Chapter Thirteen

Nova

Harvest had to give me access to my powers if he wanted me to help with his destruction. But he made sure I couldn’t do anything to harm myself. I couldn’t tear my body apart with a spell. That would be the easiest way to get the shackles off me, but there was no way he’d allow that. He didn’t give me full access to my power, either. Just enough to hurt people.

In their hurry to leave, Harvest had made a mess of his things. Harvest had scattered books, potions, and odd jars of body parts at my feet. He had taken a couple of things with him. He mounted chains to the rocks where he had experimented with demons. Streaks of red, black, purple, and green covered the area. A birdlike demon’s corpse was decaying on the wall to my right. I couldn’t smell it. I wondered how much my senses have dulled beneath that mask. Or was I so accustomed to blood and death I no longer smelled it?

August was coming. A part of me believed he was tracking Harvest and would go after him instead of continuing to that cave where I was. I didn’t like the idea of him searching for me. A strange heat gathered on my skin. It must be anger. Yes. Maybe he would be as furious as me to learn I was his marked mate. Maybe he’d be mad I was alive like I was too. He’d soon wish I was. Since I had the chance, I would seize the opportunity to put an end to one of the three who had wronged me. Not only had August played me for a fool, but he had also given those kids hope and crushed it. They died never knowing his deceit, which was good, because I didn’t want to imagine that day being any worse for them. I’d carry the knowledge and end him. The moment his power disappeared; August Reaper was dead.

My hands trembled, and I was sure it was because I couldn’t wait to kill him. But my heart quickened, and my mouth tasted like I’d swallowed fur. Glancing around, I wondered how I should wait. It had been a few minutes since Harvest left. If August was still there, he’d arrive any minute…

I could hide, camouflage myself into the wall, and blow him into bits when he walked by. Hiding wasn’t my style, though. It was Derrick’s. So I stood and waited.

The Reapers could materialize themselves at will without a portal chip. August could appear from any direction, I reminded myself.

At the first pull of energy behind me, I didn’t move. The power that rippled off August when we were kids had always made it easy for me to spot him out in the woods. No matter where he waited for us, I could sense him. It seemed time changed nothing. The amount of power he carried as he aged was downright overwhelming. It was like the cave walls were closing in on me, but it was just his presence.

I heard a sharp intake of breath right behind me. The hairs on my arms stood on end. August was too close. The cave was so quiet I heard the swish of his cloak, and my heart went into a frenzy. He planned to attack first. I didn’t think so! Without a word or movement, I sent a blast of my magic out right as there was a tug on my hood.

The impact of my explosion rang in the air. I turned, grabbing my hood to make sure it was still on my head. I saw his cloak first and the blood dripping on the ground. The cloak had no damage, but I always attacked from the inside. August knew that, and yet he hadn’t moved. I looked up because he was so tall. There was a strange tightening in my chest the minute I really, truly let myself see August. The man was smiling! I didn’t know what I expected, but it was not that.

“You didn’t say boom.” I didn’t expect that to be the first thing he said, either. Nor did I expect him to look so… disheveled. His beard was unkempt, eyes bloodshot, and the dark circles beneath were fierce. I wouldn’t expect an immortal to look so haggard. Maybe Harvest was scaring them after all.

“You’ve gotten taller. That’s good, but you’re still tiny,” he said, gaze roving over me.

I frowned beneath my mask. August stood there, talking about my height as if what—we were friends ? He showed me the truth that day about who he was. Breathing deeply, I sent out another explosion, but he disappeared before the blast went off. I spun around, searching for him. I didn’t sense him until he was upon me. The same tug of my hood had me twisting around to send another blast. He was gone again.

I didn’t understand. August wasn’t attacking, but he kept tugging on my cloak.

“Look at your mate, Nova,” he said in a raspy, unfamiliar tone. My pulse was erratic beneath my skin. A fiery heat burst across my face and chest. He might not be plunging a sword through me, but his words were doing some sort of danger. “See how much bigger I am than you? Makes me wonder how we’ll go together. I bet you’ll fit perfectly in my arms.”

