Emblaze (34 page)

Almost everything is working our as I’d planned yet still I feel the gnawing in my chest. It never lets up, but when she is around … it’s worse than having a cursed conscience.

I try not to watch her, but it’s impossible. My eyes have barely strayed from her since I swept her into my arms.

I wonder if she knows her markings swirl while she dreams?

I grind my jaw. I hate myself for this, but it’s not easy - not when I could just reach out and touch her. She’s luminous, even in the dark - like a light shines from within her. A light that is burning me alive.

‘Christ,’ I mumble to myself.

Thinking back to the first time I laid eyes on her at Hades on her seventeenth birthday. I still wonder: why her? Why me? I’ve been around for a long time - there were many women before her. I’m a creature of lust and have always taken what I wanted - the guilty, the innocent, the coveted, those with promise and those without. All of them lured so easily by the otherworldliness the could never understand. They found me impossible to resist. Even when I treated them poorly, then abandoned them, they still came to me.

I can’t explain why everything changed the second I saw her, only that it did.

And I can never go back.

She floated through her surroundings that night, unaware of the attention she drew to herself. Lincoln was with her, watching carefully as she drank too much. I could tell just by the look on his face that he loved her. I could feel it too - and was surprised how much it irritated me - that he leaked so much pure adoration and devotion to her. Perhaps that’s why my interest in her stirred. Perhaps.

Now … she’s ruined me.

I should have killed her that night. Saved myself the heartache from knowing what it was like to hold her in my arms and feel that forbidden hope. Did I truly believe she could have found love with me? That perhaps redemption was not unreachable?

Fool!

I planned just to have fun - entertain myself for a spell and then do away with her. I should’ve known I was in trouble when I found myself unwittingly smiling, unable to take my eyes away. The clinched had been when Lincoln ran from her advances.

He could be such a pansy.

But taking her in my arms, knowing a Grigori made of a Power lurked nearby was madness, even for an exile. Powers are territorial. If ever there were a Grigori to avoid, it would be them - almost impossible to beat for most exiles.

The moment I touched her, my suspicions of her power were blown out of the water. Raw power.

I should have dropped her and run, but by then it was too late. Decision made. I was going to have her.

I laugh bitterly as I watch her sleep.

I think of all that has happened since finding her. Barely a blink in my existence, but everything has changed. Partly my fault, but partly hers too and I refuse to punish myself when I can focus all my energy on retribution. We loved the ones we hate.

And I hate her with all my heart.

I never believed anything could be worse than being cast out of the angel realm

… but being cast out from her life has been agony. Now, my hatred makes me do things I never thought I’d be willing to do, whatever my potential.

I hear another fight break out down the hall and try to ignore the sounds of flesh ripping at flesh. I don’t care. If I didn’t need exiles, I’d kill them all myself just for the therapy. But I’ve lost my patience with too many lately, serving them up to the Grigori on platters. My forces are already thinning and some of the exiles are becoming suspicious.

Competent exiles are few and far between and unfortunately the most proficient are also the most ruthless. Gressil has been one of the best, but having him so close

… I have barely been able to make it through the days without killing him. Olivier isn’t much easier.

A loud crash - like glass smashing. More fighting. At least right now they won’t expect me to step in. they think I’m in here beating her … or worse. Ironic then that I’m too damn terrified even to wake her up.

I jump to my feet when she rolls over, then remind myself she is under my illusion. She can’t wake without me knowing.

An exile’s deathly scream comes from the hall. I smile. It sounds like Justin. It is only a matter of time before his heart is torn apart. Judgement will not go well for him. Then again, it won’t fare well for any of us. Especially me. Especially now. But suffering consequences is something I am used to - a result of never belonging in any one place, never holding any true value despite my power.

Well, that is about to change.

Despite my efforts I have been neither angel nor human enough. But I will rule as an exile.

I give in, stand up and move closer to her.

‘I never knew,’ I whisper, unable to stop myself.

