Sacrifice (27 page)

“Yeah?” I glanced at Karayan, curious.

The doorbell rang, and Karayan’s eyes shifted over my shoulder eagerly.

“Ooo. Gotta go.” She bounced off her stool and made a beeline for the front door. She’d left her phone on the island. I shoveled another bite of eggs into my mouth, then picked it up.

“Hey, you forgot your phone—” I froze at the threshold between the dining room and the foyer.

Karayan had opened the door. Hale stood on the threshold, clutching a magnificent bouquet of bluebells in one hand. Dozens of slender stalks arched from his grip, each supporting a collection of vibrant, purple-blue blossoms.

Karayan gave a little squeal of delight. “For me?” But then she hesitated, her eyes snagging on the blossoms. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to Hale’s face. He wasn’t smiling. The color drained out of Karayan’s face as realization struck her.
He knew.

“So it’s true?” Hale lowered the bouquet. It hung, forgotten, by his side. “You’ve been coming to my dreams? Pretending to be my
wife?
”

Karayan opened her mouth to answer, but no words came.

Hale studied her, his grief transforming slowly to anger. “I wondered about all the bluebells, showing up night after night. It’s one of the things they train us to watch out for in the Guard, unusual repetition of objects or symbols.”

“I can explain.” Karayan lifted a hand toward him, but he jerked away from her touch, letting the bluebells drop to the ground beside him.

“Don’t bother.”

“Hale, I was just—”

“I know what you were doing.” A muscle in his jaw jumped. I could see the tension gathering in his shoulders.

Karayan stared at Hale, stricken. “I thought—I thought we—”

“We what?” Hale’s face could have been carved from stone. “We’d get a happily ever after? End up playing house together somewhere?”

Crimson shame flooded Karayan’s cheeks, but she tried to shrug it off. “Please. I’m not some vapid teenager with her eyes full of stars.”

Hale’s voice dropped to a low growl. “You betrayed our friendship, Karayan.”

Karayan looked stung, but—struggling to gather the last shreds of her pride—she forced herself to shrug. “That seems a little dramatic, even for a Guardsman. As I remember it, you had a good time in those dreams, too.”

“Don’t provoke me, Karayan.” Something in Hale’s glare made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

“Ah yes. And now we come to the threatening portion of the morning’s chat.” Karayan crossed her arms, but she couldn’t completely sell her feigned indifference. “Let me guess, you’re kicking me out of the Guard.”

“No. You’re too useful to our cause. I’m not going to tell the others what you’ve done; that would generate unnecessary friction.”

I saw Karayan’s shoulders ease slightly.

Hale wasn’t finished. “You and I will never work together again. Stay away from me, Karayan. I mean it.” Without taking his eyes off of Karayan, Hale barked at me, “Braedyn. Grab your things. You’re on duty.”

“But—I’m supposed to search more caves with Dad today—”

Hale’s eyes shifted to my face, silencing my objections instantly. Two minutes later, I was following him out the door to his car, a hastily packed lunch shoved into my backpack.

I risked one quick glance back. Karayan watched us go, frozen at the door. Her eyes looked hollow. A dull ache spread through my chest, but there was nothing I could do to help her. That was the curse of a broken heart; the suffering Karayan faced, she had to face alone.

Hale drove in silence. I wasn’t about to intrude on his thoughts.

I sat still as a statue, hands clutched tightly in my lap, through the long drive out to the mission. When he finally pulled to a stop outside the old stone building, he killed the engine and sat, silent, for a long moment, still gripping the wheel.

“Did you know?” Hale spoke quietly, but the pain in his voice was quite audible. “Did she tell you what she was up to?”

I took a deep breath, then let it out. “She never meant to hurt you.”

Hale glanced at me. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I thought—” I shook my head, miserable. “She loves you, Hale. I think she thought you loved her, too.”

He winced.

“Look, I’m not making excuses for her. What she did was totally wrong.” I couldn’t keep my voice from trembling—this was suddenly way too close to home. “But visiting your dreams? It was the only way you two could be together without you getting hurt.”

