Promised to two men. Was that all us sirens were? Beautiful, treacherous objects to be given or taken?
The tales were true. We ripped men’s hearts out and shredded them without thinking. Even to those we loved. Like Andre.
My mind drifted. Back at Bran Castle, Morta had mentioned something then. Something that I’d never forgotten and something that Jericho had reminded me of.
I would come back. I didn’t know when and I didn’t know how, but I’d be topside again. In fact, if what Morta had said was true, I’d become a creature that could traverse both earth and hell. Maybe all wasn’t lost.
And maybe I was grasping at straws.
My hands slid off the cool marble countertop just as the door to the bathroom squeaked open.
Crap, I’d forgotten to lock it. I swiveled around, only to come face-to-face with Caleb.
“Caleb?” Hope and horror filled my voice. “What are you doing here?” I took in his tux, noting absently that he wore it well.
He didn’t answer right away. I smelled his sweat and fear. His pulse hammered in his chest.
My gaze moved to his face. It was somewhat puffy, the skin around his eyes tinged red. He hardly looked better than me.
“Hey, are you okay?” Before I could think twice about it, I reached out for him.
Caleb stepped back. “Don’t touch me. Please, Gabrielle, don’t.” His throat worked.
I let my hand fall and suppressed my hurt.
He scrubbed his face.
“It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay,” I said soothingly. And it was. When your fate was to die and reign hell alongside the devil, other things sort of became insignificant by comparison.
He shook his head. “It’s not.”
From down the hall, I felt my connection with Andre surge. And then he was moving rapidly towards me.
I swore. He’d found my note too soon. I was sure of it.
“Gabrielle!” he bellowed.
Yep. He definitely found the note.
While I stared off, listening to my soulmate stalk ever closer to me, I heard a click. My gaze snapped back to Caleb in time to see his hand move away from the door’s lock. That was when I understood.
Caleb wasn’t here to visit me, he was here to end me.
“Soulmate!” Andre shouted from somewhere in the distance. My gaze moved to the direction his voice was coming from. “I swear I will tie you to the bed this time, you hear me? You are not to sacrifice yourself for anyone!”
My eyes pinched shut, and I bit the inside of my cheek.
The sound of cool metal brushing against linen had my eyes snapping back open. Caleb held a gun, and he was pointing it right at my heart. His hands trembled violently. God his aim was going to be shit if he pulled that trigger.
“Don’t do this,” I pleaded, shaking my head. “We’re friends. Partners.”
“Gabrielle, I don’t get a choice.”
I gazed at him with sad eyes. My heart felt heavy with the weight of so much conflict. So many things that my death would make wrong.
The bathroom door shook as Andre tried the handle only to find it locked. “Soulmate, I can feel you in there. Please let me in.” His voice had lost much of his angry edge. Now it just held miles and miles of pain.
Caleb cursed.
“Who’s in there with you?” Andre’s voice rose. He tried the handle again, then pounded on the door. “Let me in, or I will break down the goddamn door!” Anger revived. Someone was channeling his inner big, bad wolf.
Caleb’s eyes met mine, and his hands steadied. “I’m sorry—for everything.”
And then he pulled the trigger.
I always assumed when you were shot in the heart, you died instantly.
I was wrong.
I could feel my blood seeping out of my body, trickling out the hole in my chest and seeping into my white dress.
My eyes widened and my lips moved. But I couldn’t find the words to voice this betrayal. I didn’t honestly think he’d do it. Not until that last second. My mistake.
“Gabrielle!” Andre roared.
Caleb dropped the gun like it burned him, his eyes wide. He reached for me, and I could see instant remorse. His features actually flickered, and for the merest moment, I stared back at myself. Then he disappeared, his clothes drifting to the ground.
The bathroom door burst open, and Andre stood at the threshold, looking like my avenging angel. His eyes fell on me.
“Soulmate,” he choked out. In the next instant he held me. Beyond him I heard gasps as people crowded the room.
“Is she okay?” someone shouted behind him.
His eyes darted between me and the wound. He pressed a hand to my heart. In seconds it was covered with my blood.
A small noise escaped him.
His eyes moved back to me. “You’re going to be okay.” Andre’s voice betrayed him.
I couldn’t speak; the pain seemed to seize up my voice. This was it.
“I will save you again.” Andre drew his hand away from my heart and brought his wrist up to his mouth.
His teeth pierced his flesh and the smell of Andre’s blood mingled with mine. He lifted his bloody wrist to my lips. “Drink, soulmate.”
Even as he spoke, my sight dimmed.
Ignoring his wrist, I reached out to stroke his face. “I love you.” I tried to speak the words, but they came out as the barest whisper.
“Dammit, you stay with me, soulmate!” He pressed his wrist to my lips, his blood dripping into my mouth and down my throat. “It doesn’t end like this!”
As his blood hit my system, my body seemed to flare up, trying to shake death from itself. And it was working.
I could feel the bullet wound slowly healing. I gasped in a ragged breath, my back arching. My sight cleared enough to see Andre draw his hand away and reopen his wrist wound.
