Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5) (22 page)

“You’re going to give up?” He shook his head and frowned. “Now? After everything you’ve been through?”

“I’m not giving up. I have to do this. He’ll get free. I have to bury him.”

“I may have believed you were many things, Muse, but I never believed you to be a coward.”

Was he for real? “Coward?” I laughed. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you.”

He sat and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “If you’re staying, so am I.”

“What? Don’t be a dumbass.” ‘Ass’ came out as a satisfying demon hiss. “Suicide by demon fire? That’s not how it works.”

“I’m dead anyway.”

Damn him. I growled behind clenched teeth. “You’re a stubborn fool.” I’d thought Stefan had inherited his stubbornness from his mother. Now I was rethinking my assumption. Stefan. I couldn’t let Adam die down there. It wasn’t my place to kill him. It never had been. That was Stefan’s fight. Or Yukki’s. I wobbled to my feet and soaked up every ripple and beat of heat. One foot in front of the other. Always moving forward… If I could get topside in time, I might be able to funnel the heat through the facility. How many steps to the elevator?
…three, four, five…

“You’re the most remarkable demon—”

“Shut up, Adam.”
…nine, ten, eleven, twelve…

“You defied the demons, Princes of Hell, and me—the Institute.”

Was he going to preach all the way?
I might have to accidentally-on-purpose spontaneously combust him inside the elevator.
Fire licked my thoughts, tugging on my instincts to let it go. It would be wonderful. I knew what freedom was. It was choice. It would be so easy to choose to kill him.

Adam’s voice acted as an anchor. I don’t know what he said on the ride up from the sub-levels, but the sound of his voice grounded me while destruction flirted at the tips of my fingertips.

I stumbled out of the elevator car, and the building shook beneath my feet. “Asmodeus.” I staggered for the gaping hole that had once been the doors, relief so close I could taste it. Fire dripped in my wake.

“Muse!”
Finally topside.
Stefan broke free of Ryder’s grip, but he hesitated and raised an arm to shield himself from my heat. His gaze flicked from me to his father. Teeth clamped closed, I spun, flicked out my wing, breathed in and released my hold. The blast ripped through me, tore out my thoughts, and scattered them like ashes. On and on it went, a storm of heat, blinding light, and madness. I pushed a half blood’s lifetime worth of rage behind it. Anger for the lost little girl, grief for the love of a demon, fear for an uncertain future, I used it all as fuel for the flames, as Akil had taught me, so many years ago. The building crumbled to dust, and below ground, corridors buckled. Destruction poured through every doorway, pooled in every room, and flooded the facility, tearing it to pieces from the inside out. It was pure destruction, driven by the inferno of emotion only a half-human-half-demon was capable of.

Spent, I came back to myself as human, kneeling on scorched earth before a debris-field of smoldering rubble. Smoke spiraled skyward. Quiet settled over me. I waited, expecting my father’s roar or a lick of fire to peel across the ground, but nothing happened. Seconds ticked by. Was it…really over?

“Muse,” Ryder sauntered in front of me and crouched, arms draped over his knees, head tilted in his ever-so-curious way. “Hey there, lil’ firecracker. You still with us?”

I licked cracked lips. “I er…” My voice scratched my throat. “I think so.”

He placed his rough hand in mine and squeezed. “I reckon you did all right.”

Ryder helped me stand, and I let him. In that moment, I needed him to be real, to be my friend. Adam hung back with Jenna, but Stefan surged forward, took my face in his hands, and peered into my eyes as though afraid. His bright eyes sparkled with what looked like unshed tears, but it couldn’t be because if he cried, I’d cry. He yanked me against him and wrapped his arms around me. “I thought you were gone.” His cool whispers fluttered against my cheek. “Goddamnit, Muse… If I can survive loving you, I can survive anything.”

I hugged him back, shirt clutched in my fists, and never wanted to let him go. This time, the sob broke free, and I let it. It really was over. I’d been waiting, wondering, walking around in a dream world, expecting chaos to claim me once more, and it had. But now, Asmodeus—my father— was buried beneath 160 feet of Institute scorched rubble, inside a pressure chamber sealed with anti-elemental markings. The veil was closed for good. And I was free.

“It was Adam,” I whispered.

Stefan threaded his fingers through my hair and tilted my head back. “Adam?”

