by Karin Harlow
“Your girl has some balls, Cruz, and she’s going to need them,” Cross whispered in his earpiece. “Malphas is the Keeper of the Fifth Hell.”
Keeper of Hell? Daemon hunter? How could Selena, a mere mortal woman, possibly have the power to kill something so powerful?
“No mortal can match a Hellkeeper without some serious assistance,” Cross said.
Selena turned and reached into a hidden sheath on the wall behind her and withdrew two silver swords. The serious assistance?
She stood above Vegas, who had stilled as the blood around him grew in diameter. “Show yourself, Malphas!” she commanded. “Or die forever locked inside a mortal!”
Deep, demonic laughter shook the room. Selena smiled triumphantly as vapor snaked out of Vegas’s gaping mouth. Nikko watched, too stunned to move as the tip of the vapor began to take shape.
“The daemon will emerge as a vapor,” Cross said, “then materialize into its natural form, probably some type of animal.”
The vapor formed a large beak, then the head of a bird.
“A bird,” Nikko whispered.
“A raven,” Cross clarified. “To destroy it, she’ll need to remove its heart.”
Selena stood close, her swords at the ready. When the head was fully formed, she hacked it off the body that began to take shape beneath it. The daemon roared. A minute later, hacked-up bird parts littered the marble floor.
“Where is the uranium cask?” she demanded.
Nikko’s head snapped back. If his heart rate had not been elevated before, it was now. He heard Cassidy’s sharp gasp.
The yellow beak opened and hissed vapor at Selena. She covered her eyes and stepped back. The wings reattached to the body. “Ask Vegas!” Malphas taunted.
Selena dragged Vegas’s body away from the raven. She pulled off her slinky top and quickly wrapped it above his thigh where she had stuck his vital artery and formed a tourniquet.
Nikko swallowed hard. She was bare-chested and—damn, she turned with those swords in her hands, her hips swaying, her back straight, her breasts sitting up so firm and high—
The bird’s torso flew at her. She hacked it in half, then dug the black eyes out of the head. “You are so not worthy, Malphas,” she gritted as she twirled her swords like batons; then with the precision of a surgeon, she cut the shape of a pentagram in the center of the feathered chest. The daemon screamed. “You are a discredit to all daemons!”
“We need that information,” Cassidy hissed.
Selena set a sword aside and reached into the daemon’s chest. As she did, one of the clawed feet rose from the floor and grabbed her sword, rising above her head with it.
“Behind you!” Nikko shouted, shoving open the door.
Selena swung her other sword around to stop the attack, but Malphas’s other claw grabbed it out of her hand. His wing swooped up the first sword, and as her attention was drawn to it, his head reattached itself to the filleted body.
Nikko dove at it as it rose, bringing both swords down on Selena. She turned and stabbed the Hellkeeper in the heart with the switchblade. She screamed as the blades sliced into her back and shoulder, but the Hellkeeper screamed louder. Her hand was buried deep in its chest. Malphas’s body struggled. Selena held fast.
“Tell me what I want to know, Malphas, and I will spare you.”
“Apollyon knows your secret—if you destroy me, he will destroy you by destroying your dau—”
Selena ripped the nanorian from Malphas’s chest. It beat hot and powerful in her hand. Already she felt the power of the five as the four stones around her neck warmed in welcome. Elation swelled. Two more hearts to collect.
Her gaze clashed with Johnny’s astounded eyes. Tension poured off him in chaotic waves. Why had he helped her? Debilitating emotion she could not describe clogged her chest. She opened her mouth to ask him why, when he despised her, but she didn’t. His answer didn’t matter.
She had been aware of him the moment she detected his scent at the stairway. She had not wanted to take the nanorian from Malphas so early, she wanted information from him, but when he was about to expose her secret, she had no choice. She had come too far to care that Johnny looked at her now as if she had a raging case of herpes. Let him think the worst of her. It would keep him away, and his mind off their painful past.
She wiped the stone down her belly, leaving a bloody trail, and at the same time realized she was bleeding. Her back burned like hell. She pressed the bloody stone into one of the three empty settings in her necklace.
