Octavian's Undoing (Sons of Judgment) (53 page)

Valkyrie stared at her, a look of bafflement on her pretty face. “He’s immortal. He can’t die unless his body is burned. Get some healing ointment and—”

Riley sniffled. “What?”

Valkyrie rolled her eyes. “Get the—”

“Not that!” She smeared more blood across her cheek as she wiped at tears. “He’s not dead?”

The look Valkyrie gave her was one most people reserved for really stupid people. Riley would have been highly offended if she wasn’t still reeling from what she was being told.

“He,” Valkyrie said very slowly, “is
immortal
. He,” she punctuated again, “
can’t
die unless you set his ass
on fire
… literally.”

Trembling with relief, Riley scuttled onto her knees and leaned over Octavian. She pressed her ear to his chest and held her breath. And there it was, soft and steady in the hard cavity of his chest. The sound was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard in her life. It was like the song of life, the reason for her living. She closed her eyes and drowned in it.

Valkyrie stomped further into the room and took another survey of the carnage. “Man I would hate to be the one to clean this up.”

“Can I go home now?” Daphne peeped, still huddled in front of the door, clutching her enormous purse.

Valkyrie glowered at her. “Sit!” She jabbed at a nearby chair with the end of one of her daggers. “Breathe and I’ll cut your throat out.”

Riley raised her head off its resting place on Octavian’s chest and glanced at the others. “Will they all be all right?” she asked as Daphne scuttled deeper into the room and dropped into the chair indicated.

“Immortal,” Valkyrie sing-songed in an aggravated tone.

Riley wiped her face with the sleeve of her coat. Then, without a word, she leapt to her feet and tackled Valkyrie in a fierce embrace, catching the other girl completely off guard.

“What the…”

“Thank you!” Riley said, squeezing her tight. “You saved our lives.”

Stiff as an ironing board, Valkyrie just stood there, arms down at her sides. “Uh… okay.”

Riley drew back to peer into her face. “He would have killed all of them if you hadn’t shown up. I owe you everything.”

Valkyrie shifted back several steps, putting space between her and Riley. The look on her face was comical, like a spooked rabbit. “Don’t… mention it? It’s my job… I think… just… stay there, ‘k?” She motioned to where Riley was already standing. “I’m going to go find the healing ointment… and my sanity.”

With a last dubious glance at Riley, Valkyrie turned on her heels and marched into the kitchen. The door swung closed behind her and Riley was left alone with a very frightened Daphne.

Very slowly, Riley turned to the other girl.

“I know this seems very strange,” she began slowly, keeping her tone light.

Daphne shook her head, paused, and shrugged. “No, I get it.”

Riley blinked. “You do?”

Daphne shrugged again. “You’re part of some cult and everyone but you drank the Kool Aid, right?”

“Uh… not quite…”

Thankfully, Valkyrie took that moment to return carrying a familiar basket full of canisters and bottles. She set it down on the counter and shrugged out of her long, leather coat. She dropped that down on the counter.

Underneath, she wore a short, leather halter with leather bands wrapped around both arms in spirals down to her wrists. She wore impossibly tight leather pants that looked like they could deflect just about any kind of water as well as cut all circulation. The girl really liked leather, Riley mused.

“All right, you, twiggy.” She pointed to Daphne. “You get the fat head over there.” She flicked a dismissive finger towards Gideon.

“I’m not twiggy!” Daphne muttered. “I’m naturally slender and I don’t do cosplay, but thanks.”

Valkyrie ignored her. “Little Miss Touchy-Feely, you get your boy toy and I’ll—”

“I can’t,” Riley murmured, looking longingly at Octavian. “I can’t touch him.”

Valkyrie expelled a lungful of exasperated air. “All right, I’ll get him. You get the other one.” She pointed to Reggie.

She tossed each of them a small, gold canister. It was the size of a compact, sleek and filled with a smooth, white cream that smelled of mint and something Riley couldn’t put a finger on.

“It’s monkey poop,” Valkyrie said, catching Riley sniffing the cream.

Riley jerked her arm back. “Seriously?”

Smirking, Valkyrie started for Octavian. “Could be.”

Glowering at her, Riley moved to where Reggie sat slumped against the bottom of the bar. Gingerly, she pulled his body down to a more comfortable position and lifted his shirt over the long gashes and the single puncture wound just beneath his ribs.

“Wow…”

Riley jumped. She hadn’t heard Daphne come up behind her. “Geez!”

“Those look so real!” Daphne gasped, starring bug-eyed at Reggie’s beautifully sculpted frame. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as Octavian’s, but it was all right, in Riley’s opinion. “And he is so much hotter without his clothes on!”

“Hey, keep the girly hormones to a low simmer. Get to work,” Valkyrie shot after them. She already had Octavian’s chest covered in the cream.

Daphne rolled her eyes. “So are they roleplaying or something? I mean, they’re not going to jump up and scare the shit out of us are they ‘cause I only brought one pair of underwear.”

“No,” Riley murmured, dipping three fingers into the cream and gingerly applying it to a cut running lengthwise down Reggie’s abdomen. The cut faded, then dissolved altogether so the flesh became as flawless as before.

Giving Reggie a last appreciative once over, Daphne shuffled over to Gideon.

