She gave a breathy sigh and her eyes cracked open a sliver. “You’re okay?” she whispered hoarsely, strands of her hair caught in eyelashes and between her lips.
Bane gently freed her hair. “You saved us all.”
Weakly, she shook her head. “No. Braile did. I was just the tool he used.”
“No, Amaya. You are far from the useless female I thought you to be. You are the one who saved us,” Sam said. He and the UnHallowed now surrounded Bane and Amaya. Gadreel removed his leather tunic and draped it over Amaya, covering her nakedness.
“Is this wise?” Bane asked Gadreel. One touch from a weapon on his bare skin and the battle would begin again with him as the enemy.
Gadreel shrugged. “The least I can do.” Then he turned his face into the morning sun and sighed.
“I don’t know what feels better, Braile’s essence inside me or the sun on my skin,” Ioath angled his head into the sunlight.
“Both,” Kush said gruffly.
Bane rose with Amaya safely in his arms. “Is Malphas alive?”
The UnHallowed parted ranks, revealing a charred mass on the front lawn. “Define alive,” muttered Zed.
Rimmon snickered. “This is a tan he won’t soon forget.”
“And Taige?” Daghony asked.
“I didn’t see it, but I’m sure he’s ash,” Kush said.
The Reaper, still looking human, walked over. “You followed me, Daeden? Through the shadows.” Sam asked, something the Reapers weren’t known to do.
“Yeah. Had a hunch you needed help.” Daeden scratched at the stubble on his cheeks.
“Why didn’t you fry when Amaya blasted you with the light?” Scarla eyed the Reaper warily.
“Because I’m not a demon.” Daeden’s acerbic tone challenged anyone to contradict him.
“You’re not an angel either.” Scarla just had to have the last word. It worked. Daeden didn’t reply. He was too busy eyeing Sophie enough to cause Chay to move to her side. She didn’t seem to notice either man.
“Enough of this. We need to leave this place.” Daghony took charge. Shadows curled between a piece of the roof and a downed wall.
“Agreed. Malphas is out of commission, how do we get the ladies home without him or Amaya?” Chay took Sophie’s hand. She moved to stand on the opposite side of Dina, away from Chay and Scarla, leaving the two puzzled.
“Has anyone tried forming a dimensional pocket? Hey, you’re in sunlight. Maybe other powers were also returned.” Dina leaned on Gideon, his arms wrapped around her.
A few useless moments passed while a few tried to draw the energy from the air.
“I can get your women home.” Daeden offered and stepped to Bane.
Bane clutched Amaya tighter. Passing your unconscious, semi-naked woman to another “man” was wrong on all fronts. In the end, he did what was best for her and passed her care over to the Reaper.
“Take her to the farm. I will be there waiting for you.”
Daeden glanced at the woman in his arms and nodded as a dimensional pocket formed behind him. “Got the address from her mind.” His attention turned to Scarla, Dina, and Sophie. “Ladies, first.”
“Maximum Effort, please.” Scarla rattled off the address. “I don’t want you plucking anything out of my mind, thank you much.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Sophie bolted out of the dimensional pocket and hustled to the rear living quarters of Maximum Effort. She entered her private bathroom, rushed to the sink, and flipped the tap to full blast on cold. She plugged the drain and watched the water fill.
Except, blood replaced the water gushing into the porcelain basin. Blood on her hands, in her mouth, blocking her vision.
And bodies.
Two bodies.
In a dark room.
And a gun.
Men, two of them.
That’s all she had. No way of knowing when this event happened or where. If it was real or her imagination. The inside of her skull itched as if something wanted out. She wanted it out with a frightening desperation.
Sophie closed her eyes and submerged her face into the basin full of cold water, momentarily shocking her brain, and halting the itching. The chaos in her mind cleared and her scattered thoughts aligned. The room took on depth—a one bedroom apartment filled with secondhand furniture. Her breath curled in the frigid air. She shivered, though not from the low temperature. Her soul had frozen. Shock. She was in shock from the blood. And she hurt. A vague sense of pain took hold, though she couldn’t pinpoint the location.
