Her, as hate-filled as ever.
Him, shockingly dissatisfied with the situation.
As a child trapped under his fathers reign, he had dreamed of punishing her in the worst of ways. And he still wanted to. Oh, did he want to. The desire was always there, burning in his chest. But he hadnt. He wouldnt. Hed allowed himself to do little things, like denying her the bed and proper robe, but nothing else. He was nothing like her, and every day he proved it. He would come here, pit himself against the pull to act and then leave.
Wise men knew not to even approach the door of their temptation, but Koldo hadnt yet convinced himself to stop.
Hello, Mother.
She sucked in a breath. I should have cut your tongue out of your mouth when I had the chance. She tossed a pebble at him. The stone bounced off his shoulder and tumbled to the floor.
Just like you should have drowned me. I know.
Her eyes narrowed, long lashes fusing together and hiding the violet depths he so often saw in his nightmares. I hadnt the stomach for violence back then. But your father... I expected better of him. He should have done what I could not.
Oh, never doubt that he tried. Many times.
Koldo thought back to the day Cornelia had flown him over his fathers camp and dropped him. As weak and agonized as hed been, landing had hurt more than the brutal removal of his wings.
A huge, bald man with more muscles and scars than Koldo had ever seen stomped toward him. Cornelia called, Meet your son, Noxmay you destroy each other, before flying away.
Nox. A name that meant night.
Koldo had blacked out seconds after that, only to awaken on the floor of a spacious tent, the bald man looming over him, grinning widely, his eyes as black as his name implied.
Youre my son, are you? Raised by a do-gooder angel.
His mother? A do-gooder?
Im betting youre filled with silly notions about right and wrong, Nox had continued. Arent you, boy?
Concentrating on the words had proven difficulteverything inside Koldo had been screaming at him to run and never look back. But hed been trapped inside a body too weak to move or flash. All he could do was watch as thin curls of smoke wafted from the males pores, scenting the air with sulfur.
Thats when realization had slammed into Koldo with collision force. A bald head, bottomless eyes and black smoke could mean only one thing. Nefas. His father hailed from the most dangerous, vile race in existence. A race that sneaked up on humans, poisoned slowly, painfully...destroying utterly. A race without a conscience.
A race just like the demons.
The Nefas were death dealers. Soul suckers.
The age of their victims never mattered. The gender of their victims never mattered. They lived to inflict pain. They killed. And they laughed while doing it.
No worries, the man had said. You can unlearn.
Nox had wanted Koldo to embrace the Nefas way of life, and Koldo had resisted...at first. But every time hed tried to escape, flashing away, his father had been right on his heels, easily finding him and dragging him backpunishing him. Once, Nox had tied him down and poured acid down his throat. The time after that, Nox had plucked out one of his eyes and nailed it to the bar of his cage, so that he could watch himself watching himself. Koldo had had to win the eye backand stuff it back in. By then hed been a little older and had been able to partially heal it. Still, his sight had never been the same.
Bitterness and hatred had taken root inside him. Why him? Why had no one saved him? How much more would he be forced to endure?
Finally, hed lost his will to fight. Hed given in. Hed raided villages. Hed helped his father and the other soldiers fit their mouths over their victims mouths and suck out innocent souls, leaving only lifeless shells.
A man will do just about anything to survive, boy.
It was the only one of his fathers lessons that hed taken to heart.
Now, Koldo was certain hed passed the point of redemption. He could have fought harder. Should have fought harder. That he hadnt... Guilt would always ride him, and shame would always fill him.
He had too many memories. The dark kind that never went away. Each one made him long to pluck out his eyes, just to blank his line of sight, or cut off his ears, just to quiet the screams.
Over the years hed earned a big-enough name to draw Germanuss attention. An army of Sent Ones had swooped into his fathers camp to destroy Koldo, had seen the scars on his back and mistakenly assumed he wasnt Nefas, for Nefas could not grow wings, and Koldo had obviously had them at one time. So, the soldiers had captured him instead.
