Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1) (21 page)

A stick cracked under my heel.

Aecora whipped around, and I fired. The bullet lodged itself right between her eyes. The demon remained standing for a second longer, then her body tipped forward, comatose for the moment.

Crouching to catch my breath, I shot Lana out of the bubble. The glass splintered and rained down around her feet.

Lana took a step forward, then went down on a knee, her body—my body—swaying with fatigue.

I went to her then, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and hoisting her back up.

“Where are your clothes?”

She nodded weakly to the bushes.

“Can you put them on yourself?”

Her lower lip quivered as she took in her comrade; she looked to be about to cry, which was pretty fucking unsettling to see on my face.

Lana ripped her gaze away to give me a small nod.

I left her at the pile of her clothes, turning my back while she changed.

“You got us out of a pinch, there,” I said over my shoulder. “You did well.”

She stepped out from behind the bushes, clothed. She smoothed down her hair, her body shaking.

Still feverish.

Her gaze returned to Aecora’s fallen body, the smoking hole between her eyes.

“I lied,” she whispered. “I lied to protect you . . . and I betrayed her.”

“She was going to kill you. Seems like a smart move to me.”

“But I
lied
.” She cradled her head in her hands and peeked out in horror through her fingers. “An Infernarus
never
lies.”

My eyes flicked to Aecora. To me, this was no moral quandary.

“Lana, listen to me.” I stalked over to her and lifted her chin with my finger. “You said nine words. You said, ‘I give up, Cora. I’m unarmed, I’m no threat.’ Everything you said was true. If she thought it was me talking, then that’s her problem. But you didn’t lie.”

Hope flashed in her eyes. She searched my face, as if pleading for it to be true.

“You’re still an Infernarus,” I said. “You’ve been nothing but honorable.”

I saw her body relax with my words.

“Now,” I said, turning my attention to Aecora, “let’s grab some gasoline so we can burn this bitch and get out of here.”

I wanted to finish the demon while she was prone. She would be up and lethal within the hour.

“No,” Lana put her arms on her hips, “we’re going to leave her so she can heal.”

I frowned. “Lana, she just tried to kill us, she just tried to kill
you
. She tried to drown you in a glass bubble.”

Her arms were wrapped tightly around her body, her entire frame racked with shivers. “I don’t care,” she said stubbornly. “She’s an Infernarus; she’s my sister.”

My nostrils flared. “You want me to just walk away? That’s now
three demons
I’ve walked away from that I could have killed. What kind of lousy demon hunter do you take me for?”

She reached up and touched my cheek, and I felt just how hot her skin was. “You’re not a demon hunter, Jame Asher. You’re a faithful mate and a loyal father who’s lost the ones he loves . . . and I forgive you, too.”

At her words, my heart stilled. I’d seen as much in her eyes earlier, but hearing it voiced . . .

The person she took me for clashed with what I’d done, the violence I’d committed . . . the monster I’d become. I barely remembered who I was before demons had taken my family. But for a moment, lost in Lana’s deep, soulful eyes, I remembered.

She swayed forward, her eyelids fluttering, and for an instant I thought she was going to kiss me. And God help me, even sober I was okay with that.

Instead Lana collapsed into my arms, shaking uncontrollably.

Fuck, fuck,
fuck
.

She was still dying.

I scooped her up and carried her back to my Hummer, leaving Aecora forgotten behind us.

Lana shivered in my arms. She pressed her cheek against my chest, her teeth chattering. Like strands of fiber optics, her hair swirled around her in a protective cocoon, weeping blues and greens in a vivid rainbow. But that wasn’t what got me.

What got me was her dainty fist clinging to my shirt.

A lump formed in my throat.

I couldn’t save my wife. Couldn’t save my daughter.

But maybe I could save Lana.

“Come on,” I murmured, brushing the kiss I couldn’t claim earlier against the crown of her head, “let’s get you to a pharmacy.”

Lana

This human house
of medicine smelled like evil spirits. Spirits like the one that still slunk through my veins.

I was cradled in Asher’s arms, content to just stay here till the end.

A day ago I was a powerful Infernarus. Now I was little more than a defenseless child.

I leaned into Asher, breathing in his scent as he stalked through the pharmacy.

Perhaps it was wearing his body or perhaps it was being sick and vulnerable, but I felt comfortable with him.

