I stared at Cora as I absorbed her words. “You want to stop my heart?”
Cora nodded eagerly. “We stop it for a minute, and then we restart it.”
“So…I’ll be dead.”
“Yes. The curse will be done.”
“We’ll use a combination of magic and science to do it,” Cora said.
Like magnets we’d gathered around the island: Uri, Grayson, Cora, Bobby, and me. The rest of the pack were all over the house. Kristoff was still chained to the post, but he hadn’t spoken or moved according to Bastian, who was keeping watch on him.
“I’ve called Vi,” Grayson said. “She has a spell to stop your heart, and they have a physician the coven uses on a regular basis who will be able to start it again.”
“There’s no spell to restart her heart, is there?” Uri asked.
“No,” Cora said.
Uri looked to Grayson, but my mate had his attention on me.
“You don’t have to do this,” Grayson said.
They were all forgetting one huge fucking problem with this plan. Eve’s curse. “If I die, it’ll affect Lilith. I can’t die.”
“You won’t be dying properly,” Bobby said. “Your heart would need to be stopped for at least five minutes, maybe ten, for it to be considered proper death. Scientifically speaking,” he said. “I spoke to Petra, too, and she agrees that as long as we can bring you back within a couple of minutes, your soul will remain connected to your body, so you won’t technically be dead.”
But my heart would stop beating, which would stop the curse… “It’s still too risky. What if you can’t bring me back. Lilith will—”
“Fuck Lilith!” Grayson snapped. “All I care about is you. It’s risky because I could lose you.”
“He’s right,” Uri agreed. “We can find another way.”
There might be another way that wouldn’t risk both my life and Lilith’s welfare. “Maybe we should wait. I mean, I can manage this if someone watches me while I sleep. You guys can tie me down. We might find another solution in the Underealm.”
Cora closed her eyes and sucked in her bottom lip as if struggling with some inner dilemma, and then she looked right at me. “You might not have the time to wait, okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t want to scare you, which is why I didn’t tell you before, but Elijah says a curse like this will eventually slip into your conscious mind, and when that happens, it’ll be too late to do anything.”
My conscious mind? “What do you mean?”
“I mean, it will drive you crazy, and at that point, even if we did remove it by stopping your heart and bringing you back, your mind…Your mind would be broken.”
“How much time?” Grayson asked.
“He didn’t say,” Cora replied. “But this is the only way. Right now, the curse is confined to your subconscious. Right now, we can stop it.” She looked at me. “Babe, I’m just as scared as the guys, but I know you. I know how fucking strong you are, and I know you can do this, we can do this. I won’t lose you to a fucking curse.”
It looked like this was the only way. The alternative was to go insane. “I’ll do it.” Cora’s shoulders relaxed. “But Azazel and Mal will need to know.”
“Azazel will be obligated to stop you,” Cora reminded me. “He’s cursed to keep you alive. He won’t be able to let you take the risk.”
“And if he doesn’t let me do this, then he risks losing me anyway. It’s a damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t situation. I’m not doing this without saying goodbye to Azazel and Mal.” I gave her a what-the-fuck look. “If it goes wrong…”
“We don’t have time to go chasing after them,” Cora said. “There’s too much at stake right here.”
She was right, we still had to find Hunter and the super vamp puppeteers. “Fine, if Conah comes to help with Kristoff, I’ll pass along a message. If he doesn’t, then…Then I’ll do it without them being here.”
“Leave it to fate,” Uri said softly.
Cora didn’t argue this time even though I could see she wanted to.
“I’ll be back in a bit.” Grayson strode around the counter and headed down the back corridor toward the training room.
I didn’t need to drop my shields to know he was freaking out. “Excuse me, guys.”
I followed my mate.
I found Grayson beating the shit out of the punch bag with his bare fists, no wrap-up. He’d taken off his shirt, and his muscles rippled with every swing.
“Give me a minute,” he bit out as he continued to punch.
I locked the training room door, tugged off my shirt, and unbuttoned my pants. He faltered and slapped a hand onto the punch bag to halt its swing.
I kicked off my boots and shimmied out of my jeans.
“Fee…” His voice was thick.
I strode toward him, trailing my hand from my breasts down my abdomen to my pubic bone. “If you want to hit something, then I’d rather you hit this.”
He bridged the distance between us with a growl, and for a little while, there was only the two of us.
Grayson and I emerged from the training room to find Cora and Uri flanking Bobby at the island while he studied his laptop screen.
“I found something,” Bobby said to us. “The symbol you drew…I did a search for recent sightings of it on any buildings or any locations, and I got a hit. Look.”
He turned the laptop to show us a grainy photograph of a signposted track where he’d blown up the sign. There were regular town names on the sign and if you weren’t looking for it, you’d totally have missed the tiny circular symbol on the bottom left-hand corner of the sign.
“It’s a lead,” Grayson said. “And it’s not too far from here, either.”
A lead to finding Hunter. “Let me change clothes and grab my weapons belt, and we can go.”
“Wait,” Uri said. “We have no idea what we’re walking into. We need to scope out the area first.”
He didn’t look at me, his attention focused on the laptop screen. “Can you pull up a map?”
