Something was up.
I slapped at his sagging cheek, hoping to rouse him. His Magic was constricted because of the cuffs we’d put on his wrists and ankles, but he was still Immortal.
Or, mostly, anyway.
He groaned as the palm of my hand connected with his face again. This time I hit him a little harder, needing him to wake up and confirm my suspicions.
“Hey,” I called loudly in his ear. “Wake up, you geriatric bastard!”
More groaning sounds rattled his chest, but his heavy eyelids wavered open. He stared at me with a deadly kind of malice, one that promised retribution and pain.
He spit into my face; the mucous-filled, bloody spray hit me all over and I reflexively slammed my eyes and mouth shut. I wiped at my now-tainted skin with the hem of my t-shirt and then broke into a wide smile.
“Now that I have your attention,” I crooned. “I want to know why your brother abandoned you. What did you do to piss him off?”
Truthfully, I was chasing instinct. But something he said to me earlier about how my father had disowned me, struck a nerve. I had told nobody, except Avalon, of my separation with my parents. I expected people assumed there had been a split because it was obvious where our differing loyalties lied, but I had never offered a reason and I highly doubted my father was the one spreading the rumors.
He stared at me without saying a word. I slapped his sagging cheek again, a Godfather-esque rendition of a man wanting another man to answer the freaking question.
His eyes narrowed, but he admitted, “Maybe we didn’t agree.”
“He left you.” I stood up and his head lolled backwards so he could follow me with his defeated gaze. “And you ran to my father for help. Is he hunting you, too?”
“He’s my brother,” Alexi spit and his Russian accent thickened until I could hardly understand him.
“What did he do to you?” I pushed. “Did he experiment on you? He had to have. You smell as rotten as the rest of them. Is that what’s happening? You’re rotting from the inside out. He took the Magic that was supposed to be yours and gave you something different? Is your body rejecting it? Is it painful?”
“Shut up!” he roared. “Shut your filthy mouth! You don’t know what you are talking about!”
“Maybe not,” I shrugged. “But I think I’m getting close.” I stepped close to him again and leaned in so that he could feel how intimidating I was, how much more powerful and in control I was. “I think it is painful. I think you might even wish you were dead, it hurts so bad. And I think you might get your wish soon enough if Dmitri finds you.”
Alexi’s eyes grew big, maybe surprised that I guessed this much. What he didn’t realize was that I had been interrogating for years now. This was what I was good at. This was what I would do for the rest of my life, all in the service of my King.
He clucked his tongue, but admitted, “But that is what you do not understand. He will not kill me. He will not let me die.”
There was a confession in his tone, but I didn’t understand why at first. I turned to Titus and Sebastian to see if they could read through his words.
“You were dying,” Sebastian announced. His entire face lit up with understanding and he pointed an accusing finger at Alexi. “You were dying. Before. That’s why you have the stolen Magic. And that’s why you had a falling out with your brother.”
Alexi winced and I knew Sebastian was onto something.
“The King’s Curse,” Alexi admitted, although we were all assuming that by now.
“He thought he could save you.” I fell back a step, sickened by the power Dmitri Terletov thought he had over people- that he thought he could remove unhealthy Magic, take from someone else and replace it, that he thought there were those deserving of Magic and that there were those that weren’t. He thought he could play God.
“He did save me.” Alexi’s dull eyes flashed with anger. “I’m alive. He succeeded.”
“At what cost?” Talbott demanded. “You’re sick, just in a different way. And who had to die so that you could live? How many had to die so that you could live?”
Alexi’s anger was immediately replaced with grief… regret… something sicker, something so soul deep and wretched I wondered if it was that pain killing him instead of the tainted Magic. “He’s my brother. He would do anything for me.”
“Then where is he now?” Sebastian was in his face this time and I could see his muscles, his limbs, his body shaking with restrained rage. “Where is he, Alexi? Let us right this! You ran from him because you know what he is doing is evil. He’s killing people! And not just Immortals, he’s murdering humans. You left because you knew he was sick. So tell us where he is! Let us find him and end this!”
“He is my brother,” Alexi gritted out. “He is the only family I have and you would have me betray him? After he saved my life?” He let out a dark chuckle and spit at Sebastian’s shoes.
Sebastian stood up and put some room between them. “Believe me,” he told Alexi. “I know what this is like. The King is like my brother. Kiran is my flesh and blood. But I have a goddamn conscious Alexi. I know when I should accept his behavior and when I should burn him. And if he was murdering innocent people, you’d better believe I would absolutely have done whatever was necessary to stop him.”
“You can’t say that for sure.” Alexi shook his head and seemed to lose some of the desperation he had a moment ago.
“I can say that for sure,” Sebastian confessed. “You forget what side of the war I was on when Lucan was in control.”
Alexi stared at him with confusion. I kind of doubted Alexi paid any attention to what Sebastian had been doing during those couple of years, especially because Sebastian lived in the Citadel the entire time. But Sebastian clearly believed his words and it was hard not to sense the die-hard conviction that resounded with his confession.
