Unspoken (Unborn Book 3) Read online

  Unspoken - Unborn Book Three

  © 2019 Amber Lynn Natusch

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  ISBN-13:

  Unspoken is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Amber Lynn Natusch

  Cover by Regina Wamba, at Mae I Design

  Ebook Formatting by Pure Textuality PR

  Editing by Kristy Bronner

  http://amberlynnnatusch.com

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  More by Amber Lynn Natusch

  The CAGED Series

  CAGED

  HAUNTED

  FRAMED

  SCARRED

  FRACTURED

  TARNISHED

  STRAYED

  CONCEALED

  BETRAYED

  The UNBORN Series

  UNBORN

  UNSEEN

  UNSPOKEN

  The BLUE-EYED BOMB Series

  LIVE WIRE

  KILLSWITCH

  DEAD ZONE

  The FORCE OF NATURE Series

  FROM THE ASHES

  INTO THE STORM

  BEYOND THE SHADOWS

  The ZODIAC CURSE:

  HAREM OF SHADOWS Series

  EVE OF ETERNAL NIGHT

  Contemporary Romance

  UNDERTOW

  More Including Release Dates

  amberlynnnatusch.com

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  To the Oz lovers and Khara fans,

  thanks for waiting on this one.

  Culminating forces,

  Of gods and wings and dread,

  Are coming for the princess now,

  Wherever she dare tread.

  The lost souls seek to claim her,

  The Dark Ones wish her wed,

  But the faceless evil hunting her,

  Won’t rest until she’s dead.

  1

  I stood outside the familiar door, a notable absence at my side. The Dark One had left me to meet Demeter on my own, claiming he needed to secure the perimeter while I was inside, though I could not fathom why. We were secluded in the woods, not a soul to be found for miles. But as with everything Oz did, his motives were inexplicable, though undoubtedly present.

  And I was not privy to them.

  What I could only assume was trepidation coursed through my body when I thought of what I was about to do. Confronting Demeter was something I had never done, but now I had reasons beyond my own to do just that. If she was harboring Persephone or knew her whereabouts, I would know by the time I was finished.

  One way or another, I was going to track down Hades’ wife.

  As I raised my hand to rap on the door, it opened, seemingly of its own volition. There was no one standing there to greet me. Pushing it wider, I walked in to find my adoptive mother on the other side of the room, her expression every bit as tense and bitter as it always had been when I returned to her. It was as though nothing had changed.

  And yet everything had.

  “Demeter,” I said coldly, stopping in the center of the modest cabin. The isolation she had kept me in for centuries appeared to have been not only for my benefit. She liked living deep in nature, far away from human contact, though she had rarely been around during the six months each year I had spent as her ward. She could not tolerate the sight of me.

  “Khara,” she replied in an equally icy tone, leaning against the rustic wooden cabinets behind her.

  “I will keep this encounter brief for both our sakes. Where is Persephone?”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly. “The covenant has been broken,” she said as though I were daft. “She is in the Underworld, where she will remain indefinitely.”

  “And yet she is not,” I countered, stepping deeper into the room.

  “Impossible,” she said, her features tightening.

  “She has done something—something unthinkable—and I must find her. It would be wise of you to share her whereabouts with me before the others track her down. I may show her mercy. I cannot promise that much from the others who hunt her.”

  “Who?” she asked, tightening her grip on the cup in her hand. “Who hunts her?”

  “Many do. Myself, the Patronus Ceteri, the Dark One—”

  “Dark One?” she gasped. The sharp sound of her mug shattering on the floor accented her surprise. “Then they have found you…” Her words were merely a whisper. I watched her trembling hand pale as she put it to her mouth. It was as though she were trying to put back the statement that had just escaped her lips.

  “They have,” I replied, taking another step toward her.

  She leaned away. “Persephone is not here,” she managed to say while staring me down with a new intensity; one driven by fear. “I have not seen her since she was taken to the Underworld before her time.”

  “I do not believe you,” I said, striding toward her. She all but stumbled backward over herself as she tried to maintain distance between us.

  “You must go now.” Her voice was strong but shaky. It gave me pause.

  Then I watched as her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the ground, mumbling indecipherable words as she convulsed. Foamy drool pooled at the corners of her mouth as her head banged rhythmically against the floor. When I moved toward her, attempting to come to her aid, the cadence of her seizure increased and became more violent.

  I retreated a step. The jerking slowed.

  Another step. The incoherent rambling ceased.

  Another step. Her head fell limp against the floor.

  Then a voice from behind me drew my attention. I turned to find Oz hovering in the doorway, his expression a dark look of concern.

  “Time to go, new girl.”

