The Mortal Bone (21 page)

I could feel their hearts.

Whatever they had done, their emotions were now mine. I wondered if this was what they had felt for the last ten thousand years: the heart of their Hunter, beating and loving and hating, like a ghost inside their chests. Confusing them, making them wonder if what they felt was real or someone else. Forcing them to pick apart their own hearts to be sure.

Eventually wearing them down, so that it didn’t matter anymore if what they felt was real. It was all the same. Just one heart.

What they felt now was ecstasy. Rapture. Pleasure that bordered on agony.

I
was in agony.

They will never let this go,
whispered the darkness.
As much as they hated us, they loved our power.

Keep your fucking power,
I snarled in my mind—but the darkness rested in my throat like the promise of a song, and I started to laugh. It was not my laughter. I was only a passenger, unable to stop that fierce wild sound from spilling out of my mouth—a sound shaped like a tongue tasting the air.

I scented anger and unease from the demon lords. I scented jealousy.

Zee and the others started laughing, as well: sharp, rasping sounds, like a chain saw born from a giggle. It sounded insane. It sounded like the boys were on the edge of doing something crazy. Which they totally were. I knew what that darkness could do to
me
. I remembered every death and act of destruction I’d caused while under its influence. I remembered the joy I’d taken in that death. Pure, beautiful joy.

I had resisted, though. I had fought back.

The boys had no intention of doing the same.

“Draean,”
whispered Zee.

Lord Draean slopped with blood, watching him with hard, bulging eyes. Five minutes before, he had been slightly overweight. Now his skin sagged, as though all the fat had been sucked out of his body. He had trouble standing, leaning over as if he was about to collapse.

Zee and the boys, however, seemed larger, sleeker, as though the rough edges of their skins were being polished away.

“Draean,”
whispered Zee, again, as Raw and Aaz edged forward, dragging those spikes through the stone floor.
“Draean, come to us.”

The demon lord trembled but did not move. K’ra’an and Oanu backed away from him. Only Ha’an remained, watching Zee, then me.

My legs moved. I did not lurch or stumble, but instead walked with grace, like a dancer, across the floor toward Lord Draean.

But it was not my own free will. I had not intended to take that first step toward the demon lord, and once I started, I could not stop.

“Bring him,” Zee said, and this time the power had faded from his voice but not the command.

I started reaching for Lord Draean before I even knew what I was doing.

I had some free will, though. When he tried to knock me aside, I punched him in the gut. He bent over, grunting, his blood-soaked shirt clinging to his now-jutting ribs. Up close, he smelled like a meat grinder. His eyes were horrible.

“I’m going to kill you,” he whispered to me. “I’m going to eat your bones.”

“You and a million other jackasses,” I muttered, and grabbed the back of his neck, shoving him toward Raw and Aaz, who caught him as he staggered to his knees. Blood poured from his mouth when he hit the ground, as though the impact had jogged his guts loose.

“Power, you feel,” Zee rasped. “Power, in
us
.”

Draean laughed, wiping his wet mouth. “Fine. You have power. But what does that even mean? Nothing, Zee’akka. Nothing at all.”

I smiled, and this time it was all me. “Do you want to die? Do you want your entire people to die?”

“Better than being
their
slaves,” he said, as his left eyeball began sliding free of its socket. “Better to die in defiance than live at their whim.”

“It was not like that,” Oanu growled, slamming the tip of his tail into the ground. “We were not slaves.”

“They owned us,” K’ra’an said. “Is that not the very definition?”

“We were at war.”

“Exactly,” Draean stabbed his finger into the stones, and it crumpled as if his bones were turning to mush. “And where is the war now? Where is the purpose to all that power? Power is nothing without an eye on the horizon. A hunger. A need. No war, no need. And this world is
ripe
. This world is soft, and lush. We will feed a long time. We will make it last. And if it the Aetar come, we will fight free, with alliances of our own choosing . . . that have nothing to do with you. We have seen the consequence of your failure. All that great and
mighty
strength was not enough to save us. You were weak. You were
always
weak.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Nothing has changed. Except that now you must draw your power from a human. That is pathetic.”

