“Out with it, Lucien,” Adam drawled, not bothering to look up.
Lucien glanced at Eliza, and his mouth tightened. With deliberation, he set his wine glass down and braced his forearms upon the table. “All right then, mon ami. We need to discuss what has happened.”
Adam arched a brow. “What of it?” There was a hint of belligerence in his tone that Eliza did not understand.
But Lucien clearly did for his expression softened. “Do you remember where you went when you died?”
Adam’s lush mouth tightened a fraction. “Darkness. That is all. Just darkness.”
“As did I,” admitted Lucien. “And the others. I have spoken with Daisy, and a few more. They all say the same. Darkness.” Lucien’s lacy sleeves rippled as he leaned in farther, his voice growing deeper. “It was true death. Not a simple leaving of our bodies. We died, mon capitaine. You. I. The whole of us.”
“I am aware, Lucien.” Adam resolutely did not look Eliza’s way.
Eliza was unable to keep quiet any longer. “What is it that you are implying?”
Lucien’s eyes held regret yet resolve. “From what my sire has told me” – at this he gave a pointed look at Adam – “he is soulbound to death. To the GIM, to be precise. Whatever is between the two of you does not negate that.”
Adam’s lips pressed together. “You cannot be certain —”
“Oh no? And what is it, then, that occurred this day? Merdé, but you cannot be stubborn on this.” Lucien’s fist pressed against the heavy wooden table. “If you do not take back control, continue as you have been all these years, the GIM will die out.”
Eliza felt Lucien’s words like a punch.
“I gather,” Eliza said to Adam, “that you did not think about your connection with the GIM when you let Mellan rip your heart out.”
Adam shot her a glare, but it faded fast. “No,” he admitted through his teeth. “I did not then realize that the GIM were bound to me so completely. If anything, I believed that my physical death would set them free.” With a sigh, he leaned his head back against the chair. “I erred in judgment.”
“Very well,” she said. “So you must take control over the GIM once more. Why is this a problem?”
Adam’s scowl was dark, but it was Lucien who answered.
“Because he wants an ordinary life. To live it with —”
“Enough.” Adam’s order rang loud and deep over them.
When Lucien merely looked at Adam as though daring him to deny a word, Adam’s broad chest lifted on a sigh. “It isn’t so simple, dove. As king of the GIM, I cannot solely live here. I must reside There.”
“Here.” Lucien gestured towards the window and the lights of London, glimmering off the waters of the Thames. “There, being an alternate reality where spirits, angels, and some primus demons dwell. And then Nowhere.” A hint of a smile touched his lips. “That place that your culture would call Hell.”
Adam nodded without enthusiasm. “In truth, the time I spent with you” – he grimaced – “when I’d chained you to me, was the longest I’d spent on this plane.”
“But why?” Eliza would not allow the panic to creep farther up her back. She’d forge ahead, solve the problem. “Why must you live There?”
“My power regenerates There. And I don’t merely create GIM. I collect souls. Of those who refuse to pass on to…” He hesitated then, his dark brows knitting.
“To wherever it is that those who truly die go,” Lucien finished for him. “It is hard for Adam to explain because none of us, not even the angels, truly know where that is.” The thoughtful expression did not leave him as he reached out and refilled their three glasses of wine. “What Adam forgot, I suspect in his joy of being free from Mab, is that by being soulbound to the reluctant dead, he draws them in. If he is here, so shall they be. In far too great a number.”
Eliza’s fingers curled tight, lest she reach out for him, demand that he stay precisely where he was. She’d never felt more alone. Blinking rapidly before tears could flow, Eliza turned away, running a finger along the carved rosette on the arm of her chair. She didn’t believe in soul mates or fate. Adam was clearly never meant to be hers. Why then did she feel so… defeated? Lost.
“So then,” she said slowly, the words fighting past the lump of emotion in her throat. “So wherever you are, so shall the dead be.”
Adam gave her a black look, his golden eyes glowing with fierce light then abruptly dulling. “Always.”
Chapter Thirty-One
She found Adam in Lucien’s dining hall. He sat alone upon the ornate ebony and pearl chair. She walked farther into the room, her heels echoing in the silence.
“I picked this chair up in China. Brought it as a gift to Lucien after he became my eyes and ears for London.” Adam’s voice was low with melancholy, and the fine curve of his mouth curled. “He fancies it his throne now.”
“And yet he wants you to sit in it.” Eliza’s throat hurt when she spoke. Everything hurt within her.
He stilled, the blunt tip of his finger poised above a pearl star. Golden eyes, now glowing once more with power, met hers. In them, she saw her own sorrow and need. “And so here I sit,” he said.
Her limbs ached as she went to him. And he watched her, his big warrior’s body unmoving but tense. Eliza stopped just before the arm of his chair, close enough to feel the heat of his body, close enough to touch. “You are their king once more.”