Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Seeing his mate alive and well—albeit injured—made something in Keenan settle even as a need for vengeance crept through him and infiltrated every cell in his body. He wanted to haul her to him and kiss her hard, but that could wait. It would have to wait. Even his demon, who was desperate to reach and touch her, understood that.

He noticed Asher’s partial form wink out just as Ciaran and Jolene teleported to Khloé’s side. The female Prime instantly slammed up her shield to protect them, blocking the barrage of death orbs that came their way.

Ciaran emitted a powerful blast of telekinetic energy that flattened his targets. Only Enoch, protected by his forcefield, remained on his feet.

You keep her safe, Keenan ordered Jolene, resisting the urge to wade through the corpses and get to Khloé’s side. He wanted to pile the pressure on Enoch by striking at him from another angle.

Don’t worry, Jolene told him. Enoch can’t reach her.

As a unit, they attacked the motherfucker and his puppets. Pure mayhem commenced. Balls of hellfire, death orbs, and ripples of telekinetic power zoomed around the large space. Old elixir bottles smashed or exploded. Tables and chairs broke or splintered. Patches of rot and scorch marks stained the walls and floor.

The crowd of corpses soon divided. Most headed for Khloé, Jolene, and Ciaran, but the others came at Keenan, attacking with balls of hellfire. One clipped his shoulder, burning his tee and eating at his flesh. Another hit his solar plexus so hard it was like a scorching hot fist slammed into his chest and knocked the breath from his body.

His demon roared in anger, flexing its fists. Winded and clenching his teeth against the pain of his flesh charring and peeling away, Keenan retaliated with hellfire orbs of his own—his were hotter, more lethal.

The whole time, he kept a mental eye on Khloé. She was a force to be fucking reckoned with, tossing out waves, beams, and bullets of electric fire—making both him and his demon proud as fucking hell, even as they worried for her.

Enoch repeatedly targeted her, despite the fact that she was safely behind Jolene’s shield—as if he hoped that by attacking said shield hard enough, he’d eventually crack it.

The corpses’ numbers dropped fast. The blinded ones slumped to the floor. But, unhampered by pain or emotion, the rest forged onward, no matter how horribly wounded they were. Keenan could almost taste the sickening scents of rot, blood, seared flesh, charred wood, and burned rancid meat.

Tossing flaming orbs at the remaining puppets, he inched closer to Enoch and exuded dark pheromones that would fuck with his system and make the bastard feel sick, disoriented, and afraid. It took a few minutes for the pheromones to truly take hold, but Keenan saw the moment when Enoch fell victim to their effects. Sweat beaded his forehead, the color drained from his face, and his hands began to shake.

His forcefield didn’t falter. Yet. But it would.

Tanner’s hound charged into the saloon with a throaty snarl and crashed into the crowd of corpses. A millisecond later, Harper, Knox, Levi, and the hellhound rushed through the front door, their expressions hard as stone.

Tell me the puppets outside are out of commission, Keenan said to Knox as his lair members joined the attack.

They’re out, confirmed the Prime.

The air burned hot with the stream of fire that flowed from Knox’s palm, lighting up corpse after corpse. Harper lifted small objects, infused them with hellfire, and hurled them at their enemies’ heads while Tanner’s hound ravaged them with claws and teeth. Levi joined Jolene and Ciaran in attacking with telekinesis—lifting corpses and bashing their heads on the floor or against the walls.

The air rang with the sounds of electric fire crackling, hellfire spitting, wood splintering, corpses grunting and gargling, and voices crying out in pain or anger.

Enoch’s puppets stood no chance against so many foes. It was a massacre, really. Finally, all of them littered the floor, along with bits of skull, bone, and brain matter and, of course, the bodies of Thea, Gavril, and his two sentinels.

Only Enoch remained alive, still safe within his damn forcefield. A forcefield that was finally beginning to weaken. Sweat was pouring off Enoch who, his neck corded and his expression fierce, was clearly struggling to keep up the shield. But he was keeping it up—that was the problem. Even though he’d vomited twice and was obviously tiring, he’d held out.

Keenan reached out to his Prime again. The bastard’s stronger than I gave him credit for. Look, I know why you don’t call on the flames of hell in front of outsiders, I get why you won’t publicly confirm you possess that ability—hell, we’re in this situation with Gavril because people worry you possess it—but we need Enoch dead.

Don’t worry, Keenan, I won’t let your mate die, was Knox’s only response. Translation: he’d call on the flames if it seemed to be the only way to kill Enoch, but he’d give Khloé the chance to kill the fucker with the blade first.

