Sebastian pushed me against the wall, his lips on my neck, my throat, the bottom of my ear, and along my jawline. He said my name over and over and over again like it was a prayer. One hand rested against the bottom of my back, underneath my shirt, and the other clutched the front of my shirt. It seemed like he couldn't tell whether he wanted to pull me forward or push me back. "I—I missed you so much," he whispered fervently, burying his face into the side of my neck.
My knees weakened to jelly, and I gripped his shirt to keep myself from falling into his arms. "When did you leave me?" I demanded, but my voice sounded breathless. My Sebastian. He was here, this was him, and my heart rejoiced with his presence.
Soulmate soulmate soulmate soulmate
He paused his kisses, his touches. "Kiss now, questions later."
I could get with that. I grinned against his mouth, letting my body curve into his. I let him answer my questions with his hands. I got my fill of him through touching him—his thick, dark hair. His warm, full lips. His hot, soft skin. The hard planes of his cheek bones. The square jawline. I pressed myself against his torso.
How long had I wanted this? How long had I denied myself the pleasure of kissing him? Why on Earth was I so stupid as to think Sebastian and I were not a match made in Heaven? God��s own hand had been a vital part in putting us together.
Sebastian sighed, his hands on my wrist, his eyes taking me in. "The day before my birthday," he answered. "I went out to fight with Griffin, and after he left, I woke up in the Underworld, half-dead."
My heart squeezed. Sebastian was back with me. I could beat Mother now. I could take her on myself because I had him by my side. "Do you know what a copycat demon is?" He kept his hand on mine.
I nodded. Luca had briefly explained, and from my own research I gathered that they took on the bodies of the deceased. "Somewhat," I said. Although, I didn't quite understand how they took the memories and emotions from the person they tried to be.
He sighed. "I have so much to explain," he said, but he was leaning forward to kiss me again. "Seeing him touch you…. I wanted to kill him." He snarled once, the sound vibrating in my ear, and I wanted to throw my clothes off right there.
But we had a war to win. A battle to fight. Sebastian had answers to give me. I pulled away from him, attempting to cut off all contact with him, but he kept his hand firmly on my wrist. "I can't let you go," he explained. "You're in the Underworld, and you don't belong here. The only thing keeping you from bursting out of your skin is my touch."
The Underworld?
His words pulled me from whatever dream state I had been in. "The Underworld?" I repeated, fury building inside of me. "The same Underworld Mother is in? Are you out of your mind?"
The Underworld. Sebastian had technically been gone for about two weeks now. Once I found out, I thought he was dead. But then he reappeared to tell everybody who Mother was and kidnap me. Only to bring me to the damn Underworld. Demons lived here. Mother's army gathered here. Mother potentially lived here.
Is it too late to return my soulmate? I looked up to ask the Angels, but then I remembered we were in the Underworld, a place on a different astral plane. Up and down didn't exist here. Nothing existed here besides demons that could kill me. He couldn't have even brought me without my saber.
"This is the only safe place for you right now," he replied.
I looked around at my surroundings. A bedroom with a huge, black bed in the middle of it. Pillows adorned the the top of the bed, and the blankets were made of silk. Four bedposts outlined the corners of it, topped by skulls that were definitely human. An old television sat on a black dresser, but, other than that, the room was barren. "You just said I'll die because I don't belong here."
He pulled a bracelet made of bone out of his pocket. "As long as something from the Underworld is in constant contact with your skin, you'll be okay. This is made of demon bones." He saw the look on my face and chuckled, adding, "They were dead before I took the bones."
"Because that's my main concern."
He slid the bracelet on my wrist, but he kept holding on to me. "I have a lot to explain, and not a lot of time to do it." His eyes roamed my face, though, as if looking for something only he would notice.
I gave him a look. "Well get to explaining." Because, now that he was safe, I had to get back to Clare. I couldn't leave her to fend for herself.
"A millennia ago, the Underworld gave birth to a group of high level shapeshifter demons. Unlike the shapeshifter we have now that only can look a certain way, they completely embodied the person. They were able to act like them, in addition to looking like them. They inherited memories and feelings. If your favorite color was blue, that was theirs, too. They literally became that person. Families, friends, lovers nobody could tell the difference between the shapeshifter and their loved one.
