“I have no use for that one. Get him out of here.”
Rather than be relieved to be saved from what was sure to be a serious ass kicking, Drew lost his shit. Ewan watched as his cousin fought against the demons that held him, his considerable strength ineffective against so many. The demons laid into him, throwing punches after punches, until it drove him to the floor. They didn’t stop there. Once he was down, they continued to beat him mercilessly. Boots connected with his gut, his torso and chest. Fists came down to bash against his head, his jaw and shoulders. Berserkers might have been strong and resilient, but they weren’t infallible. A beating like that could still hurt like a motherfucker whether you healed instantly or not.
“Knock it the fuck off!” Ewan shouted. The sick fucks had no interest in Drew. This was simply for show. To teach Ewan a lesson. It wasn’t just him they could get to.
If he didn’t play ball, they’d hurt anyone and everyone he cared about. Which amounted to all of two individuals and one of them was lying on the demon’s tacky seventies-style marble floor right now. “He’ll leave.” Ewan would make Drew go himself if he had to.
The smug bastard pulling the strings snapped his regal fingers and the bodies that had converged on Drew went still. “How do you feel about having your decisions made for you, berserker?” The demon’s words were obscured into a strange lisp due to the sharp points of his teeth. “Do you want to leave? Or do you like the abuse?”
So much for coming here to talk. Ewan should’ve walked through that open door ready to dispose of motherfuckers. Instead, he’d been stupid enough to think he could reason with creatures that’d been shat straight out of hell’s ass.
“Drew.” Ewan hoped the command in his tone was enough to convince his cousin to get the fuck out. There was no point in them both getting their asses kicked tonight and since Ewan had already taken a beat down from Gregor tonight he might as well let the demons finish the job.
If not for his quick healing, Drew would’ve looked a hell of a lot worse. But that wasn’t saying much. His body still contorted at odd angles where the broken bones had yet to heal. Blood caked his face, ran down his neck, and soaked through his T-shirt. His chest heaved with labored breath and he spit to one side, sending a single tooth across the demon’s floor. Black swallowed the whites of his eyes and fanned out over his lids, forehead, and cheekbones. If he didn’t calm the hell down, the battle rage would take hold and there wouldn’t be a gods-damned thing Ewan could do about it.
“Andrew!” Ewan snapped. “Seasamh síos.”
He’d told Drew to stand down and hoped his cousin had the good sense to listen to him. If he reacted, he’d be giving the demons exactly what they wanted. Drew didn’t have the control necessary to play their game. Even incredibly resilient creatures like berserkers could be killed. They were outnumbered twenty to one. If it came down to a fight, neither one of them would come out of this alive.
The dangerous black ebbed from his eyes and the bulging tension in his muscles eased. He was by no means any calmer, but he at least showed presence of mind. “Don’t do this, Ewan. Don’t be a fucking martyr.”
He wasn’t about to martyr himself. But neither was he going to let these fuckers use Drew against him. This was nothing more than a change in tactics. Sometimes, to gain the upper hand, you had to let your enemy think they were winning.
“It’s going to be at least a day or two before you see me again. Chlúdach dom Gregor.” He needed Drew to cover his ass with Gregor and to keep him out of this business with the demons. “He’s going to be looking for me.”
A fist connected squarely with Ewan’s gut, doubling him over with pain.
“Don’t speak your fucking Highland bullshit language and try to put anything over on me,” the demon hissed.
Ewan huffed out a breath. The last thing they needed was for Gregor to go digging around where he shouldn’t be and find the substantial stash of cash they’d hidden in the walls of Ewan’s apartment. Gods, he had so many fucking irons in the fire he didn’t know which one to grab first. All he could do was manage one disaster at a time. Drew pushed himself away from the bodies that crowded him and the resignation in his action let Ewan know he’d comply.
“He’s leaving,” Ewan said on a growl. “So let him leave peacefully. Otherwise, I might decide not to be so cordial.”
The demon’s annoying laughter echoed off the marble floors and plastered walls. Whoever the son of a bitch was, he must’ve been a scary motherfucker because not a single one of the forty demons crowding the room dared to laugh along with him.
“Go.” Ewan hoped that in his tone and in his gaze, Drew would realize Ewan wasn’t asking him to be a coward. But gods-damn it, he couldn’t be responsible for anyone else getting hurt because of his own bullshit schemes.
Drew pushed his way through the crowd of bodies that refused to move for him. His gaze met Ewan’s for the barest second before he changed course for the foyer and walked out the door.
“All right,” Ewan said as he braced himself for what was sure to be one of the worst beatings of his entire existence. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
* * *
Sasha couldn’t remember a time when she’d been so damned frustrated. Ani had provided her and Lucas with several possible locations for where fights might be being held tonight, and so far they’d come up empty. They had one more place to check, a dilapidated structure that had once been a school gymnasium, and if they came up empty-handed, Sasha worried they’d be back at square one.
Several luxury cars lined the parking lot, a good sign. Lucas pulled in and brought the SUV to a stop. He cut the engine and glanced over at Sasha. His tentative expression let her know he’d come to the same conclusion she had. “Are you ready for this?”
She was about to commit premeditated murder. Was anyone ever ready for that? “Yeah. Let’s do this.”
The sound of raucous cheers and angry shouts drifted to Sasha’s ears and she knew they were on the money. Inside the relatively large gymnasium, a battle to the death was already in full swing. A wave of relief crashed over Sasha that Ewan wasn’t one of the competitors. That didn’t mean he wasn’t here though. Waiting in the wings. Ready to send some sorry soul to the afterlife. Hell, for all she knew, the demons had already managed to convince him to lay down his own life for whatever sick, twisted reasons they used to manipulate him. A lot could happen in twenty-four hours. And Sasha’s overactive imagination conjured myriad scenarios.
