Page 14 of Shadowed Spirits (Haunted Magic #2)

CHAPTER 14

CAIN

“ Y ou summoned us, your royal pain,” Isabel calls as we enter the throne room. We’re heading back to our realm today, which is a strange statement. I never imagined other realms existed, much less that I would visit any of them. While outside the castle looked alien, with the saturated colors and different species, inside is much like Earth.

Glancing around the room, I notice fifty or so soldiers, all in the same black and purple uniforms. The guards who weren’t here yesterday are staring at Isabel with wide eyes and slack jaws. Some of them even advert their gazes, perhaps not wanting to see my mate get torn to shreds by Hades.

Even if Hades did wish to harm her, he would have a difficult time. Isabel’s inherent power level is so strong that even a wolf like me can feel it electrifying the air. Combined with all of us backing her up, it would be a challenge for Hades to best her.

Our shoes clack against the pitch-black marble as we make our way to the fearsome throne of bone that towers over everything else. Hades is waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, along with Persephone, Zeus, Poseidon, and a black-haired woman. The woman with raven hair, red eyes, and sharp features is glaring at us as we approach. She’s close to six feet tall, if her height in relation to Persephone and Hades is any indication. Memories of another stern, dark-haired woman try to surface, but I ruthlessly smother them. Now is not the time.

Hades snorts. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how the saying goes, earthling.”

Isabel shrugs as we finally come to a stop in front of the five people watching us. “I’ve heard it both ways.” The corners of her mouth twitch up as she tries to suppress her smile. She does finally smile when she meets Persephone’s warm gaze. My mate doesn’t see it, but her great-grandparents are already taken with her, understandably so. There’s something about Isabel that pulls people in and makes them instantly devoted to her. I think it has something to do with how pure and good she is.

“Is this him?” the black-haired woman asks, her face twisted in a sneer as she looks me up and down.

I fight to keep from nervously pulling down the cuffs of my navy button-down or smoothing the perfectly pleated creases of my gray suit pants. Her judgment is so reminiscent of my mother’s that I struggle to remain in the present, fighting against memories that are best left buried.

Sensing my discomfort, Isabel presses herself against my side. She wraps an arm around my back and fists my shirt, anchoring me to the present. If my mouth weren’t suddenly dry and my heart weren’t in my throat, I’d tell my angel how much I appreciate her unwavering support. As it is, all I can do is stand there, rigid as stone.

“Yep. This is the psychotic hellhound who almost became the ruler of Infernus last night. Mira, meet Cain. Cain, meet Mira. She’s a liaison from the hellhound leadership.” Hades gestures between us, and I try for a friendly smile that comes out more like a grimace. Mira’s glare only intensifies, so I blank my face.

Mira scoffs. “I am on the conclave. I’m more than just a liaison. From what you said, I thought he would be more… impressive.” She stalks forward until she’s standing directly in front of me, her red eyes filled with hatred. I struggle not to flinch away from her.

Izzy lets go of my shirt and steps partially in front of me, like her small body can shield my much larger one. “Hey! Cain’s super fucking impressive!”

“I didn’t address you, earth dweller. Learn your place before I put you in it.” Mira seems to grow an inch as she stares down my mate. This puts the woman only three inches shorter than me. Her eyes glow red, and black, wispy flames curl around her. “Have you even shifted into a hellhound yet?”

I mutely shake my head, not trusting my voice to stay steady in the face of her displeasure. She is not Mother, she is not Mother, she is not Mother , I chant in my head, hoping saying it enough times will make it feel true. The familiar self-loathing surfaces as I war with my emotions, hating how weak I still am.

“Pathetic,” Mira spits while shaking her head in disapproval. “You’ll be coming with me, you sorry excuse for a hound. You’ll start mandatory hellhound training now.” Her hand darts out, maybe to grab my arm, maybe to slap me. Regardless of what her intention was, I’m unable to stop my flinch. This only enrages her. Mira moves farther into my space and reaches out to grab me by my hair. Before she can seize me, Isabel steps between us and shoves her away.

“Don’t touch him!” Isabel’s shout is the last thing I hear as the memories finally escape and do their best to drown me.

“This is all your fault!” Mother screams at me. I cower on the uncomfortable wooden bench she made me sit on until every last mourner left. My legs are cramped from being squished while on the bench for the four hours of the wake. While I’m only ten, I’m tall for my age and often mistaken for a teenager, leaving me feeling even more uncomfortable on the short seat. “It should’ve been you!”

Staring at the ground, I try to will the tears away because Mother hates when I cry. She says I don’t deserve to cry after what I did. Papa, Dad, and Pops are gone. Forever. They were ambushed by Knights on our way home from a camping trip. They gave their lives to protect me, and I’ve spent every day since wishing I had died with them.

