by Laken Cane
“Get out of the way,” Leo roared, not understanding that Clayton was unable to move. He hadn’t yet learned of Miriam’s hold—he just wanted Clayton to move so he could attack the demon.
But then Rhys sprinted through the field, darker than the night, and his body broke apart and shifted into a hundred lethal blades that flowed like black water.
The demon roared and stumbled back as those blades entered his body—and then Rhys Graver was inside the demon, ripping, slashing, weakening.
I lifted my arms and pain screamed through me as the blades seemed to sink deeper into my flesh. I knew Silverlight was the only thing keeping me alive.
And she turned her attention once more to the demon. He was vulnerable with the shifter inside him, but he was also protected.
We couldn’t destroy him without also destroying Rhys.
The demon and Rhys fought, and it looked like the demon fought himself. He roared and stumbled and stomped, slapping his own body with fiery hands, trying to reach the pain inside.
Then he began to flicker and the blood drained from my face as I realized what he was trying to do. Running away seemed to be his number one plan of action when things got sticky. He was going home, and if Rhys didn’t extract himself, the demon would take him along for the ride.
“Rhys,” I screamed. “Get out!”
Maybe he heard me, or maybe he just knew what was about to happen. The blades flew out the same way they’d gone in—by ripping through the demon’s flesh.
“No,” Miriam yelled, charging toward the demon. “Take the incubus from my man!”
My body was expelling her blades with agonizing slowness—it was as though my flesh was heaving, trying to vomit the switchblades up, but Miriam had buried the blades in deep, and they were stubborn as hell.
Angus shook his head, leaned over to haul Shane to his feet, and the two of them jogged toward me.
Angus shifted as he ran and when he reached my side, he was his bull. His horns were no longer white—scarlet covered the tips and stopped halfway down the curved appendages, but it wasn’t his blood. I wasn’t sure why the color had changed.
If we made it through the night, I’d ask him.
Shane was hurting, but he wouldn’t let a little thing like pain stop him. “Wonder if silver will hurt a demon,” he said. And before any of us could answer him, he lifted his shotgun and squeezed the trigger.
The demon stumbled back a couple of steps but otherwise seemed not to notice the silver shot.
“Do it,” Miriam screamed. She ran toward the huge demon, unafraid. “He’s behind you.”
I took a couple of steps forward but Angus put his big body in front of me and shoved me back toward Leo. I stumbled into the giant, trying to find my balance, my strength.
Silverlight was screaming, her light bright enough to spotlight the entire field, nearly, and I could feel her indecision. She needed me to fling her at the demon, but she did not want to go. I had no idea why, and then suddenly, I did. If she left me with the knives inside me, I would die.
I rushed the demon, swung Silverlight in a circle over my head, and sent her light into the demon. Not her, but her light.
He screamed and stumbled backward, nearly stomping the motionless Clayton. And then, he turned and grabbed Clayton around the throat, holding him like a shield before him.
Clayton didn’t resist. He couldn’t. Miriam had made sure he’d stand still for the demon. I shoved my way past Angus and sprinted toward the enemy, Silverlight raised and ready.
We would fight until we couldn’t.
I attacked the demon’s legs, and again, he screamed, but he scurried backward before any of my men could get behind him, and he lifted Clayton high.
“Trinity, stop,” Miriam cried.
The demon smiled, his body flickering. He left once, for only a few seconds, and when he solidified once again, smoke wafted from what remained of Clayton’s clothes and patches of his skin had scorched and blackened. “I have reclaimed my incubus,” he told me, as we all stood staring helplessly. “And you wish to reclaim this thing. I’ll allow him to live if you give me Silverlight.”
Miriam clasped her hands over her chest, her eyes bright with glee.
“Miriam, what have you done?” I murmured. That was one question I’d been forced to ask too many times.
Then I understood. She was terrified of the incubus. She’d made a deal with the demon—he would claim the incubus and Silverlight, and she’d reclaim Clayton. Perhaps something had happened after she’d called Clayton from the island. Maybe the incubus had decided to rise up and fight, and she’d nearly lost her golem once again.
And she’d impaled me with her blades, knowing that I’d die when Silverlight was gone. She’d get Clayton, I would no longer be a threat, and all would be well. At least in her fucked up world.
“I have a better idea.” I walked to the demon, shrugging off Shane’s hand when he tried to hold me back. I was cold. So cold. “You will take Miriam back to hell with you, and you will keep her there. You will give Clayton to me.” I trembled, and my voice shook when I said the words I did not want to say. “And I will give you Silverlight.”
Clayton stiffened once again but was unable to voice his rejection of that idea. Miriam’s wicked, magical commands held him so tightly he couldn’t even speak.
The demon stared down at me, his expression considering, even as Miriam climbed his back like a deranged monkey and began whispering into his ear.
She didn’t believe he’d take my deal. Not until he did.
“Done,” he said.
Silverlight was going crazy. She brightened and dimmed and vibrated and danced up and down my arm, through my body, trying desperately to dislodge the blades in my back.
But I knew that even when she dislodged them, the odds of my survival were very, very low. She was inside me, keeping me alive, but she couldn’t stay there forever.
