give her a concussion but hard enough to make the stars in her eyes roll. In the fistful of moments that Scratch needed to recover, Grif dragged Kit’s body over to Dennis’s, and tucked them each under an arm. His wings snapped overhead, shielding them all from the singeing ash, though there was nothing he could do about the smoke but move fast.
He bounded back through the restaurant, darker than before, where the fresh construction wood and roomful of toxic propellants sat smoky and silent, like a ticking bomb. Kit’s legs began wheeling, and a sharp pain shot through Grif’s arm as her teeth found the flesh of his biceps, but he just squeezed her neck until her limbs fell still again. Sorry, sweetheart, he thought, dragging her along. But as long as Scratch was inside her, it was forced to live with her fleshly limitations. Grif had no choice but to use that.
Keeping his head low, Grif burst through the front doors and out into the open. Kit had told him the place was surrounded, but the building was ablaze now, and the Cubans had retreated. With one final marshaling of his strength, Grif tore past the onlookers as sirens wailed in the distance. A little late, Grif thought, falling to his knees on the cracked deck of Shangri-La’s murky pool.
He left Dennis sprawled next to the turbid water as Kit swung and kicked and bit at him. Holding tight to her body, possessed by this creature, Grif wrested her arm and ducked the blows.
“You will die, Shaw!” Kit muttered, throaty and earthy.
“No. You will.” Then he plunged Kit’s body deep, and held her down.
Her limbs exploded in action. Grif knew Scratch was strong, but he hadn’t been prepared for the violence of the reaction, and her face breeched the surface, black pinpricked eyes reeling madly as Scratch fought for purchase. Grif shoved her under again.
“Get out, you bastard,” Grif growled, because as long as those eyes remained starry, opaque points, Scratch was in possession of his girl.
Being dunked would be a sort of reverse baptism for a fallen angel, Jesse had said. It’d kill them rather than save them.
Grif hoped so. Because if this didn’t work, he was killing the woman he loved.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kit knew what was happening. She knew despite being out of control of her body and her words and the thoughts that roiled over her own like crashing waves. Humans were dunked in baptism and could be reborn in life through water. Submersion should equal death for Scratch. Yet all she could think as she stared through the shallows at Grif was that four months ago this man couldn’t bear to let her die. Now he couldn’t let her live. Not, at least, with Scratch inside.
Scratch knew it, too. The fallen angel’s thoughts became her own.
The Eternal Forest awaits you, Katherine. I will wrap you in the roots of the fallen Tree of Life. I’ll tie knots around your soul. You’ll reside among the black, brittle arteries of rotted boughs, which will hold you firm while I savage you again and again.
Kit tried to hold her breath, to be strong and control what little she could—but Scratch was holding its breath, too. It thrashed to free itself from Grif’s hold, while the pressure of its rotted thoughts stewed inside her skull like a second brain.
When you’re dead, I’m going to make that Centurion watch as I carry you away. You’ll be Lost to him forever.
Fighting the instinct to thrash against Grif as well, Kit forced her limbs to still. No, the water is weakening you. And I’m still in control.
And she focused on Grif’s face, clearer now that the water was calming, studying her and willing her back. This was her body and life. That was her man. And she would prevail.
We’ll see about that.
And Scratch played a slipstream of her memories back to her, her life flashing like previews at the cinema. She watched her mother die again. She saw her father laid to rest. She felt the fogginess of her brain while seeking treatment for mental heath. She remembered a man racing from the shadows to save her life; the first time she’d ever seen Grif.
Bring it, you bastard, she thought, holding her breath. Because all of that made me who I am . . . and I’m strong.
Scratch’s growl scraped the inner walls of her skull, and she felt her eyes pulse with its anger. Above her, the water obscured Grif’s frown