Sealed in Sin (27 page)

The closer I stepped to the dilapidated wooden building with white paint chipping off, the stronger the sensation grew. A sensation I knew all too well—winter woods, windswept snow, crystalline breath in the crisp air. I pushed open the door. One of the glass panes was cracked from long ago. As it was well lit from the sun shining through the skylight and surrounding windows as an artist’s studio should be, I wasn’t surprised to find him leaning against the wall, one knee bent, arms casually crossed as if he’d been waiting a while.

“Thomas,” I whispered. My heart tripped a beat. I hadn’t seen him since the night I’d kissed him, since the night I’d let him kiss me, since the night I’d rejected him. My feelings were unchanged, yet I still felt…something. A pull. A tug. A cloaked need.

“It is good to see you, Genevieve.” Bitter and sweet, like honeyed wine, his voice drew me closer.

I closed the door and wrapped my arms around myself. The chill I felt had more to do with the icy aura surrounding my wayward guardian angel than the air itself. “I’m surprised to see you.”

“You thought I’d abandon you altogether after you rejected me?” Cool blue-green eyes glinted with a supernatural glow, reminding me this was not simply a protector but one with great power. Even now, a vibration exuded from his still figure.

“I don’t know what I thought.”

He shoved off the wall, coming to stand a foot in front of me. No threat in his eyes. Only pain, subdued with an edge of anger. “I told you I love you. That doesn’t simply vanish just because you’ve chosen another.” He glanced at the band on my left hand I curled across my arm. “So you’ve given yourself to him. I sensed something different.”

A grip of fear shoved my heart in my throat, remembering the Vessel creed to remain pure. “I’m not…tainted in any way, am I?”

A sad smile creased his face. “Not at all. The aura I see surrounding you now glows golden.”

“What does that mean?”

“A maturity. In your power. And that you’re no longer a virgin.”

I flinched, unprepared for him to speak of it so boldly.

“So Jude, the undeserving, black-hearted hunter, wins you.” He scoffed and shook his head in disbelief.

“He’s not black-hearted. Why would you say such a thing?”

He lifted a hand to my face. I started to pull away, but he gripped me quickly, placing a hand on the slope between my neck and shoulder. “I’ll show you.”

My body trembled as my VS spiked, feeling the onslaught of a vision somersaulting me into the distant past.

Night in the wilderness. I stood in a grove of trees behind a line of warriors bearing torches and sharp weapons. I realized Thomas witnessed this event and I was experiencing the vision through his eyes, just like I did with George’s visions—a symptom of sharing power. Yet, this wasn’t a random vision thrust into my mind. Thomas was forcing me to witness something I knew I didn’t want to see. For directly in front of me stood Jude. I’d know the line of his back anywhere. He looked left. Definitely him, a younger Jude, wearing blue woad on his face and war braids hanging in his long hair. This was the vision I’d witnessed once in my apartment when he’d held me close.

The fierce-looking warrior standing next to him, the one I remembered having the scar across his face turned to Jude who’d fixed his line of sight forward again to a Roman village with buildings made of white stone. The man said to Jude, “
Tá anseo cinniúint, mo dheartháir.
” The Gaelic I couldn’t understand the first time I’d seen this vision sounded like a second language to me now, perhaps because I was seeing this through Thomas’s eyes, not my own.

This is fate, my brother
, the scarred one had said.

Trembling with rage, Jude replied with hatred and menace lacing one word: “Aye.”

Raising a broadsword, he sliced it silently through the night, signaling to the line of warriors to move forward. I witnessed the army of men moving into the sleeping village from behind. Thomas followed Jude as I watched through his eyes. Jude gestured to the scarred one that he was moving ahead as men slipped into homes undetected, a dark force guiding them all.

Jude moved down the dirt road with determination and stealth. A man stepped from an alley, throwing his hands up at the sight of Jude bearing down on him. Without pause, Jude sliced across his throat and down his chest, killing the man in an instant. I recoiled inwardly. Jude had murdered an unarmed man. Even so, I knew the worst was yet to come.

Glancing over his shoulder at the scarred one who stood on the verge of entering another silent home, Jude said, voice glacial, “Kill them all.”

With a stiff nod, the scarred one gripped his battle ax tighter, and crept into the darkened villa. Jude moved swiftly up the path, as if he knew his destination. By now, screams echoed, filling the night with terror and blood.

