by Mina Carter
The bats didn't matter if they couldn't get to the geyser. Who gave a shit about a few hundred venomous bat bites? Child's play compared to what was coming for them.
Catherine sprinted hard beside him, somehow keeping pace with him even though he was running all out. Together they ran, side by side, as the terrain began to angle downward. Their feet pounded on the ground, and he didn't need to look down to know that the rock was turning to charred earth, tainted with blood, bones, and carnage…much of which he was responsible for.
The tunnel began to glow with a faint orange light, indicating that the army was getting close, and Ryland swore. "Faster!" he yelled.
The penetrating din grew louder, and Ryland felt the sharp bite of a cold wind slap at his neck. He didn't waste time turning around. He knew what was behind them. Only yards back. But they were almost there. Don't look back. Just run right through the geyser.
Okay.
They skidded around the corner, and in front of them was a monstrous geyser, shooting black steam into the air, a billow almost twenty feet wide. It was in the middle of a round cave with tunnels streaming out on all sides. Glowing orange light filled every tunnel, and shadows danced as the army closed in.
He and Catherine were twenty feet away now.
Ten.
Five.
The walls suddenly erupted. Mutilated creatures that looked like they had once been men burst out of the tunnels. Blackened, distorted faces. Rotting teeth. Skin that oozed brown pus. Fingers that were little more than bone and decayed tendons. Eyes that were bottomless pits of the damned. Clenched in their fists were weapons made of bone forged in the fires of hell.
Catherine gasped as they swarmed the room, but she didn't even slow down. Damn. A guy could seriously fall for a girl who didn't even hesitate when walking into this kind of party.
Ryland tightened his grip on her, and his muscles coiled. Jump!
Together they leapt toward the geyser. A split second before they hit the steam, a burst of black and silver flames exploded from it and consumed them. Catherine screamed as her skin ignited, and Ryland hauled her against him, enfolding her in his body. There was only one way to survive black fire. Only one creature that could defend against it. It was too risky to do with the cuffs already on his ankles and Desdria's grip tightening on him, but if he didn't, Catherine would never survive.
One woman was going to win, and it wasn't going to be Desdria.
Without hesitation, Ryland reinforced the mental connection between himself and Catherine, infusing them as one, and then he called the beast within to life.
Chapter Fourteen
CATHERINE'S SKIN TURNED to scales.
Claws burst out of her fingers.
Her bones screamed and cracked.
A haunting evil tore through her, like acid poured on her soul. The agonizing shrieks of tortured souls erupted in her head, and she screamed, trying to cover her ears against the pain—
And then her scream changed. No longer human. It became the roar of the beast. Ryland's monster. Coming from her mouth! Terror ripped through her, and she fought in violent panic against the onslaught of darkness rising from within to consume her. Ryland!
I'm holding our form. We needed to shift to survive. His mind was fragmented and broken, his words halting and rough. I'm going to need help bringing us back when it's time. When I give the word, turn on your angel magic. This shit isn't going to want to let us go.
He'd done it on purpose? Seriously? The man was insane! She didn't wait to call her light. She knew she couldn't. The darkness inside her was thick and predatory, an evil so dark it made her want to unleash her worst upon every living creature she could find. It was calling to the darkest part of her soul, the part that she worked so hard to control. Was this really what was inside Ryland? How could he live with this every day? How could he resist its call? It was so insidious, so powerful, it seemed to cut off her air and freeze the blood in her veins.
She immediately reached inside her, to her angel's light, to the part of her that Ryland awakened. Not what the beast had brought to life, but the inner part of her that had been touched by Ryland in his true form: the man who kissed her like she was his oxygen, who made love to her like she was his salvation, who protected her as if he was born to be her guardian.
She called it to her, letting its goodness fill her. She bound it within her, not allowing it to leak into Ryland, but holding it in reserve while the creature thrashed and fought inside her. As she summoned the light, the pain leveled out, and her bones stopped shifting, holding her in mid-change. She and Ryland seemed to free-fall through flames and steam so hot she could feel the heat trying to burn her. But it couldn't. The scales protected her, and Ryland's strong body guided their fall.
