Authors: Linda Lamberson
Before I could react, the black-haired demon grabbed both my arms and pinned them behind my back, preventing me from teleporting myself out of there.
“Well, well, well, look who’s all dolled up and ready for a night out,” the blond sneered. “You and your beau sure were getting hot and heavy out there.”
“Yeah, I thought Shepherds were s’posed to act all
virtuous
and crap,” the other demon chimed in.
“Maybe it’s the guy—maybe he brought out her wild side,” Blondy sneered.
“Yeah, tell us, is he as hot in the sack as he looks?” Spiky asked, chuckling.
“Maybe we should find out for ourselves.”
“Ooh, maybe we should.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. You’re not his type.” I tried to twist around to free myself from the demon’s grasp, but Spiky only tightened its grip on me.
“You think you’re so special? You think he’s only got eyes for you?” Spiky taunted.
“Who knows, maybe she’s the one with the wild side.” The blond ran its finger slowly across my chest just above the neckline of my dress and smiled lasciviously, making me cringe.
“Tell us, are you a tease or do you deliver the goods?” Spiky leaned in and smelled my hair.
I jerked my head to the right, but Blondy clasped my chin with its hand, digging its nails into my skin, forcing me to look the demon in the eye. “Oh, she delivers—I can tell.” It smirked.
“I can’t wait to find out for myself.” Spiky was practically drooling.
Blondy raised a hunting knife in the air for me to see before holding it against the flesh of my arm. “Tell me, is this the type of knife you used to destroy Cy?”
“Why do you care?” I asked as calmly as I could. I prayed Minerva was wondering what was taking me so long and was on her way to find me. I prayed Quinn had convinced Dylan to take him to the portal already.
“Call it morbid curiosity,” Blondy replied.
“What do you want?” I demanded.
“Don’t you know?” the black-haired Servant hissed in my ear.
“You can’t have him,” I warned.
“Guess she doesn’t know after all,” the demon hissed again.
“Guess not.” The blond smiled menacingly and cut a deep gash in my arm. I bit my tongue, so as to not scream. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d hurt me. The Servant’s eyes gleamed as it watched my blood trickling down to my elbow. It ran the knife lightly across its lips and licked my blood straight off the blade.
“She tastes even sweeter than I thought,” Blondy hissed.
Then, the black-haired demon leaned over and licked the blood running down my arm. “Mmm.”
My stomach turned over in disgust. The blond Servant then followed suit, licking the new trail of blood that ran from my gash. I struggled to get out of its grasp, but it was no use. Their eyes already glowed fiercely red, and I realized that my blood was already affecting them.
“Evie?” I heard Minerva call out from behind the locked door. “Evie? Are you in there?” I heard her jiggling the locked door.
The blond Servant took a step closer and held the knife against my throat as it pulled my head back by my hair. Its strength was unbelievable. There was nothing I could do to escape. “Don’t say a word,” it warned me.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to. Minerva phased into the bathroom, her eyes widening with horror as she took in the scene before her.
“They drank my blood,” I gasped, the knife still at my throat.
“Good!” Minerva said, smiling as she grabbed the blond demon by the arm. “That just makes it all the easier for me.” Minerva closed her eyes and, seconds later, the Servant dropped to the floor, unconscious.
“What the—” Spiky exclaimed in shock, looking at its partner lying on the floor. “What did you do to her?”
“The same thing I’m about to do to you if you don’t leave my friend alone,” Minerva seethed with blood-red eyes. She grabbed my hand and an energy surge hit me. Whatever the high the demons got from my blood was now transferred to me. I felt indestructible.
I quickly healed my wound before breaking free of the Servant’s hold on me and seizing it by the neck with one hand while I wrenched its arm behind its back with the other.
“Why are you here?” I demanded. The demon didn’t respond, so I squeezed its neck harder. Still nothing. I grabbed its wrist and snapped it like a toothpick. The howl out of its mouth was inhumanly loud and sure to attract attention from the crowd likely gathering outside the locked bathroom. Confirming my concerns, I suddenly heard Quinn yelling my name outside the bathroom. We had to get out of there.
“We’ve got this covered!” Minerva yelled through the door as she grabbed the Servant’s knife that had fallen to the floor. “Dylan, get Quinn to a safe place! We’ll meet you there.”
