***
Ryan hit the ground. A stone slammed into his cheek, and he felt a bone break.
He couldn’t go any farther.
Didn’t want to.
When he breathed—a jagged exhale—smoke drifted from his lips.
He was truly burning from the inside.
He’d been weak a moment before. He’d thought of his sister. Just a flash, and he’d been in her mind.
He’d tried to pull back, but she’d had the link then.
She’d known what was happening to him.
His fingers sank into the mud. He’d tried to get away from her. Away from everyone. But—
A twig snapped behind him.
Ryan forced his body to roll over.
She was there. Fate was cruel, giving him this last sight on earth.
Zoe shook her head as she crept out of the trees and toward the small clearing. “Are you done running? Are you ready to see reason?”
Reason? Reason wasn’t about destroying someone like her so that he could live.
She took another step toward. “Let me do this—” But she broke off as her head jerked up. She started to whirl back toward the trees.
Ryan tried to yell a warning.
He couldn’t.
Blood flew from his lips. Blood and smoke.
And blood flew from Zoe’s neck. Because Lorcan had just appeared near Zoe. Lorcan had sliced his fangs across her throat.
As Ryan lay there, helpless to do anything but watch, Lorcan dropped Zoe to the ground. A pain-filled moan slipped from her lips.
“Couldn’t have her ruining things for me, now could I?” Lorcan murmured as he wiped the blood from his lips. “Not when I’ve been waiting so long for this particular show.” Lorcan smiled.
Zoe wouldn’t be his last sight on earth.
The last image that Ryan would see—it would be the devil.
Chapter Twelve
Jane burst from the trees, and she slammed her body into Lorcan’s. “Stay away from him!” Fury drove her, just amping up the power in her body.
She and Lorcan hit the ground, then they rolled in a tangle of limbs. Rocks and branches cut into her skin, and when they stopped their mad tumble, she was on top of Lorcan.
The SOB was grinning up at her. “Knew you’d be here, too,” he said, sounding pleased. “Knew it…we both wanted to see him die.”
“I’m not here to watch my brother die.” She held Lorcan’s hands against the ground. From the corner of her eye, she saw Zoe.
Zoe wasn’t dead. Not yet. The scent of the werewolf’s blood filled Jane’s nostrils. Maybe Zoe should be dead, but she wasn’t.
Zoe was crawling, dragging her body toward Ryan.
“Of course, you are.” Lorcan didn’t fight her grip. Just kept grinning. “There’s no other way for this to end.”
“We’ll see about that,” Jane said, then she sank her teeth into his throat.
Lorcan yelled and tried to throw her off him.
She held on tight. She drank.
And his memories came to her.
***
“You think you’re brave…” Lorcan’s voice. Booming.
Jane saw her image, a pale woman with her wrists bound and her ankles chained.
“You aren’t,” he snarled at her. “Your lover will be dead long before you’re free.”
“You promised that you wouldn’t kill him!” Fear flared in her eyes.
“I won’t kill him. I’ll just make him beg for death.”
Jane saw herself try to struggle out of the bonds.
“And I never promised not to kill your brother.”
She stopped fighting the bonds.
Lorcan walked around her. They were…in a dark room. Stone for a floor. Stone for the walls. She’d been cut, deep slices at her wrists, and dried blood covered her hands.
“You were a traitor, so I have to expect that Ryan will be one, too.” He bent near her, brushing his mouth beside her cheek. “How much shall I make him suffer?”
“Don’t!”
He laughed. “Do you want to save him? Do you want to make me a deal, the same way you bargained for the life of that werewolf?”
“Please,” the word was a ragged breath. “Spare Ryan. He didn’t know that I was with Alerac. He had nothing to—”
“I can make him into nothing. I can stake him out at dawn. I can drain him. I can turn him into ash that drifts on the wind.”
The big, wooden door opened. A woman stepped inside.
“Ah, Shonna, so good of you to join us.” Lorcan didn’t look back at her. His stare remained on his prey. “What will you give me, lost little Keira, if I let Ryan live to see you free once more?”
The desolation eased in her eyes. Hope brightened her stare. “What do you want?”
“He begged me to free you. Offered to trade anything for your safety.”
A blood red tear tracked through the dirt on her cheek.
“Bind your life to mine,” Lorcan said.
His words were chilling. She saw the shiver rake her body.
“Agree to the link, a link that will last until death for us, and I’ll let your brother live.”
She nodded.
He shook his finger. “No, that’s not how it works. You have to say the words. Doesn’t she, Shonna?” He looked over his shoulder at the woman with a long braid of red hair. A woman with a knife in her hand.
“Yes,” Shonna whispered. Then she began to whisper the words of a spell.
The bite scars on Shonna’s neck twisted the witch’s skin.
Lorcan’s focused shifted away from the witch. “Your werewolf will be long gone before you’re truly free. You won’t be betraying him,” Lorcan added as he brushed her hair over her shoulders. “You’ll be saving your brother.”
Another shudder shook her form. “I-I’ll bind to you, until death.”
At those words, the witch rushed forward with her knife. She drove that knife into Keira’s chest.More blood joined the dirt and grime that covered her.
“The bind will start the moment you escape your prison, when your lungs fill with their first taste of new air,” the witch’s words seemed to echo with power. “The bond will continue, through blood and pain, until one of you dies.”
Then Lorcan took the knife. He licked the blood away from the blade. “Death will be a very long time coming.”
***
“Get the hell away from her!” Alerac bellowed.
His cry had Jane jerking up. The images vanished.
And Lorcan was able to toss her aside.
In the next instant, Lorcan was on his feet. “She was the one to come for me,” Lorcan taunted. “I guess our link is stronger than she’d have you believe.”