by Kim Faulks
And out of the corner he came…Jerry Leander. Brown eyes glinted with excitement as my knee buckled and I hit the wall. I tried to lift my hand, tried to hold on…and he just smiled.
“Hit her again,” he commanded.
The pop came once more, this time hitting the wound in my thigh. A cry ripped from my chest, low and sickening, as the floor rushed up to meet me.
I tried to shove forward, tried to close my hand around my gun. But the hallway swayed…and then she was there…stepped up behind him…her long cloak floating on the floor.
I told you, she whispered…I told you I’d find you…
My lips trembled as a whimper slipped free as Jerry turned to look at the hag, his words warped and dull inside my head. “What do you want us to do with her?”
Movement came from the corner of the room…and I was caught on the sight as someone stepped from the shadows, lifted a gun, and fired.
Blue eyes…
Blond hair…
I knew him…
that kid.
Ace…
I blinked, and he turned his head to look at me, and then in another instant, he was focused as he squeezed the trigger…bang…bang…bang…
They scattered, lunging sideways, as I crawled forward and scrambled for my gun. Midnight flames swallowed my mind. Black and red…and in the middle…in the eye of the inferno was blue, burning right through the claws inside my head.
Ace was gone when I lifted my head. Gone in the barrage of bullets and screams. My pulse picked up speed. Not Jerry…not Jerry…I wanted him…that bastard was mine.
Her feet scraped against the tiled floor…scrape…thud…scrape…thud. Cold and dead…and haunting…taking me back to that night on the side of the road…back to the sting of the taser tearing through me…and then to that alley…that terrifying moment when I thought my life was over.
I lifted the gun, desperation taking me over as the room greyed and spun, “Get out of my fucking head, bitch!”
I squeezed the trigger and the shot went wide, hitting the corner of the wall next to her. Still she kept coming, stepping closer…closer…closer.
She lifted her hand, long yellow claws ready to tear and shred. The gun wobbled, sight arcing wide as I slapped one hand against the floor and shoved.
A sickening hiss slipped from the blackness of her face…low and infernal, like she was part snake underneath all those rotting robes.
“I fucking hate you! I fucking hate you!” I stumbled forward, the bitter scent of gunpowder filling the air as I squeezed the trigger again…and again.
Until the dull click of an empty magazine echoed.
There was no blood…not a drop…not a fleck.
There was nothing.
Hell’s fames roared through me…I couldn’t fight before…I couldn’t save us. And in a heartbeat, I was snatched from that hallway and back into the Unseelie cell once more…with Gabriel’s screams filling my head.
You couldn’t save him because you didn’t want to…the sickening sound of her words filled me. You don’t love him…and he doesn’t love you…you wanted him dead…wanted him gone…you wanted—
I lifted my head, took a step forward, and then lunged. I hit her hard, tangled in decay and death as dust bloomed from her clothes and the scent of a thousand years billowed out.
She hit the ground with a crack, and instantly I was back in that hallway once more. It was all in my head…she was all in my head. Twisting and turning…and implanting like a fucking bomb.
Claws came for me as she swung her hand. But there was nothing more she could do to me now…no more power she could take…
I clenched my fist and the infernal flames of Hell blazed hotter, and then I drove it right into her face...
Her head snapped backwards, and the shroud slipped back. I saw her then…saw this thing…graying skin, sunken eyes, sparse strands of long gray hair stuck out from the scalp.
Instead of claws tearing me, she flailed. Screams tore free as the midnight flames licked and swallowed. I held on, opening up to that call of Hell’s power, and emptied all my hurt and my pain into her.
“You wanted me?” I screamed, and cocked my fist, lashing out again and again, smashing my fury into her face. “Here I am, you fucking bitch. Here I am!”
A roar came from nowhere. I lifted my head to see Jerry Leader charging across the room, his wide eyes focused on me. I tried to pull away from her…tried to ready myself as we hit.
