Chapter 12
Ruadan
I was not this man. This tightly wound, protective, possessive alpha that I seemed to become around the sin-eater.
Somehow, in a matter of days, he’d buried himself so deep inside me, I was surprised he wasn’t tattooed on my skin.
Was it the kiss? Had it so thoroughly rearranged my priorities that all I could see was Ulysses?
Impossible. For a connection like that to have been forged so quickly, it would mean he was something more to me. That fate had marked him as mine…
The thought was cut off by a crackle of sound from the walkie-talkie, and I snatched up the radio so fast that I nearly fumbled it. Uly’s voice just barely cut through the static. “Rue? I’ve found… Seventh… down from Wall...”
“Uly, say again,” I said through the radio, releasing the button and putting the speaker to my ear, holding my breath as I waited for his reply.
“Rue? Hell…”
My lungs burned, begging for oxygen, but I couldn’t breathe, not until I knew he was safe. Had he sounded scared? Or was it just my brain, conjuring my worst fears.
There was no reply, but I was already turning the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life.
I put the truck in gear, but hesitated about which direction to go.
He’d said Seventh, which was north of here, but he’d also said Wall, which was south, and they didn’t intersect.
He had to be mistaken. Without acknowledging why, I turned inward, asking my instincts which way to go.
No, not my instincts, I thought, pressing a hand to my chest. My heart.
But now was not the time to examine too closely why I knew without question that Uly was to the north. I hoped there would be time later for the conversation we would need to have, but for now, all that mattered was making sure he was alive and well.
The borrowed truck was heavy, but it was durable and built for power, and I sped through an intersection against the light.
Thankfully, the streets were empty at this late hour, and there was no one in my way as I cranked the wheel to the left and I felt two tires leave the pavement.
As I straightened out onto Seventh, the tires slammed back to earth, the scent of burning rubber staining the air.
I barely had time to register the sign reading Waller St., realizing distantly the part of Uly’s radio message I’d missed, before the van’s engine sputtered and died, the vehicle coasting sluggishly to a stop. “Son of a bitch,” I snarled, hopping out quickly, head on a swivel as I searched for Uly.
I bared my teeth, hissing at the press of magic around me. The air was soaked with it, thick and suffocating. This was not good.
Following the invisible thread that anchored me to the sin-eater, I ran. With everything I had, rising panic and desperation driving me, pounding footsteps muffled in the cocoon of tainted magic, I ran.
Even knowing to expect the worst, I was not prepared to see Uly thrown back like a ragdoll, his body too limp.
When he landed, scraping and rolling across the ground, I swore I felt it myself, one hand clutched to my chest, the other reaching for him.
“Uly!” I shouted, straining, though my voice sounded more like a whisper.
He pushed himself back up on shaking legs, so much blood soaking his clothes that I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He turned to look at me, regret and fear at the forefront of his gaze. He shook his head, and his lips formed one word. “Run…”
Didn’t he realize it was too late for that? I would never abandon him now.
The possessed creature—the demon wearing a middle-aged woman—turned those pitch-black eyes on me, a strange smile on her face. “Well, well, isn’t this fun. Have you come to join the party?”
I rounded on her, my glare promising death.
“Since I see costumes are allowed, I’m sure you won’t mind if I change into one of my own.
” My gums ached as long, serrated teeth filled my mouth, joints popping as I let myself grow, and grow, and grow.
I shifted into a literal nightmare, a monster of shadow and fear, all scales and claws and dripping fangs.
Uly dropped to his knees, tilting his head back to gape at me. The demon, however, looked less impressed. The body she controlled had its limitations, and no matter her strength, she was no match for me.
Her gaze moved from me to where Uly knelt, weighing what he was worth to me, and I knew even before she made a move that she intended to use him as a shield—a chip to bargain for her freedom.
We both moved at the same time. She got to Uly just a fraction of a second before me, her blunt human nails still sharp enough to tear, to rend…
I shoved her back with a wild swipe of my arm, sending her flying, but not in time.
The copper tang of his blood overwhelmed me, driving me half feral.
