14

With a string of profanity that left Jo blushing, Leucious stepped back from the bars of his cell. “Jo? Look at me. I’m about to do something really fucking stupid. When I do this, I need you to remember three words for me. Omni rosae spina.”

She scowled at him. “Every rose has its thorn?”

“Good, you understand Latin. Yes. Commit those words to memory in the event I lose control. Okay?”

She didn’t like the sound of that. In any way. “Lose control of what?” She hoped it was just his bladder.

Until his eyes turned a vibrant green, laced with red. Then, she almost lost control of hers as she looked into the face of his true demonic form.

“This.” One moment Leucious was human, the next, he, too, was a demon. Complete with wings and gold armor that reminded her of a Roman general’s.

Talfryn went wild in his cage. “Help us! Someone! Rambo! We’ve got to get out of here!”

“Why?” Jo asked.

Before he could answer, Leucious channeled his powers and blasted them from their cages. Illarion rushed to her side to protect her as Leucious and Cadegan attempted to murder each other.

Laughing, Cordelia turned on Jo’s group with a smug smile. “Thank you for allowing me to own the one weapon neither Morgen nor Merlin can stop. He’s mine now!”

One moment they were in the cavern, and the next, all of them, including Leucious—who was still a demon—were back in the house, on the other side of the mirrored door.

To her shock, four of her cousins were there, too, with a small group of people she’d never met before.

Still in his demon’s body, Leucious turned on them all and let out a fierce howl. He moved in to attack them.

Say the words! Illarion warned her.

“Omni rosae spina!”

The moment she said them, Leucious threw his head back and cried out as if he were in pain. He froze as if he were fighting himself even harder than he’d fought Cadegan.

His demonic body slowly melted back to his human one. Tears streamed down his face as he visibly shook and gasped for breath.

Without a word to them, he wiped the back of his hand over his face and left through a side door.

Karma followed after him.

Selena grabbed Jo up into a fierce hug. “This is you? Right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“After that crazy guy who was here in your body, I just wanted to make sure.”

“Cadegan,” Jo said, irritated at the way Selena talked about him. She looked at Illarion and paused at the sight of the mighty weredragon, standing there. He was here, in this realm. In human form. Somehow the fey queen had finally freed him from Glastonbury. But that being said, he wasn’t as happy about it as she would have thought. Rather, he seemed very confused and disoriented.

He stared at one of the blond strangers as if he was seeing a ghost. Likewise, the blond gaped at him.

“Illarion? Is it really you, little brother?”

Tears gathered in Illarion’s eyes before he nodded and pulled the other man into a tight hug.

By the way they looked at each other, she knew they were talking with their minds and the rest of them weren’t invited to the conversation.

Not until Illarion looked past his brother to meet Jo’s curious gaze.

Josette, this is my brother, Maxis.

She inclined her head to him. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you. Thank you for helping my brother.” He gaped at Illarion. “I still can’t believe you’re here. I thought you’d died with the others.”

While they stepped aside to talk, Jo returned to Selena. “I have to go back for Cadegan.”

When she started toward the mirror, three Leuciouses appeared to block her way. “You cannot release him now.”

Jo glared at the being, who was about to meet the bad Cajun side of her. One thing about Southern women, they were tough. No one said no and got away with it. Especially not when it came to a loved one. “I will not leave him in there. Alone. If I have to go back by myself, I will.”

Leucious returned to the room with Karma, as the three images blocking her way vanished. He cast his glance around the people gathered there. “For the love of God, will someone please talk sense into Queen Hard Head?” He glared at Jo. “You can’t go into Terre Derrière le Voile and release a banished demon into the world of man.”

Anger tore through her. Before she could think better of it, Jo rushed Thorn and shoved him back. “You should never have banished him there! This is all your fault!”

“I had no choice,” Leucious growled at her. “He was slipping from us every day, turning slowly more bitter and angry. I saw it in his eyes. I did everything I could to keep him grounded and anchored, and then when he came to me that night to tell me what he’d done, I saw that he was just about to blossom into the addanc you saw earlier.”

Jo couldn’t believe what he was telling her. How could he do something so cold? “So you abandoned him to it?”

He winced before he met her gaze again. “You really want the truth, Jo?”

Yes, she did.

