by Jenny McKane
The words didn’t seem to have much of an outward impact on the team, but they weren’t throwing her out on her head. Gabriel and Metatron looked at each other before exchanging glances with Eli.
“Sunny, this could go terribly,” Metatron said. “What are you thinking?”
Sunny’s mind was a mess.
She’d wanted to kill Gideon for weeks now and it had been the only thing pushing her on through the healing and the headaches and the heartbreak. She had wanted nothing more than her moment to redeem not only herself for trusting him, but for loving him so openly. The narrative had been easy to cling to when he’d been a betrayer from the beginning, as Gabriel had suggested. The Gideon who’d planned on double crossing them from the moment he stepped across the portal from Hell back to the mortal realm was an easy one to hate. The Gideon that Selah was painting a picture of was not easy to hate.
It brought forth more emotions and feelings that she hadn’t unpacked yet.
But an answer was needed and she knew that if they didn’t move quickly, the nox would take over completely.
If she were to help Selah, and Sunny hadn’t completely made up her mind yet, it would only be for the information they could get. It was the only reason, she kept telling herself.
“We need to do it,” she said after a long pause.
“No,” Eli barked, catching Sunny by surprise.
Sunny frowned at the man and his tone.
“First of all, I’m not asking permission. We all know how Selah plans to trap him—Plaxo will capture him using my dreamscape as bait. So it’s not your permission to give, Eli,” she said. “And second, we’re not trying to let him back on the team. Come on. He’ll be recovering in Hell during the battles and by the time everything is said and done, either we’ll have won and won’t need him or we’ll be dead and won’t care.”
Eli’s chest was heaving and it was obvious that he was having a hard time controlling his emotions.
“Talk to me,” she demanded, but he didn’t.
He spun and stalked away toward his trailer.
Son of a bitch.
Sunny took after him like a shot before he could get too far and he stopped between two motorhomes, turning on her and getting in Sunny’s face.
“Stop stomping off like a mad little girl,” Sunny hollered at him and she could tell by how red his face was, that he was pissed.
“I’m not stomping off, Sunshine,” he snapped back. “I’m leaving before I say something or do something that I regret.”
Sunny swore at him.
“You’re full of shit, Eli,” she said, jabbing him in the chest. “Say what’s on your mind.”
She watched her friend struggle with his thoughts for a moment before his dark eyes snapped up to hers.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “He hurt you and he doesn’t deserve to get near you ever again and every time I look at you, I can tell you’re either thinking about him or reliving the moment he betrayed you. Your heartbreak is that obvious and it’s a twist of a knife in my gut. I fucking hate seeing it.”
She frowned.
“What does my grief and pain have to do with you, Eli?” she asked. “You’ve got more of both than all of us combined. Why can’t I have time to process mine and move on?”
He swore and stabbed his hand through his hair.
“You make this so fucking complicated,” he said, mostly to himself.
He was staring at his feet now and gone was the overly self-confident badass who could crush an opponent with little effort. In his place was a panicked, twitchy ball of anxiety that Sunny could hardly recognize.
“Eli, seriously,” she began but was cut short.
His eyes were on hers again and time slowed down as he moved forward into her space, his large, muscular body pushing her back against the side of the motorhome behind her. Sunny’s eyes widened as he crowded her body against his and pinned her there.
In her mind, her crowded, panicky mind, she knew what was going on. She knew what was going to happen next, but her mind and her body weren’t connecting well.
Eli licked across his lips and lowered his face slowly towards hers, giving her plenty of time to do something, anything, to stop him. But she didn’t. She blinked at him, unsure of what she was feeling in this moment—a galvanizing moment that would definitely mark a “before” and an “after” between the two of them.
Seeing no opposition, Eli moved his warm lips over hers and closed his eyes, nipping at her lower lip.
Frozen, it took Sunny a few moments longer to register that he was kissing her and she hadn’t closed her eyes yet. She snapped them shut and let the connection happen, feeling for the energy and the sparks and coming up a little short. Sure, her heart was racing and she was flattered that Eli was letting her know how he felt without using the words, but she was also aware of the fact that he trusted her on zero decisions and it soured the kiss just a little.
He had his hands in her hair and tilted her head to the side, just so, and slipped his tongue past her lips, probing and testing.
He was all man. Masculine and pushy and territorial and she responded the best way she could and hoped that she wasn’t mucking it up. With Gideon, there hadn’t been any need to think or rationalize her actions. They’d come so naturally.
But with Eli, she had to walk herself through each step of the kiss and hope that she wasn’t being awkward.
Eli finally broke the kiss and put both of his hands on either side of her head, resting against the motorhome behind her. His chest was rising and falling rapidly and he looked like he was having a hard time pulling himself together.
Sunny, well, she just felt scatterbrained and a little guilty for being so curious and letting it go on so long.
“I can tell,” Eli began, his voice full of emotion, “that even when I was kissing you, even when our bodies were pressed up against each other like this, that he was on your mind. You can’t deny it, can you?”
Sunny didn’t want to lie to him. She also didn’t have to defend herself or feel guilty about her own confusing feelings.