“He spouted off some nonsense about dying with me, but I… I think he…” I glanced behind Stefan at his father, the man I’d hated for the longest time. I still hated him, but maybe, just maybe…after the events of the last few weeks, there was a thread of good in Adam Harper. “I think he knew I wouldn’t let him die down there.” His face didn’t show any trace of satisfaction. He just looked back at me with that same Adam Harper thoughtfully detached expression.

A glimmer of light glanced off ice near the tree line. Stefan turned toward it. Yukki strode out of the trees. Moonlight poured over her crystalline body. Her glacial blue eyes glowed. Adam tensed, human senses alerting him to danger. There was time. Stefan could have rushed forward, knocked his father aside, and blocked his mother, but he stood immobile beside me and watched Yukki circle Adam. She flicked her wrist, producing Kira-Kira. Ice snapped down the blade, lending it a cruel saw-toothed edge. She purred as she stalked. Her hair and skin, sparkled. Stefan reached behind his back and freed the Desert Eagle. Etched rounds would stop Yukki, maybe even kill her. But he kept the weapon lowered. I itched to intervene, to stop what was to come.

“There’s nowhere left to run, to hide. There is nothing between us, Adam Harper.” Yukki’s smooth voice belied her bristling presence.

Adam’s hands clenched at his sides. He stood firm and let her circle him. He had to be afraid, but he showed no sign of it. A muscle twitched in his cheek, and he breathed hard. He was a dead man. We all knew it. Ryder’s old-soul eyes checked me, and his fingers twitched. Jenna stood back, eyes narrowed, hand hovering near her weapon. And beside me, Stefan simmered, waiting.

Hell knew Adam had earned this. Not a single one of us thought he deserved to be saved. And we were human. We could be reasoned with. Yukki didn’t have it in her to forgive.

“You said you loved me. Do you remember?” Yukki asked. She circled behind him and lifted Kira-Kira, arching it over his shoulder until the ice encrusted blade kissed his neck. Adam turned his head.

“I did.” His eyes flicked to Stefan, his look laden with unspoken apologies. “And I’m paying the price.”

“The price?” She hissed. “The price for trapping me like a lesser beast. The price for stealing my bloodkin. The price—”

“He’s my son too,” he said calmly. “I couldn’t let the netherworld have him. You turn half bloods into monsters there. I kept him safe from demons in the only place they couldn’t get to him. I did what I could to protect him from his nature.” Adam’s gaze stayed on Stefan as he spoke. His words weren’t meant for Yukki. Only for Stefan.

Stefan lifted the gun, and when he finally spoke, his words snapped through the quiet like breaking ice. “You planted your own daughter as a spy beside a Prince of Hell. Nica died because she turned to demons to help her rather than ask you. You sanctioned experiments on me—your own son.” He swallowed hard. “You have no idea what it means to live behind Institute bars, to spend night and day strapped to an examination table, staring at the same white walls, wishing for a real life, any kind of life.” His fingers flexed on the grip. “You insisted Jenna play a Class A demon so you could get information, knowing full well Valenti raped her mind and body every time you got your intel.” Stefan stepped closer under Yukki’s watchful eye. “You used a vulnerable nine-year-old girl as a weapon. You know the last words Dawn said to me? She wanted to know what it was like to be loved, to have someone—anyone—care for her as a little girl, as a human being, not as a goddamn demon or something to be exploited. I couldn’t tell her.” Anger broke through Stefan’s mask. His lower lip quivered with barely restrained rage. “All I ever wanted was a father who cared.”

Yukki’s startling eyes narrowed.

Stefan squeezed the trigger. The gun fired, recoiled. And the bullet smacked into Yukki’s forehead. She fell backward and collapsed to the ground, motionless. The silence rushed in. Smoke drifted from the gun muzzle. “You,
Father
,” Stefan spat the word, “have to live with what you’ve done.”

Adam dropped to his knees and sobbed. I don’t know if he sobbed for himself, for Yukki, or for the truth. Maybe all of it.

Stefan tucked the gun away and turned his back on his father. He slipped an arm around my waist and drew me in close against him. Only then did I realize how he trembled. Maybe he hadn’t known until the last moment who to aim at. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t hurt. We walked to where Jenna and Ryder stood in silence. Ryder gave Stefan a resolute nod and threw his arm around Jenna’s shoulders and pulled her close.

We left Adam and the Institute in ruins.

“
S
o what did
you talk about, on this…
date
?” Stefan asked.

Oh, for hell’s sake. If he brought up
The Date
one more time, I was going to summon the fires of hell and singe his hair. I rolled my eyes, hid my smile, and peeled Ryder’s Mustang out of slow-moving traffic. “Anyone would think you had an inferiority complex, the way you keep mentioning it.”