Leucious held his hand out to her. “Take it and I’ll show you exactly what it is you’re dealing with.”

In that moment, she hesitated as a bad feeling went through her. She didn’t really trust Leucious, and there was something very peculiar about all of this. Something she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Reaching up, she fingered the medallion Cadegan had given her.

For protection.

Cadegan wasn’t a demonic beast. She knew it. No one who loved as deeply as he did could be what Leucious claimed. Leucious was the bad guy here, not Cadegan.

Unwilling to be intimidated by him, she took his hand.

The moment she did, her head spun. No longer in the house, she was in an old medieval stone monastery.

A monk she recognized as Brother Eurig and an abbot stood to the side of a modest bed where a woman she knew from Cadegan’s memories as his mother was just giving birth. With dark hair and tonsures, the clergy were both dressed in plain black robes.

Cadegan’s mother was ethereal and beautiful. Her long dark hair was soaked with sweat from her labor, but it didn’t detract from her looks in any way. With one final push and scream, her son entered the world and slid into the waiting midwife’s hands.

“Holy Mother of God!” Brother Eurig crossed himself.

The midwife cringed and recoiled from the newborn. She all but dropped it onto the bed between its mother’s legs. “What is that thing?”

“Kill it!” the abbot snarled.

“Nay!” Scrambling to reach the child, Brigid grabbed up her infant and cradled him to her breast. She wrapped her wool shawl around the baby, as if to protect it.

This was not the same callous mother who’d gone to Cadegan to take his shield from him. The one who’d tried to barter his freedom for what she wanted.

The baby screamed for air.

Stepping closer, Jo gasped as she saw Cadegan’s inhuman features. Though winged, he was humanoid, with orange, scaly skin and eyes of bright yellow. Strangely cute, the small lizard-like creature cried for comfort. Brigid pulled him to her breast and suckled him. He calmed instantly.

The abbot curled his lip. “’Tis the son of the devil! We must kill it, now, before it grows.”

She shook her head. “He is the son of the Tuath Dé. Grandson of the Dagda. A god in his own right. To kill him would unravel the universe as we know it and unleash a bounty of demons upon this world that no one can fight. Do you want to begin Armageddon?”

The abbot shook his head. “We cannot allow it here.”

She snatched at the abbot’s robe until they were almost nose-to-nose. “You have no choice. Do you understand? If he is kept from evil, he will know no evil. He will be a force for good. So long as his heart is pure and uncorrupted, his father will never be able to turn him and use him against us.”

“And if he turns evil?”

Her brow drawn together by worry, she looked down and stroked the baby’s cheek while he suckled her. And as he drank from his mother, he slowly turned human in appearance.

“He will destroy this earth and all who dwell here. The only one capable of killing him would be the demon Malachai.”

Brother Eurig sucked his breath in sharply as he crossed himself in terror. After a moment, he cast a speculative look to the babe. “Can he destroy the Malachai, my lady?”

She considered it for a few minutes. “As an adult, he would have those powers, aye.”

The monk locked gazes with his abbot. “Wouldn’t it make sense to care for such a weapon so that we might use him should the Malachai threaten us?”

“’Tis too dangerous.”

Still Eurig was insistent. “All weapons are deadly when in the wrong hand, Father. But when used by a good one…”

The abbot scoffed. “You’re mad! Both of you.”

“Nay. These are bad times.” Brother Eurig toyed with the same rosary that Cadegan kept by his bed. “The Sephiroth is lost to us. But if we could have another to aid our side in this battle, we might turn the tide. We could win this war. Once and for all.”

Still, the abbot refused his request. “A dog always returns to its vomit.”

“And the Lord works in mysterious ways.” Eurig jerked his chin to Brigid. “His mother is saintly. There is no reason to assume his father’s blood would be stronger than hers or her father’s, never mind the two combined.”

“You’re willing to bet our lives on it?”

Eurig nodded. “I will take the child in hand and guide it. I will never allow it to falter.”

“He and him,” Brigid corrected. “He is my son, not an it.”

Eurig met the abbot’s stern scowl. “We can keep him from evil. I believe that.”

“I consent, even though I have a bad feeling future generations will curse us for our parts in this day.” The abbot narrowed his gaze on Eurig. “He will be your responsibility and there will be harsh penalties for you whenever he leans toward the dark powers.”

