Steal the Day (43 page)

“Dev,” I insisted because time was marching on and he was getting farther away from me.

Marcus cursed in Italian. “I should let him die,
cara
. It would solve many problems. I’m far too old to fall into this trap, yet I am going to try to save that idiot because I cannot bear to see you cry.”

He gently lowered my head down to the floor. I turned though it took every bit of energy I had left. I watched as Marcus turned my lover’s body over and saw his face fall at the damage he saw there. He felt for a pulse, and it didn’t look like he found one.

Marcus tore Dev’s shirt open to expose the wounds. He held his wrist to his mouth and spat out a hunk of flesh. He let the blood drip directly over Dev’s wounds. He had to open his wrist several times because he healed so quickly. Kimberly’s husband, Henri Jacobs, joined Marcus. He, too, offered his own blood. Henri put his open wrist to Dev’s mouth and after the longest time Henri jerked slightly as Dev began to drink that precious, healing blood. Marcus looked at me and nodded.

“Thank you.” I mouthed the words because no sound would come out.

I let my head fall back and started to float above my body.

I could see Daniel shoving his clawed fists into Halfer’s chest. He seemed to be trying to pull out his heart. He was so savage, and yet I only saw my first love. The boy I learned about life with. I saw him at eight, already so handsome I dreamed about marrying him. I saw him at thirteen, filled with the loss of his father and clinging to my hand. I saw him at seventeen, teaching me how to love. God, I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t seem to have much of a choice.

I was above my body watching Daniel fight Halfer and Dev fight for life. I feared my fight was over.

Then I was in a large chamber. It was slightly cold and dimly lit. There was a man sitting on a throne. He was of medium build and nothing extraordinary to look at. Then I saw his eyes, and they were the oldest things I’ve ever seen. I stepped back from those eyes and realized that I was not alone.

Lucas Halfer stood beside me, and he looked pissed to be in this place. We were both back to our former complete bodies. I could breathe again, and it looked like Halfer had the majority of his chest back. Halfer took a deep breath and made an impossibly low bow.

“My Lord, Lucifer, please tell me how I have offended you,” he said in a big old kiss-ass voice.

My eyes widened because it wasn’t every day I got called to this particular principal’s office. My reaction was the very same as in grade school, though. I pointed straight at the bastard demon who killed me and announced my position loudly.

“He did it!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Very mature, Zoey,” Halfer huffed under his breath.

He was likely right, but I’d just gotten gutted and wasn’t in the mood to be overly mature. “It’s true.”

“I left you alone,” Halfer spat. “I was a very good boy, but no, you just had to push it. You fucked everything up. How can I let that go unanswered?”

“How am I supposed to let you torture my friend for the rest of eternity?” I answered his dumb question with a question of my own. “And you cheated. We weren’t allowed to carry weapons. If I’d had my guns, you would never have been able to kill me.”

He loomed over me, invading my space. “Oh, I’d have killed you, bitch.”

“Shut up, both of you,” the Dark Lord of Hell said. Though his voice was quiet, it seemed to reverberate along the floors and across my skin, creeping like an army of insects. “You’re acting like five-year-olds fighting over a toy. Brixalnax, it has been brought to my attention that you had an angel captured and tortured on this plane. Is this true?”

Halfer straightened up and got his pride on. “Yes, My Lord Lucifer. It’s true. I captured the angel myself. I brought him to my palace and had him on the rack. He’s been screaming for me, My Lord. I bound his magic and have taken sustenance from his blood.”

“Ewww,” I muttered under my breath.

“This one thought to steal the angel from our plane,” Halfer accused. “She thought to take what belongs to Hell.”

“I didn’t ‘think it,’ Halfer. Do you see your angel?” I asked sarcastically, looking around. “I don’t think so. Angel boy has left the building, and I held the door open for him.” I laid it on thick because if I was spending the rest of eternity in this place, I wanted to get my bile and vitriol out before I was too tortured to be me anymore.

