by Cate Corvin
None of that was as nerve-wracking as figuring out where to go next.
We found a human hotel on the outskirts of New York City that was miraculously free of Shadowed World influence, probably due to its sheer mundanity, and holed up in a corner suite several stories up. Càel immediately yanked the curtains shut while I hung spare sheets over the uncovered sides of the windows, preventing so much as a single ray of sunlight from piercing our temporary haven.
I collapsed on one of the beds when we were done sun-proofing. My body was never tired these days, but my mind was whirring like a broken engine, running through the same problems and stalling out every time I tried to think of a simple solution.
I needed to get my mom out of Percival’s home without his knowledge, but where would I bring her?
Thraustila had to die, but we needed to know who his associates were and where his Cerberian Gate was located, not to mention that he would have no problems whatsoever with killing me a second time.
Will and Sura could walk away, but as long as Thraustila was alive, I would always be a fugitive.
On the bright side, I was no longer trapped in Libra. I could do something besides sit around and drink blood and pine for Càel.
“First things first,” Will said crisply, all business as usual. “Money. I withdrew funds earlier this week, and in three days my cards will probably be cut off. There’s no going back, so this is what we’ve got to live on. We need to pace ourselves and spend it wisely.”
“How much?” I asked, rubbing my temples.
“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Jesus Christ. “I’ll make sure I don’t spend it all in one place, Pops,” I said sarcastically. As long as we didn’t do anything stupid, like try to live in a five-star hotel and go out for pixie dust, we could live on that for months. “You’re the only one who needs to buy actual sustenance. Everyone else here can provide for each other.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I almost bowed under the weight of the awkwardness. Càel and I could drink each other’s blood as we’d been doing. No doubt Will would offer a wrist to either of us if we needed to replenish ourselves.
But Suraziel needed to either have sex or be around it. And if everyone assumed I’d be doing the providing... the incubus raised an eyebrow, following my thought process, but he thankfully said nothing.
“We should switch hotels every night. Tori and Sura need to stay inside- if people see vampires, demons, and a slayer leaving the same spot, word might get around. Then there’s food, bribes, transportation, weapons… it sounds like a lot, but this could potentially go fast.”
Càel was prowling the room as Will spoke, but he finally seemed to decide it was safe, and settled on the bed behind me. I leaned back into him with a grateful sigh, wrapping his arms around me and laying with my back against his chest and stomach.
The bloodsong rose to a crescendo that temporarily blotted out all other sounds. I saw Will’s mouth moving but heard nothing until the thrumming pulse faded back to a more manageable level again.
Silence descended. Suraziel stretched out across the other bed as Will tapped on his phone, moving funds around and sending messages.
“Where’ve you been?” I whispered, tilting my head back to look up at Càel. I touched his face, tracing the sharp angles of his jaw. I didn’t need to be around him day in and day out, but still, even two days without Càel felt a little bit like an eternity. At least I now had the bloodsong to keep me company wherever I went, like a little piece of him.
“I got word to Morgrainne.” He tilted my head to the side and kissed my temple, working his way down to my earlobe and sending a shiver down my spine. “Bathory is locked down tight for now. The head of PR- Chloe- is sending out exclusive invitations to certain humans in order to secure a steady blood supply, but the bars aren’t open for business. Thraustila is on his guard.”
It was incredibly weird to hear a thousand-year-old vampire talk about having a head of public relations for his ex-court.
Even weirder was Will focusing on Càel, not with the usual disdain slayers had for vamps, but mulling over his news. “What did your sister say? Are they willing to defect against their king?”
Càel nodded, but there was a fraction of a second where the movement felt a little jerky to me. My new body picked up on the subtlest of body language cues that I was still working on interpreting, but something in that split-second made me think that Càel was concealing part of the truth.
If there was one thing I had absolute faith in, it was that Càel wouldn’t lie about something that would hurt me. I filed away my questions for later, focusing on the present.
