Grimm's End
Author: J. C. Daniels; Shiloh Walker
Date: 2020-04-06 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: demons;angels
Description: "He would walk into hell for her. Hell's not willing to let him back out." "Grimm's Circle," Book 9 Years have passed since Will flung himself headlong into demon central. Everyone has told Mandy he's lost to them, but she still won t believe it. He was her heart and soul still is even if he never admitted they belonged together. When a friend is nearly torn through a rip between the worlds, Mandy gets the sign she's hoped and prayed for. Her friend is thrust back through to safety by no other than Will himself. With all hell breaking loose on earth, only two Grimm can be spared for the missio
Publisher: Shiloh Walker, Inc.
Rights: All Rights Reserved (c) 2015 Shiloh Walker

He would walk into hell for her. Hell’s not willing to let him back out.

Grimm’s Circle, Book 9

Years have passed since Will flung himself headlong into demon central. Everyone has told Mandy he’s lost to them, but she still won’t believe it. He was her heart and soul—still is—even if he never admitted they belonged together.

When a friend is nearly torn through a rip between the worlds, Mandy gets the sign she’s hoped and prayed for. Her friend is thrust back through to safety by no other than Will himself.

With all hell breaking loose on earth, only two Grimm can be spared for the mission to retrieve their leader—Mandy and the only other Grimm crazy enough to go with her.

Will would forget the color of the sky before he’d forget the love of all his lives. But his time is done. It’s only a matter of which demon will finally destroy him.

He never thought his final moments would be haunted by Mandy’s face. But is it a fitting punishment, or one last chance to atone for crimes he committed so long ago?

Warning: This book contains too much angst, too many secrets, and two people who long to be together. It’s also the end of a long, fun ride. Thanks for taking it.

Grimm’s End

Shiloh Walker

Dedication

For my family…always. To Angie, for one rocking cover for the last book, and to the editors who’ve helped along the way.

A special thanks to the readers who’ve taken the journey with me. Hope it was worth it.

Author’s Note

From the very beginning, I knew Will’s story wouldn’t be an easy one. I had a false start, a false stop and a lot of questions, but I had a rough idea of where it was all going, and why.

Will’s story was one of betrayal and bad choices—his—and then one of penance. Again, his.

Then there had to be acceptance. Again, his.

All along, I knew his would be the last Grimm tale.

Perhaps their fight doesn’t end here, but their stories will.

Thanks for taking the ride with me.

Prologue

The red stain wouldn’t come off.

He crouched by the water, scrubbing and scrubbing, but it wouldn’t come off. Emotion unlike anything he had ever known filled him, choking him as though ropes twisted around his throat. He had no name for what ailed him, because until that moment, he’d never experienced it.

But it wouldn’t be the last time.

Fear would become a regular companion.

Fear, regret, grief…and loneliness.

Chapter One

“This isn’t right.”

Strong hands curved over my shoulders, pulled me back against a body just as strong. Hair the color of virgin snow blew around us. Scotland. Always windy.

“What’s not right?”

His voice sent a shiver down my spine. Cool, remote, unaffected by anything and everything.

It made me ache.

Keeping my eyes focused on the castle, I gestured toward it with my head. “That. It hasn’t looked like that in probably a hundred years or more.”

“Since the Jacobite Rebellion.” He slid those strong hands down, caught my hips and drew me back against him. “Are we here to discuss castle architecture, Mandy?”

“What else is there to discuss?” I studied the stones and what looked to be varying designs. “They would have built on whenever they needed, right? It probably started out small, some sort of fort, being here on the coast.”

“Yes.” He kissed my neck. “I don’t want to talk.”

I wasn’t sure I did either.

I just wasn’t sure I wanted this either. I was dreaming and when it ended, I’d be without him again. The pain would start anew.

Still, when his hands slid up to cup my breasts, I wasn’t strong enough to push him away. When he gathered my hair and pushed it over my shoulder, baring my back, I didn’t resist. “Wings,” he said. “Only you would go and give yourself wings, Mandy.”

“I did it before I died. I was being a smart-ass.”

Hardly anybody knew about the intricate, detailed tattoo that ran from my shoulders down my arms and the length of my spine.

His lips traced across the feathers inked into my skin. “You’re always a smart-ass.”

“And you’re always a bastard. We’re a matched set.” I tried not to weep as I turned to face him.

And he pretended not to notice the tears running down my face.

He stripped me naked.

I did the same to him.

It wasn’t fair that the only times, the only memories I have of us being together like this are just something from dreams, things I conjured up on my own.

His lips slid across my jaw, his fingers twisted and tangled in my hair, tugging until I lifted my mouth to his.

Heat burned in me as his tongue swept into my mouth. I shuddered and curled my legs around him.

He thrust in, deep.

I arched up, desperate.

It was a mad race, the two of us clinging to each other. This was all we had.

I’d wake soon. I could all but feel it. I’d wake…and lose him all over again.

“I love you,” I said against his lips.

He caught my hand, twined our fingers together.

“If I could have let myself, I would have loved you…”

I tried hard not to look at the ruin of the castle.

When I did, I saw it as I had in my dream, the imposing, majestic power of it—perfect and whole. Not that I’d ever seen it like, but what does your imagination care?

I also saw him. I hadn’t seen Will in two years, but in my dreams, he was there, pulling me to him, stroking my face, my hair.

Then fading as I woke.

I didn’t want to think about the dream so I focused on the rocks and the crumbling corner where the tower had once stood.

Considering what had happened here, the grass should be withered and brown and…

No.

There shouldn’t be any grass.

Withered and brown grass, after all, could become green again. I’d seen it. All you had to have was some rain. Some sun. The right conditions and anything could thrive.

The right conditions.

What a laugh.

No. There shouldn’t be any grass here.

There shouldn’t be anything here, except perhaps a field of nothingness. Dead things. Corpses piled left and right to mark the battles we’d fought, something to mark the battles we’d lost…

And maybe a marker.

Something ugly and bleak to mark what I had lost.

Instead there was green grass.

The ruin of the castle, beautiful despite its decay, rose into the air, a testament to time and to tragedy.

Perhaps that was the marker.

Bending forward, I curled my hand into the pliant green blades and closed my eyes.

I could still taste the snow in the air.

I could still see his face before me.

I could feel his warmth against my skin and that surreal power blasting against my shields.

It had been two years.

Two years since Will had stood before me.

“No!” The panic that had blindly driven her for the past few days was gone. No, Mandy realized. It wasn’t gone. It just wasn’t blind anymore. As she hurtled toward Will, past that gaping void that opened into something so terrible her mind didn’t want to accept it, Mandy focused on one thing. And one thing alone.

Will.

She drove her fist into his chest—a pointless sort of punch, but it was all she could do at that moment. Will’s only reaction was to reach out and cup her face.

Tears were already flowing.

“You son of a bitch.” She tangled her hands in his hair—white as the fallen snow, softer than the finest silk. It felt oddly warm, almost alive. She jerked his head toward hers, pressed her brow to his. Her heart was breaking. “You can’t do this to me. Don’t you know what you’re doing?”

“Yes.” His voice was gentle, and that hurt her even more. “Because I’m doing it to me as well. But you must understand. This, you, me…it could have never happened. Happiness was something I was never meant to have. And you would have made me happy.”

When he kissed her, Mandy thought she would die. If pain alone could kill an angel, in that moment, her heart would have stopped.

She wished it would have.

“If I could have let myself,” Will murmured softly, “I would have loved you.”

She reached for him, hardly able to think past the agony that ripped through her. But strong arms came around her.

She jerked against the hold of the man standing next to her. She thought it might have been Luc, one of the others—a man she’d liked, up until that moment, when he kept her from Will.

“Don’t,” Mandy pleaded. “Don’t do this, Will. I love you.”

“I know. I never should have let that happen. You deserved far more.”

Mandy didn’t care about what she deserved—she cared about what she wanted. She would have told him that, but he was already looking away. And she could barely breathe. Jerking against Luc’s hold, she struggled to break free. If she could just follow—

“Sina will guide you. Follow her,” Will said, his voice flat, colder than normal. Hollow, even. There was no fear in his eyes though. There was…nothing. His eyes were already dead.

Then he looked at her, for one brief moment.

In the next, the earth ripped apart and he turned, plunging into the very heart of it.

She managed to tear away from Luc.

But it was too late.

“Why do you return here?”

The sound of that familiar voice made me close my eyes.

The only thing I wanted in my pitiful existence was for Will to return.

But sometimes, I fantasized about finding a way to kill wraiths.

The towering, black-winged angel of death wasn’t what I would have pictured if somebody had said the word wraith to me back in my mortal life. But back then, I hadn’t imagined that fairy tales had any basis in reality either.

Who knew?

Yeah, some of those crazy stories about breadcrumbs and grass slippers and magic mirrors actually have some truth to them.

I think there was even some sort of shred of truth in the one about Little Red Riding Hood. But that’s neither here or nor there.

As the wraith drew closer, I decided to close my eyes and pretend he didn’t exist. I did a lot of that these days. I thought I’d gotten over that habit of pretending the bad things would go away if I just didn’t acknowledge them, but then again, life had been full of a lot of bad things lately. Especially over the last two years.

My throat threatened to lock up on me as I thought about Will yet again.

If I’d known this would happen, if I’d known I’d fall in love with him, if I’d known…

But whom was I fooling? I’d been on a one-way street to this very point for a long, long time. I don’t even know I’d undo a single choice that had led me here. Even knowing that I’d be sitting here hurting like this, all because some asshole with a grudge had decided to make the man I loved pay for some ages-old personal vendetta.

And that was what it was.

Hatred seethed inside me. It was a vendetta. I knew that much. I didn’t understand it and I had no true understanding of what was going on, but I knew that much.

I’d figured it out from the very moment that other…angel…or whatever he was had shown up in the middle of the battle. The very air had been charged with the emotion. And while theirs was foreign, something I had only barely been able to grasp the nuances of, emotion was emotion. It was something I understood too well.

From the time I was twelve, I’d understood one plain and simple fact.

I’m not normal.

After all, normal people couldn’t go around healing open wounds or setting broken bones.

I can.

The ability had gotten stronger as I’d gotten older and so had…other things. Voices in my head. Panic attacks. I’d be feeling fine and then, abruptly, I’d be overwhelmed by an impulse to hide in the bathroom and nobody could talk me out. Then, in the blink of an eye, I’d be hit with the urge to grab the captain of the junior varsity team and push him up against a locker and…well. We’ll just let it go with me pushing him up against a locker, okay?

It had taken me years to get a handle on it.

Even longer before I realized that I could actually use those emotions to my benefit. I made a lot of bad choices before I started making the right ones.

Every single one had led me here.

“You think remaining silent is going to make me leave?”

It had worked before. Doggedly, I focused on the small ready-to-go camping kit we were all expected to keep with us any more, especially in the so-called hot spots. I knew what was in each assigned pack—I had been required to go on the shopping trips. I was modernized—Sina’s favorite term for anybody dead under a century. We blended in better and we knew how to make sure the old ones didn’t attract too much attention.

Not that there were many of them left now.

Despondent, I reached out and fisted my hand in the grass.

The stupid, stubbornly green grass.

Black feathers appeared in my line of sight and a moment later, gold-dusted skin followed.

Crow sat in front of me and finally, I looked up.

He arched a brow.

“You will not speak?” he asked softly.

“I don’t have much to say to you.”

“It isn’t my fault the traitor is gone,” Crow said, lifting a shoulder. “He owes a debt he can never repay.”

Oh. That was so the wrong thing to say.

I was on my feet. I didn’t even recall moving. Shoving my face into his, I jammed a finger into his chest. It was like trying to shove a finger through a boulder. He didn’t budge. I just shoved harder. “I don’t give a damn what debt he owes. If you got a problem with him, that’s your tough luck. You clearly have no idea how many lives he’s saved, how much good he has done. Whatever he fucked up back in the day? I think he’s square with the house again.”

“Square?” Crow’s brows dropped.

I watched as he puzzled through what I’d said. Yeah, yeah, yeah…I’d used modern talk with somebody who was clearly not modern. The weight of his years hung over me like an oppressive cloak, grabbing at my neck, all but choking me.

Will and Sina had that kind of feel to them, but Crow was even more so. I don’t want to think about how old he was. Once, I’d managed to get enough information out of Sina to make a stab at her age. She wasn’t quite two thousand years old, but she was close.

Will was—and damn it, he was still alive—older.

Crow had even more age to him—I could feel it weighing down the air around me.

He felt so very…other.

He might have been human once, but he now made no attempt at being anything but what he was. Other.

“Yes.” I went back to staring at the spot where I’d last seen Will. “He’s paid his debt, and then some.”

Sometimes I thought that if I stared hard enough, if I waited long enough, he would just come back. He could find his way back.

Crow sighed.

“Foolish child. You don’t even understand what he did. How can you decide if he has paid?”

“He’s got more than two thousand years of paying under his belt,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s been forced to kill and bring people back, forced to watch everything he knows, everybody he knows die and watch as the world changes all around him—and he’s still here. You think that’s not an acceptable payment?”

I looked up at him.

“He’s given up his very soul. What else must he give up?”

Crow made a derisive snort. “The one you call Will has no soul. He gave that shriveled, useless thing up long ago. But believe in your fairy story if you must. Perhaps it will comfort you.”

He rose and launched himself into the sky. My eyes watered from the force of his passing.

“Fairy tale,” I muttered. “It’s fairy tale.”

And I’d do just that. I had little else left to believe in.

Chapter Two

Rip was no stranger to war.

In his mortal lifetime, he’d been a soldier.

His second life was no different. He was still a warrior.

It was all he knew. He was born to fight—to protect, really, not that he’d tell anybody that.

He was no stranger to blood or the stink of spilled guts or the smoke of cannon fire—not so common these days—or the devastation caused by landmines—more common than he liked—and in his mind, those things were evil.

He couldn’t even count how many individual fights he’d survived, and he’d never bothered to count anyway, because there was no point. He’d survived and that was all that mattered. There were just too many tussles that didn’t even rank the space it would have taken up in his head to remember them.

The hot desert wind blew in his face, bringing with it the stink of death and decay and all the unpleasantness of battle, and he knew he’d never seen a battle like this.

And that was what it was.

The mortal media would report it as something else—a terrorist attack—and in a way, they weren’t wrong.

Terrorists had indeed attacked and terror had indeed been struck into the hearts of men.

But the terrorists had just been the weapon.

He’d never seen a demon attack quite on the scale of this. Not even—

He stopped the memory before it could finish forming. It had been more than two years and they were still struggling to clean up from the fallout. Struggling. Failing.

As evidenced by the nightmare that stretched out under the blazing heat of the Cairo sun.

Off in the distance he heard a familiar voice, but he tuned it out.

It was Greta, talking to the head of the group who’d come in from America. The Grimm didn’t have papers—of course they didn’t—but by the time Greta was done, the man would be convinced that not only did Greta and Rip have the right to be there, he’d be escorting them around himself.

They’d wanted to be done before the humanitarian groups arrived, but they were still doing cleanup.

Cleanup, as in killing the demons who were hiding in the bodies of those too injured to survive, looking for their next ride.

So far, they’d killed ten.

Rip sensed others.

It would get very interesting.

The terrorists had attacked a youth summit that had been meeting at a conference hotel—it had been full at the time and rough guesses were that nearly five thousand people had been inside.

The death toll continued to rise.

Not just here, but everywhere.

Damn it, Will…

The thought escaped him before he could stop it and he wanted to grab it back, but he couldn’t.

Lately he found himself thinking those three words very often.

Ever since their leader had plunged himself into a portal that led straight to hell, their world seemed to have followed—everything here had gone straight to hell as well. It might have been better if Will had just done what that fuckface had wanted and sent others on while he stayed here and did what he did best.

Lead.

They were trying, Rip knew that. Trying to clean up and figure out where to go from here, but how did an army go forward when the one who’d designed the army was gone?

Back in his human life, Rip had faced a different sort of warfare. Now people called it the Revolutionary War, and they romanticized the hell out of it. There was nothing romantic about war. It was just war. Death was just death.

And it all sucked.

A bloodied bit of silver caught his eye and he knelt to pick it up.

“It was Moriarty.”

Looking up as Greta knelt in front of him, he just nodded. He hadn’t seen the other Grimm go down, but at this point he was almost numb to how many of his brothers and sisters at arms had fallen.

When they’d received word that something was happening in Egypt, they’d mobilized and Sina had called in ten of them—ten was a lot, so Rip had been prepared.

There were more new Grimm now than ever. Sina had been bringing them over in an almost unending flow and they had their hands full trying to train them, even as they fought the unending tide of demons.

And the Grimm were dying, left and right.

“Is he going to give us any trouble?” he asked, eyeing the back of the relief worker as he strode off into the night. They’d set up their “camp” on a relatively empty bit of land and they stayed close, each watching the other’s back.

“No,” she said softly. “I told him we were staying in the hotel and most of our belongings were destroyed. We’d gone out to lunch. He thinks he’s seen our passports.”

She made a face of distaste and Rip stroked a hand down her back in support. Her ability was unpleasant, unique and necessary—she could make anybody believe anything she wanted. An awful burden, but she had an unyielding core of honor and if anybody had to have such a gift, then he’d rather it be her. She wouldn’t abuse it.

“How many lost? Do they have a better idea now?” she asked, looking back at him.

“No.” He had a good idea, not that he planned to share it. She didn’t need to know—just as she didn’t need to know the relief workers had managed to get through to the private, onsite nursery that was provided for the hotel’s guests. None of the children had survived.

Greta nodded, her throat working as she swallowed. “We need to get back out there, keep moving. Rob is keeping watch, along with a few others, but we all need to keep our eyes open.”

“I know.” He even understood why. Cairo was one of the hot spots—a place where the barrier between the mortal world and the netherplains had been stretched too thin, weakened—and rent open. With this many wounded, it could turn into a…hell, was breeding ground even the right word?

The impotent fury that exploded through him made him want to scream.

Greta, sensing his rage, turned her eyes to him. “What is it?” she asked softly.

He went to shake his head, but all the rage, all the grief exploded out of him and he spun away. “We’re losing.”

He started to pace, clenching his hands into fists. The stink in the air only added to his fury and he wanted to punch something—destroy something. But there was no target for his rage, no target for the fear.

“Word went out that another rip was destroyed.” Greta’s words were soft, as though to offer some sort of comfort.

“I heard.” He bit his response off and it came out harsher than he’d intended. When Greta’s eyes fell away, he wanted to punch himself. “I’m sorry.”

She smiled, but it wobbled and fell and he felt like an ass as she turned away, shoulders slumped.

“Greta…”

“I hate this as much as you, Rip.” She folded her arms around herself. “This isn’t what I signed on for—to train new ones only to watch them die. To keep fighting day after day, only to lose ground. After all this time. You think I don’t know we’re losing? I’ve been at this far longer than you. I know what’s happening, just as well as you.”

Debris crunched under his feet as he moved to her.

She tensed as he wrapped his arms around her.

He didn’t know what he could say to her. She wasn’t wrong.

“Maybe we are losing,” he said softly. “But we do what we always do, yeah? Because it’s what we are.”

* * * * *

It could have been days.

It could have been a week…longer?

Rip didn’t know.

He knew the sun set and he knew it rose again and then set and the sky was starting to lighten again, but how many times that pattern repeated, he didn’t know.

They’d worked without pause and took care each time they had to end a life, took care each time they found another demon trying to slip into a mortal body.

It was bloody, brutal work, the ending of a life, and that much more exhausting because there were so many mortals around, but finally, their instincts whispered. Silence…

They could fade away.

They couldn’t leave because the bloody portal that led to the netherplain was still open, but they could rest.

One by one, the Grimm retreated, simply waiting until the rescue workers were occupied, and then they slipped away. Silence was their companion and speed was easy to come by so it didn’t take much to dip into the shadows and meet at the farthest reaches of the devastation.

Seven of them remained.

Ten had come.

Two had gone down in the chaos that had erupted when the fighting started—Moriarty included—because the demons who’d worn the bodies of the terrorists hadn’t been pleased when the Grimm had shown up to interrupt their little party of blood and death. One had survived, but he was in stasis, the healing sleep that would hopefully get him back to fighting form soon.

“Over a thousand dead at this point,” one said.

It was Elsa, a quiet, pale woman. Rip had worked with her, fought with her before, and he saw the shadow of each death in her eyes.

“There will be more.” John, a powerful, tall man, shook his head. “We can’t leave yet. At least not all of us. The portal…”

“I’ll stay.” Tag, the youngest of them, a Grimm made only six months earlier, bounced on his heels, the need for blood practically glowing in his eyes. “They killed M. I want them dead—all of them.”

John clapped a hand on his shoulder.

Tag staggered under the force of it.

“He wouldn’t want you to die for him, boy. But if you want to stay, I’ll stay—”

Tag jerked away. “I don’t need help!” He jerked away and stormed off into the night, the HK416 slung over his shoulder. He’d died on the battlefields of Iraq and he’d bonded with Moriarty alone.

“Give him a few minutes,” Greta said softly when Rip went to go after him.

“He needs to yank his head out of his ass,” Rip said, scowling.

But he stayed and talked with the rest, roughing out a plan.

The night was quiet and for the first time he could breathe in something other than smoke and death—well, if he could get past the stink of it on his skin. “John, I want you to…”

The words died as his skin started to prickle.

Slowly, he lifted his head.

He wasn’t the only staring out into the night.

Slowly, he turned, searching for the source of the disturbance.

He caught a glimpse of a shadow out in the night. The brilliant lights coming from the worksite back in the distance made everything else seem so much darker, but he could make out Tag’s form.

He looked at Greta, reassured himself. She was there. She was fine. She was safe.

The air went tight.

Then there was a scream.

It might have come from Tag, because he saw the young one stumble.

But it could have come from Rip himself. He stared, his body frozen. In the span of a heartbeat, one of the smaller rents formed in the air—an inky black blot upon the darkness of night. It formed right behind Greta and snaked out.

Her mouth opened, a scream ripping out as she was jerked back.

Rip lunged.

Something knocked him back.

Greta tried to claw free.

The rip was closing in—she disappeared.

Rip screamed.

For those few moments, his entire world ended and his heart disappeared.

Then…miraculously…

A dark shadow appeared. Blood spilled into Rip’s eyes, coming from a wound he didn’t realize he had. There was a form in that rent, the doorway into the void. No. Two forms.

Greta came flying out.

She landed on top of him and he grabbed her, clutching at him.

But she tried to tear away from him, screaming.

“Let me go!” she shouted.

“Greta…”

“It was Will!”

The rip closed.

Even as they both lunged, there was a deep blast—something that echoed on a plain they couldn’t see.

They felt it though.

The blast knocked them all to their knees—and then, briefly, unconscious.

When they came to, there was one less breech in the world.

* * * * *

“It. Was. Him.” Greta said each word slowly, carefully.

“Greta.” Sina gave her a weary smile, one that held understanding and patience. “I’d like to believe he’s still alive, but—”

Greta slammed the flat of her hand down on the table with so much force, the glass shattered.

As the bits and pieces fell to the floor, she gazed calmly at the other woman.

“This has nothing to do with belief,” she said. “I know. I was in there—and it wasn’t for just seconds. I was there and I saw him.”

Sina stared at the frame that had held the table only moments before.

Then she cleared her throat.

“Greta, you were only in the portal for a few minutes.”

Greta tucked her tongue inside her cheek and then she flipped her wrist over, tugging at the band that kept her watch in place. It was a simple affair, utilitarian and basic. A moment later, she tossed it across the room. Sina snagged it out of the air. “I was wearing that when I went through—the time was correct not long before the portal appeared. We’d coordinated the timing when we’d meet and I checked the time. When I came back…nearly six hours had passed.”

Sina was still staring at the watch.

“Six hours.”

Greta folded her arms and leaned back, her eyes hard. “I was there. With him.”

Finally, Sina lifted her head and the look on her face was haunted.

Greta said softly, “He’s still alive. And he’s still destroying the portals.”

