Chapter 30
Tobias
We've spent months mentally preparing for this moment, but despite my arsenal of knowledge and fighting skills, I feel useless. I have no idea how to help care for a mother or a newborn.
Truthfully, I never thought we’d get to this point.
The half-demon baby should have already destroyed Niki’s humanity, and would have bled her dry of energy had we not intervened.
But Sebastian’s mate has defied every odd, and if she delivers this baby, she might prove the impossible: that humans and demons can successfully mate.
Judging by the noises coming from inside the bus, I’d say she’s well into the birth process. It feels intrusive standing so close, but I haven’t been able to pry myself away from the bus for over an hour. My nerves are shot, every muscle in my body tense.
We’re so close to something groundbreaking, to everyone making it out of this unscathed.
So fucking close.
The prospect is huge but terrifying. If word of a half-demon child reaches Hell… there's no telling what will happen. In all the research Sebastian has done, only whispers of half-demon children have come up, and nothing about their powers.
There’s a chance that even if Niki and this baby survive, we won't be out of the woods. That we’ll never be safe. The cruelest, most dangerous powers of Hell might still come after us. They'll want what they've never had before.
A half-demon.
Our future hangs in the balance, but it all depends on whether or not Niki and this baby survive.
We’ll have to handle what comes next in stride.
A shiver rolls down my spine as I stare out across the parking lot. I'm thankful to not be inside. I'm much better suited to stand watch out here with the twins while Joseline runs the show in the tour bus.
Joseline.
Just the thought of her has the corner of my mouth hitching upward.
She’s a force to be reckoned with, and the advantage of our differences isn’t lost on me.
While I’m out here on watch, she’s handling everything I can’t.
We fit together in more ways than one, all of them perfect.
The way she complements me, challenges me, pushes me…
Fuck, I can’t wait until all this is over so I can have her in my arms again.
“Oooh, someone’s got it bad.” Daire snickers to my left.
He’s standing a few feet away, also leaning with his back against the side of the bus, turning a smooth stone over and over in his hand.
“Fuck off.” I shoot him a look.
Steele snickers on his other side. “Touchy subject, huh?”
My jaw clenches, and I force my gaze back across the parking lot. My personal life is none of their business, though they can probably understand to some degree. At some point, they had to face the same indecision and uncertainty I’ve been plagued with.
Or maybe they didn’t give a fuck from the start, which would make sense. They rarely give a damn about anything but their own interests.
“It’s nothing,” I lie through my teeth, not wanting to get into it, even though Joseline is the only thing I can think about.
“We saw that picture too, ya know?” Daire chuckles. “Doesn’t seem like nothing.”
I roll my eyes and shove away from the bus, heading across the dark lot with my hands in my pockets. The twins’ laughter carries on the wind behind me, but I ignore it. They're both idiots. Arguing with them isn’t worth my time.
I don't venture past the sidewalk, staying close in case I'm needed. If Joseline calls for me, I’ll be there in a blink.
Pausing, I stare down the darkened city street. Uneasiness prickles over my skin, making my hair stand on end. I try to write it off as nerves, but my stomach turns.
Something tells me it’s not just nerves.
My muscles tense, and I turn back to look at the bus. The twins are standing near the door, but they aren’t panicking. Emrys still hasn’t returned from refueling; he was exhausted after the last energy transfer and needed to feed.
Nothing seems amiss.
Taking a deep breath, I reach out into the surrounding area with my senses, trying to identify anything dark nearby. Energy moves in the distance, almost imperceptively, and I freeze. For a moment, I almost write it off as paranoia.
But then it moves again.
A hellbeast? Now?
“Shit.”
I whip around to face the bus, curious if the twins picked up on the darkness, when a second energy moves somewhere nearby. Then a third. They flash into existence, their dark power pressing in and crowding my senses.
My throat tightens, horror sinking in. In all my time on Earth, I’ve never sensed more than one dark energy at a time.
This…
This isn’t good.
