Through a Crimson Veil

by Patti O'Shea

  Mika could feel Conor become more and more tense as they started running out of places to check. She struggled not to ask, but the question slipped out anyway: “If this psychic put the energy field around your house, don’t you have a way to get in touch with her?”

  He mumbled something.

  “What?”

  “I said,” he bit out, “I think I might have her business card. Somewhere,” was tacked on grudgingly.

  “Your filing system.”

  “If you think I’m so damn bad at organizing things, I’ll pull the boxes out of storage and let you at them.”

  She clenched her teeth to keep from saying anything else. They’d just fight if she did. Conor was frustrated and edgy; she could hear it in his voice. His mess of papers wasn’t worth arguing over—even if a trained monkey could do a better job at keeping the paperwork orderly.

  The sun was low in the sky when McCabe finally called it a day. The crowds had thinned dramatically, the tourists had gone back to their hotels and the locals to their homes, and it was unlikely that the woman they looked for was still giving readings. If she’d been here at all.

  Mika remained quiet as they headed back to the truck. Conor was tense enough that his body nearly vibrated with it. The urge to soothe him, to try and make him feel better, nearly swamped her, but Mika knew he’d pull away. Instead, she thought about what she’d seen today.

  Despite her many visits to the city, this was the first time she had come to this beach. She brought her arm up and ran her fingers fleetingly across her barrette. When things were back to normal, she would return. She wanted to spend time exploring the shops for things to buy, not wander around looking for psychics; and she wanted to be able to stop to watch the street performers. One of them had tugged Mika out of the crowd to dance with him. She’d been having fun—until she’d heard McCabe snarl. Her lips curled. Next time she’d come with Kimi, not a jealous vishtau mate.

  Conor wasn’t holding her hand any longer, and she missed the warmth of his calloused palm. But things had remained awkward between them since she’d told him how she felt, and they didn’t show signs of improving. Pulling off her sunglasses, she tucked them inside her purse while they walked back to the truck.

  As they left the beach farther behind, the area became deserted. Mika felt a prickle of unease go down her spine. If she’d been human, the desolation would make her worry about a mugging, a rogue vampire or werewolf attack, but she was Mahsei—what had her concerned was the dark demons. This was the perfect time and place for them to make their move. She became more alert, let her senses roam.

  They’d just turned onto the street where they’d parked when the fireblast streaked by. Mika and Conor tackled each other to the ground behind a parked car. “Not the Dark Ones,” she murmured against his ear as they crouched behind the vehicle. Not when that shot had been directed at McCabe.

  As he nodded, a second blast separated them. They dove in different directions. They were facing multiple attackers who, while they might want Conor, clearly weren’t concerned if she took a hit. She assumed this team included the auric assassin, but he was saving his special energy blast for the perfect opportunity.

  Like hell, she decided, and looked around. Her vishtau mate was already firing back, fireblasts of his own directed toward their second attacker.

  Their foes had the setting sun at their back, giving them an advantage: Mika was blinded. She might not be powerful enough to make a storm, but she could gather clouds, and she did that now, trying to even the playing field. She wasn’t able to block the sunlight completely, but she dimmed it.

  Conor spared her a glance. “Nice,” he said, sending out another wave of energy.

  Mika whirled, avoiding a shot from the first attacker. She wasn’t positive exactly where he was, but she called on the wind, rotating it until it became a mini-cyclone, and sent it toward where she thought her assilant was. It might not have stopped the Dark Ones, but these foes weren’t quite so deadly, and maybe some blowing debris would slow them down.

  After she sent the tornado on its way, she looked around, trying to find shelter, but the position of their attackers left her and Conor with no place to hide. McCabe was busy exchanging fire with the second, but demon number one was abnormally quiet. Where the hell was he? Mika reached out mentally, trying to locate him, but couldn’t. Which wasn’t good. No way in hell had her trick with the wind been more than a distraction; he wasn’t out of the equation yet.

