Logan strides over with that perennially pissed look on his face. Or at least it is as of late.
“What did you do?” he asks.
I glance past him and spot the boys crying.
“I didn’t do anything. They wanted to see the head, and I told them to talk to Skyla.”
“I’m not talking about that.” He pinches his eyes closed. “The serum you were working on. Is that the crap Gage is running with?”
“The serum—” I spin in a circle, disorienting myself. “What the hell?” I look up at Ezrina with wild eyes. “My God, I think it might be true. My serum was defunct. It exposed the markers, it highlighted them.”
Logan yanks me in. “I don’t care. Recreate it.” He nods to Ezrina. “You checked it out for Demetri. Don’t tell me you didn’t take notes.”
“Ezrina?” I growl out her name and Nev steps up with his chest expanded.
“No notes.” She shakes her head. “Not possible. There was a binding spirit.” She shrugs. “The chemical makeup was backward, Wesley. Solid effort on your part.”
I stagger a moment. “Demetri must have maneuvered it, added something, tweaked it until he made it do his bidding.”
“Subtracted something? Left it alone?” Logan offers, and both Ezrina and I lock eyes.
“I don’t know,” I say, rolling up my sleeves. “But we need to beat him at his own game. Let’s get to work.”
Gage and Demetri are about to pull a fast one with my own ammunition.
Now to find a way to make sure it backfires on them somehow.
It will.
I’ll make damn sure of it myself.
Now to recreate my best, my most dangerous mistake, and make Gage and Demetri sorry they ever thought to take what was mine.
21
Hell on Earth
Candace
Ahava glistens like a jewel as the water beneath my feet shimmers in the light.
Sector Marshall treads this way with a hardened expression.
“Your Grace.” He nods, and I stand as he speeds my way. “The planet is in peril. Your mercy is desired, His mercy is required. Shall I go to the throne, or will you intercede for the Nephilim? Might I remind you they are your charges. Your very flesh, living and breathing. Skyla is—”
“Mine,” I say it sharp in the event he needed a reminder. “And I will tend to her, and my people, when I see fit. Why do you fret? I don’t care for this anxious side of you.”
“Why do I fret?” His tone is curt. Nothing I’m used to hearing from him. “Your Grace. I happen to reside on that boulder of an island. I see the misery of those poor humans firsthand. The dying, the grief. They can no longer offer proper funerals for their own people. The dead are loaded and burned in batches. You cannot turn a blind eye to this travesty. You cannot insist on allowing the enemy to ravage these people any longer. All of this for what?” His voice hikes to dangerous levels.
Dangerous for him, not me.
I lean back in my seat and harden my gaze on the distant shore.
“Where is Demetri?”
Sector Marshall steps in close.
“I don’t care, and neither should you.” His crimson eyes meet with mine. “But you do.” The muscles in his jaw tighten.
