Her blood was everywhere…on my hands…the floor…my soul…

Her eyes fluttered closed as the words slipped free. “My pack…don’t leave without…”

I scanned the floor and saw the bag in the corner of the room. “Get that, will you.”

The kid pulled away and scurried toward the thing. Questions filled my head…but they’d wait…they could all wait.

Her jagged breaths were nothing more than a wheeze. Blood stuck the shirt to her body on the right side, and on her thigh. I lifted her, easing her closer. Jesus, Lorn…Jesus…

Black blood spilled from the night hag in the middle of the floor, the tiny trickle seeming to reach for Lorn, desperate to taint her one last time. I drove my heels into the floor and rose.

“I got it…” Ace muttered and then glanced at the mess around us.

Bodies were splayed wide. Jerry Leander…the night hag in this room…a shifter frozen with a wolf’s snout and wicked fangs in the hallway.

“What will we do with this?”

I flinched at the question…and then lowered my gaze to the Unseelie sorceress… “Burn it. Burn it all.”

There was nothing left here now. No tiny glimmer of information I could seize. Whatever secrets had been hidden were now spilling across the floor.

Ace swung Lorn’s pack, sliding the straps high on his shoulders as he lifted his hand. There was no question from the kid, no flinch of honor. There was only power, and as he cupped his hands and murmured words I didn’t know, I realized how much power he had.

I turned then, leaving the leaping flames to catch the walls of this place, hoping a blazing inferno would obliterate all of it, and strode along the hallway, through the kitchen, and out the rear door.

She whimpered as I hit the steps and headed for the driveway.

She called a name.

“Redemption…”

“I’m here,” I growled, and lifted my gaze to my Raptor, sideways on the drive. The headlights blazed, the engine hissed and spat, steam billowed out of the gaps on the hood like it was the sulphur pits of Hell. The crumbled steel gate hung limply to one side, the frame buckled from my battering ram as I bulldozed through.

And still the panic waited…hovering far too close to the surface.

I’d seen the flare of gunshots…heard the screams. I glanced down as Lorn’s head rolled backwards, exposing the perfect pale skin at her neck, and that desperation rose inside me.

The need to save her…

The need to love her.

The need to beg forgiveness.

The crunch of my boots on the gravel was swallowed by the roar of the fire. I rounded the front of the truck and stopped at the back door, watching for Ace as the kid strode from the doorway and out into the night.

Questions filled my head, but this wasn’t the time…or the place. I snagged the handle on the rear door and yanked it open as Lorn mumbled something. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s all going to be okay.”

And it was…only there were others coming.

“I’m coming with you,” Ace said as he pulled open the other rear door and climbed in, cradling her head against his shoulder as I lay her against the seat. “You need me.”

My top lip curled and I smothered my snarl as a boom ripped from the house. It’d all burn, but it wouldn’t cover what’d been done here, not to supes like us. We could smell the death and sense the blood. “Alright, then,” I growled and pulled backwards before closing the door.

Lightning severed the sky in the distance. But instead of neon white, this savage bolt was blood red. “Easy, Lucifer,” I muttered, and then slid behind the wheel.

The engine whined as I shoved the Raptor into gear and backed out of the mess I’d caused. A vamp lay dead beside the narrow driveway, his head sliced clean off…I lifted my gaze to the rear-view mirror before I glanced at the side mirrors. Recognition sparked in those blue eyes.

The immortal was already dead by the time I got here, as were two more closer to the house.

Energy pulsed inside the cabin of the truck, standing the hairs on my arms. The kid wasn’t a kid anymore…and he was dangerous.

“Medallion…” Lorn murmured from the backseat. “Turn…turn…turn…”

“She’s hallucinating,” Ace said, lifting his hand and leaning in close.

I wound my arm around the top of the passenger’s seat and punched the accelerator, catching the movement as the sorcerer tucked something under the neckline of his shirt.

The night blurred as we flew backwards until I hit a wide patch of the trail and swung the ass end of the Raptor wide, carving a path where there hadn’t been one before, and then threw the truck into gear and shot forward.

The track came out onto a paved road. I scanned left and right…searching.

“Go right…and then right again. Up there, see…” Ace pointed out of his window to the faint lights sparkling high up in the distance. “It’s some kind of outlook.”

It was high up…and we’d sense others coming for miles, especially if the kid had some more tricks in his bag. I spun the wheel as faint orange flames reaching over the tops of the trees in the rear-view mirror.

“Keep pressure on that wound,” I growled, and hit the gas.

“Wounds,” Ace murmured, and leaned in close. “She’s in a bad way.”

“I know.” The road seemed to blur in front of me as I followed his directions, turning right and then right again…trusting...

Moments were fragmented inside my head. Headlights. Gunshots. Screams. The night hag…what was left of her, at least.

She was sacred to the Unseelie Queen…and revered by my entire race. Now she burned in the middle of a house in the mortal realm…undignified.

“Medallion,” Lorn whimpered.

“Hush now,” Ace murmured.

I couldn’t see what he was doing, but her frantic harsh breaths eased, slipping into a soft rhythmic sound as we climbed, and kept on climbing.

I followed the trail to what looked like a house high on the ridge of the mountain. Lights flickered at the front of the building like a beacon in the night. But inside, the house was dark.

“There’s no one here, we’re safe.” Ace stared out the window as I pulled the truck up the drive.

I pushed open the door, then turned to the back seat. She made no sound as I opened the rear door and leaned in…her shallow breaths made me stop and listen as Ace climbed out.

“I’ll be out here if you need me,” he muttered, and then closed the door.

