CHAPTER 16
Closing his eyes, Nick took a deep breath and reached down deep inside himself to tap the powers he barely understood. It was time for this to stop.
Sooner rather than later.
His heart pounded a fierce rhythm. Come on … work. Surely if he could set Stone on fire in class without trying, he could weasel some modicum of power out of himself with this herculean effort born of stringent Cajun stubbornness and all-out desperation.
Right?
Right!
And despite everything, nothing happened.
Arthritic minutes dragged by as he struggled for the most minuscule ability. Move a hair … bust a seam. Have a thought. Anything. But the harder he tried, the less he achieved. Like him, it was useless.
Just as he was about to give up, he heard a piercing drone inside his head. Suddenly, the darkness around them seemed to expand and then contract like a rubber band snapping back on him. And in that one moment, his senses sharpened and he saw …
Everything.
Literally. The entire universe was laid out before him. The Nick he’d replaced in this realm was destined for law school. He’d graduate at the top of his Harvard class and end up in Congress, an advocate for real change that helped everyone. Best of all, he’d marry his college sweetheart and have a huge family that adored him and their grandparents. In the flashing images, he saw Kyrian’s death in ancient Greece. Saw Kyrian’s resurrection at Artemis’s hands, and his centuries of guardianship where Kyrian stood strong. Until the day a kidnapped Kyrian awoke with Amanda Devereaux by his side, and the two of them were forced to run from an enemy out to kill them both.
Unable to control the visions that came at him like a supersonic strobe, Nick swung toward his father.
Only he didn’t see the fierce beast he knew the man to be. He saw his father much younger, in the hands of their enemy gods. Beaten and branded. Bleeding and chained. Trembling from the weight of his physical agony, his father knelt at the feet of a creature who held no compassion or mercy. “You were born to serve us, Malachai. Never forget who owns your life. Who you answer to.”
Noir—the god Nick couldn’t even mention by name without feeding his powers—savored his control over the Malachai. And he was aptly named. His hair was blacker than Caleb’s and his eyes were so dark it was hard to see where the iris stopped and the pupil began. Laughing, Noir fed from Adarian, draining his powers until the Malachai could no longer support his weight even on his knees. He hit the ground and lay in a defeated lump with tears streaming from the corners of his eyes while he begged silently for death. It was how all Malachai had been kept since the dawn of time, and it was what had made them so lethal and brutal. A weapon of ultimate massacre.
Instead of being treated like people, they’d been kept as animals and trained to kill on command. The more feral and afraid of their masters they were, the better. That was why Nick’s Thorn and Caleb had been so determined to keep Nick from Noir’s grasp. They knew exactly what the primal god would reduce him to before he unleashed Nick onto the world to end it.
More and more images came, faster and faster, clearer and clearer, but the most disturbing were the ones of Nick himself, in the future, destroying the very world that had birthed him. The world Kyrian and Acheron fought every night to protect. Lost and abandoned by everyone, Nick, too, had turned on humanity. All he wanted was to end his own pain.
The only way to achieve that was nuclear-level devastation of the entire planet.
I am the Malachai. The end of all things. Spawned for no other purpose than to bring down the primal light gods and serve Noir, Azura, and Braith—the originators of darkness and death—in any way they demanded. All of his species were born to suffer. And there could be no escape.
Throwing his head back, Nick roared with the weight of a destiny he wanted no part of.
I will not become that monster!
His body began to spasm and seize up, until he no longer had control of it. His teeth chattered so hard, he was amazed they didn’t shatter. The darkness slithered over him like a deadly boa constrictor. It wrapped itself around his limbs and climbed up his chest, squeezing him ever tighter.
“You will always be mine,” it whispered to him before it licked his cheek.
Adarian pulled back from Nicholas as he realized what was happening. Each of the primal gods had an element they controlled completely.
In all realms.
Somehow Noir had located Nicholas in this one. And he was using the darkness to reach the new Malachai and claim him. To bring him home. If Adarian didn’t do something, the boy would be sucked straight into Noir’s greedy hands.
A slow smile curved his lips at the thought. It would serve Nicholas right to know the horrors Adarian had survived. The little punk had no idea what real humiliation and pain were. He thought his pampered life was hard.…
He had no concept.
Nicholas had never tasted true brutality. Degradation. He had no idea what it was like to be surrounded by creatures who lived to break you. Creatures who could only feel pleasure while they drove pain into every molecule of your body.
It’s what you deserve. Suffer and choke on Noir’s kindness, just as I had to.
But as those words wrung smug satisfaction from him, he saw in his mind the first time Cherise had brought Nicholas to meet him. After what he’d done to her, he’d voluntarily returned himself to human prison so that he would never again be tempted to harm her. He’d been convinced that she would rather die than ever stand for his presence in her company.
Until he’d been told he had a female visitor. Assuming it was Laguerre—his primary general—with some kind of mischief she wanted to start, he hadn’t thought much about it.
Bored and irritated, he’d gone into the common room and scanned the rough occupants. At first, his gaze had swept over the crowd as he sought the dark-haired demon who lived to torment anyone unlucky enough to stumble upon her. Moving fast, he’d barely registered the terrified blonde in a very sedate, over-large blue sweater and jeans.
Then his brain had kicked in with recognition. He’d snapped his attention back to Cherise, who sat at a table in the back, looking tiny, delicate, and petrified. When her gaze had met his, it froze him to the spot. For a full minute, he’d been unable to breathe. Somehow in the last two years, he’d forgotten how beautiful she was. How very precious.
