Prince of Shadows (23 page)

“Look at me, Roland. I need you to look at me,” Karissa said, her voice alone like a soothing bit of coolheadedness in a room burning with misery.

Roland growled again. Valin spared the briefest of glances to see Karissa wrapping her arms around her mate. It was only a split second, but long enough that their eyes met, a silent moment of understanding passing between them before she looked away and flickered out, pulling Roland along with her as she teleported.

And then it was just him and Gabby, though not really. Without the balancing effect of Karissa's inherent light, he could feel the evil seeping out from every molecule in the room, the dark magic that had sunk into and sustained this house of horrors for so long like a living entity breathing for the house itself.

Karissa's silent demand to make sure, as well as his own need, had him pushing his awareness out into that dark ether, grasping once more for the lost connection between him and Gabby, even though he feared what he knew he would find. The mate bond was truly gone; either her hatred was too strong or it had been irreversibly severed by the evil she'd been exposed to here.

“Fuck, Gabby, what did they do to you?”

Not every bit of blood on her body was from her mindless massacre back in that foyer. Beneath the drying blood and the more recent sticky paths of red she'd drawn from Annie were patches of brown surrounding still-healing wounds and yellow-black bruises.

They'd hurt her. Again. And for that alone he wished he could go back, revive them, and then tear them apart again for her. Maybe he'd even join her in her madness because he knew, just knew, that when he'd done what he needed he'd be there anyway.

His hand flexed around his knife.
Strike
to
the
heart. Quick and easy.

No, never easy. Not when it was Gabby. Even if it was just the shell of her body and not
his
Gabby. With sinking comprehension he realized he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill her. Couldn't end her misery. Only obviously she could end his.

Her mouth twisted into a snarling smile as she bent down, grabbing up a scalpel he hadn't noticed before. Not a very good weapon but…She lunged. His arm automatically came up to block, her puny knife skittering uselessly off his blade, but he'd underestimated her. Claws slashed deep across his side, tearing through his shirt and ripping parallel tracks of flesh from muscle.

He stumbled back, putting distance between them as he tested the wound. Not by any stretch of the imagination fatal, but shit, it stung. “Hey, cookie, I know you like it kinda rough, but don't you think that's—”

She screeched and charged, and crazed as she was didn't bother to watch his knife this time. All he had to do was follow through on instinct and take the strike, but again he failed, instead twisting out of the way.

“Stop it, Gabby. This isn't you. You don't want to do this.”

She narrowed her eyes, likely because she was pissed at missing and regrouping, but he couldn't help but…

“Do you remember me, Gabby?”

“I don't need to remember you. You're one of them.”

“Who're them?” he asked automatically, his mind reeling at the fact that she'd actually spoken.

“The ones that betrayed me,” she hissed.

He sucked in a breath. That was it. Just that simple stream of conscious thought, even if twisted, sent his hope soaring. He took a deep breath, passing his knife back to his other hand. Her pupils widened, a hiss of disbelief slipping from between her teeth.

“I'm never giving up on you, Gabby. Not while there is breath in my body,” he told her, knowing in the depths of his heart it was true. If there was a mind beyond the instinct then somewhere in there was a soul. And he would not let that soul be won by darkness.

“Let's see if we can fix that then,” she said and threw the scalpel at his face.

He ducked before it speared him through the eye, though he lost a good swath of hair in the process.

Useless. Your Gabby is gone. You know she's gone.

No, she wasn't. Not if she could reason. He just had to help her find the right ones. So he spoke to her, his voice hoarse from the desperate effort he put into trying to bring her back as he blocked and evaded each of her attacks. She was completely enraged, her assaults no more than senseless charges in response to each memory he tried to restore to her. But it wasn't until he mentioned Roland and the caves that something flickered in her eyes, a momentary banking of the crimson fires.

“I told him, you know,” he said, leaping on the chance that this was the key. “I told Roland he was your father. He came here tonight. To save you. Put both himself and his mate in danger to do so.”

“You lie! You lie!” she shrieked, not even bothering to attack him this time but held her fists over her ears like a child.

“Why? Why do you think I lie?”

<>

He sucked in a breath, both elated and torn anew at the misery-laden thought she'd unwittingly projected. “Oh, Gabby, no. That's not true. That's the lie.”

He moved forward, reaching for her. She screamed, leaping at him, fangs bared. He didn't try and strike her, but her sudden forward movement as he was reaching brought his knife into contact with her upper arm.

