Ruled by Steel (The Ascension Series #3) (43 page)

His brethren didn’t respond to him. Only the woman, Leliel, turned to Elise to speak. “This is only the beginning. We must take time to formulate our strategies,” she said. She gestured to the other angels, including Nash. “We’ll be in contact with you shortly.”

“I look forward to it,” Elise said in a way that made it clear that she didn’t look forward to it at all.

Nash brushed a kiss over Summer’s temple, and then all of the angels vanished. The air stirred around them.

Nobody else moved.

All who remained in the cottage now were family: Rylie, Abel, Summer, Abram…and Elise. New unofficial pack member, still very much out of place with the others. But nobody seemed to notice her presence. They were all staring at Seth, taking in the sight of his body. For most of them, it was the first time they had seen him.

Rylie couldn’t look anymore. She kept her eyes on her feet.

“You all deserve to know what happened,” Elise said after a protracted silence, her eyes flicking to each of their faces.

With an unpleasant jolt, Rylie realized that Elise was going to tell them the truth. No—she was going to tell them
her
truth. Elise was going to tell the family that she had killed Seth.

Everyone would hate her for it. Abel would probably attack immediately, and if Elise survived that, it would mean taking the war to a whole new level. It would mean werewolf versus demon. It would put them on opposite sides.

And it would give them enough information to figure out how Rylie was really responsible for Seth’s death.

“What happened?” Summer asked. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Abram had his arm around her shoulders, hugging her tight against his side.

“It was at the Breaking,” Elise said. “Seth was there to—”

Rylie interrupted her. “He was there to help us. We were trying to figure out how to fix what had gone wrong. Demons crawled out of the fissure, Seth stepped in to give us time to escape, and they killed him for it.” The lie came out of her in a rush. She could feel everyone staring at her, but she could only look at Elise, apologizing silently with her eyes.

Elise gave her a blank look. The walls surrounding them were more emotive than she was.

Summer’s hand smoothed over Rylie’s hair. “I thought it was something like that. It’s okay. You don’t have to tell us anything else.” She was being so sweet, so sympathetic—still trying to protect Rylie from the pain of reliving Seth’s death by talking about it. Except that Rylie was lying. It hurt almost as much as seeing Seth again.

“He was trying to let you escape,” Abel said to Elise flatly, like he didn’t believe it. And why would he? Everyone knew how powerful Elise was. The idea that Seth could die trying to save her was ridiculous. It wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny. Especially not if Elise contradicted Rylie.

Elise ignored him. She was still looking at Rylie with that impossibly blank expression. Her black eyes were endless pits.

“Yes,” she finally said, resting her hand on Seth’s unbeating heart. “He saved us. He’s a hero.”

Rylie wasn’t relieved. It felt like a silver knife twisted in her chest.

The lie didn’t feel any better than the truth.

“Thank you for bringing him home,” Abram said.

Elise nodded. She looked at Rylie when she said, “You’re welcome.”

The new moon
came the next evening. From inside the cottage where Lincoln recuperated, Elise could hear the pack’s mournful howls echoing over the mountains like a song. It filled the hollows under the trees, the gray sky, made the falling snow tremble.

She might have been imagining it, but she thought that she could hear Rylie’s cry loudest of all.

Elise knew that she shouldn’t have been wasting time on Earth, but she couldn’t make herself leave Lincoln’s bedside. As soon as she did, she would have to go back to Hell and take charge in the Palace.
Her
Palace. As much as she longed for the warmth and heat of Hell’s wind and an escape from the chill of early winter, she mentally balked at the idea of how much responsibility was waiting for her below.

She would need to establish her administration. Gerard and Neuma would help with that, but she could only delegate so many duties. She would have to set policies. She would have to change the laws and reach out to the dukes and duchesses and noble Houses of Dis to make sure they knew that their compliance was expected. Elise would have to be the Father, a leader, not merely some soldier in battle.

