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Out of nowhere, a leather-clad arm wrapped around my waist. A blast of hellfire shot right at Paul, and the blowback slammed against me like the bottom of a scorching hot pan.
The devil pressed up against me, his lips at my ear, and he whisked me away before I could poke more holes in Paul. I tried to shout at him that we couldn’t leave yet, not without my vampires and Cleo, but darkness flooded my lungs. We were adrift in a sea of nothing, just like when Night’s Fall transported me from one place to another.
Earth crashed into my feet again with a force that cracked my back teeth together. Like a jackass, I stumbled almost face-first into the coffee table in the living room of my vamps’ house. How many times had I fallen tonight? Too damn many.
“Belle,” the devil said from behind me.
Frustration burned through me, thick and fierce as a bloody tidal wave, and I whirled on him. I slammed my forearm into him and shoved until he hit the closed front door, then raised the edge of my seraph blade to his throat. Everything I wanted to hurl at his face tasted like poison, but I couldn’t get any words out anyway around the lump in my throat. This was why I hated being frustrated in the first place—it made me unable to speak.
“You can’t beat him with a stake and seraph knife,” he growled.
“Not anymore, I can’t,” I finally grinded out.
“He would’ve killed you if I hadn’t moved his lake.”
“Killing me’s kind of the point, isn’t it?”
A low whine sounded behind me, and I turned, seeing Cleo with the fixed Night’s Fall lying in front of her paws. Behind her stood my vampires. At the sight of them, the fight drained out of me. I stepped away from the devil, dropping the seraph knife to my side and shaking my head. Tears filled my eyes, and all I really wanted to do was crumple into a heap and exist as a lump on the floor.
“I need a vacation,” I announced.
Jacek came closer and glided his fingers over my elbow. “That can be arranged, Slayer,” he said, his voice as gentle as his touch.
“Did Paul hurt you guys?” I traced the almost healed scars the blisters had left behind on Jacek’s arm.
Sawyer shook his head as he stepped to my other side. “The devil got us out of there when Paul made his appearance at the top of the stairs.”
And then the devil had come back for me even though I’d wanted to make Paul into a pincushion.
I sighed since there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that now. Plus, the devil was likely right—I couldn’t fight Paul with a stake and a seraph knife. “Why is that lake so important to Paul?”
“The lake. Fuck, how did I almost forget about that?” Eddie raked his fingers though his hair, spiking the wet strands in wild directions. He circled around to my front and looked at me straight-on, his amber gaze searching. “What did you see? You’re not...changed?”
“Just tireder.” I shrugged, swiping the tears from my face. “More tired? I don’t grammar good when I feel like this.”
“It’s okay. We’re not the grammar police.” Jacek glanced at Eddie. “Most of us, anyway.”
Ignoring Jacek, Eddie reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “Did you learn anything from the lake?”
“Wait.” Sawyer bit into his wrist and then held it out for me, twin red lines snaking across his tattoos. “You’re bleeding terribly still.”
Grateful, I took his wrist and drank, relishing his blood’s lively shock as it trickled down my throat. Already, I could feel it healing me from the inside out.
With a disgusted shudder, the devil turned his back on us.
When I finished, I licked my lips, feeling much better even though I still hurt. “I learned that it’s not called the Lake of Truths for nothing. It turns out that my power was never meant for humans, because it came from Paul. Who just so happens to be a god.”
The devil whirled around to stare. “A god?”
My vampires looked equally floored.
I nodded. “He appeared one day and started to turn everything into his nightmare version of reality, all melted and warped. A group of people tried to stop him, the original Senate, I’m assuming, and clearly not experts. They took his power from him and tried to kill him. It seemed like they had a heck of a time so they chose a boy, a slayer, and gave him Paul’s power in the hopes that the boy could use it to defeat him and all the troublesome creatures sneaking about from then on.”
“And Paul wants his power back,” Eddie said.
“Yeah. He’s been keeping dead slayers in that lake of his, like even though the power has been passed on to the next one, the dead ones still have a little bit left that he can...use or whatever. I still don’t really understand the lake. Is he using it to power up? But if he only just found it, why has it seemed like he’s been getting more powerful before that?” I shook my head. I was missing something important here. A lot of somethings, apparently.
