Unearthed (31 page)

After a moment, she did as she was told, even walking towards her destroyer. The distance from the glass put her in a better position to use the momentum to break through.

“How did you get into my apartment?” she asked. “I didn’t invite you in.”

“This will never be your home,
chérie
. Your home is with me. These are just walls. They hold no power, especially not enough to keep us apart.”

Right. There was only one sure way to keep them apart. As he reached for her, she spun, running with her head tucked in, her shoulder aiming towards the weakest point of the window. The glass shattered when she hit. Her feet lifted off the floor and her body tipped.

Lamere screamed, “No!” and scrambled towards her, catching the edge of her shirt and her wrist, all while keeping himself out of the direct light.

She dug her nails into the skin of his hand, trying to pry it from her wrist. Until she changed her mind, taking hold of him and kicking off the side of the building, shoving backwards so he couldn’t bring her back inside. She held onto his hand with everything she had, praying he would slip and go down with her.

“Why,
chérie
?” He shook her off as soon as he felt the sun, hissing, the look in his eyes finally matching the innocence of the rest of his face. “Why?” Sadness and confusion. Because he’d lost.

Falling happened at a different speed than living, like the universe slowed everything down just to make absolutely sure Keira understood how close it was to being over. Even though she was supposed to be watching Lamere die, it was okay. Because as long as she saw his face, she didn’t have a chance to imagine the faces of the people she loved, couldn’t watch the rest of her life flash before her eyes. Other than parts of the last few weeks, there was nothing she wanted to relive. She wished she could’ve done more for the people of the Rising. She’d miss them.

And Davyn.

Davyn was the only thing she really wished she could
keep
living for.

She slammed into something, her back arching around it, her shoulders and legs falling farther and snapping back. She screamed.

“Stop, hunter!” His grip tightened. “Just let me land.”

Everywhere the demon touched her burned, her body instinctively pulling away from the source of the excruciating pain. Even after he set her down, the pain didn’t stop. It was too deep, too much for her body to handle. She crumpled to the ground, curling into a ball to protect herself from heat that had already wounded.

“You should’ve let me fall.”

“I didn’t know what else to do.” Davyn’s words were nothing compared to her cries. His entire body locked as he fought his need to comfort her, make sure she was whole. He’d caused this. He’d seen her falling and had reacted, phasing into midair just below her, not thinking about what would actually happen when he touched her, only knowing what would happen if he didn’t.

He’d let go of her as soon as he could, phasing them through a wall into an empty apartment two floors down from hers. But demons couldn’t phase with another being. It was too much for their glamour to handle at once—needing to be corporeal to hold onto someone didn’t jibe with the way they traveled, even over short distances. And the effect was enough heat to scorch, if not to kill.

She rocked back and forth, her screams diminishing into sobs. The pain her tears caused him was excruciating, but he was more concerned with her. He was immortal. She wasn’t. His heat could’ve done more than just hurt her. It could be killing her already, slowly, painfully.

“I couldn’t let you die.” He slid down the wall, his eyes never leaving her, feeling a pain of his own, comforted by knowing that at least hers would heal. “Couldn’t watch you...” But maybe he already was. A longer, drawn-out death that he was responsible for. No, she was tough. She’d heal. It would just take time. Time she would spend in pain, crying because of his touch.

Even though fate was bullshit, the chances of him being in the alley at the exact moment she jumped…

What the fuck? Why’d she do that?

As long as she was suffering, he couldn’t calm himself enough to cool down. He searched for a mind nearby and found one. But it wouldn’t work, not with the amount of shit he was dealing with now. The one time he couldn’t find dozens of people who wanted to destroy each other was when he needed them most. Motherfuckers. Although, even if he’d found enough of them, he wasn’t sure he’d use them. The hunter would’ve been pissed at him for it, and she already had enough reason to hate him.

He could practically hear her voice saying some bullshitty bullshit like, “My life isn’t worth more than anyone else’s.”

Wrong
.

He spoke to her instead, trying to distract them both until he could touch her.