No, more than that.

In my delirium, I trusted him, completely. I didn’t fear death right here in his arms. And how death sang dirges in my ears.

Distantly, I heard Asher speaking, his words controlled. “Infection . . . antibiotics . . . dying.”

My eyes had drifted closed, and I listened to the
thump-thump-thump
of Asher’s heart. It was beating fast for a human, and especially fast for the unshakeable Asher.

An icy hand pressed against my forehead. I flinched at the touch, trying to turn my head away.

Not Asher’s. This one smelled like chemicals.

“It’s okay, Lana,” Asher soothed, “he just wants to help.”

The human medicine man spoke then, his voice alarmed, and the language . . . I didn’t understand this one.

I found I didn’t much care.

Asher began to move again, only stopping to set me down into a chair. He had to pry my hands off of him. As soon as he did so, I began shivering violently.

He sighed, murmuring once more with the medicine man.

Then Asher’s arms were around me again. He lifted me and resettled the both of us in the seat.

“Lana, look at me,” Asher said.

I forced my eyelids back, my eyes burning, and gazed up at the hunter.

A concerned crease had formed between Asher’s brows. “The pharmacist has to give you a shot.”

I blinked slowly, as if surfacing from a dream. I had made a pillow out of Asher’s shoulder; now I pulled away from it to look around. I was surrounded by rows upon rows of human medicine; the place smelled of chemicals and human malaise.

Then I caught sight of the pharmacist. He held a tube with a needle attached at the end—a syringe.

At the sight of it, I cringed back against Asher, shaking my head frantically. I held my injured arm tight to my body.

The hunter nodded to the medicine man, and I tensed, preparing to use up the last of my reserves to fight this.

Before I had the chance, Asher tilted my chin to face him. I stilled at the touch, still transfixed by it. By him.

“You’re an Infernarus, a fighter,” he said, his voice hypnotic. “You will do whatever it takes to save your people, including this.”

I stared at him, mesmerized by his words. A sheen of sweat coated his face, and I realize the heat of my feverish body was too hot for him. Still he held me.

He was right. The human was right.

I gave him a small nod. His eyes left me only long enough to give the medicine man a signal.

I let out a cry when the pharmacist touched my swollen arm.

“Not that one,” Asher barked, and he sounded legitimately angry on my behalf.

I stretched out my other arm, gritting my teeth when I felt the other human’s cold hands on my skin. My gaze drifted to the syringe once more. The moment I saw that long needle, I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” Asher said, again turning my head to face him.

Maybe it was his touch, maybe it was the unexpected gentleness in his voice, but I did force myself to look at him.

My breath caught at the expression in his dark eyes.

He
wanted
me to live. Demanded that I do so.

“You’ve seen worse, Lana Malesuis,” he said. “I know you have.”

My eyes widened. “You remember my full name.”

“One of them,” Asher clarified. “Lana of the Badlands. Are you going to take me there when we cross over—?”

I winced as I felt the prick of the needle slipping beneath my skin.

I swallowed, then nodded, then shook my head. “I don’t know. There’s nothing out there.”

The needle slipped out and I relaxed.

“I want to see it,” Asher said. “I want to see it all.”

I was still
in a delirium when we left the pharmacy. I don’t remember much, mostly tactile things. The feel of Asher’s sweat-drenched shirt, the chill he left in his wake when he deposited me in the passenger seat. The jostle of the car as he got us back on the road.

I don’t remember several hours after that. I fell into a feverish sleep, waking only to be sucked right back under. Minutes or hours or days could have passed like that for all I knew. It seemed endless.

At some point we stopped at a hotel, and the smell and feel of Asher enveloped me once more as he carried me to a bed. He tucked me in the same way my mother and father used to do when I was little.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered. Or maybe he didn’t and I dreamed the whole thing.

“
Lana . . . Lana . . .”

I squinted my eyes open.

Asher crouched at my bedside, a bowl of soup in his hands. “You should eat,” he said gruffly.

I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. Not hungry.

He set the soup on the table next to the bed, next to several bottles of water.

He’s taking care of me.

I would have found it absurd if I wasn’t so sick.

“Thank you,” I said weakly.

He frowned. “Don’t thank me.” He nodded to the soup. “Eat.”

How to tell him that I was too weak to do much more than shiver? I gazed at him sadly.