“Jesus, Selena, you’re bleeding everywhere.”
As if he cares. Ignoring Johnny, she knelt beside Vegas, not caring that her knees were soaked in his blood. She felt his carotid for a pulse. He was alive. Barely. She needed to get inside his head before he died. Not for Joran, but for Los Cuatro. Vegas’s subconscious would retain whatever information Malphas had gathered while possessing him. As Apollyon’s messenger, Malphas would know where that cask was.
She drew in a deep breath and looked up at Johnny. “I must do something. To do it, I need you to take a hike.”
He sank down beside her, his gaze wary. “After that show, I’m not going anywhere, especially now that I know for certain you’re in the hunt for that cask.” He touched her bloody shoulder, and his voice lowered a decibel. “That’s deep. You need to get to a doctor.”
She sat back on her haunches and looked hard at him. He needed to go while Vegas was still alive. If she did not get in and out of Madeo before he drew his last breath, it would be hers as well. She had never before slipped completely into anyone’s head. Leaving her body to enter another’s left her vulnerable to possession. But she had no choice. The only way she was going to get the information was to leave her body and enter his.
“My business with Vegas is my business alone.”
“Not if it involves national security.” Johnny moved in closer. “Now tell me, what the hell just happened here?”
She moved back and stood up. “I can’t explain right now. But trust me when I say, for the sake of national security, I need you to go, now!” She didn’t even know if she could possess a body, but damn if she was going to do it in front of him.
“You have a hell of a lot of nerve asking for my trust. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Damn you, Johnny! Vegas has information I need!”
“We want the same thing.” His gaze dipped to her bloody, bare chest and he swallowed hard.
Despite the warmth in the room and her dire situation, her nipples pebbled. She shoved past him as a vampire and a mortal woman she instinctively knew was the vampire’s lover came rushing through the same door Johnny had been hiding behind. They both looked at her in shock, whether from the blood or her bare chest she did not know and did not care.
She grabbed a sword with one hand and shoved it between her sarong and her back. She grabbed the other sword and pointed it at Johnny and his two friends. Without taking her eyes off them, she reached down and grabbed Vegas’s arm with her free hand and dragged him into the open elevator.
Johnny moved forward, and the big vampire and the woman moved with him. Selena pointed the sword at them. “Come a step closer and I’ll hack all three of you into chum.”
All three of them rushed her. Selena speared the elevator door closed, lodging her blade into the paneled wall to keep it closed, and prayed she could get in and out of Vegas’s head before the trio managed to open the doors or he died, whichever came first.
CHAPTER NINE
Selena called upon the stones around her neck to give her the power and wherewithal to vaporize into Vegas’s head. She had never possessed anyone, never invaded anyone’s dreams, never, as her succubi kin were fond of doing, had sex with a man while he slept. She had never had any desire to explore the daemon part of her. As far as Selena was concerned, she was mortal, albeit with a superior skill set.
Now she would see just how much of her father she had in her. She knelt beside the dying
man and pressed her hands to his head. Closing her eyes, she regulated her breathing, called to the nanorians, and focused solely on transforming herself into vapor and then navigating what was sure to be a treacherous minefield of horror.
Her body lightened. Her breathing slowed and she felt weightless. Then she materialized inside a dark and terrible place. The lumbering but erratic beat of Vegas’s heart mingled with screams, blood scents, and rage. The tumult tore at her senses with razor-sharp teeth. She pushed through it, stealthily maneuvering around in the Hell that was Armadeo Vegas’s mind.
His troubled childhood in Cuba flashed before her. The beatings, the abandonment. His life flashed forward to his first kill. His sister’s friend. She had laughed at him, so he’d grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed her to death. He was nine years old. That was the beginning of a life of violent crime. Vegas liked blood sport. Selena cringed at the vision of a vampiress, who looked oddly familiar to her, going down on Vegas, blood dripping from his dick as she sucked him. When he staked her in the back, Selena gasped. Jesus! More screams. More death. Cartel kingpin Luis Fernandez asking Vegas if he had destroyed the bloodsucking bitch. Then Luis’s laughter, as he promised Vegas eternal life for his loyalty.
