Once Time Passed (A Burdened Novel Book 4), page 28
I come up behind him and rub his back. “She loved you, Nate, monster and man. And she wanted you to have the desires of your heart. I saw it in her eyes. Her last words, Nate, were fight for what they said you can’t have, and you’re doing that to the best of your ability. She was one of the smartest women I knew, and if she didn’t believe you could win this, she wouldn’t have told you to fight. She never led you wrong, so if you need any type of reassurance that your choices haven’t been wrong, remember what she said.”
He turns to face me. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, Nate.” I leave him for Jason, to scoop him up. “Take some time. I’m taking Jason to the bedroom and will start on my quiz after I grab a bite to eat.”
Parts Per Million
Nathan
Tracey’s right. My mom wouldn’t have encouraged me to be with Tracey if she didn’t believe I could beat this. I want to beat it, may it be Qualms, my father, Lunis. My mate and I need to find a way to change our future. Not just our future but this world’s future, if that’s what’s at risk.
What will it cost for her happiness? What’s the price of our peace? How much do I give to have a life my mother swore I’d one day experience?
“Tracey, I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back later.”
“Okay,” she returns. “Call me if you need me.”
I’ve got more questions than answers, and I hate that feeling. The first thing I need to figure out is how my—why—my father’s back. If it’s him that’s orchestrated this, like Jucenta believes, Lunis would know. Laine has been working for Lunis in more recent months, I recall seeing Laine in Lunis’ office while I milled around that warehouse. It’s about time I check on Lunis anyway.
I lift the hatch and jump down into the cellar where Lunis has been hanging for days now.
“You can’t just leave me down here without food or water!”
“Ehh, yes I can.”
Maximum capacity of this place would be ten people comfortably. There’s no outlets or windows. A perfect place for torture, out in the middle of nowhere, where there’s no one in hear or seeing distance for miles.
My father had plenty of these spots throughout Bennington and the surrounding cities. Maybe more than the ones I know about. He once told my mother they were for storage, but many made of stone are still stained in blood. No matter hard he tried to clean it up and douse these spaces in bleach or ammonia, blood can’t be washed out of stone. A reminder to him of his faults.
The similarities between him and Lunis are appalling, and I’m disappointed in myself for never seeing them before.
It takes every ounce of me to not act out the top ten ways I want to kill Lunis when I look on him. My Burdened, not fond of us leaving Lunis alive, makes sure I can’t forget what he did to Tracey and my mother. My mother’s last minutes, sat in a circle of light with Tracey, her eyes a circling sky-blue holding no fear or regret for what she knew would be her exit from my life. Dammit if she didn’t know how much hate would rival in me for Lunis killing her, it takes a lot to keep down that evil. An evil I used to wish would take me over when I got a little too annoyed with my father. The one without regret.
“How long has my father been alive in Laine’s body?” I ask. I’ve leaned against the wall and propped the sole of my shoe to its smooth stone.
Lunis shrugs, chains clinking from the movement. “Not long after your mother died.” He barks a breathy laugh. “You’ve been doing some research I see.” After a yawn, he droops his head to the left and rests it against his arm.
The comfort he’s displaying is repulsive, and knowing he’s doing this just to get under my skin, makes me want to react the way he hopes. But, I’m doing my best to stay in control. “If you and my father were already in cahoots, why’d you murder my mother?”
“We were never in cahoots. You father came to me to clear your debt after he’d discovered I had a contract on your mother and your mate.”
His word sucker punch me in the face. “We’re not talking about the same person.”
“Listen more than you talk, Nathan. Your father came to me to clear your debt after he’d discovered I had a contract on your mother and your mate, in exchange for you. My watch seems to run faster than everyone else’s, because just like you, his time ran out. I never break a promise.”
“Then it wasn’t because of my aunt why you killed my mother?”
