Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (104 page)

I come to rest
on the ground
several yards away
from them.
My eyes narrow and
I growl, getting to my fee
t imme
diately. Brennus gently strokes
Evie’s
hair back from her forehead. I launch at Brennus, but he raises his hand. I’m knocked back again, com
ing to rest on the charred earth
once more.
When I rise, I come up short, my wings stretch out at full extension as I’m levitated o
ff the ground and held in stasis
as if I’m a specimen pinned to a matte.

Brennus smiles tauntingly.
“She has changed me,
aingeal
. Her blood is in me veins and it has protected me from her most lethal weapon—her incendiary nature.
’Tis da only way ye survived as well. Ye have her blood in ye.
I feel her power within me. Da energy she has released has rendered me stronger...she gave me a power-up
. Me magic works on ye now
,” Brennus finishes with a hint of awe in his tone.

“You’re becoming alive?” I ask, trying to distract him from Evie.

Brennus frowns. “I felt alive...for a moment, but it did na last.”

Find a way to break his spell then r
each in
side him
and pull out his spine. Crush him..
.

I soften my face, making it expressionless.
“Sh
e can try again—
” I say urgently, trying to find the persuasive
argument
that will stop him from sharing his blood with her.

His lips twist in desperation.
“She can na if she dies!
” Brennus growls.

“BRENNUS
!” I shout
in frustration
.

“I’
ll save her,
aingeal
. I’
ll make her strong again,” Brennus says
.
Click
, his fangs engage and he uses them to tear open his flesh. H
e lets his dark blood well up.

I pull with all my strength
agai
nst the force that holds me aloft. P
ain
doesn’t deter
me;
it makes all of this more real
.
It
increases my
determination
to get to her
. “You’
ll lose what you love the most! She won’t be the sa
me without her soul! You’ll destroy
the
only
part of her that
truly loves you.
..”

He hol
ds his bleeding wrist
above Evie’s lip
s
, but he pauses. I see him stiffen and
I hold my breath
. His hand begins to tremble as his jaw tightens.

Convince him not to kill her.
In a soft tone I say,
“You will have a lovely shell of her, but her
soul will no longer be yours. S
he will belong to Sheol for eternity...”

A
groan
filled with agony
comes from Brennus. His w
rist twitches and I flinch
like a knife cut
. After a moment,
he drops his bloody wrist from Evie and clutches her
limp form
to him.

“Why ca
n
I na do it?” Brennus spits
out in torment
. “Why can I na turn her?”

Relief makes my neck bend and my head hang
forward. “You love her soul
—willing or not. Her soul
has been rooting for you—
for your redemption.”

“Dere is no redemption for me, ye know dat,” Brennus says the first thing that I can agree to.

“
I know
,” I say without hesitation.

“She d
oes na accept dat,” he says.

“No,” I agree.

“I can na let her go,” Brennus says, waveringly.
“She has ta stay on dis side of eternity.
Immortality is a curse wi’out her...
”

My e
yes flare wide
as fear explode
s in me that he will change his mind again
.
I struggle for a way to save my angel.
Brennus is th
e only other being to share my
fears of immortality after her loss...

“
Give her
back
to
me and I will take her to Russell—the other
,
”
I say urgently
.
Brennus’ response is to clu
t
ch h
er tighter.
“
He can save her
—it’s the only way
!”

“Da other,” Brennus murmurs. Pu
re malice etches his face for a moment as he battles himself. He’s struggling over the extreme
torture of losing her again:
handing her back to me. I have
no
altruistic
feelings
for him,
even
having felt the same when I had to leave Evi
e with him.

He must die...soon
.
My need to crush him is a palatable thing.

“Russell
is exactly like her—
she healed me, he can heal her.” I wait, unable to breathe. I watch Evie’s face
:
he
r
eyes remai
n closed, her brow unfurled. B
lood drips openly from her wounds, like the ticking of time.
Tick, tick, tick...

“
He’
s weak,” Brennus says dismissively.