That had been the beginning of his new life.
Germanusa name meaning brothercould have and probably should have slain him despite his origins. Koldo had been feral. He had snarled and cursed and attacked anyone who neared him. After all the things he had done, after all of the people he had killed, he was supposed to forgive himself and adopt the do-gooder approach? Impossible!
But Germanus had looked deeper than the surface, had seen the shame and guilt in Koldos eyes. Emotions raw and intense, even back then.
The king of the Sent Ones had spent the next several years coaxing Koldo from his rages, doing his best to comfort a young male with such a damaged past, ensuring Koldo was trained to fight the right way, that he had a safe, comfortable place to sleep, that he always had a proper meal to eat.
It had been Koldos first taste of actual caring and concern, and hed soon grown to love Germanuswould still die to protect him.
Why did you mate with Nox? he asked his mother as he stalked around the cage.
Why not? He was a very beautiful man.
Some women would find such a dangerous male attractive, Koldo supposed. Despite the bald head and dead eyes, hed had a face far lovelier than any Koldo had ever seen. A purity of features, a radiance most beings could only ever dream about.
Did you hope to tame him? Did you think you would be the one to change him?
Cornelia pushed to her feet, always keeping her gaze on him, never permitting him to have her back, where her beautiful white-and-gold wings lay. She expected him to remove them. She was right to do so. It was one of his biggest temptations.
Evil cannot be changed, she said.
Did he betray you for another? One of his own kind, perhaps? A female better suited to his particular tastes? Or, perhaps he turned to many other females.
Shut up.
But he couldnt. He was closing in on the truth. Even as sickness churned in his stomach, he said, He used to laugh about you, you know. Said you loved him, begged him to be with you, to stay with you. Said you sobbed when he left. Said you
Shut up, shut up, shut up! she shrieked, racing to the bars where Koldo stood. She shook with so much force he was surprised the reinforced metal held steady.
The ferocity of her reaction should have pleased him. This was what hed always wanted from her, after all. Rage, frustration. Helplessness. Mirroring what hed felt for so many years. But the sickness intensified. How could he do this to a female? Any female?
How could he hurt another of his kind?
She spit on his boots. I hate you. I hate you so much I can barely breathe past it. I hate you so much Id rather rot in this cage than pretend I love you or say Im sorry for the way I treated you. Im not! I never will be. You were an abomination then and youre an abomination now. The day you die is the day I rejoice.
Hurt and fury joined the collage of other emotions, the darkness in his mind thickening, once again banging at the dam. He stepped back, away from her, lest he lash out and end herbecoming just like his father. The scent of jasmine and honeysuckle followed him.
Even here, she carried the despised fragrance with her.
What had an innocent little boy done to elicit this kind of rejection? How could she blame Koldo for his fathers treatment of her?
How could Koldo still hurt, after all this time?
If ever I die, he said, you wont be the cause. Youre too weak. Youve always been weak, and thats why Nox let you go.
Again she spit on his boots.
Hands fisted, he flashed to his home in South Africa. He had sixteen residences throughout the world, each tucked securely away from prying human eyes, but more and more this was the one he preferred, the one where he spent most of his free time.
Before he even manifested, he was beating at the walls, tearing the newly healed skin on his knuckles. Blood splattered. Bone snapped.
This time, the rage failed to drain as quickly.
Hours seemed to pass before he was shucking his clothing, ripping the material in his haste. The shirt and pants hit the floor and drew together of their own accord, the tears and halves forming a perfect robe. Cool water droplets splashed against his bare skin as he peered out at the turbulent waterfall.
That woman...
He punched the side of the wall, dust and debris ghosting through the air. Always she reduced him to this, to a man who felt as if his heart had been cleaved from his chest, stomped on, sliced, kicked around and burned to ash. He had to gain the upper hand with her.
Otherwise, he would kill her.
