My eyes watered from the cold as Christoph hauled ass away from the city. He flew close to the horseshoe shoreline of Orchard Beach, his gaze flicking to me every few seconds, and he relaxed his suffocating hold as soon as he had me secured against his chest. Was this on purpose? Did he care whether I was comfortable or not? He hadn't said a word other than to warn me to keep still if I didn't want to fall to my death. I had no problem heeding his warning.

As we approached the nature preserve and my breathing slowed, I figured it couldn't hurt to engage my captor in conversation on the chance he had some humanity behind his demon facade.

"So, Christoph. Where are we headed? I'm afraid I never received an itinerary."

I glanced up in time to catch him suppressing a grin. So far, so good. "We never sent one out," he offered. "Cecile likes to use the element of surprise."

Shit.

Just as I suspected. He was taking me to Cecile. I was fucking toast, but my best line of defense was to keep Christoph talking. "Ah, I finally get to meet the illustrious Cecile. I've heard a lot about her."

Christoph's jaw tightened, and he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. "I'm sure most of what you've heard are lies. Gollums are bigoted in their opinion of us."

I had nothing to say to that, since I knew very little about either species.

"So, what's it like being both?" he went on. "Do you and that gollum boyfriend of yours fight all the time?"

Oh. So, we were going there, were we? "That problem was taken care of. Heath no longer controls me."

Christoph broke into a malicious laugh, which had my muscles tensing. "Seriously? You haven't figured it out yet? I guess Heath was telling the truth when he said he never told you."

Hmm. What was this demon playing at? Heath never told me what? "I know Heath was a demon, and I know he marked me, but that's all over now. Do you have more to add to that?"

Silence followed my question, the kind of silence you get when the television shuts off and your alone in the dark.

"You really don't know?" he said finally.

"I would if you told me." I did my best to stare up at him, using the guise of my watery eyes to play on his compassion. I dated a demon for eight months. I knew a little something about their nature.

"We need to land before I say anything more." Christoph made his announcement as he dove for a thick grove of trees next to the beach. Good. My tactic had worked, proving Christoph wasn't a mindless henchman like my previous abductors. Everyone had a weakness, and Heath was never able to resist my eyes. He let it slip once that they were his undoing. With any luck, I could locate Christoph's soft spot and expose it.

As we drew closer to the forest, I realized Christoph wasn't aiming for the beach, he was aiming for the trees, and when he yelled for me to grab a branch, I quickly followed his instructions, grasping a prickly limb as we collided with a pine.

"Ouch! Son-of-a-bitch!" My curse probably carried half a mile as I clutched the branch to my body like a lifeline. I felt Christoph release me as he came to rest on his own branch.

"Do we really have to land here?" I said as my one hundred and forty-five pounds pushed the limits of the limb I had claimed. "I'm not a fan of heights."

Christoph chuckled as he tucked his wings behind his back, making it seem as if his body weighed nothing. "I don't want you getting away," he said as he waited patiently in that position until I had done the same.

I tried to act calm, but I was freaking out. What if I fell? Would Christoph catch me in time? Would he care if I smacked into the dirt and broke every bone in my body? What was happening on the rooftop of Twenty Exchange Place?

Stop panicking and focus, Reese.

"Okay, Christoph. I'm not going anywhere. Tell me what's going on?" I said as I ignored the sharp needles stabbing me through my velvet dress.

"Reese, look at me. I'm not going to let you fall." Christoph's voice dragged my gaze away from the spindly branch I was holding, and I realized he had taken ahold of my arm. "Try to relax."

"Relax! That's the worst advice you could give me right now!" I felt my anger ramp up but I attempted to suppress it. This was no time to lose my temper.

"I'm sorry. Do you want to climb lower?" Christoph offered. "I keep forgetting you don't know anything."

I glared at him, hoping he could read the indignation behind my supposed lethal eyes while I assessed him as an opponent. Christoph had the body of a tank and the kind of face you could cast as the lead role of an adventure movie. Handsome but with rough edges. Paint his skin red and he was Hellboy. "Just get on with it," I growled.

Christoph nodded, looking somewhat lost and uncomfortable. "Okay, okay. You don't have to bite my head off. Heath told me you had a temper." He paused and a hint of a smile played on his mouth before he went on. "How much do you know about your birth parents?"

