Embraced (Eternal Balance) (11 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Jax

O
ne minute Sam and I were on the street, the next we were being choked down by the earth. It took a moment, but as my eyes got used to the dim light, I was able to see we were in someone’s kitchen.

Sam stood next to me, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand, and to her left was…Sam. A younger version, fourteen or fifteen. She stood in front of Kelly, head bowed and shoulders rigid.

“I want the truth,” Kelly screamed. “Tell me who was driving.”

“I was,” Sam insisted. She lifted her head, eyes meeting her aunt’s with a spark of challenge. “It was me.”

“What is wrong with you?” Kelly raged.

“Rick said I could pay him for the damage over time. He said—”

“Do you think I’m a fool?” her aunt demanded, dropping her voice. “That I don’t know who was really driving?”

“It wasn’t—”

Kelly slapped her. The sound echoed through the room, and even though the moment was long gone, I was still furious. This was the aftermath of the night I’d crashed Rick’s car. Sam and I had both been drinking, and I’d been an asshole, insisting I was fine to drive. A deer ran out in front of the car, and I swerved to miss it but ended up veering into a tree. Sam made me switch places before the police arrived, telling them it’d been her behind the wheel. I’d already been in so much trouble. One more strike would have landed me in an entirely new pot of hot water.

“You told me she was pissed, but that it was no big deal,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “She hit you, Sammy. She fucking hit you.”

Sam ignored me, watching the scene unfold.

“You’re going to let him ruin your life, Samantha,” Kelly barked. “The police chief says this will go on your permanent record. For what? To protect some loser who will knock you up the first chance he gets and then leave you hanging?”

Kelly had always hated me, and I couldn’t give a shit, but I’d never heard such venom directed at Sam before.

“I did what I had to do,” the Sam beside me said softly, looking away from the scene. “You can’t fault Kelly. She never knew you like I do.”

I didn’t get the chance to respond. The room changed again, this time dumping us out in an open field. Michael stood in the shadow of a large tree, arguing with another man.

“You cannot do this,” said the one I didn’t know. He placed a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “It will tear our kind apart.”

“It is already done,” Michael said, brushing the other’s hand away. “The inequality is unacceptable, Gabriel. It ends now.”

“Angels,” Sam whispered. She stepped around me and walked toward them, enthralled by their presence. “But if we’ve been seeing things from
our
past, why show us this?”

I shrugged and joined her closer to where they stood. “Who the hell knows? This whole thing is a mind fuck, if you ask me. That bastard doesn’t know anything about getting that thing off your wrist. We need to cut our losses and go find—”

“Shh.” She waved at me and leaned closer to the arguing pair.

“What brought this about, brother?” Gabriel took a step back and shook his head. “Things are as they have been for eons.”

“Exactly,” Michael said. “We will fight for our right to be more than just drones. To matter.”

Gabriel took a step back, stunned. “This will lead to exile.”

“Then so be it,” Michael said, resolute.

Everything grew blurred and watery. I thrust my hand out, blindly searching for Sam, but caught nothing but air. When it all cleared, I was someplace else, thankfully with Sam beside me.

“Now what?” she said, glancing around. We were outside in the middle of a thicket. Several men approached from a distance.

I took her hand and pulled her from the path. “No choice. We wait it out.”

There were four of them, Michael at the front. Not humans, but angels. They stopped a few feet from us as two more came from the other direction to meet them.

“Is it true?” One of the two asked. He was tall with blond hair and a thin mustache.

Michael nodded and bowed his head. “I am afraid so. We are exiled. Fallen from His grace.”

The rest said nothing, but there was a profound sadness in the air. Despite the fact that none of this was real, it stirred the demon, making Azi rumble with hunger.

“We must find a Pure,” Michael continued. “If we kill it and claim its energy, then we will have the power to go home.”

Again the area changed. This time Sam and I stood in front of…Sam. Another her, anyway. And another me. We were as we were today, even dressed in the same clothing. Sam stood between Michael and me. She was backlit by an unyielding glow, and both Michael and I had one of her wrists in our hands, playing tug of war.

