I dropped the gun and groped for my knife, suddenly wishing I had a sword instead. Aflamingsword.
The demon dove toward me. Air whistled in his wake. He screamed in rage, and I faced him alone, my knife held ready. His claws reached for me, and—
Something hit me from the right, shoving me out of the way. Something tall and blond.Cale.
My hip hit the ground, and my back followed. I rolled onto my knees looking for him. Rain burst from the sky, drenching me instantly. Lightening streaked over and over, lighting up the night in flash after brilliant flash. Illuminating my goal. But there was no blond hair to be found.
There was only a tempest of soaked ebony wings and slick alabaster flesh pounding and beating. Obsidian talons clawing. Ripping. And blood. I saw bloodeverywhere, pouring onto the ground at my feet. Mixing with rain, gleaming wet in the moonlight.
I screamed, a sound of primal grief and fury. The edges of my vision blurred red. I threw myself on the winged abomination, determined to kill Dever or die trying, consequences be damned. My knees landed on the demon’s hard, cold back. My fingers curled through feathers. My blade sank into his flesh. Over and over, I stabbed him, and he let me. The wounds healed, sometimes before I could pull out the knife. But he never stopped ripping Cale apart.
The wet, slick thuds didn’t cease.
Dever didn’t feel a thing.
Shrieking in rage, I pulled myself higher onto his back, grasping at his wings. Clutching at the handle of my blade where it was still buried in his flesh like a mountain climber’s piton. I was going for his neck.
On my left, a dark blur soared across the ground toward me. A growling, snarling smear of reddish-black fur, scarlet eyes flashing.
Orthus leapt. His muzzle sank into the hilt of Dever’s left wing. The demon’s head arched back, and he screamed, a sound that felt like it could rip open the very sky. The hellhound dug his claws into the ground, giving one final, mighty heave. Flesh and muscle tore. The wing’s top joint ripped open with a wet popping sound.
Dever flapped his now-torn wings, rising unsteadily into the air with us both in tow. I clung to him, trying to hold on. Hanging by his muzzle, the hellhound growled around a mouthful of black down. Dever lurched to the right, and my grip on the rain-slick feathers failed. I fell to the ground on my side with my knife still clutched in one fist. Orthus thumped to the earth beside me.
The demon flapped harder, trying to retreat to the sky, but he was too badly hurt. My knife hadn’t fazed him, but a single bite from the hellhound had nearly torn off one whole wing.
Why?But suddenly I understood.
Orthus wasn’t just a dog; he was a weapon originating from hell.
Dever half-flew, half-hobbled toward the monument and its shadowed safety, and in my shock, it took me a second to realize that none of his minions were coming to his aid. When I turned to find out why, I discovered thatallof the remaining goblins were now pillars of ash, quickly dissolving in the softening rain.
Drenched, I dropped to my knees beside Cale, rain mixing with my tears. Where his chest should have been, I found a mass of splintered bone and bloody tissue. My finger stroked his torn cheek and found it cold. So miserably, hopelessly cold. I said his name, but he didn’t answer. His eyes were open, but dull and lifeless. Rain fell into them, the last of nature’s tears for her fallen son. For Cale, the incubus who’d fed me, instead of feedingfromme. The man whose smile lit up my world. The asshole who had put himself in the path of a raging demon, to save my life.
Orthus lay his head in my lap, whining while I screamed.
Dever limped away. He was halfway to the monument now, and I didn’t go after him, because that would do no good. I couldn’t hurt him, and Cale was already gone. I had lost. It was all over. Dever would heal, then he would come for me, and there was nothing I could do about any of that.
Xaphan appeared at my side as I sobbed. He took my hand in his eerily warm one, stealing my attention as the rain finally ended. He murmured in my ear, wretched words of hope. Of horror. Impossible choices. Terrible possibilities.
“I can save him,” the djinni whispered, and my heart stopped beating. My breath stopped coming. My hand clenched around his. “I can bring him back, whole. Good as new. Better than ever.”
“He’s dead,” I croaked, uncomprehending. Miserably, horrifyingly grief-stricken, as I hadn’t been in more than two centuries.
“I can fix that. Say the word, and he’s yours again. Not so much as a scar.”
Xaphan could fix Cale. Could save him. He could bring back Daphne’s son, who’d given his life to save mine. Cari’s brother, who hadn’t fuckingaskedme before jumping in to play the hero and getting torn apart by a goddamn earth-bound demon.
It was my fault. I’d had him, then lost him, and it was all my own fault. The djinni could make it all better—but at what price?
“Say the word,” he repeated, and I met his stare. His gleaming black eyes offered me the lesser of two evils. The greater had just killed Cale. The lesser was offering to save him.
“We’ll catch you,” I whispered. “You know we’ll catch you.”
He smiled. “You’ll try.”
Wewouldtry. Both of us. Because I couldn’t let Cale go. “Do it. Bring him back.”
“You have to say the word.”
