Octavian's Undoing (Sons of Judgment) (69 page)

He welcomed her there, wrapping his arms around her middle. He nuzzled her hair, inhaling the scent of her floral shampoo and of soap and her own fragrance dusting her skin. She smelled warm and inviting.

“Did I interrupt important man talk?” she asked, smiling, but there was uncertainty in her eyes.

“Uh no, I was just beating the pants off Reggie,” Gideon said, flipping another card down on the pile. Octavian had a feeling no one was paying attention to the game anymore, or Reggie would have noticed he’d won.

“Oh,” she said, leaning back against Octavian’s chest.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against her shoulder. She set her hands over the ones he had folded on her abdomen.

No. There was no way he’d survive if something happened to her. She was the reason his entire world was still in one piece. The reason he’d lived so long. It had nothing to do with immortality. He’d been waiting for her. The thought of losing her was a fate worse than death. He couldn’t even imagine the possibility without being paralyzed by an overwhelming surge of rage and grief. There was no doubt about it. He would do anything, kill anyone, to keep her alive and with him.

“I’m going to Baron.” The words blurted out of him before it even registered that he’d been thinking it.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Gideon roared.

“Octavian, no!” Riley gasped, twisting her body in his lap to peer into his face. “I won’t let you.”

He captured the hand she’d rested on his cheek and brought it to his lips. He kissed the heel and looked into her eyes. “There is no other option. He’s the only one who can keep you alive now.”

“No!” Fear darkened her eyes. “You can’t trust him. He’ll ask for your pelt and I won’t give it. I won’t. I don’t care if I die.”

Desperation and self-loathing at the sight of her tears clashed through him. “He’s our only hope,” he said harshly, needing to remain firm about this. “He’s the only one left that can…” With a growl he nudged her off his lap and shot to his feet. He paced several feet away, stopped, whirled around to face the eyes watching him. But it was Riley he saw, only her and the terror in her wet eyes as she clutched his pelt to her chest. “I can’t think of anything else because there is nothing else. It’s him or nothing and if they kill you, Riley, they’re going to have to kill both of us because I’m not living a single day without you. Call me stupid and selfish, but there it is. I will die for you. I will kill for you. I will do whatever I have to, right or wrong, to never lose you and I’m doing this. I’m going.”

With a sob, she closed the distance between them at a run and threw herself into his arms. She held him so tight, he couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t care. He scooped her into his arms, lifting her off the ground and crushing her to him.

“I love you,” he growled into her shoulder. “And I swore that I would do everything in my power to protect you.”

“Well, you won’t be alone,” Magnus said, getting to his feet. “If you’re going, I’m going.”

Gideon shot to his feet. “Underworld road trip! I’m so in.”

Reggie tossed down his cards. “I guess I’m in.” He looked up and grinned. “Someone has to keep you jackasses out of trouble.”

Sniffling, Riley pulled back. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m coming. I’m coming!” she said louder over the shouts of protest. Her red eyes bore into his. “If you think this will work, then I want to be there with you.”

He touched the side of her face and smoothed his thumb over the curve of her cheek. “It won’t be safe for you.”

Her eyes narrowed, flashing with warning. “If I don’t go, you don’t go.”

Chest swelling with pride, he kissed her. “How can I refuse an offer like that?”

She smiled, touching the side of his face with the back of her knuckles. “You can’t.”

“What’s going on, Octavian?” his father asked as they all gathered in the parlor. The bar was closed, the last applicant gone for the night. His parents looked exhausted, but curious as they watched their eldest pace in front of the fireplace.

“You’re making me nervous,” his mother said, reaching for his father’s hand.

Octavian stopped and turned to the group. “I’m going to make a bargain with Baron for Riley’s life,” he said firmly. As he’d expected, his parents took this about as well as a normal parent would if their child told them they were dropping out of school and joining a motorcycle gang. But he silenced them with a single raised hand. “I’ve already made up my mind. It’s the only way I can protect her.”

“You can’t trust Baron,” his mother said, as white as a sheet. “He’ll take more than what he’s giving. Please just wait—”

“I can’t wait,” Octavian said. “Riley only has one more day and we all know the Summit will not agree to let her live. She goes against the treaty and they will use that excuse to annihilate her. I need to have something in place to stop them when that happens.”

“Riley? What do you say about this?” his father asked, turning his eyes to the quiet figure sitting in the armchair facing the fire.

