Shock poured through Ariel at his unexpected declaration. “We’ve already explored this.” She carefully directed her attention back to her roasted venison and away from Valteri’s searing glare.
“Aye, and I wish to know why you lied to me.”
Setting her knife aside, Ariel swallowed in fear and uncertainty. What could she say?
“As you’ve said repeatedly yourself, sir, I’m not a witch.”
He didn’t respond to that.
Her heart thumped against her breastbone and she averted her gaze from his probing eyes, eyes that told her exactly what her husband sought out of fate. Valteri longed for death too much and she had the most wretched fear in her stomach that he would try and fight against the curse, daring it to take him. And that was one battle her fierce warrior could never win.
“Aren’t you?”
“I know not what you mean.”
Uncomfortable with the turn in their conversation and terrified of any more difficult questions, Ariel moved to leave the table, but he captured her arm. His grip tight about her wrist, Valteri pulled her back into her chair.
“Please, answer me, Ariel. Have you bewitched me?”
The heat and anguish in his eyes, in his touch scorched her. She ached for his pain, wanting the words or spell to undo the curse and to keep him safe for all eternity.
If only there were some way …
“You’re drunk, Valteri.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
She ground her teeth. “I didn’t lie, milord. Nor did I bespell you. I’ve tried repeatedly to tell you the truth. You’re the one who denies it.”
Ariel clenched her fists, anguish flowing through her. Why had she ever told him what she really was? Why hadn’t she seen this coming? She should never have pressed the issue.
Rather, she should have just told him she was insane and left it at that.
A soft draft brushed against her, raising chills upon her arms. She tried to invent some tale to explain her earlier words, but nothing came.
Too used to honesty, she had little experience with deceit. That expertise belonged to Belial and his ilk.
Suddenly an idea came to her. Aye, she’d use Valteri’s own logic against him. “What of my brother then, milord? If I’m a witch, what would that make him?”
The confidence in his gaze faltered, then his eyes sparked fire. “He is a demon, isn’t he?”
Oh, that he would believe.
Damn her luck! And damn him for being able to see the truth of Belial while he was drunk.
“And what of Thorn and Shadow?”
“Demons, too, I’d wager.”
“So now you believe in them?”
“Why not? What the hell? Demons. Angels. Let’s believe in the whole giddy crew, shall we?”
“You need to go to bed, Valteri.”
He scoffed as he released her. “What I need, sleep won’t repair.” A tic started in his jaw. “Tell me the truth, Ariel. What are they? Men, demons. Or just another asshole sent to torment me?”
Ariel chewed her lip, trying to decide what to say. What should she tell him?
Tell him the truth. She flinched at the voice that sounded so much like Raziel’s, she wasn’t sure he wasn’t in the room with them.
Dare she trust that voice?
At this point, she wasn’t sure which side was even lying or using her anymore.
“If I were to say yea? What then would be your reaction?”
The fire faded from his eyes. Pushing his chair back from the table, he slowly stood. “I want the truth.”
“Would you accept it?”
A knot tightened her throat as she watched him pace the area between their table and bed.
“I’m not human, am I?”
That question caught her completely off guard. “Pardon?”
He paused beside the fire to pin her with a look so tormented and raw that it left her breathless from the pain. “The scars on my body aren’t from battle. I’ve never once been harmed from another’s sword. Whenever I fight … something unholy possesses me. Don’t think that I’m unaware of it.”
A peculiar, faraway look entered his eyes. “I never wanted to believe the bastard monks who told me that I was hellborn or hellbound, but with every battle I’ve had to wonder how it is that I’m never scathed. Others fall all around me, and while I seek to die, I’m never harmed.”
Agony filled his gaze. “It never made sense to me. How the monks could scar me so easily with their whips. But no mortal weapon made of steel could ever pierce my flesh.”
Her heart wrenched at the bitter agony in his whispered tone. “Valteri, it’s not what you think.”
“Isn’t it? How else do you explain all this?”
“You’re not a demon.”
“Then what am I?”
She went to him and took his hand into hers. “You’re not a demon. You’re not the same as Belial.”
He scowled at her.
“Those whips can harm you because they’re not weapons, per se. You were born of a god … and while you can be harmed by things that aren’t considered a weapon, you can’t be killed by any of them. Only a weapon forged by a god, made in the halls of gods, can end your life.”
He laughed at her explanation. “Do you think me insane to believe that?”
“How else do you explain it? Or the fact that you heal faster than most? It’s why you weren’t killed when your horse stomped you … how he was able to injure you. As for Belial, he’s a demon and he’s here to claim both our souls. If you were demon-born, he wouldn’t have to do that. Your soul would already belong to his master.”
