by May Dawson
“Because feelings matter between Hunters.” I scoffed.
“Feelings matter between us.” He was instantly furious all over again.
“Right, you and I have a real bond.”
He huffed out a breath and turned away from me, heading to the window. He tried the locks absently, but of course the window didn’t open. “You didn’t mind them caging you like this?”
“It wasn’t a cage, Cade.” I chose to push him. “I wanted to be here.”
From the look that flashed across his face as he turned, he didn’t appreciate that thought at all.
He rested his big shoulders against the glass as he crossed his arms. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why would you want to be here, with your enemies, with the man that killed Liam, for Christ’s sake?” He demanded. “You don’t want to be at the academy, with us, learning to fight the monsters?”
The sense of having betrayed Liam tightened my chest all over again, before anger washed over me, dulling that pain. “The Hunters are no heroes.”
“Did he brainwash you?” Cade crossed to me in a few quick strides. His big hands fell on my shoulders, and he studied my face as if he’d be able to sense magic there. “Did he use a spell on you?”
I grabbed his wrists, suddenly furious, about to pull his touch away. His hands on my shoulders felt warm and heavy and safe somehow, and I hesitated.
“He didn’t do anything to me,” I said. “I just realized how complicated everything is.”
He studied my face. “You think he had a reason to kill Liam.”
“I didn’t say it was a good enough reason!”
“But you don’t want to kill him. Because you think he’s your father.”
“You know what it’s like, Cade. Don’t you?” My voice came out in a whisper. “To want to belong. To want to have a family.”
“I do have a family,” he said.
He had a brother, and I longed desperately for a sister.
I felt my brows pull together. “I should have a sister…”
“Tristan told me,” he cut me off, but I didn’t mind. The fact that he said it, and said it so brusquely without any hint of sympathy, kept me from crying.
“But,” he went on, “I chose Nix to be my family too. Not blood. No...magic. I don’t know that you’ll ever find what you’re looking for, Deidra, but I think you could stop.”
He made it all sound so simple. I ducked my head, blinking back tears. I felt stupid for wanting my father so badly. I felt stupid for being torn and wanting to go home to the academy. The truth was, the cost of either thing felt too high. To return to the academy, I had to kill Truby. If I stayed with Truby, I could never go back to the Hunters.
“Open your eyes,” Cade said. “People who care about you are right here, stupid.”
I looked up at him. Tears clung to my eyelashes like shadows, but my vision was suddenly clear as I blinked. “Did you just call me stupid?”
“Sometimes,” he shot back.
His lips crashed down on mine.
I kissed him back, my fingers tightening on his shirt, drawing him toward me. He kissed me with heat and certainty.
When we pulled apart, he murmured, “I’m still so fucking pissed at you. You scared me, you hurt Tristan—”
I pressed my hand against his chest, holding him away from me because all I wanted was to kiss him again. My lips tingled. “There’s no way out for me, Cade. Either I kill him or I abandon you all. So don’t make it sound like this should be simple.”
“No.” He shook his head. His beautifully-shaped lips pressed together tightly over his determined jaw. “Those are the only two options when you do this alone. Together, we can figure out something else.”
“Well, well, well,” Truby said from the doorway. “I’m starting to feel like I made the right choice when I let you live.”
Cade stepped forward, automatically putting his body between Truby and me.
“Easy.” I touched his shoulder as I moved out from behind him. The gesture was sweet, but I didn’t need to be defended.
Emily lurked behind Truby, her pale face drawn.
“It’s time for me to go,” Truby said. “I just wanted to say goodbye. The holding spell on the room should last an hour, and then you’ll be able to leave.”
I nodded. I didn’t know how to say goodbye to him. Especially not with Cade looking on; the air in the room was tense.
It would be nice if the men in my life could stop threatening to kill each other.
“Time for you to go home too,” Truby said gently to Emily. “We’ll meet again one day.”
She certainly didn’t feel my uncertainty. She melted into his arms. Her breath hiccupped, and it took me a second to understand that she was crying.
When he ducked his head over her shoulder, patting her shoulder in a soft, steady cadence, it looked like he really was her father. I felt an ache, wishing I had someone to hug me like that.
“You’re a tough, bright girl, you’ll be fine,” he murmured.
“Take me with you,” she said. “Please. I’m old enough to go with you.”
“You’re fifteen,” he said gently. “I want to bring you with me, but you deserve to be a teenager for now. Go to school, have friends, have dinner with those parents who love you. You have your whole life to be a witch. No one can take your magic from you.”
He waited until she nodded, although she was still crying, then gently disentangled himself. “I’m going to drop you off at home. Make sure you’re safe and then I’ll leave.”
Truby looked to Cade. “Promise me that the Hunters won’t come after the ones we’re leaving behind. She’s just a girl.”
“No one would hurt her,” Cade said, his voice gruff.
Truby gave him a hard look. “If you think that’s true, then I guess naivety is contagious.”
Cade frowned, but Truby ignored him. He wrapped me up in a hug. It felt as awkward as the first time, and I breathed in the scent of his soap and the faintest iron odor of blood.
