Lyre.
As soon as his name came to her, her overpowering state of deadly calm shattered. Her entire body froze, shock ricocheting through her—followed immediately by choking revulsion.
Horror bubbled up in her chest, suffocating her. What was wrong with her? She could feel it still—the bloodlust, the driving urge to kill. She’d never reveled in someone’s fear before. Never relished the thought of spilling blood with her own hands. Never delighted in death.
She took a staggering step back, her wide eyes meeting Lyre’s golden stare. She hadn’t even recognized him. She had just seen a daemon, a possible threat—or possible prey. What kind of monster had she unleashed within herself when she’d given life to her daemon blood?
“Piper,” Lyre said gently.
Stumbling back another step, she looked over at the bodies of the two griffins she’d casually gutted. The third whose throat she’d nonchalantly slit open. The fourth with her dagger and sword still protruding from his body, his beautiful feathered wings splayed over the blood-soaked grass.
An explosion from behind her shook the ground under her feet, breaking her horrified trance. She whirled around. Thirty yards away, a domed shield had formed. Even though Piper was no longer shaded and shouldn’t have been able to see magic, the bright glow was clearly visible. It shimmered oddly, neither white nor any particular color, but more of a dull, shifting rainbow, like a slick of oil on water. Inside it were the shadows of two daemons, protected by the spell. Outside it, fallen bodies littered the ground.
Ash and Raum darted around the outside of the domed shield, but they didn’t seem to be able to break through the barrier. Ash dove at the shield with his great curved sword, the blade coated with rippling black fire that she’d seen cut through solid steel. His sword hit the dome and skated sideways. He banked sharply off to one side as one of the reapers within threw some sort of magic blast at him. It passed right through the inside of the dome without disturbing it, barely missing Ash’s wing. Ash and Raum couldn’t get to the reapers, but it seemed the reapers couldn’t get out either, or surely they would have teleported already. A stalemate.
Pushing away her inner turmoil, she gestured urgently to Lyre. “Come on!”
She launched forward, running toward the draconians and their targets. Fear crawled through her, but she gritted her teeth and pushed it down. She wasn’t shading again—ever again if she could help it. She would have to do this without the help of her powerful daemon instincts. She was pretty sure she already knew what to do—if it worked.
As she approached, still running full tilt, her strong daemon muscles carrying her with shocking speed, she focused on the dome. Drawing her hands together, she pulled on her magic, feeling a strange sucking sensation in her head. A huge ball of writhing blue and purple magic filled her hands as she closed in on the dome.
“Piper!” Ash yelled, his daemon voice harsh with warning.
At the last moment, she threw on the brakes, skidding across the grass, and hurled her ball of magic point-blank into the domed shield.
It hit the shield and the strange rainbow pattern rippled—and then orange light burst outward, burning the shield to nothing in an instant.
A moment of shocked silence from all parties.
Ash and Raum charged the reapers, now unprotected. Piper dove away from them, hitting the ground as a blast of magic flew over her head. Gulping at the near miss, she craned her neck to look over her shoulder.
Ash and Raum were attacking the last two desperate reapers. The draconians moved with flawless, deadly precision, partners in a lethal dance—dark wings flashing, light glinting off the blades of their swords, black magic looping and snaking at their command. The fight was over in barely a minute. Silence fell over the park, oppressive after the endless noise of battle. She clambered to her feet as Lyre joined her. She started to take a step toward Ash and Raum, but Lyre bumped her with his shoulder.
“Give them a minute,” he said quietly. “They’ll come to us once they cool off.”
She frowned at him, ready to object, when he spoke again, his voice even lower.
“You were just there, Piper. You know what it feels like. I trust Ash but I don’t trust Raum. Let them cool off.”
Shame clenched around her lungs and she gave a short nod. She had been there, hadn’t she? So caught up in the battle lust that she hadn’t even recognized Lyre as her friend. She pressed her lips tightly together, fighting waves of disgust. She should have had more control over herself, over her daemon instincts.