The look he gave me was priceless and sexy as hell: a cocked eyebrow, crooked smile, and a come-hither look. Damn him. “Inferior?” he purred, deliberately adding a dash of demon brogue, knowing full went what it did to me.

“Save it.” I waved a hand dismissively and shifted gear. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

The smile stayed, maybe even grew a little. “Well, that kinda defeats the purpose of it being a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“You’ll like this one.”

“They have a tendency to end in near-death experiences.”

“Not this time.”

“Oh, you have a crystal ball now?”

“No, but I can make you one.”

Familiar road signs dotted the roadside. “We going to see Ryder?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re just pissed because I won’t let you drive.” Stefan’s driving gave a whole new meaning to white-knuckle ride.

“We’d be there by now if I was driving. You drive like an old woman.”

“I do not. I’d just like to arrive at our destination in one piece, for once.” I checked him out of the corner of my eye. Yup, still smiling. “So we are going to see Ryder?”

“Hang a right.”

I growled and followed his directions. I’d not seen Ryder for a couple of days, not since we’d returned to Boston. I’d spent much of that time with Lacy, painting my toenails and discussing what the two hot guys got wrong about demons in her favorite TV show. It was pretty cool, being normal, although I might never figure out how to dry nail polish without smudging it. Lacy assured me these were things normal women worried about: TV shows, hot guys, and nail polish. I could get on board with that. It sure beat worrying about whether I had an Institute tail or what demons were lining up to take me down. But as nice as normal was, a large part of me still hankered after the hunt. Exactly half of me, to be precise. I couldn’t escape my demon and didn’t want to. I was human, but I had demon needs too. I needed something to occupy the wild, hungry part of me. Not yet, but soon. I was jobless. The Institute had packed up their operations and moved down the coast to New York. Coleman had called, but I’d avoided him, uncertain whether I should get back in the saddle so soon. I would discuss it with Stefan. He’d be feeling the demon restlessness too, but not today. Today we were going for a drive.

“I checked on Adam.” Stefan said it nonchalantly enough, but ice traced his words.

“And?”

“He’s alive,” he sighed, “which means Yukki isn’t.”

We hadn’t been sure if Yukki was gone. The etched rounds killed lesser demons and could kill an immortal higher demon’s human vessel, but Yukki had been something of an anomaly. We hadn’t been certain if she was mortal, immortal, or something else. If Adam was alive, it seemed safe to assume Stefan had killed Yukki. I wasn’t sure what to say. Words alone were insufficient. “I’m here if you need to talk.”

He slid his gaze to me, propped an elbow on the door, and leaned on his fist. “I’m okay. It had to happen. Anyone and anything that crossed her, she’d have killed. She wasn’t meant for this world.”

“Yeah, still hurts like a bitch though.” I’d liked Yukki. I could appreciate her ruthless efficiency. But Stefan was right. She’d have killed Adam and then created chaos because that’s what demons did.

Stefan watched the Boston scenery blur by. “Adam’s back at home. Alone. No sign of the Institute.”

“Do you think he’ll go to New York? Try to get his job back?”

“I don’t think they’ll have him back.”

I hoped not, but I also knew Adam could be very persuasive. He’d helped us. In the end, he’d done the right thing. But it was too much to hope he’d changed. Adam was still Adam. I’d place a bet with Ryder we’d be seeing him again.

“Do you think he feels remorse for the things he’s done?”

Stefan sighed. “I genuinely don’t know.”

I remembered Adam’s words about wanting to protect Stefan. I’d had Akil protecting me from the demons. Without the Institute and their enforcer training, Stefan would have been on his own. The netherworld
would
have killed him before he had a chance to survive. Without his demon-hunter training, he’d never have survived years in the netherworld. Those thoughts led to Dawn and the terrible thing she would become. “You never told me what happened when you took Dawn through the veil at Nahant…” I was almost afraid to ask.

Stefan’s expression twitched. He sucked in a breath. “She saw Jerry, the markings, the netherworld. It was too much. I barely got three feet inside the veil before she lashed out. Jerry left the stones, I guess to try to subdue her, but the Princes rushed in, and she tore into them all. Then pretty much everything went to hell.” He licked his lips, eyes tracking the street outside. “She yanked on chaos, and it was like… Like the entire netherworld rippled. Her power is…” He hesitated, searching for the right word. “She needed to be stopped. Jerry was the only one who could get close to her. He grabbed her, and they vanished.”

