“I know,” he said softly. He opened his arms to her, but Loren couldn’t move. She just gaped at him like an idiot, blinking fiercely against the spots of color floating across her vision. “I’m going to need to carry you out of here,” he explained softly. “Is that okay?”
It took all her strength to nod. And then Darien was lifting her from the floor as if she were a toddler, hooking her shredded legs around his waist.
“I think you should close your eyes for this next part.” He crossed the room to where the window had been, barely jostling her with each step. Loren buried her face against his chest and clasped her fingers around the back of his neck.
She was vaguely aware of wind spiralling around them and the sensation of their bodies moving in a freefall. Darien landed lightly on the glass-covered sidewalk—far below the shattered window—with perfect balance.
Loren cracked open her damp eyelids to see Ivyana waiting by Darien’s car. Pedestrians wearing suits and holding briefcases were gawking from across the street, but they looked away and resumed walking as soon as Darien or his sister glanced in their direction.
“The others got Xander,” Ivy said. In a voice so quiet Loren barely heard her, she added, “Alive.”
Darien set Loren on her feet by the backdoor. She slid into the car, refusing to consider what the Devils intended to do to the Demon Twin, as she laid her head back against the cool leather seat and closed her eyes. She tried with all her might to will away the pain of the glass stuck in her wounds, but the burning of the fragments only grew worse with each passing second.
As Darien sped them toward Hell’s Gate, Loren thought of Sabrine.
And she wished, for the entire drive, that she could have her back—that she could switch places with her and have Sabrine under the Devils’ protection instead of herself. She would give all of this up for Sabrine—give up herlife—if only she could see her one last time.
—
A numb feeling was spreading through her arms and legs when the car slowed to a stop on the gravel drive before the red-brick manor house.
Darien parked and cut the engine. Loren squeezed her eyes shut again, only vaguely aware of Darien and Ivyana exiting the car.
A moment later, Darien opened Loren’s door. A warm breeze that smelled of jasmine rushed into the car, the heady fragrance calming her, though only just. It took Loren a moment to open her eyes, and when she did, she found that Darien’s gaze softened at the sight of her.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
Loren unbuckled her seatbelt with weak fingers. “I can try.” He stepped back to allow her more room as she lifted herself out.
But her head spun, the gravel driveway rising to meet her as her legs folded under her.
Darien caught her before she could hit the ground and lifted her into his arms, being careful not to apply pressure to her wounds. He kicked the door shut and made his way up the front steps. Loren tried to force herself to take deep breaths, but it only made the salty tang of her blood even more noticeable.
When they reached the foyer, the house was so silent Loren figured the other Devils must not be back yet. She opened her eyes long enough to note that Darien was carrying her down a corridor that would eventually lead to the sunroom. He stopped halfway down that corridor and used his elbow to turn the handle of a closed door. He began descending a set of stairs to the basement, boots pounding loudly.
She closed her eyes again, and she did not reopen them until Darien set her down in a chair in a brightly lit room below ground.
Her watery eyes flicked about her surroundings. It looked like a kitchen turned into a makeshift emergency room.
“Still awake?” he asked. He was bending over so his head was level with hers, hands braced on his knees. There was concern in his eyes, she thought. Perhaps she was imagining it.
“Barely,” Loren croaked.
“Deep breaths, Calla.” He made his way to the sink and began washing his hands. She tried to do as he’d said, but every inhalation hurt.
There was the clop of heels on the floor behind her. Loren turned to see Ivyana approaching, her black bodysuit flecked with the blue-tinged blood of lamiae.
“Everything okay?” Ivyana asked.
Darien was sifting through a cupboard and setting various items onto the table beside Loren. “She has a lot of glass in her wounds.” He shed his jacket and tossed it onto the counter. “I might need your help for the areas under her clothing.” The areas that might require that sheremoveher clothing.
“Actually,” Loren said thickly. They both stopped what they were doing and looked at her. She kept her eyes on the floor as she mumbled, “I think I’d prefer if Darien did it all. I mean… If—if he doesn’t mind.”
There was a pause. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Darien give his sister a stiff nod.
Ivyana said, “If you need me, I’ll be upstairs.” She left then, heels clicking on the stairs.
Darien pushed the sleeves of his gray shirt up to his elbows, pulled up a stool before Loren, and took a seat, bracing his muscled legs on either side of hers. He went to work at once, taking the worst of her arms into a calloused hand. In his other, he held a pair of tweezers.
