CHAPTER EIGHT

Avis’ room was like a tomb following Uriel’s departure. After what seemed like a lifetime of clinging to the corner post to prevent himself from falling completely to the floor, he finally managed to gather enough strength to drag himself back on to the bed without any assistance.

The effort left him breathless and he certainly couldn’t be bothered with the sheets. Not while a thousand questions were still rocketing through his brain—questions he’d been asking himself since the moment Uriel told him of the attack on Columbine, yet he didn’t dare voice them for fear of annoying the archangel.

Again, he thought about turning his mind inward and bouncing his ideas off the mental representatives he could conjure there. With only the knowledge he had at his disposal, it wouldn’t be the same as having the real people to converse with, but it would give him what he thought would be their opinions, based on what he knew. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Fear of what else lurked in there kept him away. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure if he could ever go back in there again.

So, he was left to muddle through with what he had. Simple questions plagued him. How badly had Columbine been hurt? Was she alright? And why did Cora attack Columbine in the first place? What had happened. How had it happened? Was it a mental or physical attack? And just what in the realms was a damned blood rage anyway?

As his thoughts continued to churn, he found himself considering the possibility that the attack was justified. That somehow, despite Uriel’s claims to the contrary and his own beliefs that Columbine would never antagonise anyone intentionally, Cora was only partially to blame.

The realms only knew how many fights he and his siblings had stupidly gotten themselves into as children, only to be landed on by their father in every sense of the word.

Avis scrunched his eyes shut as a mental image of the Nexus supreme lord materialised inside his mind’s eye. Theodrick. The Mystallian took a deep breath and released it slowly through gritted teeth as memories that were recently brought back to life flashed through his mind. Memories that terrified him.

That sick son of a bitch would be laughing his sadistic ass off at this—if the surly bastard even knew how to smile.

Pressing his clenched fists against his eyes, Avis uttered a growl and forced his mind from those unpleasant memories of his childhood. He didn’t remove his hands until the memory was purged entirely, at which point he raked the fingers of one hand through his dark hair and drummed the other against his jaw as he stared at the ceiling.

Speaking of asshole fathers … why was he being given the responsibility of raising a five-year-old? Surely, they knew he’d had no previous experience with raising children and his first attempt had been … anything but. Did Cora mean that little to them, or was this really the final test to see if he had changed?

He found their proposal of taking Cora with him when he left more than acceptable, however, there was one minor fault with it in his opinion. He had no desire to claim just one daughter. For reasons he didn’t fully comprehend himself, he wanted both his children and their mother. He wanted his family back.

Why Clarise had seen fit to give him another chance after everything he had done to her, he would never know, but now that she had, he had no intention of losing her again. And in that moment, he realised, he actually loved Clarise. For the first time in his long and promiscuous life, he truly loved one woman above all others and could not bear the thought of being without her again.

Perhaps it was only gratitude and he was confusing the two–but it made little difference to him now. Clarise had done for him what no other woman would ever dare try, and her loyalty despite his actions made him realise just what he was in possession of. A wife—worthy of killing and dying for.

And then there was Cora.

He knitted his fingers together and cupped the back of his head. Now that girl was going to be a major headache.

She’d been born and was present for his behaviour and actions before his reckoning, and in those first few moments after he regained consciousness, he realised she’d developed the Mystallian intolerance for mercy. He couldn’t blame her for that. He, himself had been known to hold a grudge for an extremely long time, and it was clear from Uriel’s comments that even the archangel didn’t feel the fault of Cora’s mindset was her own.

Still, it needed to be tempered. How he was supposed to do that when she could assume any shape she wanted was going to be … tricky, and for her sake he had to find out exactly what a blood rage was. If it was so dangerous that the demon lords of Hell would execute one of their own rather than find a solution, it had to be beyond dire.

No, he thought with a derisive snort, his gaze narrowing angrily. They weren’t going to kill her at all. They were going to make him do it.

Their sense of decency was charming.

A growl of irritation rose to the back of his throat as he squirmed on the bed until he forced his thoughts away from that and on to the remaining member of his little brood.

Young Columbine.

The image of those beautiful dark eyes hiding shyly behind her equally dark fringe rose before him and his lips curled happily at the memory. She really was such a cute kid, and how she insisted on tip-toeing around his feelings was utterly adorable.

Then another less pleasant thought occurred to him and his smile soured. What if she learned the truth about him? What if someone with a big mouth went ahead and shattered her pretty fantasy of him? Made her see him for what he really was. They might even tell her about the true nature of her conception.

He closed his eyes and shivered with utter self-loathing as the memories of those dark hours of his past came back to haunt him.

