by Nadine Mutas
Neither Dima nor Yuri had any idea where Alek had gone, since he hadn’t told them a thing, either. Lily had been about to call Alek right after he left, when her phone rang, Merle checking in on her. She’d apparently been worried as hell when Lily dropped the phone before, and hadn’t answered her frantic questions.
And best friend that Merle was, she’d drafted Rhun to track Lily, arriving on Dima’s doorstep a little later with her demon mate in tow. All the while, she’d remained on the phone talking to Lily, giving her constant, unwavering emotional support. When Dima opened the door to let a worry-riddled Merle bustle inside, she immediately enfolded Lily in a bone-crushing hug. Tears flowing freely now, Lily allowed herself to feel the full force of the news Merle had given her, mourning the loss of her witch life in the arms of her best friend.
Coming to terms with the unalterable fact that she had to remain a demon for the rest of her life was…the hardest thing she’d ever done. Wait, no, scratch that. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she’d had to do many a thing that had rattled her far more, had left deeper scars in her soul. Like laying to rest all three of her cousins in close succession. Like watching her mom wither away under the relentless taunting of Lily’s father, while Lily felt as helpless as if she didn’t possess an ounce of magic. Like seeing the damage done to Maeve’s psyche, her body, after the wisp of a girl came back from her abduction, and feeling so damn guilty by association because it was her aunt who had done it to Maeve.
So, yeah, accepting that she had to kill to make a living? Didn’t seem like the worst compared to that. Especially since she figured she could choose other demons as her prey, those who truly breathed evil. Like those fuckers who had turned her and the other witches. And that unnerving, writhing darkness inside her, that vicious hunger for death and blood and breath…she’d harness that force, and direct it at those who had committed such despicable crimes, simply sucking the life out of them was not enough of a punishment.
Hadn’t she already done the same thing when she was still a witch, taken out the lowest of the low demon scum to protect others?
She could deal with this, with the loss of her magic, her former life.
What stung her almost more, though, was the fear that she might also have lost the support—the passionate affection—of the demon who had managed to crack walls she believed to be unassailable. In all the time she spent with Alek, she hadn’t wanted to get too close to him, and yet she’d basked in his attention, hadn’t she?
Shaking her head at her own selfish complacency, her muscles buzzing with the need to do something, to shake this feeling of helplessness and fatalism, she left the room and went downstairs. Merle and Rhun were sitting on the couch talking with Dima and Tori while the kids played on the floor.
Because both duhokrads would have understandably been wary and defensive about a witch in their home, they accepted Merle’s vow to keep their location secret probably only because of Rhun’s presence. A witch married—mated—to a demon was a novel thing, and it spoke to the truth of Merle’s assurance of safety.
All conversation stopped when Lily came downstairs, five sets of eyes trained on her, with far too much pity in them for Lily’s taste. Impotent anger at the fate dealt her, at the ones who’d done this to her—and others—fired her blood, made her grit her teeth.
And speaking of the ones responsible for her predicament… “We need to find those motherf—” a glance at the children on the floor, their young ears eager and listening “—those incredibly inconsiderate and evil guys who did this.”
“I agree.” Merle’s voice cracked with the strain of frustration. “The question is how. We have barely anything to go on.”
Right after Alek brought her to Dima last night, Lily called and told Merle what they learned from the duhokrad who’d shot her. Merle had immediately started on a search for more information, with Rhun tapping his demon contacts for any rumors about a serum like that, or anyone planning to do something of the magnitude of turning witches into demons. They’d found nothing so far, not even the slightest hint that anything like this was in the works.
Whoever was behind this nefarious scheme had set the operation up with meticulous attention to remaining under the radar.
Lily met Merle’s sky blue gaze. “Since we can’t find them, we’ll have to let them find us—or rather, me.” Before Merle could interrupt, Lily raised a hand and went on, “They want me, we know that much. I can play bait. No, listen. Let them come get me, and then Rhun can track me to wherever they take me. That way, we’ll at least have a shot at finding their base or more of these bast—um, misguided people—so we can grill them about where the other witches are being held.”
