Dead City

by Debbie Cassidy

  He didn’t speak. He simply carried me across the room to the sofa and sat with me on his lap, holding me, just holding me while I vented the grief and disappointment and hurt.

  Finally, the tears stopped coming. My throat was sore, eyes puffy, and shit, I’d snotted all over his shirt. I wiped at my nose with my sleeve. “I’m sorry. I messed up your shirt.”

  “Shirts can be washed,” he said. “Look at me, Echo.”

  I raised my blurry gaze up over his stubbled jaw and past his luscious mouth to finally meet his ice blue eyes, stunning in their intensity.

  “You’re hurting right now. I get that, and I can’t promise you that you’ll never hurt again, but I can promise you that I’ll always be here to catch you, and I’ll never, ever hurt you.”

  Every word was saturated with sincerity, but it wasn’t just his words. It was a sensation that looped between us. A bond that was like a thick silver rope winding around us and holding us together.

  He wouldn’t leave me.

  “Thank you.” I pressed my forehead to his jaw. “Thank you for staying.”

  His arms tightened around me. “Always, Echo. Always.”

  We stayed like that for a long while, until the sting of Finn’s rejection had dulled, until the heat of Lyrian’s body had found its way into mine, and until it felt as if he’d been born to hold me.

  I lifted my head to look at him. “What happened to no hugs?”

  He snorted. “I think we can make an exception this one time.”

  I awoke to a heaviness in the air and a silence, as if the world were holding its breath. The lamp was low, casting long shadows around the room.

  Hunter?

  He didn’t say anything, he didn’t move to brush air against my cheek, but I knew he was in the room with me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  For a moment my mind was blank. “Sorry?”

  “About the Lupin.”

  Finn … He knew about Finn. I’d asked him to spy for me. He must have seen something, heard something, but I was too weary to be mad at him. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Because obviously that’s my sole purpose.” There was an edge of bitterness to his sarcastic tone.

  He was right, he wasn’t my bitch. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  He was silent for a long beat. “I was … indisposed, and when I was able to come find you, it was too late. Finn had already spoken to you.”

  “I don’t understand how he could just change his mind like that? He was so sure we could be together, that it was what he wanted, and now … Fuck, why am I even telling you this?”

  “He loves you,” Hunter said. “But there are events unfolding in the nephilim chamber, issues between packs that could threaten the security of the Hive. Your hairy-faced lover chose to do what it takes to protect the Hive.”

  I shuffled into a sitting position and leaned back against the headboard. “What do you mean?”

  Hunter sighed. “Certain Lupin want to take charge of the Hive, they believe that the Lupinata should be ruling, and the only thing standing in their way is Finn’s pack and its alpha. The strength of the pack is its alpha, and Finn’s father is fading. Finn is the only Lupin in the pack with the same dominance level as his father. If he doesn’t take the reins, then Lupin who want to move against the council will use Finn’s pack’s weakness to their advantage and force everyone to join them in a coup.”

  The sting of Finn’s rejection suddenly lessened. He’d had a tough decision before him, and he’d made a choice, not for his own benefit but for the benefit of the Hive, and I’d … I’d been awful to him.

  I buried my head in my hands. “I fucked up.”

  “No,” Hunter said. “You were true to your pain. He’ll understand, and maybe you can even be friends in time.”

  He was counseling me. Not goading or making fun of me, but counseling. “You’re being nice again, and it’s freaking me out.”

  “It is? Maybe that’s my goal today. To freak you out.”

  No, this was something else. This was resignation, and while he was in this mood, it was my chance to ask him the questions that were bugging the hell out of me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me I almost died when I fell in the chasm?”

  This time the tension in the room was palpable.

  “You remembered?”

  “Not on my own. Deacon read my mind.” I let him mull this over, let him come to the inevitable conclusion.

  The air moved around me in agitation. “He knows about me?”

  “Yes, he knows. So, tell me why? Why didn’t you remind me what had happened?”

  “You never asked.”

  Oh, God, he was infuriating. “Why are you here? Why? I get someone bound you to me. I figured that out, and I get that you can’t tell me certain things, so how about we play a game. I ask questions, and you answer yes or no.”

  His anxiety was a ripple through the air. “Go on.”

  “Let’s start easy. Are you trapped in the Hive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you bound to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you be released?”

  “Yes, I told you that. I can be released if you die, or if someone from the bloodline who bound me releases me.”

  “But you can’t hurt me, can you?”

  “No.”

  My death would free him, but he couldn’t kill me. Ironic and cruel. “Do you have to protect me?”

  “Yes.” The word was a sigh of relief.

  “Who bound you?”

  “That is not a yes or no question, and unfortunately it isn’t one I’m permitted to answer.”

  Oh, shit. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

  “I could have told you that much? I could have told you that this—being forced to stalk you—is not fun for me.” Warm air fanned across my face. “I don’t enjoy our little chats, not one bit.” His voice was a purr in my ear now.

  The hairs on the back of my neck quivered. “Are you beside me? Let me see you again.”

  “I can’t.”

  His breath was on my neck now, as if he was leaning in close.

