by Megan Starks
There was no reason to fight now.
His muscles tensed under her hand.
“I think he knows, darling, his contract’s been breached.”
“No!” he snarled, shuddering to hold himself in check. “She didn’t die! I hurt her, but she healed!”
Her heart thrashed in her throat.
Shade turned on Gisele, pale eyes wild. His wings beat down; his rough hands reached for her, and she knew that he was going to try to flee. He was going to take flight, broken wing be damned.
“What about Beast?” she cried, but he didn’t answer.
The world toppled as her feet left the ground.
With a flick of her wrist, Felicitisia unleashed Shade’s contract. The ink ran. The unbound pages crackled and ripped, splitting into a hundred coiling strands that morphed from crisp white parchment into twisting, silver-forged chains. They shot forward under the direction of her fingers, crinkling as they encircled Shade’s arms and legs, his chest and wings. They ripped him from the air, and Gisele fell several feet, fending against a cyclone of claws and strands and wings.
“It’s a lie!” Shade howled, choking as the binds of his contract constricted around his throat. “I didn’t kill her!”
He struggled, brought once more to his knees. But the chains, connected to her aunt’s grip, tightened around his injured wing until he blanched and dry heaved.
Felicitisia tutted. “I am not referring to the here and now, pet. No, you failed your duty days ago. In the Office of the Paranormal.”
Gisele hurt where she’d hit the ground. She lifted herself to her elbows with a grimace, fear and anger writhing in her chest. She’d had enough of her family’s dangerous manipulations and their mistreatment of Shade. No way was this happening. Not now.
But Shade was looking to her, devastated. “You died?” His voice was hushed and broken.
Dumbfounded, she realized he was right. Vyx had killed her in that stupid corpse locker in the Office of the Paranormal. Her heart had stopped dead cold.
Wincing, Shade stared at the ground, unable to meet her gaze. She watched the chains wind tighter around his chest, and he didn’t fight them.
“Shade!” she demanded, but he didn’t answer.
She would have said more, would have commanded that he try to get free, but her attention flicked to Marcel as her cousin sliced both of his palms open. The horn-handled knife clanked to the ground. He was going to wake the Mardoll.
“Marcel, don’t do it!” She clambered to her feet. “It’ll kill you!”
He lit a brash smile, but it was hollow. Rubbing the Mardoll between both hands, he glanced to Felicitisia. “I might not have your Right of Blood, but I’m no Luciferes if I can’t form even a short-lived Hellmouth. If I do this, Mother will be proud of me.”
He clamped his jaw, hands quaking as the shrunken head’s eyes began to crack.
“Stop him! Ground him or he’ll die!”
Rumble and the two other guards rushed forward. They laid hands on Marcel just as the Mardoll’s blue beaded eyes shone open. A purple light beamed under Gisele’s feet. Cutting below her and Beast. No! “Shade!” she cried, lunging for him.
But the ground was dissipating beneath her. She was sinking—no, falling. Her skin tingled, swathed with the roiling purple light.
Desperate, she grasped for Shade, and he looked up, his silver eyes meeting her gaze. He gave her a wistful smile.
“I’m sorry, Gigi,” he said. “But I have to stay.”
She clawed through the air. Couldn’t reach him. Beast’s blood was streaking upwards, raining in reverse, staining the midday sky.
“Come! Shade, come to me!” she screamed.
His jaw clenched. Muscles popped in his neck and shoulders. He watched her, desperate, and worse, hopeful, as she fell. Tisia laughed that tinkling sound.
“To me,” Gisele repeated, and the sound rang louder.
It became the din of her dragon’s roar, ripping from his throat, became the knell of chains sliding, tightening, chinking. Breaking.
Silver shattered, and Shade fell forward, reaching, shouting her name. He tucked his broken wing to his side, arrowing his body, shooting toward her.
“Again!” he shouted.
Multi-colored scales shredded through his skin, rippling up his arms as he scrabbled for her in the air.
“Grab onto me!”
