Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5) (11 page)

I waited. Jerry waited. The entire netherworld waited, and Mammon held my gaze.
Bring him back, and everything will be fine. You’ll see. The worlds need Akil.

Mammon closed his eyes. The crackle of energy gathered around his huge body, and I witnessed him change as I had many times before, but this time, everything stopped. My thoughts, my heart. Mammon’s magnificent body rippled and dissolved, peeling open, pulling apart, before folding back in on itself. I’d never scrutinized the transformation before. It’s difficult, even through demon eyes, to observe how they make themselves human, but I watched it all, devoured every tiny detail, waiting for Akil to live again. The outline took shape first, like brushstrokes in a sketchbook. Inside the crackling, warping, mass, the body of a man emerged. Slowly, painfully, it solidified; and then more quickly, color rushed in, bronze skin, dark hair. It seemed to take an age and only a blink. And there he was.

Akil.

A dark suit—tailored to sophisticated perfection—seemed oddly out of place in the brutality of the netherworld. He flicked his wrists out and adjusted the cuffs the way he always did when briefly unbalanced. Could it be? Could he really be back? The tiny curl of his lips, the upward tilt of his glare through dark lashes…he looked every part the seductive know-it-all I fantasized about hating.

Jerry sauntered over and extended an arm. A delicious smile slanted across Akil’s lips. He gripped Jerry’s forearm, and they shook in that old style, as if checking for weapons concealed against the wrist. “I can’t say I’m not pleased to see you,” Jerry said.

“I see your abode has changed somewhat since we last spoke, Baal.” Akil cast his gaze over the stones.

“A great deal has changed since we last spoke, Ahkeel.” Jerry turned toward me.

My thoughts stuttered. Akil sure sounded like Akil. That luscious accent: American with a hint of the eastern exotic. I hadn’t moved, and even when Akil turned to me, I couldn’t bring myself to go to him. His heated gaze settled on me.
Go to him.
I couldn’t. I was afraid, afraid this wasn’t real. He wasn’t real.

“Muse.” He inclined his head, a sign of respect and acknowledgement.

Since I’d realized I could bring him back, I’d imagined how I’d greet him. He’d have taken me in his arms as if, it had all been some cosmic error. But this wasn’t like that. Why did this feel so wrong? Shouldn’t I have been happy?

He seemed to accept the fact I wasn’t going to go to him and moved forward. Lethal grace poured into his stride. He stopped close enough that I had to look up to meet his gaze. His spicy, evocative scent immediately hit me, and with it, the desire to wrap my arms around him, but still I couldn’t move. The eyes—those dark soul-deep eyes. His lips: sometimes hard, especially when pulled into a pressured smile and sometimes soft, like now, when he was relaxed. All my senses told me he was Akil, but…

He cradled my demon hands in his, lifted them between us, and clasped them together. “I owe you a debt the likes of which can never be repaid.”

I plucked my hands free and stepped back. “Akil, I…”
I don’t trust this. I don’t trust you. How do I know—how can I ever know if you’re real?

Maybe he saw the doubt in my eyes because the slightest of frowns collected shadows on his face.

“I would like nothing more than to give you two some space,” Jerry said. “But I cannot leave this circle, and our time is short. You must return to Boston and locate the chaos-girl, Dawn. Be discreet. Should Asmodeus discover she lives, he’ll want her killed before she can be delivered to me.”

Akil acknowledged the order with a nod. No questions. No hesitation. He offered his hand. “Come.”

W
e returned
to my apartment by way of a few uncomfortable reality hops. I retreated to my bedroom and dressed in an old pair of my jeans and a tank top. My fingers trembled. Bruises bloomed in uncomfortable places. My body delighted in reminding me I wasn’t all demon and had taken more than a few knocks. Exhaustion dulled my thoughts, which I considered to be a good thing. There really was too much to think about. Best not to think at all.
Get to Adam. Get to Dawn. Save the world. Easy
. I could do the thinking when it was over.

