Stricken (The War Scrolls Book 1) (23 page)

He began to understand why the virus drove the shifters mad when it didn’t outright kill. The pain in his head was intense and becoming more so by the minute. It was a thousand different tortures layered one atop the other. Over and over and over. A day or two of that and his mind would snap as easily as theirs seemed to do.

Thank God he wouldn’t last much longer. He just had to get to Aubrey, and then he could die. The pain would stop. The burning would stop. All of it would simply…stop.

It took him a minute to realize that the Eliouds’ thoughts weren’t the only ones stabbing into his mind. Aubrey’s captors were arguing. Panicked. They’d boxed themselves in.

He tried to laugh but ended up groaning as a thought hit him like a bomb.

They were going to kill Aubrey if anyone came close.

“Stop,” he shouted as he and Jason broke through the trees and into the clearing, only that didn’t come out quite right, either. It was a winded grunt. Not that it mattered, though. He could see Aubrey in the misty, predawn light.

His mate.

“Stop,” Jason shouted to the Elioud, his eyes picking out what Killian had already seen.

The Nephilim was backed up to a sheer drop-off, his hand tight around Aubrey’s throat.

The demon stood beside him, malevolence burning in his soulless eyes.

Killian paid them no attention, his eyes locking on Aubrey’s.

“Aubrey,” he whispered. He swayed on his feet—though, he wasn’t sure if that was the virus or the searing expression on Aubrey’s face. Probably both. She was so pale and in so much pain. God…what had they done to her?

Agony burned in her gaze as she stared at him.

A vicious growl tore from his throat. “Let her go,” he demanded. The words were thick, twisted…but recognizable at least.

“Come any closer and I’ll throw her over,” the Nephilim said, taking another step backward.

Jason snarled as the rest of the Elioud broke through the trees and halted where they stood.

Zee struggled in the sling and dropped to the ground. He darted off in an instant, bounding clear of the shifters. He stopped in the center of the clearing, his head moving back and forth as if he was uncertain where to go with wolves on one side and the demon on the other.

“You’ll never make it out of here alive,” Killian warned the Nephilim outcast. Tomiel. His name was Tomiel, and his thoughts were scattered, crazed. Killian felt delirious, as if his head had detached from his body at some point. Or maybe it was his heart that had detached. He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that Tomiel was desperate, and he wanted Aubrey to die.

“We don’t need to make it out alive. We just have to make sure Aubrey doesn’t,” the demon, Halphas, said. “You can’t cure anyone if she dies.”

It took Killian a moment to process that. “Why do you want her?” he demanded, swaying dangerously. Sweet Heaven, he couldn’t see straight. He focused as best he could on the thoughts that trickled back to him.

Aubrey…cure…punish her…

He growled again as little bits and pieces began to connect in his feverish mind. The desire to rip their throats out was strong, stronger even than the desire to hold Aubrey in his arms one final time. They wanted to use her to start their war with the Fallen. Tomiel, though…Tomiel wanted to torment her. He wanted to make her watch her friends die. He didn’t care if the demons were successful or not. All he cared about was revenge, and with
La Morte Nera
released, he’d ensured she would suffer as much as possible.

Killian took a step forward, swaying.

“Don’t!” Tomiel warned, spinning until only his grip on Aubrey’s neck kept her from going over the edge.

Aubrey’s feet kicked at nothing but air. A soft whimper broke from her throat.

Killian stopped moving.

The Elioud stirred restlessly, growling in warning. They were ready, beyond ready.

Killian simply had to get Aubrey clear first.

“Let us leave, and we’ll let her go,” Halphas said.

Killian didn’t need his mindreading Talent to know that wasn’t true. The demon had no more desire to let Aubrey go now than he had back at the hotel. At least now Killian knew why. With her, he could set the remaining Elioud and Nephilim loose on the Fallen, letting them destroy the Fallen while the demons stood back and watched, collecting the souls of the Fallen-kin who died in the battle. With the Fallen safely out of the way, they could fall on humanity like a plague, forcing Heaven into a war to end all wars.

