Kali Sweet Series, Three Urban Fantasy Novels (Boxed Set) Read online

  Add to that, I was starting to bleed out. A warm stickiness pooled underneath me. Cole went into triage mode on my front, yanking the blanket off Neve’s lap and pressing it hard around the poker’s entry point. Someone—probably Kirill—did a similar thing to my back. There was a lot of discussion about how and when to remove the poker. Should they take me to the Institute or perform the surgery here? But once the initial agony passed, a deep numbness infiltrated my body. My vision grew shadowed and I closed my eyes.

  The smell of wood smoke, more heady and intense than the one created by the fire behind me, teased my nose. A warm hand gently tapped my cheek. “Kali, is she gone?” Damon’s voice seemed to float through my brain. “Is Maria gone?”

  I ran a mental probe around inside my skull, found nothing that didn’t belong there. My faculties were weak, but I was pretty sure she’d disappeared. Cracking my eyes open, I gave my boss a feeble nod.

  That was good, right? Or was that bad? I suddenly couldn’t remember, but I thought it was both.

  His hand cupped my cheek and he gave me an enervated smile. “Try to stay awake. We’ll get you to the Institute and fix you up.”

  They were the last words I heard for a while. Cole picked me up, poker and all, and carried me toward the door. I fell asleep in his arms.

  When I woke sometime later, I was in a sterile room, white everywhere. White walls, white blinds, white bed linens. I was tucked under a blanket. Heart monitor leads were stuck to my chest and an IV needle was wedged into the skin of my left wrist.

  I flexed fingers and toes, noticed my stomach hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what had happened to put me in the Institute’s recovery room. My brain seemed to be wrapped in cobwebs, the last memory I could call up had Rad in it. We were on the roof of my castle. The sun was setting.

  The Hello Kitty pendant.

  Absently, I raised my hand and touched the spot where the pendant had lain. It wasn’t there, but I remembered how it had warmed against my skin. Where had it gone and what had I done?

  I rose up on my elbows and a sharp pain hit me in the gut. Along with that, it felt like I had a wide seatbelt around my stomach. Lying back down, I raised the blanket. A broad white bandage wrapped around my torso. In the center, there was a bloom of red blood.

  Another recent memory caught in my hippocampus. Neve’s sad eyes.

  A slow trickle of images cleared away some of the cobwebs. The cemetery, the storm, the portal. I’d lowered the protective magics around the portal, but shit, I couldn’t remember raising them again. Actually, I couldn’t remember why I’d lowered them in the first place. I had to get back there. All manner of uglies could get through otherwise.

  “You’re awake.” Kirill strolled into the room as I threw off the covers. His gaze did a quick scan of my naked body, zeroing in the bloody bandage. “Going somewhere?”

  Now upright, everything ached. I white-knuckled the handrail. “Where are my clothes?”

  “I’ll ask Yasmin to bring a fresh set from your suite.” He used the room’s call system and ordered up some clothes. Then he ripped the heart monitor patches off my chest and started working on removing the IV needle. “How do you feel?”

  It was said off-handedly, like any good doctor would ask a patient, but there was a note of something else in his tone that raised my suspicions. “Like hell. What happened to me?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm.”

  “That’s not an answer.” I pointed at the bloody circle. “Was I staked?”

  I knew that didn’t make sense. I’d been staked before in various body parts, and it hurts, but it heals almost immediately.

  “Sort of.”

  Wow, he was just full of information. “Explain ‘sort of’.”

  At that moment, Damon arrived. I reached down and grabbed the blanket, covering my upper body as he took one look at me sitting up and gave Kirill a frown. “How’s our patient?”

  “She appears to be normal, with the exception of some short-term memory loss.”

  “Hmm.” Damon did a visual inventory of my face, concentrating mostly on my eyes. What was he looking for? “Trauma to the brain?”

  Kirill shrugged. “I could do some tests.”

  “I don’t need tests.” Damon’s unwavering stare made me increasingly uncomfortable. I tugged the blanket closer, internally checking on my demon. Had she gone ballistic again? Had she hurt someone? Was that why he was studying me so intently? “Just tell me what the fuck happened.”

