by Ella M. Lee
I grabbed Hannah and pulled her down, flinging us to the ground between two fallen trees. Hastily, I wrapped us in shadow, willing it to cover our scents. I cast my net out, locating Weston.
Run by us, I prayed.
He did.
I saw in my mind’s eye as he hurtled past our hiding spot, continuing north.
This wasn’t good—that was the same direction I needed to go.
Hannah and I started to move again. I kept my net cast out around me, but I didn’t sense Weston—he was too fast and far for that.
A few more minutes brought us to the edge of a clearing. At the other end stood Ren in demi-form, his wings spread against the pre-dawn light. My heart raced, and my mind and body emptied out except for the pull of our thread and the lure of his presence.
Hannah and I sprinted for him.
“The dagger?” he said, when I was close enough to hear.
I pulled it out of my pocket and his dark, shadowed eyes glowed.
He held out a hand. “It’s safe.”
I placed it in his palm, and he smiled. He held it up. Its sapphire hilt pulsed with light. I could feel power building in him, ready to rip into it, when suddenly a voice sounded behind me, harsh, and cruel, and deadly.
“Arianna!”
Weston.
I spun.
Faster than I could move, Weston appeared before me, two feet away. His hand stretched, but behind me, Ren moved. Ren’s arms wrapped around me and a great, powerful flap of his wings sent Weston stumbling back, halfway across the field.
Ren reached for Hannah. He was just about to grab her and take off with us both when a burst of power shook the ground beneath us.
Ren’s arms went slack, and he spun. Just around the edge of his wings, I made out a willowy form.
El.
El in demi-form, with her own wings spread, looking like Ren’s twin with her dark eyes, and white skin, and flowing hair. She’d followed us here.
She slammed something into him, a wave of power that ripped through the ground directly at him, and he recoiled, his wing curved around himself to take the brunt of it. I felt the echo of the attack reverberate down the thread, along with his shock and fury.
Hannah’s eyes were on Weston. Ren’s attack hadn’t hurt him—that wouldn’t have been allowed—but the force of it had driven him two feet into the mucky ground and disoriented him. He was only just freeing himself.
I glanced over my shoulder. Ren couldn’t help me, and he couldn’t get us away, stopped by whatever El was doing to him.
I pushed Hannah out of the way, toward a huge tree. “Go,” I said. “Hide.”
And I stalked toward Weston.
Ren had told me I shouldn’t—couldn’t—fight Weston, but I was a lioness. A lioness would defend what was hers.
Freedom, the tiny voice reminded me, and I agreed with it. The idea that something like Weston would never, ever touch me again.
I tugged at the bond, filling myself with its power. Speed. Strength. Resilience. I could handle a vampire—because I was part demon.
Weston was out of the muck.
He lunged at me viciously, quicker than lightning, his fangs snapping in my face, his talons trying to close around my arms as I dodged and sidestepped him with glorious speed.
Thanks, Ren.
Weston’s black eyes were wide. “What are you?” he spat.
“A lion,” I said, and let my fist fly into his face.
He reeled, thrown back several feet.
“You’re with him,” Weston said, pointing behind me. I didn’t turn, didn’t lose focus. Weston was my prey, and despite feeling motion and jostling through the thread, I needed to finish this once and for all.
“Demons use vampires,” Weston said. “You don’t think they use humans, too, girl? Shaw’s an imbecile. I would never have let a demon into my home. I certainly wasn’t going to take a drink from something he handed me.”
“It’s too bad,” I said. “If you had, you might’ve lived through this.”
I advanced on him, and he laughed. “You can’t hurt me.”
I just smiled, pulling tightly on Ren’s strength, letting it run through me like lightning.
