Chapter 18

The bliss of unconsciousness didn't last nearly as long as I would've liked.

So much pain, everything, everywhere, the instant my brain woke up again, and I wanted to curl in and die and tuck it into my center and smother it, but I couldn't move a single splatted muscle.

My eyelids lifted for a second. Raven, his hair hanging down over me, his black eyes so wide the whites were showing, tears falling like crystal jewels.

He was yelling into my face, sobbing, braced on my chest.

Not hurt.

Not dead. I'd kept him on top of me, and I'd broken his fall. A human might still have been badly hurt, but the fae were pretty resilient by comparison.

Thank the gods. The pain didn't stop, but I remembered why I'd welcomed it.

Raven. The pain crested as my bones started to knit, my organs repairing themselves, my lungs finally sucking in a bubbling, labored, choking breath of air.

I was gargling my own blood, fucking gross, and I managed to turn my head and cough it out, wracking agony in my chest as I did.

No sensation from my legs, because of that broken spine, but the stabbing torment in my vertebrae suggested that it'd started to heal.

Not quickly enough, because they'd be following. Chasing us down the stairs. Precious seconds lost to this bullshit.

"Tony, Tony, please," Raven's voice finally coalesced into words through the screeching pain in my skull. "You fucking idiot. Tony!"

Gods, he sounded so terrified. For me, and that was both the best and the worst thing ever.

My throat had cleared enough for speech, maybe. I worked the muscles, coughed again, forced my eyes open. Raven caught me by the chin and turned my head, peering down at me. So beautiful. Worth all of it. And in a second, I'd get up off my broken ass and get him out of here.

But when I did manage to speak, all that came out was, "Ow."

"Ow," Raven repeated, in a tone of disbelief. And then his chin lifted and he drew himself up. "Fuck you. Up! Now! Move!"

He scrambled to his feet, and the lack of his usual fluid grace worried me, but then I couldn't think about that anymore, because he'd shoved an arm under my shoulders and heaved, and every nerve in my body fired at once, and I twisted into knots again, letting out a very not-stoic groan.

Raven whispered a few odd, sibilant words, and his magic twined around me, tugging on all my limbs.

Oh, that was strange, because I was moving—up, as he pulled on me, as if I'd suddenly lost about a hundred pounds of weight.

Raven dragged me to my feet, wrapped his arms around me, and began lurching and stumbling us through a propped-open door, out of the stairwell and into a parking garage. The garage, the car…

"There's a car," I mumbled. "A c-car. I had a…" Fuck, I couldn't get my throbbing brain to function. Concussion. That'd be healing too, but not fast enough, and I could hear the sounds of pursuit, the shouts and rapid footsteps from the stairwell.

"Move faster," Raven gasped. "You're alive, you can walk. Fuck. A car, yes, thank you for that brilliant idea," and there was a car in front of us, a sleek black luxury vehicle in a line of other sleek black luxury vehicles. Cunningham's. Shit. Not Sean's car, not that I'd have been able to find it in this state.

Raven propped me against the side, panting for breath, got the back door open, and toppled me through it with no ceremony at all.

I faceplanted into a leather seat, nearly lost consciousness again, and couldn't help at all as he stuffed my legs in and then slammed the door.

A moment later, he flung himself into the driver's seat, said something else in his own language, and the engine revved to life. Fairy magic. Now there was a way to hotwire a car that had never occurred to me.

As he screeched into reverse, I flopped down into the footwell, my face mashed into the edge of the seat, blood smearing fucking everywhere. And then he gunned it, tires squealing, shouts of alarm and three gunshots ringing out as we peeled out of the garage. Or at least I assumed we had, by the rending crash of what had to be one of those barrier gates breaking over the hood, and the violent scrape of the suspension as we swung crazily to the right.

A chorus of honks broke out around us, and Raven punched it.

"Tony! Are you still alive?"

Trying to pull myself up onto the seat again was taking all my attention and effort, but I mumbled something that could've been a yes, and Christ, this was impossible, digging my claws into the seat for leverage, managing to get sort of onto my knees as the car swerved and weaved, more honks breaking out, and a few screams. I was kind of glad I couldn't see anything from my angle.

"Good, because I need you to tell me where to go—oh no, hold on—" A wild, spinning turn to the left flung me back down into the footwell, and I lay there, gasping, everything feeling like it'd broken all over again, and gave up on moving for now. "Where are we going? Now, please?"

"You should've left me," I managed.

"Not helpful," he gritted out. "And not possible. There's no going back now."

No, there really wasn't. Louie. We needed to get to…he had an office, but at this time of night, he was always in a shitty strip club way out past the end of the glamorous part of Vegas. I managed to mumble the name of the place and the intersection, and then I breathed deep, focusing every bit of energy I had on healing.

