Sacrifice (Gryphon Series) (10 page)

Gabe
caught her around the waist and hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Yes, we can. She’s got this. Call it butt-kicking therapy.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I brought my head up as the first demon
—the other land shark looking for a little payback—attacked. I whipped the mace over my head and brought it down into the shark’s belly. With a
huff
it toppled over. Going with the momentum, I spun on a rapidly approaching grey-skinned Sparky dude. This time I opted for the axe and severed his legs at the knee. His black lips curled back from rotted teeth as he screamed and fell to the ground. Sparks shot from his fingers while he writhed in the sand. Before I could finish him off, a lasso of fire circled the wrist of my axe wielding hand and yanked it back. My skin scorched, but I didn’t loosen my grip. Instead I swung the mace with every ounce of strength I had. His flaming skull splintered and he crumbled into ash. The rancid breath of the charging Bat-bulls stung my nostrils. I responded by twisting into a low kick. One got his legs knocked out from under him while his friend took an axe to the gut. For good measure, I went ahead and relieved the downed Bat-bull of his head.

Ash blew through the air
as I rose to my feet among the carnage. Four remained. Three lightning, and one rather nervous looking fire demon.

“
You seem hesitant.” Ash scorched my throat and turned my voice into a deep growl even I didn’t recognize. “Maybe you’d like it if we evened the odds a little bit?”

I
flung the axe behind me without even a backward glance. It embedded between the eyes of the injured lightning demon with a sickening
thunk
.

Kendall grimaced.
“Well, that was gross and unnecessary.”

The
desire for my blood reached a feverish level for the three remaining lightning demons. Anger sparked from them in a visible charge. The fire demon, however, inched away. His empty eye sockets were fixated on the broad sword on my hip.

I reached across my body and pulled the blade out just enough to expose the shine of
its metal. “Is this what’s bothering you? Think I need to lose this one, too?”

His flaming bone skull tilted to the side
. Daring me. Taunting me. Then he slowly nodded.

“Fair enough.” The sword hissed out of the leather holster and winged through the air. A fresh round of ash exploded as the deadly steel sliced
the fire demon’s skull in two.

“Nice!” Gabe marveled.

“That wasn’t nice!” Keni squealed and shielded her eyes. “That was, like, the exact opposite of nice!”

Blue e
lectricity snapped around me. The last three demons moved in wearing identical sneers. The Dark Army must teach a class to achieve such precision—Sneering 101. I took a deep breath and embraced all the pain and agony festering inside me. I owned it. Let it rule me. Then swung. A scream tore from my chest as I lashed the mace through all three of them with one superhuman strike. The mace entered the rib cage of the first, and exited the shoulder blade of the last.

Ash
danced in the wind. The demons’ lifeless bodies slumped to the ground and dissolved into goo. My chest rose and fell as I surveyed the remnants of my slaughter. I knew it was twisted, but I was sad it was over. The momentary reprieve I had hoped this would provide never came.

The mace slid
from my fingers and thumped into the sand. “ … And then there were none.”

CHAPTER
TWELVE

I had a key to this particular door, but raised my hand to knock anyway. Before my fist made contact with the sage green door it flew open. A disheveled Rowan leaned against the frame. His golden hair was a ruffled mess, his black shirt completely unbuttoned. The dirty jeans he wore hung low enough to reveal the rise of his hipbones.

“Well, if it isn’t the Black Widow,” he slurred. “A lad falls for you and
then disappears into oblivion.” He tipped up a long-necked beer bottle and poured the amber liquid into his mouth then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Guess I should thank you for choosing him over me, aye?”

“I take it you heard
.”

His
hair fell across his forehead in a way that gave him an air of approachability—like a little boy. Of course his personality counteracted that right quick.

“Heard? No.”
He leaned forward as if to whisper a secret but failed to lower his voice. “We demons can sometimes sense each other. And yesterday I was just sitting around, minding me own business,” beer sloshed out of the bottle as he gestured with it, “entertaining myself with a very lovely and flexible gymnast, when—
poof
! I actually felt Cal vanish. One second his presence is there, the next gone without a trace.” He pointed at me with the top of his beer bottle. “I’m guessing
you
had everything to do with that.”

“You know
exactly what I did and why.” I crinkled my nose. “Are you aware you smell like a brewery?”

Rowan pushed off the
doorframe and stumbled back into the apartment. I assumed the fact that he left the door wide open acted as my invitation to enter.

“
There’s a very good reason for that. You see, in between plotting your doom and mourning the loss of me mate, I’ve been reacquainting myself with the wonders of ale. It’s a wonderful beverage. I really don’t know why the Countess prohibits it.”

I stepped inside and froze.
Caleb’s black motorcycle jacket with the silver stripes down the sleeves hung on a hook in the hall. My breath caught. If Rowan wasn’t there I probably would’ve ripped that thing off the wall, thrown it on the ground, and rolled around on it like a dog just because it smelled like Caleb.

I blinked hard to regain focus
. “You’ve been plotting my doom?”

Rowan pushed an empty pizza box aside to allow himself room to collapse on the ugly plaid couch
. “Aye. Since you took away the closest thing I’ve had to family in centuries, I’ve thought of little else than how to properly pay ya back. But as I’m currently seein’ three of you, it may not be the best time to act on such impulses. I’d hate to kill the wrong one and anger the other two.”

I cleared
off a spot amongst the beer bottles and food wrappers to sit down on the dark oak coffee table. With my elbows resting on my knees I leaned toward Rowan. “And what if I were to tell you I came here to ask for your help?”