Sina buried her face in her hands.

Rip’s hand stroked down her hair and Greta looked up at him. She wanted to smile at him, wanted to offer him some sort of reassurance. His face showed no expression—he never let anybody see when he was worried or when he hurt. Laughter and hunger and fury would show, but never anything that spoke of grief or fear. Greta knew though. Those emotions, she could feel inside her heart and she could almost glimpse the shadows of them hovering in the air around him, no matter how hard he tried not let them show.

But she couldn’t offer any reassurance.

She didn’t know what to think.

Will…

Rip’s hand slid through her hair and closed around her neck.

She sank into the heat of it as a shiver wracked her entire body. She was cold. She’d been cold ever since she’d been torn from this world into that slice of hell. It was a cold that no amount of heat could chase away, although Rip’s presence helped. Bit by bit, she thought she’d warm. She hoped.

It was the cold of despair and desolation and the total absence of hope and love.

It was the cold of emptiness.

Her sanity felt stretched thin and she’d only been there a few brief hours.

How had Will managed?

She thought of the way he’d looked at her and the cold that gripped her heart only spread.

He hadn’t even looked like himself. The differences went deeper than the skin and she wasn’t ready to explain that to Sina, because Sina was still struggling to accept what Greta had told her.

Greta knew what she’d seen—who she had seen. It had been Will, but he was…changed.

She shivered again and Rip caught her in his arms, scooping her up and then sitting where she’d been with her on his lap. “You’ve been shaking ever since…”

He stopped.

Greta looked up at him.

His jaw was tight and he was staring at the wall on the far side of the room. His eyes were flat and unreadable and his mouth was a firm straight line. He looked remote and unreachable.

Deep inside, she felt the echo of his fear inside her, squeezing at her heart.

“I’m okay,” she said quietly.

“I know.” He nodded stiffly.

She leaned and pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. “Rip…I’m okay.”

His arms clamped around her and she sucked in a lungful of air as he buried his face in her hair.

“Rip.”

Luc’s voice came from somewhere over her head.

Rip slowly let her go and she went to stand.

“Rip, Greta. There’s a room for you on the third floor. Go. Shower. I’ve sent food up…eat and…” Greta watched as a faint smile danced across the man’s too-beautiful face. “Rest.”

“Luc, we need to figure out what we’re going to do,” Sina said. She hadn’t moved from her spot.

“We will,” Luc said. Sightless blue eyes moved across the room and lingered on Sina’s face, as though he could see perfectly. He hadn’t been able to see since his mortal life but that didn’t slow Luc down. A black brow arched up and he said, “But Greta is exhausted and she would probably appreciate a bath and a meal. I think Rip would appreciate some time alone with her.”

“We need—”

“Sina, he could have lost her,” Luc said, his voice flat.

She wanted a shower. She craved to wash the clinging sensation of that desolated world from her skin, but when the door shut behind her, Greta’s gaze fell on Rip.

He stroked his hands down her shoulders. “You can shower. Then you’ll eat.”

She curled her hands around his wrists.

“Come with me,” she said.

“Luc’s right. You’re exhausted.”

She was. None of them had had any rest since they’d arrived in Egypt—and Greta and Rip had been in upstate New York before they’d come here, dealing with a nest of parasei. Downtime seemed to belong to that other life. They’d do one job, crash for a few hours, then move on to the next.

She was worn thin and she knew it.

But she needed Rip.

Moving in close, she pressed her lips to the hard, stubborn line of his jaw.

“Come with me,” she said again.

He dipped his head and rubbed his cheek along hers.

“I can’t be gentle with you right now.”

“I don’t need gentle.” She curled her hands in the front of his shirt and jerked. It tore down the middle and she slid him a look, smiling up at him as she smoothed her hands up the heavily muscled slab of his chest.

Rip’s lids drooped. He gripped her waist and tugged her close. “Greta…”

She could see the frayed edges of his control, feel how he struggled to hold on. Smiling, she stepped back and grabbed the hem of her shirt. The synthetic material was black and close-fitting, designed for combat. It was also filthy and it stank of sweat and sulfur. She’d never wear it again. She stripped it away and dropped it to the floor, then reached for her bra. It went the same way as her top. From her lashes, she sent her husband a slow smile as she reached for her belt. His chest rose and fell. “Are you just going to stand there?”

“Well, it’s not a bad view.” His eyes lingered on her hands for a moment and then he glanced up at her. “If I touch you right now, I’m going to leave bruises on you.”

“I won’t break.” But she shrugged. “Then you can just watch for now.”

Slowly, taking her time, she undid her belt, making a tease out of it, sliding it from the loops. She rested her fingers on the button, watching him from under her lashes. His gaze was on her hands. When she freed the button, a harsh noise escaped him, something more like an animal’s growl than anything human. It made a shiver break out across her skin and for the first time in hours, she felt warm.

Warm didn’t even cover it when Rip started to reach for her—then stopped—as she dragged the zipper down.

She gave a small wiggle as she went to push her pants down and then she stopped, pursing her lips. “Oops.”

She glanced up at him, her close-fitting cargoes trapped around her upper thighs. “I forgot my boots.”

She went to lean against the wall, but before she could deal with the heavy, thick-soled combat boots, Rip had his mouth on hers.

She would have laughed in delight but he was kissing her like their very lives depended on it.

Shoving her hands into his hair, she arched against him. The pants around her thighs kept her from wrapping her body around his the way she wanted to. He slid a hand down her belly and shoved a hand inside her panties, thrust two fingers through her curls, sought out her wet, waiting heat. She groaned and cried out, clenching around him.

He rasped his thumb against her clit, stroked it over and around—then he tugged.

She bucked against him.

Rip turned his face toward her ear. “You can’t ever scare me like that again. Ever. Ever. Greta…”

“Rip, please…” She sobbed out his name, desperate for release, but he kept her hovering, right there on the edge.

Abruptly, he withdrew his hand.

She moaned in denial, her release hovering so close.

The room whirled around her and then she was pressed against something hard. The table. It was cool against her cheek and her nipples pebbled in reaction.

Rip shoved her pants to her knees, her panties tangling with the material. “Now,” he muttered, his voice thick. He fisted one hand in her hair.

And then—

She cried out as he drove inside.

His entry was merciless. She arched her back and shuddered and when he withdrew, she tried to brace herself for the next thrust. It was useless. She wiggled and went to boost herself up, but Rip caught her around the waist. “Be still.”

He was almost possessed, driving into her hard and fast, and she couldn’t get enough.

The orgasm tore into her with vicious claws.

Behind her, Rip stiffened.

“Mine, Greta,” he said, his voice thick. “Mine.”

Chapter Three

Sina had made me a promise.

If she learned anything, she’d tell me.

She probably hadn’t realized it at the time, but there were weird things taking place inside me that meant she was going to have to keep that promise—whether she liked it or not.

She wasn’t the only one who’d undergone some strange power upgrades lately. All of us had, and mine were freaking me out. Mine had actually started within a few months of Will taking over my training. That had been…a few years ago. Time had begun to blur together a while ago, but I think he’d trained me for close to ten years.

Ten years.

It wasn’t enough time.

But those years had changed everything inside me. I wasn’t even remotely like the other Grimm out there. I could do things that I wasn’t supposed to be able to do yet. I think it had to do with being around Will.

My heart ached just thinking of him.

It ached even more as I stood in front of the big, sprawling chateau.

It was Luc’s home, our base of operations, more or less.

And somewhere inside there was Sina—she had news.

I didn’t know what the news was or how I knew it. I just knew she had news. Will’s strange little grapevine that had cued him in on all the strange things going on in his strange little army…I’d somehow developed my own strange little mental version of it. It had led me here.

The winter wind slapped me in the face as I trudged up the hill.

I could have taken a quicker route—I’d covered the distance from the States to here in moments. I didn’t exactly have the odd portals that Will had used—that Sina now used. I couldn’t even define my crazy way of traveling—it was almost like I just…bent time. Time froze and I moved and things blurred and it took no effort for me to go from here to there. But if I was going to a place a few hundred yards away, it was better to just walk the distance. I’d figured that out after I’d busted through a brick wall.

Luc had the door open before I’d cleared the steps.

He smiled at me and offered to take my coat.

I looked down. “I didn’t remember to bring one.”

“Mandy,” he said, sighing. Then he wrapped an arm around me. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

“Why?” I wouldn’t deny the warmth of his embrace felt good. “It’s not like I’m going to catch pneumonia or anything.”

“You should do it because Will would have wanted it.”

I wanted to hurt him for using Will against me. I could even see myself doing that—it’s not like I considered myself a nice person. But before I could force myself out of the numb state his words caused, the soft brush of a foot on wooden floors caught my attention. I looked up.

Sina stood there.

She’s…not beautiful.

She’s striking. And she’s oddly scary.

Gold-dusted skin stretched over high cheekbones and her wide-set, dark eyes are penetrating. You’d think she could see straight through you—and you just might be right.

She’s got a wide, full mouth and when she smiles, she’s almost beautiful, but in all the time I’d known her, those smiles had been rare.

Lately, she smiled even less than normal. Even Luc didn’t bring her to smile the way he once had.

Some people say she parted ways with sanity a while back.

I can understand why they’d think so, but Sina isn’t insane.

She might end up there at some point though.

“Mandy.” She blew out a breath. “Why are you…?”

I lifted a brow. “I told you when there was news, I’d be here.”

“And just how do you know there’s news?”

“Are you telling me there’s not?” I asked.

“No, I’m not.” She glanced up the stairs. “I just…” She fell silent as Rip and Greta appeared at the head of the stairs.

A couple of years ago, I would have been happy to see them.

Greta had been the one to save my life. More than that, they’d saved my soul. I would have been just demon fodder if they hadn’t come along. They’d brush it off if I tried to thank them—I know, because I’d tried to do it more than once, but next to Will, they meant more to me than anybody else on this planet.

Even now, seeing them grounded me.

But I couldn’t say I was happy to see them.

I managed to smile though.

That smile wobbled, then fell at the sight of Greta’s face.

She stared at me with stark, haunted eyes.

The pale blue seemed to hold a thousand tortured secrets and before I even realized I’d moved, I’d closed the distance. She blinked, looking startled, and I realized I’d done it again, used whatever strange gift I’d developed since Will had…left us.

She had her hand on the bannister and I covered it with mine. “What is it?” I asked.

“Greta.”

I could hear Sina on the steps below us, moving up.

I ignored her.

So did Greta.

“What?” I demanded.

My heart started to pound in harsh, near-brutal beats. It hadn’t beat like this since I was mortal and I hadn’t felt like this since the day I’d died. We all do it. Even the Grimm. We die and then we’re brought back. I’d felt like this, on that day. Killed in brutal, spectacular fashion. I’d known fear and pain then, just like now.

“Greta, you’ll be silent.”

Greta curled her lip, but the sneer on her face wasn’t directed at me.

“Sina.”

I didn’t spare Luc a glance, although I knew where he was. I’d come to realize we all had that weird ability to sense the location of another—I’d teased Will about it. The force is with us, I’d told him. He hadn’t understood, so I’d made him watch Star Wars. A few months later, when I’d messed up during a training session, he’d told me that I needed to study more if I wanted to grow in the ways of the force. It had taken me nearly an entire minute to realize he’d made a joke. He’d been gone by the time I’d figured it out.

Thinking of it now made me hurt in ways I couldn’t describe.

As Luc placed his body between me and the other woman, I kept my attention on Greta.

She was staring at me, hard, as though she could communicate whatever it was she had to tell me through the power of her gaze alone.

“Luc, get out of my way,” Sina said softly.

“You can’t deny she’s got a right to know.”

I sucked in a breath and my heart exploded. Too many emotions exploded through me even as Sina snarled at Luc from a few steps behind and below. I didn’t really hear her, but I caught the gist of it. This is my show now, Prince Charming. Step aside and let me do it.

Yeah, well…Snow White could kiss my ass.

Barely able to speak, I tightened my grasp on Greta’s hand. I closed one more step and stared at her, our eyes now level.

“Will,” I whispered.

She closed her eyes, and then, slowly, her lashes lifted.

Then, a faint smile curled her lips and she nodded.

“Tell me again.”

Sina stood off to the side, still looking mightily pissed. Luc had given up trying to console her. I suspected they’d have an epic fight and I didn’t give a damn.

Rip was subtle about it, but I had noticed that he’d yet to remove himself from between Greta and Sina.

He took his job seriously.

Sina wasn’t going to do anything that would hurt one of her soldiers.

I knew that.

Greta probably knew it too. Her gifts were fairly similar to mine.

Rip was a warrior though. A fighter through and through, and everything in him was designed to protect.

Sina was pissed and more than a little of that fury was directed at Greta.

She ought to be mad at herself though.

She should have known I’d never rest knowing there was news about Will.

Greta caught my hand, drawing my attention back to her. “There’s nothing much left to tell, Mandy. You already heard what happened.”

“I need to hear it again,” I said.

She sighed and then nodded. “Okay.”

And she started over, from how she’d fallen through—no, how she’d been torn through, and then how she’d come to awareness in the middle of a melee. She’d been tucked behind a dark-haired man, his skin swarthy, clad in clothes that had clearly come from our world but had been worn to rags—jeans and a filthy shirt. She’d known him, Greta had said. She knew she had. The fighting style, the skill, the speed. But she had never seen him, she didn’t think.

Then he’d killed the last of the demons and he’d looked at her.

Will.

“Time moves differently there. Everything is different. The air is…thick, oily and hot. It burns the lungs and stings the skin. It felt like I was there for days. I could watch the second hand on my watch and in my head, I could count the seconds…but they dragged by.”

She paused a moment and when she looked away, I asked her, “You said he knew you?”

“He knew me.” Greta licked her lips. “He hugged me. I…” Greta laughed sadly. “I’ve never known Will to hug anybody.”

He’s hugged me. I didn’t say it. I knew the man in ways the others didn’t, although I don’t know if they would have understood that, or believed me. But there was more to him than the icy wall he presented.

“But he hugged me. He asked how the battle fared and if the rips in the wall between our worlds stayed sealed once they closed. He asked…” Greta glanced at Sina and shrugged. “He asked how Sina was doing and then…” She stopped.

“He asked about me.” When she’d first told me, my heart had damned near cracked straight down the middle.

“Yes.”

Chapter Four

“Tell me where I can find you.”

Will and I were outside his cabin in Germany.

My cabin now.

I hadn’t been there in so long. It was too hard to be there without him.

Too hard to look at the trees and know that when I went out hiking, I’d come back to an empty building.

He was quiet for so long. Was the dream already over? Had I already woken up?

But when I looked, he was there, naked still.

That hard, long body, pale and perfect, gleaming under the moonlight that filtered through the clouds. Finally, he turned his head and looked at me. “You can’t find me, Mandy. I’m gone. Beyond your reach. Just let me go. Move on.”

“Let you go?” I wanted to hit him in his thick head. Then I wanted to climb on top of him, sink slowly down on his cock and remind him that neither of us could let go of the other.

But…I was dreaming. He was right. I wasn’t letting go.

And yet…I crawled to him and lay down, tucking my head against his shoulder. His arm came around me and he brushed his lips over my brow. “Tell me where to find you. I don’t care if you say I can’t. I’ll look until I find a way.”

“The door is closed to such as you, love.”

Then he spilled me onto my back and before I could ask again, he kissed me. Then he kissed me again…and when that didn’t do it, he kissed me again.

Just…lower.

I was moaning when he finished and distracted enough to forget I’d needed anything from him but the hard, driving force of his body into mine.

He made love to me, desperate, clinging to me as though he thought it was the last time. The only time.

What a lie…we didn’t even have a first time.

I sat at the edge of the river, replaying that dream from months back. I could recall each of the dreams, with complete clarity. I’d written them down, made notes about the things he’d said, looked for hidden context, searched for clues…all for nothing. He told me nothing and I felt like an idiot. They were just dreams.

I sighed when I heard the soft brush of sound behind me and closed my eyes, resting my forehead on my knees.

Rip settled next to me.

Back in the distance behind us, I could hear Greta, fighting with Sina. It had been Greta who had sent him out to find me. Not in words, but those two had long since developed that unusual, silent means of communication so many long-time partners have.

They were partners, in so many ways. Not just in the field, but in bed, in life.

“I envy you,” I said as we sat on the shore of the small lake. Moonlight fell across it, painting a rippling stream of white. It wasn’t completely dark. I’d stopped seeing complete dark after my rebirth into my “new” life. You might think it was new and improved.

Lately, though, I could only think of how much it sucked, looking ahead at the years that stretched out before me. Empty, miserable years.

Rip said nothing.

That’s one of the things I like about him. He offers no empty words of comfort and he doesn’t pretend to misunderstand.

He has what so many people long for. Why shouldn’t I envy him?

We listened to the water lapping on the shore and pretended not to hear the sounds of the argument raging nearly a half-mile away. The house’s walls were thick, but somebody must have left open a window because we heard every word.

“What are you going to do?”

I looked over at him. His golden hair fell to shield his face, but I could see the dark brown of his eyes through the strands. He was watching me with the intense patience of a hunter.

“Right now, I’m just going to wait until the dust settles,” I said, shrugging. Lying to somebody like Rip wasn’t wise.

“That’s not what I meant.” He pushed his hair back as he turned to me and I braced myself. “You’ve been planning something ever since Greta told you. I want to know what your plan is.”

“I don’t have a plan.” I lifted a shoulder. That, at least, was true. I knew what I was going to do, but I had nothing so organized as a plan. I suppose, if we had to put a label on it, what I had was a goal.

I was going to find one of the rips left over. There weren’t many left. But I’d find one. And I was going through it.

Will had told me something in the dreams that I thought were only dreams.

What if they weren’t?

“The door is closed to such as you, love.”

So maybe the doors were closed. Can’t do anything about that. Can’t force them to open. But if I found one of the rips, one of the windows…well, then I could squeeze through. After that? I didn’t know. Once I had that figured out, then I’d maybe have a plan.

Apparently, I’ve either got a very bad game face or the goal was pretty easy to figure out.

Rip blew out a hard, heavy breath and I looked up to see him shaking his head. “That’s all kinds of stupid, Mandy. You got no idea what the other side is like.”

I gave him my best innocent stare.

Sadly, I have never been able to do innocent well.

“Don’t bother,” he said, jabbing a finger at me. “I know you. I can practically see the wheels spinning in your head and it isn’t going to work. This is just plain…”

“Stupid?” I offered. “Fool-hardy? A certain death wish?”

“All of the above.” Rip folded his arms over his chest. The wind kicked up, sending the long leather coat he wore rippling around his ankles. Some of the material just didn’t flow well, but that was because it was laden with weapons, a few of which mankind had never even seen. Rip wasn’t just a fighter—he also crafted weapons. Some of his designs, I’d been told, were actually the forebearers of weapons being used now. One of them was a rather popular knife.

But I’d never asked him if there was any truth to those tales.

“Dying doesn’t scare me,” I said softly. “What scares me is the idea of living like this for the rest of my life.”

His face twisted and he looked away.

I caught the hair that blew into my eyes and reached back, gathering everything into a knot and tying it back at my nape. “Rip…”

I sighed and looked away. The wind was getting stronger, making my eyes water now. “To be honest, I’ve been dead inside for more than two years. You’ve got Greta. Think how you’d feel if she was torn from you.”

“I’d be dead inside.”

I looked over at him and gave him a tired smile. “Then you understand.”

“I do.” He nodded slowly. Then he angled his head toward the house. “Sina will never understand. Oh, she gets that you’re hurting. But she made him a promise. She told him she’d take care of you. You’re still a child in her eyes.”

“I know.” Wrapping my arms around myself, I fought a chill. It might have been guilt. Or even a bit of grief over the life I was likely about to throw away. “I love him, Rip. I’ll never, ever love another. My one chance is this…either I save him, or I die in the trying.”

He passed a hand down my back. “You won’t go alone.”

“You can’t go. You and Greta are needed here. There are too few of us left.”

“It won’t be one of us. There’s…” He grimaced. “There’s another. And he’s actually ideal for the task.”

We said nothing else.

Later, back at the house, Greta gave me a grim look and I expect she knew what Rip and I had discussed. Even Luc seemed unusually solemn.

Only Sina seemed to carry on as normal, talking about a job she had in mind for me, if I felt up to it.

“Of course, if you need more time, I understand,” she told me, smiling in what was probably a motherly way for her. It was a pretty smile, even.

It just wasn’t…her.

Sina wasn’t the maternal type.

She wasn’t the comforting type.

But I said nothing as she gave me an awkward hug and moved past me to go down the hall that led toward the kitchen. A moment later, the big dog that followed Luc everywhere trailed behind her.

I might have thought it odd, but Luc came to sit with me.

A second later, he touched my hand.

“Don’t speak.”

I jerked my head up.

He’d already moved his hand. “I’m going to go do some drills. Would you like to join me?”

“Sure.”

I fell in step with him, oddly disturbed by the quiet whisper that had echoed inside my skull. I’d been told I had powerful shields for somebody as young as me. Will had been the one to tell me and he’d been the one to help me perfect them. It took somebody pretty fricking strong to push through them.

Luc opened a door and we padded quietly down the stairs.

“We need to talk. Well, I’ll talk,” came the voice again. “You listen, but say nothing aloud. Sina will hear.”

I fought not to react, not to nod.

I looked around and found myself in the middle of a training facility. It looked like almost any other I’d ever seen. But there were no mirrors. I guess a blind man wouldn’t need them, but maybe his partners…?

I shrugged it off.

“Hands or weapons?” he asked.

I scowled. He really wanted to train? How was I going to do this with somebody inside my head?

“You know, you’re my least favorite sparring partner.” I made a face at him. He couldn’t see it, but it made me feel better. Sparring with Luc always left me battered.

“I’ve heard you say that to Rip as well, cher.” He gave me a brilliant grin. “I will not hurt you too badly. You’re still young, after all. Hands or weapons.”

I sighed. “Hands.” If I asked for weapons, he’d just disarm me and end up using whatever weapon I chose on me anyway.

To his credit, he waited until he had me pinned down before he tried to talk to me. I guess he knew I wasn’t going to be able to carry on a conversation and fight him at the same time. I doubted he’d have that problem, but as he’d said, I was still young. With my face in the mat and his knee in my spine, I tried to focus on his words and not the burning pain in my arm and shoulder—particularly the shoulder joint.

“You plan to go after Will.”

The words spoken into my head were flat and direct, a statement, not a question.

I couldn’t nod. My ability to communicate mind to mind was rough at best, but I doubted I needed to be highly skilled, not if Luc was on the receiving end.

I simply thought, “Yes.”

The pressure on my arm eased and I lay there for a moment, waiting for the pain to fade. It got worse before it got better so I assumed he’d torn something. I shot him a dirty look as he sat next to me. “You’re getting better,” he said, looking pleased.

“Yay.” Slowly, I rolled upright. A hot wash of fire raced down my arm and I gasped, using my left hand to lift my wrist so I could cradle it. “Next time? Try to keep in mind that there’s no reason to nearly dislocate it.”

He shrugged. “The demons you fight aren’t going to take it easy on you, Mandy. Why should I?” Then he looked at me. His eyes were lovely, the purest of blues. Sightless as they may be, Luc saw very deep into a person. “If you go alone, you’re likely to die within moments of stepping through the portal. You’ve never imagined anything like the netherplains.”

Drawing my knee up, I rested my head on it. “I won’t go alone.”

I didn’t wait for him to ask.

“Rip says he has somebody in mind. I didn’t ask who. Hopefully, he’s already close.”

There was a momentary silence and then he murmured, “Rob.”

I shot him a look. “Rob?”

Luc rose to his feet, the gesture graceful and easy. He had a disgusted sneer on his face. Hands on his hips, he stood there, looking as aggravated as I’d ever seen him. Finally, he turned back to me and held out a hand. Although I didn’t need it, I accepted it. Many of the men were from an age when it had been drilled into them to offer assistance to a female—chivalry wasn’t dead. It just lived and breathed inside men who lived on the outskirts of society. Once I was on my feet, he let go and turned away, moving to the far side of the room.

