Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) (31 page)

Tristan swept me up
into his arms and took off in a sprint. We crossed the bridge in a
second, only to run headfirst into a battle. The sound of automatic
gunfire drilled its way through the ringing in my head. More sounds
of people screaming and stones breaking made their way through. The
full scene came into focus as all of my senses returned.

Magic spells shot every
which way as Charlotte and Blossom fought against a couple of Daemoni
mages in the street. The Norman soldiers sent sprays of bullets as
they ran from Westminster and the camp toward the main road where we
were. Vampires swooped in on Solomon, Jax, and Sheree, who were still
closer to the building. Jax and Sheree burst into their animal forms.
A piece of goo splattered onto my face.

I wriggled out of
Tristan’s arms and shot lightning at the soldiers’ feet,
trying not to hit them directly, but to slow them down. Tristan waved
the vampires off our friends, sending them flying backwards a dozen
feet, and then turned toward the soldiers, paralyzing them all. I
flicked my fingers toward each of the bullets before they hit anyone,
while Vanessa yanked the guns out of their frozen grips. The vamps
sprang back toward us, and Jax clamped his powerful jaws over one of
them and took her into a death roll. They blocked my view just long
enough for me to miss the last bullet.

It bore into
Charlotte’s shoulder.

She let out a sound I’d
never heard before—a yowl resonating intense pain. Owen and I
both ran for her, but every step made my own head scream in agony. A
Daemoni vampire flew into me before I reached Char, knocking me to
the ground. A big, dark blotch swooshed across my vision and crashed
into my attacker. Solomon and the Daemoni leech snapped and snarled
as they threw each other around. I crawled over to Charlotte, who sat
propped up in Owen’s lap.

“I’ll be
okay,” she said through gritted teeth.

Her eyes narrowed as
she looked over my shoulder, past me. Her hand lifted at the same
time Owen’s did. Knowing they witnessed something terrible, but
not what, I twisted my body over and around, flipping out of their
way. Their spells streaked over to the vampire fighting Solomon. The
Daemoni vamp flew several feet away and burst into flames. Solomon
just stood there with his back to us, as though staring at the fire
in front of him. Then, as if in slow motion, his body began to lean
to the side. Something was obviously wrong. Very, very wrong.

Charlotte and I both
gasped.

With his cornrows
swinging, Solomon’s head rolled off of his neck and fell to the
ground with a sickening thud.

“NO!” I
screamed, scrambling to my feet as his body swayed in the opposite
direction. “Oh, no. No, no, no.
Solomon!
”

Tristan turned at my
scream, and his face blanched. Then he twisted his body, swinging his
arm out and blasting everyone in sight with his strongest, deadliest
power—the one forbidden by the Amadis except in extreme
situations. Daemoni and soldiers alike dropped to the ground, all
dead. Tristan ran and caught me in his arms as I reached Solomon,
which was probably good because I didn’t know what I would have
done as Solomon’s body hit the ground, landing front down, and
something dark and squishy splatted next to it. But his head. Oh,
God, his head.

My mind flashed back to
another scene of detached vampire parts and watching Vanessa’s
body pieces vibrate and move toward each other to reattach, making
her whole again. But Solomon’s parts remained still, which I
now found even more terrifying.

“Why isn’t
he moving?” I shrieked, trying to break free of Tristan’s
hold to help Solomon put himself back together. He wouldn’t let
me go, though.

Vanessa went over to
Solomon’s body, squatted, and studied it and the lump of dark
red next to it. The abhorrent look in her ice-blue eyes, on her face,
made my heart drop to my feet. Whatever she saw had to have been
horrendous for her to react in such a way. She carefully lifted
Solomon by the shoulder and turned his still body over. I couldn’t
help the scream.

“Oh my God, dear
God,
why
?” I cried, covering my mouth with my hands but
unable to tear my eyes away from the heinousness.

Solomon’s entire
front, from collarbone to navel, lay split open and pried apart, as
though the vampire he’d been fighting had thrust a carving
knife in and yanked downward. Blood and intestines spilled out to the
sides. And the dark red lump next to him … the blob that had
landed with a splat … was his heart.

