Zoe Archer - Sinner’s Heart

“Tell me what I can do to help,” he said, hoarse.

She had reached the limit of her strength. “Take the other manacle. Fasten it to my ankle.”

His brows drew down in a sharp scowl. “Binding you to him.”

“Has to be. Need a mortal to bind him. Keep him imprisoned. In Hell.”

“Then I’ll do it.” He reached for the shackle.

“No.” She struggled to stop him, yet her arms refused to move.

“I goddamn love you, Livia,” he snarled. “So don’t tell me to trap you here in Hell. It won’t happen.”

“Someone has to anchor him.” The effort it took to speak made her dizzy. “Cannot let it be you.”

For a moment, he only frowned at her. Then his eyes narrowed, his expression turning shrewd.

“What—?”

He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, then gently laid her down. She levered herself up, watching him as he stood and cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Know why the other Hellraisers turned against you, John?” he called toward the portal. “Because you were never one of us. Not truly. We pitied you. No one else would have you. Skulking around Whitehall like a beggar. An outcast.”

John remained at the doorway, though he still did not cross the threshold. “The four of you were privileged to have my company!”

Bram gave an ugly laugh. “Tell yourself whatever lies you require. But the truth persists. Without the Hellraisers, you would have been another forgettable man, scrounging for crumbs of recognition. Forgotten. Hell,” he sneered, “you always had to pay for your quim. No woman would willingly spread her legs for you. Only your coin could make them endure your rutting.”

With a jackal’s snarl, John plunged through the portal, sword upraised. Bram stood ready for the attack. Their swords clashed, the sound ringing over the screams of the damned. Bram’s fury seemed renewed as he attacked. He and John fought, their bodies blurring with speed, the combat furious. Their fight circled the Dark One, who continued to tear at the shackle binding him.

Bram lunged and knocked away John’s blade. Yet John continued to fight, grappling for control of Bram’s sword. They each planted their feet in the ground, pushing against each other.

Bram held John steady, and threw her a glance. Now.

Shaking, exhausted and riddled with pain, Livia pushed herself up, onto her knees. She mustered the dim filaments of her strength. Wrapped her magic around the other shackle, and sent it straight to John.

It snapped around his ankle. Binding him.

Like the Dark One, he screamed and pulled at the binding. It would not open.

Livia felt herself topple. Before she hit the ground, strong arms wrapped around her and lifted her up. She did not care how much it hurt, all that mattered was being held by Bram, feeling the solidity of his chest and pound of his heart against her cheek.

He sprinted toward the portal. The Dark One screamed as he saw them running. More fire poured from the Devil’s hands. Bram dodged this attack, and kept his body between her and the flames.

Then they were on the other side, back in the underground temple, the coolness of the air a fresh torment.

“The door,” she whispered. It needed to be closed for the binding to work, yet she had no strength left. Even breathing cost too much. She turned her head to see John running toward the portal. If he made it back to the realm of the living, her spell would be rendered useless, John and the Dark One free to wreak devastation.

A whip of fire lashed out. It snapped past her and Bram, flicking through the gateway to Hell. The whip pushed John back, keeping him on the other side of the portal.

Livia stirred and looked over Bram’s shoulder. The Hellraisers all stood within the underground chamber. Each of them were battered, their faces and clothes covered in grime and blood. Yet they were all there. Zora wielded her lash of fire, using it to prevent John from crossing back. The whip carved patterns of light as it snapped, and Zora bared her teeth with the effort.

Anne stepped forward, raising her hands. A powerful, chill wind blasted through the chamber. The tempest roared toward the open portal. It gathered around the door itself and began to push the heavy stone shut. Whit and Leo pushed on the door, aiding Anne’s wind.

John and the Dark One both stared with wide, disbelieving eyes as the door swung closed. Horror blanched John’s face—and understanding. He stretched out, reaching for the door. But not in time. Just before the door shut, a look of utter despair crossed his face. He had lost.

The chamber shook as the door slammed shut.

“Must be . . . bolted,” Livia gasped. She held out her hands to Anne and Zora.

The women hurried forward and clasped her hands. Drawing on Anne’s cold, Livia employed it to create metal, which she forged using Zora’s fire. She shaped the magic into a substantial lock, which appeared hovering in the middle of the chamber. The Dark One’s new prison. This she fastened to the door’s bolt. It made a heavy clang as the tumblers slid into place.

Like dissipating smoke, the door vanished. The lock remained, and fell to the ground, but it and the chamber itself dissolved soundlessly. A scent of dry stone filled the air as the ruined temple also evaporated. Until everyone stood at the very edge of St. George’s Fields once more.

The giant rift in the ground had closed. Heaps of demon bodies lay across the field, yet already they rotted. Within hours, they would likely be nothing more than stains upon the grass.

Bram didn’t care. All that mattered was the woman in his arms. Her breathing was too shallow, her skin too pale. Burns covered her, angry and red.

“A physician,” he snapped, laying her down gently upon a patch of clean grass. “A surgeon. Fetch someone. Now.”

He did not see the exchanged glances between the others.

“There isn’t time,” Whit said, and Bram hated the pity in his friend’s voice.

“Then I’ll doctor her.” He tore off his coat and wadded it beneath her head. Glowering up at Anne and Zora, he snarled, “Tear your petticoats. I need to bind her wounds. Stop looking at me like that, damn it, and get to work.”

