“No,” I whispered.
“It’s all right,” he murmured against my hair. “I know not to accept.”
Holding Kane’s hands in mine, I stepped back. “Lord Arawn, could you do me a favor?”
Arawn turned. His expression suggested he thought he’d already granted me a favor or two too many.
“Could you ask your archivist whether my father’s name has appeared in the Register?”
His eyebrows went up, but he inclined his head. Then he swept from the room, his guards casting angry scowls at us as they scrambled to their feet to follow him.
When the door closed, I stood on my tiptoes to kiss Kane. He groaned and pressed me into him. The kiss—warm and deep and delicious—tasted of everything I could ever want, of every single reason I had to return to the world of the living.
I looked into his gray eyes, heavy-lidded with desire. “Kane,” I said, although I already knew the truth, “please don’t tell me you came here to rescue me.”
There. A flash of disappointment. He covered it quickly, but some part of him had hoped I’d swoon with gratitude at his feet so he could sweep me up and carry me off into the sunset. Or whatever passes for a sunset in this world.
“I don’t need rescuing.” As I said the words, my demon mark twinged, urging me toward anger. I ignored it. I didn’t want to be angry with Kane.
“My mistake. I thought you did.” The sharpness in his voice suggested anger was perfectly okay with him. He broke away from me and walked to the other side of the room. At the wall, he wheeled around, his face tight. Then his shoulders sagged and he sighed. “So much happened so fast. First a helicopter landed in Princeton. Then the wolves all started freaking out because there was a stranger in the compound. I picked up your scent, but also the smell of plague. All my instincts screamed to protect you, and I fought any wolf who got too curious. And then the Huntress came charging in and went straight to your cabin.”
“You know about the Night Hag?”
“All werewolves do. We call her the Huntress, or the Mistress of Hounds. When she shows up, it’s never good news.”
All right. I could see why he’d been worried. Kane knew I was immune to the original zombie virus, but he also knew that the Old Ones, in their quest to give themselves truly eternal life, had attempted to create a super-version that would affect paranormals. When Kane scented plague virus and saw the arrival of a spirit whose task is to drive souls into the next world, he jumped to the obvious conclusion.
“You know what it’s like after a shift,” he continued. “The next morning, I had my human brain back, but my memories from the night before were flashes of sensation: images, scents, the sound of your voice, galloping hooves, the baying of hellhounds. No big picture, no overarching meaning. All I had was the unshakable feeling that something terrible had happened to you.”
He strode back to me and took me in his arms. His hands roved over my back, like he had to keep touching me to believe I was real. I felt the same way about him.
“I tried everything I could think of,” he said in my ear. “I went to the cabin and shouted through the door. I climbed up to peer through those damn tiny windows. Nothing. Except I could smell you. I could smell the plague. And I could smell death. The Huntress carries the smell of death with her, but I couldn’t tell if it had come from her or from…from another source. It was just death.” With a squeeze, he let me go, but he caught my hand and held it. “I even tried to talk to the Princeton guards. They’re not allowed to socialize with us, of course, but I was going crazy from not knowing. I got nothing from them, either. If they’d been briefed about the helicopter, they weren’t talking.”
“So you summoned the Night Hag.” Mallt-y-Nos must feel like Miss Popularity, getting called twice in two nights. “Wait, how could you call her? It was a full-moon night—weren’t you in wolf form?”
“Like I said, one of her names is Mistress of Hounds. She can communicate with wolves. But that wasn’t necessary. Moonrise was after midnight, and I called her as soon as it was dark. I was still in this form.” His human form. The moon that shines on the Ordinary is absent from the Darklands, so he wouldn’t change here. “The Huntress—the Night Hag—confirmed you’d crossed the border ‘with body and soul still together,’ which I took to mean you hadn’t died. Hoped, anyway. But then she said, ‘Many enter, but few return.’ She was in her death’s-head form, and her laugh…Vicky, it sent chills through me.”
“You made a deal with her so she’d let you in to find me.” What price had she demanded of Kane? How many more impossible items would we have to collect before we could leave? Arawn knew what Mallt-y-Nos was up to—what if he refused to let anything else leave his realm? Kane, who’d come to rescue me, would be stuck here himself. “Kane, you shouldn’t have bargained with her. You’re a great negotiator, but the Night Hag is in a different league. You could have your whole staff of lawyers go over any deal she offered, and she’d still win in the end.” Never mind that I’d made a deal with her myself.
