Sweet Reckoning (13 page)

Ginger rested her elbow on Blake’s shoulder and fluffed her bedhead. Blake reached an arm around her waist.

Marna stepped up. “It’s time to go, Gin.”

Ginger kept her arm around Blake’s neck, giving her sister a stare. “You’re one to talk. I seem to recall that line not working on you. I’m quite fine where I am, thanks.”

“Like hell,” Kaidan murmured, pushing past them. Marna and I followed him into the immaculate stone-tiled foyer, and Kai slammed the door, turning on the couple. “Have whisperers seen you together?”

“Course not.” Blake sounded smug.

Marna and I let out our breaths.

“You’re bleedin’ lucky!” Kai said.

“Back off, brah.” Blake dropped his arm from Ginger to step up to Kaidan. “What, you’re the only one who can be with your girl?”

“The Dukes were at their summit when we were together. This is sheer madness!”

“Guys,” I said, moving closer. But they were too fired up.

“Why do you care?” Ginger spat at Kai.

“Because we’re this close, Gin.” Kaidan held his finger and thumb an inch apart. “This close to fulfilling the prophecy, and the two of you are likely to get yourselves killed!”

Marna’s hand went to her mouth next to me, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

“As if you care!” Ginger yelled. “You only give a shite about yourself. You want everyone to be willing to sacrifice themselves so you can finally be with your precious Anna. Well, I’m not waiting around anymore. I’m taking what I want from this damned life while I can!”

Ginger and Kaidan were inches apart, both angry as they shouted.

“It’s about all of us, not just me and Anna!”

“Oh, right!”

Kaidan grasped her small shoulders, and when he touched her they both seemed to soften. “I don’t want you dead, Gin.”

Her eyes watered. “I’ve nothing to live for now, don’t you see? She’ll be
gone
. My sister is dying! And Blake will be married off to that cow. I’d rather be dead.”

Kaidan wrapped his arms around her just as she broke into choking sobs, her knees buckling.

Marna started crying, too, and I took her hand.

Kaidan held Ginger up, stroking her hair like a big brother, and I could see the understanding and concern born from sharing a childhood together.

Marna stepped to them, and Kaidan reached out, pulling her into the embrace. Blake and I made eye contact and nodded, moving together to the next room so the three of them could talk. We sat on the leather sofa. Blake leaned back, pressing his fists to his eyes.

“Damn,” he whispered. “Everything is so messed up.”

That was an understatement. I had no words. When Kai and the twins came back in, the five of us sat there in sad silence. Every moment we were together brought more danger. We all knew it, yet it was hard to force ourselves apart.

Kaidan’s phone rang, and we all froze. His tan face paled as he looked at the screen and held it out for us to see.

Pharzuph.

The four of us held our breath and listened as he answered.

“I assume you took care of the girl then?” Pharzuph asked in his silky accented English.

“Of course, Father. She wasn’t a virgin anyhow.”

“Interesting.” There was a long, expectant pause. “The spirit I sent to oversee the operation has been sent back to the pit of hell, never to return to earth. Do you know why?”

Kaidan’s eyes darted to mine. “No, Father.”

“Because he admitted he did not stay to see your mission through to the end. He says the two of you persuaded him to leave.”

“Bollocks!” Kaidan stood. “That disgusting wanker was distracting. It’s hard enough to try and bang a Neph without a spirit interfering.”

“A whisperer should hardly distract you from your task, Son.” The suspicion in Pharzuph’s voice made my blood run cold.

“You’re right, Father. But the deed was done, and the whisperer left on his own. Obviously I couldn’t force him.”

“Hm.” Another pause swelled the tension in the room. “I think I’ll pay the girl a visit myself. A lot’s riding on her lack of purity.”

Goose bumps covered me.

Kai’s jaw clenched. “Do what you must, Father, but I hate to see your valuable time wasted.”

“Good of you to care.” It was the last thing Pharzuph said before he hung up.

Kaidan let out an enraged sound and kicked the coffee table, flipping it with a giant crash.

We all stood.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” I said. “We just all need to get back to work. At this rate the prophecy’s bound to go down soon, and we can’t afford to lose anyone.”

“What about you?” Marna asked. “Where will you go?”

I looked at Kaidan, feeling the pain in his gaze. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t think you should be alone,” Kaidan said.

“We’re all gonna have to be alone if we want to convince them we’re working,” Blake said.

He was right. Kaidan and I couldn’t stay together, especially after we’d come all this way to keep Blake and Ginger from doing that very thing.

Kaidan shook his head. “Anna can’t pretend to work now that my father’s searching for her. She’s got to stay hidden.”

“Well, perhaps—” Marna was cut off by her own giant gasp as a dark, ethereal form with the largest wingspan I’d seen yet, dove through the window and halted above us.

Our group instinctually recoiled as one. I fought to breathe and appear unafraid. We were caught. Ideas and excuses began tumbling through my mind, none of them feasible.

The huge spirit swooped down, his horned head looming over the group before seeing me and advancing. This demon’s face appeared as a ram, thick horns curling downward. The closer he got, the stranger I felt. I waited for fear to engulf me, but a familiar warmth filled my chest instead—the feeling of safety.

“
It’s me, baby
,” the spirit said.

The voice was different in my mind—not as gruff, but still deep.

“Daddy?” My voice cracked.

He moved nearer. No wonder he hadn’t called. He’d shed his body. As a spirit, his giant chest and arms were bare, and he had a strange cloth wrapped around him from his waist to his knees. His body was humanesque, and yet not. Swirly and hazy. Too graceful. I felt a sense of loss knowing I’d never see that big, scary-looking man again. I pushed away the strangeness and sadness and lifted my chin to him.

“Thank God it’s you,” I said. “So much is happening. Pharzuph is hounding me, and I don’t know what to do or where to go.”

