by Joey W. Hill
Ben had reached the utility box. As he’d walked toward the witch, Marcie thought their eyes had locked, his and Elagra’s. When he got close, her lips peeled back. A couple of those sharpened teeth had broken off and there was blood on the others, her lips cracked. The look in her eyes when she gazed upon Ben made Marcie feel a little sick. Even now, the woman had a way of making the skin crawl, her dark energy reaching out like spiders coming down a wet rock wall, out of the darkness.
Ben dropped to his heels beside her. His voice, though low, carried.
“You said you could turn and twist a man’s heart, anyway you wish. Make him abandon his soul, so he could never find it again. You were wrong. I found my heart and soul. But you gave me something, too.”
He reached out. Put his hands around her throat. Marcie knew the strength of those hands, and swallowed as he obviously tightened his grip.
“Don’t watch, Marcie,” Raina said.
But she couldn’t look away. She would never look away, because she knew just how important it was for her to never turn away from any part of Ben, light or dark. She made an alarmed noise, gripped Raina’s arm, as magic sparked off Elagra’s skin.
Marcie felt the shudder of that energy reach their group. It was as if Elagra had found some last vestige of power within her, something to try and throw him off, knock him back.
Raina had said she had a powerful will. But so did the man who held her life in his hands.
His expression didn’t change, a thing as chilling as Elagra herself. Marcie remembered when Matt had told her that she and all of them—the men of their inner circle, the wives—were Ben’s moral compass. But that if anyone threatened that family, he would annihilate the threat without thought or remorse.
Elagra’s magic couldn’t touch him. Those sparks flickered out, and her base human survival instinct kicked in. She scratched at his hands, her feet weakly kicked, but he never let go. Just kept staring into her eyes until he apparently saw the life go out of them, and she was limp in his hands. Then he let her drop. As he began to straighten, he noticed that the hem of her thin shift was rucked up high on her thighs. Though the water that had drenched all of them had revealed early on Elagra wore nothing under it but the now streaked paint, he adjusted the skirt so it modestly covered her. Then he folded her hands on her breast. Her empty eyes stared skyward.
He nodded, and said something else. Marcie felt the impact of those words in her heart.
“It’s done.”
Silas lifted the scythe and moved forward. Marcie didn’t know what would come next, but all of it, everything that had happened, took her past what her body could handle. She struggled against losing consciousness, reaching out with one trembling arm. Ben was walking toward her. His gaze was on her face.
He wasn’t the only one with a strong will. Though the pain grew in waves, she wouldn’t let it have her, not until his hand closed on hers, until he took her back in his arms. “She can’t have you,” she whispered. “It can’t take you from me. None of it.”
“I know, brat.” His voice was rough, harsh. It reminded her of what Raina had said about Mikhael.
Not kind, not of the Light, but his way is true, and I trust him with everything I am.
Not kind, but the love was there. It didn’t have to be pretty, as long as it was strong enough to survive storm surge and shadows.
“Everything I am—it all belongs to you. God help you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“You’re giving me crap for breaking some stupid law that would have let Marcie die? While feeling lost like that? You know she wouldn’t have been able to figure out where the afterlife was. Even with a damn Grim Reaper guiding her, she would have become a lost spirit. Eventually a demon’s pawn, like those dark things you were fighting, someone else’s minion. Want to explain that to Ben O’Callahan? Or lie to him, feed him bullshit about her going to a happy place?”
Raina wasn’t going to point out that Ben had killed Elagra’s body. She’d destroyed Elagra’s soul, ripped it up, pinned down what was left of it in the rubble of her broken body. No getting away from that. Derek stood at the mantle in their hotel suite, his arms crossed, thumbs under his arm pits, feet braced. His steely blue gaze was hooded. Mikhael was at the bar. When he looked toward the Light Guardian and their gazes locked, Raina’s temper broke its already strained leash.
“Oh no, you don’t.” She stepped in between them. “You’re not doing the ‘menfolk are having a silent conversation about the decisions the womenfolk made.’ Fuck that, and fuck the both of you.”
