Everlife (Everlife #3)

I decide to go with the familiar, calling on the determination I’ve been praised—and cursed—for possessing. “I can’t no’ look at you, baby.”

Unfortunately, the statement is true on more levels than I’m comfortable with. And why is my accent trying to come out to play?

She scowls, somehow more beautiful than ever. “Call me baby one more time,” she says, “and I’ll remove your testicles to make a coin purse. And by the way. You don’t remember this about me, obvi, but I never make threats. I make promises.” Her tone is pure sass—and I like it.

For a moment, a suspended blip of time, the corners of my mouth twitch as if I’m about to smile. Am I? Threats— or promises—are not something I take lightly. Ever. Kill or be killed. That is my wheelhouse.

“What’s your problem with being called baby? It’s a sweet endearment.”

“It’s generic, and it implies I can’t survive without my big, strong daddy.” She sneers the word, as if it tastes foul in her mouth.

She has daddy issues—got it.

But she’s not the only one. My father killed himself weeks before my birth, ending his Firstlife. With the terms of his covenant, he made it into Myriad rather than Many Ends. Though he’d been a trainee in Myriad—a Laborer just like me—he had the option of taking me in. I’m told he refused and signed away all rights to me.

Later I repaid him in kind. We were part of the same army, under the command of Madame Pearl Bennett, who later experienced Second-death. He desperately needed my help during a particularly nasty battle. Instead of acting as his shield and stopping his opponent’s lethal blow, I turned my back and focused on a target of my own.

Payback hurts.

I sometimes wonder what my mother would say about my actions.

She met my father in some kind of Myriad-based, gethappy program, while battling depression. I’ve visited the Hall of Annals countless times to read about her life, and, according to her files, she considered her dalliance with my father a mistake, but a mistake she could not regret.

Even before my birth, she loved me. For the first time in her remembrance, she wasn’t sad but overjoyed, excited. Because of me, she had hope for a better future.

But Fate had other ideas for her.

Caroline Flynn died within minutes of giving birth to me.

My chest constricts, breathing a little more difficult. I’ve watched the video of my birth…watched her nuzzle my cheek and coo to me as she bled out.

Before a child reaches the Age of Accountability, parents decide his or her fate. Caroline had a covenant to Myriad, ensuring I would follow her to the realm. And I did, two days later. The medication she’d taken while pregnant affected my heart. Or so I’ve been told. Deep down, I think I’d known I lost something—someone—precious, and my heart broke.

I know beyond a doubt Caroline would have taken me in, but again, Fate had other ideas. Even in the Everlife, her spirit was too weak to sustain her, and she experienced Second-death within days of her first.

“Killian.”

Tenley’s gentle voice invades my mind, causing the memories to scatter. I focus on her, wanting to lash out and hug her at the same time.

What is this strange pull she has on me?

“Be honest,” I say, unable to mask the croak in my voice. “Tell me how you convinced me to bond with you. What leverage did you have?”

“Me, convince you?” She snorts. “Baby, you practically begged me.”

I run my tongue over my teeth, not liking the baby endearment, either. “You lie. I would never beg you or anyone for anything.”

A glimmer of sadness appears in her mismatched eyes, only to vanish as she rallies. “No, you wouldn’t.” Gaze pointed, she adds, “You asked, and I said yes because you are one of the best people I know. You are strong, and you are kind…sometimes. You fight for what you want, never back down. Your courage astounds me. The lengths you’ll go to for the ones you love amazes me.”

My heart thuds against my ribs. She’s lying. Of course she’s lying. I can’t be one of the best people she knows.

But every fiber of my being wants to believe her.

“We married because we love each other, but also because I need to get inside Myriad,” she says. “Trust me, you want me there, too. We must dethrone Ambrosine.”

Myriad is all I have. I’d rather die than lose my place. “I would never agree tae dethrone—”

“And we must get inside Many Ends,” she continues, quieting me. “Many Ends is connected to Myriad, and we both believe your mother is trapped there. We plan to rescue her, together. And we can. I know we can. I’ve been to Many Ends before. Three times, to be exact. On my final trip, I rescued two spirits who now live in Troika.” She pauses, chews on her bottom lip and looks up at me through the thick fan of her lashes, hopeful. “Any of this ringing a bell?”

Breathing becomes a little more difficult. My mother, trapped in Many Ends. The equivalent of hell.

Truth? A falsehood?

Falsehood, definitely. Anger froths inside me. I must have told Tenley about my mother’s First-and Second-death. Or she did some digging and learned all on her own. Either way, the result is the same. She used the information against me.

And I let her.

Tenley Lockwood thinks to manipulate me. Because she has power over me. Power that has nothing to do with the bond.

What if she finds the human fused with my mother? What if she hurts my mother?

The anger heats, turning into fury, my cells becoming bombs and exploding. With a snarl, I leap to my feet. Menace in every step, I approach her.

She straightens, but she doesn’t back up. When I reach the bars, she raises her chin, stubborn to the core, and I almost admire her.

Who am I kidding? I do. I admire her.

But I won’t stop. Though I’m without a single weapon, I’m far from helpless. I can kill an entire contingent of soldiers with my bare hands—and have.

Silent, we stare at each other.

Shadows protest such close proximity to her, my bride. The bond warms and tingles, empowering the Light inside me. I don’t care. Tension crackles in the air, so thick I can feel tendrils of it brush against my skin, sensitizing my nerve endings. She feels it, too. Her inhalations grow shallow, her chest rising and falling in quick succession.

She’s tall for a girl, but I dwarf her. I have a good hundred pounds of muscle on her, too. I could easily overpower her. And yet, just then, overpowering her isn’t what I crave…

The fact that she doesn’t back down, well, I’m impressed.

“Before our bond, someone in Myriad told you the identity of the human your mother’s spirit is supposedly Fused with. A teenage girl,” she says, her voice as calm and steady as before. “You tracked her down, and decided she couldn’t possibly be the woman who had given birth to you. Couldn’t even be half of her. So I told you my suspicion—Fusion is a lie Myriadians tell to cover up the fact that they wind up in Many Ends after Second-death.”

Please. “I would know if Many Ends was connected to Myriad.”

“Because you know everything? Because you’re never wrong? Because no one in Myriad has ever been dishonest for personal gain? Which is it, Killian? One, two or three?” She grips the bars of the cage, and shakes. “Maybe all? A lie cannot stand forever, because its foundation is fundamentally cracked. When a storm comes, the lie will crumble and fall, and only the truth will remain.”

I don’t want to answer her questions or respond to her analogy, but for some reason I don’t want to lie to her or hurt her, either.

Wanting her off guard, I reach out and place my hands over hers. She gasps, but still she doesn’t back down. Her gaze zooms to my wrist, to the horse branded there.

“Have we had sex yet?” I ask with enough sneer and leer to enrage a saint.

Her gaze jerks back up, meeting mine. Twin pink circles stain her cheeks. The blush quickly spreads to her neck, covering the pulse hammering at the base, and along her collarbone. How I would love to strip her, find out just how far that blush travels.

“No,” she snaps. “We were waiting until we could touch without our Shells.”