“You’ve met Rob. Briefly. He’s on his way here. There was an…altercation between him and Jacob. Sina had to split them up. She’s bringing him here so she can address the matter.”

Abruptly, I knew who he was talking about.

Rob.

“No fucking way,” I said, forgetting I wasn’t supposed to be talking. “That man is insane.”

Luc turned to me. One brow arched. “Yes. He’s also spent a considerable amount of time in the netherplains. If anybody can keep you alive, it’s him. You don’t have a choice, Mandy. It’s this…or you will not leave here.”

I went to tell him that there was no way he could stop me.

But I heard the door at the top of the stairs open and a cool wash of air drifted over my skin.

Dread curled through me and I squeezed my eyes shut.

Sina’s approach was silent.

Luc said nothing and there was no flicker of emotion on his too-perfect face.

If he was at all concerned by her sudden appearance, he didn’t show it.

If he wasn’t bothered by her presence, that wasn’t a problem.

I had more than enough concern (FYI, I was fucking freaked out) for both of us.

Sina came around to stand between us and her dark eyes slid from him to me, then made the circuit a second time. When her gaze came to rest on me the final time, I angled my chin up.

When in doubt, brazen your way out.

That’s my motto.

“Yeah?” I asked, throwing as much attitude in the word as I could. I had a lot of attitude.

“Just what is going on down here?” she asked, her voice soft.

“Sparring.” I rotated my shoulder for effect—then winced as one final twinge rippled through it. I rubbed it with my left hand and shot Luc a dirty look.

His dog, a big wolf-looking creature, padded up just then and pressed against his leg. The dog’s name was Krell and he wasn’t just a dog. I wouldn’t call the dog one of us, but it was more than obvious he’d been gifted with an intelligence that just wasn’t found in the typical dog. He was also old. Not that he acted it, but the dog hadn’t aged a day in all the years I’d known him and he should be showing some signs of slowing down. I’d asked Will about Krell once and I’d been told there was a special bond between Luc and his dogs.

I guess he’d had more than one.

While Luc stroked his dog’s head, I held Sina’s gaze.

“Perhaps you sparred, but that isn’t what is going on,” Sina said, her eyes narrowed.

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

She took a step toward me. “I suggest you try the truth, Mandy. Before I drag it out of you.”

“Sina.” Luc took a step forward.

“Don’t, Luc,” she said, her tone cold.

Rocking back on the balls of my feet, I slanted a look at Sina before shifting it to Luc. I pretended to ponder something and then shrugged. “He’s trying to do the same thing you are. Everybody wants poor Mandy to feel better. Everybody wants poor Mandy to understand that Will made a noble sacrifice.” Some of the misery and rage I felt spilled out of me. “Well, guess what, Sina…poor Mandy wants all of you to shove it up your ass!”

The words ripped out of me in a torrent and the tears, tears I rarely let fall, spill free.

I stormed past her and tore up the stairs.

Behind me, I heard Sina call my name.

But Luc called hers and I heard them arguing.

Manipulative?

Yes, it was.

But Luc wasn’t wrong.

Sina would find a way to lock me away somewhere, for my own good. She’d do it out of loyalty to Will, no doubt, and never mind the fact that I was slowly dying inside.

I wasn’t going to sit around anymore.

I wasn’t going to just wither away.

Finally, I had a course of action and I was taking it.

Chapter Five

He remembered blue sky.

His life was so long, the eternity he’d spent here couldn’t wipe out the memories.

Not yet.

But the time would come when he would look up at the endless stretch of gray and try to recall a time when he’d last seen anything but the dismal hues overhead. He would try and he would fail. He knew, because he’d been in this hell before. It had been eons ago—or so some would think—but it felt like yesterday.

Some memories fade, but when a man has walked through a specific sort of hell, he never forgets.

The sky, though, fresh air, the feel of a soft spring rain…those things can eventually be forgotten. For now, he stood at the mouth of the cave and remembered.

The memory he clung to now was of watching her as she moved through the snow. She’d chosen a crossbow as her preferred weapon—they all had them after all—and she was tackling the obstacle course he’d built for her.

The backdrop of winter-bare trees and the cerulean sky, the snow dusting up around her as she demolished the obstacles like they were little more than child’s toys. And when she’d finished, she’d turned to look at him with a wild grin on her face.

“Again,” she had demanded.

He’d simply nodded and rebuilt the obstacle course.

What he’d wanted, more than anything, was to cross to her and touch her.

Just…touch.

It didn’t have to be anything intimate, although to a man who hadn’t known an intimate touch in far too many lifetimes, the barest glance of her hand against his was almost painful.

He wanted to curl the long, midnight silk of her hair around his hands.

He wanted to gather it in his fists and see if the weight of it was as heavy as it seemed.

He wanted to stroke his hands down her arms and learn the muscles that he had grown so familiar with. If he had been an artist, he could have drawn her in his sleep. But he would never do her justice.

He simply…wanted.

With her, he’d wanted everything.

In the end, he’d had a single kiss and the knowledge that he’d hurt her, just as he’d hurt too many people in his long, long lifetime.

He closed his eyes and pulled her face to mind, wondered if she’d come to him.

There were times when he thought he might be going mad, already. All it took was a simple thought and he could bring her to him. It didn’t happen every time, no. But it had happened, and often enough that he knew something was amiss. And yes, it was likely his sanity.

He didn’t care.

If he went crazy here, there was nobody to suffer for it.

Well, except demons, and their suffering was his victory.

She didn’t come to him, though, and after a moment, he opened his eyes and studied the terrain, looked for some sign that he needed to move again. Off in the distance, lightning split the sky and the ever-present scent of ozone strengthened.

He shoved off the rough wall formed by the cave and studied the area where the lightning had appeared.

It didn’t come again though.

He had time to rest, then.

Precious little, but he’d learned long ago to make do with what little he had.

He turned to retreat back into the cave, but before he’d taken a step, he stilled.

Eerie awareness rippled over him and he turned his head just the slightest, listening.

There was no sound, no warning.

He lunged to the left and tucked his body, coming up in a crouch, his blade flashing in the dim light as he faced off with the…

Wraith.

Straightening, he curled his lip.

“Crow.”

The wraith was impossibly big, impossibly tall. He angled his head slightly, calling to mind the bird from which he’d chosen his most recent name. He’d had several of them.

“You’re still alive,” Crow murmured.

“Sadly, it would seem so.” He turned away, sheathing his blade as he went.

There was a lingering pause and then Crow spoke again. “You’ve closed most of the tears. But many have escaped. Your Grimm falter. Soon, they will fail.”

The man who had been called Will stopped. He stared at the stone in front of him, unwilling to look back for fear of the emotion that might have shown through. How long had it been since he’d come into this hell? He didn’t know. Time lost all meaning here. He knew that before he’d come here he would have shown no emotion. But the endless struggle, the days, months…years??? All of it with little rest, one long unending battle and it had chiseled him. There was nothing extra left. He was steel, strength…and grief.

He couldn’t let Crow see it. If it was the strength and the steel, it wouldn’t bother him, but the grief?

No.

“You heard my words,” Crow said.

“Yes, I heard.” He started to walk.

“Will.”

He spun, blade lifted. It came to rest at Crow’s throat. Black eyes flickered. “You cannot kill me with that…toy,” the wraith said.

“No. But I can make you hurt.” His eyes flashed. “I’ve a task set before me. It doesn’t involve you. So leave.”

“They are faltering.”

“Why does that concern you!” he bellowed.

“I am curious why you seem to think it doesn’t concern you, Will.”

“Do not call me that.” The words came out in a hard growl. “That part of me was left behind. That life is over.”

Crow’s lids flickered.

“Curious…” His black eyes were avid. “You are feeling regret. Have you ever known that emotion, boy?”

With a curl of his lip, he turned his back on Crow. “Leave, wraith. I’m done with you.”

He thought perhaps the sorry bastard would finally listen. But just as Will reached the small area he used for resting, the wraith spoke yet again. “All this time and you never knew regret. Until now.”

He was wrong. Will had known regret. He’d known a great deal of it. But he wasn’t going to discuss his feelings with Crow. Or anybody else.

“She still mourns you…Will.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He focused on the name instead of the woman Crow spoke of.

It was easier.

“Very well. If you have no concern or care for her, then perhaps I’ll…have a care.”

He spun around, fury lighting inside him.

But the wraith was gone in a gathering cloud of black.

The shout of rage echoed through the cave.

* * * * *

Rob was, as some were fond of saying, as mad as a hatter.

His bouts of sanity were frequent and sadly not as fun as his bouts of insanity.

He could see too much of the suffering in the world and he honestly didn’t know why anybody would choose to go through this existence sober or sane.

Sadly, sobriety wasn’t optional in his condition.

As old as he was, he’d need alcohol with the strength of jet fuel to put him on his ass and nobody seemed too interested in devoting much time to that.

So he waited for those bouts of insanity and devoted his saner periods to what he did best.

Killing.

There wasn’t a shortage of things that needed killing and he often found himself pointed in a certain direction, almost like a nuclear warhead, but with more concentrated results.

When he emerged from a killing stupor, it was to find himself in the middle of a field of bodies—none of them even remotely human.

Death, devastation and destruction—it was what he excelled at and he took a strange sort of pride in his work.

So it pissed him off to be called to France.

France wasn’t precisely a hotbed of demon activity.

Strange, if you asked him.

If ever there were people ripe for soul-swapping, it was the French. With their fondness for fashion, beauty and fine food, they had to be making deals somehow. But he supposed they could have moved on to greener pastures.

For a while, the demonic hadn’t found Germany a very welcoming place. That was back when Will had taken up residence there.

He was gone now…

Absently, Rob rubbed his fingers against the necklace he wore. He’d tried to jump through the portal. He wasn’t the only one, but he was one of the few who could have survived down there with his former leader. After all, he’d done serious time down there, once.

Up ahead, he heard a faint noise and he went still, listening.

After a moment, he cast a look around and then he looked up.

By the time the small party passed below him, he was already tucked up in the trees.

If they’d been human, they never would have sensed or noticed him.

Perhaps if it had been anybody but Rip, he might have escaped notice anyway.

But the brown eyes of one of his former partners swung up.

Rob was already on the move though, and when he alit on the ground a few moments later, Rip had his staff in hand.

Rob came down in a crouch, grinning.

Nothing pleased him as much as a fight and it didn’t matter if it was friend or foe. He just needed the fight, needed the rush, needed the escape.

The dark-haired woman at Rip’s side lifted a hand, pressed it to his arm, but Rip blocked her with the staff. “You sane in there today, Rob?” Rip asked conversationally.

Rob took the question at face value.

With a slow, easy smile, he shrugged. “Saner than I was a day ago. Maybe not as sane as I could be tomorrow. Or I could be talking to sheep tomorrow…you never know.”

“As long as you aren’t trying to bugger them, then we’re good.” Rip lowered the staff and Rob straightened.

“You’re sullying my reputation, Rip,” Rob said. “I’ve never tried to bugger sheep—kill them and eat them raw, maybe. But bugger them?”

The woman at Rip’s side made a face of distaste and Rob cocked his head, studying her. After a moment, recognition hit. “You’re Will’s pet.”

“I’m nobody’s pet,” she said, voice hard.

“As close as anything.” Rob shrugged. Semantics and courtesy and boundaries were some of the things he’d never bothered to understand. “You were his though. Weren’t you?”

“I…” She blinked and then nodded. “I was. I am.”

“Love,” Rob said, shaking his head. He sighed. “Will’s gone. In a few more months, a few more years, we’ll all be joining him. Toes up in hell. It’s open season on all of us.”

“He’s not dead.”

Without moving his head, Rob slanted his eyes back to Rip. “Ain’t he?” he asked.

“No. Greta saw him, Rob. He’s alive. Will’s alive.” Now Rip took a step toward Rob and something that might have been excitement burned inside the broken Grimm’s heart. “And we want you to help bring him back.”

He was crazy.

There was no denying that.

He didn’t even act human.

There was something completely other about him, from the way that he moved to the way that he talked to the way that he stared at people.

Robin acted as though people weren’t truly there. He saw them, but he also saw through them.

It was like a person had to make themselves real to the man.

Rip was real.

But I wasn’t.

I suspected Will was real.

A few short minutes later we were strolling into the house and, judging by the way he caught Greta up in a tight swirling loop of a hug, I knew that she was real for him. But he stared through Sina. She wasn’t real to him either.

Luc was real. So was Krell. The dog lunged for him, knocking him to the ground and covering his face with ecstatic doggy kisses.

Sina wasn’t happy to see him and she was even less happy when we settled out in the back. I gave Rip a questioning look when he announced that Rob had news for Sina and he caught my hand, squeezed. That simple gesture said Trust me.

Okay. I’d trust him, but if he screwed me over…

Luc brought out buckets of beer, ale and cider as well as a couple of bottles of wine. I helped myself to a bottle of cider and sat down, waiting. Rob didn’t keep us waiting long. He took up a perch on the railing—and when I say perch, I mean perch. He crouched there, hands dangling loosely between his thighs as he glanced from one face to another. His gazed roamed restlessly as if he couldn’t handle looking at any one person for longer than a few minutes. Abruptly, he lunged forward.

The movement was so unexpected, I found myself drawing back as far as my seat would take me, although that wasn’t far.

Rob didn’t move in my direction.

He stopped in front of Sina and braced his hands on the surface of his desk. “I’m going back,” he said softly.

“No.” The word was simple and cold.

He smiled. “You can’t stop me, Sina. Not unless you kill me, and you know you won’t do that.”

“You would disobey a direct order?” She rose now, leaning forward until they were nose to nose.

“Well.” He made a face, his head moving from side to side as if he couldn’t quite decide what to do with it. In the end, he rocked back on his heels and held his hands up, palm outstretched. “Here’s the thing…I told Will from the beginning that I was a bad bet, terribly bad at following the rules and a bad soldier altogether. I told him I’d never be one for following orders, especially when certain instincts of mine dictated there were other options that were smarter, sharper.”

In another one of those displays of inhuman speed and grace, he leaped, straight up, and came down in a crouch on the table. “Sina, sweet, we both know that this is one of those times.”

She jerked back.

Rob leaped off the table.

He moved like he was controlled by an invisible string, all strength and speed and grace.

Sina’s gaze slid to Rip and Greta. “Well, I guess you get your wish,” she said pithily.

“No.”

Rob glanced at me, that other smile on his face.

A pin drop could have been heard.

Slowly, Sina’s gaze fell from Greta and came to me.

“Mandy.” She cleared her throat and shook her head. “You will not—”

“I will.” Inclining my head, I stared at her. “And if you attempt to stop me, then…” I reached up and traced the pendant around my neck. “I’ll simply give this up.”

“You…” She stopped and clamped her lips together. “Fine. Give it up. At least I know you’ll live out something of a life. I’ll have kept my promise.”

The only one who didn’t react was Rob. He continued to smile, looking obscenely amused. Luc swore and grabbed Sina’s arm. Greta lunged for me. “Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t you dare.”

Rip pushed between us.

I simply sidestepped. “You’re not getting it, Sina. I’ll take it off…and then I’ll go anyway.”

I nodded toward the local lunatic. “Rob’s already promised to provide me with passage, come what may.” I don’t know just how he planned to do that, but he must know where more portals were. Some of us were keyed into them. “We’ll just take ourselves a field trip.”

The noise that escaped Sina was one of sheer, unadulterated fury.

I know I’ve heard sounds more horrifying, but in that moment, I would have been hard pressed to define just when. I waited it out and watched her closely, waited for her to spin back to me.

In the past few months, her hair had started to go silver and her dark blue eyes were bleeding to gray. I wondered how long it might take for the immense power she carried to bleach away all the color from her and how much of her heart and soul it would strip away in the centuries to come…assuming we all lasted that long.

But she had Luc. She’d have him, for as long as the two of them breathed, or the world kept spinning.

Will hadn’t even had that.

I had to wonder just what the crazy-ass Rob was capable of if he thought he could actually out-maneuver or overpower Sina. Yeah, Luc seemed to be on my side in this, but he’d never strike out against his wife. She was his soul. And the two of them were more than formidable. Together, I think the only force that could prove a match for them was the one who was no longer…

Don’t think it, I told myself.

I couldn’t think it.

If I did, I’d go insane.

But how could one psychotic Grimm hope to stop Sina? And how could I hope to do the same?

As her eyes came to me, I found myself backing up a step.

“Oh, poppet,” she said, shaking her head. “Getting nervous now, are you?”

She moved toward me, all sinuous grace and deadly strength. “You would do this—after all he did for you, after all he sacrificed. After all we all sacrificed to keep you safe,” she said. The menace in her voice was like the whisper of a dying wind through decaying bones.

I didn’t let myself react to it.

“If it was Luc, what would you do, Sina?” I angled my head toward him, although I didn’t dare look from her face. “Even if he made you promise—even if he asked the whole world to just let him go?”

She was too old, too disciplined to make much of a reaction, although I saw the faintest flicker of her lashes.

“Sometimes, sacrifices must be made. Will has to make atonement for mistakes he made.”

I curled my lip at her. “If the past two thousand, three, four thousand—however many years—haven’t been enough, then I don’t think there’s anything left he can do.” Then I leaned in and added, “And I think you know it.”

Turning, I said over my shoulder, “You might have made the promise to watch over me, but I’m a big girl, Sina. I didn’t make such a promise and you can’t strip my choices away merely out of some misguided wish to honor him. I deserve better than that.”

* * * * *

“Eat more.” Rob dumped a second sandwich on the plate in front of me.

I eyed it with more than a little trepidation. It was nearly four inches thick and piled high with more meat than I typically had in two or three days. “I’m full, thank you.”

“I don’t care.” He sat down and dug into the sandwiches he’d made for himself.

I’d already eaten one of his monstrosities. Don’t get me wrong. It was delicious, with smoked ham and turkey, roast beef and cheddar, a layer of gouda and then provolone, lettuce and tomato, as well as some kind of mustard I’d never tasted before. My body was already at work, processing all the protein and carbs, storing it away. My metabolism worked on a different level now and over the past few years, I’d realized I could actually feel some of the altered processes, if I focused long enough. Since I didn’t expend energy in the same way, the food I ate—when I chose to eat—was stored away for use at a later date, or if and when I was injured, or when I was bottoming out. That only happened if I didn’t get to rest much.

As a thought occurred to me, I looked up, saw Rob had already finished his first sandwich. “So, which is it…am I going to run my ass off or am I going to end up cannon fodder?”

Red flashed in the back of his eyes and the slightly maniacal grin that lit his face made a shiver run down my spine. “What do you mean which, love?”

I picked up my sandwich and heaved out a sigh.

“Both, then?”

“Right you are.” He winked at me. “I already told you this wouldn’t be a trip in the park.”

“It’s a walk in the park, Rob,” Rip said as he joined us at the table. He put two packs on the end of the table. By the way he moved, it would have seemed they weighed nothing, but the table groaned slightly under their combined weight.

“What are you carrying around, concrete blocks?” I asked him.

“Supplies,” he told me shortly. “Mostly food. Some clothes, some extra weapons.”

“We’re not going on a soddin’ camping trip, Rip,” Rob said, poking at one of the packs.

“No. You’re going into the netherplains and she’s young. She’ll need to eat more often and rest when she can. If she gets hurt, food will become a necessity.” Rip jerked his head in my direction and then he leaned down, shoving his face into Rob’s. “Now I like you—and I like you a sight more than most—but if you don’t bring her back, Rob, I’ll rip your guts open.”

Rob slid me a look and then went back to studying Rip. He tore off a chunk of roast beef and shoved into his mouth. After he’d swallowed it, he asked, “Think you can, mate?”

“Would you like a demonstration before you leave?”

Rob chuckled. “I would, yes. But since you want me to bring back the fancy, I’d best decline.” He shoved his plate away. He’d demolished the second sandwich to little more than crumbs. As his eyes focused on me, I had to fight the urge to squirm.

“You’re his.”

I really wished he’d stop saying that.

He flicked a look at Rip. “She’s Will’s. Everybody knows it—and they have for a right long while, Rip. Whether I find him or not, the only thing that will stop me from bringing her back is if I’m dead—for real this time.” Rob stood up and leaned toward me, and the other that seemed to emanate from him choked the air now.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

Lifting my chin, I forced myself to meet his eyes.

“I hope you heard that, precious,” Rob said. “You will come back. We’ll tear the plains up looking for him and we’ll do our best, but if and when I decide we’re done, then we are done. If I have to knock you out and drag your pretty arse back unconscious, then that’s what I’m doing. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.”

Those strange eyes studied me and then he nodded.

He turned to leave and I waited until he was almost out of sight before I called his name.

He glanced back at me.

“The name is Mandy, Rob. Not love, not pet, not poppet or anything else. Mandy. Think you can remember that?”

A brilliant grin flashed across his saturnine face. “Of course I can, pet.”

Then he was gone.

I blew out a breath as Rip took up the seat Rob had just vacated.

“How crazy do you think I am?” I asked.

“I don’t.”

Suspicious, I narrowed my eyes at him.

He shrugged and poked at Rob’s empty plate.

I shoved my half-eaten sandwich across to him.

He took it, holding off his answer until he’d taken a bite. As he did that, I rose and fetched us both a cider from the fridge. The bottles were unmarked, from a local farmer who made his own brew. It was cold and tart and perfect. I hoped it wasn’t the last time I’d have a chance to enjoy it, but if it was, then it was.

“I think you’re doing the one thing you can do if you want to be able to live with yourself, Mandy.”

Taking my time, I popped the caps off and turned back to look at him. “Of course, that one thing is likely to end with me dying.”

“Well, what’s that saying…nothing’s sure but death and taxes.” He winked at me. “We cheat death often enough, don’t we?”

I snorted. “When was the last time you paid Uncle Sam, Rip?”

“I’m not technically a U.S. citizen, Mandy.” He paused a beat and then asked, “Are you still paying your taxes?”

“Dead people aren’t required to, are we?” I offered him a bottle of cider.

He accepted and tipped it back, draining half the bottle in one long draw before he looked back at me. “If it was Greta, I’d go after her.” He blew out a breath as he placed the bottle down with a heavy thunk. “And I know Greta. It makes me sick to think of it, but it was me…she’d come after me too. That’s what love does, sweetheart. You sacrifice. You fight. You try.”

With a knot in my heart, I moved toward him.

We looked the same age, but Rip was hundreds of years older.

He was, in all the ways that mattered, my father, just as Greta was my mother. Crazy, in a way, because both of them were well over a millennium younger than the man I’d fallen in love with. When I reached him, he held out an arm and I sat down, curling up on his lap the way I might have done had I truly been his child.

He cupped the back of my head, stroking my hair.

“I’m afraid,” I said, confessing the secret that I’d guarded inside ever since I’d heard the news, ever since I’d conceived this awful, terrible, impossible plan. The only plan.

“That’s because you’re not an idiot.” He kissed my brow. “You were never an idiot, Mandy.”

My laugh was watery. Turning my face into his neck, I said, “Never? What about when I tried to bring demons into being? Or when I tried to run away? What about when—”

“Okay. You had a few incidents back when you were a kid. But all of us make mistakes. That’s what makes us human—being human makes us what we are. It’s how we’re able to do what we do, and fight the way we fight. We had to be human…once. Otherwise, we wouldn’t understand why it was important.” He hugged me now. “You got closer to him than any of us, because of who you are, sweetheart. You gave him some measure of happiness, even if he couldn’t let himself acknowledge it.”

I thought of the words he’d said. You would have made me happy…

“Why did he say that, Rip? What did he do that was so terrible?”

There was a heavy silence.

Finally, Rip sighed. “Nobody knows—Sina might. There are…” He paused and I looked up to see him staring off into nothing. His brown eyes slowly came to mine. “There are rumors that some of the older demons, long dead now, knew of what he’d done. They say it was a terrible betrayal. But even the demons weren’t allowed to speak of it.”

I snorted. “Yeah, like demons care about permission.”

