Unearthed (37 page)

When he got to the ropes, he laughed, wiping his hair off his forehead to get a better look maybe. “Okay, that was mildly smart.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Did you miss me, puppet?” His voice was low, almost a purr. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know.” Not for lack of trying, though.

“I’m just here to do my job. The one I didn’t quite finish before I went back.” He paced a line back and forth along the rope wall, and while the movement seemed casual, Keira knew he was looking for a clear path in. Somewhere he could fit through without feeling the burn of the rope. “It would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to yell. Come over here, just to talk.”

“If you just want to talk, why don’t you come over
here
?” She struggled to keep her voice strong. Whatever she was feeling inside had to wait. She ignored the part of her that had hoped just seeing her would magically make something click in his head, and he’d remember everything and turn back into who he’d been. Fantasies and memories could both get her killed.

“Look, this is about priorities, puppet. My boss wants Lamere. You were useful bait, so come on out and do it again. Let’s put all our personal feelings aside until the job’s done.”

“It’s already done.”

“Really? Shit, I was looking forward to that.” He cocked his head. “Okay, hang on. I need to think of another excuse to get you close enough to kill.” His laugh was damned, horrible, so unlike the Davyn she knew. “So I’m supposed to what? Wait until you come out?”

“No, I know how impatient you are.”

His gaze tracked the lines the entire time they spoke, searching for weakness. A demon can always find a loophole. He’d find it soon—she was counting on it. His smile grew as soon as he spotted it, a flaw in her design.

“Oh, puppet. Do you really think I can’t handle a couple rope burns?”

“Wait! Don’t. Please, don’t.” She knew he’d mistake the warble of her voice as fear. It wasn’t. It was a reflection of how incredibly horrible it felt to see the man she loved and wanted look at her with such hate, such disdain, and know it might never change. She tried to control the thoughts, but they wouldn’t go away.

With two strides, he stood in front of the opening she’d left for him. In two more he’d be caught, like a spider in a web. As soon as he stepped into her trap, she yanked hard on the line leading to the pulley system. Ropes came at him from every direction, smoke lifting from the burns they created on his skin. He cursed and tried to pull himself out, but the more he fought, the tighter they got.

His eyes darkened in anger and pain when he realized he couldn’t break free. “How the fuck did you—?”

“The saltwater I soaked them in. It was blessed. Not an easy task, by the way.” In fact, it was something only an angel could do. Micah’s touch meant the rope not only hurt like a bitch wherever it made contact with a demon’s skin, it also bound the demon above the crust. Their rules forbid them from directly affecting human lives, but thankfully, blessing a few gallons of saltwater didn’t count. Equally fortunate was that Micah requested she not tell him exactly what she planned on doing with the water.

“Well, you’re a smart little bitch, I’ll give you that.” He pulled each line wrapped around him, testing each separately, always looking for weakness. “I’m still going to burn you alive, but now I’ll have even more fun doing it.”

He struggled for a few minutes, laughed unpleasantly, and then struggled again. The more frustrated he got, the louder he hissed under his breath. When she finally decided he wasn’t faking and he really couldn’t free himself, she came closer.

“Seems like I’m the one who’s going to have fun,” she teased. When he lunged for her, she knew exactly how far he could reach, how far she should stay back until he was completely strapped down.

“Going to keep me tied up forever?” His expression and voice softened when he realized she was in complete control, but she knew it was just a different tactic to try and get what he wanted. “It hurts, puppet. These ropes hurt bad. You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

Shaking her head, she focused on her plan, looping ropes around his wrists and loosening others from farther away, forcing him to move towards his bed. It took ages, hours of listening to him curse at her and call her names. She ignored him the best she could, reminding herself this wasn’t him—who he wanted to be.

His words weren’t his. They were hell’s or the Devil’s, but not Davyn’s.

When he understood where she was leading him, he laughed. “If you wanted to sit on my face, you could’ve just asked, puppet.”

Keira yanked on the rope tied to one of his wrists. He hit the bed and fell on top of it.

