Demon's Cradle (Devany Miller Book 3) (24 page)

***

The kids came down together, oddly, ready for the day but looking none too thrilled. Bethy was clutching Cheeseweed to her chest, the kitty looking as sleepy as my daughter. I asked, “You guys okay?”

Bethy snorted. “How can we go to school knowing there’s a whole other world and not being able to say a word? How?” She set the kitten on the floor and watched as she scampered to her food dish.

Liam said nothing, just shoveled half the stack of pancakes onto his plate along with a spoonful of eggs and a ton of syrup. I eyed him but he kept his eyes firmly on his food.

“It sucks. But talking about it will get you sent to the counselor for a ‘talk’ before you get half the words out.”

Bethy muttered things under her breath that I chose not to hear.

“Liam? What’s up?”

“She won’t let me in the Dream. Says she’s angry. Mourning. Can you believe that? Her psycho brother is dead and she’s mad. What the heck, Mom?”

I leaned a hip against the counter. “She didn’t get closure. She wanted to end things on her own terms and I took that away from her. She’s angry and rightly so.”

“You saved her!”

“It looks like I did. But she doesn’t think so. So is she really saved?”

He didn’t answer but I saw the gears turning. I felt bad about Sharps but not bad at all about killing Leon. He’d deserved it long since and I was glad I’d been the one to pull his still-beating heart from his body. Viciously so. Still, I wanted to tell her sorry for taking that from her. If it hadn’t been for my mistake in thinking he was the Rider’s primary host, I wouldn’t have interfered quite so ... spectacularly. Truth be told, I only felt guilty that I hadn’t murdered him sooner.

“What about Grandpa, Mom?” Liam asked.

I shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything from him.” I didn’t know if I should look for him, hook to him, see if I could contact him somehow. Maybe he’d managed to sweet talk Kenda. Maybe he planned to let me know as soon as he needed my help. I just didn’t know and wished we’d made firmer plans. Well, plans, period. “I’ll think of a way to find him. Don’t worry, okay?”

As soon as the kids were on the bus, I found Ellison’s thread and hooked to him. Or tried to, anyway. I came out on top of a campfire and scattered burning wood and ashes everywhere as I danced free. The man lying by the fire cursed at me and slapped at himself, tamping the red embers that had landed on his clothes.

Ellison wasn’t anywhere in sight. “Have you seen a guy, tall? Skriven-like?”

“I ain’t seen shit. Where the hell’d you come from anyhow?”

I squinted at him then spun a three-sixty. No one else in sight. What the hell? I caught hold of Ellison’s thread again and followed it—

—and came out in the middle of a market. It wasn’t a Theleoni market, thank heavens, though I was starting to feel like I needed to stomp shit and had I found myself in their Bazaar, I would have torn the place apart. I searched for any sign of Ellison but nothing. When I followed the thread again, it led me to an old lady who looked up at me with rheumy eyes and a toothless smile. “You want to buy some domar berries, chickie?”

“No thank you.” I hooked away before she could talk me out of my money and dropped in on Vasili who was at home this time. “It didn’t work.”

Vasili nearly dropped the flask he was holding. “Can’t you make a noise before just popping in?”

“Knock knock,” I said, doing my best not to roll my eyes. “Why can’t I find him? The thread led me to a dude in the middle of nowhere and an old lady. No Ellison.”

He settled the flask in a wire holder and brushed his hands on the leather apron he wore. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“No it doesn’t.”

He went to the bookshelf and futzed in front of the stacks for a while before pulling a book free of its brethren. “Do you think he pledged himself to another Originator?”

“The thread is still connected to me.”

“Ah true.” He plopped the book on the table and flipped it open, licking his fingers as he rifled through the tome.

After a few moments of watching him read, I said, “Well?”

“Huh?”

“Did you find anything?” I gestured to the book.”

