Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1)

by Laura Thalassa

  His scent lingered on me and the sheets, but he was gone, the bed empty.

  I sat up and cocked my head, listening for him. All I heard was a songbird’s melody.

  Reluctantly I slid out of bed, picking up the scattered pieces of clothing I’d shucked off last night. I headed to the bathroom and began to wash them in the sink.

  I hadn’t sang in a long time, but when I was young I used to do so with my mother. Now hearing those birds, and waking up feeling like the world was new—like I was new—I began singing a song from my childhood, my voice rising and falling as I first scrubbed, then dried my clothes. By the time I clicked off the blow dryer, I still hadn’t heard or seen Asher.

  The first tendrils of unease crept through me.

  It’s fine, I told myself, even as a dozen different worries rose to the surface.

  It didn’t seem fine.

  Slipping my clothes on, I left the room—our room.

  “Asher?” I called out.

  Only the quiet chirping of birds and bugs responded. I moved through the rest of the house, searching for him, calling out to him. When I didn’t find him, I exited the front door, only to stop in my tracks.

  The car was gone.

  He went out to get us breakfast, I reassured myself as I stood under the spray of the shower. Or he went out to purchase more clothes, or a map, or gas.

  There were a hundred different logical reasons for him being gone. None of them drove away the horrible feeling taking root.

  Something’s wrong.

  Had Infernari found him? It was possible, but then again, I would’ve known, right? They would’ve come for me too. And they would have left the car.

  Asher abandoned you.

  I had to lean against the wall of the shower as the most terrifying possibility of all slipped its way in.

  I wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t. He knew what he was doing last night. We both did. Most of all, he was loyal. Loyal to his core. He wouldn’t leave me like a coward.

  And then, amidst all my worrying, I heard the front door slam shut. I turned off the water and hurriedly dried. If it wasn’t Asher, I didn’t want to be caught naked in the shower. And if it was him, then . . .

  Then what?

  I didn’t have a good answer.

  I drew in a shaky breath and left the bathroom, heading downstairs.

  I found him in the dining room, unholstering his gun, his back to me.

  I paused on the railing. More than ever, he took my breath away.

  “Asher?” I breathed.

  He paused in his work, his head half turning toward me. “Hey . . . I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. Then he returned his attention back to his weapon.

  I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

  “Where’d you go?” I asked as Asher picked up his gun.

  His body twitched at the question, as if I’d cursed at him.

  “Nothing, just . . . had to grab some things,” he said, unloading the ammunition from his gun.

  I forced myself to take a step down, my hand lightly resting on the railing. My legs felt like lead.

  He wouldn’t look at me.

  Gods, why wouldn’t he look at me?

  With grim determination, Asher laid the bullets along the table, his fingers passing over them, taking stock.

  “Why are you counting your bullets?” I asked.

  “In case things go south,” he said, his head bowed over his work.

  It took sheer willpower to keep moving down the stairs. Something felt so wrong about this moment.

  Humans deal with relationships differently, I reassured myself.

  But as an Infernarus, there were things I needed.

  I came up to Asher, his back still to me. I reached out to him, but then I hesitated.

  He set his weapon down, and then he did turn to face me.

  His expression was soft. And now he did the reaching out, pulling me into him. I almost sighed my relief as his arms encircled me and my body was pressed up against his. His lips brushed the crown of my head.

  “I was worried when you were gone,” I admitted.

  At my words, his embrace tightened.

  Asher began to speak, but then his voice broke. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m all right, Lana.”

  Of their own accord, my hands began to run gently over Asher’s back. Now that I knew he was all right, my relief morphed into a sort of restlessness. I rubbed my cheek against his chest.

  His hands reached around and covered mine. With care, he pried them away and maneuvered them between us.

  “Later,” he promised. How agonized he looked as he spoke.

  I reached up and touched his temple. “Your eyes are sad.”

  He took my hand and squeezed it. “How could I be sad?”

  I almost believed him. I wanted to, desperately. But I couldn’t shake the worry that something was off. Maybe it was just the incomplete bond . . .

  “You don’t regret it?” I asked, my voice nothing more than a whisper. I felt my heart laid bare.

  Asher tilted my head and claimed my mouth. His lips were so much softer than any other part of him, and the sweetness of the kiss alone reassured me. All over again I felt wrapped up in Asher’s very essence.

  I responded to the kiss, parting my lips as it deepened, turning hungry. This is what I wanted. Physical reassurance. To know that he was as pleased to be with me as I was him.

  Last night came back in all its burning glory, and I felt my nails dig in. But before the kiss could escalate into anything more, Asher broke it off.

  Our foreheads pressed together. “Lana, only a fool would regret being with you,” he said, answering my question.

  I smiled a little at that.

  “Let’s get today over with. Then I’ll show you exactly how much I don’t regret it. I promise.”

  I could feel our time slipping away as our rental car drew ever closer to the portal.

