Revenge: House of Nephilim

by May Dawson

  As the two of us head cautiously across the dark campus, Everett leans in to Eden, resting his hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him, biting her lower lip.

  “I thought you might try to kill us,” he murmurs. “But I never thought you’d be so stupid as to come here intentionally.”

  So not sweet nothings, then.

  She shrugs off his hand, the movement so quick it’s almost imperceptible. Esther’s right that she made too much of a show of her weakness. Looking at her, it’s almost impossible to imagine her as helpless.

  “I thought you killed Elliot,” she says with a shrug, as if that explains everything.

  “It’s still uncomfortable to know the girl I sleep with wanted to kill me so desperately that she—”

  “Right now, I’m not sure I’d use the past tense on that one,” she interrupts him, and tension shimmers between the two of them, though they stay close.

  He glances over his shoulder at me, and she follows his gaze. Their eyes meet briefly, and they drop the subject. He throws his arm over her shoulder, tugging her into his side, and she loops her arm around his waist.

  No cracks, not in the way they show themselves to the world. It’s touching, really.

  Julian and Lincoln flank me. Lincoln has questions he wants to ask, but I shake my head. Easier for us all to talk. His lips knit together impatiently, and I can’t tell from his gaze if he’s annoyed by me or by Ever and Eden.

  A few minutes later, I unlock the cafeteria doors and lock them again behind us. In the deep quiet of the kitchen, I heat water for tea. I think Eden is going to need something to comfort her after this revelation.

  Elliot told me once he always made her tea when she had bad news.

  Maybe I’m just stalling. Dread unfurls in my stomach as I say, “Let’s put all our cards on the table.”

  Eden scoffs at that. “You’ve certainly offered to put all my cards on the table.”

  I wave my hand. “I assume you’ve entertained yourself the past two years by killing all the Lords involved in the death of your brother, that you came here to kill these three, and you thought this depraved mission would finally allow you to move on. Correct?”

  The four of them stare at me. Lincoln’s jaw is tense, as if he wants to hit me for delivering this bit of news.

  Eden leans back in her chair, her face peaceful on the surface. “I’ve never hoped to move on.”

  She doesn’t deny the rest.

  I nod. “Nevertheless, I think your quest for revenge has led you into the one place where you can’t stab your way to freedom. And now someone is intent on killing you—in a place where punishment can turn deadly, and you are rather apt to get yourself into trouble.”

  That’s an understatement. I don’t think Eden, for all her cool self-possession, is capable of staying out of trouble for a single day.

  “Is it true that you came here to kill us?” Julian’s tone is amused. “You let yourself get caught to get to us?”

  She quirks her lips to one side as she looks at him, as if she doesn’t want to answer. “Yes.”

  He laughs, apparently not easily offended. “Talk about the ultimate punishment for spite.”

  “You can all discuss that on your own time,” I say. They’ll have trust issues to work through, but then, every one of them was already an emotional trainwreck. “I assume her goals have changed.”

  Eden nods slowly. “So you think someone connected to the Lords is trying to get vengeance for my vengeance?”

  “We can’t rule anything out,” I say. “But I think you missed someone who was there the day Elliot was killed.”

  She rakes her hand through her hair. “Do you have a mic on you?”

  I raise my hands in the air. Everett’s on his feet in an instant, patting me down, pulling my shirt up. No wire. Julian grins the entire time.

  Everett sits back down. “He’s clean.”

  “I killed everybody,” she admits without hesitation. “Every Lord in our unit except these three.”

  Julian whistles admiringly. “Damn, Eden.”

  “For Elliot,” she says, and his smile dies.

  He nods. “We would’ve helped if you’d wanted us.”

  “I didn’t,” she says crisply, but from the grin on his face, he isn’t hurt by her tone.

  “I think you overestimate yourself,” I say, just to see her bristle. “You don’t remember that day at all. I think someone else was there, and wants to make sure you never remember.”