  “What is the last thing you remember?” Damon asked.

  For crying out loud. I drew a shaky breath, winced at the discomfort in my stomach. “Neve. I remember Neve. Please tell me my demon didn’t hurt her.”

  “Neve is fine. She’s safe at home and wishes me to convey her heartfelt apologies.” Damon crossed his arms, continued his cross-examination. “What else do you remember?”

  “Apologies for what?”

  He let the question hang in the air. I touched my stomach as something clicked. “She did this to me?”

  A nod. “With an iron poker from your fireplace set. The tip did some internal damage to your intestines but missed vital organs. You’re lucky. Organ damage would have been more severe and more painful.”

  Iron. That’s why I wasn’t healing as quickly as normal.

  Iron wasn’t deadly like silver. In fact, since I was a demon and made from the darkest recesses of the earth, my body could absorb iron under certain circumstances. It still made a hell of a weapon. “Why?”

  His brows dipped. “Maria’s ghost. Neve knew it would drive her spirit from your body.”

  Maria. Merde. How could I have forgotten about her? Seemed like there were others I should be asking about as well, but every time my brain tried to pull up their faces, I lost the thread of conversation. “Wait. Maria was in my body? Is that why I planned to open the portal? Was I going to jump in?”

  Again the brow dip. He continued to look at me as he spoke to Kirill. “I believe testing is in order to understand the extensiveness of her brain trauma.”

  “I don’t have time for tests.” I wanted to stand up and shoo them out of the room so I could get dressed—there had to be a gown or robe in here I could wear until Yasmin showed—but instead, I shifted the blanket to cover my legs. Why did I feel so weird with Damon all of a sudden? So exposed? “For whatever reason, I lowered the portal’s protective magic. It could be open right now. I need to get back to the cemetery and close it.”

  “Salmad has already taken care of it.”

  “Salmad? He couldn’t even perform an exorcism.” I wasn’t sure how I’d remembered that, only that it was true.

  Yasmin appeared, Maddy followed and Cole brought up the rear.

  “You’re up.” Maddy embraced me, plopped down on the bed, and ran her fingers through my hair on that side. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks.”

  Cole did a Damon-like scan of my face, saw what he wanted, and gave me a relieved nod. Yasmin, who was focused on Damon as usual, tossed a pile of folded clothes on the bed without even glancing my way.

  There’s nothing like being naked under a blanket with a roomful of your bosses and a couple of your friends. Similar to a nightmare, only you’re fully awake. “I need to get dressed.”

  No one took the hint. They all stayed exactly where they were. Damon spoke. “The portal is secure. Your human friend is safe. Maria is no longer possessing you, although we’re not sure where she disappeared to.” The last sentence held some reserve and he scanned my eyes as he said it. Looking for my demon? Or Maria? “Even your plan to capture Toel has been a success.”

  “More or less,” Kirill added.

  Toel. Another memory dropped into place. “The Nocts killed him, right? Or did Dru and his brothers nab him?”

  Damon shook his head. “He was captured by the Noctifectors. No word yet on his execution. An ingen
ious plan, I must admit. How did you get the Slayers to Chloe’s?”

  Rad. His face swam across my mental vision. My heart felt heavy, our uncomfortable goodbye surfacing. “I don’t remember. Where’s my necklace?”

  Maddy dug in a pocket, held out a sparkly Hello Kitty in Christmas drag to me. “She’s cute, but I thought you hated Christmas.”

  “I do.”

  She rolled her eyes and strung the necklace around my neck. Instantly, the pendant warmed against my skin and I took a satisfying breath. Stupid thing made me feel better.

  “What did you mean ‘more or less’ about Toel’s capture?” I asked Kirill.

  He glanced at Damon as if seeking permission and Damon gave a nod. “Alexandru and his brothers arrived shortly after the Slayers and a fight ensued. Alexandru was injured.”

  Vamps, like demons, had incredible healing abilities, but the tone of Kirill’s voice made it sound serious. “How bad?”

  Another of those looks passed between him and Damon. A look that said I wasn’t going to like this. “A stake nicked his heart. He’s dying. Slowly, but the wound is fatal.”

