by Trina M. Lee
My disgust formed a grimace on my face. Nothing about that plan appealed to me in the least. Everything about it was the opposite of a turn on. I wasn’t sure I could fake my way through.
“How do you know I’m powerful enough to enthrall him?” I asked.
Falon nodded to himself, like he’d already considered that. “You’re not. Well, maybe. But most likely not. The best way to gain the advantage over him is to pack a bigger punch than he does. There’s only one person I know of in your inner circle with more power than Shya.”
“Willow.” His name was a murmur on my lips.
Taking blood and power from Willow was less appealing than seducing Shya. Demons were out of my league. Being a badass vampire meant nothing when it came to demons. “There has to be some other way.”
Falon shrugged. “Maybe. You don’t have much time to figure it out.”
Jez flopped on the bed beside Shaz and propped herself up on one elbow. Her feline gaze was fixated on Falon, studying him intently. “Couldn’t that be dangerous? You’d think Alexa would experience some kind of kickback from that. She was starting fires with her freakin’ mind when she first took your blood.”
“I imagine there will be. That, however, isn’t my problem.” Falon was smug, looking pleased with himself.
“So what exactly are you laying on the line in all of this?” Shaz flung the question at him like a spear. He sat tensed and ready, his phone forgotten. “You’ll benefit if it works, but what are you risking?”
Every one of us gave Falon our full attention. It was a good question.
Leaning against the door with arms crossed and arrogance splashed across his face, Falon’s judgmental gaze swept over each of us in turn. “What I’m risking is being labeled a traitor by every demon who finds out about this. Now, can we stop beating this to death and just do what we have to do?”
When he put it like that, I could see that Falon was risking something too. Although was it really a risk when everyone already considered him a traitor? Perhaps Falon wasn’t as cool with that reputation as he wanted us to think.
“Ok, fair enough,” I said, choosing to avoid an unnecessary dispute.
Arys scoffed.
That set Falon off. He shoved away from the door with wings flared in a threatening manner. “I’m risking more than anyone else here. Every demon who worshipped Lilah already hates me. She entrusted me with the key to her kingdom, and I was supposed to keep it safe. I gave it to Alexa because I believed that was the best way to do that. Not one of you damn assholes has any idea what kind of constant danger I’m in. Fuck every last one of you.”
Though he could have simply disappeared, Falon’s wings vanished, and he stormed out of the room just so he could slam the door on his way out.
“Well,” Jez broke the silence, a fine brow arched in surprise. “That was dramatic.”
Conflicted, I almost felt bad. Falon was right. We didn’t know what it was like to be him, probably never would. Yet each of us made assumptions that downplayed his circumstances. Dear Lord, was I emphasizing with that bastard angel?
“He has every right to be pissed,” I said, ignoring the dark look shared by both Shaz and Arys. “He betrayed Lilah and Shya. There’s got to be some serious repercussions for something like that. We could at least respect that.”
Jez nodded, pursing her red lips in contemplation. Arys shook his head but chose not to turn the issue into a battle with me.
Gabriel appeared to feel nothing about any of it. When this was all over, he was going on my radar. Hurst’s warning lingered; Gabriel couldn’t be trusted.
“Watch your back, Alexa,” Shaz spoke up. There was no compassion in him for Falon’s plight. His ruthless side was showing. “You might be the next one he betrays.”
Hearing Shaz echo Salem was not comforting. His wolf stared out at me. I could see it in him, the utter disgust at anything to do with Falon. Arys’s remark that Shaz didn’t see it the way we did rang true. I had been the violator, not the violated, yet Shaz would never see it that way.
I nodded. “I expect as much.”
“Are you sure you can do whatever is needed of you?” Arys asked, but he was talking to Gabriel, not me.
The young vampire peered out at him from behind a curtain of dyed-black hair. “Yeah. I got this.”