Sophie yanked her face out of the sink, wheezing. Dunking her face hadn’t accomplished much other than removing the grime from her skin. The inside of her skull continued to itch and she wasn’t much closer to unraveling her fractured thoughts. Wrong, she was certain they were memories and not crazed imaginings. One thing she’d learned was she couldn’t force things to obey her will. The memory would come when it was ready, when she wasn’t wracking her brain to find it.
She stepped out of her filthy clothes and showered, a quick no-frills washing to get the grim off her. Worn jeans and a baggy sweatshirt were her go to items. She thought about staying in her room and nixed the idea. Hiding wouldn’t get her any closer to the answers she needed.
“I need a drink,” She mumbled fluffing her hair to let it air dry. Maybe liquor would lubricate her gears.
The thought stewed in her brain as she crossed through the adjoining doors into the rear office of the bar. The entire cast of characters—minus Bane and Amaya—had gathered at Lusted, the bar Scarla and the UnHallowed owned next door to the training center.
CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE was tapped to the closed front door which meant when Scarla got around to opening it again—was posted on the front door.
The UnHallowed had cleaned up in the handy-dandy shadows. Useful for quick travel and quick change. They all needed a bit of recovery time and Sophie wasn’t worried about her paycheck. Scarla and the UnHallowed took care of all of her needs: Room and board, food, companionship. They were always there with a helping hand, a comforting word, and unwavering support. Her hackles rose along with a spat of goosebumps.
Why did their support seem ominous now?
Sophie crossed to the bar and reached for a bottle of wine, but instead, filled a shot glass with whiskey. A hard drinker, she was not. Wine and fruity umbrella drinks were what she preferred, and only on special occasions. Thanks to her father’s bouts of binge drinking and snippets of sobriety, she had a one drink limit.
The whiskey burned a path to her stomach. She barely managed not to sputter and cough up a lung. Sophie poured another. This time, she took a fortifying sip and turned to face the gang.
“Are we keeping Malphas at the training center or taking him to the farm?” Kush asked.
That’s where he was? Sophie didn’t feel comfortable with a Demoni Lord recovering a few doors away from her bedroom.
“We can’t take him into the shadows, so a hotel it is.” Chay shrugged.
“Under guard. We take turns,” Daghony muttered and everyone nodded, though none seemed happy.
“So what does this mean for us now?” Zed asked around the blunt clenched between his lips.
“Means we can walk in the sun.” Riél sat backward in a straight back chair, a tumbler filled with a clear liquid in his hand.
“A gift from Braile, but is that it?” Ioath sat at one of the high top tables. Sophie eyed the former Archangel of Demons. He had that lumbersexual thing down pat, except he didn’t favor plaid. His beard was too full for her taste, his reddish blond hair a bit too unkempt, though he didn’t come close to Zed’s homeless vibe.
Kush grunted from his perch on the arm of the loveseat. “Ungrateful much.” Sounding like Scarla, he folded his arms and glared at Ioath. The tattoos on the side of his trim skull stood out in stark relief.
Ioath bowed his head. “I’m grateful, but concerned.”
“How long will it last?” Rimmon leaned
against the high top next to Ioath. Sophie noticed Rimmon’s cuffs were missing. He also looked as if he’d had a new haircut. His honey blond hair was trimmed and slicked back.
“It’s not permanent?” growled Gideon. Next to him, Dina snuggled into his body and dropped her head onto his chest. As a former angel who gave up her grace to save Gideon, thus becoming human, she had no fear of the sun.
“Doubtful.” Chay slouched next to Scarla on the sofa, one boot on the table in front of him. A round of curses bounced off the walls.
“Nothing lasts forever.” Sammiél grunted and slowly lowered himself into a chair, his gaze for away.
The somber tone of the room wasn’t what Sophie expected. Maybe I should leave. Give them some privacy. Seeing their vulnerability on display unnerved her.
“I suspect that would’ve been the case if there weren’t so many of us.” Zed grabbed a bottle of Absolut from the center of the coffee table and drained it in three hard gulps. Finished, he dragged his arm across his wet lips. “He split his grace among the ten of us. How could it be permanent?”
