Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

“I knew you were hiding a Maker,” Gabriel said. “My scouts have already left.”

Lilith’s sending arrowed through Lucien’s mind: < I’ve located your son .>

His eyes not leaving Gabriel’s smug face, Lucien sent, < Hide him, keep him safe .>

.>

And that, Lucien thought, would have to be good enough.

Gabriel’s tawny brows slanted down, he fluttered closer. “Samael? Who are you sending to?” He probed Lucien’s shields, flexed against them. “Who?”

Lucien flicked open the link between him and Dante, un-sealed their bond. His child’s mind burned, pain-ravaged, a concerto of fire—his shields breached or down. Grief whispered through Lucien.

Closing his eyes, Lucien sent one last thought to Dante, then severed their bond.

TELEKINETIC ENERGY BOUND DANTE in tingling ropes. He tensed his muscles, but even with his strength renewed by Caterina’s blood, he couldn’t twist free.

“She believed you could bring her back from the dead,” Lyons said, his voice thick with pain, face shadowed. “She was… is …an oracle and her vision’s always right.”

“Not about this.”

“If you won’t bring Athena back, then you can join her in the Underworld.” Alex swung up his S&W. Aimed the muzzle at Dante’s forehead. “Your choice.”

“Pull the trigger—”

The sudden thought glimmered in Dante’s mind, stroked across his fevered consciousness like a cool and soothing hand.

The bond between them sprang apart as though sliced with a fire-heated blade, either end coiling away into the ether. And a part of himself unraveled as well. Pain blasted through Dante; an explosion of fire squalled through his mind, his heart, his soul, and whipped his song into a savage bonfire aria.

His song burned, an inferno, chaotic and hungry.

And Dante burned with it.

FUCKER HAD A HELLUVA eye and was a helluva shot, too. Spotted me even when I was moving. Von dropped belly-down to the ground. Pine needles crunched beneath him, fragrant enough to make him sneeze.

A bullet whing ed into the soil a yard to Von’s right. God damn . Fucker had sharp ears too. Could be nightkind, could be enhanced, or just good at his job. Rain started again, drops pattering against leaves and tree trunks.

Wishing for a downpour, Von rolled to his feet, and moved . He heard a small thip behind him as a bullet notched a tree trunk. A moment later, he crested the rise. Racing past the man in a suit jacket lying down in the dirt, his eye to the scope on his tripod-steadied rifle, Von angled to a stop behind him. Lifted the Brownings.

“Hey motherfucker. You owe me a pair of shades.”

The skies opened up and rain fell hard and fast and heavy. The man froze, his mortal heart drumming louder than Von’s wished-for downpour.

So this comes true, but not my wish for a winning lottery ticket?

“Toss the rifle.”

Hand trembling, the shooter flung the rifle down the hill. It crashed through the underbrush for several seconds before thudding to a stop.

Just as Von opened his mouth to ask the guy who he was working for and who he was gunning for, pain hammered against his shield—raw, primal, and soul-deep—staggering him.

“Little brother,” he whispered, glancing back down the slope. Blue light spiked from the windows of the main house.

Fear laced cold around his heart. Von fired a round into the mortal’s thigh to keep him from moving too much or too far. The man screamed between clenched teeth.

Von ran .

STILL LOCKED WITHIN LYONS’S telekinetic grip, Dante convulsed upright, head whipping, back arching, his limbs and body twisting in a violent and heart-wrenching blur of motion.

Lyons tilted his head, adjusted his aim.

Slipping up beside him, Heather punched the pocketknife blade into his side, between the ribs. Lyons gasped, but squeezed the trigger anyway, the gunfire cracking through the room like thinning winter ice. The smell of cordite curled into the air.

But his concentration had been broken. Dante hit the floor with a hard thump, his rigid body still spasming, contorting.

Heather yanked the knife free and jumped back out of reach as Lyons whirled around, gun held in both hands. “Annie, go !” she yelled.

“Maybe he’ll go to the Underworld for you ,” Lyons said. He fired again and Heather threw herself to the floor, rolling to her knees, then diving behind the recliner.

Dante’s seizure ended. He curled up on the carpet, shivering, his breathing rough. Spokes of blue flame wheeled around his hands, spinning out wider with every revolution.

Transforming everything they touched.

The floor rippled, shifted into a forest floor of pine-needled dirt, thick underbrush, and tiny blue wildflowers.

Heather’s adrenaline-hyped pulse jumped into overdrive. Despite the gunfire she’d heard outside, she yelled, “Annie! Get out! Go out the back door!” She leaned past the recliner and risked a glance at the sofa.

Annie, blue light reflected in her wide eyes, screamed, “What! The! Fuck!”

“Just go !”

The dark-haired woman was sitting up, no longer asleep. Annie grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet. The woman flashed a look at Heather, her eyes full of wonder and blue light. “I’ll make sure she’s safe,” she said, a faint European accent to her voice.

Heather shifted back around and her heart slammed into her throat. Lyons stood in front of her, his gun dead-aimed at her head. Dante had risen to his knees, his golden-eyed gaze stunned. Blood spilled from his nose and from his ear, trickling along the line of his jaw.

“Fetch my sister from the Underworld,” Lyons ordered, “or I’m sending Heather down below to keep her company.”

Heather locked her fingers around the knife handle and slammed the blade through one of Lyons’s Rippers, into his foot and through to the floor… earth …beneath. A strained scream escaped from between Lyons’s clenched teeth.

Leaping up, Heather shoved him as hard as she could. Lyons stumbled, arms pinwheeling for balance, tripping over thick, blue-thorned vines snaking across the floor.

Dante caught him with both glowing hands and pulled him down. Blue light whipped around Lyons, through him, shafting out from his opened mouth and shocked sea-green eyes. The gun tumbled from his hand to the dirt. It curved into a black-carapaced turtle that crawled under the recliner.

Heather backed away from the rays of light lashing around Dante and Lyons. Lyons twisted like a rope of licorice in Dante’s grasp, his arms twining around his body, his face shifting. Lyons screamed, the sound edged with blind animal rage and pain.

Energy crackled like lightning into the air, lifting the hair on Heather’s arms and head. Pressure thrummed through the house, pushed against the walls. Her ears popped, and she winced, working her jaw. The mingled smells of ozone and burning leaves and graveyard soil curled into her nostrils.

The house quaked. Trembled. Cracks zigzagged up the walls to the ceiling. Plaster dusted the air. The front window exploded in a spray of glass shrapnel-shards that morphed into a constellation of blinking, blue crystal fireflies flitting past the porch and into the night.

Dante’s song pulsed within Heather, dark and wild and heartbroken, its rhythm vibrating against her heart, within her heart. She stared at him, unable to look away, not wanting to look away.