“Evil cannot be changed,” she said.
“Did he betray you for another? One of his own kind, perhaps? A female better suited to his particular tastes? Or, perhaps he turned to many other females.”
“Shut up.”
But he couldn’t. He was closing in on the truth. Even as sickness churned in his stomach, he said, “He used to laugh about you, you know. Said you loved him, begged him to be with you, to stay with you. Said you sobbed when he left. Said you—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” she shrieked, racing to the bars where Koldo stood. She shook with so much force he was surprised the reinforced metal held steady.
The ferocity of her reaction should have pleased him. This was what he’d always wanted from her, after all. Rage, frustration. Helplessness. Mirroring what he’d felt for so many years. But the sickness intensified. How could he do this to a female? Any female?
How could he hurt another of his kind?
She spit on his boots. “I hate you. I hate you so much I can barely breathe past it. I hate you so much I’d rather rot in this cage than pretend I love you or say I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I’m not! I never will be. You were an abomination then and you’re an abomination now. The day you die is the day I rejoice.”
Hurt and fury joined the collage of other emotions, the darkness in his mind thickening, once again banging at the dam. He stepped back, away from her, lest he lash out and end her—becoming just like his father. The scent of jasmine and honeysuckle followed him.
Even here, she carried the despised fragrance with her.
What had an innocent little boy done to elicit this kind of rejection? How could she blame Koldo for his father’s treatment of her?
How could Koldo still hurt, after all this time?
“If ever I die,” he said, “you won’t be the cause. You’re too weak. You’ve always been weak, and that’s why Nox let you go.”
Again she spit on his boots.
Hands fisted, he flashed to his home in South Africa. He had sixteen residences throughout the world, each tucked securely away from prying human eyes, but more and more this was the one he preferred, the one where he spent most of his free time.
Before he even manifested, he was beating at the walls, tearing the newly healed skin on his knuckles. Blood splattered. Bone snapped.
This time, the rage failed to drain as quickly.
Hours seemed to pass before he was shucking his clothing, ripping the material in his haste. The shirt and pants hit the floor and drew together of their own accord, the tears and halves forming a perfect robe. Cool water droplets splashed against his bare skin as he peered out at the turbulent waterfall.
That woman...
He punched the side of the wall, dust and debris ghosting through the air. Always she reduced him to this, to a man who felt as if his heart had been cleaved from his chest, stomped on, sliced, kicked around and burned to ash. He had to gain the upper hand with her.
Otherwise, he would kill her.
When Cornelia breathed her last, her spirit would leave her body. But she would not go up, would not spend the rest of eternity with the Most High in the Heavens of heavens. She couldn’t. To die with hatred blazing in her heart was to go down, down, down. It was a spiritual law no one—not even a Sent One—could supersede.
Devilish things could not coexist with divine things.
Reason number one Koldo was in such danger himself.
Cornelia deserved such a fate, yes. She deserved to suffer for all eternity. But he wasn’t going to be the one to send her to an early grave. He wasn’t like her—if he had to remind himself every day, he would. More than that, he wanted...what he could never have. Answers. Her love.
Absolution.
He gritted his teeth. No, he wasn’t like her—and he no longer wanted those things. A taste of vengeance was all he craved.
The thought hit him, and he paused. There was no way someone like him could help a female as fragile as Nicola, was there?
He should have stayed away from her, he realized. But he hadn’t, and now it was too late. He’d flashed away from her to prove the existence of supernatural activity, hoping to force her to accept it and take the first step toward fighting the demons. Now she knew.
Now she would ask questions.
If she asked the wrong people, they would give her the wrong answers.
He scrubbed a hand over the smoothness of his scalp. He had to stick to his plan.
And that wasn’t such a bad thing, he told himself. Nicola intrigued him. Her voice, so soft, so sweet...so addictive, a caress his ears already craved again. Her wit. Her resilience. Her bravery. He’d snipped at her, yet she hadn’t sobbed and begged for mercy.
Throughout her very short span on earth, one disaster after another had befallen her. Perhaps the demons were responsible, or perhaps the imperfect world. Perhaps both. Whatever the reason, he wanted better for her. The better he himself had found with Germanus.
Koldo just had to teach her how to fight the toxins. And he had to do it while keeping her calm. Fear would strengthen what the paura had left behind, and tension would weaken her immune system, strengthening what the grzech had left behind. Without fear and tension, the toxins would fade. With hope and joy, the toxins would fade faster.
Bottom line, what you fed grew and what you starved died.
Would she be able to look past her negative emotions and see the light?
A spark of anticipation beaded, somehow overshadowing the nearly overwhelming cascade of acid his mother had caused. Despite everything, he couldn’t wait to see Nicola again, to learn what she’d decided about his disappearance. If she’d convinced herself she’d imagined him, or if she’d accepted he was something other than human.
“So not the view I was hoping for,” a male voice said from behind him.
Still naked, Koldo spun and faced Thane, the second-in-command of Zacharel’s army. Thane, meaning freeman. And the warrior certainly seemed to be everything the word implied. The male’s carnal appetite was well-known. He hunted a new lover every day, discarding those he finished with as if they were dirty tissue.
And yet, even knowing that, women still flocked to him, as though he was the only male in creation with curling blond hair and big blue eyes.
“What does Zacharel want me to do this time?” Koldo demanded, reaching into the air pocket at his side to withdraw another robe. He yanked the material over his head, trying not to stare at Thane’s wings. They arched over the warrior’s wide shoulders, sweeping all the way to the floor. Pure white was broken up by dazzling gold. Trying—and failing.
“It’ll be better to show rather than explain,” Thane said, an odd note in his voice.
That didn’t bode well. “Very well. Lead the way.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE NEXT WEEK PASSED in a blur for Nicola. Every day she woke up at the butt crack of dawn, went to work, went to see her sister on her lunch hour, went back to work, went to her second job and toiled until the wee hours of the night before at last heading home, watching TV to unwind, then falling asleep for four measly hours—and the cycle started all over again.
Now, she sat at her desk at Estellä Industries, watching the clock. Come on, noon. Get here already. The only aspect of her life that had changed was her thinking. She couldn’t get Koldo out of her mind. Who was he? What was he?
After his disappearance, she’d asked the girl at the coffee shop whether or not she’d actually spoken to a giant of a man with a bald head and beaded beard. The answer hadn’t surprised her.