Everlong (7 page)

I pried my fingers free, watching the release of each individual digit. Once my eye contact broke away from the sensuous display inside the building, I could think again. I turned around and surveyed my surroundings. To my left sat the open road and my useless truck. To my right, white marble headstones dappled the hillside.
Damn it.
I had to choose and fast.

Jacob’s singsong voice cut through the chaos of my thoughts. “Ready or not, here I come.”

I didn’t make a conscious decision. My legs started pumping, eating up the ground between the guard shack and the graveyard. Debris exploded outward as the door I’d closed on Jacob hurled by my ear and embedded in the base of an oak tree to my left. I raised my forearm, blocking my eyes from the showered splinters of impact.

Behind me, I heard the snap of wings unfurling. A breeze kicked up, fanned by what had to be Jacob’s launch skyward. My legs pumped harder but were no match for a male demon in his prime.

“Mad-el-yn,” he called, swooping closer. “Run little demoness. Make me work for my reward.” His talon-tipped fingers brushed through my hair, snagging in the damp length. Hot breath lifted the fine hairs on the back of my neck with rising fear.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Jacob gliding effortlessly beside me. I had to do something or else he’d keep pace until my legs gave out and then take me where I fell. Princess Madelyn DeGray had been raised to be a victim, but the waitress Maddie Toliver was not going down without a fight. I just needed a way to level the playing field.

Changing direction, I veered abruptly towards the oak grove, leaping over fallen logs as I ran for the shelter of the forest. The low-lying branches would render his wings useless, but earned me only a slight advantage because demons were fast and pissed-off demons were nearly impossible to outmaneuver. As I ran, tree limbs slapped my face and roots hooked my feet as if trying to slow me down and hold me captive for him. Each delay cost me seconds I didn’t have to spare.

“Come out, little princess.” Somewhere behind me wood snapped on a harsh growl. “
Princess?”

My feet alternately bogged in mud and slipped on ice patches, making me curse this climate for luring demons down south in the first place. I ran full out until my legs wobbled and caved beneath me, dropping me all too soon on my butt. The muscles in my legs jiggled like Jell-O, but I knew Jacob was close and I had to move.

A copper flash out of the corner of my eye brought my head around to a fallen oak tree where a pair of citrine eyes peered out at me. They blinked once and vanished, much to my relief. Despite Emma’s assurances, I didn’t want to take my chances with the local wildlife.

Pushing to my knees, I got my feet under me, still shaky but doable. I’d wasted the precious few minutes of lead time I’d gained by taking this route. Now I had to make a decision and time was running out. I glanced over and the animal, a fox, darted from its den, trotted a quick circle around my legs and went back inside. I looked at it and it at me, neither of us quite sure what to make of the other. The fox stepped back out, made a show of turning, and went back inside the den.

Zaniah help me, I took its invitation, well aware I was too large for the meager shelter it offered to share. I walked until the end of my shoes disappeared inside the hole and then dropped to my hands and knees. Hope flared white hot and burned through my exhaustion when I realized what I’d found.

Built beneath the fallen oak was an opening almost two feet squared, kept hidden by shadow and mounded leaves. But what made up my mind was the thin veil of glamour cast over the entrance. Evanti could shroud their bodies, but not physical locations. Something else had created this haven with a gentle touch that seemed to pulse with welcoming vibrations.

Mindful of my host, I lowered my legs inside and wiggled down until the ground swallowed me whole. Inside the burrow, I had a foot of clearance above my head and a few feet of space stretching out on either side. Clearly, not an animal’s home, but what else could it be?

The fox wove through my cramped legs, pausing to rub against my hand like a cat.

“You’ll be safe here.”

“You talked,” I said on a harsh whisper, plastering myself against the dirt wall as far away as I could get. I must have hit my head when I fell. Only I didn’t remember falling. I’d crawled in under my own power.

Grasping for any anchor in reality, I allowed roots to tangle in my fingers, surprising me by how real this hallucination felt. I glanced down at the small animal who absolutely had not spoken to me. “You’re not real.”

“As you will.”
Its dainty, furred shoulder rolled in careless dismissal.
“Stay here and I will fetch Clayton.”

“How do you know—?”

