Illusion: Chronicles of Nick by Sherrilyn Kenyon Page A

try to claw his eyes out every time she looked at him.
    Kody squeezed his fingers as if she knew what he was thinking. “As an infant, my oldest brother was taken from my parents and they weren’t allowed to raise him. For centuries, my father thought him dead while my mother … well, both of them really, were imprisoned by different gods. When they were finally reunited, long after my oldest brother was grown, they had my brother Ari right away.” A bittersweet smile curled her lips. “They were so overprotective of him that I’m told it scarred him for life. And for the longest time, they were afraid to have another child. They just wanted to protect the two they had and make sure nothing bad happened to them.”
    “Were you an uh-oh baby?” Nick teased, trying to ease the grief in her eyes.
    She wrinkled her nose at him. “No. I wasn’t an uh-oh.” There was a hint of laughter in her voice. “Many centuries later, after Ari was grown and married, my parents decided that they were finally ready to have another baby to viciously overprotect.”
    The light faded as sadness darkened her eyes again. “I was only two when something happened to you. I don’t know what. But it unleashed the Malachai and you went crazy on the world. I was sent into hiding and trained to battle your forces while my family rallied their allies and did what they could to keep your army at bay and protect the world.”
    Nick ground his teeth at the horrors of her life. Horrors he’d caused for her and all the people they loved. He’d never hated himself more than he did right now. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
    “ You didn’t.”
    That wasn’t true, but he appreciated her saying it. At the end of the day, he was the Malachai. Whatever his future self did, it was him, too.
    Now he understood why Ambrose was so desperate to change the past. His future self had told him that he could feel the last of the goodness inside him dying. That any day, he expected the Malachai to devour his conscience and render him a merciless monster. Because of it, Ambrose was barely sane at times as he tried to keep Nick from making the same mistakes he’d made at Nick’s age. To steer Nick onto another path that kept him firmly planted in the light.
    And once that decency was gone, the Malachai would take over and kill everything and everyone. That was what his species had been born to do.
    Man, it sucked.
    “You should have told me the truth before now, Kody.”
    “You weren’t ready to hear it, and you definitely weren’t ready to accept the reality of what you’re headed toward.”
    Who would be? No one in their right mind wanted to be told that they would one day destroy the entire world and everyone who lived in it. That they would kill or cause the death of every being who mattered to them.
    And so what if she was right? It still stung that she’d lied to him and kept such a huge secret. “Is that why you came to see me in the hospital after I’d been shot? Were you planning to kill me?”
    She looked away. “I was supposed to kill you that first day we met at St. Richard’s.”
    That news floored him and flooded him with memories. Even now, he could visualize her clearly that day in his mind when he’d first seen her standing in the office—it seemed like a lifetime ago. She’d looked like a vision. So sweet and innocent. Confused by her new school, or so he’d thought. Meanwhile, there she’d been with the intent of ending his life. “Why didn’t you?”
    She laughed bitterly before she met his gaze. “You were so not what I thought you’d be. I went there expecting a cruel Malachai to battle to the death. Someone like Stone.” The bully who’d caused him to be sent to the office. “And instead I found a sweet, bashful, respectful boy who wore the tackiest shirt imaginable just to make his mother happy and not hurt her feelings, even though everyone else mocked him for it. One who gladly took a beating to protect his