A Mermaid's Ransom by Joey W. Hill Page A

know that," she added softly. "She is weakening even now. She might have longer if he's shielding her somehow, but knowing Dante, I wouldn't count on that."
    Anna's lips quivered, but she firmed them. "Will she be okay, once she's back?"
    "We make sure she gets back here, and then worry about that," Mina said in her usual brusque way. "There's nothing we can do until we have her here."
    "All right, then." The pragmatic strategy seemed to rally Jonah. He kept his arm around Anna, however, as he turned to Lucifer. "I know your answer, but I will ask anyway."
    Lucifer shook his head. "The Lady sends Her grief and comfort, but you know She cannot touch the Dark One domain. Mina is your gateway." The Lord of the Underworld was the only angel with crimson lights in his dark eyes, and he shifted them now to the seawitch. "Though She said if you need additional energy to shore up your own, you need only call. Like all of us, She loves the merangel."
    A strangled sob escaped Anna, and Jonah laid a hand on her hair. "Is there somewhere she could rest, Mina, until this--"
    "No." Anna caught an edge of Jonah's wing, mopping her eyes in the feathers before tears could fall. "I'm fine. Alexis needs me to be fine. I'm not crying." She set her jaw and locked gazes with Mina. "Do what you need to do to get my daughter away from this bastard, so my mate can end him once and for all."
    The harsh mother's anger that rolled through the cave was so unlike Anna's gentle voice, a shiver rippled up David's spine. But Mina simply nodded. "Let's get to work, then."

    WHEN Alexis roused from her postcoital doze, her limbs felt heavy. It was strange to feel unwell and sexually sated at once. The buzzing roar was louder in her head, and she had a hard time lifting her upper body. But she pushed herself up, wrinkling her nose at the stench of blood, which seemed more pronounced than it had been when she was distracted by Dante's seduction, or perhaps--
    " Stop ," she cried out, but it was too late.
    The humanoid, who reminded Alexis of the early Neanderthals she'd seen in pictures, was female. It was obvious because she was naked, and she'd been raped, her sensitive flesh torn, thighs and buttocks stained with blood too plentiful to be otherwise. Her breasts had been bitten, torn open. Where she lay on her stomach next to the ritual circle, her head was over the shallow basin. As a result, she was struggling, trying to keep her face out of the blood.
    Dante had a knee on her back. When Alexis cried out, he'd seized a hank of the female's hair, pulling up her head at a hard angle. The knife made his intent clear. Lex was already off the bed and moving, pulling herself by her arms, flapping her wings despite her weakness.
    He was far quicker. The efficient slash cut the female's throat open. Blood spurted into the circle, replenishing the pool. Alexis stopped, frozen, as life died out of the woman's eyes. She held Alexis's horrified gaze to the end though, as if she knew that was the only source of mercy in the room.
    Even as her body jerked, the soul struggling to free itself, Dante shoved a cloth in the wound, soaking it. When he dropped the head with a liquid thunk , the face landing in the blood, Alexis flinched. Moving to the door without further attention to either female, he began to refresh the broad slashing marks there, muttering another chant.
    Alexis scrambled to the female's side and lifted her head in both hands. With difficulty, she held her in one arm and used the fingers of the other to wipe the blood from the eyelids so the woman could see her. Alexis placed a trembling hand on the smelly, bloodsoaked hair, feeling the woman's terror and pain slowly ebb away with her life. She must have been brutalized out in the Dark One world, during the hours while Alexis slept. Bring me more blood , Dante had said. He hadn't specified how it was to be treated. That didn't matter to him at all.
    "I'm sorry. Go in peace." As she murmured the prayer of