Devoted (Book Two, Caylin's Story)

by S. J. West

“Coming for breakfast?” I ask Tristan.

  “I wasn’t sure how welcomed I would be down there,” Tristan replies.

  “As welcomed as anyone else,” I tell him.

  I hold my hand out to him.

  Tristan looks at it for a split second as if he’s trying to decide whether or not I’m just helping him up out of politeness or extending the hand as a sign of friendship. To be honest, I’m not even sure why I’m doing it. But, I know Tristan doesn’t mean us any harm. I actually kind of feel sorry for him to tell the truth. He sacrificed his bond to his family to protect a member of mine. Not that his life with his father sounded all that great, but family was family. It’s a bond that‘s hard to break. Yet, Tristan broke his to his father to protect Mae. That was worth something. It was worth me trusting him until he did something to destroy that trust.

  No one seems surprised when Tristan comes down with us. My mother even gives up her seat at the table so Tristan can take it. He refuses at first, of course, but no one denies my mother for very long.

  I see Uncle Malcolm eyeing our resident werewolf suspiciously, but, to me at least, it simply means he’s becoming accustomed to his new circumstances and acting like his old, over-protective self again.

  Things were finally starting to get, at least a little bit, back to normal.

  After breakfast, I tell Aiden I’m going to take Will into town.

  “I’m coming with you,” he automatically says.

  “Well, that’s fine but my car only holds two people.”

  “Then we’ll just phase there together,” he says.

  “I want to drive my car there like a normal person,” I inform him. “And, I’ll be safe in it. None of the princes have been inside my car. Plus, you can’t exactly phase into a moving vehicle anyway.”

  Aiden sighs because he knows I’m right.

  “All right,” he relents, “tell me where you’re going and a few of us will be there to meet you. And, Caylin, please drive carefully. I can’t take anything happening to you.”

  “I’m just going shopping, Aiden, not off to war.”

  “But we are in a war,” he tells me, like I shouldn’t take the circumstances we find ourselves in lightly. “We’re fighting to keep our family safe. I don’t think it gets any more serious than that.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound flippant about it,” I tell him. “I know it’s serious. But, I need to do something that’s completely normal for once. And going shopping to get my mother a birthday present is that something for me right now.”

  Aiden takes both my hands into his.

  “I understand that,” he says. “And I won’t argue about you taking your car. But I will have to insist that some of us come along with you.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” I tell him with a smile.

  He smiles back and brings me in closer, loosely wrapping his arms around me.

  “Good,” he murmurs. “And you should know that I don’t plan to spend much of my life without being near you.”

  “That actually works for me because I don’t want to spend much of my life without you in it either. Three years of that was enough for me.”

  “Would you guys like kiss or something already so we can go to town?” Will says to us slightly exasperated.

  Aiden chuckles. “Avert your eyes then, Will, because I am indeed about to kiss your sister.”

  Will covers his eyes with both his hands.

  “Let me know when it’s over,” he tells us in total disgust.

  Aiden raises his hands and cups my face between them before bringing his lips to mine. I feel sure he only meant for the kiss to be a brief meeting of our lips, but I don’t let him go that easily. I wrap my arms around his neck and deepen the kiss, which makes Aiden involuntarily moan in pleasure.

  “I don’t need sound effects!” Will complains.

  I break the kiss because I can’t keep myself from laughing at what my little brother said.

  “I rather enjoy the sound effects,” I whisper to Aiden.

  Aiden smiles shyly and just shakes his head at my statement like he can’t believe I just said it.

  “Where should we meet you?” He asks.

  I tell him what store we’re going to first.

  “Ok. Jered, Slade and I will meet you at the jewelry store,” he tells me, leaning down to give me one more kiss. “Drive safely.”

  Will and I hop into my car and drive into town.

  It’s kind of weird knowing I have the freedom to go 65mph on the highway. Yet, I still find myself driving 55mph. Old habits die hard, I guess.

  “I heard about your studio,” Will tells me on the drive into town. “Sorry, KK. I know how much your art means to you.”

  “It’s ok,” I tell him. “But I don’t have a clue what I’m going to get mom for her birthday now. They completely destroyed the painting I did for her. And there just isn’t enough time to do another one.”

  “Well, why don’t we make what I’m planning to buy from the both of us?” Will suggests. “I’ll pay for it but you can help me pick out the charms.”

  “Charms?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to buy her one of those bracelets that has the special charms that slide on it. I have enough money to get a few, but you would probably know what she’d like on it more than I would. Sound like a deal to you?”

  “Who are you?” I ask, briefly taking my eyes off the road to glance at Will. “And what did you do with my brother?”

  Will rolls his eyes at me. “Geesh, I can be nice, you know. I just don’t do it that often.”

  I laugh and Will smiles.

  When we reach the jewelry store, my three Watchers are already in front of it waiting on us. We all go inside the store together, and Will and I pick out my mother’s birthday present. We end up buying eight charms and a sterling silver chain bracelet to slide them all on.

  When Will pulls out his wad of cash to pay for it all, I hear Slade chuckle.

  “Well, at least it’s all going to a good cause,” Slade says, not seeming to mind being hustled out of his money now that he knows what it’s being used for.

