16. GODRIC

Ifelt her the moment she entered Jegudiel House, a mile above.

This awareness should no longer surprise me. It should be something I can ignore, or become acclimated to, especially since I’ve felt her for years. At least, I’ve felt her power. Or so I believe.

But what I feel all the time now is nothing like what I felt before. That garbled transmission that scraped my sanity with its gibberish message, and droned like a taunting lure that promised never to be found. It’s not even what I felt when her mark, or whatever the bloody hell it is, appeared within my Sigillum. That blitz invasion that seared into my being, only to fall dormant.

What I feel now is different, and keeps changing, evolving. As if a blur of a boundless painting is coming into focus, at its own will and pace. It keeps circling, observing and learning me, never coming close enough for me to capture it, or even study it back. While it keeps intensifying its impact, refining its touch, like a player bent on becoming a virtuoso.

It wouldn’t have been this maddening if it gave me access to her at all times. But it only lets me pinpoint her when she’s relatively near, or in mortal danger. It’s then that her presence becomes a magnet, and my every cell filings.

She’s getting nearer now, and I tune in my senses to her as she skips down the steps. Each footfall is a thump in my heart, every breath, quick but steady, easy, a scorch to my senses.

I shouldn’t be this fixated on her. I can’t be. But I am.

I can’t even blame it on our enforced proximity. I’ve been in longer, and much closer quarters with others, and never developed any symptoms. I can’t even console myself that I’m suffering from some Pygmalion syndrome. She’s not my first Galatea.

I’ve trained dozens before her, more females than males, each unique in their own way, transformed them into incomparable warriors and weapons. There’d been nephilim, angel-graced, a few of the other races—even demons.

I can’t blame it on my need for her power, either. I’ve needed theirs, too, and handpicked each based on their potential use.

But while I shattered and remade them, they were only projects to be fulfilled, raw material to be shaped, tools to be forged. I never felt the drug of elation course in my veins following their development. Pride hadn’t raged its fires in my chest at their commitment. I certainly hadn’t obsessed over every nuance of their metamorphosis.

But then, none of them had been avid to take my punishment or reveled in my ruthlessness. None had craved whatever I do to them, or hungered for what I can turn them into. They hadn’t been grateful for every detail I drilled into their minds, or brand I etched into their instincts, or demanded that I drive them further beyond their endurance and limits. None had ever became addicted to my satisfaction or validation, or lived for the times they were under my whip, at the mercy of my will.

Only her.

I once told her that where she’s concerned, the buck stops with me. I was talking about her power then.

Now I know it’s about far more than that. It’s probably why I loathed being tied to her at the beginning. It had always been there, this premonition. This—omen. That something I never imagined would happen, and it would be beyond my control.

Then I caught her, snared her in my leash, and it was me who was trapped. Ever since, I’ve been buffeted in the maelstrom of her being, and spiraling in the vortex of our connection.

I did try to return us to a safer time of antagonism and distance before the Ceremony. Then she went and revealed another shocking secret before it even began, and shattered any pretense of noninvolvement. She forced me to intervene without premeditation, and all my carefully laid plans were thrown to the winds.

I antagonized the Fallen again, overtly and viciously, to abort their pursuit of her. And if Astaroth hadn’t stopped them and the Committee after he announced her a Null, I would have, at any cost. It was only his quick retreat when I declared that no one would take her away from me, that saved me from further acts of madness.

I spent the day performing damage control, to make sure she wouldn’t be in danger until I figured out how to fully, and safely, activate her own defenses.

To do that, I need to be clear of mind, and focused only on that purpose?—

“Guess what? I don’t know what’s best for me.”

I close my eyes and stop breathing. I stop my very heart.

That voice. Every time, from that bloody first night. It always hits me harder than any assault I ever suffered, and I’ve been bombarded by the most destructive forces on Heaven, Hell and Earth.

Those never impacted what I never thought I had. Those maddening, dismantling—emotions. What she’d unlocked within me, may have even created, since they don’t activate with anyone else.

Since these emotions are hers to wield, she targets them with a look. Triggers them with a word. Torments them with her very existence.

