Strife: Hidden Book Four

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “Great,” Jones groaned. “So what does that mean for us?”

  “It’s not as bad as you think, shifter,” Hades said. “It’s complicated. As I said, these are avatars of the different spirits. You can destroy the avatar, the physical manifestation of the spirit. Eventually, it will just develop a new avatar. They never really go away.”

  “So she’s just going to pop up in a new body later?” Stone asked.

  “Yes, and no,” Hades answered. “Strife will have a new body, but that new being won’t be the same as this one. The next avatar will have its own memories, its own agenda. It will have its own loves and hates.”

  “So the next avatar of Strife won’t want to destroy my city over a grudge?” Jones asked, and my father and I both nodded. “You’re sure?” Jones asked, looking right at my father. I had to give it to the chief: dude had guts. Most beings wouldn’t even think of challenging my father.

  “Yes. We’ve done it before.”

  “So this isn’t something Molls has to do on her own, then?” Nain said, repeating his initial question.

  “No, it isn’t,” Tisiphone said. “We can kill her. It’s likely a very strong mortal could even kill the avatar, though I don’t recommend trying. She’ll only get more powerful the longer she’s here.”

  “I don’t want any of you facing off against her, thinking you’re gonna be a hero,” I said, looking straight at Nain. “Just because you’ll ‘probably’ be able to kill her doesn’t mean you should try. She’s mine,” I finished, and I heard the snarl in my voice. I took a deep breath, tamping down the rage beginning to rise within me again.

  “How do the avatars get reborn, or whatever?” Nain asked my father. “Does it work the same way it did with me and Molly when we came back?”

  I felt a wave of irritation roll off of Brennan, and glanced over at him. He was looking at the table top, avoiding my eyes.

  Hades nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Here’s a question: has anyone figured out yet what the hell is going on with Molly?” Brennan asked, finally speaking up. He was still looking at the table. The room went silent.

  “We are not discussing me,” I said. My team had tensed around me. Anger rolled off of them. They were loyal, protective. And the one thing we’d all agreed on was that the fewer people who knew about my issues, the better.

  “So, no, then,” Brennan said.

  “We’re not talking about it,” Nain growled. On the same page as me for once. I liked the chief. I loved Ada and Stone. But they were not in my inner circle, and the chief especially already had issues with me.

  Chief Jones opened his mouth.

  “Don’t bother, mortal,” Hades said, and Jones closed his mouth, irritated.

  Nain shot another glare in Brennan’s direction, then he looked at me. “What do you need from us? How can we help you find this bitch?”

  I shook my head. “I wish I knew. If I had even the slightest idea of how to find her, I'd be tracking her ass down now. The only thing we've come up with is to try to watch the news and the chief's reports more closely, try to find patterns. Higher rates of crimes concentrated in a particular area. People will feel her presence, even if she's not trying. Things should be rougher in any area she's settled in.”

  “And if she hasn't settled anywhere, then we have nothing,” Jones said.

  “Right,” I agreed. “I’m sorry. It's all I have for you.”

  We sat for a while longer, sharing the few, almost worthless things we knew. Jones agreed to pull some reports together and send them over to Nain and I, and I hoped we'd find something that way. Jones left pretty quickly after. I glanced over at Brennan, who was still sitting there simmering.

  “I need to talk to you a minute,” I said.

  He nodded. Need, mixed with irritation. I'd felt it, every time Nain and I had exchanged a word during the meeting. One more reason to do this, now.

  We walked to the far corner of the loft, to two chairs in the corner of the living room, near the windows. He reached out to touch me, and I flinched back. Anger washed over me again.

  “What? I can't touch you?”

  “I need to be able to focus,” I said, watching him.

  “Apparently answering phone calls is too much to ask. Or does that make it too hard to focus as well?” He asked this last with a bit of a sneer in his voice that I didn't like. I knew he was hurt, frustrated. I got it. But I'd tried the best I could to make it clear that I was trying to keep him safe.

