Page 25 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

24

MAVEN

This entire upscale hotel is colorless, but that doesn’t diminish its wow factor as Tattoo Face steps out of an elevator and tosses me onto a cushioned chair.

I find myself in a much bigger, nicer room, glassed in at the top of the skyscraper. I think Kenzie called this setup a penthouse in a movie we watched once. Everything here looks ridiculously expensive, from the carpet to the modern chandeliers to the many decorative swords mounted on one wall.

Outside the window, gray skies serve as a foreboding backdrop for more colorless city stretching toward the dark ocean in the distance. This penthouse has a balcony overlooking the stunning view.

A dozen ravens are perched on the balcony’s luxurious outdoor seats, watching me through the glass.

Everett sits on a couch nearby in his straitjacket, that bag still on his head. He looks unharmed, thank the fucking universe. A few ghosts drift into this room to watch me, including the blue-haired young woman I saw earlier.

I realize Tattoo Face just deposited me in front of a large, lit-up vanity. The mirror says I look the way I usually do: dark eyes, tangled black hair, and the same face. Only now, it’s strange to know that I got my appearance directly from Syntyche, minus my much warmer skin tone and slightly more colorful dark irises.

The only difference is the slight shadows under my eyes, which isn’t surprising. I’m still fucking exhausted after using all that holy power to rip through Syntyche’s spell. I probably won’t be able to use holy magic until I reap again, which makes me wonder about the now-consistent burning in my chest.

Tattoo Face gets a message through his static box before he leaves through a set of doors leading elsewhere in this skyscraper-top mansion.

“Maven?” Everett checks quietly.

“I’m here.”

“Anyone else in here yet?”

“Aside from a few ghosts, no.”

“Well, that’s creepy. Thanks for the reminder that we’re haunted.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay. If you get the chance, kill them. Getting out of here is much more important than whatever idiotic hangups I might still have about the executives. Gods, I should’ve known they would use the Upheaval as a damn power grab.”

I’m about to point out that killing our captors is the obvious choice, but the rest of his words sink in.

Oh, shit. He’s saying that the so-called executives are…his family. Meaning, I’m about to finally meet the Frosts I’ve heard so much about from my matches.

A dark-skinned young woman with stunning features and gorgeous natural hair sweeps into the room before stopping beside me, fidgeting with a strange bag. Her eyes are wide as she looks me over, swallowing hard and then offering a smile.

I know nothing about her, but I’m pretty sure she’s human.

“H—hello. You’re…Maven Oakley, right?”

I study her, trying to determine how much of a threat she is.

She clears her throat, growing uncomfortable under my silent scrutiny. “I—I’m?—”

“Reagan?” Everett asks from the couch, clearly recognizing her by her voice.

The girl, Reagan, looks relieved and offers me a shy smile. “Yes, I’m Reagan Bates. That name probably doesn’t mean anything to you, since I know you’re from…ahem. But before the Upheaval, I was a well-known actress—not nearly as famous as you are now, of course. I ran in a lot of the same circles as Everett. He was always very kind to me, so after everything happened, I went looking for him here, and his family took me in, and…”

Her smile fades, and she fidgets again. “They want me to make you look presentable before the trial. Their words, not mine. There will be more press, and you need to look?—”

“She looks perfect,” Everett interrupts. “Get the fuck out.”

Reagan gets wide-eyed, obviously not used to my elemental’s temper. But she stays, examining my face with objective interest as one of the more solid-looking ghosts tries to wave a hand in front of me for attention.

Fucking ghosts. This is not the time.

“You have fantastic skin. Nice, strong jaw. Honestly, there’s something kind of…quietly interesting about your face. Especially your eyes—they’re so pretty. Some mascara or even a bit of eyeliner would really make them pop. Mind if I touch things up a bit?”

Reagan’s hand moves toward my face. Every nerve in my restrained body locks as I try not to flinch, bracing myself for the torture that always comes with strangers touching me.

