My powers floated out of me into Katrina. Unlike other times, I wasn’t seeing her on a cellular level but rather face to face. There was nothing around us, just vast whiteness. She wore her Sister clothes, and so did I. Neither of us was actually dressed this way in real life and whatever forces brought us here and had clearly changed our attire.
For once, I was on equal footing with her. Two Sisters. One giant problem in front of us.
“Krystal.” Her voice was her own.
I nodded. “Katrina.”
“What is happening here?” She looked around. “Where have you brought us?”
I chewed on my lip, wondering how to answer that. I didn’t know if I’d actually done this. But that didn’t matter. I’d answer like I had. “Some place safe, it would seem.”
She sighed. “There is no such thing. There never was.”
Now, that statement spoke volumes. But I wasn’t here to analyze Katrina, not really.
I was here to forgive her, or to help her forgive herself, and that was an entirely different scenario.
“Well, here is safe.”
She shook her head almost wildly, her black hair flying everywhere. “No, he’ll get to us.”
“I think if he could have, he would have by now.”
Her nostrils flared. “I have lived with him my entire life. You don’t know him like I do. He only killed you. He… did other things to me.”
“Katrina, if you had it to do over, would you do it again?”
With hindsight being 20/20, I wanted her answer. It wouldn’t change a thing but for me, it mattered. We couldn’t undo what we’d done—unless time travel was a power someone had that I didn’t know about it.
“Yes,” she snapped at me. “You don’t know how much worse things would be if I hadn’t taken him inside of me. If I hadn’t said yes. Why couldn’t you say yes? Don’t you understand? Someone has to be the sacrifice. Someone has to do it to keep things from getting worse? I stop him from destroying everything. We have had status quo a long time thanks to me.”
I nodded. From her perspective, perhaps that made sense. Hold on to bad to prevent worse. I’d not compliment her on toeing a line. I’d not say thank you for keeping bad from getting catastrophic. Not when she’d been born to do better.
I knew what she was capable of. “You harmed a lot of people. You destroyed relationships that had been predestined. Kept Sisters from their loves. Break the soulmate bond? That stops progression. You did all of those things.”
She grabbed my shoulders. “He did that.”
Her grip was hard, but I felt no pain. I wouldn’t anymore, not in this scenario; I understood that as though I could feel the divine pulsating in every pore of my body. This was the moment. It had come. I had a job to do.
“Katrina, you gave him permission. You were a little girl and you just told me you’d do it again. That is the statement of a little girl, still—of someone who doesn’t yet understand consequences and responsibility. The one gift you did give to all of us was that. You made us women. We had to grow up fast to survive the world you helped create for us. I understand responsibility. I get it. So, thank you for that.”
She scrunched up her face, and once again pity wafted through me. I still hadn’t made a dent in her stunted armor. I understood that I wouldn’t, and right then I didn’t care.
I could heal people, but they had to want to be fixed.
And Katrina still didn’t think she’d done anything wrong.
She would be the villain in everyone’s story, but to herself she was a wronged heroine. Whatever happened next would have to happen to her without any kind of understanding before she left this place.
I hugged her tight to me. “Go, Katrina. You haven’t asked for or wanted my forgiveness. But I give that to you anyway, and I send you off.”
“What? You can’t do that. You don’t have that kind of…”
She gasped, feeling my power move into her. I took the demon out of her cell by cell, and I’d hardly had to think about it. In anyone else there was a possibility they’d live through the experience, but as she shook in my arms, I could feel that wouldn’t be the case. The demon had to be removed from her. She was too powerful to be allowed to continue to live with it inside of her.
Katrina aged minute by minute, and much to my surprise, didn’t fight me in the removal. If anything, she sagged more and more as the time passed. When I pulled back to look at her, even in this white place of safety, she aged until she seemed an old woman. Wrinkled, hair thinned, spots on her face. Her eyes, for once, weren’t masks of hatred. Instead, for just a second, there was kindness in the vast darkness of her gaze.
