The Beautiful Ashes
The Beautiful Ashes
Jeaniene Frost
In a world of shadows, anything is possible. Except escaping your fate.Ever since she was a child, Ivy has been gripped by visions of strange realms just beyond her own. But when her sister goes missing, Ivy discovers the truth is far worse-her hallucinations are real, and her sister is trapped in a parallel realm. And the one person who believes her is the dangerously attractive guy who's bound by an ancient legacy to betray her. Adrian might have turned his back on those who raised him, but that doesn't mean he can change his fate… no matter how strong a pull he feels toward Ivy. Together they search for the powerful relic that can save her sister, but Adrian knows what Ivy doesn't: that every step brings Ivy closer to the truth about her own destiny, and a war that could doom the world.Sooner or later, it will be Ivy on one side and Adrian on the other. And nothing but ashes in between… .
In a world of shadows, anything is possible. Except escaping your fate.
Ever since she was a child, Ivy has been gripped by visions of strange realms just beyond her own. But when her sister goes missing, Ivy discovers the truth is far worse—her hallucinations are real, and her sister is trapped in a parallel realm. And the one person who believes her is the dangerously attractive guy who’s bound by an ancient legacy to betray her.
Adrian might have turned his back on those who raised him, but that doesn’t mean he can change his fate…no matter how strong a pull he feels toward Ivy. Together they search for the powerful relic that can save her sister, but Adrian knows what Ivy doesn’t: that every step brings Ivy closer to the truth about her own destiny, and a war that could doom the world. Sooner or later, it will be Ivy on one side and Adrian on the other. And nothing but ashes in between….
Praise for New York Times bestselling author Jeaniene Frost (#ulink_dddc95f3-6621-514c-96d2-3019a6cc449f)
“Leavened with strong emotion and dark humor, and featuring superior writing as well as a thoughtfully structured plot, Cat and Bones’s final adventure is appropriately splendid and satisfying.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Up From the Grave
“A taut, intriguing paranormal romantic suspense that keeps the pages turning from the very first paragraph.”
—Kirkus Reviews on Twice Tempted
“I always open a Frost book with happy anticipation, and I’ve never been disappointed.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris on Once Burned
“As Cat’s journey continues, Frost’s fans are assured of plenty of sexy sizzle along with their doses of extreme jeopardy.”
—RT Book Reviews on One Grave at a Time
“A refreshing change of pace in a genre… New and returning readers alike will enjoy this warmhearted
and often hot-blooded adventure.”
—Publishers Weekly on This Side of the Grave
“Wildly romantic as well as action-packed.”
—RT Book Reviews on Eternal Kiss of Darkness
“A passionate and tantalizing tale, filled with dark sensuality and fast-paced action.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole on First Drop of Crimson
The Beautiful Ashes
Jeaniene Frost
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To JBA, now more than ever.
Contents
Cover (#u56e8fc85-ce10-5b24-88bd-70891df56f1f)
Back Cover Text (#u80f7dceb-3342-5a0c-8c27-01d6f1746cfb)
Praise (#ulink_760335ad-e7fe-5d74-81ba-55cca21d4157)
Title Page (#u3fb3791a-940a-5e7a-8ce2-cc4a8df6478a)
Dedication (#u38b68247-b35d-526d-a418-9409be2af2fe)
chapter one (#ulink_30b01698-3555-5475-b77a-6e4d865b188b)
chapter two (#ulink_b7619ab9-6777-5b25-b768-3919369b2136)
chapter three (#ulink_a6fc67ac-41c7-5c04-95a8-b6548e5f1133)
chapter four (#ulink_47a6f97e-b23e-5726-85d4-807b739a83c6)
chapter five (#ulink_2819ea5d-5d30-5719-b731-e148f6b85255)
chapter six (#ulink_61b7d2ed-8649-5fdb-887b-4c8c612997d2)
chapter seven (#ulink_5a8aca5e-99d7-5d7f-837b-d0db552793c0)
chapter eight (#ulink_67d99c55-0235-5cc5-a358-85015e590623)
chapter nine (#ulink_81d7e747-0940-5c28-a039-9d36f9919bfe)
chapter ten (#ulink_4115f7f0-ad36-5cc8-9919-ed99073245ed)
chapter eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-four (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-five (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-six (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)
epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter one (#ulink_cdeea3cf-e005-51f7-8568-b3003dfc93dd)
I’m twenty, and already, I’ve got nothing left to lose. That’s why I didn’t care that Bennington, Vermont, looked like a postcard for autumn in the country. The two-story bed-and-breakfast I pulled up to was no different. It even had a white picket fence and a steady swirl of sunset-colored leaves drifting down from the many trees in the yard.
My picturesque surroundings were in stark contrast to how I looked. If I hadn’t been exhausted from grief and stress, I might’ve cared that my brown hair now resembled greasy mud. Or that my breath was in desperate need of a Mentos, and don’t get me started on the coffee stains decorating my WMU shirt. Since I had more important things to worry about, I didn’t even bother to cover my head against the downpour as I left my car and ran into the bed-and-breakfast.
“One moment!” a cheery voice called out from farther inside. Then a heavyset older woman with graying red hair came down the hallway.
“Hello, dear. I’m Mrs. Paulson. Are you—oh, my, you’re soaked!”
“It’s nothing,” I said, but she bustled out of sight, returning moments later with a towel.
“You sit down and dry yourself off,” she ordered in the same tsking tone my mother had used a million times before. A surge of grief had me dropping into the chair she waved at. The things you didn’t realize you’d miss until they were gone...
“Thanks,” I said, determined not to cry in front of a total stranger. Then I pulled out the Ziploc bag I’d carried around most of the day. “I’m looking for two people who might’ve stayed here the weekend before last.”
As I spoke, I pulled out a picture of my sister, Jasmine, and her boyfriend, Tommy.
Mrs. Paulson got a pair of glasses from her apron pocket. Then she sat behind a large antique desk and accepted the picture.
“Oh, what a pretty girl,” she said, adding kindly, “just like you. But I’ve never seen either of them before, sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said, although I wanted to scream.
I’d spent the day showing Jasmine’s picture to every hotel, motel and inn in Bennington, yet no one had recognized my sister. She’d been here, though. The last texts she’d sent came from Bennington, but the police already hinted that they thought she’d sent them while driving through. To them, Jasmine was an impulsive eighteen-year-old who’d gone on a road trip with her boyfriend. My sister might be impulsive, but she wouldn’t have disappeared for over a week unless she was in real trouble.
I stuffed her picture back into the plastic bag and rose, so upset that I barely registered what Mrs. Paulson was saying.
“...can’t let you go back out in that, dear. Wait here until the rain stops.”
I blinked in surprise at her unexpected kindness. Every other proprietor had been anxious for me to leave once they knew why I was there, as if losing a family member could somehow be contagious. My eyes stung with a sudden rush of tears. Maybe it was. My parents’ funeral was the day after tomorrow.
“Thank you, but I can’t,” I said, voice husky from emotions I couldn’t let myself feel yet. The shock helped with that. Ten days ago, my biggest concern had been making a bad impression on my Comparative Revolutions professor after my text message alerts kept going off in his class. Then I read Jasmine’s texts, and everything had changed.
Mrs. Paulson gave me another sympathetic smile. “At least let me make you a hot cup of tea—”
A dark, hazy double image suddenly appeared over the reception lounge, making it look as though it had aged over a hundred years in an instant. I stifled a groan. Not this again.
The pricey antiques vanished, replaced by broken-down furniture or nothing at all. The temperature also plummeted, making me shiver before movement in the hallway caught my eye.
A blonde girl walked past the decrepit-looking reception lounge. Her face was smudged with dirt and she was bundled up in a tattered blanket, but I didn’t need a second glance to recognize her.
“Jasmine,” I whispered.
Mrs. Paulson came around the desk and grabbed me, coiling shadows suddenly darting across her face as if she had snakes trapped beneath her flesh. Jasmine continued to walk by as if she wasn’t aware that we were there. If not for the innkeeper’s surprisingly strong grip, I could have reached out and touched my sister.
“Wait!” I cried out.
The house blinked back into elegant furnishings and warm, cozy temperatures. Just as quickly, Jasmine disappeared. Mrs. Paulson still held me in a tight grip, although the shadows on her face had vanished. I finally managed to shove her away, heading down the hallway where I’d glimpsed my sister.
Before I made it three steps, pain exploded in the back of my head. It must’ve briefly knocked me out, because the next thing I knew, I was on my knees and Mrs. Paulson was about to hit me with a heavy picture frame again.
Get out! The single, emphatic thought was all my mind was capable of producing. My body must’ve agreed. I don’t know how, but I was suddenly outside and slamming the door shut on my Cherokee. Then I sped away, wondering what had made Mrs. Paulson turn from a kindly old lady into a skull-smashing maniac.
I drove back to my hotel as though on autopilot. After I parked, I sat in the car with the engine off, trying to fight back nausea while I figured out my next move. I could call 911, but I didn’t want to admit that I’d had another weird hallucination right before Mrs. Paulson attacked me. If I told anyone that, I’d be signing up for a stay in a padded room. Again. Second, the cops in Bennington already didn’t like me. As soon as I’d arrived this morning, I’d bitched them out for not doing enough to find Jasmine. They’d probably take Mrs. Paulson’s side and assume I’d done something to provoke her.
I paused. Had I? I didn’t remember getting away from Mrs. Paulson. What if I’d done something else I didn’t remember? Maybe something that had scared her so much, she’d hit me in self-defense? The idea that I might be having blackouts in addition to hallucinations soured my already bleak mood. I got out of the car and went to my hotel room. Once inside, I dropped my purse as though it were a fifty-pound anchor, then flicked on the light.
Everything in me stiffened. The couch should’ve been empty, but a guy with hair the color of dark honey sat there, his large frame taking up most of the space. Strong brows, a straight nose, high cheekbones and a sensual mouth made up a face that was striking enough to adorn billboards. He didn’t look startled by my appearance, either. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he’d been expecting me.
Gorgeous guys do not spend their evenings waiting around for me. That’s why I thought he was another hallucination until he spoke. My hallucinations had never spoken to me before.
“Hi,” the stranger said, his deep voice tinged with an accent I couldn’t place. “Sorry to tell you, but you’re about to have a really bad night.”
I knew I should turn around, open the door and run, preferably while screaming. That was the only logical response, but I stood there, somehow unafraid of my intruder. Great. My survival instincts must’ve secretly made a suicide pact.
“If you knew the week I’d had, you’d realize that whatever you had planned could only make it better,” I heard myself reply, proving my vocal cords were in on the death wish.
Then again, I wasn’t wrong. My sister? Missing without a trace after texting me “help” and “trapped!” last Monday. Parents? Died in a car accident two days after they arrived in Bennington trying to retrace Jasmine’s steps. Me? In addition to losing my whole family, I’d nearly gotten my head bashed in. By comparison, being robbed sounded like a vacation.
A grin cocked the side of my intruder’s mouth. Whatever response he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that.
“If I win? Probably. If I lose, things are about to get much, much worse,” he assured me.
“What’s the contest?” I asked, wondering why I was having a conversation with my intruder. Brain damage from the head wound?
He rose. Despite my baffling lack of fear, I flinched as he came nearer. He had to be a foot taller than my five-six height, with shoulders that would fill a door frame and muscles no bulky overcoat could hide. The only thing more striking was his eyes: a deep blue rimmed with gray so light, it almost gleamed.
“The contest is to see who walks out of here with you,” he replied, that silver-and-sapphire gaze sliding over me.
“What if I don’t want to go anywhere?” I countered.
“It’s too late for that,” he said softly, reaching out and drawing my attention to the fact that he wore leather gloves.
I darted away. For some reason, I still wasn’t consumed with terror—wake up, survival instincts!—but I wasn’t about to let him grab me. He didn’t try to stop me as I ran past him into the bedroom. Then again, I realized with an inner groan, why would he? Now he stood between me and the room’s only door.
He came toward me, and my heart started to hammer. Why hadn’t I left when I had the chance? And why wasn’t I screaming for help right now?
Three hard raps on the door startled me. Then I couldn’t believe it when I recognized the voice.
“Miss Jenkins, could you let me in? It’s Detective Kroger. We met this morning at the police station.”
A cop when I needed one? Miracles did happen!
To my shock, my intruder turned around and opened the door. The two men stared at each other, and though the intruder had his back to me, I saw Detective Kroger size him up.
“He broke into my room,” I said, making a “do something” gesture.
Kroger’s brow went up. “Is that so, mister?”
“Guess you’d better take me in,” my intruder drawled.
I expected Kroger to reach for his handcuffs. Instead, he came inside, shut the door, and turned off the lights.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
“Move over to the couch,” Kroger said, and I didn’t know if he was talking to me or my enigmatic intruder.
I wasn’t going to remain in the dark to find out. I felt around the bedroom until I reached the nightstand, then turned on the lamp. Light flooded the room, showing that my intruder was still in the mini lounge area with Kroger. In fact, it didn’t look like either man had moved an inch. What was going on?
“Why aren’t you arresting me, Detective?” the intruder asked in his silky, accented voice.
“Good question,” I added.
“Shut up, bitch,” Kroger said harshly.
My jaw dropped. Before I could respond, Kroger’s fist shot out, punching the bigger man in the shoulder. Then he frowned, as if surprised that it had no effect. The intruder caught Kroger’s fist when he swung at him again.
Kroger stared, disbelief creasing his features as he tried to yank free and couldn’t. Then, understanding seemed to dawn.
“You must be Adrian,” Kroger spat.
“In the flesh,” my intruder responded lightly.
I was about to ask what the hell was going on when shots rang out. I dropped down right as one of the men hurtled toward me, too fast to see who. I managed to leap away without getting flattened, though I took out the nightstand in my wild lunge.
The room went dark as the lamp broke. My heart pounded at the instant blindness. I hadn’t been afraid before, but I was now, trapped in a room with two men who clearly wanted to kill each other. I began to feel my way around the bed again, and this time, stumbled on something big. That something grabbed me, and I freaked out, kicking, punching and clawing to get free.
Then I was yanked away and shoved viciously into the wall. Pain exploded over me, and when I swallowed, I tasted blood. I started to fall, dazed, when a rough grip hauled me up.
A beam of moonlight landed on my attacker’s face, and I recoiled. Shadows flickered like snake tongues across Kroger’s skin, turning his features into a sickening mask of evil. Worse, I knew I wasn’t hallucinating. The pain I felt was too real.
“You want to know what happened to your sister?” Kroger’s voice was harsh. Guttural. “You’re about to find out.”
Without thinking, I punched him as hard as I could. He looked surprised, but the blow didn’t even make him flinch.
Suddenly, he was snatched backward and then flung straight up. As Kroger fell back down, Adrian kicked him hard enough to send him crashing through the bedroom window. Before I could even scream, Adrian leaped after him. Then all I heard were thumping noises and groans before a distinct snapping sound made something primal tense inside me.
One of them had just died, I knew it. But which one?
A dark form rose in the gaping hole where the window had been. I began to back away, every movement painful, when I saw something silvery gleam in the moonlight.
Adrian’s eyes.
“Looks like you’re coming with me after all,” he said while vaulting through the window.
I wasn’t bothered by his casual tone or the fact that he’d just killed someone. I was too busy trying to absorb what I’d seen on Detective Kroger’s face, let alone what he’d said.
You want to know what happened to your sister? You’re about to find out.
Hope clawed through my reeling emotions. If the snakelike shadows on Kroger’s face were real, then maybe so was my vision of Jasmine at the bed-and-breakfast!
“We need to...get Jasmine,” I managed to gasp, feeling something wet where I clutched my abdomen.
Adrian pried my hands away and sighed.
“You’re hurt. Sorry, he was one of Demetrius’s dogs, so he was harder to kill.”
He picked me up. Despite Adrian’s touch being far gentler than Kroger’s, I couldn’t stop my pained moan.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be better soon,” he said, carrying me toward the door.
We need to get Jasmine! I wanted to insist, but my tongue seemed to have gone on strike. The tingling in my limbs and buzzing in my ears probably wasn’t a good sign, either.
“What’s your name, anyway?” I heard Adrian ask, his voice now sounding very far away.
I managed one word before everything went dark.
“Ivy.”
chapter two (#ulink_4edf8278-739a-5aa4-8070-90cc1fdffe29)
A familiar song was playing, but I couldn’t remember the name. That bugged me enough to open my eyes. A wall of black met my gaze, slick and smooth like glass. I reached up to see what it was, and that’s when I realized my hands were tied.
“Silent Lucidity” byQueensryche, my mind supplied, followed immediately by, I’m in the backseat of a car. One that was well taken care of, going by that flawless, shiny roof. With those details filled in, I also remembered what had happened right before I’d passed out. And who I was with.
“Why are my hands tied?” I said, heaving myself into an upright position.
For some reason Adrian didn’t have a rearview mirror, which was why he had to glance over his shoulder to look at me.
“Does anything make you panic?” he asked, sounding amused. “You’re tied up in the backseat of a cop-killer’s car, but I’ve seen people get more upset when Starbucks runs out of Pumpkin Spice flavor.”
Anyone normal would panic, not that it would do any good. Besides, I ran out of “normal” a long time ago, when I realized I saw things no one else did.
Speaking of which, why wasn’t I in pain? The lump where Mrs. Paulson had whacked me was gone, and my shirt was red from blood, but aside from a mild kink in my neck, I felt fine. When I pushed my shirt up, somehow I wasn’t surprised to see smooth, unbroken skin on my abdomen. Well, that and a bunch of crumbs, like I’d eaten a dessert too messily.
“Why does it look like I have angel food cake on my stomach?” I wondered aloud.
Adrian snorted. “Close. It’s medicine. You were injured.”
“You can tell me how I’m not anymore,” I said, holding out my bound hands, “after you untie me.”
Another backward glance, this one challenging.
“You may be the calmest person I’ve ever been sent to retrieve, but if I tell you now what you want to know, that will change. So pick—the truth, or being untied?”
“Truth,” I said instantly.
He let out a laugh. “Another first. You’re full of surprises.”
So was he. He’d just admitted that he regularly kidnapped people—which was how I translated “retrieve”—so I should be trying my damnedest to get free. But more than anything, I needed answers. Besides, I still wasn’t afraid of him, and somehow, that had nothing to do with him magically healing me.
“Truth, Adrian,” I repeated.
He turned once again and his gaze locked with mine, those odd blue eyes startling me with their intensity. For a moment, I could only stare, all thought frozen in my mind. I don’t know why I reached out, awkwardly touching his arm to feel the hard muscles beneath that bulky jacket. If I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t have done it. Yet I couldn’t make myself pull away.
Then I gasped when his hand covered mine. At some point, he’d taken off his gloves, and the feel of his warm, bare skin sent a shock wave through me. The touch seemed to affect Adrian, too. His lips parted and he edged over the back of the seats—
He yanked on the steering wheel, narrowly avoiding another car. A horn blared, and when the driver passed us, an extended middle finger shook angrily in our direction. I leaned back, my heart pounding from the near collision. At least, that’s what I told myself it was from.
“Dyate,” Adrian muttered.
I didn’t recognize the word, and I was at a loss to place his accent. It had a musical cadence like Italian, but beneath that was a harsher, darker edge.
“What’s that language?” I asked, trying to mask the sudden shakiness in my voice.
This time, he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Nothing you’ve heard of.”
“I picked truth, remember?” I said, holding up my bound hands for emphasis.
That earned me a quick glance. “That is the truth, but you don’t get more until you meet Zach. Then we can skip all the ‘this isn’t possible’ arguments.”
I let out a short laugh. “After what I saw on Detective Kroger’s face, my definition of ‘impossible’ has changed.”
Adrian swerved again, but this time, no other car was near.
“What did you see?”
I tensed. How did I explain without sounding insane? No way to, so I chose to go on the attack instead.
“Why were you in my hotel room? And how did you heal me? There isn’t even a mark—”
“What did you see on his face, Ivy?”
Despite his hard tone, when my name crossed his lips, something thrummed inside me, like he’d yanked on a tie I hadn’t known was there. Feeling it was as disturbing as my inexplicable reaction to his clasping my hands.
“Shadows,” I said quickly, to distract from that. “He had snakelike shadows all over his face.”
I expected Adrian to tell me I’d imagined it, a response I was used to hearing. Instead, he pulled over, putting the car in park but keeping the engine running. Then he turned to stare at me.
“Was that the only strange thing you saw?”
I swallowed. I knew better than to talk about these things. Still, I’d demanded the truth from Adrian. It didn’t seem fair to lie in return.
“I saw two versions of the same B and B earlier. One was pretty, but the other was old and rotted, and my sister was trapped inside it.”
Adrian said nothing, though he continued to pin me with that hard stare. When he finally spoke, his question was so bizarre I thought I’d misheard him.
“What do I look like to you?”
“Huh?”
“My appearance.” He drew out the words like I was slow. “Describe me.”
All of a sudden, he wanted compliments? I might have finally met someone crazier than me.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, but started with the obvious. “Six-six, early twenties, built like Thor, golden brown hair with blond highlights, silvery blue eyes...you want me to go on?”
He began to laugh, a deep, rich baritone that would’ve been sensual except for how angry it made me.
“Now I know why they came after you,” he said, still chuckling. “They must’ve realized you were different, but if they’d known what you could see, you never would’ve made it out of that B and B.”
“You can stop laughing,” I said sharply. “I get that it’s crazy to see the things I do.”
Lots of kids had imaginary friends growing up. I had imaginary places, though at first, I hadn’t known I was the only one who could see them. Once my parents had realized that what I kept describing went far beyond childhood fancy, the endless doctor visits and tests began. One by one, diseases and psychoses had been crossed off until I was diagnosed with a non-monoamine-cholinergic imbalance in my temporal cortex.
