Bound by Danger (The Alliance, Book 6)

by Brenda K. Davies

  The demon’s thin lips skimmed back as it bared its hooked fangs and started making a strange sound while its body shook. It took Lucien a minute to realize the creature was laughing.

  Little unnerved him, but that laughter sent a chill down his spine. He had no idea what this monster found so amusing, and he didn’t want to know. He suspected he wouldn’t find it anywhere near as funny.

  He held the creature’s gaze as Callie’s fingers bit into his back. It was the only reaction she had to the monster’s amusement, but Lucien sensed her distress and sought to calm it by reaching through their newly formed bond to comfort her.

  Callie forced herself not to run from the room as the monster continued to stare at them while it laughed. She didn’t want to back down from this thing, but her gaze inadvertently darted toward the glass door and the women beyond. She wished she’d never entered this room.

  Lucien had warned her about this creature, but she still wasn’t prepared for it. She had no idea what she expected before stepping inside here, but this wasn’t it. He’d told her about its appearance, but she’d still been envisaging something more like a vampire.

  Lucien had told her how vampires came to walk this earth, but this thing was about as far from a vampire as it got. She felt sorry for the humans who mated with these things to create the hunter and vampire line. There was no way that joining was consensual.

  This thing was worse than any painting or story she ever heard about Hell, yet those things hadn’t prepared her for this. This thing needed to die. She didn’t know why they’d kept it alive this long.

  “I’ll take you outside,” Lucien offered.

  She didn’t argue with him.

  Lucien led her past the chained monster and toward the glass door. When he slid it open, she almost ran outside, but she managed to keep herself controlled.

  The salty air hit her, as did the spray from the sea. Eagerly inhaling the fresh ocean air, she closed her eyes and savored the warmth of the sun spilling over her while she tasted the salt on her lips. It had been far too long since she was near the sea, and she relished the healing properties it emitted as she listened to the waves lapping against the shore.

  Opening her eyes, she turned back to the room. Her eyes widened when she saw the creature’s back through the slats of the chair. Red and black coloring ran down the length of its spine. The small capillaries branching out in hundreds of different directions from that spine entwined through its skin before vanishing beneath its flesh.

  Callie almost ran across the sand toward the others as she sought to flee this thing, but though its back was to them, she sensed it would somehow know she’d run from it. She wouldn’t give it another reason to laugh.

  She wasn’t a coward, but she never wanted to be close to anything like it again. Unfortunately, Callie didn’t think she’d have a choice; she was determined to be a part of this battle, and that meant she would encounter demons and Savages again.

  She didn’t want to back down from that thing, but she’d just become a vampire; she would give herself some time to adapt to her new world before plunging into it.

  Lucien kissed her forehead as she settled into an empty chair at the table. He kept a smile in place and didn’t raise a hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s burning rays. She would only become concerned if he did, but its rays stung his skin and eyes in a way they never had before he killed Carter.

  However, he would gladly take the uncomfortable sensations, and more, if it meant keeping her safe from assholes like Carter and Yannis and it would eventually fade.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he promised.

  Callie smiled reassuringly and squeezed his hand before releasing it. When she turned to watch him stalk back to the room, guilt tugged at her, and she almost rose to follow him.

  He shouldn’t face this alone, but he wasn’t alone. He had his brothers with him, and he didn’t want her there. It would only be worse for him if she went after him.

  Burying her guilt, she turned to face the other women and smiled as Kadence leaned over and rested her hand on top of Callie’s.

  “Are you okay?” Kadence asked and squeezed Callie’s hand before releasing it.

  “Yes,” Callie assured her before turning to Simone. “Lucien told me what you did. Thank you. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

  Tears clogged her throat and burned her eyes as she pondered what almost happened, and what would have happened to Lucien if she died. She blinked them away. If she started crying, she wouldn’t stop, and now was not the time to become an emotional mess.

  Simone’s pretty green eyes danced as she grinned at her. “I’m glad I could help.”

  Settling back in her chair, Callie stared across the smooth sand to the flowing ocean. Usually, the briny scent of the sea and the soothing rhythm of the tide calmed her, but she couldn’t find any tranquility with that thing so close.

  She turned to look back at the room.

  “He’ll be okay,” Elyse said.

  She faced the women again. “Will he?”

  “They all will,” Kadence assured her.

  “That thing….”

  “It’s awful,” Elyse said when Callie couldn’t say anything more.

  “It’s almost over,” Simone said.

  “I hope so,” Callie murmured.

  “We have to leave here soon,” Vicky said.

  Callie seconded that sentiment; she wasn’t in a rush to die… again. She looked down at her chest, but her blue T-shirt covered the hole in her still healing flesh. She wanted to go home, heal, and spend time with Lucien before he plunged back into the war he’d waged for centuries.

  And he would return to it soon. He’d spent far too much time away, regaining his strength and healing from his imprisonment.

  But he was healed, she was a vampire, and they were mated. Now, nothing would hold him back, and once he returned to the war, she would spend her nights worrying about him. However, that was a concern for the future.

  First, she had to get out of here. She tried not to let her imagination run away from her, but she couldn’t help picturing more of those hideous monsters creeping through the sand toward them.