“Raina,” Mikhael said, his tone exceptionally even. Usually when she got mouthy, he’d get all cold and snarly. “It has nothing to do with that. We are conversing with…someone else.”
“Oh.” Realizing the implications, Raina blinked. She might have unwisely fired off something snarky to the Lord of the Underworld, but fortunately Ruby, sitting on the couch, reached over the back to grab her hand. She yanked Raina halfway over the edge, bringing her around it to join her on the cushions. “Do not make me lose a sister today,” Ruby hissed. “You made a decision. Let them figure it out.”
Raina would have snapped at her, too, but Ruby was still looking at half strength. Plus, there was a relaxed though exasperated look to Ruby’s features that told Raina she likely didn’t have to be concerned about the conversation happening between the Guardians and Lucifer.
It still rankled. For form’s sake, she glowered at them, but she settled on the cushion, pulled her knees up to her chest. She put her hand on Ruby’s bare foot, stretched out on the couch, and squeezed reassuringly. Derek’s wife shook her head at her, but dropped her cheek to the couch’s back cushion again, eyelids going to half-mast.
“You look like you did right after you had Jem,” Raina observed.
“I feel like I had ten of him in a row. But it’s all good.” Ruby reached out and Raina obligingly lifted her own hand so they could clasp. “We did it. Saved the day and all that. Kept everyone from dying. Until next time.”
“Maybe you’ll have time to do a few baby yoga classes and limber back up before the next catastrophe hits,” Raina said lightly, keeping her sister witch’s worries at bay. But platitudes didn’t cut it, not in their world. She squeezed Ruby’s hand. “You two are always going to be busy, because the world can be a dangerous place. But that means we make the best of the in-between time. Right? July 4th is coming up. We’re hosting that big picnic on the lawn at Sweet Dreams, and you promised to bring your kickass potato salad that my boys especially love. You forget to do that, and you’ll long for a save-the-world raincheck. Nothing more annoying than a bunch of pouting incubi.”
Ruby attempted a half-smile. Raina knew some of those shadows in her eyes had to do with other things, things going on in the adjoining hotel suite, so she caressed her fingers, tugged, to draw Ruby away from those concerns.
“We’ll talk about it with her together. Right now, let’s just be glad we ended up where we ended up. We’ll figure out the rest. That is, if I’m not moldering in some Underworld redemption chamber for saving a Pure Light’s soul. All because of some stupid, goddamned technicality in the Underworld’s ‘how to kick evil’s ass in a politically correct way’ battle manual.”
“Sshh,” Ruby admonished, pinching Raina’s arm with pincer-like fingers.
“Ow.”
Fortunately, Derek and Mikhael’s expressions cleared, suggesting they were done with their otherworld meeting. Confirming it, Derek shot Raina his patented stern cop face that always made her want to yank his chain. Or choke him with it.
“You’ve not broken the laws of either Light or Dark,” Derek said. “The destruction of Elagra’s soul was her own doing. Her punishment at your hands made you the instrument of her deserved fate.”
He looked toward Ruby, his expression softening, then came back to Raina. This time, the look didn’t change, reminding Raina that the Light Guardian cared for his wife’s best friend, and would
have her back, always.
No matter how uncomfortable it made both of them.
Even so, it still always surprised her whenever Derek went out of his way to be kind to her, but maybe because it had taken so long for her to see him as a friend.
“You did the only thing you could,” he said. “Believe that as truth and don’t doubt yourself as time passes. You saved Marcie’s life.”
“It’s not the end of it, though,” Ruby said, saving Raina from the embarrassing desire to give him a hug. All eyes turned to her. “There’s the rest of it.”
“Later,” Derek told her, reinforcing what Raina had. “We rest, and celebrate first.”
“Come.” Mikhael held out a hand to Raina. “Derek and Ruby are going to portal to Jeremiah. You and I will stay here and watch over Ben and Marcie. But there is room in that for us to take our ease. We’ll regroup on what remains to be done later.”