A little ways away, Ash stood like a statue on guard, the tip of his sword resting casually on the ground while he caught his breath. Raum paced in a circle, folded wings flexing in and out as he walked off the last of the adrenaline from the fight. Piper moved behind Lyre and unbuckled the leather and metal contraption binding his forearms together behind his back. He sighed in relief when she pulled it off.
Finally, Raum came to a halt and shimmered back into glamour. Ash copied him, and the two men headed toward her and Lyre. Piper subconsciously braced herself as they approached. Ash in his full draconian warrior gear striding toward her was intimidating enough, but with Raum beside him, she shivered with a touch of fear. She met Ash’s eyes and thought of his fast embrace, lips on her ear as he told her not to die. Another shiver touched her, but this time not from fear.
Lyre stepped forward as Ash came toward him and they clasped forearms.
“Glad to see you,” Lyre said, a little gruffly. “I had way too much time to wonder what had happened to you.”
“Unfortunately, I was unconscious for most of the past two weeks, so I can’t say the same. But I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Unconscious for two weeks?” Lyre repeated, his eyes going wide.
Ash shrugged. Lyre looked questioningly at Piper.
She dropped her eyes and mumbled, “Three daggers to the chest and a hundred-foot fall into the river.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “You found Seiya, right? Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s waiting for us. We should get out of here.”
Lyre nodded. “Yeah, definitely. I don’t want to wait around and see if the Ras come back with reinforcements.”
Ash turned to Raum. “I appreciate the help.”
Raum nodded and stepped toward Ash. They briefly gripped each other’s arms.
“Kiev is your responsibility now,” Raum said.
“Yes.”
The older draconian’s cool eyes shifted to Piper and slid down her body and back up. For a second, Piper was offended at the blatant once-over, then abruptly remembered that she’d gone daemon during her fight. Heat rushed into her cheeks and her hands flashed to her face, covering the short dairokkan appendages that sprouted from behind each ear.
“Um ...” she stuttered, mentally flailing for a simple explanation.
Raum gave his head a short shake. “Not my business.”
She blinked, then realized she shouldn’t give him an explanation. Raum might have helped Kiev escape and fought alongside Ash, but he was still Samael’s man for as long as Samael held other draconians prisoner.
With one last glance at Piper’s daemon form, Raum walked away, his body shimmering. A few yards away, he took a couple running steps and leaped skyward, his wings beating the air. Piper turned back to Ash and Lyre, shaking off the unnatural fear.
She caught Lyre’s hand and squeezed. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”
He gave her that sexy crooked grin of his and she couldn’t help her answering smile. She’d been so scared for him. The last two weeks had been hell.
Together they hurried back across the park, toward the shelter of the downtown towers. Ash’s steps slowed as they passed the vehicles she’d destroyed. She looked away from the bodies of griffins and quickened her pace, drawing ahead of the two daemons. She could feel Ash’s eyes on her but she didn’t turn to meet his gaze. She didn’t want to see his expression.
Disgust
twisted through her, as well as fear and self-loathing. She would never shade again. She couldn’t risk it—not when there was every chance that, even without the Sahar in her hands, she could turn on her friends and try to kill them for no better reason than some part of her deep inside loved to see blood spill.
CHAPTER 10
THEY RETREATED to a quiet side street and Lyre passed Piper her sword and dagger, collected from the body of her victim. She accepted them silently, swallowing back her repulsion. Zwi joined them a minute later and transformed. Piper and Lyre clambered onto her back. She did her best not to think at all as they flew back to the building where they’d left Seiya and Kiev.
When they landed on the rooftop, Ash shimmered back into glamour. Piper dismounted and immediately started toward the door.
“Piper,” Ash said quietly.
