by KC Bellinger
Jaiten’s footsteps grew heavy as he ran to catch her.
Arwyn blocked the entrance to where Penn and I had been hiding.
“Where did she go?”
Arwyn shrugged, then pointed down to Locke. “Looks like someone got hungry. Simone won’t be too happy with this.”
“No, she’ll want revenge.” There was a hint of sadness in Jaiten’s voice. After years of being his companion, I knew every emotion he had, and rarely was he ever sad. “She’ll go after her, won’t she?”
“Whitney? Yes, I am sure she would, but I don’t think Amelia would allow her to hurt your little Hour,” Arwyn said.
“I don’t know how all this got out of hand. I mean, I just brought her here so Amelia could make her immortal, so she could spend eternity with me. Now she won’t have anything to do with me.”
So, that was the reason he brought me here—not for him to have some terrible power, but so he could spend forever with me. I couldn’t believe it. I gazed up at Penn. His eyes were fixed on mine. Without saying a word, I heard him say, “He’s lying.”
But was he? Jaiten did a lot of bad things, and I know that. He was the one who’d brought Ateil to Aster, the minion that killed my mother, and he poisoned Dustyn. But he’d never laid a hand on me. He made me laugh, called me silly names, and was my midnight hide-and-seek partner. He’d listen to me when I needed to talk, or just sat there when I couldn’t. My best friend, my first kiss, and even now, I cannot tear my eyes from him.
I was torn between my first love and my soulmate.
“Get over it, demon. You can have me, again, if you’d like. Let’s go upstairs and leave this mess for Amelia to clean up.” Arwyn crossed the hallway and draped herself over Jaiten. “Come, lover, come show me again why I could fall for a demon.”
I knew what Arwyn was doing, and it was pissing me off. He had slept with her. Damn her. Damn him. Oh, hell, damn them both. They deserved one another.
Penn nuzzled the top of my head gently. His hands tightened around mine and I knew he could feel my tension. How could I still love that damn demon? If Arwyn and Penn weren’t here to show me who Jaiten really was, I knew I would have believed him.
Jaiten didn’t look up. He didn’t make any sudden moves, but by the way he shifted his body, I knew he was about to attack Arwyn. He knew I was there in the shadows somewhere, watching. “How about here? No one’s around. Why go anywhere, Arwyn? We’ve got many rooms to choose from. I can just retrieve a blanket from the closet.”
“No.” Arwyn gasped. “I get the creeps down here. Let’s go upstairs.”
“Why?” Jaiten snarled. He cradled her head in his hands. “Afraid someone will see us? You didn’t seem bothered by that last night.”
Mentally, I reached for Arwyn. I tried to install the fear I had for her, but she brushed me away. She tugged on his curly hair, bringing his face closer. I could see the shine of a blade being wedged into the back of her black leather pants.
“I could care less if anyone walks in on us. I’m just saying this place gives me the creeps, that’s all.”
“What about The Protector, aren’t you his property, his lover when he gets lonely?” Jaiten lifted Arwyn into the air easily and slid her onto the concrete floor. She was pinned underneath his body, and he held her wrists in one hand over her head. “Who is he, Arwyn, your sometimes lover? Tell me what he says to you after he makes you scream for more.”
Tears were falling down my face now. Penn wrapped his arms around me, but that was the only gesture he could make in the small linen closet. Both men were supposed to be mine.
Jaiten turned Arwyn over in one quick turn. He pulled the knife from inside her pants and then, with the same hand, he flipped her over and held the knife to her throat. “Whitney, I know you’re there. Are you willing to have this girl flayed open while you watch?”
“There’s nobody here. No one will save me if you kill me. Even if she were here, I’m not worth it,” she said before I could open my mouth. “Look, Jaiten, it’s just me and you down here.”
“Do you think I’m that stupid? I know who The Protector is—he’s Whitney’s angel. Amelia told me of her face when she saw him, regardless if she’s proclaimed her love to another angel, Whitney is a very stupid girl. She’ll fall in love with anything. Do you hear that angel? It isn’t only you, she loves. She loved me at one time, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. So stop protecting her and release her to me. I am her rightful guardian. I showed her who she was, no angel was around to guide her. Give her to me and I’ll let you go.”