As she’d done on the day they met, she’d stolen his heart. That hesitant, sweet glance had gone straight inside him and gutted him where he stood. A part of him had wanted to run to her and kiss her. But he knew she wouldn’t welcome his touch. Not after the nightmare he’d put her through.
For the first time in his entire existence, he’d been unsure of himself. Scared even. His hands had actually trembled as he made his way over to her.
He’d been almost on top of her before he realized she wasn’t alone. Asleep in her lap was a small human child. Completely baffled by that, Adarian couldn’t imagine why she’d have brought a toddler to such a place. That wasn’t like her.
Swallowing hard, he’d pulled out the chair across from her and taken a seat. For several awkward minutes, neither of them had spoken. Instead of looking at him, she’d kept her gaze on the sleeping toddler to the point he’d been ready to kill it for distracting her.
Then those blue eyes had glanced up and held him spellbound again. When she’d parted her lips to speak, he’d wanted her to declare her undying love for him.
Yet before she could do so, that puny, wretched creature awakened and started bawling.
“Shh, Nicky,” she’d breathed in that dulcet tone that had never failed to weaken him. “C’est si bon, Boo.” And just like Adarian, the boy had been soothed instantly. With a bright, dimpled smile, the small creature had pulled himself up to stand in her lap. Kissing the boy’s chubby cheek, Cherise had attempted to tame the riotous dark brown curls that were rumpled from his nap. The toddler had laid his head down on her shoulder and buried his hand deep in her blond hair while he bounced on his chubby legs and laughed. Adarian had sneered at the child, who seemed to mock him with the fact that he could hold Cherise while Adarian was forbidden to touch her at all.
After kissing his cheek again, she’d wrapped her arms around the child protectively, holding him tight to her as she bravely locked gazes with Adarian and expelled a heavy breath. “Adarian … meet your son, Nicholas Ambrosius.”
Those unexpected words sucker-punched him. In all his wildest imaginings, the thought that they could have had a child together that would survive past its infancy had never dawned on him. He’d assumed the infant she’d carried was long dead and buried. But this …
“My son?”
She’d nodded as tears glistened in her eyes. “He was born just over a year ago … but don’t worry, I expect nothing from you. And neither of us expects you to be a dad to him. I just didn’t feel right not telling you that he was here. I’m sure one day, he’ll have questions about you, and I don’t want to lie to him.”
The Malachai anger inside him had boiled, wanting the innocent blood of the boy in her arms. He’d started to call her a liar until he realized that his powers had done the impossible.
They’d waned.
Something that inside a human prison filled with absolute evil should never happen to him. The only way for him to lose any power at all was for his son to be near him.
No, not his son.
His heir.
It wasn’t unusual for Malachai to have children. That had happened throughout history. But the children never survived for very long. A week or two. Maybe a month. Not unless they were to be the new Malachai. The one who would kill the father and take his place.
Unbeknownst to her, Cherise had birthed his doom.
Horrified by his obvious future, he’d watched the way she’d cuddled her child and he’d hated Nicholas for that love she bore him. For the gentle way she soothed him while Nicholas had buried his mouth against her chin and blew bubbles.
When the boy had turned to him and reached out, Adarian had recoiled from him. He had no intention of touching that creature. Not unless it was to end its life.
Now that tiny, putrid beast had almost grown into manhood. In their realm, Nicholas stood eye-to-eye with him.
And while Adarian still hated Nicholas with every part of his being, he knew that Cherise loved this child, this putrid part of him, with all her heart. His loss would devastate her.
That was something Adarian couldn’t allow.
Growling, he knelt on the ground and reached to save the brat. “Boy!”
Nick couldn’t respond as something choked him even harder than before. Was his father still trying to kill him and regain his place as the single Malachai?
His vision dimmed more. Just as he started to black out, he was jerked from the floor and slammed against granite. Someone slapped at his cheeks.
“Nicholas? Can you hear me?”
What was crushing him? Nick blinked slowly as the pain and pressure receded. Coldness brushed his cheek with a tender caress.
“Speak to me, boy!” It was only then that Nick realized that the granite crushing him was his father’s muscles. The elder Malachai was holding him and it was his father’s hand he felt stroking his face.
Yeah, right. The devil was eating ice cream from his own hand and sitting on icicles. That was the only way for his father to be this nice to him. It just wasn’t possible. Not unless pigs were flying around the moon, and cats were building homes for dogs.
“Am I dead?”
That familiar sneer twisted his father’s lips, but still he held Nick against his chest. “I should kill you.”
Now that sounded right. Murder. Maim. Slap. Skin. That was what his father was into. Not playing nice and being cuddly. His father would rather throw him through a wall than toss a ball at him.
Groaning, Nick pressed his hand to his eye, where he discovered something warm and wet. He pulled back to see the blood on his fingers.
“It’s all right.” His father wiped the blood from his hand before he cleaned Nick’s face with a tenderness Nick would have never thought him capable of.
And that terrified him more than anything. “Who are you and what have you done with my father?”
Adarian paused his rough cleaning to stare down at him with a fierce, frightening scowl. “You have your mother’s eyes.”
Nick duplicated his father’s frown. “Yeah. I know.”
His features softening, Adarian cupped Nick’s face with his cold, dry hand. “I never noticed that before. All I ever saw in you was me, and I hated you for it.” He took Nick’s hand in his and studied it as if it were an alien object. “How can she love you like she does when you look so much like me … after what I did to her?”
“I wonder that same thing every day.” Nick swallowed hard as he stared up at his father. “She tells me that she hated you with everything she had until the moment I was born. And from then on, she couldn’t hate you ever again.”