The inside of the penis-y castle was no better than the outside. Frankly, it looked like the kind of place Dracula would take a look at and reject because it was too emo and angsty.
Everything was black and red and poorly lit. Not a single window or comfortable-looking piece of furniture in the whole place.
“You grew up here?” she whispered to Roan as he led her down yet another dim stone corridor.
“Yes.”
“That explains a lot about your personality,” she grumbled.
He shot her a sharp side-eye. “Your beloved grew up here as well, you know.”
“Yeah, but he’s spent more time in my dimension than you, so he’s more removed from all of it than you are.”
Roan stopped in his tracks and glanced down at her. “You really do love him, don’t you?”
She frowned at him. “Of course, I do. Did you ever doubt it?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, looking a little sheepish, and in that moment, he reminded her so much of Gabriel she almost cried. “I mean…yes, I suppose I did,” he admitted. “Love isn’t really something we see here. Marriages are for convenience, or necessity. Never love.”
“Well, I do love him, and I’d rather die trying to save him than live safely in my dimension without him for another minute.”
Roan shook his head and let out a soft chuckle. “Haven told me you’d feel that way.”
“You know, people dismiss what she has to say because she’s so little and cute, but you’ll very quickly come to realize that ignoring her is a mistake,” Adrianne said. “When I was only thirteen, Haven knew I was going to marry Gabriel. It was fate, she said.”
Roan snorted. “I’m sure he loved hearing that.”
“He hated it every bit as much as you’re imagining he did. But as you can see, I’m here to rescue my husband. So, once again, Haven Hall was right.”
He visibly swallowed hard as they started walking again. “You’re saying her visions are never wrong?”
Adrianne couldn’t hold back a smirk at the almost fearful tone of his voice. “Why? What did she tell you about your future?”
Roan scoffed like it was nothing, but clearly, sometime in between breaking him out of his cell and leading him to Adrianne, Haven had given him a detail about his life he was less than comfortable with. She made a mental note to ask her sister about it, because Roan didn’t seem willing to give up the goods.
She was about to press the issue when Roan led her into a room that looked like Game of Thrones had puked all over it. Skull torches, heavy tapestries depicting bloody battles, weapons lining the walls, a throne that looked like it was made from canine teeth…yikes. She was officially in the least cozy room on earth.
“Where the fuck are we?” she whisper-hissed.
“My father’s throne room,” he whisper-hissed back. “If I know my father, Gabriel will be—”
Adrianne sucked in a pained gasp as she caught sight of him. “Gabriel!”
Roan made a grab for the back of her jacket but missed as she rushed to Gabriel’s side.
He looked like he’d been dragged behind a horse down twenty miles of rough road. On his knees with his arms—one of which was obviously broken—chained above his head to the ceiling, shackled at the wrist, he was covered in gashes and bruises.
And when he lifted his head and her eyes met his wide, horror-filled ones, she couldn’t choke back a sob. “What did they do to you?” she cried, dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around his waist.
“You have to go,” he said into her hair. “You can’t be here. How the hell did you even get back?”
She gave his chains an experimental tug, quickly realizing it was going to take some finessing to unlock them. Tugging out the lock pick kit Benny had quietly slipped into her pocket before she left home, she got to work. “We can talk about all that when we get out of here.”
“You don’t understand. He knows you’re coming.”
Roan stepped forward at that point. “His seers knew Adrianne would come back for you?”
“Yes,” he hissed at his brother while Adrianne freed one of his wrists.
Six seconds. Benny would be so proud of her.
“Get her the fuck out of here, Roan,” Gabriel continued. “He’s after her, and you brought her right into his fucking house.”
Roan held up his hands in mock surrender. “I had very little choice in the matter, brother. The women in her family are very persuasive. And by persuasive, I mean terrifying.”
Adrianne freed Gabriel’s other wrist and somehow managed to keep him from hitting the ground when he sagged into her arms. “Go now,” he urged. “Leave me behind. I’ll only slow you down. Please, Moonshine.”
She kissed him hard on the mouth. “Not happening,” she said when she pulled back. “You’re not getting out of this marriage that easily. Roan, what the fuck are we waiting for, an engraved invite? Open the damn rift!”
He smirked at her. “Your wish is my command, sister-in-law.”
Adrianne scowled at him. “Gross. Don’t remind me that I’m now related to you by marriage.”
Roan opened the rift with a wave of one hand, and hefted Gabriel off the ground with the other, hauling his brother to his side. “Adrianne first,” Gabriel muttered, leaning heavily into Roan.
