Chosen by Sin (24 page)

She nodded. “Yes.” Her eyes filled with tears, not because he’d grabbed
her but because she could see the sheer love and relief that flashed across his
face, as well as the way he blinked away moisture in his eyes.

“He’s alive,” he clarified. “You’ve met him? What’s he like?”

She laughed. “He’s handsome. Stubborn. Strong. He works for the FBI, on
a team comprised of humans and Otherborn. He doesn’t lead the Para-Ops team,
but he’s a commanding presence on it. Essential to its success. To peace in the
States.”

Bodin nodded. “A warrior. I always knew that’s what he was. So you know
that he’s the one? The one to fulfill the legend?”

“Yes,” she said gently. “At least, I believe he is. I put things
together. Lacrosse’s question. Your response. And Rita, the Draci seer—”

“The mysterious one who wore that damn cloak all the time,” Bodin bit
out.

Jes nodded. “She helped me, too. I asked around, but very discreetly.
Most of all, I know you. I knew you wouldn’t ostracize your grandson simply
because he’s a half-breed. Or if you did, it was so you could protect him.”

“Foolish girl. How can you know that?”

“Because that’s what you did with me. You saved me. And you knew I
couldn’t live with your pack and remain safe. So you brought me here.”

“You’ve always thought too good of me, Jes.” He picked up her hand and
squeezed it.

Jes frowned. His fingers were cold. Too cold. She said, “And you’ve
always given me reason to.”

“So you’re trying to confirm whether the legend is true. By testing his
blood?”

“My initial tests were inconclusive, showing only his heritage but not
whether he has an immortal gift. I’m running tests on actual subjects now.
Using his blood. But do you know another way? Do you know how Dex would be able
to gift another immortality?”

Bodin shook his head and for a second looked immensely sad. “Does he know
what he is?”

Disappointment weighed heavily on her shoulders. Since the legend
didn’t specify the exact nature of the immortal gift, she hadn’t really
expected Bodin to have the answer, but she’d hoped. “No. He doesn’t know. And
he doesn’t know what I suspect.”

“I don’t understand. Then why is he here?”

“He came to France for a mission. Something about shape-shifters
killing shape-shifters. But he hasn’t gotten much information from the
shape-shifter leaders.”

Bodin scowled. “Shape-shifters are nothing but trouble. Let them kill
each other.”

Jes’s eyes widened in shock and he obviously noticed. His gaze
flickered with regret. “I told you, you’ve always thought too good of me.”

Not willing to believe that, she said, “You—you promote peace
between Otherborn.”

“Shape-shifters are different,” he answered. “Dark. With the ability to
consort with darkness.”

Darkness? As in a demon that might possess a werebeast so he tries to
kill someone he just met? “What darkness—” she began, but Bodin cut her
off.

“No more talk of shape-shifters,” he commanded. “Why else is Dex here.
With you? In this castle?”

This time, she hesitated several beats, not wanting to drop the subject
of dark shape-shifters but also for another reason she couldn’t quite
comprehend…But Bodin was as much a father to her as any she’d had. Part of her
couldn’t resist sharing her joy with him. “I’m pregnant. I’m carrying your
great-grandson.”

Bodin didn’t even look surprised. Had he guessed?

He only nodded. He sank deeper into the bed and pulled the sheets up
around him, as if he was ready to fall asleep. He even closed his eyes. “You
need to send Dex away. Trouble will follow him. The legend isn’t true. But if
you believed in it enough to find him, others will, too.”

“You don’t understand, Bodin. I can’t let him leave. I need him here.
My baby needs him. If not in the castle, then at least in France. We’re
connected somehow, and it’s through Dex’s strength that my baby keeps his own.”

Bodin’s eyes flickered opened and this time his expression was devoid
of all emotion. “Does he know I’m here?”

“I haven’t told him yet.”

“Don’t tell him. If he finds out, he’ll leave. He hates me. Likely
wants to kill me. Whether or not he’d actually try, we can’t know for sure, but
I do know this—he will leave you.”

