34. I Put My Fist Into My Mouth and Scream

Thursday had broken bright and dry. She had dressed for the day while Ash brushed his teeth. She’d sat on the edge of the bed, running through a list of places she’d checked in her head.

The sounds of running water, the scrubbing of a toothbrush, and his throat clearing had shattered the early morning quiet. It was too… domestic.

As though they’d been doing this for years. Strange. Her skin itched with it. The urge to cause a fight or break something was becoming impossible to ignore.

But she couldn’t risk it. Not yet. Not with her power surging and throbbing in her veins, demanding release. Yet she kept diving into the well, pulling more out.

Ash hadn’t asked, but she knew he sensed something was rising in her. When they’d left the room, he’d gone one way, she’d gone the other.

The day passed with more futility. She’d asked him if he knew who was funding these idiots, and he for once didn’t have an answer.

That worried her more than she’d let on. And as the day ended with nothing to show for it, her skin drew too tight. It rippled with gooseflesh as a stiff breeze cut through the air.

Her very bones were a pressure cooker of power and the need to use it as she walked toward the whitewashed hotel. Counting the cracks in the sidewalk to occupy her frazzled mind.

She drip-fed her darkness with small amounts of magic to ease the pressure a little. They were blacker than sin, feral and raring for a fight. The shadows moved sinuously, faster, as though eager.

She frowned and followed their eyeless gaze. Ash walked down the path toward her. He arched an eyebrow in silent question.

Liora shook her head and scowled as they entered the plush lobby with its perfectly worn wood floors and shrubbery arranged just so. They strode in sync into the elevator.

They did not speak until they’d entered the safety of their room. She’d applied protection runes and warded the place with her blood to ensure no one could listen to them.

She paced the creaking wood floors as Ash sat down on the end of the bed, sighing heavily.

“Well, I got nothing,” He said as her shadows wove up the walls and windows. “There’s nothing here.”

She nodded. Claws flexing as she rolled her shoulders, magic bubbling inside her. “You’re sure you don’t know who’s funding them? If we had—”

“No. I told you,” Ash cut in, eyes rolling, “I only know why they wanted me. What their original plan was. But if they’ve got a succubus too…”

He trailed off, and Liora froze at the reminder. They didn’t know for sure if the hunters had caught her, but they couldn’t rule it out, either. Her heart started picking up speed.

Mouth snarled as she said, “Why take her, though? What’s the end goal now?”

Ash shrugged, scratching at his neck, silver irises flat. His fingers stilled on his skin. “You don’t think they’d try and use her instead, do you?”

Liora said, “I doubt it. Too volatile. Too… selfish.” She paused, staring out the window to the landscaped garden outside. “I don’t think they could control her.”

“What if they found a way? They have witches.”

That was another aspect that didn’t make a lick of sense. Why would magic users side with mortals and help them eliminate all monsters?

Was it self-preservation?

Or something more sinister? Liora didn’t know. An instinct clawed at her, one she didn’t recognize, but it felt ancient.

“I forgot about it while everything else was happening, but that night on the docks?” He waited for her nod before elaborating, and ice fused her insides together. “They, uh, they took a vial of my blood before your arrival.”

She hissed. She took a step toward him, claws trembling as she tried to reel herself in. Power swelled like a tidal wave inside her, and she struggled to lock it down.

Glamor flickering, shadows writhing, Ash didn’t look sorry. “You ‘forgot’? With your perfect vampire recall, you somehow forgot?”

He gave an indolent shrug that only made the heat swamp her, a vein ticking on her temple.

“I pushed it away to survive that night. It didn’t surface until today. I don’t know what to tell you, Liora.”

“You idiot. They’ll know about the bond,” she snapped, her glamour slipping as a shadow lashed out, carving a groove in the wall.

Ash didn’t flinch, but his jaw tightened. “How? And so what?”

“It’s forbidden!” The words tore from her, raw and ancient. “My law. A law I helped write. Vampires and succubi were never meant to mix. We are a destabilizing force. An abomination.”

