Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1) (27 page)

Outside, the wind whistled up the barren volcanic slope. It blew right through me, chilling me to the bone. We were nowhere near the snow-capped peak of the mountain, but even this far up the air was icy.

I stepped to the edge of the crevice Lana had led us to and peered down. Jagged rock twisted down into inky blackness. The portal lay somewhere deep inside there. Warm, sulfuric fumes vented up from its depths. My nose scrunched at the smell.

I wedged my fingers into cracks and began to ease myself down, wincing on my bad leg, which hadn’t recovered much since the car accident.

Much more nimble, Lana hopped down to the bottom and waited patiently, and when I reached her, she ducked into the mouth of the cave, shimmying sideways until she vanished. I crawled after her, jaw locked against the sickening claustrophobia setting in.

To my relief, the cave opened up the other side. I stood up, marveling at the sight beyond.

Lined with flickering torches, a broad staircase spiraled down into the earth, carved right into the rock.

The entrance to the underworld.

Unlike the portal at White Sulfur Springs, this one looked like it was meant for kings, the walls and floor intricately carved.

As we started down the stairs, Lana reached for my hand, her grasp timid at first. I squeezed her palm before I remembered and my stomach knotted up.

Still, I didn’t let go.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she said, trying to sound teasing.

“I’m nervous.” That wasn’t entirely a lie.

“You don’t have to be,” she said. “I’ll protect you.”

I winced, my sorrow bordering on nausea. How could I do this to someone so pure, someone so brave, someone so precious as Lana?

It was unthinkable.

“I don’t know what’s bothering you,” she whispered, “but it’s going to be okay . . . I promise.”

When I didn’t answer, she stopped me and stood on tiptoe to kiss me, her lips urgent against my own. “I
promise
.” When she pulled back, her luminous eyes mesmerized me, moved me . . . and in that moment I came closer to changing my mind than I ever had.

It would be so easy to surrender to my feelings for her.

So easy to give in.

So easy to lay down my gun and give them my blood in exchange for an oath.

A chance to walk away with my life, my conscience, my future.

My girl.

I could whisk Lana away to paradise, lay with her on sunny beaches, swim naked in tropical coves, make mind-blowing love to her under the stars until we collapsed, utterly exhausted, at dawn.

It would be so easy to fall in love with her.

So easy to be happy.

The Infernari were an honorable, proud species. If they agreed to let me surrender, they would be true to their word. I knew they would.

It was humans who connived and backstabbed and cheated to eke out every advantage they possibly could. It was humans who hungered and raped and lusted, it was humans who plagued the Earth. It was humans who deserved retribution.

It would be so easy.

But then the moment passed, leaving me with a cold ache in my heart.

“Come on, let’s not keep them waiting.” I pushed past her, my insides twisting ever tighter.

What I did today would doom me to a lifetime of guilt and regret.

But I’d given up on happiness a long time ago.

The stairs deposited us in a large, dimly lit cavern. At the opposite end, five rock columns formed the pentagram of the portal. The air around them shimmered, as if giving off heat waves. The hairs on my forearms instantly rose, pulled toward its rippling core.

A gateway to hell.

While I stiffened at the sight, Lana breathed out her relief. The last portal she’d sought in a cave, she had found in ruin, thanks to me.

My ever-scheming brain kicked into gear. A masonry drill bit ought to do it. Punch a hole in each of those columns, slide in five sticks of dynamite, run the cables to the surface, and then . . .
BOOM
.

But I wasn’t here to blow up the portal, and now, of all times, my conniving thoughts disgusted me.

I stepped forward, and the crunch under my boot echoed around the chamber.

Bone fragments.

They littered the ground. I lifted my toe off a jaw bone, missing half its teeth. I could only imagine what they signified—the millennia of human sacrifices brought here to bleed.

I didn’t get the chance to muse on it.

Out of the darkness loomed a pair of red eyes. A moment later the demon Azazel strolled out, his mouth curved up in a sadistic smirk.

Instinctively, my hand went to my holster. A useless reflex, considering how well he fared last time I shot him.