She stopped, reluctantly turning to face him. He surveyed her for a moment. Lyre’s gaze flicked between them as he tried to read the tension. Her heart climbed into her throat. There were a thousand things she wanted to say but she couldn’t manage to get out a single word.
“You should ... change back,” he finally said. “Kiev won’t understand.”
“Right,” she said, her heart sinking.
She looked down at herself, silvery-blue dairokkan drifting around her. Since she’d needed to be in the Overworld to unlock her daemon form, she hadn’t been entirely sure whether it would be accessible to her outside of the Overworld. Clearly, it was. It made sense, since daemons could use glamour regardless of what world they were in.
Glancing up at Ash, she hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know how,” she admitted in a small voice.
“Oh,” he said in surprise. “Okay. Well ...”
He looked at Lyre and they exchanged perplexed looks. Lyre rubbed a hand through his hair.
“I’ve never tried to explain it to anyone before,” he said. He gestured to the ground. “Let’s sit.”
Hesitantly, Piper sat facing him. He frowned, studying her with narrowed amber eyes. Ash waited behind him.
“All right,” Lyre said. “So for you, your natural form on Earth is your human form. This shape for you is the same as Ash and I in glamour.”
She nodded.
“You have to work against Earth’s magic to hold this form. You’re actively holding this shape the same way I’m actively holding my glamour in place.”
“I am? I don’t feel like I’m doing anything.”
“It’s not difficult. You’re doing it instinctively right now. Think of it like standing. You don’t have to consciously think about which muscles you need to use to stand. To let go of this form, you need to identify the muscles and consciously relax them—or in this case, find the magic you’re using and stop.”
“Okay ...”
“Close your eyes and focus inward,” he instructed.
She did as he said, nervousness tickling her nerves. She let out a deep breath.
“Think about your human form.”
She pictured her regular body—no sparkly scales, just regular auburn hair and green eyes and too many scars.
“Reach for that form. Do you feel a subtle resistance?”
Confusion suffused her—reach for it?—but she tried anyway. She reached for her human body the same way she would summon a magical attack and immediately felt a kind of pull in the opposite direction.
“Yes,” she whispered, trying to hold on to that feeling.
“You need to relax and reach harder for your human form at the same time.”
She frowned. Squeezing her eyes shut, she reached more firmly for her human form as though she were going to cast it as a spell, but that strange pulling sensation intensified. Fighting her frustration, she imagined snapping the link behind the pulling feeling.
Tingles rushed over her body like a wave of warm water. Exhaustion instantly crashed over her. Her muscles gave out all at once and she went limp, falling sideways.
Lyre jumped forward onto his knees to catch her and half pulled her up. She slumped against his shoulder, her arms trembling.
“What—what’s wrong ...” she stuttered. Weariness dragged at every inch of her mind and body.
“Did you only use the Sahar, or did you use your own magic?”
“Both.”
Ash stepped around Lyre and carefully took her arm, pulling her to her feet. She tried to stand but her leg muscles twitched and shook, threatening to buckle. Lyre rose and took her other arm, hooking it over his shoulder.
“You used too much of your magic,” he said sympathetically. “Magic uses up your physical energy as well. You didn’t know your limits, so you pulled too much, and that weakened your body.”
“The reason many daemons use lodestones,” Ash added.
She gave her head a weak shake. “But I felt fine a minute ago.”
“Your daemon body is stronger than your human one.”
Right. The effects of exhaustion must have been muted because her daemon body was naturally much stronger. She closed her eyes, fighting the waves of fatigue. Ash’s arm was strong around her waist, Lyre close on her other side, holding her arm over his shoulders. Tears suddenly burned her eyes. She’d missed them both so much.
Ash got a better grip on her waist and guided her toward the door. Lyre followed. The stairs were awkward but she managed not to fall.
Kiev looked up as they entered the room. He was still kneeling beside Seiya, who appeared to be in a healing sleep. The tension in his face relaxed as he smiled.
“You’re back. Piper, are you okay?”
