by Dany Stone
Even as the protests begin in the back of my head.
“We can’t.” I pull back just far enough to see his face. “We have to get above stage before—”
“Shut up.” He growls under his breath and pulls me back up against him. I feel his heartbeat thunder against my chest. I should tell him to let me go, remind him that we don’t have time for this.
But everything inside me begs for him to hold me closer.
For a touch I know I should pull away from.
His hands drop lower, his grip tightening until I’m pressed full against his length. And then his lips find me, warm, insistent, inviting. I close my eyes and kiss him back.
Welcoming his touch.
Welcoming the warmth of lust rising through me.
I need him closer, close enough for me to feel every inch, to touch the hardness pressed against me. I slide a hand down, teasing, and a sharp breath escapes him.
I press myself closer.
Just as the harness exit opens behind us.
A blood-stained scythe blocks our exit.
Four
KI
HAVOC PENITENTIARY
GUARDS’ QUARTERS
I awaken to the sound of Lux’s voice. So close I fear it will only be an illusion, a moment frozen and preserved from my dreams.
Again.
“Ki?” There’s nothing like the way she says my name. Like I belong to her.
Like she still cares.
If I keep still, maybe she’ll keep talking. Might convince me this is really happening.
“You’ve gotta get up. Your shift starts at one.” That rhythm to her voice, the Southern cadence that dominates her pronunciation —- so distinctly Lux it’s enough to make my heart do handstands.
Even though I know she isn’t real.
And the real Lux is dead.
A new insistency hardens her voice. “Security. At 1 o’clock. Are you up?”
I hate when she sounds like a machine. “Yeah. I’m up.” I sit up, rubbing at the stubble on my jaw, and in spite of all my internal warnings, I find myself looking for her. Searching for the familiar, warm shape of her in his bed. Her drowsy half-smile on the mornings when she discovered I was awake before her. The way she would invite me back into bed, covers thrown back, body exposed.
But instead my SAM — sensor activated monitor—blinks its lights through the dimness provided by my blackout shades.
11:50 a.m.
Plenty of time to get to my shift, if I can find a clean uniform.
Plenty of time to pretend she doesn’t consume my every living hour.
Teeth gritted, I climb out of bed.
“No change of plans?” Lux’s voice prods me gently, and I glance blearily to where she stands in the corner, illuminated within my SAM. Her smile — her face—her voice— all hauntingly real.
It’s hard to move when I ache like this.
Inside and out.
No matter how long I stare at her, Lux only continues to smile. Yet another reminder she’s just a screen.
And she hasn’t smiled at me like that for weeks.
You really need that reminder?
I stalk across the floor with new resentment, not even bothering to hook up phone. What does it matter if the stupid device is charged or not? No one ever contacts me anymore. Zilcho incoming calls except for work and persistent telemarketers.
Lux will never contact me again.
Get a grip, McAllister. Fuck, am I trying to sound like the world’s biggest asshold? Savagely, I pull yesterday’s uniform off of the floor and do a quick sniff test. Not too bad, if I run it through the steamer first. I prod open the steamer door. Shove the uniform inside.
And turn back to the video of Lux trapped in my SAM.
Watching me like there’s a way to change anything about this.
I would have set you free. The treacherous thought builds, rises, until it pounds through me with the steady cadence of a heartbeat. Fills my bloodsteam. It isn’t until I catch myself saying the words out loud that I realize the enormity of what I’m thinking. The danger. I steel myself against her smile, against the charm of her eyes.
A video that mocks the idea of trust.
Of morality and mortality and all the truths of the World Peace.
You should have trusted me.
I stare into her eyes until something inside me is charred and twisted and I can’t look at her any longer.
Can’t let the past keep replaying over and over again in my mind.
She left you.
Left you for her magic.
Her illegal friends.
Everything that will get her killed.
And kill my heart in the process.
My anger releases then and I realize I’ve been slamming the controller into the screen. Over and over until my hands throb and the anger inside me twists into a tornado of doubt and self-loathing.
You never were good enough for her.
Can’t even manage to keep her alive.
It isn’t until the controller breaks that the screen turns back.
I stand still and watches Lux’s smile disappear.
The same way she disappeared from my life.
And so you want to replay that moment over and over again?
No wonder my psychiatrist insists on debating my mental health.
I’m in the middle of changing into my uniform, mind carefully stripped of all thought, when my bedroom door slams open. With a vengeance.
Great.
Katch must have discovered another inconsistency in Unlocking a Fracture. Every morning my fellow guard goes through the same spiel: “Can you believe they keep airing mistakes like this? There’s no way they could’ve had that much power. Where were they drawing their source? From air? Dirt? What?”
“You could always stop watching it, you know,” I say, my voice coming muffled through the shirt. “What do you really expect from a drama?” I shove my shirttails under my belt and squint back to where I can see my replacement standing in the doorway.
Just watching me.
OK. A little weird.