“Ten of us. One of him,” mumbled Gadreel. His gaze settled on Scarla, then darted away when Kush glared at him.
“Would’ve been eleven if Razuel had been with us,” Rimmon said.
“Razuel is never with us even when he’s here,” Kush snapped as Riél crossed the room to the bar.
“He and a lot of the others don’t give two shits and they never will. Best to leave them in the shadows.” Riél scooped up three bottles on the glass shelves and returned to the group.
“And when they discover we can walk in the sun?” Daghony finally spoke.
“We deal with their hurt feelings.” Sam cranked his head around and met the eyes of each man.
“Other than sunbathing being allowed, do we even know what this gift entails?” Riél said.
An image of Riél sunbathing in the nude fried Sophie’s circuits. She had no interest in the former Archangel of Purity, but she had ovaries… Yeah, blame it on estrogen. Her gaze cut to Chay—his hair, a chocolate curtain draped over his broad shoulders, not in its normal queue—and she had a full body reaction. Skin flushed, nipples puckering, heat low in her groin. Stupid when she was just the friend of his daughter.
“Time will tell, though don’t get your hopes up. It’s probably not much with only one tenth of grace for each of us,” Zed stood and stretched. The shadows hadn’t done much to clean him up. Long black hair and beard still matted. Clothes still tattered. Shadows curled and reached for him. Rimmon, Gadreel, and Ioath rose and the shadows did the same.
“You know the Maker had to sanction this.” One sentence from Chay and everything halted. “Which means…”
“He planned this all along.” Ioath sat back down.
“Metatron’s fall—” Sam ground out.
“Our betrayal—” Zed growled.
“Which means He created the UnHallowed for a purpose,” Kush whispered.
“Braile’s sacrifice—”
Zed spit his blunt out and rounded on Kush. “Bullshit! We’ve been here for thousands of Millennia, and fucking now we have purpose?” He picked up a full bottle of liquor and pitched it into the nearest wall.
Raised tempers made Sophie nervous. Time to head back to the room. She skirted around the UnHallowed, caught the eye of Scarla, and raised her glass in a faux salute when Scarla threw a confused look her way. The puzzlement on her bestie’s face was expected when she knew Sophie’s family history. Her father died of a pickled liver and her brother, an innocent bystander, shot in a barroom brawl.
Caleb.
Pain spiked her temple.
That’s right. Scarla does know everything about me. Memories of her brother flickered through the broken projector her mind had become.
Any other time, Sophie would’ve waited for a private moment to ask Scarla about this memory. Not today. The question she needed to ask joined the random itching inside her skull. Only now, it wasn’t random.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Chay tracking her. She almost glanced his way, but sensed to do so would derail her focus and it would never return. She’d forget.
Sophie halted. The itching ended as abruptly as it started, bringing stunning clarity. This wasn’t the first time memories tried to break through the opaque barricade in her mind. And each time, Chay was present. He touched her, held her, cupped her face, stroked her cheeks with his calloused fingers, made her stare into his eyes and—
Slowly, she pivoted and faced Chayyliél, formerly called the Powerful One in the Celestial Army. A part of her realized she was in the center of the bar and all eyes were on her. And she didn’t care.
“I—I—”
A Reaper appeared in their midst, right next to her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sophie yelped, couldn’t help her startled reaction. All at once, Sophie, Scarla, and Dina were shoved to the rear of the bar while the UnHallowed lined up in front of them. Scarla and Dina weren’t having any of it. They pushed their way forward and stood side by side with the UnHallowed. Sophie wasn’t as brave. She opted to walk to the end of the line and peered around Riél.
The death shroud vanished and Daeden emerged. Still dressed in the same plaid shirt and worn jeans, Sophie couldn’t get over his average forty-something-year-old Joe appearance.
Daeden shoved his hands into his back pockets and rocked on his feet. “Forgive the party crashing. I didn’t want this to wait.”
“What to wait?” Sam demanded.
“I didn’t help all of you out of the kindness of my non-existent heart. My help came with conditions. Sammiél knows this.”