Eddie frowned. “So he’s been collecting dead slayers...”
“That’s some messed up shit right there,” Jacek said.
I glanced at Eddie, knowing I would have to tell him what else I saw, about the slayers, including his sister, losing their minds, but I didn’t have the emotional strength to do it right then. I would, though, just not now.
“If dead slayers have a trace of power left in them that he can use, then every new slayer would get less and less of his power.” Eddie rubbed his jaw, staring vacantly at a spot on the hardwood floor. Maybe he was on the verge of figuring it out already with that beautiful brain of his, but I wouldn’t use that as an excuse not to talk about it with him. He deserved more than that and then some.
“So,” I said, turning toward the devil by the front door. “Now that we know what Paul is, you can forge a weapon that will kill him. You said you’d do that for Roseff, so do it for me. You may go do that now.”
“Oh, is that right?” He sneered, obviously not used to being ordered around. His sapphires sharpened to a point meant to reduce me to a cowering woman who would want him, worship him. He’d tried to force my hand with the whole marriage proposal thing and the thick waves of lust rolling off of him to sway me, but I played by my own rules. He should know that better than anyone. Besides, I’d already been claimed.
“I won’t make any promises.” A vindictive smile curled his lips. “And even if I did, I probably wouldn’t keep them anyway.”
“Well, I guess I’ll die, then,” I said, crossing my arms. “You did say you have another slayer all picked out. Maybe she’ll marry you.”
He looked at me for a long moment, filled with a storm of expressions on his face I couldn’t quite read, then shifted his gaze to my vamps, and then to Cleo. “Guard that sword with your life.”
Cleo puffed out her brown chest in salute.
In the next blink, the devil was gone, a touch of hellfire and brimstone on the air.
I sighed, so done with pretty much everything. “I thought he’d never leave.”
Jacek rolled his eyes. “Dude’s a wanker.”
“Raise your hand if you think it’s time for sleep.” I lifted mine high.
* * *
I AWOKE...EVENTUALLY in the bed in the upstairs guest room, alone, which was okay. After Sawyer had helped me wash up in the shower and then satisfied the ache his blood had burned through me, I’d passed out. I’d needed time to completely shut down, to repair myself physically and emotionally. And mentally, I supposed, though from what I’d learned, that was short-lived. Even if I beat Paul, I still had his power inside me, and it would drive me nuts like it eventually had the other slayers. No, not eventually. Soon. No slayer had lived past the age of twenty-one.
I couldn’t not age— Oh, wait. Yes, I could. I could become immortal like my vampires, but I would still be the slayer. I would still have that corrupting power inside of me, eating away at my brain, until I became like Roseff—crazy and a slayer and a vampire. If I’d learned one thing from reading the book written about him, it was that I didn’t want to become like Roseff.
So, I’d just have to drop off my slayer power. Sure, okay. How to do that? It probably would involve striking a deal with the devil.
I slipped the pillow out from underneath my head and pressed it into my face because thinking about suffocating myself was way more fun than thinking about making a deal with him.
Would I be okay with not being the slayer anymore? Damn skippy, I would, but only if I got rid of Paul first. I’d come farther in defeating him than any other slayer had, and I wasn’t about to hand a death sentence off to someone else.
Which meant I had to defeat Paul, a god against me. What could go wrong?
Shooting pains went off in my stomach, and it growled loudly. I got up, my body still feeling like it had been pummeled, but not as bad, like I’d had bulldozers flung at me instead of spaceships. I would take that improvement any day.
I couldn’t find my clothes because I didn’t turn on the light, and honestly all of it was too much effort anyway. No one would complain. In fact, when I walked into the kitchen, my three favorite creatures, who looked as tired as I felt, perked right up. Cleo, my other favorite creature, lay belly-up on the couch, still snoring lightly.
Eddie turned in his seat at the table, took the mug from his lips, and then licked them, his heated gaze along every curve of my body stoking my fire. “Morning, Sunshine.”
Jacek set his mug down on the table with a clatter. “Damn, Slayer. Remind me to light all of your clothes on fire.”
I chuckled and made a beeline for Sawyer on the other side of the table, who was setting down a mug curling steam and something that looked like eggs inside a crust shaped into a slice of breakfast pie. If I never ate other shapes of food again, I’d be completely okay with that.