Then they landed, a jarring impact lessened by Ryland as he took the blow. He grunted with the impact, but his body shielded hers. Cat! Release it now!
Catherine instantly unleashed the goodness, sending it through them both with as much force as she could muster. At first, the monster didn't retreat. She felt Ryland's soul scream in anguish, so she reached deeper, to her own reserve of power, the last of what she carried. She asked it for help, and then shared it with Ryland, flooding both of them with the power of her heritage.
The monster finally released its tenacious hold on them both, and they fell to the ground, drained and exhausted. Ryland groaned and rolled to his knees above her, calling out his machete as he covered her with his body, protecting her as he scanned for threats, rapidly assessing their surroundings.
After a moment, he lowered his arm. We're clear. They didn't follow us.
Maybe they hadn't, but she and Ryland were still in trouble. She had drained the last of her inner light to bring them back. Her soul was empty and starved, needing life-giving force...either through light or the soul of another. She had to rescue Lucy and get them both back to the surface, to light, now.
"You okay?" he asked, brushing her hair back from her face in a gesture that was awfully tender for a man who didn't do tender.
"Peachy." Catherine opened her eyes. They were bathed in light, but it wasn't natural. It was a strange, eerie silvery glow that seemed to hum with the faint screams of the dead. They were in the middle of a vast wasteland, a desiccated expanse of burned-out homes, dead trees rotting where they lay, and noxious purple smoke rising from the earth as if a battle had just ended. Strewn across the rutted ground were bodies, stripped of their souls, now just empty husks filled with darkness. Chills raced down her spine and she sat up, staring across the horrific scene. "Dear God," she whispered. Her baby was here somewhere? Pain jabbed her chest, and her throat tightened. Her body started to shake, and for a moment, panic threatened to overtake her.
"Stay with me." Ryland touched her arm. "We'll find Lucy. I promise."
She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears, her heart aching at his response. How good did it feel to have Ryland hearing her thoughts? She wasn't even trying to project to him, and he was still there for her. She needed that connection with him right now. "She's a baby. How can she survive this?"
"Hey, this was my playground growing up, and I turned out okay, right?" His voice was grim, but his words eased the tension in her body.
Ryland had turned out more than okay. He was a heroic protector, a guardian of all that was good. "Yeah, okay." I'm coming, Lucy. She reached out with her soul, searching for her daughter, but to her relief, she couldn't sense Lucy at all. She could track only dead people, and if she couldn't sense Lucy, that meant her daughter was still alive. "We have to find her."
"I know. We will." Ryland's voice was rough, and she glanced over at him. His skin still had a silvery tint, and glittering scales were mixed in with his hair. She brushed her hand over his head, and the scales didn't fall out. "You didn't shift all the way back."
"No. Not this time." The grim tone to his voice suggested that it hadn't been voluntary.
She tugged open his shirt. The beast was
in vivid color up to its shoulders now. Both front legs were turquoise, and golden cuffs gleamed around its front legs. Quickly, she released the shirt and touched his wrist, but it was still skin. The cuffs hadn't come to life yet, but his flesh was hard and scaly to the touch, even though it looked normal. "Oh, God," she whispered. "We're both almost out of time."
Ry nodded his agreement. "We have to hurry. They'll be on us soon."
Catherine scrambled to her feet and looked around. In each direction, all she could see was the post-apocalyptic graveyard that had once been humanity and life. "What happened here?"
"It's been like this for thousands of years," Ryland said. He turned toward the far side, facing what looked like the glow of a sunset. In the distance, so far away she could barely make it out, there was a structure that looked like a massive, ancient temple made of stone, rising up from the ruins like a skeletal wraith surveying its swath of destruction. "It's like a moat of hell that surrounds the main temple."
