Rollick cocks his head. “I can identify a stretch where all the buildings would be covered by insurance, and we could start there. But clearing the areas out will be a bit of a hassle.”
The demon is the one I most need to convince, the one who’s calling the shots. If he doesn’t believe in this plan, nothing anyone else says will matter.
I gather the confidence that came to me during my talk with Sorsha. “Viscera enjoys destroying things. She’s talked as if it’s expressing herself, making her mark on the world, showing who she is—as strange as that sounds.”
“Strange does as strange is,” Mirage remarks in a wry tone.
I offer him a small smile before turning back to Rollick. “Anyway, we’ve spent all this time attempting to calm her down and stop her. But that’s basically us saying that she isn’t okay the way she is, that we think there’s something wrong with her.”
Hail coughs and raises his hand. “After everything, I for one would like to support that idea.”
Raze lets out a faint growl, but I just roll my eyes. There was no hostility in the winter fae’s comment.
And besides… “That might be true, butshe’snot going to like us making her feel deficient. Why should she listen to us, trust us even a little bit, when we’re trying to change her? Trying to make her act the opposite way from what feels right to her?”
Jonah frowns. “So then by dealing out a little destruction ourselves… we make it seem as if we understand?”
I nod eagerly. “When I let out that bit of my darkness, she got all excited. She thought it meant I was on her side. If a bunch of us start smashing up part of the city, it’ll catch her attention. And hopefully it’ll make her feel like we have the same ideas she does, so she’ll be comfortable enough to join in.”
“And then we catch her,” Raze says.
“Yes. The main problem has always been getting her in a place where the rest of you can actually reach her. All we need is to create a scenario where she’ll show up.”
Rollick runs a finger across his lips. “You know, that’s a warped enough idea that it just might be exactly what ourwarped shadowkind needs. Let me put the pieces in motion, and we’ll see if we can’t have our destruction ground ready sometime tomorrow.”
He turns with a beckoning gesture toward his assistants, who scurry after him. He’s already rattling off instructions before they disappear around one of the trailers.
The shadowbloods follow him, probably to see if they can pitch in too. Sorsha salutes us before heading back to her RV with her men.
My own lovers stir around me. An unexpected jolt of panic shoots through me at the thought that they might walk away.
They must pick up on that emotion, because Hail stops in his tracks and Mirage swivels back toward me.
I give them a hesitant smile. “There are some things I’d like to talk about with all of you. I think it’ll be better if we’re all together… Since we are all stuck together, whether I meant that to happen or not.”
Jonah glances around at the other men. His lips curve into a soft smile of his own. “I think we’re all okay with being ‘stuck’ now, Peri. What’s on your mind?”
The shadows draped across the yard between the trailers remind me of how easily other beings could listen in on our conversation. “Is there somewhere we could go that’ll be just the five of us?” What I want to say feels too private for an audience.
“Sure.” Jonah motions for us to join him. “I have the one trailer that’s been my home on the road. No one will bother us in there unless there’s an emergency.”
“Maybe we’ll get a whole twenty-four hours without one,” Hail mutters, but he saunters along with the rest of us without complaint.
Jonah’s trailer is set up like a tiny apartment—not too different from the RV, but all one rectangular room. A bed fills most of one end, a table and benches the other. In between, acouple of small dumbbells sit on an exercise mat. A suitcase that must hold all the clothes he brought with him from the school is tucked in the corner, a book lying next to the neatly made bed, but those are the only real signs that anyone’s actually living here.
It doesn’t really feel homey, but this conversation is about the men around me, not the space we’re occupying.
When we’ve all filed in and Jonah has shut the door behind us, he seeks out my gaze. “What’s on your mind, Peri?”
“We’re going to help with your plan, of course,” Raze puts in, and glowers at the other men as if daring them to argue.
Hail snorts. “A chance to rain a little hell on the city while also completing our mission? How can I resist?”
He says it with a sarcastic edge, but I know he does like the idea at least a bit. Even if he’s changed his mind about Viscera, the resentment he’s carried toward humans isn’t going to vanish in a day.
Mirage shakes himself with a flick of his ears from his hair. “I can make it look as if we’re smashing more than we really are.”
“That’s not a bad idea, but I think it’s the real smashing that’s going to catch Viscera’s interest.” I drag in a deep breath. “But I didn’t want to talk to you about her. I wanted to talk about me—you—all of us. I’ve been so concerned about how you were handling these bonds thatIhaven’t been handling them very well.”