He called me on that one. “No bargains? How did you get in?”
“I, um, said I’d bring back a few souvenirs, that’s all.”
“Like what—‘I let a shapeshifter into the Darklands and all I got was this lousy T-shirt’?” Exasperation colored his voice.“Lord Arawn is helping me. I’ll be fine.” Fine and dandy. Just as soon as I found some duct tape for Rhudda’s arrow, did a little birding on the outskirts of Hell, and brought Arawn the head of the new-and-definitely-not-improved Destroyer.
“Vicky.” He put both hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes. “What did you promise her?”
“A magic arrow—already got it.” Both pieces. “A white falcon. Arawn’s hunting horn.” I ticked off each item on my fingers as if it were no big deal. One, two, three, and I’d be home. “Arawn has already promised me the horn.”
“Another bargain?”
“He’ll give it to me after I’ve killed the Destroyer.”
“The Destroyer—you mean the Hellion? I thought you already killed that thing.”
“I did. Pryce brought it back.” Kane gaped at me in disbelief. “Remember I told you that Pryce was trying to revive his shadow demon? That cauldron he used to trap demons was the cauldron of transformation, stolen from Arawn centuries ago. Pryce cloaked the demons and returned the cauldron to the Darklands. Arawn tried to purify it so it could be returned to use, but the cauldron was rigged so that the purification spell released the demons. Pryce jumped into the cauldron. All those demons transformed into the Destroyer, bound to Pryce.” I hesitated. “He, um, tried to pull me in with him, but I climbed out. And then—”
“Wait, he tried to transform you, too? That’s it, Vicky. I’m not going to let you run around this place chasing after him. Pryce alone is bad enough. Pryce plus the Destroyer—no.”
“‘Let me’?” I squeezed his hand so hard that, if he’d been anything besides a werewolf, the bones would have cracked. He jerked away. “Since when did I ever ask your permission to do anything?” If this was the result of taking our relationship to the next level, maybe it was time to take one giant step backward.
“Okay, that came out wrong. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded mad as hell. “But it’s the same as always. You go rushing in alone, determined to save the world all by yourself. No help from anyone. No thought for those who care about you.”
My own anger was seething, too, but again I pushed it aside. Count to ten. One…two…three…I made myself stay calm. Eight…nine…ten.
“You want to help me? Okay. We’ll do this together. We’ll defeat the Destroyer, and then we’ll both go home.”
He pulled me to him again. “The Destroyer is Arawn’s problem. Come home with me now.”
“It’s my problem, Kane.” In so many ways I didn’t even want to try to count them. “And the only way I can leave here is to give the Night Hag what I promised her.”
“I can get you out.”
“This isn’t like persuading a jury with a brilliant closing argument. Mallt-y-Nos will never budge on her terms.”
“Let me try. I talked her into letting me in. If she won’t listen to me, we’ll go after the Destroyer together.”
I stepped away. “We don’t have the time to waste.” He looked hurt at “waste,” but too bad. It would be a waste of time, and he needed to understand that. “You saw what the Destroyer did to this city. I’ve got to stop it before the whole realm goes up in flames.” And after that, the human world.
Kane opened his mouth like he was going to argue. But he didn’t. His face softened, and he reached out to brush my cheek with his fingertips. “I just want you to be safe,” he said, his voice husky. “And with me.”
Anger melted. I reached up and held his hand against my cheek, then turned and kissed the palm. He put his other arm around my shoulders and we stood there, close and warm, holding each other. How could I ever want anything else, when this felt so good? After a few, way-too-short moments, I placed his hand on my right forearm, where he could feel the angry, pulsing heat of the demon mark. His eyes widened at the strength of it.
“I’ll never be safe while the Destroyer lives.”
He nodded. And then he kissed me.
I kissed him back, and warmth spread through me. Something deep inside reached toward this man who’d laughed with me, made love to me, argued with me, fought beside me—and ventured into the realm of the dead to find me.
A brisk knock rapped on the door, bringing me back to the here and now. A shade dressed in blue stuck his head inside. “Lord Arawn’s armorer, at your service.”