Keenan ground his teeth. He understood, he did, but—

His heart jumped as Thea suddenly appeared behind Khloé, much as she had earlier at the stadium. This time, though, she held a jagged piece of glass to his mate’s throat. Fuck, he’d thought she was dead. His demon rumbled a growl, slinking closer to the surface.

“Oh, I really wouldn’t move if I were you,” Thea told her.

Everyone went still, raring to act but hesitant to risk that Thea would slice his mate’s throat. And Keenan knew the little bitch would happily do it and then teleport away. He guessed the only reason she hadn’t already done it was that she’d rather hand his mate over to Enoch—someone who’d make her suffer both in life and in death. Hell, Thea would probably teleport herself, Enoch, Khloé, and Lane—wherever the kid was hiding—out of there. Shit.

Khloé didn’t look in the slightest bit nervous. In fact, she seemed more exasperated than anything else. “Can’t you see we’re busy here, Thea?”

Stay still, Keenan told his mate. We’ll make our move once she gives us an opening.

Enoch let out a darkly satisfied chuckle. “Bring her to me,” he told Thea.

Thea smiled, but then that smile faltered and she blinked hard. Her hand slowly and mechanically moved away from Khloé’s throat. She’d seized Thea’s mind, he realized.

His imp instantly spun and gripped her attacker by the head. Blue/amber flickers of electric fire hissed and snapped beneath the imp’s palms. Thea’s eyes rolled back in her head, and then she slumped to the ground, convulsing with the shockwaves of electric fire that coursed through her body. Finally, she went still. Dead.

Thank. Fuck.

While her inner demon all but laughed in delight, Khloé looked at Enoch and felt her mouth curve. “Seems like you’ve lost your last ally. How very sad for you.”

With a growl of rage, the Lazarus demon fired more death orbs at her grandmother’s shield. They seemed stronger, darker … as if powered by his fury. Khloé gasped when a crack formed in Jolene’s shield. And another crack. And another. Fuck. She hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to penetrate the shield. But then, Jolene’s shield had never taken such a beating from him before.

Khloé pulled the blade out of her boot but didn’t throw it. She had to get the timing just right. Keenan, I need you to distract Enoch from slamming up another forcefield so I can stab him with this blade. I’ll probably only get one chance.

Make your move, and then I’ll make mine, said Keenan.

Khloé lifted her trembling hand and let out a surge of electric fire that surrounded Enoch’s forcefield. With a mere gesture of her hand, the construction severed, and Keenan tossed a hellfire orb at Enoch’s side, making him flinch and curse. It was the distraction she needed.

Her heart hammering in her chest, she hurled the blade fast. It found its home right in his fucking eye, sinking all the way through to his brain … but not before he tossed another death orb at Khloé. It sailed through the air just as Jolene’s shield cracked again and—oh God—went down. The orb smacked Khloé’s face and poured up her nose and into her mouth.

Motherfucker. She fell to her knees, coughing and heaving, just as Enoch burst into a cloud of ashes. This time, the ashes didn’t fly away. They floated to the floor.

Unable to catch her breath, she tried sucking in air, but it was as if her airways were blocked. Her body jerked as Ciaran slapped her back. His power rushed inside her and seemed to blow air into her lungs. The force within her reached to meld with his power, but it couldn’t. It wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t strong enough.

The death essence powered the infection in her body, and she could almost feel the protective shields around her organs begin to crumble. Panicked, her demon went absolutely fucking ballistic.

Warm hands cradled her face just as her vision swam. “Baby?” Keenan’s voice was thick with fear. “Fuck, you’re going to be fine. You are.”

No, she wasn’t. “Keenan,” she rasped. The world began to spin and fade as the darkness came to swallow her. Then she passed out.

*

Sitting on a chair in his crowded bedroom, Keenan stared at the woman lying on the bed. Despair stabbed his gut and sliced through his heart, the emotion so strong and consuming it was like a living entity inside him. It threatened to drown him, to wipe away every bit of his sanity.

His elbows braced on the mattress, he held Khloé’s hand between his, his thumb pressed against the pulse on her wrist. The back of his throat ached, and it hurt to swallow.

She felt cold to the touch. Too cold. Too still. Too … lifeless.

Khloé was all spirit and laughter and mischief. Now, though, she was so deathly pale he was surprised her heart still beat. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her lips seemed to have whitened. Worse, her pulse was so weak it was a wonder he could detect it.

