Reveca didn’t answer.
“This might bother you then.”
Reveca looked up.
“She said at all cost you are to release King from his limited boundaries before the next new moon.”
“Has she lost her damn mind?” Reveca snapped. That was more than a high order—it was impossible. She had nothing to offer Crass for King’s freedom and no army to face him. It would be a slaughter.
“I don’t know, I argued with her. I told her I was there when we made the deal. He was already pissed at you for picking the right King.”
“What’d she have to say about that notion?” Reveca said with an ‘I told you so’ expression strapped across her face.
“She said if you released him, even temporarily, he’d find the division and acceptance he needed to fight.” He glanced at her. “She made it seem like it would be a test his soul needed.” He looked away and under his breath said, “That more than him needed.”
Reveca was so pissed. One second the coven was pushing her past pain on her, and the next, once she found a way to deal with it they were taking it away, making it hurt all the worse. “She knew who he was to me,” Reveca clarified, wondering how it was so easy for her family to ask her to lay down such a huge sacrifice, not once but twice.
Cashton nodded once. “When do you see Crass again?”
Reveca smirked, even shook her head. This timing could not be worse. Not only was Crass mad at her for one-upping him in the barter, he was surely ticked she’d ignored his invitation tonight. Even knowing all this now she would’ve still taken the same actions she had, but that didn’t make it suck any less.
Right now she had mortal battles waiting on her, which had to fall into place. This was more than she needed, more than she was sure she could handle.
“Two days.”
“Can we barter for a temporary freedom for King?”
Reveca lifted a brow. “If we do the cost will be high…it will be one I don’t want to pay.” She glanced to her side at Cashton. “Before the next new moon?” she questioned.
“Before. She repeated it over and over.”
Reveca cursed under her breath. “What’s with that brand on you? What did she say about that?”
“Before the next moon.”
“What about that before the next moon?”
Cashton didn’t answer.
“It’s vengeance. You said you had no vengeance for King,” Reveca said, not liking the way this was lining up. Cashton with a vengeance brand and freeing King at once.
“I don’t,” he looked over her. “It’s not for him.”
“She sealed your words,” Reveca assumed.
Cashton nodded once, clearly displaying the agony he felt for the silence in his eyes. It was clear he wanted to tell her but Windsome had made it to where her brand would not allow him to speak of it.
“What did she give you to deliver that? I’d paid your debt for knowledge.”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
Cashton stared deep into her eyes. “You taught me to defend my own.”
“You’re not a killer, Cashton. I love you, but you’re not.”
He started to nod slowly, his eyes glassing over once more—his high was coming back.
Reveca sat there in silence with him for a while, thinking through this endless night she seemed to be enduring. With every mystery she thought to unfold, it bore more.
She glanced up when she sensed Judge approaching.
“Just checking,” he said with his hands up in a peaceful gesture.
“There he is,” Cashton said with a wide grin. “You’re better at this than she is. She tried to tell me Thrash had a kid.”
Judge grinned and shook his head, then stepped in the boat and pulled Cashton up. “Come on, buddy. I’ll tell you some tall tales. Get a beer in you.”
“Guitar,” Cashton said with grin.
“Your buddy’s here. Star.”
“That better not be a lie,” Cashton said, as he stepped out and started to walk with Judge toward the house.
Reveca sat there for a moment, not really ready to face what she knew was waiting on the bank for her. Seeing King again was a reward and a curse. The reward was knowing he was not just a moment in her past, an ache she couldn’t get over. The curse was the same, knowing he was there. Knowing that once again their time was short and tested, and she was going to have to let him go all over again.
She wasn’t clear on why Windsome wanted him free now, nearly right now. But she knew Windsome could hear the echo of the dead, read that frequency. Reveca could only hope she knew more than her, that she was sure that King’s armies could protect him, get him far from the grips of Crass.
She knew King would not confirm that he was ready to surrender once again. She was going to have to reach out to Dagen to see if it were even possible. If it wasn’t, Reveca had no idea how this was a solution to anything.
Slowly she made her way up the dock. She passed the space between the river and her gardens and was walking through them when she felt a wisp of heated wind, one that produced King just before her.
His arms were crossed but he let them fall. He then slowly began to circle her, the angry look in his eyes made it seem more like a prowl.
“What happened?” he said just behind her, against her neck as he moved around her once more, breathing in.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing,” he repeated as he stood before her. “I felt it, Reveca.”
All she could do was stare up at him, feel the defeat, feel the echo of the pain she endured the last time he left her life. The difference then was she didn’t know it was coming. This time she did. She wasn’t sure which way she preferred.
Him saying he felt the hum between them, this power she could not explain, it was testifying that they were something else, something they couldn’t fight but had been asked to twice over now.
“I’m doing my job, protecting my own.”
