Wicked Bite (Night Rebel #2)(38)

Too late, I thought in amusement. I saw that.

Ashael’s appreciation for celestial-created rarities like the horn obviously included Simargls. And Silver, who’d had a horrific experience being owned by a demon, seemed oddly at ease with Ashael. Maybe it was because Silver sensed Ashael’s duel lineage? After all, Silver had loved my father on sight, too.

“You might want to hold on to your pet now,” Ashael said. “It’s about to get rough.”

“Any rougher and we’ll crash,” I muttered, but picked Silver up and held him in my lap.

“Exactly,” Ashael replied in a mild tone.

I waited for the punch line. When Ashael said nothing, I realized he wasn’t joking.

“Explain,” Ian drew out.

“If getting to Yonah’s was easy, he’d be dead by now,” was Ashael’s reply. “Still, if either of you object to the risk, I’ll turn the plane around, but then my part in this is done.”

Asshole!

Not much could kill vampires, but a plane crash could. I couldn’t even use the endless expanse of ocean below us to deter Ashael. The demon could teleport away before a drop of that salt water, burning to demons, touched him.

Ian pulled out his mobile. I couldn’t see who he was texting because he was too quick. Then he turned it off.

“If we don’t return from this flight, consider yourself marked for death by three of the world’s strongest vampires,” Ian said coolly. “That’s only if I don’t kill you myself first.”

Ashael’s scoff was both elegant and contemptuous. “As if you had the power to kill me.”

Ian’s arm slammed across Ashael’s throat. The horn also shot out, its tip now elongated and very close to Ashael’s eye.

“That a dare?” Ian asked.

Not a muscle on Ashael moved. Good thing, too, since one wrong slant on the yoke might slam us into the ocean.

“Ian,” I said in as calm a tone as I could manage. “Please don’t stab the pilot while we’re still on the plane.”

Ian kept staring at Ashael, the ram’s horn a twisting, tangible threat between them. I didn’t know how Ian had made it move, let alone in such a way. But he had, and Ashael acted as if the horn’s tip was coated in demon poison.

“Veritas will not be harmed,” Ashael finally said, his former mockery gone. “Neither will you,” he added somewhat reluctantly. “You will both arrive safely. I give you my word.”

Ian lowered his arm. The horn lost its rapierlike shape to coil back into the flexible one where it resembled a 3-D armband. Ashael gave the magic relic a look I couldn’t read, then said, “Hold the yoke” and let Cessna’s version of a steering wheel go.

Ian grabbed the yoke when Ashael closed his eyes and raised his hands. I didn’t have time to ask what he was doing before his power blasted out. My eardrums ruptured from the sudden, explosive pressure shift. Ian ground out a curse I could no longer hear as blood ran from his ears, too. Still his hands remained rock steady on the controls.

Light exploded ahead of us, flashing in simultaneous bursts of colors that looked like lightning coated in rainbows. A tunnel formed amidst the dazzling display, showing a glimpse of something large and dark on the other side. Ashael opened his eyes and grabbed the controls from Ian with one hand. The other was still aloft, pouring more power into the tunnel/temporal anomaly/whatever it was. Then he steered us right into the circular kaleidoscope.

The small plane shook so hard, the metal sounded like it was screaming. I was tempted to scream, too. The plane couldn’t take more of this without coming apart. I had to clutch Silver to keep him from hitting the roof from how violently we were thrown around. Still, my head bashed against the plane’s side panel until I saw and tasted blood.

Suddenly, the dazzling flashes of color ceased, revealing a calm sky with a moon casting silvery beams on the ocean and island beneath it. The island was almost entirely taken up by the tall, imposing mountain I’d glimpsed from the other side of the tunnel. The punishing turbulence stopped, too, but my sigh of relief turned into a gasp when Ashael pointed us right at the mountain and increased speed.

“You see the big mountain in front of us, don’t you?” Maybe he was temporarily blinded from all those flashing lights . . .

“Yes,” Ashael replied, proving my ears had healed enough to hear again.

“Then why are you aiming for it?” I demanded.

“No one likes a backseat driver,” was his airy response.

That was it. If we lived, I was committing fratricide—

We passed through the mountain instead of smashing into it. That’s when I realized it was glamour designed to stop anyone from seeing the real island. A glance out the window now revealed a generous stretch of beach, lots of trees, and several buildings I could only glimpse before Ashael dropped the plane down and circled back, aiming for the beach.

I didn’t bother telling him sand was too soft to land on. For all I knew, it wasn’t sand at all. It was probably a runway glamoured to look like ordinary beach sand—

The plane landed hard, wheels ripping off right after tearing into the soft terrain that, yep, was sand, which I found out when it blasted through the broken windows while the plane was flipping end over end. Metal and glass also took turns pelting me, and I hit my head so hard, I was briefly knocked unconscious. When I came to, I was upside down, clutching Silver so tightly in my arms, he whimpered.