Veiled Threat (22 page)

Chapter 22

L
ike manna from
heaven, the veil opened behind us. Liam howled my name and I felt another prophecy slide into place.

And the great wolf will howl her name … .

Giselle stepped away, lifted her hand and faded. “Love. That is what this is about. Remember that and look out for one another, my girls.”

The others went through, but Milly hesitated. “Rylee. I can’t leave. He has bound me again.”

Behind her strode a figure, cutting his way through the mass of lesser demons. There was no time to be gentle; we had to go.

“No, you have to come. Milly, he wants your baby.”

“I know. I will work for you from this side. I will slow him down. I won’t let him take my baby. I can’t leave, Rylee. He has me, there is no other way right now.” Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I have faith in you, and if I’m wrong and Orion possesses my baby, I know you will do what you must to stop him. You were always the strong one.”

I wanted to throw up with what she was saying, what she was asking of me. That I would kill her baby if necessary. Fuck me. “Just come with us. With me. Please.”

She reached under the side of her skirt and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Take them, they were all I could get, but they should help.”

My fingers clenched around the thick paper and she stepped back, away from me. Away from the opening in the veil.

“Milly.” Her name choked in my throat. “Don’t do this.”

We were both crying, saying what I knew would be a final goodbye. I almost wished she hadn’t redeemed herself, wished she hadn’t come back into my life. It was easier to hate, far easier to hate than let someone go who you loved so dearly.

“Rylee, I love you the best, you have always fought for me, even when you shouldn’t have. Even when I wronged you. Let this be the way I fight for you, for the world. I am bound to him. I cannot leave. There is no other way for me.” Her green eyes sought mine and I knew she wasn’t lying. I knew in my heart, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“He’ll force us to face one another.”

She nodded and went to her knees. “Yes. I know. Go, Rylee. Sister of my heart, my one true friend. Go.”

Everything she said was truth, everything. I backed toward the opening and fell through it into what felt like a brilliantly sunny day. The veil snapped shut behind me.

Chaos was all around, talking over one another, Erik explaining what had happened, Pamela and Alex filling in the blanks. Megan lay beside me, and I gleaned from what I heard Frank say that she’d been a spy of sorts, infiltrating our ranks.

None of it really hit me though. Liam crouched beside me, put his face over mine. “Rylee, how bad is the venom?”

“Bad.” I whispered, my throat closing off, the tears unstoppable as I lay on my back. “The worst.”

“She loves you enough to die for you, Rylee,” he said softly, his own eyes dripping moisture onto my face.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “We have to go, Blaz is in trouble.”

Liam nodded and moved so I could sit up. I wiped my face.

Before I could even ask him, Alex let out a howl. “Farrrrrrrriiiiiiiis.”

Thomas visibly stiffened and turned his back. “Go quickly, I cannot stand the sight of him.”

The veil sliced open twenty feet away. Faris stood in the shadows of his room, waiting.

Liam put a hand on Erik’s shoulder. “I cannot go. Send Blaz for me when you save his big leather ass. I’ll be at Jack’s.”

Erik clapped a hand over Liam’s. “I’ll keep her safe.”

The language of men, it was strange at the best of times.

I couldn’t even kiss him goodbye. But for now, it would be enough. I would see him soon; there was no goodbye for us and as far as I was concerned, there never would be. I handed him the papers Milly had given me, wondered what they were, knew that at some point I’d finally be able to find out. Just not right now. “Here, hang onto these for me.”

Faris took us to the farm without argument, without even a single snotty comment. “Doran and Berget are setting things up; over a hundred ogres have shown up to fight for you, Rylee.”

“That’s good. Thank you, for helping us.”

He shared a quick look with Erik that I pretended not to notice. I knew I was not myself, I knew it. I just couldn’t shake the last look in Milly’s eyes as she bent to her knees, her hands cradled around her belly.

Mother of the gods, watch over her. Keep her safe.

Faris stepped through the veil at the farm since night was heavy over the land. The scent of charred wood still filled the ice-laden air.

“Blaz?” I walked toward the barn.

Rylee, you are back?
His head popped up behind the barn, like a giant Jack in the Box.

“Where is Erik?”

Ophelia’s head appeared, rather close to Blaz’s. Looked like they were getting along at least.

He is in the barn, shall I wake him?
Her voice was almost tender.

“No. He’s my uncle. I’ll wake him.”

I strode toward the barn, forgetting everything I’d learned about fighting demons. The hate and the pain was too strong. No one tried to stop me; my real uncle let me go. Pamela, Alex, and Faris stayed outside.

They all knew me.

I pushed the door open hard so it banged against the wooden slatted wall.

“Wakey, wakey,
uncle,”
I snapped, uncoiling my whip. The doppelganger sat up and scrubbed his face.

“You made it?” His eyes were wide with shock.

“Yeah, probably didn’t think I would, did you? Why didn’t you want to go with me,
uncle?
Was it really because you didn’t think you could help? Or was it because you knew the chances were too high that I’d find out what you really are?”

He pushed away from me.

“No, it isn’t what you think. I had orders, yes. But Ophelia is such a dear and I’ve never had a friend. Ask the dragons. I did nothing. I just came and slept. I got rid of the poison I was to use on them.”

“Demon!” I lunged at him, bare handed, and he cringed; he didn’t try and defend himself.

As I grabbed him, I heard the voice of the monster, the demon turned into a living building who’d helped us, in my head.
Not all demons bad.

“Fucking hell.” I pulled the pretender into my arms and the venom completely transferred. He took a breath and passed out.

