Sherrilyn Kenyon - Infamous

“Oh … never mind.” He had enough of that in his own life. If Jared’s was worse, he’d gladly take evil tool status. “Please continue.” Nick sat down on his bed, but made sure to put a good amount of distance between them. “You left off with the consorts.”

“Noir, Braith and Azura were livid that the light gods had dared create an army to be used against them, so they forged their own to maintain the balance.”

That writing went all over the wall. Up, down, sideways and back. “And eventually, they all had it out.”

“Yeah,” she breathed. “That’s the problem with stockpiling weapons. Sooner or later, someone always pulls the trigger.”

Stacking his pillows against his headboard, he leaned back and didn’t mention to her that whenever she spoke about the primal gods, a strange light surrounded her. “You’re related to one of those primal gods, aren’t you?”

She averted her gaze. “What do you want me to say?”

“I’d like the truth, for once.”

Still, she refused to look at him. “I can’t give you that, Nick. Not where I’m concerned.”

“And that really bothers me, Kody. What if I did that to you?”

“It would bother me, too. But I would try to trust you and to understand why you were bound to keep secrets.”

He scoffed. “You say that because you’re the one holding the cards and I’m the one wondering if you really are here to protect me … or,” he paused on what concerned him most. People betrayed. Alan had taught him that when he stood over him and cold-bloodedly shot him for refusing to commit a felony. Kyrian’s wife, the woman he had given up an entire kingdom and his inheritance to wed, had ruthlessly handed him over to his enemy to be tortured and executed.

And he would become a Dark-Hunter in a few years because someone would bring about the death of his mother.

Was Kody the one?

“Are you here to ultimately harm me,” he finished, putting it on the table for her to confirm or deny.

Either way, she could be lying and he’d have no way to know for sure. We’re all rats in a maze. Truth isn’t known until we’re fed …

Or dead.

This time, she locked gazes with him. “Have I done anything to make you mistrust me?”

Not technically.

Nick tucked his arms behind his head as he eyed her. “Aren’t you the one who told me that omitting a fact is as good as lying?”

She shook her head at him. “Now I know why you want to go to law school. You’d make a great litigator.”

Yeah, but he didn’t really like arguing or confrontations. Not that he’d ever back down from a fight. That wasn’t in him. Still, he’d rather avoid conflict than seek it out.

If only other people would be kind enough to let him do that. Some days, it seemed like the entire world was on a quest to shove him as hard as it could, and not let him walk away.

“I want to go to law school, Kody, because I don’t like being pushed around. People use a lawsuit as the ultimate threat against other people. I want to be in the position to glare at them and say ‘come get some’ whenever they try it with me.”

She smiled at him. “You are ever, at your core, a warrior.”

And knowing he was the Malachai, it made sense. That was what his people had been created for. But why then, would he rather have peace than war?

“Why do you think my mother chose my father?”

Kody frowned. “What do you mean?”

Nick allowed his thoughts to drift to the one question his mother refused to answer. “I’ve always wondered why my mom, especially as young as she was, would do what she did with a loser like my dad. Why did she sleep with him? I just don’t get it. As beautiful as she is, she could have had anyone. Or better yet, no one until after she graduated high school. Or best of all, not until she got married.” It was his mother, after all. That’s what mom’s were supposed to do, and then only when they wanted kids.

As for himself, while his body was more than willing—a lot and especially anytime an attractive woman was near him—he had no intention of taking that chance while he was still a kid. He knew exactly how hard it was for a teenager to raise a child, and he had enough responsibility on his shoulders. The one thing his mother had drilled into him— You bring an innocent baby into this world, you do whatever you have to take care of it and provide for it.

For that reason, he wasn’t about to sleep with anyone until he was mentally and most of all, financially, ready for the possible outcome of having a wife and baby to support.

“Do you really want the truth?” Kody asked.

“I certainly prefer it to a lie.”

“Then take an honest look inside yourself, Nick, and face the beast you don’t want to know exists. You know your mother. Better than anyone. What do you think happened?”

Nick grew silent as his thoughts went to a place he very seldom allowed them to go. It was so dark and so painful there, that he’d always told himself it couldn’t be. That surely, he was wrong to even suspect it.

But the words were there and they weren’t his. It was like they came from some kind of ancient prophecy or ordinance that had been handed down throughout the ages. “I was conceived in violence to do violence, wasn’t I?”

“The Malachai always is.”

Nick cursed under his breath. Well, at least now he knew what not to do to father his future heir and murderer.

But if that was true … “Then how can she stand to go near him?”

“He’s your father. To her, blood means more than anything else. Blood makes family. And I’m sure if you asked her, she’d tell you that he gave her the greatest gift of her life … you.”

Yeah, some friggin’ gift he was.

Sick to his stomach over the truth, he wanted to puke. His mom deserved so much better than to have been saddled with something like him. From beginning to end, he’d ruined her life.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at her.”

“You were hurt, Nick.”

And she wasn’t? His hurt feelings were insignificant when compared to what he’d put her through. What he had yet to put her through.

She’s going to die because of me.…

He blinked against the pain that was concentrated at the center of his chest. “That’s no excuse.” He cringed at the horrific reality of his conception. “How can she even stand to look at me?”

“You are her son, Nick. Her flesh and her blood. I told you, in her eyes, that means everything.” Kody raised her hands and formed a shadowy box between them.

Because of his scrying powers, he knew she was opening a window to show him events. But where he used his for the future, she was showing him the past.

He saw his mother screaming in the throes of labor. Just a baby herself, she was in the living room of Menyara’s run-down apartment, where they had lived until Nick was five and the landlord had tossed the guy next door out for nonpayment.

“Make it stop!” she screamed at Menyara.

“Push, Cherise. Push. You can do this, child. He’s almost here.”

She let out a cry so shrill, it echoed in the room, and made Nick cringe at the thought of the pain he’d given her.

Menyara laughed as his mother collapsed on the pullout couch. The baby made a weird gurgling sound, then screamed out at the indignity of being brought into a hostile world.

After wiping him down, Menyara wrapped him in a blanket and handed him to his mother. “He’s beautiful, child … just like his mother. And as perfect as he can be.”

Tears flowed down his mother’s cheeks as she stared at him. “Hello, baby. So you’re the one who’s been making me eat broccoli and cheese with chocolate syrup.” She clutched him to her chest and held him as if he were the most precious thing in the world.