Page 45

I needed to go there to find out. This time, I reached out with my senses to see if I could detect the remnants of the portal Mephistopheles had ripped into this world to destroy Kerainne’s kingdom. I walked for hours, until I’d circled around the entire crater.

Another thought came. What if the crater took me there? My light globe had traveled all the way down until I couldn’t see it anymore. Therefore, it had no natural bottom.

And even if it didn’t take me there, maybe I could just fall forever until I forgot about the crater in my heart.

I backed up a few paces so I could get a run at it.

A hand fell on my shoulder, making me jump, as a familiar voice shouted, “What are you doing?”

I turned to see Delgarias Dullahan, Keeper of the Prophecy, and Nik’s ex mate. At the moment, I didn’t care that he’d broken my almost-sister’s heart. “Trying to get to Qua’ al-fán.”

“I don’t think that’s the way to get there,” Del said sadly. “I don’t know what, if anything is down there, but I know it’s dangerous.”

“Were you here when it happened?”

“No.” The grief in his pale blue eyes mirrored my own. “I came too late. I saw the destruction before the Evil One took everything.”

“Did you see Kerainne?” I asked desperately. Maybe there was a chance she’d survived. Maybe she’d gotten away.

“No.” Del’s voice sounded odd and dead. “Do you know if Nik was here?”

I shook my head. “She was supposed to be. Kerainne sent messages across this world and dream-summoned her many times asking her to come. Now I hope she didn’t.”

“And I as well.” His features contorted in agony. “But I can’t see her missing her own sister’s wedding.”

If he’d heard about the wedding, then Nik had to have gotten the message. My heart sank a little at losing her too. I felt a momentary pang of shame for caring so much more about her sister.

“Kerainne can’t be gone,” I choked back tears. “She’s my true-bonded mate. I’d know if she was truly dead.”

Del’s long-fingered hand clasped my shoulder. “It will all be okay. Well, not all, but you will see her again.”

“Did you see something?” My voice cracked with desperate hope.

He nodded. “All of this will be avenged. But right now, you must wait.”

“Until how long?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Del sighed and spoke to me like I was a youth. “Go home, Lucian. Your people are grieving. Take care of them, and when the time comes to return to her, you’ll know.”

Anger flared within my heart. “Enough with your cryptic nonsense. Can’t you tell me anything clear?”

“I’m afraid not.” He embraced me, then met my eyes with an intent stare. “Now I must go.”

My exhaustion was so great that I must have fallen asleep on my feet. For when I opened my eyes, the sky was gray with the coming dawn. And Delgarias was long gone.

Not ready to face my family, Gabe, the Leonines, or any of my people, I wandered to the nearest village, got a room at the first inn I could find, and spent the next two days sleeping and drinking.

Then I wandered through Aisthanesthai for three months, still clinging to the hope that Kerainne had somehow escaped.

When my hopes of finding her there died, I drowned myself in the Bay of Piscanos. Maybe Kerainne had managed to ascend by now.

But she wasn’t there either. Gabe and I then took great interest in the observatory spheres, watching Aisthanesthai for any sign of Kerainne as well as any other luminite from Medicia.

When not watching the spheres, or asking our clans’ watchers, I drank and prayed to the fates even though our kind didn’t believe they were sentient entities, more forces of nature and destiny.

Three months after that, I secluded myself in the palace and drank myself into a stupor every night so I could sleep again.

After nine months of hopeless grieving, I suddenly awoke from a vivid dream.

There was one place I hadn’t searched for Kerainne.

One place that she loved almost as much as Medicia.

Earth.

I transported myself first to the place where the Aztecs she’d so loved had lived. The area had changed, and not for the better. All of Earth had changed in mostly bad ways. But I was willing to endure brief visits so Kerainne could see her beloved movies.

The second place I tried was the home of the Salish tribes. They too were gone from the region. A city called Coeur d’Alene had been built on the area. I was tempted to head for the lake just to recapture a sense of familiarity, but I sensed something else.

Kerainne.

It was like she was calling to me. I followed that call, walking for endless miles, changing my route when the signal faded, keeping straight when it grew stronger.

And then I heard her voice. Singing from the back yard of a blue house with a pretty covered porch supported by round columns.

Though my legs ached from my long walk, I broke into a run, leaping over the chain link fence and dashing across the side yard.

So engrossed in her song and the laundry she was pinning to a clothesline—a bizarre thing for a princess to be doing.

“Kerainne!” I shouted.

She turned around and her beautiful green eyes widened, and her beautiful lips curved in a smile. I started to run toward her to pull her into my arms, then stopped so suddenly that my feet slid in the damp grass.

Her belly was large and round with what could only be pregnancy. And with it being over two years since we’d last mated, it couldn’t be mine.

“W-what—” I stammered, then broke off, unable to put words to this horrible shock.

Her joyous smile fades and her whole face seemed to dim, like a cloud passing over the sun. I wanted to apologize for taking away that radiant happiness, but my mouth refused to work as horrible thoughts clamored in my head.

“Come inside.” She gestured for me to follow her into the house.

I followed dumbly behind as she opened the screen door and led me inside a home that was smaller than her apartments in her family’s palace.

She bade me to sit next to her on the couch. “I’m so glad you found me. I was so worried you never would and I’d be all alone to face all of this.”

“All of what?” I couldn’t stop staring at that belly. Who had she mated with? Why hadn’t she waited for me?