Talon-tipped fingers caught at her calloused ones, cut her, but held. His with hers. There. Together. Twining like vines.
She had him, but just barely.
She tried to grip him, her lifeline, her heartbeat. The Hellmouth wobbled and warped, tossing her askew like flotsam caught in a savage wave, and she lost him, torn apart, screaming.
Then, fever-hot and falling, breath burned from her lungs—
She was gone.
30
The demon’s shoes scraped as he limped down the street. The sound became a rasped cadence to his ears with every step, a ragged breath mimicking the beat of his thready pulse in his neck.
He stared straight ahead, unblinking as he approached. Kept his gaze locked on his goal as he grated another step.
Looming over him, the old brick building seemed starkly uninviting as he struggled up its stairs, hands clenched in his pockets. His broken femur screamed an ignored protest.
Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades.
Above a closed red door with a big brass knob, a few letters had been freshly painted. Detailed in black, they read: 666.
It was a gateway. The avenue to his future. Soon, it would be opened for him. Or—due to his mistakes—it would be barred to him forever.
He reached up to knock, thought about the fact that he was on his third and, surely, final chance. Blood pumped from a cut between his ribs. He licked at his bruised and swollen lip, hesitant.
Taped to the door’s ghoulish antique knocker, a neon flyer flapped in the breeze. Creased from having been folded, its highlighter-colored paper clashed with the door’s dark crimson paint. He snatched the paper free, scanning its text as he pounded the heavy knocker so hard it snapped off in his fist.
Shit. He tossed the brass ring thoughtlessly, and it landed in a nearby flowerbed, crushing several orange peonies. Double shit.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw.
The flyer was crudely printed, the work of an amateur. It read, ‘Devil’s in the Details – Detective Agency. Need someone to spy on your cheating wolf-man? Locate your missing amulet, wand, talisman, or charmed ring? Rescue your cat familiar from a tree? Half-satisfaction guaranteed, or it’s free!’
The evidence stared him plain in the face, a stark reality.
Life had gone on without him, the same as before. She didn’t need him at all.
Fist clenched harder, he reached up to pound the door again.
Before his knuckles could connect, the door wrenched inward with a splintering crack, and a towering minotaur clomped into the open frame.
Shade crumpled the flyer in his hand. He said nothing, eying the curve of the puckered pink, jagged scar bisecting Beast’s exposed abdomen. Spiny black sutures crisscrossed the laceration, sticking out like barbed wire.
Beast snorted, also said nothing.
“Guess I didn’t kill you after all.” He wouldn’t apologize, but he was thankful he hadn’t murdered Gisele’s pet. Not that he’d ever admit it, but he admired the creature’s loyalty and strength. He jerked his head toward the gut wound. “Left you a nasty souvenir though.”
Nostrils flared, the minotaur leaned further into the door frame. His tipped horn carved a mark into the crown molding as he cocked his head. Then he bellowed into the parlor behind him, “Half-blood! Little dragon has come home.”
Silence stirred and then settled between them.
After some seconds, footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Beast stepped to the side in time for Shade to glimpse Gisele—dirty and disheveled—as she launched herself into a flying tackle. He caught her, stum
bling a step backwards from the force of her weight. Without thinking, he ducked his head and breathed deep the scent of her hair. He pressed his bruised mouth to her neck and exhaled in relief.
Every wound, trauma, and abrasion on his body healed at that instant, skin knitting, bones fusing, swelling abating, all at once, like a flower suddenly brought to bloom. It wrung a groan from him, both painful and pleased. He’d hoped his princess would be happy to see him, but this was better than he could’ve imagined.
“I missed you, too.” He chuckled soft and low, teeth tracing the line of her throat.
Somehow, she managed to hug him and beat his chest at the same time. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he held her up.
“It’s been weeks! Where the hell have you been?!” With a pang, he realized she was crying. More softly, she said, “I went back twice. I tore The Fucking Goat apart, but I couldn’t find you. Worse, no one would admit to knowing you. It was like…you’d died, like you never existed. But here you are. You escaped?”
