At first her touch felt kindly, like I’d always imagined a real grandmother’s would. But then it turned icy cold, spreading across my jaw and into my head, boring into my skull. The feeling was like a brain freeze, like eating ice cream too fast, and everything else in me went still as she rifled through my mind—not my thoughts, I realized, but my dreams. My nightmares. I saw each one flicker and glow as she paged through them like stories in an old, dusty book.
When she finally pulled back and the warmth rushed back into my head, she was looking at me with a mixture of righteousness and pity. Compassion.
“Do that again,” I warned, “and you’ll… I’ll…”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head, letting the words die off. I didn’t have it in me to threaten her. She’d been right. We’d all done things to protect Gray. Would do them again in a heartbeat. I had no right to judge her.
In a fluid, effortless motion at complete odds with her small physical stature, she hauled Darius to his feet and yanked his arm over her shoulder, taking the bulk of his weight against her body. Darius groaned in half-hearted protest, but he leaned into her, trying to find his footing.
“I’ll deal with him,” she said, then nodded toward Gray. “You get Rayanne to Sebastian. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
I looked at Darius, the blood congealing on his lips and chin. His hands trembled, his head lolling sideways as if he didn’t even have the strength to hold it up. His eyes held none of their earlier viciousness.
Fucking hell, Beaumont.
Deirdre must’ve seen the concern in my face. Adjusting him against her body, she said, “He would have killed you both had I not intervened.”
“He would’ve tried, maybe.”
“Ronan, we don’t have time. I’ve got him. You need to help Rayanne.”
“He’s not himself,” I went on. “But he’s… he’s important to her. To both of us.” I stepped closer, putting a hand on his shoulder as if he was mine to claim. “I can’t let you end him, Deirdre. No matter what he’s done.”
She sighed loudly, her patience clearly thinning. “I’m not planning to decapitate him, demon. He needs sedation and treatment. Unless you want me to release him into the wilds of Las Vegas, I need to relocate him somewhere safe, preferably before sunrise.”
Safe? I almost laughed at that. Where the hell in this city was a safe place for a powerful vampire with no memory, out of his mind with bloodlust, currently neutered by hawthorn, completely at the mercy of a pint-sized, dream-stealing, elderly witch?
“I’ll find you at Sebastian’s casino once the vampire is secured,” she said, the sternness in her voice leaving no room for argument.
Darius groaned again, but if he had an opinion on the matter, I had no idea what the hell it was. I had to go by instinct, trusting that I knew the real Darius well enough at this point to know what he’d want.
Like me, he’d want to protect Gray at all costs. He’d want me to focus on her. To find some way to get her out of this fucking bind.
I scooped Gray into my arms, holding her tight against my chest.
For a moment, Deirdre and I stood facing each other, looking over the charges each of us held close.
These are the most important people in my life.
“I’ll take care of him, Ronan,” she said, a little bit of that grandmotherly tone creeping back in. “You have my word.”
Her gaze dropped back to Gray, her lips pressed into a tight line. The creases between her eyes deepened with worry, and she glanced back up at me, as though she wanted me to give her the same reassurances.
But I didn’t owe her a damn thing. She knew who I was. Knew that I was perpetually obligated to keep Gray safe, even if Iwasn’tin love with her so deeply my heart would never hit a steady beat without her touch again.
So with my best friend—hell, my entire life—cradled in my arms, I emerged into the lonely desert night, leaving Darius in the care of the one witch I’d hoped I’d never,evermeet in person.
The witch who—twenty-some years ago in her own dark moment of desperation at the crossroads—had signed her name in blood on a contract with the Prince of Hell, bargaining away her granddaughter’s eternal soul.
Three
Liam
For all the power I possessed, for all the fear my presence invoked in humans and supernaturals alike, for all the incomprehensible vastness of my very being, I could not save her.
The pain wracking my human vessel was agonizing, guilt’s red-hot lava boiling in my stomach, shame blazing a new fire in my chest, regret eating a gaping hole in my heart that could only be repaired by Gray’s safe return. Shifting into my shadow form would’ve spared me, but the pain was no less than I deserved.
I couldn’t risk depleting my rapidly waning energy with another shift. Not until I made my journey into the heart of hell.
