“And what about the bounty on my head, Isabel? What do you know about that?” Isabel laughed straight up into the night and shook out her legs. “Well, little detective, it isn’t smart to let the Destroyer run around freely, not with the power to kill the Deceiver and all. So, you see, you have to die. So my master can live and I can come back to him. Happily ever after.”
An invisible vise tightened around Nika’s throat. Destroyer? Kill the Deceiver? She straightened. Her gaze connected with her prisoner’s. She didn’t have that kind of power. Grayson would’ve told her. Unless, he didn’t know. Grayson. Where was he? How long did it take to search the perimeter? Her gut flooded with warning. Twisting her attention into the surrounding forest, she searched for movement—anything—to tell her he was okay.
“Ugh, you’re worried about him, aren’t you? Good. You should be. I’m not stupid enough to come alone.” Isabel slumped against the tree behind her. “I used to get that sick look on my face when I thought I was in love too. It doesn’t really exist, you know. The only thing we can truly rely on is ourselves in this world. You don’t even know what he plans on doing with you once you’ve handed me over to the Deceiver, but you’ve given him your trust anyway. Pathetic. I would throw up right now if I actually needed to eat to stay alive.”
Pain fled the wound around her shoulder as she pushed off the ground. She shuffled across the dirt to see her prisoner clearer. Numbness started at her toes and worked its way into her fingertips. “What did you just say?”
“He didn’t tell you about what he does for the Deceiver? Interesting. Could it be the legendary beast has fallen in love?” Beast? The Arch-demon’s features darkened even with the long, thin smile crawling across her features. A soft hum filtered through the trees. “That would explain a lot. No wonder my master wants him dead. Or maybe Grayson is afraid of what you’ll do to him when you find out his true intentions.”
Air left her lungs in a rush as her body went cold. Silence consumed her patience as her throat constricted. Isabel’s high-pitched laugh slithered through the shadows and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. A lie. Everything out of the Arch-demon’s mouth was a lie. The demon was trying to get inside her head. Nothing Grayson had done so far had led her to believe he had ulterior motives. If anything, he’d been a protector, even when she hadn’t trusted him in the beginning.
Something hard slammed into her ankles and the world tilted. She hit the ground on her right side. Shooting pain bounced off her bones. She fought to roll onto her side, but a strong grip appeared at the top of her throat and cut off her oxygen. Isabel’s eyes brightened full red as the demon straddled her upper body. No rope. No zip ties. She’d gotten free. A silvery substance trickled over the Arch-demon’s shoulder and down her armor. Lungs on fire, Nika fought for release and slammed her fists against Isabel’s forearm. No luck. Her heart threatened to explode out of her chest, the energy inside her swarming like a hive of angry bees. Couldn’t breathe.
“I’ve worked too hard and long to get where I wanted to be. I was my master’s right hand before he set his sights on you. He trusted me!” Isabel slammed the back of her skull against the dirt. Bolts of stinging erupted down her neck and spinal column, but the Arch-demon didn’t relent. “What was it my father told me before he cast me out? Right, I remember. He said I needed to repent, so that my sins may be wiped clean.” The demon’s crimson gaze centered on her. “I think it’s time to take him up on that, but first, we need to make pit stop. Let’s go find Grayson, shall we?”
No. Nika’s vision swam as she struggled to take a full breath. She kicked her legs out and connected with flesh, but didn’t do any damage. Damn it. The tree line tilted left, then right, as Isabel pulled her to her feet. The pressure around her throat softened, but not enough to get free. Her boots caught on tree roots and rocks as the Arch-demon dragged her through the forest. She clamped her hands around Isabel’s forearm to loosen the hold, but the demon didn’t budge.
“Stop struggling,” Isabel said. “We’re almost there.”
She swallowed around the vise tightening her throat, her vision dark as her captor shoved her to the ground. Air dove deep into her lungs and relieved the pressure pent up in her ribcage. Stars glistened down from the night sky. They’d stopped in a clearing of some kind. A few sparse trees hugged the perimeter, but she couldn’t see more than a few feet past them.
