Page 5 of Reap the Night
“You see, there’s more to the curse,” Ordell said. “One last wicked term placed there by Loviator.” He sighed. “Ezekiel is truly immortal and cannot be killed by any means except by the hands of Arabella. In her hands, even a dinner knife carefully aimed would be lethal to Ezekiel. And if he dies, then…well it’s an instant game over. Loviator goes free, no need to wait for the seven centuries to be up. No need to gamble on him finding his humanity.”
“But why would Arabella kill him? She loved him. I don’t understand.”
Ordell sighed. “Remember the darkness I mentioned that kept her in Limbo?” I nodded. “That’s Loviator’s touch. Herinfluence. It manifests each time as a violent hatred that builds over time. So far, it has always overcome Arabella, building faster than love can flower. Each time she’s been too weak to fight it, so each time we’ve had to end her. To start the cycle again.”
They had to kill her. The woman they’d loved once. Over and over. “I’m so sorry you had to do that.” Hemlock blinked in surprise, but Ordell merely smiled wearily, watching me and waiting until… “You thought I was her, which means…you were prepared tokillme.”
“Yes,” Hemlock said. “I would have done it.”
“O-kay…”
But I wasn’t the key. This woman Ariella was. Arabella reborn, she was back again. Another chance to save Ezekiel because she was connected to him. The woman he’d loved all those centuries ago. The woman who’d given her life to try and save him from Loviator.
If we were going to stop the evil goddess from breaking free, then I needed to do everything I could to help this incarnation of Arabella.
“What can I do to help?”
“Leave,” Hemlock said bluntly, and my stomach twisted.
Ordell shot him a glare, and when he spoke to me, his tone was soft. “If you want to help, you’ll have to leave Branwood and give Ariella time to get close to Ezekiel.”
Of course, that made sense. They needed space to grow close, so why did it feel like I was losing something? “I’ll leave in a few hours. I can go straight to the office. I mean, there’s so much to do. The cold ones…I need to help the chapter track them.”
“Ordell…” Hemlock gave him a pointed look.
Annoyance flared in my chest. “What is it now? Just tell me.”
“I told you that Loviator’s gift allowed me to communicate with beasts and commune with nature,” Ordell said. “But withtime my ability grew, allowing me to dream into being new beasts. The cold ones were my first creation. At one time they belonged to me.” He sighed. “I created them.”
Chapter 3
I’d always wondered what the cold ones were. Where they came from and why we, the Order, were the only ones who could kill them. And now Ordell was telling me that he created these monsters?
“Why? Why would you make such horrific creatures?”
“They weren’t always horrific,” Ordell said. “I dreamed into being guardians. Sentinels to protect settlements and homesteads. But after Loviator negotiated the curse, she claimed the cold ones, tearing them from this world and taking them with her. When they made an appearance in our world a century later, they were changed. Filled with bloodlust and darkness, killing and wreaking havoc under her influence. Although she couldn’t pass into our world, she was using the cold ones to assert her influence.”
“But it’s more than that,” Hemlock said. “She’s feeding on the souls of every being that the cold ones kill.”
I was suddenly back in the dorm room at the School of Creation, facing off with the alpha cold one as her laughter rang in my head. “She was there at the dorm. She spoke to me.”
Both males sat forward.
“What did she say?” Hemlock asked.
Whathadshe said? “Something about souls, and the fact that we had history. She must remember me from all my kills of her minions.” Had she been watching me through their eyes?
“Fuck, she’s getting stronger,” Ordell said.
“But she can’t break free, can she?” I looked between them. “She needs Ezekiel to fail at finding his humanity.”
“Or die,” Hemlock added.
“Are you sure he can’t find his humanity without Ariella?” I chewed on my bottom lip. “I mean…I feel like we were getting close. That he was opening up and?—”
“She has to fall in love with him,” Ordell blurted out.
I stared up at him. “What?”