“Keira,” he called softly, scooting towards her. She whimpered and pulled away. He stopped, her fear hitting him deeper than any blade could. “I’m not going to touch you. Not until—Not ever if you don’t want me to. I could get you help, send someone back here, and then stay away. Just tell me what you want.” He’d never felt more powerless, more helpless. By the time he could get a healer here, the physical damage would be done. The hunter would either be able to handle it or she wouldn’t. “Tell me what I should do!”

“Stay,” she whispered.

So he stayed. Until she stopped crying, and then until she started shivering—an unconscious reaction to the burns and the shock. He hadn’t calmed down much, but he’d cooled some. Not enough to touch her, though. Her skin still needed time to heal, her nerves to adjust to the ambient temperature.

He turned away, feeling a jolt of heat, from anger this time. If she hadn’t jumped out of the fucking window, he wouldn’t have had to pretend he was a good guy. He wouldn’t have hurt her. Maybe he should’ve just let her fall. If she wanted to die, she should’ve—

“Why?” Why after what had happened between them? “Why right after we…?”

“Because he thought we were getting too close.” She looked at him, her eyes shiny and red from all the tears. “So he—”

“Lamere?” He shifted to his feet. “Lamere did this?”

She nodded slowly, obviously a lot smarter than him. He’d just proven how clueless he was. She was a fighter, and fighters don’t give up. “He was waiting for me.”

“That fucker.” Davyn was a half-second from phasing up to her apartment to unleash all his heat on the vamp if the prick hadn’t run off already, when he heard her shout. Quietly but as intense as he’d ever heard her.

“Stay with me!” Then her volume dropped. “Please. What if…I can’t…I need you with me, Davyn. Please?”

He let out a big what-the-fuck-should-I-do sigh and tried not to think about what her request meant. Surefire way to make a demon overthink something: Tell him not to think about it and then stop him from doing what he was best at—hurting things.

He should be out there trying to find the other bastard whose fault this was, the guy she’d been chasing forever. Why did she want him here? To protect her if Lamere came back? Or was there another reason? One both of them refused to contemplate too long. He’d already hurt her enough.

It was a long time before her tears dried and she spoke again. “Did you think I decided to jump out the window for the hell of it? Or because you wouldn’t sleep with me?”

“Well, look who’s feeling well enough to give me shit about my ego.” That was good. He’d take every insult she had if it meant she was okay.

“No amount of pain would stop me from doing that.” Her smile quickly turned into a grimace.

“How bad is it?”

She paused, but her body kept shaking. “Pretty bad.”

“Liar.” He could tell it was a lot worse than that by the way she struggled with the words. “How bad is it, hunter?”

“Really, really, really bad.” Her jaw and eyes clenched shut, tears squeezing through, along with a whimper. “I’m not sure I can handle—”

“You can handle anything. Don’t fucking wuss out on me, hunter.” Was this experience over yet? Whatever had to happen to make it be, he’d do.

“I’m scared, Davyn. I don’t want to die.” Human ears would’ve missed it. Even his demon ears struggled to hear it, or maybe just didn’t
want
to hear it. That she’d admitted it made it ten times more important. And that she trusted him enough to tell him the truth…?

“I’m…” He swallowed. “I’ve never tried to—wanted to—help anyone before. So I didn’t know how bad I would be at it.” What the hell was he saying? “I wish you hadn’t had to find out the hard way.” As soon as each word came out of his idiot mouth, he forgot what it had been—probably better that way. Probably the only way for him to be completely honest, because he was way past the thinking-rationally stage. Or feeling rationally.

“Are you still hot?” she asked.

“A little. Probably more than you can handle at this point. You want me to—?”

“Come here.”

Okay. Not the direction he thought she’d pick. “You sure?”

“Get the fuck over here, demon.”

He crawled towards her, knowing there was nothing he wouldn’t do to take her pain away, and that he was connected to her in an unearthly way. Danger didn’t matter, that it was forbidden didn’t matter. She would mean his destruction, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

She reached out. When he’d caught her, he hadn’t touched her hands, so the skin on them was unblemished, perfect. “Closer.”

