Page 34 of Ignited Spirits (Haunted Magic #3)

CAIN

I t seems the only alone time I have with my mate lately is when she’s sleeping.

One-on-one time has been hard to come by with Isabel. She has to divide her time between five of us. Now six, I suppose, with the hydra sharing Archer’s body laying claim to her.

While I was always prepared to share with Archer and Luca, I’ve been finding it difficult at times to share her with the rest of them. Sometimes, I just wish I could run away with her and keep her all to myself.

But I know that my angel would never be happy separated from her other mates like that.

So, I share for her sake and ignore the way my wolf urges me to eliminate the competition.

At least, I assume it’s my wolf. It could be my hellhound, however.

I’m still learning the limits of those powers, and I have yet to shift into that form.

Pushing those worries out of my mind, I focus on enjoying the feel of her small body pressed against mine. She feels so delicate and fragile asleep like this, without her signature fire and smart remarks.

My arm tightens around her involuntarily, wanting to protect her at her most vulnerable, but I force myself to relax, not wanting to wake her up.

Everyone else woke up for the day an hour or so ago and went to strategize with Isabel’s family, Hades, and his mate group. None of us wanted to wake her or leave her alone, so someone had to stay behind. I volunteered before the others could and have been soaking up the time with her.

“What are you thinking so hard about, quiet boy?” Isabel’s sleepy voice breaks me out of my thoughts.

I give her a small smile, my gaze tracing over the planes of her face as she uses my arm as a pillow. I get lost in her stormy day eyes for a long moment before I whisper, “Everything and nothing.”

I know it makes no sense when her forehead scrunches in confusion, which looks adorable on her. “What do you mean?”

Shrugging, I try to figure out how to explain my swirling thoughts. While I’m considering what to say, Isabel pushes up on one arm, causing her borrowed tee to slip down one shoulder. A possessive growl rattles my chest at seeing her in just my shirt, but I shove it down. Now’s not the time.

“I’m just thinking about all the changes in our lives,” I eventually settle on.

“It feels like everything has moved so fast and so much has happened since I met you that I sometimes wish it would slow down. I want more sleepy mornings in bed, lazy afternoons doing nothing, and late nights spent talking until the sun comes up.”

“I’m sorry, Cain,” she says so quietly I can barely make it out. “I’m so fucking sorry for the chaotic mess I’ve turned your life into. I swear I’m going to fix it. You’ll have your old life before I fucked it up back soon. I promise.”

I’m shaking my head before she can even finish, hating that I made her think I was upset with her.

“No, Isabel, that’s not what I mean. I want all of that with you .

My life before you was… bland and routine because I needed it to be that way.

Now, with you, it’s like I’m seeing color after years of only sepia tones.

I have you to thank for adding meaning and purpose to my life. ”

She blinks up at me with her big gray eyes that seem to be able to stare into my soul. “Why did you need it to be that way?”

I sigh and push myself up so I can lean against the headboard.

For some reason, I need to be sitting up to have this conversation with her.

Maybe it’s so I can feel more in control, or maybe it’s because I feel too vulnerable lying down.

Either way, I don’t try to fight it, knowing I need whatever help I can get to make it through this conversation.

Shaking off my thoughts, I reach down to grab Isabel around her waist. She lets out a cute little squeak when I haul her up and onto my lap, but she doesn’t complain. Instead, she looks up at me with a small smile and winds her arms around my neck, pressing her front against my bare chest. “Hey.”

One side of my mouth quirks up. “Hey, angel.”

Her gaze bounces around my face for a long moment. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

I shrug. “It’s not a part of my life I enjoy remembering, much less talking about, but I will for you. I’d do anything for you, Isabel.”

“I’d do anything for you, quiet boy. Including but not limited to maiming, murder, and mayhem.” She tries to keep a straight face while giving her spiel but can’t quite manage it. A grin breaks out across her face, transforming it from haunted beauty to heart-stopping perfection in an instant.

My shoulders shake with laughter because my mate always knows how to lighten the moment. After a moment, I sober as I try to figure out where to start. I suppose at the beginning.

“I needed my life to be bland and routine because anything else threatened the carefully crafted control I fought so hard for after my dads died.

