Sweet Ruin

by Kresley Cole

  Was Josephine so used to getting her way she'd cried out of resentment? She'd vowed she'd sleep with others, was all but making plans to drink from them. Yet another ridiculous vow. He'd never known anyone who abused them more.

  In the future, while he was struggling not to become deadened in some distant covey, she'd be making besotted males come from her bite.

  When Rune had claimed her, he'd thought, She drinks me alone. After tonight, she fucks me alone.

  Not quite, baneblood. No one could pleasure her more than he did--but what about his taste? What if . . . what if she preferred another's blood? She'd never bitten anyone else.

  She's me, and I'm her. What if she never wanted to darken her blood again?

  He would recognize her little bite anywhere--in a way, it was like his claiming mark. If he encountered one of her lovers and saw it . . .

  He ground his fangs. She didn't have to feed from others. What was the point? They would keep that separate from any arrangements between them. He'd make it a condition.

  Maybe he would use a vow to the Lore!

  He would convince her blood-drinking was for them alone, their special act. As she'd described: with the licking, and the lips, and the penetration. Damn it, that should be private! Just last night, their heartbeats had synchronized; she'd commented on the bond, how she was different.

  Why would she ever share that--

  He stilled. Josephine viewed sex the way he viewed her feeding. As private and special. As something that bonded them and altered them. She'd left her claiming bite on him, just as he'd done with her.

  It didn't matter that he gave little meaning to sex with others. She did.

  He hissed in a breath. Unfortunately, he'd come to this gut-wrenching conclusion when he was naked in bed with another female, after deserting his mate--while she'd looked as if she were dying inside. Fuck!

  He yanked Meliai's hands off him and sat up.

  "What's wrong?" she asked, her voice sounding far away.

  He shook his head hard, bringing himself back to this room. When Josephine had told him that they'd think of another way to get her brother back, Rune had been confused; wouldn't she do anything for Thad?

  She didn't care less about her brother; she cared more about Rune. Just the fact that she hadn't sent him off with a smile and a wave told him how much.

  Her heart had opened up to another!

  His spike of excitement faded. Tonight, she'd cried, You're breaking my heart.

  She hadn't been throwing a fit like a scorned lover; she damn sure hadn't been trying to manipulate him.

  Josephine had reacted like a female grieving a lover she'd lost.

  She would be finished with Rune after this! Panic seized him by the throat. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, tracing to his clothes.

  He could still fix things with her. She'd be outside waiting--because he was supposed to return with the means to free Thaddeus.

  "Rune, answer me!" Meliai cried. "What's wrong?"

  He yanked on his pants. "I'm done," he said, and he meant it. Rune had just retired from his millennia-old job as secrets master. He had time to figure out something with the Morior, but how was he going to save Thaddeus?

  Meliai scrambled to her knees. "You can't be serious!"

  By spurning her, he risked angering coveys the worlds over. There was no worse insult to her kind.

  "What do you need to get back into this? I'll do it." She cupped her breasts, tweaking her nipples. "Imagine your filthiest fantasy, and it's yours."

  His fantasies all involved the beautiful, brash, courageous mate he didn't deserve. The one waiting outside for him to finish bedding another.

  "Anything, Rune."

  He stomped into his boots, then pulled on his shirt. "No." That word, from his lips, about this subject . . . "No." Gods, that tasted delicious.

  "Why? At least give me a reason!"

  "I've changed." A thought struck him. He would never have to do this again--dragging on his clothes, wishing for a shower and the peace of his chair by the fire.

  He was free.

  Meliai sputtered, "Short of sex with me, there is no way you can get past the wraiths."

  "I'll figure something out."

  "Are you going to fuck your way in there? You'd do it, wouldn't you? Screw creatures as repulsive as the Scourge?"

  How was he going to face Josephine? By promising her he'd get her brother back, Rune had set himself up to fail her in one way or another.

  I don't want to fail her. He strapped on his quiver, slinging his bow over his shoulder. Just as she'd said, there had to be an alternative, something he wasn't seeing. . . .

  He traced his fingers over his bowstring. Tonight, he'd forever sheathed one weapon.

