An intense melting warmth fills me up, and I just know it’s coming from him. My energy is seeping into him, and he’s feeding it right back to me. It feels genuinely good.
Distracting even.
Maybe that’s why I try to focus a little harder, dig a little deeper.
“Did you ever see her arguing with anyone? Spending time with someone she clearly didn’t want to be around?”
What am I missing in this chess game of a High Council?
“Just Rival. He was her only friend, and really, I could tell that they weren’t really friends.”
“They weren’t?”
He shakes his head harshly. “Nah. Rival went out of his way to try to make everyone see him as her friend, even as her lover. But he was always pretending that there was more between them than there really was. The way she responded to a simple brush of their hands could tell anyone with eyes that she hated being near him.”
He was always pretending there was more…
He can pretend all he wants, but we both know what he did…
My heart slams violently. Aston’s comments swirl with the words written inside of Kyra’s journal, and it’s only then that everything comes crashing down into perspective.
Rival.
It’salwaysthe boyfriend!
Or in this case, the man who wanted so badly to be her boyfriend.
But instead, he just killed her.
Nineteen
Kira
I’m stumbling through the window, out of the rear building and across the catwalk in a matter of minutes. My bare feet storm over the smooth tiles of the croft so rapidly that I can feel heat burning into the soles of my feet. But I don’t stop until I’m in front of his door.
The metal plate is smooth under my fingertips as I hurriedly scribble out my sister’s name.
I’m inside and rushing in front of the wavering blue beam with dwindling air in my lungs as I push myself to move faster.
“Did Kyra love Rival?” I blurt to the man hiding beneath the imprisonment of his curtain.
A pause dips in before an amused voice speaks slowly. “It isn’t kind to speak ill of the dead,” he says eerily.
I gawk with an open mouth. “It isn’t speaking ill, now tell me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Kyra was your sister?”
“Tell me!”
“Do not create dishonesty between us, Miss Vega,” the demon says in a smooth threat.
“Kyra Vega was my twin sister. She was murdered, and now I’m here to find out who killed her, who killed the other members of the council, and who’s killing the humans all across my city. Now, answer my question before he kills again!”
“You’re afraid of this man?”
I want to scream. I want to claw into this bizarre blue shield that he’s hiding behind and scream in his face until he reveals to me every little secret I know that he knows.
“He’s a murderer. And every second you spend toying with me supplies him with more time to kill again!”
