Gideon couldn’t care less about what happens to him after that.
Pete is one of the people Gideon had…acquiredover the years after returning to Nashville. He was a good person to know, especially now.
Pete opens the wrought-iron gate just as Gideon runs up. “Better hurry.”
Instead of hurrying, though, Gideon slows his stride, slips off his shoes, and treads as quietly as he can to where Hayes is lying—stillalive—in an ever-widening pool of his putrid blood. Gideon can tell he’s still living because of the hitching of his breaths and the occasional twitch of the fingers on his only “good” hand.
Nix had done a remarkable job in injuring for pain and not for death, as if he’d studied the art ofDeath by a Thousand Cuts. But as Gideon catalogs the injuries, it is obvious they weren’t random at all.
What a smart kitten.
“Wh–’s there?” Hayes mutters. Blood has completely blocked his vision, and his limbs are too weak to wipe it clear.
Gideon lets the memory flood in—Nix broken and still in that ICU bed, the scent of fever and decay already thick in the air.
He remembers Jay’s decades-old grief, too.
They’re just a few of the reasons Gideon is here.
Hayes coughs, then. “He–p, me. Is someone…there?” Hayes cries. It’s probably because he’s been suffering in this field for forty-three minutes.
Good.
The memories of a frightened Nix afraid to leave the hospital, of him cowering after a terrible nightmare where he dreamed this man locked him in a closet, or of him hiding under the bed thinking he wasruinedbecause of Hayes’s touch, make it easy for Gideon to smile a little.
As far as he’s concerned, the forty-five minutes of suffering isn’t nearly enough, and Gideon meant it when he told Nix he’d done just the right thing.
This demon’s last breath has always belonged to Gideon.
Hayes stops his crying, and his breaths come slower, with longer spaces between them. If Gideon listens closely, he can hear the black rock in Hayes’s chest stutter out its last beats.
Standing heedless of the soft, blood-soaked grass, Gideon pulls the stainless steel pendant out of his pocket and lets the sun glint off the inscribed symbols that sayJayon the back and theHideon the front. He has to hold down his gag reflex because it’s only become more toxic since he’d pulled it out of its spelled cloth bag on the way back from the car.
Gideon crouches and lets the pendant hang over Hayes’s dying body. It swings at first, but then it stills like a dowsing rod over a well.
Soul magic, then.
Hayes jerks, his heart giving a few rapid beats before it slows.
One…two……three………four…………five.
One last beat for every year Nix spent hidden from Gideon’s pack.
He props open Hayes’s bloody mouth, his teeth already rotted away, and drops the pendant in.
It slides right down his throat.
Standing, Gideon turns away and grabs his shoes, jogging back the way he came with a nod for Pete. He stops to be sure the keys are in his pocket where he’d left them but stops when he realizes they’re missing.
“Are you looking for these?” Leo asks from the shadows before stepping out and dangling the key fob in front of him.
“Did you…”
“Every minute.”
“How did you know?” Gideon asks, accepting the bottle of water from his mate so he can rinse most of the black blood from his feet, using the grass to scrub it away before sliding his shoes on.
“I know you too damn well.”
