“After the lass!” I snapped, not looking at her as we burst into the thick woods. The ground was all uphill, the trees close together, so we were forced to slow our pace. “She’s somewhere in here. I heard her scream.”
“Demons!” Jax hissed, throwing her hand out to the side. A flaming purple sword materialized in her grip, and she brandished it. “They’re just ahead.”
“Are ye sure?” I demanded, summoning my own magic. My hands glowed green with the earth’s power, though it wouldn’t be enough to defeat these unholy bastards. No, it took powerful magic for a Druid to exorcise a demon. Only Sentinels had the strength to do it with a single strike of their celestial weapons.
“Of course I am. Can’t you feel it?”
I opened my mouth to say something when a dark presence brushed along the edges of my mind. Dammit, they were here. I’d been half-hoping that Arabella had simply seen a large spider, or tripped over a rock. I could sense evil just fine, and I hadn’t noticed the demons. But they must have been out of my range—Sentinels had a stronger sense for this than Druids, thanks to their angelic blood.
A war cry echoed from the trees a moment before four demons charged forward. I stomped on the ground, shouting a spell in Gaelic, and the earth rippled outward, knocking our enemies off their feet. Jax darted forward, swinging that blazing sword, fury burning in her eyes as she cut through the demons even as they sprang back to their feet with inhuman speed. More screams lit the air, unearthly sounds that raised the hairs on my arms, as the demons were exorcised from their human hosts, but Jax wasn’t fast enough, and one of them managed to get behind her. Ropes of green goo hung from its teeth as it opened its maw wide, preparing to clamp down on her shoulder with relish.
“Get back, ye filthy hell spawn!” I roared, darting forward. I grabbed the demon by his neck and smashed his head into the nearest tree trunk. The bastard crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll, and I resisted the urge to spit on him. After all, the man himself wasn’t at fault—he had no choice when the demon overtook his body. As I stared down at him, at the trickle of blood leaking out from his hairline, guilt rose to choke me. Gods alive, I hoped I hadn’t killed the poor fellow.
“Thanks,” Jax said from behind me, breathing hard. I turned to see she’d finished dispatching the other demons—the rest of the men were writhing and moaning on the forest floor, still recovering from the effects of the glowing sword in her hand. She glanced down at the unconscious man, then slashed at his chest with her weapon. His back immediately arched, and a chill shot down my spine as he started screaming despite his unconscious state.
“No need to thank me,” I said roughly, turning away from the thrashing man. “I wouldna let that vicious thing poison ye, even if ye weren’t Arabella’s friend.”
Jax gave me a crooked smile. “Guess you’re not so bad after all. Now let’s go find our friend.”
She turned around and began to charge up the hill, and that was when another demon jumped down from the trees and onto her back.
19
Arabella
Ifired at Lucas, once, twice, three times in quick succession. Firing my celestial weapon was even easier than using a real bow, because I didn’t have to pull arrows from a quiver. They just appeared in my hand, one after the other, deadly bolts of energy that crackled through the air as they hurtled toward my enemy.
But though the bolts struck Lucas, they didn’t harm him. They simply passed through his chest as if they were nothing. As if I hadn’t just used them to exorcise the demon from the man writhing on the ground near him.
“Darling,” he drawled, sounding both amused and annoyed, “Don’t waste your arrows. I’m not a Demonkin, nor am I possessed, so they won’t work on me.”
They wouldn’t? I froze, halfway toward nocking another arrow. “You sure?” I said, trying to look as if his proclamation hadn’t knocked me off balance. “You’ve got enough evil in you; I’m sure your heart would have rotted into a demon by now.”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Such melodrama. Evil is in the eye of the beholder. And I would never want to take a filthy demon into my body—that would simply weaken me, making me vulnerable to Sentinel weapons.”
My mouth dropped, and as the last of my conviction faltered, my weapon fizzled out of existence. “You… you don’t want to become Demonkin?” I was so confused. “I thought that was why you left the Sentinels! To join the other side.”
Lucas laughed. “Is that what Jax told you? God, but she really is an idiot. But then again, that’s why I chose you, not her.” His voice lowered into a sensual caress, and he took a step forward. “Come on, Arabella. If you remember this much, then surely you remember how things once were between us. We can be like that again, if only you’ll let me in.”
I stepped back as those same confusing emotions bombarded me—the lust and the hate, all intertwined until I couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. “Get away from me,” I said, my voice trembling. I reached for the hunting knife strapped to my belt, the one Brodie had given me. Celestial weapons might not work on this guy, but I didn’t see why good old-fashioned carbon steel wouldn’t. “You’re wrong. My memories haven’t come back—Jax just let me borrow hers. And from what I can see through her, you’re a real dick.”
“Oh yes, and Jax is such an unbiased source of information.” Lucas drew a little closer, then stopped, just out of arm’s reach. Tingles raced across my body, activating some buried instinct, and it took all my strength to back up against the tree and keep myself from reaching for him. I wasn’t sure what the hell was wrong with me that I had to fight to keep from touching this repulsive man, but I hated it. Was this what the old me had dealt with? Was I drawn to Lucas by some unseen force?
“Come on, Arabella. You’re smarter than this. You know that the only reason Jax hates me is because she couldn’t stand to have her best friend taken away.” Lucas smirked. “She’s a good Sentinel, but that child needs to grow up and realize that the bond between man and woman trumps Girls’ Night Out.”
“Oh, is that right?” I sneered. “She just hates you because she’s jealous, and not because you’re a traitor who allies himself with hell spawn?”
Lucas shrugged. “Oh, I’m sure she hates me for that too,” he said, as if the matter were of no consequence. “But she didn’t know that at the time. As far as anyone else knew, I was a loyal Sentinel from an old Watcher family. The Moranius family has a long, noble, and utterly boring history as Sentinel champions, so naturally, I was above reproach.”
I raised my left hand to my mouth, faking a yawn. “This history lesson is wonderful and all,” I said, “but it can’t be why you’re really here. Why don’t you cut to the chase and tell me why you haven’t knocked me out and dragged me back to your man cave already?” My fingers hovered next to the hem of my shirt, ready to tug the knife hiding beneath it out at any moment.
“I can’t deny I am here to take you back to my man cave,” Lucas admitted. “But I can’t just spirit you away. You have to come willingly, or I won’t be able to complete the ritual.”
“Ritual?” Chills raced all over my body as an image of myself tied naked across a stone slab, candles lit all around me, flickered in my mind. “What the hell kind of ritual?”
“The one to summon the Infinity Key, of course,” Lucas said. “I’ve figured out where you’ve hidden it, and I just need your cooperation in order to retrieve it.”
“That will never happen,” I hissed. “Even if I have to slit my own throat.”
