Unknown - Scorched

“Oh, Goddess.” Ashe clutched her side, her face pulling into a rictus of pain.

The hellhounds were back and crowding around, one talking on his cell.

“Call an ambulance,” Mac ordered the one with the phone. Mac grabbed Ashe’s shoulders. She was slowly falling over, slumping to the ground. He helped her down, cushioning her head on his hand until one of the hounds offered his jacket as a pillow.

Ashe watched him with pain-hazed eyes. “You saved my ass in there,” she said.

“Please tell me I didn’t waste my time,” he replied.

“You gonna lecture me now?”

“Your sister would like me to.” He didn’t really have the energy.

Ashe pulled her mouth in what might have been a grin. “Holly doesn’t get a vote. She’s in bed with a monster.”

Mac sighed wearily. “So who likes their brother-in-law? Get over it.”

“She’s my baby sister,” Ashe whispered.

He could already hear sirens. Help was on the way.

Mac gently turned Ashe’s chin so he could look into her eyes. She was fading in and out of consciousness, but he had to get his point across. “Let me tell you about Alessandro Caravelli. He gave up everything—his queen, his job, his rank—to be with her. He nearly gave his life to rescue her. He’s a special guy. Holly’s a special woman. Don’t mess with them.”

Ashe closed her eyes.

“Just think about this,” Mac said more gently. “I don’t have a problem with you being a hunter and taking out the real villains, but don’t turn into the thing you hate.”

“Or you’ll kick my ass.”

“Damned straight.”

The ambulance pulled up at the mouth of the alley, the doors flinging open. The hellhounds were just as rapidly making themselves scarce. Great. Leave me with the mess.

Two paramedics were pounding down the alley, a tall blond man in the front. “What happened?” the leader asked.

Mac’s mind went blank for an instant. “Uh—she was hit by a motorcycle.”

He heard a small noise from Ashe. He fixed her with a glare. “A Ducati. Came whizzing right down the alley. Could’ve killed her.”

Standing back, he let the ambulance guys do their thing. One started back to the ambulance almost immediately, calling for the stretcher.

“Sir, are you a relative?” asked the other.

“No. You tell me where you’re taking her and I’ll call her family. They’ll meet you there.”

“Are you sure it was a motorcycle accident?”

“Yeah,” muttered Ashe, her voice gone thready. “Didn’t catch the license.”

The stretcher was rattling down the alley on wheels, pushed by the second attendant. She’d be gone soon, taken away and patched up to fight another day. That was the problem.

Mac knelt beside her one last time. “Ashe. Behave yourself. Don’t come back here.”

The paramedic gave him a curious look. Ashe took in a couple of short breaths, saving up enough air to speak. She grabbed Mac’s hand.

“Thank you,” she said. “I won’t forget it.”

Mac got out of the way while they loaded Ashe onto the stretcher. He watched them go as he took out his phone to call Holly. All he could see of Ashe now were the soles of her boots.

She was brave. He had to give her that.

Unfortunately, now his slim hope of learning anything from Atreus was lost.

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I’m revoltingly smitten.

Constance sat in the hall with the black lake, curled up on one of the hard stone benches with her arms wrapped around her knees.

Mac! The name brought a sweet tightness to her stomach, like she was about to leap down, down from a dizzying height. Girlish emotions to go with her girlish form.

Revoltingly, hopelessly smitten. For shame, Constance! You’re not a child anymore.

But why not indulge? She was imagining herself opening the door of her dream house, wearing one of the el egant dresses from her magazines—the later ones, when skirts shamefully revealed the knees. She imagined the shoes, too. They had beautiful thin, tall heels that proved the woman who wore them never worked a day in her life. Truly, no one wearing those blade-thin stilts could lift a pail or scrub a floor.

She would be opening the door to well-dressed guests, who would all tell her she was beautiful. Mac would be at her side, looking on, proud of her and the way she kept their home.

What a glorious life. Nothing like mine.

If she walked into the world of beautiful houses and pretty shoes, she would become a killing nightmare. Nothing was worth that—not unless it was a crisis of life and death.

And Sylvius was safe now. She had no moral right to hunt. Even if the guardsmen stole her child away again, Mac was ready to help her. Why would she need full vampire powers? Now she could remain as she was with no blood on her conscience.

She’d faced that truth when she’d let the female warrior go—and, as if to prove that the decision had been right, that strange woman had stood guard as Constance led her family out of harm’s way.

No, Constance did not need to change.

Ever.

She could stay as she was, eternally.

She was beginning to feel like a jar of preserves slowly going off. She wanted to taste the magazine world—Mac’s world—with him. Maybe standing at night in some city scene, the artificial lights winking like earthbound stars, and she would be wearing pretty shoes.

Since when did the world hand you what you wanted? Remember what Lore said: Be careful how you barter with destiny.

That had to be wrong. She was tired of living like a ghost, of relying on other people to order her life for her—be it the lord of her childhood home, or Atreus, or even Mac.

Even if he wanted the best for her, it seemed unwise to rely on him completely for the safety of herself and her son. Shouldn’t a vampire, even half a vampire, have some power of her own?

Those were rebellious thoughts for a peasant girl who had started out milking cows and then spent centuries as Atreus’s servant, but they wouldn’t leave her alone. She could feel her life changing, and her courage waxed and waned like the moon—now strong and bright, now all but disappearing. That change felt out of control, like a horse gone wild. There was no telling what path it would take.

Wishing had to count for something, and Constance wished with all her might for that moment with Mac, the romance of the city streets all around her. Romance in their hearts. That beautiful scene. If she could will her life one way, that was it.

Sylvius sat down on the bench beside her, quiet as falling snow. “You’re thinking of him,” he said.

“What makes you say that?”

With one finger, he touched the pendant she wore, and which he had made. “Macmillan makes you happy. That’s good.”

She looked into Sylvius’s face. The time he had spent in the demon box had left its mark. His black eyes, so startling against his pale complexion, seemed older in ways she couldn’t name.

“Should I worry that Mac is a demon now?”

“So am I,” Sylvius said calmly. His smile was teasing.

How he’s growing up. He’s truly not a child anymore. “You’re an incubus. Your strength is love, not violence.”