They died when I was ten, and it broke my mother.

She had never been particularly warm or loving toward me, but she had never laid a hand on me before, either.

“The day of my dads’ funeral was the first day she started beating me.

She continued to beat me daily, starve me, lock me in closets and cellars, and make my life nearly unbearable for five years.

I contemplated ending it all to get away from her.

Prue—who’s eight years younger than me—needing me was the only thing that kept me going most days. ”

I pause to take a breath as the memories do their best to pull me under and suffocate me. I refuse to let them because I have even more to fight for now that I’ve found my angel.

“Quiet boy…” Isabel whispers as she captures my face in her hands, grounding me. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

I cover her hands with mine, not wanting her to stop touching me. “It is what it is, angel. We all have our stories—good and bad—that make us who we are, for better or worse.”

She sits with me silently for a beat before cautiously asking, “What happened to your mom?”

I close my eyes. Part of me hoped she wouldn’t ask.

I don’t regret what I did, but I don’t want Isabel to view me differently.

After a long moment of silence, I open my eyes and stare into Isabel’s. “I killed her.”

Isabel doesn’t gasp or scream or show any appropriate fear or disgust at that revelation. Instead, she presses her body tighter against me, offering wordless comfort.

I hug her to me, part of me still worried she’s going to storm off, filled with revulsion at what I did.

“What happened?” she asks without a hint of judgment in her tone when I don’t elaborate.

“I was fifteen and had finally started bulking up. I had grown six inches in the last six months, and I was putting on the muscle characteristic of shifters. With all of those changes, I didn’t know my own strength.

“My mother came at me with a chef’s knife. Instead of running and hiding, like I usually did, I wrestled the knife away from her. She shoved me, and I shoved her back, harder than I meant to. She went flying and slammed into the kitchen counter hard enough to cave her skull in.

“When she didn’t heal herself or wake up, I retrieved the pack healer, but there was nothing he could do for her.

According to scans the Nightshades ran afterward, the impact severed her brain stem, killing her almost instantly.

That’s when Prue and I went to live with Luca and Archer’s family.

If anyone suspected that I was the one who killed her, they never brought it up and I received no punishment for it. ”

“Why the fuck would you be punished?” Isabel’s face turns pink with her anger, not at me, but on my behalf. “She had been abusing and terrorizing you for years! Where the fuck was the rest of your pack while this was happening?”

I run my hands up and down her back to soothe some of her rage.

“No one knew, angel. My mother had me convinced that the rest of the pack blamed me for my dads’ deaths and hated me.

I never told anyone, and I went to great lengths to hide what she did to me.

Even Prue doesn’t know the whole story, because she was so young at the time. ”

“What about Luca and Archer? How did they miss that their best friend was being abused?”

“They were children too. It wasn’t their job to notice. And before you go after them, they were the ones who offered me a place to escape to, a safe place to sleep, and oftentimes my only meals. They did what they could, and their friendship helped me make it through.”

She deflates at my explanation. “I know it’s not their fault. I just… Fuck, the person I’m so livid with is dead. So, who can I be angry at? Who can I hurt for hurting you? Who can I exact revenge on to make you feel better?”

I would chuckle at her method for solving the problem if she didn’t look so devastated. “I don’t need you to do any of that, angel. I’m okay now. I promise.”

“You didn’t seem okay when that raging bitchface of a hellhound tried to grab you,” she says carefully, like she’s worried she’ll upset me.

“I still have my triggers, and the memories still haunt me from time to time. But I’m no longer consumed by rage and pain like I was when I was younger.”

“What helped?”

“Meeting you helped more than words can express.” I sigh because I try to keep this side of me and part of my life from her, but I refuse to lie to her.

“But before that, I killed people. They were bad people who hurt others. But they were still people at the end of the day. It allowed me to take some of my power back and protect others in similar situations, I suppose.”

She tilts her head in thought. “Is that what you did as The Reaper?”

My eyes widen in shock. “Who told you about that?”

She looks at me guiltily. “Archer. He didn’t tell me much about it, because he said it wasn’t his place. Don’t be mad at him.”

“I’m not. You don’t have to worry about him. I’m just confused.”

“About what?”