“Thank you.” I tipped my chin up for a quick kiss, then I dug in face-first.
The others watched with amused expressions, while Sawyer refilled as needed, all of them talking about things that hadn’t happened last night. Sports scores, music, and movies, and it was all so comfortable and relaxed. Just three vampires and a naked slayer licking her plate. Completely normal.
I loved it. Every second wrapped warmth around my heart and squeezed. I wished this was what our lives could be like every day, cozied up inside this perfect house with the universe’s horrors locked outside.
When I finally finished, I sat back in my chair and gazed at each one of them, feeling so much for them it hurt. But it was the best kind of pain, a profound one that had changed me for the better.
I loved them, all three of them, and I wasn’t sure they’d ever know just how much. If it weren’t for their unwavering support these last few weeks, if I’d been all alone like I had been, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I would have cracked a long time ago, either from my slayer power or the extreme pressure of just trying to survive. They fed my mind, body, and soul so I wouldn’t break. They’d built up a wall at my back that I could lean on so I could go out into battle with my spine straight once again.
“Hey.” Jacek’s cool palm slid down my bare leg. “You’re quiet. Should we be worried?”
I covered his hand with my own, twining my fingers through his. “Most definitely.”
They chuckled, the three of them, and it sounded like music.
“I really can’t thank you guys enough for putting up with me,” I said.
“Putting up with you?” Jacek traced his hand higher up my leg, chasing tingles straight to my pussy. “A gorgeous, naked slayer who smells like desire and sunshine? I don’t know how we do it.”
I grinned, pulling his hand up even higher. He got the point, two of them in fact—the one pressing against his shorts and the hot craving between my legs that needed tending. His fingers slicked my pussy, and I moaned, tightening my grip on his hand. When he sank two fingers inside me, Sawyer growled from my other side and cupped my breast. I arched against his palm, my nipple aching to be teased and sucked. He lowered his head and drew it into his mouth while Jacek’s fingers worked magic between my thighs.
Eddie sat back in his chair, his eyes flashing red, and stroked himself through his black dress pants. “I’m about to say fuck all those law students who need library help today.”
My body rocked against Jacek’s fingers and Sawyer’s mouth, and I nodded at Eddie. “Fuck me instead.”
Sawyer sucked my nipple harder with a frustrated groan and drew my arm into his lap where his massive cock begged to be stroke. “I have a meeting I can’t miss with the suicide hotline call center.”
“What if...” Jacek dropped to his knees by my chair, his fingers stroking faster, and trailed kisses over my other breast. “What if you sit here naked and we take turns with you when we can until you go patrolling?”
I moaned as his lips wrapped around my other nipple. “I do...have a paper to write.”
Eddie stood, still rubbing his hard cock through his pants. “Fucking excellent idea.”
“Me first.” Jacek dropped between my legs and replaced his fingers with his mouth.
I gasped and spread my legs wider. My hips rolled into his face as I raked my hands through his short dark hair. The thought of the three of them, one after the other, filling me up shot an urgent pulse through my veins.
“Then me.” Sawyer grabbed the back of my head and kissed me with a searing need while I rubbed him through his jeans.
“And then me,” Eddie said. Then with a wink, he was gone.
Sawyer blurred out of the kitchen after him, leaving me squirming against Jacek’s tongue.
I moaned loudly at the roiling heat inside my body while he fucked me with his mouth. He was so good. They were all so good.
A pressure built deep inside my pussy, coiling tighter and tighter, until it shattered. I cried out, my whole world streaking by for a moment as Jacek quickly stood us both up. He gripped my ass so I could wrap my legs around him, and then he was inside me, pounding at my inner walls that were still convulsing with my orgasm. He moved me against the door of the refrigerator so he could sink into me even deeper, everything inside rattling with each hard thrust. He grinned while he fucked me, grinned while he kissed me, and it was impossible not to grin right back.
When he came, he bit down into my shoulder, and then we melted into each other for a long kiss. Before he left for a judo lesson, he sat me back down at the table, set up my laptop for me, and gave me one of the best compliments ever:
“My life, if you could call it that, is so much better with you in it.” Then, he was gone.
