Ashes

  “Believe it, because she has. Convince me you had no part in this, or I swear I’ll end you right now.”

  Dario stood tall, looking ready to challenge Knox. Wisely, he didn’t. “I have played no part in whatever has happened to your mate.”

  Knox, where are you? I don’t want to do this alone.

  He almost flinched. The pain in those words gutted him. “How much longer is this going to fucking take?”

  “The process is slow-going, I know,” said Thatcher, “but I’m going as fast as I can.”

  Knox softly brushed his mind against hers. You’re not alone, he soothed. I’m right here, and I’ll be physically with you very soon.

  “Is there a limit to how many people can step through the portal?” asked Levi. When Thatcher shook his head, Levi turned to Knox and said, “I’m going with you.”

  “All four of us are going,” said Tanner, referring to each of the sentinels.

  Knox looked at Jolene. “I need you to stay here.”

  “You need me to guard the portal and ensure that Thatcher doesn’t attempt to trap you there,” said Jolene in understanding.

  Yes, because Knox couldn’t rely on his ability to pyroport if the place where Harper was being held would weaken him.

  “I’ll kill him on the spot if he does,” Jolene vowed.

  “And I’ll help,” said Khloë.

  “The portal will remain open,” Thatcher assured Knox. “No one else will get in or out of it, and you need not worry that I will try to trap you.”

  “I hope that’s the case, Thatcher,” said Jolene, “because I’d rather not kill you.”

  Biting her lip, Raini came forward. “Do you think the baby’s coming tonight?”

  Knox nodded. “I’ll need to arrange for Rodgers to be waiting at the mansion, ready for Harper. There’s nowhere else she’ll be completely safe while she gives birth.”

  “I’ll arrange all that,” Jolene told him, pulling out her cell phone. “Everything will be ready. Ciaran can teleport the doctor and whatever he needs to your home. You just concentrate on getting to Harper.”

  Knox might have protested, but he sensed that Jolene needed to be proactive, needed to feel that she was doing something. She might look calm, but she’d undoubtedly be far from it.

  He reached out to Harper. We’re almost done reopening the portal, baby, just hold on for me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The agonizing contraction passed, and Harper almost slumped to the ground. Her knees, back, and shoulders felt stiff from being in the same position for so long. But she wouldn’t give in to the urge to lie down. No, she wouldn’t make herself even more vulnerable than she already was.

  Her movements clinical, Linda used a cloth to dab the sweat from Harper’s forehead. She was a panting, moaning, sweaty mess, and she knew that her face was probably haggard and pasty. Her eyes watered with both the pain and the harsh wind that kept slamming into her face, stealing her breath. At least the haunting sound of it helped her block out the hideous, droned chanting that grated on every nerve she possessed.

  Tied down while surrounded by chanting hooded people, she might have felt more like she was having an exorcism than that she was in labor if it weren’t for the excruciating spasms that continuously wracked her womb.

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d been at this. The minutes had soon become hours, and the hours felt like days as cramp after cramp assailed her. As time went on, the intervals between them became shorter and shorter, and the pain had become more intense.

  She kept reaching out to Knox, but she only heard from him occasionally. She knew the long gaps in those conversations was due to the difference in how much time passed for each of them. For Knox, he was talking with her a few times per minute. For Harper, it was a few times per hour and his responses were always delayed reaching her.

  Of course, he didn’t know any of that. She’d kept it to herself because she knew that the truth that she’d been in agony for hours would torture him, just as she knew from the other times that she’d been taken from him exactly how hard his demon would be riding him.

  God, she really was sick of being kidnapped. The first time, it had been Knox that the culprits wanted to capture – she’d been nothing but bait. The second time, she had in fact been the target. This time, the baby was who the kidnappers wanted. If they thought they’d get their hands on her child, they were out of their ever-loving minds.

  “Here,” said Linda, holding a bottle of water to Harper’s mouth.

  Throat dry and lungs burning with every breath, Harper gulped down the water, not worried that it could be drugged. They wouldn’t give her anything that would kill her – the dark magick would do that for them once the baby was born.

  Well, Linda probably would be tempted to kill her beforehand, considering she now sported one whopper of a bruise on her jaw. Her demon absolutely loved the sight of it. Shame the vines had restrained Harper’s feet to stop her from kicking the bitch again.

  “I’ll bet you’re wishing you were in a hospital right now having an epidural,” said Linda with a smirk. “Sorry, no pain relief for you.”

  Harper narrowed her eyes. “I hope I shit on you.” She’d heard women sometimes did it during labor, and she’d hoped it wouldn’t happen to her. Now, however, it would be a fucking treat.

  Linda’s lips pinched together. “It won’t be anything I haven’t seen before.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I haven’t shit for about two days. I’ve got lots stored up there.” Her demon might have chuckled at that if it wasn’t so wound up.

