The Secret (16 page)

“Good.” Kostas looked toward a corner blocked off by crates. “Kyra, you may come out now.”

A woman stepped from the shadows as Ava moved forward. She felt Malachi’s hand on the small of her back; he stood steady and protective behind her.

She was tall and dark-haired; her long brunette mane was streaked with ebony. She turned her gaze, and Ava met eyes a mirror of her own. Glowing gold behind thick black lashes. She heard Malachi suck in a breath. The woman was beautiful. Incandescently beautiful.

Inhumanly beautiful.
 

Like the Grigori she stood beside.

“Ava.” Kostas took the woman’s hand. “I’d like you to meet my sister. Kyra.”

Of course.

Of course.

Sister.

The memory of a dark angel’s voice in her mind.

“Soon. You will know soon.”

It was a startling, beautiful clarity, fresh as the sky after rain.
 

Kyra smiled at Ava. Her gold eyes were shining. “Did you think the angels only had sons?”

II.

JARON STOOD ON THE ROOF of a warehouse near Barak’s son, watching Ava in his mind’s eye.

Of course.

“Did you think the angels only had sons?”

No.

There had always been others.
 

Barak appeared a second later. Vasu followed.
 

“She knows,” they said together.

“Soon she will go to their city,” he said. “And I will remove my protection.”

“Volund will be drawn out?” Vasu asked.

“He will come,” Barak said. “He has his own interest in the woman.”

Vasu curled his lip slightly. “I still do not understand your fascination.”

“Not fascination,” Jaron said. “She will draw him as nothing else can.”

Jaron opened his eyes to them as they watched the scene play out among the sons and daughters of angels below them.

The Irin. Children of the Forgiven, their power glowing not with the wild raw fury of Fallen children but the low, controlled burn of a well-tended fire. Their magic had been honed. Trained. Tested. Their blood farther from the angels, they had used the knowledge the Forgiven had given them to become more powerful than those they fought. Male and female. They were a balanced race.

The Grigori. Raw fury and terrible hunger. Slaves to the Fallen. Abandoned to ignorance, their children raged against the human world with the fury of a child denied. Their sons, predators. Their daughters, a secret.

Born in fear. Terrible with untrained power. Forgotten. Disposed of. They called themselves
kareshta
. The silent ones.

Their fathers called them nothing. Those who allowed their daughters to live usually abandoned them to the madness of the human world. After all, female offspring were rare.

He’d never turned his mind to them, because for Jaron, there had only ever been sons.

Until there hadn’t been.

“I sing sometimes when you’re not here.”

Broken.

His only daughter was so terribly broken.

“Your son, Barak,” Vasu said with dark amusement in his eyes. “Kostas would remake the world we have built. There is power in that one. Are you sure he thinks you are dead?”

“Yes.” Barak cocked his head. “He won’t hear me. Whatever magic Jaron has laid over the woman protects me as much as it does her.”

“Kostas is perceptive,” Jaron said, “But he is not more powerful than me.”

“Why do you shield her?” Vasu asked.

“I have my reasons.”
 

Reasons only Barak knew. And his oldest friend only knew because he’d found Jaron in a killing rage sixty years before. A rage that would have swallowed the world unless Barak intervened.

Jaron had not taken a human lover since, and his line was dying.

He wanted it to.

Vasu, the most terrestrial of them, crouched down, clearly intrigued by the scene that Jaron showed them.

“I have never understood the fear of them.”

“That is because you have never raised your daughters,” Barak said.

Vasu shrugged. “If they run to the humans, the humans may have them.”

“The humans consider them mad.”

“What is madness but a form of wisdom?” Vasu murmured, his eyes still locked on the warehouse. “Once they were called seers. Holy women. They were revered in my territory. But Volund fears them. Hates them. Galal butchers them in the name of progress. Why?”

“They are of us,” Jaron said, “but unlike us.”

Barak said, “When the first Fallen daughters were born, they were killed immediately. Considered defective human offspring.”

“Many still view them as such,” Jaron said.

He remembered when Barak had stopped killing his female children. It was when the first pair of twins had been born. The two children grew to be some of his most powerful, though the daughter was always kept hidden from any he did not trust absolutely. Jaron was the only angel who knew Barak no longer killed or abandoned his daughters. Not that many didn’t escape his control. Those, he left to the human world. Or he had, before betrayal had rent their world. Barak had also ceased siring children sixty years ago, for many of the same reasons Jaron had.

Yet Vasu knew nothing. He still stared at the warehouse, watching the scene as if it were performed on a human stage.

“Vasu,” Jaron said.

Gold eyes looked up. Vasu’s dark skin was colorless in the night, but his gold and black hair whipped in the wind. The gold reflecting the starlight, the black swallowing the darkness.

“What do you want of me?” he asked. “I do not want the same thing you do. I have decided.”

“You will remain here?”

“Yes.”

Barak stepped forward. “Are you certain?”

“Are you?”

Barak’s eyes narrowed. “I am. If you remain, you will be alone.”

“If we succeed, I will not be. There will be no more reason to hide, and my people will return to me.”

Jaron said, “Killing Volund will not erase all your enemies, brother.”

“It will erase enough of them,” Vasu said. “Galal will be nothing without Volund’s support. You have your vengeance, and I have mine.”

“Enough,” Jaron said quietly. “We are decided.”

“We are decided,” the three Fallen said, turning their eyes back to the cold warehouse on the edge of the mountains where the earthly realm had changed in the space of a single word.