  “I have been trying to get my head straight. It hasn't been easy,” I said in a low voice. “So yes. I haven't been answering the phone—”

  “You answer when he calls you,” he interrupted.

  I stared at him. “Really? Are we back to this?”

  “It kind of seems like we are. Especially when he came home the other night and I could smell you all over him.”

  “Then you also smelled the fucking werewolves we fought off together. And you know what? I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’m doing the best I can, and you’re not helping.”

  “Right. How often do you talk to Nain on the phone again?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I know how often. It’s at least once a day.”

  “About work shit, Brennan,” I said, shaking my head.

  “What else am I supposed to think, when you answer his calls but can't be bothered to answer mine?”

  “You're supposed to think of what I've told you, and understand that this is time I need.” I glared at him until he finally looked away. He was making this easier every second. “Listen. I'm trying to get a handle on this thing. And it's hard. It's getting harder all the time. I think it would help me a lot if you broke your bond to me.”

  He snorted. “Right.”

  “Brennan. I’m not messing around here… ”

  “You want it broken so I won't know when you're with someone else,” he said, obviously looking toward where Nain stood talking to my father on the other side of the loft, near the kitchen.

  My jaw dropped open. Of all the things he could have said, that was about the last thing I'd expected. “Are you serious? Messing around is the last thing on my mind. That's more your territory, isn't it?”

  Probably not the nicest thing to say. But now I was pissed and slightly in agreement with the thing inside me that wanted to kill him.

  “And clearly you're not over that, huh?” Brennan asked.

  I watched him. Anger rolled off him. The need was almost nonexistent, now. “Yeah. Silly me, having a hard time dealing with the fact that the man who swore up and down that I was the love of his life knew I was alive and chose to sleep with someone else. Crazy, right? Especially considering that you're sitting here pissed at me for talking to Nain.”

  “You were gone for two years when I had my thing with her. I was pretty sure you weren't coming back. I was pissed off and weak and thinking that maybe it was time to move on. Maybe it’s time now.”

  “We’ve been over this. And I--”

  He held up his hand, glared at me. “No. You know what? Fine.”

  “Fine, what?”

  “Fine, I'll break it. It’s a nightmare being bonded to you, you know that? Almost constant pain because you won’t stop fighting and using your powers. And I can’t even be by your side to make sure you’re okay.”

  The thing was raging, and I fought it back as hard as I could. I closed my eyes, opened them again when I felt in control.

  “Do you think I wanted this? Do you honestly think I wanted to come home from the goddamn Nether and find everything in my life upside down and then have whatever this is making me insane? I didn’t fucking ask for this, Bren.”

  “Whatever. Let’s just do this and then you can have all the space you need to figure out what it is you want.”

  I shook my head. “It has zero to do with what I want, and everything to do with the shit I’m forced to deal with. Again.” I wanted to hit him. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell
him I was an idiot and beg him to take me back so I wouldn’t have to feel so alone. I wouldn't do any of them, though.

  He closed his eyes for a minute, anger still coursing through him. And I felt the warm, bright bond between us darken, his part of it, gone.

  “Your turn,” he muttered.

  I closed my eyes. Mine was more complicated. I'd claimed him as mine. When an immortal does that to a mortal, it means something. It's not done lightly. You give them a little bit of your strength. It makes them stronger, less likely to get sick or injured. It was the reason the Guardians hadn’t managed to kill him when they’d had him. It makes it so you always know, in general, where they are, and you can always find your way back to them. It makes it so their soul is deeply entwined with your own. So it took some time for me to untangle us, to separate myself, my soul, from his. Finally, I felt the connection slither away, as if I'd let go of a helium balloon and watched it float off into the sky.

  There was emptiness there now.

  I clamped down the sadness, the sense of mourning that filled me. Later. I'd deal with it later. I opened my eyes. “Done.”

