The Black God (#2, Damian Eternal Series) (25 page)

To betray him as he once had her sent her
emotions smashing to the ground. Revenge didn’t feel as good as she
thought it should.

The constriction of her chest was only
getting worse. She didn’t need Brandon to tell her what happened if
Jonny became disabled after Jonny’s explanation that Valon was a
godslayer. With trembling hands, she opened the top drawer of the
desk and spotted the single item in its depths. A knife hewn out of
one single piece of pale material was smooth and cool beneath her
fingertips. She hefted it, the dread inside her growing as she
thought about what Valon wanted her to do. It was made of material
she didn’t immediately recognize, with the lightness of wood and
the solidness of stone. Was it ivory? Bone?

“Why us?” she whispered. “Why didn’t he take
some other Naturals to torture?”

“Because of our skills and because he wants
to use us to keep … Xander in check. He found you at the club. He
found me … by tracing the cell phone, same as Jonny.” Brandon’s
good eye closed and he sagged more. “Hurry … Ashley. Disable Jonny
… and go to the location … on knife.”

She glanced down. In the glow of the screen,
she was able to make out numbers written on the blade, coordinates
like those Brandon used in his emergency app.

“Memorize and erase … the numbers,” Brandon
directed her. “He says now.”

She repeated the numbers several times then
wiped the blade clean.

The monitor on Brandon’s end flickered
off.

“No, no, no! Come back, Brand!” she
whispered frantically and touched the screen. Her brother was in
bad shape – but alive.

“Natural!” Charles called from down the
hallway.

Ashley’s gaze flew up towards the door. She
swiped away tears she hadn’t felt form and shoved the knife into a
pocket. Flipping off the monitor, she stood hastily before Charles
had reached the doorway.

“All clear.” Her voice was choked.

He peered into the room. “Are you well?”

“Very.” She cleared her throat. “Just
worried about my brother.”

The explanation seemed to satisfy him. His
attention went to the darkness of the hallway.

“I checked everything,” she told him.

“All right. C’mon.”

Ashley steadied herself the best she could
and left the office. Her hands trembled, and she had the urge to
run or fight or dance or just stand and scream. Brandon needed
help, but his mission …

It was crazy for her to feel torn when her
brother needed her to act! Why did stabbing Jonny with the knife
seem like the worst option she had when Brandon’s life depended
upon it?

Valon won’t free either of
us,
whispered her instincts. If anything,
Jonny was in a position to help her. He was aggressively hunting
down the rogues and likely to find Brandon. To risk Brandon’s life
because she failed to act, however, wasn’t an option, even if Jonny
found Brandon before sunrise.

“Natural!”

She blinked and realized Charles had been
talking to her while they stood in the hallway. “I’m sorry,
what?”

He eyed her. “I said, I’m disappointed we
didn’t find more.”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head and motioned for her to
follow him. She did so woodenly, her emotions all over the place as
she considered the choice she had to make. A world without Jonny or
one without Brandon? It shouldn’t have been hard, and she berated
herself over and over for the confusion she experienced when the
answer was supposed to be clear. 

Brandon. Her choice had to be Brandon.
Always Brandon.

Yet it made her start to panic to know Jonny
was going to die at the hands of Valon if she followed through with
it.

She barely registered the light touch of a
Traveler and the world shifting around her. They materialized
somewhere other than the location where they’d left from, and she
forced her thoughts to the world outside her head as she oriented
herself.

They were on the ocean, somewhere warm and
humid. Palm trees were framed against the night sky and a dock
facing the ocean before her. The mansion behind her was large and
white, its property sprawling for more than ten acres and edged by
tall walls of concrete.

“My hunch was wrong,” she heard Charles
say.

Ashley didn’t dare turn around to confirm he
spoke to Jonny. Xander had taught her some thought suppression
techniques to use when faced with a mind reader, and she was in no
emotional state to control her thoughts. Neither did she have any
clue where to go since they were somewhere new.