He gripped a palm against the back of her neck, held her tight.
“Escaped.” He repeated the word before pulling back enough to look at her, to kiss her salty tears away. Dark circles hollowed her eyes, and her milky skin had paled to the point that he could trace the little veins that ran along her throat.
It wasn’t an affirmation, yet as he’d known she would, Gisele took it as one. “How?” she asked, sounding small and broken.
Again, his chest panged.
He couldn’t lie to her. But he also didn’t want her to know the truth, that there was no escaping what he’d done. If she knew, she’d do something stupid. Like risk everything for him. So he spun a series of truths that wove together the falsity he needed her to believe.
“You broke my chains. After the Hellmouth closed without me, getting back to the surface became considerably more difficult. I had to smuggle myself through.”
She bought it, smiling and sagging against him. Beast clacked his teeth, and Shade skewered him with a warning glare. “Going to ask me in?” he said, to distract Gisele from the exchange.
“When has a lack of invite ever stopped you?” she laughed.
He knew he should let her down, but he didn’t want to, so he carried her over the threshold and into the building’s marble-floored lobby. Straight back were the stairs to the living quarters. To the right, a warm, den-like office had been outfitted with a mahogany partners’ desk, two chairs, a lamp, and not much else. So the place wasn’t quite up and running yet.
He dumped his princess on the desk’s burnished, gleaming top, stopping her when she tried to slide off.
“You wouldn’t be in need of a partner?” he asked, stepping between her jean-clad thighs. His thumbs brushed over the rough fabric as his fingers clasped behind her knees. Forcefully, he spread her legs wide. Jerked her flush to his hips. The lamp crashed to the floor, and he didn’t care.
“Already have one.” She smiled and glanced pointedly at Beast, who chuffed and left them, making a racket as he plodded up the stairs. Seconds later, cabinets banged and pots clattered in the kitchen.
Shade tried not to smile back. It wasn’t an expression he was any good at wearing. Besides, he shouldn’t be allowed here with them, not after what he’d done. But here he was.
“What about security?”
“He’s upstairs.” Gisele arched against him. He wrapped her hair around his fingers, gave a playful tug.
“A secretary.”
She grinned, her whole face brightening, and he wanted to suck the air from her lungs, to make her writhe and swallow her moans. His thumbs slid to the crux of her thighs, dug and rubbed.
“Got that covered, too.”
“A backup investigator then. Someone with experience running down perps.”
“Laurel’s available if I need the help.”
A growl rumbled from his throat. “Think you could use a soul-bound?”
She fell silent then, and he regretted saying anything. Sure and serious, she cupped a hand to his cheek.
The red of her eyes drew him in, snared him so easily, wholly and inescapably, as she said, “You. It’s just you that I need.”
He blew out a heated breath.
“Will you stay with me?” she asked.
Yes. He didn’t say it, instead closing the distance to her mouth, where he kissed and bit and sucked and licked, pressing the knowledge of it into her.
But then he did say it. “I will never willingly leave your side.” Because he wanted her to hear it. To hear and taste and feel the truth of his devotion vibrating through her very bones.
She was everything, and she was his again. “I’ve no right to, but I love you. I have always loved you. You know that, right?”
Her fingers curled against the nape of his neck as she pulled him back into a searing yet tender kiss.
At length, she broke away to nip a line up his jaw. “I know.” She touched her lips to his ear. “So one day, I’ll set you free.”
Her mark stirred in his chest, sliding little slivers of pleasure through his veins even as she plotted to eradicate it. He pressed her fingers over the raised hot ridging of the scar.
He’d stop her before it came to that.
“Only if one day is a long, long way away.”
She smiled even brighter than before, and his heart stuttered.
As a young guard, Shade had made the mistake of believing that he’d always have his girl to tease and to chase and to cherish. That anytime she’d wanted, he’d be there to carry her on the furls of his wings. But then he’d lost her, and then he’d nearly lost her again. He’d learned the error of his ways.