  She leans forward, studying my face. “Why do you think that?”

  Rip the band-aid off. “I believe the Lords had a spy on the inside. Watching the Sent.”

  She watches my face with bright eyes, prompting me to go on.

  The room has gone very quiet.

  “Elliot couldn’t figure out who it was, but the Lords had information that must have come from an insider.”

  She stills. Her voice is deadly when she asks, “Elliot?”

  Everett shakes his head. “I never heard anything about that, and I was…”

  He trails off, but the rage flaring in Lincoln’s eyes tells me all I need to know.

  “You were a Sent spy too,” I say, and I can see Eden’s eyes widen on that word too. “I wasn’t your handler. I didn’t even know…”

  “But you knew Elliot,” Eden says, and something in her cold tone twists at my gut.

  “Elliot was a Sent spy all along,” I admit. “He was always one of the good guys, Eden.”

  For a second, she doesn’t speak. Her face is blank, but I can only imagine what’s going on behind that pretty mask.

  “All along?” Linc demands. “From the day we met him?”

  I nod.

  “How did you know Elliot?” Julian demands.

  “I recruited him,” I confess.

  “Oh?” Eden is suddenly furious, though it barely shows except in her cold smile. “You recruited him? Did that by chance take place on the worst day of my life—at least, the worst day that I’m able to remember?”

  Lincoln bristles, and Everett leans forward as if he needs more information. But I don’t want to talk about the day I recruited Elliot in front of them if I can help it. Eden has some secrets she doesn’t want anyone to know.

  “Yes,” I admit.

  “What happened on this worst day?” Everett demands. The look on his face is thunderous, as if he intends to go back in time just to sever someone’s head from their shoulders.

  But Eden has eyes only for me. “You asshole. You got my brother to betray me, and then you got him killed.”

  “He never betrayed you. He was always trying to protect you.” My voice is calm; I won’t get sucked into her fury.

  I will never forgive myself for the day Elliot came to me, shaky with fear, but not for himself. He and Eden were just kids then; Elliot had a tall, narrow body, but there was still a roundness to his cheeks that made him look cherubic.

  He’d known that if the human authorities found out what Eden had done—the very first time she killed—that they’d be separated forever.

  So I made a deal with him.

  And he brought Eden with him into the Lords.

  “Well. He did a fan-fucking-tastic job of it,” Eden says, her eyes livid with rage.

  She rises suddenly from the table. Her gaze falls to the cup of tea I’d brewed for her, and I brace myself for her to hurl the hot liquid at me.

  But she turns and heads for the doors. “Unlock them or I’ll go through them, Bright.”

  I don’t doubt her. I get up and unlock the doors.

  “Who do you want to go with you?” Lincoln demands. “You can’t be alone. It’s not safe.”

  She shakes her head. I pity anyone who would mess with her right now.

  “I’ll be in my room,” she says, her voice full of steel. “Whoever cares to join me tonight can. But I would strongly suggest letting me have my head start.”

  Then she walks out of the room, all cold and controlled. It
’s all a lie.

  “You’re the reason Eden and Elliot joined the Lords of Havoc,” Everett says, hatred woven through his voice.

  I take her deserted tea cup and take a sip of the green tea I’d brewed. It’s supposed to be calming.

  “You wouldn’t have met her otherwise,” I note.

  “Any ideas on who might’ve tried to kill her?”

  I shake my head.

  “There are three Nephilim instructors here,” Ever says. “And while I’m not sure we should cross your name off the list, we can for the sake of discussion.”

  I begin, “I know Esther, and—”

  Julian scoffs openly at that, clearly having his own ideas of how I know Esther. Students here love to dream up relationships between their instructors.

  “I know Michael,” I continue, not dignifying that with an answer. “They both deeply despise the Lords.”

  “No offense, but I don’t trust your judgment,” Lincoln says. “After what you did to Elliot and Eden…”

  Familiar guilt squeezes my gut. “I didn’t know they’d realized that Elliot was a Sent agent. I would’ve pulled them out.”