From the depths of Vegas’s mind, Hellkeeper Malphas’s demonic voice reverberated around her. He had possessed Vegas so completely it was as if she were in the daemon’s head. Through the daemon’s eyes, she saw the arrogant Russian Noslov shaking his head. “My commodity is far more valuable than what you have offered. There will be an auction to the highest bidder!” he triumphantly crowed.
Malphas’s rage erupted. “We had an agreement!” Ah, so the Russian had double-crossed Hell.
Vegas’s heart stuttered. His life force struggled for survival. He slithered down the dark hole to Hell. Selena’s instinct was to turn and flee to the light. If he died and she was still inside, she would be trapped and follow him to Hell. She hung on for a moment longer for the coveted information.
When is the auction? Where will it be held? Vegas’s heart abruptly stopped. As if a vise clamped around her chest, she was paralyzed. Trapped! No!
She would not die a daemon! She would not follow Vegas to Hell! She had too much left in her life to do. Wrongs to right …
Vegas’s heart struggled for another beat. It would be her only chance to escape, to survive.
Selena turned, the thick waves of death pulling her back. She could see the murky light showing her the way out. His heart fibrillated. She slogged through the trauma, the lies, the deception, the hatred. Her chest ached as if she had been underwater too long. She reached for the light just out of her reach. Flames scorched her hands, her face, her heart and soul. She was dying. Marisol’s sweet little face so much like Johnny’s swam before her.
Mama!
“Selena!”
She struggled to speak, to open her eyes, to tell him …
Nikko rushed to where Selena lay in the elevator. Sliding on his knees in Vegas’s blood, he pulled Selena’s half-naked body into his arms and shook her. His insides wrenched with unexpected fear. “Wake up, damn you!”
Her eyes fluttered open. She struggled to speak. Her hand lifted to his cheek. He lowered his head to her lips.
“I’m here, Selena,” he whispered.
She grabbed his hair. “Johnny—the sun—”
“What about the sun?”
“It shines, Johnny, on the nuns. Remember?”
Her mumbled words made no sense. “Remember what?”
Her fingers loosened, then her hand fell to the floor. “Where it began …,” she breathed.
She closed her eyes, then lay still. He clutched her to him, staring at her pale face. He didn’t want her to die, damn it! He brushed her hair from her cheek. “Damn you, Selena! Don’t do this to me!” But she didn’t respond. He pressed his ear between her breasts. He could not feel the thud of her heartbeat. He refused to believe she was gone. It was a trick. A trick to slip away undetected. He shook her again. “I swear to God, Selena, if this is some kind of trick, I’ll kill you myself!”
Cassidy knelt beside him and calmly felt for a pulse on her neck. After a long minute, she shook her head gravely. “She’s gone, Nikko.”
He couldn’t move. The shock of Cassidy’s words didn’t register. Selena wasn’t dead. She’d just opened her eyes. She’d spoken! She was warm. How could she be dead?
Her body hung limp in his arms. A maelstrom of emotions wracked Nikko. So much of him had wanted her dead, good riddance … but now—damn it! He wanted her alive! He refused to think about why, he just knew he did. He looked up at Cross, who stood quietly across the threshold.
“Do something!” he commanded.
The vampire shook his head.
Nikko looked at Cassidy. “He saved you, make him save Selena!”
Cassidy looked expectantly up at Cross. “You know I cannot,” he stoically said to her silent plea.
Nikko looked back at Cross, as the body in his arms cooled. “Will not or can not?”
“Both.”
Nikko glared at Cassidy, then back at Cross. “She knows where that cask is. She’s the key to getting our hands on it.”
“She’s daemon, Cruz. I cannot help her,” Cross solemnly said.
Daemon as in demon? Did Cross literally mean a daemon? “Daemon, human, vampire, I don’t care what the hell she is. Save her!”
“Our laws forbid it. The bloods cannot mix.”
“Maybe not your blood, but your laws don’t govern me!”
“Nikko,” Cassidy calmly said, “if Marcus could save her—”
“He won’t! Tell me what to do,” Nikko said menacingly, his gaze locked on Cassidy’s. She knew what to do, and, damn it, she would show him.