I finally turned away
and buried my face into Tristan’s chest. But the image was
forever emblazoned in my memory. I could never unsee that. So I
opened my eyes and looked the other way around Tristan’s arm,
only to see Solomon’s head. It still lay on its side, his empty
eyes staring forward. I could only hope his last vision had been of
Rina welcoming him into the Otherworld.

Tristan’s arms
tightened around me, and I hid my face against his chest again,
trying to control the sobs. Trying to be strong. Charlotte had been
shot, and I didn’t know who else might be injured. I would have
to deal with this grief later. My people needed me right now. But
when I tried to pull away from Tristan’s loving embrace, I
instantly realized he needed me, too. He’d been holding on to
me for strength just as much as I’d been holding on to him, and
he wouldn’t let go. I tightened my arms around him as he buried
his face into my hair, his breaths sharp against my ear. After
several grief-filled moments passed, he collected himself and pulled
away.

My whole team had
gathered, standing there, staring at what remained of the man who had
been like a rock foundation for so many of us. I’d known him as
long as I’d known Rina, when I met them both in Mom’s
cottage in Cape Heron, along with Stefan. They had been the heart and
core of the Amadis in my mind all of this time. Now Tristan and I
were the only ones in the room that night who were still alive.

My heart broke.

Solomon and Charlotte
had been our ties to Rina’s and Mom’s generations. Now we
only had Charlotte. I looked over my shoulder at her. Owen was
helping her to her feet.

“I’ll be
okay,” she said, though her face held no color and she leaned
on Owen’s shoulder.

“I’ll take
care of this.” Vanessa nodded toward Char and Owen. “Go
help them.”

“Solomon deserves
an Amadis send off.” My voice was hoarse and choked by the lump
in my throat.

“More Daemoni
will be here any minute.” She nodded toward the parliament
building where we knew dozens of Daemoni had taken up residence.

“Let’s do
the best we can.” Tristan strode over and helped Vanessa in
arranging Solomon’s head near his ravaged body. He deserved so
much more than being burnt in the middle of the street in downtown
London. My heart cracked even more when Tristan lit him up.

“Bring him home,
Rina,” I whispered. “He belongs with you now.”

As if in answer, the
body and the flames disappeared.

We checked the other
bodies, Norman and Daemoni alike, scattered about, but found no
survivors. More Normans dead. Daemoni souls that might have been
saved, but not now. Vanessa was right about more Daemoni coming soon
when these guys didn’t return. Tristan blasted flames at the
enemy corpses, but we left the Normans, hoping someone in the
government remained with enough humanity to give them a proper
burial. Then we hurried back to the compound, and Owen sealed it up
tightly in case the Daemoni traced us back here and decided to
retaliate.

“Alexis, I’m
so sorry,” Blossom said as she slid an arm over my shoulder
once we were inside. “But you got to Noah, right?”

“Not exactly.”

“Really? But …”
She trailed off, frowning. “That must be what went wrong.”

“What?” I
demanded, probably sharper than I should have been. “What
happened here that went so wrong?”

“A bunch of
trucks arrived, and they started loading the metal boxes with the
Normans inside, and we weren’t sure what to do, because we were
running out of time. We waited and waited, and we didn’t hear
from you, but then the soldiers changed from acting like puppets to
behaving more normal. We thought that was the sign.”

I sighed. “You
thought we’d cut out Noah’s stone.”

“Tristan said to
watch out for their reaction, and that was a reaction, and like I
said, we were out of time. So Solomon gave us the go. We didn’t
even reach the trucks before they started taking off, and then the
soldiers fired at us all at once. Like they were being controlled.”

Because they were.
Following Jeana’s orders, Noah had obviously turned the
soldiers loose on my team. I couldn’t help but wonder if this
had been part of Jeana and Merrick’s plan. Had they distracted
us on purpose? Baited us over the bridge, and then set up our people?
Or had we set ourselves up for disaster by falling for it so easily?
Either way, this was one more time the Daemoni were one step ahead of
us.