“Katch. Get outa here.” I snatch my phone off of my smart table, my bloodshot gaze staring up at me from the sleeping screen. When I turn back, he still hasn’t moved. Hasn’t spoken. Just still watching me in that totally creepy, un-Katch fashion.
That. Is. It. I stride for the door, muscles tight with an all too familiar irritation. “Did you not hear a word I said?”
“I was waiting for you to listen to me,” a voice says from inside the doorway.
A voice that isn’t Katch’s at all.
Five
DAMIEN
“There’s only one way this can go, reaper.” The lights disappear abruptly, blotting out the couple visible only a moment before. The hiss eases from the harness from somewhere in front of me. Shifting, ever moving, so I can’t trace the source.
I turn in sync with the movements.
Prepared for any attacks.
And yet every sense inside me screams that I’m far from ready. A glaring reminder that I’m blinded by darkness, have no way of tracking them except by the woman’s voice.
They can see me whether it’s dark or not.
Feet land softly on the ground somewhere before me. A shift of movement.
And then the rush.
Cold steel stinging toward my cheek, a crazy-fast flash I barely duck away from in time. I slam a knee upward just as a figure jumps at me from the darkness. Manage to catch them mid-ribs, have the satisfaction of hearing their breath knocked out of them. For an instant, they stagger into the modicum of light and I catch a glimpse of the emblem tattoo between on her wrist: a snake entwined in a broken skull.
A King tattoo.
Why the hell would someone from HAVOC Pen be coming after me?
The figure backtracks, her body visible in the occasional light that breaks through her spell. She circles around me like a cat and I circle in sync, my scythe kept in front
of me like a talisman. It has no use against immortals like this one, except as a defense weapon.
I’ll do whatever it takes to get out of this alive.
“It doesn’t have to go like this, mortal.” Every word trembles on her tongue. Is she drunk with blood or magic? “Step away and let us pass.”
“Diverting quite a bit from your usual fare, aren’t you, bloodsucker?” I stay where I am. One hand on my belt in case she makes a jump for my throat.
“This isn’t a time for your petty little guessing games.” She moves in and out of the light, like a blade being drawn and thrust. Just unpredictable enough to set my adrenaline spiking.
A supernatural or just a mage for hire? I reevaluate my earlier guesstimate, a thousand possibilities spiking my brain. Judging by the shuffling of movement, there’s at least one more crawling on the ceiling above me, no telling how many more lurking in the warehouse, more reinforcements than I was expecting.
Bo.
Panic slams hard against my chest, hard enough to rattle me from my concentration. He has no reason to suspect the warehouse has been infiltrated.
“Fuck.” I shove the woman away from me, terror for Bo taking place over all other concerns.
But I’m not fast enough.
Her hands already around my neck.
Tightening.
“Aiden.” She growls the name like a command and the movement above me disappears in a rush of sound. Transforms into a soft thud as he lands behind me.
Surrounded by two of them now.
I just love my luck.
I kick a leg sideways, catching her in the back of the knee, and she staggers. Just long enough for me to duck away from her, already spinning when I hear Aiden move. He ducks away and the light vanishes with him. An elemental? Figures.
Footsteps thud beside me.
The woman rushing me, too fast to duck away from.
I twist slightly, breathing hard. Moved just far enough to the side to distract her from the reality of what I’m doing. She swerves to stop what she thinks is my plan to bolt.
And moves directly into the path of my scythe.
Nothing but the gurgle of blood and the burble of released magic.
As the tip of my scythe hooks into her neck.
A sudden cycle of lights sparking from the magic releasing from her veins.
Lights that travel up her body.
And up into the face of Lux Nightshade herself.
LUX
Fuck me.
Fuck me.
Fuckfuckme.
Magic drains from my bloodstream.
A liquid pool around my feet, cool, wild, unrestrained.
My entire body left aching in its wake.
Why in hell did I not see this coming?
I grab for the scythe in my neck, but not before the reaper rips it from my skin. The blade hisses with magic as he draws it back.
And the last of my strength disappears with my magic.
“Dove!” Aiden’s voice, an echo on the edge of my consciousness. My mouth is open, I’m screaming his name, but my voice is lost in the void rising inside me. My entire body trembling from the poison injected by the lethal tip of the scythe, all awareness fading into shadows and out of focus.
This is a dream.
You’ll wake up and he’ll be gone and everything will be back to normal---
“Nightshade.” The cold blade of the scythe hooks around my neck. Sends me staggering forward and into the reaper’s grip. “Under the sanction of all the gods of hell, I demand you accompany me to---”
A door slams at the end of the corridor.
A rush of voices and footsteps.
“Shit.” The reaper’s grip twitches against my neck and he pulls me back, too frantically for this to actually be an officially sanctioned arrest. The hilt of the scythe presses into my cheek. A blur of movement, dark shadows, raised voices shouting at us to get back.
I don’t need to see the grotesque masks to know a patrol of detectors has found us.