When a fourth dark energy pops into my peripheral, I turn and sprint toward the bus, my senses on high alert. I hope with everything in me that I’m wrong, that what I’m feeling is anything other than a swarm of hellbeasts materializing nearby, but I don’t make it back to the bus.
A dark tear in the air appears right in front of me, a rip through the dimensions straight into Hell.
The stench of brimstone and charred souls spills out, singeing the inside of my nose, and a massive form steps through the portal.
It’s enormous and misshapen, like most hellbeasts, with hulking limbs and a broad torso.
It towers over me, standing on two legs, its red eyes instantly lasering in on me.
Fuck.
“Daire!” A cool blade of dark magic materializes in my right hand. It’s one of the short, curved swords I prefer fighting with. “Steele!”
I expect the beast to hesitate and size me up, but it lunges straight at me, swinging its massive arms. I leap back, barely missing its claws, and swing my sword. It clips the monster, slicing into its charred skin, and it roars. The sound echoes through the night, vibrating down to my bones.
Stepping back, I prepare to strike again, but falter when another roar erupts. This one doesn’t come from the hellbeast in front of me.
My stomach knots.
Double fuck.
I glance over in time to see a second massive form approaching the twins, this one on all fours with massive eyes and teeth. I’d hoped I was wrong when I sensed the multiple energies, but clearly my instincts were right. As they normally are.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The hellbeast in front of me lunges, and I dodge, slicing into its shoulder. It bellows, and a second sword appears in my free hand.
“Fighting is pointless, demon,” the beast growls, its voice sounding like wet gravel and steam. An odd combination for sure. “You will all die.”
I chuckle once as rage consumes me, blinking out of existence and reappearing behind the hulking thing. I drive both of my blades hilt-deep into its back, and it crumples into a bloody heap.
“Not if you die first.”
My attention turns to the hellbeast the twins are facing off against, just as it unleashes a horrific roar and falls to the ground. It doesn’t move again.
Two down.
But even as the thought crosses my mind, more dark energy signatures flicker to life in the distance. Five, six… too many to count. I grip my sword handles so tightly my knuckles ache, readying myself for the next attack.
A swirl of familiar black magic comes to life a few feet away from me, spinning fast enough to hit me with a breeze. When the smoke clears, Sebastian is standing there.
“What the fuck is going on?” he asks, a long, spiked pole appearing in his right hand. The black material is the same as my swords.
“Hellbeasts. Lots,” is all I can manage as I survey the parking lot.
The closest streetlight, one of the few illuminating the spread of asphalt, flickers a few times before going out completely. Another, this one at the very corner of the lot, blinks out seconds later. Darkness swallows us, making it more difficult to see.
The dark energy swelling in the air is intense, suffocating. Getting closer.
Sebastian curses under his breath, his focus on the encroaching darkness. I’m sure he’s trying to pick up on hellbeast energy the way I am. At the same time, I’m trying desperately to understand how this is happening.
Why now? Why an entire swarm of creatures?
We’ve been on tour for years, using our magic here and there when necessary. But everything is exactly the same as it always has been.
Except—
The realization is a punch to the gut that nearly takes my breath away.
Except for the half-demon baby.
Fuck.
My heart slams hard against my ribs.
There’s no way they already know. How could word of the child have reached Hell already? And how could these beasts have mobilized so quickly?
A roar splits the silence, followed by several others, and that’s when we see them.
At least a dozen black forms shift in the darkness, the crunch of their massive feet sounding like a chorus straight out of a nightmare.
There are so many of them and only four of us, until Emrys gets back from feeding.
“Keep them away from the buses,” Sebastian says through gritted teeth.
As if I needed the reminder.
I might not have answers, but I do know one thing: I’ll die before I let any one of these creatures hurt our mates or Sebastian’s child.
Knowing that stalling will only let the hellbeasts get closer to the tour buses, we race forward to meet the swarm of monsters head on.
Weapons clash against charred hide and claws as we slay beast after beast, bodies hitting the ground before dissolving into dust. They aren’t incredibly hard to kill, but for every one we drop, another seems to pop up in its place.