“I’m going for a quick walk,” she called
over her shoulder and then struck out towards the private beach
without waiting for anyone to respond.

Ashley didn’t start to relax until a solid
five minutes passed. She stood on the white sand and stared at the
ocean, unable to shake the vision of her brother or the choice
Valon had given her.

Stop, Ash, stop!
Jonny was dangerous for many reasons, and one of
them was his ability to strip away her defenses to see what she was
thinking if she didn’t get hold of herself. He’d been somewhat
reserved on that front, compared to what he could have done, but if
he grew suspicious, if she gave him a reason to push inside her
head …

She clenched her head
between her hands. “Stop thinking,” she told herself. “Stop
feeling
!” Emotion had
always been her downfall when it came to thought suppression, and
the fresh pain of seeing her brother suffer wasn’t allowing her the
control over her mind she desperately needed.

For the second time, the world felt too
real. Too likely to hurt them, and she didn’t know how to pretend
it wasn’t the case so she could rein in her own mind.

“You found nothing.”

Oh, god. Not yet.
Dropping her hands, Ashley squeezed her eyes
closed and willed her thoughts quiet. Her breathing was off.
Someone as perceptive as Jonny was going to notice she wasn’t quite
right.

But she prayed he didn’t.

“No,” she answered.

“And nothing happened.” By the calm note in
his voice, he was already suspicious.

“Nothing,” she lied. “It’s so fucking
frustrating. I know he’s hurt. I know he’s scared. I don’t know how
to do anything.” She reached for the strange knife in her pocket,
itching to get the worst part over with, and withdrew it.

She also wasn’t able to stomach stabbing
Jonny and knowing he wasn’t likely to recover this time. She warred
with herself internally, furious and worried, unable to justify why
she shouldn’t hurt Jonny and unable to convince herself it was the
right thing to do, either.

In the end, she was too twisted up inside to
act before he touched her. Jonny approached from behind and wrapped
an arm around her. The crippling combination of knowing she’d
always loved him too much and needing him again sent her insides
flaming with desire and anticipation. As a teenager, she’d lusted
for him. But this … this was something more than hormones. The
yearning was deeper, primal, a need she didn’t ever think would be
met no matter how many nights they spent together.

He maneuvered her to face him, and she felt
herself turning her head to expose her neck without a second
thought. She gripped the knife and held it against her thigh,
paralyzed by emotion and the need to feel Jonny’s skin against
hers. His eyes glowed almost fully red and his arousal pressed to
her lower belly. His fangs were out, his grip around her
strong.

“I hate you right now,” she said
breathlessly.

“I’m not surprised.”

He kissed her, and she melted against him,
overwhelmed by his scent and the furnace at the base of her belly
that left her crippled. His mouth left hers to trail hot kisses and
fiery nips down the side of her jaw to her neck. Ashley sighed,
lost to him, at least, until she felt his free hand tighten around
the wrist holding the knife.

She jerked then, senses returning. Panic lit
inside her at the thought of losing her brother because she’d let
herself fall under Jonny’s spell.

“What was your plan?” he whispered, refusing
to release her.

“Jonny …”

“Wrong answer.”

Ashley’s breathing grew erratic, and she
strained for a moment.

“Answer my question.” Jonny’s controlled,
hard tone was worse than him screaming at her.

“I don’t know,” she managed finally. “I
don’t know.”

He held her in place. “Let go.”

Ashley refused for a long moment. If he
wanted to use his power to force her, he could. “Jonny, they’re
going to kill him.”

“I won’t let that happen. Now, let go.”

She obeyed. He slid the knife from her hand
and tossed it.

His mouth found hers, and he kissed her
harder than he had before, his lips branding her in a way that sent
a surge of hot need through her. Any other thought burnt to ashes
in the face of his passion, and she clung to him, channeling her
tortured emotion into desire.

Jonny Traveled to a large bedroom on the
second floor. Ashley’s hands slid under his shirt, and she pushed
it over his head and flung it away before her shaking fingers went
to the button of his jeans.

