Page 30 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

29

SILAS

She’s aching?

Thank the gods. That makes five of us.

Even with my fragmented ability to piece things together at the moment, I haven’t missed the way my other quintet members have been stealing looks at Maven, aching for her despite our conditions. We’ve all been reigning ourselves in.

Personally, I’ve managed to keep my hands off her for this long because I remind myself I’m a threat to her, but I’m honestly impressed the others have behaved themselves.

Even with our curses and the fiasco we’ve been going through, after six months, it’s a fucking miracle we haven’t ripped her clothes off yet.

But if our keeper has also been holding back, I may as well share the good news with the others.

Filthy, deviant abomination to the living, someone whispers in my head.

My birth mother’s voice makes a rare appearance. How lascivious you have become, son.

“Not to mention, they're all in such rough shape,” Maven goes on with a sigh. “And I have a plan to follow, so now isn’t?—”

Kenzie holds up a hand. “Hang on. You just got your quintet of Maven-obsessed, sanity-lacking, gorgeous-albeit-cursed, morally super dark grey matches back, and you haven't started fucking the ever-living daylights out of them every tiny chance you get? Girl. What the hell are you doing? I'll ward off the weirdos outside as long as you need me to, but go get on that pronto—and by that, I mean their penises.”

Their conversation is creating an excited thrum in my veins that moves steadily lower as I observe my blood blossom fidget, clearly flustered as she clears her throat.

She'll be the death of you, a voice reminds me.

I ignore it.

“The timing is wrong,” Maven mutters.

“ The timing is wrong?” Kenzie bursts, throwing her manicured hands in the air before making a sound like a buzzer going off. “Excuse denied! Look, no matter what my quintet and I have gone through so far, we’ve prioritized our bond and staying intimate in every way, and that’s made us so much stronger and everything else so much fucking better. Your quintet needs to feel close to their keeper, and you need it, too, you traumatized little reaper baby. I promise. Now go get some DP action going or something. Rile them up, explore some kinks, and celebrate having them all back!”

The shifter’s first suggestion makes me so flushed that I break out into a small sweat despite the cold and the fact that I never remembered to put on clothes. I'm practically leaning forward to gauge Maven's reaction to that erotic idea, but she just tips her head with a slight frown.

“DP?”

Godsdamn it all, she has no idea.

So excited over sharing a whore, someone scowls inside my head. How depraved are you?

Very depraved. And very thirsty for my blood blossom in every way possible, especially if I get to watch her pleasured twice over at once. My slowly growing erection is proof of my desire.

The shifter gasps, hand going to her chest. “ What? Oh, my sweet summer child. My innocent little demigoddess?—”

“Innocent? I just massacred the elites,” Maven points out dryly.

“—it’s the best thing ever,” Kenzie goes on without losing the dramatic flair. “One guy in front. One guy behind—but use lube . And if you're feeling extra saucy, one ding dong in the hand and one in the mouth,” she winks.

Maven is thoughtful. “If that's what DP is, I had a dream about it once. Does it stand for double penis?”

My blood blossom is adorable.

I know I am, Maven’s voice says in my head. You don’t deserve me.

“Shh,” I silence the voice that I’m almost certain isn’t real.

Luckily, my shushing is covered by Kenzie’s cackle, which can probably be heard all the way from my quintet's apartment. “It means double penetration. And again, if you do it, use lube—in fact, before everything went to hell at Everbound, I actually bought a ton of new, unused toys and flavored lube and stuff like that. I think it’s still stashed in my quintet’s old apartment, so maybe I can track something down for you. Anyway—take your time, and don't rush. And it's amazing. Top-tier. Seriously, one time when I was sandwiched between Dirk and Luka, Dirk kept doing this thing where he reached around and played with Luka’s?—”

Maven throws up a hand. “Got it. No more details, or I won't be able to look your quintet in the eye anymore.”

“You know, Dirk might prefer that. Even after watching you go all demigoddess on TV, he’s still spooked over your Undead joke.”

“Good,” my keeper smirks.

Kenzie swats at her playfully before getting serious again. “Seriously, go get ‘em, monk. Besides satisfying all that horniness you’re pretending to ignore, it might help with getting your bond back, right? You mentioned that you bonded yourself to them after being intimate before because of your holy magic. Can’t that happen again?”

Maven reaches up to rub her chest through her dark, oversized clean clothing. “It would if I had a heart for them to be bound to.”

My breath catches as that sinks in. Gods above, how have I not thought of this? Her heart was ripped out and replaced by a shadow heart, but if that's gone and she’s mysteriously returned…

She's Undead, a voice in my head decides. You cannot sleep with a zombie.

She’s a devil. A wicked trollop.

Heartless, a final one whispers.

Kenzie looks just as surprised. “Wait. I thought you had a shadow heart?”

“Not anymore.”

“Then…uh, not to be blunt, May, but how the fuck are you alive right now?”