“There was no way
for you to know any differently.” I picked up my pace to catch
up with Owen and Vanessa, who’d carried Char inside.

They had already
reached the same office where we’d brought Ammi for her
conversion. Charlotte lay on the couch with Kristen hovering over
her.

“I was going to
be a nurse,” Kristen said as she poked inside Charlotte’s
wound with a thin blade, presumably searching for the bullet. “I
was going to uni for it before this all happened.”

“You’re
sure you’ll be okay?” I asked Char.

“Don’t
worry. You’re stuck with me for a while longer.” She
forced a small smile through the pain, but then she frowned. “We
couldn’t save the Normans. They left while we were fighting.”

I nodded, and then
swung around and strode off, praying to God she was right about
herself. I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost her, too.
But the Normans … Noah … we’d accomplished zilch,
coming back empty-handed.

Solomon had died for
nothing.

I desperately needed to
pound the crap out of something. An Aikido session with Tristan to
beat my frustrations out would have been nice, but that seemed like a
luxury now, so I headed to our closet-room, glad to find Dorian
wasn’t in it. Finally alone and surrounded by complete
darkness, I let out a scream of frustration and hammered my fists
against my thighs.

Every time we turned
around, they were there, striking us down. How much longer could we
go on? How many more of us would die before this was over? How much
more proof did everyone need that I really was not ready for this?
That I was a complete failure?

I dropped to my knees
on the mattress on the floor and doubled over to pound my fists into
the bed.

“Please forgive
me, Rina,” I sobbed, my heart breaking all over again for her.
“I am so, so sorry.”

Tristan found me curled
in a ball and staring at the wall. I didn’t know how much time
had passed, but enough for me to wail out my frustrations to the
point of being spent. But not completely. When he sat on the bed next
to me, I turned over and crawled into his lap, straddling him. I
braced my hands against his face, and he held mine as I leaned in and
crushed my mouth to his. I pushed my tongue between his lips with an
urgent need to feel and taste and devour him. His lips were soft yet
commanding, and his tangy-sweetness filled my mouth with its
deliciousness.

Something about death
and loss created an intense need to feel another’s touch, to
hold onto another living being. Except it was more than that. An
overwhelming necessity to feel the life force of the one you love, to
hear their heartbeat, to ensure they were still with you and you were
not left alone. To become as close to them as physically possible, to
connect, to join as one and let the love and passion mingle with the
grief. To remind us that with all the bad in the world, there was
still good, there was still love, and we had to hold on to it.

Tristan had known we
both required this connection and release. He’d already planned
for it and taken care of things, providing me with mental silence.

I deepened the kiss
while sliding my hands down his hard chest and abs, to the hem of his
shirt, and lifting it up. Our mouths parted only long enough to pull
his shirt over his head before crashing into each other again. His
fingers worked at my leather corset, loosening the laces until he
could pull it apart and off, and then I pressed my breasts against
his bare chest, needing the skin-to-skin contact. Needing the
intensity, the passion, the love we shared to cradle our broken
hearts and souls. His hands slid up and down my bare back, his
fingers trailing along my skin, and into my hair, grasping it in his
fist, and his erection grew underneath me. I rocked my hips back and
forth against it, making him moan into my mouth.

“Are you sure?”
he asked when I stood to remove my leather pants.

“Never been more
sure in my life.” I kicked off my boots and undid the button at
my waist.

His fingers pushed mine
away, undoing it for me, and his hands slid under the leather at my
hips to cup my cheeks as his mouth found my lower belly. It quivered
with the warm wetness on my skin in contrast to the coolness on my
legs as he pushed my pants down. I stepped out of them and then moved
backwards so he could stand and I could remove the last piece of
clothing that prevented us from becoming one. As soon as his pants
were off and discarded, I latched my hands onto his shoulders and
climbed onto him, wrapping my legs around his waist. He held me with
one hand between my shoulders and the other under my ass, gripping
and teasing. I looked into his eyes, the gold sparkling and the green
dark with lust.