“No.” Rip shook his head. “From everything I’ve heard, if one of them even tried, they were silenced. Some were killed, others rendered mute, and not by Will’s hand. It’s as if whatever he did, it’s his cross to bear, and he must bear it alone. For always.”

Chapter Six

Hot sun had blistered his skin and left it rough and dry, but so many days spent under its harsh light had left him immune to its rays now. But the heat was something he hadn’t grown inured to and as the fat, fiery globe sank below the horizon, he waited in the shade of a huge outcropping of rocks, readying for the night.

Night was his companion.

He rested as much as he could during the day, his bones old now and tired.

He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t ached, hadn’t hurt.

He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t looked back on the ruin of his life and wished…

Wished.

“Useless,” he said to himself, the word inaudible in the night. There was no point in trying to undo something that was already done, undo the actions that had left his hands stained red with blood.

Remembering, he looked down at his hands and saw the red.

Perhaps it was gone now, but not for him. He still looked at his hands and saw the ugly stain of the blood.

Voices drifted to him on the wind and he closed his eyes, rested his head on the stone behind him.

He’d followed the tent dwellers.

He had a plan.

Weariness and misery drove him now and something close to madness overshadowed the voice in his head.

You cannot outrun yourself…

Perhaps he could not. But he knew how to escape this endless misery.

It just required bloodshed. He’d done it once before. He could do it again.

It felt like a lifetime before the camp went quiet for the night and he forced himself to wait even longer before he rose and eased into the shadows. Tired as his eyes were, the shadows were easy for his eyes to penetrate; he’d spent so much of his life in them.

He watched those who had stayed awake to protect their flocks and the camp itself. If he had truly wished to bring them harm, he would have backed away in that moment, because these people were well-armed and alert, prepared for whatever may come in the night.

But the only harm he wanted to bring was to himself.

Stop.

He froze as the voice rang through him. It didn’t come from without. It came from inside him and it filled him with terror. It was a voice he knew, one he’d never wanted to hear again.

Eyes clenched shut, he fought to recoil, to hide, but where was he to go?

You will not do this, child of mine.

“Please…I am so tired.” He thought the words in desperation, didn’t realize he’d spoken them until the motion of his lips moving forced one of the cracks to split open.

Your weariness will not end if you take this action.

Still, he gazed out at the tent dwellers, at weapons held strong and sure.

He was so tired. So tired. “What would you have me do?”

“What would you have me do, Grimm?” The orin, dying in his true form, sneered up at the man called Will.

Will plunged the curved blade deeper into the thing’s serpentine form. “Die.”

“I’m already doing that.” The orin shuddered, clutching at Will’s arm, his claws tearing deep furrows into Will’s swarthy skin, furrows that healed as soon as they formed, only for the thing to tear his flesh anew. “But you said you had questions…you wanted answers…”

Will bent low and stared into the orin’s eyes.

“Yes. But I’m not wasting my breath asking them of you.”

He’d found the thing feasting on a child.

The child had been dead—likely for a long time. On the other side of the veil, the orin were the strongest—the closest thing there truly was to a vampire, feeding on the soul as the mortal slowly died, bit by bit. It was an odd twist that in their true form they fed on nothing living, but on death.

One of the reasons they enjoyed their gluttonous feeds so much, Will had always thought. They couldn’t exist on anything but a decaying carcass here and they were few and far between.

Or they had been, until the rips in the barrier between worlds had become so commonplace.

The orin’s ugly maw opened, his laugh jagged splinters of sound that echoed in the small, shallow cave. “Come now, Grimm…it was already dead when I found it. What does it hurt for me to have a taste?”

Will closed a hand around the demon’s leathery neck. “I don’t know. You’re close to dead. Why don’t I tear out a few pieces of your hide and we can see if it hurts you…hmmm?”

Will shoved his blade in, twisted it and smiled as the orin screamed. It ended on a panting wail and when the noise was nothing but a dying echo, the orin glared up at him. “You…pathetic creature,” it said. “You’re cast out…of your world and…into mine. But you think…you…you…of all creatures…have the right to judge…me. Judge any of…”

The light went out of its eyes as Will used the blade to sever its head.

He flung out a hand, fury and disgust warring inside him.

Light ripped out of him.

It wasn’t the white light that had marked his power on the other side though. It was black, edged with red.

Just as lethal, just as devastating.

And another sign of his fall.

When the corpse was nothing more than charred and sticky ash, he stumbled back, resting his shoulders against the wall and staring at nothing.

You of all creatures.

Something wet trickled down his hand and he looked down to see that it was stained with the ichor that served for blood in the demons that populated this world.

He swiped it on the rags that had become of his clothes.

The smear faded into the others. It had been so long since he had been clean. He wouldn’t even remember how it felt. It had been so long since he had worn something other than these rags. He looked down, staring at the denim that lay under the dirt.

Mandy had given these to him.

Soon, they’d barely even resemble the jeans they’d once been. He stroked a finger down the worn seam and thought of her.

Drawn by an instinct he couldn’t explain, he slid to the ground and used his knife to cut a small strip from one leg’s hem. It was already ragged so he went up higher and cut where it wasn’t too torn or worn. Once he had a long enough strip, he tore it free from the rest of the leg and stared at it.

Is there anything you can wear that won’t end up white?

Laughter had echoed in her eyes as she walked in and found him plucking at the already fading shirt she’d given him. He’d warned her, told her she was wasting her money.

It’s my money. Let me waste it. You can come into the twenty-first century, Will. Wear some jeans. Wear a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, a Henley…be comfortable for once in your endless life.

Slowly, he wrapped the faded denim around the hilt of his knife, up near the top, smoothing it and tightening it until it didn’t interfere with his grip, and then adjusting it until it felt like it was part of the grip itself.

He closed his eyes and stroked his thumb down. He held it in place with his thumb as he walked across the ground, returning to what had become his base. Any number of things ended up on this side. In the time since he’d been here—weeks, months, years—he’d come across the salvaged remains of a bus, a small private jet, numerous cars, numerous corpses.

Few of the demons had the strength, but on rare occasion, some horror allowed a creature like an orin to twist at a rip and make it large enough for a few moments, just a few, to pull something massive through. Something like a bus, a small private jet…a few cars.

He scavenged those sites, falling back on skills he hadn’t had to use since early in his life, but some things, it seemed, were never truly lost. Food, while not crucial, made things easier so he took every bit he found, eating the perishables immediately and saving anything that didn’t have a shelf life. The few times he’d been able to make any attempt to clean himself had been because he’d come across a diaper bag or something of that sort.

The item he needed today had come from a bag as well.

A woman’s purse. He found a small sewing kit tucked inside his cache and sat down, his back to the rough rock wall just outside the mouth of his cave, and he threaded the needle as he stared out across a barren landscape.

He went over the scrap of fabric with careful, neat stitches, reliving the past dozen years—or the dozen years he’d had with her—over in his mind. They were painfully clear, like they’d been cut with crystal and etched upon his brain.

“She’s a fighter, Will.”

“She can’t survive these wounds. And they are too severe for me to heal.”

“Then bring her over. She fought fucking parasei. They raped her, and she still fought.”

He shoved the needle through the material.

Laughing at him when he felt the tug of one of his Grimm.

“Obi Wan Kenobi needs to commune with the Force.”

Another stitch.

“I’m not hovering.”

“And what would you call it, Will? You’re never more than three feet away!”

The needle stabbed into his finger and broke when it hit his bone. He swore and jerked it out, staring at the blood as it welled. But he didn’t see the blood.

He saw her.

Pleading with him.

“Don’t. Don’t do this, Will. I love you.”

With a roar, he shoved upright and spun, slamming his fist into the rock. It did nothing to ease his pain and he did it again and again and again. Rock cracked and dust rose around him and he never noticed.

He continued to pound on the massive wall of stone even as pebbles, small bits of rock and debris started to rain down on him from above.

If it hadn’t been for the ripple in the air, he might have buried himself. Might have, and he likely would have welcomed it. The crushing, suffocating weight of being buried under tons of stone would have been a welcome respite from the weight of his own guilt and every other obstacle he’d placed between himself and the one woman in all his years that he’d actually ever wanted.

But he felt the ripple in the air and millennia of duty had honed his sense of honor. Before, it hadn’t existed.

Now, there was little left in him but duty. Duty and the need he’d never be able to ease.

“Come to me,” he whispered, closing his eyes and reaching out to her. It felt like it had been months since she’d answered him.

“Come to me.”

But there was no answer.

The pain in his throbbing hand began to make itself known, and Will felt something streak up his spine, tightening the air around him.

“Come to me,” he said again, although he knew it was pointless. He didn’t have time now.

That ripple—that odd, tight sensation.

It meant only one thing.

There was a new—a fresh—rip that had formed between the worlds.

Without bothering to dress the wounds he’d given himself or attempt to set the bones in his right hand, he leaped off the lip of the cave. It was nearly a fifty-story drop and he felt bones crunch.

But the pain was gone in less than a minute—the pain in his legs, anyway. It took longer for the bones in his hand to knit together, but he’d probably shattered every last one of them.

He left behind a cracked and fractured wall, the dust just starting to settle.

* * * * *

“Here we are then.”

Rob’s eyes gleamed red in the gloom.

Clouds fogged my sight—or at least I hoped they were clouds and I wasn’t going blind. Just then, I was having a hard time telling.

I dug my hands into cracked and pocked ground and looked away from him.

He was sitting on his ass like we’d just thrown ourselves a blanket on the lawn of some elegant park and were about to have a picnic. He looked pleased with himself, bracing his hands behind his back and looking around.

“Man…I thought Ren had been the craziest mother-fucker around, but he ain’t got nothing on you.”

Rob slanted me a look and to my surprise, he grinned.

“Oh, Ren, he was a crazy bugger, yeah. If he’d been around a few more years, I dunno, a century or two, he might have given me a right turn for my money.” Then he shrugged. “But I’ve had a few more years to stew in my insanity.”

He winked and leaped to his feet.

My head swam just watching him.

But at the same time, I was happy to note that I could watch him.

My vision was clearing. That meant I wasn’t going blind.

I didn’t think I’d be able to manage the awesome grace that Luc could command.

“What’s wrong with my head?” I asked, focusing on some point in the distance as I waited for the vertigo to subside.

“It’s the passage,” Rob said, unconcerned. “You weren’t meant for this world so it’s not settling right on you.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s doing you any harm,” I muttered.

“Oh, I was born here.”

I whipped my head around and gaped at him.

Big mistake.

“You were…what?”

Rob’s eyes gleamed. “Haven’t you heard, poppet?” He smiled and suddenly, that smile looked a lot toothier, a lot deadlier than I thought it should. “I’m not entirely…well. Right.”

Uneasy, I forced myself upright. Even in a Grimm, adrenaline can kick in. All the while, though, my mind was whispering, Rip trusts him. Will trusted—no, TRUSTS him. Will trusts him. You can too.

“Just what does that mean?”

“It means…” That wide grin on his face faded and looked around. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a staff. In the next movement, he shed the coat and moved to stand in front of me. “Better get yourself squared away, angel baby. We’ve got family coming to visit me, but they aren’t happy. They never were quite pleased with my career choice, I’m sad to say.”

Family…?

I decided I didn’t want to know more.

But as howls began to fill the night air, I had a bad feeling I already knew too much.

The things that filled my vision weren’t like the demons I was used to seeing.

Their presence pinged on my senses in a way that felt familiar, almost as if I was seeing through a grotesque funhouse mirror, but it wasn’t my eyes that recognized them. And my eyes didn’t want to process this sight anyway.

The things were leathery gray.

Like the flesh of a reanimated corpse, and tall. Too tall. The limbs were stretched out, like a wax figure left too long in the sun, and when they moved, bits and pieces of the innards were revealed to the eye. But that didn’t make me think it would be easy to tear them apart.

One of them caught sight of me and I watched as its eyes flashed red.

Red…

Like Rob’s.

He glanced at me and arched an eyebrow.

“Here I was hoping I could get away from the normal family welcome. You want to run for it or fight?”

“Family.” I swallowed. “How exactly is a Grimm related to a pack of orin?”

“Long story. Short version? One of those sons of bitches dragged my mother through a rip and raped her. Then, because these sods aren’t brainless, they kept her alive until she was far enough along that they could tear me out of her.” He bared his teeth as he started to spin his staff around. “It took a while, but I managed to kill the one who did it. She was long gone by then, may she rest in peace.”

One of them lunged—for me.

I jerked up the crossbow I’d managed to covertly draw.

He was dead a split second before his feet left the ground.

I smiled as he fell. “Well. Look at that…you are easier to kill on your home turf.”

“Don’t enjoy it too much, pet.” Rob moved, cutting off one of them before he could pounce on me.

Hot, thick black ichor splashed across me and immediately my skin started to sting. In their true forms, the blood a demon shed was toxic but it wouldn’t kill me. Would hurt like hell, but that wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to.

Before any of the others could move closer, I came to my feet and drew the sword I’d strapped on.

With the sword in my left hand and the self-loading crossbow in my right, I settled in.

This could get ugly.

“How many?” I asked Rob.

“Eight. At the moment—make that seven. Now…nine. Two more just showed.”

“Son of a bitch.” I sighted on one, took him down with a bolt in his left eye. Rob disappeared at my back but before I could even process his absence, he returned.

“Seven again!” He sounded almost cheerful. “This is fun, innit!”

My brain processed his heavy accent. This is fun, isn’t it?

Snorting, I lunged forward and took out the legs—literally—of one of the orin. He went down with a scream that lasted all of two seconds. By the time I’d buried my blade in his throat, Rob had killed two more.

But more swarmed up to their places.

We were faster than them. Even here, we were faster.

But we were just two.

One of them snaked in close just as I lopped off a head. I screamed as hooked, dagger-like claws jabbed into my side.

An arm came around me and jerked me back.

“Hold on!”

Rob said nothing else and then we were moving. Almost like we flew. I felt half-sick, the poison of the orin working through me. He must have been bleeding when he tore into me, because now his blood was mixing with mine and I felt…

My vision blurred.

Voices rolled in and out. I heard…

No.

I didn’t hear.

That…

A face loomed before me and then I screamed as a hand tried to grab me.

I swung out, tried to stab, although I couldn’t stab anything with a crossbow.

There was a bellow, deep and powerful. It made me shudder, because that voice… I knew that voice.

My eyes were burning. Burning in the dry sockets of my skull and I moaned.

Turning my head, I tried to follow the sound of the voice.

“You fool!”

I flinched at the sound of it, scrambling away. My fingers dug at the earth as I tried to retreat. So angry…he was so angry. I whimpered.

A hand touched my arm. “Stop yer bloody yelling, you oaf. It doesn’t matter…she’s here now, right?”

“I’ll kill you, you stupid—”

A screech. It echoed and echoed and echoed—

Clapping my hands over my ears, I jerked away from it and then I screeched too. So long and loud and hard, it hurt my throat, but I couldn’t stop.

Arms cradled me. Somebody spoke. “It’s okay, poppet.”

I tried to twist away. But the arms that held me were strong. Strong. Steady. And wrong. I hadn’t come here for him…

Poison chewed at me and I shuddered.

“Get her safe. Don’t bring her back. Ever.”

I cracked open one eye and stared up, searching for him. I looked for the silvery hair that I knew so well, for eyes of the palest, almost surreal gray. A swatch of black fell against my cheek and I batted at it. I couldn’t see him. I could barely see anything. But I knew he was there.

Will was there. Somewhere.

“Fuc…Fuck you, Will.”

Then I lost consciousness.

He’d said, “Come to me.”

This time, she had.

But he hadn’t wanted this.

He wanted to grab her away from Rob, cradle her close. Instead, he gripped her hand and forced himself to stare at the wound.

“Can ya fix it?”

Rob’s voice was blunt.

Rob knew what coming here had done to him.

He wasn’t who he had once been.

But the powers, twisted as they might be, were still there.

“I can.” He slid Rob a look. “But it will hurt her and that makes me want to kill you.”

“You want to do that anyway.” Rob jerked a shoulder up in a shrug and looked around. “You do what you best do, mate. I can only fight these beasties back for so long.”

Will curled his lip.

Rob could—and had—hold orin back for hours, days, perhaps.

At least he could as long as he wasn’t held back trying to protect somebody weaker. Somebody who didn’t fully understand what Rob was.

As Will knelt by Mandy’s side, Rob started to prowl around him, singing under his breath. “Hey there, little Red Riding Hood…”

The man’s sense of humor was beyond warped.

An orin lunged.

Its death scream was lost on Will, as was the one that followed. More and more gathered, drawn in by the carnage.

But Will saw nothing but the too-black, poisoned taint of her blood, dripping across her bared torso. She screamed as he drew it out of her, all but tearing it out by force. No more calm, gentle healings for him. He was the rough ruin of the beast he’d made himself into centuries ago, no longer yoked by the chains of his punishment.

It was laughable, Will thought, that he’d rather have those chains. That he’d rather be back, serving out the final terms of an eons-old sentence.

But he’d known when he’d come here what he was facing.

He’d come here to die.

It was, finally, the death sentence he should have been given long ago.

Though it wasn’t possible, the scar at his throat seemed to burn him, mocking him, and it got worse and worse as Mandy screamed and twisted, trying to escape the agony as he purged her body of the poison.

“I’d suffer the pain so you didn’t have to, if I could,” he said. She didn’t hear him, her body wracked by the pain. “I’d take it all away if I could.”

* * * * *

The man touched the earth, recalling the ugly stain it had borne so long ago.

How much time had passed?

He didn’t know.

He had been cast out, left to wander, and wander he had. So many years had passed.

Why do you return here?

He flinched at the sound of that voice, turning his face away. Shaking his head, he started to back away.

“I will leave,” he managed to whisper.

Why do you retreat? Stay, talk with me. You turn your face from me all these years.

But he was too afraid to stay. Too afraid to face the ugly truths that had led him here.

* * * * *

Finally, he was done.

Will caught her up in his arms and turned, searching for Rob among the carnage.

Something emerged from a mess of bodies.

It barely looked to be human, the way it came tearing across the ground in a loping, four-legged gait.

Will was too used to Rob’s…peculiarities to be concerned.

When the Grimm leaped across the bodies and then came to stand in front of Will, he just shifted the precious burden he carried.

Rob looked down. The ichor staining his face made him look horrific and his eyes spun with red and black, his smile glinting with a monstrous sort of hunger. “That was…fun,” Rob said.

“I’m glad you enjoyed your playtime. Now make sure you keep her safe—and get her out of here,” Will said, turning Mandy’s limp form over to Rob.

Rob was strangely silent.

“Did you hear me?”

“No.” Rob cocked his head, staring off into the distance. “Too busy listening to them. You ready for your playtime, mi’lord?”

Will sneered but before he could say anything, Rob was already gone, loping off. Soon, he was lost to the craggy, uneven landscape and Will turned back to the orin emerging from the mists.

Their low, sonorous growls of the orin drew him back to the battle and he bared his teeth at them. They gathered around the bodies and shot him dark, ugly looks. “What?” he asked, his voice silky. “Did you think you could toy with one of us and not come out the worse for it?”

“You’re the one who’s looking worse for wear, Grimm.” The biggest of them licked his lips, his tongue long and skinny, gray, flecked with black. His teeth were thick and jagged, sharp points in his ugly mouth. The orin had wide, big eyes set in a spade-shaped head. Their necks slender, almost too slender, and it made them look frail.

They were strong enough to rip a small adult limb from limb.

Will had seen it.

“You’re in our world and you number but a few. How stupid, how desperate must you be to come here?” the orin said, kicking at the fallen body of one of his kin. “We will slaughter you here. We will drink your blood from your dying limbs and laugh as we listen to your strangled breaths.”

Will curled his fingers toward the thing. “Then come do it already. I am, of course, only one.”

The orin cocked his head, searching. He sensed a trap.

But he saw no other, sensed no other.

It made a low noise that Will couldn’t understand.

A moment later, they swarmed him, coming at him in a wave.

Will waited.

They tore at his flesh and he waited.

Their blood lust rolled into him and he welcomed it as more and more tried to join in on the feast.

Once all of them were gathered around, tearing at the ground and at each other as they tried to get at him, he answered the blood lust they had set off inside him. It exploded in a river of black fire, all consuming.

When it ended, he was covered in black soot, his body shuddering as the poison ate into him.

Too weak to stand, he lay there.

Panting, he closed his eyes while his body tried to shut down in response to the damage they’d done. In response to the damage he’d allowed them to do.

Wind drifted across his ravaged flesh, beat at the exposed bones and pulped meat that was his body.

Will managed to turn his head to one side. Blood pulsed out from the ragged hole on the other side.

“You let them make a mess of you.”

He blinked his one eye. The other, he had no idea what had become of it. Deep in his skull, he could feel the odd, deep ache that signified his body was already at work rebuilding a new one. As Crow approached, Will rolled his head back to the sky. There was a mental wall between him and the pain that tried to devour him. If he gave into it, it would swamp him and destroy his fragile grip on control. He could never allow himself to lose control.

The big, winged angel crouched down near him, his black-feathered wings draped around him like a shroud.

“You…” Will swallowed, blood choking him. “You…can…”

He stopped, the thought escaping him.

Crow cocked his head. “Demon got your tongue?”

Will closed his eyes.

He was too tired.

The lure of stasis called him although adrenaline was trying to stir inside him. It was dangerous to sleep now, dangerous to sleep around this creature.

In the distance, something screeched, a new threat.

Too many of them.

If he slept now, would he ever open his eyes?

Would Mandy…

“Take your rest, boy. I’ll make sure you rise again.”

Will would have told him to sod off. If he’d had the breath. If he’d remembered how to talk.

If he had still been awake.

Chapter Seven

“You’ll get her out of here.”

Rob came awake at the sight of the knife that was pressed to the vulnerable underside of his chin.

It was hard for the uninitiated to keep track of the passage of time in this place, but Rob was far from uninitiated. He’d thought he’d have a few more hours, maybe even a night or so before Will caught up with them. Will hadn’t bravely flung himself to his death when he’d turned to face a fetch of orin.

He’d bought them time, nothing more, and both of them knew it.

Why it hadn’t taken more time, Rob didn’t know, but he’d stopped trying to make sense of Will a long time ago.

The knife dug deeper into his throat and Will said, “Now.”

Rob wasn’t exactly what one might call a quick study. He was well aware of that. But he was almost positive that Will had every intention of shoving that pigsticker of his all the way through his cranium if he didn’t agree to do just what he asked.

That created something of a problem, because Rob couldn’t do what Will wanted.

Rob already knew what needed to be done and he’d made his decision.

Rob was a stubborn son of a bitch, always had been.

But he rather liked not having eight inches of metal shoved through his cranium too.

So he decided he’d pull the bullshitting game. He’d been around long enough that he thought he could play it rather well. “Why don’t we talk about that, mate?”

“Nothing to talk about, Rob. You’ll take her out of here. She’s not healed yet. While she’s still sleeping, you’ll take her back to where you crossed over and you’ll leave. You won’t return. Period.”

Rob eased his head back just a bit, enough so that he no longer felt the bite of metal digging into him. The bullshitting game wasn’t going to work very well.

Rob should have known as much.

Maybe he’d try honesty instead then.

He ducked and spun, moving with a speed even Will couldn’t counter.

It left him standing there with the knife in his own hand. In a full-out fight, he knew Will could kill him, could shove the knife sideways up his ass and not even break a sweat over it.

But Will didn’t want Rob dead.

He just wanted him—and Mandy—gone.

There was just one small problem with that.

“Why don’t you just do it already?” Rob said, moving toward Mandy, his voice apathetic. “None of us will, but you’re a heartless bastard. Always have been. You’ll do what needs to be done, right? After all, that’s why we’re here…Will.”

Will stared at him, eyes ruthlessly cold.

“Come now, Will.” He threw the name out mockingly. “You weren’t always big on efficiency but you learned that life skill fairly well over the past couple of thousand years, yeah? Do what needs to be done and move on, right? So just do it already.”

Will’s eyes flashed black.

