by J. L. Madore
She opened her desk drawer and collected her purse, checking her phone as Kyrian guided her to the door. “Oh, I’ve missed a message.”
“Who from?” he asked, gesturing for Dougal to lead the way outside and secure the vehicle.
“It’s an unknown number.” Cassi punched in her digits to retrieve the message as the phone rang in her hand. “Hello?”
“Mistress,” a male whispered. “It’s Larkin.”
Kyrian growled long and low beside her.
“Perfect, your husband is there. I must speak with him. It’s urgent.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Phoenix woke to a violent heaving of his stomach. Rolling to the side, he vomited the contents of whatever foul residual magic tainted his system. Damn, that was vile. Once the shakes settled, and he was sure he had nothing more to contribute to the slick pile of disgusting he’d deposited on the clinic floor, he laid back and tried to breathe.
“Thank the Goddess.” Storme leaned over him so she blocked out the rest of the room. “You’re an idiot. I’ll never forgive you for this.”
He heard the fear and subtext beneath her words and cupped her cheek in the palm of his shaky hand. I love you too, kitten. I suppose I’ll have to dedicate the rest of my life to making it up to you.
Storme’s frown deepened. “Do you really think charm is your best offense? You almost died.”
It didn’t feel like that this time.
The punch to his arm made him smile. “The fact that you have a frame of reference highlights a problem. Stop doing shit like this.”
He pulled her onto the bed next to him. What about Seth? Tell me about my brother.
“He woke up three days ago and is fine. It’s you that everyone’s worried about.”
Three days? Wow. Okay, he really did overdo it. What else happened. Why are you alone down here?
If there was one thing he knew for certain, his brothers would’ve been lining the halls if all was well. The fact that Storme and Drina were holding down the clinic spoke of something of major proportions going completely FUBAR.
“Let your brothers focus on the problems of the world for a bit. You just woke up.”
Yep. Shit was hitting.
He rolled to the side of the bed, stretched his foot to avoid the puddle of his toxic internal workings pooled on the floor, and used the mattress to keep himself vertical as he found his stuff.
Shrugging on his weapons vest, he nearly buckled under the weight of the steel. He dropped to the plastic chair at the end of the bed and made like he was readying to slide on his boots and not falling on his ass.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I was bred for a purpose. You get that, I know you do.
“There are nine of you. They’ll survive while you rest.”
He leaned forward and laced the first tall red-leather boot, and then the other. They did and I did. For three days, I’ve shirked my duty and left my share of the load to my brothers to carry. If there’s trouble, we’re stronger as a team.
He stood, grabbing hold of the doorframe to keep himself upright. His guts churned like a wave pool eddy and his legs felt like gelatin.
“You can’t even stand. Stop being so stubborn. Get back in that bed and lie down.”
Phoenix straightened and soldiered on. The turmoil inside him wasn’t an injury, it was weakness. He didn’t accept it, nor would he acknowledge it.
My brothers need me, kitten. If nothing else, knowing that I am on my feet will bolster their strength and focus.
“Then you can show up, give them the good news, and slide into our bed.”
Phoenix got his shitkickers moving. Heel-toe. Heel-toe. He passed Drina’s office and thanked the heavens the Reaper had face-planted and was sound asleep on her desk. He’d apologize for not cleaning up the vomit the next time he saw her.
The two of them hit the bottom of the clinic stairs and he cursed. The tunnel stretched fifty-fucking-miles until it reached the house. Or, at least, it seemed to.
You haven’t answered my question. What’s the sitch?
When nothing came back to him, he figured the honeymoon was over and they were having their first marital fight.
At the T-junction of the tunnel that shot off to the garage, a stabbing pain speared his temples. He dropped to a knee and breathed through the agony.
“What is it?” Storme said, dropping beside him. She pressed a gentle palm on his forehead and the skin-to-skin contact nearly knocked him on his ass completely.
An electric surge snapped through him and, insanely enough, went right to his crotch. He gritted his teeth. Why was his libido kicking in now?
Someone upstairs was fucking with him.
“You seriously need to get back to the clinic and let Drina examine you.”
I’m fine. He forced his eyes to open and prove his statement. It’s a headache, that’s all, but it’s not mine.
She eyed him like he’d grown another head.
Honestly, s’all good on my front. Sometimes Seth and I are affected by the other’s extremes. If I knew what was going on, I’d have a better idea of how to explain it to you.
He stared, waiting for her to give him something to go on.
Nothing.
So incredibly stubborn.
He rose to his considerable height, discretely adjusting his jeans to reposition things. What the hell was going on with his libido? Storme straightened too, gripping his bicep like she meant to hold him up if he took another turn.
Shit, she melted him. He couldn’t stay mad at her.
I really am good, he said, his head clearing more by the moment. It was just a flash. Gone now.
Storme blinked up at him, genuine panic sparkling in her eyes. “Do Nephilim get migraines?”
Phoenix shrugged. The only time I had headaches like that was when . . . ha! No shit.
“What—no shit? When what?”
