Katie's Hope (Rhyn Trilogy, Book Two) (13 page)

“You just can’t give me a break, Rhyn,” Kiki
grumbled. He trotted down a set of black lacquered stairs, an iPad
tucked under one arm. “Did Kris send you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then get out of my house.”

Rhyn snatched his brother by the front of his
shirt and slammed him into the ground. The iPad skittered across
the floor.

“I’m not Kris, Kiki. If there’s any part of
you that thinks I won’t snap your neck like a twig in a hurricane--
”

“Fuck, Rhyn! What’re you doing?”

Rhyn planted one foot at the base of Kiki’s
neck and wrenched his head back. Kiki strained to breathe.

“I’m doing what Kris won’t. I’m not bound by
those rules of his. Sasha needs to fry, and the Council needs to
remain intact, or all Immortals die. I don’t particularly want the
world to go to shit before I get a chance to enjoy my time away
from Hell,” Rhyn said calmly. “Now, you can send your soldiers to
the castle where the demons are staging an attack, and rejoin the
Council, or I can bury you here in your front yard. Make your
choice.”

Kiki wheezed for a long moment, then said,
“Yes, fine. Let me go, you dick.”

Rhyn obliged and stepped back. Kiki glared at
him, but Rhyn knew this brother to be the easiest of the three to
sway. He was about to address Kiki again when Katie’s angry words
hit him.

She hadn’t been talking about Toby.

“What?” Kiki eyed him warily. “I already
agreed. Don’t look at me like I’m your dinner. I take it you’re
going to see Erik next.”

“Yeah,” he managed. “Erik.”

Holy fuck. There was a hatchling growing
within her.

Chapter Five

The demons couldn’t get near Sasha so long as
he had the coffin holding his father. Jade watched from the brush
nearby. Sasha sat on top of the sarcophagus and looked around, smug
in how safe he was sitting on top of the coffin. The forest was
full of demons. Most had attacked the castle while Darkyn’s
personal guard went after Sasha. Jade hadn’t wanted to come; he’d
asked a personal favor of Darkyn not to come. Darkyn had laughed
and dragged him.

Jade’s insides still churned at the sight of
the demons and Immortals fighting. Technically, this was Sasha’s
doing, for he had dragged the coffin out of the protected crypt and
left the Immortals exposed. This fact did little to assuage Jade’s
guilt when he saw the slaughter around the place he’d once called
home.

“Where’s your master, fools?” Sasha shouted
to the forest.

“I’m here,” Darkyn’s voice boomed from a good
hundred meters away, the nearest the demon could come.

“What of our deal?” Sasha demanded. “I gave
you Kris and the Immortals.”

Darkyn’s chuckle filled the air around them,
and Jade watched Sasha’s face turn from expectant to furious.

“So that bitch Jade betrayed me,” Sasha
muttered. “No matter. I can sit here all day, Darkyn, and you can’t
come near me.”

The sounds of fighting from the direction of
the castle made Jade sweat. He hadn’t wanted all the Immortals to
die, just the ones that hurt him. He shifted in the brush, wishing
he could’ve found a better way to draw out Kris and Sasha than by
sacrificing everyone.

“I can’t, but Jade can,” Darkyn said,
unconcerned.

“Jade’s a coward and a fool!”

“He tricked you, didn’t he?”

Sasha sneered in response. He rose and began
to pace, the first sign of his anxiety. Jade’s hands were sweaty as
he drew a machete. He’d crossed the line. There was no going
back.

“Jade, kill him and bring me the vial,”
Darkyn ordered.

Jade closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and
stepped from the forest. Sasha was armed with two daggers and
lowered himself into a fighting stance. Jade had trained under
Kris, the greatest of the Immortal warriors, and knew Sasha to be a
lazy fighter. His first few blows were deflected, but the third
slashed Sasha’s arm.

“Wait, Jade,” Sasha said, surprised. “We can
make a deal, you and I.”

“You have nothing I want.”

“I am still an Ancient. I will make you my
mate.”

“I saw how Ancients’ mates work. You get no
choice, Sasha!” Jade snapped, the hurt caused by Kris’s rejection
renewed. He slashed again. Sasha’s guard fell quickly, and Jade
hacked at the Ancient with all his fury until Sasha lay in a
bloodied heap.