Maven rubs her chest again. “My best guess is, I'm keeping myself alive with holy magic, kind of like a preservation or life extension spell. Or maybe it's something to do with people revering me—turns out, I get power from worship. Whatever it is…I’m not sure how long I can sustain it.”

My throat starts closing in.

If she's being kept alive solely by her own magic…that's unstable. Dangerous. There’s a reason life extension spells are considered so faulty.

It must be weakening her, too. What if she uses too much power at once, runs out of fuel, and drops dead again? Gods above, how close did she get to overextending herself during her awe-inspiring display of power in Manhattan?

No more. I refuse to leave her existence in this mortal world up to chance. I turn to leave, catching bits of their conversation echoed in the hall as I step over a slithering mass of glowing orange worms. Ducking under more cherubs, I quickly make my way back to our quintet apartment.

The second I burst into my keeper's room, the words are already leaving my mouth.

“Maven is heartless.”

An absolute bitch, my father's voice agrees.

Other demons in my head chime in, complaining over one another loudly. The ringing in my ears increases in volume as I try to get my eye to stop twitching.

“Beautifully so,” Crypt muses from where he sits, rolling fresh reverium into cigarettes at a desk.

The torn state of his clothes and a smear of blood on his neck tell me he put up with the dangers of Limbo to get the herb that will hopefully ease his pain and Maven’s concerns.

Come to think of it, he's been merely smoking the substance. If I meddle with it, test it in spells or potions…

Perhaps I could amplify reverium’s effects for the incubus. Anything it takes to not see my blood blossom on the verge of tears again.

Drawing myself back to the present, I flinch away from a luminescent bat that tries to land on my head before I focus on the others. Everett is on the bed studying a map, and Baelfire is setting some kind of steaming bean-and-rice dish on a small table in the room.

“I mean, she is literally heartless,” I clarify.

Before Maven returns, I quickly explain what I overheard, omitting the arousing encouragements that I hope will give our keeper new filthy ideas.

When I finish, we're all quiet. Everett brushes frost off his hands as Baelfire grips his own head, scowling.

Crypt pulls out his enchanted lighter, flicking it open to study the flame. “Amadeus’s head necromancer has Maven’s heart. He went on the run with it when he deserted the Nether after the Divide fell.”

We all stare at him.

“Hang on, her original heart still exists? How do you know that?” Everett demands.

“A little birdie told me.”

“Share the true reason,” I snap. “If it regards our keeper, it regards all of us.”

Crypt glances at me and then away, pensive. “Like our girl said, her would-be-father owns a sadistic sense of humor. He preserved her heart and kept it on display on his mantle. She told me that herself,” he mutters.

“On display?” Baelfire snarls, as incensed as the rest of us have quickly become.

Crypt nods. “It was what I went looking for last, before Syntyche hunted me down. I wanted to have every remaining trace of her here, at her honorary grave. Since Silas was useless, I persuaded another Nether escapee necromancer until he made me a spell to track her heart.”

So that's what he was trying to get me to track when I was deep in the throes of insanity.

Baelfire snorts, looking at the incubus. “By persuaded, you mean tortured.”

“Naturally.”

“And you killed him the second he handed the spell over,” Everett guesses.

“Of course,” Crypt huffs. “What do you take me for? An amateur? At any rate, the spell led me on a wild goose chase. I pieced enough together to understand that Dagon was obsessed with what he called his masterpiece. ”

Dagon.

I remember that name, from Crypt’s memories of Maven’s past nightmares. Recalling some of the horrors that obsessive necromancer inflicted on my blood blossom, I grit my teeth.

Crypt sees my ire and nods, his own expression darkening. “When he caught wind of what became of her, he stole her heart from Amadeus and went on the run with it. I had only barely scratched the surface of his true whereabouts when Syntyche caught up to me. Poor timing, that.”

We’re all quiet for a moment, considering this new information. I begin pacing, swatting aside a few imps as I think. But the more I think, the more my ire multiplies.

“That necromantic prick tortured Maven for years,” I seethe. “He oversaw her entire experimental transformation into a revenant and enjoyed her pain.”

“What?” Everett snaps as the room instantly grows colder.

Baelfire snarls in fury and quickly grips his head as agony crosses his features. It’s clear that he’s struggling to stay coherent instead of falling to the beast’s control once more.

“How the fuck do you know that and more importantly, how are we going to kill this motherfucker?” he demands raggedly.

Crypt shoots me a warning look. It’s easily interpreted as a violent threat to harm me if I breathe a word about seeing inside his past memories of Maven’s dreams. So instead of expounding on the matter, I focus on Baelfire’s latter question.

“We’ll track him again,” I decide, stopping my pacing. “If I use some of Maven’s DNA to track her heart, we can?—”

“English,” Baelfire reminds me.

I realize that at some point, I swapped to something between the Nether-tongue and…I’m not even sure what that was. Probably a language the mocking fools inside my head devised. Carefully choosing my words this time, I look at each of my fellow quintet members.