“Lay a finger on her perfect face, and I will fucking kill you,” Everett warns, his tone smooth and crisp as ice.

Reagan pulls back immediately, looking torn. It’s clear she’ll get in trouble for not doing this.

“Your parents—” she begins just as the double doors at the end of this grandiose room open.

“My parents can choke on Sachar’s sweaty ballsack in the Beyond, for all I fucking care,” he seethes just as a beautiful woman and a man who looks disturbingly like a middle-aged version of Everett stroll into the room, unknowingly passing through another ghostly onlooker.

“May Arati pardon you. All those years spent away from us have made you vulgar,” the richest legacy in the world mutters, his glacial eyes sweeping to where I sit.

Alaric Frost’s perfectly styled hair is just as white-blond as Everett’s. He’s in a flawless blue suit, has neatly trimmed gray facial hair, and looks incredibly refined as he examines me like I’m an endangered animal caged all for his fascinated perusal.

Everett tenses when he realizes who’s here. “Fuck.”

“Language,” his mother scolds as she sits gracefully on the couch opposite him. “I wish you wouldn’t make us go to such extreme lengths just to see you, son. You know, no matter how I tried to cater to you, you’ve ignored every single one of our dinner and event invitations for years. After the Upheaval, I decided I had to give up for my own mental health. It’s awful to feel like your own son can’t stand to be in the same room as you. Why put myself through more of that?”

She smooths her expensive-looking dress, ensures her updo is perfect, and finally looks over at me with narrowed eyes. Unlike Alaric, who looks exactly as wintry as his son, she looks more like the brief glimpse I got of Everett’s sister in a photo long ago, with large brown eyes and pretty, soft features. But unlike her daughter, her hair is bleached crisp blonde, and she’s missing the sweet smile.

Everett’s mother wrinkles her nose at me. “Reagan, finish her makeup. She still looks like a corpse. Which I guess isn’t too surprising, considering she should be dead.”

“Watch your fucking mouth,” Everett growls.

His parents exchange displeased looks.

Reagan shuffles. “I really don’t think she wants me to?—”

“Who cares what she wants? She’ll be in a coffin soon, anyway,” Daphne interrupts.

“Daphne,” Alaric finally chides. “The telum’s fate isn’t final until we discuss things with her. Until then, mind your manners. This is our heir’s renowned keeper, after all.”

He strolls toward me with a fake, white smile. “At long last, here you are. I’m afraid the rest of my quintet is still preparing for the trial and could not join us for this little chat, but if you make the right choice, you’ll have the privilege of meeting the rest of them later, over dinner.”

He moves as if to help me up from the chair. I stand on my own, shoving the chair back as hard as possible with the backs of my legs so it topples over. Glaring at the asshole who voted for Amato’s death sentence, I shuffle to the couch to sit beside Everett as well as I can in this fucking chained-up jacket.

The blue-haired female ghost I saw earlier drifts to stand directly beside Daphne Frost to wave at me. I ignore her.

When Reagan tries to leave the room, Daphne stops her.

“Wait. You might need to cover up my son’s face if the garish stories we’ve heard are true. Alaric?”

Everett’s father steps closer and pulls the bag off Everett’s head, revealing his face.

Daphne full-on screams, utterly horrified.

Gods, I fucking hate her.

My elemental looks as ridiculously gorgeous as ever, staring down his mother with cold eyes and a smirk. That smirk is everything to me. Everett might worry about what I think of his appearance, but in this moment, it’s clear that there was another reason he kept the scar.

If anything, it makes him look less like his father. Less like one of them .

“Gods on high, it’s worse than I imagined,” Alaric sighs as he sits beside his wife, rubbing his temple as if a headache is brewing.

Now Daphne is dramatically fanning away tears. “Leave at once, Reagan. Clearly, nothing can cover that . Arati have mercy, why did it have to be true? To think, I’m now the mother of two disfigured children!”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, but her words infuriate Everett. Despite the shit they forced down his throat to tamper with his abilities, snowflakes begin to fall in this room as the frost patterns on the windows grow.