And Clayton deserved a shot at freedom. At life.
I think he was the only one of them—other than Miriam—who realized that giving Silverlight to the demon meant my death. The demon would know, but to him, it was a non-issue.
There was one other person who knew, and he crept through the night towards us, closer and closer to the demon.
Amias Sato.
He’d made me an offer once.
And after the demon released Clayton and I released my sword, I would accept it.
Because I wasn’t ready to die.
“Silverlight first,” the demon said, and as Miriam began to realize he was betraying her and tried to leap off his back, he grabbed her with his free hand.
Then everything happened at once. I whispered an apology to Silverlight, then released her and forced her to shrink into her sheath. And then, I hurled the sheath at the demon.
He dropped Clayton to catch it, his hand burning through Miriam’s flesh as she hung in his grip, trying to scream, but only burning, burning.
And Amias hurtled through the darkness like a heat-seeking missile.
Straight to me. “Get my fucking sword back,” I told him. “You can put your blood inside me and I will feed you.”
“Done,” he said, just as the demon had, and he flung himself away from me, with no time to spare. Because I was dying, and if he didn’t fetch my sword in minutes, all the blood in the world wouldn’t bring me back.
He didn’t waste time arguing that I needed to take his blood before he went after the sword. Maybe he knew I would not accept, or maybe he needed to go after Silverlight before the demon had time to stash her in hell. I didn’t know. I only knew that I’d counted on the fact that Amias would bring her back. He’d stolen her once. He would steal her again.
And I would allow him to save my life. I would allow him to put his blood inside me, and in the future when I died, I would come back as a vampire.
As I fell, Shane caught me. Angus shifted back to human form, roaring “No, no,” and Rhys crouched silently in the shadows,
watching and waiting, and Leo held his glowing fists in the air, uncertain. Clayton sat up, dazed, disoriented, free.
Agonizing pain roared through me. The blades no longer tried to extract themselves. Silverlight was not there to absorb the pain, to protect me, to push out the knives. She couldn’t heal me. I’d given her to the demon.
I hoped she understood.
Chapter Thirty-Three
As Angus knelt and lifted me into his arms, Clayton strode forward and took me from him. Angus didn’t argue, but as Clayton held me against his chest he took my hand.
With Silverlight’s absence, my arm once again throbbed with pain, swelling and pulsing like a living thing had crawled inside and I could feel its heartbeat.
Shane and Rhys sat on the ground beside us, and Leo stood at our backs, keeping watch.
“I’m yours,” Clayton murmured. “You’ve saved me from something you cannot imagine. I’m yours.”
I wished for the strength to touch his face, but my strength was gone. I was just a dying woman bleeding out in the dead of night. “You belong to no one,” I said, fiercely. “Not anymore.”
“Still.” He smiled, and I caught a glimpse of the man he’d been before. “I am yours, Trinity. You have my heart, my devotion, my protection.”
“She’s dying,” Shane growled, full of pain and anger. “Your devotion isn’t what she needs.”
Maybe he’d blame Clayton for a while, but if I lived, his anger would melt away. If I died, there would be a war between those two.
“She won’t die.” Clayton’s voice held no doubt, but his eyes, no longer blank and empty, held a world of agony. He looked at Shane. “But if you say that again, you will.”
Shane stiffened, but before he could say anything I stopped him. “Don’t fight each other. Don’t do that.”
The world was fading. Weakness held every part of my body, and I wasn’t sure I was even breathing. I floated, and dreamed, and dimmed. I began to drift away, but I wasn’t afraid.
Then suddenly, I popped my eyes open and gasped, because in my drifting dreams I saw the way station. I saw, and I saw Himself, and I knew he waited. I’d brought the bull back from the island. I’d proven myself.
Now I had to claim the way station.
“I can’t die,” I spat, contemptuously. “I’m the Gatekeeper.” Still, I could not move. I had to believe in Amias, and in fate, because they were what would save me. And I believed.
“Damn right,” Rhys murmured, but his voice was strained.
No one looked at him. He’d shared a part of himself they’d never seen, and his secret was no longer his own. But he had to know the only one of us he couldn’t trust was gone. Miriam was gone.
And Clayton was free.
“Clayton,” I said. “Tell us your side while we wait.” I needed the distraction. We all did.
Immediate resistance lit his face and he blanked his eyes, but that was only habit. I could see the second it dawned on him, the instant he really understood that her hold was gone forever.
“I’m a man,” he said, slowly.
I would have nodded, but despite my momentary determined surge of belief, I felt myself slipping toward the darkness once again. Something swam in that darkness, something like darting silver fishes, and I widened my eyes. “What is that?”
“What, Trin?” Angus squeezed my hand. “We’re here, sweetheart.”
“Silver in the air,” I whispered. “See it?”
“I can’t.” Rhys jumped to his feet, then flung himself into the night.
I was sad to see him go. But then Clayton began to speak, his voice warm and comforting and distracting as I lay against his chest. His arm pressed against one of the switchblade handles that protruded from my back, but I said nothing. In the sea of pain, the pressure of his arm was merely a tingle.
