“Grace?” Jenna called sounding distant, like she was underwater. “Grace? Are you alright?”
“Huh?” she mumbled, her voice thick and groggy. When she opened her eyes, Jenna was there, several small cuts across her face, a white powder coating her.
The other woman mashed down the airbags while papers fluttered around them like some bizarre snowfall. Cubes of glass were everywhere. The car engine still ran and revved higher than it should while the scent of burnt rubber, talcum powder, and gasoline filled the air.
Grace’s body was heavy. Too heavy. Like a lead weight pressed down on her. Something about the moment was familiar, and a memory tweaked then flashed bright and hot as it tore across her mind.
Grace was trapped, her legs pinned between the dash and her seat. Her face was angled out the passenger side window, too weak to turn.
“Mom?” she called, feeble. “Mom? Are you alright?”
She snapped back to the present and the carnage. She tried to lift her head and failed, which meant it thunked against the steering wheel. The windshield was shattered, the hood a crumpled mess of metal. The world was off. Its angle messed with her because the steam from the engine wasn’t going the right direction. She peered around to orient herself. The car was propped on its side in the ditch, the driver’s door tipped skyward.
“Are you hurt?” Jenna repeated. “Do you need an ambulance?”
“No,” Grace mumbled. “Weak.”
Jenna turned, face paling more—which said something under the circumstances. “Holy mother of God.”
Grace’s gaze flicked to the passenger side mirror. The Forsaken stood in the road. His position hadn’t changed, but everything else about him had. He was more solid, less transparent. So much so, she could barely see through him. Her heart raced, thrashing in her ears. Countless thoughts tried to surface but were beaten back by a fear-laced stick.
Jenna pulled out her phone and dialed a number. “Hey. I need your help. Grace and I had an accident.” She paused. “A car accident.” Another pause. “I’m alright, just a few cuts and bruises.” Pause. “Yes, I’m sure I’m okay.” Pause. “I think she is. She says she’s weak. Something happened with one of the dead. He’s one of yours.” Pause. “I can’t explain it now, just come please. And whatever you do, don’t touch it when you get here.” Pause. “We’re on Weston Road near the Terrace Drive intersection.” Pause. “Okay, please hurry.” She glanced at Grace, then away again. “You, too.” She hung up, leaned over, and turned off the engine. “I don’t think it’s safe to stay in the car.”
Grace tried to nod but had no clue if she’d managed.
“Can you move?” Jenna asked.
“Not without falling.”
Jenna pulled the latch on the passenger door. It groaned as it fell open and jostled the vehicle. She unbuckled her seatbelt and dropped like a lead weight into the snow-filled ditch below.
“Ooph,” she grunted as she landed.
“You okay?”
“Yep.” She looked up at Grace. “I don’t think I can get you out without hurting you, so we’re gonna have to wait.”
Waiting was good, if only she knew who she waited for. Gravity pulled her down, the belt cutting deeper into her side the more time ticked by. It hurt—a lot—but it was better than the alternative, kind of.
Jenna worried her lip between her teeth, attention fixed on the road. It didn’t take long before a loud engine roared. Its tires screeched when it accelerated, getting closer. Fast.
“I think they’re here,” the other woman said. Her eyes darted to Grace’s before she stood and dusted herself off. Ducking into the car, she grabbed both of their purses and slipped free.
Less than a minute later, their help pulled up. The vehicle rumbled as the sound of two doors snapped open.
“Holy fucking shit,” a familiar voice cursed.
Davis? What the heck is he doing—
“Over here,” Jenna called.
Heavy, fast approaching footfalls pounded out before Gideon appeared. He took Jenna’s place and filled the opening on the passenger side. His chest heaved from the harshness of his breaths as he took Grace in. The sight of him had her shoulders sag, relief flooding her like a dam breaking its walls.
“I couldn’t get her out,” Jenna apologized from further away.
“I thought you said she didn’t need help?” Gideon growled as his arm wrapped around Grace. “Take hold of me.”
She did and slipped her ineffective grasp about his neck while his other hand unfastened her seatbelt. Her weight dropped toward him, but his grip was unyielding.