On my side, the glow around her changed red, while on Michael’s side, it turned brighter and whiter. “Okay,” the real Sam said, stepping closer and squinting against the light. “Out of everything, this makes the least sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. Don’t you get it?” I turned away from the vision and grabbed her hands. “Heaven and hell fighting over you. Tearing you apart to use for their own ends.”

A small noise escaped her throat, her skin paling. Vision Sam’s eyes popped open. She jerked from Michael’s and my grasp like it was nothing, bringing her hands to wrap around each of our necks. Throwing back her head, she let out an unworldly howl, and as we watched, both Michael and I turned to ash.

Sam was quiet for a moment. The expression on her face lingered between surprise and terror. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, but there’s something I need to tell you,” I said, not really wanting to continue. She needed to know. Deserved to know. The problem was, I knew that after she found out the truth, she’d see her parent’s death as
her fault
. But I’d seen it for a reason. Her parentage must have had some significance. “A few of the things I saw—” Shit. How was I supposed to spit this out?

“Saw?”

“I don’t think the Merrick’s were your parents.” Smooth, asshole. Real smooth. “Not biologically.”

She shook her head and laughed. “No way. You must have misunderstood. Of course they’re my parents.”

The light faded and the vision Michael, Sam, and me disappeared, leaving us alone. “I saw them talking. They were afraid your real parents would try to take you back.”

She shook her head, grin fading. “I would know if that were true.”

“I’m afraid it
is
true,” Michael said. He was in front of us now, arms folded and mouth set in a grim line.

Sam opened her mouth, then closed it for a moment. Holding up her hand, she said, “I’m assuming we did what you wanted. Can you tell me how to remove this now?”

“Not just yet,” Michael said. “I need to know you understand the gravity of your situation.”

“The gravity?” Sam screamed. Her colors swirled, a mix of red and black. “I think the gravity of ‘if you don’t get this cuff off you’ll die’ is pretty damn clear.”

“You are not simply Pure,” Michael said, ignoring her outburst. “Among your kind, you are special. Rare.”

Were these assholes incapable of giving straight answers? “Rare? What does that mean?”

The archangel shook his head, hesitating for a minute before continuing. “Sam is a special kind of Pure. In fact, I don’t know that there has ever been one like her before.”

“What makes me so special?”

“With the purified soul of two Pure parents, she is unique. That is multiplied by the fact that she died and lives again, and also because she is the last in her line.”

“Last in my line? But what if I have a child? You said this runs for generations. Why wouldn’t it be Pure?”

“Your birth parents destroyed both their lines, ending each with you.”

“How—” Sam was confused, and I didn’t blame her. She still didn’t know the whole story.

“They told the demons where to find you,” I supplied. Turning to Michael, I added, “That’s what did it, isn’t it?”

Michael nodded. “That crime dissolved the last of the purified soul in both of them, and nullified future generations.”

“They told—why would they do that?” Sam took a step away from us and ran both hands through her hair. The murky colors swirling around her head grew bolder and bleaker. “And my parents—the Merricks. It was me. They died because of me…”

Michael frowned. “Your birth parents are responsible for the deaths of the Merricks—not you. Since there is no way for a demon, or an angel for that matter, to tell which human souls are Pure until they die, they needed help. Without them, the demons would have never found you as a child, Sam.”

“But they were Pures themselves,” Sam said, confused. “And they were obviously still alive, so how did the demons find
them
?”

He shook his head slowly. “They knew what they were. In life, as a Pure grows, they have a predilection toward either good or evil. I’m sad to say, your parents leaned toward the darker side of their nature. They sought out the demons and offered to sell your location”

Sam looked sick. “But why would they do that?”

“Money, power—the exact nature of the exchange is unknown to me.”

“So the Merricks sacrificed their lives to keep me hidden,” she whispered. “And it was all for nothing.”

“You shouldn’t look at it like that.” The angel’s voice softened, and for a second, he looked as though he felt sorry for her. “Paul and Toni Merrick enabled you to survive into adulthood. That’s no small feat for your kind. They gave you a chance to grow and become someone who could take care of herself.”

