Jessa Slade - Darkness Undone

She settled for holding his hand as they walked out into the hall. With only one hand free, he couldn’t finish buttoning his shirt, and the intermittent glimpses of his skin soothed her. Walking these halls was better with him. The intense echoes of conflicting power that had nearly frozen her when she snuck into the building were muted when she stood with him, as if when they were together she could rise above her fear, control it.

She thought maybe she could kill these devil-men if she had to, for Sidney.

“You said you trusted me,” he said.

She realized the low sound vibrating in her throat wasn’t pleasure this time, but a growl. She put her hand over the demon’s mark around her neck. “I do.”

“Show me where you left the talya.”

She picked her way through the building, avoiding the pools of power behind closed doors where she knew the devil-men were waiting. Sidney had said he would teach her the differences in the etheric flows so she wouldn’t be confused as she had been before, thinking the restless forces crowding the alley during the attack had been anything besides the vicious horde. She would keep her mouth shut and not make any more mistakes as she had again today.

At the back door, she gestured. “I left him outside.”

A surge of nerves made her bite her lip. Had she destroyed one of Sidney’s friends? It had been so long since she hadn’t destroyed those she encountered. It was the only thing she remembered how to do.

Sidney pushed up the big rolling door. A wave of cold air and vicious curse words accompanied the movement.

“Jesus fuck,” shouted the man. He lay just outside the door, one leg twisted at an unnatural angle. The blood trail on the gray concrete steps behind him showed where he’d pulled himself along despite the gash on his close-shaved skull. “Westerbrook, get away from that crazy bitch!”

Sidney squeezed her hand. “You didn’t kill him. Good girl.” He released her and went down the steps, hands spread low out front and his voice soothing, as one would approach a wounded animal. “Ecco, relax. She’s talya, new to the league.”

That silenced the curses. “Another one? We missed a teshuva coming through the Veil?”

Sidney shook his head. “She’s been rogue, unnoticed.”

“Then she could be djinni.”

From his tone, Alyce guessed that meant something worse than the beating she’d given him.

But Sidney just shook his head again. “She’s one of ours. Yours.”

“Mine,” she whispered under her breath.

The man—Ecco—jerked toward her. Of course the devil-man could hear her. The devil was always listening.

She moved forward to the edge of the steps and looked down at him. “I thought you had stolen Sidney away; that you were keeping him prisoner in this fortress.”

He scowled. “Was that an apology for throwing me into the Dumpster?”

She tilted her head in consideration.

“It was an explanation,” Sidney interrupted, his tone brusque with a hint of warning.

Ecco grumbled but didn’t press the issue. “Get me up. Now that I know we haven’t been infiltrated by a djinni psycho bitch, I can go bleed in peace. Since she’s just a rogue psycho bitch.”

Sidney crossed his arms. “Don’t be rude. That was what got you here in the first place.”

“I wasn’t rude. I said I liked her dress.”

Sidney glanced at Alcye inquiringly.

She folded her hands in front of her. “His tone was insincere. And then I saw the devil in his eyes.”

“Baby blue gunnysack dresses with no bra underneath always bring out the devil in me.” Ecco ignored Sidney’s hand and pulled himself upright to one foot. He balanced gracefully despite the twist to his other leg. “I guess meeting an unbonded possessed female made me forget myself.”

He stood two steps down from them, and still he was nearly a head taller than Sidney—almost twice that to her. She took a step away from the glitter in his eyes. Not the demon. Something darker.

Sidney stood back from the byplay with a bland expression. But behind the shield of his glasses, his eyes narrowed, and his hands, tucked tight against his ribs under his crossed arms, were fists.

Which signs should she believe? She angled toward him hesitantly. “Sidney?”

“I want you to meet Liam and Sera and the other talyan.”

Still his body sent her conflicting messages, and his words of welcome didn’t match his flat tone. The discord jangled her nerves. “No. I want to leave.”

“You can’t go,” Ecco said, as if she hadn’t just broken his leg. “You belong with us now.”

That decided her.

She took Sidney’s hand and pulled him behind her as she jumped down from the concrete platform, avoiding the devil-man dominating the steps.

Sidney gave a surprised yelp, but she steadied him. Before he recovered his balance, she tugged him toward the fence’s gate. When she’d come for him, she’d squeezed past the chain that padlocked the parking lot fence. Sidney’s shoulders were too broad to fit through the gap, so she ripped the chain loose with a squeal and spark of metal.

“Alyce,” he gasped.

“Damn it, Westerbrook,” Ecco hollered. “Dereliction of duty, man.”

“Oh, now they care about my duty,” Sidney muttered.

But he did not pull his hand away, and so Alyce did not stop. His willingness eased the tension in her chest, because she would not have left without him. And she had to get away from the low thrum of devil energy. It made her want things—bad things; things she daren’t want.

A tiny twist, deeper in her chest, around her heart, made her wonder if Sidney would be the one to pay for her fear and flight.

No, he had promised to explain, and then the fear would go. But she could not listen with the devils whispering around them.

The October air swirled as she hurried Sidney down the street. Large rumbling carriages—trucks, she reminded herself—blasted past them on obscure errands. There was so much scurrying around her. The sounds and the stenches ached in her head. Sometimes she understood why the devils wanted to bring everything to a halt.

In still, cold silence, she might finally remember.

“Alyce,” Sidney said. “Wait just a moment.”

She paused as he pulled back. She hadn’t realized how far they’d come from the devil building. Her only thought had been to get away. Sidney’s lips were compressed, the soft curves tightened with pain.

Remorse plucked at her. “Your wounds.”

“I can’t feel them through the cold.”

“Cold?” She had forgotten to feel that too.

He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and hissed under his breath.

Gently, she bumped aside his fingers. She hadn’t noticed the bite in the air, but his skin burned through her like ice. “Let me.”

She did up the buttons, but the thin fabric offered little protection, just as she’d done little to protect him from the devil-men. She’d let her fear pull him away; at least she could make him warm.

She wrapped her arms around him.

With her nose against the upper undone button, she sighed. Unlike the trucks and ferales and dank holes where she usually slept, he smelled good, like soap and clean water and some deeper scent—male and good. She breathed again. “I am sorry for running away.”

His heart thudded under her ear. “At least you let me come along this time.”

“I didn’t want them to hold us.”

“You seem okay with me holding you.”

She glanced up at him.

He was watching her, but with none of that conflicting distance and tightness that had confused her earlier. His focus was only on her. And his mouth was soft again.

She could keep him to herself. She’d never had anything, but he was here, in her hands. The whispering little voice that moved through her usually suggested she destroy things. She liked this idea much better.