I watched him melt into the darkness before turning to Lorn once more. “He’s a strange kid that one, a real strange kid.”

She didn’t answer, not even a hiss as I lifted her. She was so light, so thin…nothing more than skin and bones, a shadow of the woman I once knew.

The soft white light of the roof light washed over the marks on her face. Bruises, cuts, and scratches…she was a mess…a beautiful, terrifying mess.

“Oh, baby,” I cradled her and stepped backwards, “what have you done to yourself?”

A light flicked on inside the elevated house, and the back door opened a second later. “Up this way, it’s all clear.”

Ace turned and left before I mounted the first stair and climbed. Strands of matted red hair became visible the closer I came. Outside there was a pop, and then another, as the front of the house was bathed in darkness.

And the heavens answered, growling and snarling as I slipped through the doorway and into the house. Polished timber glistened as I scanned what looked like the main part of the house and turned toward the bedrooms.

I turned sideways and stepped through a doorway before grasping her tightly against me and slipping one hand free to reach the light switch. If I was a sorcerer, I’d conjure light. If I was a vampire or a shifter, I’d see in the dark.

But I was neither.

I was Fae.

I was Unseelie.

And as a race, we were useless, really. What had we done…what had we done to someone like Lorn?

The light flicked on and I went to the queen-sized bed in the middle of the room. Silk and lace covered the bed. I grabbed the cover and tore the damn thing free.

Her arms smacked white cotton sheets, her head rolled, cradled on the soft pillow. I dragged my hands free and looked at her body. Blood covered one side of her middle. I snagged the bottom of her shirt, lifted it, and stared at the mess.

So much blood…so much blood.

My fists still trembled. I clenched tight and then relaxed my hand before I touched her wound. Blood spilled free, a trickle in the front, but my hand came away drenched in the back.

I rolled her as gently as I could, pulling her face against me as I stared at the hole in her back.

She needed a doctor…she needed…Gabriel’s face filled my mind, and was then replaced with the hound’s…they’d know what to do…they’d know how to fix her.

I glanced toward the open door…the sorcerer…

No, the word was a blow to my chest. I shoved up from the floor and scanned the room. A bathroom was to one side. I stumbled to the doorway and flicked on the lights. The bathroom cupboards were empty, the towel rails bare. No one stayed here, not in this room…not for a long time.

A soft whimper drew me back to her, but it was the whisper of power inside my head that filled me…a calling of old…of the energy I used to wield—but no more.

It’s just blood…blood you know…blood you’ve spilled many times.

I couldn’t look away…frozen by the heady metallic scent as I closed my eyes. Powers hovered just below the surface of my mind—dark powers I’d not used in what felt like forever.

They were dangerous…they were Unseelie.

I swallowed hard and then opened my eyes. My fingers glistened, drenched in crimson. Lorn’s blood…blood I could conjure, just like I had all those years ago.

I stepped closer, and the old magic bloomed like an ash cloud filled with hate. But I could use it. I could use just enough to save her.

Words slipped from my lips. Words of old. Words that were spoken to me once, from the lips of a Queen that was mighty—before her fall.

I dropped to my knees once more and cupped Lorn’s belly. She was fire and warmth and hell molded in bones and tears and sweat. I leaned forward and brushed my lips across her skin, trailing the dip of her navel to stop at the ridge under her breast.

Words filled me, like a cup that runneth over, and then slipped free. They bounced against her skin, warm and wet with my breath. And as I stared, the blood gathered in a trail and then slipped away.

I spoke into the well of her belly, pleaded into the valley of her breasts. Breasts I’d once touched, breasts I’d once loved. My lips skimmed higher, the soft hollow of her neck…and a tiny shudder tore free.

There was a hiss, and then movement, but still I moved higher, desperate to get to the one place I needed to be.

Her mouth, her lips, soft and supple under mine. My hands slipped under her, arms wound around her, pulling her closer.

A sound pierced the moment, a cough and then a clearing of a throat. I broke the connection and turned to the kid standing in the middle of the doorway. Blue eyes missed nothing as he looked at Lorn and then me. “I’m needed elsewhere. I’ve covered the valley with a web of protection. You’ll hear anyone coming like a vibration that’ll echo through the entire house.”

There was a flicker of something…fear…apprehension as he looked at her before he jerked his gaze to me. “Has she woken yet…said anything?”

I shook my head. “No, and I don’t expect she will for the rest of the night.”

He took a step closer, sparks detonated like bombs in his eyes as he closed them and breathed in deep. “That power…what is it?”

I flinched. “Unseelie.”

“It’s dark, and powerful. There’s an animal feel about it, a savagery.”

“Like I said, it’s Unseelie. That’s what we are…savages.”

He opened his eyes, gave a small nod, and then stepped backwards through the door. “If she wakes up, tell her I’m sorry…tell her…tell her she was never supposed to see it.”

And he was gone, striding down the hall, leaving me to shake my head. Such a strange kid.

The house was filled with silence. I knelt beside her, watching her pale skin turn pink once more. I couldn’t save all of it, she’d left so much behind in that place.

I glanced at the wound and pulled her shirt down, the fabric no longer soaked. Every drop of blood had been drawn back into her body…and the wounds were now closed.

Wait, that’s all I could do now. Wait and watch and pray.

Thunder roared in the sky above us. I felt his rage. I felt his fury.

Lorn was never supposed to be caught up in this war.

She was never supposed to be hurt.

Not by the Nine, and not by Lucifer.

I’d tried to protect her by breaking her heart. I’d tried to protect her by breaking mine, and we ended up here anyway, with me staring at her shattered body and wishing like hell I could take her place.