In other words, I saw shit that wasn’t there for reasons no one could figure out. The pills I took helped a little, though I lied and said they got rid of all my hallucinations. I was sick of doctors poking at me. So whenever I saw something that no one else did, I forced myself to ignore it—until Mrs. Paulson and Detective Kroger had tried to kill me, of course.
Adrian did stop laughing, and that unblinking intensity was back in his gaze.
“Well, Ivy, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, you’re not crazy. The bad news is, everything you’ve seen is real, and now, it’ll be coming for you.”
chapter three (#ulink_e99b6132-56d2-5e04-b6f7-b9b59dfa0c5f)
Even on a good day, I hated when guys were cryptic. Those of the Testosterone Persuasion already came with a mountain of senseless tendencies—did they really think they needed to add purposefully vague statements on top of that?
The fact that Adrian refused to elaborate on his enigmatic warning while I was tied up in his backseat made it unbearable. As the time ticked on, I consoled myself by imagining hitting him in the head with something heavy. Or leaning over the seat and choking him with the band of duct tape around my wrists. If the back of this vehicle had had a cigarette lighter, I might’ve gotten creative with fantasies about that, too.
Guess being kidnapped turned me into a violent person.
“Are you a sex slaver?” I asked abruptly.
“Someone’s watched Taken too many times,” Adrian said, and the amusement in his tone grated on my last nerve.
“Why wouldn’t I think that?” I shot back. “You saved my life, but you’re taking me somewhere against my will, and you refuse to untie me.”
“You picked truth, remember?” was his infuriating response.
I swear, the first heavy object I got a hold of...! “You didn’t give me that, either.”
“Yes, I did.” He said it with a heavy-lidded, backward glance that would’ve made me straighten up and smile if he’d done it while we were sitting at a bar. “Just not all of it, but don’t worry. We’re here.”
With that statement, Adrian turned down a long road that led to a set of soaring, elaborately carved gates.
“Wait a sec while I open the gates,” he said, turning the car off and taking the keys with him.
I waited...until he was far enough away for me to make my move. Then I leaped over the seats. When I yanked on the driver’s side door, however, a large hand on the window prevented it from opening.
“Why am I not surprised?” Adrian said with irony dripping from his tone.
I stared at his hand, as if that could explain how the rest of him was attached to it. A second ago, he’d been in front of those barbarically ornate gates, doing something that caused them to swing open with a mechanical moan.
No one could move that fast. Or, more accurately, no one should be able to move that fast.
“What are you?” I breathed.
His teeth flashed in a smile that was predatory and sexy at the same time.
“A couple hours ago, I wondered the same thing about you.”
Me? Before I could ask what he meant, he opened the door and let me out. Ice raced through my veins when I saw the knife in his other hand. That was also the moment when I noticed the sign on the gates: Green-Wood Cemetery.
“Don’t,” I gasped.
He raised a brow, cutting through the duct tape around my wrists. “You’re the one who wanted to be untied.”
My arms fell to my sides while relief roared over me, replacing the surge of fear-fueled adrenaline. Just as quickly, something snapped inside me. All the grief, anger, fear and frustration of the past ten days hurtled through my defenses, turning me into someone I didn’t recognize.
A rage monster.
My hand cracked across Adrian’s face with enough force to make it tingle and burn, and still, it wasn’t enough. I began beating on his chest, part of me horrified by my actions, but the rest urging me to hit him harder.
“What is the matter with you?” I yelled. “You pull out a knife with no explanation? I thought you were going to kill me!”
Adrian grabbed my hands. Any sane person would have recognized how overmatched I was and calmed the hell down, but I was way past sanity. With my hands out of commission, I kicked his shin hard enough to send pain shooting up my leg. He grunted, backing me up until I was pressed against the car hood. Now I had a wall of steel behind me and a wall of muscled flesh on top of me.
“Stop it,” Adrian ordered, his strange accent thicker with his vehemence. “I promise, I’m not going to hurt you!”
My breath came in pants. Adrian countered my attempt to drop down and wiggle free by pressing his thigh between my legs. I stopped that course of action at once, which was the same as admitting defeat. I couldn’t use my arms to push him away. He felt more solid and heavy than a stone gargoyle.
“Get off me,” I said between ragged breaths.
“Not until you calm down,” he replied sternly. Then the barest grin tugged at his mouth. “Feel free to take your time.”
I glanced down, only now registering that my breasts were pressed against his chest just as tightly as his thigh was wedged between my legs. Any movement on my part caused an embarrassingly personal friction, as if inhaling each other’s breaths while we panted wasn’t intimate enough.
I tried to slow my breathing, not to mention my galloping heartbeat. If not for his grin, I wouldn’t have known he thought anything of the compromising position he had me in.
If nothing else, he didn’t seem angry that I’d slapped, kicked and pummeled him. Now that my reckless rage had passed, I realized how stupid I’d been. One punch from his massive fist would’ve meant lights out, but he hadn’t hit back. Instead, he’d promised that he wouldn’t hurt me. Despite his kidnapping me and his refusal to give me answers about what was going on, I decided to believe him.
“Sorry I attacked you,” I said, my voice no longer shrill.
He shrugged like he was used to it. “Don’t worry. You were overdue for a breakdown, anyway.”
Just how many people have you kidnapped? I almost asked. Since I didn’t really want to know, all I said was, “Can you get off me? You’re heavy.”
He slowly uncurled his body from mine, but that silvery blue gaze stayed glued to me. I shivered, suddenly aware of how cold it was, now that I wasn’t covered by over two hundred pounds of warm-blooded male.
Adrian shrugged out of his coat, revealing a crew-neck black shirt that hugged his physique like it was paying homage. Of course he’d noticed the shiver. I wondered if anything escaped those piercing eyes.
I put it on. The hem had been midcalf on him; it pooled on the ground with me. I’d never felt dainty around a guy before. I was comfortable at a size eight because I didn’t have to starve to maintain it, and my five-six height meant I could usually wear heels without being taller than my dates. Next to Adrian, however, I seemed to drop twenty pounds while also shrinking a few inches. Of course, his bulk was all muscle. Feeling him on top of me had made that clear....
I nixed that line of thought before it led to other, more dangerous musings, and tightened his coat around me.
“If we’re not here so you can kill me and bury my body in an empty plot, what else is there to do at a cemetery?” I asked with admirable calm.
He laughed, the deep, masculine rumble teasing something inside me that was too stupid to realize kidnappers were off-limits. That’s why I refused to notice the chin dimple it revealed, or how his lower lip was fuller than the top one.
“Lots of things, but we’ll get to that later.”
“Sure there’s going to be a later?” I challenged him.
“Of course.” Another tantalizing smile. “Since you and I are from the same line, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”
Line? “You think we’re related?”
His gaze brushed me like a physical caress. “Not like that, thankfully. That would make our first date awkward.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You’re hitting on me?” I finally managed. “Do you have any idea how twisted that is?”
He shrugged. “I don’t do subtle, it wastes time. Besides—” the silvery part of his eyes gleamed like liquid moonlight “—if you say you don’t find me attractive, I’ll know you’re lying.”
Under other circumstances, I might have blushed at being busted ogling someone I’d just met, but my kidnapper was hitting on me! Should that make me more afraid, or less? He’d already saved my life once and had had plenty of chances to harm me since, yet he hadn’t.
Plus, I wouldn’t be much fun as a date if I was dead.
“How about we hold the date talk until you give me the answers you promised?” I said, part of me wondering if tonight could get any stranger. The other part felt happy for the first time in over a week. Stupid ovaries. Down, girls, down!
Adrian’s expression turned serious. “I’m taking you to the person who can give you those answers.”
“Zach?” I asked, remembering Adrian mentioning the name.
“That’s him. This cemetery is almost five hundred acres, so if you don’t want to spend hours walking around in the cold—” he went over to the passenger side of the vintage-looking muscle car and opened the door “—get in.”
He was giving me a choice. Or at least, the illusion of one. If I ran, we both knew he could catch me.
The car’s interior light showed a hint of stubble trying to break through the smooth skin along his jaw, shadowing it in a way that was far too attractive. His exotic accent wasn’t helping, either. If I was ever kidnapped again, it had better be by an old, ugly guy. That would be less confusing to my emotions.
And less embarrassing. What idiot got caught lusting over her kidnapper? No wonder he’d asked me out. He must have thought I gave “easy” a whole new definition.
I walked over, thinking that even if I could run away from him, I wouldn’t. My sister was trapped in a place that shouldn’t be real, yet somehow was, and Adrian was my only ally because he could see the same crazy things that I did. More importantly, Adrian had proven that he was able to kill those things.
If he was able to help me save my sister, I’d not only take him up on his date offer. I’d pay for everything and seriously consider putting out.
I got in the passenger side, hearing the door lock as soon as he shut it. I tried to open it. Nothing. My sense of unease returned. What kind of person saved people just to kidnap them, and had a vehicle you could only exit from the driver’s side?
Then again, as Adrian slid into the seat next to me with an almost spooky fluidity, I realized what kind of person he was might be less important than what he was.
chapter four (#ulink_1d713c71-4b80-5cce-9772-8b5db36fbfd3)
Whoever had designed Green-Wood cemetery must have done so while puking drunk since it lacked a single straight road. I felt like we were driving through a child’s maze game with all the twists and turns. Then again, maybe lots of cemeteries were laid out like this. I wouldn’t know. I’d never been in one before. My parents’ funeral wasn’t until the day after tomorrow, both sets of my grandparents had died before my birth, and neither of my parents had siblings or cousins. Until ten days ago, I hadn’t lost anyone close to me.
Now, I’d lost everyone, and while I buried my grief with the same determination I’d used to ignore seeing impossible things, it wasn’t enough. When Adrian drove by a large tomb engraved “Beloved Parents,” the ache that had burned in my throat since their deaths grew into an impassable boulder.
Adrian stopped the car at the same time that I suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
“What’s wrong?” he asked urgently. “You see something?”
I shook my head, managing to draw in a breath despite that awful squeezing in my throat.
“Ivy.” A large hand cupped my face, forcing me to look at him instead of the headstone. “What is it?”
Right then, I was glad that Adrian was so hot. Thank God for the deep hollows under his cheekbones, those sapphire eyes, and the blondish-brown hair that looked like it had been tousled from too much sex. If I hadn’t had his looks to distract me, I might’ve had to focus on how bad it hurt to lose two people who’d never let me down, even when I’d been a stranger to them.
“It’s just...my parents died five days ago.”
My voice was husky from the emotions I kept trying to shove back, but the strangling tightness had eased. Another few deep breaths, and all that was left was a familiar burn.
“I’m sorry,” Adrian said, taking my hand and squeezing it.
I’d heard those words from friends and fellow students a lot in the past week, often with an added cliché about all things happening for a reason. Adrian didn’t say any of that crap. He just kept holding my hand while looking at me with an understanding that transcended compassion, as if he knew what it was like to lose everything within a brutally short amount of time.
“Thanks.” I drew in another breath, blinking away the tears. Crying felt like giving up, and I wasn’t doing that because I needed to find a way to bring my sister back home. “That’s why I need answers, because I’m not about to lose my sister forever, too.”
He let go of my hand and looked away, his jaw tightening. “Answers don’t mean miracles. I heard what that cop said to you. If they have your sister, I’m sorry, but she’s as good as dead.”
“Bullshit,” I snapped, instantly angry. “I know where she is. I just need a...way in.”
Adrian sighed. “You see things no one else does, yet you’re still in denial, aren’t you? The creatures that have your sister are too strong, Ivy. Even if you got in, you’d never get out.”
Creatures? Before I could respond, something flashed ahead, as if a spotlight had briefly turned on. Adrian began driving toward it. A few minutes later, we pulled up to what looked like a tiny castle, with circular turrets on the four corners and a tall, windowed dome blooming out of the center.
Adrian parked, going around to my side to let me out. “Welcome to Green-Wood chapel.”
The door was ajar, soft light emanating from within. Adrian entered and I followed, hugging his coat around me as though it were a protective shield. I was so disturbed by what he said that the equally ornate interior was lost on me. He must’ve meant “creatures” in a metaphorical way, my logic argued.
A young African-American man stood at the end of the pews, his face partially concealed by the blue hoodie hanging over his bent head. I would’ve thought he was praying except that he faced us, not the altar, and his hands were at his sides instead of folded in the universal gesture for piety.
“Ivy, this is Zach,” Adrian said. “Zach, meet Ivy, the girl you sent me to rescue.”
Zach looked up, his hoodie fell back, and—
Light exploded around him like thousands of camera flashes. My eyes burned, unable to adjust to the blinding intensity, and yet I couldn’t close them. I stared, stunned, as the glow around him became even brighter, until I saw nothing except Zach. A multitude of voices roared through my mind, deafening me to everything except their beauteous, painful crescendo. My body vibrated, caught in the thunderous echo, until it felt like my flesh would be shaken right off my bones—
“Don’t be afraid.”
The church morphed back around me, Adrian standing a few feet away like he’d been before. Zach hadn’t moved, either. I had, though. Somehow, I was on my knees, hands raised, my face wet from tears I didn’t remember shedding.
“Don’t be afraid,” Zach repeated, coming toward me.
I staggered to my feet. The lights around him were gone, as was the terrible noise that had made my whole body ache. Right now, Zach looked like half the guys around my campus, but I knew, with every fiber of my being, that he wasn’t human. He was something else.
A creature, like Adrian had said.
I kept backing away, but then strong hands settled around my shoulders, gripping me with protective gentleness.
“Don’t worry. He’s not one of the bad ones,” Adrian said softly. “Zach plays for the other team.”
“The creatures have teams?” I choked out.
“Yes, they do,” Adrian said, a note of grimness coloring his tone. “And both sides play for keeps.”
I stared into Zach’s walnut-colored eyes, seeing the otherness beneath the facade of a twentysomething man with closely cropped hair, thick brows, and smooth, dark skin. I didn’t need Adrian to tell me he could rip me limb from limb if he wanted to. An instinctual, animalistic part of me knew that. In fact, I was painfully aware of how easily my bones could shatter, how little my skin protected the vulnerable parts beneath, and how useless my average strength was to defend myself. Fear made me want to edge farther into Adrian’s embrace, but I forced myself to stay where I was.
Zach might terrify me, but Adrian said he fought against the things that had Jasmine. That made him my new best friend.
“I think freaky shadow people kidnapped my sister,” I said, proud that my voice wasn’t shaking. “So I need to know how to get her back.”
“Did I mention she could see beneath demon glamour?” Adrian asked in a wry tone.
My stomach clenched at the word demon, but I didn’t do anything embarrassing, like puke. Okay, so demons had my sister. Not much different than saying that freaky shadow people had her, right?
I might puke after all.
“Of course she can see through it,” Zach replied, as casual as if he were noting that I liked chocolate more than vanilla. “It’s in her bloodline.”
I was standing so close to Adrian, I felt it when his whole body stiffened. “You knew what she was?”
A faint smile touched Zach’s mouth. “I’ve always known.”
“What do you mean, what I am?” I wondered.
Adrian ignored that and strode over to Zach, his height forcing the shorter man to look up in order to meet his eyes.
“You lied to me,” Adrian bit out, his finger stabbing Zach in the chest with each word. “You said that I was the last of my line, yet you knew all along about Ivy?”
I couldn’t believe Adrian kept jabbing Zach like he was a roast that needed tenderizing. Didn’t he sense the blasting power beneath Zach’s average-guy disguise?
“She’s not a descendent of your line,” Zach said, his hand closing over Adrian’s with enough strength to hold it immobile. “You are the last of that, but she sees past the disguises of this world because she is the last descendant of David’s.”
“Last of whose?” I began, then stopped, stunned into silence as Adrian turned toward me.
Horror didn’t begin to describe the look on his face. Adrian stared at me like I’d crushed his world, ground it up and then forced it down his throat until he died choking on its remains. If my skin had suddenly been replaced by scales oozing poison, I still wouldn’t have thought I deserved such a look.
“Last of a line of rulers dating back to ancient times, when King David sat on the throne of Jerusalem,” Zach replied.
History was my major in college, but I’d also been a fan of the arts since I was a little girl.
“King David as in the guy from Michelangelo’s famous marble statue?” The naked one? I mentally added.
“The same,” Zach agreed, a slight arch of his brow making me wonder if he’d guessed what I hadn’t said out loud.
“Nice story,” I said flippantly, “but all anyone knows about my biological parents is that my mother was an illegal immigrant who left me on the side of the road after the tractor trailer she was hiding in jackknifed.”
In some ways, I couldn’t blame her. All the illegals who’d survived the accident had run, and disappearing in a new country would have been harder with a newborn. The Jenkinses, who’d also been caught in the multicar pileup, had found me, and after a series of court battles, officially adopted me.
Zach shrugged. “Your disbelief doesn’t change the truth.”
Adrian was suddenly at the back of the church, his silhouette a dark outline against the stained glass panels.
“If you knew she was the last Davidian, how could you send me to get her?” His voice lashed the air like a whip. “How could you let me anywhere near her, Zacchaeus?”
Now I knew what Zach was short for, but that wasn’t why my mouth dropped. “What is your problem?” I sputtered.
Adrian turned away as if he couldn’t stand the sight of me. Amidst my disbelief, I felt a sliver of hurt. Why was he acting like I was viler than the cop he’d killed with his bare hands?
“You have to be near her,” Zach replied in an implacable voice. “You cannot escape your fate.”
At that, Adrian whirled, fists clenched, shoulders rigid and anger roiling from him in palpable waves.
“Fuck my fate,” he snarled.
I didn’t see him pass me. He moved too fast again. I only knew that he’d left when the chapel door slammed behind me.
chapter five (#ulink_8ab3b044-b5c9-56e7-b996-4c0f7c968d15)
The sun was up by the time Zach returned. He’d gone after Adrian, but since he came back without him, that must not have gone well. My mood was pretty foul, too. I’d only waited in the church because I still didn’t have the answers I needed. All I knew was that Adrian now hated me, demons existed, and Zach was...well, with the light show he’d given off, I could guess what sort of creature Zach was, but it was too unbelievable to say out loud.
“We’re also known as Archons,” Zach said, throwing me a sardonic look. “Is that word easier for you to handle?”
Once again, he’d guessed my thoughts, and I was starting to believe it was more than luck. No, I was in the presence of a creature with untold supernatural abilities, and unless I wanted to spend more time crying on my knees, I had to deal with that.
I’d start with the challenge he’d just thrown down.
“It’s not my fault that you don’t match up with the brochure,” I replied flippantly. “You could’ve paired that hoodie with a harp and a halo, at least.”
He smiled, reminding me that every species except humans showed their teeth to convey a threat.
“This mortal shell conceals my true nature. Because you and Adrian are the last of your lines, you see beneath it, but the rest of humanity does not.”
I shrugged as though my already-careening world hadn’t been turned upside down within the past several hours.
“Or I’m hallucinating again. I missed taking a couple doses of my meds—”
“Makes no difference, they’re placebos,” Zach informed me.
I stared at him, my lips parted, but my brain processing too many thoughts to speak.
“That’s why your adoptive parents always filled your prescriptions for you,” Zach went on, as if each word wasn’t blasting apart what was left of my life. “Your psychologist provided the placebos as part of your therapy, but there is nothing medically wrong with you. Your adoptive parents were going to tell you the truth when you turned twenty-one—”
“Liar,” I whispered.
A thick brow arched. “Demons lie. My kind does not. If you require proof, take one of your pills to a pharmacist for analysis.”
My knees wobbled, but I didn’t sit down. If I did, I might not be able to get back up. Zach might be a mind reader, but he couldn’t have known that my parents always filled my prescriptions because I hadn’t been thinking of that. He also couldn’t know something that I didn’t—if the pills were really placebos instead of actual meds.
Adrian was right. Despite everything I’d seen, I still hadn’t accepted that it could actually be real. Now Zach was destroying my denial one revelation at a time.
“Your real mother didn’t leave you because she was running from the police,” Zach went on pitilessly. “She did it to save you, just as your dream revealed—”
“Stop!” I shouted, my breath now coming in pants. No one knew about that dream. I hadn’t told my parents, Jasmine or the countless therapists I’d been to. How could Zach know, unless he was exactly who—what—he claimed to be?
“Enough.”
Adrian’s voice cracked through the chapel, startling me. I hadn’t seen him come back in. I turned toward him, glad for anything that kept me from hearing revelations that were too incredible to be real.
“Don’t mind Zach,” Adrian said, an edge coloring his tone. “Archons have no tact when it comes to delivering big news.”
Zach shrugged. “She asked for the truth. I gave it to her.”
Adrian came nearer, his gaze glittering with anger. “Yeah, well, you want me to play this fate thing through? Then from now on, I tell Ivy what’s what, not you.”
My mind still felt like it had been thrown into a blender, but at that, I stiffened.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not even here.”
Adrian turned that darkly jeweled gaze my way. “Believe me, Ivy, I know you’re here.”
The flat way he spoke somehow gave his words more weight, but this time, Adrian no longer looked at me with horror. Instead, he stared at me like I was the most dangerous person he’d ever met, which, all things considered, was ridiculous.
“You want to save your sister?” he asked evenly. “You’ll need something strong enough to kill demons.”
This was too much, too fast. “Like holy water? Or crosses?” I asked numbly.
His look became pointed. “Those are for vampires, and they don’t exist. To take down demons, you need one of three weapons, and the second and third ones will probably kill you.”
“Okay, so we skip those,” I muttered, part of me wondering if I was really having a conversation about how to kill demons. Placebos or not, right now, I missed my meds.
“Right,” Adrian said, a glint appearing in his eyes. “Problem is, the first weapon is lost somewhere in one of the demon realms.”
“Of course it is. Shopping for it on eBay would be too easy.”
His lips curled, as if he knew my glibness masked a rising sense of disbelief. “You’ve already seen one demon realm. They appear as creepy, dark duplicates of the same place, just like that bed-and-breakfast you described.”
