I inclined my head just enough to look at him from the corner of my eye. “This is completely inappropriate,” I said.
“Yes, I’m aware of that. Can I scrub your back for you?”
I gasped. “Haden! No. Get out.”
He stood up, but instead of leaving, he grabbed a short stool and brought it back to the tub.
“I’m very uncomfortable.”
He leered at me over his too perfectly sculpted nose. “Maybe you should sit up a little, then.”
I splashed him.
“We need to talk about us.” He stole one of my chocolates. “I figured since you’d be a captive audience, now would be the best time.”
“This is the most ridiculous time ever to discuss our relationship.” Since he wasn’t going anywhere, I decided to distract him from discussing our relationship by bringing up Mara. “Haden, what did I absorb from Mara? I thought she didn’t have a soul, that only humans have them.”
“Honestly, love, I didn’t know you could do what you did. Demons don’t have souls, at least not the ones who don’t have a human parent like I do. Apparently, her power had a tangible form, like the human soul has an essence, one that you had access to since she cursed you with her blood.”
“So I’m more of a demon now. Like you. Not just poisoned by one, I am one?”
I caught Haden’s gaze. If I was a demon, then I was no longer off-limits. We were no longer bound by the demon-taking-an-innocent-therefore-we-can-never-have-sex rule. The bathwater was suddenly much too warm.
He smiled wryly. “I suppose that is a very interesting development we’ll need to explore in depth at a later time, love.” He leaned over and wiggled his fingers in the water. “The girls and Gabe have awoken and are waiting for us in the parlor.”
“They know you’re in here with me?” I covered my face with my hands. “Oh God,” I whimpered.
He chuckled. “A true queen doesn’t care what other people think of her actions.”
“She does if she has to put up with Donny’s teasing afterwards.”
“Theia.” His voice grew serious. “We really do need to talk. This breakup is a horrible idea. You need to stop pushing me away. It isn’t fair.”
“Can we discuss this after I’m dressed?”
“We can discuss it some more after you’re dressed, certainly. But right now I need you to listen. Are you sure I can’t scrub your back for you?”
I groaned with frustration. “I just wanted . . . I didn’t want to drag everyone down with me. I thought if I could separate from you and everyone that I could keep you all safe. I wanted you to have a real life.” Instead, nobody was safe. Not my father, not my friends, not Varnie.
“I thought you understood. After I came for you in Under the last time, I thought you must know . . . but I guess I was wrong.”
“Know what?”
“You are my life.”
“Haden—”
“This stops now, Theia. You can’t continue to push me away. I don’t want you making grand sacrifices for me that pull you out of my life and make me more miserable than ever. Stop thinking you have to do this on your own. You’re not alone. You have me. You have Amelia and Donny. Surely you can see that every time you don’t count on us, you hurt us.”
I’d never thought of that before. I’d been so wrapped up in trying to undo my mistakes that it didn’t occur to me that my lack of faith was hurtful to the people I wanted to protect the most.
“What about you? It’s not like you were planning a surprise party behind my back, Haden. You were strategizing an entire war. And you weren’t going to tell me about it before you left. I think we’ve both decimated each other’s trust.”
He frowned. “You’re right. Absolutely right. We both need to stop pushing each other away to prove our love. From now on, complete honesty. We’re young and reasonably smart. I’m sure we can learn from our mistakes. . . . Please?”
His face in the candlelight, the way he looked at me as if I were the only thing in the world that mattered—any girl would swoon. But it wasn’t his looks, and it wasn’t his demon speed or the way he carried a sword or wore a cravat that made me love him. It was the weaknesses he showed only to me. The moments when he was unguarded, unsure of himself—when he needed me. Why was it so hard for me to grasp that I didn’t have to be perfect for him any more than he needed to be perfect for me?
I would do anything for him. I loved him the minute I laid eyes on him. Perhaps the least I could do was trust him.
And my friends . . . what a disservice I’d done them by not leaning on their strength. If I’d told them what was going on instead of keeping everything locked inside, they could have helped me. Maybe if I’d told them about the hunger and the dreams, they could have prevented me from my nocturnal essence stealing.
While it was true that I didn’t want to drag them into my hell, they came anyway. And they were strong and smart and it was our bond that gave me the power to overcome Mara’s evil. Now that her evil lived inside of me, I needed them more than ever. They made me better and stronger.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“You’re right. I won’t push you away anymore and I’ll stop keeping things bottled up inside and let you all help me.”
“What’s the catch?” he asked.
“I can’t just leave. Mara is gone—but her legacy is mine now.”
“And me, Theia. I am her son, after all. The demon legacy is my inheritance. I’m sending you back. I’ll deal with Under.”
I rolled my eyes. So much for not pushing each other away to prove our love. “You’re sending me back?” As if he could if I didn’t want to go. He wasn’t getting rid of me that easily. “You mean to take over, don’t you? Become what you hated? Haden, after everything we’ve been through, it’s not fair.”
He grabbed my hand. “But you think it’s fair that I let you become what I didn’t want to?”