  A crippling pain once again rippled through her womb, sending her back arching. She tasted blood and distantly wondered if she’d bitten her tongue. It didn’t matter. It was the baby that mattered, and she figured that it had to be even harder for the baby, since it was pretty much stuck in what couldn’t be a comfortable position.

  “How dilated is she?” asked Nora, voice a little hoarse due to chanting non-stop for God-knew-how-long.

  Ignoring Harper’s curses, Linda checked and replied, “Four centimeters.”

  “What?” clipped one of the figures – Harper had nicknamed him “Whiner” because he moaned constantly about her slow progress. “This has gone on too long!” Like the others, his face was pale and his expression was pinched. They were all tired and weakening. Ha.

  “Labor can be slow, especially when it’s a woman’s first pregnancy,” Linda explained. “I’ve told you time and time again that it may help if we let Harper change positions, but you’re set on keeping her still.”

  Whiner humphed and then spoke to Nora. “We need to find a way to speed it up. You might be sure that Knox can’t get to her in time to help her, but I’m not.” That was the first bit of wisdom he’d shown.

  “If we speed it up, we risk hurting the child,” said Nora.

  That didn’t seem to bother any of them, Harper noted. Fucking bastards.

  “And if we don’t,” began Whiner, “we risk finding ourselves in the hands of Knox Thorne – no thank you.”

  Another incantor – who Harper called “Jumpy” because he seemed to be a nervous wreck and constantly scanned the landscape as if expecting Knox to jump out at him – said, “He’s right, Nora. We can’t take any more chances than we already have.”

  After a long pause, Nora said, “Then take a brief break and recharge.”

  Hoping to delay them from resuming their horrible chanting, Harper spoke to her. “I don’t understand. If you’re one of the Horsemen, why did you even tell us about them?”

  Nora twisted the cap off a water bottle and took a long drink. “Because people need to know about us, and the Primes need to fear what’s coming.”

  “But you described Roan, you basically handed him —” Realization smacked Harper right in the face. “You wanted him dead, didn’t you?”

  Nora merely shrugged. “He had to go. He became a liability. He’d lost control of Crow and was too blinde
d by his hatred of you to be efficient. He knew about my vision, knew a baby would come, but he wanted you dead too badly to see the bigger picture. I couldn’t risk him killing you.” She took another long swig of water and then recapped it. “Everyone ready?”

  Harper went to speak again, but another contraction hit. When it faded, she was shaking feverishly… and too late to engage Nora in more conversation. The old bitch resumed that horrible chanting, and the others quickly joined in. The chanting was louder now, and the words came faster. There was a frantic edge to them that hadn’t been there before.

  The wind howled as it picked up in intensity, whipping up and tangling Harper’s hair. The trees creaked under its brutal force, and she hoped one would snap and smack one of the incantors right over the fucking head.

  She flinched at the sharp crack of thunder, and had the satisfaction of seeing Linda almost jump out of her skin. That satisfaction left her when yet another contraction made her almost double over – this one more painful than any that had come before it. When it stopped, she panted, “Tell me about Sam.”

  Linda reared back as if she’d been slapped.

  “I’ll bet it hurt when you lost him,” Harper said gently. “I’ll bet you’ve never felt pain like that before or since. The worst day of your life, right?”

  “By far.”

  “And yet you want to take my baby from me. You of all people should know what an injustice it is to lose your own child.”

  Guilt flashed in Linda eyes for a brief moment. “They won’t let you live to keep it anyway. I’ll only be taking it because there’s no one else.”

  “There’s Knox,” Harper pointed out. Another contraction came along and stole what she was about to say. As she moaned and panted, lighting repeatedly flashed within the clouds. It was an isolated electrical storm that seemed too close for Harper’s liking.

  Knox, where are you? I don’t want to do this alone. She hadn’t envisioned it happening this way. Not once.

  Her demon paused in its raving, sending Harper an impression of them being one – telling her that she wasn’t alone. It was the first time the entity had ever offered her any support of any kind. But then, they had a common goal: they had to protect the baby. They just weren’t sure how they’d do it.

  The terrible facts were that she was outnumbered, restrained, in no physical state to fight, and she couldn’t access her abilities. Moreover, she’d been infected with some kind of dark magick that would kill her pretty much instantly after she’d given birth.

  In sum, she was fucked. But that didn’t mean she’d give up hope. That wasn’t who she was.

  We’re almost done reopening the portal, baby, just hold on for me.

  Hope flared. She closed her eyes, imagining him standing right there, being calm and supportive to keep her own fears at bay. Hurry, Knox. She must have said that aloud, because Linda snorted.

  “No one’s coming for you. Even if they did, they’d be too late – just like Nora said.”

  “Nora’s batshit.”

  Linda inclined her head. “Possibly.”

  “Yet, you’re working for her.”

  “Working with her. She needs me.”