  “Great.” He sat there for a moment, not looking at me. “I hope this does what you wanted it to.”

  “I think our bond was maybe why whatever this is has such a crazy reaction to you. It's the best guess I have. I'm sorry. And if you honestly think that screwing around with anyone is any part of my motivation, then you don't know me as well as you think you do. Maybe you need some time, too.”

  “Yeah. Well. I’ve had time. A couple months. A few years, before that. Maybe this was for the best. Now I can stop needing you to feel complete.” He sat in silence, not looking at me. I could see that he was biting the inside of his cheek, a habit of his when he was irritated; the kind of thing you’d only notice if you lived with someone day after day.

  “Bren… “ I said, my heart breaking, his sadness overwhelming my own.

  “I’m starting to figure myself out. This whole thing has made me take a good look at myself. And you know what I need?” he asked me, and I just watched him. “I need somebody to need me. And you don’t need me. Not the way I need you to. I was so mad at you after you were gone. You threw us away, and I bet you didn’t give it a second thought.”

  “I didn’t know I would get trapped, Brennan.”

  “Yeah.” He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but he stayed silent for several long seconds. “You’ve changed.”

  “Actually I haven’t. Not all that much. I am what I am, Bren. I’m not going to stop fighting and settle down and be some kind of demure little woman.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I know. I feel like I put everything into us and you never even bothered trying to meet me halfway.”

  “Don’t you get it? I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone’s entire life to be about me. Do you have any idea how much pressure that is?”

  He shook his head. “It’s all about you. I think you two deserve one another.”

  “I cannot even believe you’re reducing this to a you versus Nain thing.”

  “Yeah, well. You’re free now. I hope it’s all you hoped it would be.” He met my eyes one more time, anger and sadness in his slate-blue gaze. And then he got up and walked away. Picked Sean up out of the playpen and left the loft.

  I stood up and walked over to my team, all of whom were watching me closely.

  “Okay. Let's go,” I said to them, needing to get out, away, by myself. We walked out without another word. The drive back home was silent.

  When we got home, we pulled into the driveway to find my parents sitting on the front porch steps. The imps were arrayed around the block surrounding my house, and the dogs stalked back and forth in the fenced portion of my back yard, doing their guard dog thing. It had been nice being back in my own house, using my stuff, surrounded by the crazy vintage shit I collected. I loved hearing my dogs bark at squirrels and imps in my yard. I was looking forward to spring, to seeing the huge lilac hedge at the back of my yard in full bloom.

  Assuming the world didn’t end before then, of course.

  We all got out of the car. Shanti said something about needing to feed, and Levitt followed her into the house, need flowing from him. I tried not to think too much about the fact that the two of them had been together. She was over it; he very much was not.

  I had my own relationship problems.

  Heph went into the house. He’d be leaving for his patrol with Levitt soon, and Shanti would have to go back to Queen Rayna’s; she’d taken the night off to accompany me for the meeting with Nain, which meant a lot to me. That left me in the front yard with my parents and Eunomia.

  “Are you all right?” Tisiphone asked me. I crossed my arms over my chest. Nodded. ”The shifter was quite angry when he left,” she said.

  “He was. I made him break his bond to me. We’ll see if it helps with this,” I said, gesturing toward my head. Didn’t need to explain what “this” was. They knew. I glanced over at my father. “What were you and Nain talking about back at the loft?”

  “He was trying to learn as much as he could about Strife,” Hades said. “And I was trying to keep him from killing the shifter.”

  “What?”

  “Your emotions were a mess while you were talking to Brennan,” Tisiphone said, reaching out and taking my hand.

  “And you are terrible at hiding your feelings. You don’t need to be able to sense emotions to know exactly what you are feeling sometimes, my friend,” Eunomia said. “You looked like you wanted to cry or kill someone, and maybe both. Whatever he said hurt you. It didn’t sit well with the demon.”