His whole body shaking, he tried to calm
himself and withdrew, wanting to wipe away the taint of Sasha’s
blood from his clothing and skin.

“The vial, Jade!” Darkyn barked. “We are
watching. If you try to take it, your death will be the most
horrible I devise yet.”

Jade hesitated, not wanting to go near
Sasha’s body. He knelt beside the Ancient and set the machete on
top of the sarcophagus. Sasha was far too chopped up to be alive.
Jade rifled through his pockets, part of him praying he didn’t find
the vial. He’d been responsible for enough Immortal deaths this
night; he couldn’t stomach more.

Jade’s hand brushed the glass in Sasha’s
pocket. Sasha had the vial. The fool had really believed he could
bargain with Darkyn and the Dark One! Or maybe he was desperate to
return to the only place that would accept him and all his sick
ways.

Jade pretended to continue to search, mind
racing. It was one thing to feed Kris and the Immortals here to the
demons, another thing to give the demons a tool they could use to
destroy all Immortals, if not humanity, too. He’d thought he
crossed the only line that mattered by selling out the Immortals
but found there was another he wasn’t ready for.

He left the vial in Sasha’s pocket and
rose.

“It’s not here,” he said.

“Not there,” Darkyn repeated. Jade bristled
for an attack, even knowing the demons couldn’t draw near. “Where
else would it be?”

“Kris has a scientist named Ully who would’ve
likely been given the vial. Maybe this…” he kicked Sasha’s body,
“wasn’t as stupid as we thought.”

“Or Kris locked it away because he knew
better than to trust that piece of shit,” the demon leader added.
“Take the bodies and throw them into the sea, where no one will
find them. We will find this Ully and take him to Hell for
interrogation.”

“Yes, master.”

“And Jade?”

Tensing, Jade turned to face the direction of
the demon’s voice.

“Welcome to Hell, your new home.”

Jade said nothing, conflicted. He heard the
demons withdraw from the forest around them toward the castle.
Suspecting some of them remained, he gave no indication he’d found
the vial as he carefully lifted Sasha’s body and laid it on the
sarcophagus. He stepped back to look at father and son, dead-dead
together.

Very fitting.

He opened a portal, mind racing with how to
keep the demons from getting the vial. Darkyn had said to dump them
in the sea. He lugged the coffin through the portal into the shadow
world and then paused to think.

Sanctuary. All of them were located in the
middle of a sea. If he tossed Sasha’s body close enough to one of
them, the vial would be safe.

He concentrated on which Sanctuary he wanted,
the farthest from the castle, and lifted Sasha’s body. He crossed
to the glowing portal and threw Sasha’s body through it, satisfied
when he heard a splash. He turned back to the coffin, not nearly as
concerned about the dead-dead Immortal he’d never met but who’d
fathered at least two fucked-up sons-- three, if he counted
Rhyn.

The Immortal should’ve died in Hell, where he
probably belonged. Jade focused on another part of the ocean,
Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean. Maybe the
depth of the sea would crush this Immortal’s perfectly preserved
body. If nothing else, the father of the Council would never again
be found.

He lugged the coffin to the new portal and
shoved it through. He didn’t stay to hear the splash this time but
walked through the shadow world toward the only portal that glowed
black, the portal to Hell.

While feeling vindicated that Kris might
already be dead, he couldn’t help the growing guilt at hurting so
many other Immortals. Nursing a cratered heart, he stepped into
Hell, well aware he had nowhere else to go.

* * *

Katie paced her corner of the gymnasium,
where she had been herded with the rest of the Immortal mates. Toby
was awake and sitting, fascinated by Lankha’s soft hands. She
glanced at them again and looked toward the door.

It had been an hour, and Hannah hadn’t
appeared. She didn’t know if there was a second gym where other
Immortal mates were, but Kris had said Hannah would be down. She
waited another few minutes and then headed to the bathrooms. Women
were packed even in the luxurious bathrooms with their sitting
areas decorated with couches and a gilded fountain. She crossed to
a stall and closed the door, focusing on a portal to the shadow
world. She envisioned Kris’s chamber on one of the upper floors and
emerged from the shadow world into the chamber.

The door was open, and she ducked down as a
furry shape rushed by.