Ash went still, his flat silver gaze sharpening. “You… wrote the laws?”

She waved a clawed hand, the gesture frantic. “Six hundred years ago, when the Veil fell and your kind crawled out of the rot! I was created a century later to stem the tide. It doesn’t matter. What matters is they have a blueprint of our connection in your blood!”

“Why is that the end of the world?” he pushed, leaning forward now, his own cool aura pressing against her heat. “Let them know. Let them be afraid.”

A broken, sharp sound escaped her. She felt as though she’d swallowed crushed diamonds. “Because my blood is the antidote to the virus that made you!”

The silence in the room became absolute.

“What?” The word was barely a breath, but it sounded like an explosion in the suffocating quiet.

“The night I healed you, I could have killed you. I could’ve killed all of your kind. Our bond… our mutual, selfish choice to survive, to feel—it must have neutered the poison. Stopped the cure from becoming a plague.”

Ash stared like the dead thing he was. The reality of it washed over him. Nearly sent him flat on his back. The power she had held over his entire species in her veins. The risk she had taken.

And the cataclysm their bond had averted. The world had turned upside down. He had no love for other vampires, but the sheer, cosmic scale of it was staggering.

He shoved the revelation down, locking it away to be examined later, when the room wasn’t vibrating with her panic. “Circle back. Way, way back. Later. Right now, if you helped write the rules, can’t you break them?”

Liora finally stopped pacing, her chest heaving. “The hunters already have.”

“Well, we’re fine then. Write new laws.”

She scoffed, but her heartbeat slowed a fraction. “We’re not fine. Not until they’re defeated.”

Ash held back the impulse to groan. “They can’t break the bond, can they?”

Everything within him stilled. Even his mind stopped talking. No, he’d rather die.

“I don’t think so. Barbatos said it was impossible to sever. But if you die, I die. The Veil falls.”

Ahh, she’d gone to that demon to get rid of him. Predictable.

It almost made him laugh. “We’ll shelve that too—are the hunters aware of your blood being the antidote to vampirism? Could their experiments have made me immune to it?”

Her shoulders slumped. Mouth twisting to the side before she said, “I don’t know. I burned all the archives. Erased my past six months before I met you. Only basic knowledge about succubi survived the burning.”

And six months before he met her, he’d been captured. Ash loosed a breath. Muscles relaxing. She sank down on the bed beside him and buried her face in her clawed hands.

“Even before you erased it, it was hard to connect every ‘life’ you’ve lived over the centuries.” It was true.

Many different creatures took the blame for her menacing the world. Her names had been scrubbed even before she erased it all. “It took me years to realize it was all you.”

Her head snapped to him, black eyes narrowed. “Why were you studying me? My kind?”

Ash chuckled; the sound was dark and rough. “It wasn’t just you. I was…” he grimaced. She already knew he’d have done anything to survive. “I was looking for someone powerful enough to keep the hunters away. I kept circling back to succubi. Something told me that was the answer.”

He braced himself. She’d worried about him only wanting her for what she provided in power and protection. He’d worked hard to show her it wasn’t true.

She gazed at him, pulse racing, and her scent was just pomegranate and bergamot. No fury. He didn’t breathe until she spoke.

“Fucking—ah—it doesn’t matter. We’ve found nothing. We’ll find nothing more tomorrow. Let’s just prepare to leave Saturday morning.”

He jolted. Brows slamming together as he said, “What? I thought you weren’t leaving until they were defeated?”

She laughed, but the noise came with a surge of power that prickled his skin with heat. Her shadows writhed against the walls as the energy rolled through them.

“I’ll enlist Barbatos. If anyone can find them, it’s him.” She blew out a breath, hands fisted so tight her knuckles threatened to split through the skin. “One blow. One blow to decimate their entire operation. That’s all I need.”

He stilled. His throat bobbed as he studied her. The frenetic aural wave rising off her grew stronger the longer he watched.

“You’re gathering power.” It wasn’t a question.

She didn’t answer. He chose not to force her as she left to have a bath. Ash lay back on the bed and schemed.

