According to Leela, a Seraphim of the fertility line, immortal genetics don’t work like they do for humans. I believe her because I sprouted wings just after my twenty-fifth birthday. My mother is a pure-blood Seraphim, and now, so am I.
Anyway, in summary, Osiris has created an army, and he intends to go to war with the Seraphim with all of us as his pawns on the battlefield. A lot of the immortals don’t know this yet; it’s something we’ve only recently begun to understand. Until I learn more about the Seraphim, I’m not doing shit.
The prophecy that says I’ll destroy the immortal race can go fuck itself.
I make my own decisions.
And I invite you to make your own choices, too.
Pick a side. Protect yourself. And for the love of God, do not go anywhere near Osiris. He’s a monster. Hell, the dick put my mother at the bottom of an ocean to drown over and over again for the last eighteen years. He also erased my father’s memories of everything that had ever happened to him.
That’s where we are right now—I just saved my dad, and now we need to find my mom. But as I said, she’s drowning somewhere, and this globe is pretty much all water.
So finding her is going to be quite a task. Fortunately, we have a lot of support for the mission.
Read on to continue the journey.
Remember, trust no one. Pay attention to the details. Don’t believe everything you hear. And watch your back.
A war is coming.
Which side will you choose?
Everything is so dark here. Cold. Painful. Agony personified.
I used to count the seconds. They later turned into days and weeks. It’s hard to know what’s true down here. I die. I live. I die again.
My mind wanders once more, and I swear I hear Sethios’s voice. So smooth. Warm. Concerned.
I miss you, I want to say to him. Why haven’t you come for me? I want to demand. Why hasn’t anyone come for me?
We did this for a reason.
I left my daughter behind to protect her. Has she grown up? How old is she now? Is she safe? Did Osiris find her in the end? Is Gabriel alive? Is Sethios?
My lungs fill with ice once more. I’m used to it now. I can only hold my breath for so long.
I allow it to consume me, to pull me under for those brief moments of blissful reprieve found only in the afterlife.
Sometimes my daughter visits me. It’s all a dream, an unrealistic expectation, but I indulge in it anyway.
Just as I allow myself to fall into a vision now of black wings and a cruel grin. Not Sethios, yet so much like him. I sigh. Where are you? I wonder. Does your heart break like mine?
I feel light. Reborn. The chains a shackled reminder of my fate.
This isn’t a happy story. I sacrificed everything for those I love, only to reside in perpetual anguish.
But as long as my little angel lives, there’s hope.
The prophecy says she’ll be the one to destroy us all. Does that include me? Her father? All our friends and family? Has the High Council of Seraph found her?
I shiver.
This world is so bleak and dark. So absolute in its obscurity.
Another inhale.
More burning.
Death.
On and on I go.
Drowning in circles, longing for escape. Longing for him. My love. My existence. The one I can no longer feel. The one who makes my heart break even in the afterlife.
Free me, Sethios… I beg him. Free. Me.
But it’s a lost cause. No one can find me now.
It hurts. It burns. It slays me once again.
Death. Sweet death. I can breathe here, if just for a moment. But those black feathers tickle my vision once more. What are they? Why are they here?
I wake again to something new.
The water has disappeared.
The world is filled with stones. A chair. More chains. Where am I? Another vision?
But this one is so different, driven by the source of madness standing before me.
A bolt of panic strikes my heart. I jolt alive in the chair, my eyes widening.
This can’t be real.
After all this time, why now?
“Welcome back, Caro,” he says, his voice flat and emotionless. “You and I need to have a chat.”
That cold voice is how I know I’m truly gone. Dead. Never to resurface again.
Oh, Sethios. I love you. Please know that I’ll never regret our choice. She lived. I died. I’ll always love you both. For eternity, my darlings… for eternity.
Where are you, angel? Sethios wondered for the thousandth time, his gaze on the stars above. Why won’t you talk to me?
No answer.
He sighed, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his heart in his throat. A week had passed since Astasiya had freed his mind. Not entirely, but enough for Sethios to think beyond his father’s control.
There were still holes inside his mind.
Pockets of missing memories.
But he remembered his angel, his Caro, his love.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his eyes closing as he pictured her at the bottom of the ocean, dying over and over again. He’d left her in that state for eighteen goddamn years, completely oblivious to her fate. All because his father had wiped her clean from his mind, suffocating him in a world of nonexistence.
Sethios hadn’t known his mate.
They were bonded in a way his mind couldn’t comprehend because of the fog inflicted upon him by his father’s persuasion.
And now, he couldn’t find her. Because she’d given up on him, on the world, on anyone ever rescuing her from the chains binding her beneath the sea.
His knees threatened to give, his chest an empty cavern drowning beneath a wave of anguish. In a way, Osiris’s torment had been a blessing. He’d provided Sethios over a decade of nothingness. No pain. No understanding. No care in the world.
Now it all crashed over him with the heat of a million suns, burning every molecule inside him.
He had to pull it together. Not just for Caro, but for Astasiya.
Ah, his little angel. She’d grown into a woman in the blink of an eye. She was seven yesterday. At least to him.
Sethios blew out a breath and ran a hand over his face, shaking his head. This self-pity bullshit wasn’t going to fix a damn thing. He needed to find Caro. Then he needed to find a way to take his father down. Killing the old man wasn’t an option—Seraphim couldn’t die—but he could immobilize him. Perhaps by pouring a vat of concrete over his head.
Sethios shuddered at the thought of his last “punishment” orchestrated by his asshole of a father. Osiris had forced Sethios to bury himself alive by dousing himself in liquid concrete. It had hurt like a son of a bitch. And yet, oddly, it still didn’t compare to the agony inside him now.
He felt as though his soul was ripped in half. Shredded. Destroyed.
Caro remained unattainable, her last whisper in his mind reminiscent of a dream. Had that been her or his own mind playing tricks on him?
Fuck, the pain she must feel…
He swallowed, his eyes briefly closing once more. He needed to get over this pity party and start the search.
There was just one problem.
He had no idea where to begin
Gabriel had shown him on a map all the places he’d looked so far—of which there were thousands—and none of them revealed even a hint of her location. This planet was mostly composed of water, leaving the possibilities endless. And without her talking to him, he stood little to no chance of discovering her whereabouts.