Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series) (23 page)

“That’s why you did it,” Rylie said, meeting Abel’s eyes over James’s shoulder. She hadn’t believed Abel would be compelled by the Nathaniel story—but she never would have guessed that he was doing
this
.

“You went across the whole damn country with a demon to find me,” Abel said. “You left the pack without an Alpha. You dropped
everything
.”

“For you,” Rylie whispered.

“Then how can you blame me for doing anything it takes to save Seth?” His eyes were fiercely bright. “Wouldn’t you do the same?”

Rylie stood. “I didn’t blame you for anything.”

“Yeah, but you’re giving me that look.”

“It’s because I’m afraid for you, Abel,” Rylie said. James had settled back on the couch to drink his tea, immune to the tension. She jabbed a finger at him. “When Seth decided to make a deal with this guy, he ended up dead. It’s James’s fault that Seth was there when the Breaking happened.”

She meant that to be a shock—a direct hit through Abel’s shields.

“I know,” Abel said.

“You—wait, what? You
know
?”

“I told him,” James said over the rim of his tea. He took a sip. Set it down. “I regret what I’ve done, Rylie, but the only way that I can rectify my mistakes is with Abel’s help. He’s a…reasonable man.” The corner of his lips twitched.

Abel was anything but reasonable. He was all heart and no forethought, action without planning. It was one of the things that Rylie loved most about him.

James had taken advantage of that.

She grabbed Abel’s sleeve and dragged him into the kitchen, away from James’s stupid, smug cups of tea, and slammed the door behind him.

Rylie was so relieved that Abel was safe that she just wanted to kiss him until she forgot all of her fear. But she tucked her hands under her arms and forced herself not to touch him.

“You could die working with James,” Rylie whispered.

Abel’s eyes were so bright and piercing. “At least you’d have Seth back.”

He couldn’t have hurt her more if he had punched her.

“Abel, no. I told you that I chose
you
. I don’t want Seth back if it means losing you.”

“You know what everyone wants,” Abel said. “The pack needs him. Our kids like him better. You know you need him more than you need me.”

“I would never say that,” Rylie said.

“You don’t have to.” He glared at his feet like he couldn’t stand to meet her eyes. “He’s not just the better man. He’s my brother. If there’s anything I can do to save him, even if it puts me in danger—I gotta do it.”

She stared up at him helplessly—this man that she loved so desperately and needed more than she could ever fit into words.

He wanted to exchange his life for Seth’s, but the only way Rylie could see James’s machinations ending was with both Wilder brothers dead.

Rylie had no idea how to convince Abel of that. She had already told him dozens of times how much she loved him, and it obviously wasn’t sinking in. He was beyond the point of reasoning.

Would James even let Abel go if he asked?

Her heart sank lower and lower. She felt like she weighed a thousand pounds, like she might sink into the earth and never be able to stand again. “So what now? What’s the plan?”

“Why? Want to know how to tell Elise how to stop us?” Abel asked.

“I want to know how I can help you.”

Abel looked shocked. So shocked that the truth came out of him immediately. “That gate in the clearing’s gonna take us to Heaven. That’s where the next door to Eden is. We’ve already got the ritual all ready, so all I have to do is head up, spill a little blood. Couple more doors, and Eden’s open, James goes in this Origin thing, and Seth comes out.”

There was no way it could be that easy.

Rylie searched Abel’s eyes, gripping his sleeves in her fists.

“You were right when you said that I did crazy stuff to find you. And I would do almost anything to bring Seth back, too.”
Anything
—an awfully loaded word in a world gone insane, torn open to Hell. “But if I was going to make a deal with the devil, I would have
told
you. I wouldn’t have left you thinking that I might be dead somewhere.”

He had gone pale and still. “I thought you’d say no.”

She would have said no. She would have talked him out of it before he was too deep to free himself. And if she couldn’t have done that—well, she would have gone on the suicide mission with him.

They were mates. A team.

“You didn’t trust me,” Rylie said. “I can’t believe you still don’t trust me.”