She can’t hear me. It is bad enough I can hear myself. Admissions of guilt are not my thing and now I’ve opened myself up to that one particular memory - the hardest one to push from my mind.

My skin burns even now, remembering how every touch she graced me with that night in the wilderness felt like a gift I was not worthy of.

I brush a few strands of hair back from her face and my fingers ache to touch her again. I move away for fear of doing just that.

Why did I ever let that connection form between us? I hadn’t planned it but still revelled when the power surged through me, masochist that I am.

Thrilled by the knowledge I had power over her, I promised I would never use it because I loved her. But even so, already, quietly, my dark mind had begun plotting ways to ensure she’d always be mine.

I should have told her straight away. Maybe she would have forgiven me. Maybe she would’ve understood why I didn’t heal Lincoln. I knew that if she didn’t embrace, didn’t become the power she was destined to be, then one way or another -

exiles or angels - they’d destroy her.

I couldn’t stand by watch that happen.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I pick up the hotel vase with its fake flowers and throw it at my reflection.

Think about the future! Remember the look in her eyes when she told you to leave and not come back!

I grab a fragment of broken mirror and run the point down my arm, drawing both distraction and strength from the pain. Don’t forget the sight of her falling into Lincoln’s arms the moment I released her from the bond - as soon as her true nature was once again in her control.

I take a deep steadying breath and watch the wound heal.

Good as new.

And now, more than ever, I must rise for the ashes - that’s what a Phoenix does.

I have a purpose now. Soon I’ll have Lilith. Finally, I will be the son she always wanted me to be. She will give me a place to belong in this world. I’ve fought our relationship in the past, rejecting her ways, thinking I could be better.

I have been wrong.

I look down at the Scripture before me. Releasing them had relied upon the existence of light and dark, but it had also required Violet. Carrying out these instruction will be no different. I glance at her again.

One girl, so much power.

She still doesn’t realise what she is, what she could be to either side - though I have always suspected which one is grooming her. She is key to so much. It all resolves around her. Something her Grigori have yet to work out or accept. They carry the knowledge of angels but also our pride. They are so preoccupied protecting their world they are too caught up to see that, in her, they already have the tool to do it.

I look at Violet. It’s her fault. She did this to me.

I don’t need these people. Once I have Lilith back, we’ll have no need for them.

We’ll go away - start again. No longer forsaken, I will belong.

I feel the energy in the room spark. The compulsion is fading. In a few minutes she will open her eyes. Will she show fear at the sight of me? No. She grows stronger every day - soon she won’t think twice before ending me. Maybe I will talk to her. Let me speak to me.

I glance at the map lying on the coffee table. We will leave soon. Everything is arranged.

There are three stages, water first. She’ll hate me after making her do this, but there is no other way. It is for the best and it is easier for me when I see the flashes of hate in her eyes. It keeps me focused - and after this the other flashes, the one that shows me she knows me in a way no one else does, will dissolve altogether.

Fire comes next, forming the second point of the triangle. The way it has all come together makes me wonder if this is all some game, some twisted mark of fate that the three of us are so entwined.

Doubtless.

Fire will be easy. Lincoln will know what he has to do to save her. He’ll do anything for her, except the one thing they both want - I’ve seen to that. I let her think I had Rudyard killed on purpose. I wish I had been strong enough to give that order, but in reality the exiles had broken rank and acted themselves. I had lost my control over them for a moment while I made sure Violet survived. I’d called them out as soon as I could, but I was too late to save the one called Rudyard. And his mate.

I’d beaten Gressil to within a breath of his life for that. It is a miracle the exiles don’t get away from me more often. Soon I’ll be finished with them and can leave them for the Grigori to finish off.

After fire comes my part, the third point of the ultimate triangle - not within the diagram but drawn into the words - this is the only part about which I’m not one hundred per cent sure. The prophecy requires my pain, payment - blood, naturally - and desire. I have no problems with any of those, but the line about

‘insufferable pain’ troubles me. Who? Of the three of us, who must suffer the greatest pain?

