The tempers had thankfully cooled off in the room. All five demons and I were sitting down, discussing what steps of action could be taken to stop the Elder from bringing an apocalypse down on our heads.
“We can get aerial images of the grounds,” I suggested. “They should be easy enough to find.”
“Raim, will you be able to show us on the map exactly where the urn is located?” Vadim asked. “Since you’ve seen it in person, so to speak?”
“I believe so.” Raim winced slightly, probably at the unpleasant memories of the time when he saw it last. From what I understood, the summoning ritual was not a pleasant experience for a demon.
“The trick would be to get there before the Elder does,” Ivarr pointed out. “Or any of those brain-washed Monks of his, who would touch the urn for him.”
“We have to sneak in undetected,” Sytrius agreed.
I smiled. “Aren’t Incubi the masters of stealth?”
“The main problem for us has always been the soros amulets worn by those inside,” Vadim explained. “We can’t get in without an invitation.”
“I don’t need to be invited, though.” I glanced at him.
“Are you sure?” Vadim cocked his head. “Have you tried to enter a room with a human wearing an amulet inside it before?”
His question was valid. The full range of abilities and limitations of cambions was not yet clearly defined. My own knowledge was limited. Since my dad moved us away from the rest of our family, I had no interactions with my own kind other than my parents, who made efforts to conceal any sign of us being what we were.
I thought back quickly. “My brother wore an amulet when we were little. I don’t recall having any problems entering rooms then. Oh, and more recently, Kitty was wearing Ivarr’s amulet when I picked her up that night in the Rocky Mountains. I put her in the vehicle first and had no problems getting in after.”
“Good.” Vadim nodded, seemingly satisfied with my answer.
“They feel safe inside their walls, with the amulets around their necks,” Ivarr huffed a short laugh then glanced my way with new appreciation in his gaze. “Someone who is not stopped by the soros stone sneaking into their fortress would be a surprise for sure.”
“As would be destroying the urn for good.” Andras smiled for the first time since I met him. “We just need to remember to stay away from that damn thing ourselves. If any one of us touches it, the effect would be exactly the same as if the Elder did it.”
“True,” Ivarr agreed.
“So.” Vadim straightened in his chair. “The purpose of our plan is to get Delilah close enough to the urn for her to destroy it and thus finally eliminate the threat that apparently has been hanging over our heads ever since its discovery.”
“Wait a minute.” Raim leaned forward. “We haven’t yet discussed any details of Delilah’s involvement. The amulets may not be a problem for her, but how about the armed guards on every corner?”
“We will come with her,” Sytrius assured him.
“You can’t be a part of this, Sytrius.” Andras shook his head. “You have a baby at home.”
“That is exactly why I am coming,” Sytrius insisted. “I have the biggest reason to be one of those who stop The Priory—I want my son to have a chance to grow old.”
Vadim nodded. “We’ll all go. All of us have good reasons and people to fight for. I may not have children yet, but I’m not willing to leave this world, either. It would crush Jade if I left.”
“Regardless, even if the whole Incubi population decided to join you in this noble quest,” Raim argued. “Delilah would still have to enter every room first and make herself a target for their guns.”
“We will have to take some precautions—” Vadim started, but Raim cut him off.
“No. It’s too risky. Delilah may not be entirely human, but she is not immortal. She can be stopped by a single bullet.”
“I would call all of you in right away,” I suggested. “As soon as I enter.”
“If you’re not shot down with your first step.” He flexed his jaw, expression grim.
“What do you suggest, then?” Andras asked.
Avoiding eye contact, Raim said, his voice low, “She stays here.”
“But I am the perfect person to do this Raim.” I placed my hand on top of his on the armrest. “Can’t you see? Only a cambion can touch the urn without causing a disaster. There don’t appear to be many cambions in the world, and I don’t know of anyone who could match my strength. I’m confident I can lift that thing and just smash it on the ground so it breaks. All of this stress will be over in seconds.”
“It crossed dimensions and didn’t break,” Andras remarked. “How can you be so sure you can destroy it now?”
“Because that’s what the carvings say.” I turned to him, trying to explain the conviction I felt. All of it was falling into place, now. “Don’t you see? The hostility between the demons and humans warranted the existence of this one undamaged urn in the world. It served as a sort of insurance, a way for humans to cleanse their world of you if things got out of control. Or maybe, for you to get out of here if you failed to find a way to coexist with humans.” I moved my gaze across their faces. “A cambion is a result of a successful union between a demon and a human. Only a Forgiven demon can procreate, right? My very existence means that the Incubi’s purpose has been fulfilled. They have found a way to their Forgiveness, which makes the urn no longer necessary. I am meant to destroy it.” I drew in a long breath. “I just need to get to it, somehow.”
Silence descended over the room, with only the sound of the surf against the rocks outside disturbing it, as the demons considered my words.
Raim took hold of my hand. His thumb, intently rubbing over my knuckles, betrayed the turmoil happening inside him.
“When did you find out about your ability, Delilah?” Sytrius asked.
