“The wall--”
“I can see you in her eyes, Behemoth,” Caden said as he caught sight of a smirk on her lips that she failed to hide and a shining light in the darkness.
She went silent and regarded him without any emotion. Iolaire’s wings curled around itself. It didn’t like being near even this small piece of the Behemoth.
“Is she still in there? Can she be brought back?” Caden didn’t expect answers to these questions.
“Of course,” the Behemoth said with another secret smile. “Why would I give up the protection of her soul? It makes you and all the other Dragon Shifters hesitate. You value the human in her because of the humans in all of you.”
Caden knew that he wasn’t going to be sure of whether this was true or a lie. Not now. Maybe not ever. Iolaire twittered that they should get back to Valerius and Raziel. It wanted the comfort of Raziel’s wings and it wanted to make sure that its mate had fully recovered. Caden agreed, but he just couldn’t move quite yet.
“Why are you doing this?” Caden breathed.
He hadn’t even meant to ask this question, let alone again, to expect an answer, but the Behemoth did answer, in a way.
“Why are you doing this?” the Behemoth asked.
Caden frowned. “Because Iolaire and I were meant to be joined. Through me Iolaire gets to experience this world and through Iolaire I get to experience what it is to be more than myself.”
“And why would it be any different for me?” the Behemoth asked.
“Because you hold no love for the people you’ve possessed,” Caden said, feeling it as much as Iolaire telling him it was so. “You’re not meant to be with Landry or any of the people you’ve anchored yourself to.”
A smirk crossed Landry’s face that made her so ugly compared to her normal looks. It was as if she wasn’t her at all.
“Human souls are weak. Like candle flames in a hurricane,” she said. “I don’t anchor myself in them so much as offer my protection.”
“And then? Landry, Ross and Harvey would never have hurt their parents. Yet you had them hostage,” Caden pointed out. “You might promise many things but then you break every one!”
“Only to those who do not listen carefully to what I offer,” the Behemoth said.
“All you offer is slavery and death,” Caden said, certain of this too.
“To humans, yes! But to my fellow Spirits I show another way!” The Behemoth’s eyes filled with an eerie light.
It reminded Caden of dead light--white, silver light that was cold and terrible--that led people astray.
“What other way?” Caden scoffed.
“Have you not heard of the power struggle that takes place between the human soul and the Spirit after joining? Even Valerius and Raziel fought terrible battles over who would be in charge!” The Behemoth sounded utterly amused.
Caden did remember Valerius telling him that many Spirits and the humans they joined with did have trouble agreeing to things in the beginning. He and Iolaire hadn’t had such problems, but he liked to think that it was because both of them were easy going. He definitely wanted the best for Iolaire and vice versa so they had been working things out together.
“Shifters and their Spirits find harmony,” Caden told her.
“No, Spirits bend to Shifters,” the Behemoth said with a shake of her head. “They must because this is your world and when they bond with you, they become lesser.”
Caden scowled. “No, that’s not--”
“I am proof of that! I did not bond with Landry or any of the others! I just use them as the empty shells they are,” the Behemoth said with evident glee. “The Spirits who see what I have done realize that they don’t have to bind themselves to you. They can just take your bodies and have the experiences they want here.”
Caden thought of the press of so many Spirits wanting to bond with humans. But there were limits now on who they were compatible with. They also had to wait until people were in near death situations. But what the Behemoth was suggesting was that the Spirits simply push out or, at least, push to the side the souls of the humans.
No, he and Iolaire breathed, feeling how wrong that was.
At that moment, a car came around the serpentine road and the headlights caught both him and Landry in full beam. Caden turned, shading his eyes, as the car came to a stop and a window was rolled down.
“Are you the White Dragon King?” A young woman asked in breathless tones.