Bobby tapped buttons, and Uri nodded. “Yes, I know where that is.”
“We’ll check it out,” Cora said. “We can jump to the location and jump back out once done. We won’t be long. If Vi turns up, do the thing and get it over with.”
But a thought occurred to me, something we’d neglected to consider. “If Vi stops my heart and for some reason we can’t restart—”
“Don’t say that,” Cora cut in. “We will bring you back.”
I locked gazes with her. “But if something goes wrong and you can’t, then Hunter will die. Even if you bring him back, he’ll die because I won’t have completed the Tribus mating.”
“Fuck,” Grayson said.
“I can’t go through with it until we have him back, and I’ve…You know.”
The thought of mating with Hunter evoked a cocktail of contradictory emotions. I didn’t have a soul connection to him like I did with my guys. Our connection was purely primal, purely physical. But it was all we had for now. It would have to do.
Grayson laced his fingers through mine as if to say, it’ll be okay.
“In that case, we better work fast,” Cora said.
She winked out, but Uri hesitated a moment, his gaze on me. I strode over and wrapped my arms around his waist in a tight hug.
He sighed and hugged me back. “I’ll see you soon.”
He released me, and then he was gone.
I leaned back against the counter, suddenly deflated. Fuck, why did life feel like I was on a fucking hamster wheel right now?
“I’ll make us some food,” Grayson said.
“I’ll do it,” Bobby insisted. “You guys rest.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue, and all I’d eaten for hours was cheesy toast. “Can we have chicken or steak?”
“We can have both,” Bobby said with a smile.
Grayson took my hand and tugged me into the lounge.
He sat and pulled me onto his lap where I curled up and closed my eyes.
Uri and I hadn’t done much sleeping, and my body clock was totally out of whack from going back and forth from the Underealm. Had Conah received the phoenix? Would he come? The poor vamps in the garage deserved to feel safe. What if we got attacked by super vamps again?
“Fee.” Grayson’s chest vibrated soothingly beneath me. “Stop thinking and sleep. We can sort it all when you’re rested. Sleep. I’ve got you.”
As I slipped under another thought occurred to me. If they stopped my heart and I didn’t wake up again, I might end the Underealm’s hope of escaping Mammon’s rule, but if I was honest, that wasn’t the worst fear in my heart. The worst fear was that I’d never see my guys again. I needed to see them one last time.
I needed Conah to come here.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mal
There is death all around us. So many demons slaughtered, too many injured. Mammon struck hard and fast, and the fucker left carnage in his wake. The south barracks held by my battalion is in pieces. The building where my soldiers live has been decimated, and dead bodies strew the flatlands as far as the eye can see. The sky is gray and churning, reflecting my inner turmoil.
Fresh troops will be here soon; in the meantime, the handful of survivors drag the dead into piles ready to be burned while the injured sit around small campfires nursing their own wounds. Feathers litter the ground, black and red, like a carpet.
Yes, fresh troops will come, but for what? To meet the same fate as the ones that came before them. I should have been here.
I should have been here to lead them. We’ve had too many years of peace, and we’ve grown complacent.
Something has to change.
“Daemons,” Conah says from beside me. “I’m not sure what breed yet, but I’ve taken inventory of the wounds, and I will find out.”
“Mammon’s recruiting from the fringes of the Underealm.”
“From the daemons that were pushed out of their homes by the fallen and their offspring,” Conah says. “There’s obviously enough resentment and animosity left for them to fight against Lilith.”
“He must have promised them lands.”
“And he’ll renege on his promise,” Conah says. “Mammon won’t share. It isn’t his style.”
A gentle breeze at odds with the climate of this scene brushes my cheek. I inhale the coppery scent of blood, and my gums ache with hunger. I should feed, but any blood that isn’t Fee’s tastes like ash. I think I might have replaced one addiction for another.
“How are our numbers looking?” Conah asks.
We’ve lost the cadets we’d trained to Mammon. He has them, and goodness knows what he’s doing to them. We’ve lost three battalions of soldiers, and we’ve lost our queen.
“Crap.” I sigh. “Are we going to win this war when it starts?”
Conah snorts. “The war has already begun.”
He’s right. Mammon is chipping away at us. While we push our efforts into recovering Lilith, he’s slicing into our defenses. We’re going about this all wrong, and suddenly I know what we need to do.
“We have to stop looking for her.”
Conah frowns across at me, his sapphire eyes bright against the grime and blood that smears his face. “What?”
“It’s what he wants, don’t you see? He wants us to focus on finding her. That way, we leave our troops without the commanders they need. That way, he slowly disables our defenses.”
I can see from the tightening around Conah’s eyes that he’s considering this too.
“We need to change strategy.”
His chest heaves, and he doesn’t argue with me, so I continue.
“We stop searching, and we start fighting back. Lilith put her blood, sweat, and tears into raising Imperium, into ruling the Underealm. We can’t let Mammon get the throne. We can’t let him win.”
“There is no Imperium without its queen.”
“And if we don’t change tactic, there will be no Imperium for the queen to come back to.”
“Azazel won’t like this,” Conah says.