“I’m not sure. I was too young to remember that. My brother was almost five years younger than me, though, and I remember when he couldn’t reach snacks on the table once. He used his mind to get them. After that, my parents started locking up things they didn’t want him to take. A little later, my mom found him floating over his toddler bed. Then my dad put a net canopy over it, to keep Owen contained through the night.” I smiled at the memories, then realized why Sytrius would be asking me that. “My brother was somewhere between two and three years old then. How old is your son?”
“Not quite two yet.” A warm expression spread over his face.
“Soon then.” I grinned wider and he smiled back, with a pair of cute dimples showing up on his cheeks. “It’s an exciting day when the child’s special abilities are first discovered.”
“What other abilities do people in your family have?” Andras joined us.
“Um. I remember meeting some of my extended family when I was younger. My dad took me to a large family gathering, a barbecue on a large property of his distant cousin in Arizona. I remember Mom couldn’t come because Owen was sick. She stayed home with him. I met a lot of people that day, played with children my age. Some could levitate a few feet off the ground, ‘flying’ they called it. Some made small rocks hover in the air. I don’t recall anything bigger than that. Not all of the children had abilities, either. My dad told me that it diminishes with each new generation born.”
“Do you have a way to get in contact with that part of your family?” Andras asked.
Raim tensed in his chair. “Why would she do that?”
“I was wondering if Delilah could possibly ask some of her relatives for help,” Andras explained.
“If she had other cambions with her before we are able to join them inside, would it put your mind at ease?” Vadim asked Raim, who paused, seemingly lost in thought—or maybe simply being stubborn.
“I’ll need to know I could trust them,” he finally replied. “Completely and absolutely.”
“We still have time.” Vadim turned to me. “Not much, but enough to se
e if you could recruit someone to assist you.”
“RAIM, HONEY, I’M NOT jumping into ‘that snake pit’ unprepared,” I argued in a muted tone of voice as we ascended the stairs to the second floor of his castle.
His Incubi friends remained in the sitting room, still discussing the details of the newly formed plan. Raim had excused himself for a few minutes, insisting that he had to take me to bed. After hours of talking and with hardly any sleep, I had been stifling my yawns, and he noticed it.
“In case it escaped your attention, it’s not the level of your preparation that I have problem with,” he replied, leading me by my elbow. “It is you coming anywhere near any danger at all.”
“In other words, you’d rather I didn’t come with you?”
“Right.”
“That is not an option, though.” I called on my patience. “I have to be the one who’ll end this. Right now there is no other choice. You understand that?”
“I do.”
I sensed more tension in his brief replies.
“But you’re still against it?”
“Yes.”
I inhaled slowly, thinking of the reason for his stubbornness.
“Because you’re concerned for my safety?”
We reached the door to our room. Grabbing me in his arms, Raim swiftly moved inside, kicking the doors closed behind us.
“Concerned?” he growled wildly, pressing my back to the wall and fisting his hand in my hair. “Do you have any idea what would happen to me if you got hurt?”
I lifted my face to him as he pressed his body to mine. The darkness brewing in his eyes was unnerving. I replied in a teasing tone in an attempt to lighten his mood, “You’re concerned for yourself then?”
“Yes.” His expression remained serious. “I know how loss feels. And I’d rather burn in Hell for the rest of the eternity than go through that again. If something happened to you, it would be infinitely more pain for me than it has ever been before.”
“Why?” I whispered, mesmerized by the storm of emotions churning in his eyes.
“Because . . .” He lifted his other hand to my face, his grip in my hair loosened a bit as he gently brushed his knuckles along my jawline. “Because I have allowed myself to take more than I should have from you. Parting from you would be like losing a big part of myself, now.”
“So, you’d rather see all of us vanish?” Despite everything he had shared with me, I still struggled to understand this man completely.
“For myself, I believe the fires of Hell would hurt less.” He said it so casually, it made the whole concept that much more real to me. “But I know that you would prefer to live as long as possible. Humans cherish their lives. Every year, every day matters to them. To you.”
“That’s true.” I ventured another smile. “But I also wish for you to remain in this world. With me.”
“If that’s your wish, I will do everything to stop the old bastard from ending our lives.”
For the first time that I knew of, Raim was willing to act against his wishes, simply because he understood I wanted something else.
He did it for me.
“Thank you,” I said again, rising on my toes, and he captured my mouth in a kiss. Fisting his hand in my hair again, he angled my head in a way that suited him. His arm slipped around my waist, drawing me even closer to him.
Breaking the kiss a few moments later, he nuzzled the hair above my ear.
“Are you positive you can get in touch with your relatives?” he asked. Just because he decided to stop the Elder’s plot didn’t mean he had accepted the potential risk for me, it seemed.
“Well, I haven’t seen any of them since I was eight. My dad severed all ties with my extended family.”
“Why do you think he did that?”
“I believe he wanted to erase connections that could lead to our special abilities being discovered. My brother’s disappearance made him extremely suspicious of everyone. He was afraid that whoever took Owen would snatch me next.”
“I thought he blamed Incubi for taking his son.”
