Page 148 of Dark Shadow of Guilt

Do you think life will settle down with Malacour dead?

Doubtful. He can’t be the big rebellion leader.

She sighed.I’m gonna use my mouth to talk now. My brain’s tired.

“I’m in favor of you using your mouth whenever the mood strikes,” he said to Madeline, drawing her into his arms and folding his wings around her gorgeous body.

****

Vast, OneWorld

The OneCreator shared the evidence from Dom and Madeline’s trial with Harmony, who had been busy keeping the explosive lid on Angor’s boiling pot.

“Interesting,” she said, flicking an errant strand of honeyed blonde hair over her shoulder.

“You have a way with understatement, my dear.” The OneCreator coughed into his hand, the fit so bad he ceased talking.

“You like her.”

Harmony and the OneCreator were so in tune that he didn’t need to ask who “her” was. “Like the witch Indigo, I see something special in Madeline.”

“And her gifts?”

“We have talked. I lectured her on using her power ethically. She listened. She is a good being.”

“Did you see her coming?”

He leaned into the overstuffed chair in his office to stare at Harmony. She was old. Older than Michael and Lucian. A contemporary of Kalia. She knew all the dirty secrets and kept them to herself. She had flirted with being a Scourge and won, but the memory of her cruelty had stayed with her. He’d appointed her to manage Angor in his absence because she had insisted on doing more time there. Guilt.

But she was his only confidant now.

He had no Siblings. He had no one to remember who he was at the beginning. And without anyone to remember who he was, rather than what he had become, he was slipping. He was losing touch with a profound part of himself. It was only his steel will that held him together. His will and his love for the Immortals who depended on him.

Harmony crossed her legs, lovely beneath a short skirt. He admired them, his gaze sweeping from her feet to her thighs, the ardor they’d once briefly shared flickering inside him. Now, they were simply close friends.

She said, “No answer may be an answer. On another note, Ely asked me if Lucian attended Ordeals. He asked what malady the rebel suffered.”

“What did you say?”

“I said my list was corrupted. Happened during the whole Madeline-Serita-Praevus-Malacour thing. I was working on reconstructing the files. I’d get back to him.”

“Good save.” The OC hacked into his palm, another bout of coughing overcoming him. He rubbed his aching chest.

Harmony waited for the paroxysm to stop. “Sadly, you are no closer to knowing how Scourges come to be than you ever were.”

“The root cause is beyond my vision. Of course, I can create Immortals with Scourge-like characteristics, similar to Madeline and without deadly urges.”

“But you have never done so?”

“Never.” He relaxed into his chair, crossing an ankle over a knee. “Perhaps I should have extincted Kalia’s livebornes once we learned the mother was an abomination, the first Scourge.”

“They were not Scourges. And there is no sign either has turned.”

Clearing his throat, he said, “New mated pairs and offspring. Right under my nose. I never sensed the births even though they occurred in Vast. And, other than Ohngel and Indigo, I had no knowledge of other recent mates. I have readjusted my awareness and intend to be more cognizant of my Immortals’ comings and goings.”

“You had good reason to discourage mating and livebornes. You not only feared those with the malady in their DNA could have Scourges as offspring, but you feared overpopulation.”

“Yes. And if the trend becomes popular, we will outgrow the space which is OneWorld.”

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