Once Dead, Twice Shy (Madison Avery Trilogy #1)(43)
Author: Kim Harrison

"You promised to help me," Nakita whispered, her voice softer than the wind.

Kairos glanced at her in annoyance, but his eyes narrowed as he realized the threat she was. "Give me your amulet," he said, holding out his hand, and when she didn’t, he strode forward, anger and dominance in his movement.

I stifled a gasp when Nakita shoved me behind her, and my feet scrambled to keep me upright. There was a sharp ping that seemed to make the new sunlight shiver, and when I looked, Nakita’s amulet was in Kairos’s hand and he was striding to the nearby table. He had made her helpless. Crap. Now what?

"I’m still your master, you ignorant angel," he said as Nakita’s source of power clinked upon the table; then his smile chilled me to the bone. "Now. Madison. About your body."

Oh, God. He had my body. He could destroy my soul. Ron stood unmoving, not that I expected anything from him.

Nakita dropped to a knee before Kairos, her face pale and a ribbon of moisture slipping from her eye. "You said you could make me well," she said, grief clear in her tone. "I don’t want to be afraid."

Despite my own fear, pity rose through me. She was fallen, an angel doubly betrayed. The innocence of a wild thing of power given knowledge of death.

"You promised, Kairos," Nakita said softly as tears slipped from her and she wiped them away, shock showing briefly at their presence. "I suffered black wings eating my memory. Memory is all I have. I believed you. You sent me to kill her because you fear death?"

"I will be immortal!" Kairos shouted, his anger bursting forth. "How can you presume to know what it’s like to fear death? You’ve existed since time began and will until it ends!"

Nakita stood, the air shimmering where her wings would be. "I know now what it’s like to fear death, but I still live by seraph will," she said, her voice shaking. "I live by it, and you will die by it."

Kairos smirked, fingering her amulet on the table. "How, Nakita? You belong to me."

But then she pulled from her belt a white rock, bound by black wire and laced on a simple black cord. It didn’t look like the amulet I had returned to her in the woods, and Kairos shook his head as if it meant nothing – until she rubbed a thumb across it and what looked like salt fell away to show a simple black stone glowing with infinity. It was the stone I’d returned to her in the woods. As if I had been her keeper. I’d stained it with my tears – gifting her with a symbol of my grief and an atonement for having broken the purity of her existence.

Nakita’s hand fisted about it. "I accept you," she said to me, though her frightening grimace was for Kairos.

"No!" I shrieked, reaching out when the glint of her sword flashed a pure black. Nakita leaped forward to send her blade cleanly through Kairos.

Ron took several steps forward, crying out in dismay, but it was too late. It was done.

Kairos looked at his unmarked middle, blinking when he brought his gaze up, fixing first on the violet stone, then her eyes. "You’ve failed us," he whispered, and then he collapsed.

Nakita reached out and caught him gently, almost lovingly, as she eased the dark timekeeper to the polished floor. "Fate, Kairos," Nakita whispered, crying as her hands slid from him, and she closed his eyes so they wouldn’t look to the heavens. "The seraphs fated her taking your place. Your span was done. There is no failure. There is only change."

"Oh my God!" I shouted, terrified as I stood there. "You killed him! How could you…? He’s dead!"

Ron made a sound of regret, and I spun to him, frightened. If Kairos was dead, then that meant – "He’s not dead," I babbled. "Tell me he’s not dead."

"He’s gone," Ron said, and I danced back when Nakita was suddenly before me, kneeling and offering me her sword.

"Nakita, no!" I cried out, panicked.

"My lady," she insisted, pain in her fragile expression. "I am flawed."

"Stop. Stop!" I said, frantic as I tried to get her to rise. She was so beautiful. She was an angel. She shouldn’t be kneeling before me. "D-don’t do this," I stammered. "I’m not the dark timekeeper." I looked at Ron, standing with his hands clasped before him.

"You are the keeper of unseen justice," Nakita said, smiling at me, "sanctioned by seraphs. Able to track time and bend it to your will."

"No I’m not!" I insisted, glancing at Kairos’s body. Nakita had just killed him!

Ron sighed heavily enough for me to hear. "Yes, you are."

My gaze went to him, and I stiffened. A figure was behind him, hard to see against the rising sun. Ron saw where my attention was and turned. A strangled sound escaped him, and he scrambled out from between us. It was a seraph. It had to be.

"Blood has been spilled in the home of a timekeeper," the seraph said, its voice both musical and painful. It carried the power of the tides and the gentle caress of the waves upon the beach, and I almost cried to hear it. I couldn’t bear it. It was too much.

"A sacrifice so you will hear my plea." Nakita stood before the seraph with her head bowed, but her sword was still at my feet, and I picked it up.

The seraph nodded, and I wondered if I should bow or curtsy or kneel or something. Oh, God. It was a freaking seraph, and here I was in yellow tights and skull earrings.

"She has taken her place," Nakita said. "I present her to you and ask a boon. I want to be as I was. I’m damaged." She looked up, tears marring her beautiful face. "I fear, seraph."

"That is not damage, Nakita," the seraph said gently. "That is a gift. Rejoice in your fear."

The seraph turned to me, and my mouth went dry. "I’m not the dark timekeeper," I babbled, shoving Nakita’s sword back at her until she took it. "I can’t be! I don’t know anything!"

"You will. In time," the seraph said, wry amusement in its voice. "Until then, I will keep everything running smoothly. Don’t be long. My voice is already missed from the chorus."

"But I don’t believe in fate!" I exclaimed. My gaze shot to Ron; I was thinking I was having doubts about choice, too.

"To believe in fate is not a requirement," the musical voice said, the seraph seeming to take up the entire world, though it wasn’t much bigger than I was. "Kairos didn’t. Apparently." I took a quick breath when it looked away from me and fixed on Ron. "You do, though. For all that you say otherwise."

Ron didn’t move until the seraph looked away; then he sagged in relief.

"But I don’t want the job!" I said, frantic that what I wanted didn’t seem to matter. "Please, can’t I just have my body and go back to the way things were?"