by Sierra Cross
The plain, but not for much longer, Caedis took the dish of blood and dripped it over the amulet. A plume of smoke rose and engulfed the beautiful, shirtless Omni. A shudder ran through him. Was it pain, or ecstasy? The Caedis lifted the amulet, on a new chain, and hung it on the shifter’s neck. Now pain registered across his face as the hot metal seared his skin. His hand jerked up toward his chest but stopped short of touching the blistering flesh. On the inside of his wrist was a tattoo that looked like a barcode. Weird choice of ink. What would make him choose that art?
“Your offering has been accepted,” the Caedis intoned and I saw that the burn had healed, almost instantly. “It cannot be rescinded.”
“The path has been made clear,” Tenebris’s voice boomed, filling the cave-like room. “The power that rises has no equal. Together we shall conquer realms.” His eyes scanned the group, like he was making contact with each being here. His lack of physical presence had done nothing to lessen his charisma. “This broken world needs us, my friends, more than it knows. The world needs a firm hand.” The crowd murmured its approval. “Not cowardice. Not mediocrity. Not worn-out ideas of ‘freedom’.” He spat the last word out, distaste twisting his lips. The sounds of approval grew louder with each expertly-timed pause. “The modern experiment has failed. Allowing humanity to do its own thing, accountable to no one, has led only to misery and stagnation. Deep down the people know it. Even the magicborn know the current world cannot hold much longer. Civilization, with its tidy gates and runes and laws, has emasculated them as much as it has crippled us. They’ll welcome our rise to power. Any resistance will be but a shallow theatre, like a beautiful woman playing hard to get. They’ll welcome us in their hearts.” The crowd was roaring now. “I will lead you to conquer our inferiors.”
Holy shit. That skinsuit wasn’t for the Caedis on this side of the Demongate. It was for Tenebris Stella.
Tenebris, who already had an army at his ready.
Who’d spent ten years perfecting his power in the Earthly Realm.
Who’d got a head start on a plan to expand darkness outside of this city.
Tenebris, who wanted me to be his evil bride.
I needed to get the fuck out of here.
“The way has been shown. Even now, the last piece of the plan comes into view.” His eyes fell to the beautiful Omni. “I’m glad you find him appealing,” Tenebris said, and the supporters in the audience looked confused.
I froze. Dear God, he could see me. The cloaking spell must not be effective across realms.
Tenebris pointed in my general direction and said to his second, “Ventus inimicus.” Without questioning, the Caedis at the front of the room took a deep breath and blew it out, aiming the unholy breeze right where I was at. As the air hit my cloaking bubble, I saw the bubble smolder and burn like a dry leaf in a fire. All eyes turned to me and I knew, without a doubt, they could see me.
Crap, crap, crap.
The demon next to me pounced into action, sending a blast aimed at my head. I leapt up, using all the guardian training I’d learned from Matt, and dodged the blast.
“Stop!” The room quaked with the force of Tenebris’s fury. “No one will hurt my queen!” My ears felt like they were bleeding from the force of his command. But the Neq’s wild eyes showed it was too frenzied to let the command sink in. It sent another blast whizzing by my ear.
The plain-faced Caedis looked on in horror. “No, she’s to be our queen!” Faster than any witch or warlock could, he conjured a green firebolt on his fingertips. Just as I was dodging another blast from the rogue Neq, the Caedis hurled his deadly fire at the impetuous demon. I realized too late the trajectory of the Caedis’s fire. I’d avoided the lower demon’s aim only to be scorched by the Caedis’s burst. It seared a deep gouge across the flesh of my shoulder. Where the Neq had stood, only a pile of smoldering dust remained.
Blood pounded in my ears, pain radiated from my arm through to my core. My burned flesh was fused with my ruined sleeve. Pain threatened to paralyze my muscles, I forced my feet to move backward. The hard lump in my abdomen pulsed as I tried to call my magic to my fingertips. Was it my imagination or was the pit lodged inside of me vibrating? Between the fear and the pain, no magic came.
