It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real. I chanted to myself over and over again. Maybe the guys wouldn’t come, and maybe I was trapped inside some kind of nightmare, but that didn’t make it real.
Just because I had to relive it didn’t give it power over me.
As soon as the thought occurred to me, the memory shattered like glass. Breaking apart into a kaleidoscope of images that made up my history.
I fell deeper into the shards of my past and recoiled in horror when I landed.
Josh was terrible. I wished him dead. But this…
This was the real start of it all.
His name was Danny, and he was my first love. At least I thought he was.
We met here in Portland. He was reassigned to the orphanage I lived at. I was fifteen when we first met. Barely more than child, and definitely not a woman. We became fast friends, him and I. Even Moira liked him, which was a first. She literally liked no one but me.
And no one else since.
We knew each other six months before we went on our first date. He took me to Olive Garden. I spilled soup on myself, and because I was too self-conscious to go to the movies after that, we went back to the house and stargazed on the trampoline instead.
Six more months passed, but Danny changed…he grew more demanding in how much time I spent with him. He became insufferable after we had sex. He didn’t like that I spent so much time with Moira and tried to get rid of her.
Of course, it was that night I revisited in this nightmare.
My footsteps creaked as I closed the door and crawled into bed. Moira was already out cold for the night. It was unusual, given she had trouble sleeping.
I pulled the thin blanket up over my chest and found myself lulled to sleep faster than normal. I woke, what felt like only minutes later, but when I did, I realized I was not alone.
I opened my mouth to scream as a rag was shoved in it, blocking my cry, constricting my airway. Horror racked my body as I realized who was in bed with me, and what he was doing.
He only used a mild sleeping sedative, thinking that would be enough. He didn’t realize the fight I would put up when he got into bed.
Then again, I’m not sure that he was in his sane mind that night, or the months leading up to it.
I lashed out with everything I had, and I mean everything. My body was not strong enough to fight him and get away. I did not know about the beast. I did not have access to fire.
But I had something else.
I latched onto his mind and shredded it like paper.
It was the only thing I could do. I didn’t see another way. Hell, I didn’t even know I could do it…until I did.
I was so terrified, so hurt, so broken, that I lashed out and drove him mad. Of course, when he realized that I was causing it, he tried to pull away. He tried to run.
He didn’t even make it three steps before he collapsed.
I wasn’t going to let him get away.
He started babbling about how my touch drove him mad. He didn’t consider what my mind could do.
But I was born with a unique ability so terrifying, I forced myself to forget it.
To forget what I did to him.
To forget what I am.
I didn’t just shred his mind. I ripped apart his soul, and I didn’t even need to touch him to do it.
Moira had awoken. She told me that I called to her. That I needed her. That he was hurting me.
She found him screaming and bashed his head in with a paperweight, leaving him bleeding, his eyes as wide and vacant as a doll.
She found me curled up in a ball. When she hugged me, it hurt less. When she helped me get rid of the body, she made it go away. When she cleaned the blood stain off the wood floors, she became my anchor.
I was drowning in the pain of that night and what I’d done. Because I remembered all of it now. Someone ripped the blinders from my eyes and made me remember what happened.
Remember that I killed his soul.
That Moira broke his body.
And we became sisters tied together by blood.
Once upon a time this memory had the power to break me.
So I forgot it.
Now, I remembered.
And the demon that had forced me to relive this underestimated how much I’d healed since then.
How much stronger I had become.
I couldn’t find my flames in here, in this nightmare he created.
But he gave me an even deadlier weapon. And he couldn’t take it back.
Mentally I reached out, searching for the very real essence that was all around me. Instinctively, he shied away. Running from the power. He only just realized his mistake.
I knew the moment he withdrew from my mind, because I found myself on my knees before him as he backed away towards the door.
A single eye stared back at me and I smiled, dark and lovely.
“You should have killed us when you had the chance,” I said, but I did not give him another one.
He opened his mouth prepared to scream, but the time for screaming was over.
I ripped into him, rage fueling an immeasurable force, devouring his very soul.
Fire sprang to life at my beck and call, breaking his body apart until it was nothing more than glittering ash, dancing in the flames.
I waded through the fire, to the room beyond where I could hear Moira’s heartbeat slowing as the drugs took effect in her veins. He was liar and I was killer, but I refused to let Moira be the consequence.
I refused to let her die.
“Ruby!”
I did not turn to the voice as I approached the chair where the demon strapped her down. It was a chair I knew well. I’d tattooed countless people in it.
Flames licked at the ropes, breaking them apart. Her unconscious body slumped over and I lunged forward to catch her. The beast slipping into place. She cradled my best friend as we picked her up and sank to the floor. Flames brushed over Moira’s skin, but it did not burn or char.
Moira was immune to my flames.
“You’re going to hurt her. I need Ruby back,” Laran called, appearing above us. He was a sight to behold, bathed in a world of only fire. Like Moira, the flames did not seek to harm him.
