Things That Should Stay Buried - Casey L. Bond Page 0,102
one who fathered him and gave him life in the first place.
Aries had stopped flipping pages and was watching me. “How many,” I rasped, “did he kill?”
“Fifty-seven before I put them to sleep. There were a few others he had not hunted down, though.”
My heart dropped. Fifty-seven children.
I knew some of them must have been older if his eldest was a man when he went to kick his father’s ass, but some of them might have been babies. He may have even murdered the women still carrying his babies. The idea turned my stomach.
Aries showed me this for a reason. Taurus was more depraved than I realized. If he was capable of committing such evil and hell-bent on ending me, my future looked bleak.
I had lasted more than forty-eight hours, survived attacks from Pisces and Cancer, reunited with a friend only to have him torn away, and experienced the most lifelike and brutal nightmare I’d ever had. A threat directly from Taurus.
I read more passages, flipping through many of the pages quickly. Some were scribbled with just thoughts, like he’d said. Other pages were written so thickly and angrily, I couldn’t make out all the words. Those were the pages detailing the attack on his people. He’d meant to abstain from the in-fighting to keep them safe from the battles the other Zodia insisted on, but in the end had damned them.
It was disgusting. The others valued nothing but themselves.
This book was a turning point for him, written as he was planning and building the temple. There were even sketches of the layout and details of its progress here and there.
Aquarius helped him design it. I bet that chafed him, knowing he’d unknowingly built his own tomb. Aries had told him it was to honor them and give them a neutral place to meet. That in the temple, their differences would be put aside. That he was willing to make peace, even after what they’d done. Aquarius hadn’t attacked his people. Nor had Virgo’s or Capricorn’s. But the other Zodia’s armies overwhelmed them. They took them by surprise and slaughtered many. He thought it was to weaken him. He was probably right.
He had to put an end to them. And to himself.
There was no way to permanently erase their existence. The best he could do was lure them there and trap them inside, enshrouding them in ancient magic.
Aries was still as he watched me, forgetting the book in his lap. I glanced up and noticed the crease between his brows, the way his jaw was clenched.
“What is it?” I went on high alert. My heart began to thump rapidly. “Is something wrong? Are they here?” I fought to breathe. I don’t want to face them. Not today.
But that would be when he came, wouldn’t it? When I wasn’t ready to fight back.
“You are safe,” he said. “I’m trying to understand you, that’s all.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” He stared at me like he was searching for something deep inside me.
I hated to disappoint him, but I didn’t think he’d find what he was looking for. I felt as hollow as the hole Taurus punched through my chest.
No, that wasn’t right.
The hole he left wasn’t hollow at all. It was filled and spilling over with fear.
I was terrified.
“Why’d you share this with me? This library, the book, your words?”
His dark lashes pressed closed for a long moment. “Because I want you to know me.”
“Why?”
“Because you matter, Larken.”
He mattered, too.
In his book, he wrote that the Zodia were too strong, too much for this world. Too dangerous for their own good, especially when their people’s existence hinged on their every breath. Their every choice. Their every mistake.
“Why weren’t you buried with them?” I croaked as he ran his knuckles down my cheek.
“Kes,” he replied. “I had to lure them there, but I also had to seal them inside. I couldn’t do it and fight them off at the same time. I sealed them in from the outside, then went to the tomb Kes had prepared for me to lay in. I weaved the magic to put myself to sleep along with them, but not before giving Kes the order to watch over me, and before making my eleven other Guardians scatter across the globe to watch for any sign the others had been unearthed.”
“Have you reached out to Capricorn?” I asked. “She was once your friend.”