The pretty-boy pirate nearly choked on his beer. He sat up
a second before it came out of his nose. “I’d say my days of helping
you
passed about forty-eight hours ago. Unless you have a nagging death wish I can help with. As soon as I sleep this off I would
gladly
help with that.”

“No
. Actually I have an idea that would make
both
of us feel better.”

Rowan
ran his fingers through his hair and attempted a leer that probably would’ve been sexy about seven beers ago. “Oh … I see what this is.”

“I really don’t think you do.
”

He
leaned
way
too far into my personal space to reach around me—so close that his hair tickled my cheek. I flinched and backed away, mostly from the beer stench. When he pulled back he had a remote in his hand and used it to click the stereo to life. Maroon 5 flooded the room proudly proclaiming their Jagger-like moves.

Rowan bit his lower lip and bobbed to the music
. “Boyfriend’s barely gone two days and already you need a rebound tumble? Much as I hate you, I might be
just
drunk enough for that.”

I snatched the remote from him and rounded the table
in a flash to snap the radio off. Distance between Mr. Rebound and me suddenly seemed crucial. “Whoa! There will be no tumbling!”

“Your loss,” he
muttered with a noncommittal shrug.

I inhaled a cleansing breath and
tried another approach with the obtuse pirate—the blatant, ugly truth. “Okay, here’s the thing. I can’t breathe. Can’t … think. With Caleb gone I’m … broken.” I stared down at my hands and fiddled with my ring. The hole through my center caused by the loss of him began to gush, spewing its painful nastiness everywhere. I couldn’t stop it if I tried. “I know you miss him, Rowan. He was your brother and I took him from you. For that I am so, so sorry. You have to believe me when I say I was trying to protect him. As much as it hurts, I can live knowing he’s out there somewhere, safe. But if he stayed and got killed because of me, because of what I am, I couldn’t live with that. If you need to hate me, I can accept that. Hell
, I
hate me right now. But I’m asking you to put that aside and help me. Please. I have a job to do, a pretty friggin’ important one. But I can’t function to do it when all I can think about is how much I miss him.”

My chin quivered
, but I clenched my jaw and refused to let myself cry in front of him. “It’s literally killing me. I’m asking you to please take it away. Just for a little while. Use your ability to give me a few moments peace. Please?”

My plea seemed to clear away a bit of his fog. Clarity sharpened those
turquoise eyes. He rose from the couch and walked to me. His arms hung to his sides in a pointed message that he had no intention of giving me what I yearned for. “And why would I help you? Give me one reason not to let you stew in your own misery. Because from where I’m standing, poppet, you deserve to.”

I squared my shoulders and met his gaze directly
. “Because I’m the only one that can give it back to you.”

His forehead creased
in confusion. “What?”

“Do you remember on Liberty Island?
The urgency to get to Caleb? I gave you that. I’m empathic.”

Rowan’s head tipped back
. He gazed at me down the bridge of his nose. A blend of hope and doubt swirled in his eyes.

“I know you’re hurting. But you can’t use your mind control on yourself to dull the pain
.” I jabbed my thumb at the bottles strewn everywhere. “Hence the drinking binge. But if you help me—offer me a little relief—I can give it back to you. We can both get a temporary reprieve from our emotion.”

Rowan stood silent, a maneuver I didn’t know him to be capable of. His face
went slack from any and all emotion. No one can manage a poker face like a drunken pirate. The wait lingered on long enough that I began to anticipate him telling me where I could shove my empathic ability while he cracked another beer.

Then
, his hand closed around mine. For the first time since waking up alone in Ireland the pain eased and I could breathe.

Part Two

C
HAPTER THIRTEEN

Six months later

I unsheathed my dragon’s tooth dagger in mid-stride and twirled the blade around my fingers once before letting the mother of pearl grip settle into my grasp.

“Great job on that
Kepac demon, Celeste, but there are two more up ahead,” Bernard’s voice chimed in my head, a fun little spell he used to make my fights more efficient.

Between a
Gryphon who read my mind at will and a gnome that chattered away in my brain my head felt like a very crowded place as of late.

“Gabe has one pinned. Kendall is doing her best to keep the other at bay.
They’re right on the border of town, so keep this fight tight and quiet.”

“No sweat, Bernie.” I pumped my arms and zigzagged through the trees. He wasn’t kidding about being close to town. Through the break in the trees I
could see the parking lot lights of Big Al’s Grocery Store.

I swiped at a wall of foliage with my readied blade and broke into the scene of the battle. A barrel roll over Gabe-lion’s back got me in
to position to shove Kendall aside and sink the dagger into the belly of the Kepac.

“Thanks, Cee
,” she murmured and wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. “I couldn’t have kept him off Gabe much longer.”

“No worries.
” I shrugged and tucked the dagger into the back waistband of my cut-off sweats. The balmy Tennessee summer required a “less is more” philosophy for fighting attire.

I nudged Gabe’s tawny hide with my knee. Topaz feline eyes flicked my way
and a challenging snarl rumbled through his teeth.

“Easy, kitty. You know the drill.”

Gabe huffed, but relented. He kept his weight on the demon until I stepped up, put my foot on its throat and called on my telekinesis to pin its body to the ground. A nod to Gabe and he slunk off to scour the darkness for any further threats.

I tilted my head
and peered down at my captive. FYI, Kepac demons? Not cute. They’re known for their lower lip that’s roughly the size of a dinner plate and has a rhinoceros tusk jutting out of it. That’s a hard flaw to look past.