Did she understand yet? Would she ever? I didn’t know. Our surroundings disappeared. As I was flung back into my own skin, I stared up at her, now an old woman in all places, hoping for a great reckoning I knew in my heart would never come.
Maybe she was relieved to be out of pain.
But then she was nowhere. Like dust in the wind, the years with the demon had killed her. Her body, now free from the magic that had kept her alive, broke like paper in fire. First tearing apart and then taking off into the wind as though it had never been there at all.
A roar, the likes of which I had never heard, shook the ground. The Darkness didn’t like losing his host. I slipped, falling backward, but I never hit the ground. Instead, strong hands grasped me before tugging me against a hard chest.
Facing away, I couldn’t see who had me, but as he yelled to be heard over the roar, I recognized Paden’s voice. “Got you, Krystal.”
Relief washed through me. “I think we’d better get out of here. He’s going to rip into something since I just took away his host.”
“Come on.” He tugged my hand, and I ran with him away from the scene toward the house where I’d been with Aspen. “This way,” he shouted over his shoulder, and that’s when I saw the other four coming. We made it through the door before he spoke again. “We were searching for you all over the town. I just found you first.”
The roar still pounded on my eardrums. “Are we safe inside? Should we try to get further?”
Beelzebub had once brought down a house. “Inside is better than out. Without a host he can’t get indoors as easily.”
How did he know that? I must have silently asked the question on my face because he grinned. “I have become a demon expert as we searched for you over the last year. I’ve read everything. Come on. Best thing to do is giving calming energy.”
“You got her?” Titus yelled as he came through the door, Jett on his heels, followed a second later by Ryland and Zeke. I’d never been so happy to see people. It didn’t feel like a year since we’d last been together, but even the hours away were too much.
“I am so glad to see you.” I couldn’t really express it enough. “How did you find me?”
Jett shrugged, throwing himself down next to me and pulling me into a hug. “We’ll always find you.”
Ryland was next. He half took me from Jett, I half went to him. It didn’t matter. I needed to touch all of them. He kissed me all over my face. A few seconds later I was against Zeke’s strong chest. His heart beat fast, and he squeezed me like he never wanted to let me go. Finally, there was Titus. He cupped my face in his hands.
“You’re okay. I could feel you in my head this whole time or I might have gone nuts. We were all waiting for a sudden lack of you, like that would tell us you were really gone. That would have been the end for us. Go out with a bang. But you’re here. You’re okay.”
They were all there in my mind, and for a second, it was like I could breathe again. Although, the demon roaring wasn’t making that particularly easy.
I sighed. “I should probably go deal with him.” I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do that, but I’d figure it out. My earlier confidence had waned just a bit. My ability to forgive and send on meant there had to be an entity actually present for me to do that. As far as I could tell the Darkness was eve
rywhere.
“No.” Paden shook his head. “Everybody breathe. He only has power if we give it to him. He’s very focused on you. We feed them with our angst, our fear, and our anger. I have none of that right now. Everyone be chill.”
I laughed. “Chill?”
“Cool. Calm. All that stuff.”
Jett winked at me. “He’s an expert now.”
“I am.” Paden crossed his legs and closed his eyes. “Just relax. He’ll go away. For now. I mean, this is not a permanent fix but think about it. What happens when a person encounters a demon, they get afraid. They can feed on that energy. He’ll find someone to be afraid of him, but it isn’t going to be us.”
I climbed onto his lap. If he could relax, maybe he could feed some of that so-called energy to me. Amazingly, it worked. After a few moments, the roaring decreased. “This won’t kill him. Or send him wherever beings like him go.”
I stated the obvious, but I needed to be sure they understood that staying calm wasn’t going to end the demon.
Paden nodded, his hand gentle on my arm. “You smell like you. I know that’s crazy, but I’ve missed the scent for the last year.”
