Jessa Slade - Forged of Shadows

“ Xiao -Jilly.” He couldn’t stop himself.

“Don’t,” she said. “Just . . . kiss me.”

He thought the world would shift to gray around them, tumble them into the demon realm. But he felt only the soft parting of her lips, the warm exhalation of her breath, the yearning in his flesh.

She drew back, her gaze sliding away. “Take me down.”

Oh, he wanted to. Right there in the puddles gathering on the asphalt. But that’s not what she meant. Down to the battle. Only in close quarters could they unleash their joined power. The danger was incalculable. But when she slipped free of his embrace, when they chose the league and its eternal mission instead of running for that imaginary place without evil, he knew the price had already been paid.

Despite her puffy coat, Jilly was cold inside. Fear, she told herself, as she and Liam raced through the warehouse to the front door. Fear of the tenebrae army, fear of Corvus’s power, fear of death.

And foremost, fear of the tall, lean man at her side and what his hands on her could do.

And she wasn’t worrying about falling into the demon realm either.

They burst through the front doors, out onto the sidewalk, where the talyan were fully engaged, moving like a hundred men. But the ranks of haints and salambes were like a thousand.

As each haint fell, the salambe phased to a new husk before the talya fighting it could get close to drain the demonic emanations. The salambes kept the talyan going in a merry dance. Without the merry part.

With the first stumble, the first sign of exhaustion, the salambe/haint pairings would move in and finish the talyan. That stumble hadn’t come yet. But it would.

Liam cursed and reached to pull her behind him.

She resisted and moved instead to stand in front of him, facing him. “Together. Remember?”

“No. You stay here. We need to regroup, remember our formations.”

“We don’t have time for that. Let them do what you’ve trained them to do.”

“I’m supposed to lead them.”

His gaze was fixed over her head, on the battle. He wanted to be in the midst of it, she knew, keeping his men safe. She was holding him back. No, she had to believe that while he might not want her as his bonded mate, he would always do anything for the league.

“I can’t do this alone.” She flattened her palm in the middle of his chest. The bracelet winked, flaring with each shout or otherworldly shriek in the clashes behind her, as if drawing that energy. She hoped it would. Liam had told her she must take control of it, and she would, but she needed him, his strength and certainty.

The sound of battle was right behind her, but she didn’t turn. Of all her secret doubts, she never doubted Liam would have her back.

He dragged his gaze down to her. “Jilly?” His voice sounded far away. Then he clamped his hand over hers.

At the touch of his skin, as always, the thrill flared in her. She stiffened, waiting for the remembered sense of danger, of losing herself. But unlike last time, now she felt only a fierce joy, a resonant echo through her being, as if part of her had been calling out, and finally heard a reply.

With Liam beside her, she felt she could bend hell itself into a puzzle no demon would ever escape. She had one heartbeat to contemplate that maybe she still had something to learn from him about reining in her bravado, and then the tenebraeternum closed around them.

As if the rain had become a shell, enveloping them apart from all the rest, the featureless gray spread in all directions. It had never felt so vast, and she realized her connection with Liam had never been so complete.

Too bad it had taken this extreme to bind them. Ah well, what did she know about steady relationships anyway?

She didn’t want to step away from him, not with the infinite nothingness all around. Only her bracelet—the demon’s knot-work trap—glinted. Somehow, she knew a misstep would be the end of her, led by marshlights into the mist, never to return. Even Liam the Irishman with his hammer couldn’t bash through this gloom.

Ominous blooms of smoked orange managed to make the otherwise featureless gray even more threatening. “The salambes,” Liam said. “The tenebraeternum exists parallel to our world with only the Veil keeping us separate, which is why when we shift between the realms, we’re still ‘here.’ The salambes are using that overlap to phase through the tenebraeternum as they jump from haint to haint.”

“No wonder they’re so fast.”

Frustration sharpened his voice. “And the talyan can’t touch them while they’re out of the human realm.”

She curled her hand to tangle her fingers with his. “Then it’s a good thing we’re here.”

He looked down at her and his lips twitched in the beginning of a smile. “Yeah, good thing we’re in hell.” Gently, he untangled himself and ran his fingers down her wrist to the bracelet. “Let’s see who else you can trap back on this side.”

She hoped somebody, since she’d epic failed with him. But she’d always known what he wanted her for. As for her wanting more . . . well, as his weapon, she’d still have his hands all over her. So she took a breath and sank into the gray, mesmerized by the faint glowing weave of the bracelet.

When she and Sera had been watching over Dory, the other talya had explained, haltingly, how she and her mate had found themselves in the demon realm. A near-death experience in Sera’s childhood and her work as a thanatologist had given her a unique slanting view of the other-realms even before Corvus’s attempts to destroy the Veil had summoned her teshuva. Battling Corvus, Archer had almost lost what remained of his soul, and only Sera, wielding the soul-cleaver pendant, had been able to patch the Veil.

Jilly looked up at Liam, wishing . . . No, she’d never felt herself to be the kind of person who patched things up. “I can get them lost.”

That’s where all this had led her. To the realization that she’d run so hard from entanglements, she’d barred anyone from holding her. No wonder the kids had related to her; she’d never had a clue. And no wonder Envers at the halfway house had cut her loose. He might have been in the pay of the devil himself, but even the kids knew, at some point, it was time to grow up and face her fears.

Thanks to her teshuva, now she’d never grow up. But maybe a rebel without a chance could still face all the world’s fears.

The first flecks of wayward soul scraps wavered through the patches of gray and intermittent orange, their light as white and pure as solvo. The lights danced around her, drawn into patterns as intricate as the whorls of the bracelet. The demon talisman froze her arm, stealing energy from the part of her spirit-self existing in this realm just as it drew ether from the tenebrae.

If she could just attract enough of the salambes, the talyan out in the world would have a chance.

The first orange glow began to take shape. Hulking, crescent-horned, scimitar-clawed shape. Then another, following the glittering trail of soulflies into the pattern that was the trap ending in the tenebraeternum, where they belonged.

“Jilly.” Liam’s grip on her tightened. He covered the bracelet, his hand hot on her skin, as if he could burn away the chill. And stop what they’d set in motion. “I’m thinking this is a bad idea.”

“It’s the only way.”

“No. There are many paths. That’s what you always told the kids.”

“Many paths, yes. And they’re all leading here. To the end.”

He dragged her deeper into the gloom, the soulflies strung out behind them. “You have to listen to me for once.”

“I did. And you said this was all for the league. For the mission. For the world.”