Passion Unleashed (27 page)

“That,” he croaked, “is only a matter of time.” He opened the door and paused at the threshold. “I’ll make sure someone will get on in Cairo to take you the rest of the way home.”

He fled, steeling himself against her voice, calling out his name. He tore through so many cars he lost count, elbowing people aside, until he reached the cargo car.

Weak from the poison, shaken by what had just happened, and battling the intense desire to return to Serena, he collapsed onto a crate. An ache in his chest tugged at him, and he knew that if he gave into it, it would take him straight back to Serena.

Maybe he didn’t have to leave. Maybe he could stay with her until the last possible minute, spend his final days—hours, probably—with someone who gave him a reason to live.

Right, because she’d no doubt love to care for him as he lay dying.

He wanted to stay with her, but for the first time in his life, he was going to do the right thing, not the selfish thing. He wouldn’t make her watch him die. He’d go home, and she’d remember him as he was, not as some frail, failing shell.

He glanced at his watch again. Half an hour. He’d call Tayla, have her meet the train in Cairo and take care of Serena. Then he’d find a Harrowgate and be back at the hospital before things got really bad.

His brothers would take care of him like they always had, if they forgave him for signing their death warrants, that is.

Serena sat in her compartment, wondering what had just happened. Josh had left her because she might have sex with him? Why would he think that?

Last night she’d wanted to pleasure him as he’d done to her, and then… then… what? She blinked against the flood of fuzzy memories.

Make love to me.

Oh, God. She’d said that. She’d really said that. She’d been all over him, begging him for sex. Humiliation made her skin crawl and her face burn. What had he said, that someone must have slipped a Mickey into her drink at dinner?

Her clothes from last night lay scattered all over the tiny room, evidence of her lapse of control. Stomach turning over, she got dressed, cursed the wrinkles in her olive skirt and cream blouse. She looked like she’d been pulled out of a suitcase.

I want to feel you inside me.

Mortified, she groaned and sank down on the bed again. Everything came back to her, clear as crystal. She remembered how Josh had taken care of her but hadn’t taken advantage of her hyper-horny state. He could have, but he didn’t.

He’d wanted to save her life.

And how had she thanked him? By going into a rage, yelling at a dying man when he said he was leaving.

Leaving. Fear flickered in her chest. He’d said he was dying, but she wouldn’t lose a single minute with him. And maybe… maybe The Aegis could help. Maybe Val knew of some curative magic or artifacts.

She could not lose him.

Someone tapped at the door. Oh, please, please, let it be Josh.… She leaped up and whipped open the door. “Jo—” She cut off with a gasp.

Leaping backward, she tried to slam the door shut, but Byzamoth, looking as he had the first time she’d seen him—angelic and beautiful—blocked her effort, moving inside as sinuously as a snake. He closed the door behind him.

She opened her mouth to scream, but he crushed her to the wall, his hard, muscular body against hers. “If you keep your mouth shut, I won’t hurt you.” He dragged his tongue up her cheek, and she shuddered. “Not much.” Terror turned her legs to jelly. He laughed, the sugary sound tangled with a thread of sinister darkness. “But I am going to rob you. Of both your charms.”

His fist closed around her necklace, and she almost smiled, because that sucker wasn’t going anywhere. Then, to her horror, it broke free of her neck and dangled from his hand.

He slipped the necklace into his dishdasha and hiked up her skirt. “Now, the other one.”

He tore open his robes. His form morphed and, like a shapeshifting sequence in a horror movie, he went from being beautiful to the hairless gray thing with a batlike, veiny wing she’d seen at the Regent’s place. Between his legs, his huge penis jutted obscenely upward, oozing a dark substance from the tip.

Sweet Jesus, he was going to impale her with that hideous thing. Her blood congealed. Petrified, shaking, she tried to scream, but nothing came out. Not even her breath made it past the lump of terror in her throat.

“What’s the matter, love? Say something. Your fear arouses me.” He inhaled. “The scent of your fear is intoxicating, but even more so is the sound of your voice. The tremor. The pitch. Say something.”

“Fuck you,” she croaked. “That’s something.”