“Shhh, the other will find you if you can’t keep quiet.”
The fox, a vixen from the sound of her voice, which I absolutely did not hear inside my head, walked to the small opening.

“I—”

“Shhh.”
She glanced over her shoulder, warning me again with a snap of her jaws.

My head jerked up and down in a shaky nod. With a flick of her plush red tail the fox slipped out, kicking more leaves over the entrance with her nimble hind legs before sprinting away into the dark maw of the forest. I wanted to call the apparition back. But she had vanished in a blur of russet fur, assuming she
was
real and not a product of my desperate imagination.

The scent of damp earth and wet, rotting leaves swamped my sense of smell where I rested my head against the dirt wall. I adjusted my legs and slid down into a more comfortable position. Alone and afraid, I tried to reassure myself.
I am not crazy.
The mantra soothed me, so I added a few more things to the list.

Foxes cannot talk. I am not in a burrow underground hiding from a coffee-addicted, would-be rapist. I must have slipped getting into the truck when I left the house this morning. I’m probably lying on my back in a patch of ice in front of the house. When Emma gets home, we’ll laugh about it and…

Then I heard it—that stillness that comes with the absence of sound. Outside of my hidey-hole, silence reigned. No pitter-patter of falling rain. No birdsong, no wind or trees creaking—just absolute, utter quiet.

A twig snapped, echoing sharply amid so much stillness. I flinched when Jacob called out to me. “You’ve hidden.” His voice rose. “I’m disappointed. I had hoped to catch you, mark your body among the tombs as we lay your ghost to rest. Now you’ve forced me to take you where I find you.” He paused. “And I will find you.”

A dull thump sounded overhead as pieces of decayed wood sifted down and into my hair. He stood on the log directly over me. I prayed the old wood would hold and his weight wouldn’t send him crashing through the rotted tree trunk to land on top of me.

I didn’t dare to breathe. Dust tickled my nose, tempting me to sneeze, so I cupped a hand over my face. I closed my eyes, picturing myself back home rocking with Emma on our rundown porch while picking paint chips for the grand renovation she had planned.

Above me the log groaned and more dust sprinkled my clothes. I heard a heavy thud as Jacob’s feet hit the ground after leaping from his perch on the log. The den went dark as black ankles blocked the meager light from filtering through to where I sat. Red talons protruded from his heels, tapping idly on the ground while piercing through leaves and mulch on the forest floor.

Fear tied my stomach neatly into knots. Suddenly, letting an enraged and aroused demon find me in a burrow big enough for two didn’t seem like such a great idea. I cursed the damn fox for leading me into what could become my final resting place and me for being fool enough to follow her. What had I been thinking? Oh yeah, that I didn’t want Jacob to find me out in the open, either.

He turned so his toes pointed directly towards me, almost at the level of my eyes. I waited, expecting his foot to test the opening or him to drop onto his stomach and explore the entrance just large enough for a frightened demoness to slip inside to seek refuge.

My hands trembled where they rested on my knees. I shoved them between my thighs and clamped my legs together until the nervous twitching stopped.

Outside, thunder clapped and rain began again.

“Madelyn,” said Jacob. “I will find you. And laws or no laws, no one will keep me from you.” Then he roared, “You are mine!”

My ears rang from the ferocity of his cry, the sound so filled with hate and twisted with desire that it sickened me, terrified me to the marrow of my bones because I knew he believed it.

I saw muscle shift as Jacob’s Achilles tendon flexed and his toes dug into the ground while rolling onto the balls of his feet. I heard the snap of leather pulling taut, a muttered curse, and then he was gone.

I could no longer feel my fingers so I loosened my thighs and let my hands quiver fitfully on the tops of my legs. My lungs expanded fully for the first time since entering the guard shack and released a foggy breath that was full of gratefulness to be alive. The bone-biting cold went unnoticed by me as I evaluated my position.

After living a half-life for so long, I had thought myself ambivalent to its continuance, but when faced with death, I had been afraid. I didn’t want to die. I needed to curse flat tires and run through rain, sand old paint and put up wallpaper, bicker with Emma over silly unimportant things, come and go as I pleased, see…

I wanted to live. It was as simple as that.

The corner of my lips kicked up in a grin. Too bad it had taken a face-off with a demon, a figment of my own imagination and the promise of hours trapped underground to convince me life really was worth living.