They traced you. Somehow they traced you and —
The reaper’s hand clenches around my arm, driving me back. By instinct, I find myself raising my arms, uncertainty bleeding into my panic. Behind me, there’s the dull thud of a body hitting the wall, Aiden’s raised voice as he fights back against the patrol. I want to turn around, scream at him to cooperate, but there’s no breath in my lungs. Nothing but the continual burn of fear.
I know what they will do once they discover the Shroud in my possession.
The blur of bodies stills, five bodies forming a wall around us, and the reaper draws me back against his body, muscular arms binding me against A demon guard drags Aiden forward from the wall, a cobweb of light cutting across Aiden’s face to reveal a bloody cut splitting open his lip. His gaze burns through me in an unspoken command to run.
Does he not realize I’m just as bound as he is?
“On the ground.” Greyson emerges from the main exit and his voice, dark and deadly as brimstone, sends an unwanted tingle between my legs. I strain against the reaper’s grip, but he holds me hard against him.
Nowhere for me to go as Greyson approaches. His sword, bright with flame, darkens his eyes with smoke, stripping them of all emotion. An empty, empty gaze relentlessly holding mine.
“Lux Nightshade.” He says my name quietly, a softly-whispered curse. “Some part of me truly isn’t surprised.” He touches the scythe-wound on my neck and my spilled magic wets his fingertips. Still holding my gaze as he brushes it away.
“Reaper. Release her.”
The grip around my neck tightens rather than relaxes. “I was sent by Death to bring her in. Whatever issue you have with her, take it up with him. Because I’m taking her with me.”
Shit. I should have known Death would catch up with eventually after that butchered Code Cerberus Raid.
I really should start keeping better tabs on all my enemies.
“Whatever his issue, it pales in order to my command.” Greyson crouches in front of me, studying my body in the sword light. He brushes his hands up my thighs, coming far too close to my throbbing center before moving up to my hips. His hands slide up and under my vest, a touch so warm and powerful that my body strains to meet it. One finger slides into my bra and when I look down, Greyson is looking up into my face. Studying me. I bite my lip, desperate to keep myself from showing any reaction.
From exposing all my vulnerabilities.
“Arms in the air.” He withdraws his hands from inside my shirt, still expressionless as he looks up at me. I want to do something ---anything--- just to give him a fucking expression for hell’s sake. Something that would have a chance at humanizing him.
The reaper behind me loosens his grip just enough for me to raise my arms. Keeps my body pressed tightly against his so that I’m aware of every twitch of his muscles and the hard length inside his pants.
Maybe he has his own reasons for not letting me go.
“Keep her there,” Greyson says, as if I’m capable of breaking free in my magic-weakened state, and the reaper grunts in response.
No other sound in the corridor as Greyson slides a hand into my vest.
Fingers curling around a Shroud.
As he draws it out and into his palm.
He turns slowly and a coldness sweeps around me.
Chilled fingers clutching around my heart. Cutting short my breath.
All my senses screaming as I hear Greyson snap a command to his men. “We have what we’re looking for. Let’s get them out of here.”
Six
DAMIEN
There’s no way in burning hell I’ll let them take her away from me.
Not again.
Not ever.
If they want to absolutely infuriate Death, they can find some other, more creative way.
Something that doesn’t involve the Shroud of Turin, of all the shitty artifacts, or bringing back the dead.
Death is so not going to be happy with my p
erformance tonight.
You’re not the only one, boss.
Greyson extends an impatient hand to me, the terse look on his face demanding instant obedience, for all the world like he’s some prick god of the universe.
Not today, angel.
I tighten my grip around Nightshade’s neck. “I believe there’s a saying about first come, first served?”
His nostrils flare. “I told you --- your rules do not apply here. Not in a situation this sensitive.” He moves the Shroud from palm to palm and I wonder if it burns his holy angel hands. Hope it sets you on fire, fucker.
I hold his gaze. “The shifter is mine.”
He turns away without seeming to hear me. “Bring the transport vans to the back entrance. We need to get them out of here before we do a full sweep.”
“Sir.” I step forward to block his path, pushing Nightshade in front of me. She squirms against me in a way that makes it increasingly hard to focus. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me. The shifter is my quarry and I’m not letting you---”
He cuts me off. “We’ll discuss this when we reach the pen.”
Merciful demons. He’s not even listening to me.
There’s nothing for me to do but wait as he shouts commands to his squadron, a dozen angels and detectors moving in every direction for every given command.
No matter what he says, I’m not letting Nightshade go.
LUX
“Any others here?” One of the shadowy figures beside me beams the light directly into the reaper’s eyes. scans the corridor with his light. Gives me an instant to scan the line of patrollers that surround us. No sign of Ias. Is she still keeping guard in the warehouse? Or has she too been spotted and taken?
My unease rises.
“I have the one I was looking for.” The reaper holding me shove me relentlessly forward. “Just let us out of here.”
“Yeah.” Greyson cuts him off without looking back. “Not happening.”