Her heart cringed at the thought of any other witches forced into a life and identity they’d never chosen, isolated from their families and community—at the mercy of someone as cold, callous, and truly evil as the ones behind this operation surely had to be.
“If what that duhokrad told me is correct,” Lily continued, “there’s at least one other witch-turned-demon, and, Merle, I can’t sit here doing nothing while I know one of us is out there, suffering gods-know-what and—” She broke off, her mind imagining way too vividly what might have happened to a turned witch among duhokrad males hell-bent on mating.
Merle rose from the couch. “Lil…”
“It’s the only way to find them right now, and you know it.” She turned to Rhun, nodding at him. “You said you can track me by my demon energy signature. But they don’t know that. Which means when they nab me they won’t find anything on me that would tip them off that I have a rescue team standing by. They’ll think themselves safe. And the whole thing can be quick. You guys will be right behind me, can storm their hideout as soon as they take me inside, and before they know it, we’ll have them shut down. They won’t even have enough time to do anything to me.”
Merle rubbed her forehead, her face troubled. “I don’t know, it still sounds risky…”
What followed was a back-and-forth argument about the danger of the mission, but Lily remained adamant, wouldn’t back down. She had to get those witches—demons, she corrected with a wince—out, had to stop whoever was behind this from turning more of her kind.
In the end Merle and Rhun conceded. To increase the likelihood that she would be kidnapped, Rhun decided to have his contacts indulge in gossip in known demon hangouts—especially those frequented by duhokrads, thanks to tips from Dima and Yuri—with the express request for them to casually drop hints about where they’d seen a new female duhokrad named Lily who’d had a spat with her lover and apparently had to find a new hidey hole. Judging by how fast the otherworld grapevine usually worked, the information should reach the right ears before the night was over.
“All set,” Rhun declared when he walked back into the living room, pocketing his phone. “Bahram says he got word out in the right places. If these duhokrads are sharp enough to pull off a huge coup like this without so much as stirring the waters, they’ll be well-connected enough to hear about it, fast.”
Lily gave a grim nod. “Time to get started.”
“I still don’t like it.” Merle folded her arms in front of her chest, her forehead set in unhappy lines. “What if someone other than those duhokrads decides you’d make an easy target and wants to grab you?”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Dima, who’d been mostly quiet during the initial discussion, and had only chimed in here and there, blew out a breath. “I’m sure Alek’s gonna throw a fit when he finds out about this.” Silver-gold eyes identical to the ones that made her heart flutter—and yet lacking the same effect—met hers, a hard glint in them. “He’d never let you go play bait.”
“Well,” she shot back with more bitterness than she wanted to show, “he’s not here, is he?” Nodding at Rhun and Merle, she opened the front door. “Let’s go.”
They dropped her off a couple of blocks away from the demon bar Rhun and Merle ha
d visited during Maeve’s kidnapping, and Lily walked the rest of the way so she wouldn’t be seen close to the bar in the company of a witch. Both Merle and Rhun would stalk her from the shadows, ready to pounce should things go horribly wrong. Hazel was on her way to join them. Two Elder witches and a demon should be enough to take on Lily’s kidnappers, once they’d tracked her. Any group larger than that would draw too much attention from the otherworld community, as well as from other witches potentially patrolling the area.
After she entered the bar, chatted with the shifter bartender and the demon waitress for a bit, casually asking them about good places where she could hole up at sunrise, she hung out at a table nursing a drink for a while before making her way out again. The bar itself was a neutral ground for otherworld creatures, and the chance of her being abducted was low as long as she stayed inside. She’d lingered long enough to make sure patrons saw her, banking on someone passing along information, since some beings made their living dealing in intel. Given the rumors spread about her already, with hints that she’d show up here, word should have gotten around about where to find her.
