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

by Tmonique Stephens

  With no other choice, he freed a blade from a hidden sleeve lining the inside of his coat and sliced his palm. He approached the demon with his hand extended, his disgrace mingled with Braile’s gold grace, pooled in the center.

  The demon skated away, shaking her head. “I was there in Siberia. I saw what happened, well, enough of it anyway, so I know what’s mixed in with your blood.” She pointed to his palm. “One touch of that and I go up in a ball of flames. No thank you.”

  Would’ve been a good plan if he’d thought of it.

  “She’s not responding.”

  “Get a tube in her airway, give her a shot of epi, and charge the paddles to two hundred.”

  All their heroic efforts wouldn’t make a difference. Sophie was dead and the only one who could bring her back was the Crossroad demon he had to bind himself to. With a thought, he pulled the mixture back into his body and sealed the wound. “So how do we do this?”

  “With a kiss.” The demon brought the blade up to her mouth. One quick slice to her tongue and her mouth filled with tar.

  Chay gritted his teeth as Kush and Riél freed themselves from the rubble, shouting at him.

  “Don’t!”

  “Are you insane!”

  The demon approached with a swagger to her step and a mouth full of shit. She fisted his tee, with her other hand she cupped his flaccid cock, and reeled him in. He bit back his revulsion and reciprocated, his hand once again at her throat.

  He stopped a fraction away from sealing the deal. “You will heal her the moment our lips touch or I kill you. Fuck the consequences.”

  She nodded and lunged forward.

  Ah, hell! She tasted like warm shit mixed with acid. He didn’t need to unhinge his jaw to taste it when some seeped between his clenched teeth. He gagged. She gripped his face. Her tongue beat against his teeth, demanding entrance.

  “Doctor, she’s been down for three and a half minutes.”

  Chay opened his mouth and let the shit flow down his throat. A rapid beep sounded from one of the machines. He pulled away. No go. His muscles locked down and he couldn’t move. His body betrayed him except for the muscles in his throat. Those kept working as a groan came from the bed. In his peripheral, he caught a flutter of movement in her limbs.

  “She’s back,” someone said. “I don’t know how we did it, but she’s back.”

  “Remove the intubation tube.”

  Sophie coughed.

  “Hey, don’t move, you flatlined a moment ago.”