“I will give him the strength to stay true. Teach him how to avoid temptation. I truly believe we are meant to do this.”

Leucious appeared by Jo’s side in the monastery, and pulled her attention away from the scene. “Cadegan was the sole reason they took a vow of silence and became cloistered. They wanted to keep all evil away from him as best they could. Before he was sent to Terre Derrière le Voile, the monastery was his shelter from his father’s temptations.”

While she could appreciate what they’d tried to do, surely they had to know better. “You can’t do that, Leucious. Evil always finds a way in.”

“I know.” He took her hand and led her to that fateful night when Æthla had turned on Cadegan and sought to end his life. “This is what I saw when he came to me.”

Leucious, who was more commonly called Thorn to remind himself of why he must avoid unleashing the demon inside him, was sitting at his portable desk, reviewing reports of the Malachai and his army. An army Thorn had been fighting for thousands of years. The darkness that threatened the entire world was growing faster than he could put it down.

In the last week alone, he’d lost fifteen of his Hellchasers to the Malachai’s forces. Two had been massacred when they’d foolishly gone to beg to free the Sephiroth so that Jared could fight with them.

“What am I going to do?” he breathed.

Thorn glanced to the mirror where the night before, his own father had written a threat in Hellchaser blood against both him and Cadegan.

Every day brought them closer to defeat. And every day, they lost more ground.

Even Malphas was currently lost to their side. In the hands of their bitterest enemy. If Thorn was lucky, that would be the most merciful fate that awaited him.

The other …

He couldn’t even bring himself to contemplate what would happen if he allowed his father back into his heart.

Thorn knocked the parchment to the floor with a swipe of his arm. “You won’t win, Father! So help me. I won’t cede this world to you and to those you serve.”

Taking his goblet, he’d just downed the last of its contents when Cadegan entered his tent. Thorn’s stomach wrenched at the sorry sight of him. His eyes were their natural demonic color. They glowed bright reddish-yellow in the candlelight. Something Thorn had never seen them do before.

Human blood stained his armor. Cadegan’s hands trembled as if he was barely holding on to the part of him untainted by Paimon’s cruelty.

His skin rippled with demonic flesh.

Thorn felt his own powers surging to fight as he saw the darkness within Cadegan. It was growing even before his eyes. He tried to stop it, but his own eyes began to change. “What have you done?”

Ashamed, Cadegan looked away at the same time Thorn’s servant, Misery, appeared by his side. While he didn’t trust the sultry demoness at all, he knew she never lied to him.

She only withheld the truth.

“He killed humans,” she whispered in Thorn’s ear. “Midlings who were trying to protect their sister he coveted for his own.”

Nay! Thorn winced at the fear that Paimon, after all Thorn’s attempts, had won Cadegan away from him, too. The betrayal and hurt cut deep. In all the world, Cadegan was all he had left.

All he loved, who still lived.

Hoping, praying it was a lie, that Cadegan wasn’t turning, Thorn glared at his precious family. “Is this true?”

“Aye, but—”

Enraged as his own demonic blood ignited, he backhanded Cadegan. How could he do this? Cadegan knew their laws and why they had them. Theirs was a tenuous truce with the Arelim and Seraphim. One misstep and all of them would be banished to the hell realms they’d populated with enemies who would do anything to lay hands to them. Enemies who would tear them apart and grow even more powerful. So powerful, the others would never be able to stop them.

Thorn didn’t care what they did to him, personally. He’d more than earned his damnation and he’d come to terms with that long ago, but the others who’d loyally served him …

They deserved the salvations they’d earned.

“There are no buts! You swore to never draw midling blood again. Is this how you uphold your sacred oaths?”

Cadegan’s eyes had turned completely from human to demon. “They attacked me first.”

Thorn winced as he felt his brother turning even more toward the darkness. Justification for cruelty was the slipperiest of slopes. Once begun, there was no turning back. Evil fed upon such blameless behavior and it thrived with it in the heart of its tool.

“You are the blood of Paimon! No midling can truly harm you. You know this! A bloody nose or black eye, you will survive.”

Cadegan lowered his head. “Forgive me, brother. ’Twas a mistake.”

Thorn wanted to believe him. He really did. But he’d been deceived too many times.

