Page 98 of Caretaker

He screamed and stumbled backward, nearly stomping the motionless Clayton. And then, he turned and grabbed Clayton around the throat, holding him like a shield before him.

Clayton didn’t resist. He couldn’t. Miriam had made sure he’d stand still for the demon. I shoved my way past Angus and sprinted toward the enemy, Silverlight raised and ready.

We would fight until we couldn’t.

I attacked the demon’s legs, and again, he screamed, but he scurried backward before any of my men could get behind him, and he lifted Clayton high.

“Trinity, stop,” Miriam cried.

The demon smiled, his body flickering. He left once, for only a few seconds, and when he solidified once again, smoke wafted from what remained of Clayton’s clothes and patches of his skin had scorched and blackened. “I have reclaimed my incubus,” he told me, as we all stood staring helplessly. “And you wish to reclaim this thing. I’ll allow him to live if you give me Silverlight.”

Miriam clasped her hands over her chest, her eyes bright with glee.

“Miriam, what have you done?” I murmured. That was one question I’d been forced to ask too many times.

Then I understood. She was terrified of the incubus. She’d made a deal with the demon—he would claim the incubus and Silverlight, and she’d reclaim Clayton. Perhaps something had happened after she’d called Clayton from the island. Maybe the incubus had decided to rise up and fight, and she’d nearly lost her golem once again.

And she’d impaled me with her blades, knowing that I’d die when Silverlight was gone. She’d get Clayton, I would no longer be a threat, and all would be well. At least in her fucked up world.

“I have a better idea.” I walked to the demon, shrugging off Shane’s hand when he tried to hold me back. I was cold. So cold. “You will take Miriam back to hell with you, and you will keep her there. You will give Clayton to me.” I trembled, and my voice shook when I said the words I did not want to say. “And I will give you Silverlight.”

Clayton stiffened once again but was unable to voice his rejection of that idea. Miriam’s wicked, magical commands held him so tightly he couldn’t even speak.

The demon stared down at me, his expression considering, even as Miriam climbed his back like a deranged monkey and began whispering into his ear.

She didn’t believe he’d take my deal. Not until he did.

“Done,” he said.

Silverlight was going crazy. She brightened and dimmed and vibrated and danced up and down my arm, through my body, trying desperately to dislodge the blades in my back.

But I knew that even when she dislodged them, the odds of my survival were very, very low. She was inside me, keeping me alive, but she couldn’t stay there forever.

And Clayton deserved a shot at freedom. At life.

I think he was the only one of them—other than Miriam—who realized that giving Silverlight to the demon meant my death. The demon would know, but to him, it was a non-issue.

There was one other person who knew, and he crept through the night towards us, closer and closer to the demon.

Amias Sato.

He’d made me an offer once.

And after the demon released Clayton and I released my sword, I would accept it.

Because I wasn’t ready to die.

“Silverlight first,” the demon said, and as Miriam began to realize he was betraying her and tried to leap off his back, he grabbed her with his free hand.

Then everything happened at once. I whispered an apology to Silverlight, then released her and forced her to shrink into her sheath. And then, I hurled the sheath at the demon.

He dropped Clayton to catch it, his hand burning through Miriam’s flesh as she hung in his grip, trying to scream, but only burning, burning.

And Amias hurtled through the darkness like a heat-seeking missile.

Straight to me. “Get my fucking sword back,” I told him. “You can put your blood inside me and I will feed you.”

“Done,” he said, just as the demon had, and he flung himself away from me, with no time to spare. Because I was dying, and if he didn’t fetch my sword in minutes, all the blood in the world wouldn’t bring me back.

He didn’t waste time arguing that I needed to take his blood before he went after the sword. Maybe he knew I would not accept, or maybe he needed to go after Silverlight before the demon had time to stash her in hell. I didn’t know. I only knew that I’d counted on the fact that Amias would bring her back. He’d stolen her once. He would steal her again.

And I would allow him to save my life. I would allow him to put his blood inside me, and in the future when I died, I would come back as a vampire.

As I fell, Shane caught me. Angus shifted back to human form, roaring “No, no,” and Rhys crouched silently in the shadows, watching and waiting, and Leo held his glowing fists in the air, uncertain. Clayton sat up, dazed, disoriented, free.

Agonizing pain roared through me. The blades no longer tried to extract themselves. Silverlight was not there to absorb the pain, to protect me, to push out the knives. She couldn’t heal me. I’d given her to the demon.

I hoped she understood.