  She tilted her head back and closed her eyes as the sun warmed her. They wouldn’t come here in the daytime, or at least the demons and the worst of the Savages wouldn’t. They still had time, and they would be out of here soon.

  CHAPTER 48

  Lucien returned to the room and closed the door behind him. He glanced at the others who remained stone-faced as they stared at the demon. Their faces were pinched, and their eyes remorseless.

  He didn’t know what had happened in this room or what they did to this creature, but it hadn’t been good.

  “Did you learn anything?” he asked.

  “Only that this thing doesn’t tan very well,” Saber said.

  “It hasn’t revealed anything to us, but for all I know, it might not speak any of the languages of Earth,” Ronan said. “However, I suspect it does, and it’s just refusing to answer our questions.”

  “Which is amazing, considering….”

  Willow’s voice trailed off as she stared at the demon, but Lucien heard what she didn’t say… considering what they’d put it through.

  Declan’s gaze traveled to the door behind Lucien as he removed a lollipop from his pocket. He stared at it for a minute before returning it. “We have to leave before the sun sets. We’ve already spent too much time here.”

  Lucien agreed with that.

  “We have to see if we can learn more from it,” Killean said.

  “It’s not going to reveal anything to us,” Declan said. “Other than what it already has.”

  “And what has it revealed to us?” Saxon asked. “This thing hasn’t uttered one word or sound since we put it in this room.”

  “Do you sense anything from it?” Ronan asked Declan.

  “No, it’s like a wall in that way. I’ve never encountered anything like
it before. However” —Declan flicked a glance at Willow— “before we arrived here, it revealed it wanted the sword and believed it could call the weapon to it. Which means that, at one time, it could.”

  Fire shone in Willow’s eyes as she reached over her back to touch the hilt. “It tried to take it from me, but the sword wouldn’t go to it.”

  Lucien wasn’t sure how to take those words, and if the look on Declan’s face was any indication, he didn’t like hearing them.

  “How do you know that?” Nathan asked.

  Willow focused on the demon as she pulled the sword from its scabbard. The rasp of the blade against leather was the only sound in the suddenly quiet room. She twisted the sword in front of her before resting it across her palms and holding it out.

  The light shining through the glass door caused the jewel in its hilt to gleam. It was a striking, well-crafted weapon, but no human or vampire had forged it, which made it an unnerving mystery.

  The way Willow handled it with such ease made him glad she wasn’t his mate. He’d hate it if Callie wielded that weapon. The sword was a powerful weapon for their cause, but he was sure Declan would prefer to see it destroyed; they all would, except for Willow, who had forged an attachment to it.

  More frightening, it had formed an attachment to her.

  A muscle in Declan’s jaw twitched as he stared at the sword. Lucien wondered how many times his friend had considered destroying it while Willow slept. If it wasn’t such a powerful weapon against their enemies, and if it wouldn’t piss her off, he suspected it would be scrap metal already.

  “I felt it. The sword reacted to the demon when it tried to take it from me, and he tried to take it by using his mind. Which means they have or had the ability to do such a thing.” Willow lifted her head and leveled the demon with a look that would have made most men cower. The creature simply gazed back at her. “It failed.”

  “It would seem they only have that ability on certain things, and maybe they only ever had it on the sword,” Declan said. “Otherwise, these demons would call weapons to them all the time, and that didn’t happen when we fought the one in the tunnels.”

  “It didn’t happen when we fought this thing either,” Killean said.

  Beside Lucien, Saxon shifted uneasily and glanced out the door at the women. Lucien sensed his need to go to Elyse, and Lucien felt the same pull to Callie. He almost sought her through their newly formed bond, but she couldn’t know how much he despised being in this room; it would only upset her.

  Ronan rested his hand on the demon’s shoulder. It felt like a spider skittered up Lucien’s neck as he recalled touching the monster. He knew how clammy it was, but Ronan did not indicate that the unnatural feel of the thing bothered him.

  “What is that sword?” Ronan demanded as his fingers dug into the demon’s shoulder, and Willow returned the weapon to its scabbard.

  The creature released another gurgling laugh as its eyes remained focused on Willow. Over the next hour, they took turns doing what they could to get it to talk, but when it wasn’t laughing, it watched them with hate-filled eyes. Throughout it all, it never spoke.

  Lucien had always enjoyed the battle and destroying things, but he’d never been one for torture; none of them were. Sometimes, it was a necessary evil, but it was one he preferred to avoid. He couldn’t wait to be free of this place so he could shower before pulling Callie into his arms.

  After another hour passed, Lucien stepped away from the creature and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “This thing isn’t going to tell us anything.”

  The demon chortled again, and Lucien backhanded the thing before stalking away to stand by the door. The demon’s laughter broke off for a second before becoming louder. The sound was worse than a dozen people raking their nails down a chalkboard.

  Lucien stared at Callie as he worked to calm his turbulent emotions. He wanted to give her a life filled with love and laughter, but as long as these things roamed the earth, that would never happen.

  “We did learn something else about it before you arrived,” Ronan said.

  Lucien turned away from the door. “What?”

