Forbidden (The Gabriel Lennox Series Book 1) (22 page)

Gabriel kept the space he made between Leigh, but even from this distance, he could see his bruised and bleeding lip. Gabriel licked his own lips, tempted . . .

Leigh smirked, and his faraway eyes seemed to focus on Gabriel for the first time. He fluttered his eyelashes like a girl in love. “I bleed,” he remarked, voice ominous and spiced with a pinch of seductive sweetness. “And your heart races.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Gabriel snapped. “Drinking your blood would only be a means to an end. Beyond that, it would give me no pleasure.”

“Master?” Colin asked, touching his arm.

Leigh swallowed hard and addressed Colin with his eyes.
Was that it?
Gabriel thought.
That Leigh had to look at whom he spoke with, mind to mind?

“No. I won’t kill you or your blood child,” he said in a gracious voice. “Frankly, I don’t think I can. I sense that you’re different, Gabriel, just as Edan had deduced.”

“How so?”

“You don’t need blood. Is it because you tell yourself that you do not? Yet I can smell your desire for it. Your desire is strong, and you fight it valiantly. How peculiar.” His hands clenched into a fist. “I envy you. Rumors abound that Lilith Enlightened you, but I don’t believe that.”

Gabriel clasped his hands in front of him. “Who, may I ask, Enlightened you?”

“I don’t remember the name I was given. But the voice,” he said, eyes suddenly heavy lidded and dreamy, “the voice was beautiful. Terribly, unbearably so. My ears and flesh tingle with the memory of it.”

Gabriel couldn’t move. That was exactly how Sevien’s voice sounded to him. And sometimes, Lilith’s took on such an achingly beautiful timbre. “And you? What of your maker—male or female?” He clenched his teeth, regretting the apparent stupidity of his question. Voices were sometimes androgynous. And if Leigh couldn’t see who Enlightened him, then he’d have no way of knowing the gender.

Leigh stared off into space. “Male. Clearly. He called himself Sthenius—the Powerful. Clearly an epithet.” He touched his face with the tips of his fingers, dragged them along the length of his throat. “If I had clay, I would have fashioned him into a masterpiece. Sthenius is perfect.” He sighed, eyelashes fluttering in an ecstasy that Gabriel couldn’t understand. “No one is as beautiful as my maker. Not even my maker himself. He fed me something sweet.”

“And where is he now?”

Leigh’s shoulders slumped, and he laced his fingers together. “He left me long ago. I believe that he was displeased with his failure in me. I was a reminder of what Enlightenment alone couldn’t do. Heal, repair, make perfect. And he would often ask me what was the one thing I cherished most, and I would always answer that it was my mother. But now that she’s dead, I know that it’s Seth. But I wouldn’t sacrifice him for anything in the world. He had offered me something in addition to Enlightenment. This exchange he called a soul bond.”

Gabriel’s eyes snapped wide open, and the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled as if the air broiled and charged with electricity, but he knew this sensation for fear. He had been fed fruit, like the Prince in the fairy tale and lived ever since, but the others had not been changed in the same manner. He thought of Mikel, Colin, whom he had transformed with an exchange of his blood. Did they have eternal life? Was immortality only in the blood?

The decapitated image of Harold flashed into his mind. His own murderous actions had confirmed his doubt.

“You’ve grown very silent, Gabriel,” Leigh said. “And your heart is doing that lovely drumming again. I pray that you share.”

“Just musing upon Enlightenment.”

Leigh cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “You speak the truth and yet...”

Gabriel smiled. Could he really sense a lie? Leigh’s lip had already begun to heal, but the scarlet beads of blood still dangled like ruby sweets. If he could just drink some of his blood, then…

“Did your maker feed you his blood alone, Leigh?”

He nodded. “And I drank until I could drink no more. Darkness came and then like a dream—at least I thought that it was a dream—something so silly, so mythological occurred next. Why, I’m embarrassed to say.”

“What?” Gabriel urged. “What?”

“I told you already. He fed me something sweet. Why,” Leigh continued, eyes going dreamy again, “I suppose it reminded me of the pomegranates my mother used to give me.”

“A soul bond,” Colin murmured. “What’s that?”

Leigh’s dark eyes were moist and glistening. “Why, don’t you know? A bond stronger than any other bond,” he explained in a hushed, mournful tone. “You become one with the one that you make the sacrifice to. My maker used to tell me that if I killed the one thing I loved as a sacrifice to him, he could make me both perfect and immortal. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t! I’m a failure. A wretched failure.” He covered his face and wept.

