The Sweetest Burn

And my victory, too. In my darkest days, I’d thought what I felt for Adrian was fate’s cruel twist on top of an already impossible destiny. After all, I wasn’t some great savior, prophecy or no prophecy. I was just a girl doing the best I could while knowing that it probably wouldn’t be enough. But right now, I didn’t have to be the last Davidian, with all of the expectations, pressures and supernatural challenges that came with that title. I could just be Ivy, and as I looked at Adrian, I didn’t see the last Judian, either. I saw the man I loved and wanted to spend the rest of my life with, however long or short that turned out to be. I thought I’d known what happiness was, but those instances had been mere shadows and glimpses of what I felt now, with Adrian holding my hand and Zach about to tether our souls together.

“Ivy,” Zach said. “Take Adrian’s hand.”

I did. With our hands clasped right to right and left to left, our arms formed a loose X between us. Zach closed his eyes, held his palms up and began to speak in a language I’d only heard once before.

Demonish sounded beautiful yet harsh, with each syllable a melody broken by roughness at the last moment. I didn’t know the official name of the language it had originated from, but that was what Zach was speaking now. Angel-speak, I’d called it the other time I’d heard it, and I’d thought that memory had exaggerated its indescribable exquisiteness. Instead, it had dulled it. Listening to it was like having every stunning visual I’d ever seen transformed into acoustics and then poured into my mind. It was hypnotic, euphoric, and when I felt wetness on my cheeks, I realized that it had brought me to tears.

Then light began to halo Zach, until it consumed his trademark blue hoodie and jeans, leaving him clothed in brightness that rivaled the stars. That light overflowed Zach, spilling out to encompass the altar, Adrian and even myself.

I closed my eyes against the searing brightness, and still light filled my vision. Zach’s voice changed, turning into what sounded like the roar of multitudes. The sound was piercing, painful and beauteous all at the same time. My mind and body ached from sensory overload, until I would’ve run out of an instinctive need to protect myself, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even pull my hands away from Adrian’s though it suddenly felt as if I was falling from a great height.

I would’ve screamed, but then something ripped out of me with such force that I felt torn in two. Before I could begin to process that, a tidal wave crashed into me, flooding the parts that had been ripped away. For a few brief moments, I was no longer only Ivy. I was someone else, too.

I grew up in a darkly glittering world where strange and beautiful demons gave me and my mother everything we wanted, especially the shadow man, Demetrius. To save this world, I learned to fight, wanting nothing more than to erase the fear in my mother’s eyes when she spoke of Archons and to see the pride in Demetrius’s when I finally fulfilled my destiny to save her, him and the rest of our people.

Then I discover the ugliness I hadn’t been shown before in our realms. I sneak out and visit the half light, half dark world and discover it’s different from everything I’ve been told. It holds real beauty, and I’ve become a monster. I seek death by searching for the Archons I’ve long been warned about, yet when one finds me, he doesn’t kill me. Instead, he shows me the truth. Demetrius and the person I thought was my mother were one and the same. He’d killed her, then used her likeness my whole life to trick me.

My rage consumes me. I will deny my people their victory by refusing to fulfill the fate I’d once longed for. I will never go near the last Davidian, let alone betray her.

And then she appears...

I fell back into myself, until all I could feel were my own aches and pains. Adrian’s thoughts, emotions and memories were no longer slamming into my consciousness with feature-film-like clarity. When I dragged my eyelids open, we were both slumped on the floor in front of the altar, our bodies twisted away from each other, yet our hands still clasped together.

“It is done,” Zach said from above us.

He was standing only a few feet away, and yet his voice sounded far-off. Maybe that was from the blood still roaring through my ears, or from my ragged breaths as I tried to get ahold of myself mentally and physically.

Adrian’s eyes met mine. His face was ashen and his hair was tangled as if a windstorm had blown through here. For all I knew, it had. I certainly felt like more had happened than merely falling to the floor. If I had one, it hurt.

“You okay?” he rasped, sitting up.

I sat up, too, and leaned against the altar, trying to even out my gasping by taking in slow, deep breaths. “Mostly.”

He didn’t say anything. Then he pulled his hands free and looked up at Zach. In a voice that echoed like the rumbling of thunder, Adrian said, “Why didn’t you tell me that Demetrius was my father?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I WAS SO shocked that he knew, I found the strength to get to my feet. Adrian got up, too, and though a fine tremor ran through his body, he strode over to Zach.

“Why?” Adrian repeated.

“How did you find out?” I asked.

He shot a single, sharp glance at me. “The same way you probably know all my secrets now, too.”

He’d experienced the same accelerated, virtual reality replay of my life, as well? I suppose it made sense, since the soul tethering had gone both ways.

“Adrian, I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

This time, the look he gave me was pained. “I know why you didn’t tell me. I saw that, too.”

He saw it, but did he forgive me? I wished I knew, but the ability to know his thoughts and feelings seemed to have ended with my regaining consciousness.

Zach drew himself up to his full height, although he was still several inches shorter than Adrian’s six-six height. “If I had told you, you would have refused to do the soul-binding ritual with Ivy.”

“Of course I would have!” Adrian burst out. “I’m half-demon. I would never knowingly taint Ivy’s soul with that!”

“Taint? Adrian, don’t say that,” I gasped.

His arm shot out with such violence that he snapped a brass candlestick pillar right in half. “Don’t. I can’t stand to think about what I’ve done, let alone hear you justify it.”

He was shaking, and I didn’t know if it was from rage, regret or an urge to rip Zach limb from limb. When I came closer and saw Adrian’s face, I realized that it was all three.

“There is more,” Zach said, ignoring how I started to wave my hands in the universal gesture for Stop! Whatever it was, didn’t he see that Adrian couldn’t take it right now?

“What?” Adrian asked, the single word almost spit out.

For a moment, light glowed behind Zach’s deep brown eyes, and I felt real fear. If Zach struck out at Adrian, he would kill him, and there would be nothing I could do to stop him. The lethal, mystic weapon in my arm worked on demons, not Archons.

Then Zach folded his arms and assumed his usual detached, cool demeanor. For once, I was relieved that humans seemed to be too beneath him for him to get worked up about.

“I told you that one of you had been alerting Demetrius to your location,” Zach said, not blinking under Adrian’s furious stare. “You were correct in believing that it couldn’t be Costa, as Ivy was correct believing that it could not be Jasmine.”

“Then who?” I demanded before the truth slammed into me.

Adrian didn’t move, but for the briefest second, his features crumbled. Then they hardened until I wasn’t sure I recognized the person I’d just supernaturally bound myself to.

“Me.” Adrian laughed, a sound that more resembled rocks being ground together than an indication of amusement. “That’s why Demetrius always knew who I was no matter what disguise you glamoured me with, right? Somehow, he can feel me.”

Zach lifted his shoulder in acknowledgment. “As deep calls to deep, blood calls to blood.”

Adrian spun around, striding past me. When he was halfway down the aisle, I realized he wasn’t just pacing like he normally did when he was upset. He was leaving.

“Wait!” I shouted, energy returning to my limbs as I ran after him.