Then Declan broke free and charged at the creature from the other side. Distracted by Declan, the demon turned, and Lucien crashed into the beast. His impact threw it into Declan’s path. Declan hammered a fist into the side of the demon’s face.
The hood fell back to reveal a pale, ugly creature with eyes that burned more white than white blue now. Its ears were so close to its head they seemed not to exist. It was a little taller than the one they battled in the tunnels, but not as tall as the one Killean described encountering during his search for Simone.
Its features were humanish, but something about it reminded Lucien of a reptile. Perhaps it was the hooked, rattlesnake-like fangs protruding from its mouth. Whatever it was, this monstrosity was as hideous as the last one.
The demon staggered, and when it did, Lucien crashed into its back. Wrapping his arms around its waist, he lifted it and slammed it into the ground. He wanted to let his fists fly until it was nothing more than mush beneath his hands, but if they could take it alive, they might be able to learn something more about it and its brethren.
Even as he thought it, the demon backhanded him across the face. The blow split his cheek open, and blood flooded his mouth.
The demon punched him again, and this time, his nose cracked and gave way. It moved so fast Lucien could barely keep up with it, but he managed to dodge the next punch before delivering one to the demon’s face.
In return, one of its punches connected with his ribs, and one of them gave way with a crack. The broken rib shifted inside him, and the jagged edge of it pierced his flesh. As the demon was about to deliver another blow, a hand seized its fist and yanked it back, pulling it off him and smashing it into the ground.
An eerie, awful shrieking erupted from it. Lucien had heard the same sound in the tunnels when the one they battled there released a similar sound. Then, he believed it was alerting the others to its death. Now, he couldn’t help but speculate if it was calling for help.
Needing to silence it, Lucien hammered his fist into its face. The demon’s head shot back, and the tip of Willow’s sword thrust between them to rest against its throat. The demon ceased its struggles as it realized that so much as a centimeter in the wrong direction could end its life.
Its thin lips skimmed back, and its white eyes illuminated the night as it glowered at Willow. Hatred oozed from its pores, but it didn’t move.
Declan snarled at the look on the creature’s face and unleashed a series of blows that battered its revolting face before knocking it out. Though its head lulled to the side and its eyes closed, Lucien didn’t dare ease his weight off it. He didn’t trust it not to be faking, and he refused to lose it.
Lifting his head, he gazed at the bodies littering the ground as what remained of the Savages fled into the woods as the sun began to lighten the sky.
CHAPTER 44
The demon remained unconscious as they bound its hands and ankles. When they finished doing that, they tied those binds together with a rope and cinched its wrists and ankles behind its back, effectively hog-tying it.
When his hand brushed against the thing’s clammy cheek, Lucien’s skin crawled. Its smooth skin reminded him of the feel of a snake’s belly. Saber wanted to put a bag over its head, but Willow argued against it.
“We won’t know if it’s awake,” she said.
“It won’t let us know if it wakes up anyway,” Saber replied. “It could be faking now, and we wouldn’t know.”
They all leaned closer to inspect the unmoving monstrosity, but if it was awake, it was hiding it well. Lucien rocked back on his heels as he resisted the impulse to kick it. It was a monster, but he couldn’t kick a helpless prisoner no matter how badly it deserved it.
This thing was a big part of the reason why Callie was in the back of an SUV with Simone, fighting for her life. That reminder caused his hands to flex as the color seeping through his system pulsed and shifted.
He had so much pent-up anger he had to release, but the Savages who hadn’t fled were dead. All that remained was this creature, and Lucien couldn’t take his wrath out on it… yet.
“We might see something in a flicker of its eyelids or a flare of its nostrils,” Willow argued. “We might be able to figure out if it’s awake that way.”
They all studied it, but Lucien couldn’t tell if it was still breathing beneath its cloak, and he had no intention of stripping that from it. Looking at it with the cloak on was bad enough; he’d prefer not to see it naked.
“We need chains,” Killean said. “These ropes won’t be enough to keep it restrained when it wakes.”
“Once the sun rises and takes care of these bodies, we’ll stop at a hardware store,” Lucien said.
He gazed at the dead Savages spread out across the rest area before shifting his attention to the road. They weren’t next to a highway, but the road was busy enough to warrant a rest area. He hadn’t seen another car in a while, but the flow of traffic would probably increase as the day dawned.
“They were pretty daring to attack us here,” he said.
“They’ve been getting increasingly bold for a long time,” Declan said.
“When do you think they started following us?” Asher asked.
“Callie’s apartment,” Lucien answered. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. They didn’t just stumble across us. Someone”—his gaze traveled to the remains of his brother—“was waiting for us nearby. It was most likely Yannis.”
“What makes you say that?” Logan asked.
“Because, whether I like it or not, we were brothers. It’s been hundreds of years since we saw each other, but we know how the other thinks. He expected me to bring her back there, and he was waiting.”
“Why would he expect that?” Saber asked.
