Everlife

  Admiration sneaks in. I fight it, even as I say, "How about you come over here..." I keep my tone light, my voice husky, almost seductive. "And free me. Conversation is overrated. I can think of better things to do with our mouths."

  "Freeing you is the plan," she says. "Even though I kind of want to throat punch you right now."

  I blink with shock and disappointment. Not about the threat. Bring it. "What is wrong with you? Care about your realm, at least a little. Do not loose a wolf among sheep."

  More shock. More disappointment--in myself. I'm warning her now? What's wrong with me?

  "I can handle you." She makes a gesture that is one hundred percent dismissive and zero percent acceptable. "Where's my ring? And what happened to your accent?"

  Her ring? She must mean the small, antique five-shooter that General Shamus took from me, despite the lack of bullets.

  I wanted to kill him for his daring...and thank him. My head and heart had threatened to change places every time I looked at that stupid ring. Good riddance.

  "What do you think happened to the ring?" I smile a cruel smile. "Shamus removed it, along with my daggers and the garrote wire that was hidden in my leather wrist cuffs. Leaving me armed would have made him a fool." I ignore the question about my accent. No need to tell her about my lower birth, or how my speech patterns are proof that I spent most of my childhood inside a Myriadian orphanage, nothing but a drain on society.

  Her lush red lips purse. "Right now you remind me of the boy I first met. I bet you even trust the lies Myriad has fed you, right?" She doesn't wait for my response. "Once again, you believe Fusion is legit."

  Once again? Try always. "I do. It is."

  She smirks. "I'm about to prove spirits that experience Second-death never return to the Land of the Harvest."

  I roll my eyes. "Let me guess. The vote everyone is talking about. Someone has come back to life. Hate to burst your smug little bubble, baby, but just because Troikans enter into the Rest doesn't mean Myriadians do the same."

  Her head falls back, and she pushes a heavy breath at the ceiling, as if praying for patience. Facing me, she says, "Forget the Light and shadow thing. Our people are the same. And stop calling me baby."

  "You're right. We are the same. Baby." I motion to my cage with a wave of my hand. "Troikans praise love and forgiveness, and yet they keep prisons inside their homes. How very Myriadian."

  Up goes her chin. "We have rules. When those rules are broken, measures must be taken. Punish the guilty, protect the innocent."

  I arch a brow. "Are you protecting innocents now? I mean, you plan to free me." Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Am I trying to stop her? But I can't halt my next flood of vitriol. "Why are you really here? You claimed you love me not, and told me not to trust you."

  Shame tightens her exquisite features, and I experience a jolt of regret. What is wrong with me? I never regret. But...

  I want to see her smile.

  I don't know her, not really, but between one blink and the next I remember she has three different types of smiles. The one reserved for her friends, genuine and open, rare; a cold facsimile for those who have pricked her temper; and the special one for me alone that is soft and plaintive, inviting me to taste.

  That one. I want to see it now. I feel as if my life depends on it, something searing my chest, branding, burning, just like before. This time, there's no denying the truth. The culprit is absolute, utter yearning.

  I want to see that smile because... My reasons do not matter! I want only what I need.

  Want nothing, need nothing. I gnash my teeth.

  "I couldn't let the Generals know how much you mean to me," she says softly. "They were trying to use my feelings for you against me. As for the poem...my Killian would have known there are two sides to every story, and the order could be reversed."

  Her Killian. As if I belong to her. Or rather, the old me. A version I'm suddenly not sure I want to be ever again. "You're lying. No way the order can--"

  "I love you," she interjects, starting with the last line of her poem. She's flipping the order, I realize. "Never, ever believe that I love you not. Listen. Hear me now. We will get through this. You must know sweet lies flow from my lips when I say, I will let you go, without hesitation. I admit, you are my everything. And today, tomorrow, forever, I will put you first. I'm lying when I say, you cannot trust me."

  My throat tightens, and my lungs constrict. This girl isn't like others. Not even close. She's not like anyone I've ever known.

  How am I supposed to deal with her?