Dex didn’t even bother protesting the mage’s words. She believed a dark
spirit was targeting him and he wasn’t taking any chances. Better that she turn
out to be wrong than he make the mistake of not listening to her when she was right.

The mage led
them to a room at the back of her shop and waved at them to sit at a small
table. When they were all settled, Dex urged, “Tell me about this
diabol
.”

“They are everywhere. Always. The dead who haven’t been allowed entry
into the Otherworld, but have been banished to hell for their cruelty and
misdeeds. Their hell is to walk beside the living, unseen and unheard. Forever
reminded of the life they squandered. They have an energy. An aura. I can sense
traces of the aura on you.” She reached out and lightly touched his chest. “In
you.”

Dex swallowed loudly and shifted away from the mage’s touch. “If
they’re everywhere, how can you tell the spirit’s been inside me?”

“They are everywhere, but also nowhere. Normally they don’t have the
power to interact with the living. When they acquire that power, their aura
changes. Becomes brighter instead of its normally subdued gray.”

“And shape-shifters? What’s their role in all this?”

“It’s rumored
that certain shape-shifters can create a bridge that connects a
diabol
to the world of the living.”

“And in doing
so, shape-shifters can facilitate individuals being possessed by
diabol
s?”

“Yes. Once the
bridge to the living is made, a
diabol
can thereafter possess an individual that’s weak enough.”

Cy coughed,
earning a glower from Dex. Dex turned back to the mage. “What do you mean,
weak? I’m not weak, and the shape-shifter who attacked me wasn’t weak, either.”

“Not weak in the physical sense. But people have natural barriers that
protect them from darkness. Those barriers falter when the person is
experiencing intense negative emotion.”

“Like?”

“Anger. Guilt. Jealousy.”

“You wouldn’t have any experience with those emotions, would you,
Hunt?” Cy taunted.

But Dex didn’t even look at him this time. He’d felt all those things
since meeting Jes, and he’d been beyond distressed after she’d told him she was
pregnant. It would have been the perfect opportunity for some dark spirit just
waiting to get the jump on him.

“So possession
is random?” he asked, trying to understand. “A
diabol
waits to find a weakness and then exploits it?”

The mage shook
her head. “No. It’s extremely rare for
diabol
s to connect with the living world. When they do, they usually have an
agenda. A particular person they attach to. For some reason, this
diabol
has attached to you. You have something it wants. Or
you can lead it to what it wants.”

“The way Trosseau led it to me.”

“It appears so.”

“Why me? Why not him?” Dex notched his chin at Cy. “He was there, too.”

“That I do not know.” The mage stood, almost as if she wanted to end
their conversation. Dex remained planted in the rustic wood chair. He did,
however, rub his hands together, conscious of the sudden chill in the air that
existed despite the temperate weather outside.

“But why would
the
diabol
try to kill me? If he wanted
to possess me, why have Trosseau attack me?”

“Perhaps it
only looked like he meant to kill you when what the
diabol
really wanted was to weaken you so you’d let it
inside you. Then it could control you, if only for a short time.”

“What do you mean?”

Beside him, Cy shifted and leaned forward, his expression one of rapt
attention.

“In creating a
bridge,” the mage explained, “a shape-shifter enables the
diabol
to take on the disguise of another. The
shape-shifter gives it form. Dresses it, if you will. That’s why shape-shifters
who’ve pledged themselves to
diabol
s
are sometimes referred to as Demon Tailors. They help demons access the living
through the physical world as well as through dreams.”

Dex felt his brows shoot up. Seeing this, the mage’s eyes widened.

“You already know this?” she asked him.

“I had a weird dream before coming to France. A dream in which an old
friend visited me and tried to kill me. But after I arrived in France, after I
was possessed—assuming that’s what happened, of course—we found him
nearby. Dead.”

The mage actually backed several steps away. “
Protéger cette âme des
esprits sombres
.”

Dex stood. “What does that mean?”

When she just shook her head, Cy said, “It means ‘protect this soul
from dark spirits.’ A protection prayer.”

“Will that ward off possession?”