Abel didn’t have anything to say to that.

She tried to imagine letting him go through that door alone with James and couldn’t. Just the idea felt too much like letting go of him. Rylie pressed her cheek against his chest and listened to the beat of his heart. “I’m going with you,” she said. “We’ll both go to Heaven. Together.”

And she would have to pray that there would be some way to save them all before James dug both of their graves.

James and Abel
prepared to leave. It was incredible to see how much James could fit into a single backpack. He made object after object disappear, including an entire rug that had been embroidered with a circle of power. It was, he explained, a ritual in a bag.

But they didn’t head back to the gate. An hour later, they were still at Pamela’s house, and Rylie was warming herself by the fire while the men argued about her.

Rylie wasn’t sure who was on which side. Abel didn’t want her running off to do dangerous things and James didn’t exactly need her blood to open the door, either. Yet they were definitely arguing. One of them was on her side. She could have listened in to figure out whom, but it didn’t matter.

Whatever conclusion they came to, Abel wasn’t going through that gateway without Rylie.

She wasn’t sure what would happen after that.

Rylie wasn’t prepared to consider the idea of resurrecting Seth. It wasn’t the first time that she had heard about bringing back the dead. Her Aunt Gwyn had been turned into a zombie by a witch, and Rylie knew that it wasn’t an easy ticket to a second life. There was a price. There would
always
be a price.

If she lost herself in the idea of being able to see Seth’s lopsided smile again, being able to hold him and lean on his reassuringly steady sense of morals, she wasn’t sure she would be able to stop James when the time came.

She was going to go to Heaven, but James wasn’t going to open that door to Eden.

Rylie heard a back door open and shut. She peeked through the curtain again to see that James and Abel were still in her line of sight. But there were footsteps approaching, dragging through the kitchen.

She turned, expecting to see someone from James’s coven in the kitchen.

Instead, she found a demon.

Her back hit the wall before she even realized that she had taken a step away. Her fingers were curved into claws, heart hammering as the wolf surged inside of her.

It was a squat, ugly demon with bulging eyes, a lipless mouth, gray skin that oozed blood from recent wounds on its back. It dragged its knuckles as it approached her, nails clicking on the wood. There were others behind it—four demons in total, and none of them moving aggressively.

They were Neuma’s fiends.

The knowledge didn’t make her heart slow. Ridiculous possibilities whirled through her mind—including the possibility that Neuma had secretly ordered the fiends to kill her—and she backed herself into a corner as they approached. But they didn’t try to touch her. She swallowed down her fear as a small, stubby hand pulled her to the window then pointed through the glass.

Abel was still talking to James outside.

“Yeah, it’s Abel,” Rylie said, frowning. “I don’t…”

The fiend pointed more insistently, and then sat back on its haunches. It gazed at her with glistening eyes.

Rylie felt stupid once she realized what was happening. The demons had found Abel and then located Rylie to alert her to his position, just like Neuma had ordered them to do.

What happened now that their directive had been fulfilled? Rylie watched them to see if they would take action, but they were still staring at her.

Almost like they wanted an order.

They must have recognized her as an authority now. Her heart accelerated again, this time from the possibilities rather than fear.

Suddenly, the frightening little gargoyles looked a lot cuter to her. She could almost see what had made Neuma feel so affectionate toward them. “Find Elise,” Rylie said, tearing through her saddlebag until she found Elise’s book. She shoved one of the pages at a fiend. “Find her and free her.”

The fiend ripped it from her hand. Just like it had with Abel’s shirt, it rubbed the paper on its face, drinking in the energies of its subject. Another fiend snatched it away and did the same. It was as fascinating as it was sickening.

And then they were slinking away, back into the kitchen, receding into the shadows.

Rylie watched them go with her heart in her throat.

The front door opened.

She jumped at the sound, whirling to face it. James stood in the doorway. Rylie resisted the urge to look over her shoulder and see if the fiends were still visible behind her. Instead, she edged a few inches to the left, hoping that it would conceal the kitchen door.

