Kat was all warm and soft under me, and that kiss quickly spun into something else. Her leg curled around my calf and her hands slid down my back, reaching the band on the pajama bottoms I’d found, and then slipped under.
Hot damn.
I forgot about sneaking around in bedrooms, about who was downstairs, and about almost everything else as she made this breathy sound that caused my skin to tighten. Her nails scraped along my skin as I got my hands under that borrowed shirt, over the length of her smooth skin. She arched into me, and I wanted her. I always wanted her. Hell, I’d spend eternity needing her, but we had time. Later today. Tonight. Tomorrow. We had a week, a month, and a year from now. We finally had a future and many more moments like this.
But right now, she needed me.
Her hands made their way to my front, and a ragged sound caught in my throat. Okay. Clarification. She needed more than this.
Finding the willpower I’d thought I didn’t have earlier but discovered I could exercise when it really mattered, I pulled away from her, just a little, and got her hands back to where I could see them.
Her brows pinched as she stared up at me, eyes a deep, smoky gray. I kissed her softly, lingering longer than I should. “How are you doing?” I asked, my voice rough in my own ears.
“Um, well, I was—”
“Not that.” I sat up, putting a little space between us so I wouldn’t change my mind and do all kinds of things to her. “How are you feeling after . . . after yesterday?”
She stilled for a moment, and then her chest rose sharply as she squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“Kat—”
“I don’t.” She tucked her legs under her as she rose. Clasping my cheeks, she leaned in until we were eye to eye. When she spoke, I swore my heart cracked in my chest. The pain of her words was so very real. “I know what you’re doing, and God, I love you for it, but I’m not ready, Daemon. I’m not, because I can’t even think about it without wanting to bring down this house or go curl in a ball. I don’t want to feel any of those things. When I lost my dad, it hurt—hurt so badly, and I don’t want to experience that hurt. The only thing I want to feel is you right now. The only thing I want to think about is how you make me feel. That’s what I need from you.”
I was still for maybe five seconds, and then I sprang from the bed, found my thankfully still private stash, grabbed the small package, and was back on the bed in front of her in a heartbeat. “I can do that for you.”
We stared at each other for another second, and then she straightened slightly, reaching down and lifting the shirt over her head.
I forgot how to breathe.
With just the tips of my fingers, I followed the map of her curves. “You’re so beautiful.” I kissed the tiny hollow between her collarbones. “You’re stronger than you realize.” Another kiss to the spot behind her ear. “You’re perfect for me.”
I put everything I felt into the gesture I’d never take for granted when it came to her.
Pressing her down onto her back and settling between her legs, I helped her hold the darkness back so that the only thing she felt was my hands, my skin, and everything I felt for her.
Showered and changed, we headed downstairs just in time to eat leftover bacon and eggs. The food was cold and Archer and my sister were staring at us like they knew exactly why it took us so long to come downstairs, but I didn’t care. There was an edge of sadness to the soft smile Kat wore as she watched them, but she was smiling, and I had given her what she wanted when she needed it.
After she finished eating, she excused herself and stood. From behind my chair, she leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I’m going to step outside for a few. Okay?”
I started to follow her but realized that she probably wanted a few minutes alone and told myself to keep my ass in my chair. As she turned, though, I caught her arm and tugged her down until I could capture her mouth in a deep, scorching kiss that probably sent her mind back to what went down between us in the bedroom.
Archer coughed. “We’re not standing here or anything.”
“Whatever,” I murmured as I let Kat go, and she surveyed the room with a red face. Giving an awkward wave, she turned and hurried out of the kitchen. I leaned back in my chair, shooting Archer a look that said, Shut up.
He raised his hands as he backed away from the table and then grabbed the trash, going right to where the can was under the sink, in the cabinet. I frowned. “You’re awful familiar with my kitchen.”
Archer snorted.
“How is she?” Dee asked as she sat beside me.
I sighed. “As can be expected.”
Sympathy poured into her eyes. “I didn’t know Ethan had her mom killed. I swear. I would’ve said something if I did.”
“I know.” I patted her arm. “Kat knows that, too.”
“Totally sucks,” Archer said, closing the cabinet door and straightening. “Probably good to get away from here.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, hoping she’d open up soon about what she was feeling. I knew from personal experience how that kind of pain and hurt could tear someone up. “I’ll see—”
Archer’s cell phone went off in his pocket. Frowning, he pulled it out and quickly answered. “What’s up, Luc?” he asked as he turned back to the sink and grabbed a dish towel.