With my heart soaring and an unwavering smile stuck to my face, I started on my English paper. I was one page in when Sawyer came into the kitchen, completely naked and powerful and so, so big. I stood to meet him, already feeling that low, heated throb again inside my pussy, and he wrapped me around him, completely consuming me with his warm heart.
But his kisses soon became rough, his need too great to play nice like he sometimes did. He leaned me over the table and took me from behind, not in the asshole, though, because I didn’t think I could handle his size there. He thrust into me again and again, his fingers bruising my hips as he slammed me back against him. My orgasm came violently, splitting the quiet house with my scream. He came with a deep bellow behind me, and then squeezed me to him while he bit down hard on my back, his hips still rolling against my ass.
“You’re stunning, in every sense of the word,” he said, touching his lips to my neck.
I let out a breathless laugh. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
He pressed his smile to my cheek and nuzzled me, then he was gone.
I was three pages deep in my English paper when Eddie appeared, fully clothed, but with his fangs and cock lengthened and ready to go. I undressed him, slowly, testing where he trusted me to put my hands. He shuddered and groaned, but never told me to stop.
“On the table, Sunshine,” he growled when he stood naked. “Let’s see if we can break it in half.”
We did. It broke as soon as I lay spread eagle for him on top and he settled himself between my thighs. We fucked in the pile of broken wood, a hazard for him, but I wouldn’t let anything happen to him. Our naked skin slid against each other’s, and I held all of him close. He came right after I did, his bite on my neck drawing out my orgasm into one long, garbled, “Ffffffuck yeahhhhh.”
Smiling, he pulled out and helped me to my feet, then kissed the backs of both of my hands. “You make everything feel lighter, Sunshine.”
I sighed as his arms enveloped me into a hug, feeling so much more renewed than I had when I’d awakened.
* * *
DAYS PASSED IN MUCH the same way—rest, food, fucking, training, patrolling, and tracking the steady countdown toward semester finals. Dun, dun, dun. Now that I was unemployed, I had a lot more time to study, which was nice. I had no money, though, and no prospects for money, unless I sold an organ or something. I would add that to my to-do list.
Paul hadn’t made another appearance. He was too busy splashing around in his lake below the trapdoor, I guessed. I would go to him whenever the devil came back with a weapon or something that would kill Paul. If the devil came back. He might’ve said to hell with me.
Every night during patrol, the dark weight surrounding the fallen mausoleum grew heavier, almost like walking through sludge. It got to the point where I avoided that area to protect my sanity.
Speaking of which, my sanity was still there. At least, according to me. Would I know if some of my marbles had slipped out? I was never “normal,” whatever that was, even before I became the slayer. Now, walking around naked and licking plates was just part of who I was.
Despite the freezing temperatures even in the daytime, I often sat outside the door of the woodshed with Cleo while studying. Detective Appelt’s hungry growls were pretty much silent during the day since that was when he slept, but I could sense him inside. I hoped he could sense me, too, that I was here for him and still would be after the bloodlust had ended. We had a lot to talk about.
Just like I had a lot to talk about with Eddie. No, I still hadn’t done that, and yes, I felt guilty as hell for it. His past had traumatized him, but his little slayer sister had been his one and only bright spot. Why did it fall on my shoulders to spoil that for him? Did I even need to? If it were me, I would want to know how the fire that killed my entire family had started, but it was easy for me to think that because I hadn’t lived his life.
I had to do what was best for Eddie, and the two vampires who happened to live in this house might have some insight into what exactly that was since they’d known him for years and years. Yet I also didn’t think it was fair to tell them before I told Eddie, and oh my god, this was what would drive me insane. Not Paul. Not my slayer power. Just worry over one of mine.
Heaving a sigh quiet enough not to wake the detective, I stood with my laptop, unable to concentrate on cost-benefit analyses for my economics final any longer. Plus, I was cold, and if I was, Cleo had to be too. She flopped around the backyard, delighted by the wind and the smells and peeing wherever she wanted. I had to wonder if she’d ever been allowed outside at the Senate mansion. She trotted over to me with her big, goofy grin and smacked her tail against the back of my leg. It was impossible not to grin back. She’d wrapped me around her paw until I was completely smitten and therefore forced to give her good-girl snacks.
