Wicked Bite (Night Rebel #2)(78)

My father had chosen to “stray where it was forbidden” by impregnating Ashael’s mother and then, later, mine. He’d also chosen to lose his position as Warden of the Gateway to the Netherworld to bring Ian back after I begged him to. If the most fearsome otherworldly creature I’d met could choose despite the inclinations of his nature, then so could I!

And I chose not to let Ian get hurt by Dagon or Ereshki when I had the power to stop them. No matter what terrifying form that power took, or what I’d have to do to bring it forth, because there hadn’t been two aspects to my nature back then. There’d been only one.

“Ian,” I rasped. “When you get free, take Ereshki and get as far away from me as the pentagram allows.”

“The hell you say?” he snapped, but then I felt a resounding boom! that overwhelmed even the pain. He’d broken through the wall. Dagon’s howl of rage confirmed it.

“What I’m going to do could swallow everything in its immediate vicinity!” I said, the falling wall giving me strength to shout. “You can’t be near it, so take Ereshki and go!”

Then I reached down, feeling for the cage that housed my other half. But this time, I didn’t merely open the door or pull her out of it. No more partial measures.

I smashed the cage completely.





Chapter 42


Blackness rolled over my vision as I felt my other half rise, but for the first time in over four thousand years, I didn’t draw away to keep her separate. I embraced her, feeling a shocking surge of ice and heat as both halves began to merge into one. More shocking was how, almost instantly, she wasn’t “she” anymore. It was just me, with so much more to me than there had ever been before.

“Ian,” I managed to say between blasts that made me feel as if I’d detonate at any moment, but not with pain. With the kind of power I’d never felt before. “If you love me, trust me and go.”

I thought I heard him mutter, “Five minutes. That’s all you get,” but I wasn’t sure. I did feel him leave in a whoosh, though, a cut-off scream indicating he’d grabbed Ereshki, too.

Vow not to kill Ereshki myself fulfilled.

As for Dagon . . .

I opened my eyes. Dagon’s icy blue gaze met mine. Just as I’d guessed, the demon had one of Ian’s guns, and he didn’t hesitate. Silver rounds slammed into me, throwing me backward, but my heart was protected by the bulletproof vest.

I rolled behind the counter that had once serviced ski patrons, expecting another volley to blast through the wooden barrier at any moment. It didn’t. Instead, I only heard the rapid patter of footsteps that quickly faded.

He was running away from me.

I dragged myself to my feet. The spell that had secured the circles meant I healed slower than I would have normally, but I was healing, so I forced that unfamiliar feeling of sluggishness aside and chased him. With the pentagram’s boundaries still in place, Dagon couldn’t get too far.

He didn’t. I found him at the end of the star’s tip on the top of the ridge, beating against the spell that didn’t allow him to go any farther. He had his mobile phone in his other hand, of all things, and he screamed “Now, now, now!” at whoever was on the other end of it.

“Did you not pay attention when Ian and I said that no one can teleport into or leave the pentagram until dawn?”

He whirled, boyishly handsome features almost deformed from the hatred that twisted them. “Stay away from me.”

“Stay away?” I repeated, closing the distance between us. “Stop? Don’t? Please? How many times have you heard those words? I remember that they only amused you . . . and incited you to greater acts of cruelty.”

“You cannot best me in your condition.” A snarl that sounded more desperate than confident. “You can barely walk!”

He had a point. I wasn’t nearly healed enough to fight him, and his distance from Ian meant that he was in far better shape than he’d been before. In a hand-to-hand battle, Dagon would win. That’s why I wasn’t using my hands.

“True,” I replied. “But I am my father’s daughter.”

I let the power I’d only accessed once before rip through me. When it overflowed, I saw Dagon through eyes no vampire had.

Darkness poured from him in putrid waves, staining even the ground he stood upon. Not a glimmer of light broke through it. Unlike most people who committed terrible deeds, Dagon hadn’t been warped by cruel circumstances or a distorted view of what was best for the world. No, Dagon knew exactly who he was and what he was doing, and he’d taken the darkest joy in both.

I had my own darkness, made up of the other side of eternity instead of the stain of too many foul deeds to count. I let it billow behind me like a cloud before it pooled at my feet, widening as it snaked toward Dagon. He saw it and leapt back, but the barrier of the pentagram left him nowhere to go.

“What are you doing?” His voice, always so confident, cruel or amused, now sounded plaintive. “Stop! Stop, please!”

I ignored that, just as Dagon had ignored similar pleas countless times before. At last, everyone who’d pled for mercy from him and received none would get their long-overdue justice.

“No,” I said, my voice booming in a thunderous way I’d never heard before. It sounded, I realized, like my father’s did when he was angry. “You’ve been sentenced.”