Chapter Eight

Shivering, I kept track of time by the faint glow of my Timex wristwatch. Sometime between the start of rippling cramps from a missed lunch and the gradual fade to black of my vision, I decided Figment, the name I had given the fox, had stood me up. Night had fallen and I had to move.

I doubted the cavalry was on its way or it would have been here by now. Figment either didn’t exist—and I had been crazy to believe a wild animal could somehow bring help—or she did exist and I was…well…slightly less crazy but still trapped with no help looming on the horizon. Not that I would see them at this point. Only the sensation of movement told me when I waved my hand in front of my face. Darkness rendered my eyes totally useless in distinguishing my surroundings.

Gnawing hunger and the pressure of need to use a restroom gave me two options. I could either stay put and hope Figment returned with Clayton—which seemed far-fetched even inside my own mind—or I could crawl out and then make a run for it in the hope I reached town before Jacob could mark me as his. He could be patiently sitting outside waiting to pounce as soon as I left the safety of this burrow. That notion caused the tip of my tongue to flick out and moisten my cracked, dry lips as I swallowed the thought.

Blood pumped and swelled painfully through my muscles as I inched my way forward to the reality of the world outside. My joints protested the long, enforced stasis as I coaxed my knees to bend under me. Lifting my head slowly above ground level, I watched as pale, shimmering light reflected on the rain-kissed forest floor to illuminate what normally was invisible in the dark. It was just enough of a glimmer to let my sight adjust to cautiously scan the immediate area around the mouth of the burrow.

The fresh odor of wet leaves and the sharp essence of pine tangled as I inhaled deeply of the world beyond my hidey-hole. Every scent carried a welcome nuance of enticing escape. The hours of smelling damp earth seared a metallic tang on my tongue. Dust had sifted to the back of my throat, drier than a summer wind over Rihos.

I needed to cough, badly, but fear of discovery smothered the impulse. Instead, I took short, silent breaths. Clean, crisp-cold air shifted the dust deeper into my lungs. The forest floor rolled like a sea of darkness. The steady drizzle of rain had melted away the remnants of snow patches that could have helped me to safely navigate the indistinguishable murky ground lost in the night shadows.

I was a field mouse, quivering in the knowledge danger lurked out there and debating whether it was worth risking the deadly bite of the owl’s razor claws to scamper out into the open. Here I was safe and hidden. At least for now.

To venture out could mean death striking on vibrant, crimson wings. It would not be a quick, merciful end, but a slow meting out of punishments until Jacob felt the scales were balanced between Mother and him or I died in the process. Whatever his plans, they did not bode well for me.

I had to get out and away from here, and far away from Jacob. Raising my head higher, I tried to suppress a deep sense of foreboding. Still it coursed through me as if I were preparing to have Madame Guillotine’s blade slice through my spinal cord, separating life from body as my head rolled loosely away. The macabre image blinded me to the forest momentarily.

I waited, listening, seeking in the gloom a movement in the depths. When Jacob failed to jump out and yell “gotcha”, confidence drew me to wiggle out on my stomach until I cleared the hole. Pushing to my feet, I took a few halting steps in a direction where I felt the cemetery’s fence line ran, obscured by trees and the night. My legs wobbled as I stumbled forward. Cold numbed the protest of inactive muscles pushed into vigorous action. I made a bush my forest restroom.

The cold nipped at my bared skin. I quickly got on with it, ready to pull my jeans up fast. It wouldn’t be funny to be literally caught out in the open with my pants down and a randy demon seizing the opportunity to wreak his promised vengeance. That potential threat made me hike them up roughly. My fingers tingled with pins and needles as I fumbled the zipper and studs of my jeans.

No bogeyman pounced on me. Nothing swooped from the canopy overhead to tear me from the ground screaming into the night. Air rushed jerkily out of me as I smoothed the cough that had waited patiently to erupt and dispel the dusty accumulation. My clammy palms glided on the rough denim of my torn blue jeans. I knew better than to hope Jacob had given up the chase. It would take more than the scarce hours I’d spent underground to evaporate the kind of hatred for me reflected in his frenzied eyes.