He maneuvered them out of the vehicle. “Are you okay?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Getting a little desperate for my attention, aren’t you?” he said, but the words were off, and the devil-may-care smirk he offered didn’t touch his eyes.
She smiled as best she could, but it was a wholly pathetic attempt.
He trudged through the thigh-high snow, carrying her like she weighed nothing. Davis took Jenna’s hand and pulled her from the ditch. A quiet conversation passed between the two, one Grace only caught portions of.
“Didn’t know what else to...panicked...” Jenna stopped as she reached the asphalt then bent forward and set her hands on her knees.
Davis shook his head. “It’s alright...at the warehouse…finished…Absinthe.”
“I think I can walk,” Grace uttered.
Gideon loosed a low laugh that held no humor. He didn’t put her down. Repositioning his grip, his hand slid to her backside as he carried her up to the road. “You’re shivering.”
“That’s because I’m cold.”
His eyes narrowed on her but there was no anger there.
“What happened?” Davis asked.
Jenna pointed to the Forsaken. “Him. When he touched Grace, she collapsed, but he grew…stronger.” The words were tight and mirrored Grace’s emotions. This was bad—very bad.
Davis paced around the soul while Gideon maneuvered behind it and made for the black truck across the road. Its doors stood open, and she was more than happy to be distanced from it.
Jenna wrapped her arms around herself. “What’s wrong with it?”
Gideon’s heat brushed Grace’s cheek when she leaned into him. “It has the Mark we talked about.”
“What Mark?” Davis asked.
Gideon opened his mouth to answer as he closed in on the truck when the soul’s head snapped their way. He went rigid.
Jenna screamed and jumped back several feet.
“What the fuck?” Davis said as he set himself in front of her.
Time slowed. The soul moved. That shouldn’t have been possible. God. How?
Her heart pounded in her ears. “Gideon, what do we do?”
His stare was locked on the Forsaken when he set her onto the front passenger seat. “Stay here.” He closed the door over and stalked back into the road. Reaching behind his back, he withdrew his sleek, black dagger.
Off in the distance, a car approached, aiming straight for the intersection and the soul. She put her window down as bile burned the back of her throat. “Someone’s coming.”
Davis eyed Gideon. “Should we send it through?”
“We can’t leave it here.” He widened his stance, planted his feet, and cut into his arm. “Keep your eyes peeled for Dark Seraphim. We’re gonna have to do this fast.”
“Get in the truck,” Davis told Jenna while he edged to Gideon’s side.
She didn’t hesitate and scrambled into the back seat behind Grace.
Gideon cut into his Scourge then spread his blood over the Gateway Mark. The air rippled and the portal appeared. Heat billowed out as fire and smoke filled the way. Demons took flight and made for the Gate when he used the other side of his bloodied blade to trigger his Passage Mark.
The Forsaken ignited and the hellfire licked over it until it was engulfed. It vanished but didn’t reappear inside the Gateway.
Grace’s hands flew to her mouth.
Davis’s head snapped around. “Where the fuck did it go?”
The demons were close—only three heartbeats away. She needed a weapon. Not that she was in the shape to use it, but the illusion of safety would’ve been nice. Two. Jenna whimpered and Gideon stripped the blood from his Marks. One. The connection severed. The portal disappeared.
The two men stared into the void for several long seconds before they exchanged a “what the fuck” look. Pivoting, they made their way back to the truck where Davis climbed into the back with Jenna just as the other vehicle passed.
Gideon strode to Grace’s side and popped open her door. His amber stare roved her face. “You’re bleeding.”
“Flesh wounds. I’m just exhausted.” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “It’s the same thing, Gideon.”
“What is?”
Their eyes met, fire on ice. “The illness that’s going around. What just happened to me is exactly what’s been happening to the others.” She released a steadying breath and braced for the truth that came next. “I’ve seen it before, the night I fled, I headed to Trenton. Two Shepherds were there. They didn’t see me. One was from Arillia—a guy. I don’t know who. They tested the Mark. Someone from our city’s involved in whatever this is.” She winced. “And that day in your office…”
His expression was flat. Unreadable. “You thought it was me.”
