you’ll need for your survival.”
“So, you’re helping me now? You’re helping him?”
The painter drew back, straightening against the tree, and gave me a rueful grin. “I guess so. Yeah.”
I was tempted to roll my eyes. I was beyond really trusting anyone anymore, even Kellan. I knew he was still keeping secrets from me, but I was slowly starting to believe he had my best interest at heart.
I watched him carefully when I asked, “What’s your place in all this? You said before that you were a part of me, too, the messenger part? Are our messengers bonded together?” Then I did roll my eyes. “And can you at least tell me your name?”
He chuckled softly. “My name is Damien.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Damien.”
“And my messenger side is bonded to yours in a family way.”
Oh—that was…different. “So not the soulmate way?”
“No, not at all. Let’s leave it at that.” Then he straightened and nodded past me. “Your soulmate is back there, waiting for you. He knows I don’t mean you trouble, or him for that matter.” Then his eyes gleamed brightly, and he whispered, “As long as he’s truthful to you, then he won’t need to worry about me.”
Tingles went through me at his words, and I knew he had sent them to Kellan. He wanted his message heard and glancing over my shoulder, I felt the anger start to grow with my soulmate. Kellan got the message, loud and clear, and didn’t enjoy the threat, but he remained by the car, waiting.
Damien told me, “When your father comes to town, he’s going to seek me out. He’ll want to know where you are and what demons you are living with. Your mother has been hidden to him since she gave birth to you. He holds a grudge against her for that, but he’s coming for you. The Braden twins gave him the excuse to come here. And he won’t be happy about Kellan. I know he doesn’t know of the demon or how you are bonded to him. Your father will be enraged and will try to break the bond.”
Okay, now I was worried. “What are you saying?” Could that even happen? Could the bond be destroyed? And if so, then what would happen after that?
He seemed to choose his words carefully. “Just that it would be smart if you strengthened your bond.”
My mouth went dry at that. “What do you mean by that?”
He grinned crookedly. “You can take it any way you want. Kellan will know, but if the two of you are strong enough, your father will know not to even try to break the bond. If you two work together as a team, you could be powerful, more powerful than you could imagine.”
Well…that was nice and cryptic. I was left annoyed and slightly speechless when Damien gave me a small hug before he left through the trees. I stood there for another minute before I turned and slowly walked back to the car, back to Kellan. He straightened and asked, watching where I had left, “What did he say?”
“Oh, oh. You don’t want to know.” I laughed with a hysterical note in my voice.
Kellan narrowed his eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, nothing. Just that my father is going to try to destroy our bond, and we’re supposed to make it stronger. Oh, and that my father is actually coming here for me, not for Gus or Vespar. They’re just his excuse to come here. Oh—I should’ve first told you that my father is the messenger coming here.” I threw my hands up. “Surprise! I’m going to meet my dad soon. How…lovely.”
Kellan arched an eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest. “Did he do something to you just now? This isn’t normal, Shay.”
“It’s not a normal day for me. I find out about you, about me, about my father coming, and that guy is ‘family’ to me. Did you know that?” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder.
He was silent for a moment and then said grudgingly, “I see your point.”
That made me laugh harder. The hysterical note grew in volume until I was bent over, clutching my stomach, and slowly falling to my knees on the ground, sobbing from the laughter. Kellan watched me for another moment and bent to wrap his arms around me. Lifting me in the air, he held me against his chest while I started to sob into his shoulder. One of his hands smoothed back some of my hair while his thumb brushed at my tears while he was still holding me.
After a few moments, when my sobs had started to subside, I hiccupped against his shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit not normal right now. And Vespar tried to kill me.” I didn’t even know how to comprehend that one.
Kellan whispered against my forehead, pressing a soft kiss there, “Vespar will be dealt with. Trust me.”
It shouldn’t have comforted me, but it did. When he kissed my forehead again and then bent to softly kiss my cheek, I closed my eyes and curled into him, feeling safe, even though I didn’t know if I should.
LEAH
Across the school parking lot, standing inside the doors, Leah watched them from a window. Hatred boiled inside of her, and she frowned with her fingers curled so tightly into the window frame that it drew blood from underneath her nails.
Dylan came to stand beside her. Glancing from the blood under her hands and her stony face to the couple where her gaze was frozen, he sighed. “They’re not who you think they are.”
She clipped out, “I know.”
When Shay had asked about her parents, something unlocked in her mind. Memories flew back at her, drifting in and out of focus, but they were there. She felt them. She heard her parents’ laughter, her own with them. Then she heard raised voices, threats from a man’s voice. His hands touched her, made her do things that brought shame to her. Cringing on the inside, Leah wanted it all to go away, but she knew it wouldn’t. They were permanently there, and they shifted alongside her new memories. Nothing made sense to her, but the memories and emotions haunted her. She knew they would always haunt her, but one memory that was perfectly clear was the night her parents were killed.