She yanked open the heavy front door of the bar and stepped out, past the shifter—feline? He sure smelled like it—who guarded the entrance. The tall, muscled hunk of a man nodded at her, his eyes tracking her every movement while she descended the stairs to the sidewalk.
“Have a good night,” she said and waved over her shoulder.
Senses alert, she ambled down the street. Magic lay heavy in the air, the demon wards meant to deter witches and humans from the vicinity of the bar. Her chest constricted with a sting at just another reminder of how her essential nature had changed. Demon. I’m a demon. Her mind still stumbled over that, not quite ready to fully embrace and process the fact she’d remain one for the rest of her life.
A blur of white shadows slithered around the corner ahead, and the blood froze in her veins. Shrouded in a white, tattered cloak that undulated in an invisible wind, a soul sucker demon came spider-crawling toward her. It kept creeping closer, until she could make out the rotting skin of its head half-hidden beneath the cowl of its cloak, the mouth perpetually gaping in its readiness to suck souls out of its victims, and eyes of swirling milky white. Finally shaking off her paralysis, she was about to run for the hills when it skulked past her.
Past her.
Because soul suckers only fed on humans, not other demons.
Her breath left her on a wave of relief that almost buckled her knees. Throwing a glance over her shoulder—the soul sucker entered the bar—she walked on. The street lay empty ahead of her, nothing else moving.
At least not overtly.
In the alley between two buildings across the street, there was a small flicker of movement, someone trying hard not to be seen.
All righty. Pretending not to notice, Lily continued on her way, also playing oblivious when she felt a presence following her from some distance behind. Her feigned cluelessness went so far that—gasp—she was totally surprised when someone grabbed her from behind.
Noting the trace of duhokrad in her attackers’ auras, she held back some of her strength. She still put up a fight, since it would arouse suspicion if she was captured too easily, but her struggle was half-hearted enough that the three duhokrads—they sure didn’t fuck around, did they? Sending that many males against a single female—overpowered her quickly.
One of the brutes clapped a filthy, callused hand over her mouth so her screams wouldn’t alert anyone nearby, and they dragged her behind a fence and into a courtyard where a van sat idling. Another of the males opened the back while the other two heaved her inside, never letting go of the grip they had on her wrists.
“Stuff a rag in her yap and search her,” the black-haired male who’d opened the van—apparently the Leading Asshole—said as soon as he closed the door behind him.
One of the bastards gagged her with a piece of cloth he tied behind her head. What followed was a humiliating pat-down of the sexual harassment sort, and she cataloged the faces of those two assholes while she had to lie there and take it. When Merle and the others took them all down, she’d make sure these two were hers to kill. And she’d use the drive to their base to think up fun, creative ways to deliver their death.
The brown-haired son of a bitch with a scar on his neck handed her phone over to Leading Asshole. “No sign of magical trackers on her.”
Leading Asshole opened the door, threw out the phone, and then rapped on the division to the driver’s cabin. “Let’s go.”
She gritted her teeth to suppress a growl. That phone had been new. When I’m done with your lackeys, she thought the moment the van started rolling, you’ll be next, fucker.
Chapter 22
Shaking the water from his hair, Alek jogged back to his truck, the cool night air seeping through his soaked clothes, his wet skin. When he reached his vehicle, he set the nymphenstern on the pickup’s bed, opened the tool box, and pulled out the towel and change of clothing he always kept there for visits to Arawn. With speedy efficiency he stripped, dried himself, and put on the fresh set of clothes.
Nymphenstern securely tucked in his jeans pocket, he hopped into the driver’s seat and checked his phone, which he’d stored in the glove compartment for his audience with the Demon Lord. His heart jumped into his throat. There were several missed calls from Lily as well as Dima, and text messages from both, asking him where he was.
Lily’s face before he left flashed through his mind, the utter despair, the tears glistening in her eyes, the hurt confusion when she saw him back out the door. She’d needed him, had reached out to him, not understanding what he had to do. And he couldn’t explain it to her.