“Mrs. Donovan,” Lucifer said through clenched fangs. “You are exceedingly annoying.”

I shrugged because it wasn’t the first time I’d heard that.

Halfer bowed again. “She is that, My Lord. I shall handle her. Allow me to take her back to my palace, and I assure you she’ll pay for her crimes on this plane.”

I was about to say something really brave with my trademark sarcastic zing when Lucifer turned those ancient eyes on the demon. “And who is going to make you pay for your crimes, Lord Brixalnax?”

And my mouth closed because there are some things that do not require comment.

Halfer stopped, his body primed with tension. “My crimes?”

Lucifer regarded him with obvious distaste. “Yes, Brixalnax. Do you really think you were able to capture an angel? Only one demon has ever captured an angel before. It was long before your petty existence began. Would you like to know how that turned out?”

I raised my hand. “I totally would.”

Lucifer Morningstar utterly ignored me. “The angel allowed himself to be captured, and he created havoc down here. Your angel was almost surely a spy. Do you think I have no plans I would like kept from the enemy? Do you think I plot and commit atrocity after atrocity so you can fall into an angel’s trap and screw everything up?”

I decided to hold my tongue and attempt to look very non-threatening, but inside I was totally pointing and laughing. Oh, I was probably still going to be tortured for eternity, but it looked like old Brix would be there beside me. I certainly wasn’t about to point out that Felix allowed himself to be captured for love rather than tactical reasons.

“I was very clever in my capture,” Halfer argued, trying to find a way out of this situation. “I came upon him unawares.”

“He is never unaware.” Lucifer scowled. He was really good at scowling.

Halfer’s eyes narrowed to black slits. “How can you know that, My Lord? You were not there.”

“I know that because I was an angel, you idiot.” Lucifer’s eyes brimmed with red fire. They were endless, those eyes. They seemed to get bigger with every word he said. “We’re only safe from their awareness on this plane, yet you offer one room and board. Then when the angel escapes, you choose to break our contracts with the vampires by killing a companion. You killed a companion, a soft, fuzzy little blood bucket. How is that supposed to help anything?”

“You don’t know her, My Lord,” Halfer explained hurriedly. “She looks like a bimbo, but she’s actually quite formidable in an obnoxiously lucky way.”

I could have argued that luck had nothing to do with it. I could have proclaimed that I was a badass who killed when I needed to and had beaten back not one, but two of this plane’s bad boys. I could have said all those things, but I was far too busy making my hazel eyes really wide and doe-like. I gave Hell’s leader my best “I’m not quite following this conversation” look.

Lucifer waved off that line of thinking. “Bah, her only value is to the vampire master she feeds. The vampires are serious about their precious blood, and even a weak vampire could cause trouble between demon kind and vampire kind, but you had to kill the bloody
Nex Apparatus’s
companion. Do you have any idea what he was about to do to you? He is pivotal to everything that’s about to happen on the Earth plane, and you turn him against us?”

“I did not know of your plans, My Lord.” Halfer got to his knees, his head bowed.

“And I did not realize you required a daily update in order to follow my rules.” There was a certain finality to his words as though judgment had already been passed. “I’m not going to kill you, Brixalnax. I’m going to let Mr. Donovan handle it. Perhaps if he’s busy hunting you down, he won’t turn his rage on my smaller soldiers. I cast you from Hell, Brixalnax.”

Halfer’s head came up. “My Lord, I have served you for centuries.”

“And you failed me today,” Lucifer replied with no mercy. “You’ll wake up on the Earth plane and your powers will be diminished. You may keep your strength and your present form, but I suggest you run because I have no doubt there will be an angry vampire on your heels. If I were you, I would hope Mrs. Donovan survives.”

“I’m alive?” I asked, finally piping up because I was pretty damn sure I was dead. I’d felt the enormous loss of blood, and I knew I had stopped breathing. I’d done the whole “watching my body from above” thing.

