Chapter 19

 

 

 

 

 

Chloe knew Sparrow was her protector. He’d fight Norman, to the death if necessary, to keep her safe. And Chloe loved him for that.

But this was her fight.

Norman had ruined her life. He’d been mentally and emotionally abusive, and then physically abusive. He’d left her with no self-esteem or sense of self-worth. He’d left her no choice but to run, and then he’d tracked her down and made her life hell anyway.

And then Norman had found her here. When she’d opened the door to him, thoughts of all her powers fled. The fact that Sparrow called her goddess left her mind. For a brief moment, she was just Chloe again. Scared, abused, stalked Chloe.

The hopelessness she’d felt when she saw his face had been like a physical blow.

And Chloe wasn’t ever going to feel that way again.

Norman drew back and jerked forward, a wave of heat slamming into Chloe and catching her off guard. She gasped, but righted herself without even having to take a step backward. She remembered the lessons Sparrow had taught her during their time here. Unfortunately, they’d been more about calling the animals, feeling her power and using it in small ways than using it as a weapon to defend herself. They hadn’t gotten that far yet.

But you are Gaia, Sparrow’s voice sounded inside her head. You already know how.

She glanced at Sparrow, who nodded and stepped back. He wore a slight grin, a confident one. As if he knew she had everything well in hand.

Chloe never had really trusted herself, but she trusted Sparrow, and he believed in her.

That would be enough.

She drew energy into herself with a great breath, pulling it in from all around in and compacting it. With every part of herself she pushed, sending it toward Norman in a narrowly focused bolt.

Norman flew off his feet and, this time, backward out the door. Chloe followed.

He shot back, a bolt hitting her to the right side of her chest, high on her shoulder, burning a hole into the white gown she wore. The pain was incredible, but instead of dropping her to her knees, it angered her. It fortified her.

She drew in a breath and became aware of the sky darkening, the once blue sky now an ominous gray.

Because of me. I’m doing that. As the pain in her shoulder intensified, the wind whipped against her, blowing her gown first one way and then the other.

Sparrow’s voice again. You are.

“I want that child!” Norman was forced to shout, the wind stealing the words as he said them.

“No,” Chloe said softly, but it was a booming sound that seemed to fall down from the sky in every direction. She pushed again, and sent him flying at least forty feet backward. He slammed into a tall tree and rolled down the trunk to crumple into a heap at its base.

She didn’t run, but was in front of him in an instant, merely by thinking it. Chloe sensed Sparrow always just a few feet behind her. As she looked down at Norman, she realized her miscalculation. He flew into the air on his own power this time, and circled her, blasting her from every direction.

Chloe sensed Sparrow charging Norman and told him, with a thought, to stop. She knew she didn’t need him to rescue her, and communicated that to him without speaking or looking at him.

She stumbled, dropped to one knee, but the pain of the blasts almost lifted her up in a righteous fury as she shot to her feet and pushed with everything she had in Norman’s direction, the strain of it giving her a sense of being drained, emptied as her vision went white.

The moment it was done, she felt energy flowing back into her. And when her sight cleared, she saw Sparrow standing over Norman, gazing down at him almost in surprise.

A hole in the center of his chest still smoked, but Norman wasn’t dead. He growled in pain, fingers curled into claws above his chest as if the pain were so unbearable he couldn’t bear to touch. “You bitch,” he spat as Chloe approached to look down at him, too. The hole was slowly closing. Norman was healing.

“Leave here and never return,” she commanded him. Some instinct within her said he wouldn’t. But Sparrow’s voice came, quick and light, inside her mind.

Even if he can’t have you, Sparrow said sadly, he will find another woman to bear a child for him to sacrifice. That’ll be enough to make him a full demon.

Chloe couldn’t allow Norman to destroy another woman’s life—to kill her child. The idea that he’d only been upset at her miscarriage because he wanted to kill the baby turned her stomach. Yet after everything he’d done to her, everything he would have done, Chloe found it difficult to kill him now.

She had to. But it wasn’t easy.

Sparrow put a hand on her shoulder. “I can do this for you. Allow me.” He raised a hand to finish Norman off, but Chloe clutched it. Why? Why did she want to show Norman any kind of mercy after everything he’d done?

Sparrow smiled gently, though his eyes shone with tears as he spoke as if he’d heard her thought. “Because you’re a goddess, Gaia. Because you command creation, not destruction.”

Norman, still writhing in pain on the ground, laughed. “Creation? Everything she’s ever touched has been destroyed.”

“Hold your tongue,” Sparrow ground out. But Norman continued.

“Your mother died young because of problems that arose while she was pregnant with you,” he spat at her. “You managed to kill our child before I could with your faulty womb. I ended up in prison because you thought to run from me. And your father died because of what you are. You destroy everything you love, Chloe. Don’t let him trick you into thinking otherwise.”

Sparrow’s eyes on her were like a touch while he waited for her to react. Chloe managed to swallow, her spine straightening as the implications of what he’d said sank in.

“What do you mean my father died because of what—”

“Your father hated us,” Norman said, his voice ending in a whine of pain. “He did his job for a paycheck, but he never liked any of my family, least of all me. When my father discovered that he knew we were demons…let’s just say my father gets things done. If your father had stayed alive, you could never have been mine.”

He laughed, blood bubbling over his lips. “All these years and you never put it together, how convenient it was for you to move in with us after he died. I would have thought…a reincarnated goddess…might be a little smarter.” He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, smearing blood over his cheek. “Guess you got your intelligence from his side of the family.”

The hole in his chest closed with a crackling sound that Chloe barely heard over the rush of blood in her own ears. The tears that streaked down her face were hot, and they left the taste of salt on her lips. Sparrow’s hand raised—she knew he was going to kill Norman for her after that confession, because he loved her and wanted only to protect her.

Sparrow was right. There could be no mercy for one such as Norman. Only justice for her ruined life—and her father’s murder—and a baby’s life spared in the future.

“My father was twice the man you could ever be,” she hissed. Every ounce of hatred pooled inside her into a molten core that came out on her enraged scream with a push, and as the bolts of fire flew from her, lightning sparked from Sparrow’s hand, and with an ear-splitting scream of anguish, Norman was gone.

On Earth, Senator Allen Greyson felt his son die seconds before the searing heat drilled into him and left only a black scorch mark and some ash on the desk and chair in his den.

Chloe rocked on her feet, the force of her fury nearly toppling her. Sparrow’s hand steadied her. Together, they watched the small pile of ash scatter on the wind as it swirled around them, then died down to a breeze as the light came back to the sky, blue again, once more filled with chirping birds and butterflies.

“Sparrow,” she whispered, and she didn’t have to say anymore. He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight while she mourned her father all over again with her face pressed against his neck.

Her tears finally stopped as she realized the nightmare was truly over. Norman was gone, his father was gone, and they were never coming back.