Demon Moon

blood. His blood.
    The shrieks multiplied, a million different pieces and voices. Chaos wouldn’t let him go, wouldn’t —
    “The mirrors,” Savi gasped. “Get rid of them!”
    Silence.
    Then the rapid beating of her heart, her frenetic breaths. She stifled a sob when he lifted his body from hers. But even as he gingerly rolled her, cried out when he saw the shredded ruin of her back and shoulders, a burst of power knitted her skin and muscle together again.
    A psychic touch slid quickly over Colin’s form, and his wounds sealed up.
    Michael . Colin’s gratitude died, overwhelmed by rage. Bloody fucking bastard. He wouldn’t need a sword; he’d tear the Doyen’s head from his shoulders.
    But when he turned, shock held him immobile.
    “I apologize,” Michael said evenly, but he staggered as he climbed to his feet. Crimson soaked his white linen tunic in rough arcs: the shape of the dragon’s bite. The blood still flowed; the wounds didn’t appear deep, and hardly fatal—but even a vampire’s would have stopped bleeding by now. “I had not anticipated how strong your combined anchors to Chaos would be.”
    The Doyen frowned down at his side. Behind him, the Room gaped open and empty, blank white walls where the mirrors had been. Vanished into Michael’s cache.
    “You can’t heal it?” Savi asked, standing with her arm crossed over her breasts. Holding her shirt on, Colin realized. The glass had sliced the straps.
    Freshly repaired caramel skin streaked like scars through the painting of Caelum.
    He didn’t trust himself to speak; he’d weep or scream, and either reaction would likely frighten her. He moved behind her, untied the bow dangling useless on one side, and used the extra length to knot it closed.
    Simple courtesy—and it was all that held him together.
    “Apparently, I cannot,” Michael said. He blinked; obsidian obscured the white and amber of his eyes. “That is…not good.”
    Her ribs expanded beneath his hand as Savi sucked in a harsh breath; her small frame shook with sudden, hysterical laughter. Not amusement at the Doyen’s understatement, Colin knew; like him, she was overwhelmed and had either laughter or tears as a release.
    Or both.
    She wiped her eyes, leaned back against him. “I saw what they were writing,” she said. “The nosferatu, on the ceiling.”
    Michael’s head jerked up, his gaze narrowing. “You can remember them—replicate them?”
    “Yes. Though not today; I’m not quite ready to go back there yet. Even if it’s just in my mind. But Colin won’t have to take you to see them.”
    Christ. Colin forced the tension from his arms, wrapped them around her. “There’s still the bridge, sweet.”
    “Use a freaking nuclear bomb,” she said. “In and out, two seconds. Blow the whole place to Fuckville.”
    This time Colin let himself laugh, pressing his cheek against the top of her brilliant head, inhaling the scent of her spiky hair.
    “That may be a solution, but we’ll not do it today.”
    “No,” she agreed. “Not today. Home?”
    “Yes.” He could think of no other place he’d rather be with her.
    “It is probably best that I do not teleport you,” Michael said. Though he looked a bit steadier now, his lips were taut with pain, his face stonier than typical.
    The sod was the bloody king of understatement.

    The taxi driver probably assumed Colin was sick or sleeping, but whatever concern it might have engendered didn’t prevent him from remarking several times that he’d never experienced such a quiet rush hour. Savi just hoped that he wouldn’t notice the symbols she’d scraped into the rear passenger door.
    Colin’s hands were firm on her hips, his head in her lap. The hooded jacket Michael had made protected him from the sun, except for his face.
    But Savi thought he held her so close out of a much deeper need than avoiding a burn—and she clutched him as tightly, though she had little to fear now.
    Death had been so near—and the danger hadn’t come from Dalkiel, which they’d expected and prepared for, but something within them.
    She glanced down at Colin’s fingers. Was the shaking a delayed reaction, or the animal blood? Hard to say, when hers trembled, too; the henna seemed to shiver, barely anchored by the band of platinum.
    The light glinted off his ring, and she slid her skirt up, used the cotton to cover his skin.
    “Shameless hoyden,” he said, his voice muffled against her now-naked thigh. And he remained