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"Is shadow fall a place?" she mused, leaning into me and no doubt feeling my hardness pressing against her ass. "Or a time? An event?"
"I can make a shadow fall," I said. "I'll just stick my foot out and trip Wane the next time I see him."
"Hilarious," Haley drawled, but her soul rushed around mine, her fear bright and loud but comfort was there too, like I made a difference, like I gave her the same strength she gave me. She was a fucking gift; being able to comfort her was a gift. I'd never take it for granted again.
"There's no mention of another death," I pointed out, letting my lips linger on her shoulders, tasting her skin. "Only the one that took you and Wynvail already."
"Yeah, because the prophecy is about Cronus's dying. He'll probably take us with him, but Phoebe didn't bother writing that because we're an addendum to the more important death."
That hadn't occurred to me. My chest tightened at the thought, and I dropped my hands from her boobs so I could wind my arms around her.
"Shit, that was thoughtless," she muttered, settling her hands over my arms and squeezing. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," I bit out, visions and memories flashing behind my eyes. Being frozen in place, helpless, while she fought Cronus alone. The scent of blood in the air—my mate’s blood—when he ripped the knife out. The knife I gifted her. The emptiness in her eyes, the limp fall of her arms, the slackness of her face. The cold, icy numb that froze our bond.
"Kai," she murmured, turning in my arms and catching my face in a rough grip, digging in her fingernails until the prick of pain drew me out of it. "Look at me; I'm right here. And you're right, the prophecy doesn't say anything about us dying, so that must be positive."
But she'd put the idea in my head now and it would not be evicted.
She kissed me suddenly, desperately, and a groan caught the back of my throat. My hands flexed on her hips as her tongue parted my lips, taking control of me in a way that made my gut clench and my balls ache.
"Haley," I breathed, husky and raw.
"Back with me?" she asked, panting, her lips red and wet, tempting me back for another taste.
"I'm with you," I swore, and kissed her again, surrendering when she dominated the kiss, far too thrilled with the way she controlled me to fight back. Her sweet taste invaded my senses, wrapped around my tongue until I couldn't remember any other taste, and a deep, throaty groan escaped me when she threw a leg around my waist and ground against me. Heat boiled up in my cock, need a fucking furnace in my blood, pounding with unrelenting demand.
I knew it was a fear response, but I didn’t give a shit. I needed to be inside her now.
"Question," she gasped when we parted, her breathing hard in a way that felt like an accomplishment. "This was written in the old language."
"That's not a question," I pointed out, fastening my lips to her throat and kissing down to her collarbone.
"Whose old language is it?"
I paused, drawing back. Blinking. I … didn't know.
"It looks nothing like any other demon language," she said, reading my confusion through the bond. "So who made it? Where did it come from?"
"I don't know. I don't think my mum ever knew, or my grandfather who taught her to read and write it. It's just … something we all knew. All the demons in our community can read it. We inherited traditions and language and stories, and it was drummed into us to keep them alive, to never let them be forgotten."
"What stories?" Haley's brow was knotted when I unfolded to my full height, surprise dulling my desire.
I shook my head, not because I didn't know but because—this felt important, like we were on the edge of something, and I couldn't believe it. Her prophecy being inked in the language of my people couldn't be a coincidence, but I didn't know how all the puzzle pieces fit together.
"Most were stories of the first beings, from the very beginning of the universe." I swallowed at the full weight of Haley's attention, but very quickly summarised, "Chaos came to be, the first being in the universe, and from Chaos came the Earth, and the Abyss, and Love, in that order. After them came Darkness and Night. From the first beings came all of creation.
"The stories are … our origins. They're not really gods, and I know what you're thinking but they're not titans either. They're primordial, primitive, from the earliest days of Hell, their stories passed down through generations."
Haley was smiling. It was disturbing, that smile, given the gravity of her prophecy. "The stories are real, Kai."
I shook my head. "They're only stories, Haley. They're as real as any fairytale—"
"Except I've met one of those first beings."
I jolted, staring at her. It took a moment for those words to fully compute. "You … that's impossible. They created the universe, my rose. They made the world—every speck of life, the sun and moon, the ground we stand on, this damn house—they made all of this and there's no way you could have met one."
She rolled onto her toes to kiss me. "The Darkness at the beginning of the world. I know he's just the Darkness in your people's stories, but he's also called Erebus, and he's a right grumpy bastard. Likes to list his titles constantly and he's a big fan of giving self-righteous lectures."
