Defying Instinct (Demon Instinct Series)

by Jaye A. Jones

  But I had to keep going. I had to stay on my feet, show no weakness.

  She didn’t get to have any part of me. Not my life, because I still lived. Not my heart, because it beat rapidly within me, and remained one pace in front of me, protecting me.

  Iliana didn’t get my defeat, because I was not defeated.

  The moment I recognized the shutting of Iliana’s palace hall doors, I collapsed onto the black, sooty floor, legs crumbling like I’d thought they would before. The dizziness was overwhelming, I couldn’t form thoughts. I couldn’t speak, my throat was so dry. Breathing was exhausting.

  Several hands picked me up, kept me from the ground. I couldn’t walk, but I moved. They carried me. They’d take care of me.

  That was my last thought before the world went black.

  CHAPTER 43

  “I can’t believe she smiled through that.”

  “Did you feel what was done to her?”

  “She let us feel. I can’t believe she wanted us to know.”

  “I nearly cried out.”

  “But you didn’t. None of us did.”

  “We are worthy.”

  The whispers came softly at first, then very loud, then soft again. I couldn’t quite get a handle on anything, who spoke, where I was. But I was safe here. That, I knew.

  “I thought we were bonding with a weakling.” I recognized Holly’s voice.

  Then Connell. “No one could have known.”

  “She has the strongest mind I’ve ever touched,” in Dmitri’s gravelly tone. “How is it possible?”

  “Half human,” the melodic, timid voice must have been Ivy.

  “It is true,” Hadrian’s grating pitch, though he no longer frightened me. “It hasn’t ever happened before. There has never been human blood present at a Blooding.”

  I feel you waking, was Rowan’s telepath, deep, smoky and welcome inside my mind. How do you feel?

  “We must keep it secret from her Royalty. She must not know her daughter is—” came from Connell.

  “Yes, she mustn’t know,” Dmitri said.

  “You’re kidding yourselves if you think Iliana doesn’t know.” This from Holly.

  “You are all kidding yourselves if you think Iliana is going to let the halfling live.” Leave it to the Sorcerer to worsen everyone’s moods, as if that were possible.

  We picked our council well, don’t you think? I asked Rowan, enjoying eavesdropping on the interaction. My Razer half approved of them too. She thought each brought exactly what they should. They would be a valuable company to keep.

  They behaved admirably during the ceremony, and while you were unconscious. I believe we did.

  “She’s waking.”

  “Get some…what do humans drink?”

  I like you in my head, Rowan. It feels nice.

  “Go tell her family.”

  I tried to move, but couldn’t.

  Dad and Benn are here?

  He let me see the play-by-play like a movie projected straight into my mind.

  Bennett was waiting in The Bookstore with Tanis when they carried their unconscious Scion inside. They fought him. Dmitri and Connell worst of all. But they couldn’t touch him. He was a Marked human. They gave him a wide berth, and all they could do was yell. Holly snapped at him, and Bennett snapped back, no longer tongue-tied around her.

  “Stuff it, Tempter,” Rowan ordered. “Bennett has more right to be here than any of us.”

  I grinned as the image of Benn in my mind, confused by Rowan’s support and scratching at the back of his hand, which was red and irritated. The Mark. My fresh Mark. Right next to Rowan’s. Bennett Cotton was one safe human.

  “Is everyone okay?” I croaked, my voice wrecked and weak.

  Savannah, you ask us after what you went through? The telepath from Dmitri.

  I was surprised at his use of my name, and that he telepathed without permission. No more allegiance stuff?

  I’ve seen your mind, he said like it was the most obvious explanation.

  “We’re fine, beauty. How do you feel?” I looked up at Connell, who was glamoured, and I got another sense of it making me uncomfortable. But I knew the look on his face, the kindness in his eyes. He was still Connell underneath.

  “Not dead,” I said, and his smile made me smile.

  Benn and Tanis rushed into the room, and I had a moment of concern that they were still together. How long were we in the Underrealm? How long had I been out? How long were Tanis and Benn spending time together, doing who knew what?