Tears choked him as he looked into a set of eyes identical to his father’s, and realized that Cadegan was his downfall. He’d allowed this child to come too close to his heart. That was how evil worked. Never from enemies you saw coming. Only those closest to you could destroy you. The ones you mistakenly trusted.

The ones you allowed to mislead you because the pain of living without them was greater than the pain of tolerating the lie.

By forsaking his blood oath, Cadegan had taken that first deadly step toward the darkest forces. If he took one more, he’d be so powerful that none of them could stand against him.

None of them.

Thorn’s gaze went to his desk, where the Malachai’s name was carved in the wood as a reminder of how powerful a beast he was.

Should the addanc merge with the Malachai …

All would be forever lost. This world would be theirs and the only thing Thorn would be able to do is stand back and watch it burn at their united command.

No matter how much Thorn loved Cadegan, he couldn’t allow that to happen. Not after all the horrors he’d witnessed.

And especially not after the promise he’d made.

Thorn shook his head. “Nay, the mistake was mine for thinking for one minute that you were something more than the mindless beast you were born to be.”

Cadegan’s entire face changed as the demon in him was ignited even more. Gone was any hint of compassion in his eyes.

Thorn curled his lip. “You disgust me! I can’t believe I put my trust and faith in you.”

Cadegan’s face returned to its human appearance—as others before. A trick for compassion that almost always worked, and weakened the fool who loved them. “Please, Leucious—”

Thorn grabbed his throat to stop those words before they succeeded in changing his mind and allowing him to forget how dangerous Cadegan was.

Not the innocent child he loved.

The monster that innocent child had foolishly unleashed this night. A monster who hadn’t been able to withdraw from those too weak to fight him.

Cadegan had bathed in their blood. He’d unleashed the inner demon at full wrath. Of all creatures, Thorn knew that euphoria much better than he wanted to. He couldn’t allow Cadegan to become what Thorn had been.

No one would be able to reach Cadegan then.

One man, even this beloved child, could never be more important than the welfare of the entire world.

Thorn tightened his grip and prayed this was the right decision. That Brigid would finally do what she should have done centuries ago.

Welcome her son to her realm, where she could watch him and keep him from his father’s grasp.

“For crimes against Our Lord, for breech of my trust, I condemn you to the shadowed lands of your mother. No more are you to walk this earth as a living being. You will spend eternity remembering what you’ve done and regretting your actions. You are no longer one of us. For that, you are sentenced and banished from the world of man. Forevermore.”

Cadegan tried to pry off Thorn’s grip. For the merest instant, Thorn almost relented.

Until Cadegan’s hand became a claw. Terrified of unleashing the addanc onto the world, Thorn threw him against the small mirror where Paimon had promised just the night before to devour the world through Cadegan’s blood.

Cadegan went instantly into his mother’s realm. He pounded against the glass, begging for release.

Thorn forced himself to show no emotion. To stand strong against the love that hated him for what he was doing.

It must be done. There was no choice in this matter.

Unable to stand himself for his actions, Thorn turned away and covered the portal so that Cadegan’s face wouldn’t weaken his resolve.

I love you, child.

Unable to bear the pain of it, Thorn threw his head back and roared with agony.…

For a full minute, Jo couldn’t breathe as she pulled out and stared into Thorn’s eyes. A demon who really did love Cadegan.

The events looked so different from his perspective. His fears, past, and duties had colored his vision and clouded his judgment.

Just as Cadegan’s had done.

“He would never have turned against you, Thorn.”

“Would you have taken that chance if you were me?”

Honestly? She didn’t know. Everyone made mistakes. Everyone put their faith in the wrong person at some point.

Æthla had been Cadegan’s blind spot. And Cadegan was definitely hers.

“I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

“We are all guilty of that, Jo. But now you know why we have to leave him where he is.”

She shook her head in denial of his solution. It wasn’t that simple and she knew it. “We can’t. We’ve awakened the addanc within him. He is the very weapon you once feared unleashing. What if your enemies find him now? Are you any more able to kill him today than you were then?”

Thorn looked away.

“That’s what I thought. Before all this started, Cadegan was dormant in his cave. Alone and safe. You and I have awakened his demon side, and it’s up to us to do what you should have done a thousand years ago.”

“Kill him?”

“No, Thorn. Save him.”