“She is dying. I will save her because she is our tether. Ours to protect,” the beast said in that same lifeless voice. She used my hands to cradle Moira’s head with such care.
Moira’s skin was so pale that it didn’t even look green, only a sickly ash color that pained me to see on her. Her entire body was limp. The heartbeat in her chest fighting to keep pumping despite the drugs weighing it down.
This was Moira.
My Moira.
And she was going to live one way or another.
A brilliant blue light poured from my hands and into her temples. The fire worked quickly as it raced through her blood, burning the chemicals that threatened her life.
Maybe it was a blessing she was asleep for this because this kind of cleansing would not be easy. It was one thing to be immune to the flames, and another to be burned from the inside out. Still, the beast continued to pour fire into her veins until she started to scream.
If she was strong enough to scream, then she was strong enough to live. Then, and only then, did the fire die out. I saw Moira’s eyes staring up into mine. No longer green, but cobalt blue marked with an upside-down pentagram that ran through her pupil and ringed in black.
“I marked you,” I whispered.
And then I fainted.
**Laran**
She consumed the world in fire.
The flames of Hell raged at her command, incinerating everything she loved and held dear. Enslaved by her fury, and there was no possible way she could control them.
I was locked in my worst nightmare, so sure she was going to die. So sure that I had made the greatest mistake of my existence.
Then the scene shattered, and before me was not just Ruby or her beast, but an avenging goddess.
She struck him dead with a force from her mind that could not, and would not, be contained.
It was a force unlike any other, and for the first time, I wondered which half of her was stronger. The succubus girl that risked everything for her friend, or the beast that let flames loose upon this world.
I did not know, but this was going to change everything.
She was no longer just Lucifer’s daughter, Hell’s heir, or even a queen to-be.
She was my mate.
“Ruby!” I yelled, chasing after her through the flames. They did not burn me, but I could thank Lucifer for that. The banshee would not have the same immunity. If she killed her like this…it would break her. I did not doubt, not even for a second, that she meant what she said.
If the banshee died, she would not be the same, and both worlds would crumble.
I dived through the fire, unprepared for what I saw.
Ruby sat on her knees holding a half-demon who should not be alive.
No, not Ruby. The beast.
Her eyes were black as sin, void of any emotion.
Only pure obsidian gemstones that belonged to the creature who branded me.
“You’re going to hurt her. I need Ruby back,” I called. At first, I didn’t think she heard me. How could she above the roaring of the flames?
But then she spoke.
“She is dying. I will save her because she is our tether. Ours to protect.”
She is our tether…
How did we not see this? The bansh—Moira wasn’t just a friend or family. She was Ruby’s familiar.
This was the reason Ruby could hold off the transition. The reason we had no idea how strong she was. The reason Moira could withstand the flames…was because Ruby physically could not hurt her in any capacity.
Moira had taken on the role of the Horsemen and funneled the power because we had not been here. We just never realized it.
We had completely and utterly failed her before this night.
I fell to my knees before her, keeping my mouth shut.
The signs were all there and we never saw it.
Maybe it was time to watch and listen.
The beast laid her hands on the banshee’s face. The smaller girl’s normally spring colored skin was sickly and pale. Ruby had been right about that, too. The imp never waited, but I was not dumb or optimistic enough to think he would.
Blue fire spread from her fingertips, flaring to life beneath Moira’s skin. It spread like plumes of smoke, lighting up every inch of her body until she glowed so bright that it physically hurt to watch, but I would not look away.
The banshee let out a scream as her eyes flew open. The flames receded instantly.
“I marked you,” Ruby whispered.
I threw my arms out and caught her as she fainted.
Blue Ruby Ink was gone. Standing amongst the piles of ash were the Horsemen.
Watching Ruby and Moira with the same grim realization as I.
The world would come for both of them, and if anything happened to Moira…
Ruby would burn anything and everything to the ground.
Our job just got infinitely more complicated.
Chapter 19
I woke to the faint whisper of wind as it brushed across my face. Cool. Gentle. I blinked once, taking in the darkness. After floating through a suspended void, I couldn’t really call my room at the apartment darkness. Moonlight bathed the boxes aligned on the far wall and shimmering white drapes stirred from a gentle breeze. Someone left the door open to the balcony.
My legs were stiff and unwieldy as I slid them over the black bed sheets and onto the soft carpet. I crinkled my toes, wrapping them around the fibers beneath.
How long was out? How long had passed?
Reaching for my robe sprawled across the comforter, I shrugged it on. I glanced back to the bed where Moira slept soundly. With her eyes closed, I could pretend that it didn’t happen. She looked much the same as normal, apart from Bandit being wrapped around her. He clung to her shirt with one paw and wrapped the other around his pink elephant. His face was pushed up over her flat stomach, using her like a pillow. He definitely drooled on her enough for one.
I smiled because they were safe. Inside, my heart was heavy with what would come in the morning. Was Laran alright? Were the others? Someone had to have brought us back here. Those were questions for the morning.