James didn’t seem to realize he had interrupted anything. “Are you ready?”

“For what?” Rylie asked stupidly.

“To go to Heaven.”

She glanced around him to see Abel brooding in the front yard. His anger was a black cloud hanging over him. Apparently, Abel had been arguing against letting Rylie go—and James had won.

Rylie bit her bottom lip and nodded. “I’m ready.”

James was dreaming
again. He hadn’t been able to sleep for months without having vivid dreams, as though he closed his eyes on the real world only to step into an alternate reality until he woke again. They were fierce and vivid and violent.

Tonight was no exception.

He was in a place of trees and soil. There were branches high overhead, glimmering with a canopy of emerald leaves, and bushes thick with berries around his knees. James was naked as he hurtled through them. The flashes of thighs and biceps he saw in the corners of his vision were taut with muscle. His breath roared like the river that he could hear somewhere in the depths of the forest.

He was not a beast of the earth, but a master of it. He was swift and nimble. He held a spear and was prepared to use it.

Pale fur flashed between two trees and vanished.

James redirected, scrambling onto higher ground, using one arm and two legs to drag himself up a steep rock face overgrown with moss and ivy. The plants tore under his hands. They gushed amber fluid that smelled cinnamony-sweet.

He hit the top of the ridge on his knees, rolled onto his feet. Though he was still below the canopy, it was brighter here, windier. The trees swayed around him. He heard the rush of a breeze like an invisible hand sweeping through the forest behind him. James spared a moment to close his eyes and inhale deeply. It filled him with fresh energy.

From high ground, he launched himself into motion again, watching for the telltale sign of white hair near the ground. The lower levels of the forest were thick and dark. Beasts glowing with inner light were easy enough to locate.

James hurtled through the forest as he hunted.

When he spotted the white fur again, he knew he was close.

Killing such a creature was always a holy moment. Time slowed to a crawl, allowing James to appreciate the end as he plummeted through the air, spear cocked above him.

The animal was a four-legged thing with a long neck and hooves. It was more feline than equine, a predator twice James’s size. Its eyes were pupilless silver.

He launched the spear with all of the power coiled in his arm muscles.

His weapon struck true an instant before he landed.

The beast thrashed under James, but he held it down as its life ebbed, hands on its skull and knees braced on either side of its ribs. His spear had struck the heart. There was an easy way to reach it without damaging the bone—the most valuable part of the beast—and James seemed to have hit at the perfect angle. Within minutes, it was dead.

“Excellent job,” said a voice above him.

James looked up to see another man pushing through the trees to join him in the grove. He was bare-skinned and muscular, too. He carried a spear in one hand. But unlike James’s, the razor-edged point of his weapon danced with smokeless flame.

All of the men had been hunting for many long weeks at James’s decree, and they hunted as predatory animals did: without armor, without their wings, and with only a single weapon. It was the noblest way to hunt.

“Thank you,” James said. He felt a companionable smile spread over his lips. “How have your hunts been?”

“They are equally fruitful. The city we build on the backs of these animals will be…incredible.” The man sighed out the last word.

Yes, the most incredible of all cities. It would be the beginning of James’s legacy.

James moved to pull the beast over his shoulders, but his new companion stopped him.

“I’ll take it to Shamain,” he said. “You’re wanted elsewhere.”

“Oh?” James asked, helping throw the animal over the other man’s back. It was huge, but they were both very strong. He was not staggered by its weight.

“Eve is waiting for you,” said the man.

James filled with warmth. His smile broadened. “Thank you, my son.”

“Anything, Father.”

White wings appeared at the man’s back. They were long, muscular, and similar in color to the fur of the dead animal thrown over his shoulders. They glowed with brilliant internal fire—even brighter than the sunlight above the canopy of trees. Within the forest, he was a blazing star.

He flapped twice and lifted into the air, bearing the carcass back to the city.

James turned to seek Eve.

This was always where the dream grew hazy. The strange blur of forest, the way that time
skipped
, was an unsettling reminder of the unreality of his experiences. He felt like he was missing something important.