Instinct and memory kicked in to guide me over the uneven terrain. Everything merged and melded together. I couldn’t tell up from down on the rough surface tearing at my frozen feet. Solid ground squelching beneath my soles and the weightlessness of air surrounding me reassured my senses of where and how my unwilling limbs moved.

A root caught my toe. Tripping, I fell to my knees, jarring my elbows as they took the brunt of my forward fall. Catching my breath, I hauled myself back up. Stumbling on, I came to a sharp stop. Black lines scored my vision. Grimy fingers rubbed my eyes. Were they real? I blinked. The vertical bars were still there, unmoving. Stretching a hand in front of me, frigid steel bruised my knuckles. The cemetery fence. I’d made it. What next? I was too exhausted to think clearly.

Lacing my fingers through the bars, I pressed my forehead against them. If I strained my eyes, I could just make out the straight ribbon of asphalt below that offered salvation into town. Walking along the road would be the fastest and simplest way to get there. And the most likely route to attract unwanted attention.

A hazy twinkle rose just above the surface of the road, far enough away it took a few minutes to expand and separate into twin orbs of light. Hitchhiking at this hour from this place held little appeal. But the idea of being found face down in the cemetery garnered even less. Raising my arm, I allowed the shadow of my hand to shield my sight against the glare of vehicle lights on high beam. It was now or never. I had to make my move.

Rain-slicked steel slipped through my grip as I hauled my weight upwards and over. The spear tips snagged my jacket, throwing me off balance as I dropped into a crouch on the other side. Those headlights appeared higher than I had first thought and closer than I had realized. The driver was seriously speeding.

Desperately, I skidded down the sharp embankment to land with a sloppy splash in the stream of icy rainwater running through the bottom of the roadside drainage ditch. Clay oozed between my grasping fingers as I sought secure anchorage by using dead weeds to clamber out. Mud sucked at my feet as I pulled free of the water.

I stumbled onto the blacktop, my arms waving madly like a windmill in the oncoming traffic lane. Light washed over me, blinding me to the vehicle’s speed and location. I didn’t waste precious breath calling out. There was little chance the driver would hear me anyway. I stood a better chance at broadcasting my location to Jacob than soliciting help.

The lights dipped as the driver braked and screeched to an uncomfortably close stop. I kept waving as I half ran, half tripped across the double lines to reach the stationary vehicle. The whir of a window lowering and the cough of a voice clearing pinpointed the driver’s location. Those blazing headlights burned away any semblance of vision I needed to see who my savior was.

A feeble voice called through the open window. “Did you lose your way?”

“Yes, sir, I did.” Relief swamped me, excising my initial hesitation. “My truck broke down and this crazy man chased me into the woods. I need to get into town and call my sister. Is there any way you can give me a lift?”

“Of course I can.” Sincerity crackled in his assurance.

“Oh, thank you so much.” My feet moved me towards him. Out of the glare of the headlights my eyes refocused, adjusting to the lack of light. My knees threatened to give way under me as the blue cab of my Ford F150 materialized in front of me.

“You’re very welcome.” The frail edge left his voice as the driver’s side door swung open. “
Princess
.” Black combat boots capped by bloused khaki pants impacted the pavement with an ominous thud.

My tongue turned to sand as I mouthed the one name I dreaded. “Jacob.”

I didn’t see him move. One minute I stood frozen, a hapless deer caught in his headlights. The next, a freight train constructed of unyielding demon flesh slammed into me, lifting me from the pavement and rolling with me onto the shoulder of the road. Scalding heat burned my knees and elbows where the abrasive asphalt scrubbed flesh from bone.

We rolled and slid down the clay-slick walls of the drainage ditch in a knot of struggling limbs. His massive body rolled atop mine. I tried to bring my knee up between his thighs, but he had learned his lesson that first time. Catching my ankle, he braced a hand on my leg and twisted. A sickening pop filled the air. Sharp pinpoints of pain radiated in my knee and shin where bone and tendons no longer connected.

“Now, now,” Jacob grunted, shoving open my thighs and settling between them. “Play nice and we’ll get along just fine.”

“Fuck you!” My fingernails plowed angry furrows into his skin. Jacob’s flesh peeled away beneath my fingertips.