  Maybe it was because she had her senses extended, but she suddenly knew precisely where her enemy was positioned. And as her eyes traced the line, she realized Conor was directly in his sights.

  It didn’t require even a split second of thought: Mika launched herself across the distance separating them and put herself in front of Conor. In the next instant, the energy blast hit her.

  Mika staggered, tried to keep her feet. Tried to keep Conor protected. Her body refused to obey. She felt herself start to fall, felt McCabe catch her. Part of her retained enough awareness to realize she’d taken a stronger blast than anything the dark demons had leveled at her. But then, this assassination squad wasn’t playing around.

  Her lungs burned as she gasped for air. Not a cell in her body didn’t feel as if it had been clobbered by a sledgehammer. The intensity was like nothing she’d ever felt. It was almost a gift when her senses began to numb. Almost, but not quite. Her eyesight began to narrow, her view of the world became distant, as if she were staring down a long tunnel, and Mika knew what was happening.

  At least she’d saved her vishtau mate. That’s what counted.

  As her life force drained away, she struggled for a moment more of consciousness. She had one thing left to say. One thing left to do. “I love you, Conor,” she rasped.

  And then Mika fell.

  “No.” He whispered the word, but what Conor wanted to do was howl out to the universe. He gathered Mika’s body up, held her tightly as he scanned the area. Where the hell were his assailants? They weren’t firing. Were they moving into position for another shot? Lulling him into a sense of false security before springing a different type of trap?

  He reached for his magic, the power he found too horrible—too demonic—to ever use. If those bastards thought they were going to finish Mika off, they had better think again. His soul was a small price to pay for her life.

  He kept scanning, but picked up nothing. Which was odd, since demons rarely cloaked during a battle. But these two obviously were, and had been, only dropping their shields a split second before firing, and raising them immediately after getting their shots off. Why?

  The night was quiet. Every instinct Conor had said there was no longer any danger, but he continued to try to locate his attackers. He wasn’t ready to trust they were gone—not when this would be a perfect opening. But as time passed and everything remained calm, he decided he had to move.

  He lowered Mika to the ground, cradling her head against his chest. She’d deliberately put herself in front of him, deliberately taken the energy blast. “What the hell were you thinking?” he hissed.

  There was no answer, and as Conor looked down at Mika’s face he realized she wasn’t just injured—she was dying.

  Too late, he realized she’d meant it when she said she loved him. Probably she was the only person who’d ever cared for him that deeply, and he hadn’t believed her, had scoffed and berated her for speaking the words.

  And yet she’d said them again and again.

  She’d never given up on him.

  With a shaking hand, he reached down and smoothed a dark tress off her face. His fingers ran into the goofy little hair clip she’d bought today—it dangled precariously in the ends of her hair—and carefully he unhooked it, slipping it into the pocket of his jacket. His fingers touched his comm unit, which he pulled it out, starting to call for help; then he remembered there was nothing human medicine could do to save her.

  “Mika, don’t leave me, okay? Please don
’t leave,” he begged.

  He jammed the comm back into his pocket and lightly stroked her cheek, ran his thumb across her lips. “Come on, honey, hang in there. Fight. You know you want to tell me I’m an ass. That I should have known you’d never let anyone hurt me.”

  Half-afraid of what he’d find, he rested two fingers on the pulse in her throat. It was weak, thready. And there wasn’t one fucking thing he could do to keep her alive.

  “You know,” he said quietly, hoping she could hear him wherever she was, “you’re everything I’ve always wanted, all I’d dreamed of finding someday. But I couldn’t trust it, I guess. Maybe that’s why I was so quick to doubt you, so quick to believe the worst. Maybe I wanted to think you were part of that conspiracy, because then I didn’t have to risk anything.”

  Conor laughed, but his throat was thick and the sound was choked. “All right, you weren’t on the up-and-up. I know that. But you made that promise before we met—I should have been able to let go of it.” He felt movement. “Mika?”