She looked past him to Cross and let out a heavy sigh, but just the same she grabbed his arm and pushed his shirtsleeve up.
“Jax—” Cross warned.
“Cruz is right, Marcus, he doesn’t live by your laws, so no harm, no foul, on your end. We need her alive.” Cassidy looked at Nikko. “Bite the vein on your wrist. Open her mouth and give her your blood.”
Cross leaned over them in full fang. “Mix the bloods and you have the potential for an out-of-control hybrid.”
Nikko’s fangs flashed. “I’ll take my chances.” The sharp sting of his teeth sinking into his own flesh didn’t faze him. He yanked his mouth from the slow rush of blood. Cradling Selena’s head, he pressed his wrist to her mouth.
She didn’t respond.
“Take it, damn you!” Nikko yelled, shoving his wrist against her lips.
Frantically, he looked up at Cross. The vampire shook his head and stepped toward him. Cross bent down, opened Selena’s mouth, and squeezed Nikko’s bloody wrist. The blood ran in a steady stream into her mouth. Nikko watched expectantly for her eyes to open.
A minute passed, then two.
Nothing.
Nikko shook her. “Damn it, Selena!”
She gagged. Jesus. She gagged again. Cross clamped his big hand around her head and forced more of Nikko’s blood into her.
Selena’s limbs twitched, and as if the saints had descended from the heavens and performed a miracle, Nikko felt the dull thud of her heart against his arm as it started up again.
Cross straightened and said, “I don’t know what you’ll be dealing with if and when she comes to, Cruz, but if your blood doesn’t kill her, she’s going to be pissed as hell when she comes out of it. In my world, daemons abhor vamps and we hate them more. It’s your vamp blood that resurrected her, not your human blood. I’d get her somewhere where you can control her, then hurry the hell up and get the information we need before she unleashes on you.”
Nikko moved his wrist away from Selena, but she grabbed it and bit. Voraciously, she drank from him, her teeth hurting, her grip unrelenting. Then, as suddenly as she had attacked him, she fell back, unconscious.
Nikko pulled his shirt off and clumsily put it on her. He was suddenly all
thumbs. Cassidy helped him; then he hoisted Selena up into his arms. Her body was limp, her arms and legs dangling like noodles. He turned to Cross and Cassidy. “I’ll take her back to my room at the hotel.” He looked down at Vegas’s body. “Can you two clean up?”
“Go, Cruz,” Cassidy said. “We’ll take care of this.”
Nikko sat in an uncomfortable chair staring at the woman in his bed. She had not moved, save for the shallow rise and fall of her chest, since they had revived her. Revived her? Hell, what they had done was resurrect the dead! He shuddered. Had she done no less for him in Kyrgyzstan? And with vampire blood. The same way Cross had saved Cassidy’s life. Nikko swiped his hand across his face. Shock and disbelief wrangled in his head. He felt faint. Sick to his stomach.
Watching Selena hack that … thing … to pieces, then cut out its heart, had still not sunk into his reality. Nikko had always considered himself an open-minded man. He believed in God, angels, and ghosts, to an extent. His suspension of disbelief had been challenged when Cassidy hooked up with a vampire. And despite the changes in him because of what Selena had injected him with, he was good with it. More than good. But what he’d witnessed come out of Vegas was flat-out unbelievable. What Selena had done to it defied his reality. Cross had called her a daemon. What the fuck was that? She was as human as he! For Christ’s sake, he had impregnated her!
Nikko swiped his hand across his face again and stood. He paced the room, never once taking his eyes off the woman in his bed, his relief that she had lived warring with the fury at what she had so selfishly done.
He sucked in a deep breath and took a huge emotional step backward. He had tried to kill Selena in a fit of rage because she’d aborted his near-term daughter. She’d done the one thing he could never forgive her for. He didn’t care that she had saved his life; she’d have done him a favor had she left him there to die. Until he’d opened his eyes on the side of that mountain road in Kyrgyzstan and seen her, he had not cared if he lived or died.