“Is she dead?” Jolie whispered, her lower lip trembling.
“Dying,” I grated through my teeth as Wren’s heart gave a little beat and her breath rattled out once more. My blood would ward off her immediate death, but that didn’t mean it would keep it at bay.
Hawk’s eyes were wary as he studied Wren then me. He’d once told me being a demon was preferable to being dead, but he wouldn’t have picked becoming a demon. Fate had chosen his course when Lilitu’s canagh blood mixed with his while he was dying. Hawk accepted that course, though there were times he didn’t like it.
He would never have agreed to do this. He would never have offered it.
“Corson—”
“She agreed,” I broke in before he could say more. “I asked her. I told her what it entailed, and she agreed to it. She knows the consequences.”
Hawk gave a brisk nod and pulled Jolie further away. Over Hawk’s shoulder, I saw the others mulling about the woods. Most of them were bruised and bloodied. I wondered how many were dead, but I’d sort that mess out later.
Bale kicked aside the head of the horseman. Unlike its horse, the rider hadn’t turned to dust. “Greed,” she sneered. “I should have known.”
“We all should have known,” Shax said. “We didn’t, and that is the point of the horsemen; they work from the shadows, manipulating and playing their games.”
“I hate these things,” Erin said.
“We all do.” Magnus dropped the black cloak onto Greed’s body. “Where did the cloak come from?”
“I found it in the woods,” Vargas said. “When I was taking a piss. I didn’t feel possessive about it in the beginning, but once I brought it back to the house….”
“Your greed increased,” Magnus said when Vargas’s voice trailed off, and he wrapped his hand around his cross.
“Yes. I set it down, and Hawk and I went to get Erin, but when I discovered others touching it, I found I wanted it more and more.”
“So did I,” Hawk said.
“From now on, no more picking things up when you don’t know where they came from,” Caim commanded as he gazed pointedly at everyone gathering around us. “We have no idea how the horsemen work, not entirely.”
Lix strolled forward with his sword blade resting against his skeletal shoulder. “Where is Greed’s horse?”
“It turned to ash when I lopped off Greed’s head,” I answered.
Bale stalked toward me and rested the tip of her sword in the dirt beside me. “What will you do if this doesn’t work? If she still dies?”
I snarled at her, but she didn’t back away from me.
“It is a possibility you must face, Corson,” she said.
“Not right now.”
Caim knelt by my side. His head turned to the side as he studied Wren. “She is strong.”
“That doesn’t mean the change will be successful,” Bale said as some of the humans crept closer.
“Enough!” I barked at Bale.
Bale took a small step back, and the humans scurried away. One of them kicked the hand Wren had severed from Greed, sending it spinning into the underbrush. Magnus lifted it and walked over to dump it on the body.
“We have to burn him,” Magnus said. “And we need to leave here. Our fight won’t have gone unnoticed by anything nearby.”
“We encountered a manticore and some gobalinus in the woods. They must have been with Greed. We have to leave now.” I slit my forearm open again and adjusted my hold on Wren. My blood continued to flow into her as I rose from the ground. I swayed on my feet, my blood loss making me lightheaded. Shax stepped toward me, his arms outstretched as if to take Wren from me. “No,” I bit out and shifted her away from him.
“You’re barely standing,” he murmured.
“I’m not letting her go.”
I steadied myself and pushed past him to face the others. “Get your things,” I commanded. “Set Greed’s corpse on fire. We’re leaving.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Corson
I kept Wren in my arms as I settled into the corner of the small house Jolie and the others had led us to for the night. Jolie placed Wren’s bag beside me and scampered away as if I would kill her. With the way I felt right now, the woman had a right to be uneasy around me.
Hawk didn’t say a word as he settled on my right, but he stared anxiously at Wren. Caim and Magnus stood nearby. Bale watched my every move as Shax ushered the Wilders out of the room. I could hear the demons shuffling through the house and establishing a guard outside. Shax followed the Wilders out. Lix plopped himself onto the couch, causing it to groan as dust burst into the air around the skellein. Particles of dust filtered down around him as he uncapped his flask, lifted it to his mouth, and took a swallow.
My eyes fastened on Wren as I watched the rise and fall of her chest and studied her pale eyelids with their small blue veins. Her heart still beat, but it hadn’t taken Hawk this long to wake. However, it had happened so fast with Hawk, that we hadn’t realized he was close enough to death for Lilitu’s blood to change him until he’d started exhibiting demonic traits.
“She sustained more damage than you,” I said to him.
“Yes, she did,” Hawk agreed.
“The horse sliced her open and trampled her.”
“I was only sliced open,” Hawk said.
“And not as badly as her.”
“True.”
Despite those words, Hawk didn’t stop his worried staring, and none of the tension eased in the room. If Wren died, they would try to stop me from going on a rampage if I attempted one. After losing her Chosen, my mother killed herself as soon as she got the chance. I’d seen other demons go berserk and destroy everything in their path until they were taken down. Some demons retained their sanity and became broken shells of their former selves, but they survived for a time. Most of those demons only lived to deliver revenge until they finally found someone to give them the end they’d been seeking all along. I didn’t know any who were still alive now.