Caleb shot me. My friend and former partner shot me. The betrayal burned deep—though why should it? We stood on opposing ends of good and evil. Still, hot, bloody tears pooled in my eyes.
“Soulmate,” Andre said, petting my hair, “you’re not going to die.” This time he sounded surer of himself.
In the background, voices were shouting. Someone was yelling about moving me. A moment later Andre cradled me in his arms, his wrist pressed against my mouth once more.
“You need to bite down, love.”
I did so, weakly, taking in a few swallows of his blood before I released him. The taste of it still made me nauseous.
All around us guests watched as Andre carried me across the ballroom, heading for his private quarters.
We never made it.
Above us the chandelier shivered, its tiny crystals tinkling. No one else seemed to notice, not until the walls of Bishopcourt trembled and the floor shook.
Outside the estate, the wind intensified, howling as it battered against the walls. The pitch of it rose until it seemed to be screaming.
Andre’s grip tightened. He figured out then what I already knew: the devil was coming for me, and he would not be denied.
With a sickening shriek, the windows blew in. Guests screamed as glass pelted them.
The front doors banged open, and a violent wind tore through the ballroom, ripping me out of Andre’s arms. It dragged me across the floor to the middle of the room.
I bit down hard on my cheek as the movement jostled my still-healing wound. The unearthly wind separated me not just from Andre, but from everyone.
The shadows of the night coalesced, dragged from the far corners of the room and the night beyond it. It twisted around me in a whirlwind as it came together. If I weren’t entangled right in the middle of it, I would’ve said it looked beautiful. But I could feel the breath of evil licking up my skin, caressing me like a long-lost lover.
It fashioned itself into the shape of a man, and then from the darkness came features. Almond-shaped eyes, pale skin, hair swept back from a high brow, a self-satisfied smirk.
The dev
il always did like to make an entrance.
“I didn’t crash a party now, did I?” he asked. He turned to me, raising an eyebrow. The show wasn’t for them. It was for me.
“Time’s up,” he said quietly.
I braced myself on my forearms, staring up at him from where I lay on the floor. The wind still pressed against the crowd, keeping them at bay, and I could see Andre actively fighting against it. He wouldn’t be able to pass through, just as I was sure I wouldn’t be able to leave this maelstrom.
Not that I would try. The devil had already taken too much from me. I wouldn’t risk Andre’s life or anyone else’s by turning my back on this deal.
The devil turned from me to the audience around us. “I hear there should’ve been a Joining tonight, and by the devil, there will be one.”
The wind continued to twist around us, a tornado trapped in the ballroom, and the devil and I were at the eye of it. Guests covered their faces as the storm tore at their clothes and hair. Among them I caught sight of Leanne and Oliver.
“You can’t have her!” Andre shouted. I could feel the static electricity snapping off of him. His hair lifted, a strange breeze blowing it in the wrong direction. His fangs had descended, and his lips curled back menacingly. The pupil’s of his eyes stretched almost completely over his irises, making them look nearly black. Our connection throbbed, like it knew it was in danger of snapping.
The devil laughed. “Oh really? And what will you do about it? I made you; I can unmake you.”
The devil snapped his fingers, the action quelling some of the electricity in the air. Some, but not all. Instead, the electricity changed form. Sparks jumped off of Andre and, holy crap, this was going to turn into Bishopcourt fiasco, part two.
Some of our guests had managed to escape out the front door or through the now broken windows, but most of them watched, captivated, as the devil wrought destruction down upon them.
I realized with a start that most of the vampires had never laid eyes on the devil. I’d gotten so used to his drop-ins, that the wonder of his presence was lost on me. But now vampires like Vicca stared at him, mouth agape—a strange mixture of fear and awe in their gazes. They’d never seen the thing responsible for their damnation.
Andre was the only other vampire in the room not shocked by the devil’s presence. But boy he did look pissed. He strode towards the storm, pushing against the wall of wind.
The devil paid him no attention. “As I was saying,” he glanced over the crowd, “tonight there will in fact be a Joining.” Once more he turned to me, hand outstretched.
“I’m here tonight to claim Gabrielle Fiori as my consort, the Queen of Hell.”
“Fight him, soulmate!” Andre shouted.
But all the fight had been drained from me. I was covered in blood, my dress torn where I’d been shot, my hair wild, and my wound still raw. I’d given the last days and hours of my life everything I had. I had nothing left of myself to give.
The room fell silent. Utterly silent—even the wind, which still twisted around us, had quieted, as though someone had turned down the volume. The only sounds were my sluggish heartbeats, pounding arrhythmically between my ears, and the whoosh of blood it moved through me.
Deep breath in. Slow breath out. As I stared down at the devil’s hand, I calmed. My moment of truth was upon me. The destiny I’d been hurtling towards was finally here. No more innocent lives would be lost.
I reached out.
“Gabrielle, no!” I never again wanted to hear the note in Andre’s voice. It was the sound of a creature in great pain, and I had caused it.
This ended tonight.
I grasped the devil’s hand, and with a triumphant smile, he pulled me to my feet. He tugged me to face him, and his hand slid up my arm, twining around mine. “I, Rex Inferna, recognize you as my mate and doth bind you to me en infitum, Gabrielle Fiori, Regina Inferna.”
