“Just do the exact opposite of what I think, huh?” I said. My voice had turned soft. The lid of the chest of bad thoughts flipped open in my mind. A part of me knew that I wasn’t naturally predisposed to being this combative. My size had predetermined me to be prey. But somewhere along the way, something went screwy. I came out the other side with thorns. I wasn’t sorry. Because if it hadn’t happened, I would already be dead. There was no way I was ever going back to being the victim. Not even for him.
Kai wouldn’t budge. “It’s a small price to pay.”
“Then why don’t you pay it? You’re the last of Raphael’s line. You should be the one locked up in an ivory tower. But the seraphim don’t chain you up because guess what, there’s a pesky thing called free will. They haven’t taken away yours. Why are you allowed to take away mine?”
His left eye twitched. Gotcha. The look on his face when he tipped his head down at me was beyond rage. Chained violence blinked back at me, fuelled by something far deadlier than anger. Fear. I blinked and my mind flooded with images of his family. Vacant-eyed. Unmoving no matter how much he begged them to get up. That was the nightmare he’d imagined while he searched for me.
“I can’t do this again,” he said. Something felt like it was stabbing me in the chest. “All I’m asking is for you to be safe.”
I shook my head. “You’re asking me to be Chanelle. I’m never going to be the girl who sits demurely by if I can possibly do something. That girl would have died in a fire a long time ago.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, all of the energy from the ambrosia drained from me. Everybody you care about eventually leaves.
“Are you that hell bent on throwing away your life?”
“What makes it throwing away my life as opposed to choosing to protect the people I care about? Is it the fact that I’m human?”
“It’s the fact that you’re his!” The sharp steel in his voice wasn’t what cut the worst. It was the wild desperation in his eyes. Behind the quiet words of reassurance, he was terrified that I would fulfil the prophecy too. Just like everybody else. Years of trying to play by their rules and I was still that low witch with too much power.
“Take me back,” I said.
He stepped up and grabbed my shoulder. “If you go, we’re done. I can’t survive this again.”
I blinked back the moisture that clouded my vision. To his credit, he did warn me. There would be times when he would give an order, and even if I didn’t like it, I had to obey. I’d thought that he was making progress, but the massacre of his family had imprinted on him irrevocably. I could understand that. There were parts of me that could never change as well. Like the fact that I loved him. Or that fact that it wasn’t enough.
This wasn’t a fairy tale. And I wasn’t a princess.
“I understand,” I told him. “Please take me back.”
Somebody inhaled. But it wasn’t Kai or me. I turned my head towards the sound. There was an unknown face staring out at me from the mirror. I blinked. Kai snarled. He went into the bathroom, ripped the mirror from the wall and smashed it to pieces against the vanity.
Too little, too late. We never cut the connection. The whole supernatural community had probably heard us fighting. Kill me now.
38
The world threatened to turn upside down when we landed on the other side of the teleport. Judging by all the gold trim and marble, we were in Seraphina. Without saying a word, Kai walked out the door.
“Alessia!” Nanna said. She came running into the room. Basil followed behind her with Nora and Mani. I was swept up into Nanna’s arms. She held me to her chest, refusing to allow anybody else to come close.
“Nan,” I choked. “I can’t breathe.”
She didn’t release her hold. She merely settled me back on the lounge as more people arrived. I buried my head in her shoulder, unable to hold back the fatigue as first the members of the Supernatural Council and then the Nephilim Council strode into the room. Heels clacked against the floor.
My eyes snapped open to find Jacqueline standing in front of me. Her ensemble was entirely black. The only spot of colour were her bracelets. Even her complexion was bleached of colour. But it wasn’t the bloodless starkness I expected right after a battle. She bore no injuries. Cold realisation clamped itself around my chest.
“How long?” I asked.
“It’s been three weeks since the attack,” she said.
I swallowed, trying to keep myself together. Another three weeks lost. I couldn’t fathom it. “The professor?”
She blinked slowly. “He’s alive. Just barely.”
I breathed out slowly. “How many people do you think heard my fight with Kai?”
“If they didn’t catch it the first time around, they will certainly be viewing it on repeat.”
“She can’t stay here,” Scott Brandis said.
“Agreed,” Victoria said. She eyed Nanna and me speculatively. “But then where do we send her?”
“We can’t send her anywhere,” Walter said. “She’s forsaken. As long as she’s breathing, they –”
Forsaken. The term bounced around in my head but wouldn’t settle. In Demonology 101, we’d learned that the forsaken were those humans who had had so much contact with the Hell dimension that they were intrinsically tied to it. Their essences were like ambrosia to demons. No matter where they went, the demons followed. Most possessed humans turned out to be forsaken. I didn’t understand. My hedge magic and the protections around the Academy should have stopped that from happening to me.
“...should be destroyed,” Tiberius said.
Basil latched my arm
