Dark Awakening (33 page)

Damien watched the two of them, his mouth curled into a disgusted sneer.

“I should just let the Ptolemy have the both of you. This is foul,” he said.

Ty looked at Lily. “If they’ve sent more Cait Sith to hunt us down, I can probably convince them to help us get out of here.”

“Please,” Damien said flatly, getting gracefully to his feet. “You think they’re going to send your blood brothers and sisters after their hero? These are highbloods out for you tonight, Ty. And you know as well as I how they love a little cat hunt from time to time.”

Ty bared his fangs at Damien and threw off the covers, leaping to his feet and snatching up his crumpled jeans.

“Are we going to fight now?” he asked Damien as he
slid them on, noting that Lily had followed suit, quickly and silently pulling on her clothes. “Because you might want to get on with it before the door bursts open and we have company.”

Damien considered him with a typically inscrutable expression. He hadn’t changed much, Ty decided as he pulled on his shirt. Damien was only predictable in his unpredictability. He might go for the throat at a moment’s notice. Or he might, on a whim, lend a hand.

Maybe it was out of hatred for highbloods in general, or Ptolemy specifically. Maybe it was their long-ago friendship. But Damien chose the latter.

“Hmm. I’m being paid quite a bit of money to kill the two of you. And the Ptolemy showing up to drag you off is going to ruin that. How about this? Leave with me, and I’ll try to kill you once we find a better spot. Makes it fair.”

“You’re a twisted bastard, Damien. What do you care about fair?” growled Ty, catching Lily’s hand in his.

Damien gave a shrug. “Follow me, if you will. Otherwise, you can piss off. Have fun explaining yourself to Arsinöe.” He melted into his feline form and leaped to the door leading into Jaden’s room.

Ty looked at Lily. “I’m not seeing much of a choice here.”

Doors slammed open perilously close to their room. The safe house had been practically empty, and the Ptolemy hunting party had picked up speed. If Damien knew another way out, they needed to take it.

“How do we get out?” Lily breathed, her eyes wide as voices sounded right down the hall now. It was the blasted speed the Ptolemy had been blessed with.

“Here, kitty kitty! We know you’re in here!”

A loud bang. The sounds of furniture being overturned.

“Come on.” Ty dragged Lily through Jaden’s door, true fear beginning to bloom in his chest. If they were caught… They couldn’t be caught, damn it, not now!

They found Damien, still in cat form and wearing an “I knew you’d come” face, licking one paw in the center of the room. He placed a paw on a knot down low on the far wall, and a piece of it slid to one side, just enough to fit a human and certainly enough to fit a cat. Damien dashed through. The Ptolemy were right outside the door.

Ty pulled, but Lily stopped short. There was an expression he had never seen before on her face.

“Come out, kitty, or it won’t be just the collar for you! We’re thinking we might skin you alive while the woman watches! What do you think of that, eh?” Slam. Crash.

“They’re never going to stop hunting us now. I made it so you can’t go back. I didn’t mean to—”

Her guilt shamed him. “I don’t care, Lily. We’ll keep running until they give up or we find another way. I know what we have to do now. All I need is you. Now come on, they’re nearly here!”

“They’re too close. You’ll get yourself killed for me.” She looked to be on the verge of tears.

“You’re worth it,” he told her. Desperate to get her hidden, to get away, Ty pulled Lily forward. As he plunged into the hidden stairwell, though, Lily’s hand slipped from his. He heard her voice right behind him and knew the words would haunt him forever.

“I’m not worth dying for. It’s too late. Please understand… I love you.”

His eyes widened in horror as the wall slammed shut
behind him, and he heard the door beyond burst open a split second later, the room filling with shouts.

“My name is Lily Quinn,” he heard her say. “I need to see Queen Arsinöe immediately. I’m the Seer she’s been looking for.”

Ty stayed frozen, his mind reeling. What the bloody hell did she think she was doing?

