Only One I'll Have (UnHallowed Series Book 4)

by Tmonique Stephens

  “Mom.” She squeezed her shoulder. Startled, Ellen jumped. She grabbed onto the dashboard and her O2 tank, her gaze darting around in confusion. “Had a nice nap?”

  Ellen nodded and gripped her hand. The panic slowly faded from her wide eyes. “How long was I out?”

  “Since we got in the car three hours ago.”

  She stretched and yawned. “Are we here?”

  “Yep.”

  Her mother peered out of the windshield. “Are you sure? ‘Cause it doesn’t look like much, and we don’t seem to be anywhere.”

  Sophie laughed. “That was the whole point. Right window.”

  Ellen peered out of the passenger window. “Wow. That’s a big house.”

  Sophie unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door. “Leave the luggage. I’ll get it later.” She climbed out of the car and came around to help her mother.

  “It’s a pretty house, though. Love all the balconies.” Ellen leaned against the car, wheezing.

  “It is. I heard there was a fire. Must not have been that bad.” Sophie helped her mother up the long driveway to the porch steps. Ellen had to stop midway to catch her breath. “Are you all right?”

  “Yep.” Ellen smiled too brightly, her breath too labored, her skin ashen.

  “All right. You sit here, and I’ll be right back.” She sat her on the stairs and raced to the front door. Surprise. It wasn’t locked.

  A quick scan and she took in the small foyer with an inlaid wooden floor. To the right, a formal dining room with a table large enough to seat twelve. To the left, a study with dark leather furniture and matching leatherwood paneling. Further in, she came to a hall with a winding staircase. She spotted the kitchen worthy of a master chef, but raised voices led her toward the rear of the house.

  “We’ve been hunting night after night with little to show for it.” She recognized Kushiél’s voice.

  “They’re throwing us tidbits, teasing us.” That would be Bane.

  “To keep us hunting,” Daghony added.

  “To keep us in the game,” Tahariél said.

  “This isn’t a game,” Rimmon growled.

  “It is to them.” Ioath’s voice was flat.

  “What of the others, Zedekiél and Gadreel, anyone heard from them?” Tahariél asked.

  “No. They tend to do their own thing,” Chay supplied darkly, fury in every syllable.

  “Have you heard from Sophie?” Bane asked.

  She paused on the threshold of a great room before she came into view.

  Chay answered with a hard, “No.”

  “Maybe you should—”

  “Maybe you should mind your own damn business. Sophie is safer without me.” Chay cut Bane off.

  She didn’t miss the pain in his voice. It struck a chord within her chest. She stepped within view and paused again as everyone’s attention swiveled her way. Everyone except Chay, whose back was to her. “Actually, I’m not safer without you.”

  He spun, and his eyes seemed to drink her in. She came forward. He met her halfway. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, melt into his body, become a part of him. She stopped short of doing all of that. “My mother is on the porch. She needs help.” Daghony rushed past.

  Sophie followed with Chay beside her. “What’s happened? Why are you here?” he asked.

  Not an admission of love, but now wasn’t the time for that. “Later. I need to get my mother settled, then we’ll talk.”

  Daghony had her mother in his arms by the time she returned to the porch, and Ellen loved every second of it. “My, what is your name? You have the most beautiful eyes. Two different colors, blue and green.”

  More like aqua on the left and jade on the right, but Sophie didn’t correct her.

  “I am called Daghony by my brothers.”

  Ellen’s attention shifted to all the UnHallowed as Daghony brought her into the house. “My, all of you are brothers? Lord help the female population.” She grinned, her gaze bounced from UnHallowed to UnHallowed.

  “Our luggage is in the car,” Sophie told Chay, who motioned to Bane. “Is there a bedroom we can have? Share?”

  “There are plenty of rooms,” he murmured. “You each can have your own.”

  Amaya met them on the second floor landing and directed them to a rear bedroom. Daghony laid her mother in the center of the four poster bed and stepped back. Sophie took off Ellen’s shoes and propped her up on the pillows. “How is your oxygen?” Sophie fiddled with the tank.

