When he finished, the green wall dropped first, then Dayne slid his hand underneath the ring and the piece of pewter dropped into it.
“Done,” he said, handing it to the demon.
“You’re sure this thing will work?”
“Have a little faith.”
Faith was something Cain had discarded long ago, but he put the ring on.
Chapter Nine
“Tamar,” It was a whisper, like a hiss that floated through the still air of the demon dimension. The place was deserted except for her sleeping guards. Something about that scenario tickled at the back of her mind, but she was too panicked to think it through.
“Cain!” she shouted. But he wasn’t there either—probably out feeding on some random guileless woman who didn’t know it was going to be her last orgasm.
The whisper got closer. “Tamar.”
As she ran down the cobblestone streets, the tents and marketplace collapsed in a flutter of fabric and knocked over support poles. In their place, old stone and brick buildings rose so high they seemed to go forever into the sky, sealing her into a labyrinth she’d never find her way out of. The cobblestones beneath her feet chipped and crumbled, aging before her eyes, and suddenly she was in an alleyway she recognized.
She froze at the sound. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard—or like a sharp knife scraping over stone, dragging closer and closer. She cringed.
“Tamar.” His voice was snakelike. It seemed to wrap around her, constricting the life out. And then that horrible knife scraping, raspy as his voice when he kept saying her name.
“Cain!” She tried to scream it again, unsure why he was the one she called out for. Why not Luc or Anna? Why not the wolf pack she’d met when they’d fought Anthony? Why not anybody but the other monster in her life?
There was a deep chuckle behind her. She spun toward it, but the alley was dark and empty. Still, she heard Jack when he finally whispered something besides her name.
“Sweet, Tamar. Don’t you know he’s busy with his own whores? Let’s not bother him right now. You’re not that special.”
If that were so, why was Jack so obsessed? It had been centuries, and he couldn’t seem to let go. Had he taunted the others this way before coming for them? Her guess was no. It was a special torment he’d saved for the one who’d left his bed.
The endless alley opened onto a street with carriages and horses and properly dressed Victorian ladies all going about with parasols to protect them from the harsh sun—even though it was dark and cool. Maybe it was to protect them from something else. When they’d passed, Tam saw the carnage. Everyone he’d killed, laid out like dolls.
He’d dressed them all in white like a macabre angel massacre. Some had fewer organs and less blood than others. Some were more rushed and hurried. Some of them more methodical. She averted her eyes from her sister, the one image she’d tried not to see or know too much about. The others were hard to look at, but not like Naomi. They’d all been friends, companions as they traveled through the changing world together, until Jack had gone mad and put an end to all that.
Not everyone could handle immortality.
Tam cringed when the flat of a blade dragged across the back of her neck. She closed her eyes at the sensation of his hot breath in her ear.
“Soon, my sweet Tamar. Soon, I’m coming for you.”
She turned, surprised when he wasn’t hiding again in the shadows. He stood dressed in white like the others, like a cult leader who’d chickened out of drinking the Kool-Aid at the last minute. Tam looked down to find she, too, was dressed in white.
“Is there a ball I don’t know about?” She couldn’t help it. She knew it was a dream, and there was only so much he could do to her here. There was no sense in letting him know how much he scared her, even in a place where the danger was minimal.
He smiled. She wished the things he’d done could have made him just as ugly on the outside as the bloody death he’d wrought, but his outward appearance refused to reflect the evil within. Like Cain, he was an enticing, pretty spider, waiting for a woman to fall into his web. Tam had been there, done that.
“You still want me,” he remarked.
“Like hell I do.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right. You’ve got a new monster to scratch that dark itch for you now. You’re just as bad as I am, Tam. You think a good girl would do the things you’ve done with a demon, knowing what he is? No, you’re my lovely dark girl. I’ll see you soon. I’ve missed you.”
She couldn’t run or scream when he moved toward her, his warm lips brushing against hers. He wrapped his arms around her, and for the smallest second she remembered them before all the carnage, before he’d lost his mind—back when she’d loved him, and she wished they could go back there.
His voice fell over her like a blanket while she pretended he was pre-crazy Jack. “Why didn’t you take my offer? I would have spared you.”
His embrace turned into a vice, and then he transformed into a giant snake, wrapped around her, constricting until she couldn’t get air.