Vespar and Gus had rung her doorbell, and she had answered it, thinking they were there with some information about Kellan. She’d been so excited, thinking that Kellan would come to help her. Save her. But he didn’t, he sent those two and they had pushed their way inside with a sick gleam in both of their eyes. When her stepfather had demanded to know who they were, what the hell they were there for, Gus had laughed—laughed—as she flicked a knife in the air. It landed perfectly in his chest, but it hadn’t been enough. The female Braden had danced to him, took the knife out, and then slit his throat, giggling when he gaped at her with his eyes wide. When his body slid to the ground, Leah’s mother and real father had come out of the garage, alarmed. Then Vespar had gone mad, lunging for them through the air. He’d taken their heads—Leah trembled, clasping her eyes shut. She didn’t want to remember it. She didn’t want to hear their surprise or their agony, how they had begged for their lives.
“We can make them hurt.” Dylan touched her arm. “Kellan tried to erase my memory, but it didn’t work. I knew a spell that kept it from happening. His power can’t touch me.”
“How do you know that stuff?” she whispered, choking on vomit.
“My grandmother. She told me about things like them, what we can do to protect ourselves against them. They killed my entire family.”
“I saw your brother in school today.”
“Gus killed them, but I think Kellan brought them back to life.” He took her shoulders and turned her to him. “They can do things like that, but we can stop them. We can hurt them.”
With tears running down her face, Leah frowned. “How? They’re so powerful…” She looked back and felt another stab in her heart when she saw Kellan place a gentle kiss on Shay’s forehead with his hand holding her cheek. It was a tender gesture, but could they feel tenderness? Did they feel love? Why did she feel comforted by him?
Dylan drew back, smiling. “I know what to do. Do you trust me?”
She jerked her gaze back to his and took a deep breath. “I want the memories to go away. I can’t stand it. I’m haunted, Dylan. They made that happen. I feel like I’v
e been ripped apart and sewn back together with a knife and rope.”
“I’ll make it better. I promise.” Dylan took her hand and squeezed. Then he slid an arm around her shoulder and drew her against him. “Come on. We’ve got lots of work to do.”
Leah looked back over her shoulder, but Kellan and Shay had disappeared.
Kellan drove through the night. At first I didn’t realize that we hadn’t gone back to the house. I hadn’t wanted to ask because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about Vespar, but when we’d been driving for an hour, I knew we weren’t going home. So I looked up and regarded him. He had a determined look on his face, like he could do anything at that moment.
Then I felt a tug in my stomach. It was Kellan, telling me he didn’t want to talk at that moment, but to trust him. That’s when I knew something more than learning that we were soulmates, had changed between us. Something had started to grow between us, like an invisible rope, and I felt it pull me. It pulled on me when I’d been standing with Damien. Kellan had tugged on it and I knew what he wanted me to know, that it was okay to talk to other Nephilim, and that he wasn’t worried about Damien anymore. Now he pulled on it again and I knew we’d be driving for a long time that night. So I moved to the backseat and lay down, closing my eyes. I didn’t need sleep, but I rested there anyway, listening to the drive, feeling Kellan and how something rock solid had come over him.
When the first light of dawn started to peek over the horizon, I sat up, realizing I had fallen asleep for a bit. Kellan still looked refreshed. Then I grinned and leaned over my chair’s headrest in the front. “You look like you could drive for a week straight.”
The invisible rope relaxed, and I knew Kellan had relaxed with it. The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “I needed to make sure we’d get a head start.”
“From?” My mind wandered a bit, and I knew whom he meant. “From Vespar?”
Kellan nodded, grim again.
“Where are we going?”
“To get some help.”
“What?” My head jerked up. “From who?”
“Another messenger.” He watched me in the rearview mirror, his eyes studying me, wanting to know everything I felt. “She’s friendly to some of us. She’s not aligned with your father.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to know answers that I can’t give you. And you need to learn about what you can do. It’ll help you be able to control the messenger inside of you.”
I shook my head, feeling… I didn’t even know. Nervous. Agitated. Scared. And pissed. “You just decided this without even talking to me about it!”
A glimmer of a smile appeared over his face, but his eyes snapped to mine, angry. “We need space from Vespar right now. Unless you’re ready to declare war with him and face the consequences, then we needed to get away. He won’t know where we are. He can’t track us if we’re driving in a car, using human transport. He definitely won’t want to follow us even if he does figure out where we’ve gone. This messenger is not one to take lightly. She loathes demons that kill.”
I sat back and muttered, faint under my breath, “And Vespar loves to kill.”
“Yes.” Kellan stopped the car and turned around. His eyes were fierce. “He does, he does now. He started when we were young, but now the taste is unquenchable in him. He won’t stop. He can’t.”
“Then we have to kill him.” Even as I said it, no emotion was evoked inside of me. Shouldn’t I have cared? He was my half-brother.
“That’s not a question. What is the question is Gus—what she’ll do when we kill Vespar, if we can trust her or not.”