  “It’s fine. Now introduce me.” She waggled her eyebrows.

  Her mother, the perpetual flirt. Not being able to breathe wouldn’t change that. “Okay.” Sophie rattled off the introductions quickly because she wasn’t fooled. There were bags beneath her mother’s eyes, bags that weren’t there before. “Now none of you men are allowed to flirt with my mother. She’s a married woman,” she said to the chuckles of most.

  “Unhappily married. Soon to be divorced.” Ellen snuggled lower in the bed.

  “I’ll bring up a tray of food for her.” Amaya offered and exited.

  Bane placed the luggage at the foot of the bed. “The bathroom is to the left.”

  “Are you okay, Mom. Do you need anything else?”

  “Some food and I’ll be right as rain.” Ellen patted Sophie’s hand.

  “All right.” She looked over her shoulder, surprised to find only Chay waiting for her. “Um.”

  “Go talk to your man. I’ll be fine.” Ellen gave Sophie a gentle shove.

  Sophie tried not to let her eagerness show and nodded. “Okay. The remote control is on the nightstand. I’ll be right back.”

  Ellen waved her away. “I hope you’re not.” She winked and picked up the remote.

  Sophie followed Chay out of her mother’s room into the bedroom next door. He opened the door and stepped aside for her to enter. Done in peach and gray, the king-sized platform bed faced the French doors leading to a balcony. There was an alcove with a desk and chair, and a seating area with a leather chaise and swinging chair attached to the ceiling. The room was large, yet intimate and airy, the type of room she could stay in and never leave.

  Strong hands gripped her shoulders, spun her around, and pulled her into a hard embrace. The feel of him swept through her, melting her stiff limbs and calming the fear that brought her fleeing from Key West to Detroit.

  His lips found hers in a rough, raw kiss. He parted her lips, thrust deep into her. She arched against him, desperate for more, giving herself over to his taste, his touch. Starved, her head swam, her senses reeled. He cupped her head with those large hands of his and stroked her cheeks with his callused thumbs. He controlled the kiss, licking into her mouth, taking it from a fevered pitch, down to a low simmer.

  “I had to do that,” he whispered against her lips.

  “I’m not mad that you did.” She nibbled on his bottom lip. Stopping isn’t what she wanted. Too bad reality couldn’t wait. She caressed his chest, then pushed away. Distance brought clarity. “We need to talk.”

  He licked his lips as if enjoying her taste. “I’m listening.”

  She stepped back, deeper into the room, nerves made a sudden appearance. Chay was the calm one out of the bunch, still… “A Crossroad demon visited me.”

  His face darkened, and crimson swallowed his pewter irises. He got bigger, if that were even possible, muscles straining against the confines of his shirt. A low, threatening rumble came from his throat, then he commanded, “Tell me everything.”

  She couldn’t be annoyed with him. He listened patiently while she explained the encounter without commentary, and told him about her travels from Key West to the farm. His eyes turned fully crimson from his fury, but he folded his arms across his broad chest and didn’t move from his position in front of her. When her story was complete he closed his eyes and exhaled, though UnHallowed didn’t breathe. “Did she touch you?”

  Sophie thought on it for a moment. “No. She didn’t. Why? Would that have been bad?�
��

  Instead of answering, he closed the distance between them. First, he rubbed her arms, then coasted them up to her shoulders, her neck, and finally to her face. “Thank you for trusting me enough to come to me.”

  Then he took her hand and practically dragged her from the room. His strides swallowed hallway and stairs. She had to run to keep up as they crossed through the kitchen to the basement door, and down the staircase to the common room.

  “A Crossroad demon made Sophie an offer in return for the Cruor,” Chay blurted as he and Sophie skidded to a halt, only her breathless.

  Bane and Daghony were knocking balls on the pool table. Kush and Tahariél were arguing about something, and Ioath and Amaya were glued to the TV playing a game. All stopped what they were doing at Chay’s statement.

  “A Crossroad demon?” Ioath, former Archangel of Demons was the first to speak.

  “Yes.”

  Someone whistled low.

  “What did she offer?” Ioath asked.