With urgency, they tore each other’s
clothing off and collapsed into bed, a mad frenzy of lust and
emotion burning them up from the inside out. Any restraint she’d
held the first night with him melted, and Ashley lost herself in
her senses, in the feel of his hot skin against hers, in their hard
breathing.

Hours later, when they both were spent, she
collapsed on top of him, panting. Jonny was little better off, his
breathing ragged and both of their bodies covered by a sheen of
sweat. Jonny’s arms circled her loosely, and he kissed her temple
before shifting them onto their sides. She closed her eyes as his
teeth sank painlessly into her neck and tucked her face into his
shoulder.

He didn’t feed long, and she was still,
listening to his heartbeat. Too worn out to tense in the quiet that
followed, she nonetheless began to feel scared again as she came
down from the afterglow of sex.

“Tell me everything,” he whispered.

Ashley didn’t feel him in her mind, but she
wasn’t capable of stopping him from entering, either. She complied
– until she reached the point about the coordinates. That tidbit
she did her best to suppress. When she finished, Jonny was quiet.
She held her breath, praying she’d managed to hide what she wanted
to. She wasn’t going to be able to hurt Jonny now that he knew, but
she could still surrender to Valon and hope for the best.

She breathed in Jonny’s masculine scent. She
was too comfortable with him. It was too natural for her body to
mold to his hard form. “I like this,” she said sadly. “And I hate
you for it.”

“Ash, I know things are weird between us.
But … if you ask for my help …” He trailed off.

She heard it again, the note in his voice
that sometimes appeared when he wasn’t trying to be an unfeeling
robot. She shifted her head back to see his face in the dim light
of the bedroom. The glow of his eyes was muted. “No,” she said
before she could stop herself. “I don’t want to ask you for
anything. I don’t want anything to be between us. Good, bad,
other.” Even as she spoke, she tucked her face into the nape of his
neck so she could breathe in the scent that sent a thrill through
her.

“You just fucked me like it’s our last day
alive. That’s not something someone like you can walk away
from.”

I know.
Troubled by her confusion, she traced the line of
his jaw with her fingertips. “I want to kill Valon.”

“No,” Jonny said firmly. “This is between
him and me.”

“It’s not that easy. He has
Brandon. He has my
brother
.”

“And I will get him back.”

“You?” She pushed onto her elbows. “Why,
Jonny? Why would you do anything for us?”

“It’s my duty.” He touched her face lightly
and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

She rolled her eyes. “And I’m a means to
your end.”

“Yes.”

She was beginning to think, though, that his
interest was more than his duty. His lovemaking was too intense,
too passionate, for her to be only a tool to him. Even now his hand
was straying down her body, tracing circles on the skin of her
back. If their history had taught her anything, it was that she
never truly knew what he felt. She’d never known the real him, not
four years ago, not today.

“I feel like a fool,” she said. “I should’ve
stabbed you. I should’ve just done it and freed Brandon.”

“Because Valon would keep his word.”

“What if he did?”

“Ashley, don’t be naïve. It’s a trap. He’s
waiting to vamp Brandon until the last minute, when he has you.
Then he’ll vamp you both. A fighter like you and a vamp
undetectable to Guardians?” Jonny shook his head. “He’d win the
double lottery. I’m jealous just thinking about it.”

“You know better than to cross Xander.”

“Valon wants my position. Chances are, he’s
got a plan to deal with Xander. Every step he’s taken has been
calculated and planned. You and Brandon give him a leg up over me.
He can wipe out my vamps with the two of you helping him then come
for me.”

She didn’t want Jonny to make sense. “Would
you save Brandon if it meant you lost say, fifty vamps doing
it?”

His silence crushed her.

Tears stung her eyes. “I’m going after him.
I don’t give a fuck what you do to me, Jonny.”

“No, Ash, you won’t. There’s a strategy to
this struggle with Valon. He’s not going to let Brandon die, but
you showing up is going to make him vamp your brother.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s what I’d do if I were him,” Jonny
said.