Raina nodded. She moved across the couch first, though. She saw the surprised flash in her friend’s eyes when she gave her a strong hug, holding her lean body close. “You are the most amazing witch I’ve ever seen,” Raina whispered. “Take the same advice your semi-tolerable mate just gave me. Whatever paths you walked to get here, saved her life today. A lot of lives. You can’t live backwards, only forwards.”
When she rose, Ruby’s eyes were suspiciously wet. Raina was glad Derek was there to take her place. He lifted Ruby and put her back in his lap, cradling her, stroking her hair, holding her tight. In a few minutes, when she was more composed, Raina was sure they’d portal to Sweet Dreams, where Jem was being spoiled beyond repair by all her doting sex demons.
And didn’t that just sound a little weird when one said it aloud?
It was possible Ramona had already retrieved him, and Derek and Ruby would go to her shop to see him, take him home.
After Marcie had mercifully lost consciousness, Silas had sent all of them off. When last they saw him, he’d been standing by Elagra’s inert body, his head bowed as if praying over her. Raina suspected he’d been doing whatever a Grim Reaper did to prepare a soul for being pulled from its body and taken to where it was going to go.
She had visualized Elagra’s soul being torn from her flesh and blood, her incorporeal wrist locked in Silas’s unrelenting grip as he dragged her, screaming, struggling, into a place as dark as the life she’d lived. Because of her malevolence, she’d face a redemption sentence that was three times the suffering she’d inflicted on others.
Though she accepted it was justice, Raina didn’t feel any satisfaction at the thought. Truth, as most things of this nature, it hit a little close to home. She remembered the flash of pity that had crossed Marcie’s face, looking at the broken witch. A Pure Light had empathy that surpassed that of an angel’s. Raina was nowhere near that generous of heart.
Ramona had portaled straight back to her shop, saying some crazy thing like she had to get the rest of her stock unpacked. She’d just left it lying around in open boxes. But she’d considered leaving it that way, letting people rummage through it.
“They like finding treasure in disorder,” she’d said, with a tight smile. Her gaze had slid to Silas for a brief moment, but then, in a blink, she’d been gone. Well, in a swirl of energy that Derek and Mikhael together had fortunately contained, so it didn’t spin all the buildings around backwards or turn them upside down on their roofs.
Mikhael’s hand closed on Raina’s, bringing her back to the present. He took her to the door of their room. Thresholds were significant to witches, to cross over into different ways of thinking. The closing of the door decidedly behind them, his palm pressing against it, added to the potency of the moment. But that image of Elagra she’d planted in her own head remained.
The depletion of her body had given Marcie the blissful escape, even if temporary, from this. The aftermath of a fight that, while a victory, was also a reminder of how much evil existed in the corners of the world. Voices crying out for help that didn’t come, voices that had been silenced forever.
She closed her eyes. Then Mikhael’s hands were on her shoulders, her upper arms, bringing her back against his solid body. His mouth was at her ear.
“Whatever darker sins you have committed, witch, you have more than paid for them. And if you have redemption coming in your afterlife, I will petition Lucifer for the right to handle it personally.”
She wanted to smile, but instead she pulled his arms closer around her, and he understood, holding her with undeniable strength. “It disturbs me, down deep in my soul,” she whispered. “And it makes me so very afraid. Reminds me of when that was my whole life. Fear and hatred. Pain.”
He made a quiet noise, dropped his head to kiss her collar bone. “Hear me well, vedma. Should you be required to pay any price in redemption that I deem too painful, I will take it upon myself. You will never suffer like that again. Not as long as I am alive to prevent it.”
“Oh, Mikhael…”
When she squeezed her eyes shut tight, there was a hard ache in her chest and throat. She was a tearless witch, physically unable to cry in the mortal world, but it didn’t mean she didn’t feel the need sometimes. Fortunately, he had other ways of bringing her catharsis.