“I hear him.” Isabel’s lilting voice penetrated through the fob that clouded her thoughts as she jumped up and down on the balls of her feet. Muted claps punctuated Nika’s eardrums. “Oh, this is going to be good. He knows I took you. Maybe you’ll get to see exactly what you’ve trusted your heart to.”
Rolling onto her right side, Nika pressed to her feet. Aches and bruises protested. She stumbled forward as she fought for balance. No point in running. Isabel would catch her before she hit the tree line, but she could warn Grayson. His outline materialized across the clearing. “Grayson, run!”
A fist slammed into the side of her face and she twisted hard. Trees, grass, Grayson, everything blurred for a moment. Head fuzzy, she held her jaw as though that’d help the pain. Blood pooled at the bottom of her mouth and she spit into the long, dried grass. She ran her tongue over her teeth. Nothing broken. “You hit like a bitch.”
A low growl ripped across the clearing.
Hellhounds. Her stomach coiled, but she couldn’t spot the bright red eyes from the trees. Isabel had admitted she hadn’t come alone. Son of a bitch. Confusion spread through her as Grayson advanced. No, no, no, no. He had to get out of here. She dropped her hand from her face. Didn’t he understand Isabel was using her as bait? But he didn’t slow. Moonlight illuminated his features as he stepped out from under the trees. Panic bubbled straight from her core. Oh, God no. It was him. The beast. Bone and talons consumed her focus as it moved toward them.
“Release my mortal, demon,” a dark, deep voice said.
His mortal? Black bone jutted out from its shoulders, curving upward toward the mass of scaled horns on top of its head. Of all the monsters she’d seen as a child, the beast stopping no more than ten feet away scared the shit out of her the most. Her heart rate pounded in her ears. If this monster and Isabel wanted to have it out, she’d let them. It’d give her a chance to escape. But not without Grayson.
“If you want her, come and get her.” Isabel wrapped taloned hands around Nika’s bicep and tugged her hard against glistening armor. Burning pain in her shoulder wound pulled a moan from her throat and transformed the fire that simmered in the monster’s eyes into a full backdraft, hotter than she’d ever seen before. Her heart skipped a beat as another a growl ripped through the small distance between them. It hadn’t come from any hellhound. She barely had time to consider the beast’s interest in her as it lunged right for her and Isabel.
The Arch-demon shoved her to the ground. Landing onto her left arm, she stared up as Isabel shed her facade, one ripped wing expanding straight out above her. The creature that’d stood over both Rachel’s and Reynolds’s bodies emerged and Nika kicked at the ground as hard as she could to clear the fight. If the monsters wanted to kill one another, she sure as hell wouldn’t stick around for one of them to claim her as their prize. She had to get to Grayson.
She slid across the grass on her stomach, using the strength in her arms to keep low to the ground. Her wounds screamed in protest. Demons tore at each other mere feet away, but she didn’t look back. Couldn’t. Blood streamed down her shoulder from her wound and, faster than she expected, her muscles grew heavy. Exhaustion took control. She flipped onto her back to catch her breath. Keep moving. Couldn’t stop. Moonlight and stars lightened the clearing enough for her to see she’d almost reached the trees. She could make it.
Teeth, talons, and a single wing attacked the beast made of bone in a coordinated, violent dance, but nothing seemed to penetrate that armor. Her gaze slid over the monster slashing through Isabel’s remaining wing with sharp talons. She froze.
Pieces of Grayson’s dress shirt, the gray one that accented his jade-green eyes, hung in tatters from the beast’s right arm. She recognized the exact shade and her stomach flipped. Heart in her throat, she tried to swallow the grief building in her esophagus. Anger, sorrow, regret, all of it snowballed until the power in her veins overwhelmed every cell in her body. She shoved to her feet. “What did you do to him!”
The beast’s black eyes flashed green, the exact shade she noted every time Grayson looked at her.
Wasn’t possible. Her pulse thudded loud in her ears. He... Him?
“Oh, my God. You’re...” Her gaze dropped to the remnants of fabric draped around bone and armor. The shirt wasn’t torn from Grayson. The beast had grown into it when he’d transformed. Logic fled her mind as a near volcanic eruption blistered from the inside. The temperature in the clearing rose the longer she stared at the remains of his shirt. Not possible. It couldn’t be... “Grayson?”