“He did. But like you said before, no one came forward with any blackmail. There were no ransom demands either. He kept speculating on all possible reasons why his son would be kidnapped. One of them was to use his special abilities. So, we spent a lifetime hiding who we were.”
I sighed, thinking about all the troubles I went through, pretending to be just like everybody else. No one knew about my strength, not even Brad. I just wouldn’t know where to begin to explain something like that to anyone.
“I’ll have to go through my dad’s old notebooks back home to look for the contact info for our family.” I hadn’t thrown any of my parents’ personal belongings away, including Dad’s notebooks. Their things were a part of my history. “Not all of the people I met in Arizona when I was little would still be alive and some might have moved or changed their phone numbers, but hopefully I’ll be able to locate someone.”
“I’ll come with you,” Raim announced.
“To Seattle?”
“Yes. And to Arizona if needed.”
“Okay. If you insist.” Something light and fuzzy rose in my chest at the prospect of having Raim as my travel companion. “I’d love that.”
“And I want the right to interview your relatives.”
“To interview them?” I stared at him.
“Yes. If any one of them turns out to be a better candidate for this mission, I will insist on them taking your place.”
Chapter 19
“YOU’RE ALL SET.” THE airline agent scanned and returned my boarding pass, beaming a smile at Raim who stood just behind me.
The four demons who had visited Raim’s castle the day before had left by the time I was up the next morning. Raim explained that they went to start the preparations for our mission. The two of us were on our way back to Seattle.
“After you.” I made a wide gesture with my arm, inviting him to board the plane ahead of me. My amulet glowed softly under my blouse. It would lock Raim out of the plane if I boarded first.
In the future, maybe I should find a safe place to store it at home next time I travelled with Raim, instead of wearing it.
If we had a future . . .
That was one huge if.
If we were able to stop The Priory.
If I survived what was to come.
If both of us cared about building any kind of future together, after all that . . .
There were way too many unknowns.
As we took our seats, I slid my gaze Raim’s way, appreciating the view: how he reclined in the comfy first-class seat, his posture casually dignified; the elegant incline of his head as he accepted the blanket from the female flight attendant.
The fact that she paused at his side, staring at him with clear admiration, did not escape me, either. Warmth trickled inside my chest as Raim immediately turned to me and draped the blanket over my legs.
“Thank you.” I caught his hand in mine, and he lightly squeezed my fingers back.
The wordless communication with him felt easy. I couldn’t deny our connection, I just simply didn’t know what to do with it yet. Mere weeks ago, I signed my divorce papers. At this early stage, could I trust my own feelings for another man? The fact that the man was also a demon no longer seemed like an obstacle, though.
“Are you able to sleep on a plane?” Raim asked after takeoff.
“It depends. In a comfy seat like this . . .” I stretched head to toe in the wide, fully reclined seat. “This feels even better than lying in my own bed.”
“Good.” He skimmed his thumb over my knuckles. A frosty feeling dusted my hand as the restless worry and concern created by my thoughts receded.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Shh.” With this sound, his lips formed a shape that got me thinking of kissing him, which in turn sent flutters through my stomach. “We’ll be busy after the landing,” he contin
ued. “You may as well get some rest now. It will help you fight any jetlag, too.”
“Alright,” I didn’t argue, distracted from my worrisome thoughts by some very different ones. “How about a goodnight kiss then?”
He hit the button of his chair, bringing its back down to my level, then slid his hand under my head. “Just one. Then you’ll rest.”
“Make it count then,” I whispered, wrapping one arm around his neck.
With a wicked grin and a wild glint in his eyes, he lifted my head and claimed my mouth. Deep, passionate, and unapologetically possessive, the kiss knocked any kind of thought out of my head at once.
For a few wonderful moments, it was just Raim’s lips, firm and caressing, his tongue, urgent and greedy—everything else fell back as it always did when I was with him. Raim had the uncanny ability to take over time and space in the same way he took over my thoughts and feelings—all at once, leaving nothing for the rest of the world.
Excitement vibrated through me as a wave of heat rushed me, warming up my face and my chest and swelling hot and thick between my legs.
He ended the kiss, and I gasped, biting my lip to stop a moan.
“Shh,” he whispered again, his face hovering barely an inch away from mine as he brushed his thumb along my swollen lip the moment I released it from my teeth. “Time to rest, Dee.”
His eyes flashed bright red as my lip tingled with cold, then the desire that raged through me a moment ago was gone. I immediately missed it, although logic told me this was not the time or the place.
“Did you just have a snack?” I teased him.
“Mhm.” He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. “The best in-flight meal ever.”
IT WAS EARLY IN THE morning when we arrived in Seattle. We got a taxi from the airport to the townhouse, stopping on the way to buy a new cell phone for me.
I made a mental note to call a real estate agent to list the house for sale. Brad had stated in our divorce papers that the place was mine to use for as long as I lived in it. If I decided to sell it, I owed him a share of the proceeds. Financially, it made sense to keep it since I wouldn’t be able to afford a comparable property on my own otherwise. Yet before I even entered the ransacked space that reeked of hurt and loneliness, I knew it could never be a true home for me ever again.
The Last Unforgiven - Freed (Demons, #5) Page 14