Blood Cursed

Chapter 2

Two

Ronan

“Deirdre Olivante,” I said, hating the shape of it in my mouth. Though we’d never met before, her name had been seared into my memory for decades, the echo of it like a ticking time bomb that haunted my every step.

She looked like I’d always imagined her. Short, small-boned, and old, but tough beneath her layers of crafted sweetness, with the same intense blue eyes and sharp cheekbones as her granddaughter.

I wanted to despise her, but right now I could only be grateful.

She’d saved us. Ironic, all things considered.

“Foolish boy,” Deirdre snapped, the first words she’d ever spoken to me. “Rayanne’s soul is trapped in hell, and you’re playing around with a vampire. I thought you were her guardian.”

I said nothing. She was right. Gray—Rayanne, to her—was my charge, and I’d failed her.

Again.

But the fire smoldered out of her words quickly as she took in the sight of Gray. Kneeling beside her on the floor, Deirdre brushed her fingers across her granddaughter’s forehead for the first time in more than twenty years.

“She’s beautiful,” Deirdre said, momentarily lost in her own world. Her voice was thick with emotion. “So grown-up. I never thought…”

She trailed off as a tear slid down her cheek. In that moment, she looked vulnerable and wounded, a woman who’d seen more than her fair share of suffering and loss.

Behind us, Darius twitched on the floor, groaning at the pain of the poison coursing through his blood. Despite the fact that he’d damn near killed me, I hated seeing him in that state. I hated seeing Gray unconscious on the floor, the grandmother she didn’t remember weeping over her body.

A fresh lump lodged itself in the back of my throat.

For so many years, I’d believed the worst thing I’d ever have to face was Gray’s death—the event that would trigger the official start of her contracted servitude, requiring me to deliver her straight to Sebastian.

But now here she was, very much alive, her soul trapped in his hell. Was that worse than becoming a demonic servant? An eternal slave?

Was there any chance of getting her out of either disaster? Out of any of the obstacles and terrible situations she’d likely face, even if we could free her from this latest round of torments? She was a powerful Shadowborn witch. To think she’d survive this life unscathed was a ridiculous pipe dream.

I turned away, unable to look at her another minute. I didn’t have the strength for this. It turned me inside out, like someone had carved me open and set all my nerves on fire. It hurt to breathe. To blink. To think.

Gray’s death? It would’ve gutted me.

But this… This was definitely worse. She wasn’t dead, just trapped, condemned to an eternity of suffering, mere seconds after we’d liberated her from the last otherworldly prison.

Deirdre sighed, and I turned back to face her, our eyes locking once again. Hers were cloudy with sadness and regret, and for a brief instant, that shared pain connected us by an invisible thread.

In another life, we might’ve been family.

I wondered if she was thinking the same thing. Then she got to her feet and said, “Don’t just stand there moping, demon. Sebastian is certainly expecting you by now.”

“f**k Sebastian.” I closed my eyes, breaking the momentary connection. “There’s nothing he can do for me now. And if you think for one hot second I’m taking her anywhere near him, you’re—”

“She’s lost in his domain now, Ronan Vacarro. He’s the only one who can help us get her back.”

“Us?” I opened my eyes and looked at her again, eyeing her skeptically. “You think there’s an us in all this?”

She folded her arms across her chest and jutted out her chin, a look that was so very Gray, it shot a bolt of pain through my heart.

I stepped closer, staring her down. “Let me tell you what it means to be part of an us. Gray and I were an us. We had each other’s backs. We cared for each other. We shared things, went through s**t together, came out on the other side swinging. We didn’t condemn each other to—”

“Enough!” Her eyes blazed, and she didn’t back down, glaring at me as if she were the one towering over me rather than vice versa. “We’ve all done unspeakable things to keep her safe. Don’t pretend you’re above all this. I know the truth.”

“You know nothing about me, witch.”

“Oh, no?” Her steely gaze softened, and she reached up to touch my face, her palm soft against my cheek. “I know what you gave up for her. I know what she means to you. And,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, “I know what haunts your dreams.”

At first her touch felt kindly, like I’d always imagined a real grandmother’s would. But then it turned icy cold, spreading across my jaw and into my head, boring into my skull. The feeling was like a brain freeze, like eating ice cream too fast, and everything else in me went still as she rifled through my mind—not my thoughts, I realized, but my dreams. My nightmares. I saw each one flicker and glow as she paged through them like stories in an old, dusty book.

When she finally pulled back and the warmth rushed back into my head, she was looking at me with a mixture of righteousness and pity. Compassion.

“Do that again,” I warned, “and you’ll… I’ll…”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head, letting the words die off. I didn’t have it in me to threaten her. She’d been right. We’d all done things to protect Gray. Would do them again in a heartbeat. I had no right to judge her.

In a fluid, effortless motion at complete odds with her small physical stature, she hauled Darius to his feet and yanked his arm over her shoulder, taking the bulk of his weight against her body. Darius groaned in half-hearted protest, but he leaned into her, trying to find his footing.

“I’ll deal with him,” she said, then nodded toward Gray. “You get Rayanne to Sebastian. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

I looked at Darius, the blood congealing on his lips and chin. His hands trembled, his head lolling sideways as if he didn’t even have the strength to hold it up. His eyes held none of their earlier viciousness.

Fucking hell, Beaumont.

Deirdre must’ve seen the concern in my face. Adjusting him against her body, she said, “He would have killed you both had I not intervened.”

“He would’ve tried, maybe.”

“Ronan, we don’t have time. I’ve got him. You need to help Rayanne.”

“He’s not himself,” I went on. “But he’s… he’s important to her. To both of us.” I stepped closer, putting a hand on his shoulder as if he was mine to claim. “I can’t let you end him, Deirdre. No matter what he’s done.”

She sighed loudly, her patience clearly thinning. “I’m not planning to decapitate him, demon. He needs sedation and treatment. Unless you want me to release him into the wilds of Las Vegas, I need to relocate him somewhere safe, preferably before sunrise.”

Safe? I almost laughed at that. Where the hell in this city was a safe place for a powerful vampire with no memory, out of his mind with bloodlust, currently neutered by hawthorn, completely at the mercy of a pint-sized, dream-stealing, elderly witch?

“I’ll find you at Sebastian’s casino once the vampire is secured,” she said, the sternness in her voice leaving no room for argument.

Darius groaned again, but if he had an opinion on the matter, I had no idea what the hell it was. I had to go by instinct, trusting that I knew the real Darius well enough at this point to know what he’d want.

Like me, he’d want to protect Gray at all costs. He’d want me to focus on her. To find some way to get her out of this f*****g bind.

I scooped Gray into my arms, holding her tight against my chest.

For a moment, Deirdre and I stood facing each other, looking over the charges each of us held close.

These are the most important people in my life.

“I’ll take care of him, Ronan,” she said, a little bit of that grandmotherly tone creeping back in. “You have my word.”

Her gaze dropped back to Gray, her lips pressed into a tight line. The creases between her eyes deepened with worry, and she glanced back up at me, as though she wanted me to give her the same reassurances.

But I didn’t owe her a damn thing. She knew who I was. Knew that I was perpetually obligated to keep Gray safe, even if I wasn’t in love with her so deeply my heart would never hit a steady beat without her touch again.

With my best friend—hell, my entire life—cradled in my arms, I emerged into the lonely desert night, leaving Darius in the care of the one witch I’d hoped I’d never, ever meet in person.

The witch who—twenty-some years ago in her own dark moment of desperation at the crossroads—had signed her name in blood on a contract with the Prince of Hell, bargaining away her granddaughter’s eternal soul.