Gabriel had always been quite the introvert. He hadn’t shown much interest in interacting with anyone unless he had to, until recently when he’d pretty much begged Arys and I to give him a chance to prove he shouldn’t be immediately eliminated. I couldn’t help but wonder, could Gabriel see his own future?
I pointed at him to get his attention. “When this is all over you and me are going to spend some time together. I need to be able to trust you, and I can’t do that when I never know where you are or what you’re doing. Like it or not, we need to get to know each other.”
He didn’t look too thrilled about it, but he nodded.
Silence descended on the room as we contemplated what we were about to walk into. At least I was contemplating it. Jez looked like she was considering making a mad dash for the bar.
Arys smacked a hand on the table and rose. His tortured gaze found mine, and I could see how much he didn’t want to do this. “Everybody ready to party?”
* * * *
Shya’s house didn’t look so scary. Yet. Perhaps that was the real trick.
The five of us clambered out of my car and approached the modernist structure. There was no denying how nervous I was. I wasn’t sure what freaked me out more, knowing Shya was going to plunge us into a black-magic house of hell or knowing this was our only chance to put him away for a while. If we failed, we were all as good as dead.
The door swung open as we ascended the front step. Nobody stood at the threshold.
“So it’s starting already,” I muttered, leading the way inside.
We crossed through the darkened foyer to the joined living room and kitchen. It was dimly lit, a fire raging in the hearth like always. There was no sign of Shya.
“Out there.” Arys pointed to the large picture window that looked out onto the backyard.
Several people stood around a fire. I recognized it as the burning pentagram Shya had used to summon another demon not so long ago. As Arys led the way out the back, my sense of dread grew with each step.
“We must be late,” Jez observed as we joined the gathering.
Upon closer inspection I noted that the pentagram had been doubled. Another pentagram lay over top of it, upside down, creating a ten-pointed star. Those present included Brook, Falon, Briggs, and Brogan. That brought the guest count to nine, since Willow had yet to arrive. No Shya to be seen. He was probably planning a dramatic entrance.
“What are you doing here?” I grabbed Brogan in a hug, crushed to see her among those invited.
“I guess I’m on the demon shit list,” she said with a tight, mirthless laugh. “Because I tried to keep Gabriel from him. I also turned down an offer to work for him myself.”
“You never told me that.” I was aghast. Was there anybody Shya hadn’t gone after?
Brogan shook her head, her blonde ponytail bouncing. “There was nothing you could do, Alexa.”
“You shouldn’t have come here, O’Brien.” Briggs had undergone some changes in the short time since I’d left him with Shya. In jeans and a hoodie, he lacked much of the effect he’d had when all decked out in his secret agent suit. Puffy circles beneath his eyes gave away how poorly he’d been sleeping.
“I shouldn’t have left you alive either, but I did.”
“Am I supposed to be grateful?” he barked. “You left me with a demon who has me running around in the heads of some very fucked up creatures, seeing things I can never unsee. You left me to suffer.”
“And you left me to burn,” I shot back, bristling with contempt.
Shaz held up a hand and stepped between us to break our hate-filled eye contact. “This is not what we’re here for. If there was
ever a time to cooperate, this would be it.”
Though I did lean around him in order to keep giving Briggs the stink eye, I managed to keep my mouth shut. He was right. This was no time for personal vendettas except the one we all shared with Shya.
“Cooperate?” There was such scathing in that one word. We all turned to Falon who had distanced himself from the group. “There won’t be any cooperating. Shya’s going to find a way to pit us all against each other.”
Yeah, that sounded like Shya. “He can try,” I said. “But he can’t force us to do a damn thing.”
Falon gave me a look that conveyed, louder than words ever could, how unbearably stupid he found me to be. “You haven’t learned jack shit, have you?”
Before I could spin an adequately offensive retort, the air moved. Startled, I tensed, expecting Shya. When Willow appeared beside me, he read the trepidation in my eyes, and his face fell. My heart fell with it, and I grabbed his hand, squeezing tight.
