Red Blooded

Rourke rammed the snake’s head against the wall hard enough to shake it silly for a few precious seconds while he drove his other hand into the beast’s underbelly with so much force the hallway shook.

The thing shrieked like a pterodactyl.

One more concentrated punch to the belly and the beast opened up.

The orthrus stumbled, losing its footing as black sludge poured out of the wound. Without hesitation, Rourke stuck his hand farther into the mess.

“Be careful!” I covered my mouth and nose. The smell was ridiculous. “I hope the blood isn’t poisonous.”

“I found it.” Rourke’s jaw was clenched and fierce concentration lined his face. “Just… one second… more.” With a final yank, the beast’s insides flooded onto the ground in a huge splash.

The beast crumpled to the ground as its legs gave away. The boys and I jumped back as it fell. I glanced over at my mate, who was covered with the equivalent of black tar all the way up his arm and down the front of his chest.

He smiled grimly at me. “Sometimes all you need is strength concentrated in the right place.”

Tyler panted, leaning against the far wall away from the beast. “That was badass,” he said to Rourke. “I’m just glad it was you and not me who had to go there.”

Rourke grunted, sluicing the sludge off his arm with his other hand and flinging it to the ground. “You wouldn’t have been strong enough, wolf.” He grinned. “It took all my strength to get through that thing.”

Tyler stood straight up, ready to refute my mate until he saw the twinkle in Rourke’s eye. “Well,” Tyler said good-naturedly, “I concede it might’ve taken me a few more hits than it took you, but I would’ve gotten through. No doubt about it.”

“By that time, we all would’ve been dead,” Ray guffawed. “It’s nice and handy to have an ancient cat around when you need him.”

It was also nice to see my mate smile. It was a rare event. But it was time to get back to business. I turned to Lili. “You have one more chance to get this right. How do we get in?” I jabbed my thumb at the rock wall behind me.

“I don’t know,” she said, panic in her voice. She knew this was it. “If the door is here, it’s cloaked from me. I’ve sent my power out all over this wall to no avail. This is all very distressing.”

I walked over to where we’d stood before and placed my hands on the wall. “How do these walls seal themselves up like this?” There were no cracks in the stone. “It looks like nothing was ever here.”

“The walls are alive, much like the ones you saw with veins earlier. With a proper spell they will grow together in a matter of hours. It doesn’t take much coaxing,” she replied.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to coax it back open again.” I scoured the wall. Wait, did you sense that? My wolf had concentrated our power and tossed it outward. It had finally struck something. That something had a taste. And the taste was familiar. Good gods, how can this be?

I dropped my hands and turned around.

Selene was positioned farther down the hallway, leaning with her back against the tunnel, her head down. Rourke picked up on my unease.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’d you find?”

“Something has indeed spelled the wall, but unfortunately the signature is all too familiar.” I glanced down the hallway again. I cleared my voice. “Selene, have you been here recently? Did the Prince bring you here?”

Selene’s head came up. “What?”

“I asked you if you’d been in this hallway recently. Did the Prince task you to spell this wall?” I rapped it with my knuckle. It made sense the Prince would’ve used the only thing that might trump Lili’s magic or at least give it a run for its money.

Selene glanced around her like she’d just discovered she was down here. She shrugged. “How should I know? These tunnels all look the same to me. It’s like one big caveman subway system around here. I’ve been through plenty of them during my stay in the land of awful.”

“Selene, I’m asking you because I detect your spell signature in this wall. But it’s a little… off.” I had no other way to explain it.

“What do you mean off? What’s wrong with it?” Ray asked, moving forward and placing his hand on the wall.

“I’m not sure, but it feels like an echo of some kind,” I said.

Selene pushed off the wall and came forward. She placed her palms on the hard surface and gasped. “That’s not my magic.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. No two magics were ever the same. “Selene, this feels too close to yours to be someone else’s. I’ve felt your magic firsthand.” I probed along the wall again to make sure. “The spell is red, just like your signature. Everything about it is yours. It’s just not as… precise.” Maybe the Prince had tapped her to do it after he’d had most of her magic drained?

She dropped her hand. “It’s not mine.” Her voice held a dull ring.

I turned to Lili, who had her brows drawn. “What gives?” I asked.

A dark look came over Lili’s face. “He must have made a clone.”

18

“Please run that by me again,” I demanded. “A clone of Selene? How is that possible?”

“The results are… unpredictable at best, but we do have the technology and magic to make a demon clone,” Lili answered as she turned toward an emotionally deadened Selene, who had taken a few steps back. “It makes more sense to me now why you are like you are.” She ran her eyes over Selene’s body. “Clones are made directly from your power and magic—like sucking the life out and leaving a shell—but when the demons finished making the clone, I’m certain you were supposed to die, but somehow you prevailed. I had not thought it possible to survive a cloning, so I never even suspected it.”

Ray whistled. “That’s a pretty shitty way to go, but it explains why she’s still here.” By the inflection in his voice, I could tell I wasn’t the only one who felt a little sorry for the villain in our midst. That made me feel better. Selene had basically caused Ray’s brutal death by convincing Eamon she loved him, so if he could find a way to forgiver her—any of us could. It made me immensely proud of him.

If Ray managed to hold on to his humanness, as I did, I believed he would fare much better in the long run.