“Azazel is a warrior, a general, but right now he’s thinking like a son. I’ll speak to him when he gets back from the east barracks.”
I don’t even want to think about what we found there. There were no survivors. Nothing but ash. Whatever attacked the barracks razed it to the ground. The fact it didn’t come south means that the firepower is limited. Still, the east must be fortified, and Azazel is busy setting up new troops and building traps. These barracks are our first defense for Imperium, and if they fall…Well, we’re not going to go there.
“If he kills her…” Conah says.
“Lilith is an original. It won’t be easy.”
“But not impossible,” Conah says. “But you’re right, Imperium has to come first. The people need to be protected. It’s what Lilith would want.”
“Which means it’s time to tell them the truth.”
Conah’s jaw is tight as he scans the vista of death. “I think it’s too late for that. I think the truth might already be out.”
A gust of air pushes my hair back off my forehead, and then a phoenix lands in front of us. I recognize its blue and purple plumage instantly.
It’s one of ours from the quarters.
Conah and I exchange glances, and I know he’s thinking the same thing as me.
Fee.
The phoenix’s throat convulses. It spits out the silver cylinder that contains a message and then flies off.
Conah is quick to retrieve the cylinder, wiping it on his pant leg before flipping it open to get to the scroll inside. He scans the message and then chews on his lip.
“What is it?”
“It’s from Fee,” he says.
As suspected. “For me?”
He shakes his head. “No, for me. She needs me.”
I can’t help the stab of jealousy that pricks at my chest. “Does she say what for?”
“No.”
I know Fee wouldn’t message unless it was urgent. “Go.”
He looks momentarily torn, and I want to slap him. “This is Fee we’re talking about. If she’d called me, I’d already be gone.”
“But she didn’t call you. She called me, and weren’t you just saying we needed to think like generals. Didn’t you just say Azazel was thinking like a son.”
I know where he’s going with this, and I stop him with a look. “You can be back by sundown tomorrow, and I can hold the fort until then. Your absence at this moment won’t turn the tide in Mammon’s favor. Look around, he’s already done that.”
Conah tucks the scroll into his belt. “Fine. I’ll go help Fee, and you speak to Azazel, and when I get back, we’ll make a new plan, one where we strike back at the bastard that did this.”
Chapter Thirty
Grayson
Fee’s breathing grows even and heavy as she slips into slumber on my lap. I cradle her to me and kiss her head.
She smells of strawberries, which is perfect. If she’d come back smelling of the celestial, I might have lost my shit.
He’s a good guy. A decent guy, and I know he’ll be good for her, but I can’t help but wish I could keep her to myself.
Mine.
It’s the nature of the beast.
I’ll have to share her with Hunter soon, too, which makes me tense up. Knowing my twin isn’t a sociopathic asshole is one thing, but having a connection to him is another. I’ll need to learn to like him. I’ll need to learn to accept him. For the Tribus. For Fee.
It won’t be easy, but I’ll do it for my mate.
I’ll do anything for her, and I can’t lose her. It’ll break me.
She moans softly in her sleep and rubs her cheek against my chest. Her hand is on my abdomen, and it curls into a fist now. I stroke her arm and kiss her head again to soothe the bad dreams.
“You’re okay, Fee. I’ve got you.”
Long minutes slip
by where the only sounds are the clatter of pans as Bobby cooks, and then Fee’s breathing grows shallower and faster.
“Hush, it’s okay.” I hold her tighter to lend her a feeling of security, and it seems to work.
Her breathing slows, but as I relax my hold on her, she arches suddenly, smacking her head against my chin.
Her eyes open, wide but unseeing.
“Fee? Fee?” I grip her shoulders.
She ignores me, glancing about. “Where is it. Quick, I need to find it.”
“Fee, wake up.” I shake her.
“Where is it?” For a moment, I think she’s looking right at me, but then a film falls over her vision again. “I need to—”
She cries out and slumps against me.
“Fuck.”
Bobby has rushed over and is standing a few feet away, ready to assist if need be.
“I think we’re okay.” I nod at him. “I think it’s ov—”
Fee tears out of my grip and runs into the kitchen. I’m already in motion, but she has a knife at her throat before I can get to her, and when she locks gazes with me, it isn’t her looking back. It’s something else. Something cold and alien.
The tendons in her arm flex in preparation to draw the blade across her throat. I hear Bobby’s cry of alarm and sense the presence of my pack as they rush to the lounge, alerted by their alpha’s distress, but I know I won’t make it to her in time.
I know I’m about to lose her because a wound like the one she’s about to inflict won’t heal in time, not for a Loup, and not even for a Dominus. But still, I try, leaping toward her, hands outstretched to stop her.
The blade drags across her flesh, leaving a bloody trail in its wake, and then a body blocks my path, and I skid to a halt.
Golden hair and the scent of a foreign ozone.
Conah.
There’s a clink as the knife falls to the ground, and then Fee’s scream of impotent rage fills the room.
Conah turns to face me, holding her to his chest in a vise-like grip, his expression stunned shock that clearly says, what the actual fuck.
Reaper Unhinged (Deadside Reapers Book 6) Page 17