“I’m here,” I told him. “Tell me why I’m here.”
He hissed, glaring, the wrinkles moving around his mouth. “Respect, my son. It still works that way down here.”
Maybe.
My spinal cord retracted, growing veins and roots, grabbing hold of my other nerves and bones with a firm grip. I was still non-corporeal, but I could feel my resistance shifting, adapting. It was molding, making almost a new skin. I wondered what I would look like when I retook my human body.
But I was more powerful in this form. “I am here. That is a form of respect. You know I’ve defied you, remaining above and with Shay.”
He hissed at her name, coiling backward. “You will not use her name. I can smell her on you. It’s disgusting.” His eyes flashed, smoke coming from them.
“She is my soulmate. You will show respect for that. I am bonded with her.”
“I’m aware. I can feel her presence even now. She’s more powerful than you think. She can see things you don’t want her to see, read your thoughts. She’s in your mind when you don’t know she is. She is a plague. I never should’ve let you go above to get her for me.”
For him.
I defied him there first, staying and not returning with her. But he wasn’t entirely displeased.
“What is it that you have to share with me?” I asked.
This was not the most respectful conversation with the King of the Underworld, but he would not have called for me if he didn’t want to have it. I would not have been allowed entry as easily as I was. Entire armies could have stood between myself and him, but none of that had happened.
In his way, he had given me a path of gifts. I had murdered them, but that was the gift. That told me everything.
He wanted me to hear whatever he had to say.
I just needed to wait him out. That, and try not to get killed.
He was silent a long time. I remained quiet, also showing respect in this way.
“There is a prophecy,” he finally said.
There it was. I knew it.
I hated prophecies.
FUCKING PROPHECIES
YES, I’M STILL KELLAN
I could feel Shay calling to me, pulling at me to return to her.
I was moving, still traveling in my non-corporeal self, but I kept her locked out of my mind. I needed space to think about what my father had told me.
“A fallen messenger is coming. His wings were taken, and he will amass a great battle to win his way back to the heavens. He will find his answer in your soulmate. She is bonded to you and, therefore, seen as a plight to the Messenger ancestry. He will seek to eradicate her and further take out the good in you. He will then battle you, sending you back to the Underworld, ridding Earth of both ends of the soul-bond. When this happens, his wings will be returned to him, and he will be allowed entry back to the beyond. This is how it is said.”
When the words left my father, I knew they were true. I felt the power of the prophecy, felt the roots they stemmed from, and it was not from him. He had not created the prophecy.
If Shay were killed, he was right—she was the only good in me. I would be a full-blooded demon if I weren’t bonded to her.
“Kellan.”
I felt her now, heard her voice in my head, and I allowed her in.
“What’s going on?”
She felt my concern, and now I could feel hers.