by J. L. Weil
She put a hand to her mouth. “Absolutely not. I thought I was the only one with morning sickness.”
I shoved myself up in the tub, running a hand through my messy blonde hair and making a mental note to shower today. Hell, I was already in the tub. “Mine was like nightmare sickness.” I was still getting used to the idea of my best friend growing a baby inside her belly—a part-demon baby at that.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked, removing her hand, although her face still looked a shade green.
I hugged my arms around my knees. Did I want to talk about it? Talking and opening up hadn’t been easy for me after returning from the underworld. I couldn’t begin to explain what I’d endured when I myself didn’t really understand it. But it was Angel who I had finally poured my guts out to. She knew about Ashor, so it only took me a moment of consideration. “I had a dream, or I think it was a dream. I can’t be certain.”
“Of Ashor?” she guessed.
I nodded and told her what I’d seen and about the bargain I believed Ashor had struck with the queen.
“So you were seeing the whole thing from his eyes?” she asked, a bit intrigued.
“Yeah. Weird, right? Have you ever experienced anything like that?” I inquired.
She shook her head. “No, but from what Chase and I have learned about the three bonds, the connections are different for each pairing. And we can’t be sure what you saw was real.”
“It felt real. Too real.” I glanced down at my arm, half expecting to see the symbol the queen had marked on Ashor’s forearm there.
Leaning forward, she pressed her elbows into her knees. “You know what you need?”
“A week at the spa?” The ends of my hair were split, my skin was dull, my nails were unpainted, and my hair color needed brightening. I was sorely in need of some pampering.
Her lips twitched. “Close. I was thinking retail therapy.”
The old Lexi wouldn’t even blink over the chance to spend the day with her best friend, but I wasn’t sure I was up to dealing with people.
She noticed my hesitation and added, “There will be coffee.”
My eyes narrowed at the bribe. “And cheese Danishes from Sweet Sensations?” Sweet Sensations was a local bakery in town, famous for its filled and iced Danishes. Just thinking about the soft and warm donut fresh out of the oven had my empty stomach rumbling.
Angel rolled her eyes. “Obviously. I’m eating for two.”
“Fine,” I relented, thinking a day out might help distract me, and I seriously needed a distraction. “Just give me twenty minutes to shower, change, and brush the vomit from my teeth.”
She made a face. “I know I’m your best friend and all, but the oversharing is becoming too much. At least until this morning sickness has passed.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Angel had been having a rough first trimester of her pregnancy. Everything made her queasy, from the smell of perfume to the sight of uncooked meat.
She stood up, and before I could anticipate her move, she flicked on the shower, spraying me with ice-cold water. My shriek of surprise mixed in with the sound of her laugh as she darted out of the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind her. “You’re going to pay for that, Mrs. Winters!” I yelled after her, scrambling to turn the water to warm before shedding my clothes and tossing the soaked blanket over the side of the tub.
Angel only giggled harder. It was a nice sound. Something I missed. When was the last time I laughed?
The downtown shops of Spring Valley were mostly local businesses and specialty boutiques. If you wanted an Ikea or a Target, you had to travel to the bigger surrounding cities. We didn’t even have a Starbucks.
But we did have Sweet Sensations. And it was so worth the trip into town.
With our lattes and cheese Danishes in hand, Angel and I strolled down the sidewalk toward the only baby boutique in town. I was anticipating a day of oohs and aahs.
“How much longer until you find out the sex?” I asked like the impatient aunt I was.
“Two more weeks,” she replied, an excited grin spreading over her lips. “Travis and Chase are already taking bets. Emma’s putting together a small gender reveal party.”
A tinge of guilt speared my heart. I should be helping, baking cupcakes filled with either blue or pink frosting. That’s what friends did, but I’d been so self-consumed with my own problems and resentments, I hadn’t even known there was a gender reveal party to plan.
Where was my crappiest sister-in-law ever pin?
I might be fifty shades of screwed up, but Angel deserved every happiness in the world. She and Chase both did, which included me being the best goddamn aunt in the universe. This little baby might be my saving grace. It would be far healthier to focus my attention on her (Angel was obviously having a little girl) than to dwell on a past I couldn’t change or obsess over a dream that might not be anything more than my mind processing trauma. I couldn’t begin to understand what was happening in the underworld. Ashor had made sure of it, shoving and shutting me out. It wasn’t my world, and he had done something to protect me. The prince had made his choice, and it was time I accepted. Time I moved on.
That was what sane people would do.
I no longer felt sane.
“Are you sure letting Emma plan a party is a good idea? Her idea of a reveal will be shooting an arrow at a demon piñata.” Emma tended to be extreme… in everything. It was why she was my demon-hunting partner in crime. That girl’s aim was scarily precise.
“How did you know?” Angel teased, looping her arm through mine as we approached Little Bundles.
“Please. Emma thinks her bow and arrow should be incorporated into every part of her life. Some girls wear earrings or bracelets. Emma Deen accessories with a bow and a quiver.”
Angel chuckled. “Yeah, but it somehow works for her. She manages to make it look hot.”
Was that a grin on my lips? “My brother definitely thinks so.”