“I think he’s insane,” she said, eyes shadowed by sadness. “He won’t listen to reason.”

“Octavian, please,” his mother pleaded. “Liam, say something.”

His father studied Riley for a long while before he shook himself to respond. “I understand.”

“What?” his mother exclaimed, horrified. “Liam—”

He took her hand and rubbed it lightly between both of his. “How can I ask him not to when I would do the same were I in his position? She is his mate and we can’t ask him not do what he can to protect her.”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s going to be okay, Mom,” Reggie said from the sofa. “We’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything too stupid.”

His mother’s eyes widened. “We—?”

“Would you like me to join you?” his father asked.

Octavian shook his head. “I need to do this alone.” He waved an arm towards his brothers and Riley. “They refuse to listen to reason.”

“Look who’s talking,” Gideon said.

“Be careful,” his father said. “Listen to every word he says carefully before you answer and give him nothing you’re not willing to pay.”

“Gideon?” Riley took Gideon’s arm as everyone filed out of the parlor. “I need to talk to you.”

Octavian turned, puzzled as Riley and Gideon walked away from the group, heads close together. But he let them go. He had his own preparing to do and he would ask Riley later.

They made the trip just before dawn when the rest of the world was still steeped in shadows and dreams. They kissed their parents goodbye, piled into Octavian’s Lexus and drove through the deserted streets in the direction of what may wind up being their doom.

In the seat next to him, Riley sat huddled in her bulky coat, a scarf fastened tight around the lower half of her face, a safety precaution, she’d said. Afraid she might lunge out of the moving car at the first hint of human flesh, Octavian hadn’t argued.

He reached across the console and rescued her wrist from the anxious rubbing of her fingers. Gently, he rubbed the fingers even if there was no circulation.

“All right?” he murmured, never taking his eyes from the road.

She seemed to sink lower into her seat. She shook her head. “No.” It was barely a whisper, but he heard it.

“It’s going to be okay,” he told her, needing to believe he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life.

She turned her hand and laced her fingers through his. She raised it and brought the back of his to rest against her cheek. She said nothing else.

He pulled the car over in front of a bricked building with gleaming bay windows and an aura of evil all around it. He cut the engine, but remained in the car. He turned in his seat to face his brothers in the backseat.

“Is there any chance you’ll stay in the car?”

With snorts, they threw open their doors and rolled out. Octavian sighed as he followed suit. Riley was on the sidewalk already when he rounded the car to her side. She stood studying the loopy, gold font embedded into the window.

“Baron Legal Office,” she read out loud. “He’s a lawyer?”

Gideon moved to yank open the glass door. “Even demons need to make a living you know. A demon and a lawyer aren’t so far apart on the career spectrum.”

Riley just shook her head as she followed everyone into the dark office. Octavian moved to stand behind her, eyes narrowed for even the slightest movement.

Magnus took lead, working his way around the neatly furnished office with its single sofa in cream, glass coffee table lined with magazines and water paintings of the ocean and sailboats hanging on the wall. They bypassed a metal desk towards the narrow hallway behind it. It was lined with three doors. One was a bathroom, one was a storage closet and the third one opened into an enormous penthouse apartment overlooking the city. Everything was a blinding, white which made the wall to wall windows and the blue skies beyond it, a harsh contrast.

“Well, I’m officially creeped out,” Gideon said. “Nothing says Hell like white.”

Everyone ignored him as they shuffled deeper into the apartment.

There was a small sitting area on the right and a bar/kitchen on the left. Everything else sat on a curve, like the apartment was actually designed in a circle. Octavian didn’t know what to make of it, nor did he have time to sort it out when the shuffle of feet had him going for his angelic blade strapped to his belt.

The woman who flounced out in towering red heels was stunning with blonde hair pulled up in some fancy knot on top of her head. She wore red glasses that were shaped like cat eyes and scarlet lipstick that matched her glasses and her shoes. The rest of it was a knee length black skirt and a white silk blouse with black polka dots. She held a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other.

“Five to see Mr. Baron?” she asked in a no nonsense tone as she took them in with cool disinterest.

“Uh…” Gideon glanced at his group, glanced back at the woman who was clearly a she-demon judging from the long, red tail poking out from the slit in her skirt. “Yeah, I guess so.”

She scribbled this down on her clipboard. “Follow me please.”

Exchanging glances, they followed her and her swaying and twitching tail towards the bar and around the bend towards a door. She knocked twice before reaching for the doorknob. She turned it and poked her head inside.