Cy shrugged and Dex pinned the mage with his gaze.

She raised a shaky hand to her temple, then took a deep, calming
breath. “If I did a full protection spell, it could. But the spell is only as
strong as my power, and there are ways for a
diabol
to circumvent it. Especially if it seeks to possess
a dreamer. That kind of possession is rarer than the other and is far more
dangerous.”

She took her seat again and motioned for Dex to do the same. When he
did, she asked, “Tell me, did this old friend appear in dreams while you were
here in France? Before you were possessed?”

“No. But that’s because I never had a chance to actually sleep, not in
France, at least not before I was possessed. I never had a chance to dream.
After I was possessed, I lost consciousness but—”

“It could have
come to you then. Either you don’t remember or your friend was already dead, in
which case the
diabol
could not use him
as a guise.”

“Why is it
more dangerous for a
diabol
to possess a
dreamer?”

“In real life,
a
diabol
can only possess someone for a
limited time. During that time, the body it possesses will be infused with the
power of dark magic. Likely this will be evident through the host’s
supernatural strength. But in a dream, the
diabol
must approach the dreamer in the guise of someone
familiar. Not necessarily someone he trusts, but someone he believes would be
in his dream. So if a
diabol
entered my dream disguised as you, that would be expected, familiar, since we’ve
met. Do you understand?”

“So far. Go on.”

“In my dream, you could only do what I expected you to do. Your
strength would only be evident to the degree I expected it.”

“So if I knew the strength of this person firsthand, it would be
delineated as such. In the dream, I mean.”

“Yes. Because
the
diabol
and its guise are joined,
with the spirit knowing what the guise knows and acting the way the guise would
act, it fools your mind into letting it in.”

So Dex’s
subconscious had presumably forced this
diabol
to disguise himself as Rurik in order to enter Dex’s dream. “But after
I woke from my dream, certain things occurred that copied the dream, while
others didn’t. Identical conversations. Thoughts. Something like deja vu.”

“That was an
indication that the guise or the
diabol
had been watching you for some time. Following you. Following your friends. It
knew what was going to happen before it actually became clear to you.”

“But why
invade through dreams at all? What does the
diabol
gain?”

“Life. If a
diabol
disguised as a familiar succeeds in killing the
dreamer in his dream, it’s said he has the power to take over the dreamer’s
body. Permanently.”

Permanently
. The word echoed
around him until urgency poked at Dex like a cattle prod. Fear caused him to
break into a sweat. He suddenly remembered Jes’s patient, the shape-shifter who
had been shot. She’d said he would be recovering for days, which meant he was
likely still at the castle. If that was the case, that shape-shifter would have
been close enough to bridge the dark spirit that had possessed Dex.

“The shape-shifter at the castle,” Dex gritted out.

Cy’s eyes widened.

“I need to get back to the castle. Fast,” Dex told Cy. “I’m going to
shift and run.” He turned back to the mage. “Can you come with us? I need you
to put a protective spell in place. Can you protect a castle? A group of
individuals?”

“I can try.”

“You think Jes is in danger?” Cy asked.

“If Trosseau
led the
diabol
to me, how do I know I
didn’t lead it to Jes, or to one of the other people at the castle?”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, but it doesn’t make sense that a dark spirit wants something from
me, either.”

“That’s not
true. You work for the FBI. If a
diabol
possessed your body, it would be able to access people and places that could impact
a whole helluva lot of people.”

Shit. Cy was right. But that didn’t mean Jes wasn’t in trouble, did it?
He couldn’t be certain. He stood. “I’m shifting.” He didn’t waste any time
finding someplace private to do it.

His skin tightened until it felt agonizingly too small. His bones and
organs expanded, rippling inside him, forcing his skin to stretch as tawny fur
began to sprout from his follicles. The rippling was in his face, too,
threatening to push his eyeballs out of their sockets. His teeth sharpened and
elongated, and he clenched them together to stifle his moans. Finally, bones
broke and blood stained his fur as his form shrank. The pain smothered him
until he wasn’t even sure who he was anymore.