His hair, once pale as fallen snow, hung in limp, black strands around his harsh face. Rob twirled the blade as Will took one step toward him. “If you can’t do what needs to be done, maybe I should,” Rob murmured, flicking a look toward Mandy. “I guess a few thousand years have made you soft, old man. Want me to do it?”

A low, warning snarl escaped Will.

“What? She’s not likely to make it to the tear, and if she does, we could both die on re-entering. She’s getting reckless and doesn’t care about life now. Sooner or later, her actions will end with her death, and likely the death of some of us. There aren’t many left. Why not just save her the misery and end it all now?” Rob tossed the knife from one hand to the other, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Not like you haven’t made those hard calls before.”

He was flung into the cave wall a moment later.

“Touch her, and you die the worst death you can imagine dying.”

“I don’t know if you can imagine my worst death, old man. I’m half-demon, remember?” He groaned and went to touch the back of his head. Blinking, he tried to focus on Will’s form. “Bollocks, mate. There’s two of ya, now. That’s not good.”

Will grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him up. “There’s going to be two of you—or maybe four—after I rip you apart. Arms, then legs? Which shall it be? I’ll scatter you to the far reaches of this godforsaken place and grind the rest of you to pulp. Even you won’t recover from that.”

Will shook him and Rob caught his wrist, wrenched and twisted away. He threw himself to the side, immediately tucking into a ball. Physical distance had never been a problem for Will—he seemed used one of his other abilities.

Fire licked at Rob’s heels and he did the only logical thing—placed himself at Mandy’s side.

Will immediately froze.

“Don’t,” he said, one hand lifted.

Rob, in a crouch at her side, looked down at her. Slowly, he touched her hair, stroking it back.

She didn’t even stir.

“What would it matter?” he asked, looking up to see Will watching him with hate and fury—and betrayal. “Really, Will. What it would matter? You want her out of here because you think it will make her safer. But she doesn’t want to be safe. Without you, she doesn’t even want to be alive.”

Rob sighed, slowly looking up at Will.

His death danced in the other man’s eyes. “She’s already dying, Will. Dying, bit by bit, day by day. There’s nothing left for her on the other side and the only thing for her here is you.”

Will spun away.

“Yeah, you go ahead. Run off. Hide from it. You always hide from the hard things—you hide, you run. Or if it really gets hard, you tie a rope around your neck, throw yourself from a cliff. Just how many times have you tried to end yourself anyway?”

This time, Will didn’t just throw him into the wall.

He bodily rammed Rob into it and Rob choked on the dust that settled around them. Will wrenched him from the wall, then spun and drove him into the floor, toying with him like a child’s ragdoll—and Will was one very brassed-off child.

Will drove Rob into the ground and for a moment, Rob couldn’t see anything but the blackness that tried to overwhelm him and he couldn’t think past the pain and he thought the blood in his mouth would choke him.

“What do you know of it?” Will snarled, his voice a low, awful growl in Rob’s ear. “You know nothing.”

Rob gagged as the blood rose thick and bitter up his throat.

He turned his head and spat.

Then, in a move of desperation, he swiped that blood up and swung out. He hit hard, he hit fast, and struck to penetrate.

A human isn’t likely to be able to tear into a body cavity with force alone.

But Rob had never been just human.

Stiffening his fingers right before impact, he let that monster in him come out. His fingers elongated into hooked, ugly claws and he tore into Will’s body.

Their blood mingled.

It wasn’t the first time they’d bloodied each other.

But the first time had been centuries ago.

And Rob had learned.

“I know everything,” Rob growled.

The images blurred and twisted and Will, red flaring in his eyes, tore away.

Will slammed into the wall and pebbles fell from the fissures that had spread through it.

Rob stared at him, blood dripping from his fingers. “You might be ascribed to myth by much of the world. But there are others who still know quite a bit about you, old man. I know probably bloody near all of it. I even know why.”

* * * * *

I was burning.

Burning alive from the acid that ate into my body, ate into my very bones.

It started at the center of my abdomen and worked its way out.

Shuddering, trying to scream from the pain of it, I curled into myself and sobbed.

I screamed.

No sound came out.

Ugly, awful images played out in my head.

Do you believe in angels?

I knew that voice.

Somebody had asked me that.

Once.

I’d laughed.

The pitying look I’d been given had made me angry. Angry, because I felt foolish.

You can believe in demons…but not angels?

I didn’t want to make sense of that.

Now I found myself staring at a…thing.

It was worse than the ugliest of demons, the scariest of them. Yet he hid behind a face so beautiful, it hurt to look at him.

He stood in front of a man, yet the man was so dark and swarthy, so covered with hair, it was hard to even recognize him as a man.

“Would you like to leave this place, you poor, forsaken fool?”

He’d forgotten the color of the sky.

It had been that realization that drove him to the top of the cliff and then over it.

Now, broken and bleeding, yet not dead, he lay staring up at the murky bowl overhead that wasn’t the sky. Yet it was.

A thing stood between him and the sky. Sometimes it was a man. Sometimes it was something monstrous and terrifying.

The man didn’t know what it was, but he was frightened. He’d thought he’d forgotten what fear was, but he hadn’t.

He closed his eyes, because that was one thing that still worked.

“No answer?” The thing paused and then added something else.

A name. One that brought even more misery to him, but he couldn’t understand why.

A hand touched his brow and he gasped. Pain exploded through him, but even as he tried to scream, the pain was gone.

The thing that was sometimes a man helped him rise and they stared at each other. “Would you like to escape this hell? It wasn’t meant for such as you. I can help you leave…for a price.”

That was when he knew.

Backing away, he shook his head. “No. Get away from me.” He spat the thing’s name on the ground.

Its eyes glowed with an avid hunger and the man turned to run.

He did not make it far.

As creatures tore into his flesh, the monster that was also a man began to laugh. “You could wander here until the end of days. Is that what you want?”

Will tore himself out of the shared memory.

Dazed, he stumbled to the mouth of the cave and went to his knees.

“Rob, you son of a bitch,” he said, breath coming from him in ragged pants.

He swallowed back the bile, the guilt, the shame.

As Rob approached him, he looked away.

“Isn’t a few millennia long enough to punish yourself?”

Surging upright, he grabbed Rob by the front of his shirt. “No! Ten thousand millennia wouldn’t be enough. A hundred thousand. It doesn’t matter! You know what I did!”

“Yes. And you know what? What you did? You’ve done your time and then some. Stop punishing yourself already. Even murderers can get out of prison these days.”

Will jerked back as though he’d been burned. Curling his lip, he backed away. “Stop punishing myself?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, old man. You fucked up well and good. But you didn’t do anything that the man upstairs didn’t know was going to happen.” Rob rubbed his chin and shrugged. “I didn’t know you had a run-in with Old Scratch though. I get the big picture, see. But you know what they say…the devil is in the details. The big bad, as Buffy would say. He pegged you right, didn’t he?”

Slowly, Will backed away.

He would have gone to his knees inside that cave, would have stayed there, letting the guilt and the shame tear him to pieces all over again. He’d lived centuries like that.

But an odd noise came to his ears.

Low and raw.

Tormented.

Slowly, he turned his head.

Mandy was curled into a ball.

Her eyes were open.

Locked. Staring at nothing.

And she was shaking.

Rob flicked him a look, then followed his line of sight.

A moment later, both of them were at her side. Will wrenched her arms over her head. When he saw the still-open wounds on her belly, he hissed.

But Rob was the one who started to curse, low and ugly and furious.

When he finished, he shot Will a dark look. “I hope you got some juice left in you. She’s got some of my blood in that wound. It must have happened when I grabbed her. It’s why she’s not healing.”

Slowly, Will lowered his gaze and stared at the open, bloody mess. Ah, no. But one touch on her mind told him what he didn’t want to accept.

Rob’s blood, poisoned, tainted…twisted. Rob’s strange gifts were tied to his dual lineage and the demon part of him pierced memories like a slip of paper. Now that blood was inside the woman on the ground.

She was already wounded, burning with fever…and now she was going to take a trip through thousands of years of memories. Those memories were enough that Will had tried to force himself to forget and now she was going to…

“Fuck,” he snarled. He tore his gaze from her face and looked at Rob. “When? How long?”

He needed to know what she’d see. How much. Would she even survive it?

“Ah…probably everything? No telling how much will make sense…at first, at least.” With forced cheer, Rob added, “Look at it this way. Now you won’t have to ever tell her why you’re so dark and bloody moody all the time, am I right?”

Will would have hit him.

Hard.

But the howls rose up from somewhere outside the cave.

Rob rose, his face haggard. “I’ll go deal with Mum and Dad. You heal her.”

“Your mother was human,” Will reminded him tiredly. He would have dragged a hand down his face, but it was smeared with blood and grit.

“Well, Dad, aunts, uncles, cousins.” He gave Will a crazed smile. “Dad’s dead, didn’t you know? I killed him. Ate his liver, I think. They had thrown me in some small pit, just weeks before you found me, and he’d come down to torment me, have a bit of sport with me. Taunting me about how he’d done it all, grabbed my mum, fathered me because he thought it might be easier for somebody with human blood to tear open the rips and make them permanent. But I didn’t want to play. I got my hands on him. He screamed…but they weren’t fast enough.”

The flickering light that was Rob’s sanity was fainter now and he turned, rocking on his heels as he faced the mouth of the cave.

“Heal her, Will. Get her, get you out of this maddening place.” Then he shot Will another look. “And for the love of God—you were given a second chance, by the one who basically wrote the book on second chances and redemption, all of that. You called the man your king, made a vow to make good all the wrongs you’d done. You dishonor the promise you made, you know. Take the chance you’ve got and run with it.”

Will narrowed his eyes.

Rob swayed out of reach and gave him a maddening smile. “How many times shall I forgive my brother, Will?”

Then he lunged.

Screams arose and Will had to focus on Mandy.

Those screams were much, much closer than he liked.

And she was healing much, much slower than she should be.

Chapter Eight

There was pain and there was darkness and I didn’t think either would ever end.

Both of them did, though, except when I opened my eyes, I was still lost in the black. There were voices and they were screaming. Their panic called to the fighter I’d become and I went to leap up.

I couldn’t.

Strong arms held me pinned to the ground.

Son of a bitch—

But the words wouldn’t come…and neither did my strength.

A hand clamped over my mouth while another, hard and calloused, wrenched my wrists overhead and held them down.

“Be still. Please. Do not leave the tent. I wish to harm no woman, no child…”

“What…”

I couldn’t force the words out though. I sucked in a breath and realized, that at least, I could do. I could breathe. A storm of scents hit me, all of them foreign. I didn’t know what was going on. Nothing made…

Wait.

The man pinning me down. His cheek rasped against mine as he whispered in my ear again. “Do not be afraid. I will not harm you.”

You…

I would have hit him, if I could. I tensed my muscles again, ready to tear away and then knock him over, beat him bloody. He would let me too. He’d done it before. I knew him. He was different, different in ways I couldn’t describe, but I knew him. He’d called to me from the very beginning.

But I couldn’t break free. My strength just wasn’t there.

Then it hit me. I wasn’t me. This body wasn’t mine and as soon as I understood that, the terror washed over me and it froze her, this woman whose body held me prisoner.

The voice that came out of her mouth wasn’t mine, and neither was the language, but I understood it.

“What do you want?”

Something sharp pricked my neck. “Scream, woman. Scream loud and I will not be forced to hurt you.”

She screamed…while I fought inside her.

Darkness sucked away again and when I found myself able to see, I was lying on the ground. Men gathered around me and I braced myself.

What in the hell is going on…?

I had no idea where I was.

I had no idea when I was. Slowly, though, I was figuring out just what was going on. I was somehow trapped inside Will’s head…or his memories. And judging by the rough clothes these guys wore and the weapons they held, he just might be older than I thought.

Pain shuddered through him and I felt every bit of it.

But he was smiling.

The bastard was smiling. Will, who hardly ever smiled, had smiled while he lay bleeding and broken on the rocky, broken terrain.

“What have we done?” All around him, men whispered and their fear ate me like vultures feasting on carrion. Blood spilled out of the body I was forced to share, but he smiled.

One of the men bent and grabbed his hand, jerking his arm up into the air. Even as Will—or whoever he was—screamed, relief wracked him. The action forced more blood out of him as the man turned to those behind him. “You see it, don’t you? You see the—”

The oldest man silenced the one who had been speaking. “No. I see an old madman, a man possessed.” He tapped his brow and looked around. “He attacked us. We cannot be blamed for protecting our women, our children. And he wouldn’t have done that. It cannot be him. Legend.” He spat on the ground and it came near the blood that was sinking into the ground. “Just legend. Stories our fathers told us so we would guard against jealousy.”

Can’t be who? I wanted to ask. But I couldn’t ask. And the man whose body I wore was dying.

His vision grayed, dimmed.

Just before he would have breathed his last, he thought, I wander no more.

“Come on, you foolish, stubborn woman.” Will sat at her head, his hands on either side, buried in the thick silk. He’d dreamed of doing that, longed to do it. And now, here he was. Dream fulfilled. But not in the way he had wanted.

He should know better than to dream.

To long for anything.

A vicious shout, somehow jubilant, rose from the mouth of the cave, but he didn’t look away from her face.

“Come on…show me where you are.” He tried to follow the tangled skeins of his memory, but his lifeline stretched back so very far. And for a while, there had been more than one. Which path did he take?

“Do you not yet understand, son of Adam?”

I jerked at the sound of that voice. It was a terrible, ugly sound, something so awful, I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Broken glass, nails dragging down a chalkboard and discordant music, all shrieking together, blended together into a voice not meant for human ears.

It came from a thing that wavered between a man and monster, and that thing stood staring up at a twisted mockery of a tree.

I followed its gaze and had to shove my fist against my mouth when I saw what held its attention.

Son of Adam, it had said. I had no idea what that meant, but there was a desiccated husk up there. A husk that had once been human.

Then, it shifted, lifting a hand in a plea, and I screamed.

It couldn’t… Swallowing, I backed away. There was no way it could still be alive.

But the wrenching anguish in my heart said otherwise. It also told me just who it was hanging there.

“You cannot die, boy,” the thing on the ground said. “You were cursed to wander and wander, you shall.”

An anguished noise that might have been a moan came from the ruin of a man. I wanted to help, had to help. Assuming I’m not crazy, I told myself, I don’t think I’m even here. I’m just along for the ride.

I was really hoping I was crazy though.

That thing moved closer to the tree and I watched as it began to climb. Up, up, up…until it was right beside him. The man who wasn’t yet Will.

Bone and sinew were visible through the skin. He shouldn’t be alive.

The thing that was sometimes a man held a wrist up. “Drink…it will make you strong again.”

“Away, you whoreson.”

The thing cackled. “You know who I am, son of Adam.”

There was silence.

I was all but holding my breath.

This was all getting a little too fairy tale, even for me, but maybe this would help me make sense of it.

“I know you.” It was the only answer given.

Another withered, rasping laugh. “And you call me a whoreson?” He stopped laughing, lowering his wrist. “You will tire of the suffering. But perhaps you need incentive…”

Howls rose out in the distance. The man’s body flinched as he spun on the cobbled-together rope.

I spun away—

Blood dripped from Rob as he flung himself to the cave floor.

“If that’s your blood and you shed so much as a drop of it within two feet of her, I’ll rip your throat out and feed you to the demons myself,” Will said calmly. He’d almost caught her in time. She’d gone nearly all the way back, seen practically the worst of him. But then she’d fallen, slid into another one of his lives and he had to track her again.

“Relax, mate.” Rob was panting and when Will looked at him, his eyes had gone demon red. A brilliant grin lit his face, reckless, yet somehow…innocent. Odd words to describe Rob, but they fit, somehow. “The blood’s not mine. It’s just demon blood and she’s taken baths in that by now. It’s all good.”

No. It was not all good.

But as long as no more of Rob’s bizarre blood mingled with Mandy’s, Will thought he’d be able to pull her out of the memory loop.

He hoped.

He wished.

He would even pray.

“See? I knew you would tire of the suffering.”

I wanted to grab a rock, a stick—even a femur from one of the dead demons would work—and drive it through the head of the thing that taunted the man.

He was no longer a broken, withered husk. On his hands and knees, he stared down into the dirt and I could see something dripping from him. When he lifted his face, he stared at the thing in front of him.

“Away from me, you snake.”

I flinched. I don’t know what caused it though—maybe it was what he’d called the monster. It made something echo deep inside me. A memory of something, long buried. Son of Adam. Snake.

He swiped his hand over the lower half of his face, sending droplets of the stuff flying. “Undo this…this…thing you’ve done. I told you no! No deal.”

“You were unconscious. In the deepest of sleep and suffering.” Its voice was low and soft, almost soothing now, and as I watched, it stepped toward the man, taking on the guise of a woman, tall and lean and lovely, her body nude, her breasts full and heavy, soft. She reached up and brushed back his hair.

Don’t touch him! I tried to shout. But the words were soundless. Just like everything else I did here.

He knocked her hand away. “I could have been dying the worst of deaths and I would not ask your ease. Undo it!”

“But it’s already done.” She smiled and leaned against him. “My blood is in you now, son of Adam. You are mine.”

“No!” He wrenched away. “I know how you work, through trickery and deception. I gave you nothing. You cannot take what I have not given.”

“But you show the very proof of what I’ve given you. Your health. Your strength…you are mine now.”

Light slammed down and the earth shattered.

Will stared at the bloody mess that was Rob.

He’d managed to beat back the flow, again.

But for how long?

“They aren’t going to stop.”

The voice behind him had Will freezing.

Then, slowly, he turned to look at Crow.

“Why must you ever show up at times like these?”

The wraith seemed to ponder the question, then he smiled, his teeth flashing white against his swarthy face. “Because it is when you are most despairing and your misery is like sweet, sweet wine.”

Will curled his lip and then looked back at Rob.

Sinking to his knees, he pulled up the well of power inside him.

“You can’t heal as you once did.”

He tuned the ceaseless prattle out and laid his hands on Rob’s body. All that remained in him was raw power. He couldn’t guide it, couldn’t control it. It was like he was nothing more than a conduit between those around him and…rage.

But that rage was fathomless and deep, a void so full of seething energy and all he had to do was guide it.

“Damn it, man.” Crow knocked his hands aside.

Will shoved upright and gathered the aborted power, now roiling inside him like magma. It erupted out as he drove his fist into Crow’s chin.

The wraith’s body went up. Straight into the rock over their heads.

Bits and pieces of stone rained down on them.

Crow came at him immediately, wings spread and beating.

They were out of the cave in a flash, hurtling down the sheer rock face.

Panic lit inside Will and he struck out, tearing free of the other angel. Death angel. He had to get back—had to get to Mandy and Rob. Had to—

Crow struck him with a massive hand, shoving Will’s face into the jagged bits of rocky earth. Will felt each sharp rock as it tore into his skin, shredding it. He didn’t care. The pain was no obstacle. Pain had long since stopped affecting him the way it would have in his normal life. No, what he cared about was the fact that Crow was keeping him from Mandy.

He reached out, grabbed a rock. It was flat and mostly smooth. He crushed it in his grip until he felt sharp, rough edges and then he moved, twisted.

Crow’s enraged howl echoed through the plain as Will succeeded in partially severing one wing. Rising, he stared down at the bloodied form of the wraith. The wraiths—death angels—weren’t as used to battle as some of the heavenly guard. Actually, there were only a select number who had been specifically created for battle.

Will headed one of the armies and he had done nothing but fight for millennia.

Young, compared to the other army.

But war was all he knew.

“Never stand between me and mine, Crow. You will always come out bloodied,” he said.

Then he ran back to the cave.

He saw nothing between him and his Grimm. No…not his anymore. But they were still safe in the cave as the wraith came to his feet outside the cave.

Chapter Nine

What is this thing you have done?

I heard the voice. But I didn’t see anybody speaking. And the voice…it flooded me with a sense of both awe and terror. I couldn’t even imagine moving now. Couldn’t imagine speaking or blinking or…existing.

Not daring to move, I held still in my small corner of space, not even sure if anybody knew I was there and watched everything play out.

The man who wasn’t yet Will and the monster who pretended to be a man were both face down in the dirt, although only the man seemed okay with it. The monster writhed and twisted, as though he was only there because some giant hand forced him to be.

You…

The man was upright, just like that, and in his face, I saw the echoes of the man I might come to know.

But it wasn’t him.

Not yet.

You cannot stay here now.

He might have sagged, gone to his knees. But he just nodded. “Do as you will. I accept.”

“Your punishment is not yet over, but you will finish it outside the serpent’s reach.”

“You cannot take him! I have marked him. He carries my blood. He is mine!”

Nothing is yours.

“If he passes through the barrier, then mine will pass through as well…so long as he lives. I will pass through.”

I heard the slyness in the tone, the cunning, the craftiness.

But you will not. You will rot here, trapped. Until it is done.

Rob had lost an eye in the melee earlier. It was slowly regenerating, but he was still sightless on that side and his head turned, following the sounds Will made as he came back into the cave.

“We need to get you mobile so you can get Mandy back to the mortal world,” Will said, crouching down next to Rob.

Rob’s laugh was wet.

He couldn’t yet speak.

But the negative shake of his head was emphatic.

“I can’t let you heal on your own,” Will said.

The crunch of gravel behind him had him stiffening.

“You’re going to drive him mad, healing him the way you are.”

Crow.

Will tipped his head back, staring up at the cracks that now latticed the ceiling in an almost delicate pattern.

“You’re shoving nothing but pure power into him and his body is taking it, but it’s painful.”

Will slid Crow a dark look. “I know that. But I’m sort of cut off from the well of power I once had. I can only go by what’s available to me here.” He flicked a hand to the desolation outside of the cave. “Not much in the way of the divine, is there?”

For a moment, Crow just stared at him.

Then he started to laugh.

“You think you’re pulling power from the plains?”

Will went back to the task at hand.

Rob.

Gripping the man’s hand, he thought back to when he’d first found the other Grimm. Rob had just been a boy. True enough, at almost twenty, others would consider him a man, and he’d seen far more horror than most ever saw. He’d spent every one of those years trapped here.

But he’d known nothing of life and when Will had taken him into the mortal realm, his pure pleasure at what he’d discovered had been nothing but child-like awe.

“I want to get you out of here, Rob,” he said quietly. “Most of the tears are gone. You all can fix things now. Take Mandy and just…”

Crow squatted across from them. Blood dripped from his wing.

It splashed on the stone.

Rob’s nostrils flared.

His mouth parted.

Will glanced down.

So did Crow.

Then the wraith shrugged and reached down.

A moment later, he had his hand, cupped and full of his own blood, held to Rob’s mouth.

Rob gulped and slurped and licked.

Crow grimaced. “Uncouth youth.”

When he was done, he let Rob fall unceremoniously on the ground and he rose.

Rob was already unconscious. But the pain coming from him was lessened.

Will stared.

Slowly, he shifted his attention to the wraith. “What was that?”

A smile flirted with Crow’s mouth.

Will could all but see him debating.

But then he shrugged. “That one is so far from human, he all but reeks of it. Demons, they suck the humanity and the soul and the energy from all things.”

“I know what demons prey on, wraith. I’ve hunted them for centuries.” Will glared at him.

“Then why are you surprised to see a creature that is part demon being restored because he fed from an angel?” Crow’s black eyes all but skewered Will.

Will looked back at Rob. His flesh was knitting back together as Will watched.

“Do not worry he will fall prey to bouts of angel lust…no more than any of you sorry lot. He will likely rip his own head off should the temptation arise,” Crow said. He flicked a finger toward Will. “He will rest. He will heal. He will fight again and then you can drive him insane.”

Will was about ready to rip Crow’s head off and then mount it on the femur bone of a dead demon.

But Mandy made a low, guttural noise—a sound of pure torment.

Will turned, staring at her as need twisted in him.

“Can you take her from this place?”

Crow canted his head to the side. Then he smiled, amused. “No.”

He disappeared in the next moment, lost to the shadows.

This bizarre time loop was going to drive me insane.