  “Um…” She was about to answer, then noticed Scarla wasn’t there. “Where’s Scarla?” she asked Chay.

  “She moved back to the training center. We have it warded, and Gadreel and Zed are protecting her,” Chay gritted out between his teeth. He obviously didn’t like that idea.

  Ioath cleared his throat. “The question is still on the table. What did the Crossroad demon offer?”

  “She…” Her throat was suddenly dry and she couldn’t meet the intensity of their gazes. Chay’s arm came to rest around her shoulders. Its heavy weight grounded her. “She offered me, my baby.”

  A tense pause captured the room, then Riél opened his mouth. “A baby? Why offer you a baby when you can have your own?” His brow furrowed.

  She narrowed her gaze on the former Archangel of Purity. “Not a baby. My baby. The child I lost. That’s what she offered. My child in my arms.”

  Another tense pulse of silence.

  Dread framing each word, Ioath asked softly, “Did you take the offer, Sophie?”

  “No.” But she had wanted to.

  Ioath stepped closer to her. “The pull of a Crossroad Demon’s offer is nearly impossible to resist. How did you do it?”

  Chay stepped in front of her. “What the fuck does that matter?” He challenged.

  “It matters a lot because the Crossroad demon may return and sweeten the pot. Sweeten it enough to make her change her mind and betray us. Twenty years as opposed to the usual ten, the demon will do whatever it takes to get Sophie to accept the offer, and once she accepts…”

  She stepped out of Chay’s shadow and faced the group. “There is no pot to sweeten because I will never accept her offer. Why? First, I don’t trust her. She is a demon.” Ioath opened his mouth, but Sophie didn’t want to hear it.

  “Don’t give me the argument that the UnHallowed are demons too. I know.” Her gaze shifted to Chay. “I trust you. All of you. Second, my little girl is in Heaven, where she belongs. I didn’t deserve her then and I don’t deserve her now. I pray her soul finds a home with someone who loves her as much as I always will and protect her as I couldn’t.”

  Silence again as she waited under their collective pity until she snapped and pulled away from Chay. “And I didn’t believe her. No one can undo what I lost. I mean, what would she have done? Turned back time? Or pass off someone else’s child as my own?” She shook her head. “No. She’s gone. The only place she’s alive is in my heart. And that’s where she will stay.”

  Whew! That was cathartic. Sophie blinked away the tears threatening to spill and inhaled a cleansing breath. “I didn’t tell her any of that. I told her I would think about it and hightailed it back here because if she wants the Cruor badly enough to proposition me, then who knows what her next step is, and who knows who she’s working for.”

  “Well—” someone started, but Sophie cut him off.

  “I left because I had to, to find myself. Well, I did, and I’m back, and I would never betray the UnHallowed. Not any of you.” She made eye contact with all of them. “That’s not how I would return the kindness you’ve all shown me.”

  And a final round of silence.

  “I’ll leave you guys alone, so you can discuss everything.” Sophie left the room with the silence trailing behind her. She knew it wouldn’t last for long.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chay watched Sophie leave, her shoulders back, her spine stiff. He’d never been prouder, not that he had a right to be. Yet, damn, his chest swelled as if he had a heart. A sharp whistle snapped his attention back to the group.

  “What are the odds that a Crossroad demon is associated with the Demon Army?” Bane tossed out from his position by the pool table.

  “Extremely good,” Ioath said, dropping his controller onto the coffee table.

  “Especially with what this demon wants in return.” Daghony lined up his shot and took it.

  “Let’s face it. A Crossroad demon doesn’t need the Cruor to gain entry into Hell. She’s one of the only demons with a pass. It’s in her job description: Collect souls and deposit them in Hell. That requires a revolving door level of freedom others do not get,” Ioath said.

  “So, she doesn’t need the Cruor. Whoever is yanking her chain does.” Kushiél drained his glass and poured himself another drink. “We need to find this demon, drag the answers we need out of her, then kill her.” Murmurs of agreement circled the room.

  “No!” Ioath left his seat and faced Kush. “A Crossroad demon is the only demon you can’t kill. There are consequences. Have you forgotten?”