Slowing his stride as he approached the largest of the villas, Greek Doric columns lining the entrance, Jude shoved open the door. A brawny slave snoozed against the wall near the entrance, jumping awake at the sudden intrusion. Jude cut him down before he took one step, his dying cry echoing through the atrium beyond the entrance. Jude marched with purpose past the rectangular atrium filled with green flora and a gurgling fountain, toward what must be sleeping quarters. Candles burned in sconces on the walls, lighting the brightly painted murals of lush landscapes and gods and goddesses. Passing a scene where Diana walked through a field of wheat, Jude entered a chamber. A female slave jolted from a pallet near the door, screaming “
Domina! Domina!
” Jude backhanded her into the wall, where her head hit with a resounding crack, silencing her for good.

Within a curtained bed of sheer silk, someone moved. Jude ripped the silky fabric away, revealing a beautiful brunette wearing a blue stola slipping off one delicate, pale shoulder. She sat up straight, eyes wide with terror before they narrowed with recognition of the hate-filled beast looming over her bed. “Judas has finally come to pay his debts,” she said with unnatural calm.

“Yes.” I didn’t recognize the man who spoke. He wasn’t my Jude, but one I’d never known—a beast of revenge and hate determined to sate his hunger till there was nothing left but blood.

The woman tilted her chin up, offering him what he came for. He bore his thick broadsword horizontally. Cocking back, he severed her head with one swing. In my mind, I screamed at the ghastly sight, her head rolling to the floor, body slumping, painting the white sheets crimson. Jude moved on.

Thomas seemed to be following him, and I wondered why he hadn’t stopped him, why he’d witnessed this horror without stepping in to prevent it. Anger burned deep inside me at both Jude and the angel showing me this dreadful vision.

“Mater?” came the soft voice of a child in the corridor, surely having heard the disturbance from his mother’s chamber.

Jude, with Thomas following, slipped from the dead mother’s chamber, finding a young boy, perhaps nine or ten, standing there in a tunic holding a torch aloft. His blue-gray eyes and the contours of his face, though rounded rather than sharp, reminded me of someone I knew too well. The boy stared at death bearing down on him in the form of a Celtic warrior, the black-hearted beast Thomas had described. Without hesitation, he impaled the boy through the chest, yanking his sword out with such force the boy was flung by the momentum, then hit the floor with a thud. The man I married stepped over him as if the bleeding boy were nothing more than a dog and moved down the hall in long strides.

By the time he’d made his way into the largest bedchamber, he’d killed two more women in silk stolas—both helpless and unarmed—as well as another child. I wanted out of this vision. The sickening reality of what Jude had done to become a Dominus Daemonum was too much for me to bear. Still stuck in this nightmare, I followed the man I loved into a room with a wide balcony. The person he sought was not in the bed but standing in his Roman tunic, sword in hand, waiting with a chilling smile on his face.

I recognized the beautiful blond demon prince even from this distance in the dark, torchlight glinting off his gray eyes. Danté.

Jude stepped onto the balcony, sword dripping crimson on the white stone pavement. “I’ve come as I said I would, Ru’um.” He used his old name, his true name.

Behind Danté, billowing smoke and orange flames licked up from the smoldering village, completing Jude’s revenge on the people he blamed for the death of his parents. The conflagration could’ve been hell itself, filling the night with the screams of burning souls.

“I never doubted that you would,” replied Danté, unmoved by the horror unfolding behind him. He glanced over Jude’s shoulder directly at me. I shivered. No, he looked at Thomas, not me. He broke through Thomas’s cast of illusion, seeing the angel hovering, who did nothing to guide Jude toward the light. Danté’s gaze shifted back to Jude. “Shall we begin?”

Jude’s reply was the wide swing of his sword, arcing through the air, meeting Danté’s raised steel with a resounding clang.

I was yanked from the vision, finding myself clinging to Thomas, my head buried in his shoulder as I shook and shook and shook. The darkness of that place where Jude had damned his soul was burned in my mind. I could still smell cinders and smoke. Thomas said nothing, holding me close, letting the traumatic reality sink in and my shuddering to ebb away.

I shoved out of his arms. “How could you! You stood by and watched. How could—”

“A guardian’s duties are to influence when we can. Sometimes, the Dark sinks his talons in a soul, and no amount of persuasion toward the Light can help. I tried with Jude, but he built a wall around his heart, barring me from his thoughts. We can’t interfere if our subject rejects us.”

“Oh really? Well, what the fuck do you call this?” I gestured between us. “You seem to be interfering in my life any time you damn well please.”