She hissed and retreated, her eyes glazed and confused as she clamped her hand down on the wound. For a moment she looked just like the scared vampire he'd found chained up inside the dilapidated building back in that coal mine; a helpless child, hiding behind bravado, though she couldn't fathom why she'd been left for dead. She hadn't been helpless, of course, nor had she been the child he'd first thought, but she had been betrayed by her maker and left for a crack in the cloud cover.

And
you
promised
never
to
use
your
knife
on
her.

“Shit…Gabby, you moved and I…” He reached for the bond again, and this time he swore he felt something, only it was immediately severed by a blast of evil so strong it left his head ringing and his knees threatening to crumble.

<>

Valin gulped in deep breaths, trying to draw his shields back around him even as his mind whirled. He knew the feel of that mind voice. But it was impossible, he'd watched the man, or rather vampire, die in a cave by Roland's blade four months ago.

“Who is it, Gabby? How did they convince you to believe these lies?” Valin asked as he sheathed his knife. This battle was no longer a physical one, but one for his mate's soul. She was still in there. But whoever that was whispering lies into her head had somehow sunk his black claws into her, smothering her true self beneath his pall of evil.

How, though? How did they so completely and absolutely obliterate her will when years of Christos's tortures didn't before?

Gabby straightened, the lick of her cold fury lapping the edges of Valin's shields. She dropped her hand, her fingers flexing as she stared him down. Valin sucked in a breath, his own gaze fixated on the blood trickling from the split in her gray-cast skin. It was black. Thick and oily. Like some sort of poison coating her veins.

Being careful not to open himself fully, Valin reached out with his senses. He could feel the lingering evil of horrors past permeating the air, but it was the sucking chasm of evil that he associated with Lucifer himself that he sensed seeping out of the blood weeping from her wounds.

“Blood tie.” He shook his head. It was the only explanation for how deeply and completely the evil had invaded her soul. Somehow Lucifer had managed to poison her very essence with his evil, the blood that sustained her eroding the lightness within her soul,
his
Gabby's soul, with each beat of her heart.

No, not Lucifer, one of his minions. Someone who knew just how to break her too…

“Fuck, Gabby. He's still alive, isn't he?” No, not still alive, resurrected. Somehow Lucifer had brought Christos back, only now he was more than a pawn of evil, but evil himself.

And
his
blood
runs
in
Gabby
now.

He took a step forward. “You have to fight him, Gabby. You beat him before, remember? In the cave? You broke the bond then. I watched you do it.”

She hissed, grabbing for the knife that he'd thoughtlessly left unprotected in its sheath. He managed to grab her wrists before she could use it. The contact of their skin meeting, the burn between them, had some of the twisted hatred fading from her gaze, a flash of green flickering like a stuttering light in the crimson depths.

<>

The green burned out under the crimson flare, her arm with the knife straining against his hold.

Can't fight a blood tie. Not like this.

No, but perhaps he could another way…

“Not that way, cookie.” He turned his neck, purposely exposing his throat. “If you're going to kill me, then you'll have to do it this way.”

He shouldn't have been shocked when her fangs pierced his skin, blood flowing from his jugular into her stomach carved empty by hatred, but he was, his body stiffening with a surge of adrenaline. Instinct screamed for him to fight her. Instead he closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. Three pulls, six, his life was pumping out of him into her, but still he didn't give in to the urge to stop her. The way to fight the evil holding her was not to raise a hand, but to accept, to love unconditionally.

Letting go of her wrists, he slid his hand up her arm to cup the back of her head. “That's right, Gabby. Drink from me. Let me sustain you.”

There was a breathless moment when she hesitated, then her arms tightened around him, his own blade sinking into his shoulder as she gripped him tight. He growled then accepted the pain, calling forth from the blade His light. The itch that always came with the touch of such pureness made him want to scream, but he pulled that light into him, calling it through the wound into his very bloodstream. Perhaps it would be enough. Perhaps it could break through the evil that held her. Perhaps the sacrifice of his blood, now infused with His purifying light, would save her. And if not, then perhaps as she drank the last of the life from him, so too would He see to her end…and then see them together afterward.

Valin trembled, his limbs going weightless with weakness, yet for the first time it didn't hurt to be in His light. Because he was going to die with the one he loved.

The sucking lull of her swallowing stopped, a growl rumbling in her throat. He felt the rejection of his thoughts. Holding his breath he stretched out his consciousness, practically weeping as he felt a ghostly trickle of their bond stretching tentatively between them.

