Sweet Ruin

SIXTY-NINE

“I really appreciate the effort you made in there,” Thad said when he and Jo settled into chairs beside the pool. “I know it had to be strange.” Roger that. “I’ve done worse.” The three of them had talked about the old library, and some of the wackier things Thad had done as a kid. He’d laughed so hard that Jo had even chuckled. Before she knew it, she’d finished her blood, and dawn had been approaching.

MizB had excused herself to go check on Gram, topping off their mugs again. “Why don’t you go show Jo the pool? Just don’t be too late.”

Jo had stilled. “Late. You kidding me?”

MizB had blinked at her. “No.”

Now Jo asked Thad, “What’s this too late shit? Aren’t you nocturnal?”

“I’ve been going to bed around four in the morning, and Mom and Gram have been getting up later. That way we can sit down for breakfast together.”

“Your grandmother knows too?”

“I don’t think so. She had a stroke, and they say she’s got dementia. I don’t know how much has registered, but I don’t trace around the house or anything. She still cooks for me. Mom does too. Just in case.”

“God, she could cook. Her chicken was like deep-fried crack.”

He nodded emphatically. “Toughest thing for me to give up.”

“So tell me about our mansion-buying uncle.”

“He’s a berserker named Declan Chase. He used to work for the Order, this human operation that studies immortals. He felt guilty ’cause he had me kidnapped and imprisoned on a detention island in the Pacific and all.”

Jo’s mug shattered in her fist, blood sloshing over the outdoor table. “The FUCK did you just say? Tell me how to find him, and I will put him in the goddamn ground.”

“We’re cool now, Jo. He paid for anything he did wrong. Trust me, he paid.”

“Someone did that to you, and you’re good with him?!” She couldn’t believe Thad had been in all this danger, and she hadn’t known, hadn’t been there to watch over him.

“DC ended up helping me escape before the island got bombed.”

So much for his idyllic life. “What the hell happened?” She swiped her bloody hand down her jeans.

“I’d never encountered an immortal before I got imprisoned, definitely didn’t know I was one. I never had any powers, but somehow the Order knew about me.”

The Order’s on my light-them-up list.

“I woke up in a cell, and I saw all these things that couldn’t be right. I lost it, went comatose. I still would be, if not for Regin and Natalya.”

Comatose? “What are they?”

“Regin is DC’s wife now. She’s the one who was kind of egging me on to attack you.”

Jo hated that mouthy bitch—

“She saved my life on the island.”

She’s forgiven. “And Natalya?”

“She’s one of my good friends. A dark fey assassin.”

No kidding. “She lives in the city?”

“For now. I can’t wait for you to meet her. She won’t be pissed that you attacked Val Hall since she used to fight against the Valkyries on occasion.” He sipped his blood. “She’d heard a dark fey male was in town, and she’s been looking for one for a looong time. Your guy have a brother?”

“Not my guy anymore. You can tell her he’s been looking for her too, was amped to have a lead on her. Cheers to the happy couple.”

Rune flinched in his spot atop the property’s brick wall. Why wouldn’t she think he’d pursue that female?

Earlier Josephine had told the mortal MizB she was all by her lonesome—the same answer she’d given Rune two weeks ago.

Before they’d bonded. Before she’d become his, and he’d become hers.

Before them.

Then tonight had happened, when he’d ridiculed her feelings for him and assured her he’d always be with others.

“Oh.” Thad frowned. “I was kinda hoping Natalya and I might hook up. Maybe when I get fully transitioned.”

Thad wanted Natalya? Rune found it heartening both siblings were attracted to dark fey. He could give the boy pointers.

Josephine shook her head. “Date a baneblood?” She had never called him that before, no matter how furious with him she’d been. “Do yourself a favor and forget it. Not worth the trouble.”

Strike heartening. Waiting to approach Josephine had been the exact right call.

Thad seemed to consider that for a few moments, then said, “Nïx told me there was another phanpire—”

“Did you just say phanpire?”

“Yep. That’s what she calls us.”

Jo snorted. “Lame. Let’s just call ourselves hybrids.”

“But there are other kinds of hybrids.”

“Yeah, but we’re the best.”

Thad nodded easily. “I knew there was another . . . hybrid, but Nïx told me the other one was mated to a dark fey, a Møriør.”

“It’s over. That’s all in my rearview, kid.” Josephine sounded disturbingly confident.

“The Møriør are bad, Jo.”

He doesn’t even know we leveled Val Hall.

“The Valkyries aren’t? Your buddy Nïx wiped the pavement with my face. She crushed my skull and broke every bone in my body. I feared she’d do the same to you—that’s why I was bent on saving you.”

His jaw slackened. “She wouldn’t do that. Are you sure it was Nïx?”

“She would, and she did. That Møriør was there to pick up the broken pieces.” She seemed to be grinding her molars, and her outline flickered.

It is entirely too soon to approach her.

“Why didn’t Nïx tell you I’m your sister?”

Thad’s lips thinned. “Good question.”

“Have you ever considered they’re all bad? Maybe neither of us needs to be around any immortals. I mean, what does Nïx want with you anyway?”

“I think she and the others want me to fight the Møriør. But I just . . . I’m not sure I could take somebody down. I can’t believe how bad I hurt you. Jo, I could’ve killed you.”

Rune had had his doubts about the boy when he’d been hunched over Josephine with his fangs bared. No longer. Thaddeus Brayden was a good kid.

“It’s cool,” she said. “You jogged loose some memories for me, so no harm, no foul.”

From her childhood?

“I was only using a fraction of my strength, sis. I’m wicked strong.”

She grinned, and he matched her. They resembled each other much more when they smiled. Rune was noticing other similarities as well—the cadences of their speech, their humor, their mannerisms.

Because this boy had learned from Josephine, who’d been just a girl herself, taking care of a baby while living on the streets.

When Thad asked about the night she’d been shot and the months after, she admitted to meting out punishment, but he took it in stride.

She recounted that grim night and her struggles with her powers. Then she told him, “Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’d gone to that wake intending to steal you and your new puppy, planning to ride off into the sunset together.” She gave a humorless laugh, as if her idea had been idiotic.

“You ever think about coming back for me?”

“Every damn day. I wore those bullets strung around my neck to remind me I’d only hurt you. I kept up with your life as best as I could, and over the years it just seemed to get better and better.”

Thad peered at her intently. “So what changed?”

“I saw you in this city. With Nïx. And then I learned about the Lore.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Two-week newbie here.”

“Not much longer here,” Thad said. “You mentioned you had some clues about where we came from. For the last few months, even before the island, I’ve been having these crazy dreams. I think they’re connected to our past.”

“What kind of dreams?”

“I see fires and earthquakes and portals sucking at my feet. I dreamed I was crossing the universe, and I was looking down at a baby.”

“Thad”—she swallowed audibly—“you were looking down at yourself. You’ve been dreaming my memories. You must’ve harvested them when I fed you my blood on the journey.”

“Journey?”

She took a deep breath. “We come from a place called Apparitia, the realm of phantoms. We’re Apparitians. Or we were. You were born the day our world ended. . . .”

What the hells?