by Laken Cane
The hard, honest truth was…
None of them were safe.
None of them were invincible.
Bad shit happened and it could happen to the strongest person as well as to the weakest.
And that was a bitter truth to swallow.
Then, beneath the almost harsh light of the moon, she saw Roma.
A man dragged her over the hard ground, then yanked her up and threw her into a wooden chair. The same chair in which she’d sat when Ben had taken her photograph.
“Ben,” Raze said, and the hatred in his voice should have been enough to speed down the hill and spear the enemy’s heart.
Roma sat with her head down, her shaved scalp cut and bloody. Her body was wrapped with silver wire, and Rune was nearly certain it was barbed. Certain, because the barbed silver wire was often used on particularly strong, difficult Others.
She’d used it herself. Many times.
“Shit,” she whispered.
Barbed silver eating and burning its way into Roma’s pitiful body.
“It’s a trap,” Strad said. “She’s bait.”
Rune agreed, but suspecting a trap didn’t make staying still any easier. And that moment, crouching on the hill, staring down at the small figure in the clearing below, not moving…that moment added itself to the top ten most difficult moments of her life.
“What are we doing, Rune?” Jack’s voice was as clear as the coldness of his stare. He was in fight mode. Kill mode.
They all were.
One of the dogs began to howl, and the other dogs fell silent to listen.
The man who’d dragged Roma to the chair stood behind her, and then, another, larger man slipped from the shadows to join him. Finally, Sylvia Crane joined them.
The larger man, the demon—Rune knew it was Angel French because of the way Will’s breathing had changed when the man stepped into the clearing—lifted his face and began to sniff the air.
“Quiet,” the demon said, and the braying dog broke off mid-howl.
The assassin began to shiver at her back.
“Can he take you?” she asked him.
“No,” he murmured. “But I remember when he could.”
Rune nodded. They all had those memories.
“Rune,” Raze said, urgency in his voice. “Attack?”
“Nikolai and I are going down. Shoot the dogs if they start to climb the hill.”
“They’re just dogs,” Jack said.
“No,” Will told him. “They’re the demon’s dogs.”
The hounds, black, sleek, and almost shadowy, crept toward their master. Seven of them. They poured around Roma’s chair like black water, forcing from her soft cries that changed to weak and desperate screams of pain. And horror.
That solved the mystery of what animals had bitten off Roma’s fingers.
Rune tensed when something eased out of the shadows and slinked toward her—she released her claws before she realized what it was.
“Grim,” she whispered.
Grim against the demon dogs.
“You won’t be enough,” she murmured.
“He won’t have to be,” Strad told her. “He has us.”
“Rune,” Jack said. “The fuck are we doing?”
Because Roma was crying. Trying to scream, though the sound was thick, garbled, and shaky.
She’d been pushed too far.
“Nikolai,” she said, and he appeared at her side. Soundless, fast, strong, and deadly. Just what she needed.
“I’m here,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”
“Run with me. Let’s tear them apart and get our girl out of there.”
“Rune,” Jack said. “What about…?”
But she was gone, running faster than the human eye could have followed, with Nikolai the master vampire at her side.
Because it was not the time for humans.
It was the time for monsters.
Chapter Seventeen
Fast as Rune and Nikolai were, the demon saw them coming.
He stepped away from Roma, and Rune could almost taste how sweet his blood would be, how much pleasure stripping his flesh from his bones would give her. Bloodlust filled her and she prepared to chase the running bastard down like the coward he was.
But he didn’t run away.
And as he waited with a small smile and a glint of eagerness in his eyes, his dark hair waving in a nonexistent wind, Rune collided against an invisible wall with such force that all of the bones in her body shattered, crumbled, and turned to dust.
She couldn’t think.
Blind and deaf, all she knew was shock, agony, and confusion.
The lizard part of her brain woke up screaming, screaming for blood. She couldn’t heal such a horrific injury without blood—at least not quickly.
She wasn’t Kader.
It hadn’t been just an invisible barrier. When she’d crashed into it, she’d felt something…alive in its hardness.
The demon had grown in power since Will had known him.
And with that realization came worry for the assassin. Not even he could stand against a demon so powerful. Could he?
She felt her body stretch and break off—though surely that was her imagination—as she was snatched off the ground, then jerky, painful bouncing as someone sprinted back up the hill with her in his arms.
The berserker.
She opened one eye before they were halfway up. The world was black and dim and fuzzy but she could see him. Not well, but she could see him. “That hurt.”
He grinned down at her, but his face was pale, his eyes cold and emotionless. “It looked painful.”
“I’ll heal.”
“I’ll feed you.”
“You’ll become addicted again.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll feed from the twins.”
She wasn’t sure how she was talking. Thinking. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she just thought she was.
“Berserker?”
“Yeah.”
“Am I…is this real?”
“I’ll fucking feed you.”
“Nikolai.”
“Dead.”
“No!”
His stare thawed, became frustrated, almost. “Rune. Do you… You just fucking crumbled. Your skin is a shredded sack holding fragments of your bones. No one but you could live through that.”
