“Oh, that will never be enough for me, little fury. But it’s enough to make your hellion of avarice green with envy. Which will then produce hate, maybe for you, certainly for me. And the only thing more powerful than righteous anger is the rage of a hellion.”
“You got what you wanted. Now pay up.”
“I’d say there’s no need to get angry, but we both know I like it.” He chuckled again, then licked my blood from his dark, dark lips. “Your father is being held in the basement of the local insane asylum. Are they still called that? But you won’t be able to retrieve him. And when you return for my help again, the price will be higher....” Ira winked one black eye at me and swiped his palm across the floor between us, smudging his name into a smear of my blood.
Then he faded from the human world, right in front of me.
I shuddered with revulsion and wished desperately for something to wash the taste of my own blood from my mouth. I closed my eyes, and silent tears slid down my cheeks. Then I sucked in a deep breath and made myself still. Completely motionless, as only the dead can do. No heartbeat. No pulse. No breathing. A moment of self-imposed, absolute calm while I tried to control the anger Ira had left coursing through me.
It didn’t work. In the end, I could only ride the wave while the pressure built inside me, pushing me toward an edge I didn’t know how to come back from.
When I realized I couldn’t just bury that much anger, I opened my eyes, swiped my hand over the blood finally starting to dry on the tile floor, just in case, then blinked into my own bathroom.
My house still felt empty when I arrived—there were no voices, and Styx was there to greet me almost instantly, which she wouldn’t have done if she was standing watch over guests or intruders. So I rinsed my bloody hand in the bathroom sink, blotted it dry around the cut, then dug beneath the counter for a large bandage.
I didn’t even glance in the mirror, because I was afraid of what I’d find. Afraid that I’d see the rage that had drawn Ira to me. The rage he’d fed, damn it, and that if I saw that in myself, I’d know he was right about me. That I was changing. That I was fighting for revenge, rather than justice.
Instead, I turned and stomped into the hallway—and ran smack into Tod, who was scowling at his phone. “Hey, Kaylee, I have a missed call from you and five nasty voice mails from Nash. What’s going—” He looked up from his phone and his eyes widened. “What happened?” His gaze dropped to my chin, and he shoved his phone into his pocket, then turned my face to the right for a better look. “Is that blood? Are you okay?”
“Where the hell were you?” Tears filled my eyes, and I spoke through teeth clenched to stop the flow of more angry words I knew I had no right to speak. Tod wasn’t the problem. I was angry. I wasn’t thinking straight.
“I was in the Netherworld. They don’t have cell towers. What happened?”
With one glance at the concern in his eyes, my anger fled and guilt washed over me.
“Avari took my dad. Again.” I let him lead me into the bathroom. “I have to go after him, but I don’t think I can get to him on my own without going through Avari, so I called everyone, but Nash was the only one who answered. Well, Sabine answered my uncle’s phone, but they can’t come because Sophie committed her first criminal act, and the police aren’t a forgive-and-forget kind of operation.”
When I stopped talking I realized I stood in front of the mirror, where Tod was wetting a rag at the sink. Which is when I noticed that blood streaked the lower right side of my face, from where Ira’s hand had trailed down my chin. And that more of it was smeared around my mouth, like a clown’s lipstick, in spite of my attempt to wipe it off.
I didn’t just look angry. I looked scary.
“Kaylee, I’m so sorry.” Tod wrung out the rag and started wiping blood from the back of my jaw. “Whose is this? What happened?”
“I summoned Ira.”
His hand went still, and his irises churned with tight, twisting streaks of cobalt fear. “You what? How? Why?”
“I summoned him with my blood—this is all mine—and his name. Because I couldn’t get a hold of anyone else who could help me.”
“Please tell me you did not make a deal with a hellion of wrath.”
“I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Oh, Kaylee.” He sank onto the edge of the tub, the rag in his hand forgotten as he stared up at me in true fear. “What did you do?”
“I asked him to get my dad back safely, but the price was too high. He wanted my soul. I said no.”