My birth parents? Why would a demon be asking a question like that? "Next to nothing."

"That's what I thought. So, you grew up with adopted parents who didn't know what you were?"

I continued to glare at him as I answered his stupid question. "My parents are human, if that's what you mean."

He bobbed his head. "And the gollums appear to be clueless too, or they just don't want you to know."

"Know what? Honestly, Christoph. You need to spit it out already."

Christoph adopted a cheeky grin, which immediately annoyed me. "Heath didn't mark you, Reese. You were marked the day you were conceived. Your grandfather is a demon."

~ ~ ~

There's not much a girl can do when she's trapped in the branches of a tree thirty feet above the ground. So, I was stuck listening to Christoph retell the story of my life, and it wasn't a pleasant one.

"Your parentage is not well known among the younger demons. Only the older ones know," he said as he maintained a gentle hold on the sleeve of my dress. He appeared to be attempting to reassure me, which wasn't going to happen as long as we stayed perched at the top of a fucking pine tree. "Heath knew, of course, and the other colony leaders."

"Heath is a colony leader?"

Christoph's face pinched, and he glanced down at his taloned feet. "He was a colony leader. Baltimore is currently without a shepherd."

"A shepherd?"

"Yes. A guide. A mentor. Whatever your opinions were of Heath, he was a strong and inspiring leader to the demons under his care. He will be hard to replace."

Yikes. This was getting too personal.

"Your grandmother is a gollum," Christoph continued. "She had a daughter by Willem, your grandfather. The daughter was named Gabrielle. In spite of her hybrid nature, Gabrielle managed to attract a gollum mate. They produced one offspring, a daughter named Elise. We believe that's you, but somehow your name got changed to Reese. Your father was an important member of his family and already had a son. To this day, his mate does not know of his infidelity. At least, word has not trickled down to the demons that his infidelity has been uncovered."

The more Christoph explained, the further I fell down the rabbit hole, and when I realized he was staring at me with his face quirked, my brain sprang back to life. "I have a brother?"

"Yes, a half brother, but I'm not at liberty to tell you his whereabouts. Not yet. Willem still lives with the colony. I'm taking you to him now."

Christoph continued to stare at me. Was he waiting for me to thank him for finding my long-lost demon grandfather? I sure as hell hoped not. We would be sitting in this dammed tree forever.

"So, Cecile doesn't want to kill me?" I said, because that question had been at the forefront of my mind since the abduction.

"No. She wants to talk to you. Both she and Willem are interested to know how you're getting along. There are not many hybrids in existence today. You're a novelty."

I bobbed my head, although it made me dizzy and I stopped immediately. "A novelty, huh?"

"It's not an insult, Reese. Well, maybe to some demons. Okay, most demons think your pond scum, but Cecile and Willem don't. When Heath discovered you, Cecile asked him to keep an eye on you rather than bring you to the hive right away. She didn't want you to have a bad impression of her, or us. So, she tasked Heath with... um..."

Christoph looked away for a second, but that was all the time I needed to pick up his vibe.

"Heath was pretending to like me all the time we were together, wasn't he? He probably hated my guts. That's why we fought all the time."

Christoph shook his head vehemently. "No. That's not how it went. He liked you too much, and he refused to relinquish you to the hive when Cecile later asked him to. He knew he would lose you to the hive, so he kept you to himself under constant surveillance. Until you slipped away."

Oh, snap.

"I really don't know what to say to that except, I never knew Heath felt that way."

"You fought all the time because of what you are. Apparently, you have a volatile temper." He raised his eyebrows, but I ignored the gesture.

"What about my mother? Does anyone know where she is?"

Christoph's face turned puce, and he looked away, out toward the water. 

Shit.

"She's dead, isn't she? My mother."

"Most likely. It was reported she died during a battle with a gollum during your abduction. It was believed you died too, but clearly that was untrue. So, I suppose there's still hope for her."

"Wait. Do you know the name of the gollum who killed her?"

"No, but Cecile might."

Oh, this was too much. Much too much. The horizon turned on its side, and before I knew it, I was tumbling off my limb, shrieking as I went. Christoph's sharp talons quickly snagged me by my dress, and he hauled me to the ground, colliding with tree branches on the way down. We hit the sand with a collective thud, and he ended up sprawled on top of me. All the air left my lungs, and my eyes bugged out as I attempted to gasp.