If that was true, I’d seen others over the years, but they all had the same problem.
“How do we enter one long enough to save Jasmine? After a few seconds, they seem to disappear.”
At that, Adrian shot Zach a frustrated look. “If her abilities are so weak that she only sees the other realms for a few seconds, she’s nowhere near ready to do this.”
I’d be offended if I didn’t agree. My athletic skills were limited to occasionally dancing all night, as if that was any advantage in a demon fight. Still, ready or not, I didn’t have a choice. Jasmine had no one else to come for her.
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” I said firmly.
The hardness in Adrian’s stare made me wonder if I’d regret those words. Then he smiled, wolfish and challenging.
“All right, Ivy. To answer your question, you get into a demon realm the same way you get in anywhere. Through a door.”
* * *
I wanted to start looking for the demon-killing weapon at once, but Zach insisted that we sleep. Due to my exhaustion, I didn’t argue until Adrian showed me my “bed.” Being in an underground mausoleum was bad enough, but sleeping in one of the tiny rooms that contained a body?
“Hell no,” I said.
Adrian rolled his eyes. “What’s dead can’t hurt you. Living demons can, and they can go anywhere except hallowed ground.”
“Then I’ll sleep in the church” was my instant response.
“Tourists visit the church,” he replied inexorably. “They don’t visit the catacombs, so we’re sleeping here.”
As he spoke, he gestured to another crypt that also had a sleeping bag in it. I looked back at my crypt. A small spider descended from the ceiling and landed right on my sleeping bag.
“I’ll just sit in the hallway,” I said grimly.
Adrian sighed. “Zach?”
I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around, Zach was behind me. Before I could say anything, he touched my forehead, and like a switch had been flipped, everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes, I was in Adrian’s car, my head resting against the cool glass of the passenger window. Lights blurred by, and with mild shock, I saw that it was evening.
“W-what happened?” I mumbled, sitting up.
Adrian didn’t look away from the road, but his mouth twitched. “Zach compelled you to sleep.”
Memory returned with a vengeance. “In a spider-infested crypt?” I began slapping at my clothes. If I saw anything with eight legs, I was launching myself out of this car.
A stronger twitch of his mouth. “Nothing beats an Archon sedative.”
“You think this is funny?” I unlocked my seat belt, took off his coat, and threw it into the backseat. With luck, now I wouldn’t have things crawling all over me.
That earned me a slanted look. “You want to fight demons, and you’re freaking out over spiders. That’s damn funny.”
Put like that, he had a point. “Speaking of, uh, them—” would I ever say demons without feeling like I should be in a straitjacket? “—why do we need this special weapon to save my sister? You killed Detective Kroger just fine without it.”
“Kroger wasn’t a demon, he was a minion. Demons can’t tolerate our realm for long, so they take willing humans, mark them, and send them out to do their dirty work. They have their own signature marks, too. The shadows you saw on Kroger meant he belonged to Demetrius. Marks make minions a lot tougher than humans, but compared to their masters, they’re easy to kill.”
I hardly knew where to begin with my questions. “Our realm? You mean...this?” I asked, waving at the scenery we drove past.
“Yeah, this,” he said, the words heavy with emotion. Regret? Resolve? I didn’t know him well enough to be sure.
“And we can see demon marks and demon realms because we’re the last of King David’s line,” I said, trying to piece the impossible facts together.
Adrian stiffened, his mouth tightening until white edged his lips. “You are. I’m not.”
That’s right, Zach had said he was the last of another line. “What are you, then?” I asked softly.
The look Adrian pinned me with seemed to compress me, until every breath I drew felt like a hard-fought victory.
“I’m something else,” he bit out.
I was glad when he glanced back at the road. My heart was thumping as if I’d been jogging. Whatever Adrian was, he didn’t like it, and if a man who wasn’t afraid of demons didn’t like what he was, then I should be scared shitless of him.
So why did I have a strong urge to smooth away the hardness in his expression? I swear, my reactions to him made no sense. I never went for the tortured bad boy because I had enough issues of my own. On top of that, Adrian had made it clear that, given his choice, he’d be nowhere near me. Whatever strange pull I felt toward him, I had to get rid of it. Fast.
“Where are we headed?” I asked in a neutral tone.
“Gold Hill, Oregon,” he replied, his voice equally emotionless.
All the way across the country? “What’s in Oregon that makes it so special?”
His grunt sounded grimly amused. “A door to multiple demon realms.”
chapter six (#ulink_d0f8ccbd-0ea1-5ffa-b17d-ac854698b05d)
I learned a few things over the next twenty hours. Not about demons or the mysterious weapon—Adrian refused to talk about those—but about him. Like, for example, his pathological hatred of mirrors.
Every time we stopped to refuel, Adrian would smash the mirror in the ladies’ room before he let me inside to pee. I was convinced he’d be arrested, but I soon found out another fact: no one but me could see what Adrian really looked like.
“He’s five-eight, skinny, with black hair,” the gas station attendant snapped into his phone, his Spanish accent thickening as he yelled, “Pendajo!” at Adrian for destroying his bathroom mirror. “And he’s driving...a mi Dios!”
That last part was screamed when Adrian moved with his incredible speed, yanking away the shotgun the attendant had pulled out. Then he broke it over his knee and handed the two pieces back with a growled, “Have a nice day.”
“Diablo,” the attendant moaned, sinking behind his counter.
I didn’t think Adrian was a devil, but I still didn’t know what he was. The fastest way to get the silent treatment from him was to ask again what “line” he was from. He did explain that Archon glamour masked his appearance, so he wouldn’t be recognized by minions. Now I knew why Detective Kroger’s first punch had hit Adrian in the shoulder. He thought he’d been striking a much shorter opponent. That was also why Adrian had demanded that I describe him soon after we met.
“You could see through demon glamour,” he’d explained, throwing me one of those hooded looks. “Minions can do that, too, but only humans from one of our lines can see through Archon glamour, so I needed to find out what you were.”
“What if I’d failed to describe you accurately?” I’d asked.
A shrug. “Then you’d have been a minion, and I’d have killed you.”
Between that admission, the compulsive mirror smashing and his impenetrable secretiveness, I was well on my way to getting over my attraction. Adrian wasn’t just damaged goods, he was deranged goods, and coming from someone with a history of psychosis, that was saying something. By the time we pulled into a motel at the halfway point of Kearney, Nebraska, I would’ve been happy never to see him again.
I called shotgun on the bathroom as soon as we entered the hotel room. Adrian obliged after smashing the mirror—he had to have ten thousand years of bad luck by now—then finally, I was able to take a shower. Thank God the motel had complimentary bottles of shampoo and conditioner because I wasn’t about to ask Adrian for any. For all I knew, the bulky duffel bag he’d brought in was filled with severed minion heads.
After I showered, I washed my clothes, making a mental note to insist that we shop before hitting the road tomorrow. With everything I owned now hanging to dry, I donned Adrian’s coat over my towel before leaving the bathroom.
He stood in front of the motel door, flicking something from a glass vial onto it. He did the same with the window, all while muttering in that strange, harshly lyrical language.
He probably wouldn’t tell me, but I asked anyway. “What are you doing?”
“Setting supernatural locks,” he replied, with a jaded glance at me. “This motel isn’t on hallowed ground, so we have to demon-proof this room. I don’t think we were followed, but I’d rather you weren’t murdered in your sleep.”
I swallowed. I’d rather that not happen, too. “So, that stuff you’re sprinkling around is like demon-mace?”
His mouth twitched, making me wonder if he fought back a smile. “Close. Know how a priest blesses water and then it’s considered holy? This is the Archon version of blessed oil, which briefly renders any place it touches as hallowed.”
“How brief is ‘briefly’?” I wondered.
A shrug. “Long enough for us to sleep.”
“If it hallows out any place, then why did we spend last night in a spider-infested crypt?” I asked at once.
Now I was sure he was fighting back a smile. “You looked like you slept there just fine to me.” At my instant glower, he added, “I can only get this stuff from Zach, and he’s stingy with handing it out. This is the last I’ve got, so after tonight, we’ll need to sleep on real hallowed ground until he decides to show up and give me more.”
A stingy angel. Now I’d heard of everything. Guess I’d better enjoy the real bed tonight. Who knew what I’d be cuddling up next to tomorrow. Speaking of that, I needed to handle some things before I went off the grid any longer.
“You have a phone I can use? I need to call my roommate, Delia. Tell her I’ll be gone for...a while.”
Adrian’s expression changed from suppressed amusement to stern refusal. “Not a chance. No calls, texts or emails.”
Who did he think he was, my new father? “Let me rephrase—I’m calling my roommate, either with your phone or with someone else’s.”
I couldn’t just disappear on Delia. I, of all people, knew how awful it was to wonder if someone you cared about was alive or dead, and she wasn’t just my roommate. After Jasmine, Delia was my best friend.
“You call her or anyone else you know, you’re making them a target,” Adrian replied coolly. “Not many people escape a demonic kidnapping attempt. The ones that do are usually helped by me, so that makes the demons extra mad. By now, minions have combed through every aspect of your life, and they’re waiting for you to connect to someone so they can use that person against you.”
Nothing changed in the room, but it suddenly felt smaller, as if the walls were edging toward each other.
“What’s the point? They already have my sister,” I said, anger and despair sharpening my tone.
Adrian leveled that gemstone stare at me. “Right, so don’t give them anyone else.”
I sat down on what I guessed was my bed, since Adrian’s duffel bag was on the other. The zipper was open, revealing nothing more sinister than clothes and toiletries. And here I’d been so sure about the severed minion heads. I did give the toothbrush a longing look. This motel didn’t have those as freebies, and my breath could probably slay a dragon.
“Help yourself,” Adrian stated, nodding at the bag. “Zach packed supplies for both of us.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I went to his bed and began to rummage through the bag. Thanks to his large build, it wasn’t hard to distinguish what was meant for Adrian and what was intended for me. The only surprise was that Zach had guessed my size, even on the intimate items.
“What kind of angel notices cup size?” I muttered under my breath as I added a bra to my pile.
Adrian’s bark of laughter let me know that I’d said it too loud. “Zach is nothing if not detail-oriented.”
“You sound like you’ve known him a long time,” I observed.
His face closed off in a now familiar way. I could let it go, like I had most of the drive here, but I was getting tired of his frequent bouts of silent treatment.
“I get that you don’t want to be here and you really don’t want to talk about whatever it is that you are, but if we’re going to be fighting demons together, I should at least know more about you.”
Adrian walked toward me, a hard little smile twisting his features. Then he bent down until his face was level with mine. His eyes looked even more vivid in the overhead light, and he was so close, I could see that his lashes were dark brown instead of black.
“Here’s the most important thing you need to know. I hate demons more than you do, so you can trust that I’ll help you kill them. But, Ivy—” harsh laughter brushed my skin in its own caress “—whatever you do, don’t trust me with anything else.”
The last time we’d been this close, he’d had me pinned to his car. He wasn’t touching me now, but somehow, his gaze made the moment equally intense. The scary part was, I liked it. Without thinking, I moistened my lips.
His gaze dropped there, and I sucked in a breath at the hunger that flashed across his face. So finding out about my supposed lineage hadn’t killed his attraction to me! With that knowledge, things lower down began to tighten. Adrian was maddening, confusing, dangerous...and what would I do if he tried to kiss me?
Suddenly, I saw a blur of motion and then he was gone, the door vibrating from his exit.
* * *
I awoke to the wonderful smell of hot, greasy food, and the even more tantalizing aroma of coffee. When I opened my eyes, a bag of McDonald’s was on my nightstand. I hadn’t heard Adrian leave to get it, but then again, I hadn’t heard him come back last night, either. He must have since his bed was mussed, and from the sounds of it, he was now in the shower.
I fell on the food like a starving animal. A candy bar and a small bag of peanuts had been all I’d eaten over the past two days. Getting yelled at by multiple gas station attendants after Adrian broke their mirrors hadn’t made me want to browse for more substantial fare. After I finished, I quickly put on new clothes, not wanting Adrian to come out while I was half-naked. Things were strange enough between us already.
My necklace snagged on my sweater as I yanked it over my head, reminding me there was one mirror Adrian hadn’t smashed yet. Since the shower was still running, I opened the locket, a pang hitting me when I saw my sister’s picture on one side and a small mirror on the other.
This way, we’ll always be together, Jasmine had said when she’d given it to me the night before I left for college. She’d cried a little then, and I never admitted it, but when I was alone in my room that night, I did, too. Sure, we fought like mad sometimes, but no one was closer to me than Jasmine. With everyone else, I had to keep faking so they’d believe everything was fine. For my parents, it was so they wouldn’t worry about me. For my psychologist, it was to avoid more tests or inpatient stays. For my friends and the occasional boyfriend, it was so I wouldn’t have to explain things they probably didn’t want to understand. With Jaz, I could be myself because whoever that was, she was okay with it.
“Nuts, normal, doesn’t matter,” she’d said years ago when I was upset after my psychologist told me I might never be cured. “You’re my sister, Ives, so no matter what, we’re stuck with each other.”
As I stared at her picture next to my own reflection, her loss hit me all over again. It took everything I had to hold the tears back. After several hard blinks, her image became less blurry. As I looked at her, I silently made her a promise. No matter what, I will find you. She’d never given up on me. I sure as hell wouldn’t give up on her.
Vow made, I could look at her picture without tearing up again. We didn’t resemble each other, of course. Jasmine was a blue-eyed blonde like my adoptive parents, and I had hazel eyes and brown hair. My greenish-brown eyes, light skin tone and other markers had caused my pediatrician to speculate that one of my parents had been Caucasian. We guessed the other was Hispanic because that was the nationality of the immigrants who’d been unable to flee the tractor-trailer accident, but who knew?
Thinking about my biological parents made Zach’s words steal through my mind, though I’d done my best to forget them. Your real mother didn’t leave you because she was running from the police...she did it to save you, just as your dreams revealed...
“Good, you’re up.”
Adrian’s curt voice made me jump. I snapped the locket shut, glad my back was to him so he couldn’t see what I tucked under my sweater. He was not smashing the last gift my sister gave to me, mirror phobia or not. With the locket safely hidden, I turned around.
“Thanks for...breakfast.”
I couldn’t help my pause. Some things should come with a warning label, and seeing Adrian stalk through the room wearing only a towel was definitely one of them. I hadn’t known ab definition like that existed without airbrushing, and the network of muscles on his arms, back and chest rippled as though dancing to a song that reverberated beneath his flesh.
Michelangelo had it wrong, I thought, tearing my gaze away. With that body, Adrian was the one who needed a marble statue made in his image. Good thing he was so fixated on shoving his things into his duffel bag, he didn’t notice my admiration.
“We’re leaving in ten minutes,” he stated, still in that brusque tone.
After he’d stormed out last night, I told myself it didn’t matter if Adrian was still attracted to me. I needed to rescue my sister, not start something with a guy who’d warned me he wasn’t trustworthy, let alone all the other reasons why Adrian was off-limits. No matter the dazzling packaging, he was six feet six inches of undetermined supernatural bad news, so his coldness now suited my purposes.
His barked orders, however, didn’t. We needed to get a few things straight before we went any further.
“Just because you’re pissed about our little road trip doesn’t mean you get to keep taking it out on me,” I said. “For whatever reason, you chose to come, and we don’t need to be friends, but you do need to quit acting like my boss. So we’re not leaving in ten minutes, Adrian. We’re leaving in twenty because I’m taking a shower, too.”
He swung around, arms crossing over that muscled chest in obvious annoyance. I continued on as if I didn’t notice.
“It’s not my fault if you’ve never had a serious girlfriend, but believe me when I tell you that it’s impossible for a girl to get ready in less than twenty minutes.”
“Fine,” he said, his tone only slightly less rude.
“You may want to wait until I’m in the bathroom to get dressed, too,” I said airily. “If you drop that towel now, I’ll think it’s your way of telling me you still want that date.”
I didn’t wait for his response before disappearing into the bathroom. All jokes aside, if he did drop that towel, I might forget all the many reasons why I should stay away from him.
chapter seven (#ulink_894ed6a2-e2a4-5223-8d2f-0e9fbc1e7707)
Twenty minutes later—okay, twenty-five, but close enough—we climbed into his car. I wasn’t much for old muscle cars, but I had to admit that his Challenger was in great shape. Still, I’d kill for a satellite radio. This only had AM and FM.
“You don’t need to drive the whole way. We can take turns,” I offered.
“No,” he replied at once.
“So you’re one of those,” I muttered.
His brow went up. “One of what?”
“Guys who think a girl can’t handle their precious metal babies,” I said, rolling my eyes.
At that, he laughed. “I rebuilt this car from the axle up, so yeah, you can call it my baby. But no one, male or female, drives it except me.”
“So you’re an equal-opportunity control freak?” I replied without missing a beat.
“You have no idea,” he said, voice lowering while his blue eyes slid over me in a phantom caress.
My breath caught. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized he’d avoided looking at me since he stormed out last night. Now, his gaze moved over me as if he already knew which parts to touch first and which parts to leave until I was breathless and begging. My heart began to beat faster. How could he affect me so much when we barely knew each other?
Then, like a switch had been flipped, he looked away as though the sight of me had burned his eyes. His whole demeanor changed, too, as if he were angry for revealing something that was supposed to remain hidden.
“When should we arrive in Oregon?” I asked, needing something, anything, to break up the tense moment.
He revved up the car and glanced at the clock. “Three a.m., if we don’t get caught in traffic.”
Nineteen hours until I crossed into one of the places that countless doctors had sworn were merely figments of my imbalanced mind. Once again, I had so many questions, I hardly knew where to begin.
“Have you been to this particular ‘realm door’ before?”
“Yes.”
One tightly spoken word that warned me to drop the subject, if I didn’t want another round of the silent treatment. I stifled a frustrated sigh. I needed more information, and he was moodier than a tween girl with her first PMS attack.
“How did you know minions were trying to kidnap me the other night?” There. Total change of subject, and something I’d been wondering about, anyway.
Adrian didn’t look at me as he pulled out onto the road. “Zach told me. He’s the one who sent me to retrieve you.”
I’d have to drag everything out of him, wouldn’t I? “Okay, how did Zach know?”
He grunted. “Archons get information about future events. Every so often, they interfere to change the outcome.”
“Every so often?” I repeated with angry disbelief, thinking of Jasmine’s kidnapping and my parents’ deaths. “Why not every time? Or do Archons have days where they’re just not in the mood to save people from harm and death?”
Nothing changed in his expression, but his tone hardened with what I thought might be remembered pain. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I don’t have an answer, and when I asked Zach the same thing, all he said was something about ‘orders.’”
“That’s such bullshit,” I muttered.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Adrian said dryly.
Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. Not strained silence like before, but silent, shared reflection while both of us thought of things that we wished had turned out different.
“So that’s what you do?” I finally said. “Rescue people for Zach after he tells you that minions are after them?”
He shrugged. “Gives me a chance to piss off demons.”
“Most people would avoid doing that,” I pointed out, suppressing a shudder. If not for Jasmine, you wouldn’t catch me near a demon, minion, realm or anything freakily supernatural. Why did Adrian run toward the danger instead?
“You and I aren’t most people, Ivy,” he said softly. “Because of what we see, we don’t get to pretend the world is a beautiful place where monsters don’t exist.”
I was the one who looked away that time, unable to handle the truth of his statement or the intensity in his stare. Until a few days ago, I had been doing that. Even as a child, as soon as I’d realized no one else saw the things I did, I’d wanted it to stop. I hated feeling like something was wrong with me, so after I’d jumped through almost a decade of medical hoops looking for a cure, I started pretending that I’d found one.
I told my parents, the doctors and even eventually Jasmine that I no longer saw the strange, dark worlds hanging like nightmares over regular places. I certainly never told Delia or my other friends about them. I said the pills I took were for a hormonal imbalance, and all my doctor appointments were for that, too.
Lies, lies, lies, all because I wanted to pretend I was normal. According to the gorgeous stranger across from me, I wasn’t then and never would be.
“What happened with you?” I asked, my voice low as if we were sharing secrets. “I hid from what I saw, but you started hunting down the things everyone told me couldn’t exist. You must’ve had proof that they were real, so what was it?”
He closed off so fast I was surprised I didn’t hear a sonic boom. I shut my eyes, letting out a sigh as I tried to settle myself more comfortably into my seat. Looked like the question-and-answer segment of our time was over.
Eventually, as afternoon slid into evening during the long drive, the late hour and boredom lulled me into drifting off.
A thunderous boom woke the black-haired woman. Her baby began to wail at the multiple crashing noises. She left the baby in the backseat, walking through the brush that hid her car.
On the nearby highway, a tractor-trailer was on its side, multiple cars piled up around it. Each passing second brought a new screech of tires and, more faintly, screams. Then the back of the trailer opened, and people stumbled out, some disappearing into the tall grass that lined the road, others limping a few feet before collapsing onto the road.
The black-haired woman hurried back to her car, but as she began to strap her baby in the car seat, she paused. Then she turned around and stared. Sunlight broke through the clouds, streaming down to the side of the road about fifty yards from the accident. The woman began to shake.
“No. No, I can’t leave her,” she whispered.
The light grew brighter, and another sunbeam appeared, illuminating the same spot. Tears streamed down her face, but after a minute, she picked up her child and walked toward it.
“Promise me she’ll be safe,” she choked out, setting the baby in the grass. Then she kissed the child, whispering, “Mommy loves you. Always,” before running to her car and driving away—
“What is that?”
Adrian’s voice startled me. For a second, I was disoriented, the dream clinging to me as it always did. Yes, I was in a car, but I wasn’t the unknown woman driving away from her baby. That wasn’t real. The glare Adrian leveled at my chest was, though.
“Is that a mirror?” He sounded horrified.
I looked down. My locket was open, the mirrored side facing me. At some point while I was sleeping, I must’ve opened it. Adrian’s hand shot out, but this time, I was too fast for him.