We once had to write an essay in history about Lord Acton’s famous quote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Mara had too much power and nothing to temper it. She twisted the souls of humanity for fun, just because she could. Would anyone taking her place fare any better? Would Haden eventually become just like her . . . his greatest fear?
Would I?
I shifted beneath the water and Haden’s breath hitched. I wasn’t sure if I revealed anything or if it was just the thought of me revealing something, but his cheeks grew pink.
“Maybe we can continue this conversation later?” I suggested.
Haden smiled the shy-teenage-boy smile and not the demon-who’s-seen-everything smile. I admit, they both did the same thing to my tummy.
He leaned in very carefully to kiss me. It was a sweet kiss, his lips soft as they feathered gently over mine. I gathered suds on my hands and reached for his cheeks, soaping his face. Not one to bow out of a fight, he grinned against my mouth as he splashed the top of my head with water and bubbles.
“Minx,” he whispered before he left me to get dressed so that we could plan our new destiny.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The first thing I noticed when I entered the parlor was Amelia pretending she was fine. She smiled at me, but it was a fragile thing that only showed her sorrow. Amelia was everything that was good and true and sweet in the world and I hated that her heart had been broken.
“Ame,” I began, but stopped because what else could I say?
The three of us moved towards her until we were huddled together. Varnie’s absence was an ache.
“I’m so sorry, Amelia.” I squeezed her tighter. “I wish there was something I could say or do.”
“I miss him so much,” Amelia cried. “He saved me, you know.”
I nodded. “I watched it in a crystal ball. He was so brave. A real hero—that’s how I’ll always remember him.”
She used the back of her hand to wipe her tears. “Not just that. When I was out of it? He found me in
side my head and helped me get centered. That thing you saw connecting me and Mike Matheny was a spell Mara put on me when I was thirteen.” We all gasped, so she kept talking. “I didn’t know it was her—I did a stupid love spell. She showed up that night but I thought she was a dream. She tied me to Mike all these years, but that magic she put in me was why I was so strong. It’s gone now. Varnie helped me get it out. That was his ghost, wasn’t it?”
“I think so, sweetie.” I rubbed her back.
“His ghost led us to Amelia’s cell,” Gabe said. “It was so weird. He looked so real, and then we lost him. . . . He was just gone.”
Haden wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder. It was so hard to talk about Varnie and know he wasn’t coming back.
Donny hadn’t said anything. She absently rubbed her flat stomach, and then looked up quickly to make sure nobody had seen her do it. I pretended not to notice. “I keep thinking maybe it’s not real. Like my bun in the oven or Gabe’s skeleton head.”
“What?” Haden asked. “You’re pregnant?”
“I was . . . for a little while. Mara did some weird stuff to us . . . like our worst-nightmare stuff. So did Varnie really die? Maybe that was just another scary thing we had to face?”
Ame shook her head. “He’s really gone. I felt him leave.”
Gabe cleared his throat. “I think it’s because the stuff she did to us was like a magic spell or something, you know? And when Theia beat the crap out of her, it was like all the spells got broken. But Varnie’s dying wasn’t a magic spell. Mara didn’t turn him into a ghost like she turned me into Skeletor. It really happened, so it couldn’t unhappen.”
We were quiet then, remembering our friend. And then we began to discuss what we’d each been through on this trip to Under. I told them all about the flowers, how I was afraid that I had been draining souls from our school. And the little girl that I’d frightened.
I kept my eyes closed the whole time I talked. It was possible that they would hate me, but it was important that I be honest. Their lives were still in danger and they were still stuck in Under. The very least I could give them was the whole truth.
“How are you going to control that now that you are even stronger?” Donny asked. There wasn’t judgment in her voice.
“I don’t feel any different. I thought, when I started taking her essence, that the real me would get lost or taken over. I still just feel . . . like me. Actually, I almost feel like I have more control now.”
Ame took my hand and led me to the couch. “I wouldn’t have you change for anything, Theia. I’m glad you feel the same—but you’re not. You need to understand that. You’re still mostly human . . . probably . . . well, maybe . . . but your feet are planted in two very different worlds now. You’re powerful; the rest of us can see the change even if you can’t.”
Everyone took seats and stared at one another for uncomfortable, awkward moments. Finally, Gabe said, “So, Theia is the new mare queen, so she has to stay here and rule the underworld?”
“She is not staying,” Haden said.
“Of course I am. I can’t just return to high school. That part of my life is over. I belong here now.”
“No. Absolutely not.” Haden stood, his aura flashing and sparking around him except for the place where he’d been stabbed. “This is my fate. I was raised to take over one day.”
“Uh, dude? What about all those people that live here that are partying down and calling her the queen?” Donny asked.
Haden shook his head. “We’ll figure it out.”
He moved too sharply and winced, holding his hand to his side. I concentrated on his aura and the gap seemed larger than it had been earlier in the evening. It was getting worse, not better. Instinctively, I knew I could fix it. “I need to do something and you’re probably not going to like it.” I stood in front of Haden and hovered my hand over his wound. “You have an opening in your aura where the silver knife wounded you. I think, if you . . . um . . . feed from me the way I did Mara—”
“Absolutely not,” Haden argued.
