He hit her again. “Don’t ask me stupid questions.”
Fury and pain overrode her fear. She was tired of being hit, and she wasn’t going down without a fight. Snarling, she shoved him as hard as she could and kneed him between the legs. He didn’t flinch, but he did slam his forearm into her throat, cutting off her breath.
“That was stupid.” His voice cracked like a whip.
She clawed at his arm and kicked at him as her lungs struggled for air.
He dangled her necklace in front of her face. “Do you know what this is? What it does?” He let up on the pressure on her neck just enough for her to gulp air and shake her head. “Of course not. Because that would be against the rules. And the rules must always be followed.”
There was a note of sarcasm in his voice she didn’t understand and wasn’t sure she wanted to. Pretty much, she just wanted oxygen.
“This is a key to the end of days. You, my dear, are also a key. And once I take your virginity, I will become the most powerful key of all.” He put his forehead to hers and looked into her eyes with his flat, soulless ones. “I look forward to ridding the human infestation upon this earth. Starting with you.”
Cairo. The Triumphant City. A sprawling urban rat race that came alive—and, in Wraith’s opinion, looked best—at night. As a hunting ground, Wraith had always found Cairo to be adequate, but for the most part, he wasn’t fond of it. The mix of modern and ancient, extreme wealth and extreme poverty, gave the city a mixed-up vibe, as if it couldn’t settle on any particular mood. Its history fascinated him though, and sometimes he wondered what life would have been like back in the days of the pharaohs
Not life for humans—that would have sucked. But being a demon back then would have been sweet. They’d been called gods—Ma’at, Ra, Osiris, Khepri, scores more—and had been worshipped as such.
Demons had long memories—many were immortal or damn near so, and they wanted that power and worship again.
If the shit going down in the underworld was any indication, it looked like things were looking up for those demons.
As the train pulled out of Cairo station, Wraith watched through a window, its reflection revealing that the sand in his hourglass glyph was down to the last grains.
He wondered if he’d made the right decision.
Even though Tayla was an incredible warrior, especially when she tapped into her inner demon, she wasn’t strong enough to protect Serena. On the other hand, he wasn’t at his strongest either.
Gods, Serena must think he was such an ass after he took off on her like that. She’d told him to go, but after watching Shade and Eidolon deal with their mates, he now understood that sometimes females wanted you to fight for them. Then again, sometimes they didn’t.
As he fingered the top Serena had given him, he realized he’d never understand the opposite sex.
He came to his feet, knowing Serena wasn’t going to be happy to see him again. Still, he was going to stick by her side until she was back in the States and he could get her someplace safe, because Val wasn’t an option.
With a growl, he tore open the door to the cargo hold. Halfway to her cabin, a sense of wrongness slammed into him hard enough to make him stumble. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, acknowledging the familiar evil.
Byzamoth.
Wraith hit the first sleeping-car door at a run. Slammed one of the passengers out of the way and went through the second door almost without opening it. The dark, oily sense of malevolence grew as he ran.
He skidded to a stop, nearly overshooting her door. A black cloud of evil pulsed all around the doorway, and he slammed his shoulder into the thin door, caving it in with a crash and explosion of twisted metal.
“Josh!” Serena’s scream penetrated all the way to his heart.
The sight of her, pinned beneath Byzamoth’s hideously transformed body, sent him into kill mode. All his aches, pains, and nausea disappeared as a veil of crimson sliced down over his vision and thoughts.
Wraith threw himself at Byzamoth, seized his leathery wing, and yanked him off of Serena. He slammed the angel into the narrow space between the door and the seats. A crack of bone accompanied Byzamoth’s high-pitched yelp, and his wing drooped.
“Semin—”
Wraith popped him in the mouth. Lifting his knee, Wraith nailed the bastard in the junk. Very large, exaggerated junk. The knowledge that he’d planned to use that monstrous thing on Serena burned to ash what little remained of Wraith’s control.
“You’re so dead,” he snarled, and pulled Byzamoth’s head down to meet his knee. Blood splashed on the floor, but not nearly enough. He threw the angel into the hall, slamming him into the door of another compartment.