Ashes (Dark in You 3)

Of course, he didn’t know any of that. She’d kept it to herself because she knew that the truth that she’d been in agony for hours would torture him, just as she knew from the other times that she’d been taken from him exactly how hard his demon would be riding him.

God, she really was sick of being kidnapped. The first time, it had been Knox that the culprits wanted to capture – she’d been nothing but bait. The second time, she had in fact been the target. This time, the baby was who the kidnappers wanted. If they thought they’d get their hands on her child, they were out of their ever-loving minds.

“Here,” said Linda, holding a bottle of water to Harper’s mouth.

Throat dry and lungs burning with every breath, Harper gulped down the water, not worried that it could be drugged. They wouldn’t give her anything that would kill her – the dark magick would do that for them once the baby was born.

Well, Linda probably would be tempted to kill her beforehand, considering she now sported one whopper of a bruise on her jaw. Her demon absolutely loved the sight of it. Shame the vines had restrained Harper’s feet to stop her from kicking the bitch again.

“I’ll bet you’re wishing you were in a hospital right now having an epidural,” said Linda with a smirk. “Sorry, no pain relief for you.”

Harper narrowed her eyes. “I hope I shit on you.” She’d heard women sometimes did it during labor, and she’d hoped it wouldn’t happen to her. Now, however, it would be a fucking treat.

Linda’s lips pinched together. “It won’t be anything I haven’t seen before.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I haven’t shit for about two days. I’ve got lots stored up there.” Her demon might have chuckled at that if it wasn’t so wound up.

A crippling pain once again rippled through her womb, sending her back arching. She tasted blood and distantly wondered if she’d bitten her tongue. It didn’t matter. It was the baby that mattered, and she figured that it had to be even harder for the baby, since it was pretty much stuck in what couldn’t be a comfortable position.

“How dilated is she?” asked Nora, voice a little hoarse due to chanting non-stop for God-knew-how-long.

Ignoring Harper’s curses, Linda checked and replied, “Four centimeters.”

“What?” clipped one of the figures – Harper had nicknamed him “Whiner” because he moaned constantly about her slow progress. “This has gone on too long!” Like the others, his face was pale and his expression was pinched. They were all tired and weakening. Ha.

“Labor can be slow, especially when it’s a woman’s first pregnancy,” Linda explained. “I’ve told you time and time again that it may help if we let Harper change positions, but you’re set on keeping her still.”

Whiner humphed and then spoke to Nora. “We need to find a way to speed it up. You might be sure that Knox can’t get to her in time to help her, but I’m not.” That was the first bit of wisdom he’d shown.

“If we speed it up, we risk hurting the child,” said Nora.

That didn’t seem to bother any of them, Harper noted. Fucking bastards.

“And if we don’t,” began Whiner, “we risk finding ourselves in the hands of Knox Thorne – no thank you.”

Another incantor – who Harper called “Jumpy” because he seemed to be a nervous wreck and constantly scanned the landscape as if expecting Knox to jump out at him – said, “He’s right, Nora. We can’t take any more chances than we already have.”

After a long pause, Nora said, “Then take a brief break and recharge.”

Hoping to delay them from resuming their horrible chanting, Harper spoke to her. “I don’t understand. If you’re one of the Horsemen, why did you even tell us about them?”

Nora twisted the cap off a water bottle and took a long drink. “Because people need to know about us, and the Primes need to fear what’s coming.”

“But you described Roan, you basically handed him —” Realization smacked Harper right in the face. “You wanted him dead, didn’t you?”

Nora merely shrugged. “He had to go. He became a liability. He’d lost control of Crow and was too blinded by his hatred of you to be efficient. He knew about my vision, knew a baby would come, but he wanted you dead too badly to see the bigger picture. I couldn’t risk him killing you.” She took another long swig of water and then recapped it. “Everyone ready?”

Harper went to speak again, but another contraction hit. When it faded, she was shaking feverishly… and too late to engage Nora in more conversation. The old bitch resumed that horrible chanting, and the others quickly joined in. The chanting was louder now, and the words came faster. There was a frantic edge to them that hadn’t been there before.

The wind howled as it picked up in intensity, whipping up and tangling Harper’s hair. The trees creaked under its brutal force, and she hoped one would snap and smack one of the incantors right over the fucking head.

She flinched at the sharp crack of thunder, and had the satisfaction of seeing Linda almost jump out of her skin. That satisfaction left her when yet another contraction made her almost double over – this one more painful than any that had come before it. When it stopped, she panted, “Tell me about Sam.”

Linda reared back as if she’d been slapped.

“I’ll bet it hurt when you lost him,” Harper said gently. “I’ll bet you’ve never felt pain like that before or since. The worst day of your life, right?”

“By far.”

“And yet you want to take my baby from me. You of all people should know what an injustice it is to lose your own child.”

Guilt flashed in Linda eyes for a brief moment. “They won’t let you live to keep it anyway. I’ll only be taking it because there’s no one else.”

“There’s Knox,” Harper pointed out. Another contraction came along and stole what she was about to say. As she moaned and panted, lighting repeatedly flashed within the clouds. It was an isolated electrical storm that seemed too close for Harper’s liking.

Knox, where are you? I don’t want to do this alone. She hadn’t envisioned it happening this way. Not once.

Her demon paused in its raving, sending Harper an impression of them being one – telling her that she wasn’t alone. It was the first time the entity had ever offered her any support of any kind. But then, they had a common goal: they had to protect the baby. They just weren’t sure how they’d do it.

The terrible facts were that she was outnumbered, restrained, in no physical state to fight, and she couldn’t access her abilities. Moreover, she’d been infected with some kind of dark magick that would kill her pretty much instantly after she’d given birth.

In sum, she was fucked. But that didn’t mean she’d give up hope. That wasn’t who she was.

We’re almost done reopening the portal, baby, just hold on for me.

Hope flared. She closed her eyes, imagining him standing right there, being calm and supportive to keep her own fears at bay. Hurry, Knox. She must have said that aloud, because Linda snorted.

“No one’s coming for you. Even if they did, they’d be too late – just like Nora said.”

“Nora’s batshit.”

Linda inclined her head. “Possibly.”

“Yet, you’re working for her.”

“Working with her. She needs me.”

Harper couldn’t imagine Nora needing Linda. What she needed was a midwife; one who would risk going against Harper and Knox; one who was expendable and could be manipulated into helping. But Harper didn’t get why she’d been so easy to manipulate. “Why help Nora?”

“You shouldn’t have taken McCauley from me, Harper. And you definitely shouldn’t have killed Jeanna. She was my best friend.”

All right, that was a shocker. “She was also a demon for hire who tried to kill me and led Knox into a trap.”

“I know. I’m not really doing this because of them anyway. I’m doing it because Nora made me a very good deal. If I help her, I get to keep your baby.” Linda smiled, but it was a creepy smile. “Nora will hold it over Knox’s head, but she can’t take care of it herself. That’s where I come in.”