Telling him she loved him, and then…

Saving his life. But in doing that, she might very well have sacrificed her own. And she knew it. Wild, terrified rage filled him. She was right on the other side of the wall, surrounded by powerful highbloods who would break him in a millisecond if they saw him, and still it was all he could do not to hurl himself into their midst.

“Don’t be a fool, Tynan,” Damien hissed in the darkness. “She’s given you a fighting chance to survive, gods know why. I’d say use it. Stay, and they’ll likely kill you on the spot. I hear things have gotten interesting for the Cait in your overlong absence. You’re safe with me. For now.”

Though his newly awakened heart railed against it, Ty knew Damien spoke true. He couldn’t stay here. Shifting into his feline form, Ty forced himself to vanish down the winding stairs and into the darkness.

In the pitch-dark alley, Lily spared a final glance at the shadowy safe house, hoping that Ty was safe, that he might someday forgive her for what she had done. The only thing that eased the terrible pain of leaving him was knowing that she had bought him time to run.

In those last moments together, she’d known the truth: The Ptolemy had gotten too close for escape. So she had given Ty the only gifts she could.

Her love. And, she hoped, his freedom.

Lily allowed herself to be bundled into one of a line of long black town cars, the sort that politicians and dignitaries were always being driven around in. She tried to relax into the leather seat, grateful for the lack of company and the silent driver. But she couldn’t help turning around to look, one last time, as the car began to move.

She had broken his chains, Lily thought, like the woman who seemed to be her ancestor had said. But it seemed like she was going to be standing alone after all.

With silent tears rolling down her cheeks, Lily hoped she had done the right thing.

Because from here on out, hope was all she had.

T
Y WATCHED FROM BEHIND
a rancid Dumpster as Lily was put into one of the Ptolemy cars. She looked grim, and determined, and absolutely beautiful.

“Don’t. Don’t stand here hating yourself. It’s such an incredible waste of energy, and besides, it’s annoying.”

Damien’s voice sounded clearly in his head, only fueling the helpless rage roiling inside of Ty as he watched Lily’s car pull away from the curb, followed by a small line of identical cars. It looked absurdly like a head of state was visiting this godforsaken little corner of Chicago.

“I have to go get her.”
He pushed the thought at Damien, who swished his tail in response and didn’t bother to turn.

“Don’t be an ass. It’s over. You’ll never get her now. Especially not once they realize she’s branded with the mark of the Lilim. And I think you’re forgetting that you and I have some unfinished business to attend to. Shall we?”

When the last car had pulled away, leaving the alley dark and empty, Ty slipped out from behind the Dumpster and assumed his human form. Damien did the same. That moment of vulnerability, when fur became flesh, was the opening Ty had been waiting for since he’d found the Shade perched at the edge of his bed. With the lightning-fast reflexes he’d honed so well over the years, Ty sprang in an instant. Vicious pleasure coursed through him as his fist connected with Damien’s face.

Damien staggered back but righted himself quickly, then bared his teeth and hissed.

“Cheating. Not like you.” He went for a right hook, but Ty, expecting it, easily ducked it.

“You don’t know me anymore,” Ty snarled. All the anguish he felt at Lily’s decision to sacrifice herself for him, all the fury he felt for the ones who had taken her, channeled themselves into a bloodlust that knew no boundaries. And Damien, who had hunted them mercilessly, made an excellent first target.

The two vampires circled each other. Damien sprang again, and Ty grabbed him by the shirt, leaping and slamming Damien against the alley wall with incredible force. The air left Damien in a loud, pained grunt as Ty threw him to the ground and stepped back, breathing hard, waiting.

“Get up. Get up, you son of a bitch.”

Damien wiped a thin line of blood that had trickled from his lip and got smoothly to his feet.

“Angry little kitten tonight, are we?”

The mocking tone tore into him. With a roar of outrage, this time Ty sprang. Damien started to spin away, but Ty, his reflexes honed from years of living with vampires
who would as soon kill him as look at him, was faster. He caught Damien by his hair, then landed lightly on his feet. Ty jerked Damien’s head back, exposing his neck, and brought him to his knees with a well-placed kick. The Shade went down with a grunt. Ty had his dagger out in a flash.