Raven slowed down slightly, but he still drove like a maniac, changing lanes and gears with reckless abandon. Beautiful. Magical. Brave and resilient. Quick-witted and loyal. And he handled the car like a professional getaway driver, to boot.

Fuck me. That spreading warmth in my chest, the smile I couldn't suppress even though smiling hurt…it couldn't be anything else. I'd already known, but I'd been trying not to give it a name. Now I simply couldn't deny it.

"Gods, I love you," I said into the torn-up leather of the back seat.

The car gave a lurch, quickly corrected. "What the fuck did you just say to me?" he demanded. "You can't possibly have said what I heard!"

Something in my abdomen felt like it flipped over and strangled something else, a crescendo of agony that had me clenching my teeth and arching my back in a rictus. Everything faded for a second, blurred, came back after a moment, with more blood pooling in my mouth. I'd bitten my tongue, fucking damn it. On the other hand, I probably had one more organ functioning again. Healing like this was a bitch, zero out of ten, would not recommend.

What had he…I blinked into the semi-darkness of the footwell. Right. He needed clarification.

"Then I'll say it again," I said. "I love you. I love the way you drive. I love everything about you."

Raven didn't reply. Well, that was kind of discouraging.

He cursed a lot, though, and I couldn't tell if it was directed at me or at all the other drivers trying to survive being on the road with him.

By the time he jerked to a stop a few uncommunicative minutes later, I'd healed enough to hoist myself up onto the seat, breathing easier and able to think clearly, at least, if still battered enough to look and feel like I'd gone a few rounds with an angry meat grinder.

We were in the parking lot of Louie's club, flashing neon pink lighting giving the interior of the car a surreal glow. My eyes met Raven's in the rearview mirror. His were black pools, reflecting pink. On. Off. Pink again.

"I lost them for now," he said, continuing to completely ignore the whole I love everything about you thing. "But these cars all have GPS tracking. They'll be here soon. So what now?"

"Now we go find Louie. He's inside. I hope. And you make a deal."

Raven grimaced and got out of the car without another word.

I followed him more slowly, but my strength had finally started to return now that most of the major damage to my body had healed. We limped the few yards to the door of the club, where a pair of bouncers stood staring, their cigarettes dangling forgotten from their fingers.

"Oh, hell to the no," one of them said, and the other stepped forward and added, with more bravado than common sense, "Get the fuck out of here before I call the cops. You can't come in here like that."

Right. I was naked, covered with nothing but healing abrasions and blood.

I was also out of patience and time in a way that I couldn't even begin to put into words. Instead, I extended my claws and flexed my hands. Both the bouncers took a step back.

"Go ahead," I snarled, pretty confident in that offer. I'd been in this place a couple of times, and my professional eye had caught more than a few things the LVPD would've enjoyed levying heavy fines for, if not arresting everyone on the spot. "We're here to see Louie. You going to stop me?"

"I don't get paid enough for this shit," the first bouncer muttered.

The other remained silent.

"That's what I thought," I said, and Raven and I walked past them and pushed open the door.

The pounding music and flashing lights hit like an assault, but I pushed ahead, past a cocktail waitress who leapt out of the way with a cry of surprise, through another bouncer whom I simply pushed into a booth, and around several tables of drunk guys and topless girls, who all whooped with laughter.

Louie always held court at the best booth near the far wall, a big circular table with a commanding view of the whole place.

He had a couple of goons with him, and they both crowded forward, starting to protest, while Louie himself, bald pate and gold chains gleaming in the lights from the stage, went still, drink halfway to his mouth.

"I'm here to pay you," I called over the music, looking only at him and ignoring his men. "All of it, and then some."

Louie stared for a moment longer, shook his head, and started to laugh. "Let him through," he said, and his guys glanced at each other, clearly unhappy, but stood aside.

Raven slid in first, opposite Louie, and I started to sit down next to him.

"Fuck no!" Louie said. "Your naked ass doesn't go anywhere near my velvet seats."

My distaste for Dominic's jock strap and the locker room couch at Lucky or Knot flashed through my mind, and for the first and probably last time ever, I sympathized with Louie.

"Fine," I said, and leaned down and braced my fists on the table instead. Let the goons ogle my naked ass instead. Not like I wasn't used to it. "You're talking to him, anyway." I gestured at Raven, who looked up at me, lips tight and jaw set.

Come on, get it together , that look seemed to say. I need my straight line, and we're in a hurry . I turned back to Louie, heart pounding. I'd staked everything on this throw of the dice. Everything for me, and everything for Raven. Cunningham's furious security were about to bust through the door any minute. Our lives depended on my getting this right.

No fucking pressure or anything.

"When we talked yesterday, you said you owned me," I told Louie. Only yesterday? Years, it felt like. Jesus. "He's going to buy me."

Louie's eyebrows rose, and he took a long drink of his cocktail. "Buy him?" he said at last, laughing again, turning his attention to Raven. "Why? And with what, pretty boy? You got a suitcase full of cash hidden in those tight pants?"