Reagan rushes out of the room, smart enough to know not to stick around.

The look Everett gives his mother is pure savage contempt. “Pretend you were a mother to me all you want, but leave my sister out of this. Aside from birthing her and getting the hell out of her life, you never did a damn thing in Heidi’s favor. She deserved better than this fucked-up family.”

“Watch how you speak about our family,” Alaric begins. “Frosts do not?—”

“Frosts do not give a single flying fuck about anything except themselves,” Everett snaps. “Frosts are shallow, spineless, corrupt, pathetic, whining little?—”

His father strikes him across the face.

Hard.

I clench my teeth so hard they almost break as anger rushes hot and fast to the surface. I may be hindered now, but this asshole just signed his death certificate.

“Alaric!” Daphne protests. “His face?—”

“Is a disgrace to the Frost name now, anyway,” the elemental asshole huffs, straightening his tie and taking a deep breath for composure.

I’m ready to leap over the coffee table and shave his face off with my teeth, but Everett laughs. It’s a cold, hard sound that shuts his parents up as he looks back at them.

“The Frost name, huh? Yeah, I’m done with that. When this is over, I swear on the fucking gods that I’ll legally take my keeper’s last name.”

His parents look appalled that he would use blasphemous language, let alone suggest not wanting to be a Frost.

Meanwhile, the thought of Everett Amato makes me smile.

When Daphne sees my expression, she looks even more disgusted. “No surprise that you are enjoying this crude behavior. You’re clearly the one who taught it to him. Turned my beautiful, innocent son into a filthy, blasphemous deviant.”

“Especially in bed,” I agree.

Everett turns bright red at exactly the same time his mother does. His father begins coughing in a fit, avoiding eye contact. In another situation, their discomfort would make me laugh out loud. If his family weren’t doomed for everything they put him through, they would be just as much fun to tease as he is.

The ghost behind the couch is gripping its stomach, laughing without sound. A few more ghosts have wandered into this room to watch this exchange.

“I—I cannot—Alaric, surely we are not going to offer this sick, atrocious little pervert a way out of what she so clearly deserves!” Daphne finally rages, so flustered and furious that when she tries to primp her hair, she accidentally pulls it partially out of the updo.

Sick, atrocious little pervert only makes me grin more.

Alaric clears his throat, moving on quickly as he finally faces me seriously. “Maven Oakley, we’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time. We always knew you would be an incomparable force of nature. In fact, we’ve wanted you as an ally ever since the telum was mentioned in our son’s prophecy years ago?—”

“The one you had falsely translated to manipulate him,” I point out, my amusement long gone.

He brushes it off. “The prophet said the true translation was too complex to be completed, anyway. What good is an incomplete prophecy? We only wanted to temper his expectations appropriately. It was for his own good.”

“You are such a fucking—” Everett begins angrily, but Alaric cuts him off.

“The real reason you’re in this room is because we would like to offer you a deal, telum . As you can see from the lack of color here, this elite safe haven is located well behind the borders of the ever-expanding regions conquered by your creator.”

If he thinks Amadeus is my creator, he’s pathetically unaware of the facts. Unsurprising, since he’s been sitting on his ass eating off silver spoons from the safety of his affluent little bubble, pleased with his own imagined position of authority.

“What we want from you is?—”

“I know what you want,” I cut in.

“Oh, please,” Daphne huffs, admiring her perfect nails. “You can’t possibly understand the complexity of our unique situation in the short time you’ve?—”

“Amadeus knows you’re here,” I surmise smoothly. “You use a stolen shielding spell to keep out the worst of the fiends, but in order to ensure better safety for the so-called elite—who I’m sure practically worship you for giving them a luxurious safe place to laze around in—you must also be working with someone highly ranked in Amadeus’s court. A lich, or a necromancer, or even a well-trusted monster.”