Her body was shutting down. He knew it. They all knew it. And there was fuck all they could do about it. The infection had now settled into Khloé’s organs and it was systematically killing her.

Tears stung the back of his eyes, clogged his throat, and tightened his chest, but the tears didn’t fall. He never cried. The Ramsbrook staff had beaten that out of him.

The air in the room was thick with anguish and hopelessness, and it almost hurt to breathe it in. His bedroom was packed with people—many from Khloé’s lair, many from his. Some spoke in hushed tones, some quietly wept, some paced and sniped at others.

No one tried to give him false assurances. He was glad of that. Because he was pretty sure he’d explode on anyone who tried it.

He was conscious of the time ticking away. She was weakening with every minute that passed, taking him that little bit closer to losing her. A profound loneliness hovered at the edges of his being, ready to swallow him whole. His world would be a dark, cold place without her. It wasn’t a world he had any interest in living in.

A debilitating grief smothered him and made his ribs feel too tight. He’d always believed that he’d find some way to save her. He’d had to believe it. So he’d stayed positive and held onto hope.

That hope had vanished.

Now, he felt defeated. Drained. Flayed open right down to his soul.

His demon was still and silent, angry at the situation; angry that it was helpless to save her; angry that the universe would take her from it. It wanted to rant and rave and scorch the Earth. Maybe Levi sensed that, because he stuck close to him, a silent pillar of support.

Keenan wanted to tell him to leave. He wanted to tell them all to leave. He wanted to be left alone with her. The only thing stopping him from emptying the room was that he knew she wouldn’t have wanted him to deprive her loved ones of these last moments with her.

Sick to his stomach, Keenan squeezed his eyes shut. To think that he’d held back from her for so long, to think he’d wasted all that time they could have spent together …

His shoulders bowed. Part of him was irrationally angry with her for leaving him, and he hated that part of himself.

Hearing the scrape of wood on wood, he opened his eyes to see that Teague had moved his chair to the other side of the bed. The hellhorse watched her, his eyes as vacant as those of Enoch’s puppets. The guy looked numb—probably with shock and despair.

Strangely, Teague’s presence didn’t piss off Keenan or his demon. Maybe it was because they were both buried too deep in anguish to care about anything other than the woman lying so still on the bed.

Keenan pressed a kiss to her hand. She didn’t stir. She hadn’t responded to anyone since she’d passed out—not even telepathically.

That awful moment when she’d toppled to the saloon floor like a dead weight … fuck. He kept mentally replaying it over and over, as if his subconscious was determined to torture him with it.

“There are so many powerful demons in this room,” said Teague. “Yet not one of them—hell, not even all our power put together—could heal her. How is that fucking fair?”

Keenan met the man’s eyes, knowing his own gaze was flat and dead. “It isn’t,” he said around the thick lump clogging his throat. None of it was fucking fair. If anyone deserved to live a long, happy, fulfilling life, it was Khloé.

“I tried to help her.” Ciaran’s voice wavered, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “It usually works. Why didn’t it work?” he asked no one in particular.

Jolene put a hand on his back. “Because she was weak from the infection and the battle.” Her eyes grew wet. “You don’t bear any blame here, Ciaran. No one in this room does.”

Keenan disagreed. If Knox had just called on the flames of hell when Keenan had asked, this would not have happened. Yes, she’d still be infected, but they might have had time to find some way to heal her. Now, they’d run out of time.

“We got to her as fast as we could,” Jolene added.

“But not fast enough.” Harper’s lips trembled, and she pressed them tight together. He’d never seen his female Prime look frail. Not until right then, as she leaned into her own mate with silent tears dripping down her ashen face. Larkin stood at her other side, rubbing the sphinx’s back, her own eyes red and puffy.

Penelope blew her nose on a tissue. “I can’t lose her, Richie. I can’t lose another child.”

His shoulders tight, Richie rested a comforting hand on her shoulder but didn’t speak. His mate stood at Penelope’s other side, stroking her arm, clearly sensing how close the woman was to breaking.

Penelope fisted her tissue. “There must be someone who can do something.”

“If there is, we never managed to find them,” Devon whispered, as if her voice lacked strength. She buried her face in Tanner’s chest and wept.

“What about Vivian?” Penelope persisted. “Can’t she build more protective shields around Khloé’s organs?”

Wiping her wet cheeks with her fingers, Jolene shook her head. “Vivian said it’s too late for that. The infection has progressed too far. Khloé won’t …” She took in a shaky breath.