“Oh, your aunt . . . Your father’s sister. Yes. She wanted her deceased husband returned to her side, she didn’t care what was inside of him. So, I asked her to lead me in the right direction.” He lifts his head and his brows rise. “And I didn’t expect it would be her to help me. I thought your mated sister would, the one who was Roehl’s sister.” He laughs three heavy chuckles. “You want to know what she told me? If they must be taken down, the one person she’d allow to take down the Newcombs was herself. And I, Lunis, could go and find seventy-seven different ways to kiss her ass.”
I hold back my laugh. Wow, Ann didn’t give me up like I thought she would. Either revenge is too sweet for her to give up, or it’s sour enough for her to let go. Either way, I’m making a mental note to thank her. “That’s it?” I ask.
“Your aunt pointed me in the right direction to get your mate and your mother in exchange of a plug to my hooded friends. Your father, he promised he would bring you to me.”
“Why do you want me so badly, Lunis? All my life with this, what do you want.”
“No,” he breaks in. “Not all of your life. I was one of the last who cared about you. For me, it was after you mated. After I got confirmation of exactly who and what you are. After I found out the Qualms were beginning to come here.” I let him bang about how me being mated was eye opening and how the Qualms need me, until he says something that catches my full attention. “Your body belongs to me, and I’ve been waiting hundreds of years to obtain it. It wasn’t until you broke through the barrier of my manor that I realized it was all true.
“I was once in a king named Nathan, who bore the mark of death. You two have a lot in common. Same father issues as well. I had the honor of raising the first Burdened Sephlem. I had the honor of making love to a woman that was so far different from any human, I couldn’t figure out what she was. Sephlem. I created your race . . . you and Hybrids. Hybrids, because I took that egg that was confused in what type of being to become. I had no idea the body I was in was born demon. A demon within a demon is a bad combination. And he wasn’t acknowledged. He was a useless beast. At least I thought . . . until this woman came forth with the children we, the three of us created.”
Hold the fucking phones. “What?”
“Which part would you like me to repeat? Everything you are I have been, and I want it back. It was snatched from me, and I’ve searched and searched, and searched for it, hoping it would land in my lap. And there you stand, Nathan, before me and you don’t even know the full potential of what you are. It’s a waste, really.”
A shadow passes the raised latch I left open for the light to enter the cellar. I’m leaning from the wall, beast slowly coming to life. It’s a weakened. I’ve not fed in days and it’s hungry, though it doesn’t have any problem using its energy to punch me in the face with memories. I start to cross the ground, but the scent of lilac blows into the cellar with the wind.
Tracey climbs down the ladder, and drops off it, avoiding the last four steps. “Are you saying you’re this demon that they don’t want to call his name?”
“Did you follow me here?” I ask her.
“Yes,” she answers me but turns back to Lunis in wait for his answer.
Lunis ignores her.
“If she has to ask you again, you’re going to lose a leg.”
Lunis shifts his tired gaze to me. Staring me down, he says, “Yes. I believe that’s exactly what I said.”
I mull over a thought, really, two, on what he means by what I do. I’ve been capable of many things, holding abilities most Sephlems, Burdeneds included don’t have. Like, my ability to control someone, anyone, and my ability to subvert the mind to force someone’s body to smolder in less than a second and spontaneously combust. Here, he’s saying there’s more.
“What is that you think I can do, Lunis?”
He flicks his wrist, once and then two times. “If you’re going to kill me, Nathan. Kill me. I’m done entertaining you.”
“It is likely we who are entertaining you,” Tracey says. “By allowing you to believe that there’s anything beyond these four walls in your future.”