I had no idea how long I’d been trapped. Where I was trapped, I didn’t know, but I had better be trapped somewhere. If I was dead, I was going to come back and haunt Will’s ass until the end of time.

It was, simply put, a rather familiar scene.

A hill.

Three crosses.

And unlike the scenes depicted in much of rural America, those crosses had bodies on them.

Living bodies. People who breathed and moved…

And there were other bodies, people who actually gathered around those on the cross and mocked the men hanging there. Calling out and laughing at them. I shoved a fist against my mouth, forgetting that I couldn’t make a sound here.

There was a sound next to me, a low and familiar voice.

That ugly one.

“Go to him. He hangs there, making a martyr of himself. Such weakness…he could call himself down from there and end all of this. Go, son of Adam. Ask him to end his suffering. And yours.”

I turned my head and found myself staring at a scene that was far too familiar. That voice came out of a woman’s mouth. But there was no woman inside there anymore. She was possessed. A demon lived inside there now. A strong one too.

“Leave here,” a man said. He stepped forward, a spear slightly pointed outward. “I would shove this through your heart in a moment and not suffer at all, snake.”

The demon inside her laughed and laughed. “You threaten when I am here to help you? Go…go to him. You hate to see his suffering. I’ve watched, you know. You followed him at a distance. Listened to him, longed to go into his presence even when he denounced you.”

Rob sat up, one hand pressed to the faint crater in his side. He looked around and then back at Will.

Shoving a finger in Will’s direction, he said sourly, “I’m not leaving. You want me gone? Tear open a rip, tear off my head and shove me through. Only way you’ll get me out of here. And you better be prepared to knock her out.”

Will watched him dispassionately for a moment and then looked at Mandy.

“She’s still unconscious.”

A feral smile curled Rob’s lips. “That’s not unconscious, boss. That’s seeing sleep. She’s seeing it all, and it’s nearing the end. When she wakes up…” Rob shrugged. Then he rested his head on the back of the cave, looked out. “They’re going mad out there. I have never seen them like this.”

“I have.” Will shifted his attention from Mandy and Rob to the mouth of the cave. “Once.”

Rob’s brows shot up, all but disappearing into his hairline as he waited for the answer.

It didn’t come though.

When Will turned back around, Rob demanded, “Well?”

“I thought you knew me,” Will said mockingly. He gathered his hair back, paused for a moment at the sight of the thick black strands. He’d forgotten what his hair had once looked like. Clubbing it back, he tied it off with a shredded scrap of cloth from his shirt and then he put his back near the wall at the entrance of the cave. “It was when I fell. I came here.”

He studied the vast, miserable landscape and then looked back at Rob. “You know where we are, don’t you?”

“Yeah. The netherplains. No place like home and all that rot.”

“It’s purgatory, Rob.” Will grabbed a handful of rock and grit and debris and flung it down the small incline, watched as it scattered out over the bodies below. They’d remained there, decaying, stinking, withering for all time. “Where all restless, unclaimed souls come. But the demons are kept apart from them until the end of days. They are rather eager to hasten all of that up. And they aren’t the only ones.”

Rob gaped at him. Then he shook his head. “That’s…no. That’s just not right.”

“Tell that to the angel who pulled me out of here, then. I took my orders from him.” Will rested his head against the wall, his gaze mirthless. “You soaked yourself in the written word when you made it topside. You might have an idea of who he was. The bloke with the flaming sword and the wrath of God on his side.”

Rob’s eyes bulged now and he breathed out, “Mi—”

“Don’t say his name here.” Will looked away. “You’ll bring them all down on us. They fear me, but him? They’d piss themselves senseless if they even thought he’d look this way.”

“He…” Rob cleared his throat and shot a glance upward. Then softly, he tried again. “He pulled you out.”

Will drew his knife from the makeshift sheath and started to draw patterns in the dirt. “Do you know what it’s like to have blood staining your soul? Know what it’s like to have one mistake that you’d give anything to undo?” He slanted his gaze to meet Rob’s.

Rob just stared at him.

“I don’t just have one of those…I’ve a dozen. Or more.”

Rob might have asked him to go into detail. He thought he knew the mistake, but a dozen? Then there was no time.

In the next moment, Mandy came awake.

Choking, gagging, gasping…screaming.

“You ask for forgiveness. For a chance to make amends.”

He lay facedown in the dirt, back in the murky world that had no sunrise, no sunset, no end to the strange, yellowish light that pierced the eyes and never allowed for rest. He had dirt and gravel in his mouth but he didn’t dare move to spit it out.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“You say you would do anything. You’ve taken so many lives over the course of your own. Do you understand that?”

He gave a halting nod. “I cannot undo those actions. I would if I could.”

“Yet you still seek redemption. Salvation.”

“I seek forgiveness.”

And rest…escape from the unending years that weighed on him.

He didn’t say those words aloud. But they were heard, nonetheless. “You will not find rest. You were to wander for the years you robbed your brother, but you tried to escape your punishment. Not once, but three times. Now you must atone for each one. Out of the dirt, son of Adam.”

Slowly, he shoved his way to his knees and stared at the creature who’d seized upon him just as he would have fallen into slumber. The celestial being was fire and bronze and just looking at him hurt.

“When the serpent shared blood with you, it twisted something within. I’ve within me the power to mend it, to fix you.” Gold wings fanned out, lifting and churning the air. “But I cannot hunt down those he has helped to cross over all these years.”

“Those…”

“They should have been trapped here. You were not meant to pass back and forth, but when you were brought out of it…” The winged being shrugged, a gesture oddly human. “Before, only the strongest—their leader—could pass. Now he has been trapped here as punishment for his transgression. He can still reach across the veil and spread his influence to his children…now they can follow the paths he made.”

Fear gripped him as he began to understand. “Why wasn’t I just left here to rot then?”

“Because that wasn’t what was chosen for you. You will find them all. Kill them. Destroy their pathways.” There was a pause. “It will take a very long time.”

“She’s trapped.” Rob growled and leaned closer, snapping his fingers in front of Mandy’s face.

As if that would have an effect.

Will knocked him aside and cupped Mandy’s chin, said her name.

She just screamed and screamed while the scent of her blood rose around them.

“Trapped where?” he demanded.

“Where…who?” Rob offered a weak smile. “I’m not sure which question is right.”

“Don’t play your insane games with me right now.”

“I’m not playing.” Rob blew out a rough sigh and gestured vaguely at himself. “This…what runs inside me, Will. It’s not like I came with a training manual. It’s not like I was ever meant to be spliced and diced and mixed with human—or angel—DNA. You know what happens when you get just a small amount of my blood inside you. And when I take in yours…well.” He shrugged. “Talk about an acid trip. But she took a lot of me inside her. My blood and yours. If there were any of us who shouldn’t have made up a blood cocktail, it was us, mate. And she tossed the whole soddin’ thing back.”

Will breathed in, then out through his teeth, trying to calm himself.

He knew what Rob was saying.

He understood the magnitude of it.

Mandy was trapped by Rob’s power—and she was trapped in Will’s past. The whole, miserable, ugly mess of it.

Mandy choked again, the sound of it almost painfully familiar, and Rob muttered, “What the hell is happening?”

Will sank to his knees in front of the woman he loved. Gently, he caught her wrists and forced them away from her throat. She was clawing herself bloody. It narrowed down the where/when question though. She could either be caught in one of his earliest memories back when he’d been mostly human, or his later ones, when he’d been made something else.

He shifted her wrists to one of his hands and used the other to cradle her face. He could feel her, if he tried. The connection was weak now, the power that had come so easily to him a bare whisper of what it had been. But he could feel her. Her agony was a streaking line of red, one he could follow endlessly.

But he could feel another seething line of red—the demons that surged and swarmed ever closer.

Teeth bared, he looked between the mouth of the cave and Mandy’s face as she started to twitch. Her expression was locked in a rictus of pain now. “Can you get to her?” he asked Rob.

“Me? What? No.” Rob shook his head. “I don’t have a bond. Not to her, not to you. Nothing connects me. Blood put her there, but I’d need something to follow, Will.”

She gasped then and contorted her body, trying to tear away from Will.

In the end, the only way he could still her struggles was to pin her down to the unrelenting floor of the cave. Swearing, he pressed his face into her hair. “We’ll have to tie her,” he said tonelessly. “What do we have that would…”

The faint ripple along his flesh was the only warning he had.

Slowly, he lifted his head as Crow came into view.

The bastard wasn’t alone either.

As the bronzed, burnished angel filled the cave’s mouth, Will heard the wails of terror rising up in the abyss all around them.

“She’s hardly your concern.”

Will came up to his knees, but he didn’t let her hands go.

“She is.” From the corner of his eye, he saw that Rob had been struck mute, going to his knees. “Both of them are.”

The angel shrugged and, just as before, Will thought the gesture seemed too human for a creature who had never been anything but celestial. “They made the choice to come here. They’ll suffer the consequences, to the end.” He flicked a hand dismissively. “You could just end her suffering now and—”

Mandy started to scream again.

The angel turned his eyes on her and the scream stopped. At least the noise did.

Will felt his heart turn to ash because he could see that she was still screaming, silently, mouth open, neck arched to an obscene angle. He couldn’t imagine…well, no. He could. Every memory he’d buried, every memory he’d forgotten. All of it lived in his blood and now it flowed through hers as well and she was trapped there.

Forcing the words out, he said, “Please.”

The angel cocked his head, studying Will as if he were a strange creature he’d never seen before.

“Please don’t make her suffer for my sins,” Will said, swallowing back the bitterness, the guilt, the grief, the anger. It was all directed at himself, emotions he never allowed himself to feel or to face. “I can bring her out of this and then Rob can take her back. After that, what becomes of me doesn’t matter.”

“But it does.”

There was an odd note in the angel’s voice now and he came, crossing the dusty cave with its cracks and fissures. Strangely, where his feet touched, those fissures closed up, the ripples sealing themselves. It was like watching a mirror shatter in slow motion, only in reverse. He crouched in front of Will and Mandy, but his gaze never strayed to her.

“What becomes of you has always mattered.”

As he stared into inhuman, bronze eyes that burned and rolled with fiery intelligence, Will felt his rage spill out. “Haven’t I suffered long enough to satisfy my debt? It’s been millennia. Eons have passed!”

“Yes. It has. So…let me ask you.” The angel smiled. “Have you suffered enough? Or was it even about…suffering?”

The angel leaned forward, at an almost impossible angle now, holding a position that defied gravity. But such matters made no difference to one like him. “You refuse to follow commands at every turn. You never accepted rebuke or correction, and when you finally showed remorse, it was as much out of weariness as it was regret. After all this time, there is one thing you refuse to do. Have you ever simply asked for forgiveness?”

Then, the angel settled back on his heels and dropped his gaze to Mandy.

He touched her between her eyebrows, along the straight line of her nose. The vicious, silent scream ended, and her face went lax. The awful contortions of her body eased and she was still, for a moment.

“She’ll never forget what she has seen.” The angel flicked a look at Will. “The memories are now part of her. But if you can bring her back, then she and the demon-thing can leave.”

He glanced at Rob and shook his head.

Then he strode to the mouth of the cave. As he went, he held out a hand and fire appeared there. A fiery length that slowly formed into a sword.

Wails rose again.

Crow sat with his back to the wall, staring at Will.

“I wouldn’t waste time,” he said softly, nodding at Mandy.

Chapter Ten

Will cupped her face and closed his eyes.

Then he reached.

This was far from the first time he’d pushed into somebody’s mind, but it felt like it. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d come here. It wasn’t possible to tell by looking at Mandy. She’d stopped aging when she’d become Grimm. Time in this hell world had no meaning. A day here was actually weeks. He could have been here months…years. It felt like an eternity had already passed.

To say he was out of practice was being kind.

He no longer had the well of power at his disposal anymore. None had ever believed him when he said the power wasn’t his own, but it had simply been the truth. He’d been charged with a mission.

His own soul had fallen into purgatory, but because of what he had done, it hadn’t just been his soul.

He’d never expected to earn forgiveness. But if he could make amends for the lives he’d taken, then he’d do it. So he’d spent another few millennia wandering and doing just that, saving lives instead of ending them. Now, as he threaded through the chaos of Mandy’s mind and found the well of memories she’d trapped herself in, he watched those years in reverse—fast-forward, superspeed.

He plied his influence on it and yanked, grimacing as the memories tangled and twisted and ground to a halt.

She was here. Somewhere—

The fragile landscape around him twisted and he found himself being spat out, like a giant animal had taken a bite of him and found him not to his liking. He hurtled through time, space, memory—and when he finally stopped, he lay on his back, staring up at a familiar sky, one trapped in an eternal, piss-yellow state of twilight.

The netherplains.

Purgatory.

Swearing, he surged up, fury and frustration tearing at him.

Fists clenched, he turned to look for the cave—

And found himself face to face with…himself.

He stopped abruptly.

Slowly, he let his hand fall to hang casually at his side. He’d spent too much time here and he knew the tricks and toils of this place. There were other twisted creatures here that had never shown their faces on Earth, things that could easily mimic a life force.

But this version of himself started to back away, shaking his head.

“No…no…no…” the other him murmured. “Not again.”

Will cocked his head.

The other him screamed at him. “Not again! I can’t watch you die again!”

He breathed in sharply. “Mandy.”

The other him flinched.

“Mandy!”

She/he turned and fled.

Will flung himself after the person who wore his face. They ended up on the ground and the moment he touched that struggling body, he knew he was right. His fingers might be touching a man’s body, but this was a trick of the mind—her mind. She wrenched and bucked and twisted and heaved.

He let her, lying atop her until some of her struggles eased.

“Mandy, it’s me. Really me. I’m here to help.”

She laughed, brokenly.

“Why are you wearing my face?” He pressed his head to the back of hers, willed himself to remember her scent. It wasn’t hard. It was one of the few things that had remained clear all this time. “Let me see your face, Mandy. I want to see you, bring you out of here.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice ragged.

It was a mind-bending experience, because the voice was his, but the tone was hers.

“Why?” she demanded again. “So you can send me back? I’m dying without you.”

He braced his weight and lifted. “Turn around. Look at me.”

She did.

He studied the face that stared up at him and then shook his head. “I want to see you.”

Mandy sighed and lifted the hands that were hers, but not. Then she gave him a wry smile. “Maybe it’s a new fairy tale, Will. The princess and the frog. Which one of us is the frog? We kiss and…”

“You think you’re funnier than you are.”

She wrinkled her nose.

He closed his eyes because that expression just did not work as well on his face as it did on hers.

But it was her.

“And you are still you.” He cupped her face. Felt the hard jaw where it should be soft. Felt the brush of stubble where he knew there was silken skin. He focused on that and bent his head. “Come back to me, Mandy.”

She gasped when he brushed his mouth over hers.

And he knew she was right, although if this was a fairy tale, it was all sorts of twisted, because he was the only frog in this story. But whatever was holding her trapped in that form snapped—he felt it.

She moaned and so did he.

Her body softened—in several ways. It went loose and lax with need, and the muscles that had been rangy and hard were replaced with the softer, curved form of a woman’s. Still strong, the body of a woman who knew how to fight. But it was Mandy’s form beneath him.

And it was familiar.

He shuddered as he realized just how familiar and all those years of dreams drove home. Dreams that weren’t dreams. He caught her lip between his, tugged gently. She sighed into his mouth and opened, her tongue coming out to stroke against his.

Kissing…such an unusual practice, something he knew so little of.

But with her…

He caught her against him and rolled, putting his own back against the hard earth, letting her rest atop him.

Her mouth slid away from his but before he could feel the rush of disappointment, she teased a line of kisses along his ear up to his jaw. “I’m not waking this time,” she said, her voice broken. “I’ll die in the dream, find a way to kill myself if I have to. But I’m not waking up. I can’t keep doing this…”

Those words pricked through the veil of need that had wrapped around him.

Blocking them out, he shoved his hands under her shirt, a formfitting, toughly made thing that clung to her skin and got in the way. Cut it off, he thought. Just…

“Touch me,” she demanded, her voice ragged and soft. “Hurry. Make love to me before I start to wake up. One more time, then I’ll…”

I’ll kill myself if I have to…

With a roar, Will tore himself away from her.

Something was different.

I lay panting on my back, staring up at a miserable sky.

A miserable, unfamiliar sky.

The dream had been going so nicely.

Will had found me as he always did.

He’d touched me.

We were that close…

Although something was off.

I didn’t know this place.

Before, the dreams had always been some place where we’d been together. Worked together. Known some measure of…well, for me, they’d been happy.

But here…?

A low, furious curse split the air and I sat up, slowly.

That was when I started to feel afraid.

Because this place was familiar. Sort of.

And the dark-haired man…

He turned and I found myself looking into Will’s face.

The eyes were dark, almost black, but they were Will’s eyes. Hard, remote, flat. Will’s eyes. The color of his eyes, his hair…wrong. But it was Will.

I scrambled upright.

“No.” I started to shake my head as memories swam up. I wasn’t doing this again, wasn’t reliving all of those things, all of those memories. The times he’d died, the times he’d killed himself—or tried. I wasn’t doing it—

He moved and I spun, took off running.

I didn’t even make ten feet before he caught me, his arms coming around me. He wrenched me off my feet and spun me around. “Stop,” he demanded, that cool and flat and unyielding voice.

“Let me go!” I struggled, whipping my head back and forth, kicking my feet.

“No.” But he did—sort of. Enough to twist me in his arms. He held me braced against him, one hand forcing my chin up so that I stared into his eyes. “You need to wake up.”

“Wake…”

I blinked at him. What kind of trick was this?

“You were injured. There was…” He stopped and for a moment, looked uncertain. Will never looked uncertain.

Narrowing my eyes, I started to twist away again. “Let me go.”

He kissed me.

“Wake up,” he said against my lips. “You need to make yourself wake up.”

“You need to let me go!” I glared at him, whipping my head back. “I don’t know who you are—”

“You do.” He pressed his brow to mine. “You know me. Let yourself look, Mandy. You know me.”

I tried to recoil.

Tried to pull away.

But he wouldn’t let me.

“If…” I swallowed, then had to clear my throat before I could try again. “Assuming that I might know you…then you know what’s been going on inside my head. You know what I saw, because you were there. All of it happened to you.”

His lids flickered.

“Tell me your name…Will.”

His jaw clenched.

“Your true name.”

She was desperate.

Will could see it in her eyes.

She thought it was some trick of whatever had toyed with her and tormented her. He didn’t know what she thought this might prove and he didn’t know what to do to make it better.

Reaching up, he went to touch her cheek.

She twisted away.

Slowly, he let his arms fall, let her step back.

She did, staring at him with eyes that revealed nothing and showed everything.

She was scared and hurt, shut down and locked up.

He wanted to hold her and she wouldn’t allow it.

He could see it.

“Mandy…”

She backed away, shaking her head.

“You never once told me. If that’s part of why I never had a chance, part of why I lost you, then I deserve to know!” She practically screamed those final words and he could see the rage and pain in her eyes.

“Tell me!”

He inclined his head. “You saw it all, Mandy,” he said, absently reaching up to brush his thumb across the scar that ran under his chin. It was still rough after all this time and just that light touch was enough to bring back memories. The thought of her sharing those memories was enough to make him want to scream. “You saw. I think you already know.”

She sucked in a breath.

“I want to hear it from you…Will.” She simply said his name now.

He held out a hand and looked around. “I’ll tell you. But you have to let me get you out of here. This place isn’t safe.”

“Name.”

“After you let me pull you out of this snare you’re trapped in,” he promised. He hesitated and then added, “You have my word.”

He didn’t know if that would count. Because she did know.

But she took his hand.

He pushed at the veil inside her mind.

It was that easy.

They went flying back, the world folding and refolding as her mind grabbed them and shoved them back where they belonged, inside her head, not trapped in a world created by poison and memories.

She was breathing.

He heard it even before he opened his eyes.

She was breathing, normal steady breaths—the breaths of somebody awake.

And she was watching him.

He lifted his lids and for the first time in too long, he was staring at her.

Long black hair that lay tangled and dense around her shoulders, freed from the braid that normally held it confined. Her vivid blue eyes were clouded and confused and her lips were parted.

He bent over her then, sudden and desperate.

Somewhere behind him, he heard a cough, but he didn’t care.

One kiss.

One real kiss.

She shoved her hands into his hair and he pulled her against him. Her mouth was smooth as silk. He remembered that. Her tongue teased and taunted, flicking against his lips until he opened. He didn’t remember that, because he’d never had a true kiss from her, not really.

She drew a groan from him and kept it up until he thrust his tongue into her mouth, dying for a real taste. He was too rough, he knew, too rough and aggressive and she clung to him as though she needed this as much as he did.

But then it was over.

He’d just wanted the one kiss.

She sat back, panting and staring at him, her eyes wide.

Her mouth was wet from his and he licked his lips, tasting her there.

Rising to his feet, he backed away.

If he stayed there, he’d kiss her again.

Then again, and he would weaken, because she was his weakness.

He was a man prone to them, always had been.

“Your name, Will.”

His weaknesses had caused harm before…but not to him. To others.

He clenched a hand into a fist as he turned away.

“Which one?” he asked, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. A sour laugh escaped him and he looked back over his shoulder at her. “Most of them are lost, even to me. I’ve forgotten so many of them. I’ve been Will longer than anybody.”

She was staring at him, her face pale and taut. Slowly, he turned back to face her completely, his heart hammering inside his chest. “There was a lion’s den once. I was thrown in. But I didn’t die. So they tried burning me and when that didn’t work, they decided I was a god and I was able to escape, ran to what would become Europe. I met Sina not long after that. A hundred years, two hundred? I can’t remember. Before that, I served a Roman centurion. Before that, I marched in an army with a man called Goliath. I think my name was Seth then.”

“Your name,” she demanded, color flushing her cheeks red. “What is your name?”

“Cain.” He watched the denial flash in her eyes. “My name is Cain.”

Then he looked at Rob. “Take her back.”

Chapter Eleven

I stared at his retreating back for a long moment and then leaped upright.

Blade in hand, I wheeled to face Rob. “Don’t.”

Rob held up his hands. “I’ve no dog in this race. Well, other than the fact that he can kill me dead easy enough.”

“Get her out of here.”

Lip curled, I took a step toward Will. Will. Cain. My head whirled, spinning like a damn child’s toy. What I knew of him—or the name, at least—could fill a thimble. He was telling me…

My head. Yeah, it was spinning, all right.

Am I my brother’s keeper…

Cain. Abel. Kids of the two people supposedly created by God in the garden.

“There is no supposedly.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t like when you climb inside my head, sweetheart.”

One black brow rose. “Your shields are woefully inadequate at the moment…sweetheart.”

The words were mocking and cold, his eyes flat.

But behind that flat gaze, I saw the wall he was rebuilding. I took a step toward him. “I’m not leaving. I don’t care who you were. I care who you are—I care about the man I’ve fallen in love with. I. Will. Not. Leave. You.”

He lifted a hand, his lashes sweeping down to shield the depths of his fathomless gaze. His thumb brushed over my lips and I felt that caress down to the tips of my toes. My stomach twisted. My breasts felt full and they started to ache, my nipples drawing into near painful points. All from that one light brush. Something shifted in his eyes, an answering awareness.

I caught his wrist, closed my hand around it.

His pulse slammed against my thumb, once, twice, three times…all in the span of ten seconds. For a Grimm, his heart was racing.

He sighed and I felt the caress of his breath as surely as if he’d touched me, let his hands roam over me.

Then he spoke.

The spell shattered.

“You will leave.”

I tightened my grip on his wrist, staring at him.

He dipped his head and murmured into my ear. “You will leave. You will return to the mortal world, Mandy. Go back to Greta and Rip. Carry on the fight there. Live your life…forget…this. I’ve told you. It was never meant to be.”

He pulled away, twisting his wrist out of my grip.

Forget this? Forget him?

A weird noise filled the cave. It took a moment to realize it was me. I was growling. Growling low in my throat, and lunging for him.

I took him down only because he let me.