Despite his words, she could feel her body knitting. She could feel her power returning. And her rage.
“Bring him to me!”
“I have him,” Will said, smoothly. “I have the vampire.”
She couldn’t turn her head to look at him but she could feel his terror. He’d seen what the demon could do. And despite his words to the contrary, she was nearly certain he was afraid that Angel French could take him, after all.
Yet he’d braved the demon to rescue a dead vampire.
Her crew gathered around her.
“Are you…” But Jack couldn’t finish the sentence.
“She’ll heal,” Strad said.
And in the next second, a rain of blood splattered upon her lips, her chin. Not the berserker’s blood.
Levi’s.
She knew her crew by the different tastes of their blood.
After she’d latched on to his wrist and had taken all he could give her, Denim took his place.
And finally, when she needed still more, the assassin stepped forward.
The berserker had lowered himself to the ground and sat with his back against a tree, holding her in his arms as she fed.
She could see clearly, and her body was mending, but with the healing came the pain. Excruciating, agonizing, overwhelming pain.
“I can feed you,” Will said, staring over her head. “If you need me.”
The berserker stiffened. Whether from jealousy or fear that she’d hurt the assassin, she couldn’t have said. And she wasn’t going to ask.
“Yes,” she murmured. She held her hand out to him. “Come he
re, Assassin.”
Once upon a time, he’d meant to kill her. Those days were over. Now, he only meant to save her.
He dropped to his knees, then did what he always did. He offered her his neck.
He’d need the advantages of her bite as much as she’d need the power of his blood. Because the demon…the demon was a force they needed to respect.
As she fed, she heard angry shouting wafting up from the bottom of the hill.
“Now, calm down, boy.” Angel’s cold voice carried in the still air. “You don’t want to get on my bad side.”
“You killed her,” Ben wailed. “She wasn’t yours to kill.”
“She weren’t yours, neither,” French told him. “And she ain’t dead, shithead.”
“Where’s Grim?” Rune asked, releasing the assassin.
He rolled the edge of his mask over the wound left by her fangs, and when he stood, he swayed drunkenly before finding his balance. A whisper of a blissful groan floated from his lips.
“Waiting,” the berserker murmured, and maybe there was the slightest hint of regret in his tone. “At the edge of the hill. He’s waiting for the demon to release his dogs.”
Rune stood, gently testing her legs. She felt no weakness and her pain was nearly gone. Her crew stood guard, their attention on the group below.
She knelt beside Nikolai, then closed her eyes to gather her strength before she looked him over. He no longer looked like a man.
The moon bathed him eagerly in its white light, washing over his injuries, showing her what she didn’t want to see.
He was, as she had been, a tattered, ripped, discolored sack in which fragments of bones rested and liquefied internal organs sloshed.
“I came back from this,” she whispered. “How the fuck did I come back from this?”
“Your damage wasn’t quite so severe,” Raze said, quietly. “The demon’s wall…”
“It’s not just a wall.” She would have held Nikolai’s hand but she couldn’t find it. “Is there a spark?” she asked them, though none of them would have known.
But she knew.
He was gone.
And not even her blood could bring him back.
“Nikolai,” she said. Then, “He’s dead.”
A demon had killed a master vampire. But the bastard had tricked them. He wouldn’t get that chance again—not with her.
She felt the loss more deeply than she’d imagined she would. Nikolai’s death left her depressed. Lonely, somehow.
She looked away from the vampire when a wet nose pressed against her cheek. “Grim,” she whispered. “Coming to comfort me.” But he wasn’t.
As she and her silent crew watched, he lay down beside Nikolai, then sighed and rested his chin on the vampire’s chest.
“They’re both from Skyll,” Jack said. “He must’ve felt a connection.”
She nodded, then stood. “We have to get through the wall.”
“Does the wall circle the camp?” Raze asked. “Or was it just a shield he threw up when he saw you coming?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe from above,” Denim said. “You can jump from a helicopter.”
“Maybe.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Eugene…” She only realized at that moment that the receiver had disappeared when she’d collided with the wall. “Call Eugene. Tell him—”
“Alexander,” Ben howled. “Rune!”
She stood, then strode to the edge of the hill to look down at the people below.
When he caught sight of her, Ben put a hand to his chest and staggered backward, coming up hard against Angel French’s unmoving body.
The demon immediately reached around and began massaging the other man’s genitals through the fabric of his pants.
Ben didn’t seem to notice anything but Rune.
“Told ya,” she heard Angel say. His white grin flashed as he peered up at her. “She’s a powerful little thing.”
There was something considering in his voice.
Sylvia sobbed in the background, but Rune had no idea what was wrong with her. Roma lay on the ground, still attached to the overturned chair. She did not move.
“Is she alive?” she asked. “Did you kill Roma, you piece of shit?”
“If you don’t do exactly as I say,” Ben said, childishly, “I will. I swear it.”
She curled her lip. “I’m going to enjoy hurting you.”
He shrugged. “Sure you will. Because you’re just like me.”
