The room churned with her storm of shadows, but still he managed to move forward, carry ing her with him a full step toward the demon and his hateful cup.
Sobbing, she leaned into Adam’s body with her shoulder, her arms reaching beyond him for something to hold on to. Reaching for something to give her leverage against his greater strength. Reaching for anything that would delay his insanity.
Cold steel met her palm. A frigid rod or shaft of this ship’s pipes. Her fingers wrapped around it.
Power flooded up her arm and through her body in primeval recognition.
Not a shaft of pipe, then. The shaft of her father’s scythe, handed father to daughter across their native shadow. Her fae inheritance, the legacy of Death.
A dark glee of demon bloodlust suffused Talia’s half-breed senses. She pushed Adam firmly back, once and for all, and turned to face the demon, the crescent moon of the scythe’s blade circling over her head as a vane signals a change in the weather.
The wind was finally blowing her way.
TWENTYONE
ADAM stumbled back at Talia’s astonishingly hard shove. The room disappeared. Without her touch, he swam in a sea of mute darkness, his sense of direction upended.
Damn stubborn woman. Couldn’t she understand that this was the only way?
And damn if her newfound strength didn’t make him love her even more. As if that were possible. If she could stand between him and the demon, daring the Death Collector to do his worst, then she could survive on her own. She could run, heal, and then find her way to a scream that would end this nightmare. Perhaps they’d all wake to a bright morning where anything was possible.
First, he had to get her off this ship. It didn’t matter in the least what her safety cost.
“Talia!”
The darkness broke suddenly. Talia reeled back into Adam’s arms, a vicious dog scraping at her corset to get to her throat.
Adam hit the beast in the head with his fist. It yowled and broke away, as the other two snarling hellhounds rounded Talia’s side.
A glint of elongated steel struck down like a flash of lighting, and the first dog dissolved into a dense cloud of black smoke. The other dogs jumped to retreat in a braced crouch, ears pinned and teeth bared.
“Call off your dogs!” Adam glanced at the door.
The demon and his host were gone, the door to the cell swinging ajar. The goblet full of demon vomit rolled on the floor on its side, smearing the goo in a half circle at the threshold. Adam darted a glance to Jacob, whose face had lost all of its previous mirth. He, like the dogs, was braced to fight or flee, his eyes trained on Talia, his body twitching to anticipate her next move.
Talia.
Adam’s gaze traveled up the staff of the lowered weapon to Talia’s grip. He swallowed hard and looked her in the face.
Her already pale skin was shining alabaster, her eyes churning with deep shadow and rimmed with smudged makeup that accentuated her fae bone structure. Off her shoulders her white hair lifted, crackling with energy as a cloak of translucent veils fell, rippling layer upon layer, to hazy nothing at its edges. Her corset was deeply scored, but no red soaked through. Her bosom heaved as she lifted the scythe again.
Banshee. Beauty. And, well, badass. He always knew she had it in her.
Talia lifted the staff and brought the scythe down again in a glittering arc. The hellhounds danced out of reach, growling deep in their throats and barking dire threats.
Where she’d gotten the weapon, Adam could only guess. It was way past time that the Other side helped them out. But he wasn’t complaining, not if the scythe belonged to who he thought it belonged. No—with a fae weapon in the hands of a fae fighter, Adam wasn’t complaining at all. He could work with this. Elated relief, or blood loss, made him near giddy.
Except Talia’s position was too open, unguarded. Adam grabbed the chair by its back and heaved it up as Jacob darted forward to seize the advantage. A chair leg went through Jacob’s eye socket and cracked his skull. Jacob fell back against the far wall in a slump.
The movement was a sharp stab in Adam’s gut where Jacob had used him as a pincushion. Adam pressed a hand to the wound. Blood seeped through his closed fingers.
Damn it. Wraiths moved too fast, and the ship had to be chock-full of them.
He’d been soft at Segue about self-defense. No longer. He was going to have to teach Talia to watch her sight lines. If they got out of here alive, his woman was in for some serious instruction. Basic self-defense would not be enough. She’d need combat training. And he’d have to find a specialist who worked with blades, a swordsman of sorts, most likely. His banshee would need the best.
“Spread your grip on the shaft,” Adam commanded, keeping his gaze fixed on Jacob and the hellhounds. “You’ll have better control. And don’t lock your knees. Stay on the balls of your feet.”
The hellhounds leaned into a round of ferocious barking, the echo bouncing in a clamor off the room’s metal walls.