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped, holding it out of his reach. “It’s the only picture I have of my sister after you left everything I own back at that hotel in Bennington!”
He lunged again, actually letting go of the steering wheel to reach the side of the car where I held it. With a sharp yank, he wrested the locket from my hands. I tried to snatch it back, but he shoved me into my seat with one hand, finally grabbing the steering wheel with the other.
“Are you crazy?” I shrieked. “You could’ve gotten us killed!” If this hadn’t been a lonely stretch of desert road, our careening into the next lane might’ve had permanent consequences.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” was his chilling response. Then, still pinning me to my chair with that single hand, he held my locket up.
I gasped. Something dark poked out of the small mirror, like a snake made of blackest smoke. It disappeared when Adrian smashed the mirror against the steering wheel, but an eerie wind whistled through the car, ruffling my hair and stinging my nostrils with its acrid scent.
Adrian muttered a word in that unknown language, and I didn’t need a translator to tell me it was a curse.
“What was that?” My voice was hoarse.
He threw me a pitying glance, which frightened me even more. If he wasn’t angry, we must really be screwed.
His next words proved that. “Brace yourself, Ivy. You’re about to meet a demon.”
chapter eight (#ulink_e83749d2-85cb-5c44-ac4e-0e163e84c08e)
I didn’t consider myself religious. My parents used to take Jasmine and me to church on Christmas, but it was more a social event than a pious one. Hearing we were about to be attacked by a demon, however, made me pray like I’d never done before. I just wished I knew if anyone was listening.
Adrian wasn’t praying. He was cursing up a storm, if I correctly translated the spate of words coming from his mouth. He’d also lost that pitying expression, because the looks he shot me now were distinctly grim. It wasn’t the right time, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking the obvious.
“How did it find us?”
Adrian stomped on the accelerator, and the muscle car shot forward like it had rockets in the engine.
“Through the mirror,” he said shortly. “For stronger demons, mirrors act as portals, and you’ve been number one on their Most Wanted list since you escaped them in Bennington.”
I gaped at him. “Maybe you should have told me that?”
“You think I smash every mirror near you because I don’t want you to get conceited?” Then his tone softened. “You’re barely holding it together with what you do know, Ivy. I’m not about to tell you what you can’t handle yet.”
Anger flared, which felt better than the fear that made my blood seem like it had been replaced by ice water.
“No, I wasn’t ready to know that demons used mirrors as portals. I also wasn’t ready to know demons existed, or had kidnapped my sister, or that my parents were dead, or any of the horrible things I’ve dealt with in the past two weeks. But that didn’t stop them from happening, so quit protecting me from the truth, Adrian! It doesn’t help a damn bit!”
Adrian glanced at me, a gauntlet of emotions flitting across his features.
“You’re right. If we survive, I’ll apologize.”
My laughter was bleak. “You? Say you’re sorry? Now I really want to live.”
To my surprise, he laughed as well, though it was colored with dark expectancy.
“Hold that thought. You’ll need it.”
Before I could respond, something filled the road in front of us. I would’ve said it was storm clouds, except clouds don’t sweep along the ground like a heavy fog rolling in.
“Shut your vents,” Adrian said, flipping the tiny levers on his side. I did the same, more apprehension filling me as he turned the entire air-conditioning system off. No, those weren’t low-hanging clouds. They were something far more ominous.
“Turn around,” I said, my voice suddenly breathy.
“It wouldn’t matter” was Adrian’s chilling reply. “He’d only follow us. I need you to find hallowed ground, Ivy.”
I couldn’t take my eyes away from the billowing clouds in front of us. They were so dark, they seemed to devour the beams that came from Adrian’s headlights.
“All right,” I mumbled. “Give me your phone, I’ll look up the nearest church or cemetery.”
“It’s too late for that,” he said, stunning me. “You need to find it yourself.”
“How?” I burst out. We were almost at the line of black clouds. The temperature in the car plummeted, making my skin feel like it had turned to ice.
“It’s in your bloodline,” Adrian said, swinging off the road so sharply that the back end began to fishtail. “You can sense hallowed ground, so find some, Ivy. Now.”
“I don’t know how!” I shouted.
The car shuddered over the uneven terrain, bouncing so much I almost hit my head on the roof, but I didn’t tell Adrian to slow down. That wall of darkness filled up the rear window of the Challenger until I couldn’t see the glow of our tail lights anymore.
“Yes, you do.” A growl that sounded comforting compared to the horrible hissing noises coming from outside the car.
“I don’t!” What was that flash of white on my side of the car? Or that new, ripping sound? Oh God, were those teeth scraping away at the metal on my door?
“It’s getting in, it’s getting in!”
“He can’t get in the car.”
Adrian’s strong voice broke through my panic. I stared at him, my eyes starting to burn from the acrid stench that crept in through parts of the car we hadn’t been able to seal.
“I warded it against demons a long time ago,” he went on.
I felt better about that for three seconds, which was how long it took before the car lifted up on one side like a gargantuan hand had swatted it. For a paralyzing moment, I wasn’t sure if we were going to flip completely over. Then we crashed down hard enough to make the windows shatter, and I tasted blood from my jaw snapping shut on my tongue.
“’Course, that doesn’t mean he can’t tear the car apart around us,” Adrian said, stomping on the gas as soon as all four wheels were on the ground. “We’re running out of time. Where’s the hallowed ground?”
“I. Don’t. Know,” I screamed. My heart was pounding out of my chest from terror. If I knew a way out of this, I’d take it.
“Yes, you do,” he insisted, those sapphire eyes searing me when he glanced over. “Tell me which direction you want to run. That’s the right way, I promise.”
Which way did I want to run? In whatever direction this living nightmare wasn’t! The car lifted again, and everything in me braced for another impact. That awful hissing noise grew into a roar, and Adrian’s gaze met mine. In those darkly beautiful depths, I realized these would be the last moments of our lives if I didn’t use an ability I’d never heard of before.
In the seconds before the car came crashing down, I closed my eyes. Concentrated on which direction I wanted to flee to, and tried to ignore the pain as flying glass pelted me from all sides. My instincts were screaming at me to run from the horrible thing outside these crumbling metal walls, and I let those instincts consume me, filling me until I couldn’t focus on anything else. I needed to get out of here. I needed to leave right now and go...there.
“That way,” I said hoarsely, opening my eyes and pointing.
Adrian’s hand closed over mine, his grip strong and sure. Then the car crashed down hard enough to make my vision go black and my whole body ache, but he didn’t hesitate. As soon as the worst of the impact was over, he grabbed his coat, yanked me into his arms, and then flung us out of the car.
His body took the brunt of the impact, but it still felt like I hit the ground with almost the same force as the car crashing down. My yelp was swallowed up by a tremendous boom! as Adrian threw something at the fog that rushed us. White flashed, more bright and brilliant than a lightning bolt. Those hideous clouds recoiled with a scream as though they were in pain.
Adrian leaped up, still holding me in his arms. Then he began to run in the direction I’d pointed, leaving that ugly, writhing darkness behind us.
Even without the nightmarish clouds surrounding us, I could barely see. Nothing but desert stretched out in front of us, and the headlights from Adrian’s car were now too far away to do any good. That strange flash of light was gone, too. Even the moon seemed to hide, but Adrian’s incredible strides never wavered. It was as if his eyes had night-vision technology built into them.
His speed had startled me when I was only an observer of it. Now that I was locked in his arms, hurtling through the night like I’d been strapped to the front of a bullet train, it filled me with terrified awe. His heart pounded next to my cheek, but he couldn’t be human. No mere mortal could move this way. Hell, some hybrid cars couldn’t go this fast.
“Where is it, Ivy?” he yelled, the wind snatching away his words almost before I could hear them.
I wasn’t sure anymore. All the darkness had disoriented me, and it wasn’t like there was a neon sign that said Hallowed Ground This Way. I didn’t say that, though. What I saw when I glanced over his shoulder froze the words in my throat.
That roiling mass of evil was right behind us. I shouldn’t have been able to see it against the midnight-soaked desert, but I could. The shadows forming it were filled with such seething malevolence that their darkness gleamed. Then something like a huge mouth gaped open, teeth long and razor-sharp.
“Adrian!” I screamed, tightening my arms around him.
He didn’t look back, though his grip on me turned bruising. “Tell me where to go, Ivy!”
I forced myself to look away from the appalling sight, but I couldn’t look ahead. Sand-filled wind stung my eyes from how fast Adrian ran. I couldn’t see, but maybe I didn’t have to.
I closed my eyes like I had back in the car. Concentrated on my need to be as far away from the formless death monster as I could. My concentration broke when something sharp lashed my legs before digging in as though trying to claw its way up my body. I screamed again, and Adrian snarled, somehow increasing his incredible speed. With a final slice, the claws left my body, but something hot and wet ran down my legs.
I choked back my next scream, my heart pounding as fast as the booming beneath my cheek. Then I concentrated again, pain and panic finding the switch in my mind that I hadn’t realized was there.
“That way,” I said, pointing without opening my eyes.
Adrian changed direction, the hard pumping of his legs shooting pain into me from the endless impacts, but I didn’t care. Another roar sounded behind us, growing closer, until I could almost feel its icy breath on my cheek. My legs throbbed, anticipating more claws slicing through my skin, and though I knew I shouldn’t, I opened my eyes.
It was right there, faceless except for those grotesquely large teeth that snapped mere inches from my head. I stared, too horrified to scream again. It stretched, growing even bigger, until I couldn’t see anything except the wall of evil that was about to come crashing down on us—
It split through the middle, breaking around us like water parted by rocks. An unearthly howl shook me, blasting my ears and blowing my hair back. Just as abruptly, Adrian slowed down, coming to a complete stop a couple dozen feet away from the thing, which surged and recoiled as though trying to break past an invisible barrier.
I didn’t understand for the first few breathless seconds. Then I saw the faint shimmers coming up from the earth and heard the faraway echo of long-dead voices chanting prayers. We’d made it to the hallowed ground, and the demon might rage along its perimeter, but it couldn’t cross it to get to us.
chapter nine (#ulink_adad2d87-38c9-5662-b8eb-d277dd4fd078)
Now I knew why people who’d escaped certain death broke into laughter. It had always looked strange in the movies, but I hadn’t realized how quickly adrenaline turned to relief, the change hitting your bloodstream like a dozen tequila shots. For a few seconds, I didn’t even feel any pain as I laughed from the wild, wondrous exhilaration of still being alive. I wanted to hug Adrian. I wanted to spin in circles. I wanted to scream, “Take that!” at the swirls of dark clouds that stormed along the edge of our supernaturally impregnable walls.
Adrian didn’t laugh, but his wide smile conveyed both victory and savage satisfaction. He stared at the living darkness a short distance from us and said something in that strange, harshly melodic language.
To my surprise, the clouds began to shrink, dissipating as quickly as a fog machine in reverse. Soon, nothing remained except an inky pool on the ground, like the shadows had been transformed into liquid.
“What did you say to make it disappear?” I asked, my brain adding numbly, and why didn’t you say it sooner?
“He’s not gone,” Adrian said, his tone edged with an emotion I couldn’t name. “He’s just shedding his disguise.”
Those fluid shadows suddenly began to rise, forming into a pillar. Then they changed, coiling and swirling until a slender girl with long blond hair broke through them as though she’d been expelled out.
Jasmine hunched in fear as she looked around. When she saw me, she collapsed on the ground in relief.
“Ivy,” she said, her hands trembling as she reached out. “Please, help me!”
I didn’t need Adrian to keep holding me to stop me from going to her. This wasn’t my sister. It was a thing wearing her image like a coat, and it infuriated me.
“Fuck you,” I replied, all my fear and hatred rolled into those two words.
Jasmine’s form blurred, turning into slithering shadows again. Out of those, a man emerged. He was almost as tall as Adrian, though not as thickly muscled, and he moved with snakelike grace as he prowled along the edge of the barrier. Long black hair hid most of his face as the wind tossed it around, but I caught a glimpse of pale skin, burning black eyes and a dark pink mouth that opened as he said—
“I can see why you like her, my son.”
I barely noticed Adrian stiffen. I was too busy being shocked by the thing’s identical, exotic accent and how he’d addressed the man holding me. My son. Was this the secret Adrian refused to talk about? It would explain his superhuman speed—
“Don’t call me that.” Adrian’s voice lashed the air with palpable hatred. “I was never your son.”
The demon sighed in the way my father used to do when I was a child and he was explaining why some things, like dental visits, were unavoidable.
“Not by blood, but you’re mine nonetheless. Now, Adrian, your little rebellion, while amusing, has gone on long enough. Carry her out to me. It will save us all from a lengthy, boring fight before the inevitable occurs.”
Adrian’s smile reminded me of a tiger baring his teeth. “I live to fight you, Demetrius, so it’s never boring for me.”
Demetrius. Wasn’t that the demon who’d sent Detective Kroger after me? I started to squirm, wanting out of Adrian’s arms while I processed this, but his grip only tightened.
Demetrius noticed, and the look he flashed Adrian was both knowing and cruel.
“Every moment you spend with her will strengthen the bond between you. Break it now, before it destroys you when you fulfill your destiny.”
A noise escaped Adrian, too visceral to be called a snarl. “My ‘destiny’ won’t happen if you’re dead. How much did the Archon grenade hurt? Not nearly as much as David’s slingshot will, I hope.”
Demetrius laughed, sending shivers of revulsion over me. If evil came in audible form, it would sound like that.
“Now that I’ve seen the last of David’s seed, I’m even more confident of my people’s success. You must be, too. That’s why she has no idea what we’re talking about.” Another mocking, repellent laugh, then the demon’s face turned serious. “Come home, my son. I miss you. Obsidiana misses you. You don’t belong with them. You never did.”
Adrian’s grip hardened until it felt like I was encased in steel. “I’d rather die where I don’t belong than live another day with you,” he gritted out.
Demetrius shook his head. “So slow to learn,” he said sadly. Then he looked at me, a smile playing about his lips.
“I make your sister scream in pain every day,” he said in an offhand way. “If you want to save her, say my name in a mirror. I’ll trade her life for yours.”
My reply contained every filthy word I knew, plus a few I made up. Demetrius only laughed again. Then, with a swirl of shadows, he disappeared. Or did he?
“Is he really gone?” I asked hoarsely.
“He’s gone. I told you, demons can’t tolerate our realm for long. Even strong ones like Demetrius would be dead after an hour here.”
As he spoke, he let me down, which was good, since I didn’t want him touching me. The words my son kept resounding in my mind. Biologically related or not, the demon imprisoning my sister had close ties to Adrian—a fact he’d deliberately kept from me. Worse, Demetrius seemed very confident that their ties would be restored soon.
“So Demetrius is your stepdad?”
He sighed at the acid in my tone. “The simplest explanation is that Demetrius was...my foster parent.”
The slight hesitation before those words told me he was hiding large chunks of the truth. Again.
“And Daddy Dearest misses you. How sweet.”
Adrian’s expression darkened so much, I half expected to see shadows appear beneath his skin.
“I get that you’re pissed, but don’t ever call him my father again. I was a child when he took me. Not all of us were lucky enough to end up with kind, human foster parents.”
His raw tone melted away some of my anger. He might still be hiding something, but I couldn’t imagine the horrors of growing up at the mercy of a demon.
“Why did Demetrius take you?” I asked with less rancor. “Does it have to do with your mysterious bloodline?”
As I watched his lips tighten in that familiar way, I knew I was right—and that he still wasn’t going to tell me what he was. Not part-demon, evidently, and I doubted he was part-Archon. If he was, Demetrius would’ve killed him, not raised him as his “son.”
“Your legs are injured,” Adrian stated, changing the subject. “Sit. I’ve got medicine in my coat.”
If they hadn’t been throbbing with pain for the past several minutes, I would have refused until Adrian told me the rest of what he was hiding. Since our car was busted and we probably had a long walk ahead of us, I sat, wincing when he pulled at the tears in my jeans. The wounds had already started to stick to the fabric.
After a few moments, Adrian let out a soft hiss. “Lots of gouges, and deep. Take your pants off.”
“Geez, buy a girl a drink first,” I said to cover my dread over how much that would hurt.
His lips curled as he retrieved a flask from his coat. “Ask and you shall receive.”
“You’ve had liquor on you this whole time?” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I could’ve really used some, oh, every day for the last few days!”
I snatched the flask and took a gulp, welcoming the burn that made my eyes water, and forced a sputter after I swallowed.
“Not a bourbon girl?” Adrian asked dryly.
“That’s bourbon?” I let out a choking cough. “I thought it might be prison brew!” Still, I took another throat-scorching gulp. Beggars can’t be choosers.
His snort was soft. “No, but let’s just say the recipe doesn’t come from a normal brew company.”
“I’ll bet,” I muttered, then coughed out a protest when he took it from me. “Wait, I’m not done!”
“That’s much stronger than regular bourbon,” he said, putting it back in his coat. “Trust me, you’ve had enough.”
When he started tugging my jeans down, the pain shooting through me made me want to argue, but I didn’t. I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I didn’t want to add puking to all the other reasons why this night had been awful. Once my jeans were off, I stayed silent for a different reason.
Savage swipes had ripped open my flesh in at least a dozen places. I saw white in some of the gaping spaces, making my fear of vomiting a real possibility. If I’d been thrown into an angry bear’s den, I probably would’ve fared better. How had I managed to even stand with injuries like this?
I must’ve said that last part out loud, because Adrian answered me.
“Shock and adrenaline, plus your bloodline. You’re stronger, faster and tougher than you realize. You just didn’t know it before because you never needed to be.”
With that, he pulled a sealed plastic bag out of his coat. No wonder he’d made sure to grab it when we fled the car; liquor and medicine were necessities in any survivalist’s book, not to mention the Archon grenade that had made cloud-Demetrius scream.
If I’d known then what I knew now, I’d have savored that scream. His taunts about Jasmine tormented me, as he’d intended them to. If I had any confidence that a demon would keep his word, I’d be tempted to trade my life for hers. Finding the weapon and taking on Demetrius might get me killed anyway, and then my sister would really be doomed.
Adrian scooped out some of the bag’s contents, interrupting that bleak line of thought. The medicine looked like mashed-up macaroon cookies, and I tensed as he held that sticky mixture over the deepest gouge on my thigh. His eyes met mine, their silvery perimeter gleaming.
“Take a deep breath, Ivy.”
I did, and still almost screamed when he brought his hand down. The medicine hurt more than when Demetrius had made the wounds, but I bit my lip and didn’t cry out. Adrian was trying to help. The less I distracted him, the faster this would end.
I repeated that like a litany while he smeared the agony-inducing substance on all my deeper gashes. He worked with quiet efficiency, thankfully not commenting on the sweat that beaded my forehead or how my breath came in pants.
“Almost over,” he murmured in sympathy.
Something strange began to happen. The pain changed, turning into a tingling that reminded me of what it felt like when my foot fell asleep. Adrian finished with the final gouge and leaned back, watching my legs with an expectant expression.
The wounds began to close, expelling the now red-smeared medicine as smooth flesh filled in what had been gaping tears. Within minutes, the only marks left were shallower grazes that I could’ve made while shaving. I could hardly believe it.
“What is that stuff?”
His mouth curled. “Manna.”
Where had I heard that word...? “The mythical bread that fed the Israelites when they wandered in the desert?”
His half smile remained. “As you see, it has a lot of uses. Now, turn over so I can get the other gouges.”
I did, thinking it was a good thing that Zach had done my recent shopping. I normally wore thongs, but now, my ass was more modestly covered by bikini briefs.
Once I was on my stomach, Adrian’s large hand covered a wound high up on my hip. Though the initial pain was just as sharp, something else flared through me. Maybe it was because I knew the harsh sting would soon fade. Maybe the bellyful of superpotent liquor contributed to the urge I had to see his expression as he dragged his hand over my skin, or perhaps it was the way his touch seemed to linger longer than medicinally necessary.
I could’ve told him to stop. Insisted on dressing the wounds myself; I could reach them, after all. But I didn’t. He didn’t speak, either, and as his hands continued their path down my body, treating and then smoothing over newly healed skin, the pain was a price I willingly paid to keep feeling him touch me.
It was wrong, of course. I kept telling that to my rapidly beating heart and the shivers that followed every stroke of his hands. He was danger wrapped in secrets tied with a bow of bad intentions, and it was totally unfair that no one had made me feel this way before.
“Almost over?” I asked, hating how much he affected me.
“Yeah.”
He sounded angry, which made me flip over before he’d finished smoothing manna over a shallower cut. My quick movement must’ve surprised him, because it took a second for his expression to close off into that familiar, jaded mask.
In that brief, unguarded moment, I learned I wasn’t the only one who’d been affected by his touching me. Suddenly, it seemed like a very good idea to put my pants back on.
chapter ten (#ulink_03a04abe-4d8b-5d39-a8a2-e51567cfa3d1)
Adrian made a fire out of plants, scrub and other things I wouldn’t have thought to use, starting it by rubbing twigs together fast enough to get a spark. I huddled as close as I could to the fire without catching myself ablaze. Even so, my breath made tiny white clouds with every exhalation. Who knew a desert could be so chilly at night?
“How long do we have to stay out here?”
Adrian glanced back at me. He didn’t appear bothered by the cold temperatures, or his pacing was keeping him warm. He hadn’t stopped since he quit treating my injuries.
“Until morning. We can’t risk another demon ambushing us if we leave the hallowed ground before sunrise.”
“They can’t enter our realm in daylight?” Interesting.