I closed my eyes. “I… I didn’t know I was gone at all. One second I was at the Sisterhood, the next I was here, very little time in between. I’m sorry I disappeared.”
“Honey.” Ryland grinned. “That was some magic you were doing. Some serious amount of power. I couldn’t interact with you. We all felt… trapped, somehow. But we could see it. And Anne would say later you had to be damned strong to manage that. Not every Sister could have done what you did.”
As his words warmed me, a terrifying thought moved through me. “Aspen says the place blew up. The kids?” I’d left them in the house.
Titus shook his head. “Blow up is the wrong word. It kind of crumbled, but everyone was long out of the house. They piled out to watch what you did. Everything stopped. Even the two demons causing all the problems stood still to watch you. You should see that place now, it’s like the most fertile place on the earth. An abundance of food. And a new house grew out of the ground. It was… amazing, sort of.”
I sat up straight. “Sort of?” Sounded pretty amazing to me.
Zeke shrugged. “Nothing is amazing if you’re not there to look at it with us.”
“Okay, so I don’t know how I’m still here. I did what they gave me the power to do. Do I get to continue?” I shrugged. “What do I do now? Just go on as a Sister?”
The demon stopped roaring, and it was quiet outside.
“You guys found me.” I knew I’d said that earlier, but it bore repeating. “Thank you.”
“Well,” Titus brought my hand to his mouth, “we might have had a little guidance from the birds.”
“The ravens?”
He nodded, indicating toward the window. “They got very adamant that we follow them. Five of them. Even the one with the white feather. We followed.”
I rushed toward the glass. The ravens didn’t go near Aspen and she was here. Sure enough there were five ravens dancing in the sky. “They’re not supposed to be anywhere near Aspen.”
“Things are changing.” Paden rubbed the back of my neck. “Rules. What should be and what is and the whole thing… all the rules went out the window. Thanks to you. You did that.”
I couldn’t take the responsibility for any of it. “I was a vessel. That’s all. I did what they gave me the power to do.”
“Not everyone could do it. Not just any Sister.” Ryland pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Just you.”
Maybe that was true, but it didn’t feel that way. All of it, the whole experience, had taken on a distance—as though someone else had done it. I stared at the birds dancing in the sky, envying them their ability to soar. They were guards—or should have been—for Aspen. What must it be like to have wings anytime you wanted them?
I shook my head. What would musing like that get me except a headache?
I rubbed at my eyes. “The first thing that happened to me when I landed here, so to speak, was that I was attacked by a mob of guys led on by Aspen’s mother. I… Is it too late? Everything I did. Everything the Sisters are doing. Have we gone too far that we can’t be led back? I mean… have the demons already won?”
They were so silent I wondered if they’d disappeared. I whirled around, but instead I saw five guys who were so close to me I could feel them in my mind. They all wore equally unreadable expressions.
“You’re tired,” Paden smiled at me. “And that’s a question without an answer, right? We can never stop believing. We had to hold on for the last year, to believe. Don’t lose faith. Not yet, anyway. If it’s possible that ravens can be men, that Sisters can take down demons with the flick of their wrists, that you can regrow the world, then isn’t anything possible?”
I swallowed through the lump in my throat. “Yes. Then maybe it’s possible for men and women to learn to be better than they currently are.”
“Maybe it is,” Jett answered. “I’m hungry.”
I laughed, his sudden abrupt change of topic catching me off guard. “Maybe there’s food in the kitchen?”
I woke slowly. I barely remembered going to sleep. It had been Paden’s suggestion when I’d practically fallen over in the kitchen. Sisters were often wiped after a big clearing, and I’d certainly had one sending Katrina on.
I stretched. I must have slept a long time to feel that stiff.
“Hey.” Paden tugged me against him. “We started to worry, so I crawled in with you to make sure you were breathing.”
I rolled toward him so I could place my face against his chest and breathe him in. “I’m breathing.”
