King's Gambit (25 page)

I hobbled over, stepping out of the barrier without a thought. I nearly knocked Noah over when a burst of hellfire ripped through my arm. There was no pain at first, just the realization the fire had hit my arm. I stared at the limb for a moment. It was black, with some red and brown parts where my flesh and jacket had been seared together. My skin was boiling in some places but looked like a giant lump of coal more than anything else. In this state, I was surprised my arm hadn’t disintegrated.

A rough yank from Noah brought me back to the physical world, and I buried my face in his shoulder, taking in the disorienting scent of lilies among burnt flesh as I screamed, the mind-numbing agony of the hellfire engulfing my arm finally hitting me like a hundred syringes full of acid being jammed into my flesh. My fingers wouldn’t move, but honestly, I was too scared to try moving anything below the shoulder.

“Focus.” Noah pushed us forward, careful not to touch my arm. “We need to hurry. This place isn’t going to hold much longer.”

“Will we have time to make it to the door? Alex!” I spotted him and ran, completely forgetting the lesson I just learned about running into hellfire. Love isn’t blind – it’s stupid. Fortunately, the universe decided to grant me mercy this time, and I was spared another roasted limb. Alex was still struggling with his chains when I knelt by him, but he stopped, eyes wide, when he saw the state I was in.

One of my legs looked like a piece of Swiss cheese while the other’s knee was busted; one arm was extra,
extra
well-done; and though the underlying architecture had healed, getting my nose and jaw broken made my face swollen and bruised. Marcus was right, I probably did look like a pounded up piece of meat.

“Morgan–” He broke into a coughing fit.

Noah dragged Marcus over to us. There was a gory hole near the center of his forehead that told me the wound had stopped healing. He probably stopped the process himself to conserve blood and energy. I really needed to learn how to do that. He was standing, though, and appeared to be able to walk. His gait was sluggish, but still better than mine. But it didn’t matter – Noah’s barrier, though powerful, wasn’t big enough for the four of us, and based on his frazzled state, I doubt he could expand it without help. I tried to summon a barrier of my own, but I could barely stand without leaning against something.

“I need your magic," said Noah, “to expand the barrier.” We jumped as part of the ceiling collapsed. “We can’t risk moving around without everyone being protected.”

“What do you need me to do?” I looked to the doors with despair. The front of the warehouse was overrun with hellfire; we’d never make it through, even with a barrier.

“Mix your magic with mine.” He held out his shaking hands. “It’ll make it easier for me to form a larger, stronger barrier.”

Knitting my brows together felt like I’d been stabbed through the eyes. “I’ve never mixed magic with anyone before.”

“Never?” He looked like I just told him I was from Krypton. Excuse me for not wanting to rely on anyone’s power other than my own. “Take my hands and try to relax, to feel my magic. I need to draw on your power – just let me in.”

Hearing those words from an infernalist did nothing to inspire trust. Especially when said infernalist knew my mother and looked like her. And Lucas, the evil jerk who wanted to let loose Hell’s biggest assholes.

One look at Alex convinced me to push my worries aside. Marcus helped get his chains off and was now holding him up. His coughing was getting worse, every moment interspersed with half-second breaks to gasp for air. Each raspy breath he took twisted my heart up to the point where I was sure the organ resembled a crumpled paper ball.

I took Noah’s hands, holding back a pained gasp as he touched my burnt arm.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Please, bear with me for a bit. Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes and took a breath, trying to relax. Which may have worked, if I wasn’t in a burning building. Instead of calm and focus, I got two lungfuls of smoke. Wonderful for a lava creature, but not so great for us measly humans. I fell over, as if curling into myself would somehow prevent the smoke from reaching me.

Noah kneeled in front of me and gently gripped my elbows. “It’s okay, just concentrate.”