“Eli, look—” she began but she saw the hurt on his face and knew she’d cut him by her inability to outright deny it.
“Don’t say anything, Sunny,” he said, stepping back and giving her space. “I’ve loved you from the moment we left the lodge in Canada. I knew it then and I should have said something to you then. I blew my chance then because it wasn’t right, but I’m not wasting anymore time. I love you, Sunshine Bonnard, and I’m going to prove to you just how right I am for you.”
With that, he stalked away this time and Sunny didn’t chase him down.
She stared at the ground where she stood, her head and heart both a mess.
Chapter Thirty-seven
With the help of Plaxo, Selah, and Asmodeus, they set the trap for Gideon the following night.
In deciding to do this, Sunny had effectively garnered the silent treatment from the majority of her team (all the non-demon members, at least), but it wasn’t something she was going to argue about, nor did she need permission.
There was too much at stake for this entire mission to let their misgivings and opinions sway her now. Gideon had information they could use. Gideon also had a right to live free of a nox, if it was possible—she’d grant him that, even if she swore she’d never forgive him for the words he said to her or how badly he’d hurt her that day.
Mostly, she found it impossible to forgive him for how foolish he made her feel, thinking everything he had said to her was real.
She pushed the thoughts from her mind and concentrated on falling asleep. They’d have to move fast once they got into her dreamscape because Plaxo was going to have to support having all of them in the dream and bouncing portals and consciousnesses to get to wherever Gideon was and drag him into Hell before he could resist.
Or before the nox could resist.
Selah was going to jump with
Plaxo to wherever Gideon was once Sunny had his mind trapped in the dream with her and they’d pull him through a portal as quickly as Plaxo could build one.
To say Eli was mad was an understatement. From where she lay in her own borrowed bedroom, she could hear doors slamming and cabinets rattling as he banged around the trailer. They’d refused to leave, even in protest, and Eli was going to watch over her while she slept, even if he disagreed with everything she was doing.
But he was learning, at least, that she wasn’t someone to order around.
She fell asleep quickly thanks to Plaxo pulling her under with a little dream demon magic. Sunny knew it wouldn’t be hard to find Gideon if he’d been keeping tabs on her emotions—they’d spiked quite a bit over the last day and it was probably a beacon for both the man and the nox.
Gideon’s presence was just beyond her dreams, just beyond her consciousness, and using Plaxo’s technique, she reached out and pinged him with her emotions and felt him latch on immediately. She wasn’t sure it would be so easy—she’d never sought him out like that before—but was relieved when he appeared in front of her.
His face was unreadable and just a little scary with the dark shadows under his eyes and his sunken cheeks. Gideon’s tawny hair was even longer than before and the stubble on his cheeks thicker. How close was he to losing out to the nox?
Eyes taking in the lack of scenery, he smirked.
“No fancy parlor tricks for me after that cabin I built for you?”
Sunny swallowed hard, doing her best to keep her face unreadable. She needed him to stay in the dream with her long enough for a strong soul imprint to form so Plaxo could trace himself and Selah to Gideon’s location quickly.
“You’ve been looking through my memories, haven’t you?” she asked. In the dreamscape, she could sense his presence among her thoughts and memories, like a frequency that was different and not hers. It wasn’t unpleasant or threatening, not yet anyway, and was easy to pick up on.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said coldly. “You’re a means to an end, Solomon.”
It was hard to know what he was doing in times like this when he got cold and detached, but Sunny had assured both Plaxo and Selah that she wouldn’t get taken in by his game. That she’d remain aloof and let his banter continue as long as it took for them to get a read on him fully.
“I agree,” she said simply. “You just seem to spend a lot of time in my head, that’s all, Gideon. Why is that?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, likely noticing the change in her demeanor. It’d been happening slowly over the past couple of weeks, this hardening of herself. She spoke first more often, took control of conversations and refused to let the archangels or Eli derail her conversation. Gideon was likely noticing her command of her own space, which hadn’t always been there in the past.
When he didn’t answer, she pushed again.
“I got the answers I needed to Death’s identity,” she pushed. “Did you know that?”
Plaxo had said she needed Gideon to have some sort of emotional response to her for the imprint to be strongest. She was trying to push him into conversation but he wasn’t taking the bait so easily.
“I saw,” he said. “Figures you’d be gullible enough to be betrayed by your own brother.”
It stung, but she could see from his eyes that he really didn’t mean it. Gideon was obviously trying to keep her at arm’s distance. He was trying to put on an act, but it was still Gideon on the other side of his eyes. The nox was buried in the back a little. Good.
“Yeah, stupid me,” she said, trying to act flippant despite the sting in his words.
He was still aloof. Sunny had to try harder.
“Check in on my memories today, Gideon? I’ve got quite the highlight reel for you.”
His eyes widened a fraction when she said it and she knew she was on to something.
With a glance over her shoulder, she projected her encounter with Eli over her shoulder, surrounding both of them with the moment Eli kissed her and she kissed him back.
Sunny made sure it was a movie with no sound, however, because she didn’t need Gideon knowing that he was still on her mind and that Eli had called her out on it. It would ruin the mood she was trying to set here.
