Renegade (45 page)

And then I was gone and there was nothing but darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sam

I hit the floor with a sharp slap the second the blue mist disappeared. I scrambled to my feet and went to the sink, grabbing the faucet and ripping out the counter where it was attached. I looked at the spout. I looked at the long hose connected to the bottom of it. I even looked under the sink inside the cabinet.

There was nothing.

I screamed and threw the faucet. It crashed through the nearby window, the hose still hanging inside.
What the hell just happened?
I’d never, not once in all my experience with hell and demons, seen anything like that. That demon was different. It was stronger than the rest. It had abilities I wasn’t suspecting.

It had Heven.

Heven!
I shouted through our Mindbond. When she didn’t answer I yelled again.

A strange feeling seemed to seep into me. It started from the very center of me and spread, pushing through my limbs and numbing my brain.

What was I thinking again?

I looked at the broken window and busted sink.

My mind was so still, so quiet and empty. Then an image formed in my head. It pushed out everything else, taking all my attention. It was the picture of Heven’s mind, exactly as I remembered it from when I’d gone in and broken Beelzebub’s threads. As I watched, the thread I knew was hers and mine came into view. It was strong and sturdy, a shimmering gold in the dark.

It snapped in half.

The shimmering gold faded to a dull, lifeless color.

“No!” I cried. But it was too late. The bond was broken.

I fell to my knees, blinking away the awful vision. It wasn’t possible. Mindbonds didn’t break. Ever.

Unless death separated the bonded.

Heven wasn’t dead.

She wasn’t.

From my knees I looked back up at the ripped apart faucet. I hunched forward and threw up between my hands. Everything in my head felt scrambled.

Death. Broken. Gone.
The words pounded through me like the frantic beating of a heart. I tried to think, to form a coherent thought, but it was so hard, so hard to hold onto my words and then put them together to form sentences.

Heven is gone.
Dead. Bond broken.

Insane.

Mindbonds weren’t meant to be broken. When a bonded person died, the one left would slowly go insane…

My head snapped up. I could feel the lightning gold whipping through my eyes. Anger like no other coursed through me and I pushed to my feet, my hands balled into fists.

Beelzebub did this. He finally succeeded in taking her away. All that time we thought he had a reason for not coming after her, it was all just a game. A way to get us to drop our guard.

Soon, very soon, I would be completely incoherent and my life would be over too.

Until then…

I was no longer bound to any honor code.

All the control, the twisted parts of me that I contained…

Unleashed.

Heven

It was dark here. And cold. I had no idea how much time had passed or how long I’d spent here. Everything around me, inside me, felt empty.

It was a far worse feeling than pain.

Something was missing, something vital. I looked to my left, not really able to make out anything because it was so, so dark, but I could hear something. A solitary sound. Something dripping. It was a slow drip, not really a drip, more like a plop, plop, plop, but slow, so agonizingly slow.
Focus.
Something was missing… What was it? Why couldn’t I hold on to a single thought? Why was it so quiet here? I wasn’t used to quiet…

Quiet.

I gasped. Horror spread through my limbs.

I knew what was missing. I knew why I felt so empty.

Sam.
When he didn’t answer, I said it again. Over and over I reached out through our Mindbond, but not once did he answer.

My Mindbond with Sam was gone.

Plop… plop… plop
.

I began to whimper.

Riley

Even though I couldn’t see the island, I knew I was nearing it. Everything in my body, including the tension coiled within my shoulders, began to ease. Just the thought of being this close to her was enough to lift a hundred-pound weight off my shoulders. I didn’t like the fact that she affected me this way, that I was running here for peace, but I had to.

Before stepping through the glamour, I turned and glanced over my shoulders one last time, making certain I hadn’t been followed. Nothing and no one moved. There wasn’t even the hint of a sound. Everything was still. I turned back and a few more steps brought me through the glamour, and my eyes automatically began tearing, adjusting to the new brightness.

Everything here was so different than the place I now called home. A loose term, really because I didn’t really have a home. Maybe I should say it’s the place I was now inhabiting. I blinked and pushed aside those thoughts while taking in the island.