A sickening crunch ripped through my head as I hit the floor. Sparks collided…sparks and pain as Jerry turned to see the flailing mess on the ground.
“What have you done!” he roared, and lifted the gun in his hand. “What the hell have you done?”
Through the sickening thud…thud…thud…of pain I saw her flail no more.
She was burning…she was dying…
Laughter tore from my chest and slipped from my lips. It didn’t matter now…nothing mattered. Jerry Leander was a blur as he stepped toward me and looked down.
I tried to move…tried to raise my hand…midnight flames danced along my fingers as Jerry Leander raised the gun…all I saw was the barrel…and all I saw was them…
Titus…
Rival…
Gabriel…
Redemption…
Redemption charging toward me, dark eyes blazing with hate.
I loved him…
Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes…
I loved him…
A crack tore through the room. Jerry stumbled backwards, his arms swinging wide. Crack…again and again.
Jerry stumbled and fell to his knees…there was no immortal blood in him…no blood at all…crimson spilled down the middle of his chest as he crumbled and hit the floor.
I tried to breathe, tried to move. Jagged wheezing sounds filled my ears. I was caught by the perfect shine of his boots as Redemption dropped to his knees beside me.
“Lorn…Jesus fucking Christ…Lorn…”
He was here…he was right here…and yet I couldn’t feel a thing. “C-cold,” I whispered. “S-so c-cold.”
Ace strode through the room…blue eyes cut to Redemption as he knelt in front of me. “Is she…is she going to be okay?”
He wasn’t a kid anymore…he was beautiful…power rippled from his fingers as he leaned closer.
And I was seized by the sight of the medallion he wore. I watched the circle twist and twist and twist…and the engraved words captured me. Convent of Heavenly Christos…
Something…something about that name…and there was something about the medallion.
No…not this medallion…
A medallion…
I tried to understand…tried to put the pieces together as Redemption leaned closer and slid one hand under my knees. My pack…I tried to say the words…My pack…don’t leave with…
But I was lost…lost in the darkness…
Lost, with the medallion in my mind glinting as it turned and turned…
And turned.
Chapter Eighteen
Redemption
Her blood was everywhere…on my hands…the floor…my soul…
Her eyes fluttered closed as the words slipped free. “My pack…don’t leave without…”
I scanned the floor and saw the bag in the corner of the room. “Get that, will you.”
The kid pulled away and scurried toward the thing. Questions filled my head…but they’d wait…they could all wait.
Her jagged breaths were nothing more than a wheeze. Blood stuck the shirt to her body on the right side, and on her thigh. I lifted her, easing her closer. Jesus, Lorn…Jesus…
Black blood spilled from the night hag in the middle of the floor, the tiny trickle seeming to reach for Lorn, desperate to taint her one last time. I drove my heels into the floor and rose.
“I got it…” Ace muttered and then glanced at the mess around us.
Bodies were splayed wide. Jerry Leander…the night hag in this room…a s
hifter frozen with a wolf’s snout and wicked fangs in the hallway.
“What will we do with this?”
I flinched at the question…and then lowered my gaze to the Unseelie sorceress… “Burn it. Burn it all.”
There was nothing left here now. No tiny glimmer of information I could seize. Whatever secrets had been hidden were now spilling across the floor.
Ace swung Lorn’s pack, sliding the straps high on his shoulders as he lifted his hand. There was no question from the kid, no flinch of honor. There was only power, and as he cupped his hands and murmured words I didn’t know, I realized how much power he had.
I turned then, leaving the leaping flames to catch the walls of this place, hoping a blazing inferno would obliterate all of it, and strode along the hallway, through the kitchen, and out the rear door.
She whimpered as I hit the steps and headed for the driveway.
She called a name.
“Redemption…”
“I’m here,” I growled, and lifted my gaze to my Raptor, sideways on the drive. The headlights blazed, the engine hissed and spat, steam billowed out of the gaps on the hood like it was the sulphur pits of Hell. The crumbled steel gate hung limply to one side, the frame buckled from my battering ram as I bulldozed through.