My body was being attacked by that man. The feelings inside me enraged me. Why was I losing composure? I stumbled as I sent another shot of magic at him. He disappeared again, and I gasped, sucking in air, as if I could only do so when I no longer saw him.

I let anger consume me. I didn’t expect him to try playing with my emotions once again, but I should have known better. Did he think he could easily fool me again? Stepping forward, I lifted my hands out at my sides. If he wanted to keep disappearing, I’d just collapse the whole cave on top of us. He made me immortal. What did I care? I just had to keep on until his powers messed up.

There were four deafening booms all around me as I took out the walls and ceiling.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Boom!” he roared.

Huge chunks of rocks blew everywhere. Pain ripped into my shoulder and legs as some hit me. I sensed him right as he plowed into me, covering his body over mine. The scenario changed as we fell. I lit him up with an explosion.

Blood spewed over my cloak as he hissed. “Ow! Fuck, Nova.”

He flopped onto his back beside me. I sat up quickly and saw he had brought us to the human world. The green trees and signs of life were the first sign. And the heat. Hades, how did humans withstand the sun? I could feel it hitting me through my cloak, and towering trees hid me from it. When I glanced at August, he had his cloak pulled apart, shirt ripped in pieces, as his shoulder mended. The bones and tendons were stitching themselves back together. I saw a dark pink nipple and too much toned muscle.

I inhaled as he muttered, “You always hit the shoulder. Why?”

If I hit him in the chest or head, he’d die, then I’d have to wait for him to revive. It just seemed better to keep him alive until I could kill him for good.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned.

I sighed, wondering why I hadn’t attacked him again.

“How long are you going to keep this silent treatment up?” he asked. If it were possible, he would have stared a hole through me. “I didn’t recognize your voice in New York City. It’s been so long; I didn’t realize it was possible to forget. But if you spoke to me again, I know you’d be my favorite sound again. Maybe I’d know what being content feels like again.”

My stomach twisted painfully the longer I allowed myself to glance back at him. He made lying seem so easy and convincing.

“Take off the mask,” he ordered. “I need to see that it’s you, even if I know already. My curse won’t settle on waiting for you to come to me this time, little star.”

He moved so quickly that a squeal left my mouth. He threw his entire weight on me, slamming me onto my back. His knee stretched upward between my legs and one of his hands went to my mask.

No. He didn’t get to see me.

Pulling my magic to the surface, I tore into him. That time, I attacked to kill. Something strange happened to August. When I expected blood and guts to reign over me, his weight lessened instead. I shuddered when one of his hands slipped beneath my cloak and grabbed my arm. His touch felt nothing like heated flesh, but cold bars wrapping around me. I threw my hands out. My fingers sank into his cloak. And they kept slipping through, snapping on odd bar-like shapes… like nothing was hardly there. Panicking, I blasted him again. And nothing.

He chuckled, and the sound seemed more like an echo. “You can’t explode an organ or limbs if they aren’t any. My bones are strong in this form.”

Swallowing the bile rising in my throat, I realized what my fingers were slipping through. His ribcage . When his cloak peeled off my face, a skinless face peered down at me. Eyeless sockets, with his yellow essence burning through them, flickered in and out as he watched me.

I’d seen monsters of every kind and knew hundreds of evils. But I still screamed and thrashed, momentarily panicked by the skeletal creature pinning me down.

“Shh, shh, shh,” August whispered, but his voice had a barbed echo tone to it. And his mouth. Hades, the boned jaw, looked like it might fall apart as he opened and closed it. “I didn’t mean to scare you. This is the only way I can get close without you exploding me to pieces.”

I didn’t know August Reaper had a unique form. But I supposed I should have. He was the Grim Reaper’s son. That just proved how little I knew about him.

“I need to see you,” August whispered. The echo of those five words felt like a touch on my skin.

Sliding my fingers down to my pants pocket, I pressed the button on the portal chip. I ported, but he yanked my mask off as I did. I traveled to the human hideout he’d compromised earlier. Knowing Harvest would never use it again, it was safe to let August follow me there.