“What did he do? Did he attack you?” King said as fury waved over him. King knew exactly how foul Crass was, how twisted he was. He knew what kind of torture he was capable of, and he saw that look in Crass’s eyes when Reveca was before him. He’d used some degree of class when he spoke, perhaps charm, but there was a hunger in his eyes. Reveca was a prize he wanted to place on his shelf.
“He asked to meet, he wants his payment.”
King looked away and cursed under his breath.
“I can handle myself, King. I have all this time.”
His eyes fell to hers, and he moved his head side to side slowly. “You survived. We both did. That’s not living. Not what you deserve.”
“Not living? I have a life, a family. We have our dark times but they’re balanced by the good.”
“You can’t toy with souls like Crass. It’s beyond dangerous.”
“It wasn’t too dangerous for me to get you out,” Reveca snapped.
“You should have left me there.”
Reveca nearly let her eyes well with tears but she was too mad to cry. “Why is it so easy for you to lay down?”
King looked away, clenched his jaw.
“You’re a warrior. Through and through. You’re more than that, you’re a leader.” She looked over him before she began her prowl, circling him as he had done just before. “You put your people first, you show them gratitude. You give them strength and hope by displaying such things. You fight battles which have to be fought. You don’t invent war games, you don’t engage them. You fight and defend for a cause.”
She stopped just before him. “So why are you laying down now? Why did you let go then?”
Nothing.
“You want to tell me about that nineteen seventy-five firebird?”
King met her eyes then.
“Odd choice. With the parts in that yard you could have built anything. You not only chose that one but we even ordered the parts we didn’t have that you needed.”
“
It’s a good car.”
“Is it? Or is it a marker in your existence you’re clinging to?”
His gaze slowly slid over her. “There is only one marker in my existence that I’m clinging to.”
“Who or what, because it’s not me.”
“We’re back to this,” he said with a shake of his head.
“We never left.”
“No, we didn’t.”
Reveca narrowed her eyes on him, trying to read between his words, which always had more than one meaning.
“I know, King. I know you turned on your sovereign, that you fought the darkness he was.”
“And you know where it got me.”
“I do,” she said, looking over him. “Your people are worried about you.”
“My people,” he repeated.
“Dagen, and don’t play the I don’t have a memory game with me. I saw how you said his name before I left tonight. I saw the memories fire in your mind, and I know before that you hid from him.”
King smirked, his eyes full of stoic pain. “Before we even left the Edge I told you everyone and everything I cared about was safer when I was with Crass. Do you think I was in the mood to bullshit you then? If anything, those words should have been my absolute truth.”
“Dagen disagrees.”
“You don’t need to listen to Dagen.”
“Why? Because there’s a risk he might give me some hope that you do remember how to fight?”
“Yeah,” he bit out.
Reveca threw her hands in the air, beyond frustrated with him at that point. “You’re going to have to say more than that. There is loyalty in that boy. He’s doing his best to manage the armies you left him, holding on to your last words, and looking for signs left and right. The firebird was one of them. Did you mean to give that to him? Did you? Or was it your soul searching? Going back to the moment before it all went wrong so you could figure out what wrong turn you took—what play you’re going to make next.
“You see, either way, giving your people a message or searching inside for signs tells me you’re a fighter. You’re still a warrior, not someone who’s ready to lay down. Your words and actions do not align.”
She could always see right through him, and she was brilliant. King knew it was pointless to keep this charade up, but he knew her thinking he was weak, not the man she fell for long ago was his only hope of keeping her alive.
“Cease fire. That’s where I’m at right now. I’m going to stay right here for now.”
“Until Cashton rises,” Reveca assumed.
“Right.”
“Why would you wait for a slaughter? Why would you not engage it?”
“You want me to kill your boy,” he said in the coldest tone he could.
“No, I won’t let you,” Reveca snapped. “I want you to kill the fucking God that destroyed us.”
“As if it were that simple.”
“Did you think it was simple when you walked away from him? Did you not expect to meet your demise then?” Reveca said with a raised brow. “What happened, King, and don’t lie. I already know the story. Millions followed you, millions with your strength.”
King could count the number of times he had been pissed at Dagen and not even fill one hand, but this surely was one of them. The last thing Reveca needed to hear was a possibility. Not if he had any shot in hell at saving her, severing the pair of them.
“Millions isn’t even a drop in the bucket to who is in his line,” King said.
She lifted a brow. “It’s more than none.”
King stepped forward and looked down at her. “Do you realize that with a thought, a careless one at that, Revelin could strike them, end their life, mine. He allowed us to stand up because it was amusing to him, entertaining.”
“That can’t all be true.”
It wasn’t. Each time a sovereign strikes one of his own he feels the pain, it weakens him. That many souls would weaken Revelin catastrophically, enough so that his fellow sovereigns who were just as bloodthirsty as he was could and would strike. Revelin taking down King, his First, would wipe him out and make him so weak that for a transitory moment a mere mortal could strike him, end him.