“Jaiten, I told you, nobody’s down here except you, me, and my stiletto boots.” Arwyn curled her body underneath Jaiten’s and stabbed him in the leg with her heel.
Still on the floor, he grabbed her by the ankle and knocked her into the stone wall. If Arwyn were a normal human, she’d be knocked out or dead, but she repositioned herself and stabbed him in the groin with her other heel. Jaiten took both of her ankles and slid her away from him. Moaning, he stood. Arwyn was splayed out on the floor. She looked broken. I couldn’t sit there and not help.
I looked up at Penn, he nodded. His grip loosened and I concentrated on calling Neetah to me.
A low rumble filled my chest.
“Neetah, are you still hungry?”
She didn’t answer.
I couldn’t fully relax enough to let her in.
I peeked out into the hallway. Jaiten was gripping Arwyn by the ankles again. He smashed her repeatedly into the wall. Small cracks formed and water seeped into the hallway. Jaiten heaved Arwyn into the air and turned to face me. His face had so many emotions, and I wasn’t sure which one was about to take over.
“Whitney, I knew you were here. Remember years ago when I taught you how to concentrate on my scent? Well, all the time you were learning mine, I was learning yours. And no angel stench can mask your smell.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arwyn get up. She bent over and picked up her knife.
“And what do I smell like?”
Jaiten took a step closer, but I didn’t want him to get near Penn. He was still weak from being struck by the quartz sword, so I closed the gap between the two of us.
“You smell like rain on a sunny day, still a virgin—yes I can smell that too. Your scent may change afterward, but it seems all the men in your life have slept with Arwyn, so I guess you will smell like her if you live.”
“There are worse things to smell like, demon,” my voice shook. I couldn’t allow him to project pictures into my mind. “You don’t smell any different from any other demon, and you know what Jaiten, you never did.”
“I never slept with Arwyn.” Penn limped out of the closet and faced us. “I am sorry, I couldn’t say the same for my brother.” Penn directed the words to me, but his eyes didn’t leave Jaiten. “One day, though, if she’ll have me, I’ll wake with her in my arms.”
“Did she tell you she loved you too?” Jaiten laughed. His red eyes roamed my face to find the truth, and when I didn’t correct him, his grin faltered. Anger laced with something else filled his features. Regret maybe? He shook it off quickly. “But she is in love with you, me, and your brother. Oh, now that is a problem that can tear the entire family apart.”
“Not my family,” Penn said confidently. “Whitney is ours, not yours. I know her heart and I know she loves, but that’s what’s so special about her. She can love anyone, even a low-life shithead like you.”
Arwyn advanced on Jaiten with the knife at his back, but he turned and threw her against the wall again. This time, the wall started to crumble. A crack in the floor separated Jaiten and me as concrete fell into an endlessly deep pit.
“What is happening down here, Jaiten? What’s taking you so damn long?” Amelia’s voice vibrated the walls and the crack in the floor claimed more stone. “How did they get out?” She stood on the bottom step behind Penn. With the quartz sword in her hand, she advanced toward Penn and waved it threateningly in front of
him.
“No, Amelia, I’ll go with you. I’ll be your immortal whatever. Please don’t kill him.”
Amelia grinned at me. “Well, then, come now. I’m ready, are you?” Her smile turned into a sour grimace. “What the hell?”
“You aren’t taking her.” Rhys appeared behind Amelia. His body was rigid and angrier than ever. He slammed her against the wall, she lost her balance and crumbled to the floor, dropping the sword. Rhys advanced on me, kicking the weapon away from Amelia. His dark eyes swept over me and then shifted to Jaiten.
“You aren’t getting the Hour.” Jaiten gave me his best dimpled smile. “Take your brother and the spear and get out. I’m taking Whitney back with me. We will leave your town, Protector, and you’ll never have to see either of us again.”