“You don’t think I got hurt?” Hale’s eyes smoldered.

“You know what I mean.” I swallowed, then caught his eye. “I know how it feels to love someone you can barely touch for fear of hurting them. You think it’s easy? It’s not. If Karayan didn’t care for you, do you think she would be fighting her attraction to you so hard? Do you think she’d limit her pursuit of you to dreams?”

“She has no right to
pursue
me,” Hale snapped.

“You don’t see how you led her on?” My voice came out sharper than I’d intended. Hale looked up, gauging me closely. “All those long post-shift conversations on our front porch? All that talk of how two adults shouldn’t have to explain themselves to anyone else?”

Hale had the good grace to lower his gaze then.

“Come on, you got drunk with her, alone, and ended up wrestling all over my living room floor. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but where I come from that’s pretty obviously flirting. Are you honestly going to tell me you don’t have feelings for her?”

Hale didn’t respond.

“Hale.” I wasn’t willing to let it go. “Do you have feelings for Karayan or not?”

Hale was silent for an aching moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse with conflicting emotions. “It doesn’t matter. A relationship between a human and a Lilitu will never work.” In one swift motion, he opened his door. “That’s something I shouldn’t have to explain to you.” He climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him.

I stared after him, stricken. His words trickled icy fingers of despair down the back of my neck. Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t hear the other car pull into the dirt lot behind me. I opened my door and stood, coming face to face with Amber.

But it was another voice that sent a new tension shooting through my body.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Rhea straightened, having just pulled two bags of supplies out of the back of her car.

“Excuse me?” I felt myself bristling. This was getting old, and fast. “I’m doing my job, same as you, Rhea.”

Rhea shook her head. She tossed a bag to Amber. “Here.” Rhea eyed me as she closed and locked her car. “Listen, demon. You stay out of our way.”

Rhea shouldered me aside. Amber’s eyebrow quirked up, but she followed Rhea into the mission wordlessly. Perfect. The last thing I needed was for Rhea to take Amber under her wing. If Amber had to train with a spotter, why couldn’t it be Gretchen or—well,
anyone
other than that stocky Ice Bitch.

I sighed, closing the truck’s door behind me. A brief hope flared in my mind. Maybe now that Amber was here, I’d be excused to return to my previously scheduled cave-day with Dad. Because even that hot, dusty work seemed suddenly pleasant compared to the prospect of spending the day trapped in a stone mission with Amber and Rhea for company.

When I entered the mission, however, that fledgling hope withered and died.

“Braedyn, I need you here.” Hale gestured to the front post, facing the Seal straight on.

“Um… what about Amber and Rhea?” I asked quietly. Hale glanced at me, frowning.

“Rhea’s training Amber today. I need someone who can devote her full attention to watching for Lilitu movement from the Seal.” Hale strode away without another word.

I sighed. Awesome. Not only did I have to share breathing space with Amber and Rhea, I’d managed to alienate the one friend I had within a 20-mile radius. It was going to be a kick-ass day, I could already tell. I let my eyes drift upwards and sucked in a sharp breath. I’d pictured the post-explosion mission with a hole in the roof – but the truth was, most of the structure that had once been the sanctuary’s ceiling was completely gone. Somehow—without the ceiling—the stone mission seemed even more beautiful. I could see the faint wispy clouds drifting lazily across an otherwise clear blue sky.

I leaned back against one of the sanctuary’s stone columns, fixing my attention on the Seal. It was quiet. The late morning light poured through the two or three stained glass windows that hadn’t shattered above. It filled the small sanctuary with splashes of bright color. There was a certain majestic calm to this old mission—if you could forget about the portal-to-a-demon-plane parked right in the middle of the sanctuary.

“Rounds,” Hale called. All but two other Guardsmen and Hale left then, to do their quick walk of the mission’s perimeter.

Prepared for a long, boring shift, I pulled a bottle of water out of the bag at my feet, not taking my eyes off the Seal for more than a second. Might as well stay hydrated.

But as I unscrewed the cap, I heard Rhea’s shrill voice cutting through the quiet sanctuary.