Roan rolled his eyes. “Chivalry, huh? You’re the worst demon ever.”
Adrianne paused near the rift. “Where’s Fluffy?”
“I sent her away right before I was caught,” Gabriel told her. “Go. She’s in the forest. She’s fine.”
She frowned at him. “But I—”
“Go!” he shouted. “We don’t have time for this!”
And he was right. They didn’t have time. Because that was when a ball of white-hot fire hit Roan in the back, dead-center. He went down hard, dragging Gabriel down with him. The rift closed a split second later.
Adrianne turned and locked eyes with a man who could only be Gabriel and Roan’s father. The resemblance was disconcerting.
“Surely, you’re not leaving so soon, my dear?” he practically purred.
Well, if this wasn’t just the cherry on top of this shit sundae of a day, she didn’t know what was.
So. Many. Guards.
By Gabriel’s count, there were twenty that would be a problem. The others were inconsequential. Even in his current state he could take out ten.
On a good day, Roan could probably handle, what, maybe fifteen? Sixteen if he got lucky?
Which left a handful that could kill the three of them while they were occupied. And that was assuming his father did nothing. Which he wouldn’t.
So, if Gabriel was doing the math correctly on this one, they were well and truly screwed.
“I can maybe take out three,” Adrianne said, twirling her necklace around her index finger. “More if I get lucky and can somehow manage to control my new powers.”
“Not good enough, I’m afraid, love,” Roan answered. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
Zayne lifted his hands in mock surrender. “There’s no need to worry about a fight. I’m here to talk.”
“Bullshit,” Gabriel spat at him. “Adrianne, don’t listen to anything he has to say. Anything he promises is a lie.”
His father gave him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You wound me, son. I’d never lie to the girl.”
“The girl has a name,” Adrianne said darkly.
Zayne offered her a gallant bow. “I heard, my dear. Welcome to my home, Adrianne.”
Gabriel flinched hearing her name on his father’s lips. “You make it sound like we’re guests.”
“Well, you are,” Zayne answered. “You all entered my home without permission and yet, you live. I don’t know about your dimension, Adrianne, but here, that makes you guests.”
Roan glanced at Adrianne. “Honestly, that’s about the same welcome I got in your dimension.”
She let out a sigh. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? What do you want from us?”
His father moved toward her, and Gabriel shoved her behind him. Zayne chuckled. “Protective like a guard dog, isn’t he? I’m impressed. Never knew my son possessed that kind of loyalty.”
“I’m loyal to those who deserve it,” he said with a sneer.
Gabriel knew his comment hit its target when flames rose to Zayne’s eyes. “You’re alive by my grace, boy. You’d do well to remember that.”
“We’re alive despite your best efforts,” Roan said. “So, if we’re going to fight, let’s get on with it.” He lifted his palms, letting them fill with flames. “I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to.”
Every guard looked ready to fight, but Zayne ordered them to hold. “Like I said, there doesn’t have to be violence. I’m here to make a deal with you, Adrianne.”
Much to Gabriel’s consternation, she stepped around him, looking up at his father, brow furrowed. “With me? What do I have that you could possibly want?”
“Why, you, of course, my dear. I’ve been without a mate for a long, long time—since Gabriel and Roan’s mother died. It’s time to continue my bloodline.”
Adrianne slow blinked at him for a moment. “No, really. What do I have that you could possibly want?”
Fire flamed in his eyes again at her blatant dismissal of his intentions, but it was Roan who spoke up, saying, “It’s your bloodline. Your bloodline mixed with his could produce the most powerful children this dimension has ever seen.” He laughed humorlessly. “He’s looking to replace me and Gabriel every bit as much as he’s looking to replace our mother.”
Adrianne’s wide eyes flew to Gabriel’s, then to Zayne’s. “But I’m already married to your son. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It means you made a poor choice,” he answered smoothly. “Nothing that can’t be undone.”
“I don’t want to undo it,” she said with zero hesitation. “I love him.”
Gabriel’s heart swelled to twice its normal size at her words, even as he knew this wasn’t news that would help with their current predicament. Not. At. All.
Zayne’s eyes narrowed on her. “That is unfortunate. But love and marriage have very little to do with one another here. You can love whoever you please. But you will either marry me, or die with them.”
Adrianne cocked her head to one side as she studied him. “Death or marriage? That’s a shitty deal. Where I come from, when a deal’s being negotiated, both sides usually get something they want out of it. If you kill me, you get nothing.”
Zayne looked vaguely impressed by her temerity before asking, “And what is it that you’d like in return for me sparing your life and making you mistress of this entire land?”