Tam sat up from the bed of fluffy pillows on the ground in her tent, her heart palpitating wildly. It would be nice to believe it was just a dream—her confused fears and past feelings all mixing together in a tapestry of nocturnal images that meant nothing. But she knew better.
As much as she didn’t want to admit it, that had been Jack. Not an apparition of him or an imagining or fear of him. Him. She knew the difference. He’d visited her in dreams before when they’d been close enough for him to form a connection. The blood that bound them all together in the spell, that had made them what they were, made such connections difficult, but not impossible, especially for someone of his power.
He’d grown too strong for her to initiate connection with him by herself, his magical wards high and always in place. Otherwise she might have been able to lead Cain and the others to him. But there was a slim chance she could, now that he’d opened a connection.
She threw some clothes on, and after a brief argument with her guards, made her way to Cain’s tent. He was sleeping. Officially, demons didn’t need sleep, feeding alone replenished them, but it wasn’t hard to see how someone as old as Cain would choose to sleep anyway. It was the one place he could escape and forget himself. Tam understood that need more than most. Even though she required sleep, still tied to normal human needs, she’d used the night and the dream world for the same reason. To forget. Not that she ever wanted to sleep again right now.
For a moment, she watched him. In sleep, there was none of the arrogant a**hole bravado to taint things. His face was peaceful and not as perfect, since he’d shed the glamour. She wanted to trace her finger over the scar a god had marked him with, but was afraid he’d wake up. She thought about waking him anyway, but if she did, it would be back to the disturbing dynamic they had. All she wanted right now was to feel safe, not banter.
She slid underneath the blankets next to him and was surprised when his arms came around her in his sleep, pulling her close. She waited for the constricting evil feeling from her dream, but it didn’t happen.
A few minutes passed like this, and she finally relaxed.
“Tam, nobody walks into my tent without me waking up,” he rumbled.
So he hadn’t been asleep. But he’d still held her like he cared. No. She wasn’t going there. All she was doing was trying to transfer some residual feeling for Jack onto the lesser evil because it felt less traumatic. But was Cain the lesser evil? Of course not. He was the worse evil. He didn’t kill my sister. But he tried to kill Anna. And hadn’t Anna been the next closest thing to a sister?
As far as she knew, Jack had killed ten people. Gruesomely, yes, but it didn’t compare to the vast number of women Cain had killed. It hardly mattered how they died. By numbers alone, Cain was the bigger monster. Transferring anything onto him was foolish. Feeling anything for either one of them at any point in time was shameful. Jack was right, she wasn’t an innocent. Why couldn’t she have loved Henry? He was good. Kind. Decent. Nice. He’d always had her back through everything for two centuries.
Maybe the more important question was, why couldn’t Henry love her like that? Had he been too kind to tell her what he’d thought of her? He’d had a soul mate waiting for him on the other side, but had he known that? Was it from his most recent life or a previous one?
Even though Cain had revealed he was awake, he hadn’t let go of her.
“Your heart was beating too fast when you got here. Was it wild lust for me or something else?”
It was easy to forget how evil he was. Sometimes he seemed so damned normal. An a**hole, yeah, but normal.
“Jack came to me in my dream.”
He gripped her tighter, but even so, it didn’t feel stifling like it was supposed to. “It was just a dream,” he said. He stroked her back, and she tried not to read too much into the gesture.
“No. It was real. Jack was there.” She couldn’t help the tears. The last thing she wanted was for Cain to see her cry. Showing that much weakness to a demon was stupid, but she was so tired. Of everything. “Why do you all have to be so evil?”
“You’re old enough to know it isn’t like that, Tam.”
“Isn’t it? How many people have you killed?”
He pushed her away and sat up, his eyes glowing red and angry in the dark. “Is that how it is now? I knew you’d start falling for me, but you don’t get to make demands. I said you’d beg me to keep you. Looks like I’m right. And if you think that’s a way to get your life spared, trotting out all my crimes and trying to domesticate me like a puppy, boy do you have the wrong demon.”
“Then f**king kill me! I never asked to be spared. Put me out of my misery like I’ve asked you to a hundred times. I told you I’d never beg you to keep me, and I never will, Cain. Let go of the dream. This is getting serious. You don’t want to keep me. I’ll never ask you to. I can’t cope with what you are, what Jack is. I want to be free. Just end it. You don’t need me to fight a war with Anthony! You don’t need me at all.” She was tempted to throw an energy ball right at his pretty monster face.