That was King’s end game. He was going fight to the death with Revelin. Lay all his aggression on him fist after fist, blow for blow, and when Revelin had had enough, when he sent a thought to destroy King, Cashton would be there. Cashton and those with him would strike Revelin then rise.
King’s only issue was he had to break this bond between him and Reveca before then. He had to be divided from her so she could live on in the world he always wanted for her, one where exaltation was expressed and embraced, encouraged. Where joy was felt and darkness was in balance with the light.
She was making it extremely difficult though. It was her energy which was making it so easy for him to remember the past. It was her energy which was making him stronger each and every day.
And, as it did so, he became even more protective over her, more aware of her—every pain, every rush, everything. When he felt her fight others and even him it made him pull this connection between them all the closer, made him want to stand and be her vengeance.
“Read your lore books, Reveca. Your people have already told the story. Now all that’s left is for us to live it.”
“They were my people which means I know they were just that. Mortals who had embraced a third eye and saw forward into a time that was foreign to them, so modern that the world alone seemed unbeatable to them. They recorded what they saw through their eyes. Humans, mortals, make mistakes every day. The way they see things is based on how they feel at the time. They were looking for darkness and found it.”
“You’re right, Reveca. They didn’t see it all. They didn’t describe the power the Gods had thoroughly. They didn’t describe how dark and greedy they were. They didn’t say how souls were nothing to them but a way to produce the energy they craved. Your people hid that from the pages, surely so fear would not stop those meant to rise.”
“It stopped you.”
“Fear is not stopping me, Reveca. I’m leading those I revere to slaughter. Anger and loyalty is making me think.”
Thinking was better than lying down, but all the same, it wasn’t enough. “I’ve got news for you, buddy. They’re coming one way or another, just like they did when you stepped away.”
King lifted his chin. “This is a cease fire. It’s going to be a long one. I have things to handle first, and ages from now what I told you will occur, will happen. In that time Dagen and the others will move past my memory. They will never lose the cause I put in them, though, and that’s what I want. If they stay true to who they are, if they rise in this battle I will engage. Then it will ensure that when Cashton leads, he will have mercy on them. They will be saved and Revelin will be slain.”
“And I will be here,” Reveca said, barely holding the emotion out of her tone.
“That’s the plan. Fighting about it isn’t going to sway me. I’m absolute about my decisions as to why I must do so.”
“Why?” Reveca asked in a whisper.
King stared back with the same pain. “I have to die for Cashton to rise. I have to die to give you the only world you deserve to live in.”
She glared. “Don’t you dare make this about me.”
It was about her. It was always about her. She was his everything. Always had been. The only one that could see him, really see him. Feel him. The only one he trusted to do so.
Reveca waited for him to say something, anything, but he didn’t. She knew how stubborn he was. That even if she told him Windsome said he was to be freed in a few days’ time, that he had to go, had to fight, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t because now he knew she was here, knew she never betrayed him the way he thought she did, knew she never got over him.
He would stay right here with her until his death called him, thinking he needed to watch over her. Guard her.
What he didn’t understand was Reveca w
asn’t a young witchling anymore. She knew how to take care of herself, had before and would again.
He was leaving whether he wanted to or not.
She wasn’t living in a world without him, and letting him go was her only shot at having a small slice of peace.
Chapter Four
It had been a long night, a good night, but the tension, the edge was still lingering with Shade. There had been no gunfire at the last drop, and no exploding clinics or wicked plays with the minds of the mortals. It was nothing more than escorting another truck to a different chapter in the opposite direction, but that didn’t mean the pressure wasn’t there. He had been completely focused, looking, waiting for an attack.
Now he and Thrash were nearing their own territory. This was the time when Shade would normally become a little unnerved. He’d trained his body to expect a release, an escape as soon as he got back and this release was like a drug to him. He was an addict jonesing for his next hit of peace.
Thrash, like always, began to thrash which was how he let loose. Standing on his bike as it soared near ninety, leaning far too tightly into the bends in the road, and when his bike looked like it was going to lay down he always pulled it up.
His skill would awe anyone, mortal or immortal. The first time ever watching him had Shade thinking, had him wondering if that rush would take his edge off too, help him unwind the way it always eased Thrash.
Shade twisted his throttle, gained speed, and weaved around Thrash right as he went to the lean to the side. Thrash didn’t miss a beat, kept control of his bike then began to chase Shade, began to tempt him to be more daring.
Shade would laugh and flip him off when Thrash would stand again on his bike or weave into him, but Shade gave in to the call, started to mimic him. There was no way he was gong to match the years of skill Thrash had, but trying was fun, learning was fun. So fun that before Shade knew it they were before the Boneyard and the rush was over.
Thrash laughed at him when he saw disappointment on his face, then cut him off and turned before him into the Boneyard.
It was fairly late but there were still a few people out and about. The last call, as Echo called it, where you had to pick your mortal girl before they all passed out from exhaustion or intoxication.