And still the panic waited…hovering far too close to the surface.
I’d seen the flare of gunshots…heard the screams. I glanced down as Lorn’s head rolled backwards, exposing the perfect pale skin at her neck, and that desperation rose inside me.
The need to save her…
The need to love her.
The need to beg forgiveness.
The crunch of my boots on the gravel was swallowed by the roar of the fire. I rounded the front of the truck and stopped at the back door, watching for Ace as the kid strode from the doorway and out into the night.
Questions filled my head, but this wasn’t the time…or the place. I snagged the handle on the rear door and yanked it open as Lorn mumbled something. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s all going to be okay.”
And it was…only there were others coming.
“I’m coming with you,” Ace said as he pulled open the other rear door and climbed in, cradling her head against his shoulder as I lay her against the seat. “You need me.”
My top lip curled and I smothered my snarl as a boom ripped from the house. It’d all burn, but it wouldn’t cover what’d been done here, not to supes like us. We could smell the death and sense the blood. “Alright, then,” I growled and pulled backwards before closing the door.
Lightning severed the sky in the distance. But instead of neon white, this savage bolt was blood red. “Easy, Lucifer,” I muttered, and then slid behind the wheel.
The engine whined as I shoved the Raptor into gear and backed out of the mess I’d caused. A vamp lay dead beside the narrow driveway, his head sliced clean off…I lifted my gaze to the rear-view mirror before I glanced at the side mirrors. Recognition sparked in those blue eyes.
The immortal was already dead by the time I got here, as were two more closer to the house.
Energy pulsed inside the cabin of the truck, standing the hairs on my arms. The kid wasn’t a kid anymore…and he was dangerous.
“Medallion…” Lorn murmured from the backseat. “Turn…turn…turn…”
“She’s hallucinating,” Ace said, lifting his hand and leaning in close.
I wound my arm around the top of the passenger’s seat and punched the accelerator, catching the movement as the sorcerer tucked something under the neckline of his shirt.
The night blurred as we flew backwards until I hit a wide patch of the trail and swung the ass end of the Raptor wide, carving a path where there hadn’t been one before, and then threw the truck into gear and shot forward.
The track came out onto a paved road. I scanned left and right…searching.
“Go right…and then right again. Up there, see…” Ace pointed out of his window to the faint lights sparkling high up in the distance. “It’s some kind of outlook.”
It was high up…and we’d sense others coming for miles, especially if the kid had some more tricks in his bag. I spun the wheel as faint orange flames reaching over the tops of the trees in the rear-view mirror.
“Keep pressure on that wound,” I growled, and hit the gas.
“Wounds,” Ace murmured, and leaned in close. “She’s in a bad way.”
“I know.” The road seemed to blur in front of me as I followed his directions, turning right and then right again…trusting...
Moments were fragmented inside my head. Headlights. Gunshots. Screams. The night hag…what was left of her, at least.
She was sacred to the Unseelie Queen…and revered by my entire race. Now she burned in the middle of a house in the mortal realm…undignified.
“Medallion,” Lorn whimpered.
“Hush now,” Ace murmured.
I couldn’t see what he was doing, but her frantic harsh breaths eased, slipping into a soft rhythmic sound as we climbed, and kept on climbing.
I followed the trail to what looked like a house high on the ridge of the mountain. Lights flickered at the front of the building like a beacon in the night. But inside, the house was dark.
“There’s no one here, we’re safe.” Ace stared out the window as I pulled the truck up the drive.
I pushed open the door, then turned to the back seat. She made no sound as I opened the rear door and leaned in…her shallow breaths made me stop and listen as Ace climbed out.
“I’ll be out here if you need me,” he muttered, and then closed the door.
I watched him melt into the darkness before turning to Lorn once more. “He’s a strange kid that one, a real strange kid.”
She didn’t answer, not even a hiss as I lifted her. She was so light, so thin…nothing more than skin and bones, a shadow of the woman I once knew.
