Demon's Grace Ch. 38-40

And just like that the magic whooshed out of me. I was left empty for a brief second until I felt a dragon shake himself, like a wet dog. I stilled my twisting body and listened carefully to the Alpha.

"The boundaries are such, we stay here and it is blood flow." I heard startled, unhappy gasps from the surrounding wolves. Alan continued, "This means that we continue fighting until one of us collapses from blood loss or one of my wolves loses control." The wolves in my peripheral visions blanched and paled. I could only imagine what would happen to any who lost control.

Taurin finally spoke up with a joyous laugh, "So, you are challenging not only me, but your entire pack. You're a conniving bastard!" He said with admiration.

"I'm not done," he said and waited until his wolves settled themselves down again. "I will not hold my influence over them, so all they have is their own strength." This increased the assembled group's agitation.

I peered over to my left to watch Luz uncoil the black line she was carrying. She snapped it and the whip sliced through the air. 'Oh, so not good', I thought as a bead of sweat trailed down my spine and settled in the small of my back. Ezra hiss in my mind seemed to agree with me.

Alan continued, "And as retribution for all the pain you caused me I shall give it you back to a lesser degree. Every third hit, regardless of who makes it, will make the whip crack."

Murmurs continued around me. Luz looked at me and cracked the whip to my left, making sure I could see it. The hiss carried down to me again. My eyes widened and I could only stutter a breath in. 'Holy shit, oh no!'

"Either you accept or don't. If you don't I will rip her apart as painfully as I can while my pack goes after you. Whether you survive or not, Dove will be dead." He gave a heavy pause, "You can count on it."

Taurin laughed under his breath, "Are you counting on that I care?"

"If you didn't, you wouldn't be here Taurin," he stated.

"Point taken Alpha," Taurin acceded dryly. "Weapons?"

"What ever is available."

"Good. I accept."

"It's done."

I jerked as Luz ripped my t-shirt off at those words. The fight commenced and so did my pain. Noises erupted all around me. I was surrounded by the voices of the pack and the sounds of the challenge. The most important sound to me was my breath gasping and the yelps of pain emitting from my mouth. The most important sensations were the tears coursing down my face and the feel of the bark on my bare feet as I tried to climb up the tree. Then there was the slap of the whip on my back and all else was lost to that strike.

I was in a pain induced silence when I realized that Ezra had been trying to get my attention. My blood pounded in my ears and I couldn't hear a damn thing over it. I blinked when I felt a strange slick feeling on my fingers, similar to the feeling of blood pouring down my back. I looked up and saw him sitting on the branch I was tied to. Only it wasn't him, my mind tried to make out his shape, and it wouldn't compute, he seemed to have a heat haze shimmering around him. Then it didn't matter because I was reeling in agony again.

'Follow me.' Ezra cajoled.

I couldn't even answer him in my mind. I just looked up into glowing slitted eyes peering down at me.

'I will play by the rules only so long, Dove. You wrap me tight in your honor. It is time to put an end to this. So, follow me. Now.' He pulled me somehow and I looked down at my stomach and saw nothing. 'Sorry for this, Eshera,' he whispered.

He grasped me spiritually and ripped me from my body. My gagging reflex only lasted for the few seconds before my spirit was jettisoned next to Ezra on the tree. Below me I saw my body sag. I hung like a dead person. I watched Luz get closer and peer into my face. She slapped me a few times, but my body didn't respond. It was all so weird.

'Hurry!' Ezra said and I saw his dragon body snake to the ground. He stayed low and moved quickly through the pack. He looked about the size of an overgrown wolf himself.

I floated down, following him. 'What are we looking for?'

'The weakest link.'

He continued to sniff and peer into the eyes of the surrounding shifters shouting and egging Alan on. I drifted over to the other side of the circle and started looking. I wasn't sure for what, a sheen of sweat, a strain in the eyes. There was enough blood between the three of us that I knew its scent flooded the air. I looked over to the fight and watched Taurin. He held a sword of ice coated in blood. Alan held a dagger in his hand, his eyes a weight of cold calculated hate.

It all happened at once. I was on the opposite end of them both so I just stared, frozen. I watched someone hand Alan a gun into his right hand. I watched the spirit dragon grow in size until he towered over and through everyone. He whispered 'Fear' and even my spirit shivered. I was never so grateful as then that he had never focused on me that way. I watched as a tall woman freaked out over a dragon she couldn't see, but could smell. She started to change a few feet behind Alan.

