Hardest Fall (Dominion series)

by Juliette Cross

  “When it’s true, it’s called confidence.”

  “You don’t know you’ll always make it back to me. You can’t make that promise.”

  “Oh yes, I do.” I swept of my thumbs along her goddess-like cheekbones. “And yes I will. An army of the damned couldn’t keep me away from you.”

  She shook her head. “Haughty bastard.”

  Then she kissed me like I was her king, and sealed my fate. For I wasn’t exaggerating at all. No demon prince nor legion of devils nor all the bloody apocalyptic spawn in creation could ever keep me from her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bone

  Funny, how quickly things change, how the universe can shift in a blink. I’d spent the most pleasure-soaked night with a man I now realized I was in love with. Yes, my heart was his, too. And today? I felt like the world was closing ominously in, collapsing all that was good and fine in my mind and heart and rocketing it all toward some black hole I couldn’t see.

  As I started up the stairs to find Maddie, that knocking of fate rapped louder inside my chest. This time, it felt less like a whisper and much more like a dire warning, screaming at me to look around and notice something. To see.

  The mansion was quiet except for the sound of some training exercise from the third floor and the lilting laughter of children. Every hall and room was perfectly beautiful. Plush and clean carpeting, vibrant oil paintings on the walls, lovely glass vases and figurines decorating the parlors and bedrooms I passed. Nothing out of place. Nothing amiss. Like a picture in a luxury home magazine.

  And yet, the foreboding only grew the closer I drew to the Twelvers. I passed the first training room, empty of furniture but full of young men and women paired off in groups. The hardwood floors and open area made a great space for teaching one-on-one combat. An instructor milled from one pairing to another, telling them things like “elbows in” and “bend in your knees more.”

  I moved on toward where I heard children laughing. In the next room, there were several huddled in different groups on the floor. They weren’t training, but playing card and board games like Mancala and chess. Cooper stood, arms crossed, surveying each group. He saw me, his severe expression cracking slightly from grave to almost friendly. He marched over.

  “Hi, Cooper. Games instead of training?”

  He did smile then, making him look less heartless than usual, and ruggedly attractive. He tapped a finger to his temple. “Training the mind today. Strategy games. They’ll need their wits as well as weapons in the years to come.”

  I admired this man for what he was doing for these children. He wasn’t just putting them in the corner and trying to protect them till they were eventually one more casualty of the apocalypse. No. He was preparing them to survive in this new world in every possible way. My respect for him doubled in that moment.

  “Very smart,” I said, then added, “I thought I’d do a session with Maddie if she’s available.” I scanned the room, still not seeing the dark-headed girl. Her friend, the redheaded boy Thomas, sat in a group of four playing a card game, his mischievous eyes flicking from his cards to his opponents. He had a good hand, or he was bluffing abominably well. The scamp.

  “Actually, Hannah just took her to find you.” His stern look was back. “I’d thought you sent for her. Said they’d go find you in the gardens.”

  I swallowed hard, willing myself not to panic. Likely, Maddie asked for me, perhaps even sensing my presence in the house. A seraph could always find another in close proximity.

  “Right,” I finally said. “I’ll go find her then.”

  Heading back down the stairs and toward the back veranda, that sensation of imminent dread returned, twisting a knot in my gut. It must be my cynical nature. If everything feels too right, then something is about to go wrong.

  I sped my pace, stepping out onto the stone portico, and then jogged down onto the lawn toward the private garden where Xander and I had met with Maddie the first time. Pushing through the wrought iron gate, which clanged shut behind me, I found no one under the tree where we’d met before. That’s when my overloaded imagination sped into full-on panic. This was no longer just a feeling of foreboding—I detected it now with my demon senses. A strong demonic presence on the grounds.

  A familiar giggle wafted through the air from the maze garden. I sprinted toward the sound and followed the hedge maze, turning left then right then right again, the two voices growing louder. Hannah and Maddie, for sure. Then why did I feel a darker presence nearby?

  “Maddie!” I called out.

  Silence for a short pause, then her small voice lifted up, “Bone?”