“I’ve broken a rule or two…where you’re concerned.”

Jude’s hate-filled expression, hard-edged malice etched into every line of his face, filled my mind again. I crumpled to my knees, acid churning in my stomach, my shoulders shaking. “Jude,” I whispered, unable to believe it, even though I knew what I saw was a true memory.

Thomas knelt on the studio floor but didn’t reach out to touch me. “I know this is hard, but you had to know what he’s capable of, what he’s done.”

“That was in the past,” I snapped. Even as I defended him, I hated him for what he’d done. Now I knew the damning sin he’d committed to become the leading master of demons, roaming the earth for centuries to pay his penance.

“And what about hiding your mother’s identity?” asked Thomas.

I shot him a scathing look. “You knew too?”

“I told you I’ve been guarding you all your life. Of course I knew.”

“And never told me. Just like Jude.”

“How would it have helped you? It would only have hurt. My duty is to guard you—body and soul.”

“Now you sound like him. Full of excuses.” I rose to my feet, rubbing my palms on my jeans. “I’m going back home, and I want you to leave.” I turned toward the door.

“But I have a wedding gift for you.”

I scoffed. “Whatever it is, you can keep it.” I opened the door.

“It’s the lost prophecy, Genevieve.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Pulse pounding in my throat, I stood in the doorway, the dusky twilight coloring the room lavender-pink. “You have the prophecy? The lost one?”

A firm nod. “I know where it is. It cannot be removed, but I can take you there.”

“I should tell Jude.” I reached for my phone by habit, then realized I didn’t have it.

Thomas moved close, cupping my cheek with his hand. Cool winter wind flushed through my body, tantalizing my VS to come awake. My underlight glowed of its own accord, perhaps sensing the powerful Flamma in my presence. Though Thomas often kept his power tamped down, there was no denying he harnessed serious energy in his angelic frame.

“I’m bringing this as a gift to you. I will do anything you ask, for my feelings remain as they were, but I cannot suffer the hunter’s presence. Not the one who stole your heart.” His hungry gaze traced my lips, making my pulse pick up speed. I didn’t love Thomas, not in the way he wanted, but I also couldn’t suppress the basic attraction I felt when he stood close to me, when he touched me. “Besides,” he continued, “there is no guarantee it will be there long. I believe the Flamma of Dark move it often in the underworld.”

“The underworld… So it’s in hell.”

“Yes.” He dropped his hand. “I cannot remove it, but you can. Powerful wards against angels keep it in place. I can take you there right now.”

I considered. Going to the underworld without Jude or Kat was dangerous, and perhaps stupid. Still, I’d have Thomas with me. And after that vision, I wasn’t ready to confront Jude. I had no idea how to tell him I’d seen what he’d done. I had no idea how not to tell him, sure my feelings of repulsion would show on my face.

“If you sense danger,” said Thomas, interrupting my internal debate, “you can sift out at once.”

Oh yeah. And there was that. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Rather than simply take my hand, he wrapped me in his arms, pulling me tight against his chest. I suppose I couldn’t blame the man for using every opportunity to his advantage. But after this, I’d need to clarify in no uncertain terms that I would not leave Jude for him. Even with the painful memory of Jude being swallowed by revenge, committing murder after murder, the man I knew now was no longer that tortured human being I’d seen wielding a sword on innocents. No man—supernatural or human—could ever match Jude.

We slipped through the Void, the temperature dropping markedly. Gray shapes blurred past, then nothing but black surrounded us, the air thinning, seconds before we snapped onto solid ground. At once, my VS pulsed a warning. I guess so. We were in the most dangerous place a Flamma of Light could possibly be. And I recognized it.

Dead trees with naked limbs sprouted in a misty forest. I reached out and touched a nearby branch, and the tip crumbled into ash. No sky above us, only infinite black, an endless abyss. Unlike the last time I’d been here, the mist didn’t curl around me seductively, controlled by some unseen force—Danté. He was still suffering in the bowels of Cocytus, thankfully.

“I know this place. I’ve been here before.” My voice vibrated with a strange echo. A slight breeze brushed my cheek as if welcoming an old friend. But my memory of this place was one of horror and dread.

I glanced around, wondering how close we were to Danté’s castle, the place where I’d almost become an imprisoned slave for eternity.

“This dark forest extends throughout the underworld. Nothing lives here. But we shouldn’t delay. This way.”

