Youre not going to die, Savin quickly retorted.
But he wasnt so sure anymore.
Jett stood and wandered across the unsteady surface, wobbling at best. Savin thought to call out to her, but his lips were dry and cracked. He wanted something to drink. He wanted his feet to stop burning because hed taken off his sneakers after the rubber soles had melted in the steel nettle field. He wanted safety. Hed do anything to escape this place hed come to think of as the Place of All Demons.
I see water! Jett began to run.
Savin couldnt believe she had the energy to move so swiftly. But he managed to pick up his pace and follow. She was fifty yards ahead of him when she reached the edge of what looked like a waterfall. Actual water?
Jett, be careful!
But she didnt hear him. And when she turned to wave to him, all of a sudden her body was flung upwardas if lifted by a big invisible handand then her body dropped.
Savin reached the edge of the falls and plunged to his knees. He couldnt see Jett. Her screams echoed for a long time. And what initially looked like clear, cool water suddenly morphed into a thick, sludgy black flow of lava that bubbled down into an endless pit. He couldnt see the bottom.
Jett!
* * *
He lay at the edge of the pit for a long time. Days? There was no night and day in this awful place, so he couldnt know. After hed decided that Jett had died in the lava, Savin had vacillated between jumping in and ending his life, and crawling away. No one could survive such a fall. Perhaps that was for the best. He hoped she hadnt suffered. He hoped she was in heaven right now, happy and safe.
But as much as he wanted to give up, he also didnt want to die.
Savin finally crawled away from the lava falls. He hadnt the energy to stand. Hed lost his walking stick in the lavender field. The next creature that threatened him? Bring it on. He didnt like the idea of being eaten alive, but maybe the thing would chomp on his heart and kill him fast.
He crawled endlessly. Nothing tried to eat him.
Calluses roughed his fingers, and his T-shirt was shredded. He couldnt feel his feet anymore. And his throat was so dry he couldnt make saliva. So when he heard the voice of a woman, he thought it must be a dream.
Savin lay sprawled on an icy sheet of blackness that smelled like blood and dirt. Again, he heard the voice. Was it saying...help me?
It wasnt Jetts voice. Was it? No. Impossible. Though his heart broke anew over her loss, he couldnt produce tears.
Over here...
With great effort, he was able to lift his head and saw what looked like lush streams of blackest hair. Was it Jett?
He crawled forward. His fingers glanced over something soft and fine, like one of his mothers dresses. It was blue and smelled like flowers. A woman lay on the ground, blue and black hair flowing about her in masses that he thought made up her dress. He couldnt get a good look at her face because he was too weak to sit up or stand.
Do you want to go home? the woman whispered.
He sobbed without tears and nodded profusely.
I can help you out of Daemonia.
That was the first time hed heard the name of this terrible place.
Please, he rasped. Ill do anything.
Of course you will, boy. I ask but one simple thing of you.
Anything, he managed.
Come closer, boy. If you kiss me, I will bring you home.
Kiss her? What strange request was that?
On the other hand...all he had to do was kiss the woman and he could return home to his soft, warm bed?
Savin pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked back the direction from which hed crawled. Hed promised Jett hed protect her. Hed failed. He should stay in this awful place as punishment. But he wasnt stupid. And he wanted to see his parents.
A...kiss?
Just one. And then you can go home.
Savin crawled closer to the woman until he hovered inches from her face. She smelled like a field of flowers. Her skin was dark blue and her eyes were red, as were the eyes of all the creatures in this terrible place. He wavered as he supported himself with a hand and leaned closer.
And then he saw her lips.
Savin cried out. He tumbled to the side and rolled to his back. Her lips were covered with worms!
Just one kiss, boy. Your parents are worried about you.
Now a teardrop did fall. Savin gasped and choked as he could only wish for the safety of his parents embrace. And then...he forced himself to lean over the woman and kiss her awful mouth.
Chapter 3
He was called a reckoner now.
