Fall of Kings: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 5) Page 14

In all truth, it hurt him to hear Jade say such things, knowing they couldn’t be true. It hurt him because even though he walked with grief, it felt good to have loved someone as deeply as he loved his daughter, the knowledge of her. When Jade spoke in her maddening ways that would not line up with the basic laws of time and reason, in some way, she erased a piece of Adair.

  Even though he didn’t believe a damn word Jade said, he made sure a chapter of the Pentacle Sons was well established in Savannah. He needed eyes and ears there. He needed to mark the territory with his presence. The Pentacle Sons—their colors, their emblem—had existed long before the bikes they rode came into existence. Talon could only hope if there was truth to Adair’s existence she’d feel a pull to the legacy her father had ruled for ages.

  Nearly ten years after Jade’s prediction, Talon received word from Savannah. An abused girl was looking for her father and thought he was a rider with them. Ironically, Talley was with Rush in Savannah at the time, otherwise the message surely would have been lost.

  “You said to look for a lost girl, boss. We found one,” Talley had said hesitantly. “What side of the law do you want to stay on with this?”

  Talon had told Talley to keep a watch out, but he only told him, and he made it clear it was to stay between them.

  “No one feels lost under our watch,” was Talon’s only response.

  When Talon hung up the phone, even though doubt hung like a noose around his neck, he’d never been more afraid or happy in his life.

  The connections Talon had established decades before, along with the immortal strengths of the Sons, made it simplistic to bring Adair home.

  Even if he had not utilized every modern measure to ensure his blood flowed through Adair, he would have known when he first laid eyes on her. He was sure everyone, including Reveca, knew as well. But it was never spoken of. And as if Jade had written the book of Adair’s life, Talley and Finley stepped up to care for Adair, keeping her at a safe distance from the Club. Years later, Judge stole her heart.

  Witches. Damn them all. That was exactly how Talon felt right about now.

  Dagen, King’s boy, had ripped Talon’s daughter from his arms and vanished, causing an uprising. Every Son in the room charged King who stood stoically before them all.

  Reveca pushed them back venomously, telling them to take care of Miriam, and to get Jade off her property.

  Everyone left but Judge and King. At Judge’s demands and threats, King grasped his arm and the pair of them vanished, presumably to Adair’s side.

  Now Talon was left face-to-face with a furious witch slash ex-lover, Reveca Beauregard.

  He wasn’t frightened. Reveca had already robbed his soul and his life. To top it off, the fucker she left him for had ensured his daughter and the Son he hand picked for her vanished from his sight. If Reveca willed it, she could ensure Talon never laid eyes on Adair or Judge again.

  At least she knows now, he thought, remembering the flicker of recognition in Adair’s shocked stare.

  He had nothing left to lose.

  Talon pushed his hands through his dark, soaked hair, then ripped the drenched shirt from his body before collapsing on the couch and grasping the closest whisky bottle.

  “That’s what you’re doing? Having a drink?” Reveca roared.

  “Has there ever been a more appropriate time?” he asked harshly.

  When she didn’t respond he flicked his glance up to see her gray eyes well with tears. “How many times are you going to rip my soul out?” she asked finally.

  “Me? Very ironic of you,” he said with a pissed smile. “Don’t act like you didn’t know.”

  “Did you tell me?”

  Silence.

  Her glare seared him. “So I didn’t know.”

  “Oh, so because you put this on your ‘do later’ list this is my fault?”

  How is this not his fuckin’ fault? Reveca thought to herself. “Excuse me for believing that you and I could have a fight without you fuckin’ the first whore you find and then demanding I raise your bastard.”

  Talon exploded to his feet and was a breath from her face. “Never, ever call her a bastard.”

  “Truth burns,” Reveca spat.

  Talon smirked and glared down at her, rage boiling under his skin. He had loved this woman enough to let another man raise his only child and this is where it got him. “You didn’t raise her. You had nothing to do with her. I made sure of it.”

  “Because you liked her sitting primly on my do later list,” Reveca fumed, raging her energy at him and causing him to sway.

