by C. M. Owens
“It’s my coping mechanism, dick. Deal with it. You go all broody and smash things. Gage blows shit up—like his house. Zee does a lot of swearing and threatening before breaking shit. And Chaz gets all quiet and pensive like Ella. I use ill-timed humor. Fuck off.”
Before I can strangle him, Reese shifts back into flesh, staring at a vacant space like it’s supposed to hold all the answers.
“She was here, but they moved her into the planes,” Reese says, kicking, cursing, and screaming as he falls apart next to the woods.
Dice kneels, inspecting the stirred dirt around where it seems there was a struggle. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it together.
“I’m going to kill Drackus when I see him,” I growl.
“He didn’t do it,” Gage says, appearing with Kimber in his arms, and my heartbeat speeds up as Kimber throws her arms around me.
“I’m so sorry. I tried to stop them, but there were too many. They knocked her out, but she saved me.”
Emotion wads up in my throat until I’m almost choking on it, and tears try to well up in my eyes. The thread of hope I was clinging to has just been snipped. They have her.
“She did something to me—something that made that son of a bitch get out of my head,” Kimber says, pointing to her neck to show me a symbol that has been branded there permanently like a freshly inked tattoo. “They tried making her put on a collar. It was Alex. Fucking Alex kept her distracted while they crept up on her. She came alone, Thad. Why was she alone?”
I can’t speak, because I know I’ll break if I try. My hands are shaking, because I don’t know what to fucking do or where to go.
“Because she knew how strong they’d be, and she didn’t want anyone dying for her,” Reese says on a sob. “She came here knowing she could save you by sacrificing herself.”
Kimber wipes away her tears, cursing as she looks around. “I tried following them, but they were gone the second they left this plane. How do we find her?”
Taking a calming breath, I start thinking, running over every possible answer.
“We’re fucking gatekeepers,” I tell her. “We control the planes. I’ve tasted Roslyn, and since then, it’s been like I could feel her when I was close enough.”
A chill creeps up my spine, and I look around, finding nothing but air. But I know who’s lurking, because I know what that chill means.
“So we search blindly through the planes until we find her?” Dice asks. “Excellent plan.”
“Got a better idea?” Kimber hisses, but I’m backing away as they argue, slowly seeking out our hidden intruder.
I spin suddenly, grabbing the invisible asshole by the throat, and I slam him into the tree behind him just as he appears.
Fucking scarred Gemini.
The bastard laughs when I shove a knife against his throat. “Really think you can kill me before I kill you, mate?” he asks, smirking.
The argument has ceased, and all eyes are on us.
Slade’s cocky smile falls just as mine forms. “See, the great thing about being a gatekeeper, is that you learn a few tricks along the way,” I tell him, reading the confusion in his face when he tries and fails to dematerialize. “And over the past couple of decades, I’ve been learning to control the planes around me to keep people from just vanishing from my grip. Handy, huh?”
Orbs start to form on his hands, and I shove the blade closer to his throat, just hard enough to draw blood. “Physically, I’m stronger than you. And I’ve been around a while, so it’s going to take more than a couple of shots from you to kill me. But this knife can take your head off with one good push.”
He winces when I push it a little deeper to emphasize my point.
“Who do you think will die first right now?” I ask him, hoping he gives me a good reason to end him here and now.
His lips tighten, and he glares at me, silently admitting defeat for the moment.
“The only reason you’re not already dead is because we have a common enemy, and I have a feeling it’ll take all of us to take them down. Now either help us find my girl, or go the fuck away. We have enough spies tailing us.”
I drop the blade from his throat, and his hand comes up to touch the blood I’ve spilled, rubbing it between his fingertips as he stares down at it.
“They’ll break her again, probably easier this time, and you’ll regret letting her live when she hunts you all down just to save her own ass,” he tells me without looking up.
“If she comes, it’ll save me the trouble of tracking her down. But I plan to find her long before they break her.”
“You’re not powerful enough to take them. They do something to make themselves stronger. The average dark user is on magical steroids or something. And they have an army of them.”
“Figured out that much already,” Gage says, still clinging to Kimber as though she might disappear at any moment. “But we have our own army, and I’m on magical steroids myself.”
“You’ll need more than you.”
“You volunteering?” I scoff, to which he snorts derisively.
“Hardly. I’m not an idiot. I’m not rushing in until I’ve done all my research. Spend a few centuries in a cage, and it tends to make you more cautious.”
Coward.
I turn away from him, just as he calls out, “Check the shadow planes. Lately there has been a lot of activity around them. If you can save her, then she can’t hunt me. I don’t need to be looking over my shoulder right now. There’s enough shit to worry about.”
I almost wonder how much he knows, and I turn back to face him.
“But you’ll die trying,” he tells me. “Like I said; you’re not strong enough.”
“We have Ella,” Gage says while pulling out his phone.
Slade narrows his eyes at him, but he turns his attention to me. “Leave her out of it. Don’t risk her life to save your wolf. They want her just like they want me. And don’t ask me what for. The hell if I know. I’ve spent centuries trying to figure it out.”