Flames erupted from Sam’s head. In a blink, everything remotely human about him vanished. He grew in height and weight. Already tall, Sam took on epic proportions and dwarfed everyone around him. The walls vibrated before he spoke a single word. “You dare—”
“Yeah. I do dare. The need is greater than your ego. The Reapers need you. So you will do your duty and return as our leader.” Daeden’s hands remained in his back pockets and he continued to rock slightly on his dusty cowboy boots.
Sam didn’t back down. In fact, flames encompassed his entire head. “I hear an ‘Or else’ in your tone.”
“No or else. I wouldn’t presume to threaten you, Oh Great Leader. But I’m right and you know it. If you think this war you have with the minions of the Demoni Lords is something, add Reapers to the mix.” He spoke in the most casual tone as if discussing dinner plans. “That’s the type of shit I kept off your plate.” He tipped his head at Sam. “Now, I’m done. Whatever happens to the Reapers ultimately resides with you. Good or bad, the decision is yours alone.”
Daeden’s attention veered to the UnHallowed and he went down the line, tipping his chin to each one, including Scarla and Dina. He paused when he got to Sophie and his normal plain brown eyes sunk into his head, replaced with black holes that speared her soul.
Suddenly, the barricade in her mind disintegrated and the vice around her memories unclenched. Everything reshuffled into an orderly stream of images. Information streamed into her brain unfiltered, too raw to process at the speed it was uncovered. She clutched her head and crashed to her knees. Hands grabbed her shoulders, voices competed with the noise inside her skull as images continued to realign behind her eyelids, got tossed in the air again in a massive re-shuffle, and then aligned in perfect order.
I taste copper and choke on the blood filling my mouth. Another punch and my head bounces off the coffee table and I flop onto the floor. I see a pair of leather Sperrys rear back, and I’m too dazed to shield my belly from the kick. I flinch and warmth gushes between my legs.
I scream, grab my belly, and squeeze my thighs together to keep the baby inside.
Fingers close around my throat, trapping the air inside me.
Somewhere in the distance, something bangs against a wall, solid, insistent.
I can breathe again and inhale a sharp, swe
et breath. I stroke my stomach, curl into a ball and feel another sticky gush. The only thing I care about is dying.
Sixteen weeks and five days.
Maybe it’s urine and not blood. I reach between my legs and bring my hands close to my swollen eyes.
Red coats my fingers and palm.
Bitter rage cuts through the enormity of my loss. I can’t breathe. I can’t move as tears squeeze out the corners of my eyes.
Something skids along the floor, bumps my thigh. Between sobs, I wrap my hand around cool metal. I don’t need my eyes to know what I’m holding.
The weight reassures me. The grip focuses me. The trigger, an outlet for my rage. I point at the blurry image, fading in and out, and fire. Didn’t aim. Didn’t wipe the tears from my eyes. I don’t stop until the dry click registers and sirens echo.
The gun falls from my numb fingers. It is not enough. Justice has not been served. I have to see him die. My fingers have to wrap around his throat as his wrapped around mine. His last breath belongs to me.
I can’t see, the punches to my face have all but blinded me. My hearing is fine. The wet sucking sounds of air mixing with blood have me dragging myself carefully through my own muck, my legs squeeze together, keeping the baby inside me a bit longer. I bump into a body, but it is too small to be Ozzy’s doughy shape. This guy has a head full of curly hair, a scraggly beard, and a jaw that was just a bit delicate.
My hand stills, then I cup the face I know all too well.
“Noooooo!”
“Sophie!”
Hands gripped her shoulders, dug into her skin. She ripped out of Chay’s embrace and wheeled around the room, or maybe the room wheeled around her. Hard to tell when Chay was the only one in high definition and everyone else a blur.
“You stole my memories.”
The concern on his face transformed into a controlled, blank mask, except for the crimson expanding around his gray irises. “Yes.” No denial.
She didn’t ask why. The pain arching through her chest gave the answer. “I killed my brother,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
Only You (UnHallowed Series Book 3) Page 19