Embraced (Eternal Balance) (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jax

R
anook lived on the outskirts of Harlow, a few blocks from the police station. Tazari, the demon I’d found at the Inferno, called to say we were on our way. I’d overheard the conversation. While Tazari wasn’t enthused, Ranook sounded excited. The return of the prodigal leader was something they’d been working toward.

The apartment building was one of the better ones in this part of town. Working elevator and functioning locks on the entry door—it was heaven compared to some of the shit holes I’d stayed in over the years. But when you had a tendency toward violence, things had a way of getting done. And from the smell, the entire building was inhabited by demons.

There were no humans in this place. Like the Inferno, it was strictly a demonic destination. That was fine. Less collateral damage should something go wrong. I felt zero guilt taking down a demon to feed. The way I saw it, dealing with them was a public service. One I was more than willing to provide.

“This way,” Tazari said, leading me toward the elevator.

I grabbed its arm as it pushed the up button. “No.” I could take the demon down with both hands tied behind my back, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be trapped in a steel cage with it. For all I knew, there were a half dozen others waiting to ambush me. I nodded to the stairs. “We will take the stairs.” I almost added you dirty fucker but caught myself at the last minute. They had to believe I was Azirak.

If Tazari was pissed, it didn’t show. With a curt nod the demon climbed the stairs, annoyingly slow, as I followed behind until we reached Ranook’s apartment on the fourth floor.

“Fair warning,” I said as it raised its hand to knock. “I will rip you apart if this is a trick.”

The demon bowed its head. “No trick, my lord. But be warned. Not all our faction will be pleased to see you after…”

“After the human let Zenak go free?” I finished.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And you? How do you feel about me?”

The demon shifted from foot to foot, nervous. It didn’t answer.

“I take it you’re not thrilled to see me, then?” As I spoke, Azirak rumbled, angry. It bled into the air around me, pulling at the edge of my control. My limbs were moving before I gave it much thought. I grabbed the demon around the neck and slammed it up against the door. “I am your leader.” The words came from Azi, but also from me. My demon felt betrayed by this minion’s lack of respect, and I, in turn, felt it as well. “Your general. You dare show me disrespect?”

The demon’s eyes widened, like it was seeing me for the first time. I’d have to try harder. Obviously I hadn’t been selling
demonic overlord
hard enough. It sputtered, hands coming up to loosen my grip.

I pulled back and slammed it against the door again. “Do not test me, Tazari. I think you’ll find me far less merciful than I used to be.”

The door opened and I let the demon fall back into the apartment. It hit the floor then stumbled up and away, as far out of my reach as it could go. Azi was satisfied by this. I liked it, too. The feeling of power was heady, and as I leveled my gaze at it, I swear the lesser demon trembled in fear.

“Azirak,” a tall demon said, stepping up to the door. It held out its hand. “I am Ranook.”

The instinct was to take its hand, but Azi didn’t want me to. Ranook was no friend. “I know who you are.”

“Forgive me.” It withdrew the hand, unaffected by the slight. “Tazari says you are looking for me. What can I do for you?”

The question pissed Azi off. A flash bombarded my mind. Two large figures, inhuman and distorted, on a battlefield. They faced off each other as war raged all around them. Azirak and Ranook. A rush of memory and I knew the demon had challenged mine for leadership once. The coup had failed, but things were never the same. Azi didn’t trust his clan mate.

“I see you’ve taken advantage of my absence,” I said.

Ranook bowed its head. “Forgive me, my lord. Someone needed to guide them while you were…away.” It looked up and there was a gleam of defiance in its eyes. “Have you beaten down the human at last? Returned to us?”

“I was never gone,” I growled, partially for show, and partially because Azi was fuming.

“You let Zenak escape,” Ranook said with a fake smile. “You forfeited our birth right to save your human’s brother.”

“Letting Zenak go was not to save—” I almost said Chase but stopped just in time. “The human. It was because something much more important was brought to my attention.”