Gabriel kneeled down beside him, took Leigh’s face into his hands and lapped up the congealed blood, which tasted bittersweet like unripe cherries, at the corner of his full mouth. He wondered if it would be enough to obtain the gift. “I can help you, Leigh. Let me help you. You know that I have to stop Seth. Whatever happens, you can rest with the truth that it won’t be your fault.” He spoke with such gentleness, as if consoling a frightened animal. “Let me help you.”

Leigh stopped sobbing, but the blood tears still rolled down his cheeks. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Surrender?
Gabriel leaned in closer until his lips were inches from Leigh’s ear. He sang him to sleep.

Colin moved closer and looked down at Leigh. He nudged his ankle with the tip of his boot. “Sleeping? So easily? He must’ve allowed you to influence him.”

Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t know his reasons, but I am glad that he did. I can’t have an ancient Chosen with a devoted father-son complex at my heels.”

“Deucedly clever. But if what he says is true about the Fruit, killing Seth will be impossible.”

Gabriel shot him a pleased look. “I love the way you understand me, young Colin,” he said as he rose to his feet. “I hope he sleeps long after Seth is dead. That is, if Seth hadn’t given the Fruit. Otherwise . . .”

Colin sucked his teeth. “Shit.”

“A thorough summation of my thoughts,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “Come along.”

THE PEAL
OF RAINDROPS
falling like a thousand pearls onto the roof and against Gabriel’s bedroom windows softened the loud cracking and splitting of wood in the fireplace. He had gone immediately to his room, and no one deterred him. Not even Nathaniel.

Gabriel stared into the fire, his mind heavy with questions. Old Laws? He had always believed that they were myths, legends, stories made by mortals afraid of death and darkness. And Nathaniel had never argued otherwise.

Gabriel believed that Leigh was older than any Chosen he’d encountered based on what he had said about his past. At least three thousand years old. It was apparent that self-mutilation, a hobby of making lies for the sake of Leigh’s own amusement, and killing others were convenient ways to pass away the slow march of time. Boredom and time had most likely driven him mad.

He couldn’t see himself becoming so bored that he would fall down that same abyss, but such a fate could befall others. Had such madness developed in Nathaniel? The fairy telling, the games
could
be a manifestation of madness . . .

He never knew exactly how old Nathaniel was. Never had a desire to know. He never thought it significant. Until now. Gabriel closed his eyes and became transparent. He slipped through the walls of the house, floated through the floors and became solid beside Nathaniel in the library, who was reading a story book to Nikolai while the boy sat in his lap.

Gabriel told the child to excuse them. He did so without comment. “After my Enlightenment, how long did I sleep?”

Nathaniel blinked at him and closed the book. He held up three fingers.

“ . . . Three days? No more or less?”

“Not at first. We had some complications. You were quite angry over the final death of your sister and what your parents had tried to do to the two of you. The first and last time you resurrected Abigail, she was no longer Abigail. Something twisted began to fester in her. She worshiped you like some god and wanted you in an unsavory manner. When she realized you didn’t feel the same way, she hung herself. For days, you drowned in sadness, and I believed you had lost your head.”

“So, I’m to blame for her death. You make it sound like my gift of life was a curse. That’s why I dare not Enlighten another person.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “No, I believe there was always something perverse and dangerous about your sister. Your actions had nothing to do with it. I feared for your life, after she died that second time. I feared for your sanity. So I willed you to sleep. And you did for a
very long time
.” The way he stressed the words implied that he had slept for more than a decade, longer than a century.

“Impossible,” Gabriel denied. “I’ve had memories of walking throughout different parts of the world. Different times. Memories, Nathaniel!”

“I planted those memories. Well, most of them. I did it to protect you.”

He backed away from Nathaniel until he leaned against a wall, the only thing holding him up. He slumped against it, trembling with a mixture of emotions. Mostly rage.

Impossible.

Nathaniel waved his hand at him. “Gabriel, where is all of this sudden passion coming from?”

“I’ve been to Leigh, Seth’s maker. He has told me a great many disconcerting things. Old laws which I call myths and about . . . soul bonds.”

“Hmm. Soul bonds. A fate worse than death.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

Nathaniel smiled, his pale blue eyes gleaming as he retold the fairy tale and when Gabriel insisted that he stop, he did only after he came to the part about the Friend rotting on the inside.

“Tell me Nathaniel, what part of the puzzle do you fit into?”

His bright smile dimmed into a perfect grimace. “I?”

