“Andy… what happened? Where’s Darrak?” She turned in a circle. “Darrak! Where are you?”
Andy tilted his muzzle back and howled mournfully.
And then she just knew.
Darrak wasn’t here. He’d been trapped inside the office by the spell. He couldn’t possess Andy since he was a shifter. Darrak had nowhere to go when he lost solid form.
He was gone and she hadn’t felt a thing. Nothing. She’d felt nothing. Not even when she’d woken up — not even a twinge of pain to signify what had happened.
But she felt the pain now.
“Sweetie,” her mother said from the doorway. “Come on, let’s leave. Get a good night’s sleep. Things will be better tomorrow.”
“Things will be better tomorrow?” she managed. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done here?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “Something that should have been done weeks ago.”
“It’ll be okay now,” her mother soothed. “And… uh, why’s there a big scary-looking dog in here? Where’s Andy?”
A moment later, the glass door shattered into a million pieces. Caroline shrieked.
Eden turned to face her mother and Ben, the two people who’d taken Darrak away from her. They’d decided to save her from the demon who possessed her and they’d gone ahead and destroyed him.
“I’m going to kill both of you. Right now.”
Power surged into her hands. Lucas once told her that using black magic to kill a mortal would turn her soul jet-black. She’d be hellbound with no chance for redemption.
At this moment, she honestly couldn’t care less. Darrak was gone, and it felt as if her heart had been torn right out of her chest.
She did love him — utterly and completely. But she’d been afraid to admit the depth of her feelings for him, even to herself. She hadn’t known how she’d truly felt until it was too late.
He was gone, and nothing else felt like it mattered anymore.
“Don’t, Eden.” Ben held his hands up. “We did this to help you!”
“I loved him. And you took him away from me, you self-righteous son of a bitch. I want you to suffer. I want to watch you bleed.”
“Eden!” Caroline snapped. “Don’t do this. He was a damn demon who’d corrupted your soul. How could we not do anything we had to do to help you?”
“He wasn’t just a demon. Not to me.” Her voice was eerily quiet. The flood of black magic had given her that much — cold, emotionless resolve. “He was everything. He was a part of me. And now there’s a hole where my heart used to be — a wide, gaping chasm of darkness.”
“Oh, don’t be so damn melodramatic,” Caroline snapped. “And don’t aim that nasty magic toward us. I raised you better than that.”
In another life, another universe, that might have made her laugh.
Andy whined, and gently tugged at the corner of her shirt. It was enough to snap her slightly out of her bloodthirsty and mindless need for vengeance.
Tears slid down her cheeks. “See? I knew you were going to make a nice werewolf.”
He nudged her magic-filled hands with the top of his furry head.
She shook her head. “I can’t help it. I need to do something or I think I might die over this. All I have left is my magic.”
He nudged her again.
Andy didn’t want her to do anything she was going to regret. Using this magic, feeling the way she was, it wouldn’t end well. For anyone.
“Damn it.” She took a deep breath and pushed back against the power at her disposal, the darkness that threatened to overtake her if she waded too much deeper into it. The moment she did, the steely, calm reserve she’d had a tentative hold on peeled away and all she felt was raw pain.
Her stomach lurched violently. She managed to make it to the washroom before she threw up. The flu had been waiting for this exact moment before it decided to make its presence known in full force. One more thing for her to deal with.
It took her a while before she cleaned herself up, ignoring her churning gut and her puffy, red-ringed eyes in the mirror. She expected to be alone when she entered the office again, the cold wind moving in through the broken glass door. Ben was gone now — smart guy — but her mother still stood there.
Eden cast her a dark look. “Go away if you know what’s good for you.”
Caroline wrung her hands. “You just puked.”
“The flu’s been circling me for days. I hardly ever get sick like that.”
“The only time I ever had bad nausea like that was when I was pregnant with you.”
She wanted to be alone. “Not really in the mood for a walk down memory lane right now.”
“So what do you think you’re going to—?”
“Leave,” Eden growled. “I don’t want to see you again. Ever. Get it? Ever. I hate you.”
Caroline flinched as if she’d been hit, but she wasn’t stupid. She finally got the hint and slinked out of the office, leaving Eden and Andy alone. Eden’s knees gave out and she crumpled to the ground, cold and empty and not sure what she was supposed to do next.
Andy sat down next to her. She could feel the heat from his large furry body.
A hot tear slid down her cheek. “I loved him, Andy. I didn’t even realize how much. More than anything. Anything. And he’s gone forever.”
He whined again and pawed at her leg.
Eden slid her hand over her stomach, hating the thought that she was getting sick, especially now.
Then she went very quiet. There was no sound at all except the thud of her heart in the cool, silent office.
“The only time I ever had bad nausea like that was when I was pregnant with you.”
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t.
But Eden suddenly knew with total and complete clarity that it was true. She wasn’t nauseous because she was coming down with the flu.
“Oh, my God,” she said out loud. “I’m pregnant.”
Ben wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Maybe shock for a bit, followed by an outpouring of gratitude as Eden realized she’d been saved from a fate worse than death by two people who cared about her.
He was such a fool.
“I need to go,” he said to Caroline outside of Triple-A. The front window of the van was cracked down the center from Eden’s surge of magic that had made his blood run cold with fear. The rental agency wouldn’t be happy about that but at the moment he couldn’t care less.
Despite his initial reluctance, he’d teamed up with this drifter — a wandering soul inside a stolen human body. Together, with the same goal, it had felt so right. But now it felt wrong.
Everything felt wrong.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Caroline told him. “She’ll see that in time.”
Even she didn’t sound so sure about that anymore.
Ben’s throat felt thick. “I have your number. I’ll call you later to make sure you’re okay.”
He drove away, barely able to focus on the road. All he saw was the look on Eden’s face when she realized Darrak was gone. She’d been a study in grief, in rage. He’d seen emotion that strong before. It was when someone lost a loved one in a senseless tragedy.
There was no arguing with it anymore. Eden had loved Darrak. Truly loved him. And that love had not been forged out of something vile or impure as Ben had always believed. It was as real as anything he’d ever witnessed.
Eden had been ready to kill him and Caroline on the spot for what they’d done, but she’d let them walk away. He was still surprised by that.
Ben drove to the Malleus headquarters. He had a meeting with Oliver.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Oliver said. He had a large, richly decorated office, done in shades of gray, silver, and black, and he was seated behind a large black lacquered desk with his fingers templed in front of him.