If she were preparing an extinction event, he’d have to be there to witness it. Ensure it hit its target.

Even if it cost him.

They had left the hotel later than planned on Friday. He had hunted through every street left on his map.

Nothing. He strode down a narrow path between two estates, ten foot tall wood-panelled fences caged him in on both sides.

Something kept nagging at him. He had to check before he raced back to change and meet Liora at the restaurant for their date.

He smirked as he wondered what she’d wear. Couldn’t wait to see her in something other than practical clothes or battle gear.

How long would she last before demanding to leave? He chuckled at the thought and kept moving.

He approached it from behind, frost flying to coat security cameras as he crept closer to the glass house he’d stared at a few nights before.

He’d made a point of checking it out everyday on his way back to the hotel. It was always dark. Empty. Yet cars came and went sometimes.

His shoulders stiffened as he gazed up at the top floor. The glass gleamed under the crimson setting sun. Staining the white stone like watery blood.

That wasn’t what caught his attention. It was the scent emanating from it. Cold. Clinical.

Wrong.

There didn’t seem to be anyone inside, but his instincts sat up. Head on a swivel as he backed away. Time to leave. He’d have Liora scope it out later.

He hurried back the way he had come, and he did not breathe until he hid behind the fence again. But the scent intensified as he walked down. Boots scuffed off the concrete as his spine hardened.

The hair on his nape lifted. His hands fisted as he berated himself internally.

Calm down. She’s fine. You’re fine. There’s nothing here.

His ears strained as the clinking of glasses and tinkling laughter of a distant garden party broke the noise of the ocean. He was halfway down the alley when the trap sprung.

He came to a stuttering halt as a group of well-dressed men entered the area. They wore black suits, white shirts, and crimson ties. Either the rich had a uniform or his luck had finally run out.

He knew it was the latter, as his eyes locked on their tie pins. A snake wound around a cross and bit it. His stomach dropped to the floor.

He staggered back, head whipping around to find another group hemming him in from behind. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Ash froze. Calculating his first move and considering pulling on the bond so Liora knew something was wrong. The men were silent. Only the echo of their footsteps and the sound of helicopter blades whirring broke the stillness.

They crowded around him. He sighed as he catalogued their faces. A mix of young and middle-aged, a myriad of skin tones and eye colours. All of them stared at him.

A bearded man, who looked around forty-two, stepped forward, a smarmy smile on his thin lips. Ash gritted his jaw and prepared to fight his way out. The man didn’t carry a gun.

He pulled a needle out of his pocket. A viscous, shimmering fluid moved inside it.

“Where’s your demon bitch, leech? You two have a lovers spat?” The man asked, inching closer.

The words roasted through Ash. Demon bitch. The tendons in his neck corded, nostrils flaring, and his vision turned scarlet. He moved before the thought even crossed his mind.

His hands wrapped around the other man’s neck and twisted. The wet crack was like a bomb going off in the silence. The needle clattered to the ground, shattering.

Ash let the corpse crumple to the floor with a fleshy thud. He didn’t have time to feel relief as someone stabbed his neck. Another needle came from behind—he whirled, but it was too late.

The cold, heavy serum slid inside his veins even as he tore out the lanky man’s throat with his teeth. He spat the rancid blood out, watching it splatter on the pale grey ground.

They didn’t run as the second body dropped. They held their ground and tightened their circle, a wall of silent, fanatical resolve.

And as he soaked in that silence, a terrible, perfect knowing clicked into place in his mind, extinguishing the fight in him.

This was the target.

This didn’t have to be an ambush; it could be an invitation to the slaughterhouse.

Her slaughterhouse.

If he called her now, she’d pick them off here. The head of the snake would retreat into the shadows again. But if he let them take him... he would lead her straight to the heart.

Until then, he had to endure it. His muscles locked, then went loose. Shoulders curving a little. He sensed nothing from the serum yet. He flinched as they brought out the Silverthorn cuffs.

A clean-shaven, dark-eyed man stepped in front of Ash. He wanted to scream. He wanted to rip them apart limb from fucking limb.