The extremely tense present, where we put all our cards on the table as a team for the first time.
Will didn’t need to point out that the Morrígna- my new sister Morgrainne, and my Maker, Rhianwen- were putting their immortal lives on the line to destroy Thraustila. Beneath the bloodsong, I felt a little tug that I presumed was Rhianwen. It was her blood that had reanimated my broken body.
It gave me a very clear idea of what Càel felt when his Maker ordered him to do something, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“What did the kelpie have to say?” I glanced over at Suraziel, who was still lounging on the other bed. His pants were still on, thank god.
“Nothing important.” I huffed out a sigh as Càel’s fingers ran over my chest and slipped down to my ribs and stomach. “I could happily never talk to a Faerie again for the rest of my immortal life. All they do is twist words until you have no idea what they’re on about.”
“Like?” The incubus waggled his eyebrows. “You didn’t think the kelpie came by just to say hi, did you?”
Honestly, I had no idea. As far as I was concerned, there was no debt between us. I’d helped the kelpie out of the cage Thraustila had trapped it in and brought it back to water, and now I was a friend of the Fae. No Faerie would harm me or the offspring I’d never have now that I was a vampire.
“It said it was sent to give greetings to the one-crowned-in-blood, and its friend with the unpronounceable name was doing well and expecting her first foal.” Nothing like live updates on the bloodthirsty friend I’d never intended to make. “They sure make turning vampire sound poetic. Crowned in blood, my ass. More like smothered with it.”
There was no way I could ever be real friends with a kelpie. They ate people.
Well… I supposed I technically ate people too now, but at least I didn’t actually kill them in the process. It was impossible to forget that there hadn’t been so much as a single bone left of Beatrice Glover to bury.
This time there was no mistaking the tension in Càel’s body. I felt like I was encircled by an iron cage.
“Look, they’re not going to eat me,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. Will looked up from his phone and met my eyes across the room, a line furrowed between his brows. There was a subtext to the tension that I didn’t understand. “They promised not to harm me. That includes telling Thraustila where I am. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Will’s eyes flicked to Càel, and the furrow deepened. At least he was just as confused as I was by the tension radiating from Càel and Suraziel. “What is it? Should we take care of the kelpies?”
Suraziel stretched, showing off the hard lines of his abdomen, and the lazy movement broke the tension. “What are we going to do, poison the lake? That’d draw more attention than just ignoring them.”
“Fair point.” Will shoved his phone back in his pocket, but he met my eyes again and I knew he was on the same page as me: there was something about the kelpies and their message to me that had the incubus and knight on edge.
I played over the river-horse’s mental words to me. We bring our highest regards to the one-crowned-in-blood. Translation: Greetings, vampire.
Eshavesiealle is healed from her ordeal, and her first foal has survived the trial by cold iron. The sea welcomes you with open arms whenever you desire
. Our water is your water. In other words: Thanks for jailbreaking our friend and her baby. Feel free to drop in. We won’t take a bite.
Nothing to worry about, besides the extremely minuscule off-chance the kelpies sold out my location to Thraustila, but I wasn’t worried about that. The Fae took their oaths seriously.
Will’s stomach growled, annihilating the last of the tension. “Guess I’m the only one who needs to eat.”
I felt, rather than heard, Càel sigh, and he got up, leaving my back cold. “I will accompany you. Thraustila’s spies are many and varied.”
Every fiber of me wanted to keep Càel right here next to me, but it was probably good to give them a little bonding time, especially if there was any chance at all we might be living together- or in close proximity- for the foreseeable future.
Will opened his mouth, looking like he was about to argue, but I saw him change his mind right before he spoke. “Sure.”
Which left me alone in a hotel room with an incubus I had little resistance to. Awesome. “Should I go, too?”
Càel and Will shook their heads simultaneously, which was both comical and mildly annoying. “You are the one we must keep Thraustila’s spies from,” Càel said. He leaned down and took my face in his hands before kissing me, putting the last two days into it.