He backhanded her so hard she saw stars. “Bitch. I’m going to fuck you until you’re dead.” He smiled cruelly, trailed his fingers over her cheek. “You’re afraid to die, aren’t you? The smell of your terror is spiking. So arousing.… now, ask me why. Why I’m doing this.”

She didn’t want to, but at this point, humoring him seemed like a better idea than mouthing off. “Why are you doing this?”

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.

The screams of passengers who heard the commotion pierced the air, mixing with Serena’s bellow of fury as she came at Byzamoth, drilling a quick double-tap to his mouth, followed by a hard jab to his throat. Fierce admiration and pride lit Wraith up from the inside. Good girl.

The angel lunged for her, but she swung her elbow into his gut as Wraith put the heel of his hand into Byzamoth’s nose.

“My necklace,” Serena yelled. “Get it!”

“Mine.” Byzamoth spun away, his grayish lips pulling back from sharp, yellowed teeth. “And so is she.” He spun with a lot more grace than he should have had, given that his wing was broken and the passage was so narrow, but in an instant, he was sprinting down the aisle.

Wraith gave chase. At the end of the car, Byzamoth collided with a passenger. With a furious snarl, he hurled the male human at Wraith. They both went down in a heap. Son of a bitch. Wraith untangled himself from the human, who was whimpering, his dark skin turned ashen, his eyes haunted by what he’d seen.

Welcome to my world, buddy. Wraith jumped to his feet and tore off after Byzamoth, though the sense of evil had dissipated. He wasn’t sure what powers the angel had, but he was pretty sure the bastard couldn’t fly off with one wing, and a broken one at that.

Ahead, he found a group of humans gathered around an open door on the side of the train, their excited chatter telling him all he needed to know. They’d seen a guy leap from the train, though apparently Byzamoth had taken human form, because these people weren’t nearly as freaked out as they should have been. But where had he gone?

Wraith sped back to Serena, taking no special care to go around passengers. Their indignant curses followed him, but all that mattered was getting to Serena.

The moment he blew through the twisted door frame, she flew into his arms. “Thank God, you’re okay. Oh, my God, thank you. Thank you.” She was babbling and sobbing, and only a colossal effort kept him from doing the same.

“It’s okay. He’s gone.”

“My necklace—”

“Gone, too.”

She cursed, the first really dirty word he’d heard from her.

“I’m sorry I left,” he said into her hair. “I should have been here.”

She tore out of his arms, and he lurched, had to catch himself on the wall. She’d been holding him up, and a sense of dizziness nearly knocked him over. “Don’t you dare be sorry. I’m the one who should be sorry. I had no right to get mad at you. Or chase you away. God, I’m a fool.” She looked at him through watery eyes. “Josh, are you okay?”

Pain tore through his gut, doubling him over. “No.”

“Are you hurt? Did he do something to you?”

“Need… my… room.” He stumbled toward his cabin, doing his best to hold in the contents of his stomach. Though his room was next door, it felt as though it took about six months to get there, and when he did, he couldn’t open the door. Instead, he sank to the floor, his muscles convulsing and his stomach heaving.

“I’m going to see if there’s a doctor on board,” Serena said.

“No. Need… meds. Inside.”

Her soft curse made him smile despite his misery. Second use of profanity in as many minutes. “Fine, but if it doesn’t help—”

He grabbed her wrist, and when she winced, he kicked himself for being such a brute, and loosened his hold. “No doctors. Promise.”

“I don’t like it… but I promise.”

She opened the door. Gathering what remained of his strength, he dragged himself inside and crawled up on the bed. Soft. Cool. Fuck, he was going to die here, wasn’t he?

“You’re not going to die,” Serena said, and he realized he must have been talking out loud. “Now, what meds do you need? Where are they?”

“Bag. Under bed.”

He heard her rummaging around, but then all sounds faded and the world went black.

Serena tried to control her fear as she pulled medicine bottles and some ketchup-sized packets filled with a dark red substance from Josh’s bag. But panic had taken root and was growing into something unmanageable. He’d said he was dying, but she’d assumed he had time. This… was looking bad.

A river of tears streamed down her face. She hadn’t cried—truly cried—in years. There had been way too much of that when she’d been sick, and then even more when her mom had died. But this… God, so much had happened since she’d met Josh, both good and bad. On top of losing the necklace, how could she deal with losing Josh, too?