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I obeyed.
The song played on, and when the bells chimed, they rang eight times. This time, they meant me to submerge my hand into the water. It would bring truth, break the binds of the lies tangled around my life.
My headache had left the building, and my body felt, I don’t know, kind of good. Rested even.
But who was playing those instruments?
Again, I obeyed and put my hand in the pond. The water sent cool pulses through my fingers, holding me with a firm grip.
“No, precious one!” Caer cried from somewhere beyond the garden walls.
The water bubbled in response.
A nugget of fear broke its way in. What if I’d stumbled into a deadly Aidan trap? His dirty magic could be concocting this scenario to torment me in a new, elaborate way.
I tried to pull my hand free, but was met with solid resistance.
“Come back to me!” Caer called.
The song drowned her out, the bells chiming twice, telling me not to trust her.
Ugh. The sense of calm began to fade.
“Can I have my hand back now?” I asked the pond after swallowing two lumps of fretfulness.
Yeah, that ball of unease definitely served a purpose. Still there, bigger now, joining with the distrust of Caer.
The coolness inside me reached my chest, quickening my heart. I tried pulling free again, but the cold shot up into my brain, removing my sight for ten terrifying seconds.
As my vision returned, a man manifested in the garden wearing nothing but a white kilt with an ornate copper belt around his muscular, dark-brown waist.
Whoa.
Shiny brown hair spilled down to his ankles in spirals, his eyes as white as the marble around us.
The pond kept its grip on me.
“Paris Raine,” he said, his voice gorgeously rich and unnerving at the same time. “Our seed of revenge.”
Jaw on the floor, I stared at him. Words were beyond me.
“I do not have long here, for I am almost at death,” he continued. “Betrayed by the deities you so blindly serve.”
Erm… Shit. I swallowed again, dread a chilly lick up and down my spine.
I wanted to protest the serve part, but my mouth still wasn’t working. Being numb and baffled worked for listening, giving me no chance to break his flow with a question.
Yet.
“The vampire deity discovered the secrets shielded from you,” he said. “She saw fragments of truth, and how to reveal them to you.” He smiled, showing off some seriously pearly whites. “Welcome home, my fellow seraphim.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Silvanus
Paris was under for less than three seconds before rising to the surface again in the middle of the river. He floated there while the water rushed past him, his eyes wide and pure white, gazing up at the sky.
No part of him was wet.