Tod slumped with relief for a second, then sat straighter and pushed pale curls back from his forehead. “So what’s with the blood?”
“He said he’d tell me where my dad was being held for a smaller fee.”
“What fee?” There was no end to the depth of his voice in those two words. They were a bottomless chasm of fear and dismay and dread, and I stood on the brink, poised to fall in. Balancing on the edge. “What did you do?”
“He just wanted a kiss.” My tears finally fell, and they burned all the way down my cheeks. “He wanted a taste of my anger, so he wiped my own blood on my mouth and kissed me. And I let him.”
Tod blinked at me. His arms rested against his legs, his hands hanging between his knees, and his eyes were so still. Still like true death. And for the first time since I’d met him, he looked like I might have expected a reaper to look. Like death itself, he was both the object that could not be moved and the force that could not be resisted, and the longer he stared at me without reacting—without showing a single ripple of emotion beneath his frozen-lake eyes—the deeper my heart ached, until I thought it would split open and fall apart.
“Please say something.” I sank onto the closed toilet seat, my knees inches from his. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I would take it back if I could, but I’m not going to lie about it, and... Are you mad?”
“You kissed a hellion.”
My heart pumped once, painfully, then stopped. “Yes, but it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like kissing you—”
“I sure as hell hope not!” A single thread of ice-blue anger twisted through his irises, then they burst into a dizzying range of shades from cornflower to cobalt, displaying a storm of emotion like I’d never seen. Anger. Fear. Jealousy. Confusion. Frustration. They were all there, but the scariest of all was grief, as if he’d lost something he couldn’t get back.
As if we’d lost something...
He stood, and I stood in front of him, as if I could possibly block a reaper’s path if he wanted to leave. “No. Tod, wait.” I put one hand on his chest, feeling for his heartbeat, but it wasn’t there. “It wasn’t like that. I swear on my afterlife. I swear on my soul. It wasn’t a kiss like people kiss. I don’t think hellions even truly understand why people kiss. This was an exchange of information.”
“It was an exchange of saliva.” That churning continued in his eyes, and my heart shattered when I saw a midnight twist of disappointment.
“No!” I grabbed his hand—if he tried to blink out, he’d have to take me with him. “Well, yes, but it wasn’t about saliva. It was about blood. My blood, and the anger it carried. That’s what he wanted.”
“That’s part of what he wanted.” Instead of pulling his hand away, Tod squeezed mine, like everything important he wanted to say could be read in his grip, when I couldn’t make any sense of what I saw in his eyes. “He wanted to taste your anger, but he also wanted to cause more of it. And he did, right? Making you kiss him pissed you off, didn’t it? It’s sure as hell pissing me off, and he probably wanted that, too. Nothing hellions want is simple, Kaylee. Nothing they take is simple, either, and they always take more than you realize you’re giving.”
Suddenly the maelstrom churning in his eyes collapsed into a single sapphire coil of pain. “I can’t stand the thought of him touching you.” His free hand rose, and his thumb brushed the fullest part of my lower lip, still crusted with dried blood. “Kissing you...
I don’t even know what he looks like, but I can’t stop seeing it.”
I tried to breathe and realized I couldn’t. “I’m sorry.” More tears trailed down my cheeks, and I took the rag from the sink where he’d dropped it. The cloth was cold now, but I swiped at my face furiously, scrubbing the blood off without the benefit of the mirror, trying to erase what I’d done. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t, and I had to do something. I can’t just leave my dad there, but I’m so sorry for how I paid, and if I lose you—”
“Kaylee. Stop.” Tod took the rag and stared at it for a second. Then he used one clean corner to gently wipe the blood I’d missed from around my lips. “You’re not going to lose me. I’m not happy about what happened, but losing you would make that worse, not better. You’re never going to lose me, and certainly not because one of hell’s ambassadors bullied you into kissing him.”