“She is the Vessel,” said Lord Ha’an, softly.

“She is nothing but flesh and blood,” replied Draean. “If that great power chose to inhabit a pregnant human woman, then I have no fear of it and no respect.”

His words. His words hit me.

My world stopped. My entire world.

Draean frowned at me, spitting out several teeth. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I tore my gaze from him, staring at Zee. He showed nothing on his face, but I felt regret pour into my heart. Regret and resolve. Behind those emotions, though, was the darkness and its hunger, spreading through the demon like an infection.

“You knew,” I said, stung with a betrayal so deep I could hardly stand it.

“Got what we need,” he rasped. “Leave us.”

“No—” I began, but the armor tingled, and I felt a tug on my body that was familiar, and cold.

Just before I was forced into the void, Zee stepped forward and slammed his fist into Draean’s chest. Bone cracked. Blood and other fluids gushed from the hole, as though his innards had already liquefied and were waiting for an outlet. The smell was terrible. I felt like I was going to vomit.

Which I did, moments later, when I fell through the void into the Seattle apartment, sprawled on all fours and holding my stomach.

Dek spilled onto the ground beside me, as did Mal. Both of them, hissing softly. I shoved them away from me, hissing back. Furious and hurt.

That darkness still oozed, an endless snake uncoiling inside my veins.

Emotions not my own continued to pummel me. Five heartbeats, filled with hunger and rage—and concern. I tried to push it all aside but could do no such thing. I could barely handle my own feelings.

I was pregnant. I was going to be a mother.

“Maxine,” Grant said, behind me.

I burst into tears.

CHAPTER 19

I
was still crying thirty minutes later, but the tears had slowed to nothing but damp eyes and the sniffles. So had the outpouring of that dark power, which was quiet now, resting. Whatever the boys were doing, it didn’t involve any shock, awe, and destruction. Not yet, anyway.

I lay in bed, wearing nothing but my underwear. Grant was with me, his head resting on my stomach. Every now and then, he would hum. Occasionally, he drew in a shuddering breath.

“How could I not have noticed?” he whispered. “When I was healing you, after the fall. I should have seen.”

“You were distracted.”

“I should have seen,” he said again. I didn’t mind. I kept wondering the same thing about myself. Wasn’t I supposed to be aware of these things? Shouldn’t I have known I was pregnant?

Weren’t the boys supposed to tell me—instead of tricking me into giving over control of my body? Weren’t they supposed to give me some kind of warning instead of playing
demon knows best
?

How could I ever trust them again? Or was that a moot point now?

I rubbed my aching head and pressed a tissue to my nose. “Must be early on.”

“Very,” he said, in a tight voice. “Just a little light. Such a tiny little light.”

I buried my fingers in his hair. Grant sighed and crawled up the mattress until the entire length of his body pressed against mine. His arms were warm, and very strong. I held him as tightly as I could.

Dek and Mal were on the floor, coiled around each other. Eyes closed. Pretending to be resting. I felt uneasy with their presence. On guard. Maybe they were there to protect me . . . or maybe it was to keep an eye on me for reasons that had nothing to do with my safety. I couldn’t be sure.

The longer I lay here, though, the easier it was for me to sort their five hearts from mine. Zee’s emotions were the strongest, the texture of them like a chewed fingernail dragged over sensitive flesh. Raw and Aaz, on the other hand, were as much twins emotionally as they were physically: a guitar wire strung between two posts, strumming constantly.

Dek and Mal did not share each other’s emotions in the same way. Dek was softer. Mal harder. Like the difference in warm dark chocolate—and candy stored in the refrigerator, filled with nuts.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. I had grieved losing my bond with the boys, and now I had a new one with them. Different. Not better.

Not better for me, anyway.

“I’m hungry,” I said, and covered my face. “How can I even say that?”

“You’re going to have a baby. Of course you’re hungry.”

