“Why would he expect that?” Saber asked.
“The second I didn’t kill her in that pit, he knew she meant something to me. I was starved enough that I would have killed anyone else, but instead, I saved her. I’m sure some of the other Savages and probably demons suspected it too, but Yannis would have been certain.”
“That’s a long time to wait,” Killean said.
Lucien met his gaze as he replied, “He’s been waiting centuries to kill me. These past weeks were nothing compared to that.”
No one said anything as their eyes returned to the demon.
“If they’ve been following us for that long, why didn’t they attack sooner?” Asher asked.
“They’ve probably been waiting for the right time, or maybe for enough of them to gather,” Willow said. “I’d like to know where they came from in the woods.”
“We’ll check that out,” Declan said.
“At least they didn’t follow us to the compound,” Logan said.
“They wanted the sword,” Declan replied. “They wouldn’t take the chance of us getting somewhere more secure and taking it with us.”
Willow lifted her chin. “They’re not getting it.”
Declan shifted uneasily but didn’t say anything.
“Do you think they put a tracking device on one of the vehicles?” Logan asked.
“We had someone watching over them every night in case they found us. There’s no way one of them got close enough to do that,” Willow said.
“I agree,” Killean said.
Lucien glanced toward the lightening sky, but it would still be a couple of hours before the sun was up enough to burn away the remains. “We should set up a roadblock so no vehicles can come by here until the bodies are gone.”
“Asher and I will take two of the SUVs to do that,” Logan said.
“I also need blood for when Callie wakes. I have to feed her.”
And she will wake, he told himself. He couldn’t allow himself to doubt it; he’d go mad if he did, and now was not the time to do that. They would end up having to restrain him too, and they needed all the help they could get to clean up this mess and get out of here.
Callie would make it through this, and soon the agony of her transformation would take hold. He ground his teeth together as he resisted going to her, but they had to take care of this mess before he could do that.
He sneered at the creature on the ground as the demon part of him stirred. This never should have happened. Callie never should have suffered in such a way, and it was all this thing’s fault.
We must keep it alive. We have to see what it knows.
It’s never going to tell us anything; just kill it.
That was most likely true, but no matter how much he’d prefer to see it dead, they had to learn if it would reveal anything. They also needed to learn if they could discover any weaknesses.
“We’ll get some blood for you soon,” Killean said.
Lucien opened his mouth to argue; he wanted to ensure he was ready for her now, but it would be hours before Callie required blood to complete her transformation. Before then, they had to ensure the demon was secure, find out where the Savages came from, get the roadblock established, and ensure the bodies were destroyed.
When the demon stirred, Saber kicked it in the head, and its movements ceased again. “I guess we’ll know when it wakes,” he said.
Willow rolled her eyes as she slid the sword into the scabbard on her back. “Let’s go see if we can discover where these things came from,” she said to Declan.
He nodded.
“We’ll set up the roadblocks,” Asher said, and Killean tossed him a set of keys.
They split up, and Lucien checked on Callie before helping Killean and Saber gather the Savage’s bodies. They placed them out where the sun would hit them soon. He dumped Yannis’s body on the ground before retrieving his brother’s head and dropping it unceremoniously on the body.
He stared at him for a minute before turning away. Yannis was the past; Callie was his future.
When they finished cleaning up the mess, Lucien stalked over to the SUV housing Callie. He pulled open the back door to discover Simone had lowered the seats and settled Callie in the back. She rested with her head on a pillow.
He held his breath as he watched for the small rise and fall of her chest that would indicate she was breathing. His ears instantly picked up the laborious beat of her heart, but it took far longer than he would have liked before her chest rose.
His shoulders sagged before he crawled into the back to settle next to her. He lifted her hand and clasped it in both of his while he studied her abnormally pale features and her black hair spilling across the pillow. Through the hole in her chest, he watched the beat of her healing heart as it lumbered to pump blood through her.
Simone didn’t speak before she slipped out of the vehicle and closed the door behind her. Carefully, Lucien lifted Callie’s head and settled it in his lap. He brushed the hair back from her forehead as he studied her features. Her mouth was pinched, and as her transformation progressed, she twitched and moaned.
He would give anything to take away her discomfort, but he could only sit by her side and watch as she suffered just as he’d watched her mortal life come to a vicious end. The reminder caused his fangs to lengthen as fresh color swirled over the backs of his hands.
He needed to kill, to rend and destroy, but the Savages were all dead. Nothing remained for him to slaughter. Leaning closer to her, he inhaled her sweet scent now intermingled with Simone’s and his.
He was inside her, a part of her, and though she still suffered, when she came out of this, she would be immortal, stronger, and they would seal the mate bond.
Her aroma and the tantalizing promise of their future together helped calm the demon inside him. He stroked her forehead as he bent to kiss her.
Her breath tickled his lips as he whispered, “I love you. Come back to me soon.”
He thought her hand squeezed his, but it was such a fleeting movement he couldn’t be sure.
“It will be over soon,” he promised. “The worst of this will be over soon, my love.”
He longed to crush her against him, but he didn’t dare for fear he would damage her more. As he ran his thumb down between her brows, her eyes fluttered back and forth behind her closed lids.
He spent his time alternating his attention between Callie and Killean, Simone, and Saber as they stood guard over the demon they’d moved into the back of his battered SUV. They’d swathed it in blankets to protect it from the rising sun, but Saber had kept its head out, and they all watched its face like vultures circling carrion.
An hour passed before Willow and Declan returned to join the others. He saw them talking, but no one came over to the SUV. Though he was curious about what they discovered, he wasn’t going to leave Callie, and he was glad no one bothered them.
Then he watched as Willow walked away from the others and stuck the tip of the sword into a Savage’s body. The jewel in the hilt glowed brightly before the body burst into ash. She lifted her head and said something to Declan that he couldn’t hear before moving on to the next body.
They should have thought to use the sword sooner, but they still weren’t used to the weapon, and he didn’t think they ever would be. Willow was still making her way through disposing of the bodies when the sun reached high enough that a flicker of flames pulled his attention away from Callie’s small cries. Her hand clenched around his, and her body twitched as her transformation progressed.