Reaper Unleashed

“We just need to send a phoenix,” Hunter says.

“We need Uri,” Grayson says, and then they resume their pacing.

Jasper relaxes a fraction.

I tear my gaze away from him and focus on the pacing twins. “Yeah, I have no idea how to send one of those. I wish I did.”

Petra enters the room and stops to watch Hunter and Grayson then she looks at me with a quizzical expression.

“They need to get a message to Fee but they can’t figure out how.”

Petra tuts at the guys. “Use your bond to draw her into the Vista,” she says.

“We tried that,” Grayson says, “but there’s a barrier. We can’t get past it.

“Where is she?” Petra askes.

“The Underealm,” Hunter says. “And that’s somewhere we can’t go.”

“Why not?”

Grayson sighs as if his patience is being tested. “The atmosphere isn’t friendly to a non-demon or celestial.”

“But you’re in a Tribus,” Petra says as if that’s the answer.

“So?” Hunter snaps. “How does that help us now.”

She glares at him until he drops his eyes. She sniffs, satisfied. “You are linked. You share power and abilities, and thus there is no reason you cannot go into the Underealm shielded by Fee’s demon nature.” She shrugs.

The room is suddenly still and silent.

Grayson and Hunter exchange glances as the news sinks in, and then they both turn to look at me.

“No,” Jasper says.

I fold my arms. “I won’t be going alone. I’ll have back-up, and I can fucking take care of myself. If you try and stop me, I’ll be the one making things extremely difficult for you.”

For a moment I think he’s about to wink across the room and grab me but then he inclines his head, his eyes darkening with an emotion I can’t decipher.

Then he’s gone.

I breathe a sigh of relief as purpose courses through my veins.

It looks like we’re going to go find Fee.

And I can’t say I’m sorry.

I’m coming babe, and I’m bringing back-up.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Uri

I’m floating in space, surrounded by stars. There’s a nebula of gasses to my left and somewhere, too far to see with the naked eye, is a sun. The space is vast but not lonely because there’s someone—something—here with me.

“Hello?” My voice is a whisper that blooms into an echo that’s sucked away into space.

This isn’t real, and yet it plucks at something deep inside me, a primordial understanding that’s been buried deep for far too long.

“I need your help.” Once again, my words are whipped away by an invisible force. “Please.”

“Uriel, favored son.” A voice fills the space around me, soft and sibilant and ancient. “I know what you seek.”

“Will you help me?”

“No,” the voice says. “Only you can help yourself, and you will, when the time is right. You will find yourself and you will rise once more. So no, I will not help you, but I will help you to aid her.”

“Fee.”

“Samael’s daughter. The one who should not have been but is. He broke the laws of nature to create her, and he paid the price, and now the piper will come to collect.”

“I need to know about Eve. Can she be trusted?”

“Eve is trustworthy but cannot be trusted. She is duplicitous and yet she is a simple soul. Her love for Samael is her downfall. She will do anything to keep him, to hold him to her again.”

I feel this is important somehow, but my mind struggles to grasp how, and so I file it away.

“I need to know if she’s lying to Fee about Cain.”

There is silence then “Yes and No.”

I bite back my irritation. “Can you clarify.”

Once again there is silence. “Cain is filled with darkness, but Eve turned him into a monster. Something important was taken from him against his will, and now he wants it back and he will go to any lengths to get it.”

“Can you tell me what he wants?”

“No. But I can tell you that only Seraphina Dawn can thwart him, and only Seraphina Dawn can give him what he desires.”

That made no sense. How could she thwart him and give him what he wanted?

“I can tell you that there are only two paths ahead. One of destruction and the other of salvation. I can tell you that if Cain isn’t stopped, a world will crumble.”

“But—”

“No more. This is not where you need to be.”

Something shoves me in the chest and then I tumble backward. My ass hits the ground, and the world is too bright.

“Uri?”

I blink to find Cora looking down at me with a concerned expression. “Dude, what just happened?”

I’m back at the pack house, and I’ve landed in the kitchen.

Dean hovers over me. “You okay?”

I use the lip of the Island to pull myself to my feet. “We need to stop Cain. Now.”

Grayson and Hunter are standing in the foyer. They’re dressed for winter, which is strange because they don’t feel the cold. My attention drops to the backpacks at their feet.