“This? Oh no. I’m researching how to grow Brashen. It’s a type of fungus. Very virulent. It can parasitize an entire planet in months under the right conditions.”

I counted to ten. “And what does that have to do with my problem? And why would you try to grow something like that?”

“Hmm?” He turned another page. “Oh. The fungus doesn’t work on Skriven. Can’t take hold. But. It’s a powerful aphrodisiac.”

I counted to twenty. “Vasili. Ellison?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Unless the Rider is messing with the connection to throw you off?” His lips were moving as if he were trying to memorize something, then he moved to his back wall where he kept his supplies. Realizing I wasn’t going to get any help from him and knowing if I stayed I’d wrap my hands around his throat, I decided to leave. But first. “I forbid you to grow that fungus. You hear me? I don’t want that shit buggering up my world or Midia.”

He humphed. “I won’t let it anywhere near Earth or Midia. I just want a little something extra in my lovemaking arsenal.”

“Buy some chocolate. No fungus. Understand?”

He glared at me but nodded. I would have to take it as acquiescence. He knew what I’d do to him if he defied me anyway. I’d stick his ass on Earth in a human body and let him deal with the fungus the hard way if he disobeyed me.

Hooking away, I arrived back in my home to a quiet house. I curled up on the couch with Cheeseweed and stared at the TV without really seeing it, trying to convince myself that it would all work out for the best. My Skriven would find Ellison and haul his ass to me. Then I’d kill him and—

Shit.

“Are you sure you want to die, Jasper?”

I believe it will be for the best.

“You could do a lot of good things for this world. And there are plenty of evil people whose souls could stand in for you. It wouldn’t have to be an innocent dying to pave the way for your freedom.”

He was thinking—it was like a tickle in the back of my brain—but he didn’t speak again. Maybe he would reconsider. That’s all I could hope for, I supposed. I didn’t want him to die if he didn’t have to. He would be an asset to the world, no doubt. But only if he felt he had something to live for.

I fixed dinner for the kids when they got home, enjoying my time with them, Jasper helping me touch my emotions, however faintly. We watched a movie together, the kids, Trav, and Arsinua too. Arsinua kept shooting sharp glances at me, as if I might start ripping people apart and finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I sent the kids upstairs to bed and went to my own room. I spent a fruitless five minutes trying to find distraction in my TV and finally gave up. I remembered to slip the
emiliometer
into my pocket before I hooked to the Dreaming Caves.

***

They were having another feast. Remembering the celebration of the hunt, a smile settled on my lips as I followed the sound of the drums. The villagers were dancing, all dressed in varying shades of yellow, orange, and red. They looked like a sunset in motion as dancers wove and twirled around each other, the beat of the drum as hypnotic as ever.

Kroshtuka found me. His arms went around my waist and he pulled me close, kissing me deep in a way that curled my toes. He was wild and free and expansive, nothing like Ty’s shadows. I needed to remember that. Ty bad. Kroshtuka good. Sure, it was a simplification, but one my lust-addled brain could comprehend.

“How are you feeling?” I asked when we finally pulled away from each other. Our lips, anyway. My body was still pressed tight against him and I could tell without any words that he was glad to see me.

“Better. Still weak. I stayed out of the Rising dance.” We watched the movement for a while, the spiraling steps looking like a slowly undulating sun from where we stood. “How are you?”

“Good.” Soulless. Sorta. “Well. Not good.” I wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but they spilled out regardless. “Amara ambushed me and yanked my soul from my body. I did things, after, that I wouldn’t have done before. Hurt a man badly.” I swallowed. The guilt was faint but it was there, the soulless part of me—Neutria too, perhaps—dampening the worst of it. “I’m not sure I’m the same person I was. I’m not sure I’m a good person anymore.” He didn’t jump in to assuage my worries. Neither did he pat me on the head and say everything would be all right. He merely held me close. It eased me in a way his words wouldn’t have. “How come you’re so smart about these things?” I asked after while, after the stress had drained from my body.

