On Midnight Wings

Run from me. Run as far as you can.

Heather’s throat tightened. Oh, cher. What have you done?

But she already knew the answer to that: whatever he’d needed to survive. Just as she’d wished and prayed he would.

Hang on, Baptiste. Please.

Stepping past and around the bodies, Heather moved with caution, Glock held in both hands, her finger resting on the trigger. In the eerie silence, the quiet tread of her shoe soles against the tiled floor sounded as loud—to her, anyway—as those of a weekend hiker lumbering through crackling, summer-dried underbrush.

Heather winced, wishing she could move nightkind-silent, but doubted it would make any difference even if she could. Whichever one of the Fallen was keeping Dante company had probably heard the rapid beat of her heart the moment she’d crawled into the sigil-etched building.

And knew precisely where she was.

So what were they waiting for—applause? What Fallen game had she stumbled into?

Which brought up even more troubling questions: Why was Dante still here in this place of nightmare and blood and torture? Why hadn’t he been scooped up by his winged “rescuer” and flown back to Gehenna already?

One possibility stopped her cold, rooted her feet to the floor.

Maybe they had. Maybe Dante was in Gehenna right now. Without the bond, she wouldn’t know. She could be searching for someone who was no longer here.

Or worse, no longer breathing.

Heather closed her eyes, pulse pounding at her temples. Despite the cold fingers closed around her heart, she knew Dante was alive. And something deep inside of her, maybe an intuitive knowing, maybe some fundamental change Dante had unintentionally made when healing her in D.C., whispered over and over: He’s here.

Heather choose to believe that whisper. Opening her eyes, she resumed her search.

When she reached the first open cell door, she saw Dante slumped on the floor at the far end of the hall, his pale skin gleaming like moonlight in the gloom. Faint red light glinted from the ring in his collar. He rested on his side, one arm half curled beneath his head.

Her breath caught in her throat, a near sob.

The next thing Heather knew, she was dropping to her knees beside him, the Glock once again tucked into her jeans beneath her sweater, her trembling hands smoothing his blood-sticky and sweat-damp hair back from his face. She had no memory of crossing the corridor, no memory of moving at all. But that didn’t matter.

She’d found Dante—her North Star, her nightkind of fire and twilight, her man.

“Baptiste,” she whispered, bending to kiss his lips, his forehead. The icy feel of his skin shocked her. “I’m here, cher. I’m here.”

She placed her hand over his chest and didn’t release her breath until she felt the slow, reassuring thump of his heart beneath her palm. His fevered heat was gone and Heather knew that couldn’t be good. Blood oozed from his nose. Spattered his pale, beautiful face. Stained his lips. His expression was worlds— galaxies—away from peaceful.

Blood grimed his fingers, smeared his hands, and streaked his forearms. Heather thought of the bodies littering the floor, thought of the footprints marking a wet, dark path from door to door, and she blinked furiously, eyes burning.

I feel like I’m running out of time, catin.

No and no and no.

Heather’s jaw clenched when she saw the bullet wound right above his heart, half healed and trickling blood, and thought of the man who’d put it there.

May the bastard rot in hell.

Remembering her dream/vision of Dante running up flights of stairs with a red-haired girl wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh sweater and black paper wings in his arms, Heather stiffened. She scanned the corridor anxiously.

Violet. Where was Violet?

Heather refused to believe that history had repeated itself and that Violet now lay in a pool of blood, blue eyes wide open and empty like those of the little girl he’d killed and who haunted his heart, his long-lost Chloe.

He’d been only a boy then, little more than a child, abused and manipulated by adults—both mortal and nightkind—driven by instincts and a hunger he didn’t understand and had no idea how to control.

Dante was no longer a boy, no longer a shattered child. He was a man of quiet strength and fierce loyalty. He would never hurt Violet. No matter how lost he got, no matter how far he fell. She returned her gaze to Dante, brushed the backs of her fingers against his smooth, icy cheek.

As lost as I get, I will find you, Heather. Always.

“You’d better,” Heather said, each word scraping free from a too-tight throat. “I’m holding you to that, Baptiste. Come back, damn you. Come back to me.”

Eyes burning, Heather dug her borrowed cell phone out of her jeans pocket. Disappointment curled through her. No calls had come in while she’d been passed out on the floor. Meaning no one had heard from Lucien yet. But given the time displayed on the screen, it was nearly sunset. Dante would be waking soon.

The question was: would soon be soon enough?

So far, Heather had seen no sign of the fallen angel responsible for the parking lot spell and sigils. For all she knew, he or she could be watching her right now. Could she afford to wait until Dante awakened? Her gaze returned to the wound above his heart. Her fingers curled against her palms, nails biting into the skin. And if his injuries prevented him from waking up?

I don’t think I can afford to wait. The dragon’s blood tree sap isn’t the only thing poisoning him. This place and all the twisted memories it holds is twice as toxic.

She’d find blankets in one of the cells and use them to shield Dante from the sun. If she worked it right, she should be able to lift Dante in a fireman’s carry. Getting to her feet with his weight draped across her shoulders would be another problem altogether. Not for the first time, she was grateful that he was five-nine and not six- two. She would just have to hope that determination, desperation, and adrenaline would be enough.

It’ll have to be.

And if it wasn’t? If her injured ankle refused to hold?

Then, when Dante awakened at twilight, he would find her beside him. Now that she’d found him again, she wouldn’t leave him. Not even to save her own ass. Which would piss Dante off if he knew.

So let him get pissed off. We’re in this together. Side by side and back to back.

Tucking the cell phone back into her pocket, Heather was preparing to rise to her feet to begin her search for blankets when a familiar and totally unexpected voice drawled, “I go to fetch my heart and put it back where it belongs—an action only necessary due to my regretful underestimation of the creawdwr’s paranoia—and lo and behold, who do I find waiting upon my return but the lovely Heather Wallace.”

Hair prickling at the back of her neck, Heather looked up. Von stood across the corridor, arms folded over his chest, a grin parting his mustache-framed lips. But Von’s green gaze had never been that darkly gleeful, never that calculating, his words never so formal.

“I don’t know who you are,” she stated quietly, “but I do know you’re not Von.”

The grin widened. “Well, shit. So far this shape has fooled no one.” The imposter rubbed his chest, a rueful expression on his face as he glanced at Dante. “Call me Loki. Yes”—he sighed, clearly anticipating the question —“that Loki.”

Heather swung one knee over Dante’s body, protectively straddling his Sleeping form, as she pulled the Glock from beneath her sweater and lifted it in one smooth motion. She knew that bullets of any caliber were