Page 35 of Deadly Reckoning (Broken Ashes #7)

Neith

K ar nods, “Yes. When he was talking to me, it was like talking to the old Dimitri.” His eyes fill with sadness, and I know I’m not going to like what he says next, “We spoke a little on the plane ride here. He was aware of everything that he said to you, and he tried to end it so he couldn’t hurt you anymore.

Casimir wouldn’t let him and put an order in place so he couldn’t try again.

It tormented him. It torments him, he hates himself for everything that he put you through.

Do you know that he was aware that you were gathering evidence for HID, and he worked out some kind of loophole in the control so that he didn’t interfere?

He wanted to go to prison for no other reason than it meant that you were safe from him.

When Casimir managed to work it so HID never told SID about the information you had, he made sure that HID instead hired you.

It was supposed to keep you safe. Away from him.

” He winces, “Casimir made him watch you die.”

“Fuck,” Coen curses.

Even the guys wince. In another lifetime, they would have loved Dimitri and gotten on like a house on fire.

Anger, fear, and sadness rage inside me.

My magic reacts, my body going up in flames as my wings extend behind me, and I growl an inhuman sound, my fangs descending and my eyes buzzing with magic.

Kar’s eyes widen in shock, a huge grin on his face, “I knew it!”

“Dimitri promised me he wouldn’t, we promised each other,” I growl.

Kar nods, his expression serious, “He knows. The way he treated you voided that in his mind.”

“Never,” I growl. A boom of thunder shakes the ground.

“Oh shit,” Reed mutters.

Suddenly, he’s in my eyeline, “You’re fucking stunning, by the way. Dimitri is as safe as he fucking can be considering the circumstances. He’s in an extremely secure SID prison, Casimir can’t hurt him, and he can’t hurt himself.”

I take a breath, but the storm still churns the sky as rain begins to fall, my flames completely unaffected, and lightning flashes.

Then I do something that I promised that I would never do again. I reach for his mind.

I expect some sort of resistance, so I’m surprised when I meet none at all. Almost as if he’s been keeping the line open for me.

“Neith?” Dimitri’s voice is full of shock.

“You were being controlled this whole time?”

“Yes.” He replies, and then before I can say anything else, he adds, “I’ll show you.”

My mind is flooded with images and memories. I see the Blue Fucker, I know what he ordered Dimitri to do, I see myself, and more importantly, I can feel everything that he did. I feel the utter torment for the things that came out of his mouth, the things he said to me.

It destroyed him.

Tears track down my cheeks.

The utter, hopeless devastation that he felt is overwhelming.

I watch as Casimir makes him watch them kill me, as he sees me lying broken and bleeding, dead on the ground, and I see him snap.

A jagged smile mixes with my tears as I watch him beat the absolute shit out of Casimir.

“He doesn’t know you’re a hellhound,” I mutter.

“No.” his voice is hoarse, broken.

“You promised me, Dimitri. Fucking stay alive, Dimi, or I swear to fucking everything I’ll come after you,” I growl. “You hear me.”

His voice is nothing more than a whisper as he replies, “I hear you, Love.”

The Voices mutter and swirl inside my mind uneasily, and I have to follow my instincts even if it will destroy me later.

“I believe you,” I whisper, promptly snapping the bond closed and pulling away.

I have no idea when I closed my eyes, but when I open them, I find myself surrounded by Wallace, Winston, and Senka, all of them standing guard as the guys watch them cautiously.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Relief fills the guys faces while Coen grins having realized what I did.

Winston spins around, “You needed to have that conversation, without interruption. It’s important.”

I nod, I agree that it was important, but I have a feeling that he means it in a different way.

“Are you okay?” River asks, his eyes moving to the tracks on my cheeks.

I nod, “He showed me everything, and I felt what he did.”

Kar’s eyebrows hit his hairline, “He did?”

I nod.

“I hate to interrupt, but Neith, if you could be a dear and stop the storm of the century from raging around us, before you gain some unwanted attention, that would be fantastic,” Winston says with sass.

“Winston dear, would it not be a better idea for her to dial it back slowly rather than just stopping it. A storm of this magnitude just suddenly stopping would raise more eyebrows than it starting,” Senka points out her wispy body moving in a breeze that I realize isn’t touching us.

“Why isn’t the weather affecting us?” I ask.