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Jeaniene Frost
In a world of shadows, anything is possible. Except escaping your fate.Ever since she was a child, Ivy has been gripped by visions of strange realms just beyond her own. But when her sister goes missing, Ivy discovers the truth is far worse-her hallucinations are real, and her sister is trapped in a parallel realm. And the one person who believes her is the dangerously attractive guy who's bound by an ancient legacy to betray her. Adrian might have turned his back on those who raised him, but that doesn't mean he can change his fate… no matter how strong a pull he feels toward Ivy. Together they search for the powerful relic that can save her sister, but Adrian knows what Ivy doesn't: that every step brings Ivy closer to the truth about her own destiny, and a war that could doom the world.Sooner or later, it will be Ivy on one side and Adrian on the other. And nothing but ashes in between… .
In a world of shadows, anything is possible. Except escaping your fate.
Ever since she was a child, Ivy has been gripped by visions of strange realms just beyond her own. But when her sister goes missing, Ivy discovers the truth is far worse—her hallucinations are real, and her sister is trapped in a parallel realm. And the one person who believes her is the dangerously attractive guy who’s bound by an ancient legacy to betray her.
Adrian might have turned his back on those who raised him, but that doesn’t mean he can change his fate…no matter how strong a pull he feels toward Ivy. Together they search for the powerful relic that can save her sister, but Adrian knows what Ivy doesn’t: that every step brings Ivy closer to the truth about her own destiny, and a war that could doom the world. Sooner or later, it will be Ivy on one side and Adrian on the other. And nothing but ashes in between….
Praise for New York Times bestselling author Jeaniene Frost (#ulink_dddc95f3-6621-514c-96d2-3019a6cc449f)
“Leavened with strong emotion and dark humor, and featuring superior writing as well as a thoughtfully structured plot, Cat and Bones’s final adventure is appropriately splendid and satisfying.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Up From the Grave
“A taut, intriguing paranormal romantic suspense that keeps the pages turning from the very first paragraph.”
—Kirkus Reviews on Twice Tempted
“I always open a Frost book with happy anticipation, and I’ve never been disappointed.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris on Once Burned
“As Cat’s journey continues, Frost’s fans are assured of plenty of sexy sizzle along with their doses of extreme jeopardy.”
—RT Book Reviews on One Grave at a Time
“A refreshing change of pace in a genre… New and returning readers alike will enjoy this warmhearted
and often hot-blooded adventure.”
—Publishers Weekly on This Side of the Grave
“Wildly romantic as well as action-packed.”
—RT Book Reviews on Eternal Kiss of Darkness
“A passionate and tantalizing tale, filled with dark sensuality and fast-paced action.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole on First Drop of Crimson
The Beautiful Ashes
Jeaniene Frost
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To JBA, now more than ever.
Contents
Cover (#u56e8fc85-ce10-5b24-88bd-70891df56f1f)
Back Cover Text (#u80f7dceb-3342-5a0c-8c27-01d6f1746cfb)
Praise (#ulink_760335ad-e7fe-5d74-81ba-55cca21d4157)
Title Page (#u3fb3791a-940a-5e7a-8ce2-cc4a8df6478a)
Dedication (#u38b68247-b35d-526d-a418-9409be2af2fe)
chapter one (#ulink_30b01698-3555-5475-b77a-6e4d865b188b)
chapter two (#ulink_b7619ab9-6777-5b25-b768-3919369b2136)
chapter three (#ulink_a6fc67ac-41c7-5c04-95a8-b6548e5f1133)
chapter four (#ulink_47a6f97e-b23e-5726-85d4-807b739a83c6)
chapter five (#ulink_2819ea5d-5d30-5719-b731-e148f6b85255)
chapter six (#ulink_61b7d2ed-8649-5fdb-887b-4c8c612997d2)
chapter seven (#ulink_5a8aca5e-99d7-5d7f-837b-d0db552793c0)
chapter eight (#ulink_67d99c55-0235-5cc5-a358-85015e590623)
chapter nine (#ulink_81d7e747-0940-5c28-a039-9d36f9919bfe)
chapter ten (#ulink_4115f7f0-ad36-5cc8-9919-ed99073245ed)
chapter eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-four (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-five (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-six (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter thirty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)
epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
chapter one (#ulink_cdeea3cf-e005-51f7-8568-b3003dfc93dd)
I’m twenty, and already, I’ve got nothing left to lose. That’s why I didn’t care that Bennington, Vermont, looked like a postcard for autumn in the country. The two-story bed-and-breakfast I pulled up to was no different. It even had a white picket fence and a steady swirl of sunset-colored leaves drifting down from the many trees in the yard.
My picturesque surroundings were in stark contrast to how I looked. If I hadn’t been exhausted from grief and stress, I might’ve cared that my brown hair now resembled greasy mud. Or that my breath was in desperate need of a Mentos, and don’t get me started on the coffee stains decorating my WMU shirt. Since I had more important things to worry about, I didn’t even bother to cover my head against the downpour as I left my car and ran into the bed-and-breakfast.
“One moment!” a cheery voice called out from farther inside. Then a heavyset older woman with graying red hair came down the hallway.
“Hello, dear. I’m Mrs. Paulson. Are you—oh, my, you’re soaked!”
“It’s nothing,” I said, but she bustled out of sight, returning moments later with a towel.
“You sit down and dry yourself off,” she ordered in the same tsking tone my mother had used a million times before. A surge of grief had me dropping into the chair she waved at. The things you didn’t realize you’d miss until they were gone...
“Thanks,” I said, determined not to cry in front of a total stranger. Then I pulled out the Ziploc bag I’d carried around most of the day. “I’m looking for two people who might’ve stayed here the weekend before last.”
As I spoke, I pulled out a picture of my sister, Jasmine, and her boyfriend, Tommy.
Mrs. Paulson got a pair of glasses from her apron pocket. Then she sat behind a large antique desk and accepted the picture.
“Oh, what a pretty girl,” she said, adding kindly, “just like you. But I’ve never seen either of them before, sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said, although I wanted to scream.
I’d spent the day showing Jasmine’s picture to every hotel, motel and inn in Bennington, yet no one had recognized my sister. She’d been here, though. The last texts she’d sent came from Bennington, but the police already hinted that they thought she’d sent them while driving through. To them, Jasmine was an impulsive eighteen-year-old who’d gone on a road trip with her boyfriend. My sister might be impulsive, but she wouldn’t have disappeared for over a week unless she was in real trouble.
I stuffed her picture back into the plastic bag and rose, so upset that I barely registered what Mrs. Paulson was saying.
“...can’t let you go back out in that, dear. Wait here until the rain stops.”
I blinked in surprise at her unexpected kindness. Every other proprietor had been anxious for me to leave once they knew why I was there, as if losing a family member could somehow be contagious. My eyes stung with a sudden rush of tears. Maybe it was. My parents’ funeral was the day after tomorrow.
“Thank you, but I can’t,” I said, voice husky from emotions I couldn’t let myself feel yet. The shock helped with that. Ten days ago, my biggest concern had been making a bad impression on my Comparative Revolutions professor after my text message alerts kept going off in his class. Then I read Jasmine’s texts, and everything had changed.
Mrs. Paulson gave me another sympathetic smile. “At least let me make you a hot cup of tea—”
A dark, hazy double image suddenly appeared over the reception lounge, making it look as though it had aged over a hundred years in an instant. I stifled a groan. Not this again.
The pricey antiques vanished, replaced by broken-down furniture or nothing at all. The temperature also plummeted, making me shiver before movement in the hallway caught my eye.
A blonde girl walked past the decrepit-looking reception lounge. Her face was smudged with dirt and she was bundled up in a tattered blanket, but I didn’t need a second glance to recognize her.
“Jasmine,” I whispered.
Mrs. Paulson came around the desk and grabbed me, coiling shadows suddenly darting across her face as if she had snakes trapped beneath her flesh. Jasmine continued to walk by as if she wasn’t aware that we were there. If not for the innkeeper’s surprisingly strong grip, I could have reached out and touched my sister.
“Wait!” I cried out.
The house blinked back into elegant furnishings and warm, cozy temperatures. Just as quickly, Jasmine disappeared. Mrs. Paulson still held me in a tight grip, although the shadows on her face had vanished. I finally managed to shove her away, heading down the hallway where I’d glimpsed my sister.
Before I made it three steps, pain exploded in the back of my head. It must’ve briefly knocked me out, because the next thing I knew, I was on my knees and Mrs. Paulson was about to hit me with a heavy picture frame again.
Get out! The single, emphatic thought was all my mind was capable of producing. My body must’ve agreed. I don’t know how, but I was suddenly outside and slamming the door shut on my Cherokee. Then I sped away, wondering what had made Mrs. Paulson turn from a kindly old lady into a skull-smashing maniac.
I drove back to my hotel as though on autopilot. After I parked, I sat in the car with the engine off, trying to fight back nausea while I figured out my next move. I could call 911, but I didn’t want to admit that I’d had another weird hallucination right before Mrs. Paulson attacked me. If I told anyone that, I’d be signing up for a stay in a padded room. Again. Second, the cops in Bennington already didn’t like me. As soon as I’d arrived this morning, I’d bitched them out for not doing enough to find Jasmine. They’d probably take Mrs. Paulson’s side and assume I’d done something to provoke her.
I paused. Had I? I didn’t remember getting away from Mrs. Paulson. What if I’d done something else I didn’t remember? Maybe something that had scared her so much, she’d hit me in self-defense? The idea that I might be having blackouts in addition to hallucinations soured my already bleak mood. I got out of the car and went to my hotel room. Once inside, I dropped my purse as though it were a fifty-pound anchor, then flicked on the light.
Everything in me stiffened. The couch should’ve been empty, but a guy with hair the color of dark honey sat there, his large frame taking up most of the space. Strong brows, a straight nose, high cheekbones and a sensual mouth made up a face that was striking enough to adorn billboards. He didn’t look startled by my appearance, either. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he’d been expecting me.
Gorgeous guys do not spend their evenings waiting around for me. That’s why I thought he was another hallucination until he spoke. My hallucinations had never spoken to me before.
“Hi,” the stranger said, his deep voice tinged with an accent I couldn’t place. “Sorry to tell you, but you’re about to have a really bad night.”
I knew I should turn around, open the door and run, preferably while screaming. That was the only logical response, but I stood there, somehow unafraid of my intruder. Great. My survival instincts must’ve secretly made a suicide pact.
“If you knew the week I’d had, you’d realize that whatever you had planned could only make it better,” I heard myself reply, proving my vocal cords were in on the death wish.
Then again, I wasn’t wrong. My sister? Missing without a trace after texting me “help” and “trapped!” last Monday. Parents? Died in a car accident two days after they arrived in Bennington trying to retrace Jasmine’s steps. Me? In addition to losing my whole family, I’d nearly gotten my head bashed in. By comparison, being robbed sounded like a vacation.
A grin cocked the side of my intruder’s mouth. Whatever response he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that.
“If I win? Probably. If I lose, things are about to get much, much worse,” he assured me.
“What’s the contest?” I asked, wondering why I was having a conversation with my intruder. Brain damage from the head wound?
He rose. Despite my baffling lack of fear, I flinched as he came nearer. He had to be a foot taller than my five-six height, with shoulders that would fill a door frame and muscles no bulky overcoat could hide. The only thing more striking was his eyes: a deep blue rimmed with gray so light, it almost gleamed.
“The contest is to see who walks out of here with you,” he replied, that silver-and-sapphire gaze sliding over me.
“What if I don’t want to go anywhere?” I countered.
“It’s too late for that,” he said softly, reaching out and drawing my attention to the fact that he wore leather gloves.
I darted away. For some reason, I still wasn’t consumed with terror—wake up, survival instincts!—but I wasn’t about to let him grab me. He didn’t try to stop me as I ran past him into the bedroom. Then again, I realized with an inner groan, why would he? Now he stood between me and the room’s only door.
He came toward me, and my heart started to hammer. Why hadn’t I left when I had the chance? And why wasn’t I screaming for help right now?
Three hard raps on the door startled me. Then I couldn’t believe it when I recognized the voice.
“Miss Jenkins, could you let me in? It’s Detective Kroger. We met this morning at the police station.”
A cop when I needed one? Miracles did happen!
To my shock, my intruder turned around and opened the door. The two men stared at each other, and though the intruder had his back to me, I saw Detective Kroger size him up.
“He broke into my room,” I said, making a “do something” gesture.
Kroger’s brow went up. “Is that so, mister?”
“Guess you’d better take me in,” my intruder drawled.
I expected Kroger to reach for his handcuffs. Instead, he came inside, shut the door, and turned off the lights.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
“Move over to the couch,” Kroger said, and I didn’t know if he was talking to me or my enigmatic intruder.
I wasn’t going to remain in the dark to find out. I felt around the bedroom until I reached the nightstand, then turned on the lamp. Light flooded the room, showing that my intruder was still in the mini lounge area with Kroger. In fact, it didn’t look like either man had moved an inch. What was going on?
“Why aren’t you arresting me, Detective?” the intruder asked in his silky, accented voice.
“Good question,” I added.
“Shut up, bitch,” Kroger said harshly.
My jaw dropped. Before I could respond, Kroger’s fist shot out, punching the bigger man in the shoulder. Then he frowned, as if surprised that it had no effect. The intruder caught Kroger’s fist when he swung at him again.
Kroger stared, disbelief creasing his features as he tried to yank free and couldn’t. Then, understanding seemed to dawn.
“You must be Adrian,” Kroger spat.
“In the flesh,” my intruder responded lightly.
I was about to ask what the hell was going on when shots rang out. I dropped down right as one of the men hurtled toward me, too fast to see who. I managed to leap away without getting flattened, though I took out the nightstand in my wild lunge.
The room went dark as the lamp broke. My heart pounded at the instant blindness. I hadn’t been afraid before, but I was now, trapped in a room with two men who clearly wanted to kill each other. I began to feel my way around the bed again, and this time, stumbled on something big. That something grabbed me, and I freaked out, kicking, punching and clawing to get free.
Then I was yanked away and shoved viciously into the wall. Pain exploded over me, and when I swallowed, I tasted blood. I started to fall, dazed, when a rough grip hauled me up.
A beam of moonlight landed on my attacker’s face, and I recoiled. Shadows flickered like snake tongues across Kroger’s skin, turning his features into a sickening mask of evil. Worse, I knew I wasn’t hallucinating. The pain I felt was too real.
“You want to know what happened to your sister?” Kroger’s voice was harsh. Guttural. “You’re about to find out.”
Without thinking, I punched him as hard as I could. He looked surprised, but the blow didn’t even make him flinch.
Suddenly, he was snatched backward and then flung straight up. As Kroger fell back down, Adrian kicked him hard enough to send him crashing through the bedroom window. Before I could even scream, Adrian leaped after him. Then all I heard were thumping noises and groans before a distinct snapping sound made something primal tense inside me.
One of them had just died, I knew it. But which one?
A dark form rose in the gaping hole where the window had been. I began to back away, every movement painful, when I saw something silvery gleam in the moonlight.
Adrian’s eyes.
“Looks like you’re coming with me after all,” he said while vaulting through the window.
I wasn’t bothered by his casual tone or the fact that he’d just killed someone. I was too busy trying to absorb what I’d seen on Detective Kroger’s face, let alone what he’d said.
You want to know what happened to your sister? You’re about to find out.
Hope clawed through my reeling emotions. If the snakelike shadows on Kroger’s face were real, then maybe so was my vision of Jasmine at the bed-and-breakfast!
“We need to...get Jasmine,” I managed to gasp, feeling something wet where I clutched my abdomen.
Adrian pried my hands away and sighed.
“You’re hurt. Sorry, he was one of Demetrius’s dogs, so he was harder to kill.”
He picked me up. Despite Adrian’s touch being far gentler than Kroger’s, I couldn’t stop my pained moan.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be better soon,” he said, carrying me toward the door.
We need to get Jasmine! I wanted to insist, but my tongue seemed to have gone on strike. The tingling in my limbs and buzzing in my ears probably wasn’t a good sign, either.
“What’s your name, anyway?” I heard Adrian ask, his voice now sounding very far away.
I managed one word before everything went dark.
“Ivy.”
chapter two (#ulink_4edf8278-739a-5aa4-8070-90cc1fdffe29)
A familiar song was playing, but I couldn’t remember the name. That bugged me enough to open my eyes. A wall of black met my gaze, slick and smooth like glass. I reached up to see what it was, and that’s when I realized my hands were tied.
“Silent Lucidity” byQueensryche, my mind supplied, followed immediately by, I’m in the backseat of a car. One that was well taken care of, going by that flawless, shiny roof. With those details filled in, I also remembered what had happened right before I’d passed out. And who I was with.
“Why are my hands tied?” I said, heaving myself into an upright position.
For some reason Adrian didn’t have a rearview mirror, which was why he had to glance over his shoulder to look at me.
“Does anything make you panic?” he asked, sounding amused. “You’re tied up in the backseat of a cop-killer’s car, but I’ve seen people get more upset when Starbucks runs out of Pumpkin Spice flavor.”
Anyone normal would panic, not that it would do any good. Besides, I ran out of “normal” a long time ago, when I realized I saw things no one else did.
Speaking of which, why wasn’t I in pain? The lump where Mrs. Paulson had whacked me was gone, and my shirt was red from blood, but aside from a mild kink in my neck, I felt fine. When I pushed my shirt up, somehow I wasn’t surprised to see smooth, unbroken skin on my abdomen. Well, that and a bunch of crumbs, like I’d eaten a dessert too messily.
“Why does it look like I have angel food cake on my stomach?” I wondered aloud.
Adrian snorted. “Close. It’s medicine. You were injured.”
“You can tell me how I’m not anymore,” I said, holding out my bound hands, “after you untie me.”
Another backward glance, this one challenging.
“You may be the calmest person I’ve ever been sent to retrieve, but if I tell you now what you want to know, that will change. So pick—the truth, or being untied?”
“Truth,” I said instantly.
He let out a laugh. “Another first. You’re full of surprises.”
So was he. He’d just admitted that he regularly kidnapped people—which was how I translated “retrieve”—so I should be trying my damnedest to get free. But more than anything, I needed answers. Besides, I still wasn’t afraid of him, and somehow, that had nothing to do with him magically healing me.
“Truth, Adrian,” I repeated.
He turned once again and his gaze locked with mine, those odd blue eyes startling me with their intensity. For a moment, I could only stare, all thought frozen in my mind. I don’t know why I reached out, awkwardly touching his arm to feel the hard muscles beneath that bulky jacket. If I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t have done it. Yet I couldn’t make myself pull away.
Then I gasped when his hand covered mine. At some point, he’d taken off his gloves, and the feel of his warm, bare skin sent a shock wave through me. The touch seemed to affect Adrian, too. His lips parted and he edged over the back of the seats—
He yanked on the steering wheel, narrowly avoiding another car. A horn blared, and when the driver passed us, an extended middle finger shook angrily in our direction. I leaned back, my heart pounding from the near collision. At least, that’s what I told myself it was from.
“Dyate,” Adrian muttered.
I didn’t recognize the word, and I was at a loss to place his accent. It had a musical cadence like Italian, but beneath that was a harsher, darker edge.
“What’s that language?” I asked, trying to mask the sudden shakiness in my voice.
This time, he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Nothing you’ve heard of.”
“I picked truth, remember?” I said, holding up my bound hands for emphasis.
That earned me a quick glance. “That is the truth, but you don’t get more until you meet Zach. Then we can skip all the ‘this isn’t possible’ arguments.”
I let out a short laugh. “After what I saw on Detective Kroger’s face, my definition of ‘impossible’ has changed.”
Adrian swerved again, but this time, no other car was near.
“What did you see?”
I tensed. How did I explain without sounding insane? No way to, so I chose to go on the attack instead.
“Why were you in my hotel room? And how did you heal me? There isn’t even a mark—”
“What did you see on his face, Ivy?”
Despite his hard tone, when my name crossed his lips, something thrummed inside me, like he’d yanked on a tie I hadn’t known was there. Feeling it was as disturbing as my inexplicable reaction to his clasping my hands.
“Shadows,” I said quickly, to distract from that. “He had snakelike shadows all over his face.”
I expected Adrian to tell me I’d imagined it, a response I was used to hearing. Instead, he pulled over, putting the car in park but keeping the engine running. Then he turned to stare at me.
“Was that the only strange thing you saw?”
I swallowed. I knew better than to talk about these things. Still, I’d demanded the truth from Adrian. It didn’t seem fair to lie in return.
“I saw two versions of the same B and B earlier. One was pretty, but the other was old and rotted, and my sister was trapped inside it.”
Adrian said nothing, though he continued to pin me with that hard stare. When he finally spoke, his question was so bizarre I thought I’d misheard him.
“What do I look like to you?”
“Huh?”
“My appearance.” He drew out the words like I was slow. “Describe me.”
All of a sudden, he wanted compliments? I might have finally met someone crazier than me.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, but started with the obvious. “Six-six, early twenties, built like Thor, golden brown hair with blond highlights, silvery blue eyes...you want me to go on?”
He began to laugh, a deep, rich baritone that would’ve been sensual except for how angry it made me.
“Now I know why they came after you,” he said, still chuckling. “They must’ve realized you were different, but if they’d known what you could see, you never would’ve made it out of that B and B.”
“You can stop laughing,” I said sharply. “I get that it’s crazy to see the things I do.”
Lots of kids had imaginary friends growing up. I had imaginary places, though at first, I hadn’t known I was the only one who could see them. Once my parents had realized that what I kept describing went far beyond childhood fancy, the endless doctor visits and tests began. One by one, diseases and psychoses had been crossed off until I was diagnosed with a non-monoamine-cholinergic imbalance in my temporal cortex.
In other words, I saw shit that wasn’t there for reasons no one could figure out. The pills I took helped a little, though I lied and said they got rid of all my hallucinations. I was sick of doctors poking at me. So whenever I saw something that no one else did, I forced myself to ignore it—until Mrs. Paulson and Detective Kroger had tried to kill me, of course.
Adrian did stop laughing, and that unblinking intensity was back in his gaze.