I began shivering as the cold chill of fear seeped into me. On the other side of the twister Andre was creating his own storm with his rising emotions. The walls and floor shook as objects lifted themselves off the ground.
“And so it shall be, now and forever,” the devil finished.
Andre let out a roar, and the chandelier shook violently. The house made a pained groan. It wouldn’t last much longer under the strain of Andre’s pain and anger.
The devil’s hand locked around my wrist just as the whirlwind that spun around us suddenly ceased.
My eyes found Andre’s wild ones.
“I love you,” I said.
The shadows around the devil and me shifted and lengthened. I realized as they circled us that the darkness was made up of screaming souls. Andre strode through them, his hair whipping about his face and his jaw set, ready to fight the devil for me.
Seeing this, the devil turned his head so that his lips skimmed my temple. I shuddered as he pressed a kiss there. The shadows swarmed in on us, and I could feel myself—both body and soul—being ripped from the fabric of this world.
I reached out for Andre as the devil wrapped his arm around my waist.
“No!” Andre thundered. For one sheer moment, his fingers brushed my outstretched ones. Then both he and Bishopcourt disappeared, and the blackness consumed the devil and me.
One by one my senses disappeared. First sight, then smell and taste. I no longer choked on the sour tang of lost souls and ash, which made up the matrix I traveled in.
Touch—thankfully—went next. I could no longer feel the devil’s grip on my body, nor his breath on my face. The last thing to go was my hearing, and I knew that only because the devil’s final whispered words rang in my ears long after my other senses had fallen away—
“Finally, consort, you are mine.”
Chapter 30
Andre dropped to his knees as the shadows swallowed Gabrielle up.
“No.” His voice broke over the word. Seven hundred years of his soulless existence, a few short months of something dangerously close to happiness, and all of it for naught.
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. The Biblical reference rang like a dirge in his mind.
The devil had taken his soulmate. Just like all the tales said he would. A cry tore through Andre’s throat.
He saw the moment the fire died from her eyes, the moment her soul was no longer here but there. But even the terror of that sight couldn’t compare to the sickening way her life force severed itself from his heart. That invisible cord that he’d carried inside him like a flame for almost two decades, the one that had flared up the first time he laid eyes on Gabrielle in his club and had burst to life several days later when she’d Awoken. It had been snipped. He could practically hear Morta’s cackle from somewhere beyond.
“No,” he repeated. The word was a broken plea. It couldn’t be. Not now, not after everything they had endured to be together. Not when he’d only just gotten a taste of what it would be like to be with her wholly and completely.
He pressed a hand hard against his heart as he hunched over himself, trying to stem the pain of the cord’s absence. It was the same hand that had tried to stem Gabrielle’s blood from seeping out of her only minutes ago, and now her blood smeared onto his clothes. He smelled like her. How dare she linger if she was gone.
Gone.
Around him, objects that still swirled around the room now crashed to the ground as his heart contracted. Distantly he heard people scream.
This time around there was no body to revive. But perhaps she could escape, like on Samhain.
His eyes closed and he shuddered. No one who entered the Underworld left. That had always been consistent throughout the myths. She’d been taken, and this time she wasn’t coming back.
“No!” he bellowed, and Bishopcourt quaked with his agony.
At some point his coven dragged him away from the room.
Gone, gone, gone. She was once his. And now she was gone.
Across the world, as the news came in, people cheered. All but a
few. A monster’s arms and legs were restrained, otherwise he would’ve already ended his life. His coven clustered around him, holding him as heaving sobs shook his monstrous frame and blood streamed down his cheeks. His wails only ceased when the first rays of dawn rose on the horizon.
Soulmates weren’t meant to part.
In a dark room in Castle Rushen a shapeshifter shook, wiping the vomit off his chin. He hadn’t stopped trembling since he’d pulled the trigger. She was dead—the girl who’d once been his friend, the girl he would’ve died for a month ago—and it was his fault. When he killed her, he killed some part of himself as well. Something integral. He retched again. In what world was this right? In what world was this just?
A seer closed her eyes and dreamed of great, leaping flames and hollow, endless pain. She screamed as it lacerated her skin over and over. With a gasp she woke, feverish from someone else’s nightmare.
Next to her, a fairy lay in a pool of his shedded dust. Tears tracked down his cheeks as he thrashed in his sleep, twisting himself in the sheets of a dead woman.
In a musty emporium a stooped messenger cleaned off a glass case, which housed a priceless treasure. Its owner would be needing it soon.
And resting on a desk in the master bedroom of Bishopcourt, under the watchful gaze of a painted crusader, was a final line of hope written on an already forgotten letter:
I’ll be coming back, Andre. Have faith. I love you, and I’ll see you again soon.
Chapter 31
I woke with a gasp. The obsidian slab I lay upon chilled me to the bone. I sat up, and as I did so, dozens of spiders skittered off my body. I sucked in air to scream, when my outfit caught my attention.
The confection was nothing like I’d ever seen before. It moved like silk, but it was woven into web-like lace patterns. My eyes darted back to one of the rogue spiders fleeing from me.