“I…uh. Yes, I think I’ll step outside for some…dreadfully important…”

Rob’s voice faded away into a blur as Will rolled and pinned me beneath him. I swung out.

Silver flashed.

Only Will’s speed saved him.

He wrenched away the knife I’d forgotten I still held, slamming it down onto the stone floor of the cave. “Enough!”

The fury in his voice would have shocked me if my own hadn’t threatened to swallow me whole. I swung out again and drove my fist into his jaw. His head flew back. It wasn’t even a heartbeat later that I had both wrists stretched over my head, his body now pressing intimately to mine.

And I felt, for the first time, the proof that he wasn’t as immune to me as he would have me believe.

His cock burned into my belly.

A muscle pulsed in his cheek and his eyes all but devoured me as he stared at me. “Enough,” he said again.

“No.” Slowly, I shook my head. “It’s not. Don’t you get it, Will? It will never be enough.”

I wasn’t talking about my struggles or my refusal to leave.

I was talking about this.

My time with him, my need for him.

“I could have two thousand years…or two hundred thousand with you and it wouldn’t be enough.” Tears burned my eyes now and I didn’t try to fight them. “But if I leave here, if you force Rob to take me back, and be prepared to knock me out, because I won’t go willingly, but if you do that, then you need to understand…I’m already dead.”

He flinched.

“Don’t.” His head dropped as he said it. Pressing his face into the curve of my neck, he said it again. “Mandy…don’t.”

“I’ve died inside a little more every day since you left us.” My voice broke. “Left me. The only thing that kept me going was this…knowing I might have a chance to find you. Bring you home.”

Something wet touched my neck.

I clung to him as his body tightened. He’d pull away. I knew it. Even now. He’d pull away. “Don’t you get it?” I turned my face into his hair, desperate now. I jerked against his hold and he let my hands go. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I stopped trying to fight the tears and I stopped trying to fight the pain. If he was going to do this to me—to us—then damn it, he needed to understand what he truly was doing. “Don’t you get it? If I leave here, I’m already dead. What little piece of me that still lives? It’s going to die.”

His hand touched my side.

I tensed.

He touched me so rarely. The past few years, physical touch had become so infrequent, I barely recognized even the lightest contact as anything but a threat, because that was when I was being touched—in the middle of battle, during an attack. Or on the rare occasion I had to train.

The feel of his hand, first just the barest glance of his fingertips, then slowly his palm flattening out had me falling silent.

“Please.” His breath escaped him in a quick, hard burst. “Please, just stop.”

“Why?” Working my hands between us, I shoved him back and glared. “Is it too hard for you to hear what you’re doing to me? It’s okay for you to suffer but you don’t want to hear what you’re doing to me?”

His lashes fell down, hiding his gaze.

I felt another breath stutter out of him and I knew I’d hit the nail on the head.

“The truth hurts,” I said softly.

His hands framed my face. Hard, calloused, scarred…dirty now. The face above me was dirty as well, streaked with dust and grime, but he was beautiful to me. I didn’t care about the grit or the fact that I could still smell my blood on him.

“If you stay, you die.” The words were stark and simple.

I knew he spoke the truth. I shrugged. “I die anyway. Here, at least, I die with you.”

He shoved his fingers into my hair, twisted them until pain wasn’t just a threat, but a promise. “I’m not talking death of soul or heart, love. I’m talking true death. I…” He looked away. “I wasn’t completely honest earlier. My time is coming to an end and this time, I won’t come back. I feel it in my bones. But you…”

“I never wanted to live for millennia, Will.” I closed the distance between us and kissed him. “I’d choose a short, fast life with you over a long, empty one. Get that through your ancient skull…and then let’s take a few minutes for ourselves. While we can.”

The brush of her mouth on his whispered of salvation and damnation.

The screams that had risen steadily in the back of his head went silent and he was tempted, so tempted. He could have a few minutes. Why not a few minutes out of a lifetime?

Because suffering is the debt you owe…

The voice in the back of his head was sly and taunting.

He groaned and went to pull away.

But Mandy came with him.

“No.” She sank her teeth into his lower lip when he went to break the kiss. “Stay…please, Will. Stay.”

“Mandy…” A sigh shuddered out of him as he sat up, dragging her upright when she wouldn’t let him go. Gripping her hips, he stared into her dark, angry eyes. “I…”

She covered his mouth with one fingertip.

“Don’t tell me you can’t do this, because you’re wrong. You can.”

He caught her wrist, staring at her silently.

She cocked her head to the side. “Unless you’re a weird sort of eunuch, you’re most definitely capable and…” Her head fell back, a hungry little noise escaping her throat as she rocked her hips forward. “You’re certainly not going to fool me if you say you’re not interested.”

He had to fight the urge to flip her onto her back, then and there. She was hot. Through her dark cargo pants, he could feel the warm, wet heat of her, just waiting for him.

Interested didn’t touch what he was feeling.

He might be interested in killing a few demons or finding a way to end his miserable existence. He couldn’t describe what he felt for Mandy as interest. Interest was a pale, weak word.

All words were pale and weak compared to what he had inside him when it came to this one woman.

Fisting a hand in her hair, he dragged her close and stared into her eyes for a taut moment. “Perhaps can’t isn’t the right word,” he admitted. “But we aren’t.”

He rose and carefully put her down.

She stripped off her shirt—the tight, closely knit garment that was sturdy enough to double as light armor, his own design. She threw it at him and he made the mistake of catching it reflexively before it hit him in the face. If he’d let it hit him, then he would have had something to block his view.

As it was, he lowered his hand, nothing shielding her naked torso save for the bra she wore. It was utilitarian and plain, black, like her top and pants, and it highlighted the strength of her, the beauty.

Will closed his eyes.

He had no trouble, though, placing the next set of sounds.

The item that hit him next was the bra.

The solid thuds that fell on either side of him, her shoes.

She threw her pants just as she had thrown her top—striking him right in the head.

He let the shirt fall on top of the pants and opened his eyes just as she slid her panties down.

When she threw them, he snatched them out of the air and crumpled the flimsy bit of plain cotton in his fist.

She’d taken off her socks at some point and stood naked before him on the uneven ground. Faint smudges of blood marred her torso from where the demon had torn into her. Was it dead? Will couldn’t remember. He was almost certain Rob had already killed it, but he wanted to go back, find it—find them and kill them all.

The brush of her footsteps had him clenching her panties tighter in his fist. She was too close. Far too close. He backed away, only to find that he’d backed himself right up against the wall. She smiled, a seductive curl of her lips as she braced her hands on the cave wall on either side of him. “You’re out of room, Will.”

“That’s not my name, though, is it?” he said, flinging the truth at her.

She shrugged. “Will is the name of the man I know.” She leaned in, then, brushing a kiss across his lips. “You need to decide what you’re going to do…keep pushing me away, or just stop fighting me. It would be better to just stop fighting. For once in your life, just stop fighting, Will.”

She brushed another soft kiss over his lips.

Then another.

Then she slid lower, planting the next one on his jawbone.

Then his neck.

He gripped her hips, staring at the ceiling of the cave, at the map of crevices he and Rob had created.

Heat flared, built inside him. He tried to shut it down, tried to ignore it. He’d schooled his body to ignore everything. For so long, he’d ignored everything that wasn’t duty. It was beyond second nature now—it was simply his nature.

But her mouth called to him.

Every brush of her lips seemed to waken the sleeping longing within him and Will felt himself crumbling.

“What are you going to do, Will?”

She was taunting him now, as she slid to her knees and shot him a sly look. Her hands hooked into the front of his pants, the jeans she’d bought him long ago, the clothing that would soon give way to rags. Her fingers tripped along the waistband and he closed his eyes, fought to regulate his breathing when she tugged the button free, then dragged the zipper down.

“Will…?”

His control snapped.

Shattered.

Jerking her upright, he turned and shoved her against the wall. His mouth slammed down on hers. She gasped and he swallowed the sound down. Her tongue rubbed against his and he caught it, bit then sucked on it, listened as she shuddered and moaned.

The hunger inside him was a demon, one trapped far too long. He’d been able to ignore it for much of his long life. It was just passion and passion could be channeled. But then she’d come.

And fighting demons couldn’t replace the need he’d felt for her, almost from the beginning.

Killing demons didn’t undo the want.

No amount of blood he’d drowned himself in could undo the need he’d had to drown himself in her.

She moaned when he tangled his hand in her hair.

“You’re damning us both.” It was a warning, to her. To himself. He knew better than this. But he was past the point of caring.

Obviously, so was she.

“I don’t care.” She tugged his mouth to hers.

He let her panties fall from his fisted hand before reaching between them, touching her. Some of the desperate, furious passion fell away as he encountered wet, silken heat.

She hissed as he touched her hesitantly, uncertain now.

Slick…soft.

Lifting his head, he watched her.

“What…” She whimpered and canted her hips up. “What are you waiting for?”

He frowned and then said softly, “Instruction. Inspiration.”

That had her eyes widening. “What?”

He just shook his head and looked down, staring at the dark curls that shielded her from him.

Sex was not truly a mystery to him. How could it be? He’d lived multiple lives and this last incarnation was well over two thousand years old. But there were mysteries…and there were mysteries.

As he slid the tip of one finger inside her, Mandy’s mouth fell open. She’d been trying to speak and the words wavered, then fell away.

He liked that, the way her voice cracked and her eyes went blind.

So he did it again, circling her entrance with his fingertip, then pushing inside.

Her nails bit into his biceps, head bowing. Dark hair streamed down over her shoulders and her breasts. He stared at her, hard and focused, painting a mental picture inside his head. For as long or as short as his life was, then as long as eternity stretched out after that, he wanted to remember this, how her breasts strained, the pink of her nipples peeking through her hair, her hips rolling as she rocked back and forth on his hand.

He could feel the gathering tension in her, felt it in the air as well. Intellectually, Will understood what was happening.

But when she suddenly tensed and cried out, when she started to shudder and shake, he froze.

“No, please…” she sobbed.

“Mandy?”

She gripped his wrist and worked herself against his hand, the noises in her throat akin to pain.

Then he began to understand.

Because that was a pain he felt.

The pain for her, the need.

Slowly, he rotated his wrist. Stroked his thumb across the hard knot just above her entrance.

She bucked again and he felt it start all over.

Climax. She’s climaxing…

“Come with me,” she demanded, pulling his mouth to hers even as her other hand slid between them and cupped him, stroking him.

It was a shock, the feel of her hand on him.

It was a pleasure so stark and brutal, he thought he might do just as she asked—right then and there, in her hand.

Teeth gritted, he boosted her up.

“Mandy, I don’t know…”

She brushed her lips against him.

“Kiss me,” she ordered.

That much, he could do.

He brushed a soft kiss against her mouth as she wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock.

“Watch.” She eased back then, bracing her shoulders against the stone at her back. “Watch…”

It was staggering in its intimacy, another thing he’d imprint on his mind, another thing he’d remember through eternity. One hand braced on the wall near her head; he kept the other under her hips. She took him inside, slowly, and Will fought to keep the shout locked inside as the silken wet embrace wrapped around his cock, inch by slow inch.

“Make love to me,” she said after he’d filled her—after she’d taken him. Arms gripping him so tightly, she stared into his eyes. “Make love to me, Will.”

He withdrew, eyes half-closed, savoring the sensation. He heard a weak, dazed whimper squeeze its way out of her tight throat and then another one as he surged back inside her. Again…again…

She was panting his name, then keening it, her nails raking paths down his arms.

He stole the air from her lungs with a demanding kiss when he felt the orgasm coming on her.

His own slammed into him too soon, too fast.

But she came, too, as he flung headfirst into it, his cock feeling like it had gone supernova.

She was right, he admitted with defeat.

Two thousand years wouldn’t be enough, not if they were together.

But they couldn’t be.

At some point, he’d sagged to the ground, bent over her. She wrapped around him, arms and legs clinging to him, her breasts flat to his chest, her breath teasing his neck.

She was right.

But then again, so was he.

This, them…they were never meant to be.

Chapter Twelve

There were those who could calmly walk back in, knowing what had taken place, and not bat an eyelash.

Then there were those like Rob.

He looked at Will, looked at me and grinned.

“Please tell me you kissed and made up.” Then he paused, brows going up. “Or shagged and made up.”

Will gave him a single, silent look.

Rob rolled his eyes. “Don’t be giving me the devil look, mate. You can’t kill me now anyway. We’ve problems incoming. Problems to the tune of two thousand or so.” His lips twisted in a snarl. “It’s like we’ve an antenna on our ass and we’re sending out fresh meat signals to every demon on the plain.”

“You might as well,” Will said coolly.

He stood at the mouth of the cave, back to me.

He hadn’t looked at me in nearly ten minutes.

I’d already decided I wasn’t going to let it get to me. He was still under the delusion he could send me back. He was wrong. He’d have to kill me or hurt me. He might not be opposed to hurting me but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t kill—

“Rob, you two get out of here while you can,” Will said softly.

I snarled under my breath and grabbed a rock from the ground, hurling it at the back of his head.

He spun, moving in a graceful blur.

In seconds, he had me pinned up against the wall. I bared my teeth at him. “We going to go again, sweetheart? Ask Rob to wait outside at least. We can hang one of the necklaces on the door of the cave…oh, wait. No door.”

“I won’t have you dying for me!”

“It’s not for you!” I jerked against his hold, but it was useless. I might be a Grimm, but he had centuries on me. I couldn’t hold my own against him in a hundred years—or thousands of years, as it were. Instead of trying to fight with strength, I went with my heart. I grabbed his face. Dragging him closer, I stared into his dark eyes. “It’s with you. I don’t want to die, Will, but I’m going to…it will happen, and it’s probably going to be soon. At least give me the courtesy of letting me choose.”

His hands slackened, just the slightest.

“I’ve fought enough.” I moved in, wrapped my arms around his neck.

He hugged me back, then stroked a hand down my hair. “Mandy…” The ice in his voice, for once, was gone. “I don’t want this for you.”

“But it’s not about you.”

“Don’t be foolish, child.”

I jumped at the unfamiliar voice. Will stiffened.

When I would have pulled away, though, he simply held me protectively again him. We turned, facing a being I knew…vaguely.

When I saw the creature with bronzed wings, I sucked in a breath.

Then instinct kicked in and I went to lunge.

Will was faster though.

He was the reason why I didn’t go after the bronze-winged angel with a blade in hand.

He glanced at me, that scary-ass creature with eyes that had never been human, that had never known humanity.

“I want to hurt you,” I said in a voice I didn’t even recognize as my own.

“I can see that.” The idea seemed to amuse him.

Will caught me in a bear hug, trapping my arms at my sides, taking the kicks I aimed at his legs in an attempt to break free. Nothing I did moved him or weakened his grasp.

The bronze one came closer and when I jerked both legs upward in an attempt to double-kick, Will simply backed up two paces.

And the other angel laughed.

Feeling foolish, feeling defeated, I went limp in Will’s arms and glared at the angel through my tangled hair. “Get out of here,” I demanded.

“But I can’t.” He glanced back. As if in response, there was a rise in the wails of the demons. He narrowed his eyes and their pained cries went sharper, more acute.

What was he…?

“I can’t.” He shrugged. “Not yet.”

His head swung back around and he focused on us. “It’s not about you,” he said, quoting me and even nailing the very sound of my voice. He could have been a woman in her mid-twenties from Middle of Nowhere, Ohio. The woman I’d been before Greta and Rip had found me all of those years ago.

He said those words again, staring at Will as his eyes spun and ebbed from gold to the dark brown of my own. “But Cain, really. Isn’t it always about you?”

Behind me, Will went stiff and rigid.

Will.

Cain.

“Stay out of this.” I twisted against Will’s hold. “It doesn’t concern you!”

“But it does.” Now he looked at me, the bronzed gold of his eyes bleeding through. “You see, it concerns…Will. And as such, it concerns me.”

He flicked a hand and as quick as that, I was free. Not because Will had voluntarily released me though. I could feel the rigidity of his arms as they were wrenched away. I stumbled before I caught my balance and then moved, placing myself at Will’s side.

Always at his side.

At least as long as I had breath.

I caught his hand.

After a pause, his fingers closed over mine.

“Why?” I demanded. Making my free hand a fist, I smacked it against my chest. Outside, the wind was nothing but a wail, comprised of the howls coming from the throats of a thousand demons. More. “It’s my concern. It’s his. But you…? Why you?”

“Because I was charged with it.” The angel lifted a shoulder as he came toward us. “For millennia, I’ve watched. I’ve waited.”

He glanced out the mouth of the cave. “And it draws to this.” He flung a hand toward the mouth of the cave as his gaze came back to me. “Do you know where you are, girl? And why?”

“Yeah.” I lifted my chin. “Purgatory.”

If I’d thought to surprise him…well. I didn’t know angels very well. Stupid of me.

“That’s right, young one. Now…” He leaned closer. Will moved closer, his stance protective. “Do you know why?”

He slid a look at Will. “Cain could tell you. But he won’t.”

Against my will, I found myself glancing at Ca—Will. I mentally corrected myself as I found my mind following the subtle cue from the angel. But the man next to me hadn’t known that name in forever. That wasn’t who he was.

“Purgatory…the home for restless, unclaimed souls,” the angel said. “Where they all come until judgement day. But you see…” He reached out, and carelessly tapped Will on the head. “Cain’s soul was already claimed. Stubborn fool that he is, he had a punishment to serve out. He would have done it here and then it would be over. After that, where he went, what he did…that wasn’t up to him. But the author of lies deceived him…and I imagine it was easy enough to do, Cain being out of his mind and desperate for escape. And he found it.”

My mind danced back to the images I’d seen. Memories. Will had told me I was trapped. I’d seen memories. Memories…and more. Bits and pieces of his life, of the things he’d seen. Things he’d done.

“You’re a smart one.” The angel with the bronzed wings looked from me to Will and nodded. “Each time he died, he was pulled back here because his physical body had been bound here, through blood-sharing. And each time he left, he made another tear. More and more of the unclean escaped. You call them demons. He’s spent his life cleaning up the mess he unwittingly made but it just gets worse. The only way to shut them all down…”

“No!”

I wanted to fling myself at the angel across from us and beat him bloody, make him be quiet.

“It’s been…what…two thousand years, four thousand, six…more?” Bitterness choked me.

But the angel ignored me, turning instead toward Will. “Does she know how it all happened? Do you yourself remember? You flung yourself from a cliff and that didn’t do it. Then you hung yourself. And then you sought out the demons themselves and let them make a meal of you. Finally, you’d done enough damage and the fallen one came upon you, forced his blood into you. You healed…and inside you, you carried a part of his foul, evil power.” He paused and then leaned closer to Will. “Do you remember?”

“Yes.” He spoke through clenched teeth, lifting his head to stare at the angel with eyes that burned. “I’ve forgotten none of it.”

“And then you had the slate wiped clean…all you did was say…I seek forgiveness. You let the unclean free on the world. We fought an ugly, bitter war to trap them all here and because of you, traitor, they roamed free again. Fouling up this world. You made your bed, as humans like to say. You should have been forced to sleep in it. But no…you asked for forgiveness and you were let out of that hell…along with so many others.”

Shoving between them, I glared at the old being. He was old. I had a rough idea of how old Will was now and this creature with his glimmering wings and unreadable eyes, he was even older. “And he’s been doing clean-up ever since. Two thousand years! Isn’t it enough?”

“This doesn’t concern you, mortal.”

“I’m not mortal,” I half-shouted. “It’s been two thousand years—more. Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

Will’s hands curled over my shoulders. I could feel him trying to pull me back. I wrenched away. “No!”

I turned to look at him over my shoulder and then stopped.

Because the angel’s expression had changed. Sharpened.

“Indeed…two thousand years. A long time to…suffer.” The bronze came closer, paced in a tight circle around us. “Tell me…what is it they call you? Mandy? Mandy, then. Perhaps you can help me here. Can you earn forgiveness…?”

I stared at the angel, then slowly dragged my gaze back to Will.

“I’m not much in the mood for a philosophical or theological lesson,” I said, the ache in my chest spreading.

“This isn’t a lesson.” His eyes cut into me. “This is something crucial. Something vital. Something you both should understand.”

My grip tightened on Will’s hand.

Thousands of thoughts tumbled through my head, but finally, I went with what was in my heart. Every time in my life that I had been hurt, every time I’d had to forgive. Even now…Will had hurt me, time and again. He hadn’t done anything to earn my forgiveness. Most often those hurts hadn’t even been intentional, but he’d caused them nonetheless.

“You can’t earn forgiveness, no. It’s a gift, something that’s given,” I said, stroking my thumb across the back of Will’s hand.

“Exactly so.” Something shifted on the angel’s face and I blinked, stared…

He was smiling.

He canted his head toward Will.

“You can’t earn it…it was already given. But you have to accept.” The wails outside rose, drawing nearer and nearer. “And you have to forgive yourself, most especially, Cain. Son of Adam.”

He strode away from us, one hand coming up to rest on the wall of the cave.

“The veil between here and there, it remains thin…you know why, don’t you?”

Will stared, hard, at the back of the burnished head. So hard that his eyes began to water. Each hair seemed to shift, waver, all but alive, glowing from within as though lit by fire.

The angel turned and looked at him, his wings fanning the air slightly.

Rob and Mandy looked on in confusion.

“This place is for unclaimed souls,” Will said, his voice thick. “The serpent…he tried to force a claim on me, but I refused. I was still under a debt to God. Before it was fulfilled, I…” Will swallowed. “I asked forgiveness. Part of me, it’s trapped here, isn’t it? The blood that still ties me to the serpent.”

The angel nodded. “Indeed. For two thousand years. There’s only one way to undo it.”

He went to fling himself forward, but Will reached out a hand. “Wait,” he demanded.

The angel heard it too.

Will clenched his jaw. “Your forgiveness, please.”

He just nodded. “Time draws short, Cain.”

“This…” Will swept his hand through the air. He was supposed to let go of his guilt? His regret? How was he to accept any sort of forgiveness after what his actions had done? “The demons who escaped—the veil is thin because of my actions. When I left…I damaged the veil between here and the mortal world when you pulled me out of here.”

The angel inclined his head.

“So, everything…the demons who escaped, even those who are able to reach through and tear things from the mortal world. It’s all my doing.”

“No.” This time, something akin to grim frustration darkened the being’s features. “Demons escaped from the very moment we shut them in. Their only true prison will be the eternal one.” He flexed a hand. A length of fire appeared, solidifying into a sword, edged in flame. “Do what must be done.”

Then the golden-winged being flung himself—not upward, but down.

His descent was greeted by shrieks and the three left behind rushed to the lip of the cave.

What they saw flooded them with apprehension and Mandy ended up on her knees, gripping the lip with knuckles gone white.

There was a valley beneath them.

And it was filled with demons.

Completely and utterly filled.

Chapter Thirteen

“And I’m telling you…” Nose to nose, I glared at him. “I am not leaving this place without you.”

Will gestured to a valley seething with demons. “Does that look to you like they are waiting for me to forgive myself and find peace? They’re waiting to devour us, Amanda! I won’t drag you into hell with me when they finally find the courage to make a move.”

“You’re beautiful when you’re being stubborn.”

For a moment, he just stared.

Then, he growled.

Rob sidled closer to me as Will turned and started to pace. “He’s gone over, poppet. You should let me take you back. Please.”

“No.” Then I looked over at him. “You go though. No reason all of us should end up demon feed.”

He stared at me, squinty-eyed. “You’ve gone barmy, love. No.” Taking a deep breath, he blew it out. Then he rotated his neck, cracked it one way then the other. “No. Where my leader goes and all the rot.”

He smiled, then, a bit sadly. “To be honest, it’s a miracle I lasted this long.” He slid a look upward, as though seeing the mortal world we’d left behind. “I never thought I’d be long for that world, you know. I made it a few centuries. That’s saying something. But without Will to pull me back when things get dark…”

Will stopped and spun, staring at us both hard. “You will both return.”

“No.” Rob cast a smile at me. “We’ve drawn our lines in the sand, old man. You stay, we stay.”