  My stomach dived. A stake to the heart killed instantly. But nicking the heart? The area hit died first, then like a fast-acting gangrene, it spread, eventually killing the rest. “No.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Damon said. “There’s nothing that can be done.”

  I clutched the rail again. My voice rasped as I challenged Damon. “There has to be something. You healed me and Salmad after Maria’s attacks. Can’t you work some of that magic on him?”

  The room was silent and Yasmin let out an exasperated sigh. “Twenty-four hours ago you wanted to kill the vamp. Now you’re crying because he’s going to die?”

  Crying? Sure enough, my lashes were wet with unshed tears. I brushed them away with the back of my hands. “Fuck you,” I bit out, wanting to grind her face into the wall. “Dru is my friend.” And a more loyal one than you.

  Maddy put her arm around my shoulders. “He was asking to see you.”

  I swallowed the tightness in my throat, slid off the bed and met everyone’s eyes. “Get out and let me dress.”

  Damon uncrossed his arms. “It is ill-advised for you to go to Carpathia. There’s nothing you can do for him.”

  I pointed a shaky finger at the door. “Get. Out.”

  Cole opened the room’s door. “You heard the demon. Everybody out.”

  My three bosses gave Cole a round of raised brows, arguments and self-righteous irritation. They were used to my insolence, not so much his.

  Cole can be persuasive without opening his mouth and as he and I both stood firm on the request, the archdemons filed past Cole and huddled together to figure out a way to stop me.

  In their absence, Cole winked at me. “I’ll drive you as soon as you’re ready.”

  I gave him a tremulous smile and grabbed Maddy’s hand to keep her there with me. I needed some of her smart mouth and skill with a brush. “Give me five minutes.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Carpathia rose in all its ostentatious glory as we drove through the gate and up the curved drive to the front door in one of the Institute’s official SUVs. The stars were out in abundance, seeming to cluster overhead. Landscape lights spotlighted the sidewalk and front porch. I’d called ahead and told Stephan, Dru’s French brother, we were coming. He had been noncommittal, but when we arrived, one of the House’s servants, Oliver, appeared on the front porch and immediately came down the steps to escort me inside.

  Maddy came with me, Cole a few steps behind. Outside of Dru’s bedroom door, Cole gave me a nod and sauntered off. Probably to find Brianna.

  I didn’t know what I’d find on the other side of the door. Didn’t know how I would handle this. Death in my world was usually fast and violent. This type of slow, but ultimately fatal death wasn’t my thing. On the drive to the House, I’d tried to figure out what I should say, mentally rehearsing platitudes I knew Dru would hate hearing. Now that I was looking at the massive double doors leading to his chambers, the words “no” and “this can’t be happening” seemed to be the only ones my brain would produce.

  I raised my hand to knock, lowered it. Swallowed the bile suddenly tightening my throat. Oliver, waiting patiently beside me, was a husk of a man. Thin, frail, white hair. His eyes were kind though as he said, “My queen, allow me.”

  He knocked and when Dru answered, opened the double doors and announced me.

  “I’ll just wait out here,” Maddy said.

  It took everything I had to step across the threshold.

  “Ah, my double rainbow of demon.” Dru was propped up in the middle of an enormous bed at the far end of the suite, his voice echoing through the room, and yet, the sound was a fourth of what it had been just days ago. The room was divided into two living areas, his bedroom at one end, a sofa and fireplace at the other. The furniture was modern, just like in his office, and no surprise, he had a full wall of electronics and a massive flat screen over the fireplace. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

  The first time we’d met, at my coronation ceremony, he’d made the rainbow demon comment in a snarky manner. Since then, he’d used the nickname a few times as a joke. The once healthy vampire looked as frail as the servant who’d just ushered me in, and at least to my ears, the joke fell flat. His breath rattled in his chest and he coughed. I searched my brain for something to say as I crossed the room, took his hand and sat on the bed. “You’re a conceited vamp, always trying to get attention, but really, this is taking things a bit too far, don’t you think?”