“Oh?” Ranook said, “What could be more important than gaining back our power?”

“Gaining more power.”

“More power?” The other demon laughed. “And what source did you happen upon that warranted betraying your clan?”

I lunged forward and grabbed the front of his shirt, dragging him several inches off the ground. “A Pure.”

“A Pure? Impossible!”

“The girl. Samantha Merrick. She’s a Pure.”

“How can you know that? She—”

“With her power, I have no need to spill Zenak’s blood. I will use her to destroy the entire clan.”

Ranook stared in disbelief. “I don’t believe it.”

I drew myself up. “You dare question me?”

“How,” it said with a bit more challenge. “How is it the girl is a Pure yet still alive?”

“Her heart stopped and the power was activated,” I said. “And I will claim it.”

I wasn’t sure whose words were spilling from my lips. Mine, or Azirak’s.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sam

“Y
ou know that I thought about you, right?” Jax said. He was on the ground, leaning back against a large pine tree, and I was wedged between his legs, leaning against his chest. “Every day that I was gone.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I thought about you, too.”

The sun was going down, and the clouds had taken on a pinkish-orange hue. This was nice. Perfect, even. Being here with Jax, doing something normal couples did, was like heaven. I’d earned a little heaven.

Jax played with a strand of my hair, winding it around his pointer finger. “Rick asked us to come for dinner tonight. Up for it?”

The answer lodged in my throat. Dinner at Rick’s was always a plus. He could cook like no one else I knew. But the invitation felt wrong. An uneasy feeling wormed its way into my stomach, but I pushed it off.

“Sure. Sounds like a plan.” I took a deep breath. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d told me the truth that night? About the demon?”

He let go of my hair and wrapped both arms around me. “I thought about it. A lot.”

“How come you never did it? I mean, you had to know it wouldn’t change things. Right?”

“In my gut, yeah. But on the surface? I think other than hurting you, Chase, or Rick, that was my biggest fear—that I’d have the balls to tell you, and you’d turn away.”

I twisted around and sat up on my knees facing him. “I’d never turn away. I’ve seen the ugliest parts of you, Jax Flynn. The darkest and the most violent. But I’ve also seen the most amazing brightness. Pure light and love and compassion that should be impossible after going through what you have.”

He cupped the sides of my face and leaned in, kissing me gently on the forehead, then again on the lips. It was the softest brush. Tentative and sweet. He climbed to his feet and held out a hand to me. “You are a miracle.”

I took it and smiled. “Miracle enough to get a milkshake on the way to Rick’s?”

“Anything you want, Sammy.” He leaned in to kiss me again, but froze halfway there. I gasped. Someone was standing behind him.

I opened my mouth to scream. To tell him to move away, but it was too late. A dark stain appeared and began to spread across his chest. At first it looked black, like someone had spilled a perfect inky circle in the middle of his shirt. But as it grew, it became obvious that it was red.

The figure behind him stepped into the fading light and draped both arms around Jax’s shoulders. “Fancy meetin’ you here,” Chase said with a laugh, then jammed something hard, forward. The tip of an object, something sharp, broke through with the sound of cracking bone, and protruded from the center of the stain on Jax’s chest.

Jax was horrified. He blinked twice, then brought a finger to the blood, swiping it across and lifting his hand to see it. “Sammy—”

I grabbed him and we fell to the ground together. “No,” I repeated. Over and over, I said it, as though it would change things. Undo what had been done.

Jax coughed and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. A thin line, so much like the time he’d bitten the corner of his lip while trying to steal my cotton candy at the county fair. “I—”

“Shh,” I said, pressing a finger to his lips. Lips that already felt so cold. That was impossible, right? He couldn’t be this cold. Not…no.

“Time is short, Samantha,” Chase said. He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to my feet. “I can save him if you let me.”

“Yes,” I screamed, yanking free from his grip. “Save him. I’ll do anything.”

