Chapter 192: Chapter Ten

Timber

I paced in front of the couch while Tarek and Mason ate me out of house and home and Cassius stood by the fire deep in thoughts that he refused to share. All I knew—

They were bad because his ice kept dousing the fire regardless of what Stephanie did to calm him down.

Genesis and Ethan had been on a rare date night, which I’d interrupted and now I was the focus of both of their glares.

Hope and Alex were seated on the other couch watching Netflix while Serenity stood guard by the door just in case.

It was a complete shit show.

Demons never attacked without my command.

And yet there they’d been, in her apartment, actually hunting a human outside of the clubs.

I wondered if they felt what I did when they touched her. Did they taste colors? Did things finally feel at peace?

Or was she just so good they wanted her soul regardless of the laws that were intact—if you wanted yours restored, you could have it, but demons were a selfish race, they wanted what they wanted and they wanted more than one.

We were split down the middle.

I’d like to think I was keeping the peace, and now I was questioning everything.

“Sooooo…” Mason chomped on a piece of raw celery and made a face, “Are we gonna talk about the elephant in the room?”

“He means Kyra,” Tarek explained, always the helpful one.

“I just want to know what the hell you said to her that made a star actually fall from the sky.” Alex grinned at the TV without looking at me.

“Stop exaggerating,” I rolled my eyes. “A shooting star bigger than anything in history flew across the skyline toward Egypt, shit happens.”

“I love it when the refined sounding ones cuss.” This from Mason, which earned a laugh from Ethan.

I groaned into my hands. “Is she at least okay?”

Cassius’s eyes flashed white. “She’s fine, she’s just stunned.”

“I mean let’s be honest,” Alex snorted. “You went full Demon King on her, ohhh, I’m the worst of them all, growl, bite, flash my red eyes, look I have claws. For the love of God tell me you didn’t flash a bit of horn, you dirty bastard.”

I prayed for patience. “Can someone muzzle him? Huh? Ice him? Cassius, we know you can…”

Ethan chuckled while Alex flipped us all off from his spot on the couch.

“And no.” I kept pacing a hole in my carpet. “I didn’t go full demon and show her horns,” I conveniently left out the part where I hadn’t shifted ever since the tattoo started growing. Yes, my eyes flashed red, but I never went into full demon mode, at least not anymore, and it had been rare once I received my restored soul.

I frowned.

If Hope restored my soul—quite literally my old soul, the one that had been taken from me somehow eons ago—then what sort of used soul had been given to me?

I remembered nothing.

And that was the problem.

“He’s thinking too hard,” Alex whispered.

I shot him a glare while Cassius locked eyes with me, like he was waiting for me to say something. “What?”

“We can’t help you if you don’t tell us everything, Timber. You know this and yet you hide the details—one part of you is still living in fear, while the other is attempting to break free, both cannot coexist.”

“Thank you, Yoda.” I saluted him and ignored the pang in my chest and the pulsing on my tattoo.

Kyra moaned from her spot on the couch.

I rushed to her side, only to have Hope, Serenity, and Genesis sprint in my direction and huddle over her like moms looking after baby chicks.

“She’s stirring!”

“A little less strong.” I patted Genesis on the back, “You know, with your mothering.”

She gave me a sour look and continued to hover, basically shoving me out of the way while Kyra came to.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Hope sat her up. “Do you need food?”

“Water?” Genesis offered.

“Wine, get her wine!” Serenity intervened.

I snorted. “Nobody gave me wine last time I passed out.”

“Riiiight,” Alex piped up. “Because you destroyed both gardens with your massive body falling onto the grass, so no wine for you, no wine for you ever. If there is ever a family dinner with wine, you get water.”

I scowled.

“Still won.” Mason chomped on a granola bar.

I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Why are you eating all my food?”

He just shrugged.

Werewolves, Watchers, immortals, when would it end?

“Oh!” Kyra jolted up, her eyes taking in the beautiful women surrounding her and the pulsing awareness of the siren sitting a few feet away—not to mention a vampire, angels, me. Yeah, she was in for a rude awakening.

I just had to lose my temper, didn’t I?

She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Where am I? There were eyes, red eyes, and so many of them, and then Timber—”

I cleared my throat, so she’d know I hadn’t quite disappeared like the nightmare she wanted me to be.

She jerked back like I’d attacked her when I’d saved her, and I’d like to think I was used to that reaction, except I wasn’t—not from her, not from the girl who made me taste the sunshine in the air for the first time in centuries.

I frowned.

~“Your kiss is like life,” I whispered against her neck. “I want you…”

“We can’t.” She shuddered against me. “You would have me and lose me.”

“It would be worth it.”

“The oracle said I would find my soul mate and we would be apart for centuries, always searching, always repeating, until one day, we would make choices and reunite.”

I smiled sadly. “What’s a few years of searching? When we could have each other now? Enjoy our love now? I would do anything for you?”