  “Turn right here,” I said. This close to the gateway, I could sense it and, in the roughest of terms, I could navigate us toward it.

  Asher slowed the car and flipped on the blinker, brooding as he did so. My earlier unease had returned. I didn’t know if it stemmed from something personal between me and Asher, or greater worry that today wouldn’t end well. That last night was all I got with the hunter.

  My eyes drifted to Asher’s gun. “You’re still planning on giving a blood oath, right?” I asked, daring to look over at him.

  Blood in exchange for surrender.

  He nodded, his eyes riveted to the road.

  Somewhere out there, dozens of Infernari waited for us. They would kill us on sight unless I told them we were coming to surrender. They still might.

  I drew in a deep breath. “I’m going to try to contact the Infernari through my connection. If I give them my word we’re not here to do violence, they should at least hear us out.”

  Again, he nodded, his face stoic.

  I closed my eyes, pushing away the jumble of my emotions, and focused on the web inside of me. I didn’t know who all waited for us, but I assumed Azazel, Clades, and Aecora were among them. I slipped into the web, seeking out their essences. I could feel the breath of hot winds, the pull of a riptide, the smell of oiled leather—all of it and more as I touched each essence.

  Comrades, I spoke through our connection, I know you are out there. I have the hunter. We want to end the violence; we want to surrender. Asher seeks to make a blood oath as proof of his word. All I ask is that you let us speak to you . . . please.

  I repeated the request over and over, hoping the message got through.

  “Did it work?” Asher’s voice cut through my focus.

 
My eyes fluttered open as I released the connections.

  “I don’t know.” I frowned. “Hopefully.” Placing an idea in someone’s mind wasn’t exactly my affinity, and I didn’t have any magic left in me. The connection, however, didn’t require magic. It was always there, always accessible. “I can’t tell how many are waiting for us.” But it was probably more than the three I’d reached out to. My plan suddenly felt paltry, insufficient.

  I saw Asher’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  Asher

  We had arrived.

  The first stirrings of adrenaline spread through my veins at the thought of the portal and the creatures that waited for us.

  I parked the Kia Picanto out of view behind a rocky outcrop and sat for a moment, lungs heaving painfully. My heart pounded like a jackhammer, reminding me what I was about to do.

  I’d never hated myself more than I did right now.

  Next to me, Lana had been oddly quiet. Fidgety.

  She knew.

  She had to know.

  I glanced at her—all doe-eyed innocence—and guilt stabbed my chest like a hot spike. My coldness was torturing her.

  I could see it in her eyes, the way they darted between mine, searching desperately for something that wasn’t there.

  Something I’d locked away.

  I could sense her fear, her mortification, her shame . . . as it slowly dawned on her.

  That she had given herself to a monster.

  That she had chosen a mate who was neither demon nor man, but something else.

  A remorseless killing machine.

  A betrayer.

  That was what I had become.

  “There’s an island on Abyssos we can go to,” she said softly. “It’s like Earth, it’s cool and green and there’s a spring of clean water. It’s to be my inheritance, and I think . . . I think you would like it there . . .” She trailed off and tucked her hair behind her ear, looking unsure of herself. “You will come to Abyssos, right? Even though I don’t have your blood to bind you, anymore?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded.

  “I will,” I lied.

  Outside, the wind whistled up the barren volcanic slope. It blew right through me, chilling me to the bone. We were nowhere near the snow-capped peak of the mountain, but even this far up the air was icy.

  I stepped to the edge of the crevice Lana had led us to and peered down. Jagged rock twisted down into inky blackness. The portal lay somewhere deep inside there. Warm, sulfuric fumes vented up from its depths. My nose scrunched at the smell.

  I wedged my fingers into cracks and began to ease myself down, wincing on my bad leg, which hadn’t recovered much since the car accident.

  Much more nimble, Lana hopped down to the bottom and waited patiently, and when I reached her, she ducked into the mouth of the cave, shimmying sideways until she vanished. I crawled after her, jaw locked against the sickening claustrophobia setting in.

  To my relief, the cave opened up the other side. I stood up, marveling at the sight beyond.

  Lined with flickering torches, a broad staircase spiraled down into the earth, carved right into the rock.

  The entrance to the underworld.

  Unlike the portal at White Sulfur Springs, this one looked like it was meant for kings, the walls and floor intricately carved.

  As we started down the stairs, Lana reached for my hand, her grasp timid at first. I squeezed her palm before I remembered and my stomach knotted up.

  Still, I didn’t let go.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” she said, trying to sound teasing.

  “I’m nervous.” That wasn’t entirely a lie.

  “You don’t have to be,” she said. “I’ll protect you.”

  I winced, my sorrow bordering on nausea. How could I do this to someone so pure, someone so brave, someone so precious as Lana?

  It was unthinkable.

  “I don’t know what’s bothering you,” she whispered, “but it’s going to be okay . . . I promise.”

