I did.
She had a dagger to his throat. I couldn’t doanything.Outplayed.
Obeying her was all I could do.
“Adeuto, stay still,” I muttered to him.
His gray eyes were wide and fixed on me.
I smiled. “Everything will be okay. I promise you.”
The lies passed from my lips. I would save him from any fear that I could.
I lifted my gaze to Athira’s. “I won’t let you harm him.”
“You can do nothing to stop me.”
“You underestimate me.”
She answered, “I have done so, daughter. But no longer.”
Adeuto tried to peer over his shoulder. “You’re my grandmother? Hey, you are. I can feel you in my heart.”
Athira ignored him. She felt the danger.
I would attack at the slightest drop in her focus. Which she anticipated.
“So you fled the fortress because you fell pregnant,” she mused. “Wise. Much makes sense now. The changes in you, most of all. For all Gratia’s efforts, and my own, all you needed was to have a child.” She snorted.
“There is no way out of this,” I told her. “You know your death will leave Carmine unprotected.”
“From who?” she asked.
I smirked. “Me.”
Her sneer faded. “I suppose that must be your plan. Kill Carmine to allow your son to live. I did not need to kill my mate in the end. But I would have. Or tried with Carmine’s help. Is that why you play Tiers? Will you ask for his crown?”
I reached into my magus power, frantic for an answer. But the twinging in my gut was nowhere to be felt. It hadn’t evenwarned me when I was in the Pinnacle. I’d relied on that warning to alert me to any danger surrounding Adeuto, and in my arrogance, I’d failed him.
But every trap had a way out.
There was a way to save him.
Except I knew there wasn’t.
In this realm, the strongest demon was Carmine. I was second. But very,veryslightly under me, and not at all under me in terms of her experience, was this woman.
Without a miraculous save from my magus power, she held all the power here.
“How did you find them?” I asked her.
I just needed time. She’d drop her guard eventually.
Athira’s gaze didn’t budge from me. “I paid a blue demon who traded with your grandfather. He placed a tracker inside.”
At my frown, she added, “A human tracker. They do not work perfectly in this realm, so I had to fleece the desert until I got within range. But he did not notice the tracker, where he would have noticed any smoke I sent with him.”
“I would have thought you’d just kill him on the spot,” I said.