“Kill me, then, if it makes you feel better,” Damien ground out. His eyes blazed up at him as Ty pulled his head even farther back and pressed the edge of his blade to Damien’s neck. Damien’s teeth were still bared, in both defiance and pain.

“Nothing can make me feel better,” Ty growled harshly. “You led them right to us, you son of a bitch. They must have followed you.”

“Impossible,” Damien snapped, wincing as the tip of the blade dug in just enough to produce a shining crimson drop of blood. “He wouldn’t have—”

He stopped himself, but he had already said enough. Dark suspicion bloomed in Ty’s mind. He dug the blade in deeper, viciously pleased at Damien’s soft moan.

“Wouldn’t have sent them after you? Are you working for one of the
Ptolemy
?”

Damien’s silent glare was answer enough for Ty. The truth felt as though it had blown a hole right through him. The terror had come from within the Ptolemy themselves. And though even the most distasteful highbloods of Ty’s acquaintance would have found it unthinkable to slaughter their own, there was one he would not put it past. One who would never be satisfied with a subordinate role, no matter how close to the top of the heap he had clawed.

All the pieces clicked into place.

His voice was barely a whisper when he spoke again,
and the hand holding the blade shook with the force it was taking him to keep from plunging it into Damien’s throat.

“You stupid bastard. Nero has no loyalty to anyone but himself. And he’s neither a trusting nor a patient man. You really thought he wasn’t having you followed?”

The truth was written all over Damien’s stunned face. With a bitter laugh, Ty leaned closer to the Shade dangling from his clenched fist.

“All this work, for nothing. You’ve ruined my life, probably ended hers, and you didn’t even get paid. I’ll bet that last bit is the only thing you’re truly upset about, you miserable sack of shit.”

Damien’s breath came in short, sharp pants. “Just kill me and get it over with.”

“You’d prefer that, I’m sure. It’s so much easier than what your bosses will do to you once they discover you’ve screwed up such a big job.” Still, Ty was close, so close, to giving Damien what he wanted. A bit of pressure, and Damien’s head would separate from his body cleanly. The perfect outlet for his rage… but Ty knew it would be only momentarily satisfying.

He felt the life he held in his hands. He had taken many just the same as this and had felt nothing afterward. Then he looked at the building beside him, at the darkened windows behind which Rogan’s lifeless body now lay.

So much death. But Lily was still alive out there. And as long as she lived, he had a chance to right things, to start again. When he looked back at Damien, there was still raw anger, but cold calculation had begun to kick in as well. Perhaps he would give his blood brother a second chance tonight as well.

Whether he wanted it or not.

“No. You’re going to help me get Lily back,” Ty growled.

Damien managed a harsh laugh. “The hell I am.”

In response, Ty took the blade he’d had against the Shade’s neck and brought it down in a swift arc, slicing a deep wound in Damien’s upper arm. Blood spattered the ground, and Damien snarled in pain, trying to jerk away from Ty. It only made Ty pull his hair harder.

“The hell you won’t. It’s this or I return you to your masters, Damien, with all sorts of details about your incompetence. Things that will earn you a long, painful death. And I’ll get Lily anyway. Nothing is going to stop me. But your help would make it easier. And if you help me, I’ll make sure you live.”

“How?” sneered Damien. “My reputation will be ruined. You’ll be delaying the inevitable, not preventing it. The Master Shades don’t permit failure.” His wound bled for only a moment, but the point had been made. Ty had no compunctions about hurting him. And he would do it again.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to trust me on that,” Ty said flatly. He had some ideas, but none would amount to anything if they didn’t get going, and soon.

“Trust,” Damien hissed. “The only thing I trust is that you’ll get us both killed. Even if I go along with this insanity, two Cait Sith are not going to accomplish this.”