  “No, Goddamn it! I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t going to let you tell me she was a demon and rip her from me!”

  There it was, his truth—he knew if Reveca ever figured out how complicated and twisted Adair’s conception was, she’d do her best to convince him Adair was malevolent. He knew he’d have to leave her and his Club to defend his child, and he would have—was prepared to do so, and in all truth, if it wasn’t for Jade’s prophecy, her outright stating who would be there for Adair, as if some greater power had stated it had to be so, he would have.

  “Really, Talon? Because her mother was some Devil’s Den whore. Just because those fucked inbreeds call themselves the devil it doesn’t mean they are. Trust me, I have brushed against evil—they are not it.”

  Talon leered. “Her mother is the Lady of Death, Ambrosia—the very one you stole me from. The one who haunts me every time you decided to throw a bitch fit and cut me off.”

  Reveca gaped at him. She had a comeback on deck, was prepared to slay him with words, but now she and her words were lost in the confusion.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” she asked as her gaze raced over him.

  “This is some fucked shit, me telling you about twisted dark magic—witch bullshit.” He smirked. “I thought you were tight with all the Lords and Ladies of Death, you and King both, apparently.” He shook his head. “You know about her—you had to have. She’s why you never wanted me near the Veil. Why you never wanted me to go with you to get Cashton, and then later to barter with Crass—no, wait, I didn’t go with you to speak to Crass because that was yours and King’s all inspiring ‘love of legends’ reunion.” Sarcasm dripped from his every word.

  Reveca was sure she had slipped into the Twilight Zone. What the hell is he talking about? She’d be damned if she knew about some ‘Lady’ of death. She never wanted him near death because she’d endured lifetimes of watching the ticking clock above his head, the two hundred year mark. She kept him away because she knew she stole him from death, and in some way, Talon was the crown jewel she had escaped with ages before—the man that mended her broken soul and built her a family, an empire.

  “What the hell, Talon!” Her glared at him, sure she didn’t know the man before her. How could he keep this from me!

  “I don’t know!” he raged back. “I’ve seen her since the day I died. You defeated her when you pulled me back. And every fuckin’ two hundred years—apparently thanks to whatever ticking time bomb you put over my head with that fucked deal you made with your sister—she shows up. She shows up when I’m starved for energy and weak.” A pissed smirk emerged. “And the one time I managed to evade her for centuries, when I learned to play her game and tease and taunt her, she arrived in the flesh—which would be what led to the topic of our latest argument, dear.”

  “In the flesh.”

  One sharp nod.

  “When?”

  “‘Bout two hundred years ago.”

  “Can you even track the bullshit lies you’re spitting out? Adair is barely in her twenties!”

  “I know that.”

  “Talon.”

  He took a long drink from the bottle in his hand and sat down, then hung his head.

  “It was near Savannah. We’d been apart for a year or so, maybe. You’d sent word with Judge you were coming to see me.” He looked up at her. “I was drunk and listless when the blonde seductress cl
imbed in my bed. It wasn’t until she cried out the first time I sobered enough to figure out it wasn’t you. It was too late though. I was under her spell by then, a slave to her desires.”

  Reveca swallowed harshly. She knew this woman. She’d found Talon with her, she was leaving his room with what was left of her ripped dress and smeared makeup. She and Talon had all but destroyed each other that night—they did, in fact, burn the inn he was at down, along with half the town.

  In all truth, Reveca had assumed the woman died in the fire, and if she had thought she wasn’t dead, she would have killed her for spite.

  “Talon, you’re confused. Two hundred years ago doesn’t fit Adair or some death Lady I’ve supposedly fought over time.”

  “It does,” he rasped. “The next time I had Zen she told me she had given me a gift that no other soul could. She told me I was bound to her by blood and soul. Her rightful claim on me had been solidified.”

  He looked up a Reveca. “We could never find the woman, the blonde. Those who knew her said she had to have died.”