Damn, but he had a lot to make up for, and I wanted a room just for me and him.
I followed them to the door and bolted it behind them when they left. I briefly considered watching from the window, but that felt a little too much like being a puppy left behind to wonder, and I’d have to fix our sun-proofing measures, besides.
“Afraid to be alone with me?”
I spun on my heel to face Suraziel. The incubus hadn’t moved, his arms crossed behind his head, showing off every inch of chiseled chest and abs. When he took a breath, his brown skin flashed blue with the movement.
“Afraid? Please.” I returned to the other bed, sat down, and restlessness immediately gnawed at me. I got up and paced, finally settling for kicking off my boots under the table. “Why don’t you explain what’s got your and Càel’s panties in a twist?”
“You really think Càel would ever let his panties twist?” Suraziel asked with a slight grin. “As for me, the sooner I lose these pants, the better.”
“Hell no. It’s bad enough when you’re like this.” I waved my hands to encompass the breadth of him. Suraziel was one sexy demon. Which was… bad? If he’d ripped off that glamour on our first day of class, I wouldn’t have stopped until my knife was buried in his chest.
After a very rough education, I’d come to realize Shadowed Worlders weren’t much different than slayers. Some were the most amazing people I’d ever met. Others were assholes who needed to eat a two-by-four.
“So you are afraid of me.” Suraziel’s grin widened.
“Wow, did I say that? Let’s not get this twisted. You know as well as I do the effect your presence has on me. Being around you while you’re naked is asking for trouble.”
The grin faded. “If I wasn’t an incubus, would you still feel that way?”
I gave him a once-over. The guy was built from head to toe, but he also looked like the kind of teddy bear you’d want to curl up with when you were too tired to even think about going for round ten. “Yeah. So keep those pants on, please and thank you.”
I crossed my ankles under me, even knowing I was about to get up and start pacing in about two minutes.
“Seriously. Even without the demonic fuck-me juju, you’d still be into me?”
I stared at him. Back when I’d known him as Sura, believing him to be one of us, I’d known his deepest desire: to be loved and wanted as more than a demonic embodiment of lust. I wondered if he’d give up the powers of his nature if he could. “Are you fishing for compliments?”
The hesitance on his face was obscured by a smirk. Silly demon, thinking he could hide his feelings from me. “I don’t need to fish.”
“Nope. You could walk outside right now and have women literally throwing themselves at your feet with a single word.”
Suraziel propped himself up on his elbows. His abs did interesting things when he moved, and I forcibly moved my eyes back to his face. “I didn’t do that to you, though.” He was scowling now, the fake smirk forgotten. “I can’t help the magnetism. That’s just part of me. But I didn’t use any coercion to make you have sex with me.”
Having been under the influence of a demon, I knew that was true. I’d been of perfectly sound mind when we’d screwed right on top of Ermengol’s Fae swords. “And therein lies the problem with you losing pants. I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of me.”
Suraziel gazed back at me for almost a full minute without saying anything at all. Finally, he grabbed one of Will’s spare shirts out of the duffel bag by the nightstand, yanked one over his head, and looked down at the strained fabric. The shirt had been tailored to Will’s more streamlined build. “Bit tight.”
“So… why are you wearing it? Can’t you just pull your own shirt back from Hell or wherever-?”
“Nope.” Sura wriggled the shirt down, which ended a full two inches above the waistband of his jeans. “I might have sent the bastard torture device straight into the Everburning Gulf of Despair. Even its molecules are ashes now.”
“Sounds like a great vacation spot.” Why was he putting clothes on at all if he hated them so much? I got my answer when he finished adjusting the shirt- futilely, I might add-, imitated my cross-legged stance, and patted the bed beside him.
“Just like a tropical beach. C’mere.” When I hesitated, he pointed to the spot. “Come on now. Plant your butt over here, Victoria the Brave.”