  Will and I decide to make one more stop and go to a baby store in the same shopping center as Clive’s. We pick out a double stroller for the twins. It’s something my mother doesn’t have since we kids were all born a few years apart. And, it’s something we know she’ll definitely use.

  While Will is paying for the stroller with the last of his money, I go to the ladies room and Aiden stands outside the door to wait on me.

  While I’m in one of the stalls, the lady in the one beside me says, “Excuse me. Would you mind giving me some toilet paper? There’s like none in here.”

  “Sure,” I say, taking one of the spare rolls in my stall and handing it to her underneath the metal wall separating us.

  “Thank you,” the lady says, relief in her voice. “You’re an absolute life saver.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The lady exits her stall before I do, and I hear her turn the water on to wash her hands. By the time I’m finished, the water is still running and my bracelet begins to grow warm. It’s only after I open the door to leave my stall that I see the reason why.

  Asmodeus is standing by the sink with one of his arms around the woman’s neck. As if he were simply waiting on me to bear witness, he snaps her neck and places his right index finger over his pursed lips telling me to be quiet.

  “Unless you want me to kill every human in this store,” he whispers to me, “I would advise you not to phase or scream out for help.”

  Asmodeus gently lays the woman down on the tiled floor of the bathroom.

  “Now, give me the keys to your car,” he tells me.

  My promise to Uncle Malcolm not to let anyone but me drive my car flits through my mind. But, I don’t have much choice. I know Asmodeus will do what he says and kill every human being in the baby store, many of them pregnant. Even with my three Watchers present, he w
ill have time to kill at least one person in the store, and that’s one person too many in my book.

  I look down at the woman who just had her life ended in pure terror for a cause she knew nothing about. She had mistakenly called me a ‘life saver’ a moment ago when, in fact, it was because of me her life had just been ended.

  I refuse to be the cause of any more deaths.

  I reach into the right front pocket of my jeans and pull out the keys to my Corvette.

  Asmodeus grabs my hand with the keys in it and phases us inside my car. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat, and I’m in the passenger seat.

  It’s something he shouldn’t have been able to do. He’s never been inside my car before, at least not to my knowledge.

  He snatches the keys from my hand and starts the car.

  He drives out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires against the pavement. Just as we’re merging onto the highway, I see Aiden phase to the curb of the sidewalk and helplessly watch me being driven away.

  He can’t come after me, at least not until we stop somewhere because you can’t phase into a moving target.

  “What’s to keep me from just phasing?” I ask Asmodeus.

  “Well, you could. Then what’s to stop me from phasing back to the store and doing just what I threatened? Plus,” he says pulling out something he shouldn’t even be able to touch from an inside pocket of his black wool coat, “I have this.”

  Before I can even blink, much less think of a way to stop him, Asmodeus buries one of the silver daggers into the middle of my stomach.

  I gasp for air. The pain from the stab wound seems to radiate out from its epicenter reaching every nerve cell in my body. I try to phase because I know if I stay, I’m as good as dead.

  But, I can’t phase.

  The dagger, Zack’s dagger, is preventing it. His gift to negate all angelic powers is encased within the dagger, and I can’t escape.

  I try to move Asmodeus’ hand, but he keeps it firmly in place and simply buries the dagger even deeper into my gut. I’m not sure, but I think I feel the tip of it scrape against the bone in my spinal column.

  “Just sit still,” Asmodeus says to me. “We’re almost there.”

  Asmodeus phases us, car and all, to an old wooden bridge I’ve only seen once before in my life.

  My mother brought me to this bridge a long time ago and told me the story of how her best friend Will saved her from drowning when she was eight years old. It was the same night the real Will died and the rebellion angel who Lucifer sent to watch over my mother took his body over to save her life.

  Asmodeus must press the gas pedal to the floorboard because the car guns forward quickly reaching its top speed. There’s one unique feature about this bridge that sticks out in my mind. It’s only half a bridge. The other half collapsed into the lake years ago when my mother was a kid.

  “Ironic you should die where your mother should have perished years ago,” Asmodeus says. To add insult to injury, he twists the knife in my gut causing me to involuntarily scream out in pain. I hear him laugh like the more pain he can inflict on me the more joy he gains from it.

  “Have a fun trip to the bottom of the lake!” He yells at me.

  There’s a moment of near silence as the tires leave the planks of the bridge and the car flies off its edge, soaring in mid-air for a few seconds before heading nose first into the dark abyss of the lake.

  I look over at Asmodeus and see him phase just as the car hits the surface of the water causing my whole body to hit the dashboard and disorienting me even further. I’m faintly aware of the lake water beginning to surround me and welcome the cold numbness it brings with it.

  Right before I’m about to completely lose consciousness, I feel someone grab my left arm.

  “It’s not your time,” I hear a man say just as my tether to the real world is broken.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I feel something warm and comforting press against my belly. Like a spiral of heat, it radiates out to every muscle, every blood vessel, every nerve and square inch of skin on my body. It reminds me of laying out underneath the sun on a bright, clear summer day. Sweet air that tastes a lot like cotton candy slides down my throat and fills my collapsed lungs to almost bursting. I gasp like I’m taking my first full breath of life.

