Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) (38 page)

Asheroth’s kingdom, now.

“You’re the Guardian now, Caspia. I always meant for the post, and the estate, to go to you.” Asheroth smiled. He actually smiled, and in that moment, I knew I would do anything to help nurture this new, saner version of him. Including assuming responsibilities I wasn’t ready for and didn’t want.

“I don’t think I can do it,” I admitted, wanting to be as honest as possible. Could I live on that huge estate and assume my guardian’s responsibilities?

“You’ll have help,” he said, but he was getting restless again, and I could tell he wanted to be back there. In the Dark Realms, with
her
. Ethan had slipped up beside me and held my hand in his. The Shadows were dormant under his touch. I leaned into his warm, human body and wondered: what wouldn’t I do for him, what heaven or hell would I leave unturned to find him if he was taken from me?

I knew the answer immediately. It was written in my bones. There was nothing I wouldn’t do, there was no place I wouldn’t go to save him. To be with him.

But we had our whole lives together. Our whole human lives, and when our time came, we would go into the Realms together. Dark or Light, the choice was ours.

A portal blazed into existence between groups of Belial’s former Nephilim. I guessed they were Asheroth’s now. He inched backward. Eager to be gone, but tied to us still in indefinable ways. He fingered the hilt of Azazel’s blade before removing it from the loop where it swung on his belt. He offered it to Ethan.

“This needs to stay here in the Mortal realm where it can do the most good,” he said. Ethan took it with reverence, and a nod of understanding. “Besides, she can use all the protecting she can get.”

“She’ll have it,” Ethan vowed.

Asheroth was at my side in an instant. With that dizzying quickness they all had, he stood so close the cold of his stone skin radiated off him. “Caspia,” he whispered, so soft and low my name was almost a hiss. “I will never forget all you have done for me.” Cold lips pressed briefly, so briefly against my own. Then, as fast as a butterfly sweeps its wings, they were gone. He was gone too, gone from my side and soon from my life, standing feet away surrounded by his Nephilim. In that instant he was inhumanly beautiful, and I found myself aching for him, for the absence he would soon create in my life.

Beside me, Ethan made a choking sound.

“You will come visit me in the Dark Realms,” he ordered, as if we were already his subjects. As if visits to certain regions of hell were as fun and easy as going to Disneyland. “If you do not, I will come and force you.”

I knew it wasn’t an idle threat.

The small smile he gave me was equal parts whimsy and regret. Then he was gone through the portal, his red-cloaked Nephilim following.

Ethan’s lips were at my ear, his warm strong hand at my waist. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“No,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t be right for a long time. I thought of Jack with an ache so hard it felt more like a knife wound, before stuffing the grief down. I would have to take it out and deal with it later; right now, the living needed me more. Jack had no family, so I would take his body home with me to be buried on the estate Asheroth had left me.

“What can I do?” He dropped his hand to my hip and turned me so that we faced each other. The remnants of battle ceased to exist; there was no one, nothing for me but him.

I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and thought, this. This is all I want and need. But out loud I said, “You can help me rebuild. Whitfield’s going to need you.” I added, more softly, “I’m going to need you.”

His kiss was all the reply I needed.

hat night, as she so often did, Chloe Burke dreamed of fire.

In her dream it was not the fire itself that was frightening. Rather, it was the sensation of burning noxious metal ripped from deep within the earth and stretched thin as air, hot as supernovas. The acrid heat threatened, at any moment, to coalesce back into metal, trapping her and crushing her lungs, making it impossible to run or scream.

In her dream, there was also the boy.

He came to her, moving low to the ground. Her first vision of him was always of wild dark hair and a pale, determined face peering up at her from the side of her bed. Moving slowly, with a feline grace that made him seem older, surer, than he must have been, he slid into her bed covered with blankets like strips of jewels stitched together. He pinned her firmly with one arm until she could not move at all, even though the smell of fire crept across her senses.

“Stay still, Chloe, and
do not
speak,” he whispered. “My uncle will come for us soon, he told me so. We are to remain as still as possible, so as not to attract their notice. The wards will hold until he gets your mother out.”

She wanted to speak. She wanted, badly, to scream and thrash, but for some reason, in the dream, she could not. His command, his hand upon her, made it impossible.

She turned to him, mute and frightened. His eyes shifted colors, flecks of greens, blues, and even gold boring into hers. She never forgot his eyes, not ever, not even as she grew up and learned to agree with her parents, that it was just a very bad, recurring nightmare, the result of a childhood fever. She never forgot the eyes too vivid, too desperate to be called hazel. Sparks. His eyes were sparks in the void of her nightmare, waiting to catch and burn.

“Chloe,” he whispered, and the room around them exploded into a ring of fire. There were shapes in the fire, of people who were
wrong
, who were stretched too thin and who undulated with the flames. Their hands were flattened and sharp with fingers and teeth like razors, and she knew they had to get out. There were no adults to save them now. She did not cry out as the boy dragged her out of her bed. His slim body blocked her from the flames, his hands a strange alchemy of object, motion, and light. He cut through blood-colored flames with a single flare of gold, with a strength and steadiness that did not match his age, and walked through them, past razor-sharp hands that reached for them. He brought her to a place thick with the smell of forest and river where her mother waited, catching her up in the smothering embrace frightened parents reserve for their children. As she looked over her mother’s shoulder, she saw, through what looked like an arched, open door, a world engulfed in flames. There were tears on her cheeks, and she didn’t know why, except that a world was burning, her world, and there was nothing she could do.

Distantly, another voice urged her towards wakefulness.

“Chloe! Breakfast!”

She gripped her pillow with taut fingers, reluctant to let go of the dream and face Saturday morning reality. Tossing and sliding against cool sheets, her white cotton nightgown twisted up around her thighs. “Not hungry,” she growled. Smooth hardwood creaked under her as she stumbled toward the bathroom, years of practice the only thing keeping her from crashing into the bathroom doorframe and bruising her forehead. The white tiles and halogen lights made her feel like someone’s neglected science project. The mirror, of course, didn’t help things. Her face was even paler than usual. Her dark brown eyes were fever-bright, and her hair framed her face like a shroud. She splashed her face with very cold water and stared, empty-eyed, at the mirror.

“Chloe Burke,” she told herself severely, “it was just a dream.” The scent of apple bread and coffee chased her as she rifled angrily through a basket of clean but unfolded clothes. She tossed aside black t-shirts, dark jeans, and black dresses.

She knew that downstairs, only two places were set. The place at the head of the table would be empty, just as it had been every morning, noon and night for the last two months. She pulled a wrinkled black t-shirt over a black lace bra, dreading the tense silence and empty space waiting for her downstairs.

Apple bread. Her father’s favorite. With a single vicious jerk she ripped the shirt over her head and threw it into a corner. She felt cold and exposed, hugging herself tightly as her tangled dark hair tumbled over her shoulders and brushed the tops of her breasts. “No more black,” she told the pale face in the mirror before stalking to her closet to find something, anything, that didn’t remind her of death.