"It was okay in the human world, but these demons took it too far and started to mimic other higher level demons," he continued. "The other demons didn't like it. They were hunted and killed. Most of them were found, but not all."
Sebastian paused, giving me time to process his words. My face screwed up in disgust. Sebastian had felt like Sebastian when he touched me. He had felt like Sebastian when he laid next to me. Every punch felt like Sebastian. Every word felt like Sebastian. Except the ones that didn't, like when he snapped on me. Sebastian had been in the house. Maybe people and demons couldn't tell, but magic could.
Then it hit me like a pot of hot grits to the face.
Hillary had invited him. The morning of his birthday.
I hadn't—my skin burned in disgust. "I thought about kissing that fake demon."
I celebrated his birthday with a fake version of him. I couldn't tell the difference between the two of them. What kind of person did that make me? What kind of friend? Soul mate
He laughed. "I'll forgive you." He reached over and brushed the hair out my face. He had undone my messy bun when we first arrived, his fingers running through my hair. He kept his fingers on the side of my face, cupping my cheek.
I rolled my eyes. "But will I forgive myself?"
Sebastian only laughed again. "The shapeshifter demon knocked me out, drug me to the Underworld, and I spent the first few days—hours in your time—tied up and beaten. When I got free, I killed them and came back here to recharge."
I pushed my forehead into the palm of his hand. Fake Sebastian had felt right, but the real Sebastian felt even better. "Are you okay?"
Of course he wasn't.
"I'm fine."
I breathed a sigh of relief. "So what did you do here?" I needed to know more about what he had been doing while I was preparing for Mother. "Why didn't you come back?"
He placed a finger on my chin and lifted my head up. "Thought about you every single day. Regained my strength. Tried to find out who Mother was and how I could defeat her." He never broke eye contact with me. My breathing hitched. This was different. "I kept up with everything you did. I watched that bastard make you laugh, watch you sleep. I watched him have feelings for you and think they were real, knowing they would never compare to mine."
"How?"
"Well, my feelings for you are authentic. A build up of lived moments the past—"
I swatted at his chest—his strong, muscular, chiseled chest. "You know what I meant." For someone who didn't have time to waste, he was joking a lot.
His grin widened. "The demon didn't kill me, which meant I was still privy to what he did. As for why I never came back, I couldn't. It only worked because we were in two different worlds."
I tried wrapping my mind around the whole thing. Couldn't he have just fought the demon? "So how did you keep up with me? And why didn't you just teleport back up there?"
"I could see directly into his head. What he saw, what memories he made," he answered. "Mother sent the demon to spy on you. It was how she knew everything about you guys. Every time he disappeared, he was telling her what was going on. I needed to know what Mother planned, who she was, which was why I didn't come back. Luckily, neither of them noticed I was still alive.
I took a deep, heavy breath. "This is a lot to wrap my head around," I murmured. A total understatement. My thoughts kept running into each other, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. "You've been living with me, but you also haven't And you know everything that's going on with me, but I don't know what's been going on with you. I just—" Unsure how to finish the sentence, I stopped at the beginning of it.
At some point, we had gravitated toward the middle of the room, close to the tv. Now he nudged me closer to the wall, a grin on his face, a mischievous look in his green eyes. "I thought about how I'd touch you. Hold you. Even spent some time thinking about how I could kiss you and where….."
He focused on my lips with laser sharp eyes. He wanted to kiss me. I needed him to kiss me.
Which reminded me of the promise I made to myself. To tell him I loved him when I saw him. The words failed me, however. They blame stuck to the roof of my mouth, and not because I was nervous or afraid, but because Sebastian looked at me like he was going to devour me entirely, and I wanted him to do it. Mother and war be damned.
Sebastian grinned. "The sound of you breathing like that turns me on, Athena Jean Walker." He dragged his hand from the bottom of my thigh to my side, reminding me I had on nothing but a pair of spandex and a sports bra. He stopped right at the edge of my bra, leaving my breathing even more ragged. "Tell me when to stop, and I'll listen."
