I manage to clean up the blood before I pass out again. This time, when I wake up surrounded by mist, there’s no confusion. I climb to my feet, already looking for whichever one of my men waits for me. Mist swirls at my feet as I start walking, searching the opaque space for familiar forms.
When I see three of them, I almost sob. I break into a run. One step. Two. On the third I’m amongst them. Malachi with his broad shoulders and long dark hair. Rylan who manages to look put together and vaguely annoyed despite the gaunt lines in his cheeks. And Wolf, all wild eyes and fury.
He’s the one who grabs my shoulders. “You’re pregnant.”
The mist around us seems to dampen the sound, but the other two men go even quieter in response to his words. I don’t look at them. I can’t. I just give a shaky nod. “I am. I felt it the day you were taken, but I took a test to confirm.”
Wolf releases me like I’ve burned him. “Is that why we can’t feel her? I thought it was the drugs.”
“It could be both.” Rylan speaks from almost directly behind me. Even his voice is raspier than normal. “Not much is known about seraphim pregnancy. They always disappeared during those months, and any record of it has long since been destroyed.”
“You should have told us.”
I turn to face Malachi, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Rylan, his dark brows pulled together. “If there’s a risk to her because of this—”
“Wake up, Malachi. There’s a risk to all of us. She’s not the one currently chained and injected with poison.”
My stomach drops. “I’m getting you out.” I don’t tell them that I’m exhausted. That I can’t seem to keep down a single bite of food. That I can’t touch the well of magic inside me that only seems to get farther and farther from the tips of my fingers with every day that passes. All of that might be true, but in the end it’s just an excuse.
They’re suffering more than I am.
They have more at stake if I fail.
“No.” Malachi shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous. We’ll figure something out.”
“Like you figured out a way to escape that house?” He spent a hundred years trapped and slowly starving between sacrifices my father sent him. I can’t bear the thought of him suffering through that again, let alone Rylan and Wolf, too. I glare up at him. “Out of the question.”
In fact, as I look from one of them to the other, they all show marks of starvation. It shouldn’t have happened this quickly; it hasn’t even been a week and we all but glutted ourselves on blood before the capture. Yes, we were essentially just passing it back and forth but…
The sinking feeling in my chest gets worse. “You weren’t feeding the way you needed to before this.”
Suddenly Malachi won’t quite meet my gaze. It’s Rylan who answers, “I was.” Which all but admits that the other two weren’t.
I knew he’d ranged farther than Malachi and Wolf, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he was effectively working as hunter for our entire group until now. It should have. I take a step back so I can see all three of them. “Feed from me.” I don’t know if it will work in dreams, but this isn’t a normal dream or we wouldn’t be able to meet like this at all. Malachi starts to shake his head and I grab his arm. “Feed from me. If you want me to find another way, then you need to stay alive and healthy enough to fight when I come for you.” I don’t know what plan I can possibly come up with on my own, but I’ll say anything to decrease their current suffering.
Malachi still looks like he wants to argue. Even Wolf holds back, something serious and worried in his pale blue eyes. I know he’s thinking of the last time we met like this and the information I compelled out of him.
Strangely enough, it’s Rylan who steps forward. “We don’t know what it will do to you. Or if it will work at all.”
“Might as well try it.” I have been so damn helpless from the start of this. I don’t want to be helpless anymore. If I can lessen their suffering at all, even a little, I want to do that. I need to do that.
I tilt my head to the side. It’s only then that I realize I’m still wearing the same clothes I had on when I fell asleep. It makes a strange sort of sense, but there’s no time to think too hard about it because Rylan moves forward, too fast to track even for my dhampir eyes, and bites me.
I expect pleasure.
All I get is pain.
He rears back with a muffled curse, his hand to his mouth. “What the fuck was that?”
I drop to my knees and press my fingers to the bite. It’s only two pinpricks from his canines, but the pain keeps radiating through me as if he injected poison into my blood. “What’s wrong? It’s never hurt before.”
Rylan removes his hand and there are burn marks on his lips. He shakes his head. “It has to be the pregnancy.”
“Or it’s this realm.” Malachi studies the space above us, though it doesn’t look any different from what’s around us in every direction. “I’m not prepared to blame the baby. We don’t know enough to say for sure.”
“For fuck’s sake, Malachi, no one is blaming that thing.” Rylan swipes his hand across his mouth again, as if he wants to scrub the taste of me right off his tongue. No reason for that to sting, but my logical side isn’t online right now. He shakes his head. “Something’s off, and it has nothing to do with this realm, if it’s even a realm. She might have simply pulled us into her dreams.”
“Which means the blood you just consumed isn’t really blood.” Malachi sounds calm. Too calm. “It might be the seraph bond attempting to protect her when she’s already weakened. We won’t know until we’re back together in person.”
“When that happens you can bite her first.”
I prop my hands on my hips and glare. “I’m standing right here. Stop talking about me like I’m a child.”
Malachi and Rylan both look away, expressions sheepish and irritated in turn. Which is when Wolf speaks. “Did you make a deal, love?”