“That would be something to do with you,” Raiden replies, smiling and looking curious as hell. “You’re stopping the weather from affecting us.”

There’s a loud cracking sound, and a branch snaps. Ransom holds up his hand and catches the branch before it can hit our van, and totally destroys it.

“Neith,” Winston says, his eyebrows rising.

“Shit, okay,” standing up, I have no idea why I was on the ground, but that does explain why Winston wasn’t as short as he normally is. To be honest, I just thought he’d grown.

“Nene,” Evander says, interrupting my wayward thoughts with a knowing smile.

“You don’t know me,” I retort with a smirk, and he bursts out laughing.

When another boom of thunder shakes the ground, I refocus. This is serious. My mind tried to make me think of entirely unserious subjects, but this time the Voices snap at me, and I don’t lose any more time.

Fortunately, it seems to be fairly intuitive.

Although it was my magic that caused this storm, it’s not my magic that is controlling it now, the magic of nature has well and truly taken over.

Following my instincts, I reach out to the storm with my magic, and I’m surprised by the sheer strength of it. As soon as my magic connects, whatever it was that was stopping the storm from affecting everyone else disappears.

My wings spread out behind me, holding me steady and stopping me from falling over.

Wings are fucking awesome.

I try asking nicely, but the storm is too strong, too enraged to listen, and is actually a pretty good representation of the turmoil that is inside me.

For a moment, I revel in it.

My arms spread wide, and I lift my face to the sky, the rain soaking me within seconds, and my smile widening.

I imagine an almighty boom of thunder, lightning streaking across the blackened sky, and my heart beats harder as the storm does what I imagined.

The storm is enticing. It calls to me, urging me to soothe the ragged emotions in my mind and soothe the edges of my torn soul.

Dimitri.

Boom.

Launching myself into the air, I know that I can’t let this storm rage on the ground anymore. It’s causing too much damage. I know that.

But I also can’t bring myself to let it go.

So, I take it with me, and I fly straight up, higher than I have ever flown before. Well out of the way of anything that might be flying up here, and then I stop.

My wings hold me steady as the storm spins and swirls around me.

Thunder rolls in deep rumbles that should scare me, but instead soothe me, rain falls in sheets soaking me completely, as the winds buffets around me while I hold steady.

This.

This is what it feels like.

Dimitri is mine. He always has been, and I nearly didn’t survive what he put me through. The only reason I did was because I made that stupid fucking promise to him. To find out that it wasn’t him, and the way that he felt about it all is fucking hard.

I don’t know how to handle it.

I desperately want to forgive him, it wasn’t him. I know that now. But it was his face that the monster wore while screaming those horrific things at me.

If I’m being honest, and let's face it, if you can’t be honest with yourself in the middle of a raging fucking storm that you created, then when can you? I’m terrified that I won’t be able to forgive him.

I’m terrified that the memories will pull me under any time I look at him.

That would destroy me and him.

Hell, Coen too.

Movement in the corner of my eye distracts me, and I glance over to see Coen in his dragon form fighting through the weather. Lightning strikes him, and I growl, my magic reaches out and wraps around him, surrounding him and protecting him from the onslaught.

His gaze locks on me, and he heads toward me with a speed that is impressive.

When he gets to me, he steadies himself, his wings holding him in place as his huge dragon eye studies me closely, understanding and sadness in his gaze as well.

Reaching my hand out, I touch his nose, realizing that my eyes have been leaking again.

Stupid eyes.

“Love?” Coen’s voice echoes in my mind.

“What if I can’t forgive him?” I ask, crumbling. “I want to, but what if I just see all the horrible things he said and did?”

“Oh Neith,” he mutters. “You already have. That’s why you can’t let him go, that’s why you don’t hate him despite everything that he did.

You forgave him a long time ago, and every time that he did something, you forgave him, because that’s who you are and because the connection that you and Dimitri have goes beyond a spell, beyond the realm of normal, Neith it goes beyond love.

” He nudges me to make sure that I’m still listening, “Be cautious, be wary. No one is telling you to jump into his arms, and honestly, knowing Dimitri, he’s going to want to make it up to you even though it wasn’t his fault.

Hell, be fucking mad at him for getting involved with someone like Casimir in the first place, I know I am. ”

“Anger I can deal with,” I mutter back.