When I was bonded and separated from you. He hated the sorrow that clouded her expression. It nearly killed him when she walked away, and she knew it. Ancient history, kitten. Seriously, eyes on the horizon, never in the rearview.
After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the stairs up to the house. He keyed in the security code and let Storme lead the way. The foyer light came on automatically when it sensed their movement and he paused at the base of the sweeping staircase.
Let me check in with Z, then I’ll come up, shower, and let you know what’s doing.
“I know what’s doing,” she said, with a curt snap. “I’m telling you, I don’t want you involved. You’re barely upright and can’t use your magic when you’re this weak. When you hear what’s happened, you’ll put yourself right back in harm’s way, and then what?”
I don’t know because you refuse to tell me what we’re dealing with.
Storme shook her head and stomped up the stairs. For a tiny thing, she sure could beat out an angry rhythm. “Fine, go play the hero and ignore my feelings. When you end up on your ass in the clinic, don’t expect me to sit there worrying over you for the next three days. Been there, done that.”
Wow. She really was mad.
I love you, kitten. I’ll be careful. I swear.
Her middle finger batted his words away as she rounded the landing toward the third floor.
Okeeeedokee. He had groveling to do later.
Thankfully, gaining a little distance from Storme set things right behind the fly of his pants one again.
Could Seth really be bonded? And if so, with who?
Thea breathed through the next contraction and cursed the timing. Angels of the Choir were dedicated and subjugated to their post serving the heavens, so pregnancy was not only rare, it progressed and terminated far more quickly than in the Human Realm. Angels didn’t have, nor need, parents. Newborns were received by the Seraph to be studied to determine their affinity of service, and the mother returned to her duties.
It was the way of things.
At
first, when Phoenix suggested her living in the Human Realm, she’d balked at the idea of enduring months of pregnancy. It felt like she played the part of a holiday turkey being fattened up. Now, she desperately needed more time. The only thing keeping the demons at bay was the pregnancy.
Once her son was born and her body adjusted to being solo again, the blood demon would drain her to make more red-metaled weapons and Thrash would take her child.
She would fight, of course, but with more than a dozen male soldiers, armed and eager to fight, she didn’t have a chance. Why couldn’t her baby wait another day or week to be born and give them the chance to be rescued?
Another contraction hit, and she wanted to cry. What was that . . . a minute apart? It couldn’t have been much more.
She cast a concealed glance across the rocky plateau, toward Thrash and her men. They didn’t seem interested in her and she wanted to keep it that way.
Thankfully, when they’d decided to keep her alive, they’d released her hands from behind her back and allowed her to take off her winter coat. They’d retied her hands at the front and she’d gained a great deal more mobility.
She shifted on the jagged ground, pulling her coat over her lap. Closing her eyes, she tried calm meditation to slow things down. She didn’t believe she could influence the nature of giving birth, but the terror of what would happen next had her in a complete panic.
An odd sensation released below, and she felt the warm rush of her pants soaking up her waters. Tears burned behind her closed eyes. Nothing would stop things now.
Hooking a thumb into the waistband of her maternity pants she shucked them down, while keeping her coat covering her.
Please, Lady Divinity, send Seth and the others.
It truly is now or never.
Seth waited with Hark, while Danel, Kyrian, and Zander got the aerial recon of where they were and what they were up against. Normally, he’d have his fists up and be all “bust in guns-a-blazin’,” but Thea and his child were up there. Despite his beast raging within, he needed to play this smart.
Collateral damage was not an option. This had to go right.
His chest ached with the weight of his part in all this. Thea had been upfront with all of them since he’d found out about the pregnancy. She sought a male who could love and care for her. She wanted a husband and a father for their child.
He’d been such a resistant dick about it.
Even if he didn’t want to put a ring on it—and he didn’t—he could’ve befriended her, maybe even spent time talking about her hopes for the baby. He was such a selfish ass.
“Okay,” Kyrian’s voice came over the comms. “Larkin’s intel seems to check out. A hundred feet up from your position, there’s a plateau with a cave entrance, with a dozen Hell Shedim standing guard.”
“Any sign of Thea?” Seth asked.
“Negative,” Zander said. “Kyrian, Danel, and I will drop the hammer while you and the others dematerialize and ghost past the guards. Whatever’s happening, it’s going down inside that cave. Good luck, my brother.”
“On one,” Kyrian said. “Three. Two. One.”
Seth threw his molecules into the air and raced up the rocky crags of Hell’s landscape. The plateau exploded into chaos as his winged brothers dropped from the swirling sky to engage the enemy. He paid them no attention, his focus locked on the narrow opening into the cave.
Once inside, he—Oh, sweet Lady, no.
Thea hung from the jagged stone of the cave ceiling, suspended by iron stakes through her belly, shoulders, and thighs. Long blonde hair dangled in tangled bloody strings above them, her beautiful face twisted in torment.
Seth’s vision fried as his beast ripped from his control. “Take him,” he commanded, pointing at the sniveling piece of snot in the corner. “One of you, help me get her down.”