“The man who saved Miriam from the cages was a pedophile,” he told us. “He saved her, then he betrayed her. He hurt her in ways no one but Miriam can truly understand. He broke her mind. But she was never able to admit what he did to her. To all those other little girls.”
No one spoke, or moved, or even breathed as Clayton spoke. His voice held something I did not recognize and could not name. Perhaps it had no name.
“I also broke her mind,” he continued. “I took him from her. I didn’t know she was there that night.” He stared down at me. “I would have killed him anyway, but I would never have done the things I did with her watching.”
“She wasn’t really trying to hurt you,” Shane realized. “She was trying to hurt him.”
“She just didn’t realize it,” I whispered. “That poor child.”
In Miriam’s tormented mind, Clayton and her father had been the same person. She loved them more than anything, she hated them more than anything. They were everything to her. Everything good, everything bad.
Her damage had begun the moment she was thrust into cages by her handlers. Her adoptive father and Clayton had turned that damage into insanity.
My heart broke for the child she’d been.
But I hoped she would never escape the demon’s cage.
Clayton kissed my tears as they slid down my face, but none of us said another word. I wished I’d never asked him for the truth.
We waited.
“You’re a bloodhunter,” Shane said, finally. “There’s magic inside you. You’re not dying.”
“Amias will return,” Clayton said.
“I’ll take her now.” Angus slid his arms beneath me and Clayton allowed him to pull me into his embrace.
“Seriously,” Leo bellowed. “Not even prison held such despair.”
“Yeah,” Angus told him, calmly. “It did.”
Leo only sighed.
The giant had a tenderness to him that not even prison had managed to defeat.
Then Shane leapt to his feet, his shotgun up. “About fucking time,” he snarled.
Amias fell to his knees beside me. He was burned and bloody and smelled overwhelmingly of sulfur, but he had Silverlight’s sheath in his hand. He slid the sword into my pocket. “Drop her,” he commanded, and Angus reluctantly placed me on the ground, on my side, and moved out of the way.
“We are both in dire straits,” Amias murmured. “And there is no time. The demon will come and he will bring hell with him. When he does, we will need to be strong.” He put his fangs to his flesh, ripped open a vein in his arm, then shoved it against my lips. “Drink.”
Blood splattered my face, and my stomach rebelled, and if I’d been closer to life I would have struggled. But I was dying as they watched me, and Amias was right. There was no time.
I opened my mouth.
When I did, his blood seemed to leap down my throat. I didn’t swallow it, though. It didn’t flow into my stomach and slosh there like morning coffee. My flesh absorbed it before it could reach my stomach. Absorbed it and carried it into my bloodstream, my heart, my brain, my soul.
And it burned.
As I dwelled on the awfulness of being consumed by vampire blood, Amias struck. He grabbed my wrist, and I felt his fangs popping through skin and tendons and my blood rose up through his fangs and hit his bloodstream, the same way his was hitting mine.
I wanted to scream with the agony of it, but I couldn’t.
I wanted to cry with the finality of it, the wrongness of it, but I couldn’t do that, either.
When it was over, I was healed—the blades were expelled from my body, the wounds had closed, and the bone in my broken arm was mended.
But my mind…
It was a little more shattered.
I guess that was the one thing he couldn’t heal.
No one could.
Someday, I would die, and I would become a vampire.
Deep down, I wasn’t sure I could live with that.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“His masters will keep him occupied for a while.” Amias licked the tiny puncture wounds on my wrists and they sizzled, then closed. “But he
will return.”
“When?” I started to stand, and though I had the energy of a dozen bloodhunters, I didn’t push my men away when they propelled me to my feet. They needed to help me. They needed to touch me. And I understood. “You acted as though he was on your heels as you fed me.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “My urgency was not about the raging demon—it was about the dying bloodhunter.”
He was happy. His joy shone in his dark eyes, played at the corners of his smiling lips, and danced around every word he spoke. He was thrilled.
I was his.
And he was mine.
I caressed Silverlight’s hilt, then turned away from all of them and pulled her free, crying out with joy when after a few brief heartbeats, she gently expanded. I was pretty sure she had forgiven me.
I smiled and gave her a squeeze before putting her back to bed. Even powerful, magical swords needed to rest. Then I turned to the men, who watched me in silence.
Only Rhys had fled.
And he wouldn’t have gone far.
He would think about the changes in his own circumstances. His secrets were no longer totally his own, and though I didn’t know exactly what that meant for him, I knew he would need time to deal with it.
I was Lady of the Way Station. I was the Caretaker. And settling into that house, on that land, with my men beside me, was suddenly all I wanted.
It felt like fate.
The men circled me with their arms and their love, even allowing Amias to stand with us, and for a few minutes we just breathed, connected by something that none of us completely understood.
All but Leo, who stood with his back turned, not yet part of us.
Not yet.
Amias allowed his hand to linger at the small of my back for a few seconds before he stepped out of the circle. “I will come for you soon,” he told me, as though I wanted him to come for me. Without waiting for my answer, he melted into the darkness and disappeared.
Clayton stared into the night, his gaze turned inward as he became reacquainted with himself as a free man. He looked at me suddenly, and I lost my breath at the dark promise in his eyes.
