Without warning, they began firing. When I was inside, they said that they wouldn’t hurt me if I surrendered. I hadn’t surrendered, but then, the Politia hadn’t given me the chance. They hadn’t planned on letting me live.
A dozen bullets took me all at once and goddammit, being queen of the damned hadn’t taken away my ability to feel pain.
I staggered and fell to my knees, gasping for air. I raised my hand, and with a small wave, stopped the bullets.
Holy fuck, I really needed to stop getting shot.
Rather than weakening, my power surged and greedily lapped up my pain. My blood slid down my skin and dripped onto the ground. It bubbled and hissed as it met rock and earth. Acrid smoke rose from the boiling blood, and it grew and grew, fanning out around me.
Uh-oh. I think I now knew how baby demons were made.
The Politia was really going to regret shooting me.
The smoke deepened, the smell of sulfur filling the air. I’d seen something like this happen before I was taken. A necromancer cut himself and spilled his blood onto the earth. From it sprouted demons.
Apparently now I had the same ability.
Andre
“She’s at Castle Rushen,” Tybalt said over the phone.
Andre stalked out of his room already dressed and armed for battle, should it come to that.
“The Politia has taken her prisoner?” he asked. It wasn’t like them. Anything that appeared as dangerous as Gabrielle would go on their kill list.
“No. Reports are saying that she’s taken one of the officers hostage.”
“Taken an officer hostage?” he said into his phone. “Which one, and why?” He knew Gabrielle had her vendettas, but this sounded out of character.
Not that he was in any position to throw stones.
Andre left his mansion and slid into the town car waiting for him. “Take me to Castle Rushen,” he told his driver.
“Shit. Andre,” Tybalt said from the other end of the line, “she’s—” Shots echoed in the background.
Andre’s grip on the phone tightened. “What’s happening?”
“She’s been shot.”
Gabrielle
I raised a hand, focusing on the officers’ weapons. Triggers froze and barrels jammed as they tried and failed to fire their weapons. I could smell their rising fear, and it fueled my power.
As the shadows around me took shape, they began to splinter, and then those began to splinter. How many demons had my blood spawned?
Smoke transformed into silvery skin. It lengthened into claws and teeth and talons and beady red eyes. Wings and horns burst from their flesh, twisting and unfurling. If it wasn’t so terrifying, it would have been beautiful, like watching a time-lapsed flower grow and bloom.
… A really fucked up flower, but still.
Shakily I rose to my feet. The officers hadn’t fled yet, but none of their guns worked. Gunpowder and metal. Meant to tear and break and bleed. It was utterly useless against my magic.
Wasn’t my death last night enough? What did they hope to accomplish by killing a girl that was already dead?
My wounds sealed up, the bullets clinking to the ground as my body purged them.
After the demons finished forming, I rose. “You do not want to fight me,” I told the officers.
“Stand down!” Someone yelled over an intercom.
A blast of magic slammed into me, and I staggered back, only to be caught in the arms of a demon.
Low growls emanated from him and the others at my back. They hadn’t asked me for a command, but I sensed they wanted to protect me. That was only confirmed when, instead of letting me go, the demon that clutched me tightened his grip.
Ruh-roh.
The demon’s muscles tensed. Then, like the first one I’d inadvertently created, he sprang into the air.
… Only this time, he was still holding me.
Chapter 5
Andre
Andre was out of the car before it came to a complete stop. He arrived just in time to see a demon rise into the air holding …
“Dios mio.”
There she was. Alive, like all the news reports had mentioned.
He touched his heart. It still felt like one giant open wound, a vacuum bent on sucking up anything and everything it could to fill the hollowness of his mate’s absence. Their bond hadn’t reestablished itself.
But unless the woman soaring away into the night wasn’t his Gabrielle—and there are only so many women that consorted with demons—she was in fact alive.
He almost sagged with relief. None of the shots he’d heard earlier had killed her, and now he could breathe again.
Andre didn’t let his mind linger on the fact that she hadn’t come to find him first. Now was not the time for petty jealousy.
She was still in danger.
He headed back into his car. By the looks of Castle Rushen and the officers and demons that swarmed around it, there’d be much to learn from the events that transpired here. But right now he needed to find his soulmate and clasp her to him. Only then would his heart know relief. Only then would he believe she was real.
Gabrielle
I rapidly rose into the sky, locked in this demon’s embrace. I screamed and clutched at my captor’s neck, and—ugh—demon breath.
“Put me down!” I yelled.