  Harper couldn’t imagine Nora needing Linda. What she needed was a midwife; one who would risk going against Harper and Knox; one who was expendable and could be manipulated into helping. But Harper didn’t get why she’d been so easy to manipulate. “Why help Nora?”

  “You shouldn’t have taken McCauley from me, Harper. And you definitely shouldn’t have killed Jeanna. She was my best friend.”

  All right, that was a shocker. “She was also a demon for hire who tried to kill me and led Knox into a trap.”

  “I know. I’m not really doing this because of them anyway. I’m doing it because Nora made me a very good deal. If I help her, I get to keep your baby.” Linda smiled, but it was a creepy smile. “Nora will hold it over Knox’s head, but she can’t take care of it herself. That’s where I come in.”

  Harper’s demon snarled. “What about Wyatt?”

  Linda snickered. “Oh, don’t feel bad for Wyatt. He’s had plenty of affairs over the years.”

  “Talia,” Harper guessed, remembering what McCauley had said about Linda hating the she-demon.

  Taken aback, Linda blinked. “Yes, she was one of them. How did you know that?”

  “Wild guess.” Harper gritted her teeth as another contraction wracked her womb. When it finally eased, she asked, “If you hated Talia, why would you have kept her son?”

  Affronted, Linda glared. “I would never punish a child for someone else’s mistakes. If I was that sort of person, I wouldn’t be willing to raise this baby, would I? I’ll raise it as mine, Harper,” she taunted. “It’ll believe I’m it’s true mother. And I’ll raise it to hate you and Knox. I will. I’ll fill its ears with stories of what horrible, pitiless people you are. It will grow into someone who despises you both.”

  Just the very idea of that was a knife through Harper’s soul.

  “It might even one day kill Knox for us,” Linda continued. “It won’t matter if it’s as powerful as Knox or not – he’d never harm his own child, especially when it’s part of you. And that right there will give it power over him.”

  She was right, the bitch. But… “You can’t think Nora will really give you the baby, Linda. Think. Think past how badly you want a child. To Nora, this baby will be a weapon she can wield over Knox’s head. She’ll keep it hidden but close and highly protected. She won’t want it to be loyal to anyone other than her. She’s not going to give you the baby and then send you on your merry way. She also won’t let you live to tell anyone what she’s done.”

  Linda’s smile faded, but then she snorted. “You won’t divide and conquer us, Harper. Now, why not just concentrate on delivering my baby, hmm?”

  “My baby.”

  “No, mine.”

  Harper hissed, wishing she could kick the bitch again. But that hiss turned into a moan as yet another contraction hit. Then there was another. And another. And another.

  Once again, the minutes bled into hours. She groaned. She cried out. She whimpered. She cursed a blue streak that made Linda jerk back in horror at one point. And now she was more of a sweating, shaking, moaning mess than she had been before.

  Her head drooped forward as another contraction eased off. God, it was so tempting to collapse on the ground and give her aching back a break. She was more exhausted than she’d ever been in her life. Her limbs and eyelids felt so damn heavy, and it was a wonder she didn’t fall asleep between contractions.

  She felt all hollowed out, like she had nothing left in her. She wanted the pain to end, but she also didn’t want the labor to end – the thought of her baby in the hands of these neurotic motherfuckers… she couldn’t stand it.

  She’d truly thought that Knox would have got there by now, but there was still no sign of him. If her demon had been able to call the flames, it would have taken over and done so, but neither of them could do a damn thing. I’ll think of something, she told it.

  “How dilated is she?” Nora asked.

  Linda checked. “Nine centimeters.”

  “Not good enough,” Whiner snapped. “We can’t afford for this to go on any longer. And I don’t know about any of you, but I’m tired and uncomfortable. This ground is solid.”

  Was this asshole for real? She’d been in pain for hours, prodded and poked by Linda, had nothing but tepid water, and was stuck in the same awkward position for way too long – her legs spread in front of multiple people as she waited for her cervix to dilate to the size of a freaking ball while her body felt like it was splitting in two… and he was tired and uncomfortable?

  “Her water broke not so long ago,” Linda reminded him. “That’s progress.”

  “We need more than ‘progress’,” he clipped. “We need the child in our hands.”

  Harper shrugged. “You can’t blame the baby for not wanting to come out.”


  Jumpy honed in on her, a glint of fear in his eyes. “What do you mean it doesn’t want to come out? How would you know what it does or doesn’t want?”

  “It told me,” she lied, delighting in the way his face paled.

  “Nonsense,” Whiner scoffed. “It doesn’t yet have the capacity to speak in either thought or voice.” But he didn’t sound so sure. He exchanged wary glances with the others.

  “Ignore her,” Linda advised. “It’s just a baby.”

  Jumpy spoke again. “It’s not just a baby. It is Knox Thorne’s baby. We have no idea what he is, which means we have no idea what we’re dealing with.” He looked at Harper. “It talks to you?”