The breath whooshes out of my body. He’s been so uncharacteristically quiet, I almost convinced myself he wouldn’t speak about what happened before. I should know better by now. There are few secrets between the four of us, at least when it comes to current events. The past is another animal entirely.
I make myself meet his gaze steadily. “Not yet.”
Malachi whips around. “What the fuck is he talking about? What deal?”
“I can explain. I—”
Wolf speaks right over me. “She asked me how to summon Azazel. When I refused to tell her, she compelled me.”
I don’t like the betrayed look Rylan sends my way. Even worse is the slow anger building on Malachi’s face. He drags his hands through his long hair. “We talked about this, Mina. It’s out of the question.”
“It was out of the question before my father took you three. It’s not now.” I’m protesting mostly out of spite, though. I can’t accept Azazel’s bargain now any more than I could before. I sigh. “Look, I’m not taking the deal. I thought he’d give different terms, but he didn’t, so we’re back to square one. If any of you have any brilliant ideas, I’d love to hear it.”
They exchange a look, but no one says anything. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The three of them have gotten me out of several messes to date. I can’t expect them to do it when they’re captive and I’m free. “I’ll find another way.” I swallow hard, a burning starting in my throat and eyes. “I won’t bargain away seven years. I promise.”
They don’t quite look like they believe me, but that’s fine. I deserve the distrust after compelling Wolf. It was the wrong call, but panic got the best of me. That’s no excuse, and I won’t try to make it one. I lift my chin and open my mouth, but my stomach gives a horrible surge of agony that has me doubling over. “No. It’s too soon.”
“Mina!” Malachi’s hand brushes my back and then he’s gone, jerked away into the mist as if a giant hand reached out and snatched him. By the time I look for Rylan and Wolf, they’ve disappeared as well.
I barely get to curse before the world goes dark. The pain follows me into my waking, cramps that bow my back and have me clamping my teeth shut to keep a scream internal. This time, there’s no Grace to help. I turn onto my side and pull my knees to my chest. It feels like something is gnawing away at my insides, dull teeth ripping and tearing and Gods, it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad.
Until it doesn’t.
I blink through my watering eyes. I can’t keep from locking my body, waiting for the next wave of pain. It takes me much longer than I want to admit to slowly unclench and cautiously stretch out my legs. I half expect to find something wrong, but the pain has faded as if it never existed.
But like last time, I’m covered in sweat and feel shaky.
I stagger to the bathroom and take a quick shower, feeling dizzy all the while. By the time I make it back into the bedroom to pull on the jeans and a T-shirt Grace sourced for me from the local thrift store, I’m almost feeling like myself again.
Well, like the new version of myself who’s weak and exhausted and vaguely nauseous at all times.
At least there are no bite marks on my neck, which seems to suggest that Malachi was right about the seraph bond trying to protect me in that dreamy place. I shouldn’t take it personally that my blood might be poisonous to my men, but I don’t like the thought at all. I enjoy their bites, and not simply for the orgasm that inevitably follows. Exchanging blood has become an intimacy that I don’t want to give up.
I glare down at my stomach. “You are a giant pain in the ass.”
“Talking to yourself is generally frowned upon.” Grace strides through the door and shuts it behind her. She looks as tired as I feel, circles beneath her eyes and her hair escaping its braid. She raises her eyebrows at me. “You look like shit.”
“I was just about to say the same thing about you.”
She shrugs. “Nothing more than the truth.” Grace drops onto the bed across from me. “I don’t suppose you have good news? Because all I have is bad.”
“Tell me.” I have a feeling she’s going to get sidetracked as soon as I tell her about Azazel. Beyond that, I’ve always been one who prefers the bite of bad news before the soothing of good news. My life has had little of the latter until recently, and certainly not enough to get used to it.
“He’s upped patrols from when you were last there. There are fewer gaps in his security than expected. There was also a large group of vampires who arrived today who seemed to be new, or at least not locals, based on how they were received.”
He’s pulling in his people. I should have expected as much, but it seems like such overkill, at least until I consider the value and strength of his captives. My father will be taking no risks with them. He wants them locked down and he’ll do whatever he has to in order to ensure it. “Well, shit.”
“Pretty much.” She pins me with a long look. “What happened while I was gone?” She keeps talking before I have a chance to respond. “Don’t bother to lie and say nothing happened because I know it did. There are blood stains on the floor and there’s still magic lingering in the air.”
I glance guiltily at the floor. “I thought I got it all.” Wait a damn minute. I whip around to look at her. “Since when can you see magic?” Now that I think about it, she mentioned something about it before, but I was too rattled from that first dream with Wolf to notice.
“Since always. Old family trick. Which is why I know you’re not anything as simple as a dhampir, though I’m not going to pry on that. This?” She makes a circle with her finger to encompass the room. “Different story. You went into your dreams with those vampires again, didn’t you? But there’s something else.”
I drag in a breath. There’s no point in hiding the truth from her. If I can’t utilize Azazel, at least I can ensure she’s able to contact him. “I summoned the demon.”