“I want you to spare your sons and let them leave this dimension together.”
Gabriel sputtered. “No fucking way.”
Even Roan shook his head at that. “Adrianne, thanks, but no thanks. There’s no way I’m going back to your dimension and telling Haven I traded your life for mine.”
Adrianne looked entirely too calm for Gabriel’s liking as she said, “You’re not trading anything. I am.”
Gabriel grabbed her shoulder and spun her toward him as best he could with his mangled arm. “Without you, I’m dead anyway. There’s no point in even trying to make a deal like this. He won’t honor it. You have to trust me, Moonshine.” He rested his forehead against hers and whispered, “Please.”
She kissed him, and he tasted tears on her tongue—tears she was stubbornly not shedding. Whether that was for her benefit, his, or his father’s, he had no idea. He supposed it didn’t matter. Those tears meant she was about to do something she didn’t want to do, and it was killing him that he’d been the one to put her in this position.
She pulled back, sniffling. “There’s no easy way out, is there?”
He swallowed hard. God, he wished he could lie to her…but he couldn’t. “No.”
She held eye contact with him as she asked his father, “Can you break our bond so that he doesn’t die without me?”
Gabriel could practically hear the self-satisfied smirk in his father’s voice as the bastard said, “Since he’s of my bloodline, I can.”
She let out a shaky breath and turned to face Zayne. “The only way I’ll agree to stay and won’t fight you with every breath I have left in me is if you let Gabriel and Roan go, out of this dimension and back to mine.”
“Adrianne,” Gabriel said, her name a broken, rough growl on his lips. “There’s no way I’m letting that happen.”
“Me neither,” Roan said without hesitation.
His father ignored them. “I will. They’re of no consequence to me.”
She turned back to Gabriel. This time, the tears did slip from her lashes, rolling down her cheeks, each one a knife to his heart. “I need you to trust me,” she whispered. “Do you?”
He swallowed, his throat feeling it was lined with broken glass. “You know I do,” he rasped.
Her eyes locked with his. “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it,” she said.
He was about to tell her she was the strongest person he’d ever met in his life and that she could do what no one else could, when…wait…
Did she just quote Kylo Ren?
Adrianne was a huge Star Wars nerd. Always had been. Was it possible that she was sending him a message by using that quote?
She gave him an almost imperceptible nod, letting him know she had indeed quoted Kylo Ren from The Force Awakens. He’d said that line right before he…
Oh, God.
He wanted to stop her. To tell her what she was thinking was way too dangerous. But he kept his mouth shut. He knew as well as she did this was their only move. And even as he stood there, wanting nothing more than to shield her and defend her to his dying breath, he’d told her he trusted her.
So, he did the only thing he could do, and he recited his line. “You do.”
With a sad little smile, she turned and took slow, measured steps toward Zayne.
“Fuck this,” Roan muttered. “If you won’t fight for her, I will.”
He never got a chance, though. Because the second he raised his hands to fight, Gabriel used every last bit of his energy to slam the strongest burst of fire he could muster into his brother’s chest, tossing him across the throne room. He winced when Roan’s head cracked against the wall and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.
A wound like that wouldn’t kill his brother, but he’d have one hell of a headache when he woke up. It’d been necessary, though. He couldn’t risk having Roan ruin Adrianne’s plan—and getting himself killed in the process.
Gabriel dropped to his knees, the last of his strength spent. Whatever happened now was up to Adrianne.
Adrianne gave him a nod of thanks before taking a deep breath and stepping up to within striking distance of Zayne.
The dumb bastard didn’t even have the nerve to be wary of her. In his eyes, she was just a girl. But Gabriel saw her for exactly what she was in that moment.
A predator stalking her prey.
She aimed a sweet smile up at Zayne that seemed to stun him for a moment. “Where I come from, marriage bargains are sealed with a kiss.”
He blinked down at her before smiling triumphantly. “Well, who am I to deny tradition?”
Gabriel’s heart didn’t seem sure whether to plummet to his shoes, or leap to his throat. All he knew was that it was beating hard enough to pound its way out of his chest as Zayne leaned down to kiss his wife. She tipped her sweet lips up to meet him halfway.
The kiss didn’t happen, though. Zayne pulled back sharply when Adrianne whipped a blade out of her pocket and jammed it into his heart.
He sucked in a sharp breath, flames rising to his eyes. “Foolish child,” he hissed. “Don’t you know a toy like this can’t kill me?”
“Oh, I know,” she said calmly. “The knife was just a distraction.”