“I sure as Hell am not forgetting you kissed me. Or letting you forget it, either. Show me what you’ll do about it.”

Gritting my teeth, I lay the Seraphic Crystal down on the altar with the care I would an activated meta bomb. I would have otherwise smashed it against the cavern wall. It wouldn’t have mattered that it’s irreplaceable.

This is unacceptable. I thought I’d blunted the edge of the turmoil I never used to experience, destroying that mountain in Nepal. Now it’s back, doubled. All because of a few words. Delivered with the will-sapping melody of her addictive tones, and packing the punch of her hunger-laced challenge.

Not that it would have made a difference had she said nothing. Since that damn Kiss, my awareness of her has intensified tenfold.

It’s why I’ve been dreading this moment. When we’re alone again. Now she’s here. At the entrance of the cavern. Our cavern.

No one else knows about this place. I excavated it before the Academy reopened, in the spot where the Celestial Region’s magicks converge. I keep it hidden behind blood magic. Mine. Now also hers. Only she can sense or access it.

Now she skips in like she knows this place is hers as much as mine. She’s also saying what I warned her not to.

Only she dares thwart me. And I let her get away with it.

Even without her lethal secrets, it makes her the one thing that’s a true danger to me. The one thing that can shred my control.

Asmodeus would relish knowing it can be done. Or maybe the fiend would be jealous. Not that he seemed to be. He seemed secure I’d eventually get over her. I don’t see that happening.

Her aura and scent envelop me as she approaches, but I don’t turn. I don’t dare look at her, not yet. Almost losing her yet again had frayed the leash I’ve locked on the aggression that keeps assailing me harder every day.

If it snaps, I will go on a rampage. I will kill every Cadre member who dared attack her, and their master. That would start the civil war I’ve done everything to avoid.

And I wouldn’t even regret it.

Insane. She’s driving me insane.

Before this is through, I’m expecting to commit far more atrocities than I planned.

Because of her. For her.

They were right. I should have ended her the night I found her. I should have let her end herself. I only wasted one opportunity after another, and paid unspeakable prices to save her from the recklessness spawned by her misplaced sense of honor and ferocious love. Now it’s too late.

It was always too late.

There’s nothing to do now but let this hurricane brewing between us take its course, destroy what it may in its path. The most I can do is postpone the inevitable.

Her hand lands on my arm in a shock of sensations. She rarely touched me, usually by mistake or necessity. I’ve still archived each contact, and the exact amount it had eroded from my restraint.

But this touch is my fault. I made the irretrievable mistake of succumbing, for one brief moment. With that Kiss, I’ve given her license to push, to pursue, to invade.

And she does. Another hand clamps over my other arm as she brings her body flush with mine, resting her face against my back. My heart almost rams out of my ribs to meet the caress of her lips.

For long moments, I can’t make my voice work. When I do, it sounds like the rumble of a wounded lion. “The Cadre angel is awake and under supervision in the Raphael Sanatorium. So far there are no signs you did him any lasting damage.”

Her ragged exhalation of relief sears through my own lungs. It’s as if she’s been holding her breath dreading the worst outcome.

I knew her bravado was a cover for her anxiety, and fool that I am, I needed to relieve it. It’s why I led with this news.

I should have let her stew. It’s the very least she deserves.

I struggle against the need to turn and crush her in my arms. I might have if I thought comfort is something I’m equipped to offer her. It isn’t.

If I ever succumb, she will only find ecstasy in my embrace, along with anguish and agony.

After her breath evens out, she murmurs, “And?”

“And you were lucky, this time.”

“And?”

I clamp my teeth until I feel I’ll powder them.

How can she do this to me? With a single word she has me on the proverbial ropes, fighting for the least damaging way out.

Ending her would solve all my problems. The thing is, it would also end everything else for me.

“And there won’t be a next time,” I say, struggling to empty my voice of expression. “I will train you in the total and constant control of your powers.”

“Sounds like a great plan. Jinny said I’ll need to activate their auto-shielding component. Show me how.”

Her familiar mention of that Hellspawn, and especially her advice, what clearly demonstrates the change in their dynamic, spikes my frustration.