  “What is happening to her?”

  His dark expression grew tighter. “She’s overcome with fear.”

  “Fear? Fear of what?”

  He hesitated for only a moment. “What you’ve become.”

  I stood there motionless, contemplating his mysterious words. Demeter had always known of whom I was born. Surely she could not have been surprised that I would take after my mother in some way; and that I would harbor some of my father’s traits as well.

  “What exactly does she think I’ve grown to be?”

  Oz’s eyes drifted to the unconscious former goddess on the floor, then back to me. His hesitation was plain. The struggle for words played out in the tight set of his features and the sharp furrow of his brow. He was weighing precisely how much he should tell me, which implied that he knew far more about my adoptive mother than he had ever let on.

  With a sharp exhale, he finally spoke.

  “Her worst nightmare realized. Now, let’s go. We need to get back to your brothers.”

  He turned and stepped outside without so much as a glance back at Demeter and me. I looked down at her on the floor, her breathing fast and shallow but steady, and I wondered what kind of monster sh
e saw when she looked at me—I wondered if she had always seen it when she looked upon my face. Her absence during my time on Earth would have been more understandable if that were true.

  I was far more than a simple burden to her.

  With that weight upon me, I left her alone in the house I had spent half of my life in and joined Oz. He took one look at me, then launched into the sky with me close behind. We flew straight back to the Victorian.

  We had much to discuss with the others.

  2

  When we walked through the front door of the Victorian, a sense of calm enveloped me. My home away from home had not changed while so many other things had. I could hear my boisterous brothers in the living room discussing something of importance, though their conversation came to an abrupt halt when they heard Oz and me enter.

  “Where in the hell have you been?” Kierson shouted at me as I strode into the room.

  “I had something I needed to do. Something I had to do alone.”

  His wary glance fell upon Oz, then back to me. “You don’t look very alone.”

  “I have found that arguing with Oz is the very definition of futile, so I did not bother. He would have only followed me if I had gone without him.”

  Seeing the truth in my words, Kierson decided to forgo an argument and instead wrapped his arms around me. He pulled me into an embrace, and I felt a small stir in my heart.

  “What? No hug for me?” the Dark One asked as he walked past us to take up his normal post on the stairs.

  “Fuck off, Oz.”

  “Ah, there’s the welcome I’m used to. Never gets old.”

  “If a warm reception is what you seek, then perhaps you should join Kaine and the others,” Pierson said. “How many times must you be told? This is not your home anymore. You chose your path when you betrayed us and Khara and embraced your darkness.” My brother stared beyond Oz, as though he could see his black wings spread wide behind him.

  “My path is the same as hers,” Oz replied, nodding toward where Kierson and I stood. “Where she stays, I stay.”

  “We moved Hades into your room after you disappeared this time,” Pierson said. There was no apology in his explanation.

  “Oz can stay with me,” Casey offered, standing up from the couch he had been sprawled upon. “It’ll be fun.” Nothing about the menace in my brother’s expression implied fun. It did, however, promise pain.

  “He will stay with me in the basement,” I said. “He is my problem to deal with, not yours.”

  Every head in the room turned toward me, a menagerie of interesting expressions assessing my own. They did not need to voice their concerns—I shared every one of them that went unspoken—but they did nothing to negate the fact that what I had said was true. Oz was my albatross, not theirs. “Now, I do not wish to argue. I would, however, like an update on where things stand with those that escaped the Oudeis.”

  “We’ve dealt with a lot of them,” Drew said from the far side of the room. “We think those that remain may have discovered what Hermes did.”

  “You think they have become corporeal?”

  He nodded.

  What an unappealing thought that was, given the method required to accomplish that feat. Dead virgins would litter Detroit, their half-eaten corpses left for the animals to dispose of.

  “That fact changes nothing,” Pierson interjected. “We find and dispatch them regardless. That is what needs to be done.”

  It was clear to me in that moment just how large a void had been left in the wake of Drew’s death and subsequent return from the Underworld. How the death magic performed to bring him back had permanently altered both him and the dynamic between the PC brothers of Detroit. They no longer had a clear and present leader. Instead, the role was now divided amongst them. Drew had been the resounding voice of command when I’d first arrived; without him, my fate would undoubtedly have been different. It was hard to watch my brothers flounder with the fall of his leadership. I hoped they would find a way to rise above it.

  “We will, but there are other issues we need to discuss,” I said, looking at the stairs where Oz stood, leaning on the banister. “Mainly the unrest in the Underworld.”

  “Unrest?” Casey asked.

  “When we originally returned there to find Persephone, the veils had fallen. The souls were loose. They have taken out my father’s army—his allies. We saw the situation firsthand, and it was formidable to say the least. We returned today before stopping to see Demeter—it has only gotten worse.”