“Even now your husband is attempting to revive you. I can’t promise you it’s going to work, but shoving your soul back into your body may be the jolt of energy you need.” The Lord of Hell, Lucifer Morningstar, rolled his eyes and waved his hand. “Now be gone, you annoying children. I’ve spent enough time on your foolishness.”

Lucas Halfer looked at me with hate in his soon-to-be mortal eyes. I knew without a doubt he would be coming for me. “I’m going to kill you, bitch.”

“Not if I kill you first,” I replied, and then I was shoved back into my broken body.

I came to myself in a roar of pain, but I barely managed a whimper. I went from feeling perfectly fine to horrific agony all in an instant, and the forceful change caused my body to jerk. I struggled to open my eyes as I tasted blood on my lips. It was that rich, velvet of Daniel’s. I forced my tongue to lap it up.

“That’s right, baby,” Daniel said, his voice past desperation. He held his wrist to my mouth, and I felt his tears hit my forehead.

I was lying with my head in his lap, and I could feel the blood running down my cheeks. Later, I understood that Daniel had been trying to get me to take the blood for several minutes with no luck. It ran out of my mouth, and Marcus had tried to get him to give up. Daniel simply opened his wrist over and over, refusing to admit that I was gone.

“Drink, Zoey,” he whispered, getting his head as close to mine as possible. “Come back to me. Don’t you dare leave me.” His free hand caressed my face as though to reassure himself that I was still warm and alive. “I’m so sorry I left you. Please forgive me.”

I heard Marcus sigh over me. His skin was pale. He seemed to have given Dev a fair amount of his blood. “Your faery prince lives,
cara
. He’ll be tired for a few days, but he lives. We were not so sure about you. You seemed very dead when the demon disappeared and Daniel was finally able to look after you.”

“Welcome back, Mrs. Donovan.” Louis Marini looked down on me with dispassionate eyes. I was sure every vampire at the ball was watching as the dreaded Death Machine wept over his wife’s body. I feared we had made a terrible mistake. “You are stronger than I expected. It’s been a most revealing evening. It’s good to know that the Council’s greatest weapon has at least one weakness. I bid you good night.”

He walked away, and I realized that we’d just handed him a mighty weapon.

* * * *

Two hours later, Daniel eased into the suite’s large Roman-style bath with me in his arms. My body still felt all limp and noodley, but I didn’t care because I was with him and Dev was alive. Daniel had been forced to hold me all the way from the ballroom to the hotel while Marcus carried Dev because he was in and out of consciousness. Dev was asleep on the bed, but Daniel had decided my skin was still chilly and needed warming up.

He sank into the heat of the water, and I groaned with pleasure.

“Is that better, baby?” He eased me onto his lap. The hot water reached his chest and covered me almost all the way to my neck. I rested my weary head on his broad shoulder.

“Warm.” I sighed. Daniel’s blood was working in my body. The weariness I felt was almost pleasant. In this case, the very cessation of pain was pleasurable.

Marcus knelt beside the tub. I was too tired to protest the fact that I was naked. “The prince is recovering. He’s awake and can walk, but he’s weak. He needs rest but he will heal. You’re going to have to feed her more blood. Are you sure you can handle it by yourself?”

I smiled up at the Italian who I was very happy with at the time. Dev was alive because Marcus saved him. “Oh, Marcus, are you offering to join us and feed me yourself? That is very self-sacrificing of you.”

Marcus returned my smile. “
Cara
, this is a sacrifice I would willingly make.”

Daniel hugged me. “No, I can do it. I feel perfectly fine. I’ll take care of my wife. I hear Marini refused you when you could have saved her.” Daniel had assumed Marcus would take care of me while he fought Halfer. It never occurred to him the head of the Council would refuse to save a companion.

“Yes, Daniel. He’s dangerous, and she’s on his radar now.” Marcus stood up, straightening his clothes. “I will leave you to seek my own bed, but I’ll call later to see how our troublesome queen fairs.”