Savin Thorne sent demons who had come from Daemonia back where they belonged. He was hired to do so and rarely hunted them himself. He left the hunting for others. Once the demon was subdued or containedusually in some style of hex circlethen he stepped in and worked his magic. A demonic magic afforded him, he believed, because of the demon within him. She had hitched a ride to the mortal realm when she sent him home following that foul kiss. He knew it was a female. And he could not get her out of him. He didnt know her name, so had come to refer to her as the Other. Hed love to expel her from his very soul, but hed tried every possible spell, hex and banishment without success.
Hed accepted that life from here on would be spent sharing his bones and flesh with the demon hed once kissed out of a vile desperation.
Rain spattered Savins face and streaked through the headlight beams. The woman kneeling on the ground before him waited for his reaction. Shed called him by name. And her name was...
Mon Dieu, hed thought her dead.
Jett?
She nodded, blinking at the falling rain. I...I finally got out.
Finally... Words felt impossible.
It was incredible to fathom. This frail, dirtied woman was Jett? All grown up? Had she been in Daemonia all this time? Twenty years? If he had known shed survived the fall, he would have found a way to get to her, to rescue her from the unspeakable evils. Somehow.
Savins heart thundered. His fingers flexed at his sides. He didnt know what to do. How to react. He should have been there for her when they were nine and ten and lost in the Place of All Demons. Hed promised her he would protect her. And he had failed.
Yet somehow Jett had survived. Had she escaped through the rift that had opened earlier? She must have.
She must be so... Twenty years! She had no home. No life. She had literally been dropped into this world.
Jett. Savin dropped to the ground before her, his knees crunching the wet gravel. Without reluctance, he hugged her to him. She was frail and shaking and they were both soaked from the rain. I thought you were dead. Oh, Jett, Im so sorry. Its really you?
He leaned back and studied her face. He remembered the sweet round face of the girl with the long black hair and the giggles that never ceased. Her eyes had beenYes, they were brown. It could be her.
It had to be her.
Youve gotten so big, she said, and then managed a weak laugh. Yes, its me. Jett Montfort. Im out. Im... Oh, Savin. She searched his eyes. Rain lashed at her pale skin and lips. I want to be safe.
It had to be her.
Youve gotten so big, she said, and then managed a weak laugh. Yes, its me. Jett Montfort. Im out. Im... Oh, Savin. She searched his eyes. Rain lashed at her pale skin and lips. I want to be safe.
Of course. Safe. You are now. With me. Ill...
What would he do? He couldnt leave her alone on the side of the road. She needed a place to stay. Clothes. Warmth. Food? How in the world had she survived in such a place for so long? It didnt matter right now. She was frightened and alone.
Will you come with me? he asked.
Where to?
My place. I live in Paris. Ill help you, Jett. Whatever you need, Ill help you to get. And before he could regret another vow, he said, Promise.
She nodded, her smile wobbling and tears spilling freely. Please.
And when he thought to stand and help her up, instead Savin scooped her into his arms and carried her to the passenger side of the truck and set her inside. He tucked in her thin dress, which was nothing more than jagged-cut fabric clinging to her torso. She was covered with dirt and scratches, but the rain must have washed away any blood. Shed been hurt. Traumatized, surely.
She was a strange survivor.
And he owed her his life.
Youre safe now. He squeezed her hand, then closed the door and ran around to hop behind the wheel.
Legs pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped about her shins, she bowed her head to her knees and closed her eyes as Savin drove into the city.
* * *
What strange luck that her escape into the mortal realm should be met by the one person she knew and had thought of many times over the years. It couldnt be a coincidence. And yet Savin was a part of the demonic world in a way that disturbed Jett. Shed watched as he stood before the tear between the realms and reckoned demons back to Daemonia. He was powerful. And dangerous.
To her, he could prove most threatening.
Yet in her moment of need, Jett had accepted his offer of safety. Because she was exhausted, tattered and worn. And yet triumphant. Shed done it! She had escaped to the mortal realm. And whatever happened next would challenge her in ways she couldnt imagine. She had prepared mentally, but the physical challenges would be unknown. She owned a specific power. She could survive this new adventure.
As the truck entered the city, she watched headlights flash past in swift beams of red and white. It had been a long time since Jett had been in a cosmopolitan city with vehicles and buildings of human manufacture. She remembered Paris. The historical monuments and buildings, the gardens and sculptures. The elite shops and the River Seine. It hadnt seemed to change.