"Temple?" She moved up beside him, shivering even though the heat pouring from the earth was brutal. "The one over there?" She pointed to the blackened structure with huge pyres of fire billowing from the top of it.
"Yeah. It's where Desdria and the Dark Lord reside." His jaw flexed. "It's the only place where the air is clean enough to sustain a human child."
"She's not human. She's part angel and part…" What had Simon been? A human servant to Desdria and the Dark Lord? An assassin from the nether-realm?
Ryland's eyes slid over to her. "Or a child that is not born of the nether-realm," he clarified. "Lucy will be in the temple."
Resolution flowed through Catherine, but at the same time, a dark sense of foreboding filled her. "That's where they want us," she said. "They want to claim you, and they want me to destroy the Order. If we go there, they own us."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You want to turn around? Maybe hold hands and skip into the sunset?"
She managed a small laugh at the image of Ryland skipping anywhere. "I want to get my daughter first."
He nodded. "And I want Dante."
"So, we'll table the skipping for later?" She didn't know why she made such a light quip. It seemed so out of place for where they were, for what they were facing, but somehow, it gave her comfort to think of something as innocent and pure as skipping into the sunset holding hands. It was a reminder that there was more to life than what they were facing right now.
"Yeah, it's a date...on one condition." He went down on one knee and sifted his fingers through the dirt, testing for...what? She didn't know.
"What condition?"
"You teach me to skip. I never learned that as a kid, and I think that's why I'm such a bitter, fucked-up adult."
She did laugh that time, the laughter of a tension-breaker. "Yes, I can see how that could happen. The first time I met you, I thought, 'this man is not a skipper.' Tough times for you."
"Yeah, tough times." He stood up. "We're going to have to blood-bond."
Catherine's heart stuttered. "What?"
He was still looking into the distance, not letting her see his face. "One of the stages of the sheva bond is a blood-bond. It enables a Calydon to find his mate at all times, no matter how far away they are."
"But I'm not your—"
He turned to face her. "We'll do it through Thano. It will blood-bond you to him, but also to me."
Fear rippled through Catherine, and she stepped back. "No, no, no," she said. "No blood bond. I don't want to be bound to either of you. To anyone." It already made her sick to think that she was forever linked to Simon.
He caught her arm. "You don't have a choice, angel. It's going to be hell in there, and we could easily get separated." His eyes glittered. "Only one thing in this life matters to me, and that is honoring Dante's legacy. His legacy is the Order. You are the Order's guardian angel." His grip tightened. "I will let nothing interfere with my ability to protect you."
Catherine swallowed. How on earth could this man possibly still believe that she was a guardian angel for the Order? Guilt ate away at her, and she knew she could not let him risk his life for her under false pretenses. "Ryland," she said quietly. "I was created to destroy the Order. I took Dante's soul. You believe that, right?"
"Yeah, I get that."
"So, how on earth could I be your guardian angel, if I was brought here to kill you and everyone else? I've even begun to do it, when I took Dante's soul."
He stared at her, and suddenly, she saw recognition dawn in his eyes, a truth he'd been unwilling to accept until this moment. For what felt like an eternity, he didn't move, then he dropped her arm and walked away, turning his back on her.
Regret filled her, but at the same time, a sense of liberation, a freedom from being held to the highest standard by this man who honored her only for who he thought she was.
After a long moment, he turned back, and his eyes were an even deeper black. "If you aren't our guardian angel, who is?" His voice was bitter and dark, making shivers run down her arms.
"I don't know."
"You didn't run into any of them trying to protect Dante when you went to kill him?"
She shook her head. "No. No one was there from the spirit realm."
"There was an angel," he muttered. "The oracle said the angel of death."
She frowned, trying to follow the change of subject. "What oracle?"