Guilt consumed her and gnawed at the frayed edges of her heart. She wouldn’t blame him if he ditched her right there. It was no less than she deserved. “I tried to convince myself it was.”
His mouth tipped up at the corner while his gaze hooded. He leaned in and his shoulder brushed her chest. “I’m glad you failed.” The heady scent of musk and wood skimmed her senses when he turned on her seat warmer. Pulling back, he stripped off his coat and set it over her.
She raked her lip through her teeth. Her gaze flicked to Davis and Jenna who spoke in hushed tones before it returned to him. “I have to be careful who I tel–”
“You’re safe with everyone here,” he promised, the words even as he put up her window and closed her door.
Everyone here. Everyone. She peered at Jenna again.
The truck dipped when Gideon climbed into the driver’s seat. “Jenna, Call Elijah. Tell him we’re headed to Crys’s place. If Rodan’s available, make sure he comes to look you two over. We can discuss the rest of this shit then.”
“What about Ben?” Jenna asked.
“Bypass him.”
Grace did a double take because there was no way in hell that would go over well.
“Okay,” Jenna said, the word tremulous.
Gideon pulled out his phone and dialed. “It’s Ryczek,” he said. “Yep. I’m gonna need you to tow a vehicle for me.” Pause. “No, it’s not mine.” He recited the details of Grace’s car without looking—including her license plate. Interesting. Next, he gave the location and its precarious position in the ditch, then hung up.
Slipping off her boots, she tucked her jittery legs under his coat, his warmth still lingering in it. “I need to call the police before it's towed so I can go through my insurance.”
“Don’t worry about that now. We’ve got bigger things to deal with.” He stuffed his phone back into his pocket, put the truck in gear and pulled away. “Do you need anything?”
She needed to replenish herself, badly, and there was only one way to do that. “Food. Something with sugar. Ooh! Ice cream!”
He cocked an inquisitive brow. “You’re already freezing, woman.”
She narrowed her eyes in a pathetic challenge. “Ice cream!”
A heart-stopping smile slid across his face when he gave a single, slow incline of his head. “The lady has spoken.”
He took them through the back roads as he aimed in the general direction of her home. The ride was smooth, and regardless of whether that credit was owed to the truck or his ability, she welcomed it. Not that she’d tell him that.
Her muscles clenched, her body wound tight. The adrenaline faded, leaving her aching bones and frazzled mind in its wake. Not great since she was pretty sure they were the only things that kept her going. She jolted when a series of images tore across her mind, and for the second time that day, she was taken back.
The night was dismal. It made the road hard to see while heavy rains whipped against the windshield, matching Grace’s crappy mood.
She sat, lips thinned, arms folded over her chest in the passenger seat of her mother’s car. “What’s going on, mom? You’ve been acting weird since yesterday.”
Her mother took a slow breath, then rang the steering wheel in her grip. “There are some things you need to know, Grace. Some things I didn’t tell you.” She opened her mouth to continue but her spine went rigid as she stared at something off in the distance. “Oh, God.”
Cold terror gripped Grace’s chest. Ominous. Sinister. She followed her mother’s line of sight, but there was nothing there.
Gideon’s hand brushed her leg, and she snapped back to the present. His stare lingered, a question in his eyes.
Her answer was barely above a whisper. “A flashback.” Her head fell back against the seat as she fought the tears that attempted to slip free. “The night I lost my mother.” She shook herself to chase away the memory, but it wasn’t easy with the agony that clawed open her chest. Her mother had the Sight. She was a Shepherd. “I—I think we were running from someone.”
“Shit,” he said as they crossed back into the city limits.
“Shit,” she agreed.
She was frayed, her emotional strands unravelling. Wanting—needing—to change the subject, she glanced around the vehicle and took it in. It had every bell and whistle imaginable; screens, buttons galore, everything and anything one might need. It was more practical than the concept car, but still the swankiest truck she’d ever been in—or seen. “How many cars do you have?”
His eyes narrowed, and his thumb drummed a slow rhythm against the wheel.
“You have to think about that?” She rolled her eyes. “Ridiculous.”
He huffed a laugh. “I haven’t even given you a number yet.”
“A number of what?” Davis cut in.
“Of how many vehicles I own.”
