Page 89 of The Monsters We Are
She nodded. “And then something weird happened. Likeseriouslyweird. There was a brief interaction between Kali and my monster—I couldn’t make out what message She gave it. But mere moments later, my entity rose up and . . . well, it joined its soul with mine.”
Every muscle in his body locked tight, Cain blinked. “Say that latter part again.”
“Our souls joined. Only for a few moments but—”
“When you say ‘joined’,” he began, dread building in his gut, “you don’t mean it merely pressed its soul tightly against yours?”
She slowly shook her head. “The two merged. Fused into one.”
Cain’s insides seized and twisted. He wanted to say it wasn’t possible. Wanted to believe she must have been mistaken. But he’d never been one to blind himself to something simply because he didn’t like what he’d heard. “Then what?” he bit out.
“The entity’s power poured into me, reactedwithmine like two chemicals crazily clashing . . . and I guess that then caused Abaddon to wake.”
Unable to sit still, Cain abruptly pushed out of his chair and stalked away from the table. Pain pulsed through his jaw at how tightly he clenched it. His creature predictably lost its mind, not a rational thought in its head. “You should have told me this before.”
“I already explained why I waited.”
He shot her a hard look. “None of your reasons fully justify keeping something as serious as this from me. Especially your claim to have been spooked. Nothing spooks you—an assertion you yourself made several times.”
“No, I said I’m noteasilyspooked. And I’m not. But last night, I was a little freaked. My monster has always been separate from me. It’s never done anything like that before. I felt a whole bunch of things—confused, violated, weirded out, even betrayed. I wanted a little time to process it all.”
His blood hot, his body tight, Cain paced up and down. He tasted anger with every breath. Felt it course through his system with every beat of his heart. “You know what this means, don’t you? It means Kali can still take you from me. All She’d need to do is instruct the entity to merge its soul with yours, and then She could drag you both to the netherworld.”
Wynter stood. “But you could do something to stop that from happening, right? You could protect my soul somehow. I mean, youownit.”
If there was room in his system for any emotion other than deadly rage, he would have been touched at her faith in him and his ability to protect her. “Having full ownership of your soul won’t be enough in this instance,” said Cain, still pacing.
“But—”
“Kali owns the soul of whatever monster you host or, if nothing else, has full control of it. If that entity merged with you, yanked you to the netherworld, and then didn’t break that merge, I could of course pull on your soul to drag you back. But, just the same, Kali could keep pulling on the monster’s soul and, thus, yours. Between the two of us, we’d be fighting over who gets to keep you. I don’t know for sure that I could beat Her at a push-and-pull contest.”
Wynter bit down on her lower lip hard enough he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d drawn blood.
Bringing himself to an abrupt halt, Cain raked a hand through his hair. “We need to speak with Her. Now.”
Wynter gave him a pointed look. “You promised.”
Cain advanced on her fast. “Why the fuck would you havewantedme to promise not to contact Kali about this? You don’t care if She takes you?”
“You know I do. Don’t be a dick. The problem is that what you most want right now is for Her to drop what plans She has for me. We both know you’ll insist on it if you speak with Her. Just as we both know She isn’t going to dance to your tune.” Wynter lifted a brow. “Remember what She once said to you? She warned you that She’d tolerate your presence in my life unless you tried interfering with Her plans.”
Cain bared his teeth, and his creature hissed long and loud. “I don’t give ashitwhat She’s prepared to tolerate.”
“That’s my point.”
His monster lunged quickly, fighting for supremacy with such vigor Cain almost flinched. Struggling to maintain control of it, Cain backed away from Wynter. “Give me a minute,” he said through gritted teeth.
She didn’t argue or approach him, so maybe she sensed the current danger. Not that his creature would hurt her. But itwouldbite her. Would take another step toward binding with her, determined to somehow ensure that she remained locked to its side. Not that tying her life-force with that of his monster would be enough, but the creature didn’t much care to think rationally right then.
Once it threw up its metaphorical hands and stopped fighting, Cain took a deep, steadying breath.
“You okay?” Wynter asked, her voice soft.
“Yes.” Cain cricked his neck. “My creature isn’t quite stable right now. It doesn’t react well at the best of times to the emotions you make it feel. It’s never been so attached to another person, and it’s not very good at handling any situation where it feels it could lose you.” Not that Cain was much better. “What your monster did to you last night . . . we can’t ignore that, Wynter. We can’t ignore what it means.”
“We also can’t confront Kali the way you want to.”
Cain felt his nostrils flare. “Regardless of what She might want to believe, my claim to you runs deeper than Hers ever could.”