  “You’re lying. You let me see you when I fell in the chasm.”

  He let out a bark of laughter. “You think I did that? No. That was all you. You were close to death, and at that moment, I’d been close to freedom.”

  Oh, shit.

  “Yes, the taste of it was sweet,” he said. “So sweet, but then you looked at me, really saw me, and being seen after so long … That was even sweeter.”

  “No one else can see you? No one else can hear you?”

  Fingers brushed through my hair, sending tingles through me. “No one can feel me. But you do, don’t you, Echo?”

  My neck tingled in the wake of his phantom touch. “Why are you touching me? Why now?”

  “Maybe I’m sick of being alone … Maybe I’m sick of being nothing.”

  He was a shade, a soul without a body, but someone had taken away his ability to interact with the world. Someone had trapped him in a bubble that only my death could break. Someone had made me his sensory savior and his captor.

  “I’m sorry, Hunter. I truly am.”

  “You know what? I believe you. But the council will be gunning for me now. It’s only a matter of time till they find a way to destroy me.”

  “I won’t let them hurt you.”

  The words were instinctive, and once they were out, I found that I meant them. Really meant them. He’d been the annoying presence in my life for such a long time, but he’d also, like Emory, been a constant. I couldn’t let anything bad happen to him.

  “I … I do believe you mean that too.” He sounded thrown.

  There was nothing more I could glean from him. No way I could help him except maybe by just…being here with him? “I do, and since you’re stuck with me, would you want to hang out for a bit?”

  There was a stunned silence. “Wait, you’re not goi
ng to tell me to piss off?” There was mock horror in his tone.

  I stifled a chuckle. “No. Not tonight. Tonight, you can fill me in on the Hive gossip.”

  The air beside me shifted, and then the edge of the bed depressed as Hunter took a seat.

  “You want gossip?”

  I lay back down and pulled the covers up around me. “Yes, dammit, I want gossip. For example, is Harker as stuffy as she comes across? I saw Councilman Orin and Ryker in the kitchen the other day grabbing ice.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, Echo, you have no idea …”

  Chapter 18

  “So, where is Hunter now?” Deacon asked.

  We were seated in the guardian lounge opposite each other. Lyrian had been gone when I’d woken up, and the panic at finding his bed empty had been an overreaction that I’d probably have to get used to. This scalemate bond thing was going to take some getting used to. As it was, my dreams, when I had finally drifted off again, had featured snuggle time with Micha.

  “Echo?” Deacon frowned. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. He goes and comes as he pleases. It’s about the only control he has over his life.” There was bitterness in my tone on Hunter’s behalf. “Whoever did this to him had to have a cruel streak. It’s inhumane. Everyone needs social contact. If no one sees you, then you truly disappear.”

  Deacon’s jaw clenched. “The person who did this was trying to ensure that you would be protected. She sacrificed her life so that the Hive could survive an you could be born.”

  He was speaking as if he’d known the person. Maybe he had? “You know who did this?”

  “I do. I knew her well. I loved her. She wasn’t cruel. She was kind and generous.”

  Oh, God. “Marika?”

  He began to speak, filling me in on his mind dip with Harker, and when he was done, it was my mind that was reeling.

  “I believe the Patch family shares a family tree with Marika,” he said. “I believe that she bound Hunter to this place to protect you. I have no idea what kind of binding she used or how she could have ensured he found you—that’s something only Hunter can tell us, and according to him, he’s bound not to say.”

  But there was something here, a key, a clue in all that he’d just told me. I just needed to work it through and—It hit me like lightning, stealing my breath.

  “Echo? What is it?” Deacon sat forward in his seat.

  “I’m the bloodline.”

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “Hunter can be freed in two ways. Either by my death or by someone from the bloodline who bound him.”

  “Which is you …” Deacon rubbed his jaw.

  Excitement fizzed through my veins. “We can free him and get some answers.”

  “Or we could not.” Deacon’s eyes were slits of consideration. “Marika bound him for a reason. She chose him for a reason, and the binding is harsh, so there must have been a purpose for it. If you set him free, you set a shade free in the Hive. He hasn’t taken a host, which means he’s unable to, which is probably part of the binding. Freeing him could result in him turning on us. You don’t know who he really is. All you know is the Hunter who was bound to protect you. He had no choice. And you were the only one he could interact with, so he had no choice but to use you to satisfy his need for contact. That will all change once you set him free.”

  Was he seriously asking me to do this? “You want me to keep him bound?”

  Deacon nodded. “It’s the wisest option … for now.”

  Guilt wormed in my belly. “I don’t know, Deacon. It feels wrong.”

  He blinked down at me.

  “What?”

  “You called me Deacon.”

  I’d been saying it in my head for so long and referring to him as Deacon to others that it hadn’t occurred to me that I hadn’t called him Deacon to his face.

  “Is that okay?” I winced. “You asked me to call you Deacon once.”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, it’s fine. You’re a guardian now.”

  What had we been talking about? Oh, yes. Hunter and Deacon’s proposal to keep him bound. Maybe he had a point about being cautious, but my instincts told me that Hunter wasn’t dangerous. He was bitter, but hell, who wouldn’t be in his situation?