For once, Valteri listened to her. “And why are you here?”
“When someone dies, there are a lot of … things that want their soul, for a lot of reasons. There are many who do what I do—escort the souls of warriors. We try to ensure that every soul is protected as it travels from this realm to the next. Unfortunately, we’re not always successful. Whenever a soul is lost in transit, it’s a blow to the universe, for the light of that soul goes out for all eternity. Our job is to protect those lights as best we can.”
She gestured at the door. “When I came for the soul of a young man who’d died in battle, his mother couldn’t accept his fate. She traded her own soul for the powers to rip me from my world into this one and trap me here to punish me for doing what I’d been ordered to do.”
He was taking the news much better this time than he’d done before. Of course, it probably helped that he was drunk and would probably forget it all.
“The crone you fear?”
She nodded. “Belial was here when she first cursed me. This is a sick game for him.”
Ariel swallowed. “While Lucifer is to be feared, there are far worse things in the universe than him. Belial serves a dark lord called Kadar, or Noir. He’s an ancient god who wants to reign over the world as he did long ago.”
Valteri listened quietly as she explained things he wanted to deny.
Yet how could he?
As he’d said, he’d spent his whole adulthood baffled by the fact that he’d rushed headlong into battle and never been harmed. Even when he should have been. Somehow, he always knew when to counter and strike.
His gifts were unholy.
Even when swords had grazed him, they’d left no mark.
It was why he’d denounced the god that the monks had told him had cursed him from birth. Because he didn’t feel evil. The last thing he’d wanted to be was damned for something he couldn’t help.
But her words gave him hope for the first time in his life that there might be another explanation for his “gifts.”
For his birth defect.
“Why does this Kadar want you?”
“Because of a war that was fought long ago. The Primus Bellum. The gods of light and dark tore this world apart in their feud. Belial and Shadow are veterans from that war. As were my father and yours.”
He gasped at her words.
“It’s true. I wasn’t born then, but they were. Others of my kind, Arelim, fought for the Kalosum, the light army. Anytime they can claim one of us and turn us to the dark to become an Irin, they call it a victory. In my case, because my father’s one of the Naşāru—a leader of the Arelim—they deem it an even greater victory if they can claim me.”
Ironically, that explained much.
She placed a fragile hand on his forearm. “You, Valteri, aren’t the son of a demon. You’re the son of someone a lot more powerful. Your father fought against Kadar and his army. He was part of the Kalosum. One of their key members. Your eyes aren’t a deformity. They mark you as Jaden’s son. He is extremely powerful, and if Kadar ever laid hands to you … there’s no telling what he might do.”
Scowling, he stared down into her blue eyes, praying that she was insane, but only clarity stared up at him.
“You and Thorn should be bitter enemies. His father and yours are mortal opponents. But he turned his back on Kadar and has been on our side for centuries now. There’s nothing evil about you. Only how you’ve been treated.”
She walked herself into his arms and held him close. “And there’s the bitterest irony of all. Thorn was raised as a beloved son while his destiny was to serve his father and tear this world apart. You, who were born to be a sword for honor and good, were only shown the worst of those you protect. For that, I am eternally sorry.”
He held her close as bitter memories surged through him. What hurt most was that in all his life, there was not one single good memory there.
Not one.
His life had been nothing save loneliness and anguish. Every day laden with the deepest desire that it would be his last.
Now …
He didn’t know what to think. About any of this.
“How do I know you’re not lying to me?”
She laughed in his arms. “Some things you just have to take on faith.”
He scoffed at that word that he despised more than any other. “You ask a man for faith when all he’s known is betrayal. It’s impossible.”
“The fact that I’m with you in this realm should be impossible. Yet here we are.”
Aye.
Closing his eyes, he kept looking for a hole in her story. Something he could use to argue against her reason. But sadly, it all made too much sense.
“I won’t let Belial harm you, Ariel.”
She leaned back to look up at him. “I’m not the one you should fear for. If you believe nothing else from me, Valteri, believe this. Should you fall into their hands, all you have suffered in the past will seem like a dream to what is to come. They will do things to you that are beyond comprehension. And not even you will be able to fight them. But more than that, they will use your powers and strength to harm this world, and that, neither of us can allow.”
“I have no powers.”
She gently unlaced his tunic to show an old scar on his chest where he’d been branded. One she’d touched so many times, and now that she had her memories restored, she knew exactly what it was.
Why and how it’d been given to him.
The only question was who had branded him and when.
“Nay, love. Your powers were bound by this seal. But one day … something will unlock them. God help us all when that day comes.”