He blinked in surprise, and the blue of his eyes winked out for a second; a prelude of what she would lose. “Too good?” He dragged his hands through his hair, frustration in every line of his body. “Maybe you missed the part where I lost my abraxas and joined forces with the lesser of evils.”
“I didn’t miss anything. I took what I needed from you, just like the imp took from the dying girl.”
His arms uncurled to hang slack at his sides. “What is that supposed to mean?”
She steeled herself. “I mean it’s over.”
He jerked once, as if he’d been struck. “You can’t just push me away. There’s something between us—”
“Yeah, the unfathomable abyss between angel and demon.”
He cut her off with a slash of his hand. “This is something more. This is between you and me.”
“There is no us, just two sides of an eternal war, where you are the warrior and I’m the enemy. You are a warden, Fane. Ex, maybe, but that light is in you still. I stole some of it, and thanks for that too. But the tenebraeternum would seize it all.”
“Then take it.” He closed the distance between them, towering over her. “It’s yours.”
Oh, how she wanted. The furious heat of him beckoned her touch, and the storm of torment in his blue eyes hollowed her out. Not with an imp’s ugly hunger, but a desire purely hers to have him again, to give in to his belief they had a chance.
But the tenebrae couldn’t believe, and no light would ever be enough.
He stared down at her. “Whatever you want. I’m yours.”
She shrank away before her own longing betrayed her. And him. “No. I don’t—” Her throat tightened, as if trying to throttle her rejection. “Don’t want that from you.” Even she didn’t believe the wavering lie.
He reached for her. “You say I’m still a warrior. You could be too. Fight, Bella. Fight for us.”
In the instant before his embrace closed around her, she found the demon’s voice. “I won’t fight. And I don’t want you.”
“Don’t do this,” he warned. “Don’t push me away.”
“I am not some tragic woman you can win back with the power of your kiss. I am not a woman at all. I am tenebrae.”
“I’ve fought my demons already. I can fight one more.”
She let the double octaves rise, tearing past the ache in her throat. “I am not your demon.”
He froze, his blue eyes bright. “Too bad. If you were, maybe I could turn you over to the sphericanum and reclaim my ward. Or I could ransom you to Thorne in return for my sword. I bet he’d love to find out how he could steal dead bodies for his lesser demons.”
She held herself taut, though the taste of blood on the back of her tongue almost made her gag. “Probably not. I’m nothing, more trouble than I’m worth, really. But you of all people have seen that.”
“Yeah. You opened my eyes.” Still he lingered, his very presence burning through her resolve.
She reached down inside herself, seeking the imp’s inherent viciousness and Mirabel’s final rejection. And found nothing. Those shadows she’d hoarded so long were gone. All that remained was his demand that she fight.
Well, she could use that too.
She stood straighter. “This time it’s your turn to walk away, Cyril. Leave me.”
When he shook his head, the disheveled waves of his hair glinted with a touch of gold. “I can’t.”
“Then I’ll go.” She took one step toward the door.
“Stop.”
She did not face him.
He drew a ragged breath. “I won’t make you leave your refuge here. I’ll go. Put an artifact over the door behind me. Nothing will get in.”
Nothing ever again. His retreating footsteps echoed inside her.
Wait, her heart cried from the place where her shadows had been. I lied. Stay. She bit her lips tight until the words died in her chest. The hours were spinning down to darkness, and she would not take him with her.
But as the colors around her faded and the door closed with a terrible click, she sank to the floor. Over the window, the Porsche’s headlights gleamed once in a silver wash and were gone, but tears spattered her cheeks for a long time after, as cold and dark as ice.
Chapter 12
Fane wanted to send the Porsche screaming away from the Mortal Coil. How could she stand there—with the Christmas lights glinting in her red hair, her mouth bright from the bite of her teeth, the rumpled bed right over there—and ask him where “this” was going? And then tell him there was nothing between them?
His every muscle clenched with frustrated craving and outrage—this was where he was going, damn it—but he couldn’t even get up to the speed limit. The sleeting rain left the roads slicked and dangerous as he crept through the industrial distinct. At least there was nothing to hit; the streets were empty.
Empty as the place behind his fury threatening to rise up and swallow him like some heretofore unidentified tenebrae.
The parking lot behind the @1 warehouse, however, was an anthill. An anthill of black-vested, jack-booted, violet-eyed, demon-ridden madmen. And madwomen. They paused as he rolled the Porsche to a stop just outside the cyclone fencing. Ecco leaned in the open gate, his fingers looped through the wire as if he contemplated slamming the gate on the car.
Fane slammed out of the door and stalked toward the big talya bastard. The league males might hate him—mostly on principle; the league’s history of conflict with the sphericanum predated him by centuries—but there wasn’t a man alive, demonically possessed or not, who would harm a Porsche. “I want in.”
The talya rattled his gauntlets across the wire. “Door’s always open.” But he didn’t move out of the way.
“I’m going after Thorne.”
Ecco glanced over his shoulder and shouted, “Niall, the golden boy here finally got his curly locks on straight.”
The league leader was standing in the open loading bay, leaning over a large gutted grand piano serving as a table. He straightened with a frown and picked up his war hammer which had held down an oversized map. The paper scrolled inward, hiding its contents. Much like the league itself.
Fane bumped past Ecco and headed for the landing bay. The other talyan watched him pass, their violet irises signaling their aroused demons. This felt almost as condemning as his exit from the sphericanum.
Disdaining the stairs, he vaulted up into the landing bay. Though the big rolling door was wide open, the angle of the bay sheltered them from the worst of the wind and spattering rain.
“The sphericanum will want no part of this battle,” Liam warned. He rested his hand on the scrolled paper as an errant breeze riffled its edges.
“The sphericanum wants no part of me.”
“They’ll forgive you. I’m fairly certain it’s in their rule book.”
Fane shook his head. “It’s over.” In his head, he heard Bella’s bleak denunciation: I don’t want you. “I lost my abraxas. Which I know you haven’t forgotten because a shadow of my blood is still staining your lobby—by the way, you need to hire my cleaning service—from when my sucking chest wound spewed most of my pints courtesy of Thorne Halfmoon who used my fucking sword.”
The corner of Liam’s mouth quirked upward. “Maybe you should forgive him.”
“Not a chance.” Fane let out a breath. “The only chance I want now is to get my sword back. And then I will pledge it and myself to the league.”
Liam’s lips straightened as both eyebrows shot up. “The league doesn’t need a warden. Not even an ex-warden.”
“And it won’t get one. You need fighters. I will be that.”