“Just tired,” she mumbled.
Ash helped her sit down, then he checked on Seiya. Lyre stopped beside Seiya and stared down at her with an unfathomable look on his face.
“They cut her wing,” Kiev said, his voice cracking. “I tried my best to heal it, but ... it was bad.”
“You did your best,” Ash said gently. “She’ll understand.”
“Was she waiting here?” Lyre asked, his voice strangely quiet. He looked at Ash. “She stayed here after she escaped?”
Ash nodded. Lyre’s gaze returned to her sleeping form, a little wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. Piper wondered again what had happened between them during their shared captivity.
Kiev yawned loudly, his jaw cracking. “I’m so exhausted.”
“We all are,” Ash said. “But we can’t rest yet. This place is too close to the embassy.”
Piper swallowed a groan. She was so tired. The thought of moving again made her want to cry.
“Well, I need five minutes,” Kiev said. “I only just finished.”
Ash sat back on his heels with a nod. The circles under his eyes were darker than ever. At least he didn’t appear to be injured. He and Raum made a good team, even if they didn’t like it. The battle seemed to weigh on Ash’s mind too, because soon his gaze turned to her, grey eyes examining her as though she was a strange specimen in a zoo.
“What?” she asked crankily.
“How did you break that dome shield? Nothing Raum or I tried did anything to it.”
She gave a little shrug, inching to one side to lean against a pillar. “Back in the Overworld, I noticed that my magic has a really weird effect on daemon magic. When my two kinds of magic are touching, they glow this ugly orange.”
He’d watched her separate her magic for the first time. The conflict between her blue and purple magic was more than obvious with the sickly orange glow that appeared wherever they touched.
“Well, when that orange reaction between my magic touches other magic, it seems to ... I don’t know. It seems to devour the other magic.”
Natania had told her that her magic was like fire and daemon magic was like oil. At first Piper hadn’t understood. She’d only put it together when the Ra daemons had been so shocked and fearful of what her magic had done to theirs. She’d been lucky that her wild guess—that she could do the same thing to the reapers’ shield—had worked.
“Well, s
hit,” Lyre said. “You’ll need to test that thoroughly.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You need to know how it works and its limitations. That ability could give you an edge in every battle against every daemon you might face—or it could get you killed because it doesn’t work the way you think it does.”
“I suppose.” She blinked up at him. “So what happened in the Ra embassy? Seiya only said you guys were captured and that the Ra heiress was planning to sell you.”
“That she did,” Lyre said, shrugging. “It was mostly boring. I spent the majority of it trying to figure out how to squeeze some magic through this damn collar so we could escape. Speaking of this damn collar ...”
He looked hopefully at Ash as he tugged on the silver collar around his neck. Obligingly, Ash touched the metal band and whispered his incantation. It disintegrated just like Seiya’s had.
“Long story short,” the incubus continued, rubbing his neck, “we busted our way out, had a really weird encounter with Miysis, and made a break out of that secret back door. But there were too many of them and only one of us was able to get out, so I made sure it was Seiya.”
Piper’s eyebrows rose. ‘Made sure’ sounded a little ominous.
“What kind of encounter with Miysis?” Ash asked, his voice darkening.
“Ran into him during our getaway. He told us that the main entrance would be suicide and pointed the way to the back exit. It was weird.”
“Maybe he felt bad for betraying us and killing Ash,” Piper said, her voice hard as steel with condemnation. His possible guilt made no difference in her ability to forgive him. “I don’t know if he realizes his assassination attempt failed.”
“Yeah, so that,” Lyre said, looking between them. “What happened, exactly?”
Grimacing, Piper ran through it quickly: How Miysis had waited for the others to leave before insisting Piper fulfill her half of their bargain. When she’d refused to use the Sahar to enable a Ra invasion of ryujin territory—or whatever he’d been planning—he’d tried to capture her and kill Ash.