Long ago, I’d vowed never to make the same choice my mother had. I hadn’t realized what I’d been doing at the time, how broken the loss of a Chosen would leave me, but I’d uphold my vow. I would also ruthlessly hunt down and slaughter every horseman and angel who dared to stand against us. I would have them all begging for mercy before I gleefully bathed in their blood.
“Even if she wakes. The change takes a while; she could still die a couple of weeks from now,” Bale said.
“I know that,” I snarled.
“But are you prepared for it?”
Lifting my head, I met her gaze. “I will do what must be done to carry out our mission. I will make them pay.”
Bale opened her mouth before closing it again and bowing her head. Turning away from me, she walked over to the fireplace and rested her arm on the mantle. “Raphael and the skelleins should have reached Kobal by now,” she said. “Depending on how their trip went, they could return any day now.”
“Raphael will not heal her. I don’t know if he’d be able to help her through the change, but even if he can, he won’t do that either,” Caim said. “He will not alter the pathway one is meant to walk.”
Bale’s eyes narrowed on him. “That’s not what I was suggesting.”
“Isn’t it?” Caim replied.
Bale scowled at him and turned away to focus on the dust-covered, gray stone chimney. Like the other safe houses, this one held no mementos of those who had once lived here, but it seemed this one had gone longer without Wilders in it than the other homes had.
“Wren agreed to let Corson try changing her. As his Chosen, this is the path she was meant to walk,” Caim continued, “whether she lives or not.”
“Yes.” Unfolding his legs, Hawk rose and walked over to pull aside the curtain and peer out the window.
“How many were lost in the fight Greed created?” I asked Shax when he returned to the room.
“One human and one demon,” Shax rep
lied.
“Has it made them hostile toward each other?”
“No, I think it’s brought them closer,” he said. “Greed used and manipulated us all, and it’s pissed them off.”
“Good,” I said and focused on Wren again.
I ran my finger over her pale cheek before tracing her full lips. Her color was returning, her breathing becoming steadier, as her heart thumped solidly in her chest. However, she could live another two weeks and still not survive the numerous differences my blood would create within her body.
At least give me those two weeks. I knew I would only crave more time with her when they were over, but I would give anything for those days with her.
I pulled back the tattered, bloody shreds of her shirt. The skin beneath was still red and swollen, but the bleeding had stopped, and I couldn’t see her breastbone anymore. Releasing her shirt, I tenderly pressed my hands against her chest. The bones beneath my palm grated. She stirred, and her eyes moved behind her closed lids. Her bones were still broken, but they were repairing themselves.
Already healing faster than a mortal and making that change toward demon. Would she recognize me as her Chosen when she woke? Two demons always knew when they found their Chosen, but this was different. Even if she didn’t accept me as her Chosen, it wouldn’t matter as long as she lived.
I held her close as the night crept onward. The faintest rays of the sun were creeping around the edges of the heavy curtains when Wren’s eyelids fluttered open. She winced and closed them again. Her head turned into my chest, and her fingers gripped my shirt.
The others all held their breaths as they took a step closer to us.
“Wren,” I whispered.
“Hmm,” she murmured.
“Wren, look at me.”
Her eyes opened, they briefly focused on me, and a small smile curved her mouth. “Hello, demon.”
The strength of the relief filling me almost caused me to crush her against me, but she was far from healed and I would only hurt her if I did so. I knew this didn’t mean she would live, but I hadn’t believed I’d ever hear her voice again. My head dropped to hers, and I kissed her ear.
“Hi,” I said as floorboards creaked beneath the steps of the others leaving the room. Lifting my head, I gazed down at her. “Do you remember what happened?”
I smoothed my finger over the lines in her forehead when she frowned. “There was a fight…” Her voice trailed off. “And a horse?”
“Yes.”
Her hand went to her chest, and her face scrunched up before horror parted her mouth. “I died.”
“You came about as close to it as one gets.”
“It felt like I died.”
“Wren—”
“And then you sliced your arm open and poured your blood into me.”
“Yes.”
“Am I a demon now? Is that enough to start the change in me?”
“Your almost dying and my blood is enough to start the change, but there is a chance you still might not survive,” I replied.
“So I could be like a ticking time bomb, any second, death?”
“Not quite like that. You’ll sicken before you die, but it will happen quickly.”
She took a deep breath and winced.
“Your wounds haven’t completely healed,” I told her. “That will take a few days. If you survive the change, you will heal at an even faster rate once you’re a demon. The rate will increase as you age and grow stronger. You will also be immortal.”
“I see,” she murmured.
“Hawk will have a better understanding of the timeline of the change for you, though yours won’t be the same as his. I’m an entirely different type of demon than him. The last of my kind.”
She smiled at me. “Not if I live.”
I did a double take at her words before they sank in. I’d always accepted I would be the last purebred adhene to exist. Now, there was a possibility I would no longer be the last of my kind and that our children would also continue the line.
“Not if you live,” I agreed with a smile.
“And I plan to do exactly that,” she stated and lifted her chin in her stubborn way.