Before we went inside where it was warm, I pressed my palm to the door of the woodshed in a silent goodbye-for-now. Soon, I hoped we’d be able to talk.
Once the good-girl snacks were passed around to all the good girls in the house, including me, I busied myself around the kitchen to preoccupy myself. Because it got dark so early these days, my vampires usually woke up around six, so I got out their mugs and waited. I would tell Eddie tonight, with Jacek and Sawyer there for moral support, but also because they needed to know what might happen to me, too. No more putting it off.
They entered the kitchen one at a time, still sleepy, always sexy, filling my heart with their immediate smiles and kisses.
“Sit. Please,” I told them. “I’ll bring you your blood.”
“What’s this?” Jacek shot me a heart-stopping grin as he dropped into his seat at the table.
“Me doing something for you guys for once,” I said, putting their full mugs on the table.
“You do plenty for me,” Eddie said with a wink.
Sawyer settled himself at the table and took up his mug. “Thank you, Belle.”
I grinned. “You’re welcome.”
Jacek drank deeply and then sighed, wrapping his hands around his cup. “This might sound sexist, but I just had a thought of you in the kitchen wearing an apron. Only an apron. For that, I’m sorry. But I’m secretly not, though, because that’s an image I’ll take with me to the grave if I ever get there.”
I laughed with them as I sat in my usual spot, but my laughter faded far quicker than theirs. “I... There were other things I saw in the lake that I didn’t tell you about.”
Eddie put his mug down and looked at me, his orange-yellow eyes always curious. “Oh?”
I nodded. “I tell you guys everything, whether you want to know it or not. You know that, but this...”
“You can tell us,” Sawyer said, touching my thigh.
“I know. It’s just... I don’t want to hurt any of you. That’s the absolute worst thing I could do.”
“You saw something about one of us in Paul’s lake?” Jacek asked.
“Well...Paul’s power that’s inside the slayer, inside me... It’s not a perfect fit. Roseff lost his mind, but it wasn’t because of what he saw in the lake. It’s the power itself, and he wasn’t the only one to go crazy.” I looked at Eddie, and his expression cut my heart up into a thousand pieces.
Haunted memories clouded his beautiful amber eyes, and he pushed his mouth together into a firm line. He knew, or at least suspected, where what I had to say might lead.
I took a breath, my words seeming to flare up and then die before I pushed them out. Finally, I said, “Eddie, I—I saw your sister in the lake.”
Quiet fell upon the kitchen. Eddie just looked at me, a tortured statue, waiting.
“I saw her...” My breath ran out like a deflated balloon, and I dragged in another shaky one. “I saw her start the fire in your house.”
Jacek looked at the floor and scrubbed his hands down his face. Sawyer watched Eddie carefully. Eddie sat there, breaking apart even though he didn’t move.
I wanted to run to him, fling my arms around him, say something that could fix this, but something in his face kept me just as still as he was. He needed to process. He needed to grieve all over again.
Cleo padded over to him from the living room with a whine and settled her head on his lap. I didn’t peek under the table, but I could imagine her big, sad eyes looking up at him and offering her condolences as only she knew how.
“Sometimes,” Eddie finally choked out, “Crystal would say things that didn’t make sense. Or they made sense, but they weren’t what a girl should’ve been saying at her age. Things that made me want to keep a closer eye on her in case...”
“She must’ve hid it well, Eddie,” Sawyer said, leaning toward him. “I didn’t notice any strange behavior while we helped her patrol.”
“She only said things when she thought no one was looking or paying attention.” Eddie looked down at the table. “I always was.”
It felt so damn selfish to compare Eddie’s sister and me, but I couldn’t help it. Would that be how it would start for me? Saying not-quite-right things and then disintegrating further like a burning match? If so, how much time did I have left? I mean, I obviously knew when my twenty-first birthday was, but would my brain be long gone before then? What would kill me faster? Paul? Or myself?
The doorbell rang. Like we always did, we stared at each other, but then a sinking feeling dropped all of my organs into my feet.
The devil. It had to be him with the weapon that could kill a god.
A valid reason for my organs to flee, but not the only one. A look of pure rage crossed over Eddie’s face. He squeezed his mug of blood until it shattered and exploded blood over his hands, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy racing for the front door. And the devil outside who’d corrupted his little sister with a god’s power.