He’d been taught through blood and broken bones and a sea of tears the painful lesson of that assumption—and the consequences of a single misstep—in more horrific ways than he cared to remember.
The past had shattered his hopes and dreams. But right now, his girl remembered him. She wanted him, and he was here, safe, and strong, and trusted. Right now, he was by her side.
Right now, forever was a possibility again.
THE END
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Sneak Peek of Waking the Dead
The sound of the crash struck her first.
Her tires screeched after she slammed on the brakes, barely missing the blue Sentra in front of her. It had one of those “Choose Life” stickers plastered on its left bumper, the smiling infant illuminated by the red of taillights.
The image still burned in her brain as she made a sharp left.
Her car fishtailed. She registered more squealing tires and the shriek of metal on metal signaling impact. Her heartbeat hammered above the clamor all around.
Breathe in, breathe out. The car stopped dead. But how?
Am I hit? Did I hit someone? Her airbag hadn’t deployed, but the pain in her left shoulder let her know her seatbelt had gotten a workout. Breathe, focus, look around! Darkness had already swallowed much of the summer evening twilight’s soft glow, but there was still enough light to make out her surroundings. I’m off the road and half in a ditch, but I think I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. God, what happened?
There had been an impact. She’d felt it, heard it, but what had she hit? The car in front of her?
With a deep breath, she leaned forward with caution and peered into the ditch. The Sentra had landed in the narrow end of the gorge several feet away from danger. Its driver wrestled with his door, wedged against the side of the trench. When it didn’t budge, he gave up, scooted over, and climbed out of the passenger door. Vivian’s car teetered over a deeper part of the ditch. She couldn’t see them, but knew jagged boulders lurked at the bottom below her front tires. She knew the road well.
It was close to home.
She managed to shift into park with a shaky hand, her right leg cramped from
maintaining pressure on the brake. Get up! Get out! She turned off the ignition, wincing in pain, and shifted in her seat to remove her seatbelt. Unsure exactly how far her car lurched over the ditch’s edge, she moved slow and easy, exiting the vehicle and closing the door. She clicked the automatic door locks and put her keys into her pocket out of habit. Shock and the surreal quality of the unfolding events kept her running on autopilot. The urge to move, to act, forced her to her feet. If she could breathe, she could move. If she could move, she could function. If she could function, she’d be all right.
Judging from the commotion further up the road, someone else involved in the accident was far from all right.
Her feet carried her away from her car and toward the small but growing crowd. The acrid stench of smoke, gas, and burnt rubber assaulted her. The glare of headlights hurt her eyes. She walked forward, ignoring the other spectators who ignored her in turn. Their chatter remained distant—conversations and comfort, tears and terrified mutterings, men and women speaking all around to one another.
No one spoke to Vivian. She spoke to no one.
Sirens wailed in the distance. She walked along the periphery of the crowd, grateful to go unnoticed so she could concentrate and just keep moving. A low rumble of dread gnawed at her gut, warning her to stop, but her legs refused to obey.
Time seemed disjointed, slowing, then skipping like a damaged film reel. She looked back at her car and realized she’d been inches from oblivion. If I hadn’t stopped when I did…if the guy behind me hadn’t…. Any sooner, she’d have been rear-ended and launched full into the ditch. A moment later, her car would’ve been crumpled between the Sentra and the F-350 behind her. But she’d hit the Sentra, hadn’t she?
No, no damage to the rear of the vehicle, and her front bumper remained intact, as far as she could tell from the distance. How had she stopped? Shifting her gaze to the F-350, Vivian saw it from the side now, the black truck adorned with a custom flame job painted across the doors and bed. The brawny owner inspected the body for damage. Flecks of dried mud and grime rose from the undercarriage and dulled the flares above. The vehicle’s powerful bulk was adapted to rough terrain, like its owner. She and her sleek sedan were not. They’d all been going at least 35, maybe 40 miles an hour. She had to look away. Disaster had come so close.