“Well, Ivy, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, you’re not crazy. The bad news is, everything you’ve seen is real, and now, it’ll be coming for you.”
chapter three (#ulink_e99b6132-56d2-5e04-b6f7-b9b59dfa0c5f)
Even on a good day, I hated when guys were cryptic. Those of the Testosterone Persuasion already came with a mountain of senseless tendencies—did they really think they needed to add purposefully vague statements on top of that?
The fact that Adrian refused to elaborate on his enigmatic warning while I was tied up in his backseat made it unbearable. As the time ticked on, I consoled myself by imagining hitting him in the head with something heavy. Or leaning over the seat and choking him with the band of duct tape around my wrists. If the back of this vehicle had had a cigarette lighter, I might’ve gotten creative with fantasies about that, too.
Guess being kidnapped turned me into a violent person.
“Are you a sex slaver?” I asked abruptly.
“Someone’s watched Taken too many times,” Adrian said, and the amusement in his tone grated on my last nerve.
“Why wouldn’t I think that?” I shot back. “You saved my life, but you’re taking me somewhere against my will, and you refuse to untie me.”
“You picked truth, remember?” was his infuriating response.
I swear, the first heavy object I got a hold of...! “You didn’t give me that, either.”
“Yes, I did.” He said it with a heavy-lidded, backward glance that would’ve made me straighten up and smile if he’d done it while we were sitting at a bar. “Just not all of it, but don’t worry. We’re here.”
With that statement, Adrian turned down a long road that led to a set of soaring, elaborately carved gates.
“Wait a sec while I open the gates,” he said, turning the car off and taking the keys with him.
I waited...until he was far enough away for me to make my move. Then I leaped over the seats. When I yanked on the driver’s side door, however, a large hand on the window prevented it from opening.
“Why am I not surprised?” Adrian said with irony dripping from his tone.
I stared at his hand, as if that could explain how the rest of him was attached to it. A second ago, he’d been in front of those barbarically ornate gates, doing something that caused them to swing open with a mechanical moan.
No one could move that fast. Or, more accurately, no one should be able to move that fast.
“What are you?” I breathed.
His teeth flashed in a smile that was predatory and sexy at the same time.
“A couple hours ago, I wondered the same thing about you.”
Me? Before I could ask what he meant, he opened the door and let me out. Ice raced through my veins when I saw the knife in his other hand. That was also the moment when I noticed the sign on the gates: Green-Wood Cemetery.
“Don’t,” I gasped.
He raised a brow, cutting through the duct tape around my wrists. “You’re the one who wanted to be untied.”
My arms fell to my sides while relief roared over me, replacing the surge of fear-fueled adrenaline. Just as quickly, something snapped inside me. All the grief, anger, fear and frustration of the past ten days hurtled through my defenses, turning me into someone I didn’t recognize.
A rage monster.
My hand cracked across Adrian’s face with enough force to make it tingle and burn, and still, it wasn’t enough. I began beating on his chest, part of me horrified by my actions, but the rest urging me to hit him harder.
“What is the matter with you?” I yelled. “You pull out a knife with no explanation? I thought you were going to kill me!”
Adrian grabbed my hands. Any sane person would have recognized how overmatched I was and calmed the hell down, but I was way past sanity. With my hands out of commission, I kicked his shin hard enough to send pain shooting up my leg. He grunted, backing me up until I was pressed against the car hood. Now I had a wall of steel behind me and a wall of muscled flesh on top of me.
“Stop it,” Adrian ordered, his strange accent thicker with his vehemence. “I promise, I’m not going to hurt you!”
My breath came in pants. Adrian countered my attempt to drop down and wiggle free by pressing his thigh between my legs. I stopped that course of action at once, which was the same as admitting defeat. I couldn’t use my arms to push him away. He felt more solid and heavy than a stone gargoyle.
“Get off me,” I said between ragged breaths.
“Not until you calm down,” he replied sternly. Then the barest grin tugged at his mouth. “Feel free to take your time.”
I glanced down, only now registering that my breasts were pressed against his chest just as tightly as his thigh was wedged between my legs. Any movement on my part caused an embarrassingly personal friction, as if inhaling each other’s breaths while we panted wasn’t intimate enough.
I tried to slow my breathing, not to mention my galloping heartbeat. If not for his grin, I wouldn’t have known he thought anything of the compromising position he had me in.
If nothing else, he didn’t seem angry that I’d slapped, kicked and pummeled him. Now that my reckless rage had passed, I realized how stupid I’d been. One punch from his massive fist would’ve meant lights out, but he hadn’t hit back. Instead, he’d promised that he wouldn’t hurt me. Despite his kidnapping me and his refusal to give me answers about what was going on, I decided to believe him.
“Sorry I attacked you,” I said, my voice no longer shrill.
He shrugged like he was used to it. “Don’t worry. You were overdue for a breakdown, anyway.”
Just how many people have you kidnapped? I almost asked. Since I didn’t really want to know, all I said was, “Can you get off me? You’re heavy.”
He slowly uncurled his body from mine, but that silvery blue gaze stayed glued to me. I shivered, suddenly aware of how cold it was, now that I wasn’t covered by over two hundred pounds of warm-blooded male.
Adrian shrugged out of his coat, revealing a crew-neck black shirt that hugged his physique like it was paying homage. Of course he’d noticed the shiver. I wondered if anything escaped those piercing eyes.
I put it on. The hem had been midcalf on him; it pooled on the ground with me. I’d never felt dainty around a guy before. I was comfortable at a size eight because I didn’t have to starve to maintain it, and my five-six height meant I could usually wear heels without being taller than my dates. Next to Adrian, however, I seemed to drop twenty pounds while also shrinking a few inches. Of course, his bulk was all muscle. Feeling him on top of me had made that clear....
I nixed that line of thought before it led to other, more dangerous musings, and tightened his coat around me.
“If we’re not here so you can kill me and bury my body in an empty plot, what else is there to do at a cemetery?” I asked with admirable calm.
He laughed, the deep, masculine rumble teasing something inside me that was too stupid to realize kidnappers were off-limits. That’s why I refused to notice the chin dimple it revealed, or how his lower lip was fuller than the top one.
“Lots of things, but we’ll get to that later.”
“Sure there’s going to be a later?” I challenged him.
“Of course.” Another tantalizing smile. “Since you and I are from the same line, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”
Line? “You think we’re related?”
His gaze brushed me like a physical caress. “Not like that, thankfully. That would make our first date awkward.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You’re hitting on me?” I finally managed. “Do you have any idea how twisted that is?”
He shrugged. “I don’t do subtle, it wastes time. Besides—” the silvery part of his eyes gleamed like liquid moonlight “—if you say you don’t find me attractive, I’ll know you’re lying.”
Under other circumstances, I might have blushed at being busted ogling someone I’d just met, but my kidnapper was hitting on me! Should that make me more afraid, or less? He’d already saved my life once and had had plenty of chances to harm me since, yet he hadn’t.
Plus, I wouldn’t be much fun as a date if I was dead.
“How about we hold the date talk until you give me the answers you promised?” I said, part of me wondering if tonight could get any stranger. The other part felt happy for the first time in over a week. Stupid ovaries. Down, girls, down!
Adrian’s expression turned serious. “I’m taking you to the person who can give you those answers.”
“Zach?” I asked, remembering Adrian mentioning the name.
“That’s him. This cemetery is almost five hundred acres, so if you don’t want to spend hours walking around in the cold—” he went over to the passenger side of the vintage-looking muscle car and opened the door “—get in.”
He was giving me a choice. Or at least, the illusion of one. If I ran, we both knew he could catch me.
The car’s interior light showed a hint of stubble trying to break through the smooth skin along his jaw, shadowing it in a way that was far too attractive. His exotic accent wasn’t helping, either. If I was ever kidnapped again, it had better be by an old, ugly guy. That would be less confusing to my emotions.
And less embarrassing. What idiot got caught lusting over her kidnapper? No wonder he’d asked me out. He must have thought I gave “easy” a whole new definition.
I walked over, thinking that even if I could run away from him, I wouldn’t. My sister was trapped in a place that shouldn’t be real, yet somehow was, and Adrian was my only ally because he could see the same crazy things that I did. More importantly, Adrian had proven that he was able to kill those things.
If he was able to help me save my sister, I’d not only take him up on his date offer. I’d pay for everything and seriously consider putting out.
I got in the passenger side, hearing the door lock as soon as he shut it. I tried to open it. Nothing. My sense of unease returned. What kind of person saved people just to kidnap them, and had a vehicle you could only exit from the driver’s side?
Then again, as Adrian slid into the seat next to me with an almost spooky fluidity, I realized what kind of person he was might be less important than what he was.
chapter four (#ulink_1d713c71-4b80-5cce-9772-8b5db36fbfd3)
Whoever had designed Green-Wood cemetery must have done so while puking drunk since it lacked a single straight road. I felt like we were driving through a child’s maze game with all the twists and turns. Then again, maybe lots of cemeteries were laid out like this. I wouldn’t know. I’d never been in one before. My parents’ funeral wasn’t until the day after tomorrow, both sets of my grandparents had died before my birth, and neither of my parents had siblings or cousins. Until ten days ago, I hadn’t lost anyone close to me.
Now, I’d lost everyone, and while I buried my grief with the same determination I’d used to ignore seeing impossible things, it wasn’t enough. When Adrian drove by a large tomb engraved “Beloved Parents,” the ache that had burned in my throat since their deaths grew into an impassable boulder.
Adrian stopped the car at the same time that I suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
“What’s wrong?” he asked urgently. “You see something?”
I shook my head, managing to draw in a breath despite that awful squeezing in my throat.
“Ivy.” A large hand cupped my face, forcing me to look at him instead of the headstone. “What is it?”
Right then, I was glad that Adrian was so hot. Thank God for the deep hollows under his cheekbones, those sapphire eyes, and the blondish-brown hair that looked like it had been tousled from too much sex. If I hadn’t had his looks to distract me, I might’ve had to focus on how bad it hurt to lose two people who’d never let me down, even when I’d been a stranger to them.
“It’s just...my parents died five days ago.”
My voice was husky from the emotions I kept trying to shove back, but the strangling tightness had eased. Another few deep breaths, and all that was left was a familiar burn.
“I’m sorry,” Adrian said, taking my hand and squeezing it.
I’d heard those words from friends and fellow students a lot in the past week, often with an added cliché about all things happening for a reason. Adrian didn’t say any of that crap. He just kept holding my hand while looking at me with an understanding that transcended compassion, as if he knew what it was like to lose everything within a brutally short amount of time.
“Thanks.” I drew in another breath, blinking away the tears. Crying felt like giving up, and I wasn’t doing that because I needed to find a way to bring my sister back home. “That’s why I need answers, because I’m not about to lose my sister forever, too.”
He let go of my hand and looked away, his jaw tightening. “Answers don’t mean miracles. I heard what that cop said to you. If they have your sister, I’m sorry, but she’s as good as dead.”
“Bullshit,” I snapped, instantly angry. “I know where she is. I just need a...way in.”
Adrian sighed. “You see things no one else does, yet you’re still in denial, aren’t you? The creatures that have your sister are too strong, Ivy. Even if you got in, you’d never get out.”
Creatures? Before I could respond, something flashed ahead, as if a spotlight had briefly turned on. Adrian began driving toward it. A few minutes later, we pulled up to what looked like a tiny castle, with circular turrets on the four corners and a tall, windowed dome blooming out of the center.
Adrian parked, going around to my side to let me out. “Welcome to Green-Wood chapel.”
The door was ajar, soft light emanating from within. Adrian entered and I followed, hugging his coat around me as though it were a protective shield. I was so disturbed by what he said that the equally ornate interior was lost on me. He must’ve meant “creatures” in a metaphorical way, my logic argued.
A young African-American man stood at the end of the pews, his face partially concealed by the blue hoodie hanging over his bent head. I would’ve thought he was praying except that he faced us, not the altar, and his hands were at his sides instead of folded in the universal gesture for piety.
“Ivy, this is Zach,” Adrian said. “Zach, meet Ivy, the girl you sent me to rescue.”
Zach looked up, his hoodie fell back, and—
Light exploded around him like thousands of camera flashes. My eyes burned, unable to adjust to the blinding intensity, and yet I couldn’t close them. I stared, stunned, as the glow around him became even brighter, until I saw nothing except Zach. A multitude of voices roared through my mind, deafening me to everything except their beauteous, painful crescendo. My body vibrated, caught in the thunderous echo, until it felt like my flesh would be shaken right off my bones—
“Don’t be afraid.”
The church morphed back around me, Adrian standing a few feet away like he’d been before. Zach hadn’t moved, either. I had, though. Somehow, I was on my knees, hands raised, my face wet from tears I didn’t remember shedding.
“Don’t be afraid,” Zach repeated, coming toward me.
I staggered to my feet. The lights around him were gone, as was the terrible noise that had made my whole body ache. Right now, Zach looked like half the guys around my campus, but I knew, with every fiber of my being, that he wasn’t human. He was something else.
A creature, like Adrian had said.
I kept backing away, but then strong hands settled around my shoulders, gripping me with protective gentleness.
“Don’t worry. He’s not one of the bad ones,” Adrian said softly. “Zach plays for the other team.”
“The creatures have teams?” I choked out.
“Yes, they do,” Adrian said, a note of grimness coloring his tone. “And both sides play for keeps.”
I stared into Zach’s walnut-colored eyes, seeing the otherness beneath the facade of a twentysomething man with closely cropped hair, thick brows, and smooth, dark skin. I didn’t need Adrian to tell me he could rip me limb from limb if he wanted to. An instinctual, animalistic part of me knew that. In fact, I was painfully aware of how easily my bones could shatter, how little my skin protected the vulnerable parts beneath, and how useless my average strength was to defend myself. Fear made me want to edge farther into Adrian’s embrace, but I forced myself to stay where I was.
Zach might terrify me, but Adrian said he fought against the things that had Jasmine. That made him my new best friend.
“I think freaky shadow people kidnapped my sister,” I said, proud that my voice wasn’t shaking. “So I need to know how to get her back.”
“Did I mention she could see beneath demon glamour?” Adrian asked in a wry tone.
My stomach clenched at the word demon, but I didn’t do anything embarrassing, like puke. Okay, so demons had my sister. Not much different than saying that freaky shadow people had her, right?
I might puke after all.
“Of course she can see through it,” Zach replied, as casual as if he were noting that I liked chocolate more than vanilla. “It’s in her bloodline.”
I was standing so close to Adrian, I felt it when his whole body stiffened. “You knew what she was?”
A faint smile touched Zach’s mouth. “I’ve always known.”
“What do you mean, what I am?” I wondered.
Adrian ignored that and strode over to Zach, his height forcing the shorter man to look up in order to meet his eyes.
“You lied to me,” Adrian bit out, his finger stabbing Zach in the chest with each word. “You said that I was the last of my line, yet you knew all along about Ivy?”
I couldn’t believe Adrian kept jabbing Zach like he was a roast that needed tenderizing. Didn’t he sense the blasting power beneath Zach’s average-guy disguise?
“She’s not a descendent of your line,” Zach said, his hand closing over Adrian’s with enough strength to hold it immobile. “You are the last of that, but she sees past the disguises of this world because she is the last descendant of David’s.”
“Last of whose?” I began, then stopped, stunned into silence as Adrian turned toward me.
Horror didn’t begin to describe the look on his face. Adrian stared at me like I’d crushed his world, ground it up and then forced it down his throat until he died choking on its remains. If my skin had suddenly been replaced by scales oozing poison, I still wouldn’t have thought I deserved such a look.
“Last of a line of rulers dating back to ancient times, when King David sat on the throne of Jerusalem,” Zach replied.
History was my major in college, but I’d also been a fan of the arts since I was a little girl.
“King David as in the guy from Michelangelo’s famous marble statue?” The naked one? I mentally added.
“The same,” Zach agreed, a slight arch of his brow making me wonder if he’d guessed what I hadn’t said out loud.
“Nice story,” I said flippantly, “but all anyone knows about my biological parents is that my mother was an illegal immigrant who left me on the side of the road after the tractor trailer she was hiding in jackknifed.”
In some ways, I couldn’t blame her. All the illegals who’d survived the accident had run, and disappearing in a new country would have been harder with a newborn. The Jenkinses, who’d also been caught in the multicar pileup, had found me, and after a series of court battles, officially adopted me.
Zach shrugged. “Your disbelief doesn’t change the truth.”
Adrian was suddenly at the back of the church, his silhouette a dark outline against the stained glass panels.
“If you knew she was the last Davidian, how could you send me to get her?” His voice lashed the air like a whip. “How could you let me anywhere near her, Zacchaeus?”
Now I knew what Zach was short for, but that wasn’t why my mouth dropped. “What is your problem?” I sputtered.
Adrian turned away as if he couldn’t stand the sight of me. Amidst my disbelief, I felt a sliver of hurt. Why was he acting like I was viler than the cop he’d killed with his bare hands?
“You have to be near her,” Zach replied in an implacable voice. “You cannot escape your fate.”
At that, Adrian whirled, fists clenched, shoulders rigid and anger roiling from him in palpable waves.
“Fuck my fate,” he snarled.
I didn’t see him pass me. He moved too fast again. I only knew that he’d left when the chapel door slammed behind me.
chapter five (#ulink_8ab3b044-b5c9-56e7-b996-4c0f7c968d15)
The sun was up by the time Zach returned. He’d gone after Adrian, but since he came back without him, that must not have gone well. My mood was pretty foul, too. I’d only waited in the church because I still didn’t have the answers I needed. All I knew was that Adrian now hated me, demons existed, and Zach was...well, with the light show he’d given off, I could guess what sort of creature Zach was, but it was too unbelievable to say out loud.
“We’re also known as Archons,” Zach said, throwing me a sardonic look. “Is that word easier for you to handle?”
Once again, he’d guessed my thoughts, and I was starting to believe it was more than luck. No, I was in the presence of a creature with untold supernatural abilities, and unless I wanted to spend more time crying on my knees, I had to deal with that.
I’d start with the challenge he’d just thrown down.
“It’s not my fault that you don’t match up with the brochure,” I replied flippantly. “You could’ve paired that hoodie with a harp and a halo, at least.”
He smiled, reminding me that every species except humans showed their teeth to convey a threat.
“This mortal shell conceals my true nature. Because you and Adrian are the last of your lines, you see beneath it, but the rest of humanity does not.”
I shrugged as though my already-careening world hadn’t been turned upside down within the past several hours.
“Or I’m hallucinating again. I missed taking a couple doses of my meds—”
“Makes no difference, they’re placebos,” Zach informed me.
I stared at him, my lips parted, but my brain processing too many thoughts to speak.
“That’s why your adoptive parents always filled your prescriptions for you,” Zach went on, as if each word wasn’t blasting apart what was left of my life. “Your psychologist provided the placebos as part of your therapy, but there is nothing medically wrong with you. Your adoptive parents were going to tell you the truth when you turned twenty-one—”
“Liar,” I whispered.
A thick brow arched. “Demons lie. My kind does not. If you require proof, take one of your pills to a pharmacist for analysis.”
My knees wobbled, but I didn’t sit down. If I did, I might not be able to get back up. Zach might be a mind reader, but he couldn’t have known that my parents always filled my prescriptions because I hadn’t been thinking of that. He also couldn’t know something that I didn’t—if the pills were really placebos instead of actual meds.
Adrian was right. Despite everything I’d seen, I still hadn’t accepted that it could actually be real. Now Zach was destroying my denial one revelation at a time.
“Your real mother didn’t leave you because she was running from the police,” Zach went on pitilessly. “She did it to save you, just as your dream revealed—”
“Stop!” I shouted, my breath now coming in pants. No one knew about that dream. I hadn’t told my parents, Jasmine or the countless therapists I’d been to. How could Zach know, unless he was exactly who—what—he claimed to be?
“Enough.”
Adrian’s voice cracked through the chapel, startling me. I hadn’t seen him come back in. I turned toward him, glad for anything that kept me from hearing revelations that were too incredible to be real.
“Don’t mind Zach,” Adrian said, an edge coloring his tone. “Archons have no tact when it comes to delivering big news.”
Zach shrugged. “She asked for the truth. I gave it to her.”
Adrian came nearer, his gaze glittering with anger. “Yeah, well, you want me to play this fate thing through? Then from now on, I tell Ivy what’s what, not you.”
My mind still felt like it had been thrown into a blender, but at that, I stiffened.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not even here.”
Adrian turned that darkly jeweled gaze my way. “Believe me, Ivy, I know you’re here.”
The flat way he spoke somehow gave his words more weight, but this time, Adrian no longer looked at me with horror. Instead, he stared at me like I was the most dangerous person he’d ever met, which, all things considered, was ridiculous.
“You want to save your sister?” he asked evenly. “You’ll need something strong enough to kill demons.”
This was too much, too fast. “Like holy water? Or crosses?” I asked numbly.
His look became pointed. “Those are for vampires, and they don’t exist. To take down demons, you need one of three weapons, and the second and third ones will probably kill you.”
“Okay, so we skip those,” I muttered, part of me wondering if I was really having a conversation about how to kill demons. Placebos or not, right now, I missed my meds.
“Right,” Adrian said, a glint appearing in his eyes. “Problem is, the first weapon is lost somewhere in one of the demon realms.”
“Of course it is. Shopping for it on eBay would be too easy.”
His lips curled, as if he knew my glibness masked a rising sense of disbelief. “You’ve already seen one demon realm. They appear as creepy, dark duplicates of the same place, just like that bed-and-breakfast you described.”
If that was true, I’d seen others over the years, but they all had the same problem.
“How do we enter one long enough to save Jasmine? After a few seconds, they seem to disappear.”
At that, Adrian shot Zach a frustrated look. “If her abilities are so weak that she only sees the other realms for a few seconds, she’s nowhere near ready to do this.”
I’d be offended if I didn’t agree. My athletic skills were limited to occasionally dancing all night, as if that was any advantage in a demon fight. Still, ready or not, I didn’t have a choice. Jasmine had no one else to come for her.