The creature stepped toward her as though he could comfort the rage overwhelming her control and she stumbled back.
“Stay away from me!” She fought to breathe evenly. Her head spun. He’d said the beast had attacked Isabel back at the cabin and he’d run for the trees. Oh, God. She swallowed around the lump cutting off her oxygen. “We were hunting the monsters.”
Her heart plunged into her stomach. She tried to breathe around the hole ripping through her heart as the pieces of the puzzle came together. Flashes of their skin pressed together, of his lips on hers, swept across her mind. He’d made promises to keep her alive and she’d believed him. Her gaze wandered back to the monster’s features. “You were the monster all along.”
The tingling sensation growing beneath her skin distorted into pinpricks, sharp, angry, frantic, as the stale atmosphere around her filtered into a tornado-like funnel. Her hair whipped into her face, but didn’t detract from her focus. She centered her attention on the monster now fighting to reach her. A black, bony hand reached toward her as the beast turned its back on Isabel. Fear engrained itself into his hollowed expression, followed by pain that matched her own. The sob collecting in her throat forced tears into her eyes. They streaked down her face as a red glow escaped from between the creature’s ribcage.
The beast’s black irises flashed jade-green once again.
“I trusted you.” But it was more. She’d started falling for him. The hitch in her lungs interrupted the steady stream of power running through her veins as though an electrical circuit had been reset. Grayson’s eyes stared back at her, but she couldn’t shut down the energy overloading her senses second by excruciating second. Self-preservation stirred the frantic unbalance of power that coursed inside her. She couldn’t grab onto it. Lightning scorched up her back and through her nerves. Too much. She couldn’t hold on anymore.
Something exploded inside, throwing her across the clearing. She hit the ground feet first, but rolled. The world spun two more times. Then stopped. Fighting to lift her head, she sank further into the soft grass. Depleted. Empty.
Adrenaline drained from her blood as she stared up into the clear night sky. Pain stung across her abdomen. Craning her head down, she watched as spots spread down her tank top and took shape in the form of indistinguishable Rorschach tests. Hell. That hurt. She collapsed again and filled her lungs with clean, crisp air. Didn’t help.
To her right, across the clearing, Isabel stirred. Dirt and grass fell from her hair. Silver blood dripped from her damaged wing, but didn’t seem to inhibit the Arch-demon’s ability to stand. She fought to revert to her mortal disguise. A half-mortal, half-demonic hybrid stood mere feet from her. One human arm, one wing. One blue eye, the other red. Even with the mismatched proportions, fear slithered through Nika’s system as the demon stumbled toward her. “You. You’re coming with me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Don’t you things ever die?” She struggled onto her side and pushed to her feet. Run. That was the only thing she could do. Her legs obeyed commands easily enough, but protested within a few steps. She crumbled to the ground. Get up. Get up. Get up. A familiar growl vibrated through her body and she turned as Grayson wrapped a very human hand around the Arch-demon’s ankle. He slammed a good size rock into the side of Isabel’s head and knocked the demon unconscious. Isabel collapsed into the dirt.
Guarded relief snaked through her veins, but still, Nika couldn’t move. Her abdomen stung, the wound in her shoulder and the small lacerations across her back burning. There wasn’t a single inch of her body that could stand up to him if she had to fight.
He stared up into the night sky. Icy puffs of breath formed in front of his mouth. Closing his eyes, he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple slipping down his throat then shooting back into place. Then he focused on her. He stood no more than five feet across the clearing from her, Isabel at his feet, but she didn’t recognize any part of him she’d depended on the last two days.
“You’re a demon.” She held back the sob, but her control would slip soon.
His bare chest stretched on a deep inhale, the remnants of his gray shirt buried somewhere in the dirt. “Yes.”
Muscle and cartilage clenched around her bones, suffocating her from the inside. She should’ve known. How else would he have been able to take Isabel on in Reynolds’s apartment or survive the attack back at the cabin? An ache blossomed under her sternum. Her eyes stung. She worked to hide the emotions cresting, wave after wave threatening to tear her apart. “Well, that changes things.”
