Page 142 of Embrace Me Darkly

He pressed a hand to the casket, closed his eyes, then nodded. “I’m ready,” he said after a moment, then stepped back from the casket.

She nodded to the men standing near the crypt door, and they came slowly—Nick, Doyle, and Tucker.

The four men lifted the casket, then carried it into the crypt, settling it into one of the stone sarcophagi. Nick stepped back, then pressed his hand to Luke’s shoulder. “Shall we slide the stone into place?”

“Not yet,” Luke said.

Sara started to follow the men out, but Luke held her back with a hand to the arm. “Don’t leave.”

“Never,” she promised.

He reached over and lifted the lid on the coffin, and when he looked in on the girl, she could see the pain on his face, and tightened her hand in his.

“Luke?”

As she watched, he pulled Livia’s ring from his pocket, then gently placed it on Tasha’s little finger.

He turned to her, and she forced herself to speak through a throat clogged with tears. “You’re certain?” He’d carried it with him for so long that she feared he would miss not having it in his pocket.

“I am,” he said. “It’s time.”

Gently, she lifted her hand and placed a palm to his face, a warrior’s face, strong and scarred, yet soft with love.

He had buried two children tonight—Tasha and Livia—and the pain he felt burned through her. Yet he stood tall and strong beside her. He would heal, she knew. They both would.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand. And together they left the crypt and stepped back into the night.

Epilogue

“Are you nervous?”

Luke’s soft words from behind made Sara jump, and she twisted around to smack his hand away with her pen. “No. Of course not.” Hell, yes, she was nervous. “Now go sit down. You’re supposed to be in the gallery, not at the bar.”

“I believe, Counselor, that court is not currently in session.”

No, it most definitely wasn’t. She knew because she’d been stalking the halls of Division 6 for the past five hours, waiting for the jury on her first trial to come back. A demon who’d set up shop on the Internet, luring in aspiring actresses for screen tests, then using a specially manufactured camera to suck the life out of the human females as they read their lines. She’d been prepping the case for more than a month. The facts and the law were solid.

Now all that was left was for the jury to do its job.

According to Blair, the jury had finished, and the parties had been asked to return to the courtroom for the verdict.

Sara had been the first to arrive.

“There is very little more nerve-racking than waiting in a courtroom for a jury’s verdict,” Luke said.

She lifted a brow. “And how would you know? You’ve avoided the courtroom in at least as many cases as I’ve tried.”

He pressed a hand over his heart, his overly innocent expression making her laugh. “Counselor, I’m shocked. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I only wish that were so.” But she was teasing as well. Over the past several weeks they’d reached a tentative sort of truce. Luke stayed out of her courtroom—well, out of the defendant’s chair, at least—and she wouldn’t question what he did for the Alliance. What he did, she knew, to keep his ownAzag Mahruat bay.

Nikko Leviathan pushed through the gate with a curt nod toward Luke. Sara shooed him away, then watched, exasperated, as he took his time moving out into the gallery to sit directly behind her.

Slowly, the courtroom filled, and when all the parties had returned, the bailiff—a skinny gremlin—announced the judge with a shrill, “All rise!”

The judge, a wizened old vampire who sipped blood during testimony from a plastic travel mug, took his seat, then asked the defendant to stand as the foreman read the verdict.

Sara held her breath, certain she could feel Luke’s support wafting from behind her.

---