I let out a careful breath. “It’s not that easy. This new and unprecedented manifestation of your power is uncharted territory. Training you without taking every variable into account is far more dangerous than not training you at all. I have to devise a foolproof plan before we start. Until then, you must never act on instinct, or attempt to save your friend—and demon—again.”

“You know I can’t stand by and let them get hurt.”

This woman. She will drive me to tear this world down with my bare hands one day.

Drawing on all my Transcendence Training, I keep my voice level. “Until I teach you how to control your newly activated powers, I will keep them safe. You don’t have to risk prematurely igniting the Apocalypse for them anymore.”

Her breath hitches, and I squeeze my eyes, with the pleasure and pain that tiny sound lances through me.

“Thank you.”

She rubs her cheek against my back, and I have no doubt anymore.

That little monster is torturing me.

This is payback for every moment of dread and degradation I made her suffer. And I suspect she’s only starting, and has endless torment in store for me.

I remain frozen, and she remains pressed into my back, until I feel she’s attempting, and succeeding, in fusing herself to me. I almost shudder when she finally speaks.

“I’m not letting you shut me out again,” she whispers, that voice of hers, a soft blade twisting in my gut, cutting through my being. “Not after you almost sacrificed a chunk of your powers, and would have put yourself in a coma for me. You were willing to make yourself vulnerable, Godric, the one thing that goes against everything that you are. And you said you’d do it again.”

“I did and would, because I need your power. You know that.”

“What would you have done with my power if you were in a hundred-year coma?”

Bollocks. That’s the one question I hoped she’d never ask, the one I keep asking myself, and have no answer to.

She burrows deeper between my shoulder blades and sighs. “You said to come back to you, always. So here I am. Now what?”

“Now nothing. I told you to forget it.”

“Tough luck, pal. As the demons say, ‘If you want to be obeyed, order what can be achieved.’”

“Don’t forget it, then. Remember it every second for the rest of your life. It makes no difference to me. We continue as before. Nothing changed.”

“Everything changed, and you know it. So the question here is, why are you trying so hard to be Godawful again?”

“Because I was never anything else. I am far worse than you can imagine, and you wouldn’t want to suffer the consequences of harping on anything that I said or did during or after the Trials.”

Her hands caress down my arms, burning a trail through the material that can withstand my Elemental Graces. “Mmm, seems you didn’t learn anything about me during the past months”

“I learned too much. I know that trying to push you away will only make you bombard me with attempts to get closer.”

“Yet you still waste your breath telling me what you know I’ll disregard.”

“I’m stating my position, for the record.”

“Duly noted and acknowledged.” Her lips move against my back, in a smile, I’m certain. One of those mischievous quirks that send my tuquh hammering at the confines of my control.

I barely suppress it as she adds a slow, to-and-fro rub for good measure before her purr makes my marrow vibrate. “Now, I have a problem you must solve. I was too shocked and depleted to react the first time. I require a do over.”

Unable to hold it in anymore, I groan. “What are you talking about now, you confounding creature?”

“I’m talking about another kiss, you maddening monster.”

That finally shatters my paralysis, and I turn to her.

Deprivation, at separating myself from her touch, makes my head spin as I stare down at her.

She stares back, with those mind-altering eyes, her universes of determination and temptation.

How can anything be this beautiful? This devastating?

I shake my head, stunned all over again at my reaction to her. “I didn’t think anyone could be this self-destructive.”

Her luscious lips twitch. “Just to be sure—is all this best-for-me, suffer-the-consequences, self-destructive stuff advice? Or is it a threat?”

“It’s both. Pursue this and it will end in disaster.”

A dense, dark eyebrow rises tauntingly. “Not if I’m as dangerous in my own right as you always say. Now I’ve been proclaimed a Null, even your cousin the She-Godric is afraid of me. So thanks for the barbed tip, but I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be. Your continued safety doesn’t depend on your power, but my need of you.”

“You’re implying the moment you don’t need me, my safety will be discontinued?”

I hold her gaze, needing her to see the terrible path ending in shambles she’s so insistent on treading.

Then I utter my verdict.

“Yes.”