Raking my hands through my scruffy hair, I returned to the living room, only to be struck by the normalcy of Akil standing beside my couch. I lingered in the doorway and deliberately fixed the scene in my mind. His unkempt hair was the only thing about him that had changed, at least on the outside. He must have preferred it that way, considering he could fix it with a thought. How could he appear so perfect, so calm, so…Akil, after everything we’d been through? I knew I barely resembled the naïve young woman I’d once been. I’d gained muscle and a snarl when I smiled. To say I’d collected a few new scars along the way was something of an understatement. But he was exactly the same as he’d always been. I should have found comfort in that, but I didn’t. I’d changed. He hadn’t. In that, there was a simple, painful truth I didn’t want to acknowledge.

He allowed me a few moments before meeting my gaze with an inquiring one of his own. He looked me over the same way I’d assessed him, not hungrily, as it would have been once, but studying. “You’re…different.”

I stayed quiet.

“Leaner. Harder. Was it my death that did this?”

I laughed the comment off. “Don’t flatter yourself. This is just me now. Demon and human. No more internal battles. No more crazy talk. I’m done with all of that.”

He waited, and an uneasy quiet stretched between us. Considering he’d shared my soul for a few weeks, I couldn’t have felt more detached from him—from us. Tucking my hands in my pockets, I leaned back against the doorframe. “Akil, I need to ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly. I realize that’s like asking a shark to stop swimming, but I need you to tell me the truth, before I spend another second in your company.”

“I am the same man you loved to hate.” He stood still, like the demon he was. “That is what you were about to ask?”

Close enough. “Yes.” But his answer hadn’t allayed my fears. Maybe I just needed time. Or the whole truth. Before I went after Dawn, I needed to know exactly
who
had my back. “You knew my mother.”

He blinked back at me, unruffled. “I wouldn’t say I knew her. In fact, I made a point of not knowing her.”

“Why?”

He swallowed, and the stoic mask he’d worn since his return fractured a little. “Because of what had to be done.”

“I asked you about her, and you lied.”

“I didn’t lie—”

“Fine. You manipulated the truth, whatever you call it.”

“What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry?
That
would be a lie. I am not sorry for the impossible choice I had to make. I will not apologize for my actions, not even to ease your fears. I am demon, Muse. When will you stop trying to see me as anything else? I did what I did because Asmodeus had a hold over me—” A twitch ticked in his jaw.
That
had been the truth.

“You sacrificed a human woman so you could live happily ever after here in Boston. Yes, I know why. Asmodeus was going to rat you out, spoil your little moonlighting gig as a human. So you found him some women to rape until they produced the one-winged half blood.”

His expression hardened. I knew that look. He knew how to wield expressions the same way humans wielded words, and right now, he was expressionless. Guarded. “Who told you these things?”

“The Prince of Pride.”

His lip peeled back in a cutting sneer. “Pride? And I suppose you trust the word of a salacious prince you’ve just met over mine?”

“No. Had I, you wouldn’t be standing here now.” I’d trusted my gut. Now I was wondering if my gut lied too. “While you were gone, I found out a lot about you.”

“You know who Li’el is?” Akil snarled again, this time with a demon undertone.

“Yes.” I pushed away from the door and slowly stalked toward Akil. “And no, I don’t believe a word he says. He’s gunning for you. They all are. I’m fairly certain he wants revenge for you bitch slapping him down a million years ago, or whenever you gave him that scar. He tried damn hard to drag your name through the mud. That’s not the point. The point is, I learned you watched over the half-blood infants, looking for the half blood with one wing among those my brother discarded.”

Akil’s flame-touched eyes tracked me as I strode closer. His gaze was the only part of him to move. “Yes. Should I be sorry for that as well? You would have me grovel at your feet when you know perfectly well I will do no such thing.” Either he wasn’t trying, or he couldn’t mask the anger clipping the end of each word. Good. I wanted him angry. I wanted him
honest.

“Are there more?” My own voice feathered with frustration. “Do I have siblings somewhere? A family?” He hesitated. His lashes fluttered, but he didn’t look away.
Goddamn him.
“I do, don’t I? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Akil took a breath to speak and hesitated. Whatever he meant to say—probably a lie—he stopped himself. “They would not be the family you’re looking for.”

Tears pricked my eyes. I blinked the useless things back and stopped in front of him. “Why must you lie? Why do you have to be like this? Why can’t you stop manipulating everyone and everything for five minutes of your long life.”

Tiny micro expressions slipped through his mask. There was a time I’d have missed them, but not any more. His eyes narrowed. He’d challenge me before looking away. Amber traced the edges of his dark pupils. “What do you want from me, Muse?”