"That word's not in my vocabulary." Not with him, not right now.
"It should be." He chuckled and moved his mouth closer to me. "Should I kiss you?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
This time, Sebastian kissed me slow and lazy, a cat sunbathing, a dog licking its paws. He cradled my face in his hands as gently as he could, and my goodness.
Slow and steady had always been his game, and Sebastian played it well. His lips pressed against mine with the right amount of pressure—a softness that made them feel barely there. Even when the flames started licking between our lips, he still took his sweet time in pushing forward. There was no quick rush, no sudden tossing and turning. He moved with a deliberateness that made me feel like I was, simultaneously, in control and being controlled. All I had to do was say 'no.'
He dropped a hand from my face to stroke my skin. Everywhere he touched sent shivers and shudders down my spine, although I held it together long enough to nudge his mouth open. Our tongues connected at the same time he pulled me closer, a little growl building up in the back of his throat.
My awkward hands rested on his back at first, but the more I let go, the more they roamed. My hands slid along the planes of his abs, stroked his pecs, and squeezed his shoulders to ground myself. This was happening. A breathy sigh escaped my mouth, and my fingers tangled in his hair.
We couldn't get any closer yet, when I wrapped my arms around his neck, we somehow did. There was no telling where he started, and I ended. Paper couldn't fit in the spaces between us. His breathing matched mine. His heart beat to the same rhythm as mine did.
Seconds turned to hours. The minutes turned into days. He couldn't have kissed me more than a few minutes, but it felt like we had been there for years. When he removed his lips from mine to catch our breath, he gave my skin some desired attention. Kisses rained down on my collarbone to my chest. I pressed my palms against the wall to steady myself, stop from—
"You know what's always bothered me in movies?" The interrupter had a familiar voice, though I hadn't heard it in years. "When the world crashes around the heroes, and they take time out to kiss, or whatever it is you young folks do. I've always thought it was a sign of idiocy."
Sebastian's face was flushed, and the smallest sliver of irritation floated through his eyes before he adjusted his clothing. My mind reeled at the sudden interruption, but life had been nothing but interruptions and fastballs thrown at me. I recovered in enough time to respond, "You calling me an idiot, Grandma?"
My grandma, who corrected me that she goes by 'Grandmother' now since it's more elegant, looked every bit the same age she was when I last saw her—around sixty something. However, her clothes differed, as well as the way she carried herself.
Instead of her usual designer clothes, she donned a thin, plain black dress and strappy heels. She pulled her salt-and-pepper hair (our family never committed to fully going gray) into a ponytail. It showed off her long neck, along with a necklace of bone like the one I had resting against it, as well as a diamond resting between the middle of them. Diamonds are a woman's best friend, she told Clare and me when we sat in her room, watching her prepare for the day, and a little girl's closest confidant. The diamond necklace she had given us stayed in my room, put up and away from me.
She stepped further into the room. She placed her hands on her hips, finding a way to look down at us disdainfully while still smiling. "Of course not, Athena." Grandmother always called by my full name; it was her middle name, and she said the name was too pretty to shorten. "I'm calling him an idiot. Now, shoo, boy, you promised me my thirty minutes." She fluttered her hands around him like she used to do to us. The gesture reeked of familiarity.
Sebastian grinned. "Oui, mademoiselle." He walked away from me with a gentle squeeze of his hand, nodding his head at her respectfully before he left. When he did, he closed the door behind him. What did the rest of the house look like? When did he speak French? And why to my grandmother? The only languages she spoke were English and swearing.
"He is a handsome boy, but are you going to stare at him all day, mon ange?" She laughed, sitting on the edge of the bed and patting it. "I would prefer to talk to my granddaughter, who I have spoken maybe three words to in the past eleven years.
I turned away from the door. Truthfully, I had been unaware I was still staring at Sebastian. "I called you at least once a month for one year straight." I had. Then I stopped because it hurt my feelings that the closest relative besides my parents didn't want to talk to me.
"The cellphone service is bad here." She patted the seat next to her again. "Come, Athena, we have a lot to discuss before Sebastian finishes cooking."