Wren
“I didn’t notice any changes, not really,” Hawk said the next day when I asked him what he’d experienced during his transition into demonhood.
It had only taken me all of yesterday to feel well enough to walk around and see the others. The rapid healing was almost as surprising to me as the life I still possessed considering I’d experienced my life slipping away from me.
“I mean, I realized I was healing faster,” Hawk continued as he leaned against the trunk of a tree and crossed his legs. “That much was obvious from the start, but I blew it off. I knew some of Lilitu’s blood had gotten into me, so I assumed that somehow made it possible for me to heal faster. Truthfully, I didn’t want to delve too deeply into it either.
“For a while afterward, I didn’t feel any different or I didn’t notice I did anyway. Then the whole thing with Sarah happened…” His voice trailed off; his eyes went to the woods behind me. “Maybe I should have suspected something was different then, but I believed she was nuts, you know?”
“She did go a little off the deep end,” Erin agreed as she settled onto a large rock next to where Hawk stood. Drawing her legs up, she planted her feet on the side of the stone. “We all thought she was crazy.”
“Yeah,” Hawk muttered and ran a hand through his hair. “If I’d known what I was becoming, I wouldn’t have slept with her, but I didn’t know.”
“We suspected something was happening with him,” Corson said to me. “But nothing could be confirmed, until Sarah.”
“I still regret what happened with her,” Hawk said. “I always will.”
I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him to live with that guilt. It hadn’t been his fault, but what happened with Sarah haunted him, just as it would have haunted me for the rest of my days. Something could still go wrong with me, but at least I had a head’s up that my mortal status might be changing to immortal. I’d be able to do something to stop myself from hurting someone before it happened.
“Anyway, it wasn’t until we were in Hell that I realized I wasn’t normal anymore. All the other humans couldn’t make it more than half a mile into Hell without looking like they were going to die. I had no problem continuing with River.”
“It was so hot in there,” Vargas said as he sat beside Erin. “That’s when we began to suspect things were different with Hawk too”—Vargas waved a finger between himself and Erin—“but we were running for our lives, so it wasn’t exactly the greatest time to discuss it.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Erin agreed.
“Not only could I tolerate the heat, but while everyone else was thirsty, I wasn’t,” Hawk said. “When I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t been drinking or eating as much as I used to. I also realized I wasn’t going to the bathroom as often. When I was in Hell, those bodily functions ceased entirely. I did want sex more before entering Hell, but with Sarah lurking everywhere I went, that became an impossibility. And sleeping with her again was not an option. The last thing she needed was more encouragement.”
Hawk’s brow furrowed as he ran a hand through his hair again. “Then, I realized my vision was better; it had been so gradual that I didn’t notice it until I saw a lanavour coming at us long before I should have seen it. We’d just entered Hell, the Hell shadows were everywhere, and the lanavour was fifty yards away, yet it was as clear as day to me. I’d been seeing better for a while, but I had that ah-ha moment in Hell. I had one about my hearing too.”
“What is a lanavour demon?” I asked.
Hawk, Erin, and Vargas all shuddered. “Hideous monsters,” Erin said. “They’re blue-gray and have no mouths. They can communicate telepathically, and when they touch another, they learn their innermost secrets and fears. They kill by turning those secrets and fears against their victim.”
“They sound awful,” I muttered.
“They are,” Corson said. “They’re also mostly dead, and we will make sure to destroy what remains of them.”
“How did you know you’d survived the transformation?” I asked Hawk.
“I eventually ceased all human bodily functions,” he answered, “and I survive entirely as a canagh demon on wraiths and sex. I assume I also need to find my Chosen to have children.”
“I see,” I murmured.
“I think that when my human bodily functions stopped is when I completed the transformation, but I don’t know for sure. Maybe it happened before then, maybe after, and maybe it’s different for everyone who survives the change, but the demons don’t know the answer and neither do I. If you progress in the same way, it will be a couple of weeks to a month before you start noticing changes.
“However, you’ll be looking for the differences, where I wasn’t, so you might notice them sooner than I did. Or it could take longer for you. My bodily functions didn’t cease until I was in Hell, entering the place where demons evolved may have sped things up in me.”
“That would make sense,” I said.
I searched the woods to see if I could detect any changes in my vision, but everything appeared the same, and everything sounded the same.
“It’s only been a day,” Corson said and clasped my arm.
My skin rippled beneath his touch; my breath caught as a rush of desire seared through me. His eyes widened as he must have sensed what had happened to me. I almost jumped him then and there, but Hawk’s cough stopped me from doing so. Hawk stepped away from the tree, jerked his head at the others, and turned to vanish into the forest.
I barely waited for the rest to walk away before I was kissing Corson. Tugging my pants off, I didn’t wait for him to get out of his before I wrapped my legs around his waist. I was already wet when his fingers entwined in my hair and I slid onto his cock.
I nearly screamed at the sensation of him stretching and filling me as he sank into me. A few hard thrusts pushed me over the edge, and I came faster and more intensely than I ever had before. I clawed at him, needing more and more as we fell to the forest floor in a tangled heap of limbs.
Hell on Earth (Hell on Earth, Book 1) (Hell on Earth Series) Page 28