“Let my second heal you.” Tenebris’s voice was full and sweet and urgent.
My eyes looked from his red, luminous skin to his intended skinsuit, to the amulet. I needed to get that fucking relic. I flinched forward and the Neq next to me did the same. With him being a realm away, Tenebris’s control of them was far from absolute. No way they’d let me walk out of here with it alive if I tried to boost that necklace. My brain made desperate calculations. Getting that amulet was the key to our coven’s freedom. But if I was dead—or worse, turned—what good would it do?
Live to fight another day. I took a step backward.
“Alix, your body craves to be one with me.” Tenebris’s words made me shudder. Scenes from my dreams—no, nightmares—flashed before my eyes. An unholy blend of shame, fear, and arousal overtook me. “It has been foretold. If your aunt, in her childish human jealousy, had not destroyed my human body, the prophecy would already have been fulfilled. But it’s just a matter of time until we are together. Joined as one,” he crooned. “Your soul belongs to me.”
His words hit too close to the bone. Images from my dreams were suddenly vivid inside me. Tears burned my eyes. Panic stole my breath as my feet pounded back up the tunnel. I stumbled along the rough path, skidding across the stone, my cheek and my palms scraping painfully. I bobbled up to standing and ran full speed to the exit. I yanked open the fire door and smashed the elevator call button repeatedly.
No one was behind me.
CHAPTER NINE
L ike a bullet, I exploded through the loading bay doors and half-stumbled down the dusty-smelling stairs. The heavy thud of footsteps behind me kicked my heartbeat into hummingbird gear, but I reminded myself no one was chasing me. The Neq security guard behind me kept his distance, as if to monitor me, not take me down. As I flailed and collided with Asher, the Neq watched with a neutral expression, tattooed arms folded across his massive chest. He was loyal to Tenebris, and Tenebris didn’t want me dead.
That Caedis’s plans for me made death look pretty good.
Asher threw out his hand like he was going to launch a firebolt at the Neq. I stopped him with a headshake. Whatever unholy truce we were operating under was fragile. No need to risk it.
“You good to go?” Asher asked.
“Yeah, fine. Let’s get out of here.” I tried to ignore the throbbing pain that radiated from my shoulder, where the demon blast hit me.
We hopped in the car and burned rubber flying out of the Millennium Dynamic’s parking lot. The pain in my shoulder was radiating outward, reaching for the top of my chest and around my back. As we raced through the empty streets, I started to give Asher the highlights of my demon-party crashing from the passenger seat.
The cave-like room, dimly aglow with green demon lanterns.
My aunt’s conspicuous absence among the rabid Tenebris stalwarts.
The Caedis anointing the handsome Omni—his future skinsuit—with the bloody amulet.
“So help me.” Asher’s hands clenched on the steering wheel. “Those demon bastards killed Marley, for some vampire trinket, and I’m going to make sure every one of them is turned to dust.”
“We’re one step closer to that now.” Gritting my teeth from the pain in my shoulder, I let out a slow breath. A cold sweat had broken out across my forehead. “I wish I could have found out more before I got uncloaked. But at least now we have something to report back to Bonaventura.”
“Dare I ask,” Asher said, “how you got uncloaked? And how you happen to still be in one piece?”
Trying to keep it together, I told him about Tenebris. About the window portal to the Demon Realm, which the exiled demon used as a video call to communicate realm-to-realm with his followers. And today—gulp—als
o with me. His “queen.” Somehow, he saw me as his. My willingness, or lack thereof, didn’t seem to factor into his plans. Wow, this pain was greater than any demon blast I’d had before.
Asher, who’d been driving and listening, grim-faced, exploded into a creative storm of curses. “Of course the bloody Caedis don’t care about consent,” he finished. “The bastards have always done whatever they wanted, and who. We’re all just so much meat to them. They see the Earthly Realm as their private hunting ground.”
I shuddered. “Thank God his hunting license has been revoked.” For a few decades at least, thanks to Aunt Jenn.