No matter her doubts and reluctance, she wasn’t going to be able to let any of that show once she returned to Hell. It would take confidence to convince everyone to relinquish their slaves to her, and just as much confidence to kill those that resisted.

Lincoln shifted in bed, stirring her from her thoughts. His mind sparked with activity as he struggled toward consciousness. His thoughts were bright in the gloom—completely human, without a hint of nightmare remaining. It was a relief to see. Elise had feared that he had been possessed so long that his mind would have been broken, but everything looked to be functioning properly.

His eyes opened. When he managed to focus on her, he didn’t look happy.

“How do you feel?” Elise asked.

Lincoln swallowed and swiped his tongue over his dry, cracked lips. “It feels like I’ve been in Hell for a few months,” he croaked out.

“Do you remember it?”

“Too much.” His eyes were dark and desperate. He remembered everything.

“You aren’t responsible for anything that happened during your possession,” Elise said. “It’s policy among kopides to consider people like you victims. Innocents. You won’t be punished.”

“You don’t know what I did.”

She thought of Devadas and Vassago’s mangled bodies, and the way that he had tried to drag her away for torture when he believed that she was human. Elise didn’t have to know what he had done to imagine it. A nightmare in Hell was in her element. He had surely eaten human flesh, hurt slaves, worn their flesh as leather.

“You’ll need therapy,” Elise said bluntly. No point trying to be nice about it. “There are some witches that specialize in counseling people like you.”

“People like me,” he echoed.

“Or you can let me help you. My friends and I have seen this before. We can get you through this.” She rubbed her thumb over the strap holding the Beretta in place. “We can help you get revenge.”

“You mean, here?” Lincoln asked, brow knitted. “At the sanctuary?” The fact that he recognized where he had woken up meant that his memories went all the way back to his first attack on the werewolves. Too bad for him.

“No, not here. James told me that you have demon blood in your heritage, and a cousin that’s a witch,” Elise said. “There’s a chance that you may be able to develop into a warlock—a part-demon that can cast spells.” Lincoln flinched at the sound of it. She pushed on. “I’ve taken over the Palace of Dis, and I could use someone like you in my administration. It wouldn’t be easy. It wouldn’t be safe. But it would put you where you’re most needed—somewhere you can save a lot of lives.”

“You’re not really requesting, are you?” he asked.

Elise lifted an eyebrow at him. “I
am
requesting. Politely. You don’t have to say yes.”

“And if I say no?” There was an unspoken plea in his voice. He was begging her not to make him refuse. Lincoln Marshall, heroic deputy of Northgate, was too tired to be a hero. He didn’t want to make the decision.

She extracted a rosary from her pocket. She had stopped by his home and found it in his bedroom. Just looking at the cross made her feel queasy, but Lincoln’s face brightened at the sight of it, and she folded it into his hand.

“I understand,” Elise said, leaving her fingers curled around his. “A lot has changed since you were possessed. War has broken out across the entire continent, and the safest places now are Russia, China, over where the fissure hasn’t reached. I’ll have Nash escort you to the nearest ship. You’ll be able to connect with resources for your recovery over there.”

“Thank you,” Lincoln said. A tear slid down his cheek. For the sake of his dignity, she pretended that she didn’t see it.

Elise stood. “I have to go back now.” She didn’t need to say where.

He nodded.

Lincoln might have been able to turn away from responsibility, away from saving people—a selfish choice—but Elise didn’t have that luxury. She never had. She never would.

She lingered in the doorway, looking at Lincoln’s shrunken form in the bed. She hadn’t just been hoping that he would come back to Hell to help in the Palace. Elise had thought that maybe he had feelings for her, and those feelings might have returned now that he had been through Hell and back. She didn’t have to love him for the two to partner, both in the fight and in fulfilling her needs to feed. And maybe, eventually, having Lincoln taking care of her needs would make James’s absence that much less painful.

But Lincoln wasn’t strong enough to be what she needed.

Must have been nice for him.

Elise knew she wouldn’t see him again, so she drank in a final look at him in bed, alive and relatively well, if damaged.

