The Celestial Kiss Read online

  The windows seemed to shake with the tenor of Julius’ anger. James watched him wearily, his features hardened by the ordeal he’d just been through. Janna sat next to him, more quiet than I’d ever imagined she was capable of being, her thoughts lost… probably still with Olias in the ashes of my past.

  A few of the elders sat around the chamber, looking worried or nervous or upset. They whispered to each other and cast long, thoughtful looks at us. It was as if everybody in the room were dying, their energy drained by the grief and exhaustion that their earlier altercation had sapped them of. Everybody except Julius, who was alight with anger, spurred by a refusal to accept defeat. And me. I was alight with energy, as if every nerve in my body were exposed.

  “He’s right.” The words tumbled out of me from some place I didn’t even recognize. “We can’t just sit around. Every moment we waste here, they get further away. And the further away they get, the more dangerous they become.”

  “If we just let them go on their way, we are opening ourselves to attack!” Julius continued feverishly. “With all the death around here, I don’t think anyone is up for another fight like that.”

  “The longer they are out there, the more people that will be in danger.” I chimed. “We can’t let them get away!”

  “I propose we break up into several directions. If we get out into groups of four, we should be able to cover our bases and still have considerable protection here. But we have to move fast, or we will miss our chance.”

  “Enough.” One of the elders stood. He was short—the size of a child—but his hair was entirely white. “I don’t know if either of you realize that dozens of lives were just lost. The queen, may she rest in peace, is gone and you’re worried about going back out there and risking more lives.” He clucked his tongue in disapproval and shook his head.

  “She was my mother!” Julius roared.

  His eyes softened on his brother and sister, looking as defeated as we all felt. He took a breath. “And that is why we must fight back.”

  “That is why we must not!” James broke his silence; his voice was sharper than I’d expected. “These lives are too valuable to be wasted upon retaliation. We are above that.”

  “What are you saying?” Julius snorted. “Let them keep on? How many times are you going to let them get the better of you?”

  “Julius,” Janna’s voice was soft, almost pleading, but even she couldn’t quell his anger. She didn’t have the strength to try.

  “They killed our sister, in case you’ve forgotten! They tore her apart! And our mother! Xian is responsible for father’s death, and let’s not forget all the people today! Evan and Marcus! Lucinda and Connor and Matthias! Olias!” His chest rose and fell violently with his passion. I felt only a fraction of what he did, surely, and yet the way it crashed through me was potent enough to keep me trying. “Where does it end?”

  “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” James’ voice was distant, as though the words were merely a recitation of something he’d heard but never truly believed. I didn’t doubt they were.

  “So you’ll sit back and do nothing?!” Julius slammed his fist into the wooden table. I jumped, but everybody looked at him passively; this was the sort of behavior that they expected from him.

  “We will wait.” James said it like it was meant as a compromise, but I knew it was his ruling. “When the time is right—”

  “The time will never be right!” Julius interjected. “How far can they push you, James? I don’t even know you anymore.” He shook his head sadly and turned like he was going to go. He seemed to think better of it. “What makes you tick? Is it her?” He shot me an accusatory look, as if James’ hesitance to take action were upon my request.

  James said nothing, but something in his face changed…hardened. His jaw tensed. “So that’s it then?” Julius snapped, shrugging his massive shoulders. He looked to Janna, but she said nothing, her silence affirming a dedication to her brother’s decision. “So the king has spoken.” His voice was bitter as he backed toward the door, shaking his head. “You’re a coward.”

  I looked at James desperately, and then turned, following his brother from the room.

  Julius was already halfway down the hall when I made it out the door, and after running to catch up with him, I inserted myself in his path, barring his exit—as if that would have done anything. “You’re leaving.” I knew the answer; it was more of a statement of fact than a question.

  “I’m not going to sit back and wait for something to happen. I’ve got matters to attend to.” He made to push me aside with a well-muscled arm, but I dug my feet into the ground and resisted him.

  “What about Janna?”

  “What about her?” His voice was gruff, layered to sound unconcerned, but the hesitance in his eyes betrayed him.

  “She’s grieving. I don’t know what happened between them, but Olias’ death wrecked her. How can you walk away and leave her?”

  “It’s better this way.” He attempted to push by me again, but I held my ground, refusing to move. I pushed back against him, noticing the tear in his leather jacket. Suddenly, everything made a lot more sense. I sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Because you’re dying too…”

  “What?”

  “Your sleeve.” I nodded at his arm. “You were bitten.”

  Julius faced me, impassive. “So?”

  “So you have, what, three days?”

  “Something like that.” He shrugged and began walking again, prepared to leave and never look back.

  “And you aren’t going to tell her?”

  “It’s better this way.” Julius repeated. But he didn’t seem to believe it.

  “You’re worried about your dignity.” I accused. It was a shot in the dark, but in the light of day, it made sense. “You don’t want her to see you go through that.”

  Surprisingly, he smiled. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”

  “You’re just going to disappear? No letter, no explanation…nothing?”