<>
Christos's voice rung through her mind, smashing at the fragile bond.

Not fucking going to work. Gabby was his and his alone. The blood tie. Had. To. Go.

Arm shaking with numb fatigue, he tightened his hand in her hair, pulling her closer as if his presence alone could push back the evil trying to take her from him. Chanting in the back of his constricted throat, Valin began the ceremony that would make Gabby his. All the while he prayed, bargained really, that if He would just see fit to grant him this one wish—save Gabby—he'd trade anything, his life, even his soul to see her returned to herself.

The air pulsed with Christos's rage, but Valin held strong, chanting faster, pushing power behind his words. All that was left were the words.

“Gabby.” He stroked his thumb across her cheek, his voice barely a hoarse whisper as he gave her his last promise. “My heart, my life, my soul for yours.”

And as if He had actually heard, Valin felt the shift of power. A scream of denial rose in the darkness surrounding them to be cut off a split second later as Gabby tore her mouth away.

Silence descended, the only sound her rapid breathing…and the thudding pulse of his slowing heart.

“Valin?” Her voice, clear and unfettered by the evil blanket, was like a ray of sun after an endless winter, but even the wonder of hearing his name from her lips once more couldn't fight the cold that had taken him.

Teeth chattering, he smiled at her, wanting to give her this last thing. “I love you, Gabby.”

Her mouth opened in an
O
of wonder. “I love you too…”

Valin closed his eyes, swallowing. Oh God, how he'd longed to hear those words. Too bad it was too late to enjoy the moment: It was time to pay up.

Everything came back to Gabriella in an avalanche of denial and horror. The memories, the torture, the things she'd done after she'd given over to fear and hate. She knew deep in her heart that she would never have made it back from that on her own. But Valin had come, they'd fought, and he'd…done something. She stared at him. He still smiled though his eyes had closed. And as she drew back she saw that his entire front was covered with blood, the source evident by the dripping pathway of red that led to two ragged holes at the base of his throat.

Horror clenched in her gut as she recollected the words he'd chanted as she'd drawn the life-giving blood from his veins, the bargain he'd made. “Oh God, Valin, no…” She grasped his head between her hands, twisting it to the side. “Let me seal the wound.”

She dragged her tongue over the wound, then did it again, cursing when the skin stubbornly refused to knit.

Too
late…

“No!” she cried as what was left of Valin's strength seemed to fade, his body becoming deadweight in her arms. He slipped in her grip, his body sliding to the floor. She slid down with him, managing to keep his head from cracking on the floor, and shifted him just enough that his head lay cradled in her lap.

“Valin…don't you dare die on me. Don't…” She choked back a sob, her fingers tightening in his thick hair. No way. No way in
hell
was this happening. She couldn't, wouldn't, let him die for her.

Her eyes fell on the knife. She knew the Paladin could use the blade to call His light. Perhaps if she were to…She grabbed up the knife, bracing the tip against her breast as she closed her eyes. Valin wasn't the only one who could bargain.

“Please save him. My life to spare his. Please!” Even if the answer was no then she could at least use the thing to end her own miserable existence. Because Lucifer knew there was no life for her without him.

“Do you really think so?”

Gabby sucked in a breath, her eyelids fluttering against the bright light flooding the room. It was so bright she had to shield her face, turning her head away.

When the light finally eased she lowered her arm, tentatively turning her head back. A woman with fair, shining gold hair in locks down her back stood before them, white gown flowing, and holy shit, were those wings or just a trick of the light that glowed like a fricken supernova around her?

Gabby swallowed, noticing the woman wasn't looking at her but down upon Valin's face, her mouth curled into a fond smile.

“He never did believe in himself enough,” the woman said, her voice invoking thoughts of angelic choirs and other such nonsense. And wasn't it rather tacky to be thinking that right now?

The woman lifted her eyes to Gabby, the full of her heavenly-blue gaze bearing down on Gabby's tainted soul. “Until you. You are his light and he is yours.”

And okay, the Big Guy was obviously a bit out of touch with reality. Only, yeah, this just as obviously wasn't
Him
. Not that Gabby bought hook, line, and sinker into the whole God is a man thing, or even that He had a gender that could be specified, but, though this woman's presence was powerful, it just wasn't…enough.

I
wouldn't be conscious if He were truly here.

