Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(139)

“Grams!” Keisha cried.

“Keisha, child! And Gwendolyn! Oh, my girls—both my girls have come back to me! Thank the Goddess!”

Grams was nearly crying she was so happy and Keisha and I were crying.

“How did you get home safe?” Grams asked. I think she was talking to me but it was Keisha who answered.

“Ray’s gone, Grams—that’s why I came home. He just disappeared the other night—right out of the bed. I don’t know what happened to him!”

“Well, neither do I.” Grams shot me a look and muttered in my ear, “Now you wouldn’t have anything to do with this, would you, Gwendolyn?”

“No, I swear,” I whispered back, glad that Keisha was crying too loudly to hear me. “It wasn’t me. It was…” But as I turned my head to nod at Laish, I saw that the spot he had been standing in was empty. Frantically, I scanned the front yard, looking for any trace of him but he had melted quietly away, almost as though he was a dream I’d had just before waking. “Laish,” I whispered but there was no reply.

He was gone.





Chapter Thirty-five

Gwendolyn





“Well, then what happened?” Addison demanded. She and Taylor were literally on the edge of their seats, staring at me with wide eyes as I repeated the story I’d already told Grams what felt like a hundred times. Of course, I edited quite a lot of it for Grams but here with my friends, I felt like I could really talk and I had been completely honest with them.

I shrugged. “Then, well…we came back in the middle of the night and it was cold and my shirt was torn so he…he gave me his jacket.”

I still had it hanging in my closet. Even though it had been days since Laish had brought me back, it still smelled faintly of cinnamon and that dark spice that always hung around him. I knew because I was guilty of going to the closet and pressing my face against it, just to feel close to him again. Stupid, I know but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

“And?” Taylor asked.

“And then my little sister showed up and he left while I was distracted.” I sighed. “I haven’t seen him since.”

“Well, have you tried to see him?” Addison asked practically. “I mean, have you called him or summonsed him or whatever it is you do with demons?”

“Well…no,” I admitted. To be honest, I’d been afraid to. What if I called and he didn’t answer? What if he never answered again? The way he’d said goodbye had seemed so final.

“You should call him,” Taylor said. “Didn’t you say that he said he loved you?”

“Repeatedly,” I said. “But then Belial said Laish only thought he loved me because of the Eternal Flame.”

“What? That Bangles song from the 80s?” Addison looked confused.

I explained quickly and then shrugged.

“So you see—he probably doesn’t love me at all. He just thinks he does.”

“Well, he’s got a funny way of showing that he thinks he loves you,” Taylor said. “Since he also took your virginity and half your power.”

“But did he?” Addison asked, looking at me. “I thought you said you opened a portal from Hell into our world. Doesn’t that take some serious juice as a witch?”

“Well, yes it does,” I admitted. “Honestly, I’m not sure how I did that.”

“And how did Laish close the door to the Abyss that you opened when you dragged me back here?” Taylor asked. “I thought the whole point of you going to Hell in the first place was because only someone with your—how did you put it?”

“My ‘soul signature’ what was Laish kept saying,” I said.

“Right—only someone with your soul signature could close the door—at least according to him. So then why did he make you come if he was able to close it without you?”

“To mess with her head?” Addison suggested. “Demons are almost as bad as vampires when it comes to that.”

“Thanks a lot.” Taylor made a face at her friend, showing her little white fangs. “I just think it’s weird that he says he loves her and then betrays her and then come back and saves her just in the nick of time. Something doesn’t add up there.”


“Like I said—he’s messing with her head,” Addison said flatly.

“What if he’s not?” Taylor demanded. “What if he had a perfectly good reason for everything he did?”

“Like what?” Addison demanded. “What reason could he have to drag her down to Hell if he was able to shut that door on his own in the first place?”

“But that’s the thing,” I interrupted their heated discussion. “I’m pretty sure he shouldn’t have been able to close it at all. Grams thought the same or she never would have let me go in the first place.”

“Well maybe he had to take you to Hell in order to get close enough to you for some of your, uh, ‘soul signature’ to rub off on him,” Taylor proposed.

“No, it doesn’t work that way.” I rubbed my eyes, wishing I could get some perspective. But every time I closed my eyes, all the awful events of my time in Hell intruded, demanding to be taken out and examined like poison toys wanting out of their box. I was so distracted at this point I could barely think straight—which was one reason I’d invited Taylor and Addison over—to help me make sense of the whole mess.