  I have another.

  He unslung his bow and nocked a bonedeath arrow. He stared down Meliai, his voice deadly as he said, "Give me that key, or I'll release my arrow, pulverizing the bones of anyone within screaming distance."

  Meliai gasped. "You risk a war with the Nymphae? You'll never enter our sacred places again!"

  "So be it. Now talk. What do you have?"

  Her gaze betrayed her, darting to her wall, to a raised knot in the wood. A concealed hollow?

  "Something to show me?" He waved his bow. "Retrieve it."

  With a fearful look, she crossed to the wall. "My sisters and I will make you pay dearly for this." She pressed a hidden latch, and a compartment opened. Among her cache of amber jewels was a glass case.

  When he realized what she possessed, sweat beaded his upper lip. No, not a lock of Valkyrie hair. In the case was a fire-red feather.

  A phoenix feather. He could sense its mystical power from here.

  To an archer, it was priceless; to Rune, a game changer. He could use it to fashion the flights of an arrow, amplifying his magicks exponentially.

  With that feather, he could create the most destructive arrow ever to fly.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Standing at the gates of hell.

  Wraith shrieks pained Jo's ears, thunder booming in her stomach once more.

  Desh bent down to her ear to yell, "Sure ye have this, little luv?"

  Remembering her last meeting with Nix, Jo stifled the urge to rub her arms and nodded.

  "Gotta warn ye, smells like they've got an army in there."

  Since Jo had been here earlier (who knew how long ago, with the weird time flow?) dozens of cars had been parked near the manor as if a party was happening inside. The scents coming from Val Hall were different from before. The sounds too.

  Desh glowered at the entrance. "Scurvy wenches didn't invite me."

  "I've got it," Jo yelled.

  "I'll be at Lafitte's, in case they don't accept yer white flag."

  "Thank you, Desh. Fair winds."

  He met her gaze. "Good luck." Then he disappeared.

  Jo marched toward the spine-chilling Ancient Scourge. What wouldn't she do for Thad?

  As she neared Val Hall, the new sounds and scents bombarded her. She couldn't place so many threads: fur, smoke, a cool slice of ice. So many hisses, growls, and mutters.

  Hadn't she once recognized these creatures as fellow Loreans? Why couldn't she remember? Out of habit, she gazed up at the stars, seeking an answer, but clouds hung low, concealing them. Just as a cloud stood between her and her memories!

  Her entire life was a mass of frustration. Her inability to remember her early childhood basically meant she didn't have one. Same with her parents. Her inability to retrieve her brother tore at her.

  My ex, my former guy, is inside someone else right now. I love him, and he's inside another woman.

  Before coming here, Jo had flagged down Dalli and left a message for Rune. Because she was done with him.

  Done.

  So damned frustrating. She couldn't fix Rune, or her memories--but she could reach Thad.

  All she had to do was scream, I surrender. But that galled Jo.

  As if in anothe
r lifetime, she'd watched girls retreat from Wally's house with their fight stolen. She'd seen it happen to the women around her motel.

  Rune expected Jo to surrender her dreams, to stop fighting for what she wanted? That made her more furious than the actual infidelity!

  He expected Jo to just lie down? Like he did?

  Like I once did. I surrendered Thad as a baby.

  She needed to scream two little words. But Jo didn't surrender; she Hulk-smashed. She squeezed until things broke.

  She'd forgotten that over the last two weeks.

  Just outside the wraiths' reach, she turned intangible, then launched a fist into the tempest. When she drew back her arm, gashes covered it.

  "We're alike, then?" Jo was death and death rolled into one, a shapeshifter between the living and the dead; it made sense that the Scourge could harm her if she was in ghost form.

  The whirling wraiths slowed. One swooped down, hovering inches from Jo's face. They met gazes; the wraith's eyes were black pits. Yet then a flash of another image crossed the creature's face. She saw a beautiful woman for an instant, as fleeting as the lighthouse's beam. "Let me in," Jo murmured. "Or suffer."

  The thing canted her head.

  What are you seeing, wraith? Jo's tears had dried into hard tracks on her face. Are you seeing Josephine Doe, a half-dead girl with absolutely nothing to lose?