"Reese! Breathe, dammit!" Christoph hovered over me, looking panicked. This was definitely not the cocky demon I'd seen at the club two nights ago. He acted like he cared. Probably because he would be punished if he brought Cecile a dead hybrid.

I managed to move air through my lungs, and Christoph took in one of his own as he sat back on his taloned heels. I had to wonder if he wasn't impaling himself in the ass. As I pushed off the ground, he grabbed my arm to help me sit up.

"Why are you being nice to me, Christoph?" I asked. "Aren't demons supposed to hate gollums?"

He grimaced, causing the skin around his horns to bunch. When I looked closer, I noticed they resembled goat horns, darker at the base and curving slightly toward the back of his head. "You're not like them," he said. "You weren't raised to hate demons. I have never felt hostility toward you or from you. We've crossed paths many times. You don't recognize me, do you?"

I stared at his face, trying to place him in a situation other than Hellboy in the subway. "I'm sorry. I don't."

"That's okay. You weren't supposed to. I was incognito most of the time, like your buddy Rizzo. Of course, as soon as he discovered you, I had to keep my distance."

"Really. You were stalking me before the Valentinos found me?"

"Yes, although it wasn't long before. Two days, maybe."

"Heavy," I whispered as I picked particles of sand off my dress. "So, what happens now?"

Christoph didn't answer. He was watching me groom myself, and I couldn't help thinking he might be interested in joining me, probably in the way his eyes darted to the next fleck of sand as my fingers moved toward it.

"You're in love with Vincent." His comment took me by surprise. Not only because I hadn't expected him to change the subject, but also because it wasn't a question. He already knew the answer. I abandoned my futile efforts to decontaminate myself and met his searching gaze.

"Yes, I am. He was fighting for the right to claim me as his mate when you and your comrades ambushed us, but you probably already knew that. Who tipped you off? Was it a gollum?"

He broke eye contact with me to look at his hands, which he had stuck in the sand. "Emile. He hates the Valentinos, especially Vincent. I think it has something to do with a female."

"Emile? Holy crap. But, the domi are supposed to support each other."

"He has no allegiance to any of them. When one of us approached him, he pretty much spilled his guts. It was easy to win him over from there."

As I sat there with sand filling my shoes listening to this demon tell me his dirty little secrets, I realized I wasn't afraid of him, and it freed up my brain to think about Vincent. Had he broken away from the demons? Was he searching for me? Was he still alive? A felt my throat tighten and I shut my eyes, trying to stifle tears. Vincent had to be okay. He had to be. Suddenly, a wave of anger swept over me, and I clenched my hands in the sand.

"I'm going to kill Emile," I growled. "I'm going to tear his fucking wings off his back and jam them up his ass."

"What?" Christoph gaped at me like I'd just threatened him.

"If something terrible has happened to Vincent, I will hunt Emile down and castrate him with his own talons."

I pushed up from the sand, using a nearby pine for support, and Christoph quickly joined me, eyeing me warily. Despite the unexpected feeling of comradery I felt with Christoph, I still couldn't trust him, and Wren's earlier advice surfaced from the depths of my brain. I needed to be able to protect myself, and with Christoph in his demon form, I was sorely outgunned. But did I dare transform in front of him? That would leave me vulnerable for at least five minutes, plenty of time for him to scoop me up and carry me off.

And then there was the terminus mantras which I hadn't memorized yet. I didn't want to be stuck with fangs and talons until my rescue. Would I even be rescued? I hadn't seen a single gollum fly overhead. They were probably still busy defending themselves against demons.

"Reese. We need to go. It's my job to deliver you to the hive." Christoph's expression had morphed from wary to stiff-lipped, and his dark eyes held me in their sharp sights. It was now or never.

"Give me a moment?" I held up my finger as I started reciting the mantras in my head. All the while, I kept my eyes locked on Christoph's face, preparing to react if he denied my request. He never flinched, even as I bit my lip against the rush of sensations assaulting my body, and when the sweet ache swept through my belly and down between my legs, I saw his gaze travel to my crotch, as if lured there by some invisible force. But, it was the pain that became my undoing, and I collapsed into the sand as I was overcome.

