Demon From the Dark (13 page)

           
No, there'd be no healing, no matter how much pain she was in. Nor would there be any other spells, though she had no water canteen, no food, no blanket.

           
Now she'd kill for the clothes and gear she'd ridiculed at the facility. When Dixon had outfitted her with an assault pack filled with a Multipurpose Portable Tool Kit, a high-powered flashlight,
twelve
pairs of socks, MREs, and a first aid kit, Carrow had been so smug. "Though I dig the tacticool chic, Dixon, I'm an immortal, remember? Unless that gauze can fix a beheading. Oh, and twelve pairs of socks? Wool ones for the enchantress? Now you're just being silly, human."

           
Carrow stared out into the night. Some blister care and wool socks would do her so right just now.

           
A lone witch torn from her coven. In pain. With no friend to buoy her.

           
Gritting her teeth, she decided that she'd simply have to buoy herself. She would keep fighting for her life--and for Ruby's.

           
Yet even as Carrow thought this, a small part of her asked,
But how much more can I take?

           
Just before she finally slipped into a fitful sleep, her eyes flashed open. She'd suddenly remembered what the word
cotha
meant.

           
Earlier, the demon had told her ...
to run.

Chapter 8

           
For hours, Malkom tore through the brush, relentlessly searching for his female after she'd disappeared right before his eyes.

           
He couldn't locate her, couldn't scent her, yet he
sensed
she was still on his mountain. Which meant she hadn't returned whence she came--the portal where immortals were disposed of.

           
Which begged the question: Who in their right mind would
ever
willingly let a woman such as that go?

           
When he would chase misery and fight an army to possess her?

           
In the past, he'd had no use for a female, had been pleased not to have one as a liability to protect. But now the knowledge that a creature like her--finer than any he'd ever seen--
belonged
to him burned in his mind, changing everything.

           
She's mine. So I will keep her.
At last, he would be master over another, would guide another's destiny and marry it with his own.

           
If he had any doubt they would be a match, he quelled it, reminding himself that he was the strongest male in this plane; she was the most beautiful female.

           
She was his due.

           
He felt about her as he did about his territory. He'd use his strength to protect both.

           
But not if he couldn't find her. He spied the tracks of that troop of ghouls as they prowled for her still, as well as the deep prints of a deadly Gotoh. The wastelands swarmed with those vicious creatures, difficult even for Malkom to destroy.

           
Have to locate her.
...

           
In fact, there were countless lethal beasts that were native or had been dispatched here that had bred and populated the plane, making it a death trap, even for an immortal. Even for one with her power, if she wasn't wary.

           
He rubbed his chest, still astounded by the lightning-like force she'd unleashed. Her kick to his testicles hadn't been mildly delivered either.

           
What
was
she? Every being he'd ever heard of had been exiled into Oblivion from fabled planes--places of extraordinary rumors that could never be true.

           
She might be an elemental fey who controlled lightning and utilized cloaking spells. But her ears weren't pointed. She could be a sorceress or a witch. He doubted she was the latter. Malkom had always heard that witches were toothless hags with black hearts, pitiless mercenaries who sold hexes.

           
Besides, if she could wield those kinds of powers, why hadn't she struck down the demons who'd initially captured her?

           
He began to suspect she'd had no power then, had leeched it from him, from his release--like a succubus.

           
With her beauty, she could certainly be one of that kind. If she was a succubus, she would weaken again, unless another demon inhabitant provided her with "nourishment." There were dozens more of them just beyond his mountain territory, all fugitives like him.

           
Another male touching what's mine.
The idea enraged him, and he ran even faster. Never would another know her perfect body.

           
And she was perfection. By the gods, she'd been blessed. Flashing green eyes. Buxom curves. Pale skin as soft as the priceless silk she wore. At the memory of her taste, he shuddered with pleasure.

           
Her blood had been like wine.

           
His wild search for her had almost taken his mind off his transgression this night. He'd drunk straight from a being. He was a vampire in body and spirit--because he could never go back. Malkom knew he could be satisfied only by drinking from her sweet skin every night.

           
Part of him blamed her for this fall, for making him lose control. After all, he'd never bitten another before her. Not even when the Viceroy willed it, trying to break him. The years of starvation, the torture.

           
In the end, Malkom's body had been naught but a husk.

           
He ruthlessly shoved those memories away, filling his mind with images of her. Yet then came the memory of those green eyes glinting with tears--or narrowed with disgust. Even if the female hadn't understood his words tonight, she'd understood his intent. But his mate had felt no answering frenzy for him.

