“Take it, then—give it back to him.” She didn’t want him sliding into darkness through no fault of his own.
“If only it were that simple. I cannot.Youmust, and you must do so freely. But knowing my son, he would not be still and calmly accept it—if that happens, it will come back to me to move on to the afterlife, or worse, go back to the demon seeking it. Either way, it will be the end for him.”
“What do I do?”
“Use this.” The Morrigan set a small cream-colored disc with strange writing on the coffee table. It looked a lot like the leavened bread given in a Catholic Church. “Place this disc in your mouth before you kiss him. It will create a conduit and hold him to you so the soul passes back.”
Darci glanced back at The Morrigan, who watched her as if waiting for something. What, Darci had no idea. “How did this happen—why did I end up with Blaéz’s soul?”
The Morrigan glided toward the window. “Eons ago, your bloodline bore only males. The arrival of a female babe broke that—” She turned and flicked her fingers for a word. “It’s not a curse, but something that just is. All rejoiced. Except, a few days later, the babe began to ail. Prayers were sent up and sacrifices made. They were devout worshippers of the goddess of war and death. Me. The infant, it appeared, had been born with a defect. A fractured soul, and would soon die. I knew she would be the perfect recipient.”
Darci stared at the goddess. Of all the things she’d imagined, this wasn’t one of them. Her stomach twisted into a hard knot as she braced herself.
“After Blaéz’s soul slipped from the demon who would have trapped it,” The Morrigan continued, “it came to me. Not evenIcould hold on to something that powerful. I’m merely a conduit for immortal souls to pass into the afterlife. With Blaéz incarcerated in Tartarus, I needed a host urgently. One the demon after the soul couldn’t find. So I saved the babe by giving her the soul, and every woman born to that bloodline since has been sworn to continue the lineage, to pass on the soul.”
“Pass on? How?”
“At childbirth, the mother releases the soul and the new babe houses it until she has her own young. Your mother knew of the prophecy when she became pregnant with you.”
God!Nausea rushed to Darci’s throat. Her mother had died when she’d been just a few days old. “Prophecy? It’s a damn curse.”
“You should be grateful, mortal.” The Morrigan’s eyes burned in sudden anger. “She gave you life.”
“I should be grateful that I lost my mother before I even had a chance to know her?” Darci glared at the goddess. “I wish she’d never gotten pregnant with me.”
“She had no choice, your ancestors saw to that by agreeing to the terms when they begged me to save their babe. The oath is binding. And it would have been for you, too, if you hadn’t met Blaéz. Each generation, a woman will give birth to a female babe and assure that the soul always has a keeper.”
“And if I didn’t marry, had no children?”
“You would have.” A simple statement. And the absolute truth. “You possess a male’s soul, you would have never formed a deeper attachment with the opposite sex. It’s why you would have wanted children to love.” As if she wasn’t ripping the very fabric of Darci life apart, The Morrigan calmly continued, “However, when I foresaw yours and Blaéz’s paths crossing, I granted a male child to your mother first—”
“—because you knew the next would be a girl, and that my mother would save me, and finally all this would be over. Youknewthis would happen,” Darci finished bitterly. She wanted to get up and walk out, but couldn’t move.
“I granted life to your lineage,” The Morrigan reminded her with a cold stare. “Now it’s time to release what was only loaned to you in good faith and do as your ancestors pledged.”
Did The Morrigan think she’d renege on that oath? She loved Blaéz; she would never let him suffer.
“Your kin knows the truth. I told him when you nearly died in an accident at ten summers. To save your life, he would have agreed to anything. He remains silent, thinking it would change the prophecy.”
“What?” Darci shot to her feet, feeling as if someone had punched her in the chest. “No—you lie! Declan would have told me!”
The Morrigan flashed to her and grasped her arms in a manacle, eyes glowing with ire. “See, mortal, see the truth.”
Images flickered alive in Darci’s mind…Enormous black wings strewn on the stone ground…a bare-chested man kneeling in a pool of blood—her heart clipped hard. She knew him. The mirage changed. There she was, ten years old and asleep in her bed. Thrashing about, the sheets twisted around her…
Tears streaming down her face—Darci’s eyelids flashed open, her mouth wide open in a silent scream. A man strung up, his back a bloody mess—so much agony. It consumed her. The pale, evil man who’d hurt him, his red eyes glowed in the dark as he approached with the fiery whip.
Darci scrambled out of the tangle of bed covers and raced down the stairs, arms flailing. She crashed into a vase, knocking it to the floor in a shattering of splinters.
“Darci?” Declan called, coming from the kitchen. She didn’t stop, had to get away from the red-eyed man.
“You cannot escape me—ever. You. Are. Mine.”
“No-no!” she sobbed. He reached for her. She yanked at the front door. It opened. She jerked out of the man’s grip, raced down the pathway and into freedom—
Screeching tires. A horrified scream rent the night. Darci went flying in the air and landed hard on the sidewalk, cracking her head. Held in the grips of shock, she lie there, pain tearing through her body.
“Darci, please don’t die—hang on,” her brother cried, cradling her bloodied, broken body in his arms, his agony making her struggle against the oblivion hovering…a peace she could feel, one she longed for to escape from her nightmares.