Service? How long had she been here? Could I not make calls? Did the Underworld have social media? Why on Earth had she been here so long? She left when my grandpa died when I was about ten.
The second I sat down, she pulled me into a hug. She felt the same, even if she spoke a little differently. Warm and cuddly, I buried my face into her shoulder. "It's been hard, Grandmother," I muttered, putting my arms around her. I wished I could just tell my parents what was going. I wanted my mom to kiss my forehead and pull out of her notebook to make a ten-step plan. I wanted Daddy's pondering face to bring me to the stars and tell me why we would be okay with some history story that didn't quite answer my question. "Daddy's in the hospital."
She squeezed me tightly. "I know, sweetheart. I went to visit him this morning."
As much as it hurt me, the pain in her voice told stories. In it, I heard all the times she kissed his cheeks before going to bed. All the times she poured peroxide on cuts and bruises, or the times she defended him for talking about angels and demons and getting the rest of the family cut off. He was her favorite child, and everyone knew that. He stayed by her side through Grandpa's death and every misfortune that hit her life. He begged Mama to name me after her. He let me stay with her for weeks in the summer. He encouraged me to spend as much time with her as I wanted.
"I'm sorry." I didn't cry. She hated tears. Said they weren't for the public eye.
She rubbed my back. "Sorry for what? That's your father." She kissed the top of my head, and nostalgia came over me.
I had taken age eight for granted—running barefoot through the fields around her house all day with Clare, then coming in to eat and shower, finally trying on her clothes for a 'fashion show' before bed. We often collapsed in her bed, heels dangling off her small, sun-kissed feet, soft shirts and dresses falling off our thin frames. I used to beg God to give me more excitement. I should've shut the entire hell up.
"Right after I left home, I found myself wandering for something. See, I had always known about our Guardian blood and heritage—Gabriel came to me in a dream and told me I would see to saving the next generation. I thought it was the twins, but I knew as soon as I saw the logic in the other's one eyes it wasn't meant to be.
"I raised those boys with the knowledge they needed to pass it on. Your father was the only one who did, Athena. Of course, he didn't quite get it, but he knew you needed to know, too. The family called him crazy, told him not to spread that unholy stuff around the time. I used to sit on the edge of his bed as I did you and tell him stories about the Archangel Gabriel, and his six 'friends,' who made a race of super-humans to protect the regular humans. They had powers and weapons, kind hearts, and short tempers. These people were strong and fast, and they defended humans to no end."
She stopped. When a few seconds passed in silence, I asked, "Why didn't you train them?"
"I had no training myself. I knew a few self-defense moves from a stint working with the police station, but I hardly knew enough to train three bigheaded boys who only listened to their father." She chuckled. "After Clare was born, and then you came hours later, I knew I had found our Guardians. I couldn't convince your uncle to put Clare in martial arts, especially when she stayed in her head all the time and enjoyed writing to playing. I could convince your daddy, though, and he fought with your mama about it, but they let it happen.
"Then Clare moved away, and my own ungrateful son told me not to have contact with her again. He said I couldn't put that 'crazy stuff' into her head." She sounded bitter, but she marched on with the story. "Upset, hurt, and unsure, I sought out every corner of the world looking for something to make the pain go away. Another person, maybe. Wasn't drugs because I tried a little of everything except crack."
I gasped. "Grandmother!" My grandmother had tried drugs? At her confession, I pulled away to stare at her.
She laughed. "Athena, if you think that's surprising, I've also had lovers in every state. How does that song go that you listen to? 'I have different hoes in different area codes.'"
Drugs?
Lovers?
I wiped my face. "You're throwing a lot at me right now." Here I thought the craziest thing in my life was a psycho demon trying to kill me, shapeshifter demons masquerading around as my soulmate, and being able to kill a man with a single look. Nope, my grandmother had lovers.
"Sex doesn't stop when you're old, it just gets better." She gyrated her bony hips, and I threw myself back on the blankets with a moan. "I make that noise a lot, too," she teased.
Under no circumstances did I need to know what her go-to sex moan sounded like. "Please continue."
"I know you're chaste, honey, but no need to be a prude." Laughter spun in circles underneath her words.