  “I’m sure you’ll do that for me. Besides, you’re one to talk about pride.” This time, when he pushed me aside I let him elbow by me. And then I followed.

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  Julius stopped, turned around with a small smile on his face. “Nothing.”

  This time, I let him go with no further questions. When I turned around, it was to face the man who’d been in my room just before Olias died. He looked at me sadly, the way I’d imagine you would look at a ghost that no longer frightened you. But he did frighten me. “What are you doing here?”

  I saw James over his shoulder, a respectable distance, but his nod assured me that he was there, that nothing would happen to me. “I don’t even know where to begin.” He said, looking truly bewildered. “Can we go for a walk?”

  “No.” I crossed my arms. “Did you put that picture on Calista’s chest?” I demanded.

  “What picture?” The man’s eyes narrowed, something like concern and suspicion shaping them.

  “I’ll take that as a no. So, let me ask again: who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “My name is Sam.”

  The name stirred something in my brain, but I was tired. It took a lot of thought to trace it back to that Robert Frost poem with the name hastily scrawled upon it. “Samuel?”

  “Only to family…which, you are.”

  I blinked, trying to make some connection between the meanings of his words. I tried to reconcile him as the son of Gabrielle, who had used her last weeks on this Earth trying to help me to escape. And yet, he was saying he was family. I looked to James, uncertain, but he only nodded, telling me to hear him out. “Was Gabrielle your mother?” I asked.

  Sam shook his head. “Gabrielle was a spy. She was sent to Providence as an informant of mine. She was just doing her job when she found you. And she probably would have never known any better, if she hadn’t seen your necklace.” His eyes looked to where i
t should have been, as if seeking confirmation. “Once she told me about that, I knew it was you.”

  “So Gabrielle wasn’t your mother?” I’d left on the mission of offering her some final act of redemption. Now, Sam was telling me that she hadn’t even been his mother. Just some woman who had worked for him, for whatever reason a forty year old woman would have had to spy for a man half her age.

  “No.” Sam shook his head. “My mother’s name was Evelyn. She died a long time ago, only a few months after she and my sister went missing.” Sam stepped forward and I stepped back, refusing to accept the direction that his story was headed in. He grabbed the collar of his shirt and gave it a tug to reveal a tattoo of a two interlocking triangles. My heart hammered hard into my chest, unsure of whether to trust this stranger, or of what to make of the tattoo that perfectly matched the necklace that had been stolen from me, a token of my mother. “My mother was yours, Lilith.”

  I’d been shaking my head, small and subtle movements, but now I was rattling my brain into my skull with the force. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. You and our mother disappeared from the face of the Earth when we were just a little over a year old. We thought you were dead.”

  “We?”

  “Father and I. He searched everywhere for you, for years. He never stopped looking—from Rome to Africa to Denmark, we looked for you.”

  The story was ridiculously over-wrought. And the biggest problem I had with it was that it made no sense. “Why would our mother run away? Why would she leave you?”

  “She didn’t.” Sam’s voice was sad. “You were kidnapped… both of you. Arich, the man who kept you locked up all those years… he stole you and our mother.”

  I thought of all the years he’d kept me out of sight, sending me to my room whenever a new guest was visiting, telling me that children were to be neither seen nor heard unless it was asked of them… He couldn’t have been my father, I’d known that all along. That was impossible. But then, so was I. “Why would he kidnap us?” I didn’t sound as doubtful as I felt. It made sense, despite my not wanting to believe it.

  “Because of what you are. Lilith, you’re a zenith.”

  He said the word like it was a position of reverence, but it had no meaning to me. James came to stand with me now, wrapping an arm around me. But I stared at the young man before me who claimed to be my brother and was calling me strange things, desperate to know what he meant and equally as desperate for him to be wrong. I didn’t know what it would mean if he was telling the truth, but I couldn’t handle another upheaval in my world. “Which is what?”

  Sam looked at James, as if seeking help, but there was nothing James could do. “You’ve heard of the Allon sisters? Celeste, Lilith, and Zenith?”

  I glanced at James, the one who’d told me all I knew of Celeste and Lilith. He squeezed my arm gently, like he was trying to give me some kind of strength. “No.” I said.

  “Well,” He let out a sigh. “Our father is so much better at explaining these kinds of things. The abbreviated version is that they were the first three humans. Lilith was kidnapped and corrupted by the fallen angel Lucifer, Celeste fell in love with a latter-born werewolf, and Zenith was left alone in the middle, watching her sister’s wage war against each other. They fought for her, each of them desperate for her to pick a side, but Zenith refused. She served as an intermediary, the in-between who kept peace between her sisters and, subsequently the werewolves and vampires.”

  “But she lived long ago. How can you say I am her?”