Someone would.

Sooner or later, someone from this accursed realm would tell her what a hideous, self-centred bastard he had been, and then that perfect look of total adoration would morph into something he couldn’t bring himself to face.

With a solemn vow to himself, he promised by all that he held dear that he would never let that happen. He would take them all. They were his by marriage and his by blood and he had no intention of leaving any member of his family behind.

“Tilu,” he called suddenly, deciding with a thoughtful rub of his lower lip that he wasn’t going to get any of the information he required if he waited for it to come to him of its own accord. When the hellion appeared in the doorway moments later, he said, “Bring Lady Columbine to me.”

He offered no explanation for his reasons, and Tilu didn’t ask for them. “Your will, Milord,” she said, as she bobbed her head and retreated out of sight.

While he waited for their return, Avis cradled his head with both hands and stared at the silk canopy over the bed again. So much would need to be done before he could return to Mystal. So much would depend on whether his own pantheon would accept him back.

Questions he hadn’t wanted to think about now came to the forefront of his mind. His own pantheon had ostracised him to save their own lives, a fact that he’d hated them for, long before the Hellions finally caught up with him. But that was the past.

He had paid his debt to the Hellion Highborn, and as such, his family had no reason to turn their backs on him anymore. There was much he’d have to sort out first, but he had no doubt once that was done, he would return to Mystal and resume co-rulership of the realm with his twin brother. All would be well … provided they listened to reason.

As he lay there, he began to doubt that certainty.

What if they didn’t? Avis had burned a lot of bridges during his years on the run and the number of pantheons which would offer him safe haven could be counted … on his thumbs.

Odin and Zeus came first and foremost to mind. The three of them had been close friends for longer than he cared to remember, since they all had very similar personalities. That is, they liked to drink heavily and sleep with anything female … and a pulse on the said woman was as optional as her compliance.

He breathed out slowly and heavily.

That part of his life was over. Would either of them still consider him a friend when they no longer had anything in common with him?

Avis shook his head and sighed.

He was getting ahead of himself. Plan A ended with himself and his young family back in Mystal. Plan A also involved getting his powerbase back in Mystal modified before he ever set foot in the place. Plan A meant he had to find somewhere he considered safe to hole up for however long it took his family back in Mystal to sort out his powerbase for him.

Being in Hell so long had given Avis the opportunity to see things through fresh eyes. Although a powerbase was the epitome of a god’s presence among his or her worshippers; the flipside to that power was how its addictive nature brought about an inability to change.

Essentially, a god became whatever he or she was being worshipped to be. It was why an individual had to be very careful about how the mortals went about worshipping him or her from the very beginning. Once the process had begun, the celest would evolve into the belief of the mortal to gain that power. One fed into the other in an endless loop.

Hidden behind his ancient power-base, Avis saw nothing wrong with what he had done to his family. He was what his mortals believed him to be: a self-centred, womanising, ego-centric bastard who took ‘no’ from no one.

If he were to return to Mystal right now, all that he had learned and all that he felt for his precious family would be absolved by the thrall of his powerbase and he would go right back to the way he’d been.

The way everyone expected him to be. He needed to change that, if he was ever going to bring his family home. But he couldn’t make those changes himself. He’d need his pantheon’s help …

The quiet clicking of claws on polished marble broke his train of thought and he twisted his head towards the door. A small demoness bearing heavy black plates and tall dark reptilian wings bowed to the ground at the doorway.

“Columbine?” His brow furrowed as he pulled himself into a seated position, despite the sense of family that existed between them. Like her mother, this form was radically different to that of the more appealing Mystallian shape and he’d only witnessed her demonic side once during the early stages of his recovery.

Columbine’s body curled into a tighter ball on the floor and nodded briefly.

Waiting for her to move, if only to look up, it suddenly dawned on him what he was dealing with. In this form, Columbine could hold that pose for the rest of time … and she would too. He sighed again and patted the empty space beside his hip loudly enough for her to hear. “Come here, Columbine. I want a word with you.”

The demoness swallowed, rose on to her reverse walking legs and made her way nervously across the marbled floor on those self-same tri-taloned toes that had made the clicking sound moments before. Her tail swished with the beat of her movement to maintain her stability, though Avis knew with the practice she’d had as a Mystallian, she could balance just as easily without it.

At first glance, Avis could see no physical damage at all and the suspicious part of his mind began to wonder if Uriel had been lying about everything just to get one final reaction out of him.

“Did you and your sister have a fight this morning?” he asked, as she slid across the mattress to sit where he had patted.

Pinching her beak together, Columbine lowered her gaze to her fidgeting talons in her lap and nodded silently.

