His strength behind me, willing to see this through so that we could save this town, well …that was all I needed.
“Walk,” he said near my ear. “Remember your soul is your own. Ashes can still hold hope and love holds power. Return to us. Don’t get lost.”
It was so close to the fortune cookie advice everyone else seemed to be giving me lately that I wasn’t even surprised anymore. My soul was my own. Well, yes, and no. It was mine, but currently in Bathin’s possession.
My heart. That belonged to Ryder.
I walked. I wasn’t sure if I was doing it because I wanted to, because Rossi ordered me, or because Lavius had called me. My front door opened on the first try.
Brown made a frustrated sound, and I wanted to tell him I had locked it behind me and it still hadn’t kept the bad guy out, but then I was in the room, in the house that had been my home for most of my childhood and almost all of my adulthood.
And I’d never wanted to turn and run away from a set of four walls so much in my life.
Bathin was there, I knew it from the tug in my chest, from the awareness of him that seemed to go along with him holding a part of me. But he wasn’t who I was focused on. Wasn’t who I felt myself dragged toward like a chain on a hitch.
Lavius stood in my home. In my living room, his back to the big picture window that looked out over the driveway, houses, greenery, and ocean below.
His eyes were on us.
On me.
“You have done well.”
That made no sense. I hadn’t done anything. Hadn’t agreed to anything.
And that was when I realized he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to someone else.
Only a couple of people he might be having a conversation with. Rossi, which, yes, scared the hell out of me to think Rossi might be getting Lavius’s approval and therefore might not be on our side.
Or Bathin.
“As we agreed,” Bathin said.
That should not surprise me. But, hell.
Bathin was working with Lavius.
Bathin had betrayed me, tricked me. It made sense, how he so quickly found Ben when no one else could, how he had manipulated Dad into thinking he was the only demon who wanted a soul in Ordinary, how Lavius seemed to have access to demons to possess his vampires.
I wanted to be furious. So angry that even the briefest contact with the air I breathed would incinerate Lavius and his pet demon. But that emotion was beyond me, held at bay.
Bathin strolled over to stand next to Lavius. Not quite close enough to touch him, but near enough there was no mistaking that they were on friendly terms.
“Enjoying the sad little carnival now, Rossi?” Bathin smirked.
“Very much,” Rossi said, his words like stone crushing the air Bathin dared breathe in his presence. “You will crawl for my mercy.”
“Looking forward to it.” Bathin batted his eyes.
“Silence!” Lavius demanded. “Kneel.” He stabbed his finger and Bathin grit his teeth, then, as if a mountain were rolling over him, he buckled to the floor, breathing heavily.
Everyone else hit the floor too, except me, and Rossi, who still had his hand pressed over my throat.
Lavius wasn’t even breaking a sweat, cool and put together in his sharply tailored suit, his black hair streaked with gray brushed back in a cut that spoke of money and power.
He didn’t look away from me. “Did you bring me the book,frater?”
“No,” Rossi said calmly, though I could hear an echo of old hatred behind the word. “You have stepped onto my land and harmed those who are mine. This is your ending.”