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” I said firmly.
The hardness in Adrian’s stare made me wonder if I’d regret those words. Then he smiled, wolfish and challenging.
“All right, Ivy. To answer your question, you get into a demon realm the same way you get in anywhere. Through a door.”
* * *
I wanted to start looking for the demon-killing weapon at once, but Zach insisted that we sleep. Due to my exhaustion, I didn’t argue until Adrian showed me my “bed.” Being in an underground mausoleum was bad enough, but sleeping in one of the tiny rooms that contained a body?
“Hell no,” I said.
Adrian rolled his eyes. “What’s dead can’t hurt you. Living demons can, and they can go anywhere except hallowed ground.”
“Then I’ll sleep in the church” was my instant response.
“Tourists visit the church,” he replied inexorably. “They don’t visit the catacombs, so we’re sleeping here.”
As he spoke, he gestured to another crypt that also had a sleeping bag in it. I looked back at my crypt. A small spider descended from the ceiling and landed right on my sleeping bag.
“I’ll just sit in the hallway,” I said grimly.
Adrian sighed. “Zach?”
I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around, Zach was behind me. Before I could say anything, he touched my forehead, and like a switch had been flipped, everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes, I was in Adrian’s car, my head resting against the cool glass of the passenger window. Lights blurred by, and with mild shock, I saw that it was evening.
“W-what happened?” I mumbled, sitting up.
Adrian didn’t look away from the road, but his mouth twitched. “Zach compelled you to sleep.”
Memory returned with a vengeance. “In a spider-infested crypt?” I began slapping at my clothes. If I saw anything with eight legs, I was launching myself out of this car.
A stronger twitch of his mouth. “Nothing beats an Archon sedative.”
“You think this is funny?” I unlocked my seat belt, took off his coat, and threw it into the backseat. With luck, now I wouldn’t have things crawling all over me.
That earned me a slanted look. “You want to fight demons, and you’re freaking out over spiders. That’s damn funny.”
Put like that, he had a point. “Speaking of, uh, them—” would I ever say demons without feeling like I should be in a straitjacket? “—why do we need this special weapon to save my sister? You killed Detective Kroger just fine without it.”
“Kroger wasn’t a demon, he was a minion. Demons can’t tolerate our realm for long, so they take willing humans, mark them, and send them out to do their dirty work. They have their own signature marks, too. The shadows you saw on Kroger meant he belonged to Demetrius. Marks make minions a lot tougher than humans, but compared to their masters, they’re easy to kill.”
I hardly knew where to begin with my questions. “Our realm? You mean...this?” I asked, waving at the scenery we drove past.
“Yeah, this,” he said, the words heavy with emotion. Regret? Resolve? I didn’t know him well enough to be sure.
“And we can see demon marks and demon realms because we’re the last of King David’s line,” I said, trying to piece the impossible facts together.
Adrian stiffened, his mouth tightening until white edged his lips. “You are. I’m not.”
That’s right, Zach had said he was the last of another line. “What are you, then?” I asked softly.
The look Adrian pinned me with seemed to compress me, until every breath I drew felt like a hard-fought victory.
“I’m something else,” he bit out.
I was glad when he glanced back at the road. My heart was thumping as if I’d been jogging. Whatever Adrian was, he didn’t like it, and if a man who wasn’t afraid of demons didn’t like what he was, then I should be scared shitless of him.
So why did I have a strong urge to smooth away the hardness in his expression? I swear, my reactions to him made no sense. I never went for the tortured bad boy because I had enough issues of my own. On top of that, Adrian had made it clear that, given his choice, he’d be nowhere near me. Whatever strange pull I felt toward him, I had to get rid of it. Fast.
“Where are we headed?” I asked in a neutral tone.
“Gold Hill, Oregon,” he replied, his voice equally emotionless.
All the way across the country? “What’s in Oregon that makes it so special?”
His grunt sounded grimly amused. “A door to multiple demon realms.”
chapter six (#ulink_d0f8ccbd-0ea1-5ffa-b17d-ac854698b05d)
I learned a few things over the next twenty hours. Not about demons or the mysterious weapon—Adrian refused to talk about those—but about him. Like, for example, his pathological hatred of mirrors.
Every time we stopped to refuel, Adrian would smash the mirror in the ladies’ room before he let me inside to pee. I was convinced he’d be arrested, but I soon found out another fact: no one but me could see what Adrian really looked like.
“He’s five-eight, skinny, with black hair,” the gas station attendant snapped into his phone, his Spanish accent thickening as he yelled, “Pendajo!” at Adrian for destroying his bathroom mirror. “And he’s driving...a mi Dios!”
That last part was screamed when Adrian moved with his incredible speed, yanking away the shotgun the attendant had pulled out. Then he broke it over his knee and handed the two pieces back with a growled, “Have a nice day.”
“Diablo,” the attendant moaned, sinking behind his counter.
I didn’t think Adrian was a devil, but I still didn’t know what he was. The fastest way to get the silent treatment from him was to ask again what “line” he was from. He did explain that Archon glamour masked his appearance, so he wouldn’t be recognized by minions. Now I knew why Detective Kroger’s first punch had hit Adrian in the shoulder. He thought he’d been striking a much shorter opponent. That was also why Adrian had demanded that I describe him soon after we met.
“You could see through demon glamour,” he’d explained, throwing me one of those hooded looks. “Minions can do that, too, but only humans from one of our lines can see through Archon glamour, so I needed to find out what you were.”
“What if I’d failed to describe you accurately?” I’d asked.
A shrug. “Then you’d have been a minion, and I’d have killed you.”
Between that admission, the compulsive mirror smashing and his impenetrable secretiveness, I was well on my way to getting over my attraction. Adrian wasn’t just damaged goods, he was deranged goods, and coming from someone with a history of psychosis, that was saying something. By the time we pulled into a motel at the halfway point of Kearney, Nebraska, I would’ve been happy never to see him again.
I called shotgun on the bathroom as soon as we entered the hotel room. Adrian obliged after smashing the mirror—he had to have ten thousand years of bad luck by now—then finally, I was able to take a shower. Thank God the motel had complimentary bottles of shampoo and conditioner because I wasn’t about to ask Adrian for any. For all I knew, the bulky duffel bag he’d brought in was filled with severed minion heads.
After I showered, I washed my clothes, making a mental note to insist that we shop before hitting the road tomorrow. With everything I owned now hanging to dry, I donned Adrian’s coat over my towel before leaving the bathroom.
He stood in front of the motel door, flicking something from a glass vial onto it. He did the same with the window, all while muttering in that strange, harshly lyrical language.
He probably wouldn’t tell me, but I asked anyway. “What are you doing?”
“Setting supernatural locks,” he replied, with a jaded glance at me. “This motel isn’t on hallowed ground, so we have to demon-proof this room. I don’t think we were followed, but I’d rather you weren’t murdered in your sleep.”
I swallowed. I’d rather that not happen, too. “So, that stuff you’re sprinkling around is like demon-mace?”
His mouth twitched, making me wonder if he fought back a smile. “Close. Know how a priest blesses water and then it’s considered holy? This is the Archon version of blessed oil, which briefly renders any place it touches as hallowed.”
“How brief is ‘briefly’?” I wondered.
A shrug. “Long enough for us to sleep.”
“If it hallows out any place, then why did we spend last night in a spider-infested crypt?” I asked at once.
Now I was sure he was fighting back a smile. “You looked like you slept there just fine to me.” At my instant glower, he added, “I can only get this stuff from Zach, and he’s stingy with handing it out. This is the last I’ve got, so after tonight, we’ll need to sleep on real hallowed ground until he decides to show up and give me more.”
A stingy angel. Now I’d heard of everything. Guess I’d better enjoy the real bed tonight. Who knew what I’d be cuddling up next to tomorrow. Speaking of that, I needed to handle some things before I went off the grid any longer.
“You have a phone I can use? I need to call my roommate, Delia. Tell her I’ll be gone for...a while.”
Adrian’s expression changed from suppressed amusement to stern refusal. “Not a chance. No calls, texts or emails.”
Who did he think he was, my new father? “Let me rephrase—I’m calling my roommate, either with your phone or with someone else’s.”
I couldn’t just disappear on Delia. I, of all people, knew how awful it was to wonder if someone you cared about was alive or dead, and she wasn’t just my roommate. After Jasmine, Delia was my best friend.
“You call her or anyone else you know, you’re making them a target,” Adrian replied coolly. “Not many people escape a demonic kidnapping attempt. The ones that do are usually helped by me, so that makes the demons extra mad. By now, minions have combed through every aspect of your life, and they’re waiting for you to connect to someone so they can use that person against you.”
Nothing changed in the room, but it suddenly felt smaller, as if the walls were edging toward each other.
“What’s the point? They already have my sister,” I said, anger and despair sharpening my tone.
Adrian leveled that gemstone stare at me. “Right, so don’t give them anyone else.”
I sat down on what I guessed was my bed, since Adrian’s duffel bag was on the other. The zipper was open, revealing nothing more sinister than clothes and toiletries. And here I’d been so sure about the severed minion heads. I did give the toothbrush a longing look. This motel didn’t have those as freebies, and my breath could probably slay a dragon.
“Help yourself,” Adrian stated, nodding at the bag. “Zach packed supplies for both of us.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I went to his bed and began to rummage through the bag. Thanks to his large build, it wasn’t hard to distinguish what was meant for Adrian and what was intended for me. The only surprise was that Zach had guessed my size, even on the intimate items.
“What kind of angel notices cup size?” I muttered under my breath as I added a bra to my pile.
Adrian’s bark of laughter let me know that I’d said it too loud. “Zach is nothing if not detail-oriented.”
“You sound like you’ve known him a long time,” I observed.
His face closed off in a now familiar way. I could let it go, like I had most of the drive here, but I was getting tired of his frequent bouts of silent treatment.
“I get that you don’t want to be here and you really don’t want to talk about whatever it is that you are, but if we’re going to be fighting demons together, I should at least know more about you.”
Adrian walked toward me, a hard little smile twisting his features. Then he bent down until his face was level with mine. His eyes looked even more vivid in the overhead light, and he was so close, I could see that his lashes were dark brown instead of black.
“Here’s the most important thing you need to know. I hate demons more than you do, so you can trust that I’ll help you kill them. But, Ivy—” harsh laughter brushed my skin in its own caress “—whatever you do, don’t trust me with anything else.”
The last time we’d been this close, he’d had me pinned to his car. He wasn’t touching me now, but somehow, his gaze made the moment equally intense. The scary part was, I liked it. Without thinking, I moistened my lips.
His gaze dropped there, and I sucked in a breath at the hunger that flashed across his face. So finding out about my supposed lineage hadn’t killed his attraction to me! With that knowledge, things lower down began to tighten. Adrian was maddening, confusing, dangerous...and what would I do if he tried to kiss me?
Suddenly, I saw a blur of motion and then he was gone, the door vibrating from his exit.
* * *
I awoke to the wonderful smell of hot, greasy food, and the even more tantalizing aroma of coffee. When I opened my eyes, a bag of McDonald’s was on my nightstand. I hadn’t heard Adrian leave to get it, but then again, I hadn’t heard him come back last night, either. He must have since his bed was mussed, and from the sounds of it, he was now in the shower.
I fell on the food like a starving animal. A candy bar and a small bag of peanuts had been all I’d eaten over the past two days. Getting yelled at by multiple gas station attendants after Adrian broke their mirrors hadn’t made me want to browse for more substantial fare. After I finished, I quickly put on new clothes, not wanting Adrian to come out while I was half-naked. Things were strange enough between us already.
My necklace snagged on my sweater as I yanked it over my head, reminding me there was one mirror Adrian hadn’t smashed yet. Since the shower was still running, I opened the locket, a pang hitting me when I saw my sister’s picture on one side and a small mirror on the other.
This way, we’ll always be together, Jasmine had said when she’d given it to me the night before I left for college. She’d cried a little then, and I never admitted it, but when I was alone in my room that night, I did, too. Sure, we fought like mad sometimes, but no one was closer to me than Jasmine. With everyone else, I had to keep faking so they’d believe everything was fine. For my parents, it was so they wouldn’t worry about me. For my psychologist, it was to avoid more tests or inpatient stays. For my friends and the occasional boyfriend, it was so I wouldn’t have to explain things they probably didn’t want to understand. With Jaz, I could be myself because whoever that was, she was okay with it.
“Nuts, normal, doesn’t matter,” she’d said years ago when I was upset after my psychologist told me I might never be cured. “You’re my sister, Ives, so no matter what, we’re stuck with each other.”
As I stared at her picture next to my own reflection, her loss hit me all over again. It took everything I had to hold the tears back. After several hard blinks, her image became less blurry. As I looked at her, I silently made her a promise. No matter what, I will find you. She’d never given up on me. I sure as hell wouldn’t give up on her.
Vow made, I could look at her picture without tearing up again. We didn’t resemble each other, of course. Jasmine was a blue-eyed blonde like my adoptive parents, and I had hazel eyes and brown hair. My greenish-brown eyes, light skin tone and other markers had caused my pediatrician to speculate that one of my parents had been Caucasian. We guessed the other was Hispanic because that was the nationality of the immigrants who’d been unable to flee the tractor-trailer accident, but who knew?
Thinking about my biological parents made Zach’s words steal through my mind, though I’d done my best to forget them. Your real mother didn’t leave you because she was running from the police...she did it to save you, just as your dreams revealed...
“Good, you’re up.”
Adrian’s curt voice made me jump. I snapped the locket shut, glad my back was to him so he couldn’t see what I tucked under my sweater. He was not smashing the last gift my sister gave to me, mirror phobia or not. With the locket safely hidden, I turned around.
“Thanks for...breakfast.”
I couldn’t help my pause. Some things should come with a warning label, and seeing Adrian stalk through the room wearing only a towel was definitely one of them. I hadn’t known ab definition like that existed without airbrushing, and the network of muscles on his arms, back and chest rippled as though dancing to a song that reverberated beneath his flesh.
Michelangelo had it wrong, I thought, tearing my gaze away. With that body, Adrian was the one who needed a marble statue made in his image. Good thing he was so fixated on shoving his things into his duffel bag, he didn’t notice my admiration.
“We’re leaving in ten minutes,” he stated, still in that brusque tone.
After he’d stormed out last night, I told myself it didn’t matter if Adrian was still attracted to me. I needed to rescue my sister, not start something with a guy who’d warned me he wasn’t trustworthy, let alone all the other reasons why Adrian was off-limits. No matter the dazzling packaging, he was six feet six inches of undetermined supernatural bad news, so his coldness now suited my purposes.
His barked orders, however, didn’t. We needed to get a few things straight before we went any further.
“Just because you’re pissed about our little road trip doesn’t mean you get to keep taking it out on me,” I said. “For whatever reason, you chose to come, and we don’t need to be friends, but you do need to quit acting like my boss. So we’re not leaving in ten minutes, Adrian. We’re leaving in twenty because I’m taking a shower, too.”
He swung around, arms crossing over that muscled chest in obvious annoyance. I continued on as if I didn’t notice.
“It’s not my fault if you’ve never had a serious girlfriend, but believe me when I tell you that it’s impossible for a girl to get ready in less than twenty minutes.”
“Fine,” he said, his tone only slightly less rude.
“You may want to wait until I’m in the bathroom to get dressed, too,” I said airily. “If you drop that towel now, I’ll think it’s your way of telling me you still want that date.”
I didn’t wait for his response before disappearing into the bathroom. All jokes aside, if he did drop that towel, I might forget all the many reasons why I should stay away from him.
chapter seven (#ulink_894ed6a2-e2a4-5223-8d2f-0e9fbc1e7707)
Twenty minutes later—okay, twenty-five, but close enough—we climbed into his car. I wasn’t much for old muscle cars, but I had to admit that his Challenger was in great shape. Still, I’d kill for a satellite radio. This only had AM and FM.
“You don’t need to drive the whole way. We can take turns,” I offered.
“No,” he replied at once.
“So you’re one of those,” I muttered.
His brow went up. “One of what?”
“Guys who think a girl can’t handle their precious metal babies,” I said, rolling my eyes.
At that, he laughed. “I rebuilt this car from the axle up, so yeah, you can call it my baby. But no one, male or female, drives it except me.”
“So you’re an equal-opportunity control freak?” I replied without missing a beat.
“You have no idea,” he said, voice lowering while his blue eyes slid over me in a phantom caress.
My breath caught. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized he’d avoided looking at me since he stormed out last night. Now, his gaze moved over me as if he already knew which parts to touch first and which parts to leave until I was breathless and begging. My heart began to beat faster. How could he affect me so much when we barely knew each other?
Then, like a switch had been flipped, he looked away as though the sight of me had burned his eyes. His whole demeanor changed, too, as if he were angry for revealing something that was supposed to remain hidden.
“When should we arrive in Oregon?” I asked, needing something, anything, to break up the tense moment.
He revved up the car and glanced at the clock. “Three a.m., if we don’t get caught in traffic.”
Nineteen hours until I crossed into one of the places that countless doctors had sworn were merely figments of my imbalanced mind. Once again, I had so many questions, I hardly knew where to begin.
“Have you been to this particular ‘realm door’ before?”
“Yes.”
One tightly spoken word that warned me to drop the subject, if I didn’t want another round of the silent treatment. I stifled a frustrated sigh. I needed more information, and he was moodier than a tween girl with her first PMS attack.
“How did you know minions were trying to kidnap me the other night?” There. Total change of subject, and something I’d been wondering about, anyway.
Adrian didn’t look at me as he pulled out onto the road. “Zach told me. He’s the one who sent me to retrieve you.”
I’d have to drag everything out of him, wouldn’t I? “Okay, how did Zach know?”
He grunted. “Archons get information about future events. Every so often, they interfere to change the outcome.”
“Every so often?” I repeated with angry disbelief, thinking of Jasmine’s kidnapping and my parents’ deaths. “Why not every time? Or do Archons have days where they’re just not in the mood to save people from harm and death?”
Nothing changed in his expression, but his tone hardened with what I thought might be remembered pain. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I don’t have an answer, and when I asked Zach the same thing, all he said was something about ‘orders.’”
“That’s such bullshit,” I muttered.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Adrian said dryly.
Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. Not strained silence like before, but silent, shared reflection while both of us thought of things that we wished had turned out different.
“So that’s what you do?” I finally said. “Rescue people for Zach after he tells you that minions are after them?”
He shrugged. “Gives me a chance to piss off demons.”
“Most people would avoid doing that,” I pointed out, suppressing a shudder. If not for Jasmine, you wouldn’t catch me near a demon, minion, realm or anything freakily supernatural. Why did Adrian run toward the danger instead?
“You and I aren’t most people, Ivy,” he said softly. “Because of what we see, we don’t get to pretend the world is a beautiful place where monsters don’t exist.”
I was the one who looked away that time, unable to handle the truth of his statement or the intensity in his stare. Until a few days ago, I had been doing that. Even as a child, as soon as I’d realized no one else saw the things I did, I’d wanted it to stop. I hated feeling like something was wrong with me, so after I’d jumped through almost a decade of medical hoops looking for a cure, I started pretending that I’d found one.
I told my parents, the doctors and even eventually Jasmine that I no longer saw the strange, dark worlds hanging like nightmares over regular places. I certainly never told Delia or my other friends about them. I said the pills I took were for a hormonal imbalance, and all my doctor appointments were for that, too.
Lies, lies, lies, all because I wanted to pretend I was normal. According to the gorgeous stranger across from me, I wasn’t then and never would be.
“What happened with you?” I asked, my voice low as if we were sharing secrets. “I hid from what I saw, but you started hunting down the things everyone told me couldn’t exist. You must’ve had proof that they were real, so what was it?”
He closed off so fast I was surprised I didn’t hear a sonic boom. I shut my eyes, letting out a sigh as I tried to settle myself more comfortably into my seat. Looked like the question-and-answer segment of our time was over.
Eventually, as afternoon slid into evening during the long drive, the late hour and boredom lulled me into drifting off.
A thunderous boom woke the black-haired woman. Her baby began to wail at the multiple crashing noises. She left the baby in the backseat, walking through the brush that hid her car.
On the nearby highway, a tractor-trailer was on its side, multiple cars piled up around it. Each passing second brought a new screech of tires and, more faintly, screams. Then the back of the trailer opened, and people stumbled out, some disappearing into the tall grass that lined the road, others limping a few feet before collapsing onto the road.
The black-haired woman hurried back to her car, but as she began to strap her baby in the car seat, she paused. Then she turned around and stared. Sunlight broke through the clouds, streaming down to the side of the road about fifty yards from the accident. The woman began to shake.
“No. No, I can’t leave her,” she whispered.
The light grew brighter, and another sunbeam appeared, illuminating the same spot. Tears streamed down her face, but after a minute, she picked up her child and walked toward it.
“Promise me she’ll be safe,” she choked out, setting the baby in the grass. Then she kissed the child, whispering, “Mommy loves you. Always,” before running to her car and driving away—
“What is that?”
Adrian’s voice startled me. For a second, I was disoriented, the dream clinging to me as it always did. Yes, I was in a car, but I wasn’t the unknown woman driving away from her baby. That wasn’t real. The glare Adrian leveled at my chest was, though.
“Is that a mirror?” He sounded horrified.
I looked down. My locket was open, the mirrored side facing me. At some point while I was sleeping, I must’ve opened it. Adrian’s hand shot out, but this time, I was too fast for him.
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped, holding it out of his reach. “It’s the only picture I have of my sister after you left everything I own back at that hotel in Bennington!”
He lunged again, actually letting go of the steering wheel to reach the side of the car where I held it. With a sharp yank, he wrested the locket from my hands. I tried to snatch it back, but he shoved me into my seat with one hand, finally grabbing the steering wheel with the other.