Penelope narrowed her eyes at the Prime. “You were supposed to protect her. You said you would. You promised me you would.”

Jolene’s eyes fell shut. “And I failed.”

“No,” Martina cut in, clutching Beck as if he was the only thing keeping her on her feet. “You didn’t fail, Mom. Enoch was just too powerful.”

“Fucking Lazarus demons always are,” Beck gritted out. “Which is why he never should have been allowed to join our lair,” spat Penelope. “He shouldn’t have—”

“I know you’re looking for someone to blame, Penelope, but that’s not going to help. Nothing is going to help.” Richie cleared his throat. “At this point, there’s nothing we can do except be with Khloé during her final moments,” he said, unshed tears in his hoarse voice.

Penelope lifted her chin. “I don’t accept that. No. I refuse to accept it. She’s going to live. She is.”

Meredith touched her hair. “Penelope …” It was a soft entreaty.

A sob wracked Penelope. The strength seemed to leave her legs in an instant, and she dropped to the floor, wailing. Richie and Meredith crouched beside her, just as broken.

Keenan couldn’t bring himself to feel for them. A strange apathy had taken him over. Maybe it had also settled into Teague, because the hellhorse paid them no attention. He was hyper-focused on Khloé, as if staring at her hard enough might just wake her.

Keenan wished that were the case. He took in a long breath, and his chest expanded, but the tightness remained. Resting his forehead on the cool hand he still held between his own, he closed his eyes.

Conversation continued around him, but he tuned it out, concentrating on the weak, unsteady pulse that beat against his thumb. Even as it weakened, there was something comforting about it.

“Keenan?”

He tensed at the sound of Knox’s voice. The Prime had moved closer to him, but Levi stood between them—a good thing, because the thought of punching Knox was far too fucking tempting.

Keenan couldn’t even look at him as he said, “Not now.” Bile burned the back of his throat. “It would be better if you left.” Because the moment his mate’s heart stopped beating, sheer rage would take Keenan over. He’d lash out for sure, and he’d lash out at the one person who could have prevented the second death orb from hitting her if he’d just called on the flames of hell to begin with.

Female arms surrounded Keenan from behind. Harper. Her shoulders were shaking with silent tears. He wondered if she too blamed her mate. Probably not. She was soft beneath the hard shell she presented to the world. She wouldn’t pin the blame on anyone but Enoch.

Keenan didn’t lean into her touch. He didn’t want comfort. He wanted his mate to wake the fuck up and live. But it wasn’t going to happen. Khloé was a fighter through and through, but not even she could power through this.

She was already gone, really. Her heart might beat, and her soul might even still be in there somewhere, but she wasn’t going to wake up. For the first time in a while, he itched to reach for his flask, and he knew he’d do that very thing once she passed.

“Raini, what the hell?” asked Harper, straightening.

Keenan looked up and frowned. Biting her lip, Raini stood in the doorway with Maddox Quentin. Keenan and his demon both tensed. “What the fuck is this?”

“What is he doing here?” demanded Jolene.

“I went to find him,” replied Raini. Keenan hadn’t even realized she’d left his apartment.

Maddox looked at him. “I can help your mate.”

Everything in Keenan went still. “What?”

“I can heal her,” said Maddox. “Save her.”

Hope and skepticism swirled inside Keenan, vying for supremacy. “How?”

Maddox shrugged. “I just can. Do you want me to do it or not?” It was clear the matter was neither here nor there to him.

“She’s been hit by death orbs,” Keenan told him.

“I know. Raini explained everything.” Maddox glanced at Khloé’s pale form. “If you want your imp to live, you need to let me act now. She won’t live much longer.”

“You’re so sure he’s not here to hurt her, Raini?” Teague asked, his eyes narrowed.

“I’m sure.” The blonde sighed. “Look, we have nothing to lose by letting him try to heal Khloé. If we don’t, she’ll die anyway.”

Fuck if she wasn’t right.

“I say we let him,” Penelope immediately piped up. Others agreed while some remained silent, unsure.

Sensing that all eyes were on him, Keenan nodded at Maddox. “But if you harm her, you die.”

“And you die hard,” Teague added.

Looking unaffected by the threat, Maddox walked to the bed and took Khloé’s free hand. He didn’t hold it. He held his palm flat to hers, just as Eric had done.

Keenan’s demon coiled inside him, ready to pounce and attack Maddox if he made a wrong move. Keeping her other hand tight in his, Keenan tensed as the descendant’s palm began to glow with a blood-red light. That light seemed to shoot into Khloé, illuminating her veins; pumping through them like a transfusion of some kind.