Will sucked in a breath, harsh flags of color riding on his cheeks.

A huge blast of golden light lit the sky behind him, out past the opening of the cave.

Rising cries, death wails, followed by the nascent stink of burning flesh.

The color still lit the air and I realized it was flame. Fire.

Something—no, someone—had lit the bodies down in the valley, or some of them. Two sets of wings filled the mouth of the cave before I could rush to look. Crow and the nameless angel.

“The ideal option,” Crow said in his ancient, echoing voice, “would be you go, they go.”

Will flicked a look at Crow. The antipathy between them, one that spoke of centuries, rose. But he said nothing more than, “My work isn’t done.”

“I told you what work you had to do.” The bronze-winged angel turned, wings swept wide as he gazed down on the devastation he’d left behind. “You have but one job that is required of you. The rips are to be sealed, the veil restored. Demons will continue to thrive here…only your arrogance allows you to think you could kill them all.”

Then he turned, and flung out a hand.

Rob caught me and spun us backward.

Will went the other way.

The cave—no, the mountain shook around us.

Dust choked the air and I forced myself to stop breathing when I lifted my head long moments later.

“Go,” the bronze one said, pointing into the dark heart of the cave. “It will take you out to the other side, away from the valley. It will wind back around, close to where Rob and the young one came through.”

I twitched at that. The young one. But compared to all of them? Young didn’t even touch it.

Then he looked at us. “Once you go through, you must part. You must exit through where you entered. All of you.”

“But…”

I jerked my head around and stared at Will.

He was also staring at the angel, his black eyes flickering. “You tell me I am to leave. These are my orders.”

“Yes. And you know what else you must do…otherwise, the veil…” He inclined his head. “It will not just thin, Cain. It will fall.”

* * * * *

I clung to him.

In the distance, shards of light pierced the air.

Dust choked the horizon and those bits of light were smothered after just a few heartbeats.

Rob waited for me.

This…

Face shoved against his chest, I struggled not to cry.

This was the one thing I hadn’t planned on, the one thing I couldn’t fight.

I could fight Will and I could fight demons and I could deal with the idea of dying.

But when the angel had looked at us and spoken those words, I’d realized what he meant.

The flickers and pulses of the rips that allowed demons to enter our world were because the veil had, as the angel put it, somehow thinned and it was tied to Will. Tied to whatever had happened when blood had been forced on him.

I pressed a kiss to his neck. “I saw what happened—you didn’t ask for that.”

“But I put myself in that position. He was at my heels all the time and I knew it.” He rubbed his cheek against mine. I felt all the tenderness, all the love he’d never let himself voice in that gesture. “I should have been stronger, but instead, I was weak. As I had always been.”

“No.” Forcing his face to mine, I said, “You’re not weak. People can change. I did. I was seconds away from calling up demons. I was a drug-dealing, desperate bitch…and I would have been dead, save for Rip and Greta. I changed.”

“You were young.” He brushed his knuckles down the back of my cheek.

“So were you.” Staring hard at him, I clung to the belief that I knew the man before me now, even if I didn’t know the man he’d been then. “If I can go from being a useless waste in a few years, then you can go from being whatever you were then to a good man now…in a few thousand. You have to believe that. You have to…so you can come back to me.”

His head slumped.

“Please.” I hated to beg. I hated to ask anybody for anything. “Please…”

He cupped my face.

His thumb stroked over my lower lip.

“If it is within my power, I’ll come to you. I’ll find you. Somehow.”

A snarling in the distance, one we’d heard before, drew closer.

He nudged me back. Rob’s arms came around me.

“Keep her safe,” Will said.

“With my last breath.”

I reached out—and Rob jerked me close, tearing open the seam he’d created when he first brought me through.

Those words Rob had spoken to Will proved to be an omen.

I knew something was wrong almost immediately.

Rob, apparently, knew even sooner and while I was dashing away tears and struggling to breathe, he was drawing his blades and crouching down, readying himself.

If I’d been faster, if I’d been less torn apart with grief, maybe I could have saved him.

There were more than a dozen of them, gathered around, like they’d been waiting.

Later, Rip would tell me that some demons, like the orin and the parasei, could sense it when there was a passage between the plains. They likely had been waiting, the whole time.

Just waiting, and hoping.

I heard Rob’s mental summons even as I sent my own out.

But we’d never hold all of them off, not when I was still somewhat weakened from the gutting I’d taken—

Rob snarled, a low noise that was nothing human, and I saw him spin, twist, move in a way that had never been human. Blood arced and sprayed and two heads toppled, flew.

One of the parasei made it to me and I slashed out.

Rob took another down, then another.

One of them darted around him as he hamstringed another demon and he caught the movement, spun.

I lunged to face it.

Light exploded.

The hamstringed demon lurched up, a knife in hand.

“Die…” it whispered.

Another closed on me and I gritted my teeth, furious.

It all happened in slow motion.

I saw Sina and Luc, rushing out as more demons emerged from the shadows, as though they’d been waiting for just this moment.

“Die,” another demon said.

This time to me.

Close. So close…

Rob saw.

He made to reach for me.

The demon behind him, he never saw.

I screamed.

It was Rip who beheaded the demon who’d been breathing down my neck. He swooped in, emerging from the circle of light with Sina. I hadn’t even seen him. They’d answered our summons and rushed to us—arriving, despite my doubt—in time.

To save me, at least.

Rob stumbled to a halt, going to his knees and staring dumbly at the gaping hole in his chest.

Only two ways, really, to kill one of us.

Remove our head…or our heart.

He toppled to the side as I reached for him.

I caught him and guided him to my lap.

“No!” I screamed as the Grimm around us cleared the rest of the demons. A small clutch of them, just a small, small nest. And Rob had dealt with almost all of them.

All save for the one who’d managed to steal away his heart.

“No,” I whispered.

Tears burned my eyes.

But he was already gone.

Sina came to her knees across from me, lifting a hand to her mouth.

“Save him!” I demanded.

She looked at me, the answer in her eyes.

But I made the demand again, nonetheless.

Luc came to me as Rip folded me in his arms. Luc gently took Rob away—after Rip forced me to let go.

From somewhere, Greta emerged.

When she spoke my name, I flung myself into her arms.

And there, I wept as though my heart was broken.

It might as well be.

I’d left it on the netherplains—in purgatory.

And I didn’t know if he’d be able to find his way back to me. Rob, my last connection to him, was now gone.

* * * * *

“Are you certain you want to lay him to rest here?”

I stared at the stone cairn for a long while and then looked up, nodded.

Rip brushed a hand down my hair.

A gentle breeze tugged at my hair. Slowly, I dragged my gaze to the ruins of the castle in front of me.

“Rip finalized the purchase of the castle and the lands.”

I nodded yet again.

It had been three weeks since we’d returned.

We’d had a memorial for Rob and I’d brought his ashes to Scotland.

They thought I was crazy.

But the last place where Will had been was here.

Rob’s loyalty had been to Will.

And the rugged, wild beauty of this place…something told me he’d appreciate it.

Nobody really seemed to know him all that well, even Rip, and he’d told me that he was one of the few who would have called Rob friend.

That made me hurt.

He’d died for me, had promised to protect me to his final breath, and he had.

He would have done the same for any of us, all because we were Will’s.

But none of us had ever really reached out to him.

I went to my knees and smoothed a hand down the stones. “How is it going on the battlefront?”

“It’s…” Rip blew out a breath and said gruffly, “Stable, Mandy. Surprisingly stable. We’re slowly getting the upper hand after two years of getting our arses kicked.”

I nodded.

“It will continue to get better.”

He crouched down next to me and after a moment, he said, “Tell me. Talk to me. What happened?”

But I remained quiet.

After a long, long while, Rip rose and walked away.

Some things hurt too much to share.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the stones that covered the simple urn. In time, I might have the strength do something more. Sprinkle them across the earth. Maybe work them into the soil of a young tree. I don’t know. “I should have reached out to you, gotten to know you better. I just…I’m sorry.”

* * * * *

“Are you going to leave us?”

Sina found me sitting on the cliff three days later.

It had been a month.

Every day, I found myself taking off my pendant and holding it, pondering, considering.

Every day, it was getting harder to hold on.

I’d told him to come back to me.

He’d told me he’d do it…if it was possible.

But he hadn’t found me yet.

Watching the sun reflect off the silver, I said, “I haven’t much thought about it one way or the other.” Then I shrugged. “But you’ll be okay, regardless. Rip says we’re leveling out.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re okay.” She turned troubled eyes out over the water. “I know you found him.”

I stiffened.

“I won’t ask you to tell me what happened or push you for answers. But I knew the minute you returned, and when you wept so over Rob…that just convinced me even further. You found him.”

I slid her a look from the corner of my eye.

She was staring hard at me now.

“And then you had to leave.”

Rising, I slid the necklace into my pocket. Chilled to the bone, I wrapped my arms around myself. I hadn’t spoken of this to anybody, although the weight of the burden, the pain, tore at me. “Do you know?” I asked quietly, looking back at her. “What it was he did?”

Sina stared at me for a long moment and then she looked away. “How did you learn of it? He wouldn’t have told you.”

“In a way, he did.” I shrugged when she looked at me. “But it doesn’t matter. Something about…what happened at the end…he begged for forgiveness. I don’t know what it was, how it happened. But he was trapped in purgatory and when he asked for forgiveness, he was pulled out. A piece of him was lost there though. Trapped in purgatory—that’s why the veil thinned out.”

“Purgatory?” Sina cocked a brow.

“The netherplains.” Rubbing the heel of my hand over my chest, I added, “Demon central. He ended up there, instead of…wherever else he should have gone. I guess he made the first real rip.”

For a moment, Sina said nothing.

Then, slowly, she came to her feet, rubbing at her face, a look of disbelief etched across her features. “You…you’re telling me…”

“He’s there. He has to find the original rip, where he was pulled from purgatory back to this world. There was…” I swallowed, thinking of the bond that had been forced on him. By the serpent, Will had said. “He was tricked, deceived…something was forced on him and when he was pulled out, not all of him made it through.” I looked down at the green earth where he’d flung himself into that dark void so long ago.

“The original rip…where the hell is it and how are we supposed to find it?”

“We don’t need to.” Sina’s eyes were huge, haunted. “That would be near Golgatha, Mandy. Near Jerusalem. Honey, that’s…”

My stomach dropped out.

Numb, I fell to the stony, rocky earth.

I turned my gaze southward.

“Thousands of miles,” I said. “Thousands.”

Chapter Fourteen

I did the math.

It was over four thousand. We can walk endlessly—doing ten miles in an hour for eighteen to twenty hours is a piece of cake. A few hours to rest, then back up again? What would take mortals years, we could do in months.

But that’s on our side of the veil.

It had been nearly two years—again.

There had been no sign of Will.

I had no plans to go anywhere.

But Sina intervened, which was what she did.

She walked into the flat I’d rented, carrying a small, frail bundle. I was mostly out of the fight and she was mostly leaving me alone.

But every now and then, she showed up, as though she had to make sure I was still breathing.

I looked at the wriggling little thing she held and said, “Take it back.”

“Sorry.” She shoved the baby into my hands. “They don’t accept refunds.”

I didn’t look down. Once you met its eyes, it tried to bond to you. I’d read that somewhere. It might be dog-related, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking at a baby.

“Take it to an orphanage.” I paused and then added, “Find Jacob. He’s the Dickens expert. He might know a thing or two.”

“Cute.” She cocked a brow and then said, “Look at his eyes, honey.”

I narrowed mine instead.

“Look!”

That air of command was impossible to ignore. She’d acclimated to the mantle of power well, her hair fully white, her eyes all silver now. Luc was still level, still grace under pressure—and more than once, he was the one who brought her down when she seemed to forget that there was more to leading than biting heads off.

Like I’d tried to do for Will.

My chest ached, thinking of him.

Slowly, I let my eyes drift down.

The baby waved a tiny fist and cooed.

Sina rolled her eyes and then bent over the baby. I couldn’t see what she did, but the baby started to cry.

Then I saw it.

A rim of red.

Slowly, I lifted my head. “What happened to it?”

“Him. He is a boy,” she corrected. Then she sighed and gently brushed a finger across his brow. “His mother was human, and pregnant. Then she…gave in. I was going to kill her and the baby, but Luc said the baby was…ambiguous.”

“Ambiguous. What’s that mean?”

Head tilted, she said, “Rob would have said he was an evil son of a bitch…but he had a good man holding his leash. What would you have said?”

My heart lurched now. “Rob.” Licking my lips, I thought of the man who’d become a friend and then I looked at the baby. “Rob…was…”

“Rob’s mother was dragged through, while she was still human.” Sina sighed and turned away. “She was raped. We don’t know much of what happened, because she was dead not long after Rob was born. He was part orin. They would have thought it was amusing, having a part-human baby there. He was just a runt of a thing when Will discovered him, more animal than anything else. He made us all…uncomfortable. Except Will.”

Unconsciously, I lifted the baby to my shoulder. “You want me to raise this baby.”

She arched a brow. “Mortals can’t do it.”

“Are you doing this because you want me to keep fighting, to find something to live for?” I asked mockingly.

“I want to believe he’s still alive too,” she said gently.

The last time she’d said that to me, I’d wanted to hurt her. Badly.

But now, as I turned my face toward the baby and breathed in the soft, gentle scent, I let myself cry.

“I’ll take care of the baby.”

I saw her nod from the corner of my eye.

“He needs a name,” she said quietly.

“William.” I closed my eyes. “William Robert Grimm. Seems fitting. I’ll call him Rob.”

Chapter Fifteen

It was a different world.

Things moved even faster than they had before and the air was…quiet.

Demons no longer pulsed in the shadows.

It had taken quite some time to adjust.

But he had done just that and now he had one goal, one focus.

The green of the mountains, the lush scent of the trees, it all tugged at memories that were so deeply buried and part of him wanted to lean against one of the massive trunks and breathe in the air, even just stare up at the sky.

For a while, he had indeed forgotten just what it was like to stare up and see blue.

A voice rose, somewhere off in the distance.

An ache tugged, deep in his heart.

But he hadn’t forgotten her.

If it is within my power, I’ll come to you. I’ll find you. Somehow.

It had taken what felt like a millennia to keep his promise.

A noise rose, disturbing the birds and him. He cocked his head, listening. It wasn’t a noise he was familiar with.

Frowning, he braced a hand on the trunk of the tree, edging closer, trying to place that bright and happy sound.

Laughter…

But strange. It sounded so young.

Then it was gone.

Cut short.

Aggravated, he started to move quicker through the trees.

He knew these woods like the back of his hand and although some of the paths had shifted and changed, some trees taller while others were gone, this was the home of his heart, imprinted on his soul.

So it was something of a shock when he found himself falling face first, tripping over…something.

He didn’t know what.

He would have lunged upright, attacked.

But a blunt weapon pressed against the base of his skull. A quiet voice warned, “Move, buddy, and you die.”

He closed his eyes. He wanted to drag in a breath of air, but he would have sucked in soil and grit. So he just imagined.

“Roll over,” Mandy said. “Slowly.”

He did.

She held a staff in her hands.

Her hair was shorter.

But so was his. He’d cut it the very first thing, once he’d climbed and fought his way through the rip. Using a knife that had long since gone dull and then another that he’d stolen.

He’d had to wait until later to get a real trim, contacting Sina for money—after he’d convinced her that he wanted to find Mandy and see her. Alone.

That had been two, maybe three weeks ago and he was still acclimating himself to just how much different the world was.

It had been eight years.

Eight years.

The shadows of those years lay in the eyes of the woman as she stared at him with shock.

“Mandy.”

The staff wavered, then fell.

She backed away, shaking her head. “No,” she said simply. “I…you’re dead. I finally stopped dreaming, finally stopped seeing you in my head every time I turned around.”

He sat up slowly.

Something crunched behind him, the noise somebody makes when they’re learning to be quiet. Learning. He spun just as something came crashing down on his head.

“Robbie, no!”

He reacted, lips peeling back from his teeth even as instincts and brain started to process.

Rob—

Small, frail bones. Big scared eyes.

Child.

He had a child in his hands.

He leaped to his feet, still holding that small, frail child.

“Let me go!” The boy bared his teeth at him as red glowed in his eyes. “Mum!”

Will did just that, backing away in stunned shock.

The boy kicked him in the shin and ran around him, straight to Mandy.

“Mum?” Will asked woodenly.

She gazed at him, her eyes wet. “Is it really you?”

He bared his teeth. “Where the bloody fuck is Rob?”

“Watch your mouth,” she snapped. And then she looked away. A heavy sigh escaped her as she stroked a hand down the back of the boy’s hair. The child darted a look at Will. “And stop. It’s not what you’re thinking, although I should punch you. We…”

Her lips pressed together and she pulled back, smiled at the small child. “You’re a crazy, brave guy. And you didn’t listen. I told you to stay hidden. Now…off to home. I need to talk to…my friend.”

“But—”

“No, Robbie.”

As my son dragged his feet the entire way up the trail, I wrapped my arms around my middle. I dug my fingers into my arms to keep from reaching for the man before me.

He looked so…normal.

Jeans and a T-shirt, a hoodie thrown over the shirt to combat the chill of the fall. I’d come back to Germany. I couldn’t raise a child on a battlefield and I didn’t know of any other place to call home. So I’d returned to the cabin Will had left me.

And he’d returned…to me.

After all this time.

Eight years.

Black hair cut close, not quite military short, but almost. His skin was swarthy and dark, his eyes dark brown and piercing.

But it was all window dressing because under it, the power of him still beat against my skin.

“Rob’s dead,” I said when his gaze flicked up the trail again, toward the cabin. I told him in short, quick words. It hurt no less to try softening the blow.

When I was done, he bowed his head.

There was no sign my words had any impact, but I knew he felt each one of them and I knew he felt the impact of Rob’s loss just as I did. Straight to the heart.

After a few more moments, he looked back at me. “The boy. He’s…”

When he hesitated, I offered, “Like Rob? I know. Sina brought him to me when he was a baby, only a few days old. She found him—his mother had been grabbed by orin. She fought their pull, but…she gave in eventually. Luc sensed that the baby was still on the edge. So I’m playing Yoda.”

“Trying to keep him from giving in to the dark side.”

A weak laugh escaped me. “You remembered some of your geek training, Will.”

He took a step toward me. “I forgot the color of the sky. I forgot the sound of human voices. I forgot what it was to have food in my belly…”

He was in front of me now.

“But I didn’t forget the sound you made when you sighed in your sleep,” he murmured, reaching up to cradle my face. “I didn’t forget how you laughed when you teased me or the way you would try to make me laugh. You made me laugh when I had gone centuries without it. I forgot so much…but I didn’t forget you.”

I gasped when he lowered his face to mine. When he brushed my lips with his, I felt tears burn.

“Will…”

“Yes. That is my name now. It took me forever to find my way back, because I had to do that one, crucial thing. Forgiveness of self can be the hardest of all.” He lifted my chin. “And now I must beg your forgiveness, because I kept you waiting so long. Will you forgive me, love? Will you take me…not back, because I’ve never even given myself to you. But I want to do that now. You gave yourself to me a thousand times over and I wouldn’t let myself accept the gift. Is it too late?”

“Never.” I tugged his face to mine. “Make it a thousand and one.”

“A thousand and one. You’re my heart.”

I laughed shakily as he kissed me. He would have done it again. But we both heard that faint, muffled step. I sighed and eased him back. “Robbie…”

The golden head peaked around the corner. I gestured to him, holding out a hand. “Come on. I want you to meet somebody.”

Robbie eyed the towering man with curious eyes—curious, suspicious eyes.

Will returned his look.

“Robbie, this is Will. The man I’ve told you about.”

Robbie’s eyes narrowed.

Will glanced at me and then crouched down in front of the boy.

“You’re Will.”

“Yes.” Uncertainty written on his face, Will hesitated and then held out a hand. “And you’re Robbie.”

Robbie glanced at the hand and then, abruptly, he kicked Will before I could stop him—he’s too fast. Not kid fast. Orin fast. Part of his make-up. I lunged, but he was already backing away, glaring at us mutinously. “You made my mum cry!” he shouted.

Then he took off, racing up to the house.

“Shit.” I rubbed the back of my neck and looked at Will. “I’m sorry. I…”

But Will was grinning. I couldn’t believe it. I blinked. Then I rubbed my eyes and stared at him, hard. Yes. He was grinning. “I think I can handle this…he acts just like you—an angry, child-sized version. This could be fun…and I’m actually going to let myself enjoy it.”

He startled a laugh out of me.

Then a moan. Curling my arms around him, I sank into his kiss with a sigh.

This was what I wanted to enjoy.

Just…this.

For the next two thousand years. Or two hundred thousand.

About the Author

Shiloh Walker has been writing since she was a kid. She fell in love with vampires with the book Bunnicula and has worked her way up to the more…ah…serious works of fiction. She loves reading and writing just about every kind of romance. Once upon a time she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full-time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She writes romantic suspense and paranormal romance, and urban fantasy under the name J.C. Daniels. For more about Shiloh Walker, please visit her website: www.shilohwalker.com.

Also, check her out on Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorshilohwalker and Twitter: www.twitter.com/shilohwalker.

Look for these titles by Shiloh Walker

Now Available:

Talking with the Dead

Always Yours

For the Love of Jazz

Beautiful Girl

Vicious Vixen

Playing for Keeps

My Lady

The Redeeming

No Longer Mine

A Forever Kind of Love

The Hunters

The Huntress

Hunter’s Pride

Malachi

Hunter’s Edge

Grimm’s Circle

Candy Houses

No Prince Charming

Crazed Hearts

I Thought It Was You

Tarnished Knight

Locked in Silence

Grimm Tidings

Blind Destiny

Furious Fire

She doesn’t want him. He doesn’t need her. Like hell…

An FBI Psychics Story

Destin Mortin’s psychic gift comes with an ugly twist—she excels at tracking down violent rapists. But it’s rough on relationships. Once, her partner Caleb was her everything: filter, shield, rescuer, lover. The only man who didn’t think her a freak. Then he walked away.

Destin turned her back on the FBI to work for a private agency, but now a particularly horrendous case has come up, and her boss wants her paired with only the best.

For Caleb Durand, leaving Destin was an act of self-preservation. Every time she flung herself headlong into dangerous situations, every time he nursed her through soul-crushing visions, he’d died a little more inside.

Now they are forced to work together one last time. Tragedy has changed them both, but Caleb knows if he lowers his shields for an instant, he won’t have an icicle’s chance in hell of resisting the temptation to lose himself in her wild power.

But to catch the rapist, it’s exactly what he’ll have to do.

Warning: Contains tortured souls who have lost love and pined for their missing half, a woman who can see evil, and a hot FBI agent.

Some scars cut right to the heart.

Three years after her divorce, Chaili Bennett is over her ex. Her only problem now? Of the few men she’s dated since, no one “gets” her. Not like Marc Archer—a man who’s never seen her as more than a friend.

Marc Archer needs a date for a last-minute charity event, and he needs it fast. Not that women aren’t throwing themselves at his world-famous face and body, but sometimes it’s less messy—as in less personal—to use his sister Shera’s escort service.

The last woman on earth Marc expects to see in his sister’s office is Chaili. There’s something different about her, but nothing pleases him more when Shera sets them up. That simple date quickly evolves into much more as they both discover the other fills a deep, secret need they’ve shared with no one else.

Though Chaili insists one night is all she wants, Marc isn’t walking away now. Not until he discovers what put the shadows in her eyes. And the scars on her soul.

Warning: This book involves soulful songs, soulful sex, a soulful singer and lots of heartbreak. But no worries, there’s a happy ever after.

eBooks are not transferable.

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Grimm’s End

Copyright © 2015 by Shiloh Walker

ISBN: 978-1-61922-855-9

Edited by Tera Cuskaden

Cover by Angela Waters

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2015
www.samhainpublishing.com
phnx

Table of Contents

- Dedication
- Author’s Note
- Prologue
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- About the Author
- Look for these titles by Shiloh Walker