Everyone called it the ‘island of life’ and I guess I could see why. There wasn’t anything here that looked even wilted. The grass was a shade of green so brilliant I was certain the shade didn’t even exist up on Earth. The sky was impossibly blue, which looked even more blue against the fluffy white clouds dotting the sky. There was a breeze blowing here, always, because of the closeness to the ocean. Ocean that just beyond this glamour was thick and sludge-like, black and crawling with death. But not here. Here it was the purest shade of turquoise with white sand and foamy white waves that crashed rhythmically against the sides of the island, lulling everything here into a soft cadence.

I found the bag I kept at the edge of the sand and quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a plain black T-shirt. My hair was wet from the ocean and drops of water kept slipping into my eyes and I brushed them away as I walked away from the sea and toward Ana’s cottage, which was still a slight distance away. The grass here was long, brushing against my calves as I walked. I kept my gaze on the house and its pale stone exterior and glossy large windows. I wondered what Ana was doing, where I would find her today. I didn’t see her outside tending to the ever-blooming, never-fading purple flowers that flourished around the house. I didn’t see her by the sea, staring out at the expanse of water as her silky strands of hair floated around her face.

Maybe she was inside, in the kitchen, cooking up whatever that stuff is she always makes that tastes so good.

The French doors opened and Ana stepped out. I felt my lips curl into a smile, thinking to raise my hand when she looked my way. How had she known I’d be here?

But she didn’t look my way. Her eyes didn’t even flicker in my direction.

She turned back toward the door and watched as someone came out behind her.

I stopped in my tracks and stared at the man.

An angel.

He was tall and muscular, his body looking like it was carved from granite. There wasn’t a mark or flaw anywhere on his skin, which was golden and glistening like he lived in the sun. He wore no shirt, only a pair of jeans. His hair was blond and long enough to be pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck. It wasn’t these things that told me he was an angel. What told me that were his wings.

They were enormous, white and pristine. They appeared softer than anything I’d ever seen before.

I hated him instantly, violently. My hands curled into fists at my sides and my nails dug into my flesh.

I watched in disgust as the angel stood in front of Ana, who had to crane her neck just to see the man’s face. He smiled down at her and reached out, grasping her hands. I wanted to pluck every single one of those snow-white feathers from his wings. His lips moved and he spoke softly, rapidly. I tried to hear what he said, but the wind carried his words in another direction. Ana nodded and then the angel walked forward and spread his massive white wings and flew off. He didn’t look back once.

Ana stood there and watched him fly away, never once looking away from the sky, even after the angel was gone. Was she sorry he was gone?

Anger, swift and hot, burned through my veins. All the ease I felt upon my arrival vanished. She’d lied to me. She said no one ever came here. She said she knew no one.

I covered what was left of the distance between us in seconds, coming to stand just behind her. Still, she didn’t turn. It was the first time she didn’t acknowledge my presence, for surely she knew I was right behind her. Was she now sickened at the presence of me—a hellhound—and hoping her angel wouldn’t see me?

“Ana,” I said, my voice hard and cold, my fingers flexed with the need to grab her and spin her to face me.

She stiffened, her shoulders going tense and her indrawn breath suspended in the air between us. Even with her surprise, which seemed suspicious, she didn’t turn to face me.

Pissed off, I gave in and grabbed her wrist, pulling her around. I was about to say something harsh when I caught a glimpse of her face. Her chin was wobbling and those crystal-clear green eyes were liquid with unshed tears.

I wasn’t prepared for tears.

For this.

Never once in all my time here had I ever seen even one hint of unhappiness, one hint of sorrow. To think of her this way shifted my anger away from her and refocused it, ten times stronger, onto whatever put that look in her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” I demanded. “Who was that?”

Anna looked up at me, blinking back the worst of her tears. “That was Lorn.”

I blew out a breath and my fingers dug into her arm. “Who?”

“He’s my match.”

Just then a large wave crashed against the shoreline bordering her house, a deafening sound that seemed to shove her words at me even more forcefully. I dropped her arm like I’d been burned. I didn’t know for sure what that meant, but I wasn’t stupid.