Page 91 of Chaos
“You cannot keep him from me. I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t allow it?” She threw her head back and laughed. “Hilarious. As if there’s anything you could do to stop me.”
“I’ll take him from you. You and I are matched in every way. All it will require is for you to turn your back for one moment.”
Her eyes narrowed, power flaring within them. “Attempt it and I will kill him faster than you can blink, Malice. I would rather he be dead than tainted by contact with you.”
The world felt as if it had dropped from beneath my feet. “You cannot be serious. He’s a child.”
“He’s a means to an end, Malice. But if you leave me with no choice, I will kill him.”
She was serious. This was no bluff.
“I thought you needed him. You had big plans, you said.” Panic curled in my chest.
Shrugging, she inspected her fingernails, which were more like talons. “I’d hate to have to start over, but I will. I’ve proven I can carry a child successfully. I certainly can do it again.”
“Odette, please . . .”
Her laugh grated like claws over glass. “If I’d known this was how to make you beg, I’d have tried it centuries ago.”
My voice was strangled as I tried one last time to make her see reason. “He’s my son.”
“And if you care for him, as you seem to, then you will stay far away. One hint of you nearby, and I will slit his throat without blinking. Do you understand?”
Misery and dread threatened to mow me down beneath their weight. Along with something unfamiliar. Something that didn’t belong to me.
Shock.
I was only half aware as Odette slammed the door in my face, my consciousness fracturing into two pieces. Then and now. One remained slumped against her door as I’d been so long ago. The other registered the foreign presence in my mind.
“No,” I whispered, the cold air of the London streets biting at my skin.
“No!” This time, a shout, but not aloud. I screamed in my mind and shoved at the intruder, who was seeing something I hadn’t invited them to witness.
I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, gone was the past. The air was warm and sweetly scented with Merri’s perfume. She stood in front of me, eyes swimming with unshed tears, sympathy etched into her features.
“Mal—”
“That’s quite enough.”
She reached for me, gentleness radiating from her. I couldn’t bear it. Not her pity and definitely not her touch.
“I said that’s enough! Leave me be.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean?—”
“Get the fuck out!” I roared, feeling far too raw to be around anyone right now.
That memory was one I’d locked away in the deepest recesses of my mind. She shouldn’t have been able to access it. But that fucking toy had drawn it to the surface, and with the influx of power she had in the wake of her session, it had to be as easy as plucking a ripe piece of fruit off a tree.
But there was a reason I’d locked that particular moment away.
A reason I couldn’t bear to relive it.
It was the one thing in my entire immortal existence that had the power to undo me completely.
Storming across the room as soon as she was gone, I grabbed the poppet and stared down at it, rage burning within my heart. I could not afford any more weakness, and that’s what love was. A tumult of emotions sent me to the window, chief among them desperation to free myself from this agony clutching at me. I opened the glass and threw the ancient child’s toy into the winter storm. It wouldn’t be long before the elements claimed the bit of fabric and straw. And perhaps then, I could be unburdened. Orperhaps I was simply fooling myself. I’d lived with the pain of that day for millennia, and it still had the power to flay me wide open. Odette had chosen her trap perfectly.