When Cornelia breathed her last, her spirit would leave her body. But she would not go up, would not spend the rest of eternity with the Most High in the Heavens of heavens. She couldnt. To die with hatred blazing in her heart was to go down, down, down. It was a spiritual law no onenot even a Sent Onecould supersede.
Devilish things could not coexist with divine things.
Reason number one Koldo was in such danger himself.
Cornelia deserved such a fate, yes. She deserved to suffer for all eternity. But he wasnt going to be the one to send her to an early grave. He wasnt like herif he had to remind himself every day, he would. More than that, he wanted...what he could never have. Answers. Her love.
Absolution.
He gritted his teeth. No, he wasnt like herand he no longer wanted those things. A taste of vengeance was all he craved.
The thought hit him, and he paused. There was no way someone like him could help a female as fragile as Nicola, was there?
He should have stayed away from her, he realized. But he hadnt, and now it was too late. Hed flashed away from her to prove the existence of supernatural activity, hoping to force her to accept it and take the first step toward fighting the demons. Now she knew.
Now she would ask questions.
If she asked the wrong people, they would give her the wrong answers.
He scrubbed a hand over the smoothness of his scalp. He had to stick to his plan.
And that wasnt such a bad thing, he told himself. Nicola intrigued him. Her voice, so soft, so sweet...so addictive, a caress his ears already craved again. Her wit. Her resilience. Her bravery. Hed snipped at her, yet she hadnt sobbed and begged for mercy.
Throughout her very short span on earth, one disaster after another had befallen her. Perhaps the demons were responsible, or perhaps the imperfect world. Perhaps both. Whatever the reason, he wanted better for her. The better he himself had found with Germanus.
Koldo just had to teach her how to fight the toxins. And he had to do it while keeping her calm. Fear would strengthen what the paura had left behind, and tension would weaken her immune system, strengthening what the grzech had left behind. Without fear and tension, the toxins would fade. With hope and joy, the toxins would fade faster.
Bottom line, what you fed grew and what you starved died.
Would she be able to look past her negative emotions and see the light?
A spark of anticipation beaded, somehow overshadowing the nearly overwhelming cascade of acid his mother had caused. Despite everything, he couldnt wait to see Nicola again, to learn what shed decided about his disappearance. If shed convinced herself shed imagined him, or if shed accepted he was something other than human.
So not the view I was hoping for, a male voice said from behind him.
Still naked, Koldo spun and faced Thane, the second-in-command of Zacharels army. Thane, meaning freeman. And the warrior certainly seemed to be everything the word implied. The males carnal appetite was well-known. He hunted a new lover every day, discarding those he finished with as if they were dirty tissue.
And yet, even knowing that, women still flocked to him, as though he was the only male in creation with curling blond hair and big blue eyes.
What does Zacharel want me to do this time? Koldo demanded, reaching into the air pocket at his side to withdraw another robe. He yanked the material over his head, trying not to stare at Thanes wings. They arched over the warriors wide shoulders, sweeping all the way to the floor. Pure white was broken up by dazzling gold. Tryingand failing.
Itll be better to show rather than explain, Thane said, an odd note in his voice.
That didnt bode well. Very well. Lead the way.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE NEXT WEEK PASSED in a blur for Nicola. Every day she woke up at the butt crack of dawn, went to work, went to see her sister on her lunch hour, went back to work, went to her second job and toiled until the wee hours of the night before at last heading home, watching TV to unwind, then falling asleep for four measly hoursand the cycle started all over again.
Now, she sat at her desk at Estellä Industries, watching the clock. Come on, noon. Get here already. The only aspect of her life that had changed was her thinking. She couldnt get Koldo out of her mind. Who was he? What was he?
After his disappearance, shed asked the girl at the coffee shop whether or not shed actually spoken to a giant of a man with a bald head and beaded beard. The answer hadnt surprised her.
Are you kidding me? Im not blind. But, uh, are you guys dating or, like, is he available? Because I already wrote my number on a napkin if you want to, like, give it to him.