Fuck. Me.
“But you and Astasiya dream of her,” he said, speaking his thoughts out loud. “She’s sending you visions.”
“Is she?” Gabriel asked, his expression showing the first signs of emotion. “Or is it a loop meant to distract us?”
“A loop?”
“A memory feed,” he elaborated. “We need to evaluate the visions. We need to evaluate everything.” He looked at his watch, then back at Sethios. “There’s only one other being who has the ability to find my mother.”
“Caro’s mother,” Sethios said, recalling the other individual from that discussion twenty-five years ago. “But I thought Leela was monitoring the council.” That’d been her job and the reason she’d refused to pledge fealty to Astasiya. “She was supposed to tell us if they decided to wake Caro’s mother from her angelic coma.”
“Correct, she’s our eyes and ears inside,” Gabriel said softly, frowning down at his watch again. “Just as she’s supposed to be monitoring my alerts.”
Sethios’s legs twitched, the persuasion holding him in place snapping with a jolt of residual energy. His father had completely released him and Gabriel, allowing them to move their legs again.
Gabriel misted as though to test his wings, then he reappeared in his corporeal state. “We should check on Skye. Then we need to have a discussion with Leela. And after that, we’ll evaluate all the dreams. Because if Osiris is right about today’s vision being a memory, then I suspect the others are as well.”
Sethios swallowed, his heart in his throat.
All week, he’d sensed that something was seriously wrong. He should be able to at least feel Caro, yet the only tangible thread between them was the barbed wire shredding holes in his heart.
He’d worried it was because she’d blocked him out because of the pain.
But what if that wasn’t it at all? What if someone, or something, had severed their bond?
Oh, angel… His heart broke all over again. Where the fuck are you?
Caro felt nothing. Not the cold metal chair beneath her. Not the stale air of the room. Not the heat of the sun warming the window.
She merely existed in a fog.
Forgotten.
No, that wasn’t right. She hadn’t been forgotten at all. But she needed her mind to remain clear. Open. Vacant. It was the only way to operate here.
They were all inside her, their powers rehabilitating her Seraphim soul, trying to re-create the being she should be. She allowed it. Accepted it. Encouraged it.
Because deep within, she’d found a small fracture in the programming, and she didn’t want them to locate her current whereabouts.
Deep within her psyche.
Exploring.
Tugging.
Gently prodding the memory loop that’d been inserted into the link. It took all of her mental strength not to flinch at her own agony, the visual one that left her breathless and terrified.
Seraphim do not feel.
Seraphim do not love.
Seraphim do not react.
She whispered the words through her mind, feigning a pretense of giving in to the reprogramming of her soul while reminding herself of the battle existing within her.
So much power. So much authority. So much weight.
Caro strove for focus, finding the thread she desired, the one that would connect her to the forbidden place.
