And, all right then…she leaned against him, sighing. “I can live with that.”
“Good.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Now let’s get out of here.”
She smiled. “You ready to go kick some ass, partner?”
“After, but first…” He stood, scooping her up in the process, and carried her like some sort of helpless bride toward the doorway.
“Valin!” she yelped as he bumped her feet against the jagged doorframe and maneuvered them into the hall. “Put me down,” she insisted, but oh, gee, it was strange she couldn’t find an ounce of willpower to put up any sort of fight. And whoops, those were her arms wrapping around his neck, weren’t they?
“Not on your life, cookie. You might run away.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why would I run away?”
“We have a honeymoon to go on.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad…”
“After we attend to the little detail of our formal bonding ceremony, that is.”
“Hmmm…” She gnawed her lip. “I imagine that’s not going to go over too well with your stuffy council.”
“They’re your stuffy council now too. And you think I care?”
“No.” She tightened her arms around his neck, pecking his chin with a light kiss. “And that’s what I love about you.”
He stopped, his feet posed on the threshold of the mansion as he closed his eyes and drew in deep breath.
“Valin?” she asked, concern making her heart skip as she scanned the grounds. “Is ther—”
“Say that again.”
She looked back at him. “What? That I love you?”
“Yes, that.” He opened his eyes, his heart, no, his very soul burning into hers through his gaze. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear those words.”
Her chest warmed, filling every dark corner and crevice she’d ever housed and burning away the last of the coldness that had touched her for so long. He loved her, and because she’d been brave enough to love him back, they had their whole lives to figure out just where their faith in each other would take them.
“I love you, Valin,” she told him, letting him see all the way into her heart. “You’re mine too. Heart, body, and soul.”
“Ah, cookie, you were so worth the wait.” And with that he carried her out into the falling twilight. Her black knight. Her beacon of strength in their dark and often crazy world. Her partner.
Epilogue
Christos fell to the cave floor, his kneecaps cracking against the blackened stone. Ignoring the pain, he lowered himself further, head against the rough surface, arms stretched out in supplication. There was no amount of too much in the groveling he was about to perform.
Lucifer stepped down from his thrown, paced around him, the dark caress of the shadows that enfolded him licking at Christos like ice-cold fire. Christos resisted the urge to plead, knowing that his failures would only be judged more harshly for such a weakness.
“Well, my son? Do you wish to try and tell me what went wrong?”
Christos clenched his teeth, his fury rekindled despite his precarious situation. What went wrong was that somehow the freak of a Paladin had overcome Christos and Gabby’s blood bond. No, not overcome; somehow the Paladin had purged the blood Gabby had drunk from Christos’s vein, making her his.
Shadows pulsed around Lucifer as he stared down at him, the oppressiveness of his lord’s inaction setting every one of Christos’s nerves on edge. The silence went on for so long that when his master finally spoke, Christos felt like he’d been severed.
“But your blood, you say it transformed her, obliterated her light.”
“Not well enough, obviously.” And didn’t that burn. He’d thought, finally, that he’d found the one. The prophesied one, his queen. Born of light and dark; her Paladin heritage, his blood in her veins. It should have worked, for wasn’t he, short of Lucifer himself, the epitome of dark? Beyond that other freak, Karissa, there had been no other who had come close to meeting the criteria. And since that experiment had backfired in all their faces, Christos had been born anew, sure in the knowledge that his original instincts that Gabby was the one had been correct. But no. He’d been wrong. Again. And now he’d be kowtowing to Lucifer and his general until he could live this failure down.
“Hmm…obviously you are correct.”
Christos held his breath. Above him Lucifer rolled his shoulders, his wings unfurling to wrap around Christos’s prone form. Black. Suffocating. The burning smell of smoke and charred flesh. Christos’s ribs locked down, the putrid air trapped in his chest. A single thought was all it would take to end him.
The wings eased back and Christos worked hard not to gulp at the fresh air. A clawed finger stroked across his cheek, the action almost comforting if not for the indifference stamped in Lucifer’s nightmarish face. “It did work though, for a while, yes?”
“My lord?” Christos asked, unsure whether to be hopeful or worried by his liege lord’s question.
“Ah, my son…child of Lilith. How blind I have been.”
Before Christos could fathom what he meant, Lucifer plucked a transparent blade out of nothingness and plunged it into Christos’s gut. Christos screamed, his hand clenched over Lucifer’s on the hilt as his lord and master began to chant. Christos watched in disbelief as his blood wicked up the blade, seeping into it and staining it black.
The blade was yanked free. Christos gasped, falling back to the floor. With his hands clutched over the wound, he watched Lucifer raise the black knife over his head, twisting it this way and that as he mounted the carved steps to his throne. Christos squinted, trying to see through the dimming fog of pain, but it was so hard to see, the light around the knife seeming to seep right into the hungry blade.
“Oh yes. How blind indeed.” Lucifer reverently placed the black knife down on the arm of his throne before turning back and descending the stairs.
“Father?” Christos implored, his hand still clenched tight against the seeping wound. Surely his lord master would see to him now. Surely he would forgive him this simple mistake.
A flicker of annoyance crossed Lucifer’s face, his steps faltering, but then he grumbled something under his breath, waving his hand negligently at his son as he stopped before him.
The pain eased, the skin knitting back together beneath Christos’s hands. “Oh, thank you, thank you, my lord,” he gasped, struggling back to his feet despite the dizziness that still swept over him.
“Come, my son,” Lucifer said, stretching his right hand out to Christos. “There is much work to be done.”
The significance of Lucifer offering his right hand was not lost on Christos. Elation rose in his blackened heart, giving him the strength to grasp the offering. It wasn’t until Lucifer’s hand closed over his own, dragging him to him, and a second knife drove into his newly healed wound that he thought, perhaps, he should have questioned such a gift.
“Fear not, my son,” Lucifer attempted to soothe as he drew out the second blade and raised it over their heads. “I have finally discovered the purpose of your existence, don’t you see?”
And as Christos lifted his eyes he did see…Unfortunately, what he saw made him weep. Five blades after that, he’d stopped, but only because his efforts had changed to something new: wishing he’d never been re-born.