  “I think I’m fine.” Her voice sounded tinny. “I actually feel great, better than I’ve ever felt.” Chay heard her say and knew from her gasp she saw him kissing the demon.

  ~~~~~

  One moment Sophie was staring at Chay, her mother’s animated voice filling her head. The next, she was in an impenetrable void that robbed her five senses of all stimulation, along with her ability to discern space and time. Anchorless, she floated, for how long—a year, ten years, one thousand years, or a nanosecond, she had no way to tell. A form took shape in her peripheral. The vague outline was familiar, the presence comforting. Noise, a low-level buzzing, clogged her ears.

  And then she was back.

  The prolonged wailing of a machine hit her nervous system. Shut that shit off! Light seared her irises. She closed her eyes from the pain, still light continued to filter through her lids. She couldn’t breathe. Something blocked her throat. Her eyes snapped open and latched onto the nearest person for help. Blue scrubs and a white laminated ID with the name of the nurse in bold letters below the name of the hospital.

  Strong hands cupped Sophie’s face. The nurse gripped the tube sprouting from her mouth and pulled. Sophie gagged, screamed silently as the damn thing scraped the top layer of her throat.

  She had a split second to wonder what happened as she registered the hospital bed she lay in was her mother’s, and the medical staff around her staring at her like she was the second coming. “I’m fine,” she mumbled a few more platitudes to get them to back off and not stick anything else in her.

  Then it all came back in a slick rush—the Crossroad demon, her soul, the Cruor, her sudden death, and lastly Chay.

  She pushed away all the helping hands and sat up. He was the first thing she saw.

  Kissing the Crossroad Demon.

  What the fuck! “Chay? What are you—”

  They vanished. Not walked into the shadows, but vanished between one blink and the next.

  Her gaze swung to Riél and Kush, who fucking stood there with their thumbs up their asses. “They’re going for the Cruor! Go after him, you idiots!”

  The two darted out of the room, their thunderous footsteps retreating fast. They’d better be heading for the nearest shadows. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and noticed her cover-up hung in tatters. At least they hadn’t cut her bikini top off. The medical staff filed out of the room, still under UnHallowed mind control for however long that lasted.

  “Excuse me, but I have a couple of questions.” Her mother focused on the spot where Chay and the demon last stood, anger and confusion twisted her features. “First, someone get me a knife so I can gut that cheating bastard for kissing someone other than my baby, and did he and that woman just vanish or am I having a stroke?”

  Sophie grabbed her mother’s clothes off a chair in the corner of the room and a hospital gown she found beneath the pile. She turned to Scarla. “We have to get to the farm a lot faster than you drove us here. Can you do it?”

  “She can’t, but I can.”

  The three of them pivoted at the new voice. What Sophie saw had her mouth unhinged. Living with the UnHallowed, she'd seen a lot of things, demons, Reapers, but she’d never seen a full-fledged, battle-ready angel. Not even Dina before she became human.

  Yet that’s what stood in front of her, an angel in full empyreal armor. Her wings were white with evergreen along the edges and she rested on an empyreal blade half her size. The glint off both nearly blinded her.

  Scarla stepped in front of Sophie and her mother, a gun in her hand, yet lowered at her side. “What do you want?”

  “Only to help.” Her mouth and jaw were the only part of her visible.

  Her voice. It struck a chord within Sophie. “Who are you?”

  The helmet vanished, revealing an angel with eyes so green nothing in nature could duplicate them. Eyes Sophie remembered from her pre-adolescent dreams when she still believed in fairy tales and wishes. “I know you, but you’re not real.”

  The angel nodded. Her hair, an inky green, darker than any green she’d ever seen was pulled into a tight knot on top of her head. “I was your guardian angel until I was elevated to warrior class.”

  Sophie moved closer. “I thought you were my imaginary friend. Then you went away when I was eight.” The angel nodded. “Axelle, is that really your name?”

  A sad half smile. “Yes. You were my last charge.” The smile died on her lips. “I can get you to the farm in a dimensional pocket, but that is all I can do.”

  Scarla stepped up, her gun still in her hand. “You’re here as an Uber and not gonna put that sword to use?”

  “I am not supposed to be here,” she snapped at Scarla and pointed at Sophie. “The only reason I am here is because I continue to hear her cries for help and I cannot ignore them any longer.”

  Sophie stepped between the two females and turned to the one who was her first friend. “If you can get us there, then do it, and do it now.”

  As Axelle gathered dimensional energy, Ellen mumbled. “I’ve had a stroke, and this is my alternate reality.” In a daze, she plopped onto the hospital bed.