My fists itched with the urge to knock that leer right off his smug face, but Raven drew himself up, back straight, chin lifted, eyes glittering dangerously, every inch a powerfully magical fae confident in his superiority. Even with his hair a tangled, matted mess, his clothing torn and disheveled, and the healing cuts and bruises, he managed to leave no doubt of what he was.

I could've kissed him. And a lot more than kissed him. Would he kill me if I took a moment to tell him again that I loved him? Yeah, probably.

"My kind deal in less vulgar payments than suitcases," he said, voice crisp and hard and cold, somehow making the word suitcase sound like the kind of thing only a peasant would use. Louie wilted visibly, his cheeks going red. "I will give you this."

He took his hand from under the table and laid it on the table palm-up.

And there was the coin. Louie and I both stared at it, our attention riveted, mine in wonder and Louie's in avarice more naked than my ass. It practically glowed, more golden than any gold had ever been, the other side of it that I hadn't seen before exposed: a raven with its wings outspread.

Of course. I'd wondered why the coin had called to him so potently that he'd been willing to give himself to Cunningham to possess it, but how could he have resisted magical fairy gold that bore the image of his namesake?

The coin looked much bigger than it had before, nearly covering Raven's palm, and thicker, too, heavier. A light buzzing started in my ears, in my brain, a tickle inside my skull, a hum below the spectrum of normal human or even shifter hearing. Warmth, satisfaction, eagerness.

As if the coin wanted this. As if it approved. As if we'd finally figured out the right answer that it'd been trying to lead us to all this time.

Apparently, even this piece of magical metal thought I was a little slow on the uptake.

"This was crafted in my own world by a fae workman," Raven said. "An artifact of great value beyond its weight in gold. Even melted down for its price by the ounce, it would be worth more than the debt he owes you. But I strongly recommend you don't try to do that, because it would work out very badly for you," he added, with typical fairy understatement and a strong overtone of fairy threat. "I will give it to you free and clear and resign all ownership of it. In trade, you will give me Tony, and renounce any claim over him in the future."

Louie shook himself like a dog clearing water from his ears and tore his gaze away from the coin with a visible effort, looking up at me.

"You got anything to say about this?" he asked, unexpectedly—because I wouldn't have imagined that Louie would have any moral qualms about making a deal to sell me into fae slavery. "You okay with this guy buying you?"

Would I be okay with Raven owning me, body and soul, until the end of time? What a stupid fucking thing to ask.

I glanced down at Raven and met his gaze. Also questioning, even though I had no idea why he'd have any doubt. Hadn't I already given my answer in the car?

"Yep," I said, not bothering to even look at Louie. Raven's eyes. He already owned me, and this was nothing more than a fairy technicality. Maybe the coin had known that all along. "Fine with me."

The faintest flicker passed over Raven's sharp features. Relief, maybe. Maybe more than that.

"Do you accept the bargain?" Raven said, turning back to Louie. "Do we have a deal?"

"You people can't lie about stuff like this," Louie said. "Right?" Raven nodded. Debatable, and I could've given him some pretty pungent opinions on that subject, but in this case, what Louie didn't know probably wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass before Raven and I were long gone. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, and all that. "Then we have a deal."

Louie reached out, fingers practically twitching with eagerness. Raven delicately laid the coin in his hand, fastidiously making sure not to touch him.

The moment he lost contact with the coin, something in the air shifted.

Like a pressure change, an oncoming storm. Or maybe a storm passing, the clouds drifting apart, the sun shining out, a fresh breeze whisking all the darkness away.

And I could've sworn I heard a weird, high, mocking laugh.

It had worked. I knew it down to my bones. My crazy, idiotic idea had actually gods-damned worked .

Louie's hand closed around the coin, and everything went back to normal. Mostly. Because there was something inside me, centered on a part of me that didn't have a name or a physical location, a tug…it felt like the leash Axel had used, only lighter and sweeter, not a burden at all. It wasn't pulling me, exactly. More orienting me toward Raven. Like when you turned a compass, and the little hand swung around toward north no matter how you moved its container.

Actually, it felt kind of like a gentler version of how I'd always heard other shifters describe a mating bond.

Well, fuck me sideways. Raven surely hadn't anticipated that. But being tied to me had to be better than being tied to Cunningham, right? Especially when this magic clearly flowed the other direction, signifying Raven's ownership rather than the reverse.

I turned to Raven, drinking in the slight smile teasing the corners of his mouth, the wonder on his face, the way he suddenly looked like he'd shed a two-ton weight, opening my mouth to…I didn't get a chance to find out. At that moment, screams broke out at the front of the club, and I whirled around, claws already sprouting, to see a dozen men with guns pouring into the room with Arnold Cunningham in their midst.