I tried to maintain a playful attitude as we browsed through racks of tiny soft pink dresses and baby blue little trousers. It was impossible to not get swept away by the booties, bows, and the smell of baby powder that seemed to cling to everything in the shop.
What good would it do for me to pine and worry about a demon I was likely to never see again? If I was lucky, Ashor and I might see each other four times a year, during the solstices and equinoxes, which wasn’t precisely relationship worthy. Four nights a year, and that was if we could find each other.
I could circle around the pros and cons on an endless loop, the scales tipped neither one way nor the other, leaving me feeling unbalanced. Something had to change. I had to change.
It was easy to say the words, even mean them, but to actually change… that was the difficult part. My mind continued to harp on Ashor and the dream, even as my arms were piled with gifts and trinkets that my credit card would groan about.
Shopping had always been my therapy. Some people paid to lie on a couch and unload their problems, their deepest, darkest secrets to someone with a degree framed on their desk. There was nothing wrong with that. I actually was a little bit envious of those people. But what worked for me was retail therapy.
Or, it used to work for me.
That little trick no longer seemed to quiet the noise in my head or the wisp of shadows curling in my blood, because after we left Little Bundles with packages in tow, that purged feeling I expected never came.
I stepped outside into the bright sun, inhaling the afternoon January air, but damn it all, my heart was still heavy, my soul still splintered. This feeling of being incomplete was never going away, not as long as Ashor and I were apart.
Damn him for altering my life forever.
Damn him for forcing me to live without him.
Damn him for being who he was.
Just damn, damn, damn.
Cursing Ashor was becoming my new favorite pastime.
“What are you going to do?” Angel
asked. My mind was elsewhere, as it had been most of the day.
“Huh?” I replied, tilting my head to the side so I could see her face. “What do you mean?”
Her pretty features grew serious. “About Ashor? I know you, Lexi. And I know you’re hurting and confused. I know what it’s like to be separated from the one person who is literally like your other half. You won’t ever stop thinking about him, so what are you going to do about it?”
Shrugging, I kicked at a rock, watched it skip out in front of us. “What can I do?”
“Bullshit. You’re fucking Lexi Winters,” she said fervently. “You don’t give up, not when you truly want something, and whether you are ready to admit it or not, you want him. Or at the very least, a chance to know if you want him. For Christ’s sake, you made it your personal mission to kill every demon who had a hand in Colin’s death. And you did and then some.”
“What are you saying? That I should go back to the underworld?”
“If that is what you want. But why does that have to be the only option?”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked.
“That we find another way to solve your problem. There has to be some way for you to be together without having to sacrifice your life.” Angel, the beacon of optimism.
I racked my brain for other answers and only came up with one that made sense. “You want me to break Ashor out of Hell?”
She lifted a brow, mulling over the idea. “If anyone can, it’s you. You’re a goddamn Winters. We don’t give up.”
The wheels in my head were already turning. Could it be done? It wasn’t just breaking Ashor out of the underworld. He was bonded by an oath to the Wild Hunt. I wasn’t even sure if him living in the mortal world was possible as long as the oath was in place. So the question was, could the oath be broken? There was only one way to find out.
Hell, yes, I was doing this. A slow grin spread over my lips. “This is why you’re my best friend.” For the first time since I’d come home, I finally had a purpose, a reason to live, to keep on fighting.
It wouldn’t be easy breaking him out of the dungeon his mother held him in, but I had the advantage of having spent time there myself.
We stepped down from the curb into the street, heading toward Angel’s car. We had parked near the bakery. “Obviously.” She followed up her statement with a big yawn, putting a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she apologized with a tired grin. “This being pregnant thing is really kicking my ass.”
I patted her slight belly. “Come on, Mama. Let’s get you home. Baby needs a nap.”
“Mama,” she echoed. “I don’t think I will ever get used to that.”
“It’s cute. You’re going to be the most amazing mother. How can you not be? You’re the freaking Queen of the Damned. Well, in the underworld, they call you the Queen of Inferno.”
She snorted, scrunching her freckle-dusted nose. “I’m not sure that is a good thing.”
We were only a few feet from Angel’s newly purchased mom car, a sleek SUV, when the back of my neck prickled like a thousand needles of ice jabbing into my skin, right where Ashor’s demon mark was. My steps slowed, and I raised my hand to my neck, wincing.
The sudden scowl on my lips didn’t go unnoticed. “Are you okay?” Angel asked, her eyes studying my face. “What’s wrong?”
I rubbed at my neck, trying to work out the tingle that didn’t seem ready to ease up anytime soon. Something was wrong. I scanned the woods across the street, looking for devilish red eyes, before moving to the buildings on the right and left. “I don’t know. I—” From the corner of my eye, I caught an odd movement in the shadows. Not in the shadows, but the shadow itself. It moved like a… shade? That couldn’t be? Could it?
What was a shade doing in the mortal world? Shades were restless spirits that dwelled in the darkness of the underworld and in the in between. If it was a shade from the Court of Darkness, I had to investigate. There was only one reason I could think for a shade to be hanging around the dark corners of Spring Valley. Okay, maybe two reasons.
