”
Resting on one elbow, his golden eyes searched mine. “I don’t know what to think. Nyx told me she’s known since we were at her house. Which means if you didn’t know then, it couldn’t have been long after that you did. I spoke to Bethany when she came in to sit with you for a while. She admitted she knew, but would say nothing more, claiming she refused to get in the middle of it. And yet, you kept it from me.”
“I didn’t know until after the canyon. The fairy who did my healing told me.” I looked away. “I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t want it. And I didn’t want to bring it up with a bunch of people around because I know how dangerous this pregnancy is going be. How even those who claim to be allies may turn against me…like Elijah did.” Traitorous tears welled in my eyes and escaped. I didn’t want to cry over the bastard who I’d stupidly let myself get attached to.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to find you. And I’m sorry he did what he did to you.” Caius carefully laid his hand low on my belly. A tremble ran through me at his touch. “I do want this child, more than you probably realize.”
More tears leaked out. The whole crying thing was getting ridiculous, yet I couldn’t make it stop. “How have you lived so long and never had any children if you want them?”
Betrayed (Raven Daughter Book 2) Page 26