Zayne’s eyes widened as took in the hilt of the knife…and saw the white waves of energy she’d wrapped around the blade like barbed wire. He moved to yank it out but wasn’t fast enough. With one flick of her wrist, Adrianne let her energy wrap around Zayne’s heart, and she squeezed it while a ferocious snarl curved her lips.
Squeezing the life out of his heart must not have been satisfying enough for her…because she yanked it out of his chest.
Zayne was dead before she tossed his still quivering heart on the floor. The wet plop it made against the stone was the only sound that could be heard in the room until his body followed suit.
The guards looked from Zayne’s dead body to Adrianne and back again, eyes comically wide.
By Gabriel’s estimation, they had about three seconds before an all-out war started, and with Roan out of commission and him wounded, Adrianne was going to be their main target.
His estimation was wrong, though. The guards all moved for Adrianne within two seconds of their master’s death.
“Get down!” a new voice shouted from behind him. “Shield your eyes!”
Gabriel and Adrianne did as they were told, and he felt a white-hot blast of…something pricking at his skin as the guards screamed and…exploded, maybe? It was hard to tell with his face on the floor and his eyes squeezed shut tighter than they’d ever been.
When everything was silent, Gabriel pried one eye open. Yep. The guards had definitely exploded. There were bits of singed flesh and—was that a finger?—hair embedded into the stone floors, but he didn’t take time to contemplate that, because his eyes immediately fell on Adrianne, who was blessedly, beautifully, alive.
Her eyes moved over him in an assessing manner before shifting behind him to Lucien, who strode into the throne room with Adrianne’s hound tucked under his arm like a football.
“Fluffy!” she cried, opening her arms wide.
The creature wiggled in Lucien’s grasp wildly until he set her on her feet. She ran in place for a good five seconds, trying and failing to find traction on the blood-slicked floors before finally making it into Adrianne’s waiting embrace.
Fluffy snuffled and snorted joyously as she licked every inch of a giggling Adrianne’s face. When she was finally able to contain the beast, she asked Lucien, “What are you doing here? You made it pretty clear you wanted no part of this rescue mission.”
He tipped his head down and put his hands on his hips, almost looking like he was embarrassed, which was impossible. Angels didn’t get embarrassed, right?
“I didn’t feel right about letting you do this alone,” he finally said. “And technically, I didn’t break my word, since I wasn’t the one who brought you back.” Then one corner of his mouth quirked up as he eyed Zayne’s heartless body. “But it seems I needn’t have worried. You did just fine on your own.”
She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “No one doubted me for a minute.”
Gabriel shook his head, unable to keep a smile from stretching across his face. She was amazing. And she was his.
How the hell had all this happened?
“Are you going to make me walk over there on two broken legs, or are you going to get your ass over here and kiss me?” he asked her.
He let out a grunt when she hit him in a flying tackle, pinning him down with her weight and kissing the crap out of him.
His ribs, arm, and legs protested, but the rest of him wanted to keep her exactly where she was forever.
His wife.
“What now?” he asked against her lips.
“I want to go home, take a shower, crawl into bed with you and not leave for a month.”
“Sounds perfect, wife.”
She pulled back and pointed a stern finger at him. “And at some point, we’re going to make this marriage official the human way. You’re going to put on a tux and marry me in front of all our crazy family and friends.”
“Done.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
He kissed her, pouring every bit of relief and want and hope for their new future together into it as possible. And just like always, she gave as good as she got, kissing him back until they finally broke apart, gasping for breath.
Lucien sighed. “Can we go now? I hate this dimension and everyone in it.”
“Same,” Adrianne said, helping Gabriel to his feet as best she could, shoving her shoulder under his for support.
Roan sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of his head. “What the hell happened? What’d I miss?”
“Lucien smote the shit out of this place,” Adrianne answered, then frowned. “Or is it smited?”
“I’ll fill you in when we get home, brother,” Gabriel said.
His eyes widened a fraction. “You mean I’m not home already?”
Gabriel raised a brow at him. “Do you intend to try and kill my wife again?”
“No.”
“And you forgive me for leaving you behind?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. After a heavy pause, he admitted, “There’s nothing to forgive. Now I know you never meant to leave me.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry, Gabriel.”
Gabriel shrugged off his apology. “We’re even. And that settles it. You’re coming home with us.”
Adrianne rolled her eyes. “That was probably the least heartwarming reconciliation in the history of reconciliations, but, yeah, you’re definitely coming home with us. For better or worse, you’re family now.”
“I’m part of your family?”
“Yep.”
He blinked at her for a full minute before saying, “Well…that’s terrifying.”
She snorted. “You have no idea.”