"When Dante freed me, an angel helped him. She was an oracle, a seer of the future. She read my future and then gave me a golden light while I lay dying from my wounds. She said an angel of death would come to me and bring life." He looked at her. "That's you, Catherine. You. I've been looking for an angel of death ever since. For centuries. You're the first one I've found. It has to be you."
Her heart ached at how badly she wanted to be the woman he saw her as, to be something other than what she was: an angel who killed, a mother who had failed to protect her child. "Then she meant something else, Ryland. I'm not the guardian."
Again, he considered her, then resolution flashed across his feature. "Fuck it." He grabbed her hand again, and turned her palm up. "Maybe you're not the Order's guardian, but you still matter. The oracle said you were coming, and here you are. I don't know what you're going to do, but I've been waiting almost a thousand years for it. I stand by my pledge." Then he jabbed the end of his machete into her palm.
She yelped and tried to jerk her hand backward, but he didn't release her. Instead, he dragged his free hand over the end of the machete, so that both of their palms were bloody. His gaze fixed intently on hers, he slowly raised her palm to his face and pressed his lips to her wound. Electricity hummed through her, and heat crashed around her. "I can't—" she protested.
You can. You wanted the protection of a sheva bond? This is it. This is your protection. No matter what, I will save you as my mate...my mate by proxy, I mean.
Her body went cold, her hands started to shake, and sweat trickled down her back. "You don't understand, Ry—"
I do understand. You were betrayed by the man you gave your heart to. I get it. But are you willing to risk your daughter because you're too damn scared to ask one more man for help? A man who owes angels a life debt. A man who has been looking for you for hundreds of years. A man who has the skills to get us all out of here alive. The man who is the only fucking chance your daughter has?
Tears burned in her eyes, fear gripping her so tightly she felt like her entire body would collapse from the strain. I love her, she whispered. I love my daughter with every ounce of my soul. I can't let her be trapped here.
He held his bloodied palm toward her. Then be brave enough to help her.
Catherine ignored the offering and stared at his face, searching for the promise she needed. Will you make me a pledge? As my soul mate? As a man who treasures angels? As the man I know you are?
Honesty burned in his eyes. Depends. I won't promise what I can't deliver.
She encircled his wrist with trembling fingers. Will yo
u promise that if I die, if my spirit dies, that you will find Lucy and bring her out of here? The same way Dante did for you?
He didn't answer.
She closed her eyes as anguish washed over her. Of course he wouldn't promise that. If he had to choose between Dante and Lucy, he would choose Dante.
Simon made you promises, he said. Do you really put so much faith in words? Words betrayed you already. Why do you ask for more? Why do words mean so much to you?
"Because it's all I have! I trusted my instincts and I was wrong!"
Were they? Challenge glittered in his intelligent eyes. Or did instinct give you all the signs you needed, but you were so desperate that you ignored them?
"What? How can you say that? I'm not that stupid—"
No. Not stupid. He placed his bloodied palm over her heart. You were broken. Enslaved by your gift. Simon was your chance for freedom. You took it, because you're a survivor, because you chose a path that gave you a chance, despite the risk. I know, because I did the same thing.
Tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she put her hand over Ryland's where it was resting on her heart. "I was so scared of what I was becoming," she confessed softly. "I was haunted by what I'd done to the angel enclave."
I know, Cat. You chose to survive at that time, and Simon was the answer. The bastard then preyed on your vulnerability, but in return, he gave you the tools you'd been missing. Wisdom. Power. Determination. Focus. You aren't the woman you were back then. You got it all now, sweetheart, and you just have to believe in it. You know whether to trust me. Don't let fear win. Let intelligence and instinct win. He tapped his fingers on her chest, over her heart. Listen to this. It never lies.
Catherine felt warmth spread beneath his palm, emanating out through her body. His touch felt like a gift, a great gift from heaven. She stared at him, at this monster with the silvery scales and claw-tipped fingers. What was he? What was he truly?
Honor. Truth. Loyalty. Power. Empathy. Hope.
And the other side of the coin: Death. Destruction. Violence. Murder.