“Let her go, and we’ll kill you quick,” Killian offered in exchange, not meaning that any more than the demon meant his lie. He felt helpless. Aubrey was within sight, and yet again, there was nothing he could do that didn’t put her in danger. It was like Newton’s third law of motion—every action had an equal and opposite reaction. If he moved, they would kill her. If he didn’t, they’d torture her.

She was his mate. His heart. His soul. Even with the virus poisoning him, he was no more capable of watching them kill her than he had been back in the hotel room. He’d do whatever he had to do to keep her from the fate they had in store for her, though.

She’d lost enough already.

His eyes locked on hers again. For a minute, the effects of the virus seemed to dim. It was just him and her and the way she’d told him that she loved him. He never had said it back to her. Did she know? Could she?

She was only human. Only capable of love to a human degree. But when she gazed at him with such trust in her eyes as she was now…he felt
more
. Humans weren’t supposed to mate. There weren’t supposed to be capable of a connection so intense it transcended everything else in their lives.

For the Fallen, mating was complete, total. The devotion shared between mates eclipsed all but devotion to God. It was the sun, the moon…breath and life, a weapon so powerful God had reserved the bond for only the most deserving of angels. The human heart wasn’t capable of feeling that level of emotion, nor was the human mind capable of understanding it.

His human understood, though. He saw it in her eyes. Heard it in the way her heart beat. Felt it as if she breathed it to him in the very air. She was as tangled as he was, as caught as he was. She’d had as little choice as he had. It just
was
. For both of them.

A gift from God, perhaps, to make up for all the shit she’d been through in her life.

“Please,” she mouthed to him. “Please, do it.”

Killian wanted to deny her. He wanted to shake his head, promise her that she’d survive this and everything would be okay, but he couldn’t. For the first time, he had to admit what he’d refused to entertain since the beginning—Aubrey was going to die.

But not on their terms.

He owed her that much, didn’t he?

Doing it would kill him as surely as the virus, but she was his mate, his other half. He could deny her nothing. Not even this.

“I love you,” he mouthed to her, his heart fracturing in his chest.

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

Killian stepped forward once and then again.

In an instant, he was running toward her.

Tomiel’s fingers loosened around her neck one by one.

Aubrey didn’t make a sound as she fell.

Chapter Twenty-Two

When the Nephilim boy, Cromiel, had had Aubrey locked in his little shack of horrors, she’d been certain she was going to die. At times during those three endless days, she’d begged for death. It would have been a relief. Her tormentor had lived for those pleas, and each one had brought some new pain into her life. She’d never before understood why. But now she did. Because of her father, he’d been forced to fight for what he hated. The Fallen had shunned Cromiel and his brother, but he’d had to fight for their lives. Taking that out on her while waiting for her father to give him what he wanted had been his only solace.

Eventually, she’d learned to stop pleading for him to kill her.

This time was different.

Her arm was broken and quite possibly her ribs too. But falling was as easy as breathing. There was no pain. There was no new torment. There was only Killian and the certainty that she could still save him. All he had to do was reach her in time.

She held her eyes open wide, focused solely on him as the Nephilim giant’s grip on her neck loosened and fell away. She had a thousand things she wished she had time to tell her Halfling warrior, but as his gaze locked on hers and he broke into a run…she had a feeling he already knew.

She didn’t say a word as she began to fall.

***

Killian dove over the edge of the drop-off half a second behind Aubrey, his fingers grasping for her as all hell broke loose behind him. The Elioud howled in fury as they fell upon Tomiel and the demon.

Tomiel and Halphas snarled as they tried to defend themselves.

Killian’s only regret was that he wouldn’t live to see them torn apart.

Wind whistled by him as he and Aubrey fell. Rocks skidded down the cliff face, bouncing off him with dull thuds. Aubrey was completely silent as he wrapped his hand in her shirt and pulled, trying to hold on to her.

Fabric ripped beneath his scrabbling fingers, but he managed to grab her upper arm.

She cried out in pain then, and Killian wanted to scream at the tortured sound. He gritted his teeth and jerked her toward him instead, feeling the way her bone slipped beneath his fingers.