“What’s the plan here?” He pulled against the ropes, but between the blessing, the elaborate pulley system, and her entire body weight, nothing happened. “Keep me strapped up for the next fifty years? Chop me into bite-size bits? What?” He waited for her to answer, watching her tie off each line. “Keira?”

Hearing him say her name stopped her, made her meet his eyes with her own, something she’d avoided because looking at him was painful.

“Keira, listen. I’ll make you a deal. You know I never break a deal.”

She held her breath and came closer, hoping he’d say something to let her know that
her
Davyn was inside there somewhere.

“If you let me go,” he said calmly, “I’ll kill you a little faster than I want to.” He yanked with all his strength. The rope slid through her hands, burning the skin of her palms. Thankfully, she’d over-prepared, been overly cautious, and had used rock climbing carabiners so the ropes could only move in one direction. He jerked when they caught.

Once his wrists, ankles, and waist were strapped down, she completed the circle of salt and stood back to breathe.

“Damn it! You know somebody is eventually going to find me. I’m the demon the Prime comes to when he needs something done, and that guy needs a lot done. I will get free. And understand this: The longer you keep me here, the less gentle I’m going to be when I take you apart.”

She understood exactly what would happen if he got free, which is why it couldn’t happen until she was ready. If she ever would be.

Graham didn’t even try to stop Keira this time. He could probably tell she was three seconds away from total internal combustion that would spray female emotions all over the place, and he was smart enough to keep his distance.

A lifetime ago, she’d had to explain to her parents why she’d been suspended from school and tell them that her ex-boyfriend’s parents would be calling about their son’s broken nose. This was a billion times worse. Maybe because this time she had to come clean with people who would be unhappy that she
hadn’t
hurt the guy, when every ounce of good sense in her screamed, ‘You moron!’

It had been a long time since Keira worried about what anyone thought of her. But yeah, this was pretty damn horrible. The two women she respected and admired most in the entire world stared at her, confused. Because of all the words she’d used in the last few minutes, not a single one of them made any sense at all.

“And that’s why I need your help.” She took a breath. “Badly.”

Addison looked at Parker. “I got about seven percent of what she just said. D’you get more than that?”

“Yeah, but only because I’m a better listener than you.”

Addison’s laugh was quiet. “And because you wear glasses, which everyone knows makes you smarter than me.”

“I wasn’t going to bring it up, but since
you
did…”

Throughout their back and forth, they kept checking Keira out of the corner of their eyes. Obviously the teasing was deliberate—to give her a chance to calm down enough to be coherent.

She sat down on the long table and put her feet on the closest chair. “I know I screwed up.” They stopped talking and focused on her. “I ignored everything you told me, all your great advice about staying away from him, and now a demon is strapped to the bed in his apartment.”

“Seriously?” While Parker groaned, Addison leaned forward and put her hands on the sides of her head, pressing her temples.

“Are you okay?” Keira sensed something was wrong. But most things always seem wrong in the Heights.

“I’m fine,” Addison said dismissively as she lifted her head and forced a smile. “It’s just the massive
déjà vu
I’m having. Powers, I hope everything turns out differently for you.”

“I should’ve listened. I should’ve—” Keira’s eyes sprayed tears everywhere like a dog shaking after a bath.
Damn it.
She wiped her face harshly, looked up at the ceiling, the light, whatever might work.

“You fell in love with him.”

“I didn’t mean to.” She’d never felt more pathetic.

“Yeah well,” Addison said, “that doesn’t make a big difference now.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, with a humiliating amount of blubbering attached.

“Not what I meant. Powers know, I’m the last one who should be throwing stones around here. What I meant was that we need to deal with what’s going on now, regardless of how or why it happened.” She motioned for Keira to sit next to her. Parker went to get her some water and then sat at her other side.

“Let’s start at the beginning again. But this time, try to make us understand seventy-to-eighty percent of it.” Addison smiled. “Parker, can I borrow your glasses?”

“No way. Then I wouldn’t be better than you.”

“Use everything you can, my friend.” Addison shrugged. “Seventy or eighty percent, okay?”