She dared to hurt my mate?! I let out a roar that echoed through the pressing fog.
When I made a move to finish her off, though, Uly’s pained whimper made me stop.
I crouched down at his side, still a walking nightmare, but he didn’t even flinch as he looked up at me. “You can’t kill her,” he forced out. “The woman… she’s still in there.”
The so-called woman rose, her arm dangling at an unnatural angle, and her gaze turned covetous as she took in my impressive form.
She knew she had won—for now. “Come and see me if you ever want to make a bargain, shifter,” she drawled.
“You would be far more fun than Becky.” She gestured at the body she wore, before turning on her heel and dashing off, holding her broken arm to her chest. She stopped only to grab the gym bag on the way by, cash spilling across the road.
I could’ve caught up to her, held her in my custody until I could get her to the right authorities to handle an exorcism, but it was between her and Ulysses, and that wasn’t a choice at all.
Just like that, the bubble of magic around us popped, and the world came rushing back in, like water through a broken dam.
For a moment, it had been so easy to forget the world existed, and now that I was reminded of it, I became all too aware of the eyes that could be on us.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer with every second.
Shifting back to my human form, I carefully slid my hands under Uly, lifting him to cradle gently in my arms. “We have to get out of here.”
I winced as he gasped, clutching around his abdomen. “Just hang on,” I told him. “I’m taking you home.”
It was not his home, however, that I raced to once I carried him back to the truck, left in the middle of the road where I’d abandoned it. My home was closer, and right now, there was nothing I wanted more than to have him in my house, my bed, wearing my clothes, my scent on his skin.
He didn’t issue a single word of complaint as I buckled him carefully into the truck and drove toward Jade City District.
Shite, so much blood had soaked into his clothes that the fabric clung to him, and his head lolled against the window, eyes closed.
I couldn’t bring him to a hospital, not without questions I couldn’t answer, and who was to say they would be able to heal him from whatever that demon did? I needed a specialist.
Using the truck’s touch screen, I called Lagamal. His voice filled the truck’s speaker, groggy with sleep. “This had better be good,” he rasped.
“I need a doctor, a good one,” I barked. I gave him the barest of details, instructing him to send a supernatural doctor to my home immediately, and no, I didn’t care that it was the middle of the night. I would pay them anything they asked. The only thing that mattered was saving my mate.
Uly was silent the entire drive. Not a peep as I pulled into my driveway and carried him inside, and as someone who was rarely quiet, it was his silence that most worried me. Even more than the blood.
I quickly carried him through to my bedroom and laid him down, uncaring that he was currently bleeding all over my silk sheets. I needed a new bed anyway. Uly sucked in a sharp breath, but otherwise, showed no hint of the pain he must’ve been in. His eyes remained closed. Was he even conscious?
“I’ll be right back. I need bandages,” I said softly as I ran to the bathroom.
The only problem? I was a fucking god, and I had no need for first-aid kits.
I had no antibiotics or even painkillers.
Even knowing this to be true, I found myself tearing open the cabinet in frustration, hoping against hope that I had somehow forgotten buying supplies at some point. No such luck.
I heard someone enter through the front door I’d left open, and I called, “We’re back here.”
A man with salt-and-pepper hair appeared at the end of the hall, carrying a bag I assumed was full of supplies. “Ruadan? I’m Dr. Banner,” he said, his voice calm and confident in the wake of my panic.
“Are you a surgeon?” I asked, leading him into the bedroom, carrying an armload of towels, the closest I’d been able to find to bandages, and dumping them on the foot of the bed. Uly seemed so small where he lay, something rattling inside his chest with each breath.
“Of a sort,” the man said, perching on the edge of the bed beside Uly and opening his bag. “I’m an obstetrician, but it seems I might be the only person qualified to treat a sin-eater.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “My grandfather was one.”
An obstetrician?! He wasn’t giving birth!
I was about ready to haul the man away when Lagamal appeared in the bedroom doorway.
I’d never seen him so dressed down, in sweats and a tee, his hair mussed without his usual product.
One look at me and I saw him register just how close I was to my breaking point. “Let the man do his job,” he said.