His lips went then as the memory played out around them and Eli pushed her back against the motorhome.
Sunny understood that she was probably playing with fire and that the demon and the nox within him could very well snap if she pushed too hard, but she needed him to fire up just a little.
Gideon had his eyes on the memory and Sunny had her eyes on Gideon, watching his hands clench into tight fists as he realized what was about to happen. He saw Eli gazing at Sunny’s lips and lowering his head to hers.
She was worried that he might turn away and refuse to look, but it was highly likely that the nox was more alive now than it had been earlier thanks to the high levels of jealousy that Gideon was likely experiencing.
“Good for you,” he said bitterly, but he didn’t take his eyes off the memory.
He was glued to it. This was good. Not only was Sunny getting a small amount of petty revenge on her first love, he was likely giving Plaxo one hell of a strong imprint to follow.
“It was good for me,” she whispered slyly.
She didn’t really mean it—the kiss with Eli had been lacking spark and passion, but Gideon didn’t need to know that.
His eyes jumped to hers then and she saw them flash demon—not nox, but demon. The part of Gideon’s soul he’d inherited from his mother. The part of his soul that was possessive and passionate and reckless about what it wanted.
At that point in the memory, Sunny had started to kiss Eli back just a little—the point where she was exploring just what her feelings about the man were. In the memory on display, her hand slid to the back of Eli’s head and gripped his hair—a move that she’d done on Gideon plenty of times and one he probably recognized.
She was starting to feel a little sick about it, the swirl of emotions in her own gut churning as she recalled plenty of make-out sessions with Gideon that had been so much hotter, and emotional than the one they were both watching.
“He loves me,” Sunny pressed on. “Told me so. Didn’t take long, did it? You’ve only been gone a couple weeks and he’s already moving in to replace that tiny part of me that you occupied.”
Lies. They were all lies. Eli certainly wasn’t occupying the giant crater Gideon had left inside her.
Talons were coming out of his fingers now and there was the tell-tale sign of the shadow skin starting to mist around his feet.
Oh, she’d hit the nail on the head with that one. He couldn’t control his emotions and it’d given the nox a burst of power.
Any moment now, Plaxo and Selah would appear and take him away, likely never to return from the demon realm. He’d need healing and recovery after being allowed to suffer this long, and that was assuming he survived the healing process. Selah had said the best thing for Gideon was to remain in the demon realm from that point on and learn to live with his own kind.
Sunny had to refrain from reminding Selah that he was only one-quarter demon because it didn’t matter. Perhaps Selah was right and the best thing for him would to be around demons who wouldn’t try to use him or who wouldn’t hate him for what he was. She swallowed hard, wondering if this was the last time she was going to see him.
“Will you miss the nox when it’s gone, Gideon?”
He stopped and blinked at her then, clearly confused. He shook his head and gave a humorless laugh.
“I think you got that wrong, Solomon,” Gideon said, only his voice was a little different. Lower, monotone, grating. It was the nox. It was pushing through thanks to the torrent of emotions she’d gotten out of Gideon. Good. “It’s the man that’s dying. Will you miss the man when he’s truly gone?”
Gideon closed his eyes and she saw the strain in his neck and down his body, rigid with tension. Moments late
r, he was back, his eyes and his voice back to normal.
“Don’t be stupid, Sunny,” he said, her name on his lips surprising her. “Don’t tempt the nox. Stay away from the both of us and don’t call on me again.”
He was shaking.
Just then, she saw both Plaxo and Selah appear behind him—he hadn’t noticed them yet.
“I truly hope you survive this, Gideon,” Sunny said sadly. “And I hope I never see you again.”
She didn’t mean it, but she needed him to stay away from the fight. He was too vulnerable to his father’s ambitions and too distracting for her. Her heart couldn’t bear another heartbreak from him and she refused to let it happen again.
He quirked an eyebrow at her before realizing they were not alone. Head snapping back and forth between Selah and Plaxo, Gideon took an involuntary step backwards, toward Sunny.
“What are you doing?” He was talking to Selah.
“Returning the favor, Gideon,” she said. She didn’t move, but Plaxo did. Gideon noticed and stepped back again. “We’re going to heal you. Remove the nox.”
Gideon’s hands were up instantly, and she felt the tug of him trying to leave her subconscious. Why? Was it the nox that didn’t want to leave.
“Don’t you dare,” Gideon said in his own voice. “Don’t do it, Selah, I forbid you. I have to finish—”
But Plaxo didn’t give him the chance to finish his sentence. In a flash, he was beside Gideon and with a simple touch of his hand, Gideon collapsed in a pile at his feet.
“We must move fast,” Plaxo said to Selah, who nodded. The dream demon gave a knowing look to Sunny, who nodded.
In the next moment, they were gone, leaving Sunny alone in her dream with a single tear rolling down her face.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Gabriel, Metatron and Eli knew what she had done and the next morning, none of them spoke to her. They didn’t spare her a second glance, either, though she knew it was killing Metatron. His tender heart wanted peace and unity on the team, but what Sunny had done by helping Gideon had caused a giant, jagged rift between them all.