  When I didn’t answer, she stopped me and stood on tiptoe to kiss me, her lips urgent against my own. “I promise.” When she pulled back, her luminous eyes mesmerized me, moved me . . . and in that moment I came closer to changing my mind than I ever had.

  It would be so easy to surrender to my feelings for her.

  So easy to give in.

  So easy to lay down my gun and give them my blood in exchange for an oath.

  A chance to walk away with my life, my conscience, my future.

  My girl.

  I could whisk Lana away to paradise, lay with her on sunny beaches, swim naked in tropical coves, make mind-blowing love to her under the stars until we collapsed, utterly exhausted, at dawn.

  It would be so easy to fall in love with her.

  So easy to be happy.

  The Infernari were an honorable, proud species. If they agreed to let me surrender, they would be true to their word. I knew they would.

  It was humans who connived and backstabbed and cheated to eke out every advantage they possibly could. It was humans who hungered and raped and lusted, it was humans who plagued the Earth. It was humans who deserved retribution.

  It would be so easy.

  But then the moment passed, leaving me with a cold ache in my heart.

  “Come on, let’s not keep them waiting.” I pushed past her, my insides twisting ever tighter.

  What I did today would doom me to a lifetime of guilt and regret.

  But I’d given up on happiness a long time ago.

  The stairs deposited us in a large, dimly lit cavern. At the opposite end, five rock columns formed the pentagram of the portal. The air around them shimmered, as if giving off heat waves. The hairs on my forearms instantly rose, pulled toward its rippling core.

  A gateway to hell.

  While I stiffened at the sight, Lana breathed out her relief. The last portal she’d sought in a cave, she had found in ruin, thanks to me.

  My ever-scheming brain kicked into gear. A masonry drill bit ought to do it. Punch a hole in each of those columns, slide in five sticks of dynamite, run the cables to the surface, and then . . . BOOM.

  But I wasn’t here to blow up the portal, and now, of all times, my conniving thoughts disgusted me.

  I stepped forward, and the crunch under my boot echoed around the chamber.

  Bone fragments.

  They littered the ground. I lifted my toe off a jaw bone, missing half its teeth. I could only imagine what they signified—the millennia of human sacrifices brought here to bleed.

  I didn’t get the chance to muse on it.

  Out of the darkness loomed a pair of red eyes. A moment later the demon Azazel strolled out, his mouth curved up in a sadistic smirk.

  Instinctively, my hand went to my holster. A useless reflex, considering how well he fared last time I shot him.

  More eyes glimmered from the shadows, and more demons converged around us. Dozens of them. The entire demon population of the Americas, it looked like . . . and some. Enough to drain an entire town’s worth of humans.

  All here to bring Jame Asher to his knees.

  Some I recognized—Azazel, Clades, Aecora, Fidel.

  Some I didn’t.

  Any one of these creatures could single-handedly wreck me—they had that look in their eyes, too, like when a hungry Bengal tiger catches sight of its prey through the brush—and here I was with a bad leg, eleven bullets, and what was starting to seem like a very, very stupid plan.

  As they formed a circle of smoldering eyes, my breath quickened. How many had Lana contacted? Two? Three? The rest of them might not even know we came to make peace.

&n
bsp; Finally, Clades stepped forward, one of his hooves kicking up a plume of bone dust.

  Lana dropped to her knees next to me and bowed her head.

  “Kneel,” she hissed at me.

  I sort of did a half crouch, unwilling to give up my fighting stance.

  “Jame Asher, our sworn enemy,” Clades said, his eyes and voice hard. His gaze flicked to Lana, and everything about him softened. “Lana Malesuis, oathbound to protect him . . . We will hear you speak, because you were once dear to us. You say the hunter wishes to surrender by blood oath. Before you speak, know that we do not take lightly his crimes against our people, and that we will very likely choose to kill you both where you stand.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw her dip her head.

  Behind him, some of the other demons shifted restlessly; one growled softly.

  “If you are honorable, Jame Asher,” Clades called, “let us see you lay down your arms.”

  “I am honorable,” I said.

  I unclipped my holster and held it in front of me, but hesitated.

  Eleven bullets . . .

  I could shoot one demon before the others ripped into me . . . one demon who wouldn’t even die.

  I dropped the gun and raised my hands, remembering a second too late that Infernari believed the seat of all power resided in the hands.

  The demons hissed and assumed battle stances.

  “Easy, eeeasy . . .” I lowered my hands, my heart pounding. “When humans raise their hands, it’s to show they have no weapons . . . it’s a sign of surrender to my people.”

  Since when did these fuckers get so scared of me?

  “Be that as it may,” said Clades, “we cannot trust your word, as you have demonstrated countless, countless times.”

  He nodded to Aecora, who swooped in and patted down my jeans and slid her hands up my thighs . . . with a little too much vigor. Groping my butt, she slid my pen light out of my back pocket and held it up for all to see. “A weapon. See, he lies already.”