“To the fortress… How did you get there?”

“Akil. He watched the whole thing play out. I was about to return for you, and…”

“What?”

“He stopped me.” Stefan smiled at my frown. “He said you were safer in Boston. That destruction was the last thing we needed. That if you came, you’d try to save Dawn because you couldn’t help yourself.” Damn. He’d been right. “I wasn’t convinced whose side he was on. He was just as likely to want to stop Jerry. I figured you’d be right behind us, so I went with him, ready to stop him if he turned on Dawn.”

The rest I knew because I’d blundered in, typically destruction, and almost let my hope for a little girl get in the way of ending the madness. “Thank you.” I sighed.

“For what?”

“Getting me out of there.”

His delicious chuckle roused the demon in me. “I’m not sure if that was brave or foolish. I expected you to go all she-demon on me...” His smile faded a little. “I was prepared to fight you, even if you hated me for it.”

I peered at the road ahead, afraid that if I looked at him, in his honest eyes, I’d well up. I was grateful I had someone like him, who could see what I needed, even when I couldn’t.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask...” Stefan’s tone changed, lightened, and we were back in lighthearted territory. “The demon who saved me from the dungeons, Li’el? What happened to him? Jenna’s needling Ryder by mentioning the guy’s prowess every time he’s within earshot.”

Ha. Jenna needling Ryder.
That
I had to see. “The Prince of Pride. Well, he was a prince.” Considering how I’d last seen him, burned to the bone, I wasn’t sure what he was now.

“Is he.... Is he only a demon?” Stefan frowned, “The way Jenna talks, and how he saved me... I thought...”

“Did she mention the word angel?”

“Maybe.” He chuckled. “About fifty times.”

Man, that would rub Ryder’s fur the wrong way. I opened my mouth to spout the usual line about angels being a myth but couldn’t bring myself to say the words. I’d told Jenna
angel
and
demon
were just convenient labels. But Li’el...? Li’el had been...nice. A nice demon. He’d saved Stefan. Me. “I think maybe…” I chewed on the inside of my lip, wondering if I’d lost my mind to say the next words. “Li’el was good. Sort of. I mean, his pride got him chargrilled, but I spent a few days with him. He was a pain in my ass, had an ego the size of Kansas, like all demons do, but he... He didn’t lie. Not a single lie the whole time. He didn’t try to manipulate me. He was honest. And he helped. He did what he said he would. Maybe... I dunno...” I shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe angels do exist, and they’re just good demons?”

Stefan mulled over those words in silence until I pulled the Mustang into Ryder’s street and bumped it up the curb outside Stefan’s old workshop. “Here?” The shutters were down and the street virtually empty.

“Yeah.” He flashed me a smile and climbed out the car. I unclipped the belt. Maybe he’d found himself another Dodge to restore. It had only been a few days since my father had incinerated Stefan’s Charger. I felt bad about that. It seemed that whenever I was around, Stefan’s cars turned into mangled, burned-out shells. Or perhaps it was when the two of us were together that things ended up twisted and in flames?

I ambled around the front of the car. Six feet of half-blood enforcer blocked the workshop’s side door. “You stay out here.” His grin was far too mischievous to mean anything good.

“Erm, okay. What the hell have you got in there? Please tell me it’s not a demon.”

“What?” he laughed. “Why would I— Never mind. Just stay here. I’ll open the main door.” He disappeared inside.

I heard a deep, monotonous rumble. Given my past experience with surprises, I considered reaching for my demon, just in case. The doors rattled and rolled upward. I backed up against the Mustang, tucked my thumbs in my pockets, and watched the workshop reveal its treasures. New workbenches and racks sparkled. I smelled coal dust, heat, and metal. I knew those evocative scents. The door rolled fully open. A lit forge roared near the back. I hadn’t been sure, not until that moment, but seeing the forge. “Oh…” A metalworking shop, like the one Stefan had blown to bits a lifetime ago.

Stefan jogged to my side and turned to admire the workshop. “Well?”

I couldn’t speak. No words. No thoughts. A workshop? For me?

He lifted my hand—his touch gentle— and dropped a key into my palm. The very key he’d taken from me months ago at a time I thought we’d been so broken nothing would fix us again. “It’s yours.”

Mouth open, I grappled with what to say but still couldn’t make a sound.