Seeing how far he’d fallen had really scared me, but it had done nothing to destroy my love for him. If anything, it had made me love him more. I’d mistakenly believed the constant struggle of having both light and dark was worse than being lost to darkness. I knew now how very wrong I was about that.
The fire went out. Each line of the burning star extinguished until only the center remained aflame. In dramatic fashion, Shya appeared within it. He stepped out of the flames with black wings flared and snake-like eyes glittering with anticipation.
“You all came.” He almost sounded disappointed. “I’d expected resistance from some of you. Unfortunately, Kale won’t be joining us. He’s decided it’s too much trouble to leave Las Vegas. Pity.” That red gaze landed on me. With a frown he took in my appearance but didn’t comment on it. “Is everyone ready?”
Shya wasn’t as unpredictable as he liked to think. He’d wanted Kale to come so he could use him to exploit the weaknesses we shared. Since Kale had refused to play the game, there would be punishment for him. Shya never let anything go, especially someone who dared to refuse him. My eye landed on Brogan, and I bristled at the thought that Shya probably selected her as Kale’s replacement more to punish me for Kale being a no-show than for her refusal to work for him. The pressure to put Shya away kept rising.
“Is this really necessary?” Falon was the first to throw out a challenge. Wings tucked against his back and arms crossed, he was as cold as ice.
Shya’s grin was pure evil. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re a narcissistic power monger that doesn’t know when to quit.”
The two of them shared a moment that was so rife with loathing it made my skin crawl. Maybe Falon would fuck me over at some point, but right then I believed with every part of me that he truly did want to take Shya out.
“Let’s go over the rules, shall we?” Shya turned his attention back to the group. I kept expecting him to rub his hands together and cackle like a movie villain. “You’re all about to enter a house of my construction. As the invitation stated, finding your way out means that I will owe you a favor. It also means that I will no longer aspire to have you as part of my…team.”
Team? It took great effort to hold my tongue. I wanted to laugh in his face. Being threatened and tricked into performing tasks for Shya had nothing to do with teamwork. How delusional of him.
“There is one catch, however,” Shya continued, surprising no one. “Only the first team of two to find their way out will win the favor and freedom from me. So though you may be tempted to work together as a group, it is not in your best interest. Any questions?”
“Where will you be?” Brook asked.
“Does anyone have an advantage?” Arys was thinking ahead already.
Shya smiled, pleased that we were playing along. “I will be watching, of course. You will all be challenged. Some of your abilities will be limited though you can figure that out as you go. Anything else?”
We all glanced around the group. We could ask questions all night and still be unprepared.
“Alright then.” With a self-satisfied smile, Shya held out a hand and a small black bag appeared in his palm. “Let’s select teams.”
He passed the bag to Briggs and had him draw names two at a time.
“I’m with Jez,” Briggs announced, glancing at the leopard before digging back into the bag. “O’Brien, you’re with Falon.”
Random selection, my ass. “This is rigged,” I blurted. Now I was sure of it. It wasn’t enough to separate Arys and me, but I couldn’t imagine why Shya would pair me with Falon. I suspected it meant that he knew about our recent indiscretions. Pointing at Briggs, I hissed, “Did you show him the video?”
Ignoring me, Briggs continued to pull out names. “Brook and Gabriel. Arys and Willow. Shaz and Brogan.”
We all exchanged uneasy looks with one another. Refusing to make eye contact with Falon, I held tight to Willow’s hand for as long as I could.
“Now if you will all enter the circle and stand at one of the star’s points with your partner directly across from you.” Shya returned to the center of the star and waited for us to take our places. The flames danced all around him, touching but never burning.
‘Are we really doing this?’ I pushed the thought to Arys. Was it too late to back out now?
