Page 44 of Bond of Passion

Sin crossed the room, leaving crimson footprints as her boots squeaked across the hardwood floor. “Help should be here in a few. As soon as I saw some creep standing guard at the hedges, I called for reinforcements.”

Reinforcements. Thank gods.

Deja inhaled deeply, taking a second to center herself and gain some composure as she knelt to check on Tavin. First up, the ABCs of emergency medicine. “So, you took care of all the guys outside by yourself?”

Tavin’s airway was clear, but his breaths were too labored for comfort.

Sin shrugged. “When all you have to do is touch someone and give them a disease that kills within seconds, you outnumber them even if you’re by yourself.”

Okay, Deja could get behind that thought after seeing Tavin explode a lot of eyeballs and render a bunch of people practically harmless.

A glint of metal caught her eye, a silver chain sticking out from beneath a demon’s arm.

Her necklace.

While Sin prodded bodies with her foot, Deja quickly donned the jewelry and went back to assessing Tavin’s condition. She didn’t have much real-world experience, but her schooling was fresh, and she’d graduated at the top of her class. She could handle this.

Her pep talk didn’t stop her hands from shaking though, as she addressed the circulation part of the ABCs. She didn’t know how Tavin could possibly be bleeding as badly as he was after so much torture and blood loss, but a pool was forming around him. Quickly, her own injuries screaming, she grabbed a blanket off the recliner and put pressure on a gaping abdominal wound.

She glanced over at Sin. “I don’t suppose you can heal Tavin?”

“Sorry.” Sin held up her right arm, her dermoire seeming to writhe over flexing muscles. “My gift doesn’t work like that. It’s the whole half-breed, human mom thing.” Bending over, she rolled a dead demon onto his back. “Looks like everyone’s dead.”

“Everyone except the fallen angel,” Deja said. “He’s blind and wearing Bracken Cuffs. I don’t know where he is.”

Sin wheeled around. “There’s a fallen angel wandering around? Unfallen or True Fallen?”

“True.”

“Shit. Shoulda led with that.” Sin whipped a phone out of her back pocket and dialed. Anius’s cell signal blocker must have dissipated when he’d been cuffed. “Hey, Than,” she said into the phone. “It’s Sin. I have a new toy for your dungeon. Sending you the coordinates right now. Hurry before it gets away or kills us.”

Deja fetched gauze and bandages from her duffel. “Who was that?”

“One of the Four Horsemen. He’s got the most amazing dungeon. Plus, they’re the only people I know powerful enough to take down a fallen.”

Deja just stared. She might have grown up among the cruelest, most evil demons Satan had created, but hearing that legends from the demon holy book, the Daemonica, existed, was something else. She’d heard the rumors, the dark whispers even among the hospital staff, but the reality was so much more incredible.

At the sound of a beep, Sin looked down at her phone. “Cool beans. They cleared the block on the closest Harrowgate. Eidolon will be here in a minute.”

Relief nearly sapped what was left of Deja’s strength.

Tavin would live to die another day.