He must have understood because he cursed quietly, then stood. Much more gently than I would have imagined, he helped me sit up, making sure not to jostle my bad arm.

I reached for the spoon and dipped it into the broth. I wasn’t incredibly hungry, but it smelled decent enough, and it was hot. But as I brought it to my mouth, my shivering body shook my hand, and the liquid dripped off the spoon and onto the blankets.

Asher’s frown deepened. He took the spoon from me and grabbed the soup, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “We’re not going to bring this up ever again,” he said, dipping the utensil into the broth.

I didn’t know what he was talking about—feeding me, saving me, or caring about me. Probably all of them.

He shook his head to himself, then passed the spoon to my lips. All the while he looked angry.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

“
Eat
.”

My mouth parted, and I had my first bite of native soup. It was mild and savory and warm, the combo everything my sick body craved.

Asher fed me most of it before I insisted I was full. Then he gave me a pill—antibiotics given to him by the pharmacist, which apparently I would have to take three times a day for the next two weeks. I swallowed it, having no strength left to resist. The entire time his features were hard, unyielding. But he didn’t once complain, and after I finished, he helped me lay back down.

He stood, the mattress squeaking as he did so. “I need to check the perimeter.”

For my kind.

They were after us, and he was protecting me from them. He could have left me here; he knew enough about the portal to finish the journey alone. Staying with me, saving me, put him in danger.

He hadn’t once looked torn about his decision.

Asher headed for the door.

“Jame,” I called to him.

He paused at the door, that impressively muscled back of his to me.

“What, Lana?” he said over his shoulder.

“I owe you another debt.” He’d saved my life.
Again
.

“You owe me
nothing
.”

But I did. That’s how my kind worked. We repaid kindness with kindness, mercy with mercy. Only mates weren’t required to repay debts, but that was only because they were bound by a bond far stronger than a blood debt.

I doubted
that
was what Asher was suggesting. He was just being . . . selfless.

“You are the best kind of human,” I said.

He bowed his head, like my words weighed him down. “Get some sleep. I’ll be back soon.” With that, he left.

It took a
full day for the antibiotics to really begin to work. By the time we were back in Asher’s car, I felt weak but better. My arm was still swollen and tender, but I could move it a little without hurting.

But most importantly, it was sunny out, the sky was bright blue, the ocean gleamed like a jewel, and for once I didn’t even mind being in the car.

Because I was
alive
.

Alive, thanks to the killer next to me.

I wiggled my toes, practically bouncing in my seat. “How much longer?” I asked.

“You are such a kid,” Asher grumbled.

“It’s called
enthusiasm
. It’s a human word, so I know you know of it.”

His hard look only deepened. “We’ll get there tonight . . . stay in the villa . . . we’ll destroy the portal tomorrow.”

“You mean go
through
it?” I threw my head back against the seat rest. “The one time I would’ve appreciated a human lie you tell me the truth.”

Even that couldn’t bring down my mood for long. I tucked my feet under my thighs and began rolling the beads of my various necklaces together. They were especially beautiful in the sunlight. Everything was beautiful in this earthly light.

“Thank you for saving my life,” I said. It was unprecedented for one of our kind to survive the sickness of this world.

“Lana, you don’t need to keep saying that,” Asher said, rubbing his jaw.

He glanced over at me, and butterflies blossomed in my stomach. I remembered being cradled in those arms, cared for by those hands.

“My life is yours,” I said.

“Stop it. Stop saying shit like that.” He scrubbed that hand over his face. “I don’t want you to give up your life. Not for me or anyone else.”

“But my life
is
yours. You healed me.” I reached for the vial of Asher’s blood, my hand groping through the many ropes of necklaces for it.

“Just please don’t cut yourself again.”

I dropped my hand when I didn’t feel the vial.

Having come this close to death, I doubted I’d be cutting myself again anytime soon. The urge was gone, in fact, which I suspected had everything to do with Asher taking care of me . . . with me
trusting
him. Those first few days around him, I’d been a complete wreck. He’d brought out all my nervous habits.

But now he . . . didn’t.

Now I felt safe around him, cared for. Somehow, he made me less neurotic.

I peeked at him before looking down at my lap, suddenly feeling shy. “I won’t,” I said softly.

“What’d you do it with?” he asked.

“A razor.”

“Do you still have it?”