I had powers now. Powers I didn’t understand, exactly, but I felt a certainty in my bones that I could heal him. “I think if you take some of my energy through the gap, it will close.”
“No.”
Amelia rested her hand on Haden’s shoulder. “There is an energy transference that happens in healing. Varnie and I were studying a spiritual healing process called Reiki. It’s about life force energy—it’s ancient and safe. Just a laying on of hands and transfer of light.”
He wanted to please her, I could tell. He warred with himself about giving in because she’d had such a horrible blow, but as quickly as the indecision flashed over his features, the stubbornness set in again. “She’s asking me to actively feed from her and I won’t do it.”
Ame sent me a look that said the ball was back in my field . . . or whatever that American saying is.
“I know it will work, Haden,” I said. “It’s like this primal voice that I feel compelled to listen to.”
The dark and forbidding expression on his face was likely supposed to make me back down. He narrowed his eyes to slits when he realized it wasn’t working and then exhaled a frustrated breath. “I doubt I could stop myself from draining you completely if I started. You know better than to test my control like that.”
“We’re all here to stop you if you can’t stop yourself, Haden.” Ame joined my side.
Haden shook his head. “No, Theia.”
“I trust you.” I used my eyelashes the way Donny taught me when I wanted something from a boy. “Do you trust me?”
He scoffed at my blatant attempt at flirting, but it still worked a little. His resolve weakened, even if he wouldn’t admit it. “It is a terrible idea.”
“Please.” I felt the energy growing warmer between my hand and his body, so I concentrated on it, pushing what felt like light into the gap of his aura. My arm began tingling as the luminosity stopped going just the one way and I felt a return of power coming from Haden. It wasn’t like taking Mara’s essence. It didn’t feel like taking at all. Instead, I felt like a conduit. The energy channeled from me into Haden and back until it became circular. We shared it until instead of two different glimmers of essence, it fused into one shaft of light. The pattern became something other than the two of us; it morphed into its own entity, swirling through us, around us, between us.
I had no idea what kind of power had transcended us, but I felt connected to him on a new level. Something bound me to Haden. Not in the creepy way that Ame had been attached to Mike. This felt strong, good. Almost pure.
“That was beautiful,” Ame said, her voice full of awe.
It felt a bit disconcerting to realize we weren’t alone. The healing had felt intimate. I think they all felt the same way because they quickly made excuses to go back to their room, leaving Haden and me alone.
As soon as they were gone, Haden began pacing, a scowl etched into his face. Finally he stopped right in front of me. “Theia, I want you to have your life back. You deserve to go to college and have a career, have babies . . . Whatever you want, I want you to have it.”
“I want to do all those things too, Haden. But I want you to do them with me. We can’t have that life, so let’s have this one. Together.” Haden and I got lost for a second in each other’s eyes. We could make it a good life. I knew we could. “You know I can’t just go back. Too much has happened.”
I felt it like a tug on my heart when he realized I was right, but still he wanted to be certain this was my choice. “You’re not really the queen. You don’t have to be anyway. I want you to be sure you really want this before you step into her role.”
“What are you saying?”
“There are no magical rules of the realm that automatically dictate that you take Mara’s place if you kill her, any more than there are rules that her reign passes on to her firstborn son. Mara made up all kinds of conventions while she liv
ed here, but there isn’t one of them that can’t be broken. The people of Under respect you for killing their tyrant and bewitching their prince, but that doesn’t automatically make you the next mare demon ruler.”
I let his words sink in. “Who else can do it, then? Besides you?”
“Another demon would likely make a power play in the absence of a ruler. They still might try, but you’ve got Mara’s power and the loyalty of the realm, so unless you abdicated the throne . . .”
“So what you’re saying is that whoever is the most powerful is in charge. When it was Mara, she made the rules for this realm.”
He bobbed his head slightly in agreement. “Basically, yes. There are rules of nature that don’t get broken easily—demons will naturally do what they do best, or worst. Under is and will always remain the birthplace of nightmares. Mara was the most powerful mare demon, so she made the kingdom of Under what she wanted it to be.”
“What are they like, the other mare demons?”
“Unpredictable. They’re demons, love. You met my demon form once, when it was without my human soul, and you’ve met Mara. They’re not as powerful as she was, but they’re not cute puppies either. They also take perverse pleasure in giving humans nightmares, something Mara encouraged.”
I shuddered, remembering how cold Haden had been when he’d been separated from his human side. “So, if we let one of them rule, instead of me, Under would end up with another Mara.”
“It’s possible. I doubt any of them would be a benevolent leader—but it doesn’t have to be your problem. You can still walk away.”
I set my jaw. “I don’t want to walk away. Not anymore.” I was surprised that I felt so strongly about it, but leaving Under to someone else made me feel the same jealousy I had for Haden when it came to other girls. It was my realm. I was needed and part of me needed Under just as much.
“I can’t deny you have a lot of power, more than me now. But you don’t know how to use it or rein it in. I can help you with that.” He took my hands. “I would love to help you with that.”