But it would only delay the inevitable. He’d made sure Liora fed until full that morning. An urgent impulse he couldn’t ignore.

As if a part of him had known this was the ending. That she needed to be at full strength before it came.

“It’ll be easier if you come willingly. There’s more waiting to capture you, if you try to run,” the hunter said, opening the cuffs and holding them out to Ash.

A pained expression crossed his face. He let out a humorless laugh and shook his head. Perfect. He’d walked into it. Too nosy for his own good.

It’s the only way. She’ll find me. They’re already dead.

Ash drew in the last deep breath he’d take for days, nearly choking on their decaying, clinical scents. He shut everything off, compartmentalized his emotions until all he felt was his innate need to survive.

Then he unclenched his fists and held his hands out, wrists up.

The Silverthorn closed around his skin with a click of finality. Their burn already raising blisters.

Liora perched on the edge of the chair the waiter had pulled out for her and tried not to look like she’d been stood up. But the possibility grew more intense the longer she observed the door and Ash didn’t walk in.

She wore a new cocktail dress. Lilac, frothy fabric that swished around her knees when she moved.

The low neckline made her feel too exposed as she drained her second glass of wine. She scratched the back of her neck, fidgeting with her dress hem as she heaved a sigh.

Where was he? Had he changed his mind? Her stomach flipped, bile rising in her throat that she choked back down.

She focused on the bond. A flicker of cold amusement—his trademark smirk translated into feeling—brushed against her mind.

He’s fine. He’s just an asshole. Likely trying to make an entrance.

She let the thought sink in. The urge to make him bleed for making her wait roasted through her. Her shoulders started to relax. Her heart slowed.

She tried to tug on the bond, tell him to hurry or she’d leave. Her empty glass clattered to the table. The restaurant disappeared. There was nothing.

Nothing to tug on.

Her very being went silent. Her blood turned to ice. Everything inside her froze as hoarfrost spread out from her chest to poison the rest of her. There was only…

Numbness.

It had gone numb. A lifeless void where the bond had been. Where there had been laughter and heat, him teasing her for constantly checking in on him this week.

Only for her to stop doing it today. The one time he needed it. She couldn’t get enough air as her ribs constricted. The hollow, deafening emptiness swallowed the clink of glasses and the murmur of conversations whole.

Later, she wouldn’t remember fleeing the restaurant. Shadows screaming, glamor fragmenting.

She’d only remember the wrongness. The certainty of what had happened replaced all else.

They’d taken him.

Liora chuckled, a dead sound, as she phased into her darkness and urged it to find the last place he’d been. Whether they scented the blood or the memory of the last moment of the bond, she didn’t care.

She stood between tall fences within seconds. The scent of mortal, rotten blood stained the air. Her eyes scanned the ground.

A small sanguine splatter decorated it. He’d fought. She smelled his venom among the hunter blood.

Blood wasn’t the only thing there. A pool of shimmering liquid glimmered under the twilight. It reeked of magic and medicine.

Her shadows hissed and raged, vipers ready to devour the world. Her power swelled, threatening to annihilate the entire street.

She fought it back. Chuckling again, not yet. Not now.

They’d waited. They’d been here all along. And she’d missed it. She’d let herself grow soft.

A queen playing house with a mayfly.

Her chest ached, bones fracturing as her jaw rippled. Her claws unsheathed. She rose to her full height and stared up at the sliver-crescent moon.

Her blood roared in her ears. Hot and furious, it raced through her veins. Adrenaline poured into her as she drove her talons into her thigh to anchor herself.

Keep her magic from erupting. Her mouth snarled, scales broke free of her glamor. Blood dripped from her bare thigh, soaking through her dress like grisly black poppies.

The need to hurt someone, to make them pay for what they’d done, overrode every other instinct. Her demon remained quiet, knowing Liora was a hair’s breadth away from setting all of New York on fire.

Her head shook as she swallowed a mouthful of useless venom. While she’d waited in that ridiculous restaurant, they’d found him.

They’d taken him from her.

“Wrong move.”