His head pressed against her throat, so she heard the vibration of his words inside her. “There was a moment, when we first saw Elagra, when I could tell Marcie wanted to ask the question all humans want to ask. Why evil like Elagra committed happens. The answer is far too complicated for human understanding. But I would have told her this.”
Mikhael’s hands tangled with Raina’s fingers, gripped. “The several of her victims who escaped her; a couple brought things to the world it needed. They could not have done that without the harsh sculpting of their souls her abuse inflicted. The ones who didn’t…their souls weren’t strong enough, not this lifetime. But in another, future path, that former life experience will bear fruit. It is the way of things. Not a comment on how it should be, but it is how the world turns. No memory or thought or experience is ever wasted. Elagra served her purpose. It always serves a purpose.”
“So why did you come to Ben instead of to one of them?” she murmured.
“He was the only one still in New Orleans. It was a geography matter. You and I…our paths converged because of geography.”
“Also because of darkness.”
“Yes.” His arms shifted, one wrapped securely around her waist, the other above her breasts, his hand firmly cupped over her shoulder. She made a soft noise and he tightened his grip again. Sometimes she thought it could never be tight enough, but it always was. Enough to steady her world, help her find her feet again.
He ran his touch along her arms, her waist, to her hips. Then he was lifting up her skirt in the back, so he could put heated palms on her hips and buttocks beneath it. She’d changed into the loose-fitting cotton dress when they came to the room, something dry, but she hadn’t put anything on under it.
“Maybe something before we take a more thorough bath,” he said against her ear.
She nodded. But he didn’t initiate the rough and urgent sex she expected. Instead, he turned and lifted her, so her legs wrapped around his hips. He pressed her head down to his shoulder, let her fold her arms around the broad expanse of both of them.
He moved to the bed, putting her down on her feet beside it. With his powerful fingers, he traced the cut on her forehead, his dark gaze getting even darker. “When did this happen?”
“I lost track. Probably when I was hurled onto the Harrah’s entranceway.”
“You did not shield yourself quickly enough, in order to protect Marcie.” He kissed the cut. “You may not be a Pure Light, but your heart is true. Even as you make mine stop far too often with your reckless courage. Moya edinstvennaya.”
My one and only. Turning her away from him, he nudged her with his thigh. “Lift your arms. I want this dress off.”
She complied. He dropped the dress to the side, dipped down to kiss another cut on
her back. She turned her head to her shoulder, odd feelings swirling in her chest.
“Mikhael,” she breathed.
“Ty moya edinstvennaya lyubov,” he murmured. “You are my only love.”
He knew her heart, and what to say. Just as he knew how to do this to her, open her up down to her soul. Help her let the nightmares go, the lingering, wrong kind of darkness. He worked his way down, caressing or kissing every bruise, cut or scrape. There were quite a few. When he was done, he’d dropped to one knee behind her, was holding her hips. She was trembling. Not a single one of them had been quick, perfunctory kisses. He’d lingered over each, pressing his mouth over them, tracing them with his tongue, suckling gently to give her a brief increase in the pain, followed by a fizzing of nerve endings as he soothed them.
Distantly, she was aware of the regular rise and fall of sirens through the French doors. First responders, still handling the variety of aftermath crises the storm surge had created. The number of wounded would be low, thanks in large part to the near-miracle Matt and his team had pulled off, getting the affected waterfront evacuated.
Since the reason had been cited as a potentially very dangerous gas line leak, she supposed they’d offer some additional convoluted and very improbable justification, like it had caused an underground explosion that created the storm surge. People filled in the blanks on the things that seemed incomprehensible. It wasn’t her issue to worry about.
When her Dark Guardian straightened to stand behind her, he cupped his hand over her throat, tipped her head back to his shoulder. “Mine,” he murmured. Her eyes were closed, so the word vibrated through her, over every wound, the current and past ones, soothing all of them. And keeping every nerve ending aroused to his desires.
She almost believed him, that when her time in this body came to an end, he would personally supervise whatever time she had to spend in Hell. And come up with his own form of punishments.