I snort out a laugh as Kimber opens a portal in front of us. “If you think Ella isn’t going to fight, then you don’t know Ella,” Kimber says, echoing my own thoughts. “The only ones who should be scared are them.”
“Damn it,” Slade growls. “She doesn’t have the control to be powerful yet. You’ll get her killed.”
“Why the hell do you care?” Kimber snaps.
“Why the hell don’t you?”
“I do care. But Ella—”
“Is here and ready to fight. I’ve been in the woods just waiting to find out where to go in case you guys tried to leave me out,” Ella says calmly, looking over at Slade whose jaw is tense.
“I was going to say that Ella will find out what we’re doing and go in alone if we don’t take her,” Kimber goes on.
She steps through the portal and everyone else follows her as Gage dematerializes.
“You’re going to get yourselves killed,” he says while sighing.
“Then I guess we’ll save you some trouble,” I tell him while stepping through the portal and ending up in the light planes, squinting against the bright lights as I follow behind the others.
Guess Kimber and I had the same thought.
“I heard Slade say shadow planes,” Ella says, confused as we walk around the barren plane full of nothing but light and blue sand.
“He did,” I tell her. “But he didn’t want us finding my girl. Which means he told us the opposite plane to travel.”
“You feeling anything?” Reese asks me, apparently still not able to track her in another plane.
“Yeah,” I tell him as a slow smile spreads over my face. “We’re pretty close, actually. Everything here burrows in the sand. They’re somewhere under us.”
My stomach tightens, and her presence washes over me, guiding me.
“What happens when we find her?” Dice asks.
“We kill the fucking Master.”
“Monster evil or big bad
,” Dice corrects, but I let his joke slide, because every step makes me feel my girl a little more.
Chapter 38
ROSLYN
The monster grows tired of the wait.
Hell is waiting to fulfill their fate.
They listen not. They don’t say a word.
You can scream but you won’t be heard.
Play. Play. Play all day.
Tomorrow I’ll get the chance to slay.
Blood and death. Yes they’ll pay.
I’ll survive now to kill them all one day.
The whip cracks over my chest, peeling back the skin, but a smile still stays on my lips as Thad and I lie in bed, and he sings the song of insanity with me. We laugh, talking about how twisted it is, but he makes it all better.
Soon I’ll set the monster free.
I’ll kill them before they kill me.
The pain comes when they do.
They can hit, but I can too.
The monster grows stronger now.
When it breaks free, it’ll get me out.
Pretty bones will break for the beast.
On their blood I shall feast.
The sun waits, and the moon breaks.
The time is coming to escape.
Thad laughs, joking about the feast part of the song, as his fingers trail down my body. I was crazy when I thought of the lyrics, which is something I can laugh about now.
“The fuck is wrong with her?” a distant voice asks as I giggle at Thad’s joke.
“I think we broke her. She won’t quit smiling and she hasn’t screamed yet.”
Those words make me think of the rest of the song, and Thad starts singing with me again as he brushes his lips across mine with feather-soft touches.
Break me now, but I’ll be back for blood.
I’ll shred their skin just to have some fun.
They’ll feel my pain without mercy.
They’re going to scream so prettily.
They come to hurt. They come to play.
No more blood from me today.
“Maybe her body needs a different sort of punishment. The kind we gave her when she first came in into the rings,” one of the distant voices says.
Rage, rage. So much rage.
It’s ready to break out of its cage.
“Nah. She never broke with that. It was the beatings that worked. I just need to try harder.”
Soon the day will finally come.
The monster is going to have so much fun.
“I’ll kill them for you,” Thad whispers, kissing me a little harder as I fade away from the rest of the sounds, barely hearing the screams in the distance as something crashes to the ground. The other distant voices sound panicked, but I tune them out as Thad whispers, “I’ll kill them all.”
Time for death. Time for fear.
The monster is finally here.
Chapter 39
THAD
Gage peels back a hole in the sand with one wave of his hand, and I slam my fist into the hatch below, breaking through it without any effort.
“No protection spell?” Dice asks as we hop through the hole.
Landing on my feet, I catch a guy by the neck, snapping it with a twist of my wrist before he can drive a sword through my side.
“Protection spells don’t work anywhere but on the breathing plane,” Kimber tells him.
“But seals work. Why didn’t it have a seal?”
“It did,” I answer just as two more men with hoods over their faces appear, lashing out hardcore power that Gage stifles easily enough, killing them with very little effort.
So much for their badass army.
“Why didn’t we feel it?” the ever-annoying, inquisitive incubus asks.
“Their seals are weaker now since we destroyed the rings,” Kimber answers. “Thad and I have more power in the planes than the seals.”
Ella streaks out her own power, leaving several rushing soldiers to drown on their own blood as they crumple to the floor.
“Try not to lose it in here,” Dice says to her uneasily. “I’d rather not get hit by friendly fire.”
Battle cries fill our ears, and the hallway we turn down has at least twenty men rushing toward us. I pick up two of the abandoned anointed swords, and I grin as I take a step up.
“My turn. Pick off the strays.”
Spinning, I dodge the first five, but my arms move out, stabbing two in the chest as my feet lift and slam into the face of the one in front of me. From there, blood flies from the wounds, and I work my way through the masses, dodging anything with a sharp point and ducking the fucking orbs flying at my head.