I lifted my chin and stared right back. “How about the truth?”

“The truth.” His brow pinched, and he pressed his lips together. “The truth is, I am Greed. And Greed is all I will ever be.”

I almost exploded. After all this time, after everything we’d been through, he came back to me with that vague, demon BS. “What kind of stupid demon answer is that?” Anger stripped my voice raw. I let it. And still I held his gaze. He could look away first because I damn well wasn’t going to. “The second I went back to the netherworld, I had demons falling over themselves to tell me how terrible you are, how you’re a liar, how you orchestrated the death of the original queen, asking if I was certain I should bring you back. Even the King of Hell said you’re a bastard.”

He smiled a tightlipped, flat, joyless smile. “What did you expect? They’re demons. Of course they’d seek to manipulate you.”

My hand itched to slap him. I wanted to grab his suit jacket in my fists and shake him until the truth fell out. I breathed in through my nose, subdued the rage, and asked, “Did you know you would die on that battlefield? Did you deliberately infuse your soul with mine so you’d survive?”

His gaze skittered away, and I knew the answer before he’d spoken a word. It didn’t matter what he said. Icy numbness came over me, spread from my chest, and seeped through the rage, until I felt…nothing.

“If I remember correctly, I died on that battlefield to save you. Be careful where you place the blame, Muse.”

“Answer the goddamn question,
Ahkeel
.”

“Yes.”

That single admission punched deep and precise, like a nail in a coffin. His admission buried everything I thought we’d gained. He’d used me. I gritted my teeth. “Did you lock my soul with yours so you’d survive?”

He looked into my eyes, deep into the soul he’d shared. “What difference does the motive make? You needed control. I gave it to you. The fact I happened to benefit from the union—”

My hand curled into a fist. “Answer the question.”

“Yes.” Another nail. “But—”

I swung for him. Or more accurately, I tried to, but he caught my wrist inches from his face and held it in his vise-like grip. I glared while he scowled down at me. Embers sizzled in his eyes. Did I ever truly know him? Could I ever know him? Clearly not.

“What about those things you said?” I hissed. “Were they lies too? How you were afraid of your own feelings, how you
cared
for me.”
Please don’t lie to me,
I silently prayed. “How you needed me. The grief you felt after you believed me dead. That night, at Blackstone, before you handed Dawn over to the Institute. That night we spent together…. Goddamn you, Akil. Stop lying—stop! Tell me the truth. Now. I’ve earned that much.”

His fingers tightened, crushing my wrist. He moved in close—close enough to kiss. When he spoke, the whisper hissed, sly and malevolent. “I. Am. Greed.” He shoved me away and straightened his hair, cufflinks glinting.

“I don’t believe you.” How could he do this to me? I bring him back, and he treats me like a stranger, another tool? This wasn’t right. It was more lies. It had to be.

His dry laugh grated on my already ragged emotions. “I tell you the truth, and you don’t believe me? You’re an impossible woman.”

“I refuse to believe the man I knew, the man who saved me on that battlefield, would stand there and be so cold.”

A tiny fracture cut through his stern face. “Then perhaps I am not that man.”

Was that what my senses were trying to tell me? Was that why a distance had opened up between us? Was I wrong? Had he changed? Was he
just demon
and
nothing else?

I turned away before he could see the myriad of emotions twist my features and snatched my coat. Fuck him. I couldn’t deal with this—with him—not when the world was falling apart around us.

Flinging open the door, I strode from my apartment. With every step, I stomped on everything I’d felt for him. I’d have kicked it all into the gutter if I could.

Was Jerry right? Could I blame Akil for being Greed? For being simply demon? “We find Dawn,” I called back, voice flat. “We take her to Jerry.” I hammered down the stairs. “And then you never come near me again. Are we clear?” My words echoed down the stairs. I stopped, hugged my coat closer, and looked up at the landing.

Akil leaned on the bannister, looking down. I searched for any sign of emotion on his face, any fracture of grief or widening of the eyes, any damn thing. But his flawless mask was back in place. He looked like Akil Vitalis always had, like the clean-cut businessman with fire in his eyes. The trap. “We are perfectly and unequivocally clear, Muse.”