  Then a scuffling, a quiet muffle, and the sound of feet moving fast over the gravel inside the maze. Someone was running with her. I raced like mad around each corner, expecting to find Hannah bludgeoned and bleeding on the ground. But what demon could’ve gotten past all those wards? It just wasn’t possible.

  I made out the fresh steps in the gravel around a sharp bend in the maze where a bench sat near a fountain of the goddess Aphrodite. I followed the steps, coming out of the maze onto a long path edged up against dense woods. Running along the edge, there was a small trail that opened out onto a pasture or well-manicured park. In the summer, it would be beautiful and green. With our endlessly long season of winter, it was more brown, with a thin layer of snow from yesterday. Moving fast, already halfway across, was Hannah, with Maddie tossed over her shoulder, leaving behind a single pair of footprints.

  “What in the hell? Hannah!” I screamed, chasing after them.

  She glanced back but kept moving. And though far away, I could easily make out the dark shroud of demon possession in her eyes. Someone had gotten to her.

  Rook.

  “No,” I muttered, pumping my legs faster.

  I wished I could sift inside these damn wards. Something told me that Hannah knew where the wards ended and was making her way at breakneck speed to get there. Lungs burning, I kept after them. Maddie didn’t appear to be moving, knocked out or worse. No. No reason to kidnap a dead girl. They wanted her alive. Why? Why Maddie? Did they know she was a seraph?

  Oh, God.

  I followed them out of the park and into the woods, the trees naked and spindly, limbs rattling together in the breeze. I was gaining on them. Hannah labored to breathe but kept moving, no longer looking back to see if I was following.

  Suddenly, the woods ended, a few yards separating the line of trees and a low stone wall. On the other side was a paved road and…Rook with a dozen red priests. I was too late. By the time I made it across the open space, Hannah had passed Maddie over to Rook, then she was scrambling over the wall toward him. A red priest jerked her into his arms, forcing her to face me.

  I stopped at the wall, realizing it was the line of demarcation for the wards. Rook’s steely expression fixed on me as I stood there, panting and terrified what he’d do next. He held Maddie in one arm, bent at the waist, her dark curls dangling with her head upside down.

  “Rook.” Shaking my head, I pleaded in the intimate voice I’d used once when we were lovers. “Please. Please don’t hurt her.”

  His eyes rolled back into his head with a semblance of erotic pleasure. He grinned. “I love it when you say please.” His smile morphed into something evil. “When you know who your master is.”

  This whole time Hannah stared blankly off into space, her eyes completely clouded with Rook’s essence. She was nothing more than a puppet. How could it have happened? Cooper and his soldiers knew the dangers of demon possession. Of humans’ vulnerability if caught alone with a high demon. Somehow, perhaps on a run into London for goods or weapons or a scouting mission, Rook’s priests had snagged her and sent her back with a mission of his own. It was too easy. And we should’ve been ready for this.

  “Rook, just let them go. I’ll go with you. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Yes.” No longer smiling, the dark demon prince I’d come to know and fear appeared; the o
ne I left in a heartbeat when he’d first shown himself years ago. He made a slicing movement in the air with his hand. The priest holding Hannah whipped a blade across her throat, cutting deep.

  I screamed and covered my mouth with both hands as Hannah gulped for air, blood pouring out of her throat as the priest dropped her. She fell sideways, wide eyes staring at nothing, her mouth working like a goldfish out of its bowl, a pool of crimson seeping into the snow.

  Hannah, the fierce warrior, one of Cooper’s finest soldiers, executed like a lamb at slaughter. I shook my head.

  “You heartless bastard,” I murmured, tears blurring my vision.

  He ignored my choked response to how callously he murdered the woman.

  “Yes, Bone. You’ll do whatever I want.” His glacial voice drew me back to him, where he lifted Maddie in his arms, cradling her like a baby against his chest.

  “Don’t!” I charged forward but halted at the stone fence. The priests hissed as one.

  Rook looked down at Maddie, a wicked smile on his face.