It’s natural, feeling the slide of metal slicing through the bodies as they rush me from every angle. With each spin, I get more aggressive. With each stab, I can feel myself getting closer to her. Every step I take through the horde of them is one step nearer to my girl.
In a series of twists and slashes, I obliterate the remaining five, and I stand, ignoring the spray of blood that has found my body, and ignoring the taste of blood in my mouth.
Clapping draws my attention, and I look back as Dice cocks an eyebrow. “You really were a hashtag—gladiator, eh?”
“This way,” I tell them, ignoring Dice’s coping mechanism as I gesture with my head toward the direction where I sense her presence getting stronger.
Just as we round another corner, I barely dodge a streak of blue energy, but a crushing pain sends me to my knees. “Kill them. Except for the princess, of course,” a voice says just as all hell breaks loose.
Dice crumples beside me, yelping in pain as the invisible force crushes us harder. Ella throws out punch after punch of power, seeming unaffected by the force that has taken us down, and I claw my way up to my hands and knees.
Too many dark users with way too much juice are pushing against us with more power than Ella can handle alone without losing it.
Just as more arrive, there are suddenly blue streaks and orbs crashing into the party, and several of the other dark users cry out in pain as they crumple just as forcefully as we did.
The pressure on my chest eases, and I look back just as Slade and three masked people walk up with their own firing line.
“Go get your fucking wolf. They’ll send more,” he tells me, still launching one attack after another into the masses as he takes the spot beside Ella.
“Ella, you have to stop,” Kimber says as Gage pulls her to her feet.
“I’ve got her. Just fucking go,” Slade growls, pushing out one hellacious shot of power that knocks the horde of dark users on their ass.
We seize the opportunity, rushing through the path made before they get their wits back, as we leave Ella behind to handle the mess with our fucking enemy.
Such a messed up life we live.
“Think you could put some clothes on the werewolf?” Dice grumbles, still clutching his chest.
Reese’s naked ass is suddenly clothed by Gage, but he looks like he just stepped out of a rodeo—flannel shirt, tight jeans, and cowboy boots. Oh fuck. Is that really a big-ass belt buckle?
“You really do have a fetish,” I mumble.
“Shut the fuck up,” Gage says under his breath. “At least it’s not a man thong.”
I turn the next corner, rushing when I feel like I’m almost on top of her.
A cell door opens just as I near it, and wide, shocked eyes meet mine as a guy drops a whip. I shove into him before he can even scream, and I rip his head off in one, quick tug.
“Fuck!” a voice shouts from inside.
I catch him by the throat before he can attempt to do anything. But my hand pauses from squeezing when I see the girl chained to the wall—my girl. Her clothes are ripped and tattered as blood gushes from the numerous wounds. I toss the guy to the ground as I rush over to Roslyn, listening to her whisper a song she’s singing.
“Roslyn, it’s me,” I say on a choked whisper, losing my voice to the sight before me.
Her hair is m
atted with blood. Her body is dirty, as though she’s been dragged around this hell. The wounds all over her are deep and cruel, and my knees buckle when I see her face has been slashed over and over.
“I’ll kill you!” Reese shouts, emotion and rage battling in his tone.
I don’t turn around as I hear the sound of skin and bone crunching, because I can’t look away from the beaten girl. Reaching up, I grab one of the chains, and I jerk it out of the wall. Then repeat the motion to the other one. The stones aren’t crested against me, probably because they weren’t expecting me this soon.
“Can you get them off her?” I ask Gage, looking over my shoulder. The chains won’t break against a changer. They knew I’d come for her, and they prepared for it.
“No, but I bet Karma can. There aren’t any demon hybrid markings on there that match her slave tats. We need to get her out of here, and we can’t dematerialize anywhere while we’re stuck in this hole.”
I gingerly lift Roslyn in my hands as Reese comes over, looking like a bloody mess. I don’t even want to see the other guy.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispers.
“The monster is finally here,” Roslyn whispers in faint attempt of a singsong voice.
I bite my wrist as Gage urges us to hurry up, picking up the chains so that they don’t drag. Reese helps me hold her as I pour my blood from my wrist into her mouth, hoping it works as fast as it has in the past.
The blood drips steadily as we carry her through the halls, and my eyes scan the scene, waiting on the next attack. Gage rushes out to be in front of us just as two blasts of power fly toward us, and he deflects them while launching his own counter attack.
Kimber moves like air, fighting like a pro, and we move by them, going back toward the hallway where the army was waiting. But as soon as we round the corner, I see Ella with solid black eyes and hair, and I quickly pull back, forcing Reese to follow suit so he can continue holding Roslyn, while I continue draining blood from my wrist into her mouth.
“What?” Reese snaps.
Dice does a quick about-face when he sees the mess going on down that hallways.
“Crazy Ella, tons of dark users, and one seriously pissed off Gemini who is fighting with Ella and the juiced-up dark users. Looks like the Gemini’s crew had to abandon ship when they lost Ella to the dark side. Now what the fuck do we do?” Dice asks, looking at me like I have the fucking answers.