  “Can they escape? Like the others?”

  “I do not think so. It appears that they are still held back by the Acheron—for now.”

  “A small mercy indeed,” Pierson said, looking over to Oz. “What is your assessment of the situation? Perhaps if you prove yourself useful, you may earn back your place in this house.”

  “It is as Khara said,” Oz replied, addressing my brothers. “A total shitshow.”

  “What of Persephone?” a hollow voice called down from the top of the stairs. Hades appeared, his cheeks sunken and eyes empty. “What of my wife?”

  I opened my mouth to answer him, but a sharp look from Oz gave me pause.

  “We did not see her there,“ he replied on my behalf. “Aery could not confirm her whereabouts.”

  “And Hecate?” Casey asked. His expression was unreadable as he inquired about his estranged mother.

  “No sign of her either.”

  “I had hoped Demeter could help us with this matter—that she might perhaps know where Persephone is,” I added, drawing attention back to me.

  “Why would she?” Casey asked, taking a step toward me. “You’re not telling us something…what are you hiding?”

  My traitorous eyes drifted up to where my father stood. I did not want to tell him what I knew to be true—that his beloved had betrayed him in a way he would never recover from. That he may have lost his kingdom because of her. The irony was that I knew he would have given it away if it would have pleased her. The thought made me loathe her even more.

  “Father,” I started, walking to the stairs where Hades stood motionless. The fear in his eyes was notable and impossible to avoid. “The truth is that Persephone was not in the Underworld when we arrived—”

  “Khara!” Oz growled, grabbing my arm as I passed. My head swiveled slowly to look at him, then at his hand wrapped tightly around my bicep. He released me with a snarl, and I continued up the stairs.

  “She is gone, Father. She has escaped.”

  “But that’s not possible,” he replied, his words a mere whisper. “The covenant has fallen…she is relegated to the Underworld.”

  “I understand that, but it is true nonetheless. Aery was quite clear that Persephone was nowhere to be found. She looked for her specifically—to keep her safe for you.”

  “Then where is my wife? Why has she not come to me?”

  I stopped short of where he loomed on the final step. “I believe she has not come for you because she was the mastermind behind Zeus’ escape. I believe she betrayed you to release him, and she used me to that end. I believe that the love you feel for her and thought she felt in return has always been a lie.” I paused for a moment to let those harsh realities settle in. “I am sorry, Father. I wish it were not true…”

  “It isn’t,” he snapped, grabbing me by my shoulders. “These are lies fed to you by that creature to whom you have been tethered. The one you need to rid yourself of.”

  “The one that can hear you,” Oz added. There was no humor in his tone as he said those words.

  “I don’t care if you can hear me,” Hades hissed through his teeth. “You are a plague upon her that needs to be remedied.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” Oz replied, feigning boredom. But I could feel his anger growing—his irritation with Hades’ blindness regarding Persephone. “Or maybe you are. You brought Deimos into her life. You left the Underworld in shambles. I can help keep her safe, which is far mor
e than you can offer, isn’t it, Soul Keeper?”

  My father’s eyes narrowed at the insult.

  “I do not require your assistance, Oz,” I said. “I can manage just fine on my own. With my family…”

  “Your family is busy dealing with the souls you let out, new girl. They’re a bit preoccupied at the moment. And since Daddy Dearest has weakened power and no authority on Earth, he’s about as useful as you were before you came into yours. You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not. You have enemies coming at you from every angle, and Hades will soon as well. You cannot simultaneously fight them all and watch your back.”

  “And you will do this—watch my back?” I asked, staring him down. “Or will you stab me in it as you did my brothers?”

  His expression hardened. “I haven’t yet…”

  “Such a comforting sentiment.” I returned my attention to my father, his anger surrounding him like a dark aura. “Father, I want to find Persephone. She must answer for what she has done.”

  “What you think she has done, Khara.”

  “Either way, she must be found to prove her guilt or innocence.”

  He nodded reluctantly in agreement. A painful image came to mind: my father holding a sword above Persephone’s head, poised to bring it down upon the traitor. There were tears in his eyes as he did. If she had in fact betrayed him, he would break. And the Underworld would be damned for eternity.

  “So while we’re doing that,” Oz said, stepping down into the living room, “the rest of you can round up the souls that escaped.”

  “We still have another matter to deal with,” Casey added, casting a glance over to Drew. “We don’t know who killed him.”

  Indeed, that was true. Somehow in all the chaos surrounding his presence in the Underworld and his resurrection, the person behind his demise had been overlooked. Until that moment.