He hadn’t been sure he’d be able to get the nymphenstern—unused, to boot—and the last thing he wanted was to get her hopes up, only to have to smash them again, should it turn out Arawn wouldn’t give him the stone, or it had already been depleted. He’d just watched her heart break in front of him—he would not have been able to watch it a second time if he’d returned from Arawn empty-handed.
Now, he didn’t hesitate before tapping the button to call her back. He listened to it ring, his mind scrambling for the right words to tell her the news. The call rolled over to voice mail. Frowning, he dialed again. No answer.
With a sinking feeling, he called Dima. He picked up on the second ring.
“Sasha, where the fu—” Dima cleared his throat. “—fudge are you?”
“Fudge!” Lucas shouted in the background.
“On my way back from Arawn. What’s going on?”
“I could ask you the same thing. What the hedge were you doing, leaving like that? Did Arawn summon you?”
“Hedgehog!” Lucas sounded closer to the phone now. “Can we have fudge?”
“Later,” Dima said. “Go play with your brother.”
“I had to get something for Lily.” Alek started the truck and maneuvered down the dirt forest road while holding the phone to his hear. He briefly explained the whole thing to Dima, whose laden exhale tickled all of Alek’s warning senses. “Dima, what happened?”
What his twin told him raised not only the hair on his nape but his blood pressure as well. His grip on the phone so tight the device threatened to crack, he clenched his jaw and sucked in a deep breath through his nose. “And you didn’t stop her?”
“Sorry,” his brother drawled. “I was all out of rope to tie her up with.”
His other hand gripped the steering wheel so tight, his knuckles whitened. “Where did they go?”
“You going to rush after her if I tell you?”
“Do I even have to answer that?”
A sigh on the other end of the line. “Fine. From what I heard, they planned it to go down near Gehenna.”
“Thanks.”
“Sasha,” Dima said right before he wanted to disconnect the call.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t get killed.”
“I won’t. After
all, I still need to whip your ass for letting Lily get away.”
Merle watched a dark blue van leave the fenced courtyard where the duhokrads had dragged Lily. Her muscles itched to run after her best friend, her magic tickling along her nerve endings, ready to strike.
She glanced at the demon crouching next to her, his dark aura a caress she felt deep in her soul. “Is she in there?”
Rhun nodded, a lock of his chestnut hair sliding onto his forehead. “Positive.”
“Let’s give them a head start while we wait for Hazel.” It wouldn’t do to tail the van right away. If the demons sniffed so much as a hint that they were followed, it would jeopardize the whole mission. She blew out a breath. “I still don’t like this.”
“I know.” His warm hand on her nape, squeezing, comforting.
“What if they hurt her, Rhun?” Visions of Lily in pain flashed in her mind, of her suffering at the hands of these cruel bastards, her body beaten, broken, bloodied—images of another bruised and ruined body surfaced. Memories of a scene that was burnt into her retinas, would haunt her for the rest of her life.
“She’s not Maeve,” Rhun said, massaging her neck. “Lily knows how to fight, even without her witch magic. She’s tougher than a bag of nails, and strong enough to handle this situation.”
She arched a brow at her darling demon. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you actually like her.”
“What I’m trying to say—” Rhun straightened, enunciating each word clearly. “—is that after a few minutes alone with her, these guys will probably throw her at us when we come in. Hey, we may even get some money from them for taking her back.”
That earned him a hearty smack on his shoulder. He shot her a wicked grin that quickly melted as he cocked his head, as though listening.
“Hazel’s coming,” he said, nodding toward the other end of the alley they were using as their vantage point. Turning, he frowned. “And she’s not alone.”
And, sure enough, shortly after Hazel rounded the corner, another shape followed her. Merle rose from her crouch, her magic buzzing closer to the surface, before she recognized the man behind the other Elder witch.
