Nick snorted. Yeah, it was. He looked back at Kody and choked on another wave of tears as he realized it was too late for her.
“Ambrose came back to the past and tried to stop it. Three times.”
“I know.” Caleb rose to his feet while Nick gently wrapped his jacket around Kody’s body.
His heart splintering, Nick brushed his hand through Kody’s hair. “I’m thinking that if this didn’t work, we have one more option.”
“Nick—”
“Hear me out, Caleb.” Nick glanced past him to Zavid. “This is a longshot, but it’s time for the Hail Mary pass. We couldn’t stop them here and now. I’m thinking we stop Cyprian in his own time.”
“How? You don’t know when that is.”
“No, but we know someone who does.”
Caleb scoffed bitterly. “He won’t let you do this.”
“I think he will.”
One way or another, Nick was going to force him to it.
CHAPTER 13
“You’re out of your Cajun mind.” Takeshi literally choked as soon as he heard Nick’s idea.
Nick shook his head. “Kody’s gone.” He swallowed hard against the burning lump in his throat that mirrored the one in his stomach. His mood kept vacillating between nauseated grief, righteous fury, and hopeless defeat.
Honestly, he was beginning to think his emotions needed a traffic cop as they swung from one extreme to the other so fast that even he was having a hard time keeping up with them.
One word. One scent. It took next to nothing to send him careening over the edge to near breakdown levels.
And he knew if anyone understood that, it was the ancient being in front of him. “What would you do if you lost Nashira?”
The darkness in Takeshi’s eyes churned like a storm front. It was palatable and terrifying. And enough to make Nick take a step back.
“Then you know how I feel right now.”
Takeshi winced, rubbing his hand over his heart as if it ached from the mere thought of it. “I’m sorry, kid.”
“And I’m mad as hell. I want blood for this and I will have it.” More than that, he was heartbroken and wounded to the core of his soul. Really, there were no words to describe how screwed up he felt. Defeated and beaten, and yet the rage and need to strike back burned so deep inside him that it took everything he had not to lash out and annihilate the world, and everyone in it. The fury he felt that everyone around him was going on with their lives, unscathed and untouched, neither knowing nor caring that Kody was gone, while he felt like this …
It was all he could do to hold himself back. He wanted to see it all burn to the ground. Feel the cinders of souls rain down on his Malachai skin.
Only then would the fury in his blood be appeased.
This must have been how Kyrian felt when his soul screamed out for vengeance after his wife betrayed him, and Artemis came to make him a Dark-Hunter.
Nick finally got it with a clarity he wished to God he didn’t know. He’d always wondered what could make someone sell their soul for vengeance.
Now he knew.
There were some questions you shouldn’t ask, because you didn’t want the answers to them. If the truth were known, he couldn’t take it anymore. He was too young to be this tired.
Life had finally kicked him in the stones one time too many. He just didn’t want to get up again. Every option seemed closed and alien. In some ways, it was like being inside someone else’s skeleton. As if his own skin didn’t fit anymore.
While he’d outgrown many shoes and clothes over his lifetime, this was the first time he’d felt as if he’d outgrown his own body. Must be how a snake felt right before it shed its skin …
“It makes perfect sense. I drink the water of the Lethe and forget this and everything that’s happened since the night Kyrian saved me. Caleb can use his magick to bind my powers again and plug in the right memories. That way, my life will go on and reset the way it was supposed to be. I won’t remember Kody or being the Malachai. Everything will be normal.”