“I’m not seeing any demons,” Lucas said as his gaze roamed the vast crowd. “How about you?”
She’d been so preoccupied with her own worries she’d yet to truly focus on her surroundings. The crowd tonight wasn’t as big as some she’d seen, but Sasha suspected that had more to do with the size of the venue than lack of interest. She gave a sad shake of her head. The supernatural world was already violent enough. Why go out in search of more?
Sasha focused on the task at hand and forced the troubling thoughts from her mind. She had shit to do and not a lot of time to get it done. The half dome of the silver cage came down over the arena to lock the competitors inside. The crowd went wild, their bloodlust apparent in their wide eyes and enthusiastic cheers. She signaled for Lucas to split off. The plan was for him to distract onlookers with his mere presence. Sasha was a regular, and the rumors of her affair with the berserker were widespread throughout the underground. She was old news, but Lucas was shiny and new. It would give them something to talk about. To speculate on. And even to worry about. A sleight-of-hand to give Sasha the anonymity she needed to slip through the press of bodies and find her marks.
She worked her way from the back of the gym toward the center where the arena had been set up in a meandering spiral. Around the battle arena, through the crowd. Up, over, and around. She let her senses guide her, searched for the faint scent of sulfur. But either her nose betrayed her, or there wasn’t a single demon in attendance tonight. She’d hit a wall and it caused her frustration to mount to an almost unbearable level.
A commotion from the rear of the building drew her attention. She scanned the crowd for Lucas’s face and found him directly across from her, his own eyes zeroed in on whatever drew the crowd’s focus from the fight. She pressed her way through the bodies that sought to get a little closer, necks craned and angled away from the metallic cage of the battle arena.
Sasha pushed past anything and anyone that stood in her way as her stomach tightened into tiny unyielding knots. The tang of sulfur burned the back of her throat and adrenaline dumped into her bloodstream. The scent increased with each step she took and her worry intensified to the point that it caused her stomach to heave. Lucas must’ve sensed her rising panic and cut through the press of bodies to get to her. They reached the outer rim of where a large group formed a circle around what appeared to be a limp and lifeless body.
Ewan. Dear gods.
Sasha looked around, frantic, for whoever had done this to him. The scent of sulfur dissipated from the air and disappeared entirely, letting her know the sadistic assholes that had tortured Ewan within an inch of his life had merely dumped off his body and fled. She pushed past the final perimeter of gawkers and threw herself down beside Ewan. The floor cracked beneath her knees from the impact, sending jarring pain from her knees up through her thighs. The discomfort didn’t even register. Sasha was too scared. Too worried. Too mindless with concern to care about anything other than the powerful male who had been reduced to a burned and bloodied mass of flesh.
His pain must have been unimaginable.
“Ewan.” Her voice cracked with emotion she put her mouth close to his ear and spoke. “Ewan, can you hear me?”
He didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound. Sasha was fearful to touch him, to cause any more pain to the body that had been so thoroughly abused. Not an inch of him had been left unmarred and the fact that he’d yet to heal filled her with icy dread. What in the hell had they done to him? He lay on his stomach, head turned away from her. His back expanded slightly with an intake of breath and Sasha let out a sob of relief as a tear spilled over her lid and trailed down her cheek. She brushed the offending wetness away with an angry swipe and looked up to find Lucas beside her.
“We need to get him out of here,” Lucas said. “Now.”
He was right. There was any number of creatures in attendance tonight who might capitalize on Ewan’s weakness to exact some measure of vengeance on him. The demons weren’t the only ones who’d lost money on his fights and likewise, berserkers were reviled by the supernatural community as a whole. Their near indestructibility evoked fear. To see Ewan at a disadvantage like this would create a chink in his armor and embolden others to follow in the footsteps of the demons. Sasha had no great love for berserkers, either, but for this particular one, she would lay down her life to protect.
She was loath to touch him, to do anything that might further cause him pain. Lucas had no such concerns, and reached for Ewan’s arm, dragging him up to a standing position. Ewan let out a shout of pain that cut through Sasha like the sharpest blade. A murmur ran through the crowd and her heart stuttered in her chest. The faster they got him out of here, the better. She went to Ewan’s other side to bear the other half of his weight, and together she and Lucas carried him out of the building and across the parking lot to his waiting SUV.
Lucas hit the fob and Sasha reached for the back door. She pulled it open and Lucas moved to hoist Ewan inside. “Be careful!” Her voice cracked with emotion. She needed to hold it together at least long enough to get him back to her apartment. But gods, she didn’t want to jostle him even a little bit. The pain he must be in …
“As careful as I can be.” The understanding in Lucas’s tone despite having been just snapped at caused bitter shame to well up in Sasha’s chest.
She let out a slow sigh as she allowed Lucas to ease Ewan onto the backseat. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I just … I don’t know what…” She was a total loss for words. “He should’ve healed. What in the hell did they do to him?”
She looked up and met Lucas’s gaze. He reached out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder as she gently eased the door shut. “It’s going to be okay, Sasha. He’s going to be okay.”
Sasha wished she shared in Lucas’s optimism. But she knew firsthand how strong Ewan was. She’d seen him heal almost instantaneously. As she got in the car and fastened her seatbelt, she said a silent prayer to whatever god might hear her. Please let him be okay. Please let him live.
Because she knew without a doubt that she couldn’t live without him.