  “I’ll hold off for now.”

  Deacon arched a brow. “But?”

  “But it’s my decision. He’s my … Hunter.”

  Deacon made a sound of exasperation. “Echo, I understand that you’ve become close over the years, but—”

  “No. This is not up for debate. If I have the option of setting a tortured soul free, then I will do it, but … I’ll wait for a few more days, maybe even weeks, just to make sure. I’ll spend some time with him and … And then I’ll make the decision.”

  Deacon rubbed his temples. “If you decide to set him free, I’ll have to inform the council.”

  “I understand, and you need to understand that if the council hurts him, then they’ll have me to answer to.”

  They were big words, and I probably couldn’t back them up, but I lifted my chin and gave him my best glare regardless.

  “Fine,” Deacon said. “We’ll do it your way.”

  He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “Now. I’ll leave you to pick up your siblings.”

  Excitement bubbled in my chest.

  “Enjoy the next two days, because once your siblings go back to Chamber H, we’ll need to prepare for delivery of the soul orb.”

  The bubble of excitement shrank.

  Deacon’s lips twitched.

  I planted my hands on my hips. “What’s so amusing?”

  He shook his head. “You truly have one of the most expressive faces I’ve ever seen.”

  I did? “Well, that would explain why I always lose at poker.”

  Deacon stepped closer and brushed a tendril of hair off my cheek. His aqua eyes were warm with humor, and our gazes locked for a long beat. The memory of his hands on my skin, of his mouth on my neck, shot through my mind. His eyes darkened, and his nostrils flared.

  “Echo?” His fingers grazed my cheek, sending a gentle heat skating across my skin.

  I swallowed hard. “Yes?”

  “Do you … do you hear her? Marika?” His gaze was troubled, stormy and confused.

  He wanted to know if his ex-lover was in my head? The voice … the one that urged me to fight, could it be her? “I don’t know. There is a voice that tells me to fight, and when we were at the Keep, in your room, I felt … things more intensely, but it was as if my emotions were mixed with someone else’s.”

  His breath hitched. “Marika.” He touched my face again. “That explains things.”

  Wait? “Explains what?”

  Guilt flitted across his features.

  And then it clicked. He was attracted to me, and he wanted to understand why, and now … he thought the reason was Marika. A mixture of emotions swirled in my chest—disappointment, annoyance, embarrassment. He didn’t want to be attracted to me. He was glad there was another reason? Was there? Fuck this.

  I grabbed his hands and pressed them to my head. “Look. Go on. See if she’s there.”

  He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, and damn, I was pissed off now. “Do it.”

  “I can only read memories, Echo.”

  “Well, if she’s inside me, connected to me, then you should find her memories mingled with mine, right?”

  His eyes lit up.

  “So, do it.”

  He closed his eyes and pain lanced through my head. I relaxed, allowing him in, opening my memories to him. Colors and images and places and conversations flitted through my mind as he riffled through all the way back to the moment in the chasm when I first heard her voice.

  He released me, his eyes dull. “Nothing.”

  Even though my heart ached for him, it also ached for me, because damn, I’d thought … I’d thought we were getting close. Really close.

  “I hear a voice, Deacon. Tha
t’s all. But your ex-lover isn’t inside my body. She isn’t even in my head most of the time, so if you’re attracted to me, then, unfortunately, that’s exactly what you’re attracted to. Sorry to disappoint.”

  Lyrian chose that moment to enter the room, and Deacon took a deliberate step away from me.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of days.” He nodded in the Draconi’s direction. “Lyrian.”

  And then he left.

  I exhaled heavily. Fuck this shit. Fuck Marika and whatever she’d done. But it was a relief to have it confirmed that despite the changes the arcana had made to my soul, I was still me.

  Lyrian tracked Deacon’s exit and then fixed his glacial gaze on me.

  “Where did you go?” The question was out before I could stop it. Damn it, now I sounded like a jealous girlfriend.

  But the small smile on his face told me the inquiry pleased him. “Did you miss me?”

  “Yes, actually, I did.” I rubbed my chest. “It was like some weird-arse heartburn when I found you weren’t here.”

  “You came into my room?” He was getting closer.

  “No, I just peeked in.”

  “And if I’d been there?”

  What would I have done? An image of me slipping into the bed with him filled my mind; it was vivid and so real. Wait, had it happened?

  Lyrian was staring at me, frozen in place.

  Shit, had he … had he seen that image?

  He dropped his gaze. “What are your plans for the day? I checked in with Harker, and they don’t have need of me today.”

  Okay, so we weren’t going to discuss the mental image. I could live with that. “Actually, I’m about to pick up my brother and sister from Chamber H. They get to come and stay for a couple of days.” I grinned at him. “You want to come with?”

  The ice in his eyes warmed, and it was like the sun had come out from behind a storm cloud. “I’d like that, or I could stay here and source some entertainment. Books, and maybe some board games?”

  Oh, crap, I hadn’t even thought of that. The kids would need stuff to do, and it would save me lugging a ton of activities across the Hive. It was sweet that he’d thought of it.