Octavian's Undoing (Sons of Judgment) (52 page)

It was difficult to tell with the shadow of his Stetson falling over his eyes, but she could have sworn his eyebrow lifted in mock interest. “Dead men don’t kill.”

Trembling uncontrollably, Riley stared at the hulk of a man looming over her. “You’re lying.”

“Whose blood do you think I’m wearing?” His smirk widened. “It looks good on me, doesn’t it?”

No. No. No. No! Not Octavian. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. She would have felt it. She would know.

A cold, brittle sound filled the air. Nauseous and certain she was about to faint, Riley blinked up at the shadowed face above her and was surprised to find that the sound was him… laughing. The disturbing sight of his teeth, jagged and razor sharp leered back at her, crooked and stained with blood. Octavian’s blood.

Her stomach roiled. The world went fuzzy around the edges, beckoning her into the darkness. But she shoved both desires away as she hoisted herself up onto her feet, using the counter as leverage. If she was going to die, she wasn’t going to do it at the monster’s feet.

He let her rise, saying nothing, but watching her the way a cruel child would a moth he’d snapped the legs off of.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded, keeping a white knuckled grip on the table.

He jerked a shoulder. “Boredom.”

Anger had her knees trembling. “You murdered my family because you were bored?”

He emanated an annoyed sigh. “When you’ve lived for as long as I have, you learn to take pleasure in the smaller things.”

“You’re a monster!” she spat at him.

“Now don’t go flattering me. I’m still going to kill you.”

She said nothing, but kept her gaze pinned on him, letting him see every ounce of hatred boiling up inside her.

“Ready to die, little girl?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to bite her, but this was probably one of those times when he might take her literally and scared witless or not, she really did not want to die. Nevertheless, she was not going to beg either. So, she opted to say nothing and let her burning gaze convey the message for her — drop dead. The creature opened his mouth and laughed.

In a move Riley would never have seen coming, his long, frigid fingers closed around her windpipe, locking all paths to her lungs. She was hefted off the ground by one hand and slammed down on the preparation table. The wood gouged into her shoulder blade, sending a riot of pain down her back as she tore at the hand with her nails. She kicked and punched. No way was she going down without a fight. She would hurt him, even if it was a little, even if he healed and never remembered her again. She would fight him. She would show him that, although she was nowhere near as strong as him, she wasn’t weak.

“Yessss,” he hissed, tightening his hold until her lips tingled and her eyes threatened to pop out of her skull. “Fight. I love when they fight. I love watching the fire die from their eyes.”

No! I won’t die here!

It took all her strength to fumble along the table beneath her for something, anything, she could use as a weapon. Somewhere at the back of her mind, somewhere behind the screaming voices, there was a spark of understanding that if she could just get him off her, she could run. It was that voice she clung to.

“Such a waste killing something so tasty,” he was saying when she focused. “But orders are orders and mine are to kill you.”

“W… who…?” she croaked.

He said nothing and Riley could no longer stand the lack of oxygen to care. Her boots skid off the table with every violent kick. The thudding clashed with the crash of her heart in her chest. The stench of rot burned the skin on her cheeks and the curled her nostrils hairs. Her eyes began to water. The foul odor intensified as his maw opened wider, exposing his canines. Her head was jerked back by the hairs on her crown, exposing her bobbing jugular.

Oh God, she was going to die!

Riley squished her eyes shut, focusing on Octavian’s face. The last sight she wanted to remember in the afterlife was jagged teeth. She wanted to remember Octavian’s beautiful eyes and his breathtaking smile and the way his hair glinted in the light. She wanted his laugh and the sound of his baritone voice to be the soundtrack in her ear for the rest of her hereafter.

Damn it. I didn’t tell him I loved him.
And now it was too late.

“Hey!”

The voice was the thing of angels. Riley had never in her life been so relieved to hear anything, even if it was slightly unfamiliar. But at that moment, her own voice sounded unfamiliar in her ears as she gasped, choking on the razor sharp bits of serrated blade embedded into every gulp of air as the noose around her throat loosened. Somehow, she managed to roll off the table, landing with an excruciating thud on her injured shoulder. Her scream of pain was swallowed by the grunts and groans only feet away.

Above her, she was vaguely aware of bodies slamming into each other. Something struck the preparation table, sending everything on top teetering to the ground, nearly impaling Riley with a carving knife.

Riley stared at it as it struck the ground inches from her nose, disgusted.
Where the fuck were you when I needed you?

Rather than waste time waiting for an answer that would never come, Riley pulled herself together and pushed up with her good arm. Her insides rebelled, roiling, making her want to curl back up on the cold floor. But there was no time for that either. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth, collecting tears, snot and blood that she wiped dismissively on her coat. Then, with the hand that wasn’t throbbing like someone had replaced the bone with a white hot branding iron, she reached for the blade. Maybe it was because she wasn’t left handed, but the thing weighed a ton in her grasp. She nearly dropped it once before she caught it clumsily and staggered to her feet.

Valkyrie had the creature in a fierce and impressive power hold. Their fingers, hers slender and delicate, his large and bloody, were interlocked as they fought to throw the other off. The creature was winning. He had Valkyrie backed into the counter, nearly crushing her as he bore down. His back was to Riley, giving her the perfect advantage.

“Run you idiot!” Valkyrie snarled, giving Riley’s perfect advantage away in a hand basket.