  We had an entire conversation without saying a word. Benn asked if I was okay. I asked if he was. I told him I’d tell him everything when we had the time, and he understood. Bennett Cotton was a patient man.

  “My dad?” I asked him aloud.

  “Thought you’d prefer him…not knowing,” the only human in the room replied.

  Satisfied that everyone made good decisions today, I started inching my legs off the couch. Everything hurt, especially my arms, which I was too scared to even look at, let alone try to use. I had to stop with one leg off the couch to catch my breath.

  “What are you doing, love?” Rowan asked, but everyone was thinking the same thing.

  “I need to get cleaned up,” I told them, trying to get to my feet, but failing. It was Connell who put his glamoured arms around me, and lifted me from the couch.

  “I will assist you,” Ivy’s soft voice said, her head down, her eyes cast to the ground.

  I focused on her, my tone harsher than I meant it to be. “You are not a servant here, Ivy.”

  After that, I think they knew I needed to do this on my own. They let me make my shaky way to the stairs. Climbing them wasn’t easy, but I took my time, waiting through each bout of dizziness, then taking another step.

  By the time I got to my apartment, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I wouldn’t let myself lay down. I had a task. I had to stick to it.

  I still wore the white robe the half-caste slaves put on me. It was stiff and dark maroon with filth and dried blood now. Sliding it over my shoulders and letting it fall to the floor, I oddly wished they had taken my underthings off after all. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to. I tried, but already knew I couldn’t. I just left them on. The effort made it clear my arms were in bad shape, forcing me to finally look at them.

  The six slashes had closed, not fully healed, but healing. Someone cleaned off a lot of the blood, so at least they weren’t as gruesome as I’d imagined. I couldn’t raise them above my waist, couldn’t make a fist, couldn’t even keep hold of a washcloth. I think some tendons were severed. Washing my hair was going to be out of the question.

  Turning on the shower with my knees was a chore, and made me wince, but I did it. Shuffling under the water seemed like an impossible task after the trek up the stairs, but I did it.

  All I could do was stand in the water, hoping it would get me clean.

  It was such a small thing, but not being able to clean off the blood and grime was the last thing in a day filled with a million things that made me feel helpless. A tedious ache grew and grew in my chest, making me want to rub the spot until it ceased, but I couldn’t reach it.

  That was when the dam broke. I used to think the term burst into tears was an exaggerated metaphor. Now I understood it.

  Every opaque cage inside me splintered, then blew apart, littering the walls of my mind with the burden of everything they contained.

  The tears rolling down my face were a little warmer than the water from the shower. I shook, sobbed, and let everything that happened since my glamour was lifted, everything I’d repressed flow out of me.

  My limbs felt heavy where they didn’t throb. My head felt thick. I couldn’t breathe. Lightheadedness began to blur my vision, and I didn’t know how much longer my legs would keep me standing.

  When his warm hand pressed against my back, I didn’t have to turn to see who it was. I’d sensed him coming. Rowan stepped into the shower with me, wrapped his a
rms around my body, and bore my weight so I no longer had to. I collapsed backward against him, taking the support he was giving, not concerned about appearing weak with him.

  Time passed, but I didn’t know how long. But this lapse in time felt good. Cleansing. When I regained clarity, my breathing evened out. My sobs ceased. The pressure in my chest began to release, and I could keep myself upright again.

  You asked me, my love, when I first knew I wanted you, his telepath a whisper.

  Strong and gentle arms tightened around me as I shakily responded, you didn’t know.

  No, lips kissed the top of my wet hair. But this is when I began to see you.

  White exploded outward. The creature’s eyes glowed copper, lighting the room with it. Blistering heat radiated from iridescent skin, so dazzling it pealed paint from the walls and curled paperback book jackets. Pure, uncontained power snapped and whipped along the floor and up the walls, exuding menace like a leveling storm.

