On Midnight Wings

possibility unfolded within his mind; maybe he wasn’t here alone. Maybe Heather, Von, Silver—hell, even Annie— were locked in their own padded cells and were busy eyeing hooks curving sharp and deadly from the ceilings. One way to find out.

<Catin.>

Dante’s sending boomeranged, slamming into his aching mind. His vision grayed. He tasted blood at the back of his throat as blood oozed from his nose. Puddled hot in his ears.

Dante stumbled to a halt near the roof’s edge, and his heart constricted as he looked at the little girl he held so tight, so close. He couldn’t breathe, but it wasn’t blood that stole the air from his lungs this time.

“Chloe,” he whispered.

Her blood spills hot and fragrant and crimson over his fingers . . .

She lies on the concrete floor, staring up at the hook, her blue eyes as wide and empty as a doll’s. The blood from her slashed throat stains her hair a deep red.

She shook her head. “I’m Violet, remember?”

You saved me when I died and floated away from my mommy. You changed me with blue fire —made me look like this.

Creawdwr. Fallen. Nightkind.

Not a punk-ass twelve-or thirteen-year old fighting to protect his princess, but a grown-ass monster who’d killed her instead.

The truth is never what you hope it will be.

Yeah, and it usually carries a motherfucking shiv.

And at the moment, truth and the here-and-now were busy cutting the heart right out of him. It didn’t matter one fucking bit that he hadn’t meant to kill Chloe. It only mattered that he had.

Dante struggled for air, for balance, finding neither—until the rooftop door creaked open behind him. Survival instinct and the need to keep his promise—I won’t let them hurt you—lent him all the balance he needed. Shoving Violet behind him, Dante swiveled, hissing, to face their pursuer. His warning, razor-sharp and primal, cut through the still air.

It was a warning their pursuer, tall and tawny-haired and wearing the prerequisite black suit, seemed to take to heart. The stranger came to an abrupt halt in front of the door. A com set was hooked around one of his ears.

Awesome. No doubt the bastard’s already spread the word.

Dante couldn’t catch said bastard’s scent beneath the thick smell of his own blood. But he didn’t need the bastard’s scent to know that he wasn’t human; the slow pendulum swing of an immortal heart and the pale green sheen of lambent eyes gave that much away.

“There’s nowhere to go—unless you’re planning on jumping,” their pursuer said matter-of-factly. His voice carried a faint accent, one that reminded Dante of Quarter-slumming European tourists. “You’d survive, of course, but Violet might not, if your grip should slip or you landed wrong or even passed out on the way down—not unless you choose to remake her yet again”—he inclined his head respectfully —“Creawdwr.”

So the motherfucker knew. Even about Violet. Not good.

“You must be the trouble that showed up at the club,” Dante said, voice low and tight. “You take Heather too? My friends?”

“That’s Mr. Dion,” Violet volunteered, peeking out from behind Dante, one hand gripping his leather-clad hip. “He’s been taking care of my mommy and he gave me my crayons and he sent me here so I could see you again. It was my second time on an airplane.”

“Yeah? Second time, huh?” Dante questioned, keeping his gaze on crayon-gifting Mr. Dion. Molten anger bubbled in his chest, chasing away the chill that was starting to creep back into his bones.

Bastard had intended for Violet to die beneath his fangs.

Had put her on an airplane for that reason alone.

And if he truly held Heather, his intentions for her would be equally fucked.

“As far as I know, your friends are still in New Orleans. But Heather”—Dion’s lips quirked up at the corners, a tiny smile of regret—“died defending you.”

Dante tensed at the cold, brass-knuckled words, then flexed them away. He felt Heather’s presence at the back of his mind, a blue-white star—but distant now, galaxies away. Incommunicado. Whether it was due to drugs, pain, or whatever was preventing him from healing completely, or a mixture of all three, he didn’t know.

But she was alive. That he did know.

Dion’s little lie was a stalling tactic, yeah, a carnival barker’s sideshow lure, but it also suggested that he didn’t have Heather, otherwise the prick would’ve just said so, would’ve dangled her in front of Dante like the ultimate carnival prize—hand yourself over and WIN!

“Menteur,” Dante said, offering a smile of his own—one dark and full of fangs and tasting of blood. “And you just told me everything I need to know.”

The mocking amusement leaked from Dion’s face. His expression became still, thoughtful. “And that would be?”

“You don’t have Heather.”

“You’re wrong. She might not be dead—yet. But that can always change.”

Just more lies. More carnival barker lure. More stalling bullshit.

Or so Dante desperately hoped. There was one way to be sure, to be absolutely positive, but he couldn’t risk trying to send to Heather again, not if he hoped to remain conscious enough to get Violet out of there before more assholes—with guns, this time—joined the party.

A muscle ticked in Dante’s jaw as he decided to ignore Dion’s threatening words, choosing not to play his game—if he truly has her, he’d offer me proof—and lifted Violet, her paper wings crinkling, into his arms and onto his hip. She tucked her box of crayons inside her Winnie-the-Pooh sweater, then looped her arms around his neck, interlacing her fingers beneath his hair. As Dante locked an arm around her waist, he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs beyond the door.

Time to go.

Dante flexed his shoulders. His deltoid muscles rippled, then he felt the slide of velvet across his bare skin as his wings emerged, arching above his head. They unfolded behind him with a soft, leathery rustle.

“There they are,” Violet said with quiet satisfaction.

Dion sucked in a shocked breath. The pendulum rhythm of his heart tocked a little faster “But . . . you’re only a half-blood. You can’t have wings . . . it isn’t—”

Dante turned and leapt up onto the roof’s three-foot-high concrete border. Violet tucked her head into the hollow between his neck and shoulder and snuggled in tight. His wings flared, sweeping through the air. He rose into the night, his boots lifting off the concrete.

“Hold tight,” he murmured.

“?’Kay,” was Violet’s happy response. “This is my first angel flight.”

“Well, you’re my first passenger, p’tite.”

Dion’s voice cut through the air. “Heather is here. She’s hanging on a hook of her own, bleeding out, and waiting for you to come for her.”

The night spun. The stars disappeared beneath the rolling wheel of the past. A memory only weeks old, still fresh, still fanged, circled into place; the loss of his cher ami literally at the hands of a manipulative nightkind crime journalist, who’d learned about Bad Seed and thought it time Dante learned too—the hard way.

Mon ami. I knew you’d come for me.

A figure hangs by the ankles from a metal hook, wrapped and hoisted in dull chains, strapped into the white cocoon of a straitjacket. Blond hair sweeps against the floor.

“Wake up, S.” Ronin’s finger slips across Jay’s throat. Blood sprays across the grimy floor and spatters Ronin’s face, the white straitjacket. Jay chokes.

“I knew you’d come for me.”