The soft white light of the roof light washed over the marks on her face. Bruises, cuts, and scratches…she was a mess…a beautiful, terrifying mess.
“Oh, baby,” I cradled her and stepped backwards, “what have you done to yourself?”
A light flicked on inside the elevated house, and the back door opened a second later. “Up this way, it’s all clear.”
Ace turned and left before I mounted the first stair and climbed. Strands of matted red hair became visible the closer I came. Outside there was a pop, and then another, as the front of the house was bathed in darkness.
And the heavens answered, growling and snarling as I slipped through the doorway and into the house. Polished timber glistened as I scanned what looked like the main part of the house and turned toward the bedrooms.
I turned sideways and stepped through a doorway before grasping her tightly against me and slipping one hand free to reach the light switch. If I was a sorcerer, I’d conjure light. If I was a vampire or a shifter, I’d see in the dark.
But I was neither.
I was Fae.
I was Unseelie.
And as a race, we were useless, really. What had we done…what had we done to someone like Lorn?
The light flicked on and I went to the queen-sized bed in the middle of the room. Silk and lace covered the bed. I grabbed the cover and tore the damn thing free.
Her arms smacked white cotton sheets, her head rolled, cradled on the soft pillow. I dragged my hands free and looked at her body. Blood covered one side of her middle. I snagged the bottom of her shirt, lifted it, and stared at the mess.
So much blood…so much blood.
My fists still trembled. I clenched tight and then relaxed my hand before I touched her wound. Blood spilled free, a trickle in the front, but my hand came away drenched in the back.
I rolled her as gently as I could, pulling her face against me as I stared at the hole in her back.
She needed a doctor…she needed…Gabriel’s face filled my mind, and was then replaced with the hound’s…they’d know what to do…they’d know how to
fix her.
I glanced toward the open door…the sorcerer…
No, the word was a blow to my chest. I shoved up from the floor and scanned the room. A bathroom was to one side. I stumbled to the doorway and flicked on the lights. The bathroom cupboards were empty, the towel rails bare. No one stayed here, not in this room…not for a long time.
A soft whimper drew me back to her, but it was the whisper of power inside my head that filled me…a calling of old…of the energy I used to wield—but no more.
It’s just blood…blood you know…blood you’ve spilled many times.
I couldn’t look away…frozen by the heady metallic scent as I closed my eyes. Powers hovered just below the surface of my mind—dark powers I’d not used in what felt like forever.
They were dangerous…they were Unseelie.
I swallowed hard and then opened my eyes. My fingers glistened, drenched in crimson. Lorn’s blood…blood I could conjure, just like I had all those years ago.
I stepped closer, and the old magic bloomed like an ash cloud filled with hate. But I could use it. I could use just enough to save her.
Words slipped from my lips. Words of old. Words that were spoken to me once, from the lips of a Queen that was mighty—before her fall.
I dropped to my knees once more and cupped Lorn’s belly. She was fire and warmth and hell molded in bones and tears and sweat. I leaned forward and brushed my lips across her skin, trailing the dip of her navel to stop at the ridge under her breast.
Words filled me, like a cup that runneth over, and then slipped free. They bounced against her skin, warm and wet with my breath. And as I stared, the blood gathered in a trail and then slipped away.
I spoke into the well of her belly, pleaded into the valley of her breasts. Breasts I’d once touched, breasts I’d once loved. My lips skimmed higher, the soft hollow of her neck…and a tiny shudder tore free.
There was a hiss, and then movement, but still I moved higher, desperate to get to the one place I needed to be.
Her mouth, her lips, soft and supple under mine. My hands slipped under her, arms wound around her, pulling her closer.
A sound pierced the moment, a cough and then a clearing of a throat. I broke the connection and turned to the kid standing in the middle of the doorway. Blue eyes missed nothing as he looked at Lorn and then me. “I’m needed elsewhere. I’ve covered the valley with a web of protection. You’ll hear anyone coming like a vibration that’ll echo through the entire house.”