  “Not her.” Sam shook his head, a wave of sandy hair falling into his face. “One of her descendants, just like me, just like our parents. Zenith refused to choose sides with her sisters, but the fighting drove her mad. She ate out the heart of one werewolf and one vampire and cast a spell. It transformed her into something that was everything and nothing. She was not werewolf, not human, not vampire. Zenith couldn’t watch either of her sisters be destroyed, so she chose both sides. It made her powerful—all the strength of a werewolf, the speed of a vampire—but not bound to the conventions of either. She could not be controlled—not by the sun, not by the moon, not by her sisters, or God, or Lucifer. She became the pinnacle—the untouchable thing that stood out of reach from the rest. That is what we are.”

  I felt a little bit of nausea threaten to tip my stomach at the thought of being descended from someone who ate hearts, but I guess it was no worse than being descended from someone who feasted on babies or drank the blood of the innocent. I didn’t want to believe him, this stranger who thought he could so casually insert himself and his theories into my life, but I did. Because I’d always known that the man who’d never been able to offer a kind word to me couldn’t have really been my father. And because why else did the sun not burn me? Why didn’t I need blood? Why had I never been turned, until now?

  “Xian bit me. I’ve already changed. I can feel it.”

  “No.” Sam shook his head. “You’ve ascended. Look, I know this is a lot to take in. James was kind enough to offer me a room. I’ll give you time to sort through this on your own. Whenever you want to talk about it, I’ll be there.”

  He and James shared a curt nod before he walked away, his hands thrust in his pockets. I turned to James, dizzy with all the weight of these new revelations, of the implications. The relief on James’ face sent a surge of it through me, too. “You’re not dying.” He said against the thick scarf that Iz had brought to cover the bruises on my neck.

  Hearing him say it felt like having a weight removed from my chest, and I collapsed into him a little more. He was worn down, exhausted, and paper thin from all the grief of the past few weeks. He’d lost his father and his mother, and now his brother had run off too. But the joy on his face was pure, untainted. I held fast to him and he held tightly onto me, while we tried to figure out what exactly this meant for us. “All those years that your father…Arich… kept you locked away…everything that Xian ever did or said to you…it was because they were scared of you, Lilith.”

  I laughed, because it was a ridiculous thought. About as ridiculous as being descended from a crazy witch who had eaten the hearts of a werewolf and a vampire so that she could obtain the powers of both. That made me laugh more, and I laughed so hard that James eventually joined in too. I had to wipe away a tear when our laughter finally subsided.

  We walked together into the maze, to the courtyard where we had lay at the start of a storm not even seven days ago, something beautiful kindling between us. We lay exactly as we had that night, watching the tree branches sway and the clouds pass us by without a care in the world. “You’re not dying.” James repeated, kissing my cheek and pulling away just enough to see my face. “Because my bite had no effect on you. We aren’t bound. You aren’t bound to anything, or anybody, Lilith.” I didn’t understand why he kept saying my name. I liked the thrill of it, but something about its implication I wasn’t fond of. “You can do and be whoever you want. You cannot be controlled, not by anybody. You don’t need to be afraid anymore, ever, because you are the zenith. You’re as free as it gets.”

  His smile was sad, despite his best effort to make it appear otherwise. He couldn’t keep it out of his eyes, which just might be permanently scarred from all the carnage he’d witnessed recently. I grabbed him and held on tight, because I didn’t want to let go, not now or ever. I closed my eyes, trying to understand the gravity of what this meant, but thought only of Janna screaming in anguish. Smoke billowed still, black against the clouds as the fire had spread to the neighboring trees and carried to us on the wind.

  Xian could be anywhere, perhaps even watching us from just a few yards away. I had been right when I’d realized he needed me alive for something, and that something was power. He would not let it go so easily, like smoke slipping through a crisp autumn sky. But the thought didn’t scare me—at least, not as much as it had just a week ago.

  I was something beyond his control, something he could never
be. I was the thing that could control the man that nightmares were made of, the girl who could keep even the most powerful of men from absolute rule. I had been all along. No, there was nothing to fear…not from Xian.

  “You gave me my freedom already.” I pulled away so that I could see him and squeezed his hand. “I was free all along, fighting for something I already had.”

  “What now?” James asked. It seemed like a funny question, coming from the King. But he wasn’t the king to me. To me, he was the thing I’d been fighting for, the one that had helped foster those things in me, those feelings of love and acceptance, of another and myself. He was all I wanted.

  “I don’t know.” I admitted. “But whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”

  “As boyfriend and girlfriend?” A playful smile tugged at his lips. Despite his grief, he looked lighter than I’d ever seen him.

  “As the King and the woman who loves him.”

  James folded me into him and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “As King and Queen. Wherever we go from here, we go together.”

  I let my eyes close, relishing the weightlessness of this feeling. A whole new world of problems had been presented to me, Julius was dying, and Janna was a disaster. There was a stranger in the house who claimed he was my brother, a vampire who we had no idea what to do with, and a mountain of ashes miles away that had been people once, both good and bad. The vampires were running loose, Xian had escaped, and there were dozens of women and children and men inside awaiting their marching orders. But for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t worried. We stayed there, barely moving, barely speaking for hours, until the moon danced and the stars cast a pattern around us. Because for the first time in a long while, I had nothing but time.