“Come find me in Paris,” he murmured. “Really. We can be reunited with your sister, too. I’m not promising we’ll be the happiest or the most normal family, but we’ll be a real family.”
Irritation flashed across Cade’s face.
“We can do the family reunion right now,” Corson said from the doorway. “Truby, it’s time you stopped lying to that girl.”
I was looking at Cade when he said it, and so I saw the look that flashed across Cade’s face. Guilt? Why the hell did Cade feel guilty?
Truby threw up his hands, and the floor lurched beneath us as a deafening wave of sound crashed over us. Suddenly, part of the building—where the locked windows had been a minute before—was gone. Cold air rushed in through the jagged edges of the wall.
“Get out of here!” Truby shouted at me. “Run!”
Cade grabbed my arm, towing me with him.
Truby shoved the girl toward us before he whirled to face Corson. The door burst open, and another demon jumped in.
All Hell was breaking loose behind us as Truby faced off against the demons, but Cade drew me with him, yanking me toward the broken edge of the house.
Emily ran along with us for a few steps, then balked at the edge of the house.
Cade grabbed her, pulling her tight against his waist. “Jump!” He shouted at me.
He expected me to follow, and he didn’t even hesitate before he jumped. She screamed, her legs wind-milling as if she was still trying to fight him off in mid-air.
He landed in the billowy snow below, falling with her on top of him. Then he pushed her off and scrambled to his feet. Even though he took care of her, Cade only had eyes for me.
“Jump!” He shouted again.
He looked small below, even though I was just two stories above him. I felt distant from the scene below, the rush to safety. The wind rushed over my face from the broken side of the building, and behind me, the crack
le of battle of magic filled the air.
“Deidra, go!” Truby shouted behind me.
If I were smart, I’d leave my father to die there, with the demons. Let them fight my battles for me and kill each other. I could just run.
But they don’t call me Deathwish for nothing, do they?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Cade
Deidra disappeared back into the half-ruined building. I stared after her in disbelief for a second. Having her walk away—again—-wrenched my chest with fear.
But I still had a job to do. I swore, taking in the situation unfolding around us. The witches were fighting desperately with the demons who had swarmed the compound.
Rolling into the fray came Nix and Tristan and our new Hunter friends. Their Suburbans and Range Rovers were speeding up the roads toward the house, gleaming distantly under the winter sun.
I grabbed the girl’s arm and towed her with me. “You need to get out of here. Do you have a car?”
“Who the hell are you?” She spat at me, pulling away. Bright eyes met mine as she yanked away so forcefully that she almost fell. “I don’t need help from some Hunter.”
“And I don’t need lip from some wanna-be witch, but here we are,” I shot back. “Those demons want something, and they aren’t going to hesitate to kill you if you’re in their way.”
Malcolm’s words, long ago, rang in my ears. He’d said that Truby wanted to trade Deidra to the demons. That turned out to be untrue—Truby really did want Deidra because he thought she was his heir—but the demons must want Deidra. They knew what she was.
I had to get back to Deidra. This
“Do you have a car or not?” I snapped at her.
“I’m fifteen!” She snapped right back.
I stared at her without understanding.
“I don’t have a driver’s license yet! No, I don’t have a car.”
“Okay. Awesome. Was that so freaking difficult to say?” Civilians were so weird. Hunters didn’t care about those kind of stupid laws. A kid was ready to drive a car when they were ready. Sixteen wasn’t some magic number.
I half dragged, half shoved her toward the path of the Hunters’ vehicles. I couldn’t leave her alone in this war zone, even though I was pissed—and scared—about being separated from Deidra when she needed me most.
Even though that damned cocky brat of a girl had decided she would separate herself.
“I’m fine.” She tried to yank her arm away from me, but my grip only tightened. “I can take one of the cars in Truby’s garage. You can get off me anytime now.”
“Sorry,” I said blandly. “Making sure stupid civilians don’t get themselves killed is in the job description.”
The Range Rover in the lead barely slowed as it headed toward the house, but the passenger door opened and Nix jumped out, sword in hand. “Where’s Deidra?”
“At the house. Someone needs to protect this random girl.” I shoved her at Nix. Not it.
He turned and raised his arm at the second vehicle, and it slammed on its brakes, coming to an abrupt stop.
I was already racing back toward the house as I heard the girl protesting all the way. Nix was not particularly sympathetic; he shoved her into the car.
Then Nix was at my side in a few strides, and the two of us raced for the house together.
“What happened?” Nix demanded.
“I don’t know what she’s thinking,” I said. “Don’t kill Truby. He was trying to leave us here, alive, when the demons showed up.”
“They want to take her.” It didn’t take much for him to pull the strings together. “Wait, don’t kill Truby?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“She brainwashed?”
“Does it matter?” I demanded. “If you kill the man she thinks is her father, she’ll just be more damaged—”
“Don’t insult her,” Nix warned.
“That’s not an insult, it’s just reality. Don’t worry, I think you’re a fucking mess too.”
The two of us jumped up the steps to the front porch just as the door flew open.
Two demons stepped out.