  “I can wipe her mind, or I can give her truth in a way that she will be able to handle,” Axelle said as the dimensional pocket expanded.

  If she had her mother’s mind wiped, then she’d never really be a complete part of her world. Now that she had her mother back, hiding such an integral part of her—the UnHallowed and Chay—that wasn’t what
Sophie wanted. “The truth. Give her what she can handle, and get me to the farm.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “I have yet to hear my name on your lips.”

  Chay’s eyes cut to the demon, even as he struggled to get his bearings. “Your name is demon and I will call you nothing else.”

  Standing on the stairs leading to the porch, Chay had a sense of spatial distortion, of him moving, except no time had passed. Or was that the other way around? It had been centuries since he or any of the UnHallowed had traveled without using the shadows to get them from one place to the other. His guts felt like charred spaghetti, a dish Scarla made in second grade and had forced his virgin taste buds to try. It hadn’t gone well, not for either of them. Scarla cried and he had to scrape the top layer of his tongue off.

  He studied the house, his mind spinning every possible escape scenario.

  “I can command y—”

  “Wait here.” Enough listening to her voice, he cut her off. “You won’t be able to enter.” He spared a thought about how she managed to be on the warded property at all and then said, “I’ll get the Cruor and bring it to you.”

  She climbed the three stairs, her footsteps solid on the sturdy wood and crossed to the front door. She paused with her hand on the knob, a smirk twisted her lips.

  “How?” he asked. And if she had the ability to thwart the wards, did that mean all demons could traipse about the property—as they had previously?

  “Wards can’t stop me. Plus, I’ve already been here, led to this place by the blood Sophie shed in Siberia. Though, I didn’t know the Cruor’s here.” She turned the knob and kicked the door open. With a loud bang, the heavy wood with the inlaid frosted glass rebounded off the wall. Chay stopped it from hitting her, not because he wanted to—he’d love nothing more than watching it slam into her side and send her flying across the room—but because he had to. He was her protector from all harm, she said.

  He gave a mental snort. She thought their contract gave her power over him. That may have been true when celestial grace didn’t flow through his body and he was little more than a demon, like her, or if he were a human whose will was malleable as molasses on a hot summer day.

  Submit, huh. The only things that kept him from planting his sword into her chest was Sophie. Not the UnHallowed. Not the Cruor. Not the threat of taking the demon’s place. Sophie.

  He kept that in mind as footsteps sounded from the living room. Amaya and Dina rushed into the foyer. The latter took one glance at the demon and her empyreal sword flashed into her hand. No need to tell the former Captain in the Celestial Army a demon was in her presence.

  Regardless, Dina couldn’t kill her.

  Chay stepped in front of the demon, his hands outstretched to both females. “Don’t! You both don’t understand. She saved Sophie’s mother for a price, my submission—”

  “And the Cruor.” The demon stepped from the shelter of his body. “Now get out of our way…or Chay will kill you.”

  Both females braced for battle, Amaya sinking into her haunches, Dina doing the same and bringing her sword into play. Damn, he wished he could link to them and explain, but they weren’t UnHallowed.

  “What the fuck is she talking about?” Amaya shouted, her gaze darting between the demon and Chay.

  He ignored her and turned to Dina. “I’m bound to a Crossroad Demon. You know what that means.”

  Slowly, Dina’s stance straightened, awareness in her eyes. Amaya didn’t understand. “So, what? She’s a Crossroad Demon. If you two are squeamish, I’ll do it.” She lunged for the demon. Dina wrapped her arms around Amaya and held her back. It wasn’t easy. Both women were warriors. He would’ve loved to stay and see the outcome, unfortunately…

  As they grappled, Chay said, “Follow me.” He sprinted for the basement. He didn’t have long before the cavalry arrived with their not so helpful selves.

  Down the stairs and through the theatre room, and down the hallway past a few of the bedroom suites to the game room where a pool table dominated.

  “Where is it? I should be sensing it. Why don’t I?” she bitched and strutted around the room.

  He flipped the table on its side and shoved it out of the way. The middle of the room, that’s where he focused his rage, his fear, and all his power, power he hadn’t tapped into since the Fall because he didn’t have it.

  To say he was half the UnHallowed he used to be would be a lie. More like one-third of his previous celestial self. Braile’s grace hadn’t returned all Chay’s former glory. With his grace divided amongst the eleven of them, it wasn’t possible. What Braile had returned was enough for Chay to shoot a blast of power, with laser precision, through fifty feet of earth, latch onto the Cruor and yank it to the surface, all in the space of a few seconds, turning the room into a demolition site.