He smiled, a triumphant grin that made me want to beat him till he bled. “Let me claim you. Let me claim you, and Jax will be safe. He’ll be alive and free.”

“No,” I said, backing away one step at a time until I couldn’t go any farther. The woods faded, and I was back in the basement, the mold and mildew scented air permeating my nose. The angel that’d been holding me the last time was a few feet away, the expression on her face murderous.

“Unless you consent,” she said, slowly ascending the stairs. “You will watch him die a thousand times. And then, when you think you can no longer take it, we will kill him again. For real.”

The door slammed and I was alone.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jax

“I
t is good to have you back within the fold, my lord,” Hileeka, a male demon said. It was sitting across from me, staring. What I wanted more than anything was to hit it. To make it bleed.

Unfortunately that wouldn’t do much in the way of convincing them I was on their side.

As powerful as Azi was, I knew I had no hope of finding Sam on my own. I needed their resources. And to get their help, they needed to think their leader had returned. Azi wasn’t happy about deceiving them. Every once in a while I felt the demon’s anger at what I was doing, but it was overshadowed by concern for Sam. If this hadn’t been about her, I doubted the demon would allow me to act out the ruse.

“So tell us,” Ranook said, sitting next to Hileeka. “Where is the Pure now?”

“Angels have her.” I knew it would get a reaction. I was right.

Ranook jumped from the couch and began pacing, spewing curses in a language that, while vaguely familiar, I didn’t quite understand. Hileeka yelled something, and two other demons, a male and female, came running from the other room.

“This needs to be rectified,” Ranook said, slamming a fist against the wall. “If they claim her—”

“They won’t.” I stood. This is where things could get tricky. The whole plan could explode. “Gather as many as you can and canvas the area. Do whatever it takes to find where they’re keeping her.”

“Yes, my lord.”

R
anook stayed behind as the others went in search of information about Sam. Azi used the opportunity to set the record straight.

“I remember what you did the last time we met, Ranook,” I found myself saying. Azi shimmied inside me, angry but excited. It flashed a series of pictures depicting the other demon’s betrayal. “I remember all of it.”

“As you should, my lord,” it said in a deceptively calm voice. But it wasn’t calm. Something stirred in my gut, and Azi pushed harder for the surface, gaining a bit of control, chasing the spark of fear that wafted from Ranook. “A good leader knows the battlefield. It knows its enemies.”

I was on my feet, striding across the room. I grabbed a handful of the traitor’s shirt and hefted upward. “You have twenty seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t rip the head from your pathetic human body.”

“Lord Azirak, what—”

The potent stench of its fear was addictive, sending wave after wave of contentment through me. In that moment, I wasn’t me. I wasn’t Azirak. We weren’t a
we
. We were an
I
. “Ten seconds left.”

Ranook tried in vain to free itself. It struggled frantically, but my grip was ironclad. “I—I know where she is,” it said just as the fingers of my other hand slipped around its neck and began to squeeze. The idea of feeding off his dying breath became an obsession. “I can take you to her.”

My fingers froze. “To Sam?” I set him down and stepped away. My heart began to race. Every nerve ending was alive and itching for…for what?

Ranook laughed, a dark chuckle tainted by anger. “To your betrothed. You can finally consummate your union. Make us stronger. Undefeatable.” It’s eyes lit with glee. “I can take you to everything you’ve been searching for. I can take you to Malphi.”

R
anook took me across the town line, just to the other side of Burke, and made me wait inside the car. Suspicious, I’d wanted to refuse, but Azi spoke for me, agreeing with an eerie enthusiasm. It’d been ten minutes now, and I was starting to get pissed.

“Don’t get any ideas,” I said to Azi out loud. “We’re here to find Sam. Not provide you with a demonic hookup.”