“Your time has expired, demon.” Rhys smirked. “You will leave now.” He stepped aside, revealing the staircase. “Or you can return to hell.” Rhys’s hands balled into fists, revealing the weapons resting on his knuckles. Besides the fanged ring, he had an assortment of other penetrating devices.
“Not when I have something as precious as your last Hour.” Jaiten made a move to grab me.
The crack between us opened into a hole. Jaiten didn’t see it and stepped right into it, causing me to fall to my knees, my head inches from the opening. His whole body was inside and the words of my beloved books came floating to my head—the words Dustyn made me recite every day like a prayer. A banishing curse. Any demon could be trapped inside something. Dustyn used wells or empty barrels. The hole would have to work.
“What are you doing? Whit, no!” Jaiten knew after the first line flew from my lips what I was saying. He raised his hand out of the hole and waved frantically at me, catching my necklace that held my mother’s ashes. He was pulling me down into the hole with him. Twisting the chain around my throat, my sight grew weak, but the curse was almost done.
From behind me, I heard gasps and curses as people fumbled around. A hand grazed my back and I shuttered under the touch. Without seeing him, I knew it was Rhys. He had grabbed the hood of the cloak and pulled, but I just choked harder. I looked up into his eyes, my lips still chanting the curse, pleading with the angel. The hate in Rhys’s eyes made me look away. Rhys brought his ring dangerously close to my throat. The canine tooth scratched my skin then hooked underneath the chain and freed me from Jaiten’s grip.
I watched as my mother’s ashes fell to the bottom of the hole with Jaiten.
Rhys took my hands into his, gently squeezed, then sliced the rope relic off my wrists. I caught it before it fell into the hole and stuck it in the cloak.
Before I could utter the last line of the curse, Jaiten called, “Whitney, I thought you loved me. How can you trap me in the earth like this? It was everything you despised about Dustyn.”
“Tell me you love me, and I’ll free you,” I called into the pit.
“You know I can’t do that. Demons can’t love.”
“Yes, they can. You choose not to.” Somberly, I whispered the final words and kicked the chipped-and-broken floor into the hole. “Goodbye, Jai.”
Chapter 25
I looked up to see what all the ruckus was behind me. When I turned around, Amelia had her hand deep inside Penn’s chest, twisting the spear till it pierced through his back. Penn stumbled, trying to back up.
His gaze found mine, and for a moment, everything stopped.
Everything I needed to say was lost, but we didn’t need words—we needed time, but it vanished before our clock ever started ticking. Amelia withdrew the sword from Penn’s abdomen. He fell, causing the concrete to splinter. Rhys reached him before he slid through a new crack in the floor. I caught Amelia’s gaze. She had a deep cut on her face and one above her eye, blood dripping down her cheek stirred a hunger for a meal of revenge.
A deep growl erupted from my throat as I lunged for her, but something stopped me.
Someone called my name, and the devouring need from the bear vanished.
Rhys had Penn cradled in his arms.
“Whitney, love,” Penn mumbled, “looks like I will never know what it’s like to wake in your embrace.”
Dropping to my knees, I stroked his hair from his pale face.
“Promise me, Rhys, you will find out for me.”
Rhys took his brother’s hand and inhaled deeply. “Azu reminded me of the soul splitting. It had been so long, I had forgotten you are a part of me, as is Azu. It would have been wrong for Whitney to love me and not you. I see that now.”
“Penn, Whitney, are you down here?” Azu called, then shrieked when she saw her brother.
“Hurry, Azu, I want to know what it’s like to touch my kindred spirit.”
I waved my hand at her. She took it and then placed her free one on her dying brother.
For a moment, all was right in the world. A wave of peace had come over me, and I placed my face on Penn’s chest. “I love you, Penn,” I said with a sob.
“Brother, we will meet again.” Azu kissed Penn’s cheek.
“Pennidis, brother, piece of my soul, may God bring you back to me, back to all of us. And if His grace is good, may he make us one again, so we can all be together, like this.”
I listened as Azu and Rhys said their last goodbyes and slowly; I felt him rising, slipping from underneath me. His Egyptian-blue wings unfolded and a halo greater than gold crowned his head. In all his glory, Penn returned home.