I lunged again, meaning to hurl Weston to the ground, but he caught me. His fangs sank into my arm, and I screamed. I shook him, his head whipping back and forth from the force, but his grip didn’t loosen. Anxiety filled my chest, but I fought its pull. Another shake, and his grip on me broke. I tugged on the part of Ren’s power that could harden skin, letting it roll over me. When Weston came in for a second bite, his teeth glanced off, and I threw him off me hastily.
I yanked on the thread roughly, opening the connection as widely as I could.
Weston was on the ground, and I leapt at him, driving him further into it as I landed with a thud.
The ground beneath us was filled with dirt, and water, and muck. Ren had taught me basic alchemy, including how to manipulate metal, stone, wood, and water—the easiest components, he claimed.
I pressed my hands to the ground, digging into Ren for the knowledge I needed. He seemed to know what I was looking for, because he shot it down the thread like rushing water, so hard that it reverberated in my skull.
Behind me, the ground shook, and annoyance flickered down the bond from Ren. It took everything I had not to look behind myself, not to worry about him.
I punched Weston again, avoiding his legs as he kicked at me, avoiding his fists as they sailed past me.
I drove him bit by bit into the mud, enraged. Enraged by what he’d done to Jess, enraged by what he’d done to me. My vision filled with red and black stars, and I saw nothing except the pain he’d inflicted on me.
I opened myself up to Ren’s knowledge. Power ripped through me, and as I touched the muck, it turned solid, hardening, the minerals in it shifting to solid stone.
Weston flailed, shattering pieces of it here and there.
“You can’t hold me here forever,” he said, flinging himself against the stone.
Please hold, I told it. Just for a minute longer.
“You can’t kill me,” he said.
I stepped back. Shadows rippled over me, but they dispersed quickly, because—
“The sun is rising,” I said quietly.
Weston froze, his eyes going wide. He flung himself at the stone again and again, frantic. It cracked. He freed a leg. I slammed it back down, breaking it, alchemizing the stone back into a solid mass around him.
I smiled. Not enough time for him to escape.
The first rays of light crept over the dark mud of the clearing, landing on his russet hair, his pale face, those dark vampire eyes.
He screamed. His skin bubbled and burned. His flailing got more intense, but it was far too late.
“You were overconfident,” I said. “You stayed out too long.” A choked laugh escaped my lips. “Unlike you, I don’t fear the dawn.”
I made myself take in every moment of it. I watched as his body burned to nothing. I listened as he screamed himself hoarse. I waited patiently until the sound died.
Within a minute, there was nothing left of him but reddish curls and a blackened, mummified corpse spread out before me.
Chapter 46
The whole thing with Weston was over in five minutes.
Five minutes that had passed while Ren was engaged in his own fight.
When I finally took my eyes off Weston’s body, I found myself facing a horror from the depths of hell.
Two creatures were locked in a battle—tumbling, scrambling, snapping at one another, circling, pacing, eyeing each other with hatred and malice.
Ren’s full-demon form was a creature from nightmares, a dark and devastating wyvern. Huge and vaguely cat-like, with an arched neck and a long tail and brutal black scales. His wings were gigantic, a mixture of feathers and membranes, with claws and spines at their edges. His powerful legs ended in taloned toes. Shadows rippled across every inch of him, like smoke billowin
g in wind. His snarl was what I imagined bubbling lava might sound like.
El’s form was similar, although smaller and less bulky, longer and more elegant, but no less terrifying. Her claws slashing toward him sent ice through my veins, pinning me where I stood.
I didn’t know why they were fighting. I didn’t know what the outcome would be. I watched with my heart nearly beating out of my chest as he smacked her down and she howled at him—an unearthly, chilling sound. Harsh, croaking noises issued from him, and the thread pinged gently—he was speaking words within those sounds. She responded in kind.
I was too frightened to sort through what they were.
But Ren wasn’t frightened. Our thread pulsed with determination and intelligence, and I held it tight, sending him every ounce of support I could muster.