Rylee, what have you done to Erik?
The worry in Ophelia’s voice was obvious. I let out a sigh and dragged his limp body with me. As I walked it shifted, the visage of Erik fading, replaced by one of a very small, very frail looking man. In some ways he reminded me of Thomas. All legs and arms. But he had a large head, and large eyes, and pale grey skin. Kinda human, mostly not.

“He’s a demon. He was impersonating Erik to get close to us. To kill both of you.” I flipped his limp body out into a pile of soot-covered snow.

Erik, the real Erik, poked him with a toe. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

Ophelia’s head snaked down.
How did he fool me? How do you know this one,
she shoved her nose at Erik,
isn’t the one who is fooling you.

“I still hate you, you big nasty bitch. What, did he tell you? He had a change of heart? That he could ride with another dragon now?” Erik swatted her nose and she pulled back, but said nothing.

In her eyes, I saw the confusion the real Erik told me about. The way her eyes were distant and faraway as she tried to process this turn of events. “Ophelia, you are not well. You haven’t been since my father died. That made it easy for him to fool you because you wanted a new rider—”

NO! That can’t be. This is not the way it was supposed to be.
She trembled, her lovely eyes filling with tears.

I softened my voice. “It is. He fooled you, he fooled all of us.”

With a wail, she threw herself backward, the ground shuddering under her weight.

I cannot stay. I cannot.

She let out a roar that made me slap my hands over my ears and with that she launched into the air. She fled from us, her silhouette fading from sight within seconds.

“Blaz, is she going to come back?”

I don’t know.
Rylee, he did nothing to us. There was no harm.
Blaz’s voice was quiet, for my ears only.

“Blaz, you said you wouldn’t survive if I died, that we are bound. How come Ophelia didn’t die when my father did? Or you, Erik, why didn’t you die when your dragon did?”

Erik shook his head. “Every pairing is different. The one with my girl, she severed the bond as she died, to save me. Your father did the same for Ophelia. It is hard and painful, but it will leave the other half of the pair alive. Slayers keep their minds intact, but the dragons don’t. Like I said, the bond runs too deep for them.”

He speaks the truth, but don’t even think it, Rylee. My place is with you, to the end I would not live my life well as a broken dragon. I do not know how Ophelia has done it this long.
Blaz’s eyes narrowed. At least I knew there was a way to save him if something did happen to me.

“Will you get Liam? He’s waiting for you at Jack’s. Bring him to Doran’s.”

You and your wolf. Of course I’ll fetch him. Again.
With a long snort Blaz leapt into the air, his path taking him in the opposite direction of Ophelia’s flight. I wondered if she would come back, or if that was the last we would see of her. I wasn’t sure we wanted a mentally unstable dragon, even if she was on our side.

“He will be gone three days at most,” Erik said. “You need to decide what to do with him,” he booted the passed out doppelganger, “before he gets back and your wolf gets a smell of him.”

I knew what he was saying. There was no way Liam would allow the doppelganger to live knowing the danger he represented. And I couldn’t blame Liam; the doppelganger had been so far within our guard we hadn’t even known he was a danger. He could of killed Blaz and Ophelia and there would have been nothing we could have done to stop him. Hell, he’d been sabotaging my training and setting me up to be killed alongside Liam and my other allies.

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t know. He didn’t kill Blaz or Ophelia when he had the chance. Do you think it’s possible that not all demons are bad?”

Erik crossed his arms over his wide chest, his eyes narrowing in thought. “I … I think that not all of them are as bad as Orion. The creature who housed the demons was a demon that helped us. Perhaps there is a reason for this one yet to live.”

A few hours passed before the doppelganger woke with a groan. He sat forward, swaying from side to side. Right away he changed his appearance to something far more human. He looked suspiciously like Bruce Lee.

“Why didn’t you kill me while I slept? I know nothing, other than the orders I was given.” His voice was lightly accented now, but not Russian like before.

I crouched in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched as though it were a hot brand. “Not all demons are bad. That’s what I’ve heard. Are you ready to renounce your previous master?”

“He’ll kill me,” he whispered.

I laughed, not kindly. “He’s going to kill you when you fail to follow his orders, idiot.”

“Right.” His head dropped, black hair sliding forward to partially cover his face. “Our prophecies say he will win, that he will beat you, and he has the black book of prophecy now to guide him as well as the violet book that has what you need from it.” He lifted his eyes, they were completely black, with no iris, no white showing. Freaky.

“Well, all the other prophecies say I can beat him. The rest of the supernatural world has put their trust in me. If you won’t renounce him, I’ll kill you.”

“I don’t want to die. I like it here.”

After that, it was simple. He picked himself a name. Albert, of all things, and Erik did some sort of binding on the doppelganger. I watched closely, that it was kind of like killing the demons, but only the reverse. Erik
pulled
the demon’s essence close to himself instead of shoving it away. I watched, not because I wanted to bind any demon to me, but knowledge was power.

“He is mine, until I let him go or I die. If I die, he dies. It is that simple.”

Albert shadowed Erik wherever he went, and soon enough we were calling him “Bert.”

Faris took us to Doran’s, though he was not happy about the demon coming with us.

The vampire pulled me to one side. “You walk a fine line, Rylee. Keeping a demon for a pet is not smart.”

“He’s not my pet, he’s Erik’s. And I will kill him if he steps out of line.”

“I think you are going soft. Once you would have killed him and asked questions later, and now …” He lifted a hand and touched the middle of my forehead. “Something has changed within you. I don’t know yet if it is for good, or for ill.”

“And if I’d killed you when I had the chance Doran would not be the leader of the vampires and we all would have died at the hands of the old ones.” I pushed his hand from my face. “So perhaps Bert has a part to play yet.”

Ever so slightly, Faris inclined his head. “Touché. Now, I must be off. I have things to do for Doran.”