“The point is,” I said. “Whether you support the old Monarchy or the new one, you know what your brother is doing is a crime against humanity and Immortals alike. No one can stop him but us. And we will stop him, Alexi. With or without your help, we will find him and we will end this. You have my word.”
I watched Alexi shut down in front of me, stage by stage; he became a stone-cold wall. The other guys saw this too. Talbott cracked his knuckles and Sebastian let out a soul-weary sigh. I needed air. If we were going through round two with this guy, I needed to take a break.
I met Sebastian’s eye and jerked my head to the door that led upstairs. He nodded so I took my leave, turning my back on the carnage that was about to happen in that small room.
At the top of the stairs I had to grapple for self-control and force myself to continue to breathe steadily instead of gulping in the oxygen I really freaking wanted. This felt like weakness, even while I clung to the belief that these feelings meant I was better than this.
It meant that I maintained a moral compass instead of getting lost in the bloodlust and butchery that accompanied this job.
Alexi Terletov was not the first man I’d tortured, and if this ended how I suspected it would, he would not be the first man I killed.
But these tasks never sat well with me. I could finish them. But they took a piece of me with them every time they ended- a good, clean piece. And then they left something dark and inhuman in their place.
It was only a matter of time before all of the good pieces were gone and there were only the sinister, malicious parts left.
It was those thoughts that kept me up at night, that haunted me… hunted my consciousness. It was those thoughts and those ugly deeds that I couldn’t get past.
Maybe that made me less of a man, but I was comfortable enough in my own skin not to recognize my worth beyond my deeds. If I had to hold a standard to myself, I would choose to be a despicable man for a good cause over everything else.
Laughter floated in from the backyard and I found myself wandering to a window that overlooked the patio and pool. Called by the sound of some
thing happy, something so drastically different from the carnage in the basement, I felt lured by some greater power, helpless to battle the hypnotic enchantment.
Roxie and Olivia were splashing around in the pool while Xander and Xavier sat at the edge with their feet dipped into the water. Irrational jealously shot through me as I looked down at my raw, angry knuckles and blood spattered shorts.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I drifted out the patio doors and walked to the clear, sparkling water with one purpose in mind. The further from the house I moved and the closer to the purity of the clean water, the more my spirit seemed to rise from filthy, gritty ashes and become some remnant of what it used to be, something whole. This was cleansing to me. This was necessary.
Conversation died out as my presence became known. Xander and Xavier looked up at me expectantly and Roxie floated to my side to hear an update on our prisoner.
Olivia was the only one that backed to the far side of the bean shaped pool. She ducked under the water and came up with wet hair that she slicked back and made come to a point just at the nape of her neck. She looked out into the rain forest that backed up to Gabriel’s stone wall. She seemed intent on avoiding me again. Unfortunately for her, she had all of my attention. Water-beaded body, skimpy bikini and her Magic already tentatively mixing with mine… I couldn’t have kept my eyes from her if I wanted to.
And I did not want to.
“How’s the prisoner?” Xander asked effectually breaking the tension that had begun to crawl up my back and take root in my gut. I had to force myself to stay rooted where I was when everything inside me urged me toward Olivia.
“Talking,” I told him. “Sort of.”
“That’s good news.” Xavier stood and tapped his brother on the back. “And are they, uh, coaxing him to keep talking?” He gave a furtive glance at Olivia and then grabbed a towel to dry off his feet.
I nodded without taking my eyes from Olivia.
She kept her shoulders below the surface of the water and her eyes drifted anywhere but to me. There was this itchy feeing all over my skin from the way she avoided connecting our gaze. I just wanted her to look at me. I just wanted her to see me.
But she wouldn’t.
And for whatever reason, her distance made me feel like more of a villain than anything else.
Did she know what I was a part of in the basement?
Did she think I was the same as those monsters that tortured her?
I hated that I was in a somber mood and that I’d destroyed whatever happiness was out here before I arrived, but the longer Olivia averted her eyes the edgier I became.
“We’ll just go help Bastian, then,” Xander offered with a pat on my shoulder.
Roxie followed them, jumping out of the pool and grabbing a towel without bothering to use it outside. They hadn’t even made it a foot indoors before they were a hysterical gaggle of laughing hyenas at my expense. Apparently I wasn’t very subtle about the direction of my thoughts.
At least they were nice enough to leave us the hell alone.
We had things to discuss.
I toed off my topsiders, noting the speckles of blood tainting the usually clean leather. I dropped down where Xander had been sitting and let my feet sink into the warm water. The freshness of the saltwater pool felt incredible after the stifling, suffocating heat of the basement.
“You scared everyone away,” Olivia said over her shoulder.
My eyes were riveted on the back of her head and the blurry body that moved beneath the surface of the water. She was a siren, calling me to the depths of the sea with a song that spoke to my very soul. And I was a sailor that would follow her down, lured by her beauty and by the light that promised me life more than any other thing that awaited me down in those fathomless depths.