  Spasms wracked her body, and he locked his arms around her, trying to keep her from hurting herself in her thrashing. “Ah, damn. Ah, damn. Honey, please. Don’t die. I’ll do anything, I swear.”

  “Anything?”

  Conor jerked his head up at the voice. He couldn’t see more than a silhouette, but this was a demon, no doubt about it. He wasn’t completely cloaked, which was why Conor could see him but couldn’t read his energy.

  Shit, he hadn’t sensed anyone approaching. Who else was out there? Conor scanned, but only sensed some humans. He couldn’t trust that, though, not when this son of a bitch had gotten the drop on him. He drew on his power again, ready for anything, and growled, “What do you want?”

  The demon held up both hands in a universal sign of peace. “It’s not what I want, it’s what you want. I can heal her.”

  Eyes narrowing, Conor tried to pierce the shadows surrounding the demon, but whatever obscured him wasn’t natural. If it were, Conor would be able to see his face.

  Conor didn’t trust anyone who hid so much of himself and demons lied. “You think I’m going to trust you with her?” he snarled.

  The demon’s reply was matter of fact. “Do you have a choice? Another ten or fifteen minutes and it won’t matter. Your mate’s dying, I can feel it from here.”

  Conor’s gut told him this demon was concealing something, but he wasn’t sure he could care. Mika was dying. He knew it; he felt her life energy decreasing every passing second. And Conor would do anything to save her. Anything.

  “What’s the price for healing her?” he asked.

  “It is steep. You may not want to pay it.”

  Maybe a demon wouldn’t pay, but Conor considered himself human, and life meant something to him. Especially the life of this woman. Mika was the only person in the world for him—he wasn’t letting her go. Not if he could help it.

  “Whatever it is, it’s yours. If she recovers,” he promised.

  The demon laughed, and Conor choked back his fury. If Mika died, he would avenge her—and he’d start with this bastard.

  “Don’t you know anything about negotiating with a demon?” the cloaked figure asked.

  Conor glared into the darkness. Every minute Mika grew weaker, and this asshole wanted to play games? “I know that if you don’t stop fucking around, I’m going to kill you,” he swore.

  The demon laughed again. “I’m the only one in Crimson City who can heal her. If I were you, I wouldn’t be tossing out threats.”

  “I’m not making a threat,” Conor said. But he made his voice more amenable. He wouldn’t cost Mika her chance to be healed. “You said it yourself: time is short. Let’s not waste it. You want something, I’m willing to give it to you. It’s that simple.”

  There was a moment of silence, and Conor’s heart started to race. Had he pissed the demon off? He hated the damn cloak; it left him blind in a situation where he needed to know what was going on. But before he could call out, Conor heard the demon move closer.

  “Very well. I promise to heal your mate, and in exchange you promise…” His voice trailed off.

  The silence left Conor breathless, but he held Mika and caressed her as a way to remain calm. She was still alive, and if he had to be patient a minute or two longer, he could do it. He would do it. His entire world was in his arms, and Conor wasn’t letting go.

  Half a million years later—or exactly fifteen of Mika’s exhalations which Conor was counting—the demon stepped into the light and dropped his shield. “And in exchange, I want your promise not to kill me—or incite anyone else to kill me—by any means whatsoever. Do we have a deal?”

  Rage poured through Conor, a rage more intense than anything he’d ever known. No wonder the demon had stayed cloaked, had remained in the shadows. This was the bastard who’d raped his mother.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You son of a bitch,” Conor growled. Instinctually he gathered power to do battle. “Did you really think I’d agree to that? You deserve to die.”

  “But does she?” his father indicated Mika.

  Conor glanced down, shifting so that he could see her face. It was pale—not merely white, but gray. She wasn’t dead, he reassured himself. As if in answer, he felt a soft puff of air against his throat, and something inside him relaxed.