El flew above him. With a great rearing of his legs and wings, Ren smacked his sister down. He flew at her, circling her, flipping her onto her back and trapping her with one great paw-like foot. She struggled, her wings beating helplessly against the ground. Ren croaked again, an unimaginably powerful and inhuman sound, and—with a crack—a giant portal appeared in front of him.
Its large, circular form was black and still as a lake at night, but its edges were rough and faded into shadow.
Muscles rippled in Ren’s front legs, and without ceremony, he flung her through the surface, cracking it into ripples and spiderwebs.
A second later, it evaporated. One blink, and it was gone, revealing the brightening dawn behind it.
Ren sank down to the ground, his feet splayed, his wings collapsed around him.
I tugged at the bond very gently. Ren lifted his head slightly, stirring.
Ren, I sent, trying to pour affection into the touch of that golden light.
A beat passed.
Ari. I felt the shape of my name and sighed.
I sprinted to him, kneeling, laying a hand on his scaly head. His eyes were closed.
I stroked his head—the ridges above his eyes, the curve of his strange, pointed ears, the long lines of his jaw. He leaned into me, his wings tense and quivering. Under my touch, his full-form faded with a ripple of power. Within a moment, he was in his demi-form, his wings back to those inky black feathers, my hand resting on his shaggy hair.
He opened his dark eyes and looked at me. He smiled, affection ricocheting down the thread alongside his exhaustion.
Injured? I asked gently, quietly, the lightest touch.
He shook his head, and relief washed the worry from the pit of my stomach. With effort, he hauled himself to his knees, and then to his feet. He offered me a hand and pulled me up. He made to steady me, to set me on my feet and back away, but I clung to him.
I touched his cheek and pressed my lips to his, sighing in pleasure at his passionate response. He pulled me closer and folded his wings around me, our bond holding us together as the sun continued to rise, turning the sky into bright day.
Chapter 47
Hannah was cowering under a half-fallen tree when I found her. I put my arms around her and guided her back to Ren. She didn’t even look at him, didn’t even seem to notice this foreign creature with the horns and the glorious wings, now tucked close to him protectively.
Ren held the dagger in his hands. With another one of those massive rips of power, it blackened and turned to ashes, and he let them fall from his palms, scattered by the breeze.
“Did it work?” I asked tentatively.
“Yes.” His black eyes were distant, as though he were seeing something else entirely. “It worked.”
My chest tightened.
Ren turned to the mud and stone mess that was Weston’s grave. Pride flickered down the thread.
“Couldn’t have done better myself,” he murmured, putting an arm around me.
“What now?” I said.
“Now we get the hell out of here, before the royals notice what’s happened.” Ren assessed Hannah then looked at me. “I think it’s best, just to be safe, if you walk her back to the car and drive it yourself.”
“Okay,” I said. “Hannah, are you from around here? Where do you want to go?”
But Hannah said nothing, her eyes wide as saucers.
Ren watched her with a frown. “Let’s get back to the car.”
It was two more miles to where he’d parked his SUV off the main road. I practically dragged myself the last thousand feet. My whole body ached, my arm was bleeding, my head felt like it was filled with the same muck that coated my shoes.
Hannah wasn’t much better. When we got to the car, I helped her into the back seat, and she collapsed, her eyes rolling into her head as she passed out.
Ren shifted to human form and put on a shirt dug up from some luggage in his trunk. I peeled off my jacket and examined my arm, torn to shreds by Weston’s fangs.
Ren—who kept alchemy supplies in his trunk, as well—mixed me up some of his minor healing serum.
“I can fix the other bites and scarring later,” he said. “When it’s safer.”
“What do we do with Hannah?” I asked.
“I think it would be best…” He hesitated. “I think it would be best if she forgot about all of this. I can take away her memories. We can leave her somewhere safe. She could have her life back.”
“You can do that?” I asked, stunned.
“It won’t be perfect,” he said. “I’m not a miracle worker. But I can dull her pain and make these past months seem like…a fever dream. She’ll recover. She’s young. Humans are versatile and resilient.”