  Reveca nodded shortly, already knowing this. The people in the town also called her a witch. Reveca knew she wasn’t and discarded the information. The one string of gossip Reveca had never found a way to understand or disprove was what well known local witch slash healer had stated—the woman had been cursed by a Voyager.

  The statement made no sense. First of all, Reveca didn’t believe in such supernatural figures; and secondly, if she did, she knew the lore stated they were benevolent. Curses were not their gig.

  Nevertheless, Reveca hunted the blonde to kill her and presumed Talon was hunting her to protect her—a truth that made sense, unlike what he was telling her now.

  “Then Jade came about. When was it?” he asked as his dark eyes glazed over. “Almost eighty years ago.” His smirk was listless. “She told me my daughter favored me.”

  Reveca jarred back in shock. She didn’t like how all the unanswered anomalies around her were starting to add up. Like where the hell Jade came from, where the blonde went, or how she knew Talon thought he was telling the truth—that he had convinced a child nearly two hundred years ago but she had only lived for twenty plus years.

  Voyagers. Handlers of fate. Time travelers. No. Way. In. Hell, Reveca thought to herself.

  “Right,” Talon said with a pissed laugh. “And then she told me some crock of shit about how interesting it was that Adair’s spiritual parents and parents made of flesh weaved together. She said, ‘Adair is hidden well within the conflict of those who created her, how blessed she is.’”

  Reveca stepped back. “What do you mean spiritual?”

  Talon swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “Something about how before a soul is united with a body, heavenly Gods can add their essence to the soul, thus became parents or guardians of the soul when their whatever word she used—it meant fate—comes into play.” He leaned back. “I asked Jamison about it.”

  “Kairos,” Reveca said in a whispered gasp, knowing exactly what word was escaping Talon.

  If Reveca could have gotten any more pissed or confused, she just did. “You asked Jamison about Kairos, about the heavenly parents—and not me!”

  His silent stare was the only response she received.

  “And what did he say?” she grated out.

  “Nothing I could use to help me understand. Just that it meant whatever child I was speaking of would be fierce based on her spiritual guardians alone.” He paused, took another drink. “Then he looked me over once and said if the child had parents of flesh with any ounce of the vitality our family had, they’d be a force to be reckoned with, an omen. A warning to the darkest of evils to bow.”

  Reveca’s anger only ebbed marginally when she understood Jamison didn’t clearly know about this child. In anger’s place fear and denial rose.

  Spiritual parents—essence added to a soul—it sounded far too much like the birth of Escorts. It was starting to make sense why King and Dagen were so protective over Adair, but at once it raised a million questions.

  Staring in the distance Talon went on. “It didn’t matter to me, the child was dead and gone as far as I knew—she had an entire life on this earth and I never knew it. It had been over a hundred years since she’d been conceived when Jade told me she existed.” He leaned forward. “Then a few decades ago, Jade approached me again. Told me my daughter was hurt, she needed me. Told me Talley’s woman was fit to raise her, and he would be. She said Adair’s soul was made of Judge’s and he’d heal her as she healed him.

  “I was sure then the woman was stark raving mad. She spoke of Adair as if she were a child. Talley had no woman. I had no fuckin’ clue who Finley was and the last damn thing Judge needed was a woman—he was far too ruthless at the time.”

  Reveca only stared in agreement, lost in confusion.

  “She said I’d find her where I left her,” Talon said dismissively. He glanced up. “I sent Rush to grow the chapter in Savannah. I told the boys the charity the Club would support would be foster children, abused children, any one that had anything to do with children. My orders were for them to keep their eyes and ears open for anyone who was lost and needed our help.”

  He twitched a smile. “Years later Adair walked up to one of ours and all but asked to come home.”

  Reveca was sure she felt faint. “Talon, you have to be confused. How can a child conceived two hundred years ago be twenty today and very mortal.”

  “Damned if I know—but she’s mine.”

  Why did he have to be so fucking certain! “It’s one thing to not tell me—of all fucking people—you knocked up some woman, and another to not tell me this twisted witch time travel story.”