One small victory.

Then she phased away.

Twenty-Two

A lot changed
in the weeks that followed the fight at the fissure. There were humans in the sanctuary—lots of humans, former slaves that were delighting in the snow, the cold, and the freedom. Once the werewolves got over their trepidation, they seemed happy for the company. And even though a handful left every few days, most of the humans seemed like they didn’t want to go anywhere.

After so much mourning, there was finally life and joy in the sanctuary again.

A new structure appeared during those weeks, too. It was unlike the rest of the cottages in that there were no plans, no decorations to make it look homey, no garden outside the front door.

This building was built from ancient trees ripped from the earth, roots still clumped with dirt. Moss clung to the bark. Mud had been packed in the holes and smoothed down the sides until it looked like a small, hollow hill overlooking the sanctuary. Anyone standing in the doorway of the new structure would have a good view down the waterfall to where the pack lived—and anyone looking out of their cottage windows would see the mausoleum watching them like a scion.

Once spring came and the snow melted, ivy and grass would climb the walls of the new structure. The forest would consume the building, permanently entombing the contents.

When Rylie finished smoothing the inside walls, she stood back, fingernails caked with mud and arms slicked with her own handprints. She was sweating and exhausted. She hadn’t slept since she started building it. Summer and Abram stood at her back in silence, equally muddy, equally tired.

Summer felt like she should say something to Rylie—words of satisfaction at what they had accomplished, some kind of condolences. But she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t have any words for what had happened anymore, much less feelings to express. She had spent so long being sad about Seth that she didn’t know how to address his homecoming.

Mostly, Summer just felt relief.

Abel was waiting outside when they emerged for the last time. He had been in hiding since they started the building—avoiding the slaves as he healed, and dealing with the grief in his own way, Summer imagined. But he couldn’t avoid them anymore. The full moon was rising that night, and the pack needed to be together.

The
entire
pack.

Summer realized that he was holding Seth’s shrouded body in his arms, carrying his brother from the sanctuary below to the mausoleum. The sound that Rylie made at the sight of it was horrible, somewhere between a gasp and a choke. But she didn’t start crying again. She just followed Abel inside.

Abram led Summer away to give them privacy.

When the time came for the change that night, Summer watched the pack from a distance, hanging out with the humans that looked on with mixed curiosity and wonder. She wouldn’t run with the pack that moon. She would keep her human skin, her human thoughts and human feelings, and she would watch the sky for a hint of white-feathered wings.

The wolves changed one by one, instead of all together, like they usually did. As each one changed, they trotted into the forest, drifting through the trees like gray specters.

Rylie and Abel went last.

Their human forms fell away, replaced by the beast. They stood together in the center of the sanctuary, gazing at one another with eyes that said so much more than words ever could.

They ran into the night together.

Softly, slowly, a chorus of howls rose from the trees. It could have been one wolf crying, or all thirty-six of them—their voices were united, and it was impossible to tell. They howled the grief that their human forms couldn’t express, mourning the loss of the pack mate that had never quite been pack.

The sound came from everywhere in the trees, like the forest itself was mourning.

Summer closed her eyes and let it sink in.

They sang for hours, until the snow stopped falling again and all of the humans had gone to bed, leaving Summer alone on an icy bench. The song only faded when the pack moved deeper into the mountains where she couldn’t hear them.

When the howls were silenced, she realized that she heard a familiar noise, like the rhythmic pulse of wind—wings beating on the air.

Her eyes flew open. She gazed up at the sky.

Nash descended on her, wings dimmed until they barely glowed at all. He was normally so meticulous in his appearance that seeing his muddy suit in tatters was a shock. He hadn’t changed since the fight at the fissure.

He landed and immediately seized her. His embrace was warm and all encompassing. Sometimes, Summer thought she would have been satisfied staying in the Haven—a tiny world, a prison—if it meant being able to spend her entire life in his arms. And as she listened to the beat of his heart and dug her fingers into his back, she wished that she would never have to leave him again.