Azu’s eyes narrowed and a fierce scream ripped from her lips. She walked away without even looking back.
Rhys’s eyes were lined with sorrow, but mostly they were filled with regret. “Whitney, can you ever forgive me for what I have done?”
I reached for him, but he shied away. Losing Penn seemed to have drained him of his confidence. He wasn’t the vengeful angel with something to prove anymore.
“Not now, Sabarhys. We have a bitch to kill,” Azu called from the bottom of the stairwell.
Rhys averted his eyes from mine then obediently followed his sister.
***
I watched them leave, but I couldn’t move. I had just banished my oldest friend, my first love. Penn was gone, and Rhys wouldn’t look at me. I should have never left home. Jaiten and I could have continued our nightly trysts under the moonlight and I would never have known what a broken heart felt like. If we’d stayed at the abandoned ranch and played ‘house,’ would I be here, broken and useless? I knew one day we’d have to part. As a master demon, he was bad, borderline evil, but for me, it’s what I needed.
“You know what love is like—what a kiss feels like,” Camille whispered in my ear. “I will never know.” She reached out and played with a few strings of my hair. Her small hand clutched the hood of the cloak. “It’s not fair,” her voice raised an octave. “You are a desired woman, and I am a chubby. Little. Girl.”
I was in a vulnerable spot. I tried to stand, but she yanked hard on the cloak and gripped my hair.
“Do you realize I am older than you?”
“Yes,” I replied. I tried to call upon Neetah but she didn’t respond, regardless of how hard I tried to reach her.
“Stop talking to it,” Camille ordered. “I want it! Take it off, and tell me how it worksor I will kill you.”
Somehow, deep inside my chest, I felt my heart slow. Painfully, I struggled to breathe. I heard her laugh echo in my head. “I don’t care what you do to me,” I wheezed.
“Take it off!” she screamed, redirecting her energy from my chest to her grip on my hair. “I saw the twins when I read your mind. I know what they are, and if you lay down and die right now, Amelia and I will go collect them. No one alive could stop us.” She loosened her grip on my head as she pondered the possibilities. “I could have new siblings, and I wouldn’t need you.”
I fought the images of my brother and sister. “Why, Camille?” I scooted slowly to the wall. “Why do you help them?”
“I get anything I want,” she gloated like a spoiled toddler. “No one c
an stop me.”
“I can.” I grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. In my pocket, I felt for the rope that once held me captive. I caught her other arm when she threw a fist at me and tied her wrists together.
She flailed her legs wildly, kicking and letting loose a string of curse words no child should say.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on calling the bear. “Neetah. I need your help. I need you to hold this child still. Do not let her call you. I will reunite you with Azu tonight.” It was risky, but I needed to contain this child.
“I will hold the cub and not listen to her lies.”
I thanked her silently, slid it off my back, and tucked Camille deep inside the cloak.
“It’s so heavy!” Camille complained.
“Stop complaining, cub.”
***
I raced upstairs and hid behind a cabinet to survey the room. The sun had set and the only light came from the lightning storm outside. I adjusted my eyes. I could see perfectly in the darkness. It appeared there was a stalemate. Azu had a knife at Simone’s throat, Amelia had the spear aimed at Rhys’s chest. I felt the ground shift under my feet. If there were other angels here, we’d need to get them out before the place crumbled.
I reached out but didn’t feel anyone on the lower floors except for Camille. They had to be keeping them somewhere else.
Rhys’s expression was lost and defeated. I reached out to him and stroked his cheek. “Don’t let them win,” I told him.
His back grew rigid.
“Oh, Whitney,” Amelia purred, “I know you’re nearby. Your angel just alerted me to your presence. He was just about to let me destroy him. Of course, I’ll let him go if I can have you.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Rhys demanded. “To make you immortal, she has to destroy me, since I am your angel. We have to be touching for my immortality to transfer to you. She won’t hurt me without you.”
“I don’t need him. There’s another angel that will work just fine. She may not have created you, but she is linked to you.” Amelia looked around. “Camille, get the female.”