  He arched a brow. “Frankly, you’d be the last person I’d tell about a child of mine.” He glanced over her. “I knew you’d kill her for not being yours—or for the dark magic way she was brought to life.” He lifted his chin. “I love you, Reveca. I’d die before I let somethin’ hurt you. You would have lashed out. And I promise you, Adair’s mother could make the devil tremble—I would have lost you both.”

  “This. Is. Not. Possible.”

  His expression was blank. “We tracked the grandmother, the woman who’d abused Adair. She had appeared out of nowhere right around the time Adair was born. The name she carried was the same as the blonde Brosia possessed two centuries before. We have no idea where she was all that time, how she was still mortal. None of it made sense, but the truth was there. Adair has my blood. The only woman I could have conceived a child with was the blonde Brosia possessed.”

  “We?”

  He grimaced. “Talley and me. I told him about all of this when Jade mentioned his name, when I asked him if he had a woman on the side he was keeping in secret. I was looking for a way to disprove Jade, and for a moment I had it—Talley had no one.” He shook his head. “Adair was in her teens when Talley came to me and told me about some time travel wave deal, something Finley told him about. I can’t explain it to you because it didn’t make sense to me then. But he swore to me it was not only possible, it was true. A blonde woman two hundred years ago was possessed and seduced me, vanished, and appeared decades ago as a grandmother, half mad, raising my daughter.”

  “You kill her—the blonde?”

  Talon twisted his head to the side. “Talley.”

  Through gritted teeth she said, “Tell me what happened.”

  Talon was quiet for a long minute. “He was in Savannah when Adair approached a rider with her story.” Talon paused. “He sounded like a ghost when he called me. It was the second prediction Jade had made that had come true. The first was Finley, Talley falling in love with her and building a life outside of the Club, a mortal life.

  “I sent him to Adair, told him to do what had to be done, Adair was ours.” His eyes were vacant as he remembered.

  “Talley went to just knock on Adair’s door, offer help to the family—get a general feel of the life Adair had. But
he heard Adair thrashing in the water. Talley said he was sure the woman was going to kill her. He broke down the door and pulled Adair’s lifeless body from the tub and breathed air into her lungs as the frail woman beat her hands into his back and called him the devil. She demanded that Talley take her back to her time to her family out of the hell and curse she was given. At the time, not knowing anything about traveling through time, Talley assumed the woman was bat shit crazy and ignored her. But when she held a knife over Adair, he did what he had to…drowned her in the very tub she tried to kill my daughter in.

  “I sent Thames up there, and he helped Adair remember differently and cleaned up the mess so the Sons wouldn’t be linked. The pieces just fell into place afterward.”

  “That’s what you call this? This seems fucking peachy to you?” Reveca raged. “You want a father of the year trophy there, pops? You expelled your own daughter from this Club. You allowed Judge to order her memory wiped, and now look, she nearly seduced you! Judge is ready to kill you both, and Talley is the walking dead—and God knows where Finley is. Now the only fuckin’ person that could even halfway validate your story is fucking Jade, and if you think I’m going to believe that twisted bitch you’ve lost your damn mind.”

  “I don’t care if you believe me.”

  Reveca jarred back.

  “Why would it matter? Adair’s alive. She’s strong.” Another pissed laugh left him. “Your fuck buddies vowed to protect her. You can’t hurt her or me. I win.”

  “You win. What are you, two?”

  “I have no fucking idea how old I am, Reveca. My plan was to finish this deal with Chalice, this leg of the war, make sure my daughter is right, and then give in.”

  “Give in! To her? This, this demon?”

  “Lady of Death, Ambrosia, mother to my child…”

  “Fucking awesome,” Reveca said in absolute disbelief.

  “My plan went up in smoke moments ago, when I was trapped in Zen.”

  “And why is that? Has the Lady lost her touch? Is it not fun when no one is fighting to keep you here?”

  “You wound me,” Talon said passively, only to point out Reveca couldn’t hurt him any more than she had.