  “Don’t lecture me, Ioath,” Kush growled with a hint of crimson in his gaze.

  “Don’t make dumb statements and I won’t have to,” Ioath snapped.

  “How do you find a Crossroad demon?” Chay asked in part to deflect the storm brewing between Ioath and Kush. More like Kush beating Ioath into a pulp.

  Ioath ran a hand through his short hair. “Easy enough. You a pick a crossroad, one on a ley line or close to a ley line and wait until midnight. They must show on equinoxes, but we can raise one regardless.”

  Midnight had already passed, but there were more than twenty-four time zones. He could do it now, though there wasn’t a rush. Sophie was safe here. “We’ll do this tomorrow.” Chay headed for the shadows.

  “Chay, there’s no guarantee when we call forth the Crossroad demon the one we want will come,” Ioath said. “It’s whoever gets the call.”

  “That’s inconvenient,” Tahariél said, and as usual added nothing to the conversation.

  “I have a hunch she’ll answer. This was her big score. She’s not gonna let Sophie slip through her fingers without a fight,” Chay said.

  Shadows curled in the corner of the room and Rimmon stepped free. He stopped short, surveyed the room and said, “What did I miss?”

  Chay tipped his head to the crowd. “They’ll catch you up.” He took the stairs two at a time. He needed to see Sophie.

  ~~~~~

  Sophie knocked on her mother’s bedroom door. When no answer came, she pushed it open. Expecting to find Ellen, she paused at the empty bed. The sheets were mussed and a tray with a clean plate and an empty glass rested by the nightstand. The drip, drip, drip of water had her veering toward the bathroom. “Mom? Everything okay?”

  “Yes, dear. You can come in.”

  Ellen had made herself a bubble bath in the sunken tub, and seemed quite content with a small foam pillow behind her head and the oxygen tank next to the tub, safe and dry. Sophie sat on the edge of the tub, glad to see her mother so relaxed. “How long have you been in here?”

  “Not long. That nice young lady, Amaya, brought me some roasted chicken, string beans, and rice pilaf, delicious. I enjoyed it, almost as much as I’m enjoying this bath. My tub back home is a Dixie cup compared to this.” She grinned as if she had a secret. “This tub is big enough for an orgy.”

  “Mom!” Sophie tried to scold her and ended up laughing.

  “Well m
aybe not a proper orgy.”

  “What the hell is a proper orgy?” Sophie choked.

  “More than four people,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’ll do for you and that man of yours. I bet there’s a tub like this in your bedroom.”

  Sophie had no idea, but she was eager to find out. Her mother had planted ideas. “How are you feeling?”

  “Just dandy.” Ellen’s grin was too wide, too bright, and completely lacking in sincerity.

  “I’m gonna call your doctor and get him to refer you to an oncologist up here. I don’t want you going back to Jacksonville and going through this alone. Bobby’s not gonna help you, Mom.”

  She sighed. “I know. New baby or dying wife, which would you prefer?” She glanced away from Sophie. “Whether here or there, it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m a dead woman.”

  “Don’t say that! You’re not a dead woman. You’re alive and you’re going to stay that way.” She cupped her mother’s face, felt her wrinkled cheeks in her palms, looked into her weary, bloodshot eyes, and felt true panic. “You’re not going anywhere, Mom. You’re gonna stay right here with me. I want to be here for you.”

  Her mother took her hands and kissed both of her palms. “Of course I am, sweetie. Of course I am. I’ll call Dr. Lacey first thing in the morning. Now go and put your tub to good use.” Ellen settled deeper in the water and closed her eyes. “I’m gonna be in here a while longer. You go and have a good evening. I’ll be fine.”

  Sophie knew when to argue and when to let it be. “I’ll check on you later.” She returned to the bedroom, tossed Ellen’s dirty clothes into the hamper, unpacked her suitcase, and made sure to lay Ellen’s pill tray on the nightstand with a bottle of water. She peeked back into the bathroom. Ellen was still soaking. “I put everything away for you and set out your meds.”