"What's going on?" Christoph said, his voice throaty, almost lusty. "Are you changing? Can you change?"

Apparently, not very well. My body had begun convulsing under the strain of growing the parts I needed to defend myself, and there wasn't a shower in sight. It also didn't help having Christoph loom over me, sucking up all my oxygen. I managed to push onto my hands and knees as the muscles in my back spasmed, and I arched my spine, crying out in agony. I heard Christoph curse, but it was my howl that had me freaking out. A howl that reminded me of every werewolf movie I'd ever seen, and darkness filled my peripheral view as back-breaking pain surged through my body. This was it. I was going to die and be sent to hell for all the debauchery I had engaged in during my short life.

I opened my eyes and found Christoph's pale, wide-eyed face greeting me. My skull felt like it had been used as a hand winch, and I lifted my hand to slap it over my forehead.

"Fuck, Reese! I thought you were going to die on me," Christoph said. "That was, by far, the most intense transformation I have ever witnessed."

"If I had known it was going to hurt that bad, I would have surrendered to you willingly."

Somehow, his eyes managed to grow larger. "Don't tell me that was your first time."

I shook my head, which was all I could manage as I tried to sit up, but something was holding me to the ground.

"Hold up a minute." Christoph pressed his hand to my chest to keep me still. "You landed on your back when you passed out. You need to roll over so you don't damage your wings."

"My wings! I have... I have wings?"

"Yes. Damn nice ones from what I saw of them. If you roll onto your knees first, I will help you stand and we'll take a look."

Christoph slipped his hands under my shoulders and helped me roll sideways. As I assumed a reasonably comfortable position on my hands and knees, I felt the weight on my back, and it took me a minute to find my balance. There was also an unpleasant churning in my gut, and when Christoph tried to lift me up, I stopped him.

"Hold on. If I stand now, I'm going to puke."

Christoph immediately released his grip, and I spent the next few minutes staring at my clawed hands. They were thick-skinned and ugly, but I expected they would be useful in a bitch slapping contest. I also noticed my boobs were half-exposed under the broken ties of my dress, which I figured had something to do with growing wings. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about that at the moment.

As soon as I felt ready, I gave Christoph the okay to help me up, and I pushed to my feet, adjusting my stance as the weight of the wings tugged my shoulders back. They were heavier than I expected. How in the hell did anyone fly with these suckers?

"Can you stand on your own?" Christoph asked as he maintained a firm grip on my shoulders. He didn't seem concerned that we were equally armed and dangerous, although he probably thought I wasn't much of a threat. As I steadied myself against a pine, Christoph reached out and lifted my chin. I immediately jerked away.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "I noticed a mark under your chin when you were passed out. I just want to see how badly Kelly cut you."

Oh, Kelly. I lifted my head to give him access to the wound. I knew it had already healed to the size of a small scratch. One of the benefits of my gollum nature, according to Vincent. "Did Kelly really... kill herself?" I asked.

Christoph pursed his lips, forcing him to exhale through his nose. "Yes, but she did it under duress. She was pressured by some of the other demons, the ones who still believed the stupid rumor your boyfriend and his buddies instigated."

Rumor? Did he mean the rumor about me being able to infect others? Wasn't that Cecile's doing? I looked at him, confused. "So, you don't believe I'm infected? You don't think I could spread my gollumness onto you?"

He laughed. "You're not contagious, Reese. The only thing you could do of any consequence is pollute the gene pool. I'm sure Vincent is going to have a rude awaking when he finds out about your parentage." He laughed again. A more devious one this time. "I'd like to be there for that."

I didn't like the direction this conversation was going. In fact, I needed to focus on my escape. The gollums would never find me if I stayed hidden inside the forest. I needed to get out into the open. "Can we walk to the beach? I'm feeling claustrophobic. I might need some help though."

I reached my clawed hand out to Christoph in a gesture of trust, and he took the bait, wrapping his hand carefully around my upper arm. I assumed he would prefer a take-off from the beach, so my plan could backfire on me, but I was thinking risk versus reward here. This demon had a vested interest in me, and I still had a few strings I could pull.

PLAYLIST SONG: Trip The Darkness by Lacuna Coil