Did everyone know I hadn't had sex yet?
"As I was saying," she continued, "I found different things to take temporary pain away, but there was one place in particular. In Florida, I ran into a demon promising me a good time. He made good on his promise; so good, in fact, I had a hard time letting go. He invited me to see his house, and I agreed.
"I knew he was a demon, but it didn't matter much to me. He brought me to the edge of the water, and I thought he was going to clean kill me right there, but instead, he grabbed my hand and jumped with me."
"The portal to the Underworld is in Florida?" I interrupted.
She gave me a droll stare. "There's a portal in every state."
Oh. I thought I had come upon a theory on why the craziest things came out of Florida. "You can continue."
"That was how I first came to the Underworld. I stayed for weeks here, which ended up being months in the human world. It was a lot like home, except I didn't age or get hurt. I ran into Sebastian a few days ago, half-dead and near my hose.
"Now, imagine my surprise when he started mumbling about a 'Athena' and talking about you like your daddy talked about your mama." She smiled at me, rubbing my stomach, another thing she did when I was younger. Rubbing my belly used to cure all worries, but the worries were way different back then. I could deal with a little teasing and bullying. "We ended up having to kill one of my lovers—he was the one who had knocked him out and dragged him here."
I knew Grandmother laid some important stuff on me, but all I could think about was her talking about lovers. She killed one, and even though she said it was because of Sebastian, I knew enough about her to know she probably killed him because he wasn't the best one she had. "So what's the plan?"
Sebastian wasn't Sebastian. My grandmother had done drugs. My father was dying. Mother was Lilith. Clare, Griffin, Luca, and Hillary were left to fight her for themselves, and I was positive leaving Clare out to die wasn't part of the plan. I'd find my way out of the Underworld before leaving her.
"Don't die."
I waited for more, but she added nothing else.
I sat up patiently. "Excuse me?" Never sass your grandmother, Mama used to tell me. This time, my sass was justified. The only plan they could come up with, even knowing who Mother was, was to not die? I pressed my hands together with a long, heavy sigh. "What do you think I've been trying to do for the past few weeks?"
I didn't pour over notes or invite crazy ancestors into my only safe place because I was curious. I had been trying to save my life, then Clare's, then the whole damn world for the past few weeks with no knowledge. And the only thing these assholes could come up with was don't die?
"There is only one way to defeat Lilith, and it takes more than just the five of you. We need all seven virtues and all seven sins, per the prophecy," she elaborated. "Lilith is sending her army to you as soon as dawn hits tomorrow morning. We need you five to take out as many as you can, and if you can't, then get the hell out of dodge. You two cannot die, do you understand me?"
Well yeah, I comprehended that just fine. "Dying wasn't on my to-do list anyway."
"I'm being serious, Athena." She leveled me with a look that used to mean I was in serious trouble. She handed me two rings. "Tomorrow will be hard, taxing, and potentially deadly. If at any moment you need to get out of here and Sebastian is not around, twist this ring to the left. Tell Clare the same thing. It will instantly teleport you to the Underworld.
"Here, you can be safe. We don't belong here, so we can't get hurt or age here. It's a nice place to hide out until everything settles down." She placed the other finger on my ring. "Sebastian and the others will be fine. They're not the targets. You two need to be safe."
I liked this plan much better. She should have just told me that from the beginning. "To the left?" I clarified, looking down at the rings that were made of bone with obsidian in the middle of them.
She nodded. "They only work once, so don't do it unless you have to." She broke eye contact with me as Sebastian returned. "It seems my thirty minutes are up. I love you, mon ange. Tell your cousin I love her as well."
I put my arms around her. She couldn't go yet. "I'll see you soon?"
"Of course." She kissed my head and walked out, pinching Sebastian on the butt as she left. He simply looked amused.
When the door down the hall closed, he looked a little shy. His eyes looked everywhere but me. "In about a day our time, we'll teleport to the middle of the battle. I live in the part Underworld modeled after Los Angeles. We can go to the beach."
I wanted as much time with him as possible. I crooked my finger, motioning him forward. "I can think of something better I'd like to do."
Everything was coming full circle.