The air was cool on my exposed face. The coppery smell tinged my senses as I took a deep breath, pulling my hood back. I only took off the mask when I got to clean myself. Otherwise, I’d grown to enjoy hiding my face beneath it. Derrick couldn’t gaze at me, and I liked that.

August appeared several feet in front of me. The skeletal figure froze when he saw me. Tendons and muscles slid onto him first, as if someone took a human world thing they called a banana and closed the peeling back on it. Then he had skin and those charcoal-colored orbs again. He staggered as he took a step closer, eyes oddly shiny, as his throat bobbed. “How is it you’re more beautiful now?”

“Enough!” I shouted. “Even now, after all this time, you still want to play this game. Do you think I’ll fall for it again?”

His brows knitted together. “Game? Nothing about finding you is a game, Nova! I thought you were dead, only to realize you’ve been alive all this time, and you didn’t think to come to me? You could have said more lies to me, but I still would have protected you from the shit you’re in now!”

“What do you mean by lies? You’re the liar, not me.” My head felt like it might burst from the fury I felt. “I trusted you. If you had… they might have—” I silenced myself when my voice cracked.

“I should have stolen you the very day I saw you,” he said as he stalked toward me. “That way, you would have never gotten the chance to be so foolish.”

“I’m so tired of people thinking they can own me!” I screamed at August, throwing a wave of power at him. The force of my energy made him stagger backward. He shook his shoulders, then walked forward. There was a dark glint in his gaze and a tightened jawline, making him seem harsher.

“So, Harvest has you trapped,” August muttered. “Tell me, little star, how many bars are on those arms? Take off the cloak and show me.”

There was no reason I shouldn’t. August knew it was me, saw my face. Unhooking the snap by my neck, I yanked off the cloak. Six magical bands were on each wrist, one on my neck, and three on each ankle. I lifted the dress I wore enough to reveal them.

He glared. “Fuck, Nova. Why are there so many?”

August should know the answer. My power never stopped growing. I was a proxy. Witches especially continued to flourish in power the longer they lived. Just most of us didn’t survive childhood due to how trafficked we were by demons.

When I said nothing, he asked, “How do we take them off?”

What? “Take them off?” I repeated in a daze as he stopped in front of me.

“Yes, off. ” His gaze flickered over my face before staring into my eyes. “I see it now. You are the curse, not greed. Silence my body for a century and the moment I see you, I feel everything. You have been a bad girl, Nova.”

In a move so quick, he gripped my ponytail and tilted my head back. Even as I tore into his shoulder with an explosion spell, he slanted his lips over mine. Heat coiled inside my stomach. My body felt like a spring being stretched. He flicked his tongue across my lower lip right as I shoved him away. He yanked off his cloak and blood poured from his shoulder, even as it mended itself.

My chest rose and fell with my pants. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

August smirked. “I’m most certainly going to do it again.”

He disappeared. I spun around, only for his powerful essence to hit my back right as he wrapped his arms around me from behind. All I could smell was his blood as he lowered his lips to my neck and gave me a kiss there. A shudder rolled through me as he ground himself into me. Something hard and foreign pressed into my back. He groaned. “It’s not fucking broken after all!”

My face felt like it caught on fire when I realized what I felt and jerked away. “You—”

“Kill me if you want, but I want you to tell me what spells are on the shackles when I wake.”

“Why? Do you plan to take them off?”

“Yeah.” He adjusted himself in his pants with another groan. “I shouldn’t have done that. Just kill me, so it will go down.”

I scowled. “Is everything a joke? You realize I’m going to kill you the second your powers disappear, right?”

He stopped, jaws hardening. “I know the risks every time I let you attack me, knowing I can become mortal any second. It’s the risk you should have taken with me back then. I don’t know what they said to make you lie, but I would have protected you—”

“Why do you keep saying I lied? You were the one playing tricks, then refused to help!”

His mouth dropped before he scoffed. “I would have done anything you asked of me.”

“Hades, I can’t stand to listen to you.”

