“Kinky,” Karston mutters, but he listens and sits down, Preston on his heels.
“Now!” Hadley shouts, making Brax and I jump.
“Okay, Had. Whatever you want,” Brax says, resigned. He backs up until his legs hit the bed, never taking his eyes off of Caius. I don’t move, struggling inside, battling between what I believe is right and what my sweet Hadley wants.
But my heart makes the final decision and listens to the woman it loves, and before I know it, I’m sitting next to Preston.
“Now,” Hadley begins. “Caius and I are going to speak. None of you are going to interrupt us. Understood?” She folds her arms and raises one sandy blonde eyebrow at us, daring us to go against her.
Why does that make my cock so fucking hard?
“Good,” she says when none of us fight her. “First of all, it was Administer who took me, not Caius.”
Braxton takes a breath to speak but she silences him with a raised hand. Then she begins pacing again. “This is hard to say, guys. And I know it’s hard for you to hear, but I’ve not always been Hadley.” She looks at us, expecting shocked responses, but we already knew this. “Aren’t you even a little bit surprised?” she asks, baffled.
“May I speak?” Karston asks sarcastically, raising his hand. Hadley nods and gestures for him to keep going. “We already know this, babe. Auston and Preston went looking for more information about you when you were missing. We wanted to know why the Darkness was so hell-bent on keeping you and thought there might be some information about you in Heaven’s records room.”
Now, it’s Hadley’s turn to be shocked. “What did you find?”
“You first,” Brax growls. “Say your piece, then we’ll tell you what we know.”
“Fine.” Hadley begins moving again, unable to stand still. I feel the same energy coursing through my body, desperate to be used. Hadley rubs at her temples. “The memories are just starting to come back. And I’m confused by some of them. It’s better if I let Caius tell you.”
A growl escapes my lips, but I stay put. I’d rather get this over with. Let the fucker talk then we can destroy him.
“Caius?” Hadley turns towards the Darkness. He nods and begins speaking.
“I wasn’t always like this,” he begins. Though he’s using Dominic’s voice, his tone has changed, the inflections different. “At the beginning of time, when humanity was new, seven pairings of Fates were sent to Earth, each tasked with helping the people understand the seven deadly sins and the ramifications for succumbing to those sins.” He takes a deep breath then looks up at Hadley with so much affection and—dare I say—love, that I just want to slap him in the fucking face. He doesn’t deserve to look at her that way.
“Back then, Hadley was a gorgeous woman named Claire, and she was my Fated. We were crazy for each other, madly in love, and together, we ruled Wrath. That’s where our deep-seated anger comes from, because we are the sin we teach about.”
“We know all this,” Brax jumps in. “It still doesn’t make up for what you’ve done.”
“Just shut up, Brax, and let him fucking talk!” Hadley shouts, stomping her foot, hands balled into fists in frustration. Brax sulks, glowering at Caius. “Keep going, Caius. They need to hear this.”
Caius nods. “Some pairings grew more powerful than others, an effect we couldn’t predict. As the people became afflicted with sin, whatever that sin was, it made that pairing stronger, made those Fates able to feed off the people.
“Back then, Claire—or Hadley, as you know her—had two very close friends, Eve and Lilith.”
Preston leans into me and whispers in my ear. “That corpse we raised, Lucifer, was asking for his Fated, named Lilith,” he reminds me.
I nod and keep focused on Caius. “Lilith grew jealous of the power Claire and I had together, even though we didn’t flaunt it. You see, Lilith’s sin was Envy, and instead of helping humanity, she succumbed to its power. Her jealousy only grew until one day, she betrayed Claire.”
Cauis looks up at Hadley again, pain evident in his gaze. “Lilith had her Fated, Lucifer, convince me to encourage Hadley to eat a fruit from the Tree of Life and Death—the forbidden fruit.
“At first, I was adamant that I wouldn’t do that, but he was insistent that it wouldn’t hurt her, that it would make her happier than she’d ever been before.” Caius sighs. “I loved Claire more than you could possibly imagine. She was my whole world. She held my heart in her delicate hands. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to make her happy.
“Knowing how much I thought they cared for Claire, I never suspected foul play. But after I presented Claire with a golden strawberry, it was already too late. My sweet Claire took my gift and ate the forbidden fruit. At first, things were okay, the red juices dripping down her chin. But her pleasure was quickly thwarted. And while Lilith cackled happily beside us, my Claire died in my arms.”
Caius’s voice breaks, head hanging, shoulders shaking as he relives the moment. “I fucking lost it,” he admits. “My wrath was so great I couldn’t see straight, I couldn’t think, my every thought consumed by revenge.” He looks up, tears dripping down his cheeks. “And I took it. I stole Lilith’s mate as she stole mine. I killed Lucifer in cold blood. And I’d do it all over again.”
He sniffs back his tears, staring off into the distance as the memories bombard him. “The other Fates didn’t believe me, didn’t listen to my truth. They believed Lilith over me, and though it pained Adam and Eve to do it, I was stripped of my Fate powers and banished to the underbelly of Hell, left to rot for all of time.”
He looks at us, taking a moment to make eye contact with me and each one of my brothers. “My body is still there. Trapped in Hell. Surrounded by unspeakable horrors. Over the decades, I stewed in my anger, in my despair, and my anguish. Somehow, I was able to separate myself from my body, not that it mattered. Until one day, when it did. I felt it when Claire entered the Afterlife. I felt her soul calling to mine. It was then I became determined to reunite with my Fated, and I didn’t care what the cost was.
“I was able to escape my prison only three times throughout my sentence. The first was over one hundred years ago, when I first discovered that I could pull essences from souls. It was an accident; a Demon had been sent to kill me, and I panicked. That time in the Afterlife only lasted a few days before Administer and his assholes caught me and returned me to my prison. The second time was twenty years ago, when I first sensed Hadley’s presence on earth. I didn’t know what it was at first, but I knew I needed to go to her. Find her. I escaped my prison but only managed to exit Hell before I was once again brought to my cage. And then, the last time, only a few months earlier. I felt Hadley enter the Academy, and I became desperate. At the time, Jake was obsessed with finding and stopping me, unknowing that I was still trapped. I worried about what he would do to Hadley. And so, I began taking the essences from souls to fuel myself because I had no body. With this power, I could possess other souls, as well as become tangible for longing periods of time. It was the only way I could protect my beloved.