Shadow Bound

“Adam, why won’t you listen to me? Please, listen to me!” For all her efforts, her voice was a harsh whisper; she could barely hear herself.

The door opened again—Talia whipped her head around to see what awful thing was next—and the cup was handed in. An old-fashioned goblet of sorts.

The host held it while the demon snake belched black tar to the brim. Talia could smell its sulfurous reek paces away. Something about the stuff echoed the tar coating her throat.

“You’ll need to drink this,” the host said to Adam, lifting the cup as if to toast.

Oh please God no.

But he obviously didn’t care. For whatever stupid, cosmic reason, neither God nor Shadowman was going to help her. Talia glanced at Adam’s inscrutable expression. She was in this nightmare alone.

Well, they couldn’t have him.

Talia stood in front of Adam’s chair and faced the demon, her feet braced for maximum stability. Over her dead body. She hoped the demon would take her challenge literally.

The only way the demon was going to get through her with his revolting brew was if he killed her. Which would be just groovy, because then Shadowman would come and cut his disgusting, slimy black hide to pieces.

“I’ve made my choice, Talia,” Adam said behind her. “Now get out of the way.”

Adam’s tone made the small room drop thirty degrees, and bitter goose bumps raced across Talia’s skin. She braced against the cold. She could be stubborn, too.

The host smirked awkwardly at her, though the man’s eyes were wide with acute horror and sadness. Talia found it ironic that the human half of that demon-host marriage should empathize with her situation, especially since his choice was the first to give the demon power.

Well, if that coward wanted forgiveness, he’d have to look elsewhere.

The host’s gaze seemed to read her answer, because it dulled again, the man retreating back into the shadows of his mind. Still choosing the easy way.

She wouldn’t.

“I’m not moving,” Talia said. The room darkened, shadows stirring with her inner turmoil as if a gale circled the room.

Jacob stepped toward her, but the host raised his hand to stop him.

“Release Adam,” the host said to Jacob. “Let him deal with her. He has to take the cup himself anyway. The banshee will settle when he becomes a wraith.”

Not likely.

Jacob moved around Adam’s chair. Talia heard the tape at Adam’s hands rip.

Adam stood, his arms dropping to his sides, fingers flexing to restore circulation. His expression was closed and grim.

“You’ll see her safely back to New York?” Adam asked over her head.

“I will,” the host answered. “Safe and sound. As a creature of Twilight, I cannot break my word.”

This was not happening. This could not be happening.

“Don’t do this.” Talia clutched at Adam’s sweat-dampened shirt. He smelled stale and stressed, but still so good. So Adam. She planted her hands on his chest to hold him physically back.

He gripped her shoulders—would this be the last time he’d hold her?—and finally met her gaze.

“Talia,” he said, voice gravelly, “you are an expert at running and hiding. I’ve left you everything I have to help you. I need you to take this chance; I’m going to give it to you regardless. I need you to run. I need you to heal. Then you track this bastard down and scream.”

“Please, if you love me, don’t do this,” she begged. She hated the determination in his voice. Adam was impossible to stay from a decided course of action. Tears blurred her vision in frustration.

“Look at me, Talia,” Adam commanded. “Look at me!”

She startled painfully. His shout felt like he’d struck her.

“Then I need you to track me down,” he said. “I need you to scream for me. Will you do that, Talia? Will you scream for me?”

A sob of anguish broke out of her. “No.” But what she was refusing she couldn’t name. “No” to his choice. “No” to running. “No” to this whole goddamned nightmare. Couldn’t he see that the only answer to give was “No”?

Adam’s grip on her shoulders tightened just enough to move her out of his way.

She dived into his side and threw her arms around his waist to drag him down with her weight. He stumbled slightly, then regained his balance.

She pulled on shadow to blank Adam’s vision. She coaxed the veils into a frenzy to bar him from reaching the demon. She summoned her will to push him back with her mind.

If the demon wanted to sic his dogs on her, so be it. She could fight wraiths. She could fight the demon and his hellhounds. And she’d damn well fight Adam if she had to.

The demon could not have him.

Adam struggled against her, his will against hers. He pried his arms away, his grip biting into her flesh.

“See how easy it is,” the host observed lightly, presumably to Jacob. “She’s been here perhaps ten minutes and he’s broken. Watch how they fight each other.”

Jacob snickered in agreement.

Blind fury rose in Talia, the likes of which she’d never felt in her life. The room darkened deeper than pitch. Her hair lifted and whipped around her as the veils layered shadow upon shadow.

She drew a deep breath of outrage and grief, and screamed.

It was a broken, pitiful noise that set a fire in her lungs.

The host laughed outright.

She tried again, pushing all the life and love she had into one sound, an extended gasp of pain and sorrow.

Still, nothing. Goddamn nothing.

“Stop this, Talia,” Adam lashed. “You’re only doing more damage to yourself.”

The room churned with her storm of shadows, but still he managed to move forward, carry ing her with him a full step toward the demon and his hateful cup.

Sobbing, she leaned into Adam’s body with her shoulder, her arms reaching beyond him for something to hold on to. Reaching for something to give her leverage against his greater strength. Reaching for anything that would delay his insanity.

Cold steel met her palm. A frigid rod or shaft of this ship’s pipes. Her fingers wrapped around it.

Power flooded up her arm and through her body in primeval recognition.

Not a shaft of pipe, then. The shaft of her father’s scythe, handed father to daughter across their native shadow. Her fae inheritance, the legacy of Death.

A dark glee of demon bloodlust suffused Talia’s half-breed senses. She pushed Adam firmly back, once and for all, and turned to face the demon, the crescent moon of the scythe’s blade circling over her head as a vane signals a change in the weather.

The wind was finally blowing her way.

TWENTY-ONE

ADAM stumbled back at Talia’s astonishingly hard shove. The room disappeared. Without her touch, he swam in a sea of mute darkness, his sense of direction upended.

Damn stubborn woman. Couldn’t she understand that this was the only way?

And damn if her newfound strength didn’t make him love her even more. As if that were possible. If she could stand between him and the demon, daring the Death Collector to do his worst, then she could survive on her own. She could run, heal, and then find her way to a scream that would end this nightmare. Perhaps they’d all wake to a bright morning where anything was possible.