Me. And Angel.
Both ideas turned my blood blue. “Angel. Go to the car,” I said tightly.
Her eyes whirled to where I was staring at the alley between two buildings. “What? Why?”
I shifted so my body shielded her from the shade. “Just go. And lock the door,” I replied, an edge working its way into my tone.
She crossed her arms, bags dangling from either wrist. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what is going on.”
I’d forgotten how stubborn she could be and was reminded of all the times my cousin was forced to throw her over his shoulder and physically remove this girl from danger. Looking at her now, it was hard to believe she had once been a fragile human. “Something Chase won’t like,” I said between gritted teeth.
“Lexi,” she said sternly, already getting that motherly tone of disapproval down pat.
It had been months since I’d actually fought a demon, but then again, I’d never fought a shade, so maybe the lack of practice wouldn’t be a problem. I consoled myself by thinking demon hunting was like riding a bike. The moves were ingrained in my brain.
Or so I hoped.
“Look, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I just need to make sure we’re not in any danger.”
“Should I call Chase?” Angel was a girl who could hold her own, but she also didn’t take chances when it came to those she loved. She left the crazy stuff up to my cousin to handle. He did crazy so well.
I shook my head, peering at her over my shoulder. “Not yet, just stay put. I don’t think it can attack us as long as we’re in the sunlight.”
Her brows drew together. “A demon? Since when did they adopt vampire traits?”
An image of a glittering Edward Cullen as a demon popped into my head. “They haven’t. Not a demon. I think it’s a shade.”
“Should I know what that is?”
With cautious steps, I walked closer to the alley, careful to avoid spots hidden from the sun. I wanted a closer look. With Angel here, it was best not to engage. I wished I had spent more time asking questions during my time in the underworld, learning about the Courts of Hell and all those things that resided within them other than demons, instead of simmering about how I would kill my mate or escape. In hindsight, my energy could have been better focused than stewed in revenge and bitterness.
If I had learned more, perhaps Angel and I would be better prepared for the shade stalking us.
I knew next to nothing about the restless spirit from Hell, other than it needed to keep to the shadows. Light was the only defense against a shade that I knew of. Dammit. What did it want?
Maybe I should draw it out into the sun?
Or capture it?
God, if I didn’t have the pregnant Queen of Inferno with me, I wouldn’t think twice about capturing the shade. The last thing I wanted to do was put Angel in harm’s way. So the capturing would have to wait. For now, I needed to get Angel to safety. That was my main concern.
My eyes narrowed in on the animal-like shadow, the way it slunk against the brick building, bending and stretching to test the boundaries. “Lexi,” the shadow whispered. It had no mouth, no face, no solid form. I didn’t understand how it was able to speak. Maybe it hadn’t spoken at all. Maybe its voice was in my head.
A cloud rolled in as I approached the sidewalk, blanketing the sunlight, and the shade made its move.
Fuck.
That was all I had time for, one quick f-bomb before the shade was on me, coiling itself around my body from head to toe until I was encompassed in a mist of darkness and frost. The air expelling from my lungs puffed in front of my face, and I comforted myself with the knowledge that the cloud would eventually pass, shooting beams of sunlight upon me. It couldn’t hold me forever. Whatever the shade had in store for me, I could take it.
“Lexi!” Angel shrieked, panic in her voice.
I threw out an arm, advising her to s
tay put and that I was okay, and tiny black flames danced over my fingertips. What the hell? I didn’t want her to come any closer to the shade, and nor did I have the time to dwell over the sudden display of… I didn’t know what was on my hand. Turning to the shade, I asked, “Why are you here?” It didn’t seem to be actually harming me.
Like smoke, the shade curled and churned over my body. “The prince sent us.”
Us? How many were there? “Why?” And which prince? It could just as easily be Soren that commanded the shades. The thought made my heart jerk in my chest and the flames of darkness lick brighter on my skin.
“To warn you. The queen isn’t finished with you,” it hissed.
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“He can’t protect you here,” it added, growing agitated, its form flickering.
“Tell your prince that I can take care of myself. This is my turf.” I also had about a hundred other things to say to Ashor, like how he was an asshole for sacrificing himself. How I would never forgive him for shoving me out of his life and for whatever weird darkness he implanted inside me. “Tell him—”
“A war is brewing. And when it begins, the havoc will bleed into your world. When the time is right, he will come for you. He will do what he can to shelter you from the aftermath.”
My pulse thundered in my veins. Ashor had found a way to communicate, to warn me. The thought ran laps in my head as the shade unwound itself from around me to skirt back into the shadows. “Wait!” I called after it, surging forward into the alley after it. “Is he okay? Is he safe?”
But it was too late. The shade had disappeared, and the dark flames on my fingers extinguished.
Shit.
I wanted more time. There was so much more I needed to know.
4
Every instinct in my body was telling me to chase after the shade, no matter that I didn’t know where to start looking. Or how to actually catch the damn thing. The alley before me was empty, and the shadows cast against the ground and the building didn’t move.
Yet, I continued to stare. Waiting. Hoping. Wanting.