  “She’s just a child, Rook!” I bellowed, fury burning hot in the tears pouring down my face.

  “Yes, my sweetheart. And her life is in your hands.”

  “Mine for hers? Fine. Pass her over.”

  He shook his head. “You know what I want.”

  For a moment, I was confused because his black gaze swept down my body, heavy with lust.

  “The collar?” I asked.

  He dipped his head. “It’s a torque.” He grinned hideously again, his teeth all sharp and jagged as his inner demon rose to the forefront. “A crown, my sweet.”

  Shaking with anger and fear, I growled, “Fine. I’ll make your fucking crown.”

  “Good girl,” he crooned, as the priests tightened around him. They were about to sift away. “Because if you don’t?” His voice dropped to a soft, sensual whisper. “I’ll chain you down and force you to watch as I rip her limb from limb. I’ll tear her head off last and let my priests feed on her blood.” I nearly vomited as he focused back on Maddie and pressed a sickening kiss to her forehead. “Just like Abram.”

  I flinched. How, why, what on earth had allowed me to confess to him my greatest failure, my greatest loss? That one night where I’d been wrapped up in melancholy and had been heavily intoxicated and hadn’t yet realized what a fucking monster Rook was, I’d let it slip. He’d not tried to comfort me or tell me it would be all right. Instead, he’d laughed and called me a “silly girl.” I should’ve known then what I was dealing with. He couldn’t understand the pain I’d suffered at Abram’s death in the arena as bloodthirsty Romans cheered and he sang my song to his horrific death.

  But then, he had understood my pain, hadn’t he? He was using it against me now.

  “Fine,” I said, hot tears still pouring.

  He looked up from Maddie, a satisfied smirk cutting his pretty face. But the effect was lost with his jagged teeth and the spiderweb black veins more prominent than usual. His monster wanted out.

  “That’s my girl.” Then a rough command. “Bring it to me by sunset.”

  Sunset? But I hadn’t even started on it. I opened my mouth to protest, having never forged anything that fast. Especially with essence embedded inside.

  “I can’t! That’s too soon.”

  He laughed, the sound pricking like needles under my skin.

  “Oh, come now. We both know how powerful you are. I have faith in you.” He tilted his head at an eerie cant. “Allerton Castle. Sunset, sweetheart.”

  With an obvious show of clutching Maddie to him tighter, he blew me a kiss and sifted away, the red priests with him.

  I weighed all the options, every scenario. But I knew Rook. He’d have doubled and tripled his wards, his hellhounds pacing the perimeter. The gates to the castle were the only way in and he’d sense Xander or George or anyone else nearby. Their supernatural vibration in the air would give them away, then Maddie would be dead.

  Every single option I ran through my head ended with Maddie dead. Because Rook knew what I feared most, and he didn’t make threats. He made promises. If I wavered from his demands, if he sensed an inkling of deception, he’d eviscerate her right in front of my eyes. No hesitation. My gut clenched.

  That left one option. Forge the fucking torque and deliver it by sunset.

  Wiping the backs of my hands across my wet cheeks, I jumped the stone wall, crouched down to Hannah, and wrapped her dead body in my arms. Sifting to the gates of Thornton Hall, I left her there. I couldn’t leave her all alone where no one could find her. I glanced up at the place that had become my safe haven, the place I’d now marred just by being here. It was my fault Hannah was dead. And it would definitely be my fault if Maddie died.

  I couldn’t, wouldn’t let that happen. Not again.

  So I sifted out with a sharp crack, heading back to my shop to obey Rook’s command.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Xander

  “It’s not that difficult to understand.” Uriel stood, arms crossed, having explained his plan for the third time. Because, quite frankly, it needed repeating. Even though he was right; it wasn’t difficult to understand. Just unfathomable.

  The first time he went over his fail-safe way into Rook and Simian’s compound, we’d all just stared, blinking stupidly. So, he explained it more slowly the second time, his cool exterior never wavering. It didn’t take much time because his plan was little more than a surprise assault. But his surprise was a bloody big one. Then there was a barrage of questions as we talked over each other.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “Can I have it when you’re done?”

