Chapter 169
Heather
I stood in an old, decrepit church. It had cream-colored adobe walls with exposed beams. Pews were torn apart and thrown everywhere. Moonlight shone through shattered stained glass windows. Flares were lit randomly along the ground. They gave off a smoky red light, casting a hue of evil over the room.
But what caught my attention were the humans fighting alongside the wolves. They were dressed in riot gear—policemen.
God. They didn’t belong here. They weren’t strong enough to fight this.
Silver flashed at the corner of my eye. I spun and spotted Cosette fighting back to back with a guy I’d never seen before. His long, white hair was clipped back in a low ponytail. Both of them glowed like moonlight, and every time they swung their swords, demons cried out.
I’d thought the Weres were graceful. But no. The fey. They were the definition of grace as they moved as one.
An explosion rocked the floor. Luciana stood at the front of the church. The ragged, yawning hole at her feet took up the space where the altar used to be.
Demons crawled out of it.
Big ones. Little ones. Some looked human, but their eyes glowed red. Definitely not human. The rest were the stuff of nightmares. Their gray faces, pointed teeth, and noseless faces would haunt me from this moment on.
I stood there, horrified by the scuttling bodies that kept climbing up from the hole.
Something was wrong. More wrong than just this.
And then it hit me.
Where was Brent?
My skin chilled.
I turned in a full circle—scanning the people pressing against the horde of demons. Searching for Brent in wolf or human form. But I couldn’t find him.
Serena and Donovan fought as wolves. A demon tore through Donovan’s leg, and they both howled. Three more demons lunged at them, and I saw them both fall before I lost them in the pile.
No. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening.
Brent! I screamed through our bond, but I wasn’t really here.
Where was Brent? Why wasn’t he by my side?
Finally, I spotted him. Not far away. Just out of sight. I sprang over the few remaining pews and found him in the chaos. He stood alone, fighting three demons at once and holding his own.
But he couldn’t see what I saw.
There was another. A fourth demon. It was crawling from the hole, nails scratching along the stone floor. Heading for him.
A jolt of adrenaline hit me, and I started running.
"Brent!" I screamed so violently my throated ached. I was going to be too late. There wasn’t enough time. Nothing was going to stop the demon. Not my Were powers. Not my magic.
My heart tore as panic gripped me. I pushed myself to move faster, but the demon scuttled closer to my mate.
Brent killed one, and turned—finally hearing the larger demon behind him—but it was too late.
I was too late. I was going to fail him. Fail myself. This was it. The end.
The demon ripped its long nails across Brent’s neck, and his body jolted.
I screamed as Brent’s head rolled into the hole, falling into hell. His body stayed in place, slowly crumpling to the ground.
No. No. This can’t happen. I can’t—I won’t survive it.
Luciana’s laugh cut across the numbness in my head. She stood glowing with power at the edge of the ragged hole and hate filled every inch of me.
All of this came back to her. I was moving before I could think.
I threw myself at Luciana. We hit the ground hard. She sat on me, her hands around my throat. I was strong enough to get her off, but there were too many demons surrounding her. I couldn’t fight them all.
I had to stop this.
The portal she’d opened was just to the right. My life was over.
Brent was dead.
The only thing left for me to do was end this fight.
I grabbed hold of her, and rolled us into the hell mouth. It closed above me and fire licked along my skin as I fell.
And fell.
The heat burned as I plummeted to my death.
I sat up, roaring with terror. My throat burned, but I couldn’t stop. Someone shook my shoulders, but I couldn’t register anything but fear. Heartbreak. The burning fire. Brent being dead.
Everything being over before it had a chance to begin.
Then ice-cold water crashed over my head. I coughed as it lodged in my airways.
"Heather. Answer me. Are you okay?"
Brent. My sight cleared and I saw him crouching in front of me. I leaped at him, tackling him to the ground, and started sobbing. I couldn’t help it. My vision hadn’t happened yet, but it would. I was going to watch him die, and then I was going to die.
I just...
No. My heart ached. I knew he wasn’t dead. He was here. But I couldn’t help feeling the loss.
He wrapped his arms around me as he cradled me in his lap, running one hand up and down my back.
"Shhhh. You’re here. You’re safe. Everything is okay."
I shook my head, but didn’t pull back from him. "It’s not okay. Everything is not okay. I can’t—" I started crying again. Harder this time. The fear was too much. I couldn’t lose him. It was too soon. We were too young. I was supposed to have a lifetime with him. A Were lifetime. And now I was going to get what? Weeks at best?
I didn’t know how long we had, but Luciana was coming.
"You have to calm down. You’re going to make yourself sick." He tried to pull away, but I clung to him. "Cherie, please. I can feel your fear and anger, but I don’t know what any of it means. You’re scaring me. Tell me what you saw. Whatever it is, we can fix it. We can change it. I know we can. But you have to talk to me."
"How do you know we can change it?"
"I don’t know, but I can try. With everything that I am, I will try to stop whatever has made you so upset. But I can’t do that until you talk to me. So calm down. Talk to me."
It was horrible. I said through our bond.
Cherie. Tell me.
I slowly described everything I’d seen—from the Orangina breaking to how I ended the fight with Luciana.
He stayed quiet for a long moment when I was done, and then sucked in a big breath. "Okay."
I pulled back from him. "Okay? What about that was okay?"
"Nothing. Nothing about that was okay. But okay—now we can work to change it. If you hadn’t seen that, then it probably would’ve happened, but now—we prepare. That gives us something to watch for. And there are markers along the way. So, as long as I never drink that Orangina, then none of this will happen."
I took a deep breath. "Okay. So no more Oranginas for you."
"Hate the stuff. Never touching it again. Especially on pizza day."
I huffed a small laugh. It was pitiful, but something. "I can’t do it. Watching you die... It was the worst thing ever."
He pressed his forehead to mine. "It’s not going to happen."
"It can’t." I thought for a second. I needed someone who knew more about magic and visions to tell me that this could be changed. Going to the brujos that were still here seemed the most obvious choice, but Claudia was in Peru and I didn’t know the rest well enough to tell if they’d blow steam up my ass or tell me the truth.
Cosette would. Even if she might be a little more harsh than I could handle, her brand of truth would be preferable. I had to know how to prepare. Or if we should just give up now.
"Do you think Cosette might know anything about visions? She’s mentioned a few things here and there—and I know she said that she didn’t really know much—but I get the sense that she’s not telling us everything."
"She’s fey. Of course she knows more than she’s saying."
"Who do you think the guy is?" If the fey were fighting with us against Luciana, it would definitely make a difference. I’d only seen Cosette and the one dude, but they’d been the only ones who weren’t getting their asses kicked in my horror show of a vision. We needed more of them. We needed every advantage we could gather.
I don’t know, but the fey have strings. I don’t want to say they’re not welcome, but they’d add another layer of complication."
I chewed on my lip. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to suggest this. "We should talk to Cosette. Ask her point blank. See if we can get some fey backing, too."
"We can try. She’s not a bad person. Just very fey."
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I’d do anything—anything—to stop that vision from happening.
I started to get up and then realized that I was soaked. "You threw a bucket of water on me?"
Brent brushed the hair back from my face. "What was I supposed to do? You were screaming. It was tearing me apart. The water’s there in case someone loses it during sparring... I figured it would shock you out of the vision."
"It was a good try. But now I have to shower again." And I wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon. Not after that vision. Until Luciana was dead and Brent was safe and sound, that image was going to haunt me.
I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it come true.