“Finally, something we can agree on,” he fired back. “You are infuriating, witch!”

“Me infuriating? You’re the liar.”

“You…” His forehead wrinkled as he sighed and lowered his head. “I am at your disposal, witch, so tell me, how do we free you?”

“So now you want to help me?” I asked as I glared. “What about back then?”

“Are you kidding me?” He rubbed his forehead.

August might not have killed me and the others back then, but if he had done as he promised, things might have been different. The cruelty he showed me that day gutted me more than any wound inflicted upon my flesh. I couldn’t let it go along with the fact that he tried to say I lied back then. How so? Messing with my emotions must be a pleasure for him, because that’s what he was doing. Confusing my body and heart because when he looked at me… I swore it felt like he actually cared.

He lowered his arms and stared before smiling ruefully. “You’ve only smiled at me once, you know.”

“Will you hush?” I muttered.

“You’re so beautiful with your venom, but I wished you’d stop using it on me.”

My body didn’t feel like mine whenever he spoke.

When I seethed in silence, glaring, he asked, “Is the bands spelled to kill the one who takes them off?”

“It will explode the second it’s taken off by anyone other than Harvest. And since I’m immortal because of you, he made sure it would hurt me, too.”

August nodded. “Do you know how bigger radius the explosion will cause?”

I shook my head.

“I guess we’ll find out.” He stepped closer. “If only you’d allow me to do this a long time ago, I would have been the only one to suffer from this spell.”

I scoffed. “Do you remember that day?”

“I would never forget it.” The blackness of his pupils stretched out, covering the whites of his eyes. “I buried you that same day.”

I froze, blinking. “You’re the reason I was in the ground? Why would you do that?”

“It’s a human custom. A way of giving respect to those who passed.”

“That is a strange custom,” I said. “I nearly suffocated when I woke.”

“If I had known you’d come back to life, I wouldn’t have buried you. I’m glad you did, though.”

“I wished I’d stayed dead.”

“Strange, isn’t it? I wished for death too until I heard you were alive.”

What? August, a man who had everything, wished for what I did?

“Whatever Harvest has put you through, I’ll make him pay.” August grabbed the bar on my arm. “Are you ready?”

It felt like ice engulfed my lungs. I kept waiting for him to say, ‘Hah! I fooled you again.’ Until that moment, I believed he was being cruel again. “You’re actually serious?”

“You’re getting out of Harvest’s hold today. And we’re going to work through our past. Together. ”

I gritted my teeth. The temptation of freedom was great. Why should I stop him? Retribution would be within reach if he got those shackles off me. Not only August, but I could also hurt Harvest and Derrick.

“Wait.” I placed my hand over his on my wrist, then immediately pulled away. He was warm to the touch and skin on skin… I didn’t know why, but it flustered me.

“What’s wrong?” His eyes crinkled at the edges, and so did his forehead.

“If you’re serious, then we have to be quick,” I whispered, suddenly fearful that the trees had ears. “The second you take off one binding, Harvest will sense it. He’ll send demons. He may even come himself.”

“Anything else?”

“What do you mean ‘anything else’? That’s dangerous enough. We could die every time you take one off. They could find us and chain us up before we revive.”

He grabbed my shoulder, squeezing lightly. “It’s going to be all right.”

I closed my hands when I felt the first tremble. “If you don’t think you can do this, tell me. I’d rather not risk it at all than suffer Harvest’s wrath when he discovered I tried to break free.”

August searched my face. “What has Harvest done to you?”

I ignored the question. “Are we doing this or not? Otherwise, I can go back to waiting to kill you.”

“Right. I’ll save you first, then we can talk and… other things.” The way he smirked and waggled his brows spoke enough.

I glowered. “Are you serious right now?”

“It’s been a long life without you, Nova.” He practically groaned. “You will put me out of my misery by death or pleasure.”

“I do plan on killing you after I’m free,” I agreed.

August lost his skin again. His essence swirled in and out of the exposed gap of his cloak. Then, in a blink, he grabbed one band on my left wrist and yanked.