I closed my eyes swiftly, feeling a stab of pain in my heart. He was right. Gus would go crazy if we took away her other half. She’d go mad, and she’d go dark, really dark. I bit my lip because I realized that Vespar wasn’t really the one we were avoiding, it was what we’d have to do about our sister, my sister.
I felt another tug on my stomach and opened my eyes. Kellan was watching me. He was always watching me. This time he asked with his eyes if I was all right, and I nodded, closing off my emotions, pushing them down. We’d do what we had to do, and then I cleared my throat and asked with a raspy voice, “How much farther?”
He nodded outside. “We’re here. This is where we’re staying.”
We had parked outside a small white house. Trees surrounded it, not allowing for a lawn. As I got out of the car, I heard the sounds of a small river close by. I walked around the back of the house, stepping carefully around the trees. Their roots had started to grow out of the ground and I climbed up on one that curved higher than the rest. As I did, with a hand resting on the massive oak beside it, I saw a sparkling body of water that rested just underneath a small hill behind the house. A waterfall filled it from my right, splashing onto smooth rocks that glistened underneath the water.
Kellan climbed up beside me and rested an arm behind me, placing it on the tree next to mine. I leaned back against him and asked, “What is this place? It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a sanctuary.” He touched my shoulder and turned so we looked at the house. “The house is protected. The only things the human eye can detect are the trees. No human can see the house, and no tree will fall onto it in a storm. They’re magically entrusted, too. This spot is where the oldest and toughest trees live. They’re alive, Shay.”
I turned, wide-eyed, to him. And he grinned. “Not in the manner like they can talk to us, but they know they’re here to protect the house. They’ll hide it from anything we want them to. They draw their strength and knowledge from the water.”
“Let me guess. It has magic in it, too?”
“A little.” Kellan tapped my forehead and chuckled. Then he wrapped his hand around my waist and wooshed us from the trees and in front of the house to a small porch wide enough for two sets of feet. The door seemed to grow in front of our eyes until it reached to the top of the roof and separated into two doors. Kellan reached for the handle and waited. The door handle vibrated, turning underneath his hand. It stopped suddenly and the doors opened, as if the house decided we could enter. A breeze from the sudden movement rushed back against us and my eyes widened in surprise when I saw inside. The house was small from the outside, but the inside was grand.
Kellan waited on the porch as I wandered inside, gazing upward. Stairs wrapped around the house, leading to three levels inside. Then I moved back outside and saw there was only one level from there. I shook my head and went back inside. Kellan followed this time, and the doors whisked shut with a loud bang behind us.
I walked around the living room, trailing a finger over a glass bookshelf. “This entire place has magic, doesn’t it? The house included.”
“It’s a sanctuary for us, built to withstand darkness and good. It knows that creatures such as ourselves, who have both in them, need safety here.” He placed two bags near the steps. “This was given to me by my mother, only she knows of its existence, other than you and me now.”
My eyes fell on my book bag, and a sense of wonderment came over me. “You planned this last night, didn’t you? You knew Vespar would do something, and you knew we’d have to leave. You had every intention of taking me away with you, but…” Why did we go to the school?
“I went and erased our existence with the school. I left Vespar’s, but made Gus disappear, too. Your father will find Vespar’s name, but no one else. He won’t find you. That’s all I’m concerned about right now.”
My eyes lifted to him. He was watching me, gazing at me with an emotion in him that I’d never seen or felt. I’d felt possession, obsession, fury, laughter, but this was different. There was a tenderness laced with it. And a different realization occurred to me. “You’re not afraid of the messengers, are you?”
Kellan never looked away, but drifted closer to me. He lifted a hand and cupped the side of my face, holding it gently. “I’m not.”
But I saw something else. He was scared of them, but not for himse
lf. “You’re scared for me, aren’t you?” I was breathless when I asked that.
He shook his head and a wall slammed down in his eyes. The rope that connected us went slack. It was still there. I didn’t think even Kellan could make that connection go away now, but it was so loose it was almost as if there was no connection. Then I tightened it and watched how he stiffened in shock. “Didn’t know I could do that, too, huh?”
He grinned before turning away. I let him go, releasing my hold on the connection and followed him into the kitchen where I sat. “When are we going to see this messenger?”
“She’s coming to us.” He was rummaging through a cupboard with his head shoved inside. His voice came out muffled.
“What?” I sat up straight. “But you just said this place was safe for you and me. If she comes then she knows where it is, where we are.”
“She’s an ally. We’ll be safe with her. Trust me that you can trust her.” Kellan kept shifting through things, moving things aside.
“What are you doing?”
“I thought some food was here. We need to eat a little bit.” Then he pulled back and shook his head. “I’ll have to go into town and get some things. There isn’t any good food here for us.”
“Town?” Where was the closest town? I just remembered trees.
“I’ll have to drive there, too. It’ll be an hour before I get back.” Kellan sounded frustrated, but within seconds he was gone. And I was left alone in a magical house and trees that were alive surrounding it. I knew I wasn’t only human, but I felt very helpless in that moment.
After a few more minutes of sitting there, still feeling