Blood and Madness

Chapter 2

2

HALEY

The weight of him, the heat, the rage… all of it was gone in a blink.

I bolted upright to find Hudson—still in his winged warrior form—pinning Elian to the wall behind us, one hand around his throat. Whatever urge had sparked the attack on me, it was gone. Elian’s body was suddenly limp and pale, as if someone had turned on the spigot and drained away his life force.

His head slumped forward, and Hudson finally released the deadly grip, scooping him into his arms and carrying him back to me.

“He needs clean blood,” I said, getting to my feet. Elian’s eyes were closed, his breathing so shallow his chest barely moved.

Hudson met my gaze briefly, his own full of anguish. With a brief nod, he looked down at the broken man fading away in his arms.

“Haley,” Jax said, “he fed more tonight than he’s fed in weeks.”

“He hasn’t though—not really. The dreamers he drank from…” I closed my eyes, swallowing back the bile in my throat as the smell of all those fresh corpses rose anew, mingling with the sickly-sweet smell of the drugs. “Their blood is full of Dream. It’s not enough to nourish him, Jax. It’s only going to keep amplifying the effect of the pills. We need to flush it out of his system with fresh blood. It’s the only way I can think of to reset him.”

“I can get him another donor,” Gem said, chewing her thumbnail in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness. She was still pacing, but when Elian had lunged for me, she hadn’t moved to stop him.

Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly team Gem at the moment.

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“There’s a place a few blocks over where humans like to hang out, and—”

“No.” I glared at her, barely keeping my simmering rage in check. “Why are you even still here, Gem? Waiting for another chance to betray your so-called friends? Or are you just following orders like a good little soldier, keeping watch over the lowly prisoners?”

Her eyes hardened. She spat out a jagged bit of thumbnail and gritted her teeth. “Better a soldier than a prisoner, witch.”

“In Midnight?” I laughed. “It’s cute that you believe there’s a difference.” I took a step toward her, refusing to fall victim to her latest little power trip. If she’d wanted to shoot me full of magic or steel bolts from her damn crossbow, she would’ve done it by now.

“Back off, Barnes.” She lifted a hand, as if that would stop me, but I ignored the gesture and took a step closer, getting so far up in her business I could count her f*****g eyelashes.

“You know, Gem,” I said, my voice low and menacing. She tried to take a step back, but I followed her, backing her up to the wall where moments earlier, Hudson had throttled Elian. “Where I come from, friendship is something to be cherished. Honored. Whatever f****d-up s**t you went through in this realm? Elian—Saint—he was your friend. And he believed you were his—enough to trust you with our lives.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, witch.”

“The fact that you so carelessly pitched that friendship into the trash for a shot at your own glory tells me everything I need to know.”

“Haley,” Jax warned from behind me, his hand curling over my shoulder.

But I wasn’t done yet. Not even close.

“You take a good look at him, Gem. A good look at the man who trusted you, because that’s what your so-called friendship got him. And if you think we need your help saving him now, then you must be hopped up on the Black too, because b***h? You are f*****g hallucinating. So do us all a favor and stop pretending like you give a s**t whether he lives or dies, because whatever happens to him tonight? That’s on you. All of it.”

Gem lifted her crossbow. Shoved it right into my sternum. “Keep pushing me, witch.”

Tough talk, but she wasn’t going to shoot me. Not tonight, anyway. The thing wasn’t even loaded.

“Leave,” I demanded. “Run back to your master and give him the full report. Unless you’re volunteering to donate blood tonight, in which case…” I thumbed over my shoulder toward Elian, still lying limp in Hudson’s arms. “By all means, Gem. Offer up the vein. Prove my ass wrong. Show us what a good friend you really are.”

Something dark and broken flashed behind her eyes, but before I could even guess at her thoughts, she lowered the crossbow, turned, and stalked right out of the warehouse.

She hadn’t even looked at Elian once.

Fucking coward.

“Angel,” Jax said softly, and I turned to face him, blowing out a pent-up breath as he tucked a lock of blood-matted hair behind my ears. “I understand why you don’t want Gem to drag in some poor human to feed him. But why does it have to be you? Why does it always have to be you?”

I glanced back at Elian. He was still breathing—barely—but his eyes had fallen closed, his mouth hanging slack. He was trembling again, his body twitching even as Hudson tried to hold him steady.

I had no idea whether he was reacting to the drugs in his system, the tainted blood, the trauma of what he’d done, or something else entirely. I just knew that we were his only chance right now.

That I was his chance.

“Because he’s drowning, Jax. He’s f*****g drowning. And no matter what he’s done, no matter what he deserves, no matter what it might cost me in the end, I can’t just stand by and watch him suffer. Not when I’m holding a possible lifeline.” Cupping his face, I said softly, “You wouldn’t have called me here if you wanted me to sit on the sidelines.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have.” Jax touched his forehead to mine and gripped my arms. “But now that you’re actually standing here covered in all this blood, I just…” His warm sigh ghosted across my mouth, fingers tightening possessively. “If he hurts you, Haley, I’ll—”

“He won’t.” I pulled back so I could look into his face again. He wasn’t wearing the eye patch—I hadn’t seen it since that night in the bathtub—and looking at him now, I finally felt like I was seeing the real Jax. The man behind the demon, the person he was at his very core.

And that person wanted to end Elian’s suffering as much as I did.

“You and Hudson will make sure I’m safe,” I continued. “We just… we have to try, Jax. I don’t care how badly he’s f****d up or how many second chances he’s already burned through. It’s like you said the other night—when you call someone your family, when you choose them? It’s not just for the easy stuff. So yeah, this is me, choosing to stay. Choosing Elian even when he’s at his absolute rock-bottom worst.”

