I kissed Colt like I'd never kissed anyone. I kissed him even more passionately than I had when he was alive, and that was saying a lot.
By the time he pulled away to look at me, I was a blubbering mess. The tears that streamed from my eyes were more than a trickle, they were giving Niagara Falls a run for their money.
"How are you here, love?" He asked, his accent thick.
"Turns out I'm actually the princess of this place." I half laughed while the tears kept coming.
The calm look on Colt's face didn't waiver. He wasn't surprised, or skeptical, he was just– Colt.
"Finn?"
"He'll come around." I finally tore my eyes from his, embarrassed by how badly I'd failed him in comforting Finn.
Maybe I wasn't the best person to leave Finn's heart with.
Asher cleared his throat behind us, and I remembered what was at stake.
I turned from Colt, to him, and back to Colt.
His blue eyes shimmered with understanding and he got to his feet, offering me a hand up.
"What is it this time?"
"An angel half-breed trying to kill us all, while the entire country practically burns itself to the ground." I wiped at the tears that ran down my cheeks with the back of my arm. "You know, the usual."
Colt laughed and his pearls white fangs poked out.
God, I missed him.
I missed him more than I needed air. I missed him more than I needed sleep. I missed him more than anything in the world, and as much as it pained me to leave him, I knew it would hurt him more if I stayed.
I needed to go back and live up to my promise of keeping his brother alive.
"I'll see you around." Colt smiled and waved as Asher yanked me from the shop, but a single tear slid down his cheek, and it sliced into what little I had left of a heart before shattering it again.
I wasn't going to let Colt down. Not again.
And I was going to come back for him. That was a promise.
Chapter 13
Asher grabbed me and before the front door of the shop could close, we erupted in a puff of black smoke. I blinked and suddenly we were back in the hotel hallway, but it seemed different.
I squinted to help my eyes adjust to the darkness. Why weren't the lights on?
"Are we still in the underworld?" I whispered, my voice barely making it through the muggy air.
Asher shook his head and brought his finger up to his lips to shush me.
Something didn't seem right. The hotel wasn't how we'd left it.
The power had to have been off for a while for the temperature to skyrocket as much as it had, and it would explain the lights being off.
But why?
I could tell that something inside Asher shifted. His lighthearted joking was pushed aside, and he was serious now, more serious that I'd ever seen him.
He slipped his hand into mine and interlocked his fingers with mine.
I could feel my cheeks sizzle beneath his touch, and I was glad that it was dark enough to keep him from being able to see me blushing.
I braced myself for the uncontrollable urges to creep up, but they didn't. Instead my cheeks just glowed warmly.
It was a relief, really, not to be a slave to my own inhibitions.
And I knew it had to do with what had happened with Asher, and the cloud of darkness I'd consumed from him, but I didn't have time to ask for the demons’ instruction manual, so I filed all the questions I had away inside my head for later.
Asher tightened his grip on my hand, and we teleported from the top floor to the ground floor.
I held my hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp.
Every door in the first hallway had been kicked in, I could tell by the way the frames were bent and the doors were damaged.
Draydon.
I was blown away that he had slipped under my radar. I trusted him because my gut told me too- was my gut wrong?
He had waited until I was out of the way to launch whatever sadistic attack he had planned, but why? Why go for the others without me?
It didn't make any sense.
Unless I wasn't his target.
My stomach burned at the realization.
It wasn't me, it was my mother.
I'd been so distracted with my own shit yet again that I'd just willingly let a stranger into her life under the ruse that he was there to protect her.
A man I found trapped in a mystical prison no less.
Asher slowly began to creep down the hall, poking his head in the doorway of each room, but I didn't have time for that.
My mother needed me, and she needed me that very second. For all we knew he could have been on any floor.
I turned and made my way to the front desk, where I'd seen the security office. I breathed a sigh of relief when I located the thick metal door in the dark, the silver letters of the word Security still glistening in the small amount of fading sunlight that made its way in through the glass front doors.
I ran my fingers over its smooth surface until I found the doorknob and I tried it.
Locked.
Fuck.
I sifted through my racing thoughts. I didn't remember seeing a key, and I didn't have time to search for it in any of the many drawers that riddled the desk.
It was time to see if being a demon had any perks.
I grasped the door handle tightly and closed my eyes. At first I tried to slow down my heart that thudded thunderously inside my chest, but after a few seconds I realized that wasn't about to happen.
So instead I decided to lean into it. I concentrated on the feeling of hopelessness that I felt, and the anger that it brought out.
I thought about my mother, defenseless and alone. And about Max, and Finn, and Drax.
Xander could take care of himself, I was sure.
Come to think of it, all the guys could manage themselves.
But it was the fear that maybe they couldn't manage for themselves and protect my mother at the same time.
They were all scattered around the hotel when I'd left.
What if they were separated and couldn't get back in time and he picked them off one by one like a predator separating his prey?
The thought filled me with a mix of emotions so potent and destructive that I was afraid they were going to consume me all together.
I felt the familiar wave of angry heat erupt, and my eyes glowed bright red.
I squeezed the doorknob as hard as I could, and felt the metal giving way beneath my hand.
I was doing it. I was actually doing it.
But I didn't have time to pat myself on the back because the door handle snapped off, and the one on the opposite side fell to the ground with a slight tink.
It was faint and quiet, but I had no doubt that Draydon had heard it. Wherever he was in the hotel, if he was as bloodthirsty as the book had said, I knew he'd hear it. And when he did, he would be on to us, I had to make sure I was a step ahead of him.
The lives of everyone I loved depended on it.
I pushed my way into the room and a wave of relief swept through me at the security screens that were still lit.
I knew that some places had backup power supplies for their security systems. I just thanked god that this random hotel in the middle of the desert did too.
My eyes swept across all the screens as quickly as I could, looking for any sign of Draydon.
Where are you, you bastard?
I searched the screens frantically until a flicker of white sped past a camera on the third floor. I knew it was Draydon by the white wing that stuck out as he ran past.