More eyes glimmered from the shadows, and more demons converged around us. Dozens of them. The entire demon population of the Americas, it looked like . . . and some. Enough to drain an entire town’s worth of humans.

All here to bring Jame Asher to his knees.

Some I recognized—Azazel, Clades, Aecora, Fidel.

Some I didn’t.

Any one of these creatures could single-handedly wreck me—they had that look in their eyes, too, like when a hungry Bengal tiger catches sight of its prey through the brush—and here I was with a bad leg, eleven bullets, and what was starting to seem like a very, very stupid plan.

As they formed a circle of smoldering eyes, my breath quickened. How many had Lana contacted? Two? Three? The rest of them might not even know we came to make peace.

Finally, Clades stepped forward, one of his hooves kicking up a plume of bone dust.

Lana dropped to her knees next to me and bowed her head.

“
Kneel
,” she hissed at me.

I sort of did a half crouch, unwilling to give up my fighting stance.

“Jame Asher, our sworn enemy,” Clades said, his eyes and voice hard. His gaze flicked to Lana, and everything about him softened. “Lana Malesuis, oathbound to protect him . . . We will hear you speak, because you were once dear to us. You say the hunter wishes to surrender by blood oath. Before you speak, know that we do not take lightly his crimes against our people, and that we will very likely choose to kill you both where you stand.”

From the corner of my eye I saw her dip her head.

Behind him, some of the other demons shifted restlessly; one growled softly.

“If you are honorable, Jame Asher,” Clades called, “let us see you lay down your arms.”

“I am honorable,” I said.

I unclipped my holster and held it in front of me, but hesitated.

Eleven bullets . . .

I could shoot one demon before the others ripped into me . . . one demon who wouldn’t even die.

I dropped the gun and raised my hands, remembering a second too late that Infernari believed the seat of all power resided in the hands.

The demons hissed and assumed battle stances.

“Easy,
eeeasy
 . . .” I lowered my hands, my heart pounding. “When humans raise their hands, it’s to show they have no weapons . . . it’s a sign of surrender to my people.”

Since when did these fuckers get so scared of me?

“Be that as it may,” said Clades, “we cannot trust your word, as you have demonstrated countless,
countless
times.”

He nodded to Aecora, who swooped in and patted down my jeans and slid her hands up my thighs . . . with a little too much vigor. Groping my butt, she slid my pen light out of my back pocket and held it up for all to see. “A weapon. See, he lies already.”

“It’s a flashlight,” I growled.

“That also fires a bullet, perhaps? We know your tricks, Asher.” She cracked it in half and dumped out the batteries, then dusted the plastic bits off her hands.

“He’s telling the truth,” Lana blurted out. “He had one of those when I first met him . . . and without it, he was as blind as a bat.”

“I’m not going to kill you guys with the flashlight,” I added.

“Blind as a bat . . . hmm, I like that,” Azazel said, picking at his fingernail. “Why don’t we gouge out his eyes? Then we’ll accept his surrender.”

I twitched.

“No,” Clades said. “He offered blood with his surrender, we will take the blood—
if
we decide to let him live.” He turned back to me. “Why should we accept this exchange, Jame Asher?”

Clades’ calm impressed me, considering I’d shot him in cold blood.

Of all the demons I’d met, him I respected the most.

That would make this harder.

“Why should we spare your life,” he continued, “when you have shown such contempt for ours? When you have killed so many of our brothers and sisters? Why should we not execute you on the spot?”

You should . . .

I opened my mouth, but Lana silenced me with a shake of her head. She rose to her feet and spoke for me.

“I
hated
him,” she began softly, “I hated him just as much as you did, as all of you did. Jame Asher was once our enemy, but he isn’t anymore. He hunted us because our magic killed his wife and daughter. Would you not be angry if a human killed your family? Your mate? Your daughter? Would you not seek vengeance? He fought us, because he was
loyal
to his family, because he was a good father, a good mate . . .”

I closed my eyes while she was talking, each word a successive blow to my heart

My eyes stung behind my eyelids, and I shook my head as she spoke, trying to negate every word. I wasn’t good, I wasn’t loyal, I wasn’t honorable. I was wretched and deceitful and treacherous.

I didn’t deserve to have her defending me.