He did as she asked until he was a foot away. There was nothing but silence around them, the still air a heavy presence between them.

“I thought you said demons couldn’t cry.”

“What?”
The fuck
. He wiped wet from his cheek and studied it. “I didn’t think we could.” How well could he know anything when none of his kind had ever experienced something like this before? They were controlled by their Master, told who they were, why they existed, the only things they were capable of or allowed.

Davyn wanted to be more, different, better. Only fifty years topside. Was this why? Because that’s how long it took the brainless idiot who thought he was not only immortal, but was also invincible, to realize he wasn’t? Because all it took was a tiny mortal to defeat him, to make him understand how powerful that defeat could make him feel.

“Tell me how to take away your pain,” he whispered. “Teach me what to do.”

“You can’t take away my pain. And that’s okay. I just want you to be with me, stay with me. ’Kay? Close but don’t—don’t touch me.”

He nodded, coming as close as he could without making contact with her skin, just until she receded unconsciously. “I’m sorry.”

She ran her fingertips along his jaw to his lips, tracing them slowly. Then she leaned towards him, her body still wrapped around herself, and kissed him gently. “I’m alive because of you. There’s nothing to forgive you for.” She kissed him again, this time more deeply. He felt her hands on his face, his neck, pulling him in. He kept his arms at his sides, still afraid of burning her. But when she opened her mouth, her tongue brushing his, telling him he was allowed, that he could, he showed her how much he...

Loved her.

Did he? Demons didn’t love, so he had nothing to compare it to. But it was so much more than he’d ever felt before—a millennium, an eternity more. And he would spend that eternity in Nine if it would keep her safe.

Davyn had done unimaginable things to reach the surface of the earth, to have the freedom he did. He’d never looked back, never done anything that might threaten his place in this world. Until he met her.

When he pulled away, just to look at her face while he did the whole emotional breakup, or breakdown, or whatever it was called, she looked afraid.

“Don’t leave me,” she said.

“I—” He knew she meant right now, but he kissed her anyway. So he didn’t have to tell her that, in just a little while, it wouldn’t be his choice anymore.

Over the next few days, Davyn took care of her, doing what he could while her body healed. He’d taken Keira back to his place so she could recover somewhere Lamere didn’t know about, putting up new wards just in case. Plus, since he lived here, it didn’t seem quite as completely idiotic that he rarely left her side. If he admitted the real reason, she’d laugh. Fuck, he’d be laughing for days if it wasn’t himself he’d be laughing at. A demon and a human. Not a good combo. Impossible combo if either of them wanted to live much longer.

When the big man’s second warning came, Davyn collapsed. Luckily, he was alone in the kitchen and could curl up on the tile floor and wait for the pain to pass. That took long enough to make him realize something. He couldn’t go back—not yet, not ever. If he stayed topside past his expiration date, the boss would pull him down, and he wouldn’t be a danger to Keira. Or anyone else. Ever again.

Once he could move, he spent a long time sitting with his head in his hands.

“Are you okay?” she asked, crouching down next to him, wearing only her ‘human’ shirt and some socks. So fucking beautiful.

“You shouldn’t be up. You need to rest.”

“I’m fine.”

“I said you shouldn’t be up.” She laughed as he pulled her into his lap as if they were regular people. No amount of pain the Devil could inflict would make him forget or regret this. “Remember the first deal we made?”

“The questions?”

“I still have two.”

“Okay.”

He massaged her neck with one hand and her thigh with his other. “Promise me you’ll do whatever you have to do to stay safe. No matter what it is.”

“That’s not a question.”

He knew the rules, but he didn’t want to scare her. Because hopefully what he was worried about would never happen. “Fine.
Will
you please promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to stay alive?”

“Don’t I always?’

“This isn’t a joke, hunter. Just promise me.”

“Okay. I promise. What’s the last question?’

“I don’t have one.”

“Then can I have it?”

“My question?” he asked, amused. “Sure.”

She squirmed in his lap as if she thought there should be some space between them but didn’t actually want it bad enough to get up. “If it were possible…you know, for a human and a demon, would you—?”