“Mephistopheles…” Her face contorted with pain when she said his name. “He attacked me. And somehow, he managed to…”

A red haze covered my vision. “He raped you?”

She nodded. Her hands bunched in her skirts and she looked down in shame.

“And you’re keeping his offspring?”

“I have to!” Her shout felt like a slap in the face.

“No, you don’t!” I roared, leaping off the couch like it burned.

I couldn’t believe that after an entire year of thinking Kerainne was permanently dead or trapped in Qua’ al-fán, that not only had she not left me a message somewhere in Aisthanesthai, but also she was pregnant with another man’s child. The Evil One’s child.

“You don’t understand!” Tears poured down her face. “She’s going to grow up to defeat him.”

“It,” I corrected harshly, not really hearing her words, “is going to be a monster.”

“No!” Her sobs were full and hitching. “Lucian, I need you! This world won’t kill you like it will me eventually.”

I strode to the kitchen, yanking drawers open until I found where she kept the knives. I grabbed the biggest, sharpest one. “The only thing you need me to do is hand you this so you can slit your throat and come home with me and that thing can die.”

“I can’t,” She ground her fists over her eyes, and looked at me like I was the monster. “I have to raise my daughter and keep her safe. And when I can’t anymore, when Earth’s lack of magic kills me, I was hoping you could stay here and take care of her until—”

“You want me to raise Mephistopheles’s bastard? The physical incarnation of his defilement of my mate?” I laughed bitterly and threw the knife at the living room wall. “The Evil One must have infected you with more than this parasite. Goodbye, Kerainne.”

“Lucian!” she grabbed my arm and cried brokenly. “Please don’t leave me.”

I jerked my arm from her grasp. “Not only am I leaving, but when this foul world does kill you, don’t come to Jagwolfe clan territory looking for me. I never want to see you again.”

I charged out of the house before my own tears could come. Kerainne chased after me, sobbing and calling my name.

I used a transport crystal to get me as far from her as possible.

When I arrived in some desert in the middle of nowhere, I wished I’d kept the knife.

I ended up using a sharp rock to gouge out my femoral artery.

The pain was nothing compared to the aching place in my chest where my heart had been torn out.

Once I arrived in a welcoming hall, I donned a robe and flew to the Leonine clan’s palace where I hurt Kerainne one more time.

I told Queen Silvara, “I found Kerainne. But she’s no longer your granddaughter. She’s been impregnated by Mephistopheles and she intends to birth and raise a monster.”

It wasn’t long before all of Luminista heard the news. And when Silvara and Lucretia proposed a betrothal between me and Nikkita, I went along with it, since I was certain Nik would never return.

Lucian

Present

I fell silent, and hung my head in utter humiliation at what I’d done. Finally, when I gathered the courage to meet Xochitl’s eyes, I was astounded to see that they weren’t blazing crimson.

Instead, she gaped at me in open-mouthed shock. “Holy fuck, dude.”

“I know.” I looked away again, shame washing over me in burning waves as I took a drink of my third hard cider.

“I wronged her in so many ways. And you as well. If I hadn’t told Silvara, Kerainne never would have been imprisoned as soon as she died on Earth.

And the betrothal, that I never should have gone along with in the first place wouldn’t have happened. ”

“Yup.” Xochitl nodded in merciless agreement.

Then her brow furrowed and her amber eyes narrowed with speculation.

“But Del lied to you. He’s the one who brought Kerainne to Earth and took care of her and gave her money when she overspent, which was all the time.

What if he’d told you the truth and explained about the Prophecy? ”

“I still would have been furious, but maybe if I’d had more time to process the shock and think about it, I would have then gone to Earth and been…more understanding. I might have even done as she asked and raised you with her so I could be there for you after she died.”

“Which then would have led to me never meeting Akasha and Silas. Who not only watched over me and my friends, but also supported our band in ways that led directly to Rage of Angels being a success. Especially after Razvan came into the picture. He gave us priceless advice and got us our first long term gig.” She lifted a finger at each point she listed, “No band success, no Prophecy, and no magic coming back to Earth.”

“Holy fuck,” I echoed back to her. “Do you think Del knew all that when he told me he hadn’t seen Kerainne that night?”

“He most definitely did,” Xochitl agreed. “Uncle Del doesn’t like to lie. It’s usually impossible for the faelin. But I’m pretty sure he bit you that night too, which definitely isn’t cool.”

“What?”

“You said after he hugged you goodbye, he stared deeply into your eyes and then you dozed off, still standing, and woke up when the sun was coming up and he was long gone,” Xochitl explained in a thoughtful tone.

“He probably needed the power and energy to be able to go back and forth between Earth and Aisthanesthai. Especially when the lack of magic on Earth was so draining to people from here. But it was still a dick move for him to lie to you about Mom and feed off you without you knowing.”

“Oh. I am definitely going to have a talk with him about that.” My mind jerked me back to the current, more important thing. “I’m not going to ask you to forgive me for what I did to you and your mother. All I ask is that you give me a chance to make it up to you.”

Xochitl remained still and silent for the longest time, letting me see more of Kerainne’s features in her. “Well, if Mom is giving you a chance, I suppose I should too. But, you’re going to have to do a lot of groveling. Not to me, but to her.”

My heart sang in triumph and I smiled at her in gratitude. “I will do so for as long as it takes.”