She had changed. Everything she knew about every single thing had changed.
And Savin remained the one pillar she needed more than she could fathom. Hed grown older, as had she. Hed gotten big and tall. The man was a behemoth wrapped in muscle and might. His dark brown hair was still shoulder length and tousled, as it had been when they were children. But now he wore a mustache and beard and a brute glint lived in his eyes. He had become a man. A very attractive man.
Jett couldnt prevent the frequent glances out the corner of her eye to the man driving the truck. She had not seen such a handsome being in...a long time. And he occupied every air molecule with his presence. He overwhelmed the space in the truck. Being near him made her heart flutter, in a good way. That was something it had not done since she was a kid.
But was this man now her enemy?
No. She wouldnt think like that. She needed help from Savin. And possibly protection. Even though he was the one person shed best run from, he was all she had right now.
When finally he parked the truck and jumped out to run around the front of the hood and open her door, Jett stared out at the dark building front where he said he lived. This was the fourteenth arrondissement. Not far from where she recalled a massive cemetery sat in Gothic silence amidst the bustling city. While she and Savin had lived in the country when they were children, their parents had alternated taking them into the city on the weekends to visit the parks and museums. Memory of those times made her heart again flutter.
Could she have back that innocence? Did she want it back? What was innocence but a foul waste of power? The darkness within her would not allow her to ruminate on the past for long. Just as well. Time to move forward.
Now Jett had ventured into the city again. With Savin. And he didnt suspect a thing about her, nor had he asked how she had survived for so long in Daemonia. Which was how it must remain.
She slid her fingers against the wide hand he offered, and stepped down onto the sidewalk. Her bare feet were scraped and bruised from running across the vast smoke-ice planes where cracks in the landscape were edged like razors. Pain had become but a bother to her. Healing would come quickly. Perhaps. She must be cautious about utilizing the skills she had been taught.
Your feet hurt? Savin asked when she wincingly stepped forward.
Pain in this mortal realm felt different than when shed been in the Place of All Demons. It was acute. And the cool air brushed her skin roughly. A shiver ensured that she had grasp of the sheen she wore. She must be cautious.
Without another word, Savin whisked her into his arms and carried her inside the building and up four flights of stairs without a catch to his breathing. Jett clung to the front of his shirt, noticing beneath her fingers the hard, sculpted muscles. And he smelled like nothing she had smelled before. Freshly exhilarating, yet rough. It appealed so strongly she nudged her nose against his shirt and inhaled. Was this what the princess felt like when rescued by the knight? How many times had they played such a game when they were children, always alternating who got to be the rescuer and who had to lie in dismay in wait of saving?
Now that game had become reality.
Why she had such a silly thought startled her. She had tried not to think about the simple human life shed lost while in Daemonia. Too dangerous.
He set her down, yet supported her by the elbow, before a door. A door inscribed with demonic repulsion sigils. Jett knew them well. One did not live in Daemonia for so long without gaining such knowledge.
She tentatively reached to touch one of the symbolsand flinched.
Keeps the nasties out, Savin commented. Necessary. But, uh... Hmm... Youve just come from there. Must have some residual gunk on you that will alert the wards. Let me take them down for you. He swept a hand over the sigils and muttered a word she recognized as a demonic language. He knew so much? There. Now it shouldnt tug when you cross the threshold.
He pushed the door open. Cool shadows invited Jett to step inside the narrow loft as easily as if she were crossing the threshold of her childhood home after returning from a day at school. No tug from the sigils, either. Whew.
Behind her, Savin muttered a reversal to seal the wards and closed the door. That action did pull at her system, but she disguised the sudden assault with an inhale and a sigh.
When she saw him reach for the light switch, she said, No. Uh... I can see well in the darkness. I, uh...think it will take a while to adjust to the bright.
He lowered his hand. Yeah, okay. Theres moonlight anyway. He gestured to a line of windows that ran across the ceiling, skylights catching the moonlight. Pale illumination sifted down over furniture and the cluttered walls of a living area. This top-floor apartment is small, but it has its perks. You thirsty?