She didn't know how she knew this, just that it was true. God's company would be too much for an earthly embodied soul to comprehend. But this woman, no, this
angel
seemed to be under some misinformation if she thought—

The woman chuckled, shaking her head. “Perhaps it is a match made in heaven. I honestly didn't think I'd ever meet anyone who could be as stubbornly foolish as he.”

“Angeline?” Gabby gasped, her brain finally snapping into gear.

Angeline tipped her head, kind of a confirmation and a hello. “He told you about me, I take it.”

Gabby nodded, easier than saying it was really Christos who'd educated her on Valin's lost mate. Who was standing here. Now. In the same room. Gabby jerked her gaze away, feeling tainted, like the
other
woman simply for holding Valin's lifeless body. Though she'd be damned if she set his head back on the bloodied floor.

“He misses you.” She couldn't say missed. Despite the fact it had been almost a minute since she'd picked up the sound of his heartbeat, she couldn't, wouldn't…

Still
time. You can still bring him back. Fight for him!

Her gaze dropped to the knife still gripped in her left hand. Was this woman who she was supposed to bargain with? If so, He had played a cruel trick. His mate, the mother of his child, would of course want him to come home into her embrace.

“I miss him too.” Angeline sighed, the light around her rippling. “However, it is not as much as he shall miss you.”

Gabby's fist clenched tighter around the knife, her lungs seizing. She understood what Angeline was saying. If she went ahead with this and took her own life, even as part of a bargain, it would not be to go into His realm. Which meant that Valin would be irreversibly lost to her.

“If that is what it takes,” Gabby vowed, pleased her lungs cooperated enough to let her calmly agree to the bargain.

Angeline chuckled again, her amusement like a cheese grater on Gabby's effort to be calm and dignified when all she really wanted to do was yell and scream and plead and…yes…break and kill. Starting with this woman who was—Fucking. Laughing. At. Her. Loss.

“Oh, yes, definitely a pair.”

Gabby's head snapped up, her eyes narrowing. Angeline tilted her head to the side, her blond curls dancing as she shook her head in the slightest of movements. “What? You think he isn't up there right now trying to make the same bargain?”

A chill ran down Gabby's spine, fear gripping her heart. Between herself and Valin, he had more clout, and though the Grand Poobah might rather keep Valin in the fight, it seemed that Angeline was part of this decision, and so far Gabby hadn't been doing the most spectacular job of endearing herself to the angel.

Gabby shook her head, not sure what she should say to convince Angeline.

“Try the truth,” Angeline suggested, her voice strangely gentle after the grating laughter.

The truth was…“It is he who should live, not me. I'm just…” She looked down at her bloodstained skin. Valin's blood, Annie's blood. Oh what had she done?

Unloved. Unwanted. Evil…Monster.

A hand touched her chin, tipping her head. Angeline had sobered completely, her blue eyes darker as if her light had been diminished. “And you have even less belief in yourself than he, don't you?”

Gabby met her gaze, sure that the haunts of her past and how they'd tainted her would be visible to the angel. “I'm a succubus. A vampire. And I killed him. I killed the man I love.”

“Love, is it?”

Gabriella flushed, seeing immediately the blasphemy of such a statement in the face of what she'd done.

“He would say he gave his life to spare yours.”

Gabby shook her head vehemently. “No! I don't want that. I would not ask that of him.”

Angeline pursed her lips, her finger tapping lightly on Gabby's chin. “Hmm. Then I guess there is really only one choice now, isn't there?”

“What?” Gabby all but leapt on her, just barely stopping herself from grabbing her arm. “Tell me, please, what can I do?”

“Will you still give your life for his?” Angeline asked, straightening.

“Yes. YES! I'd give anything.” Her life. Her soul. Her very existence—oh, yes, she'd gladly give that. To wipe out the past, to erase all the pain she'd caused?

Angeline nodded, smiling sadly as she gazed once more at Valin. “Then I guess it's time for good-byes.”

Gabby blinked down at Valin, her vision blurring, or at least it must have been because he was but a smudge of light before her.

This
is
it. Say it quickly…

“I love you, Valin. Forgive me.” She bent to kiss him, momentarily confused by the salty wetness on her lips as she licked them in preparation. Her tears. Of course. Gently she pressed her mouth to his, needing this one last touch to seal the bargain. Her eyes widened, surprised at the warmth of his lips. She drew back just as the room blazed. Like a star exploding, the power rocked through her, ripping her from her body. And then came the pain. Endless, unfathomable pain as the purging of His light tore through what she guessed was her soul. And God, how could she have been so foolish as to think that being wiped from existence would be the easier path? It went on and on and on and all she wanted to do was scream though she had no earthly body to house such misery.

