Seduced by Shadows ms-1 Read online

  Then the talyan were dragging them up, though they wouldn’t let go of each other, fingers entwined.

  “Wait.” Archer grabbed something from Corvus’s stiffening hand.

  The open cavern of the basement groaned as the building crumbled. She closed her eyes and held on to Archer as they fled ahead of a sulfurous wind.

  Together, they ran with the retreating talyan. They ducked against the river wall away from the fountain ing column of brick dust, splashing water, and horrible things she didn’t want to contemplate.

  Archer pulled her onto his lap, unfurling the edge of his coat around her bare legs. “I thought we were dead.”

  “We were.” She nestled in his arms. “And damned. Who knew there’re worse ways to spend an evening?”

  Ecco swore. “I couldn’t grab the djinn-man’s body.” He held out his hand, flesh blistering under yellow slime. “Something was trying to get away.”

  “I think the building took care of that.” Nanette touched his wrist. “Hold still. I’ll see if my angel will take care of you.”

  Ecco narrowed his eyes. “Is this one of those ‘start of a beautiful friendship’ moments I’ve seen on late-night TV?” With his good hand, he pulled Nanette closer.

  Nanette frowned at him. “I’m married.”

  Ecco smiled. “That’s cool. I’m evil.”

  “Come on, people,” Niall said. “We have to clear out. When they find the remnants of Corvus’s army, this’ll go down as a fatal gas explosion in a drug den, but only if we let them see what they want to see.”

  The talyan made their unwitnessed retreat, apocalypse mostly averted, with no one the wiser.

  Archer stood in the greenhouse doorway. A fresh scouring wind blew past.

  His wounds had almost healed. Apparently, it took longer to come back from the dead than from a simple maiming. He couldn’t even remember all that had happened in the demon realm. But he looked at the ring on his finger and shuddered. It had held his soul and his demon. What new dimension of power it gave him now, he wasn’t quite ready to test.

  In the cage dangling from his hand, the crow flapped its wings eagerly. It had recovered too. Merely stunned, he’d hoped, when he grabbed it from Corvus’s dead grasp. After all, what self-respecting bird died in a fall? It had deserved a chance, considering that Corvus’s rejection of its broken-winged avatar had doomed his soul to the Veil.

  Archer opened the cage, and the crow burst free. It caught the Chicago wind under its wings and wheeled up, widespread feathers a fan of emphatic black exclamation points against the white-gray sky.

  When he lowered his dazzled gaze, Sera waited on the sidewalk, hands thrust into the pockets of her cherry red trench coat.

  “I wondered whether I’d have to break in,” she said.

  “I didn’t change the code.” Instead of watching her mull that over, he turned and made his way to the garden’s heart.

  She followed. “That was a crazy stunt.”

  He lay down on the daybed, one arm a pillow behind his head. “I knew it could fly again.”

  “You couldn’t.”

  He shrugged. “Said the woman who ripped open the Veil to the demon realm.”

  “And sealed it again.” She echoed his shrug. “Will it hold? Can one man’s soul contain all the demons of hell?”

  “Corvus had a lot of atoning to do.”

  “And then?”

  Archer ticked off on his fingers. “The horde-tenebrae of the city are wild on the streets, along with the remnants of Corvus’s soulless army and at least a few untraced djinn who slipped out while the Veil was breached. For the first time in centuries, we have no historian, so Ecco might have to learn to read. You really pissed off something in hell with all your damn questions, and I don’t want to guess what we’ll find when the snow melts.” But the snow would melt. He finally believed that. “Until then, you come here.”

  She edged toward the bed and sat at the far end.

  “Turns out, we’ve got something special between us, you and me.” With his free hand, he threaded his fingers through hers.

  “But we don’t know what it is. I went looking for the old record about female talyan and the mated-talyan bond, thinking maybe there are more like me. I couldn’t find anything except a blank in the cross-references. I think Bookie destroyed the citation.”

  Archer considered. “Maybe he didn’t want us to know we could single-handedly”—he lifted their joined hands—“triumph over unholy evil.”

  “Sounds almost too good to be true.”

  “Happens when you deal with a devil.” He tugged her down against him. “Corvus and Bookie crafted a resonating evil that should have reflected only more shadows. They never dreamed that gathering darkness would sprout the seeds of its own destruction. But against the dark, hope and love grow brighter.”

  She curved against him, honeysuckle scent a sweet allure. “My simple Southern farmer.”

  He kissed her then, slow and gentle, until she whispered his name and held him as if she’d never let go.

  After an eternity, she eased back, lips flushed rosy pink. “So you don’t hate me?”

  “For saving me?”

  “For damning you again.”

  He tapped the back of his broken ring against her pendant. “Desolator numinis. ‘That which makes the gods lonely.’ If gods and demons get lonely when riven from our souls, how do you suppose an almost-two-hundred-year-old demon-ridden man feels when torn from his other half? And I’m not talking about my soul or my demon.” He kissed her again. “It’s only because of you, my love, that I feel at all.”

  She fitted herself to him more closely, her soft curves hiding a strength of body and will he knew would challenge him if he should ever falter. His other half? More like his better half.

  “This feels right,” she agreed at last. “Love?”

  “Always with the esoteric questions,” he murmured. “I shall have to lure you back to this earthly realm. Luckily, the demon-ridden give temptation new meaning. And for us, forever lasts.”

  He wondered how she’d feel about “till death do us part.” Maybe on one of his good days, the Littlejohn patriarch would have some suggestions on wooing his daughter. It probably wouldn’t be as simple as battling other-realm monsters.

  She laid her hand over his heartbeat. “Most of the world only has today.”

  “I’ll fight for more. But if that’s all we have, then I will be . . .” He thought a moment. “Thankful.”

  She lifted her palm to his cheek and kissed him softly.

  The war waged on, his body battered, his soul the battleground, forfeit until the bitter end. But the bright hazel of her eyes, and the warmth of her sigh, promised spring, and his heart, at last, knew peace.

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