Lunis looks on Tracey, his head leans one way and then other as he’s admiring her contemplatively. “It’s not that I hate the two of you, although I do. I hate what you’ve done to me and believe you do not deserve the same. But, I admire the two of you, Tracey and Nathan. You for keeping him and him for never letting go of you. You two are more powerful than you realize. Possessing a love that will end a war you didn’t realize was at bay.” His gaze falls upon the ground. “My darling wife and I shared a love that strong. And when you love that hard, nothing else in the world matters.” He snorts. “You don’t realize, Nathan. What you went through to get to Tracey. No one has ever broken through that barrier. But you did. And you’re still too blind. What a waste. . . You, all of you, took from me and dare believe you don’t owe for what you did!” Anger floods into his tone as his eyes wash red, and iris glow black. “I will make you pay for what you did! You will have to answer for the death of my wife and daughter! I will snatch that body from you and all you power will be mine!” He’s shaking with rage, chains rattling from the reactions.
“Hmm.” Tracey bemoans. “I was a bit intimidated up to the point where you said you’ll snatch his body. That sounds weird.”
Lunis is fuming, webs of saliva thrash past his lips. He grunts heavy breaths. “You, you, you. The girl who broke the bound. It’s your doing why your mate has no heart,” he says, and passes out.
I cross the floor and slap him across his face a few times, needing he’ll wake and explain further.
“What just happened?”
“Maybe he exerted himself,” I answer Tracey. “But it’s not true.” At least I don’t believe it is. Not based off of what I’ve heard. “There is a heart in me, I’m alive, there’d have to be. But it’s blocked off, in such a deep incasing, we can’t feel it. But it’s your heart, Sparks. There’s no breaking that.”
She leaves me for the ladder, and I’m eager to ask, “You believe me, don’t you?” Because it doesn’t seem like she does. The obscure look in her eye as if she felt I was feeding her a line. Maybe some bullshit to make her feel better. But it’s the truth. I mean, I don’t know why or how, but Jucenta said, I do have a heart that’s blocked off because of our bonding breaking.
“Sure, Nate,” she mutters indifferently.
There’s only so much convincing I can do without having the proof to back up my words. Now, she’s going to feel like everything was her fault, when it wasn’t.
Tracey’s still as stone when I make it above ground, her eyes locked on a friend. A man who should be a friend to her. On my way over here, as I thought on Lunis and my father being in Laine, it was painful to recall my mate sought solace in a Nemanite. We are their mission regardless of what’s on the line. I should’ve saw it, when he traveled back with us. No Nemanite would bow out of their purpose to be around Burdeneds.
I look on Laine, and in an instant my vision warps in and back out to a point where I see my father. It’s like he’s present just beneath the surface, but I see him as though he stood before me. “Hello,” he says, chin tipped downward, as though he were ashamed of this moment.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Lunis called. I was here for him.” Pleadingly, he puts his hands out before him, palms up. “Keith, you’ve likely heard a lot about many of things since returning to life with your mate. Ignore it. Live the rest of your life out with her, enjoy whatever time you two have left,” he says sincerely. “You’ve been fighting your entire life. When will you let it go and live a little?” he approaches me and Tracey steps between us. Retracting his steps, he concludes, “I’m sorry for our past, son. Your mother always told me the hate wasn’t worth it.”
“Why do you hate them so much?” Tracey asks.
My father goes to explain, and when I blink, I’m snatched from my reality and am breaking into what may be his past. I flinch from the sporadic images popping around me until one sticks. A child, my father, laying among slaughtered bodies. The only one alive, besides his mother, who stood in their kitchen, pearl blade clutched in her hands, ramming it over and over again into her gut until she buckled over and the hit the floor. He was bleeding out, but was saved before death swallowed him. Over his past, that I’m stuck viewing from the outside looking in, he’s saying, “My mother was Burdened and for no reason at all, murdered our family. Everyone. My sister was two, my brother sixteen, my father,” he snorts a laugh. “He reminded me of your mother. And herself. I was just a boy—a eight-year-old boy—but that doesn’t matter to the Burdeneds, they take everything without a second thought until after it’s done.”
“If then,” I finish for him, as the vision on his past fades.