I slam my sword into a beast’s eye socket and twist, slicing my other through the creature’s neck. It falls with a crunch, just in time for another to crawl over its hide and swipe at me.
Disappearing in a wisp of smoke, I reappear a few feet away, giving me enough time to materialize two more swords. My jaw hardens as I prepare myself for another attack, all the while fighting the tiny voice in the back of my mind that nags me with the unwelcome truth.
We can’t keep this up forever.
I lose track of how many hellbeasts I've slaughtered, but it's clearly not enough. As soon as one falls, another takes its place.
My clothes are soaked through with sticky, metallic blood, and I'm pretty sure at least some of it is mine. I don't feel anything though. I'm too focused on defending the tour buses to care about things as trivial as pain.
A hellbeast manages to catch my shoulder with its claw before I cut it down, and warmth drips down my arm.
Great. More Blood.
I don't stop to check how bad the wound is—I barely feel the sting—before barreling into another creature and slicing its head off with a swift swing of my sword.
My eyes flash across the parking lot to check on my bandmates, and they all seem to be faring okay.
The twins fight perfectly in sync, tearing a beast apart limb by limb until it crumples to the ground.
Sebastian tackles one on his own, only a few feet from the tour bus, way too close for comfort, but he cuts it down a few seconds later. Emrys still isn't back…
Fucker needs to hurry up.
The split second I take assessing the situation is too much, and something slams into my back with the force of a semi truck.
I hit the asphalt, skidding to a stop several feet away, and I’m barely able to flip onto my back before an enormous hellbeast lands on top of me.
It roars, droplets of stinky saliva splattering my face, as its weight crushes me into the unforgiving ground.
My sword transforms into a knife, and I swing up at the beast, aiming for anything vital. Before I make contact, one of its arms pins mine to the ground. With another, it swipes at my chest, its claws shredding my shirt and skin. Pain blooms, and a feral noise is torn from my throat.
The beast opens its massive maw, roaring again as it bares its teeth, and I brace myself for a potentially-lethal blow. However, before it can strike, something large and incredibly fast slams into its side. Both forms go flying out of view, and I’m left staring at the stretch of dark sky overhead.
I breathe a little sigh of relief and pull myself to my feet, looking around for whoever just saved my ass. To my surprise, and even more relief, Emrys is standing over the hellbeast’s carcass, a mace clutched in one of his hands.
“Nice of you to join us,” I jest, wincing as I grab at my ribs. One of the hellbeasts must have got a good shot in, but I don’t have time to worry about it.
Emrys is here, and while he might not be the strongest fighter, it gives us an even bigger advantage.
“Sorry, I had to go farther than I thought to find a crowd,” he mutters, taking an offensive position as he scans the lot for another creature. One skitters nearby, its claws clicking against the asphalt.
I’m halfway tempted to go after it, but the explosion of crunching metal behind me sends a shot of panic through my system. I whip around, and my stomach sinks when I see a hellbeast on top of the tour bus, ripping at the roof with massive hands.
Oh, fuck no.
Blinding rage slams into me, red washing across my vision. I’ve been fighting carefully, strategically up until now, but seeing one of the beasts so close to the tour bus—so close to Joseline—unleashes demonic wrath like I’ve never experienced. It’s blinding, all-consuming. Primal.
I act without thinking, disappearing on the spot and reappearing on top of the bus.
The beast doesn’t even register me behind it, until my boot slams into its side and it goes teetering off the edge.
I dive off after it, swords poised, and run the blades through its crunchy hide as we hit the ground.
More hellbeasts scramble toward the bus, and my blind rage takes over. I blink in and out of sight, stabbing, slicing, and chopping everything in my path. I lose myself and all rational thought as my body goes numb, slaughtering without thinking.
There is no other option. There is no backup plan.
Our only way out of this mess is through every single one of these hellbeasts, and I plan to send them all back to Hell, even if they take me with them.