  I waited until the others’ outbursts were over before asking, “How did you come up with this idea?” Because I’d never heard of an angel doing such a thing. Ever.

  Wolfrick and Gustav just chuckled darkly in the back corner, sharing a bottle of Stolichnaya. George said nothing, simply listened.

  Uriel’s answers? No. Yes. No. I learned a lot in that witch’s keeping in Estonia. Yes, I’ll bet he did. Learned far too much while in captivity of that evil bitch, Lisabette. Estonia was the mansion and fortress of the demon witch, one of Vladek’s many concubines, who’d kept Uriel in captivity for months until Dommiel and Anya had found him and gotten him out of that hellhole.

  When Uriel’s patience had finally run out—that is to say, he was done with our shock-and-awe response—he turned to Axel. “Now that that’s out of the way. Tell me again what your source said about Vladek.”

  When Uriel said the demon prince’s name, his voice and expression darkened. Everyone knew Vladek was responsible for Uriel’s capture in Russia.

  Axel leaned forward in his leather chair, hands casually clasped. We were in his private lounge in his club in Shoreditch. I leaned against the side wall next to Dommiel. Everyone else was seated, except Uriel who stood behind all of us, facing the entrance. It didn’t take a genius to determine that his tension-filled stance was one of a man, an archangel, on constant guard. Maximus was head of a legion, and even he knew this was as safe a place as any, sitting on a stool at the short bar in the room. That in itself made a comical picture. The brawny, armored, black-winged angel lounging at the bar like he’d had a long day at work. Anya and Kat sat on the stools on the side of him facing out. But of all of us, it was Uriel whose stone-like features and rigid posture told me that the archangel who’d remade me into a hunter, who’d saved me from being damned to some dark pit in Erebus, had fundamentally changed after his captivity.

  “My source, who is very reliable,” Axel added, “said that it would be nearly impossible for a slave to get close enough to Vladek to assassinate him.”

  “Why impossible?” asked George. “Rook is using sex slaves. That should be close enough.”

  “That’s just it,” said Axel with a shrug. “Apparently, he doesn’t have sex.”

  Dommiel scoffed. “What’s wrong wi
th him?”

  Anya rolled her eyes.

  Axel went on. “Apparently, he hasn’t taken a woman to bed since he lost his last concubine.”

  Uriel’s gaze sharpened. “The witch, Lisabette?” Something feral flashed across his eyes.

  Axel tapped his ringed finger on the armrest. “No. She was one of his harem, but he preferred only one in his bed, from what I’m told. And she slipped away. So now he spends his idle time watching violent sport and public executions for entertainment. And he watches from afar, from his throne set apart.”

  Uriel’s face didn’t even flicker as he gave an icy response. “If Axel’s source is correct, then Rook and Simian know this about their brother. So they also know that giving that weaponized torque to a single slave would likely fail as an assassination attempt.”

  “Perhaps they want to plant a spy,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps.” He nodded, but his expression was doubtful.

  “Right,” said George, standing and taking a few steps for the door. “So tomorrow night, it is?” He aimed his question at Uriel.

  We all swiveled toward him, as it was up to him when we’d literally storm the castle.

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “We’d best get back to Thornton Hall and get our weapons sorted.”

  Anya and Kat popped off their stools. Dommiel and I shoved off the wall.

  “Is Bone at Thornton?” asked Uriel.

  Everyone froze and swiveled where they were, eyes on me. Uriel had aimed his question at me, waiting patiently for the answer. Axel, Wolfrick, and Gustav leaned forward, brows raised.

  “Yes. She is.” I realized my response sounded defensive, and I wasn’t quite sure what I was being defensive about. Perhaps preparing for someone to object that, apparently, I’d been labeled her keeper, and so I above anyone else should know her whereabouts.

  As if drilling into my psyche and hammering on my possessive nature, Axel asked, “And why is Uriel asking you where she is?”

  “None of your bloody business, demon.”

  Dommiel chuckled.