I glanced at her once again, and the memory of her sobbing on the bathroom floor in front of Maggie’s dead body filled my mind. No girl should have to live with that. Not if it could be helped.
I nodded. Ren sent a reassuring ping down the thread, and I knew I was doing the right thing.
I would remember Maggie and Jess for Hannah. I could carry that for her.
I’d be okay.
Someday.
I drove us north, and when we got to a city where Ren said vampires didn’t linger, we stopped. Ren mixed up ingredients and laid a spell on Hannah as she slept, and then—with a flick of his narrow fingers—wiped the arcane residue away.
We waited until well after dark. Ren carried her in his arms, shrouded in shadows, and left her on the steps of a police station. He was gone before anyone saw him, sliding into the driver’s seat of the car once again.
He took my hand in his. I kissed him gently and leaned into him, caressing our thread, scared to let it out of my sight because it meant so much to me now.
Neither of us spoke for a long time.
Chapter 48
I nearly cried when Ren pulled into the garage of his apartment building. I shook as we made our way up the elevator, as Ren let us in the door and locked it behind us with that strange spell.
I couldn’t decide whether to crawl into the shower or into Ren’s arms. I chose the latter, letting him hold me in the hallway for far too long, brushing his lips over me here and there, murmuring reassuring words that barely mattered, touching the golden thread that connected us.
Finally, he scooped me up in his arms and brought me to the kitchen. He put me on the kitchen island, as though I were food to prepare, and I laughed weakly.
“Strip,” he said, gathering bowls and ingredients.
“You really need some lessons in sweet-talking humans, Ren,” I said, but I did as he instructed.
“Will you teach me?” he asked, and his amusement pinged down the bond along with the teasing words.
I laid myself down on my back, shivering against the cold granite surface, as Ren gently touched my skin. He fixed the bites Weston had given me. He fixed the bruises. He even somehow fixed my throbbing headache.
Ren’s gaze hung on my thighs, on the old bite marks there. “I can fix those, but only if I cut out the scar tissue first. They are too far healed. But I could get rid of the old tissue and replace it.”
I put my hand on his wrist. “
No.”
“No?” he echoed.
“Not yet,” I said. “Maybe later. I don’t know.”
It felt weird to erase what had happened to me. For now, I needed to keep that. I needed the reminder. Those marks were part of what had changed me over the past year, along with a lot of other invisible ones.
Ren leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead then laid his cheek on mine. “I am so glad that you are safe,” he murmured.
My throat constricted as relieved tears threatened to spill from me. Our thread was so tight that it ached, but neither of us had even mentioned its existence in the past twenty-four hours. I reached up to put my arms around Ren’s neck, holding him close for several heartbeats.
“You got me through that,” I whispered. “And I don’t just mean your powers.”
“You are mine to take care of,” he said. “I asked so much of you. The least I could do was share the hardest parts.”
I smiled at that powerful statement. It dawned on me that he treated me like someone he respected, like a demon of equal standing. I’d originally thought the very basis of Ren’s existence was built on trades, that he couldn’t live without them. That wasn’t true. He had no problem deceiving vampires or completely overlooking humans, but he’d never been anything less than fair with me. He’d borne pain and despair with me because we were partners.
“I didn’t believe you when you told me I meant something to you,” I admitted, my shame pulsing down the bond. “Not until I woke up there with you next to me.”
Ren’s reassurance and understanding washed away any negative feelings I had. “Don’t be upset at yourself for that. I know all of this is very strange for you.”
I laughed weakly. “Weirdly, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with it now.”
One look at Ren’s beautiful gaze told me I could be comfortable with him forever.
“Me, too,” he said, touching his lips to mine again.
I smiled and stroked his cheek one more time before I clambered off the counter and dragged myself into the shower, shuddering over and over again as I washed invisible dirt off my skin.
