Betrayal (The Divine, Book Two) Read Free Page B

I said. She had expressed as much in the past, but doing so would risk giving up her faux blindness. How would she explain that away?  
    “I’ve been thinking about that. What I’d love to do even more is Command her to put her foot up her own ass.”  
    The statement made me raise an eyebrow. Even though she was a diuscrucis, she had always leaned good. The way she took care of the Awake down in the tunnels, her desire to help her fellow targets at school. Commanding was a demonic ability, and not one to be used lightly. It was out of character.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.  
    There was the slightest pause. Just long enough for me to know she wasn’t. “I’m fine, brother,” she said. “I’m just getting fed up with that witch and her cackling minions. Anyway, I’m headed to bed. I wanted to check in on you and say goodnight.”
    I could feel the temporary relief waning into the background at the words. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know they were coming. “Goodnight, sister,” I said. “I love you.”
    “I love you too,” she replied. I expected her to break the connection, but there was a pause. When her mental voice returned, it was hushed. “Brother, be careful. You may find the answers that you seek, but you may also wish you hadn’t.”  
    I wanted to ask her what she meant, what she had seen or felt about my future. I couldn’t, because she broke the connection. That was something else she had me beat on. The call was one way. I briefly considered heading underground, but there was no point. If she had wanted to say more, she would have.  
    “I love you too.”  
    The words echoed in my mind, bringing back a familiar memory that didn’t belong to me. I found desperate purchase against the wall of the nearest building, trying to ground myself before the past could overtake me. My vision went dark, the sounds of the city fading out and history, terrible history taking its place.

    I’m on a bed, my thighs are bloodied. The Archfiend takes my newborn baby and hands her off to his servant Izak.  
    He rounds on me, smiles and laughs. He is handsome, with a mop of curly black hair and delicate features. His nearly naked body is lean and strong and covered in runes. He’s carrying a wicked looking dagger in one hand, a decanter of water in the other.  
    He puts the tip of the dagger at my foot and eases it upward, the tip digging in just enough to make me bleed. When the poison begins the spread he pours the holy water over it, filling my senses with the smell of frankincense, filling my body with even more pain. I’m already healing from the birth, my stomach shrinking so unnaturally, my muscles tightening and reforming back into my petite young visage.  
    “I have heard that the diuscrucis were banned by Heaven and Hell because of the power they hold as mortals, and the infinite power they can command as Divine,” he says. The dagger reaches my inner thigh. “I am eager to see how I might use such a tool.”
    I don’t move. It isn’t because I can’t, but because I know that resisting would be useless. This is his home, his domain, and if I want to live to see my daughter again I have to be cautious. “Please don’t hurt her Gervais,” I say, tears welling in my eyes.
    He stops the motion of the dagger and leans in close, his blood-red eyes only inches from my own. “Sweet Josette,” he says. “I won’t hurt her.”  
    His words are a lie. I know it, but I’m powerless. The tears flow more freely. The knife moves up my abdomen, coming to rest over my heart.  
    “I’m not going to kill you,” he says. “Even I’m not monster enough to kill my own flesh and blood. I want you to know that I could have. That I have shown you mercy today. I want you to know that you have a daughter, and that she is in my care.”  
    The words are worse than a dagger in my heart. He lifts the blade and places it and the decanter on a small table. He leans in again and puts his lips to mine. I