  “What’s stronger—love or hate? That’s the final question,” the demon proposed. “Do you love her enough to put aside your hate for me? Because if you can’t, she dies and you’ll be as responsible for her death as the Setonian that fired the shot.”

  Mika. She loved him. She loved him enough to put up with his bullshit, to apologize again and again for something she’d promised before they’d even met. She loved him enough to try to breach his fears, and he knew how formidable those were after his past. And she loved him enough to take his place, to step in front of the magic meant for him.

  But the bastard was wrong. Conor didn’t have to surrender his hate; he only had to give up his need for vengeance. For Mika, he could do that.

  Only for Mika.

  “I promise not to kill you,” he grated out, “or incite anyone else to kill you by any means whatsoever. Word of honor. Now get over here and heal her.”

  Conor gritted his teeth as the Kiverian sauntered forward. He wasn’t moving with as much urgency as the circumstance called for, and Conor had to hang on to his control with both hands. If the bastard let Mika die, all bets were off.

  “You need to let go of her,” his father said. Conor held on even more firmly. “I can’t heal her like this. You have to put her down.”

  Reluctantly, Conor released Mika and slowly moved back. He stayed close, monitored the son of a bitch carefully. No matter what it took, Conor would watch over his woman.

  But the demon never touched her. Instead, he knelt beside Mika, his hands a good three inches above her heart. The only thing that kept Conor from losing his temper was the fact that the energy flowing between the Kiverian’s outstretched hands and Mika’s body was palpable. Maybe it was imagination, but she seemed to begin breathing a little more smoothly, a little more evenly. Conor wanted to touch her, wanted to push the hair off her forehead, but he didn’t dare interfere in any way.

  A soft glow developed in the space between his hands and Mika’s chest, and the demon began chanting. Conor could only decipher a word here and there, but he recognized an ancient demon language.

  Conor didn’t dare relax his guard, but as the chanting went on, Mika appeared to become stronger. It seemed as if the bastard really was healing her. When her face regained some color, Conor actually felt the knot in his chest loosen. He fisted his hands at his sides to hide their trembling. It was too early to let relief pour through him, too soon to assume she was going to be fine. When she opened her eyes, then he’d believe.

  The chanting stopped and Mika’s body jerked. Hard.

  “You son of a—”

  “Her life force is reentering her body. Th
e movement is natural.” The demon smiled faintly as Conor eyed him with suspicion. “Think of when you’re about to fall asleep and you suddenly jolt awake. Your entire body lurches like this, right?”

  Reluctantly, Conor nodded.

  “This is similar. It won’t be much longer now.”

  Conor growled, but he settled back and waited. The bastard knew his promise only stood if Mika was healed. As long as he remembered that, Conor could remain calm.

  The glow receded as another intonation began. This time Conor was unable to recognize a single word, but he had a sense that this language was older than anything he’d seen. Not that it mattered. He didn’t give a damn if the bastard sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” as long as Mika lived.

  As the demon drew out a word, his hands shifted to Mika’s head. Conor’s gaze sharpened, but his father merely circled his palms over her face. Then he went quiet and lowered his arms. Mika didn’t move.

  “Call her name,” his father said, before Conor could accuse him of anything.

  He eyed his sire with distrust, then lowered his gaze. “Mika, wake up,” he said.

  And that easily, her eyes opened. She blinked twice and noticed she was on her back with Conor leaning over her, and her lips curled into a smile. “Now? On the street? Conor, you’re such a pervert.”

  For an instant, he stared at her blankly, then he laughed. “Honey, you wish. You’re the pervert who always has sex on the brain.” He started to reach out for her, then yanked his hand back. Almost involuntarily, he raised his gaze to his father.

  “It’s okay,” the demon said. “You can touch her.”

  Conor cupped Mika’s cheek in his palm and ran his thumb over her lips. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Like a twenty-mule team ran over me.” The querulousness in her voice made him smile. “I didn’t say anything funny,” she complained.