“Not quite like that. You’ll sicken before you die, but it will happenquickly.”
She took a deep breath andwinced.
“Your wounds haven’t completely healed,” I told her. “That will take a few days. If you survive the change, you will heal at an even faster rate once you’re a demon. The rate will increase as you age and grow stronger. You will also beimmortal.”
“I see,” shemurmured.
“Hawk will have a better understanding of the timeline of the change for you, though yours won’t be the same as his. I’m an entirely different type of demon than him. The last ofmykind.”
She smiled at me. “Not ifIlive.”
I did a double take at her words before they sank in. I’d always accepted I would be the last purebred adhene to exist. Now, there was a possibility I would no longer be the last of my kind and that our children would also continuetheline.
“Not if you live,” I agreed with asmile.
“And I plan to do exactly that,” she stated and lifted her chin in herstubbornway.
* * *
Wren
“I didn’t notice any changes, not really,” Hawk said the next day when I asked him what he’d experienced during his transition intodemonhood.
It had only taken me all of yesterday to feel well enough to walk around and see the others. The rapid healing was almost as surprising to me as the life I still possessed considering I’d experienced my life slipping awayfromme.
“I mean, I realized I was healing faster,” Hawk continued as he leaned against the trunk of a tree and crossed his legs. “That much was obvious from the start, but I blew it off. I knew some of Lilitu’s blood had gotten into me, so I assumed that somehow made it possible for me to heal faster. Truthfully, I didn’t want to delve too deeply into iteither.
“For a while afterward, I didn’tfeelany different or I didn’t notice I did anyway. Then the whole thing with Sarah happened…” His voice trailed off; his eyes went to the woods behind me. “Maybe I should have suspected something was different then, but I believed she was nuts,youknow?”
“She did go a little off the deep end,” Erin agreed as she settled onto a large rock next to where Hawk stood. Drawing her legs up, she planted her feet on the side of the stone. “We all thought she wascrazy.”
“Yeah,” Hawk muttered and ran a hand through his hair. “If I’d known what I was becoming, I wouldn’t have slept with her, but Ididn’tknow.”
“We suspected something was happening with him,” Corson said to me. “But nothing could be confirmed, untilSarah.”
“I still regret what happened with her,” Hawk said. “Ialwayswill.”
I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him to live with that guilt. It hadn’t been his fault, but what happened with Sarah haunted him, just as it would have haunted me for the rest of my days. Something could still go wrong with me, but at least I had a head’s up that my mortal status might be changing to immortal. I’d be able to do something to stop myself from hurting someone before ithappened.
“Anyway, it wasn’t until we were in Hell that I realized I wasn’t normal anymore. All the other humans couldn’t make it more than half a mile into Hell without looking like they were going to die. I had no problem continuing withRiver.”
“It was so hot in there,” Vargas said as he sat beside Erin. “That’s when we began to suspect things were different with Hawk too”—Vargas waved a finger between himself and Erin—“but we were running for our lives, so it wasn’t exactly the greatest time todiscussit.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Erinagreed.
“Not only could I tolerate the heat, but while everyone else was thirsty, I wasn’t,” Hawk said. “When I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t been drinking or eating as much as I used to. I also realized I wasn’t going to the bathroom as often. When I was in Hell, those bodily functions ceased entirely. Ididwant sex more before entering Hell, but with Sarah lurking everywhere I went, that became an impossibility. And sleeping with her again wasnotan option. The last thing she needed was moreencouragement.”
Hawk’s brow furrowed as he ran a hand through his hair again. “Then, I realized my vision was better; it had been so gradual that I didn’t notice it until I saw a lanavour coming at us long before I should have seen it. We’d just entered Hell, the Hell shadows were everywhere, and the lanavour was fifty yards away, yet it was as clear as day to me. I’d been seeing better for a while, but I had thatah-hamoment in Hell. I had one about myhearingtoo.”
“What is a lanavour demon?” Iasked.
Hawk, Erin, and Vargas all shuddered. “Hideous monsters,” Erin said. “They’re blue-gray and have no mouths. They can communicate telepathically, and when they touch another, they learn their innermost secrets and fears. They kill by turning those secrets and fears against theirvictim.”
“They sound awful,” Imuttered.
“They are,” Corson said. “They’re also mostly dead, and we will make sure to destroy what remainsofthem.”
“How did you know you’d survived the transformation?” IaskedHawk.