“What do you want from me?” I demanded more forcefully.
“Go to hell!” the demon snarled, glaring at me.
“I’d rather you did,” Minerva replied calmly just before plunging the knife between the demon’s eyes. Then she did the same thing to the blond. An even louder screeching noise tore through the club. Black smoke began to spew out of the demons’ mouths. I’d seen this before—they were going to implode.
“Time to go!” I shouted.
We both teleported to La Casa, where Dylan and Quinn were waiting with alarm-filled eyes.
“What happened?” Quinn asked, rushing over to me. He eyed the smear of blood on my arm where my wound had been just moments before. “Is that yours?” he asked in concern.
“Yeah, but I’m fine,” I said as calmly and reassuringly as I could in light of the fact that amped up demon energy was coursing through me.
“What do you mean ‘you’re fine’? ” Quinn demanded.
“What do you mean that’s your blood?” Dylan demanded simultaneously.
“Boys,” Minerva jumped in, “let’s all just take a few deep breaths and sit down so we can explain everything.” She was fidgeting, and I could still see the red tinge in her eyes. The energy she’d absorbed from Blondy was still coursing through her, too, and I wondered if my eyes looked like hers.
“Um, I think I’ll stand.” I couldn’t help but bounce up on down on my toes to expend some of the energy buzzing inside me.
“Actually, I will, too,” Minerva agreed.
“So I don’t understand,” Dylan said after Minerva and I explained the attack. “The Servants were interested in
K.C.
—not Quinn?”
“Oh, they wanted him all right. I just don’t think it was in the same way as Cy and Rex did,” I replied, recalling the crude comments they’d made.
“What? You mean, they
wanted
me?” Quinn shuddered in horror.
“Don’t worry. From what I gathered they seemed to be equal opportunists,” I replied sarcastically.
“They swung both ways?” Dylan asked in amused shock.
“Figures,” Minerva chimed in. “You know what they say about demons.”
“No, what do they say?” both Dylan and Quinn asked with eager curiosity.
Minerva rolled her eyes at them. “They’re the ultimate sybarites.”
“Syba-whats?” Dylan asked.
“Sybarites,” she repeated. “The kings and queens of narcissistic hedonism, devoted to the pursuit of sensual pleasure and self-gratification.”
“And that’s a
bad
thing?” Dylan asked.
“Can we be serious here for a minute?” Minerva slapped his arm not so playfully.
“Maybe the demons went after Evie first to get amped up on her blood before coming after me,” Quinn pondered aloud.
“Oh, they were planning on doing more than just getting off on Evie—no pun intended,” Minerva noted. “I felt their desire to destroy her.”
I could see Quinn cringe out of the corner of my eye. “So, does that mean we toss the theory about the Servants wanting to corrupt Evie?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Minerva agreed. “But just because they wanted to destroy her doesn’t mean they would’ve in the club. In fact, I think they needed something else from her—something in addition to her blood.”
“Well, regardless of their intentions, I’m just thankful you showed up when you did,” I told Minerva. “I just wish we could’ve gotten some information from them before we got rid of them.”
“The important thing is that you’re safe,” Quinn said.
“The important thing is that we’re
all
safe,” I clarified. I morphed into a black tank top and black jeans.
“Going somewhere?” Quinn asked me.
“Yeah, to find Peter.”
“You’re joking, right?” Quinn sounded both shocked and angry.
“No. He’s read the Journal, which makes him the best source we have on the Servants at the moment. Maybe he can make some sense of what just happened.”
“Evie, you can’t trust him.”
“No,
you
can’t,” I said, irritated.
“I don’t want you to go,” he declared.
“Are you forbidding me?” Now I was getting pissed off.
“I shouldn’t have to,” Quinn replied, not backing down. “You know what? Let’s forget for a minute that you were attacked by
demons
tonight, because that’s enough to make me crazy enough to never want to let you out of my sight. But now you want to go off on your own to find the one Shepherd who has
lied
to you and to me in the past—the one guy who is hung up on you, the one who’s done nothing but try to drive a wedge between us. What in the world makes you think you can trust him now?”