Tomiel had broken her arm.

“Hang on,” he shouted as he hauled her up his body.

Agonized screams ripped from her throat again and again. The sound tore at his heart, but he held on until she was close enough for him to lock his arm around her.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he muttered, pulling her tightly to his body as she shook and screamed. He reached out for the cliff face, trying to find anything to slow their fall or halt it. His hand scraped along rock and over vines.

None slowed their fall any.

He hadn’t expected they would, but he had to try anyway. Aubrey might have been prepared to die, but he still wasn’t ready to let her. Maybe that was selfish, given the horrors she was going to face if this worked…but he’d never denied that sentiment.

He was selfish. Extremely so if it meant she survived.

His hand clutched around a thick root. He actually hissed as their fall stopped as suddenly as it started, his arm nearly tearing from the socket as the root held beneath their combined weight. His back slammed into the cliff face hard, shaking more rock and dirt free.

Water roared to their right, too far away to do either of them any good.

Aubrey screamed and buried her face in his chest. He tightened his grip on her to keep her from sliding down his body. He couldn’t hold them for long. Already, his hand was beginning to slip. The virus had done too much damage, weakened him too much. An hour, two at the most and he would be as crazed as anyone else infected with
La Morte Nera
.

“Killian,” Aubrey whimpered. “Oh God.”

He could have wept at the sound of her voice. It was weak, tremulous…but it was hers.

“Hold on, love,” he whispered. He shifted his weight around her, looking for an outcrop, a shelf in the rock, a cave…anything to offer a little more stability than his weakening hold on the root provided. Hope dwindled as he spied an outcropping too far down the cliff face to do much good. If he let Aubrey go, even that fall would kill her. If he didn’t let her go, she was going to die anyway when his strength gave.

For the second time in as many minutes, Killian gritted his teeth and made a gamble with his mate’s life. He opened his hand and let the root go.

***

Aubrey screamed as she and Killian began to slide rapidly down the rock face once more. She wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten to her or if he had at all. Perhaps this is what death was—her greatest hope and worst fear realized simultaneously.

She didn’t know.

Killian was here, but his body burned with
La Morte Nera
. Even as they fell, he was dying.

More screams built in her throat.

Air whistled past, stinging at her nose as she gulped it in.

“Hang on. Hang on,” Killian chanted. The words were slurred, barely even there at all. His grip on her never faltered, though. He held her tightly, sheltering her body as best he could with his own. The rocks bouncing down the mountainside with them, the dirt…he took the brunt of each with his own body.

Aubrey opened her mouth to cry out as they sheared away from the rock to drop through nothing but air again.

She never had a chance.

They landed hard, her head snapping back on her neck as she hit the ground.

The last thing she saw was Killian lying motionless across the rocks.

There was nothing but pain then.

***

Killian inched across the outcropping of rock toward Aubrey, groaning. If the virus didn’t kill him, the fall would. Black spots swam in his vision. Great weights pressed in upon his chest. There was no sound stabbing into his brain now, but the pain was still there, clawing and twisting until he wanted to beg for it to stop.

“Aubrey,” he groaned.

She didn’t move.

He could still hear the sickening thud of her body hitting the ground.

Her heartbeat was faint, the smell of blood too thick. He’d gambled…and he’d lost.

Aubrey really was going to die here.

His one solace was that he wouldn’t be far behind her.

He dragged himself toward her and reached out to pull her onto his lap as best he could. Blood ran in a river down her arm. His entire body seized as his head erupted into fire once again.

“Please,” he whispered, begging God for her life. “Please.”

Aubrey’s eyes fluttered but didn’t open. Her blood ran across his hands. Her heartbeat grew fainter.

His body seized again, the virus raging inside of him until he felt as though he was being ripped in two.

It didn’t even compare to the way it felt to listen to her heartbeat begin to fade.

Killian screamed his defiance and made his choice.

He pressed his bleeding arm to her mouth.

His blood trickled past her lips.

Darkness rushed up to meet him.