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They’d landed in the parking lot of a foreclosed steakhouse restaurant on the outskirts of a quiet town. Grass and weeds had grown around the boarded-up windows.
“Just let me try and speak with him…” Octavius’s pace slowed as he squinted up at the brilliant blue sky. He stopped and shielded his eyes.
“What is it?” Saint couldn’t see anything. Just fluffy white clouds, and bright light that produced a stabbing headache.
“Nothing.” He flinched, likely feeling the effects of the sunlight too. “Let’s get inside.”
The deep throb of Mikalis’s power beat from within the building’s walls. There had been a time that beat had called Saint to him, like a moth to the flame. He wished he hadn’t told Octavius the truth in the chopper. It only made the shame at Saint’s failure to hold on to that love more pronounced.
“This whole thing is absurd,” Octavius muttered, as he tore off a timber board and climbed inside. “We should be working together, not tearing each other apart.”
Saint followed Octavius inside, through a back room stacked with chairs, and into the main restaurant area, now cleared except for Jay tied to a chair and gagged. He swung his head around, struggled against the ropes, and garbled a whole lot of words, none of which made any sense.
There didn’t appear to be any sign of Mikalis, but Saintknewhe was here, in this very room with them. Octavius hurried to Jay’s side and quickly removed the gag.
“Octavius!” Jay blurted. “You came.”
“Quiet,” Octavius snapped, and grabbed at the ropes binding his arms to the chair.
“Leave him,”Mikalis’s voice boomed, assaulting them from every corner.
Octavius straightened behind Jay, placed his hands on Jay’s shoulders, and searched for Mikalis in the gloom. “Let’s talk.”
Saint studied the darkness too, and how sunlight tried to stab through holes in the rotten boards to pierce the shadows. But the darkness was too thick. Because Mikaliswasthe shadows. He wasn’t in one place, he was all around them.
“Let Jay go, and I’ll surrender,” Saint said, turning on the spot to get a glimpse of some solid part of him.
“No, he won’t, he’s not going to do that—” Octavius thrust out a hand as though he could hold Saint back. “Just—the both of you, stop. We don’t need to fight.”
“You should leave,” Saint told him. “While you can.” If Mikalis let him go. There was no use in both of them dying here, like flies in Mikalis’s web.
“I’m not leaving. I have nowhere to go.” Octavius’s snarl made the point unarguable. “Jayden doesn’t need to die, and Mikalis, you don’t need to kill Saint. He’s done nothing wrong.”
“You’re both traitors.”
“I told you the truth,” Saint said. “The fact you didn’t like it, doesn’t make me a traitor.”
“It ends here.”
“Because of your precious Brotherhood?” Saint asked the shadows. He gestured at Octavius. “They’re better than you.” Was that why Mikalis was doing this? Because he knew if they learned the truth, they’d take it out of his hands? He’d lose control. What was a god without his worshippers? “Kill me, but let Jay go.”
“No!” Octavius stepped forward and narrowed his glare on a thick swirl of shadow in the far corner. “I have never betrayed you, not in the thousands of years I’ve served you. But for Saint, for the truth, I will.”
“Then you will die with him. The Brotherhood is all. Memento mori.”
Remember you must die. It was always going to end this way.
“Wait!” Octavius wet his lips and glanced desperately at Saint. “Mikalis, regardless of what we know, it doesn’t matter. The nyks are rising, we’ve lost control of the fight, and while you’re here Raiden is working to undermine everything. He let Saint out, he probably has control of Atlas. He’s timed this perfectly. He wants you here, distracted by this mess. Not looking athim. Don’t you see how perfectly we’ve all fallen into his trap?”
The shadows swelled, crackled apart, and Mikalis stepped from inside, blue eyes blazing. His clothes were casual, as though he’d nipped out for groceries, but there was nothing normal about the thick weight of power flexing the air around him. “I see Saint helped you find your tongue, Octavius. When I found you, you hadn’t spoken a word in centuries. Did he tell you his sweet lies… that I’m not like you?”
And this was the part where Mikalis would try to turn Octavius against Saint. The bastard was a master manipulator. A low growl rumbled through Saint.
“You were one of my most stalwart Brotherhood members,” Mikalis went on. “I trusted you, relied on you, treated you as my equal, and this is how you repay me?”
Mikalis approached him, but Octavius stood his ground, lifting his chin. He didn’t cower, he didn’t beg. Saint had never believed he would. His little wolf was a fighter.
“By looking you in the eyes and telling you the truth, by trying to save you and the Brotherhood, even knowing it will be my end? Then yes. This is how I repay you.”