  Slowly, I open my eyes and see a man knelt down beside me who looks as soaking wet as I feel. His dirty blonde hair is matted to his head, and his blue eyes look at me in worry, like he wasn’t quite sure I would return to the land of the living. As I stare up at him, I realize he isn’t a stranger, not exactly.

  I’ve been surrounded by his pictures all my life. My mother never let his memory fade just because he was no longer a member of the land of the living.

  His name passes over my lips naturally because it’s one I say every day.

  “Will?”

  My mother’s Will smiles as he looks down at me.

  “Hi, Caylin.”

  I don’t quite understand why I’m seeing my mother’s dead friend unless…

  “Am I dead?” I ask.

  Will shakes his head.

  “No, not if I did my job right.”

  “Your job?” I ask.

  Will’s eyes shift away from me, and he looks reluctant to say more.

  “Here,” he says instead, “let me help you sit up.”

  Will places one of his arms behind my back and easily lifts me up to a sitting position. The glare of the sun off the lake water is blinding, and I have to shield my eyes against the bright reflection. When I look back at Will, he’s glowing to my eyes. At first, I think it’s just a halo effect from the glaring sun, but I soon realize it’s not a glare at all. This glow is more like the one I saw surrounding my chosen Watchers. But, what did that mean?

  “If I’m not dead,” I say, “how are you here?”

  Will lowers his head slightly and looks almost embarrassed to say his next words.

  He runs a hand through his wet hair nervously before saying, “I guess you could say I did my job of keeping your mother alive a little too well. God’s sort of put me in charge of keeping all you girls alive until Anna is born.”

  “So you’re like…what? A guardian angel or something?”

  “Or something,” Will agrees, smiling at me.

  “Will you always be watching us?” I ask, not exactly liking the idea of someone constantly watching me too closely.

  “No,” Will assures me, “I won’t be watching every little move you make, if that’s what you’re worried about. But, if you are in mortal danger, I’ll feel it. It’s only then that I’ll be allowed to breach the divide between Heaven and Earth. And when I do, I’m only permitted give you the breath of life and heal your wounds.”

  I place a hand where the dagger wound should have been on my stomach and feel that it’s completely healed now. I look down and lift my shirt up slightly but see no sign of a wound ever being there.

  “Where’s the dagger?” I ask.

  Will looks down beside me, and I see it lying next to me. I pick it up and notice the enchanted leather JoJo wrapped around the hilt is no longer there. Someone must have taken it off. That’s why Asmodeus was able to hold it. But who would do such a thing and who would give the dagger to one of the princes?

  As I stare at the dagger in my hand, I say, “We have a traitor, don’t we?”

  “I can’t answer that for certain,” Will says. “But from what I do know, I would say your assumption is the correct one.”

  “But who?”

  “I guess you should start with the people who have access to the daggers.”

  I look over at Will again.

  “My mother still thinks about you,” I tell him. “She even named my little brother after you.”

  Will smiles. “Yes, I knew that.”

  “How long can you stay?”

  “I have to go soon. I’m not allowed to stay here for very long.”

  “So you don’t have time to go
see her?”

  Will shakes his head. “No. Not this trip. Like I said, I’m only allowed to come when one of you or one of your descendants are in mortal danger. My guardianship, if that’s what you want to call it, is tied to you, Caylin, and making sure your line survives until Anna is born.”

  “Do you know when she will be born?”

  “No, I don’t know how long Malcolm will have to remain here,” he says, knowing the real reason for the question.

  I smile. “I guess you do know us pretty well.”

  “I wish I had more answers for you, but I just don’t. I’m only granted permission to help keep you alive. I’m not allowed to join in your fight. That’s not how this works.”

  “I understand,” I say. “But, my mom will be disappointed that she wasn’t able to see you again.”

  Will smiles. “Tell Lilly…hello. And that she’s often in my thoughts.”

  I tilt my head as I look into Will’s eyes.

  “Even after all this time you’re still in love with her?” I ask in surprise, seeing his feelings for my mother plainly written on his face.

  “Death doesn’t mean you stop caring for the ones you leave behind,” he tells me. “It only means you can’t see them as often as you’d like.”

  I look down at the dagger in my hand and sigh, resigned to the fact that I have to figure out who the traitor is. We’re all in danger until I do.

  I look back at Will.

  “You’re glowing,” I tell him. “You’re glowing like the other Watchers I chose to watch over my family and take care of the princes.”

  “It means that I’m devoted to you,” Will tells me. “As devoted as the ones you chose to help you.”

  “Could one of my chosen be the traitor?” I ask, not liking the idea but seeing it as a real possibility.

  “I wouldn’t rule anyone out,” Will says. “You’re smart though. I’m sure you’ll find whoever did this.”

  Will stands up and holds a hand out for me to take. I grasp it with my free hand, and he pulls me up onto my feet.

  “I need to leave now,” Will tells me. “But before I do, God wanted me to deliver a message to you.”

  “What?”

  “He doesn't want any of the vessels except for Jess to be involved in the battle to come. Apparently, she's the only one who can handle Lucifer.”