Keira nodded. “He didn’t want to go back to hell because he—” She swallowed. “Because he knew what he’d do to me when he returned, and he didn’t want that to happen. But he fell through a portal during a fight. Or was pushed, I guess. I don’t know exactly how it happened.” More babbling. “Now he’s back and is totally different. He’s…you know…a demon, and I don’t know what to do. I can’t kill him, even knowing he’d kill me if he ever got free. So right now I’m stuck with keeping him inside the salt circle for the next fifty years and hoping no one sweeps. I don’t see that as a good long-term plan, do you?”

“Um…” And that was all they could manage.

So why not make it worse and tell them everything? “Even if it was, I couldn’t do that to him. Someone kept me prisoner for three years and, more than the pain, I remember the hopelessness. I can’t keep him trapped for fifty years, not after everything he did for me.”

Parker and Addison exchanged glances. “Well, we could...”

“If he’s...”

“Nah.” Parker got up and went to a shelf, her finger running across the spines of the books. “Um…”

“I want him back—the old him. I want him like he used to be.” Keira cleared her throat before saying the rest as quickly as she could, hoping they wouldn’t be able to hear how incredibly stupid it sounded. “The only way to fix this is to give him part of my soul, and I was wondering if you guys knew anything about that.”

“What?” they both yelled. “You can’t do that.”

“Do you even know
how
to do that?” Parker put out her hand. “Don’t answer that, because not having a soul seems like a really bad thing and is never going to happen. It would kill you, and that’s pretty much a best-case scenario.”

Keira shook her head. “I don’t think it will.” She explained the bits and pieces of what Davyn and Lamere had told her. But there were still so many holes, it was like the Swiss cheese of explanations.

Parker leaned forward, eyes darting around as if categorizing each bit of information as Keira gave it. “So sex doesn’t ruin a person, losing part of their soul does? And if this demon were to stay with you, you could share it.” Keira nodded, trying not to let her disappointment show. She’d come here for help they couldn’t give—she knew more than they did. “It makes sense, magically speaking.”

“Well, I’m so glad it makes sense magically,” Addison said. “Because it makes absolutely no sense any other way. You can’t do it, Keira. You can’t depend on a demon. I’ve met two of them—one of whom you helped send back to hell. That bastard was the most evil being I’ve ever seen, even though I didn’t actually see him, but the other one was supposedly a nice one. Seriously, if he was an example of the decent kind, then I don’t understand why you would
want
a demon to stay with you, even if he would. Which…he won’t.”

“It’s a big risk.”

“It’s
too
big a risk.” Addison stood, grabbing the table when she wobbled. Keira caught Parker’s eye to see if she’d noticed it too. The historian was deliberately looking away from her friend, practically seething.

The dat vitae glanced between them, but continued to focus on Keira’s problem. “Look, I know you care about him, but this is your life. His isn’t worth more than yours.”

More? No, but she didn’t want to have to choose. She thought for a moment, allowing all the moments she and Davyn shared to come together and form a clear picture. From who she’d been before they met—bitter, angry, numb to everything else. To who both of them had become—friends, lovers, partners, by choice not necessity. To who they were now—him, a raging beast from hell set on burning her to death, probably slowly, and her, a woman with nothing, who’d only stopped living a perpetual nightmare a little while ago. The happiest she’d ever been, when life didn’t seem empty, was when she and a hot, egotistical jackass had a
thing
neither of them understood or wanted. A thing both of them needed.

Keira wanted Davyn back because she needed him and, even if he didn’t know, he needed her. The right place for them was next to each other. She wanted him back the way he used to be and she wanted to live. Not
one
of those.
Both
of those. And there was only one way she stood a chance of having them.

“If it were anyone else,” she said, “I would probably be thinking the same thing you are right now and figuring out a new dosage schedule for their meds. But I’m not crazy. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him, and I don’t want to know who I’ll be without him.” Like she’d been before, but worse—angrier, with more resentment for a world that would never allow her to be happy, or content, or good.