I got a whiff of smelling salts and turned to see Luz waving them over my nose. I could feel them pulling to me. I turned quickly and watched Alan point the gun at Taurin and fire. Something about those bullets I thought quickly before I was pulled firmly into my aching body. Taurin's shout of pain and surprise barely registered over the crack of the whip. The bullet must have been a third hit I thought wearily. Vaguely, I heard the commotion as the shifter completed her change. My eyes closed as I registered that the fight was over.

"Go." Alan ordered his wolves and a group of them immediate shifted. They ran past both sides of my tree and into the forest, chasing.

'Can you get her or do I need to?' Ezra said without a hint of concern.

'I'll get her. You won't have to show yourself then.' Taurin replied with bite.

'I would rather not reveal myself to a pack of flea carriers,' he said dismissively.

'Ezra, leave Taurin alone.' I swallowed past my dry throat, my back started to go into spasms. 'He's probably in pain.'

'Dove, were you ever sane?' Ezra replied blandly.

I heard Taurin burst a laugh out loud. Those left behind probably thought he was the crazy one.

I started to fade, 'The bullets...'

'Yes, Dove, I know.'

Alan stared me in the eyes. "I can't decide if I want him to take you down or if I should do it myself."

I looked down at his body awkwardly and watched as blood flowed freely from cuts. I gasped roughly. "Not so easy to heal demon," I groaned and sniffed, "cuts," I moaned with pain, "is it?"

He gave me a stoney expression and spit a wad of blood at my feet, "I suppose they'll heal as fast as that bullet I put in him."

I swallowed and said faintly, "Maybe."

"I'm gonna let him do it," he decided and turned away from me. "Leave," he demanded of the rest of the pack standing there. Alan waited until they were gone and took Luz's hand. He started walking away stiffly, neither looked back. I hadn't even noticed that Taurin was already next to me. He deftly cut the ropes and I collapsed like a rag doll to the ground.

"IshaDove!" He exclaimed as he bent down towards me, his face remarkably pale. My eyes riveted to the gushing blood flow from a wound next on his left side, close to his collarbone. Then Ezra was there picking me up. I curled my hands close to his body, grimacing from the pain in my back and sides where the whip lashed around my body.

"Time to go home," he said stonily, looking down at me.

I closed my eyes and drifted from consciousness, trusting him to keep me safe. When I woke I found myself laying on my stomach on my bed. Towels placed under me. "Where's Taurin?" I mumbled.

"Tending to his own wounds, in his own room. You have no reason to think of him now."

Before I got a chance to ask Ezra what he was up to he was searing me with his fire. "Holy Shit Ez! Are you out of your fucking mind?!" I screamed, trying to move my weak body away from him.

He stopped his treatment of my back. "I'm cleaning and accelerating your healing. If you continue to move I will tie you down. I doubt your wrists can handle any more of that." His voice was devoid of emotion as he talked to me.

"Ez, whaatt the-?!" I screamed as he applied more fire to me. He didn't let up this time and I squirmed and screamed in pain until he was done. There was silence for a few moments as I drifted in my mind.

He breathed a warm breath on my face. "Dove?"

I mumbled into the towel and slowly opened my eyes. "What?" I asked irritably. His eyes swirled quickly with the movement and colors of a universe.

"As much as I know what love is, I love you."

I looked at him speechless and struggled to sit. He helped ease my body up.

"Easy. Your wounds are closed, but that is all." He held up a hand to stop me from talking. "This need of yours to sacrifice yourself is not healthy. What are you proving? Who are you trying to prove something to? Your God? Paying for your sins? That you are a martyr?! What are you doing?!" He ended up shouting at the end of his rant, staring hard at me.

I rubbed my forehead and he eased me in front of him. His arms circled from behind and his legs held me close from either side. I relaxed against his chest and thought about his words. They were good questions, ones that had drifted through my own mind. I still didn't have an answer. "I don't know Ez. I just want to help."

"That is honorable, but why must you always find the most painful way? Through your lack of self preservation you have put yourself in, not only Taurin's, Alan's, and So'aan's twisted need to play sadist, but, even your friends."