“The second I didn’t kill her in that pit, he knew she meant something to me. I was starved enough that I would have killed anyone else, but instead, I saved her. I’m sure some of the other Savages and probably demons suspected it too, but Yannis would have been certain.”
“That’s a long time to wait,” Killean said.
Lucien met his gaze as he replied, “He’s been waiting centuries to kill me. These past weeks were nothing compared to that.”
No one said anything as their eyes returned to the demon.
“If they’ve been following us for that long, why didn’t they attack sooner?” Asher asked.
“They’ve probably been waiting for the right time, or maybe for enough of them to gather,” Willow said. “I’d like to know where they came from in the woods.”
“We’ll check that out,” Declan said.
“At least they didn’t follow us to the compound,” Logan said.
“They wanted the sword,” Declan replied. “They wouldn’t take the chance of us getting somewhere more secure and taking it with us.”
Willow lifted her chin. “They’re not getting it.”
Declan shifted uneasily but didn’t say anything.
“Do you think they put a tracking device on one of the vehicles?” Logan asked.
“We had someone watching over them every night in case they found us. There’s no way one of them got close enough to do that,” Willow said.
“I agree,” Killean said.
Lucien glanced toward the lightening sky, but it would still be a couple of hours before the sun was up enough to burn away the remains. “We should set up a roadblock so no vehicles can come by here until the bodies are gone.”
“Asher and I will take two of the SUVs to do that,” Logan said.
“I also need blood for when Callie wakes. I have to feed her.”
And she will wake, he told himself. He couldn’t allow himself to doubt it; he’d go mad if he did, and now was not the time to do that. They would end up having to restrain him too, and they needed all the help they could get to clean up this mess and get out of here.
Callie would make it through this, and soon the agony of her transformation would take hold. He grou
nd his teeth together as he resisted going to her, but they had to take care of this mess before he could do that.
He sneered at the creature on the ground as the demon part of him stirred. This never should have happened. Callie never should have suffered in such a way, and it was all this thing’s fault.
We must keep it alive. We have to see what it knows.
It’s never going to tell us anything; just kill it.
That was most likely true, but no matter how much he’d prefer to see it dead, they had to learn if it would reveal anything. They also needed to learn if they could discover any weaknesses.
“We’ll get some blood for you soon,” Killean said.
Lucien opened his mouth to argue; he wanted to ensure he was ready for her now, but it would be hours before Callie required blood to complete her transformation. Before then, they had to ensure the demon was secure, find out where the Savages came from, get the roadblock established, and ensure the bodies were destroyed.
When the demon stirred, Saber kicked it in the head, and its movements ceased again. “I guess we’ll know when it wakes,” he said.
Willow rolled her eyes as she slid the sword into the scabbard on her back. “Let’s go see if we can discover where these things came from,” she said to Declan.
He nodded.
“We’ll set up the roadblocks,” Asher said, and Killean tossed him a set of keys.
They split up, and Lucien checked on Callie before helping Killean and Saber gather the Savage’s bodies. They placed them out where the sun would hit them soon. He dumped Yannis’s body on the ground before retrieving his brother’s head and dropping it unceremoniously on the body.
He stared at him for a minute before turning away. Yannis was the past; Callie was his future.
When they finished cleaning up the mess, Lucien stalked over to the SUV housing Callie. He pulled open the back door to discover Simone had lowered the seats and settled Callie in the back. She rested with her head on a pillow.
He held his breath as he watched for the small rise and fall of her chest that would indicate she was breathing. His ears instantly picked up the laborious beat of her heart, but it took far longer than he would have liked before her chest rose.
His shoulders sagged before he crawled into the back to settle next to her. He lifted her hand and clasped it in both of his while he studied her abnormally pale features and her black hair spilling across the pillow. Through the hole in her chest, he watched the beat of her healing heart as it lumbered to pump blood through her.
Simone didn’t speak before she slipped out of the vehicle and closed the door behind her. Carefully, Lucien lifted Callie’s head and settled it in his lap. He brushed the hair back from her forehead as he studied her features. Her mouth was pinched, and as her transformation progressed, she twitched and moaned.
He would give anything to take away her discomfort, but he could only sit by her side and watch as she suffered just as he’d watched her mortal life come to a vicious end. The reminder caused his fangs to lengthen as fresh color swirled over the backs of his hands.
He needed to kill, to rend and destroy, but the Savages were all dead. Nothing remained for him to slaughter. Leaning closer to her, he inhaled her sweet scent now intermingled with Simone’s and his.
He was inside her, a part of her, and though she still suffered, when she came out of this, she would be immortal, stronger, and they would seal the mate bond.
Her aroma and the tantalizing promise of their future together helped calm the demon inside him. He stroked her forehead as he bent to kiss her.
Her breath tickled his lips as he whispered, “I love you. Come back to me soon.”
He thought her hand squeezed his, but it was such a fleeting movement he couldn’t be sure.
“It will be over soon,” he promised. “The worst of this will be over soon, my love.”