“Are you crazy?” I shrieked. “You could’ve gotten us killed!” If this hadn’t been a lonely stretch of desert road, our careening into the next lane might’ve had permanent consequences.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” was his chilling response. Then, still pinning me to my chair with that single hand, he held my locket up.
I gasped. Something dark poked out of the small mirror, like a snake made of blackest smoke. It disappeared when Adrian smashed the mirror against the steering wheel, but an eerie wind whistled through the car, ruffling my hair and stinging my nostrils with its acrid scent.
Adrian muttered a word in that unknown language, and I didn’t need a translator to tell me it was a curse.
“What was that?” My voice was hoarse.
He threw me a pitying glance, which frightened me even more. If he wasn’t angry, we must really be screwed.
His next words proved that. “Brace yourself, Ivy. You’re about to meet a demon.”
chapter eight (#ulink_e83749d2-85cb-5c44-ac4e-0e163e84c08e)
I didn’t consider myself religious. My parents used to take Jasmine and me to church on Christmas, but it was more a social event than a pious one. Hearing we were about to be attacked by a demon, however, made me pray like I’d never done before. I just wished I knew if anyone was listening.
Adrian wasn’t praying. He was cursing up a storm, if I correctly translated the spate of words coming from his mouth. He’d also lost that pitying expression, because the looks he shot me now were distinctly grim. It wasn’t the right time, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking the obvious.
“How did it find us?”
Adrian stomped on the accelerator, and the muscle car shot forward like it had rockets in the engine.
“Through the mirror,” he said shortly. “For stronger demons, mirrors act as portals, and you’ve been number one on their Most Wanted list since you escaped them in Bennington.”
I gaped at him. “Maybe you should have told me that?”
“You think I smash every mirror near you because I don’t want you to get conceited?” Then his tone softened. “You’re barely holding it together with what you do know, Ivy. I’m not about to tell you what you can’t handle yet.”
Anger flared, which felt better than the fear that made my blood seem like it had been replaced by ice water.
“No, I wasn’t ready to know that demons used mirrors as portals. I also wasn’t ready to know demons existed, or had kidnapped my sister, or that my parents were dead, or any of the horrible things I’ve dealt with in the past two weeks. But that didn’t stop them from happening, so quit protecting me from the truth, Adrian! It doesn’t help a damn bit!”
Adrian glanced at me, a gauntlet of emotions flitting across his features.
“You’re right. If we survive, I’ll apologize.”
My laughter was bleak. “You? Say you’re sorry? Now I really want to live.”
To my surprise, he laughed as well, though it was colored with dark expectancy.
“Hold that thought. You’ll need it.”
Before I could respond, something filled the road in front of us. I would’ve said it was storm clouds, except clouds don’t sweep along the ground like a heavy fog rolling in.
“Shut your vents,” Adrian said, flipping the tiny levers on his side. I did the same, more apprehension filling me as he turned the entire air-conditioning system off. No, those weren’t low-hanging clouds. They were something far more ominous.
“Turn around,” I said, my voice suddenly breathy.
“It wouldn’t matter” was Adrian’s chilling reply. “He’d only follow us. I need you to find hallowed ground, Ivy.”
I couldn’t take my eyes away from the billowing clouds in front of us. They were so dark, they seemed to devour the beams that came from Adrian’s headlights.
“All right,” I mumbled. “Give me your phone, I’ll look up the nearest church or cemetery.”
“It’s too late for that,” he said, stunning me. “You need to find it yourself.”
“How?” I burst out. We were almost at the line of black clouds. The temperature in the car plummeted, making my skin feel like it had turned to ice.
“It’s in your bloodline,” Adrian said, swinging off the road so sharply that the back end began to fishtail. “You can sense hallowed ground, so find some, Ivy. Now.”
“I don’t know how!” I shouted.
The car shuddered over the uneven terrain, bouncing so much I almost hit my head on the roof, but I didn’t tell Adrian to slow down. That wall of darkness filled up the rear window of the Challenger until I couldn’t see the glow of our tail lights anymore.
“Yes, you do.” A growl that sounded comforting compared to the horrible hissing noises coming from outside the car.
“I don’t!” What was that flash of white on my side of the car? Or that new, ripping sound? Oh God, were those teeth scraping away at the metal on my door?
“It’s getting in, it’s getting in!”
“He can’t get in the car.”
Adrian’s strong voice broke through my panic. I stared at him, my eyes starting to burn from the acrid stench that crept in through parts of the car we hadn’t been able to seal.
“I warded it against demons a long time ago,” he went on.
I felt better about that for three seconds, which was how long it took before the car lifted up on one side like a gargantuan hand had swatted it. For a paralyzing moment, I wasn’t sure if we were going to flip completely over. Then we crashed down hard enough to make the windows shatter, and I tasted blood from my jaw snapping shut on my tongue.
“’Course, that doesn’t mean he can’t tear the car apart around us,” Adrian said, stomping on the gas as soon as all four wheels were on the ground. “We’re running out of time. Where’s the hallowed ground?”
“I. Don’t. Know,” I screamed. My heart was pounding out of my chest from terror. If I knew a way out of this, I’d take it.
“Yes, you do,” he insisted, those sapphire eyes searing me when he glanced over. “Tell me which direction you want to run. That’s the right way, I promise.”
Which way did I want to run? In whatever direction this living nightmare wasn’t! The car lifted again, and everything in me braced for another impact. That awful hissing noise grew into a roar, and Adrian’s gaze met mine. In those darkly beautiful depths, I realized these would be the last moments of our lives if I didn’t use an ability I’d never heard of before.
In the seconds before the car came crashing down, I closed my eyes. Concentrated on which direction I wanted to flee to, and tried to ignore the pain as flying glass pelted me from all sides. My instincts were screaming at me to run from the horrible thing outside these crumbling metal walls, and I let those instincts consume me, filling me until I couldn’t focus on anything else. I needed to get out of here. I needed to leave right now and go...there.
“That way,” I said hoarsely, opening my eyes and pointing.
Adrian’s hand closed over mine, his grip strong and sure. Then the car crashed down hard enough to make my vision go black and my whole body ache, but he didn’t hesitate. As soon as the worst of the impact was over, he grabbed his coat, yanked me into his arms, and then flung us out of the car.
His body took the brunt of the impact, but it still felt like I hit the ground with almost the same force as the car crashing down. My yelp was swallowed up by a tremendous boom! as Adrian threw something at the fog that rushed us. White flashed, more bright and brilliant than a lightning bolt. Those hideous clouds recoiled with a scream as though they were in pain.
Adrian leaped up, still holding me in his arms. Then he began to run in the direction I’d pointed, leaving that ugly, writhing darkness behind us.
Even without the nightmarish clouds surrounding us, I could barely see. Nothing but desert stretched out in front of us, and the headlights from Adrian’s car were now too far away to do any good. That strange flash of light was gone, too. Even the moon seemed to hide, but Adrian’s incredible strides never wavered. It was as if his eyes had night-vision technology built into them.
His speed had startled me when I was only an observer of it. Now that I was locked in his arms, hurtling through the night like I’d been strapped to the front of a bullet train, it filled me with terrified awe. His heart pounded next to my cheek, but he couldn’t be human. No mere mortal could move this way. Hell, some hybrid cars couldn’t go this fast.
“Where is it, Ivy?” he yelled, the wind snatching away his words almost before I could hear them.
I wasn’t sure anymore. All the darkness had disoriented me, and it wasn’t like there was a neon sign that said Hallowed Ground This Way. I didn’t say that, though. What I saw when I glanced over his shoulder froze the words in my throat.
That roiling mass of evil was right behind us. I shouldn’t have been able to see it against the midnight-soaked desert, but I could. The shadows forming it were filled with such seething malevolence that their darkness gleamed. Then something like a huge mouth gaped open, teeth long and razor-sharp.
“Adrian!” I screamed, tightening my arms around him.
He didn’t look back, though his grip on me turned bruising. “Tell me where to go, Ivy!”
I forced myself to look away from the appalling sight, but I couldn’t look ahead. Sand-filled wind stung my eyes from how fast Adrian ran. I couldn’t see, but maybe I didn’t have to.
I closed my eyes like I had back in the car. Concentrated on my need to be as far away from the formless death monster as I could. My concentration broke when something sharp lashed my legs before digging in as though trying to claw its way up my body. I screamed again, and Adrian snarled, somehow increasing his incredible speed. With a final slice, the claws left my body, but something hot and wet ran down my legs.
I choked back my next scream, my heart pounding as fast as the booming beneath my cheek. Then I concentrated again, pain and panic finding the switch in my mind that I hadn’t realized was there.
“That way,” I said, pointing without opening my eyes.
Adrian changed direction, the hard pumping of his legs shooting pain into me from the endless impacts, but I didn’t care. Another roar sounded behind us, growing closer, until I could almost feel its icy breath on my cheek. My legs throbbed, anticipating more claws slicing through my skin, and though I knew I shouldn’t, I opened my eyes.
It was right there, faceless except for those grotesquely large teeth that snapped mere inches from my head. I stared, too horrified to scream again. It stretched, growing even bigger, until I couldn’t see anything except the wall of evil that was about to come crashing down on us—
It split through the middle, breaking around us like water parted by rocks. An unearthly howl shook me, blasting my ears and blowing my hair back. Just as abruptly, Adrian slowed down, coming to a complete stop a couple dozen feet away from the thing, which surged and recoiled as though trying to break past an invisible barrier.
I didn’t understand for the first few breathless seconds. Then I saw the faint shimmers coming up from the earth and heard the faraway echo of long-dead voices chanting prayers. We’d made it to the hallowed ground, and the demon might rage along its perimeter, but it couldn’t cross it to get to us.
chapter nine (#ulink_adad2d87-38c9-5662-b8eb-d277dd4fd078)
Now I knew why people who’d escaped certain death broke into laughter. It had always looked strange in the movies, but I hadn’t realized how quickly adrenaline turned to relief, the change hitting your bloodstream like a dozen tequila shots. For a few seconds, I didn’t even feel any pain as I laughed from the wild, wondrous exhilaration of still being alive. I wanted to hug Adrian. I wanted to spin in circles. I wanted to scream, “Take that!” at the swirls of dark clouds that stormed along the edge of our supernaturally impregnable walls.
Adrian didn’t laugh, but his wide smile conveyed both victory and savage satisfaction. He stared at the living darkness a short distance from us and said something in that strange, harshly melodic language.
To my surprise, the clouds began to shrink, dissipating as quickly as a fog machine in reverse. Soon, nothing remained except an inky pool on the ground, like the shadows had been transformed into liquid.
“What did you say to make it disappear?” I asked, my brain adding numbly, and why didn’t you say it sooner?
“He’s not gone,” Adrian said, his tone edged with an emotion I couldn’t name. “He’s just shedding his disguise.”
Those fluid shadows suddenly began to rise, forming into a pillar. Then they changed, coiling and swirling until a slender girl with long blond hair broke through them as though she’d been expelled out.
Jasmine hunched in fear as she looked around. When she saw me, she collapsed on the ground in relief.
“Ivy,” she said, her hands trembling as she reached out. “Please, help me!”
I didn’t need Adrian to keep holding me to stop me from going to her. This wasn’t my sister. It was a thing wearing her image like a coat, and it infuriated me.
“Fuck you,” I replied, all my fear and hatred rolled into those two words.
Jasmine’s form blurred, turning into slithering shadows again. Out of those, a man emerged. He was almost as tall as Adrian, though not as thickly muscled, and he moved with snakelike grace as he prowled along the edge of the barrier. Long black hair hid most of his face as the wind tossed it around, but I caught a glimpse of pale skin, burning black eyes and a dark pink mouth that opened as he said—
“I can see why you like her, my son.”
I barely noticed Adrian stiffen. I was too busy being shocked by the thing’s identical, exotic accent and how he’d addressed the man holding me. My son. Was this the secret Adrian refused to talk about? It would explain his superhuman speed—
“Don’t call me that.” Adrian’s voice lashed the air with palpable hatred. “I was never your son.”
The demon sighed in the way my father used to do when I was a child and he was explaining why some things, like dental visits, were unavoidable.
“Not by blood, but you’re mine nonetheless. Now, Adrian, your little rebellion, while amusing, has gone on long enough. Carry her out to me. It will save us all from a lengthy, boring fight before the inevitable occurs.”
Adrian’s smile reminded me of a tiger baring his teeth. “I live to fight you, Demetrius, so it’s never boring for me.”
Demetrius. Wasn’t that the demon who’d sent Detective Kroger after me? I started to squirm, wanting out of Adrian’s arms while I processed this, but his grip only tightened.
Demetrius noticed, and the look he flashed Adrian was both knowing and cruel.
“Every moment you spend with her will strengthen the bond between you. Break it now, before it destroys you when you fulfill your destiny.”
A noise escaped Adrian, too visceral to be called a snarl. “My ‘destiny’ won’t happen if you’re dead. How much did the Archon grenade hurt? Not nearly as much as David’s slingshot will, I hope.”
Demetrius laughed, sending shivers of revulsion over me. If evil came in audible form, it would sound like that.
“Now that I’ve seen the last of David’s seed, I’m even more confident of my people’s success. You must be, too. That’s why she has no idea what we’re talking about.” Another mocking, repellent laugh, then the demon’s face turned serious. “Come home, my son. I miss you. Obsidiana misses you. You don’t belong with them. You never did.”
Adrian’s grip hardened until it felt like I was encased in steel. “I’d rather die where I don’t belong than live another day with you,” he gritted out.
Demetrius shook his head. “So slow to learn,” he said sadly. Then he looked at me, a smile playing about his lips.
“I make your sister scream in pain every day,” he said in an offhand way. “If you want to save her, say my name in a mirror. I’ll trade her life for yours.”
My reply contained every filthy word I knew, plus a few I made up. Demetrius only laughed again. Then, with a swirl of shadows, he disappeared. Or did he?
“Is he really gone?” I asked hoarsely.
“He’s gone. I told you, demons can’t tolerate our realm for long. Even strong ones like Demetrius would be dead after an hour here.”
As he spoke, he let me down, which was good, since I didn’t want him touching me. The words my son kept resounding in my mind. Biologically related or not, the demon imprisoning my sister had close ties to Adrian—a fact he’d deliberately kept from me. Worse, Demetrius seemed very confident that their ties would be restored soon.
“So Demetrius is your stepdad?”
He sighed at the acid in my tone. “The simplest explanation is that Demetrius was...my foster parent.”
The slight hesitation before those words told me he was hiding large chunks of the truth. Again.
“And Daddy Dearest misses you. How sweet.”
Adrian’s expression darkened so much, I half expected to see shadows appear beneath his skin.
“I get that you’re pissed, but don’t ever call him my father again. I was a child when he took me. Not all of us were lucky enough to end up with kind, human foster parents.”
His raw tone melted away some of my anger. He might still be hiding something, but I couldn’t imagine the horrors of growing up at the mercy of a demon.
“Why did Demetrius take you?” I asked with less rancor. “Does it have to do with your mysterious bloodline?”
As I watched his lips tighten in that familiar way, I knew I was right—and that he still wasn’t going to tell me what he was. Not part-demon, evidently, and I doubted he was part-Archon. If he was, Demetrius would’ve killed him, not raised him as his “son.”
“Your legs are injured,” Adrian stated, changing the subject. “Sit. I’ve got medicine in my coat.”
If they hadn’t been throbbing with pain for the past several minutes, I would have refused until Adrian told me the rest of what he was hiding. Since our car was busted and we probably had a long walk ahead of us, I sat, wincing when he pulled at the tears in my jeans. The wounds had already started to stick to the fabric.
After a few moments, Adrian let out a soft hiss. “Lots of gouges, and deep. Take your pants off.”
“Geez, buy a girl a drink first,” I said to cover my dread over how much that would hurt.
His lips curled as he retrieved a flask from his coat. “Ask and you shall receive.”
“You’ve had liquor on you this whole time?” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I could’ve really used some, oh, every day for the last few days!”
I snatched the flask and took a gulp, welcoming the burn that made my eyes water, and forced a sputter after I swallowed.
“Not a bourbon girl?” Adrian asked dryly.
“That’s bourbon?” I let out a choking cough. “I thought it might be prison brew!” Still, I took another throat-scorching gulp. Beggars can’t be choosers.
His snort was soft. “No, but let’s just say the recipe doesn’t come from a normal brew company.”
“I’ll bet,” I muttered, then coughed out a protest when he took it from me. “Wait, I’m not done!”
“That’s much stronger than regular bourbon,” he said, putting it back in his coat. “Trust me, you’ve had enough.”
When he started tugging my jeans down, the pain shooting through me made me want to argue, but I didn’t. I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I didn’t want to add puking to all the other reasons why this night had been awful. Once my jeans were off, I stayed silent for a different reason.
Savage swipes had ripped open my flesh in at least a dozen places. I saw white in some of the gaping spaces, making my fear of vomiting a real possibility. If I’d been thrown into an angry bear’s den, I probably would’ve fared better. How had I managed to even stand with injuries like this?
I must’ve said that last part out loud, because Adrian answered me.
“Shock and adrenaline, plus your bloodline. You’re stronger, faster and tougher than you realize. You just didn’t know it before because you never needed to be.”
With that, he pulled a sealed plastic bag out of his coat. No wonder he’d made sure to grab it when we fled the car; liquor and medicine were necessities in any survivalist’s book, not to mention the Archon grenade that had made cloud-Demetrius scream.
If I’d known then what I knew now, I’d have savored that scream. His taunts about Jasmine tormented me, as he’d intended them to. If I had any confidence that a demon would keep his word, I’d be tempted to trade my life for hers. Finding the weapon and taking on Demetrius might get me killed anyway, and then my sister would really be doomed.
Adrian scooped out some of the bag’s contents, interrupting that bleak line of thought. The medicine looked like mashed-up macaroon cookies, and I tensed as he held that sticky mixture over the deepest gouge on my thigh. His eyes met mine, their silvery perimeter gleaming.
“Take a deep breath, Ivy.”
I did, and still almost screamed when he brought his hand down. The medicine hurt more than when Demetrius had made the wounds, but I bit my lip and didn’t cry out. Adrian was trying to help. The less I distracted him, the faster this would end.
I repeated that like a litany while he smeared the agony-inducing substance on all my deeper gashes. He worked with quiet efficiency, thankfully not commenting on the sweat that beaded my forehead or how my breath came in pants.
“Almost over,” he murmured in sympathy.
Something strange began to happen. The pain changed, turning into a tingling that reminded me of what it felt like when my foot fell asleep. Adrian finished with the final gouge and leaned back, watching my legs with an expectant expression.
The wounds began to close, expelling the now red-smeared medicine as smooth flesh filled in what had been gaping tears. Within minutes, the only marks left were shallower grazes that I could’ve made while shaving. I could hardly believe it.
“What is that stuff?”
His mouth curled. “Manna.”
Where had I heard that word...? “The mythical bread that fed the Israelites when they wandered in the desert?”
His half smile remained. “As you see, it has a lot of uses. Now, turn over so I can get the other gouges.”
I did, thinking it was a good thing that Zach had done my recent shopping. I normally wore thongs, but now, my ass was more modestly covered by bikini briefs.
Once I was on my stomach, Adrian’s large hand covered a wound high up on my hip. Though the initial pain was just as sharp, something else flared through me. Maybe it was because I knew the harsh sting would soon fade. Maybe the bellyful of superpotent liquor contributed to the urge I had to see his expression as he dragged his hand over my skin, or perhaps it was the way his touch seemed to linger longer than medicinally necessary.
I could’ve told him to stop. Insisted on dressing the wounds myself; I could reach them, after all. But I didn’t. He didn’t speak, either, and as his hands continued their path down my body, treating and then smoothing over newly healed skin, the pain was a price I willingly paid to keep feeling him touch me.
It was wrong, of course. I kept telling that to my rapidly beating heart and the shivers that followed every stroke of his hands. He was danger wrapped in secrets tied with a bow of bad intentions, and it was totally unfair that no one had made me feel this way before.
“Almost over?” I asked, hating how much he affected me.
“Yeah.”
He sounded angry, which made me flip over before he’d finished smoothing manna over a shallower cut. My quick movement must’ve surprised him, because it took a second for his expression to close off into that familiar, jaded mask.
In that brief, unguarded moment, I learned I wasn’t the only one who’d been affected by his touching me. Suddenly, it seemed like a very good idea to put my pants back on.
chapter ten (#ulink_03a04abe-4d8b-5d39-a8a2-e51567cfa3d1)
Adrian made a fire out of plants, scrub and other things I wouldn’t have thought to use, starting it by rubbing twigs together fast enough to get a spark. I huddled as close as I could to the fire without catching myself ablaze. Even so, my breath made tiny white clouds with every exhalation. Who knew a desert could be so chilly at night?
“How long do we have to stay out here?”
Adrian glanced back at me. He didn’t appear bothered by the cold temperatures, or his pacing was keeping him warm. He hadn’t stopped since he quit treating my injuries.
“Until morning. We can’t risk another demon ambushing us if we leave the hallowed ground before sunrise.”
“They can’t enter our realm in daylight?” Interesting.
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Jeaniene Frost
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: In a world of shadows, anything is possible. Except escaping your fate.Ever since she was a child, Ivy has been gripped by visions of strange realms just beyond her own. But when her sister goes missing, Ivy discovers the truth is far worse-her hallucinations are real, and her sister is trapped in a parallel realm. And the one person who believes her is the dangerously attractive guy who′s bound by an ancient legacy to betray her. Adrian might have turned his back on those who raised him, but that doesn′t mean he can change his fate… no matter how strong a pull he feels toward Ivy. Together they search for the powerful relic that can save her sister, but Adrian knows what Ivy doesn′t: that every step brings Ivy closer to the truth about her own destiny, and a war that could doom the world.Sooner or later, it will be Ivy on one side and Adrian on the other. And nothing but ashes in between… .