Page 69 of Demon Heart: The Complete Series

ROMAN

A fter more rooftop hopping, keeping out of sight, we found a car parked in a quiet street in north London. Skele got us inside and the engine started, the fuel gauge close to maximum.

Bingo. How lucky for us.

The rain came down in heavy sheets halfway into our journey, most of it spent in silence. Not awkward, more like each of us needing some quiet time along the motorways.

I drove, chewing up the asphalt as quickly as I could, wound as tight as a spring, sending out a billion prayers for my friend’s safety.

“I want to say something to you.” I finally spoke for a distraction from my spinning mind.

“What is it?”

“Una,” I said, getting flashes of me killing her again. “Were you friends?”

“No. We worked together a few times, but we were never friends.”

“Right.”

“Are you feeling guilty over what happened?” he asked.

“No.”

“Good. Death is best for her. If she were alive, I’d be killing her for doing that to you. Slowly. Painfully.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. For your honor.”

Whoa. “You’re defending my honor already?”

“Why not?”

I smiled, passing under a bridge covered in graffiti calling the queen a rude name. “That’s really sweet.”

“She might have helped me with those fairy charms, but good riddance. From the looks of things, she didn’t have long left.”

“Yeah, she was definitely on her way out.”

“How are you feeling?”

“About the same, I guess.”

I saw him nod from the corner of my eye.

“What about you?” I asked.

“I hope I never have to see my past self and Ismael again. I would rather keep those memories locked away. As much as I want to change the past, it puts so much of the now in danger. You, for instance. I would hate to have not met you.”

He made my belly warm. “Even if it meant changing the course of Ismael’s life?”

His hand found my thigh. “What Butterfly and his device have done to time is not real. I understand that, even if my hearts do ache for the possibility of saving Ismael. My head knows better, though. Ismael is sleeping in the ice. He must stay there. He is my past. That demon prince you met is part of a dead past. Nothing we saw there was real, not really. This time is reality, the current position of our stories. And I want you. I want to know you deeper, to take you to bed again, see what it means to fall harder and harder for the witch with amber eyes.”

I blushed, more warmth blooming at my core. “You really know the right words to say. And I…” A heavy swallow, my skin flushing with heat. “I want the same.”

My God. Was I really falling for this demon?

Were we heading for disappointment, though? A mega crash to shatter these dreams of romance?

“I’m glad.” He squeezed my thigh. “My angel.”

“Angel?”

“You saved me.”

“But I’m hardly an angel.” I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable and elated at the same time.

I kind of liked this angel thing.

“You would look stunning with a pair of wings.”

I chuckled. “Stop it.”

“I can picture you in a doorway waiting to greet me with nothing on but wings and a smile.”

I laughed harder. “Why am I waiting to greet you?”

“I’ve been going about my business for the day, returning home to see my man.”

“I’m your man now?”

“If you want to be.”

Did I? “I highly doubt I’d be the ‘greet you at the door’ kind of boyfriend. Hi, honey. Here’s your pipe and slippers, and there’s a chicken roasting in the oven.”

“I don’t own a pair of slippers.”

“That’s your takeaway?”

“I would like a pair, though.”

I snorted, the motorway curving slightly. “I think you’re missing the point.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” he said.

“For me, yes. I’m not very domesticated.”

“I would beg to differ after seeing you in your flat.”

“Fine. I’m homely. But that’s it.”

“I’m not asking you to be domesticated, don’t worry. I could stand in that doorway with a cup of chamomile tea and a hard cock waiting for you instead.”

“Now that’s more like it.”

Xavier moved his hand to my shoulder. “I think I like that better.”

“Good.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Are you my man?”

I blushed again. Not from embarrassment, but because the heat seemed to crank up in the car. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

“I see.”

“I want to be.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“Everything. The queen, this device. Too much shit flying at us to allow for any breathing room. No time for nighttime cuddles.”

Where did that come from?

His blissfully warm palm found the back of my neck. “What sweet words.”

“I like the idea of cuddles at night.” Truth. Especially cuddles with Xavier.

“Me too.”

Good, good. “But how do we get there?”

“By fighting through this.”

“What if we can’t?”

“Then we have given up on hope. Butterfly can be stopped. You can be unshackled from the queen. We can change things.”

“But the device…”

“Can we have some hope, Roman?”

“I—”

“I spent so many years living without hope before you came along. Now it’s here in front of me, a living thing forcing me out of the darkness and into the light.”