  I’ll never forget walking into that warehouse, stinking with the tang of blood. I could still taste it in the back of my throat in my memories. Elliot and Eden had both been strung up by their wrists to a beam overhead, their bodies twisted and broken and wrong. I’d thought they were both dead.

  Then Eden had cracked open one swollen eye.

  “You think that they learned Elliot’s identity from whoever they had on the inside of the Sent,” Ever fills in the blanks. “So if we find the Lords’ spy, maybe we’ll find Eden’s would-be murderer.”

  “Too bad all the Lords are dead and therefore rather difficult to interrogate.” I feel exasperated by the trail of bodies that Eden’s left in her wake.

  “But not impossible,” Julian says. He glances at Everett. “Do you still have all those witchy friends?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Eden

  I OPEN the window to my room and lean out into the cool night air. The breeze caresses my hot face.

  I wish I could cry. That’s just one more part of me that broke the day I lost Elliot. I grieved him, but I never cried. When I think back, it’s hard to remember the last time I cried, because life before Elliot died feels like it happened to another girl, in another world.

  The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that the last time I cried was months before I lost Elliot, when Ever and I got into a stupid fight.

  The five of us had broken into a tech mogul’s office to steal secrets that Richmond was selling, and on our way back out, I’d accidentally tripped an alarm. I hated making mistakes like that so I’d been snippy with Ever, and when we were in the getaway car, peeling off our masks, he’d told me he was sick of me taking things out on him, that it was weak. I had disagreed—at length—and Lincoln eventually told us both to shut up. I’d stared out the window, so frustrated with myself, with them, with my life itself that a few hot tears leaked down my face. Julian had noticed and thrown his arm around my shoulders, resting his chin on top of my head.

  Now I wish I could have that life back, even though I would run from the Lords if I had it to do over.

  Later that night, Ever and I had hot make-up sex. Julian and Lincoln had clapped when we came out of our room, and Elliot—who was playing cards with them at the time—had slid under the table, singing to himself to drown out any discussion of my sex life.

  Even then, I’d been angry. The last time I remember crying because I was heartbroken was when I was thirteen. The night Elliot and I left our grandfather’s house, we left behind the blood on the walls. I’d still heard screaming ringing in my ears. For all the practice I have now, it’s hard to believe I was wrecked by that first killing. Elliot had bundled me into the back of the car and we’d driven away, leaving the house with the lights still on, the TV playing the late show. I had looked back over my shoulder as we drove down the road, leaving it behind forever.

  Later on, he’d talked me into joining the Lords. Now I knew he’d already belonged to the Sent. My fingers curl against the windowsill so hard my fingertips begin to ache. He could have just told me. I would have gone into the Lords with him, but I wouldn’t have ever lost my soul to them.

  And I’d lost my heart to three rebellious boys that I met there. My flirt. My grouch. My first love. If I’d known, would I always have had one foot out of the Lords?

  Had Elliot felt he couldn’t trust me with his secret?

  The night we left our grandfather’s house, he stopped the car on the side of a dark road to wrap his arms around me. I’d been sobbing so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. “It’s all right,” he’d whispered to me. “I’m here. I’ll always be here, Edie.”

  Liar. Now I know he was always a liar.

  But I can’t hate him for it, even if it would be easier.

  I need answers. I need to talk to Elliot, and I need my memories back. The identity of the last of the Lords is locked in my memory. I press my temples between my hands, hard, as if there’s some way to break open the walls my mind erected to protect itself.

  When the door swings open behind me, I can feel that it’s Julian. There’s just something about his presence, about his soothing, spicy scent.

  “You drew the short straw, hm?” I ask.

  “Ever pisses you off,” he says, “and Lincoln pisses everyone off. I was the logical choice.”

  He’s suddenly close behind me, but he doesn’t touch me. “And I wanted to be here. So shut up about the short straw.”

  “Are you trying to piss me off too?”