“If then,” he follows. “Is that reason enough for you? Or watching my Burdened children grow, and nearly murder your mother and myself. Hearing my sister murdered her husband and left their children alone. Witnessing the evil and corruption from their demon in two sons, turning the lives of my family upside down. The amount of debt I had to pay for their errors. Olar lost his father because of his sacrifice to free our sons.” He digresses. “I no longer hold the anger I did, but these are only a few of my reasons.” Turning his attention to me, he asks, “I thought you were visiting the Forge tonight.”
“You thought wrong,” I say, with a shrug that results in my arm bumping Tracey’s.
On my graze, she gasps and shoots across the grass. She throws punch after punch at my father. Little sparks and flames pop off her fists. “How long have you been in my friend?” she shouts, ramming her fist against my father’s shoulder and chest. “You slimy, son of a—”
“Hey.” I grab her back. “That is not your job.”
She shoves me away from her. “I want answers!” her finger sparks like a firecracker when she thrusts a point in my father’s directions, demanding, “Have you always been Laine, or did you recently kill him?”
My father pulls his hands behind his back and nods, willing to give her the answers she’s demanding. “Laine had always been an informant for Lunis. He and I became relatively close around the time Lunis decided he’d capture you. I’d asked him if he’d be willing to get in close with you and willingly Laine agreed. If but to get closer to The Great Nathan and be the Nemanite to take him out.”
Tracey’s in complete denial. She combats, “Laine wouldn’t.”
My father shifts his uncertain gaze to me and swears, “He’s a Nemanite, there wasn’t much convincing needed to be had. Lunis had not originally revealed that Tracey was the mate of a Burdened Sephlem, but he knew. They always know. I had later told him, the one he was to capture was the mate of Nathan Newcomb, and he was all for doing whatever needed to be done to get closer to her.”
“But he was there for me, the entire time. He made me cupcakes for my birthday. He was my friend, our friend. He had plenty of opportunities to take advantage of me and ne never did. The Nemanite from the party even said it, it’s because of the Laine that the Nemanites didn’t come after me. You’re lying!”
“Allow me to finish, Tracey.”
Tracey turns her back, the image too much for her to take.
“Later,” my father continues, “Some time after you’d come for Tracey. Laine returned and explained though he’ll continue to keep us up to date to with what’s going, he wouldn’t be responsible for any action taken against the Newcomb family that’s under Nathan. We let him go, but he knew it wasn’t the end of it. He’d stop informing, although he was coming up on mounds of information.” He pulls a notepad from his pocket and motions for me to take it. I decline. “Well, this is all we’d found out, but it wasn’t enough, and with him backing out, we couldn’t afford it. Lunis had him snatched by two Mulens that work for him. Lunis snatched the life from him and inserted me through the ability of the Qualms possession. A week before Lunis orchestrated Nathan’s death, I returned as Laine. As I said, son, he was going to kill you, but I saved you. Not because I want to use to for something, but because you didn’t deserve to be cheated out of your life. You earned greater respect than that.”
“Why’d he suddenly start refusing?” Tracey asks.
“Why do you think?” my father replies. “Now, here we are.”
Tracey drags her thumb across her nose and lets her gaze fall away from him for a second. A second long enough for me catch a glimpse of her grief. After clearing her throat, she asks, “He’s dead right? Dead dead?”
He nods. I peer through Tracey’s eyes and find, in her sight, she’s seeing Laine. It wasn’t until I touched her that she saw my father. The findings of this deceased Nemanite is painful to her, and though I don’t understand—I don’t want to understand how she can feel for an eel—I don’t want her to look on him and hold back because of the sight of a friend, should my father try to attack us.
I grab her hand and place it on my side. Her sadness replaces with rage, and it’s hard to decipher which emotion I prefer, because now, I need to rip this dude’s head off.
“I murdered Caige,” Tracey says. “And before he died, he hinted to me that it was you who ordered the hit on my mom and dad. What did they ever do to you?”