           
Perhaps his dual nature had clouded her mind, dulling her inherent need for him. Mayhap she couldn't recognize in him the demon he used to be.

           
She'd
fought
him. In turn, he'd broken her bones. And now he hazily recalled that he hadn't merely pierced her neck.

           
Malkom had torn her skin.

           
He'd harmed the most precious thing he'd ever been given, a woman delivered unto him to safeguard.

           
Not to ravage.

           
Never could he have imagined that
both
his demon and vampire natures would rise to the fore. If he hadn't lost control and spent himself against her...

           
He understood why she'd run. Since she didn't recognize him as her mate, she believed him to be no different than the demons he'd saved her from. But Malkom
wasn't
like them.

           
Somehow he would have to convince her that as his mate, she was his chattel, and by claiming her he would merely be taking what already belonged to him.

           
But without speaking her language, he could never explain these things....

           
When the night began to wane, Malkom finally slowed. He gazed round him at the dust-blown wastelands, accepting that he might not find her before dawn.

           
So he decided he'd do whatever he could to ensure her safety.

           
To do what he did best.

           
When he scented the ghouls, he attacked with all the ferocity seething within him.

           
A growling sound woke Carrow the next morning. Her head jerked up--
has the vemon returned?
--but the noise had faded.

           
Probably her empty stomach.

           
She rubbed her gritty eyes with the heels of her palms, but she could see little of the area around her. Though the winds had died down, the smoke was still suffocating.

           
Gods, she was in a bad way, even more exhausted than before. Throughout the night, she'd dozed intermittently in an unsettling slumber, rife with dreams about Ruby and the lives waiting for them back home. She'd been on edge--ghouls had wailed, the sounds chilling her. Then near dawn, they'd abruptly ... stopped.

           
Carrow's stomach growled loudly, reminding her that no one was bringing gruel to her cell this morning--and that she hadn't really eaten in over a week. Her thirst was even worse, her mouth as dry as the swirling dust.

           
She rose with a grimace, her every muscle protesting. With her first step, the blisters riddling her feet threatened to burst. Her healing wrist ached, and smoke burned her eyes and nose.

           
Ignoring her discomfort, she set out, with no idea of where to go, intent only on sating her thirst and hunger. She figured she was s.o.l. on the former--short of locating the water mines. The ones guarded by Slaine.

           
But she had to try. Hours had passed since she'd had a drop of water, and last night she'd run for miles in this desert climate. Bad enough for anyone, but especially for Carrow, who hailed from a bayou city known for its moisture.

           
At every turn there, she was inundated with damp gulf breezes, pounding showers, or sultry humidity.

           
How Carrow yearned to get herself and Ruby back to the city! To return to their wonderful coven and an existence filled with friends, pranks, and revelry.

           
For most of her childhood, Carrow had been as good as alone, her neglectful mother and father showing no interest in her. Her toys had echoed in mausoleum-like mansions where "lowly" servants were forbidden to speak to her.

           
Then her parents had turned her over to the coven at Andoain, the hearth and home where she'd met her beloved mentor Elianna and eventually Mari--a place where Carrow had been enveloped by a sisterhood of witches, cherished and protected.

           
She desperately missed everyone, but especially Mari.

           
Though Mari was so full of power--more so than any other Wiccan--she couldn't use the majority of it without gazing into a mirror, her focusing tool. Only problem? Whenever she communed directly with a mirror, she accidentally mesmerized herself, unable to break her gaze.

           
Carrow had nicknamed her Glitch, short for
glass witch
.

           
The last time it'd happened, Mari had mesmerized herself so deeply that her Lykae husband had barely broken the enthrallment. Apparently, it'd been a bloody, grueling affair and far too close a call.

           
If Mari hadn't sent in the cavalry by now, then she wouldn't be able to help without going to the mirror. And if that was the case, then Carrow
hoped
no help was coming.

           
Don't do anything stupid, Glitch.

           
Wait ... had she heard that growling sound again? Not her stomach? The tiny hairs on her nape rose. She scanned around but couldn't see more than a few feet in any direction.
Keep moving
.

           
Her powers and her cloaking spell were already faltering, which meant that she was no longer invisible. The beasts she continued to hear could find her now. As could those ghouls.

           
Would that vampire demon search for her during the day, or would the dim sunlight be enough to confine him to the shadows?