  Ronan nodded to Saber, who stood behind the chair. Without a word, Saber lifted the chair and walked over to set it at the edge of the sun’s rays.

  The demon hissed in a breath as its skin instantly started to smoke and flames blazed to life. Lucien recalled how the body of the one they killed in the tunnels went up like it was doused with gasoline.

  This demon had the same volatile reaction to the sun. Savages caught on fire and burned, but it took a little time. This thing caught fire like a drought-ridden Christmas tree doused in gasoline and struck by lightning.

  Saber moved the chair out of the sun’s rays and set it back in the shadows. Logan lifted a burnt blanket from the ground and used it to smother the flames. The demon’s crispy flesh continued to smolder while it glowered at them.

  “Their tolerance to the sun is far worse than the Savages,” Ronan said.

  Lucien rubbed his chin while he studied the repulsive creature and pondered this. “The human part of our DNA protects us from the sun… until we start killing. Then, the more we kill, the more we become like them.”

  “It’s like killing strips the humanity from our DNA and leaves us more demon than human,” Declan said.

  “And the more we become like them, the more we gain some of their strengths, but also some of their weaknesses.”

  “Hence the Savages growing inability to tolerate the sun,” Ronan said. “And I suspect we wouldn’t be able to get this thing across a large body of water without inflicting a lot of pain on it.”

  “I’d love to see how it reacts to a crucifix,” Saber murmured.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have any of those lying around,” Saxon said.

  Logan stepped forward and crossed his index fingers one over the other. He held them before the demon who glowered at him. Logan shrugged and dropped his hands. “It’s probably not the same.”

  “Probably not,” Nathan said.

  “So, killing makes us more like a demon than a human. Of course, there are plenty of humans who enjoy killing too, but not like these things,” Lucien said.

  “The more innocents we kill, the more demon we become,” Declan said.

  “And this thing’s reaction to the sun is probably why they live underground,” Lucien murmured.

  “That’s what we assumed too,” Ronan said.

  So even if they still didn’t know what its intentions were, they had at least learned a few things about it. Capturing this thing hadn’t been a complete loss, but he wasn’t sure how what they’d learned would be able to help them.

  CHAPTER 49

  Lucien didn’t want to be fascinated by this creature or these revelations, but he couldn’t help it. For years, he’d questioned why killing innocents mutated and changed them into monsters in such a way, and now they were finally discovering some of the answers to his questions.

  The human part of their DNA gave them their humanity, but when the demon part of their DNA took over, that humanity vanished.

  “There’s also this,” Ronan said.

  He nodded to Saber again, who stepped forward, lifted the chair, and plopped it into the sun once more. A cry issued from the creature; it thrashed against the chains as its flesh sizzled again.

  Saber lifted the chair and returned it to the shadows as Logan once again doused the flames with the blanket. Shoulders heaving, spittle flew from the demon’s lips when it bared its fangs and jerked against the chains.

  Lucien was about to ask what else there was when Ronan turned the chair, and the demon’s back was to him. Its thrashing movements caused it to pull away from the chair and gave Lucien a good view of its spine through the slats.

  Lucien’s jaw almost dropped when he spotted the red and black color of the demon’s spine seeping across its back. That color, spreading throughout its flesh, changed it from nearly translucent to one filled
with red and black. He’d seen that same color do the same thing to his friends. He’d also seen it take over his body the other night.

  Lucien didn’t know what caused the color to emerge, or why it infused him with a rush of strength when it did, but it happened to purebloods when a need to protect their mate or rage consumed them. Seeing that color on this thing made him realize how close they were to the demon part of themselves.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “That about sums it up,” Nathan said.

  Lucien glanced back at the door as the sun dipped toward the horizon. They still had a couple of hours of the day left, but it was slipping away too fast.

  “This thing isn’t going to tell us anything more,” Killean said.

  “So, what we do?” Willow asked.

  “We destroy it,” Logan said.

  “It’s time,” Ronan said.

  Saber gripped the back of the chair but set it down again when Ronan lifted his hand to halt him. Ronan turned to Willow.

  “If you’re up for it, I think we should see what the sword will do to this thing,” he said.

  Willow pulled the sword free again. “I’m up for it.”

  Declan stepped in front of her when she started toward the demon. She stopped before she walked into him and lifted her chin to gaze quizzically up at him.

  “Wait a second,” Declan said. “You have no idea what will happen if you use that sword against it.”

  “And that’s why I have to do this.”

  Declan glanced at Ronan before focusing on her again. “No, you don’t.”

  Lucien lifted his eyebrows at Declan’s blatant disregard for Ronan’s suggestion, but he didn’t blame him. He wouldn’t have allowed Callie to take such a risk either, and Ronan had left this decision up to Willow.

  Willow rested her hand on Declan’s arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Yes, I do, and you know it.”

  Declan glanced between her, the demon, and back again. “Willow—”

  “You don’t have to watch, but you know this has to happen. I was given the sword for a reason; we’ve discovered some of that reason, but we have to learn if there is more to it. If it works against demons, like it works against Savages, that means it’s a more powerful weapon than we realized. These demons are stronger than us, Declan; we need this.”