“I fear you still haven’t grasped the Jupiter-sized mass of a Caedis ego.” Asher’s bitter words made me wonder what other run-ins he’d had with Caedis in the past. “He may be stuck on the other side of the demongate, but I have no doubt he’s deluding himself that you’ll cross over to him. For the sheer honor of being his.”
“First, ew! Second, ew. Third…that’s not even possible, is it? For an earthly being to cross into the Demon Realm?” It was getting harder to form words.
“Not just any earthly being, but you could do it,” Asher said, clearly unaware of how much he was shocking me with this information. “At this particular Demongate only of course. Your bloodline helped create that ward; you could pass through it.”
“Good God. Well, obviously I would never…” I froze in silent terror. My dreams. Eric Starr. I wasn’t about to tell Asher about those dreams; a girl was entitled to some privacy.
The hot, dry air…had I been dreaming of the Demon Realm? Dreams weren’t real life, I reassured myself. I hated Tenebris. If he had some mystical dream-hold on me, surely I wouldn’t have been able to run from him today.
“No, obviously,” Asher said. “He already tried with you and you were strong enough to resist him. No, he’d go for lower-hanging fruit.”
“Callie.” She was of the coven bloodline too. “She’s already aligned with the dark. How hard would it be to woo her away from my aunt?”
“Not hard,” Asher said. “She’s a bitch.”
I wanted to protest, a gut reflex to protect family. But then I remembered, he was right.
It was getting hard to ignore the icy hot pain that burned in my shoulder. Cold sweat bled down my face and bloomed in my pits.
“You’re not looking so hot.” Asher took his eyes off the road and looked over at me. “Christ, Alix, that’s a Caedis sear. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not that bad.” My voice came out almost a whimper, fooling no one.
Anxiety knotted Asher’s voice. “The poison in that’s ten times more potent than a Neq burn.”
“That would explain why it hurts ten times more.”
His jaw tensed and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was. That it never would have happened if I’d been wearing a wardsuit. If we’d planned this mission right…instead of cowboying into the fray like we had a death wish. But all he said was, “We’ve got to get a poultice on it, stat.” Asher smacked his palm into the steering wheel like he was about to yell with frustration, then changed course. “I’m taking you to my lab—you know, your cozy corner. It’ll take a couple days for the herbs to get the toxin out, but—”
“Take me to Matt.” The words came out unplanned. Partly it was instinctive. I was hurt bad, and Matt could make me feel safe, just by wrapping me in his arms, in a way no one else could.
But it was more than that.
Magicborn weren’t supposed to be able to heal wounds. But the rare gift ran in a few witch bloodlines. It wasn’t possible for it to show up in guardians. But I knew from experience that Matt had it. Using the golden magic he so hated to let anyone see—the magic that he thought made him broken—he could suck the poison right out of a wound, inducing a blissful sensation that spread from the site of pain throughout the subject’s body.
“Just do it,” I said, before Asher could protest—and he was looking like he wanted to. “It’ll be faster, trust me.”
Asher raised an eyebrow, and I winced, knowing I’d said too much but hoping Asher would exercise the little bit of discretion he had and not bring it up with Matt. Matt was in such deep denial of his healing gift that he could barely even speak of it to me. Luckily, Asher didn’t press me on it. His face had taken on a dark look I couldn’t read. Maybe neither of us was looking forward to telling Matt about our reckless choices of the last couple of hours? Choices that led to my injury.
As much pain as I was in from the demon sear, facing my guardian’s disappointment was going to be much worse.
“Screw this.” By the time we reached the second floor landing, Asher had clearly had enough of knocking into me while trying to help me up the stairs. Asher’s long lean arms reached over to sweep me up.
Feebly, I batted his hands away. “That is totally unnecessary.” I didn’t want him—or Matt—to think that I was that bad off.
“Mmm hmmm.” Scooping me up, he took the remaining flight of stairs two at a time.
He banged on the door of the Air B&B, hard enough I was surprised the cheap thing didn’t just cave.