He held my gaze for another long beat, then finally drew me close once more, pressing a lingering kiss to my forehead.

“Okay, angel,” he whispered. “Do what you need to do. I’ve got your back.”

With Jax’s blessing, I finally turned my attention back to Elian.

A quick slice of my dagger across my fingertip, a few drops of blood squeezed into his mouth, and I held my breath, pulse quickening as I waited for a response.

Any response.

After what felt like an eternity, those silver eyes slowly blinked open, and Elian licked his lips, getting his first taste of fresh, untainted blood.

He stiffened in Hudson’s arms as another growl tore through his chest, his fangs descending violently. He thrashed against the hold, but my gargoyle kept him steady, Jax standing close with a hawthorn stake at the ready, just in case.

Lacing my fingers through Elian’s tangled hair, I pressed my other wrist to his mouth.

And then, stroking his hair, I began to sing. Soft, completely off-key, but clear and true. A song to remind him that he wasn’t alone, no matter how deeply he’d fallen into that gaping hole. A song to bring him back to us. A song to let him know I still loved him as my family, even if I couldn’t love him as my mate.

His growl turned into a desperate moan, his eyes filling with anguish as he gave in to the temptation of my blood. Unlike all the other times I’d offered the vein, he didn’t fight me tonight. Those razor-sharp fangs sank deep into my flesh, his mouth latching on and sucking, sucking, sucking until the room spun before my eyes and my muscles quaked, until heat spread from the bite throughout my entire body, until my song gave way to gasping breaths. The pain was sharp and acute, chased by waves of pleasure that rolled over me again and again like I’d fallen into the ocean, tossed up on the shore only to be sucked back out to sea, exhilarated and begging for more.

Elian was absolutely starved for it, his gaze locked fiercely onto mine as if I truly was his only lifeline, a tether back to the world of the living.

“Come back to me,” I whispered. “Please come back.”

Another moan and the bite deepened, the pressure of his clamped jaw nearly crushing my wrist.

“Angel,” Jax whispered, raising the stake, but I shook my head.

“Just another minute. A little more. He just needs a little… damn it…” I swayed on my feet, the dizziness finally overtaking me. I tried to pull away from the bite, but Elian only clamped down harder, sucking deeper, relentless in his need to feed.

“That’s enough, Elian,” I said. “Please stop. Stop!”

I begged him to release me, but he was beyond hearing. Beyond caring.

“f**k this,” Jax said. He gripped his stake and stabbed Elian in the thigh.

The unexpected jab of the hawthorn made Elian gasp, and I yanked my arm back and dropped to my knees, fighting to catch my breath. Blood gushed from my wound; Elian had been too far out of his mind to do things the neat and tidy way tonight, which meant I’d be healing this mess on my own.

With a little assist from my bloodstone ring, I whispered a quick spell, just like I’d done for Jax in the bathtub. The magick was weak, but it answered my call immediately, tingling down my arm and warming the skin around the puncture wounds. Slowly, the blood began to congeal, the skin knitting itself back together until all that remained were two angry pink welts.

When it was clear Elian was back to himself again—as back as he could be anyway, given his physical state—Hudson yanked the stake out of his thigh and knelt down beside me, keeping one arm around Elian’s midsection, holding him upright against his chest.

Elian was still as pale as a ghost, but his eyes had finally cleared. Blood stained his mouth and shirt—mine, the victims’, his own—and when he looked at me, the depth of his misery nearly swallowed me whole.

“Sparrow.” He didn’t even say the word—not really—just moved his lips, the faintest breath passing through them. But even in the stone-cold silence, I knew the shape of my name in his mouth, knew the look in his eyes he’d always reserved just for me. The one he couldn’t hide, no matter how desperately he’d been trying to keep me locked out.

My entire arm still throbbed with white-hot pain, my head swimming from the loss of blood and pleasure both, but I refused to let an ounce of discomfort show on my face.

“It’s me, Elian.” I smiled and cupped his face. “I’m here. Jax and Hudson too. All of us are right here with you.”

“What… what have I…” His voice finally broke through, but the words evaporated as he took in the full sight of the c*****e that surrounded him, the stink of the dead, the black glaze of rot and ruin that was already beginning to set in. Tears slipped down his cheeks, his face reddening with shame. “I killed them. All of them. I f*****g killed them.”

Locked in Hudson’s embrace, he trembled and heaved as if he might puke.

“Breathe, Elian,” I said. “You need to breathe. Let my blood work its way through your system.” I gestured for Hudson to release him, then I took my gargoyle’s place, kneeling behind Elian and rubbing his back as I whispered the words over and over like a mantra.

Breathe, Elian. Just breathe.

He grabbed my arm and wrapped it around his chest, clinging to it as if he’d slip away again without it, and I let him. I let him hold me close, let him tremble and sob in my embrace, let him take and take and take.

Jax and Hudson said nothing, but when I finally looked up into their eyes, I saw the same silent tears I felt running down my cheeks, the same silent understanding passing between us.

Elian was a mess in every possible way. A dangerous, reckless, self-destructive, selfish f*****g mess who’d bring us all down with him if we let him.

But…

I closed my eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.

He was our f*****g mess. And right now, we needed to get him the hell out of here.

“Let’s go,” I said softly. “Gem can deal with the bodies. We need to go home.”

Wordlessly, Hudson lifted Elian back into his arms, and I rose and leaned into Jax’s waiting embrace, and together the four of us headed out into Amaranth City, leaving the dead behind.