Some of the demons had made it into the
castle. She drew a deep breath, terrified of running into one of
those creatures alone, then crept to the door. When she heard
nothing in the hallway, she eased out of the safety of his
room.

Hannah hadn’t been there long enough to learn
the castle. She knew Kris’s chamber, the guest chamber, Katie’s
chamber, and the dining hall. Katie trotted to the chamber next to
Kris’s, knowing the guest chambers were near but not sure which was
which. She pushed the door open to the next chamber and ducked
inside.

“Hannah?”

Silence from the room, footsteps from the
hallway. She darted to the other side of the bed and dropped to her
stomach, peering under the bed through the door. A massive creature
with black fur and fangs paused in front of the open door, sniffing
the air. She held her breath. Her heart pounded as it swung its
head to face the room.

It jerked suddenly and bolted down the
hallway with a snarl. She heard the clash of bodies and waited for
the sound to fade before rising again. She peeked out to see two
creatures at each other’s throats and frowned, wondering why demons
were fighting one another. With the creatures too distracted to
notice her, Katie drew a breath and darted across the hall, shoving
the door of the guest bedroom open.

“Hannah!” she hissed.

“Katie?”

The sound of her sister’s voice brought a
waterfall of relief. Hannah peeked from the bathroom door, her
normally neat hair mussed and her eyes red from crying. Katie
closed the door to the bedroom behind her. She’d barely left it
when it slammed open, and two furry forms barreled into the room,
snarling and fighting. Hannah screamed. Katie covered her head as
they trounced over her and rolled to the other side of the chamber,
fighting.

She rose and ran into the bathroom, jostling
Hannah out of the way as she slammed and locked the door.

“Katie!” Hannah exclaimed, her face a mask of
terror. “I was taking a bath earlier and I heard sounds in the
hallway. When I-- ”

“Hannah!” she snapped. “Look for anything to
brace the door!”

Hannah looked around, lost. Katie’s gaze
swept over her, and she was grateful to see her sister unharmed.
She closed her eyes to summon the portal when the door bucked.
Hannah cried out and scampered to the far side of the bathroom.
Katie rushed to the door, trying to brace it. The sound of snarling
came from the other side, and she closed her eyes as the demon
struck the door again. She sailed across the bathroom and landed on
Hannah. The demon crouched in the door, then roared in pain and
whirled.

The other demon had clamped its teeth around
its leg and dragged it out of the doorway. Katie hauled Hannah to
her feet and pulled her through the doorway, across the bedroom,
and into the hall. Another demon down the hall caught sight of them
and charged. She led them into Kris’s room again and slammed the
door, vaguely pissed at the Ancient for having the only door that
locked in the whole castle. The door bucked but held.

Her gaze went around the chamber and settled
on the alcohol in the corner. She crossed to it, took a deep swig,
then flung it against the door. The glass carafe exploded. She
threw another and pulled the final from the fridge. As if reading
her intentions, Hannah forced herself out of her shock and hurried
to the low-burning hearth. She snatched the lighter on the mantle
and ran to the door, standing close until the alcohol lit and
spread.

Fire licked across the wooden door. The door
bucked again before all went quiet. Hannah stood close to her, and
Katie stared at the door, willing their fire to keep the demons at
bay. For a long moment, she thought their simple plan worked, and
she closed her eyes to concentrate on the portal.

The door exploded open in flames, wood, and
black fur. Hannah dragged her down as fiery splinters sailed over
them. The two fanged figures battled until one lifted the other and
cracked its back over its knee. It slammed the creature onto a
broken piece of burning word. The dying creature let out an
otherworldly roar of pain as it burned. It went limp.

The remaining creature turned to them. It
contorted into a human form, and Katie cursed.

“Lunchmeat,” Jared said with a toothy smile.
“You brought a snack to our little party.”

“Hannah, you have to trust me when I tell you
jumping out that window is a better death than what this thing will
do to you!” Katie said, dragging her sister toward the window.

“Easy, Lunchmeat. I came to help, at your
half-breed’s request,” Jared said, holding up his hands. “I smelled
you from outside the castle. Oh, the sweet smell of-- ”

A roar in the hallway made him whirl.

“Come with me, morsels,” he said. “I’m your
only ticket out of here.”