The door opened and Asher nearly bowled Matt over as he slammed me over the threshold. He set me on the couch, and Matt followed, speechless, his face contorted in disbelief.
“What the fuck happened.” My guardian’s voice had never been softer, or angrier.
“Chill.” I moved my face muscles in what I hoped was a close approximation of a sheepish smile. “Asher is overreacting. This isn’t as bad as it looks.”
“Overreacting?” Matt seethed. “You put yourself into a combat situation. Without your guardian.”
“Look, mate,” Asher said smoothly. “Before you go blaming Alix for this unfortunate mishap—”
“Blame Alix? Why the hell would I do that, warlock?” Crap. Was he going to pin this on Asher? I wanted to protest, but my stomach felt like I’d swallowed a jar of angry maggots. “She’s new to the world of magic. You’re a seasoned veteran.” Still shaking with anger, Matt paced the cramped living room like a caged lion as he made the—totally unfair—case against Asher. “Not a scratch on you. So obviously you let a novice witch go into harm’s way, undefended.”
“Let her?” Asher laughed mockingly, but I could tell Matt’s circling was rattling him. “Sorry, but have you met our Alix? Small girl. Dark hair. Natural born badass. The coven leader type?”
Matt’s arms folded across his pecs and stared him down. “Her leadership qualities don’t make her immune to danger. If anything, it’s the opposite.”
Was that how he and Asher thought of me, as some kind of natural leader? I listened from the couch, speechless—not to mention fighting to keep the contents of my stomach in place. The sickly sweat soaked my armpits and ran in rivulets down my back.
“You arrogant, self-righteous prick. A demon harmed her, not me, so why don’t you stop—”
“Because you two got in over your heads.” Matt was yelling now, or the closest thing to it for a guardian. “And one of you is experienced enough to know better.”
To my surprise, Asher hung his head. “Yeah. I know it.”
I held my breath, eager for Matt’s next words. Some part of me dared to hope that he would understand. Yes, we’d taken a gamble. But we’d had to act fast. And it was worth it for what we learned.
“Then you also know that you were irresponsible. Immature. And stupid.” So much for Matt understanding. “Instead of going off half-cocked, you should have waited—”
“For what, you to get over your sulk?” Asher’s sensual lip curled with contempt. “Wasting time is a luxury we can’t afford, and when shit got real you ran away. Literally ran. Cor blimey, guardians are brave.” Matt stood statue-still as Asher mocked him. “While you wrestled your inner demons, Alix and I had enough guts to face the real thing. Speaking of Alix, we should take care of—”
Matt’s left hook caught him squarely on the jaw with a shocking crack. Asher responded
with a shove that had to be magically enhanced, since it made Matt sail backward into the cheap end table.
The table smashed apart like it was made of toothpicks.
Well, there goes the damage deposit, I said. Not said. Thought. I couldn’t get words out. My saliva had turned to cotton. Acid churned in my stomach and my vision dimmed. The demon sear’s poison was hitting me harder than I wanted to admit, stealing more of my vitality. I suddenly felt like the toxin was overwhelming me. Help me. Heal me. I watched in panic as the two men I counted on most staggered and swayed together in a moody tangle of fists.
How could this be happening? Sure there’d been tension, but these two also balanced each other out.
As the poison invaded my cells, making me feel like I was rotting from the inside out, so many truths rose up in my brain. I wondered if this was what it was like when you die, the important questions of your life flashing before you? In that moment, I knew what I’d been too blind to notice. That my coven was more important to me than my bull-in-the-china-shop curiosity, than keeping my secrets—or Matt’s secrets for that matter. Secrets were tearing our coven apart. I couldn’t let that happen.
Nothing mattered more than our coven.
My resolve felt clearer, but the dark agony plaguing my body was all consuming.
Bile rose in my throat. Without warning, I retched a foul-smelling hot black liquid on the white lambskin throw rug. Both men stopped, all their intensity refocused on me now.
“I’ll take care of her,” Matt growled, out of breath from their fight. “Get out of my sight.”