So much for Uriel bluffing.

“What was it about?”

Columbine’s head lifted fractionally, and he thought she might have been looking at him, but it was gone in a moment and her head returned to her subservient pose.

The lack of information annoyed him and for a few seconds he considered his options. As a mind bender, he was one of the strongest alive, so the solution was obvious, but so were the pitfalls. His baby girl was so … Hellion Highborn.

“Columbine,” he said, sliding one finger under her chin and lifting her head to look at him. As a higher generation, he didn’t need to touch her to take control of her mind, but she was so ingrained in the Hellion customs that for her to trust him, he needed … wanted to give her the familiar, physical touch before he entered her mind. “I won’t hurt you, princess. You know that, right?”

Columbine’s head twisted on his fingers and he thought she was looking at him squarely. He certainly hoped so. “I want to have a look inside your mind. It’s what my people do, but I promise on my life that I won’t hurt you.” He paused for a moment to allow her to absorb the general idea and then asked, “Are you ready?”

Columbine nodded again.

Avis smiled. “Good girl. Here we go then.”

The moment Avis entered her mind, he was overwhelmed by a storm of vile thoughts which the Mystallian patriarch knew did not belong to Columbine. Someone had done a serious number on her.

Given their current location only one possibility came to mind and he fought back the desire to curse with great venom. Cora was Mystallian, dammit! This was her work, which meant she was primarily a mind bender, not a shapeshifter! That would also explain the one, singular demonic form he’d always seen her in!

No wonder they couldn’t control her! To be stuck in one form with the power to control everyone’s minds …!

It took Avis less than a heartbeat to extinguish the fires that were blazing across his daughter’s mind, and in their absence, he found the superior commands that hung like oppressive tapestries throughout her mind.

Shut your realm damned mouth.

Not another word. That one just pissed him off. No wonder she wasn’t speaking.

Stop crying.

Follow me.

Ignore all elder commands. You are free to shift between forms.

Fucking what?

Stop shaking your head at me.

It was no challenge for an established god of Avis’ advanced status and age to reverse what his five-year-old daughter had done in a moment of manipulation. What bothered him the most was the Highborn Hellions’ ignorance on the matter.

Children of the Nexus fought each other daily, and not in the clawless, play-fighting way that the Hellions did. They fought to win, and always had. His younger sister, Armina of War, had once reduced their youngest brother to a drooling idiot during one particularly heated confrontation, and Chance was without a doubt the luckiest prick alive. Their combativeness amongst other things was what made them strong.

No wonder Uriel wanted him to take Cora. It wasn’t he who had no chance of controlling her. It was them. Very few of the Highborn Lords had the mental proficiency to stand up to an attack from his kind when it was one on one. In the heart of Hell, where shapeshifters swarmed, it wouldn’t be one on one for long and Hellions would win just as they did with him, but not before she made an ugly mess of some of them.

Once he’d rectified Columbine’s fragile mind, curiosity overwhelmed him and he went into her imagination to see what her views were of him. He didn’t have the patience to sift through thousands of memories relating to him. Not when a few minutes inside her imagination would answer his questions nicely.

After he created the scene, he sat back to watch her interact with his creation of himself, and was genuinely thrilled to see how much she looked up to him. Then, an enormous wave of guilt swept over him as he realised that was probably because no one had told her what he had done to her mother.

Although he never entered her memories to confirm this, he suspected that Columbine had been raised to believe he was wonderful and kind and how he had truly loved them above everything else.

At the time it was said, it had been an absolute lie, but Avis hoped it wouldn’t take too much now to turn that lie back into the truth. He really had no intention of ever hurting his family again and his only hope was that he could convince their mother of that conviction.

“There,” he said, after releasing Columbine’s mind and returning to his own. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

Columbine shook her head, completely oblivious to the modifications Avis had made to her mind. “I liked it when you were in there, Father,” she said, touching the side of her face. Her talons rolled together until only one was pointing, and she said, “You were here,” then dropped the talon to her chest. “… and in here … at the same time. It was nice.”

Avis’ frowned, wondering what she meant by that, but then decided she must have meant metaphorically. It wasn’t as if she could actually sense him inside her mind. With that deduction, his smile broadened and he no longer cared who saw it. He reached forward and slid his arms around her torso under her wings, then pulled her across his lap into a warm embrace.

“No matter what happens,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I will always be … here,” he touched her head and then her chest plate. “… and here.” He bowed his head and allowed his cheek to rest against the top of her leathery skull. “I promise.”

Columbine slid her own arms around his waist and wrapped her wings around his arms. “I love you too, Father.”

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CHAPTER NINE

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