“Nika, I never meant to hurt you.” He took a step toward her and she pressed her heels into the dirt to counter. Her sweatpants scraped against the dirt, but didn’t get her far. He froze. “I didn’t have a—”
“A choice? I don’t believe that. Everyone has a choice. Wait, what am I saying? You’re a demon. You choose evil, no matter how many people it hurts. Just like the demon that killed my sister. At least she’s been honest with me this entire time. You...” He broke her heart. Nika didn’t know what else to say, her energy too drained to keep her thoughts straight. Tears burned at the back of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. Not for him. Not for a demon. “I don’t ever want to see you again. I’ll figure this out on my own.”
He dropped the rock at his feet. Something along the lines of regret deepened the lines between his eyebrows, but she couldn’t trust anything he wanted her to believe right now. Demons were good at lying. It was in their nature. “Nika, you don’t understand. The Deceiver—”
“Wants me dead because I can destroy him. Yeah, I know. Let me guess, you were the demon he sent to do the job?” She struggled to control her heart rate and fisted a handful of grass. Her confidence had started to wane, but she’d hold on a little longer. She had to get through this. “Took me a couple days to connect the dots, but I finally did.”
“Everything I did, I did for you. To protect you. Not the Deceiver, not even myself. You.” The sorrow bleeding into his eyes wrenched at her heart, but she’d seen that same look on hundreds of guilty perps. None of them had made a difference in her life, but Grayson, the demon sent to kill her, forced bile into her throat with his lies. “You have to believe me.”
“No, I don’t.” A cool breeze swept against her skin and with it, her first deep breath since she’d been dragged into the clearing. The fresh breeze doused the rage-filled torrent running wild under her skin and cleared her head of all emotion, forced her to see him for what he really was. Those passionate moments between them, the promises from his lips, they’d all been a lie. He’d never intended to protect her. Just wanted to get close enough to pounce. “We found my sister’s killer. You can do whatever the hell you want with her, but I’m done. I don’t need you.”
The last four words gripped her heart like a vice. She’d always prided herself on honesty, but wouldn’t admit how far she’d fallen. Couldn’t. Because it didn’t make sense. They’d only known each other a matter of days, yet her comfort level had deepened the longer she’d bee
n with him, as if they’d known each other for years. The resulting pain from lying to herself intensified so quickly, she struggled to get to her feet.
Icy sensation pooled at the base of her spine as his expression shattered, devastated, and squeezed her lungs a bit tighter. Soon that ice would surround her heart once again and fortify her against the emotional rollercoaster that came with every single one of her cases. She’d survive this. She didn’t have any other choice.
His watery gaze connected with hers as he reached down and wrapped his hand around Isabel’s ankle. “I’m taking her back to the Underworld. Whatever happens, don’t come after me.”
Both Grayson and Isabel disappeared in front of her eyes. No evidence either had existed a few seconds ago. The breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding released on a rough exhale. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
Chapter Sixteen
I don’t need you.
“But I need you.” A rip tore down the center of his heart. Pain, like nothing he’d ever experienced, brought him to his knees. Scolding hot rock bit into his skin, but ebbed the urge to turn right back around and confront Nika. Not only did she have the ability to release his soul but he couldn’t imagine the rest of his existence without her. She’d awakened something within him and he couldn’t walk away now. Even if she refused to see how entangled in each other’s fates they’d become. But he’d seen the fear in her wide blue eyes. He was a monster, straight and simple. And, to her, he imagined, just like the monster that’d killed her sister.
He sucked in a deep breath, lungs on fire. The uncomfortable temperatures were exactly as he remembered down here.
Void of power after he’d wrenched both Isabel and himself back to the Underworld, he assessed himself for injuries as violent threads of wind whipped against his sensitive skin. Just scrapes. Nothing broken. He rolled his shoulders and neck. Stinging sensations shot up his spine. Damn demon. She’d pay for that. A loud crack of lightning brightened the sky overhead. The clouds caught fire above him, the surrounding trees dead. Nothing had grown here since the last time he’d visited. No water. No sun. Only damnation. And he’d come voluntarily. Idiot.
His Seductive Target (Afterlife, #2) Page 16