And a dark voice whispered in my mind. “Anything, Prince A—”~

“Oh, you poor thing!” Genesis was in full mom mode, ready to make a pot roast and then lecture me for simply existing. A pulsing headache erupted behind my eyes as I tried to conjure up words that would explain or at least put her at ease.

I looked to Cassius.

I had nothing.

Couldn’t he at least try to help?

“Kyra, daughter of the sun.” Cassius beamed. “You’ve been touched by both sunlight and by darkness, have you not?”

“Good,” I said through clenched teeth. “By all means scare her more!”

“Calm the hell down,” Alex stood and went full siren. Well, shit. I braced for impact as he turned his attention toward her, but all she did was frown.

Alex tried harder.

Hope burst out laughing. “My favorite day is now this day.”

“I’m not working!” Alex looked ready to stomp his foot because he wasn’t making her fall into a puddle at his feet.

“Uh, you’re working,” Tarek started to pant, “just not on her.”

Cassius grinned and watched her closely. “Her soul belongs to another, is owned by another who searches for her, who has searched for eternities.”

My head shot up, catching Cassius’s gaze.

“I think—” Ethan pushed away from the shadows, “—this is where we tell her a story that doesn’t scare her, or at least shouldn’t. After all, we’re the good guys.” He just had to flash a bit of fang.

Kyra let out a scream and clapped a hand over her own mouth.

“Trust me, his bark is worse than his bite,” Genesis said helpfully as she pulled down her hair to cover exactly that—his friggin’ bite. Only Kyra turned at the wrong moment and caught fang marks.

So far? We weren’t really handling the situation well.

How long had it been since we brought a human in? Not long, but all of them had parts of them that were tethered to the immortal world.

Hmmm.

Colors.

Tasting colors.

Sunshine.

“Cassius, try freezing her and see if it works,” I offered in a bored tone while I examined my impeccable fingernails.

“The hell is wrong with him?” Alex muttered.

“Aw, does the siren miss sex?” I teased.

He lunged.

Cassius stood between us and moved toward Kyra. “We would never hurt you, though this is a lot to take in, I just want to… touch you. May I do that?”

I almost rolled my eyes. So damn polite.

I could be polite. Right?

Maybe.

I searched my brain for moments when I’d been polite to her and only came up with the time I walked her home and didn’t suck her soul from her body. So far? I was losing.

Kyra gulped and looked to me. I nodded slowly and by some miracle it worked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “You can touch me.” She held out her shaking hand. Cassius took it, and an immediate wall of ice hit all of us at the same time. All except Kyra; her hand seemed to glow—no, it seemed to heat up against his.

Cassius jerked away and then laughed to himself. “I think I might enjoy this.”

“Come again?” I hissed.

He just looked back at me and shrugged. “Remember you have choices to make, demon, don’t make the wrong one or you may miss out on a grand adventure.”

“D-demon?!” Kyra shrieked.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Thanks, Cassius, really, thank you for just shoving my corpse under the bus and camping an elephant right on top of it for good measure.”

“Huh, I was thinking more dinosaur, but sure, yeah what he said.” Alex shrugged. “Let’s go, Hope. Things to do… in the bedroom.”

One by one, they shuffled out leaving me alone with Kyra and Tarek, both of whom looked at me like I was the problem when all I wanted was to be the solution.

“Tarek!” I barked. “Get her some dinner.”

“Yes master, right away master,” Tarek said in an amused voice. “Should I cook it or just make it raw the way demons feed.”

I was going to kill him later.

Kyra yelled again.

“He’s joking,” I said lamely, earning a petrified stare from her. “And…” My throat all but closed up. “You’re safe from me, from all of them, you’re… safe.” It needed repeating.

“You’re a demon. An actual evil demon?” She spat the word.

I hated how much it made me defensive, but hadn’t it always? I was more than that, I was more… what the hell was I?

Frustration hit me on all sides as I paced again in front of her.

My memories were not my own. Or were they?

I fought with the very real vision of darkness crawling its way across the hardwood floor like smoke swirling toward us.

If I wasn’t actively conjuring up the darkness, it begged the question, who or what the hell was?

I stared down as Kyra’s eyes widened. She pulled her legs to her chest and trembled. “Please tell me I’m hallucinating.”

How was I supposed to tell her I was on the good side of things when shadows were at that very moment revealing themselves to her?

“Not hallucinating,” I said in a gravelly voice, and then because I was pissed that she was looking at me in fear, I did, in fact, go full demon and shriek in a booming voice. “Be GONE!”

A flicker of gold snapped from my fingertips like lightning, so brief and swift that I thought I’d imagined it.

Only when I looked at my fingertips, they were touched with black like I’d burned from the inside out.

There wasn’t pain, but I knew in that moment, using whatever power was inside this body, inside the soul fighting to get free, came at a cost.

Because I felt the tattoo slither across my chest and winced when I looked at my left arm and saw another branch wrap around my wrist like I was going to be buried in a tattooed prison.

Kyra whimpered. “I’m scared.”

I let out a sigh and locked eyes with her. “That makes two of us.”