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A fitting place. “What do you intend to do with it?”
“Use it to rile Adam, of course.”
In other words, he had something real gory in mind. Fabulous. “Do you think Adam will come here?”
“I know he will. The only son he ever gave a shit about is now dead. That will be hard enough for him to take. Knowing that it was me who killed Abel will only piss Adam off more. The way he’ll see it is that I’ve taken his immediate family from him in one way or another—Seth, Eve, Abel. My sisters died in the first war, so he’ll at least partially blame me for how they lost their lives.”
“Adam won’t see that he set all this in motion when he decided to punish a child for things out of said child’s control. He tormented Eve until he killed all she used to feel for him. He tried turning all your siblings against you. If he’d handled the situation differently, there wouldn’t have been sides or seeds for a war.”
“In his eyes, my birth is what caused all this.”
She sniffed. “Well, it didn’t. You didn’t ask to be born. You didn’t ask for your mother to sleep with another man. You have as much right to exist as Adam, whether he likes it or fucking not.”
Cain couldn’t help but smile at her vehemence. “Always so very rigorous in your defense of me.”
“Would you expect anything else?”
“No.” Not from her. Not from this witch who was literally the only person who’d ever so fervently argued his simple right to just be.
“Now that you know Eve and the twins didn’t come here with malicious intentions, do you plan to build a relationship with them?”
Sighing, he plucked another fragment of bone from her hair. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I even could.”
Bonding with others wasn’t his specialty. Or even something he sought to do. When it came to Wynter, he’d had no real choice—the connection had sprung to life between them. He didn’t believe that same thing would happen with his mother or the twins.
“There’s no harm in trying,” she said.
“They might have no interest in even speaking with me when they learn I killed Abel. For all I know, they held out hope that the Ancients and Aeons would somehow find a way to make peace.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “If they try to make you feel guilty, I’ll go ape-shit on their asses. Just want you to know that upfront.”
He felt his mouth curve again. “I appreciate the warning.”
She frowned when he dipped his head to press a kiss to a blood-free spot on her nose. “I’m all icky.”
“Yes, you are.” And still as appealing as always. “And now that your hair is free of gunk, we can both shower. Though, at the moment, what I most want is to be sure that Demetria’s coven were neither part of nor aware of her little plot to end you. I want any threat to you eliminated.”
“Maxim promised he’d get answers for you,” Wynter reminded him, beginning to peel off her bloodstained clothes. “Something tells me he can be seriously scary when the situation calls for it.”
She wasn’t mistaken.
“Leave it to him, shower with me.”
Exhaling heavily, Cain joined her in stripping off clothing. Once done, they both stepped into the shower stall. A happy sigh slipped out of her as the hot spray drummed at their skin.
Cain carefully shampooed her matted hair, washing away the blood and tiny bits of gore he’d missed. She leaned against him, her arms curled around his waist. The moment probably shouldn’t have felt so normal, so mundane, but it wasn’t exactly unusual for his consort to be in such a state.
If someone had told him a year ago that one little being would be so essential to him, he’d never have believed it. He never would have imagined that he’d go through absolutely any lengths to keep a woman by his side. Never would have believed that a woman would ever proclaim to love him.
And yet, here was this witch who’d burrowed her way into his soul, who belonged to him in a way that nothing else had, who it would break something inside him to lose. Which was why so many questions pricked at him daily and rubbed at his nerves until they felt raw . . .
What “goal” did Kali have?
What had the deity forbidden his witch from telling him?
Was it Abaddon who kept calling Wynter to Cain’s garden?
If it was Abaddon, why would he reach out to her?