I didn’t deserve her. Period.

“. . . but he’s changed,” she went on. “He’s a different man now. He saved my life. Clades, brother, he spared your life when he could have killed you, and Aecora, sister, yours too. Today, he came to offer peace, not to fight. I know you want vengeance, we all do, but hasn’t there been enough killing? Enough oathbound deaths? Wasn’t it our need for vengeance that caused the war in the first place? We will never stop dying unless we stop killing, unless we break the cycle, unless we
forgive
 . . . if we are to survive, we must learn to forgive
.
”

She paused, and a cave full of demons that wanted us dead now hesitated. They looked halfway swayed by her words.

She continued in a softer voice, “Please honor this man as he has honored me, as he has protected me, as he has cared for me, and please forgive him, for I know he is good, I
know
he is good . . .” She lowered her head and in a whisper, said, “And he is my mate.”

Demons gasped and hissed around the cavern.

It was too much.

I fell to my knees, shaking my head and staring at her in desperation, once again feeling like a drowning, dying man who’s seen his salvation. As I beheld her, a girl not of my species who had risked everything—
everything
—to save my life, my chest felt too small to hold my heart.

I couldn’t go through with it.

I couldn’t betray her.

Not after that.

Her words had crushed me more effectively than any weapon.

She smiled weakly at me, and I knew then.

I would not betray Lana Malesuis.

I would love her, and cherish her, and somehow let go of my hatred of Infernari. I would do it all and more . . .

For she was my mate.

I couldn’t breathe as I felt the beginnings of something, something—

Clades turned from us to look over the gathered Infernari. When he swiveled back to us, he gave a curt nod. “Very well,” he said, pulling out a blade. “Jame Asher, you are hereby sworn—as it is writ in your blood, which you give to us willingly—to be guardians to the Infernari and never bring us harm . . .”

Aecora lifted her palms and formed a glass sphere the size of a grapefruit—the quantity of blood needed to curse me to death, should I break my oath—leaving a quarter-sized hole in the top. She handed the container to Clades.

I offered my arm, and this didn’t feel like defeat. It felt like hope. Hope that I might be freed from the vendetta that had ridden me for two years, the hate that had shackled my mind and my heart.

Holding the sphere, Clades touched the cold blade to a vein in my forearm, still chanting, “. . . and in return, we are sworn to you, Jame Asher, as is witnessed here at the ninth portal, to never bring you harm, and so henceforth shall we be allies, bound by your blood and our oaths, for the rest of our days—”

“I will not make that oath,” spat a voice from the far side of the cavern.

Clades backed off the blade, looking up to see who had spoken.

A demon rushed out of the crowd with superhuman speed, bloodred eyes blazing like embers.

The creature moved so swiftly I never even had time to react. I only had a split-second to make out his face—the portal master, Fidel—before he plunged a dagger into my abdomen.

I felt the blade part skin, heard the wet, slick sound of it meeting flesh.

And then came the pain.

I grunted and doubled over around the burning agony.

The demon held me close, his hand still wrapped around the hilt of his weapon as he hissed in my ear, “I will
never
make that oath.”

Payback for cutting off his hands and head, torturing him, and vaporizing him with bullets.

I heard screaming. The most beautiful voice in the world
screaming
. It sounded as though she were the one dying.

Fidel yanked the dagger from the wound. Immediately, blood began to flow from it, oozing between my fingers. He drove it again into my neck.

I choked on my own blood, my eyes sightless for a second.

Lana’s screams turned into a war cry and she tackled Fidel to the ground. They landed in a heap, grappling and spraying up bone fragments.

“Lana . . .” I toppled sideways, wincing and stemming the blood flow with my palm.

We’d almost had peace. Almost. And then the demons had to go and do that.

For two years, I’d been hunting Infernari. Creatures that when fueled by their lethal magic, were strong as tanks and nearly unkillable. For two years, I’d outsmarted them off sheer wit alone.

I’d almost started to think I was invincible.

But in the end, all it took was a nick to the carotid artery. In the end, when you stripped away our machines, our will to fight, our cunning, our insatiable hunger, we humans were fragile, fragile things.