  His eyes lit up, appreciation for my flippant teasing evident. He didn’t want to hear platitudes any more than I wanted to give them. He didn’t want our last meeting to be full of sadness and drama. He smiled, his pale lips still full and inviting. “I do have a flare for drama, don’t I?”

  I returned his smile. “You’re a master at it.”

  He acknowledged the pun and waggled his eyebrows at me. “I have one last dying wish.”

  “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  His laughter shook the bed and he splayed his fingers between mine, giving my hand a squeeze. The rattling in his chest kicked up a notch and he coughed. “You would deny a dying man his last wish?”

  That rattle made me nervous. “You’re a dying vamp, not a man, but even if you were human, if your wish had anything to do with getting me naked, I’d still say no.”

  “You love him, don’t you? The Chaos demon?”

  Yes, my heart said, and then it said, no. Loving someone left you vulnerable. That annoying Achilles’ heel thing stared me in the face as sure as Dru’s impending death. Feeling anything other than anger hurt too much. Especially when the person you felt it for up and died on you. “I’m a vengeance demon. I don’t do love.”

  Dru’s eyes reflected my lying face back to me. He squeezed my hand, seeming to understand my secret and the front I was putting up. “I have another last wish.”

  “I’ll take care of Carpathia the best I can. I assume your brothers will want me to step down so they can appoint a new queen or king for the Central Division, but until then, I’ll do my best to keep things the way you have them. I’ll take care of the House and your Undead family.”

  “Thank you.” He raised my hand and kissed my palm. A shudder ran through me. His blood was in me, and even in his dying state, a spark of lust flared between us. “The favor I wish to ask, however, is not about the House. It’s a personal favor just between us.”

  I’d already said no to sex, so what else ‘personal’ could he want? My blood? “It’s a terrible idea, but the only one I can think of to keep you alive.”

  His brows scrunched together. “There is nothing that will keep me alive.”

  I shifted on the bed and brought out the dagger I carried in a thigh holster. “My demon blood might.”

  Our gazes locked, and there it was again, that spark of lust. Dru’s eyes darkened and his magic rose,
stealing over my skin and raising the hair on my arms. “That would go against every rule and law in both of our communities. The Bridge Council wouldn’t just fire you, Kali. They’d shoot you for treason.”

  Damon didn’t use guns. He’d draw and quarter me the old fashioned way. Roast my intestines and grind my organs into mush. “You shared your blood with me and saved my life. I’m returning the favor.”

  I started to slice my wrist when his hand locked around it. He may have looked weak, but his grip was a vice. “I will not drink your blood.”

  “I’m sure it’ll taste like gasoline, but you’ve got to try.”

  “And if it succeeded? What kind of monster would I be?”

  A scary-ass one. And that would make two of us. “So we’ll go to Frankensteins Anonymous when you’re healed. I’m already in the club. It’s no biggie.”

  He shook his head. “It will not work. My body will reject demon blood.”

  “How do you know? Toel was going to mess with different blood types to create a super vamp. Maybe he was onto something.”

  Dru released my wrist, seeming to struggle with taking a deep breath. “There have been other Undead’s who’ve experienced this situation. There was nothing that could save them. It’s all been tried. Even demon blood.”

  Frustrated, I stood and paced. “Look, I’m more than your average demon, and you’re dying anyway. It can’t hurt.”

  A curious glint lit his eyes. “Of course, you’re more than average—you’ve lived nearly as long as I have—but even if you were Jesus Christ himself, you couldn’t stop this.”

  I returned to sit beside him, both of us silent and staring at each other. My sinuses filled with pressure. My stomach knotted.

  “Kiss me,” he said. His chest heaved with the effort to breathe. “Just one kiss. Nothing more.”

  Bad, bad idea. But in the end, how could I deny him such a simple request? I wasn’t cheating on Rad, wasn’t breaking any Bridge laws. All I was doing was setting my lips against his for a quick moment. “One kiss.”

  I leaned forward, shifting closer, and shuddered at the look in his eyes. His gaze locked on mine, drawing me in, but he wasn’t messing with my mental abilities or putting me in throe to him. The blood bond we shared drew us together like magnet to steel.