"You left yourself out," I said quietly.

His arms tightened around me momentarily. "Yes, I did. Even myself. We need to think of ways for you to protect yourself better."

"Really?" I shook my head and snorted in disbelief, "We'd never get anything done!"

"Have one of us around you at all times."

I barked a laugh at that, "You've got to be kidding! You were both there tonight! That reminds me, Oldavai tried to get to me while I was at Alan's. A jealousy scent on his Lupa."

"Hmm."

"Yeah." I paused in thought, distracted. "I don't think about being a martyr, Ezra. I don't dwell on my sins-"

Ezra interrupted me with a puff of clove scented smoke curling around my face, "Yes you do. Who was worrying about her morality just recently? About not crying over a woman who was trying to kill her?"

I made a sound of frustration, "I bound with you, not as a way to atone for my sins, but because you asked me. Because you didn't just try to kill me. You didn't want to die and neither did I. Why would I refuse that?"

"Simple, we are demons. Hunters know first hand how we manipulate everything and everyone. Taking advantage of others' good will is what we do."

"I know," I enunciated forcefully. "I still believe that I have to take the chance. I will give everyone the benefit of the doubt."

"Dove, you need to decide. Either you are following me into hell or leading me to heaven. Stop your moral quandary about your own actions." He paused and I reveled in the sensation of his nuzzling into my hair, his warm exhale on the back of my neck.

He continued, "I do not believe there is the benefit of doubt in your God's eyes for us."

I shook my head vehemently, "No. You're wrong."

"And are you being watched over now by this being?" Ezra said evenly.

"Of course." I turned my head to look at him, ignoring the tightness of my back, "Why do you think you're with me?" I asked rhetorically.

Ezra grabbed my face and turned it so I was facing away from him. I felt him shake his head, "You are undecipherable to me. You must have some mental disorder. Why else would you accept my offer all those months ago?"

I laughed quietly and snuggled closer into his body. His sigh sounded perplexed as he curled around my body. I fell into a content sleep with his heat cocooning me.

CHAPTER 40

I sat up in bed the next afternoon. I wasn't going anywhere and they let me know it. Taurin sat at the foot of the bed and Ezra leaned on the opposite side of me. One leg was crossed in front of him and the other hanging off. A pile of bullets, some used, one in particular pulled from Taurin's body, sat in a cluster on the blanket next to him.

"Here's what's been happening while you were gone."

"Gone? You make it sound like a long time. It was a couple of days. Geesh." I rolled my eyes.

Ezra ignored my exasperation and started talking, "Marina Slovya called and reprimanded Taurin and I for ignoring our summons to discuss our 'progress' with our 'contact'." Ezra sneered while he said the last.

"Slovya? That name sounds familiar."

"It is. She is the woman who wants me dead."

"For what?"

"Yes, Ezra, for what?" Taurin baited. "We seem to be airing all of my dirty laundry. How about yours for a change?"

"Only because yours is so more active right now Taurin." Ezra replied. "She is the sister of one of my experiments."

I forcefully exhaled and closed my eyes. "One of these days you guys are going to surprise me with something pleasant about your past. I know it can't all be about torture and power."

Taurin started to laugh and bent over briefly. He pushed into his left clavicle and rotated his arm. I stared into his blue eyes anticipating our discussion about bullets.

Ezra continued, "They are from a lineage part human, part hana."

"I don't know what that is," I said, interrupting him.

"They are beings from the sky. Keep to themselves. Somehow a human ended up in their midsts. Hana are long lived, but her sister took after her human side too much. She volunteered for research with the hope that I would be able to give her more hana genetics."

"Another volunteer?!" I said in disbelief.

"Very few were. It seemed our entire world knew about my research. I never tried to keep it a secret. Mostly everyone there stayed out of my way for fear that I would take them by force." He paused and gave me a steely black eyed gaze, "And I did."

"I never said I had delusions about you and Taurin. You don't need to convince me. Fu...ah!"

Taurin started to laugh again, it turned into a clenched groan.

"We really need to talk about these bullets," I said.

"We will, let Ezra finish. I'm tired of being the bad guy around here."

"That's only because you like being the bad guy." I said snidely.

Taurin reached over and squeezed my leg. "True."