He poured through all he knew of field surgery. One could pull out a bullet, sew up a wound, and hope the injured soldier survived. But this . . . Horrible burns, and her breath rattled, as though a broken rib had punctured a lung. What could he do to help? He was no damned sawbones with an Edinburgh education. At best, all he knew was how to keep someone alive long enough to reach a surgeon. Yet even he knew she wouldn’t last that long.

He started when someone lightly touched his shoulder. Zora.

“There may be a way.”

“Anything.”

Zora knelt beside Livia. She motioned for Anne to sit at Livia’s head.

“And us?” asked Leo.

“Hope.” She turned to Bram. “Once I was poisoned by demons, and verged on death. Livia used her power to help Whit heal me. Partially. They gave me strength enough to see the job done, myself.”

He clung to her offer of tenuous optimism. “What do we do?”

A rueful shrug from Zora. “Let our instinct direct us. Lend her back the power she gave us, that she may find the rest of the way herself.”

Bram took Livia’s hand, careful to keep from pressing against her burns. Zora took Livia’s other hand, and Anne pressed the very tips of her fingers to Livia’s forehead.

There were more hands on his shoulders. Bram glanced up and saw Whit and Leo standing close. They wore similar looks of empathy, and he saw in their eyes, their faces, that they too had seen their women imperiled, and knew what Bram suffered.

Of all the deeds the Hellraisers had ever done together, all their revelry, the dissolution, even their moments of camaraderie—this was their truest moment. It bound them together in a way simple friendship never could.

His throat, already raw and tight, closed even further. He could manage only a nod, then turned back to Livia, lying too still upon the grass.

As Zora had suggested, he let instinct guide him. He closed his eyes. The magic remaining in him hadn’t the same potency as it possessed when Livia had been a spirit. But it had to be enough. And he wasn’t alone.

As he drew upon the glow of power within him, he felt it—the fresh surges of strength from Zora and Anne. For a moment, he rebelled. It was wrong to join his power with anyone other than Livia. Yet he knew this remained his one hope, and so he permitted their magic to unite with his. It formed a gold and silver radiance. He channeled this light into her, into all the recesses of her damaged, broken body. He sensed the raw pain of her wounds from within as the energy moved through her. This was a kind of intimacy he’d never known—and prayed to never experience again.

Faintly, faintly, the damaged tissues began to repair themselves, healing minutely.

It wasn’t enough. She could not survive, not at this sluggish rate of mending.

Magic alone couldn’t heal her. But he had nothing more.

No—that wasn’t true. He had love.

Once, they had shared thoughts, the ability to communicate without voicing a single word aloud. Even if he spoke now, he doubted she could hear him, sunk too deeply into the twilight between life and death. So he poured his thoughts into her.

You think I’ll allow you to slip away from me? That I won’t go chasing after you?

He snarled. If anyone thought him a madman for growling beside the terribly still form of his lover, he did not care.

I rose high in the army, and quickly. Know why? Because I never let anything go. I ran my prey into the ground. A fort that needed capturing? I took it. A supply chain to be cut off? I severed it.

It’ll be the same with you, love. I went to the realm of the dead for you. I shall do it again. And again. As many times as I must. I won’t let you go.

Stubborn witch, understand this—before you tore into my life, I was . . . I was more of a ghost than you. A shade of a man. Haunting this world but without sense enough to realize I wasn’t truly alive.

Then . . . you.

He searched through her body, the broken parts of her, feeling her suffering as though it was his own. No wounds he’d ever received ever pained him as much.

You gave me more life than I’d ever possessed. Domineering, imperious, proud. Foolish ghost that I was, I believed you were my punishment for a life of sin.

No man had such sweet punishment. No man was less deserving of redemption. And yet, you fought for me. When I had abandoned hope, you continued to believe.

I cannot . . . He struggled, for merely thinking these thoughts was an agony. I cannot live without you. I won’t. I love you. And to have you with me, I will tear this world and the next apart.

“Please.” He did not know he spoke aloud until he opened his eyes to see Anne and Zora watching him with pity. His voice was a broken whisper as he bent low, laying his head lightly upon her breast. The fabric of her gown grew damp, and he knew he was the cause. “As you fought for me, fight for yourself. For us.”

Beneath his cheek, her heart slowed. Stopped.

His own stopped with it. Pain the likes of which he’d never known tore through him. An animal sound ripped from his chest. Hazily, he felt the hands of his friends on his shoulders, trying to offer comfort. He shook them off, and clutched handfuls of her gown as he kept his head buried against her breast.

A faint beat under his cheek. It came again, stronger this time. Then once more. With each successive throb, her heartbeat strengthened. Until, at last, it came steadily.

Lifting his head, he stared down at her, but her eyes remained closed. The rattling in her lungs disappeared, and her breathing cleared.

“You’ve never yielded,” he rasped. “Not once. And you won’t tonight.”

Livia continued to lie motionless. Yet he peered closely at her exposed skin. The burns were mending, the skin fresh and undamaged.

“Light,” he demanded of Zora.

Flames appeared around the Romani woman’s hands, and she held them up to provide illumination. Bram allowed himself a shuddering exhale. Livia was healing.

He cradled her hand in both of his, watching, waiting.

The first streaks of pink and crimson appeared in the sky as she opened her eyes.