“It’s a fresh start.” He blinked blue eyes. An unsure, tentative smile pulled at the corner of his lips. “The forge is one of those new, quiet models. Ryder waffled on about it, bored me to tears. And out the back… C’mon—” He took my hand and tugged me inside.

“I…” Nope—still couldn’t speak. I trailed my fingertips over the shiny new benches and gawked at the forge. It was huge. I could have several pieces on the go at once. Swords. I’d start with those. I could etch anti-elemental symbols into the blades.
Just in case.
Stefan pulled me into the small side room, once his office. It had a lick of fresh paint and a shiny new desk. Through the office window, I saw Ryder loiter by the workshop entrance. He lifted a six-pack of beers and pointed at me. Jenna entered behind him, bright smile on her tattooed face.

“There’s more…”

Stefan pulled me into the narrow rear corridor then whipped around and faced me. I tried to peek around him, but he blocked my view. “Okay, this part is kind of a joint venture.” He scratched at his cheek. “We figured you were never going to be happy living the nine-to-five. You’ll get bored, and then there’s the demon in you, who definitely isn’t going to be satisfied with normality. So we added a little something on the side.”

I blinked up at him. My heart fluttered. “I… I didn’t… I’ve… I mean—it’s—” Oh, to hell with it, I pressed my hands to his face and rose up on my tiptoes. “Thank you.”

“You haven’t seen—”

I kissed him. I only meant for it to be a gentle kiss, but something happened between my decision to kiss him and the moment my lips touched his. Emotion happened. Overwhelming thanks and heartwarming love. I could never tell him what the workshop meant to me. But I could show him. I slipped my arms round his neck and kissed him with everything I had. For a heart-wrenching moment, I felt him tense and thought he might push away, but the tension melted. He closed his arms around me, folded me against him, and kissed me back like we were the only two people in the world. Everything else was forgotten. The lust I’d poured into him, the scars I’d left him with. He could have pulled back, and I would have understood, but he didn’t. We’d been through so much, the kind of horrors that tore most people apart. But not him. Not us. We’d survived. Together.

He drew back and cupped my face in his hands, peering deeply into my eyes. “We’re free.”

“I know,” I whispered. It hadn’t quite sunk in yet. Free. “It’s over. The nightmare.”

He pinched his bottom lip between his teeth, afraid to say it. “It is.”

Those winter eyes sparkled. He felt it too: the kind of overwhelming emotion you can’t express with words. I brushed his bangs out of his eyes. Was it happiness? Was that what this feeling was?

“There were times…” His gaze flicked over my face, his eyes intense. “I thought we’d never live to see this. I mean, I hoped... I dreamed...”

So many times…
I rose up on my tiptoes again, hooked my arms around his neck and locked my stare on his, so close I could see my fire-touched gaze reflected in his diamond glare. “I said I’d never let you go. I don’t make empty threats.”

He made a sound deep in his throat, somewhere between a growl and a purr, and delicious demon shivers skittered beneath my skin. In one powerful move, he hitched me up and pressed me back into the wall. I hooked my legs around his waist and lost myself in the cool burn of a kiss so raw with true, soul-deep emotion that it reached into the parts of me I kept locked away where nobody could touch them. Where hope lived. It truly was over because we’d stared into the eye of the storm and, against the odds, survived.

Ryder cleared his throat.

Jenna said, “They didn’t even make it to the den.”

Stefan and I separated. Slowly. Lips, mouth, body, gaze. I didn’t want to let him go. What I wanted to do with him would make our seasoned audience blush. My gaze told him it would happen. Soon. With copious amounts of ice cream.

“Den?” I asked, flicking my hair out of my face and straightening my clothes.

Jenna wasn’t wrong. The room at the back of the workshop had once housed Stefan’s demon-killing arsenal. And it did again, but this time there was order in the chaos: guns on one wall, swords on the other, TV on the back wall, and couches in the middle. My battered red leather coat lay over the back of a couch. I saw a coffee machine and even a cooler, which Ryder was already finding use for by popping his beers inside. He straightened, pointed to the right. “That there is a ChayTac Intervention bolt-action rifle, fed by a seven-round detachable single stack magazine. I’ll take you out to the quarry where the Institute tested their weapons, and we’ll fire off a few rounds to see if you get a feel for it. The three daggers you see over there have been etched with anti-elemental symbols, courtesy of Jenna’s tattoo artist, perfect for slippery all-up-in-your-face lessers.” He spread his arms and grinned. “Fuckin’ A, right?”