“Oh. That.” Davis fell into contemplative silence and started ticking off fingers.
Grace shook her head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Gideon turned them into a small plaza and up to a fast-food joint’s drive thru. “It would seem Crys thinks I’m ostentatious.”
“Wow! Big word, lots of syllables,” she uttered.
The widening of his eyes gave her the distinct impression not many people spoke to him that way. A proud smirk slipped across her lips, and she wiggled in her seat. Take that, demon-boy!
Davis guffawed as he slapped Gideon on the shoulder. “I didn’t know there was a mouth out there smarter than yours, Gid, but I think you’ve met your match.”
A low rumble of laughter emanated from the deep recesses of Gideon’s chest while he pulled up and placed their orders. Straddling the fine line between starved and ravenous, Grace snatched the ice cream from his hands and scarfed it down like the animal she was. She ate it so fast, he handed his own over and looped back for more.
When he passed her the third, he said, “If you try and repay me for any of this, I’ll throw you back into the snowbank.”
She scrunched her face but—too grateful and weak to be proud—accepted as someone’s phone began pinging incessantly.
“Ben says he’s trying to text you,” Jenna informed her. “He’s worried you haven’t responded.”
Dammit. In the pandemonium, she’d not thought to message him. Her phone was buried in her purse in the backseat with Jenna, but she still hadn’t recovered enough to manage. “Can you tell him we’re on our way?”
“Of course.”
Gideon’s seat groaned as he rested his elbow on the center console between them, leaning closer. “Feeling better?”
Grace ducked her head. “Starting to.”
When he turned them onto her road, the tenor in the vehicle changed. Drastically. The air grew thick with unease. There was a strain in Jenna and Davis’s silence—not between them, but about something.
When her home came into view, an army of vehicles filled her driveway. Ben stalked toward them as they parked, his expression hard. He tore the passenger-side door open and when he spotted Gideon’s coat, the glare he offered the other man was sheer hatred. He tossed it onto the truck’s floor before he scooped Grace into his arms and carried her away, kicking the door shut as he left.
“Easy,” she told him.
“What took so long?” he asked, voice, and everything else about him stiff.
Wait, is he pissed at me? Gideon she got, because, well, it was Gideon. But her? “I had to eat.” She wriggled in his grasp, wanting to be put down, but her feet were bare so that wasn’t an option.
“You had to eat?”
Definitely pissed. She scratched her cheek. “I’ll explain when we’re inside.”
Gideon, Jenna, and Davis climbed out, the former with Grace’s boots in hand. Jenna ran and caught up to them. Ben pivoted to her, and his nostrils flared.
“Why are you with them?” Trevor said.
“Indeed, Miss Gonzalez.” Elijah stare was pointed as he closed in. “Fraternization between sides is forbidden. You know this.” His tone was level, disconcertingly so.
“I apologize, Agent. I asked Davis for help, but it was necessary,” Jenna said, words shaky and kinder than either man deserved.
“How do you even have his number?” Trevor accused.
God, he’s such an ass. Was he trying to get Jenna punished? The pointed glare Grace offered him was so sharp it was a wonder he wasn’t skewered. Jenna’s chest rose and fell in rapid bursts, her eyes wide. Davis edged closer, his body coiling.
A warning pricked in the back of Grace’s mind, one telling her to do something before things got ugly. “Jenna doesn’t have Davis’ number,” she said. “I called Gideon but made her take the phone when I got too weak. For whatever reason, Davis answered.” Elijah’s mouth opened to speak, but she cut him off at the pass. “Don’t you dare give me crap for having Gideon’s information. I’m not Marked yet.”
Ben tensed, and his hold tightened. Davis’s intense stare landed on Grace, but what thoughts lay behind it, she had no clue.
The Agent grimaced and asked Gideon, “Why didn’t you answer?”
He shrugged and rode the lie with her. “I was taking a piss.”
These people and their rules. They were ruled to a fault. Never mind logic, never mind safety, the rules were all that mattered—compliance was all that mattered. Control.
Elijah straightened. “And what was it that required their immediate assistance?”
Grace met his gaze head on. “We should probably go inside. You might want to sit down for this.”