He longed to crush her against him, but he didn’t dare for fear he would damage her more. As he ran his thumb down between her brows, her eyes fluttered back and forth behind her closed lids.
He spent his time alternating his attention between Callie and Killean, Simone, and Saber as they stood guard over the demon they’d moved into the back of his battered SUV. They’d swathed it in blankets to protect it from the rising sun, but Saber had kept its head out, and they all watched its face like vultures circling carrion.
An hour passed before Willow and Declan returned to join the others. He saw them talking, but no one came over to the SUV. Though he was curious about what they discovered, he wasn’t going to leave Callie, and he was glad no one bothered them.
Then he watched as Willow walked away from the others and stuck the tip of the sword into a Savage’s body. The jewel in the hilt glowed brightly before the body burst into ash. She lifted her head and said something to Declan that he couldn’t hear before moving on to the next body.
They should have thought to use the sword sooner, but they still weren’t used to the weapon, and he didn’t think they ever would be. Willow was still making her way through disposing of the bodies when the sun reached high enough that a flicker of flames pulled his attention away from Callie’s small cries. Her hand clenched around his, and her body twitched as her transformation progressed.
Small fires erupted over the exposed flesh of the remaining dead Savages. Those fires spread until they became a blazing inferno. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he took grim satisfaction in watching the Savages burn.
His grin widened when the fire spread to his brother’s body. His hand tightened on Callie’s as his brother became nothing more than ash.
He would have loved to spend centuries torturing Yannis for what he did to Callie, but he would never get that opportunity. However, he savored every second of watching Yannis burn.
For hundreds of years, he’d never known if Yannis survived their fight, but from now on, when his brother crossed his mind, he would have this fantastic memory of watching him burn.
The worthless piece of shit would never be a problem again.
CHAPTER 45
When the fires died out, Declan pulled out his phone, and a couple of minutes later, Asher and Logan returned. They drove their vehicles over the piles of ashes, kicking them up and scattering them across the rest area. The Savage’s remains rose to dim the sun’s rays as they danced through the air.
Before those remains settled, the doors opened, and Killean climbed behind the wheel while Simone slid into the passenger seat.
“We’re good to go,” Killean said as he closed the door.
“Good,” Lucien said. “Did Declan and Willow discover where they came from?”
“There’s another road about a half a mile through the woods. They discovered three vans parked alongside it. The Savages must have packed them full, and I’m sure the ones who fled took more than a few vehicles with them when they left. One of the vans had a partition dividing the front seats from the back; that must have been where the demon stayed to avoid the sun.”
“Are we leaving the vans there?”
Killean’s gaze flicked to his in the rearview mirror. “Do you see a problem with doing that?”
“No.”
“Yes, we’re leaving them. Our vehicles may not have tracking devices on them, but those vans might.”
“They most likely told others about our SUVs. They probably have a description and license plates.”
“We already considered that. Ronan is going to leave us some new vehicles in the state forest in Plymouth. We’ll switch them out before going to meet him.”
“Where are we doing that?”
“The hotel on the Cape.”
It wasn’t a secure location, but it was away from the compound and any prying eyes. They could do anything to the demon there. The tires crunched over the earth as Killean shifted into drive and fell in behind Declan’s vehicle.
Lucien wished they could pick up the vehicles, transport them to the state forest, and the
n the Cape. He hated the idea of that thing in the same SUV as Declan, Willow, and Asher. Many things could go wrong, but he couldn’t dwell on those scenarios; it would only make him crazy if he did.
After an hour of driving, Declan pulled into the parking lot of a hardware store getting ready to open. Killean used his abilities on the two young workers to get inside the store early. He emerged five minutes later with a lot of thick chains and a couple of heavy-duty padlocks.
Simone climbed out to join him as they walked over to Declan’s vehicle and climbed into the back. Fifteen minutes passed before they reemerged. Killean said something to the others, closed the door, and took Simone’s hand while they strode back toward him.
By the time they settled into the SUV again, Callie was whimpering, and her body jerked as her hand ground the bones in his together. The fingers of her free hand clawed at the floor of the SUV until she shredded the thick, black material lining it.
Lucien kissed her hand and stroked her forehead as he tried to soothe her, but she was too lost in pain to notice him. Simone twisted in her seat to face them, but she didn’t say anything before turning away again.
It would be a while before Callie required blood, but he needed to feed so he could heal and be ready for when she woke. However, they were only a couple hours away from the state forest, and it was a half an hour from there to the Cape, so he did have time even if it felt like it was running out.
He kept his attention focused on her as the tires hummed over the highway. Before he knew it, they turned into the state forest and onto the wide, tree-lined roads. The canopy of the trees stretching overhead blocked out the sun.
Killean drove for a couple of miles before pulling to the side of the road. He parked behind another black SUV and a black van with no windows in the back.
They switched everything over, including all of Callie’s things, and Lucien found himself sitting in the back of the new SUV with her as Killean and Simone returned to the front. Everyone else filed into the van.
Bound by Danger (The Alliance, Book 6) Page 25