Chapter Nine

SISTER
.

Malachi’s mind rebelled.

No.

It wasn’t possible.

They would have known.

They
had
to have known.

How could they not have known?

He reached for Ava’s hand, but she was already walking toward the woman called Kyra. Renata was at her side.

“Ava, don’t!”

The Grigori around them had been calm, almost eerily so. But at his protest, they turned furious eyes toward Malachi, as if they were enraged at the interference. Max put a hand on his arm and he calmed.

“Renata is with her. She’ll be fine. Kostas would never attack Ava, especially not in front of his sister.”

Sister.

A sister.

“How—”

“They are Barak’s children. Twins. Both their sire and mother are dead.” Max lowered his voice. “Malachi,
surely
you can see.”

He knew Max was telling the truth. It was the eyes. The woman’s gold eyes were exactly like his mate’s. She had luminous skin. Ethereal beauty. She was Grigori in female form.

Not Grigori.

Grigora.

“Max, it’s not…”

“It is.”

“But we would have known,” he said. “There was never any—”

“Why would you have known, Scribe?” Kostas’s eyes pierced him from across the room. “When does
your
kind stop to ask questions?”
 

Malachi ignored the Grigori and watched Ava. She was holding Renata’s hand but reaching for Kyra. She looked over her shoulder, searching for him.

“Malachi?”

“I’m here.”

“I…” Ava looked between Malachi and Kyra. Kyra and Kostas. “This is real?” she whispered, her eyes revealing her deepest fear.

He forgot the angry Grigori and walked over to her, bending to whisper in her ear. “This is real,
canım
. You’re not dreaming. Does this feel like a dream or a vision?”

“No.”

He squeezed her hand. “See?”

“Interesting,” Kostas mused. “I wondered what she could do.”

Malachi’s head whipped around. He left Ava with Renata and Kyra as he stalked toward Kostas. “My mate is none of your concern.”

Kostas looked amused, but Malachi said nothing else. He had no wish to confirm or deny anything about Ava until he knew more about whatever was going on. He glanced over his shoulder, but the women were locked in intense conversation in the corner of the room. The males around them had withdrawn, keeping watch but not interfering.
 

Malachi drew Max to the side. “How did you discover this?”

“I’ve known Kostas for years,” he said. “We’ve traded information. Favors, at times. I knew there were others like him—Grigori free of their sires—but they’re very secretive.”

“And the women? Why did we never see them? Hundreds of years—thousands! How could a secret like this remain hidden?”

“How do we remain hidden?” Max said. “Human see what they want to see. And sometimes Irin do as well.”

Malachi couldn’t argue with that. He looked at the protective Grigori soldier who stood near them. Watching his sister. Watching them.

The man was different than the others. All these Grigori were. There was none of the desperate hunger he associated with his mortal enemies. The men around him looked like Grigori. Smelled like Grigori. But… they did not act it. And Malachi wondered how it was possible. Was the presence of only one female so powerful to them?

“Your sister.” Malachi walked toward Kostas. “There are others like her?”
 

“Yes. Though there have never been many,” Kostas said. “If you’re truly interested, I’ll explain, though it probably won’t improve your opinion of our race.”

Malachi asked Max, “Do you trust him?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

Malachi crossed his arms and stared at Kostas. “Maybe you’re different. But don’t try to tell me most of your kind aren’t murderers and rapists. I’ve witnessed the aftermath of too many attacks.”

“I’d never claim to be anything but what I am,” Kostas said. “But if it helps, the same angels trying to kill you would love to kill me as well.”

“Why?”

“I’m an abomination,” he said with a grim smile. “I should have died years ago when my father was killed, but I didn’t. Volund, especially, hates that I even exist.”

“Volund killed your father?”

Kostas nodded. “He wanted his territory. Barak used to control most of Northern Europe.”

“That’s all Volund’s land now,” Max said. “He was successful.”

“How much do you know about us?” Kostas asked Malachi. “Other than what you’ve learned in your efforts to kill us, what do you know?”

“You have magic, but not like us.”

“True.” Kostas motioned them toward a number of ragged chairs. The Grigori who were sitting there moved away immediately. It was obvious who was in charge. “The average son of the Fallen lives for around one hundred sixty to one hundred eighty years. Nothing close to the Irin lifespan.”

“But there are some who are much older.”
 

Brage, the Grigori who’d killed Malachi in the cistern—who’d tried to take Ava from him—had been present during the Rending. He’d been at least two hundred and fifty years old.

“Our lives can be prolonged by magic—as the Irin’s can—but only at the will of the Fallen. We exist for them. An angel who finds a particular child useful can extend his life indefinitely.”

“Do they?”

“Rarely.” Kostas leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Do you know what the Grigori are, Scribe?”

“You’re sons of the Fallen. Half angel and half—”

“We’re slaves,” Kostas said with a bitter smile. “The Irin forefathers left, giving their children knowledge and freedom. The Fallen stayed and kept their children under their thumbs. We exist to serve them. We have no will other than theirs. No life beyond what they give us. If they call us, we come. If they command us, we obey. To do otherwise is unthinkable. We feed…” Kostas drew in a ragged breath. “We feed on humans because our touch hunger is voracious and most Grigori have no outlet other than the humans we’re presented with when we are mere children. No mothers. No sisters. No mates.”

“So you kill like monsters?” Malachi asked.

“We are never taught to care. We take what we want because we can. Cruelty is rewarded. Mercy or conscience is not.”