Mother has always been distant with me. My fathers made up for the lack of her love and then some. They were the most important people in my life. My role models, my biggest supporters, and the three people I knew would always be there for me. Now they’re gone, and Mother looks at me with a newfound hatred contorting her features.

“I’m sorry,” I rasp for the millionth time, my voice roughened by my suppressed emotions. A stray tear drips onto my two sizes too small black suit. The rough black dress shirt scratches my skin, but I welcome the discomfort. It’s better than feeling the gaping hole in my chest my fathers left.

“You’re sorry?” Mother shouts incredulously. “I don’t want your fucking sorrys, you worthless child. I want my mates back!” I can hear the pain and grief in her voice, and it makes me feel even worse. Even though she hates my guts, she’s still my mother. All I’ve ever wanted to do was earn her love and affection. I never wanted to cause her all this pain. I would trade places with my dads in a heartbeat if I could.

When I don’t respond, she stops closer until she’s looming over me. I keep my gaze on the floor, not wanting to set her off by looking up at her. Surprising me, mother fists my shoulder-length hair and hauls me up by it. I cry out in pain, but that doesn’t stop her. She hauls me to the kitchen before throwing me to the shiny white marble floor. I land hard on my knees and let out a small whimper at the throbbing pain.

She rummages around in the kitchen cabinets for something, slamming the doors as she goes. I flinch at the loud sounds but stay on the floor. I know it’ll only get worse if I try to get up. As Mother says, everyone from our pack hates me and blames me for my dads’ deaths. Even if I were to run, I have nowhere to go.

Eventually, Mother finds what she was looking for and stomps back over to me. She roughly gathers my hair and yanks my head back hard enough to make the vertebrae pop. When I see the scissors in her hand, I start to struggle, knowing exactly what she is going to do. “No. Please!”

My fathers said it was a rite of passage for boys to grow out their hair. In their youth, long hair symbolized masculinity, strength, and maturity. Right before I turned nine, they said I was old enough to start growing out my hair like they had. For the past two years, I’ve been letting my hair grow. My dads were so proud of me, and now mother wants to cut it. It’s the last thing of them I have.

Mother aims a vicious kick at my stomach. I double over and wheeze in pain. My momentary distraction allows her to cut off the bulk of my hair. “You don’t deserve to have anything from them, you pathetic waste of space!”

A sob rips out of my chest as my hair falls around me, the black strands standing out starkly against the white marble. I don’t bother fighting her as she hacks at the rest of my hair. When she’s cut off as much as she can with the scissors, Mother backhands me into the cabinets. My head slams into the countertop, and I fall to the ground in a daze.

I don’t know how long she kicks me while I’m curled up in a ball on the ground, but it’s long enough that a crimson puddle of my blood grows around me. I fade in and out of consciousness during the first of many beatings from my mother, until I grew old enough and strong enough to stop it once and for all.

“Cain! Cain, man, you gotta come back to us. Izzy needs you.” Archer’s panicked voice mentioning my mate finally breaks through the memory. I fight to push down the other memories of blood, pain, and despair as I frantically look around for Isabel.

Instead of standing next to me, she’s in front of one of the ornate columns to my left. Mira is pressed against the column, hovering six feet in the air. Isabel’s magic glows an eerie purple around the hellhound, whose panicked struggling isn’t doing anything against my mate’s extremely strong magic.

I notice a few guards scattered on the floor around my mate. By the steady rise and fall of their chests, they’re alive but unconscious. I’m guessing they tried to stop Isabel and failed. The remaining guards eye her warily but make no move to intervene.

When the hellhound starts clawing at her throat, I worry that Isabel might accidentally kill her. I don’t want her to have another death on her conscience on my behalf. “Angel,” I call, trying to get her attention.

She turns to look at me. Her eyes are glowing the royal purple of her magic, and her blonde hair with multicolor tips is floating around her shoulders. “What do you want me to do with her, quiet boy? I’ll happily kill her. I can also hold her down so you can kill her. Just tell me what you need.” Her voice is almost pleading as she tries so hard to solve this problem for me. Her concern thaws out my frozen insides and begins to mend pieces of my tattered soul that I never thought could be fixed.

I hesitantly approach my mate, not wanting to startle her. When she doesn’t show any signs of being distressed by me getting closer, I hold out a hand to her. Isabel grasps my palm and lets me pull her into my chest. I’m impressed that her magic doesn’t even waver when she looks away from it to focus on me. “I don’t need you to kill her, angel.”

“But she scared you! She tried to grab you and hurt you. She deserves to be skinned alive, chopped up into tiny pieces, and die choking on her own blood. Then I’ll stuff her soul back into her body, put her back together, and do it all over again and again and again.” Mira struggles even harder at Isabel’s angry words. The hellhound and I both know she means every word of her threat.