And then it stopped.

She floated. The light, which had burned before like a raging inferno, now soothed like a balm. It tugged her gently from here to there, touching on everything that was good or even remotely happy in her life, oftentimes showing her things in a way she'd never thought to look at them. She wanted to cry again, though this time her tears would be of joy, as something Logan had once said to her drifted through her thoughts:
He's a merciful God.
The truth rang through her being like a cymbal crash, and she began to think that perhaps, just perhaps He was merciful enough to hold her here in His planes. And if that were the case then maybe, someday, she might possibly see Valin again. Even if it would simply be another good-bye as he passed on to the woman he truly loved. The mother of his unborn child.

“You little fool. How could you even think I would pass you by?” The gruff voice pulled her like a bungee jumper who'd reached the end of her cord, snapping her back into her body.

She blinked, trying to figure out what the heck had just happened by opening her eyes. She was still sitting on her heels in that horrid room only…holy crap…

“Valin?” she choked, reaching for him, only she couldn't because he was already holding her, his hands tight on her biceps as he glared at her out of perfectly alert, perfectly lively eyes. No, make that livid.

She frowned, her body tensing as she waited for the one-two sucker punch. Bloody room, check. In the coven's house, check. But that was most definitely a very alive Valin sitting on his heels before her.

Careful, nightmares never end like this.

Oh how well she knew. They got far, far worse than a little glaring from the man she loved.

Valin gave her a good shake, an imprinted memory telling her it wasn't the first one in recent moments. “How dare you try and trade your life for mine.”

“What do you mean, how dare I?” She punched him in the gut, eliciting a satisfying oomph that still did nothing to ease all the pent up anger and horror and fear she'd felt when she'd first snapped free of Christos's evil influence and realized what she'd done. No, what
he'd
done—selfish bastard! Of course, she ruined her anger by throwing herself at him. He gave another oomph, but caught her, his arms linking with a reassuring tightness around her shoulders.

“Oh, God, you're alive. I can't believe…” Sobs chocked the rest of her words in her throat. Valin's hands slid into her hair, his lips pressing against her forehead as he murmured reassurances. Words like “it's okay” and “I'm here now” and all sorts of crap that didn't change the facts at all and had her heart racing with fear that this was just a horrible, horrible nightmare that would end with her waking and having to relive the eviscerating moment of Valin dying in her arms all over again.

She pulled back, searching out every feature, and finding no telltale inaccuracy, shook her head. “You were dying. And then Angeline came and offered a bargain for your life if I were to give my own.”

“I know. And I'm royally pissed that you would even think to take such a bargain.”

She stilled, wondering if this was the sign that this was not at all real: He'd given no flicker of pain at the mention of Angeline's name.

A
Paladin
never
stops
grieving
for
a
lost
mate.

She pressed out tentatively with her mind. Nothing in the room. Nor the mansion. Besides, wouldn't she feel if Christos had any control on her still? Even he had difficulty hiding the evil within the lie.

“I don't understand,” she said carefully, still not convinced this wasn't some sort of sick joke.

Valin shook his head, making a garbled noise that sounded like a combination of frustration and disbelief. “She was right; you are as much a stubborn fool as I am.”

“What are you—” she started to question, but he cut her off.

“
You're
my bond mate, Gabby. Angeline was only my pair mate.”

“Pair mate?”

He nodded. “Compatibility pairing. Friends. Best friends even. And I do miss Angeline, shall always miss her and my unborn child. But you are of my heart. The soul to complete my own. And though I may miss them, it's you I need.”

Her mind reeled, hope trying to blossom through the thick fog of disbelief. “But the bargain?”

“You're not the only one who can bargain.”

No shit, but if those in charge had gone with his, then why was he here? Not that she'd argue, but…She narrowed her eyes. “What did you bargain for?”

“I just pointed out that He needs warriors. But I also told him I wouldn't come back without my mate. Of course, my mate had already stupidly bargained away her own life so there was only one thing to do.”

Her heart hammered. Here it was, the sucker punch. “What's that?”

He tipped his head, stroking her cheek. “How do you feel, Gabby?”

She thought about it, mentally checking each part of her body. Relatively whole, considering she'd been blasted with His light. In fact, she didn't even ache much and…she glanced down, gasping at the sight of the white gown that clung to her clean skin. No blood, no wounds; in fact, the only thing to mar its smooth lines was the bulge along one of her thighs.