Dark Desires After Dusk (Immortals After Dark #6)(69)

The truck was flying up the winding road, headlights going from visible to concealed to visible once more. Tires screeched around the hairpin curves before falling silent when the driver reached the straightaway and gunned the engine.

“Here they come,” Holly murmured. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”

The driver slammed on the brakes at his first glimpse of her improvised Veyron roadblock.

Too late.

With nowhere to turn, the truck t-boned the heavy car; the sole demon catapulted through the windshield, hurtling through the air.

On his landing, bones cracked audibly, then the momentum sent him scraping over the skin-eating pavement. Eventually, he stopped, sprawling unconscious.

“And that’s why even immortals need to wear seat belts.” As lightning began to fire all over the valley, Holly rose, wielding Cade’s sword. He heard her absently say, “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

*

Holly advanced to where the fire demon lay, looking like a boneless lump of tissue on the road.

She was about to kill a defenseless being, but there was no help for it. He was already beginning to heal, had ignited the tiniest flame in his lacerated palm.

She quickened her pace. Now she could see why Cadeon had taught her to finish an adversary without mercy. Within moments, this mangled being could be a threat again.

Once she stood over him, she raised the sword above his neck. Don’t hesitate! With a yell, she swung it down, sending up a shower of sparks against the pavement as she severed the head.

Done, then. That’s behind me.

Forcing herself not to look back, she ran for the demon’s truck, praying that it might be drivable. Through the smoke from the collision, she saw that it was still running! The engine had been protected by a weighty winch attached to the front bumper—the winch that had cleaved the Veyron nearly in two.

But now it was locking the vehicles together in a tangle of jagged metal. She set down the sword, then grasped the contraption to see if she might budge it.

She pulled up on it with all her might, bewildered to see that she was raising the freaking truck—

The winch tore free in a rush. Pain lashed across her arm as she dropped it. “Damn!” Her gaze shot down. The serrated metal had sliced her arm to the bone.

She tore off the hem of her sweater, knotting it over the wound. She’d definitely need stitches, but couldn’t worry about that now . . . .

When she returned for Cadeon, he was unconscious. Her heart lurched, even when she knew he couldn’t die like this.

Or could he?

Had some immortal out there actually tested poisoned fey arrows for a contraindication with limb-melting burns?

After she’d gotten him and their things into the truck, she climbed in. Putting it in reverse, she eased back, extricating them from the frame of the million-dollar-plus car.

Without the prop of the truck, the Veyron folded in on itself like one of Cade’s Red Bull cans . . . .





32





Taking the demon brew away from the demon when he was burned, poisoned, and laid out naked in a bathtub was clearly ill-advised.

“Give me back my goddamned flask!” he bellowed, his words echoing in the motel room’s tiny bathroom.

Wringing another wet cloth over him, she said, “You don’t have any fingers to hold it with anyway.”

Like a little boy, he shoved the two wrinkly fingers he’d managed to regenerate in front of her face.

“Fine,” she sighed. When she handed the flask over, he snatched it to his chest. “You had better be careful,” Holly began in a serene tone, “I’ve heard that stuff takes a while to hit.”

“Bugger—off.”

She let that slide, knowing it had to be killing a proud male like Cadeon to be vulnerable like this.

“You should’ve left me . . . in the goddamned truck.”

“You are officially the surliest male I’ve ever met.”

“And you’re treating me like I’m really hurt,” he said, an inane statement, considering that half of the flesh from his waist up was still gone.

On the way to find a nondescript motel where she could hide the stolen truck, Holly had noticed that his skin would seem to be on the path to regeneration, but then he would sweat out more poison. His waxy flesh would well up again.

Once she’d secured a room, she’d ignored his grumbling as she’d removed what was left of his burned clothing, then led him to the bathtub.

After filling the room’s ice bucket with both ice and water to dip a cloth in, she knelt beside him, gently wringing the chill water over his skin. She kept her eyes averted from his privates—almost without fail.

The poison had a bluish tint to it that rinsed away easily enough. If only it didn’t keep coming back.

The pain must be agonizing.

“Why’re you being . . . so nice to me?” he asked gruffly, raising the flask, drinking deep.

“Because you are hurt, and you need help.”

“Not ’cause of what I told you?” he said.

Well, there was that. His admission had thrown her. It brought a whole new layer to whatever they had between them, an aspect of permanence to a flirtation.

All his advances hadn’t been merely because the job had put her in his path. He’d sought her out, then had volunteered to protect her.