“Yep.” Sam threw her hands into the air. “And then I went and essentially killed myself, undoing everything. Just awesome.”

“Yes,” Michael said. “Now you’re as bright as the sun to both angels and demons. But remember that there is always a choice. Heaven and hell want to use you, but because you have been activated, they cannot do so without your consent.”

Sam laughed. “Well then, problem solved. I’m not consenting to shit.”

“Ah, but it’s more complicated than that.” He began to pace. “The reason I showed you the things I did was so that you would understand. Choices are not something always made as freely as it would seem. There are outside influences, connections and attachments to take into consideration, small, unseen nudges—”

Sam’s skin grew pale, and I reached for her hand. “What? What am I missing?”

“Something I saw,” she said softly.

This. This was the thing that had her so messed up when I’d found her.

“Yes,” Michael said with a sigh. “To be claimed, the agreement need not be verbal. It simply has to be implied. Taking the bond between you and Jax into consideration, you must be fully aware of the possible outcome of your actions. All of them.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” I whirled on Sam.

She ignored me, still focused on Michael. “That’s why Heckle made the deal he did with Jax. It’s why we can’t be together. Because we could accidentally…”

Again Michael nodded. “I imagine so.”

“Then that would mean he knew.” Around her shoulders, a swirl of red exploded into the air, so dense that it nearly blotted her from my sight entirely. “He made it seem like my coming back
activated
was a surprise. But it couldn’t have been. Not if he made the deal before it even happened!”

And then I understood what she was saying. Like a bolt of lightning striking me down, so many things made sense. The almost primal need I had for Sam. The nearly uncontrollable, dark desire to possess her any way I could.

“Let me make sure I have this straight,” I said with as much calm as I could muster. Azi stirred in a mix of excitement and fury, and I tamped it down. A spike of jealousy, mixed with the sting of Heckle’s betrayal hung like a noose around my neck. “You’re saying that to claim a Pure, an angel or demon would need to—”

“No, no,” Michael said. “But the intimate relationship, coupled with the intensity of your feelings for each other, could easily allow her to be claimed during…a moment of passion. Azirak could manipulate the situation.”

“Well, then we won’t be crossing that line.” Sam looked like she might throw up. I knew how she felt.

“You must not.” The archangel’s expression was all pity, and I had the urge to wipe it away using the sole of my boot. “Because should either side get hold of you, it would not be long before you consented. Temptation would be their first attempt—which is why your relationship is dangerous. The next step would be far less pleasant. The human mind cannot fathom the depths of torture available to us.”

“If that’s a threat…” I stepped in front of Sam, letting the rest of the sentence linger between us. “In that fucked up vision quest you just sent Sam and me on, you showed us that you needed someone like Sam to go
home
. If you think I’m going to let you—”

“Like the demons, some of the angels were cast out as well. I among them.” His lips pulled downward. “Like Lucifer, I started a rebellion, though not to the same extent. I, and about twenty others, were banished from heaven, doomed to walk the earth for ten thousand years.”

“And?”

“And, if you’re asking me if I plan to use Sam to get back into heaven, the answer is no.”

“Why?” she asked. “Not that I’d be a willing volunteer, but if I’m the way for you to get back, then why not do it?”

“I’ve been here a long time. I see that I was wrong in challenging God’s will. I accept my fate and will not fight my punishment. But the others are not quite so resolved. They feel their comeuppance was too severe.”

Sam seemed to think about this for a moment before taking a deep breath. “Okay, so what was the point in showing us all that crap?”

“As I said, you needed to understand certain things in order to make a choice”

“Choice?” Sam said. “What choice?”

“How long do you think it will be before one side or the other finds you? How long do you believe you can keep running?” He took a deep breath. “I can smell the link. It
will
be your undoing.”

“I’ll protect her,” I said, as Azi flashed an image of me facing off against the armies of heaven and hell to keep Sam safe. Then, in another flash, it stood side by side with the cloaked female demon, each holding a chain wrapped around Sam’s neck. “Just get the damn cuff off so we can be on our way.”