“I don’t know if it’s my hunger or theirs.” I peered at him between my fingers. “I’m scared.”

“I’m terrified,” he muttered, and gave Dek and Mal a flinty glare. “You two. Leave.”

They raised their heads, looking at him as if he
must
be kidding.

“You abused her trust,” Grant snapped. “This is not a game. She is not one of your toys.”

Mal hissed, and the anger that flooded from him was hot and rough, and indignant. I didn’t like it—it scared me, in fact—and I turned that anger back on the little demon by grabbing the clock off the nightstand and throwing it at him. Dek darted sideways, but Mal got hit in the head. I reached for the lamp next.

Mal hissed—and my arm froze.

I couldn’t move. It stunned me all over again—and this time
I
was the one who was furious. I snarled at the demon, and Grant muttered ugly words beneath his breath.

Dek gave his brother a hateful look and bit his tail. Mal snapped at him, but suddenly I could move again. Instead of reaching for the lamp, I leaned against Grant’s chest, trembling with anger as he wrapped his arms around me.

Regret poured into my heart—from Dek.

From Mal, I sensed the same, but to a lesser degree. He wanted to protect me but not here. This was more of the same, but somewhere, elsewhere, the demon lords were free—and that called to him. The need to
punish
them, and feel their fear . . . called to him. He
yearned
for it.

It wasn’t just Mal I was feeling. Each of those five heartbeats was an earthquake inside me, a tremor filled with loneliness and hunger, and fury. Shaking me down, as though my heart had split into five fractured pieces.

Disconcerting. I felt lost in my own body. I felt possessed.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” I told Mal, hearing strain in my voice and hating that. “But don’t you understand why I’m upset? I’m
pregnant
, and you didn’t tell me. Not only did you
not
tell me . . . you
did
something to me.”

Grant’s arms tightened. “Get out of here.”

Mal gave us a long look and slid into the shadows beneath some magazines, disappearing as though a hole was in our floor. Dek hesitated, his little ears pressed flat against his skull.

“You, too,” I said.

Dek sighed and grabbed a half-eaten teddy bear with his mouth. He dragged it over to me, placing it on the edge of the mattress. Stuffing leaked. A glass eye had gone missing. He nudged the broken bear into my hands and rested his chin beside it. His gaze was so mournful.

“What happened?” I whispered to him, not even sure what I was asking, just that some terrible heartbreak was bubbling inside me, and his was the kind gesture—that note of sweetness—that I needed so much.

Dek didn’t answer me with a song, but his heart was gentle in mine. I scratched behind his ears and leaned forward to kiss his snout.

“Why can’t you be less lovable?” I asked him, tears burning my eyes again. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to be angry with them all but just couldn’t.

Not yet.

Dek gave me a toothy grin. I was taken aback by the burst of love that flowed from him: explosive and hot—and infected with the dark hunger drawn from the entity living beneath my soul. A strange circle of emotion and power, deadly and confusing.

Dek licked my cheek. Then, before I could say a word, he slid into the shadows beneath the comforter and vanished. I wanted to know where—on the other side of the world, with his brothers, on the moon.

Grant let out his breath. I turned, facing him.

We stared at each other. Just stared. Words were worthless in that moment. I’d seen television shows and movies where people cried and laughed, and had meltdowns in each other’s arms, but that was fake, and this was us, and I’d found that more could be said in our silences than in colloquy.

He pushed a strand of hair from my face. “You okay?”

“I don’t know.” I wrapped my hand around his wrist, rubbing my thumb against his palm. Touching him soothed me, and so did the warmth that pushed through our bond.

“It’s strange,” I said quietly. “I feel them inside me. All five, right now.”

“I can see the bond,” Grant’s gaze flicked from the crown of my head, down to my chest. “Five shadows. Five . . . hooks.”

“Can you break them away from me?”

He looked so grim. “I want to say yes, but they’re . . . deep in you, Maxine. It reminds me of our bond, only . . . more tangled. To get them loose will require extreme care.”