“That’s why I’m here.” His voice was unlike those of any of the dark whisperers. His was a soothing rumble. “You don’t have much time.” He turned his head to Kaidan, who came and stood at my side. The others watched, on edge.

“What do you suggest?” Kaidan asked.

“You have only one safe option,” Dad answered. “Get married.”

T
he room stilled as his words cartwheeled around in my head. I had that distant feeling that came with dreams—first at the realization that Dad’s body was forever gone, and then the unbelievable words he’d just uttered—giving voice to a dream that I’d long since buried.

“We can’t.” I shook my head. It wasn’t possible. If there’d been a glaring loophole, we’d have thought of it by now. Dad failed to notice one
major issue
. “I have to stay a virgin. The sword—”

“No. You have to stay pure of heart, Anna,” Dad said. “What’s more pure than committing yourselves in love?”

“But . . .” I looked toward Kaidan.

My insides twisted at the dread on his face as he stepped back.

“No.” His voice was low. “It won’t work.”

I wanted to reach for him, but he stepped back even farther. His face hardened into the mask I knew all too well, concealing emotion.

“I’m sorry, Duke Belial,” he said to my father. “I can’t marry.”

I said nothing, but my heart shattered into a million shards as his rejection slammed into me.

“Don’t be stupid, Kai!” Ginger said. “There’s no time for this. If it can save you both, you need to do it!”

“Duke Astaroth will be able to see the bond of marriage,” Kaidan pointed out, frustrated.

“Well, he’ll see the bond of love between you anyhow, which is nearly as bad,” she countered. The twins’ father was the only Duke who could see relational bonds. We’d need to avoid him at all cost.

Kai thrust his fingers through his hair and faced away. He looked poised to run, his back muscles tense.

Obviously, being a husband had never been in the forefront of Kaidan’s mind, but his reaction still burned like an acid bath. If he loved me, why wouldn’t he want to take this step? Yes, we were young, but we weren’t
normal
. Yes, these were perilous circumstances, but the romantic part of me wanted him to want it all, peril or not.

“Dude, come on—,” Blake started.

“Don’t pressure him,” I said. “If he doesn’t want to do it, he shouldn’t have to.”

“Anna . . .” Kaidan kept his back to us, dropping his head. I hated seeing him like this. Especially with a roomful of others watching.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It was a bad idea.”

Dad watched our conversation play out, silent above us.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Marna said to me, then looked at Kaidan. “Really, Kai, why the hell not?”

“Marna—,” I began, but she shook her head and cut me off.

“That’s pants! What’s the problem?”

Kaidan turned now, a storm in his eyes. “She can’t tie herself to a bloke like me and expect to come out of it white as snow.
It won’t work.”

I sucked in a breath, stunned.

“She loves you,” Marna whispered. “And you love her. You’re not going to soil her soul, babe.”

He shook his head. “My past has to be taken into account.”

“Your past is in the past,” I said, staying calm. “And it’s not going to . . . rub off on me or something. You know it doesn’t work like that.”

His jaw ticked as he glared at the wall.

I started to move forward just as my father’s weightless form lowered toward Kaidan and encircled him. Kai stilled, as if listening. What was Dad saying? More listening and head shaking. They seemed to converse for hours. Now Kaidan gave an almost imperceptible nod. I wanted to stop their silent conversation. For all I knew, Dad could be threatening him, like he’d once done when he wanted Kai to stay away from me. He’d gone from using all his power to keep us apart, to wanting us to get married?

“I need some time to myself,” Kaidan said. Without a backward glance, he left the room. I let my special hearing trail after him until he stopped on the deck outside.

I looked to the other three Neph. Blake raised his pierced eyebrow.

I turned on my dad and spoke to him telepathically.

You’d better not have threatened him.

I tried to reason with him and reassure him.

But . . . if this was a possibility all along, why didn’t you tell me?

I assumed you’d figured it out for yourself. This is what I hoped would happen with you and the son of Alocer.

Hold on. He’d wanted me to marry my friend Kope? Ugh! I turned my back, irritated. Dad’s massive spirit form moved in front of me.

I knew the son of Pharzuph would have reservations. I tried to back off and give the two of you space, but there’s no time for that now. I’ve told him that if he loves you, he needs to marry you.

“Gee, no pressure, Dad,” I said out loud.

“
Sometimes people need to be pressured to do the right thing
,” he said only to me, completely unapologetic.

“I need to talk to Kai.” I walked away from my dad and past the others. I took a couple wrong turns, Blake’s house being so huge, and when I got to the back doors, Kaidan was coming in. He must’ve heard me. To my relief, he reached out his hand and took mine, leading me down a flight of carpeted stairs and into a cave of darkness.

“This is my favorite room,” he said quietly.

I adjusted my sights and saw that it was a mini movie theater with four rows of stadium seating. The walls were covered in old movie posters and pictures of pinup starlets from long ago when it was considered unsexy to be skinny.

The room was atmospheric and cozy. We took a seat in the back row, never letting go of each other’s hands.

“Look,” I began. “I don’t know what my dad said to you, but don’t let him pressure you. You don’t have to do this. I’ll find a way to hide from Pharzuph.”

He looked resigned. “You can’t hide from him forever.”

“Yes, but I don’t want that to be our sole reason for getting married.”

He dropped his eyes to our hands, letting strands of dark hair block his face.

I tried to tell myself not to be disheartened, but it was hard. Talking about marriage like a business proposition or a means to an end . . . it was depressing. Yes, it would keep us safe to a degree, but
both
our hearts had to be in it or it would be a farce, not an arrangement born of love.

I began to stand. “I’m telling him no.”

Kaidan’s eyes shot up, wild, and he held my hands tighter. “You don’t want to get married?”