  Grayson made the human sleep, and was on the creature the next instant, yelling futilely. The being didn’t touch him. Didn’t have to. Before he made contact, the creature turned to him with predatory swiftness, and the Tempter’s skull fractured as he flew up to the ceiling, once, twice, three times, bringing plaster down with him as he finally fell to the floor.

  He didn’t move, didn’t twitch. The creature didn’t give him a second look.

  “Stop,” I cried aloud with a whimper. Why was he showing me this now? But he didn’t stop, the images of that evening after Hadrian lifted my glamour filling my head.

  The store lights crackled and dimmed as the glow of skin grew, began to buzz threateningly.

  Cyrus snuck up on the creature, and it wrenched the closest bookshelf from the wall, incinerating books in midair. Only ash reached the floor. Attention focused on Cyrus. The creature swung the jagged shelf into the Hammer’s side, smashing his arm and face, then sent him flying into the far bookshelf, igniting the books as he tumbled to the ground. The inferno blazed around him, then engulfed him.

  The creature turned, and ran face-first into his chest.

  Rowan’s chest.

  The being halted her annihilation for no reason, seemed confused as to why she hesitated. Rowan growled down at the creature, gleaming white gold meeting glowing copper. Fangs snapped, knife-like claws flexed at the ready, waiting for the creature to attack.

  But it didn’t.

  I didn’t.

  The iridescent skin and copper glow from her eyes muted. Rowan stopped growling, shock tamping down the animal within him.

  “How are you fighting it?” he asked.

  The creature tilted its head. “Fighting what?”

  Its voice wasn’t hers. It wasn’t Savannah. Contained more power, more darkness, and even less feeling. But it was her too.

  “Savannah?” Rowan asked, reaching a hand toward her. She flinched, but didn’t pull away as his skin made contact.

  It blistered his flesh with violent sparks, but he leaned in anyway, brushing his unglamoured lips against hers.

  “Come back,” he whispered into her ear, trailing a shaky claw along her cheek.

  I watched myself allow his touch, knowing how much contact had hurt me, and how much the power surrounding me had hurt him. With arms wrapped around my body that felt like searing bands to my disoriented mind, Grayson and Cyrus awoke, having healed from the damage I’d done. Rowan was stunned by his own actions as well as mine, and obeyed the Tempter’s demands, taking me upstairs without thinking. When he moved, I began to wail and fight against him. The sensations had been too much.

  No one could have come back from that, Savannah. No one.

  I understood. Somehow, he knew exactly what I needed to see, exactly what would help me most. Seeing myself like that, fighting it, resisting it, winning and never even once letting it take me again.

  It couldn’t have me. I wasn’t evil, wasn’t pathetic. No longer a nothing. I was powerful. I survived that, came through the smoke-and-fire stronger. There was nothing I’d let break me.

  And Rowan had been my first kiss after all.

  I sobbed a laugh. Guess I’ve always been yours.

  Guess so. His chuckle was a warm rumble, vibrating down my back. You can survive anything, my love.

  When I could, I faced him. Rowan was shirtless and soaking wet, water dripping from his golden hair, down every bulging muscle, and soaking his pants, making them cling to him.

  Seeing the look in his eyes, I knew I survived. We all had. And that was the only thing that really mattered. A slow smile spread across my lips.

  He smiled too, and I ran a weak hand along his stomach, just at the top of his pants. I couldn’t raise it any higher.

  White gold exploded where there had only been a ring of it. When I raked my nails along his muscles, the white gold exploded again, filling the shower with momentary sunlight.

  I tried undoing the button on his wet pants, but my hands were useless. Rowan didn’t need another hint, though there was concern in his eyes at the state of my arms. He slipped out of the rest of his clothes, and took care of mine too. When his hands were on me again, I thought his tentative touch on my waist might be enough to send me over the edge.

  Water moved my hair to the side, and suddenly I wanted to feel long canines on my skin. Needed to. I tilted my head, baring the length of my neck up to the Warrior surrounding me, and he stilled for a second, then groaned so low and so deep, the building heat in me nearly erupted. Fangs against the nape of my neck, not biting down, not drawing blood, but applying just the right amount of pressure, so I knew they were there.

