“Are you sure letting Emma plan a party is a good idea? Her idea of a reveal will be shooting an arrow at a demon piñata.” Emma tended to be extreme… in everything. It was why she was my demon-hunting partner in crime. That girl’s aim was scarily precise.
“How did you know?” Angel teased, looping her arm through mine as we approached Little Bundles.
“Please. Emma thinks her bow and arrow should be incorporated into every part of her life. Some girls wear earrings or bracelets. Emma Deen accessories with a bow and a quiver.”
Angel chuckled. “Yeah, but it somehow works for her. She manages to make it look hot.”
Was that a grin on my lips? “My brother definitely thinks so.”
I tried to maintain a playful attitude as we browsed through racks of tiny soft pink dresses and baby blue little trousers. It was impossible to not get swept away by the booties, bows, and the smell of baby powder that seemed to cling to everything in the shop.
What good would it do for me to pine and worry about a demon I was likely to never see again? If I was lucky, Ashor and I might see each other four times a year, during the solstices and equinoxes, which wasn’t precisely relationship worthy. Four nights a year, and that was if we could find each other.
I could circle around the pros and cons on an endless loop, the scales tipped neither one way nor the other, leaving me feeling unbalanced. Something had to change. I had to change.
It was easy to say the words, even mean them, but to actually change… that was the difficult part. My mind continued to harp on Ashor and the dream, even as my arms were piled with gifts and trinkets that my credit card would groan about.
Shopping had always been my therapy. Some people paid to lie on a couch and unload their problems, their deepest, darkest secrets to someone with a degree framed on their desk. There was nothing wrong with that. I actually was a little bit envious of those people. But what worked for me was retail therapy.
Or, it used to work for me.
That little trick no longer seemed to quiet the noise in my head or the wisp of shadows curling in my blood, because after we left Little Bundles with packages in tow, that purged feeling I expected never came.
I stepped outside into the bright sun, inhaling the afternoon January air, but damn it all, my heart was still heavy, my soul still splintered. This feeling of being incomplete was never going away, not as long as Ashor and I were apart.
Damn him for altering my life forever.
Damn him for forcing me to live without him.
Damn him for being who he was.
Just damn, damn, damn.
Cursing Ashor was becoming my new favorite pastime.
“What are you going to do?” Angel asked. My mind was elsewhere, as it had been most of the day.
“Huh?” I replied, tilting my head to the side so I could see her face. “What do you mean?”
Her pretty features grew serious. “About Ashor? I know you, Lexi. And I know you’re hurting and confused. I know what it’s like to be separated from the one person who is literally like your other half. You won’t ever stop thinking about him, so what are you going to do about it?”
Shrugging, I kicked at a rock, watched it skip out in front of us. “What can I do?”
“Bullshit. You’re fucking Lexi Winters,” she said fervently. “You don’t give up, not when you truly want something, and whether you are ready to admit it or not, you want him. Or at the very least, a chance to know if you want him. For Christ’s sake, you made it your personal mission to kill every demon who had a hand in Colin’s death. And you did and then some.”
“What are you saying? That I should go back to the underworld?”
“If that is what you want. But why does that have to be the only option?”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked.
“That we find another way to solve your problem. There has to be some way for you to be together without having to sacrifice your life.” Angel, the beacon of optimism.
I racked my brain for other answers and only came up with one that made sense. “You want me to break Ashor out of Hell?”
She lifted a brow, mulling over the idea. “If anyone can, it’s you. You’re a goddamn Winters. We don’t give up.”
The wheels in my head were already turning. Could it be done? It wasn’t just breaking Ashor out of the underworld. He was bonded by an oath to the Wild Hunt. I wasn’t even sure if him living in the mortal world was possible as long as the oath was in place. So the question was, could the oath be broken? There was only one way to find out.
Hell, yes, I was doing this. A slow grin spread over my lips. “This is why you’re my best friend.” For the first time since I’d come home, I finally had a purpose, a reason to live, to keep on fighting.
It wouldn’t be easy breaking him out of the dungeon his mother held him in, but I had the advantage of having spent time there myself.
We stepped down from the curb into the street, heading toward Angel’s car. We had parked near the bakery. “Obviously.” She followed up her statement with a big yawn, putting a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she apologized with a tired grin. “This being pregnant thing is really kicking my ass.”
I patted her slight belly. “Come on, Mama. Let’s get you home. Baby needs a nap.”
“Mama,” she echoed. “I don’t think I will ever get used to that.”
“It’s cute. You’re going to be the most amazing mother. How can you not be? You’re the freaking Queen of the Damned. Well, in the underworld, they call you the Queen of Inferno.”
She snorted, scrunching her freckle-dusted nose. “I’m not sure that is a good thing.”
We were only a few feet from Angel’s newly purchased mom car, a sleek SUV, when the back of my neck prickled like a thousand needles of ice jabbing into my skin, right where Ashor’s demon mark was. My steps slowed, and I raised my hand to my neck, wincing.
The sudden scowl on my lips didn’t go unnoticed. “Are you okay?” Angel asked, her eyes studying my face. “What’s wrong?”
I rubbed at my neck, trying to work out the tingle that didn’t seem ready to ease up anytime soon. Something was wrong. I scanned the woods across the street, looking for devilish red eyes, before moving to the buildings on the right and left. “I don’t know. I—” From the corner of my eye, I caught an odd movement in the shadows. Not in the shadows, but the shadow itself. It moved like a… shade? That couldn’t be? Could it?
What was a shade doing in the mortal world? Shades were restless spirits that dwelled in the darkness of the underworld and in the in between. If it was a shade from the Court of Darkness, I had to investigate. There was only one reason I could think for a shade to be hanging around the dark corners of Spring Valley. Okay, maybe two reasons.
Me. And Angel.
Both ideas turned my blood blue. “Angel. Go to the car,” I said tightly.
Her eyes whirled to where I was staring at the alley between two buildings. “What? Why?”
I shifted so my body shielded her from the shade. “Just go. And lock the door,” I replied, an edge working its way into my tone.
She crossed her arms, bags dangling from either wrist. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what is going on.”