Ezra continued, ignoring us, "Basically, the experiments failed, one after the other. She started to age even faster than before. I convinced her to stay and I threw in a mixture of demon magic and genetics without her consent. In the end, her sister had to kill her. I stopped the aging process, but she started to rip apart her wings. Her sister had begged me not to experiment on her in the first place."

"What is it with demons' magic?!"

"It seems that something about demon magic can cause certain side effects, usually they are more sever in females." Taurin replied.

Ezra looked over at him thoughtfully.

"How do you know?" I asked Taurin.

"A lot of us do. It's just the way it is."

I looked over at Ezra as he spoke up. "Yet, those of us who know it, know it because we lived through it." Ezra raised an eyebrow at Taurin. "Is that why you panic about Dove? Because you did. Nothing to worry about with Dove though." Ezra said in his devil-may-care voice.

Taurin's face hardened with bitterness."Why? She has not one part of a demon in her, but two," he said harshly.

"Because," Ezra grinned and winked at me, "Dove is already insane."

I bust out laughing and bit my lower lip to stop it, not wanting to offend Taurin. Thing was, I knew Ezra absolutely believed it, otherwise he never would have said it.

Taurin stuttered while he tried to formulate his thoughts.

Ezra continued, "What sane person would take one demon, much less, two, just because they asked? We know that there is not a single hunter out there who accepted binding to a demon without being manipulated into it. And we know that it was for our brothers' benefit only, regardless of how abhorrent it is."

My eyes widened at this reminder, "Why is it so abhorrent?"

Taurin spoke, "Because, we give away a measure of our power." His attention fixed on Ezra, "I manipulated her and you told her to go along with it."

I watched Taurin as he seemed to turn hard, as if waiting for me to attack him with words, but I wasn't angry.

"No, I never did. I told her to make her own decision with my assurance that all would be well, already knowing her choice." He paused. "I know Dove's secret. She would rather not kill. At that time I had no intention of killing you or having you kill her. She was just angry at you for the manipulation. I knew that all you had to do was ask."

I chimed in, "Don't get me wrong, I would have hesitated. But, in the end, especially if Ezra said it was ok, I would have done it. You demons are always so quick to kill, or manipulate. You would've had to catch me off guard, like Ezra did. He scared the shit out of me, but didn't try to kill me. We stared at one another in silence for like, I swear, five minutes. I didn't get a single warning from my sword when I faced him."

Ezra glanced my way and smiled, "As I said, you are all defense."

Taurin stared at us lost in contemplative silence.

I bit my bottom lip, lost in my own thoughts, and then smiled, "So it's understandable that Slovya wants to kill you. But, all she's done is tell you that you are neglecting you duty."

"And yours too," Ezra said with a studious look at me.

"Mine?!" I said in surprise. "My contact is going to call me, if he ever calls."

"No, she made a comment about your rejecting a warrant and not fulfilling your current one."

"She's being dense. I know my laws. I have more time with a 'trap and subdue' than I do with a 'kill'. And I have the right to reject a warrant if I don't think I can do it. It's just going to go to someone else."

Ezra shook his head, "No. It is piled on Shorn's desk and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Much like Oldavai's was. Melous is such a low demon that Shorn will burn it eventually, but keep it open under his jurisdiction."

"Really?! I didn't realize he could do that?" I paused and changed tracks, "She's just in league with Dr Bardellis."

"Yes." His fingers picked up and dropped the bullets in front of him. They clanged together as he played with them. He looked over at Taurin.

Taurin looked steadily at Ezra and spoke to the unvoiced command in those black starry eyes. "Those bullets carry an energy, like poison, which is excreted from the bullet once it hits its target. The damage is extensive. I don't think they kill us immediately, but I might be wrong if it entered the heart or maybe even the brain. I'm not healing normally and I needed to exert considerable power to get the poison out."

Taurin shook his head in wonder, "It was as if the poison knew I was trying to get it out."

"Pull the poison out, like a snake bite?" I asked.

"Yes, but it travels through anything, not just blood. And... It seems cognizant."

I reached over for a bullet and Ezra dropped a whole one in my hand. "Feels like a regular bullet. Will it effect anyone that way or only demons?"

Taurin answered rhetorically, "Who can say?"

I turned the bullet around in my fingers. "I can think of someone," I said, thinking of an orange haired punk named Patrick frequenting Zanzibar.