“I hoped that holding you would remind you that you are cared for. And then I felt the tension leaving your body, so I stayed silent. Not too smart. Intuitive, perhaps.”

Like a good hunter,
Neutria said in satisfaction.

Right. ‘You just have the hots for my boyfriend,’ I retorted.

She hissed at me but there was no heat in it. She didn’t want to annoy me. If she did, I might not be interested in letting her stay any longer—not that I knew how to get her out of me.

“Whatever it is, I appreciate it. You aren’t ... repulsed by me?”

“Why? Was it your fault you were attacked? That Amara ripped your soul from your body? That you were forced to change and adapt to survive? It’s what the People have always done. Sometimes it leads us down a dark path. Sometimes it leads us to the light. It isn’t what happens but how you deal with what happens.”

I felt a hitch in my breath that I attributed to exhaustion. Or something. “Can you leave for a while?” I asked, needing him in a bad way. Or maybe a good way. I needed to be reminded of my humanity and goodness. We slipped away from the dancers worshiping life and did a little worshiping of our own. His hands on my body grounded me. My hands on his body reminded me of the warmth and beauty of life. We opened up to each other; our trembling, throaty cries mingling, harmonious. We weren’t after release, not really. We were searching for ourselves in each other, and from him I received a gift of his precious humanity. It spread me open, it lit me on fire. I gasped when his mouth touched my flesh, warm, wet, soft yet sharp with teeth. He groaned when my fingers gripped him, firm, coaxing. We wrapped around each other without words but spinning a tale of longing and dared I say it, love?

The world didn’t shatter. The earth didn’t quake and yet something inside me shifted, something important, something I’d been missing since Amara ripped the essential part of me away. When we were done, I cried in his arms and he held me, whispering words of his People, words of power that twined around my cracked bits and filled them. I wasn’t fixed, but I was also no longer broken.

I slept.

SIXTEEN

I woke in the middle of the night with Kroshtuka holding me. “Did you sleep?”

He smiled. “For a while. How can I help?”

I licked my lips. I wasn’t sure. So, instead of telling him what I needed—since I didn’t know—I told him what had happened, with Leon, with Ellison, with Tytan, with Amara. All of it. I didn’t keep anything from him despite my fear that if he heard some of it, the kiss with Ty, for instance, he would turn away from me. I couldn’t let the shadows get any bigger, for fear they would consume me.

He thought a long time, stroking my hair, breathing. Strangely, I wasn’t afraid of his answers, of his condemnation. I didn’t think there would be any and more cracks inside me were filled.

“Ellison is the one who killed the young woman, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I can have my people search for him. When they find him, I will contact you.”

“How? If we Dream, the Rider might get back in. He might still be inside you, lurking.” My stomach clenched at the thought. “You and Liam. If I can’t find him by the full moon, I want to take you both to the goddess. She said she can purge you like she did for me.”

“The goddess?”

I’d forgotten. He’d been trapped by the Rider during the time I’d visited the goddess. I gave him the short story and his face held concern for the first time since I’d begun talking. “She is real.”

“Yes.” I hesitated, then said, “And she holds Tytan’s soul. She wants me to return him to her. I’m not sure what will happen when I do, but I made her a promise.”

“Our stories say she is insane.”

I nodded. “I think anyone would be after what happened to her. She promised to tell me the whole story someday. I will listen, because stories are powerful and they can be healing.”

“Yes. They can also gift pain and misery. Be careful with your generous heart, Devany.”

I pulled a face. “I don’t feel so generously hearted right now. I feel dangerous.”

When he grinned, warmth curled up from my belly. “It is good, then, that I like that about you. Come, let us dance together once more before you leave to be dangerous.”

We weren’t gentle with each other this time. The urgency made us animals with claws and teeth. When we were done, we were wet with sweat. I kissed him again and he picked up the ring hanging around my neck. “When we find him, the ring will sing.”