  “Or with me,” Hades muttered. In daddy dearest mode. It was cute, in its way, if the possibility of my dad smiting and/or torturing whoever had hurt me wasn’t a very real one. He wasn’t a huge fan of Brennan in general since the whole cheating incident.

  I shook my head. “It hurt. But it made it a little easier to tell him to break the bond, so… it doesn’t matter.”

  “When you hear back from the police chief, let me know,” Hades said, and I nodded. “I’ll be checking around Seven and Kelly tonight. That area is a mess.”

  “It usually kind of is. But it’s definitely worse lately,” I agreed.

  A few minutes later, they left, my mom hugging me before she winked out of sight. She’d rematerialize elsewhere. It was a handy skill to have, and I missed being able to do it.

  That left me and Eunomia standing in my front yard. I sat on the wooden front steps, and she sat beside me. I looked down at the step below where I sat. The porch was in bad need of a paint job, gray paint peeling from the stair treads. Another task to take care of once the weather warmed up in spring.

  “What did he say to you, Mollis?” E asked me.

  “Oh. What didn’t he say? He basically accused me of messing around with Nain. Flat out said he thinks I wanted our bond broken so I could screw around without having to worry about him sensing it. Said he was kind of ready to be rid of me.” Saying it was even more difficult than remembering it. I leaned forward, rested my face in my hands, tried to force the tears back. “He was so cold, E. I did that to him.”

  She put her arm around my shoulders. “You didn’t. Yes, he’s hurt. He’s angry. But if he honestly believes those things of you, then I think he never deserved someone like you in the first place,” she said softly. “He was speaking out of anger. You know this.”

  I nodded, face still in my hands. I kind of hated how often my team saw me cry. How often they saw me fall apart, after I’d taken care of whatever needed to be taken care of. It used to be, I’d fall apart in private. There was no privacy anymore and my control was shit. But they were with me, and as much as I hated them seeing my weakness, it felt good to be surrounded by people who genuinely cared about me, who didn’t want a damn thing from me other than to fight by my side.

  Shanti came out then and sat on the other side of me on the step. “Fuck Brennan,” she muttered, whic
h was her most common refrain when it came to him. “You’re amazing. If he thinks anything other than that, then he’s too stupid to live.”

  I shook my head. We sat in silence, E with her arm around my shoulders, Shanti resting her head against mine. The warmth coming from both of them soothed my ragged nerves, just a little. The thing had been raging, fighting me for control since I’d walked into the loft, and I was exhausted. My frazzled emotions only seemed to excite it more.

  “I kind of adore you two. You know that, right?” I asked, finally raising my head.

  “Obviously,” Eunomia said.

  “You have exceptional taste in friends,” Shanti agreed, and I laughed. Shanti stood up. “I have to get back.”

  I stood up too. “Okay. Be careful, kiddo.”

  She hugged me tightly, and I hugged her back. “Always am,” she said. “See you soon. Call me whenever you want to, okay?”

  I nodded, gave her another quick squeeze, then E and I watched as she walked over to her sporty little red car. She honked the horn as she drove away and I felt the same thing I felt every time I watched her leave: worry.

  “Stop being such a mother hen,” E said, smiling. “She’s scarier than most things out there.”

  “I know. I just hate the idea of her working with people we don’t know. I need to pay a visit to the queen soon.”

  E nodded, and we walked up the front steps and into the house. We followed the sound of Heph and Levitt’s deep voices, leading us to their favorite place: the kitchen. As the two beings in the house who ate the most (seriously, they were kind of gross, with the amount of food they could demolish in one sitting) they usually ended up cooking. E never had a very big appetite and I forgot about eating most of the time. Coffee, though, was something else, and I noticed that one of them had started a fresh pot.

  “Thank you, Heph,” I said as I poured a big cup, adding plenty of cream and sugar.

  “Anytime, queenie,” he answered, patting my shoulder as he walked past.