Her Exiled Husband Is A Forgotten God

CHAPTER FOUR

POV: Kael

The Morrison estate had been fortified against me.

I came back — I know, stupid move, but I had to see Ava — and found gates locked, guards doubled, and a legal notice posted declaring me a trespasser subject to immediate arrest.

My stuff was in cardboard boxes on the curb. Already damp from morning dew.

“You have some nerve.” The patriarch stood behind the iron bars with two lawyers and a police officer. “Showing your face here after what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything. Chen Wei was a monster — literally, a monster. He was going to—”

“Chen Wei was a respected businessman who is now missing along with six of his employees.” The patriarch’s voice dripped contempt. “The Morrison family is cooperating fully with the investigation. We have, of course, told authorities everything we know about the mentally unstable vagrant we foolishly took into our home.”

“Where’s Ava?”

“My daughter is none of your concern.”

“She’s my wife.”

“Not for long.” He smiled, and it was ugly. “Our lawyers are drawing up annulment papers as we speak. Mental incompetence. Fraud. Criminal endangerment. Take your pick.”

I looked up at the windows, searching. Third floor. Southeast corner. There — Ava was watching through glass, face pale, hands pressed against the window. They’d locked her in. Not to protect her from me, but to prevent her from choosing me over them.

“Let me see her,” I said. “Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

“You’re not asking anything. You’re a homeless amnesiac with no rights and no leverage.” The patriarch gestured to the police officer. “If he’s still here in sixty seconds, arrest him for trespassing.”

And that’s when the voice spoke inside my skull.

They are beneath you.

The words echoed through my consciousness like stones dropped in still water. I felt them ripple outward, affecting something fundamental in my brain, awakening systems that had been dormant for longer than I’d been alive.

Why do you ask permission from insects?

I tried to push the voice away. Tried to focus on Ava in the window, on the normal human goal of reaching my wife and explaining and apologizing.

But the voice continued.

You could walk through these gates like they were morning mist. You could silence every tongue that speaks against you. You could take what is yours and leave these creatures to contemplate the mercy of being allowed to survive.

No. I didn’t want that. I wasn’t that.

The voice laughed. Softly. Without malice. The laugh of a teacher watching a student insist that two plus two equals five.

You are exactly that. You have always been exactly that. The chains are cracking. Soon you will remember.

My vision flickered.

When it cleared, I was standing inside the gate. Not at the gate. Inside. The iron bars were behind me now, and I had no memory of passing through them.

“What the—” The patriarch stumbled backward. “How did you—”

The lawyers dropped their briefcases. The police officer’s hand went to his holster, but his fingers wouldn’t close. Something was preventing him from drawing his weapon. Something was preventing all of them from doing anything except standing frozen, staring at me with wide eyes.

“I didn’t do this,” I said. But even as the words came out, I knew they were only half true. I hadn’t meant to do this. But something inside me had.

“Stay back!” The patriarch’s voice cracked. “Stay away from me!”

I didn’t want to scare him. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted to see my wife.

But the thing inside me was too close to the surface now. I could feel it pressing against my skin, looking out through my eyes, evaluating these people with ancient attention.

She is loyal, the voice observed. Rare in mortals. Perhaps worth preserving.

Get out of my head.

I am your head. I am you. I have always been you. You simply forgot.

I forced myself to stop walking. It took everything I had — fighting against the thing inside me that wanted to stride through this house like a god through a temple.

“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” I said out loud. To them. To myself. To whatever was riding my consciousness. “I just want to see my wife.”

The pressure released. The patriarch gasped for air. The police officer stumbled backward, finally able to move.

I walked to the main house. The front door opened before I touched it — locks disengaging, hinges swinging wide.

I climbed stairs. Ava’s room. Her door opened at my touch.

She was standing in the center of the room, waiting. Not running. Not screaming.

“You came back,” she said.

“I had to see you.”

“I know.” She took a step toward me. “I watched what happened at the gate. From up here, I could see your eyes.”

“My eyes?”

“They were glowing, Kael. Golden. Like sunlight trapped in glass.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“What are you?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.” I covered her hand with mine. “But whatever I am, I think I’m becoming more of it.”