“Oh no!” I pepper their sweet, rather irate faces with kisses. “Please be good for UncleMarshall.”
“Pardon?” He turns abruptly from the powwow he was having withChloe.
“Well, you can’t expect me to take themalong.”
Chloe enters the living room with a bounce in her step. “Where we off to? Let me guess, the Gas Lab? Themall?” She sticks her finger down her throat and pretends togag.
“Tenebrous,” I say and Barron wails so sharp and loud you’d think he understood me. Of course, Barron’s high-pitched wailing gets Nathan’s feathers ruffled, and now it’s a soprano choir inhere.
“Good Lord, can’t you control the little monsters?” Chloe growls at the boys. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve had enough of their competitive crying. Tenebrous sounds like heaven compared to this whiny baby hell you’ve leashed yourselfto.”
“Tenebrous?” Marshall grunts as if he’s the next one to throw afit.
“Yes. Chloe and I need privacy. It’s the best solution. Besides, who knows how many spies Wesley has swarming the island. They’re everywhere. You can’t escape them.” It’s true. You can’t go three feet on Paragon without having a fed trying to pose as a tourist. They’re everywhere, expanding over the island like breadmold.
“Skyla.” Marshall ticks his head to Wesley’sbetrothed.
“Not this spy. She belongs to me.” I give Chloe a quick wink while handing the noisy boys over to Marshall, and no sooner do they land in his arms than they both let out a hearty sigh. Marshall jostles them a bit, and they share a laugh in turn, warming me to themarrow.
“God, they have the best laugh.” I kiss them both on the cheek before hiking up on my tiptoes and offering one up to Marshall, too. He turns just enough for me to land smack on his lips. “I’d say I owe you one, but I think I just gaveit.”
“You do owe me one.” Marshall glares at the two of us as we head out the door. “And I’ll be cashing in sooner than youthink.”
“Anything you want! It’syours!”
Chloe grunts as I lead her out to the woods. “Ten bucks says he’ll demand a blowjob. He’ll be balls deep beforeevening.”
“Youwish.”
“I do wish. Wesley hasn’t touched me in months. I’m like a virgin all overagain.”
“Lovely.” I take up her hand as we enter the thicket behind Marshall’s home and step into a fog so dense you can take a bite out of it. “Control your hormones for five seconds and thinkTenebrous.”
“Nice of you to take me tohell.”
“Well, if I’ve heard you say it once, I’ve heard you say it a thousand times—there’s no place likehome.”
There wasa time when Tenebrous was abhorrent, a thing of horror, a hell whose best hope was a blaze that ravished every last inch of it. But the tunnels closed, the Celestra who were once imprisoned here are now free or had long since died along with their dreams. Then in a twist that only life could provide, I requested it from Demetri as a wedding gift. Yes. I acquired an entire plane of existence for the mere price of marrying his son. Gage was baffled as were most of those who discovered the fact, but Logan and I knew that if our Retribution League were to thrive, it needed a prison of its own. And that’s exactly what this is—was. A year ago, it was filled with Videns who had voluntarily become a thing of horror themselves—Spectators, the lore of which zombies come from. Yes, there was a time when the Tenebrous Woods were frightful, the stench of blood so pungent your palate was stained with a metallic taste for days upon leaving. In these very woods is where Wesley suckled off my neck, drank my blood like nectar to bolster his powers far beyond that which his Countenance lineage afforded him—before Demetri knighted him a Fem. It seems that over the past few years, identities have swapped out, alliances shifted, the landscape of the Factions is almost entirely unrecognizable. But Tenebrous remains unchanged, dank, dark, sallow with its charred evergreens, its deep velvet sky, the parched ground that thirsts for so much more than blood. And now it ismine.
Chloe and I land flat-footed among the thistles and briars, the slight stench of blood still rotting the air. The ground is dried and cracked, a desert terrain within this necrotic forest. Dark, twisted oaks, gnarled and burnt. The evergreens are dusted with soot, all of their vivacious color reduced to a somber shade of gray. There is no sun, no moon—not on this day, nothing but a strange darkness, that eerie glow just before night falls hard over the land. This world glows with plums and wines, even the light pays homage to the blood once shed on these grounds. The overgrown building behind us that once housed our Nephilim brothers and sisters now sits empty, collecting dust until the Viden Spectators can be detained once again. Wesley didn’t mind putting them in danger as long as they were outing the Nephilim people. As far as I see it, Wesley is the only one who should be imprisoned down here—I glare at the demon to my left—and perhaps Chloe,too.
I head over to one of the old hitching posts and find Ingram’s glowing notepad. Ingram Pendergast was left to plod around down here centuries ago—by the Counts, by my mother, the details all seem fuzzy and unimportant at the moment. He’s sort of the official keeper of the Tenebrous gate. He was Ezrina’s ex in another life, another time before he was brought here to be a keeper of the tunnels. He’s still lurking around the grounds somewhere, living it up in no-man’s-land. Nevertheless, I scoop up the glowing notebook as we head out of theforest.
“Let’s sit.” I point to the stone of sacrifice just past the skeletal woods. The stone shines like a lavender pearl in this strange universe, and I get straight to business of itemizing my covenant with Chloe on the glowing device. I take a moment to erect a shield over my thoughts—impenetrable to Chloe and any powers she might still bewielding.
“Finally.” Chloe lands next to me, her knee touching mine. There is a fire in her eyes, one that holds equal parts hope and vengeance. “I want the covenant initiated today. No more of this pussyfooting around.” A wry smile comes and goes. Sometimes you just need to cut a deal with the devil, and today is as good as any. “Bree told me all about your mother’s twisted venture. Who knew I had so much pull with her?” She examines her fingernails, but judging by that maniacal look on her face, I know she’s contemplating a Lizbeth Landon takedown just for the hell ofit.
“You don’t. Money does. And as dumb luck would have it, vaginas really are the next big thing.” She’s raking in so much, Tad hasn’t lamented his lack of employment once. Even though Althorpe all but dumped him, he’s still managed to eek a decent living from the disability checks stemming from what he now refers to as hislucky burn, but like all Landon great prospects, that good time is coming to anend.
Chloe grunts out a laugh. “You should know. Your vagina was the next best thing as soon as you showed up junior year—so young and so tight, it even turned the head of inhuman facultymembers.”
“Just the one.” I wag a finger at her as we share a quick laugh. “I’ll summon my mother, and we’ll do the covenant this afternoon. Why put off a good thing?” I drill her with my gaze. Chloe has always been a class act liar, but her eyes, they’re too feral to contain any secrets. Chloe’s eyes give her away before every single one of her bad intentions. But, at the moment, they look gleefully in line with her maniacalheart.
“Yes.” She draws a fist toward her chest in victory. “I’m going to break open one of those million dollar bottles of wine Wesley keeps molesting in the cellar. Of course, since he’s received his Ezrina-issued sex toy, he’s even refrained fromthat.”
“Did you ever find out who the girlis?”
“No.” Chloe looks just as frustrated as I do. “She’s some tramp who’s hot to trot with the idea, though. He saysget in bed, and she askshow wide do you want my legs spread open. She’s a real tramp, this one. I don’t get it, though. With my ability to morph into the idiot, you’d think Wes would have been more than pleased with that. Why the bodydouble?”