My heart started beating again, and the sudden rush of my pulse made me light-headed. Tod wiped the last of the blood from my mouth, then leaned forward and kissed me, and I let the feel of him and the taste of him—of all things good and safe and strong—drive the memory of that other kiss from my head.
“Just...in the future, save all the good stuff for me, okay?” he whispered into my hair, holding me so tight I couldn’t have breathed if I’d needed to.
“It’s yours. All of it. All of me.” I put my head on his shoulder and clutched handfuls of his shirt. “I’m all yours.”
That was the only thing I could see clearly, when I tried to picture forever.
Chapter Twelve
When Tod finally pulled away, it was only so that he could see my eyes. “We’re going to get your dad back. I’m sorry I was out of reach when this happened. I was looking for Thane.”
“Oh, yeah.” That’s why he’d been in the Netherworld.
“What does that mean?” He frowned, studying my face. “You knew?”
“I went to reaper headquarters last night and I overheard. I didn’t mean to, but once I figured out Levi had given you a special assignment, I was kind of glad. We need to catch Thane. And I figured you didn’t tell me because Levi wouldn’t let you, right? This is a secret assignment?”
Tod exhaled and held my gaze. “Kay, this was my idea. Levi thought he’d be too far away by now, and we’d have to wait on a sighting from one of the other districts, but I asked him to let me look into it. At first, I didn’t find anything, but then early this morning I found one of the souls he took off with after Emma died.”
“Where?” I wasn’t sure I’d processed everything he’d said yet, but that question couldn’t wait. “Where is he?”
“I haven’t found Thane yet, but he sold one of the souls in the Netherworld, one district over. I’m not sure what he got for it, but that’s proof that he didn’t leave the area immediately. He may still be close.” Tod smiled, and his whole face lit up with the possibility shining in his eyes. “We’re going to catch him, Kaylee, and he’s going to pay for his part in...everything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you requested this?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted to catch him as a sort of late birthday present. Because your party...well, it kinda sucked, and you deserve to get something you really want for your birthday. Something other than death, horror, and mayhem.”
“I have what I really want.” I grabbed a handful of his tee and pulled him closer for another kiss. “And I don’t like secrets.”
“Not a secret. A surprise. Similar meaning—completely different tone and intent.” He grinned. “I wanted to surprise you. What were you doing at headquarters, anyway?”
Well, crap. Tod would have been the first—possibly only—person I told after Emma, but timing was definitely not on my side lately. “I...um...may have taken Beck’s soul back from Levi to give to Traci’s baby.”
“You what?” Tod sat on the edge of the tub and ran one hand through his curls, and when he met my gaze again, his irises were twisting slowly in frustration. “For someone who doesn’t like secrets, you sure keep a lot of them. Does my boss know you stole his letter opener?”
“If he hasn’t said anything to you, I’m guessing he doesn’t know. But I didn’t take the letter opener, I just took the soul. And I wasn’t stealing it, I was taking it back. The way I see it, several people have a legitimate claim to that soul, including me. But Levi’s not one of them. It should go to Beck’s son. Traci and her baby deserve a chance, and that soul is the very least that bastard owes them.”
“Kaylee, I sympathize with Traci. I really do. But you can’t get involved with another incubus. It’s not safe.”
“I can’t not get involved with this incubus. His mother may not even be alive when he reaches his first fertile period, but I will. Traci deserves a chance to raise her son, but the rest of the world deserves not to be preyed on by him. So, like it or not, I’m involved.” I shrugged. “And honestly, I can’t swear that I’m not going to get involved in other crazy Netherworld chaos between now and forever. Eternity’s a long time.” I hesitated, searching his eyes while I took a deep, nervous breath. “Are you still with me?”
He took my hand, and that tension inside me eased, just a little bit. “I meant it when I said forever, Kay. You’ve been mixed up in crazy Netherworld chaos since the day we met, and I kind of like knowing that even if we live another thousand years, we’ll never be bored, in any sense of the word.” The heat in his eyes hinted at double entendre, and I couldn’t resist a smile. “But I wouldn’t mind a heads-up next time you decide to jump into the crazy end of the pool.”
