I had gone about ten feet when a distinct rustling sound made me freeze. That wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Something was in the tunnel with me.
Very slowly, I turned around. It looked like a dark pillar had appeared at the entrance to the Hound spa. Then the pillar doubled in height as the person beneath the embers stood up, revealing the form of a tall, broad-shouldered man. When he wiped his face, a layer of blood showed beneath the soot, and the hair he brushed back was stained black from the ashes swirling around him, but I didn’t care. Right now, they were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.
“Adrian,” I whispered, my tears starting to flow faster.
His head snapped up—and then he moved with his incredible speed, gripping me in those powerful arms. Tilting my head back and covering my mouth in a bruising kiss that made joy rip through me with all the intensity of the pain I’d felt before. When he finally broke away several minutes later, I could hardly breathe, but I still managed to speak.
“I love you,” I choked out. “I love you, I love you, I love you—”
His kiss cut me off again, and this time, I wasn’t crying when I kissed him back. I was smiling.
Epilogue
We didn’t need to leave to catch a minion for its blood. Adrian pulled through the remaining people in the realm, taking them in groups of twos and threes. It still took the rest of the night, but I wasn’t afraid of demons stopping us. Not when Zach stayed at the B and B, which rapidly filled to overflowing from all the survivors of the Bennington realm. I might still be mad at him, but no demon would take on one Archon, let alone three of them.
One moment, Jasmine and I were passing out blankets to the people who’d spilled out onto the lawn; the next, I was staring at two people whom I knew were not human despite their normal appearance. The brunette girl had freckles and the guy had blond dreadlocks, of all things, but for an instant, both of them radiated light like Zach had the first time we met.
“Uh...hi,” I said, so surprised I stumbled over my words.
Screams erupted from the people outside. I whirled, groaning when I saw the gargoyle coming toward us. Adrian had told Brutus to stay hidden in the trees. Dreadlocks gave it a single glare. “Tell your creature to stay back.”
“Admanta!” I yelled, using the word Adrian had taught me. The gargoyle chuffed warningly at the Archons but turned around and disappeared into the trees again.
“Sorry,” I muttered, glad that Freckles was calming the people down.
“He’s not hers,” Jasmine offered, staring at the stranger curiously. “He, uh, belongs to Adrian.”
“Not anymore,” Dreadlocks said, with another grunt of disapproval. “Adrian bound him to your sister as her protector before he sent the two of you out of the realm.”
“What?” Jasmine gasped.
I stared at the Archon, too stunned to speak. Thoughts, accusations and questions bombarded my mind, and after a moment, he began to answer them.
“No, Zacchaeus did not lie to you. Archons cannot lie, as he told you. We also cannot enter the dark realms, as he told you, but we can see into them. You never asked him that.”
“Sonofa—” I began furiously, only to have his warning look stop me. “You mean Zach knew my sister was alive this whole time and never bothered to tell me?”
Jasmine wiped her eyes. This was too much, too soon for her. The Archon merely shrugged. “Those weren’t his orders.”
Orders. A slew of curses ran through my mind. The Archon gave me another glare, but I snapped, “Oh, please! I didn’t say any of them, so give me a break!”
“Mortals,” he muttered. “So obsessed with technicalities.”
“Jaz,” I said, controlling my anger with great difficulty. “Can you see if Adrian’s back, please?”
I didn’t want him to stop transporting humans, but I wanted to get my sister out of here for a few minutes. She was running on shock and adrenaline, so at any moment, she could snap.
She disappeared into the house without arguing, another indicator that she wasn’t herself. Moments later, Adrian came out onto the lawn, eyeing the two Archons with guarded optimism.
“I hope you came to help. We’ll need several buses to get all these people out of here.”
“We will not,” Freckles replied. With those words, she and everyone else vanished, leaving me, Adrian and Dreadlocks alone on the lawn. From the sudden silence in the house, that had been cleared out, too.
“What. Just. Happened?” I managed. Even Adrian appeared startled.
The blond Archon wasn’t. If anything, I’d say he looked bored. “These people needed to be taken to safety. Sarai has done that.”
“But they’re just gone,” I stressed, as if I was the only one who’d noticed that.
A shrug. “Archons aren’t limited by your laws of physics.”
After everything I’d seen, why did that surprise me? “Is Jasmine still here?” I asked in sudden anxiousness.
“Yes. We will provide care for the others, but she is yours to look out for.”
Good. I didn’t want it any other way.
Adrian drew me next to him, his arm a welcome weight across my shoulders. Aside from those few, blissful minutes in the tunnel, we hadn’t had a moment together since I found him alive. He’d been ferrying people through the gateway and I’d tried to do what I could for the traumatized survivors. I hadn’t even had time to wash my hands. Calling dibs on the bathroom when so many of these people hadn’t had a hot shower in years would’ve been selfish in the extreme, so I was still covered in ashes. So was Adrian. We looked like coal miners after a cave-in.
Zach came out onto the lawn. He exchanged a glance with the blond Archon that had Adrian tensing into stonelike stillness.
“Don’t,” he said low.
“It is too late,” Zach replied, his voice equally soft. “The second trial has already begun.”
“What trial?” I asked, stiffening, as well.
Zach’s dark brown gaze rested on me. “Adrian no longer needs to transport the survivors. They are crossing through to this realm on their own.”
I was incredulous. “How?”
“The gateways are opening,” Zach said simply.
Adrian’s arm dropped from my shoulders as he ran both hands through his hair. They were still covered in blood beneath the soot from all his injuries. Without Zach healing him the first time he’d crossed over to this side, I didn’t think Adrian would even be conscious now. Zach’s statement back-burnered my concern for Adrian, however.