“What does this stuff do?” Daphne asked, following Riley’s lead and dabbing cream on Gideon’s shoulder. “Oh hey! That’s pretty cool. It wipes the makeup off.” She leaned in closer, nose nearly touching Gideon’s chest as she squinted at a nasty wound slicing apart flesh to reveal bone. “That looks so real! You can see bone and everything. You guys take playing
Dungeons and Dragons
to a whole new level of extreme.”

Riley made no comment, not sure the girl could handle the truth just yet. Plus, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be the one to tell her.

They were nearly done when the front door opened and Magnus marched in. He took one look at the room and cursed.

“What the fuck happened?” He ran to his mother, dropping down at her side and scooping her tiny body up out of the blood.

“Strigoi,” Valkyrie said, switching Octavian for Liam.

He lay his mother down and gently lifted her top to the hole in her abdomen. “What?” He took the canister Valkyrie offered him and wrenched off the top. “Why would a strigoi do this?”

“He was here for me,” Riley murmured from her kneeling position next to Octavian. “He was following orders.”

A dark frown pinched the center of Magnus’ brow. “Ordered?” He worked the cream into the wound in his mother’s side. “Strigoi don’t take orders.”

“Unless it’s coming from a Master,” Valkyrie reminded him.

“But why would a strigoi Master want Riley?”

That’s what Riley wanted to know, but if Magnus was confused, odds were that she wasn’t getting an answer either.

“Whatever it was,” Valkyrie said. “He didn’t get it and you know what that means.”

The two exchanged knowing glances.

“What?” Riley asked when neither was forthcoming with an answer.

From the bar, Reggie groaned. He sat up, rubbing the back of his skull. “Ow…!” He squinted through one good eye around the room. “Man that was one bad ass strigoi.”

A little ways away, Gideon stirred and sat up as well. “Tell me we got the son of a bitch.”

“The only thing you got was your ass kicked,” Valkyrie supplied helpfully. “Luckily for you, I was here to keep you from becoming BBQ. You can thank me later.”

Gideon groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Aw man! Why couldn’t I have just died?”

Liam awoke next. He sat up, his head turning almost instinctively in his wife’s direction. “Kyaerin.”

She didn’t react, not even when he scooped her up into his arms and cradled her the way one would a child. He smoothed the hairs off her face, wiped the blood from her cheek and pressed a kiss to her brow, all the while murmuring in a language that Riley had never heard before, but it flowed like steady brook over smooth stones. The musical hum of words seemed to do the trick. Kyaerin’s lashes fluttered against the rosy slopes of her cheeks like butterfly wings preparing for lift off. They lifted and sleep blue eyes met his. She blinked. Her hand found the side of his face.

“Liam.”

“
Mo chroí
,” Liam breathed, drawing her tighter into his arms. His fingers slipped into her heavy mane of curls as he pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder.

Riley averted her eyes, feeling like an intruder to an intimate moment she shouldn’t be witness to. Everyone else in the room seemed to be doing the same, inexplicably fascinated by everything and anything but the two huddled on the floor, lost in their own world.

Riley turned her attention to her own mate. Her insides ached with the need to see the gray of his eyes. It had already been so long. Why hadn’t he awakened already?

Desperate and trying so hard not to panic, she turned to the others in the room, hoping against all odds that one of them would have an answer.

“He took the worst of it,” Liam told her, catching her eye. “He wouldn’t let the creature into the kitchen, but he was completely alone and unarmed.”

“He was trying to protect me,” she murmured, feeling her eyes sting.

“Why would a strigoi do that?” Kyaerin asked her husband. “We have always had a reasonably civil relationship with the Forsaken.”

“It was ordered,” Magnus said. “He told Riley as much.”

Liam frowned. “Ordered? Only a Master can order—”

“Exactly,” Magnus interjected.

Kyaerin shook her head. “But why would a strigoi Master want Riley?”

“That’s the million dollar question,” Magnus said.

“This is becoming ridiculous.” Kyaerin exclaimed, pushing to her feet. Magnus was there in a flash when she swayed. He caught her arm, holding her steady as she pressed her free hand to her brow. “I think I may need to lie down a moment.” She offered the room a slight smile. “I’m not as young as I once was. It seems that it will take a moment longer for me to recover from a wound.”

Liam was up behind her, taking her other elbow. “I’ll walk you.”

She leaned gratefully into him as they started for the kitchen. But they couldn’t have taken more than a handful of steps when there was a
whoosh
followed by a scream and then a thud as a body hit the ground. Everybody in the room stiffened, expecting another attack. Instead, it was Daphne. She was on the ground, crab crawling backwards away from Gideon who had poofed himself across the room to stop her from leaving.

“Not so fast, lovely,” he told her. The transportation from one end of the room to the other after being brought back to life only moments earlier zapped the little remaining strength he possessed and he slumped against the door.

“You… you… you…!” Daphne seemed incapable of coherent speech as she gawked wide-eyed at Gideon.

“Me, me, me,” Gideon groaned, sliding to the ground, legs sprawling uselessly in front of him.

“It’s all right, Daphne,” Riley said, moving to help her friend to her feet. “No one will hurt you.”

Daphne jerked her arm free of Riley’s grasp. “He just…” She made a chaotic waving motion with both her hands towards Gideon, “from thin air! Did you see?”

Riley nodded slowly. “Yes.”

Daphne stared at her, seemingly waiting for something. “And? Is that all you can say? The dude just…”