I notice Violet roll from her side to her back. Her hand moves out before she can stop it.

Good girl.

Searching for her weapon. Of course … it is far away from her for now. She pretends to sleep even as someone knocks at the door.

It is Olivier, with two enforcer exiles behind him. I like that he is afraid to come to me alone. He asks after Gressil and I try to hide the smirk on my face as I explain I have not sensed him since he chose to remain to fight against Lincoln.

Even before the door closes I can feel her emotion. She has worked out the arrangement I made with Lincoln: her safety in exchange for ridding me of Gressil. She is so confident Lincoln has succeeded, so certain of her faith in him. I want it to make me hate her, but it does the opposite.

Damn it - she’s so frustrated.

I would give anything to make her mine, but I will never be enough for her.

I sit beside her while she lies still, keeping her breathing steady, even though I sense her heart rate jump at my nearness. And then I realise - the line I have fretted over so much in the prophecy is really the only one I needn’t worry about. I run my hand over her forehead, allowing my fingers to move down the side of her face.

‘Love will kill us all.’

And it is entirely insufferable.

„
Violet, the amethyst, signified love and truth; or passion and
suffering."

Anna Jameson

The first time I woke, it was to a loud banging. I was lying on a bed. I moved my hands and feet, which were bare, and felt silk sheets beneath me. I could sense an overwhelming number of exiles nearby, but only one actually in the room with me - Phoenix - I felt for my dagger. It was gone.

How many exiles were here? Too many to count.

I heard noises of movement and a door opened.

„Where is Gressil?" a voice growled.

„I cannot say for sure. I left him to fight, at his request. I have not felt his presence since."

I could hear the satisfaction in Phoenix"s voice. Gressil had obviously become a problem.

Phoenix had left him behind to fight Lincoln. That was their exchange. Phoenix"s oath he wouldn"t kill me, and Lincoln"s word he would destroy Gressil in return. Gressil was gone.

Good.

After the door closed, I heard him come closer. He knew I was awake, but he let me pretend to be asleep. Maybe so he could pretend, too. Leaning over me, he pushed the hair back from my forehead. His fingers lingered on a strand of hair and then trailed lightly down my face.

„Love will kill us all," he said sadly. „First it makes us lie furiously so we can be what we must in order to appear deserving. Then, it tears us apart with raw truth. Whether we are man, exile or angel - it doesn"t matter. For us all, the nature of truth is unforgiving."

I could hear the regret, could feel it flowing from him to me like a confession and my chest tightened for him.

„Sleep, my love," he compelled me to do so again.

And, like the last time, I let his power overrule my own, finding solace in the silence.

-

I woke to find Phoenix carrying me, cradling me confidently in his arms as he moved on foot. I could feel other exiles hovering, hungry to reach me. My face was stiff and sore. I heard them arguing behind us but I was groggy to make out exactly what they were saying.

He spun around and the sound the came from him was terrifying. I half expected him to crush me in his arms but he kept the same controlled hold on me.

„If any of you come near her again while she is in this state, I give you my word that your fate will match Aiden"s!"

I sensed the exiles moving back, uncharacteristically cowering from Phoenix"s unquestionable power.

I assumed Aiden, whoever he was, had been responsible for the throbbing pain on my face - I wouldn"t be surprised if my cheekbone was broken.

Aiden was dead.

I"d seen Phoenix take down an exile before, ripping his heart right out of his chest. No wonder I could taste the aniseed flavour that signalled their fear. None of these exiles questioned his power.

It should have frightened me, too. But it didn"t. If nothing else, Phoenix had honour in battle. He wouldn"t let them beat me without a fair fight, just as he"d never allowed exiles into my home when I was asleep. He wouldn"t even use
his
powers over me unless I could stand and fight - there was no challenge in that.