I sighed and slid off the bed. Suraziel didn’t make a move as I sat on his bed and faced him. “Is there a reason for this?”
“We’re going to talk. Face to face. Without any of those pesky tingles getting in the way.” He kept his palms braced firmly on his knees.
I exhaled a short breath, taking him in. From a distance, he was gorgeous. Up close, he was absolutely dazzling, belly shirt and all. “How dare you assume my tingle situation,” I said. Breathlessly. With tingles.
Suraziel tilted his head to the side. “Well, if it looks like a duck and it tingles like a duck…”
“Don’t bring ducks into this. They didn’t do anything to you.” There was one drawback to having the sensitive olfactories of a vampire: even the tiniest whiff of a scent was like a human getting blasted in the face with perfume. Suraziel smelled delicious under the scent of warm skin and soap; a smell like dark amber and woods, almost mouthwatering with its burnt depth. His blood had that charred edge to it, caramel edged with woodsmoke. Just thinking about sent fire roaring through my throat.
I mimicked his pose, gripping my own knees to keep my fingers firmly where I decided they were allowed to go. We stared at each other.
“See? Nothing to be afraid of. You’re not losing your mind just from sitting next to me.” The incubus rolled his shoulders and neck, looking perfectly relaxed. “I don’t want you to be afraid of being around me, Tori. I wouldn’t use my nature against you unless you explicitly asked for it.”
“How can I not?” I kept my spine ramrod straight, refusing to look away. If this was a test, I’d pass with flying colors, of course. “We don’t have a history of trust.”
Suraziel’s brow furrowed, and the hellfire flickering in his eyes guttered low like a candle flame. “Apologies feel so hollow and worthless. I could say them over and over until the words don’t even make sense anymore, but it wouldn’t change what I did, and you wouldn’t have believed a demon’s apology anyways. I won’t lie, Tori, I went through every justification to make myself right. You hated my kind so openly, it was like a stab in the gut every time you mentioned them. And I didn’t have any frame of reference for that feeling, because I’ve never felt it before. Every little cut let out a drop of resentment, and eventually all those little drops became a flood. I thought I mig
ht even hate you.”
My hands tightened on my knees. I barely felt my fingers digging into my flesh as the hellfires brightened, like a world of fire raged through the interior of his skull and burned into me.
“I think I did, for a time. Why give you mercy when you wouldn’t have shown me any? But that’s not my path. I believe the Fates led me to Will for a reason: to see that slayers weren’t just a nameless, faceless monolith bent on the destruction of my world. I grew closer to him than I ever was to my kin. Meeting you was like having that lesson thrown back in my face. You were that monolith, Tori. You believed all demons existed for was destruction, but you were the same thing for me.”
The air felt like it’d been knocked out my lungs. Of course I knew these things, but hearing them stated so baldly hurt. “It turns out I was wrong,” I said, my voice coming out in a rasp.
The edges of Suraziel’s mouth turned in a faint smile. “I won’t make excuses for my kind. Most do exist for nothing but ruin and death and mindless sex. That’s why it’s Hell. But I don’t want to go back to being that.”
“As long as you have Will, you don’t have to.” I realized I’d leaned forward without meaning to, watching the flames dance in his eyes as he spoke.
He had, too. The comfortable foot of space between us was more like a fraught eight inches now.
“It’s more than just Will for me now.” His eyes flicked down to the seal hanging around my neck, the disc of iron and bone that was bound with my blood and his, and back up to me. “You don’t need that. You could ask me for anything, and I would bring it to you without orders because I want to. When Will asked me to leave Libra to rescue your mom, I agreed to go because I wanted to do something to make it up to you. Anyone can say they’re sorry whether they mean it or not, so I’ll show you instead.”
I touched the seal. The iron was warmed by my skin, but somehow it still felt cold against my fingertips. I hadn’t ordered Sura to go with Will. I hadn’t ordered him to follow me into expulsion. Every choice he made was his own.