“We’re going to talk about this more later,” Nix warned, already swinging with his sword.
“Oh, I can’t wait.”
For now, though, the clash of sword-on-sword and the crackle of magic filled the air.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Deidra
“I thought we had a deal.” Truby rasped.
Corson had him pinned against the wall. “Deals change,” he growled.
I glanced around the room frantically. Truby hadn’t exactly locked me up with any weapons. If I were him, I wouldn’t have trusted me with weapons either.
Demons don’t die easy, though.
Truby’s face was turning dark as Corson choked him, his eyes beginning to bulge.
I’d watched Truby kill Liam right in front of me—in a way—and now I hesitated. I’d have to take down Corson, one way or another.
Maybe I shouldn’t stop him from killing Truby.
Truby’s gaze flickered toward me. I thought he was looking to me for help, but even though he was dying, he raised his hand in the faintest flutter of fingers. He was trying to wave me off. Trying to get me to go.
“Don’t move, Deidra,” Corson warned, without looking away from Truby. His fingers tightened, so deeply they were sinking into Truby’s flesh. “I have something to tell you that you need to hear.”
Corson didn’t see it coming when I slammed the nearest vase into the back of his head. His knees buckled and, as he went down, I followed up, hitting him again. He went down, temporarily knocked unconscious.
Truby stared at me for a few long seconds.
“Thank you.” His voice came out in broken wisps. “But I told you to run.”
“I don’t follow orders well.” I dropped the last fragments of the shattered vase on the floor. They’d cut my fingers open, and blood flowed steadily down my leg as I pressed my hand hard against my thigh, trying to staunch the bleeding. “You should know that.”
“Deidra, the demons think the craziest thing about you,” he said. He grabbed my hand in his, and his magic tingled across my palm, itching and burning as the wound sealed shut. “You have to run. All right? Run and don’t look back.”
His fear—strong enough for him to tell me to leave him behind—rattled me, but stronger than my own fear was my curiosity. I wanted to know who I was.
“What do they think?”
Corson pushed himself up, shaking his head as if to clear it. He began to climb to his feet.
Truby grabbed me and the two of us ran together for the edge of the building. He caught my wrist, holding onto me as we jumped, and the two of us landed on our feet in the snow below.
All around us, a battle was raging. Nix and Cade were fighting two demons.
“They want you,” Truby said. “Go! I’ll hold them off!”
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” I shot back, “so I have to stand and fight.”
Cade fell under a demon’s blade, but jumped to the left just as a two-handed stroke almost cleaved him in two. Truby threw his hands up, blasting magic at the demons. I called up the blue fire magic until it burned at the tips of my fingers, then threw my own blast of magic at the demon that was still going after Cade. The demon stopped, his sword raised over his head, then fell to his knees.
Corson jumped out of the window and landed behind us, his feet shaking the ground.
“Take my stubborn daughter,” Truby said to Cade. “Get her to safety. Please.”
Truby turned to hold Corson off.
“Time to go, Deidra,” Cade said urgently. “There are too many demons here. According to Ellis, the other witches already escaped—but there are too many demons for us to fight off. We’ve got to move.”
“Go!” Truby shouted over his shoulder.
Cade was pushing me into the back of the Suburban, but I still saw Truby hurtle magic at Corson
.
I pressed a hand over my mouth, holding back a scream, as Corson turned pitch-black eyes on me. He began to run for the car, his legs and arms pumping supernaturally fast. Truby hurled magic at him desperately, but the blast at Corson’s back did nothing to break his stride.
I scrambled into the car, with Cade pressing close behind me.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Tristan drove wildly down the icy trails that led us out of the forest and off coven land.
“Jesus, this is why we never let you drive,” Cade said. He was plastered against the door, and I could’ve sworn he’d planted himself there to keep me from diving out again. My heart hammered against my chest, more afraid for Truby than I was afraid of Corson himself.
In the last row of seats, Emily sat with wide, frightened eyes.
“We just run from a fight now?” I demanded. “Is that really what we do? There are children being raised by the coven—”
“They’re safe,” Cade interrupted me. “Ellis said the houses had been evacuated.”
“Ellis?” I asked. I didn’t know that name.
“It’s a long story,” Cade said.
“Yeah, and someone had better start to do some talking,” I said.
“Can we wait until the demons haven’t cut off our heads and imprisoned you?” Nix demanded. “What happened to you in there?”
He twisted in his seat to face me, his eyes narrow and his face tight. I didn’t like the way he looked at me one bit.
“Sometimes we run from a fight,” Cade interrupted, before Nix and I could go after each other. Nix looked at me like he was pissed, the same way Cade had, and that made me furious at Nix. “If we’re sure to lose. We’ve got nine Hunters against twice as many demons, and I’m not sure you and Tris count as Hunters to begin with.”
“The witches were fighting on our side.” I pointed out. Which was something that never happened.
“Yeah, I’m sure that would last,” Cade said. Then, more gently, he said, “This way, Truby can run.”
“We have to find him.” The girl behind me said.
We all looked at her sharply. I’d almost forgotten Emily was there.