“Yes, the story. The fairy tale. You told me that the prince wasn’t me, but whether it be metaphor or allegory, it doesn’t matter.
He
represents me.”

“And how is the prince like you?”

“In the story, everything the Prince touches becomes tainted somehow. And Colin was such an innocent. Fate had been cruel to him. And I don’t think Enlightening him has made him any better.”

“Innocent? Was he? If you recall, Gabriel, the night I brought you to Colin, he had killed a man just as he had nearly killed that child.”

“It was self-defense. The man had probably tried to hurt him—tried to rape him,” The argument sounded weak, even to Gabriel. He knew of his Colin’s past. “And the child . . . Colin’s intentions. They were . . .” He fell silent. Good intentions can sometimes lead one to hell. He knew that Colin was a murderer. He bit his bottom lip.

Nathaniel looked over him from head to toe in one of his pale, blue-eyed sweeps. “Is it a fight that you want?”

“No. I want the truth.”

“The truth can be as selective as memories, Gabriel. Be careful what you try to remember. You may not like it.”

“I remember you. And when I met you for the first time, face to face, after
they
had died, I sensed in the back of my mind that I
knew
you. Knew you.” Gabriel paused and looked at him. “How old are you, Nathaniel?”

He blinked. “I don’t remember.”

“Then I shall remember for us and put the pieces together. I believe you to be very old. Far older than I, because like some god, some Apollo, you’re able to read from the pages of tomorrow before the words have even been written. Not remarkable, though. You’re the type that not only watches, but observes. You don’t only listen—you hear. They say that the Devil can see into our souls, our desires. It only appears that way because the Devil has had plenty of time to study us in order to tempt us.”

Gabriel paused before he continued. “The prince’s friend in the fairy tale is said to rot on the inside. Tell me, are you that friend? Or is it Mikel? How about Colin?” Gabriel asked, voice rising. “He’s described as beautiful inside and out and that he’ll become as terrible as he is beautiful. The night I Enlightened him, Mikel told me that he found great pleasure in Genevieve’s death. Sometimes, I see that dark look in his eyes when he’s dancing the waltz. What if he acquires an irresistible taste for killing?”

Nathaniel stared at him with his wintry blue eyes. “Like you killed Annabelle, the prostitute? I don’t see you on the streets of London staking any more women.”

“And I don’t regret it. Is that why you keep bringing it up? Besides, I don’t recall any assassination attempts on the prince in the fairy tale.”

Nathaniel made a sound in between a snort and a low chuckle, a wild, dark sound, like a nightmare lurking in mad dreams. “You’re so funny. Don’t you understand anything? The fairy tale
is
a story riddled with symbolism. It’s not a prophecy written in stone. Lilith commanded that you cross mortals over. You, as I’ve said before, are our conduit. You have the power to give life to what is dead. We care not to keep this in secret. We desire that all come to the knowledge of the mystery of death in life. Play your part, and I will do mine.”

“We? That’s exactly it. I want to know where you stand. What part do
you
play?”

Nathaniel rose up. “I stand by the one who has the power.”

“What about loyalty?” Gabriel shook his head. “I suppose after a few centuries, one could lose that amongst other virtues.”

Silence fell, the pause heavy with uncertainty, like the brief moment between the thunder rumbling and just before the lightning strikes. He could understand. He could see how much of a disappointment he appeared to be in the eyes of others. After only Enlightening Mikel and Colin, he didn’t have enough for a battalion, especially when he needed a legion of his own Chosen. A disappointment, but not a failure.

“I
am
loyal to you, Gabriel,” Nathaniel whispered, “but in my own way.”

Gabriel turned his eyes to the ceiling, unable to comment. He turned all of his attention to the scene outside the window. The rain had made a dreamy shimmering effect, streaking like silver threads against the eastern sky. Dawn approached and with it, sleep.

Who was
he
to choose who was to live or to die?

Who was
he
to choose who could live forever?

Nathaniel moved to stand directly behind him. “Don’t lose the power as your parents did. Hold fast to it, and I shall stand by you, my Prince.”

“Perhaps I don’t want you by my side,” Gabriel countered. “It proves to be more harm than good.”

“Kill Seth, and be on your guard,” Nathaniel went on, unabashed. “You must break the blood bond that he tricked you into
before
you kill him. Otherwise, the trauma of his death will be too great for you. It could fare far worse than death—”

“You know that I have already tried!” Gabriel cut in angrily.

“I never said it would be easy.” Then he vanished, leaving Gabriel alone.