  The familiar graze of canines made the stunning, slowly rising pleasure ignite. Bliss shocked along every nerve ending, then caught fire again and again. My demon half whispered, trust, even as his fangs tightened around my neck and his hand tightened around my throat.

  I was his in every way.

  And we survived. I would heal. As long as I had him, as long as those I cared about were near, were safe, it was easy to see the possibilities. Now that there might be a future.

  CHAPTER 44

  “The Devil poofed out the moment you left the room,” Holly said when Rowan and I descended the stairs, the fact that both of our hair was wet making what we’d been doing together obvious. It made me grin.

  Dmitri grumbled, “should have known he’d be the only one to—”

  “Guys,” I interrupted, my weakened body singing from the aftereffects of world-shattering shower-sex with Rowan obliterating my mind’s censor. “None of you signed a lifetime contract to stick around. Hadrian showed up, okay? He didn’t have to, but he did. The Sorcerer,” deliberately using the civil term, “deserves your respect.”

  I got a wave of emotions coming off of the full-caste demons filling The Bookstore. Some were proud, mixed with uncomfortable. Some begrudgingly conceded that I had a point, even if it bothered them to admit. One sent a wave of adoration that my body was beginning to recognize for what it was.

  What happened next probably happened faster than my mind processed it, but I saw only one thing at a time.

  First, Ivy’s sad, exotic eyes went completely white, and a thread of panic crackled through her usually unfeeling body.

  Then, there was a click coming from above.

  I looked up, saw the device, blinked at the red light blinking faster and faster back at me.

  Until it stopped.

  White filled my vision, the boom rendering me deaf. It was similar to losing my senses during the Blooding ceremony, only when I tilted my head to the side, blood dripped from my ears.

  In shock, I watched as my bookstore disintegrated around me. Fire swallowed up the remaining books, the walls, the furniture and the counter where I spent so many days standing behind with a fake smile and an internal struggle with my personal demons.

  In one, giant blast of heat, it was gone.

  Why wasn’t I on fire?

  The ceiling fell, but slid around me. The i
nferno raged, violent blues, oranges, and yellows dancing along the walls, charring the furniture and turning my bookstore into a shell, but couldn’t touch me.

  My senses returned slowly, and I couldn’t see anyone. Rowan had been near when the explosion hit. I’d been looking at Ivy, but couldn’t see her now. Benn and Tanis had been sitting on the couch together, but weren’t there now.

  It took me what felt like far too long to panic.

  Rowan?...PING.

  Benn?...PING.

  The pain of the echo mixed with freaking out about everyone who had been in the building when the bomb went off and my inability to do anything could have broken me. I could feel it nagging at my self control, suggesting that I give in to it.

  I didn’t have the strength to find the cages in my mind.

  Before my panic got out of control, there were arms around me. Then, The Bookstore was gone.

  When the familiar whirlwind stopped, heated arguments bordering on a brawl greeted me. We were in Hadrian’s home. The penthouse on the fortieth floor, back at the beach. I listened silently, surveying each of them, taking inventory.

  Even though I saw them all, even though Holly and Hadrian were nose to nose, screaming into each other’s faces. Even though Dmitri was charging towards Rowan, who stood with his arms tightly around my chest. Even though Connell was hovering over Ivy, who was kneeling beside Benn and Tanis, side by side, on the ground, bruised and covered in cuts and ash, but both blinking. I had to keep surveying them, keep assuring myself we had all made it out alive.

  “You do not leave our Scion for last, Warrior,” Dmitri yelled, never sounding so incredibly scary before. “Do you want Savannah dead?”

  “You got me last,” I said to Rowan, pulling away from his arms, still stunned and looking at the six demons, one half-caste, and one human, reassuring myself that they were all here.

  Rowan said nothing.

  When it finally sunk in, when I finally was able to accept we were all okay, I turned to my Sentinel.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as tears spilled out of my eyes. Without the use of my arms, I tossed my body against his, embracing him in the only way I could with all the strength still left in me.