His bellow of rage pounded my eardrums to the point they buzzed with the sound of nothing, leaving me momentarily deaf. Jacob hoisted me up by my shirtfront before flipping me and forcibly smashing me face down into the freezing stream swirling through the bottom of the ditch. Water swamped my face, flushing up my nose as I sucked it into my mouth in a futile attempt to scream.

His large, coarse fingers clenched my hair in a vicious grip as he shoved my head deeper into the muddy water. Fire raged in my lungs as I desperately fought to keep from inhaling fluid. I coughed and struggled, but only managed to gulp down more rainwater. Without the use of my left leg, and trapped beneath the large male’s body, I had no leverage to launch a counterattack. There was nothing to do but drown.

I inhaled water. Without oxygen, I was dying, but I was damned if I would go without a fight. Twisting and thrashing, I tried to break Jacob’s deadly grip. Long minutes dragged on, perhaps only mere seconds. The rising pulse of my straining heart tattooed out the number of beats and seconds passing. Time became meaningless.

My body relaxed, growing limp. A sense of weightlessness tugged at my consciousness to let go. One hand kept my head under while the fingers of Jacob’s other hand crushed my windpipe, breaking the avenue for my last gasp. He kept up the pressure until breath became a distant memory and suffocation a promise I longed to see fulfilled.

One final violent convulsion and I twisted my head sideways under the water. Through the distortion of the stream I saw Jacob’s pupils flash silver. His head snapped to the side. My ears were plugged with sludge, but I felt the vibrations of speech through the hands holding me under. He couldn’t see my smile at the sweet relief awaiting me on the other side of so much loss.

At least in death, pain could no longer plague me. Memories would no longer assail me. I would be free. I accepted my fate, embraced where circumstance had led me, and said a silent goodbye to my sister.

Oh, Emma, how I’ll miss you…

Then Jacob’s weight was gone. I floated in the water, too weak to raise my head to save myself. Heavy hands clutched my shoulders, lifting me from the murk and mud. My open eyes were unseeing. My heart had stilled. I was leaving and did not need to return. Being shaken like a rag doll failed to raise a response from my limp body.

Warm lips covered mine as I lay on my back in the cold of the night. Air was forced into me before a fist pounded my chest. The power of that impact jump-started my heart. Blood ripped through my arteries to feed a starving brain. Paralyzed lungs convulsed to thrust a jet of water through clenched teeth and soaked my face, my chin, my hair, my shirt. The flow felt warm against the ice of my skin.

“Maddie!” Someone called my name. I didn’t know who, or why the voice sounded so familiar.

My head lolled sharply to the side. I had no strength to lift it.

Velvety soft, melodic and intimate, the deep tones gently caressed my senses. “Hold on, I’m going to get you out of here.”

The sweet ache of recognition filled me. “Harper?” I struggled to grasp the root of that sound, to hold something once lost to me in my hands and celebrate it being found.

The voice dipped to a disappointed sigh. “No, I’m Clayton Delaney.”

Awareness flared in the farthest corner of my mind. So this was my generous benefactor come to save me. In the ditch there was no light to show me his face. Not that it would have helped much.

I had no impression of wings, but in this realm, most Evanti maintained their human glamour and their privacy. What I did sense was power. Raw and very male. Energy vibrated in the air between us.

“Oh.” More slime from my lungs choked me as the silt clogged the back of my throat. I had begun to think Clayton Delaney was a pseudonym for Dana Evans since I’d never seen or spoken to him but she was always
fresh from a meeting
with the mysterious colony leader. But he felt real enough to me now.

His wet shirt hugged a hard body. My hands rested on his waist, his on my shoulders. His heat radiated through the damp fabric into my palms, heating me to my core. “Jacob—”

“Is being dealt with in accordance with the laws of the colony.” Clayton’s thumbs worked over my shoulder so lightly I wondered if he even realized what he was doing. The touch was affectionate, soothing, and I wanted to blame the connection I felt on his voice, but couldn’t. There was much more to this male than anyone had let on. Of that I was certain.

“Your sister shouldn’t have allowed you to come alone today.” His soft touch hardened. “She nearly cost you your life.”

I bristled, hackles lifting as I rose to her defense. Although I’d harbored similar thoughts myself, this was between Emma and I to resolve. He had no stake in the matter.

“Emma was allowing me time to grieve.”