Sirro propped an elbow on the armrest and pointed at Jett. “And what were you doing?”
“I engaged in combat.” He glanced down at his shaky hand pressed to his side. Black blood soaked his t-shirt, and the sticky substance coated his fingers. The reek of rotting flesh wafted through the air and dread curdled in the pit of my gut.
How long was Sirro going to drag this out? The Horned God was enjoying every second of my brother’s suffering. Like a wolf after a fresh kill, there was a sated glow in his eyes.
“They’re skilled. Better.” His weakened voice was a dry rasp, like scraping sandpaper. He blinked sluggishly. Once. Twice. His limbs slackened, and I watched in horror as his head rolled back and his legs went out from under him.
I moved without thinking, grabbing hold before his knees hit the wooden floor.
His flesh was ice beneath my palms. My nerves were just as frigid, wondering how Sirro was going to react to my blatant act of defiance. Panic had my pulse palpitating, not for me,but for my brother. We needed this interrogation finished so I could administer the rest of the witch-wrought elixir I had in my pocket.
I chanced a swift look at Sirro. The Horned God surprised me with a broad smile, full of warmth and admiration. Genuine. “Such loyalty… No wonder you Crowthers have survived the ages.”
I couldn’t linger on Sirro’s unexpected response, fear for Jett consumed my thoughts.
I hauled him back up to a standing and braced his deadweight against me. “Jett,” I lightly slapped his icy cheek with my palm.
My brother’s shallow breaths skimmed over my neck.
I slapped him a little harder. “Jett.”
His long lashes pried apart as he scowled. “Stop…fucking…slapping me.”
I slapped him one more time, just because I could. And his pain-glazed eyes narrowed with his snarl.
I flashed a quick grin that faded quickly.
Jett leaned into me, and his words came too fast. Rushed like his heartbeat thudding beneath my palm. “They looked human. But bigger. And the masks… No eye slits. Just grotesquely twisted features.” Pausing, he winced as a shiver ran through him. “They didn’t speak, but they moved together… Like they were communicating somehow.” A flicker of doubt shone in his gaze. “Maybe those masksaretheir real faces. I don’t know.”
“Human-looking, you say?”
Jett nodded.
Sirro’s gaze sharpened. “Was there… Was thereanyoneelse with them?”
Lank, sweaty hair swayed as Jett shook his head.
Down in the catacombs beneath the city of Ascendria, those things had been after Nelle. And last night in our family room, she lied about Silas Boon. I didn’t know if they were connected…I just had a feeling they were. And I knew I had to coax the truth out of her sometime soon.
“Were they looking for someone…something?”
He grimaced, biting back a bark of pain. “By the time I escaped the unit boxing me in, the other two had already set the truck ablaze and burned all of Byron’s guards, as well as the tithes.”
Sirro’s tone sharpened. “Kenton said he’d sent you off to pursue them?”
Problem number one. The major one.
Jett could barely lift his shoulder. “It was useless and desperate. How can you track anything thatswifts?”He squinted as if thinking back to that moment. “I swept the area before heading to the second convoy, and that’s when I got ambushed—a pair of them. One of their bolts grazed me…” He grunted, shuddering, as pain crashed through him. “Hells… I went down hard. I expect they thought I’d die straight away. They didn’t even bother waiting to make sure. Theyswiftedout. But I didn’t die, and they’d left behind the bolt.”
In deep contemplation, Sirro leaned back in his chair.
I wasn’t sure I was breathing while I waited for his verdict.
As if waking up to the fact he had company, Sirro blinked, straightening. Condemnation aimed at me shot through his amber gaze like lightning cracking through a bank of roiling thunderclouds. “This is an act of war. You knew that when I asked for your opinion.”
Several nights ago, at an impromptu meeting on the Wychthorn estate, after a truckload of stolen souls had been intercepted by the very faction on which we were placing the blame to save Jett’s sorry ass, the Horned God had urged me to agree with him—a trap Nelle suspected and had warned me against.
I knew it was an act of war, as did Nelle, but she didn’t like how Sirro pushed for me to concur with him. To lend my weight behind it.