“Maven would never ask this of us. She would handle it herself, alone, to prevent us from being in harm’s way at the hands of this necromancer. But I will not allow that decrepit, twisted scútráche anywhere near her again. I’ll cast the spell. We’ll retrieve Maven’s heart, and then we’ll end his putrid existence.”

They are all clearly in agreement, but our rare moment of unity is quickly dashed when Baelfire gives me a patronizing smile.

“I almost forgot you’re insane off your fucking ass for a moment. Good job.”

Asshole.

Before I can remind him that he’s out of his mind most of the time as well, we all hear the front door of the quintet apartment open and close. This conversation is quickly shelved. As soon as Maven steps into this room, Baelfire has her scooped up and set on the bed, a spoon full of warm food in his hand as if he plans to feed her himself.

“We didn't have a lot of spices so it's kind of a crappy, plain meal. But I really need you to eat, Boo,” he pleads.

She studies the rice and beans, takes a tentative bite, and nods. “It's good.”

He practically preens. I roll my eyes at his predictable shifter pride in caring for a mate, but it's convenient that at least one of us knows the way around a kitchen.

“Good. Eat all of it, Mayflower.”

She glances at Everett and me, eyes narrowing. “Where's your food? Are we all sharing this bowl?”

“I'd cut my tongue out before sharing a bowl with those asshats,” Bael says brightly, booping her nose. “There wasn't much left here, but we're fine. We'll eat in the morning.”

“You should all eat tonight,” she argues.

“I certainly will, be it in your dreams or between your lovely thighs,” Crypt winks.

Maven flushes and starts to protest the food situation again, but Everett cuts her off.

“Where the hell were you for so long?” he grouches, but his tone belies his actions as he slips into the bed beside Maven and begins gently detangling her damp hair.

She's in the middle of chewing another bite, but holds up the bag of salt as an answer.

“For the ghosts,” Crypt understands with a nod, lighting one of his cigarettes and taking a drag.

He wanders to a window to crack it open, which is good because that herb is strong when it's smoked. I'm fairly certain that's the first reverium hit he's had in months, since he’s simply been taking the siphon approach to numbing pain until now.

Maven nods and stands like she's about to scatter salt at the perimeters of our abode, as I've heard must be done to repel ghosts. I quickly take the bag from her, flick an imp off the top of her head, and kiss her temple.

“Allow me. You eat.”

“Sure, let the hallucinating madman be in charge of ghost duty,” Everett mutters.

Flipping off the scarred elemental, I leave her room and get to work lining the perimeter of the entire apartment with salt. I only pause to examine my work when I'm done, and that's when I realize I’m back inside the bedroom and Maven is closely examining me now that she's done with her meal.

I smirk. “You don't seem to mind that I forgot where my clothes are, thanafluir .”

She grins back. “Naked and insane does seem to be my type.”

On cue, Baelfire quickly starts stripping out of the few clothes he has on, making our keeper laugh.

Gods, that sound is sublime.

It's the laugh of a lying, scheming, filthy little bitch, a voice snarls in my head.

“Shut the hell up,” I mutter in fae.

Before the dragon shifter can strip completely, he hisses in pain, clutching his head and baring his teeth. Maven’s amusement dies as she immediately cradles his head in her lap. The rest of us watch, tensed to see if his dragon is taking over. If so, we'll have to ensure he won’t harm her.

But Bael pushes through, his breathing turning labored as he groans. “Fuck, I really hate that alphahole. Pretty sure everyone does, at this point.”

Maven makes a face. “I don't hate your dragon. I hate your curse—I hate all of your curses. And to think, I once wanted to exploit them.”

Baelfire’s brows go up. “You did?”

“Yes. I needed you all to reject me to prevent…well, exactly what happened. You have me to thank for the last six months of hell.”

Crypt scoffs, giving her a penetrating look. “The only person we’ll be giving our very special thanks to is whoever killed Engela Zuma during the battle. Isn’t that what happened, love?”

We all look at her for confirmation. She nods once, but she’s focused on running her hands through Baelfire’s hair as he continues to struggle with his curse.

“Maven,” I prompt, already craving more information about the next enemy we’ll demolish for her.

“Later. We’re not on that step yet.”

Step?

I see. My beautifully vicious minx must have another evolving plan we’re yet unaware of. Something she hasn’t shared with us yet.

But Everett doesn’t let it go. His eyes narrow as he tips her face up to look at him. “The vampire. You knew his name. Is that why?”

Vampire? I know nothing of this.

She huffs. “I’ll handle it.”

“ We ,” I scowl, ripping through the blood-soaked vines dangling from the ceiling to crawl onto the bed toward her. With Everett on one side of her and Baelfire on her lap, I have no choice but to drag her away from them and into my arms to whisper against her ear. “ We will handle it. Utilize us, Maven. Allow us to redeem ourselves. We lost you once because of our own ineptitude. You have my word that we will be much more useful monsters for you now.”