The creature, having now realized Riley was up and armed, shoved Valkyrie with a force that should have shattered every bone in her perfect body into the wall. Valkyrie struck and bounced off like a ragdoll, landing in a heap on the ground and leaving Riley completely at the creature’s mercy.

“Do you honestly think you can kill me with that?” he mocked, moving fluidly towards her.

Riley tightened her grip on the plastic grip. “I’m going to bloody try!” she answered, feeling much braver than she ought to.

The creature wheezed his raspy laugh. “Mated to a Caster and yet you know nothing of my kind.” He backed Riley into the counter behind her. “You can’t kill me with a mortal weapon, foolish girl.”

Yeah, that was probably something Octavian should have mentioned,
she mused silently.

The blade was wrenched free of her grasp and twisted around so the sharp point was tucked beneath her chin. It happened so fast, Riley didn’t even have time to blink.

He smirked at her stunned expression. “If a room full of Casters couldn’t succeed in killing me, what makes you think you can?”

“Because I have an angelic weapon!”

The sleek, silver dagger pierced through the creature’s left shoulder, protruding through his chest. The thing howled, whirling around, arm swinging. But he seemed slower in his movement. Valkyrie nimbly ducked the blow, coming up with an uppercut that snapped the creature’s head back. She whirled on her towering boots and planted the rubber sole grips straight in the creature’s gut, sending him flying across the room as though she’d kicked a kitten.

She paused for only a split second to pin Riley with a stare that could kill a bear. “Get your ass out of here. Now!” Then she stomped to where the creature lay in a tangle of arms and legs and the folds of his crumpled duster. His hat had flown off and he didn’t look so frightening now with Valkyrie standing like an Amazon over him.

Riley took the command as directed. She ran through the kitchen doors into an absolute nightmare.

There was blood everywhere, blood and the fallen bodies of everyone she loved. They lay crumpled, in awkward angles, across the floors. Reggie was the only one slumped back against the bar, head lulling to the side, blood trickling down the corner of his mouth and drenching his clothes. Gideon was face down on the stage, a spray of blood dripping down the wall above him. Liam was on his back with Kyaerin only a foot away from him, curled onto her side as though sleeping. Riley would have believed it if it weren’t for the thick puddle beneath her from the dark stain in her side.

Riley stumbled back, her hands flying up to cover her face, but the horror had forever imprinted into the back of her eyelids. A sob lodged in her throat. She choked on it, gasping as she turned, searching, but not wanting to, not wanting to see… too late. She found him. She took three steps past the counter and there he was, facedown, unmoving, covered in blood. It matted his hair and clothes. It glowed angry against his skin.

“No… no… no!” She had no idea she’d made a sound until the low, tortured whine drummed in her ears, momentarily muffling the buzz already residing there.

As though her mind no longer controlled her body, it moved without any consent from her brain. It shuffled over to his prone body and dropped, bruising both knees, but not caring. Hands that had been hers her entire life felt foreign as they turned him over.

He was pale, all the gold leached from his skin. Blood stained his face, splashing up from the four claw marks running from left shoulder to right waist. His hands were raw, the knuckles torn and pulled back from bone. There was a cut running lengthwise across his cheek, but it was shallow.

“Octavian?” Her voice sounded small and pathetic even to her own ears.

Her hands reached for him, planted on his chest. She shook him like maybe that might wake him up. Not even the flutter of an eyelash.

“Octavian!” She shook him harder, fisting his shirt now and using her entire weight. “Don’t you dare die on me! Don’t you dare!”

Sniveling, she swiped impatiently at the tears tracking down her cheeks with a bloodstained hand. It left a streak of crimson across her ashen face. She didn’t notice. Desperate, she bent down, pressing her ear to his chest, held her breath, closed her eyes and listened.

“Riley?”

The familiar voice nearly sent her clean out of her skin. She jumped so high, she lost her balance and toppled over in her haste to see who had snuck up on her.

There, haloed by the light spilling through open doorway behind her, Daphne stared at her, gray eyes enormous against her pale face.

Stunned into silence, Riley was never given a chance to say a word when a crash resounded from the kitchen, followed by more thuds and a groan. Any hopes that Daphne may have missed that evaporated when the other girl’s jaw dropped. Her eyes darted over the room, taking in the blood and bodies. What little color she’d possessed washed out so quickly, Riley feared she might faint.

“Daph—”

The kitchen door flew open and Valkyrie charged out, two silver daggers in each hand, looking ferocious and scary as all hell in her leather getup.

“Fucker bolted,” she snarled, kicking the counter viciously with the toe of her boot. “Typical coward.” Her blue eyes jumped from Riley huddled next to Octavian’s unmoving body to the open doorway and a petrified Daphne. They bulged a second before they seemed to ignite with fury. “Another fucking human? Are you fucking kidding me? How the… oh you run and I’ll kill you!” she hissed when Daphne looked about ready to bolt. “Who the hell are you?”

“So in the wrong place…” Daphne moaned, but at least she made no move to run.

Riley was pretty certain Valkyrie wasn’t joking about killing her, even if it was forbidden for a Caster to kill humans. The girl looked about ready to tear the head off a kitten if it pissed her off. But at that moment, Riley didn’t care about anything but bringing Octavian back.

“Do something,” she pleaded to the girl. “Forget her!” she snapped when Valkyrie opened her mouth. “Please…” She dropped filmy eyes to Octavian’s face. “Don’t let him die. I’ll do any…” she broke off with a sob.