“Fair enough. Though you should probably know there isn’t really a not-crazy end of the—”
The front door flew open and smashed into the wall, and Tod and I both turned toward the sound as Styx began growling furiously. “Kaylee!” Nash called.
Tod groaned. “You left the front door unlocked?”
“That was probably Emma. I don’t use doors much anymore. Besides, everyone who wants to kill me is on another plane of existence.” I shrugged. “The front door doesn’t seem like a particularly meaningful barrier.”
“Well, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.” He said it loud enough that I knew no one else could hear him. As they couldn’t yet hear me.
“Kaylee?” It took me a second to recognize Emma’s voice, even though I’d had two weeks to get used to it. Because it wasn’t Emma’s voice. It was Lydia’s.
“Back here, guys,” I called, and both sets of footsteps hurried our way. “I’m fine.”
Nash stepped into the bathroom doorway, nearly tripping over Styx, who came to growl at him, and I saw Em over his shoulder. His attention narrowed on the rag his brother still held, then rose to meet my gaze. “Then what’s with the blood?”
“When you cross the bridge, you have to pay the toll....”
I squeezed past him into the hall, and Emma fell into step beside me. “What bridge?”
“She made a deal with Ira to find out where Avari’s holding her dad,” Tod explained, and I looked up to find him waiting for us in the living room, one hand on the dead bolt on the front door. “His price was her blood.”
“Blood? How much? Are you okay?” Em looked terrified.
I showed her the bandage on my hand. “Just a little. He only wanted a...taste.”
“And he told you where your dad is?”
“Yeah. Avari’s holding him in the Netherworld version of Lakeside. In the basement. I’m assuming he considers that some kind of irony.”
“Or a joke,” Nash said. “Please tell me you didn’t go into the Netherworld by yourself to make this deal.”
“Nope. I summoned Ira. He came to me.” I held my hand up again, showing off the bandage. “Thus the blood.”
“You summoned him?” Nash said. “What does that even mean?”
“He came here?” Emma asked before I could answer Nash. “They can cross over again?”
“No.” I frowned. “Well, ye
s, but only because I summoned him with my blood and his name. While he’s summoned, he can only interact with me, and I can get rid of him just by wiping his name off whatever I wrote it on. He can send himself back the same way.”
“So you think that makes it safe?” Nash demanded. “Please tell me you don’t think what you just did was safe!”
“Of course not. Dealing with a hellion is never safe, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Avari’s latest game appears to be evil hide-and-seek. That way I don’t just suffer once I get to the Netherworld—I also suffer while I track my father down.”
“I didn’t know hellions could be summoned,” Em said, and I could only shrug. I hadn’t known, either.
“Most of them can’t.” Tod sank onto the arm of the couch. “Only the most powerful can cross over when called, and then only for very short periods. Once the blood used to summon them dries completely, they get sucked back into the Netherworld. And Kaylee’s right. There’s very little a summoned hellion can do in the human world. It’s mostly used for face-to-face communication and...exchanges.”
“Exchanges?” Nash looked suspicious, so I ignored his question.
“So, that means Ira really is more powerful than Avari?”
“My guess would be way more powerful. He’s a hellion of wrath, and wrath is one of the oldest, most primal emotions.”
“Weird.” I frowned. “He looked pretty young.”
“So does Levi,” Tod pointed out. “But then, compared to Ira, Levi’s practically still in utero.”
“So, how much trouble are we in with this new hellion?” Emma asked. “If he’s that powerful, maybe we should try drawing him out, as well. I mean, is he strong enough to just...squish Avari for us?”
“I don’t know. What I do know is that he wouldn’t do that for free, and I’m not willing to pay the price he’d ask. And I’m not eager to spend any more time with him, because just hearing his voice makes me angry. Touching him is even worse—that makes me truly furious, about things I haven’t even thought about in years.”