Hark was at his side in the next heartbeat, the two of them hoofing it up the scaffolding used to mount her to the rock.
By her sallow pallor and the amount of blood in the catch basin below, he feared they’d come too late.
He prayed he was wrong.
“Get Kyrian in here,” he snapped, sawing the head off a spike with his Crystalline dagger. “And call Auriel. He owes this demon fucker for Thea and the Cherub last summer. He’ll make him suffer for eternity.”
With her arms free, he held Thea up by the shoulders while Hark worked on the spike through her stomach. He tried not to look, but the sight burned into his heart.
No way their child survived that.
No. Fucking. Way.
His world circled the drain and the loss of life struck him more profoundly than he thought possible. Tears brimmed and burned his eyes as his beast went full-on apeshit within him.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, gathering Thea to his chest as the last of the spikes were released. “I’m so sorry, angel. You deserved better. You both did.”
He pressed his cheek to hers as Kyrian cursed from across the cave. “Fucking déjà vu. Bring her out where there’s more room.”
Seth carried Thea out of the dwarf’s cave and laid her down on the plateau. After yanking his shirt off his head, he laid it across her hips and tried to give her at least a little dignity while Kyrian did his thing.
Stripped, drained, and pierced through her body, he barely recognized her features. Still, other than Kyrian trying to save her life, he would never allow other men to behold her.
She was his—not his exactly, but his responsibility.
The hair on his arms raised as the power of an Archangel built in the air. Out of a golden mist, the mighty Auriel stormed into their midst. “Where?”
Seth’s throat felt blocked and he tilted his head to the cave.
“And he is responsible for the Cherub as well?”
“He is,” Zander said. “He was commissioned by Stryker to create the red-metaled weapons last summer, and again by the Shedim Master’s bastard daughter to make more.”
“Have you found the daughter?”
“Not yet, but we will.”
“You do that. I want her head on a pike when you do.”
Seth’s beast surged in agreement. They’d see to it. She may have claimed the name Thrash, but she was still the spiteful cage-bitch, Emma, in his mind. That she had infiltrated Zander’s club last year and walked among them made him sick.
They’d have the last laugh. They’d sever her head and spit down the dark, bloody hole.
“Seth,” Kyrian said, drawing him back to the grizzly scene before them. “She’s nowhere near well enough to travel, but we gotta figure out how to get her to the clinic fast, or I’ll lose her.”
Before the words were out of the Greek’s mouth, the three of them flashed to the emergency room. Auriel’s power tingled over his flesh and for once, Seth wouldn’t complain.
Drina blinked up at them and snapped into medical mode. She grabbed gloves and rushed to the table. “How long as she been like this?”
Seth wiped at his face, his whole body shaking and numb. What did it feel like to have a mental breakdown?
Kyrian gave him a quick glance but didn’t bother waiting for him to clue in. “We don’t know. A Blood Dweorg had her and was draining her.”
Drina tossed his T-shirt and got up close and personal with the angel. “And where’s the baby?”
Seth and Kyrian locked gazes and thankfully, the Greek’s brain wasn’t as fried as his. “What do you mean?”
Seth turned away as she continued her exam. Giving her his back was the only honor he had to offer her.
“I mean, there’s no child. By the looks of these tears and the blood staining the inside of her thighs, she gave birth before being used as a blood donor.”
Gave birth? No. So where the fuck was . . . an unholy growl ripped from his throat as things coalesced in his brain. “That fucking bitch!”
Kyrian grabbed his phone and dialed. “Yeah, Z . . . Drina said Thea gave birth. We think Thrash has the baby.”
He raced toward the treatment rooms and found the somber group, working hard to save Thea’s life.
Where was—oh fuck. Seth was a wreck—as he should be.
What the hell? He got ahold of himself and hated that he’d found any satisfaction in his twin’s pain. When had they gotten so off track?
Pacing like a caged animal, Seth seemed to sense his arrival. He changed trajectory before guarded emotions and second-guessing took hold. Phoenix met him chest-to-chest and clutched him tight.
They had been divided too long.
More than shaking, his twin was physically vibrating.
Regret stung Phoenix hard. He’d cast his brother from his life for a bright new future and left him to twist in the wind. He’d known how Seth would suffer. They were more than brothers—they were part of each other. They shared a closeness both of them needed to survive.
I fucked up, he said into his mind. Forgive me.
He got nothing back but a tighter grip. Phoenix was honestly getting close to a couple broken ribs. There would be bruises at the very least, but still, he let Seth hang on.
“Guys?” Kyrian said, leaning over Thea as Drina stitched her wounds. “She’s coming out of it.”
Seth bolted around the Greek and took Thea’s hand in his. “Hey, angel. It’s all right. We got you.”
Thea blinked, her vision unfocused. She mumbled something and then they sort of caught, “Our . . . son.”
Seth listed to the side, but Phoenix kept him upright.
A son, Phoenix said. You have a son.
Thea whimpered as something in her belly hurt.
Seth brushed her tears away and hushed her calm. “We’ll get him back. I swear it, angel. Rest now. You need to rest.”