“—made my feelings clear about being in the same place as her!”

I spotted Rhea, nearby in a pool of shade under the sanctuary’s balcony. She was confronting Hale as Amber stood awkwardly by. I honed my attention onto them, suddenly alert.

“And I believe I’ve made it clear that if you wish to continue serving in the Guard, you’ll follow the orders given to you.”

Rhea shook her head, her lips peeled back in a superior grimace. “You can’t see where this is headed? Trusting her is going to end up costing someone their life, and you can be damn sure it won’t be mine.”

Amber glanced in my direction.

Quickly, I shifted my eyes back to the Seal, caught. I could feel the slow burn of embarrassment coloring my cheeks. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care what Rhea thought, that she’d made up her mind about me from the start and there was nothing I could do to change it so why waste the energy? And yet, prickles of shame cascaded over my back and arms anyway.

Hale said something that inflamed Rhea further, but he turned and walked toward the mission’s doors without waiting for her response. I glanced back, unable to contain my curiosity. Rhea stared after Hale, rigid with anger. Then she noticed me watching, and her eyes clouded with an even darker rage.

“Amber!” Rhea snapped her fingers, and Amber followed on her heels without argument. In Rhea’s hurry to get away from me, she turned her back on the Seal. Amber, following after her, was two steps behind when the Lilitu struck.

It happened so fast I barely had time to scream a warning. “Behind you!”

I leapt forward, drawing my daggers in one smooth motion. The blades snapped apart and I gripped the hilts, ready for the fight. Amber half-turned, sensing too late the demon launching toward her back.

But Rhea’s eyes were fixed on me. Her mouth wrenched into a snarl and she drew her own daggers—lunging herself directly at me. I had a fraction of a second to adjust. As Rhea swept her daggers for my throat I dropped, hitting the slick stone floor with my hip and sliding under Rhea’s reach.

Amber finished her turn and saw the Lilitu sprinting toward her from the Seal, revealed in her full demon aspect. White skin stretched over a bony frame. Pitch black eyes fixed on Amber’s face. The demon grimaced as she charged, baring her weirdly metallic teeth.

Amber let out a blood-curdling scream, frozen in place.

I reached Amber as the Lilitu swiped at her—those long black claws just as fatal as the daggers Rhea had swung at me. Without time for thought, I kicked Amber’s feet out from under her. She fell backwards just as the Lilitu’s claws shredded the air where her head had been a microsecond earlier. Amber hit the ground hard, but the jolt seemed to snap her back to her senses. The Lilitu’s momentum carried her forward—and her legs tangled with Amber, now sprawled on the ground. The Lilitu pitched forward, colliding gracelessly with the stone floor. Wasting no time, Amber rolled to her hands and knees and scrambled to her feet, desperate to get away. The Lilitu’s hiss of rage sent a chill spearing through my middle.

“Amber!” I shoved myself to my hands and knees, ready to tackle the Lilitu—

When Rhea’s fist closed in my hair. Without a word, Rhea wrenched me back down to the ground and sprinted after the Lilitu. Unprepared, I hit the ground elbow first. A sickening snap just preceded a searing pain that shot through my arm. The pain was so intense it drove the air from my lungs. It wasn’t until the next breath that I found the strength to scream.

The Lilitu curled one clawed hand around Amber’s shoulder. Rhea attacked her from behind. The Lilitu, prepared for this, whipped around savagely. She backhanded Rhea so hard the spotter dropped senselessly to the floor, her daggers clattering from her hands. Hale was sprinting toward Amber, but he was still halfway to the doors. The other two Guardsmen weren’t much closer, and one of them seemed to be heading for the unconscious Rhea.

Ahead of me, Amber crashed into the sanctuary wall, trapped. The Lilitu stood between her and any chance of escape. I grabbed a dagger with my good hand and forced myself to my feet, battling another wave of nausea as my broken arm swung uselessly by my side. Amber turned to face the Lilitu. The demon closed on Amber, reaching for the girl’s throat—but Amber made a jerking motion and the Lilitu fell back, with another hiss. Only this time, it was a hiss of
pain.