Who knew Archer was so domesticated? I looked at my sister, and she was grinning at him like he was the second coming of something great.
“What?” Archer turned to us slowly, frowning. “No. Not at all.”
I sat up straight, on alert.
His eyes met mine. “Yeah, I know what you planned to do. It’ll still happen.” There was a pause, and sudden unease formed in my gut. “I’ll call you if anything comes up here.”
I was standing, and so was Dee by the time he disconnected the call. “What’s going on?”’
He slipped his phone into his pocket. “Nancy was sighted.”
“What?” The question boomed out of me. “A little more detail.”
Archer walked over to the table and gripped the back of a chair. “Luc doesn’t know the exact time frame. Sometime yesterday evening. With everything going on, word just got back to him. It was near Georgia. Maybe she was looking for us.”
“Shit,” I said, not liking the sound of that and knowing that this . . . this shit really wasn’t over. Not with her. . . .
“He’s ticked off. He planned on killing her.”
“What?”
“You heard me correctly. Once this was all over, he wanted to take her out himself. He never had any intentions of releasing the Origins back to her.”
There wasn’t a single part of me that was unhappy to hear about those plans, and I didn’t care how bad that made me look.
Archer scrubbed his jaw. “God, that woman could literally be anywhere and I’ll tell you what, she’s a loose cannon—” He cut himself off as he whirled around and looked at the clock on the wall. “Georgia . . . it didn’t take us that long to make the trip— Oh, shit.” He whipped around.
I was already racing toward the front door. There had been more than enough time for Nancy to make her way here, but I couldn’t imagine that woman would be stupid enough to try to seek vengeance on us. I threw the door open and rushed out onto the front porch, scanning the yard. A burst of air left me as I spotted Kat in front of her house. She was on her knees, her hair up in a knot, pulling the weeds out of the flower box. Frankly, she was ripping them out.
She looked up as I jogged over to where she was. Without saying a word, I reached down and hauled her up, pulling her into my arms and squeezing the ever-loving daylights out of her.
“Hey.” Her voice was muffled. “Is everything okay?”
Holding on to her, I lifted her up off her feet. “Yeah,” I said against the top of her head. “I just missed you.”
“I’ve only been gone a few minutes.”
I lowered her to her feet, not sure
how to tell her about Nancy or even if I should bring it up. That might be wrong as hell, but God, I didn’t want to mention that piece of bad news. Not with everything she’d just gone through and the fact that I knew she was trying to focus on a future she hadn’t believed possible days before.
“You are so weird sometimes,” she said, grinning as she looked up at me. “But I still love—” Whatever she was saying ended in a shout of warning.
Time slowed as I whirled around, and sure as hell, there was Nancy looking like a mess, dark hair standing out in every direction, that god-awful suit wrinkled. There was a gun in her hand, but it didn’t look like a normal pistol. Instead it looked like a Glock that had been manipulated into something else.
Something really deadly.
There was a moment when my brain registered what was happening, what was about to go down, and that moment felt like an eternity as my gaze met Nancy’s and the hatred in her eyes told me everything I needed to know. She wasn’t going to kill me.
No.
She wanted me—one of her ultimate prizes—to suffer.
The gun wasn’t pointed at me.
Nancy smiled. “You ruined everything.”
The time it would take to summon the Source, a handful of seconds, wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. Before that thought was even finished, I was moving. My hands circled Kat’s arms as she raised a hand, preparing to tap into her ability. I took her down as a spark of blue light flared, followed by a low popping sound.
My eyes met Kat’s.
Shouts exploded from my nearby house and I heard Dee scream—a mixture of horror and the kind of fury that ended lives. There was a blast of the Source, a short howl of pain, and the sound of Nancy hitting the ground—dead.
And then there was silence.
I looked down, between our bodies. The front of her cream-colored sweater looked wrong, like it had been splattered with a paintbrush dipped in red and . . .
“Kitten?” I gasped out.
It wasn’t her blood.
Thank God, it wasn’t her blood.
But I didn’t understand what had happened. I hadn’t even felt it. How strange was that? I’d never been shot before, but I figured it would have to hurt the moment the bullet ripped through me, but it didn’t.
Now my back and chest were on fire.
“Daemon?” she whispered.
Oh shit.
My lungs tried to expand but seemed to get stuck. I didn’t look away from her eyes as I lifted myself off her, tried to stand, but realized that my brain wasn’t connecting to my legs. I went down on one hand, feeling the warm wetness traveling down my stomach. My arm gave out and I landed on my side.