  A girl with a lot of unresolved anger and abandonment issues? Jo whispered to her, "If I can bleed . . . so can you."

  The thing was sucked into the tempest once more. Still in ghost form, Jo backed up, bringing power into her hands.

  The wraiths screamed louder, sensing her growing threat.

  I surrender?

  Never. Fucking. Again.

  The ground quaked from her building fury. What did she need Rune for? Jo would kick the ant mound, making the Valkyries--and anyone else--spill out. Once she'd dragged enough of them into their new graves, she would demand Thad's freedom.

  Jo popped a crick in her neck and smiled. No, Rune, some things are simple.

  Dalli was waiting for Rune at the edge of the barroom, her expression grave.

  Outside of Meliai's perfumed room, he'd tried to catch Josephine's scent. And failed. "Where the fuck is she?"

  Whatever Dalli saw in his bearing made her nervous. "I tried to stop her, but she left."

  His lungs constricted. "She left me."

  Dalli frowned. "That's what I just said."

  "No, Josephine left me. She ended this." She'd warned him she would kick his ass to the curb.

  "She gave me a message for you."

  He straightened. "Talk."

  "She wasn't quite . . . alone." Dalli fidgeted with the sash of her skirt. "She said she'd be thinking of you the entire time."

  Having these words thrown back in his face made him realize how ridiculous they sounded. How hurtful. Hateful.

  "Who took her away from me?" He'd accused Josephine of having jealousy issues? Rune was about to rip this place to the ground.

  This godsdamned world.

  "What male?" Who was about to die?

  "Fair's fair, Rune. You were just with another."

  He bared his fangs at her. "What. Male?" With the different time flows, she could already be beneath another.

  "A demon named Deshazior."

  Rune's claws stabbed into his palms, spilling his poison. Would Josephine go with that demon to his home or to her motel?

  "I heard them talk about Valkyries," Dalli said.

  Josephine couldn't have gone to Val Hall on her own. He'd rather she be in a motel room with Desh.

  "About her surrendering--"

  "The baneblood broke our deal!" Meliai cried, storming into the barroom. The crowd began to quiet. "Instead of bartering, he robbed me of a treasured possession! He threatened me and the entire covey!"

  "Is that true?" Dalli asked.

  Nod. He unslung his bow and nocked an arrow, readying for a return to Val Hall.

  Dalli raised her face to him. "You are yet again the coveys' most wanted man--but for an entirely different reason." Just before he traced, she mouthed, I am so proud of you.

  SIXTY-THREE

  As more and more power gathered inside Jo, low creatures in the surrounding swamps fled with whimpers.

  They should flee. Nix had compared Jo to a nuclear weapon.

  Ah-ah, Valkyrie, try supernova. No longer did Jo wish for a power emergency brake; she let her telekinesis mount.

  The force was as strong as steel, yet light as air. Just like her, it was hot and cold, alive and dead.

  Black clouds gathered above that eerie red funnel, mushrooming. Lightning bombarded the property, striking the copper rods.

  With a wave of her hand, she raised one rod and launched it at the wraiths. They shrieked even more piercingly, but repelled her javelin. With both hands, she telekinetically lifted all the rods, letting them hover menacingly. The wraiths tightened their ring, bracing for impact.

  "How's this for a white flag?" She hurled half of them at the wraiths. The red tempest jolted and recoiled with each hit, but managed to reform.

  Hmm. All this pretty lightning . . . She brought the remaining rods to the very edge of the Scourge, positioning them just so--

  BOOM! The first lightning bolt struck a rod; the metal channeled sizzling electricity straight to the wraiths.

  Jo grinned. Fires had always been free fun, but this was so much better.

  Rune didn't know what shocked him more: the sight of his mate attacking Val Hall, or the presence of Blace, Sian, Darach, and Allixta with Curses. He'd spotted them watching from a distance.

  Josephine had arranged copper rods in the air, using the Valkyries' own lightning against them. She looked so small and delicate to be wielding such power. Those black tear tracks were like war paint against her ghostly white skin, highlighting her uncanny eyes. Her outline shimmered between bolts.

