Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
E ven with the glimmer of starlight, it was so dark away from the soft glow of the fire.
Shadows cloaked the woman’s face, and yet I recognized her at once. My mouth fell open as I met a golden gaze that matched my own exactly.
“ Mama ?”
Her eyes widened, and she backed away, disappearing into shadow.
I sucked in a breath and dropped my waterskin, the pack forgotten on the ground.
Without thinking, I made for the trees, stumbling a bit in the darkness. Branches tugged at my hair and tore at my leathers as I struggled to catch up.
My mother.
A sharp, cautious voice inside me whispered that this woman, this thing , was not my mother. She’d been murdered in the Quarter when I was eight, left to be drained by a hungry vampire.
But my reckless heart was too foolish to listen. It pulled me deeper into the woods — had me crawling over fallen logs and stumbling over exposed roots as I followed the glimmer of starlight reflecting off her honey-brown hair as she fled from the clearing.
The savvy huntress in me noticed how she moved without a sound. Even those hostile, clinging branches seemed to yield to her.
Maybe because she was a part of these woods. I didn’t care.
“Mama!”
The voice that wrenched out of me wasn’t my own. It belonged to a scared little girl who hadn’t yet been broken by the Quarter, her soul untouched by fear and pain. She was vulnerable and innocent in ways I was not, and yet I didn’t pause to remember what I now knew.
I was running — crashing through trees that seemed to grab at my clothes and hair.
It was pitch black in the thicket of roots. So dark I didn’t see the arm shoot out before it locked around my waist.
A shrill scream ripped from my throat, but then a familiar scent of leather and night engulfed me. The arm around my waist held fast, pinning my back against a hard, muscular chest.
“ Lyra .” Kaden’s voice was ragged and breathless.
“Let me go!” I bucked and flailed against his grip, my body still pulling me in the direction my mother had disappeared.
Rough hands gripped my arms, turning me to face him. “Lyra!”
Maybe it was the urgency in his voice or whatever demon magic he was exuding, but it was as if a dark curtain suddenly lifted, and the realization hit me .
It wasn’t her.
It wasn’t my mother.
She was only an illusion, dragged into existence by some wretched, shadowy thing that fed on misery.
I stopped struggling as shame heated my cheeks. “I thought I saw —” I broke off. “Never mind.”
How could I have been so stupid?
I was in the forest of Dorthus, woods inhabited by creatures so wicked not even the demon court would have them. And yet I’d run off into the dark like a fool after a dead woman.
A projection of a dead woman. Nothing more.
“It’s all right,” Kaden breathed, his arms still encircling me.
Even with the cover of darkness, I was too horrified to meet his gaze.
Once again, I’d allowed myself to be taken in by the creatures that skulked through these woods. I’d succumbed to their illusion and made what should have been a fatal mistake.
As if he could sense what I was thinking, Kaden’s warm fingers found my chin, lifting it until my eyes met his.
There was no anger or judgment in their stormy depths. Only terror laced with regret.
“I should have warned you,” he hissed, a muscle working in his jaw.
“Should have prepared you better. The creatures here can take on any form they like. They will appear to you tonight, even as you sleep. They will tempt you and taunt you and trick you — anything to lure you into their web. The first time I came here, I —” He loosed a breath, glaring into the distance at some unseen foe.
“I fell for their illusion, and I almost didn’t escape. ”
Icy dread licked down my spine. Kaden , the demon prince, had been taken in by these creatures?
“Come,” he said, turning toward the clearing and pressing a warm hand into the small of my back.
I allowed him to steer me toward the fire, which was burning bright enough to chase the shadows away from its little circle of warmth.
I sat down, accepted the flask that Kaden passed me, and took a hearty swig. The cool liquid burned my throat, but somehow the sensation made me feel steadier. More tethered.
We ate in silence, and I chewed without really tasting any of the food.
With a full belly, my exhaustion finally took hold, and I became aware of the dull ache in my calves, the backs of my thighs, and my battered feet.
Two dark bedrolls unfurled on a wave of Kaden’s magic, and I crawled into mine, fully clothed, and fell instantly asleep.
They came for me when I was at my weakest, the demons circling my broken body as I lay sprawled on the basement floor.
First came the dark one in leathers with batlike wings and shiny black eyes that writhed like beetles. “ Hello, darling .”
I shuddered as he knelt before me, those powerful muscles straining at his leathers. Concrete dust drifted down like snow, stealing moisture from the air and causing my throat to itch.
A blade kissed the side of my neck, and I felt the hot trickle of blood .
A faint reddish mist engulfed me, my blood coalescing into droplets an instant before the demon inhaled deeply.
A look of pure ecstasy swept over his face as he breathed in my blood. My magic.
“You taste . . . different,” he murmured, head tilted back to expose the dark column of his throat. “Special.”
“There is nothing special about her,” sneered a low, cruel voice as those oily tendrils caressed my mind.
I stiffened, the movement causing a jolt of pain.
Then another face appeared above me — the demon with long, white-blond hair and a flat, reptilian nose. He was dressed in trousers and a velvet waistcoat, the fine clothes so at odds with the demon’s brutality.
“I have been inside her mind. I have seen her innermost thoughts — her pathetic mortal longing. She is nothing.”