“Wait, are you going somewhere?” I look from the alphas to Cora.

She smirks. “Fancy a trip to the Underealm?”

Chapter Thirty

Fee

The pit was what I’d imagined hell to look like. It reminded me of Purgatory but covered in ice. The sky churned red and purple above us, reflecting off the whitewashed, barren wasteland that was punctuated only by outcrops of rock and stalagmites that jutted up from the ground like jagged blades and unsurmountable towers. The ground was covered in hard-packed snow, and if not for our spiked boots we’d be slipping and sliding all over the place. My face burned from the scrape of air so cold it would have frozen a human solid.

“Here,” Samael wrapped a scarf around me. “Cover your face and walk in my shadow. I shall keep the elements from harming you.”

He strode ahead of me and the cut of the wind eased as he shielded me.

Azazel and Mal flanked me and Keon made up the rear. He was clad in heavy furs like the rest of us, but his blue hair stood out against the icy backdrop of the pit.

We’d been walking for hours and my legs ached from exertion. Fighting the elements and dragging my feet across the frozen ground one spiked boot fall at a time was no easy task.

I tugged my foot out of the ground, intent on taking another step and buckled. Both Mal and Azazel grabbed me, halting my fall.

“I’m fine.” I brushed them off, annoyed. I could do this. I was just as strong as they were. “I got this.”

“I can carry you,” Azazel offered.

I glared at him over my scarf. “Or I could carry you.”

I had no idea why I was getting so pissed. I mean he was offering to help, which was sweet but—

“We’ll rest for a half hour,” Samael said and the agitation in my chest ebbed.

It was him. Samael. He was throwing my emotions off. Making me want to please him, to make him proud. What the hell was wrong with me? I dropped my shields a fraction and a barrage of emotions slammed into me.

Searing longing, burning love, concern, and then pride and the need to shine, the need to be coveted and adored.

The first two emotions came from Mal, Az and Keon the final was Samael.

He wanted me to be proud of him. I slammed my shields down but couldn’t tear my attention from his face.

He tucked in his chin and looked off into the distance. “Ah, empathy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Malachi, Azazel, prepare a fire,” He pointed toward an outcrop of rocks. “Over there. Keon, there’s dried meat in the pack, we can have that.”

The guys set off with the packs and Samael placed a hand on my shoulder. “You’re wondering why I want you to love me?”

“Kinda.”

“I was an absent father to my sons, even the one I sired with Lilith. I was neglectful and arrogant, and I set impossible standards and through it all I expected them to love me unconditionally, when in truth it was I that should have loved them.” His gaze softened. “I don’t wish to make that same mistake with my daughter. I will love you unconditionally. I will protect you, and I hope that in time you’ll love me.”

There were stars in his eyes, spots of brightness that swirled and merged and blended to mercury, and there was a longing to connect, one that resonated within me. I’d been lucky in my lifetime to have had Aunt Lara, then to find Eldrick, but this bond between me and Samael went deeper than that. I didn’t need to know him to be certain I could love him, that I would love him.

I wrapped my arms around him and laid my head on his pectoral. His chest rose and fell with a deep sigh as if my hugging him brought him great peace and then his huge arms were around me and the chill was nothing but a memory.

“Come, blossom.” Samael drew me toward the flickering blue flame that Mal had teased to life. It hovered above the ground like a specter dancing in the wind.

I could feel its heat, even from a distance. Azazel offered me his backpack to sit on and then crouched beside me, balancing on his powerful haunches.

Keon held out a strip of what looked like leather. “It’ll give you energy,” he said.

I didn’t need to know what it was. If it got me through this journey, then it was worth it. I bit into it and my eyes popped open as flavor exploded on my tongue.

“Good?” Keon grinned showcasing his fangs.

My stomach flipped. “Good.”

He passed the strips around, and we ate in companionable silence. We were in the middle of the most dangerous region in the Underealm, surrounded by toxic air and potentially lethal indigenous creatures, but I was with my guys. I was with my father.

This was my home.

This was my family, and I’d fight to keep it.

“This place is dead,” Mal said polishing off his leather meat. “Maybe the indigenous creatures you recall died out?”