I hold onto that because, actually, I am fucking mad at him for that. Especially after all the lectures he gave us about trusting other supes.

He chuckles, “I know. This is an impossibly difficult situation to navigate, but I will be there every step of the fucking way. It’s going to take time, especially if you do see the bad when you come face to face with him, and he’s in prison for a while, so you’ve got time.”

I growl, and thunder booms.

“Opps. I don’t like that he’s in prison, although I know he deserves to be there after the things that he’s done.

Hell, even if you take away the shit that he did because of Casimir and did with us, he would still be there.

That’s why I had to do my time with HID.

How did you get away with it, actually?”

“He kept us out of everything, remember? The only reason that they knew about you is because you told them you were involved so that you could take them down.”

“Which apparently he knew about too, and made sure to keep me safe,” I frown. “Even with the control.”

“I’m not surprised. He may not have been able to control what he said to you and how he treated you, but I doubt anything could override his need to keep you safe,” Coen replies. “It’s why we get along so well, Love. We understand what it’s like to be irrevocably owned by you.”

A tear drips down my cheek.

“Stupid eyes,” I mutter.

He chuckles, “We’ll figure it out. Everything happens for a reason, even if we can’t see what that reason is right now.”

I sigh. “I guess I should stop the storm.”

He shrugs, “ Only if you want to. It’s not causing any harm up here. By the way, that was fucking amazing. All of it. You’re incredible.”

I smile and then kiss his big dragon nose, making him make a kind of purring sound that weirdly resembles the thunder.

“Are the guys okay?” I ask. “ The storm hasn’t hurt them?”

“They’re worried about you, and Kar is finding the whole thing highly bemusing, he said only you could make so many strong supernaturals fall in love with you.”

My breath leaves me at his words, but he leaves me absolutely no time to respond, not that I know how I would respond to that anyway.

It wasn’t their words after all, it was Kar’s.

“What’s the plan, Love?”

“Let’s go and tell the guys I’m okay.” I glance around at my storm. “I suppose I should dissipate this before it grows bigger by itself and then causes issues or sends the human scientists into a tizzy.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Coen agrees. “Fortunately, it’s not kicking off any magic now that you’re not playing with it. So hopefully no one will be bothered enough to come and check out its origin.”

“Yeah, hopefully. We don’t need any more complications at the moment,” I reply.

I might just smite whoever starts shit next. I have no idea if that’s even in my wheelhouse, but then again, I didn’t know I could create storms, which, by the way, is so fucking awesome.

Using my magic, I reach for the storm again, and this time, thanks to the fact that my emotions and thoughts are somewhat calmer, I manage to get it to start calming down.

“Don’t forget that you need to leave it somewhat blustery and raining,” Coen reminds just in time.

I nod , “Thanks. I was going to get rid of it.”

Pausing my magic and then pulling it back, I leave the dark clouds, falling rain, and some of the wind, but I dial it back so that it wouldn’t be considered a storm and instead more of a bad day.

“Do you want to fly down or ride?”

“I’ll fly if that’s okay, I’ve still got some agitation that I want to get out before I accidentally cause another storm,” I tell him honestly.

He nods, and we start to descend. Taking it a lot slower than I did on the way up here.

When the guys come into view, I’m surprised to see that Winston is still with them, although he is the only spirit guide who has stuck around.

My attention is quickly drawn away from him to the broken branches and debris everywhere.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Doc says, as he moves over to me and pulls me into his arms. “Are you okay?”

I nod, and then change my mind, “Not really, actually.”

“That’s understandable. We can figure it out,” Doc reassures me, echoing what Coen has already told me and making me smile.

The guys all say similar things as they wrap their arms around me and offer me comfort.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” Winston says as he watches me.

“Isn’t that to be expected by now?” I ask with a slight bite.

“She’s right, Neith never does what you expect her to do,” Reed grins.

Winston chuckles, “True, but this is different. I’m still hitting brick walls with the information that I’m trying to figure out. If you need me, I will come, and so will the others.”

I nod, “Thank you, Winston.”

“Doesn’t like goodbyes much, does he?” Griff asks, slightly amused.

“Apparently not,” I agree.

“Didn’t I always fucking tell you that there was no way that you were human?” Kar exclaims as soon as my gaze lands on him.

I burst out laughing, it was a long-standing argument between us.