  And I thought I would need to save her?

  He wanted to trace to her side, but knew she'd unleash her fury on him. Though he deserved it, he needed to be in one piece once the Valkyries attacked.

  Any second now, they'd spill out.

  Seeming bored with the lightning, Josephine let fly all the rods, a volley of spears. The Scourge shrieked as one.

  Then her attention fell on the closest oak tree. Immense, old. Probably filled to the brim with eavesdropping nymphs.

  Josephine waved her hand, and the tree shot into the sky, roots exploding from the earth, like a rocket dusting off.

  Nymphs within screamed, which she seemed to enjoy. When the tree plummeted, she batted it into the wraiths.

  It connected in an explosion of groaning wood. She teed up another oak, then another, batting them one at a time, a barrage of cracking trunks and limbs.

  Rune traced to the other Morior. Never taking his eyes off her, he asked them, "What are you doing here?"

  "We're watching your mate," Sian said. "Well done. She's horrifyingly lovely."

  Rune slung his bow over his chest and returned his arrow. "How did you know Josephine's mine?"

  "Orion told us days ago she would be revealed this night at Val Hall," Blace said. "He suggested you might need our assistance."

  Rune needed all the help he could get. On his own, he was fucking up the most important thing that had ever happened to him. It'd taken him this much anguish just to realize he could be the male his mate needed.

  Sian scratched his head. "I can't believe I asked how we would know her. I'd say one female is calling our attention."

  "What is she?" Blace asked, staring at her.

  "Half vampire, half phantom."

  Sian whistled. "Those are rare."

  "And powerful." Blace tore his gaze from Josephine. "If she's your mate, why is she attacking alone? And why do you smell like a nymph's bed at night's end?" Blace had always been amused by Rune's exploits; now he looked disappointed. "You're mated, and you're still with your tarts?"

  Allixta
sneered, "Once a whore, always a whore."

  Rune growled at her--hitting too close. "I was going to sleep with a nymph in exchange for a way around the wraiths. Josephine's younger brother is trapped inside. She's been separated from him for more than half her life."

  "I gather she wasn't on board with the nymph plan," Sian said. "Does she know she's your mate?"

  Rune nodded. "I bungled this. I hurt her. I ended up stealing the prize I'd sought instead of bedding the nymph"--they raised their brows at that--"but it was already too late."

  "What can we do?" Blace asked.

  "If the Valkyries allow Josephine entry, she'll storm the lion's den without hesitation. I'll try to stop her, and in her present mood, she'll put me into the ground." He pictured her breaking his bow and planting it over his grave site. Rune dug into his pocket, taking out the fire-red feather. "I must be able to follow her inside." He needed his new arrow ready--now. Sweating, he split the feather with his claw.

  Allixta said, "Is that what I think it is?"

  "Phoenix feather. To take out the Scourge." He plucked another arrow from his quiver, one he'd refashion with the feather. Must be straight and true. "Val Hall is filled with what smells like an army of beings. I might need cover."

  "Count us in," Sian said.

  Not wanting to take his eyes from Josephine, Rune began to craft the new flights, his fingers working from muscle memory.

  She targeted the cars next. She lifted them all with one raised palm. With her other hand, she flicked two fingers, and a yellow Lamborghini shot into the wraiths. The impact sounded like a missile hitting rock.

  The Scourge warbled and wobbled, but returned to formation much more slowly this time. She was weakening them!

  Another flick of Josephine's fingers. A Hummer hurtled toward the tempest.

  Once he'd replaced the flights on his arrow, he used his blood to draw new runes on the shaft. Those symbols would connect his magicks with those of the feather.

  As he worked, he could perceive the union--one power to direct the magicks and one to boost them.

  He finished, taking one instant to gaze over his work before dropping the arrow into his quiver. He'd happily use this marvel to get his female back.

  "This grows wearisome," Allixta said. "How long will she carry on?"

  "Till she gets what she wants or drops," Rune answered, the awe in his voice undisguised. "My mate likes to keep things simple."

  With another volley of cars, Josephine screamed, "Come out and fight me, you bunch of pussies!"