Remy’s gaze followed Erin’s mad dance around the clearing, searching for any sign that she might simply be off her rocker or so drugged she’d lost her mind.
“She might still be in there and the presence of the fehin are masking her aura…or whatever.” There were many life forms in the ocean that lived various states of symbiosis. Parasites who were beneficial to the host.
“I’m telling you she’s gone. There’s nothing we can do for her.”
“We can’t leave her here.”
“If we waste time on Erin, we risk losing Tasha, as well. We’ve got to do what we can and fast.”
In some part of his brain, Remy knew Lilith was right. Erin’s body moved as if plucked randomly by invisible wires, but worst of all, there was no light in her eyes. They stared in one direction; fixed and oddly pale, no matter which way the fehin tossed the body.
“Come on, Remy, do you think you can go sideways?”
“Yeah.”
“Go in and get Tasha.”
“What about you?”
“Just take care of Tasha. When you get out, follow me. I’ll leave a trail even a blind were could follow.”
“I don’t like this,” he growled.
“You wanted me to trust you. Now it’s your turn.”
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lilith ran up the trail to the cave, pushing faster and harder, pushing until her legs burned. She wasn’t afraid of being followed by fehin, and for once she wasn’t afraid of being chased by weres. She was counting on them to pick up her trail.
All she could think about was Gaebryl, her master.
Gaebryl, the seraphim who’d comforted her the night her mother died.
Gaebryl, the jealous lover she’d walked away from three hundred years ago, which had led to the period she thought of as the French Disaster. Gaebryl had disciplined her by randomly killing anyone she’d cared about.
The body count had risen before she’d finally given in. She still blamed herself for those deaths. If not for her arrogance, if not for her stiff-necked defiance, they might have lived. Short lives in comparison to the sweep of her existence, but worthy lives all the same; lives that could have been rich and full cut short, and all because of her.
It was why she kept Remy and everyone else at arm’s length.
Never again would she allow her weakness to paint a target on an innocent’s back for a seraphim’s whim.
Gaebryl, the sucking bastard who’d introduced a new demon to this realm for his own amusement.
He would not get away with it this time. His latest scheme would become his undoing.
When she reached the cave, she blew through the wards, ducking just in time to avoid the shiny garrote and making certain each one in the sequence had been deactivated, leaving the cave unprotected.
She found the seraphim reclining in his singular chair, idly strumming his lyre as if he’d been waiting for her and decided to strike a pose. She wanted to spit, but refrained.
He wore white from head to toe, but that was the only thing about him that was the least bit angelic. He had the sensual lips of an enthusiastic sinner set under a prominent nose and deep-set dark brown eyes. Throw a patch over one eye and a gold hoop through an ear and he’d pass for a pirate. His dark hair fell to his shoulders in messy ringlets that might have been effeminate on another man.
Except he wasn’t a man.
Lilith had to remind herself of this every time she encountered him. Her master. The very thought made righteous indignation fire in her soul. It warmed her, and she held the anger close, but that was all the good it did her. Under normal circumstances, she was about as likely to break free of Gaebryl’s control, as Crispin was to fulfill his passion for David Beckham.
Fortunately, there was nothing normal about this night.
The idea had come to her while she’d watched the fehin nest and remembered the second feather Gaebryl had left for her—the one in the place where the man in the red plaid shirt had been sitting. Practically in the same location as the fehin attack.
Not a coincidence.
Humans were obviously easily susceptible to the fehin. Gaebryl had wanted to find out how she fared against the demons.
So he had been planning this.
Tensions between the were packs were at an all time high. It would take little provocation to spark a full-blown war. Into this volatile mix, Gaebryl had introduced a new weapon: the fehin. It had taken a while for her to make the connection, because who would think of a demon as a weapon?
Only a seraphim.
But he had forgotten one thing: weapons could be used by anyone—anyone with sufficient power and knowledge, that is.