He led us along a path with no markings of any kind, only the same desolate gray as the woods surrounding us. He came to a stop between two oak-like trees. They were not the beautiful oaks of the living world, but giant, dead guardians of this place, drooping arms linking in an arch over the path. An unnatural wind creaked through naked limbs. Beyond this unnatural arch, a ghostly blue glow illumined a clearing ahead. I could see part of the clearing beyond a bend in the path.

“I cannot go any farther. The wards prevent angels from passing this point.”

“Then how do you know it’s here? And why won’t it keep me out?”

“I know. Just trust me.” He implored with his gentle gaze and a squeeze of my hand enveloped in his. I hadn’t even noticed he’d taken it. “And you’re born of earth, not the heavens. You also have your Vessel Power, which is a natural shield against the Dark. You’ll be fine.”

I inhaled a deep breath, then blew it back out, mist curling in the stagnant air. “Okay. Wish me luck.”

He brushed a kiss along the back of my hand. “You won’t need it.”

With a deep breath, I stepped under the branched archway into the blue haze, my VS lighting me up like a firefly. I felt nothing different, no encroaching danger, no demon spawn about to jump out at me. I walked on, rounding the bend in the path to a circular opening, reminding me of the one from the dream I had of Thomas, but this one was covered in dusky ash, not snow. Dead center of the clearing was a black stone monolith jutting up at least ten feet. My stomach dropped. Not because of the prophecy I could see even from here, the yellowed parchment pinned to the obsidian stone, but because of the person I saw standing there staring at it.

Jude.

I walked closer, unsure whether my eyes were deceiving me, the unnatural glow casting him in blue light. He spun, unsheathing and raising his sword, ready to strike. His fierce expression melted into one of shock and fear the second he laid eyes on me.

“Genevieve. What are you doing here?” He sheathed his sword and marched toward me.

“What are
you
doing here? How did you know—”

“No time!” He barreled the last few feet toward me, grabbing me by the arms. The electric sensation I sensed before a sift tingled over my skin, but nothing happened. “Fuck. Why’d you come here? Who brought you here?” His voice echoed with a violent vibration, bouncing within the clearing.

“Jude. What’s happening?”

The air shifted. The mist stilled, blue radiance growing brighter. A vacuum began sucking the sound from all around us.

“Oh no,” I murmured as the forewarning of a soul collector rippled over my senses.

Still holding on to me, Jude glanced wildly around, searching for an escape. Without the power to sift, there was none. And there was no outrunning a soul eater. Ever.

“She’ll want her toll,” he whispered, fixing me with a desperate look. Sheer terror marked his face, his eyes sparking amber-gold, like a living flame.

“What do you mean?” Before he could answer, I knew I’d made a mistake.

“No Flamma of Light can come here without paying a toll. I summoned Styx and fed her. That’s how I got here.” I’d watched Jude feed the river of hate once before, the black residue of dark souls he carried within him. Payment for services rendered.

“But I have nothing to pay her.”

“Yes, you do.” His voice had dropped low and terrifying.

“My soul,” I whispered, the words vanishing into ether as they left my lips.

The echo had lapsed away. No sound traveled at all now, as if muffled through water. When whichever soul collector appeared in the wake of this sound vacuum, I’d hear nothing at all.

“How do we get out of here?” I asked, panic gripping me in its cold talons.

Jude cradled my face between his palms, his expression softening to one of sheer adoration. So strange. Now was not the time to get romantic or sentimental, yet there he was with that look that had melted my bones time and time again, as if he had forever to stand and gaze his fill.

“I knew I could never keep you. When I’m gone”—his voice became more and more distant with every word—“don’t stay here for a second. Leave immediately. Go to our home. Tell George what has happened.”

“What do you mean
gone
?”

A ghastly moan rippled across the clearing, wiping out all sound but the haunting wail chilling my blood. Over Jude’s shoulder, the collector floated out of the obsidian monolith as if she’d been hiding there all along. An old hag, her gown a tattered black cloak, her papery skin pale and loose, hanging from fleshless bones. Lethe. The River of Forgetfulness. My underlight pulsed bright, defending me against her aura of oblivion. She opened her arms as if she held the balm to all pain and woes within her bosom. And perhaps she did for lost souls who yearned to forget.

Jude didn’t look. He knew who was there, hovering like a spectre. I said his name but made no sound. His mouth ticked up on one side right before he pressed his lips to mine, sealing me with every passionate emotion he felt for me in one, warm kiss.