“Because I know he wouldn’t want me to get hurt. I know he’d tell me the truth if it meant protecting me.”
“The entire truth? Or just the parts designed to protect you while making sure I don’t come out of this alive?” Quinn spat out.
“Any information at this point is better than none,” I countered. “I’ll tell you everything when I return, and you all can judge for yourselves.”
“You want information? Fine. How about we try to find Ronald instead?” Quinn bargained. “You know he has to have some answers.”
“Fine, I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll go look for Ronald right now, but if he’s not at the convenience mart, I’m going to talk to Peter.”
“Evie—”
“I’d take the deal, bud, before she just phases out of here,” Dylan suggested.
“Fine,” Quinn harrumphed.
Considering what had happened at the club, we all went to the West Loop to look for Ronald. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t there.
“Evie, please don’t do go,” Quinn begged when we returned to the portal.
“We had a deal, and we need some answers.”
Quinn ran his hand through his hair and sighed heavily. “Ten
Aura
minutes and then I’m sending Dylan after you.” He glanced at Dylan to confirm his participation in the plan, and Dylan nodded.
“I can’t get any answers from Peter in
ten minutes
,” I argued.
“Fine, fifteen.”
“Thirty.”
“That’s twelve hours for me!” Quinn exclaimed. “Eight Earth hours,” he continued. “Then Dylan is coming after you whether you like it or not.”
Dylan nodded in agreement, looking dead serious.
“Fine,” I groaned, phasing out of view.
“Peter?” I called out when I arrived in the main library of the Archives. “Peter, are you here?”
“What’s wrong?” Peter asked in concern as he appeared before me.
“Something just happened. Can we talk somewhere,
in private?”
“Of course.” Peter took me by the hand and teleported me to his cold, blustery portal. I looked around for any signs suggesting Peter had made this place his own—like an igloo or an ice fort or something—but I didn’t even see a tent.
“So, what happened?” He sounded even more worried.
“You really like coming here? I mean, now that you know other portals exist, aren’t you curious to see what else is out there?”
“I happen to like it up here. Now, are you going to tell me what happened?”
“I was attacked.”
His posture stiffened. “By whom?”
“By two Servants—they cornered me.” I explained the rest of the story to Peter, who stood there with clenched fists at his side as he listened to every word.
“So they were only after you?” He sounded surprised.
“I’m not sure. Maybe—or maybe they wanted a fix from my blood before they went after Quinn.”
“This is not good.”
“No, really?” I shot back, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
“What I meant to say,” Peter replied curtly, “is they must know your souls have fused. They wouldn’t have risked going after you otherwise.”
“How can you be so sure? They tried to get rid of me back in April and we hadn’t fully bonded yet.”
“I don’t believe they realized the full potential Mr. Harrison and you possessed back then. But after that attack last spring, they probably decided to wait to try to destroy you until they could confirm Mr. Harrison was at peak strength. And now they have—they tasted your strength through your blood.”
“Well, then they only confirmed we were at our peak strength
tonight
.”
“‘Tonight?’ I don’t understand.”
“Our strength depends on our physical proximity. The more time we spend together, the stronger we both feel, but if we spend too much time apart—”
“Your strength weakens?” Peter asked in disbelief.
“Exactly.”
“But how can that be? Everything I’ve ever read about true soul mates speaks to the total and complete realization of the pair’s potential once the connection has been fully made—once the souls have fused.”
“Well, I can assure you that is
not
the case with Quinn and me.”
“Remarkable,” Peter mumbled, now off in his own head probably mulling over numerous theories that could explain this phenomenon.
“That’s one word for it,” I noted sarcastically.
“And you’ve tested this hypothesis?”
“‘Hypothesis’?” I looked at Peter like he was nuts. “Um, yeah. I’ve tested it every time I leave Quinn to come here. After being apart, I feel weaker, but once I return to his side, I feel stronger. Kissing him makes me feel even stronger, and when we’re—”
“I understand,” Peter abruptly cut me off. “So, right now, you don’t feel as strong as you do when Quinn and you are near each other?”
“The effects aren’t immediate. It could be hours or even a day on Earth before we begin to feel drained. It depends on how much energy we exert when we’re apart. But eventually, we feel weaker.”