Nothing .
The word was a hiss that echoed through my mind.
“Still,” the blond demon mused, tilting his head to study me as if I were a particularly interesting specimen. “It could be fun to break her.”
And then those oily tendrils latched on, gripping my mind so hard that I screamed. I was powerless to resist his intrusion — too weak to summon bricks or smoke to keep the demon out.
But he didn’t just invade my mind. He ransacked it, scattering thoughts and memories like leaves on the wind. They swirled on the oily sludge of his demon essence before sinking into a murky abyss.
Then he went for the larger prize, overturning the pillars of who I was — traits so innate, so ingrained, that I would crumble without them .
These he hurtled aside as if they were mere props. Tore them apart until I felt my very essence disintegrate.
Suddenly, I wasn’t in Silas’s basement anymore.
I was lying in a dark clearing, surrounded by tall trees. My mind was in shreds — too broken to cobble together anything resembling terror or dread. All I felt was pain as the blood demon sliced into my exposed flesh, slowly draining me of my power while his companion ravaged my being.
“If you two are finished,” snapped a cold, familiar voice.
A third male stepped out of the shadows, his huge wings blotting out the stars as he loomed over the shell of what I’d once been.
His face was all hard lines, except for his mouth. His lush lips were twisted in a cruel sneer, and his eyes . . . His eyes were not the silver-gray ones I recognized, but two shining black orbs.
The scent of charred cedar filled my nostrils, stoking some shattered memory, but . . .
The male staring down at me was one who enjoyed inflicting pain. A demon who reveled in others’ suffering.
What little was left of me recoiled as he leaned into my space, nose wrinkling as he scrutinized me. “Silly huntress. You should have known better. There are no saviors among scoundrels. A snake will always bite.”
And then his hands began to change — his fingers sharpening into onyx talons. A scream tore from my mouth as those talons reached into my chest, clawing through leather, flesh, and bone until they clenched around my heart.
I felt the tips of those razor-sharp claws puncture the tender flesh. Then there was nothing but pain.
I screamed again, but I couldn’t move. I just lay there, broken and helpless, as he tore my still-beating heart from my chest in a thick spray of blood.
“Lyra!”
Strong hands gripped my arms, shaking my limp body.
But my mind was no longer my own.
There was no me for it to belong to.
“ Lyra .” The voice wavered with urgency, or maybe fear, but I was . . . empty .
The hands moved to my face, and my eyes flew open as I gasped.
I was splayed on my bedroll, fully clothed, my leathers clinging to my clammy skin. Kaden’s face hovered a few inches above me. His features were just as harsh as they had appeared in my dream, though his eyes were pure sharpened steel.
Whipping my head from side to side, I searched the clearing for the other two demons, but they were gone.
“Whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real .” Kaden’s voice was a low growl — a lifeline in the dark. “Whatever you think, whatever you might feel —” He gripped my face between his calloused palms, his hands strong but gentle. “ This — you and me — we’re the only thing that’s real.”
“But you —” I broke off, a tremor rolling through me.
“Shit,” Kaden hissed, the blade of his hand pushing back my hair and feeling my clammy skin.
“It’s . . . you were a . . . nightmare?” I managed between the violent clack of my teeth.
“Not exactly,” he muttered, swearing as he pulled the blankets around me. “There are dream feeders here. Demons who survive on the terror of nightmares.” He cast around, as if the creatures were gnats he could swat, but I could still feel those sharp talons digging into my heart .
I squeezed my eyes shut, but then Kaden was moving — crushing me against his chest. Leather-clad arms wrapped around me, and I breathed in that spicy, burnt-cedar scent.
“You have to force them out, Lyra,” Kaden whispered, his breath hot against my hair. “I can’t do it for you. They are inside you right now, and they will keep feeding as long as they have you in the thrall of terror.”
“Wh-wh-what are you d-d-doing?” I managed, teeth still chattering uncontrollably.
I was so cold. So . . . empty .
“Trying to bring you back. Make you feel something besides fear.” His arms tightened around me, his hand cradling my head as it rested in the crook of his neck. “Comfort, lust, anger — it doesn’t matter. Anything besides terror will work.”
Suddenly, I could feel him everywhere — that strong body honed from centuries of wielding those weapons he displayed in his bedroom back at the House of Guile.
The warmth of his skin.
The slight scrape of his stubble.
The hammering of his pulse against my temple.
Kaden was all hard muscle and masculine strength, but there was a fierce tenderness to the way he held me, as if he planned to slay all the demons on my behalf.
I huddled against him, too wrecked to be angry or embarrassed. In that moment, I didn’t care if it made me weak. I just needed something to hold on to.
Slowly, the warmth of his body seeped through our leathers, and I felt the claws retract from my chest. The chill gradually ebbed away, and soon I could breathe again.
I still felt numb, but I was me . No demon had shattered my mind, but I was more exhausted than I’d ever been in my life.
I don’t know how long I lay there listening to the steady thud of Kaden’s heartbeat, only that I was acutely aware of the rise of his chest where it pressed against mine.
A heart , I thought numbly as he began to stroke idle circles along my upper arm. The demon prince has a heart .
Not a festering pit where one should have been.
But a fiercely beating heart.