“Yes.” He kissed my forehead. “You were actually snoring.”
I shot my head up. “Was I? I snore?”
“Never heard you do it before, but maybe it was an I-saved-the-universe-and-took-down-Katrina exhaustion.” He kissed my nose. “I liked it. Totally sexy.”
I kissed him because I had to, because there was never enough time for anything, and I had to kiss Paden every chance that I got. I kissed him because his eyes were always kind, because his smile was sexy as hell, and because I could feel him inside my soul where I’d needed him my entire life. He kissed me back like he’d never get enough of me. I could feel it through our link.
He was hard, maybe he’d been before I even touched our lips together. We’d co-joined, and we’d never gotten to do this. The world had needed saving. At this second, it could wait. I tugged at his shirt, feeling the long, lean scope of his muscles beneath my fingertips.
Paden separated our mouths before he bit down on my lower lip. Pleasure surged through me. “I need you.”
“Me too, sweetheart. Me too. So fucking much.” We clawed at each other, the easy, drowsy making out fleeing. There was somewhere we needed to get, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it without exploding.
He bit down on my neck, and I shuddered. Yes, I wanted Paden’s marks all over me. I reached for and found his erection, and when I grabbed onto him, he moaned against my ear. I stroked him, long and hard.
“Not too much.”
I shook my head. “Never enough.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” He pushed away my hand and soon sheathed himself inside of me. I held onto his shoulders, knowing that I’d love this man every day I was alive. However long or short that proved to be, I was lucky.
He thrust inside of me before jerking out. I bit down on his shoulder, and his whole body shook. Yes, by Divinity, I loved this man.
Chapter 17
The sun burst through my dreams, forcing me back to real life. I had spent way too much time in the room. Paden wasn’t with me, which made me feel even lazier than before. How long had they left me to lounge? I swung my feet over the side of the bed and padded into the bathroom. I needed a shower, hopefully a hot one, to loosen up my muscles.
Aspen hadn’t returned since I’d told her to go, and I hoped she didn
’t mind that I’d sort of invaded her home with all of my people. Well, if she did, I supposed she’d tell me. She didn’t seem shy and retiring.
The water was lukewarm, which was better than cold, and I let it wash over me. I closed my eyes. Okay, I’d done what they wanted me to do. I’d taken down Katrina. The Darkness was somewhere else now and likely not my problem. So why didn’t I feel… done?
Like I could fall into this life now with my loves and just exist? Sure, I could help the Sisterhood. I could heal when they needed me to. Except that wasn’t it. I rubbed at my face.
I wasn’t done.
I just knew it.
“Hey.” The shower curtain was suddenly open and Jett stood there grinning at me. “Whoops. The curtain just magically opened. Must be your powers or something.”
I put my hands on my cheeks and dramatically rolled my eyes at him. “Oh sure. It’s my powers. Not your hand tugging on things.”
His gaze heated while he looked me up and down. “I want in there with you.”
I stepped back. “Come on in, Jett.”
He didn’t even take off his clothes. The water hit him, fully dressed, and then his mouth was on mine. Jett kissed like he wanted to own me. Right them, I was happy to let him. I grabbed onto his shirt that was getting wetter by the second. “Jett, you have to undress.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” He winked at me before he dropped to his knees in the shower.
I gasped. What was he going to do? His mouth was on me before I could realize what was going to happen. My knees almost buckled, and he pulled back just in time to give me what I realized was a quintessential Jett look. He was amused, and it glowed from both his gaze and the slight smirk he wore. All of it spoke of adoration.
“Don’t fall. Lean against the wall. I am going to make you feel so good.”
That was going to be easier said than done. His tongue was doing naughty, amazing things to me. Pleasure shot up and down my spine and goosebumps broke out on my arms. Coupled with the hot water and the sheer erotic sight of Jett on his knees pleasuring me, I wasn’t sure I could manage not to become a puddle on the floor, let alone staying upright.
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