My legs protested as I rose from the bed and took shaky steps across the bedroom to the open doors. The flames of Hell were not nearly as physically exhausting as my other ability.
Soul-shredding, was it?
Something along those lines. I could ask Moira in the morning.
I reached out and grasped my hand around the edge of one of the balcony doors, using it to stabilize me while I crossed over the threshold and out into the night. My toes tingled against the cold stone. I wrapped my arms around myself, drawing the bathrobe tight. Not that it did much in this weather.
Twenty-three stories up in the dead of night…the view was breathtaking. Skyscrapers towered high around the city, but none so tall from where I was at. They lit up in shades of gold, blue, and green against a dark, starless sky. I truly felt small.
I drew in a deep breath, knowing I was not alone.
I knew she was there in the shadows where I could not see.
She’d been following me for some time now, after all.
“You know, some thought I was crazy for wanting to leave the south and live here. They called me a child because I saw the picture on a post card once and made it my mission to move. Far enough north to hide from most of demon-kind, but in a city of marvels so that I always had inspiration.” My voice was hardly a whisper on the wind, but I knew she heard me.
“It’s a great view. I’ll give you that,” she said quietly. The wind carried her words to my ears, as I gripped the stone ledge of the balcony.
“Why did you help me?” I asked, still not looking her way. She wouldn’t kill me. If she wanted to do that, she would have let Moira die.
“Which time?” she replied.
The pressure shifted as her presence drew closer. I could sense brutal power and pain coming from it, but also…resistance. Where my own inner light was blue, this light was distinctly darker. A shade of indigo.
Startled, I realized that was her soul.
This was going to take some getting used to…
“You told me where to find her. How did you know I would listen?”
“I didn’t, but I suspected.”
“You suspected?”
“You knew someone was looking out for you, but in the end, it was your choice,” she said.
“And the Seelie?” I continued, still staring at the skyline. I was going to learn to treasure these sights because they would be gone from my life very soon.
“I wish I could say it was out of the goodness of my heart, but it wasn’t.” She breathed out a very tired sigh. “You’re the next ruler of Hell, and that makes you a very powerful person. A threat to my master. I was sent to take out the rogue demon, and to watch you, even kill you if I had the chance.”
So the legions of Hell had arrived. The Horsemen weren’t kidding.
Powerful people wanted me dead, and now, they knew where to find me.
“But you didn’t,” I said, drawing my eyes away from the view. She stood no more than three feet from me, almost exactly as I remembered her; the exception was a dark cloak, obscuring most of her body. Her snow-white hair reflected silver in the moonlight. She had it pulled back in a braid, the purple ends hidden from sight. The darkness made her mercury colored eyes more vivid and striking.
“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t.”
“Why? I kicked you out of my house. I threatened you. You didn’t even have to do it yourself, and I probably would have died…but you saved me. Why?” We stared at each other suspended in time. The wind did not move, nor did the sky. Not a single living being stirred, even those only f
eet from us.
“Because I was watching when the mob came to your shop and I saw what you did when they threw rocks at your family. I watched you, and I saw good. I saw a future for Hell that wouldn’t be marked by blood wars and senseless killing.” She averted her eyes to the heavens, but there would be no God that looked down on us this night. An assassin and a killer. Two demons entering something unholy and yet divine. “You have not been around long enough to see the things I have. The horrors our kind must either become or endure. You are not like the rest of us, not completely. You, Lucifer’s daughter, can change the future of Hell. But more importantly to me—you can change my future.”
A loose strand of white and purple hair slipped free from her braid, blowing in the wind. I wasn’t sure if I should be thankful for what she did, anxious about the supposed future she saw, or concerned because now we had gotten to the heart of the matter.
“You want something from me.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Not right now, but later. Call it a favor for investing in your future.”
“And yours,” I said tersely. Her eyes narrowed as she watched me, debating if she made the right choice trusting me. I didn’t fault her for it, just as I didn’t fault her for expecting something in return. That was just how the world was; an exchanging of goods and favors. It’s how empires were built, and queens were made.
I would do right to remember that.
People always said the road to Hell was paved with good intentions, but no one’s intentions are ever actually good. We all are a little selfish. More than a little for most of us. I couldn’t trust someone who walks with good intentions, but I could bargain with someone who had honest ones. The path to living wouldn’t come without a price. This was hers.
“I owe you, and should I actually live long enough to rule—whatever that entails—well, you know how to find me.” She relaxed just a fraction before whipping out one claw-tipped hand and swiping at me. I jumped back, hitting my back against the stone balcony, and my weak legs wobbled from over-exhaustion.
“What was that—”
I watched as she dragged the same claw across her own skin, my blood mixing with hers. A sizzling sensation spread across my left breast where she’d cut me. I pulled the fabric aside, to see a very thin but already cauterized scar.
Wicked Games_A Reverse Harem Romance Page 15