He drew back, hesitating only a second, and mouthed the words
I love you
. He’d never said them before now. I could hear his voice in my mind, even if the soul eater had robbed me of the velvet-deep sound that made me feel cherished and protected. Truly and deeply loved.

No
, I tried to scream, unable to hear the anguished yell tearing from my throat, finally realizing his plan. Too late.

He shoved something in my jeans pocket, pressed a firm, violent kiss to my lips, then turned, took three giant steps and leapt into Lethe’s arms, vanishing into her ratty cloak.

I screamed, still void of any sound in her vacuum. As if in rewind, she sucked herself back into the stone, her threadbare cloak billowing, her sorrowful moan dying away as she disappeared with my love. My husband.

I stood there, stupefied in agonizing loss, remembering his last words.
Leave immediately.

I jerked my head around, scanning the clearing, refusing to let my anguish flow in this dark, unforgiving place.

I sifted, closing my eyes and focusing hard to propel myself from the black forest in hell that had stolen what I loved most in the world. There was only one place to go. I landed on wobbly feet. The soothing sound of ocean waves and blustery, salty wind washed over me. I opened my eyes to such an achingly beautiful sight, my heart splintered. The whitewashed cottage glowed under the moonlight, waiting for me. The fresh kindling Jude had chopped a few days ago was still stacked near the entrance.

I stumbled toward the door and shoved it open, then sank onto the rug before the cold hearth. Only then did I plunge into the well of grief waiting to drown me in its endless embrace. I curled into a tight ball, remembering the look on Jude’s face as he said good-bye, knowing it was for the last time. He’d held me with love, not regret, sacrificing himself without a moment’s hesitation. The second I saw him standing there, I knew he was no longer the man who murdered with revenge and hate in his heart. I’d forgiven him in an instant. I’d even pitied the broken man he had once been.

Why had Thomas shown me that?

The answer was clear. He thought the vision would drive me into his arms. And it nearly had. I trusted him, and he’d lied to me. He sent me into that circle in hell, where he knew I’d have to pay the ultimate toll for crossing through the demons’ wards. But it wasn’t my soul he was out to destroy. Jude hadn’t told me how he knew the prophecy was there, but I could guess the information came from a certain green-eyed angel who served only himself, no longer serving the Light as he once had. I purged the hatred wanting to take root in my heart. I had no room for it.

Jude.

Jude.

Jude.

My VS throbbed with stinging pulses rocketing under my skin, vibrating to my marrow, filling my entire being with shattering grief.

“Jude,” I whispered. The only word, the only mantra swelling from deep inside, yearning to cross my lips over and over.

I let the bone-crushing heartbreak take over, let myself slip into a surreal place of crippling despair.

My VS called to me, trying to pull me from dark oblivion where I longed to go and never return. I wanted to lose myself entirely, but my VS wouldn’t let me go. A new pulse thumped low in my belly, a warm burn slowly building, feeding off my grief, my love, my longing, my heartache. The beating pulsed through my veins, a heartbeat that was not my own, swelling up into my chest. A soothing balm melted through my bones, even as the throbbing grew stronger, hazing my senses till all I felt was the overwhelming thump-thump spilling up around my heart. It was foreign, yet a part of me. New, yet older than time. Mine, yet solitary with a will of its own.

I uncurled from the floor and sat up, staring down at my chest where the brightest white light I’d ever seen pulsed around my heart. Blinding and burning, the glow emanating from within my bosom crossed the layer of flesh and bone, right through my skin, stardust exploding across my mind. An amorphous casing, pulsing with life and light, floated to the carpet. Mouth agape, I watched as the light slowly dimmed. The pain within my chest evaporated as the being that had just come out of me took shape, transforming from a gelatinous orb into something that fluttered and flapped. Its small oblong body popped upright onto two spindly legs with sharp talons. Its head twisted left, then right, shaking off the remnants of the casing from its sharp beak. Finally, it turned its fiery-orange gaze on me, opening its white wings to full breadth, then closing the plumage tight against its back.

A white hawk. Utterly shocked, I stared at the spawn of Light I didn’t know I could create. An ethereal glow shimmered on its feathers. A fey glint shone from otherworldly eyes.

My leg was crooked, my knee upright. She popped up onto my knee, waiting for something. I reached out, unsure, petting from the top of her head down her back. She closed her eyes to slits, a look of pleasure. And that was all it took to make our connection complete. She was mine, an unearthly child to help me on my path. And there was only one path I meant to take.