  She kicks into motion and stops at the door to my cage. I haven't moved from my perch in back. The part of me that I no longer understand longs to stand up, close the distance and sift her fall of azure hair between my fingers. The other part of me comprehends the absolute ridiculousness of such a desire. What good will contact do?

  As she fiddles with the lock for a bit, learning it, I can see the wheels in her head turning. She thinks she can find a way to bypass Shamus's blood and fingerprint.

  A sharp pang lances my chest. How is she even more beautiful than before--even a second before? It's maddening. But it doesn't matter. My comm is functional, and I've already made contact with my Leader. My mission is clear: get Tenley Lockwood inside Myriad.

  What the Powers That Be have planned for her, I don't yet know. Don't really care. Yeah, yeah. I know whatever befalls her will befall me as well, but I don't care about that, either. There's no fighting Fate. If I die, I die. My spirit will Fuse with a human, and I will be reborn.

  Maybe this time I'll live past infancy and actually experience Firstlife. Maybe I'll Fuse with a Leader or even a General, and better my station.

  Once, the Prince of Ravens believed I was Fused with a General. But as weeks passed, I failed to control the darkness in myself, as well as others. I let him down. I let everyone down.

  Victors are adored, failures abhorred.

  Maybe, if I have a better station, someone will be obligated to care about me. Perhaps my new mother. Out with the old, in with the new. I'll finally have a family of my own. Not that I want a family that is obligated to care for me. No, I'd rather have what so many others take for granted: unconditional acceptance.

  An impossible dream most likely. We are what we are, whatever our form. Still, hope can be stronger than reality.

  Tenley grips the bars of my cage, her knuckles quickly leaching of color. "I wasn't going to ask but I can't help myself. No, that's not true. We can always help ourselves. We simply choose not to. So. I'm asking because a part of me is desperate to know. Have you remembered anything about me yet?"

  Yet. She considers a successful reboot of my brain inevitable. I wish I had her confidence. I need the return of my memories, even if I don't want to be the boy I once was. I need to know why I did what I did, exactly, what I had planned--surely I had something planned--and what I deemed as my endgame. Myriad's salvation...or my own?

  Myriad's, surely. How many times have I tried to impress my Secondking? I've pushed myself hard, won more spirits than most, but I'm still one among millions. A simple cog in the wheels.

  A part of me would like to impress Tenley instead. What would it take?

  In the past five minutes alone, she's proven to be honest and raw, refusing to wallow in self-delusions about her motives while accepting the consequences of her words and actions. She's flawed...human, and yet everything others should strive to be.

  Ambrosine isn't human or flawed. He is power. When he glides into a room, carried on a cloud of darkness, spirits drop to their knees unbidden, no longer able to stand. Shadows continually rise from him, his constant companions. One look into his eyes--deep, fathomless pools--and you are forever entranced.

  "I haven't remembered anything about you, no," I tell her, knowing she'll see through a lie. I lower my voice, letting it become a husky rasp once again. A voice meant to seduce. The ridiculous thing? Every part of me is on board, longing for her capitu
lation for reasons that have nothing to do with war. The only thing I have to force is my accent-less speech. "But I'm determined to remember everything."

  I'm given that cold facsimile of a smile. "You can be such a jerk sometimes."

  Well, that certainly isn't the reaction I expected. "How am I being a jerk right now?" Especially when I pretended to be nice.

  Pretense is never the answer.

  I grind my teeth.

  "You think I don't know you, but you are so wrong." She crouches, pulls a dagger from a sheath anchored to her waist and stabs the edge of the lock. "Before our bond, you looked at me like I was a meal and you were ravenous. Right now you're looking at me like I'm an experiment and you're hoping to take home first prize at the science fair. It hurts, Killian."

  My darker side: Play on those hurts. Win her to your side--use her.

  My new lighter side: Ease her. Help her. She is your ally.

  The two sides of me war, shadows dancing with my synapses, sending bolts of pain through my temples, Light fighting back, marching forward to cover more ground.

  I decide to go with the familiar, calling on the determination I've been praised--and cursed--for possessing. "I can't no' look at you, baby."