I smile softly at my mate, who is so fiercely protective of me, and brush a strand of golden hair off her forehead. “She didn’t scare me. Not really.” Isabel skeptically raises her eyebrows at me. Sighing, I hug her slight frame closer to me, needing the comfort. “She just reminded me of someone I wish I could forget.”

My mother and Isabel are so different, not just in appearance but in temperament too. My mate is incredibly kind, cares so much about others it hurts her, is self-sacrificing to a fault, and loves fiercely. On the other hand, my mother was cold, distant, cruel, and self-absorbed. I don’t know what I did to deserve a mate like Isabel, but I am so glad she came into my life.

“Who?” Isabel’s voice comes out as an endearing little growl. I run my hand soothingly up and down her back, trying to calm her ire on my behalf. Holding her in my arms, I feel some of the tension drain out of me. It’s not completely gone—the memories are too close to the surface—but my head is clearer with her so close.

I shake my head slightly to refocus on her question instead of the peace she brings me. “My mother.”

“Let’s find out if I can raise the dead, then. I’ll resurrect her and kill her as many times as you want, quiet boy.” Isabel pulls back like she’s going to do just that right now. I keep my arms banded around her, which stops her momentum. She gives me a put-out look.

I huff a laugh. “I appreciate it, angel, but I’d rather she stays dead.”

Isabel eyes me skeptically but eventually shrugs. “If you say so. What do you want me to do with the sorry excuse of a hellhound?”

There’s only one option. “Let her go.”

“Let her go?” Isabel gapes at me. “I don’t think you understand this whole vengeance thing. She hurt you, so she suffers. It’s as simple as that.”

I shake my head. “She’s not worth it, angel. You don’t need another death on your hands.” I remember how shaken she was at the diner when I stupidly asked if she had killed anyone, assuming she’d say no. While I don’t necessarily care what happens to Mira, I don’t want to be the reason Isabel is tormented by another death.

Isabel clenches her jaw and looks away from me. After a long moment, she swings her haunting gray gaze back to me. “I don’t have a problem killing bad people. It’s the good ones who keep me up at night.”

Tilting her chin up to make sure she sees the sincerity on my face, I wait until she’s focused on me. “It doesn’t make you a bad person to make mistakes.”

My mate closes her eyes, pain and grief pinching the corners of them. “How do you know it was a mistake?”

“Because I know you.” Even the short time I’ve gotten with my mate, I know how intrinsically good she is. There’s no chance she purposely killed someone who didn’t deserve it.

“Some mistakes don’t deserve to be forgiven,” she whispers so softly I can barely hear her. My heart cracks at the visceral agony in her voice. I open my mouth to reassure her more, but she shakes her head. “I don’t wanna talk about it right now, quiet boy. Later, if you really want to hear the story, I’ll tell you, but not now. I’ll release her, but if she tries to hurt you again, she’s dead.”

“I don’t think she’ll try anything, but that is a reasonable compromise, angel,” I agree.

Isabel lets her magic go, dropping Mira six feet onto the hard stone floor. Mira cries out when she lands on her wrist with an audible snap. Cradling her arm to her side, she glares mostly at Isabel but occasionally flicks her hate-filled gaze to me. “You’ll regret this when I tell the conclave what you did.”

Isabel’s face twists in disgust as she stares down at Mira. She takes a threatening step toward the hellhound, but I grab one of her hands in mine to hold her back. She stops moving forward but snarls at Mira. “Fucking do it. You know what? Let’s call your conclave here, and I’ll tell them about it myself. Hades, be a dear and summon the conclave.”

Hades barks out a laugh. “Already on it.” He sobers as he makes eye contact with me. “For what it’s worth, earth hound, I didn’t know she was going to act like this. I wouldn’t have let her talk to you if I did.”

I wave my hand in the air dismissively. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Isabel grumbles.

“Hades?” a booming voice calls from the entrance, interrupting whatever Isabel was going to say. “More of the conclave will be here shortly, but they sent me ahead.” When I turn around to look at the newcomer, I stop in my tracks. The blond hair, hazel eyes, strong jaw, and towering height are so familiar that I think I’m seeing things. He looks exactly like Pops. Blinking a few times, I’m sure he’s going to disappear, but he doesn’t.

When we lock eyes, the large man freezes. “Si?” he breathes, and I, for a moment, think it could be my dad. My legs threaten to give out under me. That hope is dashed when he comes closer, and I see that his eyes are definitively the wrong shade of hazel, and his face is too angular. “What are you doing here?”

His rough voice sounds so familiar, but I can’t place where I know it from. It feels like a memory long since buried is trying to surface, but I can’t shake it loose. I tilt my head in confusion. “Do I know you?”

The man’s face falls when he realizes I don’t recognize him. He scrubs a hand over his face before giving me a sad smile. “You do know me, Si. At least, you did. I’m your grandfather.”