Infernal Bonds (29 page)

I gave him a small nod and said, “Thank you.”

He returned the nod and walked away to the rest of the Sidhe.
 

Matyas lifted his head and said quietly, “What can I do?”

Quin patted him on the back. “Arrange the clean-up crews, we won’t be able to keep the humans out for much longer.”

The hunter stood a little taller; having a task gave him something to focus on.
 

I looked around our little group, “And what do we do now?”

“Shower,” Kadrix said.
 

We laughed; what other choice did we have? We were coated in the blood and entrails of demons, witches, and our fallen comrades. We had already cried, and so we laughed. I took one last look around the square and reminded myself that it was a victory. The hulking masses of the demons were slowly burning of their own accord. Great heaps of ash sat next to the empty black robes of the witches. The lycans were dealing with their own. They’d mostly shifted back into their human forms and carried off the bodies of their packmates.
 

I reminded myself that we’d won as we walked away, leaving the others to return it to as it should be, as though it never happened.
 

The journey home was quiet. Lysander remained close to me, his fingers brushing over my hands. Quin held Kadrix close and accompanied him to his home; Elise slipped away to her church with a particularly sexy priest. I couldn’t say I blamed her. So much life had been lost during the fight, it was only natural to want to lose herself in the pleasures of another. The flat was quiet with just the hound and me. The memories of the battle began to haunt me each time I closed my eyes. There was no longer anything to hold it all back. Drawing a deep breath, I focused. We’d won. We were alive. Lysander and I both discarded our blood-stained, tattered clothes, leaving us in just our underwear. There was no shame or concern at being so exposed with him. We’d been through too much together.

I took my time cleaning Lysander’s remaining wounds. I was careful to be as gentle as I could be when I dabbed and rubbed the paste over the cuts and bruises. The faint lines of his scars called to me, begging me to trail my fingers along them. I ignored the call and focused on easing his pain. He watched my every movement, his muscles relaxed and his breathing calm. He made no comments, and I was grateful for it. I was in no state to deal with the overwhelming maelstrom of emotions that warred within me. I feared that if I opened my mouth it would all pour out and I’d crumble.
 

When he picked up the cloth to tend to my wounds, I couldn’t. I left him a kiss on the forehead and went for a long hot shower. He was my hound, but, he remained just that. My hound. There were moments where I wanted more, but they were quickly extinguished by fear. I scrubbed myself clean, making the skin raw in some places. I revelled in the comforting familiarity of my butterscotch shower gel and focused on it, trying to use it to purge the images of the fight from my mind. Tomorrow would be a new day.
 

When I emerged from the steam-filled bathroom, Lysander scooped me in his arms. I was glad to have pulled on something to sleep in. He carried me to bed, our bed. He wrapped me up in the blankets and pulled me into his arms, holding me close to his chest. “I will protect you, mistress. Sleep well, without fear.”

He nuzzled against my neck, and I knew his words to be true. We would protect each other, and in turn, protect our city. No lasting harm would come to Prague while we still lived.
 

End Note.

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Book Three (Witch Infernal) will be published on August 30th 2016. It will go up for pre-order in July.