  Unfortunately, the statement is true on more levels than I'm comfortable with. And why is my accent trying to come out to play?

  She scowls, somehow more beautiful than ever. "Call me baby one more time," she says, "and I'll remove your testicles to make a coin purse. And by the way. You don't remember this about me, obvi, but I never make threats. I make promises." Her tone is pure sass--and I like it.

  For a moment, a suspended blip of time, the corners of my mouth twitch as if I'm about to smile. Am I? Threats--or promises--are not something I take lightly. Ever. Kill or be killed. That is my wheelhouse.

  "What's your problem with being called baby? It's a sweet endearment."

  "It's generic, and it implies I can't survive without my big, strong daddy." She sneers the word, as if it tastes foul in her mouth.

  She has daddy issues--got it.

  But she's not the only one. My father killed himself weeks before my birth, ending his Firstlife. With the terms of his covenant, he made it into Myriad rather than Many Ends. Though he'd been a trainee in Myriad--a Laborer just like me--he had the option of taking me in. I'm told he refused and signed away all rights to me.

  Later I repaid him in kind. We were part of the same army, under the command of Madame Pearl Bennett, who later experienced Second-death. He desperately needed my help during a particularly nasty battle. Instead of acting as his shield and stopping his opponent's lethal blow, I turned my back and focused on a target of my own.

  Payback hurts.

  I sometimes wonder what my mother would say about my actions.

  She met my father in some kind of Myriad-based, get-happy program, while battling depression. I've visited the Hall of Annals countless times to read about her life, and, according to her files, she considered her dalliance with my father a mistake, but a mistake she could not regret.

  Even before my birth, she loved me. For the first time in her remembrance, she wasn't sad but overjoyed, excited. Because of me, she had hope for a better future.

  But Fate had other ideas for her.

  Caroline Flynn died within minutes of giving birth to me.

  My chest constricts, breathing a little more difficult. I've watched the video of my birth...watched her nuzzle my cheek and coo to me as she bled out.

  Before a child reaches the Age of Accountability, parents decide his or her fate. Caroline had a covenant to Myriad, ensuring I would follow her to the realm. And I did, two days later. The medication she'd taken while pregnant affected my heart. Or so I've been told. Deep down, I think I'd known I lost something--someone--precious, and my heart broke.

  I know beyond a doubt Caroline would have taken me in, but again, Fate had other ideas. Even in the Everlife, her spirit was too weak to sustain her, and she experienced Second-death within days of her first.

  "Killian."

  Tenley's gentle voice invades my mind, causing the memories to scatter. I focus on her, wanting to lash out and hug her at the same time.

  What is this strange pull she has on me?

  "Be honest," I say, unable to mask the croak in my voice. "Tell me how you convinced me to bond with you. What leverage did you have?"

  "Me, convince you?" She snorts. "Baby, you practically begged me."

  I run my tongue over my teeth, not liking the baby endearment, either. "You lie. I would never beg you or anyone for anything."

  A glimmer of sadness appears in her mismatched eyes, only to vanish as she rallies. "No, you wouldn't." Gaze pointed, she adds, "You asked, and I said yes because you are one of the best people I know. You are strong, and you are kind...sometimes. You fight for what you want, never back down. Your courage astounds me. The lengths you'll go to for the ones you love amazes me."

  My heart thuds against my ribs. She's lying. Of course she's lying. I can't be one of the best people she knows.

  But every fiber of my being wants to believe her.

  "We married because we love each other, but also because I need to get inside Myriad," she says. "Trust me, you want me there, too. We must dethrone Ambrosine."

  Myriad is all I have. I'd rather die than lose my place. "I would never agree tae dethrone--"

  "And we must get inside Many Ends," she continues, quieting me. "Many Ends is connected to Myriad, and we both believe your mother is trapped there. We plan to rescue her, together. And we can. I know we can. I've been to Many Ends before. Three times, to be exact. On my final trip, I rescued two spirits who now live in Troika." She pauses, chews on her bottom lip and looks up at me through the thick fan of her lashes, hopeful. "Any of this ringing a bell?"