“I’m hardly the light.”

But I want to be…

“You are to me, Roman. You’re changing me by the second.”

“What… Xavier…”

“I want to fight for something better. I know you do, too.”

Man, he was going to make me cry again. “I do.”

“Then let’s get Darcy and destroy Butterfly. Send him back to his time, keep your mark tainted, let the years play out until his death. Because with those elements against him, he is nothing.”

He was spot on. “And the queen?”

“Walk away. She wants you dead, I want you alive. I’ll kill her for you.”

“What? You?—”

“If no one else gets to her first.”

“You can’t kill the queen for me.”

“Then you kill her or walk away. And I will kill whomever I want.”

The temperature increased. “How can I walk away with the chaos going on around us?”

“The world is always going to be chaotic.”

“What about Tanith? She will keep coming for you until she gets what she wants. And what about her other intentions? Remember the cyclops demon?”

He sighed. “I had forgotten that.”

“Maybe it’s nothing.”

“I doubt it.” He snarled, baring his teeth. “There is always something.”

He was bang on the money there. “This isn’t over. We can’t keep running.”

“She is a problem.”

“Probably a bigger problem than the queen.”

“I’ll stop her.”

“ We’ll stop her. And do you see my point about too much chaos?”

He stilled, his hand off me now. “Then we stop the chaos.”

“Xavier—”

“Before you say anything else, I’m well aware of my faults here. Of being too optimistic about the situation.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a ‘glass half full’ mentality, but we have to be realistic here.”

“We can have goals we want to reach.”

Honestly, I wanted some of that positivity. I clung to its edges, even if those edges were slippery. “Yeah. We can.”

“Good. Then you can be my man after.”

I smiled, tempted to tell him I already was. “Yeah.”

God, I wanted to declare myself as his. Just go for it, throw caution to the wind and run away after getting my bestie back. But run where? The world might be huge, but hiding places were finite.

Dreams are great.

Impossibilities suck.

And this situation really, really sucked.

I drank the last drops of tea from the flask on the approach to the gates of Nightingale Castle. The country lane cut through dark fields and woodland, eerily silent, devoid of any signs of life. No night birds, no deer darting across the beam of my headlights.

The rain continued its heavy downpour, making the windscreen wipers work overtime.

“This is it,” I said. “This is it.”

Xavier gave my thigh a reassuring squeeze.

Last corner. Once we were round it, the castle would show itself. We were heading into a hornet’s nest with nothing but ourselves to offer up to the stinging fuckers and their queen.

Trying to break into the castle with my diversion spell up would’ve been a waste of time. Plus, there were demon towers everywhere along with anti-magical contingencies to secure the castle and its grounds.

But we did have a plan of sorts.

After grabbing Darcy, the three of us would go back in time to the hot spring cave, hide out for a few days, then try coming back to the castle and break out of it when the dust settled.

For now, the plan remained our best shot. It would be great to take the queen back in time and leave her there, but what would that mean for the timeline?

Drama.

Dumping her in the past would not be smart.

Fear twinged away, but adrenaline won the fight. I kind of craved some drama, some throwdown to show the queen she didn’t get to mess with my bestie.

My duty was dying, my purpose for living now changed.

I sped up, chewing up the remaining distance. I expected a blockade to greet us, floodlights highlighting a plethora of royal guards around the gates.

Instead, we were greeted by dead bodies and a destroyed gate. The floodlights up in the battlements highlighted carnage, not menacing guards.

I slammed on the brakes, the jolt echoing my utter surprise. “Oh my God!”

Quickly taking another Synth pill, I hurried over to the destruction, careful with every step.

Blood was everywhere, scorch marks on the brown bricks, the sturdy castle breached. I scanned above, below, the shadows of the service road running east and west hugging the huge walls.

Shit.

I crouched by a body, Xavier behind me.

“Demon attack,” he said.

“Seriously?”

“I can smell it.” He part-shifted, spinnerets at the ready.

No demon towers reacted to his demon self being exposed, those white eyes as bright as the floodlights.

The towers were down.

“Do you know where the queen’s chambers are?” he asked.

“Top of the inner keep.”

“We’ll start there.”

“Climb on.”

I did as he asked, certainly not wanting to stride through the main entrance.

Oh, God. Please let Darcy be okay.

More bodies of the attackers lay across the battlements, down in the main courtyard below. Including human corpses.

A human-demon team up?