Power snapped the air taut and heated the room, making his skin prickle and every hair on his body lift. Hope and skepticism still played havoc with his system, causing his stomach to cramp and his muscles to tighten.

Keenan’s heart leaped as the pulse beating against his thumb steadied and strengthened. The rise and fall of her chest was no longer so gentle or subtle. A little color returned to her face, making her look haggard but not near death’s door.

As the red glow spread to the veins in her face and scalp, Khloé’s back bowed almost violently. Her eyes snapped open, and she took a shaky breath.

His heart thudding, Keenan sat on the edge of the bed and squeezed her hand. “Baby?”

She blinked at him. “Feel like I got hit by a freight train,” she rasped.

Relief shuddered through him and made his throat thicken. Keenan lifted her and set her on his lap. Pressing his mouth to her hair, he curled his arms tight around her, holding her close as everyone crowded and fussed over her, some still crying.

Penelope tried taking her from him, but Keenan wasn’t having any of it. Yeah, it made him selfish, but he could live with that.

“It’s good that I came here when I did,” said Maddox. “She didn’t have long left.”

Keenan stared at him. “How were you able to do that? To heal her? You’re not an archangel.”

“Far from it,” Maddox easily agreed.

Sensing the male wasn’t going to elaborate, Keenan said, “I owe you.”

“No, you don’t.” Maddox’s gaze cut to Raini and gleamed with possession. “But you do. Don’t forget our agreement.”

The succubus lifted her chin a notch. “I won’t.”

With that, Maddox left, his arm brushing Raini’s as he passed. Khloé frowned. “What agreement?”

Ignoring the question, Raini came closer and gently rubbed Khloé’s leg. “How do you feel?”

Taking stock of herself, Khloé replied, “Like shit, but … alive.” More alive than she’d felt in a while. She let out a shaky breath. “He really did heal me. The infection is completely gone—I can feel it.” Her demon leaned into Keenan, relieved and tired.

“Well, thank the holy mother of fuck for that,” clipped Ciaran, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“No, we have Maddox to thank,” said Khloé. And after feeling a taste of his power, she could confirm … “He’s far from holy.”

Knox took a step toward Raini. “You said you went to find him. Why?”

“I heard from someone that a small number of archangels fell from heaven a long, long, long time ago,” replied Raini. “I heard that they fell and copulated with demons, much like normal angels did, and that they produced children. Those children grew up among the Nephilim, but they were different; stronger; more dangerous.”

Khloé felt her brow furrow. She hadn’t heard of that.

Raini went on, “I thought that maybe Maddox might know someone who descended from archangels—it seemed a slight chance that they’d have the power to heal or fight the essence of death, but I figured it was worth asking.”

“And it turns out that Maddox has that power,” said Jolene, her eyes narrowed.

Raini swallowed. “It would seem so.”

Harper sidled up to the succubus. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

Raini nodded. “He just said that he could heal Khloé; he didn’t explain why. But it can only mean that he’s the descendant of an archangel.”

“A very, very powerful one,” said Levi. “Add in all the demonic blood that flows through his system, and it makes him seriously fucking dangerous.”

“More dangerous than we’d previously imagined,” added Tanner.

He wasn’t wrong there. What had surged through Khloé was archangelic power with a dark twist. “He didn’t fight the death essence with pure life. He fought it with something else. It had life—so much life—but it wasn’t pure. And it was so much more potent than the death orbs that Enoch hit me with. I could never have expelled out of my system whatever Maddox just sent into me.” Not with Ciaran’s aid, not with anyone’s.

Keenan looked down at her, his brow creased in concern. “But you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “His power didn’t harm me in the slightest.”

Folding her arms, Devon looked at Raini. “He didn’t help her out of the goodness of his heart. What did you agree to do? Tell me you’re now not officially his sex slave or something.”

Raini rolled her eyes. “Of course not. You come out with the weirdest stuff.”

“It was a valid question,” insisted Devon. “Right, Tanner?”

The hound’s mouth bopped open and closed. “I wouldn’t know.” He let out an oof when Devon jabbed his ribs with her elbow.

“He’s not a guy who’d want an unwilling female in his bed. He said so himself the first time I met him,” said Raini.

Khloé remembered that. Looking up at Raini, she gave her a faint smile and swallowed. “Thank you for what you did. I know that going to Maddox for something couldn’t have been easy for you.”

“No thanks needed,” said Raini. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my girls.”

Yeah, that was kind of what worried Khloé.