  Breathing becomes a little more difficult. My mother, trapped in Many Ends. The equivalent of hell.

  Truth? A falsehood?

  Falsehood, definitely. Anger froths inside me. I must have told Tenley about my mother's First-and Second-death. Or she did some digging and learned all on her own. Either way, the result is the same. She used the information against me.

  And I let her.

  Tenley Lockwood thinks to manipulate me. Because she has power over me. Power that has nothing to do with the bond.

  What if she finds the human fused with my mother? What if she hurts my mother?

  The anger heats, turning into fury, my cells becoming bombs and exploding. With a snarl, I leap to my feet. Menace in every step, I approach her.

  She straightens, but she doesn't back up. When I reach the bars, she raises her chin, stubborn to the core, and I almost admire her.

  Who am I kidding? I do. I admire her.

  But I won't stop. Though I'm without a single weapon, I'm far from helpless. I can kill an entire contingent of soldiers with my bare hands--and have.

  Silent, we stare at each other.

  Shadows protest such close proximity to her, my bride. The bond warms and tingles, empowering the Light inside me. I don't care. Tension crackles in the air, so thick I can feel tendrils of it brush against my skin, sensitizing my nerve endings. She feels it, too. Her inhalations grow shallow, her chest rising and falling in quick succession.

  She's tall for a girl, but I dwarf her. I have a good hundred pounds of muscle on her, too. I could easily overpower her. And yet, just then, overpowering her isn't what I crave...

  The fact that she doesn't back down, well, I'm impressed.

  "Before our bond, someone in Myriad told you the identity of the human your mother's spirit is supposedly Fused with. A teenage girl," she says, her voice as calm and steady as before. "You tracked her down, and decided she couldn't possibly be the woman who had given birth to you. Couldn't even be half of her. So I told you my suspicion--Fusion is a lie Myriadians tell to cover up the fact that they wind up in Many Ends after Second-death."

  Please. "I would know if Many Ends was connected to Myriad
."

  "Because you know everything? Because you're never wrong? Because no one in Myriad has ever been dishonest for personal gain? Which is it, Killian? One, two or three?" She grips the bars of the cage, and shakes. "Maybe all? A lie cannot stand forever, because its foundation is fundamentally cracked. When a storm comes, the lie will crumble and fall, and only the truth will remain."

  I don't want to answer her questions or respond to her analogy, but for some reason I don't want to lie to her or hurt her, either.

  Wanting her off guard, I reach out and place my hands over hers. She gasps, but still she doesn't back down. Her gaze zooms to my wrist, to the horse branded there.

  "Have we had sex yet?" I ask with enough sneer and leer to enrage a saint.

  Her gaze jerks back up, meeting mine. Twin pink circles stain her cheeks. The blush quickly spreads to her neck, covering the pulse hammering at the base, and along her collarbone. How I would love to strip her, find out just how far that blush travels.

  "No," she snaps. "We were waiting until we could touch without our Shells."

  As we're doing now? "Interesting, considering I've never waited for anyone."

  "You said you'd wait forever for me."

  Another lie. Except...

  I've never wanted anyone this intensely.

  Slowly, so slowly, giving her time to avoid me if that is her choice, I lift my hand toward her face. She merely lifts her chin another notch. The closer I get to contact, the tenser we both become. Then my fingertips are on the rise of her cheekbone. A tremor rocks her at the same time that white-lightning arcs through me.

  White-lightning...pleasure.

  Undiluted bliss.

  With a grunt, I drop my arm to my side to sever contact. I'd wanted to tease her, as well as put her on the defensive by saying something smarmy like, We can touch now. How about you hit your knees, baby, and drink me down. At the moment, I can't work a single word past the lump growing in my throat.

  The front door of the house suddenly bursts open, and a new snarl leaves me. Archer Prince, a boy I despise with every fiber of my being, stomps inside, a massive white-and-brown dog at his side. A tiny Chihuahua trails behind them.

  My mind locks on a single thought: Archer was dead, and now he's alive. I watched him die. We were in the middle of a battle and--

  Shadows sink their claws into the memory. Distorting my view of it? I wince.