‘We’ve turned a game around on someone before. We can do it again. I’ll find you inside. Don’t doubt what we’re capable of, my love.’ He didn’t look at me or in any way let on that we were communicating telepathically. He simply took his place in the circle across from Willow.
Going into this fearful and expecting the worst wasn’t going to garner the outcome I wanted. I stepped up to the point of the star directly across from Falon. A nervous energy swept the group as we all braced ourselves for whatever was coming.
Once we were all in place, Shya waited just long enough to drive us a little nuts, like a reality-show host trying to amp up the excitement. “One last thing: If at any time you feel you must leave the house, you can choose not to continue, and I will pull you out. However, should you make that choice, you will be agreeing to work for me. Indefinitely.”
“Oh, fuck that, Shya,” I shouted, unable to rein in my temper. “You can’t just make shit like that up on the spot.”
“Feel free to leave if you don’t like it.” He shrugged. “Let me remind you that you’ve all come here willingly. You obviously feel that you have something to gain by being here.”
Leaving would mean abandoning this opportunity to trap the bastard. It also meant having him be a constant pain in my ass. His promise to make me suffer rang in my memory, forcing me to grit my teeth and bear whatever came next.
Shya waited until it was obvious that I was finished. I stood there seething, growing more determined by the moment. A quick scan of the large circle revealed equally determined expressions on the faces of most of my companions. Gabriel still looked as sullen as ever, though something calculating moved behind his dark eyes. Brogan was pale but otherwise expressionless. This whole thing was an entirely new level of fucked up for me.
I expected some grand gesture, some smoke or explosion or big effect of some kind. Instead, with a serpentine grin and a snap of his fingers, Shya plunged us all into darkness. It was dizzying, like suddenly being dropped into a black hole. Disoriented and confused, I groped about blindly. My senses were dulled. I felt like I was falling.
Just as I was about to panic, it was over.
Like waking up from a dream, I abruptly found myself in the middle of a large ballroom. As my brain tried to make sense of what just happened, I was struck by a serious case of vertigo. I fell to my knees, head spinning.
Falon appeared in the edge of my peripheral vision. He stood over me, nudging me with his shoe. “Looks like you’re off to a great start.”
Worst Halloween party ever.
Chapter Seventeen
“Fuck you.” I swiped at Falon, and he stepped back out of reach.
&nb
sp; Of course he didn’t offer me a hand up, not that I would have accepted. I blinked a few times and was able to stand as the nauseating sensation passed. The ballroom was big and empty. The walls were covered in old paintings and a small stage at one end held an orchestra of instruments. I turned in a slow circle, scanning every inch of the room.
“Are you expecting something to jump out at you?” Falon too surveyed the room though he was much more relaxed than I was.
“Damn rights. It’s too quiet. I don’t like it.” Eyeing the closed double doors at one end of the room, I looked to the open set on the opposite side. Was this some kind of trick?
The air moved, and I spun to pin Falon with a death glare. He stood there looking perplexed and irritated. “Did you just try to poof out of here?”
“I sure did.” He rolled his eyes when my jaw dropped. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. You would’ve tried it too. I can’t get out anyway. Shya isn’t that stupid.”
We’d been together for thirty seconds, and the jackass had already tried to ditch me. “You fucking suck, Falon. I can’t believe how much I hate you right now.”
“Cry me a river.” He pointed at each exit. “Which one do you want to try? Feeling brave?”
I reached out to Arys, seeking him in my mind and finding nothing. Panic gripped me. Again I tried to get through to him. It was as if the mental door between us had been locked and barred. Being cut off from my other half left me raw and anxious. I’d gotten so used to having him always there, just a thought away.
“Son of a bitch. I can’t reach Arys.” When Falon continued to point to the doors without acknowledging my comment, I sighed. “I don’t care. You choose.”
There was no telling what kind of place Shya had dropped us into. Ghosts. Demons. Bleeding walls. I had no idea what to expect, but I was braced and ready for anything. Or so I thought.