I nodded and closed my eyes again, abandoning my pride in favor of pressing my face into the crook of his neck. Seriously, what guy smelled like lilies? I wasn’t complaining, but I still found it strange. Soon, I could feel foreign magic surrounding me, trying to enter me, to slide into my very core. Panic welled up as I thought about what kind of infernal ploy Noah had up his sleeve, of what he could do to me once I let him in, but I thought about Alex – about everything that was happening – and forced myself once more into the calmest state I could muster.

I squeezed Noah’s arm with my good hand as traces of demonic energy wound around me. Pushing away my apprehension, I let the dark magic connect with my own. I was still nervous. Strands of my magic glanced against his before darting away, then creeping slowly back. Eventually, they mixed, forming into one complete river of power.

The sensation was new. Invigorating, breathtaking even, though that could have been the lack of oxygen. Every nerve in my body felt like it’d been reborn. They tingled at the feel of someone else’s magic, foreign yet so familiar. The more I let him in, the easier it was to ignore the dark pull of demonic magic hidden within the currents, like wreckage being dragged along by the storm.

Noah pulled me up. My body moved on instinct, but I lost my balance. He placed his hands on my shoulder and said something I couldn’t make out. When I opened my eyes, Alex and Marcus were standing next to us inside the new barrier. It was big enough for the four of us to cram together but nothing more. The pale blue wasn’t as solid as before, though it was still stronger than a normal barrier.

He thumbed my eyelids up to check my pupils. “I’m using your magic, so you’ll be affected, too. When the flames hit the barrier…Well, you know how it works.”

At my nod, Noah led us forward, away from the entrance. I didn’t know where he planned on going, but once the hellfire hit our barrier, the agony washed away any theories I may have had. It was more painful than a normal barrier hit. The intensity of the pain caught me off guard and I stumbled again. Alex reached a hand out to steady me, but in his condition it was little more than something solid for me to bump into.

Every flame against the barrier was like a branding iron being shoved through my eye and into my brain. It made me respect Noah a hundred times more. I wonder if it was worse for him since he created the barrier. Or did
we
create the barrier? What exactly were the rules when it came to mixed magic spells? Damn it. More questions, more pain. In this case, correlation was definitely causation.

Sweat drenched my body and fell into my eyes. I didn’t think the stinging would bother me with everything else going on, but my eyes stung like hellfire kissed them. I wonder how quickly they would regenerate if I ripped them out. Doing that would require me being able to lift my arm – so it wasn’t going to happen any time soon – but pondering the idea helped keep my mind off our Walk of Pain.

It felt like we’d trekked through the Sahara, but Noah eventually stopped in front of a patchworked wall. Random sheets of metal had been placed over the original brick to cover up a giant hole. Noah raised an arm and the hole was back. The metal covering it ripped apart, some of the pieces breaking off into chunks while others were smashed to smithereens. Booyah, force magic.

The cold air was a siren’s song, and we all ran as best we could from the wild inferno into the wintry outdoors. Noah dropped the barrier, and my lungs burned in the most wonderful way as I took in a giant breath of fresh air.

We did it. We survived.

19

“None of us are in any shape to heal him. He needs a hospital.” I knew the words were stupid before they left my mouth. There was no way to explain to the doctors – or the authorities that would follow – why Alex was all fucked up from smoke inhalation or why he had bruises around his wrists and ankles. I guess I could say we were experimenting in bed. That would also explain why I looked worse than some of the bodies they had in the morgue.

Marcus was reclined on the couch, one hand over his face like a renaissance lady. “That’s right, dearheart, let it all out.”

The hole in his head was gone, though he’d been nearly impossible to deal with while Noah was extracting the bullet. He loosened up once the blood packs were whipped out. There was a remark about how he preferred it straight from the tap, but he otherwise quieted down like a well-fed baby.

It was only a few moments after we stumbled out of the warehouse that a showy yellow sports car screeched to a halt in front of us. A man got out and told us to come with him if we wanted to live. Based on the grin he had, I’m guessing he knew exactly what he’d said – he was even wearing aviator shades. Why did these things only happen when I couldn’t enjoy them?

