“While it is the logical recourse with the most desired of outcomes, it will hurt my mother.” His gaze shifted to Caro. “At one point, you would have agreed with this path to destroy Osiris and his abominations. I sense that has changed. Am I wrong?”
Both males studied her intently, causing her stomach to churn uncomfortably.
Did she want to destroy Osiris? Absolutely. No question.
Did she want to destroy his abominations? Her lips flattened. Two months ago, it wouldn’t have been a thought. They shouldn’t exist. Osiris created them to spite the High Council of Seraph, and perhaps because he was bored. Or worse, to use as an army.
She met Sethios’s green eyes, his expression sheltered while she considered his fate and those, presumably, of his friends. He didn’t choose to be an abomination. Osiris did. To punish him for his father’s crimes seemed… wrong.
Further, to force her child to be the one to deliver that punishment to Osiris and his bloodline didn’t feel right.
It was her child’s destiny, according to the seers, just as it was Caro’s destiny to sleep with Sethios and produce their daughter. Someone should have warned Caro of her destiny and given her the choice to see it through. And that, truly, wasn’t all that much of a life-changing decision. Raising a child took time and care, and eighteen years wasn’t long for someone who lived for eternity.
Destroying a higher being and his entire bloodline, however, was a much bigger task and responsibility. One that could cost their daughter her life, or worse, her soul. The seers and Seraphim wouldn’t be bothered by that risk if it meant destroying Osiris. They would sacrifice several souls if that’s what it took to accomplish the task. Just as they had given away Caro’s body without blinking an eye.
Yet they couldn’t be bothered to handle Osiris before this.
So why now? Why her daughter? Because they couldn’t do it without her, or some other reason?
Everything the Seraphim did, specifically the seers, served some purpose. But who actually decided which purpose to pursue and which to ignore? The High Council? The seers?
Seraphim, by nature, were not meant to be biased. Yet, Caro couldn’t help feeling a bit of uncertainty after having been sent here under false pretenses to birth a child—something she may have agreed to willingly had they only asked.
And that was the point. They never did.
“She deserves a choice,” she said finally. “It’s not about what I want or believe but about her choice. If she’s raised with the Seraphim, she’ll never be allowed to decide for herself.” Her daughter must have agreed with her words because she chose that moment to shift again, this time in a somewhat painful somersault that expelled the air from Caro’s lungs.
Easy, please, she whispered. This is important.
“How would you feel if our daughter destroyed my father and his bloodline?” Sethios asked, his patient tone belied by the fire brewing in his alluring gaze.
“I… I don’t know,” she admitted.
“You don’t know,” he repeated slowly. “You would be okay with her committing a massacre and annihilating an entire population of beings?”
“They were never meant to be,” Caro said through her gritted teeth. Her abdomen felt abnormally tight. She tried to lean more against the bed, but it didn’t help loosen her at all. At Sethios’s cocked brow, she added, “Osiris created them against the natural order.”
“He created me against the natural order as well, Caro,” he pointed out. “Making me, what, good enough to fuck and nothing else?” He shook his head sadly, taking another step away from her. “And here I thought we were getting somewhere.”
“It’s not… that’s not…” God, her stomach hurt. A lot. She held her lower belly as she tried to form the words Sethios needed, but her mind kept splintering with the pain slicing up from her center. “I don’t know any—” She exhaled sharply, her words cutting off before she could finish.
“And because you have not met any, aside from myself and Ezekiel, that makes it okay to exterminate an entire race of immortals? Two, technically, if you consider Hydraians separate from Ichorians.”
She swallowed roughly. “Ezekiel wanted to kill me when we first met.” Not that she could hold that against the entire race. Her daughter shifted to Caro’s bladder, making it impossible to add more to that statement as she fought her body’s innate reaction to that move.
And now I’m slightly wet down there and not in the way I would prefer.
She blinked.
What a completely inappropriate thought.
“Because he thought you were human,” Sethios growled. “So that justifies your hatred of all Ichorians? Ezekiel is a dick and not the best representation.”
“And you are?” she asked, meaning to tease and realizing too late that it had the opposite impact.
His green eyes smoldered with fury. “Destroying Osiris, I understand. Fuck, I want to kill him myself. But his bloodline? It would include her need to kill me, her father. Do you want that on her conscience? Can you live with that on your own conscience?” Quiet questions filled with deep-seated emotions she couldn’t name.
Pain ricocheted up her spine, forcing her to close her eyes. Her tongue hurt from biting it so hard. He wanted an answer, but she couldn’t voice it. Not without screaming.
