She hissed, grabbing for the knife that he’d thoughtlessly left unprotected in its sheath. He managed to grab her wrists before she could use it. The contact of their skin meeting, the burn between them, had some of the twisted hatred fading from her gaze, a flash of green flickering like a stuttering light in the crimson depths.
<<Kill him! Kill him!>>
The green burned out under the crimson flare, her arm with the knife straining against his hold.
Can’t fight a blood tie. Not like this.
No, but perhaps he could another way…
“Not that way, cookie.” He turned his neck, purposely exposing his throat. “If you’re going to kill me, then you’ll have to do it this way.”
He shouldn’t have been shocked when her fangs pierced his skin, blood flowing from his jugular into her stomach carved empty by hatred, but he was, his body stiffening with a surge of adrenaline. Instinct screamed for him to fight her. Instead he closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. Three pulls, six, his life was pumping out of him into her, but still he didn’t give in to the urge to stop her. The way to fight the evil holding her was not to raise a hand, but to accept, to love unconditionally.
Letting go of her wrists, he slid his hand up her arm to cup the back of her head. “That’s right, Gabby. Drink from me. Let me sustain you.”
There was a breathless moment when she hesitated, then her arms tightened around him, his own blade sinking into his shoulder as she gripped him tight. He growled then accepted the pain, calling forth from the blade His light. The itch that always came with the touch of such pureness made him want to scream, but he pulled that light into him, calling it through the wound into his very bloodstream. Perhaps it would be enough. Perhaps it could break through the evil that held her. Perhaps the sacrifice of his blood, now infused with His purifying light, would save her. And if not, then perhaps as she drank the last of the life from him, so too would He see to her end…and then see them together afterward.
Valin trembled, his limbs going weightless with weakness, yet for the first time it didn’t hurt to be in His light. Because he was going to die with the one he loved.
The sucking lull of her swallowing stopped, a growl rumbling in her throat. He felt the rejection of his thoughts. Holding his breath he stretched out his consciousness, practically weeping as he felt a ghostly trickle of their bond stretching tentatively between them.
<<Kill him! Kill him!>> Christos’s voice rung through her mind, smashing at the fragile bond.
Not fucking going to work. Gabby was his and his alone. The blood tie. Had. To. Go.
Arm shaking with numb fatigue, he tightened his hand in her hair, pulling her closer as if his presence alone could push back the evil trying to take her from him. Chanting in the back of his constricted throat, Valin began the ceremony that would make Gabby his. All the while he prayed, bargained really, that if He would just see fit to grant him this one wish—save Gabby—he’d trade anything, his life, even his soul to see her returned to herself.
The air pulsed with Christos’s rage, but Valin held strong, chanting faster, pushing power behind his words. All that was left were the words.
“Gabby.” He stroked his thumb across her cheek, his voice barely a hoarse whisper as he gave her his last promise. “My heart, my life, my soul for yours.”
And as if He had actually heard, Valin felt the shift of power. A scream of denial rose in the darkness surrounding them to be cut off a split second later as Gabby tore her mouth away.
Silence descended, the only sound her rapid breathing…and the thudding pulse of his slowing heart.
“Valin?” Her voice, clear and unfettered by the evil blanket, was like a ray of sun after an endless winter, but even the wonder of hearing his name from her lips once more couldn’t fight the cold that had taken him.
Teeth chattering, he smiled at her, wanting to give her this last thing. “I love you, Gabby.”
Her mouth opened in an O of wonder. “I love you too…”
Valin closed his eyes, swallowing. Oh God, how he’d longed to hear those words. Too bad it was too late to enjoy the moment: It was time to pay up.
Chapter 22
Everything came back to Gabriella in an avalanche of denial and horror. The memories, the torture, the things she’d done after she’d given over to fear and hate. She knew deep in her heart that she would never have made it back from that on her own. But Valin had come, they’d fought, and he’d…done something. She stared at him. He still smiled though his eyes had closed. And as she drew back she saw that his entire front was covered with blood, the source evident by the dripping pathway of red that led to two ragged holes at the base of his throat.
Horror clenched in her gut as she recollected the words he’d chanted as she’d drawn the life-giving blood from his veins, the bargain he’d made. “Oh God, Valin, no…” She grasped his head between her hands, twisting it to the side. “Let me seal the wound.”
She dragged her tongue over the wound, then did it again, cursing when the skin stubbornly refused to knit.
Too late…
“No!” she cried as what was left of Valin’s strength seemed to fade, his body becoming deadweight in her arms. He slipped in her grip, his body sliding to the floor. She slid down with him, managing to keep his head from cracking on the floor, and shifted him just enough that his head lay cradled in her lap.
“Valin…don’t you dare die on me. Don’t…” She choked back a sob, her fingers tightening in his thick hair. No way. No way in hell was this happening. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him die for her.
Her eyes fell on the knife. She knew the Paladin could use the blade to call His light. Perhaps if she were to…She grabbed up the knife, bracing the tip against her breast as she closed her eyes. Valin wasn’t the only one who could bargain.
“Please save him. My life to spare his. Please!” Even if the answer was no then she could at least use the thing to end her own miserable existence. Because Lucifer knew there was no life for her without him.
“Do you really think so?”
Gabby sucked in a breath, her eyelids fluttering against the bright light flooding the room. It was so bright she had to shield her face, turning her head away.
When the light finally eased she lowered her arm, tentatively turning her head back. A woman with fair, shining gold hair in locks down her back stood before them, white gown flowing, and holy shit, were those wings or just a trick of the light that glowed like a fricken supernova around her?
Gabby swallowed, noticing the woman wasn’t looking at her but down upon Valin’s face, her mouth curled into a fond smile.
“He never did believe in himself enough,” the woman said, her voice invoking thoughts of angelic choirs and other such nonsense. And wasn’t it rather tacky to be thinking that right now?
The woman lifted her eyes to Gabby, the full of her heavenly-blue gaze bearing down on Gabby’s tainted soul. “Until you. You are his light and he is yours.”
And okay, the Big Guy was obviously a bit out of touch with reality. Only, yeah, this just as obviously wasn’t Him. Not that Gabby bought hook, line, and sinker into the whole God is a man thing, or even that He had a gender that could be specified, but, though this woman’s presence was powerful, it just wasn’t…enough.
I wouldn’t be conscious if He were truly here.
She didn’t know how she knew this, just that it was true. God’s company would be too much for an earthly embodied soul to comprehend. But this woman, no, this angel seemed to be under some misinformation if she thought—