Four very skeptical looks prompted the man to introduce himself as Ryan, one of Khalil’s ghouls. There was chatter on the wire about some warehouse burning up in green fire. Ryan was sent to help us escape before the firefighters and cops showed up.

“Assuming you were still alive,” Ryan added with a wink.

I ignored him and passed out during the ride to…someone’s apartment. I didn’t ask, and as long as it was safe, I didn’t care.

We were all together. Khalil was leaning back in an arm chair, one leg draped over the other, looking like his usual suave self again, perfectly styled hair and all. Elise looked as weary as she had in the basement sans the frenzied hunger. She had on the heavy robe she wore the first time we met, so I couldn’t see anything below the neck. From her expression, though, it didn’t appear as if she was suffering from any serious injuries. Dorian was here, too. He’d been sitting with Elise when we arrived. Now, he was pressed against my non-burned side. It was a sweet gesture – once I got over the weird feeling of actually touching the not-vampire-not-ghost-not-human boy.

Alex’s head was on my lap as he laid on the sofa, his breathing raspy but steady. His face would scrunch up in pain with every inhale, each wrinkle on his normally smooth face tugging at my heartstrings. I pressed a kiss to his forehead and continued running my fingers through his hair.

“Calm down,” said Noah. He was the only one apart from Dorian who wasn’t hurt – something I couldn’t help being a bit resentful over. “Your own injuries are no small matter.”

I flexed the fingers on my burnt hand, the action bringing tears to my eyes. Dorian reached up to dab them with his handkerchief. How could I have ever been wary of him? Of course, the whole adorable thing could be a diabolical ploy to gain my trust. Fuck, I really needed to get over this rampant paranoia. But did I really? Just because I was paranoid, it didn’t mean people weren’t out to get me. Grumble, grumble, secrets.

I glared at Noah, but it probably just looked like my eyelids were drooping. “Heal him, or I will.”

“You’ll suffer terribly and pass out before your magic begins to take effect,” he said.

“Then heal him.”

“The smoke inhalation will pass as long as he continues to breathe in clean air. You, on the other hand–”

“Don’t care. Heal him.”

“I don’t remember you being this unreasonable,” said Marcus. “Love makes fools of us all, I suppose. But do try to relax. At the very least, let the man heal your arm – it’s a ghastly sight.”

“Your hand is covering your face, you can’t even see it.” I flipped him off, which he also couldn’t see.

“Dearheart, if you can hold
your
hand up to your face without crying, I’ll drop the issue.”

“I hate you.”

“Evidently. You let Flavius – may the Devil hoist him upon his sharpest pitchfork – shoot me in the face.”

“At this point, I’m not convinced you didn’t deserve it.”

“Neither am I. Now, about lifting your arm…”

I ignored him. Deep down – hell, even on the surface – I knew Alex was going to be fine, but that didn’t make watching him suffer any easier. And it didn’t mean I was going to admit Marcus was right. Because he was. Almost always. Stupid jerk. Stupid
royal
jerk.

“I think you’ve won, sir,” Khalil said, amused at our little exchange. “Unless Morgan has thought of something to say?”

My lips were pursed so tightly I could’ve swallowed them. It really hurt and it was all Khalil’s fault. “I hate you, too.”

“Let us take your friend to rest in one of the bedrooms so I can heal you,” said Noah.

“You say ‘us,’ but I’m the one who’s going end up carrying him. Why did I let Ryan go home?” Khalil sighed dramatically before shrugging and standing up. “I promise to handle him with the utmost care, my lady.”

My fingers tightened in Alex’s hair, causing him to stir. I wrenched my hand away the moment he moved. Dorian took it and held it up to the light to inspect. I didn’t ask why – it’s not like he’d answer.

Khalil scooped Alex up like he was little more than a ragdoll, but I didn’t miss his wince or the way his arms shook underneath the thin fabric of his button-up. Noah came to sit next to me and held his arms out like he had an hour ago. Dorian petted the hand he was holding. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to comfort or mock me, but decided he was the lesser of two evils at the moment.