They exchange glances before Alaric frowns at me. “A vampire, in fact.”

“For my ‘ creator’ to allow you to live here, he would require something in return from you,” I go on. “Wealth and fine things are useless to him, but despite his inhuman nature, Amadeus still owns a barbaric sense of humor. He enjoys tormenting the living as much as he can enjoy anything. My guess is that in exchange for being left alone, you’ve stooped down to sending him tributes—probably from the very people who show up asking to stay in this safe haven. Legacies. Humans. Animals. Anything he would enjoy torturing and pitting to the death in his arena for his court to mock.”

Everett glares at his parents, incredulous. “Seriously? You’re paying a blood tribute to the fucking Entity himself?”

The blue-haired young woman ghost with clearer features nods and flips off the Frosts, furious. Other ghosts shake their fists or appear to be silently cursing out the couple sitting on the couch.

Interesting. Are they ghosts of those tributes, come back to haunt the people who sentenced them to that fate?

Daphne lifts her chin, sniffing as if this topic is unpleasant. “As if it’s something to clutch your pearls over. We’ve heard the rumors about your barbaric methods on the front lines. This is no different! It has always been the way of legacies to cull the weak. Of course, we took advantage of this chance, but?—”

“But you don’t like living under his sadistic thumb,” I finish for her. I get it. I’ve been there, but that doesn’t excuse the Frosts for this. “So when you caught me, you considered your new options. Whether it’s possible or not, you decided maybe the telum could fix your problems. Meaning, you’re offering to spare my life if I agree to end Amadeus and get you out of your rotten deal unscathed. Anything I’m missing?”

Alaric looks almost impressed by how much I’ve read between the lines, but Daphne glowers at me for calling them out.

Everett shakes his head, muttering, “This is disgusting. You seriously expect Maven to take out the Entity? No one even knows how he came to exist. He’s been shrouded in mystery for thousands of years—and that is who you decided to barter with? You’ve been making shady deals for way too fucking long. You caught it in the ass this time, so deal with the consequences and leave my keeper the hell out of it.”

Daphne starts to scold his language again, but Alaric holds up a hand as he examines me. “Is it possible? Ending the Entity?”

If there’s anything I’ve learned in this brutal world, it’s that every monster, legacy, human, god, and immortal has a weak spot.

My quintet has become mine.

Amadeus must have something I can use to bring him down. Whether it’s a true death or just a steep fall from power, I’ll do whatever it takes to find a way to defeat him. No one will endanger my future with my men ever again, but least of all him.

But the Frosts don’t need to know that we have a mutual interest.

“Even if it was,” I say, fixing them with my most deranged death glare and enunciating well so they won’t miss this. “I will watch Amadeus’s power consume this world and everything in it before I lift a single fucking finger to help megalomaniacal cowards as morally repugnant and soulless as you two.”

For a moment, they stare at me in wide-eyed, fearful disbelief. A few of the ghosts applaud my string of insults. The redhead girl tries to punch through Daphne’s face, but of course only passes harmlessly through the unwitting socialite.

Everett beams at me.

Godsdamn, that one dimple is just so fucking kissable.

Finally, Daphne sputters, “Surely, you don’t mean that.”

“Every fucking word.”

“But this is your one chance to avoid public humiliation and a death sentence at the trial,” she protests. “You must suffer from insanity!”

“Not really. Most of the time, I enjoy it.” I tip my head. “Speaking of insanity, where is my fae? If he’s been harmed at all, you’ll need to arrange for your funerals before the fake trial begins.”

“You dare threaten me in my own safe haven?” Alaric barks.

“You laid a hand on what’s mine. Safe no longer exists for you,” I darkly inform him.

Someone knocks on the door, interrupting whatever the Frosts would have sputtered next. When the very irritated Alaric calls for them to come in, the door opens and?—

Oh, my fucking gods. No way.

Bertram.