Illusion

CHAPTER 9

“Kody!”

Dazed, she heard Savitar’s fierce shout, but all she could do was blink as memories ripped through her and shredded every last piece of her sanity. Over and over, she saw her family die. Felt the stabbing agony of losing what she loved most.

Of watching her world torn apart while she was powerless to stop it.

No longer in New Orleans, she saw herself standing in front of Sraosha, Suriyel, and Adidiron after she’d died. Their spartan office had been bright and austere. Clinical.

As were they.

Like his brethren, Adidiron was dressed in his ancient bronze armor. Golden fair, he’d been so beautiful that it was hard to look upon him at all. “Will you serve us?” he’d asked her.

Their request to join their league and fight against the Malachai had floored her. “Why would you want me? I failed.”

His hands folded in front of him while his wings were spanned out, Suriyel had stepped forward. Unlike Sraosha and Adidiron, he had short dark hair and vibrant gold eyes. His skin was a deep caramel that was almost the same color as her mother’s. “You are the only one who has ever forced him into retreat. For three years, you managed to hold him back. And you’re just a child. In all these centuries, with all the Malachai, no other general ever managed that.”

“But I failed,” she repeated.

“No,” Sraosha contradicted. “Your anger betrayed you. Had it stayed in check, you would have succeeded.”

Maybe. She wasn’t as sure about that as they were. All she remembered was the hatred blazing in bloodred eyes as the Malachai delivered blow after blow to her. He’d been relentless and huge. Nothing had daunted him. It was as if the rage inside him was so great that nothing could quell or lessen it.

Honestly, she didn’t know if she was up to a rematch with that monster.

Suriyel placed a kind hand on her shoulder. “You’re the only hope we have. We can send you back to the first Malachai. Kill him and reset the time sequence. Let the world know what it’s like to exist without such evil in it.”

She’d frowned at his request. “What about the balance?”

With a heavy sigh, Sraosha had folded his arms over his chest. “Another will rise, but whoever it is, they won’t be as powerful an enemy. We will be able to keep them in check.”

Still, she didn’t want to go back. Even though she’d barely lived nineteen years, she felt ancient. She was so tired of fighting. Tired of watching people around her die and not being able to save them. “I don’t know.…”

Adidiron had spread his hand toward the windows that looked out onto a clear sky. They darkened to show her the world she’d just left. Human survivors screamed out for help and death as the Malachai’s army dragged them into chains to serve them.

But the worst was her aunt Artemis—the Greek goddess of the hunt who had once ridden Kody through the skies in her golden chariot. For centuries, Artemis had been Nick’s sanctuary. Had sheltered and protected him.

Now, he kept her caged like an animal. Bruises and bleeding welts marred her beautiful features as she wept in hopeless despair. Just as he’d done with her uncle and father, the Malachai had stripped all of Artemis’s powers and left her to suffer at the hands of his army.

That was harsh, but harsher still was the fate of Kody’s cousins and the once proud goddess Apollymi. Their cries for death shredded her, heart and soul.

“Stop!” she’d screamed as she turned away from the horrors she couldn’t stand to see.

But Suriyel had refused to take mercy on her. “They are immortal. The Malachai intends to keep them like that. Forever. Is that what you want?”

No. What she wanted was to go back before all this started and have her family alive and safe. To see Urian and Ari teasing her while she played with their children. To feel her father’s arms wrapped around her while her mother sang to them. To eat barbecue-drenched ice cream with Simi.…

Sraosha narrowed those eerie green eyes on her. “The balance hasn’t been broken. It’s been shattered. Think you that animal cares that he has destroyed everything good in this world? That he has left us with nothing? Left you with no one?”

Adidiron had lifted her chin until she met his gaze. “If the balance is to be tipped, is it not better for good to reign than the Malachai?”

He was right and she knew it.

Tears had flowed down her cheeks. “Send me back and I will end this. Whatever it takes!”

“Kody!”

Blinking, she left her past and found herself back in New Orleans with Savitar shaking her. She shrugged off his hold and stepped away from him so that she could think.

“Are you back?”

She nodded. “Sorry. I’m just a little overwhelmed.”

“Understandable. It’s not every day you get to watch a herd of demons drag off your boyfriend.”

Her sanity snapping in half, she started laughing hysterically.

Savitar took a big step back. “Do I need to get you a doctor? Ambulance … straightjacket?”

Covering her face with her hands, she brought herself under control. “No. It’s just … not the first time I’ve watched demons drag off my boyfriend … or my family.” She closed her eyes and tried to get a handle on the situation and her slipping sanity. “And the saddest thing is I don’t know what scares me most. The fact that they will most likely kill him and end the world before we can find him, or the fact that we have to walk back into that building and tell Cherise we let demons take her baby.”

“Yeah. I’m going to leave that to you. I’ve already been on the losing end of a mother’s anger. Not real anxious to repeat the experience.”

Her stomach in knots from terror, Kody headed up the walkway to face Cherise. But that wasn’t really her fear. Her nightmare was that she’d fail again. Fail the world, her family …

And the man she’d been instructed to kill who owned her heart.