The demon’s hesitation was easy to sense, but in the end it sent an image of Sam’s face through my head as Ranook returned to the car. It wanted to find her as much as I did. “Malphi is looking forward to seeing you,” Ranook said, opening my door. “Just as soon as you prove yourself…”

“Prove myself?” I slid from the car, tightening my fists against the urge to pummel them against the demon’s face. Azi communicated another image, this one of my hands around Ranook’s neck. I felt its skin beneath my fingers, the bones giving under the pressure. Its eyes bulged and it tried to speak. I squeezed harder. The scene ended, leaving me raw. If it didn’t have something I needed, I would end the demon right now, taking immense pleasure in feeding from every last ounce of pain and fear as its essence faded. “You dare question my motives.”

“If you would follow me, I will explain.”

I slammed the door closed and followed Ranook up a long, twisting path toward an expansive Victorian house. A large porch, decorated in wicker furniture, wrapped around the impeccably kept home. Innocent. Peaceful, even. But one deep breath told me it was anything but. This was no human domicile. It was inhabited by demons.

Ranook pushed through the door with me on its heels. The inside of the house was like the outside. Innocuous and unassuming. A familiar scent hung in the air, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t place it. “Where is Malphi?”

“I told you,” Ranook said. “You’ll need to prove yourself. Malphi has been in hiding for safety reasons. Most of the others don’t know that she’s here.”

What little patience I had was waning. “You’re telling me Malphi is afraid of our clan?”

“Most of our clan is…angry with your mate. They distrust her motives.” An image flashed through my mind. It was shadowed and impossible to make out the details, but I felt the emotion behind it—an overwhelming sense of anger and betrayal. “And it’s no secret that Zenak wants her dead. She’s been a constant threat to him in every one of her human incarnations.” The demon chuckled. “She’s killed him several times, you know. They have something of a history…”

“What do you mean, a history?”

“Your full memory will come back in time. With each human life you inhabit, it always does, but maybe this will help you.” Ranook gestured to the floral disaster of a couch in the center of the room. “Malphi was presented to Zenak, chosen to be his mate by the Lord Lucifer. Unfortunately, she had already set her sights on you.”

I sat, and the demon took the chair across from me. “Continue,” I said.

“Before our exile, before the great war, you instructed her to go to him under the guise of acceptance. She was to kill him before their union was consummated and return to you.”

“And did she?” I almost said it, but caught myself in time.

Ranook shrugged. A sly smile tugged at the corners of its lips. “She tried, but failed. Their union was consummated—by consent or force, it is unclear. You didn’t care though. You wanted her back and so you took her.”

“I stole her from Zenak.”

The demon leaned back, kicking its feet onto the table. “I suppose you could say that Malphi is hell’s own Helen of Troy.”

“That’s what started the war between our clans?”

“In part, yes. The two clans were always at odds, but not until Malphi was there such violence. It took the equivalent of two hundred Earth years to reacquire your love. During that time, Zenak was not…kind to her, fostering her hatred for him. Several times, after being born back to Earth, she has sought him out and ended his life before consummating her union with you. Unconsummated, Malphi was not a royal—”

“And by spilling Zenak’s blood, was unable to end the exile,” I finished, understanding. Azi stirred, furious at the memory, yet the affection it felt for Malphi was palatable. The potency of the feelings should have scared me. I needed to kill the demoness to save Sam, yet I found comfort in the affection. Familiarity and warmth.

“Yes,” Ranook said. “You were understandably upset by her actions. Unlike this incarnation, your only goal was to restore your clan to its former glory. She made it impossible, and so you had to wait. Then when you were reborn, you and our enemy ended up in the body of twins…”

“Do not question my intentions,” I warned, unnerved by the ferocity of my voice. It was Azi, and yet it was me as well. I was furious that he hinted at disloyalty. “I will see us restored, kings among sheep, as it should be.” The words were meant to placate Ranook, a string of lies with only one intention. Saving Sam. Yet something about them rang with truth. “Get on with it. What does Malphi need me to do to prove myself?”

Ranook’s grin widened. “In time, my lord. In time.”