  “Would it help?” he asks. “I can be quite infuriating if you need someone to take your anger out on.”

  “Oh, I’m aware.”

  “He should have told you the truth,” he says softly. “But we’ve all been guarded with each other. It’s our nature.”

  “Not yours.” I turn, and he’s close to me, so close that my breath hitches in my chest. But he doesn’t touch me; he might be the flirt, but I think he’s trying to be who I need in this moment. “You took me to meet your mother.”

  “I was trying to soften you up with cookies.”

  “You were trying to show me something that matters to you,” I say. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that.”

  “You don’t have to show me who matters to you,” he says softly, “because we happen to care about the same people.”

  I shake my head, rejecting that idea.

  “I thought you were going to try to be honest,” he says, a faint smile touching his lips. He looks so handsome tonight, with the breeze rustling his dark curls.

  “I never said that.” My voice comes out soft.

  “Good thing it doesn’t matter. You can lie to me all you want. It’s not convincing.”

  “You’ve always been a good liar.”

  “Yes.” He doesn’t try to deny it. “But I don’t lie to you.”

  I scoff at that, turning away, and he suddenly moves toward me, pinning me along the wall beside the window. His arms are braced to either side of my head, his body close to me but not touching. He’s still not touching me, even as he cages me with his leanly muscled body, and I know I could escape him easily. He knows it too.

  It’s just a matter of if I choose to escape.

  “When do you think I’ve lied to you?” he asks quietly.

  I bite my lip as I stare up into his face.

  “Ask me anything,” he tells me. “I’ll always answer you.”

  “I bet you tell that to all the girls.”

  “You know better.”

  “Why do you sleep around so much?”

  “For fun,” he says.

  “Has it really been fun?”

  He shrugs. “Yes. But I always wonder what it would be like if I loved someone when I had sex with them.”

  “You’ve never been in love?”

  His gaze locks on min
e. “That’s not what I said.”

  There are butterfly wings scraping against the inside of my chest, a strange, giddy lightness as I look into his face.

  “It killed me when I thought you were dead,” he says, his voice soft. “I hated myself for not saving you. I hated myself for never being brave enough to kiss you.”

  “Julian, I’ve watched you kiss dozens of girls.” Whenever we all used to go out, Julian ended up with a girl—or more than one. “You don’t lack bravery in exploring women’s tonsils.”

  “More than their tonsils,” he amends.

  “So why didn’t you ever kiss me if you wanted to?”

  “Because you scare me.”

  “I wouldn’t ever have hit you just for kissing me.” There were dozens of times I thought he was going to kiss me, when the two of us came close.

  “I wasn’t scared you’d hurt me,” he says with a laugh. Then his gaze meets mine again. “Well, not like that.”

  I was so furious moments before, but now I feel something else. I’ve been hollowed out these past two years, nothing left of me but anger and grief and revenge. Now I feel things again. It’s terrifying and heady all at the same time, and I don’t want to stop.

  I run my hands up his chest to his shoulders. “God hates a coward.”

  “You’re not a very nice person,” he chides me.

  “What does it say about you, that you like me anyway?”

  “I’ve never claimed to be a nice person.”

  My fingers slip beneath his neck, and I bend his head toward mine.

  His lips meet mine, a tentative brush at first, and then he kisses me intently. Julian could be a professional kisser, but then I guess he has plenty of experience. He nudges my lips open with his, teases his tongue against my upper lip. His mouth is warm and soft, his cadence thoughtful.

  His hands drop from the wall. He doesn’t need to cage me anymore.

  But maybe I like being caught. I rise onto my tiptoes and wrap my arms around his neck as we trade deep kisses.

  The door opens behind us. Julian doesn’t break the kiss.

  I can feel Lincoln’s angry presence and Ever, too, even before Julian presses his lips one last time to the corner of my mouth. I turn my head to meet Lincoln’s furious gaze. Ever stands behind him, and I can’t read the look on his face.