Kat was suddenly above me, and I was on my back and all I could see were her beautiful gray eyes—eyes that had become my whole life, probably before I even realized they had.
But those eyes were wide with fear and shining in a way that made me want to touch her, to make sure she was okay. I managed to lift my arm and trail the tips of my fingers across her cheek, but I couldn’t hold it up. It was like dead meat.
“Daemon!”
I tried to respond, but all I could do was focus on those eyes. As she leaned over me, her sweet lips so close to mine, my name on her tongue, I thought that if I had to die, if this would be the end, then at least I was seeing her and nothing else.
25
{ Katy }
“Daemon?” My heart was pounding against my ribs, but it felt wrong—it felt worn out and sluggish. Fire traveled up and down my back, but I knew I wasn’t hurt. It was Daemon.
Oh God, it was him.
I slid my hand over his chest, crying out as my hand came back soaked with the reddish-blue blood. “Oh. No . . .”
My name was called out. So was Daemon’s, but I didn’t look to see what was happening. My eyes were locked with Daemon’s. His lips, leached of all color, moved, but there were no words.
This wasn’t happening!
This could not be happening!
We hadn’t survived everything that we’d faced, on top of an alien invasion, for Daemon to die like this.
“No! No. No!” I searched for the source of the wound, but he’d taken the shot in the back.
It hadn’t been a normal gun.
Daemon’s form started to flicker, and horror kicked me in the chest. I grabbed his cheeks as my lungs desperately tried to force air in. His eyes were closed. “Open your eyes! Dammit, open your eyes!”
My legs started to shake with the effort to hold myself up in a kneeling position, and then Archer and Dee were there, and I couldn’t help but think of that horrible time in my house, when the situation had been flipped and it had been me lying on the floor. Then we thought we were purely connected, and if one died, so did the other, but now we knew the truth.
I ignored the pain roaring through my body and the weakness creeping into my muscles, invading my very being, followed by coldness, a chill of death. My overworked heart turned over.
“No!” Dee cried out, dropping down by Daemon’s head. Her hands landed on her brother’s shoulders and she immediately shifted into her true form. Her light was brilliant, much like an angel’s halo.
“Fix him, please.” My vision blurred as I started to tilt toward the ground. “Please, please fix him.”
Archer caught me, but I shrugged him off, clinging to Daemon as tears streamed down my face. “What . . . do we do?” I couldn’t look away as Daemon continued to flicker in and out, his beautifully strong light dulling, and the coldness spread like a disease inside me. “It wasn’t a . . . normal gun. It was one of those . . . weapons we were given. Please . . . do something . . .”
“It’s the modified PEP weapon.” Archer placed his hands above mine, his face twisting in concentration. “Dammit. We need to make sure the bullet is out. If it’s not, then . . .”
The words sank in as I slid down to my side, unable to hold myself up. One of my hands slipped off his cheek. I could no longer get my tongue to work, and I labored for breath. I threw everything in me into reaching Daemon. Don’t . . . leave me. Oh God . . . please don’t . . . leave me. I love you. Daemon, I love you. Please don’t let go. Please!
Archer cursed under his breath as his gaze bounced between Dee and me. “Kat, I . . .”
I didn’t feel myself falling, but I was suddenly flat on my back and staring up at the cloudless blue sky. Such a beautiful sky, but my heart hurt. My chest seized, and my entire body went rigid.
No. No. No.
We were supposed to have tonight and tomorrow, and many weeks and months, but we didn’t have even another minute. My face was wet, soaked, and my heart was slowing. The world started to slip away.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Then Daemon and I . . . we had nothing and there was nothing.
My body came back online slowly, tingling and aching as if I’d run a zombie marathon and gotten chewed on in the process. There was an odd beeping sound. It annoyed me, because all I wanted to do was slip back into the oblivion where there was nothing. I didn’t want to remember exactly why I didn’t want to open my eyes.
Reality existed on the fringes of my consciousness, a reality that would be cold and shattering and heartbreaking, and I didn’t want to go there. I wanted to stay where there was nothing.
The beeping wouldn’t let me slip away, though. It was faint, and every beep was accompanied by another beep, as if it were chasing mine or I was chasing the other beep, so I listened as my fingers twitched. A tremor coursed up my arm and then made its way through my body.
“Katy?”
I recognized the voice and the voice hurt, because it reminded me of. . . .
No.
I couldn’t go there. I didn’t want to.
A warm hand folded over mine and squeezed gently. “Katy?”
The beeping picked up speed and so did the other.