  Just in time for Kushiél, Bane, Sammiél, Daghony, Tahariél, Rimmon, Zedekiél, Gadreel, and Ioath to step from the shadows and surround him and the demon. The demon snatched the Cruor from him. It was almost too big for her to carry. By the way she gripped the artifact, she’d rather lose an arm than let go.

  “Remember, Chay…” Her voice was wary. She backed up and placed Chay between her and the UnHallowed. His name on her lips was sandpaper to his ears. He dealt with it because he had to.

  “…you are my slave and will protect me to the death,” she shouted for all to hear. “And anyone who kills me has to take my place. Now do any of you fancy being a Crossroad demon?”

  “You’re not leaving here alive.” A sword appeared in Bane’s hand, then, with the exception of Gadreel, an empyreal weapon appeared in each of their hands.

  Footsteps sounded. He wasn’t surprised when Amaya and Dina joined the group, both armed. Their grappling session hadn’t lasted long. He had to get out of here, get her and the Cruor out of here. He fisted the back of her shirt, prepared to drag her out of harm, and ordered, “Get us out of here.”

  Scarla and Sophie pushed their way between Rimmon and Zed. How the hell did they get here so quickly? The details mattered, though there wasn’t time or the opportunity for a chat.

  Chay drank in her presence, noted the hospital gown, and remembered how close he’d come to losing her.

  “Oh, look, your ex is here.” The demon laughed. “Go ahead and beg, dear. Plead with him not to leave you.”

  Sophie’s lips parted to do exactly what the demon said. “Don’t.” It was he who begged. Her mouth closed with an audible click. Then she spun and surprised them all by darting in front of him and the demon. She shielded them with her body.

  She faced down the UnHallowed. “He’s doing this for me! Because of me! You can’t kill him.”

  Bane shook his head. “We’re not going to kill him.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Zed spit his toothpick out. “He is not leaving with the Cruor, not after all we went through to get it.”

  By the tension that rippled through the room, they all agreed. Chay reached for the demon and gave her a subtle shake. She got them here in a flash, she could get them out the same way. “Any time now.”

  “No. I need to see what happens.” Excitement edged her voice.

  Not for shits and giggles, Chay guessed. This little voyeur session was all about gathering information. For whom was the question? She had the Cruor and an UnHallowed in her back pocket, this would put her in the driver’s seat of any car, yet she needed more. More info, more ammo, for who?

  “As if none of you wouldn’t do the same for someone you love,” Sophie shouted at them.

  Zed tossed back his head, shaking a head full of lanky, greasy hair. His laugh was a rough bark full of contempt. “I don’t love anyone and neither do they.” He tossed his head to his fellow UnHallowed.

  Bane and Gideon peeled off first and took position beside Sophie. Amaya and Dina backed up their men, followed by Kushiél and surprise, Gadreel. He was the last UnHallowed Chay would suspect of feeling anything in the vicinity of where his heart
would be, or love for any of them. But especially him after the way the two went after each other in the twenty-four-hour gym.

  This isn’t what Chay wanted, but here it was—again. UnHallowed against UnHallowed. This is exactly what she, and whoever she works for, desires, he sent through their private link. The Celestial Army is out of the fight. If we’re at each other’s throats, there will be no one left to destroy the Demon Army.

  Everyone kept their places on opposite sides of the proverbial line drawn in the sand, weapons at the ready to cleave each other into pieces, but… I agree. So we allow you to take the Cruor to them? Sam sent his thoughts into the link.

  That’s not a plan. It’s a suicide, and I still don’t care who loves who. The portal to Hell stays here! Zed wasn’t having any of it.

  And neither was Chay. Listen, all of you arrived here because you heard the call and zeroed in on me. Just like before, not only do we share a private link, we share grace and disgrace. It is a union we have always shared. We are more than brothers. We are one. We are unique, yet we are the same. Where I go, you go.

  For a precious moment, the link was silent, then Kush spoke. You lay the breadcrumbs…

  And we will follow, Zed ended.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chay took hold of the demon’s arm and said, “Get us out of here.”

  “No!” Sophie screamed and shoved her way between the UnHallowed to stand in front of him and the demon. “The deal was with me.”

  “Why would I want you when I have him?” The demon licked her lips and gazed up at him.

  Chay gave thanks to her hands being occupied with the Cruor.

  “Kiss me,” she ordered. “In front of your woman. I want your tongue in my mouth.”

  Sophie lunged for the demon, only to have Tahariél haul her back. He held her, though it wasn’t easy. She was a banshee in his arms.

  “I gave you an order, slave. You will obey it, or the pact is done, and I reclaim what is mine.” She gave a pointed stare at Sophie.