I shake my head.
“Russell
’s strong—that’s why you wanted
her to deliver him to you. He’
ll save her,” I state with absolute certainty.
“
He’ll make her stronger. She’ll be able to defeat Sheol.
If you let Sheol ha
ve Evie’s soul
now
, then it’s ove
r
—h
er innocence will
be tied to the damned. One day
you m
ay have to look upon her soul—
when it again comes in search of the body fr
om which you
separated
it. She’
ll
bring all of the Fallen with her
.” I taste bile on my tongue as I show him the future
I fear
the most.
“You now have the means to keep her with you without turning her
. Your magic is immense. You’l
l find a way to have her without losing her soul once she’s healed.
”

Brennus falters, his eyebrows knitting together. “
I’
ll na lose
any part of
her ta dem,
” Brennus says in a tormented voice.
He st
r
okes her wing lovingly. Then he bends close to her and whispers, “Ye’re me only love...so ye can na die. I’ll come for ye,
mo
chroí
, after da other makes ye well again. Do na get comfortable wi’ da
aingeal
...he’s na for ye.
I’m still yer king.”

He
waves his white hand and
removes
the invisible force that holds me aloft and I instantly fall to the ground
. I’
m next to them in a second, extending my arms to take Evie
back
from
his. Gin
gerly, Brennus relinquishes her
to me.
Immedi
ately, something eases in my chest
, an ache around my heart is soothed for a moment.
Brennus’
face becomes ashen,
more
from
her
loss
than
from his undeath.
Pain shines in his eyes.
The orbs of light above us dim, like I’ve taken his power from him, too.

Yes. Suffer.

Brennus swallows hard.
“Find da other quickly,” he orders
. He pulls an ebony brooch
pinned to a black ribbon
from a pocket. “Dis wil
l bring
ye ta h
im...if he still lives. ’Tis da
portal she had wi’ her. Dis will lead ta where dey planned ta meet.”

When he hands me the brooch, h
e grimaces
with anguish
and balls his
hands into
fist
s
.
“Do na let her die
or I will kill ye slowly
. I’ll be around ta collect her soon.”

I don’t assuage his fear.
“I’ll end
you when you come
,” I promise him.

Hi
s smile is sinister. “Ye’
ll try,” he says as I open the portal and
Evie and I
begin to distort
.

A pull begins in the pit of my stomach, interrupting for a moment the flutter of butterflies that I have there. I jerk forward with Evie
pressed
to me and w
e
surge
and contort
to fit into
the po
rtal. Once inside, d
ark walls swirl by
silently
. T
he
ebony
stone is
lined with v
eins
of mother-of-
pearl
;
it
shimmers like the inside of a seashell.
Brighter light appears ahead and
I
instinctively
protect Evie’s body with my own as we near the threshold
.
Emerging from the portal, Evie and
I spill out upon the
floor of the m
edia room.
I flinch as my new skin breaks open in places and begins to bleed.
The
pop
in my ear
s is my auditory
canals
adjust
ing
to the pressure in
the room
and everything is incredibly
loud once more
.

Anya gasps from her seat on the wide leather sofa; the soft blanket around her shoulders slips from her as her hand comes up to cover her parted lips. Russel
l, seated next to her, has
his
elbows resting on his thigh
s with
his
head cradled in both of his hands
. He looks up when
I
try to rise from the floor with Evie’s still body resting against my chest.

Russell
leaps to his
feet
, yelling, “
ZEE
!”

My cheek rests against th
e hardwood
as I
orient myself. Tremors of pounding feet coming toward me vibrate
the floor. Evie’s head is pressed tightly to my chest;
I would pull her inside of me and have my heart beat for us both if I could.
Russell looks confused as he stands over me. He doesn’t know where it’s okay to touch me to help me to rise.

Never having been much
acquainted
with the word “help” I’m unable to say it even now. I do what I always
do when the day has shown me it
s worst: I make do.
I manage to stagger
t
o my feet with Evie in my arms, but I do it clumsily.

Buns, standing at the window
, takes a step back from us in shock. Her hand reaches fo
r the silken drapery as she steadies
herself. Evie and I
must look f
r
ightening to her
and the irony in that hits me: she is a Reaper who now fears
our
death
s
. We must resemble the dead.
My skin is red and raw,
peeling
off of me in places where it’s regenerating. My wings are molting, shedding charred fea
t
hers as new ones replace t
hem. Evie is so pale and blood-soaked
that it appears that there can be no way that she st
ill lives.
But she does. I
can
finally hear her heart beating
...
th-thump...thump...th-th
ump...thum
p
...it’s very faint, but it’s there.
It falls
between the cracks in my heart,
helping me to control my
panic as
that
raging fear
tries
to control me
.