“I didn’t mean to.” My voice sounded harsh and raspy to my own ears. I could only imagine what Olivia thought of me. She turned around to face me but stayed in the middle of the pool, shoulders moving beneath the surface. Her eyes glittered above the sparkling water, their ice blue color indefinable under the decorative patio lamps and moonlight. I felt lost, so lost my chest hurt and my stomach churned. But at the same time I felt found, so severely found that I knew there was no other place for me on this earth. This moment was important. This moment was profound.
This moment would change us both.
Forever.
And "forever" was one of those words that meant something to me.
“You sounded like you were having fun.”
She gave me a curious expression and admitted, “I guess we were having fun.”
“You sound surprised.”
“It’s just…” She turned back around and cleared her throat. “It’s just I haven’t had fun in a long time. I guess, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it.”
My chest clenched in pain, “I bet it feels like forever since you were back home, back to a life without Magic and crazies that want to experiment on you.”
She snorted and my body pulsed with the need to kiss her. I almost laughed out loud at how ridiculously sexy I found that indelicate sound coming from her. I’d really lost my mind this time.
“It feels like years,” she groaned. She’d coasted a little bit closer to me, although I didn’t think she’d noticed yet. “But that’s not what I meant. There’s a reason I took this trip with my sister.”
An awkward silence fell between us, most of the discomfort coming from her. She seemed suddenly anxious to be anywhere but here. I guessed it had something to do with her confession.
So I hedged, “Because your family actually likes each other?”
She laughed with that throaty voice of hers and without consciously deciding to do so, I slipped into the water fully clothed. I yanked off my wet t-shirt, tossing it back to the patio. My linen shorts weren’t exactly easy to move in underwater, but I needed to be closer to her- I needed to share the same space with her before I took my next breath. Her hypnotic call had crescendo-ed into a gravitational pull. She was the sun and I was only Icarus, only a man. I would fly as close to her as I could until I caught fire.
Until her heat became my undoing.
Until I crashed back to the earth in a blaze of defeat.
Until she ruined me.
She watched me enter the pool with wide eyes, instinctively backed to the far wall again. “N-n-no,” she stammered. Visibly pulling herself together as she went on, “I mean, we are close. My family is very close. But I meant, because I don’t have any other friends. Other than them.”
“Is it your school? You said it was competitive,” I reminded her.
She cringed, wrinkling her adorable nose. I took three more steps toward her. If she was going to do things like that, she couldn’t blame me.
Our Magic met under the water, like fingers reaching out to intertwine with each other. The pool had recessed lighting along the edges and if I didn’t know better I could swear we’d started some kind of lightshow at the bottom. Pastel shadows of color danced beneath our feet, as if our Magics were already so fiercely connected they became tangible fields of light.
Olivia didn’t notice, so I didn’t bring it up. I didn’t want to freak her out.
Besides, I had my own agenda.
“What if it’s me?” she asked in a whisper.
“It’s not you.” And I meant that. I’d never met someone I wanted to get to know as badly as Olivia. And for weeks, there had been no one I’d rather spend time with than this human girl. She was the single most interesting person I’d ever met. There was no way people wouldn’t be as pulled in by her as me. It wasn’t possible.
Not even Eden had commanded so many thoughts in my head.
She stuck her tongue out at me when I was only two feet away and that solidified it, I was closing this distance between us.
“It is me,” she said. “I haven’t had friends since… high school. Not even the end of high school, but like the beginning. I was a loser.”
/>
“Math club?” I teased.
“No, I wish,” she sighed. She put her back to the wall and her hands gripped the patio edge above her head. She let her feet kick out and for just the briefest moment her flat, exposed stomach broke through the surface and my blood, my body, everything that was me reacted immediately.
Holy shit, it was like she was created specifically to seduce me.
I kept it under control though; obviously she was opening up. I wasn’t the most complicated creature on the planet, and with all Olivia’s exposed skin and the fissions of electricity shooting through me from our united Magic I simplified very quickly. But this was important. I needed to listen.
And most shocking of all… I wanted to listen.
“Math club had each other. Jericho, you don’t understand, I had no one. Not until O got to high school with me. And even then, I didn’t let her hang out with me much. I didn’t want to taint her. I was poison back then.” She looked over the stone wall again, somewhere beyond the rain forest, beyond our present. “I still might be.”
“What happened?” I sensed something off with this story. I needed more details because this girl was in no way poison, not even a little bit. She hesitated and so I turned to her and gave her the full force of my smoldering stare. She could try to resist, but, come on, I had a good smolder.
She let out a frustrated little groan but then said, “Stupid high school politics.”
“Explain it to me,” I coaxed. “My high school politics revolved around literal politics. We competed for the best seat at royal events and who could date the girl with the highest title.” I smiled so she knew I was joking… mostly. “I have no experience with what you went through. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”
She rolled her eyes but finally turned her body to face me, resting her arm along the hot cement of the patio to keep her body anchored. “Fine. Freshman year I started dating this guy.” I already hated where this was going. “He was a year older than me, a sophomore. We had Foods together. I, well, it’s obvious why I was taking the class. He was taking it for the easy A. Anyway, he was like this cool kid. Everybody liked him, even the upper classmen because he was really good at football.”