“She did.” He hoped that would go some way towards calming the female.
It only made things worse.
She growled against his cheek, the pointed tip of her right horn jabbing into the back of his skull. “I would have killed you. In fact, I might just go ahead and do that right now.”
Her right hand slid to the front of his throat and he swallowed hard as the tip of her horn pierced his skin close to the top of his spine.
“Wait,” he blurted, a desperate attempt to buy himself some time so he could muster the strength to teleport. “She got it all wrong.”
“My sweetie Mac doesn’t get things wrong,” she snarled and then huffed. “I suppose you think you can dig your way out of this. Darling, you’re only going to dig your own grave.”
Hartt gritted his teeth and teleported, somehow managed to do it without moving the demoness with him. His boots hit black dirt and he breathed hard as he bent forwards, fighting to catch his breath as pain rushed like a wave of fire through him, sapping his strength.
The demoness didn’t give him a chance to recover.
Her hand clamped down on the top of his head, she dug her fingers into his hair and clutched it hard as she yanked him upright. She glared into his eyes as he grimaced, as he grabbed her arm with both of his hands and tried to wrestle free.
“Never killed a tainted before. Think your prince will reward me with coin if I bring him your head?” She grinned at him, flashing her fangs.
“Doubt it,” he gritted out as he twisted, as she pulled on his hair and he swore she was going to tear it all out. He sucked down a breath and pushed the words out. “Friends with the other prince. His brother.”
The demoness pulled a face. “Fine. My reward will be the sheer joy of knowing you’re dead and can no longer hurt my bestie.”
She raised her hand, pulling him up onto his tiptoes, and he tried to teleport, but nothing happened. He cursed himself. Teleporting so many times so close together had tapped him out.
“Wait.” His eyes widened as she unsheathed a dagger and twirled it before fisting it and eyeing his throat. “Wait. I came to apologise to Mackenzie. I came to make her see she was wrong about me… about my feelings. I don’t want another female. I only want her.”
His ears rang as he heard those words leaving his lips, as he felt the truth of them deep in his soul. He’d had so many doubts over the last few hours, enough to fill a lifetime, but now that he was staring death in the face, it was all so clear to him.
He was in love with Mackenzie.
Not because of some bond or an instinct he had no control over.
He loved her. Soul deep loved her. Couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. Couldn’t bear the thought of her believing he felt nothing for her, of her going through life thinking he could have possibly been in love with someone else.
When he was crazy about her.
“Say that again,” the demoness muttered with a hard edge to her expression, one that warned she would go ahead and decapitate him if he put even a single foot wrong.
“I’m in love with Mackenzie.” And gods, he meant it, really felt it as those words tumbled from his lips.
They hit him as hard as they apparently hit the demoness, left him reeling but felt so right at the same time. The demoness released him and he dropped to his heels, wasn’t sure what to say or whether he could say anything as he tried to process the feelings running through him.
“You have a stupid look on your face.” The demoness twirled her dagger and shoved it back into the sheath that sat against her right hip. “Like a lost puppy. Guess I’ll believe you.”
Which was a relief, although he could have done without her making fun of his stunned expression.
He tensed when she was suddenly in his face.
“You ever hurt her, I will end you.”
He wasn’t sure whether he was meant to nod in response to that or shake his head, so he just stood there, staring at her as she eased back and frowned at him. She fluffed her hair again and this time toyed with her small horns.
“Can I see her then?” Hartt glanced at the alley, itching with a need to get past the demoness and get to Mackenzie.
The demoness hiked her shoulders. “I’d let you, but she’s not home.”
He frowned at that. “Where is she?”
Her red lips curled in a slow, vicious smile. “She went to form an alliance with the King of Death. I told her she’d be much better off with him.”
Hartt growled and flashed fangs at her, tempted to call his blade to him and cut her down for letting his beautiful Mackenzie return to the vampire. Alone.
Fire began a slow, steady burn in his veins as he thought about her near that handsome male, as he replayed all the times Grave had looked at her with admiration in his blue eyes. That burn became an inferno when he thought about the vampire protecting her from the witch.
He was going to kill the bastard.
Chapter 20
It hadn’t taken Syn long to convince Mackenzie that this was the right course of action, although the demoness had also tried to convince her that revenge was a dish best served as cold-blooded murder. Mackenzie had done her best to make her friend back down, had forced a promise from her that she wouldn’t go after Hartt. He might have hurt her, but he didn’t deserve to die.
Grave eased around the large oak wooden table, recapturing her attention. She shoved Hartt to the back of her mind and focused on the maps the vampire had unrolled, layers of them he had been sifting through when she had entered the library.
“So, unlike the elf, you do want to work with me?” Grave glanced up at her, a brief leap of his pale blue eyes to her before they dropped back to the map.
He shifted it aside and studied the one below it.
She might have lied to Grave and told him that Hartt had confessed he didn’t want to join their team after all and had tried to convince her to team up to take him down and split the coin the witch had offered.
“Of course.” She swept her long red hair over her shoulder and leaned forwards, inspecting the map he was studying now. She canted her head to her left and frowned as she tried to make out the realm it charted, and shrugged it off when she didn’t recognise it. There were many realms in Hell, and countless ones she hadn’t visited yet. She smiled when Grave flicked her another cautious glance. “It turned out I couldn’t get along with him after all. An assassin thing. He’s the enemy as far as I’m concerned and I just couldn’t get over that.”
The corners of the vampire’s mouth slowly quirked into a half-smile. “It did not sound as if you were enemies the last time you were here.”
Her cheeks heated, her blood catching fire as she realised he had heard her little sexscapade with Hartt. She shrugged that off too. “Call it a moment of weakness. I’m always horny when I resurrect and he just happened to be on hand.”
She cringed internally, hating how that made her sound like some loose woman who couldn’t keep it in her pants when in reality she had gone so long without sex that she was surprised she remembered what went where.
Grave chuckled, dropped his gaze to the map and shifted it aside. What was he looking for? She took in the room, noticing how many of the books he had pulled from the crammed shelves that made up the walls of the library. They were scattered across the wooden floor now. The shelves on the far side of the room to her left had been attacked too, the rolled-up parchments that had been contained in several of the diamond-shaped holes now littering the floor.