“I’m nothing like you,” she roared. “You’re a coward and a bully. You’re weak and pathetic, carrying your stupid anger all these years.”
“She’s right,” Angel said, laughing. “You are not in her league at all, little buddy.”
“Why are you here?” Rune put her fingers to her throat, still a little sore from her earlier injuries. Yelling wasn’t helping. “Why are you helping those losers?”
Angel waggled his eyebrows. “I do what I want, sugar pie.”
“I have a deal for you.”
“You don’t make deals with him,” Ben shouted. “You deal with me.”
Finally, Sylvia climbed to her feet. “She deals with me,” she screamed. “This is my mission—and I want my fucking mother!”
“You weren’t lying,” Angel told her. “I am surely entertained.”
Rune ignored Sylvia. “I will trade myself for Roma. Let her go, and you can have me. And I promise you that I will entertain the fuck out of you.”
His laugh was full of genuine amusement. “I bet you would. But I am interested in something else.”
Rune said nothing. She knew what Angel was interested in.
Who Angel was interested in.
“No.” Sylvia dragged a gun from the holster at her side and started to go after Angel, but apparently thought better of it. She shot one of his hounds, instead.
“Well, that weren’t nice,” Angel said. “That weren’t nice at all.”
“Angel,” Rune said. “Trade.”
He took his stare off Sylvia. “Nah. Not just yet.” He held out a hand, and Sylvia cried out as the gun flew from her grasp. “I should gun you down, Syl. I should. You killed my dog.”
Sylvia licked her lips. “I lost my temper.”
“I’m glad to see you found it again.”
Neither of them spoke loudly, and Rune had to strain to hear them. She wasn’t sure what Sylvia’s hold over the demon was, but obviously she had something, else he would have killed her.
Rune heard it in his voice.
“Sylvia,” she called. “I’ll go get your mother.”
Sylvia jerked toward her. “You…Eugene says he will not trade.” But there was hope in her voice, and Rune understood something sad at that moment.
Sylvia Crane loved her mother. No matter how evil the bitch had been, she was loved. And Sylvia was doing something that anyone would have done.
Her mother was in the hands of the enemy, and she was simply trying to get her back.
Rune sighed.
“Rune,” Jack said.
She gestured him to silence. “I’m going to go get her. If Roma is alive, I will trade you.” She nodded toward the unmoving girl. “Prove to me she’s still breathing.”
Sylvia immediately rushed to Roma and dropped to her knees. She grasped her shoulder and began shaking her roughly. “Wake up. Roma, wake up. Your mistress is here.”
Roma didn’t move.
Angel watched with interest, and when Ben started toward the two women, the demon grabbed his arm and yanked him back to his side. He murmured something Rune didn’t catch, and Ben stayed put.
“Girl,” Sylvia yelled. “Your princess is here.”
“Wakey wakey,” Angel called.
“Rune,” Jack said.
She didn’t look away from the people below. “What is it, Jack?”
“Grim is…he’s doing something to the vampire.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in—because in the clear
ing below, Roma still did not move. But finally, Rune looked back over her shoulder at the dead vampire and the spirit dog.
And as she and her crew watched with fascinated, disgusted stares, unsure whether to stop the dog or leave him be, Grim began to regurgitate a quivering, half-eaten human heart into the vampire’s gaping mouth.
Chapter Eighteen
Leon gagged, but didn’t run to the bushes to puke. He knew he’d never have lived that down. Luc turned away, her hand to her mouth, throwing a half-ashamed glance at Rune.
Truth was, the crew understood.
“Grim,” Rune said. “The hell?”
“Now we know what he’s doing with the hearts he eats,” Levi said.
“We do?” Jack asked. “What the fuck is he doing?”
Levi shrugged.
The dog nuzzled the vampire’s unmoving throat, as though to force him to swallow the mess he’d vomited into his mouth, and then he gingerly stepped off the unmoving body. He glanced at Rune before trotting away, his tail stiff and high.
“Alexander,” Sylvia called. “She’s awake. Now go get my mother before I see to it that she never wakes up again.”
Rune walked to the edge of the hill. Roma was indeed moving, slowly, and only her head. Everything else was tied down and burning from the silver wire.
But she was alive.
“I’ll be back with Lee,” Rune said, but as she started to turn away, Angel French called out to her.
“If you bring anyone back with you, or if anyone else tries to breach my wall, I will kill her without a second thought. You believe me, don’t you, girl?”
“I do,” she said. “But if Roma dies, you’ll have a lot more to worry about than your wall.”
“Looking forward to your return,” he said, jolly.
“Not as much as I am.” Then she turned to her crew. “I’ll return with Lee as soon as I can. If the demon so much as looks at Roma, try the shotgun on him, Berserker.”
“Not even the shotgun will work until he weakens,” Will told her. “But he can’t hold his wall forever.”
“One of us should go with you, Rune,” Levi said.
She nodded. “You and Denim come with me. I may need help getting Lee away from Eugene.”
She wouldn’t, of course, but she didn’t want to leave the twins on that mountain.